_Direct._ VI. Think what a foolish, audacious thing it is to set yourselves against your God and Judge. Will you accuse him of evil, because men do evil? Are you fit to judge him? Are guilty worms either wise or just enough for such an attempt, or strong enough to bear it out? What do you but set your faces against heaven, and profess rebellion against God, when you blame his laws and government, and think the obeying and serving him to be evil?
_Direct._ VII. Consider what cruelty it is to yourselves, to turn the faults of others to your ruin, which should be your warning to avoid the like. If another man sin, will you not only do so too, but be the more averse to repentance and reformation? Will you cut your throat, because another cut his finger, or did so before you? Why should you do yourselves such mischief?
_Direct._ VIII. Remember that this was the design of the devil in tempting religious people to sin, not only to destroy them, but to undo you and others by their falls. If he can make you think the worse of religion, he hath his design and will; he hath killed many at a blow. Yea, perhaps the sinner may repent, and be forgiven, when you that are driven from repentance and godliness by the scandal, may be damned. And will you so far gratify the devil, in the wilful destruction of yourselves? Sin is contagious; and this is your catching of the infection, if it prevail to drive you further from God. And thus this plague devoureth multitudes.
_Direct._ IX. He that will think ill of godliness for men's sins, shall never want occasion of such offence, nor such temptations to fly from God. If you are so foolish or malignant, as to pick quarrels with God and godliness for men's faults, (which nothing but God and godliness can reform,) you may set up your standard of defiance against heaven, and see what you will get by it in the end. For God will not remove all occasion of your scandal. There ever have been and will be hypocrites in the church on earth. Noah's ark had a Ham; Abraham's family had an Ishmael, and Isaac's an Esau, and David's an Absalom, and Christ's a Judas. The falls of good men are cited in Scripture, to admonish you to take heed. Noah, Lot, David, Joseph's brethren, &c. have left a mark behind them where they fell, that you may take a safer way. If you will make all such the occasion of your malignity, you turn your medicine into your poison, and choose hell because some others choose it, or because some stumbled in the way to heaven.