the wisest Physician that can do most to save mens lives and not he that can best read a Lecture of Anatomy or is readiest in the terms of his Art Knowledg is to be esteemed according to the use of it and the Dignity of its Object and not according to the number and subtilty of notions And therefore I beseech you all that are young and weak in the Faith take much more pains to grow in the fuller acquaintance with that same Faith which you have received than to be acquainted with smaller controversal Truths which you never knew Men use to call these Higher points because they are more difficult but certainly the Articles of your Faith are much higher in point of excellency though they are lower in the due order of learning them as the Foundation is the lowest part of the building and is first laid but is that which must bear up all the rest And here you must observe how gracelesly and unlike to Christians those men speak that say They care not for reading such a Book or hearing such or such a Minister because he tells them no more than they know already And on that account some of them stay from Church because they hear nothing but what they know already It s a certain sign that they do not know already the blessed nature of God and the riches of Christ which they say they know For if they did they could not hear or think too much of them They would long to know more and therefore to hear more of the same things It 's a sign the Minister takes the course that tends to your edification and enriching in knowledg when he is most upon the great and most necessary truths All Saints do make it their study to comprehend the heighth and breadth and length and depth and know the Love of God in Christ but when they have done they confess that it passeth knowledg Eph. 3.17 18 19. It s a graceless wicked Soul in a state of damnation that conceits he knows so much of God and Jesus Christ and the essentials of Christianity that he cares not for hearing these things any more but had rather have novelties and let these alone and feeleth not need of knowing much more and more of the same truths and of using and living upon these vital Principles which he knows You have eaten Bread and drank Beer an hundred times but perhaps you never did eat of Sturgeon or Whale of a Bear or a Leopard of Chesnuts or Pig-nuts or many strange and dangerous fruits in all your life And yet I hope you will not seek after these because they are novelties and give over eating Bread because you have eaten of it already Nor will you churlishly refuse to go to a Feast because there is no meat but what you have eaten of before We have not a new God to Preach to you nor a new Christ nor a new Spirit nor a new Gospel nor a new Church nor a new Faith nor a new Baptismal Covenant nor a new Heaven or Hope or Happiness to propound Gal. 1.9 10. Eph. 4.3 4 5. Your growth in methods and definitions and distinctions and in additional points of knowledg is principally to be valued as it cleareth your understandings in the foresaid great essential points and brings you up to God himself Some wretches think they have quickly learned past the essential Articles of the Faith and ere long they are past the higher points and shortly they are past the Scripture it self and throw it by as a Schollar that hath learnt one Book and must be entred into another They understand not that the Ministry and spirit are but to teach them the word of the Gospel but they think they must outgrow the Word and Ministry and the Spirit must teach them some other Doctrine or Gospel which the written Word doth not contain I pray mark the Apostles warning Heb. 13.9 Be not carryed about with divers and strange Doctrines for it is a good thing that the heart be stablished with Grace And Eph. 4.14 That we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carryed about with every mind of Doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness II. Having shewed you wherein your growth consisteth in the understanding I shall be short in the rest and next I must tell you wherein it consisteth in the Will And that is 1. When upon good understanding and deep consideration you are more fixedly habitually absolutely and practically resolved for God and Glory than before So that you are grown more beyond all shaking doubtfulness or wavering of mind and beyond all unevenness mutability and unconstancy When a man is thus satisfied that none but God hath title to him or can make him happy and that none but Christ can reconcile him to God and that it were a madness to make any other choice and thereupon is setled and firm as Mount Zion and say Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none on earth that I desire besides thee Psal. 73.25 When you are firmly resolved that let God do with you what he will and come of it what will you will never choose another Master or Saviour or Rule or Happiness or Way or Body than you are in and will never forsake the path of holiness this is the fixed stability of the Will and the more of this the more you grow 2. And when you have the lowest esteem of the Creatures and greatest and most resolved aversness to all that would draw you from God and can meet the greatest worldly or fleshly allurements with a holy contempt this shews a setled confirmed Will 3. And also when you are speedy in holy Resolutions and see nothing in a Temptation how great soever that can make you demur upon it or make a stop in a Christian course but go on to duty as if the