A "Note" in the _Original Letters_ relative to the English Reformation,
published by the Parker Society, p. 91., mentions the existence of an
important MS. treatise by Bishop Ridley, which had been unknown when the
works of that prelate were collected and published by the Parker Society in
1841. It seems to be desirable that the fact should be placed on record in
your most useful publication: the "Note" is as follows:--
"A copy of Bishop Ridley's 'Conference by writing with M. Hoper,
exhibited up to the council in the time of King Edward the Sixth,' was
in the possession of Archbishop Whitgift: see his _Defence of the
Answer to the Admonition_, A.D. 1574, p. 25. But its existence was
unknown (see _Ridley's Life of Bishop Ridley_, Lond. 1763, p. 315.) in
later years, till a copy, slightly imperfect, was discovered in 1844,
in the extensive collection of MSS. belonging to Sir Thomas Phillips,
Bart."
There is another MS. treatise by Bishop Ridley, that has been missing for
nearly three centuries, respecting which I should be glad to offer a
"Query:" I allude to Ridley's _Treatise on Election and Predestination_.
The evidence that such a piece ever existed is, that Ridley, in answer both
to a communication from prison, signed by Bishop Ferrar, Rowland Taylor,
John Bradford, and Archdeacon Philpot, and probably to other letters from
Bradford, wrote,--
"Where you say that, if your request had been heard, things, you think,
had been in better case than they be, know you that, concerning the
matter you mean, I have in Latin drawn out the places of the
Scriptures, and upon the same have noted what I can for the time. Sir,
in those matters I am so fearful, that I dare not speak further, yea,
almost none otherwise, than the very text doth, as it were, lead me by
the hand."--_Works of Bishop Ridley_, Parker Soc., p. 368.
And to this statement Bishop Coverdale, in the _Letters of the Martyrs_,
Day, 1564, p. 65., caused the following side-note to be printed:--
"He meaneth here the matter of God's election, whereof he afterward
wrote a godly and comfortable treatise, remaining yet in the hands of
some, and hereafter shall come to light, if God so will."