DISCOURSE V. (,''fj names, or their affection to a particular party, has determined their opinions long ago : Their passions and other prejudices have formed their schemes of doctrines, with the neglect or ahuse of their understandings, and yet they pronounce as positively upon truth and error, as though they were infallible. Happy are those whose faith is built on better foundations l 2. Again, there are some persons, when they begin to he convinced thatsuch a particular practice is culpable or unlawful, their indignation is too soon awakened, and rises too high ; im- mediately they condemn it, as inconsistent with salvation : Their hatred of it grows as violent, as if it were blasphemy or idolatry: They are ready to breakout into hard speeches and railing accu- sations against all that practise it, and pronounce them apostates and sinners of the first rank. The sudden rise and warmthof their passions does not suffer them to consider that there are some faults and follies that a good christian may be guilty of through ignorance or inadvertence ; there are some sins thatdo not carry in them such malignity and poison as to destroy all our Christianity. S. There have been some weak christians, when they have beard a sermon, or read a discourse full of sublime language and mysterious darkness, and especially, if the style and manner has been very pathetic, and they have been raptured and transported, as though it contained the deepest sense, the noblest truths of religion, and the highest discoveries of grace and the gospel: Whereas, perhaps there may be scarce any thing in it which has a just agreement with reason or scripture ; but when well ex- amined, it proves to be a mere jargon of words, a mixture of unintelligible and unmeaning sounds, with some affectionate airs among them, whereby their passions were fired, and that without knowledge, and beyond all reason : And it is well, if after these flashes of affection and violent transports, they are not deluded into shameful iniquities. This has been the case of some high pretenders in elder and later days. They have spoken great swelling words of vanity, they are murmurers and complainers against the common rank of christians, but they " walk after their ownungodly lusts ; they turn the grace of God into lascivi- ousness, and they allure others into lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, and while they promise liberty, they are the servants of corruption ; 2 Pet. ii. 18, 19. and Jude, verses 4, 18, 18. 4. Thisirregular exercise of the affections running before reason, is eminently exemplified also in another weak sort of people, who are very sincere in the main, but if they read an awful and terrible threatening, or if they hear it pronounced ht the pulpit with a just degree of authority and proper accent, their fears are raised in an excessive manner, and their soul is
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