It is difficult to conceive in our day, and in our land of civil and religious liberty, what could have induced the church, aided by the government, to persecute thousands of the choicest of her members, for a difference of opinion on some points of religion. By far the greater part of those who were apprehended, and thrown into a dungeon, or were burnt at the stake, had not left the communion of the Romish church. They might have accepted a New Testament in the Spanish language, or might have been drawn into conversation on the subject of the new opinions, either of which was sufficient to awaken the suspicion of the Familiars, and secure them imprisonment. We must look deeper down than the blind and infatuated policy of the government, or the tyranny of the papal tribunals. The source is purely Satanic. The main object of this suicidal policy was to perpetuate the reign of darkness. Popery could not live in the light; therefore the true gospel-which ameliorates the condition of society, generates a spirit of liberty among the people, discerns and corrects abuses by its sure and divine light-must be suppressed, no matter what it may cost.
The arch-enemy of God and man rules in the darkness and superstition of popery, though at the same time God overrules. He saw from the beginning that society, in all countries where the Reformation had been received, was greatly improved and enlightened. It gave a higher tone to morals, and imparted to the human mind a strong impulse of inquiry and improvement. The progress of useful knowledge, the cultivation of literature, and the extension of commerce, which exalt a nation, would be the downfall of the papal power. Therefore every movement, intellectual, civil, or religious, that would tend to raise the condition, or enlighten the minds of the people, must be put down. The ruling clergy and the inquisitors exercise the most rigid and vigilant inspection of the press and the seminaries of education, that they may arrest the progress of general or useful knowledge. This is abundantly proved by the lists of prohibited books which they publish from time to time.
As the persecution grew hotter, the number of exiles increased. While the Italians were crossing the Alps, the Spaniards were crossing the Pyrenees, and not infrequently met in the country of their adoption, and even united in the same church. Thousands of the Spanish exiles found a happy home in England, which the Lord has not forgotten. But the kindness which they received here gave great offense to the bloodthirsty Philip and the pope, and formed one of the charges against Elizabeth in the bull of her excommunication. Philip wanted them to be sent back, not for their capital or labor as useful citizens, but for their blood, that he might celebrate another victory in a grand auto-de-ff. But England on this occasion proved worthy of her well-known character for hospitality to the oppressed.
"The queen," nobly writes bishop Jewell, "of her gracious pity, granted them harbor. Is it become a heinous thing to show mercy? God willed the children of Israel to love the stranger, because they were strangers in the land of Egypt. He that showeth mercy shall find mercy. But what was the number of such who came in unto us? Three or four thousand. Thanks be to God; this realm is able to receive them, if the numbers were greater. And why may not Queen Elizabeth receive a few afflicted members of Christ, which are compelled to carry His cross? Whom, when He thought good to bring safely by the dangers of the sea, and to set in at our havens, should we cruelly have driven them back again?... Would the vicar of Christ give this counsel? Or, if a king receive such, and give them succor, they live not idly. If they take houses of us, they pay rent for them; they hold not our grounds but by making due recompense. They beg not in our streets, nor crave anything at our hands, but to breathe our air, and see our sun. They labor truly, they live spare-fully; they are good examples of virtue, travail, faith, and patience. The towns in which they abide are happy, for God doth follow them with His blessing."
The reader will now see, what has so greatly interested us, that the work of God's Spirit in Catholic Spain must indeed have been a great and a blessed work. If we think of the thousands who became the victims of the Inquisition, and the thousands who found a refuge in England, besides those who settled in Switzerland, Germany, the Low Countries, and France, how great indeed must the work of the Spirit, by means of the scanty truth which they possessed, have been; and that, too, in a very short time! Towards the close of the century Spain boasted that she had extirpated the German heresy from her territories. But she saw not in her blindness, that she had inflicted a deeper and more fatal wound on herself than on the unoffending victims of her tyranny, and had sown the seeds of a national misery and despotism which she has been reaping ever since.
During the early part of the sixteenth century, her scepter extended over nearly half the world; but what is her condition now? Prostrate, sunk, and degraded, compared with the other nations of Europe. Holland, with no land but what she rescued from the ocean, became rich and independent, while Spain, with all her vast possessions, has become poor and helpless.
How true it is, not only with individuals but with nations, that, "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." This is the principle of the government of God, however much grace may overrule the failure of the Christian for his blessing; as in the case of David. Nevertheless the sword was not to depart from his house. "Be not deceived," says the apostle, "God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." This is a hard saying, many will say, yet it is most true and righteous. If a man sow tares in the spring, can he expect to reap wheat in the autumn? And if he sow wheat, he will not have to reap tares. But, thank God, grace reigns, not on the ruins of law and justice, but "through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." No thanks be to us when our failures turn to our deeper blessing, but to the grace of God which freely meets us on the ground of the finished work of Christ. When self is judged, the will broken, the eye of faith fixed on the blessed Lord, there is not only peace, but joy, through the power of the Holy Ghost. (Gal. 6:77Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. (Galatians 6:7); Rom. 5:2121That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 5:21).)