N20568:4525
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.
WHEREFORE, for the tender mercy of God i• Christ, (which you look for at the day of judgment) your said poor subjects in bonds most humbly beseech your most excellent majesties, and this your high court of parliament, benignly and graciously to hear and grant this their petition, tending so greatly to the glory of God, to the edifying of his church, to the honour of your majesties, to the commendation and maintenance of justice, right, and equity, both before God and man. And your said subjects, according to their bounden duty, shall not cease to pray unto Almighty God for the gracious preservation of your most excellent majesties long to endure.
WHAT the cruel sufferings, persecutions, tortures, and agonizing deaths were, which these, and numberless others subjects of the bloody queen Mary, endured from her hands, and those of her no less bloody instruments, the bishops Bonner and Gardiner, shall (God willing) be the substance of the next book; but before we enter upon this mournful recital, we think, a short sketch of the death and character of the principal actor in the horrid tragedy, will be acceptable to our readers, and this we shall take from Barnard's New History of England, whose authority we prefer to others, on account of his justly established character for candour, moderation, and a scrupulous impartiality.
"IT was not long (says this modern historian, p. 324.) before Mary felt the effect of public hatred, excited by her malevolence and cruel disposition. She had flattered herself with an imaginary conception, and, finding her mistake, she fell into a profound melancholy. Her health (p. 327.) had been, for some time, in a declining state; and on ⟨p. 414⟩mistaking her dropsy for a pregnancy, she had used an improper regimen, which daily increased her disorder. Every reflection was now a subject of torment, begun in this world, and struck a dagger in her heart. The corroding worm, that never dies, began to gnaw its vital strings. The consciousness of having incurred the hatred of her subjects; the idea of Elizabeth's succeeding to the crown; her fears that the catholic religion would be exposed to danger: her dejection for the loss of Calais, with which she was deeply affected; and above all, her grief for the loss of her husband, who, she knew, intended soon to return to Spain, to settle there during the remainder of his life: these melancholy reflections preying upon her mind, with the greatest violence, threw her into a complication of disorders, attended with a lingering fever, of which she died, November 17th, 1558, in the forty-third year of her age, after a short, cruel, and unhappy reign of five years, four months, and eleven days. She was interred at Westminster, in the chapel of her grandfather Henry VII. Some writers have been of opinion, that this unworthy queen had a serious sense of religion, but can we call that profession, however distinguished by the sacred, peaceful name of religion, which prompts men to be guilty of savage cruelty, and is destitute of all the social virtues? There are, we acknowledge, a few devout pieces extant, composed by Mary, Styrpe has preserved three of her meditations and prayers; and, at the desire of queen Catharine Parr, she began to translate Erasmus's paraphrase on St. John; but after she had made a small progress in it, she left the rest to Dr. Mallet, her chaplain. Erasmus says that she wrote very good Latin letters, but her French ones are poor performances. Styrpe has printed one from the Cotton library, in answer to a haughty mandate from her husband, on his resolving to marry the lady Elizabeth to the duke of Savoy, against the inclinations of the queen, and that princess:
in which he bids the former examine her conscience, whether her repugnance does not proceed from obstinacy; and insolently tells her, that if any parliament went contrary to his request, he should lay the blame on her. The mortified Mary, in a most •bject manner, the most wretched stile, submitting entirely to his will, professes to be more bounden to him, than any wife to a husband, notwithstanding his ill usage of her. Other letters of this queen are preserved in Hayne's state papers: we wish we could add also a few of her virtues: but we shall here drop the curtain, her true portrait having been faithfully delineated in the history of her reign.
in which he bids the former examine her conscience, whether her repugnance does not proceed from obstinacy; and insolently tells her, that if any parliament went contrary to his request, he should lay the blame on her. The mortified Mary, in a most •bject manner, the most wretched stile, submitting intirely to his will, professes to be more bounden to him, than any wife to a husband, notwithstanding his ill usage of her. Other letters of this queen are preserved in Hayne's state papers: we wish we could add also a few of her virtues: but we shall here drop the curtain, her true portrait having been faithfully delineated in the history of her reign.
THIS curtain it is our duty, as faithful witnesses of Jesus Christ, to draw up; and our protestant readers will see exhibited a tragedy of the most crimson hue; God's faithful professors murdered in cold blood• women and infants put to the most cruel tortures; a faithful company of martyrs sealing the truth with their blood; all under the reign of a popish, bigoted, and obstinate queen, who was a disgrace to her sex, a dishonour to the English nation; and who, on account of her savage inhumanity, was justly branded by her subjects with the infamous epithet of Bloody Queen Mary.
THIS curtain it is our duty, as faithful witnesses of Jesus Christ, to draw up; and our protestant readers will see exhibited a tragedy of the most crimson hue; God's faithful professors murdered in cold blood• women and infants put to the most cruel tortures; a faithful company of martyrs sealing the truth with their blood; all under the reign of a popish, bigotted, and obstinate queen, who was a disgrace to her sex, a dishonour to the English nation; and who, on account of her savage inhumanity, was justly branded by her subjects with the infamous epithet of Bloody Queen Mary.
