_Direct._ VI. Judge not of your hearts and evidences upon every sudden glance or feeling, but upon a sober, deliberate examination, when your minds are in a clear, composed frame; and as then you find yourselves, record the judgment or discovery, and believe not every sudden, inconsiderate appearance, or passionate fear, against that record. Otherwise you will never be quiet or resolved; but carried up and down by present sense. The case is weighty, and not to be decided by a sudden aspect, nor by a scattered or a discomposed mind; if you call your unprovided or your distempered understandings suddenly to so great a work, no wonder if you are deceived. You must not judge of colours when your eye is blood-shotten, or when you look through a coloured glass, or when the object is far off. It is like casting up a long and difficult account, which must be done deliberately as a work of time; and when it is so done, and the sums subscribed, if afterwards you will question that account again, you must take as full a time to do it, and that when you are as calm and vacant as before, and not unsettle an exact account upon a sudden view, or a thought of some one particular. Thus must you trust to no examinations and decisions about the state of your souls, but those that in long and calm deliberation have brought it to an issue.
_Direct._ VII. And in doing this, neglect not to make use of the assistance of an able, faithful guide, so far as your own weakness makes it necessary. Your doubting showeth that you are not sufficient to despatch it satisfactorily yourselves; the question then is, what help a wiser man can give you? Why, he can clearlier open to you the true nature of grace, and the marks that are infallible, and the extent of the grace and tenor of the covenant; and he can help you how to trace your hearts, and observe the discoveries of good or evil in them; he can show you your mistakes, and help you in the application, and tell you much of his own and others' experiences; and he can pass a strong conjecture upon your own case in particular, if he be one that knoweth the course of your lives, and is intimately acquainted with you; for sin and grace are both expressive, operative things, like life, that ordinarily will stir, or fire, that will be seen: though their judgment cannot be infallible of you, and though for a while hypocrisy may hide you from the knowledge of another, yet _ficta non diu_, &c. ordinarily nature will be seen, and that which is within you will show itself; so that your familiar acquaintance, that see your lives in private and in public, may pass a very strong conjecture at your state, whether you set yourselves indeed to please God in sincerity or no. Therefore, if possible, choose such a man to help you, as is, 1. Able; 2. Faithful; and 3. Well acquainted with you; and undervalue not his judgment.
_Direct._ VIII. When you cannot attain to a certainty of your case, undervalue not and neglect not the comforts which a bare probability may afford you. I know that a certainty in so weighty a case, should be earnestly desired, and endeavoured to the uttermost. But yet it is no small comfort which a likelihood or hopefulness may yield you. Husband and wife are uncertain every day, whether one of them may kill the other; and yet they can live comfortably together, because it is an unlikely thing; and though it be possible, it is not much to be feared. All the comforts of christians dependeth not on their assurance; it is but few christians in the world that reach to clear assurance; for all the papists, Lutherans, and Arminians are without any certainty of their salvation; because they think it cannot be had; and all those Jansenists, or protestants that are of Augustine's judgment, are without assurance of salvation, though they may have assurance of their justification and sanctification; because their judgment is that the justified and sanctified (though not the elect) may fall away. And of those that hold the doctrine of perseverance, how few do we find, that can say, they are certain of their sincerity and salvation. Alas, not one of very many. And yet many thousands of these do live in some peace of conscience, and quietness, and comfort, in the hopefulness and probabilities to which they have attained.
_Direct._ IX. Resolve to be much in the great, delightful duties of thanksgiving and the praise of God; and to spend a considerable part (ordinarily) of all your prayers herein; especially to spend the Lord's day principally in these. And thus you will have three great advantages: 1. The very actings of love, and thanks, and joy, will help you to comfort in a nearer way, than arguments and self-examination will do; even in a way of feeling, as the fire maketh you warm. 2. The custom of exercising those sweetest graces, will habituate your souls to it, and in time wear out the sadder impression. 3. God will most own you in those highest duties.