'4'choice Bed ofSpices. of your felves, or of your fpiritual efiates and conditions, without a prudent eye upon your natural tempers, complexi ons, and-conaitutions, granting to your felves Etch indul- gence and grains of allowance upon the account of your na- tural tempers, as will Rand with fincerity and the Cove- nant of Grace. But, The Sixteenth Maxim or confideration. C Ixteenthly, Confider, If you cannot, if you dare not fay i6. 1.3 that you have grace, yet do not fay that yoh have no 15,Ia1 k 4. 26,2.7, Grace, for the being of Grace in the foul is one thing, and the feeing of Grace in the Soul is another thing. A man may have Grace, and yet not know that he has Grace, he may have a feed of God in him, and yet not fee it ; he may Joh. f. believe,and yet not believe that he does believe ; the child lives before it knows that it lives. If you cannot fay that your Graces are true, yet do not fay they are counterfeit, left you bear falfe witnefs againft the real work of the Spirit in you. There are none fo apt to queflion the truth of their Grace as thofe are that are truly gracious ; though Sa- tan cannot hinder the holy Spirit from working true grace in the Soul, yet he will do all he can to fill the Soul with Kai. 77. fears and doubts and jealoufies about, the truth of that grace, chat the holy Spirit has wrought in it. When did you ever know the Devil to tempt an Hypocrite to believe that his Graces were not true, and that certainly he had not the root of the matter in him; if you cannot fay that you have an in- tereft in Chrifi; yet do not fay that you have no intereft in Chrifi, for a man may have an intereft in Chrift, and yet not fee his intereft in Chrift, not know his intereft inChriff; there are many precious `Chriftians that walk in, drknefs, who yet have an intereft in that jefus that is'all Light, Life, fa, got1o.. and love ; if you cannot fay that your pardon is leafed .int the Court of your own Confcience, yet do not fay that tis M not I Joh2 4.4
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