But if God can not will us to Himself by gentle means, must we not be mere blocks if His threatening also fail?  Jesus Christ summons all those who from fear of temporal death shall have denied the truth, to appear at the bar of God his Father, and says, that then both body and soul will be consigned to perdition. (Matt. x., 28; Luke xii., 5.) And in another passage He says that He will disclaim all those who shall have denied Him before men. (Matt. x., 33; Luke xii., 10.) These words, if we are not altogether impervious to feeling, might well make our hair stand on end.  Be this as it may, this much is certain; if these things do not move us as they ought, nothing remains for us but a fearful judgment.  (Heb. x., 27.) All the words of Christ having proved unavailing, we stand convinced of gross infidelity.

It is in vain for us to allege that pity should be shown us, inasmuch as our nature is so frail; for it is said, on the contrary, that Moses, having looked to God by faith, was fortified so as not to yield under any temptation.  Wherefore, when we are thus soft and easy to bend, it is a manifest sign, I do not say that we have no zeal, no firmness, but that we know nothing either of God or His kingdom.  When we are reminded that we ought to be united to our Head, it seems to us a fine pretext for exemption to say that we are men.  But what were those who have trodden the path before us?  Indeed, had we nothing more than pure doctrine, all the excuses we could make would be frivolous; but having so many examples which ought to supply us with the strongest proof, the more deserving are we of condemnation.

There are two points to be considered.  The first is, that the whole body of the Church in general has always been, and to the end will be, liable to be afflicted by the wicked, as is said in the Psalms (Psalms cxxix., 1), “From my youth up they have tormented me, and dragged the plow over me from one end to the other.”  The Holy Spirit there brings in the ancient Church, in order that we, after being much acquainted with her afflictions, may not regard it as either new or vexatious when the like is done to ourselves in the present day.  St. Paul, also, in quoting from another Psalm (Rom. vii., 36; Psalm xliv., 22), a passage which says, “We have been led like sheep to the slaughter”; shows that that has not been for one age only, but is the ordinary condition of the Church, and shall be.

Therefore, on seeing how the Church of God is trampled upon in the present day by proud worldlings, how one barks and another bites, how they torture, how they plot against her, how she is assailed incessantly by mad dogs and savage beasts, let it remind us that the same thing was done in all the olden time.  It is true God sometimes gives her a truce and time of refreshment, and hence in the Psalm above quoted it is said, “He cutteth the cords of the wicked”; and in another passage (Psalm cxxv., 3), “He breaks their staff, lest the good should fall away, by being too hardly pressed.”  But still it has pleased Him that His Church should always have to battle so long as she is in this world, her repose being treasured up on high in the heavens. (Heb. iii., 9.)