Chair tho with as much Reluctancy in You as was in Him Of Your GRACE'S Endowments to qualify You for this most Eminent Station I will be wholly silent knowing how abhorrent Your Generous Nature is from Reading or Hearing Your Own Commendations Nor MY LORD is this my End in this my Dedication But this it is That You would so far Encourage these my Weak and Imperfect Labours done out of a Good Intent as to cast a Favourable Eye upon them for the sake of Your Glorious Predecessor the Subject of this Book and to repute me among the Number May it please Your GRACE Of Your most Humble and most Obedient Servants JOHN STRYPE THE PREFACE I Think it fit by way of Preface to these Memorials to admonish the Reader of a few things preparatory to the Perusal thereof As What it was put me at first upon making these Collections concerning Archbishop Cranmer and the State of the Church in his time What induced me to make them Publick And What Credit may be given to them with some other occasional matters I. As to the first I have been for a long time not a little addicted to read whatsoever I could of the Reformation of this famous Church that I might truly understand for what Reasons it was at first attempted in what Methods it proceeded by what Men it was chiefly managed and carried on and how it stood in truth as to its Doctrine Discipline and Government Reputation Learning Piety and such like in its first Establishment and the Earlier Times of it For which purpose I did not only read over what we have in Print of these Matters but for more satisfaction I was carried on to look into MSS. whether Registers Records Letters Instruments and such like A great sort of which by Providence fell into my hands And besides them I have turned over many more in Libraries and elsewhere from whence I made Transcriptions Extracts and Collections for my own use and satisfaction which swelled to no little bulk And while I was doing this I took always a more curious View into the Lives Manners and Doings Learning Virtues and Abilities of the chief leading men whether Archbishops and Bishops or other Church-men of whom we have but little Account extant tho many of them very Great and Good men little more remaining of some of them than their Names The Reverence I bore in my mind to Archbishop Cranmer the Father of the Reformation here in England and the first of that Ancient Metropolitan See that so bravely shook off the Pope and his Appendages inclined me especially to gather up what Notices I could of him Afterwards as my leisure served me out of my indigested Mass of Notes I compiled into some order Memorials of him and of the Affairs of the Church during his Primacy in which he for the most part was concerned and bore a great share with K. Henry and the Lord Cromwel his Vicegerent in Spirituals After some Years these Memorials lying by me I enlarged considerably and digested them into Annals and had thoughts of making them Publick being excited and encouraged thereunto by my Friends who were privy to these my Doings II. And indeed many Considerations induced me hereunto As in general the great Benefit of reading Histories of former Times which what that is take in the Words of Iohn Fox For the things which be first are to be preferred before those which be later And then is the reading of Histories much necessary in the Church to know what went before and what followed after And therefore not without cause History in old Authors is called The Witness of Times the Light of Verity the Life of Memory the Teacher of Life and Shewer of Antiquity Without the knowledge whereof man's Life is blind and soon may fall into any kind of Error as by manifest experience we have to see in these desolate later Times of the Church whenas the Bishops of Rome under colour of Antiquity have turned Truth into Heresy and brought in such new-found Devices of strange Doctrine and Religion as in the former Ages of the Church were never heard of And all through Ignorance of Times and for lack of True History And therefore the Use of History being so considerable Historians in some Kingdoms have been maintained by Publick Encouragement And so the Writer of the Epistle to K. Edward before Erasmus's Paraphrase Englished propounded once to that King That there should be a Publick Salary allotted to some able Persons to Translate good Books and to Write Chronicles for bestowing so great a Benefit on the Commonwealth But particularly the History of the Church and matters relating to Religion have a more special benefit as being conversant about Spiritual things which are weightier by far and concern us more a great deal than Temporal But the more is the pity in this sort of History there is a greater Defect than in the other I speak of our own Nation for tho the History of the State in the last Age was excellently done by the Pens of the Lord Herbert and Mr. Cambden yet the Matters of the Church they professedly declined or did but touch at the former saying expresly His intention was not in an History to discuss Theological Matters as holding it sufficient to have pointed at the places where they are controverted And the latter in his History as often as he came to matters of the Church tells us That he left his Readers to the Ecclesiastical Historian Which hath made me wonder at and apt to accuse the Slothfulness of that Age that during all the time of K. Henry K. Edward and Q. Mary wherein Religion was so tossed about and took up so much of those Reigns there is no one Ecclesiastical History thereof written except that of the diligent and learned Mr. Fox and during the long Reign of Q. Elizabeth and K. Iames I think none at all Till of late years when by length of time and destruction of many Original MSS. by the Civil Wars divers remarkable Transactions were buried and lost some few Learned Men employed themselves in Collecting and Publishing what Memorials of Religion and the Church they could retrieve as namely Dr. Fuller Dr. Heylin and especially Dr. Burnet now the Right Reverend Bishop of Sarum to whom the English Church must be ever beholden for his great and happy Pains contributed hereunto But yet there be good Gleanings after these Writers and many things of remark there are relating to the Church in those Three busie Reigns of Henry Edward and Mary whereof these Historians are either wholly silent or speak imperfectly or erroneously Some whereof in my Searches I have met with which I have disposed in these Memorials But besides the General Benefit of History especially Ecclesiastical this Particular History now recommended unto the English Nation may produce this good effect To make us value and esteem as we ought our Reformed Religion when we see by
silent in some things more fully and largely treated of elsewhere But here are numberless Notices given concerning the Archbishop some which are no where else others very imperfectly observed besides the Narrations of the State and History of the Church which are every where interposed in most of which the Archbishop bore a part The Cathedral Church of Canterbury now called Christ-Church I have in some places stiled Trinity Church because I so find it named in those particular Records I make use of in those places and it seems in some of the first years of our Archbishop it ordinarily went by that old Name My Stile may seem rough and unpolished and the Phrases here and there uncouth the reason of which is because I confess I have often taken the very Expressions and Words of the Papers I have used and so may fall sometimes into obsolete Terms and a Style not so acceptable to the present Age whose Language is refined from what it was an Hundred and fifty or forty years ago But I have chosen to do this that I might keep the nearer Truth and lest that by varying of the Language I might perhaps sometimes vary from the true meaning of my Writer And in truth he that is a Lover of Antiquity loves the very Language and Phrases of Antiquity The Reader will find some few things here which are already published in the late Specimen put forth by Anthony Harmer he and I it seems lighting unwittingly upon the same Records to wit K. Edward's Council-Book and the Register of Christ-Church Cant. Nor could I strike out of my Book what I found published in the said Specimen having fully finished it and the Copy being under the Press some Weeks before that Book came forth and the matters there related interwoven into the Contexture of my History And now after all this Pains that I have taken in fulfilling this Task which I assure the Readers have not been small nor of a few Years let me not for every little slip fall under their Censure and Reproach but rather let them use me with Gentleness and Charity considering how few tho much abler will trouble themselves to Labour and Drudge and take Journeys and be at Expences in making such Collections for the Publick Good It calls to mind what happened upon the Death of the Laborious Antiquary Iohn Stow who had been a Collector of Matters for the English History Seven and forty years and dyed 1605. and had all the Collections of Reiner Wolf another Historian and a Printer in K. Edward the Sixth's days and if he had lived but one year longer intended to have published his long Labours But after his death there was not a man to be found to take the small Pains to review his Papers and fit them for the Press Many indeed were talked of to do it both Persons of Quality among the Laity and Clergy For the World had great and earnest expectation to see Stow in Print But when they were spoke to to take the good Work in hand some of them said That they thought the giving out of their Names was rather done by secret Enemies on purpose to draw them into Capital Displeasure and to bring their Names and Lives into a general question Others said That they who did such a Work must flatter which they could not neither wilfully would they leave a Scandal unto their Posterity Another said he could not see how in any Civil action a man should spend his Travel Time and Money worse than in that which acquires no Regard or Reward except Backbiting and Detraction And one among the rest swore an Oath and said He thanked God that he was not yet mad to waste his Time spend Two hundred Pounds a Year which it seems Stow had done trouble himself and all his Friends only to gain assurance of endless Reproach loss of Liberty and bring all his days in question Yet at last one Edward Howes undertook it and effected it But it happened just so to him having been intolerably abused and scandalized for his Labour So slothful and backward are most to take Pains in Works of this nature and so apt to censure those that do I hope I shall meet if not with Thanks at least with more candid men and better usage But whatever happens I shall arm my self with Patience to undergo it since I intend nothing hereby but to be serviceable unto my Countrey and God's Church and to Justify the excellent Reformation of it in these Kingdoms and finally to do Right unto the Memory of that truly Great and Good Archbishop of Canterbury And thus recommending the Success of this Work unto God's Blessing I here make an End J. STRYPE Sept. 29. 1693. Low-Leyton I desire the Reader to take Notice That when I quote Fox's Acts and Monuments it is the Edition in the Year 1610. And when the Life of K. Henry VIII by the L. Herbert it is the Edition of 1672. And when the History of the Reformation by Bishop Burnet it is that of the Year 1681. Farewel A TABLE OF THE Books Chapters and Contents OF THESE MEMORIALS OF ARCHBISHOP CRANMER BOOK I. CHAP. I. Cranmer 's Birth Education and Rise A Worthy Work to revive his Memory His Family Account of his younger years Sent to Cambridge An. 1503. Sets himself to study the Scripture Is made Doctor of Divinity Marries Refuses to go to Wolsey's College Oxon. He is made one of the University-Examiners The King 's great Cause first proposed to the Universities The occasion of his Rise His Opinion of the King's Cause The King sends for him Suitably placed with the Earl of Ormond Friendship and Correspondence between the Earl and Cranmer A Providence in his being placed here Cranmer disputes at Cambridge Grows dear to the King and his Court. CHAP. II. Pole 's Book about the King's Matrimony Pole's Book against the King's dissolving his Marriage Cranmer peruses it His Account of it His Censure thereof CHAP. III. Cranmer 's Embassies He is employed in Embassies To the Pope Offers him a Dispute in favour of the King's Cause To the Emperor Cornel. Agrippa gained by Cranmer to the King's Cause Becomes acquainted with Osiander and marries his Kinswoman Treats with the Emperor about the Contract of Traffick and about sending Supplies against the Turk Sends the King the News in those Parts And the Proclamation for a General Council And the Tax of the States of the Empire He goes in an Embassy to the Duke of Saxony and other Protestant Princes CHAP. IV. Cranmer made Archbishop of Canterbury Made Archbishop of Canterbury His Dignities before he was Archbishop Archbishop Warham foretels a Thomas to succeed him Archbishop Warham for the King's Supremacy Cranmer's Testimony of Warham A Reflection upon a Passage relating to Cranmer in Harpsfields History Cranmer tries to evade the Archbishoprick Declares the reason thereof to the King The Archbishop's Brother is made Archdeacon of Canterbury
were Iewel afterward Bishop of Sarum and one Gilbert Mounson Who also at Ridley's request were granted him Cranmer required at the Commissioners Hands more time to have these weighty Matters more diligently scann'd and examined Urging that he had so much to speak that it would take up many Days that he might fully answer to all that they could say He required also that he and his Fellows might Oppose as well as Respond that they might produce their Proofs before the Popish Doctors and be answered fully to all that they could say But neither of these Demands would be allowed him Which he in a Letter complained of to the Council For indeed as Cranmer plainly apprehended the Design now was not to look impartially into the Truth or Falshood of these Doctrins but to gain Glory to themselves and to have a shew for the Resolution that was before taken up of condemning them all three The same Week on Thursday Harpsfield disputed for the degree of Bachelor of Divinity And among other Opponents Cranmer was called forth for one by Dr. Weston Where first taking notice of Weston's opposing Harpsfield out of the Scripture against a Corporal Presence which was Harpsfield's Question but whereas he left the sense of the Scripture to the Catholick Church as Judg Cranmer told him he was much mistaken especially because that under the Name of Church he appointed such Judges as had corruptly judged and contrary to the sense of the Scriptures He wondred also he said why Weston attributed so little to the reading of Scriptures and conferring of Places seeing Scripture doth so much commend the same in those very Places which himself had alledged And as to his Opinion of these Questions he said they had neither ground of the Word of God nor the Primitive Church Nay and that the Schools have spoken diversly of them and do not agree among themselves And having prefaced all this he began his Disputation with Harpsfield by asking him some Questions as how Christ's Body was in the Sacrament according to his Mind and Determination And whether he had the Quantity and Qualities Form Figure and such-like Properties of Bodies And when there was great declining to answer this and some affirmed one thing and some another Harpsfield said they were vain Questions and not fit to spend time about and added that Christ was there as it pleased him to be there Cranmer to that said He would be best contented with that Answer if their appointing of the Carnal Presence had not driven him of necessity to have inquired for disputation-sake how they placed him there sithence they would have a natural Body Then some denied it to be Quantum some said it was Quantitativum and some affirmed that it had Modum quanti and some denying it Dr. Weston then stood up and said It was Corpus quantum sed non per modum quanti A very grave decision of the Point Then Cranmer asked Whether good and bad Men do eat the Body in the Sacrament and then how long Christ tarried in the Eater Harpsfield said They were curious Questions unmeet to be asked Cranmer replied He took them out of their Schools and School-men which they themselves did most use Then he asked how far he went into the Body and how long he abode in the Body With these Questions Cranmer puzzled them most heavily For which way soever they answered there would follow Absurdities and Inextricable Difficulties In conclusion Dr. Weston gave him this Complement That his wonderful gentle Behaviour and Modesty was worthy much commendation Giving him most hearty thanks in his own Name and in the Name of all his Brethren At which all the Doctors put off their Caps On Wednesday as soon as Latimer who came up last had ended his Disputation the Papists cried Victoria applauding themselves loudly as though they had vindicated their Cause most strenuously and satisfactorily against Cranmer and his two Fellows And so VVeston had the confidence to tell them to their Faces Though to him that reads the whole Disputation and considereth the Arguments on both sides impartially there will appear no such matter allowing for all the Hissings and Noises confused Talk and Taunts that were bestowed upon these very Reverend and good Men. Whereof Ridley said in reference to his Disputation That he never in all his Life saw or heard any thing carried more vainly and tumultuously and that he could not have thought that there could have been found among English Men any Persons honoured with Degrees in Learning that willingly could allow of such Vanities more fit for the Stage than the Schools He added That when he studied at Paris he remembred what Clamors were used in the Sorbon where Popery chiefly reigned but that that was a kind of Modesty in comparison of this Thrasonical Ostentation Whence he concluded very truly That they sought not for the sincere Truth in this Conference and for nothing but vain Glory But the Professors of the Gospel on the other hand were as glad of this Dispute wherein these three chief Fathers of the Church had so boldly and gallantly stood in the defence of the Truth and maintained the true Doctrine of the Sacrament so well And Dr. Rowland Taylor in Prison elsewhere at this time for Christ's sake wrote them a Congratulatory Letter in the Name of the rest Which is as followeth RIght Reverend Fathers in the Lord I wish you to enjoy continually God's Grace and Peace through Jesus Christ. And God be praised again for this your most excellent Promotion which ye are called unto at this present that is That ye are counted worthy to be allowed amongst the number of Christ's Records and Witnesses England hath had but a few Learned Bishops that would stick to Christ ad ignem inclusive Once again I thank God heartily in Christ for your most happy Onset most valiant Proceeding most constant suffering of all such Infamies Hissings Clappings Taunts open Rebukes loss of Living and Liberty for the Defence of God's Cause Truth and Glory I cannot utter with Pen how I rejoice in my Heart for you three such Captains in the Foreward under Christ's Cross Banner or Standard in such a Cause and Skirmish when not only one or two of our dear Redeemer's strong Holds are besieged but all his chief Castles ordained for our Safeguard are traiterously impugned This your Enterprize in the sight of all that be in Heaven and of all God's People in Earth is most pleasant to behold This is another manner of Nobility than to be in the Forefront in worldly Warfares For God's sake pray for us for we fail not daily to pray for you We are stronger and stronger in the Lord his Name be praised and we doubt not but ye be so in Christ's own sweet School Heaven is all and wholly of our side Therefore Gaudete in Domino semper iterum gaudete exultate Rejoice always in the
what just and fair ways it went on and how it prevailed like Christianity at first notwithstanding the great Opposition it met with and what sort of men they were such as Gardiner and Boner who especially set themselves to stop it Moreover Reading the Lives of Exemplary Men and such as were Famous in their Generation hath a great Vertue in it to influence the Manners of men Their wise Saying◠their discreet Behaviour their just Management of Matters committed to their trust their Zeal their Charity their Awe of God their Contempt of the World and such like are not only delightful to read or hear but do insensibly instil into mens minds a secret Approbation thereof and draw them on to an Imitation This Land hath produced many admirable men the Knowledg of whom and the Benefit of whose Examples is utterly lost for want of some Writers to leave their Memory unto the World It was a thing complained of in the last Age That as that Age abounded more in Writers than any Age before it so there were very few that set themselves to Pen the Lives of Excellent men as Samuel the Learned and Worthy Son of Iohn Fox spake But he ever thought it as he said most unjust notwithstanding to deprive the world of the memory of matters done by them by whose Labours and worthy Deeds the common state of the Countrey was so much bettered And if the Use of History as the same Author saith is to form the Lives and Manners of men that being the chief end of History then I add No part of History doth more promote this than the History of the Deeds of Famous men It was another great Inducement to me to let this Work see the light to be grateful to the Memory of this Holy Prelate that hath so well deserved of this Church and to whom under God she oweth that Excellent Constitution and Reformed State in which she is which cost him so dear so many Pensive Thoughts so many long hours Study so many Consultations and Debates with Learned men so much Correspondence abroad so many Speeches Arguments and Strugglings in the Parliament in the Convocation before the King the Clergy the People so much Danger and Trouble and Envy and Reproach and at last his dearest Blood Posterity would be highly injurious to such a Person as this if he should not be recorded with all due Respect and Honour It was a commendable Practice of the Ancient Persians to write in Records the Names and good Deeds of such as had deserved well of the King and Kingdom to remain for ever And these Records Kings themselves did sometimes use to read The King Ahasuerus called one Night for them to be read to him to entertain his waking hours Esther VI. And Xerxes in an Epistle of his to Pausanias extant in Thucidides told him That his Good Deed was upon Record in his Palace for ever For these Records were esteemed so precious that they were kept within the Walls of the Palace And this Custom of Writing up the Remembrance of Men of Merit seemed also to be among the Iews Thus it is said of Iudas Macchabeus That the Remembrance of him was for a blessing for ever To which does I suppose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Book of Remembrance or Record allude in Mal. III. 16. that was written for those that feared God and thought on his name And surely it is agreeable to God's Will that this Piece of Gratitude should be shewn to men of singular Vertue deceased to keep their Names and Good Deeds upon Record for Posterity to know and to thank God for And this Office of Love and Duty seems highly convenient to be done towards Archbishop Cranmer that something might appear in the world for his Vindication under those many base Aspersions and lying Insinuations that are and have been Printed by Papists to defame and blacken him to Posterity One of them hath these words which shew that he cared not what he said so he might but throw his dirt upon the chief Lights of the Reformation The very Pillars of this Rank which he names to be Luther Bucer P. Martyr Cranmer Ridley Latimer Hooper Rogers Farrar Taylor Tyndal all Married Priests and Friars but some of them were never Friars and others never Married were men given to their Sensualities both of Women and other like their Commodities after the fashion of other ordinary men Neither is there recounted any one eminent Action in all their Lives that I have read either of chastening their Bodies mortifying their Appetites contemning the World and the Pleasures thereof while they might have and use the same or finally any more excellent Spirit in them above the rest or of any supernatural Concurrence of God with their Actions in any one thing But did he converse so much in Fox as to undertake in one or two Books to answer and confute him and his Martyrs and yet doth he meet with nothing there of none of these men in that Martyrology but what was Ordinary to other men and that shewed not some more excellent Spirit to be in them It is a sign he read but little there or read with a cankered mind This ensuing Book shall effectually confute these Misreports and Slanders of Cranmer one of these Pillars as he calls them and shall abundantly make it appear That he was no Sensualist nor addicted notwithstanding his High Place to the Pleasures and Commodities of this world and that his Life shone bright by his many eminent Actions of Piety Mortification Contempt of the world and that he was of a more excellent Spirit than that of the ordinary rank of men and that for some Ages there scarce arose his Fellow and finally that he must needs have some supernatural Concurrence and mighty Aid of God's Grace with him in many of the Affairs that passed through his hands III. The Third thing remains which is indeed the main matter that makes an History of any account and that is What Credit may be given to what I have writ For if it stand not upon the Foot of Truth it is not History but a Romance a Legend a mere Tale. And here I remember what Iohn Fox said to Alan Cope concerning an History-Controuler which is as true of an History-Writer If you will be a Controuler in Story-matters Diligence is required and great searching out of Books and Authors not only of our time but of all Ages and especially where matters of Religion are touched pertaining to the Church it is not sufficient to say what Fabian or what Hall saith but Records must be sought and Registers must be turned over Letters also and ancient Instruments ought to be perused and Authors with the same compared finally the Writers among themselves one to be compared with another and so with Judgment to be weighed with Diligence to be laboured and with Simplicity pure from all Addiction and Partiality to be uttered
their Pain But because the Place where they be the Name thereof and kinds of Pain there is to us uncertain by Scripture therefore we remit this with all other things to Almighty God unto whose Mercies it is meet to commend them That such Abuses be put away which under the Name of Purgatory have been advanced As to make Men believe that through the Bishop of Rome's Pardons Souls might clearly be delivered out of Purgatory and the Pains of it or that Masses said at Scala Coeli or otherwise in any Place or before any Image might deliver them from all their Pains and send them streight to Heaven These are the Contents of that memorable Book of Articles There are Reasons added now and then to confirm the respective Tenets there laid down and many Quotations of Holy Scripture which for brevity sake I have omitted Which one may conjecture to have been inserted by the Pen of the Arch-bishop Who was the great Introducer of this Practice of proving or confuting Opinions in Religion by the Word of God instead of the ordinary Custom then used of doing it by School-men and Popish Canons We find indeed many Popish Errors here mixed with Evangelical Truths Which must either be attributed to the Defectiveness of our Prelate's Knowledg as yet in True Religion or being the Principles and Opinions of the King or both Let not any be offended herewith but let him rather take notice what a great deal of Gospel-Doctrine here came to light and not only so but was owned and propounded by Authority to be believed and practised The Sun of Truth was now but rising and breaking through the thick Mists of that Idolatry Superstition and Ignorance that had so long prevailed in this Nation and the rest of the World and was not yet advanced to its Meridian Brightness CHAP. XII Cranmer's Iudgment about some Cases of Matrimony IN this Year then came forth two remarkable Books whereof both the King and the Arch-bishop and Bishops might be said to be joint Composers In as much as they seemed to be devised by the Arch-bishop and some of the Bishops and then Revised Noted Corrected and Enlarged by the King The one of these was the Book of Articles of Religion mentioned before This Book bore this Title Articles devised by the King's Highness to stable Christian Quietness and Vnity among the People c. With a Preface by the King Where the King saith he was constrained to put his own Pen to the Book and to conceive certain Articles Which words I leave to the Conjecture of the Reader whether by them he be enclined to think that the King were the first Writer of them or that being writ and composed by another they were perused considered corrected and augmented by his Pen. The other Book that came out this Year was occasioned by a Piece published by Reginald Pole intituled De Vnione Ecclesiastica Which inveighing much against the King for assuming the Supremacy and extolling the Pope unmeasurably he employed the Arch-bishop and some other Bishops to compile a Treatise shewing the Usurpations of Popes and how late it was e're they took this Superiority upon them some hundred Years passing before they did it And that all Bishops were limited to their own Diocesses by one of the eight Councils to which every Pope did swear And how the Papal Authority was first derived from the Emperor and not from Christ. For this there were good Arguments taken from the Scriptures and the Fathers The Book was signed by both the Arch-bishops and nineteen other Bishops It was called the Bishops Book because devised by them The Lord Crumwel did use to consult with the Arch-bishop in all his Ecclesiastical Matters And there happened now while the Arch-bishop was at Ford a great Case of Marriage Whom it concerned I cannot tell but the King was desirous to be resolved about it by the Arch-bishop and commanded Crumwel to send to him for his Judgment therein The Case was three-fold I. Whether Marriage contracted or solemnized in Lawful Age per Verba de presenti and without carnal Copulation be Matrimony before God or no II. Whether such Matrimony be consummate or no And III. What the Woman may thereupon demand by the Law Civil after the death of her Husband This I suppose was a cause that lay before the King and his Ecclesiastical Vicegerent to make some determination of And I suspect it might relate to Katharine his late divorced Queen The Arch-bishop who was a very good Civilian as well as a Divine but that loved to be wary and modest in all his Decisions made these Answers That as to the first he and his Authors were of Opinion that Matrimony contracted per Verba de presenti was perfect Matrimony before God 2. That such Matrimony is not utterly consummated as that term is commonly used among the School-Divines and Lawyers but by carnal Copulation 3. As to the Woman's Demands by the Law Civil he therein professed his Ignorance And he had no learned Men with him there at Ford to consult with for their Judgments only Dr. Barbar a Civilian that he always retained with him who neither could pronounce his Mind without his Books and some learned Men to confer with upon the Case But he added that he marvelled that the Votes of the Civil Lawyer should be required herein seeing that all manner of Causes of Dower be judged within this Realm by the Common Laws of the same And that there were plenty of well-learned Men in the Civil Law at London that undoubtedly could certify the King's Majesty of the Truth herein as much as appertained unto that Law warily declining to make any positive Judgment in a Matter so ticklish This happened in the month of Ianuary And indeed in these Times there were great Irregularities about Marriage in the Realm many being incestuous and unlawful Which caused the Parliament two or three Years past viz 1533. in one of their Acts to publish a Table of Degrees wherein it was prohibited by God's Law to marry But the Act did not cure this Evil many thought to bear out themselves in their illegal Contracts by getting Dispensations from the Arch-bishop which created him much trouble by his denying to grant them There was one Massy a Courtier who had contracted himself to his deceased Wife's Niece Which needing a Dispensation the Party got the Lord Crumwel to write to the Arch-bishop in his behalf especially because it was thought to be none of the Cases of Prohibition contained in the Act. But such was the Integrity of the Arch-bishop that he refused to do any thing he thought not allowable though it were upon the perswasion of the greatest Men or the best Friends he had But he writ this civil Letter to the Lord Crumwel upon this occasion MY very singular good Lord in my most hearty-wise I commend me unto your Lordship And whereas your
