AN HUMBLE SUPPLICATION UNTO GOD, FOR THE RESTORING OF HIS HOLY WORD UNTO THE BY THOMAS BECON. THE SUPPLICATION. Wisd. viii. Psal. xcv. Deut. xxviii. Amos viii. Ecclus. x. O MOST dear, gentle, loving, and merciful Father, Maker, Ruler, Conserver, and Gen. i. Disposer of all things both in heaven and in earth; without whose will, ordinance, John i. and commandment nothing is done that is done; in whose hands all the coasts of the earth, and the hearts of princes and of all other thy human creatures are, to be Prov. xxi. ruled, ordered, and bent as thy godly wisdom doth appoint; from whom also, as from a most righteous judge, cometh prosperity and adversity, health and sickness, wealth Ecctus. xi. and scarceness, peace and trouble, blessings and plagues, the gift of thy holy word ex and the taking away of the same, the sending of faithful workmen into thy harvest and Matt. ix. the displacing of them again, the appointment of godly magistrates and setting up Job xxxiv. of hypocrites and tyrants for the punishment of the disobedient, ungodly, and stiffnecked people we feel, we feel, yea, we Englishmen feel, O Father of mercies and 2 Cor. i. God of all consolation, so great a dung-hill of sin within us, such vileness, such cor- Jer. xvii. ruptness, such unthankfulness, and such disobedience against thee and thy blessed will, that, except thou hadst given us a commandment to pray, and also joined unto the Prayer. same a faithful and loving promise that thou wilt hear us whensoever we call on Psal. 1. thee in the name of Jesus Christ, thy dearly-beloved Son, our Lord and our alone Matt. vii. Saviour, we never durst so much as once to lift up our eyes unto thee, and to approach unto the gracious and merciful throne of thy divine Majesty, for a redress of those evils wherewith at this present (alas for sorrow!) we are miserably yet worthily plagued, punished, and tormented. : John xiv. xv. But, O heavenly Father, and our most benign and gentle Lord, thou, graciously considering both our vileness and weakness of conscience, hast notwithstanding given us a commandment by thy servant David, not to fear, but frankly to flee unto thee, as unto a most strong, mighty, and invincible bulwark, by fervent prayer in all our troubles; and hast also promised, "not for any works of righteousness that we have Tit. iii. done," but for thine exceeding great and unspeakable mercy's sake, to hear us and to satisfy our requests, saying: "Call on me in the day of thy trouble; and I will Psal. 1. deliver thee; and thou shalt honour me." Here have we poor wretches, unto our great comfort, both a commandment of thee to pray, and also a promise that thou wilt hear us. Luke xi. And thy most dear and only-begotten Son commandeth us not only to ask, to Matt. vii. seek, and to knock, but he also promiseth, that whosoever will ask, the same shall receive; whosoever will seek, the same shall find; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened; yea, his promise is that, whatsoever we ask of thee in his name, thou John xiv. wilt give it us. We, being encouraged, and as it were under-propped with this thy gracious commandment to pray and loving promise to be heard, are bold at this present, in the name of Christ, to come unto the merciful throne of thy godly Majesty, and before the same to pour out the sorrowful griefs of our most sorrowful hearts, most humbly beseeching thee for thy mercies' sake, for thy promises' sake, for thy name's sake, yea, for thy dear Christ's sake, that thou, turning away thine eyes from our sins, wilt behold thine holy Anointed, whom thou hast made our Mediator and 1 Tim. ii. Advocate, for whose sake thou hast openly declared, even from the heavens, that Matt. xvii. thou art well pleased with man, and for his dignity and worthiness graciously hear Luke ix. the lamentable petitions and humble requests of our bruised hearts and troubled con sciences. Ah, most dear Father! great are our miseries; but greater are our sins: grievous are our troubles; but more grievous are the wickednesses which we, most wretched sinners, have committed against thy fatherly goodness: intolerable are the plagues that be laid upon us; but those through our unthankfulness and wicked living (we freely con [BECON, III.] 15 1 John ii. Mark ix. 2 Pet. i. Jer. xvii. fess) have we most worthily deserved, which have so oft deserved the very torments of hell-fire; alas, wretches that we are! and yet are we compelled even of necessity (for vain is the help that cometh from man, yea, "cursed be he that putteth his trust in man, and maketh flesh his arm") to flee for succour unto thee, whom we have so oft and so grievously offended; whose righteousness notwithstanding in punishing sinners when we behold, we begin to despair and to cast away all hope; but when we behold thy mercy, set forth in the precious blood of thy most dear Son Christ Jesu our Lord, we take a good heart unto us, and, setting before our eyes thy most loving, sweet, and fatherly promises in hearing us for Christ's sake, we are encouraged to believe that, although our sins be never so great and grievous, never so abominable and intolerable, and we were never so wicked and filthy sinners, yet for thy mercy's sake, for thy promise sake, for thy name's sake, yea, for thy dear Christ's sake, thou wilt mercifully hear us and grant us our earnest requests, yea, and that so much the more because the matter is not only ours but thine also; again, seeing we come not unto thee to desire long life, gold, and riches with the wicked worldlings, nor yet to crave at thy hand wealth and pleasure, bishoprics and benefices, deaneries, prebends, and such other worldly promotions, with the swinish and beastly epicures, "whose God their belly is;" but our humble supplication, our earnest man's desire. request, our hearty desire is only that thou wilt consider thine own glory, the hallowing of thy blessed name, the avancement of thy glorious kingdom, the accomplishment of thy heavenly will, the honour of thy only-begotten Son, the setting forth of his holy gospel, the pureness of the christian religion, the sincere preaching of thy lively word, the true administration of thy wholesome sacraments, and the salvation of such as thy dearly-beloved Son hath bought from the tyranny of Satan with the price of his most precious and dear heart-blood. Phil. iii. The christian Exod. xx. the christian common wealth. These things, these things, O heavenly Father, do we poor wretches crave and beg at thy merciful hand. These things, these things, even with sorrowful groanings and lamentable tears, do we miserable captives desire thee to consider, and not so to suffer thine adversaries to triumph as though there were no God at all, no Christ, no gospel, no faith, no true religion, but whatsoever pleaseth the hypocrites to command thy people to believe. Thou callest thyself a "jealous God:" why then dost thou suffer thy people, thy congregation, thy flock, thine heritage, to be thus seduced and led away from thee Pestilences of unto all kind of spiritual fornication and abominable whoredom by that antichrist of Rome, that great Baal, that stout Nemroth, that false prophet, that beast, that whore of Babylon, that son of perdition, and by his abominable adherents, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, suffragans, archdeacons, deans, provosts, prebendaries, commissaries, parsons, vicars, purgatory-rakers, priests, monks, friars, canons, nuns, anchors, anchoresses, pardoners, proctors, scribes, officials, sumners, lawyers, massmongers, canonists, papists, antichrists, mammonists, epicures, libertines, with all the rabble of beastly hypocrites that have received the beast's mark, which do nothing else than seek how they may establish their antichristian kingdom by suppressing thy holy word and leading the people into all kind of blindness, errors, and lies? Isai. Lxlii.] Abominations. Deut. iv. Thou callest thyself a Lord, and thou sayest that thou wilt give thy glory to none other, nor thy praise unto graven images: how cometh it then to pass that thou sufferest thy glory so to decay in the realm of England, so many to steal away thy praise and honour, by saying their idolatrous and devilish masses, by ministering a sort of heathenish and Jewish ceremonies, by praying unto dead saints, by blotting out of the temples thy holy law, there written according to thy commandment for the edifying of thy people, and by setting up in the stead thereof idols and mawmets, clean contrary to thy blessed word? Thou callest thyself a lion and " a consuming fire," and threatenest utter destruction unto thine adversaries: why sufferest thou then these antichrists thus to rise, roar, and rage against the testament of thy most dear Son, to beat down thy truth, to call thy holy law heresy, to banish the preaching of the gospel and the true use of the sacrament, and to seek the destruction of so many as unfeignedly love thee and thy blessed word? Thou promisest that so many as hate Sion, that is to say, thy faithful congre- Psal. cxxix. gation, shall be confounded and brought to nought: how cometh it then to pass that the wicked now flourish like the green olive-tree, living in all wealth, pomp, and pleasure; and thy people, whom thou hast sealed with thy holy Spirit unto everlasting life, are most miserably entreated, some banished, some in prison, some cruelly murdered, but all in most sorrowful miseries and in miserable sorrows? Thou promisest that thou wilt deliver thy flock from the hand of the wicked Ezek. xxxiv. shepherds, and that thou thyself wilt feed them in most pleasant and sweet pastures: ah, good God! how cometh it then to pass that, whereas before thy sheep were fed with the comfortable meat of thy glorious gospel by the ministry of the godly-learned preachers, the faithful shepherds are driven away, and a rabble of raven- Acts xx. ing wolves are brast into the sheep-fold, which spare not the flock, but cruelly murder, not only their bodies by imprisoning, hanging, heading, and brenning them, but their souls also, by teaching them wicked and pestilent doctrine? the eighth. the sixth. Thy most dear Son both promised and prophesied that "every plant" which Matt. xv. thou, the heavenly Father, hast "not planted, shall be plucked up by the roots;" but we see it otherwise come to pass in the realm of England. For such plants as the devil and his chaplains had planted were, through the diligence and godly zeal of thy servants, king Henry the eighth and king Edward the sixth, most blessedly King Henry plucked up, and thy holy ordinances again planted, unto the great joy and unspeak- King Edward able comfort of all the faithful. But now, through the tyranny and blind zeal of certain, are thy blessed statutes plucked up by the roots, and set in again are the damnable decrees and crooked constitutions of antichrist, unto the exceeding great grief, sorrow, and pensiveness of all faithful Christians. Ah, Lord God! seem these things matters of small importance before the eyes of thy divine Majesty? Can these outrageous things be done in earth, and thou wink at them in heaven? Art not thou he that keepeth Israel? But "he neither sleepeth nor slumbereth," saith the Psal. exxi. psalmograph, "that keepeth Israel." Arise, therefore, O Lord: why sleepest thou? Is thy ear so stopped that thou canst no more hear? and is thy hand so shortened Isai. lix. that it can no more help? O Lord, arise for thy mercies' sake, and help us. Haste thee to deliver us for thy name sake; for great are our troubles, and intolerable are our miseries. Ah, Lord! vouchsafe once again to look down from heaven, and consider the lamentable state of the realm of England, and of the godly inhabitants thereof, which desire nothing so greatly as to see thy true honour perfectly set forth, thy holy word truly preached, the christian religion highly advanced, and thy holy name sanctified, praised, magnified, and commended for ever. the eighth. the sixth. Ah, Lord God! heretofore in the time of thy blessing thou gavest to the realm of King Henry England a man to reign over it, under whom the church was purged of many enormities and great abuses, and the true religion began to have good success. And when it was thy godly pleasure to call him from this vale of misery unto thy heavenly kingdom, thou gavest unto us his son to be our king, a prince, although young in King Edward years and tender in age, yet ancient in the knowledge of thee, of thy Son Christ, and of thy holy word, and, as another Josias, altogether bent utterly to weed out all false religion, superstition, hypocrisy, papistry, &c., and after a most perfect manner to set up thy holy religion and to advance the hearty favourers of the same, unto the great and wonderful example of all christian princes. But (alas for sorrow!) this most goodly and godly imp, this most christian king, this noble young Josias was, for our unthankfulness and wicked living, taken away from us before the time, unto our great sorrow and unspeakable heart's disease: whose death was the beginning, and is now still the continuance of all our sorrows, griefs, and miseries. For in the stead of that virtuous prince thou hast set to rule over us a woman, whom nature hath formed to be in subjection unto man, and whom thou by thine holy apostle commandest to 1 Tim. ii. keep silence, and not to speak in the congregation. Ah, Lord! to take away the empire from a man, and to give it unto a woman, seemeth to be an evident token of thine anger toward us Englishmen. For by the prophet thou, being displeased with thy people, threatenest to set women to rule over them, as people unworthy to Isai. iii. have lawful, natural, and meet governors to reign over them. And verily, though we |