Saints Perfect in this Life or Never

THE SAINTS PERFECT IN THIS LIFE OR NEVER. Collected and Gathered from Scripture in the Letter thereof, and the Spiritual Sense of the Same.

Excerpts: The great design of antichrist in the matters of worship, is not so much in diminishing of them, as by adding to them, to make them more glorious and beautiful to the eye, than described, and therefore is very punctilious for decency and order. But in the matters of God, communicated to the saints, there he doth diminish and subtract, putting that afar off which is nigh at hand, changing the present time into the future, making by subtle distinctions that which is here real and in truth fully complete, to be but in part and degrees attainable in this life, but must be completed after death.

That which I drive at in all that hath been said is, that the saints might live like themselves; such as are in a calling that is never attended with honour, never trouble themselves to attain unto dominion, but such as are in a capacity to get it, usually engage for it; and seeing that the man Jesus being in Christ, was in this life completely perfect, and shall not the same Christ in the members be as completely perfect in this life, judge ye. “Let therefore as many as be perfect, be thus minded; and if ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even the same unto you.” And seeing there is a white stone, and a name written in it which no man knoweth but he that hath it, I forbear to trouble any to steer by my compass, lest he mistake the points. But seeing in Christ there is a way, in which you cannot stray, a truth by which you cannot err, a life by which you cannot die, walk, stand in, and live by that; and seeing there is a rest for the people of God, which whosoever is entered into ceaseth from his works, as God did from his. They do not only cease from their works of sin, but from their works of piety, upon that account they have formerly lived in them, which was only to please God, that they might be happy and better than others; but now they act from life, and they trade in holiness, not to be citizens of the living God, but because they are so. They do not forbear to sin because they will not displease God thereby, but because they are bought with a price, and therefore they must glorify God in their bodies and spirits, for they are God’s.