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…

And though the Apostles did likewise evermore & steadfastly teach, ye Magistrates ought to be obeyed, ye every soul ought to be subject to the higher powers, not only for scare of wrath & punishment, but even for conscience sake, yet bear they the name to disquiet the people, and to stir up the multitude to rebel. After this sort did Haman specially bring the nation ⟨image 52⟩of the Jews into the hatred of the king Assuerus,¹ because, said he, they were a rebellious & stubborn people, & despised the ordinances and commandments of princes. Wicked king Ahab said to Ely the Prophet of God,² It is thou that troublest Israel. Amasias the priest at Bethel laid a conspiracy to the prophet Amos charge before king Jeroboam saying, See,³ Amos hath made a conspiracy against thee in the middest of the house of Israel. To be brief: Tertullian saith, this was the general accusation of all Christians whiles he lived,⁴ that they were traitors, they were rebels, and the enemies of mankind. Wherefore if now a days the truth be likewise evil spoken of, and being the same truth it was then, if it be now like despitefully used as it was in times past, though it be a grievous and unkind dealing, yet can it not seem unto us a new or an unwonted matter. Forty years agone and upward, was it an easy thing ⟨image 53⟩for them to devise against us these accursed speeches & other sorer them these, when in the middest of the darkness of that age first began to spring and to give shine, some one glimmering beam of truth unknown at that time and unheard of, when also Martin Luther & Hulderike Zwinglius being most excellent men, even sent of God to give light to the whole world, first came unto the knowledge and preaching of the Gospel, whereas yet the thing was but new, and the success thereof uncertain: and when mens minds stood doubtful and amazed, and their ears open to all slanderous tales: and when there could be imagined against us no fact so dete••able, but the people then would soon believe it for the novelty and strangeness of the matter. For so did Syminachus, so did Celsus, so did Julianus, so did Porphirius the old foes to the Gospel attempt in times past to accuse all Christians of sedition and treason, before