To her Majesty Adelaide

THE QUEEN DOWAGER

Madam,

It gave me singular pleasure to be informed by the Publisher that your Majesty had allowed him to dedicate this precious Relic of the Founders of our Established Church, entitled by the original Editor, Bishop Coverdale, “Certain Godly Letters of the Martyrs” to yourself, the beloved Queen Dowager of this Country.

The permission to dedicate this volume was given before our national affliction, in the loss of our late beloved Monarch, a cause of grief to the Country at large, but more especially such to yourself. The permission was given when you were surrounded with the splendours and influence of Royalty, but not then even unmindful how needful it is to have the provision here set before us for the day of trial and sorrow. It is my hearty prayer that your Majesty may find in these precious Letters such seasonable truths as will very greatly comfort and sustain your mind in your present hours of seclusion and sorrow. The word of the living God has taught us, that, heavy as any trial may be in itself, when viewed in connection with those unseen and eternal things to which we are hastening, it must be called a light affliction which is but for a moment, and may be regarded, as working out a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

This Work is worthy of Royal Patronage. Did the principles contained in it universally prevail, righteousness and love would be general through our Country; and the Monarch would reign over a people, every where loyal, and wholly at peace with each other, from the only solid, and permanent principles, the fear and the love of the Most High God.

The Word of Him, who is the living God, was the great standard by which our Reformers tried every thing. Under the directions of that Word they laid those truly Christian foundations of Government, which so peculiarly distinguish our whole Constitution, and which are so clearly developed in the Coronation Service, the Parliamentary Prayers, the Articles, the Homilies, and the Liturgy; and thus was established at length the great and fundamental principle that Christianity is “part and parcel of the Law of this land.”

Never was it more needful to revert to these foundations than at the present time, when there is an universal restlessness from the desire for change, and an universal shaking of things long established.

Such a publication as this, now recovered from long oblivion and restored afresh to the present generation, disclosing to us the inward motives of the chief Founders of our Reformed Church, and the very spirit in which they sought the national prosperity, may it is hoped, be peculiarly seasonable, and specially adapted to lead all minds to return to those first, and now well-proved principles, which are the very foundation of our Country’s welfare, greatness, and blessedness.

I do therefore consider it as a token of good to our land, that it pleased Almighty God to dispose you, by allowing the dedication of this Work to yourself, to take it thus under your patronage.

If it should appear on comparing the truths here set forth, with the sentiments current and prevalent in this day, that we have as a nation departed from the high standard of our Protestant forefathers, we may be assisted by this seasonable re-publication, in obeying the directions of the Supreme Head of the Church, to those in such a state.—Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found thy works perfect before God. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent.

Every thing human is changing, fluctuating, and passing away. All earthly power, though entrusted of God to those who wield it, for the good of others, and to be honoured and submitted to by every one for conscience sake, is fading and transitory; but the word of the Lord endureth for ever. It is the one thing sure amidst the vast variety of human sentiments; the one thing that is abiding amidst a dying world. The Reformers of the 16th century were mighty in the Scriptures, and therefore they were not only mighty to pull down all error, but mighty also in the more difficult and arduous work of instituting those standing Ordinances of God now amongst us which have been such a lasting blessing to our Land.

Nor may we be without the cheering hope that if their Institutions be duly prized by us and freely communicated from us, these Ordinances of our Protestant Forefathers may be a yet more extensive blessing, through our beloved Country, to the whole earth. The loving-kindness of God is ever overflowing as well as unchangeable and enduring. Receiving through his love our Liturgy and really prizing it, British Christians have translated it into many foreign languages for the use of Jews and of Gentiles. Men may now behold, scattered over our wide-spread possessions in Asia, Africa, and America, as well as in vast regions, and also in remote Isles of the Ocean, not under British Dominions, congregations assembling from Sabbath to Sabbath, where the holy, pure, and heavenly prayers of our Liturgy are offering up by devout worshippers of every clime and of varied language, each addressing the true God in his own tongue wherein he was born. Nor are we without good hope that Britain, which received from Judea that inestimable treasure the word of God, will speedily render back to that Country for the use of Jewish Christian Congregations there, our precious liturgy, as an acceptable present to the daughter of Zion now sitting in the dust at Jerusalem. That summary of the faith and devotion of the Churches of Christ in successive ages, drawn from the Bible, already sounds forth in the Hebrew Language in a service at the Episcopal Jews’ Chapel in London, and for transplanting it to a Christian Church on the literal Mount Zion, the way is now prepared. May our merciful God thus realize to our Country that original promise made to the Father of the faithful, and sure to all his seed, I will bless thee, and thou shalt be a blessing!

That it may please the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, long to preserve your Majesty to adorn by Christian graces your elevated station; and that all in authority over us may live in the personal enjoyment of the heavenly light and holy love of God’s truth, and in the firm maintenance of that truth, and seeking its wide diffusion, as the true means of national greatness and prosperity, is the hearty prayer of one who has now the honour to subscribe himself, with deep respect,

Your Majesty’s faithful servant,

EDWARD BICKERSTETH.

Watton Rectory,

Herts. August 10, 1837.

Introductory Remarks

on the

LETTERS OF THE REFORMERS

You have here before you, Christian reader, the choicest portion of the Book of Martyrs in the Letters of the Reformers, gathered by that eminent servant of God Myles Coverdale, Bishop of Exeter, the same to whom we are indebted for the first printed English Bible, which was completed October 4, 1535. The present volume was published by Coverdale in 1564. It contains the most spiritual letters of the Martyrs, written during their sufferings, and it is much to be regretted that this excellent work should have become so scarce and costly as to have been till now almost inaccessible.

The publisher, kindly acceding to the request of the author of these remarks, undertook to reprint it, and that at so reasonable a price, that it is hoped it may soon be in the possession of every Christian family in our country, preserving among us the hallowed memory of those faithful Martyrs for Christ, through whose sufferings, by the loving kindness of our God, the pure Gospel of Christ has been continued amongst us for 300 years.

This publication seems eminently seasonable at a period when some in our country seem relinquishing without regret, and rather hailing the change as a mark of freedom, those characters of our Constitution to which we owe, under God who gave all to us, so much of our national greatness, liberty and blessedness; I mean the truly Christian foundations of the English government in the profession and national maintenance of a pure Protestant form of religion, and in a constitution requiring those in authority avowedly to act as God’s ministers for good.

There has been much spoken and written on the subject of epistolary compositions, the faults to be avoided and the excellencies to be sought after; the danger of affectation and the beauty of simplicity; while the most important element, the themes of our mutual communion, has been too much overlooked. We see here a beautiful specimen of what Christian correspondence may be, and in its measure should ever be:—the heart full of the love of Christ, pouring out of this fulness, and seeking from its own blessed enjoyment of the truth to bring others to the same happiness; calm in the midst of the fiery trial from inward peace with God, and, with the holy love which the Gospel inspires, labouring to reclaim the wandering, to confirm the wavering, to comfort the feeble minded, and every where to hold forth the word of life, in the light of which is the true holiness and blessedness of men.

The very first letter in this volume by Archbishop Cranmer is full of instruction. On a careless reading, we might wonder why Coverdale should have inserted one at the very beginning that seems so humiliating. It was a scriptural judgment that led him to this. The spirit of the world is a spirit of proud self justification; the spirit of a Christian is self condemnatory; a spirit that makes us keenly sensitive to our own faults, and ever ready to confess them where we have been led into error. How...