480 CHARACTER OF A SOUND, and service ; that none of our fidelity shall be in vain, or unreward- ed, and none shall be finally a loser by his duty; that man who is naturally governed by the hopes and fears of another life, is made and liveth for that other life, where his soul shall be sentenced by God, his Judge, to happiness or misery, &c. And then he discern- eth the attestation of God to those supernatural, superadded rev- elations of the gospel, containing the doctrine of man's redemp- tion. And he seeth how wonderfully these are built upon the former, and how excellently the Creator's and Redeemer's doctrine and laws agree; and how much countenance supernatural truths receive from the presupposednaturals ; so that he doth not ad- here to Christ and religion by the mere engagement of education, friends or, worldly advantages ; nor by a blind resolution, which wanteth nothingbut a strong temptation, (from adeceiver or a world- ly interest,) to shake or overthrow it. But he is built upon the rock, which will stand in the assault of Satan's storms, and the gates of hell shallnot prevail against it; Matt. xvi. 18. xiii. 23'. vii. 25. John vi. 68, 69. 2. But a weak Christian hath but a dim and general kind of knowledge of the reasons of his religion; or, at least, but a weak apprehensionofthem, though he have the best and most unanswer- able reasons. And either he is confident in the darkupon grounds which he cannot make good, and which want but a strong assault to shake them ; or else he is troubled and ready to stagger at every difficulty which occurreth. Every hard saying in the Scripture doth offend'hin7, and every seeming contradiction shaketh him. And the depth of mysteries, which pass his understanding, do make him say, as Nicodemus ofregeneration, " How canthese thingsbe? " And if he meet with the objections of a cunning infidel, he is un- able so to defend the truth, and clear his way through them, as to come off unwounded and unshaken, and to be the more confirmed in the truth of his belief, by discerning the vanity ofall that is said against it ;. Heb. v. 12, 13. Matt. xv. 16. 1 Cor. xiv. 20. John xii. 16. 3. The seeming Christian either hath no solid reasons at all for his religion, or else, ifhe have the best, he bath no sound appre- hension of them; but,though he be never so learned and orthodox, and can preach and defend the faith, it is not so rooted in him 'as to endure the, trial ; but if a strong. temptation from subtlety or car- nal interest assault him, you shall see that he was built upon the sand, and that there was in him a secret root of bitterness, and an evil heart ofunbelief, which causeth him to depart from the living God.. Heb. iii. 12. Matt. xiii, 20-22. vii. 26, 27. Heb. xii. 15. John vi. 60. 64. 66. 1 Tim. vi. 10, 11. III. i. A Christian indeed is not only confirmed in the essen- . ._........ .._... . __..._.ë,y.,.w
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