plenteously poured abroad amongst his, our dear brethren in that country, by this your martyrdom.

Where the martyrs for Christ's sake shed their blood and lost their lives, what wondrous things hath Christ afterward wrought to his glory, and the confirmation of their doctrine! If it is not the place that sanctifies the man, but the holy man by Christ sanctifies the place; brother Bradford, then happy and holy shall be that place, wherein thou shalt suffer, and which shall be sprinkled over with thy ashes in Christ's cause. All thy country may rejoice of thee, that ever it brought forth such a one, who would render his life again in His cause of whom he had received it.

Brother Bradford, so long as I shall understand that thou art in thy journey, by God's grace, I shall call upon our heavenly Father for Christ's sake to set thee safely home; and then, good brother, speak you, and pray for the remnant that are to suffer for Christ's sake, according to what thou then shalt know more clearly.

We look now every day when we shall be called on, blessed be God! I think I am the weakest, many ways, of our company; and yet, I thank our Lord God and heavenly Father by Christ, that since I heard of our dear brother Rogers' departing, and stout confession of Christ and his truth, even unto the death, my heart, blessed be God, so rejoiced at it, that since that time, I say, I never felt any lumpish heaviness in my heart, as I grant I have felt sometimes before. O good brother, blessed be God in thee, and blessed be the time that ever I knew thee. Farewell, farewell.

Your brother in Christ,

N. RIDLEY.

Brother, farewell.

LETTER XX.

To Augustine Bernher.

BROTHER AUSTIN, I bless God with all my heart for his manifold merciful gifts given unto our dear brethren in Christ, especially to our dear brother Rogers, whom it pleased him to set forth first, no doubt of his gracious goodness and fatherly favour towards him. And likewise

blessed be God in the rest, as Hooper, Saunders, and Taylor, whom it has pleased the Lord likwise to set in the fore front of the battle against his adversaries, and has endued them all, so far as I can hear, to stand in the confession of his truth, and to be content to lose their lives in his cause and for his gospel's sake.

And evermore and without end blessed be the same our heavenly Father for our dear and entirely beloved brother Bradford, whom now the Lord, I perceive, calls for; for I think he will no longer vouchsafe him to abide among the adulterous and wicked generation of this world. I do not doubt but that he, by those gifts of grace which the Lord hath bestowed on him plenteously, hath helped those who are gone before in their journey, that is, hath animated and encouraged them to keep the highway, and so to run that they may obtain the prize. The Lord be his comfort, whereof I do not doubt; and I thank God heartily that ever I was acquainted with him, and that ever I had such a one in my house. And yet again I bless God in our dear brother, and of this time, protomartyr Rogers,* that he was also one of my calling to be a prebendary preacher of London.

And now because Grindal is gone, the Lord, I doubt not, hath and doth know wherein he will bestow him; I trust to God it shall please him of his goodness to strengthen me to make up the trinity (three) out of Paul's church, to suffer for Christ, whom God the Father hath anointed, the Holy Spirit beareth witness unto, and Paul and all the apostles preached. Thus fare you well. I have no paper; I was constrained thus to write.

LETTER XXI.

To Master Bradford.‡

N. RIDLEY.

DEARLY beloved brother Bradford, I had thought of late, that I had written unto you your last farewell until we should have met in the kingdom of heaven, by our *So called because he was the first that suffered death for religion under that persecution.

+ Rogers, Bradford, and Ridley.-Grindal had escaped to Germany. + Bradford's exccution having been suspended, many false reports were spread abroad respecting him, which Ridley notices in this letter.

dear brother Austin, and I sent it to meet you in Lancashire, whither it was said you were appointed to be sent to suffer. But now, since they have changed their purpose, and prolonged your death, I understand it is no other than once happened to Peter and Paul; who, although they were among the first that were cast into prison, and shunned peril as little as any other did, yet God would not have them put to death with the first, because he had more service to be done by their ministry, which it was his gracious pleasure they should do; so, without doubt, dear brother, I am persuaded that the same is the cause of the delay of your martyrdom.

Blessed be the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, for your threefold confession. I have read all three with great comfort and joy, and thanksgiving unto God for his manifold gifts of grace, wherewith it is manifest to the godly reader, that God assisted you mightily. And blessed be God again and again, who gave you so good a mind and remembrance of your oath once made against the bishop of Rome, lest you should be partaker of the common perjury, which almost all men are now fallen into, by bringing in again that wicked usurped power of his. Which oath was made according to the prophet, in judgment, in righteousness, and in truth, and therefore cannot be revoked without perjury, let satan roar and rage, and practise all the cruelty he can.

Oh! good Lord, that they are so busy with you about the church! It is no new thing, brother, that is happened unto you, for that was always the clamour of the wicked bishops and priests against God's true prophets: "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord:" and they said, "The law shall not depart from the priests, nor wisdom from the elders :" and yet in them, whom alone they esteemed for their priests and sages, there was neither God's law nor godly wisdom.

It is marvellous to hear what vain communications are spread abroad respecting you. It is said here, that you are pardoned your life; and when you were appointed to be banished and to go I cannot tell whither, you should say, that you had rather suffer here, than go where you could not live according to your conscience; and that this pardon should be begged for you by Bourne, the bishop of Bath, for that you saved his life.*

* Immediately after the accession of Queen Mary, bishop Bourne RIDLEY. 19

Again, some say, and among others mine hostess reports, that you are highly promoted, and are a great man with my lord chancellor!* This I could not believe, but denied it as a false lie; so surely was I always persuaded of your constancy. What God will do with us he knows. In the mean time, it is wonderful to behold how the wisdom of God hath infatuated the policy of the world, and scattered the crafty devices of the worldly wise. For when the state of religion was once altered, and persecution began to wax hot, no man doubted but Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, should have been the first to have been called to the stake. But the subtle policy of the world, setting us apart, first assaulted them by whose infirmity they thought to have more advantage, but God disappointed their subtle purpose. For whom the world esteemed weakest, praised be God, they have found most strong, sound, and valiant, in Christ's cause unto the death, to give such an onset as, I dare say, all the angels in heaven no less rejoice to behold in them, than they did in the victorious constancy of Peter, Paul, Esaias, Elias, or Jeremiah. "For greater love no man hath than to bestow his life," &c.

Good brother, have me and us all continually in your remembrance to God in your prayers, as, God willing, we shall not be forgetful of you in our prayers.

Your own in Christ,

N. RIDLEY.

LETTER XXII.

An answer to a letter written unto bishop Ridley by master West, sometime his chaplain.†

I WISH you grace in God, and love of the truth, without which, truly established in men's hearts by the mighty hand of Almighty God, it is no more possible to stand by

was appointed to preach at Paul's Cross. In his sermon he spoke so much against the late king, Edward VI. and the Reformation, that a tumult was excited, and he would probably have suffered injury, had not Bradford stood forward and protected him. *Bishop Gardiner.

+ West had been chaplain to bishop Ridley, but turned to popery in queen Mary's reign, and, in the beginning of April, 1555, he wrote to the bishop with much earnestness and affection, urging him to

the truth in Christ in time of trouble, than it is for the wax to abide the heat of the fire.

Sir, know this, that I am, blessed be God! persuaded that this world is but transitory; and, as St. John saith, "The world passeth away, and the lust thereof." I am persuaded Christ's words are 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 deny before his Father. The Lord grant that this may be so grafted, established, and fixed in my heart, that neither things present, nor to come, high nor low, life nor death, be able to remove me thence.

It is a goodly wish, that you wish me deeply to consider things pertaining unto God's glory: but if you had wished also, that neither fear of death, nor hope of worldly prosperity, should hinder me from maintaining God's word and his truth, which is his glory and true honour, it would have liked me well. You desire me for God's sake to remember myself; indeed, sir, now it is time so to do; for, so far as I can perceive, no less danger is before me than the loss both of my body and soul; and, I think then it is time for a man to awake, if any thing will awake him. He that will not fear Him, that threatens 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 hindered the furtherance of God's word and his truth.

You have known me long indeed, in which time, it has chanced me, as you say, to mislike some things. It is true, I grant; for sudden changes, without substantial and necessary cause, and the heady setting forth of such extremities, I never loved. Confession unto the minister, who is able to instruct, correct, comfort, and inform the weak, consider the danger he was in, not to stand against learning or in vain glory, but to return to the church of Rome, for "he must either agree or die." Ridley wrote this letter in answer: but though West was convinced he had done wrong, he wanted courage to renounce his preferments and the world. He pined away with grief and remorse, and died shortly after, even before Ridley; thus evidencing the folly of those who think to prolong their lives by sinful compliances. Gloucester. Ridley considers this letter as having been written in 1555; but in Coverdale's Letters of the Martyrs it is dated 1554.