A67927:1438
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 2] 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 2] 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.
Know ye that the heavenly Father hath ever a gracious eye and respect toward you, and a Fatherly providence for you, so that without his knowledge and permission, nothing can do you harm. Let us therefore cast all our care upon him, and he shall provide that which shall be best for us. For if of two small sparrows which both are sold for a mite, one of them lighteth not on the ground without your father, and all the hairs of our head are numbered, fear not them (saith our Master Christ) for ye are more worth then many small sparrows.1 And let us not stick to confess our Master Christ for fear of danger whatsoever it shall be, remembering the promise that Christ maketh, saying: whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall I confess before my father which is in heaven: but whosoever shall deny me, him shall I likewise deny before my father which is in heaven. Christ came not to give unto us here a carnal amity, and a worldly peace, or to knit his unto the world in ease and peace, but rather to separate and divide them from the world, and to join them unto himself: in whose cause we must, if we will be his, forsake father and mother, and stick unto him. If we forsake him or shrink from him for trouble or deaths sake, which he calleth his cross: he will none of us, we cannot be his. If for his cause we shall lose our temporal lives here, we shall find them again and enjoy them for evermore: but if in his cause we will not be contented to leave nor loose them here: then shall we loose them so, that we shall never find them again, but in everlasting death. What though our troubles here be painful for the time,2 and the sting of death bitter and unpleasant: yet we know that they shall not last in comparison of eternity, no not to the twinkling of an eye, & that they patiently taken in Christs cause, shall procure and get us unmeasurable heaps of heavenly glory, unto the which these temporal pains of death and troubles compared, are not to be esteemed, but to be rejoiced upon. Wonder not (saith S. Peter) as though it were any strange matter that ye are tried by the fire (he meaneth of tribulation) which thing (saith he) is done to prove you:3 nay rather in that ye are partners of Christs afflictions, rejoice, that in his glorious revelation, ye may rejoice with merry hearts.