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
rationally wrapt up in the Covenant of grace Indeed gross scandalous sins nay infirmities when they are given way to and not resisted may keep the soul from the fruition for a time of Gods Covenant but never from the eternal jus and right unto it for as the habit of Faith or Grace gives a man a constant right to the promise and Covenant which seed ever remains which habit ever lasts Jer. 3. 9. so the act of Faith or Grace gives a man fruition of the Covenant and the benefit of the promise and hence by the acting and venting of some sins wherein there is included the neglect of the exercise of grace He that is really in covenant with God may be deprived of the fruition of it yet seeing the seed of God and the habit of grace ever remains he cannot by any sin break his covenant for the covenant of grace is absolute wherein the Lord doth not only promise the good but to begin perfect fulfil the condition absolutly without respect of sin ex parte creaturae Indeed if Gods covenant of Grace did as that of works depend upon man to fulfil the condition having sufficient grace to fulfil it then gross sin might well break the Covenant but seeing God hath undertaken to fulfil the Covenant absolutely not withstanding all the evils and sins of the soul no sin can possibly break that knot and covenant which so firm and resolute love hath once knit And therefore if this be a good argument Infirmities cannot break covenant What cause have I to be humbled for them so as to say It is thy mercy Lord that I am not consumed for them as you write you may upon the same ground say so If the Lord should desert you or you for Take the Lord and so fall into the foulest sin which I suppose corrupt conscience dares not be so bold as to think or allow of 2. Secondly I say the least sins or infirmities do break the first covenant of works and hence you do not only deserve but are under the sentence of death and curse of God immediatly after the least hairs-breadth swarving from the Law by the smallest sin and most involuntary accidental infirmity According to the Tenor of the Law the soul that sinneth shall die and cursed is he that continueth not in all things of the Law Gal. 3. 10. The least sin being ex parte objecti in respect of God against whom it is committed as horrible and as great as the greatest For it being an infinite wrong being the dishonour of an infinite Majesty there can be no greater wrong than an infinite one unless you can imagin a thing greater than that which is insinite and therefore in this respect there is as much venom and mischief done against God in the least as in the greatest sin And therefore it and whosoever commit it deserve death for it as if they had committed the foulest sin in the world and therefore after the least and smallest infirmities you may from hence see what cause you have freely to be humbled and to confess for them how worthy you are to be destroyed yea even to look upon your self as lying under the sentence of the Law and death immediately after the commission of them and so to mourn bitterly for them Object But you will say a Christian that is under the Covenant of Grace is not within the Covenant of Works that Bond is cancelled the last will must stand and therefore he being out of that Covenant no sins of his can be said to break the Covenant for no man can be said to break that Law under which he is not and which he is not bound to keep Answ I answer every Believer has a double being or standing and so there may be put upon him a double respect 1. First he may be considered as united to and having a spiritual being on Christ and so it is true he is under Grace and the Covenant of Grace and not under the Law nor the Covenant of works and hence not being under the Law nor bound to keep it as a covenant of life tho' it be a rule of life no sin can condemn him there being no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus Rom. 8. 1. But as Christ is above condemnation and law and death and curse so is he And this truly understood is the foundation of a Christians joy and peace and glory every day yet so as tho' sin doth not condemn him yet he has good reason to say it is mercy and meer mercy Lord that I am not consumed that I am condemned For sin is the same nay grace and Gods love aggravates sin for to sin against the law deserves death without recovery but to sin when grace has received me and loved me when the blood of Christ has been shed abundantly to deliver me from sin Oh this makes the most secret silent sin a crying one So that if you do consider this well you may see what little cause there is to have your heart rising against the deepest humilation for the least sin tho' you be in Christ and under grace For as Daniel when he was put into the Lions den had not the cause to wonder that he was not torn in pieces by them and why because it was not from any defect on their parts to tear him in pieces but from the omnipotent power and mercy and grace of his God that muzzell'd their mouths so tho' no Lion can â—ear tho' no sins can hurt or condemn a Christian as he is considered in Christ yet has not he cause to confess and wonder and say Lord it is thy meer grace and mercy that it is not so which is the act of humilation your letter saith you can hardly come unto and why not because Gods grace puts any less evil in sin but because it is meerly grace that keeps it from spitting that venom which otherwise it would Secondly A Christian may be considered in respect of his natural being in hiâ—â—elf and thus he is ever under the Law and as oft as he sinneth under the sentence of death and as the Apostle speaks by naâ—ure even we justified quickned are the children of wrath as well as others And thus after the least involuntary accidental sin you may easily see what cause you have to lie down deeply humbled mourning under the sentence of death and Gods eternal curse as a condemned man going to execution to feel that fire that shall never go out looking upon your self as you are in your self a forlorn cast-away every moment and this truly understood is the foundation of a Christians sorrow shame and confusion of face self-loathing self-forgetting self-forsaking and condemning every day and believe it Sir it is no small Piece of a Christians skill and work to put a difference between himself and himself himself as he is in Christ and so to joy and triumph and himself as he is growing on
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
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