mistakes of many sad Christians hereabouts The cure lieth in breaking off sinne to the utmost of your power This is the Achan that disquieteth all It is Gods great mercy that he disquieteth you in sinning and gives you not over to so deep a slumber and peace in sinne as might hinder your repentance and reformation The dangerous mistakes here are these two 1. Some do as the Lapwing cry loudest when they are furthest from the nest and complain of an aking tooth when the disease is in the head or heart They cry out O I have such wandring thoughts in prayer and such a bad memory and so hard a heart that I cannot weep for sinne or such doubts and fears and so little sense of the Love of God that I doubt I have no true Grace When they should rather say I have so proud a heart that God is fain by these sad means to humble me I am so high in my own eyes so wise in my own conceit and so tender of my own esteem and credit that God is fain to make me base in my own eyes and to abhorre my self I am so worldly and in love with earth that it draws away my thoughts from God duls my love and spoils all my duties I am so sensual that I venture sooner to displease my God then my flesh I have so little compassion on the infirmities of neighbours and servants and other brethren and deal so censoriously churlishly and unmercifully with them that God is fain to hide his mercy from me and speak to me as in anger and vex me as in sore displeasure I am so froward peevish quarrelsome unpeaceable and hard to be pleased that it is no wonder if I have no peace with God or in my own conscience and if I have so little quietness who love and seek it no more Many have more reason I say to turn their complaints into this tune 2. Another most common unhappy miscarriage of sad Christians lieth here that They will rather continue complaining and self-tormenting then give over sinning so farre as they might give it over if they would I beseech you in the Name of God to know and consider what it is that God requireth of you He doth not desire your vexation but your reformation No further doth he desire the trouble of your minde then as it tendeth to the avoiding of that sinne which is the cause of it God would have you less in your fears and troubles and more in your obedience Obey more and disquiet your minde less Will you take this counsel presently and see whether it will not do you more good then all the complaints and doubtings of your whole life have done Set your self with all your might against your pride worldliness and sensuality your unpeaceableness and want of love and tenderness to your brethren and whatever other sin your conscience is acquainted with I pray you tell me If you had gravell in your shoe in your travel would it not be more wisdom to sit down and take off your shoe and cast it out then to stand still or go complaining and tell every one you meet of your soreness If you have a thorn in your foot will you go on halting and lamenting or will you pull it out Truly sinne is the thorn in your conscience and those that would not have such troubled consciences told of their sinnes for fear of increasing their distress are unskilfull comforters and will continue the trouble while the thorn is in As ever you would have peace then resolve against sinne to the utmost of your power Never excuse it or cherish it or favour it more Confess it freely Thank those that reprove you for it Desire those about you to watch over you and to tell you of it yea to tell you of all suspitious signes that they see of it though it be not evident And if you do not see so much Pride Worldliness Unpeaceableness or other sinnes in your self as your friends think they see in you yet let their judgement make you jealous of your heart seeing self-love doth oft so blinde us that we cannot see that evil in our selves which others see in us nay which all the Town may take notice of And be sure to engage your friends that they shall not smooth over your faults or mince them and tell you of them in extenuating language which may hinder Conviction and Repentance much less silence them for fear of displeasing you but that they will deal freely and faithfully with you And see that you distast them not and discountenance not their plain dealing lest you discourage them and deprive your soul of so great a benefit Think best of those as your greatest friends who are least friends to your sinne and do most for your recovery very from it If you say Alas I am not able to mortifie my sinnes It is not in my power I answer 1. I speak not of a perfect conquest nor of a freedom from every passion or infirmity 2. Take heed of pretending disability when it is unwillingness If you were heartily willing you would be able to do much and God would strengthen you Cannot you resist Pride Worldliness and Sensuality if you be willing Cannot you forbear most of the actual sinnes you commit and perform the duties that you omit if you be Willing though not so well as you would perform them Yea let me say this much lest I endanger you by sparing you Many a miserable hypocrite doth live in trouble of minde and complaining and after all perish for their wilfull disobedience Did not the rich young man go farre before he would break off with Christ and when he did leave him he went away sorrowfull And what was the cause of his sorrow Why the matter was that he could not be saved without selling all and giving it to the poor when he had great Possessions It was not that he could not be rid of his sinne but that he could not have Christ and Heaven without forsaking the world This is the case of unsanctified persons that are enlightened to see the need of Christ but are not weaned from worldly profits honours and pleasures they are perhaps troubled in minde and I cannot blame them but it is not that they cannot leave sinning but that they cannot have Heaven without leaving their delights and contentments on earth Sin as sin they would willingly leave For no man can love evil as evil But their fleshly profits honours and pleasures they will not leave and there is the stop and this is the cause of their sorrows and fears For their own judgement cries out against them He that loveth the world the love of the Father is not in him If ye live after the flesh ye shall die God resisteth the proud This is the voice of their informed understandings And conscience seconds it and saith Thou art the man But the flesh cries louder then both these Wilt thou leave
it sufficient to raise you from the dust and banish those terrours and troubles from your hearts and help you to live like the Sons of God He commandeth me to tell you that he takes notice of your sorrows he stands by when you see him not and say He hath forsaken you he minds you with greatest tenderness when you say He hath forgotten you He numbreth your sighs he bottles up your tears the groans of your hearts do reach his own He takes it unkindly that you are so suspicious of him and that all that he hath done for you in the work of Redemption and all the gracious workings of his Spirit on your souls and all your own peculiar experiences of his Goodness can raise you to no higher apprehensions of his Love Shall not Love be acknowledged to be Love when it s grown to a Miracle when it surpasseth Comprehension Must the Lord set up Love and Mercy in the work of Redemption to be equally admired with his Omnipotency manifested in the Creation and call forth the World to this sweet imployment that in Secret and in Publick it might be the business of our lives and yet shall it be so overlookt or questioned as if you lived without Love and Mercy in the World Providence doth its part by heaping up Mountains of daily Mercies and these it sets before your eyes The Gospel hath eminently done its part by clear describing them and fully assuring them and this is proclaimed frequently in your ears And yet is there so little in your hearts and mouths Do you see and hear and feel and taste Mercy and Love do you Live wholly on it and yet do you still doubt of it and think so meanly of it and so hardly acknowledge it God takes not this well but yet he considereth your frailty and takes you not at the worst He knows that flesh will play its part and the Remnants of Corruption will not be idle and the Serpent will be suggesting false thoughts of God and will be still striving most to obscure that part of his Glory which is dearest to him and especially which is most conjoyned with the Happiness of Man He knows also that sin will breed sorrows and fears and that mans Understanding is shallow and all his Conceivings of God are exceeding low and that we are so far from God as Creatures and so much further as sinners and especially as Conscious of the abuse of his Grace that there must needs follow such a strangeness as will damp and dull our apprehensions of his Love and such an abatement of our Confidence as will make us draw back and look at God afar off Seeing therefore that at this distance no full apprehensions of Love can be expected It is the Pleasure of our Redeemer shortly to Return with ten thousands of his Saints with the noble Army of his Martyrs and the attendance of his Angels and to give you such a Convincing Demonstration of his Love as shall leave no room for one more Doubt Your Comforts are now but a Tast they shall be then a Feast They are now but Intermittent they shall be then Continual How soon now do your Conquered fears return and what an unconstancy and unevenness is there in our Peace But then our Peace must needs be Perfect and Permanent when we shall please God and Enjoy him in Perfection to Perpetuity Certainly Christians your Comforts should be now more abundant but that they are not ripe It is that and not this that is your