Acts and Monuments Volume 2 Part 1

To Mistress M. H a godly gentlewoman, comfortyng her in that common heaviness and godly sorrow: which the feeling and sense of sin worketh in God's children.

I Humbly and heartily pray the everlasting good God and Father of mercy, to bless and keep your heart and mind in the knowledge and love of his truth, and of his Christ, through the inspiration and working of the holy spirit, Amen.

Although I have no doubt, but that you prosper and go forwards daily in the way of godliness, more and more drawing towards perfection, and have no need of any thing that I can write, yet because my desire is that you might be more fervent and persevere to the ende, I could not but write something unto you, beseechinge you both often and diligently to call unto your mind, as a mean to stir you hereunto, yea as a thing which God most straitly requireth you to believe, that you are beloved of God, and that he is your dear father, in, through, and for Christ and his deaths sake. This love and tender kindness of God towards us in Christ, is abundantly herein declared, and that he hath to y ^e Godly work of creation of this world, made us after his image, redeemed us being lost, called us into his Church, sealed us with his mark and sign manual of Baptism, kept and conserved us all the days of our life, fed, nourished, defended and most fatherly chastised us, and now hath kindled in our hearts the sparcles of his • ear, faith, love, and knowledge of his Christ and truth, and therefore we lament because we lament no more our unthankfulness, our fraylnes, our diffidence and wavering in things, wherein we should be most certain.

All these things we should use as means to confirm our faith of this, that God is our God and father & to assure us that he loveth us as our father in Christ: to this end (I say) we should use the things before touched especially in that of all things GOD requireth this faith and fatherly persuasion of his fatherly goodness, as his chiefest service. For before he ask any thing of us, he saith: I am the Lord thy God, giving himself, and then all he hath to us to be our own. And this he doth in respect of himself, of his own mercy and and truth, and not in respect of us, for then were grace no grace. In consideration whereof, when he saith: Thou shalt have none other God's but me, thou shalt love me with all thy heart. &c. though of duty we are bound to accomplish all that he requireth, and are culpable and guilty, if we do not the same, yet he requireth not these things further of us, then to make us more in love and more certain of this his covenant, that he is our Lord and GOD. In certayntye whereof, as he hath givē this whole world to serve to our need and commodity: so hath he given his son Christ Jesus, and in Christ, himself to be a pledge and gage: whereof the holy Ghost doth now and then give us some taste and sweet smell to our our eternal joy.

Therefore (as I said) because God is your father in Christ, and requireth of you straitly to believe it, give yourself to obedience, although you do it not with such feeling as you desire. First must faith go before, and then feeling will follow. If our imperfection, frayltie, and many evils should be occasions whereby Satan would have us to doubt, as much as we can, let us abhor that suggestion, as of all others most pernicious: for so in deed it is. For when we stand in a doubt, whether God be our Father, we cannot be thankful to God, we cannot heartily pray or think any thing we do acceptable to God, we cannot love our neighbors and give over our selves to care for them, and do for them as we should do, and therefore Satan is most subtle hereaboutes, knowing full well that if we doubt of God's eternal mercies towards us through Christ, we cannot please God, or do anything as we should do to man. Continually casteth he into our memories our imperfectiō, frayltie, falls and offenses, that we should doubt of God's mercy, and favor towards us.

Therefore my good sister, we must not be sluggishe herein, but as Satan laboreth to loosen our faith: so must we labor to fasten it by thinking on the promises and couenaunte of God in Christ's blood, namely that God is our God with all that ever he hath: which couenaunte dependeth and hangeth upon God's own goodness, mercy and truth only, and not on our obedience or worthiness in any point, for then should we never be certain. In deed God requireth of us obedience and worthiness, but not that thereby we might be his children and he our father, but because he is our father and we his children through his own goodness in Christ, therefore requireth he faith and obedience. Now if we want this obedience & worthiness which he requireth, should we doubt whether he be our father? Nay, that were to make our obedience and worthiness the cause, and so to put Christ out of place, for whose sake God is our father: But rather because he is our father, and we feel our selves to want such things as he requireth, we should be stirred up to a shamefastness and blushing, because we are not as we should be: and thereupon should we take occasion to go to our father in prayer on this manner:

Deare father, thou of thine own mercy in Jesus Christ hast chosen me to be thy child, and therefore thou wouldest I should be brought into thy Church and faithful company of thy children: wherein thou hast kept me hitherto, thy name therefore be praised. Now I see myself to want faith, hope, love. &c. which thy children have and thou requirest of me, wherthrough the devil would have me to doubt, yea utterly to despair of thy fatherly goodness, favor and mercy. Therefore I come to thee as to my merciful father through thy dear son Jesus Christ, and pray thee to help me good Lord: help me, and give me faith hope, love, &c. and grant that thy holy spirit may be with me forever, and more and more to assure me that thou art my father: that this merciful covenant that thou madest with them respect of thy grace in Christ, and for Christ and not in respect of any my worthiness, is always to me. &c.

On this sort (I say) you must pray and use your cogitations, when Satan would have you to doubt of salvation. He doth all he can to prevail herein. Do you all you can to prevail herein against him. Though you feel not as you would, yet doubt not, but hope beyond all hope, as Abraham did. For always (as I said) goeth faith before feeling. As certain as God is almighty, as certain as God is merciful, as certain as God is true, as certain as Jesus Christ was crucified, is risen, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father, as certain as this is GOD'S commandment: I am the Lord thy God. &c. so certain ought you to be that God is your father. As you are bound to have no other God's but him, so are ye no less bound to believe that God is your God. What profit should 〈◊〉 be to you to believe this to be true: I am the Lord thy God to others, if you should not believe that this is true to youre self? The devil believeth on this sort. And whatsoever it be that would move you to doubt of this, whether God be your God through Christ, that same cometh undoubtedly of the devil. Wherefore did God make you, but because he loved you? Might not he have made you blind dumb, deaf, lame, frantic. &c. Might not he have made you a Jew, a Turk, a Papist. &c? And why hath he not done so? verily because he loved youe? And why did he love you? What was there in you to move him to love you? Surely nothing moved him to love you, and therefore to make you, and so hitherto to keep you, but his own goodness in Christ. Now then in that his goodness in Christ still remaineth as much as it was, that is, even as great as himself, for it cannot be lessoned: how should it be but y ^t he is your God and father? Beleue this, believe this, my good sister, for God is no chaungeling: them whom he loveth, he loveth to the end.

Cast therefore yourself wholly upon him, and think without all wavering, that you are God's child, that you are a citizen of heaven, that you are the daughter of God, the temple of the holy Ghost. &c. If hereof you be assured as you ought to be, then shall your conscience be quieted, then shall you lament more & more that you want many things which God loveth: then shall you labor to be holy in soul and body: then shall you go about that God's glory may shine in all your words and works: then shall you not be afraid what man can do unto you: then shall you have such wisdom to answer your adversaries, as shall serve to their shame, and your comfort: then shall you be certain y ^t no man can touch one hear of your head further then shall please your good father, to your everlasting joy: then shall you be moste certain, that God as youre good father, will be more careful for your Children, and make better provision for them, if all you have were gone then you can: then shall you (being assured I say of gods favor towards you) give over yourself wholly to help and care for others that be in need: then shall you contemn this life, and desire to be at home with youre good and sweet father, then shall you labor to mortify all things that would spot either soul or body. All these things spring out of this certain persuasion and faith, that God is our father, and we are his children by Christ Jesus. All things should help our faith herein: but Satan goeth about in all things to hinder us.

Therefore let us use earnest and hartye prayer: let us often remember this covenant: I am the Lord thy God: let us look upon Christ and his precious blood shed for the obsignation and confirmation of his covenant: let us remember all the free promises of the Gospel: let us set before us God's benefits generally in making this world, in ruling it, in governing it, in calling and keeping his Church. &c. let us set before us God's benefits particularly, howe he hath made his creatures after his image, howe he made us of perfect lymmes, form, beautye, memory, &c. how he hath made us as Christians, and given us a right judgment in his religion: how he hath ever sithen we were b • rne, blessed, kept, nourished, and defended us: how he hath often beaten, chastised, and fatherly corrected us: how he hath spared us & doth now spare us, giving us time, space, place, grace. This if you do & use earnest prayer, and so flee from all things which might wound your conscience, giving yourself to diligence in your vocation, you shall find at the length that (which God grant to me with you) a sure certayntie of salvation, without all such doubt as may trouble the peace of conscience, to your eternal joy, and comfort. Amen. Amen.

An other letter full of Godly comfort, written to the same person.

THe good spirit of God which guideth his children, be with you my good sister in the Lord, forever. Amen.

Although, as I to you, so you unto me in person are unknown, yet to him whom we desire to please, we are not only in persons, but also in hearts known and thoroughly seen: and therefore as for his sake you would by that you sent, of me be perceived how that in God you bear to me a good will: so, that I to you might be seen in God to bear you the like, I send to you these few words in writing, wishing that in all your doings and speech, yea even in your very thoughts, you would labor to feel that they are all present and open before the sight of God, be they good or bad. This cogitation often had in mind and prayer made to God for the working of his spirit, thereby, as a mean, you shall at the length feel more comfort and commodity, then any man can know, but such as be exercised there in. Howbeit, this is to be added, that in thinking youre self, & all that you have and do, to be in the sight of God: this (I say) is to be added, that you think his sight is the fight, not only of a Lord, but rather of a father, which tendereth more your infirmities, then you can tender the infirmities of any your Children. Yea when in yourself you see a motherly affection to your little one that is weak, let the same be unto you a trace to train you to see the unspeakable kind affection of God your father towards you.

And therefore upon the consideration of your infirmities and natural evils, which continually cleave unto us, take occasion to go to God, as your father through Christ, and before his merciful heart, lay open your infirmities and evils, with desire of pardon and help, after his good will and pleasure, but in his time, and not when you will, and by what means he will, not by that way you would: in the mean season hange on hope of his fatherly goodness, and surely you shall never be ashamed. For if a woman that is natural, cannot finally forget the Child of her womb, be • ure God which is a father supernatural, cannot, nor will not forget you. Yea if a woman could be so forgetful, yet God himself saith, he will not be so.

This opinion, yea rather certain persuasion of God our father through Christ, see that you cherish and by all means, as well by diligent consideration of his benefits, as of his loving corrections, whether they be inward or outward, see that you nourish: knowing for certain, that as the devil goeth about nothing so much as to bring you in a doubt whether ye be God's child, or no: so whatsoever shall move you to admit that dubitation, be assured the same to come from the Devil. If you feel in yourself not only the want of good things, but also plenty of evil, do not therefore doubt whether you be God's child in Christ, or no.

For if for your goodness or ilnesse sake, which you feel or feel not, ye should believe or doubt, then should you make Christ Jesus for whose sake only God is your father, either nothing, or else but half Christ.

But rather take occasion of your wants in good, and of your plenty in evil, to go to God as to your father, and to pray to him, that in as much as he commandeth you to believe that he is your God and father: so he would give you his good spirit, that you might feel the same, and live as his child, to his glory: and cease not upon such prayers to look for comfort God's good time, still hoping the best, and rejecting all dubitation, and so all evil works, words and cogitations, as the Lord shall enable you by his good spirit and grace, which I beseech him to give unto you, my good sister, forever. And further I pray you, that as he hath made you to be an helper unto your husband, so you would endeavor yourself therein to show the same as well in soul as body: and beg grace of God, that your endeavor may be effectual to both your comforts in Christ. Amen.

To my well-beloved in the Lord, W. P.

GRace and peace from God the father, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Deare brother, God most justly hath cast me down into a dungeon, but much better then I deserve: wherein I see no man but my keeper, nor can see any except they borne to me So • ething in the earth my lodging is: which as an example and memorial of my earthly affections (which God I trust will mortify) and of my sepulcher, whereunto I trust my Lord God will bring me in peace in his good time. In the mean season he give me patience, lively hope, and his good spirit. I pray you pray for me, for the prayer of the godly, if it be effectual, worketh much with God. I thank God my common disease doth less trouble me, then when I was abroad, which doth teache me the merciful providence of God towards me. Use true and hearty prayer, and you shall perceive GOD at length will declare himself to see, where now many think he sleepeth.

A letter which he wrote to a faithful woman in her heaviness and trouble: most comfortable for all those to read that are afflicted and broken hearted for their sins.

Here followeth another letter of his, written to the good Lady Uane, wherein he resolveth certain questions which she demanded. This Lady Uane was a special Nourse, and a great supporter, to her power, of the godly Saints, which were imprisoned in Queen Mary's time. Unto whom, diverse Letters I have both of M. Philpot, Carelesse, Traherne, Thomas Rose, and of other moe, wherein they render unto her moste grateful thanks for her exceeding goodness extended toward them, with their singular commendation and testimony also of her Christian zeal toward God's afflicted prisoners, and to the verity of his Gospel. She departed of late at Holburne. Anno 1568. whose ende was more like a sleep, then any death: so quietly and meekly she deceased and departed hence in the Lord.

Amongest other which wrote unto her, M. Bradford also sent these letters to the said Lady: the tenor whereof here followeth.

To my good Lady Vane.

THe true sense and sweet feeling of God's eternal mercies in Christ Jesus, be ever more and more lively wrought in your heart by the holy Ghost. Amen.

I moste heartily thank you (good Madame) for your comfortable Letters: and whereas you would be advertised what were best to be done on your behalf, concerning your three questions: the truth is, that the questions are never well seen nor answered, until the thing whereof they arise, be well considered, I mean, until it be seen howe great an evil the thing is. If it be once in deed in your heart perceived upon probable & pithy places gathered out of God's book, that there was never thing upon the earth so great, and so much an adversary to God's true Service, to Christ's Death, Passion, Priesthood, Sacrifice, and kingdom, to the Ministry of God's word and sacraments, to the church of God, to repentance, faith, and all true godliness of life, as that is whereof the questions arise (as moste assuredly it is in deed) then cannot a Christian heart, but so much the more abhor it, and all things that in any point might seem to allow it, or anything pertaining to y ^e same, by how much it hath the name of God's service.

Again, your Ladyship doth know, that as all is to be discommended and avoided, which is followed or fled from in respect of our selves, in respect of avoiding Christ's Cross: so the ende of all our doings should be to Godwards, to his glory, to our neighbors, to edification and good example, whereof none can be given in allowing any of the three questions by you propounded. But because this which I write now is brief, and needeth the more consideration or explication: as I doubt not of the one in you, so from me by God's grace, you shall receive y ^e other shortly. For I have already written a little book of it, which I will send unto you, in the which you shall have youre questions fully answered and satisfied, and therefore I omit to write anymore hereaboutes presently: beseeching God our good Father to guide you as his dear child w ^t his spirit of wisdom, power, and comfort unto eternal lie • e, that you may be strong, and rejoice in him and with his Church, to carry Christ's cross, if he shall so think it need. 1. Peter 1. Which is a thing to be desired, wished and embraced, if we looked on things after the judgment of God's word, and tried them by that touchstone.

If you be accustomed to think on the brevity, vanity, and misery of this life, and on the eternitye, truth, and felicity of everlasting life: if you look on things after their ends, and not after their present appearance only: if you use yourself to set God's presence, power, and mercy always before your eyes, to see them as God by every creature would you should: I doubt not but you shall find such strength and comfort in the Lord, as you shall not be shaken with all the power of Satan. God's mercy in Christ be with you, and his good spirit guide you forever. Amen.

An other letter to the Lady Vane.

AS to mine own soul, I wish to your Ladishippe, grace and mercy from God our dear father in Christ our Lord and Savior.

I thank God that something he hath eased you, and mitigated his fatherly correction in us both: I would to God he had done so much in the behalf of the grief of the body to you, as he hath done to me. For as for the soul, I trust you feel that which I pray God increase in you, I mean his fatherly love, and grant that I may with you feel the same in such degree as may please him: I will not say, as you feel, least I should seem to ask too much at one time. God doeth often much more plentifully visit with the sense of his mercy, them that humble them selves under his mighty hand, and are sore exercised (as you long have been) then others, which to the face of the world have a more show and appearance.

Therefore I wish as I do, and that not only for mine own commodity, but also that I might occasion you to the consideration of the goodness of God, which I by your letters do well esp • e, which is in deed the hye way, whereby as God increaseth his gifts, so showeth he more lively his salvation. Psalm. 50.107. I have received God's blessing from you, the which I have partly distributed unto my three fellow prisoners, Master Farrar, Master Tailor, Master Philpot, and the residue I will bestow upon four poor souls which are imprisonned in the common Gayle, for Religion also. As for mine own parte, if I had need, I would have served my tourne also. But because I had not, nor (I thank God) have not, I have been and will be your Almner in such sort as I have already advertised you. God reward you, and give you to find it spiritually and corporally. Because otherwise I can not talk with you, therefore on this sort, as occasion and opportunity will serve, I am ready to show my good will and desire of youre help and furtherance in the Lord to everlasting life, whereunto God bring us shortly, for his mercies sake. Amen.

Good Madame be thankful to God, as I hope you be: be earnest in prayer, continue in reading and hearing God's word, and if God's further Cross come, as therein God doeth serve his providence (for else it shall not come unto you) so be certain the same shall turn to your eternal joy and comfort. Amen.

To my dear friends and brethren, R. and E. with their wives and families.

THe comfort of Christ fealt commonly of his children in their Cross for his sake, the everlasting God work in both your hearts, my good brethren, and in the hearts of both your yokefelows, especially of good Mary my good sister in the Lord. Amen.

If I had not something heard of the hazard which you are in for the Gospels sake, if you continue the profession & confession thereof, as I trust you do & will do, and that unto the ende, God enabling you, as he will doubtless for his mercies sake, if you hope in him (for this binedeth him, as David in Christ's person witnesseth: Our Fathers hoped in thee, and thou deliueredst them. &c. Psal. 22.) yet by cōiectures I could not but suppose, (though not so certainly) the time of your suffering and probation to be at hand. For now is the power of darkness fully come upon this realm most justly for o • r sins, and abusing the light lent us of the Lord, to the setting forth of our selves more then of God's glory, y ^t as well we might be brought into the better knowledge of our evils, and so heartily reap̄t (which God grant us to do) as also we might have more feeling and sense of our sweet savior Jesus Christ, by the humbling and deiecting of us, thereby to make us, as more desirous of him, so him more sweet and pleasant unto us: the which thing the good spirit of God work sensibly in all our hearts, for God's holy names sake.

For this cause I thought it my duty, being now where I have some liberty to write (the Lord be praised) and hearing of you as I hear: to do that which I should have done, if I had heard nothing at all: that is, to desire you to be of good cheare and comfort in the Lord (although in the world you see cause rather to the contrary) and to go on forewardes in the way of God whereinto you are entered, considering that the same cannot but so much more and more wax strait to the outward man, by howe much you draw nearer to the ende of it: Even as in the travail of a woman, the nearer she draweth to her delivery, the more her pains increase: so it goeth with us in y ^e Lord's way, the nearer we draw to our deliverance by death to eternal felicity.

Example whereof we have, I will not say, in the holy Prophets and Apostles of God, which when they were young, girded them selves, and went in manner whether they would, but when they waxed old, they went girded of others, whither they would not, concerning y ^e outward man: but rather and moste lively in our Savior Jesus Christ, whose life & way was much more painful to him towards the ende, then it was at the beginning. And no marueyle, for Satan cane something abide a man to begin well & set forewards, but rather then he should go on to the ende, he will vomit his gorge, and cast floods to overflow him, before he will suffer that to come to pass.

