long in

burning.

high built, the fire burned first beneath, being kept down by the Mary. wood; which when he felt, he desired them for Christ's sake to let A.D. the fire come unto him. Which when his brother-in-law heard, but 1555. not well understood, intending to rid him out of his pain (for the which cause he gave attendance), as one in such sorrow not well advised what he did, heaped faggots upon him, so that he clean covered him, which made the fire more vehement beneath, that it burned clean all his nether parts, before it once touched the upper; and that made him leap up and down under the faggots, and often desire them to let the fire come unto him, saying, "I cannot burn." Which indeed Ridley appeared well; for, after his legs were consumed by reason of his struggling through the pain (whereof he had no release, but only his contentation in God), he showed that side toward us clean, shirt and all untouched with flame. Yet in all this torment he forgot not to call unto God still, having in his mouth, "Lord have mercy upon me," intermingling his cry, "Let the fire come unto me, I cannot burn." In which pangs he laboured till one of the standers by with his bill pulled off the faggots above, and where he saw the fire flame up, he wrested himself unto that side. And when the flame touched The death the gunpowder, he was seen to stir no more, but burned on the other side, falling down at master Latimer's feet; which, some said, hap- Ridley. pened by reason that the chain loosed; others said, that he fell over the chain by reason of the poise of his body, and the weakness of the nether limbs.

and mar

tyrdom of

hearts of

ple at the

dom of

Some said, that before he was like to fall from the stake, he desired The lathem to hold him to it with their bills. However it was, surely it menting moved hundreds to tears, in beholding the horrible sight; for I think the peothere was none that had not clean exiled all humanity and mercy, martyrwhich would not have lamented to behold the fury of the fire so to these two rage upon their bodies. Signs there were of sorrow on every side. saints. Some took it grievously to see their deaths, whose lives they held full dear: some pitied their persons, that thought their souls had no need thereof. His brother moved many men, seeing his miserable case, seeing (I say) him compelled to such infelicity, that he thought then to do him best service, when he hastened his end. Some cried out of the fortune, to see his endeavour (who most dearly loved him, and sought his release) turn to his greater vexation and increase of pain. But whoso considered their preferments in time past, the places of honour that they some time occupied in this commonwealth, the favour they were in with their princes, and the opinion of learning they had in the university where they studied, could not choose but sorrow with tears, to see so great dignity, honour, and estimation, so necessary members sometime accounted, so many godly virtues, the study of so many years, such excellent learning, to be put into the fire, and consumed in one moment. Well! dead they are, and the reward of this world they have already. What reward remaineth for them in heaven, the day of the Lord's glory, when he cometh with his saints, shall shortly, I trust, declare.

Albeit I have deferred and put over many treatises, letters, and exhortations, belonging to the story of the martyrs, unto the latter Appendix in the end of these volumes; thinking also to have done the

See

Appendix.

Mary. like with these farewells and exhortations following of bishop Ridley, A. D. yet for certain purposes moving me thereunto, and especially consi1555. dering the fruitful admonitions, wholesome doctrine, and necessary

The first farewell

of Ridley to his friends.

Commen

exhortations contained in the same, I thought best here to bestow, and consequently to adjoin the said tractations of that learned pastor, with the life and story of the author; whereof the two first be in a manner his farewells, the one to his kinsfolk, and generally to all the faithful of the number of Christ's congregation: the other more special to the prisoners and banished Christians in the gospel's cause: the third containeth a fruitful and a general admonition to the city of London, and to all others, with necessary precepts of christian office, as by the tenor of them here followeth in order to be seen.

A Treatise or Letter written by Dr. Ridley, instead of his last Farewell, to all his true and faithful Friends in God; with a sharp Admonition withal unto the Papists.

At the name of Jesus, let every knee bow, both of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and let every tongue confess, that Jesus Christ is the Lord, unto the glory of God the Father, Amen.

As a man minding to take a far journey, and to depart from his familiar friends, commonly and naturally hath a desire to bid his friends farewell before his departure, so likewise now I, looking daily when I should be called to depart hence from you-Oh all ye, my dearly beloved brethren and sisters in our Saviour Christ, that dwell here in this world-having like mind towards you all-and blessed be God for such time and leisure, whereof I right heartily thank his heavenly goodness-to bid you all, my dear brethren and sisters (I say) in Christ, that dwell upon the earth, after such manner as I can, farewell.

Farewell, my dear brother George Shipside, whom I have ever found faithdation of ful, trusty, and loving in all states and conditions; and now, in the time of my cross, over all others to me most friendly and steadfast, and that which liked me best over all other things, in God's cause ever hearty.

George

Shipside, his brother-in

law.

To his brother John

Farewell, my dear sister Alice his wife. I am glad to hear of thee, that thou dost take Christ's cross, which is laid now (blessed be God) both on thy back and mine, in good part. Thank thou God, that hath given thee a godly and loving husband: see thou honour him and obey him, according to God's law. Honour thy mother-in-law his mother, and love all those that pertain unto him, being ready to do them good, as it shall lie in thy power. As for thy children, I doubt not of thy husband, but that he which hath given him an heart to love and fear God, and in God them that pertain unto him, shall also make him friendly and beneficial unto thy children, even as if they had been gotten of his own body.

Farewell, my dearly beloved brother John Ridley of the Waltoune, and you my gentle and loving sister Elizabeth, whom, besides the natural league of Ridley. amity, your tender love, which you were said ever to bear towards me above the rest of your brethren, doth bind me to love. My mind was to have acknowledged this your loving affection, and to have requited it with deeds, and not with words alone. Your daughter Elizabeth I bid farewell, whom I love for the meek and gentle spirit that God hath given her, which is a precious thing in the sight of God.

To his law of

wife to Hugh, his brother.

Farewell, my beloved sister of Unthank, with all your children, my nephews sister-in- and nieces. Since the departure of my brother Hugh, my mind was to have been Unthank, unto them instead of their father, but the Lord God must and will be their Father, if they would love and fear him, and live in the trade of his law. Farewell, my well-beloved and worshipful cousins, master Nicholas Ridley of Willymountswike, and your wife, and I thank you for all your kindness showed both to me, and also to all your own kinsfolk and mine. Good cousin, as God hath set you in our stock and kindred (not for any respect of your person, but of his abundant grace and goodness), to be as it were the bell-wether to order

To his cousin, Nicholas

Ridley.

A. D.

and conduct the rest, and hath also indued you with his manifold gifts of grace, Mary. both heavenly and worldly, above others: so I pray you, good cousin (as my trust and hope is in you), continue and increase in the maintenance of the truth, honesty, righteousness, and all true godliness; and to the uttermost of 1555. your power, to withstand falsehood, untruth, unrighteousness, and all ungodliness, which is forbidden and condemned by the word and laws of God.

Farewell, my young cousin Ralph Whitfield. Oh! your time was very short To his with me. My mind was to have done you good, and yet you caught in that cousin, little time a loss: but I trust it shall be recompensed, as it shall please Whitfield. Ralph Almighty God.

Farewell, all my whole kindred and countrymen; farewell in Christ altogether. To all his The Lord, which is the searcher of secrets, knoweth that according to my heart's kindred. desire, my hope was of late that I should have come among you, and to have Ridley brought with me abundance of Christ's blessed gospel, according to the duty of appointed that office and ministry, whereunto among you I was chosen, named, and ap- bishop of pointed by the mouth of that our late peerless prince, king Edward, and so also Durham. denounced openly in his court, by his privy council.

to be

gular and

I warn you all, my well-beloved kinsfolk and countrymen, that ye be not Martyramazed nor astonied at the kind of my departure or dissolution: for I ensure dom, you, I think it the most honour that ever I was called unto in all my life: and God's sintherefore I thank my Lord God heartily for it, that it hath pleased him to call rare prome of his great mercy unto this high honour, to suffer death willingly for his motion. sake and his cause; unto the which honour he hath called the holy prophets, and dearly beloved apostles, and his blessed chosen martyrs. For know ye that I doubt no more, but that the causes wherefore I am put to death, are God's causes, and the causes of the truth, than I doubt that the Gospel which John wrote is the gospel of Christ, or that Paul's Epistles are the very word of God. And to have a heart willing to abide, and stand in God's cause, and in Christ's quarrel even unto death, I ensure thee, O man, it is an inestimable and an honourable gift of God, given only to the true elect, and dearly beloved children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven. For the holy apostle and also martyr in Christ's cause, St. Peter, saith, "If ye suffer rebuke in the name of Christ," (that is, in Christ's cause, and for his truth's sake,)" then are ye happy and blessed, for the glory of the Spirit of God

resteth upon you. "1 If for rebuke's sake, suffered in Christ's name, a man is A blessed

suffer

pronounced by the mouth of that holy apostle blessed and happy: how much thing to more happy and blessed is he that hath the grace to suffer death also! Where- death for fore, all ye that be my true lovers and friends, rejoice, and rejoice with me Christ. again, and render with me hearty thanks to God our heavenly Father, that for his Son's sake, my Saviour and Redeemer Christ, he hath vouchsafed to call me, being else without his gracious goodness, in myself but a sinful and vile wretch, to call me (I say) unto this high dignity of his true prophets, of his faithful apostles, and of his holy elect and chosen martyrs; that is, to die and to spend this temporal life in the defence and maintenance of his eternal and everlasting truth.

faithful

his friend,

Ye know, that be my countrymen dwelling upon the borders, (where, alas! If it be a the true man suffereth oftentimes much wrong at the thief's hand,) if it chance point of a a man so to be slain of a thief, as it often chanceth there, which went out with friend to nis neighbour to help him to rescue his goods again, that the more cruelly he be die with slain, and the more steadfastly he stuck by his neighbour in the fight against upon the face of the thief, the more favour and friendship shall all his posterity have thieves, for the slain man's sake, of all them that be true, as long as the memory of his for worldly goods; fact, and his posterity doth endure even so ye that be my kinsfolk and coun- how trymen, know ye (howsoever the blind, ignorant, and wicked world hereafter much shall rail upon my death, which thing they cannot do worse than their fathers to die in did, of the death of Christ our Saviour, of his holy prophets, apostles, and Christ's martyrs) know ye, I say, that both before God, and all them that be godly, quarrel, and that truly know, and follow the laws of God, ye have, and shall have by enemies God's grace, ever cause to rejoice, and to thank God highly, and to think good of his of it, and in God [to] rejoice of me, your flesh and blood, whom God of his goodness hath vouchsafed to associate unto the blessed company of his holy martyrs in heaven. And I doubt not in the infinite goodness of my Lord God,

(1) 1 Pet. iv.

more then

upon the

church?

Mary.

A. D.

1555.

To die in

whatso

is to die

in God's

cause.

To die in the truth

against

for the

truth against Christ's

nor in the faithful fellowship of his elect and chosen people, but at both their hands in my cause, ye shall rather find the more favour and grace: for the Lord saith, that he will be both to them and theirs that love him, the more loving again in a thousand generations: the Lord is so full of mercy to them (I say) and theirs which do love him indeed. And Christ saith again, that no man can show more love, than to give his life for his friend.2

Now also know ye, all my true lovers in God, my kinsfolk and countrymen, any right, that the cause wherefore I am put to death, is even after the same sort and conever it be, dition, but touching more near God's cause, and in more weighty matters, but in the general kind all one: for both is God's cause, both is in the maintenance of right, and both for the commonwealth, and both for the weal also of the christian brother, although yet there is in these two no small difference, both concerning the enemies, the goods stolen, and the manner of the fight. For, know ye all, that thieves, like as there, when the poor true man is robbed by the thief of his own goods truly and to die gotten (whereupon he and his household shall live), he is greatly wronged, and the thief in stealing and robbing with violence the poor man's goods, doth offend God, doth transgress his law, and is injurious both to the poor man, and to the commonwealth: so, I say, know ye all that even here in the cause of my death, it is with the church of England, I mean the congregation of the true chosen children of God in this realm of England, which I acknowledge not only to be my neighbours, but rather the congregation of my spiritual brethren and sisters in Christ, yea, members of one body, wherein, by God's grace, I am and have been grafted in Christ. This church of England hath of late, of the infinite goodness and abundant grace of Almighty God, great substance, great England. riches of heavenly treasure, great plenty of God's true sincere word, the true and wholesome administration of Christ's holy sacraments, the whole profession of Christ's religion truly and plainly set forth in baptism, the plain declaration and understanding of the same, taught in the holy catechism, to have been learned of all true Christians.

enemies,

com

pared.

Truth taught in the

church of

True mi

of the Lord's Supper.

This church had also a true and sincere form and manner of the Lord's nistration Supper, wherein, according to Jesus Christ's own ordinance and holy institution, Christ's commandments were executed and done. For upon the bread and wine set upon the Lord's table, thanks were given; the commemoration of the Lord's death was had; the bread, in the remembrance of Christ's body torn upon the cross, was broken, and the cup, in the remembrance of Christ's blood shed, was distributed, and both communicated, unto all that were present and would receive them; and also they were exhorted of the minister so to do.

Service in the vulgar

tongue.

Homilies

All was done openly in the vulgar tongue, so that every thing might be most easily heard, and plainly understood of all the people, to God's high glory, and the edification of the whole church. This church had of late the whole divine service, all common and public prayers ordained to be said and heard in the common congregation, not only framed and fashioned to the true vein of Holy Scripture, but also set forth according to the commandment of the Lord, and St. Paul's doctrine, for the people's edification, in their vulgar tongue. It had also holy and wholesome homilies in commendation of the principal in the virtues which are commended in Scripture: and likewise other homilies against Church of the most pernicious and capital vices that useth alas! to reign in this realm of England. Articles England. This church had in matters of controversy, articles so penned and set forth framed after the holy Scriptures, and grounded upon the true understanding of for mat- God's word, that in short time if they had been universally received, they should have been able to have set in Christ's church, much concord and unity in Christ's true religion, and to have expelled many false errors and heresies, wherewith this church, alas! was almost overgone.

ters of

contro

versies.

3

But, alas! of late, into this spiritual possession of the heavenly treasure of these godly riches, are entered in thieves, that have robbed and spoiled all this treasure away. I may well complain on these things, and cry out upon them with the prophet, saying, "O Lord God, the Gentiles, heathen nations, are come into thy heritage: they have defiled thy holy temple, and made Jerusalem a heap of stones;" that is, they have broken and beaten down to the ground Robbing thy holy city. This heathenish generation, these thieves, be of Samaria; these of Christ's Sabai and Chaldæi, these robbers, have rushed out of their dens, and have robbed the church of England of all the foresaid holy treasure of God; they (1) Deut. vii. (2) John xv. (3) "Deus, venerunt gentes in hæreditatem tuam," etc. Ps. lxxii.

church.

have carried it away, and overthrown it, and, instead of God's holy word, the Mary. true and right administration of Christ's holy sacraments (as of baptism and others), they mixed their ministry with man's foolish fantasies, and many wicked A.D. and ungodly traditions withal.

1555.

with

The

the mass.

In the stead of the Lord's holy Table, they give the people, with much solemn Baptism disguising, a thing which they call their mass; but, in deed and in truth, it is a mixed very masking and mockery of the true Supper of the Lord, or rather I may call men's it a crafty juggling, whereby these false thieves and jugglers have bewitched the fantasies. minds of the simple people, so that they have brought them from the true wor- Lord's ship of God, unto pernicious idolatry, and made them to believe that to be Christ Supper our Lord and Saviour, which indeed is neither God nor man, nor hath any life turned to in itself, but, in substances, is the creature of bread and wine, and in use of the Lord's table, is the sacrament of Christ's body and blood. And for this holy use, for the which the Lord hath ordained them in his table, to represent unto us his blessed body torn upon the cross for us, and his blood there shed, it pleased him to call them his body and blood: which understanding Christ declareth to be his true meaning, when he saith, "Do this in remembrance of me." And again, St. Paul likewise doth set out the same more plainly, speaking of the same sacrament, after the words of consecration, saying, "As often as ye shall eat of this bread, and drink of this cup, ye shall set forth (he meaneth The with the same) the Lord's death until his coming again." And here again cup these thieves have robbed also the people of the Lord's cup, contrary to the robbed. plain words of Christ, written in his gospel.

Lord's

turned into an

Now for the common public prayers which were in the vulgar tongue, these Prayers thieves have brought in again a strange tongue, whereof the people understand not one word, wherein what do they else, but rob the people of their divine unknown service, wherein they ought to pray together with the minister? And to pray tongue. in a strange tongue, what is it, but (as St. Paul calleth it) barbarousness, childishness, unprofitable folly, yea, and plain madness?

homilies

pope's

phemy to

to Christ,

For the godly articles of unity in religion, and for the wholesome homilies, Instead of what do these thieves place in the stead of them, but the pope's laws and decrees, the pope's lying legends, feigned fables, and miracles to delude and abuse the simplicity of decrees. the rude people? Thus this robbery and theft is not only committed (nay, sacrilege The and wicked spoil of heavenly things), but also in the stead of the same, is brought doctrine in and placed the abominable desolation of the tyrant Antiochus, of proud Sen- containnacherib, of the shameless-faced king, and of the Babylonical beast. Unto this eth blasrobbery, this theft and sacrilege, for that I cannot consent, nor (God willing) God, ever shall, so long as the breath is in my body, because it is blasphemy against treason God; high treason unto Christ our heavenly King, Lord, Master, and our only is conSaviour and Redeemer; for it is plainly contrary to God's word, and to Christ's trary to gospel; it is the subversion of all true godliness, and against the everlasting sal- word, is a vation of mine own soul, and of all my brethren and sisters, whom Christ my subverSaviour hath so dearly bought, with no less price than with the effusion and sion of shedding forth of his most precious blood. Therefore, all ye my true lovers in liness, God, my kinsfolk and countrymen, for this cause (I say) know ye that I am put and deto death, which by God's grace I shall willingly take, with hearty thanks to God struction there-for, in certain hope without any doubting, to receive at God's hand again, soul. of his free mercy and grace, everlasting life.

God's

true god

of man's

tween

tors and

Although the cause of the true man slain of the thief, while helping his neighbour to recover his goods again, and the cause wherefore I am to be put to death, in a generality is both one (as I said before), yet know ye that there is no small difference. These thieves against whom I do stand, are much worse than Comparithe robbers and thieves of the borders: the goods which they steal are much son bemore precious, and their kinds of fight are far divers. These thieves are worse popish (I say), for they are more cruel, more wicked, more false, more deceitful and persecucrafty for those will but kill the body, but these will not stick to kill both body strong and soul. Those, for the general theft and robbery, be called, and are indeed, thieves. thieves and robbers; but these, for their spiritual kind of robbery, are called "sacrilegi," as ye would say, church-robbers. They are more wicked: for those go about to spoil men of worldly things, worldly riches, gold and silver, and worldly substance; these go about in the ways of the devil, their ghostly father, to steal from the universal church, and particularly from every man, all