TOUCHING THE ARTICLES OF THEIR FAITH, LAID BEFORE THEM BY THE INQUISITION, FOR RECANTATION
Continuing, said author relates, from Fox, some articles drawn up by the inquisition, with or besides the above-rrientioned edict; containing the principal tenets of the Wickliffites, which the inquisition placed before them for renunciation, or abjuration. They read as follows Quot;That the mass or the worship which is performed before the holy cross, and is ordained by the whole church, is idolatry. Quot;That all who worship before the cross, commit idolatry, and are to be regarded as idolaters. Page 335 Quot;That the real flesh and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ are not in the sacrament of the altar after the priest has pronounced the words of consecration over them. Quot;That the sacrament of the altar is sacramental bread, without life, and only instituted in remembrance of the suffering of Christ. 5."That the body of Christ, so-called, which is taken from the altar, is a figure of Christ's body, as long as we see the bread and the wine. Quot;That the decrees and ecclesiastical ordinances of the prelates and the clergy, in the province of -Canterbury, in their last assembly, held, with the consent of the king and the nobles, in the last parliament, against him who was recently burnt alive in the city of London, were not powerful enough to change the purpose of that martyr; because the substance of the material bread, in the sacrament of the altar, is the same as it was before, and no change is made, in the nature of the bread by consecration. Quot;That any layman, though he have not studied at college, has a right to preach the Gospel everywhere, and that he may teach (provided he has been properly elected thereto by his church, as has been stated elsewhere) upon his own authority, without permission from his ordinary bishop.
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