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537 [537]

K. Edward 3. A Sermon of N. Orem before the pope Actes and Mon. of the church.

MarginaliaEsay. 5.now in litle or no reputatiō at all: Albeit many yet ther be, through Gods grace, good and godly. But yet, the fury of the Lord is not turned away, but still his hande is stretched out. And vnles ye be conuerted, he shaketh hys sword, he hath bent his bow, and prepared it ready. Yet the Lord standeth wayting, that he may haue mercy on you. Esay. 30. MarginaliaEsay. 30.And therfore, as þe greatnes of feare ought to incite vs, so hope of saluation may allure vs, to pray & call vpon the Lord, especially now toward this holy and sacrate time and solēnitie of Christs Natiuitie: For that holy and continuall prayer without intermission is profitable, and the instant deuotion and vigilant deprecation of the iust man, is of great force. And if terrene kings in the day of celebration of their Natiuitie, be wont to shew them selues more liberall & bountuous: how much more ought we to hope well, that the heauenly kyng of nature most benyng, now at hys Natail and byrth day, will not deney pardon and remission to such as rightly call vnto him?

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And now therfore as it is writen in Iosue. chap. 7. Be you sanctified agaynst to morow. &c. MarginaliaIosue. 7.And say vnto hym, as it is writen in the first booke of kyngs. chap. 25. Now let thy seruauntes, I pray thee, finde fauour in thy sight, for we come to thee in a good season. Marginalia1. Reg. 25.Moreouer ye may finde that ye aske, if ye aske that whiche he brought in þe day of hys Natiuitie that is, the peace of the church: not spirituall onely, but also temporall, which the angelicall noyse did sound, and experiēce the same tyme did proue, testified by T. Liuius, Plinius, and other heathen storywriters, whiche all marueled thereat, saying: That such an vniuersall peace as that, could not come on earth but by the gift of God. For so God dyd forepromise in the Prophet Esay. chap. 66. Behold I will let peace into Hierusalem lyke a waterfloude. &c. MarginaliaEsay. 66.And in the Psalme. 71. In hys tyme ryghtuousnes shall florishe, yea and aboundance of peace. &c.MarginaliaPsal. 71.

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Therfore now (O reuerend fathers in the Lord,) and you here in this present assemble, behold I say the day of lyfe and saluation: Now is the oportune tyme to pray vnto God, that the same thyng whiche he brought into the world at his byrth, he will now graūt in these dayes to his church, that is, his peace. And lyke as Niniue was subuerted ouerturned, & not in mēbers but in maners: so the same wordes of my theame, Iuxta est iustitia mea vt reueletur, may be verified in vs, not of the primitiue iustice, but of our sanctification by grace, so that. As to morow is celebrated the natiuitie of our sauiour, our rightousnes may rise together with hym, & his blessyng may be vpon vs, whiche God hath promised, saying: My sauyng health is nere at hād to come. &c. Wherof speaketh Esay the Prophet, chap. 51. My sauyng health shall endure for euer. &c. MarginaliaEsay. 51.This health graunt vnto vs the father, sonne, and holy ghost. Amen.

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This sermon was made by master Nicolas Orem, before pope Vrbane and his cardinals, vpon the euen of the Natiuitie of the lord, beyng the fourth sonday of Aduent, in the yeare, of Lord. 1364. and the second of hys Popedome.

MarginaliaThe order of Iesuites.
1367.
In the v. yeare of this forenamed pope Vrbane, begā  

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Nicholas Oresme

In this section Foxe follows two lines of attack on the medieval church which he followed throughout the pre-Reformation section of the Acts and Monuments. The first was to cite medieval critics - in this case St. Catherine of Siena and St. Bridget of Sweden - of the papacy as proof of its corruption. Foxe's source for this was Matthias Flacius's Catalogus Testium Veritatis. The second was to attack the papacy for usurping the authority of princes and to recount the struggles of monarchs, particularly English monarchs, to re-assert their control over the clergy in their realms. In this section, Foxe draws on the Parliament Rolls to print legislation of Edward III, notably the statutes of Provisors and Praemunire, which increased royal control over the clergy.

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Thomas S. Freeman
University of Sheffield

first the order of þe Iesuites  
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Not the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) but the Jesuati, a penitential order founded by St. John Columbini around 1366. The order followed the rule of St Augustine and specialized in caring for the sick. It was suppressed by Clement IX in 1668. This account of the Jesuati is drawn from Bale's Catalogus, p. 438.

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. And vnto thys tyme whiche was about the yere of our Lorde. 1367, MarginaliaThe chiefe offices of the realme translated from the clergy, to the lordes temporall.the offices here in England, as the Lord Chauncelor, Lord Treasurer, & of the priuie seale: were wont to be in the handes of the clergy. But about this yeare through the motion of the Lordes in the parlament, and partly (as witnesseth mine autor) for hatred of þe clergy: all the sayd offices were remoued from the clergy, to the Lordes temporall.  
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Foxe is drawing this from the Parliament Rolls. See Rotuli Parliamentorum, ed. J. Strachey et al., 6 vols (London, 1783), II, p. 337.

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MarginaliaPope Gregorye xi.After the death  

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The following paragraph on Gregory IX returning the papacy to Rome is drawn from Sabellicus, Enneads, 3 vols. (Basel. 1560), II, col. 824.

of Pope Vrbane, next succeded pope Gregory the xi. who among his other actes, first reduced agayne the papacie out of Fraunce vnto Rome, whiche had from thēce been absent, the space now of lxx. yeares, beyng therto moued (as Sabellicus recordeth) by the ansMarginalia1370
The papacie reduced again from Fraunce to Rome.
were of a certaine byshop, whom as the Pope saw standing by him, asked, why he was so long from his charge and churche at home, sayinge: not to bee the part of a good pastor, to kepe hym from his flocke so long. Wherunto the byshop aūsweryng agayne sayd: And you your selfe beyng the chief Byshop, who may and ought to be a spectacle to vs all: why are you from the place so long where your church doth lye? By the occasion wherof, the pope sought all meanes after that, to remoue and to ryd his court out of Fraunce agayne to Rome, & so he did.  
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The following two paragraphs on repeated, through inadvertence, a few pages later.

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This xi. Gregory in a certain Bull of hys sent to the Arckbyshop of Prage, maketh mention of one named MarginaliaMilitzius a Bohemian for the truth persecuted by the pope.
Ex Bulla Gregory 11
Militzius a Bohemian, And sayth in the same Bull that this Militzius should holde opinion, and teach an. 1366. that Antichrist was already come. Also that the said Militzius had certaine congregations folowyng hym: and that in the same congregation were certaine harlottes, who beyng conuerted frō their wickednes were brought to a godly lyfe. Which harlots beyng so conuerted, he vsed to say were to be preferred before all the holy religious virgines. And therfore commaunded the archbishop to excommunicate & persecute the sayd Militzius, which in foretyme had been a religious man of Prage, and after forsoke hys order and gaue hym selfe to preaching, & at length was by the foresayd Archbyshop imprisoned.

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Iacobus Misnensis a learned man and a writer in the tyme of I. Hus, maketh mention of this Militzius, & calleth hym a worthy and a famous preacher. Also citeth many thynges out of his writyngs: In the whiche writynges this good Militzius thus declareth of hym selfe: how he was moued and vrged by þe holy ghost to search out by the sacrate Scriptures, concerning the comming of Antichrist. MarginaliaThe commyng of Antichrist prophesied.And that he was compelled by the same holy spirite at Rome publiquely to preach, and also before the Inquisitore there to proteste playnly, that the same great Antichrist which is prophesied of in the holy Scriptures, was already come. Moreouer hys saying was, þt the churche through negligence of the pastors was desolate, dyd abounde in temporall riches, but in spirituall riches to be empty. Also that in the Churche of Christ were certeine idoles whiche destroyed Hierusalem, and defaced the tēple, but hypocrisie caused that those idols could not be seen. Also þt many there were which denyed Christ, because that knowyng the truth, yet for feare of men they durste not confesse their conscience. &c. And thus much of good Militzius, liuyng in the tyme of Gregory xi. and of kyng Edward, the third. an. 1370.

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The which king of England holding  

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This material on the the efforts by Edward III and his parliaments to limit papal jurisdiction in England, culminating in the statutes of Provisors and Praemunire, comes from the Parliament Rolls. See Rotuli Parliamentorum, ed. J. Strachey et al., 6 vols. (London, 1783), II, pp. 228, 283-5 and 377.

a parlament in the thyrd yeare of this Pope, sent hys embassadours to hym, desiring him: that he from thence forth would abstayne from hys reseruations of benefices vsed in the court of England. And that spirituall men wyth in hys realme promoted vnto bishoprikes, might frelye enioye their elections within the realme, and be confirmed by their Metropolitanes, according to the auncient custom of the realme. MarginaliaKyng Edward complayneth of the popes reseruation of benefices.Wherfore, vpon these and such other lyke wherein the king and the realme thought them selues greued, he desired of the Pope some remedy to be prouided. &c. Whereunto the Pope returned a certayne answer agayne vnto the king, requiryng by hys messengers to be certified agayne of the kinges mynde concerning the same. But what answer it was, it is not in the story expressed, saue that the yere following, which was 1374. there was a tractation at Burges vpon certayne of the sayd articles betwene the kyng & the pope, which did hang two yeares in suspēce, so at length it was thus agreed betwene them: MarginaliaThe pope put from his reseruing of benefices in England.
Quare impedit.
that the pope should no more vse his reseruations of benefices in England, and likewyse the king should no more conferre or geue benefices vpō the writ, Quare impedit. &c. But as touchyng the freedome of elections to be cōfirmed by the metropolitane, mētioned in þe yere before, therof was nothing touched.

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As