Page:The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe Volume 3.djvu/85

who will not obey, the same process to be made against them, as against the favourers and maintainers of heresies. And this most holy synod hath caused the said forty-five articles to be examined, and oftentimes perused, by many most reverend fathers of the church of Rome, cardinals, bishops, abbots, masters of divinity, and doctors of both laws, besides a great number of other learned men;

Ask my fellow if I be a thief.

So we hear you.

which articles being so examined, it was found (as in truth it was no less) that many, yea and a great number of them be notoriously, for heretical, reproved and condemned by the holy fathers; others not to be catholic, but erroneous; some full of offence and blasphemy; certain of them offensive unto godly ears, and many of them to be rashful and seditious. It is found, also, that his books do contain many articles of like effect and quality, and that they do induce and bring into the church unsound and unwholesome doctrine,^[1] contrary unto the faith and ordinance of the churchSo thought the soldiers perpetually to keep down Christ from rising. O marvelous sacred synod! Though the sepulchre be watched, Christ will rise.Wherefore, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, this sacred synod, ratifying and approving the sentences and judgments of the archbishops and council of Rome, do, by this their decree and ordinance perpetually, for evermore, condemn and reprove the said articles, and every one of them, his books which he entitled his "Dialogue" and "Trialogue,"^[2] and all other books of the same author, volumes, treatises, and works, by what name soever they be entitled or called, which we will here to be sufficiently expressed and named. Also, we forbid the reading,^[3] learning, exposition, or alleging of any of the said books unto all faithful Christians, but so far forth as shall tend to the reproof of the same; forbidding all and singular catholic persons, under the pain of curse, that from henceforth they be not so hardy openly to preach, teach, or hold, or by any means to allege the said articles, or any of them, except, as is aforesaid, that it do tend unto the reproof of them; commanding all those books, treatises, works, and volumes aforesaid, to be openly burned, as it was decreed in the synod at Rome,^[4] as is before expressed: for the execution whereof duly to be observed and done, the said sacred synod doth straitly charge and command the ordinaries of the place diligently to attend and look to the matter, according as it appertaineth to every man's duty by the canonical laws and ordinances.

 

What these articles were, here condemned by the council, collected out of all his works, and exhibited to that council, to the number of forty-five, the copy of them here following declareth.

 

Certain other Articles gathered out of Wickliff's Books by his Adversaries, to the Number of Forty-five, exhibited to the Council of Constance after his Death, and in the same Council condemned.

 

Note.—Besides the twenty-four articles above mentioned, there were others also gathered out of his books, to the number of forty-five, which his malicious adversaries, perversely collecting, and maliciously expounding, did exhibit to the council of Constance; all which to repeat, though it be not here needful, yet to recite certain of them as they stand in that council, it shall not be superfluous.

25. All such as be hired for temporal living to pray for others, offend, and sin of simony.

26. The prayer of a reprobate prevaileth for no man.

27. All things happen from absolute necessity.^[5]

 

1. "Unwholesome," because they teach against the pomp of the pope.
2. Because this "trialogue" teareth the pope's triple crown. [The ancient crown or "tiara" (mentioned at page 172 of vol. ii.) was a round high cap. Pope John XXIII. first encircled it with a crown; Boniface added to it a second crown, and Benedict XII. added the third. This covering for the head of the pope, which has increased in splendour, as his church has increased in pride, is the badge of his civil right, as the keys are of his spiritual jurisdiction; for as soon as the pope is dead, his arms are represented with the tiara alone, without the keys.—Ed.]
3. Upon this injunction against Wicklitff's works, Foxe observes, "Rub a galled horse on the back, and he will wince." By which he means, that the church of Rome, having been once made to smart under the attacks of Wickliff, was anxious that old wounds should not be reopened and therefore condemned and reprobated his writings.—Ed.
4. "At Rome," nether barrel, better herring.
5. This article, omitted in all the English editions of Foxe, is here restored to its place from the Latin edition of 1559, p. 36. "Omnia de necessitate absolute eveniunt." To this our author