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

If you be drawn by Seducers to forsake or neglect the Ministry of Christs Officers, you forsake or neglect your helps and mercies, you refuse his Grace, you are like Infants that scorn their Nurses help; and like Subjects who reject all the Officers of the King, and like the Chickens that forsake the Hen; you forsake the School and Church of ⟨p. 131⟩Christ, and may expect to be quickly catched up by the Devil, as stragglers that have no defence or guide.

If you be drawn by Seducers to forsake or neglect the Ministry of Christs Officers, you forsake or neglect your helps and mercies, you refuse his Grace, you are like Infants that scorn their Nurses help; and like Subjects who reject all the Officers of the King, and like the Chickens that forsake the Hen; you forsake the School and Church of ⟨p. 131⟩Christ, and may expect to be quickly catcht up by the Devil, as straglers that have no defence or guide.

2. Yet is there great difference between one Minister or Pastor and another, as much as between Physicians, Lawyers, or men of any other function. And there being no case in the world that you are so much concerned to be careful in, as the instructing and conduct and safety of your souls, you have exceeding great reason to take heed whom you choose to commit the care and conduct of your Souls to. It is not enough to say, that He is a true Ordained Minister, and that his administrations are not nullities, no more than to say of an ignorant Physician, or Cowardly Captain, that he hath a valid License or Commission; when for all that, if you trust him, it may cost you your lives. Nor is it a wise mans answer to say that God giveth his Grace by the worst as soon as by the best, and by the weakest as soon as by the strongest, and therefore I need not be so careful in my choice. For though God have not confined the working of his Spirit to the most excellent means, yet ordinarily he worketh according to the means he useth: And this both Scripture, Reason, and daily experience fully prove. God worketh rationally on man as man; that is, as a rational free agent, by Moral operation, and not by a mere Physical injection of his Grace. When we see the man that is made wise unto Salvation by mere infusion of Wisdom, without a Teacher or the study of the Word of God, or when we see God work by his Word as by a charm, that a few words shall convert a man, though the speaker or hearer understood them not, then we may