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

XX. 1. The Christian indeed is one that liveth ⟨p. 54⟩upon God alone. His faith is Divine: his love and obedience and confidence are Divine: his chiefest converse is Divine: his hopes and comforts are Divine: As it is God that he dependeth on, and trusteth to, and studieth to please above all the world, so it is Gods approbation that he taketh up with for his justification and reward: He took him for his absolute Governor, and judge, and full felicity, in the day when he took him for his God. He can live in peace without mans approbation: If men are never acquainted with his sincerity, or virtues, or good deeds, it doth not discourage him nor hinder him from his holy course: he is therefore the same in secret as in public; because no place is secret from God. If men turn his greatest virtues or duties to his reproach, and slander him, and make him odious to men, and represent him as they did Paul, a pestilent fellow, a mover of sedition, and the ringleader of a sect, and make him as the filth of the world, and the off-scouring of all things, this changeth him not, for it changeth not his felicity, nor doth he miss of his reward. 1 Cor. 4.9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. Read the words in the text: Though he hath so much suspicion of his own understanding, and reverence for wiser mens, that he will be glad to learn, and will hear reason from any one; yet praise and dispraise are matters of very small regard with him, and, as to himself, he accounteth it but a small thing to be judged of men, whether they justify or condemn him; because they are fallible and have not the power of determining any thing, to his great commodity or detriment, nor is it their judgement to▪ which he stands or falls: 1 Cor. 4.3.4. ⟨p. 55⟩He hath a more dreadful or comfortable judgement to prepare for: man is of small account with him in comparison of God. Rom. 8.33, 34, 35, 36.

XX. 1. The Christian indeed is one that liveth ⟨p. 54⟩