While the protestant sufferers were lingering in various prisons, a very unseasonable dispute got footing among some of the warmest of them, on the arduous subject of free-will, and predestination. It was carried on with such animosity, that confessions were drawn up on both sides; and signed by numbers, who were at that time even under sentence of death. Each party clamoured loud, that their antagonists were likely to do more harm in the christian world, than the papists themselves; in as much as their opinions were as bad, and their example much better. Nay to such a height of phrenzy did their contentions run, that the keeper of the Marshalsea was often obliged to separate them.

During the course of this ill-timed controversy, the archbishop was applied to, for his countenance, by the predestinarians, to whose tenets he was thought most inclined. But the prudent primate discountenanced both parties, as much as he could; considering, no doubt, such controversies to be especially ill-judged among dying men.

Nor were the endeavours of others wanting to calm the rage of this offensive zeal. Many of their more moderate brethren endeavoured to set before them the impropriety of their behaviour: and one of them put the matter in a very strong light: ‘There should be no more bitterness, said he, in a christian controversy, than in a love letter.’ Philpot, afterwards an eminent martyr, wrote a very pathetic dissuasive to them on this subject; exhorting them ‘to meet each other with the kiss of charity—to reach out chearfully the hand of peace—to take up their cross together, and ascend mount Calvary with hearts full of benevolence.’

I give a detail of this strange dispute, both as a curious anecdote of human nature, and as a very instructive lesson. If a speculative opinion could fasten with so much violence, and produce so much animosity, in the minds of pious men, suffering together in one common cause, and even in the article, as it were, of death—how cautious ought they to be on polemical subjects, who have perhaps less piety, who live at their ease, and are not tied by any of these strong obligations to forbearance.

While the English protestants were thus suffering at home, such of them as had the good fortune to escape abroad, enjoyed more repose. Among the Lutherans indeed they met with some unkind treatment. Their liberal tenets, with regard to the Lord's supper, were very disgusting to those reformers, who still maintained the doctrine of transubstantiation. The leaders however of the Lutheran churches, particularly Melancthon, who was a man of candour and moderation, brought their hearers to a better temper; and instructed the populace at Wesel, and Francford, where this inhospitable disposition chiefly appeared, that altho the English exiles might differ from them in a few points; they were however embarked with them in the same common cause of religious liberty; and ought certainly to be treated as brethren.

At Basil, John Fox designed, and almost finished his Acts and monuments of the church. The industry of this man is astonishing. He was principal corrector to one of the greatest printing houses in Europe; that of Operin at Basil. But notwithstanding his daily employment, he found leisure to carry on this vast work: and what is still more, tho he was not able to keep a servant to do his menial offices, the whole was transcribed with his own hand. From a work of this kind, we are not led to expect any elegance: yet they who have examined this writer with most accuracy, have acknowledged, that altho his zeal may have led him into some exaggerated accounts, where he relies only on hearsay; yet in all matters, where he appeals to authority, or record, he may be fully depended on.

At Strasburgh, bishop Jewel laid the plan of his excellent Apology for the church of England; tho he did not finish it till happier times—a work, in which its many admirers found it hard to say, whether candour, and humanity; or sense, learning, and a well-tempered zeal for religion, were more conspicuous.

Here too William Turner, physician to the protector Somerset, pubished a work, intitled, A dispensatory of spiritual physic. It was levelled against the papists; and was written with a sarcastic vein of humour; Such sallies of wit and ridicule, tho rather below the dignity of suffering religion, served however to divert the universal melancholy, which reigned at that time. Turner published also another work of the same kind, which he called, The hunting of the Romish fox.

The celebrated Scotch reformer, John Knox, published also, at this time, an exhortation to the people of England, suited to their calamitous state. It abounds more with enthusiasm, than manly sense. Knox had thus early put in his pretensions to a prophetic spirit, which flowed afterwards in more plentiful effusions from him.