Lustily therefore drink the cup which Christ giveth, and will give unto you, my good brethren and sisters; I mean prepare yourselves to suffer, whatsoever God will lay upon you, for the confessing of his holy name, If not because of these three things, that ye are not of the world; ye suffer not alone, your trouble shall not hurt you; yet for the commodities which come of the cross, I beseech you heartily to embrace it. The fight is but short, the joy is exceeding great. Oportet semper orare, we must pray alway. Then shall we, undoubtedly, be directed in all things by God's Holy Spirit, which Christ hath promised to be our doctor, teacher, and comforter, and therefore we need not to fear, what man or devil can do unto us, either by false teaching or cruel persecution; for our pastor is such a one, that none can take his sheep out of his hands. Thus much, my dear brethren and sisters in our dear Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, I thought good to write unto you for your comfort. From the which, if ye for fear of man, loss of goods, friends, or life, do swerve or depart, then ye depart and swerve from Christ; and so snarl yourselves in satan's sophistry, to your utter subversion. Therefore, as Saint Peter saith, watch and be sober, for as a roaring lion, he seeketh to devour you. Be strong in faith, that is, mammer not, nor waver not in God's promises, but believe certainly, that they pertain to you; that God is with you in trouble; that he will deliver you, and glorify you. But yet see that ye call upon him, specially, that ye enter not into temptation, as he taught his disciples, even at such time as he saw satan desire to sift them, as now he hath done to sift us. O, dear Saviour, prevent him now, as thou didst then, with thy prayer, I beseech thee; and grant that our faith faint not; but strengthen us to confirm the weak, that they deny not thee and thy Gospel; that they return not to their vomit, stumbling on those sins from the which there is no recovery; causing thee to deny them before thy Father; making their latter end worse than the beginning; as it chanced to Lot's wife, Judas Iscariot, Francis Spira, and to many others. But rather strengthen them and us all in thy grace, and in those things which thy word teacheth, that we may here hazard our life for thy sake, and so shall • Intangle.-Bailey. we be sure to save it; as if we seek to save it, we cannot but lose it; and that being lost, what profit can we have, if we win the whole world? Oh, set thou always before our eyes, not as reason doth, this life, the pleasure of the same, death of the body, and imprisonment, &c.; but everlasting life, and those unspeakable joys which undoubtedly they shall have, who take up the cross and follow thee; and eternal hell fire and destruction of soul and body for evermore, which they must needs at length fall into; who are afraid for the hoar frost of adversity, that man or the devil stirreth up, to stop or hinder us for going forward in our journey to heaven's bliss, to the which do thou bring us, for thy name's sake, Amen. Your own in the Lord, JOHN BRADFORD. THE following eulogium upon King Edward VI., for whom all the reformers deservedly entertained the most affectionate regard, is, perhaps, not inferior to any of Bradford's other productions." You all know, he was but a child in years; defiled he was not with notorious offences; defiled, quoth he! nay, rather adorned, with so many goodly gifts, and wonderful qualities, as never prince was, from the beginning of the world; should I speak of his wisdom, of his ripeness in judgment, of his learning, of his godly zeal, heroical heart, fatherly care for his commons, nurse-like solicitude for religion, &c.* *This is well evidenced by that monarch's dying prayer, as taken from his lips almost in extremis,-"Lord God, deliver me out of this wretched and miserable life, and take me among thy chosen. Howbeit, Nay, so many things are to be spoken, in the commendation of God's exceeding graces in this child, that, as Sallust writeth of Carthage, I had rather speak nothing, than too little, in that too much is too little. This gift God gave unto us Englishmen, before all nations, under the sun; and that of his exceeding love towards us. But alas and wellaway, for our unthankfulness' sake, for our carnality, and profane living; God's anger hath touched, not only the body, but also the mind of our King, by a long sickness, and at length hath taken him away, by death, death, cruel death, fearful death."* The whole may be properly concluded by the following lines, by an unknown author, from an original MS. never before published. not my will, but thine be done. Lord, I commit my spirit to thee. O Lord, thou knowest how happy it were for me to be with thee; yet for thy chosen's sake, send me life and health that I may truly serve thee. Oh, my Lord God, bless my people, and save their inheritance. O Lord God, save thy chosen people of England. O Lord God, defend this realm from Papistry, and maintain thy true religion, that I and my people may praise thy holy name, for Jesus Christ his sake.”—Prayer apud finem King Edward VI.'s own arguments. (London 1682.)—See also the remains of this ever-to-be-lamented monarch; and the learned Cardan's encomium upon him, in Burnet's Hist. Reform. vol. ii. pt. i. 3. and pt. ii. 124. * Bradford's epistle, prefixed to his sermon on repentance, preached six days after Edward's decease. IN OBITU BRADFORDI.* Plangite Bradfordum, lachrymis nec parcite vestris, Ejus despiciens quicquid amore grave est. Qui leges torquent ad sua vota, mali. *MS. Harl. Mus. Brit. No. 416. Fol. 38. + Dummodo vera fuit. Promittuntque. The words here erased are not intelligible. § Velox. Dicendi veniam suprema morte negastis, Ast vulgus signis credidit omne datis. Sponte tenens flammam, lux mea dixit, ave. Sed populi gemitus imo de pectore ducunt, * Queis. + Iuvenis cognomine Lefus. This refers to a pious apprentice of the name of John Leafe, who was burned at the same time with Bradford.-Acts and Mon. iii. 306. |