them in terror and amazement Like men after a flash of lightning that are left more sensible of the darkness For no wise man can expect that such Joyes should be a Christians ordinary state or God should so diet us with a continual feast It would neither suit with our health nor the condition of this Pilgrimage Live therefore on your Peace of conscience as your ordinary diet when this is wanting know that God appointeth you a fast for your health and when you have a feast of high Joyes feed on it and be thankfull but when they are taken from you gape not after them as the Disciples did after Christ at his Ascension but return thankfully to your ordinary diet of Peace and remember that these Joyes which are now taken from you may so return again however there is a place preparing for you where your Joyes shall be full DIRECTION XXII 22. My next Direction is this Spend more of your time and care about your Duty then about your Comforts and for the exercise and increase of your Graces then for the discovery of them And when you have done all that you can for Assurance and Comfort you shall finde that it will very much depend on your Actual Obedience THis Direction is of as great importance as any that I have yet given you but I shall say but little of it because I have spoke of it so fully already in my Book of Rest Part 3. Ch. 8 9 10 11. My Reasons for what I here assert are these 1. Duty goeth in order of nature and time before comfort as the Precept is before the Promise Comfort is part of the Reward and therefore necessarily supposeth Duty 2. Grace makes men both so ingenuous and Divine as to consider Gods due as well as their own and what they should Do as well as what they shall Have still remembring that our works cannot Merit at Gods hands 3. As we must have Grace before we can Know we have it so ordinarily we must have a good measure of Grace before we can so clearly discern it as to be certain of it Small things I have told you are next to none and hardly discernable by weak eyes When all waies in the world are tried it will be found that there is no way so sure for a doubting soul to be made certain of the truth of his Graces as to keep them in Action and get them increased And it will be found that there is no one cause of Christians doubting of the truth of their Faith Love Hope Repentance Humility c. so great or so common as the small degree of these Graces Doth not the very language of complaining Christians shew this One saith I have no faith I cannot believe I have no love to God I have no delight in Duty Another saith I cannot mourn for sin my heart was never broken I cannot patiently bear an injury I have no courage in opposing sin c. If all these were not in a low and weak degree men could not so ordinarily think they had none A lively strong working Faith Love Zeal Courage c. would shew themselves as do the highest Towers the greatest mountains the strongest windes the greatest flames which will force an observance by their greatness and effects 4. Consider also that it is more pleasing to God to see his people study him and his will directly then to spend the first and chiefest of their studies about the attaining of comforts to themselves 5. And it is the nature of Grace to tend first and chiefly toward God and but secondarily to be the evidence of our own happiness We have faith given us principally that we might believe and live by it in daily applications of Christ We have repentance that it might break us off from sin and bring us back to God We have Love that we might Love God and our Redeemer his Saints and Laws and waies We have Zeal that we might be quickened in all our holy duties and we have obedience to keep us in the way of our duty The first thing we have to do with these Graces is to use them for those holy ends which their nature doth express And then the discerning of them that we may have Assurance followeth after this both in time and dignity 6. And it is a matter of farre greater concernment to our selves to seek after the obtaining of Christ and Grace then after the certain knowledge that we have them You may be saved though you never get Assurance here but you cannot be saved without Christ and Grace God hath not made Assurance the Condition of your salvation It tends indeed exceedingly to your comfort and a pretious mercy it is but your safety lieth not on it It is better go sorrowfull and doubting to Heaven then comfortably to hell First therefore ask what is the Condition of salvation and the way to it and then look that you do your best to perform it and to go that way and then try your performance in its season 7. Besides as it is a work of farre greater moment so also of quicker dispatch to Believe and Love Christ truly then to get Assurance that you do truly Believe and Love him You may believe immediatly by the help of Gods Grace but getting Assurance of it may be the work of a great part of your life Let me therefore intreat this one thing of you that when you feel the want of any Grace you would not presently bend all your thoughts upon the enquiry Whether it be true or no but rather say to your self I see trying is a great and difficult a long and tedious work I may be this many years about it and possibly be unresolved still If I should conclude that I have no Grace I may be mistaken and so I may if I think that I have it I may inquire of friends and Ministers long and yet be left in doubt It is therefore my surest way to seek presently to obtain it if I have it not and to increase it if I have it and I am certain none of that labour will be lost to get more is the way to know I have it But perhaps you will say How should I get more Grace that 's a business of greater difficulty then so I answer Understand what I told you before that as the beginning of Grace is in your Understanding so the heart and life of it is in your Will and the Affections and passionate part are but the fruits and branches If therefore your Grace be weak it is chiefly in an unwillingness to yield to Christ and his Word and Spirit Now how should an unwilling soul be made willing Why thus 1. Pray constantly as you are able for a willing minde and yielding inclinable heart to Christ 2. Hear constantly those Preachers that bend their doctrine to inform your understanding of the great necessity and excellency of Christ and Grace and Glory and to perswade
this Rule in any of your self-examinings It is the heart that God requireth My son give me thy heart Prov. 23.26 If he hath the Will he hath the heart He may have much of our Knowledge and not our heart but when we Know him so throughly as to Will him unfeignedly then he hath our heart Affectionate workings of soul to God in Christ are sweet things and high and noble Duties and such as all Christians should strive for But they are not the safest Marks to try our states by 1. Because there may be a solid sincere intention and choice in and of the Will when there is little stirring perceived in the Affections 2. Because the Will is the Master Commanding Faculty of the Rational soul and so if it be right that man is upright and safe 3. Because the Passions and Affections are so mutable and uncertain The Will can command them but imperfectly it cannot perfectly Restrain them from vanities much less can it perfectly raise them to that height as is suitable to the excellency of our heavenly objects But the object it self with its sensible manner of apprehension moves them more then all the Command of the Will And so we finde by experience that a godly man when with his utmost private endeavour he cannot command one stirring pang of divine Love or Joy in his soul yet upon the hearing of some moving Sermon or the sudden receiving of some extraordinary Mercy or the reading of some quickning book he shall feel perhaps some stirring of that Affection So when we cannot weep in private one tear for sin yet at a stirring Sermon or when we give vent to our sorrows and ease our troubled hearts into the bosome of some faithfull friend then we can finde tears 4. Because Passions and Affections depend so much on the temperature of the Body To one they are easie familiar and at command to another as honest they are difficult and scarce stirred at all With most women and persons of weaker tempers they are easier then with men Some cannot weep at the death of a friend though never so deer no nor perhaps feel very sensible inward grief and yet perhaps would have redeemed his life at a far deerer rate had it been possible then those that can grieve and weep more abundantly 5. Because Worldly things have so great an advantage on our Passions and Affections 1. They are sensible and neer us and our knowledge of them is clear But God is not to be seen heard or felt by our senses he is far from us though locally present with us we are capable of knowing but little very little of him 2. Earthly things are alway before our eyes their advantage is continuall 3. Earthly things being still the objects of our senses do force our Passions whether we will or not though they cannot force our Wills 6. Because Affections and Passions rise and fall and neither are nor can be in any even and constant frame and therefore are unfit to be the constant or certain evidence of our state But the Wills Resolution and Choice may be more constant So that I advise you rather to try your self by your Will then by your Passionate stirrings of Love or longing of Joy or sorrow Object But doth not Scripture lay as much on Love as on any Grace and doth not Christ say that except we Love him above all we cannot be his Disciples Answ It s all very true But consider Love hath two parts the one in the Will which is commonly called a faculty of the soul as Rational and this is the same thing that I call Willing Accepting Choosing or Consenting this Complacency is true Love to Christ and this is the sure standing Mark. The other is the Passionate part commonly said to be in the soul as sensitive and this though most commonly called Love yet is less certain and constant and so unfitter to try your state by though a great duty so far as we can reach it 2. You must understand and well remember that it is not every willingness that will prove your sincerity For wicked men may have slight apprehensions of spiritual things which may produce some slight desires and wishes which yet are so feeble and heartless that every lust and carnal desire overcomes them And it will not so much as enable them to deny the grossest sin But it must be the Prevalent part of your Will that God must have I mean a greater share a deeper and larger room then any thing in the world That is you must have a higher estimation of God and everlasting happiness and Christ and a holy life then of any thing in the world and also your Will must be so disposed hereby and inclined to God that if God and Glory to be obtained through Christ by a holy self-denying life were set before you on the one hand and the Pleasure Profits and Honours of the world to be enjoyed in a way of sin on the other hand you would resolvedly take the former and refuse the later Indeed they are thus set before you and upon your choice dependeth your salvation or damnation though that Choice must come from the Grace of God 3. Yet must you well remember that this Willingness and Choice is still imperfect and therefore when I mention a hearty willingness I mean not a perfect willingness There may be and is in the most gracious souls on earth much undisposedness backwardness and withdrawing of heart which is too great a measure of unwillingness to duty Especially to those duties which the flesh is most averse from and which require most of God and his Spirit to the right performance of them Among all Duties I think the soul is naturally most backward to these following 1. To secret Prayer because it is spiritual and requires great reverence and hath nothing of external pomp or form to take us up with and consisteth not much in the exercise of common gifts but in the exercise of special Grace and the breathings of the Spirit and searchings pantings and strivings of a gracious soul towards God I do not speak of the heartless repeating of bare words learned by rote and either not understood or not uttered from the feeling of the soul 2. To serious Meditation also is the soul very backward that is either to meditate on God and the promised Glory or any spiritual subject to this end that the heart may be thereby quickned and raised and graces exercised though to meditate on the same subject only to know or dispute on it the heart is nothing neer so backward Or else to meditate on the state of our own hearts by way of self-examination or self-judging or self-reprehension or self-exciting 3. Also to the Duty of faithfull dealing with each others souls in secret reproof and exhortation plainly though lovingly to tell each other of our sins and danger to this the heart is usually very backward partly through a
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
