him in his faithful ministration, till he was unjustly deprived both of his office and liberty by the Queen and her Council. On the thirteenth of August, in the first year of her reign, Dr. Bourne, Bishop of Bath and Wells, took occasion, in a sermon at Paul's Cross, to rail against King Edward, and all other favourers of the Reformation, which so much enraged the audience, that, in spite of the presence of the chief ecclesiastical and municipal authorities, they would have pulled him out of the pulpit, had they not been restrained by open force. A dagger was thrown at him, which narrowly missed its aim. The preacher, knowing the popularity of Bradford, who stood behind him, entreated him to come forward, and exhort the people to quietness. He no sooner appeared, than they exclaimed," Bradford, Bradford, God save thy life, Bradford!" He then remonstrated with them on their tumultuous and seditious conduct, till they gradually dispersed. But as some stragglers still remained, the preacher, who had been fain to hide his head while Bradford was addressing the crowd, was afraid to show himself, and requested that good man not to depart till he were in safety; on which Bradford, assisted by Mr. Rogers, Vicar of St. Sepulchre's, screening him with their gowns, conveyed him to the neighbouring grammar school. A gentleman observed, "Ah, Bradford, thou savest him that will help to burn thee! I gave him his life. If it were not for thee, I would, I assure thee, have run hin through with my sword."*

Howsoever, Bradford (says Fuller) committed the issue to Almighty God, nothing repented his charity, which he was sure would find reward with Him, what acceptance soever it found amongst wicked and unthankful men; yea,

* Clarke, Fox, &c. Abel redivivus, p. 184.

so far was he from being afraid or sorry for what he had done, that in his afternoon's sermon at Bow Church, he sharply reprehended his auditors for their forenoon's tumultuous carriage and sedition. And yet, such was the malice of the common adversary, and iniquity of the times, that about three days after, for this very fact, he was summoned to appear before the Council, and by the Lords committed to the Tower."

After affecting to examine him, they removed him to the King's Bench, Southwark. Here he found Dr. Ferrar, the worthy Bishop of St. David's, who was suffering like himself for Protestant sentiment ; and who from long confinement had been so far wrought upon, as to consent to receive the sacrament on the following Sunday, which was Easter-day, in one kind alone, after the Romish custom. But, by divine providence, Bradford was brought to the prison the very day before, and by his persuasion was made instrumental in preserving the yielding prelate from bringing this scandal on his profession. He was so much respected and trusted by the Keeper, that he was daily permitted to leave the prison if he pleased; a permission of which he generally availed himself, that he might visit the sick, and endeavour to edify others by his conversation. Laurence Saunders, another excellent confessor of the truth, who was confined in the Marshalsea, used to give him frequent meetings. in a space behind their two prisons, receiving as well as bestowing seasonable encouragement to continue in their most holy faith, in nothing terrified by their adversaries. At one time, Bradford obtained liberty to go into Oxfordshire, to visit a merchant of his acquaintance, and a man was provided to accompany him on horseback, but he was prevented by sickness from undertaking the journey. An old friend said to him, Suppose I should

make intercession for you, and get you out of prison, what would you do, or whither would you go?" He answered as though it were a matter of indifference whether he was released or not; but being again questioned, he said, he would marry, and remain in the kingdom, and give the people such instruction in secret as the times would admit of, till it pleased God to produce a change in the circumstances of the church. He used to preach twice a-day to his fellow prisoners, unless hindered by indisposition, and often celebrated the Lord's Supper; and through the indulgence of the gaolers, his apartment on these occasions was generally filled with devout persons. He made one light meal in the day, and was accustomed to study on his knees. In the midst of his dinner he would sometimes meditate, with his hat drawn over his eyes, till from the fulness of his heart he shed many tears. He would seldom continue in bed longer than four hours, and accounted that time lost which was not spent in writing, study, or useful converse. He conciliated the good will of the inmates of the prison, by emptying among them the contents of his purse from time to time, and thus induced some of the vilest and most profligate to give him a patient hearing. How tenderly and wisely he could counsel others, taught as he was in the school of affliction, let the following letter, selected from many preserved by Fox, testify.

