are able to live upon the favour of God alone, and to be quieted in his acceptance, though man despise you; and to be pleased, so far as God is pleased, though man be displeased with you; and to rejoice in his justification, though men condemn you with the most odious slanders, and the greatest infamy, and cast out your names as evil doers. See that God be taken as enough for you, or else you take him not as God: even as enough without man, and enough against man; that you may be able to say, " If God be for us, who can be against us? Who is he that condemneth? it is God that justifieth"." "Do I seek to please men? For if I yet pleased men, I should not be a servant of Christ"." "Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh.-Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit"." "Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of"?" Having given you these Directions, I must tell you in the conclusion, that they are like food, that will not nourish you by standing on your table; or, like physic, that will not cure you by standing in the box: they must be taken and digested, or you will find none of the benefit. It is not the reading of them, that will serve the turn to so great use, as the safe proceeding and confirmation of beginners, or novices in religion: it will require humility to perceive the need of them; and labour to learn, digest, and practice them. Those slothful souls, that will refuse the labour, must bear the sad effects of their negligence: there is not one of all these Directions, as to the matter of them, which can be spared. Study them, understand them, and remember them, as things that must be done. If either a senselessness of your necessity, or a conceit that the Spirit must Rom. viii. 31. 33, 34. • Gal. i. 10. P Jer. xvii. 5-8. do it, without so much labour and diligence of your own, do prevail with you, to put off all these with a mere approbation, the consequent may be sadder than you can yet foresee. Though I suppose you to have some beginnings of grace; I must tell you, that it will be, comparatively, a sad kind of life, to be erroneous, and scandalous, and troublesome to the church, or full of doubts, and fears, and passions, and to be burdensome to others and yourselves! Yea, it is reason that you be very suspicious of your sincerity, if you desire not to increase in grace, and be not willing to use the means, which are necessary to your increase. He is not sincere, that desireth not to be perfect: and he desireth not sincerely, who is not willing to be at the labour and cost, which is necessary to the obtaining of the thing desired. I beseech you, therefore, as you love the happiness of prudent, strong, and comfortable Christians, and would escape the misery of those grievous diseases, which would turn your lives into languishing, unserviceableness, and pain; that you seriously study these Directions, and get them into your minds, and memories, and hearts; and let the faithful practice of them be your greatest care, and the constant. employment of your lives. CHAPTER III. The General Grand Directions for Walking with God, in a Life of Faith and Holiness: containing the Essentials of Godliness and Christianity. I AM next to direct you in that exercise of grace, which is common to all Christians. Habits are for use: grace is given you, not only that you may have it, but also that you may use it. And it is fit that we direct you how to use it, before we direct you how to know that you have it; because it is grace in exercise that you must discern; and habits are not perceived in themselves, but by their acts: and the more lively and powerful the exercise is, the more easily is grace perceived: so that this is the nearest and surest way to a certainty of our own sincerity:-he that useth grace most and best, hath most grace; and he that hath most, and useth it most, may most easily be assured that he hath it in sincerity and truth. In these Directions, I shall begin with those great internal duties, in which the very life of all religion doth consist; and the general practice of these principles and graces: and all these generals shall be briefly set together, for the easiness of understanding and remembering them. And then I shall give you such particular Directions, as are needful, in subordination to those generals. 6 Grand Direction 1. ' Labour to understand well the nature, grounds, reason, and order of faith and godliness: and to believe upon such grounds, so well understood, as will not suffer you to stagger, or entertain a contrary belief.' posses Ignorance and ungrounded, or ill-grounded persuasions in matters of religion, are the cause that abundance of people delude themselves, with the empty name and dead profession of a faith and religion which they never were indeed sors of. I know there are low degrees of knowledge, comparatively, in many that are true believers and that there may be much love and holiness, where knowledge is very small or narrow, as to the objective extent of it: and that there is a knowledge that puffeth up, while charity edifieth: and that in many that have the narrower knowledge, there may be the fastest faith and adherence to the truth, which will conquer in the time of trial. But yet I must tell you, that the religion which you profess, is not, indeed, your