SERM.
II.]
INWARD WITNESS
TO
CHRISTIANITY.
21
wrought
in
truth
in
the
soul,
hath,
in some measure,
this effect; and where
it
shines
in its
brightness, it bath,
in a great degree, this sublime grace accompanying
it;
or rather,
,(shall
I
say
this piece
of
heavenly
glory.
Pain and
sickness;
poverty and reproach, sorrow
and
death
itself,
have been
contemned
by
those
that
have be-
lieved
in
Christ
Jesus,
with
much
more
honour
to
Chris-
tianity,
than
ever
was
brought
to
other
religions
by
the.
same profession,
and the
saine
practice.
Other
religions
have,
in
some degree,
promised
a
con-
tempt of
the
world,
s,
contempt
of
sickness,
and pain,
and
death; but
then
it
hath
been only
here and there
a
person
of
a
hardier
mould
of
body; here
and
there one
in an
age,
or
one
in a
nation,
who by a firmness
of
natural
spirits,
an obstinate resolution,
attained
by
much labour
of
meditation, and toil
of
thought,
hath
got
above the
world,
and above death. But our religion
boasts
of
its
hundreds and
thousands,
and
that
not
only:
those
who
had
firmer
natural
spirits, or have
been skill-
ed
in
thought
and
meditation, and absent
from
sensual
things by philosophy, and intellectual exercises
;
but
the
feeblest
of
mankind, the
weak
things
of
this world,
the
foolish
and
the young; the
infant
(as
it were)
in
years,
and
the
feeble
sex,
have
been
made
to
contemn
this
world,
and
the pleasures
of
it,
the
hopes,
and
the
sor-
rows,
pain,
and
death.
They
have
learnt
to live
above
all the
enticing joys and
affrighting
terrors of
this
present
state,
that
is,
to
live
near
to
heaven:
So
that
whatso-
ever religion pretends
to
a competition
with ours,
it
falls
vastly
short
in this
respect,
in
raising the
affections
above
the
world,
above the joys and fears
of
the
present
life.
Again,
if
we
consider what
motives have
argued the
minds
of
men to the
contempt
of
the world,
we
shall
find
the religion
of
Christ
Jesus
is
far superior
to all
in
this respect.
Other
religions have
taught
men to despise
the
good
things
of
this world, and to be
unconcerned
about
the
evils
of
it, in
a mere romantic
way: Such
was
the Stoical
doctrine, denying
health and
wealth, sleep
and
safety,
to have
any goodness
in
them
;
and prófessiog
that
pain,
poverty, sickness,
want, hunger, and
shame, were no
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