harvest I have told you in another Book the mistake and danger of expecting too much here and the Necessity of Looking and Longing for that Rest if we will have Peace indeed But alas how hard is this lesson learned Unbelievers would have Happiness but how fain would they have it in the Creature rather then in God! Believers would rather have their Happiness in God then in the Creature But how fain would they have it without Dying And no wonder for when Sin brought in Death even Grace it self cannot Love it though it may submit to it But though Churlish Death do stand in our way why look we not at the Souls admittance into Rest and the Bodies Resurrection that must shortly follow Doubtless that Faith by which we are Justified and Saved as it sits down on the word of Truth as the present ground of its confident repose so doth it thence look with one eye backward on the Cross and with the other forward on the Crown And if we well observe the Scripture Descriptions of that Faith we shall find them as frequently magnifying it and describing it from the latter as from the former As it is the duty and glory of faith to look back with Thankful Acknowledgement to a Crucified Christ and his payment of our Ransome so is it the Duty and Glory of that same Justifying Saving Faith to Look forward with Desire and Hope to the Return of King Jesus and the Glorious Celebration of the Marriage of the Lamb and the Sentencial Justification and the Glorification of his Saints To Believe these things unfeignedly which we never saw nor ever spoke with man that did see and to Hope for them so Really as to let go all present forbidden pleasures and all worldly hopes and seeming happiness rather then to hazard the loss of them this is an eminent part of that Faith by which the Just do live and which the Scripture doth own as Justifying and Saving For it never distinguisheth between Justifying Faith and Saving Faith as to their nature It is therefore a great mistake of some to look onely at that one eye of Justifying Faith which looks back upon the Cross and a great mistake of them on the other hand that look onely at that eye of it which beholds the Crown Both Christ Crucified and Christ Interceding and Christ Returning to Justifie and Glorifie are the objects even of Justifying Saving Faith most strictly so called The Scripture oft expresseth the one onely but then it still implyeth the other The Socinians erroniously therefore from Heb. 11. where the Examples and Elogies of Faith are set forth do exclude Christ Crucified or the respect to his Satisfaction from Justifying Faith and place it in a meer Expectation of Glory and others do as ungroundedly affirm that it is not the Justifying Act of Faith which Heb. 11. describeth because they find not the Cross of Christ there mentioned For as Believing in Christs Blood Comprehendeth the End even the Expectation of Remission and Glory merited by that blood so the Believing of that Glory doth always imply that we Believe and Expect it as the fruit of Christs Ransome It is for health and life that we Accept and Trust upon our Physician And it is for Justification and Salvation that we Accept and Trust on Christ The Salvation of our Souls is the End of our Faith They that question whether we may Believe and Obey for our own
of most Christians that have the free use of Reason are fed by some sin ibid. The sins which Troubled Christians should most search after are 1. Contrary carnal Interest encroaching on Christs Interest 1. In the Understanding enumerated as against each Person in the Trinity 2. In the Will and Affections 1. Pride 2. Covetousness 3. Voluptuousness These are considered here as against God himself and so as against the first Commandment 286 2. Actual sins against the other Commandments Especially suspect 1. Unmercifulness and rigid censoriousness of others 2. Unpeaceableness in Family Neighbourhood Church c. 301 DIRECTION XXIV Content not your self with a cheap Religiousness and to serve God with that which cost you little or nothing And take every Call to costly duty or suffering for Christ as a prize put into your hand for advancing your Comforts 313 Remember this 1. In preventing sin 2. In rising from sin 3. In performance of Duty 325 DIRECTION XXV Study the great art of Doing Good and let it be your every-days contrivance care and business how to lay out all your Talents to the greatest advantage 332 Applyed to our Rulers and to Rich men 337 DIRECTION XXVI Trouble not your soul with needless scruples Nor make your self more work then God hath made you by feigning that unlawful which God hath not forbidden or by placing your Religion in Will-worship or overmuch rigour to your body c. 346 What it is to be Righteous Over-much The Question Answered Whether all Virtue be in the middle And Whether we can love or serve God too much 347 All Over-doing in Gods work is Un-doing The Devil is most zealous in Over-doing A sad instance how much the Devil hath got by Over-doing 1. In Doctrine against Hereticks by adding to the Creed and forsaking Scripture-phrase 2. In Discipline 3. In Government or Church-power 4. In Worship 5. In Reformation especially of late The Devil goes beyond Christ in all these when he once fals to work 354 DIRECTION XXVII When God hath discovered your sincerity to you fix it in your Memory that it may be useful for the time to come and leave not your soul open to new Apprehensions Except in case of notable declinings or gross sinning 376 Proved that in these excepted cases even the Justified may question their sincerity and Justification 377 DIRECTION XXVIII Beware of perplexing mis-interpretations of 1. Scriptures 2. Providences 3. Sermons And be willing that Ministers should preach most searchingly and rouzingly for the good of others without mis-applying it to your self 387 DIRECTION XXIX Distinguish carefully between causes of Doubting and causes of meer Humiliation and Amendment God calleth you very often to Humiliation when he calleth you not to Doubting 403 Twenty ordinary DOUBTS Resolved 1. About knowing the time and manner of Conversion 406 2. About Humiliation 411 3. Of receiving Religion by Education 417 4. About Deadness Hard-heartedness and not weeping for sin 423 5. About Backwardness to Duty and not Delighting in it 434 6. About doing all out of slavish fear 439 7. Not able to Believe 443 8. Strangeness to the Witness of the Spirit Joy in the Holy Ghost and Communion with God 444. 9. Want of the Spirit of Prayer 446 10. Unprofitableness through want of Gifts 450 11. Greatness of sin and unworthiness 452 A twofold Worthiness and Righteousness 453 12. Want of a deep Hatred to sin Fear lest stronger Temptation would overthrow us 456 13. Fear of committing the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost 459 14. Lest it be too late and the time of Grace be past Time of Grace past in a double sense 461 15. Sinning since Profession against Conscience on Deliberation 465 16. Not overcoming Corruptions and not Growing in Grace 469 17. Blasphemous and Unbelieving thoughts 476 18. Fears of Death 481 19. Heavy Afflictions 483 20. Not being Afflicted 484 DIRECTION XXX Carefully discern whether your Doubts are such as must be cured by the consideration of General or of Special Grace And be sure that when you lose the sight of Certain Evidence that you let not go Probabilities Or at the worst when you are beaten from both and judge your self Graceless yet lose not the Comforts of General Grace 489 DIRECTION XXXI In all pressing Necessities take the advice of your Pastors 1. Keep it not secret 2. In what Cases to seek advice 3. To what Ends. 4. Of what sort of Ministers and whom to avoyd 5. In what manner to open your Case Objections answered against confessing sin to Pastors Reasons why Ministers have not fully acquainted their People with the great duty of confessing and opening their Case to them 499 DIRECTION XXXII Understand that the height of Christian Life and the greatest part of your Duty lyeth in A loving Delight in God and a Thankful and Chearful Obedience to his Will which you must be still endeavouring and subordinate all other duties to these 523 Ministers and Christians should keep the Lords day as a day of Thanksgiving for the work of Redemption and spend more of it in Praises Psalms Hymns c. and less in Confessing c. 533 How Christians wrong Christ and Religion and contradict the main design of Grace by their sad dejected lives 536 Stand not Complaining and Doubting but Chearfully Amend and Obey 537 ERRATA PAg. 16. lin 3. for quit r. quiet p. 44. l. 22. before arise put or p. 67. l. 26 27. for define put explain p. 164. l. 5. after bad make a stop p. 174. l. 2. for given r. even p. 186. l. 10. for their r. the. p. 204. l. 21. for and r. are p. 259. l. 23. for nobility r. mobility p. 455. l. 17. for our faith r. one saith p. 482. l. 28. between the two it s put as p. 526. l. 27. r. Thankfully THE RIGHT METHOD For a setled PEACE OF CONSCIENCE and Spirituall COMFORT In XXXII DIRECTIONS IT must be understood that the Case here to be resolved is not How an unhumbled prophane sinner that never was Convinced of Sin and Misery should be brought to a setled Peace of Conscience Their Carnall Peace must first be broken and they must be so far humbled as to finde the want and worth of Mercy that Christ and his Consolations may not seem contemptible in their eyes It is none of my business now to give any advice for the furthering of this Conviction or Humiliation But the Case in hand is How a Sinner may attain to a setled Peace of Conscience and some competent measure of the Joy of the holy Ghost who hath been convinced of Sin and Misery and long made a Profession of Holiness but liveth in continuall doubtings of their sincerity and fears of Gods wrath because of an exceeding Deadness of spirit and a want of that Love to God and Delight in him and sweetness in Duty and witness of the Spirit and Communion with God and other the like Evidences which are found in the Saints How far
