Part 50 HOLINESS, the Only Way to Happiness
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Part 51 HOLINESS, the Only Way to Happiness
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[4.] It will appear that persecutors are in the most sad and deplorable condition, if you do but consider that there is a day a-coming wherein God will fully reckon with all persecutors, for their persecuting of his saints: Psalm 9:12, "When he makes inquisition for blood, he remembers them; he forgets not the cry of the humble." There is a time when God will make inquisition for innocent blood. The Hebrew word which is here rendered inquisition, signifies not barely to seek, to search—but to seek, search, and inquire with all diligence and care imaginable. Oh, there is a time a-coming, when the Lord will make a very diligent and careful search and inquiry after all the innocent blood of his afflicted and persecuted people, which persecutors and tyrants have spilt as water upon the ground; and woe to persecutors when God shall make a more strict, critical, and careful inquiry after the blood of his people, than ever was made in the Inquisition of Spain, where all things are done with the greatest diligence, scrutiny, secrecy, and severity.
O persecutors, there is a time acoming, when God will make a strict inquiry after the blood of Hooper, Bradford, Latimer, Taylor, Ridley, etc. There is a time a-coming, wherein God will inquire who silenced and suspended such and such ministers, and who stopped the mouths of such and such, and who imprisoned, confined, and banished such and such—who were once burning and shining lights, and who were willing to spend and be spent, that sinner might be saved, and that Christ might be glorified. There is a time when the Lord will make a very careful inquiry into all the actions and practices of ecclesiastical courts, high committees, etc., and deal with persecutors as they have dealt with his people.
Psalm 12:5, "Because of the oppression of the weak and the groaning of the needy, I will now arise. I will protect them from those who malign them." When oppressors and persecutors do snuff and puff at the people of God, when they defy them, and scorn them, and think that they can with a blast of their breath blow them away—then God will arise to judgment! At that very nick of time when all seems to be lost, and when the poor oppressed and afflicted people of God can do nothing but sigh and weep, and weep and sigh, then the Lord will arise and ease them of their oppressions, and make their day of extremity, a glorious opportunity to work for his own glory, and his people's good.
Alas, all the sorrows, troubles, afflictions, vexations, torments, and punishments that befall the persecutors of the saints in this life, they are but fairy-tales, as it were; they are but the beginnings of sorrows, they are but types and figures of those easeless, endless, and remediless torments and punishments that will at last inevitably fall upon all the persecutors of the saints. But,
[5.] Fifthly and lastly, Persecutors at present are under an evident token of perdition and destruction; they have the marks and signs of divine displeasure upon them: Philippians 1:28, "And in nothing terrified by your adversaries, which is to them an evident token of perdition—but to you of salvation, and that of God." Persecuted Christians ought not to be disheartened or discouraged—but rather to take heart and courage, by all the persecutions which are raised against them, because they are most certain witnesses and evidences from God himself, both of their own salvation, and of their persecutors' perdition and destruction.
And thus you see by these five things, that there is no condition under heaven that is so sad and deplorable a condition, as the condition of persecutors is. But,
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Part 51 HOLINESS, the Only Way to Happiness
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