1. If we consider the Religion of the Heathen, we shall find that it is vastly inferior in purity to the Christian Religion. Among the Gentiles (who lived without the Gospel) it can scarce be said there was any Religion at all, for their Gods were Stocks, and Stones, and Trees, and Fire, and Water, and Beasts, and dead Men; nay, their Precepts were so far from purity, that they commended and commanded impurity. As among the ancient Babylonians, in the Worship of Venus, the Women prostituted themselves to all Strangers; nay, the very Gods of the Heathen did, according to their own fictitious Writers, patronize all their Impieties, even by their own Patterns. Jupiter, the chief forsooth of their Gods, who hath his Name from being an helping Father, ⟨p. 239⟩commits Incest with his own Sister Juno, and his Daughter Minerva, Sodomy with Ganymedes, ravisheth Europa, banisheth his Father Saturn out of his Kingdom. Venus was a Whore, Mercury a Thief, Bacchus a Drunkard, &c. But to leave these, and speak to them that were more sober in their Understandings, and not so vain in their Imaginations, who had [Greek or Hebrew], the work of the Law written in their hearts, Rom. 2.14. and improved it to more purpose than others; yet these pleased themselves with a little outward civility, without any inward or outward practical godliness. Their chief devotion consisted in abstaining from gross sins, which might expose them to the shame of men, and the doing some external acts of Piety, as sacrificing and mumbling over a few Prayers that were little significant. O how vastly doth the Christian Religion excel this! This Religion of the Heathen doth rather hide sin then heal it. It doth not root the love of sin out of the heart, only restrain it in the life. But the Christian Religion doth forbid sin in the Affections ⟨p. 240⟩as well as in the Conversation, it doth abscindere as well as abscondere, cure sin as well as cover it. In the best Heathen the fire of their Lusts was only raked up, and covered with ashes, from the eyes of the World: But now in the Christian it is quenched, at least in part, and shall by degrees be wholly quenched. The Christian Religion doth not only forbid all Sins, or outward Commissions, but also all Lusts and inward Inclinations. I beseech you brethren to abstain as Pilgrims and Strangers, from all fleshly Lusts, that war against the Soul, 1 Pet. 2.11.
1. If we consider the Religion of the Heathen, we shall find that it is vastly inferior in purity to the Christian Religion. Among the Gentiles (who lived without the Gospel) it can scarce be said there was any Religion at all, for their Gods were Stocks, and Stones, and Trees, and Fire, and Water, and Beasts, and dead Men; nay, their Precepts were so far from purity, that they commended and commanded impurity. As among the ancient Babylonians, in the Worship of Venus, the Women prostituted themselves to all Strangers; nay, the very Gods of the Heathen did, according to their own fictitious Writers, patronize all their Impieties, even by their own Patterns. Jupiter, the chief forsooth of their Gods, who hath his Name from being an helping Father, ⟨p. 239⟩commits Incest with his own Sister Juno, and his Daughter Minerva, Sodomy with Ganymedes, ravisheth Europa, banisheth his Father Saturn out of his Kingdom. Venus was a Whore, Mercury a Thief, Bacchus a Drunkard, &c. But to leave these, and speak to them that were more sober in their Understandings, and not so vain in their Imaginations, who had 〈non-Latin alphabet〉, the work of the Law written in their hearts, Rom. 2.14. and improved it to more purpose than others; yet these pleased themselves with a little outward civility, without any inward or outward practical godliness. Their chief devotion consisted in abstaining from gross sins, which might expose them to the shame of men, and the doing some external acts of Piety, as sacrificing and mumbling over a few Prayers that were little significant. O how vastly doth the Christian Religion excel this! This Religion of the Heathen doth rather hide sin then heal it. It doth not root the love of sin out of the heart, only restrain it in the life. But the Christian Religion doth forbid sin in the Affections ⟨p. 240⟩as well as in the Conversation, it doth abscindere as well as abscondere, cure sin as well as cover it. In the best Heathen the fire of their Lusts was only raked up, and cover'd with ashes, from the eyes of the World: But now in the Christian it is quenched, at least in part, and shall by degrees be wholly quenched. The Christian Religion doth not only forbid all Sins, or outward Commissions, but also all Lusts and inward Inclinations. I beseech you brethren to abstain as Pilgrims and Strangers, from all fleshly Lusts, that war against the Soul, 1 Pet. 2.11.
