6. The sum of all graces is contained in this sincere desire to please thy God, and contentedness in this so far as thou findest it attained. Here is faith, and humility, and love, and holy desire, and trust, and the fear of God concentred. You "sanctify the Lord of hosts himself, and make him your fear, and dread, and sanctuary," Isa. viii. 13, 14.
7. If human approbation be good for you and worth your having, this is the best way to it; for God hath the disposal of it. "If a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him," Prov. xvi. 7. Appeasing their wrath, or restraining them from intended evil, or doing us good by that which they intend for hurt.
[Sidenote: Signs.]
See therefore that you live upon God's approbation 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 approbation, 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 of 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.[195]