Books Fatal to Their Authors by P. H. (Peter Hampson) Ditchfield
page 17 of 161 (10%)
page 17 of 161 (10%)
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Church of Rome prevented him from remaining any longer in her communion.
King James I. heartily approved of his proposal, and gave him a most honourable reception, both in the Universities and at Court. All the English bishops agreed to contribute towards his maintenance. Fuller says: "It is incredible what flocking of people there was to behold this old archbishop now a new convert; prelates and peers presented him with gifts of high valuation." Other writers of the period describe him as "old and corpulent," but of a "comely presence"; irascible and pretentious, gifted with an unlimited assurance and plenty of ready wit in writing and speaking; of a "jeering temper," and of a most grasping avarice. He was ridiculed on the stage in Middleton's play, _The Game of Chess_, as the "Fat Bishop." "He was well named De Dominis in the plural," says Crakanthorp, "for he could serve two masters, or twenty, if they paid him wages." Our author now proceeded to finish his great work, which he published in 1617 in three large folios--_De Republica Ecclesiastica_, of which the original still exists among the Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. "He exclaims," says Fuller, "'in reading, meditation, and writing, I am almost pined away,' but his fat cheeks did confute his false tongue in that expression." In this book he shows that the authority of the Bishop of Rome can easily be disproved from Holy Scripture, that it receives no support from the judgment of history and antiquity, that the early bishops of that see had no precedence over other bishops, nor were in the least able to control those of other countries. He declares that the inequality in power amongst the Apostles is a human invention, not founded on the Gospels; that in the Holy Eucharist the priest does not offer the sacrifice of Christ, but only the commemoration of that sacrifice; that the Church has no coercive power, that John Huss was |
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