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.)
Meanwhile, the issue of her afflictions has always been fortunate. At
all events, God has caused that tho she has been prest by many
calamities, she has never been completely crusht; as it is said (Psalm
vii.
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