they not fuffer? What pleasant enjoyment would they not glad ly part with, to arrive at the defire of their fouls, the full affurance of their fincerity? It was the faying of a pious woman, I have born faid the, feven children, and they have coft me as dear as ever children cost a mother, yet I would be content to endure all that forrow over again, to be affured of the love of God to my foul.

Motive 2. Secondly, And as the work is full of difficulty, fo the difcovery of your fincerity will be full of fweetnefs and joy unspeakable: It will never repent you, that you have prayed and mourned, that you have trembled and feared, that you have searched and tried: Nay, it will never repent you, that God hath tried you by thousands of sharp afflictions and deep fufferings, if, after all, your fincerity may be fully cleared up to the fatisfaction of your fouls; for in the fame day your fincerity fhall be cleared, your title to Chrift will be made as clear to your fouls as your fincerity is; you may then go to the promises boldly, and take your own Chrift into the arms of your faith, and fay, "My Beloved is mine, and I am his!" Yea, you may be confident, it fhall be well with you in the judgment of the great day, for "God will not caft away the upright man," Job viii. 20. If the word clear you now, it cannot condemn you then.

O what an ease is it to the foul, when the fears and doubts that hang about it are gone! When a man sees what be is, and what he hath in Chrift and the promises, and what he hath to do; even to spend the time betwixt this and heaven, in admiring the grace of God that hath delivered him from the ruining mistakes and mifcarriages by which so great a part of the profeffing world to all eternity.

Motive 3. Thirdly, The deep concernment of your fouls in the matter to be tried, should awaken you to the utmost diligence about it. The trials of men for their life, at human bars, is but a trifle to this: It is your eternal happiness that stands or falls with your fincerity.

It is faid in the trial of opinions, that if a man fuperstruct hay or stubble upon the foundation, he fhall fuffer loss; yet he himself may be faved, 1 Cor. iii. 12. But if hypocrify be in the foundation, there is no fuch relief, there is no poffibility of falvation in that cafe.

Ah, reader, thou must be caft for ever according to the inte grity or hypocrify of thy heart with God. Summon in then all the powers of thy foul: bring thy thoughts as clofe as it is poffible to bring them to this matter: If there be any fubject of con

fideration able to drink up the fpirits of a man, here it is: Never was time put to an higher improvement; never were thoughts spent upon a more important bufinefs, than this is: Happy is the man that refcues the years, months, days, yea, the very moments of his life from other employments to confecrate them unto this folemn, awful, and moft important bufinefs! Motive 4. Fourthly, How evidential will it be of your fin cerity, when you are willing to come to the trial of your own hearts!

Suppofe your doubts and fears fhould in fome degree remain with you; yet in this you may take fome comfort, that if hypocrify be in your heart, it is not there by confent: You are not loth to rife and come to trial, becaufe, like Rachel, you fit upon your idols: Certainly it is a good fign thy heart is right, when it is filled with fo much fear left it should be falfe. You know all the difciples faid, "Mafter, is it I?" before Judas, who was the traitor, fpake a word. "Laft of all (faith the *text) Judas faid, Is it I?" Our willingness to be tried, is a good fign that the defire of our foul is to be right with God.

Motive 5. Fiftbly, Conclude it to be your great advantage to be thoroughly tried, whatever you be found to be in the trial: If you be found fincere, you are richly rewarded for all your pains and labour: Never did that man repent of digging and toiling, that after all hit upon the rich vein that he digged for: What is a vein of gold to a vein of fincerity!

If upon fearch you find the contrary, a falfe, hypocritical, unfound heart, yet in that very fad difcovery you meet with the greatest advantage that ever you had in your lives for falvation. This difcovery is your great advantge: For now your vain confidence being over-turned, and your ungrounded hopes destroyed; you lie open to the ftroke of a deep and effectual conviction of your fin and mifery, which is the introductive mercy to all other mercies to your fouls; and furely till you come to that, to give up your falfe hopes, and quit your vain pretenfions, there is no hope of you. Chrift told the Pharifees, Matth. xxi. 31. Publicans and harlots enter into the kingdom of heaven before you: Publicans were the worst fort of men, and harlots the worst fort of women, and yet they ftood in a fairer way for heaven than the hypocritical Pharifees, because conviction had easier accefs to their confei-, ences: They had not thofe defences and pleas of duty and strictnefs to ward off the word, that the felf-cozening Pharifees had. I may fay of your vain and groundless hopes, as Chrift, in Vol. VII.

another fenfe, faid to the officers that came to feize him in the garden, If you feek me, let these go their way. So it is here, if you expect Chrift, and falvation by him, let your vain confi. dences go their way; away with your mafques and vizards, if ever you expect to fee Chrift. O it is your happiness to have all these things ftript off, and your nakedness and poverty discovered, that you may be rich, as the text speaks.

Motive 6. Sixthly, Confider how near the day of death and judgment approach you. O thefe are fearching days wherein you cannot be hid: Will your confciences, think you, be put off in a dying day as eafily as they are now? No, no, you know they will not.

I have heard of a good man that confumed not only the greateft part of the day, but a very confiderable part of the night alfo in prayer, to the great weakening of his body; and being asked by a relation why he did fo, and prayed to favour him felf, he returned this anfwer, O I muft die, I must die; plainly intimating, that fo great is the concernment of dying in a clear affured condition, that it is richly worth the expence of all our time and ftrength to fecure it.

You know also that after death the judgment, Heb. ix. 27. you are haftening to the judgment of the great and terrible God, Death will put you into his balance to be weighed exactly; and what gives the foul a louder call to fearch itself with all diligence, whilft it ftands at the door of eternity, and its turn is not yet come to go before that awful tribunal: O that these confiderations might have place upon our hearts!

Containing divers helps for the clearing of fincerity, and difco very of hypocrify.

SECT. I.

OU fee of what importance the duty of felf-examination

You

is, and how many things put a neceffity and a folemnity upon that work. Now, in the clofe of all, I would offer you fome helps for the due management thereof, that is as far as I can carry it; the Lord perfuade your hearts to the diligent and faithful application and ufe of them. The general rules to clear fincerity are thefe that follow:

Rule 1. We may not prefently conclude we are in the ftate of

hypocrify, because we find fome workings of it, and tendencies to It in our fpirits: The best gold hath some drofs and alloy in it.' Hypocrify is a weed naturally springing in all ground, the best heart is not perfectly clear or free of it: It may be we are ftumbled, when we feel fome workings or grudgings of this disease in ourselves, and looking into fuch fcriptures as these, John i. 47. "Behold' an Ifraelite indeed, in whom there is no guile:" and Pfal. xxxii. 1. "Bleffed is the man unto whom "the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is ❝ no guile."

This I fay may ftumble fome upright foul, not understanding in what an allayed and qualified fenfe thofe fcriptures are to be understood: For by a fpirit without guile, is not underftood a perfon abfolutely free from all deceitfulness, and falfeness of heart; this was the fole prerogative of the Lord Jesus, who was feparated from finners, in whofe mouth was no guile found: In whom the prince of this world, in all his trials and attempts upon him, found nothing: But we must understand it of reigning and allowed hypocrify; there is no fuch guile in any of the faints: diftinguish the prefence from the predominance of hypocrify, and the doubt is refolved.

Rule 2. Every true ground of humiliation for fin, is not a fufficient ground for doubting and queftioning our eftate and condi

tion.

There be many more things to humble us upon the account of our infirmity, than there are to ftumble us upon the account of our integrity: It is the fin and affliction of fome good fouls to call their condition in question, upon every flip and failing in the course of their obedience. This is the way to debar ourfelves from all the peace and comfort of the Chriftian life :' We find that Jofeph was once minded to put away Mary his efpoused wife, not knowing that the holy thing which was conceived in her was by the holy Ghoft. It is the fin of hypocrites to take brass for gold, and the folly of faints to call their gold brafs: Be as fevere to yourselves as you will, always pro-1 vided you be just: "There is that maketh himself rich, and yet hath nothing; and there is that maketh himself poor, and yet hath great riches," Prov. xiii. 7. Hiram called the cities Solomon gave him, Cabul, Dirty, for they pleased him not, 1 Kings ix. 13. It is but an ill requital, an ungrateful return to God for the beft of mercies, to undervalue them in our hearts, and be ready upon all occafions to put them away as worth nothing.

Rule 3. Aftronger propenfion in our nature, and more free quent incidence in our practice to one fin than another, doth not prefently infer our hypocrify, and the unfoundness of our hearts in religion. It is true, every hypocrite hath fome way of wick ednefs: Some peccatum in deliciis, iniquity that he delights in and rolls as a fweet morfel under his tongue; fome luft that he is not willing to part with, nor can endure that the knife of mortification fhould touch it; and this undoubtedly argues the infincerity and rottennefs of his heart: And it is true, al fo, that the nature and conftitution of the moft fanctified man inclines him rather to one fin, than to another, though he al low himself in none; yea, though he fet himself more watchfully against that fin than another, yet he may ftill have more trouble and vexation, more temptation and defilement from it, than any other.

As every man hath his proper gift, one after this manner, and another after that, as the apofile fpeaks, 1 Cor. vii. 7. fo every man hath his proper fin also, one after this manner, and another after that? For it is with original fin, as it is with the juice or lap of the earth, which though it be the common matter of all kinds of fruits, yet it is fpecificated according to the different forts of plants and feeds which it nourishes; in one it becomes an apple, in another a cherry, &c. Juft fo it is in original corruption, which is turned into this or that temptati on, or fin, according to this or that conftitution, or employment it finds us in; in one it is paffion, in another luft, in a third covetoufnefs, in a fourth levity, and fo on. Now I fay the frequent affaults of this fin, provided we indulge it not, but, by fetting double guards, labour to keep ourfelves from our own iniquity, as David did, Pfalm xviii. 23. will not infer the hypocrify of our hearts.

Rule 4. Agreater backwardness and indifpofedness to one du ty rather than another, doth not conclude the heart to be unfound, and falfe with God, provided we do not inwardly diflike, and difapprove any duty of religion, or except against it in qur agreement with Chrift, but that it rifeth merely from the prefent weakness and diftemper we labour under.

There are fome duties in religion, as fuffering for Chrifty bearing fharp reproofs for fin, &c. that even an upright heart under a prefent diftemper, may find a great deal of backward nefs and lothness to; yet ftill he confents to the law, that it is good, is troubled that he cannot comply more chearfully with his duty, and defires to ftand complete in all the will of God: Perfection is his ain, and imperfections are his forrows.