A Saint Indeed

For what think you is the reason that so many professors in England have departed from the faith, giving heed to •ables: that so many thousands have ⟨p. 194⟩been led away by the error of the wicked, that Jesuits and Quakers who have sown corrupt doctrine, have had such plentiful harvests among us, but because they have met with a company of empty notional pro•essors that never knew what belongs to practical godliness, and the study of their own hearts.

For what think you is the reason that so many professors in England have departed from the faith, giving heed to •ables: that so many thousands have ⟨p. 194⟩been led away by the errour of the wicked, that Jesuits and Quakers who have sown corrupt doctrine, have had such plentiful harvests among us, but because they have met with a company of empty notional pro•essors that never knew what belongs to practical godliness, and the study of their own hearts.

If professors did but give diligence to study, search, and watch their own hearts, they would have that [Greek or Hebrew] that steadfastness of their own that Peter speaks of 2 Pet. 3. 17. and this would ballast and settle them, Heb. 13. 9. Suppose a subtle Papist should talk to such of the dignity, and merit of good works, could he ever work the persuasion of it into that heart that is conscious to it self of so much darkness, deadness, distraction, and unbelief attending it• best duties? tis a good rule, non est disputandum de gustu: there is no disputing against taste: what a man hath felt and tasted, one cannot beat him off from that by argument.