Foxe - The Book of Martyrs

Foxe’s Book of Martyrs
have the satisfaction of adding another page to the black list of papistical sacrifices.
The articles against them were, as usual, the Sacramental elements and the idolatry of
bending to images. They quoted St. John's words, "Beware of images!" and respecting the
real presence, they urged according to St. Paul, "the things which are seen are temporal."
When sentence was about to be read against them, and excommunication to take place in the
regular form, John Corneford, illuminated by the Holy Spirit, awfully turned the latter
proceeding against themselves, and in a solemn impressive manner, recriminated their
excommunication in the following words: "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of
the most mighty God, and by the power of His Holy Spirit, and the authority of His holy
Catholic and apostolic Church, we do here give into the hands of Satan to be destroyed, the
bodies of all those blasphemers and heretics that maintain any error against His most holy
Word, or do condemn His most holy truth for heresy, to the maintenance of any false church
or foreign religion, so that by this Thy just judgment, O most mighty God, against Thy
adversaries, Thy true religion may be known to Thy great glory and our comfort and to the
edifying of all our nation. Good Lord, so be it. Amen."
This sentence was openly pronounced and registered, and, as if Providence had awarded
that it should not be delivered in vain, within six days after, Queen Mary died, detested by all
good men and accursed of God!
Though acquainted with these circumstances, the archdeacon's implacability exceeded
that of his great exemplary, Bonner, who, though he had several persons at that time under
his fiery grasp, did not urge their deaths hastily, by which delay he certainly afforded them an
opportunity of escape. At the queen's decease, many were in bonds: some just taken, some
examined, and others condemned. The writs indeed were issued for several burnings, but by
the death of the three instigators of Protestant murder-the chancellor, the bishop, and the
queen, who fell nearly together, the condemned sheep were liberated, and lived many years
to praise God for their happy deliverance.
These five martyrs, when at the stake, earnestly prayed that their blood might be the last
shed, nor did they pray in vain. They died gloriously, and perfected the number God had
selected to bear witness of the truth in this dreadful reign, whose names are recorded in the
Book of Life; though last, not least among the saints made meet for immortality through the
redeeming blood of the Lamb!
Catharine Finlay, alias Knight, was first converted by her son's expounding the Scriptures
to her, which wrought in her a perfect work that terminated in martyrdom. Alice Snoth at the
stake sent for her grandmother and godfather, and rehearsed to them the articles of her faith,
and the Commandments of God, thereby convincing the world that she knew her duty. She
died calling upon the spectators to bear witness that she was a Christian woman, and suffered
joyfully for the testimony of Christ's Gospel.
Among the numberless enormities committed by the merciless and uhnfeeling Bonner,
the murder of this innocent and unoffending child may be ranged as the most horrid. His
father, John Fetty, of the parish of Clerkenwell, by trade a tailor, and only twenty-four years
of age, had made blessed election; he was fixed secure in eternal hope, and depended on Him
255