ae 0nAas24. 16. iI word, and of the preaching thereof, and to hold them clofs by that, becaufe any other way they may go wrong. And indeed, if men were not thus hedged in, they would very readily think, that their own opinion, or the opinion and praetice of others, were a fufficient rule for them, and would not care for the word. Yea, 8thly, The Lord may poflibly have in his fecret juffice this deGgn in the miftakes and errors of the godly, even that thefe who have prejudice and enmity at godlinefs in the faints, may be judicially therein hardned : For, if in another cafe it be juff with God, to give men up to Prong delufions, to believe lies, becaufe they receive not the truth in love; why may it not alfo be tuff with him, judicially to harden them in their unjuff prejudice, who without all reafon take up and entertain the fame againft godlinefs and the godly, by fuf- fering fome of them to Elide fometimes into errors and miftakes? by which they come in his righteous judgment to be fo far plagued, as to think that now they have rea- fon for their prejudice, and it may he to fay, We thought them always to be fuch and fuch perfons, and now the fee''and find them to be fo ; who lay more weight on the praEtice of any than on this word ; and who will be ready to cry more out againff an infirmity in a godly perfon than in others, and more than they can be prevailed with to fall in love with their grace ? How many a corrupt and wicked man hath juflified and maintain'd his own bad pra&ice from fome failing in the faints ? not to excufe their fin, but rather thereby to blind himfelf, and to put out his own eyes more. In the 4th place, according to the method propofed, take a word or two of ufe ; And, i. May not this inftruCt ups, that all ficfh is grafs, that when we look to our felves we fhould be humble; and that there is need, great need, of fear and trembling, in our Chriftian 1,yalk ? Whoever they be that dare to abufe this doetrine ,vent the faints infirmities, miftakes and errors, to fofter themfelves the more fecurely in their liberty of finning, God shall (if continued in) one day make it turn to the aggravation of their guilt, and to the heightning'of their judgment ; and however for the time they heighten there fin exceeding- ly in propoftng the faints faults to follow them) and not their
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