N20568:4659
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.
THE queen that now is, hath repealed the act that made her a bastard; hath brought in the bishop of Rome, and set him in his old authority; beginneth to set up abbeys again; hath made the […] of priests unlawful; hath turned the English service ⟨p. 427⟩into Latin again; hath set up mass again, and pulled down the holy communion: and all this is done by consent of parliament.
THE queen that now is, hath repealed the act that made her a bastard; hath brought in the bishop of Rome, and set him in his old authority; beginneth to set up abbeys again; hath made the 〈…〉 of priests unlawful; hath turned the English service ⟨p. 427⟩into Latin again; hath set up mass again, and pulled down the holy communion: and all this is done by consent of parliament.
IF the acts of parliament, made in king Henry's time, and in king Edward's, had their foundation upon God's word, whereupon all positive law ought to be grounded; then these which are established in the queen's time, being clean contrary to the others, as they are not warranted by God's word, so are they wicked, and therefore to be spoken and written against of all men, as well of private as of public persons.
IF your acts, my lord chancellor, which you have lately coined, (I call them your's, because you only bear the sway, devise, and decree what you list, and all other men are forced to follow) be good, and according to God's word, then the former acts were naught, which thing you seem to say, in utterly taking of them away, and setting up of the contrary▪ if the former were naught, why then did you consent unto them, and confirm them to be good by your voluntary and advised writing? as it appeareth, and will to the world's end, in your book "Of true obedience," where you prove the queen a bastard, and the bishop of Rome to be an usurper, and to have no authority in the realm of England.
YOU must needs confess, that the most part of your acts of parliament in these latter days have been according to the fantasies of a few. King Henry in his time established by parliament in a manner what he pleased, and many things that might well have been amended.
IN king Edward's days, the dukes of Somerset and Northumberland bare a great sway in things, and did not all things sincerely. Even so, since the queen, that now is, came to the government of the realm, all things are ordered by your device and head, and the whole parliament-house is led as you please; by reason whereof they are compelled to condescend to things both contrary to God's manifest word, and also to their own consciences; so great is your cruelty.
FOR to bring your wicked purposes to pass, and to establish your antichristian kingdom, (which, I trust, the Lord with the breath of his mouth will speedily blow over) you have called three parliaments in one year and an half, that what you could not compass by subtle persuasion, you might bring to pass by tyrannical threatening: for if you had not used cruel force in your doings, you had never brought to pass such things as this day you have, to the utter defacing and abolishing of God's true religion, and to the casting away and destruction of your natural country, so much as in you lieth.
FOR to bring your wicked purposes to pass, and to establish your antichristian kingdom, (which, I trust, the Lord with the breath of his mouth will speedily blow over) you have called three parliaments in one year and an half, that what you could not compass by subtil persuasion, you might bring to pass by tyrannical threatning: for if you had not used cruel force in your doings, you had never brought to pass such things as this day you have, to the utter defacing and abolishing of God's true religion, and to the casting away and destruction of your natural country, so much as in you lieth.
AND as it is most true, that acts of parliament have in these latter days been ruled by the fantasies of a few; and the whole parliament-house, contrary to their minds, was compelled to such things as a few have conceived: so it must needs be granted, that the papists at all times were most ready to apply themselves to the present world, and like men-pleasers to follow the fantasies of such as were in authority, and turn with the state, which way soever it turned. Yes, if the state should change ten times in one year, they would ever be ready at hand to change with it, and so follow the cry, and rather utterly forsake God, and be of no religion, than they should forego lust or living, for God or for religion.
KING HENRY by parliament, according to God's word, put down the pope▪ the clergy consented, and all men openly by oath refused his usurped supremacy, knowing, by God's word, Christ to be the head of the church, and every king in his realm to have, under and next unto Christ, the chief sovereignty.
KING EDWARD also by parliament, according to God's word, set the marriage of priests at liberty, abolished the popish and idolatrous mass, changed the Latin service, and set up the holy communion; the whole clergy consented hereunto; many of them set it forth by their preaching; and they all by practising confirmed the same.
