How many consciences are kept at quiet, upon no other foundation, but because they sin under the authority of the Christian world?
How many directions of the gospel lye by unregarded? And how unconcernedly do particular persons read them, for no other reason, but because they seem unregarded by the Christian world?
How many compliances do people make to the Christian world, without any hesitation, or remorse; which, if they had been required of them only by Heathens, would have been refused, as contrary to the holiness of Christianity?
Who could be content with seeing how contrary his life is to the gospel, but because he sees that he lives as the Christian world doth?
17. There is nothing therefore, that a Christian ought more constantly to guard against, than the authority of the Christian world.
And all the passages of scripture, which represent the world as contrary to Christianity, which require our separation from it, as from a monster of iniquity, are to be taken in the strict sense, in relation to the present world.
For the change that the world has undergone, has only altered its methods, but not lessened its power of destroying religion.
Whilst pride, sensuality, covetousness, and ambition, had only the authority of the Heathen world, Christians were thereby made more intent upon the contrary virtues. But when pride, sensuality, covetousness and ambition, have the authority of the Christian world, then private Christians are in the utmost danger, not only of being shamed out of the practice, but of losing the very notion of the piety of the gospel.
There is therefore hardly any possibility of saving yourself from the present world, but by considering it as the same enemy to all true holiness, as it is represented in the scriptures; and by assuring yourself, that it is as dangerous to conform to its tempers and passions, now it is Christian, as when it was Heathen.
Need a man do more to make his soul unfit for the mercy of God, than by being greedy and ambitious of honour? Yet how can you renounce this temper, without renouncing the spirit and temper of the world, in which you now live?