Obedient Patience, Chapter 2 · Case 19
CASE XIX.
The Prosperity and Triumphs of wicked Enemies of the Church.
ANother great Tryal of our Patience is, the Triumphs of the wicked Enemies of the Church, and that the Saints are usually under their feet in sufferings and scorn: I spake before of Persecution, and as to the Prosperity, and Triumphs of Malignants; David who was under the like Temptation, hath long ago given us Considerations sufficient for our Patience. Psal. 37. and 73. And the triumph of the Wicked is but for a Moment, and their motion as the Grashoppers, that fall as they rise: Their Victories, and Glory, and Rage, are like a Squib of Gun-powder, which makes a noise and is presently extinct: They are moved Dust, which the Wind of Gods displeasure blows into our Eyes: They are dying while they are raging, and their own Death is at hand and lingereth not, while they are killing others: Go into the Sanctuary and see their End, and it may silence all Impatience; for see their Corps in Rottenness and their Souls in Hell, and pity will overcome envy, and their case will appear to you a thousand times sader than their that suffer by them for righteousness sake. Their contrivances do but Plot themselves into misery. All the blood which they shed, must be reckon'd for: And precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints, even when they seem deserted. Where now is Alexander, Caesar, Tamberlain, and such other Famous Murderers called Conquerours? Are they now Triumphing? Is it an ease to their tormented Souls, or life to their dust, that living fools do magnifie their names, and their dear bought Victories and Murders. If it be no glory to a Serpent, Crocodile, or a Wolf or a Mad Dog, to kill Men, no nor to the Devil who is a Murderer from the beginning, why should it be a Glory to these instruments of the Devil? O what a dreadful search will it be to Babilon, when in her shall be found the blood of the Saints and Martyrs of Jesus, and upon her shall come at once all the righteous blood that hath been shed! The blood of the many hundred thousand Waldenses, Albigenses, Bohemians, &c. Did but render the Papacy more odious: Their Inquisition and Alva's cruelties lost them the Low-Countries: They got nothing in France by the sudden Murder of thirty thousand or forty thousand Protestants: nor will they get at last by their present cruelties: The two hundred thousand Murdered by the Irish, prepared for the Murderers greater ruin, but did not satisfie their desires. Queen Maries fires did but make Popery the more easily and commonly hated and extirpated in the daeys of her Successour: Persecutors are not immortal, but must die as well as others? And they have not alwayes the choice of their Successours: And as their names rot with their Carkasses, and to pious, sober and wise posterity, no names are more odious, so their designs and works also often perish with them. We have seen in our dayes and Land, the same Men, that were the terrour of the Nation in War, laid in a grave and left to the Common Earth, where no one is afraid of them: And the same Men that were lift up by many Victories, and thought Kings Parliament, Ministers and People, must submit to their Will, as being in their power, within one or two years, were hanged drawn and quartered, and their Quarters hanged up over the Gates of the City: Their Victorious Army being dissolved without one drop of blood-shed.
If we saw a drunken Man or a mad Man raging in the Streets, so that people were afraid to come near him, who would think such a Man therefore ever the more happy? Or who would desire to be in his case? If we Judge of them by that part they are now acting on the Stage, under great Names and Garbs, we shall be deluded as they are? Look on them undrest, and off the Stage, see what they are under the pangs of death, or when the Soul is drag'd away to punishment, and hath left their ghastly faces and Carkasses for the grave, See what God saith of them in his word, and believe his Prognostick, what shall befall them. Is Ahab ever the better for being Recorded in Scripture, as an Enemy to faithful Prophets? Or Cain ever the better for being the first Murderer in the World? Or Herod ever the better for being mentioned in the Gospel; or Pilate, for having his name in the Creed: Or are the flames ever the easier to Dives, because he once fared sumptuously and was cloathed richly every day, while Lazarus lay at his Gate in Sores. The time is short: The Conq…ror and the Conquered will be equal in the dust, where they will cease to trouble, and lie in peace; But the Persecuter and the Persecuted (for rightousness sake) will be as distantly s…parated as Hell from Heaven. The Men of this world, who have their Portion in this life, are Gods Sword and Rod to correct his Children; but as they now glory in their shame, so they shall shortly be ashamed of their glorying; and wish in vain, that all their proud oppressions and cruel Victories, had been not done, or could be undone.