verily, who of his goodness hath created heaven and earth and all that is therein for the use of men, which even feedeth the ravens’ young ones, will not cause the just man to die with hunger and penury. Moreover, that man doth not lose his treasure in this world, which gathereth treasure as the Lord hath commanded him; with whom the faithful know that a most wealthy treasure is laid up in heaven for them, which are in this world spoiled of their terrestrial goods for their Lord and master’s sake. That worthy and notable servant Of God, Job, doth ery: Naked I came out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I turn to the earth again’: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; as the Lord pleased, so is it happened 2. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” the Last of all, it is manifest, that to deny the truth, thereby not.. 0 escape persecution, is not the way to keep our wealth and quiet state, but rather the means to lose them; yea, by so doing we are made infamous to all good men of every age and nation. For we see that they which would not for Christ and the cause of his truth hazard their riches, but chose rather by dissimulation and renouncing of the truth to keep their worldly wealth3, did retain for ever infamous reproach, and daily augment most terrible torments, which vexed horribly their guilty conscience, losing nevertheless in the devil’s name the wealth which they would not once hazard in the cause of their Saviour. But they, on the other side, which jeoparded themselves and all their substance in the quarrel of Christ, despising manfully all dangers that could happen, did always find a sweet and pleasant comfort, which strengthened the minds of their afflicted bodies. For they ery with the apostle: “We have learned, in whatsoever state we are, therewith to be content. We know how to be low, we know also how to exceed: every where and in all things we are instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to have plenty and to suffer need. We can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth us.” They know that the same
[1 Heb. mY, thither, Auth. Ver. Cyprian quotes it,—naked also]
[shall I go under the earth. Ady. Jud. Lib. mr. cap. 6.] [2 So the Vulgate and Coverdale, The Lord hath done his pleasure:]
[and Cyprian. ] [3 vel retinere vel augere, Lat.; either to keep, or to increase. ] [ non jam in nomine Christi, sed in nomine diaboli, Lat.]]
apostle hath said: “Ye have suffered with joy the spoiling of your goods, knowing that ye have in heaven a far more excellent substance, which will endure.” For the Lord in the gospel also said: Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath forsaken house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s, but he shall receive an hundred fold now at this present, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life” Mark x. So then the saints and faithful servants of God are oppressed with servitude in this present world: but therewithal they know and consider that the Lord himself became a servant for us men’; whereby they, that are servants in this world, are made free through Christ, and by terrestrial servitude a way is made to celestial liberty.
The faithful are exiled, or banished their country: but the heathen poet saith, “A valiant-hearted man takes every country for his own”.” Verily, in what place of the world soever we are, we are in exile as banished men. Our Father is in heaven, and therefore heaven is our country. Wherefore, when we die, we are delivered from exile, and placed in the heavenly country and true felicity. In like manner, whom the tyrant killeth with hunger and famine, those doth he rid of innumerable evils, And again, whomsoever famine doth not utterly kill but only torment, them doth it teach to live more sparingly, and afterward to fast the longer and devoutly. Now in this case the faithful, which suffer famine, do call to remembrance the examples of the ancient saints, of whom when Paul speaketh, he saith: “They wandered about in sheep skins and goat skins; being destitute, afflicted, and tormented; of whom the world was not worthy: they wandered in wilderness, and in mountains, and in dens, and caves of the earth.” Christians also consider, that the state of famished Lazarus, who died among the tongues of the dogs that licked his blains, was far better than the surfeiting of the strut-bellied glutton, who being once dead was buried
[6 prius, Lat.; before us.] [9 adeoque, Lat.; and that so.] [7 Omne solum forti patria est. Ovid. Fast. Lib. 1. 493.] [8 ceu morbus aliquis, Lat. omitted; like some disease.]]
In in hell. Moreover, it is to be abhorred, detested, and (yet) of lamented of all men, to see a crew of barbarous villains and unruly soldiers abuse perforce, not honest matrons only, but tender virgins also, that are not fit yet nor ripe for a man. But the greatest comfort that we have in so great a mischief and intolerable ignominy is, that chastity is a virtue of the mind. For if it be a treasure of the mind, then is it not lost though the body be abused: even as in like sort the faith of a man is not thought to be overcome, although the whole body be consumed with fire. And chastity is not lost, verily, where the body is defloured; because the will of the abused body persevereth still to use that chastity, and doth what it may to keep it undefiled. For the body is not holy therefore, because the members thereof are undefiled, or because the secret parts thereof are not undecently touched: considering that the body, being wounded by many casualties, may suffer filthy violence; and since physicians for health’s sake may do to the members the thing that otherwise is unseemly to the eyes. Wherefore so long as the purpose of the mind (by which the body must be sanctified) remaineth, the violent deed of another’s filthy lust taketh not from the body that chastity, which the persevering continency of the defloured body doth seek to preserve. And in the meanwhile there is no doubt but the most just Lord will sharply punish those shameless beasts and monsters of nature, which dare undertake to commit such wickedness. in The saints are confirmed in their tribulation by the innufeel merable examples of their fore-fathers; whereby they gather, that it is no new thing that happeneth unto them, since God from the beginning hath with many afflictions and tribulations exercised his servants and the church, his spouse, whom he loveth so dearly. And here I think it to be very expedient, and available to the comforting of afflicted minds, to reckon up the best and choicest examples that are in scriptures: of which there are many both private and public. The chances and pilgrimages of the latter patriarchs (because I mean ποῦ to speak of them before the deluge?) are those, which I call
[1 sepulti et demersi in inferos, Lat.; who was buried, and plunged]
[into hell.] - [ veterum, Lat.]]
private examples. For our father Abraham is by the mouth of God called from out of Ur of the Chaldeans to go into Palestine, from whence he is driven by a dearth into Egypt, where again he is put to his shifts, and feeleth many pinches. After that, when he came again into Palestine, even till the last hour of his life, he was never without some one mishap or other, to trouble and vex his mind. His son Isaac felt famine also, and had one misfortune? upon another’s neck to plague him withal. He sinneth not that calleth Jacob? the wretchedest man that lived in that age, considering the infinite miseries wherewith he was vexed. While he was yet in his mother’s womb and saw no light, he began to strive with his brother - Esau: afterwards, in his stripling’s age, he had much ado to escape his murdering hands by exiling himself from his father’s house into the land of Syria; where again he was kept in ure and exercised sharply in the school of afflictions. At his back-return into his country he was wrapped in and beset with perils enough, and endless evils. The detestable wickedness of his untoward children had been enough to have killed him in his age. In his latter days, for lack of food, he goeth down as a stranger into the land of Egypt, where in true faith and patience he gave up the ghost’. Of Moses, the great and faithful servant of God, the scripture testifieth, that in his youth he was brought up in the Egyptian court; but, when he came to age, he refused to be called the son of Pharao’s daughter, choosing rather to be afflicted with the people of God, than to enjoy the temporal commodities of this sinful world, because he counted the rebuke of Christ greater riches than all the treasures of the Egyptians. The same Moses was grievously afflicted, first by Pharao and his princes, and after that again by them of his own household, and his own country people whom he had brought out of the land of Egypt. David also, the anointed of the Lord, was troubled a great while with his master Saul, that was mad upon him to have
[3 domestica infortunia, Lat.; in his family.] [ a Domino Israelem cognominatum, Lat. omitted; whom God]
[surnamed Israel. ] [5 in exquisitissima afflictionum palzstra seu officina, Lat.] [6 optimum senem tantum non enecant, Lat.] [7 sanctum Deo tradit spiritum, Lat.] [ peccati, Lat.; of sin.]]
brought him to his end: but having at the last (for all that Saul could do) obtained the kingdom, afflictions ceased not to follow him still; for, after many troublesome broils, he was by Absalom thrust beside his kingdom, and very straitly dealt withal: and yet in the end God of his goodness did set him up again.
In the new Testament, Christ himself, our Lord and Sa- yiour, and that elect vessel, his apostle Paul, are excellent examples for us to take comfort by. The Lord in his infancy was compelled to fly the treason and murdering hands of cruel tyrants; in all his lifetime he was not free from calamities; and at his death he was hanged among thieves. And Paul, speaking of himself, doth say: “If any other be the ministers of Christ, I am more; in labours more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in imprisonments more plenteously, in death! often. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one; thrice was I beaten with rods, once stoned; thrice I suffered shipwreck; a day and a night have I been in the depth; in journeying often; in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of mine own nation, in perils among the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in labour and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Beside those things that outwardly come unto me, the trouble, which daily lieth upon me, is the care of all the churches.” These, I say, are private examples. of We have a public example in the church of Israel afflicted 0 ἴῃ Egypt, many times troubled under their kings and judges, and lastly led captive by the Assyrians and men of Babylon. Afterward, being brought home again by the goodness of God, they pass many brunts, and are sharply afflicted under the monarchies of the Persians, Greeks, and Romans. What shall hor- I say of the apostolic church of Christ, which, even when it of first began, like an infant, to creep by the ground? did pregently feel the cross, and yet flourished still in those afflictions, which even to this day it doth patiently suffer? Histories make mention of ten persecutions, wherewith the church of Christ (from the eighth year of Nero, till the reign of Constantine the great, by the space of three hundred and eighteen
[1 in mortibus, Lat.] [2 ipsis incunabulis, is Bullinger’s phrase.]
years) was terribly shaken and sharply afflicted, without inter= mission or respite of time for it to breathe in, and rest itself from troublesome broils and merciless slaughters+,
The first persecution of those ten did Nero, that beast and lecherous monster, raise against the Christians, wherein, it is said, that Peter and Paul, the Apostles of Christ, were brought to their endings. The second was moved by Flavius Domitianus, which banished the Apostle John into the Isle of Patmos. The third persecutor after Nero was Trajan the emperor, who published most terrible edicts against the Christians: under him was the notable martyr and preacher Ignatius, with many other excellent servants of Christ, cast to wild beasts, and cruelly torn in pieces. The fourth persecution did the Emperor Verus most bloodily stir up through all France and Asia; wherein the blessed Polycarpus was burnt in fire alive, and Irensus, the bishop of Lyons, was headed with the sword. In the fifth persecution of the church of Christ, Septimius Severus through many provinces did bloodily crown many a saint with the garland of martyrdom: among whom is reckoned Leonidas the father of Origenes. Julius Maximinus was the sixth after Nero that played the tyrant against the church. In that persecution the preachers and ministers of the churches were especially murdered: among whom, beside an innumerable sort of other excellent men, Pamphilus and Maximus, two notable lights,
[83 The persecution in Nero’s reign began Α.Ὁ. 64, (he became]
[emperor A.D. 54), and Constantine succeeded Maxentius, A.D. 312; so]
[that the interval is 248 years. See Burton’s Hist. of Christ. Church,]
[Chap. v. p. 128, and Chap. xvir. p. 392. Lond. 1845.] [4 Bullinger’s words are: Concessis tamen nonnunquam intervallis]
[quibusdam, satis quidem accisis, quibus respiraret ecclesia: although]
[indeed occasionally some intervals were granted, short enough in good]
[sooth, wherein the church might take breath.] [5 Primam (persecutionem) quippe computant (nonnulli) a Nerone]
[quae facta est, secundam a Domitiano, a Trajano tertiam, quartam ab]
[Antonino, a Severo quintam, sextam a Maximino, a Decio septimam,]
[octavam a Valeriano, ab Aureliano nonam, decimam a Diocletiano et]
[Maximiano.—Aug. de Civ. Dei, Lib. xvir. cap. 52. Par. 1531. Tom. v.]
[fol. 251. See Euseb. Eccl. Hist. 1Π. 18, 36; 1v. 15; vI. 1, 41; vir. 11,]
[30 &ec.]]
[8 We have no account of the death of Irenzeus upon which we can]
[Seoul depend; and there is a doubt whether he was martyred or]
[not.]
were especially slaughtered. The seventh blood-sucker after beastly Nero was Decius the Emperor, who proclaimed most horrible edicts against the faithful. In his time was St Laurence, a deacon of the church, broiled upon a grate-iron; and the renowned Virgin Apollonia, for her profession, did leap into the fire alive. Licinius Valerianus was as cruel as the rest in executing the eighth persecution against the faithful professors of Christ and his gospel. In that broil were slain many millions of Christians, and especially St Cornelius and Cyprian, the most excellent doctors in all the world. Valerius Aurelianus did rather purpose, than put in execution, the ninth persecution: for a thunder rushed before him to the great terror of them that were about him; and, shortly after, he was slain as he journeyed, and so his tyranny by his death was ended. But Caius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus, Maximinianus Maxentius, and Marcus Julius Licinius, being nothing terrified with this horrible example, did raise the tenth persecution against the church of Christ, which, enduring by the space of ten whole years, brought to destruction an infinite number of Christians in every province and quarter of the world. This broil doth Eusebius Cesariensis passingly paint to the eyes of the reader: for he himself was an eye-witness and looker-on of many a bloody pageant and triumphant victory of the martyrs, which he rehearseth in the eighth book of his ecclesi- Α.Ὁ. 806. astical history. In that slaughter were killed the first apostles of our Tigurine church, both martyrs of Christ and professors of his gospel, S. Felix and his sister Regula.
After those ten persecutions there followed many more and more terrible butcheries, stirred up by many kings and barbarous men, in sundry quarters of the earth; upon the neck whereof did follow the merciless blood-sheddings committed by the Saracens, Turks, and Tartars: moreover, the
[[ graphice, Lat. ] [2 These martyrs (ex Thebeea legion) are thus mentioned in the]
[Ephemeris, Bed. Opp. Tom. 1. p. 206. Col. Agrip. 1612. Septemb. 3 Id.] Has simul et Felix felici morte dicavit, Martyrio Regula juncto, pariterque beavit.]
[They suffered September 11, A.D. 281. See Hospinian. de festis Chris-]
[tian. p. 143. Genev. 1674.] [3 Tartarorum, Turcarum denique, Lat.; and lastly of the Turks.]]
butcherly bishops of Rome did annoy extremely the church of God, by shedding in civil and foreign wars more christian blood than any tongue can possibly tell. No new thing therefore doth at this day happen to us that in the church of Christ do suffer divers persecutions and afflictions; for we have examples of great efficacy, both new and old, to confirm our hearts, that they faint not in calamities.
And therefore did the prophets and apostles, and their Lord and master, Jesus Christ, foretel these perils, calamities, and all persecutions; because they would have us to fortify our minds against these miseries at all times and seasons, lest, by being shaken with them at unawares, we should revolt from our faith, and forsake our profession. “Because I have chosen you out of the world,” saith the Lord to his: disciples, “therefore the world doth hate you. Remember the words which I spake unto you, saying, The servant is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my words, they will also keep yours. But all these things shall they do to you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me. This have I said to you, that ye should not be offended. They shall drive you from their synagogues: and the. time shall come, that whosoever killeth you shall think he doth God good service.”
The rest that is like to this I mean not at this time to recite out of the prophets and apostles, because it cannot be briefly rehearsed: let every one pick out, and apply to his own comfort, the plainest and most evident testimonies, that by reading he shall light upon.
And although the saints do not rejoice at the destruction of their persecuting enemies, whom they could wish rather to be converted, and so saved, than in this present world to be punished, and in the world to come to be damned for ever; yet they are glad, when they see the Lord punish their afflicters, because thereby they perceive that God hath
[8 pseudo-pontifices, Lat.; the false bishops: butcherly is not in]
[the original. ] [8 The following texts are put in the margin of the Latin original]
[of Bullinger; Psal. xxii. Ixix. Isai. xlix. li. Dan. vii. viii. xi. Zech. xiii.]. [ hoc potissimum nomine, Lat.; for this reason specially.],]
a care over those that be his servants. They do gather also by the present vengeance of God upon the wicked, that as afflictions are for the health and amendment of the faithful, so they are to the hurt and destruction of the unbelievers: for, while they persecute other, they themselves are destroyed; and while they trouble the church of the living God, they kindle a fire of the wrath of God against themselves, that will never be quenched. For in the prophecy of Zacharias thus we read that the Lord speaketh touching his church: Behold, I make Jerusalem a cup! of poison unto all the people that are round about her: yea, Juda himself shall be in the siege against Jerusalem? And in that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all people; so that all such as lift it up shall be torn and rent, and all the people of the earth shall be gathered together against it.” A like saying to this hath the Lord in Jeremy, where he speaketh
15. against the persecutors of his church, and saith: “Take this wine-cup of indignation from my hand, and make all the people, to whom I send thee, to drink of it; that when they have drunken thereof, they may be mad, and out of their wits, for fear of the sword which I will send among them. For I begin to plague the city that is called after my name; and think ye then that ye shall escape unpunished? Ye shall not go unpunished.” And this is that whereto St Peter alluding saith: “The time is that the judgment of God beginneth at the house of God: if it first begin with us, what shall the end of them be, that believe not the gospel 2”
I have a little above rehearsed in order the ten persecutions, which the Roman emperors stirred up against the church of Christ: now histories make mention, that there was not one of them but was requited with some notable calamity. And, beside the peculiar revengements that followed every several persecution, it is to be noted, that the most just Lord, after the space of three hundred and forty-two years (for so many years are reckoned from the last of Nero unto the second
[1 calix soporis, Lat.; a cup of trembling, Auth. Ver.; slumber,]
[marg. reading. ] [2 So also Coverdale, 1535. Calvin in loc. remarks: Miror cur]
[omittant quidam interpretes particulam ὃν, et ita vertant, Erit etiam]
[Jehudah in obsidione contra Jerusalem. ]]
year of the emperors Honorius and Theodosius?), did begin more abundantly to requite the death of his saints upon the necks of the blood-thirsty Rome. For within the space of one hundred and nine and thirty years Rome was six times taken and brought into subjection to the barbarous nations. For in the four hundredth year of grace, which was the second of Honorius and Theodosius his reign, the Wisigothes, under their captain Alaricus, both took and sacked the city, using notwithstanding great mercy in their victory. After that again, the Vandals, under their guide Genserichus, brake into the city cruelly, and spoiled it very greedily. After them came the Herules, and the remnant of Atthilas his army, with their captain Odacer, who took the city, and got the kingdom to themselves, extinguishing utterly the rule of the Romans in the west part of the world’. Then again, when about fourteen years were come and gone, in cometh Theodoricus Veronensis with his Ostrogothes, who slew the Herules, and obtained the city. But, it, being recovered by the faith and industry of the valiant captain Belisarius, and restored to Jus- tinian the emperor of the east, was immediately again taken by Totylas, a prince of the Goths; who with fire and sword did sack it, pull down houses, and overthrew a great part of the walls thereof, whereby Rome was so defaced, that for the space of certain days there was no man that dwelt within it. That spoil of the city happened about the five hundred and forty-eighth year after Christ his incarnation. And thus did Christ, in revenging his church, lay deserved plagues upon the neck of bloody Rome; beside other miseries (I pass that over)
[3 Nero destroyed himself A.p. 68, and the second year of Honorius]
[and Theodosius was A.D. 410. Usher’s Annals, Vol. 11. p. 694. Lond.]
[1654. Gibbon’s Dec. and Fall, ch. 32, Vol. v. p. 411. Lond. 1820.] [ Bullinger details more fully these invasions of Rome in his]
[treatise on the Revelation. Sermons Lvir. & ΤΧΧΥ͂Ι.] [5 412, Lat. and ed. 1577. The date in Gibbon is Aug. 24, 410.]
[Vol. v. p. 310, ch. 31.] [6 A.D. 455, June 15—29. Gibbon, ch. 36, Vol. v1. p. 151.] [7 A.D. 476, or 479. Gibbon, Vol. vIL. p. 226, &c.] [8 A.D. 493. Gibbon, ch. 39, Vol. vir. p. 15.] [9 A.p. 536. Gibbon, ch. 41, Vol. vir. p. 224.] [1 A.p. 546. Gibbon, chap. 43, Vol. vir. p. 366; and again, after a]
[repulse, finally taken A.p. 549. ibid. p. 375.]]
which it did suffer by the Huns and Lombards!. For this is enough to shew how miserably Rome was plagued for afflicting the church of Christ; which nevertheless, maugre the tyrants’ heads, remained safe, and overcame those brunts, and shall reign with Christ for evermore. In like manner were the Saracens extinguished and utterly destroyed, when first they had suffered many a great overthrow, and had been plagued throughout the world with sundry mishaps and overthwart calamities. The Turks also do daily feel their woes and miseries, and are likely hereafter to feel sharper punishments. Moreover, the popes? with poison are one slain by another, and are strangely vexed with wonderful terrors. They are in no place sure of their lives, but even in the midst of all their friends are beset with miseries; they live in fear continually, all the whole pack of them. Furthermore, even they among them, that live most happily, do rot away with the disease that followeth filthy pleasures; than which there is no kind of death either sharper to the patient, or more detested among all men. And their adherents, which by their setting on do persecute the church of Christ, do either drop away with the like disease that waiteth upon filthy lust, alive, or do by little and little consume away, as Herod and Anti-that ochus did; which death is long before it dispatch them, but doth torment them beyond all measure: yea, and besides these bitter plagues, they destroy one another with endless civil wars. The Lord therefore is righteous, and his judgments are just and equal, who never forgetteth to revenge his friends by finding out his own and his servants’ enemies, to punish them for their deserts. Since then, my brethren, that the case so standeth, let usI beseech you, patiently suffer the hand of the Lord our God, as often as we are touched with any calamity, or tempted of the Lord our God; knowing this, that the Lord doth strike us that he may heal us, and trouble us that he may comfort us and receive us to himself into joys everlasting. And that we may so do, since we are otherwise too weak of ourselves, let us pray to our Father which is in heaven, through Jesus Christ our Lord, that he will vouchsafe to be present with us in our
[[ A.p. 568—570. Gibbon, chap. 45, Vol. vir. p. 126, &c.] [2 pseudo-pontifices, Lat. ] [3 See above, p. 80.] Ἔ]
temptations, and guide us in the way of constancy, peace, and righteousness. And for an example, let every one set before his eyes the order that Christ our Saviour and master did use; who, a little before the cross of his passion, betook himself to prayer. For going up into the mount of Olives, he beseecheth his Father humbly, and prayeth to him ardently. He is instant in prayer4, and lieth upon him earnestly; and yet so, that he submitteth all to his will and pleasure. Let us also do the like, that we may have trial of our Father’s present aid with the effectual comfort of our minds, and that we for his goodness may give him praise for evermore. Amen.: OF THE FIFTH AND SIXTH PRECEPTS OF THE SECOND TABLE, WHICH ARE IN ORDER THE NINTH AND TENTH OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, THAT IS, THOU SHALT
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