Page:The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe Volume 3.djvu/156



shall geue none apples to you. If that ye wenden against me, and will not heare me, I shall adde hereto, seuen fold woundes for your sinnes. I shall send amongest you beastes of the field that shall deuour you and your beastes, I shall bring you into a field, and wayes shuln be desart. And if that ye will not receiue lore, but wenden againste me, I will also wenden againste you, and I shall smite you seuen sithes for your sinnes. I shall leade in vpon you, sword, vender of my couenant: and vpon the fleen into cities, I shal send pestilence in the middest of you. So that ten women shall bake their bread in one furnace, and yeld them again by waight, and ye shall eat, and not be fillet. If that yee heare me not by these things, but wenden against me, I shall wend in against you in a contrarie woodnesse, and blame you with seuen plagues for your sinnes; so that they soulen eat the flesh of your sonnes and of your daughters. And insomuch my soule shall loth you, that I shall bring your cities into wildernesse, and your sanctuaries I shall make desart, ne I shall not ouer that receiue sweet oder of your mouth. And I shall disperkle your land, and enemies shulen maruel thereon, when they shulen inhabite it; I shal disperkel you among heathen, and draw my sworde after you." These vengeances and many mo, God said should fall on them that breake his bidding, and dispiseth his lawes, and his domes. Than sithe Christ become man, and bought vs with his heart bloud, and has shewed vs so great loue, and giuen vs an easie law, of the best that euer might be made, and to bring vs to the ioy of heauen, and we dispise it and louen it nought; what vengeance will be taken here on, so long as he has suffered vs, and so mercifully abidden, when Hee shall come, that righteous iudge, in the cloudes, to deme this world? Therefore turne we vs to him, and leaue sinne that hee hates, and, ouer all thinges, maintaine his law that he confirmed with his death. For other lawes that men had made, should be demed, at that day, by the iust law of Christ, and the maker that them made; and then we wonne that long life and that ioy that Poul speaketh of, "that eye ne see not, ne eare heard not, ne into mans heart ascended not," the blisse and ioy that God hath ordeined to them that louen him and his lawes.

Deare worshipfull sirs, in this world I beseech you for Christes loue, as ye that I trow louen Gods law and trouth, (that, in these daies, is greatly borne abacke) that they wollen vouchsafe these thinges, that I send you written, to Gods worship, to let them be shewed in the parliament as your wits can best conceiue, to most worship to our God, and to shewing of the trouth and amending of holy church. My conclusions and mine appeale, and other true matters of Gods law (gif any man can find therin error, falsenesse, or default, prouet by the law of Christ clearly to christen mens knowledge), I shall reuoke my wrong conceit, and by Gods law be amendet: euer readie to holde with Gods law, openly and priuily, with Gods grace, and nothing to hold, teach, or maintaine, that is contrarie to his law.

Of the process, answers, and condemnation, of this worthy priest, and true servant of Christ, William Swinderby, you have heard. What afterwards became of him I have not certainly to say or affirm; whether he in prison died, or whether he escaped their hands, or whether he was burned, there is no certain relation made. This remaineth out of doubt, that during the life of king Richard II., no great harm was done unto him, which was to the year 1399, at which time, king Richard being wrongfully deposed, Henry IV. invaded the kingdom of England; about the beginning of whose reign we read of a certain parliament holden at London, mentioned also by Thomas Walden, as is above specified, in which parliament it was decreed, that whosoever showed themselves to be favourers of Wickliff, who at that time were called Lollards, they should be apprehended; and if so be they did