A treatise of death, the last enemy to be destroyed showing wherein its enmity…A treatise of death, the last enemy to be destroyed shewing wherein its enmity…

And this sin in others also is our trouble, though not so much as in our selves. It maketh those our bitter enemies, whose good we most desire and endeavour, and ⟨p. 148⟩causeth the unthankful world to requite us with malicious usage, for telling them the ungrateful truth, and seeking their salvation. it makes our friends to be but half-friends; and some of them too like our enemies. It puts a sting into the sweetest friendship, and mixeth smart with all our pleasures; It worketh us grief from precious mercies; and abateth the comfort of our near Relations; So that our smart by the pricks, is often greater then our pleasure in the sweetness of the Rose. No friend is so smoothed, and squared to the temper and interest of another, but that some in equality and unevenness doth remain, which makes the closure to be less near and steadfast. Even family relations, are usually so imperfectly jointed and cemented, that when the winds of trial are any thing high, they shake the ⟨p. 149⟩frame; and though they are but low, they find an entrance, and cause such a coldness of affections, as is contrary to the nature and duty of the relations. Either a contrariety of opinions, or of natural temperature and humours, or else of the dispositions of the mind; Sometime cross interests, and sometime passions and cross words, do cause such discontents and sourness, such frowns or jealousies, or distances, that our nearest friends are but as sackcloth on our skins, and as a shoo too strait for us, or as a garment that is unmeet, which pinch and trouble us in their use, and those that should be to us as the Apple of our eyes, are as the dust or smoke to them, that vex or blind them. And the more we Love them, the more it grieveth us to be crossed in our love. There is scarce any friend so wise, so good, so suitable to us, or ⟨p. 150⟩so near, that we can always please. And the displeasure of a friend is as gravel in our shoos, or as Nettles in our bed, oft-times more grievous then the malice of an enemy. There is no such doing as this in heaven: because there is no such guest as sin. We shall love each other far more then we do here; and yet that Love shall never be inordinate , nor in the least divert our love from God, but every Saint and Angel in the Society, shall be loved with most chaste and pure affections, in a perfect subordination to the love of God;