their Duty perform'd never seriously question in themselves whither any other thing than there petition of words in such serious a manner as the strength of Education and others discourse concerning God's greatness had brought them to was either necessary or actually in their Prayers or ever examin'd after Prayer was over whether it had return or not How this way of living should train a Soul to the experience and knowledge of access to and enjoyments with God in Prayer I know not speaking as to God's common way of bestowing such comfortable priviledges purchased by Christ for us To instruct you therefore from the Experience of God with my self O prophane and meer professing Christians I would with much sincerity and love 〈◊〉 â—ur selves beg your steps in the following 〈◊〉 When you are designing any matter or endeavouring the interest of this or the other mean to bring forth your purposed end resolve to address the Lord by Prayer for his guidance of you to the use of right means and his blessing the means to bring about your design unless inconsistent with his Honour and your Interest And if you are hinder'd from solemn Address make use of your Thoughts and dart them up to him with the same Petitions Mind not only the words in your solemn Prayer and your thoughts in Ejaculation but consider the frame of your Mind in both whether serious or not if as serious as when speaking to this or the other help to carry on your design at your first enterance I suppose not your acquaintance with spirituality of frame and if your frame be thus serious mind the issue of your affair if it be according to your Desire and Prayer impute not your success altogether to your outward help of this mean and the other but let Heaven's Blessing accompanying your diligent use of means have room in your Thoughts if not as chief yet as necessary and therefore you will improve this passage thus observ'd with a resolution to address God more seriously than ever in your next undertaking and accordingly perform your serious Prayer to him for his Divine Assistance which meeting with a sensible return you will improve with a more fixedness in your resolution to Petition him in all your after-concerns and with giving of him now the place of principal Agent with your means which will lay a foundation not only for a resolution and performance of Prayer and that seriously to God in all Occurrences but make a fair step towards the founding a Faith of Reliance upon God yea an endeavour of pleasing God to interest your selves in his favour and a perusal of the Scriptures to know the Will of God and the way of doing it and going on in this way of Prayer and Observation with such suitable improvement you know not neither is it in the power of the greatest exercise of a rational Soul to foresee or imagin aforehand what great and mysterious things may be laid before you to observe to wit of a Christian's advancement from the first step of Seriousness to a Reliance upon God as the alone power to be trusted to with such means he allows of and has witnessed his pleasure in by working with them for the bringing about such Events as are sought from natural strength by others but by them in Petitioning the Agency of his Power I don't mean by repeating of Words by way of Form and Rule given you in your Education but thorough a sense of the great advantage of his favour and a sincere desire to obtain it a carrying out of your desire with thoughts and words suitable to the present height of your longings which lays you in the way of meeting with the breathings of Christ's Spirit to help your infirmities and to raise your frame to such a posture of heavenliness as you never knew before unless by the hearing of the ear and will soon unfold what a dark state you have been in that all the seriousness you had in Prayer was no other than the strength of education and that there is something else in the Christian Religion you have never yet been senble of more suitable to the feeling of the Soul than to the utterance of the greatest Orator on earth The Spirit of God has express'd in the Scriptures these Mysteries in a stile suited to our understanding but when the same Spirit bears them home to the sensible feeling of a Christian what addition is given to the Christian's understanding of them and true Faith in them I go not therefore about to express these experienced Mysteries in a better stile for your understanding but to put you in a way of obtaining their experience upon your Souls by the working of a Divine Spirit in the use of common means You lose your labour in endeavouring to understand them in their saving efficacy by your natural reason without the help of a Divine Spirit and his internal Revelation What can better unfold or express the breathings of Christ's Spirit upon a Soul in its holy frame and performance of any Religious Duty than its resemblance to the blowing of the wind upon our Bodies which though sensibly felt yet is mysterious as to the parts of the Heavens from whence it blows or the way of its blowing upon us In like manner though the Spirit of God breathing upon a Soul in praying to God comes often suddenly like a gale of wind refreshing the Soul's dead frame with a ravishing heavenly life and power thoughts desires and all the affections being then carri'd heavenward like a Ship towards its Harbour with sweet delight therein and an actual undervaluing of the richest treasures and pleasures on earth in the balance with this comfortable sweetness for the time enjoy'd the continuance whereof would afford the Soul a Heaven on earth yet the Spirit of God in the excellency of his Divine