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I PROCEED to offer some further extracts from Fox's work on the subject of church property, which appear to me to require but little comment. I adduce them as matters which seem to me to justify a "personal dislike" to the work; and, I must add, as a ground of surprise that any persons who are not advocates for the most unlimited and lawless rapine of church property, should encourage its republication.

I have already had occasion to speak of Thorpe, and to give Collier's account of the work which he entitled his Testament. his own account of his examination we find as follows:

In

"For certain, in whatsoever dignitie or order that any priest is in, if he conforme him not to follow Christ and his apostles in wilful poverty and in other heavenly vertues and speciallie in true preaching of God's word, though such a one be named a priest, yet he is no more a priest but in name; for the worke of a veric priest, in such a one wanteth. This sentence approueth Augustine, Gregory, Chrysostom, and Lincolne plainly.

"And the archbishop said to me: Thinkest thou this wholesom learning for to sow openly, or yet priuilie among the people? Certain, this doctrine contrarieth plainly the ordinance of holy fathers which have ordained, granted, and licenced priests to be in divers degrees, and to live by tithes and offerings of the people, and by other dueties.

"And I said: Sir, if priestes were now in measurable measure and number, and liued vertuouslie, and taught busilie and truly the word of God by example of Christ and of his apostles, without tithes, offerings, and other duties that priests now chalenge and take, the people would giue them freely sufficient liuelode. ‡

"And a clerke said to me: How wilt thou make this good, that the people will giue freely to priestes their liuelode; since that now, by the law, euery priest can scarcely constrain the people to giue them their liuelode?

"And I saide: Sir, it is nowe no wonder though the people grudge to giue priests the liuelode that they aske. Mekil people know now, how that priests should liue, and how that they liue contrary to Christ and to his apostles. And therefore, the people is ful heauy to pay (as they do) their temporall goods to parsons, and to other vicars and priestes, which should be faithfull dispensatours of the parishes goods; taking to themselves no more, but a scarse liuing of tithes nor of offrings, by the ordinance of the common law. For whatsoeuer priests take of the people (be it tithe or offering, or any other duety or seruice), the priests ought not to have therof no more, but a bare liueing; and to depart the residue to the poore men and women specially of the parish of whom they take this temporall liuing."-iii. 270.

No doubt this doctrine was very popular; and it will be so with some classes of the community at all times. In his work already alluded to, Thorpe has the following sweeping and plain-speaking passage:

"From the highest priest to the lowest, ALL, as they say, study, that is, they imagine and travail busily, how they may please this world and their flesh. This

1 beg to call the reader's particular attention to Fox's notes on these points. I have already alluded to the low jeering spirit in which too many of his marginal annotations are written; but what I here refer to is the proof which they afford of his concurrence in doctrine, and of his writing on these subjects not merely as a historian, but as a partisan. His note on this word is, "Wholesome enough, my lord, if your taste were to savour it."

+ Fox's note is, "But it contrarieth not the ordinance neither of God nor of his word."

Fox's note on this may perhaps pass for a mere marginal indication of what is contained in the text, a character to which the others cannot pretend, "If priests would not slack in their duty, they should not lack in having sufficient."

sentence with many such dependeth upon them, if it be well considered: either God, the Father of heaven, hath deceived all mankind by the living and teaching of Jesus Christ, and by the living and teaching of his apostles and prophets; or else ALL the popes that have been since I had any knowledge or discretion, with ALL the_college of cardinals, archbishops and bishops, monks, canons, and friars, with ALL the contagious flock of the commonalty of priesthood, who have, all my life time, and mickle longer, reigned and yet reign, and increase damnably from sin to sin, have been, and yet be, proud, obstinate heretics, covetous sinners, and defouled adulterers in the ministering of the sacraments, and specially in the ministering of the sacrament of the altar. For, as their works show, whereto Christ biddeth us take heed, the highest priests and prelates of this priesthood, challenge and occupy unlawful temporal lordships; and, for temporal favour and meed, they sell and give benefices to unworthy and unable persons; yea, these Simoners sell sin, suffering men and women, in every degree and estate, to lie and continue from year to year in divers vices slanderously. And thus, by evil example of high priests in the church, lower priests under them are not only suffered, but they are maintained, to sell full dear to the people, for temporal meed, all the sacraments.

