13, ‘He gave some apostles, and some prophets,’ &c., ‘for the perfecting of the saints, ... till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man.’ By a perverse interpretation of these, and some other scriptures of like import, he would persuade them that the great thing that Christ designed by his ordinances was but to ‘train up the weaker Christians by these rudiments,’ as the A B C to children, to a more spiritual and immediate way of living upon God; and that these become altogether useless when Christians have gotten up to any of these imaginary degrees of a supposed perfection. Enough of this may be seen in the writings of Saltmarsh, Winstanly, and others, in the late times. How great a trade Satan drove by such misapprehensions not long since cannot easily be forgotten; so that God’s worship did almost lie waste, and in many places ‘the way to Zion did mourn.’ [2.] Secondly, He will sometimes confess an _equality of privilege among the children of God, and yet plead an inequality of duty_. That God is as good and strong to us, and that we have all an equal advantage by Christ, he will readily acknowledge; but then, when we should propound the diligence of the saints in their services for our pattern, as of David’s ‘praying seven times a-day,’ Daniel’s three times, Anna’s serving God with fastings and prayers night and day, &c.,[204] he tells us these were extraordinary services, and as it were works of supererogation, more than the command of God laid upon them. So that we are not tied to such strictness; and we, being naturally apt to indulge ourselves in our own ease, are too ready to comply with such delusions. And by degrees men are thus brought to a confident belief that they may be good enough, and do as much as is required, though they slacken their pace, and do not fast, pray, or hear so often as others have done.