John Trapp on Matthew 4:12

Verse 12. Now when Iesus heard that Iohn was cast into prison] For Herodias his sake, though under pretexts of fear of sedition, because of the great multitudes that followed and admired him, as Iosephus hath it. This hath ever been an ordinary [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word]. l. [illegible: 2 words]. 7. cast upon the most [illegible: 1 word], to be [illegible: 1 word] of sedition, and [illegible: 1 word] of the State. [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] held and called a Traitour, Elijah a troubler of Israel, Paul a pest, Luther, tuba rebellionis, [non-Latin text not transcribed] the Trumpet of rebellion, &c. Iuvenies apud Tacitum quentatas accusationes Majestatis: unicum crimen eorum qui Act. 14 5. crimine vacabant, saith Lipsius. There was some colour of right, yea of piety laid upon the French massacre, and by edicts, a fair cloak sought, to cover the impious fraud, as if there had been some wicked conspiracy plotted by the Protestants against the King, the Queen-mother, the Kings brethren, the King of Navarre, Camd Elizab. fol. 163. and the Princes of the bloud. For there was coyn stamped in memory of the matter, in the fore-part whereof, (together with the Kings picture) was this inscription, Virtus in rebelle[illegible: 1 letter]. And on the other side, Pietas excitavit justitiam. Not many years before this, Francis King of France, when he would excuse to the Princes of Germany (whose friendship he then sought after) that cruelty he had exercised against the Protestants, he gave out that he punished Anabaptists only, that bragged of Enthusiasmes, and cried down Magistracy, stirring up the people to sedition, as they had done, not long before in Germany. This foul [illegible: 1 word]. Annal. vol 2 [illegible: 1 letter] 454. aspersion cast upon true Religion, gave occasion to Calvin (then a young man of 25. years of age) to set forth that incomparable work, called his institutions of Christian Religion. Concerning which, Paulus Melissus long since sang, Praeter Apostolicas post Christi tempora chartas, Huic peperere libro saecula nulla parem. Since Christs and the Apostles time no such book hath been written. He departed into Galilee] Succenturiatus prodit Ioanni, saith a learned Interpreter. He therefore went into Galilee (which was under Herods government) to be, as it were, a supply and successour to Iohn, whom Herod had imprisoned. How well might the tyrant say of the Church, as those Persians did of the Athenians, [non-Latin text not transcribed]. We overturn [illegible: 6 words], [illegible: 2 words] them, and yet they fall not; we wound them, and yet they fear not. St Basil bad the persecuted Christians tell the tyrants with a bold and brave spirit, [non-Latin text not transcribed] If ye prevail again, yet surely ye shall be overcome again. For there is neither power nor policy against the Lord. Charles the [illegible: 2 words] in [illegible: 1 word] 8.[illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 3 words] in [illegible: 4 words] fifth (then whom all Christendome had not a more prudent Prince, nor the Church of Christ (almost) a sorer enemy) when he had in his hand Luther dead, and Melancthon and Pomera[illegible: 1 letter], and certain other Preachers of the Gospel alive, he not only determined not any thing extreamly against them, or violated their graves, but also entreating them gently, sent them away, not so much as once forbidding them to publish openly the doctrine that Act. and Mon. 1785. they professed. For it is the nature of Christs Church, the more that persecutours spurn against it, the more it flourisheth and encreaseth, as the Palme-tree spreadeth and springeth the more it Durū ut ilex tonsa bipennibus, per damna, per caedes ab ipso Ducit opes animum que ferro, Horat. is oppressed: as the bottle or bladder, that may be dipt, not drowned; as the Oak that taketh heart to grace from the maims and wounds given it, and sprouts the thicker; as Fenugreek, which the worse it is handled (saith Pliny) the better it proves. This made Arrius Antoninus (a cruell persecutour in Asia) cry out to the Christians, who came by troops to his tribunall, and proclaimed themselves Christians (so offering themselves to death) O miseri, si libet perire, num vobis rupes aut restes desunt? Tertul. ad Sca [illegible: 1 letter]ulam. O Wretched men, of ye be so desirous to die, have you neither [non-Latin text not transcribed] rocks nor halters, wherewith to dispatch your selves? Diocletian after he had in vain done his utmost to blot out Christs Name from under heaven, and could not effect it (such was the constancy of the Primitive Christians, that no sufferings could affright or discourage them, but that they grew upon him daily, doe what he could to the contrary) laid down the Empire in great discontent, and betook himself (as Charles the fifth also did) toBucholcer. a private course of life. As Lambs breed in winter, and QuailsChronol. Numb. 11. 31. came with the winde: So good Preachers and people spring most in hard times. No fowl is more prey'd upon by hawks, kites, &c. then the Pigeon, yet are there more doves then hawks or kites for all that, saith Optatus. So the sheep; and so the sheep of [non-Latin text not transcribed]. Christ, A little little flock, he calleth it, but such as all the Wolves on earth, and devils in hell cannot possibly devour. TheLuk. 12. 32. Christians of Calabria suffered great persecution, Anno 1560. for being all thrust up in one house together, as in a sheep-fold, the Executioner cometh in, and amongst them taketh one, and blindfoldeth him with a muffler about his eyes, and so leadeth him forth into a larger place, where he commandeth him to kneel down: Which being done, he cutteth his throat, and so leaving him half dead, and taking his butchers knife and muffler all of gore bloud, cometh again to the rest, and so leading them one after another, he dispatcheth them all, to the number of 88. All the elder went to death more cheerfully, the younger were more timorous. I tremble and shake (saith a Roman-Catholike, out of Act. and Mon. fol. 859. whose letter to his Lord this is transcribed) even to remember how the executioner held his bloudy knife between his teeth, with the bloudy muffler in his hand, and his arms all in gore-bloud, up to the elbows, going to the fold, and taking every of them one after another by the hand, and so dispatching them all, no otherwise then doth a butcher kill his calves and sheep. Notwithstanding all which barbarous cruelty the Waldenses or Protestants were so spread, not in France only their chief [illegible: 1 word], but in Germany also, many years before this, that they could travell from Collen to [illegible: 1 word] of the Church, p. [illegible: 1 word]. Millain in Italy, and every night lodge with hosts of their own profession. It is not yet a dozen years since Pope Urban the eighth (that now sitteth) upon the surrender of Rochel into the French Kings hands, sent his Breve to the King, exasperating him againstReliquias [illegible: 2 words] in Gallica [illegible: 5 words]. the Protestants in France, and eagerly urging, yea, enforcing the destruction of all the heretikes, stabling in the French vineyard, as his Inurbanity is pleased to expresse it. But what shall be given unto thee? Or what shall be done unto thee, thou foul tongue? Sharp arrows of the mighty with coals of Juniper (Psal.B. Halls answ. to Pope Urban his Inurbanity, &c. 120. 4, 5.) which burn vehemently, and smell sweetly. God shall shortly put into the hearts of the Kings of the earth (and this King among the rest of the ten) to hate the whore, to eat her flesh, and to burn her with fire, Revel. 17. 16. There are notBabylon altera adbuc stat, citò itidem casura, si essetis [illegible: 1 word]. many ages past, since one of his predecessours broke open the gates of Rome, [illegible: 1 word] the wals, dispersed the Citizens, and condemned the Pope to a dark dungeon, lading him with bitter scoffsPetras. de rem. [illegible: 1 word]. fort. dial. 118. and curses. There are not many years past, since the Realm of France was ready, upon the Popes refusall, to reblesse K. Henry 4. upon conversion to them, to with-draw utterly from the obedience Philip. le Beau. of his Sea, and to erect a new Patriarch over all the French Sands his relation [illegible: 2 words]. Relig. Church. The then Arch-bishop of Burges was ready to accept it: and but that the Pope (in fear thereof) did hasten his benediction, it had been effected, to his utter [illegible: 1 word] and decay. Before [illegible: 1 word] of Toler. by Gabriel [illegible: 1 word], p. [illegible: 1 word]. he would doe it, he lashed the King in the person of his Embassadour, after the singing of every verse of miserere, untill the whole Psalm was sung out. Sed [illegible: 1 word] Evangelij jubare, sagaciores, D. Prideaux contra [illegible: 2 words]. ut spero, principes, adnutum hujus Orbilij non solvent subligacula, saith a great Divine of ours. King Henry the eighth and the French King (some half a year before their deaths) were at a point to have changed the Masse in both their Realms into a Communion: Also to have utterly extirped the Bishop of Rome, &c. Act. and [illegible: 1 word]. Ex [illegible: 1 word] Cranmeri, fol. 1135. Yea, they were so thorowly resolved in that behalf, that they meant also to exhort the Emperour to doe the like, or to break off from him. The same Emperour to be revenged upon Pope Clement his enemy, abolished the Popes authority thorowout all Anno 1526. Scult. Annal. Decad. 2. p. 2. Spain, his native Kingdome, declaring thereby (the Spaniards themselves for example) that ecclesiasticall discipline may be conserved without the Papall authority. The Eastern Churches [illegible: 2 words] illius [illegible: 1 word]. have long since separated; the other four Patriarchs dividingBasil. apud Baron. Annal. [illegible: 1 word]. 4. themselves from the Bishop of Rome, and at their parting using these or the like words; Thy greatnesse we know, thy covetousnes we cannot satisfie, thy encroaching we can no longer abide, live to Cade of the Church, ex D. Field, Gerson, & Carleton. thy self. Neither are the Western much behinde, especially since all was changed in that Church, manners, doctrine, and the very rule of faith in the Trent-[illegible: 1 word]. Then (according to someRevel. [illegible: 1 word]. 3. Brightman. [illegible: 1 word], &c. Expositours) did the second Angel pour out his vial upon the sea (upon that conflux of all sorts at Trent) and it became as the [illegible: 1 word] of a dead man (those deadly decrees are written with the bloud of heretikes) and every living soul died in that sea, as once the fish of AEgypt. For none that worship the beast have their names written in the book of life of the lamb, slain from the foundation of the world, Revel. 13. 8. Slain, I say, as in his fathers decree and promise, as in the Sacrifices of the Law, and faith of his people; so in his members and Martyrs, beheaded as John Baptist, or [illegible: 2 words], semen Ecclesiae. Tert. otherwise butchered for the witnesse of Jesus, and for the Word of God. But the bloud of the Martyrs was the seeding of the Church. God was never left without witnesses, as is seen in our Testes [illegible: 1 word] per [illegible: 1 word]. Catalogues; but although John was cast in prison, yea beheaded in the prison, as if God had known nothing of him (quoth thatD. Featleys Catalogue, Protestants Calendar. Martyr) yet there never wanted a Jesus to goe into Galilee: And that guilty Edomite Herod was sensible of it, Matth. 14. 2. when he said to his servants, This is John Baptist, he is risen from the Revel. 11. 10, 11. dead. In like sort the Romish Edomite, after he had done to death Christs two ancienter witnesses, that (Baptist-like) came [illegible: 1 word] in Apo. 14. 6. in the spirit and power of Elias, to confute and confound their [illegible: 1 word] in that language signifieth a goose, [illegible: 1 word] a swan, and Iohn [illegible: 1 word] at his death prophesied it. Baal-worships, yet to his great grief and regret, he hath seen them revive and stand upon their [illegible: 1 word] again, in that heroicall Wicliff, who is said to have written more then 200. volumes against him, in that Goose of [illegible: 1 word], that Swan of Saxony (those three [illegible: 1 word] Angels, That flew in the midst of heaven, [illegible: 1 word] the everlasting Gospel to preach to them that dwell on the [illegible: 1 word]. 1 [illegible: 1 word] 6. [illegible: 2 words] pap. earth,) together with those other noble Reformers in all Christian Churches. By whom, ever since the Pope was declared to Rom cap. [illegible: 1 word]. [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word]. pag. [illegible: 1 word]. be [illegible: 1 word], his authority (saith Bellarmine) hath not only not [illegible: 1 word], but daily more and more decreased. The fourth [illegible: 1 word] hath lost a head, as Cusanus the Cardinall had prophesied, Anno Domini 1464. and after him Trithemius the Abbot, Anno [illegible: 5 words]. 1508. A sect of Religion, saith he, shall arise once within this [illegible: 1 word] years, to the great destruction of the old Religions. It is to [illegible: 2 words] that the fourth beast will lose one of her heads. This he [illegible: 1 word] in his book concerning Angels and Spirits. What kinde of spirit it was (black or white) that dictated unto him this prophecy, which fell out accordingly, and was fulfilled [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] Luther, I cannot tell. But the godly learned [illegible: 1 word] Bucholc. Chron. it was from that evil spirit, who is said to have sung before, [illegible: 1 word], tibi subitò motibus ibit amor. As the Emperour Frederick is reported also to have fore-told in this distich: Roma [illegible: 1 word] titubans, variis erroribus acta, [illegible: 1 word] boc [illegible: 2 words]. 2. [illegible: 2 words] p [illegible: 1 word] Philos. Corruet; & [illegible: 2 words] esse [illegible: 1 word].