To this Rogers replied, "The catholic Church I never did nor will dissent from."

Then said the chancellor, "I speak of the state of the catholic Church in which we now stand in England, having received the pope to be supreme head."

Then Rogers answered, "I know none other head but Christ of his catholic Church; neither will I acknowledge the bishop of Rome to have any more authority than any other bishop hath by the word of God, and by the doctrine of the old and pure catholic Church four hundred years after Christ."

To this the chancellor demanded, "Why didst thou then acknowledge King Henry the VIII. to be supreme head of the Church, if Christ be the only head?"

And Rogers replied, "I never granted him to have any supremacy in spiritual things—as are the forgiveness of sins, giving of the Holy Ghost, authority to be a judge above the word of God."

All efforts to induce Mr. Rogers to recant having failed, he was degraded from office, condemned to death, and given over into the hands of the sheriff for execution. The sentence of condemnation, which has been preserved by Mr. Fox, contains only two specific charges as being proved against Mr. Rogers. First, that he held and taught "that the Catholic Church of Rome is the Church of antichrist." Secondly, "That in the sacrament of the altar there is not, substantially nor really, the natural body and blood of Christ." For these sentiments, this man of God was adjudged "to be guilty of the detestable, horrible, and wicked offences of heretical pravity and execrable doctrine."

"We, therefore," says Gardiner, the bishop of Winchester, "I say,-albeit, following the example of Christ, 'which would not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should convert and live,' we have gone about oftentimes to correct thee, and by all lawful means that we

could, and all wholesome admonitions that we did know, to reduce thee again unto the true faith and unity of the universal Catholic Church,-notwithstanding have found thee obstinate and stiff-necked, willingly continuing in thy damnable opinions and heresies, and refusing to return again unto the true faith and unity of the holy mother-Church; and, as the child of wickedness and darkness, so to have hardened thy heart, that thou wilt not understand the voice of thy Shepherd, which, with a fatherly affection, doth seek after thee, nor wilt be allured with his fatherly and godly admonitions: we, therefore, Stephen, the bishop aforesaid, not willing that thou which art wicked shouldest now become more wicked, and infect the Lord's flock with thy heresy, (which we are greatly afraid of,) with sorrow of mind and bitterness of heart do judge thee, and definitively condemn thee, the said John Rogers, otherwise called Matthew, thy demerits and faults being aggravated through thy damnable obstinacy, as guilty of most detestable heresies, and as an obstinate and impenitent sinner, refusing penitently to return to the lap and unity of the holy mother-Church; and that thou hast been, and art by law, excommunicate, and do pronounce and declare thee to be an excommunicate person. Also, we pronounce and declare thee, being a heretic, to be cast out from the Church, and left unto the judgment of the secular power; and now presently so do leave thee as an obstinate heretic, and a person wrapped in the sentence of the great curse, to be degraded worthily for thy demerits, (requiring them, notwithstanding, in the bowels of our Lord Jesus Christ, that this execution and punishment worthily to be done upon thee, may so be moderated, that the rigour thereof be not too extreme, nor yet the gentleness too much mitigated, but that it may be to the salvation of thy soul, to the extirpation, terror, and conversion, of the heretics, to the unity of the

Catholic faith;) by this our sentence definitive, which we here lay upon and lay against thee, and do with sorrow of heart promulgate in this form aforesaid."

After this sentence, the bishop declared Mr. Rogers to be under the great curse, with the danger of eating and drinking anything with persons accursed, or even giving them anything, because all such persons would be partakers of the same great curse. To which Mr. Rogers replied, "Well, my lord, here I stand before God and you, and all this honourable audience, and take him to witness, that I never wittingly or willingly taught any false doctrine; and, therefore, have I a good conscience before God and all good men; I am sure, that you and I shall come before a Judge that is righteous, before whom I shall be as good a man as you; and I nothing doubt but that I shall be found there a true member of the true catholic Church of Christ, and everlastingly saved. And, as for your false Church, ye need not excommunicate me forth of it; I have not been in it these twenty years, the Lord be thanked therefor."

After this, Mr. Rogers requested that his wife, being a stranger, and having ten children to care for, might be permitted to come and speak with him, that he might counsel her what to do; but even this poor boon was denied by the heartless, cruel bishop. After being remanded to prison, he wrote a most eloquent letter, vindicating the truth, and exposing the wickedness of his persecutors.* The following seems almost prophetic:

* This letter, as well as the account of his examinations, taken in his own hand-writing, were preserved in a most striking manner. These were hid away in a secret corner of the prison where he lay, and escaped the vigilance of those who came to take away his letters and writings. After his death, his wife and one of his sons visited the cell in which he had been confined, seeking for

"If God look not mercifully upon England, the seeds of utter destruction are sown in it already by these hypocritical tyrants, and antichristian prelates, popish Papists, and double traitors to their natural country. And yet they speak of mercy, of blessing, of the catholic Church, of unity, of power, and strengthening of the realm. This double dissimulation will show itself one day when the plague cometh, which undoubtedly will light upon these crown-shorn captains, and that shortly, whatsoever the godly and the poor realm suffer in the mean while by God's sufferance and will.

"Spite of Nebuchadnosor's beard, and maugre his heart, the captive, thrall, and miserable Jews must come home again, and have their city and temple built up again by Zorobabel, Esdras, and Nehemias, &c.; and the whole kingdom of Babylon must go to ruin and be taken of strangers, the Persians and Medes. So shall the dispersed English flock of Christ be brought again into their former estate, or to a better, I trust in the Lord God, than it was in innocent King Edward's days; and our bloody Babylonical bishops, and the whole crown-shorn company brought to utter shame, rebuke, ruin, decay, and destruction. For God cannot, and undoubtedly will not, suffer forever their abominable lying, false doctrine, their hypocrisy, blood-thirst, whoredom, idleness, their pestilent life, pampered in all kinds of pleasure, their thrasonical, boasting pride, their malicious, envious, and poisoned stomachs, which they bear towards his poor and miserable Christians. Peter truly warneth, that, 'if judgment beginneth in the

his books and writings. When they were about to leave, having searched in vain, they soon spied something black in a dark cor ner, under a pair of stairs; and upon an examination, it was found to be a book written in his father's hand, containing the account of his examinations and other matters, which have been thus preserved to the Christian Church.

house of God, what shall be the end of them that believe not the Gospel? If the righteous shall scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear?' Some shall have their punishment here in this world and in the world to come; and they that do escape in this world shall not escape everlasting damnation."

On the 4th of February, early in the morning, he was awakened out of a sound sleep, and called upon to prepare himself for the fire. He was brought first before Bonner, by whom he was degraded, and handed over to the secular power. He besought that he might speak a few words with his wife before his burning, but this was again refused. He was then conveyed to Smithfield. On the way he sang a psalm, and the people were astonished at his constancy and firmness, and gave thanks to God for the same. His wife and ten children-one an infant at the breast, met him on his way to the stake. It was a piteous spectacle; but even then the offer of a pardon which was made, could not prevail upon him to recant. At the stake "he showed most constant patience, not using many words-for he was not permitted-but only exhorting the people constantly to remain in that faith and true doctrine which he before had taught, and they had learned, and for the confirmation whereof he was not only content patiently to suffer, and bear all such bitterness and cruelty as had been showed him, but also most gladly to resign up his life, and to give his flesh to the consuming fire, for the testimony of the same." As he was burning, he bathed his hands in the flame, and with great constancy received death in defence of the Gospel of Christ.