_Consid._ XVI. And your sin is aggravated, in that you hinder the good of those that you are offended with, and also provoke them to add sin to sin, and to be as furious and uncharitable as yourselves. If your neighbour be not faulty, why are you so displeased with him? If he be, why will you make him worse? Will you bring him to amendment by hatred or cruelty? Do you think one vice will cure another? Or is any man like to hearken to the counsel of an enemy? or to love the words of one that hateth him? Is malice and fierceness an attractive thing? Or rather is it not the way to drive men further from their duty, and into sin, by driving them from you who pretend to reform them by such unlikely, contrary means as these? And as you do your worst to harden them in their faults, and to make them hate whatever you would persuade them to; so at present you seek to kindle in their breasts the same fire of malice or passion which is kindled in yourselves. As love is the most effectual way to cause love; so passion is the most effectual cause of passion, and malice is the most effectual cause of malice, and hurting another is the powerfullest means to provoke him to hurt you again if he be able; and weak things are ofttimes able to do hurt, when injuries boil up their passions to the height, or make them desperate. If your sinful provocations fill him also with rage, and make him curse, or swear, or rail, or plot revenge, or do you a mischief, you are guilty of this sin, and have a hand in the damnation of his soul, as much as in you lieth.