A67926:2128
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. 2, part 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. 2, part 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
No title page in the transcription: set from the catalogue record.
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.
So captive are your laws unto them, that no man whom they list to excommunicate,1 may be admitted to sue any action in any of your Courts. If any man in your Sessions dare be so hardy to indite a Priest of any such crime, he hath ere the year go out, such a yoke of heresy laid in his neck, that it maketh him wish that he had not done it. Your grace may see what a work there is in London:2 how the Bishop rageth for inditing of certain Curates of extortion, & incontinency the last year in the Wardmote quest. Had not Richard Hun commenced action of Premunire against a Priest, he had been yet alive and no heretic at all, but an honest man. Did not divers of your noble progenitors,3 seeing their crown and dignity run into ruin, and to be thus craftily translated into the hands of this mischievous generation, make divers statutes for the reformation thereof: among which the statute of Mortmain was one, to the intent that after that time they should have no more given unto them? But what availed it? have they not gotten into their hands more lands since, than any Duke in England hath,4 the statute notwithstanding? Yea, have they not for all that translated into their hands from your grace, half your kingdom throughly, the only name remaining to you for your ancestors sake: So you have the name and they the profit. Yea I fear, if I should weigh all things to the uttermost, they would also take the name unto them, and of one kingdom make twain: the spiritual kingdom as they call it (for they will be named first) and your temporal kingdom. And which of these 2. kingdoms suppose you, is like to overgrow the other, yea to put the other clear out of memory? Truly the kingdom of the bloudsuppers, for to them is given daily out of your kingdom: and that that is once given them, cometh never from them again. Such laws have they that none of them may neither give nor sell nothing. What law can be made so strong against them, that they either with money or else with other policy, will not break or set at nought? What kingdom can endure, that ever giveth thus from him and receiveth nothing again? Oh how all the substance of your realm, your sword, power, crown, dignity & obedience of your people, runneth headlong into the insatiable whirlpool of these greedy golfs, to be swallowed and devoured.