Three treatises of the vanity of the creature. The sinfulness of sin. The life…Three treatises of the vanity of the creature. The sinfulnesse of sinne. The life…

Thirdly, it is a spreading pollution. A leprosy, a gangrene, a plague, that diffuseth poison and infection upon others. First, it spreads in a mans self. An evil lust will infect the thoughts, and they the desires, and they the words and actions, and they grow into habits and reflect back again upon the heart and conscience to harden and defile them. Secondly, this infection stays not in a mans self only, but runs forth upon others, to lead ⟨p. 331⟩and misguide them; we will certainly do as we have done, We and our kings, our princes, and our fathers, in the¹ cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. To drive and compel them; why compellest thou the Gentiles to live ²as doeth Jews? To comfort and hearten them; Thou hast justified, and art a comfort to thy sisters Sodom and Samaria. To exasperate and enrage them; Thou hast given ³occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. To deceive and seduce them, as the old Prophet of Bethel did the⁴ Prophet of the Lord by his lie. To teach and instruct them; the Israelites by their idolatry taught their children to walk after Baalim. And by how much the more authority over the persons of men, or eminency of place, or reputation of piety any man hath, by so much the more spreading and infectious are his sins, being taken with the more trust and assurance. If a minister be loose and scandalous, a magistrate careless and rusty, a gentleman rude a•d unclean, a man that professeth the power of godliness, unjust and worldly, strange it is how the lower and more ignorant rank of men, who believe that surely such men as these are not by their places so far from, or by their learning and studies so unacquainted with God as they, will be hereby strengthened in their deadly and formal courses. Thirdly (which is yet worse) the very godly are apt to be infected by the sins of the wicked. It is not so strange to see a godly man misguided and seduced by the errors of others like himself, the estimation of whose persons may over-rule the opinion of their actions, and so make a man take them upon trust from them. But that a Holy man should catch infection from the example of another who is in the gall of bternesse, is a thing that wonderfully sets fth the corruption of our nature, and the contagion of sine.