when he may satisfie you more fully and that without doing hurt to others And consider what a strait Ministers are in that have so many of so different conditions inclinations and conversations to preach to DIRECTION XXIX 29. Be sure you forget not to distinguish between Causes of Doubting of your sincerity and causes of meer Humiliation Repentance and Amendment And do not raise Doubtings and Fears where God calleth you but to Humiliation Amendment and fresh recourse to Christ THis Rule is of so great moment to your peace that you will have daily use for it and can never maintain any true setled peace without the practice of it What more common then for poor Christians to pour out a multitude of complaints of their weaknesses and wants and miscarriages and never consider all the while that there may be cause of sorrow in these when yet there is no cause of doubting of their sincerity I have shewed before that in gross falls and great backslidings Doubtings will arise and sometime our fears and jealousies may not be without cause But it is not ordinary infirmities nor every sin which might have been avoided that is just cause of Doubting Nay your very Humiliation must no further be endeavored then it tends to your Recovery and to the honouring of mercy For it is possible that you may exceed in the measure of your Griefs You must therefore first be resolved wherein the Truth of saving Grace doth consist and then in all your failings and weaknesses first know whether they contradict sincerity it self and are such as may give just cause to question your sincerity If they be not as the ordinary infirmities of Believers are not then you may and must be humbled for them but you may not Doubt of your Salvation for them I told you before by what marks you may discern your sincerity that is wherein the nature of saving faith and holiness doth consist Keep that in your eye and as long as you finde that sure and clear let nothing make you doubt of your Right to Christ and Glory But alas how people do contradict the will of God in this when you have sinned God would have you bewail your folly and unkinde dealing and fly to mercy through Christ and this you will not do But he would not have you torment your self with fears of damnation and questioning his Love and yet this you will do You may discern by this that Humiliation and Reformation are sure of God mans heart is so backward to it and that vexations doubts and fears in true Christians that should be comfortable are not of God mans nature is so prone to them though the ungodly that should fear and doubt are as backward to it I think it will not be unseasonable here to lay down the particular Doubts that usually trouble sincere Believers and see how far they may be just and how far unjust and causeless and most of them shall be from my own former experience and such as I have been most troubled with my self and the rest such as are incident to true Christians and too usual with them DOUBT I. I Have oft heard and read in the best Divines that Grace is not born with us and therefore Satan hath always possession before Christ and keeps that possession in Peace till Christ come and binde him and cast him out and that this is so great a work that it cannot choose but be observed and for ever remembred by the soul where it is wrought yea the several steps and passages of it may be all observed first casting down and then lifting up first wounding and killing and then healing and reviving But I have not observed the distinct parts and pâ—sâ—â—ges of this change in me nay I know of no such sudden observable change at all I cannot remember that ever I was first killed and then revived Nor do I know by what Minister nor at what Sermon or other means that work which is upon me was wrought No nor what day or moneth or year it was begun I have slided insensibly into a Profession of Religion I know not how And therefore I fear that I am not sincere and the work of true Regeneration was never yet wrought upon my soul ANSWER I will lay down the full answer to this in these Propositions 1. It is true that Grace is not Natural to us or conveyed by Generation 2. Yet it is as true that Grace is given to our Children as well as to us That it may be so and is so with some all will grant who believe that Infants may be and are saved And that it is so with the Infants of Believers I have fully proved in my Book of Baptism But mark what Grace I mean The Grace of Remission of original sin the Children of all true Believers have at least a high probability of if not a full Certainty their parent Accepting it for himself and them and Dedicating them to Christ and engaging them in his Covenant so that he takes them for his People and they take him for their Lord and Saviour And for the Grace of inward Renewing of their Natures or Dispositions it is a secret to us utterly unknown whether God use to do it in Infants or no. 3. Gods first-ordained way for the working of inward holiness is by Parents Education of their Children and not by the publick Ministry of the Word of which more anon 4. All godly Parents do acquaint their Children with the doctrine of Christ in their Infancy as soon as they are capable of receiving it and do afterwards inculcate it on them more and more 5. These Instructions of Parents are usually seconded by the workings of the Spirit according to the capacity of the Child opening their understandings to receive it and making an impression thereby upon the heart 6. When these Instructions and the inward workings of the Spirit are just past the preparatory part and above the highest step of Common Grace and have attained to special saving Grace is ordinarily undiscernible therefore as I have shewed already in Gods usual way of working Grace men cannot know the just day or time when they began to be in the state of Grace And though men that have long lived in Prophaness and are changed suddenly may conjecture near at the time yet those that God hath been working on early in their youth yea or afterwards by slow degrees cannot know the time of their first receiving the Spirit 8. The Memories of all men are so slippery and one thought so suddenly thrust out by another that many a thousand souls forget those particular workings which they have truly felt 9. The Memories of Children are far weaker then of others and therefore it is less probable that all the Spirits workings should by them be remembred 9. And the motions of Grace are so various sometimes stirring one Affection and sometimes another sometimes beginning with smaller motions and then moving more
strongly and sensibly that its usual for later motions which are more deeply affecting to make us overlook all the former or take them for nothing 10. God dealeth very variously with his Chosen in their Conversion as to the accidentals and circumstances of the work Some he calleth not home till they have run a long race in the way of Rebellion in open drunkenness swearing worldliness and derision of holiness These he usually humbleth more deeply and they can better observe the several steps of the Spirit in the work and yet not always neither Others he so restraineth in their youth that though they have not saving Grace yet they are not guilty of any Gross sins but have a liking to the people and ways of God and yet he doth not savingly convert them till long after It is much harder for these to discern the time or manner of their Conversion yet usually some conjectures they may make And usually their humiliation is not so deep Others as is said have the saving workings of the Spirit in their very Childhood and these can least of all discern the certain time or order The ordinary way of Gods dealing with those that are Children of Godly Parents and have good Education is by giving them some liking of Godly persons and ways some Conscience of sin some Repentance and recourse by prayer to God in Christ for mercy yet youthful lusts and folly and ill company do usually much stifle it till at last by some Affliction or Sermon or Book or good Company God setteth home the work and maketh them more Resolute and victorious Christians These persons now can remember that they had convictions and stirrings of Conscience when they were young and the other fore-mentioned works perhaps they can remember some more notable rowsings and awakenings long after and perhaps they have had many such fits and steps and the work hath stood at this pass for a long time even many years together But at which of all these Changes it was that the Soul began to be savingly sincere I think is next to an impossibility to discern According to that experience which I have had of the state of Christians I am forced to Judge that most of the Children of the Godly that ever are Renewed are Renewed in their Childhood or much towards it then done and that among forty Christians there is not one that can certainly name the month in which his soul first began to be sincere and among a thousand Christians I think not one can name the hour The Sermon which awakened them they may name but not the hour when they first arrived at a saving sincerity My advice therefore to all Christians is this Find Christ by his Spirit dwelling in your hearts and then never trouble your selves though you know not the time or manner of his entrance Do you value Christ above the world and Resolve to choose him before the world and perform these Resolutions Then need you not doubt but the Spirit of Jesus is victorious in you DOUBT II. BVT I have oft read and heard thâ—t a man cannot come to Christ till he feel the heavy burthen of sin It is the weary and heavy-laden that Christ calleth to him He bindeth up onely the broken-hearted he is a Physician onely to those that feel themselves sick he brings men to Heaven by the gates 〈◊〉 Hell They must be able to say I am in a loâ—â— Condition and in a state of damnation and â—f I should dye this hour I must perish for ever before Christ will deliver them God wiâ—l not throw away the blood of his Son on those that feel not their absolute necessity of it and that they are undone without it But it was never thus with me to this day ANSWER YOU must distinguish carefully between Repentance as it is in the Mind and Will and as it shews it self in the Passion of Sorrow All that have saving interest in Christ have their Judgements and Wils so far changed that they know they are great sinners and that there is no way to the obtaining of pardon and salvation but by Christ and the free mercy of God in him and thereupon they are convinced that if they remain without the Grace of Christ they are undone for ever Whereupon they understanding that Christ and Mercy is offered to them in the Gospel do heartily and thankfully accept the offer and would not be without Christ or change their Hopes of his Grace for all the world and do resolve to wait upon him for the further discovery of his Mercy and the workings of his Spirit in a Constant and Conscionable use of his Meaâ—s and to be Ruled by him to their power Is it not thus with you If it be here is the Life and Substance of Repentance which consisteth in this change of the mind and heart and you have no Cause to Doubt of the truth of it for want of more deep and passionate humiliation 2. I have told you before how uncertain and unconstant the Passionate effects of Grace are and how unfit to Judge by and given you several Reasons of it Yet I doubt not but some work upon the Affections there is as well as on the Will and Understanding but with so great diversity of manner and degrees that it is not safe judging by it onely or chiefly Is there no degree of Sorrow or Trouble that hath touched your heart for your sin or Misery If your Affections were no whâ—â— stir'd you would hardly be moved to Actâ—on to use means or avoyd iniquity much less would you so oft complain as you do 3. If God prevented those hainous sins in the time of your unregeneracy which those usually are guilty of who are called to so deep a degree of sorrow you should rather be thankful that your wound was not deeper then troubled that the Cure cost you not dearer Look well whether the Cure be wrought in the change of your heart and life from the world to God by Christ and then you need not be troubled that it was wrought so easily 4. Were you not acquainted with the evil of sin and danger and misery of sinners in your very Childhood and also of the necessity of a Saviour and that Christ dyed to save all sinners that will believe and Repent and hath not this fastned on your heart and been working in you by Degrees ever since If it be so then you cannot expect that you should have such deep terrours as those that never hear of sin and Christ till the news come upon them suddenly in the ripeness of their sin There is a great deal of difference betwixt the Conversion of a Jew or any other Infidel who is brought on the sudden to know the doctrine of Sin Misery and Salvation by Christ and the Convertion of a Professour of the Christian Religiâ—â— who hath known this doctrine in some sort from his Childhood and who hath a sound Religion though
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
tender Affections and heart-meltings are our sins For my part I see exceeding Cause to bewail it greatly in my self that my soul is not raised to a higher pitch of tender sensibility of all spiritual things then it is and I doubt not but it should be the matter of our daily confession and complaint to God that our hearts are so dull and little affected with his sacred Truths and our own sins But this is the scope of all my Speech Why do not you distinguish between Matter of Sorrow and Matter of Doubting No question but you should lament your dulness and stupidity and use all Gods means for the quickening of your Affections and to get the most lively frame of soul but must it cause you to doubt of your sincerity when you cannot obtain this Then will you never have a setled Peace or Assurance for many days together for ought I know I would ask you but this Whether you are willing or unwilling of all that hardness insensibleness and dulness which you complain of If you are willing of it what makes you complain of it If you are unwilling it seems your will is so far sound and it is the Will that is the seat of the Life of Grace which we must try by And was not Pauls Case the same with yours Rom. 7.19 when he saith The Good which I Would do I do not and When I Would do Good Evil is present with me I know Paul speaks not of gross sins but ordinary Infirmities and I have told you before that the Liveliness and Sensibility of the Passions or Affections is a thing that the Will though sanctified cannot fully command or excite at its pleasure A sanctified man cannot Grieve or Weep for sin when he will or so much as he will he cannot Love Joy be Zealous c. when he will He may be truly Willing and not Able And is not this your Case And doth not Paul make it the Case of all Christians Gal. 5.17 The flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these are contrary one to the other so that we cannot do the things that we would Take my Counsel therefore in this if you love not self-deceiving and disquietness Search whether you can say unfeignedly I would with all my heart have Christ and his quickening and santifying Spirit and his softning Grace to bring my hard heart to Tenderness and my dull and blockish soul to a lively frame O that I could attain it And if you can truly say thus Bless God that hath given you saving sincerity And then let all the rest of your Dulness and Deadness and Hard-heartedness be matter of daily sorrow to you and spare not so it be in Moderation but let it be no matter of Doubting Confess it complain of it pray against it and strive against it but do not deny Gods Graces in you for it And here let me mind you of one thing That it is a very ill distemper of spirit when a man can mourn for nothing but what Causeth him to Doubt of his salvation It is a great Corruption if when your Doubts are Resolved and you are perswaded of your salvation if then you cease all your humiliation and sorrow for your sin For you must sorrow that you have in you such a body of Death and that which is so displeasing to God and are able to please and enjoy