Their Answers to the Questions Respecting their Faith

The king was not willing either to release them or to punish them unheard, and so for this reason he called a council at Oxford. There the most learned of the prisoners, namely Gerard, was solemnly questioned about their religion, and he answered in the name of all, saying: "That they were Christians, and held to the doctrine of the apostles." And when they were duly questioned about all the articles of the faith, they answered well as to the nature of the supreme Physician; but as to the means by which he has been pleased to heal our weakness, that is, as to the divine sacraments, "they," says the papistic writer, "judged perversely. For they reviled baptism (he means infant baptism, for this was the baptism then held in esteem by the Roman church) and also the thankoffering (the mass)."