VIII. 1533. Henry withal." Then the bishop asked him if he would forsake his opinions; whereunto he answered, that he would do as Frith did: whereupon A. D. he was sent unto the prison to Frith, and afterwards they were carried together to the fire. The bishops used many persuasions to allure this good man from the truth, to follow them: but he, manfully persisting in the truth, would not recant. Wherefore on the 4th day of July, in the afternoon, he was carried into Smithfield with Frith, and there burned. Hewet constant in the faith. Hewet burned with Frith. Benet cometh from Cam bridge to shire. When they were at the stake, one doctor Cook, a parson in London, openly admonished all the people, that they should in no wise pray for them, no more than they would do for a dog; at which words Frith, smiling, desired the Lord to forgive him. These words did not a little move the people unto anger, and not without good cause. Thus these two blessed martyrs committed their souls into the hands of God. The History of the Persecution and Death of Thomas Benet, burned in Ereter: collected and testified by John Dowel, alias Hoker. This Thomas Benet was born in Cambridge, and, by order of degree, of the university there made master of arts, and, as some think, was also a priest; a man doubtless very well learned, and of a godly disposition, being of the acquaintance and familiarity of Thomas Bilney, the famous and glorious martyr of Christ. This man, the more he did grow and increase in the knowledge of God and his holy word, the more he did mislike and abhor the corrupt state of religion then Devon- used; and therefore, thinking his own country to be no safe place for him to remain in, and being desirous to live in more freedom of conscience, he did forsake the university, and went into Devonshire, A.D. 1524, and first dwelled in a market-town, named Torrington, both town and country being to him altogether unknown, as he was also unknown to all men there; where, for the better maintenance of himself and his wife, he did practise to teach young children, and kept a school for the same purpose. But that town not serving his expectation, after Comes to his abode one year there, he came to the city of Exeter; and there, Exeter. hiring a house in a street called the Butcher-row, did exercise the teaching of children, and by that means sustained his wife and family. He was of a quiet behaviour, of a godly conversation, and of a very courteous nature, humble to all men, and offensive to nobody. His greatest delight was to be at all sermons and preachings, whereof he was a diligent and attentive hearer. The time which he had to spare from teaching, he gave wholly to his private study in the Scriptures, having no dealings nor conferences with any body, saving with such as he could learn and understand to be favourers of the gospel, and zealous of God's true religion: of such he would be inquisitive, and most desirous to join himself unto them. And therefore, underWilliam standing that one William Strowd, of Newnham, in the county of Devonshire, esquire, was committed to the bishop's prison in Exeter, upon suspicion of heresy, although he were never before acquainted for God's with him, yet did he send his letters of comfort and consolation unto him; wherein, to avoid all suspicion which might be conceived of him, he did disclose himself, and utter what he was, and the causes of his Strowd imprisoned in Exeter word. |