him no more though you were never so Certain of the pardon of sin and of salvation 7. Lastly let me ask you one Question more What is the reason that you are so troubled for want of Tears for your sin Take heed lest there lie some Corruption in this trouble that you do not discern If it be onely because your deadness and dulness is your sin and you would fain have your soul in that frame in which it may be fittest to please God and enjoy him then I commend and encourage you in your trouble But take heed lest you should have any conceit of a Meritoriousness in your Tears for that would be a more dangerous sin then your want of Tears And if it be for want of a sign of Grace and because a dry eye is a sign of an unregenerate soul I have told you It is not so except where it onely seconds an impenitent heart and comes from or accompanieth and unrenewed Will and a prevailing unwillingness to turn to God by Christ Shew me if you can where the Scripture saith He that cannot Weep for sin shall not be Saved or hath no true Grace Is not your complaint in this the very same that the eminentest Christians have used in all times That most Blessed holy man Mr. Bradford who sacrificed his life in the flames against Romish abominations was wont to subscribe his Spiritual Letters endited by the breath of the Spirit of God thus The most miserable Hard-hearted sinner John Bradford DOUBT V. O But I am not willing to Good and therefore I fear that even my will it self is yet unchanged I have such a backwardness and undisposedness to Duty especially secret Prayer Meditation and self-examination and reproving and exhorting sinners that I am fain to force my self to it against my will It is no Delight the find in these Duties that brings me to them but onely I use violence with my self and am fain to pull my self down on my knees because I know it is a Duty and I cannot be saved without it but I am no sooner on my knees but I have a motion to rise or be short and am weary of it and find no great miss of duty when I do omit it ANSWER 1. THis shews that your soul is sick when your meat goes so much against your stomack that you are fain to force it down And sickness may well cause you to complain to God and man But what 's this to Deadness The Dead cannot force down their meat nor digest it at all It seems by this that you are sanctified but in a low Degree and your Corruption remains in some strength and let that be your sorrow and the overcoming of it be your greatest care and business But should you therefore say that you are unsanctified It seems that you have still the flesh lusting against the spirit that you cannot do the Good you would when you would pray with Delight and unweariedness the flesh draws back and the Devil is hindering you And is it not so in too great a measure with the best on earth Remember what Christ said to his own Apostles when they should have done him one of their last Services as to the attendance of his body on earth and should have comforted him in his Agony they are all asleep Again and again he comes to them and findeth them asleep Christ is Praying and sweating blood and they are still sleeping though he warned them to watch and Pray that they enter not into Temptation But what doth God say to
sinful Condition and some motions and strivings at your heart to get out of it Certainly though you should be one that hath yet no Grace to salvation yet these continued offers of Grace and strivings of the Spirit of Christ with your heart do shew that God hath not quite forsaken you and that your day of Grace and Visitation is not past DOUBT XV. BVt I have sinned since my Profession and that even against my Knowledge and Conscience I have had Temptations to sin and I have considered of the Evil and Danger and yet in the very soberest deliberations I have Resolved to sin And how can such a one have any true Grace or be saved ANSWER 1. IF you had not true Grace God is still offering it and ready to work it 2. Where do you finde in Scripture that none who have true Grace do sin knowingly or Deliberately Perhaps you will say in Heb. 10.24 If we sin willfully after the knowledge of the Truth there Remaineth no more sacrifice for sin but a fearful looking for of Judgement and fire which shall devour the adversaries Ans But you must know that it is not every wilful sin which is there mentioned but as even now I told you Vnbelief is peculiarly called Sin in the New Testament And the true meaning of the Text is If we utterly renounce Christ by Infidelity as not being the true Messiah after we have known his Truth then c. Indeed none sin more against knowledge then the Godly when they do sin For they know more for the most part then others do And Passion and Sensuality the remnant of it which yet remaineth will be working strongly in your very Deliberations against sin and either perverting the Judgement to doubt whether it be a sin or whether there be any such danger in it or whether it be not a very little sin Or else blinding it that it cannot see the Arguments against the sin in their full vigor Or at least prepossessing the Heart and Delight and so hindring our Reasons against sin from going down to the Heart and working on the Will and so from Commanding the Actions of the Body This may befal a godly man And moreover God may withdraw his Grace as he did from Peter and David in their sin and then our Considerations will work but faintly and sensuality and sinful Passion will work effectually It is scarce Possible I think that such a man as David could be so long about so horrid a sin and after contrive the murther of Vriah and all this without deliberation or any reasonings in himself to the contrary 3. The truth is though this be to good cause for any Repenting sinner to doubt of Salvation yet it is a very grievous aggravation of sin to commit it against Knowledge and Conscience and upon consideration And therefore I advise all that Love their Peace or Salvation to take heed of it For as they will finde that no sin doth deepâ—ier wound the Conscience and plunge the sinner into fearful perplexities which oft times hang on him very long so the oftner such Zeal and Passion But let me tell you that you may grow in these and not grow in the body of your Graces Doubtless Satan himself may do much to kindle your Zeal if he do but see it voyd of sound Knowledge as he did in Iames and Iohn when they would have called for Fire from Heaven but knew not what spirit they were of For the doleful Case of Christs Churches in this age hath put quite beyond dispute that none do the Devils work more effectually nor oppose the Kingdom of Christ more desperately then they that have the hottest Zeal with the weakest Judgements And as Fire is most excellent and necessary in the Chimney but in the thatch it is worse then the vilest dung so is Zeal most excellent when guided by sound Judgement but more destructive then prophane sensuality when it is let loose and misguided On the other side you may decay much in feeling and fervour of Affections and yet Grow in Grace if you do but grow in the Understanding and the Will And indeed this is the Common Growth which Christians have in their Age Examine therefore whether you have this or no. Do you not understand the things of the Spirit better then you formerly did Do you not value God Christ Glory and Grace at higher rates then formerly Are you not more fully Resolved to stick to Christ to the death then formerly you have been I do not think but it would be a harder work for Satan to draw you from Christ to the flesh then heretofore When the tree hath done growing in visible greatness it groweth in rootedness The fruit grows first in bulk and quantity and then in mellow sweetness Are not you less Censorious and more Peaceable then heretofore I tell you that is a more noble growth then a great deal of austere and bitter youthful censorious dividing Zeal of many will prove Mark most aged experienced Christians that walk uprightly and you will find that they quite outstrip the younger 1. In experience knowledge prudence and foundness of Judgement 2. In well-setled Resolutions for Christ his Truth and Cause 3. In a Love of Peace especially in the Church and a hatred of dissentions perverse contendings and divisions If you can shew this growth say not that you do not grow 3. But suppose you do not grow should you therefore deny the sincerity of your Grace I would not perswade any soul that they grow when they do not But if you do not be humbled for it and endeavour it for the future Make it your desire and daily business and spare not Lye not still complaining but rouse up your soul and see what 's amiss and set upon neglected duties and remove those Corruptions that hinder your Growth Converse with Growing Christians and under quickening means Endeavour the Good of other mens souls as well as your own and then you 'l find that growth which will silence this Doubt and do much more for you then that DOUBT XVII I Am troubled with such Blaspemous thoughts and Temptations to Vnbelief even against God and Christ and Scripture and the Life to come that I doubt I have no faith ANSWER TO be Tempted is no sign of Gracelesness but to yield to the Temptation nor every yielding neither but to be overcome of the Temptation Most Melancholy people especially that have any knowledge in Religion are frequently haunted with Blasphemous Temptations I have oft wondred that the Devil should have such a power and advantage in the predominancy of that distemper Scarce one person of ten who ever was with me in deep Melancholy either for the Cure of body or mind but hath been haunted with these Blasphemous thoughts and that so impetuously and violently set on and followed that it might appear to be from the Devil yea even many that never seemed Godly or to mind any such
The Right METHOD For a settled PEACE Of Conscience and Spiritual COMFORT In 32 DIRECTIONS Written for the use of a troubled friend and now published By Richard Baxter Teacher of the Church at Kederminster in Worcestershire 1 John 4.16 God is Love Luke 14.17 Mat. 22.4 Come for all things are now Ready London Printed for T. Vnderhil F. Tyton and W. Râ—ybould and are to be sold at the Anchor and at the Unicorn in Pauls Church-yard and at the three Daggers in Fleetstreet 1653. MAT. 11.28 COme unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you Rest Take my Yoke upon you and Learn of me for I am meek and Lowly in heart and ye shall finde Rest unto your souls For my Yoke is easie and my burthen is light GAL. 5.17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other so that ye cannot do the things that ye would ROM 6.16 Know ye not that to whom ye Yield your selves servants to obey his servants ye are to whom ye obey whether of sin unto Death or of Obedience unto Righteousness ROM 13.14 Make not provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof ROM 8.13 For if ye Live after the flesh ye shall dye But if ye through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the Body ye shall live 2 PET. 2.19 While they promise them Liberty they themselves are the Servants of Corruption for of whom a man is overcome of the same is he brought in bondage EZEK 33.10 11. Thus you speak saying If our transgressions and our sins be upon us and we pine away in them how should we then live Say unto them As I live saith the Lord God I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from his way and live turn ye turn ye from your evil ways for why will ye dye O house of Israel 2 COR. 2.20 Now then we are Ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead be reconciled to God PSAL. 37.3 4. Trust in the Lord and do good c. Delight thy self also in the Lord and he shall give thee the Desires of thine heart Sound Doctrine makes a sound Judgement a sound Heart a sound Conversation and a sound Conscience To my much valued beloved and honored friends Col. John Bridges with Mr s Margaret Bridges his Wife and Mr. Thomas Foley with Mr s Anne Foley his Wife THough in publishing our Writings we intend them for the good of all yet custom not without reason doth teach us sometimes to direct them more especially to some Though one only had the original interest in these papers yet do I now direct them to you all as not knowing how in this to separate you You dwell together in my Estimation and Affection One of you a Member of the Church which I must Teach and legally the Patron of its Maintenance and Minister The other a special branch of that family which I was first indebted to in this County You lately joyned in presenting to the Parliament the Petition of this County for the Gospel and a faithful Ministry When I only told you of my intention of sending some poor Scholars to the University you freely and joyntly offered your considerable Annual allowance thereto and that for the continuance of my life or their necessities there I will tell the world of this whether you will or no not for your applause but for their imitation and the shame of many of far greater estates that will not be drawn to do the like The season somewhat aggravates the Goodness of your Works When Satan hath a design to burn up those Nurseries you are watering Gods plants when the greedy mouth of Sacriledge is gaping for their Maintenance you are voluntarily adding for the supply of its defect Who knows how many souls they may win to Christ if God shall send them forth into his harvest whom you have thus assisted and what an addition to your comfort this may be When the Gospel is so undermined and the Ministry so maligned and their maintenance so envied you have as the mouth of this County appeared for them all What God will yet do with us we cannot tell but if he will continue his Gospel to us you may have the greater comfort in it If he will remove it and forsake a proud unworthy false hearted People yet may you have the comfort of your sincere endeavors you with the rest that sincerely furthered it may escape the gnawings of Conscience and the publique curse and reproach which the Historie of this age may fasten upon them who after all their Engagements in blood and Covenants would either in ignorant fury or malicious subtilty or base temporizing cowardize oppugn or undermine the Gospel or in perfidious silence look on whilst it s destroyed But because it is not the work of a flatterer that I am doing but of a friend I must second these commendations with some caution and counsel and tell your selves of your danger and duty as I tell others of your exemplary Deeds Truly the sad experiences of these times have much abased my confidence in man and caused me to have lower thoughts of the best then sometime I have had I confess I look on man as such a distempered slippery and unconstant thing and of such a natural mutability of Apprehensions and Affections that as I shall never more call any man on earth My friend but with a supposition that he may possibly become mine enemie So I shall never be so confident of any mans Fidelity to Christ as not withal to suspect that he may possibly forsake him nor shall I boast of any mans service for the Gospel but with a jealousie that he may be drawn to do as much against it though God who knows the heart and knows his own decrees may know his sincerity and foreknow his perseverance Let me therefore remember you that had you expended your whole estates and the blood of your hearts for Christ and his Gospel he will not take himself beholden to you He oweth you no Thanks for your deepest engagements highest adventures greatest cost or utmost endeavours You are sure beforehand that you shall be no losers by him your seeming hazards increase your security Your losses are your gain your giving is your receiving your expences are your revenues Christ returns the largest usury The more you do and suffer for him the more you are beholden to him I must also remember you that you may possibly live to see the day when it will cost you dearer to shew your selves faithful â—o the Gospel Ordinances and Ministers of Christ then now it doth and that many have shrunk in greater tryals that past through lesser with resolution and honor Your defection at the last would be the loss of all your works and hopes If any man
