of the church, because of their doleful consequences to the Gospel and the souls of men; and yet with all possible honour to the sacred office which they thus profane. No man so heartily lamenteth the contentions and divisions among Christians, and the miserable destruction of charity thereby. It grieveth him to see how much selfishness, pride, and malice prevaileth with them that should shine as lights in a benighted world, and how obstinate and incurable they seem to be, against the plainest means and humblest motions, for the church's edification and peace. He envieth not kings and great men their dominions, wealth, or pleasure; nor is he at all ambitious to participate in their tremendous exaltation: but the thing that his heart is set upon is, that the 'kingdoms of the world may all become the kingdoms of the Lord,' and that the Gospel may every where 'have free course and be glorified,' and the preachers of it be encouraged, or at least delivered from unreasonable and wicked men.' Little careth he who is uppermost or conquereth in the world, or who goeth away with the preferments or riches of the earth (supposing that he fail not of his duty to his rulers), so that it may go well with the affairs of the Gospel, and souls be but helped in the way to heaven. Let God be honoured, and souls converted and edified, and he is satisfied. This is it that maketh the times good in his account: he thinketh not as the proud and carnal church of Rome, that the times are best when the clergy is richest and greatest in the world, and overtop princes, and claim the secular power, and live in worldly pomp

and pleasures. But when holiness most aboundeth, and the members of Christ are likest to their head, and when multitudes of sincere believers are daily added to the church; and when the mercy and holiness of God shine forth in the numbers and purity of his saints. It is no riches or honour that can be heaped upon himself or any others, that make the times seem good to him, if knowledge and godliness are discountenanced and hindered, and the way to heaven is made more difficult; if atheism, infidelity, ungodliness, pride, and malignity do prevail, and truth and sincerity are driven into the dark, and when he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey;' when the godly man ceaseth, and the faithful fail from among the children of men; when every man speaketh vanity to his neighbour, and the poor are oppressed, and the needy sigh, and the wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted.' The times are good when the men are good, and evil when the men are evil, be they never so great or prosperous; as Nehemiah, when he was cup-bearer to the king himself, yet wept and mourned for the desolations of Jerusalem. Whoever prospereth, the times are ill when there is a 'famine of the word of the Lord,' and when 'the chief of the priests and people do transgress, and mock God's messengers, and despise his words, and misuse his prophets;' when the apostles are 'charged to speak no more in the name of Christ.'

It is a

text enough to make one tremble, to think into what a desperate condition the Jews were carried by a partial selfish zeal, who both killed the Lord

Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sin alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.' When the interest of themselves and their own nation and priesthood did so far blind and pervert them, that they durst persecute the preachers of the Gospel, and 'forbid them to speak to the people that they might be saved,' it was a sign that wrath was come upon them to the uttermost. A Christian indeed had rather be without Jeroboam's kingdom, than make Israel to sin, and make the basest of the people priests, and 'stretch out his hand against the prophet of the Lord.' He had rather labour with his hands, as Paul, and live in poverty and rags, so that the Gospel may be powerfully and plentifully preached, and holiness abound, than to live in all the prosperity of the world with the hinderance of men's salvation. He had rather be a door-keeper in the house of God, than be a lord in the kingdom of Satan. He cannot rise by the ruins of the church, nor feed upon those morsels that are the price of the blood of souls.

2. And the weakest Christian is in all this of the same mind, saving that private and selfish interest is not so fully overcome, nor so easily and resolutely denied.

3. But here the hypocrite sheweth the falseness of his heart; his own interest is it that chooseth his religion; and, that he may not torment himself by being wicked in the open light, he maketh himself

believe that whatsoever is most for his own interest, is most pleasing unto God, and most for the good of souls, and the interests of the Gospel; so that the carnal Romish clergy can persuade their consciences that all the darkness and superstitions of their kingdom, and all their opposition of the light of the Gospel of Christ, do make for the honour of God and the good of souls, because they uphold their tyranny, wealth, and pomp, and pleasure; or if they cannot persuade their consciences to believe so gross a lie, let church and souls speed how they will, they will favour nothing that favoureth not their interest and ends; and the interest of the flesh and spirit, of the world and Christ, are so repugnant, that commonly such worldlings take the serious practice of godliness for the most hateful thing, and the serious practisers of it for the most. insufferable persons. The enmity of interests with the enmity of nature, between the woman's and the serpent's seed, will maintain that warfare to the end of the world, in which the prince of the powers of darkness shall seem to prevail (as he did against our crucified Lord); but he shall be overcome by his own successes, and the just shall conquer by patience, when they seem most conquered. The name, and form, and image of religion, the carnal hypocrite doth not only bear, but favour, and himself accept; but the life and serious practice he abhorreth, as inconsistent with his worldly interest and ends. For these he can find in his heart, with Ahab, to hate and imprison Micaiah, and prefer his four hundred flattering prophets. If Luther will

touch the pope's crown, and the friars' bellies, they will not scruple to oppose and ruin both him and all such preachers in the world, if they were able.

LVI. 1. A Christian indeed, is one whose holiness usually maketh him an eyesore to the ungodly world; and his charity, and peaceableness, and moderation, maketh him to be censured as not strict enough, by the superstitious and dividing sects of Christians. For seeing the church hath suffered between these two sorts of opposers ever since the suffering of Christ himself, it cannot be but the solid Christian offend them both, because he hath that which both dislike. All the ungodly hate him for his holiness, which is cross to their interest and way; and all the dividers will censure him for that universal charity and moderation, which is against their factious and destroying zeal. Even Christ himself was not strict enough (in superstitious observances) for the ceremonious zealous Pharisees. He transgressed (with his disciples) the tradition of the elders, in neglecting their observances, who transgressed the commandment of God by their tradition. He was not strict enough in their uncharitable observation of the Sabbath day. John, that was eminent for fasting, they said, had a devil. 'The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man, gluttonous and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners; but wisdom is justified of her children.' And the weak Christians did censure those that durst eat those meats, and do those things which they conceived to be unlawful; they that err themselves, and make