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

but must grow more and more in discerning those Reasons for the truth which he believeth, which in the beginning he did not well discern. It is not the most confident belief that is always the strongest confirmed belief; but there must be sound grounds and evidence to support that confidence, or else the confidence may soon be shaken; and is not sound even while it seems unshaken. And here young beginners must be forewarned of a most dangerous snare of the deceiver; because at first the truth it self is commonly received upon feeble and defective grounds or evidence. It is the custom of the Devil and his deceiving instruments, to show the young Christian the weakness of those grounds, and thence to conclude that his cause is naught: For it's too easy to persuade such that the cause hath no better grounds than they have seen. For having not seen any better, they can have no particular knowledge of them. And they are too apt to think over highly of their knowledge; as if there were no more reasons for the truth than they themselves have reached to, and other men did see no more than they. And thus poor souls forsake the truth, which they should be built up and confirmed in; and take that for a reason against the truth, which is but a proof of their own infirmity. I meet with very few that turn to any Heresy, or Sect, but this is the cause: They were at first of the right mind, but not upon sound and well-laid grounds; but held the truth upon insufficient reasons: And then comes some deceiver, and beats them out of their former grounds, and ⟨p. 94⟩so having no better, they let go the truth, and conclude that they were all this while mistaken. Just as if in my infancy I should know my own father only by his clothes; and when I grow a little bigger, one should tell me that I was deceived, this is not my father, and to convince me should put his clothes upon another, or tell me that another may have such clothes, and hereupon I should be so foolish as to yield that I was mistaken; and that this man is not my father. As if the thing were false, because my reasons were insufficient. Or as if you should ask the right way in your travel, and one should tell you, that by such and such marks you may know your way: and you think you have found those marks a mile or two short of the place where they are:

but must grow more and more in discerning those Reasons for the truth which he believeth, which in the beginning he did not well discern. It is not the most confident belief that is alwayes the strongest confirmed belief; but there must be sound grounds and evidence to support that confidence, or else the confidence may soon be shaken; and is not sound even while it seems unshaken. And here young beginners must be forewarned of a most dangerous snare of the deceiver; because at first the truth it self is commonly received upon feeble and defective grounds or evidence. It is the custom of the Devil and his deceiving instruments, to shew the young Christian the weakness of those grounds, and thence to conclude that his cause is naught: For it's too easie to perswade such that the cause hath no better grounds than they have seen. For having not seen any better, they can have no particular knowledge of them. And they are too apt to think over highly of their knowledge; as if there were no more reasons for the truth than they themselves have reacht to, and other men did see no more than they. And thus poor souls forsake the truth, which they should be built up and confirmed in; and take that for a reason against the truth, which is but a proof of their own infirmity. I meet with very few that turn to any Heresie, or Sect, but this is the cause: They were at first of the right mind, but not upon sound and well-laid grounds; but held the truth upon insufficient reasons: And then comes some deceiver, and beats them out of their former grounds, and