Directions for weak distempered Christians, to grow up to a confirmed state of grace…

DIRECT. I. Be sure that the Foundation be well laid, both in your Heads and Hearts; or else you can never attain to Confirmation, nor be savingly built up.

TO this end you must know what the Foundation is, and how it must be soundly laid. The Foundation hath two parts or respects, according to the faculties of the Soul where it must be laid. The first is the Truth of the Doctrine and Matter, and the second is the Goodness of it. As True, the Foundation is laid in our Understandings: as Good, it is laid in the Will. Concerning both these, we must therefore first consider of the matter of the Foundation, and then of the Manner how that must be received or laid. And the Foundation is that matter, or object of our Faith and Hope, and ⟨p. 84⟩Love, which is Essential to a Christian; that is, to the Christian saving Faith, hope and love. This hath been always contained in our Baptism, because Baptizing us is making us visible Christians, or the solemn entrance into the state of Christianity. As therefore we are Baptized into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, renouncing the Flesh, the World, and the Devil; so the doing of this unfeignedly, without equivocation, according to the Scripture sense of the words, is the Essence of Christianity, or the right laying of the Foundation. So that the Foundation-Principal, or Fundamental Matter, is God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: The Secondary Foundation, or Fundamental Doctrine, is those Scripture Propositions that express our Faith in God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. When we name the three persons as the object of the Christian Faith, we express names of Relation, which contain both the persons, nature, and Offices, or undertaken works: Without either of which, God were not God, and Christ were not Christ, and the Holy Ghost were not in the sense of our Articles of Faith, the Holy Ghost. As we must therefore believe that there is One only God: So we must believe that God the Father is the First in the holy Trinity of persons: that the whole Godhead is perfect and infinite in Being, and Power, and Wisdom, and Goodness, (in which all his Attributes are comprehended; but yet a distinct understanding of them all is not of absolute necessity to Salvation.) That this God is the Creator, Preserver, and Disposer of all things, and the Owner and Ruler of Mankind, most just, and merciful: that as he is the Beginning of all, so he is the Ultimate end, and the Chief Good of