access to God the Father, than Jesus Christ, in whose only Name all
things are obtained at His Father's hand. But it is a shameful part, and
full of infidelity, that we see every whore used in the churches of our
adversaries, not only in that they will have innumerable sorts of
mediators, and that utterly without the authority of God's word (so that,
as Jeremy saith, "The saints be now as many in number, or rather above
the number of the cities;" and poor men cannot tell to which saint it
were best to turn them first; and though there be so many as they cannot
be told, yet every one of them hath his peculiar duty and office assigned
unto him of these folks, what thing they ought to ask, what to give, and
what to bring to pass): but besides this also, in that they do not only
wickedly, but also shamefully, call upon the Blessed Virgin, Christ's
mother, to have her remember that she is the mother, and to command her
Son, and to use a mother's authority over Him.

We say also, that every person is born in sin, and leadeth his life in
sin: that nobody is able truly to say his heart is clean: that the most
righteous person is but an unprofitable servant: that the law of God is
perfect, and requireth of us perfect and full obedience: that we are able
by no means to fulfil that law in this worldly life: that there is no one
mortal creature which can be justified by his own deserts in God's sight:
and therefore that our only succour and refuge is to fly to the mercy of
our Father by Jesu Christ, and assuredly to persuade our minds that He is
the obtainer of forgiveness for our sins; and that by His blood all our
spots of sin be washed clean: that He hath pacified and set at one, all
things by the blood of His Cross: that He by the same one only Sacrifice,
which He once offered upon the Cross, hath brought to effect and
fulfilled all things, and that for that cause He said, when He gave up
the ghost, "It is finished," as though He would signify, that the price
and ransom was now full paid for the sin of all mankind. If there be