rising from their sin It seems at present the interest of the flesh is actually predominant when no Reason or Conviction will perswade them to contradict it As ever you would have sound Comfort then in such a Case as this spare not the flesh When you have sinned you must rise again or perish If you cannot rise without fasting without free confessing without the utter shaming of your selves without restitution never stick at it This is your hour of Trial O yield not in the Conflict The dearer the Victory costeth you the greater will be your Peace Try it and if you find it not so I am mistaken Yet if you have sinned so that the opening of it may more discredit the Gospel then your Confession will honour it and yet your Conscience is unquiet and urgeth you to confess in such a case be first well informed and proceed warily and upon deliberation and first open the case to some faithful Minister or able Christian in secret that you may have good advice 3. The same counsel also would I give you in the performance of your duty A Magistrate is convinced he must punish sinners and put down Ale-houses and be true to every Just Cause but then he must steel his face against all mens reproaches and the solicitations of all friends A Minister is convinced that he must teach from house to house as well as publickly if he be able and that he must deal plainly with sinners according to their conditions yea and require the Church to avoyd Communion with them if they be obstinate in evill after other sufficient means But then he shall lose the Love of his People and be accounted Proud Precise Rigid Lordly and perhaps lose his maintenance Obey God now and the dearer it costeth you the more Peace and Protection and the larger blessing may you expect from God For you do as it were oblige God the more to stick to you as you will take your self obliged to own and bear out and reward those that hazard state and credit and life for you And if you cannot obey God in such a Trial it is a sad sign of a false-hearted Hypocrite except your fall be only in a temptation from which you rise with renewed Repentance and Resolutions which will conquer for the time to come As Peter who being left to himself for an example of humane frailty and that Christ might have no friend to stick by him when he suffered for our sin yet presently wept bitterly and afterward spent his strength and time in preaching Christ and laid down his life in Martyrdom for him So perhaps many a poor servant or hard labourer hath scarce any time except the Lords day to Pray or Read Let such pinch the flesh a little the more so they do not overthrow their health and either work the harder or fare the harder or be cloathed the more meanly or especially break a little of their sleep that they may find some time for these duties and try whether the Peace and Comfort will not Recompence it Never any man was a loser for God! So private Christians cannot conscionably discharge the great plain duty of Reproof and Exhortation lovingly yet plainly telling their friends and neighbours of their sins and danger and duty but they will turn friends into foes and possibly set all the Town on their heads But is it a Duty or is it not If it be then trust God with the Issue and do your work and see whether he will suffer you to be losers For my part I think that if Christians took Gods work before them and spared the flesh less and trusted themselves and all to Christ alone and did not balk all the troublesom costly part of Religion and that which most crosseth the interest of the flesh it would be more ordinary with them to be filled with the joys of the Holy Ghost and walk in that Peace of Conscience which is a Continual Feast and to have such full and frequent views both of the sincerity of their Evidencing Graces and of Gods Reconciled Face as would banish their doubts and fears and be a greater help to their certainty of salvation then much other labour doth prove If you flinch not the fiery furnace you shall have the company of the Son of God in it If you flinch not the Prison and Stocks you may be able to sing as Paul and Silas did If you refuse not to be stoned with Stephen you may perhaps see Heaven opened as he did If you think these Comforts so dear bought that you will rather venture without them let me tell you you may take your course but the end will convince you to the very heart of the folly of your choyce Never then complain for want of Comfort remember you might have had it and would not And let me give you this with you You will shortly find though worldly Pleasures Riches and Honours were some slight salves to your molested Conscience here yet there will no cure nor ease for it be found hereafter Your merry hours will then all be gone and your worldly Delights forsake you in Distress but these solid Comforts which you judged too dear would have ended in the Everlasting Joys of Glory When men do flinch God and his Truth in straits and juggle with their Consciences and will take out all the honourable easy cheap part of the work of Christ and make a Religion of that by it self leaving out all the disgraceful difficult chargeable self-denying part and hereupon call themselves Christians and make a great shew in the world with this kind of Religiousness and take themselves injured if men question their honesty and uprightness in the faith these men are notorious self-deceivers meer Hypocrites and in plain truth this is the very true description by which damnable Hypocrites are known from sound Christians The Lord open mens eyes to see it in time while it may be cured Yea and the nearer any true Christian doth come to this sin the more doth he dis-oblige God and quench the Spirit of Comfort and darken his own Evidences and destroy his Peace of Conscience and create unavoydable Troubles to his Spirit and estrangedness betwixt the Lord Jesus and his own soul Avoyd this therefore if ever you will have Peace DIRECTION XXV 25. My next Advice shall be somewhat near of kin to the former If you would learn the most expeditious way to Peace and setled Comfort Study well the Art of Doing Good let it be your every-days contrivance care and business how you may lay out all that God hath trusted you with to the greatest pleasing of God and to your most comfortable account STill remember lest any Antinomian should tell you that this savours of Popery and trusting for Peace to our own Works 1. That you must not think of giving any of Christs honour or office to your best works You must not dream that they can do any thing to
that know it ordinarily to reject it 6. Also you must understand that when I say that true Willingness to be Ruled by Christ will shew it self in Actual Obedience I do not mean it of every particular individual Act which is our Duty as if you should judge your self Graceless for every particular omission of a duty no though you knew it to be a duty and though you considered it to be a duty For 1. There may be a true Habituated Inclination and Willingness to obey Christ rooted in the heart when yet by the force of a temptation the actual prevalency of it at that time in that act may be hindered and supprest 2. And at the same time you do hold on in a course of obedience in other duties 3. And when the temptation is overcome and Grace hath been rowsed up against the flesh and you soberly recollect your thoughts you will return to Obedience in that duty also Yea how many daies or weeks or moneths a true Christian may possibly neglect a known duty I will not dare to determe of which more anon Yet sucâ— omissions as will not stand with a sincerâ— Resolution and Willingness to obey Chriâ—â— universally I mean a Habitual Willingness will not consist with the truth of Grace 7. I know the fourth Mark about forsaking All for Christ may seem somewhat unseasonable and harsh to propound for the quieting of a troubled conscience But yet I durst not omit it seeing Christ hath not omitted it nay seeing he hath so urged it and laid such a stress on it in the Scripture as he hath done dare not dawb nor be unfaithfull for fear of troubling such skinning over the wound will but prepare for more trouble a further cure Christ thought it meet even to tell young beginners of the worst though it might possibly discourage them and did turn some back that they might not come to him upon mistaken expectations and he requireth all that will be Christians and he saved to count their cost before hand and reckon what it will stand them in to be Christs Disciples and if they cannot undergo his termes that is to deny themselves take up their Cross forsake all and follow him they cannot be his Disciples And Christ had rather they knew it before hand then to deceive themselves or to turn back when they meet with what they never thought of and then to imagin that Christ had deceived them drawn them in and done the wrong 8. When I say in the fourth Mark that you must have a setled Resolution I mean the same thing as before I did by hearty willingness But it is meeter here to call it Resolution because this is the proper name for that act of the Will which is a determination of it self upon dâ—liberation after any wavering to the dâ—ing or submitting to any thing as commanded I told you it must be the Prevailing act of the Will that must prove you sincere Every cold uneffectual wish will not serve tern Christ seeks for your heart on one side and the World with its pleasures profits and honours on the other side The soul which upon consideration of both doth prefer Christ in his choice and reject the world as it is competitor with him and this not doubtingly and with reservation for further deliberation or trial but presently passeth his consent for better and worse this is said to be a Resolving And I know no one word that more fitly expresseth the nature of that Grace which differenceth a true Christian from all hypocrites and by which a man may safely judge of his estate 9. Yet I here add that it must be a setled Resolution And that to intimate that it must be a Habituated Willingness or Resolution The Prevalency of Christs Interest in the soul must be a Habitual Prevalency If a man that is terrified by a rowsing Sermon or that hâ—th in expectation of present death should actually Resolve to forsake sin or perform duty without any further change of minde or habit or fixedness of this Resolution it would be of no great value and soon extinguished Though yet I believe that no unsanctified man doth ever attain to that full Resolution for Christ which hath a complacency in Christ accompanying it and which may be termed the Prevailing part of the Will Those that seem Resolved to day to be for Christ and to deny the world and the flesh and the next day are unresolved again have cause to suspect that they were never truly Resolved Though the Will of a godly man may lye under declinings in the degrees of Resolution yet Christ hath alwaies his Habitual Resolutions and usually his Actual in a prevalent degree 10. I add also the Grounds in the fourth Mark on which this Resolution must be raised For false Grounds in the Understanding will not bear up a true Resolution in the Will And therefore we put the Articles of our Creed before our Profession of Consent and Obedience Sound Doctrine and sound Belief of it breeds a sound Resolution and makes a sound heart and life If a man resolve to obey Christ upon a conceit that Christ will never put him upon any suffering else he would not resolve it and that he will give him such bruitish pleasures when he is dead as Mahomet hath promised to his disciples this Resoution were not sound yet in many lesser points of Doctrine a true Christian may be unsound and yet soundly cleave to the foundation He may build hay and stubble possibly but the foundation must be held 11. Observe well lest you mistake me that I speak only of the Necessity of your present Resolving to forsake all for Christ if he call you to it but I speak not of your absolute Promise or Prediction that eventually you shall not deny or forsake him You may be uncertain how you shall be upheld in a day of trial and yet you may now be Resolved or fully Purposed in your own minde what to do To say I will not consent purpose or resolve unless I were certain to perform my Resolutions and not to flag or change again this is but to say I will be no Christian unless I were sure to persevere I will not be married to Christ lest I should be drawn to break my covenant with him 12. Also observe that when I speak of your resolving to forsake all for Christ it is not to cast away your state or life but to submit it to his dispose and to relinquish it only in case that he command you so 13. And I do not intend that you should be able thus to Resolve of your self without the special Grace of God nor yet without it to continue those Resolutions much less to perform them by actual suffering Object But I cannot be sure that God will give me Grace to persevere or at least not to deny him as Peter did and therefore I should neither Promise nor Resolve what I cannot be
The Right METHOD For a settled PEACE Of Conscience and Spiritual COMFORT In 32 DIRECTIONS Written for the use of a troubled friend and now published By Richard Baxter Teacher of the Church at Kederminster in Worcestershire 1 John 4.16 God is Love Luke 14.17 Mat. 22.4 Come for all things are now Ready London Printed for T. Vnderhil F. Tyton and W. Râ—ybould and are to be sold at the Anchor and at the Unicorn in Pauls Church-yard and at the three Daggers in Fleetstreet 1653. MAT. 11.28 COme unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you Rest Take my Yoke upon you and Learn of me for I am meek and Lowly in heart and ye shall finde Rest unto your souls For my Yoke is easie and my burthen is light GAL. 5.17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other so that ye cannot do the things that ye would ROM 6.16 Know ye not that to whom ye Yield your selves servants to obey his servants ye are to whom ye obey whether of sin unto Death or of Obedience unto Righteousness ROM 13.14 Make not provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof ROM 8.13 For if ye Live after the flesh ye shall dye But if ye through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the Body ye shall live 2 PET. 2.19 While they promise them Liberty they themselves are the Servants of Corruption for of whom a man is overcome of the same is he brought in bondage EZEK 33.10 11. Thus you speak saying If our transgressions and our sins be upon us and we pine away in them how should we then live Say unto them As I live saith the Lord God I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from his way and live turn ye turn ye from your evil ways for why will ye dye O house of Israel 2 COR. 2.20 Now then we are Ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead be reconciled to God PSAL. 37.3 4. Trust in the Lord and do good c. Delight thy self also in the Lord and he shall give thee the Desires of thine heart Sound Doctrine makes a sound Judgement a sound Heart a sound Conversation and a sound Conscience To my much valued beloved and honored friends Col. John Bridges with Mr s Margaret Bridges his Wife and Mr. Thomas Foley with Mr s Anne Foley his Wife THough in publishing our Writings we intend them for the good of all yet custom not without reason doth teach us sometimes to direct them more especially to some Though one only had the original interest in these papers yet do I now direct them to you all as not knowing how in this to separate you You dwell together in my Estimation and Affection One of you a Member of the Church which I must Teach and legally the Patron of its Maintenance and Minister The other a special branch of that family which I was first indebted to in this County You lately joyned in presenting to the Parliament the Petition of this County for the Gospel and a faithful Ministry When I only told you of my intention of sending some poor Scholars to the University you freely and joyntly offered your considerable Annual allowance thereto and that for the continuance of my life or their necessities there I will tell the world of this whether you will or no not for your applause but for their imitation and the shame of many of far greater estates that will not be drawn to do the like The season somewhat aggravates the Goodness of your Works When Satan hath a design to burn up those Nurseries you are watering Gods plants when the greedy mouth of Sacriledge is gaping for their Maintenance you are voluntarily adding for the supply of its defect Who knows how many souls they may win to Christ if God shall send them forth into his harvest whom you have thus assisted and what an addition to your comfort this may be When the Gospel is so undermined and the Ministry so maligned and their maintenance so envied you have as the mouth of this County appeared for them all What God will yet do with us we cannot tell but if he will continue his Gospel to us you may have the greater comfort in it If he will remove it and forsake a proud unworthy false hearted People yet may you have the comfort of your sincere endeavors you with the rest that sincerely furthered it may escape the gnawings of Conscience and the publique curse and reproach which the Historie of this age may fasten upon them who after all their Engagements in blood and Covenants would either in ignorant fury or malicious subtilty or base temporizing cowardize oppugn or undermine the Gospel or in perfidious silence look on whilst it s destroyed But because it is not the work of a flatterer that I am doing but of a friend I must second these commendations with some caution and counsel and tell your selves of your danger and duty as I tell others of your exemplary Deeds Truly the sad experiences of these times have much abased my confidence in man and caused me to have lower thoughts of the best then sometime I have had I confess I look on man as such a distempered slippery and unconstant thing and of such a natural mutability of Apprehensions and Affections that as I shall never more call any man on earth My friend but with a supposition that he may possibly become mine enemie So I shall never be so confident of any mans Fidelity to Christ as not withal to suspect that he may possibly forsake him nor shall I boast of any mans service for the Gospel but with a jealousie that he may be drawn to do as much against it though God who knows the heart and knows his own decrees may know his sincerity and foreknow his perseverance Let me therefore remember you that had you expended your whole estates and the blood of your hearts for Christ and his Gospel he will not take himself beholden to you He oweth you no Thanks for your deepest engagements highest adventures greatest cost or utmost endeavours You are sure beforehand that you shall be no losers by him your seeming hazards increase your security Your losses are your gain your giving is your receiving your expences are your revenues Christ returns the largest usury The more you do and suffer for him the more you are beholden to him I must also remember you that you may possibly live to see the day when it will cost you dearer to shew your selves faithful â—o the Gospel Ordinances and Ministers of Christ then now it doth and that many have shrunk in greater tryals that past through lesser with resolution and honor Your defection at the last would be the loss of all your works and hopes If any man
Pray more oft and earnestly then we do and instruct our Families more diligently and speak against sin more boldly and admonish our neighbours more faithfully with many the like The good that we would do we do not Rom. 7.19 Nay the flesh so striveth against the Spirit that we cannot do the good we would Gal. 5.17 Nay many a true Christian in time of temptation hath been drawn to omit secret prayer or family duties almost wholly for a certain space of time yea and perhaps to be so corrupted in his judgement for a time as to think he doth well in it as also in forbearing praising God by Psalmes Receiving the Sacraments and Communicating with the Church hearing the Word publikely c. for what duty almost is not denied of late and perhaps may not only omit Relieving the poor for a time but excuse it Now what man can punctually determine just how often a true Christian may be guilty of any such omission and just how long he may continue it and what the duties be which he may possibly so omit and what not So also in sins of Commission Alas what sins did Noah Lot David Solomon Asa Peter c. commit If we should say as the Papists and Arminians that these being mortal sins do for the time till Repentance restore him cast a true Christian out of Gods favour into a state of Damnation then what man breathing is able to enumerate those Mortal sins and tell us which be so Damning and which not Nay if he could say Drunkenness is one and Gluttony another Who can set the punctual stint and say Just so many bits a man must eat before he be a Glutton or Just so much he must drink before he be a Drunkard or by such a signe the turning point may be certainly known We may have signes by which he may be tried at the Barre of Man but these are none of them taken from that smallest degree which specifieth and denominates the sinne before God If we avoid the foresaid opinion that one such sin doth bring us into the state of Damnation yet is the difficulty never the less For it is certain that he that commits sin is of the Devil 1 Joh. 3.8 and there are spots which are not the spots of Gods children and all true faith will mortifie the world to us and us to it Gal. 6.14 and he that is in Christ hath crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts thereof Gal. 5.24 and that if we live after the flesh we shall die Rom. 8.13 and his servants we are to whom we obey whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto Righteousness Rom. 6.16 and if we delight in iniquity or regard it God will not hear our prayers Psal 66.18 and that he that nameth the name of Christ must depart from iniquity 1 Tim. 2.19 and that God will judge all men according to their works and bid the workers of iniquity depart from him Mat. â— 23 Now can any man on earth tell us just how great or how often sinning will stand with true Grace and how much will not who can finde those punctual bounds in the Word of God I conclude therefore that no Minister or at least none who is no wiser then I am can give a true discernable difference between the worst of Saints and the best of the unsanctified or the weakest degree of true Grace and the highest of common Grace and so to help such weak Christians to true Assurance of their salvation 2. But as this is impossible to be declared by the Teachers so much more is it impossible to be discerned by the persons themselves yea though it could possibly be declared to him and that for these Reasons 1. From the nature of the thing Small things are hardly discerned A little is next to none 2. From the great darkness of mans understanding and his unacquaintedness with himself both the nature faculties and motions of his soul naturally considered and the moral state dispositions and motions of it and is it likely that so blinde an eye can discern the smallest thing and that in so strange and dark a place every purblind man cannot see an atome or a pin especially in the dark 3. The heart is deceitfull above all things as well as dark full of seemings counterfeits and false pretences And a childe in Grace is not able to discover its juglings and understand a book where almost every word is aequivocall or mysterious 4. The heart is most confused as well as dark and deceitfull It is like a house or shop of tools where all things are thrown together on a heap and nothing keeps its own place There are such multiplicity of cogitations phantasies and passions and such irregular thronging in of them and such a confused reception and operation of objects and conceptions that it is a wonderfull difficult thing for the best Christian to discern clearly the bent and actions and so the state of his own soâ—â— For in such a crowd of cogitations and passions we are like men in a Fair or crowd of people where a confused noise may be heard but you cannot well perceive what any of them say except either some one neer you that speaks much lowder then all the rest or else except you single out some one from the rest and go close to him to confer with him of purpose Our Intellect and Passions are like the lakes of water in the common roades where the frequent passage of Horses doth so muddy it that you can see nothing in it especially that is neer the bottom when in pure untroubled waters you may see a small thing In such a confusion and tumult as is usually in mens souls for a poor weak Christian to seek for the discovery of his sincerity is according to the proverb to seek for a needle in a bottle of hay 5. Besides all this the corrupt heart of man is so exceeding backward to the work of self-examination and the use of other means by which the soul should be familiarly acquainted with it self that in a case of such difficulty it will hardly ever overcome them if it were a thing that might be done In the best a great deal of resolvedness diligence and unwearied constancy in searching into the state of the soul is necessary to the attainment of a setled Assurance and Peace How much more in them that have so small and almost undiscernable a measure of Grace to discover 6. Yet further The Conceptions Apprehensions and consequently the sensible motions of the Will and especially the Passions are all naturally exceeding mutable And while the mobile agile spirits are any way the Instruments it will be so especially where the Impression which is made in the understanding is so small and weak Naturally mans minde and will is exceeding mutable turned into an hundred shapes in a few daies according as objects are presented to us and the temperature of the body
you elsewhere If we be imperfect and our faith imperfect and the knowledge of our own hearts imperfect and all our evidences and graces imperfect then our Assurance must needs be imperfect also To dream of Perfection on earth is to dream of Heaven on earth And if Assurance may be here perfect why not all our Graces Even when all Doubtings are overcome yet is Assurance farre short of the highest degree Besides that measure of Assurance which godly men do partake of hath here it s many sad interruptions in the most Upon the prevalency of Temptations and the hidings of Gods face their souls are oft left in a state of sadness that were but lately as in the arms of Christ How fully might this be proved from the examples of Job David Jeremy and others in Scripture and much more abundantly by the daily complaints and examples of the best of Gods people now living among us As there is no perfect evenness to be expected in our obedience while we are on earth so neither will there be any constant or perfect evenness in our comforts He that hath life in one duty is cold in the next and therefore he that hath much joy in one duty hath little in the next Yea perhaps duty may but occasion the renewall of his sorrows that the soul who before felt not its own burden at a Sermon or in Prayer or holy Meditation which were wont to revive him now seems to feel his miseries to be multiplied The time was once with David when the thoughts of God were sweet to him and he could say In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul And yet he saw the time also When he remembred God and was troubled he complained and his Spirit was overwhelmed God so held his eyes waking that he was troubled and could not speak he considered the daies of old and the years of ancient time he called to remembrance his song in the night he communed with his own heart and his spirit made diligent search Will the Lord saith he cast off for ever and will he be favourable no more Is his mercy clean gone for ever doth his promise fail for evermore Hath God forgotten to be gratious hath he in anger shut up his tender mercy Was not this a low ebb and a sad case that David was in Till at last he saw This was his infirmity Psal 77.1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. Had David no former experiences to remind no arguments of comfort to consider of Yes but there is at such a season an incapacity to improve them There is not only a want of comfort but a kind of aversness from it The soul bendeth it self to break its own Peace and to put away comfort farre from it So saith he in vers 2. My soul refused to be comforted In such cases men are witty to argue themselves into distress that it is hard for one that would comfort them to answer them and they are witty in refelling all the Arguments of comfort that you can offer them so that it is hard to fasten any thing on them They have a weak-wilfulness against their own Consolations Seeing then that the best have such storms and sad interruptions do not you wonder or think your case strange if it be so with you Would you speed better then the best Long for Heaven then where only is Joy without sorrow and everlasting Rest without interruption DIRECTION XX. 20. Let me also give you this warning That You must never expect so much Assurance on earth as shall set you above a Possibility of the loss of Heaven or above all apprehensions of real danger of your miscarrying I Conceive this advertisement to be of great necessity But I must first tell you the meaning and then the reasons of it Only I am sorry that I know not how to express it fully but in School terms which are not so familiar to you 1. That which shall certainly come to pass we call a thing Future That which May and Can be Done we call Possible All things are not Future which are Possible God can do more then he hath done or will do He could have made more worlds and so more were Possible then were Future Moreover a thing is said to be Possible in reference to some Power which can accomplish it whether it be Gods Power or Angels or mans God hath Decreed that none of his Elect shall finally or totally fall away and perish and therefore their so falling and perishing is not-future that is It is a thing that shall never come to pass But God never Decreed that it should be utterly Impossible and therefore it still remaineth Possible though it shall never come to pass Obj. But it is said They shall deceive if it were Possible the very Elect. A most comfortable place which many opposers of Election and Free-grace do in vain seek to obscure But let me tell you for the right understanding of it 1. That as I said Possible and Impossible are Relative terms and have Relation to the Power of some Agent as proportioned to the thing to be Done Now this Text speaks only of the power of false Christs and false Prophets and the devil by them Their power of Deceiving is exceeding great but not great enough to Deceive the Elect which is true in two Respects 1. Because the Elect are guided and fortified by Gods Spirit 2. Because seducers work not efficiently but finally by propounding objects or by a Morall improper efficiency only All their seducements cannot force or necessitate us to be Deceived by them But though it be impossible to them to do it yet it is Possible to God to permit which yet he never will and so Possible for our selves to be our own Deceivers or to give Deceivers strength against us by a wilfull receiving of their poysoned baits 2. Besides Christ spoke not in Aristotles School but among the Vulgar where words must be used in the common sense or else they will not be understood And the Vulgar use to call that Impossible which shall never come to pass And indeed when we say that it is Possible or Impossible for a man to sin or fall away there is some degree of Impropriety in the Terms because Possible and Impossible are terms properly relating to some power apportioned to a work but sinning and falling away thereby are the consequents of impotency and not the effects of Power except we speak of the natural act wherein the sin abideth But this must be born with for want of a fitter word to express our meaning by But I 'le leave these things which are not fit for you and desire you to leave them and overpass them if you understand them not 2. I here told you also that you must not look to be above all apprehension of danger of your miscarrying The grounds of this are these 1. Because as is said our miscarrying
them in terror and amazement Like men after a flash of lightning that are left more sensible of the darkness For no wise man can expect that such Joyes should be a Christians ordinary state or God should so diet us with a continual feast It would neither suit with our health nor the condition of this Pilgrimage Live therefore on your Peace of conscience as your ordinary diet when this is wanting know that God appointeth you a fast for your health and when you have a feast of high Joyes feed on it and be thankfull but when they are taken from you gape not after them as the Disciples did after Christ at his Ascension but return thankfully to your ordinary diet of Peace and remember that these Joyes which are now taken from you may so return again however there is a place preparing for you where your Joyes shall be full DIRECTION XXII 22. My next Direction is this Spend more of your time and care about your Duty then about your Comforts and for the exercise and increase of your Graces then for the discovery of them And when you have done all that you can for Assurance and Comfort you shall finde that it will very much depend on your Actual Obedience THis Direction is of as great importance as any that I have yet given you but I shall say but little of it because I have spoke of it so fully already in my Book of Rest Part 3. Ch. 8 9 10 11. My Reasons for what I here assert are these 1. Duty goeth in order of nature and time before comfort as the Precept is before the Promise Comfort is part of the Reward and therefore necessarily supposeth Duty 2. Grace makes men both so ingenuous and Divine as to consider Gods due as well as their own and what they should Do as well as what they shall Have still remembring that our works cannot Merit at Gods hands 3. As we must have Grace before we can Know we have it so ordinarily we must have a good measure of Grace before we can so clearly discern it as to be certain of it Small things I have told you are next to none and hardly discernable by weak eyes When all waies in the world are tried it will be found that there is no way so sure for a doubting soul to be made certain of the truth of his Graces as to keep them in Action and get them increased And it will be found that there is no one cause of Christians doubting of the truth of their Faith Love Hope Repentance Humility c. so great or so common as the small degree of these Graces Doth not the very language of complaining Christians shew this One saith I have no faith I cannot believe I have no love to God I have no delight in Duty Another saith I cannot mourn for sin my heart was never broken I cannot patiently bear an injury I have no courage in opposing sin c. If all these were not in a low and weak degree men could not so ordinarily think they had none A lively strong working Faith Love Zeal Courage c. would shew themselves as do the highest Towers the greatest mountains the strongest windes the greatest flames which will force an observance by their greatness and effects 4. Consider also that it is more pleasing to God to see his people study him and his will directly then to spend the first and chiefest of their studies about the attaining of comforts to themselves 5. And it is the nature of Grace to tend first and chiefly toward God and but secondarily to be the evidence of our own happiness We have faith given us principally that we might believe and live by it in daily applications of Christ We have repentance that it might break us off from sin and bring us back to God We have Love that we might Love God and our Redeemer his Saints and Laws and waies We have Zeal that we might be quickened in all our holy duties and we have obedience to keep us in the way of our duty The first thing we have to do with these Graces is to use them for those holy ends which their nature doth express And then the discerning of them that we may have Assurance followeth after this both in time and dignity 6. And it is a matter of farre greater concernment to our selves to seek after the obtaining of Christ and Grace then after the certain knowledge that we have them You may be saved though you never get Assurance here but you cannot be saved without Christ and Grace God hath not made Assurance the Condition of your salvation It tends indeed exceedingly to your comfort and a pretious mercy it is but your safety lieth not on it It is better go sorrowfull and doubting to Heaven then comfortably to hell First therefore ask what is the Condition of salvation and the way to it and then look that you do your best to perform it and to go that way and then try your performance in its season 7. Besides as it is a work of farre greater moment so also of quicker dispatch to Believe and Love Christ truly then to get Assurance that you do truly Believe and Love him You may believe immediatly by the help of Gods Grace but getting Assurance of it may be the work of a great part of your life Let me therefore intreat this one thing of you that when you feel the want of any Grace you would not presently bend all your thoughts upon the enquiry Whether it be true or no but rather say to your self I see trying is a great and difficult a long and tedious work I may be this many years about it and possibly be unresolved still If I should conclude that I have no Grace I may be mistaken and so I may if I think that I have it I may inquire of friends and Ministers long and yet be left in doubt It is therefore my surest way to seek presently to obtain it if I have it not and to increase it if I have it and I am certain none of that labour will be lost to get more is the way to know I have it But perhaps you will say How should I get more Grace that 's a business of greater difficulty then so I answer Understand what I told you before that as the beginning of Grace is in your Understanding so the heart and life of it is in your Will and the Affections and passionate part are but the fruits and branches If therefore your Grace be weak it is chiefly in an unwillingness to yield to Christ and his Word and Spirit Now how should an unwilling soul be made willing Why thus 1. Pray constantly as you are able for a willing minde and yielding inclinable heart to Christ 2. Hear constantly those Preachers that bend their doctrine to inform your understanding of the great necessity and excellency of Christ and Grace and Glory and to perswade
Believe without Gods further help but he that hath made you willing will not be wanting to maintain your willingness Though I will say to any man You may have Christ if you Will yet I will say to no man You can be willing of your self or without the special Grace of God Nay let me further ask Have not you darkned buried or weakned your Graces in stead of exercising and increasing them even then when you complained for want of Assurance of them when you found a want of Faith and Love have not you weakened them more and so made them less discernable Have you not fed your unbelief and disputed for your doubtings and taken Satans part against your self and which is farre worse have you never through these doubtings entertained hard thoughts of God and presented him to your soul as unwilling to shew you mercy and in an unlovely dreadfull hideous shape fitter to affright you from him then to draw you to him and likelier to provoke your hatred then your love If you have not done thus â— know too many troubled souls that have And if you have you have taken a very unlikely way to get Assurance If you would have been certain that you Loved God in sincerity you should have laboured to Love him more till you had been certain And that you might do so you should have kept better thoughts of God in your minde You will hardly love him while you think of him as evil or at least as hurtfull to you Never forget this Rule which I laid you down in the beginning that He that will ever love God must apprehend him to be Good and the more large and deep are our apprehensions of his goodness the more will be our Love For such as God appears to be to mens fixed conceivings such will their Affections be to him For the fixed deep conceptions or apprehensions of the mind do lead about the soul and guide the life I conclude therefore with this important and importunate request to you That though it be a duty necessary in its time and place to examine our selves concerning our sincerity in our several graces and duties to God yet be sure that the first and farre greater part of your time and pains and care and inquiries be for the getting and increasing of your grace then for the discerning it and to perform your duty rightly then to discern your right performance And when you conferre with Ministers or others that may teach you see that you ask ten times at least How should I get or increase my â—aith my love to Christ and to his people for once that you ask How shall I know that I believe or love Yet so contrary hath been and still is the practice of most Christians among us in this point that I have heard it twenty times asked How shall I know that I truly love the Brethren for once that I have heard it demanded How should I bring my heart to love them better And the like I may say of love to Christ himself I should next have spoke of the second part of the Direction How much our Assurance and Comfort will still depend on our Actual obedience But this will fall in in handling the two or three next following Directions DIRECTION XXIII 23. My next advice is this Think not that those doubts and troubles of minde which are caused and continued by wilfull Disobedience will ever be well healed but by the healing of that Disobedience or that the same means must be used and will suffice to the cure of such troubles which must be used and will suffice to cure the troubles of a tender-conscience and of an obedient Christian whose trouble is meerly through mistakes of their condition I Will begin with the later part of this Direction He that is troubled upon meer mistakes may be quieted upon the removal of them If he understood not the universal extent of Christs satisfaction or of the Covenant or conditional Grant of Christ and Life in him and if upon this he be troubled as thinking that he is not included the convincing him of his error may suffice to the removal of his trouble If he be troubled through his mistaking the nature of true Faith or true Love or other Graces and so think that he hath them not when he hath them the discovery of his error may be the quieting of his soul The soul that is troubled upon such mistakes must be tenderly dealt with Much more they that are disquieted by groundless fears or too deep apprehensions of the wrath or justice of God of the evil of sin and of their unworthiness and for want of fuller apprehensions of the loving kindness of God and the tender compassionate nature of Christ We can scarce handle such souls too gently God would have all to be tenderly dealt with that are tender of displeasing and dishonouring him by sin Gods own language may teach all Ministers what language we should use to such Isa 57.15 16 17 18 19 20 21. Thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity whose Name is Holy I dwel in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones For I will not contend for ever neither will I be alwaies wroth For the spirit should fail before me and the souls which I have made c. But the wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest whose waters cast up mire and dirt There is no peace saith my God to the wicked Much more tender language may such expect from Christ in the Gospel where is contained a fuller revelation of his Grace If Mary a poor sinfull woman lie weeping at his feet and washing them with her tears he hath not the heart to spurn her away but openly proclaims the forgiveness of her many sinnes As soon as ever the heart of a sinner is turned from his sinnes the heart of Christ is turned to him The very summe of all the Gospel is contained in those precious words which fully express this Matth. 11.28 29 30. Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you Rest Take my yoak upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall finde Rest unto your souls For my yoak is easie and my burden is light When the Prodigal Luke 15.20 doth once come home to his Father with sorrow and shame conâ—esting his unworthiness yea but resolved to confess it his Father preventeth him and sees him afarre off and staies not his coming but runs and meets him and when he comes to him he doth not upbraid him with his sins nor say Thou Rebell why hast thou forsaken me and preferred harlots and luxury before me nay he doth not so much as frown upon him but compassionatly fals on his neck and kisseth him Alas
little of it then in rich men that have more to tempt them though dangerous in both Nor doth it lye only in coveting that which is anothers or in seeking to get by unlawfull means but also in over-valuing and over-loving the wealth of the world though lawfully gotten He that loveth the world that is above Christ and holiness the love of the Father is not in him that is savingly and sincerely 1 Joh. 2.15 He that loveth house or lands better then Christ cannot be his Disciple I beseech you therefore when God hides his face search diligently and search again and again least the world should encroach on Christs interest in your heart If it should be so can you wonder if Christ seem to withdraw when you begin to set so light by him as to value dung and earth in any comparison with himself May not he well say to you If you set so much by the world take it and see what it will do for you If you can spare me better then your wealth you shall be without me Must not the Lord Jesus needs take it exceeding unkindly that after all his love and bloodshed and pains with your heart and seals of his kindness and discoveries of his Amiableness and the Treasures of his Kingdom you should now so much forget and slight him to set up the world in any comparison with him and to give such loving entertainment to his enemy and look so kindly on a competitor Is his glory worth no more then so and hath he deserved no better at your hands Again therefore do I beseech you to be afraid lest you should be guilty of this sin Examine whether the thoughts of the world grow not sweeter to you and the thoughts of God and glory more unwelcome and unpleasing whether you have not an eagerness after a fuller estate and too keen an edge upon your desires after riches or at least after a fuller portion and provision for your children or after better accommodations and contentments in House Goods or other worldly things Do not worldly hopes delight you too much and much more your worldly possessions Are you not too busily contriving how to be richer forgetting Gods words 1 Tim. 6.8 9 17. Doth not the world eat out the life of your duties that when you should be serious with God you have left your heart behinde you and drowned your affections in things below Doth not your soul stick so fast in this mud and clay that you can scarce stirre it Godward in Prayer or heavenly Meditation Do not you cut short duties in your family and in secret if not frequently omit them that so you may be again at your worldly business Or do you not customarily hurry them over because the world will not allow you leasure to be serious and so you have no time to deal in good earnest with Christ or your soul Do not your very speeches of Christ and heaven grow few and strange because the world must first be served When you see your brother have need do you not shut up the bowels of your compassions from him Doth not the love of the world make you hard to your servants hard to those you buy and sell with And doth it not incroach much on the Lords own day Look after this earthly vice in all these discoveries search for your enemy in each of these corners And if you finde that this is indeed your case you need not much wonder if Christ and you be stranger then heretofore If this earth get between your heart and the Sun of Life no wonder if all your Comforts are in an eclipse seeing your Light is but as the Moon 's a borrowed Light And you must be the more carefull in searching after this sinne both because it is certain that all men have too much of it and because it is of so dangerous a nature that should it prevail it would destroy For coveteousness is Idolatry And among all the hainous sinnes that the godly have fallen into look into the Scripture and tell me how many of them you finde charged with coveteousness And also because it is a blinding befooling sinne not only drawing old men and those that have no children and rich men that have no need to pursue these things as madly as others but also hiding it self from their eyes that most that are guilty of it will not know it Though alas if they were but willing it were very easie to know it But the power of the sinne doth so set awork their wits to finde excuses and fair names and titles for to cloak it that many delude others by it and more delude themselves but none can delude God The case of some Professors of Godliness that I have known is very lamentable in this point who being generally noted for a dangerous measure of worldliness by most that know them could yet never be brought to acknowledge it in themselves Nay by the excellency of their outward duties and discourse and the strength of their wits alas ill imployed and by their great ability of speech to put a fair gloss on the foulest of their actions they have gone on so smoothly and plausibly in their worldliness that though most accused them of it behinde their backs yet no man knew how to fasten any thing on them By which means they were hindered from repentance and recovery In this sad case though it be Gods course very often to let hypocrites and other enemies go on and prosper because they have their portion in this life and the reckoning is to come yet I have oft observed that for Gods own people or those that he means to make his people by their recovery God useth to cross them in their worldly desires and designes Perhaps he may let them thrive a while and congratulate the prosperity of their flesh but at last he breaks in suddenly on their wealth and scatters it abroad or addeth some cross to it that imbitters it all to them and then asketh them Where is now your Idol and then they begin to see their folly If you do dote on any thing below to the neglecting of God he will make a rod for you of that very thing you dote upon and by it will he scourge you home to himself 3. The third great heart-sinne which I would have you jealous of is Sensuality or Voluptuousness or pleasing the senses inordinately The two former are in this the more mortall sinnes in that they carry more of the Understanding and Will with them and make Reasoâ— it self to be serviceable to them in their workings whereas sensuality is more in the flesh and passion and hath oft times less assistance of Reason or Consent of the Will Yet is the Will tainted with sensual inclinations and both Reason and Will are at the best guilty of connivence and not exercising their authority over the sensual part But in this sensuality is the more dangerous vice in that it
suffering or hazards must I cast my self upon it without a Call or must I be therefore without Comfort Answ No you shall not need to cast your self upon suffering nor yet to be without Comfort for want of it I know no man but may serve God at dearer rates to the flesh then most of us do without stepping out of the way of his duty Nay he must do it except he will avoyd his duty Never had the Church yet such times of prosperity but that faithful duty would hazard men and cause their trouble in the flesh Can you not nay ought you not to put your self to greater labour for mens souls If you should but go day after day among the poor ignorant people where you live and instruct them in the knowledge of God and bear with all their weakness and rudeness and continue thus with Patience this might cost you some labour and perhaps contempt from many of the unthankful and yet you should not do more then your duty if you have opportunity for it as most have or may have if they will If you should further hire them to learn Catechisms if you should extend your liberality to the utmost for relief of the poor this would cost you somewhat If you carry on every Just Cause with Resolution though never so many great friends would draw you to betray it this may cost you the loss of those friends If you will but deal plainly with the ungodly and against all sin as far as you have opportunity especially if it be the sins of Rulers and Gentlemen of name and power in the world it may cost you somewhat Nay though you were Embassadors of Christ whose office is to deal plainly and not to please men in evil upon pain of Christs displeasure you may perhaps turn your great friends to be your great enemies Go to such a Lord or such a Knight or such a Gentleman and tell him freely that God looketh for another manner of spending his time then in hunting and hawking and sporting and feasting and that this precious time must be dearly reckoned for Tell him that God looks he should be the most eminent in Holiness and in a Heavenly life and give an example thereof to all that are below him as God hath made him more eminent in worldly dignity and possessions Tell him that where much is given much is required and that a low profession and dull approbation of that which is good will serve no man much less such a man Tell him that his Riches must be expended to feed and cloath the poor and promote good uses and not meerly for himself and family or else he will make but a sad account and that he must freely engage his reputation estate and life and all for Christ and his Gospel when he cals him to it yea and forsake all for him if Christ put him to it or else he can be no Disciple of Christs and then what good will his Honours and Riches do him when his Soul shall be called for Try this course with Great men yea with Great men that seem religious and that no further then faithfulness and compassion to mens souls doth bind you and do it with all the wisdom you can that is not carnal and then tell me what it doth cost you Let those Ministers that are near them plainly and roundly tell both the Parliament-men and Commanders of the Army of their unquestionable transgressions and that according to their nature and wo to them if they do not and then let them tell me what it doth cost them Alas Sirs how great a number of Professors are base daubing self-seeking Hypocrites that cull out the safe the cheap the easy part of duty and leave all the rest And so ordinarily is this done that we have made us a new Christianity by it and the Religion of Christs own making the self-denying course prescribed by our Master is almost unknown and he that should practice it would be taken for a madman or some self-conceited Cynick or some saucy if not seditious fellow It is not therefore because Christ hath not prescribed us a more self-denying hazardous laborious way that men so commonly take up in the Cheapest Religion but it is through our false-heartedness to Christ and the strength of sensual carnal Interests in us which make us put false Interpretations on the plainest precepts of Christ which charge any unpleasing duty on us and Familistically turn them into Allegories or at least we will not yield to obey him And truly I think that our shifting off Christ in this unworthy manner and even altering that very frame and nature of Christian Religion by turning that into a flesh-pleasing Religion which is more against the flesh then all the Religions else in the world and dealing so reservedly superficially and unfaithfully in all his work is a great cause why Christ doth now appear no more openly for men and pour out no larger a measure of his Spirit in Gifts and Consolations When men appeared ordinarily in the most open manner for Christ in greatest dangers and sufferings then Christ appeared more openly and eminently for them yet is none more for meekness humility and love and against unmerciful or dividing zeal then Christ 2. And as you see that a cheap Religiousness doth not to discover sincerity so secondly it is not accompanied with that special blessing of God As God hath engaged himself in his Word that they shall not lose their Reward that give but a cup of water in his name so he hath more fully engaged himself to those that are most deeply engaged for him even that they that forsake all for him shall have manifold recompence in this life and in the world to come eternal life Let the experience of all the world of Christians be produced and all will attest the same truth That it is Gods usual course to give men larger Comforts in dearer duties then in cheap Nay seldom doth he give large Comforts in cheap duties and seldom doth he deny them in dearer sobeit they are not made dear by our own sin and foolish indiscretion but by his command and our faithfulness in obeying him Who knows not that the Consolation of Martyrs is usually above other mens who hath read of their sufferings and strange sustentations Christian do but try this by thy own experiences and tell me when thou hast most resolutely followed Christ in a good Cause when thou hast stood against the faces of the greatest for God when thou hast cast thy life thy family and estate upon Christ and run thy self into the most apparent hazards for his sake hast not thou come off with more inward peace and comfort then the cheaper part of thy Religion hath afforded thee When thou hast stood to the Truth and Gospel and hast done Good through the greatest opposition and lost thy greatest and dearest friends because thou wouldst not forsake Christ and his
service or deal falsly in some Cause that he hath trusted thee in hast not thou come off with the blessing of Peace of Conscience Nay when thou hast denied thy most importunate Appetite and most crossed thy lusts and most humbled and abased thy self for God and denied thy credit and taken shame to thy self in a free confessing of thy faults or patiently put up the greatest abuses or humbled and tamed thy flesh by necessary abstinence or any way most displeased it by crossing its interest by bountiful giving laborious duty dangers or sufferings for the sake of the Lord Jesus his Truth and People hath it not been far better with thee in thy Peace and Comforts then before I know some will be ready to say That may be from Carnal Pride in our own doing or suffering I answer It may be so And therefore let all watch against that But I am certain that this is Gods ordinary dealing with his people and therefore we may ordinarily expect it It is for their encouragement in faithful duty and I may truly say for their Reward when himself cals that a Reward which he gives for a cup of water Lay well to heart that Example of Abraham for which he is so often extolled in the Scripture viz. his readiness to sacrifice his only Son This was a dear Obedience And saith God Because mark Because thou hast done this thing in blessing I will bless thee c. David would not offer to God that which cost him nothing 2 Sam. 24.24 1 Chron. 21.24 God will have the best of your hearts the best of your labours the best of your eâ—tates the best of all or he will not accept it Abels sacrifice was of the best and it was accepted And God saith to Cain If thou do well shalt not thou be accepted Seeing this is so let me advise you Take it not for a calamity but for a precious advantage when God cals thee to a hazardous costly service which is like to cost thee much of thy estate to cost thee the loss of thy chiefest friends the loss of thy credit the indignation of Great ones or the painfullest diligence and trouble of body Shift it not off but take this opportunity thankfully lest thou never have such another for the clearing of thy sincerity and the obtaining of more then ordinary Consolations from God Thou hast now a Prize in thy hand for spiritual riches if thou have but a heart to improve it I know all this is a paradox to the unbelieving world But here is the very excellency of the Christian Religion and the Glory of Faith It looks for its greatest spoyls and richest prizes from its Conquests of fleshly Interests It is not only able to do it but it expecteth its advancement and consolations by this way It is engaged in a war with the world and flesh and in this war it plays not the vapouring fencer that seems to do much but never strikes home as Hypocrites and carnal worldly Professors do but he lays it home and spares not as one that knows That the fleshes ruine must be his Rising and the fleshes thriving would be his Ruine In these things the true Christian alone is in good sadness and all the rest of the world but in jest The Lord pity poor deluded souls You may see by this one thing how rare a thing true Christianity is among the Multitude that take themselves for Christians and how certain therefore it is that few shall be saved Even this one point of true Mortification and self-denial is a stranger among the most of Professors Oh how sad a testimony of it are the actions of these late times wherein so much hath been done for self and safety and carnal interests and so little for Christ yea and that after the deepest engagements of Mercies and Vows that ever lay on a people in the world Insomuch that through the just judgement of God they are now given up to doubt whether it be the duty of Rulers to do any thing as Rulers for Christ or no or whether they should not let Christ alone to do it himself Well this which is such a mysterie to the unregenerate world is a thing that every genuine Christian is acquainted with for they that are Christs have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts thereof and the world is dead to them and they to the world Gal. 6.11 Take this counsel therefore in all the several cases mentioned in the Direction 1. In your preventing sin and maintaining your Innocency if you cannot do it without denying your credit and exposing your self to disgrace or without the loss of friends or a breach in your estate do it nevertheless Yea if it would cost you your utter ruine in the world thank God that put such an opportunity into your hand for extraordinary Consolations For ordinarily the Martyrs Comforts exceed other mens as much as their burthen of duty and suffering doth Cyprian is fain to write for the comfort of some Christians in his times that at death were troubled that they mist of their hopes of Martyrdom So also if you cannot mortifie any lust without much pinching the flesh do it chearfully for the dearer the victory costeth you the sweeter will be the issue and review 2. The same counsel I give you also in your rising from sin It is the sad condition of those that yield to a Temptation and once put their foot within the dores of Satan that they ensnare themselves so that they must undergo thrice as great difficulties to draw back as they needed to have done before-hand for prevention and forbearance Sin unhappily engageth the sinner to go on and one sin doth make another seem necessary O how hard a thing is it for him that wrong'd another by stealing deceit over-reaching in bargaining or the like to confess his fault and ask him forgiveness and to the utmost of his ability to make restitution What abundance of difficulties will be in the way It will likely cost him the loss of his Credit besides the breach in his estate and perhaps lay him open to the rage of him that he hath wronged Rather he will be drawn to cover his sin with a Lye or at least by Excuses And so it is in many other sins Now in any of these Cases when men indulge the flesh and cannot find in their hearts to take that loss or shame to themselves which a through-Repentance doth require they do but feed the troubles of their soul and hide their wounds and sores and not ease them Usually such persons go on in a galled unpeaceable condition and reach not to solid Comfort I speak only of those to whom such Confession or Restitution is a duty And I cannot wonder at it For they have great cause to question the truth of that Repentance and consequently the soundness of that heart which will not bring them to a self-denying duty nor to Gods way of
them for it Why he useth this same Distinction between Humiliation for sin and Doubting of sincerity and salvation and he helps them to the former and helps them against the latter Could ye not watch with me one hour saith he There he convinceth them of the sin that they may be humbled for it The spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak saith he There he utterly resisteth their Doubtings or preventeth them shewing them wherein sincere Grace consisteth even in the spirits willingness and telling them that they had that Grace and then telling them whence came their sin even from the weakness of the flesh 2. I have shewed you that as every mans Will is but partly sanctified as to the Degree of holiness and so far as it is imperfect it will be unwilling so that there is something in the Duties of secret Prayer Meditation and Reproof which makes most men more backward to them then other duties The last doth so cross our fleshly Interests and the two former are so spiritual and require so pure and spiritual a soul and set a man so immediatly before the living God as if we were speaking to him face to face and have nothing of external pomp to draw us that it is no wonder if while there is flesh within us we are backward to them especially while we are so unacquainted with God and while strangeness and consciousness of sin doth make us draw back Besides that the Devil will more busily hinder us here then anywhere 3. The Question therefore is not whether you have an unwillingness backwardness to Good for so have all Nor yet whether you have any cold uneffectâ—al wishes for so have the ungodly Buâ— whether your Willingness be not more then your unwillingness And in that 1. It must not be in every single act of duty for a godly man may be actually more unwilling to a duty at this particular time then willing and thereupon may omit it but it must be about your Habitual Willingness manifested in ordinary actual Willingness 2. You must not exclude any of those Motives which God hath given you to make you willing to Duty He hath Commanded it and his Authority should move you He hath Threatned you and therefore Fear should move you Or else he would never have Threatned He hath made Promises of Reward and therefore the Hope of that should move And therefore you may perceive here what a dangerous mistake it is to think that we have no Grace except our Willingness to Duty be without Gods Motives from a meer Love to the Duty it self or to its effect Nay it is a dangerous Antinomian mistake to imagine that it is our duty to be Willing to Good without these Motives of God I say To take it so much as for our Duty to exclude Gods Motives though we should not judge of our Grace by it For it is but an Accusation of Christ and his Law who hath ordained these Motives of Punishment and Reward to be his Instruments to move the soul to duty Let me therefore put the right Question to you Whether all Gods Motives laid together and considered the ordinary prevailing part of your Will be not rather for Duty then against it This you will know by your practice For if the prevailing part be against Duty you will not do it If it be for Duty you will ordinarily perform it though you cannot do it so well as you would And then you may see that your backwardness and remaining unwillingness must still be matter of Humiliation and resistance to you but not matter of Doubting Nay thank God that enableth you to pull down your self on your knees when you are unwilling For what is that but the prevailing of your willingness against your unwillingness Should your unwillingness once prevail you would turn your back upon the most acknowledged Duties DOUBT VI. BVt I am afraid that it is onely slavish fear of Hell and not the Love of God that causeth me to obey and if it were not for this fear I doubt whether I should not quite give over all And perfect Love casteth out fear ANSWER I Have answered this already Love will not be perfect in this life In the life to come it will cast out all fear of damnation and all fear that drives the soul from God and all fear of men which is meant in Rev. 21.8 where the fearful and unbelievers are condemned that is those that fear men more then God And that 1 John 4.17 18. speaketh of a Tormenting Fear which is it that I am perswading you from and consisteth in Terrors of soul upon an apprehension that God will condemn you But it speaketh not of a filial fear nor of a fear lest we should by forsaking God or by yielding to Temptation lose the Crown of Life and so perish as long as this is not a tormenting fear but a cautelous preserving preventing fear Besides the Text plainly saith It is that we may have boldness in the day of judgement that Love casteth out this fear And at that day of Judgement Love will have more fully overcome it It is a great mistake to think that Filial Fear is onely the fear of temporal chastisement and that all fear of Hell is slavish Even Filial Fear is a Fear of Hell But with this difference A son if he know himself to be a Son hath such a perswasion of his Fathers Love to him that he knows he will not cast him off except he should be so vile as to renounce his Father which he is moderately fearful or careful lest by Temptation he should be drawn to do but not distrustfully fearful as knowing the helps and mercies of his Father But a slavish Fear is when a man having no apprehensions of Gods love or willingness to shew him mercy doth look that God should deal with him as a slave and destroy him when ever he doth amiss It is this slavish Tormenting fear which I spend all this writing against But yet a great deal even of this slavish fear may be in those sons that know not themselves to be sons But suppose you were out of all fear of Damnation do not belye your own heart and tell me Had you not rather be Holy then Unholy pleasing to God then displeasing and would not the Hope of Salvation draw you from sin to duty without the fear of Damnation in Hell But you will say That is still Mercenary and as bad as slavish fears I answer Not so This Hope of Salvation is the Hope of enjoying God and living in perfect Pleasingness to him and pleasure in him in Glory And the Desire of this is a Desire of Love It is Love to God that makes you Desire him and Hope to enjoy him Lastly I say again Take heed of separating what God hath joyned If God by putting in your nature the several Passions of Hope Fear Love c. and by putting a Holiness into these
before some bashful or proud or tender Patients will open their disease The very opening of a mans grief to a faithful friend doth oft ease the heart of it self 2. And that this should be done to your Pastor I will shew you further anon 2. But you must understand well when this is your Duty 1. Not in every small infirmity which accompanies Christians in their daily most watchful Conversation Nor yet in every lesser Doubt which may be otherways resolved It is a folly and a wrong to Physitians to run to them for every cut finger or prick with a pin Every neighbour can help you in this 2. Nor except it be a weighty case indeed go not first to a Minister But first study the case your self and seek Gods direction If that will not serve open your case to your nearest bosom friend that is godly and judicious And in these two cases always go to your Pastor 1. In case privater means can do you no Good then God calls you to seek further If a cut finger so fester that ordinary means will not cure it you must go to the Physician 2. If the case be weighty and dangerous For then none but the more prudent advice is to be trusted If you be struck with a dangerous disease I would not have you delay so long nor wrong your self so much as to stay while you tamper with every womans medicine but go presently to the Physician So if you either fall into any grievous sin or any terrible pangs of Conscience or any great streights and difficulties about matters of Doctrine or Practice go presently to your Pastour for advice The Devil and Pride and Bashfulness will do their utmost to hinder you but see that they prevail not 3. Next consider to what End you must do this Not 1. either to expect that a Minister can of himself create Peace in you or that all your Doubts should vanish as soon as ever you have opened your mind Onely the great Peacemaker the Prince of Peace can create Peace in you Ascribe not to any the office of the Holy Ghost to be your effectual Comforter To expect more from man then belongs to man is the way to receive nothing from him but to cause God to blast to you the best endeavours 2. Nor must you resolve to take all meerly from the word of your Pastour as if he were Infallible Nor absolutely to Judge of your self as he Judgeth For he may be too rigorous or more commonly too charitable in his opinion of you There may be much of your disposition and conversation unknown to him which may hinder his right Judging But 1. You must use your Pastour as the ordained Instrument Messenger of the Lord Jesus his Spirit appointed to speak a word in season to the weary and to shew to man his Righteousness and to strengthen the weak hands and feeble knees yea and more to bind and loose on Earth as Christ doth bind and loose in Heaven As Christ and his Spirit do onely save in the principal place and yet Ministers save souls in subordination to them as his Instruments Act. 26.17 18. 1 Tim. 4.15 16. Jam. 5.20 So Christ and the Spirit are as Principal Causes the onely Comforters but his Ministers are Comforters under him 2. And that which you must expect from them is these two things 1. You must expect those fuller discoveries of Gods Will then you are able to make your self by which you may have assurance of your duty to God and of the sense of Scripture which expresseth how God will deal with you That so a clearer discovery of Gods mind may Resolve your Doubts 2. In the mean time till you can come to a full Resolution you may and must somewhat stay your self on the very Judgement of your Pastour Not as Infallible but as a discovery of the Probability of your Good or bad estate and so of your duty also Though you will not renounce your own understanding and believe any man when you know he is deceived or would deceive you yet you will so far suspect your own reason and value anothers as to have a special regard to every mans Judgement in his own Profession If the Physician tell you that your disease is not dangerous or the Lawyer that your Cause is good it will more Comfort you then if another man should say as much It may much stay your heart till you can reach to clear Evidences and Assurance to have a Pastor that is well acquainted with you and is faithful and Judicious to tell you that he verily thinks that you are in a safe Condition 3. But the chief use of his Advice is not so much to tell you what he thinks of you as to give you Directions how you may Judge of your self and come out of your trouble Besides the benefit of his Prayers to God for you 4. Next let me tell you what men you must choose to open your mind to And they must be 1. Men of Judgement and Knowledge and not the Ignorant be they never so honest Else they may deceive you not knowing what they do either for want of understanding the Scripture and the nature of Grace and Sin or for want of skill to deal with both weak Consciences and deep deceitful hearts 2. They must be truly fearing God and of experience in this great work For a Troubled soul is seldom well resolved and comforted meerly out of a Book but from the Book and Experience both together Carnal or formal men will but make a Jest at the Doubts of a Troubled Christian or at least will give you such formal Remedies as will prove no Cure Either they will perswade you as the Antinomians do that you should trust God with your soul and never Question your Faith Or that you do ill to trouble your self about such things Or they will direct you onely to the Comforts of General Grace and tell you onely that God is Merciful and Christ dyed for sinners which are the necessary Foundations of our Peace but will not answer particular Doubts of our own sincerity and of our Interest in Christ Or else they will make you believe that Holiness of heart and life which is the thing you look after is it that troubleth you and breeds all your scruples Or else with the Papists they will send you to your Merits for Comfort or to some Vindictive Penance in Fastings Pilgrimages or the like or to some Saint departed or Angel or to the Pardons or Indulgencies of the Pope or to a certain formal carnal Devotion to make God amends 3. They must be men of downright Faithfulness that will deal plainly and freely though not cruelly and not like those tender Surgeons that will leave the Cure undone for fear of hurting Meddle not with men-pleasers and daubers that will presently speak Comfort to you as Confidently as if they had known you twenty years when perhaps they know
