472 PREFACE. godly man indeed, and to describe God's image onthe soul of man, in such a manner as tendeth to the just information of the reader's r0ind, and the filling up of the wants, and rectifying the errors, which may be found in his former conceptions of it. And I do purposely inculcate tIlk same things oft, in, several ; writings, (as when I preached I did in all my sermons,) that the reader may find that I bring him not undigested, needless novelties, and that the frequent repetition of them may help to make the deeper andfuller impression ; for my work is to subserve the Holy Ghost, in putting God's law into men's hearts, and writing it out truly, clearly and fully upon} their inward parts; that theymay be made sich them- selves, by understanding thoroughly what they must be, and what a solid Christian is; and that thus theymay be born again by the incorruptible, immortal seed, the word ofGod, which will live and abide forever; and may purify their souls in obeying the truth, through the Spirit; 1 Pet. i. 22, 23. 25. He is the best lawyer, physician, soldier, &c., who bath his doctrine in his brain, andnot only in his books, and bath digestedhis reading into an intellectual system and habit of knowledge. Ifministers had a hundred times over repeated the integral portraiture or character of a sound Chris- tian, till it had been as familiar to the minds and memories of their hearers, as is the description of.a magistrate, a physician, a school- master, a husbandman, a shepherd, and such things as they are well acquainted with, it would have been a powerful means to make sound Christians. But when men's minds conceive of a Christian as a man that differeth from heathens and infidels in nothing but holding the Christian opinions, and using different words and ceremonies of worship, and such like, no wonder if such be but opinionative, lifeless Christians;. and if their religion make them no better than a Seneca, or Plutarch, I shall never believe that they are any surer to be saved than they. And such a sort of men there are, that. suppose Christianity to consist but of these three parts. 1. The Christian doctrine acknowledged, ,(which' they call faith.) 2. The orders and ordinances of the Christian' church and worship, submitted to, and decently used, (which they call godliness.) And, 3. The heart and life of a Cato, Cicero, or Socrates adjoined; but all that goeth beyond 'this, (which is the life of Christianity and godliness, a lively faith, and hope, and love ; a heavenly and holy mind and life, from the renewing,'in- dwelling Spirit of God, which is described in this treatise,) they are strangers to it, and take it to be but fancy apd hypocrisy. These no Christian's do much to reduce the church to infidelity, that there maybe indeed no Christians in the world. For my part, I must confess, if there were no better Christians in the
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