A Looking Glass for Persecutors, Part 2
Gods Judgments on Persecutors during the ten Primitive Persecutions under the Heathen Emperors.
30. Nero (that monster of men) that raised the first bloody Persecution against the Christians, caused them to be clad in the skins of wild Beasts, and torn in pieces with Dogs: Others he Crucified: Of some he made Bone-fires to light him in his Night-sports. In brief, such horrible cruelties he used against them, as made them to be pitied of their very Enemies. But God at last found out this wretched Persecutor. For being adjudged by the Roman Senate to be an Enemy to mankind, he was condemned to be whip'd to Death; To avoid which shameful end, he cut his own throat.
31. Domitian the Author of the second Persecution against the Christians, grew to that prodigious height of Pride, that he would be adored as a God: But God raised up his own houshold Servants against him, who (by the consent of his Wife) slew him with Daggers in his privy Chamber. His Body was buried without honour: His memory accursed to all Posterities, and his Arms, and Ensigns were thrown down and defaced.
32. Trajan, though a prudent Prince, and good civil Magistrate, yet by the instigation of Satan and his Instruments, raised the third Persecution against the Church: For which the vengeance of God, and his heavy hand fell upon him. For first he fell into a grievous Palsie: then lost the use of his Senses: and lastly fell into a Dropsie, and dyed in great anguish and misery.
33. Adrian, who raised the fourth Persecution, causing ten thousand Christians to be crucified in Armenia, and afterwards stirred up a hot and cruel Persecution against them in other places, was stricken by God with an issue of blood from his Lungs which exceedingly disquieted and weakened him: Then he fell into a Consumption of the Lungs, which he spat out continually: And in the mean time he was afflicted with an insatiable Dropsie, whereupon, finding himself so variously tormented, he would have taken Poison; or cut his throat with a Knife: But his Friends preventing him, he was forced to die a lingering and painful Death.
34. Marcus Antonius Verus, who continued the fourth Persecution, exercising exceeding great cruelties against the Christians in all parts of his Empire, especially at Lions, and Viene in Dalphine: For which cause, the Lord struck him with a grievous Apoplexy, of which, after he had lain speechless three days, he dyed.
35. Comodus the Emperor, who continued also this fourth Persecution against the Christians, was given over to such abominable wickedness, that he kept three hundred Concubines, and as many boys for unnatural and delectable uses: and for his cruelty was poisoned by his Friend Marcia, which caused him to fall into extreme and deadly vomiting, in which he was slain by Narcissus, one of his Chamberlains.
36. Severus, the Author of the fifth Persecution, never prospered after he began the same, but fell into diverse calamities: And at length was stricken by God with such an extreme pain through all the parts of his Body, that being in misery therewith, he would fain have poisoned himself; but being prevented by his Friends, he dyed a languishing and painful death.
37. Under him, Claudius Herminianus, Governour of Cappadocia (out of hatred to his wife who was a Christian) extremely persecuted, and afflicted many of Gods children: he was stricken by God with a Pestilential Carbuncle, and had Vermine bred in his bowels which devoured him alive, after a most horrible manner, which extorted a confession from him, that those Plagues fell justly upon him for his persecuting the Christians.
38. Maximianus the Empreor, who raised the sixth Persecution against the people of God, especially against the Pastors of the Church, was himself together with his Son slain by his own Soldiers.
39. Decius who raised the seventh Persecution, labouring by all means utterly to destroy the Church of Christ, exercising all the cruelty and torments that the wit of man could invent against them. For this cause God raised up the Scythians against him, who in a bloody battel, routed and overthrew his Army, and himself, and Son were cruelly slain: or as others say, to avoid falling into his Enemies hands, he leap'd his horse into a Whirlpit, after which his body was never found.
40. Presently after the death of this Tyrant, a grievous Plague and Pestilence fell upon the bloody persecuting Gentiles in every of the Roman Provinces, which lasting ten years together, made such havock among them, as is horrible to hear, and almost incredible to believe. And it was observed, that where the Emperors Edicts had been put in Execution with most severity, there it raged most, insomuch that many places became utterly desolate.
41. Gallus the Emperor who continued the seventh Persecution, was himself with his Son slain by one of his own Captains.
42. Valerian the Emperor, in the beginning of his Reign was very mild towards the Christians: But afterwards (being stirred up by the Devil and his Instruments) proved a terrible Persecutor of them in all his Dominions: But not long after, he was overthrown by the Persians in a bloody Battel; wherein himself was taken Prisoner, being seventy years old, and made so vile a slave, that Sapores the King of Persia, used his back as a Block whereby to mount on Horse-back, and afterward he caused him to be flayed alive, and powdered with Salt, so that he dyed in cruel torments. Eusebius.
43. Claudius a President, and one of his Ministers of cruelty, was possessed by the Devil, and so grievously tormented, that biting off his tongue in small bits, he dyed miserably. This was the eighth Persecution.
44. Aurelian who raised the ninth Persecution, being about to send out an Edict for renewing the Persecution against the Christians, as he was about to sign it, a Thunderbolt fell at his Feet, which so terrified him, that for the present he forbore: But afterward, renewing it again, God stirred up his Servants to cut his throat. Niceph. Eutropius.
45. Dioclesian the Author of the tenth Persecution, First used all Politick ways to cause all the Christians in his Armies to renounce their Faith. Then by Proclamation he commanded all their Churches to be beaten down; their Bibles to be burnt, or torn in pieces: That all Christians in any Office should be ejected: That Christian Bondmen who would forsake their Profession should be made free: But when, notwithstanding this, he saw that the number of Christians still increased, being satiated with blood, he resigned, and gave over the Empire: But shortly after God struck him with diverse and strange diseases: His house was burnt down by Lightning from Heaven: And himself was so affrighted with a dreadful Thunder that he ran mad, and killed himself. Ruffinus.
46. Maximinian also, his Fellow-Emperor raged exceeding cruelly, and outragiously against the Christians. For when twenty thousand of them, upon a Solemn Festival Day, were assembled in a Temple at Nicomedia, to serve God, he caused it to be environed with some Bands of Soldiers, to be set on fire, and to be burnt with all that was in it. And a City of Christians in Phrygia, taking it after a long Siege, he caused it to be burnt, and razed to the ground, with all that were in it. But shortly after God struck him with a grievous and incurable Disease, wherein Vermin bred abundantly in his Body, which was accompanied with such an horrible stink, that, not being able to endure it, he hanged himself.
47. Maximinus that next succeeded in the Eastern Empire, was a cruel and implacable Persecutor of the Saints. For which God struck him with an uncoth and loathsome Disease. In his Privy Members there grew a sudden putrefaction, and at the bottom of the same there arose a botchy corrupt Bile, with a Fistula consuming and eating up his Entrails, out of which came swarming and innumerable company of Lice, which was attended with such a pestiferous stink as none were able to abide it. And being a corpulent man, all his fat so putrified, and stank so horribly, that some of his Physicians, not being able to endure it, he commanded to be slain: and others of them were cruelly put to death, because they could not cure him. But at last being told that it was Gods just revenging hand upon him for persecuting his people, he seemed to relent, and commanded the Persecution to cease: and God was pleased in some measure to ease him of his grievous torments. But about six months after, he sent forth a new Proclamation for the utter rooting out of the very name of Christians, whereupon his disease returned again, and assaulted him in greater extremity than before; so that his body being all rotten and full of corruption and worms, he dyed an accursed and miserable Death. Chrysostom saith, that the Apples of his eyes fell out before he dyed.
48. Galerius a chief Instrument of the Persecution under Dioclesian fell into a grievous Disease: in the nether part of his belly there arose a spreading sore which consumed his Privy Members, from whence there crawled abundance of worms, bred of the putrefaction, which neither Chyrurgeons, nor Physicians could cure. This made him to acknowledge that it was a just hand of God upon him for his cruelty to the Christians, and so he dyed miserable▪ or as others write, he flew himself. Languets Chron.
49. Licinius the Eastern Emperor, a bloody and merciless Enemy to the Christians, was in two great Battels overthrown by Constantine the Great, and slain by his Soldiers.
50. Antiochus, who passed sentence upon Agapetus, a godly young man, that was but fifteen years old, fell down suddenly as he sate upon the Seat of Judicature, crying out, that all his bowels burned within him, and so he dyed in great torment.
61. Mamuca, a Saracen, being a cruel Persecutor of the people of God, like unto Pharoah, met also with the like stroke of Gods vengeance. For as he was returning by Sea, with his Army in a hundred Ships, from the slaughter of the Christians, God sent such a Storm upon them, that few or none of them escaped drowning. Paulus Diaconus. Lib. 3. c. 12.
Julian, surnamed The Apostate, was first a Christian, yet afterward became a Heathen, and proved one of the most dangerous and deadly Persecutors that ever the Christian Church had. First, he began to undermine the Christian Religion by Policy, and afterwards proceeded to downright blows, letting loose the Gentiles, and his Governours upon the Christians, wherein neither Arian, nor Orthodox is spared from Imprisonment, Banishment, Tortures, and what not? And when complaints were made hereof to the Emperour, he answered, That their Religion taught them to bear all patiently. He would not endure that Christians children should be trained up in humane Learning, because he saw the Christians did beat the Gentiles with their own weapons, and made Philosophy an Instrument to serve Divinity: He took away the Ministers maintenance, thereby destroying not so much Presbiters, as the Presbytery. But whilest he was thus busie against the Church: he was called to an expedition against the Persians: whereupon he made a solemn Protestation, that when he returned from this war, he would utterly root out Christianity, and so proceeding in his journey, he beat the Enemy to a confused retreat; whereupon, that he might pursue them with the more speed, he threw off his Armor, but as he was posting on, he was met by a Dart, or arrow that pierced through his arm, and entred into his side, and whilest he endeavoured with the other hand to draw it out, he received another wound, and thereupon fell from his horse, and receiving his blood, gushing from his wound into his hands, he threw it up into the Air, saying, vicisti Galilaee, vicisti: O thou Galilaean (so he called Christ in scorn) thou hast overcome me: and Nazianzen saith, that his body was carried away in a tempest, without Lamentation, and without Burial.