23. The fifth dividing practice: The aspersing and seeking to damage the reputations of those men whom the Lord uses as
Chapter Twenty-Three The fifth dividing practice: The aspersing and seeking to damage the reputations of those men whom the Lord uses as instruments of good.
T his may be done, you know, otherwise than by the tongue. This has been an old dividing way: if we can discredit the leader of a party, we shall do well enough with the rest. Therefore, let us interpret what they do as negatively as possible; let us attach as many ill things to them as we can find any color or pretense for. Let reports be raised, fomented, and spread; whether they are true or not, it makes no matter—something will stick.
Jeremiah 20:10: "Report," say they, "and we will report it." Do but raise a report; let us be able to say we heard it, or there was a letter written about such a thing, and we will boldly assert it and divulge it. The very apprehension of it will prevail with many; these men shall not have that esteem in the hearts of men so generally as they have had before. If we once diminish their esteem, we shall do well enough with their cause.
If we can find any bold spirit willing to encounter them in this, who dares to gather up, make, aggravate, or twist reports, or do anything that may render them otherwise in the thoughts and hearts of men than they have been, we shall break them. It is but one or two venturing the hard thoughts of men to make an experiment; some may be found fit for such a business.
We will find ways to encourage them; if their hearts begin to fail, we will apply warm encouragements to them. We will support them one way or another; this must be done, or else whatever we do will be to no purpose.
Something or other must be found to serve our ends in this.
Does Moses prevail too much in the hearts of the people? Something must be found against him. If we can find nothing against himself, yet we will find something against his wife. She is an Ethiopian woman, Numbers 12:1.
And yet who was she but the daughter of Jethro, to whom he had been married many years before? For an Ethiopian and a Midianitish woman are all one. But now we are resolved to pick out whatever we can get information of, even if it is in things done many years since, when they were in the university or lived in such places in times of old. It will serve our turn; we may fasten it upon them. Proverbs 16:27: "An ungodly man digs up evil, and in his lips there is a burning fire." If he has nothing above ground, he will dig something up, even if it is what both God and man have buried long since.
David was a public instrument of God for much good, yet Psalm 31:1 says he was a reproach among his enemies, but especially among his neighbors. Nehemiah was raised up by God for great service; what dirt was cast upon him? He was accused of sedition and rebellion. Paul was called a pestilent fellow; he and his company with him turned the world upside down. What evil can be devised that was not fastened upon the Christians in
the primitive times? They were charged with being the cause of all their misery; if they had bad weather, if the rivers overflowed, if the Nile did not flow, if there was any earthquake, plague, famine—haul the Christians to the lions. At their meetings, they said they made Thyestes suppers, who invited his brother to supper and presented him a dish of his own flesh, a limb of his son. Many such abominable things were fastened upon them that are not fit to be named.
Tertullian tells the Christians that they were like men on a rope; if they went one step awry, they were in danger of being undone by it. So narrowly did their enemies watch them and so maliciously did they aggravate all their mistakes. Thus the most eminent after his time, like Athanasius, was as miserably slandered as ever poor man in this world by the Arian party; they rendered him most odious to his friends and strangers.
In the beginning of Reformation, the Waldenses were so slandered that the story says of them there was not one arrow in the quiver of malice but it was drawn forth and shot at them. Luther, Calvin, Beza, Oecolampadius,
Bullinger, and the rest are by some in writing rendered the most black and vile pieces that the earth bore, both in their lives and deaths. I find it recorded of Zwingli that he was a man so eminent that his friends made him almost a god; and so traduced by his enemies that one would wonder the earth did not open and swallow up such a man.
The same dealings did that worthy instrument of God Mr. Knox find when he fled with others to Frankfurt during Queen Mary's time. When men of vile contentious spirits could not prevail against him any other way, they sought to slander him so maliciously that his life was in danger. They accused him to the governors of Frankfurt for a sermon preached in England in which the Emperor was concerned: "O England, England," he
said, "if thou wilt obstinately return into Egypt—that is, if thou contract marriage, confederacy or league with such princes as maintain and advance idolatry—such as the Emperor who is no less enemy to Christ than Nero; if for the pleasure of such princes thou return to thine old abominations, then assuredly, O England, thou shalt be plagued and brought to desolation by means of those whose favor thou seekest."
The same measure did those worthy men of God meet with who sought after Reformation in Queen Elizabeth's days. They called Mr. Cartwright an Anabaptist and whatever evil there was in any opinion in those times they fastened upon him. Mr. Udall was accused for his life and condemned to be hanged for writing that if Parliament did not bring in the government of Christ, Christ himself would bring it in by some means that would make their hearts ache—or to that effect—meaning as he expounded the words that Christ would in some way of judgment make way to set up his own government in the land. But they twisted the words to a seditious sense as if he had meant to conspire to raise a force and by violence of arms make
Parliament yield to that way of government he conceived to be Christ's— just like those accusations among us today that if such kind of men cannot have liberty of their way granted to them since they have or hope to have the sword in their hand they will take it to themselves and defend themselves also in it.
Only in this do they go beyond the bitterness of the Prelatic party: they twisted what was said or written; these feign what was never said or written. Who are the firebrands among us if not such men as these? As firebrands plucked out of the fire now seek to fire those who plucked them out—but if this is too hot what will you call them? What will you say of
them? Oh is this the fruit of all prayers for them—relief of them—respect to them?
Tanta ne vos generis tenuit fiducia vestri? Sed motas præstat componere lites.
Whoever reads that book by Bancroft, entitled "Dangerous Positions," published and practiced by those who pretend reformation for the Presbyterian government, will find the entire subject of the book to be the defamation of the most eminent godly ministers of those times. It portrays them to the state as men unfit to be tolerated in any Christian commonwealth. At that time, the state was wholly in favor of prelacy and opposed to the form of government these men sought. Their adversaries felt emboldened to take whatever liberties they pleased to calumniate, traduce, and render them as vile as possible. There was no better way to suppress them than this; it was akin to those in the primitive times who put
Christians into bear and tiger skins and then cast them to the dogs to be devoured.
Let the servants of God appear as they are, and they will gain reverential respect even from the multitude. But when these ugly things are imposed upon them, they become objects of fury. I have read in Suetonius about the cruelty of Tiberius, who, because it was unlawful for virgins to be put to death, caused the executioner to violate them and then execute them. This is akin to the cruelty of some among us; they can harm some men only by first defiling their names. Once defiled, they believe they can do anything with them. To those who create divisions among us in such an ungodly way, all I shall further say is: The Lord rebuke them.
As for the servants of God, they commit their names and ways to God, knowing that the Lord takes care of their names as well as their souls. If dirt
is cast upon a mud wall, it sticks; but if upon marble, it soon washes or crumbles away. God will, in time, justify His servants even in your consciences by the constancy of their peaceable conduct towards men and their gracious holy walking with God. Only take heed that you do not involve yourselves in the guilt of wrong done unto them by your readiness to embrace and take pleasure in whatever evil you hear of those whom God considers faithful.