Letter 11. To my dear fathers, D. Cranmer, D. Ridley, D. Latimer, prisoners in Oxford for the testimony of the Lord Jesus and his holy gospel
May Almighty God our heavenly Father more and more kindle our hearts and affections with his love, that our greatest cross may be to be absent from him and strangers from our home, and that we may godly contend more and more to please him. Amen.
As I have always had great cause to praise our dear Father through Christ; so I think I have more and more, in seeing it is more likely that the end of my life which is due for my sin, will be through the exceeding grace of Christ a testimony of God's truth. Thus the Lord deals not with everybody: not that everybody has not deserved more at God's hands than I who have deserved more vengeance than any other, I know, of my time and state, but that by me I hope the Lord will make the riches of his grace to his glory, to be seen more excellent. Therefore I humbly beseech you all, my most dear fathers in God, with me to give thanks for me, and as you do, still to pray for me that the Lord, as for his love's sake in Christ he has begun his good work in me, even so of and for the same his love's sake in Christ he would make it perfect; and make me to continue to the end, as I hope he will, for his mercy and truth endures for ever. As for your parts, since it is commonly thought your staff stands next to the door, you have the more cause to rejoice and be glad, as they which shall come to your fellows under the altar, (Rev. vi.,) to the which society may God bring me also with you, in his mercy, when it shall be his good pleasure. I have received many good things from you me good lord, master, and dear father, N. Ridley, fruits I mean of your godly labours. All which I send unto you again by this bringer: one thing except, which he can tell, I do keep for your further pleasure to be known therein. And herewith I send unto you a little treatise which I have made, that you might peruse the same, and not only you, but also you my other most dear and reverend fathers in the Lord for ever, to give to it your approbation as you may think good. All the prisoners hereabouts in manner have seen it and read it; and therein they agree with me, nay rather with the truth: as they are ready and will be to signify it as they shall see you give them example. The matter may be thought not so necessary as I seem to make it; but yet if you knew the great evil that is likely hereafter to come to posterity by these men, as partly this bringer can signify unto you; surely then could you not but be most willing to put your helping hands hereto. The which that I might more occasion you to perceive, I have sent you a writing of Harry Harte's (this was the chief maintainer of man's free will, and enemy to God's free grace; Letters of the Martyrs) own hand, whereby you may see how Christ's glory and grace is likely to lose much light if your sheep be not something helped by them which love God, and are able to prove that all good is to be attributed only and wholly to God's grace and mercy in Christ without respect of other worthiness than Christ's merits. The effects of salvation they so mingle and confound with the cause, that if it is not seen to, more hurt will come by them than ever came by the papists, inasmuch as their life commends them to the world more than the papists. God is my witness that I write not this, but because I desire Gods glory and the good of his people. In free will they are plain papists, yea Pelagians, and you know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump. They utterly contemn all learning (this is well known to any who have had to do with them in disputations, or otherwise, for they have utterly rejected and despised the writings and authority of the learned; Letters of the Martyrs). But hereof the bearer will show you more. I complain of it to you as the chief captains of Christ's church here. And truly I must complain of you even unto God in the last day if you will not, as far as you can, help that the truth of doctrine may remain among those that come after, in this point, as you have done respecting the matters expunged by the papists (upon this occasion, M Ridley wrote a learned and godly treatise upon God's election and predestination; Letters of the Martyrs). May God for his mercy in Christ guide you, my most dearly beloved fathers, with his Holy Spirit here and in all other things, as may most tend to his glory and the advantage of the church. Amen.
All here, God be praised for it, prepare themselves willingly to pledge our captain Christ, when he will and how he will. By your good prayers we shall all fare the better, and therefore we all pray you to continue to cry to God for us as we, God willing, do and will remember you. My brethren here with me have thought it their duty to signify that this need is not less than I make it, to prevent the plantations which may take root by these men.
Yours, in the Lord, John Bradford.
Robert Ferrar, Rowland Taylor, John Philpot.
Letter 12. To my dear fathers, D. Cranmer, D. Ridley, and D. Latimer
Jesus Emmanuel. My dear fathers in the Lord, I beseech God our sweet Father, through Christ, to make perfect the good he has begun in us all. Amen.