Mannor was not given to Christ-Church till after the Year 1400. Thomas Goldstone a Prior of that Church and a great Builder built the Mannor-house for a Mansion for the Priors and a Chappel annexed and a new Hall adjoining to the Dormitory and divers other Edifices there as we learn from the History of the Priors of Canterbury lately published To which we may add a Record in that Church to direct us in the Computation of the Time Viz. Anno Dom. 1508. In vigiliis S. Marci Capella dedicatur in Manerio de Lyvyngsborn procurante Thoma Goldston At the Dissolution this was alienated and given to Gage and from him it came to Arch-bishop Cranmer and his Successors And the Bargain was confirmed by Act of Parliament Anno Henr. 34. The Arch-bishop as he had opportunity preferred Learned and Pious Men in his Diocess in the Benefices of his Church and such who freely preached against the Pope and his Superstitions against Images and the Worship of them The chief of these were Nic. Ridley afterwards Bishop of London whom he made Vicar of Herne and Prebend of Canterbury and Iohn Scory afterwards Bishop of Chichester whom he made one of the six Preachers Michael Drum and Lancelot Ridley worthy Men were two more of the Six These he preferred and divers others about through his Diocess that set the Abuses of Popery open before the Peoples Eyes in their Sermons This so angred the Men of the old Religion and particularly some of his own Church in Canterbury that they detected them to the Arch-bishop by articling against them for their Doctrine This they did this Year when the Arch-bishop visited his Church And about two Years after they did so again as shall be taken notice of in due Season About this time it was that Serles and Shether two of the Six Preachers of Canterbury were by the Arch-bishop's Censure put to Recantation for some unsound Passages they had preached Which made them such Enemies to the Arch-bishop and such Contrivers of his Ruin by devising and drawing up a great number of Articles against him if they could have accomplished their Design as shall be seen hereafter under the Year 1543. It was observed of Shether at this time that after the pronouncing his Recantation or Declaration he added these words Good Christians I take God to record that I never preached any thing to you in my Life but the Truth And so in short gave himself the Lie and overthrew all the Recantation he had made before The latter end of the Year there was a Convocation Wherein one of the Matters before them was concerning the procuring a true Translation of the New Testament Which was indeed intended not so much to do such a good Work as to hinder it For having decried the present Translation on purpose to make it unlawful for any to use it they pretended to set themselves about a new One But it was merely to delay and put off the People from the common use of the Scripture As appeared plainly enough in that the Bishops themselves undertook it And so having it in their own Hands they might make what delays they pleased For in the third Session a Proposition was made for the Translation and an Assignation to each Bishop of his Task As Matthew to the Arch-bishop of Canterbury Mark to the Bishop of Lincoln Luke to Winton Iohn to Ely and so of the rest But the Arch-bishop saw through all this And therefore in a Sessions that followed after told the House from the King to whom I suppose he had discovered this Intrigue that the Translation should be left to the Learned of both Universities This was a Surprize to the Bishops who all except Ely and S. David's protested against it and began to undervalue the Sufficiency of the Universities as much decayed of late and that they were but young Men and that the greatest Learning lay in the Convocation-men But the Arch-bishop roundly said that he would stick by his Master's Will and Pleasure and that the Vniversities should examine the Translation Bishops Consecrated May 29 being Sunday William Knight was Consecrated Bishop of Bath and Wells by Nicolas Bishop of Rochester by Virtue of the Arch-bishop's Letters to him assisted by Richard Suffragan of Dover and Iohn Suffragan of Bedford in the Chappel of the said Bishop of Bath's House situate in the Minories without Aldgate September the 25 th Iohn Wakeman late Abbot of Teuksbury was Consecrated the first Bishop of Glocester by the Arch-bishop Edmond Bishop of London and Thomas Bishop of Westminster assisting Iohn Chambre B. D. was Consecrated first Bishop of Peterburgh Octob. 23. in the Cathedral Church of Peterburgh in the Presbytery there by Iohn Bishop of Lincoln Thomas Bishop of Ely and William Bishop of Norwich by Commission from the Arch-bishop February the 19 th Arthur Bulkeley in the Chappel of Iohn Incent LL. D. Dean of St. Paul's by Iohn Bishop of Sarum by virtue of Letters Commissional from the Arch-bishop William Bishop of St. David's and Iohn Bishop of Glocester assisting Robert King another Abbot and Titular Bishop Reonen Suffragan to the Bishop of Lincoln was this Year Consecrated Bishop of Oxford The Date or his Consecrators I cannot assign the Act being omitted in the Arch-bishop's Register He was first a Monk of Rewly a Priory without Oxford of the Cistertian Order Then Abbot of Bruerne in Oxfordshire After Abbot of Thame of which he was also called Bishop and lastly of Oseney Both which he surrendred to the King at the dissolution of Monasteries This Man when Suffragan preached at S. Mary's in Stamford where he most fiercely inveighed against such as used the New Testament In Q. Mary's Reign he was a persecutor of the Protestants and died 1557. CHAP. XXIV The King's Book revised THE Arch-bishop was this Year among other things employed in the King's Book as it now was called that is The Erudition of any Christian Man spoken of before For the King was minded now to have it well reviewed and if there were any Errors and less proper Expressions to have them corrected and amended And so to have it recommended unto the People as a compleat Book of Christian Principles in the stead of the Scripture which upon pretence of their abuse of the King would not allow longer to be read Accordingly a Correction was made throughout the Book and the correct Copy sent to Cranmer to peruse Which he did and added his own Annotations upon various Passages in it at good length And had it not been too long I had transcribed it wholly out of a Volume in the Benet-College Library But for a taste take this that follows In the Title under his own Hand was this written Animadversions upon the King's Book Vpon the Chapter of Original Sin For the first Offence of our Father Adam No Man shall be damned for the Offences of Adam
in probability would have turned so much to the Benefit of our Nation It being also an Instance of the pious Care and good Policy that was then taken by the Court for the Relief and Sustentation of poor Fugitives flying hither from their Native Country Friends and Livelihood for Christ's Sake and yet that the Publick might be as little burthened by them as might be Queen Mary's access to the Crown spoiled this good Design For all Strangers being then commanded suddenly to depart the Realm this Congregation accordingly brake up and removed themselves to Frankford in Germany Where the Magistrates kindly entertained them and allowed them a Church And when afterwards viz. 1554. divers of the English Nation fled thither for their Religion the Governors of the Town upon their Petition received them also and all other such English as should resort thither upon the same Account as many did And two Members of this French Congregation mindful undoubtedly of the former Kindness themselves or their Countrymen had received in England assisted them much namely Morellio a Minister and Castalio an Elder The English here made use of the same Church the French did these one Day and the English another and upon Sundays the use of it respectively as themselves could agree And as there were settled here Congregations of French Italians and Dutch Strangers so I am very apt to believe there was also a Church of Spaniards too Indeed I do not find express mention of any such till the beginning of Q. Elizabeth's Reign when Cassiodorus and Anthonius Corranus Hispalensis of Sevil a Member of the Italian Congregation were their Preachers of whom I shall have occasion to say something in my Memorials of Arch-bishop Grindal It is certain that in Queen Mary's Days many of those Spaniards who came over in the Retinue of Philip the Spanish Prince or after forsook Popery and became Professors of the Reformed Religion Which one cannot well tell how it should come to pass unless it were by the hearing of the Gospel preached in their own Language here And it is observable that among these many had been sent for over in that Queen's Time to convert our Nation from Heresy as they termed it and to reduce it to the Roman Church This notable Success and Power which the clear Evidence of Truth had upon these Men was in those Times taken much notice of as it might well be Iames Pilkington the Master of S. Iohn's College in Cambridg and who was afterwards Bishop of Durham makes a Note of it to the University in the Sermon which he preached at the Restitution of Bucer and Fagius in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign after the barbarous Indignities that had been offered them in the former Queen's Reign in raking their dead Bodies out of their Graves and burning them It is much more notable said he that we have seen to come to pass in our Days that the Spaniards sent for into the Realm on purpose to suppress the Gospel as soon as they were returned Home replenish'd many parts of their Country with the same Truth of Religion to the which before they were utter Enemies Nay and not long after this such earnest Professors of the True Religion were found in Spain that many of them indured the fiery Trial and offered up their Bodies to the Flames for Christ's Sake and more were cast into Prisons And yet the Gospel got ground there to admiration as Zanchy gave a Relation thereof to A Lasco in one of his Letters Wherein he spake of the great numbers of true Professors in Italy also The Place being so much to our present purpose I will take leave to lay before the Reader In Calabriae duobus Castellis c. In two Castles of Calabria one belonging to the Duke of Montalto the other to a Nobleman of Naples were found 4000 Brethren being the remainders of those Brethren called Waldenses They were for many Years unknown and lived safely in their Ancestors Possessions For though they approved not of Masses yet they thought the Faithful might go to them with a safe Conscience But being untaught this bad Doctrine they did wholly and universally abstain going any more And so it came to pass that they could not be concealed any longer Therefore a Persecution was raised up against them They writ to the Brethren at Geneva to assist them by their Prayers their Counsel and also by humane Aid We see also in Italy where the Seat of Antichrist is there is a great Harvest but very few to gather it O God have Mercy upon Italy In Spain very many were burnt more cast into Prison Nevertheless in the mean time the Gospel goes forward as we hear wonderfully And in another Letter he writes thus There is a very great Persecution in Italy nor a less in Spain A sign there be many Faithful there that dare confess Christ. CHAP. XXIV The Arch-bishop's Care of the Revenues of the Church Bucer dies I Return now to our Prelate again to take a further view of him acting in his high Function in the English Church It must not be omitted to be ranked among his good Services towards it that he did what in him lay to preserve the Revenues of it in his Time when there were so many hungry Courtiers gaping after them These were again in a new Danger after the Duke of Northumberland and his Party had removed Somerset and made themselves the great Controllers of Publick Affairs It was indeed the Scandal of the Reformation that the Demeans that had been settled long before by our pious Ancestors for the maintenance of God's Ministers as they had been formerly wrongfully appropriated to Monasteries and swallowed up by Lazy Monks so they had not now recurred and been restored to their true Owners but became possest by Lay-men So that in many scores of Parishes there remained not sufficient to buy Bread for the Incumbents and their Families And it was more than suspicious that many Patrons did render the Condition of the Church still worse in these Days by retaining and reserving to themselves whether by Contract or Power the Tithes of the Benefices they presented to And by these means Pluralities and Nonresidences the old Mischief of the Church were not redressed but rather made necessary This Abuse grieved good Men and Lovers of the Reformation both at Home and Abroad because they saw how the preaching of the Gospel was obstructed hereby Concerning this Bucer from Cambridg wrote privately to Calvin in the Year 1550. And this made Calvin address a Letter to our Arch-bishop telling him That for the flourishing State of Religion he thought it highly needful to have fit Pastors that might seriously set themselves to perform the Office of Preaching One great obstacle whereof he makes very truly to be Quod praedae expositi sunt Ecclesiae reditus That the Rents of the Church were exposed to
