Some means which Gods Spirit useth as preservatives.
I Am now come (dear Love) to the third and last Head proposed, which is some few means of recovering and preserving of Christian health and cheerfulness, and the preventing of spirituall sicknesses and diseases: In this I shall desire to be brief, lest by too long a discourse I discourage thy reading, and hinder thy use and improvement of it.
Soul-examination a soul means of spirituall preservation.
First then, holy consideration of our estate, a deep and frequent examination of our spirituall condition is an excellent means of Christian health and temper: Thus teacheth us the holy Spirit of God by Jeremie, Lam: 2. Let us search and try our ways, and turn unto the Lord.
This searching and examining of our ways in Gods presence is (as it were) a casting up of our accounts between God and our souls, wherein we truly verifie that true saying, That often reckoning makes God and our souls true friends.
This dutie is hard, and therefore we must often crie to God with David, Psal. 139. Search me O God, and try my heart, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Affliction the season of Examination.
This holy practice ought to be frequent, but then especially when the hand, and Rods of the Lord are upon us: For then (as Job saith) God softeneth our Hearts, and we are most like then to be as the ground, mollified upon a Thaw, fit to be broken up, or like the ground moistened with storms, and showers from Heaven, then in some hopefull turn for the Lords most gracious seed, and heavenly planting.
2dly.
Christ Jesus his appointments undoubted means of Christian health and chearfulness.