A67922:1146
Acts and monuments of matters most special and memorable, happening in the Church. [vol.…Actes and monuments of matters most speciall and memorable, happenyng in the Church. [vol.…
Acts and monuments of matters most special and memorable, happening in the Church. [vol. 1] with an universal history of the same, wherein is set forth at large the whole race and course of the Church, from the primitive age to these latter times of ours, with the bloody times, horrible troubles, and great persecutions against the true martyrs of Christ, sought and wrought as well by heathen emperors, as now lately practised by Romish prelates, especially in this realm of England and Scotland. Newly revised and recognised, partly also augmented, and now the fourth time again published and recommended to the studious reader, by the author (through the help of Christ our Lord) John Fox, which desireth thee good reader to help him with thy prayer.Actes and monuments of matters most speciall and memorable, happenyng in the Church. [vol. 1] with an vniuersall history of the same, wherein is set forth at large the whole race and course of the Church, from the primitiue age to these latter tymes of ours, with the bloudy times, horrible troubles, and great persecutions agaynst the true martyrs of Christ, sought and wrought as well by heathen emperours, as nowe lately practised by Romish prelates, especially in this realme of England and Scotland. Newly reuised and recognised, partly also augmented, and now the fourth time agayne published and recommended to the studious reader, by the author (through the helpe of Christ our Lord) Iohn Foxe, which desireth thee good reader to helpe him with thy prayer.
London: printed by John Daye, 1583London: printed by Iohn Daye, 1583
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
1Neither did the just hand of God plague the Emperor only, but also revenged as well the heathen Gentiles and persecutors of his word, throughout all provinces & dominions of the Roman Monarchy, amongst whom the lord immediately after the death of Decius, sent such a plague and pestilence, lasting for the space of x. years together, that horrible it is to hear, and almost incredible to believe. Of this plague or pestilence, testifieth Dionysius to Hierax a bishop in Egypt,2 Euseb. Lib. 7. cap. 21.22. Where he declareth the mortality of this plague to be so great in Alexandria, where he was bishop, that there was no house in the whole City free.3 And although the greatness of the plague touched also the Christians somewhat, yet it scourged the heathen Idolaters much more: beside that the order of their behaviour in the one, and in the other was much divers. For, as the foresaid Dionysius doth record, the Christians through brotherly love and piety, did not refuse one to visit and comfort an other, and to minister to him, what need required. Notwithstanding it was to them great danger: for divers there were, who in closing up their eyes, in washing their bodies, & interring them in the ground, were next themselves which followed them to their graves. Yet all this stayed not them from doing their duty, and showing mercy one to another. Where as the Gentiles contrarily, being extremely visited by the hand of God, felt the plague, but considered not the striker, neither yet considered they their neighbour, but every man shifting for himself, neither cared one for an other: but such as were infected, some they would cast out of the doors half dead, to be devoured of dogs and wild beasts, some they let dye within their houses without all succour, some they suffered to lye unburied, for that no man durst come near him. And yet notwithstanding,4 for all their voiding and shifting, the pestilence followed them whether soever they went, & miserably consumed them. In so much, that Dionysius bishop the same time of Alexandria, thus reporteth of his own City: that such a great mortality was then among them, that the said City of Alexandria had not in number of all together, both old and young, as it was wont to contain before of the old men only from the age of 60. to 70. such as were found in time past commonly almost in that City.