15. For if God strikes the godly that they may repent, it is no wonder that God is so good to his servants; but then we must not call that a misery, which God intends to make an instrument of saving them. And if God forbears to strike the wicked out of anger, and because he hath decreed death and hell against them, we have no reason to envy that they ride in a gilded chariot to the gallows: but if God forbear the wicked, that by his long-sufferance they may be invited to repentance, then we may cease to wonder at the dispensation, and argue comforts to the afflicted saints, thus: for if God be so gracious to the wicked, how much more is he to the godly? And if sparing the wicked be a mercy; then, smiting the godly, being the expression of his greater kindness, affliction is of itself the more eligible condition. If God hath some degrees of kindness for the persecutors, so much as to invite them by kindness; how much greater is his love to them that are persecuted? And therefore, his intercourse with them is also a greater favour; and, indeed, it is the surer way of securing the duty: fair means may do it, but severity will fix and secure it. Fair means are more apt to be abused than harsh physic; that may be turned into wantonness, but none but the impudent and grown sinners despise all God's judgments; and therefore, God chooses this way to deal with his erring servants, that they may obtain an infallible and a great salvation. And yet if God spares not his children, how much less the reprobates? and therefore, as sparing the latter commonly is a sad curse, so the smiting the former is a very great mercy. 16. For by this economy God gives us a great argument to prove the resurrection, since to his saints and servants he assigns sorrow for their present portion. Sorrow cannot be the reward of virtue; it may be its instrument and handmaid, but not its reward; and therefore, it may be intermedial to some great purposes, but they must look for their portion in the other life: "For if in this life only we had hope, then we were of all men the most miserable:" It is St. Paul's argument to prove a beatifical resurrection. And we therefore may learn to estimate the state of the afflicted godly to be a mercy great, in proportion to the greatness of that reward, which these afflictions come to secure and to prove.

Nunc et damna juvant; sunt ipsa pericula tanti :

Stantia non poterant tecta probare deos P.

It is a great matter, and infinite blessing, to escape the pains of hell; and therefore, that condition is also very blessed which God sends us, to create and to confirm our hopes of that excellent mercy. 17: The sufferings of the saints are the sum of Christian philosophy: they are sent to wean us from the vanities and affections of this world, and to create in us strong desires of heaven; whiles God causes us to be here treated rudely, that we may long to be in our country, where God shall be our portion, and angels our companions, and Christ our perpetual feast, and never-ceasing joy shall be our conditions and entertainment. "O death, how bitter art thou to a man that is at ease and rest in his possessions!" But he that is uneasy in his body, and unquiet in his possessions, vexed in his person, discomposed in his designs, who finds no pleasure, no rest here, will be glad to fix his heart where only he shall have what he can desire, and what can make him happy. As long as the waters of persecutions are upon the earth, so long we dwell in the ark but where the land is dry, the dove itself will be tempted to a wandering course of life, and never to return to the house of her safety. What shall I say more? 18. Christ nourisheth his church by sufferings. 19. He hath given a single blessing to all other graces; but to them that are 'persecuted,' he hath promised a double one: it being a double favour, first to be innocent like Christ, and then to be afflicted like him. 20. Without this, the miracles of patience, which God hath given to fortify the spirits of the saints, would signify nothing. Nemo enim tolerare tanta velit sine causa, nec potuit sine Deo:" "As no man would bear evils without a cause, so no man could bear so much without the supporting hand of God;" and we need not the Holy Ghost to so great purposes, if our lot were not sorrow and persecution. And therefore, without this condition of suffering, the Spirit of God shall lose that glorious attribute of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter.' 21. Is there any thing more yet? Yes. They that have suffered or forsaken any lands for Christ, "shall sit upon the thrones, and judge the twelve tribes of Israel;" so said Christ to his disciples. Nay, "the saints

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P Martial. 1. 13. 11.

4 Eccles. iv. 11.

r Matt. v. 12.

shall judge angels," saith St. Paul: well therefore might St. Paul say, "I rejoice exceedingly in tribulation." It must be some great thing that must make an afflicted man to rejoice exceedingly; and so it was. For since patience is necessary that we receive the promise, and tribulation does work this; "for a short time it worketh the consummation of our hope, even an exceeding weight of glory;" we have no reason to "think it strange concerning the fiery trial, as if it were a strange thing." It can be no hurt. The church is like Moses's bush, when it is all on fire, it is not at all consumed, but made full of miracle, full of splendour, full of God: and unless we can find something that God cannot turn into joy, we have reason not only to be patient, but rejoice, when we are persecuted in a righteous cause: for love is the soul of Christianity, and suffering is the soul of love. To be innocent, and to be persecuted, are the body and soul of Christianity. "I, John, your brother, and partaker in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus," said St. John: those were the titles and ornaments of his profession: that is, "I, John, your fellow-Christian;" that is the plain song of the former descant. He, therefore, that is troubled when he is afflicted in his outward man, that his inward man may grow strong, like the birds upon the ruin of the shell, and wonders that a good man should be a beggar, and a sinner be rich with oppression; that Lazarus should die at the gate of Dives, hungry and sick, unpitied and unrelieved; may as well wonder that carrion-crows should feed themselves fat upon a fair horse, far better than themselves; or that his own excellent body should be devoured by worms and the most contemptible creatures, though it lies there to be converted into glory. That man knows nothing of nature, or Providence, or Christianity, or the rewards of virtue, or the nature of its constitution, or the infirmities of man, or the mercies of God, or the arts and prudence of his loving-kindness, or the rewards of heaven, or the glorifications of Christ's exalted humanity, or the precepts of the Gospel, who is offended at the sufferings of God's dearest servants, or declines the honour and the mercy of sufferings in the cause of righteousness, for the securing of a virtue, for the imitation of Christ, and for the love of God, or the glories of immortality. It cannot, it

ought not, it never will be otherwise; the world may as well cease to be measured by time, as good men to suffer affliction. I end this point with the words of St. Paul; "Let as many as are perfect be thus minded: and if any man be otherwise minded, God also will reveal this unto you';" this, of the covenant of sufferings, concerning which the old prophets and holy men of the temple had many thoughts of heart: but in the full sufferings of the Gospel there hath been a full revelation of the excellency of the sufferings. `I have now given you an account of some of those reasons, why God hath so disposed that at this time, that is, under the period of the Gospel, "Judgment must begin at the house of God:” and they are either τιμωριαι, οι δοκιμάσιαι, οι μαρτύ plov, or imitation of Christ's Xúrpov, chastisements,' or trials,' or martyrdom,' or a conformity to the sufferings of the holy Jesus.'

But now besides all the premises, we have another account to make concerning the prosperity of the wicked: "For if judgment first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God?" that is the question of the Apostle, and is the great instrument of comfort to persons ill-treated in the actions of the world. The first ages of the church lived upon promises and prophecies; and because some of them are already fulfilled for ever, and the others are of a continual and a successive nature, and are verified by the actions of every day, therefore we and all the following ages live upon promises and experience. And although the servants of God have suffered many calamities from the tyranny and prevalency of evil men their enemies, yet still it is preserved as one of the fundamental truths of Christianity, that all the fair fortunes of the wicked are not enough to make them happy, nor the persecutions of the godly able to make a good man miserable, nor yet their sadnesses arguments of God's displeasure against them. For when a godly man is afflicted and dies, it is his work and his business; and if the wicked prevail, that is, if they persecute the godly, it is but that which was to be expected from them: for who are fit to be hangmen and executioners of public wrath, but evil and ungodly persons? And can it be a wonder, that they whose cause wants reason, should betake themselves to the

Phil. iii. 15.

sword? that what he cannot persuade, he may wrest? Only we must not judge of the things of God by the measures of men. Tà av oriva, the things of men' have this world for their stage and their reward; but the 'things of God' relate to the world to come: and for our own particulars we are to be guided by rule, and by the end of all; not by events intermedial, which are varied by a thousand irregular causes. For if all the evil men in the world were unprosperous,-as most certain they are, -and if all good persons were temporally blessed, as most certainly they are not; yet this would not move us to become virtuous. If an angel should come from heaven, or one arise from the dead' and preach repentance, or justice, and temperance, all this would be ineffectual to those, to whom the plain doctrines of God delivered in the law and the prophets, will not suffice.

For why should God work a sign to make us to believe that we ought to do justice; if we already believe he hath commanded it? No man can need a miracle for the confirmation of that which he already believes to be the command of God: and when God hath expressly bidden us to obey every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, the king as supreme, and his deputies as sent by him;' it is a strange infidelity to think, that a rebellion against the ordinance of God can be sanctified by the success and prevalency of them, that destroy the authority, and the person, and the law, and the religion. The sin cannot grow to its height, if it be crushed at the beginning; unless it prosper in its progress, a man cannot easily fill up the measure of his iniquity: but then that sin swells to its fulness by prosperity, and grows too big to be suppressed without a miracle; it is so far from excusing or lessening the sin, that nothing doth so nurse the sin as it. It is not virtue, because it is prosperous; but if it had not been prosperous, the sin could never be so great.

Facere omnia sævè

Non impune licet, nisi cum facis

A little crime is sure to smart; but when the sinner is grown rich, and prosperous, and powerful, he gets impunity, Jusque datum sceleri

But that is not innocence: and if prosperity were the voice