with such a faith as he believes the Bible to be true in every part of it and this appears in those that are under a Spirit of Bondage Produce such and such promiâ—es to them they will say true these promises are excellent promises and will no question yeild abundance of marrow to them to whom they belong but they can see nothing in them that belongs to them Here is a full well but they have nothing to draw or it is a well inclosed it is not free for them 2 Particular When the Spirit helps the soul to single out such a word and opens a door of hope to the soul that it hath a share in it and this is that that makes way for and is compleated in the Minor of the former Syllogisme which I call 2 Conviction of Case Thus the Spirit enlightens the conscience to apply the Promise to its self by owning the condition of it The Word saith Such and such persons are children of God the renewed conscience enlightned by the Spirit saith This is my case I am such a person Now here the Spirit either enlightens a man to see himself under that condition by working a present assent to the truth of this Minor Proposition As suppose an Argument from the Promise He that believeth hath everlasting life but I believe Ergo. The assent to this Minor Proposition I believe may be wrought by a sudden work of the Spirit as soon as the major Proposition whereon it is grounded is apprehended and so it is a work somewhat neer of kin unto that of the first branch of Mediate Testimony wherein the testimony was supposed to be by the word yet without Argumentation Or else as usually by eliciting and drawing forth the soul to such an assent by a farther evidence of Argument For it is very seldom seen but that such souls as have been exercised with a Spirit of Bondage are not easily brought to own any good in themselves so that even the Spirit of God hath much ado to answer all the cavils of Satan and their own suspicious hearts in point of gracious self-Justification which such souls are much afraid of and not more difficultly brought to any thing then to own this Proposition But I believe or the like Now in such a case the Spirits work is longer and he is fain to bring many more Arguments to confirm this Minor True saith the soul he that believes hath everlasting life but I am none of those Believers and therefore quid ad me What doth this Promise concern such an unbelieving wretch as I am Then the Spirit satisfies the soul in the Minor by producing such proofs of Scripture as evidence faith in the Subject in whom it is such as purifying the heart love to God his wayes his Actâ— 15. 9 Gal. 5. 6 Zech. 12. 10 people grief for sin c. And possibly goes farther and proves those graces to be in the soul by farther Marks drawn from the acts of them which discover the habit whence they proceed This is a work of conviction I told you before and may be done by many Arguments or few according to the light that accompanyes them to the soul Nor is there any reason why Dr. Crisp and his followers should cry down this way of getting assurance by Marks and Signs as uncertain seeing the doubting soul will find something that seemes faulty in every grace which is presented to it as an evidence Object If the Spirit say say they Thou art a Believer because thou hast love that is a fruit of faith the soul may stil doubt Whether it have love if love be manifested by delight in Gods Commandments c. the question will still be Whether that delight be sincere or counterfeit pure or mixed ingenuous or self-ended and therefore say they there can no judgment be made certainly concerning a mans Justification by his sanctification or concerning sanctification by the operations of particular graces Ans To this we answer True these graces whiles I barely endeavour to discover them by my own reason may be still subject to question and so can make no firme assurance But in the soul that is graciously assured this way the Spirit of God rests the heart upon an ultimum quod sic convinceth him by that which is most visible in him and stops the mouth of cavilling reason from perplexing the Question any more As a wise Moderator in a Dispute that when the Argument hath been spun out so long by a wrangling companion that there can be no more said but in away of groundlesse cavilling and angry reflections c. breaks off the Dispute checks the wrangling Antagonist and determines the Controversie by his own sentence upon the whole matter So when a man 's own cavilling heart and Satan helping it have picked out all the flawes possibly in his evidence for heaven and have left no stone unturned to invalidate it and withal the Spirit hath enabled a man to plead to all exceptions of moment and yet these wrangling companions will not be satisfied at last the Spirit makes a man to see that there is nothing can be said that hath not been answered but only such wranglings as deserve no answer but scorn and so determines and enables the soul to determine the great Question by inferring the conclusion with undenyable evidence I know not why this way the Spirit of God assuring should not be lesse subject to question then immediate assurance Seeing in a time of darknesse that is as questionable and will require as long a debate to satisfie the soul whether indeed it were the voice of the Spirit or a mans owne heart and Satan colluding with it to deceive a man Let any man shew mee that 't is easier for a man to be certainly convinced that the Spirits immediate testimony is true and proceeding from the Spirit then that such and such fruits of grace the matter of its mediate testimony are not counterfeit and I have done pressing this Argument any more 3 The third thing the Spirit doth is to infer the conclusion of the grand Syllogisme in a conviction of a gracious and happy estate thus therefore Thou art a child of God an heir of glory justified sanctified c. For all these termes and many more are of equal import to the case in hand the concluding any thing in a man that necessarily accompanies salvation concludes the certainty of salvation to that person and seals up assurance In the former two acts the Spirit is the candle of the Lord without a man in pointing out the word and within a man in the application of his case to the Word and in this he acts the part of a just determiner of the controversie upon this evidence a Judg in the conscience quitting and justifying the Prisoner and this is his sentence of Absolution and therefore when it is pronounced by his Ministers as most commonly it is 't is called loosing the
to me in my infancy and therefore I want the lively and sensible application of the element to me which might possibly if it were now to be done prove effectual to give me this assurance What use can I make of such a past Sacrament Were it not beter to re-new it Answ Thou mayst make the same use of it as the Jews did of circumcision although many years after The Jews children no more saw their own circumcision understandingly then thou didst thy Baptisme Object Yea but the mark of Circumcision saythe Anabaptists was visible afterwards and so though they were circumcised in infancy yet they might know that they were so otherwise then by bare relation But I know that I am baptized merely by the relation of friends or the Register Answ The Jewes when men might see that their foreskin had been cut off but that it was done in a sacramental way they knew onely by relation as we have our Baptisme For how did a Jew know that he was borne of Jewish Parents and not of Ishmaels posterity or Esaus among whom circumcision continued when the Covenant was removed from them but by tradition But I will rell thee how thou shalt improve even thy Infant Baptisme Whenever then thou seest that sacrament administred upon others reflect upon thy self and draw an Argument of Assurance from it thus Loe here my soul the bloud of Christ in the element of water not only powred out but applyed to yonder little one And hath not God done as much for me And hath he thus sealed to me the promise of pardon and shall I not believe it Have not I performed by his grace my 1 Pet. 3. 21. Anima non lavatione sed responsione sancitur Tert. l. de resurrectione carnis part of the Covenant in the answer of a good conscience seriously desiring and resolving to take him for my God and do my duty to him to the utmost in the strength of Christ And shall I doubt his performance on his part Did not God shew his willingness to receive mee into his favour and pardon my sins when he was so gracious as to seal his Covenant to me in my very infancy Sure that was a great mercy to me that God afforded me that seal then whereas if I had lived unbaptised to these years possibly my scrupulous spirit would have kept me from it altogether as being unfit to receive it as now it See more of this in another Treatise of the same Authour concerning the practical use of Infant Baptism lately published doth from the other Sacrament Now seeing the Lord hath prevented me with this mercy and claimed me before I could claim him let me not think he will not hold his claim to me now I do claim and lay hold upon him and let me not doubt but if I follow after him I shall in time apprehend that for which I am apprehended in this visible way of claim by Christ 2. The Lords Supper This is an Ordinance in which rightly received Assurance comes on horse-back to the soul if I may so speak so many speaking actions and so many speciall applications in the name of Christ by a Minister standing in the stead and representing the person of Christ may probably be the means to conveigh this blessed message to thy soul from Jesus Christ Sonne or Daughter be of good cheer thy sinnes are forgiven thee CHAP. XVII Containing some practicall cases concerning the Lords Supper with relation hereunto BUt here ariseth an objection Object I am not a fit receiver without this Testimony of the Spirit which you speak of and therefore 't is improper to bid me seek that testimony this way whereas I cannot apply my selfe to this way till I have it in actual assurance Answ Hereto I answer Negatively That proposition which is the ground of thy mistake is but mistaken for truth to wit That none is a fit receiver of the Sacrament of the Lords Body and Bloud but one that is certified by the Testimony of the Spirit that he is a Child of God This is that that puzzles and embroyls many a poor soul that he knowes not which way to take between sinning against Gods invitation in refusing to come and against the institution in coming unworthily But I hope to speak a word satisfactorily in this case That this is a mistaken principle I prove by this Argument The actual assurance mentioned is not required under any of those things wherein we are to examine our selves before we come therefore 't is not necessary to make a fit receiver The graces to bee examined among the Protestant Divines are usually these four Knowledge Faith Charity and Repentance Under Knowledge Charity and Repentance I believe no man comprehends the certainty of his interest in Christ they being graces in their natures quite different from it though possibly in some higher actings of them it be supposed I dare not think there can be none of these without Assurance All the doubt is concerning Faith whether the Faith required to the receiving the Lords Supper be not Faith of perswasion that I am a Child of God from the Testimony of the Spirit I conceive the Faith required to my coming to the Lords Supper is no more but the having accepted the terms of Salvation revealed through Christ my having claimed my share in the free offer thereof in the Gospel and my reliance and dependance upon Gods faithfulnesse in the making that claim good unto me And if I can find these acts have seriously to my utmost knowledg and search been performed by me I need examine no further whether I have sufficient Faith to fit me for the Sacrament And my grounds are 1. Because by these acts there is a real application of the soul to Jesus Christ for justification which the Scripture expresseth by coming to Christ believing and trusting in him as was before shewn and of Christ to the soul which is expressed by receiving him and Psalm 2. 12 John 1. 12 in these acts the nature of faith as it applies Christ for justification is sufficiently expressed Now those that come to Christ cannot be supposed to have the witnesse of the Spirit in their heart that they are Christs For rest or peace of Conscience which is the immediate fruit of that assuring Testimony of the Spirit is promised as the consequent of coming to Christ Mat. 11. 28. and becoming the children of God which is lesse then knowing we are so is set down as the consequent of receiving Christ Joh. 1. 20 And therefore by the way to receive Christ is not to know that I am a child of God but to apply my self to him that I may be so And as for trusting or believing in Christ that it is truly done without actual assurance is clear because trusting in Christ the object of the Gospel is spoken of by way of distinction from this sealing or assuring act of the Spirit as that which goes before
