the Prayers of the Church with these words Take up the man whom ye accounted another god At the end of his Sermon he bemoaned the loss that the Church and State of Scotland received by the death of that man and said That as God in his mercy giveth good and wise Rulers so he taketh them away in his wrath and then added There is one in this Company that maketh the subject of his mirth this horrible murder whereat all good men have cause to be sorry I tell him he shall die where there shall be none to lament him The young Gentleman that writ the Note hearing this Comination went home and said to his Sister that Iohn Knox was raving to speak of he knew not whom His Sister replied with tears in her eyes telling him That none of Iohn Knox's threatnings fell to the ground without effect and so it fell out in this particular for this Mr. Thomas Metellan shortly after went beyond Sea to travel and died in Italy having no known man to assist him much less to lament him He told his People it was his desire to finish and close his preaching with preaching upon the History of Christs Passion In his last Sermon to his People at Edinburg which was preached at the Election of Mr. Iames Lawson to succeed him to whom he had writ thus Accelera mi frater alioqui sero venies Make haste Brother otherwise you will come too late meaning That if he made any stay he should find him dead and gone He called God to witness that he had walked in a good conscience among them not seeking to please men nor serving his own or other mens affections but in all sincerity and truth preached the Gospel of Christ most gravely and pithily exhorting them to stand fast in the faith which they had received In his sickness he said unto the Earl of Morton who came to visit him My Lord God hath given you wisdome honour high birth riches many good and great friends and is now to prefer you to the Government of the Realm In his Name I charge you that you will use these Blessings better in time to come then you have done in times past In all your actions seek first the glory of God the furtherance of his Gospel the maintenance of his Church and Ministry next be carefull of the King and the welfare of the Realm If you shall do this God will be with you and honour you if otherwise you do it not he will deprive you of all these benefits and your end shall be shame and ignominy These Speeches the Earl about nine years after at the time of his Execution called to mind saying That he had found them true and Mr. Knox therein a true Prophet A day or two before his death he sent for Mr. Lindsay Mr. Lawson and the Elders and Deacons of the Church and said unto them The time is approaching for which I have long thirsted wherein I shall be released from all my cares and be with my Saviour Christ for ever and now God is my Witness whom I have served with my Spirit in the Gospel of his Son that I have taught nothing but the true and sincere Word of God the true and solid Doctrine of the Gospel and that the end I proposed in all my Doctrine was to instruct the ignorant to confirm the weak to comfort the consciences of those who were humbled under the sense of their sins and born down with the threatnings of Gods judgements Such as were proud and rebellious I am not ignorant have blamed and do yet blame my too great rigour and severity but God knoweth that in my heart I never hated the persons of those against whom I thundred Gods judgements I did onely hate their sins and laboured according to my power to gain them to Christ. That I did forbear none of whatsoever condition I did it out of the fear of my God who hath placed me in the Ministry and I know will bring me to an account Now Brethren for your selves I have no more to say but to warn you to take heed to the Flock over which God hath placed you overseers which he hath redeemed with the blood of his onely begotten Son And now Mr. Lawson Fight a good fight do the work of the Lord with courage and with a willing mind and God from above bless you and the Church whereof you have charge against it so long as it continueth in the Doctrine of the Truth the gates of Hell shall not prevail This spoken and the Elders and Deacons dismissed he called the two Preachers to him and said There is one thing that grieveth me exceedingly You have sometimes seen the courage and constancy of the Laird of Grange in the Cause of God and that most unhappy man hath cast himself away I pray you two to take the pains to go to him and say from me That unless he forsake that wicked course wherein he is entred neither shall the rock in which he confideth defend him nor the carnal wisdome of that man whom he counteth half a god this was young Lethington yield him help but shamefully he shall be pulled out of that nest and his carkass hang before the Sun and so it fell out for the next year the Castle which he did keep against the Kings Authority was taken and he hanged before the Sun the Soul of that man is dear unto me and if it be possible I would fain have him saved They went but could not prevail yet at his death he did express serious repentance for his sins The next day he was much in Prayer crying Come Lord Jesus Sweet Jesus into thy hands I commend my Spirit Being asked by those about him if his pains were great he answered That he did not esteem that a pain which should be unto him the end of all troubles and beginning of eternal joyes Oftentimes after some deep Meditations he burst forth in these words O serve the Lord in fear and death shall not be troublesome unto you blessed is the death of those that have part in the death of Christ. In the Evening having slept some hours together but with great unquietness for he was heard to send forth many sighs and groans Being asked after he awaked How he did find himself and what it was that made him to mourn so heartily in his sleep He answered In my life time I have oft been assaulted with Satan many times he hath cast in my teeth my sins to bring me to despair yet God gave me strength to overcome all his temptations and now that subtile Serpent who never ceaseth to tempt hath taken another course and seeks to perswade me that all my labours in the Ministry and the fidelity that I have shewn in that Service hath merited Heaven and immortality but blessed be God that brought to my mind these Scriptures What hast thou that thou hast not received and not
the world We are strangers in this world and citizens of Heaven Ye sons of men why love ye vanities and seek lies how long love you infancy or childhood The godly have most comfort though iâ— this life they be as sheep ordained to be slain and seem forsaken of God c. yet they do not despair no not in death but are sure they shall pass through death to life eternal c. Also they have this comfort that their death is good and precious theâ— also know that through Christs death death is overcome and abolished Christ by his death hath changed their death into a sleep Such as be at the point of death ought to take comfort and be strong in that they know that they carry with them both Letter and Token which is Baptisme whereby their death is incorporate with the death of Christ and that it is not their death so much as the death of Christ. Wherefore let them surely trust that they shall overcome as that death of Christ hath overcome Unto the godly it is a great comfort that they know that death is not in the power of Tyrants nor put into the hand of any Creature least they should be much troubled c. they shall onely die when it pleaseth the Lord. We cannot live any longer then the Lord hath appointed and we shall not die though we be in the greatest peril and extreme jeopardy before our hour Then wherefore should they fear death they cannot live longer then God hath appointed nor die any sooner It is the comfort of the godly in all adversity that through the Grace of God they shall be revived and raised up as well the body as the soul the souls to Justice the bodies to Glory This hope the wicked have not c. It is a great comfort that affliction shall not endure continually and the afflictions of this time are not worthy of the Glory which shall be shewed upon us Our trouble which is but temporal and light worketh an exceeding and eternal weight of Glory unto us who look not on the things that are seen but on them which are not seen If a man praise a very fool saith Mr. Frith in his Preface to his Mirrour and think his wit good and profound he is indeed more fool then the other Thus seeing man praiseth and commends riches honour c. and such other vain and transitory things which are but as a dream and vanish like a flower of the field when a man should have most need of them he himself is more vain then those things which are but vanity If God hath opened the eyes of thy mind saith the Mirrour it self and have given thee Spirit and Wisdome through the knowledge of his Word boast not thy self of it but rather fear and tremble for a chargeable Office is committed unto thee which if thou fulfil it is like to cost thee thy 〈◊〉 at one time or other with much trouble and persâ—â—cution but if thou fulfill it not then shall tâ—â— Office be thy Damnation For St. Paul saith Wâ—â—â— to me if I â—â—each not And by the Propher Ezekâ—â— God saith If I say unto the wicked that he shall die tâ— death and thou shew him not of it the wicked shall 〈◊〉 in his iniquity but I shall require his blood at thy haâ—â—â— But peradventure our Divines would expouâ—â— these Texts onely of them that are sent and haâ—â— cure of souls Whereunto I answer That eveâ— man that hath the light of Gods Word revealed unto him is sent wheresoever he seeth necessity anâ— hath the cure of his Neighbours soul e. g. If Goâ— hath given me my sight and I perceive a blinâ— man going in the way which is ready for lack 〈◊〉 sight to fall into a pit wherein he would likely perish I am bound by Gods Command to guide hiâ— till he be past that jeopardy or else if he perisâ—â— therein his blood shall be required at my handâ— Thus if I perceive my Neighbour like to perish 〈◊〉 lack of Christs Doctrine then am I bound to instruct him with the knowledge God hath given me or else his blood shall be required at my hand Peradventure they will say that there is already one appointed to watch the Pit c. and thereforâ— I am discharged and need take no thought Where unto I answer I would be glad that so it were notwithstanding if I perceive that the Watchmen bâ— asleep or run to the Ale-house c. and through his negligence espie my Neighbour in danger oâ— the Pit then am I nevertheless bound to lead him from it I think that God hath sent me at that time to save that soul from perishing and the Law oâ— God and Nature that bindeth me thereunto which chargeth me to love my Neighbour as my self to do unto him as I would be done unto If God hath given thee riches c. thou art yet the very owner of them but God is the Owner who saith by the Prophet Gold is mine and silver is mine and he hath for a season made thee a Steward of them so see whether thou with be faithful in the distribution of them according to his Commands Our spiritual Possessionaries are double Thieves and Murtherers as concerning the body besides their murthering of the soul for lack of Gods Word which they will neither preach or suffer any other to do it purely but persecute them and put them unto most cruel death First they are Thieves and Murtherers because they distribute not what they have from charitable Forefathers to the intent it should have been ministred unto the Poor but upon Horses Coaches c. gorgeous apparel and delicate fare c. Thus they defraud the Poor of their bread and so are Thieves and because this bread is their life they are Murtherers also Besides they are Thieves and Murtherers for withdrawing their perfect Members from labour whereby they might minister unto their Neighbours necessities I speak of as many as are not occupied about preaching Gods Word Besides these and many other Treatises he wrote also several choice Letters whilest he was Prisoner in the Tower In his Letter to the faithful Followers of Christs Gospel he thus expresseth himself It cannot be express'd Dearly Beloved in the Lord what joy and comfort it is to my heart to perceive how the Word of God hath wrought and continually worketh among you so that I find no small number walking in the wayes of the Lord according as he gave us Commandment willing that we should love each other as he loved us Now have I experience of the faith which is in you and can testifie that it is without simulation that ye love not in word and tongue onely but in deed and truth What can be more trial of a faithful heart then to adventure not onely to aid and succour by the means of other which without danger may not be admitted
that you be cursed by the sentence of the Catholick Church with such like terrours that pray to God and follow the Star of his Word and you shall arrive at the Port of Eternal Salvation by the merits onely of Jesus Christ. Hudson When Thomas Hudson of Ailesham in Norfolk saw the Constables come to his house to apprehend him he said Now mine hour is welcome friends welcome you be they that shall lead me to life in Christ. I thank God therefore and the Lord enable me thereto for his mercies sake for his desire was and he ever prayed if it were the Lords will that he might suffer for the Gospel of Christ. When Berry threatned him saying I will write to the Bishop my good Lord c. O Sir said he there is no Lord but God though there be many lords and many gods Wilt thou recant said Berry the Priest or no The Lord forbid said Hudson I had rather die many deaths then to do so When he came first to the Stake he was very sad not for his death but for lack of feeling his Christ and therefore came from his Fellow-sufferers under the Chain and fell down upon his knees and prayed and at last he rose with great joy as a man new changed even from death to life and said Now I thank God I am strong and pass not what man can do unto me Hullier Mr. Iohn Hullier Conduct in Kings Colledge at Cambridge suffered martyrdome at Cambridge April 2. A. 1556. In his Letter to the Christian Congegation It standeth now most in hand O dear Christians all them that look to be accounted of Christs flock at the great and terrible day when a separation shall be made c. faithfully in this time of great afflictions to hear our Master Christs voice the onely true Shepherd of our souls who saith Whosoevâ—r shall endure to the end shall be saved In this time we must needs either shew that we be his faithful Souldiers and continue in his battel to the end putting on the armour of God the buckler of Faith the breast-plate of Love the helmet of Hope and Salvation and the Sword of his holy Word with all instance of supplication and prayer or else if we do not work and labour with these we are Apostates and false Souldiers shrinking most unthankfully from our Gracious and Sovereign Lord and Captain Christ and leaning to Beliaâ— for he saith plainly Whosoever beareth not my Cross and followeth me cannot be my Disciple and No man can serve two Masters for either he must hate the one and love the other or else he shall lean to the one and despise the other Elias also said unto the people Why halt ye between two opinions If the Lord be God follow him or if Baal be he follow him If Christ be that onely good and true Shepherd that gave his life for us then let us that bear his mark and have our consciences sprinkled with his blood follow altogether for our salvation his heavenly voice and calling according to our profession and first promise If we shall not certainly say what we can though we bear the Name of Christ we are none of his Sheep indeed for he saith manifestly My sheep hear my voice and follow me A stranger they will not follow but will flee from him for they know not the voice of a stranger The craft and wiliness of our subtile enemy is manifold and divers and full of close windings At this present day if he cannot induce one throughly as others do to savour his devillish Religion and of good will and free heart to help to uphold the same yet he will inveigle him to resort to his wicked and whorish School-house and to keep company with his Congregation there and to hold his peace and say nothing whatsoever he think c. by that subtile means flattering him that he shall both save his life and also his goods and live in quiet But if we look well on Christs holy Will and Testament we shall perceive that he came not to make any such peace upon Earth nor that he gave any such peace to his Disciples I leave peace with you saith he my peace I give you not as the world giveth it give I unto you Let not your heart be troubled and fearful These things have I spoken unto you that in me ye should have peace in the world ye shall have affliction but be of good cheer I have overcome the world The Servant is not greater then his Lord and Master if they have persecuted me they shall also persecute you If any man come to me and hateth not his father and mother c. yea and moreover his own life it is not possible for him to be my Disciple Blessed be ye that now weep for ye shall laugh and woe be unto you that now laugh for ye shall mourn and weep He that will find his life shall lose it Therefore the God of that true peace and comfort preserve us that we never obey such a false Flatterer who at length will pay us home once for all bringing for temporal peace and quietness everlasting trouble c. for these vain and transitory goods extream loss of the eternal treasure and inheritance for this mortal life deprivation of the most joyful life immortal and endless death most miserable c. I judge it better to go to School with our Master Christ and to be under his Ferula and Rod although it seems sharp and grievous for a time that at length we may be inheriters with him of everlasting joy rather then to keep company with the Devils Scholars the adulterous generation in his School that is all full of pleasure for a while and at the end to be payed with the wages of continual burning in the most horrible Lake which burneth evermore with fire and brimstone c. What doth he else I pray you that resorteth to the Ministration and Service that is most repugnant to Christs holy Testament there keeping still silence and nothing reproving the same but in the face of the world by his very deed it self declare himself to be of a false fearful dissembling feigned and unfaithful heart discouraging as much as lies in him all the residues of Christs Host and giving a manifest offence unto the weak and also confirming encouraging and rejoycing the hearts of the adversaries in all their evil doing by which he sheweth himself neither to love God whom he seeth to be dishonoured and blasphemed of an Antichristian Minister nor yet his Neighbour before whom he should rebuke the evil according to the command Thou shalt not hate thy Neighbour but reprove him c. But God hath not given us the spirit of fear but of power and love Be not ashamed to testifie our Lord but suffer adversity with the Gospel through the power of God c. Fear not them that
A CLOUD OF WITNESSES OR THE Sufferers Mirrour Made up of The SWANLIKE-SONGS and other CHOICE PASSAGES of several MARTYRS and CONFESSORS to the Sixteenth Century in their Treatises Speeches Letters Prayers c. in their Prisons or Exiles at the Bar or Stake c. Collected out of The Ecclesiastical Histories of Eusebius Fox Fuller Petrie Scotland And Mr. Samuel Ward 's Life of Faith in Death c. and Alphabetically disposed By T. M. M. A. Hebr. 12.1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a Cloud of Witnesses let us run with patience the race that is set before us James 5.10 Take my Brethren the Prophets who have spoken in the Name of the Lord for an example of suffering afflliction and patience London Printed for the Author and are to be fold by Robert Boulter in Saint Paul's Church-yard 1665. Gentle Reader THou art desired to take notice that through the transposing of some Leaves of the Manuscript the Authour living far distant there hath been committed an Errour at the Press in Mr. Iohn Bradford's Letters beginning at Page 44. Line 26. immediately before Mr. Iohn Brown Wherefore thou art entreated to turn to Page 68. Line 6. and read to Page 71. Line 26. and so the Mistake will be rectified Renowned Mr. Samuel Ward of Ipswich gives the following testimony to the living speeches of dying Christians which he collected AS for their last Speeches and Apothegms pity it is no better mark hath been taken and memory preserved of them The choice and prime I have culled out of ancient Stories and later Martyrologies English Dutch and French The profit and pleasure hath paid me for the labour of Collecting and the like gain I hope shall quit the cost of thy Reading By these which are but an handful of Christs Camp-Royal it sufficiently appears they had their Faith fresh and lively in the face of their grand Enemy Death and by vertue of their Faith their Spirits Wits and Tongues untroubled and undismayed The learned and ingenious Author of the Preface to Mr. Frith's Treatises of preparation to the Cross under the Title of Vox Pisces or the Book-Fish gives the following Testimony to several of the remarkable passages in this Collection PErhaps unto some Palats no Lequor seemeth desirable but that which hath a delicious tang of the curiosity of these later Times both for method and stile For my part I say with the words in the Gospel Luke 5.39 The old Wine is better And accordingly contemplating and comparing the devout Discourses written in our Language upon the breaking forth of the Light of Reformation I am far more deeply taken with the solid simplicity and powerful Spirit which methinks I find in the Writings of those Confessors and Martyrs who watered the Garden of Reformation with their own bloud in this Land then with the more elaborate and artificial composures written more lately in the Times of our Peace Who in reading the Letters and Ghostly Meditations of blessed Bradford Taylor Philpot c. yea even of other their Brethren less learned that wrote and spake with that Hand Heart and Breath which they were most ready to yield up for the testimony of the Truth doth not therein perceive that lively warmth of holy zeal which is able to awake even a dull and sleepy soul Among which Martyrs as this worthy Frith is one of the first for antiquity so well may he be in the foremost rank for comfortable exhortation and soundness of Doctrine The Collectors Preface THe Speeches of dying men are remarkable the Speeches of dying Christians are much more remarkable How remarkable then are the Speeches of dying Witnesses for Christ It is rationally expected that dying men much more that dying Christians and most of all that dying Witnesses for Christ should speak best at last It is their last And the Sun shineth brightest at setting They are immediately to give in their last account They are upon the borders of Eternity And the motions of Nature are more intense as they draw nearer the Center To be sure Saints are most heavenly when nearest Heaven Rivers the nearer the Sea the sooner are met by the Tide We have good Scripture-ground to expect that dying Christians especially dying Witnesses for Christ should have extraordinary assistances from on high for their last Discourses That the Wine of the Spirit should be strongest in them at their last They have Gods Word for it That in that hour it shall be given them what they shall speak for it is not they that speak but the Spirit of their Father One observeth that when Stephen was to deliver his last speech and to suffer he was filled with the Holy Ghost so that all that sate in the Council looking stedfastly on Stephen saw his face as if it had been the face of an Angel His soul was so warmed by the love of God that he looked both his Adversaries and the tempestuous approaching Storm out of countenance When he was stoned he got a larger sight He saw the Heavens opened and his Majestick Glorious Master the light-giving Diamond of Heaven standing at his Fathers right hand And this he got no doubt as for himself so to hearten all those that were to come after he being the first Martyr after Christ. Hence it hath been often found that their last Speeches have been Oraculous and Prophetical Zenophon personates Cyrus as inspired whilst he is breathing out his last requests The nearer we return to the Original Divinity as Plotinus speaketh the more Divine we grow One observeth from a Scripture instance That what hath been asserted by dying Witnesses hath most speedily come to pass Zachariah told the children of Israel Because ye have for saken the Lord he hath also forsaken you For this he was immediately stoned and the Lord sealed his Word very speedily afterwards For the Assyrians coming with a small company against them the Lord delivered a very great multitude into their hands and so without delay in their sight sealed the words of his dying Witness Zachariah And why his word sooner then Isaiah's Ieremiah's Ezekiel's c. By them he pleaded much longer with his Apostatizing Church I know none but this It was the Lords pleasure and to shew his respect to dying Witnesses that he would have what they say taken special notice of It may be that he might shew that whatever fail the words of dying Witnesses shall not fall to the ground It is true we must not lay such weight upon these sayings as we must lay upon Scripture prophesies for though such sayings may be true prophesies yet we are not infallibly assured that these are prophesies till they be accomplished yet their sayings while dying for and in the Lord do give good encouragement to them that remain alive and so to be much esteemed by them whether they respect the honour of God or the good of souls The last Speeches of Christs
the Scripture to be altered When the Emperour threatned to banish him c. if he obeyed not he said Those Bug-bears were to be propounded to Children but for his part though they might take away his life yet they could not hinder him from professing the Truth When Modestus the Praefect asked him Know you not who we are that command it No body said Basil whilst you command such things Know ye not said the Praefect that we have Honours to bestow upon you They are but changeable said Basil like your selves Hereupon he threatned to confiscate his Goods to torment him to banish him or kill him he answered He need not fear confiscation that had nothing to lose nor banishment to whom Heaven onely is a Countrey nor torments when his body would be dash'd with one blow nor death which is the onely way to set him at liberty The Praefect telling him he was Mad he said Opto me in aeâ—â—ernum sic delirare I wish I may for ever be thus Mad. The Praefect another time threatning him with death he said Would it would fall out so well on my side that I might lay down this carkass of mine in the quarrel of Christ and in the defence oâ— his Truth who is my Head and Captain The Praefect desiring that he would not by rashly answering throw himself away offered him a day and night to consider further of it but Basil said I have no need to take further counsel about this matter Look what I am to day the same thou shalt find me to morrow but I pray God that thou change not thy mind Benden Alice Benden when she was in Prison at Canterbury agreed with a fellow Prisoner to live both of them with two pence half penny a day to try thereby how well they could sustain penury and hunger before they were put to it At her first coming into the Bishops Prison she was much troubled and expostulated why her Lord did suffer her to be sequestred from her loving Fellowes in so extreme misery But was comforted by these words Why arâ— thou so heavy O my soul The right hand of the Lord can change all At the stake she took forth a shilling of Philip and Mary which her father had bowedâ— and sent her when she was first in Prison desiring her Brother there present to return the same to her Father again that he might understand she never lacked money whilst she lay in Prison Bennet Mr. Thomas â—ennet a School-master in Exceter being press't by a Doctour a Gray Frier to recant for putting upon the doors of the Cathedral in Schedules That the Pope is Antichrist and that we ought to worship God onely and not the Saints said I take God to record my life is not dear to me I am weary of it seeing your detestable doings to the utter destruction of Gods flock so that I desire death that I may no longer be partaker of your detestable idolatries and superstitions or be subject unto Antichrist your Pope Away from me I pray you vex my soul no longer ye shall not prevail If I should hear and follow you this day everlasting death should hang over me a just reward for them that prefer the life of this world before life eternal Berger Peter Berger burnt at Lions 155â— beholding the multitude at the stake said Great is the Harvest Lord send Labourers I see the heavens open to receive me Bâ—tken When she was brought to the Rack she said My Masters wherefore will you put me to this torture seeing I have no way offended you Is it for my Faith's sake you need not torment me for that for as I was never ashamed to make confession thereof no more will I be now at this present before you I will freely shew you my mind therein But for all 〈◊〉 when they proceeded on with what they inteâ—â—â—â— Alas my Masters said she If it be so that I must suffer this pain then give me leave first to call upon God Her request they granted whilst she waâ— praying one of the Commissioners was so surâ—â—â—â— with fear and terrour that by and by he swoâ—â—â— â—nd could not be fetcht again and so she escaâ—â—â— the torture Bilney Mr. Thomas Bilney in a Letter to Dr. Tonstal Bishop of London he gives this account of his conversion The woman which was twelve years vexed with the bloudy Flux had consumed all that she had upon Physicians and yet was still worse and worse untill such time as she came to Christ and after she had once touched the hem of his vesture through faith she was healed O mighty power of the most High which I also most miserable sinner have often tasted and felt Before I came to Christ I had likewise spent all I had upon ignorant Physicians They appointed me Fastings Watchings buying of Pardons and Masses c. But at last I heard speak of Jesus even then when the New Testament was first set out by Erasmuâ— At first I was allured to read rather for the Latine having heard it was eloquently done then for the Word of God At the first reading I hit upon this sentence of St. Paul O most sweet and comfortable sentence to my soul in 1 Tim. 1. It is a true saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief This sentence through Gods instruction and inward working did so exhilarate my heart being before wounded with the guilt of my sins insomuch that my bruised bones leapt for joy After this the Scripture began to be more pleasant to me then the honey or the honey-comb Therein I learned that all my Travels all my Fasting and Watching all the redemption of Masses and Pardons without faith in Christ were but a hasty and swift running out of the right way or else much like the vesture made of Fig-leaves wherewithall Adam and Eve went about in vain to cover their nakedness and could never obtain quietness and rest till they believed in the promise of God that Christ the seed of the Woman should break the Serpents head Neither could I be relieved or eased of the sharp stingings of my sins before I was taught of God that even as Moses exalted the serpent in the Desart so shall the Son of man be exalted that all which believe on him should not perish but have everlasting life As soon as I began to taste and savour this heavenly Lesson which none can teach but God onely I desired the Lord to encrease my faith And at last I desired nothing more then that I being so comforted by him might be strengthened by his holy Spirit and grace from above to teach the wicked his wayes which are mercy and truth that the wicked may be converted unto him by me who sometimes was also wicked Accordingly I did teach and set forth Christ being made for us by God his Father our Wisdome Righteousness
come to Gods company In his Letter to Mr. Laurence Saunders A Friend having moved the Prisoners to subscribe to the Papists Articles with this condition so far as they are not against Gods word Dr. Taylor and Mr. Philpot think the salt sent by our Friend is unseasonable for my own part I pray God in no case I may seek my self and indeed I thank God I purpose it not In another Letter This will be offensive therefore let us Vadere plane and so sane I mean let us all confess we are no changlings but re ipsa are the same we were in Religion and therefore cannot subscribe except we will dissemble both with God with our selves and with the world In his Letter to Dr. Cranmer Dr. Ridley and Dr. Latimer Our dear brother Rogers hath broken the Ice valiantly this day I think or to morrow at the uttermost hearty Hooper sincere Saunders and trusty Tailor end their course and receive their Crown The next am I who hourly look for the Porter to open me the Gates after them to enter into the desired Rest. God forgive me mine unthankfulness for this exceeding great mercy For though I justly suffer for I have been a great Hypocrite c. the Lord pardon me yea he hath done it he hath done it indeed yet what evil hath he done Christ whom the Prelates persecute his truth which they hate in me hath done no evil nor deserved death O what am I Lord that thou shouldest thus magnifie me Is this thy wont to send for such a wretched Hypocrite in a fiery chariot as thou didst for Elias In his Letter to the Lord Russel Faith is reckoned and worthily among the greatest gifts of God by it as we are justified and made Gods children so are we Temples and Possessours of the Holy Spirit yea of Christ also Eph. 4. And of the Father himself Iohn 14. By faith we drive the Devil away 2 Pet. 5. We overcome the world 1 Iohn 5. And are already Citizens of Heaven c. Yet the Apostle doth match even with faith yea as it were prefer suffering Persecution for Christs sake Phil. 1. Though the wisdome of the world think of the Cross according to sense and therefore flieth from it as from a most great ignominy and shame yet Gods Scholars have learned to think otherwise of the Cross as the Frame-house wherein God frameth his Children like to his Son Christ the Furnace that fineth Gods gold the High-way to Heaven the Suit and Livery of Gods servants the earnest and beginning of all consolation and glory In his Meditation on the Commandements As the first Command teacheth me as well that thou art my God as what God thou art therefore of equity I should have no other Gods but thee that is I should onely hang on thee trust in thee serve thee call on thee obey thee and be thankful to thee so because thou didst reveal thy self visibly that thou mightest visibly be worshipped The second Commandement is concerning thy Worship that in no point I should follow in worshipping thee the device or intent of any man Saint Angel or Spirit but should take all such as idolatry and image-service be it never so glorious And why forsooth because thou wouldst I should worship thee as thou hast appointed by thy Word for if service be acceptable it must be according to the Will of him to whom it is done and not of him who doth it c. So that the meaning of this Precept is that as in the first I should have none other Gods but thee so I should have no worship of thee but such as thou appointest And therefore utterly abandon mine own will and reason all the reasons and good intents of man and wholly give my self to serve thee after thy will and word Thou bidst me not to take thy Name in vain as by temerarious or vain swearing c. So by denying thy truth and word or concealing it when occasion is offered to promote thy glory and confirm thy truth By reason whereof I may well see that thou wouldst have me to use my tongue in humble confessing thee and thy word and truth after my Vocation c. Thy Ministers I pray not for thy Church I am not careful for no not now good Lord when wicked Doctrine most prevaileth Idolatry Superstition and Abomination abound the Sacraments c. blasphemously corrupted c. all which my wickedness brought in my profaning of the fourth Commandement and my not praying Thy Ministers are in Prison dispersed in other Countreys spoiled burnt murthered many fall for fear of goods life name c. from the truth they have received to most manifest idolatry false Preachers abound among the people thy people dearly bought even with thy bloud are not fed with the bread of thy Word but with swillings and drink for swine Antichrist wholly prevaileth and yet for all this also I am too careless nothing lamenting my sins which have been the cause of all this Help thy Church cherish it and give it harbour here and elsewhere for Christs sake Purge the Ministry from corruption and false Mâ—niâ—ters Send out Preachers to feed thy people Destroy Antichrist and all his Kingdome Give to such as be fallen from thy truth repentance Keep others from falling and by their falling do thou the more confirm us Confirm thy Mâ—nisters and poor people in Prison and Exile Strengthen them in thy truth Deliver them if it be thy good will Give them that with conscience they may so answer their Adversaries that thy servants may rejoyce and thy Adversarieâ— be confounded Avenge thou thy own cause â— thou God of Hosts Help all thy people and mâ—â— especially because I have most need Set my heart strait in case of Religion to acknowledgâ— thee one God to worship none other God to reâ—verence thy Name and keep thy Sabbaths Set mâ— heart right in matters of humane conversation tâ— honour my Parents to obey Rulers and reverencâ— the Ministry of the Word to have hands cleaâ— from bloud true from theft a body free from Aâ—dultery and a tongue void of all offence but purge the heart first O Lord c. In his Meditation concerning the sober usage of the body and the pleasures of this life O that I could consider often and heartily that this body God hath made to be the tabernacle and mansion of our soul for this life but by reason of sin dwelling in it is become now to the soul nothing else but a prison and that most strait vile stinking filthy c. Then should I not pamper up my body to obey it but bridle it that it may obey the soul then should I flie the pain it putteth my soul unto by reason of sin and provocation to all evil and continually desire the dissolution of it with Paul and the deliverance from it as much as ever did prisons his deliverance out
of prison for alonely by it the Devil hath a door to tempt and so to hurt me If it were dissolved and I out of it then could Satan no more hurt me then wouldst thou speak unto me face to face then the conflicting time were at an end then sorrow would cease and joy would encrease and I should enter into inestimable rest In his Meditation for exercise of true mortification He that will be ready in weighty matters to deny his own will and to be obedient to the will of God the same had need to accustome himself to deny his desires in matters of less weight and to exercise mortification of his will in trifles If we cannot watch with Christ one hour as he saith to Peter we undoubtedly can much less go to death with him Wherefore that in great temptations we may be ready to say with Christ Not my will but thine be done c. Help me to accustome my self continually to mortifie my concupiscence of pleasant things i. e. of wealth riches glory liberty favour of men meats drink apparel ease yea and life it self c. In his Meditation of Gods Providence This ought to be unto us most certain that nothing iâ— done without thy Providence O lord i. e. without thy Knowledge i. e. without thy Will Wisdome and Ordinance for all these Knowledge doth comprehend in it c. This will we must believe most assurely to beâ— all just and good howsoever otherwise it seem so unto us But though all things be done by thy Providence yet Providence hath many and diversâ— means to work by which means being contemned thy Providence is contemned also Indeed when means cannot be had then should we not tye thy Providence to means but make it free as thou art free for it is not of any need that thou usest any instrument or mean to serve thy Providence Thy Power and Wisdome is infinite and therefore should we hang on thy Providence even when all is clean against us Grant Dear Father that I may use this knowledge to my comfort and commodity in thee i. e. Grant that in what state soever I be I may not doubt but the same doth come to me by thy most just Ordinance yea by thy merciful Ordinance for as thou art just and thou art merciful yea thy mercy is above all thy works Look for thy help in time convenient not onely when I have means by which thou mayest work and art so accustomed to do but also when I have no means but am destitute yea when all means be directly and clean against me grant I say yet that I may still hang on thee and on thy Providence not doubting of a Fatherly end in thy good time And least I should contemn thy Providence or presuming upon it by uncoupling those things which thou hast coupled together preserve me from neglecting thy ordinary and lawful means in all my needs if so be I may have them and with a good conscience use them although I know thy Providence be not tyed to them farther then pleaseth thee Howbeit so that I depend in no part on the means or on my diligence wisedome and industry but on thy Providence which more and more perswade me to be altogether fatherly and good how far soever otherwise it appear yea is felt of me In his Meditation of Gods presence There is nothing that maketh more to true godliness of life then the perswasion of thy presence Dear Father and that nothing is hid from thee but all to thee is open and naked even the very thoughts which one day thou wilt reveal either to our praise or punishment in this life as thou didst David's faults 2 King 12. or in the life to come Mat. 25. Grant to me Dear God mercy for all my sins especially my hid and close sins c. and that henceforth I alwayes think my self conversant before thee so that if I do well I pass not the publishing of it as Hypocrites do if I do or think any evil I may know that the same shall not alwayes be hid from men Grant me that I may alwayes have in mind that day wherein all my works shall be revealed so in trouble and wrong I shall find comfort and otherwise be kept through thy grace from evil In his Meditation of God's powâ—r beauty and goodness Because thou Lord wouldest have us to love thee not onely dost thou will entice allure and provoke us but also dost command us so to do promising thy self unto such as love thee and threatning us with damnation if we do otherwise whereby we may see both our great corruption and naughtiness and also thine exceeding great mercy towards us What a thing is it that power riches authority beauty goodness liberality truth justice which all thou art good Lord cannot move us to love thee whatsoever things we see fair good wise mighty are but even sparkles of thy power beauty goodness wisdome which thou art In his Meditation of death c O Dear Father That our hearts were perswaded that when we go out of the prison of the body and so taken into thy blessed company then Whatsoever good we can wish we shall have and whatsoever we loath shall be far from us c. Then should we live in longing for that which we now most loath If we remember the good things that after this life shall ensue without wavering in the certainty of faith the passage of death shall be the more desired It is like a sailing over the sea to thy home and countrey it is like a medicine or purgation to the health of the soul and body It is the best Physician It is like a woman in travail for as the child being delivered cometh into a more large place then the womb wherein it did lye before so the soul being delivered out of the body cometh into a much more large and â—air place even into Heaven In his Prayer for the remission of sins O gracious God who seekest all means possible how to bring thy children to the feeling and sure sense of thy mercy and therefore when prosperity will not serve then sendest thou adversity graciously correcting them here whom thou wilt shall with thee elsewhere live for ever We poor Misers give humble praises and thanks to thee Dear Father that thou hast vouchsafed us worthy of thy correction at this present hereby to work that which we in prosperity and liberty did neglect For the which neglecting and many other our grievous sins whereof we now accuse our selves before thee most merciful Lord thou mightest have most justly given us over and destroyed both souls and bodies But such is thy goodness towards us in Christ that thou seemest to forget all our offences and wilt that we should suffer this Cross now laid upon us for thy Truth and Gospels sake and so to be thy witnesses with the Prophets Apostles Martyrs
to turn away from us But turn again O Lord let us fall into thine hands c. least these vain Idolaters do rejoyce at the miserable destruction of those men whom they make Proselvtes and from thy Doctrine Apostates But O Lord thy will be fulfilled this is thy righteous judgement to punish us with the tyrannical yoke of blindness because we have cast away from us the sweet yoke of the wholesome Word of thy Son our Saviour Yet consider the horrible blasphemies of thine and our enemies They say in their hearts there is no God which either can or will deliver us Wherefore O heavenly Father the Governour of all things the Avenger of the Causes of the poor the fatherless the widow and the oppressed look down from Heaven with the face of thy fatherly mercies and forgive us all former offences and for thy Son Jesus Christs sake have mercy upon us who by the force and cruelty of wicked and blasphemous Idolaters without causes approved are haled and pulled from our own houses are slandered slain and murdered as Rebels and Traytors like persons pernicious pestiferous seditious pestilent and full of mortal poyson to all men contagious whereas we do meddle no farther but against the hellish powers of darkness c. which would deny the will of our Christ unto us we do contend no farther but onely for our Christ Crucified and the onely salvation by 〈◊〉 blessed Passion Therefore O Lord for 〈◊〉 glorious Names sake for Jesus Christs sake c. make the wicked Idolaters to wonder and stanâ— amazed at thy Almighty power Use thy wonteâ— strength to the confusion of thine enemies and 〈◊〉 the help and deliverance of thy persecuted people All thy Saints do beseech thee therefore The young Infants which have some deal tasted of thy sweet Word by whose mouths thou hast promised to make perfect thy praises whose Angels do always behold thy face who besides the loss of us their Parents are in danger to be compelled and driven without thy great mercies to serve dumb and insensible Idols do cry and call unto thee Their pitiful Mothers with lamentable tears lie prostrate before the Throne of thy Grace Thou Father of the fatherless Judge of the widdows and Avenger of all the oppressed Let it appear O Lord Omnipotent that thou dost here Judge Avenge and punish all wrongs offered to all thy little Ones that do believe in thee Do this O Lord For thy Names sake Arise up O Lord and thine enemies shall be scattered and confounded So be it O Lord most merciful at thy time appointed Brown Iohn Brown told his wife as he sate in the Stocks that the Arch-Bishop had burnt his feet to the bones so as he could not set them upon the ground and all to make them deny Christ which said he I will never do for if I should deny him in this world he would deny me hereafter Thomas Brown being brought forth to be condemned Bonner said to him Brown you have been before me many times and I have took much pains to win thee from thine errors yet thou and such like have and do report that I go about to seek thy blood Yea my Lord said Brown indeed you be a Blood-sucker and I would I had as much blood as there is water in the Sea for you to suck Bruger A Frier offering Iohn Bruger a forreign Martyr a Wooden Cross at the Stake No said he I have another true Cross imposed on me which now I will take up I worship not the work of mans hands but the Son of God I am content with him for my onely Advocate Bruse I thank God said Peter Bruse my broken Leg suffered me not to flie this Martyrdome Buisson I shall now have said Iohn Buisson a double Goal-delivery one out of my sinful flesh another from the loathsome Dungeon I have long lain in Burgins Lord said Annas Burgins in the midst of his torments forsake me not least I forsake thee Burgon Iohn Burgon to his Judges asking him if he would appeal to the High-Court answered Is it not enough that your hands are polluted with blood but you will make more guilty of it Barnes When Dr. Barnes was brought before Cardinal Wolsey He told him he thought it necessary that his Golden Shoos and Golden Cushions c. should be sold and given to the poor for that such things were not comely for his Calling neither was the Kings Majesty maintained by his Pomp but by God who saith By me Kings reign When the Cardinal would have had him to reâ—fer himself to him promising him Favour he anâ—swered I will stick to the Holy Scripture and tâ— Gods Book according to the simple Talent thaâ— God hath lent me Being called before the Bishops and Abbot oâ— Westminster who demanded of him whether hâ— would abjure or burn he was in a great agony and then thought rather to burn then to abjure but perswaded by Gardiner and Fox because they said he should do more good in time to come He abjured and carried his Fagot to Pauls After they had long detained him in Prison notwithstanding upon notice given him of their intentions to burn him notwithstanding his abjuration he escaped out of England into Germany where he made his supplication to King Henry the Eighth against the Lordly Bishops and Prelates of England for the intollerable injuries wrongs and oppressions wherewith they had vexed not onely himself but all true Preachers of Gods Word and Professors of the same contrary to the Word of God and their own Laws and Doctors I do not believe saith he that ever God will suffer long so great Tyranny against his Word and so violent Oppressions of Christians as they now use and that in the Name of Christ and his Holy Church Now it is come to that that whoever he be high or low poor or rich wise or foolish that speaketh against them and their vicious living he is either made a Traytor to your Grace or an Heretick against Holy Church as though they were Kings or Gods If there be any men that Preach Dispute or put forth in Writing not any thing touching them though it be never so blasphemous against God the Blood of Christ and his Holy Word they will not once be moved therewith But if any man speak against their Cloaked Hypocrisie or against any thing belonging to them by which their abominations are disclosed nothing can excuse but he must either to open shame or cruel death and that under the accusation of Treason But who is he that would be a Traitor or maintain a Traitor against your Majesty Sure no man can do it without the great displeasure of the eternal God The Doctrine of the Gospel teacheth all obedience to Rulers and not Sedition and such as have preached the Word of God onely have never been the movers of disobedience or rebellion against Princes but they have been
me not six dayes ago saying I am more worthy to be burnt then any that hath been burned yet God's blessing on their hearts for their good report God make me worthy of that dignity and hasten the time that I may set forth his glory Blessed be the time that ever I came into the Kings Bench to be joyned in love and fellowship with such dear children of the Lord. In his Letter to his Wife Are not two sparrows saith Christ sold fer a farthing and yet not one of them shall perish without the will of your Heavenly Father c. As though he should have said if God hath such respect and care for a poor sparrow which is not worth one farthing it shall not be taken in the lime-twig net or pitfall untill it be his good will and pleasure you may be well assured that not one of you whom he so dearly loveth that he hath given his onely dear Son for you shall perish or depart forth of this miserable life without his good will and pleasure Let not the remembrance of children keep you from God The Lord himself will be a Father and a Mother better then ever yoâ—â— or I could have been unto them He himself will do all things necessary for them yea as much as rock the cradle if need be In his Letter to Mr. Bradford If we had been thanful to God for the good Ministers of his Word we had not so soon been deprived both of it and them Take not away all thy true Preachers forth of this Realm O Lord but leave us a seed least England be made like unto Sodom and Gomorrah when thy true Lots be gone Hearken O Heavens and then Earth give ear and bear me witness at the great Day that I do here faithfully and truly the Lord's message to his dear Servant to his singularly beloved and elect child Iohn Bradford Iohn Bradford thou man so specially beloved of God I pronounce and testifie unto thee in the Name of the Lord Jehovah that all thy sins whatsoever they be be they never so many so grievous or so great be fully and freely pardoned released and forgiven thee by the mercy of God in Jesus Christ thine onely Lord and sweet Saviour in whom thou doest undoubtedly believe Christ hath cleansed thee with his blood and cloathed thee with his Righteousness and hath made thee in the sight of God his Father without spot or wrinckle so that when the fire doth his appointed office thou shalt be received as a sweet burnt-sacrifice into Heaven where thou shalt joyfully remaâ—n in God's presence for ever as the true inheriter of his everlasting Kingdom unto the which thou wast undoubtedly predestinate and ordaâ—ned by the Lords infallible purpose and decree before the foundation of the world was laid and that this is most true that I have said I call the whole Trinity the Almighty and Eternal Majesty of God the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost to my record at this present whom I humbly beseech to confirm and stablish in thee the true and lively feeling of the same Amen Selah In his Letter to his dear and faithful Brethren in Newgate condemned to die Cease not my dearly Beloved so long as you be in this life to praise the Lord with all your hearts for that of his great mercy and infinite goodness he hath vouched you worthy of this great dignity to suffer for his sake not onely the loss of goods wife and children long imprisonment cruel oppression but death it self in the fire This is the greatest promotion that God can bring you or any other into in this vail of misery yea so great an honour as the highest Angel in Heaven is not permitted to have and yet hath the Lord for his dear Son Christ's sake reputed you worthy of the same yea and that before me and many others who have both long looked and longed for the same Rejoyce with double joy and be glad my dear Brethren for doubtless you have more cause then can be exprest But alas I that for my sins am left behind may lament with the holy Prophet Woe is me that the dayes of my joyful râ—st are prolonged Ah cursed Satan which hath caused me so sore to offend my most dear loving Father whereby mine exile and banishment is so long prolonged Oh Christ my dear Advocate pacifie thy Father's wrath which I have justly deserved that he may take me home to him in his sweet mercy In his Letter to Mr. Green c. If they be so blessed of God that die in the Lord as the Holy Ghost saith they be how much more blessed and happy then are you that die not onely in the Lord but for the Lord. O blessed Green c. fresh and green shalt thou be in the Lord's House and thy fruits shall never wither nor decay O happy Mr. Whittle Peter's part thou hast well play'd therefore thy reward and portion shall be like his Now hast thou good experience of man infirmity but much more proof and taste yea sense and feeling of God's abundant bottomless mercyâ— Although Satan desired to sift thee yet Christ thy good Captain pray'd that thy faith should not failâ— God's strength is made perfect by thy weakness c. But alas I lye like the lame man aâ— the Pools side and every one goeth into the place of health before me In his Letter to William Tyms Satan hath two great pieces of Ordinance to shoot at you with the which he cannot hurt you because you have two bul-warks to defend you The first of these terrible Guns that he hath shot at you is fear and infidelity for the uglesomness of death and horrour of your many and great sins But this pellet is easily put away with the sure shield of faith in the most precious death and blood-shedding of our dear Lord and onely Saviour Jesus Christ whom the Father hath given to us wholly to be ours for evermore and with him hath given us all things as Paul saith so that though we be never so great sinners yet Christ is made unto us holiness righteousness and justification He hath clothed us all his merits c. and taken to himself all our sin c. so that if any should be now condemned for the same it must needs be Jesus Christ who hath taken them upon him But indeed he hath made satisfaction for them to the uttermost so that for his sake they shall never be imputed to us if they were a thousand times more then they be The other pestilent Piece he shooteth off at you is to provoke you to put some part of your trust and confidence in yourself and in your own holiness and righteousness that you may that way rob God of his glory and Christ of the honour and dignity of his death but blessed be the Lord God you have also a full strong Bul-work to beat back this pestilent Pellet even the
pure Law of God which proveth the best of us all damnable sinners in the light of God and that our best works are polluted in such sort as the Prophet describes them with the which manner of speaking our free-will Pharisees are much offended for it felleth all mans righteousness to the ground In his Letter to Mr. Augustine Bernher Pray for me that I may be strong and hardy to lay a good load on that bloody beast of Babylon O that I might so strike him down that he should never be able to rise again but that stroke belongeth onely to the Lord to strike at his coming which I hope will be shortly Carpenter All Bavaria said George Carpenter is not so dear to me as my wife and children yet for Christs sake I will forsake them cheerfully Carver Mr. Derick Carver being asked by Bonner whether he would stand for his Confession answered He would for your Doctrine is poyson and sorcery If Christ were here you would put him to a worse death then he was put to before At the stake he spake thus Dear Brethren and Sisters I am come here to seal with my blood Christs Gospel because that I know it to be true As many of you as do believe upon the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost unto everlasting life see you do the works pertaining to the same As many of you as do believe on the Pope of Rome you do believe to your utter condemnation and except the great mercy of God prevent not you shall burn in Hell perpetually In his Prayer O Lord my God thou hasâ— written He that will not forsake wife children house and all that ever he hath and take up his cross and follow thee is not worthy of thee Lord thou knowest that I have forsaken all to come unto thee Lord have mercy upon me for unto thee I commend my Spirit and my soul doth rejoyce in thee Chrysostome Eud xia the Emperess having sent him a very threatning message he gave this answer Go tell her Nil nisi peccatum timeo I fear nothing but sin When she had procured his banishment as he went forth of the City he said None of these things trouble me but I said within my self if the Queen will let her banish me the Earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof if she will let her cast me into the sea I will remember Ionah if she will let her cast me into a burning fiery Furnace or among wild beasts the three children and Daniel were so dealt with if she will let her stone me or cut off my head I have St. Stephen and the Baptist my blessed Companions if she will let her take away all my substance Naked came I out of my Mothers womb and naked shall I return thither again He used to say the Devil 's first assault is violent resist that and his second will be weaker and that being resisted he proves a Coward Clarebachius I believe said Adolphus Clarebachius that there is not a merrier heart in the world at this instant then mine is Behold you shall see me die by that faith I have lived in Colham See Sir Iohn Oldcastle under the Letter O Clark When Roger Clark was sentenced he said with much vehemency Fight for your God for he hath not long to continue At the Stake he cried out to the people Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world Coligni Iasper Coligni great Admiral of France who was slain in the Massacre at Paris August 24. 1572. being shot in the left Arm with two Bullets and the fore-finger of the right hand broke off with a third and being told by a Gentleman that it was to be feared the Bullets were poysoned he said All must be as it pleaseth God Seeing his Friends weep which held his Arm whilst the Incisions were made he said My Friends why do you weep I judge my self happy that bear these wounds for the Cause of my God To Mr. Merlin his Chaplain he said These wounds my Friend are Gods blessings The smart indeed is troublesome but I acknowledge the will of my Lord therein and I bless his Majesty who hath been pleased thus to honour me and to lay any pain upon me for his holy Names sake Let us beg of him that he will enable me to persevere to the end Speaking concerning those that wounded him I know assuredly said he that it is not in their power to hurt me No though they should kill me for my death is a most certain passage to eternal life N When the Blood-hounds brake open the house where he lay wounded he spake thus I perceive what is a doing I was never afraid of death and I am ready to undergo it patiently for which â— have long since prepared my self I bless God that I shall die in the Lord. â— now need no longer any help of man therefore my friends get ye hence The presence of God to whose goodness I commend my soul is abundantly sufficiently for me Coâ—vâ—r Sheep we are for the slaughter said Francâ— Co'ver to his two Sons massacred together with himself this is no new thing let us follow millions of Martyrs through temporal death unto eternal life Coo. Roger Coo being asked by the Bishop of Norâ—ichâ— whether he would not obey the Kings Laws answered As far as they agree with the Word of God I will obey them Whether they agree with the Word of God or no we are bound to obey them said the Bishop though the King were an Infidel Coo replyed If Shadrach Mâ—shach and Abednâ—go had so done Neluchadnâ—zzar had neveâ— confessed the Living God Constantine Being carried with other Martyrs in a Dungâ— Cart to the place of Execution he spake thusâ— Well yet are we a precious odour and a sweeâ— savour to God in Christ. Cornford Iohn Cornford one of the last five that suffered Martyrdome in Queen Mary's dayes when thâ— Sentence should have been passed and they should have been executed by the Papists being moveâ— in Spirit with a vehement zeal for God in the namâ— of them all pronounced Sentence of Excommunication against the Papists in these words In the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of the most mighty God and by the power of the holy Spirit and the authority of his holy and Apostolick Church We do hereby give into the hands of Satan to be destroyed the bodies of those Blasphemers and Hereticks that do maintain any errour against his most holy Word or do condemn his most holy Truth for Heresie to the maintenance of any false Church or feigned Religion so that by this thy just judgement against thy Adversaries thy true Religion may be known to thy great glory and our comfort and to the edifying of all our Nation Lord Jesus So be it It is observable that within six dayes after this Excommunication Queen Mary died and the tyranny of all
them Go to them said she and say these words from me Tanquam ovis i. e. just like a sheep to the slaughter At her departing from Woodstock she wrote these Verses with her Diamond in a Glaâ—â— Window Much suspected by me Nothing proved can be Qâ—oth Elizabeth Prisoner When a Popish Priest press'd her hard to declare her Opinion of Christs Presence in the Sacrament she truly and warily answered him thus T was the Word that spake it He took the Bread and brake it And what the Word did mâ—ke it That I believe and take it Esch. Iohn Esch and Henry Voes burnt at â—ruxels 152 â— being asked what they believed they said The Books of the Old and New Testmant And being asked whether they believed the Decrees of the Councils and the Fathers they said Such aâ— agreed to the Scriptures they believed and being asked whether it were any deadly sin to transgress the Decrees of the Bishop of Româ— they said That it is to be attributed onely to the Precepâ— of God to bind the Conscience of man or to lose it Being condemned they gave thanks to God their Heavenly Father which had delivered them through his great Goodness from that false and abominable Priesthood they having been Augustine Friers and made them Priests of his Holy Order receiving them unto him as a Sacrifice of â—â— sweet Odour The greatest Errour that they were accused of was that men ought to trust onely in God forasmuch as men were lyars and deceitful in all their words and deeds and therefore there ought no trust or asfiance to be put in them The day of their Execution said they the day we have long desired One of them feeing that the fire was kind led at his feet said Methinks you do strow Roses under my feet Eulalia The Virgin Eulalia of Emerita in Portugal having secretly got out of her Fathers house where she was kept close for fear least she should offer her self to Martyrdome went couragiously unto the Tribunal or Judgement-seat and in the midst of them all cried out Would you know what I am Behold I am one of the Christians an enemy to your Divelish Sacrifices I spurn your Idols under my feet I confess God omnipotent with my heart and mouth Go to thou Hangman burn cut mangle thou these earthly Members it is an easie matter to break a brittle substance but the inward mind thou shalt not hurt for any thing thou canst do The Judge endeavouring to perswade her to recant saying Behold what pleasures thou mayest enjoy by the Honourable House thou camest of What! wilt thou kill thy self so young a flower she being not much above twelve years of age and so near those Honourable Marriages and great Dowries thou mayest enjoy Eulalia did not answer him but being in a great fury spit in the Tyrants face threw down the Idols and spurnt abroad with her feet â—he heap of Incense prepared for the Censers When one joint was pulled from another she said Behold O Lord I will noâ— forget thee what a pleasure is it for them 〈◊〉 Christ that remember thy triumphant Victorieâ— to attain unto these high dignities F. Fabrianus First better said Christopher Fabrianus the sweet First the Battel the Victory when I 〈◊〉 dead Every drop of my blood shall preach Christ and set forth his Praise Faninus Faninus an Italian kissed the Apparitor thaâ— brought him word of his Execution To one reminding him of his Children he said I have lest them to an able and faithful Guardian To his Friends weeping he said That is weâ—â— done that you weep for joy with me To one objecting Christs agony and sadness tâ— his chearfulness Yea said he Christ was sad thaâ— I might be merry He had my sins and I have 〈◊〉 merits and righteousness To the Friers offering him a woodden Crucifâ—â— he said Christ needs not the help of this Piece 〈◊〉 imprint him in my mind and heart where he haâ—â— his Habitation Farellus Mr. William Farellus being questioned by 〈◊〉 Magistrates of Metis by what Authority or 〈◊〉 whose request he preached answered By 〈◊〉 Command of Christ and at the request of hâ—â— Members Farrar Mr. Richard Iones coming to Dr. Robert Farraâ— Bishop of St. David a little before his death aâ—â— seeming to lament the painfulness of the death he was to suffer the Bishop said to him That if he saw him once to stir in the pains of his Burning he should then give no credit to his Doctrine Accordingly he never moved but even as he stood holding up his stumps so he continued still till Richard Gravell with a staffe dashed him upon the head and so strook him down Filicu Iohn Filicul and Iulian Lâ—ville who suffered in France being threatned if they constantly persisted to be burnt alive and to have their tongues cut out or otherwise onely to be strangled and to have the use of their tongues contemned the offer saying You would fain have us renounce our God for saving our selves from a little pain but it shall not be so and looking one upon another said We are ready not onely to lose one or two of our Members but the whole Body and to be burned and burned again in the defence of the Truth When the time of their execution came the Officer put into their hands being tyed a Wooden Cross which they flung away with their teeth saying That they were now to bear a more noble and excellent Cross then that When their tongues were cut God gave them utterance insomuch that they were heard to say We bid Sin the Flesh the World farewel for ever with whom we shall never have to do hereafter At last when the Tormenter came to smear them with Brimstone and Gunpowder Go to said Filiolus salt on salt on the rotten and stinking flesh Fillula By these Ladders said Iohn Fillula to his Fellows we ascend the Heavens now begin we to trample under feet Sin the World the Flesh and the Devil Filmer Henry Filmer said to Person and Testwood his fellow Martyrs Be merry my Brethren and lift up your hands to God for after this sharp break-fast I trust we shall have a good dinner in the Kingdom of Christ our Lord and Redeemer Flower William Flower alias Branch being told his death was near said I hunger for the same dear Friend being fully ascertain'd that they can kill but the body which I am assured shall receive again life everlasting and see death no more Bishop Bonner perswaded him to recant promising him thereupon great things he answered That which I have said I will stand to and therefore I require that the Law may proceed upon me At another time Do what you will I am at 〈◊〉 point for the Heavens shall as soon fall as I will forsake mine opinion In his Prayer Have mercy upon me for thy dear Son our Saviour Jesus Christs sake in whom I confess onely to be
It is no arrogancy nor presumption in any man to burden God as it were with his promise and of duty to claim and challenge his aid help and assistance in all our perils dangers and distress calling upon him not in the confidence of our own godliness but in the trust of his own promises made in Christ. His Word cannot lye Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will hear thee and thou shalt praise me I answered the enemy also on this manner I am a sinner and therefore unworthy to be a witness of this truth What then Must I deny his Word because I am not worthy to proâ—ess it What bring I to pass in so doing but adde sin to sin What is greater sin then to deny the truth of Christs Gospel He that is ashamed of me or of my words saith Christ of him also will I be ashamed before my Father and all his Angels I might also by the same reason forbear to do any of Gods Commandments When I am provoked to pray the enemy may say to me I am not worthy to pray therefore I shall not pray c. When the Bishop came to Lichfield he perswaded me to be a Member of his Church which had continued so many years As for our Church as he called it it was not known he said but lately in King Edward's time I profess my self to be a Member of that Church said I that is builded upon the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles Jesus Christ being the head corner-stone And this Church hath been from the beginning said I though it bear no glorious shew before the world being ever for the most part under the Cross and affliction contemned despised and persecuted The Bishop contended on the other side that they were the Church So cried all the Clergy against the Prophets of Ierusalem said I saying The Church the Church c. So much out of Mr. Glover's choice Letter After he was condemned his heart was lumpish and desolate of all spiritual consolation whereupon fearing least the Lord had utterly withdrawn he made his moan to Mr. Austine Bernher his familiar friend telling him how he had prayed night and day to God and yet had no sense of comfort from him The Minister desired him to wait patiently the Lords leisure and howsoever his present feeling was yet seeing his cause was just he exhorted him constantly to stick to the same and to play the man not doubting but the Lord in his good time would visit him and satisfie his desire with plenty of consolation whereof said Mr. Bernher he was right certain and sure and therefore desired him whenever any such feeling of Gods heavenly mercies should begin to touch his heart that then he should shew some signification thereof The next day as he was going to the place of his Martyrdome and was come within light of the Stake although all the night before praying for strength and courage he could feel none suddenly he was so mightily replenished with Gods holy comfort and heavenly joys that he cried out clapping his hands to Austine and saying in these words Austine He is come he is come c. and that with such joy and alacrity as one seeming rather to be risen from some deadly danger to liberty of life then as one passing out of the world by any pains of death Godfrey When one called Godfrey de Hâ—mmele Heretick he said No Heretick but an unprofitable Servant yet willing to die for his Lord and reckoning this death no death but a life Goodman Mr. Christopher Goodman an exiled Minister of Christ in Queen Mary's dayes declaring the cause of all the then misery in England and the onely way to remedy the same writes as followeth from Geneva If all in whom the People should look for comfort be altogether declined from God as indeed they appear to be at this present time in England without all fear of his Majesty or pity upon their Brethren Then assure your selves dear Brethren and Servants of God there can be no better counsel nor more comfortable or present remedy which you shall prove true if God grant you his Spirit and Grace to follow it then in continual and daily invocation of his Name to rest wholly and onely upon him make him your shield buckler and refuge who hath so promised to be to all them that are oppressed and depend upon him to do nothing commanded against God and your conscience preferring at all times the will of God to the will of men saying and answering to all manner of persons This God hath commanded this we must do That God hath forbidden that we will not do If you will rob us and spoil us for doing the Lords will to the Lord must you make answer and not to us for his goods they are and not ours If ye will imprison us behold you are oppressours if ye will hang us or burn us behold ye are murtherers of them which fear the Lord. And for our part if you take from us this vile and corruptible life we are sure the Lord will grant it us again with joy and immortality both of soul and body If God give you grace to make this or the like answer and strength to contemn their Tyranny you may be sure to find unspeakable comfort and quietness of conscience in the midst of your danger and greatest rage of Satan And thus boldly confessing Christ your Saviour before men as by the examples of thousands of your Brethren before your faces God doth mercifully encourage you you may with all hope and patience wait for the joyful confession of Christ again before his Father and Angels in Heaven that you are his obedient and dearly beloved Servants being also assured of this that if it be the will of God to have you any longer to remain in this miserable world that then his Providence is so careful over you and present with you that no man or power can take away your life from you nor touch your body any farther then your Lord and God will permit them which neither shall be augmented for your plain confession nor yet diminished for keeping of silence for nothing cometh to the Servants of God by hap or chance whose hairs of their heads are numbred Whereof if ye be so assured as ye ought there can be nothing that should make you to shrink from the Lord. If they do cast you into Prison with Ioseph the Lord will deliver you If they cast you to wild beasts and Lions as they did Dâ—niel you shall be preserved If into the Sea with Ionas you shall not be drowned or into the dirty dungeon with Ieremy you shall be delivered or into the fiery Furnace with Shadrach Meshach and Aâ—ednego yet shall not be consumed Contrariwise if it be his good pleasure that you shall glorifie his holy Name by your death what great thing have you lost changing death for life
misery for felicity continual vexation and trouble for perpetual rest and quietness chusing rather to die with shame of the world being the Servants of God then to live among men in honour being the servants of Satan and condemned of God Otherwise if you give place to the wickedness of men to escape their malice and bodily dangers you shew your selves therein to fear man more then the mighty and dreadful God him that hath but power of your body and that at Gods appointment then God himself who hath power after he hath destroyed the body to cast both soul and body into hell-fire there to remain everlastingly in torments unspeakable And moreover that which you look to obtain by these sinful shifts you shall be sure to lose with grief and trouble of conscience for this saying of your Master being true and certain that They which seek to save their life meaning by any worldly reason or policy shall lose it What shall be their gains at length when by dissimulation and yielding to Popish Blasphemy they dishonour the Majesty of God to enjoy this short miserable and mortal life to be cast from the favour of God and company of his heavenly Angels to enjoy for a short time their goods and possessions among their fleshly and carnal Friends whenas their conscience within shall be deeply wounded with hell-like torments when Gods curse and indignation hangeth continually over the heads of such ready to be poured down upon them when they shall find no comfort but utter despair with Iudas who for this worldly riches as he did have sold their Master seeking either to hang themselves with Iudas to murther themselves with Francis Spira to drown themselves with Justice Hales or else to fall into a raging madness with Justice Morgan What comfort had Iudas then by his money received for betraying his Master was he not shortly after compelled to cast it from him with this pitiful voice I have sinned in betraying innocent blood Then dear Brethren in Christ what other reward can any of you look for committing the like offences There is no trust but in God no comfort but in Christ no assurance but in his promise by whose obedience onely you shall avoid all danger And whatsoever you lose in this world and suffer for his Name it shall be here recompenced with double according to his promise and in the world to come with life everlasting which is to find your life when you are willing to lay it down at his Commandment I am not ignorant how unnatural a thing it is and contrary to the flesh willingly to sustain such cruel death as the Adversaries have appointed to all the Children of God who mind constantly to stand by their prosession yet to the Spirit notwithstanding is easie and joyful for though the flesh be frail the Spirit is prompt and ready Whereof praised be the Name of God you have had notable experience in many of your Brethren very Martyrs for Christ who with joy patiently and triumphing have suffered and drunk with thirst of that bitter Cup which nature so much abhorreth wonderfully strengthened no doubt by the secret inspiration of Gods holy Spirit so that there ought to be none among you so feeble weak or timerous whom the wonderful examples of Gods present power and singular favour in those persons should not encourage bolden and fortifie to shew the like constancy in the same Cause and Profession Nevertheless great cause we have thankfully to consider the unspeakable mercy of God in Christ who hath farther respect to our infirmity that when we have not that boldness of Spirit to stand to the death as we see others he hath provided a present remedy that being persecuted in one place we have liberty to flee into another When we cannot be in our own Countrey with a safe conscience except we would make open profession of our Religion which is every mans duty and so be brought to offer up our lives in sacrifice to God in testimony that we are his he hath mollified and prepared the hearts of Strangers to receive us with all pity and gladness where you may be also not onely delivered from the fear of death and the Papistâ—cal Tyranny practised without all measure in that Countrey but with great freedom of conscience hear the Word of God continually preached and the Sacraments of our Saviour Christ purely and duely ministred without all dregs of Popery or Superstition of mans invention to the intent that you being with others refreshed for a space and more strongly fortified may be also with others more ready and willing to lay down your lives at Gods appointment for that is the chiefest grace of God and greatest perfection to sight even unto blood under Christs Banner and with him to give our lives But if you will thus flee Beloved in the Lord you must not chuse unto your selves places according as you fancy as many of us who have left our Countrey have done dwelling in Popish places among the enemies of God in the midst of impiety some in France as in Paris Orleance Roan some in Italy as in Rome Venice Padua which persons in fleeing from their Queen run to the Pope fearing the danger of their bodies seek where they may poyson their souls thinking by this means to be less suspected of Iezebel shew themselves afraid and ashamed of the Gospel which in times past they have stoutly professed And lest they should be thought favourers of Christ have purposely ridden by the Churches and Congregations of his Servants their Brethren neither minded to comfort others there nor to be comforted themselves wherein they have shewed the coldness of their zeal towards Religion and given no small occasion of slander to the Word of God which they seemed to prosess This manner of fleeing then in ungodly c. Neither is it enough to keep you out of the Dominions of Antichrist and to place your selves in corners you may be quiet and at ease and not burthened with the charges of the poor thinking it sufficient if you have a little exercise in your houses in reading a Chapter or two of the Scriptures and then will be counted zealous persons and great Gospellers No Brethren and Sâ—sters this is not the way to shew your selves manful souldiers of Christ except you resort where his Banner is displayed and his Standard set up where the Assembly of your Bâ—ethren is and his Word openlâ— preached and Sacraments faithfully ministred for otherwise what may a man judge but that such either disdain the company of their poor Brethren whom they ought by all means to help and comfort according to that power that God hath given them for that end onely and not for their own ease or else that they have not that zeal to the House of God the Assembly of his Servants and to the spiritual gifts and graces which God hath promised to
was damb'd and his Child both Iudge you no farther said he then ye may by the Scritures How can your Child being an Infant said Harpsfield believe The deliverance of it said Hankes from sin standeth in the faith of his Parents Saint Paul saying Else were your Children unclean To trust to any said Bonner we bid you not but to pray to them we bid you They that list said Hankes receive your Doctrine You teach me that I should not believe nor trust in any but to call on them and Saint Paul saith How shall I call on him on whom I believe not Bonner calling him fool he said A Bishop must be blameless or faultless sober discreet no chider nor given to anger Mr. Hankes telling Bonner That Christ saith These tokens shall follow them that believe in me They shall speak with new tongues câ—st out Devils and if any drink deadly poyson it shall not hurt them Bonner ask'd him With what new tongues do ye speak Forsooth said Hankes where before I came to the knowledge of Gods Word I was a foul Blasphemer and filthy talker Since I came to the knowledge thereof I have praised God with the sâ—me tongue and is not this a new tongue How do you said Bonner cast out Devils Christ said Hankes did câ—st them out by his Word and he hath left the same Word that whosoever doth credit and believe it shall câ—st out Devils Did you said Bonner ever drink deadly poyson Yea forsooth thee I have said Hankes for I have drunk of the pâ—stilent Traditions and Ceremonies of the Bishop of Rome Bonner threatning that he should be burnt for an Heretick Where prove ye said Hankes that Christ or his Apostles did kill any man for his faith Did not Paul said B. excommunicate Yes my Lord said H. but there is a great difference between excommunication and burning If you will have us grant you to be of God then shew mercy for that God requireth An old Bishop perswading him to learn of his Elders to bear somewhat I will bear with nothing said he that is contrary to the Word of God Fecknam charging him for building his Faith on Latimer â—ranmer Ridley c. I build my Faith said he upon no man and that ye well know for if those men and as many more as they be should recant and deny that they have said or done yet will I stand to it and by this shall ye know that I build my Faith upon no man Chadsey asking him What he said of the Bishop of Rome From him said he and all his detestable enormities good Lord deliver us Bonner saying You speak of Idols and you know not what they mean God hath taught us what they be said Hankes for whatsoever is made graven or devised by mans hand contrary to Gods Word the same is an Idol Chadsey telling him It was pity he should live In this case said he I desire not to live but rather to die I wouâ—d my part might be to morrow Bonner threatning to send him to Newgate My Lord said he you can do me no better pâ—easure Bonner telling the Keeper His Prisoner would not go to the Sermon Yes my Lord said he I pray you let me go and that that is good I will receive and the rest I will leave behind me Bonner asking after his imprisonment Whether he was the same man he was before he answered I am no Changeling nor none will be Miles Huggard asking him Where he proved that Infants were to be baptized Go teach all Nations said he baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Sir here is none excepted Bonner threatning him again Ye shall do no more said he then God shall give you leave As for your cursings railings and blasphemings I care not for them for I know the moths and worms shall eat you as they eat cloth or wooll His examination he writ himself and subscribed it T.H. Who desireth all faithful men and Brethren to pray unto God to strengthen me in his Truth unto the end Pray pray pray gentle Brethren pray Bonner advising him at his publick examination to speak advisedly for he stood upon life and death Well said he I will willingly receive what shall be put unto me My Lord as you be my friend in causing these my sayings to be written so do you cause them to be read and yet I will never go from them Being exhorted to return again to the bosome of the Mother Church No my Lord said he that will I not for if I had an hundred bodies I would suffer them all to be tâ—rn in pieces rather then I will abjure or recaâ—t Some of his Friends being not a little confirmen by his example and discourses yet being somewhat afraid of so sharp a punishment desired him a little before his death that in the midst of the flame he would shew some token if he could whereby they might be more certain whether the pain of burning were so great that a man might not therein keep his mind quiet and patient Whereupon it was agreed between them that if the rage of the pain were tolerable then he should lift up his hands above his head towards Heaven before he gave up the ghost Accordingly when he had continued long in the fire his speech taken away his skin drawn together his fingers consumed so that all concluded he was dead contrary to all expectation he reached up his hands burning on a light fire over his head to the living God and with great rejoycing as it seemed clapped them three times together He was burned to ashes Iune 10. 1555. In his Letter to the Congregation The holy Spirit conduct and lead you all in all your doings that you may alwayes direct your deeds according to his holy Word that when he shall appear to reward every man according to his works ye may as obedient children be found watching ready to enter into his everlasting Kingdome with your Lamps burning and not be ashamed of this life which God hath lent you c. All flesh saith the Prophet is grâ—ss and all his glory as the flower of the field which for a season sheweth her beauty and as soon as the Lord bloweâ—h upon it it withereth away and departeth Here we are as Pilgrims and Strangers following the footsteps of Moses among many unspeakable dangers c. in danger of that dreadful Dragon and his sinful seed to be tempted devoured and tormented who ceaseth not behind every Bush to lay a baâ—t c. casting abroad his Apples in all places times and seasons to see if Adam will be allured and enticed to leave the living God and his most holy commandment c. promising the world at will to all that will fall down and for a mess of pottage sell and set at naught the everlasting Kingdome of Heaven Therefore I am bold in bonds as
God he that is present with the Beasts is present with God I hear all onely in the Name of Christ that I may suffer with him he strengthning me who is made perfect man What doth it profit me if any one praise me and blaspheme my Lord not confessing him to be clothed with flesh Your prayer hath reached to the Church of Antioch which is in Syria whence I salute you all being bound in Gods honourable bonds though unworthy being the last of all there yet made worthy by the will of God not according to my Conscience but of the meer grace of God c. In one of his Epistles he saith Truly I did see him Christ in flesh after his resurrection and do believe that it is he c. He used to say That there is nothing better then the peace of a good Conscience That good and wicked men are like true and counterfeit money the one seems to be good and is not the other both seems and is good That the Lions teeth are but like a Mill which though it bruiseth yet wasteth not the good Wheat onely prepares and sits it to be made pure Bread Let me said he be broken by them so I may be made pure Manchet for Heaven Other graces are but parts of a Christians armour as the shield of Faith c. but Patience is the Panoply or whole armour of the man of God Ioan. The Lady Ioan Queen of Navar who was poysoned at Paris a few dayes before the bloody Massacre on Aug. 24. 1572. in her sickness she said I take all this as sent from the hand of God my most merciful Father nor have I during this extremity feared to die much less murmured against God for inflicting the same upon me knowing that whatsoever he doth he doth the same so as all in the end shall turn to my everlasting good I depend wholly upon Gods providence knowing that all things are wisely disposed of by him As for this life I am in a good measure weaned from the love of it in regard of the afflictions that have followed me from my youth hitherto but especially because I cannot live without daily offending my good God with whom I desire to be with all my heart In regard of mine own particular my life is not dear unto me seeing so long as I live in this frail flesh I am still prone and apt to sin against God onely my care is somewhat for my children which God hath given me because they shall be now deprived of me in their young years yet I doubt not but although it should please God to take me from them that himself will be a Father to them and a Protector over them as he hath been to me in my greatest afflictions and therefore I commit them wholly to his government and Fatherly care She often uttered these words O my God in thy good time deliver me from this body of death and from the miseries of this life that I may no more offend thee and that I may attain to that felicity which thou in thy Word hast promised me To a Minister a little before her death she said I neither expect Salvation Righteousness nor Life from any else then from my onely Saviour Jesus Christ being assured that his onely merit abundantly sufficeth for the full satisfaction of all my sins albeit they are innumerable Ioris Iohn Ioris of Assahen in a Letter of his to his Parents and Friends a little before his Martyrdome writ thus Most dear Father and Mother Sister and Brother I write here unto you comfortable news viz. That in all my life I never saw any day so pleasing to me as this is in which the Lord hath counted me worthy to be one of his Champions and to suffer for his holy Name for which I give him most humble and hearty thanks Rejoyce with me I pray you that God hath now called me to so glorious and welcome Marriage Day O how precious in the sight of the Lord our God is the death of his Martyrs Dear Friends two Priests and some of the Magistrates have sought to terrifie me with many threats thinking to turn me aside from my holy Profession but the Lord of his great mercy hath given me grace to withstand them all I plainly told them I was not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ but would be willing and ready to die in the defence thereof following my Lord and Master Jesus Christ through all afflictions to be made Partaker with him at last of his eternal joyes in his celestial Tabernacle Wherefore if God shall call any of you forth to suffer ought for his Names sake bear the same I beseech you with meekness and patience not declining from the truth for fear or favour to the right hand or to the left But fear him rather who is able to cast soul and body into hell The time which God hath lent us to converse in this world is but short and therefore let us begin to abandon the love of this world with all things therein betimes that so we may be ready to follow the call of God Dear Father and Mother I do take my last farewell of you until we meet together again in the Kingdome of Heaven where we shall partake of that joy that shall last for ever all sorrows tears and griefs being wiped away Be ye not therefore grieved I pray you but be patient for the affliction which is befallen me is most acceptable to me for which also I bless and praise the Lord. Iueson Thomas Iueson being prest to recant said I would not recant for all the goods in London I do appeal to Gods mercy and will be none of your Church nor submit my self to the same And that I have said I will say it again And if there came an Angel from Heaven to teach me any other Doctrine then that which I am in now I would not believe him Iuleddo or Iulitta A Servant to a good Gentlewoman telling Mr. Bradford that her Mistress had been sorer afflicted with her own Father and Mother then ever he was with his imprisonment Mr. Bradford bid her tell her Mistress That he had read that day a godly History written by Basilius Magnus of Iuleddo a vertuous Widow She had great Lands and many children and nigh her dwelt a Cormorant which for her godliness hated her and out of very malice took away her lands so that she was fain to go to Law The Judge demanded of him why he wrongfully with-held these Lands from this Woman He answered he might because she was disobedient to the Kings proceedings for she will in no wise worship his gods nor offer sacrifice unto them Woman said the Judge thereupon if this be true thou art like not onely to lose thy Land but thy Life Whereupon she said And is there no remedy but either to worship your false gods or else to lose my
Lands and life then farewell Suit farewell Lands farewell Children farewell Friends yea and farewell Life too and in respect of the true honour of the everliving God farewell all At the place of her Execution she exhorted all women to be strong and constant for said she ye were redeemed with as dear a price as men for although ye were made of the rib of the man yet be you all of his flesh so that also in the case and trial of your faith towards God ye ought to be as strong Mr. Ward calleth her Iulitta and records her Speech thus We women received not onely flesh from men but are bone of their bone and therefore ought to be as strong in Christs Cause Mr. Fox out of Basil tells the Story thus That when the Judge passed Sentence against Iulitta she said Farewell riches and welcome poverty farewell life and welcome death All that I have if it were a thousand times more would I rather lose then speak one wicked and blasphemous word against God my Creatour I yield thee most hearty thanks O my God for this grace that I can contemn and despise this frail and transitory world esteeming Christian Profession above all treasures Afterwards when any Question was demanded her Answer was I am the Servant of Jesus Christ. At the Stake she said to the women beholding her Stick not O Sisters to labour and travel after true pieâ—y and godliness Cease to accuse the frailty of feminine Nature What are not we created of the same matter that men are yea after Gods Image and Similitude are we made as lively as they Not flesh onely did God use in the Creation of the woman in sign and token of her infirmity and weakness but bone of bones is she in token that she must be strong in the true and living God all falshoods forsaken constant in faith all infidelity renounced patient in adversity all worldly ease refused Wax weary my dear Sisters of your lives led in darkness and be in love with my Christ my God my Redeemer my Comforter which is the true light of the world Perswade your selves or rather the Spirit of the living God perswade you that there is a world to come wherein the Worshippers of Idols and Devils shall be tormented perpetually and the Servants of the High God be crowned eternally Iusberg Brethren said Iustus Iusberg you see that my end approacheth which howsoever I fear as a man burdened with the body of sin yet am I resolved as a Christian joyfully to endure it being assured that all my sins are fastened to the Cross of Christ. Iuventius Chrysostome in an Oration on Iuventius and Maximus two Martyrs brings in this objection of the Persecutours against them Do not you see others of your rank do thus and them answering thus for this very reason we will manfully stand and offer our selves as a sacrifice for the breach that they have made K. Kennedy Alexander Kennedy who passed not eighteen years of age when he was presented before his bloody Butcherers at first was faint and gladly would have recanted but while the place of repentance was denied him the Spirit of God wrought in him and with a chearful countenance and a joyful voice upon his knees he said O eternal God how wonderful is that love and mercy that thou bearest unto mankind and unto me the most Caitiffe and miserable wretch above all others for even now when I would have denied thee and thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ my onely Saviour and so have cast my self into everlasting dammation Thou by thy own hand hast pulled me from the very bottom of hell and made me to feel that heavenly comfort which takes from me that ungodly fear wherewith before I was oppressed Now I defie death do what you please I praise my God I am ready Kerby Mr. Wingfield telling him the fire is hot the terrour is great the pain extreme life sweet Better it were betime to stick to mercy while there is hope of life then rashly to begin and then to sâ—rink He said Ah Mr. Wingfield be at my burning and you shall say there standeth a Christian Souldier in the fire for I know that fire water sword and all other things are in the hands of God and he will suffer no more to be laid upon us then he will enable us to bear When Sentence was past against him he with most humble reverence holding up his hands and bowing himself devoutly said Praised be Almighty God Kilian To such as asked Kilian a Dutch School-Master if he loved not his Wife and Children He answered Yes if all the world were gold and were mine to dispose of I would give it all to live with them though it were but in Prison yet is my soul and my Lord Christ dearer to me then all things whatsoever Knight When Stephen Knight was at the Stake he prayed O Lord Jesus Christ for whose love I leave willingly this life and desire rather the bitter death of thy Cross with the loss of all earthly things then to abide the blasphemy of thy most holy Name or to obey men in breaking thy holy Commandement Thou seest O Lord that where I might live in worldly wealth to worship a false god and honour thine enemy I chuse rather the torment of the body and the loss of this life and have counted all things but vile dust and dung that I might win thee which death is dearer unto me then thousands of gold and silver Such love O Lord hast thou laid up in my breast that I hunger for thee as the Deer that is wounded desireth the soil Send thy holy Comforter O Lord to aid comfort and strengthen this weak piece of earth which is empty of all strength of it self Thou remembrest O Lord that I am but dust and able to do nothing that is good Therefore O Lord as of thine accustomed goodness and love thou hast bidden me to this banket and accounted me worthy to drink of thine own Cup amongst thine Elect even so give me strength O Lord against this thine Element which as to my sight it is most irksome and terrible so to my mind it may at thy Commandement as an obedient Servant be sweet and pleasant that through the strength of thy holy Spirit I may pass through the rage of this fire into thy bosome according to thy promise and for this mortal receive an immortal and for this corruption put on incorruption Accept this burnt-sacrifice and offering O Lord not for the sacrifice but for thy Dear Sons sake my Saviour for whose Testimony â— offer this free-will-offering with all my heart and with all my soul. O Heavenly Father forgive me my sins as I forgive all the world O sweet Son of God my Saviour spread thy wings over me O blessed and holy Ghost through whose merciful inspiration I am come hither conduct me into everlasting life Lord
my witness that I never preached Christ Jesus in contempt of any man neither mind I at any time to present my self to that place having either respect to my own private commodity or to the worldly hurt of any creature But to delay to preach to morrow unless the body be violently withholden I cannot in conscience for in this Town and Church God began first to call me to the dignity of a Preacher from the which I was reft by the tyranny of France and procurement of the Bishops what torment I sustained in the Gallies c. is now no time to recite This onely I cannot conceal which more then one have heard me say when absent from Scotland That my assured hope was in open audience to preach at Saint Andrews before I departed this life And therefore my Lords seeing that God above the expectation of many hath brought my body to the same place where first I was called to the office of a Preacher and from the which I was most unjustly removed I beseech your Honours not to stop me from presenting my self unto my Brethren And as for the fear of danger that may come to me let no man be sollicitous for my life is in the custody of him whose glory I seek and therefore I cannot so fear their boast or tyranny that I will cease from doing my duty when of mercy he offereth the occasion I desire not the hand of any man to defend me onely I crave audience c. Whereupon the Lords were fully content he should preach and so he did upon the ejection of the buyers and sellers forth of the Temple applying the corruption that was then to the corruption that is in Papistry and Christs fact to the duty of those to whom God gives power and zeal to remove all Monuments of idolatry When the Lords and those that favoured Reformation were driven from Edinburg to Sterling which was the time of their greatest trouble Mr. Knox preached on Psal. 80.5.6 7 8. In the Sermon God in wisdome sometimes suffers his chosen Flock to mockage and dangers yea apparent destruction that they may feel the vehemency of Gods indignation that they may know how little strength is in themselves that they may leave a testimony to the generations following as well of the malice of the Devil against Gods people as of the marvellous Work of God in preserving his little Flock by far other means then man can espy It is a great and sore temtation when God turns away his face from our Prayers c. This temptation no flesh can overcome or abide unless the mighty Spirit of God interpose as appears in Saul when God would not hear him The difference between the Elect and Reprobate in this temptation is this The Elect sustained by the secret power of Gods Spirit still call upon God albeit he appear to contemn their Prayers as Iacob did c. But the Reprobate being denied their requests do cease to pray and contemn God and it may be seek to the Devil for what they cannot obtain by God Such is our tender delicacy and self-love of our own flesh that those things which we lightly pass over in others we can greatly complain of if they touch our selves When the sins of men are rebuked in general seldome is it that man descendeth within himself accusing and condemning in himself that which most displeaseth God but rather he doubteth that to be a cause which before God is no cause indeed as the Israelites supposed the cause of their overthrow was because they had lifted the Sword against their Brethren of Benjamin and yet the express command that was given them did deliver them from all crime in that cause The true cause was their going to execute judgement against the wicked without repentance for their own former offences and defection from God and their trusting in their own strength they were a great multitude and the other far inferiour to them When we were a few c. we called upon God and took him for our Protector Defence and Refuge among us we had no bragging of multitude nor of our strength nor of our policy we did onely sob to God to have respect to the equity of our Cause and to the cruel pursuit of the tyrannical Enemy But since that our Number hath been multiplied and great Ones joyned with us nothing hath been heard but This Lord will bring these many hundred Spears this man hath the credit to perswade the Countrey If this Eare be ours no man in such bounds will trouble us Thus we made flesh our Arm. It resteth that we turn to the Eternal our God who beateth down to the death that he may raise up again to leave the remembrance of his wonderous deliverance to the praise of his own Name which if we do unfeignedly I no more doubt but that this our dolour confusion and fear shall be turned into joy honour and boldness then that God gave victory to the Israelites over the Benjamites after that twice with ignominy they were repulsed Yea whatsoever shall become of us and our mortal carkases I doubt not but that this Cause in despight of Satan shall prevail for it is the eternal Truth of the eternal God It may be that God shall plague some for that they delight not in the Truth albeit for worldly respects they seem to favour it yea God may take some of his dearest Children away before that their eyes see greater troubles but neither shall the one nor the other so hinder this Action but in the end it shall triumph After the taking of Kinghorn at which time the Queen Regent blasphemously said Where now is Iohn Knox his God My God is now stronger then he even in Fife Mr. Knox preached a comfortable Sermon on the danger wherein the Disciples of Christ when they were in the midst of the Sea and Jesus upon the Mountain exhorting them not to faint but to rowe against the contrary blasts till that Jesus Christ should come for said he I am assuredly perswaded that God will deliver us from this extreme trouble as that this is the Gospel of Jesus Christ which I preach unto you this day The fourth watch is not yet come abide a little the Boat shall be saved and Peter which hath left the Boat shall not drown In his Letter to Sir William Cicil Secretary of State in England As from God you have received Life Wisdome and Honours c. so ought you wholly to apply the same to the advancement of his glory c. which alas in times past you have not done For to the suppressing of Christs true Evangel to the erecting of Idolatry and to the shedding of the blood of Gods most dear Children have you by silence consented and subscribed this your most horrible defection from the known Truth and once professed c. He hath not dealt with you as with others
Fornicatâ—res Adulteros judicabit Dominus i. e. Whoremongers and Adulterers God will jundge In his Letter to Mrs. Wiâ—kinson out of Bocardo in Oxford If the gift of a pot of cold water shall not be in oblivion with God how can God forget your manifold and bountiful gifts when he shall say to you I was in Prison and you visited me God grant us all to do and suffer while we be here as may be to his will and pleasure Amen Yours in Bocardo H. L. In his Letter to Dr. Ridley You say except the Lord assist me with his gracious aid in the time of his Service I shall I know play but the part of a white-livered Knight Truth it is for Without me saith Christ ye can do nothing much less suffer death of our Adversaries through the Bloody Law prepared against us But it followeth If you abide in me and my Word abide in you ask what you will and it shall be done for you What can be more comfortable Better a few things well pondered then to trouble the memory with too much You shall prevail more with praying then with studying though mixture be best for so one shall alleviate the tediousness of the other I intend not to contend much with them in words after a reasonable account of my Faith given for it shall be but in vain They will say as their Fatherr said when they have no more to say We have a Law and by our Law he ought to die Be ye stedfast and unmoveable Stand fast If ye abide if ye abide c. But we shall be called obstinate sturdy ignorant heady and what not So that a man hath need of much patience that hath to do with such men Diotrephes now of late did ever harp upon Unity Unity Yea Sir said I but in Verity not in Popery Better is a diversity then an unity in Popery The Marrow-bones of the Mass are altogether detestable and therefore by no means to be born withall so that of necessity the mending of it is to abolish it for ever What fellowship hath Christ with Antichrist Come forth from among them and separate your selves from them saith the Lord. It is one thing to be the Church indeed and another thing to counterfeit the Church I thank you that you have vouchsafed to minister so plentiful Armour unto me being otherwise altogether unarmed saving that he cannot be left destitute of help who rightly trusteth in the help of God I onely learn to die in reading of the New Testament and am still praying to my God to help me in time of need My Prayer shall you not lack trusting that you do the like for me for indeed there is the help c. There is no remedy now they have the Master bowl in their hand and rule the roast but patience Better it is to suffer what cruelty they will put upon us then to incur Gods high indignation Wherefore be of good cheer in the Lord duly considering what he requireth of you and what he doth promise you Our common enemy shall do no more then God will permit him God is faithful who will not suffer us to be tempted above our strength c. Be at a point what you will stand to stick unto that and let them both say and do what they list They can but kill the body which is of it self mortal neither shall they do that when they list but when God will suffer them when the hour appointed is come Let them not deceive you with their sophistical sophisms and fallacies you know that false things may have more appearance of truth then things that be most true Remember Paul's watch-word Let no man deceive you with likeliness of speech Fear of death doth most perswade a great number be well ware of that argument The flesh is weak but the willingness of the spirit shall refresh the weakness of the flesh The number of the Cryers under the Altar must needs be fulfilled If we be segregated thereunto Happy are we That is the greatest promotion that God giveth in this world to be such Philippians to whom it is given not onely to believe but to suffer c. But who is able to do these things Surely all our ability all our sufficiency is of God He requireth and promiseth Let us declare our obedience to his will when it shall be requisite in the time of trouble yea in the midst of the fire When that Number is fulfilled which I ween shall be shortly then have at the Papists when they shall say Peace all things are safe c. Christ shall come gloriously to the terrour of all Papists but to the great consolation of all that will here suffer for him Comfort your selves one another with these words Pray for me pray for me I say pray for me I say for I am sometime so fearful that I would creep into a Mouse-hole sometime again God doth visit me with his comfort So he cometh and goeth to teach me to feel and know mine infirmity to the intent to give thanks to him that is worthy lest I should rob him of his due as many do yea almost all the world Farewell Fare you well once again and be thou stedfast and unmoveable in the Lord. Paul loved Timothy marvellous well notwithstaing he saith unto him Be thou partaker of the affliction of the Gospel and again Harden thy self to suffer afflictions Be faithfull unto death and I will give thee a Crown of Life saith the Lord. Mr. Fox records one Letter more of this holy mans which he wrote when he was Bishop of Worcester to a Iustice of Peace who could not at first bear his being told by this Servant of God his fault in oppressing and wronging a poor man but sent him word in great displeasure that he would not take it at his hands c. but afterward proved a good man in which Letter his close is very observable Consider with your self saith Mr. Latimer what it is to oppress and defraud your Brother and what followeth thereof It is truly said The sin is not forgiven except the thing be restored again that is taken away No restitution no salvation which is as well to be understood of things gotten by fraud guile and deceit as of things gotten by open theft and rollery I will do the best I can and wrestle with the Devil omnibus vâ—riâ—us to deliver you and your Brother out of his possession I will leave no one stone unmoved to have you both saved There is neither Arch Bishop nor Bishop nor any learned man in either University or elsewhere that I am acquainted with that shall not write to you and by their learning confute you There is no godly man of Law in this Realm that I am acquainted with but they shall write to you and confute you by Law There is neither Lâ—rd nor Lady nor any Noble person in
provided That they pass judgement concerning them out of the Scriptures and prove the contrary by testimonies thence Afterwards the Arch Bishop of Triers treated privately with him to perswade him Luther told him It was not sâ—fe for him to submit so momentous a business to them who after they had called him under safe conduct attempting him with new commands had condemned his Opinion and approved the Popes Bull. Afterwards the Arch Bishop desired Luther to shew what remedies there were in this case He answered None better then Gamalieâ—'s who said If this câ—unsel or work proceed of men it shall come to nâ—ught but if it be of God ye cannot destroy it Caesar and the States may write to the Pope that they are certain If this his purpose 〈◊〉 of God it will of iâ—s own accâ—rd come to nâ—ught within three yea within two years The Arch Bishop asking him What if the same Aâ—â—icles which the â—ouncil of Constance condemned be collected out of your Writings to be submitted to a Couâ—cil I may not said he and I will not hold my peace concerning such because I am certain the Word of God is condemned by their Decrees therefore I will rather lose life and head then abandon the manifest Word of the Lord. When Luther was commanded by the Emperour to return within one and twenty dayes under safe conduct He said It is as pleaseth the Lord. Blessed be the Name of the Lord. I humbly give most hearty thanks to the Emperour and all the Princes c. for so benign and favourable audience and for safe conduct to come and return I desire nothing of you but a reformation by the holy Scripture and that I do most earnestly desire Otherwise I am ready to suffer all things life and death shame and reproach for the Emperour and Empire reserving nothing for my self but onely the free Word of God to be confessed and testified by me In his Letter to his Father Know dear Father that your Son is come to this to be most certainly perswaded that nothing is before nothing more holy more religious then Gods command But you will say Didst thou ever doubt hereof Truly I did not onely doubt hereof but I was altogether ignorant that it was so and if you will suffer me I am ready to demonstrate that this ignorance was common to you with me If you had known that Gods Command is to be preferred before all things you would by your Paternal Authority have taken away my Monks Cole and if I had known it I should not have entred into the Monastery without your leave and against your consent But God hath caused all to work for good He would have me to experience the wisdome of the Universities and the holiness of the Monasteries that is that they should be known to me by many sins and impieties lest occasion should be given to wicked men to triumph over their future Adversary that I condemned what I knew not I therefore lived a Monk though without crime not without fault Will you now come and free me my Father The Lord hath come before you and freed me My Conscience is freed which is the richest liberty I am now a Monk and no Monk a new Creature not of the Pope but of Christ. The Pope doth indeed create Puppets that is Idols like himself in which Number I was once a poor seduced One but now freed by grace Your authority over me doth indeed remain intire But he that hath freed me hath greater authority over me Novemb. 21. 1521. In his Epistle to Prince Frederick The perils and dangers which seem to hang over your Person Dominions and Subjects and especially my self condemned by Edicts and Bulls by the Popes and Emperours Authority upon my return are not unobserved Certainly no less then a violent death is to be expected by me every hour But what shall I do God calls and urges me to return To this I am not induced by pride and contempt of the Emperour or of your Excellency or of any Magistrate for although sometimes we must not do what is commanded by man as when any thing is commanded contrary or repugnant to the Word of God yet the Power and Authority is never to be contemned but alwayes to be highly honoured But I am assured that the beginning of my Preaching at Wittenberg came not from my self but from God Neither can any kind of persecution and death teach me otherwise yea I think I prophesie rightly That no terrours nor cruelty shall be able to put out this Light Besides whilst I was absent from Wittenberg Satan hath entred in among my flock c. and I have resolved rather to regard the great necessity of that Church then the offending or pleasing your Excellency yea then the hatred and fury of the whole world Certainly this is my flock committed to me by the Lord These are my children in Christ. Shall I doubt whether I should câ—me to or stay from them for whom I ought to lose my life and chuse death which I shall God helping me willingly and cheerfully I do also very much fear least some great and horrible insurrection be in Germany to punish Germany ' s contempt of and ingratitude for the Blessings of God We see with how great liking applause and concurrency the Gospel is received by very many but many receive this Blessing carnally they plainly see the truth but do not walk in the truth as they ought The Ecclesiastical Tyranny is weakned and broken and that was all I aimed at in my Writings Now I see God will proceed farther and will sometime do the same that he did to Ierusalem when he overturned altogether both the Ecclesiastical and Political Government for persecuting the Gospel and other outrages I have lately begun to learn that not onely the Ecclesiastical Spiritual but the Political and Civil Authority ought to yield unto the Gospel c. Seeing therefore that God requires by Ezekiel that we be as a Wall unto the people I have thought it necessary to do all we can and ought by mutual counsels studies instructions admonitions exhortations for the averting or at least for the deferring â—f the anger and judgement of God This I dare affirm and wish that your Excellency were assured thereof that it is far otherwise concluded in Heaven then in the Convention at Norinberg and in short time we shall see that they who nâ—w dream that they have quite devâ—ured and eâ—ten up the Gospel have not so much as far fashiâ—n sake said Grâ—ce as the English expressiâ—n is for these untouched dainâ—ies The Gospel begins to be â—ppressed and therefore herein I ought not to regard any mortal I beseech therefâ—re your Excelâ—ency to take in good part my coming home without your command yea privity You are the Lord of my body and little fortunes but Christ of the souls to whâ—m he hath sent me c. I hope being confident
that condition After that he began to speak to the people shewing the cause of his death and would have exhorted them to stick unto Christ. Whereupon one of the Sheriffs said We must have no Sermoning now When the Beholders supposed no less but that he had been dead having been so long in the fire he spread abroad his Arms saying Father of Heaven have mercy upon me Upon this many of the people said That he was a Martyr and died marvellous patiently and godly which thing caused Dr. Cotes the Bishop shortly after to preach in the Cathedral that he was an Heretick burnt like an Heretick and was a firebrand in hell But shortly after the judgement of God took hold of the Bishop it was a report in all mens mouths that he died burnt by an harlot In his Letter to the Reader touching his Examinations Though Satan be suffered to sift us as wheat for a time yet faileth not our faith through Christs aid but that we are at all times able and ready to confirm the Faith of our weak Brethren and alwayes ready to give an answer to every man that asketh us a reason of the hope that is in us and that with meekness and reverence having a good conscience and whenas they backbite us as evil doers they may be ashamed forasmuch as they have falsly accused our good conversation in Christ. I thought my self well settled with my loving Wife and Children and also well quieted in the peaceable possession of that pleasant Euphrates but the Lord who worketh all for the best to them that love him would not there leave me but took my dear and beloved Wife from me whose death was a painful cross to my flesh I thought also my self well placed under most loving and gentle Mr. Laurence Saunders in the Cure of Langton But the Lord of his great mercy would not suffer me long there to continue although for the small time I was in his Vineyard I was not an idle workman but he hath provided me to taste of a far other Cup for by violence hath he yet once again driven me out of that glorious Babylon that I should not taste too much of her wanton pleasures but with his most dearly beloved Disciples to have my inward rejoycing in the Cross of his Son Iesus Christ the glory of whose Church I see it well standeth not in the harmonious sound of Bells and Organs nor yet in the glistering of Mitres and Copes nor in the shining of gilt Images and Lights but in continual Labours and Afflictions for his Names sake God at this present here in England hath his Fan in his hand and after his great Harvest whereinto these years past he hath sent his Labourers is now sifting the Corn from the Chaffe and purging his Floor and ready to gather the Wheat into his Garner and burn up the Chaffe with unquenchable fire Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Scribes and Pharises Try all things and choose that which is good Believe not every Spirit but prove the Spirits whether they be of God or not The true Touch-stone is the Word of God In his Letter to the faithful Professors of Langton Grace be unto you and peace be multiplied in the Knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen I thought it my duty to write unto you my Beloved in the Lord to stir up your minds and to call to your remembrance the words that have been spoken to you before and to exhort you as that good man and full of the Holy Ghost Barnabas did the Antiochians that with purpose of heart ye continually cleave unto the Lord and that ye stand fast and be not moved away from the Hope of the Gospel whereof God be thanked ye have had plenteous preaching by Mr. Sanders and other Ministers of Christ who now when persecution doth arise because of the Word do not fall away and forsake the Truth being ashamed of the Gospel whereof they have been Preachers but are willing and ready for your sakes to forsake not onely the chief and principal delights of this life viz. their native Countrey Friends Livings c. but also to fulfill their Ministry to the utmost viz. with their painful imprisonments and blood-sheddings if need shall require to confirm and seal Christs Gospel whereof they have been Ministers They are ready not onely to be cast into prison but also to be killed for the Name of the Lord Jesus Whether those being that good salt of the earth i. e. true Ministers of Gods Word by whose Doctrine being received by Faith men are made savoury unto God and which themselves lose not their saltness now when they be proved with the boisterous storms of persecution or others being that unsavoury salt which hath lost it saltness i. e. those ungodly Ministers who do fall from the Word of God to the dreams and traditions of Antichrist whether of these I say be more to be credited and believed let all men judge Wherefore my dearly Beloved Receive the Word of God with meekness that is grafted in you which is able to save your souls and see that ye be not forgetfull hearers deceiving your selves with Sophistry but doers of the Word whom Christ doth liken to a Wise man which buildeth his house upon a rock c. That when Satan with all his Legions of Devils with all their subtile suggestions and the world with all the mighty Princes thereof with their crafty counsels do furiously rage against us we faint not but abide constant in the Truth being grounded upon a most sure Rock which is Christ and the Doctrine of the Gospel against which the gates of Hell i. e. the power of Satan cannot prevail And be ye followers of Christ and his Apostles and receive the Word in much affliction as the godly Thessalonians did They onely are the true followers of Christ and his Apostles that receive the Word And they onely receive the Word who both believe it and also frame their lives after it and be ready to suffer all manner of adversity for the Name of the Lord as Christ and all the Apostles did and as all that will live godly in Christ Iesus must do for there is none other way into the Kingdome of Heaven but through much tribulation And if we suffer any thing for the Kingdome of Heavens sake and for Righteousness sake we have the Prophets Christ the Apostles and Martyrs for an example to comfort us for they did all enter into the Kingdome of Heaven at the strait gate and narrow way which few do find and unless we will be content to deny our selves and take up the Cross of Christ and his Saints it is an evident argument that we shall never reign with him But if we can find in our hearts patiently to suffer persecutions and tribulations it is a sure token of the righteous Judgement of God that we
to die then to do any ungodliness 2 We must obey our Parents and be careful for our Houses that they be fed not onely with bodily food but much rather with spiritual food the Word of God 3 Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you do ye likewise unto them for this is the Law and the Prophets 4 Pray for all Estates 5 After these works we must learn to know the Cross and 6 What affection and mind we must bear towards our enemies whatsoever they be to suffer all evils patiently to pray for them that persecute us And thus doing we shall obtain a certainty of our vocation that we be the elect Children of God And thus I commend you Brethren unto God and to the Word of his grace which is able to â—uild farther c beseeching you to help Mr. Saunders and me your late Pastors and all them that be in bonds for the Gospels sake with your Prayers to God for us that we may be delivered from unreasonable men c. and that this our imprisonment may be to the glory and profit of our Christian Brethren in this world and that Christ may be magnified in our bodies whether it be by death or life Amen The grace of our Lord be with you all The unprofitable Servant of Iesus Christ and now also his Prisoner G. M. Iune 28. 1555. Postscript Save your selves from this untoward generation Pray pray pray Never more need In his Letter to his Friends at Manchester These are earnestly to exhort you and beseech you in Christ as ye have received the Lord Iesus even so to walk rooted in him and not to be afraid of any terrour of your adversaries be they never so many and mighty and you on the other side never so few and weak for the battel is the Lords As I was with Moses so will I be with thee saith God and will never leave thee nor forsake thee Be strong and bold neither fear nor dread for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest Now if God be â—n our side who can be against us In this our spiritual warfare is no man overcome unless he traiterously leave and forsake his Captain or cowardly cast away his Weapons or willingly yield himself unto his Enemies or fearfully turn his back and flie Be strong therefore in the Lord and in the power of his might and put on all the armour of God that ye may be able to stand stedfâ—st against all the assaults of Satan If we submit our selves to God and his holy Word no man shall be able to hurt us God will deliver us from all troubles yea from death also till such time as we covet and desire to die as he did Paul c. Let us therefore run with patience unto the battel that is set before us and look unto Iesus the Captain and Finisher of our Faith and after his example for the rewards sake that is set out unto us patiently to bear the Cross and despise the shame All that will live godly in Christ Iesus must suffer persecution Christ was no sooner Baptized and declared to the world to be the Son of God but Satan was by and by ready to tempt him which thing we must look for also yea the more we shall increase our faith and vertuous living the more strongly will Satan assault us whom we must learn after the example of Christ to fight against and overcome with the Holy and Sacred Scriptures c. and let the fasting of Christ when he was tempted in the Wilderness be an example unto us of our sober living not for the space of fourty dayes as the Papists do fondly fancy of their own brains but us long as we are in the Wilderness of this wretched life assaulted of Satan who like a roaring Lion c. It is the nature and property of the Devil alwayes to hurt and do mischief if God do not forbid Indeed if God will not permit him he cannot so much as enter into a filthy Hog c. Let us knowing Satans deceits and rankor walk the more warily and take unto us the shield of faith c. Let us fast and pray continually c. To fasting and prayer must be joyned mercy to the poor and needy c. Let us go boldly to the seat of grace where we shall be sure to find grace and mercy to help in time of need Wherefore my dear Brethren be ye fervent in the Law of God and jeopard ye your lives if need shall require for the testament of the Fathers and so shall ye receive great honour and an everlasting name Remember Abraham was not he found faithful in temptation and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness Ioseph in time of his trouble kept the Commandment and was made a Lord of Egypt Phineas was so fervent for the honour of God that he obtained the Covenant of an everlasting Priesthood Ioshua for the fulfilling of the Word of God was made the Captain of Israel Caleb bare record before the Congregation and received an Inheritance David also in his merciful kindness obtained the Throne of an everlasting Kingdome Elias being zealous and fervent in the Law was taken up into Heaven The three Children remained stedfast in the Faith and were delivered out of the fire and Daniel from the mouth of the Lions Thus whoever put their trust in the Lord were not overcome Fear not ye then the words of ungodly men for their glory is but dung and worms to day they are set up and to morrow they are gone they are turned into earth and their memorial cometh to nought Wherefore let us take good hearts unto us and quit our selves like men in the Law c. Let us not faint because of affliction wherewith God trieth all them that are sealed to everlasting life c. Seeing we are in the narrow and strait way that leadeth unto the mâ—st joyful and pleasant City of everlasting life let us not stagger or turn back being afraid of the perilous way but follow our Captain Christ therein and be afraid no not of death it self Consider also the course of this world how many for their Master's sake or a little promotions sake will adventure their lives as commonly in Wars and yet is their reward but light and transitory and ours is unspeakably great and everlasting They suffer pains to be made Lords on Earth for a short season how much more ought we to endure it may be much less pains to be made Kings in Heaven for evermore Seeing Brethren it hath pleased God to set me and that worthy Minister of Christ Iohn Bradford your Countreyman in the forefront of this Battel where for the time is most danger I beseech you all in the bowels of Christ to help us and all our fellow Souldiers standing in like perilous place with your Prayers to God for us that we may quit our selves like men in the Lord and
these fourty years and yet I could never say or be sure that I should remain here one week to an end Seven dayes before he died many persons worthy of credit betwixt nine and ten of the Clock at night saw in the Clouds over the Tower of Wittenqerg five rods bound together after which two vanishing the other three appeared severed in divers places the branches of the rods turning towards the North the handles towards the South When this Prodigy was told Melancthon he said Herein Gods Fatherly Punishments are not swords but rods which Parents use to correct their children withall and I fear a dearth When the Pastors of the Church visitted him in his sickness he said unto them By the goodness of God I have no domestical grief to disquiet me c. but publick matters affect me especially the troubles of the Church in this evil and sophistical age But through Gods goodness our Doctrine is sufficiently explained and confirmed When he heard by Letters of the persecution of some godly men in France he said That his bodily disease was not comparable to the grief of his mind for his godly Friends and for the miseries of the Church Yet my hopes are very great for the Doctrine of our Church is explained If God be for us who can be against us I desire said he to depart for two causes 1 That I may have the much desired sight of Jesus Christ and the Church Triumphant 2 That I may be delivered from the cruel and implacable discords of Divines Meyere Mr. Giles Meyere of Flanders after he was converted he sought all means how to employ his Talent He was not onely carefull to preach to his Charge but he went from hâ—use to house comforting and exhorting every one as occasion served out of the Word of God labouring above all with them to beware of the abominable superstitions of the Papacy When he was imprisoned 1567. in a deep dark hole he bore his affliction patiently but so praised God for esteeming him worthy to suffer for his sake and so comforted them that came to visit him that they could not leave him without tears In the midst of the Fagots though he was gagged he was heard distinctly and plainly to say Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit Mill. Mr. Walter Mill being brought before the Bishops of Scotland to answer to Articles against him and placed in a Pulpit before them he prayed so long that one of the Bishops Priests called out to him saying Sir Walter Mill arise and answer to the Articles for you hold my Lord here overlong When he had ended his Prayer he answered We ought to obey God rather then men I serve one more mighty even the Omnipotent Lord. And whereas you call me Sir Walter call me Walter and not Sir Walter I have been overlong one of the Popes Knights Being threatned with the Sentence of Death if he would not recant he said I know I must die once and therefore as Christ said to Iudas What thou dost do it quickly so say I to you Ye shall know that I will not 〈◊〉 the Truth for I am corn I am no chaffe I 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 blown away with the wind nor burst with the slail I will abide both Being bid to pass to the Stake he said Nay but if thou wilt put me up with thy hand thou shalt see me pass up gladly for by the Law of God I am forbidden to lay hanâ— upon my self Being put he ascended gladly saying I will go up unto the altar of God After he had prayed he spake thus to the people Dear Friends the cause why I suffer this day is not for any crime laid to my Câ—arge albeit I be a miserable sinner before God but onely for the defence of the Faith of Iesus Christ set forth in the Old and New Testament to us for which as the faithfull Martyrs have offered themselves gladly before being assured after the death of their bodies of eternal felicity So this day I praise God that he hath called me of his mercy among the rest of his Servants to seal up his Truth with my life which as I have received it of him so willingly I offer it to his glory Therefore as you will escape the eternal death be no more seduced with the lies of Priests Bishops c. and the rest of the Sect of Antichrist but depend onely on Iesus Christ and his mercy that ye may be delivered from condemnation Being in the fire he said Lord have mercy upon me pray people while there is time He was burnt An. 1558. and by his death gave the very dead blow to Popery for by his death the people of all Ranks and Conditions were so moved that they made open Profession of the Truth without any more dallying and upon this occasion a Covenant was presently entred in to defend one another against the Tyranny of the Bishops So that he was the last that died for Religion at that time in that Kingdome His Epitaph Non nostra impietas aut actae crimina vitae Armarunt hostes in mea fata truces Sola fides Christi sacris signata libellis Quae vitae causa est est mihi causa necis In English thus Not any sin committed here by me Against me arm'd my bloody enemy The Scripture Faith of life the onely cause Did cause my death and that against all Laws Monerius Claudius Monorius being cavilled at by the Friers for eating a Break-fast before his Execution said This I do that the flesh may answer the readiness of the Spirit Morall Let us not my Brethren said Iohn Morall an outlandish Martyr fear the Prisons seeing they are Christs Schools and Colledges wherein Gods children learn their Fathers Lessons There we find him true in his Promises There he manifests himself incomparably to his Children Our Prisons are Schools of Defence where we learn how to ward off all the blows that the world flesh or Devil would foyl us with all which we learn of our Captain Christ. Here we are quit of the vain allurements of the world Here we are freed of the fear of meeting idols in the streets Here we may without check call upon God and sing Psalms unto him Therefore let us not refuse to hear Sermons for fear of going to Prison N. Newman Iohn Newman in his written Answer to Suffragen Thornton It may please you to understand that good Ministers all the time of King Edward's reign taught us diligently perswading us by the Allegations of Gods Word that there was no Transubstantiation nor corporal Presence in the Sacrament their Doctrine was not believed of us suddenly but by their continual preaching and also by our continual Prayer unto God that we might never be deceived but if it were true that he would incline our hearts unto it and if it were not true that we might never believe it We weighed That
