A30189:571
An answer to two treatises of Mr. John Can, the leader of the English…An answer to two treatises of Mr. Iohn Can, the leader of the English…
An answer to two treatises of Mr. John Can, the leader of the English Brownists in Amsterdam the former called, A necessity of separation from the Church of England, proved by the Nonconformists principles : the other, A stay against straying : wherein in opposition to M. John Robinson, he undertakes to prove the unlawfulness of hearing the ministers of the Church of England ... / by the late learned, laborious and faithful servant of Jesus Christ, John Ball.An answer to two treatises of Mr. Iohn Can, the leader of the English Brownists in Amsterdam the former called, A necessitie of separation from the Church of England, proved by the Nonconformists principles : the other, A stay against straying : wherein in opposition to M. Iohn Robinson, he undertakes to prove the unlawfulnesse of hearing the ministers of the Church of England ... / by the late learned, laborious and faithfull servant of Jesus Christ, John Ball.
London: printed by R.B., 1642
Chapter 4 › Section 2 › ANSWER.Chapter 4 › Section 2 › ANSVVER.
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.
325 against Arius, where the Britons also were assembled. And though in the Council of Ariminum, in Italy under Constantius, where Bishops out of Britain were assembled with others, it was concluded for Arius, yet Britain was preserved safe from the Arian infection, both in the reigns of Constantius, and Julian the Apostate. 1Pelagius a Britain by birth, troubled the Churches with his pestilent Doctrine, denying the grace of God, attributing power and liberty to man to live without sin, and keep the Commandments, if he would. This Heresy arose about the year 405. or 406. and the Author thereof drew his first breath in Britain, 2but he sowed not this heretical doctrine in Britain. And though it must be confessed, That these Churches were not altogether free from that infection, yet at first it was opposed, and after it was banished, by the blessing of God. About the year 420. flourished Fastidius, of whom Gennedius in his catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers, saith, Fastidius Bishop of the Britons, wrote to Fatalis one book of Christian life, and another of keeping Widow-hood, in sound doctrine, and according to the truth of God. And John Trithemius, Fastidius Bishop of the Britons, was a man learned in the holy Scriptures, and an excellent Preacher of the word of God, famous in life ⟨p. 63⟩and conversation, in speech and wit notable: 3He wrote some devout little works, &c. And by the vigilancy and care of Lopis, and Germanus Antisiodorensis, the Britons were delivered from the contagion which had begun to infect the Churches. After this the face of things was miserable in that Kingdom, by reason of the invasion of the gbarbarous enemy, the terrible famine, the direful contagion of the Pelagian and Arian heresies, and the looseness, negligence, drunkenness, contentions, and other vices of the Clergy. The Christian Religion thus corrupted, was restored again by the second coming of Germannus: but after that grievously oppressed by the coming in of the Anglo-Saxons, who could not yet so extinguish the truth of God, but it did revive, spread and grow, though sometimes more pure, sometimes more corrupt, and sometimes with greater, sometimes with less freedom.