Section 378
of these wicked persons, and go not in the way of these evil men; avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away: for their house inclineth unto death, and their paths unto the dead. None (at least few) that go unto them, return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life.
If any despise our Lord's prescription, and do otherwise, let neither himself nor others wonder, if, as a just punishment of this presumptuous contempt, he be left and caught into the snare. O fear this infatuation, which hath overtaken so many to that height, that they wrangle and wrest, without a blush, the word of life, and the scriptures holding forth the plain pathway of salvation, to their own perdition; yea, and as persons sick of an hydrophoby, fear only and flee from the proper remedy. O beware, lest, while you see such a doleful and so amazing a spectacle and document of divine displeasure before your eyes, you also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness: but labour to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; and then it is impossible not to grow in an abhorrence at name and thing of this abomination, which his soul hateth, as the most pure and perfect opposition to that salvation which is in Christ Jesus, and the most explicit and plain attempt against the pleasure of the Lord's prospering in the Mediator's hand, and his seeing of the travail of his soul and being satisfied, that ever Satan made or managed by any mortal. But I have possibly exceeded the just limits of a postscript; and therefore, committing thee to the guarding and guidings of his grace, who is of power to establish thee, and keep thee from falling, and present thee faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, I here submit.