more need of God's merciful tidings, than I ever had heretofore. Oh, that satan envieth us so greatly. Oh, that our Lord would tread his head under our feet shortly. Oh, that I might for ever, both myself beware, and be a godly example to you and others, to beware of unthankfulness.

Good brother Careless, we had more need to take heed after a lightning, of a foil than before. God therefore is to be praised, even when he hideth, and that of long, a cheerful countenance from us; lest we being not expert how to use it as we should do, do hurt more ourselves thereby; so great is our ignorance and corruption. This my good brother, and 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 feel ourselves united unto him in Christ, so by love we may feel ourselves 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.

Commend me unto your good brother Skelthrop, for whom I heartily praise my God, who 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 heedy in all his conversation, that his old acquaintance may even thereby think themselves astray. Woe and woe again should be unto us, if we by our example should make men to stumble at the truth. Forget not salutations in Christ, as you shall think good, to Trew, and his fellows. The Lord hath his time, I hope, for them also, although we perchance think otherwise.* A drop maketh a stone hollow, 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.

Your brother,

JOHN BRADFORD.

We have here another evidence of the kind and anxious feeling, our martyr entertained for those, who differed from him upon points which he considered of great importance. See Appendix, Note (M.)

No. 99.*

TO THE SAME.

ALMIGHTY God, our dear Father, through and for the merits of his dearly beloved Son Jesus Christ, be merciful unto us, pardon us our offences, and under the wings of his mercy, protect us from all evil, from henceforth and for ever, Amen.

Dear brother Careless, I heartily pray you, to pray to God for me, for the pardon of my manifold sins, and most grievous offences, which need none other demonstration unto you than this, viz. that I have behaved myself so negligently in answering your godly triple letters, which are three witnesses against me. God lay not them, nor any other thing to my charge, to condemnation; though to correction, not my will, but his will be done.

Concerning your request of absolution, my dearest brother, what shall I say, but even as truth is, that the Lord of all mercy, and Father of all comfort; through the merits and mediation of his dear Son, thy only Lord and Saviour, hath clearly remitted and pardoned all thy offences, whatsoever they be, that ever hitherto thou hast committed against HIS majesty; and therefore he hath given to thee, as to his child, dear brother John Careless, in token that thy sins are pardoned; HE, I say, hath given unto thee, a penitent and believing heart, that is, a heart which desireth to repent and believe; for such a one is taken of him, he accepting the will for the deed, for a penitent and believing heart indeed.

Wherefore, my good brother, be merry, glad, and of good cheer, for the Lord hath taken away thy sins; thou shalt not die. Go thy ways; the Lord hath put away thy sins. The east is not so far from the west, as the Lord hath now put thy sins from thee. Look how high the heavens be in comparison of the earth, so far hath his mercy prevailed towards thee his dear child, John Careless, through Christ the beloved. Say therefore with David, Praise the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me praise his holy

* Fox iii. 718.

name; for he hath forgiven thee all thy sins; as truly he hath. And hereof I desire to be a witness. God make me worthy to hear from you the like true message for myself.

Mine own dearly beloved, you have great cause to thank God most heartily, that he hath given you such repentance and faith; the Lord increase the same in you and me, a most miserable wretch, whose heart is harder than the adamant stone, or else I could not thus long have stayed from writing unto you. If I live and may, I purpose and promise you to make amends. dear brother, I heartily beseech you, and forgive me my long silence. God our Father, be with us for ever, Amen.*

Pray for me, my most

Yours in the Lord,

JOHN BRADFORD.

No. 100.+

To his dear Brother in the Lord, M. RICHARD HOPKINS, and his Wife, dwelling in Coventry, and other his faithful Brethren and Sisters, Professors of God's Holy Gospel, there and thereabouts.

THE peace which Christ left to his Church, and to every true member of the same, the Holy Spirit, the guide of God's children; so engraft in your heart, and in the heart of your good wife, and of all my good brethren and sisters about you; that unfeignedly ye may in respect thereof, contemn all worldly peace, which is contrary to that peace that I speak of; and driveth it utterly out of the hearts of all those, who would patch them both together. For we cannot serve two masters; no man can serve God and mammon; Christ's peace cannot be kept with this world's peace. God therefore of his mercy do I beseech, to give unto you his peace, which passeth all

This is the same letter, which Dr. Gilbert Ironside published as an original, at the end of Bishop Ridley's disputation, &c.

understanding; and so keep your hearts and minds, that they may be pure habitations and mansions for the Holy Spirit, yea for the blessed Trinity, who hath promised to come and dwell in all them that love Christ, and keep his sayings.

