We are here taught to try whether we have grace or no by enquiring how
we stand affected to the means of grace. 1. Those that have grace and
love it will delight in all the instructions that are given them by way
of counsel; admonition, or reproof, by the word or providence of God;
they will value a good education, and think it not a hardship, but a
happiness, to be under a strict and prudent discipline. Those that love
a faithful ministry, that value it, and sit under it with pleasure,
make it to appear that they love knowledge. 2. Those show themselves
not only void of grace, but void of common sense, that take it as an
affront to be told of their faults, and an imposition upon their
liberty to be put in mind of their duty: He that hates reproof is not
only foolish, but brutish, like the horse and the mule that have no
understanding, or the ox that kicks against the goad. Those that desire
to live in loose families and societies, where they may be under no
check, that stifle the convictions of their own consciences, and count
those their enemies that tell them the truth, are the brutish here
meant.