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Christ, and Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek against Israel. Thus you see doctrinally the scripture speaketh of such a thing.
2. By way of instance and example. Let us see how this spirit of enmity hath been working, and how the holy men of God have had bitter experience of it. Abel was slain by Cain. Let us begin with Cain, the patriarch of unbelievers. Now the Holy Ghost giveth us a comment on that action : 1 John iii. 12, ' Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him ? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous.' The one was the seed of the woman, the other of the serpent ; the one worshipped God after the right order, and brought the first, the fat, the tenth, to the Lord : the other was slight and careless in worship. The Targum of Jerusalem mentioneth a dispute that happened be- tween them concerning the providence of God, and the last judgment, and the world to come, and those wholesome doctrines by which godliness is maintained. Non est judicium, nee judex, nee scccidum cdiud, nee munus pro justis, nee poena pro impiis. However, this we are sure, it was for his godliness that this outrage was committed upon him. Let us go a little lower ; in the story of the patriarchs, we shall find Isaac scoffed at by Ishmael, Gen. xxi. 9 ; upon which pi-actice of his, the apostle glosseth thus : Gal. iv. 29, ' As he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, so it is now.' Scoffing and mocking is a kind of persecution ; ever so it was, and ever so it will be, while there are two seeds in the world. Whatever civility the men of the world have, they are all opposite to grace and godliness ; and do not only refuse and resist it in them- selves, but hate it and persecute it in others. I say, they that have not the image of God in themselves, they cannot endure the lustre of it in others. And therefore it is the ordinary lot of God's children to suffer hard things from the men of the world. If you go a little further, Jacob, because of the blessing and birthright, was pursued to the death by Esau, and driven out of his father's house. Gen. xxvii. xxviii., and there was matter of godliness and profaneness in this : Heb. xii. 15, ' Not as profane Esau, who for one morsel of bread sold his birthright.' Instances are endless, but by these brought you see the point fully made good. And over and above what was to be proved, you may collect that no bonds of duty can allay it ; for in these instances given you may observe that Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, were all brothers, members of the same church and family, tied to one another by the nearest and strictest bonds of kindred and acquaintance ; yet because the one was holy and the other wicked, did they hate one another.
Secondly, Discoveries that this hatred that is commenced against the people of God ariseth from an antipathy to godliness. This part of the discourse is necessary, because wicked men will not own that they hate others for their goodness ; they disguise it with other pre- tences, as the Jews did excuse their hatred to Christ, when he told them, John x. 32, ' Many good words have I showed you from my Father ; for which of these works do you stone me ? ' They could have no quarrel against him unless they would quarrel at a good turn, and reward evil for good. But ver. 33, ' The Jews answered, For a
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good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy, because thou, being a man, makest thyself equal with God.' So will carnal men say, it is not for their holiness that they hate them, but for their pride, covetousness, censoriousness, and hypocrisy. But when they neither hate, nor abhor, nor avoid these sins in themselves, or other men, yea, do wink at fouler and grosser evils, even against the light of nature, which themselves live in, or else tolerate and make nothing of them in their friends, they do clearly convince themselves, if they would attend to it, that the pretended causes of their hatred are but cloaks of their malice, which is truly raised in them by the contrariety of their nature to that which is good. Shall a leper loathe another because of a few pimples in his skin ? or shall he that is tumbled into the ocean in drink vaunt against another who, on slippery ground, is fallen into a ditch ? Besides, these allegations are usually false ; for it is the fashion of evil men first to caluminate Christ and his followers, and then to hate them : as they would clothe the primitive christians with the skins of bears and of wild beasts, and then worry them and bait them with dogs, as if they were bears. From the beginning, Satan hath been both a liar and a murderer, John viii. 44 ; first a liar, then a murderer with the more pretence.