And this was the spirit of courage and magnanimity with which the generality of the primitive Christians were animated; they feared not the faces of tyrants, they shrunk not from the most cruel tor- ments : and it redounded not a little to the credit of Christianity, when one of Julian's nobles, present at the tormenting of Marcus, bishop of Arethusa, told the apostate to his face. We are ashamed, O emperor, the Christians laugh at your cruelty, and grow more resolute by it. So Lactantius also testifies of them. Our ivomen and children, saith he, not to speak of men, overca7ne their torments, and the jire cannot J'etch so much as a sigh from thejn. If carnal fear once get the ascendant over us, all our courage and resolution will flag and melt away ; we may suffer out of unavoidable necessity, but shall never honour Christ and religion by our sufferinojs.
Effect 5. Carnal fear is the very root of apostasy, it hath made thousands of professors to faint and fall away in the hour of temp- tation. It is not so much from the fury of our enemies without, as from our fears within, that temptations become victorious over us. From the beginning of fears, Christ dates the beginning of apostasy. Matt. xxiv. 9, 10. <• Then shall they deliver you up to
A PRACTICAL TRKATISE OF FEAR. 2T7
** be afflicted, and shall kill you, and ye shall be hated of all " nations for my name's sake, and then shall many be offended." When troubles and dangers come to an height, then fears begin to work at an height too, and then is the critical hour ; fears are high, and faith is low; temptation strong, and resistance weak: Satan knocks at the door, and fear opens it, and yields up the soul to him, except special aid and assistance come in seasonably from heaven ; so long as we can profess religion without any great ha- zard of life, liberty, or estates, we may shew much zeal and for- wardness in the ways of godliness : but when it comes to the sharps, to resisting' unto blood, few will be found to own and assert it openly in the face of such dangers. The first retreat is usually made from a free and open, to a close and concealed practice of religion ; not opening our windows, as Daniel did, to shew we care not who knows we dare worship our God, and are not ashamed of our duties, but hiding our principles and practice with all the art and care imaginable, reckoning it well if we can escape danger by letting fall our profession which might expose us to it : but if the inquest go on, and we cannot be secured any longer under this refuge, we must comply with false worship, and give some open signal that we do so, or else be marked out for ruin ; then saith fear, Give a little more ground, and retreat to the next security, which is to comply seemingly with that which we do not allow, hoping God will be merciful to us and accept us, if we keep our hearts for him, though we are forced thus to dissemble and hide our principles. Eamus ad communem errorem, said Calderinus, when going to the mass. Let us go to the common error ; and, as Seneca adviseth about worshipping the Roman gods. In animo i-eVigionem 7ion haheat, sed in actibiis Jingat ; let us make a semblance and shew of worsliipping them, though our hearts give no religious respect to them. But if still the temptation hunts us farther, and we come to be more nar- rowly sifted and put to a severer test, by subscribing contrary articles, or renouncing our former avowed principles, and that upon penalty of death, and loss of all that is dear to us in this world ; now- nothing in all the world hazards our eternal salvation as our own fears will do ; this is like to be the rock on which we shall split all, and make an horrible shipwreck both of truth and peace. This was the case of Cranmer, whose fears caused him to subscribe against the dictates of his own conscience, and cowardly to betray the known truth ■; and indeed there is no temptation in the world that hath overthrown so many, as that which hath been backed and edged with fear : the love of preferments and honours hath slain its thousands, but fear of sufferinffs its ten thousands.
Effect 6. Sinful fear puts men under great bondage of spirit,
273 ^ PRACTICAL TREATISE OF FEAR.
and makes death a thousand times more terrible and intolerable than it would otherwise be to us. You read of some, Heb. ii. 16. " who through the fear of death were all their life-time subject to " bondage,'' i. e. it kept them in a miserable anxiety and perplexity of mind, like slaves that tremble at the whip which is held over them: thus many thousands live under the lash; so terrible is the name of Death, especially a violent death, that they are not able ■svith patience to hear it mentioned ; which gave the ground of that saying, Prcestat semel, quam semper mori ; it is better to die once than to be dying alv/ays. And surely there is not a more miserable life any poor creature can live than such a trembling life as this is. For,
1. Such a bondage as this destroys all the comfort and pleasure of life ; no pleasure can grow or thrive under the shadow of this cursed plant. N'll ei beatiun cui semper aliquis terror impendeat, saith Cicero *, all the comforts we possess in this world are embit- tered by it. It is storied of Democles, a flatterer of Dionysius the t}T:ant, that he told him he was the happiest man in the world, having wealth, power, majesty, and abundance of all things : Dionysius sets the flatterer in all his own pomp at a table furnished vAxh. all dainties, and attended upon as a king, but with a heavy sharp sword hanging by a single horse hair right over his head ; this made him quake and tremble, so that he could neither eat nor drink, but desired to be freed from that estate. The design was to convince him how miserable a life they live, who live under the continual terrors of impending death and ruin. It was a sore judgment which God threatened against them in Jer. v. 6. "A lion '' out of the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the evening shall " spoil them ; a leopard shall watch over their cities, every one " that goeth out thence shall be torn in pieces." What a miserable hfe must those people live who could not stir out of the city, but they presently were seized by hons, wolves, and leopards, that watched over them, and lurked in all the avenues to make them a prey ! and yet this is more tolerable than for a man's own fear to watch continually over him.
2. And yet I could wish this were the worst of it, and that our fears destroyed no better comforts than the natural comforts of this life : but alas, they also destroy our spiritual comforts which we might have from God's promises, and our own and others' experi- ences which are incomparably the sweetest pleasures men have in this world : but as no creature-comfort is pleasant, so no promise relishes like itself to him that lives in this bondage of fear ; when
» Cicer. Tusc. Q^ 15.
A PllACTlCAL TIIEATISE OF FEAR.