before some bashful or proud or tender Patients will open their disease The very opening of a mans grief to a faithful friend doth oft ease the heart of it self 2. And that this should be done to your Pastor I will shew you further anon 2. But you must understand well when this is your Duty 1. Not in every small infirmity which accompanies Christians in their daily most watchful Conversation Nor yet in every lesser Doubt which may be otherways resolved It is a folly and a wrong to Physitians to run to them for every cut finger or prick with a pin Every neighbour can help you in this 2. Nor except it be a weighty case indeed go not first to a Minister But first study the case your self and seek Gods direction If that will not serve open your case to your nearest bosom friend that is godly and judicious And in these two cases always go to your Pastor 1. In case privater means can do you no Good then God calls you to seek further If a cut finger so fester that ordinary means will not cure it you must go to the Physician 2. If the case be weighty and dangerous For then none but the more prudent advice is to be trusted If you be struck with a dangerous disease I would not have you delay so long nor wrong your self so much as to stay while you tamper with every womans medicine but go presently to the Physician So if you either fall into any grievous sin or any terrible pangs of Conscience or any great streights and difficulties about matters of Doctrine or Practice go presently to your Pastour for advice The Devil and Pride and Bashfulness will do their utmost to hinder you but see that they prevail not 3. Next consider to what End you must do this Not 1. either to expect that a Minister can of himself create Peace in you or that all your Doubts should vanish as soon as ever you have opened your mind Onely the great Peacemaker the Prince of Peace can create Peace in you Ascribe not to any the office of the Holy Ghost to be your effectual Comforter To expect more from man then belongs to man is the way to receive nothing from him but to cause God to blast to you the best endeavours 2. Nor must you resolve to take all meerly from the word of your Pastour as if he were Infallible Nor absolutely to Judge of your self as he Judgeth For he may be too rigorous or more commonly too charitable in his opinion of you There may be much of your disposition and conversation unknown to him which may hinder his right Judging But 1. You must use your Pastour as the ordained Instrument Messenger of the Lord Jesus his Spirit appointed to speak a word in season to the weary and to shew to man his Righteousness and to strengthen the weak hands and feeble knees yea and more to bind and loose on Earth as Christ doth bind and loose in Heaven As Christ and his Spirit do onely save in the principal place and yet Ministers save souls in subordination to them as his Instruments Act. 26.17 18. 1 Tim. 4.15 16. Jam. 5.20 So Christ and the Spirit are as Principal Causes the onely Comforters but his Ministers are Comforters under him 2. And that which you must expect from them is these two things 1. You must expect those fuller discoveries of Gods Will then you are able to make your self by which you may have assurance of your duty to God and of the sense of Scripture which expresseth how God will deal with you That so a clearer discovery of Gods mind may Resolve your Doubts 2. In the mean time till you can come to a full Resolution you may and must somewhat stay your self on the very Judgement of your Pastour Not as Infallible but as a discovery of the Probability of your Good or bad estate and so of your duty also Though you will not renounce your own understanding and believe any man when you know he is deceived or would deceive you yet you will so far suspect your own reason and value anothers as to have a special regard to every mans Judgement in his own Profession If the Physician tell you that your disease is not dangerous or the Lawyer that your Cause is good it will more Comfort you then if another man should say as much It may much stay your heart till you can reach to clear Evidences and Assurance to have a Pastor that is well acquainted with you and is faithful and Judicious to tell you that he verily thinks that you are in a safe Condition 3. But the chief use of his Advice is not so much to tell you what he thinks of you as to give you Directions how you may Judge of your self and come out of your trouble Besides the benefit of his Prayers to God for you 4. Next let me tell you what men you must choose to open your mind to And they must be 1. Men of Judgement and Knowledge and not the Ignorant be they never so honest Else they may deceive you not knowing what they do either for want of understanding the Scripture and the nature of Grace and Sin or for want of skill to deal with both weak Consciences and deep deceitful hearts 2. They must be truly fearing God and of experience in this great work For a Troubled soul is seldom well resolved and comforted meerly out of a Book but from the Book and Experience both together Carnal or formal men will but make a Jest at the Doubts of a Troubled Christian or at least will give you such formal Remedies as will prove no Cure Either they will perswade you as the Antinomians do that you should trust God with your soul and never Question your Faith Or that you do ill to trouble your self about such things Or they will direct you onely to the Comforts of General Grace and tell you onely that God is Merciful and Christ dyed for sinners which are the necessary Foundations of our Peace but will not answer particular Doubts of our own sincerity and of our Interest in Christ Or else they will make you believe that Holiness of heart and life which is the thing you look after is it that troubleth you and breeds all your scruples Or else with the Papists they will send you to your Merits for Comfort or to some Vindictive Penance in Fastings Pilgrimages or the like or to some Saint departed or Angel or to the Pardons or Indulgencies of the Pope or to a certain formal carnal Devotion to make God amends 3. They must be men of downright Faithfulness that will deal plainly and freely though not cruelly and not like those tender Surgeons that will leave the Cure undone for fear of hurting Meddle not with men-pleasers and daubers that will presently speak Comfort to you as Confidently as if they had known you twenty years when perhaps they know
