N20568:2762
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.
THUS was lady Mary seated on the throne of England, who, to a disagreeable person and weak mind, had united bigotry, superstition, and cruelty. She seems to have inherited more of her mother's, than her father's qualities. Henry was fiery, rough, and ungovernable; but Catharine, with a severe and implacable rancour against protestants, assumed the character of a saint. It was the same with her daughter Mary, as appears from a letter in her own hand writing, now in the British Museum. In this letter, which is addressed to bishop Gardiner, she declares her fixed intention of burning every protestant; and it contains an insinuation, that, as soon as circumstances would permit, she would restore back to the church the lands that had been taken from the convents This was the strongest instance of her weakness that she could show; for the convents had been demolished, except a few of their churches; and the rents were in the hands of the nobility, who, rather than part with them, would have overturned the government, both in church and state. But reason and bigotry cannot accord. That narrowness of spirit, which always distinguishes a weak mind from one that has been enlarged by education, pervaded all the actions of this princess. Unacquainted with the constitution of the country, and a slave to superstition, Mary thought to domineer over the rights of private judgment, and to trample on the privileges of mankind.
THUS was lady Mary seated on the throne of England, who, to a disagreeable person and weak mind, had united bigotry, superstition, and cruelty. She seems to have inherited more of her mother's, than her father's qualities. Henry was fiery, rough, and ungovernable; but Catharine, with a severe and implacable rancour against protestants, assumed the character of a saint. It was the same with her daughter Mary, as appears from a letter in her own hand writing, now in the British Museum. In this letter, which is addressed to bishop Gardiner, she declares her fixed intention of burning every protestant; and it contains an insinuation, that, as soon as circumstances would permit, she would restore back to the church the lands that had been taken from the convents This was the strongest instance of her weakness that she could shew; for the convents had been demolished, except a few of their churches; and the rents were in the hands of the nobility, who, rather than part with them, would have overturned the government, both in church and state. But reason and bigotry cannot accord. That narrowness of spirit, which always distinguishes a weak mind from one that has been enlarged by education, pervaded all the actions of this princess. Unacquainted with the constitution of the country, and a slave to superstition, Mary thought to domineer over the rights of private judgment, and to trample on the privileges of mankind.