expressions Because if a man be of able natural parts and have a tongue to express his own mind the promoting of holy Desires will help men to expressions For a full soul is hardly hindred from venting it self And experience teacheth us that the spirits enflaming the heart with holy Affections doth very much furnish both the Invention and Expression But this is but accidental and uncertain For those that are either men of unready tongues or that are so ill bred among the rude vulgar that they want fit expressions of their own minds or that are of over-bashful dispositions or especially that are of small knowledge and of little and short acquaintance with those that should teach them to pray by their examples or that have been but of short standing in the School of Christ such a man may have the spirit of Prayer many a year and never be able in full expressions of his own to make known his wants to God no nor in good and tolerable sense and language before others to speak to God from his own Invention A man may know all those Articles of the Faith that are of flat necessity to Salvation and yet not be able to find matter or words for the opening of his heart to God at length I would advise such to frequent the Company of those that can teach and help them in Prayer and neglect not to use the smallest parts they have especially in secret between God and their own souls where they need not so much as in publick to be regardful of expressions and in the mean time to learn a Prayer from some Book that may fitliest express their necessities or to use the Book it self in Prayer If they distrust their memories not resolâ—ing to stick heâ—â— and make it a means of indâ—lâ—iâ—â—â—â—eir laâ—iâ—ess and negligence much less to reproach and deride those that express their desires to God from the present sense of their own wants as some wickedly do deride such but to use this lawful help till they are able to do better without it then with it and then to lay it by and not before The Holy Ghost is said Rom. 8.16 to help our Infirmities in Prayer but how 1. By teaching us what to pray for not always what matter or words to enlarge our selves by but what necessary Graces to pray for 2. By giving us Sighs and Groans unexpressible which is far from giving Copious expressions For Groans and Sighs be not words and if they be Groans that we cannot express it would rather seem to intimate a want of expression then a constant abounding therein where the spirit doth assist Though indeed the meaning is that the Groans are so deep that they are past the expression of our words All our speech cannot express that deep sense that is in our hearts For the Understanding hath the advantage of the Affections herein All the thoughts of the mind may be expressed to others but the Feelings and fervent Passions of the soul can be but very defectively expressed Lastly All have not the spirit of Prayer in like measure nor all that have it in a great measure at one time can find it so at pleasure Desires rise and fall and these earnest Groans be not in every Prayer where the Holy Ghost doth assist I believe there is never a Prayer that ever a Believer did put up to God for things lawful and useful but it was put up by the help of the spirit For the weakest Prayer hath some degree of good Desire in it and addresses to God with an endeavour to express them and these can come from none but onely from the spirit Meer words without desires are no more Prayer then a suit of apparel hang'd on a stake is a man You may have the spirit of Prayer and yet have it in a very weak degree Yet still I would encourage you to bewail your defect herein as your sin and seek earnestly the supply of your wants But what 's that to the questioning or denying your sincerity or right to salvation DOUBT X. I Have no Gifts to make me useful to my self or others When I should profit by the Word I cannot Remember it When I should Reprove a Sinner or Instruct the Ignorant I have not words If I were called to give an account of my Faith I have not words to express that which as in my mind And what Grace can here be then ANSWER THis needs no long Answer Lament and amend those sins by which you have been disabled But know that these Gifts depend more on Nature Art Industry and Common Grace then upon special saving Grace Many a bad man is excellent in all these and many a one that is truly godly is defective Where hath God laid our salvation upon the strength of our Memories the Readiness of our Tongues or measure of the like Gifts That were almost as if he should have made a Law that all shall be saved that have found Complexions and healthful and youthful bodies and all be damned that are sickly aged weak children and most women DOUBT XI O But I have been a grievous sinner before I came home and have fallen foully since and I am utterly unworthy of Mercy Will the Lord ever save such an unworthy wretch as I Will he ever give his Mercy and the blood of his Son to one that hath so abused it ANSWER 1. THe Question is not with God what you have been but what you are God takes men as they then are and not as they were 2. It is a dangerous thing to object the greatness of your Guilt against Gods mercy and Christs Merits Do you think Christs satisfaction is not sufficient or that he dyed for small sins and not for great Do you not know that he hath made satisfaction for all and will pardon all and hath given out the pardon of all in his Covenant and that to all men on Condition they will Accept Christ to pardon and heal them in his own way Hath God made it his great design in the work of mans Redemption to make his Love and Mercy as Honorable and wonderful as he did his Power in the work of Creation and wil you after all this oppose the greatness of your sins against the greatness of this Mercy and Satisfaction why you may as wel think your self to be such a one that God could not or did not Make you as to think your sins so great that Christ could not or did not satisfie for them or will not pardon them if you Repent and Believe in him 3. And for Worthiness I pray you observe There is a twofold Worthiness Righteousness There is a Legal Worthiness and Righteousness which consisteth in a perfect obedience which is the performance of the Conditions of the Law of Pure Nature and Works This no man hath but Christ and if you look after this Righteousness or Worthiness in your self then do you depart from Christ and make
no great Likelyhood or hopes yet that they are sincere If you do as I think many Christians easily may that yet receive not a proportionable comfort remember that this is no small Mercy but matter of great consolation But suppose the worst that you see no Grace in your self yet you cannot be sure you have none For it may be there and you not see it Yea suppose the worst that you were sure that you had no true Grace at all yet remember that you have still abundant cause of Comfort in Gods General Grace Do you think you must needs Despair or give up all Hope and Comfort or conclude your self irrecoverably lost because you are Graceless why be it known to you there is that ground of Consolation in general Grace that may make the hearts of the very wicked to leap for joy Do I need to prove that to you You know that the Gospel is called Glad tidings of salvation and the Preachers of it are to tell those to whom they preach it Behold we bring you tidings of great Joy and glad tidings to all People And you know before the Gospel comes to men they are miserable If then it be glad tidings and tidings of great joy to all the unconverted where it comes why should it not be so to you and where is your great joy If you be Graceless is it nothing to know that God is exceeding merciful slow to anger ready to forgive pardoning iniquity transgression and sin loving mankinde Is it nothing to know that the Lord hath brought Infinite Mercy and Goodness down into humane flesh and hath taken on him the most blessed office of Reconciling and is become the Lamb of God Is it nothing to you that all your sins have a sufficient Sacrifice paid for them so that you are certain not to perish for want of a Ransom Is it nothing to you that God hath made such an universal Grant of Pardon and Salvation to all that will Believe and that you are not on the terms of the meer Law of Works to be judged for not obeying in perfection Suppose you are never so certainly Graceless is it not a Ground of unspeakable Comfort that you may be certain that nothing can condemn you but a flat refusal or unwillingness to have Christ and his Salvation This is a certain truth which may comfort a man as yet unsanctified that sin meerly as sin shall not Condemn him nor any thing in the World but the final obstinate Refusal of the Remedy which thereby leaveth all other sin unpardoned Now I would ask you this Question in your greatest fears that you are out of Christ Are you Willing to have Christ to pardon sanctifie guide and save you or not If you are then you are a true Believer and did not know it If you are not if you will but wait on Gods Word in Hearing and Reading and Consider frequently and seriously of the necessity and excellency of Christ and Glory and the evil of sin the vanity of the world and wil but beg earnestly of God to make you Willing you shall finde that God hath not appointed you this means in vain that this way will be more profitable then all your complainings See therefore when you are at the very lowest that you forsake not the Comforts of General Grace And indeed those that deny any General Grace or Redemption Do leave poor Christians in a very lamentable Condition For alas Assurance of Special Grace yea or a high probability is not so common a thing as meer Disputers against Doubting have imagined And when a poor Christian is beaten from his Assurance which few have he hath nothing but Probabilities and when he hath no confident probable perswasion of special Grace where is he then and what hath he left to support his soul I will not so far now meddle with that Controversie as to open further how this opinion tends to leave most Christians in desperation for all the pretences it hath found and I had done more but that General Redemption or Satisfaction is commonly taught in the maintaining of the General Sufficiency of it though men understand not how they contradict themselves But perhaps you will say This is cold comfort for I may as well argue thus Christ will damn sinners I am a sinner therefore he will damn me as to argue thus Christ will save sinners I am a Sinner therefore he will save me I answer There is no shew of soundness in either of these Arguments It is not a certainty that Christ will save you that can be gathered from General Grace alone that must be had from assurance of of special Grace superadded to the General But a conditional certainty you may have from General Grace onely and thus you may soundly and infallibly argue God hath made a Grant to every sinful man of Pardon and salvation through Christs Sacrifice if they will but Repent and Believe in Christ but I am a sinful man therefore God hath made this Grant of Pardon and Salvation to me DIRECTION XXXI If God do bless you with an able faithful prudent judicious Pastor take him for your Guide under Christ in the way to Salvation and open to him your Case and desire his advice in all your extraordinary pressing necessities where you have found the advice of other godly friends to be insufficient And this not once or twice only but as often as such pressing necessities shall return Or if your own Pastor be more defective for such a work make use of some other Minister of Christ who is more meet HEre I have these several things to open to you 1. That it is your Duty to seek this Direction from the Guides of the Church 2. When and in what cases you should do this 3. To what end and how far 4. What Ministers they be that you should choose thereto 5. In what manner you must open your Case that you may receive satisfaction 1. The first hath two parts 1. That you must open your Case 2. And that to your Pastor 1. The Devil hath great advantage while you keep his Counsel Two are better then one for if one of them fall he hath another to help him It is dangerous Resisting such an enemy alone An uniting of forces oft procureth victory God giveth others knowledge prudence and other gifts for our good that so every member of the body may have need of another and each be useful to the other An Independency of Christian upon Christian is most unchristian much more of people on their Guides It ceaseth to be a Member which is separated from the body and to make no use of the body or fellow members is next to separation from them Sometime bashfulness is the cause sometimes self-confidence a far worse cause but whatever is the cause of Christians smothering their Doubts the effects are oft sad The disease is oft gone so far that the Cure is very difficult
sad a thing is it that we should thus add to our own Afflictions and the heavier we judge the burden the more we lay on As if God had not done enough or would not sufficiently afflict us We may more comfortably bear that which God layeth on us then that which we immediately lay upon our selves Crosses are not great or small according to the bulk of the matter but according chiefly to the minde of the sufferer Or else how could holy men rejoyce in Tribulation and be exceeding glad that they are accounted worthy to suffer for Christ Reproaches wrongs losses are all without you unless you open them the door wilfully your self they cannot come in to the heart God hath not put the Joy or Grief of your Heart in any other mans power but in your own It is you therefore that do your selves the greatest mischief God afflicts your body or men wrong you in your state of name a small hurt if it go on further and therefore you will afflict your soul But a sadder thing yet is it to consider of that men fearing God should so highly value the things of the world They who in their Convenants with Christ are engaged to renounce the world the flesh and the devil They that have taken God in Christ for their Portion for their All and have resigned themselves and all that they have to Christs dispose whose very business in this world and their Christian life consisteth so much in resisting the devil mortifying the flesh and overcoming the world and it is Gods business in his inward works of Grace and his outward teachings and sharp afflictions and examples of others to convince them of the vanity and vexation of the world and throughly to wean them from it And yet that it should be so high in their estimation and sit so close to their hearts that they cannot bear the loss of it without such discontent disquiet and distraction of minde Yea though when all is gone they have their God left them they have their Christ still whom they took for their Treasure they have opportunities for their souls they have the sure promise of Glory yea and a promise that all things shall work together for their good yea and for that one thing that is taken from them they have yet a hundred outward Mercies remaining that yet even Believers should have so much unbelief and have their Faith to seek when they should use it and live by it and that God should seem so small in their eyes as not to satisfie or quit them unless they have the world with him and that the world should still seem so Amiable when God hath done so much to bring it into contempt Truly this and more shews that the work of Mortification is very imperfect in professors and that we bend not the force of our daily strivings and endeavours that way If Christians did bestow but as much time and pains in Mortifying the flesh and getting down the Interest of it in the soul that Christs Interest may be advanced as they do about Controversies external duties formalities tasks of devotion and self tormenting fears O what excellent Christians should we then be and how happily would most of our disquiet be removed Alas if we are so unfit to part with one outward comfort now upon the disposal of our fathers providence how should we forsake all for Christ or what shall we do at death when all must be parted with As ever therefore you would live in true Christian Peace set more by Christ and less by the world and all things in it and hold all that you possess so loosely that it may not be grievous to you when you must leave them So much for the Troubles that arise from your Body and outward state All the rest shall be directed for the Curing of those Troubles that arise immediatly from more Spiritual Causes DIRECTION III. 3. Be sure that you first lay sound apprehensions of Gods nature in your understanding and lay them deeply THis is the first Article of your Creed and the first part of Life Eternal to know God! His substance is quite past humane understanding therefore never make any attempt to reach the knowledge of it or to have any positive conceivings of it for they will be all but Idols or false conceptions but his Attributes are manifested to our understandings Well consider that even under the terrible Law when God proclaims to Moses his own Name and therein his Nature Exod. 34.6 7. the first and greatest part is The Lord God Mercifull and Gracious long suffering and abundant in Goodness and Truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity transgression and sin And he hath sworn that he hath no pleasure in the death of a sinner but rather that he return and live Think not therefore of Gods Mercifulness with diminishing extenuating thoughts nor limit it by the bounds of our frail understandings for the heavens are not so far above the earth as his thoughts and wayes are above ours Still remember that you must have no low thoughts of Gods Goodness but apprehend it as bearing proportion with his Power As it is blasphemy to limit his Power so it is to limit his Goodness The advantages that your soul will get by this right knowledge and estimation of Gods Goodness will be these 1. This will make God appear more Amiable in your eyes and then you will Love him more readily and abundantly And Love 1. Is effectually consolatory in the very working so much Love usually so much Comfort I mean this Love of Complacency for a Love of Desire there may be without comfort 2. It will breed perswasions of Gods Love to you again and so Comfort 3. It will be an unquestionable evidence of true Grace and so Comfort The Affections follow the Understandings conceptions If you think of God as one that is glad of all advantages against you and delighteth in his Creatures misery it is impossible you should Love him The Love of our selves is so deeply rooted in nature that we cannot lay it by nor Love any thing that is Absolutely and directly against us We conceive of the devil as an Absolute Enemy to God and man and one that seeks our destruction and therefore we cannot Love him And the great Cause why troubled souls do Love God no more is because they represent him to themselves in an ugly odious shape To think of God as one that seeks and delighteth in mans ruine is to make him as the devil and then what wonder if in stead of Loving him and Delighting in him you tremble at the thoughts of him and fly from him As I have observed Children when they have seen the devil painted on a wall in an ugly shape they have partly feared and partly hated it If you do so by God in your fancy it is not putting the Name of God on him when you have done that will reconcile your Affections
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
this Rule in any of your self-examinings It is the heart that God requireth My son give me thy heart Prov. 23.26 If he hath the Will he hath the heart He may have much of our Knowledge and not our heart but when we Know him so throughly as to Will him unfeignedly then he hath our heart Affectionate workings of soul to God in Christ are sweet things and high and noble Duties and such as all Christians should strive for But they are not the safest Marks to try our states by 1. Because there may be a solid sincere intention and choice in and of the Will when there is little stirring perceived in the Affections 2. Because the Will is the Master Commanding Faculty of the Rational soul and so if it be right that man is upright and safe 3. Because the Passions and Affections are so mutable and uncertain The Will can command them but imperfectly it cannot perfectly Restrain them from vanities much less can it perfectly raise them to that height as is suitable to the excellency of our heavenly objects But the object it self with its sensible manner of apprehension moves them more then all the Command of the Will And so we finde by experience that a godly man when with his utmost private endeavour he cannot command one stirring pang of divine Love or Joy in his soul yet upon the hearing of some moving Sermon or the sudden receiving of some extraordinary Mercy or the reading of some quickning book he shall feel perhaps some stirring of that Affection So when we cannot weep in private one tear for sin yet at a stirring Sermon or when we give vent to our sorrows and ease our troubled hearts into the bosome of some faithfull friend then we can finde tears 4. Because Passions and Affections depend so much on the temperature of the Body To one they are easie familiar and at command to another as honest they are difficult and scarce stirred at all With most women and persons of weaker tempers they are easier then with men Some cannot weep at the death of a friend though never so deer no nor perhaps feel very sensible inward grief and yet perhaps would have redeemed his life at a far deerer rate had it been possible then those that can grieve and weep more abundantly 5. Because Worldly things have so great an advantage on our Passions and Affections 1. They are sensible and neer us and our knowledge of them is clear But God is not to be seen heard or felt by our senses he is far from us though locally present with us we are capable of knowing but little very little of him 2. Earthly things are alway before our eyes their advantage is continuall 3. Earthly things being still the objects of our senses do force our Passions whether we will or not though they cannot force our Wills 6. Because Affections and Passions rise and fall and neither are nor can be in any even and constant frame and therefore are unfit to be the constant or certain evidence of our state But the Wills Resolution and Choice may be more constant So that I advise you rather to try your self by your Will then by your Passionate stirrings of Love or longing of Joy or sorrow Object But doth not Scripture lay as much on Love as on any Grace and doth not Christ say that except we Love him above all we cannot be his Disciples Answ It s all very true But consider Love hath two parts the one in the Will which is commonly called a faculty of the soul as Rational and this is the same thing that I call Willing Accepting Choosing or Consenting this Complacency is true Love to Christ and this is the sure standing Mark. The other is the Passionate part commonly said to be in the soul as sensitive and this though most commonly called Love yet is less certain and constant and so unfitter to try your state by though a great duty so far as we can reach it 2. You must understand and well remember that it is not every willingness that will prove your sincerity For wicked men may have slight apprehensions of spiritual things which may produce some slight desires and wishes which yet are so feeble and heartless that every lust and carnal desire overcomes them And it will not so much as enable them to deny the grossest sin But it must be the Prevalent part of your Will that God must have I mean a greater share a deeper and larger room then any thing in the world That is you must have a higher estimation of God and everlasting happiness and Christ and a holy life then of any thing in the world and also your Will must be so disposed hereby and inclined to God that if God and Glory to be obtained through Christ by a holy self-denying life were set before you on the one hand and the Pleasure Profits and Honours of the world to be enjoyed in a way of sin on the other hand you would resolvedly take the former and refuse the later Indeed they are thus set before you and upon your choice dependeth your salvation or damnation though that Choice must come from the Grace of God 3. Yet must you well remember that this Willingness and Choice is still imperfect and therefore when I mention a hearty willingness I mean not a perfect willingness There may be and is in the most gracious souls on earth much undisposedness backwardness and withdrawing of heart which is too great a measure of unwillingness to duty Especially to those duties which the flesh is most averse from and which require most of God and his Spirit to the right performance of them Among all Duties I think the soul is naturally most backward to these following 1. To secret Prayer because it is spiritual and requires great reverence and hath nothing of external pomp or form to take us up with and consisteth not much in the exercise of common gifts but in the exercise of special Grace and the breathings of the Spirit and searchings pantings and strivings of a gracious soul towards God I do not speak of the heartless repeating of bare words learned by rote and either not understood or not uttered from the feeling of the soul 2. To serious Meditation also is the soul very backward that is either to meditate on God and the promised Glory or any spiritual subject to this end that the heart may be thereby quickned and raised and graces exercised though to meditate on the same subject only to know or dispute on it the heart is nothing neer so backward Or else to meditate on the state of our own hearts by way of self-examination or self-judging or self-reprehension or self-exciting 3. Also to the Duty of faithfull dealing with each others souls in secret reproof and exhortation plainly though lovingly to tell each other of our sins and danger to this the heart is usually very backward partly through a
your side it would keep you from drooping and discouragement And why should it not do so in the present case DIRECTION XVII 17. My next advice to you is this For the strengthening your apprehensions of the Probability of your Salvation Gather up and improve all your choicest Experiences of Gods good will and mercy to you And observe also the Experiments of others in the same kind WE do God and our selves a great deal of wrong by forgetting neglecting and not improving our Experiences How doth God charge it on the Israelites especially in the wilderness that they forgot the Works of God by which he had so often manifested his Power and Goodness Psal 78. 107. see 105 106. When God had by one Miracle silenced their unbelief they had forgotten it in the next distress It was a sign the disciples hearts were hardened when they forgot the Miracles of the loaves and presently after were distrustfull and afraid Mar. 6.52 God doth not give us his mercies only for the present use but for the future nor only for the body but for the soul I would this truth were well learned by Believers You are in sickness in troubles and dangers and pinching straits in fears and anguish of minde In this case you cry to God for help and he doth in such a manner deliver you as silenceth your distrust and convinceth you of his love at least of his readiness to do you good What a wrong is it now to God and your self to forget this presently and in the next temptation to receive no strengthening by the consideration of it Doth God so much regard this dirty flesh that he should do all this meerly for its ease and relief No he doth it to kill your unbelief and convince you of his special Providence his care of you and love to you and power to help you and to breed in you more loving honourable and thankfull thoughts of him Lose this benefit and you lose all You may thus use one and the same Mercy a hundred times Though it be gone as to the body it is still fresh in a believing thankfull carefull soul You may make as good use of it at your very death as the first hour But O the sad forgetfulness mutability and unbelief of these hearts of ours What a number of these choice experiences do we all receive When we forget one God giveth another and we forget that too When unbelief doth blasphemously suggest to us Such a thing may come once or twice by chance God addeth one experience to another till it even shame us out of our unbelief as Christ shamed Thomas and we cry out My Lord and My God Hath it not been thus oft with you Have not Mercies come so seasonably so unexpectedly either by small means or the means themselves unexpectedly raised up without your designing or effecting and plainly in answer to prayers that they have brought conviction along with them and you have seen the Name of God engraven on them Sure it is so with us when through our sinfull negligence we are hardly drawn to open our eyes and see what God is doing Much more might we have seen if we had but observed the workings of Providence for us Especially they that are in an afflicted state and have more sensible daily use for God and are awakened to seek him and regard his dealings I know a Mercy to the body is no certain evidence of Gods Love to the soul But yet from such experiences a Christian may have very strong Probabilities When we find God hearing Prayers it is a hopefull sign that we have some interest in him We may say as Manoahs wife said to him Judg. 13.23 If the Lord had meant to destroy us he would not have received a sacrifice at our hands nor have done all this for us To have God so near to us in all that we call upon him for and so ready to relieve us as if he could not deny an earnest prayer and could not endure to stop his ears against our cries and groans these are hopefull signes that he meaneth us good I know special Grace is the only Certain Evidence of special Love But yet these kind of experiences are many times more effectual to refresh a drooping doubting soul then the surest Evidences For Evidences may be unseen and require a great deal of holy skill and diligence to try them which few have But these experiences are near us even in our bodies and shew themselves They make all our bones say Lord who is like unto thee And it is a great advantage to have the help of sense it self for our Consolation I hope you yet remember the choice particular Providences by which God hath manifested to you 〈◊〉 Goodness even from your youth till now especially his frequent answering of your prayers Methinks these should do something to the dispelling of those black distrustfull thoughts of God I could wish you would write them down and oft review them And when Temptations next come remember with David who helpt you against the Lion and the Bear and therefore fear not the uncircumcised Philistine 2. And you may make great use also of the experiences of others Is it not a great satisfaction to hear twenty or fourty or a hundred Christians of the godliest lives to make the very same complaints as you do your sel◠The very same complaints have I heard from as many By this you may see your case is not singular but the ordinary case of the tenderest Consciences and of many that walk uprightly with God And also is it not a great help to you to hear other Christians tell how they have come into those troubles and how they have got out of them what hurt them and what helped them and how God dealt with them while they lay under them How desirous are diseased persons to talk with others that have had the same disease and to hea◠them tell how it took them and how it 〈◊〉 them and specially what cured them Besides it will give you much stronger hopes of cure and recovery to peace of conscience when you hear of so many that have been cured of the same disease Moreover is it not a reviving thing to hear Christians open the Goodness of the Lord and that in particulars as upon experience they have found him to their own souls To hear them tell you of such notable discoveries of Gods special providence and care of his people as may refell all Temptations to Atheism and unbelief To hear them give you their frequent and full experiences of Gods hearing and answering their Prayers and helping them in their distresses Though the carnal part of the Mercy were only theirs yet by improvement the spiritual part may be yours You may have your faith and love and joy confirmed by the experiences of David Job Paul which are past so long ago and by the experiences of all your Godly acquaintance as if they
you elsewhere If we be imperfect and our faith imperfect and the knowledge of our own hearts imperfect and all our evidences and graces imperfect then our Assurance must needs be imperfect also To dream of Perfection on earth is to dream of Heaven on earth And if Assurance may be here perfect why not all our Graces Even when all Doubtings are overcome yet is Assurance farre short of the highest degree Besides that measure of Assurance which godly men do partake of hath here it s many sad interruptions in the most Upon the prevalency of Temptations and the hidings of Gods face their souls are oft left in a state of sadness that were but lately as in the arms of Christ How fully might this be proved from the examples of Job David Jeremy and others in Scripture and much more abundantly by the daily complaints and examples of the best of Gods people now living among us As there is no perfect evenness to be expected in our obedience while we are on earth so neither will there be any constant or perfect evenness in our comforts He that hath life in one duty is cold in the next and therefore he that hath much joy in one duty hath little in the next Yea perhaps duty may but occasion the renewall of his sorrows that the soul who before felt not its own burden at a Sermon or in Prayer or holy Meditation which were wont to revive him now seems to feel his miseries to be multiplied The time was once with David when the thoughts of God were sweet to him and he could say In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul And yet he saw the time also When he remembred God and was troubled he complained and his Spirit was overwhelmed God so held his eyes waking that he was troubled and could not speak he considered the daies of old and the years of ancient time he called to remembrance his song in the night he communed with his own heart and his spirit made diligent search Will the Lord saith he cast off for ever and will he be favourable no more Is his mercy clean gone for ever doth his promise fail for evermore Hath God forgotten to be gratious hath he in anger shut up his tender mercy Was not this a low ebb and a sad case that David was in Till at last he saw This was his infirmity Psal 77.1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. Had David no former experiences to remind no arguments of comfort to consider of Yes but there is at such a season an incapacity to improve them There is not only a want of comfort but a kind of aversness from it The soul bendeth it self to break its own Peace and to put away comfort farre from it So saith he in vers 2. My soul refused to be comforted In such cases men are witty to argue themselves into distress that it is hard for one that would comfort them to answer them and they are witty in refelling all the Arguments of comfort that you can offer them so that it is hard to fasten any thing on them They have a weak-wilfulness against their own Consolations Seeing then that the best have such storms and sad interruptions do not you wonder or think your case strange if it be so with you Would you speed better then the best Long for Heaven then where only is Joy without sorrow and everlasting Rest without interruption DIRECTION XX. 20. Let me also give you this warning That You must never expect so much Assurance on earth as shall set you above a Possibility of the loss of Heaven or above all apprehensions of real danger of your miscarrying I Conceive this advertisement to be of great necessity But I must first tell you the meaning and then the reasons of it Only I am sorry that I know not how to express it fully but in School terms which are not so familiar to you 1. That which shall certainly come to pass we call a thing Future That which May and Can be Done we call Possible All things are not Future which are Possible God can do more then he hath done or will do He could have made more worlds and so more were Possible then were Future Moreover a thing is said to be Possible in reference to some Power which can accomplish it whether it be Gods Power or Angels or mans God hath Decreed that none of his Elect shall finally or totally fall away and perish and therefore their so falling and perishing is not-future that is It is a thing that shall never come to pass But God never Decreed that it should be utterly Impossible and therefore it still remaineth Possible though it shall never come to pass Obj. But it is said They shall deceive if it were Possible the very Elect. A most comfortable place which many opposers of Election and Free-grace do in vain seek to obscure But let me tell you for the right understanding of it 1. That as I said Possible and Impossible are Relative terms and have Relation to the Power of some Agent as proportioned to the thing to be Done Now this Text speaks only of the power of false Christs and false Prophets and the devil by them Their power of Deceiving is exceeding great but not great enough to Deceive the Elect which is true in two Respects 1. Because the Elect are guided and fortified by Gods Spirit 2. Because seducers work not efficiently but finally by propounding objects or by a Morall improper efficiency only All their seducements cannot force or necessitate us to be Deceived by them But though it be impossible to them to do it yet it is Possible to God to permit which yet he never will and so Possible for our selves to be our own Deceivers or to give Deceivers strength against us by a wilfull receiving of their poysoned baits 2. Besides Christ spoke not in Aristotles School but among the Vulgar where words must be used in the common sense or else they will not be understood And the Vulgar use to call that Impossible which shall never come to pass And indeed when we say that it is Possible or Impossible for a man to sin or fall away there is some degree of Impropriety in the Terms because Possible and Impossible are terms properly relating to some power apportioned to a work but sinning and falling away thereby are the consequents of impotency and not the effects of Power except we speak of the natural act wherein the sin abideth But this must be born with for want of a fitter word to express our meaning by But I 'le leave these things which are not fit for you and desire you to leave them and overpass them if you understand them not 2. I here told you also that you must not look to be above all apprehension of danger of your miscarrying The grounds of this are these 1. Because as is said our miscarrying
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
mistakes of many sad Christians hereabouts The cure lieth in breaking off sinne to the utmost of your power This is the Achan that disquieteth all It is Gods great mercy that he disquieteth you in sinning and gives you not over to so deep a slumber and peace in sinne as might hinder your repentance and reformation The dangerous mistakes here are these two 1. Some do as the Lapwing cry loudest when they are furthest from the nest and complain of an aking tooth when the disease is in the head or heart They cry out O I have such wandring thoughts in prayer and such a bad memory and so hard a heart that I cannot weep for sinne or such doubts and fears and so little sense of the Love of God that I doubt I have no true Grace When they should rather say I have so proud a heart that God is fain by these sad means to humble me I am so high in my own eyes so wise in my own conceit and so tender of my own esteem and credit that God is fain to make me base in my own eyes and to abhorre my self I am so worldly and in love with earth that it draws away my thoughts from God duls my love and spoils all my duties I am so sensual that I venture sooner to displease my God then my flesh I have so little compassion on the infirmities of neighbours and servants and other brethren and deal so censoriously churlishly and unmercifully with them that God is fain to hide his mercy from me and speak to me as in anger and vex me as in sore displeasure I am so froward peevish quarrelsome unpeaceable and hard to be pleased that it is no wonder if I have no peace with God or in my own conscience and if I have so little quietness who love and seek it no more Many have more reason I say to turn their complaints into this tune 2. Another most common unhappy miscarriage of sad Christians lieth here that They will rather continue complaining and self-tormenting then give over sinning so farre as they might give it over if they would I beseech you in the Name of God to know and consider what it is that God requireth of you He doth not desire your vexation but your reformation No further doth he desire the trouble of your minde then as it tendeth to the avoiding of that sinne which is the cause of it God would have you less in your fears and troubles and more in your obedience Obey more and disquiet your minde less Will you take this counsel presently and see whether it will not do you more good then all the complaints and doubtings of your whole life have done Set your self with all your might against your pride worldliness and sensuality your unpeaceableness and want of love and tenderness to your brethren and whatever other sin your conscience is acquainted with I pray you tell me If you had gravell in your shoe in your travel would it not be more wisdom to sit down and take off your shoe and cast it out then to stand still or go complaining and tell every one you meet of your soreness If you have a thorn in your foot will you go on halting and lamenting or will you pull it out Truly sinne is the thorn in your conscience and those that would not have such troubled consciences told of their sinnes for fear of increasing their distress are unskilfull comforters and will continue the trouble while the thorn is in As ever you would have peace then resolve against sinne to the utmost of your power Never excuse it or cherish it or favour it more Confess it freely Thank those that reprove you for it Desire those about you to watch over you and to tell you of it yea to tell you of all suspitious signes that they see of it though it be not evident And if you do not see so much Pride Worldliness Unpeaceableness or other sinnes in your self as your friends think they see in you yet let their judgement make you jealous of your heart seeing self-love doth oft so blinde us that we cannot see that evil in our selves which others see in us nay which all the Town may take notice of And be sure to engage your friends that they shall not smooth over your faults or mince them and tell you of them in extenuating language which may hinder Conviction and Repentance much less silence them for fear of displeasing you but that they will deal freely and faithfully with you And see that you distast them not and discountenance not their plain dealing lest you discourage them and deprive your soul of so great a benefit Think best of those as your greatest friends who are least friends to your sinne and do most for your recovery very from it If you say Alas I am not able to mortifie my sinnes It is not in my power I answer 1. I speak not of a perfect conquest nor of a freedom from every passion or infirmity 2. Take heed of pretending disability when it is unwillingness If you were heartily willing you would be able to do much and God would strengthen you Cannot you resist Pride Worldliness and Sensuality if you be willing Cannot you forbear most of the actual sinnes you commit and perform the duties that you omit if you be Willing though not so well as you would perform them Yea let me say this much lest I endanger you by sparing you Many a miserable hypocrite doth live in trouble of minde and complaining and after all perish for their wilfull disobedience Did not the rich young man go farre before he would break off with Christ and when he did leave him he went away sorrowfull And what was the cause of his sorrow Why the matter was that he could not be saved without selling all and giving it to the poor when he had great Possessions It was not that he could not be rid of his sinne but that he could not have Christ and Heaven without forsaking the world This is the case of unsanctified persons that are enlightened to see the need of Christ but are not weaned from worldly profits honours and pleasures they are perhaps troubled in minde and I cannot blame them but it is not that they cannot leave sinning but that they cannot have Heaven without leaving their delights and contentments on earth Sin as sin they would willingly leave For no man can love evil as evil But their fleshly profits honours and pleasures they will not leave and there is the stop and this is the cause of their sorrows and fears For their own judgement cries out against them He that loveth the world the love of the Father is not in him If ye live after the flesh ye shall die God resisteth the proud This is the voice of their informed understandings And conscience seconds it and saith Thou art the man But the flesh cries louder then both these Wilt thou leave
but use these three Distinctions 1. Between the Acts of the meer Rational faculties Understanding and Will called Elicite Acts and the Acts of the Inferiour faculties of soul and body called Imperate Acts. 2. Between the Acts that are About the End immediatly and those that are About the Means 3. Between the Intension of an Act and the Objective-Extension and Comparison of Object with Object And so I say 1. The End that is God and Salvation cannot be too fully Known or too much Loved with a pure Rational Love of Complacency nor too much sought by the Acts of the soul as purely Rational For the End being loved and sought for it self and being of Infinite Goodness must be loved and sought without Measure or Limitation it being Impossible here to exceed Prop. 2. The Means while they are not mis-apprehended but taken as Means and Materially well understood cannot be too clearly discerned nor too Rightly chosen nor too Resolutely prosecuted Prop. 3. It is too possible to mis-apprehend the Means and to place them instead of the End and so to Over-love them Prop. 4. The Nature of all the Means consisteth in a Middle or Mean betwixt two Extreams materially both which Extreams are sin so that it is possible to over-do about all the Means as to the Matter of them and the Extent of our acts Though we cannot Love God too much yet it is possible to Preach Hear Pray Read Meditate Confer of Good too much For one Duty may shut out another and a greater may be neglected by our over-doing in a lesser which was the Pharisees sin in Sabbath-Resting 5. If we be never so right in the extension of our Acts yet we may go too far in the Intension of the Imperate Acts or Passions of the soul and that both on the Means and End Though the pure Acts of Knowing or Willing cannot be too great towards God and Salvation yet the Passions and Acts commonly called Sensitive may A man may Think on God not onely too much as to exclude other necessary thoughts but too Intensly and Love and Desire too Passionately For there is a Degree of Thinking or Meditating and of Passionate Love and Desire which the brain cannot bear but it will cause Madness and quite overthrow the use of Reason by overstretching the organs or by the extreme turbulency of the agitated spirits Yet I never knew the man nor ever shall do I think that was ever guilty of one of these excesses that is of Loving or Desiring God so Passionately as to distract him But I have often known weak-headed people that be not able to order their thoughts and many Melancholy People Guilty of the other that is of thinking too much and too seriously and intensly on Good and Holy things whereby they have overthrown their Reason and been distracted And here I would give all such weak-headed Melancholy persons this warning That whereas in my Book of Rest I so much press a constant course of Heavenly Meditation I do intend it onely for sound heads and not for the Melancholy that have weak heads and are unable to bear it That may be their sin which to others is a very great duty While they think to do that which they cannot do they will but disable themselves for that which they can do I would therefore advise those Melancholy persons whose minds are so troubled and heads weakned that they are in danger of overthrowing their Understandings which usually begins in multitudes of scruples and restlesness of mind and continual fears and blasphemous temptations where it begins with these distraction is at hand if not prevented that they forbear Meditation as being no duty to them though it be to others and instead of it be the more in those duties which they are fit for especially Conference with Judicious Christians and Chearful and Thankful acknowledgement of Gods Mercies And thus have I shewed you how far we may possibly exceed in Gods service Let me now a little apply it It hath ever been the Devils Policy to begin in perswading men to Worldlyness Flesh-pleasing Security and Presumption and utter Neglect of God and their souls or at least preferring their bodies and worldly things and by this means he destroyeth the world But where this will not take but God awaketh men effectually and casteth out the sleepy Devil usually he fils mens heads with needless scruples and next setteth them on a Religion not commanded and would make poor souls believe they do Nothing if they do not more then God hath commanded them When the Devil hath no other way left to destroy Religion and Godliness he will pretend to be Religious and Godly himself and then he is always over-religious and over-godly in his Materials All over-doing in Gods work is undoing And who ever you meet with that would Over-do suspect him to be either a subtil destroying enemy or one deluded by the destroyer O what a Tragedy could I here shew you of the Devils acting and what a Mysterie in the Hellish Art of Deceiving could I open to you And shall I keep the Devils counsel No. O that God would open the eyes of his poor desolate Churches at lâ—st to see it The Lord Jesus in Wisdom and tender Mercy establisheth a Law of Grace and Rule of Life Pure and Perfect but simple and plain laying the Condition of mans salvation more in the Honesty of the Believing Heart then in the strength of Wit and subtilty of a Knowing Head He comprized the Truths which were of Necessity to salvation in a Narrow room So that the Christian Faith was a matter of great plainness and simplicity As long as Christians were such and held to this the Gospel rode in Triumph through the world and an Omnipotency of the Spirit accompanied it bearing down all before it Princes and Scepters stoopt subtil Philosophy was non-plust and all useful Sciences came down and acknowledged themselves Servants and took their places and were well contented to attend the pleasure of Christ As Mr. Herbert saith in his Church Militant Religion thence fled into Greece where Arts Gave her the highest place in all mens hearts Learning was pos'd Philosophy was set Sophisters taken in a Fishers Net Plato and Aristotle were at a loss And wheel'd about again to spell Christs Cross Prayers chas't Syllogisms into their den And Ergo was transform'd into Amen The Serpent envying this Happiness of the Church hath no way to undo us but by drawing us from our Christian simplicity By the occasion of Hereticks quarrels and errours the Serpent steps in and will needs be a spirit of Zeal in the Church and he will so Over-do against Hereticks that he perswades them they must enlarge their Creed and adde this Clause against one and that against another and all was but for the perfecting and preserving of the Christian Faith And so he brings it to be a Matter of so much Wit to be a Christian as Erasmus
found true Souls Conflict pag. 41 42. Though the main pillar of our Comfort be the free forgiveness of our sins yet if there be a neglect â—f growing in Holiness the soul will never be soundly quiet because it will be proâ—e to question the truth of Justification and it is as proper for sin to raise doubts and fears in the Conscience as for rotten flesh and wood to breed worms Where there is not a pure Conscience there is not a pacified Conscience c. Read the rest This much I have been fain to premise lest my words for Consolation should occasion security and desolation But now let me desire you to peruse the Direction and practice it If when God hath given you Assurance or strong probabilities of your sincerity you will make use of it but onely for that present time you will never then have a setled Peace in your soul Besides the great wrong you do to God by necessitating him to be so often renewing such discoveries and repeating the same words to you so often over If your Child offend you would you have him when he is pardoned no longer to believe it then you are telling it him Should he be still asking you over and over every day Father am I forgiven or no Should not one answer serve his turn Will you not believe that your money is in your purse or chest any longer then you are looking on it Or that your corn is growing on your land or your cattel in your grounds any longer then you are looking on them By this Course a Rich man should have no more content then a beggar longer then he is looking on his money or goods or lands and when he is looking on one he should again lose the Comfort of all the rest What hath God given you a Memory for but to lay up former apprehensions and discoveries and experiences and make use of them on all meet occasions afterwards Let me therefore perswade you to this great and necessary work When God hath once Resolved your Doubts and shewed you the truth of your Faith Love or Obedience Write it down if you can in your book as I have advised you in my Treatise of Rest Such a day upon serious perusal of my heart I found it thus and thus with my self Or at least Write it deep in your Memory And do not suffer any fancies or fears or light surmises to cause you to question this again as long as you fall not from the Obedience or Faith which you then discovered Alas mans Apprehension is a most mutable thing If you leave your soul open to every new apprehension you will never be setled You may think two contrary things of your self in an hour You have not always the same opportunity for right discerning nor the same clearness of Apprehension nor the same outward means to help you nor the same inward Assistance of the Holy Ghost When you have these therefore make use of them and fix your wavering soul and take your Question and Doubt as Resolved and do not tempt God by calling him to new Answers again and again as if he had given you no answer before You will never want some occasion of Jealousie and fears as long as you have Corruption in your heart and sin in your life and a Tempter to be troubling you But if you will suffer any such wind to shake your Peace and Comforts you will be always shaking and fluctuating as a wave of the Sea And you must labour to apprehend not onely the Uncomfortableness but the Sinfulness also of this course For though the questioning your own sincerity on every small occasion be not near so great a sin as the questioning of Gods Merciful Nature or the truth of his Promise or his Readiness to shew Mercy to the Penitent soul or the Freeness and Fulness of the Covenant of Grace yet even this is no contemptible sin For 1. You are doing Satans work in denying Gods Graces and Accusing your self falsly and so pleasing the Devil in Disquieting your self 2. You slander Gods Spirit as well as your own soul in saying He hath not Renewed and Sanctified you when he hath 3. This will necessitate you to further Unthankfulness for who can be Thankful for a Mercy that thinks he never received it 4. This will shut your mouth against all those Praises of God and that Heavenly joyful Commemoration of his great unspeakable Love to your soul which should be the blessed work of your life 5 This will much abate your Love to God and your sense of the Love of Christ in dying for you and all the rest of your Graces while you are still questioning your Interest in Gods Love 6. It will lay such a discouragement on your soul as will both destroy the sweetness of all Duties to you which is a great evil and thereby make you backward to them and heartless in them You will have no mind of Praying Meditation or other duties because all will seem dark to you and you will think that every thing makes against you 7. You rob all about you of that chearful encourageing example perswasion which they should have from you and by which you might win many souls to God And contrarily you are a discouragement and hindrance to them I could mention many more sinful aggravations of your denying Gods Graces in you on every small insufficient occasion which methinks should make you be very tender of it if not to avoyd unnecessary Trouble to your self yet at least to avoyd sin against God And what I have said of Evidences and Assurance I would have you understand also of your Experiences You must not make Use onely at the present of your Experiences but lay them up for the time to come Nor must you tempt God so far as to expect new Experiences upon every new scruple or doubt of yours as the Israelites expected New Miracles in the Wilderness still forgetting the Old If a Scholar should in his Studies forget all that he hath Read and Learned and all the Resolutions of his Doubts which in study he hath attained and leave his Understanding still as an unwritten Paper as Receptive of every Mutation and New Apprehension and contrary Conceit as if he had never studied the Point before he will make but a poor proficiency and have but a fluctuating unsetled brain A Scholar should make all the studies of his Life to compose one entire Image of Truth in his soul as a Painter makes every line he draws to compose one entire picture of a man and as a Weaver makes every thred to compose one Web so should you make all former Examinations Discoveries Evidences and Experiences Compose one full Discovery of your Condition that so you may have a setled Peace of soul And see that you tye both Ends together and neither look on your present troubled state without your former lest you be unthankful and unjustly discouraged nor on
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
he be not sound in his Religion and so needs not a Conversion to a sound faith but onely to a soundness in the faith The suddenness of the News must needs make those Violent Commotions and Changes in the one which cannot ordinarily be expected in the other who is acquainted so early with the truth and by such degrees 5. But suppose you heard nothing of Sin and Misery and a Redeemer in your Childhood or at least understood it not which yet is unlikely yet let me ask you this Did not that Preacher or that Book or whatever other Means God used for your Conversion reveal to you Misery and Mercy both together Did not you hear and believe that Christ dyed for sin as soon as you understood your Sin and Misery Sure I am that the Scripture reveals both together and so doth every sound Preacher and every sound Writer notwithstanding that the slanderous Antinomians do shamelesly proclaim that we preach not Christ but the Law This being so you may easily apprehend that it must needs abate very much of the Terrour which would else have been unavoydable If you had read or heard that you were a sinner and the Child of Hell and of Gods 〈◊〉 and that there was no Remedy which is 〈◊〉 a Preaching of the Law as we must not use to any in the world nor any since the first promise to Adam must receive Yea or if you had heard Nothing of a Saviour for a year or a day or an hour after you had heard that you were an Heir of Hell and so the Remedy had been but Concealed from you though not denied which ordinarily must not be done then you might in all likelyhood have found some more terrours of soul that hour But when you heard that your sin was pardonable as soon as you heard that you were a sinner and heard that your Misery had a sufficient Remedy provided if you would accept it or at least that it was not Remediless and this as soon as you heard of that misery what wonder is it if this exceedingly abate your fears and troubles Suppose two men go to visit two several Neighbours that have the Plague and One of them saith It is the Plague that is on you you are but a Dead man The other saith to the other sick person It is the Plague that you have but here is our Physician at the next door that hath a Receipt that will cure it as Infallibly and as easily as if it were but the prick of a pin he hath cured thousands and never fail'd one that took his Receipt but if you will not send to him and trust him and take his Reâ—eâ—â—t there is no hopes of you Tell me now whether the first of these sick persons be not like to be more troubled then the other and whether it will not remove almost all the fears and troubles of the latter to hear of a Certain Remedy as soon as he heareth of the disease though some trouble he must needs have to think that he hath a disease in it self so desperate or loathsome Nay let me tell you so the Cure be but well done the less Terrours and despairing fears you were put upon the more Credit is it to your Physician and his Apothecary Christ and the Preacher or Instrument that did the work and therefore you should rather praise your Physician then question the Cure DOUBT III. BVT it is common with all the world to consent to the Religion that they are bred up in and somewhat affected with it and to make Conscience of obeying the precepts of it so do the Jews in theirs the Mahometans in theirs And I fear it is no other work on my soul but the meer force of Education that maketh me Religious and that I had never that great Renewing work of the Spirit upon my soul and so that all my Religion is but meer Opinion or Notions in my Brain ANSWER 1. ALL the Religions in the world besides the Christian Religion have either much errour and wickedness mixt with some Truth of God or they contain some lesser parcel of that Truth alone as the Jews Onely the Christian Religion hath that whole Truth which is saving Now so much of Gods Truth as there is in any of these Religions so much it may work Good effects upon their souls as the knowledge of the Godhead and that God is Holy Good Just Merciful and that he sheweth them much undeserved Mercy in his daily providences c. But mark these two things 1. That all persons of false Religions do more easily and greedily embrace the false part of their Religion then the true and those they are zealous for and practice with all their might because their natural corruption doth befriend it and is as combustible fewel for the fire of Hell to catch in but that Truth of God which is mixt with their Error if it be practical they fight against it and abhor it while they hold it because it crosseth their lusts insomuch that it is usually but some few of the more convinced and civil that God in providence maketh the main Instruments of continuing those Truths of his in that part of the wicked world For we finde that even among Pagans the Prophaner and more sensual sort did deride the better sort as our prophane Christians do the godly whom they called Puritans 2. Note that the Truth of God which in these false Religions is still acknowledged is so small a part and so oppressed by Errors that it is not sufficient to their salvation that is to give them any sound Hope nor is it sufficient to make such clear and deep and powerful Impressions in their mindes as may make them Holy or truly Heavenly or may overcome in them the Interest of the world and the flesh This being so you may see great reason why a Turk or a Heathen may be zealous for his Religion without Gods Spirit or any true Sanctification when yet you cannot be so truly zealous for yours without it Indeed the speculative part of our Religion separated from the Practical or from the hard and self denying part of the Practical many a wicked man may be zealous for as to maintain the Godhead or that God is merciful c. or to maintain against the Jews that Jesus is the Christ or against the Turks that he is the only Redeemer and Teacher of the Church or against the Papists that all the Christians in the world are Christs Church as well as the Romans and against the Socinians and Arrians that Christ is God c. But this is but a smal part of our Religion nor doth this or any heathenish Zeal sanctifie the heart or truly mortifie the flesh or overcome the world They may contemn Life and cast it away for their Pride and Vain-glory but not for the hopes of a holy and blessed Life with God This is but the prevalency of one corruption against another or
harden their hearts or stiffen their necks and you will finde that the most usual meaning of the Holy Ghost is this They were an intractable disobedient obstinate people or as the Greek word in the New Testament signifieth which we often translate Vnbelieving they were an Vnperswadable people no saying would serve them They set light by Gods Commands Promises and severest Threatnings and Judgements themselves nothing would move them to forsake their sins and obey the voyce of God You shall finde that hardness of heart is seldom put for want of tears or a melting weeping disposition and never at all for the want of such tears where the will is tractable and obedient I pray you examine your self then according to this Rule God offereth his Love in Christ and Christ with all his benefits to you Are you willing to Accept them He commandeth you to worship him and use his ordinances and Love his people and others and to forsake your known Iniquities so far that they may not have dominion over you Are you Willing to this He commandeth you to take him for your God and Christ for your Redeemer and stick to him for better and worse and never forsake him Are you willing to do this If you have a stiff Rebellious heart and will not Accept of Christ and Grace and will rather let go Christ then the world and will not be perswaded from your known iniquities but are loth to leave them and love not to be reformed and will not set upon those duties as you are able which God requireth and you are fully convinced of then are you Hard-hearted in the Scripture sense But if you are glad to have Christ with all your heart upon the terms that he is offered to you in the Gospel and you do walk-daily in the way of duty as you can and are willing to Pray and willing to hear and wait on God in his Ordinances and willing to have all Gods Graces formed within you and willing to let go your profitablest and sweetest sins and it is your daily desires O that I could seek God and do his will more faithfully zealously and pleasingly then I do O that I were rid of this body of sin these carnal corrupt and worldly inclinations and that I were as holy as the best of Gods Saints on earth And if when it comes to practise whether you should obey or no though some unwillingness to duty and willingness to sin be in you you are offended at it and the greater bent of your Will is for God and it is but the lesser which is towards sin and therefore the world and flesh do not lead you captive and you live not wilfully in avoidable sins nor at all in gross sin I say if it be thus with you then you have the Blessing of a soft heart a heart of flesh a new heart for it is a Willing obedient tractable heart opposed to obstinacy in sin which Scripture calleth a soft heart And then for the Passionate part which consisteth in lively feelings of sin misery mercy c. and in weeping for sin I shall say but this 1. Many an unsanctified person hath very much of it which yet are desperately Hard-hearted sinners It dependeth far more on the temper of the body then of the Grace in the soul Women usually can weep easily and yet not all and children and old men Some complexions encline to it and others not Many can weep at a Passion-Sermon or any moving duty and yet will not be perswaded to obedience these are hard-hearted sinners for all their tears 2. Many a tender godly person cannot weep for sin partly through the temper of their minds which are more judicious and solid and less passionate but mostly from the temper of their bodies which dispose them not that way 3. Deepest sorrows seldom cause tears but deep thoughts of heart as greatest joys seldom cause laughter but inward pleasure I 'le tell you how you shall know whose heart is truly sorrowful for sin and tender He that would be at the greatest cost or pains to be rid of sin or that he had not sinned You cannot weep for sin but you would give all that you have to be rid of sin you could wish when you dishonoured God by sin that you had spent that time in suffering rather and if it were to do again on the same terms and inducements you would not do it Nay you would live a beggar condtendedly so you might fully please God and never sin against him and are content to pinch your flesh and deny your worldly interest for the time to come rather then wilfully disobey This is a truly tender heart On the other side another can weep to think of his sin and yet if you should ask him what wouldst thou give or what wouldst thou suffer so thou hadst not sinned or that thou mightest sin no more Alas very little For the next time that he is put to it he will rather venture on the sin then venture on a little loss or danger or disgrace in the world or deny his craving flesh its pleasures This is a hard-hearted sinner The more you would part with to be rid of sin or the greater cost you would be at for that end the more Repentance have you and true tenderness of heart Alas if men should go to Heaven according to their weeping what abundance of children and women would be there for one man I 'le speak truly my own Case This doubt lay heavy many a year on my own soul when yet I would have given all that I had to be rid of sin but I could not weep a tear for it Nor could I weep for the death of my dearest friends when yet I would have bought their lives had it been Gods will at a dearer rate then many that could weep for them ten times as much And now since my nature is decayed and my body languisheth in consuming weakness and my head more moistned and my veins filled with flegmatick watry blood now I can weep and yet I find never the more tender-heartedness in my self then before And yet to this day so much remains of my old disposition that I could wring all the money out of my purse easier then one tear out of my eyes to save a friend or rescue them from evil when I see divers that can weep for a dead friend that would have been at no great cost to save their lives 5. Besides as Dr. Sibs saith There is oft sorrow for sin in us when it doth not appear It wanteth but some quickening word to set it afoot It is the nature of Grief to break out into tears most when sorrow hath some vent either when we use some expostulating aggravating terms with our selves or when we are opening our hearts and case to a friend then sorrow will often shew it self that did not before 6. Yet do I not deny but that our want of Tears and
study for you Make him know by experience that the tenth part of a Ministers labor is not in the Pulpit If your sins are strong and you have wounded Conscience deep go for his advice for a safe cure Many a mans sore festers to damnation for want of this And poor ignorant and scandalous sinners have far more need to do this then troubled Consciences I am confident if the people of my Congregation did but do their duty for the good of their own souls in private seeking advice of their Ministers and opening their cases to them they would finde work for ten Ministers at least And yet those two that they have have more work then they are able to do already Especially Ministers in small Countrey Congregations might do abundance of Good this way And their people are much too blame that they come not oftner to them for advice This were the way to make Christians indeed The Devil knows this and therefore so envies it that he never did more against a design in the world he hath got the Maintenance alienated that should have maintained them that so they may have but one Minister in a Congregation and then among the greater Congregations this work is impossible for want of Instruments yea he is about getting down the very Churches and settled Ministery if God will suffer him He setteth his Instruments to rail at Priests and Discipline and to call Christs yoke Tyranny because while the Garden is hedged in he is fain with envy to look over the hedge What if a man like those of our times should come to a Town that have an Epidemical Pleurifie or Feaver and say Do not run lâ—ke fools to these Physicians they do but cheat you and rob your purses and seek themselves and seek to be Lords of your lives It s possible some do so But if by these perswasions the silly people should lose their lives how well had their new preacher befriended them such friends will those prove at last to your souls that disswade you from obeying the Guidance and Discipline of your Overseers and dare call the Ordinances of the Lord of Glory Tyrannical and reproach those that Christ hath set over them England will not have Christ by his officers Rule over them nor the several Congregations will not obey him But he will make them know before many years are past that they refused their own mercy and knew not the things that belong to their Peace and that he will be master at last in spight of Malice and the proudest of his foes If they get by this bargain of Refusing Christs Government and Despising his Ministers and making the Peace Unity and Prosperity of his Church and the souls of men a Prey to their Proud misguided Phansies and Passions then let them boast of the bargain when they have tryed it Only I would intreat one thing of them Not to judge too confidently till they have seen the end And for all you tender Conscienc'd Christians whom by the Ministry the Lord hath begotten or confirmed to himself as ever you will shew your selves thankful for so great a mercy as ever you will hold that you have got or grow to more perfection and attain that blessed Life to which Christ hath given you his Ministers to conduct you see that you stick close to a judicious godly faithful Ministry And make use of them while you have them Have you strong lusts or deep wounds in conscience or a heavy burthen of doubtings or distress seek their advice God will have his own ordinance and officers have the chief instrumental hand in your cure The same means oft times in another hand shall not do it Yet I would have you make use of all able private Christians help also I will tell you the reason why our Ministers have not urged this so much upon you nor so plainly acquainted their Congregations with the necessity of opening your case to your Minister and seeking his advice 1. Some in opposition to Popery have gone too far on the other extream perhaps sinning as deeply in neglect as the Papists do in formal excess It is a good sign that an opinion is true when it is near to errour For truth is the very next step to error The small thred of Truth runs between the close adjoyning extreams of errour 2. Some Ministers knowing the exceeding greatnes of the burthen are loth to put themselves upon it This one Work of giving advice to all that ought to come and open their case to us if our people did but what they ought do for their own safety would it self in great Congregations be more then preaching every day in the week What then is all the rest of the work And how can one man yea or five do this to five thousand souls And then when it lieth undone the malicious Reproachers rail at the Ministers and accuse the people of unfitness to be Church-members which howsoever there may be some cause of yet not so much as they suggest and that unfitness would best be cured by the diligence of more Labourers which they think to cure by removing the few that do remain 3. Also some Ministers seeing that they have more work then they can do already think themselves uncapable of more and therefore that its vain to put their people on it to seek more 4. Some Ministers are over-modest and and think it to be unfit to desire people to open their secrets to them in confessing their sins and corrupt inclinations and opening their wants And indeed any ingenuous man will be backward to pry into the secrets of others But when God hath made it our office under Christ to be Physicians to the souls of our People it is but bloody cruelty to connive at their Pride and Carnal Bashfulness or Hypocritical Covering of their sins and to let them dye of their disease rather then we will urge them to disclose it 5. Some Ministers are loth to tell People of their duty in this lest it should confirm the world in their malicious conceit that we would be Masters of Mens Consciences and would lord it over them This is as much folly and cruelty as if the Master and Pilot of the Ship should let the Mariners govern the Ship by the Major Vote and run all on shelves and drown themselves and him and all for fear of being thought Lordly and Tyrannical in taking the Government of the Ship upon himself and telling the Mariners that it is their duty to obey him 6. Most godly Ministers do tell People in General of the Necessity of such a Dependance on their Teachers as Learners in the School of Christ should have on them that are Ushers under him the chief Master and they do gladly give advice to those that do seek to them But they do not so particularly and plainly acquaint People with their duty in opening to them the particular sores of their souls It is also the