Page:The Life of Sir Thomas More (William Roper, ed by Samuel Singer).djvu/199

 dredde and theyr frendes, myght happe make some men either sware otherwise than they think, or frame theyr conscience a freshe to think otherwise than they thoughte, anye suche opinion as thys is, will I not conceyue of them. I have better hope of theyr goodnesse, than to thinke of theym so. For if suche thinges sholde haue tourned theym, the same thynges hadde been likelye to make me dooe the same: for in good faythe, I knewe fewe so faynte hearted as my selfe. Therfore will I, Margaret, by my will, thinke no worse of other folke in the thing that I knowe not, than I find in my self. But as I know well myne onely conscience causeth me to refuse the othe, so will I truste in God, that accordinge to theyr conscience they haue receyued it and sworne. But whereas you think, Marget, that they bee so manye, moo than there are on the tother side that thynke in this thynge as I thynke, surelye for your own comfort that you shall not take thoughte, thynking that your father casteth hym selfe awaye so lyke a foole, that he woulde jeobarde the losse of hys substaunce and peraduenture his bodye, withoute anye cause why he so shoulde for peryll of hys soule, but rather hys soule in peryll thereby too, to thys shall I saye to thee, Marget, that in some of my causes I nothing doubte at all, but that though not in this realme, yet in Chrystendome aboute, of those well learned menne and vertuous, that are yet aliue, they be not the fewer part that are of my mynde. Besydes that, that it were ye wotte well possible, that some menne in thys realme too, thinke not so cleare the contrarye, as by the othe receiued they haue sworne to say. Nowe thus farre foorth I saye for them, that are yet alyue. But goe me nowe to theym that are deadde before, and that are I trust in heauen, I am sure that it is not the fewer parte of them, that all the tyme whyle they liued, thoughte in some of the thinges, that way that I think now. I am also, Margaret, of this thing sure ynouth, that if those holy doctors and sayntes whiche to be with God in heauen long a go no good Cristen man doubteth, whose bokes yet at this day remayn here in men's handes, there thought in some suche thynges as I thynke nowe. I say not that they thought all so, but surelye such and so manye as will well appeare by