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

I have therefore much endeavoured in all my writings, and especially in this, to draw out the full portraiture of a Christian or godly man indeed, and to describe Gods Image on the soul of man, in such a manner as tendeth to the just information of the Readers mind, and the filling up of the wants, and rectifying the errors which may be found in his former conceptions of it. And I do purposely inculcate the same things oft, in several writings (as when I preached I did in all my Sermons) that the Reader may find that I bring him not undigested needless novelties, and that the frequent repetition of them may help to make the deeper and fuller impression: For my work is to subserve the Holy Ghost, in putting Gods Law into mens hearts, and writing it out truly, clearly and fully upon their inward parts; that they may be made such themselves, by understanding throughly what they must be, and what a solid Christian is: And that thus they may be born again by the incorruptible, immortal seed, the Word of God which will live and abide for ever; and may purify their souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit, 1 Pet. 1.22, 23, 25. He is the best Lawyer, Physician, Soldier, &c. who hath his Doctrine in his brain, and not only in his Books; and hath ⟨image 98⟩digested his reading into an intellectual system and habit of knowledge. If Ministers had an hundred times over repeated the integral portraiture or character of a sound Christian, till it had been as familiar to the minds and memories of their hearers, as is the description of a Magistrate, a Physician, a School-master, a Husband-man, a Shepherd, and such things as they are well acquainted with, it would have been a powerful means to make sound Christians. But when mens minds conceive of a Christian, as a man that differeth from Heathens and Infidels, in nothing but holding the Christian Opinions, and using different words and ceremonies of worship, and such like, no wonder if such be but opinionative lifeless Christians: And if their Religion make them no better than a Seneca or Plutarch, I shall never believe that they are any surer to be saved than they. And such a sort of men there are, that suppose Christianity to consist but of these three parts; 1. The Christian Doctrine acknowledged (which they call Faith.) 2.

I have therefore much endeavoured in all my writings, and especially in this, to draw out the full pourtraiture of a Christian or godly man indeed, and to describe Gods Image on the soul of man, in such a manner as tendeth to the just information of the Readers mind, and the filling up of the wants, and rectifying the errors which may be found in his former conceptions of it. And I do purposely inculcate the same things oft, in several writings (as when I preached I did in all my Sermons) that the Reader may find that I bring him not undigested needless novelties, and that the frequent repetition of them may help to make the deeper and fuller impression: For my work is to subserve the Holy Ghost, in putting Gods Law into mens hearts, and writing it out truly, clearly and fully upon their inward parts; that they may be made such themselves, by understanding throughly what they must be, and what a solid Christian is: And that thus they may be born again by the incorruptible, immortal seed, the Word of God which will live and abide for ever; and may purifie their souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit,