Certain comfortable expositions of the constant martyr of Christ, M. John Hooper, Bishop of…Certeine comfortable expositions of the constant martyr of Christ, M. Iohn Hooper, Bishop of…

But there is one learning particularly to be noted in this similitude of a trembling or tottering wall: wherewithal the Prophet setteth forth the fall and confusion of the wicked, which is this: that when the wicked persecuteth the godly, & that the least resistance of the world is stirred up by God against them, the Lord that stirreth up the plague to punish them, striketh also their hearts with such trembling and fear,¹ that one man in a good cause shall be able, to with stand ten such wicked persecutors, whose conscience God hath so feared, that they are not able to bear the countenance of a man: no, not able to overcome the terror of their own spirit, which beareth them record, that as they in time past have fought against God & his cause: so now God justly fighteth against them, both with the fear of hell fire towards their souls, and with outward adversities towards their bodies. So God said, he would send such trembling & fear unto such as neither loved,² nor kept his laws: as it is written by the holy Prophet Moses.³ The example whereof ye may read also in Daniel the Prophet: that the Emperor of the Chaldees,⁴ when he was ⟨p. 59⟩in the middest of his strength, mirth, banquets, and jollity,⁵ saw no more but a poor little hand write in the wall of his palace, that never spake word, showed no terrible sight of men of war, nor gave any blow in his palace: yet fell the Emperor into such a trembling & fear at the sight thereof, that all his limbs (in manner) stood him in no stead. Christ never gave blow, but modestly asked his murderers whom they sought for: and yet fell they flat and prostrate to the ground.⁶ So that the wicked persecutors of the godly, be aptly and properly likened and compared to a tottering⁷