you would you stand asking first How shall I know that it is mine or rather Take and Eat it when you are sure it may be yours if you will Let me intreat you therefore when the devil clamours in your ears Christ and Salvation is none of thine suppose that this voice of God in the Gospel were still in your ears yea let it be still in your memory O Take Christ and Life in him that thou maist be saved still think that you hear Paul following you with these words We are Embassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead be Reconciled to God Will you but remember this when you are on your knees in sorrow and when you would fain have Christ and Life and you are afraid that God will not give them to you I say Remember then God stands by Beseeching you to Accept the same thing which you are Beseeching him to give God is the first suitor and solicitor God Prayes you to Take Christ and you Pray him to give you Christ what have you now to do but to Take him And here understand that this Taking is no Impossible business it is no more but your hearty Consenting as I shall tell you more anon If you did but well understand and consider that Beleeving is the great Duty that God calls you to perform and promiseth to save you if you do truly perform it and that this Beleeving is to Take or Consent to have the same Mercy which you pray for and are troubled for fear least you shall misse of it even Christ and life in him this would presently draw forth your Consent and that in so open and express a way as you could not but discover it and have the comfort of it Remember this then That your first work is to Beleeve or Accept an offered Saviour 2. You must learn as I told you to Receive the Comforts of Universal or General Grace before you search after the Comforts of Special Grace I here suppose you so far sound in the doctrine of the Gospel as neither with some on one hand to look so much at Special Grace as to deny that General Grace which is the Ground of it or presupposed to it nor with others so far to look at universal Mercy as to deny Special Satan will tell you that all your Duties have been done in hypocrisie and you are unsound at the heart and have not a drop of saving Grace You are apt to entertain this and conclude that all this is true If I had any Grace I should have more Life and Love and Delight in God more tenderness of heart more growth in Grace I should not carry about such a Rock in my breast such a stupid dull insensible soul c. At the present let us suppose that all this be true yet see what a world of Comfort you may gather from Universal or General Mercy I have before opened to you four parts of it in the Cause of your Happiness and three in the Effect which may each of them afford much relief to your troubled soul 1. Suppose you are yet Graceless is it nothing to you that it is a God of Infinite Mercy that you have to do with whose Compassions are ten thousand times greater then your dearest friends or your own husbands Object O but yet he will not save the Graceless Answ True but he is the more ready to give Grace that you may be saved If any of you mark any of you do lack wisdome let him ask it of God who giveth to all men liberally without desert and upbraideth not with our unworthiness or former faults and it shall be given him Jam. 1.4 If you that are evil can give good gifts to your children how much more shall your heavenly Father give his holy Spirit to them that ask it Luk. 11.13 Suppose your life were in the hands of your own husband or your childrens life in your hands would it not exceedingly comfort you or them to consider whose hands they are in though yet you had no further Assurance how you should be used It may be you will say But God is no Father to the Graceless I answer He is not their Father in so neer and strict a sense as he is the Father of Beleevers but yet a Father he is even to the wicked and to convince men of his Fatherly Mercy to them he often so stileth himself He saith by Moses Deut. 32.6 to a wicked generation whose spot was not the spot of his children Do ye thus requite the Lord O foolish people and unwise Is not he thy Father that bought thee hath he not made thee and established thee And the Prodigall could call him Father for his encouragement before he returned to him Luk. 15.16 17 18. For my own part I must needs profess that my soul hath more frequent support from the consideration of Gods Gracious and Merciful nature then from the Promise it self 2. Furthermore Suppose you were Graceless at the present yet is it not an exceeding Comfort that there is one of such Infinite Compassions as the Lord Christ who hath assumed our Nature and is come down to seek and save that which was lost and is more tender hearted to poor sinners then we can possibly conceive yea who hath made it his Office to Heal and Relieve and Restore and Reconcile Yea that hath himself endured such temptations as many of ours For we have not an high-Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities but was in all points tempted like as we are without sin Let us therefore saith the holy Ghost come boldly unto the throne of Grace that we may obtain Mercy and finde Grace to help in time of need Heb. 4.15 16. Forasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and bloud he also himself likewise took part with them that he might destroy through death him that had the power of death that is the devil and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage For verily he took not on him the nature of Angels but he took on him the seed of Abraham Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his Brethren that he might be a Merciful and faithful high-Priest in things pertaining to God to make Reconciliation for the sins of the people For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted he is able to succour them that are tempted Heb. 2.14 15 16 17 18. Have you discountenance from men Christ had much more Doth God seem to forsake you so he did by Christ Are you fain to lye on your knees crying for Mercy why Christ in the days of his flesh was fain to offer up strong cryes and tears to him that was able to save him and was heard in that he feared It seems that Christ had distressing fears as well as you though not sinful fears Have you horrid
temptations why Christ was tempted to cast himself headlong and to worship the Devil for worldly preferment Yea the devil had power to carry his body up and down to the pinacle of the Temple and the top of a mountain If he had such power of you would you not think your self certainly his slave I conclude therefore as it is an exceeding ground of comfort to all the sick people in a City to know that there is a most merciful and skilful Physitian that is easily able to cure them and hath undertaken to do it freely for all that will take him for their Physitian so is it a ground of exceeding comfort to the worst of sinners to all sinners that are yet alive and have not blasphemed the holy Ghost to know what a Merciful and sufficient Saviour hath undertaken the work of mans Redemption 3. Also Suppose yet that you are Graceless Is it nothing that a sufficient Sacrifice and Ransome is given for you This is the very foundation of all solid Peace I think this is a great comfort to know that God looks now for no satisfaction at your hand and that the Number or Greatness of your sins as such cannot now be your ruine For certainly no man shall perish for want of the payment of his Ransome or of an expiatory Sacrifice for sin but only for want of a willing heart to Accept him that hath freely Ransomed them 4. Also Suppose you are Graceless Is it nothing that God hath under his hand and seal made a full and free Deed of Guift to you and all sinners of Christ and with him of pardon and salvation and all this on Condition of your Acceptance or Consent I know the Despisers of Christ shall be miserable for all this But for you that would fain have Christ is it no comfort to know that you shall have him if you will and to finde this to be the summe of the Gospel I know you have oft read those free offers Rev. 22.17 Whosoever will let him take of the water of life freely Hoe every one that thirsteth come and drink c. Almost all that I have hitherto said to you is comprised in that one text Joh. 3.16 God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting Life And as I have shewed it you in the Causes what Comfort even General Mercie may afford so let me a little shew it you in the Effects I mean not only in that God is now satisfied but as to your self and every sinner these three things are produced hereby 1. There is now a Possibility of Salvation to you And certainly even that should be a very great Comfort I know you will meet with some Divines who will tell you that this is no effect of Christs death and that else Christ should die for God if he procured him a Power to save which he had not before But this is no better then a Reproaching of our Redeemer Suppose that a Traytor have so abused a King that it will neither stand with his own Honour nor Justice nor Laws to pardon him If his Compassion were so great that his own Son shall suffer for him that so the King might be capable of pardoning him without any diminution of his Honour or Justice were it not a vile reproach if this Traytor should tell the Prince that suffered for him It was for your Father that you suffered to procure him a Power of pardoning it was not for me It s true the King could not pardon him without satisfaction to his Honour and Justice But this was not through any Impotency but because the thing was not fit to be done and so was Morally Impossible For in Law we say Dishonest things are Impossible And it had been no losse to the King if the Traytor had not been pardoned So is it in our Case And therefore Christs sufferings could not be more eminently for us then by enabling the offended Majesty to forgive us and so taking the greatest impediment out of the way for when impediments are once removed Gods Nature is so Gracious and prone to Mercy that he would soon pardon us when once it is fit to be done and so Morally possible in the fullest sense only mens own Unwillingness now stands in the way and makes it to be not fully fit to be yet done It s true in a Remote sense the Pardon of sin was alway Possible but in the neerest sense it was Impossible till Christ made it Possible by his Satisfaction 2. Nay though you were yet Graceless you have now this Comfort that your Salvation is Probable as well as Possible You are very fair for it The termes be not hard in themselves on which it is tendered For Christs yoak is easie and his burden light and his Commands are not grievous The word is nigh you even the offer of Grace you need not say who shall ascend to Heaven or go down to hell Rom. 10. But this will appear in the next 3. Yea this exceeding Comfort there is even for them that are Graceless that their Salvation is Conditionally Certain and the Condition is but their own willingness They may all have Christ and Life if they will Now I desire you in all your Doubts that you will well consider and improve this one Truth and Ground of Comfort Would you in the midst of your groans and complaints and fears take it for a small mercy to be certain that you shall have Christ if you will when you are praying for Christ in fear and anguish of spirit if an Angel or voice from Heaven should say to you It shall be unto thee according to thy will If thou wilt have Christ and Life in him thou shalt would this be no Comfort to you would it not revive you and overcome your fears By this time I hope you see what abundance of Comfort General Mercy or Grace may afford the soul before it perceive yea or receive any special Grace though few of those that receive not Special Grace can make much use of General yet it is propounded to them as well as others 1. All the terrifying Temptations which are grounded on misrepresentations of God as if he were a cruel destroyer to be fled from are dispelled by the due consideration of his Goodness and the deep setled apprehensions of his Gracious Merciful Lovely Nature which indeed is the first work of true Religion and the very master Radical Act of true Grace and the chief maintainer of Spiritual Life and Motion 2. All these Temptations are yet more effectually dispelled by considering this Merciful Divine Nature dwelling in flesh becoming man by condescending to the Assumption of our humane Nature and so come neer us and assuming the Office of being the Mediator the Redeemer the Saviour of the world 3. All your doubts and fears that proceed from your former sins whether of youth or
be drunk or may murder or commit adultery or steal or forswear himself and yet be a true Christian and be saved Or just so far a man may go in neglecting duty to God and man and in cherishing his flesh hiding his sin c. and yet be a true Believer and be saved This would 1. Embolden men in sinning and make them think I may yet venture for I stand on safe ground 2. And it would hinder Repentance Indeed it would be the way to rob God of his honour and multiply provocations against him and keep his children in disobedience and hinder their growth in holiness and cause a deformity in Christs body and a shame to his Religion and sacred name As for those that say Assurance never encourageth men in sin but tends to destroy it I answer It is true of Gods Assurance seasonably given to those that are fit for it and used by them accordingly But if God should have told all the world just how far they may sin and yet be certain of salvation this would have bred Assurance in those that were unfit for it and it would have been but the putting of new wine into old crackt bottles or a new piece into an old garment that would break them or make worse the rent I must therefore freely tell these objectors I am sorry that so many of my old acquaintance now harp so much on this Antinomian string that ignorance or error hath so blinded them that they have forgotten or know not 1. What an imperfect piece the best is in this life much more the worst true Christian 2. Nor what a subtil Devil we have to tempt us 3. Nor what an active thing corruption is and what advantage it will take on unseasonable Assurance 4. Nor what the nature of Grace and Sanctification is and how much of it lies in a godly jealousie of our selves and apprehension of our danger and that the fear of God is the beginning of wisedom See Heb. 4.1 Nay 5. They have forgotten what a man is and how inseparable from his nature is the Principle of self-preservation and how necessary the apprehension of danger and the fear of evil to himself is to the avoiding of that evil and so to his preservation 8. Yea if they knew but what a Commonwealth or a family is they would know that fear of evil and desire of self-preservation is the very motive to Associations and the groundwork of all Laws and Government and a great part of the life of all Obedience And thus I have fully proved to you That the smallest measure of Grace cannot help men to Assurance in Gods ordinary way Perhaps you will say What comfort is there in this to a poor weak Christian This is rather the way to put him quite out of heart and hope I answer No such matter I shall shew you the uses of this observation in the following Directions In the mean time I will say but this The expectations of unseasonable Assurance and out of Gods way is a very great cause of keeping many in languishing and distress and of causing others to turn Antinomians and snatch at comforts which God never gave them and to feign and frame an Assurance of their own making or build upon the delusions of the great Deceiver transforming himself into an Angel of Light DIRECTION XIII 13. From the last mentioned Observation there is one plain Consectary arising which I think you may do well to note by the way viz. That According to Gods ordinary way of giving Grace it cannot be expected that Christians should be able to know the very time of their first receiving or acting true saving Grace or just when they were Pardoned Justified Adopted and put into a state of Salvation THis must needs be undeniable if you grant the former Point That the least measure of Grace yieldeth not Assurance of its sincerity which is proved and withall if you grant this plain truth That it is Gods ordinary way to give a small measure of Grace at the first This I prove thus 1. Christ likeneth Gods Kingdom of Grace to a grain of mustard seed which is at first the least of all seeds but after cometh to a tree And to a little leaven which leaveneth the whole lump I will not deny but this may be applied to the visible progress of the Gospel and increase of the Church but it is plainly appliable also to the Kingdom of Christ within us 2. The Scripture oft calleth such young beginners Babes Children Novices c. 3. We are all commanded still to grow in Grace which implieth that we have our smallest measure at the first 4. Heb. 5.12 sheweth that strength of Grace should be according to time and means 5. Common experience is an invincible argument for this Men are at a distance from Christ when he first calleth them to come to him and many steps they have Toward him before they reach To him We are first so far enlightned as to see our sin and misery and the meaning and truth of the Gospel and so rowsed out of our security and made to look about us and see that we have souls to save or lose and that it is no jesting matter to be a Christian and so we come to understand the tenour of the Covenant and Christs termes of saving men But alas how long is it usually after this before we come sincerely to yield to his termes and take him as he is offered and Renounce the World Flesh and the Devil and Give up our selves to him in a faithfull Covenant We are long deliberating before we can get our backward hearts to Resolve How then should a man know just when he was past the highest step of common or preparative Grace and arived at the first step of special Grace Yet mark that I here speak only of Gods ordinary way of giving Grace For I doubt not but in some God may give a higher Degree of Grace at the first day of their conversion then some others do attain in many years And those may know the time of their true Conversion both because the effect was so discernable and because the suddenness makes the change more sensible and observable But this is not the ordinary course Ordinarily Convictions lye long on the soul before they come to a true Conversion Conscience is wounded and smarting long and long grudging against our sinfull and negligent courses and telling us of the Necessity of Christ and a holy life before we sincerely obey Conscience and give up our selves to Christ We seldom yield to the first conviction or perswasion The Flesh hath usually too long time given it to plead its own Cause and to say to the Soul Wilt thou forsake all thy pleasure and merry company and courses Wilt thou beggar thy self or make thy self a scorn and mocking stock to the world Art thou ever able to hold out in so strict a course and to be undone and to
forsake all and lay down thy life for Christ Is it not better venture thy self in the same way as thou hast gone in as well as others do and as so many of thy forefathers have done before thee Under such sinfull Deliberations as these we usually continue long before we fully Resolve And many demurres and delayes we make before we conclude to take Christ on the terms that he is offered to us Now I make no doubt but most or many Christians can remember how and when God stirred their Consciences and wakened them from their security and made them look about them and roused them out of their natural Lethargy Some can tell what Sermon first did it Others can remember by what degrees and steps God was doing it long The ordinary way appointed by God for the doing of it first is the instruction of Parents And as I have fullier manifested in my Book of Infant Baptism if Parents would do their duties they would find that The Word publikely preached was not appointed to be the first ordinary means of Conversion and Sanctification but commonly Grace would be received in childhood I speak not of Baptismal Relative Grace consisting in the pardon of Original sin nor yet any infusion of Habits before they have the use of reason because I suppose it is hid from us what God doth in that But I speak of actual Conversion and I prove that this should be the first ordinary way and time of Conversion to the children of true Christians because it is the first means that God hath appointed to be used with them Deut. 6.6 7 8. Eph. 6.4 Parents are commanded to teach their children the Law of God urgently at home and as they walk abroad lying down and rising up and to bring them up in the admonition and nurture of the Lord and to train up a child in the way he should go and then when they are old they will not depart from it Prov. 22.6 And children are commanded to Remember their Creator in the dayes of their youth Eccles 12.1 And if this be Gods first great means then doubtless he will ordinarily bless his own means here as well as in the Preaching of the Word From all this I would have you learn this lesson That you ought not to trouble your self with fears and doubts lest you are not truly Regenerate because you know not the Sermon or the very time and manner of your Conversion but finde that you have grace and then though you know not just the time or manner of your receiving of it yet you may nevertheless be Assured of Salvation by it Search therefore what you are and how your will is disposed and resolved and how your Life is ordered rather then to know how you became such I know the workings of the Spirit on the soul may be discerned because they stir up discernable Actings in our own spirits The souls Convictions Consideration Resolutions and Affections are no insensible things But yet the work of Grace usually begins in common Grace and so proceeds by degrees till it come to special saving Grace even as the work of nature doth first producing the matter and then introducing the form first producing the embryo before it introduce a Rational soul And as no child knows the time or manner of his own Formation Vivification or Reception of that soul so I think few true Believers can say Just such a day or at such a Sermon I became a true Justified sanctified man That was the hour of your true Conversion and Justification When you first preferred God and Christ and Grace before all things in this world and deliberately and seriously Resolved to take Christ for your Saviour and Governour and give up your self to him to be saved taught and governed and to obey him faithfully to the death against all Temptations whatsoever you should lose or suffer by it Now I would but ask those very Christians that think they do know the very Sermon that converted them Did that Sermon bring you to this Resolution Or was it not only some troubling rowsing preparation hereto I think some desperate sickness or the like Affliction is a very usual means to bring Resolutions to be downright and fixed with many souls that long delayed and fluctuated in unresolvedness and lay under meer uneffectual Convictions Obj. But this runs on your own grounds that saving Grace and common Grace do differ but in degrees Answ I think most will confess that as to the Acts of Grace and that is it that we are now enquiring after and that is all the means that we have of discerning the Habits Yet remember that I still tell you That there is a specifical Moral difference though grounded but in a gradual Natural difference Yea and that one grain of the Spirits working which turns the Will in a prevalent measure for Christ together with the illumination necessary thereto deserves all those elogies and high titles that are given it in the Word so great a change doth it make in the soul Well may it be called The New Creature Born of the Spirit The Workmanship of God The new Life yea The Image of God and The Divine Nature if that Text be not meant of the Divine Nature in Christ which we are Relatively made partakers of in our Union with him When you are weighing things in the balance you may add grain after grain and it makes no turning or motion at all till you come to the very last grain and then suddenly that end which was downward is turned upward When you stand at a loss between two highwayes not knowing which way to go as long as you are deliberate you stand still All the Reasons that come into your minde do not stir you But the last Reason which Resolves you setteth you in motion So is it in the change of a sinners heart and life He is not changed but preparing towards it while he is but Deliberating Whether he should choose Christ or the world But the last Reason that comes in and Determineth his Will to Christ and makes him resolve and enter a firm Covenant with Christ and say I will have Christ for Better or Worse this maketh the greatest change that ever is made by any work in this world For how can there be greater then the turning of a soul from the creature to the Creator so distant are the Terms of this change After this one Turning act Christ hath that Heart and the main bent and endeavours of the life which the world had before The man hath a new End a new Rule and Guide and a new Master Before the Flesh and the Devil were his Masters and now Christ is his Master So that you must not think so meanly of the Turning Determining Resolving act of Grace because it lieth but in a gradual difference naturally from common Grace If a Prince should offer a condemned beggar to marry her and pardon her and make her
Repented Believed in a Redeemer c. but for thy sin Yet I hope none will say that so doing is properly a sin though doing them defectively is God doth not will and approve of it that any soul that can see no signes of Grace and sincerity in it self should yet be as confident and merry and careless as if they were certain that all were well God would not have men doubt of his Love and yet make light of it This is a contempt of him Else what should poor carnall sinners do that finde themselves unsanctified No nor doth God expect that any man should judge of himself better then he hath evidence to warrant such a judgement But that every man should prove his own work that so he may have rejoycing in himself alone and not in another For he that thinketh he is something when he is nothing deceiveth himself Gal. 6.3 4 5 6. And no man should be a self-deceiver especially in a case of such unexpressible consequence It is therefore a most desperate doctrine of the Antinomians as most of theirs are that all men ought to believe Gods special Love to them and their own Justification and that they are justified by Believing that they were justified before and that no man ought to question his faith saith Saltmarsh any more then to question Christ and that all fears of our Damnation or not being Justified after this Believing are sinne and those that perswade to them are Preachers of the Law How punctually do the most prophane ungodly people hold most points of the Antinomian belief though they never knew that Sect by name God commandeth no man to Believe more then is true nor immediatly to cast away their doubts and fears but to overcome them in an orderly methodical way that is using Gods means till their Graces become more discernable and their understandings more clear and fit to discern them that so we may have Assurance of their sincerity and thereby of our Justification Adoption and right to Glorification Heb. 4.1 Let us therefore fear least a Promise being left of entring into his Rest any of us should seem to come short of it Psal 2.11 Serve the Lord with fear and rejoyce before him with trembling Kiss the Sonne lest he be angry and ye perish Phil. 2.12 Work out your salvation with fear and trembling Not only 1. A reverent fear of Gods Majesty 2. And a filial fear of offending him 3. And an awfull fear of his Judgements when we see them executed on others and hear them threatned 4. And a filial fear of temporal chastisements and lawfull and our duty but also 5. A fear of damnation exciting to most carefull importunity to escape it when ever we have so far obscured our evidences as to see no strong probability of our sincerity in the faith and so of our salvation The summe of my speech therefore is this Do not think that all your fears of Gods wrath are your sins Much of them is your great duty Do you not feel that God made these fears at your first conversion the first and a principal means of your Recovery to drive you to a serious consideration of your state and waies and to look after Christ with more longing and estimation and to use the means with more resolution and diligence Have not these fears been chief preservers of your diligence and integrity ever since I know love should do more then it doth with us all But if we had not daily use for both Love and Fear God would not 1. Have planted them both in our natures 2. And have renewed them both by regenerating Grace 3. And have put into his word the objects to move both viz. Threatnings as well as Promises That fear of God which is the beginning of wisdom includeth the fear of his threatned wrath I could say abundance more to prove this but that I know as to you it is needless for conviction of it but remember the use of it Do not put the name of unbelief upon all your fears of Gods displeasure Much less should you presently conclude that you have no faith and that you cannot believe because of these fears You may have much faith in the midst of these fears and God may make them preservers of your faith by quickning you up to that means that must maintain it and by keeping you from those evils that would be as a worm at the root of it and eat out its precious strength and life Security is no friend to faith but a deadlier enemy then fear it self Obj. Then Cain and Judas sinned not by despairing or at least not damnably Answ 1. They despaired not only of themselves and of the event of their salvation but also of God of his Power or Goodness and Promise and the sufficiency of any satisfaction of Christ Their infidelity was the root of their despair 2. Farre is it from me to say or think that you should despair of the event or that it is no sin yea or that you should cherish causeless and excessive jealousies and fears I shall shew you towards the end the sinfulness of so doing Take heed of all fears that drive you from God or that distract or weaken your spirit or disable you from duty or drown your love to God and delight in him and destroy your apprehensions of Gods Loveliness and Compassion and raise black and hard and unworthy thoughts of God in your minde Again I intreat you avoid and abhorre all such fears But if you find in you the fears of godly jealousie of your own heart and such moderated fears of the wrath of God which banish security presumption and boldness in sinning and are as D. Sibbs cals them the awe-band of your soul and make you fly to the merits and bosom of the Lord Jesus as the affrighted child to the lap of the mother and as the man-slayer under the Law to the City of refuge and as a man pursued by a Lion to his Sanctuary or hold do not think you have no faith because you have these fears but moderate them by faith and love and then thank God for them Indeed Perfect love which will be in heaven when all is perfected will cast out this fear and so it will do sorrow and care and prayer and means But see you lay not these by till Perfect love have cast them out See Jer. 5.22 23. Heb. 12. two last verses Wherefore we receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved let us serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear For our God is a consuming fire I am sensible that I am too large on these foregoing heads I will purposely shorten the rest lest I weary you DIRECTION XIX 19. Further understand that Those few who do attain to Assurance have it not either perfectly or constantly for the most part but mixt with imperfection and oft clouded and interrupted THat the highest Assurance on earth is imperfect I have shewed
rather of vice against nature There is a common Grace of God that goeth along with common Truths and according to the measure of their obedience to the Truth such was the change it wrought which was done by common Truths and common Grace together but not by their false mixtures at all But God hath annexed his special Grace only to the special Truths of the Gospel or Christian-Religion If therefore God do by common Grace work a great change on a Heathen by the means of common Truths and do by his special Grace work a greater and special change on you by the means of the special truths of the Gospel have you any reason hereupon to suspect your condition or should you not rather both admire that providence and common Grace which is manifested without the Church and humbly rejoycingly and thankfully embrace that special saving Grace which is manifested to your self above them 2. And for that which you speak of Education you have as much cause to doubt of your conversion because it was wrought by publike preaching as because it was wrought by Education For 1. Both are by the Gospel For it is the Gospel that your Parents taught you as well as which the Preacher teacheth you 2 I have shewed you that if Parents did not shamefully neglect their duties the Word Publikely preached would not be the ordinary instrument of Regeneration to the Children of true Christians but would onely build them up and direct them in the faith and in obedience The proof is very plain If we should speak nothing of the Interest of our Infants in the Covenant-Grace upon the Conditional force of their Parents faith nor of their Baptism yet Deut. 6. Eph. 6. and oft in the Proverbs you may finde that it is Gods strict Command that Parents should teach Gods word to their Children and bring them up in the Nurture and Admonition of the Lord yea with a prediction or half promise that if we train up a childe in the way he should go when he is old he shall not depart from it Prov. 22.6 Now its certain that God will usually bless that which he appointeth to be the usual means if it be rightly used For he hath appointed no means to be used in vain I hope therefore by this time you see that instead of being troubled that the work was done on your soul by the means of Education 1. You had more Reason to be troubled if it had been done first by the publike Preaching of the word For it should grieve you at the heart to think 1. That you lived in an unregenerate state so long and spent your childehood in vanity and sin and thought not seriously on God and your salvation for so many years together 2. And that you or your Parents sin should provoke God so long to withdraw his Spirit deny you his Grace 2. You may see also what unconceiveable thanks you owe to God who made Education the means of your early change 1. In that he prevented so many and grievous sins which else you would have been guilty of And you may read in Davids and Manasses case that even pardoned sins have oft-times very sad effects left behinde them 2. That you have enjoyed Gods Spirit and Love so much longer then else you would have done 3. That iniquity took not so deep rooting in you as by custom it would have done 4. That the Devil cannot Glory of that service which you did him as else he might and that the Church is not so much the worse as else it might have been by the mischief you would have done and that you need not all your days look back with so much trouble as else you must upon the effects of your ill doing nor with Paul to think of one Stephen yea many Saints in whose blood you first embrued your hands and to cry out I was born out of due time I am not worthy to be called a Christian because I persecuted the Church of God I was mad against them and persecuted them into several Cities I was sometime foolish disobedient serving divers lusts and pleasures Would you rather that God had permitted you to do this 5. And me thinks it should be a comfort to you that your own Father was the Instrument of your spiritual Good that he that was the means of your Generation was the means of your Regeneration both because it will be a double comfort to your Parents and because it will endear and engage you to them in a double bond For my part I know not what God did secretly in my heart before I had the use of memory and reason but the first good that ever I felt on my soul was from the Counsels and teachings of my own father in my childehood and I take it now for a double mercy being gladder that he was the Instrument to do me Good then if it had been the best Preacher in the world How foul an oversight is it then that you should be troubled at one of the choicest mercies of your life yea that your life was capable of and for which you owe to God such abundant thanks DOUBT IV. BVt my great fear is that the life of Grace is not yet within me because I am so void of spiritual sense and feeling Me thinks I am in spiritual things as Dead as a block and my heart as hard as a Rock or the nether Mill-stone Grace is a principle of new Life and Life is a principle of sense and motion it causeth vigour and Activity such should I have in Duty if I had the Life of Grace But I feel the great curse of a dead heart within me God seems to withdraw his quickening Spirit and to forsake me and to give me up to the hardness of my heart If I were in Covenant with him I should feel the blessing of the Covenant within me The hard heart would be taken out of my body and a heart of flesh a soft heart would be given to me But I cannot weep one tear for my sins I can think on the blood of Christ and of my bloody sins that caused it and all will not wring one tear from mine eyes And therefore I fear that my soul is yet destitute of the life of Grace ANSWER 1. A Soft heart consisteth in two things 1. That the Will be perswadable tractable and yielding to God and plyable to his will 2. That the Affections or Passions be somewhat moved herewithal about spiritual things Some degree more or less of the latter doth concur with the former but I have told you that it is the former wherein the heart and life of Grace doth lie and that the latter is very various and uncertain to try by Many do much overlook the Scripture-meaning of the word Hard-heartedness Mark it up and down concerning the Israelites who are so oft charged by Moses David Isaiah Jeremiah and other Prophets to be hard-hearted or to
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
