_Direct._ XIII. Speak not rashly against any cause or persons before you are acquainted with them; or have well considered what you say. Especially take heed how you believe what a man of any sect in religion doth speak or write against his adversaries of a contrary sect. If experience had not proved it in our days, beyond contradiction, it would seem incredible how little men are to be believed in this case,[140] and how the false reports will run among the people of the sect, against those whom the interest of their opinion and party engageth them to misrepresent![141] Think not that you are excusable for receiving or venting an ill report, because you can say, He was an honest man that spoke it; for many that are otherwise honest, do make it a part of their honesty to be dishonest in this. They think they are not zealous enough for those opinions which they call their religion, unless they are easy in believing and speaking evil of those that are the adversaries of it. When it may be upon a just trial, all proveth false; and then all the words which you ignorantly utter against the truth, or those that follow it, are scandals or stumblingblocks to the hearers, to turn them from it, and make them hate it.[142] I am not speaking against a just credulity; there must be human belief, or else there can be no human converse; but ever suspect partiality in a party. For the interest of their religion is a more powerful charm to the consciences of evil speakers, than personal interest or bribes would be. How many legends tell us this, how easily some men counted godly, have been prevailed with to lie for God!
_Direct._ XIV. Take heed of mocking at a religious life; yea, or of breaking any jests or scorns at the weaknesses of any in religious exercises, which may possibly reflect upon the exercises themselves. Many a thousand souls have been kept from a holy life, by the scorns of the vulgar, that speak of it as a matter of derision or sport. Reading the Scriptures, and holy conference, and prayer, and instructing our families, and the holy observation of the Lord's day, and church discipline, are commonly the derision of ungodly persons, who can scorn that which they can neither confute nor learn; and weak people are greatly moved by such senseless means. A mock or jeer doth more with them than an argument; they cannot endure to be made a laughing-stock. Thus was the name of the crucified God the derision of the heathens, and the scandal of the world, both Jews and gentiles. And there is scarce a greater scandal or stumblingblock at this day, which keepeth multitudes from heaven, than when the devil can make it either a matter of danger or of shame to be a christian, or to live a holy, mortified life. Persecution and derision are the great successful scandals of the world. And therefore seeing men are so apt to be turned off from Christ and godliness, never speak unreverently or disrespectfully of them. It is a profane and scandalous course of some, that if a preacher have but an unhandsome tone or gesture they make a jest of it, and say, He whined, or he spoke through the nose, or some such scorn they cast upon him; which the hearers quickly apply to all others, and turn to a scorn of preaching, or prayer, or religion itself: or if men differ from each other in opinion in matters of religion, they are presently inclined to deride them for something in their worshipping of God! And while they deride a man as an anabaptist, as an independent, as a presbyterian, as prelatical, they little know what a malignant tincture it may leave upon the hearer's mind, and teach carnal persons to make a jest of all alike.