An exposition with practical observations continued upon the eighth, ninth, & tenth chapters of…

You will say,¹ How can this be?

1. 1Object.

Thus,¹ There may be some sins that they have among them that may have greater aggravations than any sins that other people have, that may make their condition (all things considered) worse. We here in this Land have much rejoiced heretofore in this, that we have had the Doctrine of Religion so pure among us as no people more, and certainly except it hath been through some few that of late days have sought to corrupt it, certainly that must be said, that the Doctrine hath been kept very pure, as the main things of Religion, and in some things we have gone beyond other reformed Churches, as in the point of the Sabbath a great deal beyond them; and so there hath been here in England for Family Duties, never had God more ⟨p. 148⟩honour from any people in the world than he hath had from us in many respects; but yet for all this it seems by Gods dealings with us at this day, that God is more provoked with us than with other people, and the truth is, take these one or two things and I think that no people upon the face of the earth can parallel our guilt, not only no people that are now, but never any people since the world began, as that bitterness of spirit in the hatred of the power of godliness and the opposing of it, and persecuting of it, never was any people so guilty as we have been; in other reformed Churches men may be as forward and zealous as they will and they are not persecuted as they are here, & though they kept the Sabbath more loosely, yet they never persecuted men that kept it strictly, & there was never heard that stopping of the mouth of the faithful Ministry so generally as here in England, if there were but any stirring Ministry in any place, presently fly upon them; and so it may well be said to us at this day, Rejoice not as other people. God hath spit in our faces, to tell us that our condition is worse than the condition of other people.