4. They endeavoured herein to speak to every man severally as he had need. To the careless, to those who lay unconcerned in darkness and in the shadow of death, they thundered, _Awake thou that sleepest; arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light_: but to those who were already awakened out of sleep, and groaning under a sense of the wrath of God, their language was, _We have an Advocate with the Father; he is the propitiation for our sins_. Mean time those who had believed, they _provoked to love and to good works; to patient continuance in well-doing; and to abound more and more_ in that _holiness, without which no man can see the Lord_.
5. And their labour was not in vain in the Lord. His _word ran and was glorified_. It _grew mightily and prevailed_. But so much the more did offences prevail also. The world in general were offended, _because they testified of it, that the works thereof were evil_. The men of pleasure were offended, not only because these men were _made_, as it were, _to reprove their thoughts_. (_He professeth_, said they, _to have the knowledge of God: he calleth himself the child of the Lord: his life is not like other mens; his ways are of another fashion: he abstaineth from our ways, as from filthiness: he maketh his boast, that God is his Father_.) But much more, because so many of their companions were taken away, and would no more _run with them to the same excess of riot_. The men of reputation were offended, because, as the gospel spread, they declined in the esteem of the people; and because many no longer dared to _give them flattering titles_, or to pay man the homage due to God only. The men of trade called one another together, and said, _Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our wealth. But ye see and hear that these men have persuaded and turned away much people. So that this our craft is in danger to be set at nought._ Above all, the men of religion, so called, the men of _outside_ religion, “the saints of the world,” were offended and ready at every opportunity to cry out, _Men of Israel, help! We have found these men! Pestilent fellows, movers of sedition throughout the world. These are the men that teach all men, every where, against the people, and against the law._
6. Thus it was that the heavens grew black with clouds, and the storm gathered amain. For the more Christianity spread, _the more hurt was done_, in the account of those who received it not, and the number increased of those who were more and more enraged at these _men who_ thus _turned the world upside down_; insomuch that more and more cried out, _Away with such fellows from the earth; it is not fit that they should live_, yea, and sincerely believed, that _whosoever_ should _kill them, would do God service_.
7. Meanwhile they did not fail to _cast out their name as evil_: so that this _sect was every where spoken against. Men said all manner of evil of them_, even as had been done of the _prophets that were before them_. And whatsoever any would affirm, others would believe. So that offences grew as the stars of heaven for multitude. And hence arose, at the time foreordain’d of the Father, persecution in all its forms. Some, for a season, suffered only shame and reproach; some, _the spoiling of their goods_; some _had trial of mocking and scourging_; some _of bonds and imprisonment_; and others _resisted unto blood_.
8. Now it was that the pillars of hell were shaken, and the kingdom of God spread more and more. Sinners were every where _turned from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God_. He gave his children _such a mouth, and such wisdom, as all their adversaries could not resist_. And their lives were of equal force with their words. But, above all, their sufferings spake to all the world. They _approved themselves_ the servants of God, _in afflictions, in necessities; in distresses; in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours; in perils in the sea, in perils in the wilderness; in weariness and painfulness, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness_. And when having _fought the good fight_, they were _led as sheep to the slaughter, and offered up on the sacrifice and service of their faith_, then the blood of each found a voice, and the Heathen owned, _He being dead, yet speaketh_.
9. Thus did _Christianity_ spread itself in the earth. But how soon did the tares appear with the wheat? And the _mystery of iniquity_ work as well as the _mystery of godliness_! How soon did Satan find a seat, even _in the temple of God_! Till _the woman fled into the wilderness, and the faithful were_ again _minished from the children of men_. Here we tread a beaten path: the still increasing corruptions of the succeeding generations, have been largely described from time to time, by those witnesses God raised up, to shew that he had _built his church upon a rock, and the gates of hell should not_ wholly _prevail against her_.