A07146:252
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.
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.
This Gregory the Seventh in a certain council made a decree that from that time forward, it should no more be lawful for priests to marry:1 and again, that such as were married already should be divorced from their wives. and if they would not forsake their wives, they should be deprived from their ministry,2 and also from ecclesiastical promotions, so that it should not be lawful for a christen man to take them for spiritual ministers, or to be present at their ministration, by the rea, son of their continuance in marriages when notwithstanding our Saviour-Christ ⟨p. 33⟩sayeth:3 That God hath coupled and joined together: let no man separate and put a sunder.4 And the holy Apostle sayeth: To avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and every woman her own husband. Again, Wedlock is honourable among all men,5 & the bed undefiled. But whoremongers & adulterers God shall judge. Of this decree followed many & great inconveniences.6 For the priests by this means abstaining from lawful matrimony, abstained not from unlawful whoredom, & from other lewd parts of most detestable uncleanness, but defiled themselves with all kind of abominable living, unto the utter defacing both of themselves and of their ministry, in so much that the aforesaid pope was compelled to make a decree, that no man should hear the mass of any whoremonger priest: supposing by this means to fray away the priests from their whoring,7 which notwithstanding from that time unto this hour again, hath grown up unto such an height in the kingdom of the pope, that among the very Turks, Jews, Saracens, ⟨image 63⟩