The right way to shake off a viper. An essay, upon a case too…

III. It may be some relief of your Disquietments under your Defamations, to consider what Company you have in your Affliction; to consider, how defamed and ill spoken of, the best of Men in the World have been before you. What you undergo has much Temptation in it; But Sir, no Temptation except what is common to the best of Men. This comfort for the miserable, seems to be recommended as no miserable comfort by our Saviour; Math. 5.11, 12. Blessed are you when Men shall Revile you, and Persecute you, and shall say all manner of Evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad; for so persecuted they the Prophets which were before you. Well known is the Story of that Knight, who going to his Martyrdom, and seeing ⟨p. 30⟩himself, because of his Quality, excused from the Chain worn by the other Martyrs, he cried out, I Pray let me be a Knight of that Order; and asked that he might wear a Chain as well as they! There never was an useful Servant of God in the World without so many Defamations; that if you should be wholly without them, and all Men should speak well of you, you might well question, whether you are a Saint of their Order or no. The Enmity fixed at the beginning between the two Seeds, has ever since been operating in Defamations: The Third Chapter of Genesis has predicted them; for all that will renounce and oppose the Kingdom of Satan in the World; and such is the Influence of Satan, on the Tongues of his Children, that he continually procures the Prediction to be accomplished. Moses, the Writer of this, was a famous Instance of it; Moses, the greatest Man, [Let the Insolent Critic of Amsterdam say what he will!] that ever shone in the World for four Thousand Years together; An Angel in Flesh. How often did his own People Defame him in their Murmurings: The People that were under more Obligations unto Him, than unto any Man under Heaven! So impertinent, as to make a Story, that there was an Arabian Woman, unto whom he had hearkened more than he should have done. The Pagans did ⟨p. 31⟩their part also in […] of him. He had once a Leprosy on his Hand most miraculously, most honourably circumstanced; the Ancient Historians hereupon spread a Story, that he was a Leper, and for this cause driven with his People out of Egypt. Yea, which is unaccountable: