Cond. 5. When you have got the true method of the Christian doctrine, or analysis of faith, begin at the essentials, or primitive truths, and proceed in order, according to the dependences of truths; and do not begin at the latter end, nor study the conclusion before the premises.

Cond. 6. Yet look on the whole scheme or frame of causes and evidences, and take them entirely and conjunct; and not as peevish, factious men, who, in spleenish zeal against another sect, reject and vilify the evidence which they plead.

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This is the devil's gain, by the raising of sects and contentions in the church he will engage a papist, for the mere interest of his sect, to speak lightly of the Scripture and the Spirit ; and many protestants, in mere opposition to the papists, to slight tradition, and the testimony of the church, denying it its proper authority and use. As if in the setting of a watch or clock, one would be for one wheel, and another for another, and each in peevishness cast away that which another would make use of, when it will never go true without them all. Faction and contentions are deadly enemies of truth.

Cond. 7. Mark well the suitableness of the remedy to the disease; that is, of Christianity to the depraved state of man: and mark well the lamentable effects of that universal depravation, that your experience may tell you how unquestionable it is.

Cond. 8. Mark well how connaturally Christianity doth relish with holy souls, and how well it suiteth with honest principles and hearts; so that the better any man is, the better it pleaseth him. And how potently all debauchery, villany, and vice, befriendeth the cause of atheists and unbelievers.

Cond. 9. Take a considerate, just survey of the common enmity against Christianity and holiness, in all the wicked of the world; and the notorious war which is everywhere managed between Christ and the devil, and their several followers; that you may know Christ partly by his enemies.

Cond. 10. Impartially mark the effects of christian doctrine, wherever it is sincerely entertained, and see what religion maketh the best men; and judge not of serious Christians at a distance, by false reports of ignorance or malicious adversaries; and then you will see that Christ is actually the Saviour of souls.

Cond. 11. Be not liars yourselves, lest it dispose you to think Viva lectio est vita sanctorum.-Greg. Mor. 24,

all others to be liars, and to judge of the words of others by your own.

Cond. 12. Bethink you truly what persons you should be yourselves, and what lives you should live, if you did not believe the christian doctrine; or, if you did not believe it, mark what effect your unbelief hath on your lives.

For my own part, I am assured, if it were not for the christian doctrine, my heart and life would be much worse than it is, though I had read Epictetus, Arian, Plato, Plotinus, Jamblichus, Proclus, Seneca, Cicero, Plutarch, every word; and those few of my neighbourhood, who have fallen off to infidelity, have at once fallen to debauchery, and abuse of their nearest relations, and differed as much in their lives from what they were before in their profession of Christianity, though unsound, as a leprous body differeth from one in comeliness and health.

Cond. 13. Be well acquainted, if possible, with church history, that you may understand by what tradition Christianity hath descended to us.

For he that knoweth nothing but what he hath seen, or receiveth a Bible, or the Creed, without knowing any further whence and which way it cometh to us, is greatly disadvantaged as to the reception of the faith.

Cond. 14. In all your reading of the holy Scriptures, allow still for your ignorance in the languages, proverbs, customs, and circumstances, which are needful to the understanding of particular texts; and when difficulties stop you, be sure that no such ignorance remain the cause.

He that will but read Brugensis, Grotius, Hammond, and many others that open such phrases and circumstances, with topographers, and Bochartus, and such others as write of the

i An vero nisi Deum genus humanum respicere, eique præesse putaremus, adeo puritati et innocentiæ studeremus? Nequaquam, sed quia persuasissimi sumus, Deo qui et nos et mundum hunc condidit, transactæ hic vitæ totius rationes nos reddituros, moderatum, benignum, et plerisque contemptum vivendi genus deligimus. Quippe nullum in hâc vitâ tantum malum, etiamsi capitis periculum agatur, supervenire nobis posse arbitramur, quod non omnino sit minimi, immo nihili faciendum præ illa quam à summo judice expectamus olim felicitate, &c.—Athenag. Apol. p. 58. in B. P. Si enim solam hanc præsentem vitam nos victuros crederemus, suspicioni foret locus, nos carni et sanguini indulgentes, aut avaritia aut concupiscentia captos, peccare? Nos vero omnibus non modo factis sed cogitationibus et sermonibus nostris, tum noctu tum interdiu, Deum adesse scimus; eumque et totum esse lumen, et quæ in cordibus nostris latent videre, et hâc mortale vitâ defunctos, et alteram hâc terrestri longe meliorem, nempe cœlestem, nos victuros.-Id ibid.

animals, utensils, and other circumstances of those times, will see what gross errors the opening of some one word or phrase may deliver the reader from.

Cond. 15. Understand what excellencies and perfections they be which the Spirit of God intended to adorn the holy Scriptures with, and also what sort of human imperfections are consistent with these, its proper perfections; that so false expectations may not tempt you into unbelief.