I had thought that all your staves had stood next the door, but now it is otherwise perceived. Our dear brother Rogers has broken the ice valiantly; and as this day, I think, or tomorrow at the uttermost, hearty Hooper, sincere Saunders, and trusty Taylor, end their course, and receive their crown. The next am I, which hourly look for the porter to open for me the gates after them, to enter into the desired rest. God forgive me mine unthankfulness for this exceeding great mercy, that amongst so many thousands it pleases his mercy to choose me to be one in whom he will suffer. For although it is most true that I justly suffer, for I have been a great hypocrite, and a grievous sinnerothe Lord pardon me! yea, he has done it; he has done it indeed; yet, what evil has he done? Christ, whom the prelates persecute; his verity, which they hate in me, has done no evil, nor deserves death. Therefore ought I most heartily to rejoice of this dignation (being accounted worthy; this is a singular mercy of God to have death, which is a punishment due for sin, turned into a demonstration and testimony of the Lords truth; Letters of the Martyrs), and tender kindness of the Lord towards me, which uses this remedy for my sin, as a testimonial of his testament; to his glory, to my everlasting comfort, to the edifying of his church, and to the overthrowing of antichrist and his kingdom. Oh, what am I, Lord! that thou shouldest thus magnify me, so vile a man and miserable as I always have been? Is this thy wont, to send for such a wretch, and a hypocrite, as I have been, in a fiery chariot, as thou did for Elias? Oh, dear fathers! be thankful for me, and pray for me, that I still may be found worthy in whom the Lord would sanctify his holy name. And for your part, make you ready: for we are but your gentlemen-ushers. The marriage of the Lamb is prepared; come unto the marriage. I now go to leave my flesh there, where I received it. I shall be conveyed thither, as Ignatius was to Rome, by wild beasts (he means that he should be conveyed by the Queen's guard into Lancashire, to be burned as the adversaries had once determined; like as Ignatius was conveyed to Rome by a company of soldiers and cast to the wild beasts; Letters of the Martyrs), by whose evil I hope to be made better; God grant what I ask, if it be his will, it may make them better by me. Amen.
For my farewell, therefore, I write and send this unto you, trusting shortly to see you, where we shall never be separated; in the mean season, I will not cease, as I have done, to commend you to our Father in heaven, and I must heartily pray every one of you, that you would so do by me; you know now I have most need; but faithful is God, which will not suffer us to be tempted above our strength. He never did it hitherto, nor now, and I am assured he never will. Amen. He is on my right hand, therefore I shall not fall. Wherefore my heart shall rejoice; for he shall not leave my soul in hell, neither shall suffer me, his holy one, by his grace in Christ, to see corruption. Out of prison, in haste, looking for the tormentor. The 8th of February, 1555.
John Bradford.
Letter 13. To the Right Honourable Lord Russell, (afterwards Earl of Bedford), being then in trouble for the verity of God's gospel.
The everlasting and most gracious God and Father of our Saviour Jesus Christ, bless your good Lordship with all manner of heavenly blessings, in the same Christ, our only comfort and hope. Amen.
Praised be God our Father, which has vouched you worthy, of faith in his Christ, and of his cross for the same. Magnified be his holy name, who, as he has delivered you from one cross, so he has made you willing, I trust, and ready, to bear another, when he shall see it his time to lay it upon you; for these are the most singular gifts of God, given to few, and to none else but to those few which are most dear in his sight. Faith is reckoned, and worthily, amongst the greatest gifts of God; yea, it is itself the greatest that we may enjoy; for by it, as we are justified, and made God's children, so are we temples and possessors of the Holy Spirit; yea, of Christ also, Eph. 4. and of the Father himself, John, 14: by faith we drive the devil away, l Peter 5; we overcome the world, l John 5; and are already citizens of heaven, and fellows with God's dear saints. But who is able to reckon the riches that this favour brings with her, unto the soul she sits upon? No man or angel. And therefore, as I said, of all God's gifts she may be set at the top, and have the upmost seat. Which if men considered, that she comes alone from God's own mercy-seat by the hearing, not of mass, matins, diriges, or such dross, but of the word of God, in such a tongue as we can and do understand, they would be diligent, and take great heed for doing or seeing any thing which might cast her down, for then they fall also. And they would, with no less care, read and hear God's holy word, joining thereto most earnest and frequent prayer, as well for the more and better understanding, as for the loving, living, and confessing of the same, in spite of the head of the devil, the world, our flesh, reason, goods, possessions, carnal friends, wife, children, and very life, here; though they should pull us back to hearken to their voice and counsel for more quiet sure and longer use of them.
