N20568:7391
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.
NOW notwithstanding this excellency of faith, in that we read the apostle to match therewith, yea, (as it were) to prefer suffering persecution for Christ's sake, I suppose no man will be so weak as to think otherwise, but that I and all God's children have cause to glorify and praise him, who hath made you worthy of so great a blessing. For though the reason or the wisdom of the world, think of the cross according to their reach, and according to their present sense, and therefore they sly from it, as from the greatest ignominy and shame; yet those who have been brought up in the school of Christ have learned to think otherwise of his cross, that it is the frame house in which God frameth his children like to his Son Christ; the […] that fineth God's gold; the highway to heaven; the livery wherewith God's servants are served; the earnest and beginning of all consolation and glory. For they (I mean God's scholars, as your lordship, I hope, is) do enter into God's sanctuary, lest their feet slip. They look not as beasts do, on things present only, but on things to come, whereby they have the day of judgment, and the glorious coming of Christ, as present to their faith, as the wicked have now their worldly wealth before their eyes, wherein they wallow, and will wallow till they tumble into hell, into miseries inexpressible, into torments everlasting. ⟨p. 677⟩Now they follow the fiend as the bear doth the train of honey, and the sow the swillings, till they be brought into the slaughter house, and then they shall know (but too late) that their prosperity hath brought them to eternal perdition. Then shall they cry, Woe, woe, woe, we went the wrong way: we counted these men (I mean such as you be, that suffer for God's sake, loss of goods, friends, and life, whom they shall see clothed with rich robes of righteousness, crowns of most pure and precious gold, and palms of conquest) in the glorious palace of the Lamb, where is eternal joy and felicity. We counted (they will then say) these men but fools and madmen, we took their conditions to be but curiosity. But then the time will be turned, laughing shall be turned into weeping, and weeping into rejoicing. Read Wisdom ii.iii.iv. and v.
NOW notwithstanding this excellency of faith, in that we read the apostle to match therewith, yea, (as it were) to prefer suffering persecution for Christ's sake, I suppose no man will be so weak as to think otherwise, but that I and all God's children have cause to glorify and praise him, who hath made you worthy of so great a blessing. For though the reason or the wisdom of the world, think of the cross according to their reach, and according to their present sense, and therefore they sly from it, as from the greatest ignominy and shame; yet those who have been brought up in the school of Christ have learned to think otherwise of his cross, that it is the frame house in which God frameth his children like to his Son Christ; the that fineth God's gold; the highway to heaven; the livery wherewith God's servants are served; the earnest and beginning of all consolation and glory. For they (I mean God's scholars, as your lordship, I hope, is) do enter into God's sanctuary, lest their feet slip. They look not as beasts do, on things present only, but on things to come, whereby they have the day of judgment, and the glorious coming of Christ, as present to their faith, as the wicked have now their worldly wealth before their eyes, wherein they wallow, and will wallow till they tumble into hell, into miseries inexpressible, into torments everlasting.