is a presupposed faith Its Gods absolute promise that firstly begets faith for faith is not assurance but the coming of the whole Soul to Christ in a promise John 6. 3 5. And then the Soul believes in Christ when it comes to Christ now this God works in the Gospel 1. The Soul is raised up by hope And being raised it Secondly comes to Christ which is faith by vehement unutterable desire And being come to him it 3. Embraceth Christ by love and thus the match is made and the everlasting knot is tied Now as you have heard the absolute promise works hope of relief from Christ and if it works hope it also works a desire or coming to Christ by desire Oh! that thou Lord wouldst honour thy grace thy power thy love thy promise in helping me a poor cast-away And thus faith is created as it were by this absolute promise for it cannot but move the heart of any one that ever felt his want to cry mightily to the Lord for help if he has any hope seeing the Lord has promised to do it for some Oh saith the Soul that thou wouldst do it for me And surely were it not for this absolute promise of God no Soul would desire because he would have â—o hope to be saved or to seek for any thing as from the hands of God And thus you see to what end God makes and to what use a Christian may put these absolute promises 2. For the second thing viz How and How to apply Absolute Promises when a Christian may apply these promises I answer every Christian is either 1. Within Covenant with God and knows it or 2. Within covenant with God and knows it not or 3. Out of covenant indeed for his present estate and condition yet he is in fieri or making towards it 1. If he be in Covenant and knows it then you may easily perceive how and when he ought to apply promises unto himself for he may boldly conclude If God be his God then all the promises of God shall be made good unto him if he be a Son of God he may boldly challengeatall times at the hands of God nay if in some respects at the hands of Justice it self the fulfilling oâ— God the Fathers will delivered in the several Legacies of the promise bought by the blood sealed by the same blood of Jesus Christ that they may and shall be made good unto him that is clear 2. Secondly If he be in Covenant and knows it not and questions hence whether God is his or not and consequently whether the promises belong unto him then the rule is to be observed let him so sue and seek for the good of the absolute promise until by reflecting upon his own acts herein he perceive himself adorned and dignified with the qualification of some conditional promise and then if he can find the condition or qualification within himself then as you judge and write he may conclude that the conditional promise belongs to him if one promise then all Gods promises and therefore that absolute promises are his own because at least one condional promise is For no unregenerate man is within the compass of any one conditional promise of grace unless you will say he is under the everlasting love of God the promises of grace being but the mid-way between the eternal purpose and decree of love and the glorious certain execution of that love in time The promise being the break day of Gods most glorious love which must shine out in time Object But here you will say is the difficulty viz. how I should so seek for the good of absolute promises as therein to find may self within the compass of some conditional one I answer It is done chiefly by three acts 1. By being humbly contented that seeing the Lord has absolutely promised to work and do all for the Soul he intends for to save even when it can do nothing for it self and that he has taken the work into his own hands so that it is his promise offer office and honour to do all that therefore you lie down not sluggishly but humbly at the feet of God and contented to have him to be your God and for ever to be disposed of in any thing by God if he will fulfil his covenant in you contented to part with any sin if he will rend it from you contented to know any truth if he will reveal it to you contented to do any duty if he will enable you contented to shine bright with all his glorious graces if he will create and maintain them in you contented to bear any evil if he will lay his hand under your head and thereunto strengthen you and so seeing the Lord promised to undertake the work for some put out the work and put over your Soul to him that he would fulfil the good that his covenant promiseth in your self Now when you do thus which no question you and many a Soul doth many times reflect upon this act and see if you cannot or may not find your self by it under the condition of some conditional promise and if you do then are you bound to believe all Gods promises are and will be Yea and Amen unto you Now that you do so by this act it self speaks plainly for how many conditional promises are made to the meek Blessed are the meek Mat. 5. and to the humble whom God will raise up For this is not saving meekness to be quietly contented to be or to do or to bear any thing that the Lord will have me from mine own strength and feeling but to be to do or to bear any thing that the Lord will have me if the Lord enable me Many a stout heart would gladly have Christ but if he cannot have him in