On the Christian Religion

affected by insults, as you know at Philippi, we had confidence in our Lord, to speak unto you the gospel of God. You have been made followers of the churches of God which are in Judea, in Christ Jesus: for you also have suffered the same things from your own countrymen, even as they have from the Jews. We have been comforted in you, brethren, in all our tribulation and necessity, by your faith, because now we live, if you stand in the Lord.” Furthermore, he exhorts the Hebrews thus: “Call to mind the former days, in the which, being illuminated, you endured a great fight of afflictions. And on the one hand indeed, by reproaches and tribulations, were made a gazingstock; and on the other, became companions of them that were used in such sort. For you both had compassion on them that were in bands, and took with joy the being stripped of your own goods, knowing that you have a better and a lasting substance in heaven. Do not therefore lose your confidence, which hath a great reward.” Also: “Having therefore a great high priest that hath passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God: let us hold fast our confession.” Also: “And we also having so great a cloud of witnesses over our head, laying aside every weight and sin which surrounds us, let us run by patience to the fight proposed to us: looking on Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, who having joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and sitteth on the right hand of the throne of God.” But I know not by what spirit I am compelled to return to those things which he writes to the Corinthians: “In labours more abundantly, in prisons more frequently, in stripes above measure, in deaths often. Of the Jews five times did I receive forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I was in the depth of the sea. In journeying often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own nation, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils from false brethren. In labour and in...