"And thus ALL this aforesaid priesthood is blown so high, and borne up in pride and vain glory of their estate and dignity, and so blinded with worldly covetousness, that they disdain to follow Christ in very meekness and wilful poverty, living holily, and preaching God's word truly, freely, and continually, taking their livelihood at the freewill of the people, of their PURE ALMS, where and when they suffice not, for their true and busy preaching, to get their sustenance with their hands. To this true. sentence, grounded on Christ's own living, and the teaching of his apostles, these aforesaid worldly and fleshly priests will not consent effectually; but, as their works and also their words show, boldly and unshamefacedly these before-named priests and prelates covet and enforce them mightily and busily, that all holy scriptures were expounded and drawn accordingly to their manners, and to their ungrounded usages and findings; for they will not (since they hold it but folly and madness) conform their manners to the pure and simple living of Christ and his apostles, nor will they follow freely their learning. Wherefore all the emperors and kings, and all other lords and ladies, and all the common people in every degree and state, who have before-time known, or might have known, and also all they that now yet know, or might know, this aforesaid witness of priesthood, and would not; nor yet will enforce them, after their cunning and power, to withstand charitably the aforesaid enemies and traitors of Christ, and of his church: all these strive with Antichrist against Jesus, and they shall hear the indignation of God Almighty without end, if in convenient time they amend them not and repent them verily, doing therefor due mourning and sorrow, after their cunning and power."-iii. 283.

How many of them have expressed such a feeling is, I suppose, best known to the publishers; but I cannot help thinking that such passages as these must be considered highly objectionable by some of the subscribers to the new edition,* and that they will feel some hesitation in circulating such doctrine among their parishioners. Those, at least,

By the way, do such passages as these, and those (which I hope to produce) maintaining that one man is just as much a priest as another, afford any explanation of the mysterious and unexplained reluctance of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge to undertake the republication of Fox's work? "It is painful," says Mr. Bickersteth, in his Remarks on the Progress of Popery,' p. 36, to read, in the accounts given of a late meeting of the society, a statement which it would be pleasant to think was unfounded: that when a desire had been expressed for the republication by the Society of Fox's Book of Martyrs, it had been refused, not on account of the expense, (the present protestant feeling of the country is such, that there is no risk on that point) but on some other grounds not explained to the public. Without supposing that those grounds can be merely fears of provoking the papists by that faithful exhibition of their cruelty, or an unwillingness now to confess the truths stated in Fox, let not the Society thus shew any departure from the principles of the Reformation. We must not, for fear of man, keep back the truth. We gain nothing by that course." What difference should it make if we gained a great deal?

of the clergy who are not living in wilful poverty,' will scarcely feel it consistent; even if they should be persuaded by the argument that it would be a good thing to reduce their brethren to a state which they have not seen fit to embrace.

To proceed, however: Fox tells us that John Purvey (I suppose the same person who is elsewhere represented as an apostate, iii. 257) "left divers monuments gravely and exactly written;" and he gives at great length a variety of articles drawn out of his books. Among them we find the following, in which the reader will recognise the same selfish and rapacious cupidity which goes about in the present day declaiming, and calculating, and telling off its utilitarian statistics on its itching fingers, and teaching a world grown old in wickedness, and wise in sin, how to do the most good, with the least money.

