N20568:7360
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.
YOU have cause to rejoice for these days, because they are days of trial, wherein you yourselves, and all the world shall know that you belong not to it, but are God's darlings. Before these days came, Lord God I how many thought themselves in God's bosom, and so were taken, and would be taken by the world? But now we see whose they are. For, whom we obey, his servants we be. If we obey the world, (which God forbid, and hitherto you have not done it) then are we the world's; but if we obey God, then are we God's. Which thing (I mean, that you are God's) these days have declared both to you, to me, and to all others that know you, better than ever we know it. Therefore you have no cause to be sorry, but rather to rejoice at this assurance of being the Lord's children, and as you are so accounted by all good people.
WHAT though the world repine thereat? what though it kick? what though it seek to trouble and molest you? it doth but according to its nature: he cannot love the Lord who liveth not in the Lord: he cannot brook the child that hateth the Father: he that careth not for the master will not mind the servant. If ye were of the world, the world would love you, you should live quietly, there would be no grief, no molestation. If the devil dwelt in you, (which God forbid) he would not stir up his knights to besiege your house, or suffer his fiends to enter into your swine: but because Christ dwelleth in you, (as he doth by faith) therefore the devil stirreth up his first begotten son, the world, to seek how to disquiet you, to rob you, to spoil you, and to destroy you: and perchance your dear Father, to try, and to make known to you and to the world, that you are intended for a better habitation than can be found here upon earth, even an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens; hath given, or will give power to Satan, and to the world, to take from you the things which he hath lent you, and by taking them away, to try your fidelity, obedience, and love towards him, (for you must not love them above him) as by giving that you have, and keeping it, he hath declared his love towards you.