XIV. And it is observable, that as pride, which is ever followed by superstition and obstinacy, put Adam upon seeking a higher station than God placed him in; and as the Jews, out of the same pride, to outdo their pattern, given them of God by Moses upon the mount, taught for doctrines their own traditions, insomuch that those that refused conformity to them, ran the hazard of Crucify, crucify: so the nominal Christians, from the same sin of pride, with great superstition and arrogance, have introduced, instead of a spiritual worship and discipline, that which is evidently ceremonious and worldly; with such innovations and traditions of men as are the fruit of the wisdom that is from below; witness their numerous and perplexed councils and creeds, with Conform or burn, at the end of them. XV. And as this unwarrantable pride set them first at work, to pervert the spirituality of the Christian worship, making it rather to resemble the shadowy religion of the Jews, and the gaudy worship of the Egyptians, than the great plainness and simplicity of the Christian institution, which is neither to resemble that of the mountain, nor the other of Jerusalem; so has the same pride and arrogancy spurred them on, by all imaginable cruelties to maintain this great Diana of theirs. No meek supplications, nor humble remonstrances, of those that kept close to primitive purity in worship and doctrine, could prevail with these nominal Christians to dispense with the imposition of their unapostolical traditions; but as the ministers and bishops of these degenerate Christians left their painful visitation and care over Christ's flock, and grew ambitious, covetous, and luxurious, resembling rather worldly potentates, than the humble-spirited and mortified followers of the blessed Jesus; so almost every history tells us, with what pride and cruelty, blood and butchery, and that with unusual and exquisite tortures, they have persecuted the holy members of Christ out of the world; and that upon such anathemas, as far as they could, they have disappointed them of the blessing of heaven too. These, true Christians call martyrs; but the clergy, like the persecuting Jews, have styled them blasphemers and heretics; in which they have fulfilled the prophecy of our Lord Jesus Christ, who did not say, that they should think they do the gods good service to kill the Christians, his dear followers, which might refer to the persecutions of the idolatrous Gentiles; (John, xvi. 2;) but that they should think they do God good service to kill them: which shows, that they should be such as professedly owned the true God, as the apostate Christians have all along pretended to do. So that they must be those wolves, that the apostle foretold, should arise out of themselves, and worry the flock of Christ, (Acts, xx. 29,) after the great falling away should commence, that was foretold by him, and made necessary, in order to the proving of the faithful,