TOUCHING THE ARTICLES OF THEIR FAITH, LAID BEFORE THEM BY THE INQUISITION, FOR RECANTATION.

Continuing, said author relates, from Fox, some articles drawn up by the inquisition, with or besides the abovementioned edict; containing the principal tenets of the Wickliffites, which the inquisition placed before them for renunciation, or abjuration. They read as follows:

1. “That the mass or the worship which is performed before the holy cross, and is ordained by the whole church, is idolatry.

2. “That all who worship before the cross, commit idolatry, and are to be regarded as idolaters.

3. “That the real flesh and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ are not in the sacrament of the altar after the priest has pronounced the words of consecration over them.

4. “That the sacrament of the altar is sacramental bread, without life, and only instituted in remembrance of the suffering of Christ.

5. “That the body of Christ, so-called, which is taken from the altar, is a figure of Christ’s body, as long as we see the bread and the wine.

6. “That the decrees and ecclesiastical ordinances of the prelates and the clergy, in the province of Canterbury, in their last assembly, held, with the consent of the King and the nobles, in the last parliament, against him who was recently burnt alive in the city of London, were not powerful enough to change the purpose of that martyr; because the substance of the material bread, in the sacrament of the altar, is the same as it was before, and no change is made, in the nature of the bread by consecration.

7. “That any layman, though he have not studied at College, has a right to preach the Gospel everywhere, and that he may teach (provided he has been properly elected thereto by his church, as has been stated elsewhere) upon his own authority, without permission from his ordinary bishop.

8. “That it is sin to give anything to the Dominicans, Minorites, Augustinians, and Carmelites.

9. “That we ought not to sacrifice at the funerals of the dead.

10. “That auricular confession of sins to the priest is unnecessary.

11. “That every good man, though he be unlearned, is a priest before God.

12. “That a child, though it die unbaptized, will be saved.”

Note.—This is putting down infant baptism out and out as of no value; since the papists were not ashamed to say, that it were better, that a whole country should sink out of sight, than that a child should die without baptism; maintaining, that all unbaptized infants would go to hell, and be eternally damned.

13. “That neither the Pope, nor the prelates, nor any ordinary, can compel any one to swear, either by any of God’s creatures, or by the Bible, or by the New Testament.”

Here it must be observed, that these people thereby denied all manner of swearing of oaths, not only that which is done by the creature, but also by the Creator himself; since even in England they did not, at that time, swear by the creature; but in the form of swearing this custom was observed by the papists, namely, he who was to swear, knelt down, and laid his hand upon the Bible, or the Testament, and said: “I swear by God and his holy Gospel, etc., so truly help me God.”

But who does not know, that the Gospel or the word of God is no creature? And though it be that in swearing the hand was laid upon the Bible, or upon the Gospel book, in token of the testimony, the swearing was not done by the material book; as also in our countries, when in swearing (among those who hold thus) the hand or the finger is held up, the swearing is not done by that hand or that finger.

Hence, said people were opposed not only to the manner of swearing, but to swearing itself, even though they have been required to swear, not by the creature, but by the Creator himself. Concerning this, see their own confession.

14. “That the bishop as well as a common man, and a layman as well as the priest, are of equal authority, as long as they live aright.

15. “That no one is bound to accord any bodily reverence (that is, by bending the knee and worshiping, as was then customary in England), to any prelate.”

These are briefly the chief articles which, according to the preceding decree of the King, and the ecclesiastical ordinance, or much rather inquisition of the archbishop, were laid before the Christians in England, for recantation. See large Book of Christian Martyrs, fol. 517, col. 3, 4, from John Fox, Hist. Angl. 485.

A. D. 1402.—About this time, Thomas Walsingham, a bitter papistic historian records some articles 323 of the abovementioned people, which, as he states, one Louis of Clifford, formerly a defender of the faith of these people, had discovered to the archbishop of Canterbury. The fifth of those articles reads as follows: “If they (the said people) had a new-born infant, they would not have it baptized in church, by the hands of the priest.” Thom. Wals., in Hist., Reg. Angl. and Hypodigmate Neustrie, A. D. 1402.