when the Spirit suggests matter of prayer as in expressions Without all question the Spirit when hee supplies will not supply the lesse materiall part of prayer and not the more principall and momentous A man of a nimble invention and a fluent tongue may be able to speak high strains of Rhetorick in prayer but is the heart warmed sutably to the expressions If the stream run only from the teeth outward as we say 't is not supplied from a divine spring 5. If the heart be warmed also yet I ask doth its warmth produce the language of prayer or rather the language it Some good natures as we call them will weep at a passionate discourse either of their own or another mans The heart is first hot where the expressions are from the Spirit It may be expressions may add to the quantity of heart-affection in duty as on the other side dull expressions will much take off from the edge of a good affection But whence was the rise of thy heate in the substance of it from without or from within A natural mans expressions in prayer are the spring of his affections a godly mans affections are the spring of his expressions 3. Adde also that the fayling of expression in prayer is much our own fault 1. Sometimes we over-prize it In desiring it too sollicitously when absent in rejoycing and pleasing our selves too fondly when present discomforting our selves when we want it as if we wanted the Spirit because we have not a wished supply of the gift and laying the foundation of our hopes of acceptance upon that when present which we may be accepted without 2 Studying more to pray then praying that we may pray Spiritual abilities for prayer of whatever kind they be are usually fetched in by prayer Luke 11. 13. as water in the well is fetched up by putting water into the pump Whiles we are asking God hears and that he may enables us to aske He giveth the Spirit to them that ask him 3. Want of meditation I mean not of expressions but things Well studyed matter yeilds plentifull expressions the Poet observes Verbaque praevisam rem non invita sequuntur Horat. art Poet. Well-conceived matter is never stifled in the birth for want of the midwifery of apt expressions 4 Want of acquaintance with the Word of God Many people complain they have a great dearth of expressions in prayer but the cause of it is in themselves They do not study the Word of God which as it is a compleat magazene of matter so it is the best and most genuine spring of expression in prayer The language of confession petition thanksgiving which the Saints of God use in the Scripture is in a sort a supply from the Spirit fetched in by industry For it is all of it indited by the Spirit to our hands Those are surely therefore the most acceptable meet expressions to send up to heaven which first descended from heaven There is a strange vein of expression in prayer that conceited persons affect in these dayes which a man if he compare with Scripture will easily conclude to be a gibberish of a wanton age unknown to the Saints of God in former times The Spirit of God loves to indite your prayers when hee doth supply your defects that way in his own familiar expressions which are those of the Scripture CHAP. XLIX Saints are informed what deadens them in prayer Where also a case what to be done when a Saint cannot call God Father and in case some sinne streighten him As also how to maintain boldnesse and fervency in prayer NOw to apply this usefull point 1. In the first place this lets many poor souls under darknesse know whence that deadnesse and flatnesse of spirit which they are ever complaing of in prayer doth proceed They do what they can to darken their evidences and take delight in finding matter of charge against themselves to the shaking of them and yet take it ill that they cannot have that freedome and liberty and livelynesse in prayer which they desire This is as if they should cut off their own legs and then complain that they cannot go They clip the very wings upon which prayer should raise it self heaven-ward and then they complain they cannot fly so high in duty as they would Qu. But what shall I do if by reason of this darknesse I cannot call God Father with confidence Answ 1. Acknowledge with sense and feeling that unworthinesse of thine which discourageth thee Say Lord I confesse I am unworthy to be called thy sonne as the Prodigal doth and endeavour as much as thou canst to fill thy face with shame and confusion in the sense hereof 2. Acquaint him with thy particular straightnesse of spirit and the cause of it tell him what tyes thy tongue that thou wouldst pray but thou darest not own any relation to him desire him for his own glory to discover that relation to thee that may embolden thee to his service 3. Maintain notwithstanding this thy claim to God as thy Father upon those promises upon which at first thou didst believe God warrants every soul to call him Father that is brought to a desire to become his child None ever call'd God Father out of a sincere desire to that relation and the duties of it from whom God refused to accept of the title We never find God quarrell with any upon this account for calling him Father except they were such as denyed him filial duty and reverence Supposing then that thou canst not call God Father upon evidence of particular faith yet do it upon grounds of relyance such as his offers invitations promises plead that promise of Relation 2 Corinth 6. 18. 4 Ask spiritual good things of him under the obligation of that relation And urge him with his Fatherly bowels in Jesus Christ to all poor souls that come unto God through him Call him Father at adventure upon Christs score and see whether he can disclaim the name The advantage of this will be the hearing and granting of thy petitions and the Answer of prayer will be an evidence of thine Interest No greater foundation of Assurance then the Answer of our Prayers Psal 66. 19. See what a kind of Argument the holy man drawes Assurance from in that place If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear my prayer But verily God hath heard me That is the Minor Proposition the Conclusion is natural therefore I do not regard iniquity in my heart So in this Case the Argument will be undenyable God heareth none but sons But God heareth me Therefore I am a Son Quest But suppose some Sin of a deeper dye then ordinary straighten me and weaken my confidence in approaching to God Answ 1 Then sensibly confesse and bewaile that sin before God Acknowledge that thou dost not only deserve the darkning of thine own faith but also the darkning of his face and that not only here but
place he bestowes upon us the right of Adoption as the most properworker of this union And as our Faith is the instrument of union so hee is the giver of faith 1 Cor. 12. 9. Faith indeed Divines ordinarily call an Instrument but 't is but an improper instrument for as all its efficacy depends upon the relation which it hath to Christ as an hand is the instrument to make rich when it receives a treasure or layes hold on it when freely offered so it doth nothing at all on Gods part But the Spirit is in a sense a proper instrument on both parts applying both Christ to us and us to Christ Christ to us by reaching us a promise to lay hold on and us to Christ by giving us an hand to lay hold on it and rest our souls upon it 2. Hee is the witnesse of our Relation And this work is principally set out to us in the verse preceding that which is the ground of our discourse The Spirit also witnesseth Rom. 8. 14. with our spirits that we are the Children of God Concerning the manner of the Spirits testifying I shall say somewhat hereafter onely take notice now that he is said to witnesse with our spirits i. e. to say the same thing with our consciences rightly informed of their condition Thus he is a seal and an earnest not to confirm on Gods part but to assure our legal title on our part Eph. 1. 13. 2 Cor. 1. 22. In the discharge of this work he is the comforter who takes of Christs and shews unto John 6. 14. his people i. e. not only saving truth in illumination and saving grace in regeneration and justification but also speciall light and comfort in manifestation of our interest in God through Christ he takes the Deed by which Christ is made the adopted head of his family and all the territories of heaven and earth are given to him and his seed for ever and shews it to the Saints and bids them cheer up for though they be now poor and persecuted wandring in sheep-skins and goat skins hiding among wild beasts in dens and holes of the earth yet they are heirs to all that heaven and earth contains and the time will come when this great estate shall come in hand and therefore they should lay out liberally upon their hopes at present and throw away all these things in a kind of holy prodigality when God calls for them being assured that their future inheritance will make amends for all This is the assuring act of the Spirit and differs from the former thus there hee barely discovers to us a promise and stirres us up to adventure upon it upon general invitations here he gives us an evidence that that promise is ours and enables us to make use of it by particular interest 3. He is the Advocate of our Cause And thus he is said also in this Chapter to make intercession for us When our title at any time comes under dispute or when any thing is detained from us which our relation and the evidences which confirm it entitles us unto he enables us to sue out our interest or if any thing befal us unworthy the children of God he helps us to write letters to our Father to complain of and bemoan our condition Rom. 8. 26 27. And this is that that is principally intended in the Text together with the former which is the ground of this the Spirit helps us to cry Abba Father by assuring us that God is our Father and putting us upon earnest and importunate requests to him as the requests of children use to be to a tender and compassionate Father And this work of the Spirit is so frequent and constant in the Saints that it is in effect attributed wholly to the Spirit God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into our heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 crying as if he meerly acted our tongues Abba Father Gal. 4. 6. 4. He is the great guide of our way Ps 143. 10 He is the Tâ—tour of our youth we are not adulti till we be ripe for glory Ephes 4. 13. So we are said to Walk after and to be led by the Spirit verse 1 4 14. of this Chap. Therefore new obedience is call'd the Law of the Spirit of life v. 3. And the Spirit of the Lord is said to give liberty 2 Cor. 3. 17. Cameron in locum And so divers interpret the words of my Text with an opposition of servile obedience and filial obedience CHAP. III. Two practical Queries concerning the extent of this worke as to the subjects of it in the forementioned particulars Qu. WHat sense must this proposition be understood in That the Spirit of Bondage in Gods elect ends in a Spirit of Adoption Under which are comprized these farther enquiries Que. 1. Whether the Spirit of Adoption do work all the aforesaid works upon the hearts of all those that are elected or some of them onely upon all and all but on some Qu. 2. Whether upon all of them that have been under a Spirit of Bondage the Spirit do perform all the aforesaid workes or no Answ To both I shall give this preliminary answer and then give a more particular to each by it selfe 1. The Spirit doth give all Gods Elect at one time or other a true reall and unquestionable title to the grace of adoption and all the priviledges belonging thereunto 1. In justification making application of the soul of every elect person to Christ and of Christ to the soul 2. In sanctification making them partakers of the Divine Nature by the application of cleansing promises 2 Pet. 1. 4. For else two links of the chain next election would be broken Rom. 8. 30. Whom he predestinated them he called and whom he called he justified And this is the first work before spoken of 2. The spirit doth work in all persons that are really converted whether in the method of a Spirit of Bondage or no at one time or other so much perswasion of the love of God as encourageth the soul to lay hold upon the promises of the Gospel and to lay claim to them and to adventure the soul upon them For this is the ground of that reliance by which the soul leans upon God and hangs upon Christ for salvation wherein the nature of justifying faith in my judgment doth consist But there is a difference between this and particular assuring faith For this is grounded only upon the free and unlimited offers of the Gospel which offers Christ and Salvation to all that receive him and come to him and the Gospells invitations to accept of it that is grounded upon particular evidence that we have already accepted of him and thereby he is become ours and we his from the effects of a true and saving reliance upon him And this general perswasion so far emboldens all Gods elect that upon the warrant of that they lay claim to God as their Father
fight for it Satan and Numb 13. 23 a mans corrupt heart are apt to discourage a soul under Bondage from hence What profit Job 21. 14 Lam. 3. 8. is there in serving God c. Thou prayest and he casteth out thy prayer thou hearest and art in trouble still Now God props up his people against such temptations by such Promises to all and performances to most of his Saints Reas 5 God doth it to wean his people from this world Now Lord lettest thou thy servant depart in peace for mine eyes have seen thy salvation sayes Simeon when he had seen Christ in the flesh Luke 2. 29. And when a soul after long troubles of spirit recovers the assurance of Gods love O what poor things are all the treasures of the world to him Lord saith David lift up the light of thy countenance upon me and then take corn and wine and oyl who will Psal 4. 6. And then let the eyes of wicked men be even ready to strut out with sat and let them have all that they can wish yet saith he in another place I will not change portion with them for the Lord is the strength of my heart c. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel and bring me to glory Psal 73. 25 26 27 28 A man that is called to be a Favourite to a King will quickly grow into a dis-esteem of his shop and retaile Trade his sheepfold or cow-stal Take no care for your stuff saith Joseph for all the fat of the Land of Egypt is yours Gen. 45. 20. So saith God to an assured soul Take no care for these earthly things thou hast in heaven a richer and more enduring substance Reas 6. Because God delights to hear from his Saints often Not only as a Master from a Servant nor as a rich man from a beggar nor as a Conqueror from a Captive but as a Father from a child as a husband from a Spouse Cant. 2. 14. The voyce of a Spouse of Christ in the cleft of the Rock i. e. relying on him upon assurance of his love is sweet Joseph could not abide long under the mis-apprehensions his brethren had of him My Lord and Thy servants Joseph thought were strange Titles to that of Brother hee longed to hear them call him by a name of relation so saith God Hosea 2. 16. to an afflicted Church CHAP. VI. A Question concerning the mediate and immediate Testimony of the Spirit HOw doth the Spirit testifie our Adoption For although divers godly Divines are of a different judgement in the point of immediate evidence yet I cannot be perswaded but that there is something in the work of the Spirits testimony which may deserve to be so expressed Ans Two wayes 1 Immediately 2 Mediately I. Immediately wherein the Spirit acts as in illumination and infusion of good motions into us by his secret influence upon the heart quieting and calming all those waves of distrust and diffidence concerning its condition by his own immediate power without the present application of any Scripture grounds to convince a mans reason that his testimony is true I shall parallel it with the motions of the Spirit thus As the Spirit many times excites a man to such or such a duty by laying his hand immediately upon the heart and therewithal a kind of secret force and power inclining the heart to obey those motions and as it many times opens the heart to such and such spiritual impressions by a physical injection of holy motions into it and warming the heart to receive them so in this case when a poor soul sits in darknesse and sees no light sometimes upon a sudden a light from heaven compasseth it about and it is it knowes not how in a moment as it were taken up into the third heaven its fears are banished by a soft whisper from the Spirit of God in the heart Thy sins are forgiven thee and this is in such a way that though the spirit of a man really believes it and is immediately calmed by it yet it cannot tell how it comes to passe And so it is sometimes in overcoming temptations a soule some other times is enabled to knock them to the ground by a scriptum est as Christ did Matth. 4. but sometimes it is stirred up to decline them and abhorre them by a secret rising of the spirit against them and to club them downe by meere force setting the bent of the will and affections against them without any present direct recourse of the soule to the written word And of this kinde is that worke of the Spirit stirring up in us sighes and groans in prayer that cannot bee uttered whereas at other times it furnisheth us with abundant matter of prayer from the promises and other straines of Scripture useful thereunto And thus as I said in conveying the evidences of Gods love the Spirit can and surely oftentimes doth alter the whole frame of a mans Spirit by a secret irradiation of comfort a man cannot tell how for as there is a kind of spiritual instinct in the soul by which it doth the things that are pleasing to God after conversion though many times it knowes not the principles upon which it acts so is there a secret and spiritual faculty in the divine nature that is infused unto us by which when the Spirit speakes peace to the soule it closeth with it without any reasoning or recourse to evidences as at other times As saith a learned man there is in the eye lumen innatum Rutherf on Jo. 12. p. 100. and in the eare aer internus a certaine imbred light to make the eye see lights and colours without and a sound and air in the eare within to make it discerne the sounds that are without so is there grace a new nature and habitual instinct of heaven to discerne the consolation of Gods spirit immediately testifying that wee are the sons of God There are some secret and unexpressible lineaments of the Fathers countenance in this child that the renewed soul at first blush knowes and ownes it But for the understanding of this you must observe with mee these few particulars for explication of this secret of experimentall godlinesse 1. That although the Spirit may testifie this immediately without any expresse and formall application of a word yet he never testifies but according to the word i. e. to subjects capable thereof and in such wayes as they are discovered to be capable by the word so that the Lords speaking peace to the soul being in the Scripture bound up to persons under certain qualifications the Spirit never speaks peace but where those qualities are real though not alwaies visible in the soule As for example if a man that feels not sin a burden heavyer then all the world that throwes away all duties of religion never prayes reads heares meditates nay goes on in some sinful way without remorse be filled with joy and peace and assurance
conscience Mat. 16. 18 19. And this I cal conviction of a gracious and happy estate which is opposite to that conviction of a wicked and wretched estate discovered in the conclusion of the legal Syllogism before mentioned 4 The Effects of this Testimony when it is finished are quite contrary to the former of the Spirit of Bondage 1. Calmnesse and sedation of spirit by the allaying of those boysterous winds of temptation that raised the waves This is contrary to that soul confounding horror that soul-ague soul-quake that I spake of formerly and is called in the Scripture Peace Isai 57. 19 21. and 't is opposed to the horrible confusions that are in a wicked mans awakened conscience ver 20. But the wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest therefore the godly mans pacified conscience is like the calmed sea that hath not a wrinkle in its face not a blast to stir any there no wind breathing on it except that of the Spirit of God to excite it to love and thankfulnesse 2. Joy and sweetnesse and self complacency in the heart Which is opposed to that second fruit of the Spirit of Bondage within a man which is before mentioned viz. Soul distressing anguish A man that was before not only a terror but a burthen to himself and was weary of living through his anguish of heart now begins to take pleasure in himself and begins to eat his bread with joy and goes about his businesse rejoycing as 't is said of the Primitive Saints Acts 2. 46. 8 39. This is called Joy in the Holy Ghost Rom. 14. 17. and 1 Thess 1. 6. Of the Holy Ghost because proceeding from this Testimony of the Holy Ghost It is like the content a man takes in viewing a great deal of wealth heaped up together and a man can â—ay This is mine when a Miser doth sibi plaudere applaud himself in the language of the Poet and blesse his soul in the Horace language of the Psalmist Psal 49. 18. such a soul can go through the whole Treasury of the Word and wallow on the Promises as oâ— so many heaps of gold and cry out rejoycing All this is mine Can look abroad among all the providences of God and say All these are mine and look upward to heaven and to crown of glory and an innumerable company of Angels c. and say All this shall be mine too in possession as it is now in Title This is like the tryumph after a peace and expressed by the Apostle 1 Cor. 15. 55 56 57. in some such height of actual assurance of Gods love and his own happinesse Such a soul looks as God promised Davids house should be like the grass springing up by 2 Sam. 23. 4 clear shining after rain 3 Soul supporting hope And this I set against soul-distracting Despair which was reckoned in the former point among the fruits of the Spirit of Bondage This is not that hope which is the ground of justifying dependance upon Christ of which I have spoken before but that which is the daughter of assurance and differs from the other as I told you as Negative and Positive as rational and spiritual differ That hope is the daughter of notional knowledg this of Experimental Experience produceth this hope Rom. 5. 4. This is that that raiseth a man to a certain and patient expectation of and waiting for the things which faith of evidence assures him he hath a title unto and shall certainly enjoy We through the Spirit wait for the hope of Righteousnesse by Faith Where waiting sets out the nature of this hope 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we do look out for and expect with earnestnesse as the mother of Sisera is said to do Judges 5. the hope i. e. the matter of the hope which is Of righteousness by faith which justifying faith assures us of and this is By the Spirit the Spirits testimony is the ground of this hope and his assistance the cause of it This is called the Anchor of the soul that stayes him from being carryed away with waves of despaire upon the rocks of certaine ruine And this is that that is the Helmet of our salvation guards all blowes from our heads all the blowes of temptations Heb. 6. 19 20. 1 Thes 5. 8. CHAP. VIII A Case concerning Absolute Promises and general offers of the the Gospel and conditional Promises in reference to the Spirits Evidence BUt here ariseth another Question Quest Doth the Spirit in its mediate testimony witness from absolute Promises or from Conditional Promises From general Offers or special Marks Ans By Absolute Promises I here understand such as suppose no preceding grace infused into and acted in us to the fulfilling of them as the Promises of the first grace and of the price and purchase of it the bloud of Christ c. which suppose no gracious condition at all in us required to the performance of them If at least these may in a tolerable sense be called Promises By Conditional Promises I meane those which expresse such and such qualifications in us as disposing us to receive the benefit of such a Promise as when Christ is promised John 3. 16 Matth. 5. 4 John 14. 21 to believers comfort to them that mourne acquaintance with God to them that keep his Commandments c. By general offers I mean such Promises in Scripture as tender Christ to every one excluding none by special Marks such characters in Scripture as discover who they be that have received him Next I shall distinguish between a supporting testimony of the Spirit and an assuring testimony of the Spirit 1 The supporting testimony of the Spirit is such a witnesse in a mans heart as in a grievous plunge of temptation keeps him from sinking a plank in a desperate shipwrack that saves him from drowning And it is ordinarily the last refuge of a soul when Satan hath quite conquered Assurance then the Spirit acts that soul by a faith of relyance wherein he doth petere principium in a good sense acts faith as at first in Justification Well saith the soul if I am no Believer if I am no lover of God if I be a Formalist an hypocrite yet there is faith repentance love sincerity for me in Christ and God offers it freely and unconditionately I will stay my self upon those Promises or gracious declarations Thus Absolute Promises may be and are the ground of the Spirits supporting testimony 2 But secondly There is an assuring testimony of the Spirit that that a Christian lives by in calm and clear times and trades by that whereby we are said to know that God dwells in us and we in him 1 John 4. 13. Therein the Holy Ghost is said to come in the Gospel in much Assurance 1 Thess 1. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a full sail of peace and spiritual satisfaction so that not only all doubtings are removed but all the grounds on which a man doubts are
a total alienation of mind from it It may be so though at the present I cannot but think it is otherwise with me Now it is true as I before said that divine Assurance if it proceed not from a full Testimony of the Spirit excludes not doubting but the difference between divine and rational Assurance in point of doubting is very great For when a man divinely assured doubts it is only so with him because and whiles his evidences are not full and clear But let a rational assurance that is meerly so be never so full yet its utmost height and perfection is thus incumbred with haesitacines and unresolvednesse of spirit In a word he that observes in his own spirit the differences between an Opinion and a certain Knowledge may give by the same rules of difference a very probable ghesse at the difference between a meerly rationall and divine Assurance But there remains yet a third and fuller mark of distinction which is 3. The way in which a rational assurance comes And this may give some farther light to discover it As for example Judge by these six things 1. If assurance be ushered in with an impatient wearinesse of soul-troubles This is apt to put a man upon contriving his own escape and therefore may be a temptation to an endeavour of reasoning them out of the soul Now it is true that the soul may and ought in cases of desertion and discomfort to put it selfe to the question as David doth more then once Psalm 42. and 43. why art thou cast down O my soul and why art thou disquieted within me And the reason is because the soul-Troubles of Gods Saints after assurance had are mostly groundâ—d on phantasy and not reason so that if he put that question many times to himself he will find he is able to give very little reason why he is troubled and therefore he may lawfully endeavour to reason down reasonlesse Scruples although possibly it may be safer sometimes to cast them off without vouchsafing them so much respect as to spend reason upon them But in this case I must take heed how through wearinesse of staying Gods leasure for a release I betake my selfe to these reasonings for this is to abandon Jordan and fly to Abana and Pharphar to forsake the waters of Siloah because they run softly and Isaiah 8 6. make not so much speed towards us as we desire and labour to quench our thirst in muddy streams of our own This is to endeavour to break the Spirits prison as I have before told you rather then to stay his leasure til He turn the key And when a man seeks his Assurance only from his own reasoning 't is just with God to leave him to try it out what he can do in that way 2. If it be attended with a low esteem of prayer and other Ordinances of God as those which begin to appear bootlesse and unprofitable after so long trial to so little advantage Reason managed by prayer and by holy pleadings with God in prayer is a special means in the hand of the Spirit to work assurance but it is dangerous when it comes in the stead of prayer The nearer a soul is to a divine assurance the more hee values these divine duties and Ordinances of Gods appointment but when he growes slacker in these and flyes to Reason out of a distrust of these the more he is endangered to a rational Assurance 3. If a man when he sets upon reasoning out his evidences find himself overwilling to receive satisfaction and to take every smal hint as sufficient to bottom his confidence upon is willing to think the best of himself and so ready not so much to answer as to silence material doubts with general salvo's of the freenesse and fulnesse of Gods grace the general offers invitations and promises of the Gospel which as I have told you are rather foundations for relyance and hope then Assurance and evidence and apt to sit down upon these without descending to more differencing and distinguishing enquiries this is suspicious that the peace that ariseth thence though it be sutable to the estate of such a soul and so he being within the Covenant materially true is but rational Assurance 4 You may guess at it from the frame of your spirit under after-desertions A man that hath been assured by the Spirit is much maintained in his dependance by a reasonlesse support I call that a reasonless support which keeps up a soul in a way of relyance and dependance when he sees no reason why he should do so nay it may be sees reason why he should not do so As it is said of Abraham in another case That he believed in hope against hope Rom. 4. 18. that is Faith told him there was hope that he should be the Father of many Nations when Reason told him there was none So a soul after Assurance received from the Spirit can appeal to his former tastes and experiences and believes himselfe out of a plunge when Sense and Reason tell him there is no hope But a meer rational Assurance when it is counterbalanced by reason as probable on the contrary side affords no prop at all but sayes such a souâ— I perceive now all my former hopes were but delusions and dreams of golden mountains for I am yet in the gall of bitternesse and the bond of iniquity I shall easily grant in this as in most of the preceding differences that the distinction between the Spirits evidence and reasons to be gathered hence is not alwayes certain For possibly the Spirits evidence may afterwards be called to the Bar of suspicious reasoning and a soul that hath had it may by Satans Sophistry be at a losse but sure a man is not so liable to be reasoned out of that Assurance as one whose Primitive and Original Assurance was meerly rational As a man will easier be baffled out of the dictate and conclusion of his reason then of his sense And the Assurance of faith or divine Assurance is something in the soul like sense in the body 5 Ordinarily the Assurance that the Spirit gives surprizeth a man unexpectedly God therein loving to endear himself to his Saints comes upon them when they look least for him I mean as to the particular time of his coming though they look for him indefinitely every day he takes them at unawares There is little of mans plotting or contrivance in the bringing it about it may be in a Sermon that a man came accidentally to in a Prayer or Sacrament whence if a man might judge by the frame of his own spirit he had least cause to expect good it may be in casting a transient glancing eye upon a Scripture without a mans pre-determining such a means at least in a way of special confidence upon or expectation from it to such an end In rational Assurance a man layes the whole designe in his head before hand Now saith he I will
the Doctrines of Faith c. which he had acquainted them withal from their first vocation but it includes even those Doctrines of comfort which precede in the number of those Truthes they being part of what Christ had told them 2 The Court of Conscience It will be needful having once verified the evidence by the test of the Word to lay it up against a day of tryal Divine Truths must be laid up in the heart for Direction and divine Experiences for Consolation in an evil day This Courts Recorder is Memory and its Records in such a day are of especial use and importance Records of Gods dealing with others formerly see Psalm 119. 52. I remembred thy judgments of old and have comforted my self i. e. Those judgements by which thou hast caused thy people to triumph over their enemies in former times So also of our own experiences see both together Psal 77. 5 6 The holy man had been utterly at a losse had it not been for this Recorder and yet it seemes he had been too to blame in the laying up his evidence so that it cost much search before he could find it I communed with my heart and my spirit made diligent search the Septuagint reads 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my spirit digged as we do for hidden treasure that must have much rubbish removed ere we can come at it But their sense is grounded upon a different reading of the word in the Hebrew Others read Scopabam I swept it seems by his carelesse keeping he had suffered his evidences to be thrown inâ—… dusty corner among waste papers and he was fain to sweep for them ere he could find them but however when he found them he made excellent use of them for by them he recovers strength to check his present unbelief I have considered the dayes of old ver 5. and I call to remembrance my song ver 6. I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High ver 10. and I will remember the works of the Lord c. v. 11. And these remembrances prove a great strengthning to his Faith in that hour of temptation David hath some Psalms to bring to remembrance Psalm 38 and 70. And Christ hath left Ordinances for this end The Word 2 Pet. 1. 12 13. and Sacraments Do this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 22. 19. in remembrance of me And there is the same use of the communion of Saints which is the special means of keeping fresh one anothers experiences by conference and communication Therefore it will be a very good course to charge memory to record carefully all the visits and smiles and embraces of Gods Spirit together with all the passages which may confirm the truth of them afterwards As we do in Evidences concerning a temporal estate we record the Sealing dayes and the Witnesses and the considerations of the conveyance So in this case bid memory put down At such a time in such a place upon such a Prayer Sermon when I was in such an exigency and there was but an haires breadth between me and despair such a sad cloud was scattered the Spirit of God by such a Promise gave me as much comfort and joy as my heart could hold and I then set to my seal that God is true by believing Joh 2. 