Editorial ReviewThis is truly a HIGH QUALITY KINDLE EDITION of Foxe's Book of Martyrs for easy reading and meditation. All the arts, portraits, pictures and illustrations are adapted for Kindle readers. The Clickable Table of Contents is designed so that you can click easily navigate to the different chapters.Note that the correct spelling of the author is John Foxe. Many editors spell his name wrong with "Fox"."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."Book Description:Fox's Book of Martyrs is a history of the lives, sufferings and deaths of the Early Christians and Protestant Martyrs.Content of the Book:Author's Biography & Sketches - John FoxeChapter I -- History of Christian Martyrs to the First General Persecutions Under NeroChapter II -- The Ten Primitive PersecutionsChapter III -- Persecutions of the Christians in PersiaChapter IV -- Papal PersecutionsChapter V -- An Account of the InquisitionChapter VI -- An Account of the Persecutions in Italy, Under the PapacyChapter VII -- An Account of the Life and Persecutions of John WickliffeChapter VIII -- An Account of the Persecutions in Bohemia Under the PapacyChapter IX -- An Account of the Life and Persecutions of Martin LutherChapter X -- General Persecutions in GermanyChapter XI -- An Account of the Persecutions in the NetherlandsChapter XII -- The Life and Story of the True Servant and Martyr of God,William TyndaleChapter XIII -- An Account of the Life of John CalvinChapter XIV -- Prior to the Reign of Queen Mary IChapter XV -- An Account of the Persecutions in Scotland During the Reign of King Henry VIIIChapter XVI -- Persecutions in England During the Reign of Queen MaryChapter XVII -- Rise and Progress of the Protestant Religion in Ireland; with an Account of the Barbarous Massacre of 1641Chapter XVIII -- The Rise, Progress, Persecutions, and Sufferings of the QuakersChapter XIX -- An Account of the Life and Persecutions of John BunyanChapter XX -- An Account of the Life of John WesleyChapter XXI -- Persecutions of the French Protestants in the South of France, During the Years 1814 and 1820Chapter XXII -- The Beginnings of American Foreign MissionsLet us learn from the past heroes of faith! They stand with those men of faith listed in Hebrews 11.Semper Fidelis.Christians must always remain faithful to God even to offering up their lives for God's sake!

The idea of the long eighteenth century (1660-1832) as a period in which religious and political dissent were regarded as antecedents of the Enlightenment has recently been advanced by several scholars. The purpose of this collection is further to explore these connections between religious and political dissent in Enlightenment Britain. Addressing the many and rich connections between political and religious dissent in the long eighteenth century, the volume also acknowledges the work of Professor James E. Bradley in stimulating interest in these issues among scholars. Contributors engage directly with ideas of secularism, radicalism, religious and political dissent and their connections with the Enlightenment, or Enlightenments, together with other important themes including the connections between religious toleration and the rise of the 'enlightenments'. Contributors also address issues of modernity and the ways in which a 'modern' society can draw its inspiration from both religion and secularity, as well as engaging with the seventeenth-century idea of the synthesis of religion and politics and its evolution into a system in which religion and politics were interdependent but separate. Offering a broadly-conceived interpretation of current research from a more comprehensive perspective than is often the case, the historiographical implications of this collection are significant for the development of ideas of the nature of the Enlightenment and for the nature of religion, society and politics in the eighteenth century. By bringing together historians of politics, religion, ideas and society to engage with the central theme of the volume, the collection provides a forum for leading scholars to engage with a significant theme in British history in the 'long eighteenth century'.

James A. Kelhoffer examines an often overlooked aspect of New Testament constructions of legitimacy, namely the value of Christians' withstanding persecution as a means of corroborating their religious identity as Christ's followers. The introductory chapter defines the problem in interaction with sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital. Chapters 2-10 examine the depictions of persecuted Christians in the Pauline letters, First Peter, Hebrews, Revelation, the NT Gospels, and Acts. These exegetical analyses support the conclusion that assertions of standing, authority, and power claimed on the basis of persecution play a significant and heretofore under-appreciated role in much of the NT. It is also argued that depictions of persecution can have both positive implications for the persecuted and negative implications for the depicted persecutors in constructions of legitimation.An epilogue considers later examples of early Christian martyrs and confessors, as well as John Foxe's Book of Martyrs . The epilogue also addresses the ethical and hermeneutical problem of asserting the withstanding of persecution as a basis of legitimacy in ancient and modern contexts. This problem stems from the observation that, although the NT authors present their construals of withstanding persecution as a basis of legitimation as if they were self-evident, such assertions are actually the culmination of numerous presuppositions and are therefore open to dissenting viewpoints. Yet the NT authors do not acknowledge the possibility of competing interpretations, or that oppressed Christians could someday become oppressors. Accordingly, this exegetical study calls attention to an ethical and hermeneutical problem that the NT bequeaths to the modern interpreter, a problem inviting input from ethicists and other theologians.