believe that God the Father is the First in the holy Trinity of persons that the whole Godhead is perfect and infinite in Being and Power and Wisdom and Goodness in which all his Attributes are comprehended but yet a distinct understanding of them all is not of absolute necessity to Salvation That this God is the Creator Preserver and Disposer of all things and the Owner and Ruler of Mankind most just and merciful that as he is the Beginning of all so he is the Ultimate end and the Chief Good of man which before all things else must be loved and sought This is to be believed concerning the Godhead and the Father in person Concerning the Son we must moreover believe that he is the same God with the Father the second person in Trinity in carnate and so become man by a personal union of the Godhead and Manhood That he was without Original or actual sin having a sinless nature and a sinless life that he fulfilled all Righteousness and was put to death as a Sacrifice for our sins and gave himself a Ransome for us and being buried he rose again from the dead and afterward ascended into Heaven where he is Lord of all and intercedeth for Believers that he will come again and raise the dead and judg the World the Righteous to everlasting Life and the Wicked to everlasting punishment that this is the only Redeemer the Way the Truth and the Life neither is their access to the Father but by him nor Salvation in any other Concerning the Holy Ghost we must believe that he is the same One God the third person in Trinity sent by the Father and the Son to inspire the Prophets and Apostles and that the Doctrine inspired and miraculously attested by him is true that he is the sanctifier of those that shall be saved renewing them after the Image of God in Holiness and Righteousness giving them true Repentance Faith Hope Love and sincere Obedience causing them to overcome the Flesh the World and the Devil thus gathering a Holy Church on earth to Christ who have by his Bloud the pardon of all their sins and shall have everlasting blessedness with God This is the Essence of the Christian Faith as to the Matter of it As to the Manner of Receiving it by the understanding 1. It must be received as Certain truth of Gods Revelation upon the credit of his Word by a lively effectual belief pierceing so deep as is necessary for its prevalency with the Will 2. And it must be Entirely received and not only a part of it Though all men have not so exactly formed distinct apprehensions of every member of this belief as some have yet all true Christians have a true apprehension of them We feel by daily experience that with the wisest some matters are truly understood by us which yet are not so distinctly and clearly understood as to be ready for an expression I have oft in matters that I am but studying a light that gives me a general imperfect but true conception which I cannot yet express but when another hath helped me to form my conception I can quickly and truly say that was it that I had an unformed apprehension of before and it that I meant but could not utter not so much for want of words as for want of a full and distinct conception 2. The Matter of our Christianity to be Received by the Will is as followeth As we must consent to all the forementioned truths by the Belief of the understanding so the pure Godhead must be Received as the Fountain and our End the Father as our Owner Ruler and Benefactor on the title of Creation and Redemption and as our everlasting happiness The Son as our only Saviour by Redemption bringing us pardon reconciliation holiness and glory and delivering us from sin and Satan and the wrath and Curse of God and from Hell The Holy Ghost as our Guide and Sanctifier All which containeth our Renouncing the Flesh the World and the Devil and carnal Self that is the point of their Unity and heart of the old Man This is the Good that must be embraced or accepted by the will And secondly as to the Manner of Receiving it it must be done Vnfeignedly Resolvedly unreservedly or absolutely and habitually by an inward Covenanting of the heart as I have formerly explained it And this is the Essence of Christianity This is true Believing in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost This is the Foundation and this is the right laying of it And now the thing that I am perswading you to is to see that this Foundation be surely laid in Head and Heart And 1. That it may be surely laid in the Head you must labour 1. To understand these Articles And 2. to see the Evidence of their verity that you may firmly believe them And 3. To Consider of the worth and necessity of the matter revealed in them that your Judgments may most highly esteem it This is the sure laying the Foundation in the Head To these ends you should first learn some Catechism and be well acquainted with the Principles of Religion and also be much in reading or hearing the holy Scripture and enquiring of your Teachers and others that can help you and see that you take your work before you and step not higher till this be done And then all other following truths and Duties and promised benefits must all be so learnt as to be built upon this foundation and joyned to it as receiving their life and strength from hence and never