2S4k, ORDINARY WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT. [DISC. xt., and activity as in time bast. Perhaps by this means you may discern a sensible growth in grace and you may find. abundant advantage, worth all the care and labour of self-examination ; or ifyou find decays and backslidings, it will awaken repentance and zeal toward a recovery. 2. In this searching work keep aloof from carnal self love. When you call yourselves to an account, set your -. Selves before the bar of your own consciences, as before the bar of God.; for conscience is a,}udge for God with-. in us. Pass an impartial sentence concerning your-. selves, even such as you suppose God himself would pass, if you were now summoned befóre his tribunal. Suffer not yourselves now to be biassed by the esteem or the fondness that we all have naturally for ourselves.. The matter is too important, the enquiry too solemn and, awful, for you to indulge self- flattery. It will be nopro- fit to deceive your souls in this work, for you cannot deceive God. Come therefore and apply yourselves to 'this. holy exercise,. with an unbiassed design to pronounce concerningyourselves vhatever you find the wórd of God pronounces concerning you. 3. Trust not merely to your own spirits, without earn- est prayer for the assistance of the Spirit of God ; Jer. xvii. g. The heart is deceitful above-all things :Who can know it ? Therefore David prays importunately, as we have beforeobserved, that Godwould search him_nnd try him; Ps. cxxxix. i'3, . Beg of the Lord that he would nbt suffer you to be deceived, when you set about this searching work ;- for it is a matter of most high con- cern. A mistake here is dangerous, and it may be for ever fatal. 4. When you find any character of adoption made to appear with strong evidence non your souls, be not ut- terly discouraged though you do not find all the charac- ters of grace there. It is true indeed, where there is a new nature and a divine principle Wrought in the heart, there are the seeds ofevery holy disposition; but they do not all arise to an equal strength, nor stand forth and shine with equal evi- dence. The Spirit of God may sometimes witness with your spirits, though but one mark of adoption appear plainly, while others are not so easily discovered. A single bough of the tree of life has upheld souls from
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