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
men willing that so they may be saved Answ God having created the world and all things in it at first did make them in a certain nature and order and so stablish them as by a fixed Law and he thereupon is their Governour to govern every thing according to its nature Now mans Nature was to be Principled with an Inclination to his own Happiness and to be lead to it by objects in a Morall way and in the choice of means to be a free agent and the Guider of himself under God As Governour of the Rational creature God doth continue that same course of Ruling them by Laws and drawing them by ends and objects as their natures do require And in this way he is not wanting to them His Laws are now Laws of Grace and universal in the tenour of the free Gift and Promise for he hath there given life in Christ to all that will have it and the objects propounded are sufficient in their kinde to work even the most wonderfull effects on mens souls for they are God himself and Christ and glory Besides God giveth men natural faculties that they may have the use of reason and there is nothing more unreasonable then to refuse this offered Mercy He giveth inducing Arguments in the written Word and Sermons and addeth such Mercies and Afflictions that one would think should bow the hardest heart Besides the strivings and motions of his Spirit within which are more then we can give an account of Now is not this as much as belongs to God as Governour of the Creature according to its Nature And for the Giving of a New nature and Creating New hearts in men after all their rebellious rejecting of Grace this is a certain Miracle of Mercy and belongs to God in another Relation even as the free chooser of his Elect and not directly as the Governour of the universe This is from his special Providence and the former from his General Now special Providences are not to be as common as the General nor to subvert Gods ordinary established Course of Government If God please to stop Jordan and dry up the Red Sea for the passage of the Israelites and to cause the Sun to stand still for Joshua must he do so still for every man in the world or else be accounted unmercifull The sense of this Objection is plainly this God is not so rich in Mercy except he will New make all the World or Govern it above its Nature Suppose a King know his subjects to be so wicked that they have every one a full design to famish or kill themselves or poison themselves with something which is enticing by its sweetness The King not only makes a Law strictly charging them all to forbear to touch that poison but he sendeth special Messengers to entreat them to it and tell them the danger If these men will not hear him but wilfully poison themselves is he therefore unmercifull But suppose that he hath three or four of his sons that are infected with the same wickedness and he will not only command and intreat them but he will also lock them up or keep the poison from them or will feed them by violence with bitter food is he unmercifull unless he will do so by all the rest of his Kingdom Lastly If all this will not satisfie you Consider 1. That it is most certain that God is Love and infinite in Mercy and hath no pleasure in the death of sinners 2. But it is utterly uncertain to us how God worketh on mans will inwardly by his Spirit 3. Or yet what intollerable inconvenience there may be if God should work in other wayes therefore we must not upon such uncertainties deny certainties nor from some unreasonable scruples about the manner of Gods working Grace deny the blessed Nature of God which himself hath most evidently proclaimed to the world I have said the more of this because I finde Satan harp so much on this string with many troubled souls especially on the advantage of some common doctrines For false doctrine still tends to the overthrow of solid Peace and Comfort Remember therefore before all other thoughts for the obtaining of Peace to get high thoughts of the Gracious and Lovely Nature of God DIRECTION IV. 4. Next this Be sure that you deeply apprehend the Gracious Nature Disposition and Office of the Mediator JESUS CHRIST THough there can no more be said of the Gracious Nature of the Son then of the Father's even that his Goodness is Infinite yet these two advantages this Consideration will add unto the former 1. You will see here Goodness and Mercy in its condescension and neerer to you then in the Divine Nature alone it was Our thoughts of God are necessarily more strange because of our Infinite distance from the Godhead and therefore our apprehensions of Gods Goodness will be the lesse working because lesse familiar But in Christ God is come down into our Nature and so Infinite Goodness and Mercy is incarnate The man Christ Jesus is able now to save to the utmost all that come to God by him We have a Mercifull High Priest that is acquainted with our Infirmities 2. Herein we see the Will of God putting forth it self for our help in the most astonishing way that could be imagined Here is more then meerly a Gracious inclination It s an Office of saving and shewing Mercy also that Christ hath undertaken even to seek and to save that which was lost to bring home straying souls to God to be the great Peace-maker between God and man to Reconcile God to man and man to God and so to be the Head and Husband of his people Certainly the Devil strangely wrongeth poor troubled souls in this point that he can bring them to have such hard suspicious thoughts of Christ and so much to overlook the Glory of Mercy which so shineth in the face of the Son of Mercy it self How can we more contradict the Nature of Christ and the Gospel-description of him then to think him a destroying hater of his creatures and one that watcheth for our halting and hath more mind to hurt us then to help us How could he have manifested more willingness to save and more tender compassion to the souls of men then he hath fully manifested That the Godhead should condescend to assume our Nature is a thing so wonderfull even to astonishment that it puts faith to it to apprehend it For it is ten thousand times more condescension then for the greatest King to become a Fly or a Toad to save such creatures And shall we ever have low and suspicious thoughts of the Gracious and Mercifull Nature of Christ after so strange and full a discovery of it If twenty were ready to drown in the sea and if one that were able to swim and fetch them all out should cast himself into the water and offer them his help were it not foolish ingratitude for any to say
your case If then the reason why you say you cannot believe be from any thing that is really in Christ and not upon mistake then it must be either from some dislike of his saving work by which he would pardon you and save you from damnation but that is impossible for you cannot be willing to be damned or unpardoned till you lose your Reason Or else it is from a dislike of his work of sanctification by which he would cleanse your heart and life by saving you from your sinfull nature and actions some grudgings against Christs holy and undefiled Laws and wayes will be in the best while there is that flesh in them which lusteth against the Spirit so that they cannot do the things they would But if truly you have such a dislike of a sinless condition through the love of any sin or creature that you cannot be willing to have Christ to cure you and cleanse you from that sin and make you holy I say if this be true in a prevailing degree so that if Christ and Holiness were offered you you would not Accept them then it is certain you have not true faith And in this case it is easie to discern that your first work lyeth not in getting Comfort or ease to your troubled minde but in getting better conceits of Christ and a holy state and life that so you may be willing of Christ as Christ is of you and so become a true believer And here I would not leave you at that losse as some do as if there were nothing for you thâ— do for the getting of faith for certainly God hath prescribed you Means for that end Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God preached Rom. 10.17 1. Therefore see that you wait diligently on this Ordinance of God Read the Scriptures daily and search them to see whether you may not there finde that Holiness is better then sin 2. And however some seducers may tell you that wicked men ought not to pray yet be sure that you lye on your knees before God and importunately beg that he would open your eyes and change your heart and shew you so far the evil of sin and the want and worth of Christ and holiness that you may be unfainedly glad to Accept his offer Object But the prayers of the wicked are an abomination to the Lord. Answ 1. You must distinguish between wicked men as actually wicked and going on in the prosecution of their wickedness and wicked men as they have some good in them or are doing some good or are attempting a return to God 2. You must distinguish between real Prayer and seeming prayer 3. You must distinguish between full Acceptance of Prayer when God delighteth in them and an Acceptance only to some particular end not intimating the Acceptance of the person with his prayer And between Acceptance fully Promised as certain and Acceptance but half-promised as Probable And upon these distinctions I shall answer your objection in the Conclusions 1. When wicked men pray God to prosper them in their wickedness yea or to pardon them while they intend to go on in it and so to give them an indulgence in sin or when they think with a few prayers for some Good which they can endure to put by that Holiness which they cannot endure and so to make a cloak for their rebellion these prayers are all an abomination to the Lord. 2. When men use the words of a Prayer without the desire of the thing asked this is no Prayer but equivocally so called as a carkasse is a man and therefore no wonder if God abhor that Prayer which truly is no Prayer 3. God hath not made a full Promise ascertaining any wicked man while wicked that he will hear his Prayer for all such Promises are made to Believers 4. God doth never so hear an unbelievers Prayer as to accept his person with his Prayer or to take a complacency in them So much for the Negative Now for the Affirmative I add 1. Prayer is a duty which God enjoyned even wicked men I could prove it by a hundred Scripture texts 2. There may be some good desires in unbelievers which they may express in prayer and these God may so far hear as to grant them as he did in part to Ahab 3. An unbeliever may lye under preparing Grace and be on his way in returning towards God though yet he be not come to saving faith and in this state he may have many good desires and such Prayers as God will hear 4. Though God have not flatly engaged himself to unbelievers so as to give them a certainty of hearing their prayers and giving them true Grace on the improvement of their naturals yet he hath not only appointed them this and other means to get Grace but also given them half promises or strong probabilities of speeding so much as may be a sufficient encouragement to any such sinner to call on God and use his Means For as he appointeth not any vain Means to man so no man can name that man who did improve his naturals to the utmost and in particular sought God in prayer so far as a natural man may do who yet mist of Grace and was rejected This is the true mean between Pelagianisme and Antinomianisme in this point 5. When God calls unbelievers to Prayer he withall calls them to Believe and when he works their heart to Prayer by that call he usually withall works them to Believe or at least towards believing If he that was unwilling to have Christ do pray God to make him willing it is a beginning of willingness already and the way to get more willingness In Prayer God useth to give in the thing prayed for of this kinde 6. Prayer is the souls motion Godward and to say an unbeleever should not pray is to say he should not turn to God who yet saith to the wicked Seek the Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he is neer Let the wicked forsake his way c. Isa 55.6 7. 7. Prayer hath two parts Desire is the soul of it and Expression is the body the soul can live separated from the body but so cannot the body separated from the soul so can Desire without Expression but not Expression without Desire When our blind Antinomians the great subverters of the Gospel more then the Law do rail against Ministers for perswading wicked men to Pray they are against us for perswading men to Desire that they pray for Prayer having Desire for its soul And do not those men deserve to be exterminated the Churches and societies of the Saints who dare say to a wicked unbeliever Desire not Faith Desire not to leave thy wickedness Desire not Grace or Christ or God and that will proclaim abroad the world as I have oft heard them with zealous reproaches that our Ministers are Legalists Seducers Ignorant of the Mysteries of the Gospel because
