harm? What is it but the serpentine enmity that maketh you hate those that never hurt you?

25. If you will believe God, it is for the sake of godly men that God preserves the world from ruin; he would have saved Sodom had there been but ten such persons in it; he will not destroy the world, till he hath gathered all his chosen out of it; and do they deserve to be most hated?

26. How exceeding dear a love hath God and our Redeemer expressed, to all holy, obedient believers! God calls them his jewels, his treasure, in whom he delighteth; he gave Christ especially for them. He sealeth them to salvation by his Spirit. He justifieth them, and will glorify them in heaven. Christ calls them flesh of his flesh, his friends, his spouse, they are united to him, he washeth them in his blood, and feedeth them with his flesh, and will make them equal to the angels, which will condemn their enemies. And are not you devilish enemies to God and Christ, who cull out those for your malice and enmity, whom God chooseth out to magnify the wonders of his love on them for ever?

27. The angels of heaven rejoice at the conversion of a sinner; Luke xv. 10. And rejoice to be Christ's servants for their defence continually and is it not devils then and their servants and soldiers that are against them? Take heed; God's angels that smote a Herod, may do execution on you ere long.

28. The Holy Ghost saith, (1 Cor. vi.) that the saints shall judge the world, and even the angels, that is, the evil Did you believe this, you would be afraid to hate and persecute them now.

ones.

29. Even heathens are for much honouring and worshipping their gods; yea many offer them too costly sacrifice. What praises doth Julian give to the sun, and what strictness of life doth he command his priests! What great contempt of the body and the world did the Platonists, the Stoics and the Cynics profess! And shall professed Christians hate those that are obedient to the true God? Yea, to shew that the war between good and evil goeth on in all the world; even among heathens those that were for true virtue were despised and hated by the sensual.

30. And is it not a self-condemning thing in those that accuse God's servants as making too much ado in obeying the law of God, and yet make (as the church of Rome doth)

Yea, will burn men at a Doth God make too much

abundance more laws or canons of their own, and require precise obedience to them all? stake for breaking their laws? work in the judgment of them that think it not enough without much more, as if God's law were too narrow and insufficient? Yea, learn by the church of England, whose canons (5-8.) ipso facto,' excommunicate them that do but affirm any thing to be repugnant to God's word in their liturgy, ceremonies or church-governing offices. And can you think that obeying God deserveth hatred, when disobeying men deserveth excommunication? Learn of our late laws, which account all the ministers of England worthy to be cast out and silenced if they dare not take the imposed declarations, oaths and subscriptions, and do what the act of uniformity imposeth; and do you think it worthy of reproach to be as strict in obeying God's known laws, as is required to the act of uniformity and the canons?

31. Even the church of Rome applaudeth great rigor and strictness of life, in such as will obey the pope; and they have allowed orders of friars whose rulers tie them to great abstinence, to much praying, and some to much preaching, so that religion is all their calling. And shall the strict obeying of God's known laws render men odious among professed Protestants? Yea, the Papists honour the very bones and relics of their dead saints. And you yourselves keep holydays for many saints; and will you at the same time hate and hurt those that endeavour to imitate them? Will you imitate those Pharisees whom Christ pronounceth woe against, who at once honoured the dead prophets with building monuments or tombs, and murdered the living that succeeded them?

32. You can never come to heaven, or be saved from hell yourselves, without serious holiness, justice and sobriety : and will you hate that without which you cannot be saved?

33. Scarce any sin doth more certainly prove you to be ungodly, than hating godliness; whatever hope there may be of those that sin against conscience, and wish to be better, and purpose repentance, that man cannot be a truly godly, man, that is an enemy to godliness, so that this is a dreadful death's mark on you.

34. You would extirpate the principle of self-love, which God hath made inseparable from us. There is somewhat in

our nature which we cannot lay by, which makes us unwilling to be damned. If you that believe no hell, dare venture into it, we cannot do so who do believe it. If you say that it is our folly to believe that none shall be saved without holiness, and mortifying the deeds of the body by the Spirit, bear with that folly which doth you no harm: it is not men or devils that we had it from, but the Holy Ghost in Scripture. If it be your wisdom to give God the lie, and believe a drunken sot, or the devil, before him, it shall be none of ours. Speed as you choose, and let us speed as we choose We shall meet your souls shortly in another mind and tune. Strive not to make us choose damnation now our eyes are open we were once too easily befooled; but cannot now so hate ourselves.

35. Moreover, he that would not have a man live a life of holy obedience to God, would have him lay by that which he was made for, and that which God continueth his life for, and that which he hath his reason and all his daily mercies for. What else have we to do in the world? Have men going to the grave and eternity nothing to do but eat and drink, and laugh, and play, and run up and down like ants with sticks and straws, and then die, and call all vanity and vexation too late? If we may not spend our time in making sure of a better world, we had rather we had never been born, or had died in infancy, or that we had a dose of opium that would make us sleep out the rest of our lives in quietness, rather than spend it as you do, and then give a sad account of all. We had rather we had been birds or beasts, dogs or swine than men, were it not for that life which you hate, and the hopes which depend on it. It had been a greater kindness to us to have murdered us at the birth, than to tempt us to live for our damnation.

36. What do you think it is that is God's image on man's soul, you know that it is said in Scripture that God made man at first in his own image, and that Christ by his Spirit reneweth them to that image. What is it think you? God hath not hands, and feet, and bodily parts as we have: it is the soul that hath his image. And do you think it is the love of money, and lust, and sport, or gluttony, or drunkenness that is his image? Scripture saith, (Ephes. iv. 23,24. Col. iii. 10.) it is holiness; and this is called the Divine nature, as coming from God, and inclining nature unto God. Either holiness, wisdom and righteousness are God's image,

or else there is none such on man; and then you make God's word to be false. And if this be it, and this it which you hate, are not you haters of God? And is not that to be devilish and hated by God?

37. While you are angry at them that say few are saved, or that none but saints or serious, godly, obedient men are saved, you would sink all the world into utter despair, and make none or next to none to be saved. One part of the haters of godliness believe no life to come; and these would have all men despair. For if there be none, there is none to be hoped for: and they that think men die but as dogs and swine do, must be expected to live like dogs and swine. The other part of you, labour by all means to make themselves and others believe that the profession of more godliness than worldly, carnal men have, is but hypocrisy, and that such are at the heart as bad as others; and if this be so, what is the consequence, but that none are saved? For unless you will give God the lie, or be saved in spite of him, you must believe that none are saved that are not sanctified by the Spirit of Christ, and live not after the Spirit, mortifying the flesh; John iii. 3. 5. Heb. xii. 14. Rom. viii. 6-9. 13. 2 Cor. v. 17. And that no man can be saved that loveth the world more than God and heaven, and fleshly pleasure more than holiness. And therefore if there be none such, then none are saved. Hypocrisy will not save men: God tells us that drunkards, fornicators, covetous, thieves, extortioners, revilers, effeminate, idolaters, cannot enter into the kingdom of God; 1 Cor. vi. 9, 10. Ephes. v. 5. And if any man love the world (best) the love of the Father is not in him;" 1 John ii. 5. And if all that pretend to be better are hypocrites, then none at all are saved.

It may be you have the kindness to except some few. But if those few be all that be not either carnal men, (described Rom. viii. 5-7. 9.) or hypocrites, how few then do you make to be saved, if God be true?

38. Who do you think it is that Christ meaneth, when he saith, "I send you as lambs among wolves? Ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake. Blessed are they that suffer persecution for righteousness' sake. When they say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. The world will hate you as it hated me, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. Marvel

not if the world hate you. As many as will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution," &c. Who do you think all this is spoken of? It is not of you that are fleshly worldly, ungodly men. Who persecuteth you for righteousness' sake? Who hateth, revileth, or imprisoneth, or fineth you, for living godly in Christ Jesus? Do you suffer as much for reviling preachers, as we have done for preaching? What suffer you for all the oaths that be sworn daily in the streets and taverns, and the horrid profaneness, atheism, Sadduceeism, infidelity, that men are guilty of? If you did suffer for whoredom, drunkenness, or blasphemy is that for Christ or righteousness? When the Holy Ghost saith, "as he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now;" it is such as you that he meaneth. When Peter saith, "They speak evil of you, and falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ;" (1 Pet. iii. 16.) whom meaneth he? When he saith, (1 Pet. iv.)" they think it strange that you run not with them to all excess of riot, lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatry," who do you think he meaneth? And when he saith, (1 Pet. ii. 9.) "Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should shew forth the praises of him that hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light;" who is it that he meaneth? You will say, it is Christians true: but is it hypocrites? Is it those that will say at last, Lord we have prophesied in thy name, and eat and drunk in thy presence, to whom Christ will say, Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity, I know you not? Sure false Christians are worse than heathens.

39. The way which you take against religious persons doth shew who it is that sets you on work, and what it is that is the root of your enmity. As God's image is in the understanding, will, and executive power of man, so is satan's; and he is accordingly described by Christ to be 1. A liar and deceiver. 2. A malignant, hater of goodness or holiness, and a cause of sin. 3. A hurtful murderer or destroyer. And these are the three ways by which godly people are prosecuted in the world. 1. Belying them is grown so common with their enemies, that there is nothing scarcely so notoriously false which they will not affirm of them, and it is well if some will not preach it, print it, or swear it :