When one wondered at the patience of Socrates towards one who reviled and reproached him, If we should meet one, saith he, whose body were more unsound than ours, should we be angry with him, and not rather pity him ? Why, then, should we not do the like to him whose soul is more diseased than ours ?
Augustus Caesar, in whose time Christ was born, bid Catullus the railing poet to supper, to shew that he had forgiven him.
It is a notable example that we find of one Pericles,6 who, as he was
1 Clarke's ' Martyrologie,' as before, pp. 35, 36 — G.
s His words are worth giving: ' I myself, when I took pleasure in the doctrines of Pluto, and heard the Christians slandered, seeing them to be fearless of death, and of everything else tliaf was thought dreadful, considered that it was impossible that they should live in wickedness,' &c, &c. (Apolog. ii. 12). — G.
* See also the History of the Council of Trent, 418, 2d edit.
4 Founder of the Cyrenaic Philosophy. — G.
6 The pupil of DemoBthenes, and friend of Zeno. — Diog. Lae'rtius, iv 41, vii. 14. — G.
6 Plutarch in vita Pericles.
1 Kings XIV. 13.] apples of gold. 209
sitting with others in a great meeting, a foul-mouthed fellow bitterly reproached him, and railed all the day long upon him; and at night, when it was dark, and the meeting up, the fellow followed him, and railed at him even to his door, and he took no notice of him ; but when he came at home, this is all he said, Friend, it is dark, I pray let my man light you home.1
Josephus reports of that Herod that is made mention of in Acts xii. 23, that when one Simon, a lawyer, had grievously reproached and scandalised him before the people, he sent for him, and caused him to sit down next to him, and in a kind manner he spake thus to him : Tell me, I pray thee, what thing thou seest fault-worthy or contrary to the law in me. Simon not having anything to answer, besought him to pardon him, which the king did, and was friends with him, and dis- missed him, bestowing1 gifts 'on him.
Ah ! young men, young men, shall the very heathen make nothing of reproaches ? shall they bear up so prudently and bravely under the greatest loads of reproaches, and will not you ? Will not you, who in your light, in your mercies, and in all gospel engagements, are so highly advanced above them ? Oh ! that none of them may be called to the bar in the great day to witness against any of you into whose hands this treatise shall fall. And so much by way of answer to the third objection. But,
Objection 4. Fourthly, The young man objects, and says, You press us to be good betimes, and to seek and serve the Lord in the spring and morning of our days ; but we observe that most men mind not these things, but rather give liberty to themselves to walk in ways that are most pleasing to the flesh; and why, then, should we be singular and nice ? We were better do as the 'most do, &c. Now to this I answer,
1. That though bad examples are dangerous to all, yet usually they prove most dangerous and pernicious to young persons, who are more easily drawn to follow examples than precepts, especially those ex- amples that tend most to undo them : 2 Kings xv. 9, it is said of Zachariah, the king of Israel, that ' he did evil in the sight of the Lord, as his fathers had done ; he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam ;' he would be as his father was, and do as his father did, whatever came OD it.2
So the Samaritans, of whom it is said, 2 Kings xvii. 41, ' These na- tions feared the Lord' (that is, they made some kind of profession of the true religion, as the ten tribes had done), ' and served their graven images (too) ; both their children and their children's children (did thus) ; as did their fathers, so do they unto this day.' By evil examples they were both drawn to idolatry, and rooted and confirmed in it So the main reason why the kingdom and church of Judah were so settled in their idolatry, that there was no hope of reclaiming them, was this, that their children remembered their altars and their groves by the green trees upon the high hills, Jer. xvii. 1, 2. Tinder is not apter to
1 Themistocles professed that if two ways were shewed him, one to hell, and the other to the Bar, he would choose that which went to hell, and forsake the other.
2 Prcecepla docent, exempla movent, Precepts may instruct, hut examples do persuade. [As before. — G.]
270 APPLES OF GOLD. [1 KlNGS XIV. 13.
take fire, nor wax the impression of the seal, nor paper the ink, than youth is to follow ill examples.
You may see in Radbad, king of Phrisia,1 who coming to the font to be bapt used, asked what was become of his ancestors ? answer was made, that they died in a fearful state unbaptized ; he replied that he would rather perish with the multitude than go to heaven with a few.
I remember the heathen brings in a young man who, hearing of the adulteries and wickednesses of the gods, said, What ! do they so ? and shall T stick at it ? No, I will not. Sinful examples are very drawing and very encouraging ; many have found it so to their eternal undoing. Those that have no ears to hear what you say, have many eyes to see what you do. Bad princes make bad subjects ; bad masters make bad servants; bad parents make bad children; and bad husbands make bad wives. It is easier for the bad to corrupt the good, than for the good to convert the bad ; it is easier to run down the hill with com- pany, than to run up the hill alone.2
I would desire all young men often to remember that saying of Lac- tantius, Qui malum imitatur, bonus esse non potest, he who imitates- the bad cannot be good. Young men, in these professing times, stand between good and bad examples, as Hercules in his dream stood be- tween virtue and vice. Solicited by both, choose you must who to fol- low. Oh that you were all so wise as to follow the best ; as a woman that hath many suitors is very careful to take the best, so should you. Life, heaven, happiness, eternity, hangs upon it.
But before I come to the second answer, let me leave this note or notion with those who make no conscience of undoing others by their examples,3 viz.,
That a more grievous punishment is reserved for them who cause others to offend, than for them which sin by their occasion or ex- ample.
Thus the serpent was punished more than Eve, and Eve more than