Page:The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe Volume 3.djvu/524

 from the place of his prayer, with a loud voice he said: "Lord Jesu Christ! assist and help me, that with a constant and patient mind, by thy most gracious help, I may bear and suffer this cruel and ignominious death, wherunto I am condemned for the preaching of thy most holy gospel and word." Then, as before, he declared the cause of his death unto the people. In the mean season the hangman stripped him of his garments, and turning his hands behind his back, tied him fast unto the stake with ropes that were made wet. And whereas, by chance, he was turned towards the east, certain cried put that he should not look towards the east, for he was a heretic: so he was turned towards the west. Then was his neck tied with a chain unto the stake, which chain when he beheld, smiling he said, that he would willingly receive the same chain for Jesus Christ's sake, who, he knew, was bound with a far worse chain. Under his feet they set two faggots, admixing straw withal, and so likewise, from the feet up to the chin, he was enclosed in round about with wood. But before the wood was set on fire, Louis, duke of Bavaria, and another gentleman with him, who was the son of Clement, came and exhorted John Huss, that he would yet be mindful of his safeguard, and renounce his errors. To whom he said: "What error should I renounce, when I know myself guilty of none? For as for those things which are falsely alleged against me, I know that I never did so much as once think them, much less preach them. For this was the principal end and purpose of my doctrine, that I might teach all men penance and remission of sins, according to the verity of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the exposition of the holy doctors: wherefore, with a cheerful mind and courage, I am here ready to suffer death." When he had spoken these words, they left him, and shaking hands together, departed.

Then was the fire kindled, and John Huss began to sing with a loud voice: "Jesu Christ! the Son of the living God! have mercy upon me." And when he began to say the same the third time, the wind drove the flame so upon his face, that it choked him. Yet notwithstanding he moved awhile after, by the space that a man might almost say three times the Lord's Prayer. When all the wood was burned and consumed, the upper part of the body was left hanging in the chain, which they threw down stake and all, and making a new fire, burned it, the head being first cut in small gobbets, that it might the sooner be consumed unto ashes. The heart, which was found amongst the bowels, being well beaten with staves and clubs, was at last pricked upon a sharp stick, and roasted at a fire apart until it was consumed. Then, with great diligence gathering the ashes together, they cast them into the river Rhine, that the Ieast remnant of the ashes of that man should not be left upon the earth, whose memory, notwithstanding, cannot be abolished out of the minds of the godly, neither by fire, neither by water, neither by any kind of torment.

I know very well that these things are very slenderly written by me as touching the labours of this most holy martyr John Huss, with whom the labours of Hercules are not to be compared. For that ancient Hercules slew a few monsters; but this our