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

AND now I have given you all this Evidence, I dare leave it to the judgement of any man that is fit to judge, Whether it be the godly or ungodly that are the Better Magistrates, or Better Pastors of the Churches, or Better Members of the Common-wealth, or of any Society? Judge now whether the Places and Times are not Best that are most Godly? And whether it be the Godly or the Ungodly, that are the Troublers of the world?

And yet it hath ever been the practice of ungodly men, to charge it upon them that Fear the Lord, that all the troubles of the world are long of them. We were all quiet, say they, before this Religion and preciseness troubled us; and this is it, that since it came among us, hath set us all together by the ears.] But if these men be yet reasonable, I desire them to consider,

1. That this hath always been the old complaint of the most wicked men, which God himself hath testified against: When Lot did but gently admonish the abominable Sodomites to forbear a villainy not to be named, Gen. 19. 7, 8, 9. [I pray you Brethren, do not so wickedly] What said they to him? and how did they take it? Why [they said, stand back: and they said again, This One fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a Judge! Now will we deal worse with thee then with them.] Is not this the case between us now? How are we unpeaceable? Because we are against sin? If we would hinder men from wronging God, and from condemning their own souls, and others, then forsooth, we are their troublers, and we judge them, and we disturb their Peace? Just like the Sodomites, [These precise fellows, say they, will need be our Judges, and we must be ruled by them; before they came among us we had none of this ado;] But did not God, think you, decide the controversy aright? He first took Lot and his family ⟨p. 179⟩