Dei, lib. iii. cap. 12, § 124; Bates' Works, p. 557, &c. Law and Wesley on Perfection. Doddridge's Lectures, lec. 181. PERFECTIONS OF GOD. See ATTRI

BUTES.

PERJURY is the taking of an oath, in order to tell or confirm a falsehood. This is a very heinous crime, as it is treating the Almighty with irreverence; denying, or at least discarding his omniscience; profaning his name, and violating truth. It has always been esteemed a very detestable thing, and those who have been proved guilty of it have been looked upon as the pests of society. See OATH.

epoch as their government, and religion, &cMoses speaks only truth, though infidels charge him with imposture. But, great God! what an impostor must he be, who first spoke of the divinity in a manner so subiime, that no one since, during almost four thousand years, has been able to surpass him? What an impostor must he be whose writings breathe only virtue, whose style equally simple, affecting, and sublime, in spite of the rudeness of those first ages, openly displays an inspiration altogether divine!" See Ainsworth and Kidder on the Pentateuch. Prideaux's Con. vol. i. p. 342, 345, 573, 575. Marsh's Authenticity of the Five Books of Moses considered. War. PERMISSION OF SIN. See SIN. burton's Divine Legation. Dr. Grave's PERSECUTION, is any pain or afflicLectures on the last four Books in the Old tion which a person designedly inflicts upon Test. Jenkins' Reasonableness of Chris-another; and, in a more restrained sense, tianity. Watson's Apology, let. 2 and 3. Tabor's Hora Mosaice, or a View of the Mosaical Records.

PENTECOST, a solemn festival of the Jews, so called, because it was celebrated fifty days after the feast of the passover, Lev. xxiii. 15. It corresponds with the Christians' Whitsuntide, for which it is sometimes used.

the sufferings of Christians on account of their religion. Persecution is threefold. 1. Mental, when the spirit of a man rises up and opposes another.-2. Verbal, when men give hard words and deal in uncharitable censures.-3. Actual or open, by the hand, such as the dragging of innocent persons before the tribunal of justice, Matt. x. 18. The unlawfulness of persecution for conscience sake must appear plain to every one that possesses the least degree of thought or of feeling. "To banish, imprison, plunder, starve, hang and burn men for religion," says the shrewd Jortin, "is not the Gospel of Christ; it is the Gospel of the Devil. Where persecution begins, Christianity ends. Christ never used any thing that looked like force or violence, except once; and that was to drive bad men out of the temple, and not to drive them in."

PERFECTION, that state or a quality of a thing, in which it is free from defect or redundancy According to some, it is divided into physical or natural, whereby a thing has all its powers and faculties; moral, or an eminent degree of goodness and piety: and metaphysical or transcendent is the possession of all the essential attributes or parts necessary to the integrity of a substance; or it is that whereby a thing has or is provided of every thing belonging to its nature; such is the perfection of God. We know the origin of it to be from the -The term perfection, says the great Wit-prince of darkness, who began the dreadsius, is not always used in the same sense in the scriptures. 1. There is a perfection of sincerity, whereby a man serves God without hypocrisy, Job i. 1. Is. xxxviii. 3. -2. There is a perfection of parts, subjective with respect to the whole man, 1 Thess. v. 23 and objective with respect to the whole law, when all the duties prescribed by God are observed, Ps. cxix. 128 Luke i. 6-3. There is a comparative perfection ascribed to those who are advanced in knowledge, faith, and sanctification, in comparison of those who are still infants and untaught, 1 John ii. 13. 1 Cor. i 6. Phil 4 15.-4. There is an evangelical perfection. The righteousness of Christ being imputed to the believer, he is complete in him, and accepted of God as perfect through Christ, Col. ii. 10. Eph. v. 27 2 Cor. v. 21.-5. There is also a perfection of degrees, by which a person performs all the commands of God with the full exertion of all his powers, without the least defect. This is what the law of God requires, but what the saints cannot attain to in this life, though we willingly allow them all the other kinds above-mentioned. Rom vii. 24 Phil. iii 12. 1 John i. 8. Witsii Economia Faderum

ful practice in the first family on earth, and who, more or less, has been carrying on the same work ever since, and that almost among all parties. "Persecution for conscience sake," says Dr. Doddridge," is every way inconsistent, because, 1. It is founded on an absurd supposition, that one man has a right to judge for another in matters of religion.-2. It is evidently opposite to that fundamental principle of morality, that we should do to others as we could reasonably desire they should do to us.-3. It is by no means calculated to answer the end which its patrons profess to intend by it-4. It evidently tends to produce a great deal of mischief and confusion in the world.—5. The Christian religion must, humanly speaking, be not only obstructed, but destroyed, should persecuting principles universally prevail.-6 Persecution is so far from being required or encouraged by the Gospel, that it is most directly contrary to many of its precepts, and indeed to the whole of it."

