A supplement to the several discourses upon various divine subjects

If there be any thing that better can evidence my sincerity, than this, Lord acquaint me with it; know my heart, i. e. make me to know it. He whose sorrow is only for matter confined within his own breast, or streams of it in his life, has reason many times to question the truth of it. But when a man cannot behold sin as sin in another, without sensible regret, 'tis a sign he hath savingly felt the bitterness of it in his own Soul. 'Tis a high pitch and growth, and a consent between the Spirit of God, and the Soul of a Christian, when he can lament those sins in others whereby the Spirit is grieved, when he can rejoice with the Spirit rejoicing, and mourn with the Spirit mourning. This is a clear testimony that we have not self-ends in the service of God, that we take not up Religion to serve a turn, that God is our aim, and Christ our beloved. Now upright persons have special promises for protection, Psal. 37.18, 19. The Lord knows the way of the upright, they shall not be ashamed in an evil time; they shall not be ashamed in it, though they may be dashed by it; they shall have a blessed inward security, though they may not always have an outward, when the wicked shall consume away as the fat of Lambs, and exhale in the smoke. God's Eyes are upon them in the worst of straits. If ever he show himself strong, 'tis for those that are perfect in heart before him. This is the end of the rolling and running of his Eyes about the Earth, 2 Chron. 16.9. To such he is both a Sun, and a Shield, a Sun to comfort them, and a Shield to defend them that walk uprightly, Psal. 84.11. There may be an uprightness in the heart, when there is an unknown, or a negligent crookedness in some particular path; and when men are negligent in reproving others for such sins as open the clouds of Judgments, God may be a Sun to such, to give them some comfort in a common calamity, but scarce a Shield to defend them from it.

If there be any thing that better can evidence my sincerity, than this, Lord acquaint me with it; know my heart, i. e. make me to know it. He whose sorrow is only for matter confin'd within his own breast, or streams of it in his life, has reason many times to question the truth of it. But when a man cannot behold sin as sin in another, without sensible regret, 'tis a sign he hath savingly felt the bitterness of it in his own Soul. 'Tis a high pitch and growth, and a consent between the Spirit of God, and the Soul of a Christian, when he can lament those sins in others whereby the Spirit is grieved, when he can rejoyce with the Spirit rejoycing, and mourn with the Spirit mourning. This is a clear testimony that we have not self-ends in the service of God, that we take not up Religion to serve a turn, that God is our aim, and Christ our beloved. Now upright persons have special promises for protection,