N20568:5228
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.
WILLIAM answered and said, My lord, if you let me alone, and leave me to my conscience, I will go to my father and dwell with him, or else with my master again, and so if nobody will disquiet nor trouble my conscience, I will keep my conscience to myself.
THEN said the bishop, I am content, so that thou wilt go to the church, and receive, and go to confession, and so continue a good catholic christian. No, said William, I will not do so for all the good in the world.
THEN, said the bishop, if you will not do so, I will make you sure enough, I warrant you. William answered, You can do no more than God will permit you. Well, said the bishop, wilt thou not recant indeed by any means? No, returned William, never while I live, God willing.
UPON this the bishop commanded his men to put William in the stocks in his gate-house, where he sat two days and nights, only with a crust of brown bread and a cup of water.
AT the two days end the bishop came to him, and finding the cup of water and the crust of bread still by him upon the stocks, said to his men, Take him out of the stocks, and let him break his fast with you. Then they let him out of the stocks, but would not suffer him to eat with them, but called him heretic. And he said, he was as loth to be in their company, as they were to be in his.
AFTER breakfast the bishop sent for William▪ and demanded whether he would recant or no. But William made answer, that he would never recant that which he had confessed before men, as concerning his faith in Christ.
THEN the bishop said that he was no christian, but he denied the faith in which he was baptized. But William answered, I was baptized in the faith of the Holy Trinity, which I will not go from, God assisting me with his grace.
THEN the bishop sent him to the convict prison, and commanded the keeper to lay irons upon him as many as he could bear; and moreover asked him, how old he was; and William said that he was nineteen years of age.
WELL, said the bishop, you will be burned before you be twenty years old, if you will not yield yourself better than you have done yet. William answered, God strengthen me in his truth: and then he parted, the bishop allowing him a half-penny a day to live on in bread or drink.
THUS he continued in prison three quarters of a year. In which time he had been before the bishop five times, besides the time when he was condemned in the consistory in St. Paul's, the 9th day of February; at which time his brother, Robert Hunter, was present.
THEN the bishop calling William, asked him if he would recant, and so read to him his examination and confession, as is above related: and then rehearsed how that William confessed he did believe, that he received Christ's body spiritually, when he did receive the communion. Dost thou mean, said the bishop, that the bread is Christ's body spiritually?
WILLIAM answered I mean not so, but rather when I receive the holy communion rightly and worthily, I do feed upon Christ spiritually through faith in my soul▪ and am made partaker of all the benefits which Christ hath brought unto all faithful believers thro' his precious death, passion▪ and resurrection, and not that the bread is his body, either spiritually or corporally.
WILLIAM answered I mean not so, but rather when I receive the holy communion rightly and worthily, I do feed upon Christ spiritually through faith in my soul▪ and am made partaker of all the benefits which Christ hath brought unto all faithful believers thro' his precious death, passion▪ and r•surrection, and not that the bread is his body, either spiritually or corporally.
THE• […] the bishop to William, Dost […] not think (holding up his cap) that for example here of ⟨p. 501⟩my cap, thou mayst see the squareness and colour of it, and yet that not to be the substance, which thou judgest by the accident?
THE• 〈…〉 the bishop to William, Dost 〈…〉 not think (holding up his cap) that for example here of ⟨p. 501⟩my cap, thou mayst see the squareness and colour of it, and yet that not to be the substance, which thou judgest by the accident?
WILLIAM answered, If you can separate the accidents from the substance, and show me the substance without the accidents, I could believe. Then said the bishop, Thou wilt not believe that God can do any thing above man's capacity. Yes, said William, I must needs believe that; for daily experience teacheth all men that thing plainly: but our question is not what God can do, but what he will have us to learn in his holy supper.
WILLIAM answered, If you can separate the accidents from the substance, and shew me the substance without the accidents, I could believe. Then said the bishop, Thou wilt not believe that God can do any thing above man's capacity. Yes, said William, I must needs believe that; for daily experience teacheth all men that thing plainly: but our question is not what God can do, but what he will have us to learn in his holy supper.
THE bishop said, I always have found thee at this point, and I see no hope to reclaim thee unto the catholic faith, but thou wilt continue a corrupt member, and then pronounced sentence upon him, that he should go from that place to Newgate for a time, and so from thence to Burntwood, where, said he, thou shalt be burned.
THEN the bishop called for another, and so when he had condemned them all, he called for William Hunter, and reasoned with him, saying, If thou wilt yet recant, I will make thee a free man in the city, and give thee forty pounds in good money to set up thine occupation withal▪ or I will make thee steward of my house, and set thee in office; for I like thee well, thou hast wit enough, and I will prefer thee if thou recant.
