Master John Bradford, a faithful Minister and pillar of Christ's Church, by whose great labours and diligence in preaching and planting the sincerity of the gospel, by whose most godly and innocent life, and by whose long and painful imprisonments for the maintenance of the truth, the Kingdom of God was not a little advanced; who also at last most valiantly and cheerfully gave his blood for the same, on the first day of July, in the year of our Lord 1555.

[After the time that Bradford was condemned and sent to the Compter, it was purposed by his adversaries that he should be had to Manchester, where he was born, and there be burned. Whereupon he wrote to the City of London, thinking to take his last farewell of them in this letter. Fox.]

To all that profess the gospel and the true doctrine of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in the city of London. John Bradford, a most unworthy servant of the Lord, now not only in prison, but also excommunicated and condemned to be burned, for the same true doctrine, wishes mercy, grace, and peace, with increase of all godly knowledge and piety, from God the father of mercy, through the merits of our alone and all-sufficient Redeemer Jesus Christ, by the operation of the Holy Spirit for ever. Amen.

My dearly beloved brethren in our Saviour Christ. Although the time I have to live is very little, for I look hourly when I shall be conveyed into Lancashire, there to be burned, and, by the providence of God, to render my life where I first received it, by the same providence. And although the charge is great to keep me from all things whereby I might signify any thing to the world of my state; yet having, as now I have, pen and ink, through God's working, notwithstanding the power of Satan and his soldiers, I thought good to write a short confession of my faith, and thereto join a little exhortation unto you all, to live according to your profession.

First, my faith. I do confess, and pray all the whole congregation of Christ to bear witness with me of the same, that I believe constantly, through the gift and goodness of God, for faith is only God's gift, all the twelve articles of the symbol or creed, commonly attributed to the apostles. This my faith I would gladly particularly declare and expound, to confirm and comfort the simple. But, alas! by starts and stealth I write in the manner that I write, and therefore I shall desire you all to take this brevity in good part. And this faith I hold, not because of the creed itself, but because of the word of God, which teaches and confirms every article accordingly. This word of God, written by the prophets and apostles, and contained in the canonical books of the holy Bible, I do believe to contain plentifully all things necessary to salvation, so that nothing, as necessary to salvation, ought to be added thereto. And therefore neither the Church of Christ, nor any of his congregations, ought to be burdened with any other doctrine, that that which here-out has its foundation and ground. In testimony of this faith, I render and give my life, being condemned, as well for not acknowledging the antichrist of Rome to be Christ's vice-general and supreme head of the catholic and universal church, here or elsewhere upon earth. As for denying the horrible and idolatrous doctrine of transubstantiation, and Christ's real, corporeal, and carnal presence in his supper, under the forms and accidents, (or appearance,) of bread and wine.

To believe that Christ our Saviour is the head of his Church, and that kings in their realms are the supreme powers, to whom every soul owes obedience. And to believe that in the supper of Christ is a true and very presence of whole Christ, God and man, to the faith of the receiver, but not to the stander by and looker upon, even as it is a true and very presence of bread and wine to the senses of men; to believe this, I say, will not serve. And therefore as a heretic I am condemned, and shall be burned. Whereof I ask God heartily for mercy that I do no more rejoice than I do, having so great cause, as to be an instrument wherein it may please my dear Lord God and Saviour to suffer.

For albeit my manifold sins, even since I came into prison, have deserved at the hands of God, not only temporal fire, but also eternal fire in hell, much more my former sinful life, which the Lord pardon for Christ's sake, as I know he of his mercy has done, and that he never will lay my iniquities to my charge, to condemnation. So great is his goodness, praised therefore be his holy name! Although, I say, my manifold and grievous late sins have deserved most justly all that man or devil can do unto me. And therefore I confess that the Lord is just, and that his judgements are true and deserved on my behalf. Yet, the bishops and prelates do not persecute them in me, but Christ himself, his word, his truth, and religion. And therefore I have great cause, yea, most great cause, to rejoice that ever I was born, and hitherto kept of the Lord. That by my death, which is deserved for my sins, it pleases the heavenly Father to glorify his name, to testify his truth, to confirm his verity, to oppugn his adversities. O good God and merciful Father! Forgive my great unthankfulness, especially herein.

And you, my dearly beloved, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, I humbly and heartily in his bowels and blood do now, for my last farewell in this present life, beseech you and every one of you, that you will consider this work of the Lord accordingly. First by me be admonished to beware of hypocrisy and carnal security. Profess not the gospel with tongue and lips only, but in heart and verity. Frame and fashion your lives accordingly. Beware that God's name be not evil spoken of, and the gospel still less regarded by your conversation. God forgive me, that I have not so heartily professed it as I should have done, but have sought myself much therein. The gospel is a new doctrine to the old man. It is new wine. And therefore it cannot be put in old bottles, without more hurt than good to the bottles. If we will talk with the Lord, we must put off our shoes and carnal affections. If we will hear the voice of the Lord, we must wash our garments and be holy. If we will be Christ's disciples, we must deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Christ. We cannot serve two masters. If we will seek Christ's kingdom, we must seek for the righteousness thereof. To the petition, Let thy kingdom come, we must join, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. If we will not be doers of the word, but hearers of it only, we sorely deceive ourselves. If we hear the gospel, and love it not, we declare ourselves to be but fools, and builders upon the sand. The Lord's spirit hates feigning. Deceitfulness the Lord abhors. If we come to him we must beware that we come not with a double heart. For them may chance that God will answer us according to the block which is in our heart, and so we shall deceive ourselves and others.

See that we couple a good conscience to faith, lest we make a shipwreck. To the Lord we must come with fear and reverence. If we will be gospellers, we must be Christ's. If we be Christ's, we must crucify our flesh with the lusts and concupiscences thereof. If we will be under grace, sin must not bear rule in us. We may not come to the Lord, and draw night unto him with our lips, and leave our hearts elsewhere, lest the Lord's wrath wax hot, and he take from us the good yet remaining. In no case can the kingdom of Christ approach unto them that repent not. Therefore, my dearly beloved, let us repent and be heartily sorry that we have so carnally, so hypocritically, so covetously, so vain-gloriously professed the gospel. For all these I confess of myself, to the glory of God, that he may cover my offences in the day of judgement. Let the anger and plagues of God most justly fallen upon us, be applied to every one of our deserts, that from the bottom of our hearts every one of us may say, It is I, Lord, that have sinned against thee; it is my hypocrisy, my vain-glory, my covetousness, uncleanness, carnality, security, idleness, unthankfulness, self-love, and such like, which have deserved the taking away of our good king (King Edward VI, editor), of thy word, and true religion, of thy good ministers by exile, imprisonment, and death. It is my wickedness that causes success, and increase of authority, and peace to thy enemies. Oh, be merciful, be merciful unto us. Turn to us again, O Lord of hosts, and turn us unto thee. Correct us, but not in thy fury, lest we be consumed in thine anger. Chastise us not in thy wrathful displeasure. Reprove us not, but in the midst of thine anger remember thy mercy. For if thou mark what is done amiss, who shall be able to abide it? But with thee is mercifulness, that thou might be worshipped. Oh then be merciful unto us, that we may truly worship thee. Help us, for the glory of thy name. Be merciful unto our sins, for they are great. Oh, heal us, and help us for thine honour. Let not the wicked people say, Where is their God, etc.

On this sort, my right dearly beloved, let us heartily bewail our sins, repent us of our former evil live, heartily and earnestly purpose to amend our lives in all things, continually watching in prayer; diligently and reverently attend, hear, and read the holy Scriptures, and labour after our vocation to amend our brethren. Let us reprove the works of darkness. Let us flee from all idolatry. Let us abhor the antichristian and Romish rotten service, detest the popish mass, renounce their Romish god, prepare ourselves to the cross, be obedient to all that are in authority, in all things that are not against God, and his word; answering with the apostles, It is more meet to obey God than men. Howbeit, never for any thing resist, or rise against the magistrates. Avenge not yourselves, but commit your cause to the Lord, to whom vengeance belongs, and he in his time will reward is. If you feel in yourselves a hope, and trust in God that he never will tempt you above that which he will make you able to bear, be assured the Lord will be true to you. And you shall be able to bear all brunts. But if you want this hope, flee and get you hence, rather than, by your tarrying, God's name should be dishonoured.

In sum, cast your care upon the Lord, knowing for most certain, that he is careful for you. With him are all the hairs of your head numbered, so that not one of them shall perish without his good pleasure and will. Much more, then, nothing shall happen to your bodies, which shall not be profitable, however for a time it seems otherwise to your senses. Hang on the providence of God, not only when you have means to help you, but also when you have no means, yea, when all means are against you. Give him this honour, which, of all other things, he most chiefly requires at your hands; namely, believe that you are his children through Christ, that he is your Father and God through him, that he loves you, pardons you all your offences. He is with you in trouble, and will be with you for ever. When you fall, he will put his hand under. You shall not lie still. Before you call upon him he hears you. He will finally bring you out of evil, and deliver you to his eternal joy. Doubt not, my beloved, herein, doubt not, I say. God your Father will do this for you, not for respect of yourselves, but for respect of Christ your captain, your pastor, your keeper; out of whose hands none shall be able to catch you. In him be quiet, and often consider your dignity; namely, how that you are God's children, the saints of God, citizens of heaven, temples of the Holy Ghost, the thrones of God, members of Christ, and lords over all.

Therefore be ashamed to think, speak, or do anything that should be unseemly for God's children, God's saints, Christ's members, etc. Marvel not though the devil and the world hate you, though you are persecuted here, for the servant is not above his master. Covet not earthly riches. Fear not the power of man. Love not this world, nor the things that are in this world. But long for the coming of the Lord Jesus, at which time your bodies shall be made like unto his glorious body. When he appears you shall be like unto him. When your life shall thus be revealed, then shall you appear with him in glory.

In the mean season live in hope thereof. Let the life you lead be in the faith of the Son of God. For the just does live by faith, which faith flees from evil, and follows the word of God as a lantern to her feet and a light to her steps. Her eyes are above, where Christ is. She beholds not the things present, but rather things to come. She glories in affliction. She knows that the affliction of this life are not to be compared to the glory that God will reveal to us and in us. Of this glory God grants us here a lively taste. Then shall we run after the scent it sends forth. It will make us valiant men to take to us the kingdom of God, whither the Lord of mercy bring us in his good time, through Christ our Lord, to whom, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, three persons and one God, be all honour and glory, world without end. Amen.

My dearly beloved, I would gladly have given here my body to be burned, for the confirmation of the true doctrine I have taught here unto you; but that my country must have it. Therefore I pray you, take in good part this signification of my goodwill towards every of you. Impute the want herein to time and trouble. Pardon me my offensive and negligent behaviour when I was among you. With me repent and labour to amend. Continue in the truth which I have truly taught unto you by preaching in all places where I have come. God's name therefore be praised. Confess Christ when you are called, whatsoever comes thereof. And the God of peace be with us all. Amen. This 11th of February, anno 1555.

Your brother in bonds for the Lord's sake,

To all that love the Lord Jesus and his true doctrine in the university and town of Cambridge, John Bradford, a most unworthy servant of the Lord, now not only imprisoned, but also condemned for the same true doctrine, wishes grace, peace, and mercy, with increase of all godliness from God, the Father of all mercy, through the bloody passion of our only Saviour Jesus Christ, by the lively working of the Holy Spirit for ever. Amen.

Although I look hourly when I should be had to the stake (my dearly beloved in the Lord), and although the charge over me is great and strait; yet having, by the providence of God, secretly pen and ink, I could not but signify unto you something of my solicitude which I have for you and for every one of you in the Lord, though not as I would, yet as I may. You have so often and openly heard the truth disputed and preached, especially in this matter wherein I am condemned, that it is needless to do any more than to put you in remembrance of the same. But hitherto you have not heard it confirmed, and as it were sealed up, as now you do and shall hear by me, that is, by my death and burning. For albeit I have deserved eternal death and hell fire through my uncleanness, hypocrisy, avarice, vainglory, idleness, unthankfulness, and carnality, whereof I accuse myself, to my confusion before the world, that before God, through Christ, I might find mercy, as my assured hope is that I shall. Albeit, I have deserved much more than this affliction and fire prepared for me. Yet, my dearly beloved, it is not for these, or any of these things, wherefore the prelates persecute me, but for God's verity and truth. Yea, even Christ himself is the only cause and thing whereof I am now condemned, and shall be burned as a heretic, because I will not grant the antichrist of Rome to be Christ's vice-general and supreme head of the church here, and everywhere upon the earth, by God's ordinance; and because I will not grant such corporeal, real, and carnal presence of Christ's body and blood in the sacrament as does transubstantiate the substance of bread and wine, and is received by the wicked, yea, even by dogs and mice. Also I am excommunicated, and counted as a dead member of Christ's Church, as a rotten branch, and therefore shall be cast into the fire.

Therefore you ought heartily to rejoice with me, and to give thanks for me that God, the eternal Father, has vouchsafed our mother (the University of Cambridge, editor) to bring up any child in whom it would please him to magnify his holy name as he does, and I hope, for his mercy and truth's sake, will do in my and by me. Oh! what such benefit upon earth can there be as that I, which deserved death by reason of my sins, should be delivered for a demonstration, a testimony, and confirmation of God's verity and truth! You, my mother, the University, have not only had the truth of God's word plainly manifested unto you, by reading, disputing, and preaching publicly and privately, but now to make thee altogether excuseless, and, as it were, almost to sin against the Holy Ghost, if you put to your helping hand with the Romish rout to suppress the verify and set out the contrary, you have my life and blood as a seal to confirm you, if you will be confirmed, or else to confound you, and bear witness against you, if you will take part with the prelates and clergy, which now fill up the measures of their fathers which slew the prophets and apostles, that all the righteous blood, from Abel to Bradford, shed upon earth, may be required at their hands.

Of this therefore I thought good before my death, as time and liberty would suffer me, for the love and duty I bear unto you, to admonish you, good mother, and my sister the town, that you would call to mind from whence you are fallen, and study to do the first works. You know, if you will, these matters of the Romish supremacy, and the antichristian transubstantiation, whereby Christ's supper is overthrown, his priesthood annulled, his sacrifice frustrated, the ministry of his word unplaced, repentance repelled, faith fainted, godliness extinguished, the mass maintained, idolatry supported, and all impiety cherished. You know, I say, if you will, that these opinions are not only besides God's word, but even directly against it. And therefore to take part with them is to take part against God, against whom you cannot prevail.

Therefore, for the tender mercy of Christ, in his bowels and blood I beseech you to take Christ's eye-salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see what you do and have done in admitting, as I hear you have admitted, yea alas! authorised, and by consent confirmed, the Romish rotten rags, which once you utterly expelled. Oh! be not a dog returned to his vomit. Be not the washed sow returned to her wallowing in the mire. Beware, lest Satan enter in with seven other spirits, and then your last state shall be worse than the first. It had been better you had never known the truth, than after knowledge to run from it. Ah! woe to this world and the things therein, which has now so wrought with you. Oh! that ever this dirt of the devil should daub up the eyes of the realm. If you be light and shine, all the body shall fare the better. But if your light be darkness, alas! how great will the darkness be! What is man, whose breath is in his nostrils, that you should thus be afraid of him!

Oh! what is honour and life here! Bubbles. What is glory in this world but shame? Why are you afraid to carry Christ's cross? Will you come into his kingdom, and not drink of his cup? Do you not know Rome to be Babylon? Do you not know, that as the old Babylon had the children of Judah in captivity, so has this Rome the true Judah, that is, the confessors of Christ? Do you not know, tat as destruction happened unto it, so shall it do unto this? And suppose you that God will not deliver his people, now when the time is come, as he did then? Has not God commanded his people to come out from her, and will you give example to the whole realm to run unto her? Have you forgotten the woe that Christ threatens to offence-givers? Will you not remember that it were better that a millstone were hanged about your neck, and you thrown into the sea, than that you should offend the little ones?

And alas! how have you offended! Yea, and how doe you still offend! Will you consider things according to the outward show? Was not the synagogue more seemly and like to the true church than the simple flock of Christ's disciples? Has not the harlot of Babylon more costly array, and rich apparel, externally to set forth herself, than the homely housewife of Christ? Where is the beauty of the King's daughter, the church of Christ? Without or within? Does not David say within? Oh! remember, that as they are happy which are not offended at Christ, so are they happy which are not offended at his poor church. Can the pope and his prelates mean honestly, which make so much of the wife and so little of the husband? The church they magnify, but Christ they contemn. If this church were a honest woman, (that is, Christ's wife, ) except they would make much of her husband, Christ and his word, she would not be made much of by them.

When Christ and his apostles were upon earth, who seemed more likely to be the true church, they or the prelates, bishops, and synagogue? If a man should have followed custom, unity, antiquity, or the more part, would not Christ and his company have been cast out of the doors? Therefore Christ bade them to search the scriptures. And, good mother, shall the servant be above his master? Shall we look for other entertainment at the hands of the world than Christ and his dear disciples found? Who was taken in Noah's time for the church, poor Noah and his family, or others? Who was taken for God's church in Sodom, Lot, or others? And does not Christ say, As it was then, so shall it be now towards the coming of the Son of Man? What means Christ when he says, Iniquity shall have the upper hand? Does not he say that charity shall wax cold? And who sees not a wonderful great lack of charity in those which would now be taken for Christ's church? All that truly fear God in this realm can tell more of this than I can write.

Therefore, dear mother, receive some admonition of one of your poor children, now going to be burned for the testimony of Jesus. Come again to God's truth. Come out of Babylon. Confess Christ and his true doctrine. Repent that which is past. Make amends by declaring your repentance by the fruits. Remember the readings and the preachings of God's prophet, and true preacher, Martin Bucer. Call to mind the threatenings of God, now something seen by the children Leaver and others. Let the exile of Leaver, Pilkington, Grindall, Haddon, Horne, Scory, Ponet, etc. something awake you. Let the imprisonment of your dear sons, Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, move you. Consider the martyrdom of Rogers, Saunders, Taylor. And now cast not away the poor admonition of me, going to be burned also, and to receive the like crown of glory with my fellows. Take to heart God's calling by us. Be not as Pharaoh was, for then will it happen unto you as it did unto him. What is that? Hardness of heart? And what then? Destruction eternally, both of body and soul. Ah! therefore, good mother, awake, awake, repent, repent, bustle yourself, and make haste to turn to the Lord, for else it shall be more easy for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgement than for you. Oh! harden not your hearts; oh! stop not your ears today in hearing God's voice, though it be by me a most unworthy messenger. Oh! fear the Lord, for his anger is begun to kindle. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the tree.

You know I prophesied truly to you before the sweating sickness came on you, what would come if you repented not your carnal gospelling. And now I tell you, before I depart hence, that the ears of men will tingle to hear the vengeance of God that will fall upon you all, both town and university, if you repent not, if you leave not your idolatry, if you turn not speedily to the Lord, if you still are ashamed of Christ's truth which you know.

Oh! Perne, repent; oh! Thomson, repent; oh! you doctors, bachelors, and masters, repent! Oh! mayor, aldermen, and town-dwellers, repent, repent, repent, that you may escape the near vengeance of the Lord. Rend your hearts and come apace, calling on the Lord. Let us all say, We have all sinned, we have done wickedly, we have not hearkened to thy voice, o Lord. Deal not with us after our deserts, but be merciful to our iniquities, for they are great. Oh! pardon our offences. In thine anger remember thy mercy. Turn us unto thee, o Lord God of Hosts, for the glory of thy name's sake. Spare us, and be merciful unto us. Let not wicked people say, Where is now their God? Oh! for thine own sake, for thy name's sake, deal mercifully with us. Turn thyself unto us, and us unto thee, and we shall praise thy name for ever.

If in this manner, my dearly beloved, in heart and mouth we come unto our Father, and prostrate ourselves before the throne of his grace, then surely, surely we shall find mercy. Then shall the Lord look graciously upon us, for his mercy's sake in Christ. Then shall we hear him speak peace unto his people. For he is gracious and merciful, of great pity and compassion. He cannot be chiding for ever. His anger cannot last long to be penitent. Though we weep in the morning, yet at night we shall have our sorrow cease. For he is easy to be entreated, and has no pleasure in the death of a sinner. He rather would have our conversion and turning.

Oh! turn now and convert, yet once again I humbly beseech you, and then the kingdom of heaven shall draw night. The eye has not seen, the ear has not heard, nor is the heart of man able to conceive the joys prepared for us, if we repent, amend our lives, and heartily turn to the Lord. But if you repent not, but be as you were, and go on forwards with the wicked, following the fashion of the world, the Lord will lead you on with wicked doers. You shall perish in your wickedness. Your blood will be upon your own heads. Your part shall be with hypocrites, where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. You shall be cast from the face of the Lord for ever and ever. Eternal shame, sorrow, woe, and misery, shall be both in body and soul to you, world without end. Oh! therefore, right dear to me in the Lord, turn you, turn you, repent you, repent you, amend, amend your lives, depart from evil, do good, follow peace, and pursue it. Come out from Babylon, cast off the works of darkness, put on Christ, confess his truth, be not ashamed of his gospel, prepare yourselves for the cross, drink of God's cup before it come to the dregs, and then shall I with you, and for you, rejoice in the day of judgement, which is at hand. And therefore prepare yourselves thereto I heartily beseech you. And thus I take my farewell of you in this present life, my own dear hearts in the Lord. The Lord of mercy be with us all, and give us a joyful and sure meeting in his kingdom. Amen. Amen. Out of prison the 11th of February, anno 1555.

Your own in the Lord for ever,

John Bradford.

To all that profess the name and true religion of our Saviour Jesus Christ, in Lancashire and Cheshire, and especially those abiding in Manchester and thereabout, John Bradford, a most unworthy servant of the Lord, now not only in bonds, but also condemned for the same true religion, wishes mercy and grace, peace and increase of all godliness, from God, the Father of all pity, through the deserts of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the working of the most mighty and lively Spirit, the Comforter, for ever. Amen.

I hear it reported credibly, my dearly beloved in the Lord, that my heavenly Father has thought it good to provide, that, as I have preached his true doctrine and gospel among you by word, so I shall testify and confirm the same by deed, that is, I shall with you leave my life, which, by his providence, I first received there; for in Manchester was I born; for a seal to the doctrine I have taught with you and among you. So that if from henceforth you waver in the same, you have no excuse at all. I know the enemies of Christ which exercise cruelty upon me, (I speak in respect of my offence, which is nothing towards them, I think,) by killing of me among you, to affright you and others, lest they should attempt to teach Christ truly, or believe his doctrine hereafter. But I doubt not that my heavenly Father will, by my death, more confirm you in his truth than ever. And therefore I greatly rejoice to see Satan and his soldiers supplanted in their own wisdom, which is plain foolishness among the truly wise; that is, among such as have heard God's word, and do follow it; for they only are counted wise of the wisdom of God our Saviour. Indeed, if I should simply consider my life, with that which it ought to have been, and as God in his law requires, then could I not but cry as I do, Righteous art thou, o Lord, and all thy judgements are true. For I have much grieved thee, and transgressed thy holy precepts, not only before my professing the gospel, but since also. Yea, since my coming into prison I do not excuse, but accuse myself before God and all his church, that I have grievously offended my Lord God. I have not lived his gospel as I should have done. I have sought myself, and not simply and only his glory and my brethren's commodity. I have been too unthankful, secure, carnal, hypocritical, vainglorious, etc. All which my evils, the Lord of mercy pardon me for his Christ's sake, as I hope and certainly believe he has done for his great mercy in Christ our Redeemer. But when I consider the cause of my condemnation, I cannot but lament that I do no more rejoice than I do, for it is God's verity and truth. So that the condemnation is not a condemnation of Bradford simply, but rather a condemnation of Christ and of his truth. Bradford is nothing else but an instrument, in whom Christ and his doctrine is condemned. And therefore, my dearly beloved, rejoice, rejoice, and give thanks with me and for me, that God ever did vouchsafe so great a benefit to our country as to choose the most unworthy, I mean myself, to be one in whom it would please him to suffer any kind of affliction. Much more this violent kind of death, which I perceive is prepared for me among you for his sake. All glory and praise be given unto God our Father, for his great and exceeding mercy towards me, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

But perchance you will say unto me: "What is the cause for which you are condemned? We hear say, that you deny all presence of Christ in his holy supper, and so make it a bare sign and common bread, and nothing else." My dearly beloved, what is said of me, and what will be said, I cannot tell. It is told me that Pendleton is gone down to preach with you, not as he once recanted, for you all know he has preached contrary to that he was wont to preach before I came among you, but to recant that which he has recanted. How he will speak of me, and report before I come and when I am come, and when I am burned, I care not much. For he that is so uncertain and will speak so often against himself, I cannot think will speak well of me, except it make for his purpose and profit. But of this enough.

Indeed the chief thing which I am condemned for as a heretic, is because I deny that in the sacrament of the altar (which is not Christ's supper, but a plain perverting of it, when used as the Papists now use it,) there is a real, natural, and corporeal presence of Christ's body and blood, under the forms and accidents of bread and wine. That is, because I deny transubstantiation, which is the darling of the devil, and daughter and heir to Antichrist's religion, whereby the mass is maintained, Christ's supper is perverted, his sacrifice and cross imperfected, his priesthood destroyed, the ministry taken away, repentance repelled, and all true godliness abandoned. In the supper of our Lord, or sacrament of Christ's body and blood, I confess and believe, that there is a true and real presence of the whole Christ, God and man, to the faith of the receiver, (but not of the stander by and looker on,) as there is a very true presence of bread and wine to the senses of him that is partaker thereof. This faith, this true doctrine, which consents with the word of God and with the true testimony of Christ's church, which the popish church persecutes, I will not forsake, and therefore am I condemned as a heretic, and shall be burned. But, my dearly beloved, this truth which I have taught, and you have received, I believed and do believe, and therein give my life. And I hope in God it shall never be burned, bound, nor overcome, but shall triumph, have victory and be at liberty, in spite of the head of all God's adversaries. For there is no counsel against the Lord, nor can any device of man be able to defeat the verity, in any other than such as are children of unbelief, which have no love to the truth, and therefore are given up to believe lies. From which plague may the Lord of mercy deliver you and all the realm, my dear hearts in the Lord, I humbly beseech his mercy. Amen.

And to the end you might be delivered from this plague, right dear to me in the Lord, I shall, for my farewell with you for ever in this present life, heartily desire you all, in the bowels and blood of our most merciful Saviour Jesus Christ, to attend unto these things which I now shall shortly write unto you, out of the holy Scriptures of the Lord.