Now, notwithstanding this excellency of faith, since we find the apostle to match therewith, yea, as it were, to prefer suffering persecution for Christ's sake, I think no man will be so foolish as to think otherwise, but that I and all God's children have cause to glorify and praise God, which has vouched you worthy so great a blessing. For though the reason or wisdom of the world think of the cross according to their reach, and according to their present sense, and therefore fly from it, as from a most grievous ignominy and shame; yet God's scholars have learned otherwise to think of the cross, that it is the frame-house in which God frames his children like to his Son Christ; the furnace that fines God's gold; the highway to heaven; the suit and livery (allowances given to servants, editor) that God's servants are served withal; the earnest and beginning of all consolation and glory; for they, I mean God's scholars, as your lord-ship I trust is, enter into God's sanctuary lest their feet slip. They look not, as beasts do, on things present only, but on things to come, and so they have present to faith, the judgment and glorious coming of Christ Jesus; as the wicked now have their worldly wealth, wherein they wallow, and will wallow till they tumble headlong into hell, where are torments terrible and endless. Now they follow the fiend, as the bear does the train of honey, and the sow the swillings, till they are brought into the slaughter-house, and they know that their prosperity has brought them to perdition. Then cry they, "woe, woe! we went the wrong way; we counted these men (I mean such as you are, that for God's sake suffer loss of goods, friends, and life, whom they shall see endued with rich robes of righteousness, crowns of most pure precious gold, and palms of conquest in the goodly glorious palace of the Lamb, where is eternal joy. felicity, &c.); we counted, will they then say, these men but fools and madmen. We took their condition to be but curiosity, but then will it be too late; then the times will be turned, laughing shall be turned into weeping, and weeping into rejoicing." Read Wisdom, ii. iii. iv. v.
Therefore, as I have said before, I have great cause to thank God, which has vouched you worthy of this most bountiful blessing: much more then you have cause, my good Lord, so to be, I mean thankful; for look upon your vocation: I pray you tell me how many noblemen, earls' sons, lords, knights, and men of estimation, has God in this realm of England dealt thus withal? I dare say you think not that you have deserved this. Only God's mercy in his Christ has wrought this in you, as he did in Jeremiah's time, on Ebedmelech; in Ahab's time, on Obadiah; in Christ's time, on Joseph of Arimathea; in the apostles' time, on Sergius Paulus, and the Queen Candace's chamberlain. Only now be thankful and continue; continue, my good Lord, continue to confess Christ. Be not ashamed of him before men, for then he will not be ashamed of you. Now will he try you; stick fast unto him, and he will stick fast by you; he will be with you in trouble, and deliver you. But then you must cry unto him, for so it follows; He cried unto me, and I heard him; I was with him in trouble, &c. Psalm 91.
Remember Lot's wife which looked back. Remember Francis Spira. Remember that none is crowned, but he that strives lawfully. Remember that all you have is at Christ's commandment. Remember he lost more for you, than you can lose for him. Remember you lose not that which is lost for his sake; for you shall find much more here and elsewhere. Remember you shall die; and when and where, and how, you cannot tell. Remember the death of sinners is most terrible. Remember the death of God's saints is most precious in his sight. Remember the multitude goes the wide way, which winds to woe. Remember, the strait gate which leads to glory has but few travellers: remember, Christ bids you strive to enter in thereat. Remember, he that trusts in the Lord shall receive strength to stand against all the assaults of his enemies. Be certain all the hairs of your head are numbered. Be certain your good Father has appointed bounds, over which the devil dares not look. Commit yourself to Him; he is, has been, and will be, your keeper. Cast your care on him, and he will care for you. Let Christ be your scope and mark to aim at; let him be your pattern to work by, let him be your example to follow: give him your heart, and your hand; your mind, and your tongue; your faith, and your feet: and let his word be your candle to go before you, in all matters of religion. Blessed is he that walks not to these popish prayers, nor stands at them, nor sits at them. Glorify God both in soul and body. He that gathers not with Christ, scatters abroad. Use prayer; look for God's help, which is at hand, to them that ask; and hope thereafter assuredly. In which prayer, I heartily desire your Lordship to remember us, who, as we are going with you right gladly, (God therefore be praised,) so we look to go before you, hoping that you will follow, if God so will, according to your daily prayer; Thy will be done on earth, &c. The good Spirit of God always guide your Lordship unto the end. Amen.
Your lordship's own for ever.
John Bradford.
Letter 14. To Master Warcup and his wife, Mistress Wilkinson, and others of his godly friends, with their families
The same peace our Saviour Christ left with his people, which is not without war with the world, Almighty God work plentifully in your hearts now and for ever. Amen.
The time I perceive is come wherein the Lord's ground will be known; I mean, it will now shortly appear who have received God's gospel into their hearts indeed, to the taking of good root therein; for such will not wither, for a little heat or sun-burning, but will stiffly stand and grow on, in spite of the malice of all burning showers and tempests. And for as much as, my beloved in the Lord, I am persuaded of you that you are indeed the children of Godo and God's good ground which grows, and will grow on, by God's grace, bringing forth fruit to God's glory, after your vocations, as occasions shall be offered, burn the sun never so hot; therefore I cannot but so signify unto you, and heartily pray you, and every one of you, accordingly to go on forwards after your master, Christ; not sticking at the foul way and stormy weather, which you are come into, and are like so to do. Being most certain, that the end of your journey shall be pleasant and joyful, in such a perpetual rest and blissfulness, as cannot but swallow up the showers that you now feel, and are soused in, if you often set before your eyes, Paul's counsel in the latter end of the fourth, and beginning of the fifth chapter of the second Epistle to the Corinthians. Read it, I pray you, and remember it often, as a restorative to refresh you, lest you faint in the way.
And besides this, set before you also, that though the weather is foul, and storms grow apace, yet you go not alone, but others your brothers and sisters tread the same path, as St. Peter tells us, and therefore company should cause you to be the more courageous and cheerful. But if you had no company at all to go at present with you, I pray you tell me, if even from the beginning the best of God's friends have found any fairer weather and way to the place whither ye are going, I mean to heaven, than you now find, and are like to do, except you will with the worldlings, which have their portion in this life, tarry still by the way, till the storms be overpass, and then either night will so approach that you cannot travel, or the doors will be barred before ye come, and so you then must lodge without in wonderful evil lodgings. Read Revelation, xxii. Begin at Abel, and come from him to Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, the Patriarchs, Moses, David, Daniel, and all the saints of the Old Testament, and tell me whether ever any of them found any fairer way than you now find?
If the Old Testament will not serve, I pray you come to the New, and begin with Mary and Joseph, and come from them to Zechariah, Elizabeth, John Baptist, and every one of the Apostles and Evangelists, and search whether they all found any other way unto the city we travel towards, than by many tribulations.
Besides these, if you call to remembrance the primitive church, you would see many who have cheerfully given their bodies to most grievous torments, rather than they would be stopped in their journey. There is no day in any year, but (I dare say) a thousand at least, with great joy, lost their homes here; and in the city they went unto have found other manner of homes than man's mind is able to conceive.
But if none of these things were sooIf you had no company now to go with you, as you have me, your poor brother and bondman of the Lord, with many others, I trust in God, if you have none other of the fathers, patriarchs, good kings, prophets, apostles, evangelists, martyrs, and other holy saints and children of God, who in their journey to heavenward found, as you now find, and are like to find, if you go on forward, as I trust you will; yet you have your Master and your Captain, Jesus Christ, the dear darling and only begotten and beloved Son of God, in whom was all the Father's pleasure, joy, and delectation; you have him who went before you, no fairer way, but one much fouler into this our city of Jerusalem. I need not, I trust, rehearse what manner of way he found. Begin at his birth, and till you come to his burial, you shall find that every step and stride of his journey was no better, but much worse. than yours is now.
Wherefore my dearly beloved in the Lord, be not so dainty as to look for that at God's hands, your dear Father, which the fathers, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, evangelists, martyrs, saints, and his own Son Jesus Christ, did not find. Hitherto we have had fair way and fair weather also: now because we have loitered by the way, and not made the speed we should have done, our loving God and sweet Father has overcast the weather, and stirred up storms and tempests, that we might with more haste run out our race before night come, and the doors be barred. The devil stands now at every inn-door in his city and country of this world, crying unto us to tarry and lodge in this or that place, till the storms be overpass; not that he would not have us wet to the skin, but that the time might overpass us, to our utter destruction. Therefore beware of his enticements. Cast not your eyes on things that are present, how this man does, and that man does, but cast your eyes on the mark you run at, or else you will lose the game.
You know that he which runs at the mark, does not look on others that stand by, and go this way or that way, but he looks altogether at the mark, and on them that run with him, that those which are behind overtake him not, and that he may overtake them that are before. Even so should we do, leaving off looking on those which will not run the race to heaven's bliss, by the path of persecution with us, and casting our eyes on the end of our race, and on them that go before us, that we may overtake them; and on them which come after us, that we may provoke them to come faster after.
He that shoots, will not cast his eyes in his shooting on them that stand by, or ride by the way, but rather at the mark he shoots at, for else he were likely to win the wrong way! Even so, my dearly beloved, let your eyes be set on the mark you shoot at, even Christ Jesus, who for the joy set before him did joyfully carry his cross, contemning the shame, and therefore he now sits on the right hand of the throne of God. Let us follow him, for this he did, that we should not be fainthearted; for we may be most assured, that if we suffer with him, we shall undoubtedly reign with him; but if we deny him, surely he will deny us. For he that is ashamed of me, says Christ, and of my gospel, in this faithless generation, I will be ashamed of him before the angels of God in heaven. Oh! how heavy a sentence is this to all such as know the mass to be an abominable idol, full of idolatry, blasphemy, and sacrilege, against God and his Christ, as undoubtedly it is, and yet for fear of men, for loss of life or goods, yea, some for advantage or gain, will honest (make it appear, editor) it with their presence, dissembling both with God and man, as their own heart and conscience accuses them! Better it were that such had never known the truth, than thus wittingly, and for fear or favour of man, whose breath is in his nostrils, dissemble it, or rather, as indeed it is, deny it. The end of such is like to be worse than their beginning. Such had need to take heed to the two terrible places to the Hebrews, in the 6th and 10th chapters, lest by so doing they fall therein. Let them beware they play not willy-beguile (do not deceive themselves, editor) with themselves, as some do, I fear me, which go to mass, and because they worship not, nor kneel, nor knock, as others do, but sit still in their pews, therefore they think they rather do good to others than hurt.
But, alas! if these men would look into their own consciences, there should they see they are very dissemblers, and in seeking to deceive others, for by this means the magistrates think them of their sort, they deceive themselves. They think at the elevation-time, all men's eyes are set upon them to mark how they do. They think others, hearing of such men going to mass, do see or inquire of their behaviour there. Oh! if there were in those men that are so present at the mass, either love to God or to their brethren, then would they, for the one or both, openly take God's part, and admonish the people of their idolatry. They fear man more than Him which has power to cast both soul and body into hell fire: they halt on both knees: they serve two masters. God have mercy upon such, and open their eyes with his eye-salve, that they may see that they which take no part with God are against God: and that they which gather not with Christ, do scatter abroad. Oh! that they would read what St. John says will be done to the fearful! The counsel given to the church at Laodicaea is good counsel for such. Rev. iii. xxi.
But to return to you again, dearly beloved: Be not ashamed of God's gospel. It is the power of God to salvation to all those that believe it. Be therefore partakers of the addictions, as God shall make you able, knowing for certain that he will never tempt you farther than he will make you able to bear; and think it no small grace of God to suffer persecution for God's truth; for the Spirit of God rests upon you, and you are happy, as one day you shall see. Read 2 Thessalonians, i.; Hebrews, xii. As the fire hurts not gold, but makes it finer, so shall you be more pure by suffering with Christ. 1 Pet. i. The flail and wind hurts not the wheat, but cleanses it from the chaff; and you, dearly beloved, are God's wheat; fear not therefore the flail; fear not the fanning wind; fear not the mill-stone; fear not the oven: for all these make you more meet for the Lord. Soap, though it is black, soils not the cloth, but rather at length makes it more clean. Because you are God's sheep, prepare yourselves for the slaughter, always knowing that in the sight of the Lord our death shall be precious. The souls under the altar look for us to fill up their number: happy are we if God have so appointed us. However it be, dearly beloved, cast yourselves wholly upon the Lord, with whom all the hairs of your head are numbered, so that not one of them shall perish. Will we, nill we, we must drink God's cup, if he has appointed it for us. Drink it willingly then, and at the first, when it is will, lest peradventure, if we linger, we shall drink at length of the dregs with the wicked, if at the beginning we drink not with his children; for with them his judgment begins; and when he has wrought his will on Mount Sion, then will he visit the nations round about.