lookt upon as separated from this nor as more excellent and necessary For want of learning well and believing soundly these Principles Essentials or Fundamentals of Christianity some of our people can go no further but stand all their dayes in their ignorance at a non-plus Some of them go on in a blind Profession deceiving themselves by building upon the Sand and hold true Doctrine by a false unsound belief of it And when the Flouds and storms do beat upon their building it falls and great is the fall thereof With some of them it falls upon the first assault of any Seducer that hath interest in them or advantage on them and abundance swallow up Errors because they never well understood or Firmly believ'd Fundamental Truths With others of them the building falls not until death because they lived not under any shaking temptations But it being but a perseverance in an unfound Profession will nevertheless be ineffectual to their Salvation 2. When you have thus laid the Foundation in your understanding be sure above all that it be firmly laid in your Heart or Will Take heed lest you should prove false and unstedfast in the holy Covenant and lest you should take in the Word but into the furnace of the Soul and not give it depth of earth and rooting and lest you should come to Christ but as a servant upon tryall and make an absolute
them against Heresies which indeed are all but novelties that so they may know how to try the Doctrines that afterward should be offered them and stick fast to that which the Apostles taught He next requireth them to abound therein to let them know that as it is no small matters that they expect by Christ so they should not rest in small degrees of Grace or duty but especially the duty of Thanksgiving which is an Evangelical and celestial duty and so admirably beseems a people that have partaked of such admirable Salvation and is so suitable to our mercies and our condition and Gods just expectation As it is Love and Grace whose eternal praise is designed by the Gospel and are magnified in the Church by the Redeemers great and blessed work So it is returns of Love and Praise and Joy that should be the most abounding or overflowing part of all our Christian affections and performances After this explication you may see that the sense of the Text lyeth plain in this Proposition Doct. Those that have savingly Received Christ Jesus the Lord must be so far from resting here as if all were done that they must spend the rest of their dayes in walking in him being Rooted and built up in him and stablished in the Faith as the Apostles taught it and abounding in it especially with joyful prayses to our Redeemer And because that my design is only to Direct young Christians how they may come to be established and confirmed in Christ I shall therefore pass over all other things that the full handling of this Text requireth and shall only give you 1. A short intimation here what this confirmation and stability is which shall be fullyer opened to you in the Directions 2. And shew you the need of seeking it And 3. How you may attain it 1. This Confirmation is the Habitual strength of Grace distinct from present actual confirmation by the influence of Grace from God For though God may in an instant confirm a weak person against some particular temptation by his free assistance yet that is not it which we have here to speak of but Habitual confirmation in a State of Grace And ordinarily we may expect that Gods co-operating assisting Grace should bear some proportion with our Habitual Grace Even as in nature he concurreth with the strongest men to do greater works than he causeth the weak to do and with the wisest men to understand more than the foolish do I say but that Ordinarily it is thus A Confirmed Christian as contrary to a weak one 1. Is not to be judged of by his freedome from all scruples doubts or fears 2. Nor by his eminency in mens esteem or observation 3. Nor by his strength of Memory 4. Or freedom of utterance in Praying Preaching or Discourse 5. Or by his seemly deportment and courtesy towards others 6. Nor by his sedate calm and lovely temper and freedom from some hast and heats which other tempers are more prone to 7. Nor by a Man-pleasing or dissembling faculty to bridle the tongue when it would open the corruption of the mind and to suppress all words which would make others know how bad the heart is There are many endowments laudable and desirable which will not shew so much as sincerity in Grace and much less a state of Confirmation and stability But Confirmation lyeth in the great degree of all those Graces which Constitute a Christian. And the great degree appeareth in the operations of them As 1. When Holiness is as a New-nature in us and giveth us a Promptitude to holy actions and maketh us free and ready to them and maketh them easie and familiar to us Whereas the weak go heavily and can scarce drive on and force their minds 2. When there is a constancy or frequency of holy actions which sheweth the strength and stability of holy inclinations 3. When they are powerful to bear down oppositions and temptations and can get over the greatest impediments in the way and make an advantage of all resistance and despise the most splendid baits of sin 4. When it is still getting ground and drawing the Soul upward and nearer to God its Rest and End And when the heart groweth more Heavenly and Divine and stranger to Earth and earthly things 5. And when holy and heavenly things are more sweet and delectable to the Soul and are sought and used with more Love and pleasure All these do shew that the Operations of Grace are vigorous and strong and consequently that the Habits are so also And this confirmation should be found 1. In the Vnderstanding 2. In the Will 3. In the Affections 4. In the Life 1. When the Mind of man hath a larger comprehension of the Truths of God and the Order and Method and Vsefulness of every truth And a deeper apprehension of the certainty of them and of the Goodness of the matter expressed in them When Knowledg and Faith come nearest unto sight or intention and we have the fullest the truest and the firmest and most certain apprehension of things revealed and unseen when the Nature and the Reasons and the ends and benefits of the Christian Religion are all most clearly orderly decently constantly and powerfully printed on the mind then is that Mind in a Confirmed state 2. When the Will is guided by such a confirmed understanding and is not bruitishly resolved he knoweth not for what or why When Light hath fixed it in such Resolutions as are past all notable doubtings deliberations waverings or unwilling backwardness and a man is in seeking God and his Salvation and avoiding known sin as a natural man is about the questions whether he should preserve his Life and make provision for it and whether he should poison or famish or torment himself When the Inclination of the Will to God and Heaven and Holiness are likest to its natural Inclination to Good as Good and to its own felicity And its action is so free as to have Least Indetermination and to be likest to Natural necessary acts as those are of blessed Spirits in Heaven When the least intimation from God prevaileth and the Will doth answer him with readiness and delight And when it taketh pleasure to trample upon all opposition and when all that can be offered to corrupt the heart and draw it to sin and loosen it from God prevaileth but as so much filth and dung would do Phil. 3.7 8 9. This is a confirmed state of Will 3. When the Affections do proceed from such a Will and are ready to assist excite and serve it and to carry us on in necessary Duties When the lower affections of Fear and sorrow do cleanse and restrain and prepare the way and the Higher Affections of Love and Delight adhere to God and Desire and Hope do make out after him and set the Soul on just endeavours When Fear and Grief have less to do and are delivering up the heart still more and more
Wax when yet the Image on the Seal is perfect And therefore the World hath no just cause to censure God or Christ or the Spirit or the Word to be imperfect because that you are so But yet they will do it and their temptation is great O Sirs how would your Prince take it of you or how would your poorest friend take it of you if you should hang forth a deformed picture of them to the view of all that shall pass by and should represent them as blind or leprous or lame wanting a leg or an arm or an eye Would they not say that you unworthily exposed them to scorn So if you will take on you to be the living Images of God of Christ of the Spirit and the Word and yet will be blind and worldly and passionate and proud and untruly and obstinate or lazy and negligent and little differing from those that bear the Image of the Devil what do you but Proclaim that the Image of God and of Satan and the World do little differ and that God is thus unrighteous and unholy as you are 10. Lastly Consider That the faithful servants of Christ are few and therefore if those few dishonour him and prove not fast to him what do you but provoke him to forsake all the World and make an end of all the Sons of men It is but a little flock to whom he will give the Kingdom Luke 12.32 It is but a few from whom God expecteth any great matter And shall those few prove deceitful to him It must be you or none that must honour the Gospel You or none that must be exemplary to the World and shall it be none at all Shall all the Workmanship of God abuse him Shall he have no honour from any inferiour Creature How can you then expect that he should preserve the World For will he be at so much care to keep up a World to dishonour and abuse him If the turning of mens hearts prevent it not he would come and smite the earth with a Curse Mal. 4.6 For the Land that beareth Thorns and Bryars is rejected and is nigh unto Cursing whose end is to be burned Heb. 6.7 8. If therefore Israel play the Harlot yet let not Judah sin Hos. 4.15 If the Vessels of wrath prepared to destruction will be blind and sensual and filthy still yet let pollution be far from the sanctified Such were some of you but ye are washed ye are sanctified ye are justified 1 Cor. 6.11 O let the Lord be magnified in his Saints Blot not out his Image Receive not his impressions defectively and by the halves Let the Name of the most holy one be written in your very foreheads O that you would be so tender of the honour of the Lord and shine forth so brightly in Holyness and Righteousness that he that runs might read whose servants you are and know the Image Superscription of God upon the face of your conversations that as clearly as light is seen in and from the Sun and the power and wisdom and goodness of God is seen in the frame of the Creation and of Scripture so might the same shine forth in you that you might be Holy as God is Holy 1 Pet. 1.16 and perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect Matth. 