The divine life in three treatises

II. TO Walk with God and live to him, is incomparably the Highest and Noblest life. To converse with men only, is to converse with Worms: whether they be Princes or poor men, they differ but as the bigger vermin from the lesser. If they be Wise and Good, their Converse may be profitable and delightful, because they have a beam of excellency from the face of God: (And O how unspeakable is the distance between his Wisdom and Goodness, and theirs!) But if they be foolish, ungodly and dishonest, how loathsome is their conversation? What stinking breath is in their profane and filthy language? in their lies and slanders of the just? in their sottish jeers and scorns of those that Walk with God? which expose at once their folly and misery to the pity of all that are truly understanding. When they are gravely speaking evil of the things which they understand not, or with a fleering confidence deriding merrily the holy commands and ways of God, they are much more lamentably expressing their infatuation, than any that are kept in chains in Bedlam: Though indeed with the most they scape the reputation which they deserve, because they are attended with persons of their own proportion of wisdom, that always reverence a silken coat, and judge them wise that wear gold lace, and have the greatest satisfaction of their wills and lusts, and are able to do most mischief in the world: and because good men have learnt to honour the worst of their superiors, and not to call them as they are. But God is bold to call them as they are, and give them in his word, such names and characters by which they might come to know themselves. And is it not a Higher▪ Nobler life to Walk with God, then to Converse in Bedlam, or with intoxicated sensualists, that live in a constant deliration?

II. TO Walk with God and live to him, is incomparably the Highest and Noblest life. To converse with men only, is to converse with Worms: whether they be Princes or poor men, they differ but as the bigger vermine from the lesser. If they be Wise and Good, their Converse may be profitable and delightful, because they have a beam of excellency from the face of God: (And O how unspeakable is the distance between his Wisdom and Goodness, and theirs!) But if they be foolish, ungodly and dishonest, how loathsome is their conversation? What stinking breath is in their profane and filthy language? in their lies and slanders of the just? in their sottish jears and scorns of those that Walk with God? which expose at once their folly and misery to the pitty of all that are truly understanding. When they are gravely speaking evil of the things which they understand not, or with a fleering confidence deriding merrily the holy commands and waies of God, they are much more lamentably expressing their infatuation, than any that are kept in chains in Bedlam: Though indeed with the most they scape the reputation which they deserve, because they are attended with persons of their own proportion of wisdom, that alwayes reverence a silken coat, and judge them wise that wear gold lace, and have the greatest satisfaction of their wills and lusts, and are able to do most mischief in the world: and because good men have learnt to honour the worst of their superiours, and not to call them as they are. But God is bold to call them as they are, and give them in his word, such names and characters by which they might come to know themselves. And is it not a Higher Nobler life to Walk with God, then to Converse in Bedlam, or with intoxicated sensualists, that live in a constant deliration?