they labourel with Gods Word c. Wherefore until such time as our consciences are otherwise taught and instructed by Gods Word we cannot with safeguard of our consciences take it as many suppose at this time And we trust in God that the Queens Highness and her most Honourable Council will not in a matter of Faith use compulsion or violence because Faith is the gift of God and cometh not of man or of mans Laws nor at such time as men require it but at such time as God giveth it Being asked whether he would stand to what he had said I must need stand to it said he till I be perswaded by a further truth It being replied Nay you will not be perswaded but stand to your own Opinion Nay said he I stand not to mine own Opinion God I take to witness but onely to the Scriptures of Gâ—d and I take God to witness that I do nothing of presumption but that that I do is onely my Conscience and if there be a further truth then I see except it appear a truth to me I cannot receive it as a truth And seeing Faith is the gift of God and cometh not of man for it is not you that can give me Faith nor no man else therefore I trust ye will bear the more with me seeing it must be wrought by God and when it shall please God to open a further truth to me I shall receive it with all my heart In his Confession of his Faith The Lord is the Protector of my life The just shall live by Faith and if he withdraw himself my soul shall have no pleasure in him Thus have I declared my Faith briefly which were no Faith if I were in doubt of it This Faith I desire God to increase in me Praise God for his gifts Nicaise Nicaise a Say-maker in Tournay for refusing to live according to the Customes of the Romish Church and to observe the traditions invented by her c. being condemned and having heard the sentence as he rose up he said Now praised be God As he was led to execution seeing a great multitude of people he lifted up his voice and said O ye men of Tournay open your eyes awake ye that sleep and stand up from the dead and Christ shall give ye light As he joyfully ascended up the Scaffold he said Lord they have hated me without a cause As he was fastning to the Stake he said Eternal Father have pity and compassion upon me according as thou hast promised to all that ask the same of thee in thy sons Name Noyes When Iohn Noyes was asked by his Brother in Law if he did fear death when the Bishop gave judgement against him he answered He thanked God he feared death no more at that time then himself or any other did being at liberty Being bound to the Stake he said Fear not them that can kill the body but fear him that can kill both body and soul and cast it into everlasting fire When he saw his Sister weeping and making moan for him he bade her Weep not for him but weep for her sins When a Fagot was set against him he took it and kissed it and said Blessed be the time that ever I was born to come to this He said also Good people bear witness that I do believe to be saved by the merits and passion of Jesus Christ and not by my own deeds When the fire was kindled and burned about him he said Lord have mercy upon me Christ have mercy upon me Son of David have mercy upon me In his Letter to his Wife out of Prison You desired me to send you some tokens to remember me I therefore send you these Scriptures even for a remembrance St. Peter saith Dearly beloved be not troubled with this heat that is now come among you to try you as though some strange thing had hapned unto you but rejoyce in as much as ye are partakers of Christs sufferings that when his glory appeareth ye may be merry and glad If ye be railed on for the Name of Christ happy are ye for the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God restest on you See that none of you suffer as a Murtherer c. but if any suffer as a Christian let him not be ashamed but glorifie God in this behalf for the time is come that judgement must begin at the House of God If it first begin at us what shall the end of them be that believe not the Gospel of God Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to him in well doing St. Paul saith All that will live godly in Christ Iesus must suffer persecution St. Iohn saith See that ye love not the world nor the things of the world If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him for all that is in the world as the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world which vanisheth away and the lust thereof but he that fulfilleth the will of God abideth for ever St. Paul saith What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness what company hath light with darkness or what part hath the Believer with the Infidel c. Wherefore come out from among them and separate your selves now saith the Lord and touch no unclean thing so will I receive you and I will be a Father unto you and ye shall be my Sons and Daughters saith the Lord Almighty So farewell Wife and Children and leave worldly care and see that ye be diligent to pray Take no thought saith Christ saying what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink or wherewith shall we be clothed after all these things do the Geneiles seek for your heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of all these things but seek ye first the Kingdome of God and the righteousness thereâ—f and all these things shall be ministred to you O. Oâ—colampadius He fell sick in the year 1531. and of his age 49. about the same time that Zuinglius was unhappily slain His grief for his death much increased his sickness He foretold his own death was very desirous to enjoy the heavenly Light Sending for the Ministers of the Gospel to him he spake to them thus O my Brethren you see what is done The Lord is come he is he is now calling me away What shall I say unto you the Servants of the Lord whom the love of God your Master the same study and doctrine have most intimately united now that I am to take my leave of you Salvation hopes of Heaven Truth Light for our feet is procured by Christ for us It becomes us to cast away all sadness all fear of life and death c. My Brethren this onely remains That we who have for some time walked in the wayes of Christ continue constant
which cover his most filthy part This is not onely my saying but the Prophet Isaiah who saith He that preacheth lies is the tail behind Then said he unto them all Christ saith in his Gospel Wo unto you Scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites for ye close up the Kingdome of Heaven before men neither enter ye in your selves nor suffer any other that would enter into it but ye stop up the wayes thereunto by your own Traditions The Arch Bishop telling him That none should preach in his Diocess yea in his Iurisdiction that make division or dissention among the poor Commons He answered Both Christ and his Apostles were accused of sedition-making yet were they most peaceable men But Daniel and Christ prophesied That such a troublesome time should come as hath not been yet since the worlds beginning and this prophesie is partly fulfilled in your dayes c. Christ saith also If these dayes of yours were not shortned scarcely should any flesh be saved therefore look for it justly for God! will shorten your dayes Being asked what he said of the Pope He said As I said before so say I again That he and you together make up whole Antichrist After the Arch Bishop had read the Bill of his Condemnation the Lord Cobham said with a cheerfull countenance Though you judge my Body which is a wretched thing yet am I certain and sure ye can do no harm to my soul no more then could Satan to the soul of Iob. He that created that will of his infinite mercy and promise save it I have therein no manner of doubt And therewith he turned himself to the people and said with a loud voice Good people for Gods love be well ware of these men for they will else beguile you and lead you blind-fold into Hell with themselves for Christ saith plainly unto you If one blind man lead another they are like both to fall into a ditch After this he fell down upon his knees and before them all prayed thus for his enemies Lord God Eternal I beseech thee of thy great mercy sake forgive my pursuers if it be thy blessed Will Here it is observable That Arch Bishop Arundel that passed Sentence of Death against Lord Cobham did feel the stroke of Death and had the Sentence of God executed upon him before the Death of this famous Martyr The Arch Bishop died Feb. 20. 1414. and this condemned Lord survived his Condemner three or four years Oom Wonter Oom writes thus from his Prison at Antwerp Wellbeloved Brother and Sister whom I love dearly for the Truths sake and for your faith in Christ Jesus These are to certifie you that I enjoy the comfort of a good conscience c. Whosoever will forsake this present evil world and become followers of their Captain Christ must make account to meet with many persecutions for Christ hath told us aforehand that we should be hated persecuted and banished out of the world for his Names sake and this they will do because they have neither known the Father nâ—r me But be not afraid for I have overcome the world St. Paul also witnesseth the same thing saying All that will live godly in Christ Iesus must suffer persecution and to you ie it given to suffer c. And doth not our Lord Iesus say Blessed are you when men persecute you and speak all manner of evil falsly c. Now whereto serveth all this but to bring us into a conformity with our Lord and Master Jesus Christ for Christ hath suffered for us leaving us an example that we should follow his steps He endured the Cross and despised the shame c. and became poor to make us rich By him also are we brought by faith into that state of grace wherein we stand rejoycing in the hope of the glory of God knowing that tribulation worketh patience c. Wherefore be not afraid of the fiery trial that is now sent among us to prove us for what father loving his child doth not correct it Even so doth the Lord correct those whom he loves for if we should be without correction whereof all true Christians are partakers then were we bastards and not sons And therefore Solomon saith Despise not the chastning of the Lord c. Fear not then to follow the footsteps of Christ for he is the Head and we are the Members We must after his example through many tribulations enter into Heaven Let us say with St. Paul Christ is unto me in life and death advantage and O wretched creatures that we are who shall deliver us from this body of death It is a good thing to hope and quietly to wait for the salvation of the Lord and to bear the yoke in ones youth c. The salvation of the righteous is of the Lord He is their strength in the time of trouble Wherefore giving all diligence let us adde to faith vertue and to vertue knowledge and to knowledge temperance and to temperance patience and to patience godliness c. Out of my Role Dec. 11. 1562. Origen When he was but seventeen years old his Father being carried to Prison he had such a fervent mind to suffer Martyrdome with him that he would have thrust himself into the Persecutors hands had it not been for his Mother who in the night time privily stole away his clothes and his very shirt also whereupon more for shame to be seen naked then for fear to die he was constrained to remain at home yet when he could do no more he wrote to his Father in Prison thus See O Father that you do not change your resolution for my sake His fame was so great that the Emperour Severus sent for him to come to Rome and commanded the Provost of Egypt to furnish him with all things necessary for his journey The Provost was very carefull to provide a Ship and divers Garments c. But Origen would receive no part thereof no not so much as hose or shoes but went in a single Garment of Cloth and bare foot went to Rome and when at his arrival there were brought to him a Mule and a Chariot to use which he liked best he answered That he was much less then his Master Christ who rode but one day in all his life and that was on a silly she Ass and therefore he would not ride except he were sick or decrepid as his legs might not serve him to go When he was brought into the presence of the Emperour and his Mother they saluted him and rejoyced much to see him Being demanded what he professed he answered Verity The Emperour asking him what he meant thereby It is the Word said he of the Living God which is infallible The Emperour asked which is the Living God and why he so called him Origen answered That he did put that distinction for a difference from them whom men being long drowned
her life should be spared if she would recant Nay that will I not said she God forbid that I should lose the life eternal for this carnal and short life I will never turn from my heavenly Husband to my earthly Husband from the fellowship of Angels to mortal Children and if my Husband and Children be faithfull then am I theirs God is my Father God is my Mother God is my Sister my Brother my Kinsman God is my friend most faithfull After her Condemnation she refused to receive my money from well affected people saying I am going to a City where money beareth no mastery Whilst I am here God hath promised to feed me When she was brought to the Stake without the â—alls of Exeter in a place called So then hay in the â—roneth of November 1558. the Priests again asâ—â—ulted her but she prayed them to have no more â—alk with her and cried still God be mercifull to 〈◊〉 a sinner God be mercifull to me a sinner This Agnes Priest or Prest was the sole Devonshire Martyr saith Dr. Fuller under the reign of Queen Mary Wherefore as those Parents which have but one Child may afford it the better attendance as more at leisure So seeing by Gods goodness we have but this single Native of this Countrey yea of this Diocess we will enlarge c. 1 Her Christian Name which Mr. Fox could not learn â—e have recovered from another excellent Author Mr. Vowell in Hollingshead pag. 1309. 2 I am informed by the Inhabitants thereabout that she lived at Northcot in the Parish of Boynton in the County of Cornwall c. 3 She was a simple woman to behold thick but liltle and short in staâ—â—re about Four and fifty years of age 4 She was endited on Munday the fourth week in Lent An. Phil. Mar. 2. and 3. before W. Stanford Iustice of the Assize So that we may observe more legal formality was used about the condemnation of this poor woman then any Martyr of far greater degree 5 Her own Husband and Children were her greatest Persecutors from whom she fled because they would force her to be present at Mass. 6 She was condemned by Bishop Troublefield Bishop of Exeter c. yea she was the onely person in whose persecution Bishop Troublefield did appear and it is justly conceived that Blackstone his Chancellour was more active then the Bishop in procuring her death Potten Agnes Potten of Ipswich in a night a little before her death being asleep in her bed saw a bright burning fire right up as a Pole and on the side thereof she thought there stood a number of Queen Mary's Friends looking on then being asleep she seemed to muse with her self whether her fire should burn so bright or no. And indeed her suffering was not far unlike her dream At the Stake she and Ioan Trunchfield who sufferred with her required the people to credit and to lay hold on the Word of God and not upon mans devices and inventions and to despise the Ordinances and Institutions of the Romish Antichrist with all his superstitious and rotten Religion Pusices Shut thine eyes but a while said Pusices to an old man trembling at Martyrdome and thou shalt see Gods Light R. Rabeck Iâ—hn Rabeck a French Martyr being urged to pronounce Iesu Maria conjoyned in one Prayer boldly answered That if his Tongue should but offer to utter those words at their bidding he himself would bite it asunder with his Teeth Ramus The great crime that the Sorbonists objected against Peter Ramus and for which he suffered much was That by opposing Aristotle he enervated Divinity Whence we may see what a Divinity they were for who made Aristotle the great Master thereof who laughs at the Creation of the World Divine Providence and the Immortality of the Soul and slighting Life eternal placed the happiness of man in this mortal Life onely and left nothing for man after death then to have it said He was happy in a word who defined humane felicity from mans ability and not from divine grace In his adverse condition he would comfort himself with the following Verses 1. Committe vitam rem decus Dei unius arbitrio Animi tibi ex sententia Confecta reddet omnia Illustris aurorae ut jubar Tua faciet ul sit aquitas Ut luce virtus sit tuaâ— Meridiana clarior In English thus Commit to God life wealth and name And what thou wilt shalt have the same Thy righteousness shall shine more clear Then the light of the morning 〈◊〉 2. Deus â—abit his quoque finemâ— Durate ut vosâ—â—t rebus servate secundis These shall not want an end Bear up and wait till Gâ—d doth better send That which he first disliked in Popery was their execrable idolatry in corrupting the second Commandment and the Sacrament of the Lords Supper When in the Possiac Synod he heard the Cardinaâ— of Lorain acknowledge That the first of the fifteetâ— Centuries since Christ was a truly golden Age but the rest were so much the worse by how much they farther departed from the first Peter Ramus concluded That the Age of Christ and his Apostles was to be restored and chosen When the Civil Wars brake forth in France for Religion he went into Germany and at Heidelberg having made to Tremellius and the Church a Confession of his Faith he received the Sacrament of the Lords Supper in that Church After his conversion he daily did read the Old and New Testament and out of each Chapter collected an Index containing Rules and Examples relating to both the parts of Christian Doctrine viz. Faith and the Actions of Faith and so made his Commentaries and certainly he had made much greater progress in Divinity had he not been so soon not much above two years after his conversion taken away by a violent death When in that horrid Massacre at Paris begun Aug. 24. 1572. he was mortally wounded Aug. 26. in the seven and fiftieth year of his age he was heard to commend his soul to God in these words O Iehovah against thee onely have I sinned and done evil before thee Thy judgements are truth and righteousness Have mercy upon and pardon my Murtherers for they know not what they do Read Some of the Articles that were exhibited against Adam Read and other Scotch Confessors were these following 1 That Images are not to be had in the Kirk nor to be worshipped 4 That it is not lawfull to fight for the Faith nor to defend the Faith by the Sword if we be not driven to it by necessity which is above all Law 12 That the Pope is not the Successor of Peter but where he said Go behind me Satan 17 That the Pope exalts himself against God and above God 19 That the blessings of the Bishops of dumb Dogs they should have been stiled are of no value 20 That the excommunication of the Kirk is not to be feared if there be no
Letter to the Brethren imprisoned What worthy thanks can we render unto the Lord for you my Brethren namely for the great consolation which through you we have received in the Lord who notwithstanding the rage of Satan that goeth about by all manner of subtile means to beguile the world and also busily laboureth to restore and set up his Kingdome again that of late began to decay and to fall to ruine ye remain still unmoveable as men grounded upon a strong rock And now albeit that Satan by his Souldiers and wicked Ministers daily as we hear draweth numbers unto him so that it is said of him That he plucketh even the Stars out of Heaven whiles he driveth into some men the fear of death and loss of all their Goods and offereth unto others the pleasant baits of the world c. to the intent they should fall down and worship not the Lord but the Dragon the old Serpent which is the Devil that great beast and his image and should be enticed to commit fornication with the Strumpet of Babylon c. Yet blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ which hath given unto you a manly courage and hath so strengthned you in the inward man by the Power of his Spirit that you can contemn as well all the terrours as also the vain allurements of the world esteeming them as meer trifles and things of nought In the Faith of Christ stand ye fast my Brethren and suffer not your selves to be brought under the yoke of bondage and superstition any more and be of good comfort and remember that our grand Captain hath overcome the world We never had a better or more just cause either to contemn our life or shed our blood we cannot take in hand the defence of a more certain clear and manifest Truth Shall we or can we receive and acknowledge any other Christ instead of him who is alone the everlasting Son of the everlasting Father c. Let such wickedness my Brethren let such horrible wickedness be far from us What can your Adversaries else do unto you by persecuting you and working all cruelty and villainy against you but make your Crowns more glorious yea beautifie and multiply the same c. In another Letter to the Brethren Now even now out of doubt Brethren the pit is opened against us and the locusts begin to swarm and Abaddon now reigneth ye therefore my Brethren which pertain unto Christ and have the Seal of God marked in your foreheads i. e. are sealed with the Earnest of the Spirit to be a peculiar people of God quit your selves like men and be strong for he that is in us is stronger then he which is in the world and ye know all that is born of God overcometh the world and this is our victory that overcometh the world even our Faith Let the world fret let it rage never so much be it never so cruel and bloody yet be sure that no man can take us out of the Fathers hands for he is greater then all c. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect c. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ Shall tribulation c. In his Letter to Mr. West his quondam Chaplain I wish you grace in God and love of the Truth without which truly established in mens hearts by the mighty hand of the Almighty God it is no more possible to stand by the Truth in Christ in time of trouble then it is for the wax to abide the heat of the fire I am perswaded Christs words to be true Whosoever shall confess me before men him will I confess also before my Father which is in Heaven and I believe that no earthly Creature shall be saved whom the Redeemer and Saviour of the world shall before his Father deny If you had wished that neither fear of death nor hope of worldly prosperity should let me to maintain Gods Word and his Truth which is his glory and true honour it would have like me well You desire me for Gods sake to remember my self Indeed it is now time so to do for so far as I can perceive it standeth me upon no less danger then of the loss both of body and soul and I trow then it is time for a man to awake if any thing will awake him He that will not fear him that threatneth to cast both body and soul into everlasting fire whom will he fear With this fear O Lord fasten thou together our frail flesh that we never swerve from thy laws You say you have made much suit for me God grant that you have not in suing for my worldly deliverance impaired and hindred the furtherance of Gods Word and his Truth To write unto these whom you name I cannot see what it will avail me but this I would have you know That I esteem nothing available for me which also will not further the glory of God Sir How nigh the day of my dissolution and departure out of this world is at hand I cannot tell the Lords Will be fulfilled how soon soever it shall come My conscience moves me to require both you and my Friend Dr. Harvey to remember your promises made to me in times past of the pure setting forth and preaching of Gods Word and his Truth These promises although you shall not need to fear to be charged with them of me hereafter before the world yet look for none other but to be charged with them at Gods hand My conscience and the love I bear you biddeth me now say unto you both in Gods Name fear God and love not the world for God is able to cast both soul and body into hell fire What is it else to confess or deny Christ in this world but to maintain the Truth taught in Gods Word or for any worldly respect to shrink from the same He that will wittingly forsake either for fear or gain of the world any one open Truth of Gods Word if he be constrained he will assuredly forsake God and all his Truth rather then he will endanger himself to lose or to leave that he loveth indeed better then he doth God and the Truth of his Word I like very well your plain speaking telling me I must either agree or die Sir I know I must die whether I agree or no. But what folly were it then to make such an agreement by the which I could never escape the death which is common to all and also incur the guilt of death and eternal damnation Lord grant that I may utterly abhor and detest this damnable agreement so long as I live If you do not confess and maintain to your power and knowledge that which is grounded upon Gods Word but will either for fear or gain of the world shrink and play the Apostate indeed you shall die the death In his Letter to Mr. Grindall then in Exile at Frankford afterward Arch Bishop
hear me patiently seeing I am appointed to die and look daily when I shall be called to come before the eternal Judge and therefore you cannot think but that I onely study to serve my Lord God and to say that thing which I am perswaded assuredly by Gods Word shall and doth please him and profit all to whom God shall give grace to hear and believe what I do say If the Popes supremacy be necessary to salvation to be owned How chanced it that ye were all my Lords so light as for your Princes pleasures H. 8. and E. 6. which were but mortal men to forsake the Unity of your Catholick Faith i. e. to forsake Christ and his Gospel How chanced it also that ye and the whole Parliament did not onely abolish and expell the Bishop of Rome but also did abjure him in your own persons and did decree in your Acts great Oaths to be taken for that purpose On the other side if the Law and Decree which maketh the supremacy of the See and Bishop of Rome over the universal Church of Christ be a thing of necessity required unto salvation by an Antichristian Law as it is indeed then my Lords never think other but the day shall come when ye shall be charged with this your undoing that which once ye had well done and with this your perjury and breach of your Oath which Oath was done in judgement justice and truth agreeable to Gods Law The Whore of Babylon may for a time dally with you and make you so drunken with the wine of her filthy stews and whoredomes as with her dispensations and promises of pardon a poena culpa that you may think your selves safe but be ye assured when the Living Lord shall try the matter by fire and judge it according to his Word unless ye repent without all doubt ye shall never escape the hands of the Living God for the guilt of your perjury and breach of your Oath then shall ye drink of the Cup of the Lords indignation and everlasting wrath which is prepared for the Beast his false Prophets and all their partakers For he that is partner with them in their whoredomes and abominations must also be partner with them in their plagues and be thrown with them into the Lake burning with brimstone and unquenchable fire In his Letter to the Prisoners c. and Exiles For the fervent love that the Apostles had unto their Master Christ and for the great commodities and increase of all godliness which they felt by their faith to ensue of afflictions in Christs Cause And thirdly For the heaps of heavenly joyes which the same do get unto the godly which shall endure in Heaven for evermore for these causes they rejoyced that they were accounted worthy to suffer contumelies and rebukes for Christs Name And Paul was so much in love in that which the carnal man loatheth so much i. e. with Christs Cross that he judged himself to know nothing else but Christ crucified he gloried in nothing else but Christs Cross. Why should we Christians fear death Can death deprive us of Christ who is all our comfort our joy and our life Nay forsooth But on the contrary Death shall deliver us from this mortal body which loadeth and beareth down the Spirit that it cannot so well perceive heavenly things in the which so long as we dwell we are absent from the Lord. And who that hath a right knowledge of Christ our Saviour that he is the eternal Son of God life light the wisdome of the Father all goodness all righteousness and whatsoever heart can desire yea infinite plenty of all these above that that mans heart can conceive or imagine for in him dwelleth the fulness of the Godhead bodily and also that he is given us of the Father and made of God to be our wisdome our righteousness our holiness and our redemption who I say is that believeth this indeed that would not gladly be with his Master Christ To die in the defence of Christs Gospel is our bounden duty to Christ and also to our neighbour to Christ for he died for us and rose that he might be Lord of all and seeing he died for us we also saith St. Iohn 1 Ioh. 3. should jeopard yea give our life for the Brethren Farewell dear Brethren farewell and let us comfort our hearts in all troubles and in death with the Word of God for Heaven and Earth shall perish but the Word of the Lord endureth for ever In his Lamentation for the change of Religion in England Of late in every Congregation throughout all England was made Prayer and Petition unto God to be delivered from the Tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and all his detestable enormities from all false doctrine and heresie and now alas Satan hath perswaded England by his falâ—hood and craft to revoke her old godly prayer c. This is one maxime and principle in Christs Law He that denieth Christ before men him shall Christ deny before his Father and all his holy Angels in Heaven Now then seeing the doctrine of Antichrist is returned again into this Realm and the higher Powers alas are so deceived and bewitched that they are perswaded it to be Truth and Christs true Doctrine to be errour and heresie and the old Laws of Anticrist are allowed to return with the power of their Father again What can be hereafter looked for of Christians abiding in this Realm but extreme violence of death or else to deny their Master Therefore prepare and arm thy self to die for both by Antichrists accustomable Laws and Scripture Prophesies there is no likelyhood of any other thing except thou wilt deny thy Master Christ which is the loss at the last of body and soul unto everlasting death My counsel to such as are yet at liberty is to flie from the plague and get them hence I consider not onely the subtilties of Satan and how he is like to deceive it it were possible even the chosen of God and also the great frailty which is oftentimes more in a man then he doth know in himself and which in the time of temptation will utter it self but also the examples of Christ Paul Elias c. and Christ saith When they persecute you in one City flie unto another Truly before God I think that the abomination that Daniel prophesied of so long before is now set up in the holy Place the Doctrine of Antichrist his Laws Rites and Religion contrary to Christ and to the true serving and worshipping of God I understand to be that abominition therefore now is the time in England for those words of Christ Then saith Christ they that be in Jewry let them flie into the Mountains then saith he mark this then for truly I am perswaded and I trust by the Spirit of God that this then is commanded By those in Iewry I understand such who truly confess one Living God and the
for his noble Birth Not the blood of my Progenitors said he but Christian Profession maketh me Noble When the Captain commanded his Sides to be lanced with Knives until the Bones appeared white again Sorry am I O Captain said he not that my flesh shall be thus cut and mangled but for thy cause am I sorrowfull who being corrupted with damnable errours seducest others He preached the second time the living God and the Lord Jesus Christ his welbeloved Son and eternal life through faith in his blood together with the abomination of idolatry c. Whereupon his face was buffeted his eye-lids torn with their nails his cheeks scotched with knives the skin of his beard was plucked by little and little from the flesh c. Thereupon the meek Martyr said I thank thee O Captain that thou hast opened unto me many mouths whereby I may preach my Lord and Saviour Christ Look how many wounds I have so many mouths I have lauding and praising God When the Captain blasphemingly said Thy crucified Christ is but a yesterdays God the gods of the Gentiles are of most Antiquity Romanus desired the Captain to hear what a Child of seven years of age would say His request being granted Tell me my Babe said Romanus whether thou think it reason that we worship one Christ and in Christ one Father or else that we worship infinite gods To whom the Babe answered That certainly whatsoever it be that men affirm to be God must needs be One which with One is one and the same and in as much as this One is Christ of necessity Christ must be the true God for that there be many gods we Children cannot believe The Captain hereat amazed said Thou young Villain and Traitor where and of whom learnedst thou this Lesson Of my Mother said the Child with whose milk I sucked in this Lesson that I must believe in Christ. The Captain thereupon commanded the Child to be hoised up and scourged The joyfull Mother onely saw that sight with dry eyes yea the rebuked her sweet Babe for craving a draught of cold water She charged him to thirst after the Cup that the Infants of Bethlem once drank of forgetting their Mothers Milk and Paps She willed him to remember little Isaac who beholding the Sword wherewith and the Altar whereon he should be sacrificed willingly proffered his tender neck to the dint of his Fathers Sword Then the butcherly Tormentor pluckt the skin from the Crown of his head hair and all The Mother cried Suffer my Child anon thou shalt pass to him that will adorn thy naked head with a Crown of eternal Glory The Child received the stripes with a smiling countenance As they laid hands on Romanus to carry him to the place of Execution he looked back and said I appeal from this thy tyranny O Judge unjust unto the righteous Throne of Christ that upright Judge not because I fear thy cruel torments and merciless handlings but that thy judgements may be known to be cruel and bloody When the Tormentor required the Child of the Mother who had taken it up in her arms she kissing it delivered the Babe and said Farewell my sweet Child and as the Hangman was cutting off its head she sang All laud and praise with heart and voice O Lord we yield to thee To whom the death of all thy Saints We know most dear to be When Romanus was cast into the fire he said he should not burn Accordingly a great storm arose as it is reported and quenched the fire Then his Tongue was cut out Nevertheless he spake saying He that speaketh Christ shall never want a Tongue Think not that the Voice that uttereth Christ hath need of the Tongue to be the Minister Eusebius saith That by his constancy in enduring his Tongue to be pull'd out of his Mouth he really declared to all that a divine Vertue is never wanting to any who suffer for godliness sake which doth both mitigate their griefs and corroborateth their hearts This valiant Souldier of Christ was not at all terrified thereat but of his own accord put out his Tongue and willingly yielded the same to the Tormentors hands Then he was clapt in Prison again and there a long while cruelly tormented and at last in the year 306. strangled and thereby according to his own desire was crowned with Martyrdome Roper George Roper a young man at his coming to the Stake putting off his Gown fetcht a great leap So soon as the flame was about him he put out both his arms from his body like a roode and so stood stedfast not plucking his arms in at all till the fire had consumed them and burnt them off Rough. Mr. Iohn Rough a famous Scotch Minister in England in King Edward's dayes at the beginning of Queen Mary's reign fled into Frizeland with his Wife where he laboured for his living in knitting of Caps Hose c. till lacking of Yarn c. he came over into England to provide for the maintenance of his Occupation and at London hearing of the secret Society and holy Congregation of Gods Children there assembled he joyned himself unto them and afterwards being elected their Minister continued for some time in fellowship with them teaching and confirming them in the Truth and Gospel of Christ. But not long after he was by a false Brothers treachery taken and clapt in Newgate When he was before Bonner he told him That he utterly detested the Service then used and that if he should live as long as did Me huselah yet he would never come to hear the abominable Mass and other Service being as it was then Dr. Watson then Bishop of Lincoln being at his Examination urged that he had done more hurt in the North Parts in King Edward's dayes then an hundred besides c. Why Sir said Mr. Rough Is this the reward I have for saving your life in those dayes He said he had lived thirty years and yet had never bowed his knee to Ball. Before Bonner he affirmed That he had been twice at Rome and there had seen plainly with his eyes that the Pope was the very Antichrist for he saw more reverence given to him then to that which they accounted their God Mr. Rough having been at the burning of Austoo in Smithfield and returning homeward again met with one that as'd him where he had been I have been said he where I would not for one of mine eyes but I had been Where have you been replied his Friend Forsooth said he to learn the way And so he told him he had been at the burning of Austoo where shortly after he was burned himself In his Letter to some Friends The comfort of the Holy Ghost make you able to give consolation to others in these dangerous dayes when Satan is let loose but to the trial onely of the chosen when it pleaseth our God to sift his Wheat from the Chaffe I speak to Gods
glory my care in my great temptations was to have the senses of my soul open to perceive the Voice of God saying Whosoever denieth me before men him will I deny before my Father and his Angels And to save the life corporal is to lose the life eternal and he that will not suffer with Christ shall not reign with him Therefore most tender Ones I have by Gods Spirit given over the flesh with the fight of my soul and the Spirit hath the victory The flesh shall now ere it be long leave off to sin the Spirit shall reign eternally I have chosen Death to confirm the Truth by me taught What can I do more Consider with your selves that I have done it for the confirmation of Gods Truth Pray that I may continue to the end The greatest part of the assault is past I praise my God I have in all my assaults felt the present aid of my God I give him most hearty thanks therefore Look not back nor be ye ashamed of Christs Gospel nor of the bonds I have suffered for the same It is no time for the loss of one man in the Battel for the Camp to turn Back Up with mens hearts blow down the dawbed Walls of Heresie Let one take the Banner and the other the Trumdet I mean not to make corporal resistance but pray and ye shall have Elias defence and Elizeus company to fight for you The Cause is the Lords My heart with pangs of death is assaulted but I am at home yet with my God alive Pray for me c. From Newgate Prison in haste the day of my Condemnation I. R. In his Letter to the Congregation two dayes before he suffered Whosoever will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution for it is given unto them not onely to believe but to suffer and the Servant or Scholar cannot be greater then his Lord or Master but by the same way the Head is entred the Members must follow My dear soul is departing this Life to my great advantage I make change of morality for immortality of corruption to put on incorruption to make my body like to the Corn cast into the ground which except it die first it can bring forth no good fruit Happy are they that die in the Lord which is to die in the Faith of Christ professing and confessing the same before many Witnesses What a Journey by Gods power I have made these eight dayes is above flesh and blood to bear but as Paul saith I may do all things through him who worketh in me Iesus Christ. My course Brethren I have run I have fought a good fight the Crown of Righteousness is laid up for me my day to receive it is not long to Pray Brethren for the enemy doth yet assault Be not ashamed of the Gospel of the Cross by me preached nor of my suffering for with my blood I affirm the same I go before I suffer first the baiting of the Butchers Dogs yet I have not done what I should have done What was undone impute that to frailty and ignorance and with your love cover that which was and is naked in me God knoweth ye are all tender to me My heart bursteth for the love of you Ye are not without the great Pastour of your souls who so loveth you that if men were not to be found as God be praised there is no want of them he would cause stones to minister unto you Cast your care on that Rock the wind of temptation shall not prevail Past and pray for the dayes are evil Look up with your eyes of hope for your redemption is not far off but my wickedness hath deserved that I shall not see it and also that which is behind of the blood of our Brethren which shall also be laid under the Altar shall cry for your relief The Friday at night before Mr. Rough was taken being in his Bed he dreamed That he saw two of the Guard leading Cuthbert Sympson Deacon of the said Congregation and that he had the Book about him wherein were written the Names of all them that were of the Congregation Afterwards he awaked and having told the dream unto his Wife after some time spent in reading he fell asleep again and dreamed the same dream again and awaking told his Wife his dream and said O Brother Cuthbert is gone And whilst he was making ready for to go and see how it was with him Mr. Sympson came into Mr. Rough's House and brought the Book with him Mr. Rough having told him his dream perswaded him to carry the Book no more about with him which he was loth to promise because said he dreams are but fancies and not to be credited Then Mr. Rough straitly charged him in the Name of the Lord to do it Whereupon Mr. Sympson left the Book with Mrs. Rough. And so the Congregation was preserved The next night Mr. Rough dreamed That he himself was forcibly carried to the Bishop and that the Bishop pluckt off his beard and cast it into the fire saying these words Now I may say I have had a piece of an Heretick burned in my House And so accordingly it came to pass Rose Mr. Thomas Rose born at Exmouth in Devon when he was first taken was sorely stocked in Prison The Stocks were very high and great so that day and night he did lie with his back on the ground upon a little straw with his heels so high that by means the blood was fallen from his feet his feet were without sense for a long time His Mother might not be suffered to see him Afterwards Cranmer set him at liberty When he was brought before Gardiner being taken at Bow in London with five and thirty more Winchester told him That he would know who were his Maintainers or else he would make him a foot longer My Lord said he you shall do as much as pleaseth God and no more yet the Law is in your hand but I have God for my Maintainer and none other At his second Examination the Chancellour ask'd him What he said to the real presence in the Sacrament I wist right well said he you are made an instrument to seek innocent blood Well you may have it if God permit it is present and at hand for I came not hither to lie but to die if God see it good in defence of that which I have said Wherefore you may begin when you think good c. At his third Examination the Bishop saying Ah Sirrah you will admit nothing but Scripture I see well No truly my Lord said he I admit nothing but Scripture for the Regiment of the Soul for Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God and where the Word of God is not there ought no belief to be given for whatsoever is not of Faith is sin Roth. Richard Roth in his Letter to certain Brethren and Sisters condemned at Colchester
and ready to be burned for the testimony of the Truth O dear Brethren and Sisters how much have you to rejoyce in God that he hath given you such faith to overcome this blood-thirsty Tyrant thus far And no doubt but he that hath begun that good work in you will fulfill it to the end O dear Hearts in Christ what a Crown of Glory shall ye receive with Christ in the Kingdome of God Oh that it had been the good will of God that I had been ready to have gone with you I lie in my Lords Little-ease in the day and in the night in the Cole-house alone and we look every day when we shall be condemned but I lie still at the Pools brink and every man goeth in before me but we abide patiently the Lords leisure with many Bands in Fetters and Stocks by the which we have received great joy in the Lord. And now fare you well dear Brethren and Sisters in this World but I trust to see you in the Heavens face to face How blessed are you in the Lord that God hath found you worthy to suffer for his sake O be joyfull even unto death Fear it not saith Christ for I have overcome death Be strong let your hearts be of good comfort and wait you still for the Lord. He is at hand The Angel of the Lord pitcheth his Tent round about them that fear him and delivereth them which way he seeth best for our lives are in the Lords hands and they can do nothing unto us before God suffer them Therefore give all thanks to God O dear Hearts you shall be clothed with long white Garments upon the Mount Sion with the multitude of Saints and with Jesus Christ our Saviour who will never forsake us O blessed Virgins you have played the wise Virgins part in that you have taken Oyl in your Vessels that ye may go in with the Bridegroom when he cometh c. but as for the foolish they shall be shut out because they made not themselves ready to suffer with Christ neither go out to take up his Cross. O dear Hearts How precious shall your death be in the sight of the Lord for dear is the death of his Saints O fare you well and pray The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all Amen Amen Pray pray pray By me R. R. written with mine own blood The Bishop asking him what he thought of his Fellow-Prisoner Ralf Allerton He answered That he thought him to be one of the elect Children of God and if he were put to death for his Faith and Religion he thought he should die a true Martyr The Bishop asking him how he did like the Order and Rites of the Church then used here in England He said That he ever had and then did abhor the same with all his heart Being perswaded to recant and ask mercy of the Bishop No said he I will not ask mercy of him that cannot give it Rought A Suffolk man so called and his Wife and several others being rebuked for going so openly and talking so freely Their answer was They acknowledged and believed and therefore they must speak and that the tribulation was by Gods good will and providence and that his Judgements were right to purâ—â—â— them with others for their sins and that of very faithfulness and mercy God had caused them to be troubled bled and that one hair of their heads should not perish before the time but all things should work unto the best to them that love God and that Christ Jesus was their life and onely righteousness and that onely by faith in him and for his seke all good things were freely given them also forgiveness of sins and life everlasting Rupea You may said Castalia Rupea throw my body from this steep Hill yet will my soul mount upward again Your blasphemies more offend my soul then your torments do my body Russel Ieremy Russel being apprehended in the Diocess of Glasgow in Scotland A. 1539. and railed upon answered This is your hour and power of darkness Now sit ye as Judges and we stand wrongfully accused and more wrongfully to be condemned but the day shall come when our innocence shall appear and that ye shall see your own blindness to your everlasting confusion Go forward and fulfill the measure of your iniquity He comforted his Fellow-Prisoner Alexander Kennedy of whom see the second Part under K. saying Brother fear not more mighty is he that is in us then he that is in the world the pain that we shall suffer is short and shall be light but our joy and consolation shall never have end and therefore let us contend to enter in unto our Master and Saviour by the same strait way which he hath taken before us Death cannot destroy us for it is destroyed already by him for whose sake we suffer Rycetto Mr. Anthony Rycetto of Vincence being condemned to be drowned his Son about twelve years of age comieg to visit him besought him with tears to yield and to save his life that he might not be left fatherless A true Christian said his Father is bound to forego Goods Children yea and life it self for the maintenance of Gods honour and glory A Captain telling him That Francis Sega was resolved to recant What tell you me said he of Sega I will perform my vows unto the Lord my God A Priest presenting him with a wooden Crucifix exhorting him to return and to die in the favour of God reconciling himself to the Church of Rome the holy Spouse of Christ But he rejected the Crucifix and besought the Priest to come out of the snare of the Devil to cleave to Jesus Christ and to live not according to the flesh but after the Spirit If you do otherwise said he assure your selves your unbelief will bring yâ—u into that Lake of fire that shall never be quenched for though yâ—u confess with your mouth that you know Iesus Christ yet you not onely deny him by your works but you persecute him in his Members being bewitched by the Pope the open enemy of the Son of God As he was carrying to be drowned because it was very cold he called for his Cloke which they had taken from him Whereupon the Wherry-man said unto him Fearest thou a little cold What wilt thou do when thou art cast into the Sea Why art not thou carefull to save thy self from drowing Dost not thou see that the poor Flea skips hither and thither to save her life His answer was And I am now flying to escape eternal death Being arrived at the place where he was to suffer the Captain put a Chain of Iron about his middle with a very heavy Stone fastned thereto Then Rycetto lifting his eyes to Heaven said Father forgive them for they know not what they do And being laid on the Planck he said Lord Iesus into thy hands I commend my spirit FINIS These are the