N20568:571
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.
PROCEEDING to the place where the scriptures, and the church plate were kept, both were seized by the pagans; the church was unroofed, the doors were walled up, the plate was embezzled, and the scriptures were burnt.
PHILIP being taken to the market-place, was ordered to sacrifice to the Roman deities in general, and to a very handsome image of Hercules in particular; to which command, "Alas!" replied the prelate, "how unhappy are you, who are thus grossly mistaken in the nature of the deity, and so ignorant in the truth, as to worship your own workmanship: what value is there in gold, silver, bras•, iron, or lead, which are dug out of the earth? You are unacquainted with the divinity of Christ, which is incomprehensible to human capacities▪ but what power can your idols boast, which are made by base mechanics, a drunken statuary, or a debauched carver, and tricked up by the arts of the tailor and the goldsmith? and yet these are your gods." And after some other observations on the absurdities of the pagan religion, he concluded, that from what he had already said, it appeared that the heathens worshipped what might lawfully be trod on, and made gods of such things as Providence had designed for their use.
PHILIP being taken to the market-place, was ordered to sacrifice to the Roman deities in general, and to a very handsome image of Hercules in particular; to which command, "Alas!" replied the prelate, "how unhappy are you, who are thus grossly mistaken in the nature of the deity, and so ignorant in the truth, as to worship your own workmanship: what value is there in gold, silver, bras•, iron, or lead, which are dug out of the earth? You are unacquainted with the divinity of Christ, which is incomprehensible to human capacities▪ but what power can your idols boast, which are made by base mechanics, a drunken statuary, or a debauched carver, and tricked up by the arts of the taylor and the goldsmith? and yet these are your gods." And after some other observations on the absurdities of the pagan religion, he concluded, that from what he had already said, it appeared that the heathens worshipped what might lawfully be trod on, and made gods of such things as Providence had designed for their use.