own religion, if you know not what it is, and know not in some measure the true grounds and reasons why you should be of that religion. If you have only learned to say your creed, or repeat the words of Christian doctrine, while you do not truly understand the sense; or if you have no better reasons why you profess the Christian faith, than the custom of the country, or the command of princes or governors, or the opinion of your teachers, or the example of your parents, friends, or neighbours, you are not Christians indeed. You have a human belief or opinion, which objectively is true; but subjectively in yourselves, you have no true, divine belief. I confess, there may be some insufficient, yea, and erroneous reasons, which a true believer may mistakingly make use of, for the proof of certain fundamental truths; but then that same man hath some other reason for his reception of that truth, which is more sound and his faith is sound, because of those sound, infallible principles, though there be a mixture of some other reasons that are unsound. The true believer buildeth on the rock, and giveth deep rooting to the holy seed. Though some deluded men may tell you, that faith and reason are such enemies, that they exclude each other as to the same object, and that the less reason you have to prove the truth of the things believed, the stronger and more laudable is your faith; yet, when it cometh to the trial, you will find, that faith is no unreasonable thing; and that God requireth you to believe no more, than you have sufficient reason for, to warrant you, and bear you out; and that your faith can be no more, than is your perception of the reasons why you should believe; and that God doth suppose reason, when he infuseth faith, and useth reason in the use of faith. that believe, and know not why, or know no sufficient reason to warrant their belief, do take a fancy, an opinion, or a dream for faith. I know that many honest hearted Christians are unable to dispute for their religion, or to give to others. a satisfactory account of the reasons of their faith or hope; but yet they have the true apprehension of some solid reasons in themselves; and they are not Christians they know not why and though their knowledge be small as to the number of propositions known, yet it doth always extend to all that is essential to Christianity and godliness, and they do not believe they know not what: and their knowledge is greater intensively, and in its value and operation, than the knowledge of the most learned ungodly man in the world. They Though I may not here digress, or stay so long, as largely to open to you the nature, grounds, reason, and method of faith and godliness which I am persuading you to understand, yet I shall first lay before you a few propositions, which will be useful to you, when you are inquiring into these things, and then a little open them unto you. Prop. 1. A life of godliness is our living unto God as God, as being absolutely addicted to him. 2. A life of faith is a living upon the unseen, everlasting ■ Matt. vii. 24. xiii. 5–8. happiness as purchased for us by Christ (with all the necessaries thereto), and freely given us by God. 3. The contrary life of sense and unbelief, is a living, in the prevalency of sense or flesh, to this present world, for want of such believing apprehensions of a better, as should elevate the soul thereto, and conquer the fleshly inclination to things present. 4. Though man in innocency, needing no Redeemer, might live to God without faith in a Redeemer; yet lapsed man is not only unable to redeem himself, but also unable to live to God without the grace of the Redeemer. It was not only necessary that he satisfy God's justice for us, that he may pardon and save us without any wrong to his holiness, wisdom, or government; but also that he be our teacher by his doctrine and his life, and that he reveal from heaven the Father's will, and that objectively in him we may see the wonderful, condescending love and goodness of a reconciled God and Father, and that effectually he illuminate, sanctify, and quicken us by the operations of his Word and Spirit, and that he protect and govern, justify, and glorify us; and be the Head of restored man, as Adam was the root of lapsed man, and as the lapsed spirits had their head and therefore we must wholly live upon him as the Mediator between God and man, and the only Saviour by merit and by efficacy. 5. Faith is a knowledge by certain credible testimony or revelation from God, by means supernatural or extraordinary. 6. The knowledge of things naturally revealed (as the cause by the effect, &c.) is in order before the knowledge or belief of things revealed supernaturally. 7. It is matter of natural revelation that there is a God; that he is infinite in his immensity and eternity, in his power, wisdom, and goodness; that he is the first cause and ultimate end of all things; that he is the preserver and overruling disposer of all things, and the supreme governor of the rational world, and the great benefactor of all mankind, and the special favourer and rewarder of such as truly love him, seek him, and obey him: also that the soul of man is immortal; and that there is a life of reward or punishment to come, and that this life is but preparatory unto that: that |