Therefore as we should not be dismayed now at this world, as though some strange thing were happened unto us, in that it is but as it was wont to be to the godly, in that the Devil declareth him self after his old wont, in that we have professed no less but to forsake the world and the devil as God's very enemy, in that we learned no less at the first when we came to God's school, then to deny our selves, and take up our cross and follow our master, which leadeth us none other way then he him self hath gone before us: as (I say) we should not be dismayed: so we should with patience and joy go forewards, if we set before us as present, the time to come, like as the wife in her travail, doeth the deliverance of her child, and as the saints of God did, but especially our savior and pattern Jesus Christ: for the Apostle saith: He set before him the joy and glory to come, and therefore contemned the shame & sorrow of the cross: so if we did, we should find at the length as they found. For whom would it grieve which hath a long journey to go, to go through a piece of foul way, if he knew that after that the way should be moste pleasant, yea the journey should be ended, and he at his resting place most happy? Who will be afeard, or loath to leave a little pelf for a little time, if he knew he should shortly after receive most plentiful riches? Who will be unwilling for a little while to forsake his wife, children, or friends. &c. when he knoweth he shall shortly after be associated unto them inseparably, even after his own hearts desire? Who will be sory to forsake this life, which cannot but be moste certain of eternal life? Who loveth the shadow better then the body? Who can love this life, but they that regard not the life to come? Who can desire the dross of this world but such as be ignorant of the treasures of the everlasting joy in heaven? I mean, who is afeard to die, but such as hope not to live eternally? Christ hath promised pleasures, richesse, joy, felicity, and all good things to them that for his sake lose anything, or suffer any sorrow. And is he not true? Howe can he but be true, for guile was never found in his mouth.

Alas then, why are we so slack and slow, yea hard of heart to believe him, promising us thus plentifully eternal blisfulnes, and are so ready to believe the world promising us many things, and paying us nothing? If we will currie favor now and hal • e on both partes, then it promiseth us peace, quietness, and many things else. But howe doeth it pay this gear? or if it pay it, with what quietness of conscience? Or if so: howe long I pray you? Do not we see before our eyes men to die shamefully, I mean, as Rebelles and other malefactors, which refuse to die for God's cause? What way is so sure a way to heaven, as to suffer in Christ's cause? If there be any way on horseback to heaven, surely this is the way: By many troubles (saith the Apostle) we must enter into heaven. All that will live godly in Christ Jesus, must suffer persecution. For the world cannot love them that are of God: the devil cannot love his enemies: the world will love none but his own: you are Christ's, therefore look for no love here. Should we look for fire to quench our thirste? And as soon shall God's true servants find peace and favor in Antichrists regiment.

Therefore my dearly beloved, be stout in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on you his armor: stand in the liberty of Christ which you have learned: rejoice that you may be counted worthy to suffer any thing for God's cause: to all men this is not given. Your reward is great in heaven, though in earth you find nothing. The journey is almost past: you are almost in the haven: halt on a pace I beseech you, and merrily ho • se up your sails. Cast you selves on Christ, who careth for you. Kepe company with him now still to the ende: he is faithful and will never leave you, nor tempt you further then he will make you able to bear: yea in the midst of the temptation he will make an outscape. Now pray unto him heartily, be thankful of his indignation, rejoice in hope of the health you shall receive, and be mindful of us which are in the vawarde, and by God's grace trust in Christ to be made able to break the Ise before you, that you following, may find the way more easy. God grant it may so be. Amen, Amen.

To Maistresse Wilkenson.

ALmighty God our most loving father increase in your heart (my good mother & dear maistresse in the Lord) his true knowledge and love in Christ, to y ^e encouraging and comforting of your faith in these stormy days: as necessary unto us, so profitable if we per • iste unto the ende, which thing God grant to us. Amen.

My righte dearly beloved, I know not what other thing to write unto you, then to desire you to be thankful unto the Lord, in that amongst thee not many of your calling and state, it pleaseth him to give you his rare blessing, I mean to keep you from all the filthe wherewith on • e Country is horribly defiled. Thys blessing assuredly is rare, as you see. But now if he shall bless you with another blessing which is more rare, I mean to cal you forth as a Martyr, and a witness against this filth, I hope you will become double thankful. For a greater token commonly we have not to judge of our election and salvation, next to Christ and faith in him, then the cross, especially when it is so glorious, as on this sort to suffer anything, but chiefly loss of this life, which in deed is never found til it be so lost: except the grain of wheat fall and be dead, it remaineth fruitless.

You know how that he which was wrapped into the third heaven, and did know what he wrote, doeth say: That as the corn liveth not except it be dead, and cast into the earth, so truly our bodies. And therefore the cross should so little fear us, that even death it self should altogether be desired of us, as the Tailor which putteth off our rags, and araieth us with the Royal Roabes of immortality, incorruption, and glory. Great shame it should be for us, that all the whole creatures of God should desire, yea, groan in their kind for our liberty, and we our selves to loath it: as doubtless we do, if for the cross, yea for death it self, we with joy swallow not up all sorrow that might let us from following the Lord's calling, and obtaining the Lord's providence: whereby doubtless all crosses, and death it self doth come, and not by hap or chance. In consideration whereof (right dear Mother) that this providence stretcheth it self so unto us, and for us, that evē the hair of our heads are numbered with God, not one of them to fall to our hurt: surely we declare our selves very faint in faith, if we receive not such comfort, that we can willingly offer our selves to the Lord, and cast our whole care upon his back, honoring him with this honor, that he is and ever will be careful for us, and all we have, as for his dear children. Be therefore of good cheare even in the midst of these miseries, be thankful to the Lord, and prepare yourself for a further trial, which if God send you, as I hope, so do you believe, that God therein will help & comfort you, and make you able to bear whatsoever shall happen. And thus much, having this opportunity, I thought good to write, praying God our father to recompense into your bosom, all the good that ever you have done, to me especially, and to many others, both in this time of trouble, and always heretofore.

An other letter written to certain godly persons, encouraging them to prepare them selves with patience to the cross.

GRatious God and moste merciful Father, for Jesus Christ's sake thy dearly beloved son, grant us thy mercy, grace, wisdom, and holy spirit, to counsel, comfort, and guide us in all our cogitations, words, and works, to thy glory, and our everlasting joy and peace forever. Amen.

In my last letter you might perceive my coniecturing to be no less towards you, then now I have learned. But (my dearly beloved) I have learned none other thing, then before I have told you would come to pass, if ye cast not away that which ye have learned. I do appeal to both your consciences, whether herein I speak truth, as well of my telling (though not so often as I might and should, God forgive me) as also of your learning. Now God will try you, to make others to learn by you, that which ye have learned by others: and by them which suffered this day ye might learn, (if already ye had not learned) that life and honor is not to be set by more then God's commandment. They in no point for all y ^t ever their ghostly fathers could do, having doctor Death to take their part, would consent or seem to consent to the popish mass and papistical God, otherwise then in y ^e days of our late king they had received. And this their faith they have confessed with their deaths, to their great glory, and all our comforts, if we follow them: but to our confusion, if we star back from the same. Wherefore I beseech you to consider it, as well to praise God for them, as to go the same way with them, if God so will.

Consider not the things of this life, which is a very prison to all God's children: but the things of everlasting life, which is our very home. But to the beholding of this gear, ye must open the eyes of your mind, of faith I should have said, as Moses did, which set more by trouble with God's people, then by the riches of Egypt, and Pharaoh's Court. Your house, home and goods, yea life and all that ever ye have, God hath given you as love tokens, to admonish you of his love, & to win your love to him again. Now will he try your love, whether ye set more by him then by his tokens, or no. If ye for his tokens sake, that is, for your home, house, goods, yea life, will go w ^t the world, least ye should loose them, then be assured your love, as he cannot but espy it to be a strumpets love, so will he cast it away with the world. Remember that he which will save his life, shall loose it, if Christ be true: but he which aduentureth, yea looseth his life for the Gospels sake, the same shall be sure to find it eternally. Do not ye know that the way to salvation is not the broad way, which many run in, but the straight way, which few now walk in.

Before persecution came, men might partly have stand in a doubt by the outward estate of the world with us (although by God's word it was plain) whether was the high way, (for there was as many that pretended the gospel, as popery) but now the sun is risen, & the wind bloweth, so that the corn which hath not taken fast root, cannot nor will not abide: and therefore easily ye may see the straight way by the small number that passeth thorough it. Who will now adventure their goods and life for Christ's sake, which yet gave his life for our sakes? We are now become Gergesites, that would rather loose Christ, then our Porkets. A faithful wife is never tried so to be, but when she rejecteth and withstandeth woers. A faithful Christian is then found so to be, when his faith is assaulted.

If we be not able, I mean, if we will not forsake this world for God's glory and Gospels sake, trow ye that God will make us able, or give us a will to forsake it for natures sake? Die ye must once, and leave all ye have (God knoweth how soon and when) will ye, or will ye not, and seeing perforce ye must do this, will ye not willingly now do it for God's sake?

If ye go to Mass, and do as the most part doeth, then may ye live at rest & quietly: but if ye deny to go to it, then shall ye go to prison, lose your goods, leave your children comfortless, yea lose your life also. But my dearly beloved, open the eyes of your faith, & see how short a thing this life is, even a very shadow and smoke. Again, see how intolerable the punishment of hell fire is, and that endless. Last of all, look on the joys incomprehēsible, which God hath prepared for all them world without ende, which loose either lands or goods for his names sake. And then do ye reason thus: If we go to Mass, the greatest enemy that Christ hath, though for a little time we shall live in quiet, and leave to our children that they may live hereafter, yet shall we displease God, fall into his hands (which is horrible to hypocrites) and be in wonderful hazarde of falling from eternal joy into eternal misery, first of soul, and then of body, with the Devil and all Idolaters.

Again, we shall want peace of conscience, which surmounteth all the riches of the world: and for our children, who knoweth whether God will visit our Idolatry on them in this life: yea our house and goods are in danger of loosing, as our lives be, through many casualties, & when God is angry with us, he can send always when he will, one mean or another to take all from us for our sins, and to cast us into care for our own sakes, which will not come into some little trouble for his sake.

On this sort reason with yourselves, and then doubtless God will work otherwise with you and in you, then ye are ware of. Where now ye think yourselves unable to abide persecutiō, be most assured, if so be ye purpose not to forsake God, that God will make you so able to bear his Cross, that therein you shall rejoice. Faithful is God, (saith Paul) which will not tempt you further then he will make you able to bear, yea he will give you an outscape in the Cross, which shall be to your comfort. Think howe great a benefit it is, if God will vouche you worthy this honor, to suffer loss of anything for his sake. He might justly cast most grievous plagues upon you, and yet now he will correct you with that rod whereby you shall be made like to his Christ, that forever ye may reign with him. Suffer yourselves therefore now to be made like to Christ, for else ye shall never be made like unto him. The Devil would gladly have you now to overthrow that which godly ye have of long time professed. Oh howe would he triumph, if he could win his purpose? Oh howe would the Papists triumph against God's gospel in you? Oh howe would you confirm them in their wicked Popery? Oh how would the poor children of God be discomforted, if now ye should go to mass and other idolatrous service, and do as the world doth?

Hath God delivered you from y ^e Sweate to serve him so? Hath God myraculously restored you to health from your grievous Agewes for such a purpose? Hath God given you such blessings in this world and good things all the days of your life hitherto, and now of equity will ye not receive at his hands, and for his sake, some evil? God forbid: I hope better of you. Use prayer, and cast your care upon God: commit your children into his hands: give to God your goods, bodies, and lives as he hath given them or rather sent them unto you. Say with Job: God hath given, and God hath taken away, his name be praised forever. Caste your care upon him (I say) for he is careful for you: and take it amongst the greatest blessings of God to suffer for his sake. I trust he hath kept you hitherto to that ende.

And I beseech thee, O merciful Father for Jesus Christ's sake, that thou wouldest be merciful unto us, comfort us with thy grace, and strengthen us in thy truth, that in heart we may believe, and in tongue boldly confess thy Gospel, to thy glory, and our eternal salvation. Amen. Pray for me, and I by God's grace will do the same for you.

An admonition to certain professors of the Gospel, to beware they fall not from it in consenting to the Romish religion, by the example of other halting and double faced Gospellers.

THe peace of Christ which is the true effect of God's Gospel believed (my dearly beloved) be more and more plentifully perceived of you, through the grace of our dere father, by the mighty working of the holy spirit our comforter. Amen.

Thoughe I have many lets presently to hinder me from writing unto you, yet being desired, I could not but something signify my ready good will in this behalf, so much as I may, when I cannot so much as I would.

You hear and see howe Satan bestirreth him, raging as a roaring Lyon to devour us. You see and feel partly what storms he hath raised up to drown the poor Boat of Christ, I mean his Church. You see howe terribly he traineth his soldiers to give a fierce onset on vowarde of God's battle. You see how he hath received power of God, to molest God's children, and to begin at his house. By reason whereof consider two things: one, the cause on our behalf: the other, what will be the sequel on strangers.

For the first, if we be not blind, we cannot but well see that our sins are the cause of all this misery: our sins I say, which I would that everyone of us would apply to our selves after the example of Jonah and David, turning over the wallet, that other men's offenses might lie behind, and our own before. Not that I would excuse other men, which exteriourly have walked much more grossly then many of you have done: but that I would provoke you all as myself to more hearty repentance and prayer. Let us more and more increase to know and lament our doubting of God, of his presence, power, anger, mercy. &c.

Let us better feel and hate our selfloue, security, negligence, unthankfulness, unbelief, impacience. &c. and then doubtless the cross shall be less careful, yea it shall be comfortable, and Christ moste dear and pleasant: death then shall be desired, as the dispatcher of us ou • of all misery, and entrance into eternal felicity and joy unspeakable: the which is so much the more longed for, by howe much we feel in deed the serpents bits wherewith he woundeth our heels, that is, our outward Adam and senses. If we had, I say, a lively and true feeling of his poison, we could not but as rejoice over our captain y ^t hath bruised his head, so be desirous to follow his example, that is, to give our lives with him and for him, and so to fill up his passions, that he might conquer and overcome in us and by us, to his glory and comfort of his children.

Now the seconde (I mean the sequel, or that which will follow on the strangers) my dearly beloved, let us well look upon. For if so be that God justly do thus give to Satan and his seed, to vex and molest Christ and his penitent people: Oh what and how justly may he and will he give to Satan to entreat the rechlesse and impenitent sinners? If judgment begin thus at God's house, what will follow on them that be without, if they repent not? Certainly for them is reserved the dregs of God's cup, that is, brimstone, fire, and tempest intolerable. Now are they unwilling to drink of God's cup of afflictions which he offereth commō with his son Christ our Lord, least they should lose their pigges with the Gergelites. They are unwilling to come into the way that bringeth to heaven, even afflictions: they in their hearts cry, Let us cast his yoke from us: they walk two ways, that is, they seek to serve God & Mammon, which is impossible, they will not come nigh the straight way that bringeth to life: they open their eyes to behold present things only: they judge of Religion after reason, and not after God's word: they follow the more part, and not the better: they profess God with their mouths, but in their hearts they deny him, or else they would sanctify him by serving him more then men: they parte stake with God, which would have all, giving part to the world, to the Romish rout, and Antichristian Idolatry now set abroad amongst us publicly: they will have Christ, but none of his cross, which will not be: they will be counted to live godly in Christ, but yet they will suffer no persecution: they love this world, wherthrough the love of God is driven forth of them: they savor of those things that be of men, and not that be of God: Summa, they love God in their lips, but in their hearts, yea and in their deeds deny him, as well by not repenting their evils past, as by continuing in evil still, by doing as the world, the flesh and the devil willeth, and yet still perchance they will pray or rather prate: Thy will be done in earth, which is generallye that everyone should take up his cross and follow Christ. But this is a hard saying: who is able to abide it? Therefore Christ must be prayed to depart, least all their pigges be drowned. The devil shall have his dwelling again in themselves, rather then in their pigges, and therefore to the Devil shall they go, and dwell with him in eternal perdition and damnation, even in hell fire a torment endless, and above all cogitations incomprehensible, if they repent not.

Wherefore by them (my dearly beloved) be admonyshed to remember your profession, howe that in Baptism you made a solempne vow to forsake the Devil, the world. &c. You promised to fight under Christ's standard. You learned Christ's Cross afore you begun with A. B. C. Go to then, pay your vow to the Lord: fright like mende, and valiant men under Christ's standarde: take up your Cross and follow your master, as your brethren M. Hoper, Rogers, Tailor, and Sanders have done, and as now your brethren M. Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, Farrar, Bradford, Haukes. &c. be ready to do. The Ise is broken before you, therefore be not afraid, but be content to die for the Lord. You have no cause to waver or doubt of the doctrine thus declared by the blood of the pastors. Remember that Christ saith: He that will save his life, shall lose it. And what should it profit you to win the whole world, much less a little quietness, your goods. &c. and to lose your own souls? Render to the Lord that he hath lent you, by such means as he would have you render it, and not as you would. Forget not, Christ's disciples must deny themselves, as well concerning their will, as concerning their wisdom. Have in mind, that as it is no small mercy to believe in the Lord, so it is no small kindness of God towards you to suffer anything, much more death for the Lord. If they be blessed that die in the Lord, howe shall they be that die for the Lord? Oh what a blessing is it to have death due for our sins, diverted into a demonstration and testification of the Lord's truth? Oh that we had a little of Moses faith to look upon the ende of the Cross, to look upon the reward, to see continually with Christ and his people, greater richesse then the richesse of Egypt. Oh let us pray that God would open our eyes to see his hi • Manna, heavenly Jerusalem, the congregation of the first borne, the melody of the Saints the tabernacle of God dwelling with men: then should we run and become violent men, and so take the kingdom o • heaven as it were by force. God our father give us for his Christ's sake, to see a little, what and howe great joy he hath prepared for us, he hath called us unto, & most assuredly giveth us for his own goodness and truths sake. Amen.

My dearly beloved, repent, be sober and watch in prayer, be obedient, and after your vocations show your obedience to the higher powers in all things that are not against God's word, therein acknowledging y ^e sovereign power of the Lord: howbeit, so that ye be no rebels or rebellers for no cause: but because with good conscience you cannot obey, be patient sufferers, and the glory and good spirit of God shall dwell upon us. I pray you remember us your afflicted brethren, being in the Lord's bonds for the testimony of Christ, and abiding the gracious hour of our dear and most merciful father. The Lord for Christ's sake, give us merry hearts to drink lustely of his sweet cup, which daily we groan and sigh for, lamenting that the time is thus prolonged. The Lord Jesus give us grace to be thankful, and to abide patiently the provident hour of his most gracious good will. Amen. Amen.

To my good brother John Careles, prisoner in the kings Benche.

THe father of mercy and God of all comfort, visit us with his eternal consolation, according to his great mercies in Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.

My very dear brother, if I shall report the truth unto you, I cannot but signify that sithen I came into prison, I never received so much consolation as I did by your last letter, the name of God be most heartily praised therefore. But if I shall report the truth unto you, and as I have begun, speak still the verity, I must confess that for mine unthankfulness to you wards, and to God especially, I have more need of God's merciful tidings, then I had ever heretofore. Ah that Satan envieth us so greatly. Ah that our Lord would tread his head under our feet shortly. Ah that I might forever, both myself beware, and be a godly example to you and others to beware of unthankfulness. Good brother Careles, we had more need to take heed after a lightening, of a foil then before. God therefore is to be praised even when he hideth, and that not of long, a cheerful countenance from us, least we being not expert howe to use it as we should do, do hurt more our selves thereby, so great is our ignorance and corruption. This my good brother & right dear to my very heart, I write unto you as to one whom in the Lord I embrace, and I thank God that you do me in like manner. God our father more and more give us both his good spirit, that as by faith we may fele our selves united unto him in Christ, so by love we may feel our selves linked in the same Christ one to another, I to you, and you to me, we to all the children of God, and all the children of God to us, Amen. Amen.

Commende me to our good brother Skelthrop, for whom I heartily praise my God, which hath given him to see his truth at the length, and to give place to it. I doubt not, but that he will be so heedie in all his conversation, that his old acquaintance may ever thereby think them selves astray. Woe and woe again should be unto us, if we by our example should make men to stumble at the truth. Forgette not salutations in Christ, as you shall think good to Trewe, and his fellows. The Lord hath his time (I hope) for them also, although we perchance think otherwise. A drop maketh the stone hollowe, not with once, but with often dropping: so if with hearty prayer for them and good example, you still and drop upon them as you can, you shall see God's work at the length. I beseech God to make perfect all the good he hath begun in us all, Amen. I desire you all to pray for me the most unworthy prisoner of the Lord.

To M. John Hall and his wife, prisoners in Newgate for the testimony of the Gospel.

ALmightye God our heavenly Father through Jesus Christ, be w ^t you both my dearly beloved, as with his dear children forever, & so he bless you with his holy spirit, that you may in this your cross (for his cause doubtless) rejoice, and gladly take it up to bear it so long as he shall think good. I have heard (my good brother & sister) how that god hath brought you both into his scholehouse, (whereas you were both purposed by his leave to have pla • ed the trewands) that thereby you might see his carefulness & love toward you. For if it be a token of a loving and careful father for his children, to prevent the purpose, and disappoint the intent of his children, purposing to depart a while from the school for fear of beating, (which thing they would not do if they did as much consider the commodity of learning which there they might get): how should you take this work of the Lord preventing your purpose, but as an evident sign of love and fatherly carefulness that he beareth towards you? If he should have winked at your willes, then would you have escaped beating: I mean the cross, but then should you have lost the commodity of learning, which your father will now have you to learn and feel, and therefore hath he sent to you his cross. He I say, hath brought you where you be: and though your reason and wit will tell you, it is by chance or fortune, or otherwise, yet (my dearly beloved) know for certain that what so ever was the mean, God your father was the worker hereof, and that for your weal, although otherwise your old Adam doth tell you, & you fele: yet I say of truth that your duty is to think of this cross, that as it is of God's sending, and cometh from him: so although your deserts be otherwise, it is of love & fatherly affection for your weal and commodities sake.

What commodity is hereby, you will perchance object. You are now kept in close prison you will say: your family and children be without good overseers: your substance diminisheth by these means: poverty will approach: and perchance more peari • s also, yea and loss of life too. These are no commodities but discommodities, and that no small ones: so that justly you would be glad to know what commodity can come to you by this cross, whereby cometh so great discommodities,

To these things I answer, that in deed it is true you • ay of your bodies, families, children, substance, poverty, life. &c. Which things, if you would consider a while with inward eyes, as you behold them with outward, then perhaps you should find more ease. Do not you now by the inward sense perceive that you must part frō all these and all other commodities in the world? Tell me then, have not you this commodity by your cross, to learn to loath and leave the world, and to long for and desire another world, where is perpetuity? You ought of your own head and free will to have (according to your profession in baptism) forsaken the world and all earthly things, using the world, as though you used it not, Your heart only set upon your hourde in heaven, or else you could never be Christ's true disciples, that is be saved, and be where he is. And trow you (my good hearts in the Lord) trow you I say, that this is no commodity, by this cross to be compelled hereto, that you might assuredly enjoy with the Lord endless glory? Howe now doth God (as it were) fatherly pull you by the ears to remember your former offenses concerning these things & all other things, that repentance and remission might ensue? Howe doth God now compel you to call upon him, and to be earnest in prayer? Are these no commodities? Doth not the scripture say, that God doth correct us in the world because we shall not be damned with the world? That God chasteneth everyone whom he loveth? that the ende of this correction shall be joy and holiness? Doeth not the Scripture say, That they are happy that suffer for righteousness sake, as you now do, that the glory and spirit of God is upon them? that, as you are now made like unto Christ in suffering, so shall you be made like him in reigning? Doeth not the Scripture say that you are now going the high and right way to heaven? that your suffering is Christ's suffering? My dearly beloved, what greater commodities then these, can a godly heart desire?

Therefore ye are commanded to rejoice and be glad when ye suffer, as now ye do: for through the goodness of God, great shall be your reward: Where? Forsooth on earth first for your children: for now they are in God's mere and immediate protection. Never was father so careful for his children, as God's is for yours presently. God's blessing which is more worth then all the world, you leave in deed to your children. Though all your providence for thē should be pulled away: yet God is not poor, he hath promised to provide for them moste fatherly. Cast thy burden upon me (saith he) and I will bear it. Do you therefore cast them and commend them unto God your father, and doubt not that he will die in your dette. He never yet was found unfaithful, and he will not now begin with you. The good man's seed shall not go a begging his bread: for he will show mercy upon thousands of the posterity of them that fea • e him. Therefore as I said, God's reward first upon earth shall be felt by your children even corporally, and so also upon you if God see it more for your commodity, at the least inwardly you shall feel it by quietness and comfort of conscience: and secondly after this life, you shall find it so plentifully, as the eye hath not seen, the ear hath not hard, the heart cannot conceive how great & glorious God's reward will be upon your bodies, much more upon your souls. God open our eyes to see and feel this in deed. Then shall we think the cross which is a mean hereto, to be commodious. Then shall we thank God that he would chastise us. Then shall we say with David: Happy am I that thou hast punished me, for before I went astray, but now I keep thy laws.

This that we may do in deed my dearly beloved, let us first know y ^t our cross cometh from God: Secondly, that it cometh from God as a father, that is, to our weal and good. Therefore let us thirdly cal to mind our sins and ask pardon. Whereto let us fourthly look for help certainly at God's hand in his good time: help I • ay, such as shall make most to God's glory, and to the comfort and commodity of our souls & bodies eternally. This if we certainly conceive, then will there issue out of us hearty thanks giving, which God requireth as a most precious sacrifice. That we may all through Christ offer this, let us use earnest prayer to our God and dear father, who bless us, keep us, and comfort us under his sweet cross forever. Amen. Amen.

My dear hearts, if I could any way comfort you, you should be sure thereof, though my life lay thereon, but now I must do as I may, because I cannot as I would. Oh y ^t it would please our dear father shortly to bring us where we should never depart, but enjoy continually the blessed fruition of his heavenly presence: pray, pray, that it may speedily come to pass, pray. To morrow I will send unto you to know your estate, send me word what are the chiefest things they charge you withal. From the Counter.

To Maistresse Hall prisoner in Newgate and ready to make answer before her adversaries.

Here followeth another letter of M. Bradford, to one Richard Hopkins, shiriffe sometimes of Coventry, & yet being (as I hear say) alive. This Hopkins whom M. Bradford commendeth so much in this letter, during the time of his shiri • ealtie, was detected and accused by certain malignant adversaries, of matter pertaing to religion. What matter it was, I am not yet certainly informed, unless it were for sending and lendyng unto a thief being then in prison ready to be hanged, a certain English book of scripture for his spiritual comfort.

Whereupon, or else upon some such like matter, he being maliciously accused, was sent for and committed to the Fleet, and there endured a sufficient time, not without great peril of life. Notwithstandyng, the said Hopkins being at length delivered out of prison, following this counsel of M. Bradford, and mindyng to keep his conscience pure from Idolatry, was driven with his wife and 8. young children, to avoid the realm, and so leaving all other worldly respects, with his great loss and damage went into high Germany, where he contiued in the City of Basel, till the death of Queen Mary, being like a good Tobias, to his power a friendly helper, and a comfortable relieuer of other English exiles there about him: God's holy blessing so working with him therefore, that in those far countries, neither he fell in any great decay, neither any one of all his household, during all that time there miscarried, but so many as he brought out, so many he recaried home again, yea & that with advantage, and gods plenty withal upon him. Now the letter written to this Richard Hopkins by M. Bradford, is this.

A Letter to Master Richard Hopkins, then Sheriff of Coventry, and prisoner in the Fleet, for the faithful and constant confessing of God's holy Gospel.

DEarely beloved in the Lord, I wish unto you, as unto mine own brother, yea as to mine own heart root, God's mercy & the feeling of the same plentifully in Christ our sweet savior, who gave himself a ransom for our sins, and price for our redemption, praised therefore be his holy name forever and ever. Amen.

I will not go about to excuse myself for not sending unto you hitherto, suffering for the Lord's sake as you do, to the comfort of me and of all that love you in the truth: but rather accuse myself both before God and you, desiring you of forgiveness, and with me to pray to God for pardon of this my unkind forgetting you, and all other my sins, which I beseech the Lord in his mercy, to do away for his Christ's sake. Amen.

Now to make amends to you ward, I would be glad if I could, but because I cannot, I shall heartily desire you to accept that will, and this which I shall now write unto you, there after: I mean, after my will and not after the deed, to accept and take it. At this present my dear heart in the Lord, you are in a blessed state, although it seem otherwise to you, or rather unto your old Adam, the which I 〈1 page duplicate〉 dare now be so bold as to discern from you, because you would have him not only discerned, but also utterly destroyed. For if God be true, then is his word true.

Now his word pronounceth of your state that it is happy, therefore it must needs be so. To prove this I think it need not: for you know that the holy ghost saith, That they are happy which suffer for righteousness sake, and that God's glory and spirit resteth on them which suffer for conscience to God. Now this you cannot but know, that this your suffering is for righteousness sake, and for conscience to Godwards, for else you might be out of trouble evē out of hand. I know in very deed that you have felt and do feel your unthankfulness to God and other sins, to witness to you, that you have deserved this prisonment and lack of liberty, betwixt God and yourself, and I would you so would confess unto God in your prayers, with petition for pardon and thanks giving, for his correctyng you here. But you know that the Magistrates do not persecute in you your sins, your unthankfulness. &c. But they persecute in you Christ himself, his righteousness, his verity, and therefore happy be you that have found such favor with God your father, as to accompt you worthy to suffer for his sake in the sight of man: surely you shall rejoice therefore one day with a joy unspeakable, in the sight of man also.

You may think yourself borne in a blessed time, that have found this grace with God, to be a vessel of honor to suffer with his Saints, yea with his son. My beloved, God hath not done so with many. The Apostle saith: Not many noble, not many riche, not many wise in the world, hath the Lord God chosen. Oh then what cause have you to rejoice, that amongst the not many, he hath chosen you to be one? For that cause hath God placed you in your office, that therefore ye might the more see his special dignation and love towards you. It had not been so great a thing for M. Hopkins to have suffered as M. Hopkins, as it is for M. Hopkins also to suffer as M. Sheriff. Oh happy day that you were made shiriffe, by the which as God in this world would promote you to a more honorable degree, so by suffering in this room he hath exalted you in heaven, and in the sight of his church & children, to a much more excellent glory. When was it read, that a shiriffe of a city hath suffered for the Lord's sake? Where read we of any Sheriff that hath been cast in prison for conscience to Godward? How could God have dealt more lovingly w ^t you, then herein he hath done? To the end of the world it shall be written for a memorial to your praise, that Rich. Hopkins shiriffe of Coventry, for conscience to do his office before God, was cast in the Fleet, and there kept prisoner a long time. Happy, & twice happy are you, if herefore you may give your life. Never could you have attained to this promotion on this sort out of that office. How do you preach now, not only to all men, but specially to magistrates in this realm? Who would ever have thoght that you should have been the first magistrate that for Christ's sake should have lost anything? As I said before, therefore I say again, that your state is happy. Good brother, before God I write the truth unto you, my conscience bearing me witness, that you are in a most happy state with the Lord, and before his sight.

Be thankful therefore, rejoice in your trouble, pray for patience, persevere to the ende, let patience have her perfect work. If you want this wisdom and power, ask it of God, who will give it to you in his good time. Hope still in him, yea if he should slay you, yet trust in him with Job, and you shall perceive that the ende will be to find him merciful & full of compassion: for he will not break promise with you, which hitherto did never so with any. He is with you in trouble, he heareth you calling upon him, yea before you cal, your desires are not only known, but accepted through Christ. If now and then he hide his face from you, it is but to provoke your appetite, to make you the more to long for him. This is most true: He is a coming, and will come, he will not be long. But if for a time he seem to tarry, yet stand you still, and you shall see the wonderful works of the Lord. Oh beloved, wherefore should you be heavy? Is not Christ Immanuel, God with us? Shall you not find that as he is true in saying: In the world you shall have trouble: so is he in saying: In me you shall have comfort? He doth not swear only that trouble will come, but with all he sweareth that comfort shall ensue. And what comfort? such a comfort as the eye hath not seen, the ear hath not heard, nor the heart of man can conceive. Oh great comfort: who shall have this? Forsooth they that suffer for the Lord. And are not you one of them? Yea verily are you. Then (as I said) happy, happy, and happy again are you my dearly beloved in the Lord. You now suffer with the Lord, surely you shall be glorified with him. Call upon God therefore in your trouble, and he will hear you, yea deliver you in such sort, as most shall make both to his & your glory also. And in this calling, I heartily pray you to pray for me your fellow in affliction. Now we be both going in the high way to heaven, for by many afflictions must we enter in thither, whether God bring us for his mercies sake, Amen. Amen.

To my good Sister Maistresse Elizabeth Brown.

GOod sister, God our Father make perfect the good he hath begun in you unto the end.

I am afraid to write unto you because you so overcharge yourself at all times, even when so ever I do but send to you commendations. I would be more bold on you then many others, and therefore you might suspend so great tokens til I should write unto you of my need: which thing doubtless I would do if it urged me. Deare sister, I see your unfeigned love to me wards in God, and have done of long time, the which I do recompense with the like, and will do by gods grace so long as I live, & therefore I hope not to forget you, but in my poor prayers to have you in remembrance, as I hope you have me. Otherwyse I can do you no service, except it be now and then by my writing to let you from better exercise, where yet the end of my writing is to excite and stir up your heart more earnestly to go on forwards in your well begun enterprise. For you know none shall be crowned, but such as strive lawfully, & none receiveth the gleue, but those that run to the appointed mark. None shall be saved but such as persist and continue to the very end.

Therefore (dear Sister) remember that we have need of patience, that when we have done the good will of God, we may receive the promise. Patience and perseueraunce be the proper notes whereby God's children are known from counterfaites. They that persevere not, were always but hypocrites. Many make godly beginnings, yea their progress seemeth marvelous but yet after in the end they fail. These were never of us say • h S. John: for if they had been of us, they would have continued unto the very end.

Go to now therefore mine own beloved in the Lord: as you have well begun, and well gone forward, so well persist and happily end, and then all is yours. Though this be sharp and sower, yet it is not tedious or long. Do all that ever you do, simply for God, and as to God, so shall never vnkyndnesse nor any other thing make you to leave of from well doing, so long as you may do well. Accustome yourself now to see God continually, that he may be all in all unto you. In good things behold his mercy, and apply it unto yourself. In evil things and plagues beho • d his judgments, where through learn to fear him. Beware of sin, as the serpent of the soul which spoileth us of all our o • nature and seemly apparel in God's sight. Let Christ crucified be your book to study on, and that both night and day▪ Mark your vocation, and be diligent in the works thereof. Use hearty & earnest prayer, and that in spirit. In all things give thanks to God our father through Christ. Labor to have here life everlasting begun in you: for else it will not be elsewhere enjoyed. Set God's judgment often before your eyes, that now examinyng yourself, you may make diligent suit, and obtain never to come into judgment. Vncouer your evils to God, that he may cover thē. Beware of this Antichristian trash: defile not yourself in soul or body therewith, but accomplish holiness in the fear of God, & bear no yoke with unbelievers. Look for the coming of the Lord which is at hand: by earnest prayer and godly 〈…〉 it. God our father accomplish his good work in you. Am • . Commend me to my good mother maistres Wilkinson, & to my very dear sister maistresse Warcuppe▪ I shall daily commend you all to God, and I pray you do the like for me.

To a friend of his, instructing him how he should answer his adversaries.

MY good brother, our merciful God and dear Father through christ, opē your eyes effectually to see, & your heart ardently to desire the everlasting joy which he hath prepared for his slaughter sheep, that is, for such as shrink not from his truth for any such storms sake. Amen.

When you shall come before the Magistrates to give an answer of the hope which is in you, do it with all reverence and simplicity. And because you may be something afraid by the power of the Maiestrates & cruelty which they will threaten against you, I would you set before you the good father Moses to follow his example: for he set the invisible God before his eyes of faith, and with them looked upon God and his glorious Majesty and power, as with his corporal eyes he saw Pharaoh and all his fearful terrors. So do you my dearly beloved: let your inward eyes give such light unto you, that as you know you ar • before the magistrates, so and much more, you & they also are present before the face of God, which will give such wisdom to you, fearing him and seeking his praise, as the enemies shall wonder at, and further, he will so order their harts and doings, that they shall, will they, • ill they, serve God's providence towards you (which you cannot avoid though you would) as shall be most to his glory, and your everlasting comfort.

Therefore my good brother, let your whole study be only to please God: put him always before your eyes, for he is on your right hand lest you should be moved, he is faithful, and never will suffer you to be tempted above that he will make you able to bear. Yea every hair of your hed he hath numbered, so that one of them shall not perish without his good will, which cannot be, but be good unto you, in that he is become your father▪ through Christ, and therefore as he hath given you to believe in him (God increase this belief in us all) so doth he now graciously give unto you to suffer for his names sake: the which you ought with all thankfulness to receive, in that you are made worthy to drink of the self same cup, which not only the very sons of God have drunk of before you, but even the very natural son of God himself hath brought you good luck. Oh he of his mercy make us thankful to pledge him again. Amen.

Because the chiefest matter they will trouble you and go about to deceive you withal, is the Sacrament, not of Christ's body and blood, but of the altar (as they call it) thereby destroieng the Sacrament which Christ instituted: I would you noted these two things: First, that the Sacrament of the altar which the Priest offereth in the Mass, and eateth privately with himself, is not the Sacrament of Christ's body add blood instituted by him, as Christ's institution plainly written and set forth in the scriptures, being compared to their using of it, plainly doth declare.

Again, if they talk with you of Christ's Sacrament instituted by him, whether it be Christ's body or no: answer them, that as to the eyes of your reason, to your taste and corporal senses it is bread and wyne, and therefore the Scripture calleth it after the consecration so: evē so to the eyes, taste, and senses of your faith, which ascendeth to the right hand of God in heaven, where Christ sitteth, it is in very deed Christ's body and blood, which spiritually your soul feedeth on to everlasting life in faith and by faith, evē as your body presently feedeth on the sacramental bread and sacramental wyne.

By this means as you shall not allow transubstantiation, nor none of their popish opinions: so shall you declare the Sacrament to be a matter of faith, and not of reason, as the Papists make it. For they deny God's omnipotency, in that they say Christ is not there, if bread be there: but faith looketh on the omnipotency of God, joined with this promise, and doubteth not but that Christ is able to give that he promiseth us spiritually by faith, the bread still remaining in substance, as well as if the substance of bread were takē away: for Christ saith not in any place this is no bread. But of this gear God shall instruct you, if you hang on his promise, and pray for the power & wisdom of his spirit, which vn • oubtedly as you are bound to look for, praying for it, so he hath bound himself by his promise to give it: the which thing grant unto us both, and to all his people, for his names sake, thorough Christ our Lord, Amen.

To certain godly men, whom he exhorteth to be patient under the cross, and constant in the true doctrine which they had professed.

MY dearly beloved in the Lord, as in him I wish you well to fare, so I pray God I and you may continue in his true service, that perpetually we may enjoy the same welfare, as here in hope so in heaven in deed, and eternally.

You know this world is not your home, but a pilgrimage & place wherein God trieth his children, and therefore as it knoweth you not, nor can know you: so I trust you know not it, that is, you allow it not, nor in any point will seem so to do, although by many you be occasioned thereto. For this hot sun which now shineth, burneth so sore, that the corn which is sown upon sand and stony ground, beginneth to wither: that is, many which before times were taken for hearty Gospellers, begin now for the fear of afflictions to relent, yea to turn to their vomit again, thereby declaring that though they go from amongst us, yet were they never of us▪ for else they would have still tarried with us, and neither for gain nor loss, have left us either in word or deed As for their heart (which undoubtedly is double and therefore in danger to God's curse) we have as much with us, as the Papists have with them, and more too by their own judgment. For they playing wily beguile thense • ues, think it enough inwardly to favor the truth, though outwardly they curry favor▪ What though with my body (say they) I do this or that▪ God knoweth my heart is whole with him.

Ah brother, if thy heart be whole with God, why doest not thou confess & declare thyself accordingly by word and fact? Either that which thou sayest thou believest in thy heart is good or no. If it be good, why art thou ashamed of it? If it be evil, why doest thou keep it in thy heart? Is not God able to defend thee, aduenturyng thyself for his cause? Or will he not defend his worshippers? Doth not the Scripture say that the eyes of the Lord are on them that fear him, and trust in his mercy? And whereto? Forsooth to deliver their souls from death, and to feed them in the time of hunger.

