Εικόνες σελίδας
PDF
Ηλεκτρ. έκδοση
[ocr errors]

dungeon of fire, would be content with all their hearts, to live a million of years as precisely as ever Saint did upon earth to redeem but one moment of that torment] fo p. 159. [The common conceit of thefe men is, that civil honeft men are in the fate of grace, and that formal profeffors are very forward, and without exception, but true Chriftians indeed are Puritans, Irregularifts, exorbitants, tranfcendents to that ordinary pitch of formal piety, which in their carnal comprehenfions they hold high enough for heaven: They either conceit them to be Hypocrites, and so the only objects for the exercife of their Minifterial Severity, and the terrours of God; or elfe though the Lord may at laft pardon perhaps their fingularities and exceffes of zeal, yet in the mean time they diffweeten and vex the comforts and glory of this life, with much unnecessary strictness and abridgement.]

[Now

[Now of all others, fuch Prophets as thefe, are the only men with the Formal Hypocrite, exactly fitted and fuitable to his humour: for. however they may sometime declaim boyfterously (N.B.) against grofs and visible abominations, (and that is well) yet they are no fearchers into, nor cenfurers of the state of Formality and therefore do rather fecretly and filently encourage him, to fit fafter upon that fandy foundation, then help to draw him forward to more forwardness, &c.].

See alfo his defcription of a Puritan, P. 132.

So in his Direct, for walking with God, p. 172. [Good-fellow meetings and Ale-houfe revellings are the drunkards delight: but all the while he fits at it, he is perhaps in a bodily fear of the Puritan ConStable.]

Many fuch Paffages tell you how the word [Puritan] was com

[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors]

monly interpreted in Oxford, Northamptonshire, and whereever Learned and Holy Mr. Bolton was acquainted.

And having mentioned his teftimony of the ufe of that word, Ifhall add fomewhat of his difcovery of this fpirit of malignity and detraction that worketh in the Antiparitans. In his Difc. of Hap. p. 190, 191. he faith,

·The reverence and respectful carriage to godly Minifters,which may Sometimes be found in the Formal Hypocrite, doth grow towards diftaft and difaffection, when they prefs them by the powerful fenfe, and pierting application of some quickning Scriptures, to a fervency in pirit, purity of heart, preciseness in their walking, fupernatural fingularity above ordinary and moral· perfections, excellency of zeal, and a facred violence in purfuit of the Crown of life: to an holy strictness, extraordinary

extraordinary ftriving to enter in at the ftrait gate, and tranfcendent eminency over the formal righteoufness of the Scribes and Pharifees, to a nearer familiarity with God by prayer, daily examination of confcience, private humiliations, meditation upon the endless duration in a fecond life; to a narrow watch over the ftirrings and imaginations of the heart, and expreffion of holinefs in all the paffages of both their callings, &c. Points and penderations of which nature are ordinarily to bim fo many fecret feeds of indignation,and many times breed in his formal heart and cold affection exafperation and estrangement, if not meditations of perfecution and revenge. Sanctification,precifeness, purity, holiness, zeal, ftrictness, power of godliness, fpiritual men, holy brethren, Saints in Chrift, Communion of Chriftians,godly conferences, conceived prayers, fanctifying the L2 Sabbath,

Sabbath, family exercises, exercise of fafting, and mortifying humiliations,and fuch like, are commonly to men of this temporifing temper, and lukewarm conftitution,terms of fecret terrour and open taunting.-And fometimes they villanously fport themselves with them, and make them the matter of their bateful and accurfed jeafts, that fo they may keep under as much as they can, in difeftimation and contempt, the faithful Profeffors and Practifers thereof, whom naturally they beartily hate, and alfo feem thereby to bear out the heartless flourishes of their own formality with greater bravery. Herenpon it is that if they take a child of God but tripping. in the leaft infirmity, against which too perhaps he strives and prayes with many tears, &c.) flipping only in fome unadvised precipitant paffage of his negotiations, &c. then they take on unmea

furably!

« ΠροηγούμενηΣυνέχεια »