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

63. 9. and therefore in all their reproaches he was reproached. All those that were derided for Holiness, were derided upon Christs account. If Holiness be vile and to be scorned, then God himself is vile and to be scorned, and consequently is no God: and what greater Blasphemy could be uttered by the tongue of man? For God is Holiness it self. In us it is but a beam, from him the shining glorious Sun. If a little in us imperfect worms be hated by thee, how wouldst thou hate the perfect Holiness of God? And if we deserve thy scorns for our obedience, (alas, our too imperfect obedience) it must fall upon him that made the Law, and gave us these commands. If he be too precise that imperfectly obeyeth God, what will you say of God himself that commandeth more then any of us all performeth? and that chargeth us on pain of damnation to obey him. O how much wiselier would you daily do, if you daily studied, and diligently obeyed those Laws your selves! If the Rulers of the earth would remember him that is the King of Kings, and did serve the Lord with fear, and rejoiced before him with trembling, and kissed the Son to prevent his anger, and their perishing in the way, Psal. 2. 11, 12. O England! had thy disobedient inhabitants never heard, how vain their rage and imaginations would be, when they set themselves and took counsel against the Lord and his anointed, saying, let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us? Did they never hear that the deriders were derided by him that sitteth in the heavens, and how he will shortly speak to them in wrath, that speak against his ways in malice, and will vox them in his sore displeasure, that vexed his servants for the doing of his pleasure? Will they not believe till Hell have taught them that in despite of all his Enemies, he will set his son the King of Saints upon his holy hill of Zion? Psal. 2. 1. to 9. Had they never heard how hard at last it will prove for them to kick against the pricks? Act. 9. 5. And will they not know by any other means but feeling, that he will destroy those as his enemies that would not have him to reign over them, Luk. 19. 27. and that he will break them with a Rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a Potters vessel?