entertaining of any one crime in society with our pretences for God. 7. Not to lie in sin, but instantly to repent of it' and return," purifying our conscience from dead works." 8. Not to dissemble our faith or belief when we are required to its confession, pretending a persuasion complying with those from whom secretly we differ. Lust, covetousness, and hypocrisy, are the three great enemies of this grace; they are the motes of our eyes, and the spots of our souls. The reward of purity is the vision beatifical. If we are pure as God is pure, we shall" also "see him as he is: when we awake up after his likeness, we shall behold his presence." To which in this world we are consigned by freedom from the cares of covetousness, the shame of lust, the fear of discovery, and the stings of an evil conscience, which are the portion of the several impurities here forbidden. 17. Seventhly: "Blessed are the peace-makers; for they shall be called the children of God. The wisdom of God is first pure, and then peaceable," that is the order of the beatitudes. As soon as Jesus was born, the angels sang a hymn, "Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace, good will towards men;" signifying the two great errands upon which Christ was despatched in his legation from heaven to earth. He is "the Prince of Peace." "Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man ever shall see God." The acts of this grace are: 1. To mortify our anger, peevishness, and fiery dispositions, apt to enkindle upon every slight accident, inadvertency, or misfortune of a friend or servant. 2. Not to be hasty, rash, provocative, or upbraiding in our language. 3. To live quietly and serenely in our families and neighbourhoods. 4. Not to backbite, slander, misreport, or undervalue any man, carrying tales, or sowing dissension between brethren. 5. Not to interest ourselves in the quarrels of others, by abetting either part, except where charity calls us to rescue the oppressed; and then also to do a work of charity without mixtures of uncharitableness. 6. To avoid all suits of law, as much as is possible, without intrenching upon any other collateral obligation towards a third interest, or a necessary support for I Plato vocat puritatem ἀπόκρισιν χειρόνων ἀπό βελτιόνων. ourselves, or great conveniency for our families; or, if we be engaged in law, to pursue our just interests with just means. and charitable maintenance. 7. To endeavour by all means to reconcile disagreeing persons. 8. To endeavour, by affability and fair deportment, to win the love of our neighbours. 9. To offer satisfaction to all whom we have wronged or slandered, and to remit the offences of others, and, in trials of right, to find out the most charitable expedient to determine it, as by indifferent arbitration, or something like it. 10. To be open, free, and ingenuous, in reprehensions and fair expostulations with persons whom we conceive to have wronged us, that no seed of malice or rancour may be latent in us, and, upon the breath of a new displeasure, break out into a flame. 11. To be modest in our arguings, disputings, and demands, not laying great interest upon trifles. 12. To moderate, balance, and temper our zeal, by the rules of prudence and the allay of charity, that we quarrel not for opinions, nor entitle God in our impotent and mistaken fancies, nor lose charity for a pretence of an article of faith. 13. To pray heartily for our enemies, real or imaginary, always loving and being apt to benefit their persons, and to cure their faults by charitable remedies. 14. To abstain from doing all affronts, disgraces, slightings, and uncomely jeerings and mockings of our neighbour, not giving him appellatives of scorn or irrision. 15. To submit to all our superiors in all things, either doing what they command, or suffering what they impose; at no hand lifting our heel against those upon whom the characters of God, and the marks of Jesus, are imprinted in signal and eminent authority; such as are principally the king, and then the bishops, whom God hath set to "watch over our souls." 16. Not to invade the possessions of our neighbours, or commence war, but when we are bound by justice and legal trust to defend the rights of others, or our own, in order to our duty. 17. Not to "speak evil of dignities," or undervalue their persons, or publish their faults, or upbraid the levities of our governors; knowing that they also are designed by God, to be converted to us for castigation and amendment of us. 18. Not to be busy in other men's affairs. And then "the peace of God will rest upon us"." n Phil. iv. 9. 1 Thess. v. 2, 3. 2 Thess. iii. 16. Heb. xiii. 20. The reward is no less than the adoption and inheritance of sons; for "he hath given unto us power to be called the sons of God;" for he is the Father of peace, and the sons of peace are the sons of God, and therefore have a title to the inheritance of sons, to be heirs with God, and co-heirs with Christ, in the kingdom of peace, and essential and neverfailing charity. 18. Eighthly: "Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." This being the hardest command in the whole discipline of Jesus, is fortified with a double blessedness; for it follows immediately, "Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you;" meaning, that all persecution for a cause of righteousness, though the affliction be instanced only in reproachful language, shall be a title to the blessedness. Any suffering, for any good or harmless action, is a degree of martyrdom. It being the greatest testimony in the world of the greatest love, to quit that for God which hath possessed our most natural, regular, and orderly affections. It is a preferring God's cause before our own interest; it is a loving of virtue without secular ends; it is the noblest, the most resigned, ingenuous, valiant act in the world, to die for God, whom we never have seen; it is the crown of faith, the confidence of hope, and our greatest charity. The primitive churches living under persecution commenced many' pretty opinions concerning the state and special dignity of martyrs, apportioning to them one of the three coronets which themselves did knit, and supposed as pendants to the great crown of righteousness." They made it suppletory of baptism, expiatory of sin, satisfactory of public penances; they placed them in bliss immediately, declared them to need no after-prayer, such as the devotion of those times used to pour upon the graves of the faithful: with great prudence they did endeavour to alleviate this burden, and sweeten the bitter chalice; and they did it by such doctrines, Animas prælio aut suppliciis peremptorum æternas putant. Hinc moriendi contemptus. C. Tacitus de Judæis. which did only remonstrate this great truth, That since "no love was greater than to lay down our lives," nothing could be so great but God would indulge to them. And indeed, whatsoever they said in this had no inconvenience, nor would it now, unless men should think mere suffering to be sufficient to excuse a wicked life, or that they be invited to dishonour an excellent patience with the mixture of an impure action. There are many who would die for Christ if they were put to it, and yet will not quit a lust' for him: those are hardly to be esteemed Christ's martyrs: unless they be "dead unto sin," their dying for an article, or a good action, will not pass the great scrutiny. And it may be boldness of spirit, or sullenness, or an honourable gallantry of mind, or something that is excellent in civil and political estimate, moves the person, and endears the suffering; but that love only " which keeps the commandments" will teach us to die for love, and from love to pass to blessedness through the red sea of blood. And, indeed, it is more easy to die for chastity, than to live with it and many women have been found, who suffered death under the violence of tyrants for defence of their holy vows and purity, who, had they long continued amongst pleasures, courtships, curiosities, and importunities of men, might perchance have yielded that to a lover, which they denied to an executioner. St. Cyprian observes, that our blessed Lord, in admitting the innocent babes of Bethlehem first to die for him, did, to all generations of Christendom, consign this lesson, That only persons holy and innocent were fit to be Christ's martyrs. And I remember, that the prince of the Latin poets', over against the region and seats of infants, places in the shades below persons that suffered death wrongfully; but adds, that this their death was not enough to place them in such blessed mansions, but the Judge first made inquiry into their lives, and accordingly designed their station. It is certain, that such dyings, or Non est autem consentaneum, qui metu non frangatur, eum frangi cnpiditate; nec qui invictum se à labore præstiterit, vinci à voluptate.— Cic. de Offic. lib. i. Tertul. de Castit. Hos juxta falso damnati crimine mortis. Nec verò hæ sine sorte datæ, sine judice, sedes ; Quæsitor Minos urnam movet; ille silentûm Conciliumque vocat, vitasque et crimina discit.— Virg. Æneid. 6, great sufferings, are heroical actions, and of power to make great compensations, and redemptions of time, and of omissions and imperfections; but if the man be unholy, so also are his sufferings": for heretics have died, and vicious persons have suffered in a good cause, and a dog's neck may be cut off in sacrifice, and swine's blood may fill the trench about the altar: but God only accepts the sacrifice which is pure and spotless, first seasoned with salt, then seasoned with fire. The true martyr must have all the preceding graces, and then he shall receive all the beatitudes. 19. The acts of this duty are: 1. Boldly to confess the faith, nobly to exercise public virtues, not to be ashamed of any thing that is honest, and rather to quit our goods, our liberty, our health, and life itself, than to deny what we are bound to affirm, or to omit what we are bound to do, or to pretend contrary to our present persuasion. 2. To rejoice in afflictions; counting it honourable to be conformable to Christ, and to wear the cognizance of Christianity, whose certain lot it is to suffer the hostility and violence of enemies, visible and invisible. 3. Not to revile our persecutors, but to bear the cross with evenness, tranquillity, patience, and charity. 4. To offer our sufferings to the glory of God, and to join them with the passions of Christ, by doing it in love to God, and obedience to his sanctions, and testimony of some part of his religion, and designing it as a part of duty. The reward is "the kingdom of heaven;" which can be no other but eternal salvation, in case the martyrdom be consummate and "they also shall be made perfect*;" so the words of the reward were read in Clement's time. If it be less, it keeps its proportion: all suffering persons are the combination of saints; they make the church, they are the people of the kingdom, and heirs of the covenant. For if they be but confessors, and confess Christ in prison, though they never preach upon the rack or under the axe, yet "Christ will confess them before his heavenly Father;" and "they shall have a portion where they shall never be persecuted any more y." Athleta non vincit statim quia eruitur, nec ideo transnatant quia se spoliant. Sever. Ep. 2. * Οτι αυτοὶ ἔσονται τέλειοι. * Sic etiam olim legebatur hac periodus ; ὅτι ἕξουσι τόπον ὅπου οὐ διωχθήσονται. |