"As to the possessions of the church, in another treatise it is declared, how the king, the lords, and commons, may, without any charge at all, keep fifteen garrisons, and find fifteen thousand soldiers (having sufficient lands and revenues to live upon) out of the temporalities gotten into the hands of the clergy, and feigned religious men, who never do that which pertaineth to the office of curates to do, nor yet to secular lords. And, moreover, the king may have, every year, twenty thousand pounds to come freely into his coffers, and above. Also he may find or sustain fifteen colleges more, and fifteen thousand priests and clerks with sufficient living, and a hundred hospitals for the sick, and every house to have one hundred marks in lands. And all this may they take of the aforesaid temporalities, without any charge to the realm; whereunto the king, the lords, and the commons are to be invited; for otherwise there seemeth to hang over our heads a great and marvellous alteration of this realm, unless the same be put in execution. Also, if the secular priests and feigned. religious, who be simoniacs and heretics, who feign themselves to say mass, and yet say none at all, according to the canons, which to their purpose they bring and allege, 1 quæst. 3. Audivimus,' et cap. Pudenda,' et cap. Schisma;' by which chapter such priests and religious do not make the sacrament of the altar: that then all Christians, especially all the founders of such abbeys, and endowers of bishoprics, priories, and chantries, ought to amend this fault and treason committed against their predecessors, by taking from them such secular dominions as are the maintenance of all their sins: and also that christian lords and princes are bound to take away from the clergy such secular dominion as nousleth and nourisheth them in heresies, and ought to reduce them unto the simple and poor life of Christ Jesus and his apostles.

"And further, that all christian princes, if they will amend the malediction and blasphemy of the name of God, ought to take away their temporalities from that shaven generation, which most of all doth nourish them in such malediction. And so in like wise the fat tithes from churches appropriate to rich monks, and other religious, feigned by manifest lying, and other unlawful means; likewise out they to debar their gold to the proud priest of Rome, who doth poison all Christendom with simony and heresy. Further, that it is a great abomination that bishops, monks, and other prelates, be so great lords in this world; whereas Christ, with his apostles and disciples, never took upon them secular dominion, neither did they appropriate unto them churches, as these men do, but led a poor life, and gave a good testimony of their priesthood. And therefore, all Christians ought, to the uttermost of their power and strength, to swear that they will reduce such shavelings to the humility and poverty of Christ and his apostles."-iii. 290.

In the account of "The trouble of John Barton and Robert Chapel for religion," we are told that the latter, who had been chaplain to Lord Cobham," confessing and submitting himself, desired pardon;" upon which he was directed to stand at Paul's, and publish certain articles to the people. I know not what Fox means by heading them, "Articles obtruded upon Chapel to confess," unless he would insinuate (what I think no one will believe) that they were not a reVOL. XIII.-April, 1838.

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cantation of doctrines which he had actually preached. The first and second articles are as follows:

"Imprimis, I confess that bishops, priests, and other ecclesiastical persons, having no other profession to the contrary, may lawfully have, receive, and retain lands and possessions temporal, to dispense and dispose the same and the rents thereof, to the behoof of themselves, or of their church where they dwell, according as seemeth good to them.

"II. Item, I confess, that it were very unlawful, yea rather unjust, that temporal men upon any occasion, whatsoever it be, should take any temporal lands and possessions from the church, either universal or particular, to which they are given; the consideration of the abuse of mortal prelates, priests, or other ministers in the church conversant (who are mixt together good with bad), abusing the same, to the contrary notwithstanding."-iii. 536.

A little farther on we find, "A fruitful and Christian exhortation of the Bohemians, to Kings and Princes, to stir them up to the zeal of the Gospel." The direction which it was intended that the zeal thus stirred up should take, will be apparent from the following extract:

"And with such devilish subtlety the pope with all his priests have deceived, spoiled, and disherited, kings, princes, lords and knights, and good householders, and many others, of their lawful inheritances; because their ancestors and progenitors gave them to colleges, monasteries and churches, that they might make memorials of them, and sing or say prayers or masses for their souls, that they might be redeemed out of purgatory. And with such goods, bishops, canons, and monasteries have made themselves so rich, that now they fall at variance with cities and princes; and whereas they should procure peace betwixt cities and rulers, there they are the first that begin war; and as long as they have such goods, they will never cease to be at strife with lords and cities, neither will they begin to teach you the true founda. tion of the truth. For they do as a dog, which as long as he holdeth a bone in his mouth and gnaweth it, so long he holdeth his peace, and cannot bark; even so, as long as they have this bone of pleasant riches, it will never be well in the world. Wherefore, all kings, princes and imperial cities would do a great work of godliness and mercy, if by them they were compelled to do this, as the dog is when the bone is

taken from him.

And, therefore, ye noble men, kings, princes, lords, imperial cities, and all the commonalty, both rich and poor, if ye have been asleep, yet now awake and open your eyes, and behold the subtlety of the devil, how he hath blinded the church of Rome, and take again that which is yours and not theirs. And if you will make a good memorial for your souls, then do as the wise man saith, [Eccles. xix.]‘Lay up alms,' &c."-iii. 570.

Among the articles charged against "John Florence, a turner dwelling at Shelton in the diocese of Norwich," is the following:

"That curates should not take the tithes of their parishioners, but that such tithes should be divided amongst the poor parishioners.”—iii. 584.

I have already remarked on Fox's marginal notes, and here I would ask the admirers of his work (at least, those who are not avowed advocates for church spoliation, and a priesthood who must live by either begging or bargaining,) to explain how he could put the following words as a note on this article:-" He meaneth they should not claim such riches by any exaction." Indeed-was that all he meant ? Those who have read the foregoing extracts will find it very difficult to believe that he did not mean something more, and not much more easy to suppose that Fox really thought he was giving the full sense of the passage.

After this, Fox gives "A Catalogue of Good Men and Women that

were taken and examined upon suspicion of heresy in Suffolk and Norfolk," which contains the names of most of those who were examined, the whole number being about one hundred and twenty. Of" these before named persons, and soldiers of Christ," he says that, "in their assertions and articles there was almost no difference. The doctrine of the one was the doctrine of all the others." Their doctrine, however, on church property, or even the charge against them on that point, he does not state so fully as one could wish; but we may, perhaps, gather something from what he is obliged to confess in his attempt to clear them:

"Moreover they thought or said peradventure, That in certain cases tithes might be witholden from wicked priests sometimes, and be conferred to better uses; to the behoof of the poor. Therefore they are falsely slandered, as saying and affirming, that no tithes are to be given to the ministers and curates of the churches."-iii. 590.

Is it not more likely that they were of opinion with John Florence dwelling in the diocese of Norwich just mentioned, and Jacobus Selestadiensis, though they probably had not seen his letter to the Emperor Maximilian, assuring him that, "That which the church hath, is common to all those who have nothing"? iv. 15; or of George Browne, against whom "another objection was that he had erroneously, obstinately and maliciously said (for so are their words), that the church was too rich." And what can better illustrate the spirit of Fox's work, or the views under which it was written than his remark, "This matter, I may tell you, touched somewhat the quick, and therefore no marvel that they counted it erroneous and malicious; for take away their gain, and farewell their religion."-iv. 177. Why should Fox have been at the pains to gloss over the opinions of others, if he could not conceal his own? If they say the thing out plainly and honestly, he is frightened; let them say it, as really, by insinuation, and he cannot suppress a chuckle.

Again, the first of the articles objected against Richard Hun was

this:

"That he had read, taught, preached, published and obstinately defended, against the laws of Almighty God, that tithes, or paying of tithes, was never ordained to be due, saving only by the covetousness of priests."-iv. 183.

But there is no use in multiplying such extracts. I think I have given enough to shew the spirit of the work, and whether they produce personal liking, or personal disliking, towards it, is a matter of personal taste. I hope next to offer some extracts shewing the doctrine of the work respecting the orders of the church; and, in the meantime, I am, my dear Sir, yours very truly, S. R. MAITLAND.