CONFIRMED CHRISTIAN. 521 and the lame and sick must have others to support them. The weak Christian faheth, if his teacher or most esteemed company fall : if they run into an error, sect, or schism, he keeps them company. He groweth cold, if he have not warming company : he forgetteth himself, and letteth lo'osg his sense and passion, if he have not some to watch over himAnd warn him.. No man should refuse the help of others, that can have it ; and the best have need ofall God's means ; but the weak Christian needeth them much more than the strong, and is much, less able to stand without them; Luke xxii. 32. Gal, ii. 3. But the SeemingChristian is built upon the sand, and there- fore cannot stand a storm ; he is a Christian more for company, or the credit of man, or the interestthat others have in him, or the encouragement of the times, than from a firm belief and love of Christ, and therefore falleth when his props are gone ; Matt. vii. 24. XXX. 1. A strong Christian can digest the hardest truths, and the hardest works of Providence : he seeth more of the reason and evidence of truths than others ; and he bath usually a more com- prehensive knowledge, and can reconcile those truths which short- sighted persons suspect to be inconsistent and contradictory, and when he cannot reconcilethem, he knoweth they are reconcilable ; for he hath laid his foundation well, and then he redhceth other truths to that, and buildeth them on it. And so he doth by the hardest providences : whoever is high or low, whoever prospereth or is afflicted; however human affairs are carried, and all things seem to go against the church and cause of Christ, he knoweth yet that God is good to Israel,. (Psal. lxxiii. 1, 2.) and that he is the " righteous Judge ofall the earth ; " and that the " righteous shall have dominionin the morning," and " it shall go well with them that fear the Lord; " for he goeth into the sanctuary,and foreseeth the end ; Eccles. viii. 11 -13. Psal. lxxiii. 17. cxv. 11. 13. xxxi. 19. 2. But theweak Christian is very hardput to it, when he meet- eth with difficult passages of Scripture, and when he seeth it " go with the righteous according to the work of the wicked, and with the wicked according to the work of the righteous ; " Eccles. 14. Though he is not overturned by such difficulties, yet his foot is ready to slip, and he'digesteth them with much perplexity and trouble. 3. But the seeming, unsettled Christian is often overcome by them, and turneth away fromChrist, and saith, ' These are hardsay- ings,.or.hard providences; who can bear them ?' John vi. 60. 66. And thus unbelief thence gathereth matter for its increase. XXXI. 1. A Christian indeed is one that can exercise all God's graces in conjunction, and in their proper places and proportion, VOL. I. 66
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