they perswade poor sinners to Pray for Faith Grace and Christ that is to Desire these and to express their Desires which in effect is to perswade them to Repent Believe and turn to God Indeed if these blind Seducers had ever heard our Ministers perswading wicked men to Dissemble and lye to God and ask Faith Grace and Christ with their tongues but not Desire them in their hearts then had they sufficient grounds for their reviling language but I have been too long on this I may therefore boldly conclude that they that finde themselves unbelievers that is unwilling to have Christ to deliver them from sin must use this second Means to get faith even earnest frequent Prayer for it to God 3. Let such also see that they avoid wicked seducing company and occasions of sin and be sure that they keep company with men fearing God especially joyning with them in their holy duties 4. Lastly Let such be sure that they use that Reason which God hath given them to consider frequently retiredly seriously of the vanity of all those things that steal away their hearts from Christ and of the excellency of Holiness and how blessed a state it is to have nothing in us in heart or life that is displeasing to God but to be such as he taketh full delight in also of the certainty of the damnation of unbeleevers and the intollerableness of their torments and of the certainty and unconceivable greatness of Believers everlasting Happiness If wicked unbelievers would but do what they can in daily serious deep considering of these things and the like they would have no cause to despair of obtaining Faith and Sanctification Believing is a Rational Act God bids you not to Believe any thing without Reason nor to Accept or Consent to any thing without full Reason to cause you to consent Think then often and soberly of those Reasons that should move you to Consent and of the vanity of these that hinder you from Consenting and this is Gods way for you to obtain Faith or Consent Remember then that when you have understood and improved General grounds of Comfort nay before you can come to any full improvement of them your next business is to Believe to Consent to the Match with Christ and to Take him for your Lord and Saviour And this Duty must be lookt to and performed before you look after special Comfort But I said somewhat of this before under the sixth Head and therefore will say no more now DIRECTION X. 10. When you have gone thus far your Soul is safe and you are past your greatest Dangers though yet you are not past your Fears Your next work therefore for Peace and Comfort is this To Review and take Notice of your own Faith and thence to gather Assurance of the Certainty of your Justification and Adoption and right to Glory THe summe of this Direction lyeth in these things 1. See that you do not content your self with the forementioned general Comforts without looking after Assurance and special Comforts The folly of this I have manifested in the third part of my book of Rest about self-examination 2. See that you dream not of finding Assurance and special Comfort from meer general Grounds This is the delusion of many Antinomians and of most of our prophane people who I finde are commonly of the Antinomian faith naturally withouth teaching For men to conclude that they shall certainly be saved meerly because God is Mercifull or Christ is tender-hearted to sinners and would not that any should perish but all should come to Repentance or because God delights not in the death of him that dieth but rather that he Repent and live or because Christ died for them or because God hath given Christ and Life in the Gospel to all on Condition of believing these are all but meer delusions Much Comfort as I have shewed you may be gathered from these Generals but no Certainty of Salvation or special Comfort can be gathered from them alone 3. See that you reject the Antinomian doctrine or dotage which would teach you to reject the tryal and judging of your state by signes of Grace in your self and tell you that it is only the Spirit that must Assure by witnessing your Adoption I will further define this Caution when I have added the rest 4. And on the other extream do not run to Marks unseasonably but in the order here laid down 5. Nor do not trust to unsafe Marks 6. And therefore do not look at too many for the true ones are but few I do but name these things to you because I have fullyer handled them in my book of Rest whether I must refer you And so I return to the third Caution I have in the forementioned Book told you what the Office of the Spirit is in Assuring us and what the use of Marks are The Spirit witnesseth first Objectively and so the Spirit and Marks are all one For it is the Spirit dwelling in us that is the witness or proof that we are Gods sons for he that hath not his Spirit is none of his and the Spirit is not discerned by us in its essence but in its workings and therefore to discern these workings is to discern the Spirit and these workings are the Marks that we speak of so that the Spirit witnesseth our sonship as a reasonable soul witnesseth that you are a man and not a beast You find by the Acts of Reason that you have a Reasonable soul and then you know that having a Reasonable soul you are certainly a man So you finde by the works or fruits of the Spirit that you have the Spirit that is by Marks and Paul enumerates the fruits of the Spirit to that end and then by finding that you have the Spirit you may certainly know that you are the child of God 2. Also as the Reasonable soul is its own discerner by the help of the body while it is in it and so witnesseth our Humanity effectively as well as objectively but first in order objectively and next effectively so doth the Spirit effectively discover it self to the soul by illuminating us to discern it and exciting us to search and giving us that spiritual tast and feeling of its workings and so of its presence by which it is best known But still it witnesseth objectively first and its effective witnessing is but the causing us to discern its objective witness Or to speak more plainly The Spirit witnesseth first and principally by giving us those Graces and workings which are our Marks and then secondly by helping us to finde and feel those workings or Marks in our selves and then lastly by raising Comforts in the soul upon that discovery Take heed therefore of expecting any such inward witness of the Spirit as some expect viz. a discovery of your Adoption directly without first discovering the signes of it within you as if by an inward voice he should say to you Thou art a
