Luke 12:4; Luke 21:12-15; Matthew 10:20
Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.
They shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues, and into prisons, being brought before kings and rulers for my name’s sake. And it shall turn to you for a testimony. Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate before what ye shall answer: For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist.
For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): It is very remarkable what wise answers many of the martyrs often gave. Illiterate men, when confronted by the learned ones of the earth, completely baffled them; and weak women nonplused their assailants and judges. A notable instance of that is recorded in the history of the brave Anne Askew.
J. H. M. d’AUBIGNÉ (1794-1872): Ann Askew was the second daughter of Sir William Askew, a member of a very ancient Lincolnshire family. Her father had compelled her to marry the son of a rich neighbour. The Holy Scriptures in the English version attracted Ann’s attention, and led by them to a living faith in Jesus Christ, she renounced the Roman Catholic superstitions, and she denied the corporeal presence of the Saviour in the sacrament.
ANNE ASKEW (1521-1546): I had sooner read five lines in the Bible, than hear five masses in the church.
J. H. M. d’AUBIGNÉ: The priests, who were greatly annoyed, stirred up her young husband against her, and he, being a rough and staunch Roman Catholic, “violently drove her out of his house.”
J. C. BAYLEY (circa 1884): That young wife, whose previously affectionate husband turned her out of doors because she had imbibed the doctrines of the Reformation, showed a spirit equally undaunted, but a loftier and more serene courage, “unmoved by poisoning wrath.”
ANNE ASKEW: Since, according to 1 Corinthians 7:15, “if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases,” I claim my divorce.
J. H. M. d’AUBIGNÉ: Ann went to London for the divorce proceedings, where she made the acquaintance of the pious ladies of the court, and of the queen herself. Queen Katheryn frequently received Anne and other Christian women in her private apartments; and there prayer was made and the Word of God expounded by an evangelical minister. King Henry VIII indeed was aware of these secret meetings, but he feigned ignorance. It was a great vexation to the enemies of the Reformation to see persons of the highest rank almost openly professing the evangelical faith. As they did not dare to attack them, they determined to make a beginning with Anne Askew. She was sent to prison.
When she was taken to Sadler’s Hall, the judge, Christopher Dare, asked her, “Do you believe that the sacrament hanging over the altar is really the very body of Christ?” Anne replied, “Wherefore was Stephen stoned to death?” Dare, doubtless, remembered that Stephen had said, “I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of God,” Acts 7:56. From this, it followed that He was not in the sacrament, but Dare preferred to answer, “I cannot tell.”
ANNE ASKEW: No more, then, will I answer your vain question.
C. H. SPURGEON: And there was my Lord Mayor of London—what a fool she made of him! He put to her this question—“Woman, if a mouse were to eat the blessed sacrament which contains the body and blood of Christ, what do you think would become of it?”
ANNE ASKEW: My lord, that is a deep question. I had rather you would answer it yourself. What do you think would become of the mouse that should do that?
C. H. SPURGEON: “I verily believe,” said the Lord Mayor of London, “that mouse would be damned!”
ANNE ASKEW: Alas! poor mouse.
C. H. SPURGEON: It is really marvelous to read how she overcame them…Often a few short words—three or four words—have met the case when the martyrs have waited upon God! And they have made their adversaries seem so ridiculous that I think they might hear a laugh both from Heaven and Hell at once at their foolery, for God’s servants have convicted them of folly and put them to shame!
ANNE ASKEW: They said to me that I was a heretic, and condemned by the law, if I would stand in my opinion. I answered, that I was no heretic, neither yet deserved I any death by the law of God. But, as concerning the faith which I uttered and wrote to the council, I would not, I said, deny it, because I knew it true. Then would they needs know, if I would deny the sacrament to be Christ’s body and blood. I said, Yea: for the same Son of God that was born of the Virgin Mary, is now glorious in heaven, and will come again from thence at the latter day like as he went up. And, as for that ye call your God, it is a piece of bread. For more proof thereof, let it but lie in the box three months, and it will be moldy, and so turn to nothing that is good. Whereupon I am persuaded that it cannot be God.
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Anne Askew thus subscribed her confession: “Written by me, Anne Askew, that neither wisheth for death, nor feareth its might; and as merry as one that is bound for heaven.”
ANNE ASKEW: After that, they willed me to have a priest; and then I smiled. Then they asked me, if it were not good; I said, I would confess my faults unto God, for I was sure that He would hear me with favour. And so, we were condemned.
J. H. M. d’AUBIGNÉ: At this time, she was twenty five years old. Determined at any cost to obtain information against influential persons at court, they ordered the rack to be applied to the young woman. The torture lasted a long time. She fainted away and was well nigh dead.
ANNE ASKEW: In all my life afore, I was never in such pain…Then was I brought to a house, and laid in a bed, with as weary and painful bones as ever had patient Job—the Lord strengthen us in the truth. Pray, pray, pray.
J. H. M. d’AUBIGNÉ: Everything was ready for the burning of Anne at Smithfield. They were obliged to carry her to the place of execution, for in her state at that time she was unable to walk. When they reached the pile, she was bound to the post by her waist, with a chain which prevented her from sinking down. Three other evangelical Christians were to die with her. When the fires were about to be lighted, the Lord Chancellor offered Anne the king’s pardon if she would recant.
JOHN TRAPP: How bravely did Anne Askew, Alice Driver, and the other poor women answer them.
ANNE ASKEW: I am not come thither to deny my Lord and Master.
JOHN TRAPP: Was not that the Spirit of the Father speaking in them? “Strength and honour were their clothing,” Proverbs 31:25; and “they rejoiced at the time to come:” they went as merry to die as to dine, and cheered up one another with this, that although they had but a bitter breakfast, yet they should sup with Christ in joy.
JOHN FOXE (1517-1587): Thus the good Anne Askew, being compassed in with flames of fire as a blessed sacrifice unto God, slept in the Lord, July 16, 1546, leaving behind her a singular example of Christian constancy for all men to follow.
