A67926:5533
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.
and yet for all that thou shalt not so escape, yea in thy wiliness thou shalt the rather be overtaken and subverted.1 Come out therefore O thou ass-headed Antichrist, and show forth thy wisdom, and dispose thy matters in order. Tell us if thou canst, what sayest thou or meanest thou, when thou sayest this article is heretical, this is erroneous, this is offensive. For it becometh such a worshipful condemner to know what he condemneth. And to shameful it is to condemn an article for heretical, and yet cannot name the same. Neither will I be answered herewith respectively, but I look to be taught simply and plainly, for I am one of Occam's faction which contemneth these respectives, and love to have all things simple & absolute. Thou seest therefore (good Reader) the ignorant dotage of this Antichrist,2 how craftily, & yet grossly he thinketh to walk in a net under his adverb, respectively, who not only •oth not teach the truth, and cause of his condemning, but neither also dare prove any error, nor show forth what it is that he condemneth, and yet must he needs condemn. Is not this trow you a proper kind of damning, to damn and cannot tell what he damneth? Is not this a fine manner of locution, passing all Rhetoric, to speak, & yet not to know what he speaketh, what purgatories might we wish sufficient to purge the doltish brains of these Bull bragging bedlams? with such blindness & doltishness are all the adversaries of Gods truth worthy to be plagued. But I know whereupon all this grief riseth. The origin whereof is this:3 Eccius mine old adversary remembering how he was put to shame enough at Lypsia when he rousing himself upon his stage, and frothing at the mouth like a Bore, with a furious mouth called me 3. hum dreth times heretic, for the Articles of Huss, and yet afterward was not able to prove the same, whereas the sentence condemnatory of the Council of Constance, alleged by me otherwise then Eccius looked for, noted there, no certain article for heretical: and also the same condemnation much like to this of ours, with the like foolishness called some of his Articles heretical, some erroneous, & some offensive,4 and Eccius hearing this, being confounded in himself for his impudent rashness: perceived that he had called me heretic falsely and untruly: