366 DIRECTIONS FOR GETTING AND KEEPING Had such that love to their poorest brethren, which thinketh no evil, and speaketh not evil, which " suffereth long and is kind, en- vietlenot, vauntethnot itself, is not puffed up, behaveth not itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, beareth all things, bélieveth all things, hopeth all things, endyreth all things " (1 Cor. xiii. 4, 5. 7. ;) hadwe more of this love, which covereth a multitude of infirmities, God would cover our infirmities the more, and tell us of them, and trouble us for them the less. To this sin I may add another, which is scarcely another, but partly the same with this, and partly its immediateeffect'; and that is, unpeaceablbnessand unquietness with those about us: this com- monly occasioneth God to make us asunpeaeeable and unquiet in ourselves. When people are so froward, and peevish, and trouble- some, that few can live in peace with them, either in family or neighborhood, except those that have little to do with them, or those that can humor them in all things, and have an extraordinary skill in smooth speaking, flattering or man-pleasing, so that neigh- bors, servants, children, and sometimes their own yoke-fellows, must be gone from them, and may not abide near them, as a man gets out from the way Of a wild beast, or a mad dog,or avoideth the flames of a raging fire ; is it any wonder if God give these people as little peace in their own spirits as they give to others? When people are so hard to be pleased, that nobody about them or near them can tell how to fit their humors ; neighbors cannot please them, servants cannot please them, husband or wife cannot please each other; every word is spoken amiss, and every thing done amiss to them; what wonder ifGod seem hard to be pleased, and as frequently offended with them? especially if their unpeacea- bleness trouble the church, and, in their turbulency and self-con- ceitedness; they break the peace thereof. Thus I have told you what sinsyou misst look after when you find your peace broken, and your conscience disquieted: search carefully lest some iniquity lie at the root. Some, I know, will think that it is an unseasonable discourse to a troubled conscience, to mind them so much of their sins, which they are apt to look at too much already. But to such I answer, either those sins are mortified and forsaken or not. If they be, then these are not the persons that I speak of, whose trouble is fed by continued sin ; but I shall speakmore to themanon. If not, then it seems for all their trouble ofconscience, sin is not sufficiently laid to heart yet. The chiefest thing,, therefore, that I intend in all this discourse, is this following advice to those that ufpn search do find themselves . guilty in any of these cases. ° As ever you would have peace of conscience, set yourselves presently against your sins. Anddonot either mistakingly cry out of one sore, when it is another that is
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