A07146:93
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.
But how vain, false, forged, lying and counterfeit this bragging of the papists is, concerning the donation of the emperor Constantine to the Sea of Rome, and the supremacy of that Romish bishop above all other bishops, yea, above Emperors, Kings, Princes, &c. divers faithful learned & expert writers do abundantly testify Nicolaus de causa. 1Laurentius Valla, Antoninus Archiep. Florent. Volateranus Hieronimus, Paulus Cathalanus, Albertus Crantzius, Huldrichus Huttenus, &c. But this is the property of the papists always to father their lies, their idle inventions their drowsy dreams, their crooked constitutions, their devilish decrees. &c. Upon such as lived many years before, and upon such as were men (in their days) of great learning and virtue, that by this means their trifling traditions might seem to be of the greater authority in the eyes of the simple and unlearned people & so although plain errors, yet at the ⟨p. 5⟩last through the colour of antiquity be received for most manifest verities & undoubted truths.2 Notwithstanding this must we needs confess (which thing the histories do also testify) that after the church of Rome was endowed with temporal possessions, it was ever after more studious of the world than of god, of secular business than of spiritual exercises, of outward pomp & pride▪ than of inward devotion & christen holiness, of making their own traditions and degrees than of setting forth gods holy commandments & laws, of enriching themselves than of edifying the flock of Christ: so that not without a cause it is written, that what time the Church received temporal possessions, the old enemy cried with a loud voice in the air: This day is poison shed forth into the Church of Christ. 3Therefore saint Jerome in vitas patrum saith: Sithens that holy Church increased in possessions, it hath decreased in virtues according to this common saying: Religio peperit divitias: Filia devoravit matrē : that is to say, Religion brought forth richesse, & the daughter hath devoured ⟨image 35⟩the Mother. Polichron.