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

There never can be better Advice given to a Defamed Christian than that, Heb. 12.2, 3. Look unto JESUS, who for the Joy that was set before him, endured the Cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right Hand of the ⟨p. 43⟩Throne of God; consider him that endured such contradiction of Sinners against himself, least ye be wearied and faint in your Minds. Accordingly in the Defamations that you suffer, you may very allowably examine, What conformity to the Sufferings of the Lord JESUS CHRIST may be discovered. Indeed we must with all the Contrition & Confusion imaginable, make the Acknowledgement of the penitent Sinner, who was Crucified with our Saviour; We suffer justly: We receive the due Reward of our Deeds. Our Lord never did any thing amiss. But this does not forbid us poor Sinners, to consider what there was in the Sorrows of our Saviour, to which any thing in our Sorrows may be conformable. It is an observable Passage, in Col. 1.24. I rejoice in my sufferings, and fill up the signatures of the Afflictions of Christ. The Greek word used there properly signifies the hollow Marks and Strokes of the Seal, which are filled up with Wax. In your Defamations you may without Immodesty, (but Oh! do it with a very trembling Modesty!) observe perhaps, the Signatures which may as the Wax under the Seal, answer something that befell CHRIST in his Afflictions. A brave Man once undergoing very barbarous Indignities as well as the loss or his Life on the Scaffold, cheerfully said upon it; What a deal of do here is, to make a poor Sinner like ⟨p. 44⟩his Blessed Saviour? I make the more bold with this Matter, because Antiquity has told me, Contumelia sunt Christi insignia. This may be the glory of Defamations and Indignities. If you find yours to have any of this glory in them, Oh! count it a glory, and rejoice in it, with Joy unspeakable and full of Glory.

There never can be better Advice given to a Defamed Christian than that, Heb. 12.2, 3. Look unto JESUS, who for the Joy that was set before him, endured the Cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right Hand of the