Tempter had said nothing to you and the Flesh and the World had no interest in you and you do not so much as stand to think on it whether you should yield to sin or not as abhorring to call such a matter into question This shews a confirmed fixed Will And the more of this the more of Holiness III. The strength and growth of holy Affections consisteth principally in these particulars 1. When the Affections are Lively and not dull so that we make out after God and Heaven with vigor and alacrity 2. When they are ready at hand and not to seek and need not a great deal ado to quicken them or call them in 3. When they are most pure and unmixed having least of the Creature and most of God in them 4. But principally and the surest point to try them by when they contain in them or accompany the foresaid Confirmation and Resolvedness of the Will For it is more the Willingness that is in or with our Affections than the heat of them that we must judg them by 5. And lastly when
Mind and used by it And as interposed matter or defective application may cause the Image on the Wax to be imperfect though made by the most perfect Seal so is it in this case when one man doth defectively understand the Scripture-description of a godly man or Christian and another by misunderstanding mixeth false conceptions of his own and another by a corrupt depraved will doth hinder the understanding from believing or remembring or considering and using what it partly apprehendeth what wonder if the Godliness and Christianity in their hearts be unlike the Godliness and Christianity in the Scriptures When the Law of God in Nature and Scripture is pure and uncorrupt and the Law of God written imperfectly on the heart is there mixt with the carnal Law in their members no marvel if it be expressed accordingly in their lives I have therefore much endeavoured in all my writings and especially in this to draw out the full pourtraiture of a Christian or godly man indeed and to describe Gods Image on the soul of man in such a manner as tendeth to the just information of the Readers mind and the filling up of the wants and rectifying the errors which may be found in his former conceptions of it And I do purposely inculcate the same things oft in several writings as when I preached I did in all my Sermons that the Reader may find that I bring him not undigested needless novelties and that the frequent repetition of them may help to make the deeper and fuller impression For my work is to subserve the Holy Ghost in putting Gods Law into mens hearts and writing it out truly clearly and fully upon their inward parts that they may be made such themselves by understanding throughly what they must be and what a solid Christian is And that thus they may be born again by the incorruptible immortal seed the Word of God which will live and abide for ever and may purifie their souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit 1 Pet. 1.22 23 25. He is the best Lawyer Physician Souldier c. who hath his Doctrine in his brain and not only in his Books and hath digested his reading into an intellectual systeme and habit of knowledge If Ministers had an hundred times over repeated the integral pourtraiture or character of a sound Christian till it had been as familiar to the minds and memories of their hearers as is the description of a Magistrate a Physician a School-master a Husband-man a Shephered and such things as they are well acquainted with it would have been a powerfull means to make sound Christians But when mens minds conceive of a Christian as a man that differeth from Heathens and Infidels in nothing but holding the Christian Opinions and using different words and ceremonies of worship and such like no wonder if such be but opinionative lifeless Christians And if their Religion make them no better than a Seneca or Plutarch I shall never believe that they are any surer to be saved than they And such a sort of men there are that suppose Christianity to consist but of these three parts 1. The Christian Doctrine acknowledged which they call Faith 2. The Orders and Ordinances of the Christian Church and Worship submitted to and decently used which they call Godliness And 3. The heart and life of a Cato Cicero or Socrates adjoyned But all that goeth beyond this which is the Life of Christianity and Godliness a Lively Faith and Hope and Love a Heavenly and Holy mind and life from the renewing in dweling Spirit of God which is described in this Treatise they are strangers to it and take it to be but fansie and hypocrisie These No-Christians do much to reduce the Church to Infidelity that there may be indeed No Christians in the world For my part I must confess if there were no better Christians in the world than these I think I should be no Christian my self And if Christ made men no better than the Religion of Socrates Cato or Seneca and did no more to the reparation and perfecting of mens hearts and lives I should think no better of the Christian Religion than of theirs For the means is to be estimated by the End and Vse And that 's the best Physician that hath the Remedies which are fittest to work the cure If God had not acquainted me with a sort of men that have really more Holiness Mortification Spirituality Love to God and to one another and even to enemies and more heavenly desires expectations and delights than these men before described have it would have been a very great hinderance to my Faith The same may I say of those that place