be in office, and not to put conscience out of office). Several other writers were of Ter- tullian's opinion concerning Judas.
1 Cato hits M. Ccelis in the teeth with his baseness, that for a morsel of bread he would sell either his tongue or his silence.
2 lsa. liii. 2, 3 ; Acts v. 30, 31 ; Rom. viii. 34 ; Eph. i. 20-23 ; Prov. xv. 21 ; Mat. xxvii 3-5 : Prov. xxx. 20.
3 Had Christ, as a God and searcher of the heart, kept out Judas from the passover, because he knew his heart was naught, he had left us a pattern to eject such as the church should be jealous of, that their hearts are not right before the Lord, when there is nothing detected.
lvi APPENDIX TO MEMOIR.
I shall now address myself to give some good counsel to the peti- tioners; and so conclude.
Good Counsel to Bad Men ; or, Frtendly Advice to Unfriendly Neighbours and their Abettors.
Your petitioning against me to all understanding men was a com- pounded evil ; an evil made up of pride, envy, malice, discontent, ignorance, &c. My counsel to you is to break off your sins by repent- ance, that it may go well with you for ever. If you will not, justice will be above you, and in the close you must lie down in sorrow. Tell me, can you dwell with the devouring fire ? can you dwell with ever- lasting burnings? Dan. iv. 27, Isa. 1. 11, xxxiii. 14. It was a good saying of Chrysostom, speaking of hell, Ne quccramus ubi sit, sed quomodo Mam fvgiamus, let us not seek where it is, but how we shall escape it.1 Grievous is the torment of the damned for the bitterness of the punishments, but it is more grievous for the diversity of the punishments, but most grievous for the eternity of the punishments. Ah ! consider before it be too late, what a sad thing it is for souls at last to have the gate of mercy, the gate of indulgence, the gate of hope, the gate of glory, shut upon them, Mat. xxv. 10. When a sinner is in hell, shall another Christ be found to die for him ? or will the same Christ be crucified again ? Oh, no! Oh that you were so wise and merciful to your own souls as to dwell upon these scriptures : John iii. S, ' Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.' Except men be first unmade, and then made up again by the Spirit and word, except the whole frame of their old conversation be dissolved and a better erected, there is no heaven to be had. Heaven is too holy and too hot to hold drunkards, revilers, mockers, and such like, as you mav plainly see by comparing these scriptures together, 1 Cor. yi. 9, 10, Gal. v. 19-21, Jude 14, 15, Rev. xxi. 8, and xxii. 15. He that is truth itself, and cannot lie, hath said, ' Without holiness no man shall see God/ Heb. xii. 14.2 This I am sure of, that all man's happi- ness here is his holiness, and his holiness shall hereafter be his happi- ness. You must in this life be holy, or in the life to come you shall never be happy. Seneca, a heathen man, saw so much excellency that morality put upon a man that he saith that ipse aspectus boni viri delectat, the very looks of a good man delights one. Oh ! then, what a beauty and glory doth real sanctity put upon a man ; ' it makes him more excellent than his neighbour/ as Solomon speaks, Prov. xii. 26. When Agesilaus heard the king of Persia styled the great king, saith he, ' I acknowledge none more excellent than myself, unless more righteous; none greater, unless better.' Ps. xvi. 3.
But to hasten towards a close, you may be very confident of these few things, which I desire, as you tender your own good, you would seriously consider.
1 Utinam ubique de gehenna dissereretur. I could wish that men would discourse much and oft of hell. — Chrysostom.
- They were wont to say in former times, Cams Seius bonus vir, sed Christianus, Caius Seins was a good man, but he was a Christian. You may easily apply it, &c. Chrysostom calls some holy men of his time ayyiXm, earthly angels.
APPENDIX TO MEMOIR. lvii
[1.] That those ways of the flesh wherein now you walk will be bitterness in the latter end: Prov. xiv. 12, 'There is a way which seemeth right unto a man ; but the end thereof are the ways of death.1 Though sin doth come sometimes clothed with a show of reason and religion, yet the end of it will be death. Sin at last will betray your souls into the hands of Satan, as Delilah did Samson into the hands of the Philistines.2 Sin makes the soul black with filth and red with guilt ; and then vengeance follows. The Rabbins were wont to tell scholars, to scare them from sin, that every sin made God's head ache ; but without sound repentance you will at last find that every sin will make your hearts ache. Oh ! then, when you are tempted to sin, you would say, as Demosthenes, the orator, did of the beautiful Lais, when he was asked an excessive sum of money to hehpld her : I will not, said he, buy repentance so dear. I am not so ill a merchant as to sell the eternal for the temporal.
[2.] You may be confident that all your oppositions one way or other against the ways of God, and against the people of God, is a fighting against God, who will be too hard for you when you have done your worst ; and what you get you may put in your eyes, and weep it out again,3 Acts v. 38, 39, ix. 4, 5. Those that strive for mastery with God, God will over-master with a witness : Isa. xxvii. 4, ' Who would set the briars and thorns against me in battle ? I would go through them, I will burn them together.' God can nod a soul to hell ; he can speak a soul miserable in a moment. Who ever stood out against him, and prospered ? There is such a near union between God and his people, between God and his ways, that you cannot possibly oppose them but you oppose God himself, who can presently cause the greatest arm of human power to shrink up, as you may see in his deal- ing with Pharaoh, Haman, Belshazzar, and others, &c. Is a dry reed able to stand against a consuming fire ? Is a worm able to overcome a lion ? Is weakness able to overcome strength : ' Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance ;' ' Behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing,' as the prophet Isaiah speaks, Isa. xl. 15. And what, then, is the poor creature, that he should fight against an almighty Creator ? Cassar told Metellus he could as easily destroy him as bid it be done. So can God. Who dares then engage against him ?4
[3.] You may be confident, that though I hate your sins, yet I don't hate your persons. I am willing to live in love and peace with all men, so far as I may without sin ; but I abhor compliancy with any man, to the dishonour of Christ, to the wounding of my conscience, to the profaning of holy things, or to the prejudice and disadvantage of the truth. It is below humanity to hate a man, whose nature and similitude he may behold in the humanity of Christ. JDeum odit qui