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
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
you would you stand asking first How shall I know that it is mine or rather Take and Eat it when you are sure it may be yours if you will Let me intreat you therefore when the devil clamours in your ears Christ and Salvation is none of thine suppose that this voice of God in the Gospel were still in your ears yea let it be still in your memory O Take Christ and Life in him that thou maist be saved still think that you hear Paul following you with these words We are Embassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead be Reconciled to God Will you but remember this when you are on your knees in sorrow and when you would fain have Christ and Life and you are afraid that God will not give them to you I say Remember then God stands by Beseeching you to Accept the same thing which you are Beseeching him to give God is the first suitor and solicitor God Prayes you to Take Christ and you Pray him to give you Christ what have you now to do but to Take him And here understand that this Taking is no Impossible business it is no more but your hearty Consenting as I shall tell you more anon If you did but well understand and consider that Beleeving is the great Duty that God calls you to perform and promiseth to save you if you do truly perform it and that this Beleeving is to Take or Consent to have the same Mercy which you pray for and are troubled for fear least you shall misse of it even Christ and life in him this would presently draw forth your Consent and that in so open and express a way as you could not but discover it and have the comfort of it Remember this then That your first work is to Beleeve or Accept an offered Saviour 2. You must learn as I told you to Receive the Comforts of Universal or General Grace before you search after the Comforts of Special Grace I here suppose you so far sound in the doctrine of the Gospel as neither with some on one hand to look so much at Special Grace as to deny that General Grace which is the Ground of it or presupposed to it nor with others so far to look at universal Mercy as to deny Special Satan will tell you that all your Duties have been done in hypocrisie and you are unsound at the heart and have not a drop of saving Grace You are apt to entertain this and conclude that all this is true If I had any Grace I should have more Life and Love and Delight in God more tenderness of heart more growth in Grace I should not carry about such a Rock in my breast such a stupid dull insensible soul c. At the present let us suppose that all this be true yet see what a world of Comfort you may gather from Universal or General Mercy I have before opened to you four parts of it in the Cause of your Happiness and three in the Effect which may each of them afford much relief to your troubled soul 1. Suppose you are yet Graceless is it nothing to you that it is a God of Infinite Mercy that you have to do with whose Compassions are ten thousand times greater then your dearest friends or your own husbands Object O but yet he will not save the Graceless Answ True but he is the more ready to give Grace that you may be saved If any of you mark any of you do lack wisdome let him ask it of God who giveth to all men liberally without desert and upbraideth not with our unworthiness or former faults and it shall be given him Jam. 1.4 If you that are evil can give good gifts to your children how much more shall your heavenly Father give his holy Spirit to them that ask it Luk. 11.13 Suppose your life were in the hands of your own husband or your childrens life in your hands would it not exceedingly comfort you or them to consider whose hands they are in though yet you had no further Assurance how you should be used It may be you will say But God is no Father to the Graceless I answer He is not their Father in so neer and strict a sense as he is the Father of Beleevers but yet a Father he is even to the wicked and to convince men of his Fatherly Mercy to them he often so stileth himself He saith by Moses Deut. 32.6 to a wicked generation whose spot was not the spot of his children Do ye thus requite the Lord O foolish people and unwise Is not he thy Father that bought thee hath he not made thee and established thee And the Prodigall could call him Father for his encouragement before he returned to him Luk. 15.16 17 18. For my own part I must needs profess that my soul hath more frequent support from the consideration of Gods Gracious and Merciful nature then from the Promise it self 2. Furthermore Suppose you were Graceless at the present yet is it not an exceeding Comfort that there is one of such Infinite Compassions as the Lord Christ who hath assumed our Nature and is come down to seek and save that which was lost and is more tender hearted to poor sinners then we can possibly conceive yea who hath made it his Office to Heal and Relieve and Restore and Reconcile Yea that hath himself endured such temptations as many of ours For we have not an high-Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities but was in all points tempted like as we are without sin Let us therefore saith the holy Ghost come boldly unto the throne of Grace that we may obtain Mercy and finde Grace to help in time of need Heb. 4.15 16. Forasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and bloud he also himself likewise took part with them that he might destroy through death him that had the power of death that is the devil and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage For verily he took not on him the nature of Angels but he took on him the seed of Abraham Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his Brethren that he might be a Merciful and faithful high-Priest in things pertaining to God to make Reconciliation for the sins of the people For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted he is able to succour them that are tempted Heb. 2.14 15 16 17 18. Have you discountenance from men Christ had much more Doth God seem to forsake you so he did by Christ Are you fain to lye on your knees crying for Mercy why Christ in the days of his flesh was fain to offer up strong cryes and tears to him that was able to save him and was heard in that he feared It seems that Christ had distressing fears as well as you though not sinful fears Have you horrid
First By discerning that the Word was not deep rooted 1. In their Judgement and Estimation 2. Or in their Wills and setled Resolution Secondly And by discerning the unmortified lusts of their hearts in the mean time But it seems the third sort of Hearers likened to the thorny ground went further then these for here it is only said by Luk. 8.14 that they bring no fruit to perfection However whether these went farther then the other or not it is certain that these also had their trial and â—ell in the trial The deceitfullness of riches overturned these as the heat of persecution overturned the other So that it is evident that prosperity puts faith to the trial as well as adversity But mark the different manner of their falls and overthrowes They that are overthrown by adversity are said to fall away that is to forsake Christ openly but they that fall by prosperity are not said to fall away but only that the deceitfullness of riches and cares of the world choak the word so that it becomes unfruitfull that is brings no fruit to perfection For usually these do not openly forsake Christ but continue oft an unfruitfull and hypocriticall profession insomuch that at that very time when the Word is choaked and fruitless yet the blade of profession may be as green as ever and they may be so much in some duties and have such golden words and wity shifts to plead for every covetous practice and put so fair a gloss on all their actions that they may keep up the credit of being very eminent Christians So that if your Grace can carry you well through prosperity you may be confident of the truth of it 3. And then if it be thus proved true and saving you have cause to be confident that it will hold out in adversity also and cause you to overcome the shake of tribulation I think most men are better in adversity than in prosperity though I confess no adversity is so shaking as that which leaves it in a mans choice to come out of it by sinning As for a man in health to be persecuted and the persecutor to say If thou wilt turn to my side and way I will give thee thy life and preferment with it But sickness or other sufferings imposed only by God and which only God can take off are nothing so shaking For as the former drawes us to please men that they may deliver us so this drawes even the wicked to think of pleasing God that He may deliver them 17. Observe that when I ask whether this Resolution do already prevail I do not mean any perfect prevailing nay sin may prevail to draw you to a particular act and how many I will not undertake to tell you and yet still Grace and the Spirit do conquer in the main For you will say that General and Army get the victory who vanquish the other and win the field though yet perhaps a Troop or Regiment may be routed and many slain 18. When I speak of your overcoming all gross sins as I mean in ordinary not doubting but its too possible for a believer to commit a gross sin so I confess that its hard to tell just which sins are to be called gross and which infirmities only or as some speak which is mortal and which not And therefore this Mark hath some difficulties as to the right trying by it of which more anon 19. Yet I desire that you joyn them all together in trial seeing it is in the whole that the true and full description of a Christian is contained The same description of a true Christian presupposing his right belief I have drawn up in our publike Church-profession which in this County the Ministers have agreed on in the Profession of Consent in these words I do heartily take this one God for my only God and chief good and this Jesus Christ for my only Lord-Redeemer and Saviour and this holy Ghost for my sanctifier and the Doctrine by him revealed and sealed by his Miracles and now contained in the holy Scriptures do I tâ—ke for the Law of God and the Rule of my Faith and Life And Repenting unfeignedly of my sins I do resolve through the Grace of God sincerely to obey him both in Holiness to God and Righteousness to men and in special Love to the Saints and Communion with them against all the Temptations of the Devil the world and my own flesh and this to the death He that sincerely can speak these words is a sincere Christian 20. Lastly That you may see that those five which I laid you down are all true Marks do but peruse these texts of Scripture following For the first Psal 16.5 2. and 73.24 25 26 27 28. and 4.6 7. and 1.1 2 3. Josh 24.16 17 18 21 22 24. Mat. 6.19 20 21. Rom. 7.24 and 8.17 18 23. Heb. 11.10 15 16 25 26 27. Psal 16.5 6 7 8. For the second see Joh. 1.10 11 12. Joh. 3.16 Mark 16.16 Acts 16.31 Joh. 14.21 and 16.27 Rom. 14.9 Luk. 19.27 Jam. 1.12 Mat. 22.37 1 Cor. 16.22 Mat. 10.37 Rev. 22.14 Heb. 5.9 For the third most of the same will serve and Heb. 12.14 Mat. 7.24 Psal 1.2 3. Mat. 5.20 Acts 10.35 Rom. 7.22 For the two last besides the former see Heb. 11.6 Rom. 8. from the 1. to 14. Gal. 5.17 24. and 26.8 1 Tim. 6.9 Luk. 8.13 1 Joh. 2.15 and 5.4 5. Jam. 1.27 and 4.4 Gal. 6.14 and 1.4 Rom. 12.2 Tit. 2.14 Mat. 10 37. Rom. 2.5 6 7. Rev. 14.13 Phil. 2.14 Col. 3.23 24. 1 Cor. 3.8 14. Joh. 12.16 1 Joh. 3.22 23. Gen. 22.16 Mat. 10 22. and 24.13 Heb. 3.6 14. and 6.11 Rev. 2.26 10. and 12.11 Mat. 16.25 and 10.39 Mar. 17.33 Rom. 8.9 13. Luk. 13.3 5. Rom. 6.4 5 6 12 14 16 17 22. And thus I have given you such Marks as you may safely try your self by and cleared the meaning of them to you Now let me advise you to this use of them 1. In your serious self-examination try only by these and not by any uncertain Marks I know there be promises of Life made to some particular duties and single qualifications in Scripture as to Humility Meekness Almes-deeds Love to the Godly c. but it is still both on supposition that they be not single in the person but are accompanied with and flow from that faith and love to God beforementioned and also that they are in a prevailing degree 2. When ever any fresh doubtings arise in you upon the stirrings of corruption or debility of Graces still have recourse to these former Marks and while you finde these let not any thing cause you to pass wrong judgements on your self Lay these now to your own heart and tell me Are you not unfeignedly willing to have Christ on the termes that he is offered Are you not willing to be more holy and beg of him to make you so Would you not be glad if your soul were more
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
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
do more with us to draw us to sin then Faith and Obedience do to keep us from sin ordinarily this is no true Faith or Obedience If Christ have not the Soveraignty in the soul and his Interest be not the most predominant and potent we are no true Believers Now it is plain that the Interest of the world and flesh doth actually prevail when a man is actually committing a known sinne and omitting a known duty and then it is certain that Habits are known but by the Acts. And therefore it must needs be that the soul that most sinneth must needs be most in doubt whether the Interest of Christ or the flesh be predominant and so whether his obedience be true or no and so whether he did sincerely take Christ for his Soveraign and that is whether he be a true Believer For when a man is enquiring into the state of his soul Whether he do subject himself to Christ as his only Soveraign and whether the Authority and Love of Christ will do more with him then the temptations of the world flesh and devil he hath no way to be resolved but by feeling the Pulse of his own Will And if he say I am willing to obey Christ before the fâ—â—sh and yet do actually live in an obedience to the flesh before Christ he is deceived in his own Will for this is no saving Willingness A wicked man may have some will to obey Christ principally but having more will to the contrary viz. to please the flesh before Christ therefore he is wicked still so that you see in our self-examination the business is for the most part finally Resolved into our sincere actual obedience For thus we proceed We first finde He that believeth and loveth Christ sincerely shall be saved Then we proceed He that believeth sincerely taketh Christ for his Soveraign Then He that truly taketh Christ for his Soveraign doth truly resolve to obey him and his Laws before the world flesh or devil Then He that truly resolveth thus to obey Christ before all doth sincerely perform his resolution and doth so obey him For that is no true resolution ordinarily that never comes to performance And here we are cast unavoidably to try whether we do perform our resolutions by actual obedience before we can sit down with setled Peace much more before we get Assurance Now those that are diligent and carefull in obeying and have greatest conquest over their corruptions and do most seldom yield to temptations but do most notably and frequently conquer them these have the clearest discovery of the performance of their resolutions by obedience and consequently the fullest Assurance But they that are oftenest overcome by temptations and yield most to sin and live most disobediently must needs be furthest from Assurance of the sincerity of their obedience and consequently of their salvation 2. God himself hath plainly made our actual obedience not only a sign of true Faith but a secondary part of the condition of our salvation as promised in the New Covenant And therefore it is as impossible to be saved without it as without Faith supposing that the person have opportunity to obey in which case only it is made necessary as a condition This I will but cite several Scriptures to prove and leave you to peruse them if you be unsatisfied Rom. 8.1 to 14. They that are in Christ Jesus are they that walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit If ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if ye by the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live Rev. 22.14 Blessed are they that do his commandments that they may have right to the tree of Life and may enter in by the Gate into the City Heb. 5.9 He is become the Author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him Matth. 11.28 29 30. Take my yoak upon you for it is easie and my burden for it is light Learn of me to be meek and lowly c. and ye shall finde Rest c. John 16.27 Luke 13.24 Phil. 2.12 Rom. 2.7 10. Joh. 15.12 17. 14.21 Mat. 5.44 Luk. 6.27 35. Pro. 8.17 21. Matth. 10.37 1 Tim. 6.18 19. 2 Tim. 2.5 12. Matth. 25.41 42. Jam. 2.21 22 23 24 26. 1.12 2.5 Prov. 1.23 28.13 Luk. 13.3 5. Matth. 12.37 11.25 26. 6.12 14 15. 1 John 1.9 Act. 8.22 3.19 22.16 Luke 6.37 1 Pet. 4.18 1.2 22. Rom. 6.16 with abundance more the like Now when a poor sinner that hath oft fallen into Drunkenness Railing Strife Envying c. shall reade that these are the works of the flesh and that for these things sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience and that every man shall be judged according to his works and according to what he hath done in the flesh and that they that do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God it cannot be but that his Assurance of salvation must needs have so great a dependance on his obedience as that these sins will diminish it When he reades Rom. 6.16 His servants ye are to whom ye obey whether of sinne unto death or of obedience unto Righteousness he must needs think how such a time and such a time he obeyed sinne and the oftner and the more wilfully he did it the doubtfuller will his case be Especially if he be yet in a sinfull course which he might avoid whether of gross sinne or any wilfull sinne it cannot be but this will obscure the evidence of his obedience Men cannot judge beyond evidence and he that hath not the evidence of his true obedience hath not the evidence of the sincerity of his Faith 3. Moreover Assurance and Comfort are Gods gifts and without his gracious aid we cannot attain them But God will not give such gifts to his children while they stand out in disobedience but when they carefully please him Paternal Justice requires this 4. And it would do them abundance of hurt and God much dishonour if he should either tell them just how oft or how farre they may sin and yet be saved or yet should keep up their Peace and Comforts as well in their greatest disobedience as in their tenderest carefull walking with him But these things I spoke of before and formerly elsewhere You see then that though some obedient tender Christians may yet on several occasions be deprived of Assurance yet ordinarily no other but they have Assurance And that Assurance and Comfort will rise and fall with obedience And for all the Antinomian objections against this as if it were a leading men to their own righteousness from Christ I referre you to the twenty Arguments which I before laid you down to prove that we may and must fetch our Assurance and Comfort from our own works and Graces and so from our own Evangelical Righteousness which is subordinate to Christs Righteousness which he speaks of Matth. 25. last and in fourty
Flesh-pleasing The three great sinnes therefore that do most directly fight against God himself in his Sovereignty are 1. Pride or Ambition 2. Worldlines or Love of Riches 3. Sensuality Voluptuousness or inordinate Love of Pleasures There are in the Vnderstanding indeed other sinnes as directly against God as these and more radicall as 1. Atheism denying a God 2. Polutheism denying our God to be the Alone God and joyning others with him 3. Idolatry owning false Gods 4. Infidelity denying Jesus Christ our Lord-Redeemer 5. Owning false Saviours and Prophets in his stead or before him as do the Mahometans 6. Joyning other Redeemers and Saviours with him as if he were not the alone Christ 7. Denying the holy Ghost and denying Credit to his Holy and Miraculous Testimony to the Christian faith and blasphemously ascribing all to the devil which is the sinne against the Holy Ghost 8. Owning and believing in devils or Lying spirits in stead of the Holy Ghost as the Montanists Mahometans Ranters Familists do 9. Owning and adjoyning devils or Lying spirits in coordination or equality with the Holy Ghost and believing equally his doctrine and theirs as if he were not sole and sufficient in his Work All these are sinnes directly against God himself and if prevalent most certainly damning three against the Father three against the Sonne and three against the Holy Ghost But these be not they that I need now to warn you of These are prevalent only in Pagans Infidels and Blasphemers Your troubles and complaints shew that these are not predominant in you It is therefore the three forementioned sinnes of the Heart or Will that I would have you carefully to look after in your troubles to see whether none of them get ground and strength in you 1. Enquire carefully into your humility It is not for nothing that Christ hath said so much of the excellency and necessity of this Grace When he bids us learn of him to be meek and lowly when he blesseth the meek and poor in spirit when he setteth a little child in the midst of them and telleth them Except they become as that child they could not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven when he stoopeth to wash and wipe his Disciples feet requiring them to do so by one another How oft doth the Holy Ghost press this upon us Commanding us to submit our selves to one another and not to minde high things but to condescend to men of low estate Rom. 12.16 and not to be wise in our own esteem but in honour preferre others before our selves Rom. 12.10 How oft hath God professed to resist and take down the Proud and to give Grace to the humble and dwell with them Search carefully therefore lest this sinne get ground upon you For though it may not be so predominant and reigning as to damn you yet may it cause God to afflict you and hide his face from you and humble you by the sense of his displeasure and the concealment of his Love And though one would think that doubting troubled souls should be alwaies the most humble and freest from pride yet sad experience hath certified me that much pride may dwell with great doubtings and distress of minde Even some of the same souls that cry out of their own unworthiness and fear lest they shall be firebrands of Hell yet cannot endure a close reproof especially for any disgracefull sin nor cannot bear a disparaging word nor love those nor speak well of them who do not value them nor endure to be crost or contradicted in word or deed but must have all go their way and follow their judgement and say as they say and dance after their pipe and their hearts rise aginst those that will not do it much more against those that speak or do any thing to the diminishing of their Reputation They cannot endure to be low and past by and overlooked when others are preferred before them or to be slighted and disrespected or their words or parts or works or judgements to be contemned or disparaged Nay some are scarce able to live in the same House or Church or Town in love and peace with any but those that will humour and please them and speak them fair and give them smooth and stroaking language and forbear crossing reproving and disparaging them Every one of these singly is an evident mark and fruit of pride how much more all joyntly I seriously profess it amazeth me to consider how hainously most professors are guilty of this sin even when they know it to be the devils own sin and the great abomination hated of God and read and hear so much against it as they do and confess it so oft in their praiers to God and yet not only inwardly cherish it but in words actions gestures apparel express it and passionately defend these discoveries of it The confusions and distractions in Church and State are nothing else but the proper fruits of it so are the contentions among Christians and the unpeaceableness in families For only from pride cometh contention saith Solomon Prov. 13.10 For my part when I consider the great measure of pride self-conceitedness self-esteem that is in the greatest part of Christians that ever I was acquainted with we of the Ministry not excepted I wonder that God doth not afflict us more and bring us down by foul means that will not be brought down by fair For my own part I have had as great means to help me against this sin as most men living have had first in many years trouble of minde and then in near twenty years languishing and bodily pains having been almost twenty times at the graves mouth and living near it continually and lastly and above all I have had as full a sight of it in others even in the generality of Professors and in the dolefull state of the Church and State and haynous detestable abominations of this ageâ— which one would think should have fully cured it And yet if I hear but either an applauding word from any of fame on one side or a disparaging word on the other side I am fain to watch my heart as narrowly as I would do the thatch of my house when fire is put to it and presently to throw on it the water of Detestation Resolution and Recourse to God And though the acts through Gods great mercy be thus restrained yet the constancy of these inclinations assures me that there is still a strong and deep root I beseech you therefore if you would ever have setled Peace and Comfort be watchfull against this sinne of Pride and be sure to keep it down and get it mortified at the very heart 2. The next sin that I would have you be specially jealous of is coveteousness or love of the profits or riches of the world This is not the sin of the rich only but also of the poor and more hainous is it in them to love the world inordinatly that have so
little of it then in rich men that have more to tempt them though dangerous in both Nor doth it lye only in coveting that which is anothers or in seeking to get by unlawfull means but also in over-valuing and over-loving the wealth of the world though lawfully gotten He that loveth the world that is above Christ and holiness the love of the Father is not in him that is savingly and sincerely 1 Joh. 2.15 He that loveth house or lands better then Christ cannot be his Disciple I beseech you therefore when God hides his face search diligently and search again and again least the world should encroach on Christs interest in your heart If it should be so can you wonder if Christ seem to withdraw when you begin to set so light by him as to value dung and earth in any comparison with himself May not he well say to you If you set so much by the world take it and see what it will do for you If you can spare me better then your wealth you shall be without me Must not the Lord Jesus needs take it exceeding unkindly that after all his love and bloodshed and pains with your heart and seals of his kindness and discoveries of his Amiableness and the Treasures of his Kingdom you should now so much forget and slight him to set up the world in any comparison with him and to give such loving entertainment to his enemy and look so kindly on a competitor Is his glory worth no more then so and hath he deserved no better at your hands Again therefore do I beseech you to be afraid lest you should be guilty of this sin Examine whether the thoughts of the world grow not sweeter to you and the thoughts of God and glory more unwelcome and unpleasing whether you have not an eagerness after a fuller estate and too keen an edge upon your desires after riches or at least after a fuller portion and provision for your children or after better accommodations and contentments in House Goods or other worldly things Do not worldly hopes delight you too much and much more your worldly possessions Are you not too busily contriving how to be richer forgetting Gods words 1 Tim. 6.8 9 17. Doth not the world eat out the life of your duties that when you should be serious with God you have left your heart behinde you and drowned your affections in things below Doth not your soul stick so fast in this mud and clay that you can scarce stirre it Godward in Prayer or heavenly Meditation Do not you cut short duties in your family and in secret if not frequently omit them that so you may be again at your worldly business Or do you not customarily hurry them over because the world will not allow you leasure to be serious and so you have no time to deal in good earnest with Christ or your soul Do not your very speeches of Christ and heaven grow few and strange because the world must first be served When you see your brother have need do you not shut up the bowels of your compassions from him Doth not the love of the world make you hard to your servants hard to those you buy and sell with And doth it not incroach much on the Lords own day Look after this earthly vice in all these discoveries search for your enemy in each of these corners And if you finde that this is indeed your case you need not much wonder if Christ and you be stranger then heretofore If this earth get between your heart and the Sun of Life no wonder if all your Comforts are in an eclipse seeing your Light is but as the Moon 's a borrowed Light And you must be the more carefull in searching after this sinne both because it is certain that all men have too much of it and because it is of so dangerous a nature that should it prevail it would destroy For coveteousness is Idolatry And among all the hainous sinnes that the godly have fallen into look into the Scripture and tell me how many of them you finde charged with coveteousness And also because it is a blinding befooling sinne not only drawing old men and those that have no children and rich men that have no need to pursue these things as madly as others but also hiding it self from their eyes that most that are guilty of it will not know it Though alas if they were but willing it were very easie to know it But the power of the sinne doth so set awork their wits to finde excuses and fair names and titles for to cloak it that many delude others by it and more delude themselves but none can delude God The case of some Professors of Godliness that I have known is very lamentable in this point who being generally noted for a dangerous measure of worldliness by most that know them could yet never be brought to acknowledge it in themselves Nay by the excellency of their outward duties and discourse and the strength of their wits alas ill imployed and by their great ability of speech to put a fair gloss on the foulest of their actions they have gone on so smoothly and plausibly in their worldliness that though most accused them of it behinde their backs yet no man knew how to fasten any thing on them By which means they were hindered from repentance and recovery In this sad case though it be Gods course very often to let hypocrites and other enemies go on and prosper because they have their portion in this life and the reckoning is to come yet I have oft observed that for Gods own people or those that he means to make his people by their recovery God useth to cross them in their worldly desires and designes Perhaps he may let them thrive a while and congratulate the prosperity of their flesh but at last he breaks in suddenly on their wealth and scatters it abroad or addeth some cross to it that imbitters it all to them and then asketh them Where is now your Idol and then they begin to see their folly If you do dote on any thing below to the neglecting of God he will make a rod for you of that very thing you dote upon and by it will he scourge you home to himself 3. The third great heart-sinne which I would have you jealous of is Sensuality or Voluptuousness or pleasing the senses inordinately The two former are in this the more mortall sinnes in that they carry more of the Understanding and Will with them and make Reasoâ— it self to be serviceable to them in their workings whereas sensuality is more in the flesh and passion and hath oft times less assistance of Reason or Consent of the Will Yet is the Will tainted with sensual inclinations and both Reason and Will are at the best guilty of connivence and not exercising their authority over the sensual part But in this sensuality is the more dangerous vice in that it
come not among them or pitty them not as you should and do not your duty for the saving of their souls but think it belongs not to you but to others Do you use to deal with servants and neighbors about you and tell them of sin and misery and the remedy and seek to draw their hearts to Christ and bring them to duty I doubt you do little in this and that is sad unmercifulness for if you did truly you could not choose but finde such miserable ignorance such senselesness and blockishness such hating reproof and unwillingness to be reformed such love of this world and slavery to the flesh and so little savour of Christ Grace Heaven and the things of the Spirit and especially such an unteachableness intractableness as thorns and bryars and so great a difficulty of moving them an inch from what they are that you would have been willing ever after to have Ministers preach more rousingly then they do and you would be glad for their sakes when you heard that which might awake them and prick them to the heart Yea if you had tried how hard a work it is to bring worldly formal Hypocrites to see their Hypocrisie or to come over to Christ from the creature and to be in good earnest in the business of their salvation you would be glad to have Preachers search them to the quick and ransack their hearts and help them against their affected and obstinate self-delusions Besides you should consider that theâ— Case is far different from yours Your disease is pain and trouble they are stark dead You have Gods favour and doubt of it they are his enemies and never suspect it You want comfort and they want pardon and life if your disease should never here be cured it is but going more sadly to heaven But if they be not recovered by Regeneration they must lie for ever in Hell And should we not then pitty them more then you and study more for them and preach more for them and rather forget you in a Sermon then them should you not wish us so to do should we more regard the comforting of one then the saving of an hundred Nay more we should not onely neglect them but dangerously hurt them if we should preach too much to the case of troubled souls For you are not so apt to misapply passages of terror and to take their portion as they are apt to apply to themselves such passages for comfort and take your portion to themselves I know some will say that it is preaching Christ and setting forth Gods Love that will win them best and terrors do but make unwilling Hypocrital Professors This makes me remember how I have heard some Preachers of the times blame their Brethren for not preaching Christ to their People when they Preached the danger of rejecting Christ disobeying him and resisting his Spirit Do these men think that it is no preaching Christ when we have first many years told men the fulness of his satisfaction the freeness and general extent of his Covenant or Promise and the riches of his Grace and the incomprehensibleness of his Glory and the Truth of all to tell them afterwards the danger of refusing neglecting and disobeying him and of living after the flesh and preferring the world before him and serving Mammon and falling off in persecution and avoiding the cross and yielding in Temptation and quenching the Spirit and declining from their first Love and not improving their Talents and not forgiving and loving their brethren yea and enemies c. Is none of this Gospel nor preaching Christ yea is not Repentance it self except despairing Repentance proper to the Gospel seeing the Law excludeth it and all manner of hope Blame me not Reader if I be zealous against these men that not only know no better what preaching Christ is but in their ignorance reproach their Brethren for not preaching Christ and withal condemn Christ himself and all his Apostles Do they think that Christ himself knew not what it was to preach Christ or that he set us a patern too low for our imitation I desire them soberly to read Mat. 5.6 7 10 25. Rom. 8. from the first verse to the 14. Rom. 2. Heb. 2. 4. 5. 10 and then tell me whether we preach as Christ and his Apostles did But to the Objection I Answer first we do set forth Gods love and the fulness of Christ and the sufficiency of his death and satisfaction for all and the freeness and extent of his offer and promise of mercy and his readiness to welcome returning sinners this we do first mixing with this the discovery of their natural misery by sin which must be first known and next we shew them the danger of Rejecting Christ and his offer 2. When we finde men settled under the preaching of free Grace in a base contempt or sleepy neglect of it preferring the world and their carnal pleasures and ease before all the Glory of heaven and Riches of Christ and Grace is it not time for us to say How shall ye escape if ye neglect so great salvation Heb. 2.3 and of how much soarer punishment shall he be thought worthy that treads under foot the blood of the Covenant Heb. 10.26 when men grow careless and unbelieving must we not say Take heed lest a promise being lest of entring into his Rest any of you should seem to come short of it Heb. 4.1 3. Hath not Christ led us commanded us and taught us this way Except ye Repent ye shall all perish was his Doctrine Luke 13.3 5. Go into the world and preach the Gospel to every creature what 's that Gospel He that believeth shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned Mark 16.16 Those mine Enemies that would not I should raign over them bring hither and stay them before me Luke 19.27 Doth any of the Apostles speak more of hell-fire and the worm that never dyeth and the fire that never is quenched their Christ himself doth And do not his Apostles go the same way even Paul the greatest preacher of faith 2 Thess 1 7 8 9. and 2.12 c. What more common Alas what work should we make if we should stroak and smooth all men with Antinomian language It were the way to please all the sensual prophane multitude but it is none of Christs way to save their souls I am ready to think that these men would have Christ preached as the Papists would have him pray'd to to say Jesu Jesu Jesu nine times together and this oft over is their praying to him and to have Christs name oft in the Preachers mouth some men think is the right preaching Christ Let me now desire you hereafter to be glad to hear Ministers awaken the prophane and dead-hearted hearers and search all to the quick and misapply nothing to your self but if you think any passage doth neerly concern you open your mind to the Minister privately
us Doubt we should do nothing but doubt I know you may easily tell a long and a sad story of your sins how you are troubled with this and that and many a distemper and weak and wanting in every Grace and Duty and have committed many sins But doth it follow that therefore you have no true Grace Learn therefore to be Humbled for every sin but not to Doubt of your sincerity and salvation for every sin DIRECTION XXX 30. Whatsoever New Doubtings do arise in your soul see that you carefully discern whether they are such as must be resolved from the Consideration of General Grace or of Special Grace And especially be sure of this that when you want or lose your Certainty of sincerity and salvation you have presently recourse to the Probability of it and lose not the Comforts of that Or if you should lose the sight of a Probability of Special Grace yet see that you have recourse at the utmost to General Grace and never let go the Comforts of that at the worst THis Rule is of unspeakable Necessity and use for your Peace and Comfort Here are three several Degrees of the Grounds of Comfort It is exceeding weakness for a man that is beaten from one of these holds therefore to let go the other too and because he cannot have the highest Degree therefore to conclude that he hath none at all I beseech you in all your Doubtings and Complainings still Remember the two Rules here laid down 1. All Doubts arise not from the same Cause and therefore must not have the same Cure Let the first thing which you do upon every doubt be this To consider Whether it come from the Vnbelieving or low Apprehensions of the General Grounds of Comfort or from the want of evidence of special Grace For that which is a fit Remedy for one of these will do little for the cure of the other 2. If your Doubting be onely Whether you be sincere in Beliâ—ving Loving Hoping Repenting and Obeying then it will not answer this Doubt though you discern never so much of Gods Merciful Nature or Christs Gracious Office or the Universal sufficiency of his Death and Satisfaction or the freeness and extent of the Promise of Pardon For I profess considerately that I do not know in all the Body of Popery concerning Merits Justification Humane Satisfactions Assurance or any other point about Grace for which we unchurch them that they erre half so dangerously as Saltmarsh and such Antinomians do in this one point when they say That Christ hath Repented and Believed for us meaning it of that Faith and Repentance which he hath made the Conditions of our salvation and that We must no more question our own faith then we must question Christ the Object of it It will be no saving Plea at the day of Judgement to say Though I Repented not and Believed not yet Christ dyed for me or God is merciful or Christ Repented and Believed for me or God made me a free Promise and Gift of salvation if I would Repent and Believe What Comfort would such an Answer give them And therefore doubtless it will not serve now to quiet any knowing Christian against those Doubts that arise from the want of particular evidence of special Grace though in their own place the General Grounds of Comfort are of Absolute Necessity thereto 2. On the other side if your Doubts arise from any Defect in your Apprehensions of General Grace it is not your looking after Marks in your self that is the way to Resolve them I told you in the beginning that the General Grounds of Comfort lie in four particulars that square Foundation which will bear up all the Faith of the Saints First Gods merciful and unconceivably Good and Gracious Nature and his Love to mankind Secondly the Gracious Nature of the Mediatour God and Man with his most Gracious undertaken Office of Saving and Reconciling Thirdly the sufficiency of Christs Death and satisfaction for all the world to save them if they will Accept him and his Grace I put it in terms beyond dispute because I would not build up Believers Comforts on points which godly Divines do contradict as little as may be Yet I am past all Doubt my self that Christ did actually make satisfaction to Gods Justice for All and that no man perisheth for want of an Expiatory sacrifice but for want of faith to believe and apply it or for want of Repentance and yielding to Recovering Grace The fourth is The Universal Grant of pardon and Right to salvation on Condition of Faith and Repentance If your Doubt arise from the Ignorance or overlooking of any of these to these must you have recourse for your Cure Where Note that all those Doubts which come from the greatness of your sin as such that you think will not therefore be forgiven or that come from the sense of Unworthiness in a Legal sense or want of Merit in your self and all your Doubts whether God be willing to accept and forgive you though you should Repent and believe or whether any sacrifice was offered by Christ for your sins I say all these come from your Ignorance or Unbelief of some or all of the four General Grounds here mentioned and from them must be cured Note also in a special manner That there is a great difference between these four General Grounds and your particular Evidences in point of Certainty For these four Corner-stones are fast founded beyond all possibility of Removal so that they are always of as undoubted Certainty as that the Heaven is over your head and they are immutable still the same These you are commanded strictly to Believe with a Divine Faith as being the clearly revealed Truths of God and if you should not Believe them yet they remain firm and true and your unbelief should not make voyd the Universal promise and Grace of God But your own Evidences of special Grace are not so Certain so Clear or so Immutable nor are you bound to Believe them but to search after them that you may know them You are not bound by any Word of God strictly to Believe that you do Believe or Repent but to try and discern it This then is the first part of this Direction That you always discover whether your troubles arise from low unbelieving or ignorant thoughts of Gods Mercifulness Christs Gracious nature and office General Satisfaction or the universal Promise or whether they arise from want of evidence of sincerity in your self and accordingly in your thoughts apply the Remedy The second part of the Direction is that you hold fast Probabilities of Special Grace when you lose your Certainty and that you hold fast your General Grounds when you lose both the former Never forget this in any of your Doubts You say your faith and obedience have such breaches and sad defects in them that you cannot be Certain that they are sincere Suppose it be so Do you see