and as the Beams of the Sun will put out a Fire so the frevent love of God in them morally extinguished the painful burnings of the Furnace and bound the Flames to the Peace even before Gods Power did the same miraculously Thus the Apostles went away rejoycing that they were counted worthy to suffer for the name of Christ their love then burst out into transports of joy and thankfulness that God would vouchsafe to use them to bring Glory to his Name The Apostle saith If there be any consolation in love Phil. 2. Intimating that there is no consolation without it and by how much more excellent the person loved is for whom we suffer so much larger breasts of consolations hath our love so that if to suffer for the love of a desired Spouse as when Jacob served an hard Service for Raehel carry a joy and delight to the Party loving or if to die for a Friend a good Man or a good Prince whom we love be so satisfactory to the sufferer as men declare that it is how much more to suffer for God and Christ It as far excelleth all other sufferings on the motives of the sensual Love yea or Friendship or Loyalty as the benevolent warmth of the Sun beams in the Spring is more invigorating and comforting to Plants and living Creatures than the chokey heat of a Stove or Furnance nay it is indeed a glory the Saints have above the Angels that they are called to suffer for God which the others impassibility denyes them to do So that the love of God in suffering Saints gives that exceeding comfort and satisfaction that is at no other time felt because there never was that full exercise of it before it is that breaking the box of Spicknard that finelleth more sweet by its diffusion The third Grace is Love to the Church which yields exceeding satisfaction when it carries us to act for the good of our Brethren that we can willingly spend be spent for them but the â—ower and top of it is to fill up in our bodies what is behind of the sufferings of Christ for his Churches sake When a suffering Christian thinks thus these sufferings of mine may be a strengthning of the Faith of all the Christians that hear of them and see them nay it may be an establishment to some Christian an hundred years hence what a sweet and comforting reflection must it needs be What delight may we imagine have some Gallant Heathens taken to die devotedly for their Country as did Coarus the Athenian and Deoius and Curtius the Romans but how much sweeter is it to the Martyr to think that by his sufferings the Church of Christ the Houshold of Faith those who shall hereafter be fellow Citizens with the Angels shall be confirmed and strengthened The fourth Grace is love to Enemies and Persecutors at any time to forgive an Enemy is both more glorious and more comfortable than to overcome him David had more honour when he dismissed Saul alive than when he brought away the Head of Goliah in his hand and undoubtedly he had more inward comfort and satisfaction also for the Victory of Goliah was justly attributed to the Providence of God directing the stone to the mark but the dismissing and Pardoning his Enemy was the Fruit of the Grace of God in his Heartâ— but to suffer with the designing the good of our Enemies even of their Conversion and Eternal welfare is much more sweet and affecting If St. Steven had as in all likelihood he had an hope that his sufferings might Convert some of his Persecutors what joy did that thought bring into his holy Soul if there be joy in Heaven amongst the Angels for the Conversion of a sinner when yet they contribute nothing to it what joys must be to Martyrs that die in hope and desires for the Conversion of Christs Enemies and theirs For a Martyr tyed to the Stake to think with himself Some of the ring of this gazing Multitude that look on me nay some of the Officers that is humanely butcher me may come to have their hearts melted by my flames and of Lions become Lambs and followers of the Lord Jesus what a sweet and comfortable thought must that be to the suffering Saint and Martyr of Jesus A fifth Grace that then yields its Fragrancy is our Faith it the promises of sufficient Grace and Support this is our Victory whereby we overcome the world even our Faith and who is it that overcometh the world but he that believer that Jesus is the Christ of whose fulness we are to receive Grace and Grace for Grace We have now the comfort of Faith in the assurance from Gods Word that he will never fail us nor forsake us but in a time of suffering Faith girls up its Loins and makes his boast in the name of the Lord crying The Lord is our Refuge and Strength a very present help in trouble therefore will not we fear though the Earth be removed and so Psal 21. 1. The Lord is my strength and my Salvation whom shall I fear the Lord is the strength of my life of whom then shall I be afraid And also Psal 144. 