X. 1. A Christian indeed is one whose Repentance hath been deep, and serious, and universal, and unchangeable: It hath gone to the very roots of sin, and to the bottom of the sore, and hath not left behind it any reigning unmortified sin; nor any prevalent love to fleshly pleasures: His Repentance did not only disgrace his sin, and cast some reproachful words against it, and use confessions to excuse him from mortification, and to save its life, and hide it from the mortal blow. Nor doth he only repent of his open sins, and those that are most censured by the beholders of his life: But he specially perceives the dangerous poison of Pride, and unbelief, and worldliness, and the want of the Love of God, and all his outward and smaller sins, do serve to show him the greater malignity of these, and these are the matter of his greatest lamentations. He taketh not up a profession of Religion with strong corruptions ⟨p. 26⟩secretly covered in his heart: But his Religion consisteth in the death of his corruptions, and the purifying of his heart; He doth not secretly cherish any sin as too sweet or too profitable to be utterly forsaken, nor overlook it as a small inconsiderable matter. But he feeleth sin to be his enemy and his disease, and as he desireth not one enemy, one sickness, one wound, one broken bone, one serpent in his bed, so he desireth not any one sin to be spared in his soul: But faith with David, Psal. 139.23. Search me O God, and know my heart: try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me; and lead me in the way everlasting. He liveth in no gross or scandalous sin: And his infirmities are comparatively few and small; so that if he were not a sharper accuser of himself, than the most observant spectators are (that are just) there would little be known by him that is culpable and matter of reproof. He walketh in all the commandments and ordinances of God blameless (as to any notable miscarriage) Luk. 1.6. He is blameless and harmless, as the son of God, without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; among whom he shineth as a light in the world, Phil 2 15. The fear, and love, and obedience of God is the work and tenor of his life.
X. 1. A Christian indeed is one whose Repentance hath been deep, and serious, and universal, and unchangeable: It hath gone to the very roots of sin, and to the bottom of the sore, and hath not left behind it any reigning unmortified sin; nor any prevalent love to fleshly pleasures: His Repentance did not only disgrace his sin, and cast some reproachful words against it, and use confessions to excuse him from mortification, and to save its life, and hide it from the mortal blow. Nor doth he only repent of his open sins, and those that are most censured by the beholders of his life: But he specially perceives the dangerous poyson of Pride, and unbelief, and worldliness, and the want of the Love of God, and all his outward and smaller sins, do serve to shew him the greater malignity of these, and these are the matter of his greatest lamentations. He taketh not up a profession of Religion with strong corruptions ⟨p. 26⟩secretly covered in his heart: But his Religion consisteth in the death of his corruptions, and the purifying of his heart; He doth not secretly cherish any sin as too sweet or too profitable to be utterly forsaken, nor overlook it as a small inconsiderable matter. But he feeleth sin to be his enemy and his disease, and as he desireth not one enemy, one sickness, one wound, one broken bone, one serpent in his bed, so he desireth not any one sin to be spared in his soul: But faith with David, Psal. 139.23. Search me O God, and know my heart: try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me; and lead me in the way everlasting. He liveth in no gross or scandalous sin: And his infirmities are comparatively few and small; so that if he were not a sharper accuser of himself, than the most observant spectators are (that are just) there would little be known by him that is culp•ble and matter of reproof. He walketh in all the commandments and ordinances of God blameless (as to any notable miscarriage) Luk. 1.6. He is blameless and harmless, as the son of God, without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; among whom he shineth as a light in the world, Phil 2 15. The fear, and love, and obedience of God is the work and tenour of his life.
