Two letters I have received from you, dear sister, both almost at one time, the one is dated at London the 28th of November, the other of the same place the 2d of December. The letter of the last date I first read, which made mention of your trouble be reason of a suddan fire in a lodging near to you; that you had sought all means for our support, as well of those of high as of low degree; but that it was not needfull that any thing should be sent unto us, because it was supposed that the highest would support us; and {392} last, that ye had not received the answer of your doubts. In your other letters, after your most comfortable discourse of God’s providence for his people in their greatest necessitie, ye godlie and trulie conclude that neither could their unworthiness, neither yet their want of things judged necessarie for their preservation, stop his majestie’s mercie from them. Thereafter ye will me to avoid danger, and rather to fight by prayer in some place removed from danger than expose my self to the hazard of battell, and so ye conclude by praising God’s mercie as did Jeremy in his greatest anguish, &c. What support should come to us be consent of counsell and authoritie I am uncertain. But suppose it shall be greater than yet is bruted, that ought not to stay the liberall hands of the godlie to support us privatelie. For the public support of an army shall not make such as now be superexpended able to serve without private support. I will make the matter more plain be one example. I know one man that since the 10th of May hath spent in this action thirteen thousand crowns of the summe [sonne], besydes his victuals and other fruits of the ground. His treasure being now consumed, he cannot, without support, susteane the number which before he brought to the field. If he and such others that are in lyke condition with him shall be absent, or yet if numbers shall decay, our enemies shall seem to prevail in the field, and therfor desired I some collection to be made, to the end that the present necessitie of some might have been relieved. If the matter pertained not to my native country, I would be more vehement in persuasion, but God shall support even how, when, and by whom it shall please his blessed majestie. Sorry I am that ye have not received my answer unto your doubts, not so much that I think that ye greatlie need them, as that I would not put you in suspicion that I contemned your requests. The rest of my wife hath been so unrestful since her arrival here, that scarcelie could she tell upon the morrow what she wrote at night. She cannot find my first extract. And therfor, if any scruple remaine in your conscience, put pen again to paper, and look for ane answer, as God shall give opportunitie. God make yourself participant of the same comfort which you wrote unto me: and in very deed, dear sister, I have no less {393} need of comfort, notwithstanding that I am not altogether ignorant, than hath the bound