Perhaps on this very account, I might advise you _fifthly_, _not to talk much of what you suffer_; “of the _persecution_ you endured at such a time, and the wickedness of your _persecutors_.” Nothing more tends to exasperate them than this: and therefore, (although there is a time when these things must be mentioned, yet) it might be a general rule, to do it as seldom as you can with a safe conscience. For (besides its tendency to inflame them) it has the appearance of evil, of ostentation, of magnifying yourselves. It also tends to puff you up with pride, and to make you think yourselves some great ones, as it certainly does to excite or increase in your heart ill-will, anger, and all unkind tempers. It is, at best, loss of time; for instead of the wickedness of men, you might be talking of the goodness of God: nay, it is, in truth, an open wilful sin; it is tale-bearing, back-biting, evil-speaking, (a sin you can never be sufficiently watchful against, seeing it steals upon you in a thousand shapes.) Would it not be far more profitable for your souls, instead of speaking against them, to pray for them? To confirm your love towards those unhappy men, whom you believe to be fighting against God, by crying mightily to him in their behalf, that he may open their eyes and change their hearts.
I have now only to commend you to the care of him who hath all power in heaven and in earth: beseeching him, that in every circumstance of life, you may stand “firm as the beaten anvil to the stroke:” desiring nothing on earth, accounting all things but dung and dross, that you may win Christ; and always remembering, “It is the part of a good champion, to be flead alive and to conquer!”