them neither (John 7:48), before they were persuaded to be fools,
and to be of a voluntary fondness, to venture the loss of all, for
nobody knows what. He moreover objected the base and low estate
and condition of those that were chiefly the pilgrims, of the
times in which they lived; also their ignorance, and want of
understanding in all natural science. Yea, he did hold me to
it at that rate also, about a great many more things than here I
relate; as, that it was a shame to sit whining and mourning under
a sermon, and a shame to come sighing and groaning home; that it
was a shame to ask my neighbour forgiveness for petty faults, or
to make restitution where I have taken from any. He said also,
that religion made a man grow strange to the great, because of a
few vices, which he called by finer names; and made him own and
respect the base, because of the same religious fraternity. And
is not this, said he, a shame?[117]

CHR. And what did you say to him?

FAITH. Say! I could not tell what to say at the first. Yea, he
put me so to it, that my blood came up in my face; even this Shame
fetched it up, and had almost beat me quite off. But, at last, I
began to consider, that "that which is highly esteemed among men,
is had in abomination with God" (Luke 16:15). And I thought again,
this Shame tells me what men are; but it tells me nothing what
God, or the Word of God is. And I thought, moreover, that at the
day of doom, we shall not be doomed to death or life, according
to the hectoring spirits of the world, but according to the wisdom
and law of the Highest. Therefore, thought I, what God says is
best, indeed is best, though all the men in the world are against
it. Seeing, then, that God prefers His religion; seeing God prefers