The vain religion of the formal hypocrite, and the mischief of an unbridled tongue…

Answ. 1. The are first acceived by the vanities of the world, and the pleasures of sin, before they deceive themselves by their Religion. Their Religious self-deceiving is but subservient to their fleshly servitude, and the worlds deceit. ⟨p. 50⟩They are carnal from the birth: (for that which is born of the flesh only, is but flesh, Joh. 3. 6.) and custom in sinning fixeth and increaseth their sinful disposition. Their hearts are engaged to their worldly accommodations, and to their vain-glory, and the things that please the flesh: They are willing slaves to their concupiscence. And therefore they cannot admit of that Religion which would deprive them of that which they most dearly love. Christ speaks too late to them. They tell him they are promised already. Their affections are preengaged: sin hath taken up the chiefest rooms: And the heart that loveth sensuality and prosperity best, cannot love God best too: for it can have but one best. The […] of true Sanctification is to […] the darling of a carnal […] and to cross it in its dearest ⟨p. 51⟩loves, and to lay that at our feet that before was as our treasure, and to tame that body, and bring it into subjection, which before was in the throne. The motions of such a change will not be acceptable, till they are made so effectual as to cause that change: The command will be unpleasant, till the heart be suited to the nature of the command. He that seeth what care and labour there is to gather a worldly treasure, and what a stir is made in the world about it, can never expect that all this should be vilified and despised at a word, and that any doctrine (how true and heavenly soever,) can be welcome to these worldly men, that would debase their glory, and embitter their delights, and make their Idol seem but dung. The doctrine of Christ would take the old heart out of their bodies: and they will not easily leave their ⟨p. 52⟩hearts. It doth not only command the drunkard to live soberly, and the glutton temperately, and the lascivious filthy sinner chastely, and the proud person humbly, and the covetous to live contentedly and liberally; but it commandeth the hearty forsaking of all, for the sake of Christ,