CHAPTER IV.
[HE GETS A NEW MASTER BAD AS HIMSELF.]
WISE. Why, to one of his own trade, and also like himself. Thus the wicked joined hand in hand, and there he served out his time.
ATTEN. Then, sure, he had his heart's desire when he was with one so like himself.
WISE. Yes, so he had, but God gave it him in his anger.
ATTEN. How do you mean?
WISE. I mean as before, that for a wicked man to be by the providence of God turned out of a good man's doors, into a wicked man's house to dwell, is a sign of the anger of God. For God by this, and such judgments, says thus to such an one. Thou wicked one, thou lovest not me, my ways, nor my people; thou castest my law and good counsel behind thy back. Come, I will dispose of thee in my wrath; thou shalt be turned over to the ungodly, thou shalt be put to school to the devil, I will leave thee to sink and swim in sin, till I shall visit thee with death and judgment. This was, therefore, another judgment that did come upon this young Badman.
ATTEN. You have said the truth, for God by such a judgment as this, in effect says so indeed; for he take them out of the hand of the just, and binds them up in the hand of the wicked, and whither they then shall be carried a man may easily imagine.
WISE. It is one of the saddest tokens of God's anger that happens to such kind of persons: and that for several reasons. 1. Such a one, by this judgment, is put out of the way, and from under the means which ordinarily are made use of to do good to the soul. For a family, where godliness is professed, and practised, is God's ordinance, the place which he has appointed to teach young ones the way and fear of God (Gen 18:18,19). Now, to be put out of such a family, into a bad, a wicked one, as Mr. Badman was, must needs be in judgment, and a sign of the anger of God. For in ungodly families men learn to forget God, to hate goodness, and to estrange themselves from the ways of those that are good.[30] 2. In bad families they have continually fresh examples, and also incitements to evil, and fresh encouragements to it too. Yea, moreover, in such places evil is commended, praised, well-spoken of, and they that do it are applauded; and this, to be sure, is a drowning judgment. 3. Such places are the very haunts and walks of the infernal spirits, who are continually poisoning the cogitations and minds of one or other in such families, that they may be able to poison others. Therefore observe it, usually in wicked families, some one or two are more arch for wickedness than are any other that are there. Now such are Satan's conduit pipes, for by them he conveys of the spawn of hell, through their being crafty in wickedness, into the ears and souls of their companions. Yea, and when they have once conceived wickedness, they travail with it, as doth a woman with child, till they have brought it forth; 'Behold, he travaileth with iniquity, and hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood' (Psa 7:14). Some men, as here is intimated in the text, and as was hinted also before, have a kind of mystical but hellish copulation with the devil, who is the father, and their soul the mother of sin and wickedness; and they, so soon as they have conceived by him, finish, by bringing forth sin, both it and their own damnation (James 1:15).
ATTEN. How much then doth it concern those parents that love their children, to see, that if they go from them, they be put into such families as be good, that they may learn there betimes to eschew evil, and to follow that which is good!