uauntes ye haue slayne? Or with what hartes wyl you be able to behold the bryght faces of them, vpon whom you haue syt so proudly here, condemning them to consuming fyre? In that day when you shalbe charged with the bloud of so many Martyrs, what wil ye or can you say? How thinke ye to excuse your selues? Or what can you for your selues alledge? Wil ye denye to haue murdered them? This booke wyl testify and denounce against you. Which if you cānot deuy now to be true, then loke how you wil answer to it in that coūting day. Peraduenture you wil excise your selues and say, that you did but the law, and if the law did passe vpon them, you coulde not do with all. But here wil I aske: what law you do meane: the law of God, or the law of man? if ye meane the law of God, where do you finde in al the law of God to put them to death, which holding the articles of the Crede, neuer blashpemed his name, but glorified it, bothe in lyfe and in their deathe? If you answer by the law of man, I know the law (ex officio, or rather ex homicidio) which you meane & follow. But who brought that lawe in first, in the time of king Henry the. 4. but you? Who reuiued the same againe in Quene Maries daies, but you? Farther, who kept them in prison before the law, tyl by the lawe you had made a rope to hange them withall? And thinke you by charging the law, to discharge your selues? But you wil vse here some translation of the fact perchaunce, alledging that you burnt them not, but onely committed them to the secular power, by whom you wyl say they were burnt, and not by you. It wyl be hard to play the Sophister before the Lord. For so it may be said to you againe: that the fire burned them, and not the secular power. But I pray you who put them in? But they were heretickes you wil saye, and Lutherans, and therefore we burnt them, thinking therby to do God good seruice. &c. Of such seruice doers Christ spake before, saying that such should come, who putting his seruants to death, should thinke to do good seruice to god. And forsomuch as vnder the pretence of heresy you put them to death, concerning that matter ther is and hath bene inough sayde to you by learninge, if either learned bookes, or learned sermons could moue you. But to this none answereth you better then the Martyrs them selues, whiche in this booke doo tel you that in the same which you cal heresy they serue the liuing God. And howe do you then serue the liuing God in putting them to death, whom they in the death do serue so hartely and so heauenly, as in this booke here doth wel appere. And because you charge them so much with heresy, this would I know, by what learning do you define your heresy? By the scripture or by your Canon law? I know what you wil answer: but what so euer you say, your own actes and dedes wil wel proue the contrary. For what scripture can saue him, whom your law condemneth? What heresy was in speaking against your transubstantiation, before Innocentius the thirde did so enact it in his Canon? An. 1 15. What man was euer counted for an hereticke, which worshipping Christ in heauen, did not worship him in the Priestes handes, before Honorius the thirde in his his Canon dyd cause the sacrament to be eleuated, and adored vpon the altar? Faith onelye iustifieng in saint Paules time, and in the beginning church was no heresie, before of late daies the Romish Canons had made it heresy.

Likewise, if it be heresy not to acknowledge the Pope as supreme head of the church, then saint Paule was an hereticke, and a starke Lutheran, which hauing the scriptures, yet neuer attributed that to the Pope, nor to Peter him selfe to be supreme head of the Church. So wer al the other Fathers of the primatiue church heretiques also, which neuer knew any such supremacy in the pope, before Bonifacius. 1. called him selfe vniuersall byshop. 600. yeares after Christ. After lyke sort and maner, if receiuing in both kindes and hauing the scripture in the popular tonge be a matter worthy of burning: then were al the Apostels and Martyrs of the first church woorthye to be burned, and the Corinthians yll instructed of saint Paule, hauing both panem and calicem Domini. Eyther condemne saint Paule and them with these, or els let these be quit with the other. The same I may inferre of Purgatorye, the setting vp of images, going on pilgrimage, and such like. &c. but that I am weried to see your miserable folly. I might here argue with you. For if your heresy (as you cal it) be a synne with you so hainous, that it deserueth burning, then would I know, how can that be a synne now, which was a vertue once? In the time of the olde lawe it was a vertue amonge the Iewes, to haue no image in the temple. Also Ezechias, Iosias, with diuers other good kinges mo wer cōmended for abolishing the same. And haue we not the same commaundement stil? And how commeth it now to be a vice, which was a vertue then? Likewise in the new law, both Paule and Barnabe would haue torne their garmentes for doing that, for the not doing whereof you burne your brethren nowe. you see therefore how your heresy standeth not by Gods word, for which you burne Gods people, but onely by your owne lawes and Canons made by men. Wherfore if these your lawes and Canons (without the which the church once did stand and floorish) be now of such force, that the breach thereof must nedes be death, better it were either they were neuer made, or that now they were abolished, seing both the church may wel be without them, and that gods people in no case can wel lyue with them, but be burned for them. And now as I haue hetherto collected and recited almost al your excuses and reasons that you can bring and alledge for your selues, and yet you see they wyl not serue you, so I exhort you to turne to that which onely may and wyll serue, that is to the blood of the lambe of God, which taketh away the sinnes of the worlde. Washe your bloudy handes with the teares of plentiful repentance. And though you cannot cal backe againe the liues of them whom you haue slaine: yet cal your selues back againe from the waie of iniquitie, and from the pathe of destruction, which you were going to. Consider how long now you haue spurnt and kicked against the Lorde and his truth, and yet you see nothinge hathe preuailed. What haue you but kickt against the prick? If killing and slaieng coulde helpe your cause, you see what an infinite sorte you haue put to death, the nomber of whom althoughe it doth excede mans searching, yet Paulus Vergerius in his booke against the Popes Cataloge taking a vew therof, doth account them to the nomber of an hundreth thousand persons slaine in Christendome of you (whō he there calleth Papistes) in the cause of Christes Gospel, within this fourtie or an hundreth yere,

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