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Matthew 5:8-10. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. 9. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God. 10. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Luke 6:22-23. Blessed are you when men hate you, exclude you, reproach you, and reject your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. 23. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; their fathers did the same to the prophets.
Everyone will confess that the main virtue that should be in us is purity and sincerity of heart. For without this it is certain that all the good that could be highly valued is nothing but smoke and rubbish before God. So everyone will praise integrity: but there is an evil, which no one wishes to practice. For we see that without cunning and malice we cannot converse between men, without being subjected to many troubles, because clever men have their nets set to surprise us. It therefore seems to us that they must be followed: and yet, after each has given his sentence, that we must walk roundly and without pretense, and have a pure and clean heart, there is no one who does not decline, and who does not seek devious devices, and who is not disguised. So our Lord Jesus Christ pronounces a common sentence at once, when he says that those who are clean and pure in heart are blessed: but if we look at the custom and the way of living, and even as men delight in their schemes, and that they never proceed except by circuitous and crooked paths, we will find that not without cause our Lord Jesus Christ brings his disciples back to sincerity and integrity. Now he assumes that they will see God: and uses this way of speaking, because those who have the most confused hearts will be the most keen to know how to guard themselves, and even to circumvent others. Nothing escapes them: for they make their speeches, and search into hidden matters, and when we have to deal with them, they know how to conduct their case so well that they disguise themselves by
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any means without anyone detecting them. And so it might seem that they are pure in heart. Indeed, but firstly they are so withdrawn that no one can approach them and discern what intention they have. This is so twisted that we could never judge it. And then, they also like to fish in troubled waters (as the proverb says) and like to have things where equity cannot be seen. These then are like the clever people of this world, although they see much more clearly than the children of God, yet their hearts are always in darkness and obscurity. However, the faithful are considered simple: and it will not even seem that they half realize what would be expedient: just as they do not delight in tricks: and very often they could make their profit, and they pass on that. Because they have not accustomed themselves to these little practices, to snatch profit from every side, as many do: they close their eyes, say, to all this for their own sake. And why? Because they will never want the damage of anyone, to make their profit.
This is why our Lord Jesus Christ brings this response, that if the world mocks our simplicity, and it seems that it brings us more harm, let us be satisfied with a greater reward, it is because we will see God. For when we have not had too keen an eye to look at the profits of this world, the comforts and advantages, the delights and honors to attract them to us: when we have not given our sight to this, we will have a better look which is here promised to us: that is, we will enjoy the presence of God where our happiness, joy and glory lie. Besides, it is a superfluous curiosity to dispute deeply in what way we can see God. For since its essence is spiritual, we cannot contemplate it with our eyes which are corporeal: and we do not properly attribute sight to spirits. But we know first of all, that the angels who have no body, do not fail to contemplate the majesty of God: as will be said hereafter when our Lord Jesus Christ speaks of little children, that their angels, who are their ministers, see the face of the heavenly Father. Now it is true that we cannot see God: for we would have to be like him, as John says in his epistle: and we are very far from it. So to have the enjoyment of this look of which we speak here cannot be before the final day, when we will be conformed to the glory of God. And how will it be possible that our bodies have any similarity to the infinite majesty of God, seeing that it is a spiritual essence? But to inquire too curiously about this would be to exceed our limits. Let us just keep on walking: and when we have completed our course, God will show us what he is doing in his Kingdom. There are many today who would like to know, through a curiosity no less impertinent than stupid, what the glory of the faithful will be in Paradise, whether they will sit or stand, whether they will walk around, whether they will hear creatures from this world, what use it will
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be, and what purpose all this will serve. In short, they will want to amuse themselves with such speculations which are of no benefit, and will want to explore every chamber of paradise, to find out what is happening there: and yet they take no care to approach it. Now we are on the way: let us walk, let us walk while we are in this world. And when we have arrived at our heritage, then we will know what it is. And in fact if a man wanted to buy some house, and it was ten leagues away, and then he sat down to say, I want to know what this house is built of, what convenience it has, where it is situated, and yet he would not go near it: what mockery would that be? So that we learn to profit more and more in the knowledge of God, in order to adore him purely, and put our trust in him, to invoke him in all our needs. And when we have taken advantage of all these instructions, we will see in the end that it is this happiness, and joy which is promised to us, and of which we will be capable, although now the way is completely unknown to us as it is said that our senses cannot understand what God has prepared for us.
However, it is enough for us that our Lord Jesus Christ clarifies here, that if we are his disciples, in the first place we must not be addicted to our schemes, to see more clearly than is lawful for us, and to disguise ourselves in order to deceive one and circumvent the other: and moreover, that if we do not make our profit in this world, as it will seem, because we will go in sincerity, and that we will leave escape many things, even and we will even lose in our knowledge if God is offended. When, therefore, having a peaceful mind, and not being too shrewd to fish in troubled waters, we will lose: let us know that if the world condemns us, we have our reward which must suffice and satisfy us, it is because we will praise God. Because this word of Seeing in Scripture is taken for enjoyment. You will not see death, you will not see the Kingdom of heaven: that is to say, you will not possess it. So it is as much as if our Lord Jesus Christ said that God will be our heritage, when we have not captured by wicked trafficking in goods in this world, and when we have not had our senses twisted into malice, when we have not also pursued ruinous causes, nor attracted to our advantage all that we will have little: and we must not regret it of this. And why?
For this is not a sufficient reward if God makes it clear that he gives himself to us, that he wants to be. our heritage, and that he also wants us to be to him? For where lies all our good and our blessed hearts quote, if not in this? Moreover, our Lord Jesus Christ used this similarity of seeing, following the common way of Scripture, because he was here is a question of a pure and whole
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heart. Because otherlies, because our hearts are purged from all malice, and that there is sincerity and integrity (as I said) we are so much less indulgent to many nasty deals: and those who are entirely blinded and plunged into darkness, see much clearer in this place. Or even but it is in another way: it is through, as if they always wandering around as if through slits, and that they did not want to be in an obvious place.
Now therefore our Lord Jesus Christ pursuing this similarity, says that if we do not see in this world what people naturally desire, and what they are too delighted about, that we expect let us say that God manifests himself to us, and that we may possess him so fully, that there we have everything our rest.
He then adds that Blessed are the peacemakers. This word is misunderstood vulgarlies: because it is commonly taken to mean merely peaceful: and it means much more. Because a man could be paid possible, which however would not be peaceful: it is to say, that it would not procure peace towards the others. Because this word is composed of making peace. Gold therefore, in order to avoid ambiguity, we must retain the proper meaning of this passage: namely, we must be diligent to promote peace everywhere.
But we know, however, that we must begin with ourselves. Because how can whatone of. to procure us peace, and appease the troubles and disputes which will be moved, otherwise only For his part, he gives an example? It would be nice to see a man who will take on a quarrel with everyone, who will be impatient and impetuous in all his actions, and that if there is any noise, he is there to help peace, peace there: and when he sees a disturbance, that he comes there to say, we must not skirmish like this. And what authority will he have when so soon as soon as anger rises in his head, which he will strike down and storm, and yet he will want to promote peace everywhere?
Let us therefore learn that to make peace, we must first of all, let us be peaceful. And t comlying? We spoke above of those who are of a gentle spirit: and this is a part of peace. For if we are patient, it is certain that it will not matter to us that we do not converse let us live here in good harmony and at rest. Who is the cause of all the troubles that men make among themselves, when they war against each other like this, that they are like dogs and cats in eating each other, if not their impatience? That no one can tolerate being wronged, and that everyone is so addicted to their own profit, that we want to be pleased in everything: and if this is not the case, we immediately have our weapons in hand. And then afterwards we will bring the reproaches, and then
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the enmities will come, and will grow until they come to mortal hatred, to kill and wound, and to spare nothing. This is how impatience is the cause that men cannot be peaceful together, but are agitated by troubles in their own right, so much so that each one is like a devil to his neighbor. Let us therefore learn to be patient, and not be so devoted to our own advantage or our honor that we cannot easily forgive the wrongs that will be done to us. This, I say, is how peaceful we will be.
And moreover, it is not enough, although we do not give occasion to anyone to molest and annoy us: but we must pursue peace as long as we have it: and even if we have to bear some damage, and we have to give up part of our right, if we nevertheless have to pass. For peace must be so precious to us, as God recommends it to us, that everything else is nothing to us. Now when a man does not cause any trouble, when he does not annoy anyone, when he also gives no one cause for complaint, and for him not to be assailed, or even if he is, he will gently bear many harms, rather than making great pursuits: after all this, we must still practice the doctrine that Jesus teaches here, which is that we try to make peace in everything. It is not enough therefore for everyone to abstain from all excess, evildoing, or harm: but when we see someone having a bad cause, we must oppose it: when we see some innocent poor person afflicted, we must maintain him as much as we can: and try to provide for him and relieve him. When we see two men pitted against each other, let us have pity to see two souls in the process of perdition, who have been redeemed by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ: let it look bad on us because the devil dominates, who is the prince of all contention, and let God be rejected, who is the author of peace: and then we try to appease all quarrels. And this is also why God curses on the contrary those who sow discord and enmity between men, who are like firebrands, and who by their relations make former friends hate one another: or if when there is something opening that one suspects of the other, we comes along to inflame their suspicions. Because it is as if there were a wound, and instead of there put some good ointment to cure it, someone poured poison into it or venom, to enpoison and set fire to it. So let's learn here that we are as if banished from the school of our Lord Jesus Christ and his church, when we cause quarrels and enmity between people: and on the contrary, that to be his disciples not only must each of us be peaceable in its place: but that we try, enas long as we have, to break all enmities, and cut them down, to dampen the fire when it is lit, and also to obviate all quarrels: when we seelet's hope that a few
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people would come together to fight each other, that we remedy this early, and that we were not waiting for Satan to have won, but that we anticipated. So this is, in short, what we have to retain.
Now our Lord Jesus Christ, to assert such a doctrine among us, says that such, that is to say, those who bring peace, will be called children of God. Is there anything more desirable than to be recognized and confessed as children of God, and to be able to claim him as our Father? For without this, what is our condition? If God gives us away, what more is left? For even if we have all our wishes in this world, do we not know that everything will be cursed and turned into confusion for us, unless God is favorable to us? For there is no true guarantee of all prosperity and all good except that we feel the favor and paternal love of God towards us. So what we must simply aspire to is to know that God is our Father, and that we have this privilege of being able to call ourselves his children. Moreover, we cannot obtain such a good, as Jesus Christ pronounces here, unless we are peaceful. For God not without cause is called the God of peace. So we must resemble him in this, or we do not belong to him in any way, whatever protest we make in our mouths. Here then is a proof that God is our Father, and that we desire to live in obedience to him, it is knowing when we destroy, as far as we are, all discord. Now it is true that we will often be forced to have war with the wicked: and again let us pursue peace as long as it is possible for us, as we are exhorted by Paul, if it is necessary that we endure many clashes and storms. And what's more, we will often be blamed for being the cause of the troubles and emotions that are occurring.
And this is why also our Lord Jesus Christ says goodbye at the same time we are blessed when we suffer persecution, when we will say of us, that we will be returned, and as excommunicate: brief, that we will be held detestable, provided that it is for the Gospel above all.
