Marginalia1555. Decemb.tion? First your vocation to the Gospell, and after your vocation, the manifest giftes of the spirite of God geuen vnto you aboue many other of your condition, with godlynesse whiche beleueth and yeldeth to the authoritie of the Scriptures, & is zelous for the same? Seyng you are Gods own dearelyng, who can hurt you? Be not of a deiect mynde for these temptations, neither make your vnfayned frendes to be more sorrowfull for you, then neede doth require.

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Since GOD hath willed you at your Baptisme in Christ to be Careles, why do you make your selfe carefull: Cast all your care on him. Set the Lord before your eyes alwayes, for hee is on your right side that you shall not bee moued. Behold the goodnes of God toward me. MarginaliaTrue Christians how they ought to be careles in their carefull estate.I am careles, beyng fast closed in a payre of stocks, which pinch me for very straitnes: and will you be carefull? I will not haue that vnseemely addition to your name. Be as your name pretendeth, for doubtles you haue none other cause but so to be. Pray, I beseech you, that I may be still carelesse in my carefull estate, as you haue cause to be carelesse in your easier condition. Be thankefull and put away all care, and then I shall be ioyfull in my straite present care. Commend me to all our brethren, and desire them to praye for me that I may ouercome my temptations: for the deuill rageth against me, I am put in the stockes in a place alone, because I would not aunswere to such articles as they would charge me withall in a corner at the Byhops appointment, & because I did not come to Masse whē the byshop sent for me,  

I will lye all the dayes of my life in the stockes (by Gods grace) rather then I will consent to the wicked generation. Prayse God & be ioyful that it hath pleased him to make vs worthy to suffer somewhat for his names sake. The deuill must rage for x. dayes. Cōmend me to Maister F.   & thanke him for his law books, but law neither equitie wil take any place among these bloudthirsty. I would for your sake their vniust dealing were noted vnto the Parlamēt house, if it might auayle. God shortē these euil dayes. I haue aūswered the Byshop meetely playne already, & I sayd to him, if he will cal me in opē iudgemēt, I wil aūswere him as plainly as hee will require: otherwise I haue refused, because I feare they will condēne me in hugger mugger. The peace of God be with you my deare brother: I cā write no more for lacke of light, & that I haue written I cā not read my selfe, and God knoweth it is written farre vneasely. I pray God you may picke out some vnderstāding of my mynde towards you. Written in a Colehouse of darkenes out of a payre of paynfull stockes by thine owne in Christ.

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Iohn Philpot.

MarginaliaAn other letter of M. Philpot to certayne godly women.THe spirite of truth reueled vnto you my dearely beloued, by the Gospell of our Sauiour Iesus Christ, be continually abidyng with you, and augmented into a perfect building of you into the liuely tēple of God, through the mightie operation of his power. Amen.

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I read in the Euangelistes of certaine Godly women that ministred vnto Christ, followyng him in the dayes of his Passion, and neuer forsoke him, but beyng dead in hys graue, brought oyle to annoynt him, vntill that he had shewed himselfe vnto them after his resurrection, and bidden them shew vnto his Disciples, which at his Passiō were dispersed, and tel thē that he was risen, and that they should see him in Galile. To whom I may iustly compare you (my louyng Sisters in Christ) who of late haue sene him suffer in his mēbers, and haue ministred to their necessitie, annointyng them with the comfortable oyle of your charitable assistaunce, euen to the death: and now since ye haue seene Christ to liue in the ashes of them whom the tyrannes haue slayne, he willeth you to go away vpon iust occasion offered you, and to declare to our dispersed brethrē and sisters, that he is risē and liueth in his elect mēbers in England, & by death doth ouercome infidelitie, & that they shall see him in Galile, which is by forsakyng this world, and by a faythfull desire to passe out of this worlde by those wayes whiche he with his holy Martyrs hath gone on before.

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God therefore (entire Sisters) direct your way, as he did Abraham and Tobias vnto a straunge land: GOD geue you health both of body and soule, that ye may go from vertue to vertue, and growe from strength to strength, vntill ye may see face to face the God of Syon in his holy hill, with the innumerable cōpany of his blessed Martyrs and Saintes. Let there be continuall ascensions vnto heauē in your harts. MarginaliaWholsome and godly preceptes of lyfe.Lette there bee no decrease of any vertue, whiche is already planted in you. Bee as the lyght of the iust, such as Salomon sayth increaseth to the perfect day of the Lord. Let the strength of God be commended in your weake vessels, as it

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is. Be examples of fayth and sobrietie to all that ye shall come in company with all. Let your godlye conuersation speake where your toung may not, in the congregation. Be swift to heare and slow to speake, after the counsell of Saint Iames. Be not curious about other mens doynges, but be occupyed in prayer and continnuall meditation, with reuerent talkyng of the worde of God, without contention amongest the Saintes. Let your fayth shyne in a straunge countrey, as it hath done in your own, that your father whch is in heauē may be gloryfied by you to the end.

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This farewell I sende you, not as a thing nedeful, (which know already what your duety is, and bee desirous to performe the same) but as one that would haue you vnderstād that he is myndful of your godly cōuersatiō, wherof he hath had good experience, and therfore wryteth this to be as a perpetuall memoriall betwixt you and him vntill our metyng together before God, where we shall ioy that wee haue here louingly put one an other in memory of our duety to performe it.

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Farewell agayne, myne owne bowels in Christ, & take me with you where soeuer you goe, and leaue your selues with me, that in spirite we may bee present one with an other. Cōmend me to the whole cōgregation of Christ willing thē not to leaue their countrey without witnes of the Gospell after that we all be slayne, which already be staulled vp and appointed to the slaughter, and in the meane season to pray earnestly for our constancy, that Christ may be glorified in vs and in them both by lyfe and death. Farewell in the Lord.

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Yours for euer, Iohn Philpot.

MarginaliaAn other letter of M. Philpot to his owne Sister full of fruitfull exhortation.GOd the eternall father, who hath iustified you by the bloud of his sonne Iesus Christ, and called you to hallowe his name thorough a good conuersation and profession of lyfe, he sanctifie you with dayly encrease of vertue & fayth by hys holy spirite, that you may appeare a vessell of sanctification in, the middest of this wicked and peruerse generation, to the laud and prayse of the Gospell, Amen.

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I haue occasion (mine owne deare sister) to prayse God in you for two causes: the one, that to your hability you are ready to shew your self a naturall louing sister vnto me your poore afflicted brother, as by your gentle tokens you haue eftsoones  

testified beyng absent, as also presently visityng me: whiche well declareth that you be a very naturall sister in deede, and to be praysed in this behalfe. But in the other, that you be also a sister to me in fayth after Christes gospel, I am occasioned to thanke God so much the more, howe much the one excelleth the other, MarginaliaSpirituall consanguinitie and naturall, compared.and the spirituall consanguinitie is more pardurable   then that whiche is of flesh and bloud, and is a worker of that whiche is by nature: for commonly such as be vngodly, be vnnaturall and onely louers of them selues, as dayly experience teacheth vs. The lyuyng Lord, whiche through the incorruptible seede of his woorde hath begotten you to be my liege   sister, geue you grace so to growe in that generation, that you may encrease to a perfect age in the Lord to be my sister with Christ for euer.

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Looke therefore that you continue a faythfull sister as you are called and are godly entered, not onely to me but to all the Church of Christ, ye to Christ him selfe, who voucheth you in this your vnfayned fayth, worthy to be hys sister. Consider this dignitye to surmount all the vayne dignities of the worlde, and let it accordingly preuayle more with you, then al earthly delightes: for therby you are called to an equall portion of the euerlasting inheritaunce of Christ if now in no wise you do shewe your selfe an vnnaturall sister to him in forsakyng him in trouble, whiche I trust you will neuer for no kynde of worldly respect do. You are vnder daungerous temptations to bee turned from that natural loue you owe vnto Christ, and you shalbe tryed with Gods people thorough a sieue of great affliction:MarginaliaThe Sieue of afflictions. for so Sathan desireth vs to be sifted MarginaliaLuke. 22.that through feare of sharpe troubles we might fall from the stablenes of our fayth, and so bee depryued of that honour, ioy, and reward, whiche is prepared for suche as continue faythfull brothers and sisters in the Lordes couenant to the ende. Therefore the wise man in the booke of Ecclesiasticus:MarginaliaEccle. 2. byddeth them that come to the seruice of the Lorde, To prepare them selues to suffer temptations.

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Since then that for the glory of God and our fayth, we are called now to abide the brunt of thē, & that when our aduersary hath done al that he can, yet we may be stable & stand: this Christ our first begottē brotherMarginaliaChrist our first borne brother. looketh for at our hāds, and all our brethren and sisters in heauen desire to see our fayth thorough afflictions to be perfect, þ^t wee might fulfill

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