SERMOXS. 373 



the Prophet, ^Righteousness belongeth to thee, O 

 Lord, but unto us confusion of faces, as it is this 

 day, because of our manifold trespasses that we 

 have trespassed against thee. 



If yet it be expected I should be more parti- 

 cular, in assigning the very sins that have occa- 

 sioned this heavy judgment, it is a slippery place, 

 and hard to keep firm footing in it. The myste- 

 rious text of God's holy Providence (as I said 

 before) is dark and obscure ; and so much the 

 more, because there are so many interpreters, (for 

 though there be no infallible judge of the sense 

 of it, yet all fingers itch to be doing;) their 

 conjecture so various and full of contradiction, so 

 tincted and debauched with private prejudice, 

 that they do but rpstSxai/, wrest it unskilfully, as 

 they do the other holy text, convertunt in mentem 

 suam^ (as the Ethiopic turns that place in St. 

 Peter), torture, and torment it, till it confess their 

 own sense. As for the many spiteful and un- 

 righteous glosses upon the sad text of our pre- 

 sent calamity (on which every faction amongst 

 us hath a revelation, hath an interpretation;) I 

 will not mention, much less imitate them. '\ Justus 

 accusator sui, saith the wise man. It is a righte- 

 ous thing for every man to suspect himself, to 

 look first into the plague of his own heart, and to 

 be ready to say with the Disciples, Master, is it 

 not I? We are all over-apt to charge one another 

 foolishly enough; to take St. Peter's counsel, 



* 2 Peter, iii. 16. t Prov. xviii. 17. 



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