A06710:35
A comfortable epistle, too God's faithful people in EnglandA comfortable epistle, too Goddes faythfull people in Englande
A comfortable epistle, too God's faithful people in England wherein is declared the cause of taking away the true Christen religion from them, & how it may be recovered and obtained again, newly made by Thomas Becon.A comfortable epistle, too Goddes faythfull people in Englande wherein is declared the cause of takynge awaye the true Christen religion from them, & howe it maye be recouered and obtayned agayne, newly made by Thomas Becon.
printed by J. Lambrecht?, 1554
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
¶ The. ix. Chapter.
That God showeth his present help 1most of all in greatest extremities / divers histories declare evidently in the holy scriptures / whereof part briefly to touch / it shall not be out of the way / that we may learn in the middest of greatest evils not to despair of the mighty working of God / but to conceive assure hope / and to look for all good things at the hand of the Lord our God. Who knoweth not unto what great extremity the children of 2Israel were brought after their deliverance out of Egypt? Came they not to this point in their journey / that before them there was no way to go into / but the read sea / wherein they must needs be drowned / if they went forward / and behind them was king Pharaoh with all his army / ready to slay them / if they tarried? Here natural reason saw nothing but present death. Before them was the read sea / unable to be passed through / and behind them their ⟨image 18⟩mortals fo• with his bloody & cruel host ready to kill them. Oh / to what extremities are the Israelites come? Yet behold / 3that merciful God / which is ever true & faithful in his promises / found a way for them to escape / where all reason / wit / wisdom / discretion / experience / and policy of man could do nothing in the matter. He caused the sea to divide it self / so that in the middest thereof he made a dry path for his people safely to pass through / the sea standing on both sides of them like two walls / and the Israelites being once passed through / that which was a safeguard too Gods people / was an utter destruction to their enemies. For the sea ate the commandment of God closed again together / and drowned Pharaoh with all his company. O the wonderful works of God.