See therefore that you live upon God’s approval as that which you chiefly
seek, and will suffice you: which you may discover by these signs.
1. You will be most careful to understand the Scripture, to know what doth
please and displease God.
2. You will be more careful in the doing of every
duty, to fit it to the pleasing of God than men.
3. You will look to your
hearts, and not only to your actions; to your ends, and thoughts, and the inward
manner and degree.
4. You will look to secret duties as well as public and
to that which men see not, as well as unto that which they see.
5. You will
reverence your consciences, and have much to do with them, and will not slight
them: when they tell you of God’s displeasure, it will disquiet you; when they
tell you of his approval, it will comfort you.
6. Your pleasing men will be
charitable for their good, and pious in order to the pleasing of God, and not
proud and ambitious for your honour with them, nor impious against the pleasing
of God.
7. Whether men be pleased or displeased, or how they judge of you,
or what they call you, will seem a small matter to you, as their own interest,
in comparison to God’s judgment. You live not on them. You can bear their
displeasure, censures, and reproaches, if God be but pleased. These will be your
evidences.