Assurance is not for Arminians

I have been reading through Thomas Brooks, Heaven on Earth and the book has been focusing a lot on the doctrine of assurance and thought I would share some tid bits.
“This precious ruth thus proved, looks sourly and wishly upon all those that affirm that believers cannot in this life attain unto a certain well-grounded assurance of their everlasting happiness and blessedness, as papists and Arminians; all know that know their writings and teachings, that they are in arms against this Christ-exalting, and soul-cheering doctrine of assurance. ‘I know no such thing as assurance of heaven in this life’, saith Grevinchovius the Arminian. Assurance is a pearl that they trample under feet; it is a beam of heaven that hath so much light, brightness, and shining glory in it, that their blear-eyes cannot behold it.” “Arminians are not ashamed to say, that God may crown a man one hour, and uncrown him in the next.”

So we see in this excerpt from Mr. Brooks work that what the Arminian professes is actually antithetical to the gospel and brings if not bad news, then most certainly questionable news. From this we can see why the Roman Catholic church places such emphasis on purgatory; they have no hope of assurance without a meritorious work of penance that cannot ever be met since only Christ was sinless to pay the offenses against an infinite God would take an infinite amount of time to satisfy and that would never bet met and hence no hope at all. What saith the scripture? In John 10:29, Christ says, “My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.” Notice that Christ assures the believer that salvation is not dependent upon the believer in that God’s electing purposes take precedence over man’s efforts to earn salvation. This does not make man an autonomous robot requiring no action on his part; it just means that God’s grace is sufficient to secure the believers position in Christ.

Let the reader consider.

Am I Evil?

“And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”Genesis 6:5 (KJV)

Before I became a Christian I was a big heavy metal fan of Metallica and one of their songs off of their first albums, was a song titled, “Am I Evil?”

Years later, I am now a Reformed Christian and Calvinist and I thought that this song as bad as the lyrics are morally, does teach a fundamental Christian doctrine; Total Depravity.
So what is the definition of Total Depravity?

 

I think John Frame has a nice terse definition that we will use: “Although fallen persons are capable of externally good acts (acts that are good for society), they cannot do anything really good, i.e., pleasing to God (Rom. 8:8). God, however, looks on the heart. And from his ultimate standpoint, fallen man has no goodness, in thought, word, or deed. He is therefore incapable of contributing anything to his salvation.” –John Frame

I often hear people say that they believe in the basic goodness of human beings. As nice as that would be to believe, the bible negates this premise from Genesis to Revelation. From the original verse that was quoted(Genesis 6:5) the people teaches in the basic sinfulness of human beings, which is why the flood occurred and why the Bible teaches Total Depravity as the true nature of mankind.

This doctrine is defined holistically in the five points of Calvinism of which, Total Depravity is the first point and it’s a negative one. The good news is that God has remedied this problem through His plan of redemption in sending His only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is only by this one act of grace that God transforms a total depraved heart into a sanctified one.

“I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.” –Romans 7:25

To conclude the song that I referenced, “Am I Evil?” closes with the same question as its title, Am I Evil? Apart from God’s saving grace in Christ, the answer will always be, “I am man, yes I am.”

2013 Security Reading List

During the second week of December I realized that our group had not used their 2012 training budget. Realizing that there was not enough time to get a formal security class under way before the end of the year, I suggested to my manager that our group use the funds to order security-related books. He gave us the green light and behold the list below. Goal is to finish them by December 31, 2013. We’ll see what happens.

