"convent before him, and imprison any person suspected of heresy : an obstinate heretic shall be burned before the people." Fourteen years after, namely in the second year of Henry V. another statute was passed, which declared as follows:---" The intent of the heretics, called Lollards, was to subvert the Christian faith, the LAW of God, the "CHURCH and the REALM. All officers of government shall be sworn "to assist the ordinaries in extirpating heresies. A heretic convict shall "forfeit all his fee simple lands, goods, chattels; they which be in"dicted of heresy shall be delivered to the ordinaries." Here then was no invasion of the liberty of the subject, no intrenchment of the right of conscience; the object of the act was to secure the rights of the people from the invasion of lawless power, and protect the right of conscience from being forced by ignorance and innovation. When Mary came to the crown, she restored the nation to the faith of her forefathers; she abrogated the new laws of Henry and Edward, her father and brother, which we shall have occasion to notice by and by; and she proclaimed freedom of conscience to all her subjects, enjoining at the same time a due regard for the laws and a peaceable demeanour towards society. The turbulent spirit, however, of those who became infected with the gospel notions of evangelical liberty, would not allow them to be quiet; they gave proofs of their disposition to outrage by several acts of violence, and it was fonnd necessary to adopt some steps to prevent a recurrence of similar offences against the peace of the kingdom. Unwilling to make new laws, or invent new crimes, the old writ de Hæretico comburendo was revived, it having been abolished by Edward the sixth to make way for a modern and more arbitrary law, namely, to compel persons to embrace a new doctrine in preference to the true and ancient belief of the Christian world. Such then was the law under which Fox's martyrs suffered, who were for the most part apostate monks, friars and priests, shoemakers, sawyers, weavers, smiths, curriers, &c. besides public malefactors, condemned as such by the laws in those cases made and provided. We have now to notice the other side of the case. It has been shewn, we think demonstratively, that the motive which produced the writ de hæretico comburendo was a strict adherence to truth in religion and a regard for the old laws and customs of the land. This, however, was not the motive which influenced the fautors and abettors of the Reformation, so called, who, while they raised the cry of evangelical liberty, proved themselves the greatest tyrannizers over conscience ever heard of. When Henry the eighth assumed the supremacy of the church as well as the kingdom of England, he was so conscious of the utter inability to reconcile his usurpation to reason and antiquity, that he obtained a law from his corrupt and obsequious parliament, making it HIGH TREason to deny his right to the same. Here then was a new law and a new offence coined, hitherto unknown to the people of England, and as it affected conscience, men of probity and honour could not yield obedience to it, while the unprincipled villain yielded a ready submission to the will of the tyrant. Consequently the honest man suffered the penalties of the law, and the ready slave rioted on the fallen liberties of the people. Of the laws of Edward we shall say nothing, but those of Elizabeth, who succeeded her sister Mary, exceeded in barbarity the decrees of the Roman heathen persecutors of the primitive church. On her coming to the throne, she solemnly swore to preserve the Catholic religion as it had been restored by Mary, her predecessor. She, however, thought proper not only to violate her solemn engagement, but passed laws to harass and persecute her subjects who adhered to the ancient faith, with a fiendish malignity unequalled by a Nero or a Domitian. Having determined on setting herself up as the head of the church, she displaced the bishops and clergy, turned them out of the universities and colleges, and cast numbers of them into prison. Others fed beyond the seas, and to prevent the people from being without teachers of the truth, a seminary was established at Douay in 1508, for the purpose of educating English students for the priesthood, that they might return to their native country, and labour in the same cause which had induced St. Austin, in the sixth century, to visit this island. In the first year of Elizabeth's reign it was made HIGH TREASON to deny her right to the spiritual supremacy of the church, though such a right had never been before known to be claimed by a woman, nor by man either, till old Harry the eighth took a liking to Elizabeth's mother, Anne Boleyne. In the same year a fine of twenty pounds a month was adjudged against those who should absent themselves from their parish church to hear the new-fangled service. These laws soon filled the