CONTENTS. Page. DIRECT. XXII. Spendmore time and care about your duty than your comforts, and to get, and exercise and increase grace thantodiscern the certainty ofit, 337 DIRECT. XXIII. Thinknot that those doubts and troubles which are causedby disobedience will be ever wellhealed but by the healing ofthat disobedience, 342 DIRECT. XXIV. Content not yourself with a cheap religiousness, and to serve God with that whichcosts you little ornothing; and take every call to costly duty or suffering for Christ, as a price put intoyour hand for advan- cing your comforts, 370 DIRECT. XXV. Study the great art of doing good; and. let it be your every day's contrivance, care and business, how to lay out all your talents to the greatest advantage, 378 DIRECT. XXVI. Trouble not your soul with needless scruples, nor make yourself more work.than God has made you, 384 DIRECT. XXVII.. When God hash discovered your sincerity to you, fix it in your memory; and leave not your soul open to new apprehensions, except in caseof notable declinings or gross sinning, 397 DIRECT. XXVIII. Beware ofperplexing misinterpretations ofsciptures, pro- vidences, or sermons, . 402 DIRECT. XXIX. Distinguish carefully between causes ofdoubting, and causes of mere humiliation and amendment, 409 Diseco. XXX. Discern whether your doubts are such as mustbe cured by the consideration of generalor of special grace; and be sure that, when you lose the sight of certain evidences, you let, not goprobabilities; or at the worst, when you are beaten fromboth, and judge yourself graceless, yet lose not the comforts of general grace, . - 444 DIRECT. XXXI. In all pressing necessities take advice from your pastors, 448 DIRECT. XXXII. Understand that the height ofa christian life, and the great- est part of your duty, lieth in a loving delight in God and a thankful and cheerful obedience tohis will, . . . 459 THE CHARACTER OF A SOUND, CONFIRMED CHRISTIAN. Preface, . . . . . 469 To the Reader, - . 471 The Characters of a strong, confirmed Christian. I. He livethby sucha faith of unseen things that governeth his soul instead of sight, 478 2. He bath cogent reasons for his religion, 479 3. He seeth the well-ordered frame of sacred verities, and the integral parts in their harmony or dancers; and setteth not up one truth against another, 480 4. He adhereth to them, and practiceth them, from aninward con-natural principle, called " the Divine nature," and " the Spirit of Christ," . 481 5. He serveth notGod for fear only, but for love, 483 6. He loveth God, 1. Much for hisgoodness to himself. 2. Andmore for his goodness to the church. 3. And mostof all for his essential goodness and perfection, . . . . . 484 7. He taketh this love and its expressions, for the heart and height of all his religion, . 485 8. He bath absolutelyput his soul, and all hishopes into the hand of Christ, and livethby faith upon him as his Savior, 487 9. He taketh Christ as the Teacher sent from God, and his doctrine for the truest wisdom, andlearneth of none but in subordination tohim, . 488 10. His repentance is universal and effectual, and bath gone to the root of every sin, . . . 489 11. He loveth the light, as it sheweth -himhis sin and duty, and is willing to know.the worst of sin, and the most of duty, 490 12. He desireth the highest degree of holiness, and hash no sin which hehad not rather leave than keep, and had rather be the best, though in poverty, than the greatest in prosperity, . . . . . 492 13. He livethupon God and heavenas the end, reward, andmotive of his life, 493 14. He counteth no cost or pains too great for the obtaining it, and hath no- thing so dear which he cannot part with for it, .- 494 15. He is daily exercised in the practice of self denial, as (next to the love of God) the second half of his religion, 496 16. He had) mortified his fleshly desires, and so far mastereth his senses and appetite, that theymake nothis obediencevery uneasy or uneven, . 499 °Ss
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