Godliness and Christianity only in holding strict opinions and in affected needless singularities and in the fluent Oratory and length of prayer and avoiding other mens forms and modes of worship and in any thing short of a Renewed Holy Heavenly heart and life And undoubtedly if a true full Character of Godliness had been imprinted in their minds we should never have seen the Professors of it so blotted with sensuality selfishness pride ambition worldliness distrust of God self-conceitedness heresie schism rebellions unquietness impatiency unmercifulness and cruelty to mens souls and bodies as we have seen them in this age and all this justified as consistent with Religion And I fear that because this Treatise will speak to few that are not some way guilty every face which hath a spot or blemish will be offended with the glass and lest the faulty will say that I particularly intended to disgrace them But I must here tell the Reader to prevent his misunderstanding that if he shall imagine that I have my eyes upon particular parties and as a discontented person do intend to blame those that differ from my self or to grieve inferiours or dishonour and asperse superiours they will mistake me and wrong themselves and me who professedly intend but the true Description of sound Christians diseased Christians and seeming Christians And for the manner of this writing I am conscious it hath but little to commend it The matter is that for which it is published The Lord Verulam in his Essayes truly saith that much reading makes one full much discourse doth make one ready and much writing doth make a man exact Though I have had my part of all these means yet being parted five years from my Books and three years from my Preaching the effects may decay and you must expect neither Quotations or Oratory Testimonies or ornament of stile But having not yet wholly ceased from Writing I may own so much of the exactness as will allow me to intreat the Reader not to use me as many have done who by over-looking some one word have made the sense another thing and have made it a crime to be exact in Writing because they cannot or will not be exact in Reading or charitable or humane in interpreting The Contents THE Characters of a strong
abatement of his love And weak Christians are usually the most censorious because they have the smallest degree of Love which covereth faults and thinketh no evil and is not suspicious but ever apt to judge the best till the worst be evident 1 Cor. 13.4 5. It beareth all things believeth all things that are credible hopeth all things endureth all things v. 7. But it is no wonder to see children fall out even about their childish toyes and trifles And what the dissentions of the children of the Church have done against themselves in these Kingdoms I need not I delight not to record See 1 Cor. 3.1 2 3 4. And I brethren could not speak unto you as unto spiritual but as unto carnal even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk and not with meat for hitherto ye were not able to bear it neither yet now are ye able For ye are yet carnall for whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions are you not carnall and walk as men 3. The seeming Christian may have some love to reall Christian even for their goodness sake But it is a Love subservient to his carnal self-love And therefore it shall not cost him much As he hath some Love to Christ so he may have some Love to Christians but he hath more to the world and fleshly pleasures And therefore all his Love to Christ or Christians will not make him leave his worldly happiness for them And therefore Christ at the day of Judgement will not enquire after empty barren love but after that love which visited and relieved suffering Saints An hypocrite can allow both Christ and Christians such a cheap superficial kind of love as will cost him little He will bid them lovingly Depart in peace be you warmed and filled Jam. 2.15 16 17. But still the World is most beloved XLIV 1. A Christian indeed doth love his enemies and forgive those that injure him and this out of a thankfull sense of that grace which forgave him a farr greater debt Not that he thinketh it unlawfull to make use of the Justice of the Government which he is under for his necessary protection or for the restraint of mens abuse and violence Nor is he bound to love the malice or injury though he must love the man Nor can he forgive a crime as it is against God or the common good or against another though he can forgive an injury or debt that is his own Nor is he bound to forgive every debt though he is bound so farre to forgive every wrong as heartily to desire the good of him that did it Even Gods Enemies he so farre loveth as to desire God to convert and pardon them while he hateth their sin and hateth them as Gods enemies and desireth their restraint Psal. 139.21 22. 101.3 119.4 68.1 21.8 But those that hate and curse and persecute himself he can unfeignedly love and bless and pray for Matth. 5.43 44 45 46 47 48. For he knoweth that else he cannot be a child of God v. 45. And that to love those that love him is not much praise-worthy being no more than Heathens and wicked men can do v. 46 47. He is so deeply sensible of that wondrous love which so dearly redeemed him and saved him from Hell and forgave him a thousandfold worse than the worst that ever was done against himself that Thankfulness and Imitation or Conformity to Christ in his great compassions do overcome his desires of revenge and make him willing to do good to his most cruel enemies and pray for them as Christ and Stephen did at their deaths Luk. 23.34 Acts 7.60 And he knoweth that he is so inconsiderable a worm that a wrong done to him as such is the less considerable And he knoweth that he daily wrongeth God more than any man can wrong him and that he can hope for pardon but on condition that he himself forgive Matth. 