Security Analysis: Principles and Technique
White-Hat Security Arsenal: Tackling the Threats
Violent Python: A Cookbook for Hackers, Forensic Analysts, Penetration Testers and Security Engineers
Malware Analyst’s Cookbook and DVD: Tools and Techniques for Fighting Malicious Code
Defense Against The Black Arts: How Hackers Do What They Do And How To Protect Against It
The Web Application Hacker’s Handbook: Finding and Exploiting Security Flaws
The Implementation (TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 2)
TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1: The Protocols
Security and Access Control Using Biometric Technologies
Cisco IOS Access Lists
Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking
IT Security Metrics: A Practical Framework for Measuring Security & Protecting Data
Securing The Cloud: Cloud Computer Security Techniques And Tactics
Cyber Warfare: Techniques, Tactics and Tools for Security Practitioners
CEH Certified Ethical Hacker All-In-One Exam Guide [With CDROM]
Practical Packet Analysis: Using Wireshark to Solve Real-World Network Problems
Gray Hat Hacking the Ethical Hackers Handbook
Hacking: The Art of Exploitation
Metasploit: The Penetration Tester’s Guide

Whole Disk Encryption Principles

All of the components associated with managing the Whole Disk Encryption(WDE) infrastructure should be classified as a High Value Asset (HVA). The backend assets contain the components involved for protecting the encryption and decryption keys that are used to encrypt hard drives. Treating the backend components of the Disk encryption environment as HVA, will ensure that the cryptographic keys are protected through a layered approach to securing the environment. This of course assumes you are architecting your security environment around various layers and are classifying certain assets as HVA’s and others at lower classifications.

Here some basic principles to ensure you are following when designing your WDE:

• Recovery tools to recover a dead machine by putting the hard drive in a different machines.
• Enforce Progressive password policy or use enterprise credential store.
• Whole disk encryption by volume or sector. File based encryption is not acceptable.
• Central management of keys.
• Central management of machine and user policy.
• Unlock as a known user before logging into the desktop.
• Prove that the machine was logged into/unlocked by a specific user.
• Machine is secure & encrypted until unlocked by an approved user.
• Disabled users cannot unlock the machine.

Consult the NIST document 800-111: Guide to Storage Encryption Technologies for End User Devicesfor more information.

A Security Perspective on the Conneticut Shootings

Given the horrible tragedy that took place yesterday in our nation, I have been given a lot of thought to how to mitigate these shooting incidents. Given the fact that my career has been centered around protecting company resources and putting plans, processes, and procedures in place to respond to security incidents, I thought I would provide a similiar approach for dealing with school shootings.

It’s important to note when I’m referencing “assets” I”m referring to the victims involved in the given incident. Please do not take this as an insensitive term to those victims, it’s just easier as a point of reference. I would also point out that I have two boys (12 & 8) that have just as easily been victimized as those from yesterday’s incident. When I use the term “threat vector” I’m speaking mainly of the perpetrators involved in the shootings.

To keep things simple for those not acquainted with Information Security concepts, I’m going to break my recommendations into two main headings; Access Control and Incident Response.

Access Control

1. Authentication – This is the means by which we identify who a given asset is in order to determine who to control what that asset has permissions to do and what resources that asset has permissions to access. The fundamental question that needs to be answered with this is, “Who are you?”.

Recommendation: Our school systems need to put security controls in place that enforce authentication checks for all staff and students within our school systems. This would take the form of a badge swipe system implemented on every entry point within the physical boundaries of the school system. Minimally this should be placed on all entry points into the building and on each classroom door.

2. Authorization – This is the means by where once the authentication question has been answered (Who are you?) we can determine what access the given asset has access to. The fundamental question that is asked with authorization is, “What are you permitted to access?”.

Recommendation: Our school systems to implement authorization controls to control who has access to what areas of the school buildings to minimize the threat vectors that can be exploited. For example, I think it would be entirely plausible for teachers to have authorized access to all of the classrooms, but not every student should have access to every classroom.

Incident Response

In the six steps that are to follow I will at times be making reference to the Access Control section. This is because in a number of areas the success of your response to a school shooting incident depends on your Access Control system.

1. Preparation – The fundamental success of any incident response plan is preparing for known risks that could turn into incidents. Given the number of incidents that this nation has been affected by, I think this is the only area that is lacking the most. Without access controls how are you going to prepare for the next shooting incident?

Recommendation: Our school systems need to create preparation plans for responding to a shooting incident. This will be radically enhanced if adequate access controls are in place.

2. Identification – The next step in the incident handling process is identifying the source of the incident. Without being able to identify the threat as it happens you will not be able to respond.

Recommendation: Our school systems need to be able to identify the threat vectors as they are occuring to minimize the number of causulties.

3. Containment – Containment has to due with isolating the threat vector that is responsible for the incident. The goal is to minimize the damage this is occuring as much as possible.

Recommendation: Our school systems need to be able to contain the threats vectors as they are occuring. Yes, getting the kids and staff out as soon as possible is probably the best method for the current system, but with fully implemented access controls containment processes will most likely need to be modified.

4. Eradication – No surprise here, the threat needs to be removed from the environment one way or the other.

Recommendation: I think our law enforcement agencies get a good grade on this one. The only change I would like to see is to have at least one dedicated security officer to each school to start the eradication process prior to law enforcements arrival.

5. Recovery – This has to do with getting this back to normal within the environment.

Recommendation: Our school systems should have a vareity of services available to console the victims that were affected by the incident and to get the school back in working order.

6. Lessons Learned – The entire sequence of events relating to the incident need to be reviewed and graded based on how things were handled.

Recommendation – Our school systems need to review every shooting incident that occured to determine the effectiveness of the response and how to improve it.

I do recognize with what I have proposed that a significant amount of cost will need to be invested by the state into our school systems to provide these controls. Given the current budget crisis of nearly every state in our union the only alternative I can see is for each state to get federal funding to charter a national campaign to protect our school systems from the next incident.

Keys to Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Success

Being a Information Security geek for sometime I have had a significant exposure to DLP over the years and being exposed to two major vendor distributions along with processes and procedures I have found some high-level principles that should be followed.

1. Know Thy Risk – This often seems to be taken for granted, but depending upon your business model not everyones risk for data leakage will be the same. Healthcare will be more at risk for HIPAA than the Banking industry and Food Chains will be more at risk for PCI than body shops. In addition to known regulatory laws such as HIPAA and PCI you also need to assess the risk to your organization if one classification of data was leaked versus another. Once this risk assessment has been completed it will make it easier to drive priorities around your DLP initiative.

2. Data Classification – It is also important to define a Data Classification policy so that you can use this to define and drive your DLP policies. For example, you may have a Data Classification such as Highly Sensitive, Sensitive, Internal, and Public. Policy might dictate that all data identied as ‘Highly Sensitive’ must be encrypted, while data that falls under ‘Sensitive’ just needs to have strong access controls.

3. Document & Define Workflows – This is probably the most difficult aspects of DLP due primarily to dependecy upon other groups (Legal & HR) and the potential resource hours needed to manage the process. It basically comes down answering questions such as:

Who needs to be notified when an incident is created by the DLP solution? Do we need to define thresholds for the notifcations?

Who will determine if the incident is a false-positive or a real incident?

Should the data be acted upon automatically? Should we quarantine or block the data that was identified in the incident?

I’m planning on making a series of additional blog entries around various other aspects of DLP in the near future.

Backtrack 5 & Scapy Python Dependecies

Have not blogged on any security-related topics in a while so I thought it was time. Scapy is a Python-driven program for generating TCP/IP packets on the fly and programtically. If you fire up Scapy on a fresh Backtrack 5 system you will be welcomed with two dependency errors; one complaining about the GNUPlot Python library and the other for PyX. I think there was another one for a GUI library, but can’t seem to find it in my Bash history.
Like most things Ubuntu/Debian the fix is pretty trivial:

apt-get install python-scitools python-pyx

There you go, happy packet hacking!

