5. Another means to be used, is the familiar company and holy converse with humble, sincere, experienced christians. The Spirit that is in them, and breatheth and acteth by them, will kindle the like holy flames in you. Away with the company of idle, prating, sensual men, that can talk of nothing but their worldly wealth, or business, or their reputations, or their appetites and lusts; associate yourselves with them that go the way to heaven, if you resolve yourselves to go in it. O what a deal of difference will you find between these two sorts of companions! The one sort, if you have any thoughts of repentance, would stifle them, and laugh you out of the use of your reason, into their own distracted mirth and dotage: and if you have any serious thoughts of your salvation, or any inclinations to repent and be wise, they will do much to divert them, and hold you in the power and snares of Satan, till it be too late: if you have any zeal, or heavenly-mindedness, they will do much to quench it, and fetch down your minds to earth again. The other sort will speak of things of so great weight and moment, and that with seriousness and reverence, as will tend to raise and quicken your souls; and possess you with a taste of the heavenly things which they discourse of; they will encourage you by their own experiences, and direct you by that truth which hath directed them, and zealously communicate what they have received: they will pray for you, and teach you how to pray: they will give the example of holy, humble, obedient lives, and lovingly admonish you of your duties, and reprove your sins. In a word, as the carnal mind doth savour the things of the flesh, and is enmity against God, the company of such will be a powerful means to infect you with their plague, and make you such, if you were escaped from them; much more to keep you such, if you are not escaped: and as they that are spiritual, do mind the things of the Spirit, so their converse tendeth to make you spiritually-minded, as they are, Rom. viii. 7, 8. Though there are some useful qualities and gifts in some that are ungodly, and some lamentable faults in many that are spiritual; yet experience will show you so great a difference between them in the main, in heart and life, as will make you the more easily believe the difference that will be between them in the life to come.
6. Another means is serious meditation on the life to come, and the way thereto; which though all cannot manage so methodically as some, yet all should in some measure and season be acquainted with it.
7. The last means is, to choose some prudent, faithful guide and counsellor for your soul,[35] to open those cases to which are not fit for all to know, and to resolve and advise you in cases that are too hard for you: not to lead you blindfold after the interest of any seduced or ambitious men, nor to engage you to his singular conceits, against the Scripture or the church of God; but to be to your soul, as a physician to your body, or a lawyer to your estates, to help you where they are wiser than you, and where you need their helps.
Resolve now, that instead of your idle company and pastime, your excessive cares and sinful pleasures, you will wait on God in the seasonable use of these his own appointed means; and you will find, that he hath appointed them not in vain, and that you shall not lose your labour.
_Direct._ XVII. That in all this you may be sincere, and not deceived by a hypocritical change, be sure that God be all your confidence, and all your hopes be placed in heaven; and that there be no secret reserve in your hearts, for the world and flesh; and that you divide not your hearts between God and the things below, nor take up with the religion of a hypocrite, which giveth God what the flesh can spare.
When the devil cannot keep you from a change and reformation, he will seek to deceive you with a superficial change and half reformation, which goeth not to the root, nor doth recover the heart to God, nor deliver it entirely to him. If he can by a partial, deceitful change, persuade you that you are truly renewed and sanctified, and fix you there that you go no further, you are as surely his, as if you had continued in your grosser sins. And, of all other, this is the most common and dangerous cheat of souls, when they think to halve it between God and the world, and to secure their fleshly interest of pleasure and prosperity, and their salvation too; and so they will needs serve God and mammon.
[Sidenote: The full description of a false conversion, and of a hypocrite.]