childe of God and thy sins are pardoned This that I described to you is the true witness of the Spirit This mistake is so dangerous that I had thought to have made it a peculiar Direction by it self to warn you of it but now I have gone so far I will dispatch it here Two dangerous consequents I finde do follow this unwarrantable expectation of the first immediate efficient Revelation that we are Adopted 1. Some poor souls have languished in doubtings and trouble of minde almost all their daies in expectation of such a kinde of witness as the Spirit useth not to give when in the mean time they have other sufficient means of Comfort and knew not how to improve them yea they had the true witness of the Spirit in his inhabitation and holy workings and did not know it but run as Samuel did to Eli not knowing the voice of God and look for the Spirits testimony when they had it as the Jews for Elias and the Messias 2. Others do more dangerously erre by taking the strong conceit of their own phantasie for the witness of the Spirit As soon as they do but entertain the opinion that it must be such a witness of the Spirit without the use of Marks that must Assure men of their Adoption presently they are confident that they have that witness themselves It is scarce likely to be Gods Spirit that is so ready upon the meer change of an opinion The devil useth to do as much to cherish presumption as to destroy true faith and Assurance It is a shrewd signe that our perswasions of our truth of Grace is a delusion when we finde the devil a friend to it and helping it on and it is a probable signe it is a good perswasion when we finde the devil an enemy to it and still troubling us and endeavouring our disquiet And here I remember the scruple that troubleth some about the spirit of bondage and the spirit of Adoption But you must understand that by the spirit of bondage is meant that spirit and those operations on the soul which the Law of Works did naturally beget in those that were under it which was to be partly in bondage to a task of Ceremonious duties and partly to the Curse and obligation to Punishment for disobedience without any Power to Justifie They were said therefore to be in bondage to the Law and the Law was said to be a Yoak which neither they nor their fathers were able to bear Acts 15. And by the spirit of Adoption is meant 1. That spirit or those qualifications and workings in their souls which by the Gospel God giveth only to his sons 2. And which raise in us some child-like affections to God enclining us in all our wants to run to him in Prayer as to a Father and to make our moan to him and open our griefs and cry for redress and look to him and depend on him as a childe on the father This spirit of Adoption you may have and yet not be certain of Gods special Love to you The knowledge only of his general Goodness and Mercy may be a means to raise in you true child-like affections You may know God to have fatherly inclinations to you and yet doubt whether he will use you as a childe for want of Assurance of your own sincerity And you may hope God is your father when yet you may apprehend him to be a displeased angry father and so he may be more your terror then your comfort Are not you ready in most of your fears and doubts and troubles to go to God before all other for relief and doth not your heart sigh and groan to him when you can scarcely speak Doth not your troubled spirit there finde its first vent and say Lord kill me not forsake me not my life is in thy hands O soften this hard heart make this carnal minde more spiritual O be not such a stranger to my soul Woe to me that I am so ignorant of thee so disaffected to thee so backward and disinclined to holy communion with thee Woe to me that I can take no more pleasure in thee and am sâ— mindless and disregardfull of thee O that thou wouldst stir up in me more lively desires and workings of my soul toward thee and suffer me not to lye at such a distance from thee Are not such as these the breathings of your spirit why these are child-like breathings after God! this is crying Abba Father This is the work of the spirit of Adoption even when you fear God will cast you off You much mistake and those that tell you so if you think that the spirit of Adoption lieth only in a perswasion that you are Gods childe or that you may not have the spirit of Adoption without such a perswasion of Gods Adopting you For God may Adopt you and give you that spirit which he gives only to his children and possess you with true filial affections towards him before ever you know your self to be Adopted much more though you may have frequent returning doubts of your Adoption Having thus shewed you how far you may expect the Witness of the Spirit and how far you may and must make use of Marks and Qualifications or Actions of your own for the obtaining of Assurance and setled Peace I shall add an Answer to the Principal Objections of the Antinomians against this Object They say This is to draw men from Christ to themselves and from the Gospel to the Law to lay their Comforts and build their Peace upon any thing in themselves is to forsake Christ and make themselves their own Saviours and those Teachers that perswade them to this are Teachers of the Law and false Prophets who draw men from Christ to themselves All our own Righteousness is as a menstruous cloth and our best works are sin and therefore we may not take up our Assurance or Comforts from them We shall be alwayes at uncertainties and at a loss or unconstant up and down in our Comforts as long as we take them from any signes in our selves Also our own Graces are Imperfect and therefore unfit to be the Evidences for our Assurance Answ Because I am not now purposely confuting the Antinomians but only fore-arming you against their assaults I shall noâ— therefore give you half that I should otherwise say for the Explication of this Point and the Confutation of their Errors but only so much as is necessary to your preservation Which I do because they pretend to be thâ— only Preachers of free Grace and the onlâ— right Comforters of troubled Consciences because they have written so many books to that end which if they fall into your hand may seem so specious as that you may neeâ— some preservative I suppose you remember what I have taught you so oft concerning the difference of the Law of Works and the Law or Covenant of Grace with their different Conditions Upon which
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
certain to perform Answ 1. I suppose you have read the many Scriptures and Arguments which our Divines ordinarily use to prove that the true Believers shall not fall quite away And I know not how the opposers can answer that text which themselves use to alledge for the contrary Mat. 13.6 21. Those that believe for a time and in the time of persecution fall away it is because the seed had not depth of earth the word never took rooting in their hearts Whence it seems that it may be well inferred that those shall not fall away in time of temptation in whom the word of God hath taken deep rooting And that is in them in whose hearts or wills Christ hath a stronger interest then the creature or those that have a well-grounded unreserved habituated or setled Resolution to be for Christ 2. However your present Resolution and your Covenanting with Christ is no more but this to say I do Consent or this I am Resolved to do by the help of Gods Grace 3. Else no man should be Baptized or become a Christian because he is uncertain to keep his Covenants For all that are Baptized do Covenant and vow to forsake the world flesh and Devil and fight under Christs banner to their lives end Understand me therefore that you are not to promise to do this by your own strength but by the strength of Christ as knowing that he hath promised his Spirit and Grace for the aid of every true Believer 14. If your Resolution at present be hearty you ought not to vex and disquiet your minde with doubtfull tormenting fears what you should do if you be put to it to forsake all and suffer death for Christ For he hath promised to lay no more on us then we can bear but with the temptation will make us a way to come forth 1 Cor. 10 13. either he will not bring us into trials beyond our strength or else he will increase our strength according to our trials He hath bid us pray Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil and he hath promised that whatsoever we ask in the name of Christ according to his will he will give us So that if once you can but truly say that it is your full Resolution to forsake all for Christ if he call you to it and that on the forementioned grounds you ought not then to vex your soul with fears of the issue for that is but to distrust God your father and your strength Only you must be carefull to do your duty to the keeping up of your present Resolutions and to wait obediently on God for the help of his Spirit and to beg it earnestly at his hands 15. Much less is it lawfull for men to feign and suppose such calamities to themselves as God doth never try men by and then to ask themselves Can I bear these for Christ and so to try themselves on false and dangerous grounds Some use to be troubled lest if they were put to long and exquisite torments for Christ they should renounce him One saith I cannot endure the torments of Hell for Christ Another saith Could I endure to be roasted or torn in pieces so many weeks or daies together or could I endure to die so many times over These are foolish sinfull questions which Christ never desired you to put to your selves He never tries mens faith on this manner Tormentors cannot go beyond his Will Nay it is but very few that he tries by death and fewer by an extream tormenting death All this therefore proceeds from errour 16. Observe from the fifth Mark That the present Prevalency of your Resolutions now against those Temptations which you encounter with may well encourage you to expect that they should prevail hereafter if God bring you into greater trials Can you now follow Christ in a holy life though your flesh repine and would have its liberties and pleasures and though the world deride or threaten you or great ones turn against you and threaten your undoing Can you part with your money to the poor or to the promoting of any work of Christ according to the measure of estate that God hath allotted you notwithstanding all temptations to the contrary Some trials you have now if you can go well through these you have no cause to disquiet your minde with fears of falling in greater trials But he that cannot now deny his greedy Appetite in meats and drinks so far as to forbear excess nor can deny his credit with men nor bear the scorns or frowns of the world but be on the stronger side and decline his duty to avoid danger whatever become of conscience or Gods favour this man is not like to forsake and lay down his life for Christ and his cause Object But though I break through lesser trials I am not sure to overcome in greater for the same measure of Grace will not enable a man to forsake All which will enable him to forsake a little Many have gone through smaller trials and after forsaken Christ in greater And Christ makes it the property of temporaries that are not rooted in the faith that they fall when tribulation and persecution for the Gospel ariseth and therefore it seems they may stand till then and if trial never come they may never fall and yet be unsound in the mean time Answ 1. If your trial now be considerable the truth of Grace may be manifested in it though it be none of the greatest and though in striving against sin you have not yet resisted unto bloud 2. If you carefully observe your own heart you may discern whether the spirit and your resolutions be prevalent by their daily subduing and mortifying the flesh and its lusts Nay let me tell you the Victory of Gods Spirit over the flattering enticing world in prosperity is as great and glorious if not more then that over the frowning persecuting world in adversity And therefore finde the one and you need not fear the other Though I confess that hypocrites do not fall so visibly and shamefully alwayes in prosperity as in adversity for they have more pretences advantages and carnal shifts to hide the shame of their falls And for that in the Parable in Mat. 13. I pray you mark one thing Christ seems to speak of every several sort of Hearers by a Gradation speaking last of those that go farthest The first sort are the common ignorant negligent Hearers in whom the word takes no root at all The second sort are those that give it a slight and shallow rooting but no deep rooting at all these are they that fall away in tribulation By falling away is meant the plain deserting Christ or the substance of his Cause These men till this falling away though they professed Christ and heard the word with joy yet no doubt did not crucifie the flesh the world whereby they might have discovered their unsoundness if they would before tribulation came
