A reply unto M. Hardinges answerA replie vnto M. Hardinges ansvveare

Which ere I answer, I will according to my promise prove, that about nine hundred years past, yea a thousand also, and therefore some deal within his six hundred years, even in S. Gregorius time, the Service was in an unknown tongue in this land of England, then called Britain, and begun to be called England, at least, for so much, as sithence, and at these days is called by the name of England. Bede an English man, that wrote the Ecclesiastical story of the English nation, in the year of our Lord .731. and of their coming to Britain about .285. recordeth that S. Augustine, and his company, who were sent hither, to convert the English people to the Faith of Christ, which the Britons had here pro•essed long before, having a safe conduct granted them by King Ethelbert, to preach the Gospel where they would: said, and song their service in a Church, builded of old time in the honour of S. Martin, adjoining on the East side of the head City of Kent, whiles the Romans dwelt in Britain. The words of Bede be these. In hac (Ecclesia) conuenire primò, ¹psallere, orare, missas facere, praedicare, & Baptizare coeperunt. In this Church they began first to assemble them selves together, to Singe, to Pray, to say Mass,² to Preach, and to Baptize. It is plain, that this was the Service. And no doubt, they resorted to it, who believed, and were of them Baptized, wondering (as Bede saith) at the simplicity of their innocent life, and sweetness of their heavenly doctrine. In English it was not, for they had no skill of that tongue, as Bede showeth, Lib. 1. Cap. 23. And therefore, ere they entered the land,