"To Master Warcup and his Wife, Mistress Wilkinson, and others of his godly friends.

"The same peace our Saviour Christ left with his people, which is not without war with the world, Almighty God work plentifully in your hearts, now and for ever. Amen.

"The time is come, I perceive, wherein the Lord's ground will be known. I mean, it will now shortly

appear, who have received God's gospel into their hearts indeed, to the taking of good root therein; for such will not, for a little heat or sun burning, wither, but stiffly will stand and grow on, maugre the malice of all burning showers and tempests. And forasmuch as, my beloved in the Lord, I am persuaded of you, that ye be indeed the children of God, God's good ground which groweth, and will grow on, by God's grace bringing forth fruit to God's glory, after your vocations, as occasions shall be offered, burn the sun never so hot; therefore I cannot but so signify unto you, and heartily pray you and every one of you accordingly, to go on forwards after your Master Christ; not sticking at the foul way and stormy weather which you are come into, and are like so to do; of this being most certain, that the end of your journey shall be pleasant and joyful, in such a perpetual rest and blissfulness, as cannot but swallow up the showers that ye now feel and are soused in, if ye often set it before your eyes, after Paul's counsel in the latter end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth chapter of the second epistle to the Corinthians. Read it, I pray you, and remember it often, as a restorative to refresh you, lest ye faint by the way.

And, beside this, set before you also, that though the weather be foul, and storms grow apace, yet go not ye alone; but other your brothers and sisters tread the same path, as St. Peter telleth us, and therefore company should cause you to be more courageous and cheerful. But if you had no company at all to go presently with you, I pray you tell me, if even from the beginning the best of God's friends have found any fairer weather and way to the place whither ye are going, I mean heaven, than ye now find, and are like to do, except ye will with the worldlings, which have their portion in this life, tarry

still by the way, till the storms be overpast, and then, either night will so approach that ye cannot travel, or the doors will be sparred before ye come, and so ye then lodge without in wonderful evil lodgings. Read Rev. xxii. Begin at Abel, and come from him to Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, the Patriarchs, Moses, David, Daniel, and all the saints of the Old Testament, and tell me whether ever any of them found any fairer way than ye now find. If the Old Testament will not serve, I pray you come to the New, and begin with Mary and Joseph, and come from them to Zacharias, Elizabeth, John Baptist, and every one of the Apostles and Evangelists, and search whether they all found any other way unto the city we travel to wards, than by many tribulations. Besides these, if ye should call to remembrance the primitive church, ye should see many to have given cheerfully their bodies to most grievous torments, rather than they would be stopped in their journey that there is no day in the year, but I dare say a thousand was the fewest, that with great joy lost their homes here, but in the city they went unto, have found other manner of homes than man's mind is able to conceive.

:

"But if none of these were, if ye had no company now to go with you, as ye have me, your poor brother and bondman of the Lord, with many other, I trust in God; if you had none other of the fathers, patriarchs, kings, prophets, apostles, evangelists, martyrs, and other holy saints and children of God, that in their journey to heavenward found, as ye now find and are like to find, if you go on forward, as I trust ye will; yet ye have your Master and your Captain, the dear darling and only begotten and beloved Son of God, in whom was all the Father's pleasure, joy, and delectation; ye have him to go before you, no fairer way, but much

fouler, into this our city of Jerusalem; I need not, I trust, to rehearse what manner of way he found. Begin at his birth, and till ye come at his burial, ye shall find that every foot and stride of his journey was no better, but much worse than your's is now.

"Wherefore, my dearly beloved in the Lord, be not so dainty as to look for that at God's hands, your dear Father, which the fathers, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, evangelists, martyrs, saints, and his own Son Jesus Christ, did not find. Hitherto we have had fair way, I trow, and fair weather also; now because we have loitered by the way, and not made the speed we should have done, our loving Lord and sweet Father hath overcast the weather, and stirred up storms and tempests, that we might with more haste run out our race before night come, and the doors be sparred. The Devil standeth now at every inn door in his city and country of this world, crying unto us to tarry and lodge in this or that place, till the storms be overpast; not that he would not have us wet to the skin, but that the time might overpass us, to our utter destruction. Therefore beware of his enticements. Cast not your eyes on things that be present, how this man doth and that man doth; but cast your eyes on the gleve ye run at, or else ye will lose the game. Ye know that he which runneth at the gleve, doth not look on others that stand by, and go this way or that way; but altogether he looketh at the gleve, and on them that run with him, that those which be behind overtake him not, and that he may overtake them that be before: even so should we do, leaving off looking on those which will not run the race to heaven's bliss by the path of persecution with us, and cast our eyes on the end of our race, and on them that go before us, that we may overtake them, and on them which come after us,

that we may provoke them to come faster after.

"He that shooteth will not cast his eyes in his shooting on them that stand by or ride by the way, I trow, but rather at the mark he shooteth at, for else he were like to win the wrong way: even so, my dearly beloved, let your eyes be set on the mark you shoot at, even Christ Jesus, who for the joy set before him did joyfully carry his cross, contemning the shame, and therefore he now sitteth on the right hand of the throne of God. Let us follow him: for this did he, that we should not be faint-hearted; for we may be most assured, that if we suffer with him, we shall undoubtedly reign with him; but if we deny him, surely he will deny

us.

For "he that is ashamed of me," saith Christ, "and of my Gospel in this faithless generation, I will be ashamed of him before the angels of God in heaven." O how heavy a sentence is this to all such as know the mass to be an abominable idol, full of idolatry, blasphemy, and sacrilege, against God and his Christ, (as undoubtedly it is) and yet for fear of men, for loss of life or goods, yea some for advantage or gain, will honest it with their presence, dissembling both with God and man, as their own heart and conscience doth accuse them. Better it were that such had never known the truth, than thus wittingly, and for fear of favour of man, whose breath is in his nostrils, to dissemble it, or rather, as indeed it is, to deny it. The end of such is like to be worse than their beginning. Such had need to take heed to the two terrible places to the Hebrews, in the sixth and tenth chapters, lest by so doing they fall therein. Let them beware they play no willy-beguile with themselves, as some do, I fear

think they rather do good to others than hurt. But, alas! if these men would look into their own consciences, there should they see they are very dissemblers, and in seeking to deceive others, (for by this means the magistrates think them of their sort) they deceive themselves. They think at the elevation-time, all men's eyes are set upon them to mark how they do. They think others, hearing of such men going to mass, do see or inquire of their behaviour there. O if there were in those men that are so present at the mass, either love to God or to their brethren, then would they, for the one or both, openly take God's part, and admonish the people of their idolatry. They fear man more than Him which hath power to cast both soul and body into hell-fire; they halt on both knees; they serve two masters. God have mercy upon such, and open their eyes with his eye-salve, that they may see that they which take no part with God are against God, and that they which gather not with Christ, do scatter abroad. Oh, that they would read what St. John saith will be done to the fearful! The counsel given to the church at Laodicea is good counsel for such.

"But to return to you again, dearly beloved; be not ashamed of God's Gospel. "It is the power of God to salvation to all those that do believe it." Be therefore partakers of the afflictions, as God shall make you able, knowing for certain that he will never tempt you farther than he will make you able to bear; and think it no small grace of God to suffer persecution for God's truth; for the Spirit of God resteth upon you, and ye are happy, as one day ye shall see. Read 2 Thess. i. Heb. xii. As the fire hurteth not gold, but maketh it finer, so shall ye be more pure by suffering with Christ. The flail and wind hurteth not the wheat, but cleanseth it from the chaff; and