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
supposition I explicate the point thus 1. No man may look at his own Graces or Duties as his Legal Righteousness that is such as for which the Law of Works will pronounce him Righteous 2. Nor yet may he take them for part of his Legal Righteousness in conjunction with Christs Righteousness as the other part but here we must go wholly out of our selves and deny and disclaim all such Righteousness of our own We have no Works which make the Reward to be not of Grace but of Debt 3. We must not once think that our Graces Duties or sufferings can make satisfaction to Gods Justice for our sin and unrighteousness nor yet that they are any part of that satisfaction Here we ascribe all â—o Christ who is the only Sacrifice and Ransome 4. Nor must we think that our Duties or Graces are properly Meritorious this â—lso is to be left as the sole honour of Christ â— Yet that we may and must raise our Asâ—urance and Comforts from our own Graâ—es and Duties shall appear in these clear Reasons following which shew also the Grounds on which we may do it 1. Pardon Justification and Adoption and Salvation are all Given to us in the Gospel only Conditionally if we believe and the Condition is an act or rather several acts of our own Now till the Condition be performed no man can have any Certainty that the Benefit shall be his nor can he by any other means ordinarily be certain of the Benefit but by that which ascertaineth him that he hath performed the Condition God saith He that Believeth shall be saved No man can know then that he shall be saved till he first know that he Believeth Else he should know either contrary to that which is written or more then that which is written And Justification and Adoption should be given some other way then by the Gospel Promise for that Promise giveth them only Conditionally and so suspendeth the actual right upon the performance of the Condition But if any can shew any other way by which God maketh over pardon and Adoption besides the Gospel promise let them do it but I will not promise suddenly to believe them for it was never yet shewed as I know of Also if men must not look aâ— their own performance of the Condition to prove their right to the benefit then eitheâ— all or none must believe that they have thaâ— right For the Promise saith He that Believetâ— shall be saved And this is a promise of Lifâ— conditionally to all If all must believe that they shall be saved then most of the world must believe a lye If the true believer may not therefore conclude that he shall be saved because he performeth the condition of the promise then no man may believe it And for that absolute Promise of the new Heart no man can or may believe that it is his till he have that new heart which it promiseth that is till it be fulfilled For there is no Mark by which a man can know whether that Promise belong to him or no before-hand and if all should believe that it belongs to them most would finde it false 2. God hath not Redeemed us by his Son to be Lawless To be without Law is to be without Government We are without the Law that is of Works or of Moses but not without Law Jesus Christ is our Ruler and he hath made us a Law of Grace an easie yoak and commands that are not grievous This Law hath Precepts Promises and threats it must needs be either obeyed or disobeyed and so the paenalty must be due or not due and the Reward due or not due He that performs the condition and so to whom the reward is due and not the paenalty is Righteous in the sense of this Law As when we are accused to be sinners against the Law of Works and so to deserve the paenalty of that Law we must confess all and plead the Righteousness of Christs satisfaction for our Justification so when we are accused to be final unbelievers or impenitent and so not to have performed the conditions of the new Covenant we must be Justified by our own Faith and Repentance the performance of that condition and must plead Not guilty And so far our own Acts are our Evangelical Righteousness and that of such necessity that without it no man can have part in Christs Righteousness nor be saved I would desire any man else to tell me what else he will plead at Judgement when the Accuseâ— chargeth him or if he do so charge him with final unbelief will he confess it and say Christ hath Believed and Repented for me that is as much as to say Christ was a Believer for Infidels that he might save Infidels All false If he will not say thus and lying will do no good then must he plead his own Believing and Repenting as his Righteousness in opposition to that Accusation And if it be of such use then and be called a hundred times in Scripture our Righteousness and we Righteous for it then doubtless we may accordingly try by it now whether we shall then be able to come off and be Justified or no and so may build our comfort on it 3. Conscience is a Witness and Judge within us and doth as under God Accuse and Condemn or Excuse and Acquit Now if Conscience must absolve us only so far as we are Innocent or do well or are qualified with Grace then it is impossible but these our Qualifications and Actions should be some ground of our Comfort See Acts 24.16 and 23.1 Rom. 2.15 16. 4. Those which are our Graces and Works as we are the Subjects and Agents are the Graces and Works of God of Christ of the holy Ghost dwelling in us If therefore we may not Rejoice in our own Works or Graces then we may not Rejoice in the Works or Guifts of God Christ or the holy Ghost And 5. Our Graces are the spiritual Life or Health of the soul and our holy actions are the vital operations Now Life and Health are necessary Rejoycing delighting things of themselves and vital Actions are necessarily pleasant and delectable 6. Our Graces and holy Actions must needs Rejoice us in respect of their Objects For the object of our Love Trust Hope Meditation Prayer Conference c. is God himself and the Lord Jesus and the Joyes of Heaven And how can such Actions choose but Rejoice us 7. Yea Rejoicing it self and Delighting our selves in God is not only one part of our Duty but that great Duty wherein lieth the height of our Christianity And how vain a speech is it to say that we may not take up our Comforts from our own works nor Rejoice in any thing of our own when even Rejoicing it self and Delighting and Comforting our selves is one part of our Duty 8. As God in Christ is the chief object and ground of our Comfort so that we must Rejoice in nothing but
you my judgement before Sure I am that the sudden looseness of their lives answering their ignorant loose ungospel-like doctrine did certifie me that the Spirit of Comfort was not their Comforter For he is also a Spirit of Holiness and comforteth men by the means of a holy Gospel which hath precepts and threatnings as well as Promises 2. And as the experience of the state of Believers assureth us that few of them attain to Certainty so experience of the imperfection of their understandings shews us that few of them are immediatly capable of it For how few Believers be there that understand well what is a sound evidence and what not Nay how many Learned men have taught them That the least unfeigned Desire of Grace is the Grace it self as some say or at least a certain evidence of it as others say Whereas alas how many have unfeignedly desired many Graces and yet have Desired the Glory and Profits of the world so much more that they have miscarried and perished How many have taught them that the least unfeigned Love to God or to the Brethren is a certain Mark of saving Grace Whenas many a one hath unfeignedly loved God and the Brethren who yet have loved house land credit pleasure and life so much more that God hath been thrust as it were into a corner and hath had but the worlds leavings and the poor Saints have had little compassion or relief from them nor would be lookt on in times of danger and disgrace As Austin and the Schoolmen use to say Wicked men do Vti Deo frui creaturis Vse God and enjoy the creatures Godly men do Frui Deo uti creaturis Enjoy God and use the creatures The meaning is Both Regenerate and Unregenerate have some Will or Love both to God and to the Creature But the wicked do Will or Love the Creature as their chief Good with their chiefest Love and they only Love God as a Means to help them to the Creature with a Love subordinate to their Love to the Creature Whereas the Godly do Will or Love God as their chief Good with their chiefest Love or Complacency and Love the Creature but as a Means to God with an inferiour Love If then the Nature of Sincerity be so little known then Assurance of Sincerity cannot be very common More might be said to prove that Certainty of Salvation is not common among true Christians but that it is labour in vain as to them seeing experience and their own ready confession doth witness it Now what 's the use that I would have you make of this Why it is this If Assurance of Sincerity and Justification much more of Salvation be so rare among true Christians then you have no cause to think that the want of it proveth you to be no true Christian You see then that a man may be in a state of Salvation without it and that it is not Justifying Faith as some have imagined nor yet a necessary concomitant of that Faith You see that you were mistaken in thinking that you had not the Spirit of Adoption because you had no assuring witness within you effectively testifying to you that you are the childe of God All Gods children have the Spirit of Adoption For because they are sons therefore hath God sent the Spirit of his Son into their hearts whereby they cry Abba Father Gal. 4.6 But all Gods children have not Assurance of their Adoption therefore the Spirit of Adoption doth not alwaies assure those of their Adoption in whom it abideth It is alwaies a witness-bearer of their Adoption But that is only objectively by his Graces and operations in them as a Land-mark is a witness whose Land it is where it standeth or as your Sheep-mark witnesseth which be your Sheep or rather as a sensible Soul witnesseth a living Creature or a rational Soul witnesseth that we are Men But efficiently it doth not alwaies witness as a Land-mark or Sheep-mark is not alway discerned and a bruit knows not it self to be a bruit and a man is not alwaies actually knowing his own humanity nor can know it at all in the Womb in Infancy in Distraction in an Epilepsie Apoplexie or the like disease which depriveth him of the use of reason Besides it 's no doubt but the Apostle had some respect to the eminent gift of the Spirit for Tongues Prophecies Miracles and the like which was proper to that age though still as including the Spirit of Holiness You see then that you need not be alwaies in disquiet when you want Assurance For else how disquiet a life should most Christians live I shall shew you more anon that all a mans comforts depend not so on his Assurance but that he may live a comfortable life without it Trouble of minde may be overcome Conscience may be quieted True peace attained yea a man may have that Joy in the holy Ghost wherein the Kingdom of God is said to consist without Certainty of Salvation If there be any passage in my Book of Rest Part 3 d in pressing to get Assurance which seem contrary to this I desire that they may be reduced to this sense and no otherwise understood This shall be further opened anon and other grounds of comfort manifested besides Assurance DIRECTION XV. 15. Yea this much more I would here inform you of That Very many even of the stronger holier watchfull and obedient Christians are yet uncertain of their Salvation even then when they are Certain of their Justification and Sanctification and that because they are uncertain of their perseverance and overcoming For a mans Certainty of his Salvation can be no stronger than is his Certainty of enduring to the end and overcoming THat you may not misunderstand me in this observe 1. That I do not say Perseverance is a thing uncertain in it self 2. Nor that it is uncertain to all Christians 3. But that it is uncertain to many even strong and self-knowing Christians Divines use to distinguish of the Certainty of the Object and of the Subject and the former is either of the Object of Gods Knowledge or of mans I doubt not but God knows Certainly who shall be saved which with his Decree doth cause that which we call Certainty of the Object as to mans understanding But men themselves do not alwaies know it If a man have the fullest Certainty in the world that he is Gods child yet if he be uncertain whether he shall so continue to the end it is impossible that he should have a Certainty of his Salvation For it 's he only that endureth to the end that shall be saved Now that many eminent Christians of great knowledge and much zeal and obedience are uncertain of their Perseverance is proved by two Infallible Arguments 1. By experience If any should be so censorious as to think that none of all those Nations and Churches abroad that deny the Doctrine of Certain Perseverance of all Believers
