Page:The Life of Sir Thomas More (William Roper, ed by Samuel Singer).djvu/140

 that law were in the parliament assembled, ever meant to have any man punished by death in whom there could be found no malice, taking malitia for malevolentia: for if malitia be generally taken for sin, no man is there then that can excuse himself. Quia si dixerimus quod peccatum non habemus, nosmet ipsos seducemus, et veritas in nobis non est. And only this word maliciously is in the statute material, as this term forcibly is in the statute of forcible entries, by which statute if a man enter peaceably, and put not his adversary out forcibly, it is no offence, but if he put him out forcibly, then by that statute it is an offence, and so shall he be punished by this term forcibly. Besides this, the manifold goodness of the king's highness himself, that hath been so many ways my singular good lord, and gracious sovereign, and that hath so dearly loved and trusted me, even at my very first coming into his noble service, with the dignity of his honourable Privy Council vouchsafing to admit me, and to offices of great credit and worship most liberally advanced me; and finally with that weighty room of his grace's high chancellor, the like whereof he never did to temporal man before, next to his own royal person the highest officer in this whole realm, so far above my qualities or merits able and meet therefore of his own incomparable benignity honoured and exalted me, by the space of twenty years and more, showing