6.12 14 15. 18.34 35. And that he is far more hurtfull to himself than any other can be to him 2. And the weakest Christian can truely love an enemy and forgive a wrong but he doth it not so easily and so fully as the other But it is with much striving and some unwillingness and aversness and there remaineth some grudge or strangeness upon the minde He doth not sufficiently forget the wrong which he doth forgive Indeed his forgiving is very imperfect like himself Matth. 18.21 Luk. 9.54 55. not with that freeness and readiness required Eph. 4.2 With all lowliness and meekness with long-suffering forbearing one another in love Col. 3.12 13. Put on therefore as the Elect of God holy and beloved bowels of mercies kindness humbleness of minde meekness long-suffering forbearing one another and forgiving one another even as Christ forgave you so also do ye Rom. 12.14 19. Avenge not your selves c. 3. As for the seeming Christian he can seem to forgive wrongs for the sake of Christ but if he do it indeed it is for his own sake As because it is for his honour or because the person hath humbled himself to him or his commodity requireth it or he can make use of his love and service for his advantage or some one hath interposed for reconciliation who must not be denyed or the like But to love an enemy indeed and to love that man be he never so good who standeth in the way of his preferment honour or commodity in the world he never doth it from his heart whatever he may seem to doe Matth. 6.14 15. 18.27 30 32. The Love of Christ doth not constrain him XLV 1. A Christian indeed is as precise in the Justice of his dealings with men as in acts of piety to God For he knoweth that God requireth this as strictly at his hands 1 Thess. 4.6 That no man go beyond or defraud his Brother in any matter for the Lord is the avenger of all such as we also have forewarned and testified He is one that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness and speaketh the truth in his heart that backbiteth not with his tongue nor doth evil to his neighbour nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour If he swear to his own hurt he changeth not He putteth not out his money to unjust or unmercifull Vsury nor taketh reward against the innocent Psal. 15. He obeyeth that Lev. 19.13 Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour neither rob him the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night untill the morning He can say as Samuel 1 Sam. 12. Whose Oxe or Asse have I taken or whom have I defrauded whom have I oppressed or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blinde mine eyes therewith and I will restore it And they said Thou hast not defrauded us nor oppressed us neither hast thou taken ought of any mans hand And if heretofore he was ever guilty of defrauding any he is willing to his
honesty 1 Tim. 2.2 Yea though Infidel Princes hate and persecute them they continue to pray for them and to honour their authority and will not thereby be driven from their duty If God cast their lot under Infidel ungodly and malicious Governours they do not run to arms to save themselves or save the Gospel as if God had called them to reform the world or keep it from the oppression of the higher powers Nor do they think it a strange intollerable matter for the best men to be lowest and to be the suffering side and so fall to fighting that Christ and the Saints may have the rule For they know that Christs Kingdom is not of this world Joh. 18.36 that is not a visible Monarchy as his usurping Vicar doth pretend and that Christ doth most eminently rule unseen and disposeth of all the Kingdoms of the world even where he is hated and resisted and that the reign of Saints is in their state of glory and that all Gods graces do sit them more for a suffering life than for worldly power Their humility meekness patience self-denyal contempt of the world and heavenly mindedness are better exercised and promoted in a suffering than a prosperous reigning state Wher◠〈◊〉 think of the holy blood which hath been shed by Heathen Rome from Christ and Stephen till the daies of Constantine and the far greater streams which have been shed by the bloody Papal Rome where-ever they had power in Piedmont Germany Poland Hungary in Belgia England and in other Lands the 30000 or 40000 murdered in a few daies at the Bartholomew Massacre in France the two hundred thousand murdered in a few weeks in Ireland they are not so unlike their suffering Brethren as to think that striving for honours and command is their way to Heaven When Christ hath foretold them that self-denyal under the Cross tribulation and persecution is the common way Luk. 14.26 27 29 33. Acts 14.22 Joh. 16.33 Rom. 5.3 8.35 2 Tim. 3.12 Mat. 5.10 11 12. 2 Thes. 2.6 7 10. Mark 10.30 So far are they from fighting against the injuries and cruelties of their Governours that they account the reproach of Christ to be greater riches than all their treasures Heb. 11.25 26. and think they are blessed when they are persecuted Matth. 5.10 and say with Paul God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world is crucified to me and I unto the world Gal. 6.14 And 2 Cor. 12.19 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities in reproaches in necessities in persecutions in distresses for Christs sake for when I am weak then I am strong Rom. 8.35 36 37. Nay in all these things when persecuted and killed all the day long and counted as sheep to the slaughter they are more than Conquerours through Christ They obtain a nobler conquest than that which is obtained by the sword 2. But the weak Christian having less patience and more selfishness and passion is easilier tempted to break his bounds and with Peter to run to his unauthorized sword when he should submit to suffering Matth. 26.51 52. And his interest and sufferings cause his passion to have too great a power on his Judgement so that he is easilier tempted to believe that to be lawfull which he thinks to be necessary to his own preservation and to think that the Gospel and the Church are falling when the power of men is turned against them and therefore he must with Vzzah put forth his hand to save the Ark of God from falling He is more troubled at mens injustice and cruelty and maketh a wonder of it to find the enemies of Christ and Godliness to be unreasonably impudent and bloody as if he expected reason and righteousness in the malicious world His sufferings fill him more with discontent and desires of revenge from God Luke 9.54 and his prosperity too much lifts him up 2 Chron. 32.25 And in the litigious titles of pretenders to supremacy he is oft too hasty to interess himself in their contentions as if he understood not that whoever is the conquerour will count those rebels that were on the other side and that the enemies of Christ will cast all the odium upon Christianity and piety when the controversie is only among the Statesmen and Lawyers and belongs not to Religion at all 3. The seeming Christian will seem to excel all others in loyalty and obedience when it maketh for his carnal ends He will flatter Rulers for honours and preferment and alwaies be on the rising side unless when his pride engageth him in murmurings and rebellions He hath a great advantage above true Christians and honest men to seem the most obedient subject because he hath a stretching conscience that can do any thing for his safety or his worldly ends If he be among Papists he can be a Papist if among Protestants he is a Protestant and if he were among Turks its like he would rather turn a Mahometan than be undone No Prince or Power can command him any thing which he cannot yield to if his wordly interest require it If there be a Law for worshipping the golden Image it is the conscionable servants of God and not the time-servers that refuse to obey it Dan. 3. If there be a Law against praying Dan. 6. it is Daniel and not the ungodly multitude that disobey it If there be a command against preaching Acts 4.17 18. it is the holy Apostles and best Christians that plead the command of God against it and refuse obedience to it vers 20 29. The self-seeking temporizing hypocrite can do any thing And yet he obeyeth not while he seemeth to obey For it is not for the Authority of the Commander that he doth it but for his own ends He never truly honoureth his superiours for he doth not respect them as the Officers of God nor obey them for his sake with a conscionable obedience He feareth the Higher Powers as Bears or Tygers that are able to hurt him or useth their favour as he useth his horse to do him service Were it not for himself he would little regard them The true Christian honoureth the basest creature more than the hypocrite and worldling honoureth his King For he seeth God in all and useth the smallest things unto his glory Whereas the worldling debaseth the highest by the baseness of his esteem and use and end For he knoweth not how to esteem or use the greatest Prince but for himself or for some worldly ends 2 Tim. 3.3 4. XLIX 1. A Christian indeed is a man of courage and fortitude in every cause of God For he trusteth God and firmly believeth that he will bear him out He knoweth his superiours and hath a charitable respect to all men but as for any selfish or timerous respect he hath the least regard to man For he knoweth that the greatest are but worms whose breath is in their nostrils that pass away as shadows
and the evil one Mark him in his prayers and you shall find that he is above other men taken up in earnest petitions for the Conversion of the Heathen and Infidel world and the undeceiving of Mahometans Jews and Hereticks and the clearing of the Church from those Papal tyrannies and sopperies and corruptions which make Christianity hateful or contemptible in the eyes of the Heathen and Mahometan world and hinder their Conversion No man so much lamenteth the Pride and Covetousness and Laziness and Unfaithfulness of the Pastors of the Church because of the doleful consequents to the Gospel and the souls of men and yet with all possible honor to the sacred office which they thus prophane No man so heartily lamenteth the contentions and divisions among Christians and the doleful destruction of charity thereby It grieveth him to see how much selfishness pride and malice prevaileth with them that should shine as lights in a benighted world and how obstinate and uncurable they seem to be against the plainest means and humblest motions for the Churches edification and peace Psal. 120.6 7. 122.6 Phil. 2.1 2 3 4. Psal. 119.136 Zeph. 3.18 Ezek. 9.4 Psal. 69.9 Joh. 2.17 He envieth not Kings and Great men their dominions wealth or pleasure nor is he at all ambitious to participate in their tremendous exaltation But the thing that his heart is set upon is that the Kingdoms of the World may all become the Kingdoms of the Lord Rev. 11.15 and that the Gospel may every where have free course and be glorified and the Preachers of it be encouraged or at least delivered from unreasonable wicked men 2 Thes. 3.1 2. Little careth he who is uppermost or conquereth in the world or who goeth away with the preferments or riches of the earth supposing that he fail not of his duty to his Rulers so that it may go well with the affairs of the Gospel and souls be but helped in the way to Heaven Let God be honoured and souls converted and edified and he is satisfied This is it that maketh the Times good in his account He thinketh not as the proud and carnal Church of Rome that the Times are best when the Clergy is richest and greatest in the world and overtop Princes and claim the secular power and live in worldly pomp and pleasures But when holiness most aboundeth and the members of Christ are likest to their Head and when multitudes of sincere believers are daily added to the Church and when the Mercy and Holiness of God shine forth in the Numbers and Purity of his Saints It is no Riches or Honour that can be heaped upon himself or any others that make the Times seem good to him if Knowledge and Godliness are discountenanced and hindered and the way to Heaven is made more difficult if Atheism infidelity ungodliness pride and malignity do prevail and truth and sincerity are driven into the dark and when he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey Isa. 59.15 When the godly man ceaseth and the faithful fail from among the children of men when every man speaketh vanity to his neighbour and the poor are oppressed and the needy sigh and the wicked walk on every side when the vilest men are exalted Psal. 12.1 2 5 8. The Times are Good when the Men are good and Evil when the Men are evil be they never so great or prosperous As Nehemiah when he was Cup bearer to the King himself yet wept and mourned for the desolations of Jerusalem Neh. 1.3 4. 2.2 3. Whoever prospereth the Times are ill when there is a famine of the Word of the Lord and when the chief of the Priests and people do transgress and mock Gods messengers and despise his words and misuse his Prophets 2 Chron. 36.14 16. Amos 8.11 12. When the Apostles are charged to speak no more in the name of Christ Act. 4.18 5.40 It is a text enough to make one tremble to think into what a desperate condition the Jews were carryed by a partial selfish zeal 1 Thes. 2.15 16. who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own Prophets and have persecuted us and they please not God and are contrary to all men forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved to fill up their sin alway for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost When the interest of themselves and their own Nation and Priesthood did so far blind and pervert them that they durst persecute the Preachers of the Gospel and forbid them to speak to the people that they may be saved it was a sign that wrath was come upon them to the uttermost A Christian indeed had rather be without Jereboams Kingdom than make Israel to sin make the basest of the people Priests and stretch out his hand against the Prophet of the Lord 1 King 12.30 31. 13.4 He had rather labour with his hands as Paul and live in poverty and rags so that the Gospel may be powerfully and plentifully preached and holiness abound than to live in all the prosperity of the world with the hinderance of mens salvation He had rather be a door-keeper in the house of God than be a Lord in the Kingdom of Satan He cannot rise by the ruines of the Church nor feed upon those morsels that are the price of the blood of souls 2. And the weakest Christian is in all this of the same mind saving that private and selfish interest is not so fully overcome nor so easily and resolutely denyed Luk. 14.26 33. 3. But here the Hypocrite sheweth the falseness of his heart His own interest is it that chooseth his Religion and that he may not torment himself by being wicked in the open light he maketh himself believe that whatsoever is most for his own interest is most pleasing unto God and most for the good of souls and the interest of the Gospel so that the carnal Romish Clergie can perswade their Consciences that all the darkness and superstitions of their Kingdom and all their Opposition of the light of the Gospel of Christ do make for the honour of God and the good of souls because they uphold their tyrannie wealth and pomp and pleasure Or if they cannot perswade their Consciences to believe so gross a lye let Church and Souls speed how they will they will favour nothing that favoureth not their interest and ends And the interest of the flesh and spirit of the world and Christ are so repugnant that commonly such worldlings take the serious practice of Godliness for the most hateful thing and the serious practicers of it for the most unsufferable persons Act. 7.57 21.36 22.22 24.5 6. Joh. 19.15 The enmity of interests with the enmity of nature between the Womans and the Serpent seed will maintain that warfare to the end of the world in which the Prince of the powers of darkness shall seem to prevail as he did against our Crucified Lord but he