A67926:5534
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.
he thought then to heal this his wound again at Rome, and there to stablish his false and impudent lying. But the lying sophister shall not prevail by the help (I trust) of Christ, for I ask and require yet still, that they absolutely, not respectively, distinctly, and not confusedly, simply, & not dissemblingly, plainly and not obscurely, particularly & not in general, do show what is, and what is not heretical. But when will they so do? When Christ and Belial, or when light and darkness shall agree together. And what shall I do then in the mean time? First I will contemn these dastardly dotipoles and unlearned Papists and apostles of Antichrist.1 And I will scorn them as Elijah did, and say: if Baal be God, let him answer, pe••• venture he is drunk, or busy in his journey, Cry out higher, for he is a God and peradventure heareth. For what other thing do these Bull bragging Asses deserve else, which con damn that they know not, and confess also their own ignorance? Secondly, I will not be troubled nor disquieted for the matter, neither am I to be counted heretic, erroneous▪ or offensive, so long as I shall not be proved and plainly convicted with simple and manifest words in what Article I am so judged. Neither do I here charge my Papists, these blockheads, that I will put them to their proofs, but only that they will show me at least my error that is, that they will show me if they know what it is that they themselves do prattle of, or have any feeling of their own doings. For so long as they assign me no heretical Article, I am at free liberty to deny what Article so ever they lay unto me to be heretical, and say it is Catholic. Again, what a rudeness is it in this wicked & doltish Antichrist worthy to be laughed at, where as these dromedaries do distinct heretical Articles from those that be erroneous, and the erroneous from offensive,2 and those again from slanderous? By the which subtle distinction of those grosseheaded dolts, this we do gather, that that article which is erroneous, is not heretical, and if it be not heretical, what doth it then appertain to these Ecclesiastical condemners, which ought to condemn those things only, which be heretical. For that which is not heretical, is catholic, as Christ himself saith: He that is not against us is with us.