his own terms viz. Christ and his lusts Christ and the world too or by his own strength and power he will have none of him but desperately casts him away and saith what shall I look after him any more I cannot pray I cannot believe I cannot break this vile and unruly will this stony adamant hearr thus the pride of a mans heart works Now he that is truly meekned and humbled he is contented gladly to have God his God and Christ his Redeemer and that upon Jesus Christ his own terms First on his own covenant now what is that why it is this I will give you the good and work in you the condition to I will give you my self and therefore will not stick to give you an eye to see and a heart to receive too This is the covenant now hereupon a humbled Soul accepts of Christ according to his covenant on his own terms thus viz. Upon that condition Lord that thou wilt humble me teach me perswade me cause me to believe and in every thing to honour thee Lord I am contented gladly and joyfully to have thee do therefore what thou wilt with me Just as
to keep you and me and all his for ever while we are here in our valley under the sense of such distempers as our greatest misery And therefore me thought it was a solemn sweet speech of an honest man to his friend who seeing him oppressed with such distempers as you mention and perceiving him to droop under them he came chearfully to him and suddenly said unto him I can tell you good news the best that ever you heard viz. Assoon as ever you are in Heaven you shall serve Christ without weariness Which words well thought on revived the man That which I would speak with as much tenderness of compassion as I am able to you I refer to these things 1. That a child of God is never usually weary of the duty but rather of his vile heart to think of to look upon that in the duty Christ's yoke is easie and his burthen light to him that takes it on his neck and puts his Soul under it The duty nakedly considered in it self is glorious in his eyes and sweet to his Soul and hence sometimes never well but when he considers his dead blind barren and senseless heart that he is to carry to the duty and that he fears and has felt will abide with him in the duty Oh! this grieves here the Soul pincheth An Hypocrite is weary of the duty a child of God rejoyceth in it but he is weary of his sin and unsavouriness and weariness in the duty I perswade my self Sir that you may soon mistake your spirit herein you think you are unwilling to come to the duty and are weary of it when indeed it is your glory joy and love but it is because you fear you can do it no better that troubles you that you have such a vile heart in it And if your trouble be from hence the good Lord increase ir in you daily and withal bless the Lord and say Lord tho' I am weary of my vile heart in these days of humiliation in these Sabbaths yet I hless thee the days and duties themselves thou knowest are dear unto me It is not Lord because I am weary of thy word but because I can do it no better I am weary of my self and this vile heart here is much love in such a spirit to the Lord. And believe it Sir your love wants not its recompences and remember that the Lord respects you not according to your duties done but according to your love in them to them And therefore those duties you are ashamed to own the Lord will not be ashamed to crown 2. Consider you must and shall be baited with these distempers of heart sometimes more and sometimes less as long as you live It is part of Pauls body of death which he must carry with him till he come to bury himself 3. Those means which may help you to be freed from them a little at least are these among many 1. Be but truly and really not by fits and darkly sensible of them men in deep miseries are not unwilling to be helped out 2. Judge ye not rigorously of God altho' he were a bloody austere God as he did of his master whose talent he had and hence never improved it but look upon God as having a Fathers heart and affection towards you in the meanest greatest performances which is double either to give you strength to do what you cannot I can do all things through Christ or having come to him for it to accept of what you would do for him as if it were done and this will make you joy in the poorest performance that tho' it be never so full of vileness yet the Lord out of his fatherly love accepts of it as glorious 3. Renew morning and evening by sad and solemn meditation the sense of Gods love to you in Christ and in every duty that he sets you about and love will love and like the yoke and make the commandments that they shall not be grievous to you Thus I have briefly done with your new troubles which you mention you say because you may not have the like opportunity of writing again It may be so and therefore I have desired to satisfie you which I beseech the Lord himself to do Next you come to reply to my first Letter of which I have kept no copy as I never did of any and hence may and do forget what I writ then unto So much light as your Letter lends me to bring things to mind I will gladly take and be more brief in answer Quest 1. You find the strength of grace to be got in you rather by argumentation then inward communication and influence arising from the union to Christ And this