Page:The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe Volume 3.djvu/528

 of God draweth near, because for them he gave his own body. Fear not death; love together one another; persevere in understanding the good will of God without ceasing. Let the terrible and horrible day of judgment be always before your eyes, that you sin not; and also the joy of eternal life, whereunto you must endeavour.

Furthermore, let the passion of our Saviour be never out of your minds; that you may bear with him and for him gladly, whatsoever shall be laid upon you. For if you shall consider well in your minds his cross and afflictions, nothing shall be grievous unto you, and patiently you shall give place to tribulations, cursings, rebukes, stripes, and imprisonment, and shall not doubt to give your lives, moreover, for his holy truth, if need require. Know ye, well-beloved, that Antichrist being stirred up against you, deviseth divers persecutions. And many he hath not hurt, no not the least hair of their heads, as by mine own example I can testify; although he hath been vehemently incensed against me. Wherefore I desire you all, with your prayers, to make intercession for me to the Lord, to give me intelligence, sufferance, patience, and constancy, that I never swerve from his divine verity. He hath brought me now to Constance. In all my journey, openly and manifestly, I have not feared to utter my name as becometh the servant of God. In no place I kept myself secret, or used any dissimulation: but never did I find in any place more pestilent and manifest enemies than at Constance; which enemies neither should I have had there, had it not been for certain of our own Bohemians, hypocrites and deceivers, who for benefits received, and stirred up with covetousness, with boasting and bragging have persuaded the people that I went about to seduce them out of the right way. But I am in good hope, that through the mercy of our God, and by your prayers, I shall persist strongly in the immutable verity of God unto the last breath. Finally, I would not have you ignorant, that whereas every one here is put in his office, I only as an outcast am neglected, &c.

I commend you to the merciful Lord Jesu Christ, our true God, and the Son of the immaculate Virgin Mary, who hath redeemed us by his most bitter death, without all merits, from eternal pains, from the thraldom of the devil, and from sin.

From Constance, the year of our Lord 1415.

My gracious benefactors and defenders of the truth! I exhort you by the bowels of Jesus Christ, that now ye, setting aside the vanities of this present world, will give your service to the Eternal King, Christ the Lord. Trust not in princes, nor in the sons of men, in whom there is no health. For the sons of men are dissemblers and deceitful. To-day they are, to-morrow they perish, but God remaineth for ever; who hath his servants, not for any need he hath of them, but for their own profit: unto whom he performeth that which he promiseth, and fulfilleth that which he purposeth to give. He casteth off no faithful servant from him, for he saith; 'Where I am, there also shall my servant be.' And the Lord maketh every servant of his to be the lord of all his possession, giving himself unto him, and with himself, all things; that without all tediousness, fear, and without all defect, he may possess all things, rejoicing with all saints in joy infinite. O happy is that servant, whom, when the Lord shall come, he shall find watching! Happy is the servant who shall receive the King of Glory with joy! Wherefore, well-beloved lords and benefactors; serve you that King in fear, who shall bring you, as I trust, now to Bohemia at this present, by his grace, in health; and hereafter, to an eternal life of glory. Fare you well, for I think that this is the last letter that I shall write to you; who, to-morrow, as I suppose, shall be purged in hope of Jesu Christ, through bitter death for my sins. The things that happened to me this night I am not able to write, Sigismund hath done all things with me deceitfully. God forgive him, and only for your sakes. You also heard the sentence which he awarded against me. I pray you have no suspicion of faithful Vitus.