Irenicum, to the lovers of truth and peace heart-divisions opened in the causes and…

Ninthly, Self sets mens wits on work in all cunning craftiness,§9 to fetch others about to their own ends, and this goes as much against a mans spirit as any thing: When he comes to discern it, no man can abide to be circumvented, to be as it were rid upon, to be made serviceable only to another mans ends: the more cunning there is in it, the more odious and abominable it is to a mans spirit, when it comes once to be perceived, a man cannot bear it. Crooked windings are the goings of the Serpent: But if a man shall not only seek to make use of another to serve his own turn by him, but after he hath done that, then to cast him off to shift for himself; this is so provoking a thing, as it make breaches irreconcilable.

Ninthly, Self sets mens wits on work in all cunning craftinesse,§9 to fetch others about to their own ends, and this goes as much against a mans spirit as any thing: When he comes to discern it, no man can abide to be circumvented, to be as it were rid upon, to be made serviceable only to another mans ends: the more cunning there is in it, the more odious and abominable it is to a mans spirit, when it comes once to be perceived, a man cannot bear it. Crooked windings are the goings of the Serpent: But if a man shall not onely seek to make use of another to serve his own turne by him, but after he hath done that, then to cast him off to shift for himselfe; this is so provoking a thing, as it make breaches irreconciable.

10. When one is for Self in his ways, he teaches another §10to be so in his; As a man by conversing with the froward, learns to be froward: so many who have heretofore had plain hearts, full of love & sweetness, yet by being acquainted much with selfish politic men, learn to be so too; I see how he hooks in himself in every thing, fetches about this way and that way, but still gets it to come to self; I perceived it not ⟨p. 122⟩