perfectly sanctified and rid of that body of sin though it were to the smart and displeasing of your flesh Are you not willing to wait on God in the use of his Ordinances in that poor weak measure as you are able to perform them Durst you or would you quit your part in God Heaven Christ and forsake the way of Holiness and do as the prophane world doth though it were to please your flesh or save your state or life Do not you daily strive against the flesh and keep it under and deny it its desires Do you not deny the world when it would hinder you from works of Mercy or publique Good according to your ability Is it not the grief of your soul when you fall and your greatest trouble that you cannot walk more obediently innocently and fruitfully and do you not after sinning Resolve to be more watchfull for the time to come Are you not resolved to stick to Christ and his holy Laws and Waies whatever changes or dangers come and rather to forsake friends and all that you have then to forsake him Yet in a godly jealousie and distrust of your own heart do renounce your own strength and resolve to do this only in the strength of Christ and therefore daily beg it of him Is it not your daily care and business to please God and do his will and avoid sinning in your weak measure I hope that all this is so and your own case which if it be you have Infallible Evidences and want but the sight and comfort of them You have the true grounds for Assurance though you want Assurance it self Your chief danger is over though your trouble remain Your soul is at the present in a safe condition though not in the sense of it You are in the state of salvation though not of consolation It must be your next work therefore to study Gods Mercies and take notice what he hath done for your soul Let not so blessed a guest as the holy Ghost dwell in you unobserved Shall he do such wonders in you and for you and you not know it or acknowledge it Shall he new beget you and new make you and produce a spiritual heavenly nature in you who of your self were so carnal and earthly and will you not observe it Had you any of these holy desires endeavors or resolutions of your self by nature Or have the ungodly about you any of them O that you knew what a Work of wonderfull Mercy Wisdom and Power the Spirit performeth in the renewing of a soul then sure you would more observe and admire his Love to you herein DIRECTION XII 12. The next Rule for your Direction for the right setling of your Peace is this You must know that Assurance of Justification Adoption and right to Salvation cannot be gathered from the smallest degree of Saving Grace HEre I must say something for explaining my meaning to you 2. And then give you my Reasons of this Assertion 1. Understand that I speak of Gods ordinary working by means not denying but God may by a voice from Heaven or an Angel or other supernatural Revelation bestow Assurance on whom he pleaseth But I hope all wise Christians will take heed of expecting this or of trusting too much to seeming Revelations unless they could prove that God useth to conferre Assurance in this way which I think they cannot 2. By the smallest degree of Grace I mean of Faith Love Obedience and those saving Graces whose acts are the condition of our Salvation and which in the fore-expressed Marks I laid down to you Do not therefore so farre mistake me as to think that I speak of a small measure of those common Gifts which are separable from true Sanctification such as are extensive Knowledge Memory Ability of Utterance in Preaching Repeating Exhorting or Praying An ornate plausible winning deportment before men such as is commonly called Good breeding or Manners An affected humble complementall familiarity and condescension to creep into mens estimation and affections and steal their hearts c. Many a one that is strong in saving Grace is weak in all these and other the like Now for my Reasons 1. I conceive that it is not possible for any Minister punctually to set down a discernable difference between the least measure of True saving Grace and the highest degree of common Grace and to say Just here it is that they part or by this you may discern them I do but say I think so because other men may know farre more then I do But I will say it as certain that I am not able to do it for my own part This much I can tell that the least degree of Grace that is saving doth determine the soul for God and Christ against the world and flesh that stand as Competitors and so where Christs interest prevaileth in the least measure there is the least measure of saving Grace As when you are weighing two things in the balance and at last make it so near evenweight that one end is turned and no more so when you are considering whether to be for Christ or for the flesh and the world and your Will is but even a very little Determined to Christ and preferreth him this is the least measure of saving Grace But then how a poor soul should discern this prevalent choice and determination of it self is all the Question For there is nothing more easie and common then for men to think verily that they preferre Christ above the creature as long as no temptation doth assault them nor sensual objects stand up in any cosiderable strength to entice them Nay wicked men do truly oft times purpose to obey Christ before the flesh and to take him for their Lord meerly in the general when they do not know or consider the quality of his Laws that they are so strict and spiritual and contrary to the flesh and hazardous to their worldly hopes and seeming-happiness But when it comes to particulars and God saith Now deny thy self and thy friend and thy goods and thy life for my sake alas it was never his Resolution to do it nor will he be perswaded to it But he that said to God who sends him to labour in his Vineyard I go Sir when he comes to finde the unpleasingness of the Work he goes not or never sets a hand to it So that it is evident that it is no true saving Resolution or Willingness which prevaileth not for actual Obedience Now here comes in the unresolvable Doubt What is the least Measure of Obedience that will prove a man truly Willing and Resolved or to have truly Accepted of Christ for his Lord This obedience lieth in Performing what is commanded and Avoiding what is forbidden Now it is too certain that every true Believer is guilty of a frequent neglect of Duty yea of known Duty We know we should Love God more abundantly and Delight in him and Meditate more on him and
disposeth helps or hinders the minde Let us hear one man reason the Case and we think he makes all as clear as the Light Let us hear another solve all his Arguments and dispute for the contrary and then we see that our Apprehensions were abused Let us hear him Reply and confute all again and confirm his Cause and then we think him in the right again Nothing more changeable then the conceivings and minde of man till he be throughly Resolved and Habituated Now in this Case how shall those that have but little Grace be able to discern it It will not keep the minde from fluctuating If they seem Resolved for obedience to Christ to day to morrow they are so shaken by some enticing object and force of the same temptation that their Resolution is undiscernable nay actually they prefer sin at that time before obedience It is impossible then but the soul should stagger and be at a loss for it will judge of it self as it findes it self and it cannot discern the Habitual Prevalency of Christs Interest when they feel the Actual Prevalency of the fleshes Interest For the Act is the only discoverer of the Habit And if Peter himself should then have fallen to the examination of his heart Whether he Preferred Christ before his Life at the same time when he was denying and forswearing Christ to save his Life do you think he could have discerned it and yet even then Christs Interest was greatest in him Habitually If David should have gone to search whether he preferred obedience to God before his fleshly pleasure when he was committing Adultery or before his credit when he was plotting the death of Vriah what discovery do you think he would have made 7. Add to all these that as these severall distempers were they but in the same measure in a weak Christian as they are in the best or in most would yet make the smallest measure of Grace undiscernable if we might suppose the smallest Grace to be consistent with such a frame so it is certain that whoever he be that hath the least measure of Grace to discover in himself he hath proportionably the least measure of abilities and helps to discover it and the greatest measure of all the forementioned hinderances He that hath but a very little Repentance Faith Love and Obedience sincere when he goeth to finde it out he hath in the same measure a Darker Understanding to discern it then others have and a greater strangeness and disacquaintance with himself and more deceitfulness in his heart and a greater confusion and hurlyburly in his thoughts and Affections and all more out of order and to seek Also he hath a greater backwardness to the work of self-examination and can hardly get his heart to it and more hardly to do it throughly and search to the quick and most hardly to hold on against all withdrawing temptations till he have made a clearer discovery And lastly his soul is more mutable then stronger Christians are and therefore when cross Actings are so frequent he cannot discern the smallest prevailing Habit. If when you are weighing Gold the scales be turned but with one grain every little jogge or winde or unsteadfast holding will actually lift up the heavier end and its preponderation is with great wavering and mobility 8. Yet further Consider those that have least Grace have most sin habitual and actual and they are so frequent in transgressing that their failings are still in their eye and thereby the prevalency of Christs interest is made more doubtfull and obscure For when he asketh his own conscience Do I will or love most the world and my fleshly delights or Christ and his wayes presently conscience remembreth him at such a time and such a time thou didst choose thy fleshly pleasures profits or credit and refuse obedience and it is so oft and so foully that the soul is utterly at a loss and cannot discern the Habitual prevalent bent and Resolution of the Will 9. Besides Conscience is a Judge in mans soul and will be Accusing and condemning men so far as they are guilty now they that make work for the most frequent and terrible Accusations of Conscience that will stand with true Grace are unlikely to have Assurance For Assurance quiets the soul and easeth it and a galled Conscience works the contrary way They that keep open the wound and daily fret off the skin more and are still grating on the galled part are unlikely to have Assurance 10. Again These weakest Christians being least in Duty and most in sinning of any in whom sin reigneth not they are consequently most in provoking and displeasing God And they that do so shall finde that God will shew them his displeasure and will displease them again They must not look to enjoy Assurance or see the Pleased face of God till they are more carefull to please him and are more sparing and seldom in offending him As Gods universal Justice in Governing the world will make as great a difference between the sincerely Obedient and Disobedient as there is between Heaven and Hell so Godâ— Paternal Justice in Governing his family will make as wide a difference between the more Obedient children and the less Obedient as is between his dreadfull frowns and his joyous reviving smiles or between his smarting Rod or his encouraging Rewards 11. If God should give Assurance and Peace to the sinning and least obedient believers he should not fit his providential disposals to their good It is not that which their state requires nor would it tend to their Cure any more then a healing Plaister to a sore that is rotten in the bottom or a Cordial to the removall of a cacochymy or the purging out of corrupt redundant humours They are so inclined to the Lethargy of security that they have need of continual pinching striking or loud calling-on to keep them waking still remember that by this weak Christian I mean not every doubting distressed soul that is weak in their own apprehension and little in their own eyes and poor in spirit but I mean those that have the least measure of sincere Love to Christ and desire after him and tenderness of conscience and care to please God and the greatest measure of security worldliness pride flesh-pleasing and boldness in sinning which is consistent with sincerity in the faith I believe there is no father or mother that hath children to govern but they know by experience that â—here is a necessity of frowns and rods for the more disobedient and that rewards and smiles are no cure for stubbornness or contempt 12. Lastly Do but well consider what a solaâ—cisme in Government it would be and what desperate inconveniences it would have brought into the world if God should but have set such a punctual land-mark between his Kingdom and the Kingdom of Satan as we are ready to dream of If God should have said in his Word just so oft a man may
you elsewhere If we be imperfect and our faith imperfect and the knowledge of our own hearts imperfect and all our evidences and graces imperfect then our Assurance must needs be imperfect also To dream of Perfection on earth is to dream of Heaven on earth And if Assurance may be here perfect why not all our Graces Even when all Doubtings are overcome yet is Assurance farre short of the highest degree Besides that measure of Assurance which godly men do partake of hath here it s many sad interruptions in the most Upon the prevalency of Temptations and the hidings of Gods face their souls are oft left in a state of sadness that were but lately as in the arms of Christ How fully might this be proved from the examples of Job David Jeremy and others in Scripture and much more abundantly by the daily complaints and examples of the best of Gods people now living among us As there is no perfect evenness to be expected in our obedience while we are on earth so neither will there be any constant or perfect evenness in our comforts He that hath life in one duty is cold in the next and therefore he that hath much joy in one duty hath little in the next Yea perhaps duty may but occasion the renewall of his sorrows that the soul who before felt not its own burden at a Sermon or in Prayer or holy Meditation which were wont to revive him now seems to feel his miseries to be multiplied The time was once with David when the thoughts of God were sweet to him and he could say In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul And yet he saw the time also When he remembred God and was troubled he complained and his Spirit was overwhelmed God so held his eyes waking that he was troubled and could not speak he considered the daies of old and the years of ancient time he called to remembrance his song in the night he communed with his own heart and his spirit made diligent search Will the Lord saith he cast off for ever and will he be favourable no more Is his mercy clean gone for ever doth his promise fail for evermore Hath God forgotten to be gratious hath he in anger shut up his tender mercy Was not this a low ebb and a sad case that David was in Till at last he saw This was his infirmity Psal 77.1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. Had David no former experiences to remind no arguments of comfort to consider of Yes but there is at such a season an incapacity to improve them There is not only a want of comfort but a kind of aversness from it The soul bendeth it self to break its own Peace and to put away comfort farre from it So saith he in vers 2. My soul refused to be comforted In such cases men are witty to argue themselves into distress that it is hard for one that would comfort them to answer them and they are witty in refelling all the Arguments of comfort that you can offer them so that it is hard to fasten any thing on them They have a weak-wilfulness against their own Consolations Seeing then that the best have such storms and sad interruptions