nemy blaspheme thy name, for ever? They gather them
together against the soul of the Righteous, and condemn the innocent
blood. Lo these are the ungodly, these prosper in the World, and these
have riches in possession: And I said, then have I cleansed my heart in
vain, and washed my hands in innocency. Yea, and I had almost said as
they; but lo, then I should have condemned the generation of thy Children.
Then thought I to understand this, but it was too hard for me, untill I
went into the Sanctuary of God; then understood I the end of these Men.
Namely, how thou dost set them in slippery places, castest them down and
destroyest them._

* * * * *

_O how suddenly do they consume, perish, and come to a fearfull end!_

We have seen it, indeed _Sir_, we have seen it, and we cannot but
acknowledge it the very finger of God, _mirabile in oculis nostris_; and
is that, truly, which even constrains me out of Charity to your Soul, as
well as out of a deep sense of your Honour, and the Friendship which I
otherwise bear you, to beseech you to re-enter into your self, to abandon
those false Principles, to withdraw your self from these Seducers, to
repent of what you have done, _and save your self from this untoward
Generation_: There is yet a door of Repentance open, do not provoke the
Majesty of the great God any longer, which yet tenders a Reconciliation
to you. Remember what was once said over the perishing _Jerusalem_. _How
often would I have gathered you together, as a hen doth gather her brood
under her winge, and ye would not? Behold, your _House_ is left unto you
desolate._--For do not think it impossible, that we should become the most
abandon'd, and barbarous of all the nations under heaven. You know who has
said it: _He turneth a fruitfull land into a Wildernesse, for the iniquity
of them that inhabit therein._ And truly, he that shall seriously consider
the sad _Catastrophe_ of the _Eastern Empire_, so flourishing in piety,
policy, knowledg, literature, and all the excellencies of a happy and
blessed people; would almost think it impossible, that in so few years,
and a midst so glorious a light of learning and Religion, so suddain, and
palpable a darknesse, so strange and horrid a barbarity should over-spread
them, as now we behold in all that goodly tract of the _Turkish_
dominions: And what was the cause of all this, but the giddinesse of a
wanton people, the Schisms and the Heresie