Martyrs' Memorial

To the Glory of God, and in grateful commemoration of His servants, Thomas Cranmer, Nicholas Ridley, Hugh Latimer, Prelates of the Church of England, who near this spot yielded their bodies to be burned, bearing witness to the sacred truths which they had affirmed and maintained against the errors of the Church of Rome, and rejoicing that to them it was given not only to believe in Christ, but also to suffer for His sake; this monument was erected by public subscription in the year of our Lord God, MDCCCXLI.

www.christiantoday.com/article/the.oxford.martyrs.who.were.they.and.why.were.they.burned.at.the.stake/67113.htm

Latimer was 68 years old and frail. He said at his trial for heresy that he did not believe that the bread and wine of communion really became the body and blood of Christ (transsubstantion) or that Christ's sacrifice was repeated at every communion...

Ridley shared Latimer's Protestantism, but also against him was that he had put his name to letters giving the English throne to the Protestant Lady Jane Grey after Edward's death. He had also said in a sermon that Mary and her sister Elizabeth were illegitimate....

Archbishop Cranmer was forced to watch the executions from a tower. He too had come to Protestant views and supported Lady Jane Grey, but after the burnings of Latimer and Ridley he issued several 'recantations' and recognised the Pope as head of the Church. They were not enough to save him from the vengeance of Mary, however, and he was condemned to be burned.

He was allowed to preach a final sermon at the University Church of St Mary in Oxford, with the text submitted in advance. When he reached the end, however, he departed from his script, saying that he renounced his recantations and that he would burn the hand that signed them first. He concluded: "And as for the pope, I refuse him, as Christ's enemy, and Antichrist with all his false doctrine." ...

These men are described as "martyrs," but though in many ways they were good men we should not imagine that they were perfect. Latimer helped to bring about the conviction of Catholic martyr John Forest, who was burned at the stake by Henry VIII, and preached the sermon at his execution. Cranmer was involved in the prosecution of John Frith, a Protestant martyr whose views he later came to share; he attempted without success to change Frith's mind and he was burnt in 1533. Ridley was involved in a controversy (the 'Vestments controversy', about what priests and bishops should wear) with John Hooper which saw Hooper imprisoned for a time; Hooper was to become another of Mary's victims.

We can honour their courage without sympathising with their belief that religious truth should be enforced on pain of death.

religious arguments:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTXN5nOstRs

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAV_0s1c2V4

www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0Xn60Zw03A

www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/quran/apostasy.aspx

Amen to all that.