The Cause and Cure of Ignorance, Section 46 – Section 48
SECT. 46. The Causes.
Q WHat are the Causes, 11 Cause….why wicked and ungodly men thus hate, and persecute the religious?
Answ. The Causes being divers, may yet be reduced to three Heads, for either they be Causes in regard of
God his
Justice.
Mercy.
Wisedom.
Power.
Satan his permitted
Malice.
Subtiltie.
Strength.
Men
Wicked.
Godly.
And these we might further branch, subdivide and distribute into Cause…
Internal,
Material,
Formal,
Natural.
Artificial.
External,
Efficient.
Properly.
Improperly,
Meritorious.
Instrumental.
Final.
And those are either
1.
Next:
or, Remote.
2.
By themselves:
or, By accident.
3.
Sufficient:
or, Insufficient.
But the time would be too short, o… this Treatise too long, if I should speak of every one: yea, talking Fabius would be tyred, before he could relate halfe of what is requisite to be spoken of each; for they require whole Volumes: besides, Instructions, if they exceed, are wont, as nailes, to drive out one another.
Q1. Then select out the Principal, I mean, such as in regard of our edification, are most behoovefull for us to know. And least the pages should still grow, as fish, into a multitude, garble your notions, and give us onelyonly the marrow of the matter.
Answ. The Causes best deserving our discovery, and the worlds notice, I take to be Eleaven
1. Contrariety,
2. Ignorance,
3. Separation,
4. Speaking of Truth,
5. Infidelity,
6. Example of the multitude,
7. The preaching of some Ministers,
8. The scandalous lives of some Professours,
9. Flocking after Sermons,
10. Misprision,
11. That they may have more company here in sin, and hereafter in torment.
1 The contrariety of their natures.First, a main Cause why wicked men hate and persecute the godly, is the contrariety of their natures.
Q1. How contrary are they?
Answ. As contrary and opposite one to the other, as are God and the Devill; for the one are Children of God, All true beleevers▪ the children of God.2 Cor. 6.18. Gal. 3.26 Iohn 1.12. And partake of the Divine Nature, 2 Peter 1.4 Being begotten, Iames 1.18. And borne a new of God, Iohn 1.13. 1 Iohn 3.9 By the immortal seed of the Word, Iames 1.18. And the Spirit's powerfull working with it, Iohn 3.5, 8. whereby they are become like God in holinesse, 1 Peter 1.15. And not children onelyonly, but heires also, even the heires of God, and heires annexed with Christ, Rom. 8.17. being his brethren, Rom. 8.29. Members of his B…dy, 1 Cor. 12.27. Bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh, Ephes. 5.30. having his Spirit dwelling in them, Rom. 8.9 to witnesse with their spirits, that they are the Children of God, verse 16. And being Temples of the Holy Ghost. 1 Cor. 6.19.
And the other are the Seed of the Serpent, All natural men children of the Devill.and Children of the Devil, and so partake of his nature, 1 Iohn 3.8, 10, 12, 14 Acts 13.10. Iohn 6.70. and 8.4…. and 14.30. and 16.11. Matth. 13. 38▪39. 2 Cor 4 4. 2 Tim. 2.26. Gen. 3 15. and 5.3. Ephes. 2.1. to the end, and 5.14. 1 Cor. 15.22. Rom. 5.12.18. Titus 3.3. to 8. 1 Peter 2.9, 10, 25. Iohn 3.3.5 6. which being so, they must needs be very contrary, and if contrary, no marvell they should so ill agree, although God had not proclaimed an enmity between them.
Impossible the good and bad should agree.For there can be no amity, where there is no sympathy; no reconciling of the Wolfe and the Lambe; the Windes and the Sea; no neighbourhood, no alliance, no conjunction is able to make the cursed▪ Seed of the Serpent, and the blessed seede of the Woman ever agree: for Fire and Water, Light and Darknesse, Heaven and Hell are not more contrary.
One bloud, one belly, one house, one education could never make Cain and Abel accord, Iacob and Esau, Isack and Ishmael at one: yea, though they be Man and Wife, Parent and Childe, yet if they be not like, they will not like, 2 Cor. 6.14, 15. And indeed, what is the corporal sympathy to the spiritual antipathy? Can there be such a parity between the Parent and the Childe, the Husband and the Wife, as there is a disparity between God and Satan? No certainly,
SECT. 47.
