keth sadly to the
English, and to our State, that rewarded the west country evil for good.
Ver. 14, 19, tell us how we should advise before we begin a war, and leave
no mean of composing difference and state unessayed. We did more in it
than the English, but not all we might have done. Ver. 15, with chap.
xviii. 5, is a dreadful sentence against the public judicatories, that all
their resolutions, papers, and practices, justify the wicked and ungodly
as honest faithful men, and condemn all approven faithful men, that cannot
go along in such courses, or were earnest to have them repent, as both
malignants and sectaries. Do they not pronounce all malignants friends,
and absolve them from the sentences and classes they stand under? And do
they not put the godly in their place? They relax the punishment of the
one, and impute transgression to the other, and so bring them under a law.
See Exod. xxiii. 7, Prov. xxiv. 24 , Isa. v. 23, and the 29th verse of
this chapter. It is not good to punish godly men, who have given constant
proof of their integrity, for abstaining from such a course, at least
having so much appearance of evil, that many distinctions will never make
the multitude to believe that we are walking according to former
principles, because their sense observes the quite contrary practices, &c.

Chap. xviii. 2, ("A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his
heart may discover itself") shows that if the present cause and course
were of God, and tended so much to his glory, fools or wicked men would
have no such delight in it. For they delight in nothing but what is
agreeable to their humour, to discover themselves, &c. Ver. 3 gives the
true reason, why our public judicatories and armies are so base and
contemptible, why contempt and shame is poured on them, because, "when the
wicked comes, then also comes contempt, and with the vile man reproach."
Ver. 13 "He that answereth a cause before he hears it, it is folly and
shame unto him." Many pass peremptory sentence upon the honest party in
the west before they hear all parties, and be thoroughly informed, and
this is a folly and shame to them. They hear the state and church, and
what they can say for their way, and indeed they seem just, because they
are first in with their cause, and they will not hear another. But he that
comes after will make inquiry, and discover those fallacies. Ver. 24
"There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother." A godly
nei