THE REV. Mr. John Rogers, vicar of St. Sepulchre's, and reader of St. Paul's, London, was educated in the university of Cambridge, and at length was chosen chaplain to the English factory at Antwerp, in Brabant; there he became acquainted with Mr. William Tyndale, whom he assisted in his translation of the New Testament, and with Mr. Miles Coverdale, who, with several other worthy protestants, had been driven out of England, on account of the persecutions for five articles, in the latter end of the reign of Henry VIII. By means of conversing with these worthy and pious servants of God. Mr. Rogers came to the knowledge of the scriptures, and finding, according to those sacred oracles, that matrimony was both honest and honourable, he entered into that state, and went with his wife to Wittenberg, in Saxony, where, through indefatigable study and application, in a short time he attained to such a knowledge of the Dutch language, as to be capable of taking charge of a christian congregation in that part of Europe.
THE REV. Mr. John Rogers, vicar of St. Sepulchre's, and reader of St. Paul's, London, was educated in the university of Cambridge, and at length was chosen chaplain to the English factory at Antwerp, in Brabant; there he became acquainted with Mr. William Tindal, whom he assisted in his translation of the New Testament, and with Mr. Miles Coverdale, who, with several other worthy protestants, had been driven out of England, on account of the persecutions for five articles, in the latter end of the reign of Henry VIII. By means of conversing with these worthy and pious servants of God. Mr. Rogers came to the knowledge of the scriptures, and finding, according to those sacred oracles, that matrimony was both honest and honourable, he entered into that state, and went with his wife to Wittenburg, in Saxony, where, through indefatigable study and application, in a short time he attained to such a knowledge of the Dutch language, as to be capable of taking charge of a christian congregation in that part of Europe.
HAVING cast off all popish superstitions, idolatry, and restrictions, this aged minister served his cure faithfully and diligently for many years, until such time that it pleased God to dispel the mists of popish darkness from his native country, and restore the glorious light of the pure gospel of Christ, by the introduction of his chosen servant Edward VI. to the throne of England.
MR. ROGERS then, being orderly called, left his living in Saxony, and came into England to preach ⟨p. 416⟩the gospel without any previous condition, appointment, or establishment whatever: but after having laboured in the vineyard of his master for a time, with great success, Dr. Ridley, then bishop of London, gave him a prebend in his cathedral church of St. Paul's; of which he was afterwards chosen by the dean and chapter, one of the divinity-lecturers, or a reader of divinity in that church. Here he continued till queen Mary, soon after her accession, banished the true religion, and again introduced the superstition and idolatry of the church of Rome, with all the horrid cruelties of blood-thirsty Antichrist.
WHEN queen Mary was in the Tower of London, imbibing Gardiner's pernicious counsels, Mr. Rogers preached at Paul's-Cross, confirming those doctrines which he and others had there taught in king Edward's days, and exhorted the people, with peculiar energy, to continue steadfast in the same, and to beware of the false tenets of pestilent popery. For this sermon the preacher was summoned before the council, then filled with popish and bloody bishops; before whom he pleaded his own cause in so pious, bold, and yet prudent a manner, as to obviate their displeasure for that time, and he was dismissed. But after Mary's proclamation, to prohibit the preaching of the doctrines of the reformed religion, Mr. Rogers, for a contempt of the same, was again summoned before a council of bishops, who, after having debated upon the nature of his offence, ordered him to keep close prisoner in his own house, from which he never departed, though he had many fair opportunities to escape. He saw the recovery of the true religion, at that time, desperate; he knew he should not want a living in Germany, sufficient for the wants of a large family, consisting of a wife and ten children; but all these considerations could not move him: he determined resolutely, after he had been called to answer for Christ's cause, not to desert it; and resolved to hazard his life in support of the truth.
WHEN queen Mary was in the Tower of London, imbibing Gardiner's pernicious counsels, Mr. Rogers preached at Paul's-Cross, confirming those doctrines which he and others had there taught in king Edward's days, and exhorted the people, with peculiar energy, to continue stedfast in the same, and to beware of the false tenets of pestilent popery. For this sermon the preacher was summoned before the council, then filled with popish and bloody bishops; before whom he pleaded his own cause in so pious, bold, and yet prudent a manner, as to obviate their displeasure for that time, and he was dismissed. But after Mary's proclamation, to prohibit the preaching of the doctrines of the reformed religion, Mr. Rogers, for a contempt of the same, was again summoned before a council of bishops, who, after having debated upon the nature of his offence, ordered him to keep close prisoner in his own house, from which he never departed, though he had many fair opportunities to escape. He saw the recovery of the true religion, at that time, desperate; he knew he should not want a living in Germany, sufficient for the wants of a large family, consisting of a wife and ten children; but all these considerations could not move him: he determined resolutely, after he had been called to answer for Christ's cause, not to desert it; and resolved to hazard his life in support of the truth.
IN this state of confinement he remained a considerable time, till at the instigation of the cruel Bonner, bishop of London, he was removed from his own house to Newgate, and placed among the common felons. What passed between him and the adversaries of Christ, during the time of his imprisonment, is not certainly known: but the following examinations he left in his own hand-writing: and it is the will of God they should be handed down to us, and remain a perpetual testimony in the cause of true religion.
FIRST, the lord chancellor said unto me thus: Sir, you have heard the state of the realm in which it standeth now.
ROGERS. No, my lord, I have been kept in close prison, and except there have been some general things said at the table, when I was at dinner or supper, I have heard nothing; and there have I heard nothing, whereupon any special thing might be grounded.
