to shut their eyes upon their own guilt, and to please themselves
with such notions of deliverance from present troubles, as will
stand with that course of sin which is got into their families,
persons, and professions, and with a state of impenitence: But I
advise you to take heed of this.

2. Take heed in laying the cause of your troubles in the badness
of the temper of governors. I speak not now with reflection upon
any, excepting those concerned in this caution: God is the chief,
and has the hearts of all, even of the worst of men, in his hand.
Good tempered men have sometimes brought trouble; and bad tempered
men have sometimes brought enlargement to the churches of God:
Saul brought enlargement (1 Sam 14:28). David brought trouble (2
Sam 12:10). Ahab brought enlargement (1 Kings 21:29). Jehoshaphat
and Hezekiah did both sometimes bring trouble (2 Chron 19:2; 20:35;
32:25). Therefore, the good or bad tempers of men sway nothing
with God in this matter; they are the sins or repentances of his
people, that make the church either happy or miserable upon earth.

Take heed, I say therefore, of laying of the trouble of the church
of God at the doors of governors; especially at the doors of kings,
who seldom trouble churches of their own inclinations: (I say,
seldom; for some have done so, as Pharaoh:) But I say, lay not the
cause of your trouble there; for oftentimes they see with other
men's eyes, hear with other men's ears, and act and do by the
judgments of others: Thus did Saul, when he killed the priests of
the Lord (1 Sam 22:18); and thus did Darius, when he cast Daniel
into the lions' den (Dan 6:7). But rather labour to see the true
cause of trouble, which is sin; and to attain to a fitness to be
delivered out thence, and that is by repentance, and amendment