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
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
willing of them and there is no more sin then there is will in it I answer 1. We were in Adam willing of that sin which caused them 2. We are in some degree inclining in our Wils to sin though God have that prevalent part and determination which in comparative cases doth denominate them 3. The Understanding and Will may be most hainously guilty where they do not consent in that they do not more strongly dissent and more potently and rulingly command all the subject Faculties And so a Negation of the Wils act or of such a Degree of it as is necessary to the Regiment of the sensual part is a deep guilt and great offence and it may be said that there is Will in this sin It is morally or reputatively voluntary though not naturally because the Will doth not its office when it should As a man is guilty of voluntary murder of his own childe that stands by and seeth his servant kill him and doth not do his best to hinder him I would this were better understood by some Divines For I think that the commonest guilt of the Reason and Will in our actual sinnes is by Omission of the exercise of their Authority to hinder it And that most sinnes are more bruitish as to the true efficient cause then many imagine and yet they are humane or moral Acts too and the soul nevertheless guilty because the commanded Faculties performed not their office and so are the Moral or Imputative causes and so the great culpable causes of the fact But I am drawn nearer to Philosophy and points beyond your reach then I intended a fault that I must be still resisting in all my Writings being upon every occurring difficulty carried to forget my subject and the capacity of the meanest to whom I write But what you understand not pass over and go to the next The second kinde of sinnes of Infirmity are The smaller sort of sinnes which we may forbear if we will that is If we be actually though not perfectly yet prevalently Willing or if our Wils be determined to forbear them or if the chief part of the Will actually be for such forbearance The first sort are called sinnes of Infirmity in an Absolute sense These last I call sinnes of Infirmity in both an Absolute and Comparative sense that is both as they proceed from our inward corruption which through the weakness of the soul having but little grace is not fully restrained and also as it is compared with gross sinnes And so we may call idle words and rash expressions in our hast and such like Sins of Infirmity in comparison of Murder Perjury or the like gross sinnes which we commonly call Crimes or Wickedness when the former we use to call but Faults These Infirmities are they which the Papists and some Learned Divines of our own as Rob. Baronius in his excellent Tractate de Peccat Mortali Veniali do call Venial sinnes Some of them in a fair and honest sense viz. Because they are such sinnes as a true Christian may live and die in though not unrepented or unresisted yet not subdued so farre as to forsake or cease from the practice of them and yet they are pardoned But other Papists call them Venial sinnes in a wicked sense as if they needed no pardon or deserved not eternal punishment And why should they call them Venial if they need not pardon A justified man liveth in the daily practice of some vain thoughts or the frequent commission of some other sinnes which by his utmost diligence he might restrain But he liveth not in the frequent practice of Adultery Drunkenness False-witnessing Slandering Hating his Brother c. Yet observe that though the forementioned lesser sinnes are called Infirmities in regard of the matter of them yet they may be so committed in regard of the end and manner of them as may make them crimes or gross sinnes As for example If one should use idle words wilfully resolvedly without restraint reluctancy or tenderness of conscience this were gross sinning or the neerer it comes to this and the more wilfulness or neglect or evil ends there is in the smallest forbidden action the worse it is and the grosser And observe of which more anon that the true bounds or difference between gross sinnes and those lesser faults which we call Infirmities cannot be given I think by any man I am sure not by me either as to the Act it self to say just what Acts are gross sins and what not or else as to the manner of committing them as to say Just how much of the Will must go to make a gross sinne or Just how farre a man may proceed in the degree of evil intents or how farre in the frequency of sinning before it must be called a gross sinne 3. The third sort of sinnes which may be called Sins of Infirmity are these last mentioned gross sinnes themselves so far as they are found in the Regenerate These are gross sinnes put in opposition to the former sort of Infirmities but our Divines use to call them all Sins of Infirmity in opposition to the sinnes of Unbelievers who are utterly unholy And they call them Sins of Infirmity 1. Because the person that committeth them is not dead in sinnes as the Unregenerate are but only diseased wounded and infirm 2. Because that they are not committed with so full consent of Will as those of the Unregenerate are but only after much striving or at least contrary to Habitual Resolutions though not against Actual Here we are in very great Difficulties and full of Controversies Some say that these gross sinnes do extinguish true Grace and are inconsistent with it and that David and Peter were out of the 〈◊〉 of Grace till they did again Repent Others say that they were in the state of Grace and not at al so liable to condemnation but that if they had died in the Act they had been saved because There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus and that therefore all the sins of Believers are alike sins of Infirmity pardoned on the same terms and therefore as a rash word may be pardoned without a particular repentance so possibly may these gross sins To others this seems dangerous and contrary to Scripture and therefore they would fain finde out a way between both But how to do it clearly and satisfactorily is not easie at least to me who have been long upon it but am yet much in the dark in it I think it is plain that such persons are not totally unsanctified by their sin I believe that Christs interest is Habitually more in their Wils then is the interest of the flesh or world at that very time when they are sinning and so Christs interest is least as to their Actual Willing And so sinne prevaileth for that time against the Act of their Faith and Love but not wholly against the prevalent part of the Habit. And therefore
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
