The work was thought, not only by me, (to whom every thing of yours gives satisfaction and pleasure,) but also by Bullinger, and his sons, and sons-in-law, as well as by Walter and Wolf, so wise, admirable, and eloquent, that they set no bounds to their praise, and are of opinion that nothing more perfect has appeared in these times. I hail with hearty welcome this happy specimen of your talents, this means of edification to the Church, this ornament of England; and beseech you to go on in the path on which you have entered. For although our cause is good, yet they who defend it are but few, compared with the number of its enemies; and these last seem to be at length so much aroused, as to gain greatly in the esteem of the inexperienced multi

and much success, though not without opposition from the enemies of his religious principles; which at one time was carried so far as to force him to flee to London for his life. He was consulted in the regulation of ecclesiastical discipline and ceremonies, and in the compilation of the Liturgy.

On the accession of Mary, Peter Martyr was permitted to leave the kingdom, although the machinations of his enemies rendered the undertaking perilous and troublesome; and after his departure, the bones of his wife, who had died at Oxford, were dug up, condemned in a mock trial, and buried in a dunghill.

He returned to Strasburg in 1553, was re-admitted to his lectureship, and discharged its duties nearly three years. During this period, he paid many kind attentions to the English exiles for conscience sake, who were sojourning in various parts of Switzerland and Germany, and thus became acquainted, among others, with Bishop Jewell, then at Strasburg.

In 1556, he accepted a professorship at Zurich, and in his removal thither was accompanied by Jewell.

Queen Elizabeth, on her accession to the throne, honoured Peter Martyr with an invitation to return to England, and a promise of preferment. But he chose to stay at Zurich; and there remained (with the exception of a visit to Paris in 1561, when he was officially invited to bear a part in the ineffectual conference between the Romanists and Huguenots) until his decease, on the 11th of November, 1562.

His writings were held in much esteem among his contemporaries, and by all parties he was regarded as a man who united, in a remarkable degree, sound judgment and discretion with fervent zeal. His invitation to Paris, and the attention shown him while there by the leaders of both factions, are proofs of the high rank he maintained in public opinion.]

tude by the excellence of their style, and their cunning sophisms. I speak in particular of such as Staphylus, Hosius, and many other writers of the same family, who at this time act as strenuous champions of the Pope's deceits.

Hence, as you have excited such hopes of you, by your learned and eloquent Apology, be well assured that all the good and the learned now promise themselves that while you live, evangelical truth shall not be assailed by its enemies with impunity. For my part, I rejoice exceedingly that I have lived to see you the parent of so illustrious and elegant a child. May GoD our heavenly Father, in his goodness, grant that you may often be enriched by a progeny not unlike!

1*

T

CHAPTER I.

ort Account of the Opposition the Truth and true Religion have met with in all Ages.

ection 1. It hath been an old complaint, even from first time of the patriarchs and prophets, and coned by the writings and testimonies of every age, the truth wandereth here and there as a stranger he world, and doth readily find enemies and slaners amongst those that know her not. Albeit pernce this may seem unto some a thing hard to be eved-I mean to such as have scant well and narly taken heed thereunto-especially seeing all mand, of Nature's very motion, without a teacher, doth rt the truth of their own accord; and seeing our viour CHRIST himself, when he was on earth, would called THE TRUTH, as by a name most fit to express

[The title of Bishop JEWELL's book is given rather differently in his swer to HARDING's Confutation. It there runs: An Apology, or swer, in Defence of the Church of England, with a brief and plain claration of the true Religion, professed and used in the same.] TERTULLIANUS in Apologetico. [c. 1. "Veritas-scit se peregrinam terris agere, inter extraneos facile inimicos invenire."-HARDING, Jesuit, in his Confutation of an Apology, cavilled at the rendering 'extraneos," in this passage, by "that know her not." In defendg it, Jewell justly and beautifully remarks: "Verily, as long as Satan, e prince of darkness, is 'prince of this world,' so long the truth of GoD sseth in this world as a stranger: and being among strangers, as ERTULLIAN saith, easily findeth enemies, and is ill-entreated. He ith further, Cæterum, unum hoc gestit, ne ignorata damnetur-This ly thing truth desireth, that no man condemn her before he know er."-Defence of the Apology, p. 8. fol. ed.]

• John xiv. 6.

e

all his divine power: yet we, which have been exercised in the holy Scriptures, and which have both read and seen what hath happened to all godly men, commonly at all times-what to the prophets, to the apostles, to the holy martyrs, and what to CHRIST himself-with what rebukes, revilings, and despites, they were continually vexed whilst they here lived, and that only for the truth's sake ;—we, I say, do see that this is not only no new thing, or hard to be believed, but that it is a thing already received, and commonly used, from age to age.

Nay, truly, this might seem much rather a marvel, and beyond all belief, if the devil, who is the father of lies, and enemy to all truth,f would now upon a sudden change his nature, and hope that truth might otherwise be suppressed than by belieing it; or that he would begin to establish his own kingdom by using now any other practices than the same which he hath ever used from the beginning. For since any man's remembrance, we scant find one time, either when religion did first grow, or when it was settled, or when it did fresh spring up again, wherein truth and innocency were not by all unworthy means and most despitefully entreated. Doubtless the devil well seeth, that so long as truth is in good safety, himself cannot be safe, nor yet maintain his own

estate.

Sect. 2. For letting pass the ancient patriarchs and prophets, who, as we have said, had no part of their

d [JEWELL, it will be remembered, was writing for men, who, like himself, had been witnesses, if not actors, in the scenes of blood and violence which attended the temporary suppression of Protestantism in the reign of Mary. The embers of the Smithfield fires were scarcely yet extinct, when he reminded his readers of their having seen the fate "of godly men," when persecuted for the truth.]

e

[It seems scarcely credible, yet such is the fact, that, after this grave expostulation, the very first paragraph of the answer-the section devoted especially to this introduction to Bishop JEWELL'S book-should characterize the Reformers of England as "the ass in the lion's skin," apes counterfeiting men," "heretics, children of their father the devil," "gospellers, by just sentence of excommunication cut off from the Church," "filthy queanes [strumpets] who in time and place use the honest talk of chaste matrons," "thieves," "like to the Manichees," and much more of the same sort!-HARDING'S Confutation, quoted in JEWELL'S Answer, p. 1, 5.]

f John viii. 44.