do not you wonder or think your case strange if it be so with you Would you speed better then the best Long for Heaven then where only is Joy without sorrow and everlasting Rest without interruption DIRECTION XX. 20. Let me also give you this warning That You must never expect so much Assurance on earth as shall set you above a Possibility of the loss of Heaven or above all apprehensions of real danger of your miscarrying I Conceive this advertisement to be of great necessity But I must first tell you the meaning and then the reasons of it Only I am sorry that I know not how to express it fully but in School terms which are not so familiar to you 1. That which shall certainly come to pass we call a thing Future That which May and Can be Done we call Possible All things are not Future which are Possible God can do more then he hath done or will do He could have made more worlds and so more were Possible then were Future Moreover a thing is said to be Possible in reference to some Power which can accomplish it whether it be Gods Power or Angels or mans God hath Decreed that none of his Elect shall finally or totally fall away and perish and therefore their so falling and perishing is not-future that is It is a thing that shall never come to pass But God never Decreed that it should be utterly Impossible and therefore it still remaineth Possible though it shall never come to pass Obj. But it is said They shall deceive if it were Possible the very Elect. A most comfortable place which many opposers of Election and Free-grace do in vain seek to obscure But let me tell you for the right understanding of it 1. That as I said Possible and Impossible are Relative terms and have Relation to the Power of some Agent as proportioned to the thing to be Done Now this Text speaks only of the power of false Christs and false Prophets and the devil by them Their power of Deceiving is exceeding great but not great enough to Deceive the Elect which is true in two Respects 1. Because the Elect are guided and fortified by Gods Spirit 2. Because seducers work not efficiently but finally by propounding objects or by a Morall improper efficiency only All their seducements cannot force or necessitate us to be Deceived by them But though it be impossible to them to do it yet it is Possible to God to permit which yet he never will and so Possible for our selves to be our own Deceivers or to give Deceivers strength against us by a wilfull receiving of their poysoned baits 2. Besides Christ spoke not in Aristotles School but among the Vulgar where words must be used in the common sense or else they will not be understood And the Vulgar use to call that Impossible which shall never come to pass And indeed when we say that it is Possible or Impossible for a man to sin or fall away there is some degree of Impropriety in the Terms because Possible and Impossible are terms properly relating to some power apportioned to a work but sinning and falling away thereby are the consequents of impotency and not the effects of Power except we speak of the natural act wherein the sin abideth But this must be born with for want of a fitter word to express our meaning by But I 'le leave these things which are not fit for you and desire you to leave them and overpass them if you understand them not 2. I here told you also that you must not look to be above all apprehension of danger of your miscarrying The grounds of this are these 1. Because as is said our miscarrying
Believe without Gods further help but he that hath made you willing will not be wanting to maintain your willingness Though I will say to any man You may have Christ if you Will yet I will say to no man You can be willing of your self or without the special Grace of God Nay let me further ask Have not you darkned buried or weakned your Graces in stead of exercising and increasing them even then when you complained for want of Assurance of them when you found a want of Faith and Love have not you weakened them more and so made them less discernable Have you not fed your unbelief and disputed for your doubtings and taken Satans part against your self and which is farre worse have you never through these doubtings entertained hard thoughts of God and presented him to your soul as unwilling to shew you mercy and in an unlovely dreadfull hideous shape fitter to affright you from him then to draw you to him and likelier to provoke your hatred then your love If you have not done thus â— know too many troubled souls that have And if you have you have taken a very unlikely way to get Assurance If you would have been certain that you Loved God in sincerity you should have laboured to Love him more till you had been certain And that you might do so you should have kept better thoughts of God in your minde You will hardly love him while you think of him as evil or at least as hurtfull to you Never forget this Rule which I laid you down in the beginning that He that will ever love God must apprehend him to be Good and the more large and deep are our apprehensions of his goodness the more will be our Love For such as God appears to be to mens fixed conceivings such will their Affections be to him For the fixed deep conceptions or apprehensions of the mind do lead about the soul and guide the life I conclude therefore with this important and importunate request to you That though it be a duty necessary in its time and place to examine our selves concerning our sincerity in our several graces and duties to God yet be sure that the first and farre greater part of your time and pains and care and inquiries be for the getting and increasing of your grace then for the discerning it and to perform your duty rightly then to discern your right performance And when you conferre with Ministers or others that may teach you see that you ask ten times at least How should I get or increase my â—aith my love to Christ and to his people for once that you ask How shall I know that I believe or love Yet so contrary hath been and still is the practice of most Christians among us in this point that I have heard it twenty times asked How shall I know that I truly love the Brethren for once that I have heard it demanded How should I bring my heart to love them better And the like I may say of love to Christ himself I should next have spoke of the second part of the Direction How much our Assurance and Comfort will still depend on our Actual obedience But this will fall in in handling the two or three next following Directions DIRECTION XXIII 23. My next advice is this Think not that those doubts and troubles of minde which are caused and continued by wilfull Disobedience will ever be well healed but by the healing of that Disobedience or that the same means must be used and will suffice to the cure of such troubles which must be used and will suffice to cure the troubles of a tender-conscience and of an obedient Christian whose trouble is meerly through mistakes of their condition I Will begin with the later part of this Direction He that is troubled upon meer mistakes may be quieted upon the removal of them If he understood not the universal extent of Christs satisfaction or of the Covenant or conditional Grant of Christ and Life in him and if upon this he be troubled as thinking that he is not included the convincing him of his error may suffice to the removal of his trouble If he be troubled through his mistaking the nature of true Faith or true Love or other Graces and so think that he hath them not when he hath them the discovery of his error may be the quieting of his soul The soul that is troubled upon such mistakes must be tenderly dealt with Much more they that are disquieted by groundless fears or too deep apprehensions of the wrath or justice of God of the evil of sin and of their unworthiness and for want of fuller apprehensions of the loving kindness of God and the tender compassionate nature of Christ We can scarce handle such souls too gently God would have all to be tenderly dealt with that are tender of displeasing and dishonouring him by sin Gods own language may teach all Ministers what language we should use to such Isa 57.15 16 17 18 19 20 21. Thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity whose Name is Holy I dwel in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones For I will not contend for ever neither will I be alwaies wroth For the spirit should fail before me and the souls which I have made c. But the wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest whose waters cast up mire and dirt There is no peace saith my God to the wicked Much more tender language may such expect from Christ in the Gospel where is contained a fuller revelation of his Grace If Mary a poor sinfull woman lie weeping at his feet and washing them with her tears he hath not the heart to spurn her away but openly proclaims the forgiveness of her many sinnes As soon as ever the heart of a sinner is turned from his sinnes the heart of Christ is turned to him The very summe of all the Gospel is contained in those precious words which fully express this Matth. 11.28 29 30. Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you Rest Take my yoak upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall finde Rest unto your souls For my yoak is easie and my burden is light When the Prodigal Luke 15.20 doth once come home to his Father with sorrow and shame conâ—esting his unworthiness yea but resolved to confess it his Father preventeth him and sees him afarre off and staies not his coming but runs and meets him and when he comes to him he doth not upbraid him with his sins nor say Thou Rebell why hast thou forsaken me and preferred harlots and luxury before me nay he doth not so much as frown upon him but compassionatly fals on his neck and kisseth him Alas
expressions Because if a man be of able natural parts and have a tongue to express his own mind the promoting of holy Desires will help men to expressions For a full soul is hardly hindred from venting it self And experience teacheth us that the spirits enflaming the heart with holy Affections doth very much furnish both the Invention and Expression But this is but accidental and uncertain For those that are either men of unready tongues or that are so ill bred among the rude vulgar that they want fit expressions of their own minds or that are of over-bashful dispositions or especially that are of small knowledge and of little and short acquaintance with those that should teach them to pray by their examples or that have been but of short standing in the School of Christ such a man may have the spirit of Prayer many a year and never be able in full expressions of his own to make known his wants to God no nor in good and tolerable sense and language before others to speak to God from his own Invention A man may know all those Articles of the Faith that are of flat necessity to Salvation and yet not be able to find matter or words for the opening of his heart to God at length I would advise such to frequent the Company of those that can teach and help them in Prayer and neglect not to use the smallest parts they have especially in secret between God and their own souls where they need not so much as in publick to be regardful of expressions and in the mean time to learn a Prayer from some Book that may fitliest express their necessities or to use the Book it self in Prayer If they distrust their memories not resolâ—ing to stick heâ—â— and make it a means of indâ—lâ—iâ—â—â—â—eir laâ—iâ—ess and negligence much less to reproach and deride those that express their desires to God from the present sense of their own wants as some wickedly do deride such but to use this lawful help till they are able to do better without it then with it and then to lay it by and not before The Holy Ghost is said Rom. 8.16 to help our Infirmities in Prayer but how 1. By teaching us what to pray for not always what matter or words to enlarge our selves by but what necessary Graces to pray for 2. By giving us Sighs and Groans unexpressible which is far from giving Copious expressions For Groans and Sighs be not words and if they be Groans that we cannot express it would rather seem to intimate a want of expression then a constant abounding therein where the spirit doth assist Though indeed the meaning is that the Groans are so deep that they are past the expression of our words All our speech cannot express that deep sense that is in our hearts For the Understanding hath the advantage of the Affections herein All the thoughts of the mind may be expressed to others but the Feelings and fervent Passions of the soul can be but very defectively expressed Lastly All have not the spirit of Prayer in like measure nor all that have it in a great measure at one time can find it so at pleasure Desires rise and fall and these earnest Groans be not in every Prayer where the Holy Ghost doth assist I believe there is never a Prayer that ever a Believer did put up to God for things lawful and useful but it was put up by the help of the spirit For the weakest Prayer hath some degree of good Desire in it and addresses to God with an endeavour to express them and these can come from none but onely from the spirit Meer words without desires are no more Prayer then a suit of apparel hang'd on a stake is a man You may have the spirit of Prayer and yet have it in a very weak degree Yet still I would encourage you to bewail your defect herein as your sin and seek earnestly the supply of your wants But what 's that to the questioning or denying your sincerity or right to salvation DOUBT X. I Have no Gifts to make me useful to my self or others When I should profit by the Word I cannot Remember it When I should Reprove a Sinner or Instruct the Ignorant I have not words If I were called to give an account of my Faith I have not words to express that which as in my mind And what Grace can here be then ANSWER THis needs no long Answer Lament and amend those sins by which you have been disabled But know that these Gifts depend more on Nature Art Industry and Common Grace then upon special saving Grace Many a bad man is excellent in all these and many a one that is truly godly is defective Where hath God laid our salvation upon the strength of our Memories the Readiness of our Tongues or measure of the like Gifts That were almost as if he should have made a Law that all shall be saved that have found Complexions and healthful and youthful bodies and all be damned that are sickly aged weak children and most women DOUBT XI O But I have been a grievous sinner before I came home and have fallen foully since and I am utterly unworthy of Mercy Will the Lord ever save such an unworthy wretch as I Will he ever give his Mercy and the blood of his Son to one that hath so abused it ANSWER 1. THe Question is not with God what you have been but what you are God takes men as they then are and not as they were 2. It is a dangerous thing to object the greatness of your Guilt against Gods mercy and Christs Merits Do you think Christs satisfaction is not sufficient or that he dyed for small sins and not for great Do you not know that he hath made satisfaction for all and will pardon all and hath given out the pardon of all in his Covenant and that to all men on Condition they will Accept Christ to pardon and heal them in his own way Hath God made it his great design in the work of mans Redemption to make his Love and Mercy as Honorable and wonderful as he did his Power in the work of Creation and wil you after all this oppose the greatness of your sins against the greatness of this Mercy and Satisfaction why you may as wel think your self to be such a one that God could not or did not Make you as to think your sins so great that Christ could not or did not satisfie for them or will not pardon them if you Repent and Believe in him 3. And for Worthiness I pray you observe There is a twofold Worthiness Righteousness There is a Legal Worthiness and Righteousness which consisteth in a perfect obedience which is the performance of the Conditions of the Law of Pure Nature and Works This no man hath but Christ and if you look after this Righteousness or Worthiness in your self then do you depart from Christ and make
