"Good people! what do you lack? What do you buy? Will you buy any balm of Gilead? any eye salve? any myrrh, aloes, or cassia? Shall I fit you with a robe of Righteousness, or with a white garment? See here! What is it you want? Here is a choice armoury! Shall I shew you a helmet of Salvation, a shield, or breastplate of Faith? or will you please to walk in and see some precious stones? a jasper, a sapphire, a chalcedony? Speak, what do you buy?"
Now, for my part, I must needs say (and I much fancy I speak the mind of thousands) that it had been much better for such an imprudent and ridiculous bawler as this, to have been condemned to have cried oysters or brooms, than to discredit, after this unsanctified rate, his Profession and our Religion.
It would be an endless thing, Sir, to count up to you all the follies, for a hundred years last past, that have been preached and printed of this kind. But yet I cannot omit that of the famous Divine in his time, who, advising the people in days of danger to run unto the LORD, tells them that "they cannot go to the LORD, much less run, without feet;" that "there be therefore two feet to run to the LORD, Faith and Prayer."
"It is plain that Faith is a foot, for, 'by Faith we stand,' 2 Cor. i. 24; therefore by Faith, we must run to the LORD who is faithful.
"The second is Prayer, a spiritual Leg to bear us thither. Now that Prayer is a spiritual Leg appears from several places in Scripture, as from that of JONAH speaking of coming, chap. ii. ver. 7, 'And my prayer came unto thy holy temple.' And likewise from that of the Apostle who says, Heb. iv. 16, 'Let us therefore go unto the throne of grace.' Both intimating that Prayer is a spiritual Leg: there being no coming or going to the LORD without the Leg of Prayer."
He further adds, "Now that these feet may be able to bear us
thither, we must put on the Hose [stockings] of Faith; for the
Apostle says, 'Our feet must be shod with the preparation of the
Gospel of Peace.'"
The truth of it is, the Author is somewhat obscure: for, at first, Faith was a Foot, and by-and-by it is a Hose, and at last it proves a Shoe! If he had pleased, he could have made it anything!
Neither can I let pass that of a later Author; who telling us, "It is Goodness by which we must ascend to heaven," and that "Goodness is the Milky Way to JUPITER's Palace"; could not rest there, but must tell us further, that "to strengthen us in our journey, we must not take morning milk, but some morning meditations:" fearing, I suppose, lest some people should mistake, and think to go to heaven by eating now and then a mess of morning milk, because the way was "milky."
Neither ought that to be omitted, not long since printed upon those words of St. JOHN, "These things write I unto you, that ye sin not."
The Observation is that "it is the purpose of Scripture to drive men from sin. These Scriptures contain Doctrines, Precepts, Promises, Threatenings, and Histories. Now," says he, "take these five smooth stones, and put them into the Scrip of the heart, and throw them with the Sling of faith, by the Hand of a strong resolution, against the Forehead of sin: and we shall see it, like GOLIATH, fall before us."