1. He that will do his Country good, must know what is good, and what is bad: A fools Love is hurtful: He knoweth not how to use it: He will love you to death; as an unskilful Physician doth his most beloved Patients: Or love you into calamity, as amorous fondlings oft do each other. This is the great enemy of humane peace: Men know not good from evil: Like him that killed his Son, thinking he had been a Thief, or like routed Soldiers, that run by mistake into the Army of the Enemy. ⟨p. 7⟩Malignity and error make mad and doleful work in the World, and worst in those that should be wisest, and the greatest instruments of public good: The Scripture mistaketh not, which tells us of Enemies and haters of God: And most of the World are professed Adversaries to Christ: The Jews Crucified him as an Enemy to Caesar, and to the safety of their Law and Country: And if we may Judge by their enmity to Holiness, the Spirit of Christ is taken for an intolerable Enemy, by no small part of nominal Christians: The Laws of Christ are judged too strict: The Hypocrites that bow to him, and hate his Laws, do call them Hypocrites, that are but serious in the practice of Christianity, and hate them that have any more Religion than Complements, Ceremony, and Set words: The Image of a Christian and a Minister is set up in Militant opposition to them that are Christians and Ministers indeed: If men that are Called to the Sacred Office, would save Souls in good earnest, and pull them out of the Fire, and go any further than Pomp and Stage-work, they pass for the most insufferable men in the world: Elijah is taken for the troubler of Israel, and Paul for a pestilent seditious Fellow, and the Apostles as the off-scouring of all things: Many a Martyr hath died by Fire, for seeking to save men from the Fire of Hell: And when the Bedlam World is at this pass, what good is to be expected from such men? When men called Christians hate and oppose the God, the Christ, the Holy Ghost, to whom they were vowed in Baptism; when Drunkenness and Whoredom, and Perjury and Lying, and all debauchery is taken for more friendly and tolerable, than the most serious Worship of God, and Obedience to his Laws, and avoiding Sin: In a word, when the greatest good is taken for unsufferable evil, you may know what good to expect from such.
1. He that will do his Country good, must know what is good, and what is bad: A fools Love is hurtful: He knoweth not how to use it: He will love you to death; as an unskilful Physitian doth his most beloved Patients: Or love you into calamity, as amorous fondlings oft do each other. This is the great enemy of humane peace: Men know not good from evil: Like him that kild his Son, thinking he had been a Thief, or like routed Soldiers, that run by mistake into the Army of the Enemy. ⟨p. 7⟩Malignity and errour make mad and doleful work in the World, and worst in those that should be wisest, and the greatest instruments of publick good: The Scripture mistaketh not, which tells us of Enemies and haters of God: And most of the World are professed Adversaries to Christ: The Jews Crucified him as an Enemy to Caesar, and to the safety of their Law and Country: And if we may Judge by their enmity to Holiness, the Spirit of Christ is taken for an intolerable Enemy, by no small part of nominal Christians: The Laws of Christ are judged too strict: The Hypocrites that bow to him, and hate his Laws, do call them Hypocrites, that are but serious in the practice of Christianity, and hate them that have any more Religion than Complements, Ceremony, and Set words: The Image of a Christian and a Minister is set up in Militant opposition to them that are Christians and Ministers indeed: If men that are Called to the Sacred Office, would save Souls in good earnest, and pull them out of the Fire, and go any further than Pomp and Stage-work, they pass for the most insufferable men in the world: Elias is taken for the troubler of Israel, and Paul for a pestilent seditious Fellow, and the Apostles as the off-scouring of all things: Many a Martyr hath died by Fire, for seeking to save men from the Fire of Hell: And when the Bedlam World is at this pass, what good is to be expected from such men? When men called Christians hate and oppose the God, the Christ, the Holy Ghost, to whom they were vowed in Baptism; when Drunkenness and Whoredom, and Perjury and Lying, and all debauchery is taken for more friendly and tolerable, than the most serious Worship of God, and Obedience to his Laws, and avoiding Sin: In a word, when the greatest good is taken for unsufferable evil, you may know what good to expect from such.
