saith to Titus:[1] Whose works are manifest,[2] greed, simony, pride, luxury, the forsaking and despising of God’s word; who set also the traditions of men above every word of God, caring naught for humility, poverty, temperance, and the love of Christ.
Therefore the evil shall not cease to persecute the good so long as the war of Christ and Antichrist shall last in this world. For St. Paul saith: All that will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution. But evil men and seducers shall grow worse and worse, erring and driving into error.[3]
St. Paul means by these words that all the godly shall suffer persecution for Christ’s sake. But evil men shall err and seduce others, and so shall fulfil their desires in evil-doing to their own destruction. Therefore, the Saviour prophesied of these in the words: Behold, I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves. But beware of men. For they will deliver you up in councils and they will scourge you in their synagogues. . . . The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the son, and the children shall rise up against father and mother and shall put them to death. And they shall be hated by all men for my name’s sake; but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved. And when they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another.[4] But this persecution shall last till the day of judgment.
Therefore He saith further: Amen, I say to you, you shall not finish all the cities of Israel till the son of man come. The disciple is not above the master, nor the
