Reason tells the husbandman, it is time to mow and reap his corn, when it is full ripe. And it may convince you, that God's time of reaping down a sinful people is near, when their sins are grown to such full maturity as this : " Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe ; come, get ye down, for the press is full, the fats overflow, for their -wickedness is great," Joel iii. 13.
§ 5. The true cause and rise of this great and fixed hatred amongst professed Christians, (v/hatever maybe pretended to salve reputation) is the contrariety and repugnancy of the natures and principles by which the godly and ungodly are governed. There is an enmity be- twixt the two seeds. Gen. iii. 25. And this enmity runs down in a blood, more or less, in all ages and places; Gal. iv. 29. "As then, he that was born after the flesh, persecuted him that was born after the Spirit ; even so it is now." So it was, and so it is, and so it will be, till conversion changeth the heart and principle. This enmity cannot die, whilst Satan lives, and rules in the hearts of children of disobedience.
And the enmity is mutual : " An unjust man is an abomination to the just ! and he that is upright in the way is an abomination to the wicked," Prov. xxix. 27. Only with this difference ; the good man hates, non virum, sed vitiurn ; not the person, but his sin. The wicked man hates lx)th the person of the godly, and his godliness too ; yea, the person for his godliness sake.
This hatred of the godly, secretly and habitually lurks in the nature of a wicked man ; as rapaciousness doth in a young wolf, that never saw a lamb. It extends itself universally to the whole kind, and reaches those, whose lives are most obligingly sweet ; yea, those that are bound to them in the strictest bonds of nature; as we may see, in that most unnatural instance of Cain's murdering his own brother Abel. It discovers itself, in seeking the destruction of them they hate upon a religious account, and rejoicing at any evil that befals them. Nothing is more grateful to them, than any occasion to dis- grace, and expose them with contempt to the world.
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§ 6. But though the strictness and holiness of good men, causing the consciences of wicked men privately to condemn, and inwardly to gaul and grate them for their looseness and profaneness, be the true and real ground and cause of the grudge and hatred ; yet they think it fit, for reputation-sake, that this be wholly suppressed and silenced, and something else pretended for the cause and reason of it, else it would look too like the devil himself. And therefore, amongst other plausible pretensions, for their malignity to those that are better than themselves, these three are principally insisted on, and pleaded.
1. That it is not their piety, but their hypocrisy, which they hate not because they have indeed more piety than others, but because they make more vain shew and ostentation of it than themselves do ; who, setting aside their ridiculous grimaces, and affected fantastic words and actions, are every whit as good as themselves.
2. Because, under a pretence of greater strictness in religion, they do but liatch and carry on sedition and rebellion ; and that the world will never be quiet, whilst such vipers are suffered in the bowels of it.
3. That both the former have been made sufficiently evident and apparent, in several former and more recent instances, of the hy- pocrisy and seditious designs of as high pretenders to religion and reformation, as those are, whom they truly hate, and would not suf- fer them to live, if their power v, ere answerable to their hatred.
As to this first plea, viz. their hypocrisy; it will quickly be found to be too thin and weak to endure the text of your own reason and consciences. For how will you answer them, when they shall thus argue and expostulate the matter with you ?
' You that thus censure, and those that are censured for hypocrisy by you, do both profess one and the same religion. Your profane lives are notoriously contrary to all the principles of this religion. You swear, drink, whore, revile, and persecute the others, only because you fancy their tones, gestures, &c. to be some way or other indecent. You cannot deny, but they live soberly and godly : they attend upon all the duties of religion strictly and conscientiously. Your malice against them can find nothing to carp at, but some little trifles, with which the essence of religion is not concerned. Did they run into the same excess of riot with you, greater matters than these, would be overlooked, yea, and applauded too.'
Now let reason and conscience say. Who is most likely to be the hypocrite; theman that calls himself a Christian, and under that pro- fession wallows in all profaneness, notoncecensuringhiniself for it; or he that lives soberly and godly, against whom malice itself can produce nothing but such inconsiderable trifles as the se ? Is not this the very case, which Christ hath determined to our hands, and made such censurcrs, the hypocrites ? Matth. vii. 3. " And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye ?''' It was but one blemish, and that a very
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small one too, but a mote ; however this you can quickly spy, and as rashly censure. But mean while there is a beam, an horrid flagitious wickedness in yourselves ; but it is too near your own eyes, to be dis- cerned by you. Which of these two (think you) is the hypocrite ?
2. But what if this mote that you discern,*be but a fancy, a mere imagination of your own ; how will that aggravate your sin, and evince both your malice and hypocrisy together ? You say, their tones and gestures in rehgious duties, are ridiculous, and scenical. This you take up lightly against some few of them, and as unjustly apply unto tlie aspersing of the whole party ; w hich your own rea- son must, and will immediately condemn. For there are multitudes of that party, whose countenances, tones and gestures, are as de- corous, grave, and becoming the presence of that God with whom they have to do, as any men in the world.