NOTWITHSTANDING, now when the state is altered, and the laws changed, the papistical clergy, with other worldlings, as men neither fearing God neither flying worldly shame, neither yet ⟨p. 428⟩regarding their consciences, oaths or honesty, like wavering weather-cocks turn round about, and putting on harlot's foreheads, sing a new song, and cry with an impudent mouth, Come again, come again to the catholic church, meaning the antichristian church of Rome, which is the synagogue of Satan, and the very sink of all superstition, heresy, and idolatry.
OF what force, I pray you, may a man think these parliaments to be, which scarcely stand a year in strength? Or what credit is to be given to these law-makers, who are not ashamed to establish contrary laws, and to condemn that for evil, which before (the thing itself and the circumstances remaining all one) they affirmed and decreed to be good. Truly you are so ready, contrary to all right, to change and turn for the pleasure of man, that at length, I fear, God will use you like changelings, and both turn you out of his kingdom, and out of your own country.
YE charge the gospel-preachers with the undoing of this realm: nay, it is the turning papists, which have not only set to sale their country like traitors, but also troubled the simple people, so that they cannot tell what they may believe. For that which they affirmed in king Edward's days, now they cry against it, as it were most abominable heresy. This fault, I trust, you shall never find at our hands.
THEREFORE to conclude that which I purposed, forasmuch as the acts of parliament of these latter times are one contrary to another, and those which you now have established in your time are contrary to God's most manifest word, as is the usurped supremacy of the bishop of Rome, the idolatrous mass, the Latin service, the prohibiting of lawful marriage, (which St. Paul calleth the doctrine of devils) with many other things: I say, it is not only lawful for any private man, which bringeth God's word for him, and the authority of the primitive and best church, to speak and write against such unlawful laws; but it is his duty, and he is bound in very conscience to do it. Which thing I have proved by divers examples before, and now will add but one other, which is written in the fifth of the Acts, where it appeareth that the high priests, elders, scribes, and pharisees, decreed in their council, and gave the same commandments to the apostles, that they should not preach in the name of Christ, as you have also forbidden us; notwithstanding when they were charged therewithal, they answered, We ought rather to obey God than man: even so do we answer you; God is more to be obeyed than man; and your wicked laws cannot so tongue-de us, but we will speak the truth.
THE apostles were beaten for their boldness, and they rejoiced that they suffered for Christ's cause. You have also provided rods for us, and bloody whips: yet when you have done that which God's hand and counsel hath determined that you shall do, be it life or death, I trust that God will so assist us by his holy spirit and grace, that we shall patiently suffer it, and praise God for it: and whatsoever become of me and others, which now suffer for speaking and professing of the truth, yet be you sure, that God's word will prevail and have the upper hand, when your bloody laws and wicked decrees, for want of sure foundation, shall fall in the dust: and that which I have spoken of your acts of parliament, the same may be said of the general councils of these latter days, which have been within these five hundred years, where the Antichrist of Rome, by reason of his usurped authority, ruled, and decreed such things as made for his gain, not regarding God's glory: and therefore are they to be spoken, written, and cried out against of all such as fear God and love his truth.
AND thus much I purposed to have said concerning the first point.
NOW touching the second point. That whereas my lord chancellor had the day before said his pleasure of them that ruled the realm while he was in prison, and also rejoiced as though God had made this alteration, even for his sake, and his catholic church, as he called it, and to declare as it were by miracle, that we were before in a schism and heresy, and the realm was now brought unto an unity, and to a truth▪ to which I was fully purposed to have spoken. Secondly, my lord, whereas you, yesterday, so much dispraised the government of them that ruled in innocent king ⟨p. 429⟩Edward's days, may it please your lordship to understand, that we poor preachers, whom you so evil treat, did most boldly and plainly rebuke their evil government in many things, especially their covetousness, and neglect to live after the gospel, as also their negligence to occasion others to live thereafter, with more things than I can now rehearse. This all London can testify with us. I would also have told him, what I myself for my part did once at Paul's-Cross, concerning the mis-use of abbeys, and other church goods: and I am right well assured, that never a papist of them all did ever so much therein as I did, I thank the Lord therefore: I was also, as is well known, fain to answer before all the council, and many of my brethren did the like, so that we, for the not rebuking of their faults, shall not answer before God, nor be blameworthy before men. Therefore let the gentlemen and courtiers themselves, and all the citizens of London, testify what we did.
