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…

The second learning in this part,¹ is to be persuaded,² that God doth not punish without just cause,³ for that he delighteth in punishing of his people:⁴ As the wicked Pharaoh,⁵ Nemroth, Saul, and Julian the Apostate said.⁶ When he had drowned all the world with water for sin,⁷ the wicked people judged, that God had punished of a partial and choleric passion in his fury,⁸ without just matter & cause. And therefore they went about in contempt of God, to build a tower so high, that God should never have been able to wreak his wrath upon them again. So did cursed Pharaoh,⁹ he asked What God that should be, that could plague him and his realm? And in the time of his punishment railed,¹⁰ and spake most unreverently. Wicked Saul also, when God for his disobedience punished him: he in despite of God, sought remedy to withstand the punishments of God by witchcraft,¹¹ and Necromancy. And Julian the Emperor, ⟨p. 76⟩when Christ gave him in the wars his deaths wound, took an handful of his own blood, and hurled it in despite of Christ into the air, and said, Thou hast overcome thou Galilean, and so in mockery he called Christ, & Christian men Galileans. Wherefore, in any case this beginning of the Psalm is to be marked, and used in the time of all mens punishments: and to say with heart and mouth unto the heavenly father, whatsoever he layeth upon us, Truly God is loving unto me, &c. And so doth king David cry out, when God was most severe and busy in punishing both him and his people,