My dearly beloved, the time is now come wherein trial is made of men that have professed to love Christ, and would have been counted keepers of his testimonies. But weal away, the tenth person persevereth not; the more part do part stakes with the papists and protestants, so that they are become mangy mongrels, to the infecting of all who company with them, and to their no small peril. For they pretend outwardly popery, going to mass with the papists, and tarrying with them personally at their antichristian and idolatrous service, but with their hearts, say they, and with their spirits they serve the Lord. And by this means, as they save their pigs, I mean their worldly pelf; so they would please the protestants, and be counted with them for gospellers, yea marry would they.

But, mine own beloved in the Lord, flee from such persons, as from men most perilous and pernicious, both before God and man ;

Could it have been believed that British statesmen would ever be found, who would cashier and persecute to ruin, exemplary British officers, for conscientiously refusing to defile themselves with this antichristian idolatry? No wonder that a government adopting such conduct has been overturned with disgrace; and may all the abettors of such principles share their justly merited fate. No better indeed could be expected from those, who during the whole of the Peninsular war, without scruple attended mass themselves; but how was it that not a single protestant bishop, not a single protestant peer, even of those who were so justly and meritoriously opposed to that inefficient, inexpedient, delusive and ruinous measure, the infamous Relief Bill, as it has been falsely called. Nay not even Lord Eldon, though a member of the cabinet at the time, did not attempt to throw a shield over those persecuted and meritorious officers! We scarcely need add we allude to the case of Capt. Atcheson. And yet these are the men who, after having overthrown the palladium of the Constitution, by conceding political power to the papists; in order to defeat a great public question, or more correctly to repossess themselves of their places, and reinstate their friends in the hereditary monopoly of places and pensions; now dare to cry out, the Church, the Church, the Protestant Church is in danger!— and these are the men too, with whom certain other individuals, who ought to know better, think it right to tamper and enter into a most unhallowed association.

+ See Atcheson's Petition to the late King, and Correspondence with the Duke of Wellington.-London, 1829.

.

for they are false to both, and true to neither. To the magistrates they are false, pretending one thing and meaning clean contrary. To God they are most untrue, giving him but a piece, who should have the whole. I would they would tell me, who made their bodies? Did not God, as well as their spirits and souls? And who keepeth both? Doth not he still? And alas, shall not he have the service of the body, but it must be given to serve the new-found God, of antichrist's invention? Did not Christ buy both our souls and bodies? And wherewith? With any less price than with his precious blood? Ah, wretches then that we be, if we will defile either part, with the rose-coloured whore of Babylon's filthy mass abomination. It had been better for us never to have been washed, than so to wallow ourselves in the filthy puddle of popery. It had been better never to have known the truth, than thus to betray it. Surely, surely, let such men fear that their latter end be not worse than the beginning. Their own consciences now accuse them before God, if so be they have any conscience, that they are but dissemblers and hypocrites to God and man. For all the cloaks they make, they cannot avoid this, but that their going to church and to mass, is of self-love; that is, they go thither because they would avoid the cross. They go thither because they would be out of trouble. They seek neither the Queen's Highness, nor her laws, which in this point cannot bind the conscience to obey, because they are contrary to God's laws, which often bid us to flee idolatry, and worshipping him after men's devices. They seek neither, I say, the laws, if there were any, neither their brethren's commodity; for none cometh thereby, neither godliness or good example, for there can be none found in going to mass, &c., but horrible offences and woe to them that give them; but they seek their own selves, their own ease, their escaping the cross, &c. When they have made all the excuses they can, their own consciences will accuse them of this, that their going to church is only because they seek themselves. For if there would no trouble ensue for tarrying away, I appeal to their consciences, would they come thither? Never, I dare say.

Therefore, as I said, they seek themselves, they would not carry the cross. And hereof their own consciences, if they have any do accuse them. Now if their consciences accuse them at this pre