forsake the greater. Christ tried his love, in bidding him forsake all, because he knew, for all his brags, that his mind was rivetted therein: not that if he had enjoyed his possessions with Christian indifferency, they might not have been continued; but what then is their doom, whose hearts are so fixed in the vanities of the world, that they will rather make them Christian, than not to be Christians in the use of them? But such a Christian this young man might have been, who had more to say for himself than the strictest Pharisee living dare pretend to; yet he went away sorrowful from Jesus. Should I ask you, if Nicodemus did well to come by night, (John, iii. 1-5,) and be ashamed of the great Messiah of the world? and if he was not ignorant when Christ spake to him of the new birth? I know you will answer me, he did very ill, and was very ignorant; but stay a while; the beam is in your own eyes: you are ready doubtless to condemn him, and the young man, for not doing what you not only refuse to do yourselves, but laugh at others for doing. Nay, had such passages not been writ, and were it not for the reverence some pretend for the Scriptures, they would both be as stupid as Nicodemus in their answers to such heavenly matters, and ready to call it canting to speak so, as it is frequent for you, when we speak to the same effect, though not the same words: just as the Jews, at what time they called God their Father, they despised his Son; and when He spake of sublime and heavenly mysteries, some cried, He has a devil; others, He is mad; and most of them, These are hard sayings, who can hear them? III. And to you all that sport yourselves after the manners of the world, let me say, that you are of those who profess you know God, but in works deny Him; living in those pleasures which slay the just in yourselves. (Tit. i. 16.) For though you talk of believing, it is no more than taking it for granted that there is a God, a Christ, Scriptures, &c. without further concerning yourselves to prove the verity thereof to yourselves or others, by a strict and holy conversation: which slight way of believing is but a light and careless way of ridding yourselves of further examination; and rather throwing them off with an inconsiderate granting of them to be so, than giving yourselves the trouble of making better inquiry, leaving that to your priests, ofttimes more ignorant, and not less vain and idle than yourselves, which is so far from a gospel faith, that it is the least respect you can show to God, Scriptures, &c. and next to which kind of believing, is nothing, under a denial of all.