The saints dignity and duty· Together with the danger of ignorance and hardness. /…The saints dignitie and dutie· Together with the danger of ignorance and hardnesse. /…

In the second place, here is a word of Exhortation, and that is this; We ought hereby to be instructed, and provoked to stir up our souls, and not to content our selves with, or settle our selves in these outward shadows, but to labour ⟨p. 161⟩to go further, and beyond all that these outward privileges barely, as outward privileges, can make us; not only to enjoy these, but to strive to be bettered by them; not only to have the Word, and the Sacraments, but to improve them; to get more then the outward shell, to labour for the kernel, for the comfort of them. Therefore I would advise a Christian man that liveth in the bosom of the Church, where the Lord is pleased to continue helps and means to him, as to esteem them great privileges (for so they are) so not to content himself with the outward enjoyment of them, but to call upon himself, and to look inward, to see what the heart saith. Outward things will not do the deed; look we therefore for somewhat more, that will stand us in stead when the Lord cometh with his fan in his hand, throughly to purge his floor, and to make a division between the wheat and the chaff. Take notice of it therefore, and understand for your spiritual good: When thou comest to the house of God, and bringest thine hands to receive the Sacrament, and thine ears to listen to the word; think with thy self, I have heard the Word, I have received the Sacrament, but O heart what sayest thou? Have I embraced these promises? Have I closed with those precepts that have been delivered? Have I eaten Christ in the Sacrament? Hath my faith pitched on him exhibited there, under the Elements of Bread and Wine? How often have I already lived under the call of God, and yet have rejected it? my soul is not yet humbled; I only come and hear, and return without any benefit; therefore now I will go further, and dig deeper, that my heart may be brought to the obedience of the truth. Mark what our Saviour Christ faith, Joh. 6 49 provoking the Jews to believe in him, and so to receive mercy by him, he speaks on this manner, forcing them to go further then outward things; Your fathers (saith he) eat Manna in the Wilderness, and are dead. Who are those Fathers? Those stubborn and rebellious Jews that fell in the Wilderness: These entered not because of unbelief, saith the Apostle to the Hebrews:

In the second place, here is a word of Exhortation, and that is this; We ought hereby to be instructed, and provoked to stir up our soules, and not to content our selves with, or settle our selves in these outward shaddows, but to labour