The spiritual watchThe spirituall vvatch

§. 22. Yea, but it is not our fault; it is the fault of the times; or, it is the fault of the Land, or the City, that we do as we do. To omit, that ⟨p. 35⟩^mwe ascribe oft those things to the times and places we live in, that indeed proceed principally from our selves and our own corrupt hearts: like the Philosophers fool ⁿthat complained the room was so dark she could not see, when she had suddenly by some disease lost her sight. The rifer any evil is in those places or ages we live in, the more careful should we be to shun and avoid such a sin. ^oTake heed, saith the Apostle, that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise men; because the days are evil. Are the times then we live in, or the places we abide in, more then ordinarily evil in this or that kind? That giveth us no liberty; but should make us walk the more warily; as men that live in bad airs, or in time of general contagion, are more careful to fence and arm themselves by taking of preservatives, eating in the morning ere they go abroad, carrying some things about them to smell to, &c. against danger of infection: that we may be like ^pthe fish, that though it live and swim in the salt sea, yet it tasteth not of the salt: that it may be said of us as it was of Noah, ^qBut Noah was a just man in his generation: not, ^ra just man as just men went in those days, (^s that were but a poor praise of so worthy a Patriarch) but ^tNoah was a just man in that generation wherein the whole world was over-grown with wickedness; he continued just then when there were none almost just but himself and his family, and ^u