give the deepest Wound to Conscience, and resolve to wink against all its Light and Convictions; throw a Bar in the way of their own Repentance, and lay a Train for despair of Mercy. These certainly are sure ways of being undone, and the Devil we see hath great Interest in a Project, the success of which is so attended. And we know he made the assault de facto upon our Saviour, when he tempted him to fall down and worship. So that this learned Author hath but little reason to Object.
(3) That to endeavour such an express Covenant is contrary to the Interests of Hell; which indeed are this way so mightily promoted. And whereas he suggests, that a thing so horrid is like to startle Conscience, and awaken the Soul to Consideration and Repentance: I reply, That indeed considering Man in the general, as a rational Creature, acted by Hopes and Fears, and sensible of the Joys and Miseries of another World, one would expect it should be so: But then, if we cast our Eyes upon Man, as really he is, sunk into flesh and present sense; darkned in his Mind, and governed by his Imagination; blinded by his Passions, and besotted by Sin and Folly; hardned by evil Customs, and hurried away by the torrent of his Inclination and Desires: I say, looking on man in this miserable state of Evil, 'tis not incredible that he should be prevail'd upon by the Tempter, and his own Lusts to act at a wonderful rate of madness, and continue unconcerned and stupid in it; intent upon his present Satisfactions, without sense or consideration of the dreadfulness and danger of his Condition; and by this I am furnish'd also to meet a fourth Objection of our Author's, viz.
(4) That 'tis not probable upon the Witches part, that they will be so desperate to renounce God and eternal happness, and so everlastingly undo their Bodies and Souls, for a short and trivial Interest; which way of arguing will only infer, that Mankind acts sometimes to prodigious degrees of Brutishness; and actually we see it in the instances of every Day.
There is not a Lust so base and so contemptible, but there are those continually in our Eyes, that feed it with the Sacrifice of their Eternity, and their Souls; and daring Sinners rush upon the blackest villanies with so little remorse or sense, as if it were their design to prove that they have nothing left them of that whereby they are Men. So that naught can be inferred from this Argument, but that humane Nature is incredibly degenerate; and the vileness and stupidity of Men is really so great, that things are customary and common,
