The same mischief followeth the neglect of private, personal inspection. When ministers think that they have done all, when they have said a sermon, and never make conscience of labouring personally to convince the ungodly, and reclaim offenders, and draw sinners to God, and confirm the weak. And the omission (much more the perversion and abuse) of sacred discipline, hath the like effects. When the keys of the church are used to shut out the good, or not used when they ought, to rebuke or shut out the impenitent wicked ones; nor to difference between the precious and the vile; it hardeneth multitudes in their ungodliness, and persuadeth them that they are really of the same family of Christ as the godly are, and have their sins forgiven, because they are partakers of the same holy sacraments. (Not knowing the difference between the church mystical and visible, nor between the judgment of ministers and of Christ himself.)
6. Parents' neglect of instructing children, and other parts of holy education, is one of the greatest causes of the perdition of mankind, in all the world: but of this elsewhere.
7. Magistrates' persecution or opposition to religion, or discountenancing those that preach it, or most seriously practise it, tendeth to deceive some, who over-reverence the judgment of superiors, and to affright others from the obedience of God.
8. Yea, the negligence of magistrates, masters, and other superiors, omitting the due rebuke of sinners, and due correction of the offenders, and the due encouragement of the good, is a great cause of the wickedness and damnation of the world.
9. But above all, when they make laws for sin, or for the contempt, or dishonour, or suppression of religion, or the serious practice of it; this buildeth up Satan's kingdom most effectually, and turneth God's ordinance against himself: thousands under infidel and ungodly princes, are conducted by obedience to damnation; and their rulers damn them as honourably as the physician killed his patients, who boasted that he did it _secundum artem_, according to the rules of art.
10. The vulgar example of the multitude of the ungodly, is a great cause of men's impiety and damnation. They must be well resolved for God and holiness, who will not yield to the major vote, nor be carried down the common stream, nor run with the rabble to excess of riot. When christianity is a sect which is every where spoken against, it proveth so narrow a way, that few have a mind to walk in it. Men think that they are at least excusable, for not being wiser and better than the multitude. Singularity in honour, or riches, or strength, or health, is accounted no crime; but singularity in godliness, is, at least, thought unnecessary. What! will you be wiser than all the town, or, than such and such superiors? is thought a good reprehension of godliness, where it is rare; even by them who hereby conclude their superiors, or all the town, to be wiser than God.
11. Also the vulgar's scorning and deriding godliness, is a common cause of murdering souls: because the devil knoweth, that there cannot one word of solid reason be brought against the reason of God, and so against a holy life; he therefore teacheth men to use such weapons as they have. A dog hath teeth, and an adder hath a sting, though they have not the weapons of a man. A fool can laugh, and jeer, and rail; and there is no great wit or learning necessary, to smile, or grin, or call a man a puritan, or precisian, or heretic, or schismatic, or any name which the malice of the age shall newly coin. Mr. Robert Bolton largely showeth how much the malignity of his age did vent itself against godliness, by the reproachful use of the word, puritan. When reason can be bribed to take the devil's part, (either natural or literate reason,) he will hire it at any rate; but when it cannot, he will make use of such as he can get. Barking or hissing may serve turn, where talking and disputing cannot be procured. Drum and trumpets in an army, serve the turn instead of oratory, to animate cowards, and drown the noise of dying men's complaints and groans. Thousands have been mocked out of their religion and salvation at once, and jeered into hell, who now know whether a scorn, or the fire of hell, be the greater suffering. As tyrants think that the greatest, and ablest, and wisest men, must either be drawn over to their party or destroyed; so the tyrant of hell, who ruleth in the children of disobedience, doth think that if reason, learning, and wit, cannot be hired to dispute for him against God, they are to be suppressed, silenced, and disgraced; which the noise of rude clamours and foolish jeers is fit enough to perform.