Full and easy satisfaction which is the true and safe religion in a conference…Full and easie satisfaction which is the true and safe religion in a conference…

Especially when men live where almost all are of a mind, they think that concord is a sign of truth, and modesty forbiddeth them to be wiser than all the Country. 3. And when they know few or none of another mind, how should they know what they are? And when they hear an hundred lies against them, and never hear them speak for themselves, they think that the Law of modesty, humanity and converse, oblige them to believe, that so Many, so Great, and so Learned and Religious persons will not impudently lie: When as perhaps the lye it self is a Tradition which the liars received on the same terms in modest credulity from their teachers or fathers. 4. And specially, the Names of Order, Government, Unity, and Concord, deceive many millions of souls: For Order and Unity are justly amiable to nature it self. And the purblind know not an Image from a Man. ⟨p. 172⟩5. Especially when civil Wars, or Church discords have distracted the World, and made men aweary of all that's present, and suspicious of all things, which seemed to have a hand in their disappointments; this maketh men hearken to any thing which pretendeth to certain settlement, Order and peace. Even as a man that by turning round is wheelsick, will lay hold on the next post or fixed thing, to keep him from falling down. 6. And when their Teachers make them believe, that all Christians besides them do live like madmen, in Sects and Schisms, distractedly tearing out one another's throats, What wonder if this make men willing of any way which pretends to peace, and glad to run into any Cottage which will keep them from such a storm? 7. But the great cause is, 1. The Blindness of mens minds, 2. The wickedness of all unrenewed hearts, and 3. The power of carnal Interest. 1. Few men are of great natural parts for wit, and fewer improve them, by any serious study of things spiritual. 2. Almost all men study with the bias of prejudice and partiality, and as men that would have one side to be right, because it is for their worldly ends. 3. Sin Ruleth in most souls, and the enmity against God and his Laws prevaileth in carnal minds, Rom. 8.6, 7, 8. And enmity is an ill student and seeker of truth; and friendship is an incompetent judge of sin. 4. None but a few self-denying persons can bear to be reproached as Heretics and Schismatics by all about them. ⟨p. 173⟩5.