sad a thing is it that we should thus add to our own Afflictions and the heavier we judge the burden the more we lay on As if God had not done enough or would not sufficiently afflict us We may more comfortably bear that which God layeth on us then that which we immediately lay upon our selves Crosses are not great or small according to the bulk of the matter but according chiefly to the minde of the sufferer Or else how could holy men rejoyce in Tribulation and be exceeding glad that they are accounted worthy to suffer for Christ Reproaches wrongs losses are all without you unless you open them the door wilfully your self they cannot come in to the heart God hath not put the Joy or Grief of your Heart in any other mans power but in your own It is you therefore that do your selves the greatest mischief God afflicts your body or men wrong you in your state of name a small hurt if it go on further and therefore you will afflict your soul But a sadder thing yet is it to consider of that men fearing God should so highly value the things of the world They who in their Convenants with Christ are engaged to renounce the world the flesh and the devil They that have taken God in Christ for their Portion for their All and have resigned themselves and all that they have to Christs dispose whose very business in this world and their Christian life consisteth so much in resisting the devil mortifying the flesh and overcoming the world and it is Gods business in his inward works of Grace and his outward teachings and sharp afflictions and examples of others to convince them of the vanity and vexation of the world and throughly to wean them from it And yet that it should be so high in their estimation and sit so close to their hearts that they cannot bear the loss of it without such discontent disquiet and distraction of minde Yea though when all is gone they have their God left them they have their Christ still whom they took for their Treasure they have opportunities for their souls they have the sure promise of Glory yea and a promise that all things shall work together for their good yea and for that one thing that is taken from them they have yet a hundred outward Mercies remaining that yet even Believers should have so much unbelief and have their Faith to seek when they should use it and live by it and that God should seem so small in their eyes as not to satisfie or quit them unless they have the world with him and that the world should still seem so Amiable when God hath done so much to bring it into contempt Truly this and more shews that the work of Mortification is very imperfect in professors and that we bend not the force of our daily strivings and endeavours that way If Christians did bestow but as much time and pains in Mortifying the flesh and getting down the Interest of it in the soul that Christs Interest may be advanced as they do about Controversies external duties formalities tasks of devotion and self tormenting fears O what excellent Christians should we then be and how happily would most of our disquiet be removed Alas if we are so unfit to part with one outward comfort now upon the disposal of our fathers providence how should we forsake all for Christ or what shall we do at death when all must be parted with As ever therefore you would live in true Christian Peace set more by Christ and less by the world and all things in it and hold all that you possess so loosely that it may not be grievous to you when you must leave them So much for the Troubles that arise from your Body and outward state All the rest shall be directed for the Curing of those Troubles that arise immediatly from more Spiritual Causes DIRECTION III. 3. Be sure that you first lay sound apprehensions of Gods nature in your understanding and lay them deeply THis is the first Article of your Creed and the first part of Life Eternal to know God! His substance is quite past humane understanding therefore never make any attempt to reach the knowledge of it or to have any positive conceivings of it for they will be all but Idols or false conceptions but his Attributes are manifested to our understandings Well consider that even under the terrible Law when God proclaims to Moses his own Name and therein his Nature Exod. 34.6 7. the first and greatest part is The Lord God Mercifull and Gracious long suffering and abundant in Goodness and Truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity transgression and sin And he hath sworn that he hath no pleasure in the death of a sinner but rather that he return and live Think not therefore of Gods Mercifulness with diminishing extenuating thoughts nor limit it by the bounds of our frail understandings for the heavens are not so far above the earth as his thoughts and wayes are above ours Still remember that you must have no low thoughts of Gods Goodness but apprehend it as bearing proportion with his Power As it is blasphemy to limit his Power so it is to limit his Goodness The advantages that your soul will get by this right knowledge and estimation of Gods Goodness will be these 1. This will make God appear more Amiable in your eyes and then you will Love him more readily and abundantly And Love 1. Is effectually consolatory in the very working so much Love usually so much Comfort I mean this Love of Complacency for a Love of Desire there may be without comfort 2. It will breed perswasions of Gods Love to you again and so Comfort 3. It will be an unquestionable evidence of true Grace and so Comfort The Affections follow the Understandings conceptions If you think of God as one that is glad of all advantages against you and delighteth in his Creatures misery it is impossible you should Love him The Love of our selves is so deeply rooted in nature that we cannot lay it by nor Love any thing that is Absolutely and directly against us We conceive of the devil as an Absolute Enemy to God and man and one that seeks our destruction and therefore we cannot Love him And the great Cause why troubled souls do Love God no more is because they represent him to themselves in an ugly odious shape To think of God as one that seeks and delighteth in mans ruine is to make him as the devil and then what wonder if in stead of Loving him and Delighting in him you tremble at the thoughts of him and fly from him As I have observed Children when they have seen the devil painted on a wall in an ugly shape they have partly feared and partly hated it If you do so by God in your fancy it is not putting the Name of God on him when you have done that will reconcile your Affections
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
