were, in their measure, subjected to the same trials, and made to drink of the same bitter cup.]
The same treatment they meet with in the present
day—
[We have observed, that a mere form of piety will pass without opposition : but real, vital godliness, will subject us to reproach at this day, as much as ever: " All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution d." That kind of godliness which arises from self and terminates in self, will bring us into favour with the world : but that which is derived altogether from Christ as its proper source and author, and is exercised altogether for the advancement of his glory, is, and ever will be, odious in the eyes of the ungodly : and a man who exemplifies it in his life and conversation can no more escape persecution than Christ himself could. To receive all from Christ, and to do all for Christ, is the very essence of Christian piety : and in requiring this of his followers, our blessed Lord has bequeathed to his Church a never-failing source of variance with the world. This he himself tells us : " Think not that I am come to send peace on earth : I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law : and a man's foes shall be they of his own household." Ac- cordingly we find universally, that where a person begins to live by faith on the Lord Jesus Christ, and to devote himself to his service, all his friends and relatives will take the alarm, and try, by every method of ridicule, or menace, or persuasion, to divert him from his purpose. Let him live in an entire neglect of his soul, and no one will trouble himself about him. He may live his whole life in such a state, and not a friend will exhort him to serve the Lord : but the least approach to piety will be discouraged by every friend and relative that he has. Not that religion will be discountenanced as religion : some evil name must be given to it first ; and then it will be reprobated under that character. But the very persons who hold in the highest veneration the names of the Apostles, and of the great reformers of our Church, and who would raise shrines and monuments to departed saints, will persecute the living saints with the utmost rancour : and were the Apostles or reformers to live again upon the earth, they would receive the very same treatment from them that they met with from the people of the age in which they lived. If they called the Master of the house Beelzebub, it is in vain for any servant of his to hope that he shall escape a similar reproach6.]
d 2 Tim. iii. 12. e Matt. x. 24, 25.
b2