A supplement to The Morning-exercise at Cripple-Gate, or, Several more cases of conscience practically…

4. Watchfulness over our own hearts. When we love God, we are to remember that we love a jealous God. This will restrain the straggling of our affections: we should keep as careful a watch over our own hearts, as we should over a rich Heiress, committed to our Guardianship; we reckon she's undone, and we shall never be able to look God or Man in the face, if she be unworthily matched through our default. Christians, your hearts through the condescension of God, and Blood and Spirit of Christ, are a match for the King of Glory: several inferior objects not worth the naming, are earnest suitors; we are undone if any but God have our Supreme love; if you be not severely watchful, this heart of yours will be stolen away: be persuaded therefore to examine every thing that you have cause to suspect: call your ⟨p. 18⟩selves often to an account; be jealous of your hearts, and of every thing whereby you may be endangered.

4. Watchfulness over our own hearts. When we love God, we are to remember that we love a jealous God. This will restrain the stragling of our affections: we should keep as careful a watch over our own hearts, as we should over a rich Heiress, committed to our Guardianship; we reckon she's undone, and we shall never be able to look God or Man in the face, if she be unworthily match'd through our default. Christians, your hearts through the condesension of God, and Blood and Spirit of Christ, are a match for the King of Glory: several inferiour objects not worth the naming, are earnest suitors; we are undone if any but God have our Supream love; if you be not severely watchful, this heart of yours will be stoln away: be perswaded therefore to examine every thing that you have cause to suspect: call your ⟨p. 18⟩selves often to an account; be jealous of your hearts, and of every thing whereby you may be endangered.

5. Prayer. All manner of Prayer is singularly useful to inflame the heart with love to God. Those that pray best, love God best: mistake me not, I do not say those that can pray with the most florid expressions; or those that can pray with the most general applause; but they that most feel every word they speak, and every thought they think in Prayer: they whose apprehensions of God are most over-whelming; whose affections to God are most Spiritually passionate; whose Prayers are most wrestling, and graciously impudent, this is the man that prays best, and loves God best. I grant these are the Prayers of a great proficient in the love of God, but you may pray for this frame when you cannot pray with it. The Soul never falls sick of divine love in Prayer, but Christ presently gives it an extraordinary visit