Thomas Watson · 29 of 31

21. Concerning persecution · Part 3

(vii) Get suffering graces; these three in particular:

Faith; Love; Patience.

Suffering grace is faith. ‘Above all, taking the shield of faith’ (Ephesians 6:16). The pretence of faith is one thing, the use of faith another. The hypocrite makes faith a cloak, the martyr makes it a shield. A shield is useful in time of danger; it defends the head; it guards the vitals. Such a shield is faith. Faith is a furnace grace. ‘Though it be tried with fire, it is found unto praise and honour’ (1 Peter 1:7). Faith, like Hercules’ club, beats down all oppositions. By faith we resist the devil (1 Peter 5:9). By faith we resist unto blood (Hebrews 11:34). Faith is a victorious grace. The believer will make Christ’s crown flourish, though it be in his own ashes. An unbeliever is like Reuben: ‘Unstable as water he shall not excel’ (Genesis 49:4). A believer is like Joseph, who, though the archers shot at him, ‘his bow abode in strength.’ Cast a believer upon the waters of affliction, he can follow Christ upon the water, and not sink. Cast him into the fire, his zeal burns hotter than the flame. Cast him into prison, he is enlarged in spirit. Paul and Silas had their prison songs. ‘Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder’ (Psalm 91:13). A Christian, armed with faith as a coat of mail, can tread upon those persecutions which are fierce as the lion and sting as the adder. Get faith.

But how comes faith to be such armour of proof? I answer,

Six manner of ways.

(1) Faith unites the soul to Christ, and that blessed Head sends forth spirits into the members. ‘I can do all things through Christ . . .’(Philippians 4:13). Faith is a grace that lives all upon the borrow. As when we want water, we go to the well and fetch it; when we want gold, we go to the mine; so faith goes to Christ and fetches his strength into the soul, whereby it is enabled both to do and suffer. Hence it is that faith is such a wonderworking grace.

(2) Faith works in the heart a contempt of the world. Faith gives a true map of the world (Ecclesiastes 2:11). Faith shows the world in its night-dress, having all its jewels pulled off. Faith makes the world appear in an eclipse. The believer sees more eclipses than the astronomer. Faith shows the soul better things than the world. It gives a sight of Christ and glory. It gives a prospect of heaven. As the mariner in a dark night climbs up to the top of the mast and cries out, ‘I see a star’, so faith climbs up above sense and reason into heaven and sees Christ, that bright and morning star; and the soul, having once viewed his superlative excellencies, becomes crucified to the world. Oh, says the Christian, shall not I suffer the loss of all these things that I may enjoy Jesus Christ!

(3) Faith gets strength from the promise. Faith lives in a promise. Take the fish out of the water and it dies. Take faith out of a promise and it cannot live. The promises are breasts of consolation. The child by sucking the breast gets strength; so does faith by sucking the breast of a promise. When a garrison is besieged and is ready almost to yield to the enemy, auxiliary forces are sent in to relieve it. So when faith begins to be weak and is ready to faint in the day of battle, then the promises muster their forces together, and all come in for faith’s relief and now it is able to hold out in the fiery trial.

(4) Faith gives the soul a right notion of suffering. Faith draws the true picture of sufferings. What is suffering? Faith says, it is but the suffering of the body, that body which must shortly by the course of nature drop into the dust. Persecution can but take away my life. An ague or fever may do as much. Now faith giving the soul a right notion of sufferings and taking (as it were) a just measure of them, enables a Christian to prostrate his life at the feet of Christ.

(5) Faith reconciles providences and promises. As it was on St Paul’s voyage, providence seemed to be against him. There was a crosswind arose called Euroclydon (Acts 27:14), but God had given him a promise that he would save his life, and the lives of all that sailed with him in the ship (verse 24). Therefore when the wind blew never so contrary, Paul believed it would at last blow him to the haven. So when sense says, Here is a cross providence, sufferings come, I shall be undone, then faith says ‘all things shall work for good to them that love God’ (Romans 8:28). This providence, though bloody, shall fulfil the promise. Affliction shall work for my good. It shall heal my corruption and save my soul. Thus faith, making the wind and tide go together, the wind of a providence with the tide of the promise, enables a Christian to suffer persecution.

