562 HOW TO DO GOOD TO MANY. conquer conscience and obedienceto God, lest his authority should be regarded above theirs; and Christ, is used by them as if he were an usurper, and- not their Sovereign, but were again to be taken fpr an enemy to Caesar; and their hatred to true ministers will be such as Paul’s accusers intimate, who said, “ He preached another king, one.JesuSi55 Wicked rulers will be tKe* capital .enemies to all that will be enemies to wickedness, and resolved to please God and save their souls; They will.not be obeyed under. God, but before him, nor served, by the. faithful servants of Christ, nor pleased but at the rate of men’s damnation, by displeasing God... All men love their like. The worst men, if flatterers, will seem the best to,them, and the best the worst and most intolerable; and church and state' is like to be written -by, their copy. O, what dreadful plagues have wicked rulers been to the world, and what a dismal case’do they continue the earth in.to .this day ! Not but that people, and especially priests, do contribute hereto, b.ut the cBief authors are men in greatest power. Five parts of six of the world at this day are heathens-and infidels.. And what’s, the cause?, Rulers will, not suffer the gospel to be pfeached to them.. The eastern Christians were all torn in pieces .by the .wickedness and contention of th,e governors of the state and church, banishing and murdering one another, so that, when the Turks invaded them, the promise of liberty to exercise their religion tempted them to make the less resistance, thinking they could riot be much worse than before. But the vulgar are so apt to follow the-rulers, that, ever since, the -most of the easterns are, apostatized from Christ; and turned to Mahometanism; though in those countries where the Turk alloweth the Christian people to have governors of their own, religion somewhat prospereth, yet where that privilege is denied them, and Turks only are their rulers,, it withereth away, and comes to almost nothing. Arid what keepeth out reformation, that is,, the primitive, simple Christianity, from the Popish countries that have.religion corrupted by human superfluities, but the seduction of priests, and tyranny of rulers, that will not endure the preaching of the gospel, and the opening/of the Scriptures to the people in a known tongue ? How much holy blood have Roman and Spanish inquisitors, and French and Irish murderers, and most other Popish rulers, to answer for? Even Walsh,-the Papist, in his Irish history, tells us all, out of Ketin and others; how commonly-, for ages., they lived there in the sin of: bloody wars, and.murders, yea, even when they professed great holiness- Wicked rulers are as the pikes in the,pond, which live, by devouring all about them. , It is Satan’s main design in the world to corrupt God’s two great ordinances of magistracy and ministry, and turn them both against Christ’s kingdom, and to de-
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