476 CHARACTER OF. A SOUND, derided or abused, if his physician, instead of curing his disease, should only comfort him by telling him that he . is not dead. What excellent disputations have Cicero and Seneca, the Platonists and Stoics, to prove that virtue is, of itself, sufficient to make man happy ! And yet many Christians live as ifholiness were but the way and means to their felicity, or at best but a small part of their felicity itself ; or as if felicity itselfgrew burdensome, or were not desirable in this life, or a small degree of it were as good as a greater. And too many mistake the will of God, and thenature ofsancti- fication, and place their religion in the hot prosecution ofthose mis- takes. They make a composition of error andpassion, and an un- yielding stiffness in them, and siding with the churchorparty which maintameth them, and an uncharitable censuring those that are against them,and anunpeaceable contendingfor them ; and this com- position they mistake for godliness, especially if there be but a few drachms of godliness and truth in the composition, though corrupt- ed and overpowered by the rest. For these miscarriages of many well-meaning, zealous persons, the land mourneth, the churches groan ; kingdoms are disturbed by them; families are disquieted by them ; godliness is hindered, and much dishonored by them the wickedare hardened by them, and encouraged to hate, and blaspheme and oppose religion ; theglory ofthe Christian faith isobscured by them; and the infidel, Mahom- etan and heathen world are kept from faith in Jesus Christ, and many millions ofsouls destroyed by them. I mean by the miscar- riages of the weaker sort of Christians, and by the wicked lives of those carnal hypocrites, who, forcustom or worldly interest, do pro- fess that Christianitywhich was never receivedby their hearts. And all this is much promoted by their indiscretion, who are so intent upon the consolatory opening of the safety and happiness of believers, that they omit the due explication of their description, their dangers, and their duties. One part of this too much neglected work I have endeavored to perform in the foregoing treatise : another I shall attempt in this second part. There are five degrees or ranks of true Christians observable. 1. The weakest Christians, who have only the essen- tials of Christianity, or very little more ; as infants that are alive, but of little strength or use to others. 2. Those that are lapsed into some wounding sin, though not into a state of damnation ; like men at age, who have lost the use of someone member for the pres- ent, though they are strong in other parts. 3. Those that have the integral parts ofChristianity in a considerable measure, are in a sound and healthful state, though neither perfect, nor of the highest form or rank of Christians in this life, nor without such in-
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