_l HE pleas and excuses for our cowardly faintness in the day of trouble are endless, and so would his task be that should under- take particularly to answer them all. It is but the cutting off an Hydrops head, when one is gone, ten more start up ; what is most material I ^^^ll here take into consideration. When good men (for with such I am dealing in this chapter) see a formidable face and appearance of sharp and bloody times approaching them, they begin to tremble, their hearts faint, and their hands hang- down with unbecoming despondency, and pusillanimity ; their thoughts are so distracted, their reason and faith so clouded by their fears, that their temptations are thereby exceedingly strength- ened upon them, and their principles and professions brought under the derision and contempt of their enemies : and if their brethren, to whom God hath given more courage and constancy, and who discern the mischief like to ensue from their uncomely carri- age, admonish and advise them of it : they have abundance of pleas and defences for their fears, yea, when they reason the point of sufPering in their own thoughts, and the matter is debated (as in such times it is common) betwixt faith and fear, O what endless work do their fears put upon their faith, to solve all the huts and ifs which their fears will object or suppose.
Some of the principal of them I think it worth while here io consider, and endeavour to satisfy, that, if possible, I may prevail with all gracious persons to be more magnanimous. And first of all.
Pita 1. Sufferings for Christ are strange things to the Christians of this age, we have had the happy lot to fall into milder times than the primitive Christians did, or those that struggled in our own land in the beginning of reformation ; and therefore we may be excused for our fears, by reason of our own unacquaintedness with sufferings in our times.
Answer 1. One fault is but a bad excuse for another, why are sufferings such strangers to you .? Why did you not cast upon them in the days of peace, and reckon that such days must come ? Did you not covenant with Christ to follow him whithersoever he should go, to take up your cross, and follow him .? And did not the word plainly tell you, that " All that will live godly in Christ
A PRACTICAL TREATISE OF FEAR. 31 S
" Jesus must suffer persecution,'' 2 Tim. iii. 12. " And that " we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of '' God," Acts xiv. 22. Did we fall asleep in quiet and prosper- ous days, and dream of halcyon days all our time on earth ? that the mountain of our prosperity stood strong, and we should never be moved .^ That we should die in our nest, and multiply our days as the sand; Babylon's children indeed dream so. Rev. xviii. 7. but the children of Sion should be better instructed. Alas ! how soon may the brightest day be overcast ? The weather is not so variable, as the state of the church in this world is ; now a calm. Acts ix. 31. and then a storm, Acts xii. 1, 2. You could not but know what contingent and variable things all things on earth are ; why then did you delude yourselves with such fond dreams ? But as a learned man * rightly observes, Mundus senescens patitur phantasias. The older the world grows, the more drowsy and dot- ting it still grows, and these are the days in which the wise as well as the foolish virgins slumber. Sure it is but a bad plea, after so many warnings from the w^ord, and from the rod to say, I did not think of such times, I dreamed not of them.
2. Or if you say, though you have conversed with death and sufferings by speculation, yet you lived not in such times wherein you might see (as other sufferers did) the encouraging faith, patience and zeal of others set before your eyes in a lively pattern and ex^ ample. Sufferings were not only familiarized to them by frequency, but facilitated also by the daily examples of those that went before them.
But think you indeed that nothing but encouragement and advantage to followers, arose from the trials of those that went be- fore.? Alas, there were sometimes the greatest damps and discourage- ments imaginable ; the zeal of those that followed have often been inflamed by the faintings of those that were tried before them. In the seventh persecution under Decius, anno 250, there were standing before the tribunal, certain of the warriors or knights, viz. Amnion, Zenon, Ptolomeus, Ingenuus, and a certain aged man called Theophilus, who all standing by as spectators when a certain Christian was examined, and there seeing him for fear, ready to decline, and fall away, did almost burst for sorrow within themselves: they made signs to him with their hands, and all gestures of the body to be constant ; this being noted by all the standers by, they were ready to lay hold upon them ; but they preventing the matter, pressed up of their own accord, before the bench of the judge, professing themselves to be Christians, insomuch that both the president and the benchers were all astonished, and
81 4j a practical treatise of fear.
the Christians which were judged, the more encouraged. Such damping spectacles the Christians of former ages had frequently set before them.
And it was no small trial to some of them, to hear the faintings and abnegation of those that went before them, pleaded against their constancy ; as in the time of Valens, it was urged by the per- secutors ; Those that came to their trial before you, have acknow- leged their errors, begged our pardon, and returned to us : and why will you stand it out so obstinately ? But the Christians answer- ed, Nos hac potissimum ratione viriUter stablnius, For this very reason ice "will stand to it the more manjidlij, to repair their scandal, by our greater courage for Christ. These were the helps and ad- vantages they often had in those days, therefore lay not so much stress upon that ; their courage undoubtedly flowed from an higher spring and better principle, than the company they suffered with.
3. And if precedents and experiences of others to break the ice before you, be so great an advantage, surely we that live in these latter times have the most and best helps of that nature that ever any people in the world had. You have all their examples record- ed* for your encouragement, and therefore think it not strarige con- cerning the fiery trial, as though some strange thing had happened to you, as the apostle speaks, 1 Pet. iv. 12. This plea is vreighed, and no great weight found in it.