mocks at holiness; they take a kind of pride in polishing those darts which they shoot against the saints. The Septuagint read it, the "chair of pestilent ones." Indeed as the plague is the most mortal among diseases, so is a spirit of scorning among sins: as few recover out of this sin as any whatever besides. The Scripture speaks of this sort of sinners as almost free among the dead; as little hope of doing them good for their souls as of those for their bodies who cannot keep the physic administered to them, but presently cast it up before it hath any operation on them; and therefore we are even bid to save our physic, and not so much as bestow a reproof on them, lest we have it cast on our faces: "reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee." Prov. ix. 7. All we can do is to write, "Lord, have mercy on them," upon their door: I mean, rather pray for them, than speak to them. There hath of old been this sort of sinners mingled amongst the godly. A mocking Ishmael, in Abraham's family. Gen. xxi. 9. And observable it is, what interpretation the Spirit of God makes of his scornful carriage towards his brother: "as then, he that was born after the flesh, persecuted him that was born after the Spirit; even so it is now." Gal. iv. 29. Pray mark, first, what was the ground of the quarrel: it was this, his brother was "born after the Spirit," and this he, being born after the flesh, hated. Secondly, observe how the Spirit of God phraseth this his scornful carriage to his brother, it is called persecuting him.

To aggravate the evil of a scornful spirit, and a mocking tongue, which stands for so little a sin in the world's account-book, who count none persecutors but those that draw blood for religion, God would have the jeerer and scoffer know among what sort of men he shall be ranked and tried at Christ's bar, no less sinners than persecutors. But this I conceive is not all: this mocking of holiness is called persecuting; because there is the seed of bloody persecution in it. They who are so free of their tongue to jeer, and shew their teeth in fleering at holiness, would fasten their teeth also on it, if they had power to use their cheek-bone. Lastly, observe this was not barely the cross disposition of Ishmael's personal, peevish, and froward

temper, so to abuse his brother, but it is laid as the charge of all wicked men: as he did persecute his brother, because after the Spirit, "even so it is now;" this mocking spirit ruus in the blood; the whole litter are alike; and if any seem more ingenuous and favourable to the holy ones of God, we must fetch the reason from some other head than their sinful natures. God rides some of them with a curb bit, who though they open not their hearts to Christ savingly, yet truth is got so far into them by a powerful conviction, that it makes conscience say to them, concerning their holy neighbours, what Pilate's wife by message said to her husband of Christ "Have thou nothing to do with these just men, for I have suffered much concerning them." Matt. xxvii. 19. But though there were ever mockers of holiness among the saints, because there were ever wicked to be their neighbours, yet the Spirit of God prophecieth of a sort of mockers to come upon the stage in the last days, that should differ from the ordinary scoffers that the people of God have been exercised with; and still the last is the worst. You know those who mock and jeer at holiness used to be men and women that pretend nothing to religion themselves, such as walk in an open defiance to God, and wallow in all manner of wickedness; but the Spirit of God tells us of a new gang, that shall mock at holiness under a colour of holiness; they shall be as horribly wicked, some of them, as the worst of the former sort were, but wicked in a mystery: "but, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; how that they told you, there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts." Jude ver. 17, 18. But mark, lest we should expect them at the wrong door, and so mistake, thinking they should arise as formerly from among the common swearers, drunkards, and other notorious sinners among us, he in the next words gives you as clear a character of them as if they carried their name on their forehead, ver. 19. "These be they who separate themselves, sensual, not having the Spirit." Learned master Perkins reads the words, thus, "These be sect-makers, fleshly," not having

