DIRECTIONS TO UNCONVerted, graCELESS SINNERS, FOR THE ATTAINMENT OF SAVING GRACE.
What is presupposed in the reader of these Directions.... Twenty Directions..
Thirty Temptations whereby the Devil hindereth Men's Con- version, with the proper Remedies against them.... Ten Temptations by which he would persuade men, that their heinous, mortal Sins, which prove them unconverted, are but the pardoned infirmities of the Penitent... b
DIRECTIONS TO WEAK CHRISTIANS FOR THEIR ESTABLISHMENT
Direct. 1. Against receiving Religion merely for the novelty or reputation of it....
Direct. II. Let Judgment, Zeal, and Practice go equally to- gether....
Direct. 111. Keep a short Method of Divinity, or a Catechism still in your memory . . . . .
Direct. IV. Certain Cautions about Controversies in Religion. Heb. vi. 1. opened.....
Direct. v. Think not too highly of your first degrees of Grace or Gifts. Time and diligence are necessary to growth.
How the Spirit doth illuminate. The danger of this sin.. 102 Direct. vi. Let neither Difficulties nor Oppositions, in the be- ginning, discourage you. Reasons.. Direct. VII. Value, and use a powerful, faithful Ministry. Reasons.
Objections answered .....
Direct. VIII. For Charity, Unity, and Catholicism, against Schism. Pretences for Schism confuted...... Direct. IX. Let not Sufferings make you sin by passion, or dishonouring authority ....
Direct. x. Take heed of running from one extreme into another 126 Direct. xi. Be not too confident in your first apprehensions or opinions, but modestly suspicious of them ..... Direct. XII. What to do when Controversies divide the Church. Of silencing Truth...... Direct. XIII. What Godliness is. The best life on earth. How Satan would make it seem troublesome and ungrateful. 1. By difficulties. 2. By various sects. 3. By scrupulosity. 4. By your overdoing in your own inventions. 5. By per- plexing fears and sorrows. 6. By unmortified lusts. 7. By actual sins. 8. By ignorance of the Covenant of Grace.... 134 Direct. XIV. Mortify the Flesh, and rule the Senses, and the Appetite..
Direct. xv. Be wary in choosing not only your Teachers, but your Company also. Their characters ✓Direct. XVI. What Books to prefer and read, and what to reject 150 Direct. XVII. Take not a doctrine of Libertinism for Free Grace 153 Direct. xvIII, Take heed lest Grace degenerate into Counter-
Direct. XIX. Reckon not on Prosperity or long life; but live as dying...
Direct. xx. See that your Religion be purely Divine. That God be your First, and Last, and All: Man nothing...... 164
THE GENERAL GRAND DIRECTIONS FOR WALKING WITH GOD, IN A LIFE OF FAITH AND HOLINESS: CONTAINING THE ESSEN- TIALS OF GODLINESS AND CHRISTIANITY.
Grand Direct. 1. Understand well the Nature, Grounds, Reason, and Order of Faith and Godliness. Propositions opening somewhat of them. The reader must note, that here I blotted out the Method and Helps of Faith, having more fully opened them in a Treatise called "The Reasons of the Christian Religion :" and another of the "Unreasonableness of Infidelity."
Grand Direct. 11. How to live by Faith on Christ. How to make use of Christ, in Twenty Necessities.. .. 175 Grand Direct. 111. How to believe in the Holy Ghost, and live by his Grace. His Witness, Seal, Earnest, &c. Q. When good Effects are from Means, from our Endeavour, and when from the Spirit?..... Grand Direct. IV. For a true, orderly, and practical Knowledge of God. A Scheme of his Attributes..... Grand Direct. v. Of Self-Resignation to God as our Owner. Motives, Marks, Means..
Grand Direct. vi. Of Subjection to God as our Sovereign King. What it is? How to bring the soul into subjection to God. How to keep up a ready and constant obedience to him.. 207
Grand Direct. vii. To learn of Christ as our Teacher. How?
The Imitation of Christ... Grand Direct. VIII. To obey Christ our Physician or Saviour, in his repairing, healing work..... How each Faculty is diseased or depraved? The Intellect : its acts and maladies. The Will. Q. Whether the Loco- motive and Sense can move us to sin, without the consent of the Will, (or Reason) upon its bare omission? The sin of the Memory, Imagination, Affections, Sensitive Appetite, Exterior Parts, which needs a cure. Forty intrinsical evils in sin, which make up its Malignity. The common Aggra- vations of sin. Special Aggravations of the sins of the Re- generate. Directions to get a hatred of sin. How to cure it ibid. Grand Direct. 1x. Of the Christian Warfare under Christ. Who are our Enemies. Of the Devil. The State of the Armies, and of the War between Christ and Satan. The Ends, Grounds, Advantages, Auxiliaries, Instruments, and Me- thods of the Tempter....
How Satan keepeth off the Forces of Christ, and frustrateth all Means....
Christ's contrary methods....
Temptations to particular Sins, with Directions for preserva- tion and remedy. 1. How Satan prepareth his Baits of
Temptation. 2. How he applieth them...
Temptations to draw us off from Duty..
Temptations to frustrate holy Duties
Grand Direct. x. How to work as servants to Christ our Lord. The true doctrine of Good Works ...
Directions for our serving Christ in well-doing. Where are many Rules to know what are Good Works, and how to do them acceptably and successfully.
Quest. Is doing good, or avoiding sin to be most looked at, in the choice of a Calling or Employment of life? ...... Quest. May one change his Calling, for advantages to do good? 333 Quest. Who are excused from living in a Calling, or from Work? ibid. Quest. Must I do a thing as a Good Work, while I doubt whether it be good, indifferent, or sin? ...
Quest. Is it not every man's Duty to obey his Conscience?.... ibid. Quest. Is it not a sin to go against Conscience?..
Quest. Whether the formal cause alone do constitute obedience 338 Quest. How Sin must be avoided by one that hath an Erro- neous Conscience? ... Quest. How can a man lawfully resist or strive against an Erring Conscience, when he striveth against a supposed Truth? . . ibid. Quest. Is not going against Conscience, sinning against Know- ledge? ..
Quest. When the information of Conscience requireth a long time, is it not a Duty to obey it at the present? . . . . ... 340 Quest. May one do a Great Good when it cannot be done but by a Little Sin (as a lie)?
Quest. Must I not forbear all Good Works, which I cannot do without sin?....
Quest. Must I forbear a certain, great Duty (as preaching the Gospel) for fear of a small, uncertain Sin? Quest. What shall a man do that is in Doubt, after all the Means that he can use ?. Sixteen Rules to guide a Doubting Conscience, and to know, among many seeming Duties, which is the greatest, and to be preferred.
Grand Direct. x1. To Love God as our Father, and Felicity, and End.
The Nature of Holy Love. God must be loved as the Univer- sal, Infinite Good. Whether passionately? What of God
What must be the Motive of our first Love?
Special Love to us? The sorts of Holy Love. Why Love
The Contraries of Holy Love. How God is Hated? The
Directions how to excite and exercise Divine Love . How to see God. Signs of True Love . .
Grand Direct. XII. Absolutely to trust God with soul, body, and all, with full acquiescence. The Nature of Trust (of which see more in my "Life of Faith," and "Display of Saving Faith.").
The Contraries. The Counterfeits.
Fifteen Directions for a quieting and comforting Trust in God 400
Faith. The Uses of Trust . . .
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