Fox's Book of Martyrs: Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant; Deaths of the Primitive Protestant MartyrsFoxe, John
HistoryHistory
Fox's Book of Martyrs: Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant; Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs
Foxe, John
Church history; Martyrs; Persecution
Daniel Rambaut, of Villaro, the father of a numerous family, was
apprehended, and, with several others, committed to prison, in the jail
of Paysana. Here he was visited by several priests, who with continual
importunities did all they could to persuade him to renounce the
protestant religion, and turn papist; but this he peremptorily refused,
and the priests finding his resolution, pretended to pity his numerous
family, and told him that he might yet have his life, if he would
subscribe to the belief of the following articles:
1. The real presence in the host.
2. Transubstantiation.
3. Purgatory.
4. The pope's infallibility.
5. That masses said for the dead will release souls from purgatory.
6. That praying to saints will procure the remission of sins.
M. Rambaut told the priests, that neither his religion, his
understanding, nor his conscience, would suffer him to subscribe to any
of the articles, for the following reasons:
1. That to believe the real presence in the host, is a shocking union of
both blasphemy and idolatry.
2. That to fancy the words of consecration perform what the papists call
transubstantiation, by converting the wafer and wine into the real and
identical body and blood of Christ, which was crucified, and which
afterward ascended into heaven, is too gross an absurdity for even a
child to believe, who was come to the least glimmering of reason; and
that nothing but the most blind superstition could make the Roman
catholics put a confidence in any thing so completely ridiculous.
3. That the doctrine of purgatory was more inconsistent and absurd than
a fairy tale.
4. That the pope's being infallible was an impossibility, and the pope
arrogantly laid claim to what could belong to God only, as a perfect
being.
5. That saying masses for the dead was ridiculous, and only meant to
keep up a belief in the fable of purgatory, as the fate of all is
finally decided, on the departure of the soul from the body.
6. That praying to saints for the remission of sins, is misplacing
adoration; as the saints themselves have occasion for an intercessor in
Christ. Therefore, as God only can pardon our errors, we ought to sue to
him alone for pardon.
The priests were so highly offended at M. Rambaut's answers to the
articles to which they would have had him subscribe, that they
determined to shake his resolution by the most cruel method imaginable:
they ordered one joint of his finger to be cut off every day, till all
his fingers were gone; they then proceeded in the same manner with his
toes; afterward they alternately cut off, daily, a hand and a foot; but
finding that he bore his sufferings with the most admirable patience,
increased both in fortitude and resignation, and maintained his faith
with steadfast resolution, and unshaken constancy, they stabbed him to
the heart, and then gave his body to be devoured by the dogs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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