Coír*FIRME'D CHRISTIAN. 575 you have but life here, to difference you from the dead? If you were continually infants that must be fed, and carried, and made clean by others ; or if you hada continual gout, or stone, or leprosy, and lived in continual want and misery, you would think that life alone is not enough ; and that ° non vivere. tantum sed valere vita est;' that life is uncomfortable when we have nothiiig.but life, and all the delights of life are gone. He-that lieth incontinual pain and want is weary of his life, if he cannot separate it from those calamities. He that knoweth how necessary strength is, as well as life, to do any considerable service for. God, and how many pains attend the diseases and infirmities of the weak, and what great dishonor cometh to Christ and religion, by the faults and childishness of many that shall be pardoned and saved, would cer- tainly bestir him with all possible care to get out of this sick or infant state. 2. By this you may see who are the strong Christians, and who are the weak. It is not always the man of learningand free ex- pressions, that can speak longest and most wisely of holy things, that is the strong, confirmed Christian;. but he that most excelleth in the love of God and man, and in a heavenly mind and holy life. Nor is it he, that is unlearned, or of a weak memory, or'slow ex- pression,.that is the weakest Christian; .but he thathath least love' to God and man, and the most love to his carnal self, and to the world,'and the strongest corruptions, and the weakest grace. Many a; poor day-laborer, or woman that can scarce speak, sense, is a stronger Christian (as being strong in faith, and love, and patience, and humility, and mortification, and self-denial) than many great preachers and doctors of the church. 3. You see here what kind of men they be that we call the godly ; and what that godliness is which we plead for, against the malicious serpentine generation. The liars would make men believe that by godliness we mean a few affected strains, or hypo- critical shows, or :heartless lip-service, or singular opinions, in need- less scrupulosity, or ignorant zeal; yea, a schism, or faction or sedition, or rebellion, or what the devil please to say. If these sixty characters describe any such thing, thenÍ will not deny, that in the way that such men gall heresy, faction., schism, singularity, so worship we the God of our fathers. But if not, the Lord re- buke thee, Satan, and hasten the day when the " lying lips shall be put to silence;" Psal. cxxxi. 18. cxx. 2. cix. 2. Prov. xii. 19. 22. x. 18. 4. By this also you may see how inexcusable the enemies of Christianityand godliness are, and for what it is that they hate and injure it. Is there any thing in all this character of a Christian,
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