Quot;That the bishop as well as a common man, and a layman as well as the priest, are of equal authority, as long as they live aright.
15."That no one is bound to accord any bodily reverence (that is, by bending the knee and worshiping, as was then customary in England), to any prelate."; These are briefly the chief articles which, according to the preceding decree of the king, and the ecclesiastical ordinance, or much rather inquisition of the archbishop, were laid before the Christians in England, for recantation. See large Book of Christian Martyrs, fol. 517, col. 3, 4, from John Fox, Hist. Angl. 485. A. D. 1402.-About this time, Thomas Walsingham, a bitter papistic historian records some articles of the above-mentioned people, which, as he states, one Louis of Clifford, formerly a defender of the faith of these people, had discovered to the archbishop of Canterbury. The fifth of those articles reads as follows, "If they (the said people) had a new-born infant, they would not have it baptized in church, by the hands of the priest." Thom. Wals., in Hist., Reg. Angl. and Hypodigmate Neustrie, A. D. 1402. To this article several words are immediately added; but these are denied by a certain writer, who quotes said passage, and says, that the apostate, Louis of Clifford, in order to please the archbishop, or the bishop himself, surreptitiously added these words; therefore we will leave it as it is. A. Mell., 2d book, fol. 518, col. 1. A. D. 1407.-Or about this time, William Thorpe, formerly an English priest, was apprehended for the faith, who, as it is stated, had been persecuted greatly already in the year 1397. He was charged with holding as his faith these five articles
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