A choice Bed of Spices. cient ground. from Scripture,or which would be to condemn the Generation of the ji,11; we may lately appeal from that fentence of our jt'dgment which acts it felf in times of pac- t-ion, or violent temptation, as he did frorn Alexander drunk, to Alexander fober, &c. We mull not unjAlly vex our own hearts, and dafli out our integrity, when the fentence that we pafs upon our felves is rather of imagination than of rea- fon. When a man thinks, and thinks again and again that his heart is not fincere with God, though many (if not all) evidences of fincerity appear in him, and when he cannot produce any one inherently diffinguilhing ground of an by -, pocrite in himfelf, why tins is but an imaginary judgment, and utterly unreafonable,for this is to condemn the innocent without caufe., 0 Sirs 1 that foul will never be ceded in peace and comfort which gives way to his own imaginati- ons and pallions,`and which bath a conceit that every finful thought, or violent temptation, or more durable conflia with an inward corruption, or the refurre6ton of tome old I' fin, or frequent diffractions in Religious duties, or partial- i-lar falls or flips into this or that fin, cannot Rand with grace, cannot Rand with uprightnefs, cannot Rand with finglenefs and foundnefs of heart ; 0 that you would for ever remem- ber this, viz,. That ;There a man bath either no ground at all, or thee that he hath are falfe, he fhould never to fettle on them, and yield and entertain them, as to peeflion his eflate for them, or for them to lbw the door of comfort againft his on Soul. The Fifteenth Maxim or Confideration. CIfteenthly, Confider in judging of your felves, and your r fpiritua I efiates and conditions, you mutt alwayes have an eye to your natural tempers, complexions, ;conflitutions, and inclinations, and the fins and temptations that thefe do lay you moll open too, and remember that, as in fome tem- pers a little grace makes a very great fhew ; fo in other tem pers
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