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A word from William Gurnall on the things that would keep us from Christ:
 Satan hath his instruments to oppose the messengers and overtures which God sends by them to bring the sinner out of Satan’s rule. When Moses comes to deliver Israel out of Egyptian bondage, up start Jannes and Jambres to resist him. When Paul preacheth to the deputy, the devil hath his chaplain at court to hinder him—Elymas, one that was full of all subtlety and mischief. Some or other, to be sure, he will find, when God is parleying with a sinner, and persuading him to come over to Christ, that shall labour to clog the work. Either carnal friends—these he sends to plead his cause; or old companions in wickedness—these bestir them; one while [by] labouring to jeer him out of his new way, or, if that take not, by turning their old love into bitter wrath against him for playing the apostate and leaving him so. Or if yet he will not be stopped in his way, then he hath his daubing preachers, still like Job’s messengers the last the worst, who with their soul-flattering, or rather murdering doctrine, shall go about to heal his wound ‘slightly.’ Now as ever you desire to get out of Satan’s bondage, have a care of all these; harden thyself against the entreaties of carnal friends and relations. Resolve, that if thy children should hang about thy knees to keep thee from Christ, thou wilt throw them away; [resolve], if thy father and mother should lie prostrate at thy foot, rather than not go to Christ, to go over their very backs to him. Never can we part with their love upon such advantageous terms as these. And for thy brethren in iniquity, I hope thou dost not mean to stay while [i.e. until] thou hast their good-will; then even ask the devil’s also. Heaven is but little worth if thou hast not a heart to despise a little shame, and bear a few frumps [i.e. taunts or mockings] from profane Ishmaels for thy hopes of it. Let them spit on thy face, Christ will wipe it off; let them laugh, so thou winnest. If they follow not thy example before they die, the shame will be their own; God himself shall spit it on their face before men and angels, and then kick them into hell. And lastly, escape but the snare of those flatterers, who use their tongues only to lick sinners’ consciences whole with their soothing doctrine, and thou art fair for a Christ; ask not counsel of them; they may go about to give you ease, but all those stitches with which they sow up thy wounds, must be ripped open, or thou diest for it. —William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armour (Banner of Truth Trust, 2002), 1:158–159.
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