THE CHARACTERS OF A BELIEVING CHRISTIAN, 



IN PARADOXES AND SEEMING CONTRADICTIONS. 



1. A CHRISTIAN is one that believes things his 

 reason cannot comprehend ; he hopes for things which 

 neither he nor any man alive ever saw : he labours 

 for that which he knoweth he shall never obtain ; 

 yet in the issue, his belief appears not to be false 

 his hope makes him not ashamed ; his labour is not 

 in vain. 



2. He believes three to he one, and one to be 

 three ; a father not to be elder than his son ; a son to 

 be equal with his father ; and one proceeding from 

 both to be equal with both ; he believing three per 

 sons in one nature, and two natures in one person. 



3. He believes a virgin to be a mother of a son ; 

 and that very son of her s to be her maker. He be 

 lieves him to have been shut up in a narrow room, 

 whom heaven and earth could not contain. He be 

 lieves him to have been born in time, who was and is 

 from everlasting. He believes him to have been a 

 weak child, carried in arms, who is the Almighty ; 

 and him once to have died, who only hath life and 

 immortality in himself. 



4. He believes the God of all grace to have been 

 angry with one that hath never offended him ; and 

 that God, that hates sin, to be reconciled to himself, 

 though sinning continually, and never making, or 

 being able to make him satisfaction. He believes a 

 most just God to have punished a most just person, 



