288 TAITIS BUILT ON KNOWLEDGE. righteousness, to cover your hearts, the hope ofsalvation as ahel- met on your heads, and the shield offaith to ward offevery dart; you are then best furnished to resist unto death. But I would here chide the ignorant and the lazy christian. What will you do when ye shall be assaulted withthe wittyre- proaches of the heathens of our age, those apostates from chris- tianity ? When they shall laugh at you for a fool, because you profess to be a believer, and they think they have reason to laugh, if you can giveno reason why you believe ? What will you say, when they shall tell you the gospel of Christ is but a fable, and endeavour to scoff you out of your faith? When they shall ridi- cule you for paying the honours of a God, to a poor man, that was hanged upon a tree in Jerusalem, and bath been dead and buried seventeen hundred years ago? What will you say, when they shall ask you, how you can imagine that this man was the Son of God, or the scriptures are of divine original ? Will you answer as a papist does, " I believe it because the church believes it ?" Or will you reply with the Turk, " I believe in Christ, as the Turk doth in Mahomet, because the whole nation believes ?" Or will you give the answer of a child, " I believe thebible is thewordof God, because my mother told me so ?" Buthow unworthy is this of a person that professes to be a chris- tian, and is grown to full years ofmaturity ? How ridiculous is itfor aman tobelieve, and he knows not why ? A man that Math bad a thousand advantages toget his faith well grounded, and to learn the reasonof the hope that is in him ? Besides, how will you be able to stand in such an hour oftemptation ? Perhaps you will lose your faith, and all your religion. A bold jest, or a fair shew of argument, may make so deep an impression on a weak and unfurnishedmind, as to give a sudden inlet'to the tempter ; and your soul may be filled with doubts and suspicions of christianity : Then from one degree of unbelief you may be led on to another, till you have made shepwreek of thefaith and a podFonscience too. Thus you will part with all your hopes of immortality and heaven, for want of a well-grounded knowledge of the person inwhom you profess to trust. But further ; ifpersecution should grow sharp, and days of torment and martyrdom return again, how would yoube able to resist unto blood, and to bear the fiery trial, for the sake of a Saviour that you have not much acquaintancewith ? How could you hold out in this conflict till the death, if you have but little knowledge and little experience of that gospel whichpromiseth a crown of life ? Would such ignorance as yours is, endure to be plundered and banished ? To be scourged and buffeted ? To be fastened tothe chains of a galley slave, or to die by lingering tortures? Do you think you could bear what our neighbours
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