thing before I confess it hath been a strengthening to my own faith to see the Devil such an Enemy to the Christian faith yea to the Godhead it self But perhaps you will say It is not meer Temptation from Satan that I complain of but it takes too much with my sinful heart I am ready to doubt oft-times whether there be a God or whether his Providence determine of the things here below or whether Scripture be true or the Soul immortal c. Answ This is a very great sin and you ought to bewail and abhorr it and in the Name of God make not light of it but look to it betime But yet let me tell you that some degree of this Blasphemy and Infidelity may remain with the truest saving Faith The best may say Lord I believe help thou mine unbelief But I will tell you my Judgement When your unbelief is such as to be a sign of a Graceless soul in the state of damnation If your Doubtings of the Truth of Scripture and the Life to come be so great that you will not let go the pleasures and profits of sin and part with all if God call you to it in Hope of that Glory promised and to escape the Judgement threatned because you look upon the things of the life to come but as uncertain things then is your Belief no saving Belief but your unbelief is prevalent But if for all your staggerings you see so much probabilâ—ty of the Truth of Scripture and the Life to come that you are resolved to venture and part with if called to it all worldly Hopes and Happiness for the Hope of that promised Glory and to make it the chiefest business of your life to attain it and do deny your self the pleasures of sin for that end this is a true saving Faith as is evident by its Victory notwithstanding all the Infidelity Atheism and Blasphemy that is mixt with it But again let me advise you to take heed of this hainous sin and bewail and detest the very least degree of it It is dangerous when the Devil strikes at the very root and heart foundation of all your religion There is more sinfulness and danger in this then in many other sins And therefore let it never be motioned to your soul without abhorrence Two ways the Devil hath to move it The one is by his immediate inward suggestions these are bad enough The other is by his Accursed Instruments and this is a far more dangerous way whether it be by books or by the words of men And yet if it be by notorious wicked men or fools the Temptation is the less but when it is by men of cunning wit and smooth tongues and hypocritical lives for far be that wickedness from me as to call them Godly or wise or honest then it is the greatest snare that the Devil hath to lay O just and Dreadful God! did I think one day that those that I was then praying with and rejoycing with and that went up with me to the house of God in familiarity would this day be blasphemers of thy sacred Name and deny the Lord that bought them and deride thy holy word as a fable and give up themselves to the present pleasures of sin because they Believe not thy promised Glory Righteous and Merciful God! that hast preserved the humble from this Condemnation and hast permitted only the Proud and Sensual Professors to fall into it and hast given them over to Hellish Conversations according to the nature of their Hellish opinions that they might be rather a terror to others then a snare I call their Doctrine and Practice Hellish from its Original because it comes from the Father of Lyes but not that there is any such opinion or practice in Hell He that tempts others to Deny the Godhead the Christian faith the Scripture the Life to come doth no whit doubt of any one of them himself but believes and Trembles O fearful blindness of the professors of Religion that wil hear if not receive these Blasphemies from the mouth of an Apostate Professor which they would abhor if it came immediately from the Devil himself With what sad complaints and trembling do poor sinners cry out and not without Cause O I am haunted with such Blaspemous temptations that I am afraid lest God should suddenly destroy me that ever such thoughts should come into my heart But if an Instrument of the Devil come and plead against the Scripture or the Life to come or Christ himself they will hear him with less detestation The Devil knows that familiarity will cause us to take that from a man which we would abhor from the Devil himself immediately I intend not to give you now a particular preservative against each of these Temptations Only let me tell you that this is the direct way to Infidelity Apostacy and the sin against the Holy Ghost and if by any Seducers the Devil do overcome you herein you are lost for ever and there will be no more sacrifice for your sin but a fearful expectation of judgment and that fire which shal devour the adversaries of Christ DOUBT XVIII I Have so great fears of Death and unwillingness to be with God that I am afraid I have no Grace for if I had Pauls spirit I should be able to say with him I desire to depart and to be with Christ Whereas now no news would be to me more unwelcome ANSWER THere is a loathness to Dye that comes from a Desire to do God more service and another that comes from an Apprehension of unreadiness when we would fain have more Assurance of Salvation first or would be fitter to meet our Lord. Blame not a man to be somewhat backward that knows it must go with him for ever in Heaven or Hell according as he is found at death But these two be not so much a loathness to Dye as a loathness to Dye now at this time 3. There is also in all men living Good and bad a natural abhorrence and fear of death God hath put this into mans nature even in Iâ—nocency to be his great means of Governing the World No man would live in ordâ—â— or be kept in obedience but for this He that cares not for his own Life is Master of anothers Grace doth not root out this abhorrency of Death no more then it unmanneth us Onely it restrains it from excess and so far overcometh the violence of the Passion by the apprehensions of a better life beyond death that a Believer may the more quietly and willingly submit to it Paul himself desireth not Death but the Life which followeth it He desireth to depart and to be with Christ that is He had rather be in Heaven then on earth and therefore he is contented to submit to the penal sharp passage God doth not command you to Desire death it self nor forbid you fearing it as an evil to nature and a punishment of sin Only he
have any strong Christians among them yet we have had the knowledge of such at home 2. Besides the Difficulty of the Subject is a clear Argument that a strong Christian may be uncertain of it God hath made all those points plain in Scripture which must be Believed as of Necessity to Salvation But the Certainty of all Believers Perseverance is not a Point of flat Necessity to Salvation to be Believed Otherwise it would be a hard matter to prove that any considerable number were ever saved till of late or are yet saved but in a very few Countries It is a Point that the Churches never did put into their Creed where they summed up those Points that they held necessary to Salvation There are a great number of Texts of Scripture which seeming to intimate the contrary do make the Point of great Difficulty to many of the wisest And those Texts that are for it are not so express as fully to satisfie them Besides that the examples of these ten years last past have done more to stagger many sober wise Christians in this Point then all the Arguments that ever were used by Papists Arminians or any other To see what kinde of men in some places have fallen and how far as I am unwilling further to mention If you ask me what I think of this my self and consequently what Assurance I have of my own Salvation I will freely tell you both how far I am arrived in Assurance of Sincerity of Grace and Justification and how farre in the matter of Perseverance and so of Salvation I lay seven years under great Doubtings of the truth of my Sanctification especially for want of those Lively Affectionate Heart-melting effects which I desired to have found and for want of Deeper apprehensions of God Christ Glory Sin Misery Mercy Duty c. which made me still fear that all I had was but the meer effects of Education Reading and Speculative Knowledge and so that I had only a Notional Religion that touched my Phantasie and swom in my Brain but workt not throughly on my Heart for want of more Deep and Serious Believing of those holy Truths which should be operative Yet all this while Probabilities of Grace affording me that which we commonly call Hope did bear me up Now through the great unspeakable Mercy of my God I have attained to so strong a Probability of my Sincerity and Sanctification as in a large sense may be called Assurance or Certainty but not in the strictest sense much less is it a perfect Assurance I have so strong a perswasion of the truth of my Faith and so of the pardon of my sinnes as overcometh most doubtings and trouble of minde and keepeth me in quietness and peace of minde and some Joy in the holy Ghost and Delightfull thoughts of my everlasting Rest and gives me a Confidence in God and Access with boldness to the Throne of his Grace But yet I finde that carnal security hath a great hand in the alaying of my troubles though not in the raising of my Joyes And it is no unusual thing for a good Cause and a bad Faith Assurance and Carnal security to joyn together in one effect even in expelling trouble from the heart Yet dare I scarce say in the usual sense of the word that I am certain of my Sincerity and so of my Justification especially when Temptations have prevailed and the strength of the fleshes interest and the weakness of Christs interest in my Estimation and Will and Affections have appeared more then ordinary And when I have thought how much stronger Trials I may yet be put to which others daily undergo especially the