CONFIRMED CHRISTIAN. 579 all his holy ways; when all iniquity shall be forever silent ! And though " it must needs be that offenses come, yet woe to the world because of offenses, and woe to the man by whom they come." The wrong that Christ receiveth from hypocrites andscandalous Christians (ofall ranks and places) is not to be estimated. These are the causes that Christianity and godliness are so contemptiblein the eyes ofthe world ! that Jews, and heathens, and Mahometans, are still unconverted and deriders of the faith; because they see such scandaloustyranny and worship among the Papists, and such scandalous lives among the greatest part of professed Christians in the world; whereas, if the Papal tyranny were turned into the Christian ministry, (Luke xxii. 25-27. 1 Tim. v. 17.) and their irrational fopperies, and historical, hypocritical worship were changed into a reverent, rational, and spiritual worship ; and the cruel, carnal, worldly lives of men called Christians, were changed into self-denial, love, and holiness ; in a word, if Christians were Christians indeed, andsuch as I havehere described from their rule, what a powerful means would it be of the conversion of all the un- believing world ! Christianity wouldthenbe, in the eye of the world, as the sun in its brightness, and the glory of it would dazzle the eyes of the beholders, and draw in millions to inquire after Christ, who are now drivenfromhimby thesins of hypocrites and scandalousbelievers. And this doth not contradictwhat I said before of the enmityof the world to holiness, and that the best are most abused by the ungodly; for even this enmity must be rationally cured, as by the error of reason it is fed. God useth, by the power of intellectual light, to bring all those out of darkness whom he saveth, and so bringeth them from the power Of Satan to himself; Acts xxvi. 18. Men hate not holiness as 'good, but as misconceived to be evil. Evil, I say, to them, because it isopposite to their sensual pleasures, which they take to be, their chiefest good. And the wayof curing their enmity, is by showing them their error; and that is, by show- ing them the excellency and necessity of that which they un- reasonably distaste ; Acts xxvi. 9 I1. 14. 19. Luke xv. 13 16. Acts ii. 36, 37. 6. Lastly ; in these characters you have some help in the work of self-examination, for the trial both of the truth and strength of grace. I suppose it will be objected, that in other treatises, I have reduced all the infallible marks of grace to a smaller number. To which I answer, I still say, that thepredominancy or prevalencyof the interest of God as our God, and Christ as our Savior, and the Spirit asour Sanctifier, in the estimation of theunderstanding, the resolved choice of the will, and the government of the lift, against all the worldly interest of the flesh, is the only infallible
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=