doing, notwithstanding all discouragements that befall them? Right
2. Secondly, Is it so, that upright hearts will hold on in the ways of welldoing, notwithstanding all discouragements that befall them? Right Honourable, let me then exhort you first more particularly, and then more generally, to hold on in the ways of well-doing, notwithstanding all the afflictions, troubles, and discouragements you may meet with. You have begun to fall upon the execution of justice, which is a way wherein God delights to walk, and wherein he delights to see those that are in authority to walk impartially. I shall press this particularly, and then press the point more generally, both upon yourselves and all that hear me.
Now, Right Honourable, in this labour to hold on, you have begun in the Spirit—as to that point—do not end in the flesh, but hold on in the way of well-doing. Justice is called by Aristotle, Hesperus, the glorious star: by another, the sun of the world. Oh let this glorious sun so shine forth, that the best of men may rejoice, and the worst of men may tremble. Take to yourselves, Right Honourable, the glorious resolution of Jerome, who once expressed himself thus: 'If my father should stand before me, and my brethren press about me, and my mother hang upon me, I would throw down my father, and break through my brethren, and trample upon my mother, to cleave to Jesus Christ.' O Right Honourable, take glorious resolutions to yourselves. Though your fathers may stand before you, and your brethren and friends press about you, though your mothers should hang on you, I mean the nearest relations, throw down the one, and break through the other, and trample upon the third, that your souls may cleave to the way of God, to the ways of justice and righteousness. You know the rule is, Fiat justitia et ruat mundus, Let justice be done, though the world be ruined. And that is a true saying, Odia qui nimium timet regnare nescit. Oh that upon every worthy member's heart and forehead that which once Chrysostom spake of himself might be written, Nil nisi peccatum timeo, I fear nothing but sin. Oh that this were every member's motto, I fear nothing but sin. I fear not the threats, the rage, the fury, nor the designs and plots of men that are turned into devils: I fear nothing but sin.