thought to make it publick anâ— so had no room for Marginal Quotations nor time to transcribe that Copy that might have room nor indeed much minâ— of them if I had had both room and time As in all the Removes of my Life â— have been still led to that place or state which was furthest from my own thoughts and never designed or contrived by my self so all the Writings that yet I have published are such as have been by some sudden unexpected occasion extorted from me while those that I most affected have been stifled in the Conception and those that I have most laboured in must lie buried in the dust that I may know it's God that is the Disposer of all Experience perswadeth me to think that God who hath compelled me hereto intendeth to make this hasty writing a means for the calming of some Troubled Souls Which if he do I have my End If I can do nothing to the â—hurches publick Peace either through my own unskilfulness and unworthiness or through the prevalency of the Malady yet will it be my comfort to further the Peace of the poorest Christian Though to the former also I shall contribute my best endeavours and am with this sending to the Press some few sheets to that end with our Worcestershire Agreement The full accomplishment of both the subduing of the Prince of Darkness Confusion and Contention the destroying of that Pride self-esteem self-seeking and carnal-mindedness which remaining even in the best are the disturbers of all Peace the fuller discovery of the sinfulness of impeaceable Principles Dispositions and Practices the nearer closure of all true Believers and the hastning of the Churches Everlasting Peace These are his daily Prayers who is May 7. 1653. A zealous desirer of the Peace of the Church and of every faithful soul RICHARD BAXTER The CONTENTS THE Case to be Resolved pag. 1. DIRECTION I. Discover the true Cause of your Trouble 4 The continued necessity of a standing Ministry 6 DIRECTION II. Discover well how much of your trouble is from Melancholy or from outward Crosses and apply the Remedy accordingly 7 DIRECTION III. Lay first in your understanding sound and deep apprehensions of Gods nature 17 The Benefits that arise from the Apprehensions of Gods Goodness 18 DIRECTION IV. Get deep Apprehensions of the Gracious Nature and Office of the Mediator 28 DIRECTION V. Believe and consider the full sufficiency of Christs Sacrifice and Ransome for all 32 DIRECTION VI. Apprehend the Freeness Fulness and Universality of the Law of Grace or Conditional Grant of Pardon and Salvation to all men if they will Repent and Believe 33 DIRECTION VII Understand the difference between General Grace and Special and between the Possibility Probability Conditional Certainty and Absolute Certainty of your Salvation and so between the several Degrees of Comfort that these Severals may afford 35 How much Comfort the unconverted may receive from General Grace 39 DIRECTION VIII Understand rightly the true nature of saving Faith 49 DIRECTION IX Next perform the Condition by Actual Believing 55 Object I am not able to Believe Answered 56 Direction how to get Faith 59 How far the prayers of the wicked are acceptable 60 DIRECTION X. Next Review your own Believing and thence gather Assurance 66 The Witness of the Spirit and Spirit of Adoption what they are 68 71 Whether it be a Legal departing from Christ or any sinful trusting in our own Righteousness to gather Peace Comfort or Assurance from signs within us 74 Twenty Arguments proving it lawfvl to gather Comfort or Assurance from Gods Graces in us 75 DIRECTION XI Make use in Trial of none but infallible signs 86 Five certain signs together comprizing the Description of a true Christian 88 Twenty observable explicatory points for the right understanding of these signs 91 DIRECTION XII Know that Assurance of Justification or right to Salvation cannot be gathered from the least degree of saving Grace 119 Proved from the many exceeding Difficulties that must be overcome by all that will have Assurance in ordinary ways and from other Reasons 120 DIRECTION XIII The first time of our Receiving or Acting saving Grace and so of our Justification and Adoption cannot ordinarily be known 136 To affirm that saving sincerity of Grace lieth but in a Gradual Natural-difference is no diminution of the Glory of Grace 142 DIRECTION XIV Know that Assurance is not the lot of the ordinary sort of true Christians but onely of a few of the strongest most active watchful and obedient Proved 145 The observation of the Confessions of the Godly in this 151 DIRECTION XV. Know that even many of the stronger and more obedient who have Assurance of their Conversion are yet unassured of their Salvation for want of Assurance to persevere 160 The Authors free Confession of his own state and Judgement herein 162 DIRECTION XVI There are many grounds to discover a Probability of saving Grace where we cannot yet discern a Certainty And you must learn next to the Comforts of General Grace to receive the Comforts of the Probability of Special Grace before you expect or are ripe for the Comforts of Assurance 170 Proved that a Christian may live a Joyful Life without Assurance 178 DIRECTION XVII Improve your own and others Experiences to strengthen your Probabilities 179 DIRECTION XVIII Know that God hath not commanded you to Believe that you do Believe nor that you are Justified or shall be saved but onely Conditionally and therefore your Assurance is not a Certainty properly of Divine Faith 189 It is not Unbelief or Desperation in Christians which is commonly called so 193 DIRECTION XIX Know that those few that do attain to Assurance have it not constantly 209 DIRECTION XX. Never expect so much Assurance on Earth as shall set you above all Possibility of the loss of Heaven and above all apprehensions of real danger 211 The usefulness of Apprehension of danger opened 214 DIRECTION XXI Be glad of a setled Peace and look not too much after raptures and strong feelings of Comfort And if you have such expect not a constancy of them 227 DIRECTION XXII Spend more time and care about your Duty then your Comforts and to get and exercise and increase Grace then to discern the certainty of it 232 DIRECTION XXIII Think not that those Doubts and Troubles which are caused and continued by wilful Disobedience will ever be well healed but by the healing of that Disobedience or that such can be cured by the same means as obedient doubting Christians may 246 How far a Christian can or cannot do the Good he would 251 Three sorts of sins of Infirmity or so called opened 256 The state of a Christian under gross sin doubtful 265 Proved that Assurance dependeth much on careful Obedience And that when all is done the most obedient Believer will ordinarily have most and best Assurance of his sincerity and salvation 270 The Use of the former Direction 280 The Doubtings
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
the Will with the most forcible Arguments A perswading quickning Ministry that helps to excite your Graces and draw up your heart to Christ is more usefull then they that spend most of their time to perswade you of your sincerity and give you comfort 3. But specially lay out your thoughts more in the most serious Considerations of those things which tend to breed and feed those particular Graces which you would have increased Objects and moving Reasons kept much upon the minde by serious thoughts are the great engine appointed both by nature and by Grace to turn about the soul of man Thoughts are to your soul as taking in the Air and Meat and Drink to your body Objects considered do turn the soul into their own Nature Such as are the things that you most think and consider of I mean in pursuance of them such will you be your self Consideration frequent serious Consideration is Gods great Instrument to convert the soul and to confirm it to get grace and to keep it and increase it If any soul perish for want of Grace it 's ten to one it is mainly for want of frequent and serious Consideration That the most of us do languish under such weaknesses and attain to small degrees of Grace is for want of sober frequent consideration We know not how great things this would do if it were but faithfully managed This then is my advice When you feel so great a want of faith and love for those be the main Graces for trial and use that you doubt whether you have any or none lay by those doubting thoughts a while and presently go and set your self to consider of God's Truth Goodness Amiableness and Kindheartedness to miserable unworthy sinners think what he is in himself and what he is to you and what he hath done for you and what he will do for you if you do but consent And then think of the vanity of all the childish Pleasures of this world how soon and in how sad a case they will leave us and what silly contemptible things they are in comparison of the everlasting Glory of the Saints By that time you have warmed your soul a little with such serious thoughts you will finde your Faith and Love revive and begin to stir and work within you And then you will feel that you have Faith and Love Only remember what I told you before that the heart and soul of saving Faith and Love supposing a Belief that the Gospel is true is all in this one Act of Willingness or Consent to have Christ as he is offered Therefore if you doubt of your Faith and Love it is your own Willingness that you doubt of or else you know not what you do Now methinks if you took but a sober view of the goodness of God and the Glory of Heaven on one side and of the silly empty worthless world on the other side and then ask your heart Which it will chuse and say to your self O my soul the God of Glory offers thee thy choice of dung and vanity for a little time or of the unconceivable Joyes of Heaven for ever Which wilt thou choose I say methinks the answer of your own soul should presently resolve you that you do Believe and that you Love God above this present world For if you can choose him before the world then you are more willing of him then the world and if he have more of your will for certain he hath more of your Faith and Love Use therefore in stead of doubting of your Faith to Believe till you put it out of doubt And if yet you doubt study God and Christ and Glory yet better and keep those objects by Consideration close to your heart whose nature is to work the heart to Faith and Love For certainly objects have a mighty power on the soul and certainly God and Christ and Grace and Glory are Mighty Objects as able to make a full and deep impression on mans soul as any in the world and if they work not it is not through any imperfection in them but because they be not well applied and by Consideration held upon the heart that they may work Perhaps you will say that Meditation is too hard a work for you and that your memory is so weak that you want matter to meditate upon or if you do meditate on these yet you feel no great motion or alteration on your heart To this I answer If you want matter take the help of some book that will afford you matter and if you want life in Meditation peruse the most quickning writings you can get If you have not better at hand read over and seriously consider as you read it those passages in the end of my Book of Rest which direct you in the exercise of these graces and give you some matter for your Meditation to work upon And remember that if you can increase the resolved choice of your will you increase your Love though you feel not those Affectionate workings that you desire Let me ask you now whether you have indeed taken this course in your doubtings If not how unwisely have you done Doubting is no cure but actual Believing and Loving is a cure If Faith and Love were things that you would fain get but cannot then you had cause enough to fear and to lie down and rise in trouble of minde from one year to another But it s no such matter It is so far from being beyond your reach or power to have these Graces though you would that they themselves are nothing else but your very Willingness at least your Willingness to have Christ is both your Faith and Love It may be said therefore to be in the power of your Will which is nothing else but that Actual Willingness which you have already If therefore you are unwilling to have him what makes you complain for want of the sense of his presence and the Assurance of his Love and the Graces of his Spirit as you frequently do It 's strange to me that people should make so many complaints to God and men and spend so many sad hours in fears and trouble and all for want of that which they would not have If you be not Willing be Willing now If you say you cannot do as I have before directed you One hours sober serious thoughts of God and the world of Christ and Satan of sin and Holiness of Heaven and hell and the differences of them will do very much to make you Willing Yet mistake me not Though I say you may have Christ if you Will and Faith and Love if you Will and no man can truly say I would be glad to have Christ as he is offered but Cannot Yet this Gladness Consent or Willingness which I mention is the effect of the special work of the Spirit and was not in your power before you had it nor is it yet so in your power as to
to do very much for the saving of souls To relieve the poor to set their Children to trades to ease the oppressed How easy to maintain two or three poor Scholars at the Universities for the service of the Church But I hear but of few that do ever the more in it except three or four of my friends in these parts Let me further tell you God doth not leave it to them as an indifferent thing Math. 25. They must feed Christ in the poor or else starve in Hell themselves They must cloath naked Christ in the poor or be laid naked to his fiery indignation for ever How much more diligently then must they help mens souls and the Church of Christ as the need is greater and the work better Oh the blinding power of Riches O the easiness of mans heart to be deluded Do Rich men never think to lie rotting in the dust do they never think that they must be accountable for all their Riches and for all their Time and Power and Interests Do they not know that it will comfort them more at Death Judgement to hear in their reckoning Item so much given to such such Poor so much to promote the Gospel so much to maintain poor Scholars while they study to prepare themselves for the Ministry c. then to hear so much in such a Feast to entertain such Gallants to please such Noble friends so much at dice at cards at horse-races at cock-fights so much in excess of Apparel and the rest to leave my Posterity in the like pomp Do they not know that it will comfort them more to hear then of their time spent in Reading Scripture secret and open Prayer Instructing and examining their Children and Servants going to their poor Neighbours houses to see what they want and to perswade them to godliness and in being examples of eminent holiness to all and in suppressing Vice and doing Justice then to hear of so much time spent in Vain Recreations Visits Luxuries and Idleness O deep Unbelief and hardness of heart that makes Gentlemen that they tremble not to think of this Reckoning Well let me tell both them and all men that if they knew but either that undispensable duty of Doing Good that lieth on them or how necessary and sure a way in subordination to Christ this act of Doing Good is for the souls Peace and consolation they would study it better and practice it more faithfully then now they do They would then be glad of an