Blueridge Believer
Puritan Board Professor
There are two questions of very great importance, which everyone of us should often put to ourselves: What am I? Where am I?
1. What am I? Am I a child of God or not? Am I sincere in religion, or am I only a hypocrite under a profession?
2. Where am I? Am I yet in a natural state, or a state of grace? Am I yet in the old root, in old Adam; or am I in the root Christ Jesus? Am I in the covenant of works, which ministers only wrath and death? or am I in the covenant of grace, which ministers life and peace?
Indeed, this is the first thing a man should look at. There must be a change of state, before there can be a change of heart. We must come under a change of covenant, before we can be under a change of condition; for the new heart and the new spirit is promised in the new covenant. There is nothing of that to be heard of in the old covenant: now a man must be under the new covenant, before he can receive the blessing promised in the new covenant; he must be in a new covenant state, before he can receive a new covenant heart. No mercy, no pardon, no change, no conversion, no grace—is dispensed out of covenant. Therefore this should be our great inquiry; for if we know not where we are, we cannot know what we are; and if we know not what we are, we cannot be what we should be; namely, altogether Christians.
Let me then, I beseech you, press this duty upon you who are professors. Try your own hearts; "examine yourselves whether you are in the faith; prove your own selves." I urge this upon most cogent arguments.
MATTHEW MEADE
1. What am I? Am I a child of God or not? Am I sincere in religion, or am I only a hypocrite under a profession?
2. Where am I? Am I yet in a natural state, or a state of grace? Am I yet in the old root, in old Adam; or am I in the root Christ Jesus? Am I in the covenant of works, which ministers only wrath and death? or am I in the covenant of grace, which ministers life and peace?
Indeed, this is the first thing a man should look at. There must be a change of state, before there can be a change of heart. We must come under a change of covenant, before we can be under a change of condition; for the new heart and the new spirit is promised in the new covenant. There is nothing of that to be heard of in the old covenant: now a man must be under the new covenant, before he can receive the blessing promised in the new covenant; he must be in a new covenant state, before he can receive a new covenant heart. No mercy, no pardon, no change, no conversion, no grace—is dispensed out of covenant. Therefore this should be our great inquiry; for if we know not where we are, we cannot know what we are; and if we know not what we are, we cannot be what we should be; namely, altogether Christians.
Let me then, I beseech you, press this duty upon you who are professors. Try your own hearts; "examine yourselves whether you are in the faith; prove your own selves." I urge this upon most cogent arguments.
MATTHEW MEADE