This is how we will be confessed to God, again that the world calls us troublemakers and mutineers, and that it seems that it is only up to us that everything be peaceful. We must therefore grant these two things here: it is that we are peaceful, even patiently carrying the injuries done to us, remaining calm and gentle in spirit so as not to feed us in our quarrels. And then secondly, we must make peace in everything, again that we must battle against the devil, who is father of contentions, troubles, and noises. Yet in doing this, we must always prize God’s truth above outward peace. And then battalions also for righteousness, that is to say for righteousness. It is therefore not enough that we putpeace without discretion, "but it is necessary that the link of this peace is that
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God dominates in the middle, that men are united together to serve it with an agreement: and then, it is also necessary that those who want to carry it away by outrage and violence, be repressed, and that the innocent be maintained in their rights. Example: Today, when there are quarrels between men, those who want to be the most skillful and valiant in boasting of being peaceful, will settle the matter quickly, without looking at who is wrong or right. Then, they will simply divide the difference There will be one who will be a bandit, who will cut his brother's throat: the other will simply ask to hold his own, and will be content to have his right. Here is someone who places himself between the two parties as a peacemaker. Now do not fight any more, but let each one take his portion. Does this mean that a bandit robs an innocent poor person and yet we are there as if blind not to discern between white and black? Let us therefore learn that it is not enough that we grant quarrels: but it is necessary that justice always prevails, and that it takes place.
And thus we see in what condition it is that we must procure peace: and for this cause our Lord Jesus Christ says, that we must be persecuted for righteousness. Under this word he understands in the first place that we maintain the rights of each one, that we have no respect for people to favor these things, and to reject those things, but that we see that we live in good equity, that those who rise up in audacity and violence are put down, and that those who do not otherwise ask that we leave them alone.
wheat for their good, be maintained and bear. That's it first one. But if the justice of men must be recommended to us, what is this compared to that of God, that is to say his truth, which is the rule of all righteousness? Therefore, when we have to suffer and hate, and sins, and slander for having maintained the quarrel between the good and the simple, we must have an even greater zeal to be God's witnesses, so as not to allow us to blaspheme against his truth, or to in any way pervert the doctrine of the Gospel, in which all our good and our salvation consists. This is also why the two are connected. He spoke in general of justice: and then he puts, of the Son of man, and of the Gospel. Our Lord Jesus Christ therefore wants us to try to give reason to everyone: and yet he also wants his truth to be privileged above all, and the glory of God his Father, and the Kingdom which has been given to him: let this therefore be preferred to all the rest. Now in the first place, we can never be truly peaceful without being attacked from all sides: because everyone wants to have prosecutors and advocates: that is to say the least. And when equity governs us, and we are not in favor of one party or the other, we will have to blame both sides. And we usually
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see that those who act as true servants of God, when they judge a cause, they will not satisfy any of the parties. And why? Because often neither party will seek reason, because each would like to have oppressed his neighbor, and to be exalted above all men. This is how we are: but again when we openly declare that we seek that the good be maintained over everything, then we will be more harshly assailed. And why? Those who have a bad cause are willing to be people of credit and authority: they are powerful and rich, having the favor of the world: and this is how hard war must be taken. Not that there are not many poor people who are as mean as the rich, and if they dared to release their venom which is hidden there, and they had the ability to do so, they would clearly show that they are no better than the rich: but the fact is that they will not commit outrages such as those who trust in their credit and their wealth, and who are in vogue among men, will do. Now, if we want to maintain justice and righteousness, it is certain that we will have to wage war against those who have a sword in their hand, that is to say who are equipped to strike down everything and to take revenge on us, even though we have done them no harm.
This is why we need to practice this doctrine. For our Lord Jesus Christ did not deal with things that unknown to us or very rare: but it monster to which we must apply all the time of our life. True is that by walking like he belongs and by not favoring anyone, he seems although we must not be hays, and that everyone must leave us in our state, that we we must not do any molestation. And in fact, Peter also says, And when you do no wrong to no one, who will be your enemy? But this is naturally: but even if it is necessary that the children of God after having been patient, after having trying to dampen all quarrels, they all prepare times to suffer many insults and insults, and to cause a lot of trouble. And why?
