learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. And
because it is so, he exhorteth to give diligence to make your calling
and election sure, by giving all diligence to add to faith virtue, to
virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance
patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly
kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity, for if ye do these things,
ye shall never fall. As the Apostle Peter assureth us, 2 Peter i. 5, 6,
7-10. For it is the elect who are secured from full and final defection
and apostacy, Matth. xxiv. 24. Mark xii. 22. Rom. xi. 5, 6; ix. 11;
viii. 33. Matth. xxiv. 31. Mark xiii. 27. And the promise of salvation
is made to such as shall endure to the end. The crown is for the
overcomers, and such as are faithful to the death, Matth. x. 22; xxiv.
13. Mark xiii. 13. Rev. ii. 10, 11, 17, 26, 27, 28; iii. 5, 12, 21. All
which, and the like, are set down, that hereby his people might be
rationally moved to a constant seriousness, in the working out of their
own salvation, in fear and trembling; and the forewarnings given of the
great difficulty of the reaching the end of our faith, the salvation of
our souls, because of the many active, vigilant, indefatigable, subtile,
and insinuating adversaries, who by good words and fair speeches, will
readily deceive the hearts of the simple, and to awaken the more his
people to be sober and vigilant, because their adversary the devil (who
acteth and moveth his under agents, in their several modes, methods and
motions, so as he may best, according to the various tempers, present
dispositions, advantages or disadvantages of such as he intendeth to
seduce, which he carefully studieth, and plyeth for this end, obtain his
designed end, their ruin and destruction) as a roaring lion, walking
about seeking whom he may devour. And this calleth them to haste out
their slumber and security, who will be loath to miss his opportunity,
surprise them to their great loss and disadvantage.