BY forbidding us to meddle with them that are given to change, King _Solomon_ would restrain us, not only from acting in concert with them, and assisting them in carrying on their mischievous designs; but also from engaging in friendship and familiarity, or any unnecessary correspondence with them.
IT is no easy matter, to converse much with men of a factious and turbulent spirit, without being infected by them. The best way to preserve ourselves, both from their crime and their punishmenr, is to keep at a distance from them. And this I take to be the true meaning of the wise man's advice, in the xxii. Chapter of this book of _Proverbs_, at the 24th, and 25th verses, _Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious man thou shalt not go. Lest thou learn his ways, and get a snare to thy soul._ By often hearkening to the plausible discourses of seditious persons, utter'd with a seeming concern for the publick welfare, many come at length to approve of them, and highly to esteem those who make them, for their great understanding, and honesty, and disinterested zeal for the good of their country; and to believe that their governours are not so good as they ought to be, and that some changes for the better are both possible and needful. And they who have got thus far, will be too apt to be prevailed upon, to take some unlawful steps towards the reforming of supposed disorders, without imagining what purposes they are serving, and how far their leaders intend to carry them. And when men are once engaged, they themselves cannot tell where they shall stop. One wickedness may introduce them to another, till they become principal actors in the execution of designs, with which they could not have been safely trusted at their first setting out.
PUT the case, that the main secret when revealed to them should displease them; yet after a considerable progress in unlawful courses, it will be very difficult for them to retreat. The shame of acknowledging themselves to have been in the wrong, the apprehension of being reproached for deserting their companions, and the fear of suffering punishment for having accompanied them so far, will be strong temptations to them to proceed farther against the bent of their own inclinations, and the convictions of their consciences.