12. He expresseth his confidence in abundance of words The Lord is my strength my goodness my fortress my high Tower and deliverer my shield and he in whom I trust Thus Paul 1 Tim. 1 12. I know whom I have believed and am perswaded that he is able to keep that committed to him against that day This Faith in Gods assistance triumphs in the name of the Lord and despiseth all the power of the Adversary The next Grace yielding its sweetness to a suffering Saint is his hope and heavenly mindedness it must needs be a pleasant prospect to go up to the top of Pisgah and view the Promised Land by Holy Meditation to think as far as our dark Glass will give us leave to see what is the Peace and Joy and what is the Purity and Holiness of the Glorified Saints but when we come to suffer for the Hope of Israel then our Hope grows more lively more strong and vigorous and fixed upon that Glory that shall be revealed Thus St. Steven Act. 7. when his enemies verse 45. gnashed upon him with their teeth being full of the Holy Ghost looked up stedfastly into Heaven and saw the Glory of God and Jesus standing on the Right Hand of God thus our hope by how much the nearer it comes to injoyment grows the stronger and makes the dying Christian say as it were to himself Egredere anima mea egredere quid times Go forth my Soul go forth reach forward to lay hold on that Crown of Righteousness which now thou art not far from think with thy self what it is to have all Tears wiped away all Graces perfected and to be filled with the Love and Communion of God and Christ at whose Right Hand is fulness of Joy and Pleasures for evermore Thus
the loosness of the Doctrines that indulge both their Lusts Ambition and Cruelties But besides the Popish Princes make use of the Popes Authority sometimes for quelling their Rebellious Popish Subjects sometimes to palliate their incestuous Marriages sometimes for fleecing of their Clergy whom they have suffered first to sleece their People sometimes for confiscating the Estates of whole Orders as of the Knights Templers and seizing the Revenues of Monasteries and Abbeys wherein the Pope always is a sharer and sometimes to countenance by his Bulls their Invading and Usurping others Kingdoms But I will proceed there are abundance of other Popish errours for opposal of which a Christian may warrantably suffer such is that Schismatical Doctrine that there is no Salvation but to those that are of the Romish Communion such also is their praying to Saints and Angels and worshipping Images such also is their Doctrine of Merit Purgatory Pardons and Indulgencies But no one Doctrine is fuller of errours and absurdities than their Doctrine of Transubstantiation for denial of which many thousand precious Servants of God here in England and other where have suffered death And how can any assent to the Doctrine of Transubstantiation as the Doctrine of the Gospel who understand the meaning of it Which is that the substance of the Bread and Wine in the Sacrament is turned into the very substance of the Body and Blood of our Blessed Saviour which then the Priest offers up to God as a propitiation for the sins of the Quick and Dead Which absurd Doctrine First is contrary to our Sences of both Seeing Feeling Smelling and Tasting and consequently takes away the credit of all Gods true Miracles for still we see and feel and taste and smell Bread and Wine nay If my Sences may be deceived What security have I that I read in the Scriptures these words This is my Body next it contradicts our Reason that our Saviours Body should be in so many hundred places at once as there are Masses Celebrated at the same time in all parts of the world Nay and as many Bodies of Christ in the same Church Chancel or Parlor as there are Minute and small separated Pieces and Particles of the Species of Bread and Wine for so the litter Romanists teach that every piece broken off is an entire Body of Christ Though the first Inventers of Transubstantiation in the 9th Century and so onward for almost three hundred Years taught that the whole Loaf Consecrated was turned into one Body of Christ part of which Holy Body was broken off when part of the appearances of the Consecrated Elements was broken off from the rest as the Learned Doctor Burnet well observes in his Fast Sermon Decemb. 22. 1680. page 22. And it is a Doctrine contrary to Scripture also which affirms Christ's Body to be in Heaven and is also opposite to the very design of Christ's Institution of that Sacrament as the Scriptures give us an account of it For Christ's declared intention of that institution was to bring his Death to our remembrance thereby and to shew the Lords Death till he came and by that remembrance of it to stir up in us the same Affections and Resolutions and the Exercise of the same Graces which would have been sit for a pious believing Penitent to have taken up and exercised If he had stood by Christs Cross when he suffered and seen the wounds made in his most precious body to redeem us from the curse due to our sins namely Sorrow and Humiliation for sin Faith in Gods Mercy in Jesus Christ devout love and thankfulness to him that redeemed us with his Death with solemn renewal of our Baptismal vow to live to him and his Glory who bought us with the price of his Sons Blood and by receiving of that Symbol of the Unity of Christs mystical Body for we being many are one Bread and one Body we protest our Unity and Love to and with all the members of Christ Now How contrary the Doctrine of Transubstantiation and its appendages are to this institution of Christ and the design of it will easily appear to any that considers it Besides what reason have we to think that God would put it into the power of an ignorant or wicked Priest to work with four words speaking such a Miracle as the like is not Recorded in Scripture Namely to turn a multitude of little Wafers into so many Bodies of Christ and at the same time to deceive four of our Sences which no true Miracle ever did Nay observe there never was a Miracle mentioned in Scripture to be wrought to bring a matter of Fact to remembrance as the design of the Sacrament is remembrance except we will call a Lot a Miracle But observe yet further what an horrid thing the Papists suppose of our Saviour himself namely that he at his last Supper did Crucify and Break his own Body nay break it into twelve several Bodies supposing the Communicants were so many and that many hours before his Crucifiers did nail it to the Cross Parish You have sufficently convinced me that I ought to bear Testimony even unto the Death against the errours and Idolatry of the Masse and Transubstantiation therein pretended and I hope if it should be my Lot in a Popish Countrey to meet in the Streets their Breaden Idol I should by the Grace of God not fall down and Worship it though I knew the Idolatrous Rabble would beat out my Brains Indeed I think I ought if I have the warning of their Sacred Tingtang to turn out of the way of their unbloody Sacrifice their Holy Host as they call it not out of fear but because I will not Provoke the Idolaters to make a Bloody Sacrifice of me and so draw the Guilt of innocent Blood upon their own Heads Minist You say well for we are not to provoke Persecutors to sin though we must couragiously suffer rather than comply to their sin and Idolatry There is one other Popish Principle that we ought to bear testimony against even unto sufferings and it is this That the Church hath a power to impose upon mens Consciences what she pleaseth and her Children are bound to obey her not from the Evidence of the expediency or necessity of the thing commanded but from the Authority forsooth of the Church commanding which is a Usurping upon the Prerogative of God himself to whom alone it belongs to command indisputable obedience I may indeed for peace sake or for fear of wrath comply to the commands which to me bona side seem neither necessary nor expedient provided they do not appear sinful But for the Church to command obedience blind obedience meerly pro imperio is to seat it self in the place of God And indeed this is the master vein of Popery running through not only the main Body of Papists but also every religious Order and Society amongst them To whom it is as sacred to obey what their Church
for by reformation of our hearts and lives Luke 3. 5. Let every valley be silled and every mountain be brought low and the crooked be made straight the rough ways be made smooth let the low groveling worldling and filthy sensual fill up the Valley setting his affections on things above and every Proud and Ambitious person bring his thoughts low minding Gods glory not his own and every crooked cunning deceiver get a strait Spirit in simplicity and godly sincerity and every angry and revengful person make the rough ways smooth by endeavoring to obtain a Spirit of meeltness and kindness and then both feet are shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace and God will both receive and assist such in the conflict for his truth and glory And as Rom. 12. 1. They can confidently present their bodles a living holy Sacrifice acceptable to God which is their reasonable rational service whereas an unmortified person in whom brutish lusts do yet raign if he dyed in a good cause yet offered up a brutish unreasonable Sacrifice no way acceptable unto God Thirdly The Christian must take the sheild of Faith that is confidence in Gods promises of assistance and supports in the day of his Tryal Ephes 6. 16. He must be assured that Gods goodness and faithfulness will never suffer him to fail who flyes for refuge to his grace and mercy Thus saith David By this I know that thou favorest my righteous cause seeing mine enemy doth not Triumph over me and as for me thou preservest me in mine integrity Thus saith St. Paul 1 Cor. 1 8 9. Christ will confirm you unto the end and keep you blameless to the day of our Lord Jesus Christ or in the day of Christ that is emphatically the day of suffering for Christ and will confirm you unto the end The Christian Matron falling in Travel of Child-birth in the Prison cryed out in her strong pains and was thus assaulted by the Jaylor If saith he you cannot bear those pains without such outcrys how will you be able to bear the torments provided for you She answered These pains I suffer as the burden lay'd upon our Sex for the sin of our first Mother but in that conflict I shall have the assistance of his grace which is able to preserve me through faith against every evil work and his grace shall be sufficient for me Thus the Victory by which we overcome the world is our faith Fourthly Who ever will be a couragious Martyr must have full assurance of the goodness of his Cause that it is the truth and way of God and Christ for which he suffers and worthy of all his suffering for it This is that girdle of Truth Ephes 6. 14. As a girdle or belt not only strengthens the loins but by compacting and compressing the Muscles of the back gives an advantage and tightness to the cords or sinews of even the hands and feet also so the assurance that it is the cause of God for which we stand will make us confident that we shall not be confounded whereas but to doubt of our cause looseneth all our powers of spirit and courage Thus the Apostle prays for his Colossians Col. 2. 2 3 4. That their hearts might be comforted being knit together in love and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge The great cause maintained by the Apostolical Christians against the Jews was the Mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ that is that the infinite goodness and wisdom of God of old had carried on the Salvation of the Ancient Fathers of the world in the same way of Repentance and Faith in his mercy through the mediation of the promised Seed that ours is now carried on since Christs coming in the Flesh Now had any doubted whether this way of Salvation Preached by the Apostles and received by the Churches was the truth of God or questioned whether it was all of a piece with the old method of bringing Sinners to glory how could they have suffered confidently in the cause For staggering betwixt two opinions whether the Mosaical Law or Repentance towards God and Faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ was the way to justification they would have been unstable in all their ways But being assured that there was but one name and way of life Jesus Christ the same to day yesterday and for ever they had a full assurance of understanding which is the Girdle of Truth necessary to gird up the loins of the Martyrs mind I do not say a Christian must be able to answer all the subtle Fallacies and Sophisms of the Adversaries of the Truth but he must be assured that notwithstanding all their Cavils it is the truth of God for which he appears And that he is assured of because he finds it works effectually in him believing it purifying his heart by the faith of it incouraging his hope and increasing his love to God and Christ and all good Men yea to all Men for Christs sake and what works so cannot he is assured be other than the Truth of God A mean-bred man who should hear a Sceptick dispute whether the snow was white arguing that the water from whence it comes is black and therefore the effect must be as is the cause yet would not however be brought to disbelieve his eyes but would continue confident the snow was white as his sight represented it for he found the effect of that whiteness in dispersing his visual Rayes and Spirits Such an assurance must every suffering Christian have of the Truth for which he suffers and that it is the true grace of God wherein he stands and for which he stands and therefore an ignorant unstudied Christian can hardly make a Martyr Fifthly Whoever will be a Martyr must have his heart ingaged in a sincere design to promote Gods glory both by doing and suffering This is that Breast-plate of Righteousness and Sincerity Ephes 6. 14. which gives courage to a suffering Saint For if there be any Hypocritical design of seeking Reputation to our selves or bringing credit to an espoused Faction or Party it flats our courage but the single eye makes the body full of light and heat also On this account it was that the Primitive Christians in times of Persecution received the Eucharist so frequently in St. Cyprians time in the Decian Perfecution they took it daily thereby renewing their Baptismal vow to live and die to Gods glory if called to it As when some great Battel was expected the Roman Generals used to renew the Sacramentum Militare the Souldiers Oath That they would not disobey nor forsake their General their Imperator So that who ever hath not frequently and seriously Consecrated himself to God to live and die to him will hardly make a Martyr that being an
ingagement he never devoted himself unto Sixthly A Martyr must have right apprehensions of the Wisdom Goodness Justice and mercy of God in suffering the rod of the wicked to light upon the Lot of the Righteous there being some Chaff to be winnowed away some miscarriages even amongst the Professors of the Truth that stand in need of reforming And therefore judgment begins at the House of God 1 Pet. 4. 17. He that would be a couragious sufferer must be throughly perswaded that God doth all things wisely and graciously that therefore there is some scandalous sin or some divisions which is to be pruged out Thus when the Sheep are apt to run into low and miry places or to straggle at a distance from one another or to push and smite one another the Shepherd sends in the Dog and rectifies all presently So when Christians stray into ways of sensuality or causelesly separate from one another or persecute and vex one another for little differences it is both Justice and Mercy in God to let in a common Enemy upon them to teach them to live better and love one another and when this purifying is accomplished by Gods refining fire the Martyr is confident that God will give their cause the Righteous cause of Truth to have dominion in the morning He therefore who questions either the wisdom or Justice or goodness of God in permitting persecution or that can think that God remits of his care of the Church so as to let the gates of Hell prevail against it will not be a couragious Martyr Thus the excellent Bishop Jewel said in Queen Mary's days It is but a storm it may wet our Coats through but it will wash them also and will soon be over King Edward the sixth's Reformation of the Doctrine and Worship of the Church of England is just matter of praise and Thanks giving to God even to this day But still the Primitive Church Discipline under the management of the Diocesan Bishops with their Assistant Colledges of Presbyters in the presence of the Christian People the Brethren to remove scandals out of the Church was not restored as our Church complains in the preface to the Commination So that God did not mistake the state of his Church in sending Queen Mary's persecutions to refine the Spirit of the English Protestants And that the same may stand yet in need of further winnowing by Gods fan will hardly be denied by any pious and considerate Person though still I hope God will not let us fall into the hands of the Men of his indignation but stir up the Spirit of our Governours to take effectual course for the Reformation of our Lives and Manners Seventhly A Martyr must be one enabled to prefer the glory of God and the cause of his Truth before all Concernment for Friends and Relations Many a Man can more easily die to himself than to his dear Wife and Children and Friends Our Saviour therefore protests Matth. 10. 37. He that loveth Father and Mother more then me is not worthy of me Nay he asserts Luke 14. 26. that if he do not hate Father and Mother c. he cannot be his Disciple Not that Religion makes us unnatural but as the Sun puts out the shining of the Stars by its overpowering light so the fervent love of God in 〈◊〉 Christian prevails so intirely over natural affections that the same seem in comparison to be quite extinguished Thus that resolute Christian of old expressed himself If my Father said he who begot me and my Mother who bare me lay prosrate on the threshold of the Prison to beseeeh me to deny Christ rather than leave them in their old Age to an unkind and churlish World I would tread on the Loins that begot 〈◊〉 and the Womb that bare me and go out unto Christ bearing his reproach Heb. 13. 13. The Devil and wicked Men know that natural affection is a tender part and they will pinch us there and if our hearts be not fortified with the Breast-plate of Faith and Love they will prevail against us But when we can trust God with our Friends and love God above them then we are fitted to be Christs Souldiers An Heroick example of this we have in the Mother and seven Brothers suffering under Antiochus 2 Mac 7. 29. What a couragious expression is that of the Mother to her youngest Son Fear not the Tormentors but being worthy of thy Brethren take thy death that I may receive thee again in mercy with thy Brethren Eighthly A Martyr must be one who hath not himself been a Persecutor of any of the servants of God or if he have so been he must be a serious Penitent and profess his Repentance for it before the Church and the World Now a Mâ—â—â— may be a Persecutor of the Saints out of ignorance and mistaken zeal thinking therein to do God good service reckoning the Religion of the Persecuted to be Heresy and thus did St. Paul and this I Charitably believe do some ignorant and zealous Papists But then observe such Persecutor are very regular in other regards and can profess as St. Paul did Acts 23. 1. I have lived in all good Conscience before God until this day And such Persecutors have found mercy and been converted and owned their Repentance for that furioâ— zeal so contrary to the Spirit of Christ who came to save not to destroy Mens lives yea some of them have been honoured by God to be called to suffer for the Truth which once they persecuted But all Persecutors are not acted by that principle some directly out of a spirit of prophaness have persecuted gooâ— Men And such Persecutors are all Vitious Dehauched Drunken Dammee's who seldom pretend to any thing of zeâ—â— for God for he is not in all their thoughts nor in the mouths further than their Oaths and Curses come to but zeal for the Law of the Land or the Constitutions of the Church forsooth when really they regard no Law of thâ— Land or Constitution of the Church but only pretend thâ— same in order to the Vailing the bitterness and Malignity 〈◊〉 their spirits against all serious Piety Others there are who persecute goodmen out of a worldly and covetous humour that they may gain by Informations Plunder c. Now I dare not limit the Essicacy of the grace of God but I have not to my rememberance either heard or read of any such Persecutors of a prophane or Worldly Temper who have been converted and honoured with the Crown of Martyrdome But as I said before if ever you have persecuted good Men though out of a mistaken zeal for God be sure you repent and own your Repentance or expect not an assistance in your own day of Tryal The story is remarkable about the Controversy in King Edward the sixths days about Bishops and Priests garments Holy Bishop Hooper and Holy Mr. Rogers scrupled conformity therein the secret Popish Bishops inflame the Contest