2. Then they cast off by degrees private duties, as closet prayer,
curbing their lusts, watching, sorrow for sin, and the like.
3. Then they shun the company of lively and warm Christians.
4. After that they grow cold to public duty, as hearing, reading,
godly conference, and the like.
5. Then they begin to pick holes, as we say, in the coats of some
of the godly; and that devilishly, that they may have a seeming
colour to throw religion (for the sake of some infirmity they have
espied in them) behind their backs.
6. Then they begin to adhere to, and associate themselves with,
carnal, loose, and wanton men.
7. Then they give way to carnal and wanton discourses in secret;
and glad are they if they can see such things in any that are
counted honest, that they may the more boldly do it through their
example.
8. After this they begin to play with little sins openly.
9. And then, being hardened, they show themselves as they are. Thus,
being launched again into the gulf of misery, unless a miracle of
grace prevent it, they everlastingly perish in their own deceivings.
{382} Now I saw in my dream, that by this time the Pilgrims were
got over the Enchanted Ground, and entering into the country of
Beulah, whose air was very sweet and pleasant, the way lying directly
through it, they solaced themselves there for a season.
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