Now whether this reason, broken off from God, contendeth about the difference of scripture words and opinions, or reasoneth against them, the same evil state of fallen nature, the same separation from God, the same evil tempers of flesh and blood, will be equally strengthened by the one, as by the other. Hence it is, that Papists and Protestants are hating, fighting, and killing one another for the sake of their _different, excellent_ opinions, and yet, as to the _lust of the flesh_, the _lust of the eye_, and _the pride of life_, they are in the highest union, and communion with one another. For if you expect a _zealous Protestant_ to be _therefore_ alive to God, or a _zealous Papist_ to be _therefore_ dead to all goodness, you may be said, to have lived in the world without either eyes or ears.――And the reason why it must be so, is because _bad_ syllogisms _for_ transubstantiation, and _better_ syllogisms _against_ it, signify no more towards the casting _Satan out of our souls_, than a bad, or better taste for painting. Hence also it is, that Christendom, full of the nicest decisions about faith, grace, works, merits, satisfaction, &c. is full of all those evil tempers, which prevailed in the Heathen world, when none of these things were thought of. A _scholar_, pitying the blindness and folly of those who live to themselves in the cares and pleasures of this vain life, thinks himself to have escaped the pollutions of the world, because he is day after day, dividing, dissecting, and mending church opinions, fixing heresies here, schisms there; forgetting all the while, that _carnal self-will_ and _natural reason_ have the doing of all that is done by this learned zeal, and are as busy and active in him, as in the _reasoning_ infidel, or _projecting_ worldling. For where _this is wholly denied_, there nothing can be called heresy, or wickedness, but the want of loving God with our whole heart, and our neighbour as ourselves: nor any thing be called life or salvation, but the Spirit and power of Christ manifesting itself in us. But where the _natural man_ is become great in religious learning, there the greater the scholar, the more firmly will he be fixed in their religion, whose _God is their belly_.