troubles you Answ To which I answer these three things 1. That as the old sinful nature is communicated from Adam the first to us without any argumentation so the new nature which is the seed foundation and plot of all grace is diffused into us by the second Adam when we are united to him without argumentation It is only by divine operation The Lord leave not me nor any friend I have to a naked Arminian illumination and Perswasion 2. That to the increase of those habits and drawing out the acts of the new creature the Lord is pleased to use moral and rational perswasions as in the instance you gave Christ died for us then hence the love of Christ constrains but remember withal it is not the bare meditation or strength of reason or perswasion that elicits such divine and noble acts in the heart and affection but it is the blood of Christ sprinkling these serious meditations that makes them work such graces in the Soul which I might shew at large which blood is the salve tho' argumentation is the cloth or leather to which it sticks by which it is applied but from such leather comes no vertue all of it is from the blood of Christ which by argumentation heals the Soul For if it were nakedly in the argumentation to stir your heart and to work strength of grace what should be the reason that sometimes you are no more moved by all your argumentations than a mountain of brass is by the winds why should the same truth affect you at one time and not at another when you are as filthily disposed to be affected as at the first Therefore consider it is not your reason and argumentation but Christ's blood that doth all by as admirable and yet secret operation 3. Your union to Christ on your part is begun and partly wrought by the understanding and hence the good that you get by it at any time it is from your union or part of it at lest Quest 2. Again you ask me whether Calvin doth not express fully my thoughts about our Spirituall union in his lib. 4. cap. 17. Answ I answer I have forgot what he has writ and my self have read long since out of him and for the
being no piece of Christian wisdom or honesty to turn round in worldly imployments so long till by giddiness we fall down but by secret steps ever and anon to look up to heaven and to behold the face of God to whom only there in we are to approve our selves But yet it seems your thoughts are so far from being subservient the one to the other that you are distracted and molested your peace interrupted and your Christian course made troublesom and an heavy but then which surely cannot be by the yoke of JesusChrist therefore you must first bring your troubles in this particular to this issue either you may follow your civil affairs and nourish these thoughts as helps to maintain your peace and make you heavenly minded in them and if they serve sufficiently to such an end why are you troubled with them or else you cannot follow God comfortably in civil actions unless you banish from you thoughts which do so miserably distract you and then why do you fear you shall grieve Gods Spirit if at the same time you do not give entertainment to them the unseasonableness of which speaks plainly they came not from the spirits suggestions besides their hinderance of comfortably walking with God which the imployments themselves can never hinder But you will say When is the season of nourishing such thoughts I answer Entertain those thoughts as it may be you have done some Friends who came to you at that time you have business with strangers whom you love not so well as your Friends you have desired them to stay a while until you have done with the other and then you have returned to your Friend and when the other has been shut out of the doors the other has had the welcom and has lodged with you all night and thus you have gâ—ieved neither but pleased both It is so in this case Worldly employments are our strangers yet they must be spoke with Religious thoughts and practices are our Friends these come unto us while God calls us to parley with the other you cannot speak with both at one time in one place without much perplexity Take therefore this course make much of the good thoughts but parley not with them till your business is done with strangers and towards evening which is your season set some time apart every day for meditation and then make them welcome then consider and ponder well what was suggested to you in the day time and sift every good thought to the bran for then is your season and after that let them sup and lodge with you all night and keep the house with you every day And surely when the Lord Jesus shall see what a Friend you shall make of his Spirit and how wisely you walk therein you shall not need to fear any grieving of it or unseasonable times nay I say you will most fearfully grieve his Spirit if you parley with the conceived suggestions of it at unseasonable times What thou dost do it with all thine Heart saith Solomon Eccl. 9. Therefore when you are to pray confer or meditate do it with all your mind and all your thoughts and all your strength So when God calls you to worldly employments do them with all your mind and might and when the season of meditation comes take it which glorious ordinance of God although many Christians use it occasionally