 with the truth of religion on their side, and laboured to convert, out of a pure and friendly regard to the eternal welfare of mankind. They did the work, by the blessing of God, and therefore the malicious Le Blanc, the mass-priest, reviles and blackens them.
What he says of usurpation, in respect of church lands, does not deserve any notice. The reforming clergy were not the actors in that scene. It was the king and his council. And as the Pope had shewed them the way, by granting bulls for the dissolution of the lesser monasteries, they thought, since the Pope's power was taken away by a general consent of the nation, the king, the church, and the people concurring, they might, with as little sacrilege, dissolve the rest. The king and parliament (says Bishop Burnet) could not discern the difference between greater and lesser as to the point of sacrilege. And although

some uses might cease by the doctrines of the reformation, as masses for souls departed, and monks to pray the dead out of purgatory; yet there were others to employ the church lands about, as some of them were in founding new bishopricks. And if in this case, the reformers had been guilty of some wilful errors, that could be no crime of the reformation. The culpable must answer it. For the satisfaction of conscience about the reformation, there can be but three questions fairly proposed. Was there sufficient cause for it? Was there sufficient authority? And whether the proceedings of our reformation were justifiable by the rule of scripture, and the ancient church? Upon these points we ought to join issue, and I am sure the conclusion must be in the affirmative.
As to Le Blanc's second observation in relation to the marriage of priests, which our reformation he says produced, it may be answered, that the doctrine of a priest's marriage being unlawful, was borrowed by the church of Rome from the antient heretics; especially from the Manichees, who allowed marriage to their hearers, as the church of Rome doth to laymen; but forbad it to their elect, as that church doth to her priests. St. Augustin charges the Manichees wth this error. Hic non dubito vos esse clamaturos invidiamque

factures, castitatem perfectam vos vehementer commendare atque laudare, non tamen nuptias prohibere; quandoquidem auditores vestri quorum apud vos secundus est gradus ducere atque habere non prohibentur uxores. De moribus manichaeorum, Lib. 2. c. 18.
The first pope we read of that condemned the marriage of priests, was Syricius, the Roman
