Genesis 11:28

And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.

Ver. 28. And Haran died before his father Terah.] The Hebrews say he died a martyr, being burnt with fire by his countrymen the Chaldees, because he would not worship the fire, which they had made their god. Martyrdom came early into the world, as we know in Abel, who as he was the first that died, so he died for religion. Now if this be true of Haran, as the Jewish doctors will have it; then he had, for aught we know, the maidenhead (as a certain martyr phrased it) of that kind of martyrdom. The first that were burnt for religion, since the Reformation, are said to be Henry and John, two Augustinian monks at Brussels, anno 1523, under James Hogostratus the Dominican Inquisitor. The executioner, being demanded whether they recanted in the flames, denied there was any such thing; but said, that when the fire was put to them, they continued singing the creed, and Te Deum, till the flame took away their voice. All this Erasmus testifieth, a though he was no Lutheran; and thereupon maketh this good but wary note, Damnari, dissecari, suspendi:, exuri, decollari, piis cum impiis sunt communia: damnare, dissecare, in crucem agere, exurere, decollare, bonis iudicibus cum piratis ac tyrannis communia sunt. Varia sunt hominum iudicia, ille foelix qui iudice Deo absolvitur. Our protomartyr in Queen Mary's days was Reverend Master Rogers; he gave the first adventure upon the fire. His wife, and children, being eleven in number, ten able to go, and one sucking at her breast, met him by the way as he went toward Smithfield. This sorrowful sight of his own flesh and blood could nothing move him, but that he constantly held out to the death, and so received a crown of life. b Neither hath God left himself without witness among the very heathens. For in the city of Lima, in Mexico, not two months before our coming there, saith Captain Drake, c twelve persons were condemned by the Spaniards there for profession of the gospel; of which, six were bound to one stake and burnt; the rest remained yet in prison, to drink of the same cup within a few days.

a Erasm., lib. xxiv., epist. 4.

b Act. and Mon., fol. 1356.

c The World Encompassed, by Sir F. Drake p. 59.