A saint or a brute the certain necessity and excellency of holiness, &c. ...…

Were we such as Stephen, that was full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and could steadfastly look up to heaven by faith, and see there the Glory of the living God, and Jesus standing at his right hand, till we were raised to his boldness in defence of the truth, and his quiet submission to the greatest sufferings, the world would not then be able to resist the wisdom and spirit by which we speak, but the faces of believers would sometime appear to the terror of their persecutors, as the faces of Angels; as Act. 6. 5, 10, 15. & 7. 51, 55, 56, 60. They are high and glorious things that are assured to us in the promises of the Gospel. Did but these things appear, in the steadfast faith, the confident hopes, desires, and joys of us that do expect them, believers then would be the wonder of the world; and our joys would so shame their dreaming, childish, brutish pleasures, that doubtless multitudes would flock in, to see what it is that so delighteth us, that they might be made partakers of our joys. Even as Simon Magus himself when he saw the Miraculous gift of the Holy Ghost, would fain have bought that gift with money; so men that are yet carnal, in the gall of bitterness and bond of their iniquities, will yet see a desirable excellency in the Joy of the Holy Ghost, and wish they were partakers of such joys, though yet they are unacquainted with the way to attain it.

Were we such as Stephen, that was full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and could stedfastly look up to heaven by faith, and see there the Glory of the living God, and Jesus standing at his right hand, till we were raised to his boldness in defence of the truth, and his quiet submission to the greatest sufferings, the world would not then be able to resist the wisdom and spirit by which we speak, but the faces of believers would sometime appear to the terrour of their persecutors, as the faces of Angels; as Act. 6. 5, 10, 15. & 7. 51, 55, 56, 60. They are high and glorious things that are assured to us in the promises of the Gospel. Did but these things appear, in the stedfast faith, the confident hopes, desires, and joys of us that do expect them, believers then would be the wonder of the world; and our joys would so shame their dreaming, childish, brutish pleasures, that doubtless multitudes would flock in, to see what it is that so delighteth us, that they might be made partakers of our joys. Even as Simon Magus himself when he saw the Miraculous guift of the Holy Ghost, would fain have bought that guift with money; so men that are yet carnal, in the gall of bitterness and bond of their iniquities, will yet see a desirable excellency in the Joy of the Holy Ghost, and wish they were partakers of such joys, though yet they are unacquainted with the way to attain it.