Note 110 — SERMON VI. PROPHECIES CONCERNING CHRIST’S SECOND COMING. Isaiah xlii. 9.
Reading edition
An eminent writer, with the view, indeed, of disgracing the Reformation, hath set this matter in a very just light: “Que nos freres, says he, ouvrent donc les yeux; qu’ils les jettent sur l’ancienne Eglise, qui durant tant de siécles d’une persecution si cruelle ne s’est jamais échapée, ni un seul moment, ni dans un seul homme, & qu’on a vûë aussi soûmise sous Diocletien, et même sous Julien l’apostat, lorsqu’elle remplissoit deja toute la terre, que sous Neron & sous Domitien, lorsqu’elle ne faisoit que de naitre: c’est la qu’on voit veritablement le doigt de Dieu.” Hist. des Variations, l. x. c. 53.
The finger of God, as the learned writer says, was indeed conspicuous in this conduct of the primitive Christians, because it fulfilled the prophecies (so unlikely to be fulfilled) concerning the manner in which Christianity was to obtain an establishment in the world. If the conduct of the reformed had not this merit, it was because the prophecies did not extend to the reformation of Christian religion, but to the introduction and first settlement of it. The agents, in this last work of Providence, were therefore left to the natural influence of their passions, and they acted too frequently as those passions impelled them.
For the rest, how far the general precepts of the Gospel require a passive submission and non-resistance to outrageous intolerance, whether absolutely, and in all cases, is a point of nice discussion; in which I take no part, at present, because I am not now making the apology of the reformed, but shewing the completion of the prophecies concerning the propagators of Christianity: and the wonder to see them so punctually completed, is not lessened, but increased, by supposing, that the precepts of the Gospel leave mankind to the free use of their natural rights, in the case of extreme violence and injustice.