THE

CHURCH HISTORY OF

BRITAIN;

FROM

THE BIRTH OF JESUS CHRIST UNTIL

THE YEAR M.DC.XLVIII.

ENDEAVOURED

BY THOMAS FULLER, D.D.

PREBENDARY OF SARUM.

A NEW EDITION, IN SIX VOLUMES,

BY THE REV. J. S. BREWER, M.A.

VOLUME II.

OXFORD:

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

M.DCCC.XLV.

CHURCH HISTORY

THE

OF

BRITAIN.

THE THIRD BOOK,

FROM THE COMING IN OF THE NORMANS, UNTIL THE APPEARING OF JOHN WICLIFFE.

TO THE

RIGHT HONOURABLE

WILLIAM,

LORD BEAUCHAMPE, &c.,

GRANDCHILD AND HEIR APPARENT TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM a, MARQUIS OF HERTFORD.

COME there are who exact of every Christian (as a touchstone to their sincerity) to render an account of the exact time of their conversion, with the circumstances thereof, how, when, and where performed. I must crave leave to enter myself a dissenter herein, conceiving such a demand unreasonable, as generally required essential to all true believers.

I confess some may return a satisfactory answer thereunto; namely, such whose souls, suddenly snatched out of error and viciousness, were immediately wrought upon, almost in an instant, by the Spirit of God. Thus of those three thousand gained b

a [William Seymour, created duke of Somerset in 1660. See some account of him in Lloyd's Memoirs, p. 546. Lord Clarendon gives a high character

of him, and his regard for the church. Hist. of the Rebellion, II. 244, sq.]

b Acts ii. 41.