Temptations of Prosperity do oftner make me fear then those of persecution and adversity I am sometimes afraid lest it be but the weakness of my Body and the distance of Objects and smalness of Temptations that makes them no more prevailing with me And that if I had as strong a body as others and were in that Dignity Wealth and Abundance of all things as some are whether Honors Carâ—al Pleasures Sports Delightfull Meats Drinks Beauty and such vanities might not carry me away as I see they do others that made as great a shew of Holiness Yet do not these doubts much affright or disquiet me because I finde God at present possessing me with those Resolutions to cast away all for Christ which I doubt not are the work of his own Grace and because I have experience of abundance of preventing and sustaining Grace and because I finde at the present that God enableth me to account all things loss and dross and dung for him and easily without much reluctancy to empty my purse for him and his poor and to lay out my time and strength for him and his Church and with some good success to resist Temptations and that I have no Desire in any activity or prevalency to be any higher in the world then I am but think God hath chosen out for me the best condition and station that I could have desired in all the world And then for Perseverance and Salvation this is my Case It is my strong opinion that no man who hath attained to a Rootedness in the Faith and so is throughly sanctified doth ever totally and finally fall away which Christ seemeth to intimate in saying that the Cause why men fall away in Tribulation and Persecution is because the seed had not deep Rooting Mat. 13. And I am yet more confident that none of the Elect shall ever fall away and perswaded that all the Rooted through-Christians are Elect. But yet I dare not say that I am Certain of this that all are elect to salvation and shall never fall away totally and finally who sincerely Believe and are Justified It is my opinion but I dare not put it into my Creed among either the Points of absolute Necessity or undoubted Verity I know how many Texts of Scripture seem to speak otherwise and I know how generally the Primitive Fathers thought otherwise if a man can know their mindes by their Writings I know that Austin himself the Mall of the Pelagians seems to be either unresolv'd or more against this Perseverance then for it I know how many Learned Godly men do differ from me and deny the Certainty of Perseverance I know how sad and shaking examples this age hath afforded And therefore I am not Certain properly strictly Certain of my Perseverance and so not fully strictly Certain of my Salvation Nor so near to a Certainty of my Salvation as I am to a Certainty of my Faith Justification Adoption and Sanctification Yet am I so strongly confident of it that I shall hold out and be saved that it doth not only calm and quiet my minde and overcome my troubles and fears but also enable me to Rejoyce in Hope of the Glory to come and to Desire Christs coming to Judgement and to think of Death with much more contentedness and
submission then else I should do For as I am much perswaded that the Rooted in Grace do never fall quite away so if I were sure that they did yet I know so much of the Graciousness of Gods Nature and his Covenant that he will not forsake any that do not wilfully forsake him and I have so full a Resolution to cleave to him wrought in me by his Spirit and such experience of tender Love and his preserving me in Trials that I have a strong confidence that he will never permit me to fall from him Yet do I see a Necessity of daily praying to him Not to Lead me into Temptation but to Deliver me from the evil and to live in continual watchfulness expecting daily Assaults and renewing daily my Repentance and Resolutions Thus have I as truly as I am now able opened my very heart and state to you as before the Searcher of my heart which I have done for three Reasons 1. That my Judgement may be truly known in the Point of Perseverance 2. Because I finde the communicating of Experiences of each others hearts and states is of great use to Believers 3. Because I finde that many Godly people by divers passages in my Book of Rest about Living in Heavenly Delights do think that I have attained a greater Certainty then I have and that themselves are unhappy and must live uncomfortably till they can attain to that which they think I have done As for those that think and will be ready to say that I am warping to Arminian or Popish Doubting I regard not their words or censures I am none of those that dare in the hearing of God affirm that I have the Certainty which I have not meerly to avoid the suspition of erring Nor dare I by hot Disputes maintain that which the constant Experience of my self and the best and most of my acquaintance doth contradict and believe my Authors before my own heart and the undoubted testimony of Christians concerning themselves Yet remember that I do not deny but many others may have both more Assurance of their own Sincerity and more clear understanding of the Doctrine of Perseverance then I have which may give them a Certainty that no true Believer shall quite fall away I dare not think that others have not a higher degree of Light and Certainty then â— have But I think by this time I have perswaded you that a proper Certainty of our Salvation is not so common a thing as some Controversal Doctors or some self-conceited Prosessors do take it to be And therefore that you must not lay all your comfort on your Assurance of Salvation As for them who are most highly confident both of the doctrine of the Certain Perseverance of every Believer meerly upon tradition and prejudice because they have been alway taught so or else upon weak grounds which will not bear them out in their confidence and are as confident of their own Salvation on as slender grounds having never well understood the Nature of saving Grace Sincerity Examination nor Assurance nor understood the Causes of doubting which might else have shaked them I will not call their greatest Confidence by the name of Assurance or Certainty of Salvation though it be accompanied with never so great boastings or pretenses or expressions of the highest Joyes And for your self I advise you first use those comforts which those may have who come short of Assurance DIRECTION XVI 16. The next thing which I would have you learn is this That There are several grounds of the great Probability of our Salvation besides the general grounds mentioned in the beginning and by the Knowledge of these without any further Assurance a Christian may live in much Peace and Comfort and in Delightfull Desirous thoughts of the Glory to come And therefore the next work which you have to do is to discover those probabilites of your Sincerity and your Salvation and then to receive the Peace and Comfort which they may afford you before you can expect Assurance it self I Shall here open to you the several parts of this Proposition and Direction distinctly 1. I told you in the beginning of the four grounds of Probability which all may have in general from 1. The Nature of God 2. And of the Mediatour and his Office 3. And the universal sufficiency of Christs satisfaction 4. And the general tenour of the Promise and offer of Pardon and Salvation Now I adde that besides all these there are many grounds of strong Probability which you may have of your own Sincerity and so of your particular Interest in Christ and Salvation when you cannot reach to a Certainty 1. Some kinde of Probability you may gather by comparing your self with others Though this way be but delusory to unregenerate men whose confidence is plainly contradicted by the Scriptures yet may it be lawfull and usefull to an humble soul that is willing to obey and wait on God I mean to consider that if such as you should perish how few people would God have in the world Consider first in how narrow a compass the Church was confined before Christs coming in the flesh and how carnal and corrupt even that visible Church then was and even at this day the most Learned do compute that if you divide the world into thirty parts nineteen of them are Heathenish Idolaters six of them are Maâ—ometans and only fiâ—e of them are Christians And of these five that are Christians how great a part are of the Aethiopian Greek and Popish Churches so ignorant rude and superstitious and erroneous that salvation cannot be imagined to be near so easie or ordinary with them as with us and of the Reformed Churches commonly called Protestants how small is the number And even among these What a number are grossely ignorant and prophane and of those that profess more knowledge and zeal how many are grossely Erroneous Schismatical and Scandalous How exceeding smal a number is left then that are such as you I know this is no assuring Argument but I know withall that Christ died not in vain but he will see the fruit of his sufferings to the satisfaction of his soul and the God of Mercy who is a Lover of mankinde will have a multitude innumerable of his saved ones in the earth 2. But your strongest Probabilities are from the Consideration of the Work of God upon your Soul and the present frame and inclination of your Soul to God You may know that you have workings above nature in you and that they have been kept alive and carried on these many years against all opposition of the flesh and the world It hath not been a meer flash of conviction which hath been extinguished by sensuality and left you in the darkness of security and prophanness as others are You dare not give up your Hopes of Heaven for all the world You would not part with Christ and say Let him go for all the pleasures of sin