XIII. Well, but what has been the success of those ages that followed the apostolical? Any whit better than that of the Jewish times? Not one jot. They have exceeded them; as with their pretences to greater knowledge, so in their degeneracy from the true Christian life: for though they had a more excellent pattern than the Jews, to whom God spoke by Moses his servant, he speaking to them by his beloved Son, the express image of his substance, the perfection of all meekness and humility; and though they seemed addicted to nothing more than an adoration of his name, and a veneration for the memory of his blessed disciples and apostles, yet so great was their defection from the inward power and life of Christianity in the soul, that their respect was little more than formal and ceremonious. For notwithstanding they, like the Jews, were mighty zealous in garnishing their sepulchres, and curious in carving their images; not only keeping with pretence what might be the relics of their persons, but recommending a thousand things as relics, which are purely fabulous, and very often ridiculous, and to be sure altogether unchristian; yet as to the great and weighty things of the Christian law, viz. love, meekness, and self-denial, they were degenerated. They grew high-minded, proud, boasters, without natural affection, curious, and controversial, ever perplexing the church with doubtful questions; filling the people with disputations, strife, and wrangling, drawing them into parties, till at last they fell into blood: as if they had been the worse for being once Christians. O the miserable state of these pretended Christians! that instead of Christ's and his apostles' doctrine, of loving enemies, and blessing them that curse them, they should teach the people, under the notion of Christian zeal, most inhumanly to butcher one another; and instead of suffering their own blood to be shed for the testimony of Jesus, they should shed the blood of the witnesses of Jesus for heretics. Thus that subtle serpent, or crafty evil spirit, that tempted Adam out of innocency, and the Jews from the law of God, has beguiled the Christians, by lying vanities, to depart from the Christian law of holiness, and so they are become slaves to him; for he rules in the hearts of the children of disobedience.