33 And I was confirmed in the reality of these experiences by a following assistance against such corruptions or strength against such temptations or power more then ordinary to walk in wayes of spiritual communion with God c. This course being carefully taken it cannot be imagined how great an awe it will cast upon a mans jealous and suspicious heart that it will scarce dare to entertain a doubt against an Evidence so clear and so carefully recorded Except Satan can imbezel the Records or corrupt them by the concurrence of our treacherous memories in some considerable passages 't is in vain he knows to commence a fresh sute against the soul The soul in such cases will as the Psalmist have recourse to those Records and clear his Title against such disturbances Psal 77. suprà CHAP. XXVII The Means to strengthen these Evidences IN the second place 2 Strengthen your Evidences daily 1 By strengthning Ordinances 1 The Word heard read meditated upon all these in their proper place and time are to be used with care David alwayes keeps up a fainting Assurance with a word My soul melteth for heavinesse strengthen thou me according to thy word Psal 119. 28. This is my comfort in my affliction for thy Word hath quickned me Psal 50. Vphold thou me according to thy Word c. Psal 116. Promises are the food of Faith Cordials of Hope the crutches of Patience the principal feathers in the wing of Prayer Threatnings caution us against those courses as will weaken Assurance Precepts direct us in such wayes as will continue and improve it Examples are so many ruled cases as they say in Law which may adde light to a man when there is need to search records as before said The whole Word is the fewel that maintains the fire of Assurance and Meditation blowes up the coals 2 Prayer And this applies the Word it is a souls perpetual plea against all litigious molestations If Satan or a mans own heart at any time call his Evidences into question away flyes Prayer to God and pleads Promises and Examples holy Presidents and stops the mouth of Temptation this way 'T is that way of continual intercourse with God that brings a man dayly returnes of holy familiarities which cannot but nourish a constant perswasion of his unchangeable Love as mutual Letters maintaine a good intelligence among friends 3 Sacraments As they are remembrancers of the death of Christ and Ordinances appointed for the Sealing of the benefits thereof to the soul by particular applicatory signes and tokens must needs be means not only to give as hath been shewne before but also to confirm and continue it And upon this account 't is no wonder if Christ in the Institution of the Lords Supper require a frequent attendance upon that Ordinance 1 Cor. 11. 25. As oft as ye drink it implies frequent drinking it All our faith is grounded upon the death and satisfaction of Christ and the frequent reduction of those grounds of faith to our consideration must needs strengthen it habits of the mind are strengthned by a frequent repetition of those actions by which they were first begotten and produced Now though gracious habits are not gotten in the strength of natural or moral powers as natural or moral habits are yet they are produced as I before have shewed by a supernatural power in a natural method and order And therefore though no grounds apprehended by the understanding can of themselves beget faith yet a divine power never produceth them but by the representation of some grounds And therefore the representation of the death of Christ as it is held forth by God in all its
embraces welcom to you but his Commandments troublesom and his yoak intolerable especially considering that he affords you those refreshments that they may oyl the wheeles of your spirits and make them goe the more nimbly in his wayes Is it not just with him to with-draw the encouragements and leave you notwithstanding to your tasks of duty to toile in the brick-kilns and work out your very hearts in an uncomfortable drudgery without the least refreshment at all to quicken your spirits thereunto These are the terms upon which God will manifest himself so to his people as to dwel and abide with them John 14. 21 23. If a man love me he will keep my words And my Father will love him and we will come to him So it may be will a soul say but how long will he stay when he comes Why the next words shew We will make our abode with him We will dwel with him for continuance That expression of our Saviour Christs seems a strange expression When ye have done all those things which are commanded you say we are unprofitable servants why Because we have done but what was our duty As if it were to be the complaint of a Saint that he can do no more for God then he should CHAP. XXX An Exhortation to improve Assurance received by 1 living upon 2 pleading our Evidences II. LAbour to improve and make use of Exhortat 2. Assurance had to the utmost You need not forbear this duty because your Title is but weak and disputable This makes a man many times carelesse of bestowing cost upon a piece of Land because there is a flaw in his Evidences But here you need not with-hold your hand for that because yours are as sure as heaven and earth can make them Quest But you will ask me how I answer Answ 1 Live on it at all times A Christian hath a threefold life here by faith The Just lives by faith 1 A life of Justification and this life he lives by faith in an applicatory relying Act in its adhering depending act John 5 40. Rom 1. 17. 2 A life of Sanctification And this we live by the same Act of faith radically originally Because it is that grace which on our part makes application of Christ to the soul and the soul to Christ and so the Instrument of union Now from this union and engrafting into Christ for Justification Christ becomes to us a root of Sanctification John 15. 5. But we live a life of Sanctification quoad actus exercitos in the fruits and streams of actual holinesse not only from that act of Applicatory reliance but also because these fruits are moral acts and so must be brought forth in a moral way by Motives and Encouragements and in their most noble actings they are alwayes so from the Faith of Assurance or Evidence as was before shewn So Gal. 2. 20. 3 A life of Consolation John 14. 1. And this life we live by improving a Faith of Assurance only Faith of Relyance as I have shewne may give support but it cannot give comfort But faith of Assurance gives comfort in the saddest cases 2 Tim. 1. 12. Improve your Assurance then to a life of Sanctification and consolation 1 Improve it to a life of Sanctification Believe up your graces when they are low believe down your corruptions when they are high Believe into your Judgments light in darknesses and doubts into your Wills strength and resolution in temptations and assaults Every grace that is purchased by Christ promised by the Father wrought by the Spirit you may challenge You may if you want any materials for the spiritual Edification of your souls have recourse to your Evidences and they warrant you to take it upon the Lords soil where-ever you can find it Go to the Lord boldly and say Lord I am troubled with barrennesse and deadnesse but I find in my Evidence a Promise that my soul shall be as a watered garden Isai 58. 11. that the desart shall blossom as a rose c. Isai 35. 1. I find a great deal of weaknesse faintnesse and wearinesse upon my soul in holy Duties But I find upon my Deeds that the yoak of Christ shall be easie Mat. 11. 30. That they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength that they shall mount up with Eagles wings they shall run and not be weary they shall walk and not be faint Isai 40. ult That the way of the Lord shall be strength to the upright Prov. 10. 29. I am fickle and fleeting in my resolutions But my Copy saith Be strong and God shall strengthen your heart Psal 31. 24. That God will strengthen me with the right hand of his righteousnesse Isai 41. 10. That hee will write his Law in my heart and his Statutes in my inward parts that I shall not depart from him Jer. 31. 32 33. and 32. 40. I am very subject to powerful and domineering lusts and corruptions but I find in my writings that my old man is crucified with Christ that the body of sin may be destroyed That sin shall not have dominion over me Rom 6. 6 14. That God will subdue mine iniquities Micah 7. 19. I want particular graces I cannot believe But my Evidence runs by way of Promise The just shall live by his faith Hab. 2. 4. That thy people shall say My God we know thee Hos 8. 2. I want Repentance but Lord it is written Thy Saints shall look and mourne Zech. 12. 10. Patience but I find that thou art my God and thou art the God of patience Rom. 15. 5. 1 Cor. 10. 13. I am under Affliction and I desire it may be sanctified And 't is written That all the fruit of Affliction shall be to take away sin Isai 27. 9. That it shall make me partaker of thy holinesse Heb. 12. 10 11. Say Lord I find those in my Deeds sealed in the Sacrament and I know they are growing on the soile of thy love and Christs merit Lord give them me 2. Improve it to a life of Consolation There is no condition but thou hast peculiar comforts to live upon For Spirituals Isai 40. 1. Against sins Isai 1. 18. Mic. 7. 19. Hos 14. 4. Against sufferings spiritual Isaiah 50. 10. Against Temptations 1 Corinth 10. 13 In Temporals as far as they are good Psal 84. 11. Against poverty Psal 34 9 10. Against sicknesse Psal 91. 3 4 5 6. and 41. 3. Against reproaches Math. 5. 11 12. Against persecutions Math. 5. 11 12. And abundance more of all sorts you may find in that excellent Treatise of Mr. Leigh concerning the Promises There be some special comforts which are depending upon the doctrine of the Assurance of the Saints by the Testimony of the Spirit and you have several of them in the following part of this 8 of the Romans 1 That however low your condition be for the present and how sad soever Gods dispensations of providence may seem toward you
from sin How do thy old garments fit thee Dost thou more and more grow out of love with sin and more and more put it off at least in the love of it This growth the Apostle saw when he could see none else Rom 7. 20. This is most discernable in the combats between the heart and Original sin when a man clubs it down in its first motions 't is a good token of growth A moral man may forbeare those sins in act which a godly man may fall into but a Saint labours more at the root of sin when moral men pare off the branches 3 A growth of heavenly mindednesse These toyes and trifles of the world how do they take with thee That which the Apostle saith of childish knowledg c. I may say of childish desires 1 Cor. 13. 11. A Saint then growes a man when he throwes away childish things Dost thou grow more liberal and open hearted The more a mans heart is loosed from the earth the nearer it growes to heaven Grace here is glory in the cradle and it daily growes heavenward 4. A growth of aimes and desires What dost thou purpose to thy selfe Will not small things content thee then thy appetite is growne The more manly we grow the more manly our aimes are See how the Apostle calls this growth of aimes perfection Phil. 3. 15. So that thy trouble that thou growest not and thy aimes at farther improvement discover that thou art improving Vse 3. This Thesis also is three waies for Consolation to Saints For 1. This confirms us in the Doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints For if a true Saint might fall away from grace the Spirit might justly again become a Spirit of Bondage to him For he that falls from grace falls under the Law and he that falls under the Law is liable to all its terrors as his proper portion For all that the Law speaks it speaks to them that are under the Law Rom. 3. 19. If a child of God to day might prove a child of the Divel to morrow surely the Spirit might safely tell him so 2 This scatters and dispells the greatest venom that imbitters Saints second troubles When a man looks on God as leading him into temptation it is far more bitter then when a man falls into it by his own neglect or Satans malice When a man apprehends the Spirit of God whom he expects as a Comforter to become his Tormentor this is a double torment Now against this the Lord gives us this cordial assurance once for all that to a Saint no such thing ever can be the work of the Spirit 3 This shewes Saints a ground upon which if it be not their own fault they may live in constant peace to wit by maintaining continual correspondence and un-interrupted amity with the Spirit of Adoption Surely he that never speaks Bondage after he hath spoken peace may be heard speaking peace alwayes were it not our own fault Did wee heed what hee sayes and acquaint our selves more with his voice we should find him a Comforter still But we are apt to give more eare to our owne carnal reason and Satans tentations then to his gracious and comfortable tidings Few Saints should they put their souls to Davids question Psalm 42. were able to answer it satisfactorily except there be reason why men should trouble and distract their owne spirits whether God will or no. And thus much shall suffice for this third point CHAP. XLV A fourth Thesis with its explication NOw come we to the last Thesis from the Text which is the fourth in this Treatise Doct. That one principal work of the Spirit of Adoption in the soul that hath received it is to enliven and embolden it in prayer That we may not mistake in the sense of the Proposition observe with mee first a few things tending to the Explication of it When I say a principal work I mean not to compare the assistance he gives to prayer with his work of uniting the soul to Christ in justification of quickning the soul with habitual grace in Sanctification or the work of Assurance it self For no stream can rationally be admitted into comparison with its fountain Now the Spirit of prayer is but an emanation of grace and Adoption first a Spirit of grace and then a Spirit of supplication Zech. 12. 10. And therefore this must be understood of those operations which flow from habitual grace and Assurance that of them there is no nobler act of the Spirit of Grace and Adoption enabling us to and in them then this Qu. 1. What act of the Spirit of Adoption thus works Answ When I speak of this particular boldnesse as the work of the Spirit of Adoption I would be understood of the Spirit of Adoption chiefly in his witnessing Act of which we have hitherto principall treated though I shall not here more then in the former point exclude him in his other acts only I shall shew from which work of the Spirit of Adoption this which wee treat of doth more immediatly arise For whereas I before told you twice of four works of the Spirit of Adoption to unite to witnesse to intercede to direct whereof the uniting act is the most noble and the fountain of all the rest union with Christ being the source of all communion you must farther know that the rest of these Acts do not alike primarily flow from the first but by the meditation and interposition of one another The spirit intercedes in us but by the help of his assuring work he produceth its most fervent and confident petitions And the last work his guiding work he performes by both the former viz. perswading the soul upon assurance of successe to fetch direction and assistance from God in all its wayes by faith in the promises and prayer Q. 2. Doth the Spirit work thus in all Saints Answ 1. When I say it is the work of the Spirit of Adoption I must not be understood to affirme a constant and perpetual assistance of the witnessing Spirit in all the Saints to the performance of this Duty in a like high spiritfull and confident way For the dearest Saints of God whiles they enjoy the Spirit of Adoption may be under strange deadnesse distraction and indosposednesse in Duty and under no lesse doubting suspiciousnesse and jealousie of God and his affectons to them which must needs hinder their boldness in calling him Father 2 Thus accordingly as we must distinguish times so we must distinguish between degrees of livelinesse and boldnesse in praying Between praying to God as to a Father and calling him Father aloud in Prayer or as in the words of the Text crying Abba Father For the Spirit as He unites the soul to Christ is a Spirit of Supplication helps us to pray and that with life and boldnesse But because he may possibly not alwayes act in his witnessing way although even then the soul is enabled to pray acceptably
man may be assured of his Sonship à priori from the first acts of faith and repentance in conversion ch 20 A Case Whether this evidence be so certain as to exclude all doubting chap. 21. Popish Doctrine concerning doubting and uncertainty confuted Our own certainty and assurance of salvation examined Where several Cases Case 1. How to distinguish the testimony of the Spirit from Satanical or self delusion Vnder which Head it is again enquired 1 How far Satan may go in giving assurance Immediately Where a test of revelations and comfort arising hence Mediately from the Word And 2 How far we to our selves from Reason only chap. 22. This Case branched into particulars Quest 1. How to know a false assurance when it is collected from Scripture by the collusions of Satan and a mans own heart to be false chap. 23. Quest How to know whether the true assurance that a man hath of his own good condition be from the collections of his own reason meerly or from the witness of the Spirit With Cautions about it chap. 24. The Duty of keeping these Evidences of the Spirit once attained pressed with several Motives chap. 25. Quest How this may be done Where 1 The Records of these Evidences chap. 26 2 The means to maintain them chap. 27 3 The Moths that eat them out ch 28 4 The use of them in a livelihood of Love Thankfulness Obedience ch 29 The Duty of improving them urged Quest How Answered in two particulars 1 By living on them a life of Sanctification Consolation 2 By pleading them chap. 30 The Duty of recovering lost Assurance added wherein also Quest How Answered 1 Rest not in its absence 2 Enquire how it was lost and how that enquiry is to be made Several tokens to furnish an Hue and Cry after that sin that hath robbed a soul of such a Jewel chap. 31 3 What to be done in case some sin have stolne it away 4 5 6. What to be done in case no appearing sin occasion it A Case How faith may be exercised in desertion Several things proper to bee believed then As also three other Directions chap 32 Thesis III Gods Holy Spirit after he hath once been a Spirit of Adoption never again becomes a Spirit of Bondage to the same soul Explained Saints after conversion and assurance subject To troubles of consciences yea To Bondage Yea and that longer and greater then ever before upon sive Reasons How far the Spirit causeth them and how far not chap. 33 Scripture Reason Proof of the Thesis chap. 34 A Question stated viz. What then is the cause of legal terrors in the Saints after conversion and assurance c. 35 And how they befal them Saints convinced of folly in giving way to such after terrors chap 36 And that such troublesom thoughts may be cast out without disputing as blasphemous and Atheistical thoughts by the common advise of Divines should be Case How far I may safely do this Case How to know the Work of Satan undermining assurance from the work of the holy Spirit putting a man upon a warrantable and wary self-examination chap. 37 Grounds upon which Satan endeavors to weaken assurance answered Case How far a soul soundly converted and possibly assured may fall into sin Whether into gross sins Whether into the same sins as before What regret and reluctancy in a renewed conscience against sin and how differenced from that of a natural conscience terrified ch 38 Case of afflictions and tentations stated as they may be laid for grounds of questioning a renewed state ch 39 Case of not hearing prayers so far also stated Case of inability to pray thus far also stated chap. 40 Case of decayes in spiritual affections deadnesse burthensomnesse of Duty c. thus far also stated Well meaning contradictions of good souls Complaints whether hypocritical or no chap 41 Case How in a supposed decay of spiritual affections a saint may know whether he be dead or no A farther case whether and how farre an hypocrite may delight in the tydings of comfort from God c. 42. Case Whether in stead of growing a Saint may not decay in the actings of some graces and yet those very graces grow more habitually and radically strong in him c. 43. Case How a Saint may in the midst of his most sensible actual decayes know whether the habits of grace grow or no Saints comforted by an inference of Saints incapacity of total and final Apostacy from the premises c. 44. Thesis IV. One principal work of the Spirit of Adoption is to enliven and embolden the soul in prayer Qu. How and in what sense this work is the main or chief work Qu. What act of this Spirit produceth it Qu. Whether the Spirit thus work in all Saints Saints in darknesse how farre capable of being lively and bold in duty c. 45. Some evidences of the Thesis c. 46. Three cases stated Case 1. Whether in all Saints that have once been assured there be alwayes the same measure of boldnesse and fervency Case 2. If not whence proceeds the difference that is in them at times from what they were formerly c. 47. Case 3. Whether the Spirit furnisheth the soul at all times with like life and vigour of expressions Facility and fluency of expressions in prayer what evills it often occasions A touch of Formes pro and con A Case Language of prayer when from strength of parts and when from the supply of the Spirit How we lose our ability of expression in prayer c. 48. Saints Informed that darkening evidences of Gods love deadneth prayer Case What to be done when a soul cannot call God Father Especially in case some sinne streighten the spirit As also how to maintain heat and boldnesse in prayer c. 49. Three duties pressed upon all assured Saints 1 To be much in prayer upon eight motives c. 50. To stirre up the grace of God that is in them to a due proportion of life and fervency upon six motives c. 51 Qu. How the deadness and formality of Saints in prayer may be recovered Where more largely of formes and extemporary prayer c. 52. 3. To come boldly to the Throne of grace upon six motives c. 53. Case How shall I procure this boldness if I cannot come to God in this manner where those are directed who notwithstanding assurance never had it And those who have had and lost it c. 54. Case How to mix boldnesse and godly fear together in prayer Stating 1. This boldness what it is and wherein it consists 2. This fear also and its nature c. 55. Saints have some comfortable meditations suggested from this truth that the boldness and fervency of Saints in prayer is from the Spirit of Adoption Case How shall I know whether my actual fervency and boldness be not from my own spirit or Satan rather then Gods Spirit c. 56. Reader these Books are lately published and sold at the Ball in Pauls Church yard Dr. Kendals Answer to Mr. John Goodwin â—n two Volumes fol. viz. Concerning the Death of Christ and the Perseverance of the Saints Mr. Sheffeild a Treatise of Christ the Sun of Righteousnesse 8o. Mr. Rob. Bailie a learned Treatise against Anabaptism 4º Catechesis Elenctica Errorum qui hodie vexant Ecclesiam 12o. His Vindication of his Disswasive from the Exceptions of Mr. Cotton and Mr. Tombs 4º Mr Cawdrey and Mr. Palmer on the Sabâ—ath in four Parts 4º Dr. Tuckneies Sermons on these Texts viz. Jer. 8. 22. 1 Cor. 15. 55 Acts 4. 12. 12o. Mr Jenkyns Exposition of the whole Epistle of Jude 4o. Jus Divinum Ministerii 4º Mella Patrum per prima nascentisâ— paâ—ientis Ecclesiae tria secula Per Fran. Rous Preposit Etonens 8o. January 5. 1655.