of that which lacked And so transmitted the Book again from Croydon Septemb. 19. to Sir William Cecyl and Sir Iohn Cheke the one the King 's Principal Secretary and the other his Tutor being the two great Patrons of the Reformation at the Court Desiring them together to take these Articles into their serious Considerations for he well knew them to be both wise and good Men and very well seen in Divine Learning And he referred it to their Wisdoms whether they thought best to move the King's Majesty therein before his coming to Court as though he conceived the King might make some demur in so weighty an Affair till he should consult with the Metropolitan in order to the coming to a Resolution or that there were some great Persons about the King that might cast some Scruples and Objections in his Mind concerning it which he by his Presence might prevent or be ready at hand to resolve Cecyl and Cheke thought it more convenient the Arch-bishop should offer them to the King himself So coming to Court soon after he delivered the Book to the King and moved him for their publishing and due observation And so leaving them before the King and Council they were then again delivered unto certain of the King's Chaplains who made some Alterations For I find that Octob. 2. a Letter was directed to Mr. Harley Bill Horn Grindal Pern and Knox to consider certain Articles which must be these Articles of Religion exhibited to the King's Majesty to be subscribed by all such as shall be admitted to be Preachers or Ministers in any part of the Realm and to make report of their Opinions touching the same The Time of the Year declined now towards the latter end of November and the Arch-bishop being retired down from Croydon to his House at Ford near Canterbury the Privy-Council Novemb. 20. dispatched by a Messenger the Articles unto him to be reviewed and for his last Hand that they might be presented before the Convocation and allowed there and so be published by the Royal Authority The Arch-bishop received the Book and Letter from the Council Novemb. 23. And making some Notes upon it enclosed them in a Letter to the Lords and sent them together with the Book the next day beseeching them to prevail with the King that all Bishops should have Authority to cause their respective Clergy to subscribe it And then he trusted as he wrote that such a Concord and Quietness in Religion would soon follow as otherwise would not be in many Years And thereby God would be glorified the Truth advanced and their Lordships rewarded by him as the setters forth of his true Word and Gospel This pious Letter may be read in the Appendix The King went a Progress this Summer and the Arch-bishop retired to Croydon where I find him in Iuly August and September And thence Octob. 11. he went to Ford to spend some time in his Diocess Now he was absent from the Court and the King abroad at that distance that he could not frequently wait upon him and be present at the Council his Enemies were at work to bring him into trouble as we shall see by and by CHAP. XXVIII Persons nominated for Irish Bishopricks THERE were certain Bishopricks in Ireland about this time vacant one whereof was that of Armagh And it was thought convenient to have them filled by Divines out of England In the Month of August the Arch-bishop was consulted with for this that so by the Influence of very wise and learned Men and good Preachers the Gospel might be the better propagated in that dark Region But because it was foreseen to be difficult to procure any English Men so endowed to go over thither therefore Secretary Cecyl being then with the King in his Progress sent a Letter to the Arch-bishop at Croyden to nominate some worthy Persons for those Preferments and whom he thought would be willing to undertake them He returned him the Names of Four viz. Mr. Whitehead of Hadley Mr. Turner of Canterbury Sir Thomas Rosse and Sir Robert Wisdome He said He knew many others in England that would be meet Persons for those Places but very few that would gladly be perswaded to go thither For it seems the English were never very fond of living in Ireland But he added concerning these four which he had named That he thought they being ordinarily called for Conscience-sake would not refuse to bestow the Talent committed unto them wheresoever it should please the King's Majesty to appoint them He recommended likewise a fifth Person for this Promotion one Mr. Whitacre a wise and well-learned Man as he characters him who was Chaplain to the Bishop of Winchester Poynet But he doubted whether he would be perswaded to take it upon him It may not be amiss to make some enquiry who and what those Four before-mentioned Persons were Mr. Whithead was an Exile in Queen Mary's Reign and Pastor of the English Congregation at Frankford And at the Conference in the beginning of Q. Elizabeth's Government he was one of the Nine Disputants on the Protestant side and one of the appointed Eight to revise the Service-Book The Writer of the Troubles at Frankford mentions three viz. Coverdale Turner and this Whitehead of whom he saith That they were the most ancient Preachers of the Gospel and the most ancient Fathers of this our Country and that from their Pens as well as their Mouths most of Queen Elizabeth's Divines and Bishops first received the Light of the Gospel Why Cranmer should stile him VVhithead of Hadley I do not apprehend seeing Dr. Rowland Taylor his Chaplain was now Parâ—on of Hadley who not long after was there burnt And one Yeomans was Taylor 's Curat there who also was afterwards burnt at Norwich But I suppose this was some other Hadley I find two about this Time bearing the Name of Turner both eminent Men and Preachers The one was named William Turner a Doctor in Physick and greatly befriended by Sir Iohn Cheke and Sir William Cecyl This Man a Native of Northumberland was the first English Man that compiled an Herbal which was the Ground-work of that which Gerard laid the last Hand unto He was a Retainer to the Duke of Somerset in Edward the Sixth's Time and was Physician in ordinary to his Family And the Year before this viz. 1551 I find him Dean of Wells The other was Richard Turner a Staffordshire-Man in former time Curate of Chartam in Kent and commonly called Turner of Canterbury living in the family of Mr. Morice the Arch-bishop's Secretary of whom afterwards who held the Impropriation of that Parsonage and had presented this Man to the Vicarage For his free and bold preaching against Popish Errors and asserting the King's Supremacy and for the extraordinary Success of his Ministry in bringing Multitudes of People in those Parts out of Ignorance and Superstition he was put to much Trouble and Danger He was
Penance and forsaking their Wives Allowing them to minister at the Altar and to serve Cures provided it were out of the Diocesses where they were married The said Bishops by this Commission were also empowered to grant to fit Rectors and Curates a Power to reconcile and absolve their respective Parishes This Commission I have placed in the Appendix as it was transcribed out of the Register of the Church of Canterbury The Lord Legate also for the better discharging of this his mighty Office gave out his Instructions how the Bishops and Officials of the Vacant Sees should perform this Work of the Reconciliation deputed to them by the said Legate together with the Form of Absolution to be pronounced Which Instructions and Form as they were extracted from the said Register may be found in the Appendix Each Bishop was to call before him the Clergy of his respective City and to instruct them in divers things As concerning the Pope's fatherly Love and Charity towards the English Nation in sending Cardinal Pole his Legate hither as soon as he knew the Lady Mary was declared Queen to bring this Kingdom so long separated from the Catholick Church into Union with it and to comfort and restore them to the Grace of God Concerning the joyful coming of the said Legate concerning what was done the last Parliament when the Lords and Commons were Reconciled and concerning the repealing of all the Laws made against the Authority of the Roman See by the two last Kings and restoring Obedience to the Pope and Church of Rome Concerning the Authority restored likewise to the Bishops especially that they might proceed against Hereticks and Schismaticks Then the Bishops were to acquaint their Clergy with the Faculties yielded to them by the Legate which were to be read openly Then all that were lapsed into Error and Schism were to be invited humbly to crave Absolution and Reconciliation and Dispensations as well for their Orders as for their Benefices Next a Day was fixed when the Clergy were to appear and petition for the said Absolutions and Dispensations On which day after they had confessed their Errors and sacramentally promised that they would make Confession of the same to the Bishop himself or some other Catholick Priests and to perform the Penance that should be enjoined them then the Bishop was to reconcile them and to dispense with their Irregularities Always observing a distinction between those that only fell into Schism and Error and those who were the Teachers of them and Leaders of others into Sin The same time was to be appointed another day for a Solemn Festival wherein the Bishops and Curates in their Churches should signify to the People all that the Bishops before had spoken to their Clergy and then should invite them all to confess their Errors and to return into the Bosom of the Church promising them That all their past Crimes should be forgiven if so be they repented of them and renounced them And a certain Term was to be fixed namely the whole Octaves of Easter within which Term all should come and be reconciled But the Time to be reconciled in being lapsed all that remained unreconciled as also all that returned to their Vomit after they had been reconciled were to be most severely proceeded against The said Bishops and Officials where any Sees were Vacant were to name and depute the Rectors of the Parish-Churches and other fit Persons who should absolve the Laity of their Parishes from Heresy and Schism and Censures according to a Form to be given them by the Bishops The Bishops and Officials and Curates were to have each a Book in which were to be writ the Names and Parishes of all that were reconciled That it might afterwards be known who were reconciled and who were not After the Octave of Easter was past the Bishops were to visit first their Cities and then their Diocesses and to summon before them all such as had not been reconciled and to know of them the Cause why they would not depart from their Errors and remaining obstinate in them they were to proceed against them In this Visitation all the Clergy were to be required to shew the Titles of their Orders and Benefices and notice was to be taken if any Defect were therein And now the Bishops were to take care to root out any Errors in their Diocesses and to depute fit Persons to make Sermons and hear Confessions They were also to take care to have the Sacred Canons observed and to have inserted into the Books of Service the Name of S. Thomas the Martyr and of the Pope formerly blotted out and to pray for the Pope according as it was used before the Schism They were advised to insist much upon the great Miseries we were in before and the great Grace that God now had shewed to this People Exhorting them to acknowledg these Mercies and devoutly to pray for the King and Queen that had deserved so exceedingly well of this Kingdom and especially to pray for a happy Off-spring from the Queen In these Instructions there are several Strictures that make it appear Pole was not so gentle towards the Hereticks as the Professors of the Gospel were then stiled as is reported but rather the contrary and that he went hand in hand with the bloody Bishops of these Days For it is plain here that he put the Bishops upon proceeding with them according to the Sanguinary Laws lately revived and put in full Force and Virtue What an Invention was that of his a kind of Inquisition by him set up whereby not a Man might escape that stood not well affected to Popery I mean his ordering Books to be made and kept wherein the Names of all such were to be written that in every Place and Parish in England were reconciled and so whosoever were not found in those Books might be known to be no Friends to the Pope and so to be proceeded against And indeed after Pole's crafty and zealous Management of this Reconciliation all that good Opinion that Men had before conceived of him vanished and they found themselves much mistaken in him especially seeing so many Learned and Pious Gospel-Bishops and Ministers imprisoned and martyred under him and by his Commission Insomuch that now People spake of him as bad as of the Pope himself or the worst of his Cardinals The Gospellers before this did use to talk much among themselves that he did but dissemble at Rome in his present outward Compliances with them and their Superstitions and that he would upon a good Opportunity shew himself an open Professor of the Truth And indeed he often had Conferences before him of Christ and of the Gospel of a living Faith and Justification by Faith alone and he often would wish the true Doctrine might prevail But now the Mask was taken off and he shewed himself what he was A notable Letter to this Purpose was written concerning the Cardinal about
First the King and Queen sent their Information to the Pope against Thomas Arch-bishop of Canterbury viz. That he had brought this noble Realm from the Unity of the Catholick Church That he was a Person guilty of Heresy and many other grand Crimes and not worthy to enjoy his Bishoprick and most worthy greater Punishments and they requested that Process might be made against him For the better enquiry into and taking cognizance of the Truth of these Accusations the Pope gave a special Commission signed with his Hand to Iames Puteo Cardinal of S. Mary's and afterwards of S. Simeon to cite the said Thomas before him and all such Witnesses as should be needful to come to a true knowledg of the Arch-bishop's Crimes and accordingly to give the Pope an account of all he should find This he was to do in his own Person or to constitute any dignified Person abiding in these Parts to do the same So the said Cardinal appointed Brookes Bishop of Glocester and some Collegues with him to manage this Commission in his stead This Brookes having been Bishop Gardiner's Chaplain was probably nominated and recommended by the said Gardiner as I do suppose he was the Person that directed the whole managery of this Process against the Arch-bishop And so Brookes being now by this Deputation the Pope's Sub-delegate proceeded in this Cause as was said before In regard of the Arch-bishop's Citation to Rome to answer there and make his personal appearance before the Pope the Letters Executory say Comparere non curaret as an Aggravation of his Crime that he took no care to appear which was false and that therefore as the said Letters ran the King and Queen's Proctors at Rome named Peter Rouilius and Anthony Massa de Gallesio and Alexander Palentarius the Proctor of the Pope's Treasury had sued that Contumacy might be definitively pronounced against the said Thomas Cranmer being cited and not appearing Therefore He Pope Paul IV. sitting in the Throne of Justice and having before his Eyes God alone who is the Righteous Lord and judgeth the World in Righteousness did make this definitive Sentence pronouncing and decreeing the said Thomas Cranmer to be found Guilty of the Crimes of Heresy and other Excesses to be wholly unmindful of the Health of his Soul to go against the Rules and Ecclesiastical Doctrines of the Holy Fathers and against the Apostolical Traditions of the Roman Church and Sacred Councils and the Rites of the Christian Religion hitherto used in the Church especially against the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Lord and Holy Orders by thinking