Submit yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God. No man shall touch you without his knowledge. When they touch you therefore, know it is for your weal. God thereby will work to make you like unto Christ here, that you maybe also like unto him elsewhere. Acknowledge your unthankfulness and sin, and bless God that corrects you in the world, because you shall not be condemned with the world. He might otherwise correct us, than by making us to suffer for righteousness' sake, but this he does because we are not of the world. Call upon his name, through Christ, for his help, as he commands us. Believe that he is merciful to you, hears you, and helps you. "I am with him in trouble, and will deliver him," says he. Know that God has appointed bounds, over which the devil and all the world shall not pass. If all things seem to be against us, yet say with Job, If he kill me, I will hope in him. Read the 91st Psalm, and pray for me, your poor brother and fellow-sufferer for God's gospel sake, his name therefore be praised: and of his mercy may he make me and you worthy to suffer with good conscience for his name's sake. Die once we must, and when we know not: happy are they to whom God gives to pay nature's debt, I mean, to die for his sake.
Here is not our home: therefore let us accordingly consider things, always having before our eyes the heavenly Jerusalem. Heb. xii.; Rev. xxi. and xxii. Remembering that the way thither is by persecutions; the dear friends of God, how they have gone it after the example of our Saviour Jesus Christ, whose footsteps let us follow, even to the gallows, if God so will, not doubting, but that as he within three days rose again immortal, even so we shall do in our time, that is, when the trump shall blow, and the angel shall shout, and the Son of man shall appear in the clouds, with innumerable saints and angels, in majesty and great glory, then shall the dead arise, and we shall be caught up into the clouds to meet the Lord, and so be always with him. Comfort yourselves with these words, and pray for me. From prison. 19 November, 1553.
John Bradford.
Letter 15. To Sir James Hales, Knt., then prisoner in the Compter in Bread Street
The God of mercy, and Father of all comfort, plentifully pour out upon you, and in you, his mercy; and with his consolation comfort and strengthen you to the end, for his and our Christ's sake.
Although, right worshipful sir, many causes might move me to be content with crying for you to your God and my God, that he would give you grace to persevere well, as he has right notably begun, to the great glory of his name, and comfort of all such as fear him; as lack of learning, of familiarity, yea acquaintance, for I think I am unknown to you, both by face and name, and other such-like things might do; yet I cannot content myself, but I presume to scribble something unto you; not that I think my scribbling can do you good, but that I might declare my sympathy, compassion, love, and affection I hear towards your mastership, which is contented, yea desirous with us poor wretches, to confess Christ's gospel in these perilous times and days of trial. O Lord God! how good art thou, which dost thus glean out grapes, I mean children for thyself, and brethren for Christ! Look, good Master Hales, on your vocation; not many judges, not many knights, not many landed men, not many rich men, and wealthy to live as you are, has God chosen to suffer for his sake, as he has now done you. Certainly I dare say you think not so of yourself, as if God were bound to prefer you, or had need of you; but rather attribute this, as all good things, unto his free mercy in Christ. Again, I dare say that you, being a wise man, judge of things wisely; that is, concerning this your cross, you judge of it not after the world and people, nor after the judgment of reason and worldly wisdom, which is foolishness to faith, nor after the present sense, to which it seems not to be joyous but grievous, as Paul writes: but after the word of God, which teaches your cross to be, in respect of yourself, between God and you, God's chastening and your Father's correction, nurture, school, trial, pathway to heaven, glory, and felicity, and the furnace to consume the dross, and mortify the relics of old Adam, which yet remain: yea, even the frame-house to fashion you like to the dearest saints of God here, yea to Christ the Son of God, that you might be like unto him elsewhere.
