Persecution and Martyrdom (1)

Questions concerning times of persecution.
(1) Whether we ought to lose our lives or deny the truth? To this I answer: We ought rather to lose our lives than deny the truth; for God's truth is better than our lives. It was commendable in Priscilla and Aquila that they laid down their necks for Paul's life (Rom. 16:3, 4); much more is the truth of God's word to be esteemed above man's life. They are counted wise that have this esteem; as the martyrs, whose state is accounted a blessed state.
(2) Whether a minister ought to leave his congregation in the time of pestilence, or not? I answer: Upon the same ground as above, he ought not; for he is not, in regard of the work of God, to esteem his own life. But he is not bound to a particular visitation of everyone whom it has pleased God to visit with sickness, neither ought the sick party to require this at the hands of the pastor; but rather to reserve him to the general good of all of them, and to spare him. In the law the leprous person was to go about and to cry 'Unclean, unclean' to the end that others might not unawares be polluted by him.
(3) Whether a man may equivocate to save his own life? I answer: If a man be lawfully called to answer for himself, he must know that he ought to tell the truth, and not to be ashamed thereof. Why do men live but to live honestly, and to keep a good conscience? It is more necessary that truth should flourish and be cleared than that you should live. Those that now are ashamed to confess the truth, the God of truth will be ashamed of them hereafter.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
Of the Providence of God, Works, vol. 5, pp. 52-53
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