The chief objects who have fell a prey to this diabolical spirit have been Christians; a short account of whose sufferings we shall here give, as persecuted by the

Jews, Heathens, and those of the same

name.

ance of this persecution, in the province of Egypt alone, no less than 144,000 Christians died by the violence of their persecutors; besides 700,000 that died through the fatigues of banishment, or the public works to which they were condemned.

sed the errors and ambition of the church

and put to death by the sword.-6. The Persecution of Christians by the Jews. 235.-7. The seventh, which was the most sixth began with the reign of Maximinus, in Here we need not be copious, as the New dreadful ever known, began in 250, under Testament will inform the reader more the emperor Decius, when the Christians particularly how the first Christians suffer- were in all places driven from their habitaed for the cause of truth. Jesus Christ tions, stripped of their estates, tormented himself was exposed to it in the greatest with racks, &c.-8. The eighth began in 257 degree. The four evangelists record the under Valerian. Both men and women sufferdreadful scenes which need not here be enlarged on. After his death, the apostles sword, and some by fire.-9. The ninth was ed death, some by scourging, some by the suffered every evil which the malice of the under Aurelian, in 274; but this was inconJews could invent, and their mad zeal exe-siderable, compared with the others beforecute. They who read the acts of the mentioned.-10. The tenth began in the Apostles will find that, like their Master, nineteenth year of Dioclesian, 303. In this they were despised and rejected of men, dreadful persecution, which lasted ten years, and treated with the utmost indignity and houses filled with Christians were set on contempt. II. Persecution of Christians by the Hea-with ropes, and thrown into the sea. It is fire, and whole droves were tied together then. Historians usually reckon ten gene-related that 17,000 were slain in one ral persecutions, the first of which was un-month's time; and that, during the continuder the emperor Nero, thirty-one years after our Lord's ascension, when that emperor, having set fire to the city of Rome, threw the odium of that execrable action on the Christians. First those were apprehended who openly avowed themselves to be of that sect; then by them were discovered an immense multitude, all of whom were III. Persecution of Christians by those convicted. Their death and tortures were of the same name. Numerous were the aggravated by cruel derision and sporttine's time to the reformation; but when persecutions of different sects from Constanfor they were either covered with the skins of wild beasts and torn in pieces by devouring dogs, or fastened to crosses and wrapped up in combustible garments, that, when the day-light failed, they might, like torches, serve to dispel the darkness of the night. For this tragical spectacle Nero lent his own gardens; and exhibited at the same time the public diversions of the cir-Trent, which was held for near eighteen cus; sometimes driving a chariot in person, and sometimes standing as a spectator, while the shrieks of women burning to ashes supplied music for his to the reformation were anathematized and The second general persecution was under excommunicated, and the life of Luther Domitian, in the year 95, when 40,000 was often in danger, though at last he died were supposed to have suffered martyrdom. on the bed of peace. From time to time in3. The third began in the third year of numerable schemes were suggested to overTrajan, in the year 100, and was carried on throw the reformed church, and wars were with great violence for several years.-4 cible armada, as it was vainly called, had the set on foot for the same purpose. The invinThe fourth was under Antonius, when the Christians were banished from their houses, same end in view. forbidden to shew their heads, reproached, the Waldenses (See INQUISITION) was The inquisition which was established in the twelfth century against beaten, hurried from place to place, plundered, imprisoned, and stoned-5. The rible persecutions were carried on in various more effectually set to work. Terfifth began in the year 127, under Severus, parts of Germany, and even in Bohemia, when great cruelties were committed. In this reign happened the martyrdom of Per-blood of the saints was said to flow like riwhich continued about thirty years and the petua and Felicitas, and their companions. Perpetua had an infant at the breast, and Lithuania, and Hungary, were in a similar vers of water. The countries of Poland, Felicitas was just delivered at the time of their being put to death. These two beaumanner deluged with Protestant bloodtiful and amiable young women, mothers of infant children, after suff ring much in prison, were exposed before an insulting mul- and in the other low countries, for many years titude, to a wild cow, who mangled their the most amazing cruelties were exercised bodies in a most horrid manner: after which under the merciless and unrelenting hands they were carried to a conspicuous place," of the Spaniards, to whom the inhabitants

ears-2.

the famous Martin Luther arose, and oppoof Rome, and the sentiments of this good man began to spread, the pope and his clergy joined all their forces to hinder their progress. A general council of the clergy was called; this was the famous council of

blishing popery in greater splendour, and successive years, for the purpose of estapreventing the reformation. The friends

In

HOLLAND,

of that part of the world were then in subjection. Father Paul observes, that these Belgic martyrs were 50,000; but Grotius and others observe, that there were 100,000 who suffered by the hand of the executioner. Herein, however, Satan and his agents failed of their purpose; for in the issue great part of the Netherlands shook off the Spanish yoke, and erected themselves into a separate and independent state which has ever since been considered as one of the principal Protestant countries of the universe.

