take place. It is not without reason that we describe in some detail in this history the lives and deaths of these evangelical men. We desire to show that the Church in England, as in all the world, is not a mere ecclesiastical hierarchy, in which prelates exercise dominion over the inheritance of the Lord; nor a confused assemblage of men, whose spirit imagines about religion all kinds of doctrines contrary to the revelation from heaven, and whose profession of faith comprehends all the opinions that are found in the nation, from catholic scholasticism to pantheistic materialism. The Church of God, raised above the human systems of the superstitious and the incredulous alike, is the assembly of those who by a living faith are partakers of the righteousness of Christ and of the new life of which the Holy Ghost is the creator—of those in whom selfishness is vanquished, and who give themselves up to the Saviour to achieve with their brethren the conquest of the world. Such is the true Church of God; very different, it will be seen, from all those invented by man. Footnote 204: Tyndale, _Treatises_, p. 38; Strype, _Memorials_, i. 257, iii., bk. i. p. 257; bk. ii. pp. 30, 136. Footnote 205: 1 Kings xxi. 19. Footnote 206: Tyndale, _Treatises_, p. 38. Stowe, _Annals_, 562. Footnote 207: Foxe _Acts_, iv. p. 697. Footnote 208: Both Strype (_Memorials_, i. p. 35) and Foxe (_Acts_, iv. p. 698) say, _and whipped him_; but More denied it. Footnote 209: ‘Sir Thomas More being present himself, till in a manner he had lamed him.’—Foxe, _Acts_, iv. p. 698. Footnote 210: 1 John i. 7. Footnote 211: Ibid. ii. 1. Footnote 212: Foxe, _Acts_, iv. p. 700. Footnote 213: ‘Stood up there before the people in his pew with weeping tears.’—Foxe, _Acts_, iv. p. 702. Footnote 214: ‘He would not feel such a hell again as he did feel.’—Ibid. Footnote 215: Strype, _Annals_, i. p. 372. Footnote 216: Ibid. Footnote 217: Foxe, _Acts_, iv. p. 705. Footnote 218: Ibid. Footnote 219: Foxe, _Acts_, iv. p. 706. Footnote 220: Ibid. v. p. 32. CHAPTER XVI. THE NEW PRIMATE OF ALL ENGLAND. (FEBRUARY 1532 TO MARCH 1533.)