Nature and in his method of thus changing the frame of the Soul is incomprehensible by the reach of human reason and to the experienc'd Soul there is but a discovery of him in his blessed effects and operations and a sight of him through a Glass darkly till that blessed change pass upon them and they obtain a perfect meetness to see and to understand him as he is No wonder therefore the prophane or meer professing Christian attempting to comprehend God's Word as to the work of the Spirit of God in planting Grace or watering it with constant influences to keep it in exercise find themselves at a loss how to understand it and therefore never feeling its effects upon their Souls either look upon it as Chimaera and the Being of the Spirit of God or his blessed operations of converting and spiritualizing a Soul to be only Notions of a melancholy Brain How many are there at this day who mock at the Spirit of God and the Divinity of our Blessed Redeemer and ridicule expressions of fellowship with him as canting discourse for they never receiv'd the precious
I don't much wonder at their prizing the comforts of this Earth counting all things else as nothing or imaginary never having experienced the reality of spiritual things and no wonder therefore they dip themselves as much as possible in these things that afford present sensual and vanishing comfort rather than by a serious application of themselves to God in the use of Divine Ordinances which while they are unregenerate can afford no solid ravishing comfort they being as I was while only under the power of Education Nicodemus-like amazed at the litteral meaning how Christians could talk with God and enjoy Communion with an invisible God it being impossible by the greatest reach of the most ingenious fancy to apprehend the state of the Soul with its ravishing sweetness when in fellowship with God and though I have made use of these words of Spirituality and Heavenliness of frame to explicate fellowship with God my design is not thereby to set it forth with words that may make it sensible to unexperiencing Souls these words being understood and felt only by real Believers it is enough that to you of the unregenerate rank I can seal and give testimony to the truth and reality thereof from my certain experience and can lay before you the means God was pleased to make use of to bring me to the sensible enjoyment thereof And if your longing desire to experience it prompt you not to the use of these means by which you may obtain it then in the Day of Judgment you cannot but expect your accusation to run thus Light came into the world but you chus'd rather to walk in darkness according to your carnal Conceits of Divine things and not in the use of Sacred means as others have done to attain a clear comfortable experimental knowledge thereof which you may easily do considering the great condescending encouragement God gives to the smallest sparks of sincere desires and serious endeavours he will by the Spirit of Grace assist you and reveal the secret of his love to your Souls and bring you into his Marvellous Light And as the case of the prophane and of these only under the power of Education fills me with pity so Lazy Christians are greatly to be threatned who know the reality of fellowship with Heaven but instead of keeping themselves in the comfortable and continual enjoyment thereof and thereby to witness its truth in Conversation with others by their involving themselves in the full stream of the pleasures of this Earth they hinder their delightful and constant enjoyment of God and give occasion to others to believe that ravishing comfort of fellowship with God is meerly a Notion and make their own Lives upon the assault of afflictions yea their Dyings too less comfortable and thereby disparage the Truth of the Gospel it may afford you an awful reflection O Lazy Christians who by your great outward enjoyments should be more excited to maintain Communion with God who is the fountain of felicity and to testify that his favour is better than Life and all the fruitions of it but you content your selves with hasty or drowsy performance of Religious Duties Morning and Evening without the Exercise of those Graces and Affections which are the Life of them And by a careless Conversation in the World the impression of Divine things are soon worn out and dye in the diversion of the Soul from God by the free fruition of Temporal things which are to be so temperately used that we may enjoy God When the World is the Idol of Mens Heads and Hearts it Dethrones God and deprives them of the Comforts of his Love and Presence Secondly My Fifteenth experience has made me sensible that the comfort of outward things is more in the expectation than in the possession whereas spiritual comfort is much sweeter in the enjoyment than it is for any Humane Creature possible to imagine unless experienc'd in the Soul My own apprehension and account of a spiritual frame is this That when I am in it my mind is clear free of Clouds or concern of any kind though in the midst of trouble unless it be lest I should not continue in a holy frame While under the alone power of Education I have often suggested to my self O that I were in such a Circumstance my state should be happy but when by the Providence of God I had arriv'd to that Circumstance I found no addition of comfort by it and to speak more plainly my great expectation was confuted by Experience for either I tasted no Happiness in what was so earnestly desir'd or the pleasure was imbitter'd to me by unexpected troubles mixed with it I now am well contented in a State without abounding or