A practical exposition of the Lord's-Prayer

2. As from the Things of the World, so from the Men of the World. We are apt to be poisoned by their bad Example, and easily catch a Sickness one from another. Good Men may receive a taint, Isa. 6. 5. I am a Man of unclean Lips, and I dwell in the midst of a People of unclean Lips. Open Excesses do soon manifest their own Odiousness. ⟨p. 488⟩I confess, a Man that runs into open Excess, we are not so much in danger of being enticed by him to the like Practice; but we learn of one another secretly to be cold, careless, and less mortified. I say, tho we are not carried into inordinate Practices, and gross Wickednesses, by the Example of others; yet we learn to be cold in the Profession of Godliness, formal, less stirring in the way of Holiness▪ and sometimes ensnared by their Counsels; the Flood and Torrent of Evil Examples and Counsels is so great that it carrieth away Men. Gal. 2. 13. Barnabas also was carried away with their Dissimulation. And the Wills of Men is one of our Snares, 1 Pet. 4. 2. And besides, we are in danger to be terrified by their Frowns, and act unseemly. Isa. 8. 13. Fear not their Fear, nor be afraid; out of the fear of Men we are apt to miscarry in our Duty to God. Well then, we need to go to God to be delivered from the Evil of the World, that we may not be infected nor terrified by the Men of the World; or, which is the more usual Temptation, corrupted by the Things of the World. The World doth secretly and slightly insinuate with us, and therefore keep us from Evil.

2. As from the Things of the World, so from the Men of the World. We are apt to be poisoned by their bad Example, and easily catch a Sickness one from another. Good Men may receive a taint, Isa. 6. 5. I am a Man of unclean Lips, and I dwell in the midst of a People of unclean Lips. Open Excesses do soon manifest their own Odiousness. ⟨p. 488⟩