ancient Christians, when they were slandered to the people for man-killers, for adulterers, for committers of incest, for disturbers of the commonwealths; and did perceive that by such slanderous accusations the religion which they professed might be brought in question, namely, if they should seem to hold their peace, and in manner confess the fault; lest this might hinder the free course of the Gospel, they made orations, they put up supplications, and made means to [used influence with] emperors and princes, that they might defend themselves and their fellows in open audience.»

Sect. 4. But we truly-seeing that so many thousands of our brethren in these last twenty years have borne witness unto the truth, in the midst of most

P [To this we owe some of the noblest and most useful relics of Christian antiquity:-the first and second Apologies of JUSTIN MARTYR, the Apologetics of TERTULLIAN and ATHENAGORAS, the Octavius of MINUCIUS FELIX.]

9 [Here it may be well again to remind the reader that JEWELL Wrote for those who had witnessed, or knew by direct information, the martyrdoms of those who had died for the truth.

TO HARDING, the Jesuit, who reproached him with boasting in hyperbolical terms of the martyrs of the Reformation, and took occasion to call Fox's Acts and Monuments "a huge dunghill of their stinking martyrs," ," he replied: "We make no boast of the numbers and multitudes of our martyrs. And yet, as St. Paul saith, (2 Cor. xi. 30,) if we should needs boast, we should chiefly boast of such our infirmities. But we rejoice with them, and give GOD thanks in their behalf, for that it hath pleased Him to prepare their hearts unto temptation, to try and purify them as gold in the furnace, and to keep them faithful unto the end.""It pleaseth you, for lack of other evasion, to call the story of martyrs 'a dunghill of lies.' But these 'lies' shall remain in record for ever, to testify, and to condemn your bloody doings. Ye have imprisoned your brethren, ye have stripped them naked, ye have Scourged them with rods, ye have burned their hands and arms with flaming torches, ye have famished them, ye have drowned them, ye have summoned them, being dead, to appear before you out of their graves, ye have ripped up their buried carcases, ye have burned them, ye have thrown them out into the dunghill: ye took a poor babe, falling from his mother's womb, and in a most cruel and barbarous manner cast him into the fire.

"All these things, M. Harding, are true: they are no 'lies. The eyes and consciences of many thousands can witness your doings. The blood of innocent Abel crieth to GOD from the earth, and undoubtedly He will require it at your hands. St. CHRYSOSTOM saith (in Matth. Hom. 19,) 'Whosoever hath pleasure in the blood of persecution, the

painful torments that could be devised; and that when princes, desirous to restrain the Gospel, sought many ways, they prevailed nothing; and that now almost the whole world doth begin to open their eyes to behold the light-we take it, that our cause hath already been sufficiently declared and defended, and think it not needful to make many words, seeing the matter saith enough for itself.

Sect. 5. For if the Popes would, or else if they could, weigh with their ownselves the whole matter, and also the beginnings and proceedings of our religion; how in a manner all their travail hath come to nought, nobody driving it [the Reformation] forward, and without any worldly help; and how, on the other side, our causeagainst the will of emperors from the beginning ragainst the will of so many kings-in spite of the Popes-and almost maugre the head [in direct opposition to the endeavours] of all men-hath taken increase, and by little and little spread over into all countries, and is come at length unto kings' courts and palaces :— these same things, methinks, might be tokens great enough to them, that God himself doth strongly fight in our quarrel, and doth from heaven laugh at their enterprizes; and that the force of the truth is such, as neither man's power, nor yet hell-gates, are able to root it out.

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For they be not all mad at this day, so many free cities, so many kings, so many princes, which have

same is a wolf.' Ye slew your brethren so cruelly, not for murder, or robbery, or any other grievous crime they had committed, but only for that they trusted in the living GOD. Howbeit, we may say with the old father TERTULLIAN, (ad Scapulam) 'Crudelitas vestra nostra gloria est: Your cruelty is our glory.'"-Defence, p. 28. s.]

[JEWELL alludes here, and above in § 4, beside the persecution of the Roman emperors, to the strenuous endeavours made by Charles V. and his successors, to strangle the Reformation in its very birth, and, subsequently, to suppress it at all hazards. Yet the personal history of Charles V. presents a remarkable instance of the ultimate prevalence of the grace of GOD over human opposition. He who in the plenitude of his power had abused that power to the suppression of the truth, lived to see his errors, and, in the seclusion of the monastic retirement of his old age, to become, if not a convert, a favourer of the principles of Protestantism.]

fallen away from the seat of Rome, and have rather joined themselves to the Gospel of CHRIST.'

Sect. 6. And although the Popes had never hitherto leisure to consider diligently and earnestly of these matters; or though some other cares do now let them, and divers ways pull them; or though they count these to be but common and trifling studies, and nothing to appertain to the Pope's worthiness; this maketh not why our matter ought to seem the worse. Or if they perchance will not see that which they see indeed, but rather will withstand the known truth, ought we therefore by and by to be counted heretics, because we obey not their will and pleasure?

Sect. 7. If so be that Pope Pius [the IV.] were the man, (we say not, which he would so gladly be called,) but if he were indeed a man that either would account

[The seat, i. e. the episcopal chair: a metaphorical expression, often used to designate the see, or bishopric of Rome, and here signifying the whole system of the papacy, with all its errors in doctrine, and pretensions to temporal power.]

[In the year 1536, well-founded apprehensions of the interposition of secular power to put down the spreading Reformation, gave occasion. to the league of Smalcald. In that league, the reigning Elector of Saxony, and his brother; three Dukes of Brunswick; the Duke of Wirtemberg; the Landgrave of Hesse; four brothers, Princes of Anhalt ; the Dukes of Pomerania; two Counts of Mansfeld; and the deputies of twenty-one free states, some of them among the most considerable in the empire; bound themselves to mutual defence in the free profession of Protestantism. When JEWELL wrote, besides several minor states, the kingdoms of England, Sweden, and Denmark, several cantons of Switzerland, and the Provinces of Holland, then struggling for political existence, were to be added to the list.

HARDING, the Jesuit, made some captious sneers at what he called the boasts of Protestants relative to their numerical strength. In reply, JEWELL appositely quotes from ARNOBIUS: "Ne nobis de nostra frequentia blandiamur. Multi nobis videmur: sed DEO admodum pauci sumus. Nos gentes nationesque distinguimus. DEO unus domus est mundus hic totus.' Contra Gentes, Lib. viii. 'Let us not flatter ourselves of our great multitudes. Unto ourselves we seem many: but unto GoD we are but few. We put difference between nation and nation; but unto God the whole world is but one house.' " Defence, p. 37.],

u [Let, i. e. hinder. The word is thus used in several passages of the Bible, and Common Prayer, where the total change which custom has made in its signification, might lead the incautious reader into grievous error.]

us for his brethren, or at least would take us to be men, he would first diligently have examined our reasons, and would have seen what might be said with us, what against us; and would not in his Bull, whereby he lately pretended a council,' so rashly have condemned so great a part of the world-so many learned and godly men— so many commonwealths-so many kings-and so many princes, only upon his own blind prejudices and foredeterminations, and that without hearing of them speak, or without showing cause why.

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Sect. 8. But because he hath already so noted [set a stigma upon] us openly-lest by holding our peace we should seem to grant a fault, especially because we can by no means have audience in the public assembly of the general council, wherein he would no creature should have power to give his voice, or to declare his opinion, except he were sworn, and straitly bound to maintain his [the Pope's] authority; (for we have had good experience hereof in the last conference at the Council of Trent, where the ambassadors and divines of the princes of Germany, and of the free cities, were quite shut out from their company ;-neither can we yet forget how Julius the third, above ten years past, provided warily, by his writ, that none of our sort should be suffered to speak. in the council, except that there were some man peradventure that would recant, and change his opinion;) for this cause chiefly, we thought it good to yield up an account of our faith in writing,

[The Council, called, from its place of assemblage, of Trent, which was summoned by Pope Paul III., after many delays and evasions by himself and his predecessors, at the pressing instance of the emperor Charles V. It met in 1545, and continued its sittings at intervals until 1563. It consisted of 6 Cardinals, 4 Legates of the Pope, 3 (nominal) Patriarchs, 32 Archbishops, 228 Bishops, 5 Abbots, 7 Generals of Orders of Regular Monks, and a multitude of other theologians, who assisted in its debates. These were gathered from Italy, Germany. Spain, the Netherlands, and France. The Romish Church in the latter country, however, has never fully admitted the authority of this Council, although sanctioned by the bull of Pope Pius IV, alluded to by JEWELL.] [In the year 1552, when the agents of the emperor Charles V. pressed the Pope's legates to give the Lutherans a hearing, they received for answer, that it was against the rules of the Church to treat with professed heretics,"-Campbell.]

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and truly and openly to make an answer to those things wherewith we have been openly charged; to the end the world may see the parts and foundations of that doctrine in the behalf whereof so many good men have little regarded their own lives. And that all men may understand what manner of people they be, and what opinion they have of GoD and of religion, whom the Bishop of Rome, before they were called to tell their tale, hath condemned for heretics without any good consideration, without any example, and utterly without law or right; only because he heard tell that they did dissent from him and his in point of religion.

Sect. 9. And although ST. JEROME would have nobody to be patient when he is suspected of heresy, yet we will deal herein neither bitterly, nor brabblingly; nor yet be carried away with anger and heat; though he ought to be reckoned neither bitter nor brabbler, that speaketh the truth. We willingly leave this kind of eloquence to our adversaries; who, whatsoever they say against us, be it never so shrewdly or despitefully said, yet think it is said modestly and comely enough, and care nothing whether it be true or false. We need none of these shifts, which do maintain the truth.

Further, if we do show it plainly that God's holy Gospel, the ancient bishops, and the primitive Church, do make on our side; and that we have not without just cause left these men, but rather have returned to the Apostles and old catholic fathers: and if we shall be found to do the same, not colourably, or craftily, but in good faith before GoD, truly, honestly, clearly, and plainly and if they themselves which fly our doctrine, and would be called Catholics, shall manifestly see

[The bull of Julius III. for summoning the Council, declares in explicit language: "Erit Concilium, ut qui temerè loquuti sunt, aut dicta recantaturi veniant, aut, eorum inaudita causa, in executionem jam ordinatarum constitutionum heretici declarentur et condemnentur." "There shall be a Council, that they that have spoken rashly, either may recant their sayings, or else, without further hearing or reasoning of the matter, may be denounced, and condemned for heretics, according to the constitutions already made." Quoted, from CALVIN, by JEWELL; Defence, p. 42.]

y [The Romanists continue this unjustifiable assumption to the present day. The word Catholic signifies universal: its mere apposi