It is right and holy therefore, men and breth-
ren, rather to obey God than to follow those
who, through pride and sedition, have become the
leaders of a detestable emulation. For we shall
incur no slight injury, but rather great danger,
if we rashly yield ourselves to the inclinations
of men who aim at exciting strife and tumults, so
as to draw us away from what is good. Let us
be kind one to another after the pattern of the
tender mercy and benignity of our Creator. For
it is written, " The kind-hearted shall inhabit the
land, and the guiltless shall be left upon it, but
transgressors shall be destroyed from off the face
of it." '° And again [the Scripture] saith, " I
saw the ungodly highly exalted, and lifted up
like the cedars of Lebanon : I passed by, and,
behold, he was not ; and I diligently sought his
place, and could not find it. Preserve inno-
cence, and look on equity : for there shall be a
remnant to the peaceful man." "