Page:The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe Volume 3.djvu/137



mouth of your diocese, in the year of our Lord 1390, so that these your letters, and the contents thereof, came to the true and undoubted knowledge of the same William; yet, notwithstanding, hath the same William presumed in divers places and times to preach within the same your diocese, after and against your commandment aforesaid.

The tenor of the same Letters before mentioned followeth, and is this:

John, by the sufferance of God bishop of Hereford, to the dean and chapter of our church of Hereford, and to all and singular abbots, priors, provosts, deans rural, parsons and vicars of monasteries, priories, churches, colleges, and parishes, and to others having cure of souls within the city and diocese of Hereford, and to all and every other being witliin the same city and diocese, greeting, grace, and blessing. Forasmuch as the golden laurel of teaching doctoral is not from above indifferently every man's gift; neither is the office of preaching granted save to such as are called, and especially by the church admitted thereunto: we do admonish and require you, all and singular clerks aforesaid, and do straitly enjoin you all, in the virtue of holy obedience, that neither you nor any of you do admit any man to preach or to teach the catholic faith, saving such as the same office of preaching shall, by the authority apostolical, or else yoiu- bishop, be specially committed unto; but that as much as in you shall lie, you do by word and deed labour to let those that would attempt the contrary. And you, lords, ladies, knights, barons, esquires, and all, and singular persons, of what estate, degree, pre-eminence, or condition soever ye be, remaining within the city and diocese of Hereford, we do beseech and exhort in our Lord, that, following the words of our Saviour, you beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.

Item, According to the saying of the apostle, "Be not ye carried away with divers and strange doctrines;" and that in the meanwhile, as saith the apostle, you be not removed from the sense of the holy ancient fathers, lest that any man by any means should seduce you; but you, agreeing together in one mind, see that you honour God with one mouth. But if any men to whom that thing is not specially, as is aforesaid, committed, shall attempt to instruct, or in this your life to direct you into the catholic faith, do ye deny to give them audience, and refuse you to be present at their assemblies, and shun ye their teachings, because they be wicked and perverse. And as for us, we will not omit to proceed, according to the sacred canons and precepts of the holy fathers, against such as do the contrary.

Dated at London, in the house of our habitation, under our seal, the last day save one of December, in the year of our Lord 1389, and, of our consecration, the first.

V. Item, The same William, in his preaching to the people on Monday the first of August, in the year of our Lord 1390, in the parish of Whitney of your diocese, did hold and affirm, that no prelate of the world, of what estate, preeminence or degree soever he were, having cure and charge of souls, he being in deadly sin, and hearing the confession of any under his hand, in giving him absolution, doth nothing: as who neither doth loose him from his sin, nor in correcting or excommunicating him for his demerits, doth bind him by his sentence, except the prelate shall be free himself from deadly sin, as St. Peter was, to whom our Lord gave power to bind and loose.

VI. Item, The same William in many places said and affirmed, in the presence of many faithful christian people, that after the sacramental words uttered by the priest having the purpose to consecrate, there is not made the very body of Christ in the sacrament of the altar.

VII. Item, That accidents cannot be in the sacrament of the altar without a subject; and that there remaineth material bread there to such as be partakers communicant with the body of Christ in the same sacrament.

VIII. Item, That a priest being in deadly sin, cannot be able by the strength of the sacramental words to make the body of Christ, or bring to perfection any other sacrament of the church, neither yet to minister it to the members of the church.