If this be true (as it is most true) why are we afraid of death, as though God could not comfort or deliver us, or would not, contrary to his promise? Why are we afraid of the loss of our goods, as though God would leave them that fear him, destitute of all good things, and so do against his most ample promises? Ah faith, faith, how few feel thee now a day? Full true • lie said Christ, that he should scarcely find faith when he came, on earth. For if men believed the • e promises, they would never do any thing outwardly, which inwardly they disallow. No example of men, how many soever they be, or how learned soever they be, can prevail in this behalf: for the pattern which we must follow, is Christ himself, and not the more company or custom. His word is the lantern to lighten our steppes, and not learned men. Company and custom are to be considered according to the thing they allow. Learned men are to be listened to and followed according to God's lore and law, for else the more part goeth to the devil. As custom causeth error and blindness, so learning, if it be not according to the light of God's word, is poison, and learned men most pernicious. The Devil is called Daemon for his cunning, and the children of this world are much wiser then the children of light in their generation: and I know the Devil and his dearlyngs have always for the most part, more helps in this life then Christ's Church and her children. They (the devil and his Synagogue I mean) have custom, multitude unity, antiquity, learning, power, riches, honor, dignity & promotions plenty, as always they have had, and shall have commonly and for the most part, until Christ's coming, much more then the true church hath presently, heretofore hath had, or hereafter shall have. For her glory, riches, and honor is not here, her trial, cross, and warfare is here.

And therefore (my dear hearts in the Lord) consider these things accordingly. Consider what you be, not worldlyngs, but God's children. Consider where you be, not at home, but in a strange country. Consider among whom ye are conversant, even in the midst of your enemies, and of a wicked generation, and then I trust you will not much muse at affliction. Which you cannot be without, being as you be, God's children, in a strange country, and in the midst of your enemies, except you would leave your captain Christ, and follow Satan for the mucke of this mould, rest, and quietness, which he may promise you, & you in deed think you shall receive it by doing as he would have you to do (my sweet hearts) he is not able to pay that he promiseth. Peace and war come from God, riches and poverty, wealth & woe. The Devil hath no power but by God's permission. If then God permit him a little on your goods, body or life, I pray you tell me what can much hurt you (as Peter saith) you being followers of godliness? Think you that God will not remember you in his time, as most shall be to your comfort? Can a woman forget the child of her womb? And if she should, yet will not I forget thee (saith the Lord.) Look upon Abraham in his exile & misery, look upon Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, the Prophets, Apostles, and all the godly from the beginning: and my good brethren, is not God the same God? Is he a chaungeling? You have heard of the patience of Job, (saith S James) and you have seen the end how that God is merciful, patient and long suffering: even so I say unto you that you shall find accordingly, if so be you be patient, that is, if so be you fear him, set his word before you, serve him thereafter, and if he lay his cross on you, you bear it with patience: the which you shall do when you consider it not according to the present sense, but according to the end. Heb. 12. 2. Cor. 4.

Therefore I heartily beseech you, & out of my bonds which I suffer for your sake, pray you (mine own sweet harts in the Lord) that you would cleave in heart and humble obedience to the doctrine taught you by me, and many other my brethren. For we have taught you no fables nor tales of men, or our own fantasies, but the very word of GOD, which we are ready with our lives (God so inhabling us, as we trust he will) to confirm, and by the sheading of our bloods in all patience and humble obedience to the superior powers, to testify and seal up, as well that you might be more certain of the doctrine, as that you might be ready to confess the same before this wicked world, knowing that if we confess Christ and his truth before men, he will confess us before his father in heaven: if so be we be ashamed hereof for loss of life friends or goods, he will be ashamed of us before his father, and his holy Angels in heaven.

Therefore take heed, for the Lord's sake take heed, take heed, and defile not your bodies or souls with this Romish and Antichristian religion set up amongst us again: but come away, come away, as the Angel crieth from amongst them in their idolatrous service, lest you be partakers of their iniquity. Hearken to your preachers as the Thessalonians did to Paul: that is, confer their sayings with the scriptures, & if they sound not thereafter, the morning light shall not shine upon them.

Use much and hearty prayer for the spirit of wisdom, knowledge, humbleness, meekness, sobriety, and repentance: which we have great need of, because our sins have thus provoked the Lord's anger against us: but let us bear his anger, and acknowledge our faults with bitter tears, and sorrowful sighs, and doubtless he will be merciful to us after his wonted mercy. The which thing he vouchsafe to do for his holy names sake, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom with the father and the holy ghost, be all honor, glory, praise, and everlasting thanks from this time forth for evermore. Amen.

A letter to M. George Eaton.

ALmighty God our heavenly Father, recompense abundantly into your bosom (my dearly beloved) here and eternally, the good which frō him by you I have continually received sithen my coming into prison. Otherwyse can I never be able to requite your loving kindness here then by praying for you, and after this life, by witnessing your faith declared to me by your fruits, whē we shall come and appear together before the throne of our Savior Jesus Christ, whether (I thank God) I am even now a going, ever looking when officers will come, & satisfy the precept of the Prelates, whereof though I cannot complain, because I have justly deserved an hundredth thousand deaths at gods hands by reason of my sins, yet I may and must rejoice, because the Pr • lates do not persecute in me mine iniquities, but Christ Jesus & his verity: so that they persecute not me, they hate not me, but they persecute Christ, they hate Christ.

And because they can do him no hurt (for he sitteth in heaven, and laugheth them and their devises to scorn, as one day they shall feel, therefore they turn their rage vpō his poor sheep, as Herod their father did upon the infants. Math. 2. Great cause therefore have I to rejoice, that my dere Savior Christ will vouchsafe amongst many, to choose me to be a vessel of grace to suffer in me (which have deserved so often & justly to suffer for my sins) that I might be most assured I shall be a vessel of honor, in whom he will be glorified.

Therefore (my right dear brother in the Lord) rejoice with me, give thanks for me, and cease not to pray, that God for his mercies sake would make perfect the good he hath begun in me. And as for the doctrine which I have professed and preached, I do confess unto you in writing, as to the whole world I shortly shall by gods grace in suffering, that it is the very true doctrine of Jesus Christ, of his Church, of his Prophets, Apostles and all good men: so that if an Angel should come from heaven and preach otherwise, the same were accursed.

Therefore waver not (dear heart in the Lord) but be confirmed in it, and as your vocation requireth, whē God so will, confess it, though it be perilous so to do. The end shall evidently show another manner of pleasure for so doing, then tongue can tell. Be diligent in prayer, and watch therein. Use reverent reading of God's word. Set the shortness of this time before your eyes, and let not the eternity that is to come, depart out of your memory. Practice in doing that you learn, by reading and hearing. Decline from evil, and pursue good. Remember them that be in bonds, especially for the Lord's cause, as members of your body, and fellow heirs of grace. Forget not the afflictions of Zion, and the oppression of Jerusalem: and God our Father shall give you his continual blessing thorough Christ our Lord, who guide us as his dear children forever, Amen. And thus I take my Vale and farewell with you (dear brother) forever in this present life, till we shall meet in eternal bliss: whether our good God and Father bring us shortly, Amen. God bless all your babes forever, Amen.

An other Letter to Maistresse Anne Warcuppe.

In the story of M. Bradford it was above rehearsed, how a certain Gentlewoman being in trouble by her father and mother for not coming to Mass, sent her servant to visit M. Bradford in prison. Who tenderyng the woeful case of the Gentlewoman, to the intent partly to confirm her with counsel, partly to relieve her oppressed mind with some comfort, directed this letter unto her: the contents whereof are these.

To a certain godly Gentlewoman, troubled and afflicted by her friends, for not coming to the Mass.

I Wish unto you right worshipful, and my dearly beloved sister in the Lord, as to myself, the continual grace and comfort of Christ and of his holy word through the operation of the holy spirit, who strengthen your inward man with the strength of God, that you may continue to the end, in the faithful obedience of God's gospel, whereto you are called, Amen.

I perceived by yourself the last day when you were with me, how that you are in the Scholehouse, and trial parlor of the Lord, which to me is (as the least it should be) a great comfort, to see the number of gods elect by you increased, which is in that state whereof God hath not called many, as Paul saith. And as it is a comfort to me, so should it be a confirmation unto me, that the Lord for his faithfulness sake, will make perfect and finish the good he hath begun in you to the end.

If then your cross be to me a comfort or token of your election, and a confirmation of God's continual favor (my • early beloved): how much more ought it to be so unto you? Unto whom he hath not only given to believe but also to come into the trace of suffering for his sake, and that not commonly of common enemies, but even of your own father, mother, and all your fr • ends, I mean kinsfolks as you told me. By which I see Christ's words to be true: How that he came to give his childrē such a peace with him, as the Devil might not, nor may abide, & therefore stirreth up father and mother, sister and brother, rather then it should continue. But (my dear sister) if you cry with David to the Lord, and complain to him: how that for conscience to him, your father and mother have forsaken you, you shall hear him speak in your heart, that he hath received you, and by this would have you to see, how that he maketh you here like to Christ, that elsewhere in heaven you might be like unto him whereof you ought to be most assured, knowing that in time, even whē Christ shall appear, you shall be like unto him. For he will make your body which now you defile not with Idolatrical service in going to Mass, like unto his own glorious and immortal body, according to the power whereby he is able to do all things. He will confess you before his father, which do not deny his verity in word nor deed before your father: he will make you to reign with him, that now suffer for him and with him: he will not leave you comfortless, that seek no comfort but at his hand, though for a little time you be afflicted, yet therein will he comfort and strength you, and at the length make you to be merry with him, in such joy as is infinite and endless. He will wipe all the tears from your eyes: he will embrace you as your dear husband: he will after he hath proved you, crown you with a crown of glory and immortality, such as the heart of man shall never be able to conceive in such sort as the thing is. He now beholdeth your steadfastness, and st • iuyng to do his good will: and shortly will he show you how steadfast he is, and will be ready to do your will, after that you have fully resigned it to his will.

Pledge him in his cup of the cross, & you shall pledge him in the cup of his glory. Desire to drink it before it come to the dregs, whereof the wicked shall drink, and all those that for fear of the cross and pledging the Lord, do walk with the wicked in betraying in fact and deed, that which their heart embraceth for verity. The which thing if you should do (which God forbid) then my dear Mistress and Sister in the Lord, you should not only loose all that I have before spoken, and much more infinitely of eternal joy and glory, but also be a cast away, and partaker of gods most heavy displeasure in hell fire eternally: and so for a little ease, which you cannot tell how long it will last, to l • ose forever and ever, all ease and comfort. For he that gathereth not with me (saith Christ, as no Mass Gospel • er doth) scattere • h abroad. Accordyng to that we do in this body, we shall receive, be it good or bad. If of our words we shall be judged to condemnation or salvation: much more then of our facts and deeds. You cannot be partaker of God's religion and Antichrists service, whereof the Mass is most principal. You cannot be a member of Christ's Church, and a member of the Popes Church. You must glorify God not only in soul and heart, but also in body and deed. You may not think that God requireth less of you his wife now, then your husband did of you. I • both heart and body your husband would have, shall Christ have less (trow you) which hath so bitterly & dearly bought it? If your husband could not admit an excuse how your heart is his only if he should have taken your body in bed with another: do you think that Christ will allow your body at Mass, although your heart consent not to it?

God esteemeth his children, not only of their hearts, but of their pure hands and works, and therefore in Helias time, he counted none to be his servants and people, but such as had not bowed their knees to Baal: as now he doth not in England accompt any other to be his derlings, which know the truth in heart, and deny it in their deeds, as do our Mass Gospellers.

We ought to desire above all things the sanctifieng of God's holy name, and the coming of his kingdom, and shall we then see his name blasphemed so horribly as it is at Mass, by making it a sacrifice propitiatory, and setting forth a false Christ of the Priests and bakers making, to be worshipped as GOD, and say nothing? The Jews rent their clothes asunder in seeing or hearing any thing blasphemously done or spoken against God, and shall we yet come to Church where Mass is, and be mute? Paul and Barnabas rent their clothes to see the people of Lycaonia to offer sacrifice unto them, and shall we see sacrifice and gods service done to an inanimate creature and be mumme? What thing helpeth more or so much Antichrists kingdom as doth the Mass? And what destroyeth preaching and the kingdom of Christ upon earth more then it doth? And how can we then say: Let thy kingdom come, and go to Mass? How can we pray before God: Thy will be done on earth, when we will do our own will, and the will of our father or friends? How pray we: Deliver us from evil: which knowing the Mass to be evil, do come to it?

But what go I about to light a candle in the Noone day, that is, to tell you that we may not go to Mass, or to the congregation where it is, except it be to reprove it, in that all men in so doing, do but dissemble both with God and man? And is dissembling now to be allowed? How long will men yet halt on both knees (saith God)? Halting (saith Paul) bringeth out of the way, that is to say, out of Christ, which is the way: so that he which is not in him shall wither away, and be cast into hell fire. For Christ will be ashamed of them before his father, which be now ashamed of his truth before this wicked generation.

Therefore my good maistresse take good heed: for it had been better for you never to have known the truth, and there through to have escaped from papistical uncleanness, then now to return to it, making eftsoons your menbers, being members of righteousness, members of unrighteousness, as you do, if you do but go to the Church where Mass is. Be pure therefore, and keep yourself from all filth of the spirit, and of the flesh. Abstain not only from all evil, but from all appearance of evil.

And so the God of peace shall be with you, the glory of God shall govern you, the spirit of God shall sanctify you, and be with you forever, to keep you from all evil, and to comfort you in all your distress and trouble, which is but short if you consider the eternity you shall enjoy in glory and felicity in the Lord, which undoubtedly you shall not fail but inherit forever, if so be you, as the elect child of God, put your trust in his mercy, call upon his name unfeignedly, and yield not over to the wicked world, but stick still against it unto the ende. God for his holy names sake, which is properly the God of the Widows, be your good and dear Father forever, and help you always as I myself would be holpen at his hands in all things, and especially in this his own cause, Amen, Amen.

To one by whom he had received much comfort and relief in his trouble and imprisonment.

THe mercy of God in Christ peculiar to his children, be evermore felt of you, my dearly beloved in the Lord, Amen.

When I consider with myself the benefits which God hath shown unto me by your means, if I had so good and thankful a heart as I would I had, I could not with dry eyes give him thanks? for certainly they are very many and great. And now being yet still the Lord's prisoner, I perceive from him mo benefits by you. For y ^e which I think myself so much bound to you my good brother (although you were but the instrument by whom God wrought and blessed me) that I look not to come out of your debt by any pleasure or service that I shall ever be able to do you in this life. I shall heartily pray unto God therefore to requite you the good you have done to me for his sake: for I know that which you have done, you have done it simply in respect of God & his word. He therefore give you daily more and more to be confirmed in his truth and word, and so plentifully pour upon you the riches of his holy spirit and heavenly treasures laid up in store for you, that your corporal and earthly riches may be used of you as Sacraments and significations thereof: the more to desire the one, that is, the heavenly, & the less to esteem the other, that is, the earthly. For Satan's solicitation is, so to set before you the earthly, that therein and thereby you should not have access to the consideration of the heavenly, but as one bewitched should utterly forget them, & altogether become a lover and worshipper of the earthly Mammon, and so to fall to covetousness, and a desire to be rich, by that means to bring you into many noisome and hurtful lusts: as now a days I hear of many which have utterly forsaken God and all his heavenly riches, for Antichrists pleasure, and the preserving of their worldly pelf, which they imagine to leave to their posterity, whereof they are uncertain, as they may be most certain they leave to them God's wrath and vengeance, in his time to be sent by visitation, if they in time heartily repent not, & prevent not the same by earnest prayer. Wherein my good brother, if you be diligent, hearty, and persevere, I am sure God will preserve you from evil, and from yielding yourself to do as the world now doth, by allowyng in bodily fact in the Romish service, that which the inward cogitation and mind doth disallow. But if you be cold in prayer, and come into consideration of earthly & present things simply, then shall you fall into faithless follies and wounding of your conscience: from which God evermore preserve you with your good wife, and your babe Leonard & all your family, to the which I wish the blessing of God now and forever, through Christ our Lord, Amen.

I pray you give thanks for me to your old bedfellow for his great friendship for your sake shown to me when I was in the Tower.

To a faithful friend of his, and his wife, resolving their doubt why they ought not to come to auricular confession.

THe merciful God, and father of our Savior Jesus Christ, which loveth us as a most dear Father, and hath put upon him towards us the affection of a most tender mother towards her children, so that he can no less think upon us (although of our selves we be most unworthy, and deserve nothing less) then she can think on her only begotten child in his distress, yea if she should forget her child, as some unnatural mother will do, yet will he never forget us, although for a time he seme to sleep that we might be occasioned to call loud and awake him: this good God keep you, my dear brother Nathanael, and your good yokefellow, my heartily beloved Sister in the Lord, in all things now and forever, to his glory and your eternal comfort: and also of his goodness he grant you both the feeling of that hope, which undoubtedly he hath laid up in store for you both, far passing the store and provision, not only which you have made but all the world is able to make, as I trust already he hath wrought it in you, but I beseech him to increase it more & more and kindle in you a hearty longyng for the enjoying of the same, the which once felt & had in deed, then the means by the which we come thereto, cannot be so greatly dread, as most men do dread them, because either they want this feeling (I mean it of altogether) or else because the sense of this present time & things therein, are as a mist to the hidyng of those things frō our sight, least we should run and embrace them by hearty prayer: the spirit whereof God grant us, and in deed we should attain enough in this behalf, if we continued therein.

For auricular confession, wherein you desire my advise for your good yokefellow and family (my most dear brother) I am as ready to give it, as you to desire it, yea more glad, for as much as half a suspicion was in me (at the least touching my dear sister your wife) of a lothyng of my advise, that to much had been given, where in deed I should lament my too little feeding you spiritually, as both you out of prison and in prison have fed me corporally. But as I always thought of her, so I yet think that she is the child of God, whom God dearly loveth, and will in his good time to her eternal comfort, give her her hearts desire in sure feeling and sensible believing of this, which I would she had often in her mind: namely, that he is her God & father through Christ Jesus our dear Lord and Savior. A greater service to God she cannot give, then to believe this. If Satan say she believeth not, to answer, not him but the Lord, and to say, yea Lord help my unbelief, and increase my poor faith, which Satan faith is no faith: make him a liar Lord, as always he hath been, is, and shall be. Vndoubtedly, sooner or later God will graciously hear her groans, and keep all her tears in his bottle, yea write them in his countyng book, for he is a righteous God, and hath no pleasure in the death of his creature: he loveth mercy, he will return and show her his mercy. he will cast all her sins and iniquities into the botome of the sea: and the longer that he tarrieth (as he doth it but to prove her) so the more liberally will he recompense her long looking, which no less pleaseth him, then it grieveth now her outward Adam. For the mortification whereof, God useth this cross, and therefore if she desire to bear the same, doubtless God will make her able to bear it: & in presumption of his goodness and strength, let her cast her self wholly upon him: for he is faithful, and will assuredly confirm, and bring to a happy end that good which graciously he hath begun in her. The which thing I desire him to do for his own glory & names sake. Amen. Amen.

And now to the matter. Confession auricular, as it was first used and instituted (which was by the way of counsel asking) I take to be amongst those traditions which are indifferent, that is, neither unlawful, nor necessarily bynding us, except the offense of the weak could not be avoided. But to consider it, as it is now used (I write to you but as I think, and what my mind is, the which follow no further, then good men by God's word do allow it) to consider it I say, as it is now used, me thinks it is plainly unlawful and wicked, and that for these causes.

First, because they make it a service of God & a thing which pleaseth God of it self, I will not say meritorious, this brynger my brother can tell you at large how great evil this is.

Secondly, because they make it of necessity, so that he or she that useth it not, is not taken for a good Christian.

Thirdly, because it requireth of it self an impossibility, that is, the numbering and telling of all our sins, which no man perceiveth, much less can utter.

Fourthly, because it establisheth and confirmeth, at the least alloweth praying to Saints, Precor Sanctam Mariam: you must say or the Priest for you.

Fifthly, because it is very injurious to the liberty of the Gospel, the which to affirm in example and fact, I take to be a good work, and dear in God's sight,

Sixthly, because (as it is used) it is a note, yea a very sinow of the Popish church: and therefore we should be so far from allowyng the same, that we should think our selves happy to lose anything in bearing witness there against.

