416 DIRECTIONS AND PERSUASIONS Study, therefore, what God is, and what he is to you, and what he would be to you. Study what sin is, and what the damnation is which it deserveth. Study what Christ is, and bath done and suffered for you, and What he is willing to do if you neglect him not. Study what the world is, and what is the utmost that sin will do for you. Study what the everlasting glory is, which you may have with God, if you lose it not by your folly. And study what faith is, and what repentance is, and what love, and joy, and a holy and heavenly life is, and how little reason you have to be afraid of them. If this understanding have but deeply possessed you, it will bias your hearts, and make you resolved, settled converts. Direction II. If you would not have the work of your conversion miscarry, when you understand what is offered you, then search the scriptures daily to see whether those things be so or not. So did the Bereans.(a) And the text saith, that there- fore they believed. We come not to cheat and decieve you ; and therefore we desire not that you should take any thing from us, but what can we prove to you from the word of God to be certainly true. We desire not to lead you in the dark, but by the light to lead you out of darkness ; and therefore we refuse not to submit all our doctrine to an equal trial. Though we would not have you wrong your souls by an unjust distrust of us ; yet would we not desire you to take these great and weighty things merely upon our words : for then your faith will be in man ; and then no marvel if it be weak and ineffectual, and quickly shaken. If you trust a man to -day, you may distrust him to- morrow; and if one man be in the greatest credit with you this year, another, of a contrary mind, may be of more credit with you the next year. And therefore we de- sire no further to be believed by you, this is necessary to lead you' up to God, and to help you to under- stand 'that word which you must believe : our desire therefore is, that you search the scripture, and try (a) Acts xvii. 11.
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