brooks be clear, and the head-spring troubled? Your lot hath no such affinity with the nature of a phoenix that you should reap your offspring from your own ruins; you are not so tied in the straits of the pelican as to revive your issue by murdering yourself; neither we a generation of vipers that cannot come to life but by our parent's destruction. Yea, rather it is the thing we have chiefly in request, that we may be as near linked in spiritual, as we are in natural consanguinity; and, that living with you in the compass of our Church, we may, to our unspeakable comfort, enjoy in heaven your most desired company. Blame me not, good Father, if zeal of your recovery has carried me beyond the limits of a letter. So important a truth cannot be too much avowed, nor too many means used to draw a soul out of the misery of schism. Howsoever, therefore, the soft gales of your morning pleasures lulled you in slumbers; howsoever the violent heat of noon might awake affections, yet now in the cool and calm of the evening retire to a Christian rest, and close up the day of your life with a clear sunset; that leaving all darkness behind you, and carrying in your conscience the light of grace, you may escape the horror of eternal night, and pass from the day of mortality to the Sabbath of everlasting rest and humbly desiring that my sincere affection may find excuse of my boldness, I here conclude. II. Letter written to his Brother. NDERSTANDING that you were resolved UNDE upon a course which most nearly toucheth the salvation of your soul, I received such contentment as a sincere and most faithful love feeleth in the long desired happiness of so dear a friend. But hearing since, that you will dwell in danger and linger in new delays, my hopes hang in suspense, and my heart in grief, angry with the chains that thus enthral you, and sorry to see you captive to your own fears. Shrine not any longer a dead soul in a living body: bail reason out of senses' prison, that after so long a bondage in sin, you may enjoy your former liberty in God's Church, and free your thought from the servile awe of uncertain perils. If all should take effect, that your timorous surmises suggest, yet could not even the misery of your present estate, with the loss of your patronage, and keeping you in this disfavour of God, have either left you any greater benefit to lose, or any deeper infelicity to incur. Weigh with yourself at how easy a price you rate God, whom you are content to sell for the use of your substance, yea, and for the preventing a loss which haply will never ensue. Have you so little need of Him, that you can so ance. your long forbear Him? or is He so worthless in estimation that you will venture nothing for Him? Adjourn not, I pray you, a matter of such importRemember that one sin begetteth another, and when you yield to nurse daily this venomous brood in your breast, what can you look for, but, that like vipers, they should compass your destruction. Custom soon groweth to a second nature, and being once master of the mind, it can hardly be cast out of possession. If to-day you find yourself faint, fainter you are like to be to-morrow, if you languish in the same distaste without cure, and suffer the corrosive of sin to consume you without opposing its violence. How can you flatter yourself with an ungrounded hope of mercy, since to continue in it so long, is the surest way to stop the fountain of it for ever? The more you offend God, the less you deserve His favour; and to be deaf when He calleth you, is to close His ears against all cries in the time of your necessity. If you mean to surrender your heart to Him, why do you lend so much leisure to the devil to strengthen his hold; and why stop up the passages with mire by which the pure waters of grace must flow into your soul? Look if you can upon a crucifix without blushing; do but count the five wounds of Christ once over without a bleeding conscience. Read your sins in those characters, and examine your thoughts whether the sight do please them. Alas! if that innocent blood move you not, or if you can find still in your heart to open afresh such undeserved wounds, I would I might send you the sacrifice of my dearest veins, to try whether nature could awake remorse, and prepare a way for grace's entrance. Sorrow puts me to silence, and therefore, Brother, I must end, desiring you to have pity on yourself, whose harms make so bitter an impression on Ager's mind. God of His infinite goodness strengthen you in all your good designments. III. STATE PAPER OFFICE, DONCASTER. No. 190. Endorsed: Mr. Topcliffe about Mr. Bellamy, Septem. 1592. T may please yo' Lo. At my retorne out of the IT cuntrie this night, I did heare yt Mr. Bellamyes too dowghters are comitted to the gayt howse. But the old hene that hatched these chickens (the worst that ever was) is yett at a lodginge: Lett her be sent to the prison there at the gayt howse, and severd from her dowghters, and her spous Thomas Bellamye comitted to S. Katheryns, And yow shall heare prooved cause enough, and see it woorke a straundge example (hereaboutts). But ne Younge nor other cōmyssyoner must knowe that I do knowe the rest, or am a doer in this devyce. Nor by my will other than his Lordship that was wt yow when yow did concluyde what should be doone at grenwidge last. Lett them feele a day or too impresonment, And then your Lo: shall see me play the partt of a trew man, wt charity in the end, to the honor of the stayt; and so in hast at mydnight this fryday, Yr Lo: at comandement, RIC: TOPCLYFFE. To the right honor, my Lorde IV. STATE PAPER OFFICE, DONCASTER. No. 197. T Endorsed: The exaiation of Mrs. Bel lamye and her three children. HEXAMINATION of Katheryne Bellamye wiffe of Richard Bellamye of harrowehill taken before me Richard Yonge the xviijth day of Julye 1594. The said ext saieth that she dothe goe to churche, e |