VERSE I. Faffe love48 beg enmity to ChiVI.' no realon to boaaof their decent (as theirmanner was; Luke 3.8. lob. 8. 39. ) or to thinke that Gods mercies were entail'd unto them, fince, by their owne conic& on, they were the pofteritie of thole that had killed the Prophets; and lecondly,that they did fulfill the mea- lure ofcheir Fathers,that is,that which their Fathers had beene longand leafurely a doing, they nowdid altoge- ther in one blow; for it was the fame Chriti whom they perfectited in his perfon,and their fathers it his Prophets; and therefore though they feerned to honour and revive thememoryofthote holy martyra,yet upon them thould light the guilt ofall the righteous blondwhich had-ever beene fhed in the Land, inafmuch as their malice was directed againfi that fulneffe, of which all the Prophets had but a meathre : If by feverall enemies a man be le- verally mangled,onecuts offa foot,another an hand,an- other an arme, and after all this, there come one who cuts off thehead,and yet beilows force honourable ce- remonies upon thole members which the tell had abn- fed, he (hall ju flly friffer as if he had flaine a whole man, inafinuch as his malice did eminently containe in it the degrees ofall the rell, and that pretended honour (hall be fo far from compenfating the injury, that it [hall adde thereuntoanaggravation of bate hypocrifie. Thus, as the ferres,,w hen they thought they did honour and ad- mire the Prophets, did yet harbour in their breas that very root of tury, andhad that felfe-fame conflitution of foule, which was in their fore-fathers who fhed their blond : fo in our dayes, men may fay and thinke that they love Chria, and court himwith muchout-fide and emprie fervice, may boaa that if they had lived in the dayes of thole unthankfull /ewes, they wouldnot have partaked with them in foexecrable a murther, and yet interpretatively and at fecondhand thew the very fame root of bitterneffe, and rancorous conflitution of heart againil him in his Spirit and ordinances which was, in thole
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