Now concerning your cross in respect of the world between the world and you, God's word teaches it to be a testimonial of God's truth, of his providence, of his power, of his justice, of his wisdom, of his anger against sin, of his goodness, of his judgment, of your faith and religion, so that by it you are to the world a witness of God, one of his witnesses that he is true. He rules all things, he is just, wise, and at length will judge the world, and cast the wicked into perdition, but the godly he will take and receive unto his eternal habitation. I know you judge of things after faith's estimate, and by the effects or ends of things; and so you see an eternal weight of glory which this cross shall bring unto you, while you look not on things which are seen, but on the things which are not seen. Let the worldlings weigh things, and look upon the affairs of men with their worldly and corporeal eyes, as many did in subscribing the King's last will; and therefore they did that for the which they beshrewed themselves (or were angry with themselves; Sir James Hales refused to assent to King Edward VIth's will, by which the crown was left to Lady Jane Grey, whereby he incurred the displeasure of the Duke of Northomberland, editor). But let us look on things with other manner of eyes, as, God be praised, you did, in not doing that which you were desired and driven at to have done. You then beheld things not as a man, but as a man of God; end so you do now in religion, at the least hitherto you have done, and that you might do so still, I humbly beseech and pray you to say, with David, "Mine eyes fail for thy word, saying, When wilt thou comfort me?" Though you are as a bottle in the smoke, for I hear you want health, yet do not forget the statutes of the Lord; but cry out, "How many are the days of thy servant! when wilt thou execute judgment on them that persecute me?'' and be certain the Lord will surely come and not stay: though he tarry, wait for him; for he is but a little while in his anger, but in his favour is life: weeping may abide at evening, but joy comes in the morning. Follow, therefore, Isaiah's counsel: hide thyself for a very little while, until his indignation pass over, which is not so indeed but to our sense; and therefore, in the seven-and-twentieth chapter of Isaiah, God says of his church and people, that as he keeps it night and day, so there is no anger in me, says he.
The mother sometimes beats the child, but yet her heart melts upon it even in the very beating; and therefore she casts the rod into the fire, and colles (embraces, editor) the child, gives it an apple, and dandies it most motherly. And, to say the truth, the love of mothers to their children is but a trace to train up to behold the love of God towards us: and therefore, says he, Can a mother forget the child of her womb? as who should say, No: but if she should so do, yet will I not forget thee, says the Lord of Hosts. Ah! comfortable saying! I will not forget thee, says the Lord. Indeed the children of God think oftentimes that God has forgotten them, and therefore they cry, "Hide not thy face from me; leave me not, O Lord," &c. Whereas in very truth it is not so, but only to their present sense; and therefore David said, "I said, in my agony, I was clean cast away from thy face." But was it so? Nay, verily: read his psalms and you shall see. So he also writes in other places very often, especially in the person of Christ; as when he says, "My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?" He says not, Why dost thou forsake me? or Why wilt thou forsake me? but, Why hast thou forsaken me? Where, indeed, God had not left trial, but only it seemed so to his sense, and that this psalm tells us plainly; which psalm I pray you now and then read; it is the twenty-second, and thereto join the thirtieth, and the hundred and sixteenth, with divers others. We read the same in the prophet Isaiah, the fortieth chapter, where he reproves Israel for saying, God had forgotten them; he says, Knows thou not, hast thou not heard, they that trust in the Lord shall renew their strength? And in his four-and-fiftieth chapter, Fear not, &c., for a little while I have forsaken thee, but with great compassion will I gather thee; for a moment in mine anger I hid my face from thee for a little season, but in everlasting mercy have I had compassion on thee, says the Lord thy Redeemer: for this is unto me as the waters of Noah; for, as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be angry with thee, nor rebuke thee: for the mountains shall remove, and hills shall fall down, but my mercy shall not depart from thee; neither shall the covenant of my peace fall away, says the Lord, that has compassion on thee.
But the scriptures are full of such sweet places to them that will bear the wrath of the Lord, and wait for his health and help. As of all temptations this is the greatest, to think that God has forgotten, or will not help us through the pikes, as they say; so of all services of God, this pleases him the best; to hope assuredly on him, and for his help always, who is a helper in tribulations, and more gloriously shows his power, by such as are weak, and feel themselves so: for the weaker we are, the more strong we are in him. Thus the eyes of the Lord are on them that tremble and fear; he will accomplish their desire; he is with them in their trouble; he will deliver them: before they cry, he hears them, as all the scriptures teach us. To the reading whereof, and hearty prayer, I heartily commend you, beseeching Almighty God, that of his eternal mercies he would make perfect the good he has begun in you, and strengthen you to the end, that you might have no less hope, but much more of his help, to your comfort, now against your enemies, than he has already given you against N. for not subscribing to the King's will.
Be certain, be certain, good Master Hales, that your dear Father has numbered all the hairs of your head, so that one of them shall not perish; your name is written in the book of life; therefore cast all your care upon God, who will comfort you with his eternal consolations, and make you able to go through the fire, if need be, which is nothing to be compared to the fire wherein our enemies shall fall, and lie for ever, from which the Lord deliver us, though it be through temporal fire, which must be considered, according to the end and profit that comes after it; so then it shall not much fear us to suffer for our master Christ's cause, which the Lord grant us, for his mercies' sake. Amen. From the King's Bench.