soul-humbling self despair some stay longer in this and some in that work As in the way to London every man passeth through the same Stages but every man doth not stay as long at or take as much notice of every Stage as another may one quick Gallopper and lusty young man well mounted will ride through in a day and perhaps only call at every Town for a cup of drink another of flower constitution of body and with worse accommodations can scarce travel twenty miles a day and so makes longer work of it But all that go the right way go through them all and if perhaps God may be supposed to lead any soul a shorter cut and help him to passe beside some of them it is by a private way that he only knowes and can direct in His Ministers know no other and therefore we must direct you in the beaten rode Yet because the Lord doth make a difference betweene sins and sinners he doth ordinarily also proportion this work of humiliation and bondage to them and their sins And indeed were the ordinary way to peace and comfort no more difficult from one sin then from another men would thence have a great ground to embolden themselves to the indifferent commission of greater and lesse sins As good be whipped for something as nothing say untoward Scholars for a great matter as for a small Therefore if a sinner hath sinned with an high hand against God and wasted his own conscience and had a more then ordinary influence upon the sins of others when sins have been aggravated by abundance of patience of means of mercies of Judgments of vowes and resolutions and by consequence of Apostasies this man must look for more sorrowes Psalm 16. 4. Idolaters sorrowes shall be multiplyed As the most hainous Malefactors use to be fettered hand and foot and clapt up in dungeons when others of inferious guilt are not so handled CHAP. XIII Another Case concerning the state of a soul under this work Quest WHat is the real nature of this work and the case and condition of souls under a spirit of bondage are they regenerate or unregenerate Gods children or Satans Answ A soul is then an Embryon that is Camero in Heb 6. 4 Neque regeniti sunt isti neque etiam irregenti neque verò consequens est tertium genus dari Quemadmo dum quod diathesin habet ad virtutem c. neither altogether what it was nor what it must be but an imperfect creature of Gods Spirit that will if the womb miscarry not be a Saint a child of God This as to the work And if the Question be what the state is I answer A state of Nature though in a capacity of Grace and in a neer capacity almost a Christian Acts 26. 28. Not far from the Kingdome of God Mark 12. 34. In the next capacity if the work be through of grace as the body organized is of a reasonable soul And therefore such have abundant need both of their own and others prayers These must be tenderly used lest they miscarry Christ is said to lead those that are with young gently Isai 40. 11. As Jacob drave his tender flocks gently Gen. 33. 13. A soul is never in more danger then now Questionlesse this state is a state of nature yet for there are but two Covenants therefore but two Standings under those Covenants A man cannot at once be equally a subject of both Kingdomes Gods and Satans He is in the posture of Israel at the red sea or rather in it not entirely delivered from his old Task-masters but in the way of escaping He hath escaped the pollutions of the world but may yet be entangled again he 2 Pet. 2. 20 hath tasted the powers of the world to come hell in its horrors and heaven in its supports and hopes but may yet fall away which no man that is a true child of God can do seeing Heb. 6. 5 6. the seed of God which is eternal life 1 John 3. 15. abidet◠in him 1 John 3. 9. What may come of it we knew not whether a Tympany or a Birth many fair buds are blasted CHAP. XIV An Objection answered from Christs Invitation of sinners unto him without requiring such conditions as necessary to their admission Obj You seem by what is said hitherto to drive some from Christ at least for such or such a space of time until they be humbled and broken sufficiently Whereas Christ invites Whosoever will to come unto him and no where qualifies his acceptance of him by such conditions Provided That no sinner that comes under such and such a guilt lay hold on me without such preparative measures of the Spirit of Bondage And how then can you warrant that which hath been said in this point Answ I answer 'T were pity but that Ministers tongue should cleave to the roof of his mouth that forbids any to come to Christ whom Christ calls But you shall see that Christ though he call all sinners Joh. 6. 37. Apocal. 22. 17. yet he calls them under the qualifications of hungry and thirsty souls Isai 55. 1. Ho every one that thirsteth come ye to the waters he requires not money but he requires thirst He requires nothing to move him to give but something to qualifie and dispose us to receive And looks that they be weary and heavy laden Mat. 11. 28. else they will not value and he knowes they will not value his rest I do not bid men stay from Christ til they have such qualifications but I invite them rather to seek those qualifications from Christ which fit them for him and without which they cannot savingly come to him But I shall give yet a more distinct answer Christ therefore to whom sinners are invited to come is an universal good and therefore there is in him a confluence of many good things Now as in a publick Magazine every man may have free accesse to call for what is proper for him but every man may not be admitted to every thing there but only some few who are priviledged by their condition and relations to the Treasurer and are able to manage the whole for their own private good and the publick benefit So in Christ there is Grace and Power and Wisdom and Merit and Priviledges and Peace and Commands and Rewards Now though every man be invited to Christ yet every one that is called may not be admitted to finger all these precious commodities but such only as his condition is capable of and at present most needs So a soul under the power of sin is invited presently even the next moment to come to Christ and receive his yoak i. e. submit to his government and yeild up himselfe to be saved in his way and in order thereunto to cast himself upon absolute Promises of the first grace by prayer and waiting for power so to do He calls sinners to what to Repentance Luke 5. 32. and
sorrow occasioned by these sins bears a more immediate relation to the holinesse of God who only is offended by them they being such as none else can take cognizance of II. If a man under soul troubles be full free ingenuous and impartial in his confessions of sin and in his censures concerning himself I love in such a case to hear a soul say the worst of it self that can be when it sayes it sensibly and cordially as in such soul troubles it hath little stomack to complement or dissemble Oh what a vile wretch am I I am perswaded thousands of my betters are in hell Did you ever know any one guilty of my sins with my aggravations Thus was Paul in his conversion for to that time his confession refers 1 Tim. 1. 15. convinced that he was the chief of sinners Now among all aggravations of sin if you lay the comparison the most ingenuous are such as are drawne from abundant mercies large and liberal means frequent convictions infinite patience c. A soul that chargeth it self home here seems to have some touches of a more then ordinary spirit There is a Promise to this condition as a threatning to the contrary Proverbs 28. 13. III. If a man justifie God and the Law by which he stands condemned For herein is a very great measure of humiliation evidenced and hereby is God mightily honoured And certainly then is our design for happinesse most likely to be successefully carryed on when it involves Gods honour with it This heart is throughly broken when it will not resist God so much as in a thought although he go to hell for ever Another that is not so kindly wrought upon Rom. 7. 12. Psal â—1 â— may possibly confesse that with his lips but yet secretly the heart rising against God and the Law for tying up man so close and inflicting eternal wrath upon temporary sins and in stead of being troubled for sin is secretly troubled that there is a Law against it IV. If the trouble be trouble of mind i. e. be settled fixed rooted in the judgment and reason as well as in the passions and affections And so it be not easily to be removed or diverted by worldly avocations Ordinarily when God strikes home he doth not onely make men cry and roar as children nay dogs will do but grieve as men do upon some extraordinary losse when they apprehend it so as that they do not only mourne but judg they must do so and therefore all other things must yeild to that affection such a mourning was that of Isaiah in another case Isaiah 22. 4. a resolved mourning Look away from me I will weep bitterly labor not to comfort me c. V. If which is a notable prognostick of a good issue to conscience troubles a mans greatest trouble be for that he is selfish in his troubles that his grief for sin is so much of kin to his own desire of salvation and fear of hell and punishment O saith such a soul indeed I grieve and am troubled but in all this I am but a base selfish creature if it were not for fear of hell and desire to go to heaven I should sin all my dayes and never be troubled It doth not affect me that God is dishonoured by my sins that they are contrary to the purity of his holy nature and this selfishness in my trouble is my greatest trouble Said I that this frame prognosticates a good issue to the bondage of the spirit That is too little it immediately foreruns if not accompanies a good a renewed heart For this evidently shewes some love to God or at least some earnest pressing on towards it and for my part let me find a soul in such a frame I shall tell him his salvation is near and his warfare well nigh accomplished This reflex trouble if I may so call it or superfoetation of the spirit of Bondage declares something in this work more then ordinary To be troubled first for sin and then for the sin of those troubles declares that a man pants and longs after a perfect holiness as well as happiness and that is a blessed condition VI. And lastly If such a soul be shy and fearful of taking sanctuary in promising and resolving For this is a good sign that he will not split upon the rock of self-Justification and that at present he is so throughly humbled that he dares not arrogate to himself one thred in the whole web of his salvation that he throughly knowes the evil and plague of his own deceitful heart Seldom any great Promisers under the work of Convicton are sure pay-masters CHAP. XIX Past experiences improved for the comfort of those that are gone through this work TO those that have been under and have happily gone through this work of the Spirit of Bondage consolation in two or three branches 1 In that they may now stand on the farther bank of the River on the farther shoar of the tempestuous sea and sing Songs of Deliverance as Moses and Israel did Exod. 15. Forsan haec clim meminisse juvabit Sayes the General in a storm to his fainting followers With what delight do old men tell over the adventures and hazardous services of their youth to their young ones Those things that are most hard and unpleasant to undertake are most sweet and refreshing to remember when we have gone through them That that kept David mourning that he had little heart to sing as we say whilst he was under it becomes a great part of his Songs of praise when he is gone through it See Psal 40. 