CONFIRMED CHRISTIAN. 563 church ofChrist. And indeed, when the devil will be the defend- er of truth, or of the church, or of peace, or order, or piety, he doth it with the most burning .zeal ; you mayknow him by the means he useth. He defendeth the church, by forbidding the people to read the Scriptures in a known tongue, and by imprison- ing and burning the soundest and holiest members of it, and abus- ing the most learned, faithful pastors; and defendeth the flock by casting out the shepherds, and such like means, as the murder- ers ofthe Waldenses, and the massacres of France and Ireland, and the. Spanish inquisition, and Queen Mary's bonfires, and thepowder plot ; yea, and the Munster, andthe English rage and phrensies, may give you fuller notice of. He that hath na holiness, nor charity to be zealous for, will be zealous for his church, or sect, or customs, or opinions ; and then this zeal must be the evidence of his piety. And so the inquisitors have thought they have religiously served God, by murdering his servants } and it is the badge of their honor to be the devil's hangman, to execute his malice on the members of Christ ; and all this is done in zeal for religion by irreligious hyp- ocrites. There is no standing before the malicious zeal of a grace- less Pharisee, when it riseth up' for his carnal interest, or thehonor, and traditions, and customs of his sect; Luke vi. 7. "And they were filled with madness, and communed with one another what they might do to Jesus ;" Luke iv. 28. Acts v. 17. xiii. 45. John xvi. 2. Rom. x. 2. Phil. iii. 6. Acts xxvi. 10, 11. The zeal of a true Christian consumeth himself with grief to see the madness of the wicked ; but the zeal of the hypocrite consumeth others, that by the light of the fire his religiousness may be seen. You may see the Christian's ferventlove to God, by the fervent flanges which he can suffer for his sake; and you may see the fer- vent love of the hypocrite, by the flames which he kindleth for others. By'these he crieth with Jehu, "Come and see my zeal for the Lord;" 2 Kings x. 16. 2 Sam. xxi. 2. LV. 1. A Christian indeed is one that most highly esteemeth and regardeth the interest of God and men's salvation in the world, and taketh all things else to be inconsiderable in comparison of these. The interest of great men, and nobles, and commanders, yea, and' his own in corporal respects, as 'riches, honor, health and life, he taketh to be things unworthy to be named, in competition with the interest of Christ, and souls. The thing that his heart is most set upon in the world is, that .God be glorified, and that the world acknowledge him their King, and that his laws be obeyed, and that darkness, infidelity and ungodliness may be cast out; and that pride and worldliness, and fleshly lusts, may not hurry the miserable world,unto perdition. It is one of the saddest and most amazing thoughts that ever entereth into his heart, to consider how much of the, world is overwhelmed in ignorance and wickedness,
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