and against some good time or when they have leisure meeting with them yet to set some time apart for it in a solemn manner every day and that in conscience as we do for prayer generally where is the man to be found that does thus Those men that thus neglect their season of musing and entring into parley with Gods Spirit daily may be well said to grieve the Spirit through the neglect of which ordinance Gods Spirit is as much grieved by Professors in England as by any course I know The Lord awaken us but I have run too far already in this first part of my answer â—2 Means For the second means viz. how the soul is to carry it self in Civil employments that so you may not think you do for better when you listen to good thoughts as you mention 1. I say but two things 1. Learn to follow them out of an awful respect to the eye presence and command of Jesus Chrift and to do what you do in Civil businesses as the Work of Christ When you are riding or making up breaches between man and man then think I am now about the work of Jesus Christ 2. Secondly seeing your self thus working in worldly employments for him you may easily apprehend that for that time God calls you to them and you attend upon the work of Jesus Christ in them that you honour God as much nay more by the meanest servile worldly act than if you should have spent all that time in meditation prayer or any other spiritual employment to which you had no call at that time It is noted therefore by some of Peters Wife's mother that when Christ had healed her of her Fevor she sate not down at Table with Christ in communion with him which no question was sweet but ministred at the Table and ran too and fro and so served him and acted for him wherein she shewed more love and gave him more honour viz. in that mean service and in acting for him than in having communion with him now if the Lord would out of his abundant goodness set the Soul in such an acting frame for him and if it could do iâ—s worldly employments as the Work of Christ and see how greatly it honours Christ in attending on him Oh what peace should a Christian enjoy notwithstanding all his dislractions every day And how easily would such devout thoughts you speak of be repell'd like darkness before the light for the nobleness of those good thoughts you speak of presenting themselves against the mean and base outsides of Civil affairs makes you ready to honour the one when you are call'd to serve the other but now by seeing you do the Work of Christ Jesus in them you shall hereby see a glory in the meanest service you perform in Civil affairs and this will make you cleave unto them But I have said too much about repelling of good thoughts in these times wherein men have to few though it may be little enough to satisfie you Quest 2. Your second trouble is this viz. that your Heart is kept from being humbled for sinful distractions that hinder and interrupt the spiritual performance of holy duties and that for two reasons First Because they be involuntary and accidental Secondly Because they cannot break the Covenant between God and your Soul being but infirmities Answ For the latter clause concerning breach of Covenant together with the other 1. I say not only infirmities do not but the greatest sins cannot make a breach of Covenant between God and the soul that is once really not
hony comb with the end of my nod and if this presence of Christ's Spirit I feel now be so sweet what is himself then 3. Thirdly Labour for increase of love familiarity with Jesus Christ by taking notice of him by coming often to him by musing daily on his love as on a fresh thing by banishing slavish false fears of his forgetfulness of you and want of everlasting love towards you and then you know love will carry you speedily to him amor meus pondus meum nay grant that you have been a stranger to Christ yet restore the love of Christ to life again in your Soul and when you come to his ordinances where he dwells your Soul will make its first enquiry for him neither will it be satisfied till it has seen him as we do them we love towards whom we have been greatest strangers Quest 5. Your fifth trouble is you know not how to apply absolute promises to your self as in Heb. 8. because they are made indefinitely without condition Conditional promises you say you can if you can find the qualification that gives you right to the good of the promise within you Answ This useful fruitful question how to apply absolute promises to ones particular deserves a larger time and answer than now in the midst of perplexities I am able yet willing to give For when the Lord saith absolutely without condition that he will take away the stony heart and he will put his fear into his peoples hearts c. and these kind of promises are made to some not to all to those only whom the Lord will and in general to his people Hereupon the Souls of many Christians especially such as question Gods love towards them are most in suspence and therefore when they complain of the vileness of their hearts strength of the lusts let any man tell them that the Lord has undertaken in the Second covenant to heal their backslidings and to subdue their iniquities they will hereupon reply it is true he has promised indeed to do thus for some absolutely tho' they have no good in them but I that feel so vile a heart so rebellious a nature will he do this for me or no and thus the Soul floats above water yet fears it shall sink at last notwithstanding all that God has said I will answer therefore briefly these two things in general 1. I shall shew you to what end and for what use and purpose Go has made absolute promises not only to them that be for the present bâ—â— people but to them that in respect their estates and condition are not 2. I shall shew you how every Christian is to make use of them and how and when he ought to apply them For the first of these 1. First I conceive that as in respect of God himself there are many ends which I shall not mention as being needless so in respect of man there are principally these two ends for which the Lord has made absolute promises 1. To raise up the Soul of a helpless sinful cursed lost sinner in his own eyes to some hope at least of mercy and help from the Lord. For thus usually every mans Soul is wrought to whom the Lord doth intend grace and mercy he first turns his eyes inward and makes him to see he is stark naught and that he has not one dram of grace in him who thought himself rich and wanting nothing before and consequently that he is under the curse and wrath of God for the present and that if the Lord should but stop his breath and cover his face and take him away which he may easily do and this to be feared he will that he is undon forever Hereupon the Soul is awakened falls to his kitchin physick as I spake before prays and hears and amends and strives to grow better and to stop up every hole to amend it self of every sin but finding it self to grow worse and worse and perceiving thereby that he doth but stir not cleanse the puddle and that it is not amending of nature that he must attain to but he must believe and make a long arm to Heaven and apprehend the Lord Jesus which so few know or ever shall enjoy and hereby quench the wrath of God I say finding he cannot do thus no nor no means of themselves can help him to this hereupon he is for saken of all his self-wisdom and of all his vain hopes and now sits down like a desolate widow comfortless and sorrowful and thinks there is no way but death and hell the wrath of a displeased God to be expected And if any come and tell this Soul of Gods mercy and pity to sinners I saith he its true he is even infinitely merciful unto them who are rent from their sins and that can believe but that I cannot do am sure shall never be able for to do therefore what cause have I but to lie down in my sorrow to expect my fatal stroke every moment Reply again upon this Soul tell him that tho' he cannot believe or loosen his heart from sin yet that the Lord has promised to do it that he will subdue all his iniquity and he will pardon all his sin and that he will cause men to walk in his ways c. True saith the Soul again he will do thus for his own people and for them he has chosen but I never had dram of grace in my heart and there is no evidence that the Lord is mine own or that I am his Here again the Soul lies down until the Lord discovers to the Soul that he will do these things for some that have no grace or never had grace for these promises were made to such Hereupon the Soul thinks thus these promises are made for some that are filthy for why should God pour clean water upon them for some that be hard-hearted for why should he promise to take away the stony heart from them c. and if unto some such and I being such a one why may not the Lord possibly intend and include me seeing he has not by his promise excluded nor shut me out Indeed I dare not say he will but yet how do I or men or Angels know but yet I may be one Hereupon Hope is raised to life again seeing God has undertaken the work for the vilest it is possible he may do it for me now when I am vile and can do nothing for my self And thus you may see the first end and use of absolute promises to be as it were twiggs to uphold the sinking Spirits of hopeless helpless distressed Souls 2. The Second end and Use of them is this To create and draw out faith in Jesus Christ in the promises For as the Law begets terror so the promises beget Faith Now no conditional promise firstly begets Faith because he that is under any condition of the Gospel in that man there
a sick man tells his Physician who comes not to him on these terms If you will make your self half whole then I will cure you and do the rest for you but being utterly unable to cure or to know how to cure himself he tells his Physician I am content you should begin and perfect the cure and so honour your skill and love in me to be contented to take any thing if you will give it me and if I offer to resist that you should bind me and so do any thing with me 2. The second act is earnestly to long and come to Christ to cleave unto Jesus Christ by fervent and ardent desire that he would make good those absolute promises to you seeing that they are made to some and that they do not exclude you for when you ponder well and see what wonderful great things the Lord promiseth to some whose heart cannot but be stirred up to say as that woman in another case Lord give me of that water to drink and as they in the fifth of John Lord evermore give us that bread Now doing this reflect upon this Second act and see if unto it no conditional promise belongs and you shall find an affirmative answer from the word For what is this longing afteâ— the good not of some which many hypocrites do but of all the promises but that which the Scripture calls thirsting who are commanded to come drink of the waters of life freely Isa 55. 