(6) Faith picks sweetness out of the cross. Faith shows the soul God reconciled and sin pardoned; and then how sweet is every suffering! The bee gathers the sweetest honey from the bitterest herb. ‘A bitter medicine often gives strength to the weary’. So faith from the sharpest trials gathers the sweetest comforts. Faith looks upon suffering as God’s love-token. Afflictions (says Nazianzen) are sharp arrows, but they are shot from the hand of a loving Father. Faith can taste honey at the end of the rod. Faith fetches joy out of suffering (John 16:20). Faith gets an honeycomb in the belly of the lion; it finds a jewel under the cross; and thus you see how faith comes to be such armour of proof. ‘Above all, taking the shield of faith’. A believer having cast his anchor in heaven cannot sink in the waters of persecution.

2 Suffering grace is love. Get hearts fired with love to the Lord Jesus. Love is a grace both active and passive.

(1) Love is active. It lays a law of constraint upon the soul; ‘The love of Christ constrains us’ (2 Corinthians 5:14). Love is the wing of the soul that sets it flying and the weight of the soul that sets it going. Love never thinks it can do enough for Christ. As he who loves the world never thinks he can take enough pains for it, love is never weary. It is not tired unless with its own slowness.

(2) Love is passive; it enables to suffer. A man that loves his friend will suffer anything for him rather than he shall be wronged. The Curtii laid down their lives for the Romans because they loved them. Love made our dear Lord suffer for us. As the pelican out of her love to her young ones, when they are bitten with serpents, feeds them with her own blood to recover them again, so when we had been bitten by the old serpent, that Christ might recover us he fed us with his own blood. Jacob’s love to Rachel made him almost hazard his life for her. ‘Many waters cannot quench love’ (Canticles 8:7). No, not the waters of persecution. ‘Love is strong as death’ (Canticles 8:6). Death makes its way through the greatest oppositions. So love will make its way to Christ through the prison and the furnace.

But all pretend love to Christ. How shall we know that we have such a love to him as will make us suffer? I answer: True love is a love of friendship, which is genuine and ingenuous when we love Christ for himself. There is a mercenary and meretricious love, when we love divine objects for something else. A man may love the queen of truth for the jewel at her ear, because she brings preferment. A man may love Christ for his ‘head of gold’ (Canticles 5:11), because he enriches with glory. But true love is when we love Christ for his loveliness, namely, that infinite and superlative beauty which shines in him, as Augustine says, ‘We love Jesus on account of Jesus’; that is, as a man loves sweet wine for itself.

True love is a love of desire, when we desire to be united to Christ as the fountain of happiness. Love desires union. The soul that loves Christ is ambitious of death because this dissolution tends to union. Death slips one knot and ties another.

True love is a love of benevolence, when so far as we are able we endeavour to lift up Christ’s name in the world. As the wise men brought him ‘gold and frankincense’ (Matthew 2:11), so we bring him our tribute of service and are willing that he should rise though it be by our fall. In short, that love which is kindled from heaven makes us give Christ the pre-eminence of our affection. ‘I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate’ (Canticles 8:2). It the spouse has a cup which is more juicy and spiced Christ shall drink off that. Indeed we can never love Christ too much. We may love gold in the excess, but not Christ. The angels do not love Christ to his worth. Now when love is boiled up to this height, it will enable us to suffer. ‘Love is strong as death’. The martyrs first burned in love, and then in fire.

