we were in religion, and therefore cannot subscribe, except we will dissemble both with God, ourselves, and the world.

Hæc tibi scribo, frater mi charissime in Domino, Iam legam tuam epistolam. Ah, brother, that I had practicam tecum scientiam in vite illa quam pingis; roga Dominum ut ita veré sentiam, Amen. God make me thankful for you. Salutant te omnes concaptivi, et gratias Domino pro te agunt; idem tu facias pro nobis, et ores ut, &c. Your Brother, in the Lord Jesus, to live and die with you, JOHN BRADFORD.

No. 38.*

TO MASTER LAWRENCE SAUNDERS.

My good brother, I beseech our good God and gracious Father, always to continue his gracious favour and love towards us, and by us, as by instruments of his grace, to work his glory, and confusion of his adversaries. Ex ore infantium et lactentium, fundet laudem ad destruendum inimicum, &c. Amen.

I have perused your letters to myself and have read them to others. For answer whereof, if I should write what Dr. Taylor and Master Philpot do think, then must I say, that they think the salt sent unto us by your friend‡ is unseasonable. And indeed I think they both will declare it heartily, if they should come before them.

As for me, if you would know what I think, my good-and most dear brother Laurence, because I am so sinful and so polluted,† the Lord knoweth I lie not, with many grievous sins, which yet I hope are washed away sanguine Christi nostri, I neither can nor would be consulted withal, but as a cipher in agrime. Howbeit to tell you how and what I mind, take this for a sum; I pray God in no case I may seek myself. And, indeed, I thank God therefore, I purpose it

This friend moved him to subscribe to the papists' articles with this condition, so far as they were not against God's word, being indeed clean contrary to it; and yet shortly after he valiantly suffered death, for refusing the same.-Cov. 321. Fox 320.

not. Quod reliquum est Domino Deo meo committo, et spero in illum, quod ipse faciet juxta hoc: jacta in Dominum curam, &c. Omnis cura vestra conjecta sit in illum, &c. Revela Domino viam tuam, et spera, &c. Sperantem in Domino misericordia circumdabit.

I did not, nor do not know, but by your letters, quod cras, we shall come, coram nobis. Mine own heart, stick still to dabitur vobis: fidelis enim est Dominus, dabit in tentatione eventum quo possumus sufferre. Novit Dominus pios e tentatione eripere, &c. O utinam pius ego essem. Novit Dominus in die tribulationis sperantes in se, &c.— Nahum i.

I cannot think that they will offer any kind of indifferent, or mean conditions; for if we will not adorare bestiam, we never shall be delivered, but against their will, think I. God our Father and gracious Lord, make perfect the good he hath begun in us. Faciet mi frater, charissime frater, quem in intimis visceribus habeo ad convivendum et commoriendum. O si tecum essem. Pray for me mine own heartroot in the Lord.

For ever your own,

JOHN BRADFORD.

No. 39.*

TO THE WORSHIPFUL SIR WILLIAM FITZ

WILLIAMS,+

Then being Knight Marshal of the King's Bench.

The peace of God proper to his people, the Holy Ghost work daily and deeply in your heart, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

I thank my Lord and God, through his Son our Mediator and Saviour, for his mercies and graces given to your mastership, the

Cov. 386.

+ He was a good man, and a lover of the gospel.-Strype, Eccl. Mem. vol. iii. pt. 1. 224.

R

which I beseech his goodness to increase in you continually, to your everlasting comfort in him. By his mercies towards you, I mean not in your lands, possessions, offices, natural wisdom, rights, health, form, &c. which indeed be gifts of God given to you of his mercy without your deserts, and therefore should He be daily of you praised for the same, as I doubt not but he is; for else your ingratitude would provoke him to punish you in them and by them, if he love you. But I mean his mercies towards you, in the knowledge and love of his truth in religion.

The which benefit in that you, amongst the not many of your estate and condition, as St. Paul witnesseth, have received as a very testimonial of your election in Christ, I would be sorry that you should need any such as I am, to move you to thankfulness; for I am not in a mammering whether you be thankful to God for this great mercy, which is much more to be esteemed than all that ever you have; I humbly beseech God in his Christ, to increase the same in you to the very end. And that by me he might do the same in some part, I thought it good and also my bounden duty, deeply deserved on your behalf towards me, for the which I beseech the Lord to reward you, to send to you this treatise of the doings of Master Ridley at Oxford, concerning his disputation about the sacrament. I know that there have gone divers copies abroad, but none of them were, as I know this is; for I have translated it out of that copy in Latin which was corrected with his own hand, which came unto me not without his own consent, and therefore dare I be bold to say, that this hath not before been seen on this sort.

In reading whereof you shall well see this I speak to be most true; and also that which causeth me to suppress commendations of the thing, the excellency and worthiness thereof I mean, because I think I cannot speak any thing so worthily, as undoubtedly these his doings do deserve. Unto your Mastership I send them as a token of my duty towards you, thereby to declare, that as you deserve much of me, so I would shew myself willing to recompense the same if I could; but in that I cannot, and also your doing it simply in respect of God and his cause, I will according to your expectation leave the

This treatise is given by Fox at full length, vol. iii. 61.

recompense unto him, in the mean season praying him that of his goodness he would, as encrease the knowledge and love of his truth in you, so strengthen you after your vocation, both purely to walk and manfully to confess his gospel, if he shall think it needful to call you to that honour, for surely of all honours it is the greatest to suffer any thing for Christ's sake.

Most happy may that man think himself that hath any thing for his cause to lose. As he shall be sure to find for his own part eternal felicity and honour endless; so shall his posterity, even temporally, prove this to be most true.' For God's sake therefore, right worshipful Sir, consider well this gear, and weigh it not as the world and your mother-wit will move you to do, but as the word of God doth teach you; there shall you see this I speak of, to be matter of much mirth, joy, and glory, though to the world it seem clean contrary. God's good spirit always guide you to his glory, and give you the spirit of prayer, continually to pray that God never further tempt you, than he will make you able to bear, Amen.

In that this copy is not so fair written as I wish and would have had it, I shall desire you to consider where I am, and how I cannot have things so done as I would, and therefore you have it as may be, when it may not be as I would it were and should be. From the King's Bench.

Your humble,

JOHN BRADFORDE.

No. 40.*

TO MRS. M. H.

A godly gentlewoman, comforting 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 everliving good God and father of mercy, to bless and keep your heart and mind in the knowledge

Fox iii. 327. Cov. 296.

and love of his truth, and of his Christ, through the inspiration and working of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

and go

forwards

Although I have no doubt, but that you prosper 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 end; I could not but write something unto you, beseeching 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 death's sake. This love and tender kindness of God towards us in Christ is abundantly herein declared, in that he hath to the 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 sparkles of his fear, faith, love, and knowledge of his Christ and truth; and therefore we lament, because we lament no more our unthankfulness, our failings, 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, and 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 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 truth, and not in respect of us, for then were grace no grace. In consideration whereof, when he saith, Thou shalt have none other Gods 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, than to make us more in love, and more certain of this his covenant, that he is our Lord and God. In certainty whereof, as he hath given this whole world to serve to our need and commodity, so hath