Now, forget not to call to mind that you ought not to think it a strange thing if misery, trouble, adversity, persecution, and displeasure come upon you. For how can it be otherwise, but that trouble and persecution must come upon you. Can the world love you, which are none of his? Can worldly men, which are your chief enemy's soldiers, regard you? (1 Pet. iv. v., John xiv.) Can Satan suffer you to be at rest, who will do no homage unto him? Can this way be chosen by any that account it so narrow and strait as they do? Will you look to travel, and to have no foul way or rain? Will shipmen shrink, or sailors on the sea give over, if storms arise? Do they not look for such? and, dearly beloved, did not we enter into God's ship and ark of baptism at the first? will you then count it strange, if perils come or tempests blots? Are not you travelling to your heavenly city of Jerusalem, were is all joy and felicity, and will you tarry by the way for storms and showers? The mart and fair will then be past; the night will so come upon you, that you cannot travel; the door will be barred, and the bride will be at supper. (John ix., Matt. xxv.) Therefore away with dainty niceness. Will you think that the Father of heaven will deal more gently with you in this age than he has done with others, his dearest friends, in other ages? What way, yea, what storms and tempests, what troubles and disquietness Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and good Joseph found! Which of these had so fair a life, and such restful times, as we have had? Moses, Aaron, Samuel, David the king, and all the good kings, priests, and prophets in the Old Testament, at one time or other, if not throughout their lives, felt a thousand times more misery than we have felt hitherto. (Gen. iv. vi. vii. viii. ix. &c., Exod. ii. iii. iv. v. &:c.) John Bradford
Hosea 4:6. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge
In a short time there will (we have reason to fear) remain but two kinds of persons among us, either those who think not at all, or those whose imaginations are active indeed, but continually evil. Of these latter it may be said, "Their foolish heart was darkened." Of the principles, I do not say of the detail, of political science, a sound theology is the only sure and steady basis. Now we trace the operations by which a destruction so extended in its consequences has been effected. The master-spring of every principle which can permanently secure the stability of a people is the fear and knowledge of Almighty God. The first operation of a principle of atheism, and perhaps one of the most formidable in its consequences, is that which leads political men to conceive of Christianity as a mere auxiliary to the State. Religion was not instituted (in the Divine council I mean) for the purpose of society and government, but society and government for the purposes of religion. As a...
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