A67926:5540
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. 2, part 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. 2, part 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
No title page in the transcription: set from the catalogue record.
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.
That unless ye so do, know it for certain, that I with all them that worship Christ, do recount your seat, possessed and oppressed of Satan himself, to be the damned seat of Antichrist, which we not only do not obey, and will not be subject nor concorporate unto, but also do detest and abhor the same, as the principal & chiefest enemy of Christ, being ready in this our sentence and profession, not only to suffer gladly your fond foolish censures, but also do pray you heartily that you will never assoil us again, nor ever number us in your fellowship, and moreover to fulfil your bloody tyranny, do willingly offer our selves to die for the same.1 And according ye to power & might, that the spirit of Christ, and efficacy of our faith can do in these our writings, if ye shall persist so still in your fury, we condemn you, & together with this Bull, & all the Decretal, we give you to Satan, to the destruction of flesh that your spirit in the day of our Lord may be delivered: in the name which you persecute of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. For our Lord Jesus Christ yet liveth and reigneth (in whom I do nothing doubt) who I firmly trust will shortly come and slay with the spirit of his mouth, and destroy with the brightness of his coming, this man of sin, and son of perdition, forasmuch as I cannot deny,2 if the pope be the author and doer of these misshapen and monstrous doings, but he is the true, final, most wicked, and that famous Antichrist: that subverteth the whole world by the ⟨p. 1287⟩operation of his delusions, as we see it in all places fulfilled and accomplished. But whether doth the burning zeal of charity carry me. Neither am I as yet fully persuaded this to be the popes Bull, but to proceed from his wicked Apostle Eckius, who with his fathers,3 furiously gaping at me like a gulf, would swallow me clean up: •inging with the wicked thus: Let us swallow him up quick and whole like hell, and like one descending down into the pit. For little careth this furious ma•braine,4