A Christian Library, Chapter 10
CHAP. X.
SIxthly and lastly, Observe but the reasons why they do it; and this will notably confirm and strengthen you against their scoffs and scorns.
Convert. Have they any reason for their so doing?
Minist. Not properly: For as the Prophet very often complains, they … mine enemies without a cause, and they hate me without a cause, &c. Psal. 7. and 69.4. though they pretended many causes. So they have no … nor reason to hate, censure ard slander us as they do; for no evil deed … a good reason: yet they do it not without many by reasons and felt and …
First, The main a…d most material cause why wicked men so mortally … the godly, and which breeds so many quar…el, is the contrariety of the … tures being as contrary one to the other as are God and the devil, the … ing the children of God, and partaking of the divine nature, a… being one … Father and the Son, 2 Cor. 6.18. Gal. 3.26. Joh. 1.12 and 17.14, … 4. being like God in holiness, 1 Pet. 1.15. Brethren of, and heirs, annexed Christ, Rom. 8.17.29. Members of his body. 1 Cor. 12.27. Bone of his bone, and … of his flesh, Eph. 5.30. having his spirit dwelling in them. Rom. 8.9-16 … Temples of the holy Ghost, 1 Cor. 6.19. Jam. 1.18. Joh. …
And the other being the seed of the serpent and children of the devil; and so partake of his nature, as is plain by 1 Joh. 3.8, 10, 12, 14. and 6.70. and 8, 44. Matth. 13.38, 39. 2 Cor. 4.4. 2 Tim. 2.26. Gen. 3.15. and 5.3. Eph. 2.2, &c. Which being so, how is it possible they should ever agree; although God had not proclaimed an enmity between them? For there can be no amity where there is no sympathy; no reconciling of the wolf and the lamb, the winds and the sea; no neighbourhood, no alliance, no conjunction, is able to make the cursed seed of the serpent, and the blessed seed of the woman ever agree. For fire and water, light and darkness, heaven and hell are not more contrary.
One bloud, one belly, one …ouse, one education, could never make Cain and Abel accord, Iacob and Esau, Isaac 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. As how many a wife is so much the more hated, 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 marvel, for though they dwell in the same house, yet they belong to two several Kingdoms: and albeit they both remain upon earth, yet they are governed by two several Laws, the ones Burguship being in heaven, Phil. 3.20 and the other being a Denizen belonging to hell; as Irish men are dwellers in Ireland, but denizens of England, and governed by the Statutes of this Kingdom.
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.
A wicked man can agree with all that are wicked, be they Papists, or Turks or Atheists; Prophane or Civil man: for all these agree with him in blindness and darkness, and are all seed of the same Serpent: but with sincere Christians and practisers 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 let wicked men be at never so much odds one with another, yet they will concur and joyn against the godly, Acts 6.9. The Sadduces, Pharisees and Herodians, were Sectaries of divers and adverse Factions, all differing … from another; yet all joyn together against our Saviour, Matth. 22. …erod neither loved the Iews, nor the Iews Herod, yet both are agreed to …ex the Church. Yea Herod and Pilate, two enemies will agree so it be against …hrist: they will fall in one with another, to fall out with God.