A saint or a brute the certain necessity and excellency of holiness, &c. ...…

7. What is there yet remaining then that you quarrel with as too much preciseness? Is it the strictness of mens lives in forbearing sin, and not doing as their neighbours do, in rioting and vain recreations, and delights? For this I need not stand to justify them, with any impartial sober man. If sin be evil, and displease God, and deserve damnation, he that most fully and carefully avoideth it, is the honestest and the wisest man. You will not blame your child or servant for being loth to offend and disobey you even in the smallest matter. You like not him that offereth you the least abuse, so well as him that offereth you none. You had rather be well then have the least disease. You will not take a little poison; nor would you feel a little of hell: Why then should we not avoid the least sin so far as we are able? If sinning be good, then Devils are the best creatures, and Angels and Christ (in his manhood) the worst. But if sin be the greatest evil, What will you call those men that do not only wilfully commit it, but plead for it, and reproach those that would fain avoid it? Or what if some of those that you reproach, are mistaken in some point, and […] ⟨p. 93⟩that to be a sin that is none? Or what if you think it to be no sin which they scruple? Will you blame a man that loves God, to be afraid of that which he suspecteth may offend him? Or will you blame him that cares for his salvation, to make as sure of it as he can? and to keep as far from the brink of hell as he able? How is it that you observe not that your very reproaches do confute themselves? What is it that you are offended at in the servants of the Lord? Is it Good or Evil? Surely it is some fault or other of theirs, that you will pretend to be the cause. For scarce any but the Devil himself will openly and professedly oppose Goodness under the name of Goodness. And if it be a (real or supposed) fault that you speak against them for, doth it not intimate that they should avoid all faults as far as they are able? And yet will you at the same time reproach them for being too strict and fearful to offend? as if it were their fault that they are unwilling to be faulty?

7. What is there yet remaining then that you quarrel with as too much preciseness? Is it the strictness of mens lives in forbearing sin, and not doing as their neighbours do, in rioting and vain recreations, and delights? For this I need not stand to justifie them, with any impartial sober man. If sin be evil, and displease God, and deserve damnation, he that most fully and carefully avoideth it, is the honestest and the wisest man. You will not blame your child or servant for being loth to offend and disobey you even in the smallest matter. You like not him that offereth you the least abuse, so well as him that offereth you none. You had rather be well then have the least disease. You will not take a little poyson; nor would you feel a little of hell: Why then should we not avoid the least sin so far as we are able? If sinning be good, then Devils are the best creatures, and Angels and Christ (in his manhood) the worst. But if sin be the greatest evil, What will you call those men that do not only wilfully commit it, but plead for it, and reproach those that would fain avoid it? Or what if some of those that you reproach, are mistaken in some point, and