3 The third suffering grace is patience. Patience is a grace made and cut out for suffering. Patience is a sweet submission to the will of God, whereby we are content to bear anything that he is pleased to lay upon us. Patience makes a Christian invincible. It is like the anvil that bears all strokes. We cannot be men without patience. Passion unmans a man. It puts him beside the use of reason. We cannot be martyrs without patience. Patience makes us endure (James 5:10). We read of a beast ‘like unto a leopard and his feet were as the feet of a bear and the dragon gave him his power . . .’ (Revelation 13:2). This beast is to be understood of the antichristian power. Antichrist may be compared to a leopard for subtlety and fierceness, and on his head was the name of blaspheming (verse 1), which agrees with that description of the man of sin, ‘He sitteth in the temple of God showing himself that he is God’ (2 Thessalonians 2:4); and the ‘dragon gave him power’ (verse 2), that is the devil, and ‘it was given to him to make war with the saints’ (Revelation 13:7). Well, how come the saints to bear the heat of this fiery trial? (verse 10): ‘Here is the patience of the saints.’ Patience overcomes by suffering. A Christian without patience is like a soldier without arms. Faith keeps the heart up from sinking. Patience keeps the heart down from murmuring. Patience is not provoked by injuries. It is sensible but not peevish. Patience looks to the end of sufferings. This is the motto: ‘God will guarantee the end also.’ As the watchman waits for the dawning of the morning, so the patient Christian suffers and waits till the day of glory begins to dawn upon him. Faith says, God will come, and patience says, I will stay his leisure. These are those suffering graces which are a Christian’s armour of proof.

(viii) Treasure up suffering promises. The promises are faith’s bladders to keep it from sinking. They are the breast-milk a Christian lives on in time of sufferings. They are honey at the end of the rod. Hoard up the promises.

God has made promises of direction that he will give us a spirit of wisdom in that hour, teaching us what to say. ‘I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist’ (Luke 21:15). You shall not need study. God will put an answer into your mouth. This many of God’s sufferers can set their seal to. The Lord has on a sudden darted such words into their mouths as their enemies could easier censure than contradict.

God has made promises of protection. ‘No man shall set on thee to hurt thee’ (Acts 18:10). How safe was Paul when he had omnipotence itself to screen off danger! And ‘there shall not an hair of your head perish’ (Luke 21:18). Persecutors are lions, but chained lions.

God has made promises of his special presence with his saints in suffering. ‘I will be with him in trouble’ (Psalm 91:15). If we have such a friend to visit us in prison, we shall do well enough. Though we change our place we shall not change our keeper. ‘I will be with him.’ God will hold our head and heart when we are fainting! What if we have more afflictions than others, if we have more of God’s company! God’s honour is dear to him. It would not be for his honour to bring his children into sufferings and leave them there. He will be with them to animate and support them, yea, when new troubles arise; ‘He shall deliver thee in six troubles’ (Job 5:19).

The Lord has made promises of deliverance. ‘I will deliver him and honour him’ (Psalm 91:15). God will open a back door for his people to escape out of sufferings. ‘He will with the temptation make a way to escape’ (1 Corinthians 10:13). Thus he did to Peter (Acts 12:7-10). Peter’s prayers had opened heaven, and God’s angel opens the prison. God can either prevent a snare or break it. ‘To God the Lord belong the issues from death’ (Psalm 68:20). He who can strengthen our faith can break our fetters. The Lord sometimes makes enemies the instruments of breaking those snares which themselves have laid (Esther 8:8).

In the case of martyrdom God has made promises of consolation. ‘Your sorrow shall be turned into joy’ (John 16:20). There is the water turned into wine. ‘Be of good cheer, Paul’ (Acts 23:11). In time of persecution God broaches the wine of consolation. Cordials are kept for fainting. Philip the Landgrave of Hesse, professed that he himself experienced the divine consolations of the martyrs. Stephen ’saw the heavens opened’ (Acts 7:56). Glover, that blessed martyr, cried out at the stake in an holy rapture, ‘He is come, He is come’, meaning the Comforter.

Promises of compensation. God will abundantly recompense all our sufferings, ‘in this life an hundred-fold, and in the world to come ‘life everlasting’ (Matthew 19:29). Augustine calls this the best and greatest usury. Our losses for Christ are gainful. ‘He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it’ (Matthew 10:39).

(ix) Set before your eyes suffering examples. Look upon others as patterns to imitate. ‘Take my brethren the prophets for an example of suffering affliction’ (James 5:10). Examples have more influence upon us than precepts. The one instruct, the other animate. As they show elephants the blood of grapes and mulberries to make them fight the better, so the Holy Ghost shows us the blood of saints and martyrs to infuse a spirit of zeal and courage into us. Micaiah was in the prison; Jeremiah in the dungeon; Isaiah was sawn asunder. The primitive Christians, though their flesh boiled, roasted, dismembered, yet like the adamant they remained invincible. Such was their zeal and patience in suffering that their persecutors stood amazed and were more weary in tormenting than they were in enduring. When John Huss was brought to be burned, they put upon his head a triple crown of paper printed with red devils, which when he saw, says he, ‘My Lord Jesus Christ wore a crown of thorns for me, why then shall I not wear this crown, how ignominious soever?’ Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, when he came before the proconsul was bidden to deny Christ and swear by the Emperor; he replied: ‘I have served Christ these eighty-six years and he has not once hurt me, and shall I deny him now?’ Saunders that blessed martyr, said, ‘Welcome the cross of Christ; my Saviour began to me in a bitter cup and shall not I pledge him? You Baynham, you papist that look for miracles, I feel no more pain in the fire than if I were in a bed of down.’ Another of the martyrs said, ‘The ringing of my chain has been sweet music in my ears. O what a comforter (says he) is a good conscience!’ Another martyr, kissing the stake, said, ‘I shall not lose my life but change it for a better. Instead of coals I shall have pearls!’ Another, when the chain was fastening to him, said, ‘Blessed be God for this wedding girdle!’ These suffering examples we should lay up. God is still the same God. He has as much love in his heart to pity us and as much strength in his arm to help us. Let us think with ourselves what courage the very heathens have shown in their sufferings. Julius Caesar was a man of an heroic spirit. When he was foretold of a conspiracy against him in the senate-house, he answered he had rather die than fear. Mutius Scaevola having his hand held over the fire till the flesh fried and his sinews began to shrink, yet he bore it with an undaunted spirit. Quintus Curtius reports of Lysimachus, a brave captain, that being adjudged to be cast naked to a lion, when the lion came roaring upon him, Lysimachus wrapped his shirt about his arm and thrust it into the lion’s mouth and taking hold of his tongue killed the lion. Did nature infuse such a spirit of courage and gallantry into heathens! How should grace much more into Christians! Let us be of St Paul’s mind: ‘Not counting my life dear, so that I might finish my course with joy’ (Acts 20:24).

(x) Let us lay in suffering considerations. A wise Christian is considerative.

Consider whom we suffer for. It is for Christ, and we cannot suffer for a better friend. There is many a man will suffer shame and death for his lusts. He will suffer disgrace for a drunken lust. He will suffer death for a revengeful lust. Shall others die for their lusts and shall not we die for Christ? Will a man suffer for that lust which damns him, and shall not we suffer for that Christ which saves us? Oh remember we espouse God’s own quarrel and he will not suffer us to be losers. If no man shall ‘kindle a fire on God’s altar for nought’ (Malachi 1:10), then surely no man shall sacrifice himself for God in the fire for nought.

It is a great honour to suffer persecution. Ambrose, speaking in the encomium of his sister said, ‘I will say this of her, she was a martyr’. It is a great honour to be singled out to bear witness to the truth. ‘They departed from the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name’ (Acts 5:41). It is a title that has been given to kings, ‘Defender of the faith’. A martyr is in a special manner, a ‘defender of the faith’. Kings are defenders of the faith by their swords, martyrs by their blood. Gregory Nazianzen calls Athanasius ‘the bulwark of truth’. It is a credit to appear for God. Martyrs are not only Christ’s followers, but his ensign-bearers. The Romans had their Camilli and Fabricii, brave warriors which graced the field. God calls out none but his champions to fight his battles. We read that Abraham called forth his trained soldiers (Genesis 14:14), such as were more expert and valiant. What an honour is it to be one of Christ’s trained band! The disciples dreamed of a temporal reign (Acts 1:6). Christ tells them (verse 8), ‘Ye shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem . . ’. To bear witness by their sufferings to the truth of Christ’s divinity and passion was a greater honour to the disciples than to have had a temporal reign upon earth. A bloody cross is more honourable than a purple robe. Persecution is called the ‘fiery trial’ (1 Peter 4:12). God has two fires, one where he puts his gold, and another where he puts his dross. The fire where he puts his dross is hellfire. The fire where he puts his gold is the fire of persecution. God honours his gold when he puts it into the fire. ‘A spirit of glory rests upon you’ (1 Peter 1:7; 1 Peter 4:14). Persecution, as it is a badge of our Order, so an ensign of our glory. What greater honour can be put upon a mortal man than to stand up in the cause of God? And not only to die in the Lord but to die for the Lord? Ignatius called his fetters his spiritual pearls. St Paul gloried more in his iron chain than if it had been a gold chain (Acts 28:20).

Consider what Jesus Christ endured for us. Calvin says that Christ’s whole life was a series of sufferings. Christian, what is your suffering? Are you poor? So was Christ. ‘Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head’ (Matthew 8:20). Are you surrounded with enemies? So was Christ. ‘Against thy holy child Jesus whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles . . . were gathered together’ (Acts 4:27). Do our enemies lay claim to religion? So did his. ‘The chief priests took the silver pieces and said, It is not lawful to put them into the treasury because it is the price of blood’ (Matthew 27:6). Godly persecutors! Are you reproached? So was Christ. ‘They bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews’ (Matthew 27:29). Are you slandered? So was Christ. ‘He casteth out devils through the prince of devils’ (Matthew 9:34). Are you ignominiously used? So was Christ. ‘Some began to spit upon him’ (Mark 14:65). Are you betrayed by friends? So was Christ. ‘Judas, betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss?’ (Luke 22:48). Is your estate sequestered? And do the wicked cast lots for it? So Christ was dealt with. ‘They parted his garments, casting lots’ (Matthew 27:35). Do we suffer unjustly? So did Christ. His very judge acquitted him. ‘Then said Pilate to the chief priests and to the people, I find no fault in this man’ (Luke 23:4). Are you barbarously dragged and haled away to suffering? So was Christ. ‘When they had bound him (though he came to loose them) they led him away’ (Matthew 27:2). Do you suffer death? So did Christ. ‘When they were come to Calvary, there they crucified him’ (Luke 23:33). They gave him gall and vinegar to drink, the one deciphering the bitterness, the other the sharpness of his death. Christ underwent not only the blood of the cross but the curse of the cross (Galatians 3:13). He had an agony in his soul. ‘My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death’ (Matthew 26:38). The soul of Christ was overcast with a cloud of God’s displeasure. The Greek Church speaking of the sufferings of Christ, calls them ‘unknown sufferings’. Did the Lord Jesus endure all this for us, and shall not we suffer persecution for his name? Say, as holy Ignatius, ‘I am willing to die for Christ, for Christ my love was crucified’. Our cup is nothing to the cup which Christ drank. His cup was mixed with the wrath of God, and if he bore God’s wrath for us, well may we bear man’s wrath of him.

Great is the honour we bring to Christ and the gospel by suffering. It was an honour to Caesar that he had such soldiers as were able to fight with hunger and cold and endure hardship in their marches. It is an honour to Christ that he has such listed under him as will leave all for him. It proclaims him to be a good Master when his servants will wear his livery though it be sullied with disgrace and lined with blood. Paul’s iron chain made the gospel wear a golden chain. Tertullian says of the saints in his time that they took their sufferings more kindly than if they had had deliverance. Oh, what a glory was this to the truth, when they durst embrace it in the flame! And as the saints, sufferings adorn the gospel, so they propagate it. Basil says, the zeal and constancy of the martyrs in the primitive times made some of the heathens to be Christianised. ‘The Church is founded in blood and by blood it increases’. The showers of blood have ever made the church fruitful. Paul’s being bound made the truth more enlarged (Philippians 1:13). The gospel has always flourished in the ashes of martyrs.

