elicitie.

ii. At the voice of our General Provost, which is to me a
warrant from heaven, and Oracle of Christ, I tooke my voyage
from Prage to Rome (where our said General Father is always
resident) and from Rome to England, as I might and would have
done joyously into any part of Christendome or Heathenesse, had
I been thereto assigned.

iii. My charge is, of free cost to preach the Gospel, to
minister the Sacraments, to instruct the simple, to reforme
sinners, to confute errors--in brief, to crie alarme spiritual
against foul vice and proud ignorance, wherewith many my dear
Countrymen are abused.

iv. I never had mind, and am strictly forbidden by our Father that
sent me, to deal in any respect with matter of State or Policy of
this realm, as things which appertain not to my vocation, and from
which I do gladly restrain and sequester my thoughts.

v. I do ask, to the glory of God, with all humility, and under
your correction, iii sortes of indifferent and quiet audiences:
_the first_ before your Honours, wherein I will discourse of
religion, so far as it toucheth the common weale and your
nobilities: _the second_, whereof I make more account, before the
Doctors and Masters and chosen men of both Universities, wherein
I undertake to avow the faith of our Catholike Church by proofs
innumerable, Scriptures, Councils, Fathers, History, natural and
moral reasons: _the third_ before the lawyers, spiritual and
temporal, wherein I will justify the said faith by the common
wisdom of the laws standing yet in force and practice.

vi. I would be loth to speak anything that might sound of any
insolent brag or challenge, especially being now as a dead man
to this world and willing to put my head under every man's foot,
and to kiss the ground they tread upon. Yet have I such a
courage in avouching the Majesty of Jhesus my King, and such
affiance in his gracious favour, and such assurance in my
quarrel, and my evidence so impregnable, and because I know
perfectly that no one Protestant, nor all the Protestants
living, nor any sect of our adversaries (howsoever they face men
down in pulpits, and overrule us in their kingdom of grammarians
and unlearned ears)[2] can maintain their doctrine in
disputation. I am to sue most humbly and instantly for the
combat with all and every of them, and the most principal that
may be found: protesting that in this trial the better furnished
they come, the better welcome they shall be.

vi