and teaching otherwise than the Holy Mother Church preacheth and observeth and by denying the Primacy and Authority of the Apostolick See and against the Processions which every Year on Corpus Christi Day were wont to be celebrated by the Pope's Predecessors Mention also is made of his Bringing in again the Heresy abjured by Berengarius of his believing the false and heretical Doctrines of Wicklif and Luther those Arch-Hereticks printing of Books of that nature and publishing them and defending those Doctrines in publick Disputations and that before his Sub-delegate and persisting herein with Obstinacy Therefore the Pope excommunicated him and deprived him of his Arch-bishoprick and all other Places and Privileges whatsoever and adjudged him to be delivered over to the Secular Court and all his Goods to be confiscate And the Pope absolved all Persons from any Oath of Fidelity given to Cranmer and imposed perpetual Silence upon him And moreover upon the instance of the abovesaid Proctors commanded the Bishops of London and Ely to degrade him and so to deliver him over to the Secular Court This bore date December 14. In obedience to these Letters from Rome the two Bishops the Pope's Delegates came down to Oxford and sitting in the Choire of Christ's-Church before the High Altar the said Commissional Letters were read wherein it was specified That all things were indifferently examined on both Parties and Counsel heard as well on the King 's and Queen's behalf who were Cranmer's Accusers as on the behalf of Cranmer so that he wanted nothing to his necessary Defence Whereat the Arch-bishop could not but exclaim while these things were reading against such manifest Lies That as he said when he was continually in Prison and could never be suffered to have Counsel or Advocate at Home he should produce Witness and appoint his Counsel at Rome God must needs punish added he this open and shameless Lying But this Command of Degrading our Arch-bishop was presently proceeded upon Thomas Thirlby Bishop of Ely his old Friend infinitely before-time obliged by the Arch-bishop shed many Tears at the doing of it So that Cranmer moved at it was fain to comfort him and told him He was well contented with it So they apparelled the Arch-bishop in all the Garments and Ornaments of an Archbishop only in mockery every thing was of Canvas and old Clouts And the Crosier was put into his Hand And then he was piece by piece stript of all again When they began to take away his Pal he asked them Which of them had a Pal to take away his Pal They then answered acknowledging they were his Inferiors as Bishops but as they were the Pope's Delegates they might take away his Pal. While they were thus spoiling him of all his Garments he told them That it needed not for that he had done with this Gear long ago While this was doing Boner made a Triumphant Speech against the poor Arch-bishop But when they came to take away his Crosier he held it fast and would not deliver it but pulled out an Appeal out of his left Sleeve under his Wrist and said I appeal unto the next General Council and herein I have comprehended my Cause and the Form of it which I desire may be admitted And prayed divers times to the standers by to be Witnesses naming them by their Names This Appeal is preserved in Fox which is well worthy the reading The Arch-bishop was all along ill dealt with in divers respects in this his Process which himself was well sensible of One was That he had desired the Court that considering he was upon his Life he might have the use of Proctors Advocates and Lawyers But they would allow him none After the Court wherein Brooks was Sub-delegate had done they promised him that he should see his Answers to Sixteen Articles that they had laid against him that he might correct amend and change them where he thought good And that Promise they performed not And so entred his Answers upon record though his Answer was not made upon Oath nor reserved nor made in judicio but extra judicium Which Cranmer made a Protest of But not to the Bishop of Glocester as Judg whom he would not own but to the King 's and Queen's Proctors Martin and Story To them for these Reasons he wrote a Letter That he trusted they
that they be God's Ministers appointed by God to Rule and Govern you And therefore whoso resisteth them resisteth God's Ordinance The third Exhortation is That you Love all together like Brethren and Sistern For alas pity it is to see what Contention and Hatred one Christian-Man hath to another Not taking each other as Sisters and Brothers but rather as Strangers and mortal Enemies But I pray you learn and bear well away this one Lesson To do good to all Men as much as in you lieth and to hurt no Man no more than you would hurt your own natural and loving Brother or Sister For this you may be sure of that whosoever hateth any Person and goeth about maliciously to hinder or hurt him surely and without all doubt God is not with that Man although he think himself never so much in God's Favour The fourth Exhortation shall be to them that have great Substance and Riches of this World That they will well consider and weigh those Sayings of the Scripture One is of our Saviour Christ himself who saith It is hard for a Rich Man to enter into Heaven A sore saying and yet spoke by him that knew the Truth The second is of S. Iohn whose saying is this He that hath the Substance of this World and seeth his Brother in Necessity and shutteth up his Mercy from him how can he say he loveth God Much more might I speak of every part but Time sufficeth not I do but put you in remembrance of things Let all them that be Rich ponder well those Sentences For if ever they had any Occasion to shew their Charity they have now at this present the poor People being so many and Victuals so dear For though I have been long in Prison yet I have heard of the great Penury of the Poor Consider that that which is given to the Poor is given to God Whom we have not otherwise present corporally with us but in the Poor And now for so much as I am come to the last End of my Life whereupon hangeth all my Life passed and my Life to come either to live with my Saviour Christ in Heaven in Joy or else to be in Pain ever with wicked Devils in Hell and I see before mine Eyes presently either Heaven ready to receive me or Hell ready to swallow me up I shall therefore declare unto you my very Faith how I believe without Colour or Dissimulation For now is no time to dissemble whatsoever I have written in Times past First I believe in God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth c. and every Article of the Catholick Faith every Word and Sentence taught by our Saviour Christ his Apostles and Prophets in the Old and New Testament And now I come to the great Thing that troubleth my Conscience more than any other thing that ever I said or did in my Life and that is the setting abroad of Writings contrary to the Truth Which here now I renounce and refuse as things written with my Hand contrary to the Truth which I thought in my Heart and writ for fear of Death and to save my Life if it might be and that is all such Bills which I have written or signed with mine own Hand since my Degradation wherein I have written many things untrue And forasmuch as my Hand offended in writing contrary to my Heart therefore my Hand shall first be punished For if I may come to the Fire it shall be first burned And as for the Pope I refuse him as Christ's Enemy and Antichrist with all his false Doctrine And here being admonished of his Recantation and Dissembling he said Alas my Lord I have been a Man that all my Life loved Plainness and never dissembled till now against the Truth which I am most sorry for He added hereunto That for the Sacrament he believed as he had taught in his Book against the Bishop of Winchester And here he was suffered to speak no more So that his Speech contained chiefly three points Love to God Love to the King and Love to the Neighbour In the which talk he held Men very suspense which all depended upon the Conclusion Where he so far deceived all Mens Expectations that at the hearing thereat they were much amazed and let him go on a while till my Lord Williams bad him play the Christen Man and remember himself To whom he answered That he so did For now he spake Truth Then he was carried away and a great number that did Run to see him go so wickedly to his Death ran after him exhorting him while Time was to remember himself And one Friar Iohn a godly and well-learned Man all the way travelled with him to reduce him But it would not be What they said in particular I cannot tell but the Effect appeared in the End For at the Stake he professed that he died in all such Opinions as he had taught and oft repented him of his Recantation Coming to the Stake with a chearful Countenance and willing Mind he put off his Garments with haste and stood upright in his Shirt And a Batcheler of Divinity named Elye of Brazen-nose-College laboured to convert him to his former Recantation with the two Spanish Friars But when the Friars saw his Constancy they said in Latin one to another Let us go from him We ought not to be nigh him For the Devil is with him But the Batcheler in Divinity was more earnest with him Unto whom he answered That as concerning his Recantation he repented it right sore because he knew it was against the Truth with other words more Whereupon the Lord Williams cryed Make short Make short Then the Bishop took certain of his Friends by the Hand But the Bachelor of Divinity refused to take him by the Hand and blamed all others that so did and said He was sorry that ever he came in his Company And yet again he required him to agree to his former Recantation And the Bishop answered shewing his Hand This is the Hand that wrote it and therefore shall it suffer first Punishment Fire being now put to him he stretched out his right Hand and thrust it into the Flame and held it there a good space before the Fire came to any other Part of his Body where his Hand was seen of every Man sensibly burning crying with a loud Voice This Hand hath offended As soon as the Fire got up he was very soon Dead never stirring or crying all the while His Patience in the Torment his Courage in dying if it had been taken either for the Glory of God the Wealth of his Country or the Testimony of Truth as it was for a pernicious Error and subversion of true Religion I could worthily have commended the Example and matched it with the Fame of any Father of antient Time but seeing that not the Death but the Cause and Quarrel thereof commendeth the Sufferer I cannot but much
losing of Promotion nor hope of Gain or winning of Favour could move him to relent or give place unto the Truth of his Conscience As experience thereof well appeared as well in defence of the true Religion against the Six Articles in the Parliament as in that he offered to combate with the Duke of Northumberland in K. Edward's Time speaking then on behalf of his Prince for the staying of the Chauntries until his Highness had come unto lawful Age and that especially for the maintenance of his better State then But if at his Prince's Pleasure in case of Religion at any time he was forced to give place that was done with such humble Protestation and so knit up for the safeguard of his Faith and Conscience that it had been better his Good-will had never been requested than so to relent or give over as he did Which most dangerously besides sundry times else he especially attempted when the Six Articles past by Parliament and when my L. Crumwel was in the Tower At what time the Book of Articles of our Religion was new penned For even at that Season the whole Rabblement which he took to be his Friends being Commissioners with him forsook him and his Opinion and Doctrine And so leaving him Post alone revolted altogether on the part of Stephen Gardiner Bishop of Winchester As by Name Bishop Hethe Shaxton Day and all other of the meaner sort By whom these so named were chiefly advanced and preferred unto Dignities And yet this sudden Inversion notwithstanding God gave him such Favour with his Prince that Book altogether past by his Assertion against all their Minds More to be marvelled at the Time considered than by any Reason to compass how it should come to pass For then would there have been laid thousands of Pounds to Hundreds in London that he should before that Synod had been ended have been shut up in the Tower beside his Friend the Lord Crumwel Howbeit the King's Majesty having an assured and approved affiance of his both deep Knowledg in Religion and Fidelity both to God and Him suspected in that time other Men in their Judgments not to walk uprightly nor sincerely For that some of them swerved from their former Opinions in Doctrine And having great experience of the constancy of the Lord Cranmer it drave him all along to join with the said Lord Cranmer in the confirmation of his Opinion and Doctrin against all the rest to their great Admiration For at all Times when the King's Majesty would be resolved in any Doubt or Question he would but send word to my Lord over Night and by the next Day the King would have in writing brief Notes of the Doctors Minds as well Divines as Lawyers both Old and New with a Conclusion of his own Mind Which he could never get in such a readiness of any no not of all his Chaplains and Clergy about him in so short a Time For being thorowly seen in all kinds of Expositors he could incontinently lay open thirty forty sixty or more some whiles of Authors And so reducing the Notes of them altogether would advertise the King more in one Day than all his Learned Men could do in a Month. And it was no mervail for it was well known that commonly if he had not Business of the Prince's or special urgent Causes before him he spent three parts of the Day in Study as effectually as he had done at Cambridg And therefore it was that the King said on a time to the Bishop of Winchester the King and my said Lord of Winchester defending together that the Canons of the Apostles were of as good Authority as the four Evangelists contrary to my Lord Cranmer's Assertion My Lord of Canterbury said the King is too old a Truant for us twain Again His Estimation was such with his Prince that in Matters of great Importance wherein no Creature durst once move the King for fear of Displeasure or moving the King's Patience or otherwise for troubling his Mind then was my Lord Cranmer most violently by the whole Council obtruded and thrust out to undertake that Danger and Peril in Hand As beside many other times I remember twice he served the Council's Expectation The first time was when he staied the King 's determinate Mind and Sentence in that he fully purposed to send the Lady Mary his Daughter unto the Tower and there to suffer as a Subject because She would not obey the Laws of the Realm in refusing the Bishop of Rome's Authority and Religion Whose stay in that behalf the King then said unto the Lord Cranmer would be to his utter Confusion at the length The other dangerous Attempt was in the disclosing the unlawful Behaviour of Queen Katharine Howard towards the King in keeping unlawful Company with Durrant her Servant For the King's Affection was so mervailously set upon that Gentlewoman as it was never known that he had the like to any Woman So that no Man durst take in Hand to open to him that Wound being in great perplexity how he would take it And then the Council had no other Refuge but unto my Lord Cranmer Who with over-much Importunity gave the Charge which was done with such Circumspection that the King gave over his Affections unto Reason and wrought mervellous colourably for the Trial of the same Now as concerning the Manner and Order of his Hospitality and House-keeping As he was a Man abandoned from all kind of Avarice so was he content to maintain Hospitality both liberally and honourably and yet not surmounting the Limits of his Revenues Having more respect and foresight unto the Iniquity of the Times being inclined to pull and spoil from the Clergy than to his own private Commodity For else if he had not so done he was right sure that his Successors should have had as much Revenues left unto them as were left unto the late Abbies Especially considering that the Lands and Revenues of the said Abbies being now utterly consumed and spread abroad and for that there remained no more Exercise to set on work or no Officers but Surveyors Auditors and Receivers it was high time to shew an Example of liberal Hospitality For although these said Workmen only brought up and practised in subverting of Monastical Possessions had brought that kind of Hospitality unto utter Confusion yet ceased they not to undermine the Prince by divers Perswasions for him also to overthrow the honourable State of the Clergy And because they would lay a sure Foundation to build their Purpose upon they found the Means to put into the King's Head That the Arch-bishop of Canterbury kept no Hospitality or House correspondent unto his Revenues and Dignity but sold his Woods and by great Incomes and Fines made Money to purchase Lands for his Wife and Children And to the intent that the King should with the more facility believe this Information Sir Thomas Seymor the
it is easy to see from whence this Author had this Character of our Arch-bishop namely from Parsons and Saunders two malicious calumniating Jesuits The former hath these words of him That to the King's Will and Liking he resolved to conform himself as well in Religion as in other things And that when King Henry was large towards the Protestants Cranmer was so also but when the King became more strict and rigorous especially after the Six Articles Cranmer was ready to prosecute the same And therefore Saunders framed a Name for the Arch-bishop calling him Henricianus in the same sense as Herod's Creatures in the Scriptures were called Herodiani A very false Character of this good Arch-bishop to say no worse of it I must here make a Note of one Quality more of our Archbishop Which was this That he was a Man of ardent Affections and of an open and generous Temper and where he loved he thought he could never enough express it An Instance of this I will give in Bishop Thirleby To whom for the good Qualities he supposed were in him he had a most earnest Love An Account of this I will lay down in the words of Morice the Arch-bishop's Secretary who well knew it Besides his special Favour to him saith he that way in recommending him to the King there was no Man living could more friendly esteem any Man of himself as my Lord Cranmer did this Thirleby For there was no kind of Pleasure which my Lord Cranmer was liable to do that was not at this Man's Commandment Whether it were Jewel Plate Instrument Map Horse or any thing else though he had it from the King's Majesty but if this Man did once like or commend it the gentle Arch-bishop would forthwith give it unto him And many times Dr. Thirleby for Civility-sake would instantly refuse the same yet would he send it unto him the next day after to his House Insomuch that it came into a common Proverb That Dr. Thirleby 's commendation of any Thing of my Lord's was a plain winning or obtaining thereof So that some Men thought that if he would have demanded any Finger or other Member of his he would have cut it off to have gratified him therewith such was his ardent Affection towards him This no small sort of honest Men now living can testify that is about the Year 1565 when this was written It may deserve also a Remark that our good Prelat rose upon the Fall of another great Church-man viz. the Cardinal of York For about that very Time the King rejected Wolsey from his Favour and Employment Cranmer succeeded into them It may be also observed That as the King 's great Matter of the Divorce was first moved and managed by Wolsey so it was taken up and vigorously carried on and successfully ended by Cranmer And as the former started it upon an unjust Policy and so in the Issue by God's secret Judgment prospered no better by it it finally proving his Ruin so the latter acting in it out of a better and more honest Principle of Conscience and Religion became thereby advanced to the greatest Honour in the Church Which he held for twenty Years together Though at last indeed it had the same fatal Issue to him by the secret Malice of Queen Mary as it had to the Cardinal before by the secret Displeasure of Queen Ann. But as they were thus parallel in the Cause of their Falls so their Demeanours under their Calamities were very different The Cardinal under his shewed a most abject and desponding Mind but our Arch-bishop's Carriage was much more decent under his remaining Undaunted and Magnanimous having a Soul well fortified by the Principles of solid Vertue and Religion which the other had not And this appeared in him when being brought forth to be baited before Brooks the Pope's Subdelegate and Martin and Story the King 's and Queen's Commissioners at Oxford he gravely and with an unmoved Spirit used these words That he acknowledged God's Goodness to him in all his Gifts and thanked him as heartily for that State wherein he found himself then as ever he did in the Time of his Prosperity and that it was not the loss of his Promotions that grieved him at all CHAP. XXXVII Osiander's and Peter Martyr's Character of the Arch-bishop THE last Thing I shall observe of him is That he always remained the same Man not altered by his Honours and high Advancements As he was a Person of great Piety Goodness Affability and Benignity before he was Arch-bishop and the Sun-shine of Royal Favour so he continued at all Times after For a Witness of this I will set down two Characters given him by two Foreign learned Men both which knew him well The one shall be of Osiander from whom we may take this Account of what he was before he was Bishop while he remained abroad in Germany Osiander that great Divine of Norinberg professed to love him for some excellent Endowments that were common to him with some other good Men but especially for others more extraordinary and peculiar to himself Of the former sort was That he was a Gentleman of good Birth and Quality that he had an Aspect and Presence that carried Dignity with it an incredible sweetness of Manners that he had Learning beyond the common Degrees of it was Benign and Liberal towards all and especially to those that were Studious and of good Literature Of the latter were those more abstruse and heroical Vertues of his Mind rare to be found in the Age wherein he lived viz. his Wisdom Prudence Fortitude Temperance Justice a singular Love towards his Country the highest Faithfulness towards the King a Contempt of earthly Things a Love of Heavenly a most burning study towards the Evangelick Truth sincere Religion and Christ's Glory And this was Cranmer before he was placed in his high and honourable Station The other Character of Cranmer is that of Peter Martyr who thus speaks of him when he was at the Top of all his earthly Honour in the middle of King Edward's Reign That his Godliness Prudence Faithfulness and his singular Vertues were known to all the Kingdom That he was so adorned with the Grace and Favour of Christ as that though all others are the Children of Wrath yet in him Piety and Divine Knowledg and other Vertues might seem to be naturally born and bred such deep Root had they taken in him So that Martyr often wished and professed he should esteem it as a great Benefit vouchsafed him of God that he might come as near as might be to his Vertues which he admired in him as the wonderful Gifts of God And as to himself and others fled into these Quarters for Religion that Cranmer's Kindness and Humanity Merits and Benefits towards them were such that if he should render just Thanks and speak of them as they deserved he must do nothing but tell of them and
have brought it to pass But I verily believe the quite contrary to this confident Assertion and that he would have owned the Truth to the last as he did afterwards in the Reign of that King's Daughter Q. Mary That he always fell jump with them that governed and could do most No he never fell in with Gardiner who sometime had the Ascendent over King Henry nor with the Duke of Northumberland who could do most and did all for a time with the King Edward That when King Henry was large towards the Protestants Cranmer was so also joining with Crumwel to protect them But when the King became more strait and rigorous especially after the Six Articles Cranmer was ready to prosecute the same He argued long and earnestly in the House against those Six Articles and when he saw they would pass he protested against it and was so troubled about it that the King sent the Duke of Norfolk and the Lord Crumwel and divers other Noble Persons to comfort him in the King's Name So that I hardly think he would after this be brought to prosecute that bloody Act the making of which he so utterly disliked Nor is there the least Foot-step of it in History Indeed Parsons bringeth in some Persons in whose Deaths he would have the Arch-bishop to have a Hand As may appear saith he by the Sentence of Death pronounced against Lambert Tho. Gerard William Jerome and Ann Ascue and others condemned by him for denying the Real Presence Though in King Henry's Time the Arch-bishop believed the Real Presence yet he was not for putting any to Death that denied it No such extream Rigours for an Error he utterly detested Lambert suffered before the Act of the Six Articles Nor did the Arch-bishop condemn him but only by the King's Command disputed against him Gerard he means Garret and Ierome and Ann Ascue were condemned and burnt indeed but he had no manner of hand either in their Condemnation or Death as we can find in our Histories But Winchester Boner and Wriothesly and others of that Gang shed those good Peoples Blood And it is an impudent Falshood to lay their Condemnation to the Arch-bishop's Charge He saith further That to the King's Will and Liking he resolved to conform himself as well in Religion as in all other Things If he had said this of Bishop Gardiner the Character would have better by far fitted him He saith That he divorced the King of his own Authority from Queen Katherine Whereas in truth what he and Winchester and other Bishops did in this Affair was by Commission from the King and not by their own Authority That he married the King to Queen Ann. That it was in open Parliament under his Hand-writing yet extant in publick printed Records to his eternal shame that the Queen that is Queen Ann was never true Wife unto the said King Where was the eternal Shame of this when he set his Hand to no more than what she her self confessed before him See more of this before That after this he married the King to Jane Seymour and after to Queen Ann of Cleves and after that to Katherine Howard and after that to Katherine Parre Which we must take upon his Word For I think it hard by any good History to know it And what if Cranmer did all this That he joined with the Protector in overthrowing K. Henry 's Will and with Dudley against the Protector Palpable Falshoods The contrary whereof is notoriously known to any ordinary Historian Of the same Truth is That he joined with Dudley and the Duke of Suffolk for the overthrow of the King 's two Daughters and after that with Arundel Pembroke Paget for the overthrow of Northumberland and Suffolk He joined with these for the setting the true Heir in the Throne not for the overthrow of any particular Persons Again he saith Cranmer and Ridley followed K. Henry 's Religion and Humour while he lived and resolved to enjoy the Pleasures and Sensualities of this Time of K. Edward so far as any way they might attain unto No they were Men more mortified and that made littlâ— Account of the Pleasures and Vanities of this wretched World Getting Authority into their Hands by the Protector and others that were in most Place began to lay lustily about them and to pull down all them both of the Clergy and others whom they thought to be able and likely to stand in their way or resist their Inventions Instancing in Gardiner and Boner and speaking of their unjust Persecution and Deprivation by such violent and calumnious manner as is proper to Hereticks to use Whereby a Man may take a taste what they meant to have done if they had had time Here they are set forth as a couple of most worldly ambitious haughty Men contriving by all however base and unlawful ways to build up themselves and their Fortunes upon the Ruin of others and to beat down all that opposed their Designs Whereas to any that shall read their Histories there is nothing in the World so contrary to their Aims Tempers and Inclinations And things were done towards the two Bishops before-mentioned with great Mildness and Patience under unsufferable Provocations offered by them Nor was it Cranmer's and Ridley's doings but rather the King's Council who thought not fit to put up the Affronts those Bishops had offered to the Government He saith That in King Edward 's Time Cranmer plaid the Tyrant That be punished one Thomas Dobb a Master of Arts of Cambridg casting him into the Counter where he died And John Hume imprisoned for the same Cause by Cranmer Both these Passages the Author had from Fox Dobbs indeed in the very beginning of K. Edward's Reign disturbed the Mass that was saying in a Chappel in S. Pauls For which the Mayor complained of him to the Arch-bishop And what could he do better than commit him to the Counter both to punish him for making a publick Disturbance in the Church and also to deliver him from the Rage of the Multitude till his Pardon could be gotten him Which was obtained soon after from the Duke of Somerset But he suddenly died in Prison before his Deliverance And as for Hume he was a Servant to a very stiff Papist who sent him up to the Arch-bishop with a grievous Complaint against him for speaking against the Mass but whether the Arch-bishop imprisoned him or what followed Fox mentioneth not and leaves it uncertain what was done with him He saith That Cranmer stood resolutely for the Carnal Presence in the Sacrament in K. Edward 's first Parliament Wherein a Disputation about it was continued for the space of four Months that is from Novemb 4. to March 14. Which was the full time of the second Session of that first Parliament and was in the Year 1548. What he means by this long Disputation in that Parliament for so many Months I cannot tell Does he mean that the Parliament did nothing else all
