Excerpt from Ecclesiastical Biography, or Lives of Eminent Men Connected With the History of Religion in England, Vol. 1 of 6: From the Commencement of the Reformation to the Revolution The first wishes for the existence of a collection, similar in design to that which now appears were excited in my mind not less than ten years ago, and Often recurred to it, during a long-continued resi dence in the University Of Cambridge; though I do not remember to have entertained, in'those times, any very confident expectations, that the work would ever be undertaken by myself. 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.