Ezra 4

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. IV.—God’s temple can never be built but Satan and his agents will rage, and do all that they can to oppose it: and none are ordinarily more bitter opposers than pretended and mongrel professors. They will turn themselves into every shape to vent their malice; and will not spare money, labour, or villany to accomplish their purpose. Pretences of friendship, bribing of counsellors, flattery of princes, and boastful threatenings and reproaches, are their common methods of working. Saints had therefore need to avoid intimacy with them, and to encourage themselves in the Lord their God, and be strong in him and in the power of his might. It is common for the faithful followers of Christ to be reproached as dangerous enemies to the state: and, if once professors have done an ill thing, their successors in the church are sure to be upbraided with it, although they themselves should heartily condemn it. When princes desire occasions of stumbling, the agents for hell will soon supply them therewith. And things, the most false or improbable, are often readily believed by most against Christ and his church. Most kings neither can, nor care to, know the truth with respect to their religious subjects. To their great joy, the attempts of persecutors are often successful for a time; and the friends of Christ and his truths are too easily checked in their reforming attempts. 5 x