John Wade, University of Sheffield

Every good man respects you, Foxe, and honours your writings; so many monuments of your zeal give you this glory. Your holy life adorns you, the congregation of the learned praises you, so whence comes this hatred for your books? Whence this sudden conversion of the papizing sect? Now it is shame to hear what it was not shame to do. Whence so many Harpies, I mean Hardings and Copes? Whence this chattering mob from the school at Louvain? The cause is manifest: papism rages against the Muses, hates holy things, and the shorn nature does not approve of the athletes of Christ. And it is not so much that they hate you, but the truth and the faith. Alas, their malign tongue cannot speak well of anything.

John Wade, University of Sheffield

Although many people have sold frivolous absurdities and unadulterated stupidity for a high price, do not have any doubt (Daye), that you will gain the profit you desire even for single copies, notwithstanding that the Monuments are costing you a great deal.

John Wade, University of Sheffield

So then, could the wicked voice of the Pope have thus by its order commanded so dreadful an outrage? have buried so many bodies together in so many pyres, ashes without the honour of a tomb? What kind of men is this? or what race so barbarous is there anywhere which permits this practice, of killing the good without regard for law, and of slaughtering so many men for the sake of the anger of a harlot? Tell it forth, Pope, what madness and frenzy carried you away to consign the bodies of saints to such dreadful flames? to mingle together the deaths of so many men, and smite so many citizens, and devastate Britons set a whole world away from you? Tell what great crime could our countrymen have committed against you? what could those persons do, for whom, after so many terrible sufferings, there scarcely remains any portion of the extent of the world's globe? Or is it that we have felt your deceit and treachery, your interference and your criminal love of possession? that your voice does not have a human sound to our ears, and we have rightly therefore supposed that the Pope was the son of an evil demon? Or was it that you grieved that we conspired with Christ, that we see that you do not conspire with Christ? That we reveal you as a Roman hydra with many horns, as the servant of great crime and vice? It is from this that that comes which twists itself with curses and threats, which has burned even these people with smoking torches. Be pitiful, and be pitied by no one at all. Of this great calamity you, Bonner, were a large part, slayer of the sheep of Christ, scatterer of the fold, a terrible scourge to the folds, nothing but an unmitigated disaster. And you too, who have taken pleasure in laying hands on all the prophets of God, and trampling underfoot the good, and rejecting the name of kindness, set aside the cruelty in your hearts. Now it is enough, O more than enough, become wise, though late in time, no day is too late, now finally learn, learn at last by admonition not to despise Christ. Bestow kisses on his Son, lest the Avenger exercise his wrath, and scatter you in disarray dislodged from the path of life. But you, you dwellers in heaven, who have overcome in joy all that there is of bitterness, who are permitted to dwell in bliss for ever, the sweet delight of Christ, because by your seemly death you have adorned Christ, you glorious dwellers above, and you the host in triumph, no flesh, no world, no Turks, or Pope or demon, or moon shining by night or sun by day will vex you. And you, all of you, who have climbed the height of heaven, and pass to the Father, leaving behind the weight of the world, what harm was done to you by prison, blows, fetters, tortures, jeers and cruel faces? what by weapons and by fires? To be sure, as yellow gold is tried in the fire, so you have been done to death by fires tested by Christ. Your death is precious in the eyes of the Lord. While you, Foxe, thus by your writings spread wide the names and the death and the characters of these persons down the length of time, while you reveal all from its true beginning, you are a good man, and much deserving to be remembered for your very service. So then you continue to grow pale over your learned papers, turning them with your hand by night and by day. You are an Atlas industrious and learned in the studies of your glorious labours, while the generality seeking after its benefits without the approval of Christ hunts down the honours of the world. Do you write either in the Roman speech or the British, and present the deeds of time past, with God the Father showing you the way, and you following the fate given you: you will earn full marks, so well do you mix the useful with the pleasurable. Mighty God, father of heaven, and monarch of the universe, whom we believe to be lord of earth and tempest, and whom we know to be the only God to be revered, do you see how everything is vexed by mad tumult and the world utterly turned from the pivot of peace? Spare your small flock, we all ask you for peace. May you be kind and prosper your people, and spare Christ whose limbs the world now too much harms and hates. By your beloved spouse, and the promised covenant, by the sufferings of Christ, by the sweet pledges of his passion, and in your name, you we beseech, break the jaw teeth of the wicked.

John Wade, University of Sheffield

If anyone is allowed ascend to heaven by killing, the biggest gate of heaven is open to the Papists.

J[ohn] F[oxe]

[Note that this epigram also occurs on page 2265 of the 1570 edition in Book XII. The actual text of Cicero is found in the De Republica, Fragments, sect. 6. line 3: Si fas endo plagas caelestum ascendere cuiquam est, Mi soli caeli maxima porta patet. Also cf. Seneca the Younger, Epistlae Morales ad Luc. Letter 108. 34. 5.: Ennium hoc ait Homero [se] subripuisse, Ennio Vergilium; esse enim apud Ciceronem in his ipsis de re publica hoc epigramma Enni: si fas endo plagas caelestum ascendere cuiquam est, mi soli caeli maxima porta patet. Also cf. Lactantius, Divinarum Institutionum lib. I, De Falsa Religione Deorum, Migne P.L., col. 0211B: Apud Ennium sic loquitur Africanus; Si fas endo plagas coelestum ascendere cuiquam est, Mi soli coeli maxima porta patet.]