An apology or answer in defence of the Church of England with a brief…An apologie or answere in defence of the Churche of Englande with a briefe…

Thus ye see good Christian Reader, ⟨image 127⟩how it is no new thing, though at this day the religion of Christ be entertained with despites and checks, being but lately restored and as it were coming up again a new, for so much as the like hath chanced both to Christ him self and to his Apostles: yet nevertheless for fear ye may suffer your self to be led amiss and seduced with those exclamations of our Adversaries, we have declared at large unto you the very whole manner of our Religion, what our opinion is of God the Father, of his only Son Jesus Christ, of the holy Ghost, of the Church, of the Sacraments, of the ministry, of the Scriptures, of ceremonies, and of every part of Christian believe. We have said that we abandon and detest as plagues and poisons all those old? Heresies, which either the sacred Scriptures or the ancient Councils have utterly condemned: that we call home again as much as ever we can, the right Discipline of the Church, which ⟨image 127⟩our Adversaries have quite brought into a poor & weak case: That we punish all licentiousness of life and unruliness of manners by the old and long continued laws, and with as much sharpness as is convenient and lieth in our power: That we maintain still the state of kingdoms, in the same condition and plight wherein we have found them, without any diminishing or alteration, reserving unto our Princes their majesty and worldly preeminence safe and without impairing, to our possible power: That we have so gotten our selves away from that Church which they had made a den of Thieves, and wherein nothing was in good frame or once like to the Church of God, and which them selves confessed had erred many ways, even as Lott in times paste gat him out of Sodom, or Abraham out of Chaldea, not upon a desire of contention, but by the warning of God him self: And that we have searched out of the holy Bible which we are sure cannot deceive, one sure form ⟨image 128⟩of Religion, and have returned again unto the Primitive Church of the ancient Fathers and Apostles, that is to say, to the first ground and beginning of things, as unto the very foundations & head springs of Christs church. And in very troth we have not carried for in this matter the authority or consent of the Trident Council, wherein we saw nothing don uprightly nor by good order: