Foxe’s Book of Martyrs

Posted on May 19, 2022 by brucesbiblepage

https://www.biblestudytools.com/history/foxs-book-of-martyrs/

Edited by William. Byron Forbush This is a book that will never die — one of the great English classics. . . . Reprinted here in its most complete form, it brings to life the days when “a noble army, men and boys, the matron and the maid,” “climbed the steep ascent of heaven, ‘mid peril, toil, and pain.” “After the Bible itself, no book so profoundly influenced early Protestant sentiment as the Book of Martyrs. Even in our time, it is still a living force. It is more than a record of persecution. It is an arsenal of controversy, a storehouse of romance, as well as a source of edification.”

Fox’s Book of Martyrs is in the public domain and may be freely used and distributed.

An Account of the Life and Persecutions of Martin Luther part 8
Luther now made open war with the pope and bishops; and, that he might make the people despise their authority as much as possible, he wrote one book against the pope’s bull, and another against the order falsely called “The Order of Bishops.” He published also a translation of the New Testament in the German tongue, which was afterward corrected by himself and Melancthon.
Affairs were now in great confusion in Germany; and they were not less so in Italy, for a quarrel arose between the pope and the emperor, during which Rome was twice taken, and the pope imprisoned. While the princes were thus employed in quarreling with each other, Luther persisted in carrying on the work of the Reformation, as well by opposing the papists, as by combating the Anabaptists and other fanatical sects; which, having taken the advantage of his contest with the Church of Rome, had sprung up and established themselves in several places.
In 1527, Luther was suddenly seized with a coagulation of the blood about the heart, which had like to have put an end to his life. The troubles of Germany were not likely to have any end, the emperor was forced to call a diet at Spires, in 1529, to require the assistance of the princes of the empire against the Turks. Fourteen cities, viz., Strassburg, Nuremberg, Ulm, Constance, Retlingen, Windsheim, Memmingen, Lindow, Kempten, Hailbron, Isny, Weissemburg, Nortlingen, S. Gal, joined against the decree of the Diet protestation, which was put into writing, and published April 1529. This was the famous protestation, which gave the name of “Protestants” to the reformers in Germany.
After this, the Protestant princes labored to make a firm league and enjoined the elector of Saxony and his allies to approve of what the Diet had done; but the deputies drew up an appeal, and the Protestants afterward presented an apology for their “Confession”–that famous confession which was drawn up by the temperate Melancthon, as also the apology. These were signed by a variety of princes. Luther had now nothing else to do, but to sit down and contemplate the mighty work he had finished: for that, a single monk should be able to give the Church of Rome so rude a shock, that there needed but such another entirely to overthrow it, maybe well-esteemed a mighty work.
In 1533, Luther wrote a consolatory epistle to the citizens of Oschatz, who had suffered some hardships for adhering to the Augsburg confession of faith: and in 1534, the Bible translated by him into German was first printed, as the old privilege, dated at Bibliopolis, under the elector’s own hand, shows; and it was published in the year after. He also published this year a book, “Against Masses and the Consecration of Priests.”

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