Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 2.djvu/367

1536.] which the colleges had paid in common, with all other Church corporations. 'His Majesty is conscious,' says the Act which was passed on this occasion, that the enforcing of the payment of first-fruits against the Universities 'may prejudice learning, and cause the students to give their minds to other things, which might not be acceptable to God;' and 'he has conceived such hearty love and tender affection to the continuance of honest and virtuous living, and of the arts and sciences (wherewith it hath pleased Almighty God abundantly to endow his Highness), as that his Grace cannot compare the same to any law, constitution, or statute; nor tolerate any such ordinance, though the commodity and benefit thereof should never so much redound to his own profit or pleasure, if it may hinder the advancement and setting forth of the lively word of God, wherewith his people must be fed; or if it may imperil the knowledge of such other good letters as in Christian realms is expedient to be learned. He has therefore—(for that the students should the more gladly bend their wits to the attaining of learning, and, before all things, the learning of the wholesome doctrines of Almighty God, and the three tongues, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, which be requisite for the understanding of Scripture)—thought it convenient' to exonerate the Universities from the payment of first-fruits for ever.

So closed the first great Parliament of the Reformation, which was now dissolved. The