I would know, who first of your side did cast himselfe downe headlong: Valdè illud granum fertile fuit, vnde tanta seges praecipitatorum cadauerum pullulavit: sure it was a very fruitfull graine, from whence haue budded foorth so many pre∣cipitated carkases.
Wherefore notwithstanding any thing yet said, they may be guiltie of wilfull error, although they did (which may be done with an obstinate and peruerse mind) suffer and endure much for their profession.
5 And this lastly ••erueth (if it proue any thing) to cleare the Protestants from suspition of wilfulnesse, who haue endured more by imprisonment, famishment, whip∣ping, racking, tormenting, burning, and many more tor∣ments, by an hundred fold at Papistes hands onely for their conscience, then the other haue felt for their offence a∣gainst the State.
1. Wiues being chosen in the feare of God are no im∣pediment to studie: they are helpers rather, and a means to ease the mind of Ministers from worldly busines, that they may be more fit for meditation. There was no place more apt for heauenly meditation, then Paradise; yet God thought good to make woman there. No persons more gi∣uen to meditation then the Apostles, yet they had their wiues following of them to minister to their necessities▪ 1. Cor. 9.5. Nay rather vagrant and vnsetled lust, such as raigneth in poperie, is a distracting of the mind. And they are like to be good Diuinitie Lectures, which the Iu∣dasites vse to reade in the nights to the auditories of faire women, while their husbands missing of them, scratch their heades where it itcheth not; as the Masse-priestes report.
2 It is not the trauelling abroad, or studying beyond the sea, and seeking meanes a farre off, that can bring a man certainely to true knowledge. Which of the Chri∣stian professours can compare with Solon, Lycurgus, Tha∣les, Plato, Pythagoras, for long trauaile, visiting of strange countries, seeing the behauiour of many nations? yet this could not bring them to the knowledge of Christ. The Pharises did compasse sea and land, they were greater