A67927:1439
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.
If ye suffer rebukes in Christs name, happy are ye, for the glory and spirit of God resteth upon you. Of them God is reviled and dishonoured, but of you he is glorified.
If ye suffer rebukes in Christes name, happy are ye, for the glory and spirit of God resteth vpon you. Of them God is reuiled and dishonored, but of you he is glorified.
Let no man be ashamed of that he suffereth as a Christian, and in Christs cause: for now is the time that judgement and correction must begin at the house of GOD, and if it begin first at us: what shall be the end of those, think ye, which believe not the Gospel? And if the righteous shall be hardly saved, the wicked and the sinner where shall he appear? Wherefore they which are afflicted according to the will of God, let them lay down and commit their souls to him by well doing, as to a trusty and faithful maker. This (as I said) may not seem strange to us, for we know that all the whole fraternity of Christs Congregation in this world, is served with the like, and by the same is made perfect. For the fervent love that the Apostles had unto their master Christ,1 and for the great commodities and increase of all godliness which they felt by their faith to ensue of afflictions in Christs cause, & thirdly for the heaps of heavenly joys which the same do get unto the godly; which shall endure in heaven for evermore: for these causes (I say) the Apostles of their afflictions did joy, and rejoiced in that they were had and accounted worthy to suffer contumelies & rebukes for Christs name. And Paul, as he gloried in the grace & favour of God, whereunto he was brought & stood in by faith:2 so he rejoiced in his afflictions the heavenly and spiritual profits which he numbered to rise upon them: yea, he was so far in love with that ⟨p. 1777⟩that the carnal man loathed so much, that is, with Christs cross, that he judged himself to know nothing else but christ crucified: he will glory (he saith) in nothing else but in Christs cross, yea and he blesseth all those, as the only true Israelites & elect people of God with peace and mercy, which walketh after that rule and after none other.