Seventhly, because instead of counsel, thereat you should receive poison, or if you refuse it under sir John's Benedicite, you should no less there be wound in the briers.

Eighthly, because the end and purpose why we go thither, is for the auoidyng of the cross, that is, for our own cause, and not for Christ's cause, or for our brethren's commodity. For in that they make it so necessary a thing, and a worshiping of God, it cannot but be against Christ, and the freedom of his Gospel: and the same thing teacheth us, that it is against the commodity of our brethren, which either be weak, either be strong, either be ignorant, either be obstinate. If they be weak by your resortyng to it, they be made more weak. If they be strong, you do what you can to infirm their strength If they be ignorant, therein you help to keep them by your fact. If they be obstinate, your resortyng to it cannot but rock them a sleep in their obstinate error of the necessity of this rite and ceremony. These causes recited do show you what I think in this: but my thinking must no further bind you then a man's thought should do, except the same be grounded upon God's word which byndeth in deed, as I think they do. I doubt not but you waying these causes, and especially two of the first and the last, if you pray to God for his spirit to direct you, and thereto ask the advise of this my good brother and other godly learned men, I doubt not (I say) but you should be guided to do that which is best in gods sight, although in the sight of the world perhaps you should be counted foolish and precise. But be at a point with yourselves as the disciples of Christ, which had forsaken themselves, to follow not your will, but God's will, as you daily pray in the Lord's prayer.

The cross of Christ be willing to carry, least you carry the cross of the world, the flesh or the devil. One of these 4. crosses you must carry. Three of them bringeth to hell, and therefore the more part goeth that way, which is a broad way. Only the fourth bringeth to heaven, but few go that way, as well because the way is strait, as also because few walk in it. Howbeit, though it be strait, it is but short, and the few are many, if you consider the godly, as the Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors and Christ Jesus, with all his gard and trayne. Think not scorn to come after them which are gone before you, and after them which now go before you, in whose number I trust I am appointed to be one, and I beseech you pray for me, that God would vouch me worthy that honor. Our sins deserve plagues, prison, and the loss of all that ever we have: therefore if God remove our sins out of sight, and send us prison, or loss of goods and living for his names sake, Oh how happy are we? My dear hearts in the Lord, consider this gear and be assured that he which looseth any thing for Christ's sake, the same in his posterity shall find it here, and in heaven elsewhere. As for vnablenes to answer for your faith: it shall be enough to will them to dispute with your teachers. Faith standeth not in disputing. I think few if it came to disputing, could defend the godhead of Christ and many other articles: I speak it for the simple sort. Pray for me. Lacke of paper maketh this end. Commend me to my good brother R. B. and my good sister his wife. I pray them to pray for me. I trust by this bearer to hear how you do.

Another letter to N. and his wife.

GOds mercy in Christ I wish you to feel, my dere brother, with my faithful sister your wife, now and forever, Amen.

Having this occasion, I could not but write something as well to put myself in remembrance of my duty to godwards for you both, in thankfulness and prayer, as to put you in remembrance of me and your duty towards God for me, in praying for me: for I dare not say in thankfulness for me: nor that I would have you to give no thanks to God for his wonderful great and sweet mercies towards me, and upon me in Christ his son: but because I have not deserved it at either of your hands. For ye both know right well, at least my conscience doth accuse me, how that I have not only not exhorted & taught you, (as both my vocation and your deserts required) to walk worthy of that vocation which god hath made you worthy of, and with trembling and fear to work out your salvation, that is, in the fear of God to give yourselves to great vigilācie in prayer for the increase of faith, and to a wary circumspection in all your conversation, not only in works and words, but also in thoughts, because God is a searcher of the heart, and out of the heart it cometh, that defileth us in God's sight: I have (I say) not only not done this, but also have given you example of negligence in prayer, watching, fasting, talking and doing, so that woe to me for giving such offense. Partly for this cause dear brother and sister, God hath cast me here that I might repent me and turn to him, and that ye might also by this correction upon me, be more diligent to redress these things and others if they in your conscience do accuse you.

My dearly beloved, heavy is God's anger fallen upon us all: doulefull is this day. Now hath Antichrist all his power again. Now is Christ's gospel trodden under foot. Now is God's people a derision and pray for the wicked. Now is the greatest plague of all plagues fallen, the want of God's word: and all these we have, yea I alone have justly deserved. Oh that as I write (I alone) I could w ^t David▪ 1. Par. 21. and with Jonah in heart say so. But I do not, I do not I see not howe grievously I have sinned, & howe great a misery is fallen for mine unthankfulness for God's word, for mine hypocrisy in professing, preaching, hearing, and speaking of God's word, for my not praying to God for the continuance of it, for my not loving of it thoroughly as it requireth. &c. I will speak nothing of my manifest evils, for they are known to you well enough.

Deare brother and sister, with me say ye the like for your own partes, and with me join your hearts, and let us go to our heavenly father, and for his Christ's sake beseech him to be merciful unto us, and to pardon us: Oh good father it is we that have deserved the taking away of thy word, it is we that have deserved these thy just plagues fallen upon us, we have done amiss, we have dealt unjustly with thy Gospel, we have procured thy wrath, and therefore just art thou in punishing us, just art thou in plaging us, for we are very miserable. But good Lord and dear father of mercy, whose justice is such, that thou wilt not punish the poor souls of this realm, which yet have not thus sinned against thee, as we have done (for many yet never heard thy word) for our trespasses, and whose mercy is so great, that thou wilt put our iniquities out of thy remembrance for thy Christ's sake, if we repent and believe: grant us we beseech thee, true repentance & faith, that we having obtained pardon for our sins, may thorough thy Christ get deliverance from the tyranny of Antichrist now oppressing us.

Oh good Father, which haste said that the Scepter of the wicked should not long lie upon and over the just, least they put forth their hands to iniquity also: make us just, we pray thee in Christ's name, and cut a sunder the cords of them that hate Zion: let not the wicked people say, where is their God? Thou our God art in heaven, and doest whatsoever it pleaseth thee upon earth.

Oh that thou wouldest in the mean whiles, before thou do deliver us, that (I say) thou wouldest open our eyes to see all these plagues to come from thee, & all other that shall come, what so ever they be, public or private, that they come not by chance nor by fortune, but that they come even from thy hand, and that justly and mercifully: justly because we have & do deserve them, not only by our birth poysone still sticking and working in us, but also by our former evil life past, which by this punishment and all other p • nishmentes, thou wouldest have us to call to our remembrance and to set before us, that thou mightest put them from before thee, where as they stand so long as they are not in our remembrance, to put them away by repentance. Mercifully oh Lord God doest thou punish, in that thou doest not correct to kill, but to amend, that we might repent our sins, ask mercy, obtain it freely in Christ, and begin to suffer for righteousness sake: to be part of thy house, whereat thy judgment beginneth: to be partakers of the afflictions of thy Church, and thy Christ, that we might be partakers of the glory of the same: to weep here, that we might rejoice else where: to be judged in this world, that we might with thy Saints judge here after y ^e world: to suffer with Christ, that we might reign with him: to be like to Christ in shame, that we might be like to him in glory: to receive our evils here, y ^t we might with poor Lazarus find rest else where: rest (I say) and such a rest as the eye hath not seen, the ear hath not heard, nor the heart of man is able to conceive.

Oh that our eyes were open to see this, that the cross cometh from thee to declare thy justice & thy mercy, and hereto, that we might see howe short a time the time of suffering is: how long a time the time of rejoicing is to them that suffer here: but to them that will not, how longe and miserable a time is appointed and prepared: a time without time in eternal woe and perdition, too horrible to be thought upon. From the which keep us dear father, and give more sight in soul to see this gear, and how that all thy dearest children have carried the cross of grievous affliction in this life: in whose company do thou place us, and such a cross lay vpō us as thou wilt make us able to bear to thy glory and our salvation in Christ, for whose sake we pray thee to shorten the days of this our great misery fallen upon us most justly, and in the mean season give us patience, repentance, faith, and thy eternal consolation. Amen. Amen. Amen.

And thus dear hearts I have talked (me thinks) a little while w ^t you, or rather we have all talked with God. Oh that God would give us his spirit of grace and prayer. My dea • lie beloved, pray for it, as for yourselves, so for me, and that God would vouchsafe to make me worthy to suffer with a good conscience for his names sake. Pray for me, and I shall do the like for you. This 20. of December, by him whom by this bringer ye shall learn. I pray you give me commendations to all that love me in the Lord. Be merry in Christ, for one day in heaven we shall meet and rejoice together for evermore. Amen.

To my good brother Augustine Barneher.

To these letters of M. Bradford above specified, here is also adjoined another Letter of the said Bradford, written to certain of his faithful friends, worthy of all Christians to be read: wherein is described a lively comparison between the Olde man and the Newe: Also between the Law and the Gospel, containing much fruitful matter of divinity, necessary for Christian consciences to read and understand.

A letter of M. Bradford, describing a comparison between the old man and the new. &c.

A Man that is regenerate and borne of God (the which thing that everyone of us be, our baptism the Sacrament of regeneration doth require under pain of damnation, and therefore let everyone of us with the virgins Mary say: be it unto me O Lord, according to thy word, according to thy Sacrament of baptism, wherein thou hast declared our adoption: and let us lament the doubting hereof in us, striving against it, as we shall be made able of the Lord): a man, I say, that is regenerate, consisteth of two men (as a man may say) namely of the old man, and o • the new man. The old man is like to a mighty Giant, such a one as was Goliath, • or his birth is now perfect. But the new man is like unto a little child, such a one as was David, for his birth is not perfect until the day of his general resurrection.

The old man therefore is more stronger, lusty, and stirring then is the new man, because the birth of the new man is but begun now, and the old man is perfectly born. And as the old man is more stirring, lustye and stronger then the new man: so is the nature of him clean contrary to the nature of the new man, as being earthly and corrupt with Satan's seed, the nature of the new man being heavenly and blessed with the celestial seed of God. So that one man, in as much as he is corrupt with the seed of the Serpent, is an old man: and in as much as he is blessed with the seed of God from above, he is a new man. And as, in as much as he is an old mā, he is a sinner and an enemy to God: so in as much as he is regenerate, he is righteous & holy, and a friend to God, the seed of God preserving him from sin, so that he cannot sin, as the seed of the Serpent, wherewith he is corrupt even from his conception, inclineth him, yea enforceth him to sin, and nothing else but to sin: So that the best part in man before regeneration in God's sight, is not only an enemy but enmity it self.

One man therefore, which is regenerate, well may be called always just, and always sinful: just in respect of God's seed, and his regeneration: sinful in respect of Satan's seed and his first birth. Betwixt these two men therefore, there is continual conflict, and war most deadly. The flesh and old man by reason of his birth that is perfect, doth often for a time, prevail against the new man (being but a child in comparison) and that in such sort, as not only other, but even the children of God them selves think that they be nothing else but old, and that the spirit & seed of God is lost and gone away, where yet notwithstanding, the truth is otherwise, the spirit and the seed of God at the length appearing again, and dispelling away the clouds which cover the son of God's seed from shining as the clouds in the air do the corporal Sun: so that sometimes a man cannot tell by any sense, that there is any Sun, the clouds and winds so hiding it from our sight: Even so our cecitie or blindness, and corrupt affections do often shadow the sight of God's seed in God's children, as though they were plain reprobates. Whereof it cometh, that they praying according to their sense, but not according to the truth, desire of God to give them again his spirit, as though they had lost it, and he had taken it away. Which thing God nor doth in deed, although he make us to think so for a time: for always he holdeth his hand under his children in their falls, that they lie not still as other do which are not regenerate. And this is the difference betwixt God's children which are generate and elect before all times in Christ, and the wicked cast awayes, that the elect lie not still continually in their sin, as do the wicked, but at the length do return again by reason of God's seed, which is in them hid as a sparkle of fire in the ashes: as we may see in Peter, David, Paul, Mary Magdalene, and others. For these (I mean God's children) God hath made all things in Christ Jesus, to whom he hath given this dignity, that they should be his inheritance and spouses.

Thys our inheritor Christ Jesus, God with God, light of light, coeternal and consubstantial with the Father and with the holy Ghoste, to the ende that he might become our husband (because the husband and the wife must be one body and flesh) hath taken our nature upon him, communicating with it and by it in his own person, to us all his children, his divine majesty (as Peter saith) and so is become flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bones substantially: as we are become flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bones spiritually, all that ever we have pertaining to him, yea evē our sins: as all that ever he hath, pertaineth unto us, even his whole glory. So that if Satan should sommon us to answer for our dettes or sins, in that the wife is no suitable person but the husband, we may well bid him enter his action against our husband Christ, and he will make him a sufficient answer.

For this ende (I mean that we might be coupled and married thus to Christ, and so be certain of salvation, and at godly peace with God in our consciences) God hath given his holy word, which hath two partes (as now the children of God do consist of two men): one part of God's word being proper to the old man, & the other part of gods word being proper to y ^e new man. The part p • operly pertaining to the old man, is the law: the part properly pertaining to the new man, is the Gospel.

The law is a doctrine which commandeth and forbiddeth, requiring doing and avoiding. Under it therefore are contained all precepts, threatenings, promises upon conditions of our doing and avoiding. &c. The Gospel is a doctrine which always offere • h and giveth, requiring on our behalf, not as of worthiness or as a cause, but as a certificate unto us, and therefore under it are contained all the free and sweet promises of God: as, I am the Lord thy God. &c.

In those that be of years of discretion, it requireth faith, not as a cause, but as an instrument whereby we our selves may be certain of our good husband Christ and of his glory: and therefore when the conscience feeleth it sel • e disquieted for fear of God's judgment against sin, she may in no wise look upon the doctrine pertaining to the old man, but on the doctrine only that pertaineth to the new man, in it not looking for that which it requireth, that is faith, because we never believe as we should: but only on it which it offereth, and which it giveth, that is, on God's grace and eternal mercy and peace in Christ. So shall she be in quiet, when she looketh for it altogether out of her self, in God's mercy in Christ Jesus: in whose lap if she lay her head with S. John, then is she happy, and shall find quietness in deed. When she feeleth her self quiet, then (in God's name) let her look on the law, and upon such things as it requireth, thereby to bridle and keep down the old Adam, to slay that Goliath: from whom she must needs keep the sweet promises, being the bed wherein her spouse and she meet and lie together. For as the wife will keep her bed only for her husband, although in other things she is contented to have fellowship with others, as to speak, sit, eat, drink, go. &c. so our consciences, which are Christ's wives, must needs keep the bed, that is, God's sweet promises, alonely for our selves and our husband, there to meet together, to embrace and laugh together, and to be joyful together. If sin, the law, the Devil, or anything would creep into the bed and lie there, then complain to thy husband Christ, and foorthwyth thou shalt see him play Phinehas part. Thus my dearly beloved, I have given you in few words, a sum of all the Divinity which a Christian conscience cannot want.

A letter written to his Mother, as a farewell, when he thought he should have suffered shortly after.

THe Lord of life and savior of the world Jesus Christ, bless you and comfort you, my good and dear mother, with his heavenly comfort, consolation, grace and spirit, now and forever. Amen.

If I thought that daily, yea almost hourly you did not cry upon God the father thorough Jesus Christ, that he would give me his blessing, even the blessing of his children: then would I write more hereabouts. But for as much as herein I am certain you are diligent, and so I beseech you good Mother to continue: I think it good to write something, whereby this your crying might be furthered. Furthered it will be, if those things which hinder it, be taken away. Among the which, in that I think my imprisonment is the greatest and chiefest, I will there about spend this Letter, and that briefly lest it might increase the let, as my good brother this bringer can tell you. You shall know therefore good mother, that for my body, though it be in an house, out of the which I cā not come when I will, yet in that I have cōformed my will to gods will, I find herein liberty enough, I thank God. And for my lodging, bedding, meat, drink, godly and learned company, books and all other necessaries for mine ease, comfort, and commodity, I am in much better case then I could wish, & God's merciful providence here is far above my worthiness. Worthines, quoth▪ Alas I am worthy of nothing but damnation.

But besides all this, for my soul I find much more commodity. For God is my Father, I now perceive: thorough Christ: therefore in prisonning me for his Gospel, he maketh me like to the Image of his son Jesus Christ here, that when he cometh to judgment, I might then be like unto him, as my trust & hope is I shall be. Now maketh he me like to his friends the Prophets, Apostles, the holy Martyrs and Confessors. Which of them did not suffer, at the least, imprisonment or banishment for his Gospel and word?

Now Mother, howe far am I unmeet to be compared to them? I (I say) which always have been, and am so vile an hypocrite and grievous a sinner? God might have caused me long before this time to have been cast into prison as a thief, a blasphemer, an unclean liver, and an heinous offender of the laws of the Realm, but dear Mother, his mercy is so great upon both you and all that love me, that I should be cast into prison as none of these, or for any such vices: but only for his Christ's sake, for his Gospelles sake, for his Churches sake, that hereby, as I might learn to lament and bewail my ingratitude & sins: so I might rejoice in his mercy, be thankful, look for eternal joy with Christ, for whose sake (praised be his name for it) I now suffer, and therefore should be merry and glad. And in deed good mother, so I am, as ever I was, yea never so merry and glad was I, as now I should be, if I could get you to be merry with me, to thank God for me, & to pray on this sort: Ah good father which dost vouchsafe that my son being a grievous sinner in thy sight, should find this favor with thee, to be one of thy sons captains and men of war to fight and suffer for his Gospels sake, I thank thee and pray thee in Christ's name that thou wouldest forgive him his sins and unthankfulness, and make perfect in him that good which thou hast begun: yea Lord I pray thee make him worthy to suffer, not only imprisonement, but even very death for thy truth, religion, and Gospels sake. As Anna did apply and give her first child Samuel unto thee▪ so do I dear father, beseeching thee for Christ's sake, to accept this my gift, and give my son John Bradford grace always truly to serve thee and thy people, as Samuel did. Amen. Amen.

If on this sort good Mother, from your heart you would pray, as I should be the moste meriest man that ever was: so am I certain the lets of your prayer for my imprisonment, would be taken away. Good Mother, therefore mark what I have written, and learn this Prayer by heart, to say it daily, and then I shall be merye, and you shall rejoice if that you continue, as I trust you do, in God's true Religion, even the same I have taught you, and my father Traues (I trust) will put you in remembrance of: my brother Roger also I trust doeth so daily. Go to therefore and learn apace, Although the devil cast diverse lets in the way. God, in whom you trust, will cast them away for his Christ's sake, if you will call upon him: and never will he suffer you to be tempted above that he will make you able to bear. But howe you should do herein, the other Letter which I have written herewith, shall teache you, which I would none should read till my father Traues have read it, & he will give you by God's grace, some instructions.

Now therefore will I make an ende, praying you good Mother, to look for no mo Letters: for if it were known that I have pen and ink, and did write, then should I want all the foresaid commodities I have spoken of concerning my body, and be cast into some dungeon in fetters of iron: which thing I know would grieve you, and therefore for God's sake, see that these be burned when this little prayer in it, is copied out by my brother Roger: for perchance your house may be searched for such gear, when you think little of it, and look for no moe, sweet Mother, till either God shall deliver me and send me out, either you and I shall meet together in heaven, where we shall never part asunder. Amen.

I require you Elizabeth and Margarete my sisters, that you will fear God, use Prayer, love your husbands, be obedient unto them, as God willeth you: bring up youre children in God's fear: and be good housewiues, God bless you both, with both your husbands, my good brethren, whom to do good, because I now cannot, I will pray for them and you. Commende me to my sister Anne, mother Pike, T. Sorrocolde and his wife, R. Shalcrosse & his wife, R Bolton, I. Wild, M. Vicare, the Parson of Mottrom, Syr Laurence Hall, with all that love, & (I trust) live in the Gospel: and God turn Syr Thomas his heart, Amen. I will daily pray for him. I need not to set my name, you know it well enough.

Because you should give my Letters to my father Traues to be burned, I have written here a Prayer for you to learn to pray for me good mother, and another for all your house in your evening Prayer to pray with my brother. These Prayers are written with mine own hand: keep them still, but the letters give to father Traues to burn, and give father Traues a copy of the latter Prayer.

