XI. BEWARE.

I SAW a cannon shot off. The men at whom it was levelled fell flat on the ground, and so escaped the bullet. Against such blows, falling is all the fencing, and prostration all the armour of proof.

But that which gave them notice to fall down, was their perceiving of the fire before the ordnance was discharged. O the mercy of that fire! which, as it were, repenting of the mischief it had done, and the murder it might make, ran a race, and outstript the bullet, that men (at the sight thereof) might be provided, when they could not resist, to prevent it. Thus every murdering piece is also a warning piece against itself.

God, in like manner, warns before he wounds; frights before he fights. Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be destroyed. O let us fall down before the Lord our maker; then shall his anger be pleased to make in us a daily passover, and his bullets, levelled at us, shall fly above us.