^ Phil. i. 29. A priest might enter into a leper's house without danger, because he
had a calling from God so to do. And we may follow God dry-shod through the Red'
Sea when God gives a call.
TO ALL SUFFERING SAINTS. 435
[1.] First, When the truth luill suffer, and the name of God suffer, and the gospel will suffer, should ive decline suffering, then we are called to suffer. It is our duty to suffer anything, to suffer the worst of things that the worst of men can inflict, rather than that the truth should suffer, or the name of God suffer, or the gospel suffer.
[2.] Secondly, When the case standi so with us, that we cannot keep life, estate, liberty, dec, without denying of Christ or tJie gospel, or luithout concealing this precious truth or that, or without turning our hacks upon this ordinance or that, dec, then we are called to suffer. When we cannot preserve our lives, our liberties, our estates, without denying of Christ, or the concerns of Christ, in one degree or another, in one kind or another, then we are called to lay down our lives, our liberties, our estates, &c., at the feet of Christ, as the saints and martyrs of old have done before us.
[3.] Thirdly, When our way is so liedged up with thorns, Hosea ii. 6, that loe must either sin or suffer, when sin and sufferings surround us, so that we cannot get out or come off, hut we must either sin or suffer^ then I must, with the three champions, choose rather to burn than to bow ; and with Daniel to the lion's den, than to omit my duty, Dan. iii. 17 ; and with Moses, choose to suffer afflictions with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin, which are but for a season, Heb. xi. 24-26. I may safely and groundedly conclude, that Christ calls me to suffer, when I must either sin or suffer. When the case stands thus, then I may be confident of the singular presence of God with me, the special blessing of God upon me, and a gracious or a glorious deliverance out of all my sufferings. But,
[4.] Fourthly and lastly, WJien a Christian, to the hest of his under- standing, has seriously weighed all things and circumstances, and is ivell satisfied in his mind and conscience tliat his sufferings tvill he the exaltation of Christ, tlie furtlierance of the gospel, the stopping of the moutlis of the ivicked, the confirmation of those that are strong, and the strengthening and encouraging of those that are weak, then he may safely conclude that Christ calls him to suffer. But,
8. Eighthly, Consider, That the sufferings of the saints in these days are light and easy to the sufferings that ivere inflicted upon the Jews in the days of Antiochus, and on Christians in the times of the ten notorious persecutions under the Roman emperors, and to those that have been inflicted upon the martyrs since} So cruel was the sight of those tortures which persecutors inflicted, as exceeds all expression. 2 Constant Christians had their flesh torn from their backs with rods, scourges, whips, and cords, so as their bones lay bare ; and the raw parts of their bodies were washed with vinegar and salt. They were stretched on racks, their legs were broken, and so left miserably to perish ; they were gored with sharp pricks under the lowest parts of their nails ; their bodies were scraped with shells to death ; their backs were flayed ; their skins were pulled over their heads, from the brow to the chin ; their noses, lips, ears, hands, and feet were cut off, and
^ Mac. vi. 9, 10, vii. 1-4. Euseb. Eccles. Hist., lib. viii. c. 6.
' Hym. 10, de Rom. Anno. Mart. Laddelacorda computeth forty-four several kinds of torments wherewith the primitive Christians were tried. Adv. Sacr., cap. 128. [As before. See Index, Maurice de la Corde.— G.]
436 A GENERAL EPISTLE
they, as sacrifices j cut in gobbets; their tongues were cut out by the roots, and pulled out of their jaws ; their eyes were bored, and digged out ; their bodies were rent and jDulled in pieces by strong boughs forced together by instruments, and let loose when the limbs of the bodies of martyrs were tied fast unto them ; their limbs were also pulled to pieces with wild horses ; their brains were knocked out with fuller's clubs ; their legs were broken in pieces ; they were burnt with fire ; they were a long while together parched with hot burning coals ; being hanged by the heels, and their heads downward over a soft fire, they were choked with smoke ; they were roasted at the fire, as flesh to be eaten used to be roasted ; they were leisurely broiled on gridirons over the fire ; they were fried in red-hot iron chairs, as in a frying-pan, which annoyed the standers-by with a stench ; hot boil- ing lead was poured down their throats ; they clapped fiery plates of brass upon the most tender parts of their bodies, i A persecuting tyrant, considering the nature of the country, that it was terrible cold, and the time of the year, that it was winter, and a night wherein the cold extremely increased, and that the north wind then blew there, commanded forty Christians to be set stark naked under the open air in the midst of the city to freeze to death. Then, when they heard that charge, with joy casting away even their innermost vestment, they went on to their death by cold.2 They endured the violence of leopards, bears, wild boars, and bulls. Attains and Alexander were twice baited with wild beasts, to be torn in pieces by them, as Eusebius reports.^ Attalus, escaping the beasts, was reserved to other torments, to be burnt to death in an iron chair, heated red fire hot. Macedonius, Theodulus, and Tatianus were laid upon a gridiron, and broiled to death. 4 There were many Christians together stopped up in lakes or caves, artificially made close, which lakes or ditches were filled with a company of dormice, kept hungry, to gnaw and feed upon the poor Christians, they being all the while bound hand and foot, that they could not keep off those hunger-starved creatures, which were kept without meat also, purposely that they might fasten with the more eagerness upon the bodies of those precious Christians. They were de- stroyed with hunger, thirst, and cold.^ Such as were stifled in prisons, they east to dogs, setting w^atchmen night and day, lest any of them should be buried. And such remainders as were left both of beasts and fire, in part torn, and in part burnt, together with the heads and bodies of others, they cast out in like manner, unburied, and com- mitted them some days to the custody of soldiers.^ Thus the barbar- ous cruelty of persecutors extended itself as far as it could beyond the temporal lives of the martyrs. Ecclesiastical histories tell us that all the apostles died violent deaths.'' Peter was crucified with his heels upwards. Christ was crucified with his head upwards, but Peter thought this was too great an honour for him to be crucified as his Lord, and therefore he chose to be crucified wdth his heels upward ;