HKB
like kind, but laying aside all evil affections, be guided solely by your zeal for the service of God, moderated by his Spirit according to the rule of his word.
You have besides to consider, that these things have not thus fallen out without the dispensation of the Lord, who carries forward his purposes even by means of the wicked, according to the good pleasure of his own will. Now, that thought will turn you away from the pursuit of your enemies, to consider and look into yourselves, and so to consider, that you may acknowledge that you have well deserved on your part to receive such a visitation, to chastise your negligence, your contempt, or even your careless slighting of the word of God which you had among you; your slothfulness in following and rendering to him a strict obedience. For you cannot excuse yourselves from having committed many faults; and how easy soever you may think it, to justify yourselves in some degree before men, nevertheless before God, your conscience must yet feel burdened and chargeable. The servants of God have so demeaned themselves in their tribulations, that is to say, from whatever direction their trials came they have ever turned their thoughts to the hand of God and to their own sins, acknowledging the cause to be discoverable in themselves, and to afford quite sufficient reason why the Lord should so afflict them. Daniel understood well what had been the perverseness of the King of Babylon in his destruction and scattering of the people of God merely to satisfy his avarice, arrogance, and cruelty; what also had been his iniquity in unjustly oppressing them. Yet nevertheless, seeing that the first cause lay wholly in themselves, inasmuch as the Babylonians could do nought against them unless by the Lord's permission, that he might follow and duly observe a right order, Daniel begins first with the confession of his own faults, and then those of the kings and of the people of Israel. If the prophet humbled himself in this manner, bethink yourselves what far greater occasion you have; and if it was necessary for him to do so in order to obtain the mercy of God, what purblind folly would it be in you to stand still and engage in the accusation of your enemies without any acknowledgment of your own faults, which far surpass, by many degrees of ascent, those of the holy Seer?