Governments and Persecution
By Jonathan Crowther
[From Jonathan Crowther’s “Portraiture of Methodism,” 1811] No pious people ever became inimical to the government under which they lived, but through cruel treatment. It has only been when their lives have been made bitter by reason of cruel bondage or unmerited affliction, like Israel in Egypt, that they have ever been brought to breathe the spirit of the posterity of that people, when they said, “What portion have we in David? neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse: to your tents, O Israel: now see to thine own house, David.” 1 Kings 12: 16. The case of the family of the Stuarts is exactly in point here. This family was hurled from the throne of Britain, and obliged to take refuge in foreign countries, after oppressing the people, and cruelly persecuting them, especially on account of religion. It is impolitic in the civil government of any country, to indulge in any species of persecution. The perpetuity of governments depends upon their ruling in equity, without respect of persons, and in dealing out their protection with impartiality. This will secure the esteem and attachment of the subjects; whilst persecution, under whatever name, becomes the most criminal and dangerous, when directed against a righteous, praying people, or what the Bible terms the people of God. It is worthy of observation, that scarcely any government ever treated these with cruelty, and remained long without some signal proof of the displeasure of Jehovah. Pharaoh and the taskmasters, the first government persecutors we read of in the Bible, were overwhelmed in the Red Sea. The rich and powerful government of the Babylonian empire was suddenly destroyed, and that in the midst of the greatest security, after capturing the posterity of Jacob, and keeping them in bondage; and while this government, at a drunken feast, was triumphing over the Hebrews, and insulting their God. When heated with wine, Belshazzar commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple at Jerusalem; that the king and his princes, his wives and his concubines, might drink therein. And while they drank out of those vessels, which had been dedicated to the only true God, as if in triumph over Him, they praised their own idol gods, which were made of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone. But in that hour, the visible hand of an otherwise invisible agent wrote over against the candlestick, upon the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace: “God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. . . . Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.” And in that same night was Belshazzar slain; and Darius, the Median, took the kingdom. By this memorable transfer of power did the Almighty open the way for the restoration of His chosen people to the enjoyment of liberty and their religious privileges. The most powerful of all governments that ever existed, that of the Romans, did not stand long after it persecuted, afflicted, and tormented the church of God. At the time the church of Christ was founded, that mighty and extensive empire had been growing in size and splendor, for more than seven hundred years; but when it set itself against the truth and the people of God, it was afflicted with many calamities, and was soon destroyed by cruel barbarians. And what is the present state of popedom, which has shed the blood of so many of God’s saints? Where is that Spanish government that maintained uniformity in religion, or rather in superstition and error, by the Inquisition, tortures, and death? And where is the power of the family of the Capets, or Bourbons, which so long and so grievously oppressed and slaughtered the Protestants in France? The fall of that persecuting house has been almost as tragical and memorable as have been its cruel oppressions of the people of God. Gibbon and other infidels may endeavor to assign other causes for “the decline and fall of the Roman Empire;” half-papists may see no hand of God in the humiliation, or even annihilation, of the popedom; the French Revolution may be wholly ascribed, by mere politicians, to the deistical disciples of Voltaire, and republicanism; the dethronement of the king of Spain may be imputed to the boundless ambition and matchless treachery of the present ruler of France. But every man who fully believes and properly considers the Bible, will be prepared to acquiesce in a declaration similar to that of our Saviour to Pilate; namely, that the instruments of such revolutions and dethronements could have no power to do these things, except it had been given them from above. John 19: 11.