things ascribed to the Apostles and called Traditions deduced from the time of the Apostles and read in the name of old Authors and set forth under the pretensed title of their name which be both feigned forged and nothing true ful of superstition and untrueth fayned by them which would magnify their power and authority as is the Epistles of Clemens Anacletus Evaristus and Fabianâ—s and other which are set forth by the Bp. of Rome and his complices which be forged fayned and of no authority nor to be beleved but counterfeited by them who by the colour of antiquity would magnify that usurped power of the Bp. of Rome And now concerning another book which I made of the Sacrifice of the Mass. Wher the most chief and principal article of our faith and most directly pertaining to the redemption of our sins and to our Salvation is That our Savior Christ Iesu by his most precious death and effusion of his most precious blood upon the cros did redeme mankind taking away our sins pacifying the indignation of his Father and cancelling the obligation that was against us In which Sacrifice-making unto his Father our said Savior Jesus Christ as S. Paul saith plainly to the Hebrews was not a Priest after the order of Aaron forasmuch as he was of another tribe and also that Priesthood was imperfect and unprofitable bringing nothing to perfection But our Savior Christ made his Sacrifice upon the Cross perfectly absolutely and with the most highest perfection that could be so much that after that one oblation and sacrifice for sin made by him but once only neither he nor any other creature should at any time after make any mo oblations for the same And for that S. Paul saith he was called an eternal Priest after the order of Melchizedec and not of Aaron This faith ought every man and woman undoubtedly to beleve and openly to profess upon pain of everlasting damnation and also to dy in this profession if case shal so require The which most wholsome and most necessary doctrin of our Faith I not diligently considering as many times to right great Clerks and learned men in much writing in like matters it hath chaunced to say too far the infirmity and weakness of men being such that seldome in many words error hath escaped So in my Book of the Sacrifice of the Mass I did incircumspectly and rashly write and set forth to the people that Christ was not a Priest after the order of Melchizedec when he offered himself upon the cross to his Father for our sins but was a Priest after the order of Aaron And that when Christ did offer his own body to his father after the order of Melchizedec to appease his wrath it may not be understand of the Sacrifice of the Cros but of the Sacrifice that Christ made at his Maundy in form of bread and wine To the which indede S. Pauls doctrin is contrary both in other places and in the Epistle Ad Hebraeos very manifestly Against whom who without doubt had the very Spirit of God neither it becometh nor I wil not willingâ—y teach or defend any thing Wherfore ye shal impute that Good Audience to the frailty of mans nature and to my negligent marking having at that time rather a respect to a fantasy that I then had in my mind than to the true and infallible doctrin of scripture And moreover in the same my book I said not only that the Sacrifice of the Mass is the self same substaunce of Christ but also the self same oblation or offering of our Savior Christs very flesh and bloud which himself once offered to his Father on the Cross to appease his wrath And that the Priests do continually and daily in the Mass offer not only the self same body of Christ but also to the same effect that Christ did offer himself to his Father at his Maundy Of the which words and doctrin if they be not very warily and circumspectly read and more favorably taken then the words as they ly may wel bear it might be gathered that Priests herein be equal with Christ. Priests of the order of Melchizedec appeasing the wrath and indignation of the Father of heaven crucifying or offering Christ to the same effect that Christ in his own person did upon the cross is a blasphemy intolerable to be heard of Christen ears For Christ as S. Paul saith was but once offered once gave up himself for the Redemption of our sins on Good-Friday upon the Cross nor never before nor after was offered for us but in a Sacrament and as a commemoration of the same And so of the Maundy or Supper of the Lord Christ himself saith Haec quotiescunque feceritis in meam commemorationem facietis Once he dyed for our sins and once again he rose for our justification He dyeth no more And his Sacrifice was so good so ful so pleasaunt so precious to God that her neded no more oblations to appease God not only for the sins past but also for al the sins to the day of doom There nede no more Sacrifices no more Offerers but as having a respect and a remembrance of that most holy most perfect and most entier Lamb then and for ever offered up for us But these things aforesaid I cannot deny but they were spoken of me and written And as I do not now like them so at â—he example of S. Austin and other good Doctors I am not ashamed to retract them and cal them again and condemn them For when I followed mine own invention not directed by Scripture I began as the nature of man is to wander and at the last went clean contrary to Gods Word wherfore I heartily exhort every man as touching matters of Faith to found the same upon Gods certain true and infallible word lest by doing the contrary they fal into Superstition Idolatry and other manifold errors as my self and many other have done Wherfore these my two books the one of the Sacrifice of the Mas and the other of the Traditions unwritten in those poynts before rehersed and al other wherin they be not ful consonant to Scripture I forsake and renounce as false erroneous and against the true word of God requiring thee good Christian Reader whosoever shal read them to give no further credence to them then I would my self That is not to take as undoubted truth all that is therin written but as written of a man that some time falleth to be so far true as they be consonant to Scripture wher they be not against Scripture to be humane persuasion which may either be so or not so as the greater reason shal lead where they be not consonant to Scripture to be erroneous and false And that I much lament and am sorry that I wrote them in those poynts And I desire every man that hath any of the said books to beware of them and to give no credence to them in al
hardly kepe our selves in such things that the scripture do speake of the heavens and of Christes sytting in heaven 28. I have a conscience in so high misteries to allow such kinde of speaking as is not taught in the scripture though such be much used yea and that by the authority of the holy fathers for to what point through such speakyng the devyll and antychrist hath brought us we all lamentably complayne 29. Wherfore with reverence and in a true meanyng I wyll understand the sayinges of the holy fathers as touching the mutation of the sygnes I wyll never graunt their sayings so to be taken as to mutch straunge from gods worde and after such sort as men myght now a daies be overthrowen with Antichristes doctrine into the idolatrye which of all other is most detestable 30. So likewyse if any thing may be found that the holy fathers have wrytten of Christ placed in heaven more then the scripture doth certaynely teach I wyll not without reverence refuse it nor yet wyth any man contend therin for I have nothing to say that such writyng is contrary to any place of scripture I do but only desyre that no necessary doctrine be made therof and that I may be suffered to abyde in the playnes of Gods written word 31. But they will say that a man well expert in saith when he heareth that Christ is present in the holy supper and is geven receyved and had with the bread cannot refraine but imagine such a presence of Christ in the bread as is there placed or els like to such a thing as hath a place 32. I cannot se how the wordes of the Holy Ghost ought to be refourmed because of the weakenes of our understanding either that we should allow such utteraunce of wordes wherby it might appeare that the Holy Ghost had not uttered the matter circumspectly and strongly inough yea and that most aptly and effectually as well to the edefying of faith as to the putting away of all errours 33. These now be the wordes of Christ Where two or three be gathered in my name ther am I in the mydst of them In the name of Christ we assemble together at the Lords Supper rightly ministred In the world we be yea and somewhere placed and whersoever we be Christ is among us which notwithstanding is not in the world and also dwelleth in our hartes But we cannot perseâ—ve nor attaine it neyther by our sense nor by reason but by faith For how can the head be away from his body Wherfore I defyne or determine Christes presence howsoever we perceive it either by the sacraments or by the word of the gospell to be onely the attainyng and perceyving of the commodities we have by Christ both God and man which is our head raignyng in heaven dwelling and lyving in us Which presence we have by no worldly meanes but we have it by faith and take the fruit therof when it is offered us in the word and in the sacraments But the force therof we feele in all our parties and powers what tyme by the spirit of Christ they be sanctifyed and renewed unto obedience and godly lyfe 34. He is called present by some knowledge of perceyvyng him even as one may be called present with an other and so we do say that they be here present whom we know by hearing or by syght to be present but now the thing which we know by faith is much more certaine then any thing we can know by sence or reason Why may not we then say that Christ our head is present with his members when we know by faith that he both liveth and dwelleth in us 35. They say that the holy fathers expound the scriptures recording the Lords presence that Christ by his Godhead by his majesty and by his providence is present with us yet lyving in this world Truth it is but the Lord saith I am with you unto the worldes end and Paule affirmeth that Christ lyveth and dwelleth in our hartes Yea and the holy fathers themselves declare that we have Christ present in the sacrament of baptisme and in the meate and drink of the aulter which call that presence carnall that is knowen by our senses and is set over against the presence which we have by faith 36. Faith truly embraceth Christ both God and man and kepeth him present which by his Godhead is not onely present in the congregation of his saintes and in his members but is also present in every place But some cannot be contented unles we graunt that we have his body and bloud really carnally and substantially present in the supper 37. Wyse and good men will eschew all uncertaine wordes in every talk and speaking how much more are they to be avoyded in Christes sacramentes Moreover in the treatyse of Christes sacraments we may justly refuse such straunge wordes as be not used in the scripture unles they may be perfectly applied for the declaration of Christes truth For such uncertaine wordes doth more darken the true doctrine and therfore we must not medle with them except ther be some consideration of the using of them 38. I would wysh these wordes realiter and substantialiter to be altogether refused neither to be allowed in reasonyng to or fro because we shall seme to graunt their contraries and to say that Christ is receyved counterfeâ—tlye and accydenâ—ly if we deny him to be received in the supper really and substantiallye 39. If the matter so require that these words be brought into reâ—sonyng I would for the maintenance of Christes truth against the adversaries among the children of God defyne these wordes realiter and substantialiter as if one would understand by the presence of the Lord really and substantially that he is received verely in dede by faith and his substaunce is geven in the sacrament but if he would enterlace any worldly presence with these words I will deny it because the Lord is departed this world 40. I can never admyt or allow these words carnally and naturally because they bring in a meanyng that he is receyved with our sences 41. Hereby I thinke it evydent agreeable to the holy scripture and according to the reverence we owe to God and his scripture and toward the auncient church that we should frame our selves to the words of the Lord of his Apostles and of the auncient Church and to say that ther is geven and receyved the body and bloud of the Lord that is to say very Christ himselfe both God and man but he is geven with the word and the signes but received with true faith and that he is geven and received to the end that we may move and lyve more parfectly in him and he in us 42. And I thinke it an easy thing to make answer when they say that the thing which is already cannot be received and that he which cometh to the Lords supper and hath not Christ in himselfe receiveth not Christ
and ungodly behaviour of the ministers in Gloucestershire compellyd me to retourne except I shuld leave them behynd as far out of order as I should fynd the other to whom I am going unto I have spoken with the greatest part of the Ministers and I trust within these six dayes to end for this time with them al. For the love of God cause the Articles that the Kings majesty spake of when we toke our othes to be set forth by his autorite I dout not but they shal do mouch good For I wil cause every minister to confesse them openly before there Parisheners For subscribing privatly in the paper I perceave little avaylyeth For notwithstanding that they speak as ivel of godd faith as ever they did before they subscribyd I left not the Ministers of Gloucestershire so farre foreward when I went to London but I found the greatist part of them as farre backward at my commyng home I have a great hope of the people God send good Justices and faythful ministers in the Church and al wil be wel For lack of hede Corne so passith from hens by water that I fere mouch we shal have great scarsite this yere Doubtles men that be put in trust do not there dewties The Statute of Regrators is so usid that in many quarters of these partes it wil do little good and in some parts where as licence by the Justices wil not be grauntyd the people are mouche offendid that they shuld not as weâ— as other bagge as they were wount to do God be praisid yet al things be quiet and I trust so wil contynew Thus desiring God to contynew you long in health to his pleasure fare ye wel and for gods sake do one yâ—re as ye may be hable to do another Your health is not the surest favour iâ— as ye may and charge it not to farre Ye be wyse and comfortable for others be so for your self also I pray you let god be the end where unto ye mark in al your doyngs And if they for lack of knowledge then happen otherwyse then ye would the thing ye soughte shal partly excuse your ignorancie that may happ to mysse men in weighty afferes If ye se the meanes godd and yet ivel follow of them content your self with patience For the second cause when god wil be it never so like to bring forth the effect mysseth her purpose as ye know by Wise mens counsells that rulyd in Commune wealthes before you God geve his grace to loke alwayes upon hym and then with mercy let hym do his holy wil. Glouc. 