_Of their persecutions._
1. BUT notwithstanding the purity of their doctrine, and the
unblameableness of their lives, the Christians found what their Lord
had told them before, that they should be _hated of all men. Because
they were not of the world, therefore the world hated them._ Therefore
was their _name cast out as evil_: yea, _all manner of evil was said
of them falsly_; and by all ranks of men; both unlearned and learned;
people and magistrates being against them. And the prejudice was such,
that they were frequently condemned upon the bare name of _Christian_,
without any farther examination. This sufficed to destroy all their
good qualities; it being a common saying, “_Caius Sejus_ is a _good_
man; if he were not a _Christian_.”
2. It’s no wonder, that this universal prejudice, drew many
persecutions upon them: a persecution commonly began by some edict
forbidding the Christians to meet together. The bishops gave notice of
this immediately, and exhorted one another, to redouble their prayers,
and to encourage the faithful _to run with patience the race set before
them_. Then many retired, and some even of the pastors, while the rest
remained with the people, but carefully concealed, knowing they were
the persons, who would be sought for most diligently, as those whose
destruction would probably occasion the dispersion of the whole flock.
Indeed the rules of the church prohibited any, wilfully to expose
themselves to danger, or unnecessarily to provoke the Heathens, and
draw persecution upon them.
3. When any Christians were discovered and apprehended, they were
brought before the magistrate, who seated on his tribunal, interrogated
them, whether they were _Christians_? If they denied it, they were
immediately set at liberty, for they knew a _Christian_ would not save
his life by a lie. If they confest they were _Christians_, all arts
were made use of to vanquish their constancy. First, by persuasion and
promises, then by threatnings, and last of all by tortures. Sometimes
they endeavoured to surprize them into idolatry, and then persuade them
that they could not retract. They had always some idol and altar near.
On this they offered victims in their presence: of which they would
often force them to eat, or to drink of the wine offered to the idol.
But this the _Christians_ resisted with all their strength: nay, when
incense was laid upon their hands with burning coals, they would not so
much as shake off the coals for fear of seeming to offer the incense.
4. The usual methods to force them to deny the faith, were, to stretch
them upon the rack, by cords fastened to their hands and feet, and
drawn at both ends by pullies: to hang them up by their hands with
weights tied to their feet: to beat them with rods or large battoons,
with thongs made of raw hides, or with scourges that had balls of lead,
or iron points at the end. While they were stretched on the rack, they
frequently applied burning coals or torches to their arms or sides:
often at the same time tearing off their flesh with pincers or combs of
iron. Insomuch that the bones being laid bare, and the intrails lying
uncovered, the flame entering into the body put an end to the life of
the sufferer.
5. They who survived these tortures, and persisted in professing
themselves Christians, were either executed or remanded to prison.
Their prisons were only another sort of torture, being commonly dark
and loathsome dungeons. Here they put fetters upon their hands and feet.
Many had large pieces of wood hung at their necks: many were chained
in the most uneasy postures, with weights fastened to their legs or
arms. Sometimes they strewed the floor with small pieces of glass, or
fragments of earthen vessels, on which they stretched out the prisoner,
naked as he was, and wounded all over. There they sometimes left them
to die of hunger and thirst and the festering of their wounds. At other
times they carefully healed them, but it was, that they might torture
them anew. They usually forbid their speaking to any person; as knowing
that in this condition, they had converted many Infidels, and often the
jailor, or even the soldiers that guarded them. But they permitted them
to converse with any, who were like to shake their resolution; a father,
a mother, a child, a wife, whose tender words, or silent eloquence,
were another sort of temptation, and often more dangerous than the
sharpest torments.
6. In the mean time their fellow Christians did not forget them. They
prayed for them without ceasing. If they were not permitted to minister
to them in prison, at least they attended them to the place of their
martyrdom. They exhorted them (often to the loss of their own lives)
to endure unto the end. They observed their last words, which were
commonly prayers, and fortified themselves by their example. Nor was it
to martyrs alone, but to confessors also, that they paid the greatest
honour; that is, those who had confest Christ before the magistrate,
though they had not _yet resisted unto blood_.