Henry Craik, ed. English Prose. 1916.
Vol. I. Fourteenth to Sixteenth Century
Richard Hooker (15541600)
I
O merciful God! If heaven and earth in this case do not witness with us, and against them, let us be razed out from the land of the living! Let the earth on which we stand swallow us quick, as it hath done Corah, Dathan, and Abiram! But if we belong unto the Lord our God, and have not forsaken Him; if our priests, the sons of Aaron, minister unto the Lord, and the Levites in their office; if we offer unto the Lord every morning and every evening the burnt-offerings and sweet incense of prayers and thanksgivings; if the bread be set in order upon the pure table, and the candlestick of gold, with the lamps thereof, to burn every morning; that is to say, if amongst us God’s blessed sacraments be duly administered, His holy Word sincerely and daily preached; if we keep the watch of the Lord our God, and if ye have forsaken Him: then doubt ye not, this God is with us as a captain, His priests with sounding trumpets must cry alarm against you; “O ye children of Israel, fight not against the Lord God of your fathers, for ye shall not prosper.”