ooking what is behind us.

3. It is of all considerations the most confounding, to reflect upon our
former humiliations and fasts. How often hath it been confessed to God, as
the predominant public sin of Scotland, countenancing and employing the
malignant party? But when we call particularly to mind the first solemn
fast after the defeat at Dunbar, astonishment takes hold on us, to think,
that is now defended as a duty, which, but some months ago, was solemnly
confessed as a sin. The not purging of the army, the obstructing of that
work, and great inclinations to keep in and fetch in such persons, and the
repining at, and crying out against all that was done in the contrary,
were then reckoned as the great causes of God's wrath, and his sad stroke
upon us. What distraction may this breed in the hearts of the people of
the land to hear that same thing complained of as a great sin to day, and
commended as a necessary duty to morrow? Is not all the land presently
called to mourn for the king's sins, of which this is one, the designing a
conjunction with the malignant party, and giving them warrant to rise in
arms for the defence of the kingdom? Now, how shall they be able to
reconcile these in their own minds,--at the same time to mourn for that as
a sin in the king, which they hear commended as the duty of the
parliament--to fast to day for that as the king's sin, which they must go
about to morrow as their own duty? "Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in
Askelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice." Heathens may rise
in judgment against this generation _Semper idem velle atque idem nolle
haec demum sapientia est._(364) If any wise man be _ubique et semper sibi
par et idem_,(365) what ought a godly man to be?

Fourth Reason. That which is an uncertain mean of preservation of the
kingdom, and a more certain mean of destruction of religion, is utterly
unlawful. But the employing and intrusting of all men promiscuously,
according as is holden out in the public resolutions, is at best an
uncertain mean of the preservation of the kingdom, and is a more certain
mean of the destruction of religion. _Ergo_, It is utterly unlawful. The
first proposition cannot be denied. When any less good comes in opposition
with a greater good, the lesser good in that respect becomes evil. We may
not endanger certainly a greater good for the probable and uncertain
attainment of the lesser. The second proposition I know will be denied