Page:History of england froude.djvu/246

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224
REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH
[ch. 3.

our daily prayer is and shall be that all peace and concord may increase among your Grace's true subjects our said children, whom God be our witness we love, have loved, and shall love ever with hearty affection; never intending any hurt ne harm towards any of them in soul or body; ne have we ever enterprised anything against them of trouble, vexation, or displeasure; but only have, with all charity, exercised the spiritual jurisdiction of the Church, as we are bound of duty, upon certain evil-disposed persons infected with the pestilent poison of heresy. And to have peace with such had been against the Gospel of our Saviour Christ, wherein he saith, Non veni mittere pacem sed gladium. Wherefore, forasmuch as we know well that there be as well-disposed and well-conscienced men of your Grace's Commons in no small number assembled, as ever we knew at any time in Parliament; and with that consider how on our part there is given no such occasion why the whole number of the spirituality and clergy should be thus noted unto your Highness; we humbling our hearts to God and remitting ihe judgment of this our inquietation to Him, and trusting, as his Scripture teacheth, that if we love him above all, omnia coöperabuntur in bonum, shall endeavour to declare to your Highness the innocency of us, your poor orators.

'And where, after the general preface of the same supplication, your Grace's Commons descend to special particular griefs, and first to those divers fashions of laws concerning temporal things, whereon, as they say, the clergy in their Convocation have made and daily do