32 THE LIFE OF 



CHAP, ties, in vindication of what he had done in returning to 



Rome, and exhortatory to them to follow him, slandering 



the Protestant religion with false and unworthy imputa 

 tions. Care was taken privily to disperse this book in the 

 Universities; which gave disturbance to the government. 

 The Lord Treasurer Burghley thought it needful to have a 

 good answer timely set forth, to prevent the mischief it 

 The Bishop might do ; and reckoned Bishop Aylmer very fit for such 



wished to . . J | , 



answer it. an undertaking; in one particular respect especially, namely, 

 for certain blots and disparagements cast upon the first re 

 formers of religion, and restorers of it from Popery; in 

 whose times the Bishop lived, and with some of them, and 

 their doings, was well acquainted. The Bishop had heard of 

 the book, and had sent to Oxford, and searched other places 

 for it, but could not meet with it, so secret it was kept ; 

 which was partly his excuse for not answering it. He had 

 also at this time an ague, which was fallen down so sore in 

 his leg that he was not able to study without great danger : 

 but notwithstanding he let the Treasurer know, if he could 

 get the book, he would do what his health would permit ; 

 adding, that as to what he wrote touching those first worthy 

 and learned men, he guessed that the things wherewith he 

 reproached them, were nothing else but such railing collec 

 tions as were gathered against them by the apostate Staphi- 

 lus, which for the most part were not to be found in their 

 Hisjudg- works. And moreover, as to the reproaches the Jesuits 

 Protestant cast u P on these reverend fathers of the Reformation, he 

 writers. knew there were divers ncevi in them, as lightly be in all 

 men s writings : as some things were spoken by Luther hy- 

 perbolically, and some by Calvin ; as in the doctrine of the 

 Sacrament, which he afterwards corrected, and in predesti 

 nation. This Jesuit, the Bishop subjoined, and Staphilus, 

 might herein soon be answered, if they would but look in 

 the end of the Master of the Sentences, where they should 

 find under the title of Errorum Parisiis Condemnatorum, 

 that their own Peter Lumbard, Thomas Aquinas, Gratian 

 among the Schoolmen, and Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine, 

 Hierome, and others among the Fathers, to be condemned, 