You know that a heavy plague, or rather plagues, of God is fallen upon us, in taking away our good king and true religion, God's true prophets and ministers, etc., and setting over us such as seek not the Lord according to knowledge, those who endeavour God prospers wonderfully for the trial of many, that his people may both better know themselves, and be known. Now the cause hereof is our iniquities and grievous sins. We did not know the time of our visitation. We are unthankful unto God. We condemned the gospel, and carnally abused it to serve our hypocrisy, our vainglory, our viciousness, avarice, idleness, security, etc. Long did the Lord linger and tarry to have showed mercy upon us, but we were ever, the longer the worse. Therefore most justly has God dealt with us, and deals with us, yea, yet we may see that his justice is tempered with much mercy, whereto let us attribute that we are not utterly consumed. For if the Lord should deal with us after our deserts, alas! how could we abide it? In his anger, therefore, seeing he remembers his mercy undeserved, yea, undesired on our behalf, let us take occasion the more speedily to go out to meet him, not with force of arms, for we are not able so to withstand him, much less to prevail against him, but to beseech him to be merciful unto us, and to deal with us according to his wonted mercy.

Let us arise with David, and say, Enter not into judgement with thy servant, o Lord! For in thy sight no flesh living shall be justified. Let us send ambassadors, with the centurion, and say, Lord, we are not worthy to come ourselves unto thee; speak the word, and we shall have peace. Let us penitently, with the publican, look down on the earth, knock our hard hearts to burst them, and cry out, o God! be merciful unto us wretched sinners. Let us, with the lost son, return and say, o Father! we have sinned against heaven and earth, and before thee. We are unworthy to be called thy children. Let us, I say, do thus, that is, heartily repent us of our former evil life, and our past unthankful gospelling. Let us convert and turn to God with our whole hearts, hoping in his great mercy through Christ, and heartily calling upon his holy name. And then undoubtedly we shall find and feel otherwise, than as yet we feel both inwardly and outwardly. Inwardly we shall feel peace of conscience between God and us, which peace passes all understanding. And outwardly we shall feel much mitigation of these miseries, if not an outward taking of them away.

Therefore, my dearly beloved in the Lord, I your poorest brother, now departing to the Lord, as my farewell for this present life, pray you, beseech you, and even from the very bottom of my heart, for all the mercies of God in Christ showed unto you, I most earnestly beg and crave of you out of prison, as often out of your pulpits I have done, that you will repent you, leave your wicked and evil life, be sorry for your offences, and turn to the Lord, whose arms are wide open to receive and embrace you. Whose hand, stretched out to strike to death, stays, that he may show mercy upon you. For he is the Lord of mercy, and God of all comfort. He wills not the death of the sinner, but rather that you should return, convert, and amend. He has no pleasure in the destruction of man. His longsuffering draws to repentance before the time of vengeance and the day of wrath, which is at hand, does come.

Now is the axe laid to the root of the tree, utterly to destroy the impenitent. Now is the fire gone out before the face of the Lord. And who is able to quench it? Oh, therefore, repent you, repent you. It is enough to have lived as we have done. It is enough to have played the wanton gospellers, the proud protestants, hypocritical and false Christians, as, alas! we have done. Now the Lord speaks to us in mercy and grace. Oh! turn before he speak in wrath. Yet is there mercy with the Lord, and plenteous redemption. Yet he has not forgotten to show mercy to them that call upon him. Oh! then call upon him while he may be found, for he is rich in mercy, and plentiful, to all them that call upon him. So that he that calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. If your sins be as red as scarlet, the Lord says, he will make them as white as snow. He has sworn, and never will repent him thereof, that he will never remember our iniquities. But as he is God, faithful and true, so will he be our God, and we shall be his people. His law will he write in our hearts, and engraft in our minds, and never will he have in mind our unrighteousness. Therefore, my dear hearts in the Lord, turn you, turn you to the Lord your Father, to the Lord your Saviour, to the Lord your Comforter. Oh! why do you stop your ears and harden your hearts today, when you hear his voice by me your poorest brother? Oh! forget not how that the Lord has showed himself true, and me his true preacher, by bringing to pass these plagues, which, at my mouth, you often heard of before they came to pass. Especially when I treated of Noah's flood, and when I preached from the twenty-second chapter of St. Matthew's gospel, on St. Stephen's day, the last time that I was with you. And now by me the Lord sends you word, dear countrymen, that if you will go on forward in your impenitence, carnality, hypocrisy, idolatry, covetousness, swearing, gluttony, drunkenness, whoredom, etc., wherewith, alas, alas! our country flows; if, I say, you will not turn and leave off, seeing me now burned among you, to assure you on all sides how God seeks you, and is sorry to do you hurt, to plague you, to destroy you, to take vengeance upon you; oh! your blood will be upon your own heads. You have been warned and warned again by me in preaching, - by me in burning.

As I said therefore, I say again, my dear hearts, and darlings in the Lord, turn you, turn you, repent, repent you. Cease from doing evil. Study to do well. Away with idolatry. Fly the Romish god and service. Leave off from swearing. Cut off carnality. Abandon avarice. Drive away drunkenness. Fly from fornication and flattery, murder and malice. Destroy deceitfulness, and cast away all the works of darkness. Put on piety and godliness. Serve God after his word, and not after custom. Use your tongues to glorify God by prayer, thanksgiving, and confession of his truth, etc. Be spiritual, and by the Spirit mortify carnal affections. Be sober, holy, true, loving, gentle, merciful. And then shall the Lord's wrath cease, not for this our doings' sake, but for his mercy's sake. Go to, therefore. Good countrymen, take this counsel of the Lord by me, and now sent unto you, as the Lord's counsel and not as mine. That in the day of judgement I may rejoice with you and for you, which I heartily desire; and not to be a witness against you. My blood will cry for vengeance against the papists, God's enemies (whom I beseech God, if it be his will, heartily to forgive, yea, even them which put me to death, and are the causers thereof, for they know not what they do). So also will my blood cry for vengeance against you, my dearly beloved in the Lord, if you repent not, amend not, and turn not unto the Lord.

Turn unto the Lord, yet once more, I heartily beseech you, you Manchester, you Aston-under-Line, you Bolton, Bury, Wigan, Liverpool, Mottrin, Stepport, Winsley, Eccles, Prestwich, Middleton, Radcliff, and you city of West-Chester, where I have truly taught and preached the word of God. Turn, I say unto you all, and to all the inhabitants thereabouts, turn unto the Lord our God, and he will turn unto you. He will say unto his angel, "It is enough, put up the sword." And that he do this I humbly beseech his goodness, for the precious blood sake of his dear Son our Saviour Jesus Christ. Ah! good brethren, take in good part these my last words unto every one of you. Pardon me my offences and negligences in behaviour among you. The Lord of mercy pardon us all our offences, for our Saviour Jesus Christ's sake. Amen. Out of prison, ready to come to you, the eleventh of February, anno 1555.

To the faithful, and such as profess the true doctrine of our Saviour Jesus Christ, dwelling at Walden, and thereabouts. John Bradford, a most unworthy servant of the Lord, now in bands, and condemned for the same true doctrine, wishes grace, mercy, and peace, with the increase of all godliness, in knowledge and living, from God the Father of all comfort, through the deserts of our alone and full Redeemer Jesus Christ, by the mighty working of the most holy Spirit, the Comforter, for ever. Amen.

When I remember how that, by the providence and grace of God, I have been a man, by whom it has pleased him, through my ministry, to call you to repentance and amendment of life, something effectually, as it seemed, and to sow among you his true doctrine and religion; - lest that by my affliction and the storms now arisen, to try the faithful, and to conform them like to the image of the Son of God, into whose company we are called, you might be faint-hearted - I could not, but out of prison, secretly, for my keepers may not know that I have pen and ink, write unto you a signification of the desire I have, that you should not only be more confirmed in the doctrine I have taught among you, which I take on my death, as I shall answer at the day of doom, I am persuaded to be God's assured, infallible, and plain true. But also that you should, after your vocation, aver the same by confession, profession, and living. I have not taught you, my dearly beloved in the Lord,, fables, tales, or untruths. No, I have taught you the verity, as now by my blood gladly, praised be God, therefore, I seal the same.

Indeed, to confess the truth unto you, and to all the church of Christ, I think of myself, that I have most justly deserved not only this kind, but also all kinds of death, and that eternally, for my hypocrisy, vain-glory, uncleanness, self-love, covetousness, idleness, unthankfulness, and carnal professing of God's holy gospel, living therein not so purely, lovingly, and painfully as I should have done. May the Lord of mercy, for the blood sake of Christ, pardon me, as I hope, yea, certainly believe, he has done for his holy name sake. But, my dearly beloved, you and all the world may see and easily perceive, that the prelates persecute in me another thing than my iniquities, even Christ himself, Christ's verity and truth, because I cannot, dare not, will not, confess transubstantiation, and how that wicked men, yea, that even mice and dogs, eating the sacrament (which they call the sacrament of the altar, thereby overthrowing Christ's holy supper utterly,) do eat Christ's natural and real body born of the virgin Mary.

It is not enough now to believe and confess as God's word teaches, the primitive church believed, and all the catholic and good holy fathers taught, five hundred years at the least after Christ, that, in the supper of the Lord, which the mass overthrows, as it does Christ's priesthood, sacrifice, death, and passion, the ministry of the word, true faith, repentance, and all godliness; - there is whole Christ, God and man, present by grace to the faith of the receivers, but not of the standers-by and lookers-on, as bread and wine is to their senses. Therefore I am condemned, and shall be burned out of hand as a heretic. Wherefore I heartily thank my Lord God, that will and does vouch me worthy to be an instrument, in whom he himself does suffer. For you see my affliction and death is not simply because I have deserved no less, but much more at his hands and justice, but rather because I confess his verity and truth, and am not afraid through his gifts so to do that you also might be confirmed in his truth. Therefore, my dearly beloved I heartily pray you, and so many as unfeignedly love me in God, to give, with me and for me, most hearty thanks to our heavenly Father, through our sweet Saviour Jesus Christ, for this his exceeding great mercy towards me, and you also, that your faith waver not from the doctrine I have taught, and you have received. For what can you desire more to assure your consciences of the verity taught by your preachers than their own lives?

Go to therefore, my dear hearts in the Lord. Waver not in Christ's religion, truly taught you and set forth in king Edward's days. Never shall the enemies be able to burn it, to prison it, and keep it in bonds. Us they may prison, they may bind and burn, as they do, and will do so long as shall please the Lord. But our cause, religion, and doctrine, which we confess, they shall never be able to vanquish and put away. Their idolatry and popish religion shall never be built in the consciences of men that love the truth. As for those that love not God's truth, that have no pleasure to walk in the ways of the Lord, in those, I say, the devil shall prevail, for God will give them strong illusion to believe lies. Therefore, dear brethren and sisters in the Lord, I humbly beseech you and pray you, in the bowels and blood of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, now I am going to the death for the testimony of Jesus, as oftentimes I have done before, out of your pulpit, that you would love the Lord's truth. Love, I say, to live it, and frame your lives thereafter. Alas! you know the cause of all these plagues which are fallen upon us, and of the success which God's adversaries have daily, that it is for our not living according to God's word.

You know that we were but gospellers in lips, and not in life. We were carnal, full of concupiscence, idle, unthankful, unclean, covetous, arrogant, dissemblers, crafty, subtle, malicious, false, backbiters, etc., and even glutted with God's word. Yea, we loathed it, as the Israelites did the manna in the wilderness. And therefore, as to them the Lord's wrath waxed hot, so it does unto us. So that there is no remedy, but that, for it is better late to turn than never to turn. We confess our faults, even from the bottom of our hearts. And with hearty repentance, which may God work in us all for his mercy's sake, we run unto the Lord our God, who is ready to be entreated, merciful, and sorry for the evil poured out upon us. And we cry unto him with Daniel, saying, We have sinned, we have sinned grievously, o Lord God, against thy majesty. We have heaped iniquity upon iniquity. The measure of our transgressions flows over. So that thy vengeance and wrath are justly fallen upon us, for we are very miserable. We have contemned thy long suffering, we have not hearkened to thy voice; when thou hast called us by thy preachers, we hardened our hearts, and therefore now deserve that thou send thy curse thereupon, to harden our hearts also, that we should henceforth have eyes and see not, ears and hear not, hearts and understand not, lest we should he converted and be saved. Oh! be merciful unto us, spare us, good Lord, and all thy people whom thou hast dearly bought. Let not thine enemies triumph altogether and always against thee, for then will they be puffed up. Look down, and behold the pitiful complaints of the poor. Let the sorrowful sighing of the simple come in thy sight, and be not angry with us for ever. Turn us, o Lord God of hosts, unto thee, turn thou unto us, that thou may be justified in thy sweet sentences, and overcome when thou art judged, as now thou art by our adversaries. For they say, Where is their God? Can God deliver them now? Can their gospel serve them? O Lord! how long, for the glory of thy name, and for thy honour's sake, in the bowels and blood of Jesus Christ, we humbly beseech thee, come and help us, for we are very miserable.

In this manner I say, dearly beloved, let us publicly and privately bewail our sins, but so that hereto we join ceasing from wilfulness and sin of purpose. For else the Lord hears not our prayers, as David says. And in St. John it is written, the impenitent sinners God hears not. How impenitent are they, which purpose not to amend their lives! As for example, not only such as still follow their pleasures in covetousness, uncleanness, and carnality, but those also which for fear of favour of men against their conscience consent to the Romish rags, and resort to the rotten religion, communicating in service and ceremonies with the papist; thereby declaring themselves to love the world more than God, to fear man more than Christ, to dread the loss of temporal things more than of eternal. In whom it is evident the love of God abides not. For he that loves the world has not God's love abiding in him, says St. John. Therefore, my dear hearts, and dear again in the Lord, remember what you have professed, - Christ's religion and name, and the renouncing of the devil, sin, and the world.

Remember, before you learned ABC, your lesson was Christ's cross (note: he refers to the figure of a cross formerly put at the top of the book from which children used to learn their letters). Forget not that Christ will have no disciples, but such as will promise to deny themselves, and take up their cross. Mark, they must take it up, and follow him, and not the multitude, custom, and use. Consider, for God's sake, that if we gather not with Christ, we scatter abroad. What should it profit a man to win the whole world, and lose his own soul? We must not forget that this life is a wilderness, and not a paradise. Here is not our home. We are now in warfare. We must needs fight, or else be taken prisoners. Of all things we have in this life, we shall carry nothing with us. If Christ be our captain, we must follow Him as good soldiers. If we keep company with Him in affliction, we shall be sure of his society in glory. If we forsake not Him, He will never forsake us. If we confess Him, He will confess us. But if we deny Him, He will deny us. I we are ashamed of Him, He will be ashamed of us. Wherefore, as He forsook His Father, and heaven, and all things, to come to us, so let us forsake all things to come to Him, being sure and most certain that we shall not lose thereby. Your children shall find and feel and double, yea, treble whatsoever you lose for the Lord's sake. You shall find and feel peace of conscience, and friendship with God, which is worth more than all the goods of the world.

My dearly beloved, therefore, for the Lord's sake, consider these things which I now write unto you of love, for my last farewell for ever in this present life. Turn to the Lord. Repent you of your evil and unthankful life. Declare repentance by the fruits. Take time while you have it. Come to the Lord while He calls you. Run into His lap while His arms are open to embrace you. Seek Him while He may be found. Call upon Him while time is convenient. Forsake and fly from all evil, both in religion, and in the rest of your life and conversation. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and praise God in the day of his visitation. Oh! come again, come again, you strange children, and I will receive you, says the Lord. Convert and turn to me, and I will turn to you. Why will you needs perish? As sure as I live (swears the Lord) I desire not your death. Turn therefore unto Me. Can a woman forget the child of her womb? If she should, yet I will not forget you, says the Lord your God. I am He, I am He, which puts away your sins for My Own sake.

Oh then, dear friends, turn, I say, unto your dearest Father. Cast not these sweet and loving words to the ground and behind you, for the Lord watches over His word to perform it, which He does in two ways. To them that lay it up in their hearts, and believe it, will He pay all, and eternal joy and comfort. But to them that cast it at their backs, and wilfully forget it, to them, I say, will He pour out indignation and eternal shame. Wherefore I heartily yet once more beseech you, and pray you, and every one of you, not to contemn this poor and simple exhortation, which now out of prison I make unto you, or rather the Lord by me. Loath would I to be a witness against you in the last day, as of truth I must, if you repent not, if you love not God's gospel, yea, if you live it not.

Therefore to conclude, repent, love God's gospel, live in it, make it all your conversation. So shall God's name be praised, His plagues mitigates, His people comforted, and His enemies ashamed. Grant all things, Thou gracious Lord God, to every one of us, for Thy dear Son's sake, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. To Whom, Thee and the Holy Ghost, be eternal glory, for ever and ever. Amen. The twelfth of February, anno 1555.

By the bondman of the Lord, etc.

Your afflicted poor brother,

John Bradford.

Our dear and sweet Saviour Jesus Christ, whose prisoner at this present (praised be His name therefore) I am, preserve and keep you, my good mother, with my brothers and sisters, my father John Traves, Thomas Sorrocold, Lawrence and James Bradshaw, with their wives and families, etc., now and for ever, amen!

I am at this present in prison, sure enough for starting to confirm that I have preached unto you. As I am ready, I thank God, with my life and blood to seal the same, if God consider me worthy of that honour. For, good mother and brethren, it is a most special benefit of God to suffer for His name sake and gospel, as now I do. I heartily thank Him for it, and I am sure that with Him I shall be partaker of His glory. As Paul says, If we suffer with Him, we shall reign with Him. Therefore be not faint-hearted, but rather rejoice, at least for my sake, which now am in the right and high way to heaven. For by many afflictions we must enter the kingdom of heaven. Now God will make known His children. When the wind does not blow, than a man cannot know the wheat from the chaff. But when the blast comes, then the chaff flies away. But the wheat remains, and is so far from being hurt, that by the wind it is cleansed from the chaff, and known to be wheat. Gold, when it is cast into the fire, is the more precious. So are God's children by the cross of affliction. God always begins His judgement at His house. Christ and the apostles were in most misery in the land of Jewry, but yet the whole land smarted for it afterwards. So now God's children are chastised in this world, that they should not be damned with the world. For surely great plagues of God hang over this realm.

You all know that there was never more knowledge of God, and less godly living and true serving of God. It was counted a foolish thing to serve God truly, and earnest prayer was not passed upon. Preaching was but a pastime. The communion was counted too common. Fasting to subdue the flesh was far out of use. Alms were almost nothing. Malice, covetousness, and uncleanness, were common everywhere, with swearing, drunkenness, and idleness. God therefore now is come, as you have heard me preach. And because He will not condemn us with the world, He begins to punish us - as me for my carnal living. For as for my preaching, I am most certain it is and was God's truth, and I trust to give my life for it by God's grace. But because I loved not the gospel truly, but outwardly, therefore He thus punishes me; nay, rather in punishing blesses me. And indeed I thank Him more for this prison than for any parlour, yea, than for any pleasure that ever I had. For in it I find God, my most sweet good God always. The flesh is punished, first to admonish us now to live heartily as we profess. Secondly, to certify the wicked of their just damnation, if they repent not.

Perchance you are weakened as to that which I have preached, because God does not defend it, as you think, but suffers the popish doctrine to come again and prevail. But you must know, good mother, that God by this proves and tries His children and people, whether they will unfeignedly and simply hang on Him and His word. So did He with the Israelites, bringing them into a desert after their coming out of Egypt. Where, I mean in the wilderness, was want of all things in comparison of that which they had in Egypt. Christ, when He came into this world, brought no worldly wealth, nor quietness with Him, but rather war. The world, said He, shall rejoice, but ye shall mourn and weep. But our weeping shall be turned into joy. And therefore, happy are they that mourn and weep, for they shall be comforted. They are marked then with God's mark in their foreheads, and not with the beast's mark, I mean the Pope's shaven crown, who now rejoices with His shavelings. But woe unto them, for they shall be cast down. They shall weep and mourn. The rich glutton had here his joy, and Lazarus sorrow, but afterwards the time was changed. The end of carnal joy is sorrow. Now, let the whoremonger joy with the drunkard, swearer, covetous, malicious, and blind buzzard Sir John (the Romish priests were so styled, editor); for the mass will not bite them, neither make then to blush, as preaching would. Now may they do what they will, come devils to the church, and go devils home, for no man may find fault, and they are glad of this. Now they have their heart's desire, as the Sodomites had when Lot was gone. But what followed? Forsooth, when they cried "Peace, all shall be well", then came God's vengeance, fire and brimstone from heaven, and burnt up every mother's child. Even so, dear mother, will it do to our papists.

Wherefore, fear God, stick to His word, though all the world swerve from it. Die you must, once, and when or how you cannot tell. Die therefore with Christ, suffer for serving Him truly and after His word. for sure may we be, that of all deaths, it is most to be desired to die for God's sake. This is the most safe kind of dying. We cannot doubt but that we shall go to heaven if we die for His name sake. And that you shall die for his name sake, God's word will warrant you, if you stick to that which God by me has taught you. You shall see that I speak as I think. For by God's grace I will drink before you of this cup, if I am put to it.

I doubt not but God will give me His grace, and strengthen me thereto. Pray that He would, and that I refuse it not. I am at a pint, even when my Lord God will, to come to Him. Death nor life, prison nor pleasure, I trust in God, shall be able to separate me from my Lord God and His gospel. In peace, when no persecution was, then you were content and glad to hear me; then you believed me. And will you not do so now, seeing I speak that which I trust by God's grace, if needs be, to verify with my life? Good mother, I write before God to you, as I have preached before Him.

It is God's truth I have taught. It is that same infallible word whereof He said, "Heaven and earth shall pass, but My word shall not pass." The mass and such baggage as the false worshippers of God and enemies of Christ's cross, the papist, have brought in again, to poison the church of God withal, displease God highly, and is abominable in His sight. Happy may he be which for conscience suffers loss of life or goods in disallowing it. Come not at it. If God be God, follow Him. If the mass be god, let them that will, see it, hear or be present at it, and go to the devil with it. What is therein as God ordained? His supper was ordained to be received of us in memorial of His death, for the confirmation of our faith, that His body was broken for us, and His blood shed for pardon of our sins. But in the mass there is no receiving, but the priest keeps all to himself alone. Christ says, Take, eat. No, says the priest, gape, peep. There is a sacrifice, yea, a killing of Christ again as much as they may. There is idolatry in worshipping the outward sign of bread and wine. There is all in Latin. You cannot tell what he says. To conclude, there is nothing as God ordained. Wherefore, my good mother, come not at it.

Oh! some will say, it will be a hindrance to you if you refuse to come to the mass, and to do as others do. But God will further you, be you assured, as you shall one day find, Who has promised to them that suffer hindrance or loss of anything in this world, His great blessing here, and in the world to come life everlasting.

You shall be counted a heretic. But not of others, only of heretics, whose praise is a dispraise.

You are not able to reason against the priests, but God will, so that all of them shall not be able to withstand you. Nobody will do so, but you only. Indeed no matter. For few enter in at the narrow gate which brings to salvation. Howbeit, you shall have with you, I doubt not, father Traves and others of my brothers and sisters, to go with you therein. But if they will not, I, your son in God, I trust, shall not leave you an inch, but go before you. Pray that I may, and give thanks for me. Rejoice in my suffering, for it is for your sakes, to confirm the truth I have taught. Howsoever you do, beware this letter come not abroad but into father Traves' hands. For if it should be known that I have pen and ink in the prison, then would it be worse with me. Therefore keep this letter to yourselves, commending me to God, and His mercy in Christ Jesus. May he make me worthy, for His name sake, to give my life for His gospel and church. Out of the Tower of London, the 6th day of October, 1553.

My name I write not, for causes you know well enough: like the letter never the worse. Command me to all our good brethren and sisters in the Lord. Howsoever you do, be obedient to the higher powers, that is, in no point either in hand or tongue rebel. But rather, if they command that which with good conscience you cannot obey, lay your head on the block, and suffer whatsoever they shall do or say. By patience possess you your souls.

I beseech the ever living God to grant you all, my good brethren and sisters, the comfort of the Holy Spirit, and the continual sense of His mercy in Christ our Lord, now and for ever. Amen. The world, my brethren, seems to have the upper hand. Iniquity overflows. The truth and verity seem to be oppressed, and they which take part therewith are unjustly treated. And they which love the truth lament to see and hear as they do. The cause of all this is God's anger and mercy. His anger, because we have grievously sinned against Him. His mercy, because He punishes us here, and nurtures us as a father. We have been unthankful for His word. We have contemned His kindness. We have been negligent in prayer. We have been so carnal, covetous, licentious, etc., that we have not hastened to heaven-ward, but rather to hell-ward. We were fallen almost into an open contempt of God, and all His good ordinances. So that of His justice He could no longer forbear, but must make us feel His anger, as now He has done, in taking His word and true service from us, and permitting Satan to serve us with antichristian religion, and that in such a manner, that, if we will not yield to it, and seem to allow it in deed and outward fact, our bodies are likely to be laid in prison, and our goods given we cannot tell to whom.

This we should look upon as a sign of God's anger, procured by our sins, which, my good brethren, every one of us should now call to our memories oftentimes, as particularly as we can, that we may heartily lament them, repent them, hate them, ask earnestly mercy for them, and submit ourselves to bear in this life any kind of punishment which God will lay upon us for them. This we should do in consideration of God's anger at this time. Now His mercy in this time of wrath is seen, and should be seen by us, my dearly beloved, in this respect, that God vouchsafes to punish us in this present life. If He had not punished us, do not you think that we should have continued in the evils we were in? Yes, verily, we should have been worse, and have gone forward in hardening our hearts, by impenitence, and negligence of God, and true godliness. And then, if death had come, should we not have perished, both soul and body, in eternal fire and perdition? Alas! what misery we should have fallen into, if God had suffered us to go forward in our evils! No greater sign of damnation is there, than to lie in evil and sin, unpunished of God, as now the papists, my dearly beloved, are cast into Jezebel's bed of security (Rev. 3), which of all plagues is the most grievous plague that can be. They are bastards, and not sons, for they are not under God's rod of correction.

A great mercy therefore it is that God punishes us. for if He loves us not, He would not punish us. Now He chastises us, that we should not be damned with the world. Now He nurtures us, because He favours us. Now we may think ourselves God's house and children, because He begins His chastising at us. Now he calls us to remember our sins past. Wherefore? That we might repent, and ask mercy. And why? That He might forgive us, pardon us, justify us, and make us His children, and so begin to make us here like Christ, that we might be like unto Him elsewhere, even in heaven, where already we are set by faith with Christ. And at His coming, in very deed we shall enjoy His presence, when our sinful and vile bodies shall be made like to Christ's glorious body, according to the power whereby He is able to make all things subject to Himself.

Therefore, my brethren, let us in respect hereof not lament, but laud God. Let us not be sorry, but be merry; not weep, but rejoice and be glad, that God vouchsafes to offer us His cross, thereby to come to Him to endless joys and comforts. For if we suffer, we shall reign. If we confess Him before men, He will confess us before His Father in heaven. If we are not ashamed of His gospel now, He will not be ashamed of us in the last day, but will be glorified in us, crowning us with crowns of glory and endless felicity. For blessed are they that suffer persecution for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Be glad, says Peter, for the Spirit of God rests upon you. And after you are a little while afflicted, God will comfort, strengthen, and confirm you. And therefore, my good brethren, be not discouraged for cross, for prison, or loss of goods, for confession of Christ's gospel and truth which you have believed, and which was taught amongst you in the days of our late good king, and most holy prince king Edward. This is most certain, if you lose anything for Christ's sake, and for contemning the antichristian service set up again amongst us; -- as you for your parts, even in prison, shall find God's great and rich mercy for passing all worldly wealth; -- so shall your wives and children, in this present life, find and feel God's providence more plentifully than tongue can tell. For He will show merciful kindness on thousands of them that love Him. The good man's seed shall not go a-begging his bread. You are good men, so many as suffer for Christ's sake.

I trust that you all, my dearly beloved, will consider this with yourselves, and in the cross see God's mercy, which is more sweet and to be set by, than life itself, much more than any muck or pelf of this world. This mercy of god should make you merry and cheerful, for the afflictions of this life are not to be compared to the joys of the life prepared for you. You know that the way to heaven is not the wide way of the world, which winds to the devil, but it is a strait way, which few walk in. For few live godly in Christ Jesus. Few regard the life to come. Few remember the day of judgement. Few remember how Christ will deny them before His Father, that deny Him here. Few consider that Christ will be ashamed of them in the last day, which now are ashamed of His truth and true service. Few cast their accounts what will be laid to their charge in the day of vengeance. Few regard the condemnation of their own consciences, in doing that which inwardly they disallow. Few love God better than their goods.

But I trust yet, you are of this few, my dearly beloved. I trust you are of that little flock, which shall inherit the kingdom of heaven. I trust you are the mourners and lamenters, which shall be comforted with comfort that never shall be taken from you, if you now repent your former evils, if now you strive against the evils that re in you, if now you continue to call upon God, if now you defile not your bodies with any idolatrous service, used in the antichristian churches; if you molest not the good Spirit of God, Which is given you as a gage (pledge, editor) of eternal redemption, an Counsellor and Master to lead you into all truth; which good Spirit I beseech the Father of mercy to give to us all, for His dear Son's sake, Jesus Christ our Lord, to Whom I commend you all and to the word of His grace, which is able to help you all, and save you all, that believe it, follow it, and serve God thereafter.

And of this I would you were all certain, that all the hairs of your heads are numbered, so that not one of them shall perish, neither shall any man or devil be able to attempt anything, much less to do anything to you, or any of you, before your heavenly Father, Which loves you most tenderly, shall give them leave. And when He has given them leave, they shall go no farther than He will, nor keep you in trouble any longer than He will. Therefore cat on Him all your care, for He is careful for you. Only study to please Him, and to keep your consciences clean, and your bodies pure from the idolatrous service, which now everywhere is used, and God will marvellously and mercifully defend and comfort you; which thing He will do for His holy name's sake in Christ our Lord. Amen.

God, our dear and most merciful Father, through Christ, be with you, my good brother and sister, as with his children forever; and in all things so guide you with His Holy Spirit, the Leader of His people, as may be to His glory, and your own everlasting joy and comfort in Him. Amen. Because I have oftentimes received from either of you comfort corporeal, for which I beseech the Lord to make me thankful, and to recompense you both now and eternally, I cannot but go about (Lord, help hereto for Thy mercy's sake!) to write something for your comfort spiritually.

My dearly beloved, look not upon these days and the afflictions of the same here with us, simply as they seem unto you, that is as dismal days, and days of God's vengeance, but rather as lucky days, and days of God's fatherly kindness towards you, and such as you are, that is, towards such as repent their sins and evil life past, and earnestly purpose to amend, walking not after the will of the world, as the most part of men do, for the preservation of their pelf, which, will they, nill they, they shall leave sooner or later, and by whom, or how it shall be used, they know not. Indeed, to such as walk in their wickedness, and wind on with the world, this time is a time of wrath and vengeance; and their beginning of sorrow is but now, because they contemn the physic of their Father, which by this purging time, and cleansing days, would work their weal, which they will not. And because they will not have God's blessing, which both ways he has offered unto them by prosperity and adversity; therefore it shall be kept far enough from them, as, when the sick man will take no kind of physic at the hands of the physician, he is left alone, and so the malady increases, and destroys him at length. To such men indeed, these days are and should he doleful days, and days of woe and weeping, because their damnation draws nigh. But unto such as be penitent, and are desirous to live after the Lord's will, among whom I do not only count you, but, as far as a man may judge, I know you are, unto such I say this time is and should be comfortable. For, first, now your Father chastises you and me for our sins; for the which if he would have destroyed us, then would he have let us alone, and left us to ourselves, not taking to heart his fatherly visitation, which here it pleases him to work at present, because elsewhere he will not remember our transgressions, as Paul writes; he chastises us in this world, lest with the world. we should perish. Therefore, my dear hearts, call to mind your sins, to lament them, and to ask mercy for them in his sight, and withal undoubtedly believe to obtain pardon, and assured forgiveness of the same, for the Lord punishes not twice for one thing.

So that, I say, first we have cause to rejoice for these days, because our Father suffers us not to lie in Jezebel's bed, sleeping in our own sins and security; but is mindful of us, and corrects us as his children, whereby we may be certain that we are not bastards, but children; for he chastises every child whom he receives, so that they which are not partakers of his chastising, or that contemn it, declare themselves to be bastards and not children. But I know you are children who when you are chastised, take it to heart accordingly. And therefore be glad, my dear hearts, as folks knowing certainly, even by these visitations of the Lord, that you are his dear elect children, whose faults your Father may visit with the rod of correction, but his mercy he will never take away from you. Amen.

Secondly, you have cause to rejoice for these days, because they are days of trial, wherein not only you yourselves, but also the world, shall know that you are none of his, but the Lord's dearlings. Before these days came, how many thought of themselves that they had been in God's bosom, and so were thought, and would be thought by the world. But now we see whose they are; for to whom we obey, his servants we are. If we obey the world which God forbid, and hitherto ye have not done it, then are we the world's; but if we obey God, then are we God's; which thing (I mean that you are God's) these days have declared both to you, to me, and to all others that know you, better than ever we knew it; therefore you have no cause to sorrow, but rather to sing, seeing yourselves to be God's babes, and seeing that all God's children do so count you.

What though the world repine thereat? what though he kick? what though he seek to trouble and molest you? My dear hearts, he does but after his kind. He cannot love the Lord, who lives not in the Lord; he that hates the father, cannot bear the child; he cannot mind the servant, that cares not for the master: if you were of the world, the world would love you; you should dwell quietly; there would be no grief, no molestation. If the devil dwelt in you (which the Lord forbid) he would not stir up his servants to besiege your house, to snatch your goods, or suffer his fiends to enter into your hogs; but because Christ dwells in you, as he does by faith, therefore he stirs up his first-begotten son, the world, to seek how to disquiet you, to rob you, to spoil you, to destroy you. And perhaps your dear Father, to try and to make known to you and to the world, that you are destined to another dwelling than here on earth, to another city than man's eyes have seen at any time, has given or will give power to Satan and to the world to take from you the things which he has lent you; and, by taking away, to try your fidelity, obedience, and love towards him; for you may not love them above him, as by giving what you have, and continuing it, he has declared his love towards you.

Satan perchance tells God, as he did of Job, that you love God for your goods' sake. What now then if the Lord, to try you, with Job, shall give Satan power on your goods and body accordingly; should you be dismayed? should you despair? should you be fainthearted? Should you not rather rejoice, as did the apostles, that they were counted worthy to suffer anything for the Lord's sake? Oh! forget not the end that happened to Job, for as it happened unto him, so shall it happen unto you; for God is the same God, and cannot long forget to show mercy to them that look and long for it, as I know you do, and I pray you so to do still; for the Lord loves you, and never can nor will forget to show and pour out his mercy upon you. After a little while that he has afflicted and tried you (says Peter) he will visit, comfort, and confirm you. As unto Jacob, wrestling with the angel, at the length morning came, and the sun arose, so, dear hearts, doubtless it will happen unto you. Howbeit, do you as Job and Jacob did: that is, order and dispose your things, that God has lent you, as you may, and while you have time,ówho knows whether God has not given you power thus long even for that purpose?

Go to, therefore, dispose your goods, prepare yourselves to trial, that either you may stand to it, like God's champions, or else, if you feel such infirmity in yourselves that you are not able, give place to violence, and go where you may with free and safe conscience serve the Lord. (Erkinalde Rawlins and his wife followed this counsel, and fled beyond sea. Editor.) Think not this counsel to come by chance or fortune, but to come from the Lord. Other oracles we may not look for now. As God told Joseph in a dream by an angel, that he should see, so if you feel such infirmity, in yourselves as should turn to God's dishonour, and your own destruction, know that at this present I am as God's angel, to admonish you to take time while you have it, and to see that in no case God's name by you might be dishonoured. Joseph might have objected the omission of his vocation (the loss of his business, editor), as perchance you will do; but, dear hearts, let vocations, and all things else, give place to God's name, and the sanctifying thereof.

This I speak, not as though I would not have you rather to tarry and to stand to it, but I speak it in respect of your infirmity, which if you feel to be so great in you that you are not certain of this hope, that God will never tempt you above your ability, flee and get you hence, and know that thereby God will have you tried, to yourselves and to others. For by it you shall know how to take this world, and that your home here is no home, but that you look for another, and so give occasion to others to love this world less, and perchance to some to doubt of their religion, wherein, though they are earnest, yet would they not lose so much as you do for your religion, which you do confirm to me and others by your giving place to violence.

Last of all, you have cause to rejoice over these our days, because they are days of conformation, in which and by which God our heavenly Father makes us like unto Christ's image here, that we may be like unto him elsewhere. For if we suffer with him, then we shall reign also with him; if we are buried with him, then we shall rise with him again; if we company with him in all troubles and afflictions, then we shall rejoice with him in glory; if we now sow with him in tears, we shall reap with him in gladness; if we confess him before men, he will confess us before his Father in heaven; if we take his part, he will take ours; if we lose aught for his name's sake, he will give us all things for his truth's sake. So that we ought to rejoice and be glad, for it is not given to every one to suffer loss of country, life, goods, house, &c. for the Lord's sake. What can God the Father do more unto us, than to call us into the camp with his Son? what may Christ our Saviour do more for us, than to make us his warriors? what can the Holy Ghost do to us above this, to mark us with the cognisance of the Lord of Hosts?

The cognisance of the Lord stands not in forked caps, tippets, shaven crowns, or such other baggage and antichristian pelf, but in suffering for the Lord's sake. The world shall hate you, says Christ. Lo! there is the cognisance and badge of God's children:óthe world shall hate you. Rejoice, therefore, my dearly beloved; rejoice that God thus vouchsafes to begin to conform you, and to make you like to Christ. By the trial of these days you are occasioned more to repent, more to pray, more to contemn this world, more to desire life everlasting, more to he holy, for to be holy is the end wherefore God afflicts us, and so to come to God's company; which thing, because we cannot do, as long as this body is as it is, therefore by the door of death we must enter, with Christ, into eternal life, and immortality of soul and body which God of his mercy send shortly, for our Saviour Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.

The everlasting peace of Christ be more and more lively felt in your hearts, by the operation of the Holy Ghost, now and for ever. Amen.

Although I know it is not needful to write anything unto you, good sister, being, as I doubt not you are, diligently exercised in reading of the scriptures, in meditating of the same, and in hearty prayer to God for the help of his Holy Spirit for the sense and feeling, especially of the comforts you read in God's sweet book; yet having such opportunity, and knowing not whether hereafter I shall ever have the like, as this bringer can declare, I thought good, in few words, to take my farewell in writing, because otherwise I cannot. And now methinks I have done it: for what else can I, or should I say unto you, my dearly beloved in the Lord, but farewell? Farewell, dear sister, farewell; howbeit, in the Lord, our Lord, I say, farewell! In him shall you fare well, and so much the better, by how much in yourself you fare evil, and shall fare evil.

When I speak of yourself, I mean also this world, this life, and all things properly pertaining to this life: in them you look not for your welfare, and be not dismayed when accordingly you shall not feel it. To the Lord our God, to the Lamb our Christ, which has borne our sins on his back, and is our Mediator for ever, do I send you. In him look for welfare, and that without all wavering, because of his own goodness and truth, which many evils and untruth cannot take away. Not that, therefore, I would have you to flatter yourself in any evil or unbelief; but that I would comfort you, that they should not dismay you. Yours is our Christ, wholly; yours I say he is, with all that ever he has. Is not this welfare, think you? Mountains shall move, and the earth shall fall, before you find it otherwise, say that liar Satan what he list.

Therefore, good sister, farewell, and be merry in the Lord; be merry, I say, for you have good cause. If your welfare, joy, and salvation, hanged upon any other thing than only God's mercy and truth, then might you well be sad, heavy, and stand in doubt; but since it hangs only upon these two, tell Satan he lies, when he would have you to stand in a mammering (hesitating, editor), by causing you to cast your eyes on yourself in some respect, which in this ease should be set on Christ your sweet Saviour only. Indeed, look on yourself, on your faith, on your love, obedience, &c. to wake you up from security, to stir you up to diligence in doing the things appertaining to your vocation. But when you would be at peace with God, and have true consolation in your conscience, altogether look upon the goodness of God in Christ, think on this commandment, which precedes all other, that you must have no other gods but the Lord Jehovah, which is your Lord and God; which he could not be if he did not pardon your sins in very deed. Remember that Christ commands you to call him Father for the same intent. And hereto call to mind all the benefits of God, hitherto showed unto you, and so shall you feel, in very deed, that which I wish unto you and pray you to wish unto me. Farewell, or welfare, in the Lord Jesus; with whom may he grant us shortly to meet, as his children, for his name and mercy's sake, to out eternal welfare. Amen. Amen.

Your own in the Lord,

My good brother, I beseech our good 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 the confusion of his adversaries. Out of the mouths of infants and babes he will show forth his praise to destroy the enemy, &c.

I have perused your letters for myself, and have read them to others; for answer whereof, if I should write what Doctor Taylor and Master Philpot think, then must I say that they think the salt sent us by your friend (this friend advised them to subscribe to the Papists' articles with this condition, "so far as they were not against Gods word," when in fact they were quite contrary to it, yet shortly after he valiantly suffered death for refusing the same; Letters of the Martyrs,) is unseasonable; and indeed I think they both will declare it heartily, if they should come before men. As for me, if you would know what I think, because I am so sinful, and so defiled, (the Lord knows I lie not,) with maw grievous sins, which I hope are washed away by the blood of Christ our Lord, I neither can nor would be consulted withal, but as a cipher. Howbeit, to tell you how and what I mind, take this: I pray God that in no case I may seek myself, and indeed, I thank God therefore, I purpose it not. That which remains I commit to my Lord God; and I trust in him that he will do according to this: Cast thy care on the Lord, &c. Cast all your care upon him, &c. Reveal unto the Lord thy way, and trust, &c. Whoso trusts in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about. I did not, nor do I know, but by your letters, that tomorrow we shall come in the presence of each other. Mine own heart, stick still to, "It shall be given you," &c.; for the Lord is faithful; he will in temptation make a way, that ye may be able to bear it. The Lord knows how to rid out of temptation the godly, &c. Oh! would God I were godly! The Lord knows how to deliver out of temptation such as trust in him, &c. I cannot think that they will offer any kind of indifferent or mean conditions, for if we will not adore "The Beast," we never shall be delivered, but against their will, think I. God our Father and gracious Lord make perfect the good he has begun in us! He will do it, my brother, my dearest brother, whom I have in my heart to live and die with. Oh! if I were with you! Pray for me, mine own heart-root in the Lord.

For ever your own,

God's sweet peace in Christ be with you, my good term brother in the Lord Jesus, and with all your fellow captives.

I was hindered this morning from musing on that which I purposed to have thought on, by reason of you; against whom I saw myself guilty of negligence, even in this point, that I would not writeóI should say that I had not written unto you as yet. Therefore out of hand, I prepared myself to clear myself hereof; not that I will go about to excuse my fault, for that were more to load me; but by asking both God and you pardon, to get it no more laid to my charge. Now when I was thus purposing, and partly doing, there comes one with a letter from you; for which as I have cause to thank God and you, (howbeit not so that you should think I give not the whole to God,) so I see myself more blameworthy for thus long holding my peace. Howbeit, good brother, in this I have given a demonstration to you, to behold my negligence in all other things, and especially in praying for you, and for the church of God; which for my sins and hypocrisy (hypocrisy, indeed!óeven in this writing; God deliver me from it!) have deserved to be punished. God is just, for we have deserved all kind of plagues at his hands; but yet he is merciful, that will on this wise chastise us in this world, that we should not be condemned with the world. He might otherwise have punished us; I mean he might have cast us into prison for other causes, me especially, and not for his gospel and word's sake; praised, therefore, be his name, which vouchsafes us worthy this honour. Ah, good God! forgive us our sins, and work by this thy fatherly correction on usóon me especially, effectually to love thee and thy Christ; and with joyfulness to carry thy cross to the end, through thick and thin. Always set before our eyes, not this gallows on earth, if we stick to thee; but the gallows in hell, if we deny thee, and swerve from that we have professed.

Ah, good brother! if I could always have God, his majesty, mercy, heaven, hell, &c. before mine eyes, then should I be, as Paul writes of Moses, Heb. 11, "He endured, (says he,) as seeing Him who is invisible." Pray for me, as I know you do, and give thanks also; for in the Lord I trust I shall not waver. If I walk by the valley of the shadow of death, I will not fear, for thou art with me, O Lord. I think we shall be shortly called forth, for now they have a law, and according to that law we must die, otherwise they will not reason with us, and I think their sheet-anchor will be, to require us to subscribe; the which thing if we do, though with the condition only so far as the thing subscribed to, opposes not against Gods word, yet this will be offensive. Wherefore let us all confess we are no changelings; but are the same we were in religion, and therefore cannot subscribe, except we dissemble both with God, ourselves, and the world. These things I write unto you, dear brother in the Lord: now I will read your epistle. Ah, brother! that I had the practical understanding with you in that Vine, which you describe! Pray the Lord that I may so think indeed. God make me thankful for you! All our fellow-prisoners salute you, and give thanks to God for you. The same do you for us, and pray that, &c.

Your brother in the Lord Jesus, to live and die with you,

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.

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 sinneróthe 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.

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.

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 Godó 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.