An expository comment, doctrinal, controversial, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…An expository comment, doctrinal, controversal, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…

This then being laid as a foundation, That a mans own spirit doth feel and perceive what are the motions thereof, it followeth, That when a man doth uprightly and sincerely love God, and walk in his way, he doth experimentally ⟨p. 397⟩discern this he knoweth, he believeth, he knoweth he loveth God. But ¹that this may be done, there is required,

This then being laid as a foundation, That a mans own spirit doth feel and percieve what are the motions thereof, it followeth, That when a man doth uprightly and sincerely love God, and walk in his way, he doth experimentally ⟨p. 397⟩discern this he knoweth, he believeth, he knoweth he loveth God. But ¹that this may be done, there is required,

1. 1What is required to an experimental discerning of our graces. 1. An humble heart.

First, An humble broken heart, and poverty of spirit, whereby we are emptied of all our own righteousness, renouncing every thing that is ours, hungering and thirsting after Christ and his righteousness. Every gracious heart that cometh to the knowledge of its sincerity, hath this concomitant disposition, there is an humble, lowly, broken spirit, it feeleth it self undone and lost. It feareth all that it hath done, and therefore can rest no where, but on Christ only. Now although many do deceive themselves, many do flatter and delude their own souls, yet where there is this frame of heart, there will never be any miscarriage.

First, An humble broken heart, and poverty of spirit, whereby we are emptied of all our own righteousnesse, renouncing every thing that is ours, hungring and thirsting after Christ and his righteousnesse. Every gracious heart that cometh to the knowledge of its sincerity, hath this concomitant disposition, there is an humble, lowly, broken spirit, it feeleth it self undone and lost. It feareth all that it hath done, and therefore can rest no where, but on Christ onely. Now although many do deceive themselves, many doe flatter and delude their owne soules, yet where there is this frame of heart, there will never be any miscarriage.