say to you, I have a motion secretly made me further, to keep all this yet better cheap; that is, not to be compelled utterly to forsake Christ nor all the whole Christian faith, but only some such parts of it as may not stand with Mahomet’s law.  And only granting Mahomet for a true prophet and serving the Turk truly in his wars against all Christian kings, I shall not be hindered to praise Christ also, and to call him a good man, and worship and serve him too.

ANTHONY:  Nay, nay, my lord—­Christ hath not so great need of your Lordship as, rather than to lose your service, he would fall at such covenants with you as to take your service at halves, to serve him and his enemy both!  He hath given you plain warning already by St. Paul that he will have in your service no parting-fellow:  “What fellowship is there between light and darkness?  Between Christ and Belial?” And he hath also plainly told you himself by his own mouth, “No man can serve two lords at once.”  He will have you believe all that he telleth you, and do all that he biddeth you, and forbear all that he forbiddeth you, without any manner of exception.  Break one of his commandments, and you break all.  Forsake one point of his faith, and you forsake all, as for any thanks that you get of him for the rest.  And therefore, if you devise, as it were, indentures between God and you—­what you will do for him and what you will not do, as though he should hold himself content with such service of yours as you yourself care to appoint him—­if you make, I say, such indentures, you shall seal both the parts yourself, and you get no agreement thereto from him.

And this I say:  Though the Turk would make such an appointment with you as you speak of, and would, when he had made it, keep it—­whereas he would not, I warrant you, leave you so when he had once brought you so far forth.  But he would, little by little, ere he left you, make you deny Christ altogether and take Mahomet in his stead.  And so doth he in the beginning, when he will not have you believe him to be God.  For surely, if he were not God, he would be no good man either, since he plainly said he was God.  But through he would go never so far forth with you, yet Christ will, as I said, not take your service by halves, but will that you shall love him with all your whole heart.  And because, while he was living here fifteen hundred years ago, he foresaw this mind of yours that you have now, with which you would fain serve him in some such fashion that you might keep your worldly substance still, but rather forsake his service than put all your substance from you, he telleth you plainly fifteen hundred years ago with his own mouth that he will have no such service of you, saying, “You cannot serve both God and your riches together.”