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136 pages

English

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This Christian classic tells the stories of brave men and women who were martyred for their faith in the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries.

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Christianity

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Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	01 février 1999
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781441238931
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0202€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Reprinted by Revell
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.revellbooks.com
Spire edition published 1998
Ebook edition created 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means for example, electronic, photocopy, recording without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-3893-1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
The Persecution of the Early Christians
The Story of Constantine the Great
John Wickliff, the Morning Star of the Reformation
A Leader of the Lollards: The Trouble and Persecution of the Most Valiant and Worthy Martyr of Christ, Sir John Oldcastle, Knight, Lord Cobham
The History of Master John Huss
The Life and Story of the True Servant and Martyr of God, William Tyndale
The History of Dr. Martin Luther
The Story, Life, and Martyrdom of Master John Hooper, Bishop of Worcester and Gloucester
A Faithful Parish Clergyman: The History of Dr. Rowland Taylor, Hadley
The Martyrs of Scotland
The Life, Acts, and Doings of Master Hugh Latimer, the Famous Preacher and Worthy Martyr of Christ and His Gospel
The Story of Bishop Ridley
The Trial, Condemnation, and Martyrdom of Ridley and Latimer
The Fires of Smithfield
The Life, State, and Story of the Reverend Pastor and Prelate, Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury
Anecdotes and Sayings of Other Martyrs
Notes
Back Cover
FOXE’S BOOK OF MARTYRS
THE PERSECUTION OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS
C HRIST our Saviour, in the Gospel of St Matthew, hearing the confession of Simon Peter, who, first of all other, openly acknowledged Him to be the Son of God, and perceiving the secret hand of His Father therein, called him (alluding to his name) a rock, upon which rock He would build His Church so strong, that the gates of hell should not prevail against it. In which words three things are to be noted: First, that Christ will have a Church in this world. Secondly, that the same Church should mightily be impugned, not only by the world, but also by the uttermost strength and powers of all hell. And, thirdly, that the same Church, notwithstanding the uttermost of the devil and all his malice, should continue.
Which prophecy of Christ we see wonderfully to be verified, insomuch that the whole course of the Church to this day may seem nothing else but a verifying of the said prophecy. First, that Christ hath set up a Church, needeth no declaration. Secondly, what force of princes, kings, monarchs, governors, and rulers of this world, with their subjects, publicly and privately, with all their strength and cunning, have bent themselves against this Church! And, thirdly, how the said Church, all this notwithstanding, hath yet endured and holden its own! What storms and tempests it hath overpast, wondrous it is to behold: for the more evident declaration whereof, I have addressed this present history, to the end, first, that the wonderful works of God in His Church might appear to His glory; also that, the continuance and proceedings of the Church, from time to time, being set forth, more knowledge and experience may redound thereby, to the profit of the reader and edification of Christian faith.
At the first preaching of Christ, and coming of the Gospel, who should rather have known and received him than the Pharisees and Scribes of that people which had His law? and yet who persecuted and rejected Him more than they themselves? What followed? They, in refusing Christ to be their King, and choosing rather to be subject unto Cæsar, were by the said Cæsar at length destroyed.
The like example of God’s wrathful punishment is to be noted no less in the Romans themselves. For when Tiberius Cæsar, having learnt by letters from Pontius Pilate of the doings of Christ, of His miracles, resurrection, and ascension into heaven, and how He was received as God of many, himself moved with belief of the same, did confer thereon with the whole senate of Rome, and proposed to have Christ adored as God; they, not agreeing thereunto, refused Him, because that, contrary to the law of the Romans, He was consecrated (said they) for God before the senate of Rome had so decreed and approved Him. Thus the vain senate (being contented with the emperor to reign over them, and not contented with the meek King of glory, the Son of God, to be their King) were scourged and entrapped for their unjust refusing, by the same way which they themselves did prefer. For as they preferred the emperor, and rejected Christ, so the just permission of God did stir up their own emperors against them in such sort, that the senators themselves were almost all destroyed, and the whole city most horribly afflicted for the space almost of three hundred years.
