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1. It must be with an advised and considerate will; it must not be rash, and on a sudden, in your ignorance, before you well know what you do. You must be well advised, and consider well of the person to whom you give your consent, that you know him, and that you know the nature of this spiritual union, and what you are bound unto by virtue of it, and what it will cost you, if you give yourself to Christ, Luke xiv. 28, 31.

2. Your consent must be with a determinate and complete will; with a present receiving him, even with all the heart, Acts viii. 37. It must not be a faint consent, in an indifferency whether you consent or no; it must not be in a purpose, that you will receive him hereafter; but you must give your hand and heart to him for the present, else, it is no match.

3. Your consent must be with a free and ready will; it must not be with a forced and constrained yielding, against the will; but, howsoever, it may be with much opposition and conflict, yet, you must so beat down the opposition, that when you give consent, you bring your will to do it readily and freely, with thankful acknowledging yourselves unspeakably obliged to the Lord Jesus Christ all the days of your life, that he will vouchsafe to make you such an offer.

When consent is rash, faint, and forced, this will not hold good any long time; but when your consent is advised, full, and free, out of true love to Christ, as well as for your own benefit; the knot of marriage between Christ and you is knit so fast, that all the lusts of the flesh, all the allurements of the world, and all the powers of hell, shall not be able to break it.

By this which has been said concerning the nature of faith, many, who thought they had faith, may see that yet they have none.

For they only believe in general that there is a Christ and a Saviour, who offers grace and salvation to mankind, and hereupon they presume. This general faith is needful, but that is not enough; it must be a persuasion of God's offer of Christ to a man in particular, that the will in particular may be induced to consent. There must likewise be that particular con-