An exposition with practical observations continued upon the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth chapters of…An exposition with practicall observations continued upon the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth chapters of…

There is no means of remedy left for that evil which is not remedied by the use and trial of contrary means.

There is no meanes of remedy left for that evill which is not remedyed by the use and tryall of contrary meanes.

If neither speech nor silence ease a mans mind, what can? We find such a kind of arguing (though in a different case) used by Christ (Matth. 11.16, 17.) Where when he would show how impossible, or at least how extremely difficult it was to please the Jews (they were a humorous people, and let a man put himself in what posture he would, they would find some fault, or have somewhat to object against him) Whereunto (saith Christ) shall I liken this generation? (they were so untoward, that Christ speaks as if he were straitened, how to find out a fit comparison for them, or could scarce tell to what they were like; yet he tells us) They are like unto Children sitting in the Markets, and calling to their fellows, saying, We have piped and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not lamented. When a man vvill neither mourn with us, nor rejoice with us, what shall we do with him? How shall we please him? For what company is he fit? That such was the tendency of this similitude, appears plainly in the application which Christ makes (Vers. 18.) For John came neither eating, nor drinking, and they say he hath a Devil: They did not like the mournful, austere course of John: The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they said, Behold a man gluttonous, and a Wine-bibber, a friend of Publicans and Sinners: They did not like the free converse of Christ. When a people are of this spirit, or at this lock, that neither a man who is affable and courteous, ready both to receive, and give civilities, is ⟨p. 243⟩welcome to them, nor yet he who is austere, and reserved, close, and strict in his way, can give them any content, who, or what can content them? When neither piping nor mourning, when neither dancing nor sorrowing takes with us, what can? When we would describe a person whose troublesomeness of spirit seems unanswerable, we say of him, He is quiet neither full nor fasting: that is, he is never quiet, or nothing can make him quiet. Abraham saith to his Nephew Lot (