Re: Piratemasters1

[Piratemasters1]

forbear the executions of his
wrath, or in the least lighten his hand; there shall be no moderation or
mercy, nor will God then at all stay his rough wind; he will have no
regard to your welfare, nor be at all careful lest you should suffer too
much in any other sense, than only that you shall not suffer beyond what
strict justice requires. Nothing shall be withheld, because it is so
hard for you to bear. Ezek. 8:18. "Therefore will I also deal in fury:
mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity; and though they cry
in mine ears with a loud voice, yet I will not hear them." Now God
stands ready to pity you; this is a day of mercy; you may cry now with
some encouragement of obtaining mercy. But when once the day of mercy is
past, your most lamentable and dolorous cries and shrieks will be in
vain; you will be wholly lost and thrown away of God, as to any regard
to your welfare. God will have no other use to put you to, but to suffer
misery; you shall be continued in being to no other end; for you will be
a vessel of wrath fitted to destruction; and there will be no other use
of this vessel, but to be filled full of wrath. God will be so far from
pitying you when you cry to him, that it is said he will only "laugh and
mock," Prov. 1:25,26,&c.

How awful are those words, Isa. 63:3, which are the words of the great
God. "I will tread them in mine anger, and will trample them in my fury,
and their blood shall be sp

[Piratemasters1]

and Aristotle in grand academic robes. They
were honest men, like others, laughing with their friends, and, when they
diverted themselves with writing their Laws and the Politics, they did it as
an amusement. That part of their life was the least philosophic and the
least serious; the most philosophic was to live simply and quietly. If they
wrote on politics, it was as if laying down rules for a lunatic asylum; and
if they presented the appearance of speaking of a great matter, it was
because they knew that the madmen, to whom they spoke, thought they were
kings and emperors. They entered into their principles in order to make
their madness as little harmful as possible.

332. Tyranny consists in the desire of universal power beyond its scope.

There are different assemblies of the strong, the fair, the sensible, the
pious, in which each man rules at home, not elsewhere. And sometimes they
meet, and the strong and the fair foolishly fight as to who shall be master,
for their mastery is of different kinds. They do not understand one another,
and their fault is the desire to rule everywhere. Nothing can effect this,
not even might, which is of no use in the kingdom of the wise, and is only
mistress of external action