Armatura Dei, or, A preparation for suffering in an evil day showing how Christians…Armatura Dei, or, A preparation for suffering in an evil day shewing how Christians…

2. It must be a right estimating Knowledge that will prepare us for suffering, Every Notion of the things of God will not do it; he, that hath an high notion of them, but a low estimation, hath but a knowledge falsely so called; he knows them not as he ought to know them, because he knows them only to know them, but not to value them: We must so know them, as to rate them above a World; this is of great moment in order to Suffering: A man is capable to suffer, or not, according as his estimate of Spiritual things is higher ⟨p. 50⟩or lower. When the Martyr Polycarp was urged by the Proconsul to deny Christ,¹ his answer was, A potioribus non esse transeundum ad pejora; we must not pass from better things to worse. He esteemed Christ better then the World, and therefore he suffered for him: But if he had esteemed the World better then Christ, he had never been a Martyr: As the estimation is so is the man. We know the Evangelical Truth, but if we do not rate it higher then all the World, we shall never be able to suffer for it: It is indeed in itself a glorious Beam let down from Heaven, a pure discovery of the great Salvation that is in Jesus Christ, and in that respect incomparably more worth then all the World; but if we do not so account it, we shall fall from it to embrace the World as being better in our eyes. It is very remarkable, that when the Emperors Prefect allured the great Basil to the Arian Doctrine,² as being but a small thing, the holy man answered, That he would not part with one syllable of Scripture, no, not to save his life. Such an esteem of Truth is of excellent use to make a man adhere to it in an evil day. We know the pure worship, but if we do not prize it above all earthly things, we shall never be able to suffer for it: It is in itself a thing exceeding precious: ⟨p. 51⟩it is the choicest part of life that is spent in it; the honour of God is more immediately concerned in it then in other things. That noble Convert Galeacius Caracciolus, who left all for Christ, prized one days Communion with Christ more than all the Gold or Silver in the World: And if we can rate it so, we shall never turn aside from it to the Idolatrous World, nor be carried into sin by the stream of the Time: Or say as one going to Mass did, Eamus ad communem errorem; let us go to the Common Error.