doing of those things which God had some way Commanded or for not doing of some things which he had some way or other forbid therefore the Law-terms for prosecution came in an especial manner to signifie Persecution which indeed is very seldom any thing else but a * Postremò legum obstruitur authoritas Tert. Apol. Legal or in case of usurpation or wresting the Laws a pretended Legal prosecution under Authority for not obeying where God prohibits for doing of any thing which God hath any way commanded or not doing any thing which he hath any way forbid as Peter and John said unto the Sanhedrim ‖ Tuis etiam obtemperaremus praeceptis nisi instituti legibus Christianis daemonum cultus aras semper pollutas sanguine vitaremus Martyres Thebaeae Leg. ex Eucher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Polycarp ad Proconsul in Smyrn Eccles Epist Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto him judge ye I have a mind to make sure-work as I go and therefore I must repeat it once more and tell you that Persecution Actively taken consists in Legally prosecuting and Passively taken in being Legally prosecuted for not obeying Authority in those things which God prohibits otherwise for prosecuting or being prosecuted unto any penalty for doing of those things which he hath any way commanded or forbearing or refusing to do those things which he hath any way forbid I have put in the words any way because there are two ways by which God the King of Kings makes his pleasure known unto men by right Reason or the light of Nature and by Revelation which we commonly call the light of Grace Right Reason consists in the common principles which God hath implanted in all mens understandings and the conclusions which issue from them for as Solomon saith The Vnderstanding of a man is the Candle of the Lord and the light of Natural Reason is his Light who as Cicero calls him in his First Book of Laws is infinita mens ratio infinite Understanding and Reason or as the Platonists Allegorically stile him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Original Reason or Light As for the light of Grace or Revelation there are many sorts of it for God as the Apostle speaks who at sundry times and divers manners spake in the Patriarchal and Jewish times by Prophets Oracular responses and voices from Heaven hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son who was the Antitype of Moses and by his Apostles who were the Prophets of the New Testament and these two ways the light of Nature and Scriptural Revelation are the general and ordinary means by which we come to know what is the will of God Persecution therefore ordinarily speaking consists with respect to the Persecutors in Judicially prosecuting and with respect to the Persecuted in being Judicially prosecuted unto any penalty for doing those things which God hath commanded by the light of Nature or Scriptural Revelation or for not doing of those things which he hath forbidden by either or both of those two ways This is the true notion of Persecution which consists not in the greatness of any mans sufferings which inconsiderate people chiefly look at but in the righteousness of the cause for which he suffers For if he be pursued for doing any thing against the Law or Government under which he lives that God hath not commanded or for not doing of those things which God hath not forbid he is not persecuted but justly prosecuted for disobeying the Powers which God hath bound him to obey This is most agreeable to our Saviours notion of Persecution Matth. 5.10 Blessed are they who are Persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven To the understanding of which words I desire you to take notice that righteousness in the Scripture-stile when it doth not signifie just dealing or as it sometimes doth by an Hebraism * Psal 112.9 Prov. 11.18 Psa 37.21 25. Matth. 1.19 mercifulness it is taken for Virtue or Religion in its full latitude or obedience unto God In this sence righteousness and the righteous man are opposed to wickedness and the wicked man Ezek. 3.19 20. If thou warn the wicked man saith God unto the Prophet and he turn not from his wickedness Again when a righteous man doth not turn from his righteousness c. And in this sence of righteousness saith our Saviour to his Disciples Except your righteousness i. e. except your Religion and obedience to God exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees you shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven So saith he Matth. 6.33 First seek the Kingdom of God i. e. the Gospel and its righteousness that is the Religion and Obedience which the Gospel prescribes and all these things shall be added unto you According to this sence of the word righteousness S. Luke saith of Zacharias and Elizabeth that they were righteous before God walking in all the Commandments and Ordinances of the Lord blameless And as righteousness signifies Obedience and Religion in general so it signifies also any particular Divine Institution or the performance of any particular duty under any Divine Institution as God is pleased to order and command Thus the righteousness of the Law Phil. 3.6 signifies the performance of all those Commands and Ordinances which God required of the Jews and Proselytes under the Old Testament and the righteousness of Faith Rom. 4.13 signifies the performance of all those duties which God requires of Christians under the New The one signifies the Jewish Religion which consisted in obeying of Moses the other the Christian which consists in obeying of Christ that consisted in keeping the old Law and this in observing the Gospel which the Primitive * Neomenias vestras dies festos haec ergo vacua fecit Nova Lex Domini nostri Jesu Christi Epist Barnab 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Just Mart. dial cum Tryph. writers in their Discourses with the Jews usually called the New nay as general words are frequently taken in particular significations so this word is taken for any particular act or object of obedience to God as Matth. 3.15 when John forbad Jesus to be baptized of him Jesus who knew that God required it of him saith unto John Suffer it to be so for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness i. e. thus it is our duty for me to confirm and approve thy imperfect Ministry and for thee to let it be so confirmed because it is the pleasure of God From all this it is plain that to be Persecuted for righteousness-sake signifies to be persecuted for obedience unto God and therefore 't is neither the person nor the sufferings but the cause which makes Persecution so that when men are prosecuted by Authority for any other cause but for righteousness i. e. for Religion as Religion is taken for obedience to God's Laws let them complain and pretend as
much as they please they are not persecuted but justly punished for disobedience to the Supream Power They suffer not for God's sake but their own they suffer not as Martyrs and Confessors but as Malefactors This consideration made S. Peter in his First Epistle general distinguish so carefully between suffering as a Malefactor and suffering as a Christian Chap. 4. 14 15. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ happy are you But let none of you suffer as * Oraet Lucii Mart. ad Vrbicium Praefect Just M. Apol. 1. a Murderer or as a Thief or as an evil-doer or as a busie-body in things that belong not unto him yet if any man suffer as a Christian let him not be ashamed but glorifie God on this behalf In the 2d Chap. 13. ver he charged them to submit themselves to every Ordinance of man whether it were to the Emperor or his subordinate Magistrates for the Lords sake as free indeed in a spiritual sence from many yokes but not to use their Christian freedom as a cloak for their malignity but as the servants of God Then from Subjects he proceeds to the Servants or Slaves who you may be sure suffered much from Jewish and Heathen Masters upon the account of the Christian Religion and he tells them that it was * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cod. Alex. acceptable to God if a man for conscience towards God endured grief suffering wrongfully And in the 3d. Chap. after he had charged all Christians as being the best way to avoid sufferings to refrain their tongues to eschew evil to do good and seek peace Who is he saith he that will harm you if you be followers of that which is good but if notwithstanding all this you chance to suffer for righteousness-sake happy are ye and be not afraid of their terror neither be troubled and lastly in the 4th Chap. he resumes the argument again in the words which I cited above concluding that they that so suffered according to the will of God should commit the keeping of their Souls unto him as unto a faithful Creator Accordingly there 's scarce any one place of the New Testament where sufferings or persecution are mentioned but it is with respect to the Christian Religion as Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil of you falsely for my sake Whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the Gospels the same shall save it Verily verily I say unto you that there is no man that hath left Houses or Brethren or Sisters or Father or c. for my sake and the Gospels but he shall receive an hundred fold now in this time with persecutions and in the world to come Eternal Life From which places it is evident that Persecution consists in suffering for Christ's sake or for the sake of the Christian Religion or any truth of it or for obeying God in any particular of it after the same manner that the Prophets or holy men of old used to suffer under the Law or Jewish Oeconomy as our Saviour said Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you c. Rejoyce and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in Heaven for so persecuted they the Prophets which were before you Accordingly Acts 5.41 't is said that the Apostles departed from the presence of the Counsel where they were beaten rejoycing that they were counted worthy to suffer for his Name To put all this together Persecution from the Civil Magistrate for to that I chiefly restrain my Discourse consists in inflicting or suffering any sort of evil or to any degree for righteousness-sake for Religions sake for Christ's sake for the Gospels sake for Christ's Name sake for Christianities sake in a word to suffer as the Prophets and Apostles did of old who in all their sufferings were reduced to this sad necessity of disobeying God or the Civil Authority as Peter and the other Apostles answered and said to the Sanhedrim the second time when they commanded them to preach no more in the Name of Jesus We ought to obey God rather than man The general notion of Persecution and of Christian persecution withal being thus stated we may easily perceive that a man can be persecuted but upon two accounts for matters of professed Faith or principles or matters of practice Upon the former account a man is truly Persecuted when he is prosecuted for teaching or professing any Truth or true Doctrine which he is bound by God to teach or profess or for disowning or denying any Error or false Doctrine which he is bound by God to disown or deny I have made this distinction between owning of true and disowning of false Doctrines with respect to the several ways in which men are wont to express their minds in affirmative or negative propositions although both ways of speaking virtually and really are the same thing As he that asserts Jesus to be Christ doth virtually deny this blasphemous proposition Jesus is not Christ and he that denieth this blasphemous proposition Jesus is not Christ doth virtually assert that Jesus is Christ Thus in all things the affirming of Truth is a virtual denying of the opposite Error and the denying of the opposite Error an affirming of the contrary Truth and great is the number of Martyrs who have been truly Persecuted upon these accounts So Socrates was persecuted to death by the Laws and Magistrates of Athens for asserting the true God or denying the false He asserted that there was but one God and Father of all who made Heaven and Earth that the Gods whom the Athenians worshipped were dumb Idols the work of mens hands For this reason Justin Martyr represents him in part as a * Apol. 1. p. 48. Christian and among those whom ‖ Apol. 2. p. 55. wicked men by the instinct of the Devil persecuted for righteousness-sake He died a Martyr for Natural Religion in the defence of a Doctrine which God had taught him by the Light of Nature was not only true but such a truth as was his duty to propagate and maintain So likewise the Primitive Christian professors were persecuted both by the Jews and Gentiles for teaching and professing the Doctrines of the Christian Religion and for denying the obligation or validity of the Law of Moses and the Pagan Idols to be true Gods So much for Persecution upon matters of Faith or Principles and Persecution for matters of Practice is likewise twofold for matters of Divine worship which concern the First Table or for matters of Justice and Charity which concern the Second With respect to the former a man is Persecuted either upon a negative account for not denying of God or secondly for not worshipping a false God in opposition to him as the three Children in Daniel were persecuted for not worshipping the Golden Image of Nebuchadnezzar the Primitive Christians for not * Eccl. Smyrn Epist
Seats and more costly Pews are ordered to be pulled down Formerly Papists were allowed solemnly to renounce their Religion in the Protestant Temples and scarce a Lords-day passed in the places where they were * As at Charenton La-Rochelle Montpellier Nismes numerous but some Converts might be seen so to renounce but now all Papists are forbidden to turn Protestants under pain of death or the penalty of an infamous sort of Penance called L' amando honorable in which the recanting person only in his Shirt with a Torch in his hand and a Rope about his neck and the Hangman standing behind him begs pardon of God and man for having renounced the Catholick as they mis-call the Romish Religion and is afterwards punished with Banishment if not with confiscation of Goods On the contrary Protestants have all imaginable encouragement to turn Papists Pensions Honours Offices and Preferments and to secure them after they have once declared the forementioned severity as I have been informed is the punishment of a relapse The Magistrates of the place have Authority to go with the Priest and what other company they please to visit sick Protestants and turn their Friends and Attendants out of the Room and discourse with them about their Religion and if either hopes of reward or a delirous condition or impatience or any other cause make them speak any thing in favour of the Romish Religion then they presently take witness that they turned Papists After which if the sick persons die they are to be buried as Papists and if they left Children behind them they also are to be bred Papists but if they recover they are obnoxious to the Law against a relapse Their Ministers cannot without great danger and difficulty visit Protestants which lye sick in Popish Houses but every pitiful Sacrificulus every ignorant busie Priest hath Authority to go into Protestant Houses and visit the sick as often as they please and when their Women are in travail like the Hebrew-women in the time of hardned Pharaoh they must have Popish Egyptian Midwives which is a far greater terror to many of them than the pains of Childbirth it self Formerly they were capable of the Magistracy in Cities and Burghs where they lived but now they are incapacitated Formerly they were to sit in their Courts of Justice as the Chambers of the Edict so called from the Edict of Nantes by which they were erected in favour of Protestants and the Party-Chambers of the Provinces where half the Judges are Protestants and half Papists but now they are deprived of that priviledge So that for want of Judges of their own Religion they have little or no benefit of the Law when a Catholick is their Antagonist but when both parties are Protestants if one change or promise to change his Religion he is usually sure to gain the Cause And as they are banished from the Bench so are they banished from the Bar and Faculties For no Protestant can be Councellor Atturney Notary Chirurgeon Apothecary Midwife c. In one word they are made utterly uncapable of all employments Civil or Military and by that means are deprived of all Honours and better conveniences of life of all the comfortable means of subsistence and well-being which the Papists enjoy in their Offices at Court and in the Country in Peace and in War and in the Armies both by Sea and Land This is their miserable condition and what is yet worse their Children have liberty at Seven years of Age to chuse their own Religion and if to prevent the mischief that may follow upon this they send them away they must forfeit a years revenue of their Estates if they do not produce them within a year but if they do not produce them within two then they must forfeit the whole But in case they have no visible Estates then they are subject to Arbitrary valuations and to Arbitrary Fines imposed thereupon If their Children upon this liberty happen to change their Religion as many will do rather than endure wholsom Discipline their Parents are bound to maintain them as they do their other Children or else to allow them a Pension for their maintenance and their Daughters so changing may leave their Parents and go into Nunneries when they please This is the complement of all their other miseries and to avoid so great a mischief it is that they fly in flocks to Protestant Countries that they may save the Souls of their own bowels and not have them bred up in Popish darkness and the regions of the shadow of death Some have slipt away by night with their Families and driven without intermission till they have got out of their imperious Princes Dominions and others as is credibly reported have shipt off their little Ones pack'd up in Bales of Merchantable Goods As for their Ministers they upon any pretended crimes are banished fined or imprisoned on purpose to make them forsake their Flocks and discourage the People from putting their Children to the study of Divinity Nay they are in an especial manner obnoxious to the barbarous cruelties and insults of the Souldiery who have free Quarter upon the poor Protestants whom they abuse to what degree they please In some * As Poictou Xaintonge and about Rochelle Provinces they trail them like dogs by the neck to Masse torture them till they renounce their Religion and most inhumanely misuse or murder those whom God enables to resist unto bloud and though these tyrannical and arbitrary outrages be not done by open order yet it may be presumed they are done upon connivance and according to the secret will of the Supream Authority since those that do them are neither punished nor restrained notwithstanding the complaints which the sufferers daily make at Court These barbarous insolencies added to the severity of the Royal Edicts you may be sure adds wings to their haste and makes them fly in great hurry and confusion into foreign Countries and the providence of God hath cast many of them like ship-wracked men on our Coasts and expects that we should shew them no little kindness but receive them courteously and do good unto them in an especial manner as unto them that are of the houshold of Faith They are Persecuted but we must not forsake them they are grievously cast down but in such an exigence as this we must not let them be destroyed IV. And therefore I proceed in the last place to shew that it is our duty to help and assist them to encourage and support them in this time of calamity to refresh their bowels and minister unto their pressing wants For there are but three ways by which the spirits of persecuted men can be supported by the testimony of a good Conscience the comforts and joys of the Holy Ghost and the charitable assistance of their Brethren when as the Apostle speaks the members have the same care one for another and if one member suffer all the members suffer