pro Martyribus deprecatur fit ipse Martyr NUM LXXXVI Dr. Ridley late Bishop of London to West formerly his Steward who had complyed with the Romish religion I Wish you grace in God and love of the trueth Without the which truly established in mans heart by the mighty hand of Almighty God it is no more possible to stand by the truth in Christs cause in the time of tribulation then it is for wax to abide the heat of the fire Sir know you this that I am blessed be God persuaded that this world is but transitory as S. Iohn saith Mundus transit concupiscentia ejus I am persuaded Christs words to be true Qui me confessus fuerit coram hominibus I wil confes him before my father which is in heaven And I believe that no earthly creature shal be saved whom the Redeemer and Savior of the world shal before his Father deny This the Lord grant that it may be so grafted established and fixed in my heart that neither things present or to come high or low life or death be able to remove It is a godly wish that yee wish me depely to considre things perteinyng to Gods honor and glory But if ye had wished also that neither fear of death or hope of worldly prosperity shuld let me to maintein gods word and his truth which is his glory and true honour it wold have liked me very wel You desire me for Gods sake to remembre my self Indeed Sir now it is time for me so to do For so far as I can perceyve it standeth me of no les daunger then of the los both of body and soule And I trow then it is time for a man to awake if any thing wil awake him He that wil not fear him that threatneth to cast body and soule into everlasting fire whom wil he fear Oh Lord fasten thou together our frayl flesh that we never swarve from thy Lawes You say you have made much sute for me Sir God gâ—aunt that you have not in sueing for my worldly deliveraâ—ce empaired or hindred the furtheraunce of Gods word and his â—ruth You have knowen me long indede in the which time it hath chaunced me to mislyke some things It is true I graunte For sodeine chaunges without substantial aud necessary causes and the heady setting furth of extremities I did never love Confession to the minister which is able to instruct correct comfort and enform the weak and ignorant consciences I have ever thought might do much good in Christs Congregation And so I assure you I do think even at this day My doctrin and my preaching you say you have heard oft and after your judgment have thought it godly saving of the Sacrament Which thing although it was of me reverendly handled and a great deal better than of the rest as you say yet in the margent you write warily and in this world wysely thus And yet methought not al soundly Wel Sir but I see so many chaunges in the world and so much alteration or els at this your saying I wold not a litle mervayl I have taken you for my trustie freynd and a man whom I fantasied for plainness and faithfulnes as much I ensure you as for your learning And have you kept this so close in your heart from me unto this day Sir I considre mo things than one and wil not say al that I think But what need you to care what I thynke for any thing that I shal be able to do unto you either good or harm You geve me good lessons to stand in nothing against my learning and to beware of vain glory Truly Sir herein I like your counsel very wel and by Gods grace I intend to follow it unto my lyves end To write to them whom you name I cannot se what it wil avayle me For this I wold now have you know it I esteme nothing avaylabâ—e for me which also wil not set furth the glory of God And now because I perceive you have an entyre zeal and desire of my deliverance out of this captivitie and worldly misery if I shuld not bear you a good heart in God again methynk I were to blame Sir how nigh the day of my dissolution and departure hence out of this world is at hand I cannot tel The Lords wil be fulfilled How soon soever it shal come I know the Lords words must be verified on me that I shal appear before the uncorrupt Judge and be countable to him of al my former lyfe Although the hope of his mercy is my shote ankor of eternal Salvation yet am I persuaded that whosoever wittingly neglecteth and regardeth not to clear his conscience he cannot have peace with God nor a lyvely faith in his mercy Conscience moveth me considering you were one of my family and of my household of whom then I thynke I had a special cure and of all them which were in my house which indede ought to have been an example of godlines to al the rest of my cure not only in godly life but also in promoting of Gods word to thuttermost of their power But now alas when the trial doth separate the corn from the chaff how smal a deyl it is God knoweth which the wynde doth not blow away This conscience I say doth move me to have fear lest the lightnes of my family shal be layd unto me for lack of more earnest and diligent instructions which shuld have been doon But blessed be God which hath geven me grace to se my default and to lament it from the bottome of my heart before my departure hence This Conscience also doth move me now to require both you and my freynd Dr. Harvy to remembre your promises made to me in time past of the pure setting furth and preaching of Gods word and his truth These promises although you shal not nede to fear to be charged with them of me hereafter before the world Yet look for none other I exhort you as my freynds but to be charged with them at Gods hand This Conscience and the love that I bear unto you byddeth me now say to you both in Gods name Fear God and love not the world for God is able to cast both body and soul into hel fire Cum exarserit in brevi ira ejus beati omnes saith the Psalme qui confidunt in eo And the saying of S. Iohn is true Quicquid est in mundo veluti concupiscentia carnis concupiscentia oculorum fastus vitae non ex patre sed ex mundo est Et mundus transit concupiscentia ejus Qui autem facit voluntatem Dei manet in aeternum If these gifts of grace which undoubtedly are necessarily required unto eternal salvation were truly and unfeignedly grafted and firmely stablished in mens hearts they wold not be so light so sodaynly to shrink from the maintenance and confession of the truth as it is now alas
that they be God's Ministers appointed by God to Rule and Govern you And therefore whoso resisteth them resisteth God's Ordinance The third Exhortation is That you Love all together like Brethren and Sistern For alas pity it is to see what Contention and Hatred one Christian-Man hath to another Not taking each other as Sisters and Brothers but rather as Strangers and mortal Enemies But I pray you learn and bear well away this one Lesson To do good to all Men as much as in you lieth and to hurt no Man no more than you would hurt your own natural and loving Brother or Sister For this you may be sure of that whosoever hateth any Person and goeth about maliciously to hinder or hurt him surely and without all doubt God is not with that Man although he think himself never so much in God's Favour The fourth Exhortation shall be to them that have great Substance and Riches of this World That they will well consider and weigh those Sayings of the Scripture One is of our Saviour Christ himself who saith It is hard for a Rich Man to enter into Heaven A sore saying and yet spoke by him that knew the Truth The second is of S. Iohn whose saying is this He that hath the Substance of this World and seeth his Brother in Necessity and shutteth up his Mercy from him how can he say he loveth God Much more might I speak of every part but Time sufficeth not I do but put you in remembrance of things Let all them that be Rich ponder well those Sentences For if ever they had any Occasion to shew their Charity they have now at this present the poor People being so many and Victuals so dear For though I have been long in Prison yet I have heard of the great Penury of the Poor Consider that that which is given to the Poor is given to God Whom we have not otherwise present corporally with us but in the Poor And now for so much as I am come to the last End of my Life whereupon hangeth all my Life passed and my Life to come either to live with my Saviour Christ in Heaven in Joy or else to be in Pain ever with wicked Devils in Hell and I see before mine Eyes presently either Heaven ready to receive me or Hell ready to swallow me up I shall therefore declare unto you my very Faith how I believe without Colour or Dissimulation For now is no time to dissemble whatsoever I have written in Times past First I believe in God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth c. and every Article of the Catholick Faith every Word and Sentence taught by our Saviour Christ his Apostles and Prophets in the Old and New Testament And now I come to the great Thing that troubleth my Conscience more than any other thing that ever I said or did in my Life and that is the setting abroad of Writings contrary to the Truth Which here now I renounce and refuse as things written with my Hand contrary to the Truth which I thought in my Heart and writ for fear of Death and to save my Life if it might be and that is all such Bills which I have written or signed with mine own Hand since my Degradation wherein I have written many things untrue And forasmuch as my Hand offended in writing contrary to my Heart therefore my Hand shall first be punished For if I may come to the Fire it shall be first burned And as for the Pope I refuse him as Christ's Enemy and Antichrist with all his false Doctrine And here being admonished of his Recantation and Dissembling he said Alas my Lord I have been a Man that all my Life loved Plainness and never dissembled till now against the Truth which I am most sorry for He added hereunto That for the Sacrament he believed as he had taught in his Book against the Bishop of Winchester And here he was suffered to speak no more So that his Speech contained chiefly three points Love to God Love to the King and Love to the Neighbour In the which talk he held Men very suspense which all depended upon the Conclusion Where he so far deceived all Mens Expectations that at the hearing thereat they were much amazed and let him go on a while till my Lord Williams bad him play the Christen Man and remember himself To whom he answered That he so did For now he spake Truth Then he was carried away and a great number that did Run to see him go so wickedly to his Death ran after him exhorting him while Time was to remember himself And one Friar Iohn a godly and well-learned Man all the way travelled with him to reduce him But it would not be What they said in particular I cannot tell but the Effect appeared in the End For at the Stake he professed that he died in all such Opinions as he had taught and oft repented him of his Recantation Coming to the Stake with a chearful Countenance and willing Mind he put off his Garments with haste and stood upright in his Shirt And a Batcheler of Divinity named Elye of Brazen-nose-College laboured to convert him to his former Recantation with the two Spanish Friars But when the Friars saw his Constancy they said in Latin one to another Let us go from him We ought not to be nigh him For the Devil is with him But the Batcheler in Divinity was more earnest with him Unto whom he answered That as concerning his Recantation he repented it right sore because he knew it was against the Truth with other words more Whereupon the Lord Williams cryed Make short Make short Then the Bishop took certain of his Friends by the Hand But the Bachelor of Divinity refused to take him by the Hand and blamed all others that so did and said He was sorry that ever he came in his Company And yet again he required him to agree to his former Recantation And the Bishop answered shewing his Hand This is the Hand that wrote it and therefore shall it suffer first Punishment Fire being now put to him he stretched out his right Hand and thrust it into the Flame and held it there a good space before the Fire came to any other Part of his Body where his Hand was seen of every Man sensibly burning crying with a loud Voice This Hand hath offended As soon as the Fire got up he was very soon Dead never stirring or crying all the while His Patience in the Torment his Courage in dying if it had been taken either for the Glory of God the Wealth of his Country or the Testimony of Truth as it was for a pernicious Error and subversion of true Religion I could worthily have commended the Example and matched it with the Fame of any Father of antient Time but seeing that not the Death but the Cause and Quarrel thereof commendeth the Sufferer I cannot but much
dispraise his obstinate stubbornness and sturdiness in dying and specially in so evil a Cause Surely his Death much grieved every Man but not after one sort Some pitied to see his Body so tormented with the Fire raging upon the silly Carcass that counted not of the Folly Other that passed not much of the Body lamented to see him spill his Soul wretchedly without Redemption to be plagued for ever His Friends sorrowed for Love his Enemies for Pity Strangers for a common kind of Humanity whereby we are bound one to another Thus I have enforced my self for your sake to discourse this heavy Narration contrary to my Mind and being more than half weary I make a short End wishing you a quieter Life with less Honour and easier Death with more Praise The 23 d of March. Yours I. A. All this is the Testimony of an Adversary and therefore we must allow for some of his Words but may be the more certain of the Arch-bishop's brave Courage Constancy Patience Christian and Holy Behaviour being related by one so affected In regard of this Holy Prelat's Life taken away by Martyrdom I cannot but take notice here of two tâ—â—ngs as tho God had given him some intimation thereof long before it happened The one is that whereas his paternal Coat of Arms was three Cranes alluding to his Name K. Henry appointed him to bear in the room thereof three Pelicans feeding their Young with their own Blood The like Coat of Arms or much resembling it I find several of Q. Elizabeth's first Bishops took whether to imitate Cranmer or to signify their Zeal to the Gospel and their readiness to suffer for it I do not determine The other Remark I make is what his Friend Andreas Osiander in an Epistle to him in the Year 1537 told him Which was that he had Animum vel Martyrio parem A Mind fit or ready for Martyrdom And so took occasion to exhort him at large to bear the Afflictions that were to attend him as though God had inspired that great German Divine with a prophetick Spirit to acquaint this his faithful Servant by what Death he should glorify God and what Sufferings he must undergo for his sake He urged him To contemn all Dangers in asserting and preserving the sincere Doctrine of Christ since as S. Paul testified That all that would live godly in Christ Iesus must suffer Persecution How much said he ought we to reckon that you are to receive the various Assaults of Satan seeing you are thus good for the Good of many But Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito Yield not to these Evils but go on the more boldly And seeing you must bear Adversity remember that we are baptized into the Death of Christ and buried together with him that we may be once made partakers of his Resurrection and eternal Happiness I do not find who were the Queen 's great Instigators now Winchester was dead stirring her up not to spare this Prelat but by any means to put him to Death and that even after his Subscription nor for what Reason of State this Resolution was taken at Court notwithstanding his former good Merits towards the Queen who therefore certainly must have felt great Strugglings before She could yield to have him die But I am apt to suspect the Cardinal who now governed the Queen had no small Hand in it to shew his Zeal for the Papacy and to revenge the Injuries done it in K. Henry's Reign as well as to succeed in his Place For his Latin Letter to the Arch-bishop mentioned above savoured of a great deal of Malice and mortal Hatred towards him In this Letter it appears the Cardinal looked upon our Arch-bishop as a mere Infidel and Apostate from Christianity and so to be treated For in the very beginning he makes it a Matter of Conscience to write to him It being in effect as much as receiving him into his House Against which S. Iohn gave a charge speaking of Christians turned Heathens That they should not be received into our Houses nor bid God speed And therefore he wrote he was once in his Mind not to speak at all to him but to God rather concerning him to send Fire from Heaven and consume him And asketh the Question as though it could not be reasonably gain-said whether he should not do justly in this Imprecation upon him who had before cast out the King out of the House of God that is the Church He meant as he explained himself casting him out as Satan cast out Man from Paradise not by force but by deceivable Counsels That him the Arch-bishop had followed and by his impious Advice forced the King to disjoin himself from the Communion of the Church and his Country together with himself And wickedly betrayed the Church the Mother of us all to the opposing whereof he gave Satan all advantages to the destruction as well of Souls as Bodies That he was the worst of all others For they being beset on all sides with divers Temptations a great while resisted and at last indeed gave way But he the Arch-bishop of his own free accord walked in the Counsel of the Ungodly and not only so but stood in it and in the Way of Sinners and confirmed the King therein And moreover sat in the Seat of the Scornful That when he came first to the Episcopal Chair he was called to it to cheat both God and Man and that he began his Actions with putting a Cheat upon the King and together with him upon the Church and his Country This and a great deal more to the same purpose he tells the Arch-bishop plainly and expresly though under a shew of great Sanctity Which shews with what an implacable Mind he stood affected towards him And thus we have brought this excellent Prelate unto his End after two Years and an half 's hard Imprisonment His Body was not carried to the Grave in State nor buried as many of his Predecessors were in his own Cathedral Church nor enclosed in a Monument of Marble or Touchstone Nor had he any Inscription to set forth his Praises to Posterity No Shrine to be visited by devout Pilgrims as his Predecessors S. Dunstane and S. Thomas had Shall we therefore say as the Poet doth Marmoreo Licinus tumulo jacet at Cato parvo Pompeius nullo Quis putet esse Deos No we are better Christians I trust than so who are taught That the Rewards of God's Elect are not Temporal but Eternal And Cranmer's Martyrdom is his Monument and his Name will out-last an Epitaph or a Shrine But methinks it is pity that his Heart that remained found in the Fire and was sound unconsumed in his Ashes was not preserved in some Urn. Which when the better Times of Q. Elizabeth came might in Memory of this truly great and good Thomas of Canterbury have been placed among his Predecessors in his Church there