N00255:46
A sermon wherein is showed that the church of God is sometimes a subject…A sermon wherein is shewed that the church of God is sometimes a subject…
A sermon wherein is showed that the church of God is sometimes a subject of great persecution; preached on a public fast at Boston in New-England: occasioned by the tidings of a great persecution raised against the Protestants in France. / By Increase Mather, teacher to a church of Christ. ; [Eight lines of quotations]A sermon wherein is shewed that the church of God is sometimes a subject of great persecution; preached on a publick fast at Boston in New-England: occasioned by the tidings of a great persecution raised against the Protestants in France. / By Increase Mather, teacher to a church of Christ. ; [Eight lines of quotations]
printed for Samuel Sewall, 1682
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
3. There is the Persecution of the Hand; when Violence is offered to Christians, because they are Christians; when they are deprived of their civil Liberties, for professing the Faith of Christ: which was the case of those Christians my Text hath reference unto: and of the Church in Smyrna; concerning whom 'tis said, Rev. 2. 10. The Devil shall cast some of you into prison. Or, when their Estates are taken from them for that they are faithful to the Lords Cause, & Interest. As it was with the Christian Jews, who took joyfully the spoiling of their goods, Heb. 10. 34. Most of all, when they Lose their Lives for their bearing witness to the Truth. They who so suffer, are by way of Eminency called Martyrs, i. e. Witnesses: (Rev. 2. 13.) because this is the Highest witness-bearing that can be, when a Christian doth Seal the Truth he hath professed, with his Blood. Great persecutions of this sort, have sometimes (and many a time) been raised-against the Church of God. Thus in the X. Primitive persecutions (under the Heathen Emperors) especially the last of them, the whole Church of God, and Interest of Christianity was persecuted. And after this, the Arians; who indeed called themselves Christians, did persecute the Orthodox as much as the Heathen had done before them. And last of all, Antichrist hath made it his Design to destroy those that have born witness for Christ: It is given unto him to make war with the Saints. And the Antichristian persecution must continue, more or less, for forty two months, h. e. for the space of ⟨p. 9⟩twelve hundred & sixty years, Dan. 7. 21, 25. The Pope of Rome (successively considered) is that Antichrist, Rev. 13. 5, 7. 1Papists have been the most bloody persecutors in the world; they have shed Rivers of blood. Among the Albigenses, & Waldenses, they murdered above a Million. In the last Century, within the space of forty years; viz. between An. 1540. & 1580 in Europe, they slew Nine Hundred Thousand Protestants. About forty years ago, they slaughtered Three Hundred Thousand Protestants in that one Kingdom of Ireland: and according to the computation which some have made,