THE FOURTH CHAPTER

The author declareth in the comprobation of pilgrimages that it is the pleasure of God to be specially sought and worshipped in some one place before another. And albeit that we cannot attain to the knowledge of the cause why God doth so, yet the author proveth by great authority that God by miracle testifieth it is so.

With this your friend asked me what reason were there, that God would set more by one place than by another; or how know we that he so doth, namely, if the one be a church as well as the other.

Whereunto I answered that why God would do it, I could make him no answer, no more than saint Austin saith that he could. I was never so near of his counsel nor dare not be so bold to ask him. But that he so doth indeed, that I am sure enough; yet not for that he setteth more by that place, for the soil and pavement of that place; but that his pleasure in some place is to show more his assistance, and to be more specially sought unto, than in some other.