1 2. and hungring to which all good things are promised Mat. 5. 6. and which coming to Christ as I spake even now who has given this as the first fruit of eternal election and which kind of people he will never cast away John 6. 37. Now when you see these promises belonging unto you why dare you not conclude but that all these absolute ones are yours also 3. The third act is this Seeing God hath promised absolutely such good things in the Second Covenant but hath not set down the time when or how much grace he will give and seeing only he can help therefore look up and wait upon the Lord in the use of all known means until he makes good what he hath promised to do and perform and work for you Say as beggars that have but one door to go to for bread if none hear or hearing help not lay themselves down at the door and say I will wait here I am sure I perish if I go away or quarrel with them in the house because they help me not so soon as I would and therefore â— will wait for it may be their compassions may move them as they pass by to help me So do you Many a Soul comes and longs for the good of the Promises but if the Lord do not speedily help him he goes with discouragements fears and discontents or despair or sin away and saith one of these two things either I shall never have help or I come not truly and hence I feel no help Oh remember that bread is only to be had at the door to be distributed when the Lord seeth need not when we would or think we have need and therefore wait here and say if I perish here I will at the feet of God and at the feet of the promises and covenant of God c. Now reflect upon this act and see if you may not find some conditional promise annexed unto it which surely you may and I will name you but two Isa 40. 29 30 31. Isa 64. 4. and if the conditional promise belongs to such a Soul you may easily conclude the absolute promises are your own and the chiefest use you are to make of them when you know them that they are your own is to press God to make them good daily to you and to believe as verily and really as if you had the performance of them that they shall It may be you will ask me how shall I know whether I have these conditions truly in me I answer sincerity is a very witnessing grace the frequent meditation of the Scripture will give you much light to judge of the sincerity of them and that which Saint Paul speaks 1 Cor. 2. 12. I say unto you We have not received the spirit of the World but of God whereby we know or may know the things that are freely given to us of God 3. Thirdly If he be out of the covenant but yet God begins to work with some common work of his grace upon him all that I would say to him and all the use he can make of such absolute promises consists in these things 1. Let him consider the freeness of God's promise whereby he may be stirred up to conceive some hope it may be made good to him in time For the promise is very free large excluding none except those that sin unpardonably be their sins and natures never so vile before God and yet not including any by name for that is in the conditional promise and hence such an one is to make this use of it who knows but the Lord may have pity upon me in time and so hang thy hope upon him 2. Let him consider the worth and price of Gods promise bought by blood and for which some men would give a thousand worlds for the benefit comfort of and hereby raise up his heart as by the freeness of it to hope so by the price of it to esteem of the thing promised above pearls and all the honour and pomp of the world 3. Let him consider the fulness of the promise which is a plaister as big as his foâ—e just answerable to all his wants nay infinitely more large than his wants And surely these three things will draw his heart to long for the promise and then you know what is conditionally promised and bequeathed to them that thirst For similitude is the ground of love Now when the fulness of the Promise is seen there will appear such a suteableness and fitness of the promise to his soul that he cannot but long for it thus much for the fifth trouble Quest Your sixth trouble set down in two heads put into one for brevity viz. secret unwillingness to seek God in the strictest solemn services before you enter into them weariness of them while they last and glad when they are gone the reasons which you mention are partly fear of not using them aright together with melancholy lastly the strictness of them Answ It is very true there is abundance of wildness in our hearts which naturally seek to have their liberty abroad and cannot endure to be pent in the narrow room of holy performances extraordinary duties c. no more than children can be pent up from their play And hence it is weary of them and glad to think of their departures and ends And truly it is one of the most grievous miseries that a holy heart can feel and I beseech the Lord of heaven and earth