He never made it home. As he traveled through a small town in
Germany, the Duke of Sulzbach sent an officer to illegally arrest him.
Chained around the neck and shackled, he was led back into Constance
as if he was the center of a parade. Surrounded by men on horseback and
many more guards, they took him to a degrading prison to await trial.

Later, during which time Hus was martyred, the Council of Constance still refused to let Jerome speak. They knew he was a persuasive,
intelligent scholar, and were afraid of his ability to defend the Christian
faith. He asked to defend himself, and they refused again. Held against
his will, with no trial or opportunity to plead his own case, he yelled out:

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What cruelty is this? For 340 days I’ve been confined in various prisons. There is not a misery or a want that I have not experienced…and you have denied me the smallest opportunity to defend myself… You are a general council, and in you is contained all that this world can impart of wisdom, solemnity, and holiness; but you are still men, and men are often
fooled by words and appearances. The higher your character
is for wisdom, the more you should be careful not to fall into foolishness. The cause I wish to plead is my own cause, the cause of men, the cause of Christians. It is a cause that will affect the rights of future generations, no matter in what way the testing process is applied to me.

After accusing him on six accounts of ridiculing and persecuting the
papacy, and of being a “hater of the Christian religion,” they tortured
him for eleven days by hanging him by his heels. Threatened with worse
torture, he faltered. He verbally affirmed that the writings of Hus and
Wycliffe were false. However, after returning to prison, albeit with better
treatment, he retracted his statements and vowed full support of Hus and
Wycliffe. The council brought 107 new charges against him, but finally
let him speak before burning him at the stake.

Jerome eloquently reminded them that throughout history, men of
truth have openly voiced their opinions and differences. All that Jerome
had done, all that Wycliffe had done, was to unveil the misguided teachings of the Roman Church at that time to the people of their own land, and in their own language. They taught that the Gospel itself is enough to rule the life of every Christian; that the pope is no different from any other priest; that communion is not the actual blood, body, and bones
of Christ; and many other doctrines that follow more Protestant lines
of thought.

The Roman Church at that time had already martyred Hus, banished the teachings of Wycliffe, and now Jerome of Prague was on the
pyre. Singing hymns as the pyre was lit, his last known words were, “This
soul in flames I offer, Christ, to Thee.”

His death was not in vain. Jerome, like Hus and Wycliffe, was
simply encouraging people to know what the Bible actually said, and
not to blindly follow those who claimed to have the utmost authority
over Christianity. The work of Jerome, Hus, and Wycliffe led the way
for men like William Tyndale to translate the Bible into English, and
later into other languages, so that everyone had access to the Word
of God.

This story is an excerpt from Foxe: Voices of the Martyrs. You can get your own copy free with any donation to The Voice of the Martyrs.

By 1526, the Sattlers had returned to the Anabaptist movement,
which Michael had been forced to renounce years earlier to avoid imprisonment. Now, with his Anabaptist convictions strengthened, Michael dedicated his life to preaching at a church in Horb, a strongly Catholic region of Austria. On February 4, 1527, in the small German town of Schleitheim, the Anabaptists met and introduced to the world a new way of understanding church and Gospel. The Sattlers traveled to Germany
from Horb for the deliberations that produced the “Seven Articles of the
Faith,” also known as the “Brotherly Union.” Michael Sattler helped
write this founding document of the Anabaptist movement.

But traveling home from that meeting, Michael and Margarita Sattler were captured and their articles confiscated. They were transformed
from Anabaptist advocates to Anabaptist martyrs—a twist of events that
propelled the church further than Sattler could ever have imagined.
Tried before a judge on May 17, 1527, the Sattlers, nine other men,
and eight women were charged with various violations of doctrine and
practice. Particularly grievous were the charges against the Eucharist,
baptism, unction, and the veneration of the saints.

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“Michael Sattler shall be committed to the hangman,” read the
court’s sentence, “who shall take him to the square and there first cut
out his tongue, then chain him to a wagon, tear his body twice with hot
tongs there and five times more before the gate, then burn his body to
powder as an archheretic.”

Amid cries of “Almighty eternal God, Thou are the way and the
truth,” the sentence was carried out on May 21, 1527. Eight days later,
Margarita met the same fate, burned in the city of Rottenburg near the
Black Forest.

Finding completion in the love of wife and Lord, Sattler had set
himself to making the Anabaptist movement a light of truth for all
nations. Soon after their deaths, Anabaptists began carrying the “Brotherly Union” and an account of the Sattlers’ deaths in miniature version
on their persons, and no threat of torture could stop them. Something
deeper than the fear of fire and mutilation burned in their souls. And
this can be said about the soul of Michael and Margarita Sattler: for love
they lived, and for Love they died.

“Remember the word that
I said to you: ‘A servant is not
greater than his master.’
If they persecuted me, they
will also persecute you.
If they kept my word, they will
also keep yours.”
John 15:20

This story is an excerpt from Foxe: Voices of the Martyrs. You can get your own copy free with any donation to The Voice of the Martyrs.