Fifty Godly and Learned Sermons (The Decades)

Now by the space of so many years in the most renowned & peculiar people of God, which was as it were a glass set before the eyes of all nations to view and behold themselves in, there might the truest causes of felicity & calamities of all kings & kingdoms in the whole world be so lively represented and perfectly painted, that there should be no need to fetch from else where, a more plain and evident demonstration of the same.

Now by the space of so many yeares in the most renowmed & peculiar people of God, which was as it were a glasse set before the eyes of all nations to view and behold themselues in, there might the truest causes of felicitie & calamities of all kings & kingdoms in the whoale world be so liuely represented and perfectly paynted, that there should bee no neede to fetch from else where, a more plaine and euident demonstration of the same.

And yet for all that we are not without other foreign examples, whereby to prove ⟨p. 257⟩¹it. For the Pharaohs of Egypt were the destruction both to themselves and also to their kingdom, by their stubborn rebellion against Gods word. Again Darius Priscus and the great Nebuchadnezzar enjoyed no small felicity, because they despised not the counsels of Daniel. Balthazar king of Babylon, a despiteful contemner of God and his word, is in one night destroyed with all his power. Babylon the most ancient and famous city of the world is taken, set on fire, sacked, and overthrown, and the kingdom translated to the Medes and Persians. Neither were the kings of Persia unfortunate at all, I mean, Cyrus and Darius otherwise called Artaxerxes, because they favoured the ²word of God, and did promote his people and true religion. But on the other side we read that Antiochus surnamed Epiphanes was most unfortunate, who as it were making war with God himself, did most wickedly burn and make away the books of holy Scripture. Furthermore we have as great store of examples also even out of those Histories which followed immediately the time of Christ his ascension. For so many Roman Emperors, kings and Princes as persecuted the preaching of the Gospel, and Church of our Lord Jesus Christ, & advanced idolatry and superstitious blasphemy, so many, I say, did die a foul and shameful death. Of this are Eusebius and Orosius renowned Historiographers assured witnesses. Again S. Augustine lib. 5. de Civit. Dei, affirmeth that incredible victories, very great glory, and most absolute felicity hath been given by God unto those kings, which have in faith sincerely embraced Christ their Lord, and utterly subverted idolatry and superstitious blasphemy. It is evident therefore that felicity cometh by good will and obedience to the word of God, & that all kings and kingdoms shall be unhappy, which forsake the word of God, and turn themselves to mens inventions. And this I have, I trust, declared hitherto so plainly, that the hearers may seem not only to understand, but also to see before their eyes, and as it were to feel with their hands the pith and material substance of this whole treatise.