Excerpt from A History of the Martin Marprelate Controversy: In the Reign of Queen Elizabeth It would be absurd to deny that there were cor ruptions existing in the Christian Church about the beginning Of the sixteenth century: the West ern Branch was not yet divided in communion; and, bound up as all her members had ever been, not only in their practice and doctrines and go vernment, but in their sympathies, with thousands and tens Of thousands, none acknowledging any checks which the boundaries Of earthly kingdoms would put upon their one brotherhood, it is not to be wondered at that errors and corruptions should arise and spread among so great a multitude. There is no promise among the many given to His Church by our Blessed Lord, that she should al ways be free from such calamity: but rather on the contrary it was foretold, and herself cautioned, that in the midst Of all, the Faith might be the more carefully preserved, and the faithful might be known. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.