from Principles that are known by the meer Light and help of Nature and from the Knowledge of Conclusions which by Reasoning we gather from those Principles Though yet one and the same thing may be Known as Revealed in Nature and Believed as Revealed Immediatly of Supernaturally And so we both Know and Believe that there is one onely God who made and preserveth All things 4. But our Assurance is an Act of Knowledge participating of Faith and internal sense or Knowledge reflect For Divine Faith saith He that Believeth is Justified and shall be Saved Internal sense and knowledge of our selves saith But I Believe Reason or Discursive Knowledge saith Therefore I am Justified and shall be saved Only I must advise you that you be not troubled when you meet with that which is contrary to this in any great Divines For it is only our former Divines whose Judgements were partly hurt by hot Disputations with the Papists herein and partly not come to that maturity as others since them have had opportunity to do And therefore in their expositions of the Creed and such like passages in the Text they eagerly insist on it that when we say We Believe the Forgiveness of sin and Life everlasting every man is to profess that he Believeth that his own sinnes are forgiven and he shall have Life everlasting himself But our later Divines and specially the English and most especially these that deal most in Practicals do see the mistake and lay down the same doctrine which I teach you here God bids us not Believe as from him more then he hath revealed But only one of the Propositions is revealed by Gods Testimony He that Believeth shall be Saved But it is no where written that You do Believe nor that You shall be Saved nor any thing equivalent And therefore you are not commanded to Believe either of these How the Spirit revealeth these I have fully told you already In our Creed therefore we do profess to Believe Remission of sinnes to be Purchased by Christs death and in his Power to give and Given in the Gospel to All on Condition of Believing in Christ himself for Remission But not to Believe that our own sinnes are Actually and Fully Pardoned My end in telling you this again which I have told you elsewhere is this That you may not think as I finde abundance of poor troubled souls to do that Faith much less justifying Faith is a Believing that you have true Grace and shall be saved And so fall a condemning your self unjustly every time that you doubt of your own Sincerity and think that so much as you doubt of this so much unbelief you have and so many poor souls complain that they have no faith or but little and that they cannot Believe because they Believe not their own Faith to be Sincere and when they wholly judge themselves unsanctified then they call that Desperation which they think to be a sinne inconsistent with true Grace These are dangerous Errours all arising from that one Errour which the heat of contention did carry some good men to that Faith is a Belief that our sinnes are forgiven by Christ Indeed all men are bound to apply Christ and the Promise to themselves But that application consisteth in a Belief that this Promise is true as belonging to all and so to me and then in Acceptance of Christ and his benefits as an offered gift and after this in Trusting on him for the full performance of his Promise Hence therefore you may best see what Unbelief and Desperation are and how farre men may charge themselves with them When you doubt whether the Promise be True or when you refuse to Accept Christ and his Benefits offered in it and consequently to Trust him as one that is Able and Willing to save you if you do Assent to his Truth and Accept him this is Unbelief But if you do Believe the Truth of the Gospel and are heartily Willing to Accept Christ as offered in it and only Doubt whether your Belief and Acceptance of him be sincere and so whether you shall be saved this is not Unbelief but ignorance of your own Sincerity and its consequents Nay and though that Affiance be wanting which is a part of Faith yet it is but a hindering of the exercise of it for want of a necessary concomitant condition for the Grace of Affiance in the Habit and Virtually is there so that it is not formally Distrust or Unbelief any more then your not Trusting God in your sleep is Distrust If a friend do Promise to give you a hundred pound on condition that you thankfully Accept it If you now do Believe him and do thankfully Accept it but yet through some vain scruple shall think My thankefulness is so small that it is not sincere and therefore I doubt I do not perform his condition and so shall never have the gift In this case now you do Believe your friend and you do not Distrust him properly but you Distrust your self that you perform not the condition and this hindreth the exercise of that Confidence or Affiance in your friend which is habitually and virtually in you Just so is it in our present case The same may be said of Desperation which is a Privation of Hope When we have Believed the Truth of the Gospel and Accepted Christ offered we are then bound to Hope that God will give us the Benefits promised So hope is nothing but A Desirous expectation of the good so promised and believed Now if you begin to Distrust whether God will make good this promise or no either thinking that it is not True or he is not able or hath changed his minde since the making of it and on these grounds you let go your Hopes this is Despair If because that Christ seems to Delay his coming we should say I have waited in Hope till now but now I am out of Hope that ever Christ will come to Judge the world and Glorifie Believers I will expect it no longer this is Despair And it hath its several Degrees more or less as unbelief hath Indeed the Schoolmen say that Affiance is nothing but strengthened Hope Affiance in the properest sense is the same in substance with Hope only it more expresseth a Respect to the Promise and Promiser and indeed is Faith and Hope exprest both together in one word So that what I said before of Distrust is true of Despair If you do continue to Believe the Truth of the Gospel and particularly of Christs coming and glorifying his Saints and yet you think he will not glorifie you because you think that you are not a true Believer or Saint This is not Desperation in the proper sense For Desperation is the privation of Hope where the formal cause the heart and life of it is wanting But you have here Hope in the Habit and Virtually do Hope in Christ but the Act of it as to your own
