1570 Edition | Book 11 | Page 1940 
Marginalia1555. October.and to lament it from the bottome of my heart before my departyng hence.
This conscience doth moue me also now to require both you & my frend Doct. Haruy,MarginaliaD. Haruy charged. to remember your promises made to me in times past, of the pure settyng forth and preachyng of Gods word and his truth.MarginaliaGood monitions of B. Ridley to his old Chapleins. These promises, although you shall not neede to feare to be charged with thē of me hereafter before the world, yet looke for none other (I exhort you as my frēdes) but to be charged with them at Gods hand. This cōscience & the loue that I beare vnto you, byddeth me now say vnto you both in Gods name, feare God and loue not the world: for God is able to cast both body and soule into hell fyre. When his wrath shall sodenly be kyndled,MarginaliaPsal. 2. blessed are all they that put their trust in him. And the saying of S. Iohn is true:MarginaliaIohn. 2. All that is in the world, as the lust of the fleshe, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the father, but of the world, and the world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doth the will of God, abydeth for euer. If this gift of grace (which vndoubtedly is necessarily required vnto eternall saluation) were truly and vnfainedly graffed and firmely stablished in mens hartes, they would not be so light, so sodainly to shrinke from the maintenaunce and confession of the truth, as is now (alas) seene so manifestly of so many in these dayes. MarginaliaWhat is truth.But here peraduenture you would know of me what is the truth. Syr, Gods word is the truth, as S. Iohn sayth,MarginaliaIohn. 17. and that euen the same that was heretofore. For albeit man doth vary & chaūge as the Moone,MarginaliaEccle. 27. yet Gods word is stable and abideth one for euermore: and of CHRIST it is truly sayd, CHRIST yesterday and to day, the same is also for euer. MarginaliaHeb. 13.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaCommon prayer in the cōmon tounge.When I was in office, all that were esteemed learned in Gods worde, agreed this to bee a truth in Gods word written, that the common prayer of the Church should be had in the common tounge. You know I haue conferred with many, and I ensure I neuer found man (so far as I do remember) neither old nor new, gospeller nor Papist, of what iudgement so euer he was, in this thing to be of a contrary opinion. If then it were a truth of Gods word, thinke you that þe alteration of the world can make it an vntruth? If it cannot, why then do so many men shrincke from the confession and mayntenaunce of this truth receyued once of vs all? MarginaliaWhat it is to confesse Christ.For what is it, I pray you, els to confesse or deny CHRIST in this world, but to maintaine the truth taught in Gods word, or for any worldly respect to shrink from the same? This one thing haue I brought for an ensample:
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I lyke very well your playne speaking, wherein you say: I must either agree or dye, and I thynke that you meane of the bodily death, which is cōmon both to good and bad.MarginaliaDeath common to good and bad. Syr, I know I must dye whether I agree or no. But what folly were it then to make such an agreemētMarginaliaDamnable agreement. by the which I could neuer escape this death which is so cōmon to all, and also incurre the gilt of death and eternall damantiō? Lord graunt that I may vtterly abhorre and detest this damnable agreement so long as I lyue. And because (I dare say) you wrote of friendship vnto me this short earnest aduertisement, and I thinke verely, wishyng me to lyue, and not to dye, therefore bearing you in my hart no lesse loue in God, then yon do me in the world, I say vnto you in þe word of þe lord (and that I say to you I say to all my friendes and louers in God) that if you do not confesse and mayntayne to your power and knowledge that which is grounded vppon Gods word, but will eyther for feare or gayne of the world shrinke and play the * Marginalia* Apostata was he which fled from his captaine to the enemy. He was also so called that departed frō the Christians to the Iewes and Gentiles.Apostata, in deede you shall dye the death: you know what I meane. And I besech you all my true friendes and louers in God, remember what I say, for this may be the last tyme peraduenture that euer I shall wryte vnto you.
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From Bocardo in Oxford the. viij.
day of Aprill. 1555.
MarginaliaThe summe of Master Grindals letter to B. Ridley.M. Grindall, now Bishop of Lōdon, being in þe time of exile in þe city of Frankford, wrote to D. Ridley then prisoner a certaine epistle. Wherin first he lamēteth his captiuitie, exhorting hym withall to be cōstant. Secondly he certifieth him of þe state of þe Englishe exiles being
[Back to Top]dispersed in Germany, and of the singular prouidence of God in styrring vp the fauour of the Magistrates and rulers there towardes them. Thirdlye he writeth to know hys mynde and wyll concerning the printing of his booke against transubstantiation, and of certayne other treatises, and his disputations. Whereunto B. Ridley aunswereth agayne in order as foloweth.
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CloseThis letter was a response to a letter which Edmund Grindal, Ridley's close friend and protégé, had sent to Ridley from exile. (Grindal's letter is printed in Letters of the Martyrs, pp. 49-51, and in The Works of Nicholas Ridley, ed. Henry Christmas [Parker Society, 1841], pp. 386-88). Grindal's letter was dated 6 May 1554 and Ridley's reply, judging by a reference to the execution of John Cardmaker, was written in early June. This letter was first printed in Letters of the Martyrs (pp. 51-56) and was reprinted in the 1570 edition and all subsequent editions of the Acts and Monuments. Bull and Foxe deleted an important section of this letter. ECL 260, fos. 114*r-115v is a copy of this letter.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaAn answere of B. Ridley to Master Grindalls letter sent from Franckford.BLessed bee God our heauenly father which enclined your hart to haue such a desire to write vnto me, and blessed be he againe which hath heard your request, and hath brought your letters safe vnto my hands: and ouer all this, I blesse hym through our Lord IESVS CHRIST, for the great comfort I haue receiued by the same, of the knowledge of your state, and of other our dearely beloued brethren and countrey men in those parties beyond the Sea.
[Back to Top]Dearely beloued brother Grindall, I say to you and all the rest of our brethren in CHRIST with you, reioyce in the Lord, and as ye loue me and the other my reuerende fathers and concaptiues (which vndoubtedly are gloria CHRISTI) lament not our state, but I besech you and them all to geue to our heauenly father for his endles mercies and vnspeakeable benefites euen in the myddest of all our troubles geuen vnto vs, most harty thankes. For know ye, that as þe weight of his crosse hath increased vpon vs, so he hath not nor doth not cease to multiply his mercies to strengthen vs, MarginaliaExperience of Gods strength toward hys Saintes in theyr imprisonment.and I trust, yea by his grace I doubt nothing, but he wyll so do for CHRIST our Masters sake euen to the ende. To heare that you and our other brethren doe finde in your exile fauour and grace with the Magistrates, Ministers & Citizens at Tigury, at Frankford, and other where, it doth greatlye comfort (I dare say) al here that do in dede loue CHRIST and hys true word. I ensure you it warmed my hart to heare you by chaunce to name some, MarginaliaScory andMarginaliaCoxeas Scory & Coxe. &c.
CloseIn his letter, Grindal had reported that John Scory was head of an English exile congregation at Emden and that Richard Cox was head of the English congregation at Frankfurt. (Letters of the Martyrs and The Works of Nicholas Ridley, ed. Henry Christmas [Parker Society, 1841], p. 387. Unfortunately only Bull's version of Grindal's letter survives; judging from the manuscript copy of Ridley's response, Bull deleted passages from Grindal's letter about the disputes in the English church at Frankfort).
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CloseActually Grindal may not have had much information on some of these old friends of Ridley. Sir John Cheke had been imprisoned at the start of Mary's reign but had been released in the spring of 1554 and arrived in Strasbourg on 14 April. He journeyed on, reaching Padua in July and would remain in Italy until the spring of 1555. William Turner had fled England in September 1553 and went to Emden and subsequently traveled throughout Germany. Thomas Sampson's movements are mysterious although he eventually arrived in Strasbourg. Thomas Lever, on the other hand, arrived in Frankfurt in February 1555 and took a prominent role in the disputes there. Richard Chambers, the moneyman for the Marian exiles, settled in Zurich in 1554, but his movements would have been known to Grindal.
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CloseAt this point in the letter Bull and Foxe deleted passages from the letter in which Ridley disapproved strongly of John Knox's determination to use the Geneva liturgy rather than the Book of Common Prayer in the English congregation's services there. (ECL 260, fos.114*r-v. The deleted passages are printed in The Works of Nicholas Ridley, ed. Henry Christmas [Parker Society, 1841], pp. 533-35, although Christmas does not indicate that these passages were deleted from this letter). It is worth pointing out that Foxe himself was in Frankfurt at this time and was a prominent supporter of Knox (see the introduction to this edition on Foxe's life).
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CloseGrindal had informed Ridley that he had a copy of Ridley's answers in the Oxford disputation (Letters of the Martyrs, p. 50, and The Works of Nicholas Ridley, ed. Henry Christmas [Parker Society, 1841], p. 388). Ridley is saying that unless Grindal had Ridley's version of his answers the versions which Grindal did have were inaccurate.
[Back to Top]As for the treatise in English Contra transubstantiationem, vix possum adduci vt credam operæpretium fore vt in latinum transferatur. Cæterum quicquid sit nullo modo velim vt quicquam quocunq; modo meo nomine ederetur, donec quid de nobis dominus constituerit fieri, vobis prius certo constiterit:
CloseGrindal had informed Ridley that he had a copy of Ridley's attack on transubstantiation (Letters of the Martyrs, p. 51, and The Works of Nicholas Ridley, ed. Henry Christmas [Parker Society, 1841], p. 388). Ridley wrote his answer to this in Latin because it was particularly sensitive. His reply reads: 'I can scarcely be persuaded to believe that it is worth translating into Latin. Moreover, whatever may happen, I wish that nothing be published in my name in any way until it is certainly known to you what it may have pleased God to determine be done to us'. What Ridley is saying is that he did not want any works published in his name until his fate was settled; the bishop feared that such publication might trigger reprisals against Cranmer, Latimer and himself.
[Back to Top]The last Lent saue one, it chaunced by reason of the tumult styrred vp in Kent,
CloseWyatt's rebellion.
CloseSeparate.
Blessed be God, we three at the wryting hereof, were in good health, and (in God) of good cheare. Wee haue