6. Julij 1552. Yours with my dayly prayer Iohn Hoper Busshop of Worcestre To the Rt. Honorable my singular frynd Sr. William Cecill Kt. one of the Kings Majesties chiefest Secretories Another of the same Bishop to the same Person THE grace of God be with you for ever Amen I have wroten herewith long letters to the Councel yet not so long as the matter conteynyd in them doothe requyre I trust it wil be your chaunce to read them that the mater may be the better understand Ye know I am but an ivel Secretarie Do the best ye can they may be wel taken It is truth that I write and goddes cause Let god do as his blessid pleasure is with it I have send the maters that these two Canons Iohnsonne and Ioyliffe dislyke in writing Where by ye may understand what is said of both parâ—es The Disputation Mr. Harley can make trew relation of and how unreverently and proudely Ioylyffe usyd both hym and me For as mouch as my jurisdiction cessith until the Letters patent be past for both churches these shal be to praye you to optayne the Kings Majesties letters for my warrant in the mean tyme. For in case I do not at this tyme take accompt of the clergy in Worcestre and Glocestreshire how they have profityd syns my last examining of them it wil not be wel Also souch as I have made superintendents in Gloucestreshire if I commend not my self presently there wel doings and se what is ivel donne I shal not see the goodd I loke for Ah! Mr. Secretarye that there were goodd men in the Cathedral churches god then shuld have mouche more honour then he hath the Kings Majesty more obedience and the poore people better knowledg But the realme wantith light in souche churches where as of right it owght most to be I suppose ye had hard that there shuld be a great spoyle made of this church hyre For what can be so wel donne that men of light conscience cannot make by suggestion to appere ivel Doutles the things donne be no more then the express words of the Kings Majesties Injunctions commandyd to be donn And I darre saye there is not for a Churche to preach Goddes word in and to mynyster his holy Sacraments more godly within this realm But Mr. Secretarie I see mouche myschefe in mens hartes by many tokens and souch as speak very fere meanith crauftely and nothing less then they speake I have to good experience of it Thus god geve us wysdome and strength wyselye and stronglye to serve in our Vocations There is none that eatith there bread in the swet of there face but souch as serve in public Vocation Yours is wounderful but myne passith Now I perceave private labours be but playes nor private trobles but ease and quietnys God be our help Amen I pray you send me my jurisdiction assone as may be Worcestre 25 Octobris 1552. Yours and so wil be whylles I live with my prayer Iohn Hoper bushope of Worcestre Postscript When that I perceavyd my request for jurisdiction made before unto you upon further deliberation I thought it good to unrequest that againe praying you to make no mention of it and therupon wrote the letters to the Councel anew The cause is I send for a President to se the jurisdiction how it is gyven in the like state as I am Which pleasith me not Therefore goodd Mr. Secretarye let it pass til I write unto you again NUM XLIX A Popish Rhime fastned upon a Pulpit in K. Edwards reigne THis pulpit was not here set For knaves to prate in and rayl But if no man may them let Mischef wil come of them no fail If God do permit them for a tyme To brabble and ly at their wyl Yet I trust or that be prime At their fal to laughe my fill Two of the knaves already we had The third is comyng as I understand In al the yerth ther is none so bad I pray God soon ryd them out of this land Prowder knaves was ther never none So false they are that no man may them trust But if God do not send help sone They wil lay al in the dust Al christen men at us now laugh and scorne To se how they be taking of hie and lowe But the child that is yet unborn Shal them curse al on a
augmentation of Gods mercy and gracious promise to al men that receive it in the Faith of Christ Jesu with hatred of sin and intent purpose and mind to live always a vertuous life And that is the very Transubstantiation and change that God delighteth in in the use of the Sacraments most that we should earnestly and from the bottome of our hearts be converted into Christ and Christs holy commandments to live a christen life and to dy from sin as he gave us example both by his life and doctrin and meaneth not that the bread and wine should in substance be turned or converted into the substance of his body and bloud or that the substance of the bread should be taken away and in the place therof to be the substance matter and corporal presence of Christs corporal holy humane and natural body Item That the same holy word of God doth confess hold defend acknowledg and maintain that the very natural substantial real and corporal body of Christ concerning his humanity is only and soly in heaven and not in the Sacrament and Communion of his precious body and bloud But whosoever worthily with true repentance and lively faith in the promise of God receiveth that holy Sacrament receiveth Sacramentally by faith al the mercies riches merits and deservings that Christ hath deserved and paid for in his holy bloud and passion And that is to eat Christ and to drink Christ in the holy Sacrament to confirm and Seal Sacramentally in our Souls Gods promises of eternal Salvation that Christ deserved for us not in or by his body eaten but by and for his body slain and killed upon the Cross for our Sinns as S. Paul saith Col. 1. Eph. 1.3 Ebru 2.7 8 9 10. As for eating of his flesh and drinking of his bloud really corporally materially and substantially it is but a carnal and gross opinion of man besides and contrary to the word of God and the articles of our faith and christen religion that affirmeth his corporal departure from th earth placeth it in heaven above at the right hand of God the father Almighty and keepeth retaineth holdeth and preserveth the same corporal body of Christ there til the general day of judgment as the word declareth From thence he shal come to judge the quick and the dead And that heretofore I have been in the contrary opinion and believed my self and also have taught other to believe the same that there remained no substance of bread and wine in the Sacrament but the very self same body and bloud of Christ Jesu that was born of the blessed Virgin Mary and hanged upon the Cross I am with al my heart sorry for mine error and false opinion detesting and forsaking the same from the bottome of my heart and desire God most heartily in and for the merits of his dear sons passion to forgive me and al them that have erred in the same false opinion by and through my means Praying them in the tender compassion and great mercies of God now to follow me in truth verite and singleness of Gods most true word as they were contented to follow me in error superstition and blindness and be no more ashamed to turn to the truth then they were ready to be corrupted by falshood If the holy Apostle S. Paul and the great Clerk S. Augustine with many mo Noble and vertuous members of Christs church were not ashamed to returne acknowledge and confess their error and evil opinions what am I miserable creature of the world inferior unto them both in knowledg holines and learning that should be ashamed to do the same Nay I do in this part thank God and rejoyce from the bottome of my heart that God hath revealed unto me the truth of his word and geven me leave to live so long to acknowledg my fault and error and do here before you protest that from henceforth I will with al diligence and labor study to set forth this mine amended knowledg and reconciled truth as long as I live by the help of God in the holy Ghost through the merits of Jesus Christ our only Mediator and Advocate To whom be al honor for ever and ever Amen Subscribed and confirmed 29 of April 1551. in the presence of John Bp. of Gloucester and divers other ther present NUM LXIV The Archbishop to the Lords of the Councel concerning the Book of Articles of Religion AFter my veray humble recommendations unto your good Lordeships I have sent unto the same the boke of Articles which yesterday I receyved from your Lordeships I have sent also a Cedule inclosed declarynge briefly my minde upon the said boke besechynge your Lordeshipps to be means unto the Kyngs Majestie that al the Bushops may have authority from hym to cause all their Prechers Archdecons Deans Prebendaries Parsons Vicars Curates with al their Clergie to subscribe to the said articles And than I trust that such a concorde and quyetness in religion shal shortely follow therof as ells is not to be loked for many years God shal therby be glorified his truth shal be avaunced and your Lordeships shal be rewarded of hym as the setters forward of his true word and gospel Unto whom is my dayly prayer without ceasynge to preserve the Kynges Majestie with al your honorable Lordeships From my house at Forde the 24 of this present month of November Your Lordeshipps ever to commaunde T. Cant. To my veray good Lordes of the Kinges Majestie his most honor able Councel NUM LXV The Archbishop nominates certain persons for an Irish Archbishoprick To my veray Lovinge friende Sir William Cecyl Knight one of the Kinges Majesties principal Secretaries THough in England there be many meete men for the Archbushopricks of Ireland yet I knowe veraye fewe that wil gladlie be perswaded to go thither Nevertheless I have sent unto you the names of iiij Viz. Mr. Whiteheade of Hadley Mr. Tourner of Caunturbury Sir Thomas Rosse and Sir Robert Wisdome Which being ordinarily called I thincke for conscience sake wil not refuse to bestowe the talent committed unto theim wheresoever it shal please the Kinges Majestie to appoincte theim Among whom I take Mr. Whiteheade for his good knowledge special honestie fervent zeale and politick wisdome to be most meete And next him Mr. Tourner who besides that hee is merry and witty withal nihil appetit nihil ardet nihil somniat nisi Iesum Christum and in the lively preaching of him and his wourde declareth such diligence faithfulness and wisdom as for the same deservithe much commendation There is also one Mr. Whitacre a man both wise and wel learned Chaplain to the Bushopp of Winchester veray meet for that office if he might be perswaded to take it upon him I pray you commend me unto Mr. Cheke and declare unto him that myn ague whither it were a quotidian or a double tertian wherof my Physitions doubted hath left me these two dayes and so I
pro Martyribus deprecatur fit ipse Martyr NUM LXXXVI Dr. Ridley late Bishop of London to West formerly his Steward who had complyed with the Romish religion I Wish you grace in God and love of the trueth Without the which truly established in mans heart by the mighty hand of Almighty God it is no more possible to stand by the truth in Christs cause in the time of tribulation then it is for wax to abide the heat of the fire Sir know you this that I am blessed be God persuaded that this world is but transitory as S. Iohn saith Mundus transit concupiscentia ejus I am persuaded Christs words to be true Qui me confessus fuerit coram hominibus I wil confes him before my father which is in heaven And I believe that no earthly creature shal be saved whom the Redeemer and Savior of the world shal before his Father deny This the Lord grant that it may be so grafted established and fixed in my heart that neither things present or to come high or low life or death be able to remove It is a godly wish that yee wish me depely to considre things perteinyng to Gods honor and glory But if ye had wished also that neither fear of death or hope of worldly prosperity shuld let me to maintein gods word and his truth which is his glory and true honour it wold have liked me very wel You desire me for Gods sake to remembre my self Indeed Sir now it is time for me so to do For so far as I can perceyve it standeth me of no les daunger then of the los both of body and soule And I trow then it is time for a man to awake if any thing wil awake him He that wil not fear him that threatneth to cast body and soule into everlasting fire whom wil he fear Oh Lord fasten thou together our frayl flesh that we never swarve from thy Lawes You say you have made much sute for me Sir God gâ—aunt that you have not in sueing for my worldly deliveraâ—ce empaired or hindred the furtheraunce of Gods word and his â—ruth You have knowen me long indede in the which time it hath chaunced me to mislyke some things It is true I graunte For sodeine chaunges without substantial aud necessary causes and the heady setting furth of extremities I did never love Confession to the minister which is able to instruct correct comfort and enform the weak and ignorant consciences I have ever thought might do much good in Christs Congregation And so I assure you I do think even at this day My doctrin and my preaching you say you have heard oft and after your judgment have thought it godly saving of the Sacrament Which thing although it was of me reverendly handled and a great deal better than of the rest as you say yet in the margent you write warily and in this world wysely thus And yet methought not al soundly Wel Sir but I see so many chaunges in the world and so much alteration or els at this your saying I wold not a litle mervayl I have taken you for my trustie freynd and a man whom I fantasied for plainness and faithfulnes as much I ensure you as for your learning And have you kept this so close in your heart from me unto this day Sir I considre mo things than one and wil not say al that I think But what need you to care what I thynke for any thing that I shal be able to do unto you either good or harm You geve me good lessons to stand in nothing against my learning and to beware of vain glory Truly Sir herein I like your counsel very wel and by Gods grace I intend to follow it unto my lyves end To write to them whom you name I cannot se what it wil avayle me For this I wold now have you know it I esteme nothing avaylabâ—e for me which also wil not set furth the glory of God And now because I perceive you have an entyre zeal and desire of my deliverance out of this captivitie and worldly misery if I shuld not bear you a good heart in God again methynk I were to blame Sir how nigh the day of my dissolution and departure hence out of this world is at hand I cannot tel The Lords wil be fulfilled How soon soever it shal come I know the Lords words must be verified on me that I shal appear before the uncorrupt Judge and be countable to him of al my former lyfe Although the hope of his mercy is my shote ankor of eternal Salvation yet am I persuaded that whosoever wittingly neglecteth and regardeth not to clear his conscience he cannot have peace with God nor a lyvely faith in his mercy Conscience moveth me considering you were one of my family and of my household of whom then I thynke I had a special cure and of all them which were in my house which indede ought to have been an example of godlines to al the rest of my cure not only in godly life but also in promoting of Gods word to thuttermost of their power But now alas when the trial doth separate the corn from the chaff how smal a deyl it is God knoweth which the wynde doth not blow away This conscience I say doth move me to have fear lest the lightnes of my family shal be layd unto me for lack of more earnest and diligent instructions which shuld have been doon But blessed be God which hath geven me grace to se my default and to lament it from the bottome of my heart before my departure hence This Conscience also doth move me now to require both you and my freynd Dr. Harvy to remembre your promises made to me in time past of the pure setting furth and preaching of Gods word and his truth These promises although you shal not nede to fear to be charged with them of me hereafter before the world Yet look for none other I exhort you as my freynds but to be charged with them at Gods hand This Conscience and the love that I bear unto you byddeth me now say to you both in Gods name Fear God and love not the world for God is able to cast both body and soul into hel fire Cum exarserit in brevi ira ejus beati omnes saith the Psalme qui confidunt in eo And the saying of S. Iohn is true Quicquid est in mundo veluti concupiscentia carnis concupiscentia oculorum fastus vitae non ex patre sed ex mundo est Et mundus transit concupiscentia ejus Qui autem facit voluntatem Dei manet in aeternum If these gifts of grace which undoubtedly are necessarily required unto eternal salvation were truly and unfeignedly grafted and firmely stablished in mens hearts they wold not be so light so sodaynly to shrink from the maintenance and confession of the truth as it is now alas