The cause and cure of ignorance, error, enmity, atheisme, prophanesse, &c., or, A most hopefull and speedy way to grace and salvation, by plucking up impediments by the roote reduced to explication, confirmation, application, tending to illumination, sanctification, devotion / by R. Younge ...

SECT. 31.

6. IT is their manner and property to nick-name the godly, as Ahab nick∣named Eliah, the troubler of Israel, 1 Kings 18.17. The wicked, Iob and David hy∣pocrites, Psalm 35.13.14. Iob 4.6. to 11. The Courtiers, Ieremiah an enemy to the Common-wealth of Israel. The Iewes, Paul a factions and seditious fellow, Acts 24.14. Yea, they tearmed all the Disci∣ples Sectaries, Schismatickes, subverters of the State, &c. 1 Cor. 4.9.10.

And the same Devill, who spake in A∣hab, and those wicked ones of old, now speaks in our loose Libertines, who nick∣name the conscionable, Puritanes, and seditious persons: For doe but examine who they be which cast these aspersions upon the godly, and you shall find, that the hand of Ioab, I mean the Devill, is in this businesse. Alas, poore soules! they are but set on by that subtile Serpent, as

Zebede was by her sonnes, Matth. 20.20. Mark. 10.35. It is but his heart in their lips.

And Satan hath ever found it infinite∣ly successfull, to give every vice a title, and every vertue a disgrace; for still hee hath found, that the rude and unstable multitude, onely look upon the vizard and out-side of things, which he pleaseth to put upon them, and so judge according to appearance, not righteous judgement.

Neither doth the Devill onely gain by fastning reproachfull nick-names upon the religious, but his servants gain too; much like the Thiefe, who meeting with a full purse, not onely takes it away, but returnes a stab: For in making vertue contemptible, and in depraving the god∣ly, they are at least upon even ground with them, if they have not the better: For were all the world ugly, deformity would be no monster. Among the My∣conians baldnesse is no unseemly thing, because all there are born bald: and here∣upon infamous persons love to mitigate their owne shame, with others discre∣dit. As AEsops Fox, when she had lost her taile, would have redeemed her shame, by perswading all her fellow-Foxes

to cut of theirs; yea, by despres∣sing the good, they may possibly get the start of them. Even Heliogabulus, that beastly monster, thought to make him∣s••••••e the sole God, and be only wor∣sh••••pped, by banishing all other Religions o••t of the World.

••••t let these depravers take heed, lest im••••••ting the fact of Censor Fulvius, wh•••• untiled Iunos Temple to cover his ow•••• house, they partake of the like judgement, run mad, and dye despairing▪

Notes

• 10. They use to nick-name the godly.
• It is the Devill that speakes in and by them.
• Nothig hath pro∣ved more successfull to Satan, then lies.
• Wicked men think to grace themselves by disgra∣cing the godly.