seven or eight years last past This being so you must look that your perseverance should be by being preserved from Temptation and must rather examine Whether you have that Grace which will enable you to avoyd Temptations then whether you have Grace enough to overcome them if you rush into them But if God unavoydably cast you upon them keep up your Watch and Prayer and you have no Cause to trouble your self with distrustful fears DOUBT XIII I Am afraid lest I have committed the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost and then there is no hope of my salvation ANSWER IT seems you know not what the sin against the Holy Ghost is It is this When a man is convinced that Christ and his Disciples did really work those glorious Miracles which are recorded in the Gospel and yet will not Believe that Christ is the Son of God and his Doctrine true though sealed with all those Miracles and other holy and wonderful works of the Spirit but do Blasphemously maintain that they were done by the Power of the Devil This is the sin against the Holy Ghost And dare you say that you are guilty of this If you be then you do not Believe that Christ is the Son of God and the Messiah and his Gospel true And then you will sure oppose him and maintain that he was a Deceiver and that the Devil was the Author of all the Miraculous and Gracious workings of his Spirit Then you will never fear his displeasure nor call him seriously either Lord or Saviour nor tender him any service any more then you do to Mahomet None but Infidels do commit the Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost Nor but few of them Unbelief is eminently called Sin in the Gospel and that Vnbelief which is maintained by Blaspheming the Glorious Works of the Holy Ghost which Christ and his Disciples through many years time did perform for a Testimony to his Truth that is called singularly The sin against the Holy Ghost You may meet with other Descriptions of this sin which may occasion your terrour but I am fully perswaded that this is the plain Truth DOUBT XIV BVT I greatly fear lest the time of Grace be past and lest I have out sit the day of mercy and now mercy hath wholly forsaken me For I have oft heard Ministers tell me from the Word Now is the Accepted time Now is the day of your visitation To day while it is called to day harden not your hearts lest God swear in his wrath that you shall not enter into his Rest But I have stood out long after I have resisted and quenched the Spirit and now it is I fear departed from me ANSWER HEre is sufficient matter for Humiliation but the Doubting ariseth meerly from Ignorance The day of Grace may in two respects be said to be over The first and most properly so called is When God will not Accept of a sinner though he should Repent and Return This is never in this life for certain And he that imagineth any such thing as that it is too late while his soul is in his body to Repent and Accept of Christ and Mercy is meerly ignorant of the Tenour and sense of the Gospel For the New Law of Grace doth limit no time on earth for Gods Accepting of a Returning sinner True Faith and Repentance do as surely save at the last hour of the day as at the first God hath said that whosoever Believeth in Christ shall not perish but have everlasting life He hath no where excepted late Believers or Repenters Shew any such Exception if you can 2. The second sense in which it may be said that the day of Grace is over is this When a man hath so long resisted the Spirit that God hath given him over to wilful obstinate Refusals of Mercy and of Christs Government resolving that he will never give him the prevailing Grace of his Spirit Where note 1. That this same man might still have Grace as soon as any other if he were but Willing to Accept Christ and Grace in him 2. That no man can know of himself or any other that God hath thus finally forsaken him For God hath given us no sign to know it by at least who sin not against the Holy Ghost God hath not told us his secret intents concerning such 4. Yet some men have far greater cause to fear it then others especially those men who under the most searching lively Sermons do continue secure and wilful in known wickedness either hating godliness and godly persons and all that do Reprove them or at least being â—â—â—â—pified that they feel no more then a Post the force of Gods terrours or the sweetness of his promises but make a jest of sinning and think the life of godliness a needless thing Especially if they grow old in this course I confess such have great Cause to fear lest they are quite forsaken of God For very few such are ever recovered 5. And therefore it may well be said to all men To day if you will hear his voyce harden not your hearts c. and This is the Acceptable time this is the day of salvation both as this life is called The day of salvation and because no man is certain to live another day that he may Repent nor yet to have Grace to Repent if he Live 6. But what 's all this to you that do Repent Can you have Cause to fear that your day of Grace is over that have Received Grace Why that is as foolish a thing as if a man should come to the Market and buy Corn and when he hath done go home lamenting that the Market was past before he came Or as a man should come and hear the Sermon and when he hath done lament that the Sermon was done before he came If your day of Grace be past tell me and do not wrong God Where had you the Grace of Repentance How came you by that Grace of holy Desâ—res Who made you Willing to have Christ for your Lord and Saviour So that you had rather have him and Gods favour and a Holy heart and life then all the glory of the World How came you to desire that you were such a one as God would have you to be and to desire that all your sins were dead and might never live in you more and that you were able to Love God and Delight in him and please him even in perfection and that you are so troubled that you cannot do it Are these signs that your day of Grace is over Doth Gods Spirit breath out Groans after Christ and Grace within you and yet is the day of Grace over Nay what if you had no Grace Do you not hear God daily offering you Christ and Grace doth he not intreat and Beseech you to be Reconciled unto him 2 Cor. 5.19 20. and would he not compel you to come in Mat. 22. Do you not feel some unquietness in your
use of Infallible signs of Sincerity and take not those for certain which are not ANd to that end remember what I said before that you must well understand wherein the Nature of saving Faith and so of all saving Grace doth consist And when you understand this write it down in two or three lines and both at your first trial and afterward when ever any doubts do drive you to a Review of your Evidences still have recourse only to those Signs and try by them What these Signs are I have shewed you so fully in the forecited place in my book of Rest that I shall say but little now Remember that Infallible signs are very few and that whatsoever is made the condition of salvation that is the most Infallible evidence of our salvation and therefore the fittest Mark to try by And therefore Faith in God the Father and the Redeemer is the main Evidence But because I have elsewhere shewed you that this Faith is comprehensive of Love Gratitude Resolution to Obey and Repentance let me more particularly open it to help you in the Triall To prove any Grace to be saving it is necessary that you prove that salvation is fully promised to him that hath it Now if you will know what it is that hath this promise I will tell you 1. As to the Object 2. The Act. 3. The degree or modification of the Act. For all these three must be enquired after if you will get Assurance 1. The Object is principally God and the Redeemer Christ And secondarily the Benefits given by Christ and under that the means to attain the principal Benefits c. 2. The Act hath many Names drawn from Respective and Modall differences in the Object as Faith Desire Love choosing Accepting Receiving Consenting c. But properly all are comprised in one word Willing The Understandings high estimation of God and Christ and Grace is a Principal part of true saving Grace but yet it is difficult and scarce possible to judge of your self by it rightly but only as it discovers it self by prevailing with the Will 3. The Degree of this Act must be such as ordinarily prevaileth against its contrary I mean both the contrary Object and the contrary Act to the same Object But because I doubt School-termes do obscure my meaning to you though they are necessary for exactness I will express the nature of saving Grace in two or three Marks as plain as I can 1. Are you heartily willing to take God for your Portion and had you rather Live with him in Glory in his favour and fullest Love with a soul perfectly cleansed from all sin and never more to offend him Rejoicing with his Saints in his everlasting praises than to enjoy the delights of the flesh on earth in a way of sin and without the favour of God 2. Are you heartily willing to take Jesus Christ as he is offered in the Gospel that is to be your only Saviour and Lord to give you pardon by his bloudshed and to sanctifie you by his Word and Spirit and to govern you by his Laws Because this General containeth and implieth several Particulars I will express them distinctly Here it is supposed that you know this much following of the nature of his Laws For to be Willing to be Ruled by his Laws in General and utterly Unwilling when it comes to particulars is no true Willingness or subjection 1. You must know that his Laws reach both to heart and outward actions 2. That they command a holy spiritual heavenly life 3. That they command things so cross and unpleasing to the flesh that the flesh will be still murmuring and striving against obedience Particularly 1. They command things quite cross to the inclinations of the flesh as to forgive Wrongs to Love Enemies to forbear Malice and Revenge to restrain and mortifie Lust and Passion to abhor and mortifie Pride and be low in our own eyes and humble and meek in spirit 2. They command things that cross the interest of the flesh and its inclination both together I mean which will deprive it of its enjoyments and bring it to some suffering As to perform Duties even when they lay us open to disgrace and shame and reproach in the world and to deny our credit rather then forsake Christ or our duty to obey Christ in doing what he commandeth us though it would hazard or certainly lose our wealth friends liberty and life it self forsaking all rather then to forsake him to give to the poor and other good uses and that liberally according to our abilities to deny the flesh all forbidden pleasures and make not provision to satisfie its lusts but to crucifie the flesh with the affections and lusts thereof and in this combate to hold on to the end and to overcome These are the Laws of Christ which you must know before you can determine whether you are indeed unfeignedly willing to obey them Put therefore these further questions to your self for the trial of your willingness to be ruled by Christ according to his Laws 3. Are you heartily willing to live in the performance of those holy and spiritual Duties of heart and life which God hath absolutely commanded you and are you heartily sorry that you perform them no better with no more cheerfulness delight success and constancy 4. Are you so throughly convinced of the worth of everlasting Happiness and the intollerableness of everlasting misery and the truth of both and of the soveraignty of God the Father and Christ the Redeemer and your many engagements to him and of the necessity and good of obeying and the evil of sinning that you are truly willing that is have a setled resolution to cleave tâ— Christ and obey him in the deerest most disgracefull painfull hazardous flesh-displeasing Duties even though it should cost you the loss of all your worldly enjoyments and your life 5. Doth this willingness or resolution already so far prevail in your heart and life against all the Interest and Temptations of the world the devil and your flesh that you do ordinarily practise the most strict and holy the most self-denying costly and hazardous duties that you know God requireth of you and do heartily strive against all known sin and overcome all gross sins and when you fall under any prevailing temptation do rise again by Repentance and begging pardon of God through the bloud of Christ do resolve to watch and resist more carefully for the time to come In these five Marks is expressed the Gospel-description of a true Christian Having laid down these Marks I must needs add a few words for the explaining of some things in them least you mistake the meaning and so lose the benefit of them 1. Observe that it is your willingness which is the very Point to be tried And therefore 1. Judge not by your bare knowledge 2. Judge not by the stirrings or passionate workings of your Affections â— pray you forget not