For first, the same Tiberius, who, for a great part of his reign, was a moderate and a tolerable prince, afterward was to them a sharp and heavy tyrant, who neither favoured his own mother, nor spared his nephews nor the princes of the city, such as were his own counsellors, of whom, being of the number of twenty, he left not past two or three alive. Suetonius reporteth him to be so stern of nature, and tyrannical, that in one day he recordeth twenty persons to be drawn to the place of execution. In whose reign through the just punishment of God, Pilate, under whom Christ was crucified, was apprehended and sent to Rome, deposed, then banished to the town of Vienne in Dauphiny, and at length did slay himself. Agrippa the elder, also, by him was cast into prison, albeit afterward he was restored.
After the death of Tiberius, succeeded Caligula, Claudius Nero and Domitius Nero; which three were likewise scourges to the Senate and people of Rome. The first commanded himself to be worshipped as god, and temples to be erected in his name, and used to sit in the temple among the gods, requiring his images to be set up in all temples, and also in the temple of Jerusalem; which caused great disturbance among the Jews, and then began the abomination of desolation spoken of in the Gospel to be set up in the holy place. His cruelty of disposition, or else displeasure towards the Romans, was such that he wished that all the people of Rome had but one neck, that he, at his pleasure, might destroy such a multitude. By this said Caligula, Herod Antipas, the murderer of John Baptist and condemner of Christ, was condemned to perpetual banishment, where he died miserably. Caiaphas also, who wickedly sat upon Christ, was the same time removed from the high priest’s room, and Jonathan set in his place.
The raging fierceness of this Caligula had not thus ceased, had not he been cut off by the hands of a tribune and other gentlemen, who slew him in the fourth year of his reign. After whose death were found in his closet two small books, one called the Sword , the other the Dagger : in which books were contained the names of those senators and noblemen of Rome, whom he had purposed to put to death. Besides this Sword and Dagger , there was found also a coffer, wherein divers kinds of poisons were kept in glasses and vessels, for the purpose of destroying a wonderful number of people; which poisons, afterward being thrown into the sea, destroyed a great number of fish.
But that which this Caligula had only conceived, the same did the other two, which came after, bring to pass; namely, Claudius Nero, who reigned thirteen years with no little cruelty; but especially the third of these Neros, called Domitius Nero, who, succeeding after Claudius, reigned fourteen years with such fury and tyranny that he slew the most part of the senators and destroyed the whole order of knighthood in Rome. So prodigious a monster of nature was he (more like a beast, yea rather a devil than a man), that he seemed to be born to the destruction of men. Such was his wretched cruelty, that he caused to be put to death his mother, his brother-in-law, his sister, his wife and his instructors, Seneca and Lucan. Moreover, he commanded Rome to be set on fire in twelve places, and so continued it six days and seven nights in burning, while that he, to see the example how Troy burned, sang the verses of Homer. And to avoid the infamy thereof, he laid the fault upon the Christian men, and caused them to be persecuted.
And so continued this miserable emperor till at last the senate, proclaiming him a public enemy unto mankind, condemned him to be drawn through the city, and to be whipped to death; for the fear whereof, he, flying the hands of his enemies, in the night fled to a manor of his servant’s in the country, where he was forced to slay himself, complaining that he had then neither friend nor enemy left, that would do so much for him.
The Jews, in the year threescore and ten, about forty years after the passion of Christ, were destroyed by Titus, and Vespasian his father, (who succeeded after Nero in the empire) to the number of eleven hundred thousand, besides those which Vespasian slew in subduing the country of Galilee. They were sold and sent into Egypt and other provinces to vile slavery, to the number of seventeen thousand; two thousand were brought with Titus in his triumph; of whom, part he gave to be devoured of the wild beasts, part otherwise most cruelly were slain.
As I have set forth the justice of God upon these Roman persecutors, so now we declare their persecutions raised up against the people and servants of Christ, within the space of three hundred years; which persecutions in number commonly are counted to be ten, besides the persecutions first moved by the Jews, in Jerusalem and other places, against the apostles. After the martyrdom of Stephen, suffered next James the holy apostle of Christ, and brother of John. ‘When th