An apologetical reply to a book called an answer to the unjust complaint of…An apologeticall reply to a booke called an ansvver to the unjust complaint of…

Nor is this like the flying of Jonah, or that whereunto Jeremiah was tempted. For they that do thus, do not do it, that they may not preach, but that they may preach the Gospel, of which liberty they foresee that they should utterly be deprived, if they should fall in to their hands, who would not afford them the favour, which Paul had at Rome, to dwell in his own hired house, ¹and to receive all that came in unto him, preaching the Kingdom of God &c. no man forbidding him. Neither is it done by ⟨p. 105⟩them as by those, who are acted by the spirit of that base fear, which is opposed to the spirit of power and of a sound mind. ²For even the spirit of power or courage or fortitude, worketh diversly in the servants of God, upon several occasions. When God calleth men to confess the truth, by doing it, it encourageth them thereunto, whatsoever difficulties or impediments lye in the way, when he calleth them to witness to it, by suffering, it strengtheneth them thereunto; But how? to suffer that trial, not wherewith men would ensnare them, but wherewith it pleaseth the Divine providence to exercise them. Men would imprison them, but God strongly inclineth their spirits, rather to choose a voluntary banishment, for a short space of time, which is a sorer trial then some imprisonment. And, in such a case, flight it self is a real confession, and profession that the truths of the Gospel are of no small value to them, who thus fly. For who had not rather tarry in his own country, then leave his country, acquaintance, & all the commodities which, with them, he might have enjoyed, and travail amongst strangers, whose language, dispositions, and customs he knoweth not, where he is exposed to many inconveniences, by the change of air and diet, and to be reviled in his own land, and suspected amongst strangers, and to be ill entreated, oppressed, rejected, and in print traduced, by those who should have comforted, and countenanced him, and to be brow-beaten by his inferiors, shyly looked upon by some equals, treacherously circumvented by others, obnoxious to the injuries of all. In a word, to be a footstool for others to tread upon, that they may raise themselves, by doing some service, though it be by railing against, or slandering those whom they frown upon,³