“By the grace of God I am what I am." These words were penned by one who had fully learned their meaning. This was no mere theoretical statement on the part of the Apostle, but a free and frank confession, based upon a deep and tried experience, that he was a debtor to the free and sovereign grace of God. Once he was a persecutor of the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, incessantly occupied in haling men and women to prison; and, when he penned these words, the Apostle was thoroughly satisfied that, but for the grace of God, he would have continued this bloodthirsty career unto the day of his death. But he was mercifully arrested as he was on an errand of persecution.…

Rev. John Bradford was born at Manchester, in Lancashire; he was a good Latin scholar, and afterward became a servant of Sir John Harrington, knight. He continued several years in an honest and thriving way; but the Lord had elected him to a better function. Hence he departed from his master, quitting the Temple, at London, for the University of Cambridge, to learn, by God’s law, how to further the building of the Lord’s temple. In a few years after, the university gave him the degree of master of arts, and he became a fellow of Pembroke Hall. Martin Bucer first urged him to preach, and when he modestly doubted his ability, Bucer was wont to reply, “If thou hast not fine wheat bread, yet…