5.48 that they that would know God may see him in his Saints where his Image is or should be so lively and discernable And they that cannot read and understand the Scripture or the works of Creation or disposing-Providence may read and understand the holy and heavenly representations of your lives Men are apt to look after Images of the Godhead because they are carnal and far from God O you that are appointed to bear his Image see that you so represent him to the eyes of the world as may be to his glory and not to his dishonour and take not the Name of God in vain It is so desirable for God and for the Church and for your own peace and happiness that Christians should grow up to a ripeness in Grace and be rooted built up confirmed and abound according to my Text that it hath drawn out from me all these words of exhortation thereunto Though one would think that to men of such holy Principles and experience it should be more than needs But if all will but serve to awaken the weak to a diligent progress I shall be glad and have my end The great matter that I intended when I began this discourse is yet behind and that is the giving you such Directions as may tend to your Confirmation and perseverance Which I shall now proceed to But I intreat every Reader that hath any spark of Grace in his Soul that he will resolve to put these Directions in practice and turn them not off with a bare perusal or approbation Let me reap but thus much fruit of all my foregoing Exhortations and I shall not think my labour lost XX. DIRECTIONS FOR CONFIRMATION In a state of Grace DIRECT I. Be sure that the Foundation be well laid both in your Heads and Hearts or else you can never attain to Confirmation nor be savingly built up TO this end you must know what the Foundation is and how it must be soundly laid The Foundation hath two parts or respects according to the faculties of the Soul where it must be laid The first is the Truth of the Doctrine and Matter and the second is the Goodness of it As True the Foundation is laid in our Understandings as Good it is laid in the Will Concerning both these we must therefore first consider of the matter of the Foundation and then of the Manner how that must be received or laid And the Foundation is that matter or object of our Faith and Hope and Love which is Essential to a Christian that is to the Christian saving Faith hope and love This hath been alwayes contained in our Baptism because Baptizing us is making us visible Christians or the solemn entrance into the state of Christianity As therefore we are Baptized into the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost renouncing the Flesh the World and the Devil so the doing of this unfeignedly without equivocation according to the Scripture sense of the words is the Essence of Christianity or the right laying of the Foundation So that the Foundation-Principal or Fundamental Matter is God the Father Son and Holy Ghost The Secondary Foundation or Fundamental Doctrine is those Scripture Propositions that express our Faith in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost When we name the three persons as the object of the Christian Faith we express names of Relation which contain both the persons nature and Offices or undertaken works Without either of which God were not God and Christ were not Christ and the Holy Ghost were not in the sense of our Articles of Faith the Holy Ghost As we must therfore believe that there is One only God So we must
eternal deity and foresee the Joyes which he shall have for ever He sticketh not in superficial formalitie but breaking the shell doth feed upon the kernell It is not bare external duty which he is taken up with nor any meer creature that is his content but it is God in creatures and ordinances that he seeketh and liveth upon and therefore it is that Religion is so pleasant to him He would not change his Heavenly delights which he findeth in the exercise of faith and hope and love to God for all the carnal pleasures of this world he had rather be a door keeper in the house of God than to dwell in the tents or palaces of wickedness A day in Gods court is better to him than a thousand in the court of the greatest Prince on earth He is not a stranger to the joy in the Holy Ghost in which the Kingdom of God doth in part consist Rom. 14.17 Psal. 84.10.2 65.4 In the multitude of his thoughts within him the comforts of God do delight his soul. Psal. 94.19 His meditation of God is sweet and he is glad in the Lord. Psal. 104.34 The freest and sweetest of his thoughts and words run out upon God and the matters of salvation The word of God is sweeter to him than hony and better than thousands of Gold and Silver Psal. 119.72 119.103 19.10 Prov. 16.24 And because his delight is in the law of the Lord therefore doth he meditate in