OVER EARTHLY KINGS. 583
destroyed ; and let us look on the courses they themselves take which will cause their destruction. Was there ever anything that weakened popery so much as this desperate attempt that we now celebrate this day ? Indeed, if we go to an ignorant papist, and tell him what doctrine they teach, and what upholds their doctrine, tell him of the powder treason, ask him concerning the traitors, he will mince the matter. Oh, they were unfortunate gentlemen, &c. But how did Sixtus Quintus mince the matter when they had success in the massacre in France ; when many thousands of people were slain against the law, slain under pretence of being married and bidden to a marriage ? (j) He was so far from disallowing the act, as that he caused it to be pictured in his palace. So if these had achieved this, they had not been unfortunate gentlemen ; they had been made, they had been sainted, as some of them are, St Garnet ! St Devil ! * If the devil himself will help them, and further popery, he shall be sainted ; and if they be never so base, yet for their rebellion and destruction of kings, they shall be sainted by them. Will not this provoke men to hate the beast and the whore, to make her desolate and naked, and to eat her flesh, and to burn her with fire ?
Well, the time is past, I cannot finish the text as I thought to have done. To speak to the particular occasion I need not, it is yet fresh. And what should we speak of the gunpowder treason ? The Jesuits and priests, having the devil for their midwife, they are big of such like plots ; hell, Rome, and Satan, and the Jesuits, those frogs of the bottomless pit, they are full of devising such attempts. But I rather thought to speak against popery, against the beast and her religion at this time, than rhetorically to amplify that act of theirs, when indeed we are ready to have a new one continually, for they are always plotting and devising, I mean those Jesuits. Our comfort is to look to the Scripture, to look here what shall be the end of these frogs and of the beast. Ere long they shall be cast into the burn- ing lake. Let us bless God that we live under this government, of so gracious a prince, that hath more weakened the pope by his learned writ- ings, that ever any prince did.f So much for this time.
* Cf. note 000, Vol. II. page 535.— G. t Cf. note g, page 534.— G.
NOTES.
{a) P. 520. — 'Kings must kiss that ... as they did Heliodorus.' Query, the private secretary of the Emperor Hadrian, and himself subsequently prefect of Egypt ? Sibbes's name of ' emperor ' would make it seem so : but the trait would better suit the haughty Heliodorus, author of the famous romance at the end of which he has proudly told that he was of the family of priests of the Syrian god of the sun (Twv a(p' 'HXt'ou yhog).
[h) P. 520. — ' The apostles, when they returned from preaching.' This is a singu- lar slip on the part of Sibbes. It was Jesus who thus ' saw ' Satan 'fall,' whatever the mysterious words may mean. The apostles told how the ' devils ' had been sub- ject to them. Probably this was running in Sibbes's mind at the time. Cf. Luke x. 18, et seq.
{c) P. 521. — 'As Sixtus Quintus,' &c. The murderer of Henry III. (on August 1st 1589) was Jacques Clement, a Dominican friar. In Henry III. the House of Valois became extinct. By the ' bloody massacre ' is no doubt intended that of St Bartholomew. The papal approbation, if we may not say exultation, on both occa- sions is a commonplace of history.
684 THE beast's dominion ovee eabthly kings.
((f) p. 522. — ' And as a man, it is Luther's comparison, tliat moves a horse.' The 'comparison is common to various of the early Fathers, e.g. Augustine and Basil, also Lombard, as well as Luther. I)r John Boys has worked it in very well, with much additional lore, in shewing how the Spirit is said to lead in temptation. Cf. Works, p. 234 (1629).
(e) B. 523. — ' St Augustine, in the unfolding of tliis point, of the providence of God in evil.' See the reference to Boys in previous note (d). The reconciliation often recurs in Augustine.
(/) P. 525. — 'It was a good prayer of the ancient church, Oh God, from whom all holy desires and all good counsels do proceed,' &c. One of the memorabilia of the Book of Common Prayer.
(g) P. 527. — ' His majesty, who, if ever prince did, doth vindicate himself.' Sibbes seems, from this and other tributes, to have held a high opinion of James I. (VL of Scotland). lict this be placed against more modern depreciations.
{h) P. 627. — ' Kings . . . they draw their kingdoms after them.' Probably the iiuthor was thinking of Horace's line —
' Quicquid delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi.'
{() P. 528. — ' Consecrated grains.' Query, the 'wafer ' of the host?
{}') P. 588 — ' Sixtus Quintus.' Tillemont has pronounced this pope ' the most extraordinary man of his time (1585).' Sibbes would seem to refer to the great massacre on the ' Festival ' of St I3artholomew, Aug. 24. 1572 ; but the then reigning pope was Gregory XIII. Cf. note c supra. G.