Marginalia1555. Iuly.CHRIST, and requireth of you straitly to beleue it, geue your selfe to obedience, although you do it not with such felyng as you desire.MarginaliaWhere feeling fayleth yet obedience is required. First must fayth go before, and then felyng will folow. If our imperfection, frailtie, and many euils should be occasions wherby Sathā would haue vs to doubt, as much as we can let vs abhorre that suggestiō as of al others most pernicious:MarginaliaLet no suggestion make vs doubt of Gods fauour in Christ. for so in dede it is. For when we stand in a doubt whether God be our father, we cannot be thankfull to God, we cannot hartely pray or thinke any thing we do acceptable to God, we cānot loue our neighbours & giue ouer our selues to care for thē & do for thē as we should do, & therfore Sathan is most subtile hereaboutes, knowyng full well that if we doubt of Gods fatherly eternall mercies towardes vs through CHRIST, we can not please God or do any thyng as we should do to man. Continually casteth he in to our memories our imperfection, frailty, falles and offences, that we should doubt of Gods mercy and fauour towardes vs.

Therfore my good Sister, we must not be sluggishe herein, but as Sathan laboureth to loosen our fayth: so must we labour to fasten it MarginaliaTo stay vpō Gods promise in Christes word.by thinkyng on the promises and couenaunt of God in CHRISTES bloud, namely that God is our God with all that euer hee hath: which couenaunt dependeth & hangeth vpon Gods own goodnes, mercy and truth onely, and not on our obedience or worthines in any point, for then should we neuer be certaine. MarginaliaObedience geueth not to vs to be Gods children, but Gods children geueth obedience.In dede God requireth of vs obedience & worthines, but not that therby we might be his children and he our father, but because he is our father and we his children through hys owne goodnes in CHRIST, therfore requireth he faith and obedience. Now, if he want this obedience and worthines which he requireth, should we doubt whether he be our father? Nay, that were to make our obedience and worthynes the cause, and so to put CHRIST out of place, for whose sake God is our father. But rather because he is our father and we feele our seles to want such thinges as he requireth, we should be styrred vp to a shamefastnes and blushyng, because we are not as we should be: and thereupon should we take occasion to go to our father in prayer on this maner: MarginaliaHow a man should pray, when feeling of Gods cōfort lacketh.Deare father, thou of thine own mercy in IESVS CHRIST hast chosen me to be thy child, and therefore thou wouldest I should bee brought into thy Church and faythfull company of thy children: wherin thou hast kept me hetherto, thy name therefore be praysed. Nowe I see me selfe to want fayth, hope, loue, &c. Which thy children haue and thou requirest of me, wherethrough the deuill would haue me to doubt, yea vtterly to dispayre of thy fatherly goodnes, fauour, and mercy. Therefore I come to thee as to my mercyfull father through thy deare sonne IESVS CHRIST, and pray thee to helpe me good Lord. helpe me, and geue me fayth, hope, loue. &c. and graunt that thy holy spirit may be with me for euer, and more and more to assure me that thou art my father: that this mercyfull couenaunt thou madest with me in respect of thy grace in CHRIST and for CHRIST, and not in respect of any my worthynes, is alwayes true to me. &c.

On this sort (I say) you must pray and vse your cogitations whē Sathan would haue you to doubt of saluation. He doth all he cā to preuaile herein Do you all you can to preuaile herein against him. Though you feele not as you would, yet doubt not, but MarginaliaHope beyond hope.hope beyond all hope, as Abraham did. MarginaliaFayth goeth before feeling.Fayth alwayes (as I sayd) goeth before feelyng. As certaine as God is almighty, as certaine as God is mercifull, as certaine as God is true, as certaine as IESVS CHRIST was crucified, is risen, and sitteth on the ryght hand of the father: as certaine as this is Gods commaundement: I am the Lord thy God. &c. so certaine ought you to be that God is your father. As you are bound to haue none other Gods but him, so are you no lesse boūd to beleue that God is your God. What profit should it be to you to beleue this to be true: I am the Lord thy God, to others, if you should not beleue that this is true to your selfe? The deuil beleueth on this sort. And what soeuer it be that would moue you to doubt of this, whether GOD be your God through CHRIST, MarginaliaDoubting commeth of the deuill.that same commeth vndoubtedly of the deuil. Wherfore did God make you, but because he loued you? Might not he haue made you blind, dumme, deafe, lame, frantike &c? Might not he haue made you a Iew, a Turke, a Papist &c? And why hath he not done so? Verely because he loued you. And why did he loue you? What was there in you to moue him to loue you? Surely nothyng moued him to loue you, and therfore to make you, and so hetherto to kepe you, but his own goodnes in CHRIST. MarginaliaEccle. 2.Now then, in that his goodnes in CHRIST still remaineth as much as it was, that is, euen as great as hym

selfe, for it cannot be lessoned, how should it be but that he is your God and father? Beleue this, beleue this my good Syster, for God is no chaungelyng: them whom he loueth, he loueth to the end.

Cast therfore your selfe wholy vpon him, and thinke without all wauering that you are Gods child, that you are a Citizen of heauē, that you are the daughter of God, the Temple of the holy Ghost &c. If hereof you be assured, as you ought to be, then shall your consciēce be quieted, MarginaliaFayth and assured hope of Gods fauour, is the foūtaine of all well doing.then shall you lament more and more that you want many thinges which God loueth: then shall you labour to be holy in soule and body: then shal you go about that Gods glory may shyne in you in all your wordes and workes: then shall you not be afrayd what man can do vnto you: then shall you haue such wisedome to aunswer your aduersaries, as shall serue to their shame and your comfort: then shall you be certaine that no man cā touch one heare of your head further thē shall please your good father, to your euerlasting ioy: then shal you be most certaine that God as your good father, will be more carefull for your childrē & make better prouision for thē if all you haue were gone, then you can: then shall you (beyng assured I say of Gods fauour towardes you) geue ouer your selfe wholy to helpe and care for others that bee in neede: then shall you contemne this life, and desire to be at home with your good and swete father: then shall you labour to mortifie all things that would spot either soule or body. All these thinges spryng out of this certaine persuasion and fayth that God is our father, and we are his children by CHRIST IESVS. All thinges should helpe our fayth herein: but Sathan goeth about in all thinges to hynder vs.

Therfore let vs vse earnest and harty prayer: let vs often remember this couenaunt: I am the Lord thy God: let vs looke vpon CHRIST and his precious bloud shed for the obsignation and confirmation of this couenaunt: MarginaliaConsideration of Gods promises & benefites.let vs remember all the free promises of the Gospell: let vs set before vs Gods benefites generally in making this world, in ruling it, in gouerning it, in calling and keeping his church. &c: let vs set before vs Gods benefites particularly, how he hath made vs creatures after his image: how he hath made vs of perfect lims, forme, beuty, memory. &c: how he hath made vs as Christians, and geuen vs a right iudgement in his religion: how he hath euer sithen we were borne, blessed, kept, nourished, and defended vs: how he hath often beaten, chastised, & fatherly corrected vs: how he hath spared vs and doth now spare vs, geuing vs time, space, place, grace. This if you do, and vse earnest prayer, and so flie frō all things which might wound your conscience, geuing your selfe to diligence in you vocation, you shal find at the lēgth that (which God graunt to me with you) a sure certaintie of saluation, without all such doubt as may trouble the peace of conscience, to your eternall ioye and comfort, Amen, Amen.

Yours to vse in Christ Iohn Bradford.

MarginaliaAn other like letter of comfort to M. H.THe good spirit of God which guideth his childrē, be with you my good sister in the Lord for euer, Amē.

Although, as I to you, so you vnto me in person are vnknowen, yet to hym whom we desire to please, we are not onely in persons, but also in harts knowne and throughly seene: and therefore as for his sake you would by that you sent, of me be perceaued how that in God you beare to me a good will: so, that I to you might be seene in God to beare you the like, I send to you these fewe words in wryting, wyshing that in all your doings & speach, yea euē in your very thoughts, you would labour to feele that they are all present and open before the syght of God, bee they good or bad. This cogitation often had in mind, and prayer made to God for the working of his spirite, thereby, as a meane, you shall at the length feele more comfort and commodity, then any man can know but such as be exercised therein. Howbeit this is to be added, that in thinking your self and all that you haue and doe, to be in the sight of God: this (I say) is to be added that you thinke his sight is the sight, not only of a Lord, MarginaliaConsideration of Gods tender affection to vs in Christ his sonne.but rather of a father, which tendreth more your infirmityes then you can tender the infirmities of any your children. Yea when in your self you see a motherly affection to your little one that is weake, let the same be vnto you a trace to traine you to see the vnspeakeable