To the Right Honorable, Sir Thomas Bromley Knight

The translation of these godly and comfortable Commentaries of Master Luther upon the Epistles general of the blessed Apostles Peter and Jude, being fully finished and brought to an end, it was the easiest matter of many, where to bethink me of a fit patron, under whom to shield the labors of so worthy an organ in the Church of God, and my own travails therein (such as they be) from the rancorous rout of such bawling Baalites and arrogant Apistes, as with open jaws will be ready to bark at the sound doctrine of faith and manners, by him herein with a most bold spirit, maintained and uttered. I was (I say) soon resolved with myself, to settle my choice in your Lordship: of whose cheerful acceptance (such is your godly zeal) I could not any whit doubt: and of whose courteous construction of my honest and harmless meaning herein (such is your honorable inclination) I deemed it almost heinous, to put any diffidence, or to harbor within me so much as a spark or mite of the least suspicion. None so willfully blind, nor so witlessly besotted, but has both seen and known, what a general benefit it pleased the Lord in mercy, to show to the world, being almost wholly whelmed in the suds of superstition, and desperately drowned in the dregs of idolatry, by the ministry of this one man: opposing himself (in defense of the glorious Gospel of God) against all the peddlery of Pope and poplings, and against all the rabble of cozening caterpillars in the kingdom of darkness, characterized and branded with the mark of the Beast. The trifling trash and ridiculous riffraff of which Cacolike Synagogue (for so is it much rather to be termed than Catholic) this man with so vehement and zealous a spirit, has so thoroughly anatomized and unripped, by such inevitable reasons out of the infallible Word of God, overthrown and confuted, that the rotten rags thereof cannot possibly be pieced again: the cracked credit of such moth-eaten stuff never again salved: nor the tottering walls of such a roisting and ruffianly reign, ever any more after the former gallantry be reared up and re-established. Insomuch that it may be thought, that our merciful God, pitying the miserable thralldom wherein his people under that Romish Pharaoh had long lain captive, and in his justice, meaning at length to rid the world of those dead flies (which did nothing else but corrupt and taint sweet ointments) and as it were to lance those botches and biles, that so long had festered in the body of the commonwealth of Israel, appointed and raised up this man, to be as the mallet that should knock that blasphemous Goliath on the pate, and the leech that should apply to him and his greased generation such a strong pill, which they should never be able to swallow. His life also and conversation being so unblameable, that the starkest Balaamite and most spiteful rabbi among them (of which stamp there never wants store) could never justly reprove him of faults, other than such, as generally follow the infirmity of man. Insomuch as that reverend and renowned clerk Erasmus (whose testimony herein may stand for many, and the rather for that he somewhat too much (the more pity) for private respects, bolstered and plastered the deformities and blots of the Romish clergy) pleasantly by way of answer to a question, moved to him by the good Duke of Saxony, said: that the only reason why poor Luther was so deadly hated, was for none other cause, but for that, by his preaching and writing, he had taken away the crown from the Pope and bishops, and the belly from the monks: and that otherwise he was both a godly, a learned, a virtuous, and a modest man. In the compassing and achieving whereof, little marvel was it, though in his style and manner of writing, he seemed to some to be over crabbed, severe, sharp, and biting: For (said he) to remove sharp and gross diseases, God has sent in this last age of the world, a sharp and austere physician. And as we read of the repairers of battered Jerusalem, that with the one hand they built the walls, and with the other held their sword, to be ready to encounter the enemy: so may we say of Luther, that he with the one half of his study, combated and conflicted with the adversaries of God's truth, and with the other half, generally benefited the Church, by penning and writing sundry notable expositions upon the Sacred Scriptures, and Catholic religion. How valiantly also he played the Christian champion against merit-mongers, and all clouters up of their salvation with the fig-leaves of their own wretched works and condignity; and what an undaunted Hercules he showed himself, in chopping off still those ever-increasing heads of that Italian Hydra, sundry his learned books plentifully and at large declare, and this work among many others does sufficiently attest. The which with all humility I here offer and exhibit to your lordship: assuring myself, that for your approved wisdom, you will not only allow of it, but also for the high authority wherein you are worthily placed, you will accordingly countenance it. The Lord from heaven bless and strengthen you with his Spirit of zeal, fortitude and boldness, to be a buttress and prop for the propagation, passage, and continuance of his glorious Gospel among us, your poor countrymen of this noble realm of England, to the encouragement of all true professors of the same, and to the utter terror, extirpation, and weeding out of all cankered adversaries and malicious Grinnagods, being not only pricks in the feet, and thorns in the eyes, but even splints in the hands, and daggers at the hearts of all the godly: That by the prudent policy, and careful vigilance of your Honor, with others her Majesty's most noble and zealous counselors, all dull-drenched drones may be espied, and cast out of the hive of the commonwealth, and either be converted, lest utterly they perish, or speedily confounded, lest they procure and breed more treacherous annoyance. From Butley in Cheshire, this first of October 1581.

Your L. most humble, Thomas Newton.