A TREATISE (UNFINISHED)

UPON THESE WORDS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE

Memorare novissima, & in aeternum non peccabis

“Remember the last things, & thou shalt never sin.”—Ecclus. 7 .

Made about the year of our Lord 1522, by Sir Thomas

More then knight, and one of the Privy Council

of King Henry VIII, and also Under-Treasurer

of England.

If there were any question among men whether the words of holy Scripture or the doctrine of any secular author were of greater force and effect to the weal and profit of man’s soul (though we should let pass so many short and weighty words spoken by the mouth of our Saviour Christ Himself, to Whose heavenly wisdom the wit of none earthly creature can be comparable) yet this only text written by the wise man in the seventh chapter of Ecclesiasticus is such that it containeth more fruitful advice and counsel to the forming and framing of man’s manners in virtue and avoiding of sin, than many whole and great volumes of the best of old philosophers or any other that ever wrote in secular literature.