As,
1. The saints of old, they being willing and resolved for heaven,
what could stop them? Could fire and fagot, sword or halter, stinking
dungeons, whips, bears, bulls, lions, cruel rackings, stoning,
starving, nakedness, etc., "and in all these things they were more
than conquerors, through him that loved them"; who had also made them
"willing in the day of his power."
2. See again, on the other side, the children of the devil, because
they are not willing, how many shifts and starting-holes they will
have. I have a married wife, I have a farm, I shall offend my
landlord, I shall offend my master, I shall lose my trading, I shall
lose my pride, my pleasures, I shall be mocked and scoffed, therefore
I dare not come. I, saith another, will stay till I am older, till my
children are out, till I am got a little aforehand in the world, till
I have done this and that and the other business; but, alas! the thing
is, they are not willing; for, were they but soundly willing, these,
and a thousand such as these, would hold them no faster than the cords
held Samson, when he broke them like burnt flax.
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