Fall from Grace – OPC Pastor Converts to Roman Catholicism

Former OPC pastor Jason Stewart decided to leave the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) as a pastor for full communion into the Roman Catholic Church. His blog post outlines his reasons and I must say they would not be surprising for someone that was raised Roman Catholic, but I find them untenable for a former pastor of the Reformed Faith.

He has three reasons for defending his decision. Here are high-level problems with his reasoning:

1. The positive principles of the Protestant Reformation – For his authority on this position he references a book written and I quote: “The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism by Louis Bouyer was recommended to me. Bouyer was a Lutheran minister who converted to Catholicism mid-last century.” The main thesis of the book is that each of the major points addressed in Reformation were rooted in Roman Catholicism. Yes that is true, which is why those points had to be reformed and when dipolomocy failed to reform them, more drastic measures were necessary. Notice how there is no defence of this position biblically which of necessity he has to accept for both his arguments and his decision to convert to Roman Catholicism.

2. The writings of the Church Fathers – His next argument is that the early church fathers were throughly Roman Catholic in what they taught and believed. I think he have a plethora of golden nuggets of theological wisdom from the early church fathers, there is also mixed in with them truth and error. Let’s just take one of the early church fathers, Origen as an example:

“Origen taught the pre-existence of souls, universal salvation and a limited hell, doctrines for which he was posthumously condemned as a heretic.”

3. The question of Church authority – His view in this area is nothing new as Roman Catholicism goes as he clings to Matthew 16:18 as defending the need to have a universal bishop in the form of the pope. What’s ironic is what he says about where the church gets it’s authority in his attempt to refute Sola Scriptura: “In contrast to this “Scripture alone” position, the Catholic Church teaches that the Church, not the Bible, is the pillar and foundation of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15)” Wait a minute. Did he just use the bible that the bible was not the pillar and foundation of truth, but that the “Church” is? To me that is like saying everything is relative and then asking the person who said that it that was a relative statement! He essentially cuts the branch he is sitting on to make his argument. An argument made of sand.

In conclusion let’s just take a look at one Roman Catholic Pope in the form of Benedict IX:

Benedict IX was Pope from 1032 to 1044, again in 1045, and finally from 1047 to 1048, the only man to have served as Pope for three discontinuous periods. He was also one of the youngest Popes (reigning from around age 18-20). He reportedly led an extremely dissolute life, and also allegedly had few qualifications for the papacy other than connections with a socially powerful family, although in terms of theology and the ordinary activities of the Church he was entirely orthodox. St. Peter Damian described him as “feasting on immorality” and “a demon from hell in the disguise of a priest” in the Liber Gomorrhianus, a treatise on papal corruption and sex that accused Benedict IX of routine homosexuality and bestiality. He was also accused by Bishop Benno of Piacenza of “many vile adulteries and murders.” Pope Victor III referred to “his rapes, murders and other unspeakable acts. His life as a Pope so vile, so foul, so execrable, that I shudder to think of it.” Benedict gave up his papacy for the first time in exchange for a large sum of money in 1044. He returned in 1045 to depose his replacement and reigned for one month, after which he left again, possibly to marry, and sold the papacy for a second time, to his Godfather (possibly for over 650 kg /1450 lb of gold). Two years later, Benedict retook Rome and reigned for an additional one year, until 1048. Poppo of Brixen (later to become Pope Damascus II) eventually forced him out of Rome. Benedict’s place and date of death are unknown, but some speculate that he made further attempts to regain the Papal Throne.

The argument will be made that he was forced out of Rome, but the Roman Catholic doctrine states that he was the vicar of Christ while he was executing this office. Let the reader beware and consider.

Google NGrams: Nerds vs. Geeks

With Google’s new tool Ngram Viewer, you can visualise the rise and fall of concepts across 5 million books and 500 years! I decided to plug in ‘geeks’ and ‘nerds’ and it looks like the nerds will inherit the earth and not the geeks.

Emacs – Working with Regions

In this weeks segment on Emacs wizardry let’s learn some of the basic commands for working with regions of text so you can move around your Emacs region faster than Blackberry’s are forgotten about.

Keystrokes	Command Name	Action
C-@ or C-SPACE	set-mark-command	Mark the beginning (or end) of a region.
C-x C-x	exchange-point-and-mark	Exchange location of cursor and mark.
C-w or SHIFT-DELETE	kill-region	Delete the region
C-y or SHIFT-INSERT	yank	Paste most recently killed or copied text.
ESC-w or C-INSERT	kill-ring-save	Copy the region.
Esc-h	mark-paragraph	Mark paragraph.
C-x C-p	mark-page	Mark page.
C-x h	mark-whole-buffer	Mark buffer.
ESC-y	yank-pop	After C-y, pastes earlier deletion.

Linux PAM Resources

Pluggable authentication modules (PAM) are a mechanism to integrate multiple low-level authentication schemes into a high-level application programming interface (API). It allows programs that rely on authentication to be written independent of the underlying authentication scheme. PAM was first proposed by Sun Microsystems in an Open Software Foundation Request for Comments (RFC) 86.0 dated October 1995. It was adopted as the authentication framework of the Common Desktop Environment. As a stand-alone infrastructure, PAM first appeared from an open-source, Linux-PAM, development in Red Hat Linux 3.0.4 in August 1996. PAM is currently supported in the AIX operating system, DragonFly BSD,[1] FreeBSD, HP-UX, Linux, Mac OS X, NetBSD and Solaris.

Below is a list of good resources related to PAM that you can use to improve your Linux security model.

Linux PAM Admin Guide

NetBSD PAM Guide

Nice PAM Tutorial

Redhat Reference for PAM Modules

PAM Manual

The Necessity of Catechism

From Richard Baxter’s “A Christian Directory – Volume I:

A sound and well composed catechism studied well and dept in memory, would be a good measure of knowledge, to ordinary Christians, and make them solid and orderly in their understanding, and in their proceeding to the smaller points, and would prevent a great deal of error and miscarriage, that many by ill teaching are cast upon, to their own and the churches grief!

We can see plainly that the a few of the sound benefits of committing a catechism that exhorts sound doctrine offers:

1. Ground Christians in the fundamentals of Christian doctrine.

2. Refutation of error introduced into the Church.

3. A continual means of growing in grace.

So what are some biblically faithful catechisms that you can use to commit to memory? Here are a few:

Westminster Shorter Catechism

The Heidelberg Catechism

Fisher’s Catechism

The Catechism of the Church of Geneva

Is T.D. Jakes now a converted Trinitarian?

There have already been a number of blog entries on the James Macdonald/Mark Driscoll interview with T.D. Jakes on his supposedly now orthodox views on the doctrine of the Trinity. You can read the transcript here. I’m just going to address once specific statement that he made:

Driscoll: We all would agree that in the nature of God there is mystery. But within that, for you, Bishop Jakes, the issue is one God manifesting Himself successively in three ways? Or one God existing eternally in three persons? What is your understanding now? Which one? Jakes: I believe the latter one is where I stand today. One God – Three Persons. I am not crazy about the word persons though. You describe “manifestations” as modalist, but I describe it as Pauline. For God was manifest in the flesh. Paul is not a modalist, but he doesn’t think it’s robbery to say manifest in the flesh. Maybe it’s semantics, but Paul says this. Now, when we start talking about that sort of thing, I think it’s important to realize there are distinctives between the work of the Father and the work of the Son. I’m with you. I have been with you. There are many people within and outside denominations labeled Oneness that would be okay with this. We are taught in society that when we disagree with someone in a movement, we leave. But I still have associations with people in Onenness movements. We need to humble both sides and say, “We are trying to describe a God we love.” Why should I fall out and hate and throw names at you when it’s through a glass darkly? None of our books on the Godhead will be on sale in heaven.

Carl Trueman has expounded the core issue with the entire interview’s lack of pressing Jakes for the “hard questions”. For example, one question I think should have been asked is:

Inquisitive Person: You said that in one sentence you believed in one God that reveals himself in three persons. You followed it up with your lack of easiness with the term, “persons” which was in the statement that you agreed to?

Now if you just left Jakes answer as is (Thanks Macdonald and Driscoll – Way to defend the truth!) you would leave thinking that person and “manifestations” were one the same. The thing with false teachers is that they will end making a logical error of some sort and here we see an example of a category mistake. Jakes is trying to apply Paul’s statement on describing the incaranation (specific to Christ taking on a human body) to how the Trinity is defined in Scripture, when Paul was only talking about the second person in the Trinity!

Let’s take a look at John 14:25-26:

“These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”

The reference to “he” identifies the Holy Spirit as a unique person in the godhead and not as a manifestation of the Father. Let us as children of the living God never cease to content for the faith.

The Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards

Resolutions 1 through 21 were written by in one sitting in New Haven in 1722.

The Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards (1722-1723)

Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God’s help, I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ’s sake.

Remember to read over these Resolutions once a week.

1. Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God’s glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriad’s of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many and how great soever.

2. Resolved, to be continually endeavoring to find out some new invention and contrivance to promote the aforementioned things.

3. Resolved, if ever I shall fall and grow dull, so as to neglect to keep any part of these Resolutions, to repent of all I can remember, when I come to myself again.

4. Resolved, never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God; nor be, nor suffer it, if I can avoid it.

5. Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.

6. Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live.

7. Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.

8. Resolved, to act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God.

9. Resolved, to think much on all occasions of my own dying, and of the common circumstances which attend death.

10. Resolved, when I feel pain, to think of the pains of martyrdom, and of hell.

11. Resolved, when I think of any theorem in divinity to be solved, immediately to do what I can towards solving it, if circumstances don’t hinder.

12. Resolved, if I take delight in it as a gratification of pride, or vanity, or on any such account, immediately to throw it by.

13. Resolved, to be endeavoring to find out fit objects of charity and liberality.

14. Resolved, never to do anything out of revenge.

15. Resolved, never to suffer the least motions of anger to irrational beings.

16. Resolved, never to speak evil of anyone, so that it shall tend to his dishonor, more or less, upon no account except for some real good.

17. Resolved, that I will live so as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.

18. Resolved, to live so at all times, as I think is best in my devout frames, and when I have clearest notions of things of the gospel, and another world.

19. Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if I expected it would not be above an hour, before I should hear the last trump.

20. Resolved, to maintain the strictest temperance in eating and drinking.

21. Resolved, never to do anything, which if I should see in another, I should count a just occasion to despise him for, or to think any way the more meanly of him.

22. Resolved, to endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness, in the other world, as I possibly can, with all the power; might, vigor, and vehemence, yea violence, I am capable of, or can bring myself to exert, in any way that can be thought of.

23. Resolved, frequently to take some deliberate action, which seems most unlikely to be done, for the glory of God, and trace it back to the original intention, designs and ends of it; and if I find it not to be for God’s glory, to repute it as a breach of the 4th Resolution.

24. Resolved, whenever I do any conspicuously evil action, to trace it back, till I come to the original cause; and then both carefully endeavor to do so no more, and to fight and pray with all my might against the original of it.

25. Resolved, to examine carefully, and constantly, what that one thing in me is, which causes me in the least to doubt of the love of God; and to direct all my forces against it.

26. Resolved, to cast away such things, as I find do abate my assurance.

27. Resolved, never willfully to omit anything, except the omission be for the glory of God; and frequently to examine my omissions.

28. Resolved, to study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.

29. Resolved, never to count that a prayer, nor to let that pass as a prayer, nor that as a petition of a prayer, which is so made, that I cannot hope that God will answer it; nor that as a confession, which I cannot hope God will accept.

30. Resolved, to strive to my utmost every week to be brought higher in religion, and to a higher exercise of grace, than I was the week before.

31. Resolved, never to say anything at all against anybody, but when it is

perfectly agreeable to the highest degree of Christian honor, and of love to mankind, agreeable to the lowest humility, and sense of my own faults and failings, and agreeable to the golden rule; often, when I have said anything against anyone, to bring it to, and try it strictly by the test of this Resolution.

32. Resolved, to be strictly and firmly faithful to my trust, that that in Prov. 20:6, “A faithful man who can find?” may not be partly fulfilled in me.

33. Resolved, always to do what I can towards making, maintaining, establishing and preserving peace, when it can be without over-balancing detriment in other respects. Dec.26, 1722.

34. Resolved, in narration’s never to speak anything but the pure and simple verity.

35. Resolved, whenever I so much question whether I have done my duty, as that my quiet and calm is thereby disturbed, to set it down, and also how the question was resolved. Dec. 18, 1722.

36. Resolved, never to speak evil of any, except I have some particular good call for it. Dec. 19, 1722.

37. Resolved, to inquire every night, as I am going to bed, wherein I have been negligent, what sin I have committed, and wherein I have denied myself: also at the end of every week, month and year. Dec.22 and 26, 1722.

38. Resolved, never to speak anything that is ridiculous, sportive, or matter of laughter on the Lord’s day. Sabbath evening, Dec. 23, 1722.

39. Resolved, never to do anything that I so much question the lawfulness of, as that I intend, at the same time, to consider and examine afterwards, whether it be lawful or no; except I as much question the lawfulness of the omission.

40. Resolved, to inquire every night, before I go to bed, whether I have acted in the best way I possibly could, with respect to eating and drinking. Jan. 7, 1723.

41. Resolved, to ask myself at the end of every day, week, month and year, wherein I could possibly in any respect have done better. Jan. 11, 1723.

42. Resolved, frequently to renew the dedication of myself to God, which was made at my baptism; which I solemnly renewed, when I was received into the communion of the church; and which I have solemnly re-made this twelfth day of January, 1722-23.

43. Resolved, never henceforward, till I die, to act as if I were any way my own, but entirely and altogether God’s, agreeable to what is to be found in Saturday, January 12. Jan.12, 1723.

44- Resolved, that no other end but religion, shall have any influence at all on any of my actions; and that no action shall be, in the least circumstance, any otherwise than the religious end will carry it. Jan.12, 1723.

45. Resolved, never to allow any pleasure or grief, joy or sorrow, nor any affection at all, nor any degree of affection, nor any circumstance relating to it, but what helps religion. Jan.12 and 13.1723.

46. Resolved, never to allow the least measure of any fretting uneasiness at my father or mother. Resolved to suffer no effects of it, so much as in the least alteration of speech, or motion of my eve: and to be especially careful of it, with respect to any of our family.

47. Resolved, to endeavor to my utmost to deny whatever is not most agreeable to a good, and universally sweet and benevolent, quiet, peace able, contented, easy, compassionate, generous, humble, meek, modest, submissive, obliging, diligent and industrious, charitable, even, patient, moderate, forgiving, sincere temper; and to do at all times what such a temper would lead me to. Examine strictly every week, whether I have done so. Sabbath morning. May 5,1723.

48. Resolved, constantly, with the utmost niceness and diligence, and the strictest scrutiny, to be looking into the state of my soul, that I may know whether I have truly an interest in Christ or no; that when I come to die, I may not have any negligence respecting this to repent of. May 26, 1723.

49. Resolved, that this never shall be, if I can help it.

50. Resolved, I will act so as I think I shall judge would have been best, and most prudent, when I come into the future world. July 5, 1723.

51. Resolved, that I will act so, in every respect, as I think I shall wish I had done, if I should at last be damned. July 8, 1723.

52. I frequently hear persons in old age say how they would live, if they were to live their lives over again: Resolved, that I will live just so as I can think I shall wish I had done, supposing I live to old age. July 8, 1723.

53. Resolved, to improve every opportunity, when I am in the best and happiest frame of mind, to cast and venture my soul on the Lord Jesus Christ, to trust and confide in him, and consecrate myself wholly to him; that from this I may have assurance of my safety, knowing that I confide in my Redeemer. July 8, 1723.

54. Whenever I hear anything spoken in conversation of any person, if I think it would be praiseworthy in me, Resolved to endeavor to imitate it. July 8, 1723.

55. Resolved, to endeavor to my utmost to act as I can think I should do, if I had already seen the happiness of heaven, and hell torments. July 8, 1723.

56. Resolved, never to give over, nor in the least to slacken my fight with my corruptions, however unsuccessful I may be.

57. Resolved, when I fear misfortunes and adversities, to examine whether ~ have done my duty, and resolve to do it; and let it be just as providence orders it, I will as far as I can, be concerned about nothing but my duty and my sin. June 9, and July 13 1723.

58. Resolved, not only to refrain from an air of dislike, fretfulness, and anger in conversation, but to exhibit an air of love, cheerfulness and benignity. May27, and July 13, 1723.

59. Resolved, when I am most conscious of provocations to ill nature and anger, that I will strive most to feel and act good-naturedly; yea, at such times, to manifest good nature, though I think that in other respects it would be disadvantageous, and so as would be imprudent at other times. May 12, July ii, and July 13.

60. Resolved, whenever my feelings begin to appear in the least out of order, when I am conscious of the least uneasiness within, or the least irregularity without, I will then subject myself to the strictest examination. July 4, and 13, 1723.

61. Resolved, that I will not give way to that listlessness which I find unbends and relaxes my mind from being fully and fixedly set on religion, whatever excuse I may have for it-that what my listlessness inclines me to do, is best to be done, etc. May 21, and July 13, 1723.

62. Resolved, never to do anything but duty; and then according to Eph. 6:6-8, do it willingly and cheerfully as unto the Lord, and not to man; “knowing that whatever good thing any man doth, the same shall he receive of the Lord.” June 25 and July 13, 1723.

63. On the supposition, that there never was to be but one individual in the world, at any one time, who was properly a complete Christian, in all respects of a right stamp, having Christianity always shining in its true luster, and appearing excellent and lovely, from whatever part and under whatever character viewed: Resolved, to act just as I would do, if I strove with all my might to be that one, who should live in my time. Jan.14′ and July ’3′ 1723.

64. Resolved, when I find those “groanings which cannot be uttered” (Rom. 8:26), of which the Apostle speaks, and those “breakings of soul for the longing it hath,” of which the Psalmist speaks, Psalm 119:20, that I will promote them to the utmost of my power, and that I will not be wear’, of earnestly endeavoring to vent my desires, nor of the repetitions of such earnestness. July 23, and August 10, 1723.

65. Resolved, very much to exercise myself in this all my life long, viz. with the greatest openness I am capable of, to declare my ways to God, and lay open my soul to him: all my sins, temptations, difficulties, sorrows, fears, hopes, desires, and every thing, and every circumstance; according to Dr. Manton’s 27th Sermon on Psalm 119. July 26, and Aug.10 1723.

66. Resolved, that I will endeavor always to keep a benign aspect, and air of acting and speaking in all places, and in all companies, except it should so happen that duty requires otherwise.

67. Resolved, after afflictions, to inquire, what I am the better for them, what good I have got by them, and what I might have got by them.

68. Resolved, to confess frankly to myself all that which I find in myself, either infirmity or sin; and, if it be what concerns religion, also to confess the whole case to God, and implore needed help. July 23, and August 10, 1723.

69. Resolved, always to do that, which I shall wish I had done when I see others do it. Aug. 11, 1723.

70. Let there be something of benevolence, in all that I speak.

Aug. 17, 1723