therefore he tempteth you to hate it. He would bring it into hatred in the world, and therefore he fpeaks difgracefully of it by your tongues. His will is your will. And your words are his words: and the pleasant ft mufick that you could make him. O how it pleafeth him to make a reafonable creature reproach the Word and waies of his Creatour! How eager was he to have got fob to have spoken evil of God!

3. Be it known to thee, thon reviler, that if ever thou be faved thy felf, it must be in that way that thou revileft. Thy hope lyeth in it. As fure as thon liveft, there is no other way to life eternal. Without holiness none shall fee God, Heb. 12.14. Bleffed are the pure in heart, for they shall fee God, Matth. 5.8.. When thou haft all done,thou must come back, and go that way thy. felf or burn for ever. Eicher thou

muft

muft be fuch as those that thou doft speak against, or thou art everlastingly undone. And if thou think to be fuch a one thy felf, and to come to heaven by the very way that now thou doft revile, canst thou yet revile it! And if thou perish in hell for want of holiness, thou fhalt then have enough of thy rebellion. Then thou shalt cry out against thy own malicious reproaches a thousand times more, then ever thou didst against the fervants of the Lord. Though the very diftinction between the Godly and Ungodly be now thy scorn, yet I fhall be bold to tell thee in the words of Henoch, yea of God, 7nd. 14. 15. [Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his Saints, to execute judgement upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them, of all their ungodly deeds, which they have ungod lily committed, and of all their hard speeches

Speeches which ungodly finners have Spoken against him.]Now you have your day, and judgement must begin at the houfe of God! and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God! and if the righteous fcarcely be faved, where shall the ungodly and the finner appear? I Pet.4. 17, 18. Bleed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor ftandeth in the way of finners, nor fitteth in the feat of the (cornful! But his delight is in the Law of the Lord; and in his Law doth he meditate day and night. The ungodly are not fo; but like the chaffe which the wind drivethaway: therefore the ungodly fhall not stand in the judgement, nor finners in the congregation of the righteous: For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly fhall perish, Pfal. 1. This is Scripture diftinction; which God will make good.

K

Ι

〃

I make no queftion, but the worst of you will put by all this in 'your felf-deceit, and fay, It is not holiness that we fpeak against, but its Hypocrific, or Schifme, or fome fuch accufation that malice fhall fuggeft, will be your mask. But will you anfwer me these few Questions.

Queft. 1. Why then do you not imitate them fo far as they do well! why are you not as much in works of holiness, as they in reading, and meditating on the Word of God, in holy conference, and fecret prayer, and inftructing your families ? and then leave them and fpare not where they do amifs.

Queft. 2. Why do you not hate as much the fins of the notorioufly angodly, who fhew them without fhame? Nay why do you make fuch men your companions? Queft. 3. Why go you to the heart

heart, that is unseen, and arrogate the prerogative of God, to cenfure men of Hypocrifie and such secret fins that are out of your difcerning? If you know your heart by outward actions, insist upon your proofes.

a

Queft. 4. Why speak you not of their good as well as of the fuppofed evil? why are you not more in fpeaking well of what is well, then in speaking ill of what is ill?

Queft. 5. Why is it that you fpeak of men that you know not? and of others that are innocent,for the fakes of thofe that you imagine to be guilty ? and why do you fo greedily fnatch at any matter of reproach, and take it by hearsay from the moft ignorant, rafh, or malicious mouths?

Queft. 6. If it be Hypocrifie or other vice that you fo hate; why do you not hate them in your felves? why live you fo viciously, K 2 while