Life and Death of Mr. Badman | Page 9

I think, I should,
should I have intailed their punishment to their sins, and both to their
names, and so have turned them into the world.
3. Nor would I lay them under disgrace and contempt, which would, as
I think, unavoidably have happened unto them had I withall inserted
their Names.
As for those whose Names I mention, their crimes or Judgments were
manifest; publick almost as any thing of that nature that happeneth to
mortal men. Such therefore have published their own shame by their
sin, and God, his anger, by taking of open vengeance.
As Job sayes, God has strook them as wicked men in the open sight of
others, Job 34. 26. So that I cannot conceive, since their sin and
Judgment was so conspicuous, that my admonishing the world thereof,
should turn to their detriment: For the publishing of these things, are, so
far as Relation is concerned, intended for remembrancers: That they
may also bethink themselves, repent and turn to God, lest the
Judgments for their sins should prove hereditary. For the God of
Heaven hath threatned to visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the
children, if they hate him, to the third and fourth generation, Exod. 20.
5.
Nebuchadnezzars punishment for his pride being open, (for he was for
his sin, driven from his Kingly dignity, and from among men too, to eat
grass like an Ox, and to company with the beasts,) Daniel did not stick
to tell Belshazzar his son to his face thereof; nor to publish it that it
might be read and remembred by the generations to come. The same

may be said of Judas and Ananias, &c. for their sin and punishment
were known to all the dwellers at Jerusalem, Acts 1. Chap. 5.
Nor is it a sign but of desperate impenitence and hardness of heart,
when the offspring or relations of those who have fallen by open,
fearfull and prodigious Judgments, for their sin, shall overlook, forget,
pass by, or take no notice of such high outgoings of God against them
and their house. Thus Daniel aggravates Belshazzars crime, for that he
hardened his heart in pride, though he knew that for that very sin and
transgression his father was brought down from his height, and made to
be a companion for Asses. And thou his son, O Belshazzar, sayes he,
hast not humbled thy heart, though thou knewest all this. Dan. 5. A
home reproof indeed, but home is most fit for an open and continued-in
transgression.
Let those then that are the Offspring or relations of such, who by their
own sin, and the dreadfull Judgments of God, are made to become a
sign, (Deut. 16. 9, 10.) having been swept, as dung, from off the face of
the earth, beware, lest when Judgment knocks at their door, for their
sins, as it did before at the door of their Pregenitors, it falls also with as
heavy a stroak as on them that went before them: Lest, I say, they in
that day, instead of finding mercy, find for their high, daring, and
Judgment- affronting-sins, Judgment without mercy.
To conclude, let those that would not dye Mr. Badmans death, take
heed of Mr. Badmans wayes: for his wayes bring to his end;
Wickedness will not deliver him that is given to it; though they should
cloak all with a Profession of Religion.
If it was a transgression of Old, for a man to wear a Womans Apparel,
surely it is a transgression now for a sinner to wear a Christian
Profession for a Cloak. Wolves in Sheeps Cloathing swarm in England
this day: Wolves both as to Doctrine, and as to Practice too. Some men
make a Profession, I doubt, on purpose that they may twist themselves
into a Trade; and thence into an Estate; yea, and if need be, into an
Estate Knavishly, by the ruins of their Neighbour: let such take heed,
for those that do such things have the greater damnation.

Christian, make thy Profession shine by a Conversation according to
the Gospel: Or else thou wilt damnifie Religion, bring scandal to thy
Brethren, and give offence to the Enemies; and 'twould be better that a
Millstone was hanged about thy neck, and that thou, as so adorned,
wast cast into the bottom of the Sea, than so to do.
Christian, a Profession according to the Gospel, is, in these dayes, a
rare thing; seek then after it, put it on, and keep it without spot; and (as
becomes thee) white, and clean, and thou shalt be a rare Christian.
The Prophecy of the last times is, that professing men (for so I
understand the Text) s[h]all be, many of them, base; (2 Tim. 3.) but
continue thou in the things that