N20568:1191
The new and complete book of martyrs; or, An universal history of martyrdom: being…
The new and complete book of martyrs; or, An universal history of martyrdom: being Fox's Book of martyrs, revised and corrected, with additions and great improvements. : Containing an authentic account of the lives, persecutions and sufferings of the holy martyrs; and the many dreadful persecutions against the Church of Christ in all parts of the world, by pagans, Jews, Turks, papists, and others, from earliest ages of the church to the present period. ... The whole forming at once a general Christian martyrology, and a complete history of persecutions. / By the Rev. Mr. John Fox, M.A. late of Magdalen College, Oxford. ; Now revised, corrected and improved, with many additional articles, relating to the acts and monuments of the church. By Paul Wright, D.D. ; Embellished with forty elegant copper plate engravings. ; In two volumes. Vol. I[-II].The new and complete book of martyrs; or, An universal history of martyrdom: being Fox's Book of marytrs, revised and corrected, with additions and great improvements. : Containing an authentic account of the lives, persecutions and sufferings of the holy martyrs; and the many dreadful persecutions against the Church of Christ in all parts of the world, by pagans, Jews, Turks, papists, and others, from earliest ages of the church to the present period. ... The whole forming at once a general Christian martyrology, and a complete history of persecutions. / By the Rev. Mr. John Fox, M.A. late of Magdalen College, Oxford. ; Now revised, corrected and improved, with many additional articles, relating to the acts and monuments of the church. By Paul Wright, D.D. ; Embellished with forty elegant copper plate engravings. ; In two volumes. Vol. I[-II].
New-York: printed by William Durell, 1794
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
IT is easy to conceive that the pains which immediately succeeded were intolerable; the ropes which were of a small size, •ut through the prisoner's flesh to the bone, making the blood gush out at eight different places thus bound at a time. As the prisoner persisted in not making any confession of what the inquisitors required, the ropes were drawn in this manner four times successively.
IT is to be observed, that a physician and surgeon attended, and often felt his temples, in order to judge of the danger he might be in; by which means his tortures were for a small space suspended, that he might have sufficient opportunity of recovering his spirits, to sustain each ensuing torture.
IN all this extremity of anguish, while the tender frame is tearing, as it were, in pieces, while at every pore it feels the sharpest pangs of death, and the agonizing soul is just ready to burst forth, and quit •ts wretched mansion, the ministers of the inquisition have the obduracy of heart to look on without emotion, and calmly to advise the poor distracted creature, to confess his imputed guilt, in doing which they tell him he may obtain a free pardon, and receive absolution. All this, however, was ineffectual with the prisoner, whose mind was strengthened by a sweet consciousness of innocence, and the divine consolation of religion.