found true Souls Conflict pag. 41 42. Though the main pillar of our Comfort be the free forgiveness of our sins yet if there be a neglect â—f growing in Holiness the soul will never be soundly quiet because it will be proâ—e to question the truth of Justification and it is as proper for sin to raise doubts and fears in the Conscience as for rotten flesh and wood to breed worms Where there is not a pure Conscience there is not a pacified Conscience c. Read the rest This much I have been fain to premise lest my words for Consolation should occasion security and desolation But now let me desire you to peruse the Direction and practice it If when God hath given you Assurance or strong probabilities of your sincerity you will make use of it but onely for that present time you will never then have a setled Peace in your soul Besides the great wrong you do to God by necessitating him to be so often renewing such discoveries and repeating the same words to you so often over If your Child offend you would you have him when he is pardoned no longer to believe it then you are telling it him Should he be still asking you over and over every day Father am I forgiven or no Should not one answer serve his turn Will you not believe that your money is in your purse or chest any longer then you are looking on it Or that your corn is growing on your land or your cattel in your grounds any longer then you are looking on them By this Course a Rich man should have no more content then a beggar longer then he is looking on his money or goods or lands and when he is looking on one he should again lose the Comfort of all the rest What hath God given you a Memory for but to lay up former apprehensions and discoveries and experiences and make use of them on all meet occasions afterwards Let me therefore perswade you to this great and necessary work When God hath once Resolved your Doubts and shewed you the truth of your Faith Love or Obedience Write it down if you can in your book as I have advised you in my Treatise of Rest Such a day upon serious perusal of my heart I found it thus and thus with my self Or at least Write it deep in your Memory And do not suffer any fancies or fears or light surmises to cause you to question this again as long as you fall not from the Obedience or Faith which you then discovered Alas mans Apprehension is a most mutable thing If you leave your soul open to every new apprehension you will never be setled You may think two contrary things of your self in an hour You have not always the same opportunity for right discerning nor the same clearness of Apprehension nor the same outward means to help you nor the same inward Assistance of the Holy Ghost When you have these therefore make use of them and fix your wavering soul and take your Question and Doubt as Resolved and do not tempt God by calling him to new Answers again and again as if he had given you no answer before You will never want some occasion of Jealousie and fears as long as you have Corruption in your heart and sin in your life and a Tempter to be troubling you But if you will suffer any such wind to shake your Peace and Comforts you will be always shaking and fluctuating as a wave of the Sea And you must labour to apprehend not onely the Uncomfortableness but the Sinfulness also of this course For though the questioning your own sincerity on every small occasion be not near so great a sin as the questioning of Gods Merciful Nature or the truth of his Promise or his Readiness to shew Mercy to the Penitent soul or the Freeness and Fulness of the Covenant of Grace yet even this is no contemptible sin For 1. You are doing Satans work in denying Gods Graces and Accusing your self falsly and so pleasing the Devil in Disquieting your self 2. You slander Gods Spirit as well as your own soul in saying He hath not Renewed and Sanctified you when he hath 3. This will necessitate you to further Unthankfulness for who can be Thankful for a Mercy that thinks he never received it 4. This will shut your mouth against all those Praises of God and that Heavenly joyful Commemoration of his great unspeakable Love to your soul which should be the blessed work of your life 5 This will much abate your Love to God and your sense of the Love of Christ in dying for you and all the rest of your Graces while you are still questioning your Interest in Gods Love 6. It will lay such a discouragement on your soul as will both destroy the sweetness of all Duties to you which is a great evil and thereby make you backward to them and heartless in them You will have no mind of Praying Meditation or other duties because all will seem dark to you and you will think that every thing makes against you 7. You rob all about you of that chearful encourageing example perswasion which they should have from you and by which you might win many souls to God And contrarily you are a discouragement and hindrance to them I could mention many more sinful aggravations of your denying Gods Graces in you on every small insufficient occasion which methinks should make you be very tender of it if not to avoyd unnecessary Trouble to your self yet at least to avoyd sin against God And what I have said of Evidences and Assurance I would have you understand also of your Experiences You must not make Use onely at the present of your Experiences but lay them up for the time to come Nor must you tempt God so far as to expect new Experiences upon every new scruple or doubt of yours as the Israelites expected New Miracles in the Wilderness still forgetting the Old If a Scholar should in his Studies forget all that he hath Read and Learned and all the Resolutions of his Doubts which in study he hath attained and leave his Understanding still as an unwritten Paper as Receptive of every Mutation and New Apprehension and contrary Conceit as if he had never studied the Point before he will make but a poor proficiency and have but a fluctuating unsetled brain A Scholar should make all the studies of his Life to compose one entire Image of Truth in his soul as a Painter makes every line he draws to compose one entire picture of a man and as a Weaver makes every thred to compose one Web so should you make all former Examinations Discoveries Evidences and Experiences Compose one full Discovery of your Condition that so you may have a setled Peace of soul And see that you tye both Ends together and neither look on your present troubled state without your former lest you be unthankful and unjustly discouraged nor on
us Doubt we should do nothing but doubt I know you may easily tell a long and a sad story of your sins how you are troubled with this and that and many a distemper and weak and wanting in every Grace and Duty and have committed many sins But doth it follow that therefore you have no true Grace Learn therefore to be Humbled for every sin but not to Doubt of your sincerity and salvation for every sin DIRECTION XXX 30. Whatsoever New Doubtings do arise in your soul see that you carefully discern whether they are such as must be resolved from the Consideration of General Grace or of Special Grace And especially be sure of this that when you want or lose your Certainty of sincerity and salvation you have presently recourse to the Probability of it and lose not the Comforts of that Or if you should lose the sight of a Probability of Special Grace yet see that you have recourse at the utmost to General Grace and never let go the Comforts of that at the worst THis Rule is of unspeakable Necessity and use for your Peace and Comfort Here are three several Degrees of the Grounds of Comfort It is exceeding weakness for a man that is beaten from one of these holds therefore to let go the other too and because he cannot have the highest Degree therefore to conclude that he hath none at all I beseech you in all your Doubtings and Complainings still Remember the two Rules here laid down 1. All Doubts arise not from the same Cause and therefore must not have the same Cure Let the first thing which you do upon every doubt be this To consider Whether it come from the Vnbelieving or low Apprehensions of the General Grounds of Comfort or from the want of evidence of special Grace For that which is a fit Remedy for one of these will do little for the cure of the other 2. If your Doubting be onely Whether you be sincere in Beliâ—ving Loving Hoping Repenting and Obeying then it will not answer this Doubt though you discern never so much of Gods Merciful Nature or Christs Gracious Office or the Universal sufficiency of his Death and Satisfaction or the freeness and extent of the Promise of Pardon For I profess considerately that I do not know in all the Body of Popery concerning Merits Justification Humane Satisfactions Assurance or any other point about Grace for which we unchurch them that they erre half so dangerously as Saltmarsh and such Antinomians do in this one point when they say That Christ hath Repented and Believed for us meaning it of that Faith and Repentance which he hath made the Conditions of our salvation and that We must no more question our own faith then we must question Christ the Object of it It will be no saving Plea at the day of Judgement to say Though I Repented not and Believed not yet Christ dyed for me or God is merciful or Christ Repented and Believed for me or God made me a free Promise and Gift of salvation if I would Repent and Believe What Comfort would such an Answer give them And therefore doubtless it will not serve now to quiet any knowing Christian against those Doubts that arise from the want of particular evidence of special Grace though in their own place the General Grounds of Comfort are of Absolute Necessity thereto 2. On the other side if your Doubts arise from any Defect in your Apprehensions of General Grace it is not your looking after Marks in your self that is the way to Resolve them I told you in the beginning that the General Grounds of Comfort lie in four particulars that square Foundation which will bear up all the Faith of the Saints First Gods merciful and unconceivably Good and Gracious Nature and his Love to mankind Secondly the Gracious Nature of the Mediatour God and Man with his most Gracious undertaken Office of Saving and Reconciling Thirdly the sufficiency of Christs Death and satisfaction for all the world to save them if they will Accept him and his Grace I put it in terms beyond dispute because I would not build up Believers Comforts on points which godly Divines do contradict as little as may be Yet I am past all Doubt my self that Christ did actually make satisfaction to Gods Justice for All and that no man perisheth for want of an Expiatory sacrifice but for want of faith to believe and apply it or for want of Repentance and yielding to Recovering Grace The fourth is The Universal Grant of pardon and Right to salvation on Condition of Faith and Repentance If your Doubt arise from the Ignorance or overlooking of any of these to these must you have recourse for your Cure Where Note that all those Doubts which come from the greatness of your sin as such that you think will not therefore be forgiven or that come from the sense of Unworthiness in a Legal sense or want of Merit in your self and all your Doubts whether God be willing to accept and forgive you though you should Repent and believe or whether any sacrifice was offered by Christ for your sins I say all these come from your Ignorance or Unbelief of some or all of the four General Grounds here mentioned and from them must be cured Note also in a special manner That there is a great difference between these four General Grounds and your particular Evidences in point of Certainty For these four Corner-stones are fast founded beyond all possibility of Removal so that they are always of as undoubted Certainty as that the Heaven is over your head and they are immutable still the same These you are commanded strictly to Believe with a Divine Faith as being the clearly revealed Truths of God and if you should not Believe them yet they remain firm and true and your unbelief should not make voyd the Universal promise and Grace of God But your own Evidences of special Grace are not so Certain so Clear or so Immutable nor are you bound to Believe them but to search after them that you may know them You are not bound by any Word of God strictly to Believe that you do Believe or Repent but to try and discern it This then is the first part of this Direction That you always discover whether your troubles arise from low unbelieving or ignorant thoughts of Gods Mercifulness Christs Gracious nature and office General Satisfaction or the universal Promise or whether they arise from want of evidence of sincerity in your self and accordingly in your thoughts apply the Remedy The second part of the Direction is that you hold fast Probabilities of Special Grace when you lose your Certainty and that you hold fast your General Grounds when you lose both the former Never forget this in any of your Doubts You say your faith and obedience have such breaches and sad defects in them that you cannot be Certain that they are sincere Suppose it be so Do you see
