An exposition with practical observations upon the three first chapters of the book of…

Wicked men will never cease troubling until they cease to live. In the grave they cease troubling, there they are at rest; If they should live an eternity in this world, they would trouble the world to eternity. As a godly man never gives over doing good; he will do good as long as he lives, though he fetches many a weary step, so wicked men, never give over doing evil, until they step into the grave. And the reason of it is, because it is their nature to do evil, and that which men do naturally, they do always; they never ⟨p. 429⟩give it over, nothing but death can suspend and stop nature.

Wicked men will never cease troubling untill they cease to live. In the grave they cease troubling, there they are at rest; If they should live an eternity in this world, they would trouble the world to eternity. As a godly man never gives over doing good; he will doe good as long as he lives, though he fetches many a weary step, so wicked men, never give over doing evill, untill they step into the grave. And the reason of it is, because it is their nature to doe evill, and that which men doe naturally, they doe alwayes; they never ⟨p. 429⟩give it over, nothing but death can suspend and stop nature.

There are indeed two cases wherein wicked men cease troubling, while they live. One is, when they are desperate in their designs, and see they cannot by troubling themselves, trouble others sufficiently, when they cannot have their will nor compass their ends fully; they being in despair of doing the mischief they would, will do no more: So the Historian notes concerning Diocletian, ¹the most bloody persecutor that ever the Church had, at the last he gave over the Empire, and declined the government (not because he was weary of persecuting, but he was weary of being disappointed,) Because he saw he could not hatch that which he had long brooded, or bring forth those designs he had contrived for the utter extirpation of the Christians: Being thus out of hope to do all the mischief he intended, he puts himself out of power to do that mischief, resigns the Empire. A second case, wherein wicked men cease troubling, is, when they have fully attained their ends in this life; sometimes they bring their work to such perfection, to such a period, that they think they have attained all, all their plots have taken, all's theirs; and when they have fully done the Devils work, then he gives them a play day, they have some cessation: But otherwise except in these two cases, they never cease from troubling; therefore the Apostle Paul,