God knows that a poor sinner in this humbled troubled case hath burden enough on his back already and indeed more then he is able of himself to bear The sense of his own sinfull folly and misery is burden enough If God should adde to this his frowns and terrors and should spurn at a poor sinner that lies prostrate at his feet in tears or terrours who then should be able to stand before him or to look him in the face But he will not break the bruised reed he will not make heavier the burden of a sinner He cals them to come to him for Ease and Rest and not to oppress them or kill them with his terrours We have not a King like Rehoboam that will multiply our pressures but one whose office it is to break our yoaks and loose our bonds and set us free When he was a Preacher himself on earth you may gather what Doctrine he preached by his Text which he chose at one of his first publike Sermons which as you may finde in Luke 4.18 19. was this The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor he hath sent me to heal the broken hearted to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blinde to set at liberty them that are bruised to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. O if a poor bruised wounded soul had but heard this Sermon from his Saviours own mouth what heart-meltings would it have caused what pangs of Love would it have raised in him You would sure have believed then that the Lord is gracious when All that heard him bare him witness and wondred at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth Luke 4.22 I would desire no more for the comfort of such a soul then to see such a sight and feel such a feeling as the poor penitent Prodigal did when he found himself in the arms of his Father and felt the kisses of his mouth and was surprized so unexpectedly with such a torrent of Love The soul that hath once seen and felt this would never sure have such hard and doubtfull thoughts of God except through ignorance they knew not whose arms they were that thus embraced them or whose voice it was that thus bespoke them or unless the remembrance of it were gone out of their mindes You see then what is Gods own language to humbled Penitents and what is the method of his dealings with them And such must be the language and dealing of his Ministers They must not wound when Christ would heal nor make sad the heart that Christ would comfort and would not have made sad Ezek. 13.22 But will this means serve turn or must the same course be taken to remove the sorrows of the wilfully disobedient No God takes another course himself and prescribes another course to his Ministers and requires another course from the sinner himself But still remember who it is that I speak of It is not the ordinary unavoidable infirmities of the Saints that I speak of such as they cannot be rid of though they fain would such as Paul speaks of Rom. 7.19 The good that I would do I do not and when I would do good evil is present with me And Gal. 5.17 The flesh lusteth against the Spirit c. so that we cannot do the things that we would A true Christian would Love God more perfectly and Delight in him more abundantly and bring every thought in subjection to his Will and subdue the very remnants of carnal concupiscence that there should be no stirrings of lust or unjust anger or worldly desires or pride within him and that no vain word might pass his lips all this he would do but he cannot Striving against these unavoidable infirmities is conquering But though we cannot keep under every motion of concupiscence we can forbear the execution Anger will stirre upon provocations But we may restrain it in degree that it set us not in a flame and do not much distemper or discompose our mindes and we can forbid our tongues all raging furious or abusive words in our Anger all cursing swearing or reproachfull speaking If an envious thought against our Brother do arise in our hearts because he is prefer'd before us we may hate it and repress it and chide our hearts for it and command our tongues to speak well of him and no evil Some pride and self-esteem will remain and be stirring in us do what we can it is a sinne so deeply rooted in our corrupt Natures But yet we can detest it and resist it and meet with abhorrence our self-conceited thoughts and rejoycings in our own reputations and fame and inward heart-risings against those that undervalue us and stand in the way of our Repute and we may forbear our boasting language and our contestings for our credit and our excuses of our sinnes and our backbitings and secret defaming of those that cross us in the way of credit We may forbear our quarrels and estrangements and dividings from our Brethren and stiff insisting on our own conceits and expecting that others should make our Judgements their Rule and say and do as we would have them and all dance after our pipe all which are the effects of inward Pride We cannot while we are on earth be free from all inordinate Love of the world and the Riches and Honours of it but we may so watch against it and repress it as that it shall neither be preferred before God nor draw us to unlawfull waies of gain by lying deceit and overreaching our Brethren by stealing unjust or unmercifull dealings oppressing the poor and insulting over those that are in the way of our thriving and crushing them that would hinder our aspiring designes and treading them down that will not bow to us and taking revenge of them that have crossed or disparaged us or cruelly exacting all our Rights and Debts of the poor and squeezing the purses of subjects or tenants or those that we bargain with like a spunge as long as any thing will come out Yea we may so farre subdue our love of the world as that it shall not hinder us from being mercifull to the poor compassionate to our servants and labourers and bountifull to our power in doing good works nor yet shut out Gods service from our families or closets nor rob him of our frequent affectionate thoughts especially on the Lords day So for sensuality or the pleasing of our flesh more immediatly we shall never on earth be wholly freed from inordinate motions and temptations and fleshly desires and urgent inclinations and solicitations to forbidden things But yet we may restrain our Appetite by reason so farre that it bring us not to gluttony and drunkenness and a studying for our bellies and pampering of our flesh or a taking care for it and making provision to satisfie its lusts Rom. 13.14 We may forbear the obeying it in
when the shaking winde of that stormy temptation is over the soul will return to Christ by Repentance Love and renewed Obedience But then to know what state he is Relatively in this while as to his Justification and Reconciliation and right to Glory is the point of exceeding difficulty Whether as we distinguish of Habitual Faith and Love and Obedience which he hath not lost and Actual which he hath lost so we must make some answerable distinction of Justification Habitual and Actual it cannot be into Virtual Justification which he hath not lost and Actual Justification which he hath lost or into Plenary Justification which he hath not and Imperfect Justification wanting a further Act to make it Plenary which may remain But still it will be more difficult to shew punctually what this Imperfect or Virtual Justification is and most difficult to shew Whether with the loss of Actual Plenary Justification and the loss of a Plenary Right to Heaven a mans salvation may consist that is Whether if he should die in that condition he should be saved or condemned Or if it be said that he shall certainly repent 1. Yet such a supposition may be put while he yet repenteth not for the enquiry into his state How farre there is any intercision of his Justification Pardon Adoption or Right to salvation 2. And whether it can fully be proved that it is impossible or that which never was or shall be for a Regenerate man to die in the very act of a gross sinne as self-murder or the like For my part I think God hath purposely left us here in the dark that we may not be too bold in sinning but may know that whether the gross sins of Believers be such as destroy their Justification and right to Glory prevalently or not yet certainly they leave them in the dark as to any Certainty of their Justification or Salvation And then more dark is it and impossible to discover How farre a man may go in these grosser sinnes and yet have the prevalent habits of Grace As to the former Question about the intercision of Justification I am somewhat inclinable to think that the habit of Faith hath more to do in our Justification then I have formerly thought and may as properly be said to be the condition as the act and that as long as a man is in a prevalent degree habitually a Believer he is not only imperfectly and virtually Justified but so farre actually Justified that he should be saved though he were cut off before he actually Repent And that he being already habitually Penitent having a hatred of all sin as sin should be saved if meer want of opportunity do prevent the Act And that only those sinnes do bring a man into a state of condemnation or prove him in such which consist not with the Habitual Preheminence of Christs interest in our souls above the interest of the flesh and world And that David's and Peter's were such as did consist with the preheminence of Christs interest in the habit But withall that such gross sinnes must needs be observable and so the soul that is guilty doth ordinarily know its guilt yea and think of it And that it is inconsistent with this habitual Repentance not to Repent actually as soon as Time is afforded and the violence of passion so farre allaied as that the soul may recollect it self and Reason have its free use And that he that hath this leasure and opportunity for the free use of Reason and yet doth not Repent it is a sign that the interest of the flesh is habitually as well as actually stronger then Christs interest in him I say in this doubtfull case I am most inclining to judge thus But as I would have no man take this as my resolved Judgement much less as certain Truth and least of all to venture on sinne or impenitency ever the more for such a doubtfull opinion which doth not conclude him to be certainly unjustified so I am utterly ignorant both how long sensual passions may possibly rage and keep the soul from sober Consideration or how farre they may interpose in the very time of Consideration and frustrate it and prevail against it and so keep the sinner from actual Repenting or at least from a full ingenuous acknowledgement and bewailing of the sin which is necessary to full Repentance and how long Repentance may be so farre stifled as to remain only in some inward grudgings of conscience and trouble of minde hindered from breaking out into free Confession which seemeth to have been David's case long Nay it is impossible to know just how long a man may live in the very practice of such gross sin before Christs habitual Interest above the flesh be either overthrown or proved not to be there and how oft a man that hath true Grace may commit such sins These things are undiscernable besides that none can punctually define a gross sin so as to exclude every degree of Infirmities and include every degree of such gross sin Perhaps you will marvell why I run so farre in this Point It is both to give you as much light as I can what sins they be which be to be called Infirmities and so what sins they be that do forbid that gentle comforting way of cure when the soul is troubled for them which must be used with those that are troubled more then needs or upon mistakes and also to convince you of this weighty Truth That Our Comfort yea and Assurance hath a great dependance on our actual obedience yea so great that the least obedient sort of sincere Christians cannot by ordinary means have any Assurance and the most obedient if other necessaries concurre will have thâ— most Assurance and for the middle sort their Assurance will rise and fall ordinarily with their obedience so that there 's no way to comfort such offending Christians but by reducing them to fuller obedience by Faith and Repentance that so the evidences of their Justification may be clear and the great impediments of their Assurance and Comfort be removed This I will yet make clearer to you by its Reasons and then tell you how to apply it to your self 1. No man can be sure of his salvation or Justification but he that is sure of his true Faith and Love And no man can be sure of his true Faith and Love but he that is sure of the sincerity of his obedience For true Faith doth ever take God for our great Soveraign and Christ for our Lord-Redeemer and containeth a Covenant-delivery of a mans self to God and the Redeemer to be Ruled by him as a Subject Childe Servant and Spouse This is not done sincerely and savingly unless there be an actual and habitual Resolution to obey God and the Redeemer before all creatures and against all temptations that would draw us from him To obey Christ a little and the flesh more is no true obedience If the flesh can
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
but use these three Distinctions 1. Between the Acts of the meer Rational faculties Understanding and Will called Elicite Acts and the Acts of the Inferiour faculties of soul and body called Imperate Acts. 2. Between the Acts that are About the End immediatly and those that are About the Means 3. Between the Intension of an Act and the Objective-Extension and Comparison of Object with Object And so I say 1. The End that is God and Salvation cannot be too fully Known or too much Loved with a pure Rational Love of Complacency nor too much sought by the Acts of the soul as purely Rational For the End being loved and sought for it self and being of Infinite Goodness must be loved and sought without Measure or Limitation it being Impossible here to exceed Prop. 2. The Means while they are not mis-apprehended but taken as Means and Materially well understood cannot be too clearly discerned nor too Rightly chosen nor too Resolutely prosecuted Prop. 3. It is too possible to mis-apprehend the Means and to place them instead of the End and so to Over-love them Prop. 4. The Nature of all the Means consisteth in a Middle or Mean betwixt two Extreams materially both which Extreams are sin so that it is possible to over-do about all the Means as to the Matter of them and the Extent of our acts Though we cannot Love God too much yet it is possible to Preach Hear Pray Read Meditate Confer of Good too much For one Duty may shut out another and a greater may be neglected by our over-doing in a lesser which was the Pharisees sin in Sabbath-Resting 5. If we be never so right in the extension of our Acts yet we may go too far in the Intension of the Imperate Acts or Passions of the soul and that both on the Means and End Though the pure Acts of Knowing or Willing cannot be too great towards God and Salvation yet the Passions and Acts commonly called Sensitive may A man may Think on God not onely too much as to exclude other necessary thoughts but too Intensly and Love and Desire too Passionately For there is a Degree of Thinking or Meditating and of Passionate Love and Desire which the brain cannot bear but it will cause Madness and quite overthrow the use of Reason by overstretching the organs or by the extreme turbulency of the agitated spirits Yet I never knew the man nor ever shall do I think that was ever guilty of one of these excesses that is of Loving or Desiring God so Passionately as to distract him But I have often known weak-headed people that be not able to order their thoughts and many Melancholy People Guilty of the other that is of thinking too much and too seriously and intensly on Good and Holy things whereby they have overthrown their Reason and been distracted And here I would give all such weak-headed Melancholy persons this warning That whereas in my Book of Rest I so much press a constant course of Heavenly Meditation I do intend it onely for sound heads and not for the Melancholy that have weak heads and are unable to bear it That may be their sin which to others is a very great duty While they think to do that which they cannot do they will but disable themselves for that which they can do I would therefore advise those Melancholy persons whose minds are so troubled and heads weakned that they are in danger of overthrowing their Understandings which usually begins in multitudes of scruples and restlesness of mind and continual fears and blasphemous temptations where it begins with these distraction is at hand if not prevented that they forbear Meditation as being no duty to them though it be to others and instead of it be the more in those duties which they are fit for especially Conference with Judicious Christians and Chearful and Thankful acknowledgement of Gods Mercies And thus have I shewed you how far we may possibly exceed in Gods service Let me now a little apply it It hath ever been the Devils Policy to begin in perswading men to Worldlyness Flesh-pleasing Security and Presumption and utter Neglect of God and their souls or at least preferring their bodies and worldly things and by this means he destroyeth the world But where this will not take but God awaketh men effectually and casteth out the sleepy Devil usually he fils mens heads with needless scruples and next setteth them on a Religion not commanded and would make poor souls believe they do Nothing if they do not more then God hath commanded them When the Devil hath no other way left to destroy Religion and Godliness he will pretend to be Religious and Godly himself and then he is always over-religious and over-godly in his Materials All over-doing in Gods work is undoing And who ever you meet with that would Over-do suspect him to be either a subtil destroying enemy or one deluded by the destroyer O what a Tragedy could I here shew you of the Devils acting and what a Mysterie in the Hellish Art of Deceiving could I open to you And shall I keep the Devils counsel No. O that God would open the eyes of his poor desolate Churches at lâ—st to see it The Lord Jesus in Wisdom and tender Mercy establisheth a Law of Grace and Rule of Life Pure and Perfect but simple and plain laying the Condition of mans salvation more in the Honesty of the Believing Heart then in the strength of Wit and subtilty of a Knowing Head He comprized the Truths which were of Necessity to salvation in a Narrow room So that the Christian Faith was a matter of great plainness and simplicity As long as Christians were such and held to this the Gospel rode in Triumph through the world and an Omnipotency of the Spirit accompanied it bearing down all before it Princes and Scepters stoopt subtil Philosophy was non-plust and all useful Sciences came down and acknowledged themselves Servants and took their places and were well contented to attend the pleasure of Christ As Mr. Herbert saith in his Church Militant Religion thence fled into Greece where Arts Gave her the highest place in all mens hearts Learning was pos'd Philosophy was set Sophisters taken in a Fishers Net Plato and Aristotle were at a loss And wheel'd about again to spell Christs Cross Prayers chas't Syllogisms into their den And Ergo was transform'd into Amen The Serpent envying this Happiness of the Church hath no way to undo us but by drawing us from our Christian simplicity By the occasion of Hereticks quarrels and errours the Serpent steps in and will needs be a spirit of Zeal in the Church and he will so Over-do against Hereticks that he perswades them they must enlarge their Creed and adde this Clause against one and that against another and all was but for the perfecting and preserving of the Christian Faith And so he brings it to be a Matter of so much Wit to be a Christian as Erasmus
found true Souls Conflict pag. 41 42. Though the main pillar of our Comfort be the free forgiveness of our sins yet if there be a neglect â—f growing in Holiness the soul will never be soundly quiet because it will be proâ—e to question the truth of Justification and it is as proper for sin to raise doubts and fears in the Conscience as for rotten flesh and wood to breed worms Where there is not a pure Conscience there is not a pacified Conscience c. Read the rest This much I have been fain to premise lest my words for Consolation should occasion security and desolation But now let me desire you to peruse the Direction and practice it If when God hath given you Assurance or strong probabilities of your sincerity you will make use of it but onely for that present time you will never then have a setled Peace in your soul Besides the great wrong you do to God by necessitating him to be so often renewing such discoveries and repeating the same words to you so often over If your Child offend you would you have him when he is pardoned no longer to believe it then you are telling it him Should he be still asking you over and over every day Father am I forgiven or no Should not one answer serve his turn Will you not believe that your money is in your purse or chest any longer then you are looking on it Or that your corn is growing on your land or your cattel in your grounds any longer then you are looking on them By this Course a Rich man should have no more content then a beggar longer then he is looking on his money or goods or lands and when he is looking on one he should again lose the Comfort of all the rest What hath God given you a Memory for but to lay up former apprehensions and discoveries and experiences and make use of them on all meet occasions afterwards Let me therefore perswade you to this great and necessary work When God hath once Resolved your Doubts and shewed you the truth of your Faith Love or Obedience Write it down if you can in your book as I have advised you in my Treatise of Rest Such a day upon serious perusal of my heart I found it thus and thus with my self Or at least Write it deep in your Memory And do not suffer any fancies or fears or light surmises to cause you to question this again as long as you fall not from the Obedience or Faith which you then discovered Alas mans Apprehension is a most mutable thing If you leave your soul open to every new apprehension you will never be setled You may think two contrary things of your self in an hour You have not always the same opportunity for right discerning nor the same clearness of Apprehension nor the same outward means to help you nor the same inward Assistance of the Holy Ghost When you have these therefore make use of them and fix your wavering soul and take your Question and Doubt as Resolved and do not tempt God by calling him to new Answers again and again as if he had given you no answer before You will never want some occasion of Jealousie and fears as long as you have Corruption in your heart and sin in your life and a Tempter to be troubling you But if you will suffer any such wind to shake your Peace and Comforts you will be always shaking and fluctuating as a wave of the Sea And you must labour to apprehend not onely the Uncomfortableness but the Sinfulness also of this course For though the questioning your own sincerity on every small occasion be not near so great a sin as the questioning of Gods Merciful Nature or the truth of his Promise or his Readiness to shew Mercy to the Penitent soul or the Freeness and Fulness of the Covenant of Grace yet even this is no contemptible sin For 1. You are doing Satans work in denying Gods Graces and Accusing your self falsly and so pleasing the Devil in Disquieting your self 2. You slander Gods Spirit as well as your own soul in saying He hath not Renewed and Sanctified you when he hath 3. This will necessitate you to further Unthankfulness for who can be Thankful for a Mercy that thinks he never received it 4. This will shut your mouth against all those Praises of God and that Heavenly joyful Commemoration of his great unspeakable Love to your soul which should be the blessed work of your life 5 This will much abate your Love to God and your sense of the Love of Christ in dying for you and all the rest of your Graces while you are still questioning your Interest in Gods Love 6. It will lay such a discouragement on your soul as will both destroy the sweetness of all Duties to you which is a great evil and thereby make you backward to them and heartless in them You will have no mind of Praying Meditation or other duties because all will seem dark to you and you will think that every thing makes against you 7. You rob all about you of that chearful encourageing example perswasion which they should have from you and by which you might win many souls to God And contrarily you are a discouragement and hindrance to them I could mention many more sinful aggravations of your denying Gods Graces in you on every small insufficient occasion which methinks should make you be very tender of it if not to avoyd unnecessary Trouble to your self yet at least to avoyd sin against God And what I have said of Evidences and Assurance I would have you understand also of your Experiences You must not make Use onely at the present of your Experiences but lay them up for the time to come Nor must you tempt God so far as to expect new Experiences upon every new scruple or doubt of yours as the Israelites expected New Miracles in the Wilderness still forgetting the Old If a Scholar should in his Studies forget all that he hath Read and Learned and all the Resolutions of his Doubts which in study he hath attained and leave his Understanding still as an unwritten Paper as Receptive of every Mutation and New Apprehension and contrary Conceit as if he had never studied the Point before he will make but a poor proficiency and have but a fluctuating unsetled brain A Scholar should make all the studies of his Life to compose one entire Image of Truth in his soul as a Painter makes every line he draws to compose one entire picture of a man and as a Weaver makes every thred to compose one Web so should you make all former Examinations Discoveries Evidences and Experiences Compose one full Discovery of your Condition that so you may have a setled Peace of soul And see that you tye both Ends together and neither look on your present troubled state without your former lest you be unthankful and unjustly discouraged nor on
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
Policy of the Devil to make People Believe that their Ministers are too stout and will not stoop to a compassionate hearing of their case especially if Ministers carry themselves strangely at too great a distance from their People I would earnestly intreat all Ministers therefore to be as familiar and as much with their People as they can Papists and other Seducers will insinuate themselves into their familiarity if we be strange If you teach them not in their Houses these will Creep into their Houses and lead them Captive I perswade others of my Brethren to that which my self am disabled from performing being by constant weakness besides unavoydable business confined to my Chamber But those that can perform it will find this a most necessary and profitable work And let not poor People believe the Devil who tels them that Ministers are so proud onely to discourage them from seeking their advice Go try them once before you believe it Lastly Remember this that it is not enough that you once opened your case to your Pastour but do it as often as Necessity urgeth you to call for his advice though not on every light occasion Live in such a Dependance on the advice and guidance of your Pastour under Christ for your soul as you do on the advice of the Physician for your body Read Mal. 2.7 and let Ministers read 6 8 9. DIRECTION XXXII 32. As ever you would live in Peace and Comfort and well-pleasing unto God be sure that you understand and deeply consider wherein the height of a Christian life and the greatest part of our Duty doth consist To wit In a loving Delight in God and a Thankful and Chearful Obedience to his Will And then make this your Constant aim and be still aspiring after it and let all other affections and endeavours be subservient unto this THis one Rule well practised would do wonders on the souls of poor Christians in dispelling all their fears and troubles and helping not onely to a setled Peace but to live in the most comfortable state that can be expected upon earth Write therefore these two or three words deep in your understandings and Memory that the life which God is best pleased with and we should be always endeavouring is A Loving Delight in God through Christ and a thankful and chearful obedience to him I do not say that godly sorrows and fears and jealousies are no Duties but these are the great Duties to which the rest should all subserve Misapprehending the state of Duty and the very Nature of a Christian life must needs make sad distempers in mens hearts and conversations Many Christians look upon Broken-heartedness and much grieving and weeping for sin as if it were the great thing that God Delighteth in and requireth of them and therefore they bend all their endeavours this way and are still striving with their hearts to break them more and wringing their Consciences to squeez out some tears and they think no Sermon no Prayer no Meditation speeds so well with them as that which can help them to grieve or weep I am far from perswading men against Humiliation Godly sorrow and tenderness of heart But yet I must tell you that this is a sore errour that you lay so much upon it and so much overlook that great and noble work and state to which it tendeth Do you think that God hath any Pleasure in your sorrows as such Doth it do him Good to see you dejected afflicted and tormented Alas it is onely as your sorrows do kill your sins and mortifie your fleshly lusts and prepare for your Peace and Joys that God regards them Because God doth speak comfortably to troubled drooping spirits and tels them that he delighteth in the contrite and loveth the humble and bindeth up the broken-hearted therefore men mis-understanding him do think they should do nothing but be still breaking their own hearts Whereas God speaks it but partly to shew his hatred to the proud and partly to shew his tender compassions to the humbled that they might not be overwhelmed or despair But O Christians understand and consider that all your sorrows are but preparatives to your joys and that it is a higher and sweeter work that God cals you to and would have you spend your time and strength in 1. The first part of it is Love A work that is wages to it self He that knows what it is to live in the Love of God doth know that Christianity is no tormenting and discontented life 2. The next part is Delight in God and in the Hopes and fore-thoughts of everlasting Glory Psal 37.4 Delight thy self in the Lord and he shall give thee the Desires of thy heart This is it that you should be bending your studies and endeavours for that your soul might be able to Delight it self in God 3. The third part is Thankfulness and Praise Though I say not as some that we should be moved by no fears or desires of the Reward that is of God but act only from Thankfulness as though we had all that we expect already yet let me desire you to take speciall notice of this Truth that Thankfulness must be the main principle of all Gospel-Obedience And this is not onely true of the Regenerate after faith but even the wicked themselves who are called to Repent and Believe are called to do it in a glad and Thankful sense of the mercy offered them in Christ All the world being fallen under Gods wrath and deserved condemnation and the Lord Jesus having become a Sacrifice and Ransom for all and so brought all from that Legal Necessity of perishing which they were under the Gospel which brings them the News of this is glad tidings of great Joy to them and the very justifying Act which they are called to is Thankfully to Accept Christ as one that hath already satisfied for their sins and will save them if they Accept him and will follow his saving Counsel and use his saving means and the saving work which they must proceed in is Thankfulness to obey that Redeemer whom they Believe in So that as General Redemption is the very Foundation of the new world and its Government so Thankfulness for this Redemption is the very life of Justifying faith and Gospel obedience And therefore the denyal of this universal Redemption as to the Price and Satisfaction doth both disable wicked men if they receive it from coming to Christ by true Justifying Faith which is The Thankful Acceptance of Christ as he is offered with his benefits and this Thankfulness must be for what he hath done in Dying for us as well as for what he will do in pardoning and saving us and it doth disable all true Believers from Gospel Grateful Obedience when ever they lose the sight of their Evidences of special Grace which alas how ordinary is it with them For when they cannot have special Grace in their eye to be Thankful for according to
this doctrine they must have none because they can be no surer that Christ dyed for them then they are that themselves are sincere Believers and truly sanctified And when Thankfulness for Christs Death and Redemption ceaseth Gospel obedience ceaseth and Legal slavish terrors do take place Though the same cannot be said of Thankfulness for special renewing pardoning Grace 4. The fourth part of the Christian Life is Chearful Obedience God loveth a chearful Giver and so he doth in every part of obedience Deut. 28.47 Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with Joyfulness with Gladness of heart for the abundance of all things thou shalt serve thy enemies in hunger thirst c. Will you now lay all this together and make it for the time to come your business and try whether whether it will not be the truest way to comfort and make your life a blessed life will you make it your end in hearing reading praying and meditation to raise your soul to Delight in God Will you strive as much to work it to this Delight as ever you did to work it to sorrow Certainly you have more reason and certainly there is more matter of Delight in the face and Love of God then in all the things in the world besides Consider but the Scripture Commands and then lay to heart your Duty Phil. 4.4 Rejoyce in the Lord alway and again I say Rejoyce Phil. 3.1 Zech. 10.7 Joel 2.23 Isa 41.16 Psal 33.1 Rejoyce in the Lord O ye Righteous for praise is comely for the upright Psal 97.12 1 Thess 5.16 Rejoyce evermore 1 Pet. 1. 6 8 Rom. 5.2 John 4.36 Psal 5.11 33.21 35.9 66.6 68.3 4. 71.23 89.16 105.3 149.2 49.4 27.6 John 16.24 Rom. 15 13. and 14.17 The Kingdom of God is in Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost Gal. 5.22 Psal 32.11 Be glad in the Lord and Rejoyce O ye Righteous and shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart Psal 132.9 16. 5.11 35.27 Hab. 3.18 with a hundred more the like Have you made conscience of this great duty according to its excellency and these pressing Commands of God Have you made Conscience of the Duties of Praise Thanksgiving and Cheerful Obedience as much as of Grieving for sin Perhaps you will say I cannot do it for want of Assurance If I knew that I were one of the Righteous and upright in Heart then I could be Glad and shout for Joy Ans 1. I have before shewed you how you may know that when you discover it in your self see that you make more Conscience of this duty 2. You have had Hopes and Probabilites of your sincerity Did you endeavor to answer those Probabilities in your Joys 3. If you would but labour to get this Delight in God it would help you to Assurance for it would be one of your clearest evidences O how the subtil enemy disadvantageth the Gospel by the misapprehensions and dejected spirits of Believers It is the very Design of the ever-blessed God to Glorifie Love and Mercy as highly in the Work of Redemption as ever he Glorified Omnipotency in the Work of Creation And he hath purposely unhindged the Sabboth which was appointed to Commemorate that work of Power in Creation to the first day of the week That it might be spent as a weekly day of Thanksgiving and Praise for the now more Glorious work of Redemption that Love might not only be equally admired with power but even go before it So that he hath laid the foundation of the Kingdom of Grace in Love and Mercy and in Love and Mercy hath he framed the whole Structure of the Edifice and Love and Mercy are written in legible indelible Characters upon every piece And the whole frame of his Work and Temple-service hath he so composed that all might be the resounding Eccho's of Love and the Praise and glorious Commerations of Love and Mercy might be the great business of our solemn Assemblies And the new Creation within us and without us is so ordered that Love Thankfulness and Delight might be both the way and the end And the Serpent who most opposeth God where he seeketh most Glory especially the Glory of his Grace doth labour so succesfully to obscure this Glory that he hath brought multitudes of poor Christians to have poor low thoughts of the Riches of this Grace and to set every sin of theirs against it which should but advance it and even to question the very foundation of the whole building whether Christ hath Redeemed the World by his Sacrifice yea he puts such a vail over the Glory of the Gospel that men can hardly be brought to Receive it as Glad tidings till they first have Assurance of their own Sanctification And the very nature of Gods Kingdom is so unknown that some men think it to be Unrighteousness and Libertinism and others to be Pensive Dejections and Tormenting Scruples and fears and but few know it to be Righteousness and Peace and Joy in the Hoy Ghost And the very business of a Christians life and Gods service is rather taken to be Scrupling Quarrelling and Veâ—â—â— our selves and the Church of God then to be Love and Gratitude and a Delighting our souls in God and chearfully obeying him And thus when Christianity seems a Thrâ—â—dom and Torment and the service of the world the flesh and the Devil seems the onely freedom and quiet and delight no wonder if the Devil have more unfeigned servants then Christ and if men tremble at the name of Holiness and fly away from Religion as a Mischief What can be more contrary to its nature and to Gods design in forming it then for the Professors to live such dejected and dolorous lives God calls men from Vexation and Vanity to high Delights and Peace And men come to God as from Peace and Pleasure to Vexation All our preaching will do little to win souls from Sensuality to Holiness while they look upon the sad lives of the Professors of Holiness As it will more deter a sick man from medling with a Physician to see all that he hath had in hand to lie languishing in continual pains to their death then all his words and promises will encourage them O what blessed lives might Gods people live if they understood the love of God in the mysterie of mans Redemption and did addict themselves to the consideration and improvement of it and did believingly eye the promised Glory and hereupon did make it the business of their lives to Delight their souls in him that hath Loved them And what a wonderful success might we expect to our Preaching if the Holy Delights and Chearful Obedience of the Saints did preach as clearly to the eyes of the world as we preach loudly to their ears But flesh will be flesh yet a while and unbelief will be unbelief we are all too blame The Lord forgive our overlooking his
still You cannot Delight in God I say again Do but acknowledge it the great work that God requireth of you and make it your daily aim and care and business and then you will more easily and certainly attain it But while you know not your work or so far mistake it as to think it consisteth more in sorrows and fears and never endeavour in your Duties or Meditations to raise your soul to a Delight in God but rather to cast down your self with still poaring on your miseries no wonder then if you be a stranger to this life of holy Delight By this time I find my self come up to the subject of my Book of the Saints Rest wherein having said so much to Direct and Excite you for the attainment of these Spiritual and Heavenly Delights I will referr you to it for your help in that work and adde no more here but to Desire you through the course of your life to remember That the true Love of God in Christ and Delight in him and Thankful Chearful Obedience to him is the great work of a Christian which God is best pleased with and which the blessed Angels and Saints shall be exercised in for ever And O thou the Blessed God of Love the Father of Mercy the Prince of Peace the Spirit of Consolation compose the Disquieted spirits of thy People and the tumultuous disjoynted state of thy Churches and pardon our Rashness Contentions and Blood-guiltiness and give us not up to the state of the wicked who are like the raging Sea and to whom there is no Peace Lay thy command on our winds and waves before thy shipwrackt vessel perish And Rebuke that evil spirit whose name is Legion which hath possessed so great a part of thine Inheritance Send forth the spirit of Judgement and Meekness into thy Churches and save us from our Pride and Ignorance with their effects And bring our feet into the way of Peace which hitherto we have not known O close all thy People speedily in loving consultations and earnest enquiries after Peace Let them Return from their Corruptions Contentions and Divisions and joyntly seek thee asking the way to Zion with their faces thitherward saying Come let us joyn our selves to the Lord in a perpetual Covenant that shall not be forgotten Blast all opposing Policies and Powers Say to these Dead and Dry bones Live And out of these Ruines do thou yet erect a City of Righteousness where thy People may dwell together in Peaceable habitations and in the midst thereof A Temple to thy Holiness Let the materials of it be Verity and Purity Let the Redeemer be its Foundation Let Love and Peace cement it into Vnity Let thy Laver and Covenant be the Dores and Holiness to the Lord be engraved thereon that buyers and sellers may be cast out and the common and unclean may know their Place and let no desolating Abomination be there set up But let thy People all in one name in one faith with one mind and one soul attend to thine Instructions and wait for thy Laws and submit unto thine Order and Rejoyce in thy Salvation that the troubled spirits may be there exhilerated the dark enlightned and all may offer thee the sacrifice of Praise without dis-affections discords or divisions that so thy People may be thy Delight and thou mayst be the chiefest Delight of thy People â—â—d they may Please thee through him that hath perfectly pleased thee Or if our expectations of this Happiness on earth be too high yet give us so much as may enlighten our eyes and heal those corruptions which estrange us from thee and may propagate thy Truth increase thy Church and honour thy Holiness and may quicken our desires and strengthen us in our way and be a fore-tast to us of the Everlasting Rest Luk. 2.14 Glory to God in the Highest on earth Peace Good will towards men Ecles 12.12 13 14. Of making many Books there is no end and much study is a weariness to the flesh Let us hear the Conclusion of the whole matter Fear God and keep his Commandments for this is the whole Duty of man c. FINIS