Christian letters full of spiritual instructions tending to the promoting of the power of…

LETTER. VI. [Look out of your Graves upon the World.] To my most dearly Beloved Friends, the chosen of God in Taunton, Grace and Peace.

Most endeared Christian,

MY heart is with you, though I am Absent, as to my Bodily presence from you, and therefore as I have often already, so I have now written to you to stir up your pure minds by way of Remembrance, and to call upon you for your steadfast continuing, and vigorous proceeding in the ways of God. Dear Friends, and fellow Soldiers under Christ the Captain of our Salvation, consider your calling and Station, and approve your selves as good Soldiers of Jesus Christ, as men of resolution and courage, be discouraged with no difficulties of your present Warfare. As for humane affairs, it would have you to be as you are, Men of Peace. I would have you Armed not for resisting, God forbid, but for Suffering only, as the Apostle hints: You should resist, even to the uttermost, striving against Sin. Here you must give no quarter, for if you spare but one Agag, the life of your Souls must go for the life of your sins: you must make no Peace; for God will not smile on that Soul that smiles on Sin, nor have any Peace with him, that is at peace with his Enemy. Other Enemies you must forgive, and love, and pray for (which I again desire you to mind as one special duty of the times) but for these Spiritual Enemies, all your affections, and all your Prayers must be engaged against them; yea, you must admit no Parley: It's dangerous to dispute with Temptations. Remember what Eve lost by Parleying with Satan: you must fly from Temptations, and put them off at first with a Peremptory denial. If you will but hear the Devils Arguments, and the Fleshes Pleas, and fair Pretences, it is an hundred ⟨p. 24⟩to one but you are ensnared by his Sophistry. And for this present evil World, the Lord deliver you from its Snares. Surely you had need watch and be sober, and use your spiritual Weapons dexterously ad diligently, or else this World is like to undo you, and destroy yo. I have often warned you not to build upon an External happiness. and that you should promise your selves nothing but hardship here: Oh still remember your station; Soldiers must not count upon Rest, and Fullness, but Hunger, and Hardness. Labour to get right apprehsions of the World. Do not think these things necessary; one thing is needful: You may be happy in the want of all outward comfs. Do not think your selves undone, if brought to Want or Poverty: