all, required at their hands—their voluntary humility, or neglecting of the body being but will-worship, and a self-devised piece of religion. [3.] Thirdly, When once men are set in the way of exercising severities, Satan endeavours, by working upon their fancies, to _press them on further to a delight and satisfaction in these_[251] ways of strictness, so that the practisers themselves are not only confirmed in these usages, and the opinions that are concomitant with them, but others are the more easily drawn to like and profess the same things. Any serious temper, under any profession of religion, easily comes to be devout, and readily complies with opportunities of evincing its devotion by strictness. And therefore we shall find among heathens a great devotional severity, and such as far exceeds all of that kind which the papists do usually brag of. The Magi abstained from wine, ate not the flesh of living creatures, and professed virginity. The Indian Brachmans did the like, and besides used themselves to incredible hardship; they laid upon skins, sustained the violence of the sun and storms, and exercised themselves therewith; some spending thirty-seven years in this course, others more. We read strange things of this nature concerning the Egyptian priests, and others. The Mohammedans are not without their religious orders, which pretend a more holy and austere life than others; and though of some, as of the _torlachs_ and _dervizes_, several private villainies are reported, yet of others, as of the order of _calender_, we are assured from history that they profess virginity, and expose themselves to hardship, and a stricter devotion in their way; and generally it is said of all of them, that they go meanly clad, or half naked; some abstinent in eating and drinking, professing poverty, renouncing the world. Some can endure cutting and slashing, as if they were insensible; some profess perpetual silence, though urged with injuries and tortures; others have chains about their necks and arms, to shew that they are bound up from the world, &c. If such things may be found among heathens, no wonder that error boasts of them, for in both there is the same reason of men’s pleasing themselves in such hardships, which is from a natural devotion, assisted by Satan’s cunning, and the same design driven on by it; for the devil doth confirm heathens and Mohammedans in their false worship by the reverence and respect they carry to such practices.