little reckoning or account of their lives, liberties, relations, or estates, when they stood in competition loith Christ, or his truth, loorship, ivays, ordinances, interest, or with their profession of the Christian faith. Witness that glorious testimony that the apostle gives of them, ' They would not* accept deliverance.'^ He means deliverance from death, or preservation of life. This, though offered, they would not accept — namely, on persecutors' terms or conditions, which was to deny the truth of God, or renounce their faith in him. They scorned deliver- ance upon base terms, and would rather die than deny Christ or his truth. This phrase, ' Not accepting deliverance,' presupposeth that deliverance was offered to them, otherwise they could not have re- jected it, for their not accepting was a rejecting. Their persecutors offered them deliverance upon their compliance with their wills, lusts, ways, worship, &c. This is evident by that which Nebuchadnezzar said to Daniel's three champions when they were accused for not worshipping his idol, which was this, ' If ye be ready to fall down and worship the image,' Dan. iii. 15. He hereby implies that they should be spared ; for he addeth, ' If you worship not, you shall be cast into a fiery furnace.' And this is further evident in those to whom the apostle hath reference — viz., the Maccabees, 2 Mac. vi. 18-31. And this was the common practice of the persecuting em- perors in the ten persecutions ; and after them, with the Antichristian persecutors; and more particularly, with the high persecutors in Queen Mary's days. But the Christians in those several ages had such a mighty presence of God with them, that they chose rather to suffer the worst of deaths than to preserve their lives by complying with the wills, lusts, ways, and worship of their persecutors. For ever remember this, that the envy and malice of persecutors is more against the glorious truth the saints profess than it is against their persons ; for let but Christians relinquish the truth, deny the truth, reproach the truth, or oppose the truth, and presently they shall be white-boys,2 great favourites, good sons of the church, and what not. That the envy and malice of persecutors is more against the truth than the professors of it, is most evident, in that they persecute strangers whom they never knew before. It is said of Paul, that ' if he found any such, he brought them bound,' Acts ix. 2. All was fish that was caught in his net. If father or mother, brother or sister, child or cousin profess the truth, plead for the truth, stand up for the truth, men of persecuting spirits will prosecute and persecute them to the death : ' The brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child ; and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death,' Mat. x. 21 ; Luke xxi. 16. Alphonsus Diarius delivered up his own brother John at Neu- berg in Germany into his enemies' hands.^ So Dr London* made Filmer the martyr's own brother witness against him, by supplying of him with meat and money, and by telling of him he should never want. So one Woodman was delivered by his own brother into his enemies' hands.^ And in the civil wars of France, not to mention that of England, the sons fought against their fathers, and brothers
^ HeK xi. 35, vide Estius. * As before. — G. ^ Sleidan, lib. i. 17.
« >bic.— G. « [Foxe,] Acts aud Mon., fol. lll:i and 1801.
TO ALL SUFFERING SAINTS. 439
against brothers ; and even women took up arms on both sides for de- fence of their religion.^ And Philip, king of Spain, could frequently say that he had rather have no subjects than heretics, as he called the Protestants ; and out of a blind, bloody zeal he suffered his eldest son Charles to be murdered by the cruel Inquisition, because he seemed to favour the Protestant side, [Jerome.] Truth is a glorious, shining light, that discovers the ignorance* and darkness, the wickedness and baseness, the unsoundness and hypocrisy, the superstition and vain conversation, of persecutors ; and therefore they cannot endure this light, they hate this light, and will do all they can to suppress this light, and those that hold out this light to the world, John iii. 19. The saints and martyrs of old were as willing to die as to dine. Pliny, writing to Trajan the emperor, declares to him that such was their zeal and courage in behalf of their God, that nothing could stir them from it.2 Neither the imperious checks of the potent emperors, nor the soft language of the eloquent orators, could draw them from the faith ; but they steadfastly owned it, and constantly persevered in the defence of it, and were ready and willing to lay down their lives for it. When Ignatius was to suffer. It is better for me, saith he, to be a martyr than to be a monarch. It was a notable saying of a French martyr, when the rope was about his fellow, Give me, said he, that golden chain, and dub me knight of that noble order. Let, saith Ignatius, fire and cross, invasion of beasts, breaking of bones, pulling asunder of members, grinding of my whole body, and what else the devil can inflict, come, so I may hold Jesus Christ. ^ Lucius thanked him that brought him forth to suffer, and said that he should be free from those evil masters, and go to God, a good Father and King.-* Germanicus, when he was brought forth to be torn in pieces and devoured by wild beasts, the governor, persuading him to be mindful of his youth, that he might be spared, of his own accord incited the beasts against himself. Sanctus, being under tortures for professing himself to be a Christian, unto every question propounded to him, he answered, I am a Christian ; whereby he occasioned his torments to be continued to death.5 Can we think that St Laurence would have accepted of deliverance, who, lying on a red-hot gridiron, over burning coals, with an invincible spirit thus said to the tyrants: Turn the side broiled enough, and see what thy burning fire hath done ; and being turned, and thoroughly broiled on the other side, saith thus again : Eat that which is broiled, and try whether raw or broiled be the sweeter. Hippolytus, when he was tied to wild horses to be pulled asunder, thus prayed : Let them rend my limbs ; do thou, 0 Christ, wrap up my soul. To omit other particulars of the ancient martyrs in the primitive times, with whose courageous speeches, manifesting a contempt of death, of which volumes might be filled, it is indefinitely recorded of many, who were famous for their wealth, nobility, glory, eloquence, and learning, that nevertheless they preferred true piety and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ before all those.^ And though they were entreated by many of their kindred and friends otherwise,
1 Hist, of Council of Treut, fol. 647. ' Epist. lib. x. ep. 97, p. 316.
^ Euseb. Hist. Eccl, lib. iii. cap. 36. * Ibid., lib. iv. cap. 15.
* Ihid., lib. V. cap. 2. * Ibid., lib viii. cup. 9.