A Wicked man can agree with all that are wicked,Naturall men can agree with any so they be not Religious. be they Papists, or Turkes, or Atheists, profane and loose persons, civil or moral men, for all these agree with him in blindenesse and darknesse: as who feeles the smart of their tongues, or hands? not the Idolater or vile person, not the professed Atheist, the Canker-fretting Arminian, or State-betraying Jesuite: for with all these they are Haile fellow, well met: but with sincere Christians and Practicers of piety, he can never agree: the religious shall be sure of opposition, because their light is contrary to his darknesse; grace in the one is a secret disgrace to the other.
Yea,Yea differ they in other thngs they will joyne against the Godly. let wicked men be at never so much odds one with another, yet they will concurre and joyne against the godly: as for Example, Edom and Ishmael, Moa… and the Hagarens, Gebal and Ammon, Amalek and the Philistims, the men of Tyre and Assur had each several gods; yet all conspired against the true God Psal. 83 5. to 9. Manasses against Ephraim, and Ephraim against Manasses; but both against Iudah. He…od and Pilate two Enemies, will agree, so it be against Christ: they will fall in one with another, to fall out with God. The Sadduces, Pharisees, and Herodians were Sectaries of divers and adverse Factions, all differing one from another; and yet all these joyne together against our Saviour, Matth. 22. The Libertines, Cyrenians, Alexandrians, Cilicians and Asians, differ they never so much, will joyne in dispute against Stephen, Acts 6.9. Herod neither loved the Iewes, nor the Iewes Herod, yet both are agreed to vex the Church.
I cannot think of a sitter Emblem of a naturall man, than Lime, which agreeth well with all things that are dry, and of it's own nature; but meeting with Water, a thing directly opposite, it breakes, burnes, …welles, smokes, crackles, skips, and scatters: so Nature will give a man leave to be any thing, save a sound Christian, and agree with all others, …e their conditions never so contrary, provided they agree in the main, are all Seed of the same Serpent. But let the natural man meet with one that is Spiritual, they agree lik heat and cold: if one stays, the other flies; or if both stay, they agree like two Poysons in one stomacke, the one being ever sicke of the other, be they never so near allyed. As how many a Wife is so much the more hated,Many Wives, Children and Servants hated for being religious. because a zealous Wife? How many a Childe lesse beloved, because a religious Childe? How many a Servant lesse respected, because a godly Servant? And no marvell; for though they dwell in the same house, yet they belong to two several Kingdomes; and albeit they both remain upon earth, yet they are governed by two severall Lawes, the ones Burguship being in Heaven, Philip. 3.20. And the other, being a Denizon, belonging to Hell: as Irish-men are Dwelle…s in Ireland, but Denizons of England, and governed by the Statutes of this Kingdome.
SECT. 48.
Hatred fo… religion, the most bitter and implacableNEither is this of theirs an ordinary hatred, but the most bitter, exorbitant, unlimited, and unplacable of all others. No such concord, no such discord, faith one of the learned, as that which proceeds from Religion. My name, …aith Luther, is more odious unto them, then any thiefe, or mur…herer: as Christ was more detestable to the Iewer then Barrabas. Behold, saith David, mine enemies, for they are many, and they …ate me with a cruell hatred, Psal. 25.19. yea, so cruell, that it makes their teeth gnash, and their hearts burst againe, Act. 7.54. which made the Truths adversaries give Saint Paul stripes above measure, 2 Cor. 11.2, 3. And the Heathen Emperours to devise such cruell tor…ures, for all those which but profest themselves Christians.
agreement in some points does but advance hatred the more.Yea, agreement in some poynts, when there are differences in the maine, does but advance hatred the more: Witnesse the Reigne of Queen Mary, and the Butchery over al France of above two hundred thousand Protestants; besides the many thousands of late yeares: Yea, aske from East to West, from one Pole to the other; search all Records under Heaven, if ever there was the like of the intended Powder-Plot.
You cannot anger a wicked man worse,We cannot anger them worse then to doe wel than to do well: Yea, he hates you more bitterly for this, and the credit you gaine thereby, than if you had cheated him of his Patrimony, with your owne discredit. But that there is no hatred so virulent and bitter, as that which is occasioned by vertuous living, and professing of Christs Name; our Saviour himselfe proves copiously, Matthew 10. Luke 21.