prisons with Catholics. It was subsequently enacted, that to be reconciled to the Catholic church, or to persuade any one to be of that religion, or to be otherwise instrumental in the reconciling any one, was a TREASONABLE offence, and subjected the party offending to be hanged, cut down alive, his bowels to be immediately ripped up and thrown into a fire, and his body chopped up into four quarters, to be at the disposal of the queen. It was also made HIGH TREASON to procure, publish, or put in use any bull, writing, or instrument from the bishop of Rome. The same dreadful punishment was also awarded to such Catholic priests as should remain in the kingdom; and felony for any one to harbour, relieve, or assist them. These were only a part of the NEW offences made by Elizabeth and her councillors to persecute and destroy the professors of that faith, under which the most equitable laws and free institutions had been established, and the people had become the most renowned throughout the whole of Christendom.-Under the modern diabolical laws some of the most learned and eminent characters were put to death, and numerous priests underwent tortures and privations, from motives of conscience only. The doctrines which they held were uniform, and the same as were held by the apostles of Christ and by the founders of the English monarchy. Hence it is clear, that the martyrs of Fox were individuals seduced from the paths of truth and morality, and acting from the impulse of their unruly passions, while the offences for which they were arraigned were of long standing, and enacted to preserve truth and social order; whereas the sufferers under the code of Protestantism, which we shall contrast with Fox's list, will be found to have been influenced solely by a tender regard for truth and conscience, without the least attempt to violate the laws of society or trespass on the rights of others, 1387 2 John Wickliffe, preacher, mart. 1413 7 Sir Roger Action, knt. martyr. 1556 16 Thomas Browne, martyr. 1556 18 Joan Warne alias Lashford, and John Lomas, martyrs. A 1556 19 Anne Alebright alias Champnes, martyr. 1556 20 Joan Catmer and Agnes Snoth, Year. Day. JANUARY. 1593 7 Edward Waterson, priest, mart. 1585 1642 1646 priest and one layman, transported. Thomas Green, priest, martyr. Bartholomew Roe, priest, mart. Thos. Vaughan, priest and conf. 1591 22 William Patenson, priest, mart. 1679 24 Wm Ireland, priest, S. J. mart. John Grove, layman, mart. Francis Nevill, priest and conf. 47 priests sent into banishment. Plaudus Adelham, O. S. B. priest and confessor. 1606 1680 And. Bromwich, priest and con. Richard Birkett, priest and conf. Richard Fletcher, priest and conf. John Penketh, pr. conf. and Jesuit. George Buby, ditto. James Corker, O.S. B. priest and William Nappier, priest and conf. January 2. John Wickliffe, Preacher, Martyr. HE first martyr which John Fox has selected to grace his calen THE dar never was put to death, nor yet so much as imprisoned for his religious opinions; for he died in his bed, at his benefice of Lutterworth, in Lincolnshire.-This is an unfortunate circumstance for John Fox's veracity, and it is not a little singular that he should be guilty of a lie in recording his premier saint, who died on the 31st of December, in the year 1384, though Fox has placed him in his calendar on the 2d of January, and fixes the year 1387 against his name. Wickliffe is also made a red letter saint, to denote him as one of the first rank. How far this heresiarch was entitled to this distinction we will leave the Protestant to decide, when he has seen the character given of him by some of the fathers of the Reformation so called. Cochlæus and Surius recount that Luther held Wickliffe for a heretic; and Philip Melancthon, who is made by Fox a fellow saint with Wickliffe, thus writes of his holy brother: "I have looked over Wickliffe, who behaveth himself tumultuously in this controversie (of the Lord's supper) and more than this, I have found many errors in him, by which a man may make judgment of his spirit. It is certain, he neither understood nor held the justice of faith; he doth foolishly confound the gospel and civil affairs with each other. He doth contend that it is not lawful for priests to possess any thing proper; he doth brawl sophistically and seditiously concerning the civil magistrate." Melanct. ep. ad Fredericum Miconium. "Thus wrote," says father Parsons, "Melancthon to his private friend of this holy Elias (so Bale calls Wickliffe) and brother-like saint Wickliffe. And he doth repeat the same again often in divers other parts of his works, namely, in his Apology, and common places, where he has these words, 'Wickliffe was plainly out of his wits, when he did deny that it was lawful for priests to hold any thing proper.' Well then (observes Parsons) a furious man that stirreth up sedition, and was ignorant of the very foundation of the Protestants' gospel, to wit, of their doctrine of salvation by only faith, (as both Melancthon and Luther affirm him to be,) with what spirit, think you, doth our apostate friar Bale call him un Elias, a morning slar, an organ of Christ, an habitation of the Holy Ghost, and the like? Seeing that the Holy Ghost cannot err, or utter such gross absurdities in doctrine, as before you have heard alleged against him. And Fox confesseth them, and saith only for his defence (part ii. cap. 10.) ' that albeit he had those blemishes, yet he did not fight directly against our Saviour. So that the question is not, by the confession of John Fox, whether this martyred Elias be an honest man or not, or whether he erred in his doctrine, or whether he impugned Christ indirectly; but whether he fought directly against him. Which, according to Melancthon's judgment, he did, since he taught another foundation of salvation than by faith only, which Protestants hold to be the chiefest invasion of Christ's doctrine that can be." How then, we shall take leave to ask, can Wickliffe be a Protestant saint? Yet has John Fox not only made him so, but has translated him to the head of his calendar, that he might become the great great grandfather of all his holy fry. Holinshed, Stow, and other English historians, record that the beginning and motives of Wickliffe's doctrines arose from disappointed ambition and wounded pride, which he concealed under the appearance of outward poverty and hypocritical sanctity, The preaching of his doctrines was followed by numerous broils, seditions, rebellions, commotions, miseries, and calamities, such as England never before witnessed, as may be seen more at large in our second volume pages 36, 39, 45. 3. John Ashton, Confessor. This saint of Foxian manufacture, was a priest and one of the first dis ciples of Wickliffe. He abjured his errors before the then archbishop of Canterbury, and so escaped burning. Thus then this Protestant confessor became a Catholic repentant, and therefore Fox has no right to place him in his calendar. 4. William Sawtre, Priest, Martyr. This man, otherwise called Chattris, was parish priest of Saint Seith the virgin in London. He was cited before Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, and other bishops, in the second year of Henry the fourth, for preaching certain new and fantastical doctrines. These he recanted, and afterwards publicly forswore one by one on the 23d of February, 1400, according to Fox. Being convicted of relapsing, he was condemned to be burned, which sentence was accordingly executed upon him. How Fox could claim this unfortunate man for a saint and martyr of his church, when he held most of the doctrines which she condemns, and was neither Lutheran, Zuinglian, Calvinist, nor perfect Wickliffian, we must leave the Protestant reader to explain. 5. William Swinderby, Priest, Martyr. He was a priest of Lincolnshire, infected with the opinions of Wickliffe, and also some of the doctrines of the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century. These doctrines, however, Fox acknowledges he revoked every one of them, some as heretical, some as erroneous and false;" but he excuses this weakness in his martyr by saying that he was forced thereunto by friars. These recantations Swinderby made publicly in several churches both in Lincoln, Leicester, and other counties, and as often, if we are to believe Fox, relapsed into his old errors. The conclusion of Fox's narration of this saint is too curious, however, to be passed over. After stating that Swinderby slipped into Herefordshire, where he was taken before the bishop, he says, "What afterwards became upon him, I have not certainly to say or affirm, whether he in prison died, or whether he escaped their hands, or whether he was burned there is no certain relation made. This remaineth out of doubt, that during the time of Richard the second, no great harm was done to him, which was to the year 1401." So much for Fox's testimony, and yet he places this Swinderby fourth in his calendar, as an actual martyr in the year just mentioned. The editor of the Quarterly Review is enraptured with Fox's "fidelity with regard to our domestic transactions," we imagine the reader of common sense begins already to think otherwise. 7. Sir Roger Acton, Knight, Martyr.. Fox has made this knight a red letter saint. The cause for which this martyr suffered was not a religious one, he being executed for TREASON and REBELLION. This man conspired with sir John Oldcastle against his lawful sovereign, Henry the fifth, and was taken in open arms against him in the field of St. Giles, London, in the year 1414, and the first of that king's reign. He was condemned for treason, first by private judgment, and afterwards by act of parliament, and was hung on the 10th of February, though Fox put him down in his calendar on the 7th of January. See more of this traitor-martyr in our second volume, page 58. |