A07146:1067
The relics of Rome containing all such matters of religion, as have in times…The reliques of Rome contayning all such matters of religion, as haue in times…
The relics of Rome containing all such matters of religion, as have in times past been brought into the Church by the Pope and his adherents: faithfully gathered out of the most faithful writers of chronicles and histories, and now newly both diligently corrected & greatly augmented, to the singular profit of the readers, by Thomas Becon. 1563.The reliques of Rome contayning all such matters of religion, as haue in times past bene brought into the Church by the Pope and his adherentes: faithfully gathered out of the moste faithful writers of chronicles and histories, and nowe newly both diligently corrected & greatly augmented, to the singuler profit of the readers, by Thomas Becon. 1563.
London: printed by John Day, 1563London: printed by Iohn Day, 1563
Title page typeset from the transcription.
The Relics of Rome. › Of Purgatory.The Reliques of Rome. › Of Purgatorye.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Of Purgatory.
Of Purgatorye.
Who was the first inventor, deviser,1 and finder out of the Popes false feigned, fiery purgatory: I can not find by any histories or monuments, that I have red unto this day. But after it was found and devised by some subtle head through the subtle suggestion of most subtle Satan,2 which seeketh all means possible to obscure the price of Christs death, and to sow errors and heresies in the hearts of painted Hypocrites, yea of all people, so much as lieth in his power unto the destruction and condemnation of their souls: there wanted not specially of the company of Sophisters, and Monks, espying that there would rise no small ⟨image 226⟩advantage to their purses of this goodly new and late invention: which set a good face on the matter, countenancing it out with the authorities of the holy Scripture adding thereunto their false, pestilent, and lying glosses, wherewith they bleared the eyes of the simple, and caste such mists before their sight, that these certain hundred years they could never see the true purgatory of the soul, which is the precious blood of our Saviour Christ, but believed verily, that there was a place of purging after this life (as though the blood of Christ were not a sufficient purgatory for their souls) from the which they must be delivered either by suffering intolerable pains themselves in that fiery furnace,3 till they have made sufficient satisfaction for their sins, or else by the Suffrages and sacrifices of the Mass or by alms deeds done for them of their executors and friends, &c.