Here's a bit of what I am going to say:
In telling these terrible narratives, Foxe calculated to inspire an outrage in his readers that godly ministers could be so vilely treated. However, Foxe told the vast story of the martyrs of the church like this not merely because he was after an emotive impact (though of course he was), but because he wanted to give the evangelical cause legitimacy. It was legitimacy that it appeared to lack without the authority of the Pope.
But if Foxe could show that the killing of the evangelical martyrs was of the same type as the martyrdoms of the early church, then he could give an immense boost to the English Reformation. The true church of Jesus Christ, if it is like Jesus himself, is a persecuted church. Under Queen Mary, there was no doubt as to which church the more Christ-like (as Foxe saw it).
Foxe drew his inspiration from the book of Revelation. In that book he saw an account of the history of the world that had martyrs at the centre: ‘these are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb’ (Rev 7:14). And it was a book which spoke of a true and false church. Foxe interpreted what he saw as part God’s great providential plan.
2 comments:
Out of curiosity, which edition/s of Foxe's Acts and Monuments are you relying on? I seem to vaguely recall that various early-Victorian 'abridgements' thereof interpolated non-clearly distinguished supplementary material dealing inter alia with such matters as the reported travails of French Huguenots under Charles X!
Thanks for the stimulating lecture.
Do you think that Foxe read Bullinger's sermons on Revelation?
cheers, sujomo
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