Consider who it is that we have engaged ourselves to in baptism. There we took our press-money. We solemnly vowed that we would be true to Christ’s interest and fight it out under his banner to the death. And how often have we in the blessed supper taken the oath of allegiance to Jesus Christ that we would be his liege-servants and that death should not part us! Now if when being called to it, we refuse to suffer persecution for his name, Christ will bring our baptism as an indictment against us. Christ is called ‘the Captain of our salvation’ (Hebrews 2:10). We have listed ourselves by name under this Captain. Now if, for fear, we shall fly from our colours, it is perjury in the highest degree, and how shall we be able to look Christ in the face another day? That oath which is not kept inviolably shall be punished infallibly. Where does the ‘flying roll’ of curses light, but in the house of him that ’sweareth falsely’ (Zechariah 5:4)?

Our sufferings are light. This ‘light affliction . . .’ (2 Corinthians 4:17) 1 It is heavy to flesh and blood, but it is light to faith. Affliction is light in a threefold respect:

1 It is light in comparison of sin. He that feels sin heavy feels suffering light. Sin made Paul cry out, ‘O wretched man that I am!’ (Romans 7:24). He does not cry out of his iron chain but of his sin. The greater noise drowns the lesser. When the sea roars the rivers are silent. He that is taken up about his sins, and sees how he has provoked God, thinks the yoke of affliction light (Micah 7:9).

2 Affliction is light in comparison of hell. What is persecution to damnation? What is the fire of martyrdom to the fire of the damned? It is no more than the pricking of a pin to a death’s wound. ‘Who knoweth he power of thine anger’ (Psalm 90:11)? Christ himself could not have borne that anger had he not been more than a man.

3 Affliction is light in comparison of glory. The weight of glory makes persecution light. If, says Chrysostom, the torments of all the men in the world could be laid upon one man, it were not worth one hour’s being in heaven. And if persecution be light we should in a manner set light by it. Let us neither faint through unbelief, nor fret through impatience.

Our sufferings are short: ‘After ye have suffered awhile’ (1 Peter 5:10); or as it is in the Greek, ‘a little’. Our sufferings may be lasting, not everlasting. Affliction is compared to a ‘cup’ (Lamentations 4:21). The wicked drink of a sea of wrath which has no bottom. It will never be emptied. But it is only a cup of martyrdom, and God will say, ‘Let this cup pass away’. ‘The rod of the wicked shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous’ (Psalm 125:3). The rod may be there, it shall not rest. Christ calls his sufferings ‘an hour’ (Luke 22:53). Can we not suffer one hour? Persecution is sharp, but short. Though it has a sting to torment, yet it has a wing to fly. ‘Sorrow shall fly away’ (Isaiah 35:10). It is but awhile when the saints shall have a writ of ease granted them. They shall weep no more, suffer no more. They shall be taken off the torturing wrack and laid in Christ’s bosom. The people of God shall not always be in the iron furnace; a year of Jubilee will come. The water of persecution like a land-flood will soon be dried up.

While we suffer for Christ we suffer with Christ: ‘If we suffer with him . . .’ (Romans 8:17). Jesus Christ bears part of the suffering with us. Oh, says the Christian, I shall never be able to hold out. But remember you suffer with Christ. He helps you to suffer. As our blest Saviour said: ‘I am not alone; the Father is with me’ (John 16:32); so a believer may say, ‘I am not alone, my Christ is with me’. He bears the heaviest end of the cross. ‘My grace is sufficient for thee’ (2 Corinthians 12:9). ‘Underneath are the everlasting arms’ (Deuteronomy 33:27). If Christ put the yoke of persecution over us, he will put his arms under us. The Lord Jesus will not only crown us when we conquer, but he will enable us to conquer. When the dragon fights against the godly, Christ is that Michael which stands up for them and helps them to overcome (Daniel 12:1).

He that refuses to suffer persecution shall never be free from suffering: