A30587:866
Irenicum, to the lovers of truth and peace heart-divisions opened in the causes and…
Irenicum, to the lovers of truth and peace heart-divisions opened in the causes and evils of them : with cautions that we may not be hurt by them, and endeavours to heal them / by Jeremiah Burroughs.Irenicum, to the lovers of truth and peace heart-divisions opened in the causes and evils of them : with cautions that we may not be hurt by them, and endeavours to heal them / by Jeremiah Burroughes.
London: printed for Robert Dawlman, 1653
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
6. Some take advantage by them to give themselves to looseness §6in their lives: it is a time of liberty, and they will take their time. If times were quiet and settled, they would be observed more narrowly, there would be means of restraint; but in these times every man takes his own way, and so will they. But know that God takes this very ill at thy hands. The more loose others are, the more conscionable shouldest thou be: the worse the days are, the more circumspectly shouldest thou walk. Ezek. 44. 10. The Levites that are gone from me, which went astray when Israel forsook me, they shall also bear their iniquity. The commonness of a sin is an aggravation of it.
6. Some take advantage by them to give themselves to loosenes §6in their lives: it is a time of liberty, and they will take their time. If times were quiet and settled, they would be observed more narrowly, there would be means of restraint; but in these times every man takes his own way, and so will they. But know that God takes this very ill at thy hands. The more loose others are, the more conscionable shouldest thou be: the worse the dayes are, the more circumspectly shouldest thou walk. Ezek. 44. 10. The Levites that are gone from me, which went astray when Israel forsook me, they shall also bear their iniquity. The commonnesse of a sin is an aggravation of it.
7. Some make no other use of them, then to observe which §7way there may be advantage got by them: how they may suit themselves to this side or the other, for their gain, or to drive on some private design: so long as they can make use of the times that run such a way, they are for them: if the stream turn they can turn too: they can tack about to every wind: their study is not to help to heal them, but to contrive ways how they may get by them. Hence they wrench and sprain their consciences with the quick turnings this way and that way: they will be on the sunny side wheresoever it be. Cunning heads and corrupt hearts will serve their own turns by all varieties of times. If they were in Dioclesians time, they could be Pagans; if in Constantine's, Christians; if in Constantius, Arians; if in Julians, Apostates; if in Jovian's, Christians again; and all this within less then the age of a man.