foundation, and will not suffer it to err and fall. But as for the open known Church, and the outward face thereof, it is not the pillar of truth, otherwise than that it is (as it were) a register or treasury to keep the books of God's holy will and Testament, and to rest only thereupon, as St. Austin and Tertullian mean, in the place by M. Smith alleged." Answer to Dr. Smith. 11. BRADFORD, PREBENDARY OF ST. PAUL'S, MARTYR. "When Christ and his Apostles were upon earth, who was more like to be the true Church, they, or the prelates, bishops, and synagogue? If a man should have followed custom, unity, antiquity, or the more part, should not Christ and his company have been cast out of the doors? Therefore bade Christ search the Scriptures. And, good mother, shall the servant be above his master? Shall we look for other entertainment at the hands of the world, than Christ and his dear disciples found? Who was taken in Noah's time for the Church? poor Noah and his family, or others? And doth not Christ say, As it was then, so shall it go now towards the coming of the Son of man? What meaneth Christ when He saith, Iniquity shall have the upper hand? Doth not He tell that charity shall wax cold? And who seeth not a wonderful great lack of charity in those, which would now be taken for Christ's Church? All that fear God in this realm truly can tell more of this than I can write." Epistle to the University and Town of Cambridge.

"Take heed, for the Lord's sake; take heed, take heed, and defile not your bodies or souls with this Romish and Anti-Christian religion set up amongst us again, but come away; come away, as the angel crieth, from amongst them, in their idolatrous service, lest you be partakers of their iniquity. Hearken to your preachers, as the Thessalonians did to Paul; that is, confer their

sayings with the Scriptures; if they found not thereafter, the morning light shall not shine upon them." Epistle to certaim godly Men, whom he exhorteth to be patient under the Cross, and constant in the true Doctrine which they had professed.

12. HOOPER, BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER AND WORCESTER, MARTYR.

"I had rather follow the shadow of Christ, than the body of all the general councils or doctors since the death of Christ. The devil never slept, but always by his ministers attempted to destroy the verity of Christ's religion, and clean to put out the light of truth, which was perfect in Christ's time and in the time of the Apostles. None since that time so pure. St. Jerome, in Vita Malchi, saith, that his time was darkness in respect of the Apostles' time...........And seeing the Church is bound unto this infallible truth, the only word of God, it is a false and usurped authority that men attribute unto the clergy, and bind the word of God and Christ's Church to the succession of bishops or any college of cardinals, schools, ministries, or cathedral churches. Paul would have no man to give faith to any person or minister in the Church of God, but when he preacheth the word of God truly. Men may have the gift of God to understand and interpret the Scriptures unto others, but never authority to interpret it, otherwise than it interpreteth itself, which the godly mind of man by study, meditation, and conferring of one place thereof with the other, may find; howbeit some more, some less, as God giveth his grace.....It is no reproach of the dead man, but mine opinion unto all the world, that the Scripture solely and the Apostles' Church is to be followed, and no man's authority, be he Austin, or Tertullian, or either cherubim or seraphim." Declaration of Christ and of his Office.

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"Sure we are, that Christ, the Patriarchs, Prophets, and Apostles, be saved, and believed no more, nor any otherwise, than they have left unto us by writings. Better it is to be certain of our doctrine and salvation with this holy Church, than to associate ourselves with this rabble of liars; who boast and brag of their abominable and ethnical ceremonies, which are condemned in the Scriptures to be laws for the holy Church. God give them grace to read the Holy Bible, and to have a little understanding of it! Then thou shalt see, who and where is the holy Church, that these dreamers attribute unto their father the devil and anti-christ of Rome. And if they say unto thee, that thou must not take the text after thine own mind, but after the mind of holy doctors, who have written in the Scripture; think with thyself, that God hath given thee the Scripture to read therein to thy salvation, as well as unto the Doctor. Further, that thy doctor preach not a lie for the truth, God hath given thee the Scripture to judge thy bishop, doctor, preacher, and curate; whether he preach gall or honey, his own laws or God's laws. Further, say boldly and fear not, for it is true, that in matters and causes of weight the doctors agree not one with another: no, many times not with themselves; as every man knoweth, who hath read them with judgment. And as good arguments shalt thou find in them to disprove, as to prove the things, that this late found Catholic Church of the devil would establish.

They say the holy Church must be heard and obeyed. True it is, but our faith is not grounded upon those that be of the Church, though they be the true ministers of God's word; but upon the word itself. Therefore, when the authority or testimony of the Church is alleged, man, that loveth his salvation, must search where and what the Church is, what times, and when the writers were most sincere, and not believe these yester

day's birds, that sing as the popinjay, they know not what, as they be taught out of a shameless school, that began with murder, is maintained with sacrilege, and shall be destroyed with the clearness and brightness of the Son of Man coming to judgment.

It appertaineth unto no man, in what authority soever he be, to judge who preacheth false, and who true; but unto the word of God only, which interpreteth itself, when it is with judgment conferred." Declaration of the Fourth Commandment.

13. ROGERS, PREBENDARY OF ST. PAUL'S, MARTYR. "Lord Chancellor. No, no, thou canst prove nothing by the Scripture. The Scripture is dead: it must have a lively expositor.

Rogers. No, the Scripture is alive. But let me go forward with my purpose.

Worcester. All heretics have alleged the Scriptures for them, and therefore we must have a lively expositor for them.

Rogers. Yea, all heretics have alleged the Scriptures for them; but they were confuted by the Scriptures, and by none other expositor.

Worcester. But they would not confess that they were overcome by the Scriptures, I am sure of that.

Rogers. I believe that: and yet were they overthrown by them, and in all the councils they were disputed with and overthrown by the Scriptures." Examination and Answer of Rogers made to the Lord Chancellor; penned by himself.

"I answered shortly, that all the laws of men might not, neither could rule the word of God, but that they all must be discussed and judged thereby, and obey thereunto: and neither my conscience nor any Christian man's, could be satisfied with such laws as disagreed

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from that word...... ..I can also shew the authority of St. Austin, that when he disputed with an heretic, he would neither himself, nor yet have the heretic to lean unto the determination of the two former councils, of the which the one made for him, and the other for the heretic that disputed against him: but said that he would have the Scriptures to be their judge, which were common and indifferently for them both, and not proper to either of them." Second Confession.

14. TURNER, DEAN OF WELLS.

"Sometimes the Apostles spake and treated upon the kingdom of God more plenteously in speaking than it is written in books; yet for all that, as for the sum of the sentence and doctrine, they preached none other things than the Gospel, which we have written; so that those things that pertain to a Christian man's life, must be learned of no where else, but of the Bible; that is of the New Testament and the Old.........To be short; the faith wherewith a righteous man liveth is conceived, taken, and drawn out of the canonical Scripture, and not of the decrees of the fathers, as St. Austin witnesseth in the ninth book of the City of God, the eighteenth chapter. Then wherefore should I receive, as an article of my faith, that which the Scripture inspired of God hath not? I am commanded to prove and try the spirits whether they be of God or no; the which liberty of judging all doctrines by the Scriptures no man will take from us.....

John, in the fourth chapter of his first Epistle, biddeth to prove spirits whether they be of God or no: therefore it is lawful for Christian men to judge the spirit of councils; for they say that the Holy Ghost is the author of the council. What rule shall we have, I pray you, to prove and try spirits beside the word of God?..

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.We receive no man that cometh in his