N20568:5701
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.
Volume 1 › Book 2 › Chapter 7 › Letter 1: LETTER I. From the Rev. Mr. GEORGE MARSH to his FRIENDS.
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.
THOUGH Satan be suffered as wheat to sift us for a time, yet our faith faileth not through Christ's aid, but that we are at all times able and ready to confirm the faith of our weak brethren, "and always ready to give an answer to every man that asketh us a reason of the hope that is in us, and that with meekness and reverence, having a good conscience; and whereas they backbite us as evil-doers, they may be ashamed, forasmuch as they have falsely accused our good conversation in Christ." I thought myself, now of late years, for the cares of this life, well settled with my loving and faithful wife and children, and also well quieted ⟨p. 546⟩in the peaceable possession of that pleasant Euphrates, I do confess it: but the Lord, who worketh all things for the best to them that love him, would not there leave me, but did take my dear and beloved wife from me; whose death was a painful cross to my flesh.
THOUGH Satan be suffered as wheat to sift us for a time, yet our faith faileth not through Christ's aid, but that we are at all times able and ready to confirm the faith of our weak brethren, "and always ready to give an answer to every man that asketh us a reason of the hope that is in us, and that with m•ekness and reverence, having a good conscience; and wh•reas they backbite us as evil-doers, they may be ashamed, forasmuch as they have falsely accused our good conversation in Christ." I thought myself, now of late years, for the cares of this life, well settled with my loving and faithful wife and children, and also well quieted ⟨p. 546⟩in the peaceable possession of that pleasant Euphrates, I do confess it: but the Lord, who worketh all things for the best to them that love him, would not there leave me, but did take my dear and beloved wife from me; whose death was a painful cross to my flesh.
ALSO I thought myself now of late well placed under my most loving and most gentle Mr. Laurence Saunders, in the cure of Langton. But the Lord of his great mercy would not suffer me long there to continue (although for the small time I was in his vineyard, I was not an idle workman). But he hath provided me, I perceive it, to taste of a far other cup; for by violence hath he yet once gain driven me out of that pleasing Babylon, that I should not taste too much of her wanton pleasures, but with his most dearly beloved disciples to have my inward rejoicing in the cross of his Son Jesus Christ: the glory of whose church, I see it well, standeth not in the harmonious sound of bells and organs, nor yet in the glittering of mitres and copes, neither in the shining of gilt images and lights (as the blind papists do judge it) but in continual labours and daily afflictions for his name's sake.