It seduceth many to infidelity, to imagine, that if Scripture be the word of God, it must needs be most perfect in every accident and mode, which were never intended to be part of its perfection. Whereas, God did purposely make use of those men, and of that style and manner of expression, which was defective in some points of natural excellency, that so the supernatural excellency might be the more apparent. As Christ cured the blind with clay and spittle, and David slew Goliath with a sling. The excellency of the means must be estimated by its aptitude to its end.

Cond. 16. If you see the evidence of the truth of Christianity in the whole, let that suffice you for the belief of the several parts, when you see not the true answer to particular exceptions.

If you see it soundly proved that Christ is the Messenger of the Father, and that his word is true, and that the holy Scripture is his word, this is enough to quiet any sober mind, when it cannot confute every particular objection; or else no man should ever hold fast any thing in the world; if he must let all go after the fullest proof, upon every exception which he cannot answer. The inference is sure. If the whole be true, the parts

are true.

Cond. 17. Observe well the many effects of angels' ministration, and the evidences of a communion between us and the spirits of the unseen world; for this will much facilitate your

belief.

Cond. 18. Overlook not the plain evidences of the apparitions, witches, and wonderful events which fall out in the times and places where you live, and what reflections they have upon the christian cause.

Cond. 19. Observe well the notable answers of prayers, in matters internal and external, in others and in yourselves.

Cond. 20. Be well studied at home, about the capacity, use, and tendency, of all your faculties; and you will find that your

very nature pointeth you up to another life, and is made only to be happy in that knowledge, love, and fruition of God, which the Gospel most effectually leads you to.

Cond. 21. Mark well the prophecies of Christ himself, both of the destruction of Jerusalem, and the successes of his apostles in the world, &c., and mark how exactly they are all fulfilled.

Cond. 22. Let no pretence of humility tempt you to debase human nature below its proper excellency, lest thence you be tempted to think it incapable of the everlasting sight and fruition of God.

The devil's way of destroying is oftentimes by overdoing. The proud devil will help you to be very humble, and help you to deny the excellency of reason and natural free-will, and all supernatural inclinations, when he can make use of it to persuade you, that man is but a subtile sort of brute, and hath a soul but gradually different from sensitives, and so is not made for another life.

Cond. 23. Yet come to Christ as humble learners, and not as arrogant, self-conceited censurers; and think not that you are capable of understanding every thing as soon as you hear it.

Cond. 24. Judge not of the main cause of Christianity, or of particular texts or points, by sudden, hasty thoughts and glances, as if it were a business to be cursorily done; but allow it your most deliberate, sober studies, your most diligent labour, and such time and patience, as reason may tell you are necessary to a learner in so great a cause.

Cond. 25. Call not so great a matter to the trial, in a case of melancholy and natural incapacity, but stay till you are fitter to perform the search.

It is one of the common cheats of Satan, to persuade poor, weak, and melancholy persons, that have but half the use of their understandings, to go then to try the christian religion, when they can scarcely cast up an intricate account, nor are fit to judge of any great and difficult thing. And then he hath an advantage to confound them, and fill them with blasphemous and unbelieving thoughts; and if not to shake their habitual faith, yet greatly to perplex them, and disturb their peace. The soundest wit, and most composed, is fittest for so great a task.

Cond. 26. When, upon sober trial, you have discerned the evidences of the christian verity, record what you have found

true; and judge not the next time against those evidences, till you have equal opportunity for a full consideration of them.

In this case the tempter much abuseth many injudicious souls: when, by good advice and most sober meditation, they have seen the evidence of truth in satisfying clearness, he will after surprise them, when their minds are darker, or their thoughts more scattered, or the former evidence is out of mind, and push them on suddenly then to judge of the matters of immortality, and of the christian cause, that what he cannot get by truth of argument, he may get by the incapacity of the disputant; as if a man that once saw a mountain some miles distant from him, in a clear day, should be tempted to believe that he was deceived, because he seeth it not in a misty day or when he is in a valley, or within the house; or as if a man that, in many days' hard study, hath cast up an intricate, large account, and set it right under his hand, should be called suddenly to give up the same account anew, without looking on that which he before cast up, when, as if his first account be lost, he must have equal time, and helps, and fitness, before he can set it as right again. Take it not, therefore, as any disparagement to the christian truth, if you cannot on a sudden give yourselves so satisfactory an account of it,, as formerly, in more clearness, and by greater studies, you have done.

Cond. 27. Gratify not Satan so much as to question well-resolved points, as often as he will move you to it.

Though you must prove all things, till, as learning, you come to understand them in their proper evidence, time and order ; yet you must record and hold fast that which you have proved, and not suffer the devil to put you to the answer of one and the same question over and over, as often as he please. This is to give him our time, and to admit him to debate his cause with us by temptation, as frequently as he will, which you would not allow to a ruffian to the debauching of your wife or servants: and you provoke God to give you up to error, when no resolution will serve your turn. After just resolution, the tempter is to be rejected, and not disputed with; as a troublesome fellow that would interrupt us in our work.

Cond. 28. Where you find your own understandings insufficient, have recourse for help to some truly wise, judicious divine.

Not to every weak Christian, nor unskilful minister, who is not well grounded in his own religion, but to those that have tho