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…

O holy Scribes and Pharisees, which knew not this kind of holiness. O what holiness, what a Catholic faith is this? Peter did not this teach at Rome, Paul did not so live at Rome: they did not practise brothelry which these do openly: they made not a yearly revenue and profit of harlots: they suffered no common Adulterers and wicked Murderers to go unpunished. They did not receive them into their entire familiarity, into their Council, into their house hold, nor yet into the company of Christen men. These men ought not therefore so unreasonably to triumph against our living. It had ben more wisdom for them, either first to have proved good their own life before the world, or at least ⟨image 50⟩to have •••ked it a little more cunningly. For we do use still the old and ancient laws (and as much as men may do in the ma•ers used at these days, when all things are so wholly corrupt) we diligently and earnestly put in execution the ecclesiastical discipline: we have not common brothel houses of strumpets, nor yet flocks of Concubines, nor herds of harlot haunters. Neither do we prefer adultery before matrimony, neither do we exercise beastly sensuality. Neither do we gather ordinary rents and stipends of stews, nor do suffer to escape unpunished incest and abominable naughtiness, nor yet such manquellers as the Aloisrans, Casians, and Diasians were. For if these things would have pleased us, we needed not to have departed from these mens fellowship, amongest whom such enormities be in their chief pride and price. Neither▪ needed we for leaving them to run into the hatred of men, and into most wilful ⟨image 51⟩dangers. Paul the fourth not many months since, had at Rome in prison certain Augustine fryers, many Bishops, and a great number of other devout men, for Religion sake, he racked them and tormented them: to make them confess, he left no means unassayed. But in the end how many brothels, how many whoremongers, how many adulterers, how many incestuous persons could he find of all those? Our God be thanked, although we be not yt men we ought & profess to be, yet whosoever we be, compare us with these men, & even our own life & innocency will soon prove untrue, & condemn their malicious surmises.