' Brooks is enumerating the engravings of his favourite folio. Clarke, as before. — G.
* Basil in xl. Mart. Cone. Item Greg. Xyssen de iisdem, Orat. 2.
•' Eccles. Hist., lib. v. c. 1. ■* Socrat. Hist., lib. iii. c. 13.
* Mag. Cent. iv. c. 3, €i Tkeodoreto.
* Euseb. Eccles. Hist., lib. v. c. 1, lib. viii. c. 6, 7, &c. Niceph., lib. vii. c. 11, 12. ' See my ' Beauty of Holiness,' pp. 413-415. [Vol. iv. — G.]
TO ALL SUFFERING SAINTS. 437
and Andrew was crucified by Egeus, king of Edessa ; and James, the son of Zebedee, was slain by Herod with the sword, Acts xii. 2 ; and Philip was crucified at Hierapolis, in Asia; and while Bartholomew was preach- ing the glad tiddings of salvation, multitudes fell upon him, and beat him down with staves, and then crucified him ; and after all this, his skin was flayed off, and he beheaded ; Thomas was slain with a dart at Calumina, in India ; and Matthew was slain with a spear, say some ; others say he was run through with a sword ; and James, the son of Alpheus, who was called the Just, was thrown down from off a pinnacle of the temple ; and yet having some life left in him, he was brained with a fuller's club. Lebbeus was slain by Agbarus, king of Edessa, and Paul was beheaded at Rome by Nero ; and Simon the Canaanite was crucified in Egypt, say some ; others say that he and Jude were slain in a tumult of the' people ; and Matthias was stoned to death, and John was banished into Patmos, Rev. i. 9 ; and afterwards, as some histories tell us, he was by that cruel tjrrant Domitian cast into a tub of scalding oil, and yet delivered by a miracle. Thus all these wor- thies, ' of whom this world was not worthy/ Heb. xi. 38, except John, died violent deaths, and so, through sufferings, entered into glory. To conclude, Lactantius saith, not only the men among the Chris- tians, and those of stronger years and hearts, but even our women and little children, saith he, have endured all torments, and been too hard for their tormentors. No rack, no fire could fetch so much as a groan from them, which the stoutest thieves and malefactors among their persecutors could not undergo, but they would roar and cry out through impatience and disability to endure them.^ I suppose that more cruel torments cannot be invented than of old have been inflicted on Christians. Persecutors have acknowledged that they were over- come, and had no more to inflict.^ Such torture and torments so courageously and manfully have sundry Christians in all ages suffered as to them who only heard thereof they seemed incredible ; and to many who were eye-witnesses thereof they seemed so strange, and beyond admiration, as they thought the martyrs to be mad, witless, and senseless: but the martyrs had peace and rest and quiet within, and the favourable presence of God so shining upon their souls, that they were encouraged and enabled with a holy and heavenly bravery of spirit to bid defiance to their most cruel persecutors.
Now, Christians, if you compare your most cruel sufferings with the sufferings of the saints of old, how easy and light will they be found to be ! What are molehills to mountains, scratches upon the hand to stabs at the heart ? No more are your greatest sufferings to those that the saints have met with in former ages. And therefore, thougli men frown upon you, and threaten you with censures, imprisonment, banishment, confiscation, and all the evil human might and cruelty can do unto you, yet be not moved, but account yourselves happy that you have any opportunity to do or suffer anything whereby you may testify that Christ and his concerns do lie near your hearts, and whereby you may further his opposed interest, and bear witness to his despised truth, 1 Pet. iv. 14, 1.5. But,
9. Ninthly, Consider, That the saints and martyrs of old have made ^ Lact., lib. V. c. 13. - Euseb. Eccl. Hist., lib. v. c. 1.
438 A GENEEAL EPISTLE