and keep peace. As a contentious turbulent person would inflame a whole
country and put them by the ears, so a person, though not contentious in
his own nature, yet having many contentious interests following him, which
he will not quit, or commit to God's providence, as our king was. O it is
the destruction of a nation to have such a person among them. He hath
broken the peace of two kingdoms. Verses 23, 24, 25, 26. Burning lips, hot
and great words of love and friendship, and a wicked heart revenging its
enmity, and minding nothing less than what is spoken, is like a potsherd,
a drossy piece covered over with the fairding(402) of hypocrisy, or, like
a sepulchre garnished and painted, he dissembles and speaks vanity, and
flatters. Psal. xii. 3. But he lays up his wicked purposes close within
him till a time of venting them. Therefore when he speaks so fair and
courteously, be not confident of him, trust him not too far till thou have
proof of his reality. Put not thyself and thy dearest interests into his
mercy. This is wisdom, and not want of charity, Jer. xii. 6; Micah vii. 5.
Cain, Joab, and Judas, are proofs of this. It may be covered a time, but
not long. _Naturam expellas furca licet, usque recurret_.(403) All the
world shall be witness of it, Psal. cxxv. So then, (ver 21.) the
calumniator and false accuser, who openly professes his hatred and malice,
and the flatterer that seems to be moved with love, both of them produce
one effect, viz., ruin and calamity.

Chap. xxvii. 3, 4. "A stone is heavy, and the sand weighty, but a fool's
wrath is heavier than them both," &c. We see what we may expect of the
enraged, exasperated malignant party. Their wrath against all the godly,
for their faithful secluding and purging them out of places of trust, is
weighty and insupportable like the sand of the sea. It will crush them
under it if God support not. It is like a swelling river, or a high spring
tide, it goes over all banks, since the state and church have drawn the
sluice and let it out. But when it is joined with envy and malice, against
godliness and piety itself, who can stand before that? No means can quench
that heat. Ver. 6: Faithful men's reproofs, remonstrances, and warnings,
applied in love and compassion, are better than an enemy's kisses and
flatteries, than his oils and ointments are. Therefore we would pray
against the one, and for the other, that God would smite us with the mouth
of the righteous, but keep