wanting relying intirely upon God for all things necessary for my wants Thirdly This Experience has made me sensible of this certain frame in my self That the more of outward comforts I enjoy the more I undervalue them and in the greater esteem I find fellowship with God and that the evidence of special love from God by the enjoyments is in my esteem far more valuable than the most precious or most desireable things that can be obtain'd in this life In the Enjoyments of the world I neither find present satisfaction nor the sweetness in the after-reflection that is in spiritual Enjoyments but what brings Honey has a Sting that vexes more than there is sweetness in it This serious Christians know by experience But Carnalists whose Consciences are Sear'd and whose Experience never reach further than outward Comforts nothing can Sting them but sensible things as Illness after Drinking Rottenness after Whoring and the like affecting their Body It is otherwise in spiritual Fellowship with God it relishes sweetly at the present and in the reflection upon it an evidence to the Soul of Union to Christ for altho' the degree of Joy does not continue yet the reality of Union abides and the new Breathings of Christ's Spirit in his Ordinances revives the Joy Friendship that rational and most comfortable Blessing in humane Society is not now so common on the Earth when Sin abounds the love of many waxeth cold and where it is it affords one of the most solid satisfactions on Earth but it is not compleat wanting much at the same time it is enjoyed neither is it durable but upon a trifle chang'd and former Friendship made fuel to kindle and keep burning everlasting Hatred and Malice A Sixteenth Experience of God's method to train me into Reliance upon himself has been by disappointing me of one favour greatly desired and expected on purpose to introduce a greater The Lord has often issued forth a marvellous Mercy out of the Bosom of a disappointing-Providence and could the effect of this Experience be otherwise than to trust God for all Events attending my life however bad they lookt at the present leaving them to his Will that so if a disappointment occur'd I might not immediately repine but by
in this Ordinance that I might feel therein what others do or what I have felt in other Duties I should be satisfied if I should never enjoy it there again unbelief still working in me It pleased God in his wonderful Condescention to comply with this desire and thereby to discover the greatness of my weakness as well as the advantage of Reliance upon God in the use of means without limiting him to our desires for in the participating of the next Sacrament I was admitted to such a sweet ravishing Enjoyment that I never had before Experienc'd in that Duty which persuaded me of the Truth of what I have often heard but such a disquieting darkness was consequent both in my Mind and outward Affairs that I by the rich Mercy and Power of God was then help'd sweetly to resign my desire to his Will and to supplicate for his influences as he pleased to dispense them never limiting God to things or times further than as suitable to his Omniscient Will by this Experience I was helpt in all my concerns less as well as greater to cast them at Heaven's Gate to hope in his Mercy for them with this desire only that I might by the Spirit of Grace and Supplication be assisted to make known my Requests to God with Faith and Resignation so as to be accepted of him and in this I find my Hearts Ease I have since esteem'd it Duty and had ardent Desire of Partaking the Lord's Supper every Month. While my Religion was merely from Education I thought once in a year or two enough to partake of this Ordinance but since my regard to my Sovereign's and Saviour's Command Do this in remembrance of me and my performance in Obedience to this Command I have enjoy'd ravishing sweetness in Communion with Christ in this Duty And I shall add That the frequent repeating of this Ordinance is attended with great advantage for by Preparatory Examination I am more fully acquainted with my Spiritual State with my present Corruptions and Graces stronger or weaker and the way how God makes this Duty a mean to suppress the one and raise the other with my Defects in the performance of this Duty and I have a fuller sight of Christ in all-sufficient merits in his Treasures of Grace that are open'd to all that come with Holy Affections to him The serious and frequent renewing our Covenant with Christ in this Ordinance will endear him to us and engage us to live to him who died for us and the warm impression of his love will be maintain'd in our Souls which is too apt to cool and decline unless fed and reviv'd by the frequent Contemplation of our Crucified Saviour Seventhly In the beginning of the Celebration of this Ordinance I have oft been in a cold frame but at the approach of the Elements this frame has chang'd and my Soul has been sweetly carried forth to petition for the imparting the Priviledges of Christ's Body broken and Benefits annext to it and I have found from receiving the Elements the strengthening power of the Spirit verifying our Saviour's Words That his flesh is meat indeed and his blood drink indeed This has been a means to preserve me from Anxieties and to persevere in the frequent Commemorating of Christ's Death prescrib'd in his last Will I also find that the more frequent renewing my Vows makes me more careful to perform them and that it 's more easie to take an account of our Faithfulness to God and our Souls or of our Neglects once every Month than when there is a greater distance between the time of our