FRANCE.

Charite, and especially at Lyons, where they inhumanly destroyed above eight hundred Protestants: children hanging on their parent's necks; parents embracing their children; putting ropes about the necks of some, dragging them through the streets, and throwing them, mangled, torn, and half dead, into the river. According to Thuaus, above 30,000 Protestants were destroyed in this massacre; or, as others affirm, above 100,000. But what aggravated these scenes with still greater wantonness and cruelty, was, the manner in which the news was received at Rome. When the letters of the pope's legate were read in the assem

the pope that all was transacted by the express will and command of the king, it was immediately decreed that the pope should march with his cardinals to the church of St. Mark, and in the most solemn manner give thanks to God for so great a blessing Conferred on the see of Rome and the Christian world: and that, on the Monday after, solemn mass should be celebrated in the church of Minerva, at which the pope, Gregory XIII. and cardinals were present; and that a jubilee should be pub

world, and the cause of it declared to be, to return thanks to God for the extirpation of the enemies of the truth and church in France. In the evening the cannon of St. Angelo were fired to testify the public joy; the whole city illuminated with bonfires: and no one sign of rejoicing omitted that was usually made for the greatest victories obtained in favour of the Roman church!!!

No country, perhaps, has ever produced more martyrs than this. After many cru elties had been exercised against the Protes-bly of the cardinals, by which he assured tants, there was a most violent persecution of them in the year 1572, in the reign of Charles IX. Many of the principal Protestants were invited to Paris under a solemn oath of safety, upon occasion of the mar riage of the king of Navarre with the French king's sister. The queen dowager of Navarre, a zealous Protestant, however, was poisoned by a pair of gloves before the marriage was solemnized Coligm, admiral || of France, was basely murdered in his own house, and then thrown out of the window to gratify the malice of the Duke of Guise:lished throughout the whole Christian his head was afterwards cut off, and sent to the king and queen-mother; and his body. after a thousand indignities offered to it, hung by the feet on a gibbet After this, the murderers ravaged the whole city of Paris, and butchered, in three days, above ten thousand lords, gentlemen, presidents and people of all ranks. An horrible scene of things, says Thuanus, when the very streets and passages resounded with the But all these persecutions were, however, noise of those that net together for murder far exceeded in cruelty by those which and plunder: the groans of those who were took place in the time of Louis XIV. It dying, and the shrieks of such as were just cannot be pleasant to any man's feelings, going to be butchered, were every where who has the least humanity, to recite these heard; the bodies of the slain thrown out of|| dreadful scenes of horror, cruelty, and dethe windows; the courts and chambers of vastation; but to shew what superstition, the houses filled with them; the dead bigotry, and fanaticism, are capable of probodies of others dragged through the streets; ducing, and for the purpose of holding up their blood running through the channels in the spirit of persecution to contempt, we such plenty that torrents seemed to empty shall here give as concise a detail as possithemselves in the neighbouring river: in a ble. The troopers, soldiers, and dragoons, word, an innumerable multitude of men, went into the Protestants' houses, where women with child, maidens, and children, they marred and defaced their household were all involved in one common destruc- stuff; broke their looking-glasses and other tion; and the gates and entrances of the king's utensils; threw about their corn and wine; palace all besmeared with their blood. sold what they could not destroy; and thus, From the city of Paris the massacre spread in four or five days, the Protestants were throughout the whole kingdom. In the city stripped of above a million of money. But of Meaux they threw above two hundred this was not the worst: they turned the into gaol; and after they had ravished and dining rooms of gentlemen into stables for killed a great number of women, and plun-horses, and treated the owners of the dered the houses of the Protestants, they houses where they quartered with the executed their fury on those they had im- greatest cruelty, lashing them about, not prisoned; and calling them one by one, suffering them to eat or drink. When they they were killed, as Thuanus expresses, saw the blood and sweat run down their like sheep in a market. In Orleans they faces, they sluiced them with water, and murdered above five hundred, men, women, putting over their heads kettle-drums turned and children, and enriched themselves with upside down, they made a continual din the spoil. The same cruelties were prac- upon them till these unhappy creatures tised at Angers, Troyes, Bourges, Lalost their senses. At Negreplisse, a town

near Montaubon, they hung up Isaac Favin, a Protestant citizen of that place, by his arm-pits, and tormented him a whole night by pinching and tearing off his flesh with pincers. They made a great fire round about a boy, twelve years old, who with hands and eyes lifted up to heaven, cried out, My God, help me!" and when they found the youth resolved to die rather than renounce his religion, they snatched him from the fire just as he was on the point of being burnt. In several places the soldiers applied red hot irons to the hands and feet of men, and the breasts of women. At Nantes, they hung up several women and maids by their feet, and others by their armpits, and thus exposed them to public view stark-naked. They bound mothers, that gave suck, to posts, and let their sucking infants lie languishing in their sight for several days and nights, crying and gasping for life. Some they bound before a great fire, and, being half roasted, let them go; a punishment worse than death. Amidst a thousand hideous cries, they hung up men and women by the hair, and some by their feet, on hooks in chimnies, and smoked them with wisps of wet hay till they were suffocated. They tied some under the arms with ropes, and plunged them again and again into wells; they bound others, put them to the torture, and with a funnel filled them with wine till the fumes of it took away their reason, when they made them say they consented to be Catholics. They stripped them naked, and, after a thousand indignities, stuck them with pins and needles from head to foot. In some plac s they tied fathers and husbands to their bedposts, and, before their eyes, ravished their wives and daughters with impunity. They blew up men and women with bellows til they burst them. If any, to escape these barbarities, endeavoured to save themselves by flight, they pursued them into the fields and woods, where they shot at them like wild beasts, and prohibited them from departing the kingdom (a cruelty never prac tised by Nero or Dioclesian,) upon pain of confiscation of effects, the gallies, the lash and perpetual imprisonment. With these scenes of desolation and horror the popish clergy feasted their eyes, and made only matter of laughter and sport of them!!! ENGLAND

er and Rogers were burnt in a slow fire. Saunders was cruelly tormented a long time at the stake before he expired Taylor was put into a barrel of pitch, and fire set to it. Eight illustrious persons, among whom was Ferrar, bishop of St. David's, were sought out, and burnt by the infamous Bonner in a few days. Sixty-seven persons were this year, A. D. 1555, burnt, amongst whom were the famous Protestants, Bradford, Ridley, Latimer, and Philpot. In the following year, 1556, eighty-five persons were burnt. Women suffered; and, one, in the flames, which burst her womb, being near her time of delivery, a child fell from her into the fire, which being snatched out by some of the observers more humane than the rest, the magistrate ordered the babe to be again thrown into the fire, and burnt. Thus even the unborn child was burnt for heresy! O God, what is human nature when left to itself! Alas! dispositions ferocious as infernal_then reign and usurp the heart of man! The queen erected a commission court, which was followed by the destruction of near eighty more. Upon the whole, the number of those who suffered death for the reformed religion in this reign were no less than two hundred and seventy-seven persons; of whom were five bishops, twentyone clergymen, eight gentlemen, eighty-four tradesmen, one hundred husbandmen, la. bourers, and servants, fifty-five women, and four children. Besides these, there were fifty-four more under prosecution, seven of whom were whipped, and sixteen perished in prison Nor was the reign of Elizabeth free from this persecuting spirit. If any one refused to consent to the least ceremony in worship, he was cast into prison, where many of the most excellent men in the land perished. Two Protestant Anabaptists were burnt, and many banished. She also, it is said, put two Brownists to death; and though her whole reign was distinguished for its political prosperity, yet it is evident that she did not understand the rights of conscience; for it is said that more sanguinary laws were made in her reign than in any of her predecessors, and her hands were stained with the blood both of Papists and Puritans. James I. succeeded Elizabeth: he published a proclamation, commanding all Protestants to conform strictly. and without any exception to all the rites and ceremonies of the church of England. Above five hundred clergy were immediately silenced, or degraded, for not complying. Some were excommunicated, and some banished the country. The Dissenters were distressed, censured, and fined, in the Star chamber. Two persons were burnt for heresy, one at Smithfield, and the other at Litchfield. Worn out with endless vexations, and unceasing persecutions, many retired into Holland, and from thence to America. It is witnessed by a judicious historian, that, in this and some following reigns, 22,000 persons were banished from

the deepest into an Englishman's flesh; wives and young virgins abused in the presence of their nearest relations; nay, they taught their children to strip and kill the children of the English, and dash out their brains against the stones. Thus many thousands were massacred in a few days, without distinction of age, sex, or quality, before they suspected their danger, or had time to provide for their defence.

