A67922:1973
Acts and monuments of matters most special and memorable, happening in the Church. [vol.…Actes and monuments of matters most speciall and memorable, happenyng in the Church. [vol.…
Acts and monuments of matters most special and memorable, happening in the Church. [vol. 1] with an universal history of the same, wherein is set forth at large the whole race and course of the Church, from the primitive age to these latter times of ours, with the bloody times, horrible troubles, and great persecutions against the true martyrs of Christ, sought and wrought as well by heathen emperors, as now lately practised by Romish prelates, especially in this realm of England and Scotland. Newly revised and recognised, partly also augmented, and now the fourth time again published and recommended to the studious reader, by the author (through the help of Christ our Lord) John Fox, which desireth thee good reader to help him with thy prayer.Actes and monuments of matters most speciall and memorable, happenyng in the Church. [vol. 1] with an vniuersall history of the same, wherein is set forth at large the whole race and course of the Church, from the primitiue age to these latter tymes of ours, with the bloudy times, horrible troubles, and great persecutions agaynst the true martyrs of Christ, sought and wrought as well by heathen emperours, as nowe lately practised by Romish prelates, especially in this realme of England and Scotland. Newly reuised and recognised, partly also augmented, and now the fourth time agayne published and recommended to the studious reader, by the author (through the helpe of Christ our Lord) Iohn Foxe, which desireth thee good reader to helpe him with thy prayer.
London: printed by John Daye, 1583London: printed by Iohn Daye, 1583
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.
By these foresaid authors alleged,1 it is evident: that Monks in the former age of the church, albeit they lived a solitary life, yet they were then no other but only lay men, differing from priests, & differing from the other monks, which succeeded them afterward in the middle age of the Church, and that in iij. points. First, they were tied and bound to no prescript form either of diet or apparel, or any thing else, as we may see testified by the words of S. Augustine, which be these: Neque inter haec nemo urgetur in aspera, quae ferre non potest: Nulli quod recusat imponitur. Nec ideo contemnitur à caeteris, in quod eis imitandis see fatetur inualidum. Meminerunt enim quantoperè commendata sit in Scripturis charitas. Meminerunt omnia munda mundis, &c Nō quod intrat in os coinquinat hominem, sed quod exit. Itaque non reijciendis generibus ciborum, quasi pollutis, sed concupiscentiae perdomandae, & dilectioni fratrum retinendae, 2inuigilat omnis industria. And Sozomenus, Lib 3. cap. 16. speaking of the Monks of the same time, which in cities had several mansions from other, saith: Alij in turba civitatum conuersabantur, sic seipsos gerentes, ut nullius momenti viderentur, & à multis nihil differrent, &c. 1. Some lived in cities, so behaving themselves, as seeming nothing worth,3 and they differed nothing from the multitude, &c. The second point wherein they were discrepant from the latter Monks: was, in that they remained no other but in the order of lay men (only being of a straighter life then the rest) and had nothing to do in matters & charges Ecclesiastical.4 Which was afterward broken, by Pope Bonifacius the 4. as followeth more (the lord willing) to be seen and said. Thirdly, the foresaid monks of that age (albeit the most part of them lived sole & single from wives) yet some of them were married: certes none of them were forbidden or restrained from marriage. Of such as were married,5 speaketh Athanasius in Epistola ad Dracontium, qui ait se novisse & Monachos & Episcopos coniuges & liberorum patres, &c. That is, which saith that he knew both Monks and Bishops married men, and fathers of children, &c.