Fifty Godly and Learned Sermons (The Decades)

Now touching the persecutions & terrible plagues laid upon yt neck of ¹the whole Church of God, or several martyrs of yt same, as they were for the most part breathed out of worldly tyrants against the S. for their open confession and testimonies of their faith & truth of the Gospel, so most commonly the causes of those broils were the sins & offences of the S. which the justice of God did visit in his holy ones, no doubt to the good, & salvation of the faithful. For of yt bloody persecution under the Emperors Diocletian and Maximiniā, which caused many thou sands yea many millions of Martyrs to come to their endings, we read this following in yt history of Eusebius of Caesarea, who learned it not by hearsay but was himself an eyewitness of the same: When as by to much liberty and wantonness, the manners of the Church were utterly marred, and the discipline thereof corrupted, while among our selves we envy one an other, & diminish one another's estimation, while among our selves we snatch at & accuse our selves, moving deadly war ⟨p. 296⟩among our selves, while dissimulation sitteth in the face, deceit lurketh in the heart, and falsehood is uttered in words, so that one evil is heaped still on another's neck, the Lord beginneth by little and little, and with the bridle to check the mouth of his tripping church, and reserving the congregations untouched, he begineth first to suffer them to feel persecution, which served as soldiers in the camps of the Gentiles. But when as by that means the people could not be made to remember them selves, in so much that they ceased not to persist in their wickedness, & that the very guides of the people and chief of the church unmindful of Gods commandment were set on fire among them selves with strife, envy, hatred, and pride, so that they might think they rather exercised tyranny than the office of ministers, because they had forgotten Christian sincerity and pureness of living: then at length the houses of prayer and churches of the living God were thrown to the ground, and the holy scriptures set on fire in the broad and open streets. Thus much, word for word, out of the 8. book of his Ecclesiastical history.

Now touching the persecutions & terrible plagues layd vpon yt neck of ¹the whole Church of God, or seuerall martyrs of yt same, as they were for ye most part breathed out of worldly tyrants against the S. for their open cō fession and testimonies of their faith & truth of the Gospell, so most cōmonly the causes of those broyles were the sinns & offēces of the S. which the iustice of God did visit in his holy ones, no doubt to the good, & saluation of the faithful. For of yt bloudie persecution vnder the Emperors Diocletian and Maximiniā, which caused many thou sands yea many millians of Martyrs to com to their endings, we read this following in yt historie of Eusebius of Cesaria, who learned it not by hearesay but was himself an eyewitnes of the same: When as by to much libertie and wantones, the maners of the Church were vtterly marred, and the discipline therof corrupted, while among our selues wee enuie one an other, & diminish one anothers estimatiō, while amōg our selues we snatch at & accuse our selues, mouing dedly warre