I have already said that if we maintain the right, it is certain that we are moved by the rage of blow of people against us: and these too will have a large suit and a large tail. So much more therefore that we will have been peaceful on all sides.
So much more will the world be fond of slander of us: so that we will be walked around the tables and through the streets, and everyone will detract from us. Well, that's it for one: but still there is also this, that whoever wants to live holy in Jesus Christ (says Paul) must prepare himself to persecution. It is true that God will give us good some relaxation, but as long as we have always a lot of enemies. Because Satan has many supporters in this world, and they are driven
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by his spirit, so much so that they cannot endure the clarity of the Gospel, nor endure that God has dominion over them, as over children. We must therefore maintain the quarrel of the Gospel, and be witnesses to the truth of our Lord Jesus Christ: even if we have war with a great multitude of people, even those who counterfeit the faithful, and who pretend to agree with us in the same religion: it will be necessary, I say, that we have mortal war against them: and also even more so against those who openly defy God, and who would like the Gospel to be exterminated from the world.
This is how familiar this doctrine must be to us, so that we do not find it strange if we are molested often and sometimes. For there are many who believe that they have had the best of the world in the Gospel: and if we want to attack them, when they have this excuse in their mouths, they have not been given the opportunity. And why did he come and attack me like this, seeing that I didn't ask him for anything? Didn't I have to have pushed him away? It seems to them that they are even, although since then they have been overwhelmed. But on the contrary it is said that although we are gentle, if we have a zeal for justice and equity, the world will have to rise up against us, and we will have many enemies: and even more so when we are zealous for the glory of God and the truth of the Gospel: for there will have to be open war: and even then we will be reproached for being the cause of all evil. As today the Papists allege, Blessed are the peacemakers: when they want to burden us and accuse us that we are the cause of the noises, contentions and debates that are in the world, and that they would be in peaceful possession of their tyranny, it seems to them, and that all their idolatries and inventions would be in vogue, except that by force of shouting we warn the world to turn away from such stinking. Above that they will say that we disturb the peace, and are enemies of the church. Nay: but (as I said) it is necessary that this war be conjoined with the honor of God, and even with reason and mutual equity between men: and even more, that it be conjoined with the testimony of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the doctrine of our salvation. So this is how we will have to take the war: but it is for justice, that is to say for a good cause and necessary. For we would have to renounce God if we wanted to be peaceful with everyone. And so be it, on what condition could we agree with the Papists? What action will we take? They would be very happy to have us: but in what way? That we were apostates like them, that we m were excommunicated from the Kingdom of God: that we were in their foul and stinking burgundy, as they all are: in short, that we were children of the devil, as they are.
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This, I say, is what they would like to attract and attract us to if they could. But woe betide such peace. Let us have war sooner, provided that it is always for the testimony that God approves, and that we fight under his banner, and to ensure that he is served and honored, that we are content to bear the enmities of the world: and that all the divisions which are on our side, do not proceed except from the fact that we do not want to consent to the evil and the impiety of the wicked. For the rest, however, let us note carefully this word from righteousness. For the wicked will also be able to boast that they suffer: and then they will glory in being disciples of Jesus Christ. As time passed there were many heretics who boasted of their Christianity, under the shadow that everyone persecuted them. And today these fantastic Anabaptists, who have caused so much trouble in the world, who challenge both the police, and the Magistrate, and the union of the church, who sow so many errors that nothing more, they always have this sentence in their mouths, that blessed are those who suffer persecution. Or even but is it for justice? We clearly see the opposite. And so, let us learn to have this word well engraved in our hearts, and let our conscience test us before God that we have just quarreled when we are persecuted. For this is the mark by which Jesus Christ wanted to discern the thieves, thieves, murderers, blasphemers, and adulterers from among his disciples. For the wicked will suffer persecution, and we must persecute them as much as we are, as David protests in the Psalm, saying that he hated them for their iniquities, not for their persons. We must therefore persecute the wicked: but yet if they cannot boast of being maintained by God for all this. For it is not for justice that they suffer, like the martyrs and witnesses of Jesus Christ: or even like those who maintain good quarrels in this world, who ask to support the innocent, and to lift them up when they are oppressed. For these also suffer for righteousness, and they have the mark to be trusted by God.