no great Likelyhood or hopes yet that they are sincere If you do as I think many Christians easily may that yet receive not a proportionable comfort remember that this is no small Mercy but matter of great consolation But suppose the worst that you see no Grace in your self yet you cannot be sure you have none For it may be there and you not see it Yea suppose the worst that you were sure that you had no true Grace at all yet remember that you have still abundant cause of Comfort in Gods General Grace Do you think you must needs Despair or give up all Hope and Comfort or conclude your self irrecoverably lost because you are Graceless why be it known to you there is that ground of Consolation in general Grace that may make the hearts of the very wicked to leap for joy Do I need to prove that to you You know that the Gospel is called Glad tidings of salvation and the Preachers of it are to tell those to whom they preach it Behold we bring you tidings of great Joy and glad tidings to all People And you know before the Gospel comes to men they are miserable If then it be glad tidings and tidings of great joy to all the unconverted where it comes why should it not be so to you and where is your great joy If you be Graceless is it nothing to know that God is exceeding merciful slow to anger ready to forgive pardoning iniquity transgression and sin loving mankinde Is it nothing to know that the Lord hath brought Infinite Mercy and Goodness down into humane flesh and hath taken on him the most blessed office of Reconciling and is become the Lamb of God Is it nothing to you that all your sins have a sufficient Sacrifice paid for them so that you are certain not to perish for want of a Ransom Is it nothing to you that God hath made such an universal Grant of Pardon and Salvation to all that will Believe and that you are not on the terms of the meer Law of Works to be judged for not obeying in perfection Suppose you are never so certainly Graceless is it not a Ground of unspeakable Comfort that you may be certain that nothing can condemn you but a flat refusal or unwillingness to have Christ and his Salvation This is a certain truth which may comfort a man as yet unsanctified that sin meerly as sin shall not Condemn him nor any thing in the World but the final obstinate Refusal of the Remedy which thereby leaveth all other sin unpardoned Now I would ask you this Question in your greatest fears that you are out of Christ Are you Willing to have Christ to pardon sanctifie guide and save you or not If you are then you are a true Believer and did not know it If you are not if you will but wait on Gods Word in Hearing and Reading and Consider frequently and seriously of the necessity and excellency of Christ and Glory and the evil of sin the vanity of the world and wil but beg earnestly of God to make you Willing you shall finde that God hath not appointed you this means in vain that this way will be more profitable then all your complainings See therefore when you are at the very lowest that you forsake not the Comforts of General Grace And indeed those that deny any General Grace or Redemption Do leave poor Christians in a very lamentable Condition For alas Assurance of Special Grace yea or a high probability is not so common a thing as meer Disputers against Doubting have imagined And when a poor Christian is beaten from his Assurance which few have he hath nothing but Probabilities and when he hath no confident probable perswasion of special Grace where is he then and what hath he left to support his soul I will not so far now meddle with that Controversie as to open further how this opinion tends to leave most Christians in desperation for all the pretences it hath found and I had done more but that General Redemption or Satisfaction is commonly taught in the maintaining of the General Sufficiency of it though men understand not how they contradict themselves But perhaps you will say This is cold comfort for I may as well argue thus Christ will damn sinners I am a sinner therefore he will damn me as to argue thus Christ will save sinners I am a Sinner therefore he will save me I answer There is no shew of soundness in either of these Arguments It is not a certainty that Christ will save you that can be gathered from General Grace alone that must be had from assurance of of special Grace superadded to the General But a conditional certainty you may have from General Grace onely and thus you may soundly and infallibly argue God hath made a Grant to every sinful man of Pardon and salvation through Christs Sacrifice if they will but Repent and Believe in Christ but I am a sinful man therefore God hath made this Grant of Pardon and Salvation to me DIRECTION XXXI If God do bless you with an able faithful prudent judicious Pastor take him for your Guide under Christ in the way to Salvation and open to him your Case and desire his advice in all your extraordinary pressing necessities where you have found the advice of other godly friends to be insufficient And this not once or twice only but as often as such pressing necessities shall return Or if your own Pastor be more defective for such a work make use of some other Minister of Christ who is more meet HEre I have these several things to open to you 1. That it is your Duty to seek this Direction from the Guides of the Church 2. When and in what cases you should do this 3. To what end and how far 4. What Ministers they be that you should choose thereto 5. In what manner you must open your Case that you may receive satisfaction 1. The first hath two parts 1. That you must open your Case 2. And that to your Pastor 1. The Devil hath great advantage while you keep his Counsel Two are better then one for if one of them fall he hath another to help him It is dangerous Resisting such an enemy alone An uniting of forces oft procureth victory God giveth others knowledge prudence and other gifts for our good that so every member of the body may have need of another and each be useful to the other An Independency of Christian upon Christian is most unchristian much more of people on their Guides It ceaseth to be a Member which is separated from the body and to make no use of the body or fellow members is next to separation from them Sometime bashfulness is the cause sometimes self-confidence a far worse cause but whatever is the cause of Christians smothering their Doubts the effects are oft sad The disease is oft gone so far that the Cure is very difficult
