EPISTLE DEDICATORY. 231 hearts, in the covenant-closure with Christ. See that you take him, with the happiness he hath promised, for your all. Take heed of looking after another felicity, or cherishing other hopes, or esteeming too highly any thing below. Be jealous, and very jealous, lest your hearts should close deceitfully with Christ, main- taining any secret reserve for your bodily safety ; either resolving not to follow him, or not resolving to follow him through the most desolate, distressed condition that he shall lead you in. Count what it may cost you to get the crown; study well his precepts of mortification and self-denial. There is no true hopes of the glory to come, if you cannot cast overboard all worldly hopes when the storm is such that you must hazard the one. O; how many have thought that Christ was most dear to them, and that the hopes of heaven were their chiefest hopes, who have left Christ, though with sorrow, when he bid them let go all ! 2. Every day renew your apprehensions 6f the truth and worth of the promised felicity, and of the delusory vanityof all things here below : let not heaven lose with you its attractive force, through your forgetfulness or unbelief. He is the best Christian that knows best why he is a Christian, and he will most faithfully seek and suffer, that best knows for what he doth it. Value not wealth and honor above that rate, which the wisest and best experienced have put upon them, and allow them no more of your affections than they deserve. A mean,wit may easily discover theiremptiness. Look on all present actions and conditions with a remembrance of their end. Desire not a share in their prosperity, who must pay as dear for it as the loss of their souls. Be not ambitious of that honor which must end in confusion, nor of the favor of those that God will call enemies. How speedily will they come down, and be leveled with the dust, and be laid in the chains of darkness, that now seem so happy to the purblind world, that cannot see the things to come ! Fear not that man who mustshortly tremble before that God whom all must fear. 3. Be more solicitous for the securing of your consciences and salvation, than of your honors or estates ; in every thing that you are put upon, consult first with God and conscience, and not with flesh and blood. It is your daily and most serious care and watchfulness that is requisite to maintain your integrity ; and not a few careless thoughts or purposes conjunct with a minding of earthly things. 4. Deal faithfully with every truth which you receive. Take heed of subjecting it to carnal interests ; if once you have affections that can master your understandings, you are lost, and know it not. For when you have a resolutionto cast off anyduty, you will first believe it is no duty ; and when you must change your judgment for carnal advantages, you will make the Change seem reasonable and right ; and evil shall be provedgood when you have
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