[ 1406] The paucity of true Believers.
IT is the observation of a Learned Man,* 1.1 That if the World were divided into thirty equall parts, nineteen of those thirty would prove to be overspread with Heathenish Idolatry, six of the eleven remaining with the doctrine of Mahomet, so there would remain but five parts of the thirty, wherein were any thing of Christianity, And among those Christians, so many seduced Papists on one hand, and formal Protestants on the other, that surely but few are saved: Nay, such is the paucity of true believers,* 1.2 that as that Olive-Tree, (mentioned by the Prophet) with two or three berries on the uppermost bough; Satan may be said to have the harvest,* 1.3 and God onely a few gleanings. It should therefore make us strive the more tanquam pulvere Olympico, that we may be of the number of those few that shall inherit Salvation.