it day and night Psal. 1.2 He seeth great reason for all those commands Rejoyce ever more 1 Thes. 5.16 Let the righteous be glad let them rejoyce before God yea let them exceedingly rejoyce Psal. 68.3.4 64.10 31.1 32.11 Be glad in the Lord and rejoyce ye righteous and shout for joy all that are upright in heart He is sorry for the poor unhappy world that have no better things than meat and drink and cloaths and house and land and mony and lust and play and domineering over others to rejoyce in And heartily he wisheth that they had but a taste of the Saints delights that it might make them spit out their luscious unclean unwholesome pleasures One look to Christ one promise of the Gospel one serious thought of the life which he must live with God for ever doth afford his soul more solid comfort than all the kingdoms on earth can afford And though he live not continually in these high delights yet peace with God and peace of conscience and some delight in God and godliness is the ordinary temperature of his soul and higher degrees are given him in season for his cordials and his feasts 2. But the weak Christian hath little of these spiritual delights his ordinary temper is to apprehend that God and his wayes are indeed most delectable his very heart acknowledgeth that they are worthiest and fittest to be the matter of his delights And if he could attain assurance of his special interest in the love of God and his part in Christ and life eternal he would then rejoyce in them indeed and would be gladder than if he were Lord of all the world But in the mean time either his fears and doubts are damping his delights or else which is much worse his appetite is dull and God and holiness relish not with him half so sweetly as they do with the confirmed Christian and he is too busie in tasting of fleshly and forbidden pleasures which yet more deprave his appetite and dull his desires to the things of God so that though in his Estimation choice resolution and endeavour he much preferreth God before the world yet as to any delightful sweetness in him it is but little that he tasteth He loveth God with a Desiring Love and with a Seeking Love but with very little of a Delighting Love The remnant of corrupt and alien affections do weaken his affections to the things above and his infant measure of spiritual life conjunct with many troublesome diseases allow him very little of the joy of the Holy Ghost Nay perhaps he hath more grief and fear and doubts and trouble and perplexity of mind than ever he had before he turned unto God and perhaps he hath yet less pleasure in God than he had before in sin and sensuality Because he had his sin in a state of fruition but he hath God only in a seeking hoping state he had the best of sin and all that ever it will afford him but he hath yet none of the full felicity which he expecteth in God The fruition of him is yet but in the prospect of hope His sensual sinfull life was in its maturity and the object present in its most alluring state but his spiritual life of faith and love is but yet in its weak beginnings and the object absent from our sight He is so busie at first in blowing up his little spark not knowing whether the fire will kindle or go out that he hath little of the use or pleasure either of its light or warmth Infants come crying into the world and afterwards oftner cry than laugh Their senses and reason are not yet perfected or exercised to partake of the pleasures of life And when they do come to know what a laughter is they will laugh and cry almost in a breath And those weak Christians that do come to taste of joy and pleasure in their religious state it is commonly but as a flash of lightning which leaveth them as dark as they were before Sometimes in the beginning upon their first apprehensions of the love of God in Christ and of the pardon of their sins and the priviledges of their new condition and the hopes of everlasting joy their hearts are transported with unspeakable delight which is partly from the newness of the thing and partly because God will let them have some encouraging tast to draw them further and to convince them of the difference between the pleasures of sin and the comforts of believing But these first rejoycings soon abate and turn into a life of doubts and fears and griefs and care till they are grown to greater understanding experience and setledness in the things of God The root must grow greater and deeper before it will bear a greater top Those Christians that in the weakness of grace have frequent joys are usually persons whose weak and passionate nature doth occasion it some women especially that have strong phantasies and passions are alwaies passionately affected with whatsoever they apprehend And these are like a ship that is tossed in a tempest that is one while lifted up as to the clouds and presently cast down as into an infernal gulf There one day in great joy and quickly after in as great perplexity and sorrow Because their comforts or sorrows do follow their present feeling or mutable apprehensions But when they come to be confirmed Christians they will keep a more constant judgement of themselves and their own condition and constantly see their
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