II. and providence, as thou shalt think good, may live a godly BOOK life to thy praise, and good example of thy people: and after this life may reign with thee for ever through Christ our Saviour. To whom with thee and the Holy Ghost, three Persons and one God, be praise and thanksgiving in all congregations for ever and ever. Amen. Number II. Another prayer by the same reverend person; for faithful preachers to be sent out by God, to preach the gospel at this needful time. MOST mighty Lord, and merciful Father; who didst stir up the Jews to the building of thy house by the preaching of thy prophet Aggeus: wee thy miserable creatures beseech thee for thy mercy sake, to have mercy upon us, and thrust out diligent workmen into thy harvest. Send forth faithful preachers, which may by the hard threatnings of thy law, and comfortable promises of thy gospel, awake all thy people out of their dead sleep, wherein they ly wallowing, forgetting thee and their duty. Wee have all sinned from the highest to the lowest, in not earnestly professing thy holy word and religion, both the princes, rulers, and magistrates, bishops, ministers of all sorts, and all the people, no state nor condition of men hath done their duty herein unto our onely Lord and God. Therefore we all with heavy hearts ask thee forgiveness of our great sins. Open our eyes, O good God, that we may consider the plagues that thou hast laid on us so long for our great disobedience towards thee and thy word. Give us new hearts, and renew thy holy Spirit within us, O Lord. That both the rulers may faithfully minister justice, punish sin, defend and maintain the preaching of thy word; and that all ministers may diligently teach thy deerly beloved flock: and that all people may obediently learn and follow thy law, to the glory of thy holy name: for Christ's sake, our onely Lord and Saviour. BOOK MSS. Number III. Another prayer by the same; against error and popery. MOST righteous and wise Judge, eternal God and merciful Father; which of thy secret judgment hast suffered false prophets in all ages to rise, for the trial of thine elect: that the world might know who would stedfastly stick unto thy undoubted and infallible truth, and who would be carried away with every vain doctrine; and yet by the might 105 of thy holy Spirit hast confounded them all, to thy great glory, and comfort of thy people: have mercy upon us, we beseech thee, and strengthen our weakness against all assaults of our enemies. Confound all popery, as thou didst the doctrine of the Pharisees. Strengthen the lovers of thy truth, to the confusion of all superstition and hypocrisy. Give us due love and reverence of thy holy word. Defend us from men's traditions. Encrease our faith. Grant us grace never to fall from thee; but uprightly to walk according as thou hast taught us, swerving neither to the right hand nor to the left: neither adding to, nor taking any thing away from thy written word; but submitting our selves wholly to thy good will and plesure, may so pass this transitory life, that through thy goodness we may live everlastingly with thee in thy glory, thro' Christ our Lord. Who with thee and the Holy Ghost liveth and reignest one God and Saviour for ever and ever. Number IV. Richard, bishop of Carlile, to the lord treasurer: upon his remove to Durham. MY most humble duty and commendation of all faithful Burghlian. service unto you, my dear and singular good lord, ever pre penes me. mised; whose I rest in the Lord Jesus, &c. I am to render not only by these letters most intyre thanks to your honour, for your goodness towards me, in commending me to her highness in way of my preferment to Deereham, and for interposing your credit for my service, &c. which I II. understand from Mr. Warcoppe, your good lordship hath BOOK in most amplewise done; but also to devow my self and service unto your honour for ever; and to assure you, that neither I shall be found unthankful or ingrate, nor unmindful to accomplish your lordship's behests: and so, as I trust, shall tend to th'advauncement of God's glory, and her highness good service, and your lordships good comfort: and that within short time, if I may be well backed at the beginning by her highness and your good lordship, and other of the honourable privy council, as I doubt not but I shall be. My singular good lord and patron, I most humbly beseech your honour, to account and accept of me and mine as your own: and so to use and command the same. Your lordship was mine onely preferrer to Carliell, where I have served my seven years; and I trust, discharged the promise yee then made unto her highness on my behalf; which in this poor and bare living was all that I could do. Now by your good means being preferred to a better, if in time I be not thankful, &c. if I discharge not my duty, and answer not your undertakings, then deserve I to be noted as most ingrate, and as the poet saith, Ingratum dixeris, quidvis dixeris. And so beseeching your lordship of continuance of your good favour towards me, I rest your own. And here cease to trouble your lordship by letters any further, until it may please God that I may come my self to do my duty to your lordship. Which that your good lordship would hasten, and consummate that which you have begun for me your poor client, I most humbly pray. God bless and encrease his heavenly graces upon your lordship, with prosperous health and encrease of much honour. Amen. From the Rose-Castle in Combreland, the xxiiii. of March, 1576. Your good lordships most bound, and at commaundment, II. The lord treasurer to the queen. In relation to his daugh 106 ter, and the earl of Oxford her husband, unkind to her. Written March the 3. 1576. MSS. Burghlian, penes me. MOST sovereign lady. As I was accustomed from the beginning of my service to your majesty, until of late, by the permission of your goodness, and by occasion of the place wherein I serve your majesty, to be frequently an intercessor for others to your majesty; and therein I did find your majesty always inclinable to give me gracious audience: so now do I find in the latter end of my years a necessary occasion to be an intercessor to your majesty, or rather an immediate petitioner for my self, and an intercessor for another next to my self, in a cause, godly, honest, and just. And therefore having had proof of your majesties former favours, and so important, I doubt not but to find the influence of your grace in a cause so neer touching my self, as your majesty will conceive it doth. And yet my intention is not to molest your majesty with the particularities of the same, neither as I now do, would I have attempted, but that I fear my silence, while others should be open mouthed, and either of ingratitude, or of purpose, might occasion some other conceit with your majesty, than I am sure the truth of the cause shall work in you. To enter to trouble your majesty with circumstances of my cause I mean not, for sundry respects, but chiefly for two. The one is, that I am very loth to be more cumbersome to your majesty than need shall compel me: the other is, for that I hope in God's goodness, and for reverence born to your majesty, the success thereof may have a better end than the beginning threatneth. But your majesty may think my suit will be very long, where I am so long ere I begin. And truly, most gracious sovereign lady, it is true, that the nature of my cause is such, as I have no plesure to enter into, but had rather seek means to shut it up than to lay it open: not for lack of the soundness thereof on my part, but from the brickleness of BOOK others from whom the ground-work procedeth. My suit therefore shall be presently to your majesty, but in general sort, that where I am, by God's visitation with many infirmities, (and yet noe great,) stayed from coming to do my duty to your majesty at this time; and my daughter the countess of Oxford also occasioned by her great grief to be absent from your majesties court; and that the occasion of her absence may be diversely reported to your majesty, as I said before, by some of ignorance, by some percase otherwise; it may please your majesty, because the ground and working thereupon toucheth me as neer as any worldly cause in my conceit can do, to continue your princely consideration of us both. Of me, as an old worn servant, that dare compare with the best, the greatest, the oldest, and the youngest, for loyalty and devotion: giving place to many others in other worldly qualities, as your majesty shall prefer any before me: and of my daughter, your majesties most humble young servant, as of one that is toward your majesty in dutiful love and fear, yea, in fervent admiration of your graces, to contend with any her equals. And in the cause betwixt my lord of Oxford and her, whether it be for respect of misliking in me, or misdemeaning of her, (whereof I cannot yet know the certainty,) I do avow, in the presence of God and of the angels, whom I do call as ministers of his ire, if in this I do utter any untruth, I have not in his absence on my part omitted any occasion to do him good, for himself and his causes. No, I have not in thought imagined any thing offensive to him. But contrariwise I have been as diligent for his causes to his benefit, as I have been for my own. And this I pronounce of knowledge for my self. And therefore, if contrary to my deserts 107 I should otherwise be judged, or suspected, I should receive great injury. For my daughter, though nature would make me to speak favourably, yet now I have taken God and his angels to be witnesses of my writing, I renounce nature, and II. |