Receiving and Examining our selves how correspondent our Conversations have been to our Covenant seal'd in that Ordinance Eighthly At the time of partaking this Ordinance I have often desir'd with ardent Affections two Things That I might be spiritually-minded in the whole course of my life and that Holiness may be advancing in my Soul till I arrive at perfection This will be attended with solid Comfort according to the Promise Great peace to those who keep thy law And altho' we are to seek the shining face of God the joyful assurance of his love in the use of his Ordinances yet since the shedding abroad in the Soul the clear Evidences of God's Love is a free Dispensation according to the Divine Pleasure my principal request has been to have a pure Heart and Holy Conversation depending upon God for inward Comfort From which Experiences you may upon good ground fear that when the excuse of neglecting the Sacrament is because of its being a Solemn Ordinance and therefore to be seldom receiv'd is an Error of the Carnal Mind and a Temptation of Satan to divert us from using frequently that means of Grace which confirms our Faith inflames our Love and secures our hope of Glory and makes us more exact and constant and comfortable in the everlasting way I shall conclude this with Advice to those who have not felt those Joyful Emanations in this Ordinance which they have expected and others of the Saints have enjoy'd Be not discourag'd from your Duty but with unfainting perseverance continue in the use of the means of Grace The Lord waits to be gracious to bestow his Comforts in the best season There is sweet Peace in our Obedience to the Divine Commands tho' we have not raptures of Joy And our Obedience is more pleasing to God when notwithstanding all difficulties and discouragements it 's with Conscience to his commanding-Will perform'd than when it 's made easie by sensible Comforts THE APPLICATORY AND SECOND PART OF This Discourse CHristianity as is described in the Gospel is Experienc'd in the Souls of Real Christians in different degrees of Knowledge and Power but the most who are Christians in Profession are strangers to its vital Efficacy The reason of this diversity is Because the most rest in the speculative Notion of the Christian Religion and are contented with the external Character of others others are cleansed and changed by the Truths of the Gospel and are inward Christians Among Christians in Title there are various Divisions and contrary Sentiments according to the Principles of the Education which often cause violent Contentions among them Among real Christians there are Differences but not of so deep a nature Some Christians are weaker by damping of this powerful Principle of Regeneration through too long omission of the means of Grace or by too deep mixing the Thoughts and Affections in the Business of the World or by a levity of Mind in their indulging too free a use of sensitive Pleasures that are innocent in their nature And from these Reasons it is that spiritual Influences are obstructed and the Divine Nature in Christians is not so lively and vigorous as in others who regard their Souls and internal things with great application and diligence sometimes carnal Pride insinuates into those who are real Christians and to maintain their Parties and to be distinguish'd from others
his returns of such Prayers were greatly defer'd And as a condescending help to prevent desponding anxiety quiet of mind concerning the return to be defer'd always accompanied my supplication and the Lord left me not to the Dominion of corrupt nature or of Satan's suggestion Or if either had assaulted me the Divine strength raising me to an actual resignation to his Will at the time fortified me against them Again An Observing Christian sees so much of the depth of Wisdom in God's ways concerning them that it must be strange if he presum'd to confine God to one method when the variousness yea the contrariness of methods to bring about the same end is one great evidence of the Excellency of his Wisdom An observing Believer knows that God tries the strength of Christians various ways in order to their Establishment Not because he is ignorant of the exact measure of their growth in Christianity but from love to them that by their faithful continuance in Prayer deferr'd as to its return the Graces of the Spirit may be excited and exercised both to the honour of God and their inward Comfort For what can be more reviving than to find corruptions weaken'd and grace strengthened which is the sweet issue of many grievous afflictions that are not removed upon our renewed Petitions till we are purified by them Hereafter may some say Since spirituality in Prayer is the Spirit of God's gift and it unexpectedly comes we may lay by Prayer with our own Endeavours and wait as the Quakers say till the Spirit move and then to Pray To this I say Spirituality in Prayer is the alone Gift of Christ's Spirit and it comes when he pleases but by sincere Prayer we obtain this blessed Gift It is not the usual way of God to bestow it in more excellent degrees without our sincere asking it in the humble sense of our need of it The Quakers acknowledge as from converse with some of them I have heard they have an innate Spirit by which they are acted and according to its inward striving so they move in Duties I know in us all there is that innate Principle of Corruption which reigning makes our faculties of Soul and members of Body move as it listeth to evil but a principle of Grace that inspires us with new life in our Duties comes from Heaven and is obtain'd in the use of his Ordinances This does not in the least obscure the Glory of God's Free-Grace for his Spirit excites us to Duties and supplies us with strength to perform them but it directs us to seek God in the ways appointed that we may find him That therefore Christians may rightly judge of this heavenly frame and intercession of the Divine Spirit preparing them to ask from God what he is to return Errors herein proceeding either from mistaking the work of Christ's Spirit helping them to ask or from applying the return to what they ought not I shall give the following marks accompanying such a Prayer and that observ'd from my own personal Experience First A heighth of spiritual Thoughts and Affections throughout in Prayer or in one particular Petition thereof far beyond common seriousness which tho' by words it be almost inexplicable so as to make the unexperiencing Christian comprehend it yet it is easily perceiv'd by the experiencing Christian In this rais'd frame of the Soul either in solemn or ejaculatory Prayer there is such heavenliness of Thought as if the Soul were already in Heaven's Enjoyment And for the comfort of young Observers I must acknowledge that my spirituality of frame in Prayer the real preparation of Christ's Spirit to ask and certainly evidential of God's return was at first observ'd to be much less in degree tho' the same in nature than now it is one degree of experimental Knowledge preparing for farther degrees This brings to my Thoughts the gradual rise of Christians meetness for Heaven by Christ's Spirit in his common way of working by the use of means of which observing Christians are sweetly sensible Secondly Another mark of Christ's Spirit 's intercession in Prayer as token of God's acceptance thereof and his return thereto is when with an Address so spiritually perform'd goes along a comfortable quiet of mind concerning the Event tho' the praying-Believer be encompast with Afflictions A calm composure of mind in our trust upon the gracious Will and Wisdom of God to dispose of all things concerning us is our Duty but 't is the Gift and Work of the Holy Spirit who is stiled the Comforter We must observe in the Word of God what he Commands us to do he promises to enable us to do He Commands us That Sin should not reign in our mortal bodies and he has Promised That Sin shall not have dominion over us In like manner God Commands us To be careful for nothing but by supplication to lay our requests before God And certainly freedom from anxiety and disquiet and a full possession of the Soul in Patience concerning any thing in commending our Affairs to God by Prayer is the product of the Divine Spirit and not from the natural temper and stayedness of the Mind And where the Christian actually experiences it in Prayer he may safely conclude himself influenc'd by a Divine Spirit not only in raising his frame to ask but leaving it at God's footstool as to the Event and that as presaging of God's returning favour and introductive of his blessing The Promise of God is the foundation of this Trust Psal 37.5 Commit thy way unto the Lord and he shall bring it to pass The habit of Resignation may be in the Soul but 't is drawn forth into exercise by the renewed influences of the Spirit Thirdly You may judge of the intercession of Christ's Spirit in your Souls in addressing God by Prayer by the passages of Providence that bring about the return of this Prayer In the Observation whereof the speciality of a Divine Hand in the Providences bringing the return about is as discoverable as immediateness of a Divine Spirit influencing the Soul to ask with calm and resign'd submission as to the Event The observing Christians do often see these two joyned together and each illustrating one another where others do not or hardly are at the pains to observe the one or the other And what the Psalmist in the first ver of the 116th Psal in the fifth ver of the 118th Psalm and in the 121st Psalm finds that Prayers return observ'd and the passages of Providence discovering or bringing it about is powerful in bringing his Soul to the actual exercise of love to Reliance upon Admiration and Praise of God I love the Lord because he has heard my supplication I called to the Lord and he heard me therefore shall I see my desire and he is now my strength and my song I will praise thee for thou hast heard me and art become my salvation The unobserving Christian therefore of Prayer's return and of
feeling in the Soul be believing The days have been when in all the outward parts of God's Worship I have made a specious show but from no other principle than that of Education being altogether ignorant of any inward Comfort in Duties and without longing after it imagining it to be more talkt of than really enjoy'd This cannot have been my case alone but I dare say the case of many professing Christians who have had Religious Education and therefore my method has been not only to show the evidences of a Change but the steps of God's way thereto and the few easie means made use of by my self and successfully blessed by the Divine Spirit And if this be not the fruit of my labour to bring you to the use of these means that you may lay your self in the way of receiving Divine Influences my Experience will make but small impression but if the Lord accompany your sincere endeavour in these few means believe me the internal sweetness of inward Religion of fellowship with God in Prayer of Reading the Scriptures with improvement of observing God's Dispensations with Reliance upon him for all things will so affect you that you will need no other motive to persevere in the use of means and you will abstain from all carnal Diversions that alienate the Heart from Communion with God The preserving a spiritual frame in the Soul every day keeps us watchful lest Temptations should break in and Corruptions break out This affords us a foretaste of Heaven and an assurance of it who can doubt of the Hell that is reveal'd in Scripture who feels the tormenting fire of guilt and extends his Fears to Eternity These are the beginnings of Sorrow Who can doubt of the Heaven reveal'd in the Gospel who has felt in his Soul a Joy unspeakable and glorious and differing from the Joy in Heaven only in the degree and the manner of Divine Fruition I do believe the Conceptions of prophane stupid Sinners concerning spiritual Comfort in the Soul and concerning inward Agonies for Sin are as doubtful as they are of the reality of Heaven and Hell in the future State Oh! Therefore let not Christians be discouraged by the Atheism the Infidelity and Wickedness of this Age but let them pray and labour to obtain a more full experimental sense of things reveal'd by the Word of God which will be a powerful preservative from the Errors and Vices of the infectious World and will make them admire Divine Grace that distinguishes them from others and will make them compassionate those who are careless of things that concern their precious and immortal Souls And to preserve a spiritual frame in its liveliness and vigour let those be our chosen and intimate Friends in whom the Image of God shines who partake of a Divine Nature that declares it self in spiritual Communion where we may be confirm'd and comforted in the serious practice of Godliness and prepared for the Joy that flows from the Divine presence above to the blessed Celestial Society Besides these three means of right Observation right Prayer and right Reading of the Scriptures there are other means of God's own appointment such as the Hearing of God's Word the Participation of the Lord's Supper and Communion with Saints but I have confin'd my self to these three upon the following Accounts First Because Observation was the means of my own sensible Conversion and the other two the special means of further growth in Grace Secondly By reason of the Christian's tendency to the right and continued performance of the other means when excited and allured by the Enjoyments that attend the right performance of those three Thirdly That my invitation to the prophane and meer professing Christian may meet the sooner with successful acceptance the apprehension of the difficulty and of the burthen of real Christianity as if it were inconsistent with natural pleasant enjoyments frights many from the acceptance of the Gospel and Obedience to it the falshood whereof I have endeavoured to shew in that spiritual Religion allows a modest temperate use of sensitive Pleasures and Religion when seriously practised sweetens those Duties which to Carnalists are so uneasie for when the Soul is cleans'd from sinful Affections and chang'd into the Divine likeness the suitableness between the Duties of Religion and the Soul causes the purest pleasure Since our Redeemer had reconciled God by his Meritorious Sufferings and Mediation and has obtain'd such precious privileges for all that will accept of him our present Pardon and future Glory Holiness and Happiness in perfection How can reasonable Creatures neglect the great Salvation so dearly bought and so freely offered to them in the use of so easie and few means Methinks we should hear convinc'd and alarm'd Sinners cry out What shall we do to be saved and apply themselves to the Redeemer to obtain spiritual and eternal Life by him The Pearl of Price is offered to all that sincerely accept of it To press the Duties of Christianity upon a prophane and meer professing Christian is as if Food was offered to a Dead Body to receive and digest as if the carrying of heavy Burthens were recommended in exchange with an easie quiet and pleasant course of life The prophane Creature is Dead in Sin though his Ear be open as the effect of natural Life yet his Soul is shut from the reception of spiritual Truths as the effect of a spiritual Death Now to shut up all I 'll give you my repeated Exhortation with some Reflections annexed to it respecting the foregoing Discourse Be exhorted therefore O prophane meer professor and careless Christian to walk in the use of the three means mention'd and take an estimate of your performance from the extensiveness of your observing the passages of Providence from the spirituality of your Prayer solemn or ejaculatory from the strictness of your conformity to God's Word the Rule of Obedience and you will obtain the first life of Grace and an experimental encrease of Holiness and Joy The world is blinded and secure from Lusts that darken the Mind and from tempting objects in the world that divert from the serious thoughts of the righteous God who is terrible against Rebellious Sinners Now the observing of visible Vengeance that often falls upon the wicked will strike men with the fear of God which is the first motive to fly to his Mercy Or men are blinded and secure upon the account of external profession and outward performance of Christian Duties and a notional Knowledge of the Gospel The remedy of this destructive delusion is the frequent and serious addressing to God by Prayer to obtain a living principle of Holiness that will be permanent and powerful in the Soul There are real Christians who by neglect of their Duty decline from God and disparage their Profession Let such be excited to a constant and serious use of those means whereby Grace is convey'd into our Souls If they will observe God in