An other Letter to his Mother, as his last farewell unto her in this world, a little before he was burned.

GOds mercy and peace in Christ, be more and more perceived of us, Amen.

My moste dear Mother, in the bowels of Christ I heartily pray and beseech you to be thankful for me unto God, which thus now taketh me unto himself, I die not, my good mother, as a thief, a murderer, an adulterer. &c. but I die as a witness of Christ, his Gospel and verity, which hitherto I have confessed (I thank God) as well by preaching, as by prisonement, and now even presently I shall moste willingly confirm the same by fire. I knowledge that God moste justly might take me hence simply for my sins (which are many, great, & grievous: but the Lord for his mercy in Christ, hath pardoned them all I hope): but now dear Mother, he taketh me hence by this death, as a Confessor and witness, that the Religion taught by Christ Jesus, the Prophets, and the Apostles, is God's truth. The Prelates do persecute in me Christ whom they hate, and his truth which they may not abide, because their works are evil, and may not abide the truth and light, least men should see their darkness. Therefore my good and moste dear Mother, give thanks for me to God, that he hath made the fruit of your womb to be a witness of his glory, & attend to the truth (which I thank God for it) I have truly taught out of the Pulpit of Manchester. Use often and continual Prayer to God the Father through Christ. Hearken, as you may, to the scriptures: serve God after his word, and not after custom: beware of the Romish religion in England, defile not yourself with it: carry Christ's Cross as he shall lay it upon your back: forgive them that kill me: pray for them, for they know not what they do: commit my cause to God our father: be mindful of both youre daughters to help them as you can.

I send all my writings to you by my brother Roger, do with them as you will, because I cannot as I would, he can tell you more of my mind. I have nothing to give you, or to leave behind me for you: only I pray God my father for his Christ's sake, to bless you and keep you frō evil. He give you patience, he make you thankful, as for me, so for yourself, that will take the fruit of your womb to witness his verity: wherein I confess to the whole world I die and depart this life in hope of a much better: which I look for at the hands of God my father thorough the merits of his dear son Jesus Christ.

Thus my dear Mother, I take my last farewell of you in this life, beseeching the almighty and eternal father by Christ, to grant us to meet in the life to come, where we shall give him continual thanks and praise forever and ever, Amen.

A letter sent with a supplication to Queen Mary, her Counsel, and the whole Parliament.

IN moste humble wise complaineth unto your Majesty and honors, a poor subject persecuted for the confession of Christ's verity: the which verity deserveth at your hands to be maintained and defended, as the thing, by the which you reign and have your honor and authorities. Althoughe we that be professors, and thorough the grace of God, the constante confessors of the same, are (as it were) the outsweepings of the world: yet (I say) the verity it self is a thing not unworthy for your ears to hear, for your eyes to see, and for youre hands to handle, help, & succor, according to that the Lord hath made you able, and placed you where you are, for the same purpose. Your highness and honors ought to know, that there is no innocence in words or deeds, where it is enough and sufficeth only to accuse. It behooveth Kings, Queens, and all that be in authority, to know that in the administration of their kingdoms, they are God's Ministers. It behooveth them to know, that they are no Kings but plain Tyrannes, which reign not to this ende, that they may serve and set forth God's glory after true knowledge: and therefore it is required of them, that they would be wise, and suffer them selves to be taught, to submit them selves to the Lord's discipline, and to kiss their Sovereign, least they pearish: as all those Potentates with their principalities and dominions cannot long prosper but pearish in deed, if they and their kingdoms be not ruled with the Scepter of God, that is, with his word: which, who so honoreth not, honoreth not God, and they that honor not the Lord, the Lord will not honor them, but bring them into contempt, and at the length take his own cause, which he hath moste chiefly committed unto them to care for, into his own hands, and so overthrow them, and set up his truth gloriously: the people also pearishinge with the Princes, where the word of Prophecy is wanting, much more is suppressed, as it is now in this Realm of England: over which the eyes of the Lord are set to destroy it, your highness and all your honors, if in time you look not better to youre office and duties herein, and not suffer yourselves to be slaves & hangmen to Antichrist and his Prelates, which have brought your highness and honors already to let Barabbas lose, and to hange up Christ: as by the grace and help of God I shall make apparent, if first it would please your excellent majesty and all your honors, to take to heart God's doctrine, which rather through the malice of the Pharisees, I mean the Bishops and Prelates, then youre consciences, is oppressed: and not for our contemptible and execrable state in the sight of the world, to pass the less of it. For it (the doctrine I mean) is higher and of more honor and Majesty, then all the whole world. It standeth invincible above all power, being not our doctrine, but the doctrine of the everliving God and of his Christ, whom the father hath ordained king, to have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the world. And truly so doth he and will he reign, that he will shake all the whole earth with his iron and brazen power, with his golden and siluerie brightness, only by the rod of his mouth, to shi • ers, in such sort, as though they were pots of claie, according to that which the Prophets do write of the magnificence of his kingdom. And thus much for the thing, I mean the doctrine, and your duties to hearken, to propagate, and defend the same.

But now will our adversaries mainly cry out against us, because no man may be admitted once to whist against them, that we pretend falsely the doctrine and word of God, calling us the most wicked contemners of it, and heretics, Schismatikes traitors &c. All which their sayings, howe malicious and false they are, though I might make report to that which is written by those men whose works they have condemned, and all that retain any of them, publicly by proclamation: yet here will I occasion your majesty and honors by this my writing, to see that it is far otherwise then they report of us. God our father, for his holy names sake, direct my pen to be his instrument to put into your eyes, ears, and hearts, that which most may make to his glory, to the safeguard of your souls and bodies, and preservation of the whole Realm. Amen.

To certain his friends, N.S. and R.C.

I Wish to you my good brethren, the same grace of God in Christ, which I wish and pray the father of mercies to give me for his holy names sake. Amen.

Your letter though I have not read myself, because I would not alienate my mind from conceived things to write to others, yet I have heard the sum of it, that it is of God's election: wherein I will briefly write to you my faith, and howe I think it good and meet for a Christian man to wade in it. I believe, that man made after the Image of God, did fall from that blessed state, to the condemnation of him self and all his posterity. I believe that Christ for man being thus fallen, did oppose him self to the justice of God a Mediator, paying the ransom and price of redemption for Adame and his whole posterity that refuse it not finally. I believe that all that believe in Christ, I speak of such as be of years of discretion, are partakers of Christ and all his merits. I believe that faith, and to believe in Christ (I speak not now of Faith that men have by reason of miracles. John 2.11. Acts 8. or by reason of earthly commodity. Matthew 13. custom and authority of men, which is commonly seen, the hearts of them that so believe, being not right and simple before God: but I speak of that faith which in deed is the true faith, the justifying and regenerating faith:) I believe, I say, that this faith and belief in Christ, is the work and gift of God, given to none other then to those which be the children of God, that is, to those whom God the Father before the beginning of the world hath predestinate in Christ unto eternal life.

Thus do I wade in Predestination, in such sort as God hath pa • ified and opened it. Thoughe in God it be the first, yet to us it is last opened. And therefore I begin with creation, from whence I come to redemption, so to justification, and so to election. On this sort I am sure, that warely and wisely a man may walk in it easily by the light of God's spirit, in and by his word, seeing this Faith not to be given to all men. 2. Thes. 3. but to such as are borne of God, Predestinate before y ^e world was made, after the purpose and good will of God: which will we may not call into disputation, but in trembling and fear submit our selves to it as to that which can will none otherwise then that which is holy, righte and good, howe far soever otherwise it seem to the judgment of reason, which must needs be beaten down to be more careful for God's glory, then for man's salvation, which dependeth only thereon, as all God's children full well see: for they seek not the glory which cometh of men, but the glory which cometh of God. Jeremiah 9. John 5. They know God to be a God which doeth on earth, not only mercy, but also judgment, which is his Justice and moste Justice, although our foolish reason cannot see it. And in this knowledge they glory and rejoice, though others through vain curiosity, grudge & murmur there against. Thus brieflye I have sent you my mind and meaning concerning this matter. Hereafter you shall have (I think) your letter particularly answered by M. Philpot: as also if I have time, and so you require it, I will do.

Notes upon the same Epistle, and to the matter of election appertaining.

AS touching the doctrine of Election (whereof this letter of M. Bradford, and many other his letters moe do much entreat) three things must be considered.

1 Firste, what God's election is, and what is the cause thereof.

2 Secondly, howe God's election proceedeth in working our salvation.

3 Thirdly, to whom God's election pertaineth, and howe a man may be certain thereof.

Between Predestination and Election, this difference there is. Predestination is as well to the reprobate, as to the Elect. Election only pertaineth to them that be saved.

Predestination, in that it respecteth the Reprobate, is called Reprobation: in that it respecteth the saved, is called Election, and is thus defined.

Predestination is the eternal decreement of God, purposed before in him self, what shall befall on all men, either to salvation, or damnation.

Election is the free mercy & grace of God in his own will, through faith in Christ his son, choosing and preferring to life, such as pleaseth him.

In this definition of Election, first goeth before (the mercy and grace of God) as the causes thereof, whereby are excluded all works of the law and merits of deserving, whether they go before faith, or come after. So was Jacob chosen, and Esau refused, before either of them began to work. &c.

Secondly, in that this mercy and grace of God in this definition is said to be (free) thereby is to be noted the proceeding and working of God not to be bound to any ordinary place, or to any succession of chair, nor to state and dignity of person, nor to worthiness of blood. &c. but all goeth by the mere will of his own purpose, as it is written: Spiritus vbi vult, spirat. &c. And thus was the outward race and stock of Abraham after flesh refused (which seemed to have the preeminence) and another seed after the spirit raised up to Abraham of the stones, that is, of the Gentiles. So was the outward Temple of Jerusalem and chair of Moses, which seemed to be of price, forsaken, and God's chair advanced in other nations. So was tall Saul refused, and little David accepted: the riche, the proud, the wise of this world rejected, and the word of salvation daily opened to the poor and miserable abjects: the hie mountains caste under, and the low valleys exalted. &c.

Thirdly, where it is added (in his own will) by this falleth down the free will & purpose of man, with all his actions, counsels, & strength of nature: according as it is written: Non est volentis, ne{que} currentis, sed miserentis Dei. &c. i. It is not in him that willeth, nor in him that runneth, but in God that showeth mercy. So we see how Israel rā long, & yet got nothing. The Gentiles vnneth begā to set out, and yet got the game. So they which came at the first hour did labor more, & yet they which came last, were rewarded with the first. Math. 20. The working will of the Pharisee seemed better: but yet the Lord's will was rather to justify the Publican. Luke 18. The elder son had a better will to tarry by his father, and so did in deed: and yet y ^e fat Calf was given to the younger son that ran away. Luk. 15. Whereby we have to understand, howe the matter goeth not by the will of man, but by the will of God, as it pleaseth him to accept, according as it is written: Non ex voluntate carnis, ne{que} ex voluntate viri, sed ex Deo nati sunt &c. i. Which are borne, not of the will of the flesh, nor yet of the will of man, but of God. Furthermore, as all then goeth by the will of God only, and not by the will of man: so again here is to be noted, that this will of God never goeth without faith in Christ Jesus his son.

And therefore fourthly is this clause added in the definition (through faith in Christ his son.) Whych faith in Christ to us ward maketh altogether. For first it certifieth us of God's election. As this Epistle of M. Bradford doth well express. For whosoever will be certain of his election in God, let him first begin with his faith in Christ: which if he find in him to stand firm, he may be sure and nothing doubt, but that he is one of the number of God's elect. Secondly, the said faith and nothing else, is the only condition and means whereupon God's mercy, grace, election, vocation, and all God's promises to salvation do stay, according to the words of S. Paul: Si permanseritis in fide. &c. i. If ye abide in the faith. Colos. 1. Thirdly, this faith also is the immediate and next cause of our Justification simply, without any other condition annexed. For as the mercy of God, his grace, election, vocation, and other precedent causes do save and justify us upon condition, if we believe in Christ: so this faith only in Christ without condition, is the next and immediate cause which by God's promise worketh our justification: according as it is written: Crede in Dominum Iesum, & saluus eris tu & domus tua. i. Believe in the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy whole house. Acts. 16. And thus much touching the definition of Election, with the causes thereof declared. Which you see now to be no merits nor works of man▪ whether they go before, or come after faith, but only the mere mercy of God through faith. For like as all they that be borne of Adam, do taste of his malediction, though they tasted not his apple: so all they that be borne of Christ, (which is by faith) take part of the obedience of Christ, although they never did that obedience them selves, which was in him. Rom. 5.

Now to the second consideration: let us see likewise, how, and in what order this election of God proceedeth in choosing and electing them which he ordaineth to salvation: which order is this. In them that be chosen to life, first God's mercy and free grace bringeth forth election: Election worketh vocation or God's holy calling, which vocation, thorough hearing bringeth knowledge and faith of Christ, Faith through promise obtaineth justification, Justification thorough hope waiteth for glorification.

Election is before time. Uocation and faith cometh in time. Justification and glorification is without ende.

Election depending upon God's free grace and will, excludeth all man's will, blind fortune, chance, and all peraduentures.

Uocation standing upon God's election, excludeth all man's wisdom, cunning, learning, intention, power and presumption.

Faith in Christ proceeding by y ^e gift of the holy Ghoste, and freely justifying man by God's promise, excludeth all other merits of men, all condition of deserving, and all works of the law, both God's law and man's law, with all other outward means whatsoever.

Justification coming freely by Faith, standeth sure by promise, without doubt, fear, or wavering in this life.

Glorification pertaining only to the life to come, by hope is looked for.

Grace and mercy preventeth.

Election ordaineth.

Uocation prepareth and receiveth the word, whereby cometh faith.

Faith justifieth.

Justification bringeth glory.

Election is the immediate and next cause of vocation.

Uocation (which is the working of God's spirit by the word) is the immediate and next cause of faith.

Faith is the immediate and next cause of justification.

And this order and connection of causes is diligently to be observed, because of the Papists, which have miserably confounded and inverted this doctrine, thus teaching, that almighty God so far forth as he foreseeth man's merits before to come, so doeth he dispense his election. Dominus pro vt cuiusque merita fore praeuidet, ita dispensat electionis gratiam. And again, Nullis praecedentibus meritis Dominum rependere electionis gratiam, futuris tamen concedere: That is, That the Lord recompenseth the grace of election, not to any merits preceeding: but yet granteth the same to the merits which follow after: As though we had our election by our holiness that followeth after, & not rather have our holiness by God's election going before.

But we following the scripture, say otherwise, that the cause only of God's election, is his own free mercy: and the cause only of our justification is our faith in Christ, and nothing else. As for example: first, concerning Election, if the question be asked why was Abraham chosen, and not Nachor? Why was Jacob chosen, & not Esau? Why was Moses elected, and Pharaoh hardened? Why David accepted, and Saul refused? Why few be chosen, and the moste forsaken? It cannot be answered otherwise, but thus: because it was so the good will of God.

In like manner touching vocation and also faith, if the question be asked, why this vocation & gift of faith was given to Cornelius the Gentil, and not to Tertullius the Jew? Whye to the poor, to the babes, and little ones of this world, (of whom Christ speaketh: I thank thee Father, which haste hid this from the wise. &c. Matthew 11. Whye to the unwise, the simple abiectes and outcastes in this world? Of whom speaketh S. Paul. 1. Cor. 1. Ye see your calling, my brethren, howe not many of you. &c. Why to the sinners, and not to the just? Why the beggars by the hye ways were called, and the bidden gestes excluded? We can go to no other cause, but to God's purpose & election, and say with Christ our Savior: Quia pater sic complacitum est ante te. i. Yea father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. Luke 18.

And so for Justification likewise, if the question be asked why the Publican was justified, and not the Pharisey? Luke 18. Why Marie the sinner, and not Simon the inuiter? Luke 11. Why harlottes and Publican's go before the Scribes and Pharisees in the kingdom? Mat. 21. Why the son of the free woman was received, and the bond woman's son being his elder, rejected? Genes. 21. Why Israel which so long sought for righteousness, found it not: and the Gentiles which sought not for it, found it? Rom. 9. We have no other cause hereof to render, but to say with S. Paul, because they sought for it by works of the Law, and not by Faith: which faith as it cometh not by man's will (as the Papist falsely pretendeth) but only by the election and free gift of God: so it is only the immediate cause whereunto the promise of our salvation is annexed, according as we read: And therefore of faith is the inheritance given, as after grace, that the promise might stand sure to every seed. Rom. 4. Item in the same chap. Faith believing in him which justifieth the wicked, is imputed to righteousness.

And thus concerning the cause of our salvation, ye see howe faith in Christ, only and immediately without any condition doth justify us, being so linked with God's mercy and election, that where so ever election goeth before, there faith in Christ must needs follow after. And again, whosoever believeth in Christ Jesus, through the vocation of God, he must needs be partaker of God's election.

Whereuppon resulteth now the third note or consideration: which is to consider, whether a man in this life may be certain of his election. To answer to which question, this first is to be understand: that although our election and vocation simplye in deed be known to God only in him self, à priore: yet notwithstanding it may be known to every particular faithful man, à posteriore, that is, by means, which means is faith in Christ Jesus crucified. For so much as by his faith in Christ, a man is justified, and thereby made the child of salvation, reason must needs lead the same to be then the child of election, chosen of God unto everlasting life. For howe can a man be justified, but he must needs be saved? and howe can a man be saved, but by consequence it followeth, that he must also be elected?

And therefore of Election it is truly said: De electione iudicandum est à posteriore: that is to say, we must judge of election by that which cometh after, that is, by our faith and belief in Christ: which faith although in time it followeth after election, yet is it the proper and immediate cause assigned by the scripture, which not only justifieth us, but also certifieth us of this election of God.

Whereunto likewise well agreeth this present letter of M. Bradford, wherein he saith: Election, allbeit in God it be the first, yet to us it is the last opened. And therefore beginning first (saith he) with creation, I come frō thence to the redemption and justification by faith, and so to election. Not that faith is the cause efficient of election, being rather the effect thereof, but is to us the cause certificatory, or the cause of our certification, whereby we are brought to the feeling and knowledge of our election in Christ. For all be it that election first be certain in the knowledge of God: yet in our knowledge, Faith only that we have in Christ, is the thing that giveth to us our certificate and comfort of this election.

Wherefore, who soever desireth to be assured that he is one of the elect number of God, let him not clyme up to heaven to know, but let him descend into him self, and there search his Faith in Christ the son of God: which if he find in him not feigned by the working of God's holy spirit accordingly: thereupon let him stay, and so wrap him self wholly both body and soul under God's general promise, and cumber his head with no further speculations: knowing this, that who so ever believeth in him, shall not perish. John. 3. shall not be confounded. Ro. 9. shall not see death. Ih. 8. shall not enter into judgment. Ih. 5. shall have everlasting life. I • . 3.7. shall be saved. Mat. 28. Act. 16. shall have remission of all his sins. Act. 10. shall be justified. Rom. 3. Ga. 2. shall have floods flowing out of him of water of life. John. 7. shall never die. John 11. shall be raised in the last day. John 6▪ shall find rest to his soul, and shall be refreshed. Math. 11.

Now then for so much as we see faith to be the ground whereupon depēdeath the whole condition of our justifying, let us discuss in like manner what is this faith whereof the scripture so much speaketh, for the more plain understanding of the simple. For many kinds there be of faith: as a man may believe everything that is true, yet not every truth doeth save, neither doth the believing of every truth justify a man. He y ^t beeleueth that God created all things of naught, believeth truly. He that believeth that God is a just God, that he is omnipotent, that he is merciful, that he is true of promise, believeth well and holdeth the truth. So he that believeth that God hath his election from the beginning, and that he also is one of the same elect & predestinate, hath a good belief, and thinketh well: but yet this belief alone, except it be seasoned with another thing, will not serve to salvation: as it auailed not the old Jews, which so thought of them selves, and yet think to this day to be only God's elect people.

Only the faith which availeth to salvation is that, whose object is the body and passion of Jesus Christ crucified. So that in the act of justifying these two, faith and Christ have a mutual relation, and must always concur together, faith as the action which apprehendeth: Christ as the object which is apprehended.