opportunity to do Good for their own Gain as well as for Gods honour and for the love of Good it self They would know that lending to the Lord is the onely thriving Usury and that no part of all their Time Riches Interest in men Power or Honours will be then comfortable to them but that which was laid out for God And they will one day find that God will not take up with the scraps of their Time and Riches which their flesh can spare but he will be first served even before all comers and that with the best or he will take them for no servants of his This is true and you 'l find it so whether you will now believe it or no. And because it is possible these lines may fall into the hands of some of the Rulers of this Commonwealth let me here mind them of two weighty things 1. What opportunities of Doing very great Good hath been long in their hands and how great an account of it they have to make It hath been long in their power to have done much to the Reconciling of our Differences and healing our Divisions by setting Divines a work of different Judgements to find out a temperament for Accommodation It hath long been in their power to have done much towards the supply of all the dark Congregations in England and Wales with competently able sound and faithful Teachers We have many Congregations that do contain three thousand five thousand or ten thousand souls that have but one or two Ministers that cannot possibly do the tenth part of the Ministerial work of Private oversight and so poor souls must be neglected let Ministers be never so able or painful We have divers Godly Private Christians of so much understanding as to be capable of helping us as Officers in our Churches but they are all so poor that they are not able to spare one hour in a day or two from their labour much less to give up themselves to the work How many a Congregation is in the same Case Nothing almost is wanting to us to have set our Congregations in the order of Christ and done this great work of Reformation which there is so much talking of so much as want of Maintenance for a Competent Number of Ministers or Elders to attend the work I am sure in great Congregations this is the Case and a sore that no other means will remedy Was it never in the power of our Rulers to have helpt us here Was nothing sold for other uses that was once Devoted and Dedicated to God and might have helpt us in this our miserable distress Were our Churches able to maintain their own Officers our Case were more tolerable but when a Congregation that wants six or seven or ten is not able to maintain one it is hard 2. The second thing that I would mind our Rulers of is What mortal Enemies those men are to their souls that would perswade them that they must not as Rulers Do Good to the souls of men and to the Church as such nor further the Reformation nor propagate the Gospel nor stablish Christs orders in the Churches of their Country any otherwise then by a common maintaining the Peace and Liberties of all What doctrine could more desperately undo you if entertained If you be once perswaded that it belongs not to you to Do Good and the Greatest Good to which all your successes have but made way then all the Comfort the Blessing and Reward is lost And consequently all the Glorious preparative successes as to you are lost If once you take your selves to have nothing to do as Rulers for Christ you cannot promise your selves that Christ will have any thing to do for you as Rulers in a way of Mercy This Mr. Owen hath lately told you in his Sermon Oct. 13. The God of Heaven forbid that ever all the Devils in Hell the Jesuits at Rome or the seduced souls in England should be able to perswade the Rulers of this Land who are so deeply bound to God by Vows Mercies Professions and high expences of treasure and blood to Reform his Church and propagate his Gospel that now after all this it belongeth not to them but they must as Rulers be no more for Christ theâ— for Mahomet But if ever it should prove the sad case of England to have such Rulers which I strongly hope will never be if my Prognostiâ—ks fail not this will be their fate The
Lord Jesus will forsake them as they have forsaken him the Prayers of his Saints will be fully turned against them and his Elect shall cry to him night and day till he avenge them speedily by making these his enemies to lâ—ck the dust and dashing them in pieces like a Potters vessel because they would not that he should reign over them And then they shall know whether Christ be not King of Kings and Lord of Lords Perhaps you may think I Digress from the matter in hand But as long as I speak but for my Lord Christ and for Doing Good I cannot think that I am quite out of my way But to return nearer to those for whose sakes I chiefly write This is that sum of my advice Study with all the understanding you have how to do as much Good while you have time as possibly you can and you shall find that without any Popish or Pharisaical self-confidence to be the most excellent art for obtaining spiritual Peace and a large measure of comfort from Christ To that end use seriously and daily to bethink your self What way of expending your Time and Wealth and all your Talents will be most comfortable for you to hear of and review at Judgement and take that as the way most comfortable now Onely consult not with flesh and blood make not your flesh of your counsel in this work but take it for your enemy expect its violent unwearied opposition But regard not any of its clamours or repinings But know as I said before that your truest spiritual comforts are a Prize that must be won upon the conquest of the flesh I will only add to this the words of Blessed Dr. Sibs a man that was no enemy to Free Grace nor unjust Patron of mans Works in his Preface to his Souls Conflict Christ is first a King of Righteousness and then of Peace The Righteousness that he works by his Spirit brings a Peace of sanctification whereby though we are not freed from sin yet we are enabled to combat with it and to get the victory over it Some Degree of Comfort follows every Good Action as heat accompanies fire and as beams and influences issue from the Sun Which is so true that very Heathens upon the discharge of a good Conscience have found Comfort and Peace answerable this is a Reward before our Reward Again In watchfulness and diligence we sooner meet with Comfort then in idle Complaining Again Pag. 44 45. An unimployed life is a burthen to it self God is a pure act always Working always Doing and the nearer our soul comes to God the more it is in action and the freer from disquiet Men experimentally feel that Comfort in Doing that which belongs unto them which before they longed for and went without And in his Preface to the Bruised Reed There is no more Comfort to be expected from Christ then there is Care to Please him Otherwise to make him an A better of a lawless and a loose life is to transform him into a phancy nay into the likeness of him whose works he came to destroy which is the most detestable Idolatry of all One way whereby the Spirit of Christ prevaileth in his is to preserve them from such thoughts Yet we see People will frame a Divinity to themselves pleasing to the flesh sutable to their own ends which being vain in the substance will prove likewise vain in the fruit and a building upon the sands So far Dr. Sibs It seems there were Libertines and Antinomians then and will be as long as there are any carnal unsanctified Professors DIRECTION XXVI 26. Having led you thus far towards a setled Peace my next Direction shall contain a Necessary Caution lest you run as far into the contrary extreme viz. Take heed that you neither trouble your own soul with needless scruples about matters of doctrine of duty or of sin or about your own Condition Nor yet that you do not make your self more work then God hath made you by feigning things unlawful which God hath not forbidden or by placing your Religion in Will-worship or in an over-curious insisting on Circumstantials or an over-rigorous dealing with your Body THis is but the Exposition of Solomons Be not Over-wise and be not Righteous â—vermuch Eccl. 7.16 A man cannot serve God too much formally and strictly considering his service much less Love him too much But we may do too much Materially intending thereby to serve God which though it be not true Righteousness yet being Intended for Righteousness and done as a service of God or Obedience to him is here called Over-much-Righteousness I know it is stark madness in the prophane secure World to think that the doing of no more then God hath commanded us is Doing too much or More then needs as if God had bid us do more then needs or had made such Laws as few of the foolish Rulers on earth would make This is plainly to Blaspheme the Most High by denying his Wisdom and his Goodness and his Just Government of the World and to Blaspheme his holy Laws as if they were too strict precise and made us more to do then needs and to reproach his sweet and holy ways as if they were grievous intolerable and unnecessary Much more is their Madness in charging the Godly with being too Pure and too Precise and making too great a stir for Heaven and that meerly for their Godliness and Obedience when alas the best do fall so far short of what Gods Word and the necessity of their own souls do require that their Consciences do more grievously accuse them of Negligence then the barking World doth of being too precise and diligent And yet more mad are the World to lay out so much Time and Care and Labour for Earthly Vanities and to provide for their contemptible bodies for a little while and in the mean time to think that Heaven and their Everlasting Happiness there and the escaping of everlasting damnation in Hell are Matters not worth so much ado but may be had with a few cold wishes and that it s but folly to do so much for it as the Godly do That no labour should be thought too much for the World the Flesh and the Devil and every little is enough for God And that these wretched souls are so blinded by their own lusts and so bewitched by the Devil into an utter Ignorance of their own hearts that they verily think and will stand in it that for all this They Love God above all and love Heavenly things better then Earthly and therefore shall be saved But yet Extremes there are in the service of God which all wise Christians must labour to avoyd It is a very great Question among Divines Whether the common rule in Ethicks That Virtue is ever in the middle between two extremes be sound as to Christian Virtues Amesius saith No. The Case is not very hard I think to be resolved if you will
much by over-honouring them as ever he did by persecuting and despising them And now in England when this plot is descryed and we had taken down that superâ—â—uous honour as Antichristian what doth the Devil but set in again on the other side and none is so Zealous a Reformer as he He cryes down all as Antichristian which he desireth should fall Their Tythes and Maintenance are Antichristian and oppressive O Pious Merciful Devil down with them These Church-lands were given by Papists to Popish uses to maintain Bishops and Deans and Chapters down with them These Colledge-lands these Cathedrals nay these Church-houses or Temples for so I le call them whether the Devil will or no all come from Idolaters and are abused to Idolatry down with them Nay think you but he hath taken the boldness to cry out These Priests these Ministers are all Antichristian Seducers Needless Enviers of the spirit of Prophesy and of the Gifts of their Brethren Monopolizers of Preaching down with them too So that though he yet have not what he would have the old Serpent hath done more as a Reformer by over-doing then he did in many a year as a Deformer or hinderer of Reformation Yet if he do but see that there is a Soveraign Power that can do him a Mischief he is ready to tell them They must be Merciful and not deal Cruelly with sinners Nay it belongs not to them to reform or to Judge who are Hereticks and who not or to restrain false doctrine or Church-disturbers Christ is sufficient for this himself How oâ—t hath the Devil preached thus to tye the hands of those that might wound him Would you see any further how he hath play'd this successful game of Over-doing Why he hath done as much by it in Worship and Discipline as almost in any thing When he cannot have Discipline neglected he is an over-zealous spirit in the breasts of the Clergy and he perswades them to appoint men Penance and Pilgrimages and to put the necks of Princes under their feet But if this Tyrannie must be abated he cryes down all Discipline and tels them it is all but Tyrannie and humane Inventions And this confessing sin to Ministers for Relief of Conscience and this open Confessing in the Congregation for a due Manifestation of Repentance and satisfaction to the Church that they may hold Communion with them it is all but Popery and Priestly Domineering And in matter of Worship worst of all When he could not perswade the world to persecute Christ and to refuse him and his Worship the Serpent will be the most zealous Worshipper and saith as Herod and with the same mind Come and tell me that I may worship him He perswades men to Do and Over-do He sets them on laying out their Revenues in sumptuous Fabricks in fighting to be Masters of the Holy Land and Sepulcher of Christ on going Pilgrimages Worshipping Saints Angels Shrines Reliques Adoring the very bread of the Sacrament as God excessive fastings choyce of meats Numbred Prayers on beads Repetitions of words so many Ave Maries Pater Nosters the name Jesus so oft Repeated in a breath so many Holy-days to Saints Canonical hours even at midnight to pray and that in Latine for greater reverence Crossings holy garments variety of prescribed gestures kneeling and worshipping before Images sacrificing Christ again to his Father in the Mass forswearing Marriage living retiredly as separate from the world multitudes of new prescribed Rules and orders of life vowing poverty begging without need creeping to the Cross Holy water and Holy bread carrying Palms kneeling at Altars bearing Candles Ashes In Baptism Crossing Conjuring out the Devil salting spittle oyl taking Pardons Indulgencies and Dispensations of the Pope praying for the Dead perambulations serving God to Merit Heaven or to ease souls in Purgatory doing Works of supererogation with multitudes the like All these hath the Devil added to Gods Worship so zealous a Worshipper of Christ is he when he takes that way Read Mr. Herberts Church Militant of Rome pag. 188 189 190. I could trace this Deceiver yet further and tell you wherein when he could not hinder Reformation in Luthers days he would needs over-do in Reforming But O how sad an example of it have we before our eyes in England Never people on earth more hot upon Reforming Never any deeper engaged for it The Devil could not hinder it by fire and sword when he sees that he will needs turn Reformer as I said before and he gets the Word and cryes down Antichrist and cryes up Reformation till he hath done what we see He hath made a Babel of our work by confounding our languages For though he will be for Reformation too yet his name is Legion he is an Enemy to the one God one Mediator and Head one Faith and one Baptism one heart and lip and one way Unity is the chief butt that he shoots at Is Baptism to be Reformed Christ is so moderate a Reformer that he onely bids Down with the Symbolical Mystical Rite of mans vain addition But the Serpent is a more Zealous Reformer He saith Out with express Covenanting Out with Children They are a corruption of the Ordinance and to others he says Out with Baptism it self We might follow him thus through other Ordinances Indeed he so Overdoes in his Reforming that he would not leave us a Gospel a Ministry a Magistraâ—y to be for Christ an Ordinance no nor a Christ though yet he would seem to own a God and the light of Nature All these with him are Antichristian By this time I hope you see that this way of Over-doing hath another Author then many zealous people do imagine and that it is the Devils common successful trade so that his Agents in State-Assemblies are taught his Policy When you have no other way of un-doing let it be by over-doing And the same way he takes with the souls of particular persons If he see them troubled for sin and he cannot keep them from the knowledge of Christ and free Grace he puts the name of free Grace and Gospel preaching upon Antinomian and Libertine errours which subvert the very Gospel and free Grace it self If he see men convinc't of this and that it is neither common nor Religious Libertinism and sensuality that will bring men to Heaven then he will labour to make Papists of them and to set them on a task of external formalities or macerating their bodies with hurtful fastings watchings and cold as if self-murther were the highest pitch of Religion and God had a pleasure to see his people Torment themselves I confess it is very few that ever I knew to have erred far in Austere usage of their bodies But some I have and especially poor Melancholy Christians that are more easily drawn to deal rigorously with their flesh then others be And such Writings as lately have been published by some English Popish Formalists I have known draw men into this snare
harden their hearts or stiffen their necks and you will finde that the most usual meaning of the Holy Ghost is this They were an intractable disobedient obstinate people or as the Greek word in the New Testament signifieth which we often translate Vnbelieving they were an Vnperswadable people no saying would serve them They set light by Gods Commands Promises and severest Threatnings and Judgements themselves nothing would move them to forsake their sins and obey the voyce of God You shall finde that hardness of heart is seldom put for want of tears or a melting weeping disposition and never at all for the want of such tears where the will is tractable and obedient I pray you examine your self then according to this Rule God offereth his Love in Christ and Christ with all his benefits to you Are you willing to Accept them He commandeth you to worship him and use his ordinances and Love his people and others and to forsake your known Iniquities so far that they may not have dominion over you Are you Willing to this He commandeth you to take him for your God and Christ for your Redeemer and stick to him for better and worse and never forsake him Are you willing to do this If you have a stiff Rebellious heart and will not Accept of Christ and Grace and will rather let go Christ then the world and will not be perswaded from your known iniquities but are loth to leave them and love not to be reformed and will not set upon those duties as you are able which God requireth and you are fully convinced of then are you Hard-hearted in the Scripture sense But if you are glad to have Christ with all your heart upon the terms that he is offered to you in the Gospel and you do walk-daily in the way of duty as you can and are willing to Pray and willing to hear and wait on God in his Ordinances and willing to have all Gods Graces formed within you and willing to let go your profitablest and sweetest sins and it is your daily desires O that I could seek God and do his will more faithfully zealously and pleasingly then I do O that I were rid of this body of sin these carnal corrupt and worldly inclinations and that I were as holy as the best of Gods Saints on earth And if when it comes to practise whether you should obey or no though some unwillingness to duty and willingness to sin be in you you are offended at it and the greater bent of your Will is for God and it is but the lesser which is towards sin and therefore the world and flesh do not lead you captive and you live not wilfully in avoidable sins nor at all in gross sin I say if it be thus with you then you have the Blessing of a soft heart a heart of flesh a new heart for it is a Willing obedient tractable heart opposed to obstinacy in sin which Scripture calleth a soft heart And then for the Passionate part which consisteth in lively feelings of sin misery mercy c. and in weeping for sin I shall say but this 1. Many an unsanctified person hath very much of it which yet are desperately Hard-hearted sinners It dependeth far more on the temper of the body then of the Grace in the soul Women usually can weep easily and yet not all and children and old men Some complexions encline to it and others not Many can weep at a Passion-Sermon or any moving duty and yet will not be perswaded to obedience these are hard-hearted sinners for all their tears 2. Many a tender godly person cannot weep for sin partly through the temper of their minds which are more judicious and solid and less passionate but mostly from the temper of their bodies which dispose them not that way 3. Deepest sorrows seldom cause tears but deep thoughts of heart as greatest joys seldom cause laughter but inward pleasure I 'le tell you how you shall know whose heart is truly sorrowful for sin and tender He that would be at the greatest cost or pains to be rid of sin or that he had not sinned You cannot weep for sin but you would give all that you have to be rid of sin you could wish when you dishonoured God by sin that you had spent that time in suffering rather and if it were to do again on the same terms and inducements you would not do it Nay you would live a beggar condtendedly so you might fully please God and never sin against him and are content to pinch your flesh and deny your worldly interest for the time to come rather then wilfully disobey This is a truly tender heart On the other side another can weep to think of his sin and yet if you should ask him what wouldst thou give or what wouldst thou suffer so thou hadst not sinned or that thou mightest sin no more Alas very little For the next time that he is put to it he will rather venture on the sin then venture on a little loss or danger or disgrace in the world or deny his craving flesh its pleasures This is a hard-hearted sinner The more you would part with to be rid of sin or the greater cost you would be at for that end the more Repentance have you and true tenderness of heart Alas if men should go to Heaven according to their weeping what abundance of children and women would be there for one man I 'le speak truly my own Case This doubt lay heavy many a year on my own soul when yet I would have given all that I had to be rid of sin but I could not weep a tear for it Nor could I weep for the death of my dearest friends when yet I would have bought their lives had it been Gods will at a dearer rate then many that could weep for them ten times as much And now since my nature is decayed and my body languisheth in consuming weakness and my head more moistned and my veins filled with flegmatick watry blood now I can weep and yet I find never the more tender-heartedness in my self then before And yet to this day so much remains of my old disposition that I could wring all the money out of my purse easier then one tear out of my eyes to save a friend or rescue them from evil when I see divers that can weep for a dead friend that would have been at no great cost to save their lives 5. Besides as Dr. Sibs saith There is oft sorrow for sin in us when it doth not appear It wanteth but some quickening word to set it afoot It is the nature of Grief to break out into tears most when sorrow hath some vent either when we use some expostulating aggravating terms with our selves or when we are opening our hearts and case to a friend then sorrow will often shew it self that did not before 6. Yet do I not deny but that our want of Tears and
requireth you to Desire the Blessedness to be enjoyed after Death and that so earnestly as may make Death it self the easier to you Thank God if the fear of death be somewhat abated in you though it be not sweetned Men may pretend what they please but nature will abhor death as long as its nature and as long as man is man else temporal death had been no punishment to Adam if his Innocent nature had not abhor'd it it was an evil to it Tell me but this If Death did not stand in your way to Heaven but that you could travel to Heaven as easily as to London would not you rather go thither and be with Christ then stay in sin and vanity here on earth so be it you were certain to be with Christ If you can say Yea to this then it is apparent that your loathness to dye is either from the uncertainty of your salvation or from the natural averseness to a dissolution or both and not from an unwillingness to be with Christ or a preferring the vanities of this world before the Blessedness of that to come Lastly it may be God may lay that affliction on you or use some other necessary means with you yet before you dye that may make you willinger then now you are DOUBT XIX GOd layeth upon me such heavy Afflictions that I cannot believe he Loves me He writteth bitter things against me and taketh me for his enemy I am afflicted in my health in my name in my children and nearest friends and in my state I live in continual poverty or pinching distress of one kinde or other yea my very soul is filled with his terorrs and night and day is his hand heavy upon me ANSWER I Have said enough to this before Nor do I think it needful to say any more when the Holy Ghost hath said so much but only to desire you to read what he hath written in Heb. 12. and Job throughout and Psal 37. and 73. and divers others The next doubt is contrary DOUBT XX. I Read in Scripture that through many tribulations we must enter into heaven and that all that will live Godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution and that he that taketh not up his Cross and so followeth Christ cannot be his Disciple and that if we are not corrected we are bastards and not sons But I never had any Affliction from God but have lived in constant prosperity to this day Christ saith Wo to you when all men speak well of you but all men for ought I know speak well of me and therefore I doubt of my sincerity ANSWER I Would not have mentioned this Doubt but that I was so foolish as to be troubled with it my self and perhaps some others may be as foolish as I though I think but few in these times our great friends have Done so much to Resolve them more effectually then words could have done 1. Some of those Texts speak onely of mans duty of bearing persecution and tribulation when God lays it on us rather then of the Event that it shall certainly come 2. Yet I think it ordinarily certain and to be expected as to the Event Doubtless Tribulation is Gods common road to Heaven Every ignorant person is so well ware of this that they delude themselves in their sufferings saying That God hath given them their punishment in this life and therefore they hope he will not punish them in another If any soul be so silly as to fear and doubt for want of Affliction if none else will do the Cure let them but follow my Counsel and I dare warrant them for this and I will advise them to nothing but what is honest yea and necessary and what I have tried effectually upon my self and I can assure you it cured me and I can give it a Probatum est And first see that you be faithful in your Duty to all sinners within your reach be they great or small Gentlemen or Beggars do your duty in Reproving them meekly and lovingly yet plainly and seriously telling them of the danger of Gods everlasting wrath and when you find them obstinate tell the Church-Officers of them that they may do their duty and if yet they are unreformed they may be excluded from the Churches Communion and all Christian familiarity Try this course a while and if you meet with no Afflictions and get no more fists about your ears then your own nor more tongues against you then formerly tell me I am mistaken Men basely bawk and shun almost all the displeasing ungrateful work of Christianity of purpose lest they should have sufferings in the flesh and then they doubt of their sincerity for want of sufferings My second Advice is Do but stay a while in Patience but prepare your Patience for a sharper encounter and do not tye God to your time He hath not told you when your Afflictions shall come If he deal easier with you then others and give you a longer time to prepare for them be not you offended at that and do not quarrel with your mercies It is about seventeen years since I was troubled with this Doubt thinking I was no son because I was not afflicted and I think I have had few days without pain for this sixteen years since together nor but few hours if any one for this six or seven years And thus my scruple is removed And if yet any be troubled with this Doubt if the Churches and Common trouble be any trouble to them shall I be bold to tell them my thoughts onely understand that I pretend not to Prophesy but to Conjecture at Effects by the position of their Moral Causes I think that the Righteous King of Saints is even now for our over-admiring rash zeal and high profession making for England so heavy an Affliction and sharp a scourge to be inflicted by seduced proud self-conceited Professours as neither we nor our Fathers did ever yet bear Except it should prove the merciful intent of our Father onely to suffer them to ripen for their own destruction to be a standing Monument for the effectual warning of all after-ages of the Church Whether pride and heady Zeal may bring Professors of holiness And when they are full ripe to do by them as at Munster and in New-England that they may go no further but their folly may be known to all Amen I have told you of my thoughts of this long ago in my Book of Baptism ALL these Doubts I have here answered that you may see how necessary it is that in all your troubles you be sure to distinguish between Matter of Doubting and Matter of Humiliation Alas what soul is so holy on the Earth but must daily say Forgive as our trespasses and cry out with Paul O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death But at the same time we may thank God through our Lord Jesus Christ If every sin should make
Repented Believed in a Redeemer c. but for thy sin Yet I hope none will say that so doing is properly a sin though doing them defectively is God doth not will and approve of it that any soul that can see no signes of Grace and sincerity in it self should yet be as confident and merry and careless as if they were certain that all were well God would not have men doubt of his Love and yet make light of it This is a contempt of him Else what should poor carnall sinners do that finde themselves unsanctified No nor doth God expect that any man should judge of himself better then he hath evidence to warrant such a judgement But that every man should prove his own work that so he may have rejoycing in himself alone and not in another For he that thinketh he is something when he is nothing deceiveth himself Gal. 6.3 4 5 6. And no man should be a self-deceiver especially in a case of such unexpressible consequence It is therefore a most desperate doctrine of the Antinomians as most of theirs are that all men ought to believe Gods special Love to them and their own Justification and that they are justified by Believing that they were justified before and that no man ought to question his faith saith Saltmarsh any more then to question Christ and that all fears of our Damnation or not being Justified after this Believing are sinne and those that perswade to them are Preachers of the Law How punctually do the most prophane ungodly people hold most points of the Antinomian belief though they never knew that Sect by name God commandeth no man to Believe more then is true nor immediatly to cast away their doubts and fears but to overcome them in an orderly methodical way that is using Gods means till their Graces become more discernable and their understandings more clear and fit to discern them that so we may have Assurance of their sincerity and thereby of our Justification Adoption and right to Glorification Heb. 4.1 Let us therefore fear least a Promise being left of entring into his Rest any of us should seem to come short of it Psal 2.11 Serve the Lord with fear and rejoyce before him with trembling Kiss the Sonne lest he be angry and ye perish Phil. 2.12 Work out your salvation with fear and trembling Not only 1. A reverent fear of Gods Majesty 2. And a filial fear of offending him 3. And an awfull fear of his Judgements when we see them executed on others and hear them threatned 4. And a filial fear of temporal chastisements and lawfull and our duty but also 5. A fear of damnation exciting to most carefull importunity to escape it when ever we have so far obscured our evidences as to see no strong probability of our sincerity in the faith and so of our salvation The summe of my speech therefore is this Do not think that all your fears of Gods wrath are your sins Much of them is your great duty Do you not feel that God made these fears at your first conversion the first and a principal means of your Recovery to drive you to a serious consideration of your state and waies and to look after Christ with more longing and estimation and to use the means with more resolution and diligence Have not these fears been chief preservers of your diligence and integrity ever since I know love should do more then it doth with us all But if we had not daily use for both Love and Fear God would not 1. Have planted them both in our natures 2. And have renewed them both by regenerating Grace 3. And have put into his word the objects to move both viz. Threatnings as well as Promises That fear of God which is the beginning of wisdom includeth the fear of his threatned wrath I could say abundance more to prove this but that I know as to you it is needless for conviction of it but remember the use of it Do not put the name of unbelief upon all your fears of Gods displeasure Much less should you presently conclude that you have no faith and that you cannot believe because of these fears You may have much faith in the midst of these fears and God may make them preservers of your faith by quickning you up to that means that must maintain it and by keeping you from those evils that would be as a worm at the root of it and eat out its precious strength and life Security is no friend to faith but a deadlier enemy then fear it self Obj. Then Cain and Judas sinned not by despairing or at least not damnably Answ 1. They despaired not only of themselves and of the event of their salvation but also of God of his Power or Goodness and Promise and the sufficiency of any satisfaction of Christ Their infidelity was the root of their despair 2. Farre is it from me to say or think that you should despair of the event or that it is no sin yea or that you should cherish causeless and excessive jealousies and fears I shall shew you towards the end the sinfulness of so doing Take heed of all fears that drive you from God or that distract or weaken your spirit or disable you from duty or drown your love to God and delight in him and destroy your apprehensions of Gods Loveliness and Compassion and raise black and hard and unworthy thoughts of God in your minde Again I intreat you avoid and abhorre all such fears But if you find in you the fears of godly jealousie of your own heart and such moderated fears of the wrath of God which banish security presumption and boldness in sinning and are as D. Sibbs cals them the awe-band of your soul and make you fly to the merits and bosom of the Lord Jesus as the affrighted child to the lap of the mother and as the man-slayer under the Law to the City of refuge and as a man pursued by a Lion to his Sanctuary or hold do not think you have no faith because you have these fears but moderate them by faith and love and then thank God for them Indeed Perfect love which will be in heaven when all is perfected will cast out this fear and so it will do sorrow and care and prayer and means But see you lay not these by till Perfect love have cast them out See Jer. 5.22 23. Heb. 12. two last verses Wherefore we receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved let us serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear For our God is a consuming fire I am sensible that I am too large on these foregoing heads I will purposely shorten the rest lest I weary you DIRECTION XIX 19. Further understand that Those few who do attain to Assurance have it not either perfectly or constantly for the most part but mixt with imperfection and oft clouded and interrupted THat the highest Assurance on earth is imperfect I have shewed