The fortress of the faithful against [the] cruel assaults of poverty and hunger newly…The fortresse of the faythfull agaynst [ye] cruel assautes of pouertie and honger newlye…

Phi. Abraham rose up early in the morning, and toke bread and a bottle of water and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulders with the lad also, and sent her away. Now marc•• Hagar is put out of her masters house with her child. She knoweth not whither to go. She hath no house wherein to hide her head, but wandereth up and down in the wilderness of Beer Seba. To comfort her no man is bent: For no man is present. As ⟨image 50⟩touching her victual, it is all spent. The bread is eaten, the water is drunk up. There remaineth now in sight no more but utterly to despair of succour, and miserably to dye. Which thing Hagar considering, casteth the lad Ismael under a bush, goeth her way, and sitteth on the other side a great way, as it were a bow shoot of, because she would not see the death of the child. With how great sorrows her heart was stuffed, wha• plenty of tears gushed out of her eyes, what careful faintness occupied her whole body, no man is able to express. A child to dye for hunger, the mother knowing of it, yea and as it were in her sight, in her bosom, O dolour unspeakable. The mother likewise to be pierced with the same dart, O in comparable pain. Al things are brought here to extreme desperation ⟨image 51⟩There is no way to escape this present mischief. The child crieth, the mother weepeth: Both look for present death. But what? Is god untrue, unjust, false in his promise? Stoppeth he his cares, that he may not hear the lamentable con plaints of the to much wretched? Despiseth he the tears of the mother, and the cryings of the child? Yea rather when no remedy is looked for, god is present,¹ god comforteth, god helpeth, because he will be found a god which is faithful in all his words, which is the self trueth and can not lye, which leaveth no man succourless that calleth on him. He sendeth his holy angel to the miserable woman,² when no mortal creature is present to help. He comforteth her, and biddeth her not fear: for god hath heard, saith he, the voice of the child where he lieth. He showeth her a well of water ⟨image 51⟩