Then thought I to understand this, but it was too hard for me, untill I
went into the Sanctuary of God; then understood I the end of these Men.
Namely, how thou dost set them in slippery places, castest them down and
destroyest them._

* * * * *

_O how suddenly do they consume, perish, and come to a fearfull end!_

We have seen it, indeed _Sir_, we have seen it, and we cannot but
acknowledge it the very finger of God, _mirabile in oculis nostris_; and
is that, truly, which even constrains me out of Charity to your Soul, as
well as out of a deep sense of your Honour, and the Friendship which I
otherwise bear you, to beseech you to re-enter into your self, to abandon
those false Principles, to withdraw your self from these Seducers, to
repent of what you have done, _and save your self from this untoward
Generation_: There is yet a door of Repentance open, do not provoke the
Majesty of the great God any longer, which yet tenders a Reconciliation
to you. Remember what was once said over the perishing _Jerusalem_. _How
often would I have gathered you together, as a hen doth gather her brood
under her winge, and ye would not? Behold, your _House_ is left unto you
desolate._--For do not think it impossible, that we should become the most
abandon'd, and barbarous of all the nations under heaven. You know who has
said it: _He turneth a fruitfull land into a Wildernesse, for the iniquity
of them that inhabit therein._ And truly, he that shall seriously consider
the sad _Catastrophe_ of the _Eastern Empire_, so flourishing in piety,
policy, knowledg, literature, and all the excellencies of a happy and
blessed people; would almost think it impossible, that in so few years,
and a midst so glorious a light of learning and Religion, so suddain, and
palpable a darknesse, so strange and horrid a barbarity should over-spread