3. They should renew their covenant grips of Christ, and make sure that main business, viz. their peace and union with God in Christ, and their accepting of Christ for their head and husband. They would labour to have the foundation sure, and to be united unto the chief corner-stone, that so blow the storm as it will, they may ride safely; and that hereby they may have access to Christ with boldness, in their difficulty, and may with confidence seek light from him in the hour of darkness.
4. To the end they may be kept more watchful and circumspect, they should remember, that it is a dishonourable thing to Christ, for them to step aside, in the least matter of truth; the denying of the least point of truth is a consequential denying of him who is the truth; and to loose a foot in the matters of truth is very dangerous; for who can tell when they who once slip a foot shall recover it again? And who can tell how many, and how dreadful errors they may drink in, who have once opened the door to a small error? Therefore they should beware of tampering in this matter, and to admit any error, upon the account that it is a small and inconsiderable one. There may be an unseen concatenation betwixt one error and another, and betwixt a small one and a greater one, so as if the little one be admitted and received, the greater shall follow; and it may be feared that if they once dally with error, and make a gap in their consciences, that God will give them up to judicial blindness, that, ere all be done, they shall embrace that opinion which sometime they seemed to hate as death.
5. They should eye the promises suiting that cause; viz. the promises of God's guiding "the blind by a way which they know not: of making darkness light before them, and crooked things straight," Isa. xlii. 16; and of "guiding continually," Isa. lviii. 11; see also Isa. xlix. 10.; lvii. 18.; and they would act faith on these and the like promises, as now made sure by Jesus.
6. Particularly, they should fix their eye upon that principal promise, of the Spirit of truth, to guide into all truth, John xvi. 13.
7. With singleness of heart they should depend on Christ, and wait for light from him, and beware of prejudice at the truth; with singleness of heart they should lie open to his instructions, and to the influences of his light and direction, and receive in the beams of his divine light; and thus go about duties, viz. prayer, conference, preaching, reading, &c. with an eye fixed on him, and with a soul open to him, and free of all sinful pre-engagement and love to error.
8. With singleness of heart, they should give up their souls to Christ, as the truth, that he would write the truth in their souls, and frame their souls unto the truth, and unto that truth which is most questioned, and by which they are most in hazard to be drawn away; and urge and press him by prayer and supplication to do the duty of a head, a husband, guide and commander, &c. unto them; and that he would be a light unto them in that day of darkness, and not suffer them to dishonour him or prove scandalous to others; by departing from the truth and embracing error. A serious single-hearted dealing with him upon the grounds of the covenant promises and his relations and engagements, might prove steadable in this case, if accompanied with a lying open to the influences of truth and to the light of information which he is pleased to send by the Spirit of truth.
CAUTIONS AND DIRECTIONS.
For further clearing of this matter, we shall hint at some cautions and further directions useful here: such as,
1. They should beware of thinking that God should come to them with light and instruction in an extraordinary manner, and reveal the truth of the question controverted somewhat immediately: for this were a manifest tempting and limiting of the Holy One of Israel. We must be satisfied with the means of instruction which he hath provided, and run to the law and to the testimony. We have the Scriptures, which are able to make the man of God perfect and "thoroughly furnished unto all good works," 2 Tim. iii. 16, 17; and to "make wise unto salvation," ver. 15. There must we see light; and there must we wait for the breathings of his Spirit with life, and coming with light to clear up truth to us: for they are the scriptures of truth, Dan. x. 21; and the law of the Lord, which is "perfect, converting the soul;" and the commandment of the Lord, that is pure, "enlightening the eyes," Psalm xix. 7, 8. We have the ministry which God hath also appointed for this end, to make known unto us his mind; there must we wait for him and his light. Thus must we wait at the posts of wisdom's doors; and wait for the king of light in his own way wherein he hath appointed us to wait for him. And if he think good to come another way more immediate, let him always be welcome; but let not us limit him nor prescribe ways to him, but follow his directions.
2. When any thing is borne in upon their spirit as a truth to be received, or as an error to be rejected, more immediately, they should beware of admitting of every such thing without trial and examination; for we are expressly forbidden to believe every spirit, and commanded to try them whether they are of God or not, 1 John iv. 1. The Lord will not take it ill that even his own immediate motions and revelations be tried and examined by the word; because the word is given us for this end, to be our test and standard of truth. The way of immediate revelation is not the ordinary way now of God's manifesting his mind to his people. He hath now chosen another way, and given us a more sure word of prophesy than was, "even a voice from heaven," as Peter saith, 2 Pet. i. 18, 19. It is commended in the Bereans, Acts xvii. 11, who upon this account were "more noble than those of Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so." Even Paul's words, though he was an authorised and an infallible apostle of Christ's, are here put to the touch-stone of the word. "Many false prophets may go out, and deceive many, and speak great swelling words of vanity," 1 John iv. 1; 2 Pet. ii. 18; and the devil can transchange himself into an angel of light, 2 Cor. xi. 14; and though an angel out of heaven should preach any other thing than what is in the written word, we ought not to receive his doctrine, but to reject it, and to account him accursed, Gal. i. 8. So that the written word must be much studied by us; and by it must we try all motions, all doctrines, all inspirations, all revelations, and all manifestations.