But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues;
Ver. 17. But beware of men] Absurd and wicked men, saith Paul, 2 Thessalonians 3:2; "brutish men, skilful to destroy," saith the prophet, Ezekiel 21:31; "Men eaters," saith the Psalmist, Psalms 14:4; cannibals, that make no more conscience to mischief God's people than to eat a meal's meat when they are hungry. These be those lycanthropi, those wolves mentioned in the former verse. These are those mankind men that St Paul met with at Ephesus,1 Corinthians 15:32. He fought with beasts after the manner of men, that is (as some interpret it), men fought with him after the manner of beasts. Such a man was that monster of Milan, in Bodin. de Repub. Such were the primitive persecutors, and such are the pseudo-catholics of these times. A Dutch woman they buried alive for religion, with thorns under her. Another they shamefully defiled in the sight of her husband, and then forced her to draw a sword and give her husband a deadly wound, her hands being ordered by them. The town of Burre, in France, being taken by the Papists, all kind of cruelty was there used. Children were cut up, the guts and hearts of some of them pulled out, which in rage they gnawed with their teeth. The Italians which served the king, did for hatred of religion break forth into such fury, that they ripped up a living child, and took his liver, being as yet red hot, and ate it as meat. John Burgeolus, president of Turin, an old man, being suspected to be a Protestant, and having bought his life with a great sum of money, was notwithstanding taken and beaten cruelly with clubs and staves; and being stripped of his clothes, was brought to the bank of the river Liger, and hanged, his feet upward, and head downward in the water, up to his breast. Then, he being yet alive, they opened his belly, pulled out his guts, and threw them into the river. And taking his heart they put it upon a spear, carrying it with contumelious words about the city. (Thuanus.) Were these men? or rather devils in the shape of men? What should I instance further in those late Irish unheard of cruelties, so well known, and so much written about? such as whereof the devil himself might be ashamed, had he any shame in him. Lithgow, a Scot, after he had with King James's letters travelled through the greatest part of the known world, was, as he returned through Spain, in the city of Maligo, surprised by nine sergeants a and carried before the governor, by whose appointment they stripped him of his clothes, robbed him of his money, put him into a dark dungeon, shackled him, starved him, wounded him, &c. In 10 hours he received 70 different torments. At last, all the lords inquisitors commanded him to receive 11 strangling torments at midnight, and to be burnt body and bones to ashes, though they had nothing against him but suspicion of religion. And yet after this God wonderfully delivered him. He was brought on his bed to our king, wounded and broken, and made this account to the face of Gundamor, the Spanish ambassador.
They will scourge you] John Fortune, a martyr in Queen Mary's days, was thus threatened by one Mr Foster: You shall be whipped and burned for this gear, I think. His answer was, I shall be full glad of that. For it is written, "They will scourge you in their synagogues." And since the time that the sword of tyranny came into your hand, I heard of none that were whipped. Happy were I if I had the maidenhead of that persecution.
a An officer whose duty is to enforce the judgments of a tribunal or the commands of a person in authority; one who is charged with the arrest of offenders or the summoning of persons to appear before the court. ŒD