Heavenly merchandiseHeavenly merchandize

3. Take heed that you do not part with ⟨p. 157⟩any one Truth. It is a vain and foolish thing for us to let one go, and yet think to keep the rest: if once you begin to be bartering here, it will be an easy matter to buy you out of the whole stock; for let men palliate and excuse things as cunningly as they will, yet this will prove certain, that by the same reason that a man may be prevailed upon to give his consent in the alienation of any one, let it be supposed to be the least Truth in the whole system of Theology, that man will in time be wrought upon to sell all others which he hath pretended to: There are some men who think that if they do but keep to the fundamentals, and stand by them, there is less danger though they part with such as are Circumstantials: They applaud their own prudence, that they have taken up a resolution to keep Truth enough to be saved by at last, and that they will (if need be) stand in the defence of, and for all the rest, if they renounce and disclaim them, for their present profit or security, to keep themselves in an whole skin, and make the less disturbance in the places they live in, there will be no such great harm in it: and when once the Devil hath gotten this hold of men, he thinks that be hath ⟨p. 158⟩gotten enough to undo, bankrupt and ruin them: Nay this is his own trick, or way which he himself hath contrived to take with men as the most likely to wheedle them out of their Religion. The Devil knows well enough, that such men as have made a great Profession are not to be persuaded to stop into the depth of Apostasy at one stride, that they […] not sell Truth and Religion all in one sale: and hence he accommodates the Temptations that he useth with them to the best advantage, to which purpose he in the first place begin to cheapen some Truth which he supposeth they set the least by, and do not account to be so momentous as they do some others; and if either by Flatteries or Menaces, by fair promises, or […] threatenings, he can but bring them up to a consent to deny such a Truth, and profess against it, his most difficult talk is over, and all the rest is gotten with more ease.

3. Take heed that you do not part with ⟨p. 157⟩any one Truth. It is a vain and foolish thing for us to let one go, and yet think to keep the rest: if once you begin to be bartering here, it will be an easy matter to buy you out of the whole stock; for let men palliate and excuse things as cunningly as they will, yet this will prove certain, that by the same reason that a man may be prevailed upon to give his consent in the alienation of any one, let it be supposed to be the least Truth in the whole system of Theology, that man will in time be wrought upon to sell all others which he hath pretended to: There are some men who think that if they do but keep to the fundamentals, and stand by them, there is less danger though they part with such as are Circumstantials: They applaud their own prudence, that they have taken up a resolution to keep Truth enough to be saved by at last, and that they will (if need be) stand in the defence of, and for all the rest, if they renounce and disclaim them, for their present profit or security, to keep themselves in an whole skin, and make the less disturbance in the places they live in, there will be no such great harm in it: and when once the Devil hath gotten this hold of men, he thinks that be hath