For neither doeth the passion of Christ save without faith, neither doeth faith help, except it be in Christ: As we see the body of man sustained by bread & drink, not except the same be received and conveyed into the stomach: and yet neither doeth y ^e receiving of everything sustain man's body, except it be meat and drink, which have power to give nourishment. In like sort it is with faith: for neither doth the believing of everything save, but only faith in the blood of Christ: neither again doth y ^e same blood of Christ profit us, except by faith it be received. And as the sun being the cause of all light, shineth not but to them only which have eyes to see: nor yet to them neither, unless they will open their eyes to receive the light: so the Passion of Christ is the efficient cause of salvation, but faith is the condition whereby the said passion is to us effectual.

And that is the cause, why we say with the Scripture, that faith only justifieth us, not excluding thereby all other externe causes that go before faith, as grace, mercy, election, vocation, the death of Christ. &c. all which be externe causes working our salvation through faith. But when we say that faith only justifieth us, the meaning thereof is this: that of all internal actions, motions, or operations in man, given to him of God, there is none other that contenteth & pleaseth God, or standeth before his judgment, or can help anything to the justifying of man before him, but only this one action of faith in Jesus Christ the son of God.

For although the action of praying, fasting, alms, patience, charity, repentance, the fear and love of God be hie gifts in man, and not of man, given of God to man, yet be none of all these actions in man, imputed of God to salvation, but only this one action of faith in mā upon Christ Jesus the son of God. Not that the action it self of believing, as it is a quality in man, doeth so deserve, but because it taketh that dignity of the object. For as I said, in the act of justifying, faith, as it is an action in man, is not to be considered alone, but must ever go with his object, and taketh his virtue thereof. Like as the looking up of the old Israelites did not of it self procure any health unto them, but the promise made in the object, which was the brazen serpent, whereupon they looked, gave them health by their looking up. Even so after like sort are we saved by our faith and spiritual looking up to the body of Christ crucified. Which faith to define is this:

To believe Jesus Christ to be the son of the living God sent into this world, by his death to satisfy for our sins, and so to receive the same.

And thus much touching election and Faith, with the order and explication of the causes necessary to be considered in our salvation. Whereby may appear howe far the pretensed catholics do swarne from the right mind of the scriptures. For where the scriptures in declaring the causes of salvation, do send us only to faith, as the only condition whereby these causes have their working, these catholics do quite leave out faith, and instead thereof place in other conditions of doings, merits, will works, pardons, masses, and especially auricular confession, with penance and satisfaction for our sins. &c.

And besides these letters above specified of M. John Bradford, there hath come to our hands certain other letters of his not long a go, sent by a certain old friend of the said John Bradford unto us. Which letters being written of him in former times, before his trouble, as they have not been yet printed nor seen abroad, so I thought it not amiss, to communicate the same to the ch • istian reader, for the worthiness of the matter, and the goodness of the man, which may redound I trust, to no small fruit to him, that with godly eyes shall advise the same.

A letter of M. Bradford, to father Trauers Minister of Blackeley.

THe abundant grace and rich mercy of God in Christ our only savior and high bishop, be increased in your heart, thorough the lively woorker of all goodness, the holy spirit, until the day of the Lord. &c.

I have received youre two letters (good father Trauers) sithen y ^t I did write any unto you, whereof though honesty willeth to make an excuse, yet truth biddeth me otherwise, and saith it is better with shame to confess the fault (for therein is, as a man might say, half a deserving of pardon) then without shame to lie. I might have written unto you twice (notwithstanding in deed some business, wherein I have something been occupied) but yet I have not. Now the cause is, because I would not. And why would I not? But because I could not, I mean because my canning is taken away by sin, for my sins do forbid goodness unto me. In deed if my sinning were of infirmity, there were good hope of recovery of that, which I have lost: But seeing, both willing and knowing I have too much yielded, and yet do yield to my infirmities, justly I do deserve that, because I have cast away, and rejected the word of the Lord behind my back, that the Lord should reject me. And because I would not have blessing, I am worthy (as David saith) that it be taken away from me. I have now at length experience, that to bring a man forth of God's favor, is sooner seen when a man hath received all things aboūdantly, then when need or the cross pincheth. Afore it pleased God to work the restitution (you know what I mean) and afore it pleased God to provide for me, as he hath done, so that I can say in nothing where any want is, as pertaining to my body: I was another manner of man, then now I am, and yet God's deserts have otherwise bounden me: But the scripture is true, I have advanced my children, and nourished them, but they have contemned me, I have fed them that they were fat and gross, and they spurned against me. Perchaunce you will ask me wherein. Oh father Trauers, I warrant you, this my style in carnal, and not in spiritual writing, doeth something show unto you, but as for it, in comparison of other things is nothing. For where the life of man is such, that either it paireth or amēdeath, as Paul saith: the outward man is corrupted day by day, and therefore except the inward man be renewed, the shoe goeth awry: every building in Christ, doth grow to a holy temple, as the wicked, on the contrary parte shall proceed to worser. 2. Tim. 3. I have made a change far otherwise in going back, than I think by letters I can persuade you: wherein, will you say? For the first, seconde and third, and to be brief in all things: As for an example. God's true fear is flown away from me, love to my brethren is exiled from me, faith is utterly taken away. Instead whereof is distrust, & doubtfulness bearing rule. Contempt of God's honor, & of my brethrē reigning, & instead of true fear, an imagined fear, according to my brain holding the principality. For I extenuate sin, and I do not consider that in sin, which a Christian ought to consider: that sin being not forgiven, is such a thing, for the which God casteth his creature away, as examples not only of Saul, of Judas, of the Israelites (which were beloved in deed, & yet for sin are rejected) but also of others, on whom lately for my warning, God hath shown the same, do admonish me. But it is but my pen which writes this, for the wicked, saith Solomon, when they come into the depth of their sins, then they grow in securitye, I am I cannot tell what, I fear, but it is but blindly, or else would I awake otherwise then I do, I fear me I say that I am entangled of the devil, after his desire. Pray for me that the Lord would give me repentance, that I may escape out of his snares. Alas the spirit of prayer, which before I have felt plentifully, is taken clean away from me. The Lord be merciful unto me. I am sold under sin, I am the bondslave of sin, for whom I obey, his servant I am. I am ashamed to speak often, no I shame not at all, for I have forgot to blush, I have given over to weep. And truly I obey, I obey I say mine own cōcupiscences: namely in eating, in drinking, in jangling and idleness, I will not speak of vain glory, envy, disdain, hypocrisy, desire of estimation, self-love, and who can tell all? Is this the reward thou renderest to GOD, O Bradford? It is true, yea to true, thou knowest it O Lord, for thy mercies sake pardon me. In your letters you touch me home, how that there is no man's heart, but that considering the ingratitude of this world, this belly cheer (wherein you even take me by the nose) &c. his eyes would tumble out great gushes of tears. The Lord be praised which worketh so in you, for it is with me, as with them of whō you complain. In deed it may be so again, but oh it is very unlikely, for my enmies are become old, & are made by custom more then familiar, for they are as it were converted into nature in me. Yet I am not grieved therefore, although I cannot persuade myself that God will help me. O Lord be merciful unto me for thy Christ's sake. This day I received the Lord's supper, but how I have welcomed him, this night (which I have spent in lasciviousness, in wantonness and in prodigality, obeying my flesh and belly) doth so declare, that what to say or write anymore, I know not, sleep doth aggravate mine eyes, and to pray I am altogether unapt. All this is come through the occasion of making this bringer a Supper in my chamber, the Lord pardon me, I trust no more to be so far ouerseen. But this I write not that the anger of god which I have deserved, so feareth me, thou knowest it O Lord. But of this perchance too much.

For God's sake pray for me good Father Traues, and write unto me as you may by your weakness, your letters do me good. By this which I have now written, you may consider more, touche me therefore home in your letters, and the Lord (I trust) shall, and will reward you. If God lend me life, of which I am most unworthy, I will more trouble you with my letters thē I have done, but bear with me, I do it not of any evil will, the Lord I take to judge, there is none whose company and talk I more desire then yours, I speak it before God. Prooue my Mothers mind how she can bear it, if when I shall come down I shall show myself another man outwardly, but alas feinedly, then before I have done. Marrie when my coming will be, I know not. In deed two things move me sore, the one for my mothers cause, concerning her better instruction, if the Lord would thereto use me his instrument, the other is to talk with you, and eftsoons to trouble you, as I have hitherto ever done, but always to my profit. For God's sake pray for me, for I had never so much need.

An other letter of M. Bradford to Sir Thomas Hall and Father Traues of Blakeley.

THe grace of God our most merciful father, keep your mind and soul in Christ Jesus, who alone is our full sufficient Savior, for in him we be complete, being made through his death and one only oblation made and offered by himself upon the cross the children of God & fellow heirs with him of the celestial kingdom which is the free gift of God, and cometh not of merits, but of the mere grace of God given to none that putteth any manner of hope or trust in any other thing visible or invisible, then in that oblation of sweet savor which Christ himself did offer upon good Friday (as we call it) which oblation is always recent and new in the sight of God the father, and maketh intercession for us: us I mean, which think that only sacrifice then offered, to be sufficient as it is, hath been, and ever shall be for all the faithful, by the which sacrifice (if we believe) we have free pardon of all our sins. To him therefore which was both the offerer & offering, be all honor and praise, with the father and the holy ghost, blessed forever, Amen.

Sir Thomas, the occasion of this my long silence, mine old friend John Traues shall declare unto you: vpō the knowledge whereof, I doubt not of your pardon. I have sent unto you an English and a Latin Testament both in one print and volume, the which though it be not so beautiful without as I could have sent you, yet no less beautiful within, and more I think for your profit, and better for your eyes, your eyes I mean of the body. For undoubtedly, it giveth light unto the soul, if she be not dead. Whereof, take this for an argument & a true proof, If your soul be not delited in it, if your soul do not hunger for it (I mean not the book, but the doctrine in the book) surely your soul is sore sick: for as the body abhorring meat, is not well, even so must the soul be, for other meat hath she none. Christ whom you must believe afore all men, affirmeth this to be true in the 4. of Math. Not only in bread, but in every word of God the soul doth live. Mark well he saith not, one or two words, as an Epistle, or a Gospel, but he saith, every word. Take heed, believe Christ better then any man be he never so holy. For he that is of God (John. 8.) heareth the word of God. Will you have a more plain badge, whether you are the elect child of God or no, then this text. Christ saith, He that is of God, heareth the word of God, but other word of God have we none, then in the Canon of the Bible, and all things written therein, are written for our learning, (saith Paul) whereby he proveth, seeing that it is a learning, yea our learning, that we must learn it. Therefore woe be to all them which either persuade men, that there is other doctrine of like authority, or that dissuade men from embrasing this word, this word of God, or that think this word, especially the New Testament, is not above all other to be loved, to be red, to be chewed. This is the precious stone which in the Gospel Christ saith: When a man hath found, he selleth all that ever he hath, and buyeth it. Mark now how necessary and precious Christ maketh that which great learned men (nay devils but no mē) think not necessary God help them. Christ bade his Disciples sell their coats and buy a sword, which is none other thing then the word of God: for so S. Paul calleth it, the sword of the spirit. Nay, say our great learned men, (I lie, they have said so, now they are ashamed) fetch fire and burn it.

This I say Sir Thomas to the intent no ungodly hypocrite should persuade you or dissuade you from reding the holy word of God the gospel of Jesus Christ. Follow you S. Paul's lesson: Attend reading, and the word of God dwell in you. How much plentifully saith he, and to what end, To feed the flock of Christ even as much as in you is, saith Peter, not once a year or once a quarter as a Strawbery, but so much as in you is. This word of God trieth all doctrine, for we ought to have our conscience charged with nothing as touching religion, except the word of God in the Canon of the Bible set it out, I mean not only in allegories, but even in plain words. For no other foundation can any man lay, besides y ^t which is laid. S. Paul saith, the groundwork is laid already. Even so saith he to the Ephesians: We be his workmanship to do good works, which God hath create that we should walk in them. He saith they were not to be made, but they are made already. What shall we think than in such works as man's wit hath founded, which yet seem most holy, let God's word be judge. Read the same diligently and reverently with prayer (I mean not Latin service not understood, but with true hearty prayer) and mark what the law requireth, even that which we cannot give, the whole heart and more, if it were possible. But to this end, that we seeing our abhominable uncleanness and inability, might despair in our selves, trembling at the justice of God, and his anger which we continually procure, and so amplect Christ, in whom God the father is well pleased. Which Christ is the end of the law to justify all that believeth, and continue not in their popish ignorance, iustifieng themselves and treadyng Christ's blood under their feet, denying the Lord that bought them. All such be they never so well learned, never so holy, be nothing but hypocrites, and plain Antichrists, which may not abide the sword of God's mouth. For the trumpets of the army (I mean still God's word) when they blow, the hye walls of Jericho, the figure of hypocrisy falleth down. Embrace therefore God's holy word, and be not only a Reader, but a doer: for your calling requireth you to be apt to teach such proud hypocritical arrogant bablers, as I am now (which if I may use this term beshite God's word) God forgive me, and pray you for me, & give God thanks for me, that spareth me thus Luciferlike, not of a true zeal, but of a foolish bragging which prate of God's holy word. I wot not what I do to confess it. So it is. I have sent to you other books which I pray you read, I have written your name in them. The holy Ghost keep you with your brother George, his wife and children, and with your brother James, &c. Sir Laurence, &c.

An other letter of Master Bradford, to father Traues.

Gratia misericordia & pax a Deo patre nostro, & Domino Jesus Christo Domino nostro.

It shall not be long God willing, but you shall both have and hear from me. Keep with you Melanchthon's Common places, for I have another.

Another letter of Master Bradford, to father Traues.

GRace, mercy, and peace from God the father, through our Lord Jesus Christ, with increase of all manner godly knowledge and living, be with you and all your household, now and ever, Amen.

To excuse this my long silence, within v. or vi. days after my (like foolish) letters writ̄ to you by John. M • sse it pleased God to send my M. hither to London, whom (as I lately tofore had advertised by letters) I moved, (you know wherein) and prayed him to discharge y ^e same, or else I would submit myself, &c. Whereunto he answered, that if the books would declare it, he would satisfy, &c The books I shown, whereupon he promised as much as I could ask. But being herein something more moved then he had cause (God be praised therefore, which of his mere good pleasure wrought it) at times as I could, I desired to know how and in what time he would discharge us both. He thinking me to be over curious herein, was not therewith contented, and hearing me to allege the uncertainty of time, and the fear of God's justice (which oh gracious Lord grant me to feel in deed as much as thou knowest good for me) he answered me to be scrupulous and of a superstitious conscience (for animalis homo non percipit ea quae sunt Dei ) and plainly said further that I should not know, nor (by these words) have his head so under my girdle. And whē I shown him that (God witnessed with me) I went about no such thing. He said that there was no godly conscience, seeing he promised afore the face of God to discharge me, and to pay the thing, but it ought so to be quieted. And thus at divers & sundry times, moving eftsoons to know of him the way and time of discharging the debt, and having none other answers then tofore, I doubting worldly wisdom, (which useth delays) to reign in him with this Mammon (the which oh merciful God eradicate out of his heart mind, and all others) I was something more sharp, and told him (non ego tamen sed gratia tua Domine) I would obey God more then man, the which he lightly regarding (as seemed) I departed and went to M. Latimer to have had him to have brought me to my L. Protector (whose grace than was purposed shortly to take his journey to visit the Ports) M. Latimer I say willed me to stay until his return, which will be not long tofore Easter. In this mean time I bade my bedfellow my masters son whom my M. had used as his instrument, to move me carnally (for my M. discharged him of his exhibitiō, telling him that he could not be able to keep either house or child, for I purposed to undo both him and all his (untruly thou knowest good Lord) and bade him to take that as a warning, that both he and his brethren should provide for themselves as they could) I bade I say my said bedfellow to show my M. (as of himself) my further purpose, which thing when he knew, so moved & feared him, that he began something to relent, & then made fair promises, that look what I would devise, that would he do. I devised, but my devises pleased him not. And thus, but not vainly I trust (as I now do with you, but I know your gentleness which ever hath borne with me) I spended the time in which I have been silent to write, nay bable to you. And he departing out of Londō tofore I knew did send me word by another of his said sons, not so given to the Gospel, and a life according as my bedfellow, and therefore more to be suspected (for though pietas non est suspiciosa, as I should think myself rather impius, yet Christ bade us to be prudētes sicut serpentes ) this other brother I say told me that my M. would do all things only his fame and ability preserved (& quid prodest totum mundum lucrari animae vero iacturam facere.) And with the said brother my M. sent me a little billet also, wherein he confessed that he was contented within 12. months to deliver to my hands the whole money, which bill I thinking not so good as it might have been, have devised another, and have sent it down to him in the country, with request that he will seal and sign it. For thus M. Latimer thinketh sufficient, but as yet I hear not of it, doubting worldly wisdom, which was the whore that overcame Sampson, y ^t moved David to slay Urias, that brought wise Solomon to idolatry, that crucified Christ, the which moved me to perpetrate hoc facinus, the which worketh in my masters heart, having higher place there than Timor D • mini. What say I there, ye, ye, with me, it sitteth in the holy place (the Lord deliver us) doubting I say worldly wisdom, I remain in that same state now for this matter (though in worse for my soul, which is more lamented, pray therefore I beseech you, pray with me and for me, that I may do so earnestly) than I was in at my last writing unto you. And as I than was purposed, so I doubt not (grant it Lord) but that I shall persevere, if in the mean season I shall not hear from my M. accordingly. Thus I have (like myself) foolishly, but truly declared unto you in many babbling words, which wit (if I had it) would have shortly and briefly comprehended. Arrogant, nay God's working unthankful wretch, my working in this matter, which is, and was, the only cause (as I now do) I troubled you not afore, to the intent I might advertise you some certainty in this thing. And though silence had been much better then this foolish pratyng, yet your fatherly kyndnesse ever towards me in expectyng from you a correction, as I have herein given cause, may though not to you, yet to me, be profitable. In hope whereof, I proceed in requiring you to continue your remembrance of me a most unkind wretch to God and you, in your prayers with the almighty merciful Lord, that I may more regard his will and pleasure herein, then all honor or shame in this life. But I must confess unto you that my working in this matter is not of love as I should do, nor of fear of God's justice (mine unthankfulness, mine unthankfulness, if nothing else were, hath not only deserved it, but doth deserve more then everlasting damnation, oh Lord be merciful to me) I do not so repent it as I should do. Why say I So, as though this So were anything, oh hypocritical wretch that I am. Alas father Traues (let me so call you) I am hard hearted, there was never any so obstinate, so unkind, against so loving, so merciful, so gracious, so good, so beneficial a Lord, yea a father, as I wretch and most miserable sinner am. This I speak but not of humility, but of hypocrisy, yet I speak truly. I pray thee good father for Christ's sake, I may think it truly as I write it, even of arrogancy, so it is. Therefore pray and cry for me. Here be such goodly, godly, and learned Sermons, which these uncircumcised ears of mine heareth at the lest thrice a week, which were able (y ^e great loving mercy of God offered to me in them I mean) to burst any man's heart, to relent, to repent, to believe, to love and to fear that omnipotent gracious Lord: but my adamantine, obstinate, most unkind, ingrate, unthankfull heart, hearing my Lord, which is Lord over all Lord's, so graciously, so lovingly, vouchsafe by so many his instruments, to speak, to call, to cry unto me, now by his law, now by his threats, now by his gospel, now by his promises, now by all his creatures to come, to come even to himself, but I hide me with Adam in the garden, I play not only Samuel running to Hely, but I play Jonah running to the sea, and there I sleep upon the hatches tumbling in Iesabels bed, quod est afflict • o maxima, until it please God to annoint mine eyes collyrio, until it please him to raise up a tempest to turn and look upon me, as Luke saith he did on Peter. For oh Lord it is thy gift, and cometh of thee and of thy mere grace it cometh not of man, it cometh not of works to repent, to believe, to fear and to love. Work thou therefore in me for Jesus Christ's sake which am thy creature and most unthankful hypocritical servant, not when I will, nor as I will, but when thou wilt, even that which may be most to the glory of thy name, Amen. What should I write, nay why do I not pluck these same words and paper in pieces, for I write altogether of hypocrisy and arrogant presumption I will confess it, (thou wicked spirit the Lord judge thee) I will confess it, it is most true John Traues, I write it but only, for it is not I, it is hypocrisy. Scientia (if I had it) inflaret, oh Lord grant me thy grace, & leave me not to mine own judgment and reason. Hypocrisy, arrogancy, and obstinate security enuiron me, yet I feel them not, the Lord deliver me. Pray, pray for me. Geue God thanks for me, Oh Lord, even tua fiat voluntas, Unlocke this, mine heart thou which hast the key of David, which openest only, that I may desire to have the desire of the glory of thy name, of repentance, faith, &c. Pray for me and be thankful for me, oh father Traues, and write to me. Your letters I desire more to see, then any man's living. Let me have them therefore as you may, but your prayer at all times, that God would open mine heart to feed and taste of these comfortable places of Scripture (which to me are locked) memento Iesum Christum resurrexisse ex mortuis. This text is a text of most comfort (as it is in deed, and when God will, I shall feed on it) Did Paul send to Tymothie to be his comfort in all places? For our salvation (this day of resurrection) is nearer now than when we believed. Therefore qui perseuerauerit saluus erit. For consummabitur praeuaricatio (saith Daniel) finem accipiet peccatum delebitur iniquitas & adducetur iustitia sempiterna. Deus enim ipse veniet & saluabit nos. Veniens veniet, & non tardabit & quandocunque manifestatus fuerit vita nostra Christus tunc & nos manifestabimur cum illo in gloria. Semel enim oblatus est vt multorum peccata tolleret rursus absque peccato conspicietur ijs qui illum expectāt in salutē. Sic semper cum Domino erimus proinde consolemini vos inuicem mutuo sermonibus hijs. Oh Lord open mine eyes which see nothing of the great comforts in these thy most riche words, open mine eyes good Lord ne nunquā obdormiam in morte, Pray for me, and commend me to your good bedfellow, & omnibus in Christo fratribus osculo sancto. Thus I make an ende (for it is time you may say) and I pray you still watter sir Thomas Hal, unto whom I have sent a fair Testament both in English and Latin, if this bringer will carry it. And I have herewith sent you a letter which first peruse and read, and when you have so done, abhor not me but my wickedness, & pray for me. And as you can see a meet time, seal it, and deliver it to Sir Nicholas Wolston • ros by such policy as you can think by God's grace through prayer. I confess unto you, God is my witness, to my knowledge, I never in my being in the country this Winter at any time called it to remembrance, the Lord forgive me. I would by some occasion if any could be had, afore the delivery of the letter by some story or communication that he did know, that abomination to be sin, for I fear me he thinketh it to be no sin. The Lord open our eyes and forgive us, Amen. The peace of God be with you, Amen.

Another letter of Master Bradford, to father Traues.

Gratia misericordia, & pax, &c.

MY chance is not by this bringer to have any warning in manner of his farewell, so that I am constrained time coarcting me, to write not so much of things (which I will omit) as my desire was. Concernyng the great matter you know of, it hath pleased god to bring it to this end, that I have a bill of my M. hand, wherein he is bound to pay the sum afore Candlemas next coming. This thinks M. Latimer to be sufficient. Therefore I pray you to give that gracious Lord thanks, and thanks, & thanks upon it for me a most wretched ingrate sinner, which have also in other things no less cause to praise God's name, As for that I have and sustain my M. sore displeasure, the which hath brough me (God I should say through it) unto a more contempt of worldly things, through the sequestration of such his business, as tofore I had ado withal. I call it a contempt, well, take the word even as it is, hypocritically and vain gloriously spoken: for the which fault amongst my others innumerable, I trust you remember in your prayers, whereof I have (I would I knew) how much need. There is yet another thing whereof I will advertise you even to this ende, that you might pray if it be God's will, that as I trust shortly to begin, so he may vouchsafe to confirm that he hath begun, as (if I be not deceived) I believe it is his working. If the thing seem by God's sprite in you that I presume, then for the Lord's sake advertise me: for I am much given to that disease, the Lord deliver me. I have moved my M. therein already by letters, to see if I shall have any living of him as hitherto I have had, but I have thereof no answer, nor as our natural speech is any likelihood of any grant. Yet that I have already I trust, be able for me for 3. years, you look what my purpose meaneth, I am so long afore I come to it. Therefore I do it, because my long bablyng should be less tedious. Now shall you have it. If God's will be (whereunto pray I may be obedient) I am minded afore Midsomer to leave London to go to my book at Cambridge, and if God shall give me grace, to be a minister of his word. Thus you have of a • lie an Elephant. Well, take it in good part though you see my etiam non, and not etiam, etiam. A tumblyng stone gathereth no moss, so therefore pray for me. Perchaunce I do foolishly to forsake so good a living as I have. I will say no more hereof, but pray for me. I trust as I said, for three years study, I have sufficient, if my Master take all from me: and when this is spent, God will send more. I do not write this that you should think me to be in need of worldly help. And therefore as Friers were wont secretly to beg. No in y ^e Lord's name I require you not to take it so: for I had rather never send letter, afore I should be herein a cross to you, for sufficit sua diei afflictio, we are more set by then many sparowes. But if my Mother, or Sir Thomas Hall murmur at it, or be offended with me, as you can, remedy it with your counsel. Howbeit, as yet I will not write to them of it, until such time as I be going. I am something fickle minded and unconstant, therefore pray for me, that my hand being put to the plough (presumptuously spoken) I look not back. You may gather by my words in this letter the Herodicall heart which lieth in me.

I have sent you a book of Bucer against Winchester in English, lately translated, which I never red, therefore I cannot praise it. And as I call to remembrance, I did send you with the other books moe then you received, at the least one of them I remember, which is called, The Common places or the Declaration of the faith by Urbanus Rhegius. Ask for it, or send me word in whom the default is, you have it not. Hereafter, and that shortly by God grace, I will send you primitiae laborum meorum, a work or two which I have translated into English, so soon as they be printed, which will be afore Whitsuntide. Pray for me good father Traues, and God send you health of soul and body, as I would mine own or any man's living. But yet to warn you of that you know not in writing your letters to me, you hit me home, and give me that I look for. You are deceived and so is all that knoweth me, I never came to any point of mortification, therefore a little ticklyng sets me a flote, God help me, and give God thanks for me, as all men be most bounden. Thus when Jones begin to write to you, I run as the Priest saith Mattins, for I think I may be bold on you. The holy Ghost preserve you, your wife and family, and persevere his grace in you unto the ende. I pray you pray for me a most (what should I call me) miserable and blasphemous sinner. The peace of God be with us. From the Temple this xii. of May, 1548.

Sir Thomas Hall hath deceived me, but himself most. I desire to speak with him, as this Winter it may chance if I discharge not myself of mine office to see him. Pray for him and for me.

An other letter of Master Bradford, to father Traues.

THe perseverance of God's grace, with the knowledge of his good will, increase with you unto the ende. To declare myself as I am a carnal man which understandeth not the things that be of the spirit. These my letters though I counterfeit and meddle amongst them the spiritual words as the Devil did in his temptations to Christ, will declare no less. For I begin with carnal things in effect, and no marvel if I so ende, for how can a man gather figs of briars. These words as they seem so they are spoken for a cloke to make you think otherwise, but father Traues you cannot think so evil of me, as I am to the matter. This present day by God's grace, I take my journey towards Cambridge, where I pray God, and so earnestly pray you to pray for me, that I may circumspectly redeem this time which God hath appointed (to me unknown) to lend me: for alas, I have spent most wickedly the time past, for the which I must account even for every hair breadth as they say: for God hath not given here time to sine. But if I considered this as I do nothing less, custom of sin and pleasing myself hath so hardened my heart) I should then come to the feeling of myself, then should I hate sin which I now love, then should I fear God's wrath, which I now contemn, thē should I cry out and weep, and continually pray, as now I am as dry as a stone, as dumb as a nail, as far from p • aying, as he that never knew any taste of it. Which thing once I felt (thanks to the Lord) but now for mine unthankfulness I am almost (but most worthily) deprived. I fear me God will take his grace from me I am so unthankfull. Alas, why do I lie in saying I fear me, nay God grant I may do so, for then should I pray and pray, but seeing I cannot, speak you for me, pray for me, that the Lord would remember his old compassions towards me, for his mercies sake draw me, ye compel me to serve, to fear, and to love him. Thus may you see how I presume, for mine intent was to have been a Minister of God's word, to have been his instrument to cal from, as I have called to sin, but you see how that God punisheth mine arrogancy. Alas, what shall I do. I am an unprofitable and an idle member, I thought I should have been therein profitable, but medice cura teipsum. How should I, or what should I do? I cannot labor with my hands. Well, I trust God will give me grace and knowledge to translate nothing I fear me, yea, I distrust me that I shall never be minister of God's word, yea, if arrogancy were not in me, how should I of all wretches the greatest, think me to look to the highest room and vocation, that is upon earth. Therefore eftsoons I desire you to pray for me, that God's will may be done in me whether I live or die, so that his name be honored. My master which was, hath denied me all his benefisēce, but I have for this life more then enough thanks be to God. As this Winter I intend by God's favor to declare more unto you. This book which I have sent, take it in good part, it is the first, I trust it shall not be the last God hath appointed me to translate. The print is very false▪ I am sory for it. I pray you be not offended at my babbling in the Prologues, &c.

Another letter of Master Bradford, to father Traues.

THe loving kindness and abundant mercy of God the father, poured plentifully upon all the faithful, in the blood of that meek Lamb Jesus Christ our only satisfaction and mediator, thorough the working of the most holy spirit, be increased and perceived in you daily more and more, to the glory of God, &c.

Because I stand both in doubt of the reading and delivery of such letters as I write and send unto you (dearly beloved father Traues) I am constrained to leave of such griefs and spiritual wants, as thanks unto the Lord I unwillingly feel, for the flesh as you know, loveth nothing so much as security of all enemies most perilous, and not a little familiar with me, from the which, with vain glory, hypocrisy, &c. and worldliness, the Lord deliver me. I had not thought to have written thus much, but these I cannot keep, but commit them to your prayers. And to the intent I would you should not think any ingratitude in me, as also that I might give you occasion to write to me again, as heretofore I have done, even so do I enterturbe & trouble you w ^t my babbling, but yet having this commodity, that I babble not so much as I was wont to do. The cause I have declared, which had almost been the cause I had not written at all. I did write unto you from London when I came hither, send me word what letters you have received, for from you I have received but two, and both by John Mosse, and in the latter I perceived that the Lord had visited you with sickness, his fatherly rod, whereby he declareth his love upon you, and that he careth for you vt in tempore supremo exultes nunc ad breue tempus afflictus quo exploratio fidei multo praeciosior auro quod perit & tamen probatur, &c Siquidem in hoc vocatus es vt cum Christo patiaris nam & illo glorificabe • is. Certus enim sermo est si sufferimus & conregnabimus. You know that Christ etsi filius Dei erat tamen ex his quae pastus est didicit obedientiam. Patientia opus perfectum habeat vt sitis perfecti, & integri nulla{que} in parte diminuti, and doth not patientia come of probatio, the one then you had, so that you were going a school to learn the other, with learned what want you: the ende of all God's proving, is as Paul saith, vt impartiat nobis sanctimoniam: igitur gratias age Deo patri qui idoneum te fecit ad participationem sortis sanctorum in lumine, &c. Nam qui te parumper afflixit idem instauret te fulciet roboret stabiliat. And the Lord knoweth how eripere pios e testatione, and that in tempore oportuno even shortly, for haud tardat qui promisit nam modicum tempus & videbitis me veniens enim veniet non tardabit. Itaque qui consortes estis crucis Christi gaudete saith Peter, vt in reuelatione quoque gloriae eius gaudeatis exultantes. O how doth my will over run my wit. Why Bradford whom writest thou unto? Thou showest thyself. Thus father Traues you may see my rashness to rabble out the scriptures without purpose, ryme, or reason. I will not blot it out as I had thought to have done, for that hereby you shall see my need of your prayer. Well, I look for a watchword from you. Write for God's sake, and pray for me that I may be in something profitable to the Lord's congregation, that I may be no stumbling block, vt non confundantur in me qui illum expectant. Send me such counsel as the Lord's spirit shall move you, how to study. My desire is in something to be profitable if it were the Lord's will, for to be Minister verbi. Alas I am unmeet, and my time, my time, yea the Lord's time, I have hitherto evil, ye most wickedly misspent it, &c. Thus will I end. The Lord be with you, and your bedfellow, to whom have me heartily commended, & to all your children and family, the which I beseech the Lord to lighten his countenance over, and grant you his peace, pray for me. I long for Winter to speak with you. Rescribe ora. Pray for me.

Another letter of Master Bradford, to father Traues.

THe plentiful grace of God the father, through our only master and Lord Jesus Christ, increase in us daily to the glory of his name, Amen.

Forasmuch as I have often written to you good father Traues, and yet have not once heard from you sithens Pentecost. I cannot now be so bold either in writing much or often as I would have been: Howbeit, this I say, that I much marvel, that I hear not from you: but not so, for I am so wretched a sinner, that the Lord's spirit I am certain doth not move you to write to me, yet for God's sake pray for me, and in the Lord's name I desire you give thanks to God for me. And when it may please God to move you write to me, though it be but two words, and counsel me how to study the word of life, the ministry whereof, I desire if it be the Lord's pleasure to profess, and that I may do it both in living and learning, pray for me. Herus meus omnibus rebus suis me abdicauit & quae prius concesserat, iam soluere renuit, & mihi prorsus factus & inimicus. I know not when I shall see you in body, therefore let me hear from you. I write not this that you should think me in aegestate aut angustijs esse. No father, the Lord giveth me omnia affatim and will do. I trust I shall shortly here have a fellowship, I am so promised, and therefore I have taken the degree of master of Art, which else I could not have attained. If I get a fellowship, I shall not need de crastino sollicitum esse, as here after I shall more write to you by God's grace. I pray you write again, and often yray for me. In hast as appeareth, the 22. of October. Ne sciat mater mea quod herus meus adeo duriter mecum egit, &c.

Another letter of Master Bradford to father Traues.

THe peace and plenteous mercy of God our heavenly father, in his Christ our only Lord and Savior, be ever increased in you by the holy spirit, qui efficit omnia in omnibus, Amen.

Father Traues though I might think myself more happy, if you would often write unto me, yet because I ought to have respect to your pains, which now that old man cannot so well sustain as it might, I had rather loose my happiness in y ^t behalf, then will your grief, forasmuch as it can be no happiness unto me which turneth to your pain, yet because pain is not payneful when it is joined with gain, I therefore desire you for God's sake o pray often for me, for if I shall not be worthy of your prayer, as the Lord who knoweth all things doth right well see it, and so my conscience witnesseth, yet your good prayer shall return into your own bosom. And know this, that who so converteth a sinner by prayer, whether it be by prayer, preaching, or writing letters, &c. the same hath saved a soul. Use therefore, for God's sake I ask it, that pains whereunto is joined profit, I mean prayer to God for me a miserable and most wretched sinner, and as for the gaynelesse pain in writing to me, use it yet as you may, and surely God for whose sake you do it, in that he will reward a cup of cold water, will in something requite you. And I know certainly, that if you did see what spiritual profit I receive by your letters, I am certain you would not think all your labor lost. For Christ's sake therefore begin again to write unto me, and reprove me sharply for my horrible unthankfulness to GOD. You know how that God hath exonerated the loden conscience of the great weighty burden, for so I did write to you, yea the Lord hath in manner unburdened me of the lesser burden also: for I have an as • uraunce of the payment of the same by Candlemas. Loe thus you see what a good God the Lord is unto me. Oh father Traues give thanks for me, and pray God to forgive me my unthankfulness. But what should I rehearse the benefit of God towards me. Alas I cannot, I am to little for all his mercies, yea I am not only unthankful, but I am to far contumelious against God. For where you know the Son, the Moon, and the seven stars did forsake me, & would not shine upon me, you know what I mean per herum & heriles amicos, yet the Lord hath given me here in the University as good a living as I would have wished. For I am now a fellow of Pembroke hall, of the which I nor any other for me did ever make any suit: yea there was a contention betwixt the M. of Katherines hall, and the bishop of Rochester, who is M. of Pembroke hall, whether should have me, sit hoc tibi dictum. Thus you may see the Lord's carefulness for me. My fellowship here is worth 7. pound a yere, for I have allowed me 18. pence a week, and as good as xxxiij. shillings four pence a year in money, besides my Chamber, Launder, Barbour, &c. and I am bound to nothing but once or twice a year to keep a Problem. Thus you see what a good Lord, God is unto me. But I pray you what do I now to God for all this, I will not speak of the great mercies he showeth upon my soul. Surely father Traues I have cleave forgottē God, I am all secure, idle, proud, hard hearted, utterly void of brotherly love, I am envious and disdain others, I am a very stark hypocrite, not only in my words and works, but even in these my letters to you. I am all sensual without the true fear of God, another manner of man then I have been sithens my call. Alas father Traues I write this to put myself in remembrance, but I am without all sense, I do but only write it. For God's sake pray for me which am only in name a Christian, in very deed a very worldlyng, & to say to you the very truth, a most worldling of all other. I pray you exhort my mother now & then with my sister Margaret to fear the Lord, and if my mother had not sold the Fox furre which was in my fathers gown, I would she would send it me, she must have your counsel in a piece of cloth.

Another letter of M. Bradford to father Traues.

THe self same mercy, grace and peace, which heretofore I have felt plenteously, though now through mine unthankfulness & willful obedience, to the pleasure of this outward man, I neither feel, neither can be persuaded that I possess, yea if I shall truly write, I in manner pass not upon the same, so far am I fallen the Lord help me: the same mercy, &c. I say, I wish unto you as I can with all increase of godliness. Hipocritically with my pen and mouth, beseeching you in your earnest prayers to God to be an earnest suitor unto God for me with am fallen into such a security, & even an hardness of heart, that neither I sorrow my state, neither with any grief or fear of God's abjection do write this: before the Lord which knoweth the harts of all men I lie not. Consider for Christ's sake, therefore good father Traues, my necessity though I myself do it not, & pray for me, that God cast me not of as I deserve most justly. For where I ought to have well proceeded in God's school, by reason of the time, I confess it to my shame, I am so far gone back, as alas if shame were in me I might be ashamed to write it, but much more to write it, & to think it not, such is the reward of unthankfulness. For where God wrought the restitution of y ^e great thing you know of, the which benefit should bind me to all obedience. Alas father Traues I am to unthankful, I find no will in heart (though by my writing it will be hard to persuade you either to be thankful, either to begin a new life in all things to mortify this outward man, and heartily to be well content to serve the lord in spirit & verity, & withstand mine affections, & especially my beastly sensuality in meat & drink, wherewith I was troubled at my being with you, but now through my licentious obeying that affect, I am fallen so, that a whole legion of spirituum malorum possesseth me. The Lord whom I only with mouth (my heart still abiding both in hardness & willfulness) call upon, deliver me and help me. And for God's sake give you hearty thanks for the great benefit of restitution Pray to the Lord that at the length I may once return to the obedience of his good will, Amen. I thank you for your cheese, & so doth father Latimer as unknown, for I did give it him, & he saith he did never eat better cheese, and so I dare lay he did not. I thank him I am as familier with him, as with you, yea God so moveth him against me, that his desire is to have me come & dwell with him when so ever I will, and welcome. This do I write yet ones more to occasion you to be thankful for me to y ^t Lord, which by all means showeth nothing but most high love to me. And I again a very obstinate rebellion. Pray therefore for me in hast.

William Minge.

THe next day after M. Bradford & I. Leafe did suffer in Smithfield, Will. Minge priest died in prison, at Maid stone, being there in bonds for religion, & like to have suffered also, if he had continued the fury of his adversaries, whose nature was to spare & favor none that favored Christ's pure gospel: which W. Minge with as great constācy & boldness, yielded up his life in prison, as if it had pleased God to have called him to suffer by the fire, as the other good and godly men had done at the stake, and as he himself was ready also so to do, if it had pleased God to have called him thereunto.