the Spirit. Sect-makers! those that separate themselves! Do not our hearts tremble to see the mockers' arrows shot out at this window? These are they who pretend more to purity of worship than others, and profess they separate on conscience's account, because they cannot suffer themselves so much as to touch them that are unclean by joining with them in holy ordinances; and they mockers? they fleshly? Truly if the Spirit of God had not told us this, we should have gone last into their tent, as Laban did into Rachel's, as least suspecting that any mocker of holiness could stay there; yea God forbid that we should lay it in general as the charge of all who have separated from communion in the public, many of whom, my conscience tells me, are lovers of holiness, and led, though out of their way, by the tenderness of their consciences, which, when God hath better enlightened, will bring them as fast back to their brethren as now it carrieth them from them. And truly I think it might give a great lift to the making of them think of a return, if they would but in their sad and serious thoughts consider how far many of those who went out from us with them are gone; even to mock at the holiness of those from whom once they parted, because they were not holy enough for their company. God, the searcher of hearts, knows I speak this with a sad heart; so that were they to come and join with us again in some ordinances, such scandal hath been given by them, that they who durst not join with us ought not as they are to be admitted by us. How many of those have you heard of that began with a separation from our assemblies, who mock at sabbaths, cast off family duties, indeed all prayer in secret by themselves, yea drink in those cursed opinions that make them speak scornfully of Christ the son of God himself, and the great truths of the Gospel, which are the foundation of all true holiness? so that now none are so great an object of their scorn as those who walk most close to the holy rule of the Gospel. Well, sirs, of what sort soever you are, whether atheistical mockers at holiness, or such as mock at true holiness in the disguise of a false one, take heed what you do, it is as much as your life is worth: "be

not deceived, God will not be mocked," nor suffer his grace to be mocked in his saints. You know how dearly that scoff did cost them, though but children, that spake it to the prophet: "go up thou bald-head, go up thou bald-head,” 2 Kings ii. 23. where they did not only revile him with that nickname of bald-head, but made a mock and jeer of Elijah's rapture into Heaven, as if they had said, You would make us believe your master is gone up to Heaven; why do not you go up after him, that we may be rid of both your companies at once? And we need not wonder that these children should rise to such a height of wickedness so soon, if you observe the place where they lived at, Bethel, which was most infamous for idolatry, and one of the two cities where Jeroboam did set up his calves, 1 Kings xii. 28. so that this seems but the natural language which they learnt, no doubt, from their idolatrous parents. God met with Michal also for despising her husband, merely upon a religious account, because he shewed a holy zeal for God, which her proud spirit, as many others since have done, thought it too mean and base for a king to do. Well, what's her punishment? "Therefore Michal, the daughter of Saul, had no child unto the day of her death." The service of God was too low for a king in her thoughts, therefore shall none come out of her womb to sit on the throne, or wear a crown. It is great wickedness to mock at the calamity of another. "He that mocks the poor, reproacheth his Maker." Prov. xvii. 5. yea to laugh at and triumph over a saint's sin is a heavy sin; so did some sons of Belial, when David fell into that sad temptation of adultery and murder, and they are indicted for blaspheming God upon that account; what then is it to mock one for his holiness? Sin carries some cause of shame, and gives naughty hearts an occasion to reproach him they see besmeared with that which is so inglorious and unbecoming, especially a saint. But holiness, this is honourable, and stamps dignity on the person that hath it. It is not only the nobility of the creature, but the honour of the most high God himself: so runs his title of honour; "who is like thee, glorious in holiness?" Exod. xv. 11. so that none can mock that but upon the

same account he must mock God infinitely more, because there is infinitely more of that holiness which he jeers at in the creature to be found in God than all the creatures, men and angels, in both worlds have among them. If you would contrive a way how to cast the greatest dishonour upon God possible, you could not hit on the like to this. The Romans, when they would put contempt upon any, and degrade them of their nobility, they commanded that their statues and portraitures, which were set up in their city or temples to their memory, should all be broken down. Every saint is a lively image of God, and the more holy the more like God; when thou therefore puttest scorn on them, and that for their holiness, now thou touchest God's honour nearly indeed; will nothing less content thee, but thou must deface that image of his which he hath erected with so much cost in his saints, on purpose that they might be a praise to him in the earth? Was it such horrible wickedness in those heathens "to cast fire into the sanctuary, and to break down the carved work thereof with axes and hammers?" Psal. lxxiv. 6, 7. of which the church makes her moan, ver. 10. "O God how long shall the adversary reproach? shall the enemy blaspheme thy name for ever?" What then is thy devilish malice, whose rage is spent, not on wood and stones, but the carved work of his Spirit, the grace and holiness of his living temples.

CHAP. XVI.

AN EXHORTATION TO THE SAINTS IN THREE BRANCHES.

Use 3. Thirdly, It may be for exhortation to the saints in several particulars. I shall only name three, because I have directed myself in the whole discourse chiefly to them.

First, Bless God, that hath furnished thee with this breast-plate; canst thou do less, when thou seest such multitudes on every hand slain before thy face by the