Commentary on the Gospels and Acts, Commentary 1 · Chapter 5 · Verse 11
Verse 11. Blesse are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of … against you, falsly, for my sake.]
foreign &cThere are tongue-smiters, as well as hand-smiters; such as maligne and molest Gods dearest children as well with their virulent tongues, as violent hands; Such as will revile you, saith our Saviour,…. foreign … and upbraid you with your profession, hit you in teeth with your God, (as they dealt by David, and that went as a murthering weapon to his soul) and … your precisenesse and … …. …. 10. foreign more …. ….in your dish. This is the force of the first word. Further, they shall persecute you, eagerly pursue and follow you hot-foot, as the hunter doth his prey. The word betokeneth a keen and eager pursuit of any other, whether by law, or by the sword, whether by word or deed. For … also are persecutours, as Ismael, and for such shall be arraigned, Jude 15. And cruell mockings and Gal. 4. ….scourgings are set together by the Authour to the Hebrews, asHeb. 11. 36. much of a kinde, chap. 11. 35. Especially, when (as it follows in the text) they shall say all manner of evil against you, call you all to peeces, and thinke the worst word in their bellies too good for you.Ephes. 4. 31. This is collaterall blasphemy, blasphemy in the second table, and soTit. 3. 2. it is often called in the new Testament. God, for the honour heCol. 3. 8. beareth to his people, is pleased to afford the name of blasphemy to1 Pet. 4. 4. their reproaches, as importing that he taketh it as if himself were2 Pet. 2. 10. …. Thus the Israelites were, of old, called by the profane Heathens, Apellae, and …, as if they worshipped a golden—Credat … Apella. Asse-head, and in derision of their circumcision. As afterwardsHor. they called the Primitive Christians, murtherers, Church-robbers,Tertull. Apolog Si …, …, … sames, … lues, &c. Ib. …, traitouts to the state, &c. and if inundations, famine, or other … calamities fell out, they presently cried, Christianos ad …. So, in after-times, the Arians called the Orthodox …, Ambrosians, Athanasians, Homousians, what not? The Pseudo-Catholikes (speaking evil of that they knew S …not) … the professours of the truth by the names of …, ….Waldenses, Huguenots, poor men of Lions, &c. Thus ofJude 10. old; as of late, Hereticks, New-gospellers, Puritans, all manner of evil they speak against us, but (falsely) thats our comfort; not caring what they speak, nor whereof they affirm, so they may promote their Cacolick cause, and the devils kingdom, which as it began in a …, so by lyes do they maintain it. A Frier a lyer, was anciently a sound argument in any mans mouth (saith Thomas … est …. ergo …: si … & …, ….Walsingham) tenens tàm de forma, quàm de materia. … the Jesuites have wonne the whetstone from all that went before them, for … and prodigious lyes and slanders. …-Joannes, that demoniack, blusheth not to …, that these are our … and doctrins: That no God is to be worshipped; that we must shape our Religion according to the times: that … is …: that we may make the publike cause a pretence to our private lusts: that a man may break his word whensoever he … good, cover his hatred with fair …, confirm … by shedding innocent bloud. Salmeron the Jesuit hath … toContra …. the world in his Comment upon the …, that the Luth-rans … ….now make fornication to be no sin at all. And a little afore the… 5 tract. …. … of Paris, the Monkes slanderously gave out, that the … met together for no other purpose, then … (after they had fed themselves to the full) they might put out the … and…. …. …. go together promiscuously, as brute …. … Bishop of Auranches wrote against the Congregation of Christians at Paris, Act and …. … 8, 8.defending impudently, that their … were to maintain …. The lives of Calvin and Beza were (at the requestAct and Mon …. … of the Popish side) written by Bolsecus a … frier, their … enemy: and though so many lines so many lies, yet are… his … of …. … in all their writings alledged as Canonicall. Wicliffe disallowed the Invocation of Saints, whom he called servants, not gods.… … … … … … … of … pag. …. For the word, Knave, which he used, signified, in those …, a childe or a …; not as it doth, in our daies, a wicked varlet, … his … it; Bellarmine for one, a man … of the English tongue. Hereupon the people are taught to beleeve that the Protestants are blasphemers of God and all his Saints: that in England, Churches are turned into …: … people is grown …, and eat young children: that… …. …. …. they are as black as devils, ever since they were blasted and … with the Popes excommunication: that … is a … sanctuary of rogery, &c. that the fall of Black-friers (where besides a 100. of his …, Drury the Priest had his Sermon and his brains knockt out of his head together) was caused by the …, who had secretly sawed in two the beams and other timber. With like honesty they would have fathered the powder-plot upon the Puritans, by their Proclamations, which they had ready, to be … abroad immediatly, had Faux … fired the powder. And a…. certain Spanish Authour hath taken the …, since, to averre, that they were the authours of that … conspiracy. There is a book lately published, and commonly sold in Italy and France, ….containing a relation of Gods judgements shewn on a sort of …-haereticksAuthor quidam …, …. …, Lect p 317. by the fall of a house in Black-friers, London, in which they were … to hear a Geneva-lecture, Octob. 26. 1623. And Dr Weston doubted not to make his boasts to a Noble-man of England, that at the late conference and disputationD … … pag 189. between Fisher and Featly (with certain others of both sides) our Doctours were confounded, and theirs triumphed and had the day: insomuch that two Earles and a hundred others were converted to the Catholike Roman faith. Whereas he, to whom this tale was told, was himself one of the two …, continuing sound and Orthodox, and knew full well that there were not a hundred Papists and Protestants (taken together,) present at that disputation.D. …. But this was one of their piae fraudes, doubtlesse: … likeLect. p. 317. their Legend of miracles of their Saints, which the Jesuit confessed to my self (saith mine Authour) to be, for most part, false and foolish; but it was made for good intention: and that it was lawfull and meritorious to lie and write such things, to the end theSpanish …. common people might with greater zeal serve God and his Saints, &c. So long since, because freedom of speech was used by the Waldenses, in blaming and reproving the … life and debauched manners of the Popish …, Plures nefariae … Cade of the Church.… opiniones, à … omnino fuerant alieni, saith Girardus, They were cried out upon for odious heretikes and apostates: Manichees they were … to be, and to make two first … of things, viz. God and the devil. And why? because they preached and maintained, that the Emperour depended not upon the Pope. Moreover they were Arians too, and deuied Christ to be… in …. the Sonne of God, because (forsooth) they denied a crust to be transubstantiated into Christ, as one speaketh. But blessed be God, that although they have in all ages spoken all manner of evil againstD. …. …. p. 316. us, yet they have done it falsly, and for Christs sake, wherefore we may take up their books written against us, and Wear Bradf.them as a crown. Doe well and hear ill is written upon heaven Act and Mon.gates, said that Martyr. Christ himself (saith father Latymer) was misreported, and falsly accused, both as touching his words, and meaning also. Count it not strange to be traduced, disgraced, scandalized. Austere John hath a devil; sociable Christ is a winebibber, and the Scribes and Pharisees (whose words carry such credit) say as much. Contra sycophantae morsum non est remedium. It is but a vain perswasion for any childe of God to thinke, by any discretion, wholly to still the clamours, and hates of wicked men; who when they thinke well, will learn to report well. In the mean, let our lives give them the lie, confute them by a reall Apology.