A67926:4098
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.
All which things well considered,1 what marvel is it then, if God of his just judgement did set up the foresaid Lord Cromwell to destroy these sinful houses, whom their own corruptions could suffer no longer to stand? And as touching the dissipation of their lands and possessions to the hands of such as they were bestowed upon: if it so pleased the king in bestowing those Abbey lands upon his Nobles and Gentlemen,2 either to restore them again unto them from whence they came, or else to gratify his nobility, by that means of policy not to mislike his doings, what is that to Cromwell? But they might (say you) have been much better employed to other more fruitful uses. Briefly to answer thereunto, what may be done presently in a common wealth, is not enough to say: but what may also follow must be considered. If this throwing down of Abbeys had happened in such free and reformed cities or countries, as are amongest the Germans, where the state governed & directed by laws, rather then by rulers, remaineth always alike and unmutable, who doubteth but such houses there standing still, the possessions might well be transposed to such uses abovesayd, without any fear or peril? But in such Realms and Kingdoms as this, where Laws and Parliaments be not always one, but are subject to the disposition of the prince: neither is it certain always what Princes may come: the surest way therefore to send Monkery & Popery packing out of the realm, is to do with their houses and possessions as king Henry here did, through yt motion of the counsel of Cromwell. For else who seeth not in Queen Mary's time, if either the houses of monks had stand or their lands had been otherwise disposed then into the hands of such as they were, how many of them had been restored & replenished again with monks & fryers, in as ample wise as ever they were? And if Dukes, Barons and the Nobilities scarce were able to retain the lands and possessions of Abbeys distributed to them by king Henry, from the devotion of Queen Mary, seeking to build again the walls of Jericho, what then should the meaner sort have done, let other men conjecture. Wherefore it is not unlike, but that Gods heavenly providence did well foresee and dispose these things before by this man,3 in working the destruction of these Abbeys: