Synopses & Reviews
CONTENTS. PAGE BI RAPIII N o A tic L e of thc Autl oor, . .. . . .. .. . . .. ., . . . . .. . . . .. . .. . - .. . . .. . vii Examination and Dcnth of Lord Cobham ............... . .-.-...-.. . . - .. . - 1 Examination of William TIlorpe ... ..... . ..., . . ............ ... . - - - . . . . ....-G1 Examinations of Anne Askewe The First Examination ..... . ... .. . .. .. ...... .. . . . ... . ........... ......... ... 137 Tile latter Exainimtion . . ............ . . ..... ... . . . .. . ......... . .............. 195 Thc Image of both Chlrrches . .., . . ., . . .. . .., ... . ., . . . . .. . .. . . .. . ., . . . . . . . . 240 Index ... .. .. .. ... .., . . .. .. . .. ... .. .. .. .. .. .. ., . . . . . . . ., ., . . . . . G41 BLOGRAPI-IICAL NOTICE. JOHN Bale, ono of the most distinguished among the minor lights of the Reformation, was born at the little villago of Cove, near Dunmich in Suffolk, on the 21st of November, 1495. His parents appear to havo been respectable in character, but in humblo circumstances and it is not a little to their honour that they found means to send their son, first to a Carrnelite convent in Norwich for the purposes of study, and afterwards to Jesus College, Cambridge. EaIo was in his youth attached to literature, and his works are very voluminous indeed the cataloguo of them extends to no less than eighty-f ve separate productions, many of which were published under assumed names. During thc earlier period of his residence in Cambridge, he was, as many of the reformers had bccn before him, and others wcrc after him, a strenuous opponcnt of the ncm learning and some of Ilk morka werc thought to give evidence that at a later period he had not entirely forgottenhis old bias in proof of which it ie alleged, on his own autl oritg, t hat having trans lated the tragedy of Pammachius, which ma. s acted at Christs ColIcgc, in 1544, it was subsequently laid before the Privy Council as a eatirc on the ltcformation. There appears however no ground for the imputation. Violent in his temper, and nncompromising in his Isnguage, Bale, from the time that he embraced the tenets of the reformers, never ceased his attacks npon the Roman church and there is not one of his writings that does not bear more or less directly on the religious abuses of his time. The immediate cause of his own conversion to the reformed faith is stated by himself to have been the instructions ho received from Lord Wentworth. His obser stionsa re as follows I wandered in utter ignorance, and blindness of mind, both at Norwich and Cambridge, having no tutor nor patron, till, the word of God shining forth, the churches of God began to return to the fountain of true divinity in which bright rising of the new Jerusalem, bcing not called by any monk or priest, but seriously stirrcd up by the illustrious the lord IVentworth, ss by that centurion who declared Christ to be the Son of God, I presently saw and acl nomledged my own deformity, and immediately, through the divine goodness, I was removed from a barren mountain to the flowing and fertile valIey of the gospel, whorc I found all things built not on the sand, but on s solid rock. Hcnce I made haste to defaco the mark of wicked antichrist, and entiroly threw off his yoke from mo, that I might be partaker of the lot and Iiberty of the sons of God. Bale had applied himself to tho study of the civil lam, and declined the degree of doctorin the faculty, in the year 1529...
Synopsis
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