Page:The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe Volume 3.djvu/123

 had preserved in memory for us the whole order of their life, the form of their process and judgment, and what was to be observed in their adversaries, or to be commended in them. Albeit that matter were not greatly for our purpose, forsomuch as all those things could not be contained in a few volumes; and that also, by those few, it were easy to be judged what a man may think as touching the cruelty of the papists against all men.$🞼$

Peter Paine also, who flying from Oxford unto Bohemia, did stoutly contend against the sophisters, as touching both kinds of the sacrament of the last supper; who, afterwards, among the rest of the orators, was one of the fourteen that were sent unto the council of Basil; where, by the space of three days, he disputed upon the fourth article, which was touching the civil dominion of the clergy, 1438. Also the lord Cobham, with divers others besides, whose names are mentioned in the king's writ, sent to the sheriff of Northampton, the tenor of which writ of the king here followeth:

To these above rehearsed, and other favourers of Wickliff, within this our country of England, we may add also the Bohemians; forasmuch as the propagation of the said doctrine of Wickliff in that country also took root, coming from England to Bohemia by this occasion, as in story here followeth.

There chanced at that time a certain student of the country of Bohemia to be at Oxford, one of a wealthy house, and also of a noble stock; who returning home from the university of Oxford to the university of Prague, carried with him certain books of Wickliff, 'De Realibus Universalibus,' 'De Civili Jure, et Divino,' 'De Ecclesia,' 'De Quæstionibus Variis contra Clerum,' &c. It chanced that at the same time a certain nobleman in the city of Prague had founded and built a great church of Matthias and Matthew, which church was called Bethlehem, giving to it great lands, and finding in it two preachers every day, to preach both on holy days and working-days to the people. Of these two preachers this John Huss was one; a man of great knowledge, of a pregnant wit, and excellently favoured for his worthy life amongst them. This John Huss having familiarity with this young man in reading and perusing these books of Wickliff, took such pleasure and fruit in reading thereof, that not only he began to defend this author openly in the schools, but also in his sermons, commending him for a good man, a holy man and a heavenly man, wishing himself, when he should die, to be there placed, where the Rh