God and the Cross of Christ in that kinde or in coordination with them so it is the office of every Grace and holy Work and Ordinance and Means to be subservient to Christ either for the attaining of Christ or applying his merits or they are the effects of his merits Now if we must Love and Rejoice in Christ principally then must we needs Love and Rejoice in all those things that stand in a necessary subordination to him in their places And therefore to say We must Rejoice in Christ only and therefore not in any Graces or Duties of our own is as wife as if a wife should cast her husbands cloathes and meat out of doors and say You charged me to admit none into my chamber but your self Or as if a Physitian having told his patients I will cure you if you will trust me only for the cure thereupon the Patients should cast away his Medicines and shut the doors against his servants and Apothecary and say We must trust none but the Physitian 9. All the failings of our Duties are pardoned and they Accepted in Christ and therefore we may Rejoice in them 10. Our Duties have a double tendency to our salvation 1. As the Condition to which God hath promised it as the Crown and Reward in a hundred texts of Scripture And may we not Comfort our selves in that which God promiseth Heaven to 2. As a Natural means to our obedience and further perfection as Watchfulness Meditation c. tend to destroy sin as Paul saith to Timothy Take heed to thy self and to thy Doctrine and in so doing thou shalt both save thy self and them that hear theâ— 1 Tim. 4.16 And may we not take Comfort in that which tends to save our own and our brethrens souls 11. We shall be Judged according to our Works therefore we must judge our selves according to our Works and so must judge our state good or bad according to our works for can man judge by a righter way then God will At least is it not lawfull for man to judge as God doth 12. We must judge of others in probability according to their external works even the tree by the fruits therefore we must judge of our selves in certainty according to our internal and external works together which we may certainly know 13. If we may not Rejoice in any of our Graces then we may not be Thankfull for them for Thanks is accompanied with Joy but we must be Thankfull 14. If we may not Rejoice in our Duties we may not Repent or sorrow for the neglect of them and if we may not Rejoice in our Graces we may not lament the want of them for these are as the two ends of the balance that one goes down when the other goes up or as day and night light and darkness But the consequent is intollerable 15. This would overthrow all Religion For what a man cannot Rejoice in he cannot Love he cannot esteem regard be carefull to obtain be fearfull of losing c. 16. God delighteth in our Graces and holy Duties and is well pleased with them and therefore it is lawfull and needfull that we do as God doth Jer. 9.24 Heb. 11.5 Abels sacrifice by faith obtained testimony that he pleased God Heb. 13.16 To do good and to communicate forget not for with such sacrifice God is well pleased 17. The Saints of God have not only tried themselves by their Graces and Duties and commanded others to try by them but have Gloried and Rejoiced in their Duties and sufferings 2 Cor. 1.12 This is our Rejoicing the Testimony of our Conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity we have had our conversation among you Acts 5.41 They gloried that they were counted worthy to suffer for Christ Rom. 15.17 I have therefore whereof I may glory in Jesus Christ in those things which pertain to God Rom. 5.3 We glory in tribulation c. 2 Cor. 12.6 9. Though I should desire to glory I should not be a fool I glory in mine infirmities Jer. 9.24 Let him that glorieth glory in this that he understandeth and knoweth me 1 Cor. 9.15 I had rather die then any should make my glorying void Gal. 6.4 Let every man prove his own work so shall he have Rejoicing in himself alone and not in another 18. Scripture nameth many of our own Graces and Duties as the certain Marks of our Justification and right to Glory Even Christ with his own mouth gives us many Matth. 6.21 Where your treasure is there will your heart be also Joh. 3.20 He that doth evil hateth the light c. but he that doth good cometh to the light that c. Mat. 5. is full of such Blessed are the poor in spirit the pure in heart c. 19. We may Rejoice in other mens good Works and Graces and do if we be true Christians therefore in our own 20. We may Rejoice in Gods outward Mercies therefore much more in inward and such as accompany salvation All these Arguments prove that we may take up our Comfort from our own Gracious Qualifications and Actions not in opposition to Christ but in subordination to him and most of them prove that we may fetch our Assurance of salvation from them as undoubted Evidences thereof I have said the more in Answer to these Objections 1. Because never any came with fairer pretences of exalting Christ and maintaining the honour of his Righteousness and free Grace and of denying our selves and our own Righteousness 2. And yet few Doctrines more dishonour Christ and destroy the very substance of all Religion Even as if a man should cry down him that would Praise and commend Obedience to the King and say You must Praise nothing but the King so do these cry down our looking at and Rejoicing in our Love to Christ and our Thankfulness to him and our Obedience and all under pretence of honouring him Nay they will not have us Rejoice in one part of Christs salvation his saving us from the power of sin and his sanctifying us under pretence that we dishonour the other part of his salvation his Justifying us If ever Satan transformed himself into an Angel of Light and his Ministers into Ministers of Light it is in the mistakes of the Antinomians and no people in the world except carnal Libertines whom this doctrine fits to a hair are in more danger of them then poor doubting Christians under trouble of Conscience specially if they be not judicious and skill'd in the Doctrine of Christ For the very pretence of extolling Christ and free Grace will take much with such and any New-way will sometime seem to give them Comfort upon the very novelty and sudden change Having thus proved that you may and must fetch your special Comfort and Assurance from Evidences and that your first Evidence is your Faith I shall open this fullier under the next Direction DIRECTION XI 11. In the Trial of your State Be sure that you make