Besides, this material cannot be disposed of at all for now. It is therefore enough that we refrain from being peaceful, so that however we do not derogate from the honor of God, that his glory is not prejudiced, and also that his person is not burdened by it. However, the peace which was announced to us in the Gospel is above all to be prized and esteemed: as when we have today Jesus Christ, who is our peace with God his Father, who ordained that this appointment should be announced between God and men. And this is also what Paul brings us back to, when he wants all contentions, all divorces, and all false opinions to be put to rest. And how? he said. We are reconciled with God, to have brotherhood together. Now this is done through the preaching of the
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Gospel. And so, we who protest having received the doctrine by which we are appointed with God, we must also converse among men that there may be peace and concord. That if this is ordered to all, much more to those who are in charge. Moreover, because time would not allow this to be deduced further: now, because the brother who is here present, having already previously served in one place in the ministry of this church, has been accepted by the magistrates, and ordained to serve from now on in this city: that whenever there is a minister to receive, we know for what purpose it is, and what benefit we must receive from the labor of those who are called to this office is to know that we are enemies of God, we are called of him, and that we are warned of him: as in fact he does not wait for us to come and seek him: but when he sees that we are lost in perdition, he seeks us, and calls us to himself. And how? This is because he forgives us all our faults, so that we can learn to forgive our neighbors. For he wants to be pitiful to us, so that we may also be pitiful to others. Let us therefore look carefully at the end and use of the preaching of the Gospel, and let us know the good that God presents to us by his doctrine, "which is proposed to us in his name, and that this incites us to arrange ourselves, both large and small, to do our duty. And moreover, since we cannot be reputed to be children of God, unless we are peaceful, let us profit more and more in the doctrine which is given to us. preached. For the devil will always find something to incite us to provoke us into contentions, into mischief, into wars, into troubles and emotions. And so we must strive: when we want to keep peace and harmony among ourselves, we must fight against our nature, but this will be done by virtue of the doctrine, when we are given to it, and we apply our study to it, as it belongs.
And moreover, as much as with peace we must have zeal and righteousness, it is also necessary that the truth of God be recommended to us in everything, and that we be so accustomed to the doctrine which will be perfectly preached to us from our Lord Jesus Christ, that we boldly despise everyone. But we are so cold in this place, that we could say what Isaiah said in his time, that we look through the streets, there is no one who maintains justice: and there is no one who maintains truth. And who is the cause? This is because firstly we do not know how righteousness and equity is pleasing to God: and then, we do not know how much his truth is recommended to him. Contempt therefore for one's word and taking advantage of it is the cause that everyone shrinks from righteousness and equity, even though one faces enough protest. For every one will complain, and say, What time is it in? and what confusion do we see? And
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yet there is no one who is not partly guilty of it, because we have no zeal. And yet, let this word of justice always ring in our ears, knowing that we must hold fast for this: and above all, when it is a question that the name of God be glorified, and the testimony that we must give to our Lord Jesus Christ be engraved in our hearts, never to depart from it. All the more therefore we must think carefully about all these things, so that from now on we show that we are better advanced than before, that is to say, that we know how our Lord Jesus Christ wants to govern his church, namely, by the preaching of his word, and that it is in such reverence to us as it should: and that it is not only to pretend to humiliate us under it: but that in all our life we know that we have truly aspired to this incomprehensible treasure, leaving behind all our affections, which otherwise keep us too wrapped up.
Now let us bow before the majesty of our good God, etc.
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