LETTER IV.

To

DEARLY beloved sister in Jesus our Lord; perceiving by your letter the subtle assaults of the devil, I must needs lament your great trouble, not that I fear any danger eternally, but that I pity the anguish of your heart, willing to rejoice in Jesus and in the redemption that is by his blood, and not the less impeded so to do by the art or deceit of that serpent satan, which neither is imputed for sin now, nor yet shall appear hereafter to your confusion. For it is not you that judge wickedly of the Son of God, but your enemy that would persuade you so to do; whom learn to resist in the face, not standing with him in question and debate, but suddenly repelling all his deceit as unworthy to be answered to, seeing it is contrary to the principles of your faith. He would persuade you that God's word is of no effect, but that it is a vain tale invented by man; and so that all which is spoken of Jesus, the Son of God, is but a vain fable. Do you not perceive that the devil, in making that persuasion, is the selfsame spirit whom Jesus affirmed to be a man-slayer and a manifest liar? Why do you not here laugh him to scorn, and mock him in your heart, seeing he denies the thing which your eyes may see, and your ears hear, your senses understand, and all the powers of your soul grant and confess. He says the Scriptures of God are but a tale, and no credit is to be given them. Alas! sister, that you should not perceive his manifold deceit.

The word of God says, that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, of nothing making and producing all creatures, whom his majesty guides and rules to this day. And albeit the devil did persuade some philosophers to affirm that the world never had a beginning, yet the verities following in the same word of God shall compel even the devil himself to grant and acknowledge God alone to be the Creator, and the world not to have a beginning of itself. The voice of God said to the woman after her offence, "In pain shalt thou bear thy children." I pray you, sister, is it not a manifest and impudent lie to affirm and say that this word is vain-doth not your own heart witness that the word of God is true,

and takes effect in every woman before she be a mother; and the same voice that denounced the pain upon the woman, pronounced also, that the seed of the woman, which is Jesus, our body, should break down the serpent's head, and dissolve the works of the devil, which are sin and death. The voice of God affirms that bodily death entered into the world by sin, for by one man entered in sin, and by the means of sin came in death; so that death passeth throughout all men, because that all men sinned.

Beloved sister, does not your own heart justify God's word to be true? Feel you not sin working unto you to your great displeasure? and know you not this by the experience of all that are passed before you? That statute is to all men- -to die-and the same voice that affirms sin to be the cause of death, also affirms Jesus to be the author and cause of life. Seeing, therefore, you are compelled to grant the one, for who can deny that death devours this mortal carcass, why doubt you the other to be true? But you doubt not. It is your enemy that would so persuade you. Contemn him to the face, and his assaults shall not hurt you. Cleave only to the truth of God's word, only, I say, believe, and you shall be safe; and albeit you find not such perfection as you desire, yet cry, with the man that was sore troubled, Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief." In suggesting that you are like to Francis Spira, the devil lies.* Alas! may you not easily perceive this? You never were a preacher, you never denied any part of Christ's doctrine before the world, you never blasphemed Christ in your heart, for, if you had done so, you never would afterwards have sought for remedy; and you seek to me, the minister of Christ, which is indeed to seek Christ himself. The nature of the damned and reprobate is ever to flee from Christ.

66

There has no temptation yet apprehended you which does not commonly assault the elect of God. The devil is so subtle, that he can cause his temptations to appear to be the cogitations of our own hearts. But so they are not, you hate them, you lament and mourn for them, which is the testimony of your faith; which albeit God suffer to be tried as through a furnace, yet shall he not suffer it to be quenched;

*Francis Spira was an Italian of rank, who having embraced the truth, subsequently returned to popery, and soon afterwards died in deep distress of mind. His case is well known, and occurred a few years before the time when this letter was written.

for whom he has given to his Son Jesus are received in sure custody, and shall be like to his glorified body.

Be not afraid albeit the tempter trouble you; remember how bold he was with our Captain and Head. Did he not call him from Jerusalem to the mountain, and, boasting himself to be the Lord of the world, promised the glory thereof to Christ, if he would fall down and worship himwhich temptation was greater and more bold than any that he has used against you. Say to him when he assaults you;-Avaunt, satan, the Lord confound thee;-and albeit you find not such sweetness as you would, yet be sure that the sob of your heart pierces the heaven, and does not return without the petition being granted of God, as your utility* doth require. Remember, sister, that the tempter departed from Christ only for a time, and therefore be not discouraged, albeit he return to you with new and deceitful assaults. Do you not perceive you are not within his girn; for if you were, to what purpose would he trouble you? He is a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, whom he has devoured already he seeks no more. Formerly he troubled you, that there is not a Saviour, and now he affirms that you shall be like to Francis Spira who denied Christ's doctrine; does not the one of these temptations make the other to be a lie, so that you may perceive both to be lies? He says, That you are not sorry for your offences; answer unto him that your sufficiency lies not within yourself, nor yet in your repentance, but in the sufficiency of Jesus Christ. And you have cause to praise God who suffers you not to rejoice in sin, neither yet to trust in your own justice;‡ but you desire only to be clothed with Christ's righteousness, as you are by faith in his blood. Think not, sister, that I esteem it any trouble to comfort you. Be as bold upon me, in godliness, as you would be upon any flesh, and no other labours, save only the blowing of my master's trumpet,§ shall impede me to do the uttermost of my power. I will daily pray that your dolour may be relieved, and doubt not to obtain the same, to the glory of our God, and your everlasting comfort. From Newcastle, 1553.

LETTER V.

The first letter to his mother-in-law, Mistress Bowes.

RIGHT dearly beloved mother in our Saviour Jesus Christ. When I call to mind and revolve with myself, the troubles and afflictions of God's elect from the beginning, (in which I do not forget you,) there are within my heart two extreme contraries; a dolour almost unspeakable, and a joy and comfort, which by man's senses cannot be comprehended or understood. The chief causes of dolour are two; the one is the remembrance of sin, which I daily feel remaining in this corrupt nature; which was and is so odious and detestable in the presence of our heavenly Father, that by no other sacrifice could or might the same be cleansed, except by the blood and death of the only innocent Son of God. When I deeply consider the cause of Christ's death to have been sin, and that sin yet dwells in all flesh, with Paul I am compelled to sob and groan as a man under a heavy burden; yea, and sometimes to cry, Oh wretched and miserable man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of sin!

The other cause of my dolour, is, that such as most gladly would remain together for mutual comfort one of another, cannot be suffered so to do. Since the first day that it pleased the providence of God to bring you and me into familiarity, I have always delighted in your company, and when labours would permit, you know I have not spared hours to talk and commune with you, the fruit whereof I did not then fully understand or perceive. But now absent, and so absent that by bodily presence neither of us can receive comfort of the other, I call to mind how that oftimes when with dolorous hearts we have begun our talking, God hath sent great comfort unto both which now for my own part I commonly want. The exposition of your troubles, and acknowledging of your infirmity were first unto me a very mirror and glass wherein I beheld myself so rightly painted forth, that nothing could be more evident to my own eyes. And then, the searching of the Scriptures for God's sweet promises, and for his mercies freely given unto miserable offenders, (for his nature delighteth to show mercy where most misery

reigns,) the collection and applying of God's mercies, I say, was unto me as the breaking and handling with my own hands of the most sweet and delectable ointments, whereof I could not but receive some comfort by their natural sweet odours.

But now, although I never lack the presence and plain image of my own wretched infirmity, yet seeing sin so manifestly abounds in all estates, I am compelled to thunder out the threatenings of God against the obstinate rebels; in doing whereof, albeit, as God knoweth, I am no malicious nor obstinate sinner, I sometimes am wounded, knowing myself to be criminal and guilty in many, yea, in all things, (malicious obstinacy laid aside,) that I reprehend in others. Judge not, mother, that I write these things, debasing myself otherwise than I am: no, I am worse than my pen can express. In body you think I am no adulterer; let so be, but the heart is infected with foul lusts, and it will lust, although I lament ever so much. Externally I commit no idolatry; but my wicked heart loveth itself, and cannot be refrained from vain imaginations, yea, not from such as were the fountain of all idolatry. I am no man-killer with my hands; but I help not my needy brother so liberally as I may and ought. I steal not horse, money, or clothes from my neighbour; but that small portion of worldly substance I bestow not as rightly as his holy law requires. I bear no false witness against my neighbour in judgment, or otherwise before men; but I speak not the truth of God so boldly as it becomes his true messenger to do. And thus in conclusion, there is no vice repugning to God's holy will expressed in his law, wherewith my heart is not infected.

This much was written and indited before the receipt of your letters, which I received the 21st of June. They were unto my heart some comfort, for divers causes not necessary to be rehearsed; but most, as God knoweth, for that I find a congruence betwixt us in spirit, being so far distant in body. For when that digestedly I advised* with your letter, I considered that I myself was complaining even the self-same things at that very instant that I received your letter. By my pen, from a sorrowful heart, I could not but burst forth and say, "O Lord, how wonderful are thy works! How thou dost try and prove thy chosen children as gold by the fire! How thou canst, in a * I carefully examined.