The Evil of Evils

but suppose God do give you the sight of so great an evil, and you begin to be humbled; Oh this very meditation will cause your humiliation to be full of bitterness, and will cause it to be very hard for ⟨p. 495⟩you to lay hold upon mercy and pardon; when you shall think thus, Ah were it for my own sins only I were to answer for, I might have greater hope; but there be others sins I drew them into, and they be condemned perhaps, and in Hell, and how shall I escape condemnation my self? I do not say that there is an impossibility of pardon, for the Grace of God is infinite; and were it not infinite, it were impossible for such a soul to perish, and thou (that art the cause of it) come to be saved: I say, there is a possibility, but it is as if it were through the fire, if ever thou escape; do but thou consider, if it should be, that thou shouldest die in impenitency also, as the other did, and that thou diddest go to Hell, when you two should meet at the day of Judgment, and he should see thee, the cause that drew him to sin, Oh what a grief it would be to thee, how would he curse thee and the time that ever he saw thy face? that ever he lived in that Family where thou livedst? It may be some Parents have been a means to draw by counsel and advice, the Child to sin; Oh the Child when he sees his Parent at the Day of Judgment; how will he curse the time that ever he came from such Loins? and such a woman's Womb? Oh that rather he had been the off-spring of a Dragon, and the generation of a Viper, than from the Loins of such a man and woman; you encouraged me to such and such ways of sin, to opposition, and hatred, and speaking evil against the People of God, the Servants of God that were strict in their way; and ⟨p. 496⟩now you and I must perish eternally: sure in Hell they will be ready to cast fire-brands in one another's faces that have been the cause of sin in one another in this world: and so Husband and Wife, that lie in one another's bosoms, if they be the cause of any sin in one another, it may cause woeful terror to them, and appear worse than if a Serpent had lay in their bosom; for those that draw others to sin, do worse mischief than any Serpent or Viper in the world can do. You had need look to it betimes (I shall wind it up with this one Note) Whosoever hath been the cause to draw others to commit any Sin;

but suppose God do give you the sight of so great an evil, and you begin to be humbled; Oh this very meditation wil cause your humiliation to be full of bitterness, and will cause it to be very hard for