SCOTLAND, SPAIN, &c.

England by persecution to America. In of the Protestants, forty or fifty thousand of Charles the First's time arose the perse-whom were cruelly murdered in a few days, cuting Laud, who was the occasion of dis-in different parts of the kingdom, in the tress to numbers. Dr Leighton, for writ-reign of Charles I. It began on the 23d of ing a book against the hierarchy, was fined October, 1641. Having secured the princiten thousand pounds, perpetual imprison-pal gentlemen, and seized their effects, they ment, and whipping. He was whipped, and murdered the common people in cold blood, then placed in the pillory; one of his ears forcing many thousands to fly from their cut off; one side of his nose slit; branded houses and settlements naked into the bogs on the cheek with a red hot iron, with the and woods, where they perished with hunletters S. S; whipped a second time, and ger and cold. Some they whipped to death, placed in the pillory. A fortnight after- others they stript naked, and exposed to wards, his sores being yet uncured, he had shame, and then drove them like herds of the other ear cut off, the other side of his swine to perish in the mountains: many nose slit, and the other cheek branded. He hundreds were drowned in rivers, some had continued in prison till the long parliament their throats cut, others were dismemberset him at liberty. About four years after-ed. With some the execrable villains made wards, William Prynn, a barrister, for a || themselves sport, trying who could hack book he wrote against the sports on the Lord's day, was deprived from practising at Lincoln's Inn, degraded from his degree at Oxford, set in the pillory, had his ears cut off, imprisoned for life, and fined five thousand pounds. Nor were the Presbyterians, when their government came to be established in England, free from the charge of persecution. In 1645 an ordinance was published, subjecting all who preached or wrote against the Presbyterian directory for public worship to a fine not exceeding fifty Besides the above-mentioned persecutions, pounds; and imprisonment for a year, for there have been several others carried on in the third offence, in using the episcopal book different parts of the world. Scotland for many of common prayer, even in a private family. years together has been the scene of cruelIn the following year the Presbyterians apty and blood-shed, till it was delivered by plied to Parliament, pressing them to en- the monarch at the revolution. Spain, Italy, force uniformity in religion, and to extir- and the valley of Piedmont, and other places, pate popery, prelacy, heresy, schism, &c. have been the seats of much persecution. but their petition was rejected; yet in 1648 Popery, we see, has had the greatest hand the parliament, ruled by them, published an in this mischievous work. It has to answer, ordinance against heresy, and determined also, for the lives of millions of Jews, Mothat any person who maintained, published, hammedans, and barbarians. When the or defended the following errors, should suf- Moors conquered Spain, in the eighth cenfer death. These errors were, 1. Denying tury, they allowed the Christians the free the being of a God.-2. Denying his omni- exercise of their religion; but in the fifpresence, omniscience, &c.-3. Denying the teenth century, when the Moors were overTrinity in any way.-4. Denying that Christ come, and Ferdinand subdued the Morishad two natures.-5. Denying the resurrec- coes, the descendants of the above Moors, tion, the atonement, the scriptures. In many thousands were forced to be baptized, Charles the Second's reign the act of uni-or burnt, massacred, or banished, and their formity passed, by which two thousand cler- children sold for slaves; besides innumeragymen were deprived of their benefices. ble Jews, who shared the same cruelties, Then followed the conventicle act, and the chiefly by means of the infernal courts of Oxford act, under which, it is said, eight inquisition. A worse slaughter, if possible, thousand persons were imprisoned and re- was made among the natives of Spanish duced to want, and many to the grave. America, where fifteen millions are said to In this reign, also, the Quakers were much have been sacrificed to the genius of popery persecuted, and numbers of them imprison- in about forty years. It has been computed ed. Thus we see how England has bled that fifty millions of Protestants have at difunder the hands of bigotry and persecution;ferent times been the victims of the persenor was toleration enjoyed until William cutions of the Papists, and put to death for III. came to the throne, who shewed him their religious opinions. Well, therefore, self a warm friend to the rights of conscience. might the inspired penman say, that at mysThe accession of the present royal familytic Babylon's destruction was found in her was auspicious to religious liberty; and as the blood of prophets, of saints, and of all their majesties have always befriended the that was slain upon the earth,' Rev. xviii. toleration, the spirit of persecution has been 24. long curbed.

IRELAND

To conclude this article, Who can peruse the account here given without feeling the has likewise been drenched with the blood most painful emotions, and dropping a tear