The safety of appearing at the day of judgement, in the righteousness of Christ

Direction 6.

Labour to get your hearts fully satisfied in the divine authority of the Scriptures: if men have scruples and misgivings of heart about that, they will be an occasion of discouragement: such jealousies will interrupt the exercise of Faith; for the word is the foundation of our faith: the authority of the Word of God is our warrant to believe: let all scruples of that kind be speedily removed, as things that strike at the very root of faith: see that you be well grounded in the authority of the Word: don't take it up as a tradition: as a thing owned ⟨p. 349⟩by those among whom you live: but satisfy your hearts upon good ground that the Scripture is no device of man, but the very Word of God: and indeed God has given us as much assurance that it is his Word: as we can reasonably desire and expect: he gives his own testimony to it: we receive the orders of authority upon their own testimony: thus God witnesses to the truth of his Word, he sets his hand to it, Zech. 12.1. Rev. 1.1. and the Scripture has such characters in it as evidence it to be the Word of God, the Word carries a sufficient evidence in it self there are such circumstances and marks in it, as show that it is not counterfeit: if a Prince send an order to us, we know it is not counterfeit by the seal, the Secretaries hand, the stile, the matter of it; so here all things are without exception; the things are such as are suitable to the glory of God: they were written by holy men that were Gods Messengers; they are delivered to us by his Church; they are such things as no man without revelation could write, such things as no good man dare write without order from God, such things as no bad man would write: and they are confirmed by the accomplishment of predictions, and by the presence of the Spirit blessing them unto conviction and conversion.