Directions for weak distempered Christians, to grow up to a confirmed state of grace…

If God cast their lot under Infidel, ungodly and malicious Governors, they do not run to arms, to save themselves, or save the Gospel, as if God had called them to reform the world, or keep it from the oppression of the higher powers: Nor do they think it a strange intolerable matter for the best men to be lowest, and to be the suffering side; and so fall to fighting that Christ and the Saints may have the rule. For they know that Christs Kingdom is not of this world, Joh. 18.36. (that is, not a visible Monarchy, as his usurping Vicar doth pretend;) and that Christ doth most eminently rule unseen, and disposeth of all the Kingdoms of the world, even where he is hated and resisted: and that the reign of Saints is in their state of glory: and that all Gods graces do sit them more for a suffering life, than for worldly power: Their humility, meekness, patience, self-denial, contempt of the world, and heavenly mindedness, are better exercised and promoted in a suffering, than a prosperous reigning state, Wher• […] ⟨p. 118⟩think of the holy blood which hath been shed by Heathen Rome, from Christ and Stephen till the days of Constantine; and the far greater streams which have been shed by the bloody Papal Rome; where-ever they had power, in Piedmont, Germany, Poland, Hungary, in Belgia, England, and in other Lands; the 30000, or 40000 murdered in a few days at the Bartholomew Massacre in France; the two hundred thousand murdered in a few weeks in Ireland; they are not so unlike their suffering Brethren, as to think that striving for honours and command, is their way to Heaven: When Christ hath foretold them that self-denial under the Cross, tribulation and persecution, is the common way, Luk. 14.26, 27, 29, 33. Acts 14.22. Joh. 16.33. Rom. 5.3. & 8.35.