Loving kindeness and our dishonouring the Glorious Gospel of his Son and our seconding Satan in his contradicting of that Design which hath contrived Gods Glory in so sweet a way And now Christian Reader let me intreat thee in the name and fear of God hereafter better to understand and practise thy Duty Thy heart is better a thousand times in Godly sorrow then in Carnal mirth and by such sorrows it is often made better Eccles. 7.2 3 4. But never take it to be Right till it be Delighting it self in God When you kneel down in prayer labour so to conceive of God and bespeak him that he may be your Delight so do in Hearing and Reading so do in all your Meditations of God So do in your feasting on the flesh and blood of Christ at his Supper Especially improve the happy opportunity of the Lords Day wherein you may wholly devote your selves to this work And I advise Ministers and all Christs Redeemed ones that they spend more of those days in Praise and Thanksgiving especially in Commemoration of the whole work of Redemption and not of Christs Resurrection alone or else they will not answer the Institution of the Lord And that they keep it as the most solemn day of Thanksgiving and be briefer on that day in their Confessions and Lamentations and larger at other times O that the Congregations of Christ through the world were so well informed and animated that the main business of their solemn Assemblies on that day might be to sound forth the high Praises of their Redeemer and to begin here the Praises of God and the Lamb which they must perfect in Heaven for ever How sweet a foretaste of Heaven would be then in these solemnities And truly let me tell you my Brethren of the Ministry you should by private Teaching and week-day Sermons so further the knowledge of your People that you might not need to spend so much of the Lords Day in Sermons as the most godly use to do but might bestow a greater part of it in Psalms and solemn Praises to our Redeemer And I could wish that the Ministers of England to that end would unanimously agree on some one Translation of the English Psalms in meeter better then that in common use and if it may be better then any yet extant not neglecting the poëtical sweetness under pretence of exact translating or at least to agree on the best now extant the London Ministers may do well to lead the way lest that blessed part of Gods solemn worship should be blemished for want either of Reformation or Uniformity And in my weak judgement if Hymns and Psalms of Praise were new invented as fit for the state of the Gospel-Church and Worship to Laud the Redeemer come in the flesh as expresly as the work of Grace is now express as Davids Psalms were fitted to the former state and infancy of the Church and more obscure revelations of the Mediator and his Grace it would be no sinful humane Invention or addition nor any more want warrant then our Inventing the form and words of every Sermon that we preach and every prayer that we make or any Catechism or Confession of faith Nay it may seem of so great usefulness as to be next to a Necessity Still provided that we force not any to the use of them that through ignorance may scruple it And if there be any Convenient parcels of the Ancient Church that are fitted to this use they should deservedly be preferred I do not think I digress all this while from the scope of my Discourse For doubtless if Gods usual solemn worship on the Lords Days were more fitted and directed to a Pleasant Delightful Praising way it would do very much to frame the spirits of Christians to Joyfulness and Thankfulness and Delight in God then which there is no greater cure for their Doubtful Pensive self-tormenting frame O try this Christians at the request of one that is moved by God to importune you to it God doth pitty you in your sorrows but he Delighteth in you when you Delight in him See Isa 58.14 compared with Zeph. 3.17 And if sin interpose and hinder your Delights believe it a Chearful Amendment and Obedience is that which will please God better then your self-tormenting fears Do not you like that servant better that will go chearfully about your work and do it as well as he can accounting it a Recreation and will endeavour to mend where he hath done amiss then him that will at every step fall a crying O I am so weak I can do nothing as I should An humble sense of failings you will like but not that your servant should sit still and complain when he should be working nor that all your service should be performed with weeping disquietness and lamentations You had rather have your servant humbly and modestly chearfull and not alway dejected for fear of displeasing you O how many poor souls are overseen in this You might easily perceive it even by the Devils opposition and temptations He will further you in your self-vexations when he cannot keep you in security and presumption but in amending he will hinder you with all his might How oft have I known poor passionate Creatures that would vex and rage in anger and break out in unseemly language to the disquieting of all about them and others that would drop into other the like sins and when they have done lament it and condemn themselves and yet would not set upon a resolute and chearful Reformation Nay if you do but reprove them for any sin they will sooner say If I be so bad God will condemn me for an Hypocrite and so lye down in disquietness and distress then they will say I see my sin and I resolve to resist it and I pray you warn me of it and help me to watch against it So that they would bring us to this pass that either we must let them alone with their sins for fear of Tormenting them or else we must cause them to lye down in terrours Alas poor mistaken souls It is neither of these that God cals for Will you do any thing save what you should do Must you needs be esteemed either Innocent or Hypocrites or such as shall be damned The thing that God would have is this That you would be glad that you see your fault and thank him that sheweth it you and resolvedly do your best to amend it and this in faith and chearful confidence in Christ flying to his Spirit for help and victory Will you please the Devil so far and so far contradict the gracious way of Christ as that you will needs either sin still or Despair Is there not a middle between these two to wit Chearful Amendment Remember that it is not your Vexation or Despair but your Obedience and Peace that God desireth That life is most Pleasing to him which is most safe and sweet to you If you say
still You cannot Delight in God I say again Do but acknowledge it the great work that God requireth of you and make it your daily aim and care and business and then you will more easily and certainly attain it But while you know not your work or so far mistake it as to think it consisteth more in sorrows and fears and never endeavour in your Duties or Meditations to raise your soul to a Delight in God but rather to cast down your self with still poaring on your miseries no wonder then if you be a stranger to this life of holy Delight By this time I find my self come up to the subject of my Book of the Saints Rest wherein having said so much to Direct and Excite you for the attainment of these Spiritual and Heavenly Delights I will referr you to it for your help in that work and adde no more here but to Desire you through the course of your life to remember That the true Love of God in Christ and Delight in him and Thankful Chearful Obedience to him is the great work of a Christian which God is best pleased with and which the blessed Angels and Saints shall be exercised in for ever And O thou the Blessed God of Love the Father of Mercy the Prince of Peace the Spirit of Consolation compose the Disquieted spirits of thy People and the tumultuous disjoynted state of thy Churches and pardon our Rashness Contentions and Blood-guiltiness and give us not up to the state of the wicked who are like the raging Sea and to whom there is no Peace Lay thy command on our winds and waves before thy shipwrackt vessel perish And Rebuke that evil spirit whose name is Legion which hath possessed so great a part of thine Inheritance Send forth the spirit of Judgement and Meekness into thy Churches and save us from our Pride and Ignorance with their effects And bring our feet into the way of Peace which hitherto we have not known O close all thy People speedily in loving consultations and earnest enquiries after Peace Let them Return from their Corruptions Contentions and Divisions and joyntly seek thee asking the way to Zion with their faces thitherward saying Come let us joyn our selves to the Lord in a perpetual Covenant that shall not be forgotten Blast all opposing Policies and Powers Say to these Dead and Dry bones Live And out of these Ruines do thou yet erect a City of Righteousness where thy People may dwell together in Peaceable habitations and in the midst thereof A Temple to thy Holiness Let the materials of it be Verity and Purity Let the Redeemer be its Foundation Let Love and Peace cement it into Vnity Let thy Laver and Covenant be the Dores and Holiness to the Lord be engraved thereon that buyers and sellers may be cast out and the common and unclean may know their Place and let no desolating Abomination be there set up But let thy People all in one name in one faith with one mind and one soul attend to thine Instructions and wait for thy Laws and submit unto thine Order and Rejoyce in thy Salvation that the troubled spirits may be there exhilerated the dark enlightned and all may offer thee the sacrifice of Praise without dis-affections discords or divisions that so thy People may be thy Delight and thou mayst be the chiefest Delight of thy People â—â—d they may Please thee through him that hath perfectly pleased thee Or if our expectations of this Happiness on earth be too high yet give us so much as may enlighten our eyes and heal those corruptions which estrange us from thee and may propagate thy Truth increase thy Church and honour thy Holiness and may quicken our desires and strengthen us in our way and be a fore-tast to us of the Everlasting Rest Luk. 2.14 Glory to God in the Highest on earth Peace Good will towards men Ecles 12.12 13 14. Of making many Books there is no end and much study is a weariness to the flesh Let us hear the Conclusion of the whole matter Fear God and keep his Commandments for this is the whole Duty of man c. FINIS