Heavenly merchandiseHeavenly merchandize

2. Beware of being ashamed to own, or persuaded through fear to suppress the profession of the Truth. It is none of the least of the devices of Satan: and lessons which he hath throughly instructed his instruments in, to cast an odium and obloquy upon the Truth, and the serious professors of it; and it is grounded upon this presumption, that if they can once obtain to make it infamous, they shall then with little difficulty draw men away from it, merely to avoid that scandal which they shall otherwise expose themselves unto, by the open profession of it. It is not seldom that the Truth comes to be quite out of credit among the generality of men, when the Prophets complaint is verified, Isai. 59. 14, 15. Truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter, yea Truth faileth, and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey: when matters so stand in the World, that nothing shall expose a man to so much opprobry and contempt as the lively profession of it; when a man's […] shall be more secure, ⟨p. 155⟩and out of danger, in the commission of all manner of debaucheries, than in the sober asserting of such a Profession; and such men as do so profess, shall be so strangely characterized, and represented to the World as more dangerous to the civil interests, and more pernicious enemies to the peace and safety of man kind than the most profane and profligate men: when openly to own and assert the Truth, shall expose a man to be the ridicule of the world and scorn of the generation: such things as these there have been many of the people of God that have been experienced witnesses of: and now when it is so, the greatest number of men that have sometimes made a profession, may be ready to withdraw, and think it to be a great deal more safe for them to suppress it, and keep in the Truth: they may be loth to lay themselves open, and to have their persons vilified, and names bespattered with all reproachful reflections: and when they have given way to such a shame as this is, it will readily put them upon dissembling, and that they may shore up their reputation, they make bold to imprison the Truth, to shrink in from it, and leave it alone to plead for it self;

2. Beware of being ashamed to own, or perswaded through fear to suppress the profession of the Truth. It is none of the least of the devices of Satan: and lessons which he hath throughly instructed his instruments in, to cast an odium and obloquy upon the Truth, and the serious professors of it; and it is grounded upon this presumption, that if they can once obtain to make it infamous, they shall then with little difficulty draw men away from it, meerly to avoid that scandal which they shall otherwise expose themselves unto, by the open profession of it. It is not seldom that the Truth comes to be quite out of credit among the generality of men, when the Prophets complaint is verified,