5. Persecution is injustice, and oppression of the innocent! And what a multitude of terrible threatenings against this sin, are found throughout the holy Scriptures! Doth a man deserve to be cruelly used, for being faithful to his God, and for preferring him before man? and for being afraid to sin against him? or for doing that which God commandeth him, and that upon pain of greater sufferings than man can inflict upon him? Is it not his Saviour that hath said, "Fear not them that can kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do; but fear him who after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell: yea, I say unto you, fear him." Though christianity was once called, "A sect which every where was spoken against," Acts xxviii. 22; and Paul was accused as a pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition among the people, Acts xxiv. 5; and Christ was crucified as a usurper of the crown; yet innocency shall be innocency still, in spite of malice and lying accusations; because God will be the final Judge, and will bring all secret things to light, and will justify those whom injustice hath condemned, and will not call them as slandering tongues have called them. Yea, the consciences of the persecutors are often forced to say, as they did of Daniel, Dan. vi. 5, "We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God." And therefore the net which they were fain to lay for him, was a law against his religion, or prayers to God; for a law against treason, sedition, swearing, drunkenness, fornication, &c. would have done them no service! And yet they would fain have aspersed him there, ver. 4. Jer. xxii. 13, "Woe to him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness!" &c. Isa. xxxiii. 1, "Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou wast not spoiled!" Isa. v. 20, "Woe to them that call evil good, and good evil!" Jer. ii. 34, "In thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor innocents." Prov. vi. 16, 17, "Hands that shed innocent blood, the Lord doth hate," &c.
6. Persecution maketh men likest unto devils, and maketh them his most notable servants in the world.[125] Many wicked men may neglect that duty which they are convinced they should do. But to hate it, and malice men that do it, and seek their ruin; this, if any thing, is work more beseeming a devil than a man. These are the commanders in the armies of the devil, against the cause and kingdom of the Lord! John viii. 42, 44. And accordingly shall they speed.
7. Persecution is an inhuman, disingenuous sin, and showeth an extinction of the light of nature. A good-natured man, if he had no grace at all, would abhor to be cruel, and to oppress his brethren; and that merely because they are true to their consciences, and obey their God, while they do no hurt to any others. If they had deserved execution, an ingenuous nature would not be forward to be their executioner; much more when they deserve encouragement and imitation: it is no honour to be numbered with bloodthirsty men.
8. It is a sin that hath so little of commodity, honour, or pleasure to invite men to it, that maketh it utterly without excuse, and showeth, that the serpentine nature is the cause, Gen. iii. 15. What get men by shedding the blood of innocents, or silencing the faithful preachers of the gospel? What sweetness could they find in cruelty, if a malicious nature made it not sweet?
9. It is a sin which men have as terrible warnings against from God, as any sin in the world, that I can remember. 1. In God's threatenings. 2. In sad examples, and judgments in this life, even on posterity. 3. And in the infamy that followeth the names of persecutors, when they are dead.
1. How terrible are those words of Christ, Matt. xviii. 6, "But whoso shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." How terrible is that character which Paul giveth of the Jews; 1 Thess. ii. 15, 16, "Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us: and they please not God, and are contrary to all men; forbidding us to speak to the gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway; for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost." Such terrors against persecutors are so common through the Scriptures, that it would be tedious to recite them.