116. c. 2 Hereby they may ground themselves very firmly in the assurance of their effectual calling and conversion to God Indeed if this evidence from the manner and method of our conversion because of the earlinesse of the work as it may fall out or by reason of the speediness of our passage through it cannot be easily discerned it is sufficient for our comfort if God enable us to see the fruits and effects of grace such as hatred of sin love of holinesse and of every thing that promotes it for its sake a precious esteem of all Gods Saints because they are such c. but the evidence that is drawn from bâ—th is most full and satisfactory As when a mans Title to Land is questioned 't is true it is sufficient to be able to prove that his evidenceâ— are true but that will be more cleared if he can alledg that they were sealed at such a time in such company upon such and such considerations circumstances of an action being so many partial witnesses to the reality of it I have heard that a promise though proved is no sufficient ground for a suit in Law except the grounds and terms on which it was made appear also 3. Hereby they are assured if the work have been deep and through not only sleight and superficial if it have been attended with a
Spiritual pride may undo a convinced soul It may make a man take that for the end which is but the way nay but the first step in the way Trouble of conscience for sin is a rare thing in the world and where it is wrought in the soul to any large measure especially it puts a great difference between man and man this difference a soul may apprehend too soon so as to be puffed up with the experience of such a work on his spirit Suppose of a crew of profane persons the conscience of one may bee troubled for his lewd courses and this trouble sticks close and drives him from his loose companions and to resolve upon a new course of life Now is Satan apt to strike in and blow up the heart with the thoughts of this work and the man by comparing himself with what he was and what his Associates still are is apt to think Sure now I am in a good condition for I have been troubled for my sins and forsaken my former wayes and therefore I am savingly converted and therefore I have ground to take comfort and apply Promises to my selfe and entertain no more doubts of my condition Here let me at least allude to Matth 12. 43 44 45. The unclean spirit may in some notorious lust or other be cast out and he is rest lesse till he have again recovered his possession and therefore waiteth a time till it be swept and garnished till a barren profession of Religion be taken up and pride make such persons carry it high this furnisheth a lodging for the Divel then he returnes but in another disguise such an unclean dirty spirit must never think to be harboured again in a garnished house therefore he may perhaps wipe his shooes at the door and under a pretence of holinesse or light may get a firmer possession An erroneous Divel in such a proud heart may get possession when a scandalous Divel cannot though afterwards he open the door to more scandalous and unclean then himself Neither doth such a frame of spirit only give advantage to Satan but it also puts a man into a condition incapable of further grace from God seeing he every where annexeth the Promises of grace to those whom he hath throughly humbled Psal 25. 9. Isai 4. 6 He giveth grace to the humble 7. Indiscreet handling by godly Ministers and friends As many a child that comes to the birth is spoiled by the indiscretion of the Midwife Now here are two miscarriages to be avoided A birth may be endangered by over-slacking or overhastning 1 An over-rigorous exacting of such and such 1. preparatory measures in all as in some or 2. such measures of preparation to grace as cannot be attained unto before grace 3. and of such dispositions to the least measure of grace as presuppose growth in grace So when I find a soul humbled and broken under the guilt of sin and the work by all likelihood is serious but failing in some formalities of what is ordinary and usual in others for here I must not think to fit every foot with one shooe if I should hide the Gospel which only converts as to the formal act of conversion from such a soul till I see conviction of sin bring a sinner to attempt self destruction c. because it brings some so far or till it shew it selfe in a floud of tears as in others or till it heighten his troubles into a kind of distraction as in others here I go besides the rule on this side Or should I require in that sorrow for sin a freedome from all self-respect a single aiming at Gods glory absolutely divided from a mans own good should I require that those breakings of heart which I discerne be derived from meer love to God and Christ c. tempers which must needs attend the discovery and enjoyment of Christ and that not only in truth and reality but in sense and evidence and such as all persons who are arrived to a great measure of the Spirit of Adoption do not find or at least very weakly in themselves here I should not only be indiscreet in expecting and requiring that from the Law which is not to be found but in the Gospel but occasion the damping and cooling if not utter quenching those blessed affections through despair of ever causing the stream to ascend so high and so furnish Satan and mans cowardly sloathful heart with matter enâ—ugh of temptation to Apostacy This is a great evil to detain a soul long in the passage from death to life Hos 13. 13. 2 An over hasty and inconsiderate application of comfort before the soul give evidence that it is truly and soundly humbled And this is overhastening the birth which occasions many distortions weaknesses and defects in the person so born into the new world and divers times exposeth the soul to eternal undoing seeing there are very few if any over early and abortive children but are still-born Here is to be considered that all Promises that concerne the Application of Comfort to us are conditional and we are not to administer it but only to capable Subjects So as I have shewed before Christ tyes his yoak and rest together and feeling and removing the weight of sin are in the same place conjoyned Mat. 11. 28 29 30. And the comfortable indwelling of the presence of God in any soul is conditioned with an humble contrite and trembling frame of spirit Isai 66. 2 And blessed are the Mourners for they shall be comforted Mat. 5. 4. Now certainly ere God will speak he will not onely find shewes of these tempers but realities and therefore a Minister who is Gods Deputy in dealing with such persons should labour to come neer him herein for how can Ministers keep to their commission if they loose where God binds 'T is true they are not bound to an infallibility of concluding that such a work is true but only to judg by the effects but when they have sufficient evidence to sway their judgement concerning the real conversion of any soul then to speak comfort is a duty Isai 40. 1. till then 't is a sin The way then how to deal with such persons is this We must search whether the trouble be real or counterfeit sleight or deep fowl or clean inflamed or not and accordingly either widen the wound more to make it capable of admitting a Tent or apply a lenitive plaister to allay the fire of it or a drawing one to fetch out the corruption or lastly an healing to close the Orifice And indeed whiles the trouble is meerly legal and from a Spirit of Bondage the main care and skil of a Minister or friend as to such a one ought to be to find out the mean between these two extremes the heightning the trouble so as to render the soul too superstitiously fearful to close with Christ and lightning or asswaging it so as to undo the soul by a lusory and unsound
If thou object But Sir these remedies are in vain prescribed to me who if I could do these things should have no need to complain of the disease seeing the very cure consists in being able to apply such means to effect it If I could be sensible of this sin and be humbled deeply for it and wait upon means as I ought my heart would be no longer such as you speak of I complain of an hard heart and an impenitent heart and you seem to bid me get a penitent heart that I may get a penitent heart And this seems absurd Answ 1. It may be this very case seriously taken into consideration will affect the heart when no other thing will And we find it by the experience of Gods called ones that they find nothing more usual then to be most sensible of their own hardnesse and insensiblenesse And 't is so because hardnesse of heart is not only a sin but a judgment Now sense of judgment may bring sense of sin I advise thee therefore to be sensible of it as a judgment that thou maist be made sensible of it in time as a sin 2 To one in thy condition this is the great and master sin and by consequence the most dangerous wound of thy soul and therefore 't is most sutable and likely to be successeful to begin the work of sorrow and humiliation at that sin As in a complication of many Diseases in a Patient the Physician thinks it most proper to apply himself to the Master-Distemper primarily and principally and the rest will abate with it they being but Symptomatical 3. When I bid thee labour for a spirit deeply affected with this sinne and to endeavor to reduce thy selfe to thy former convictions thereby I purposely prescribe this course Because I know if thou canst attaine an heart sensible of its own resistance to the Spirit of grace c. thou art so farre recovered And this advantage is peculiar to this condition that to be affected with it is to be recovered out of it And this is a great encouragement to labour for this frame of spirit As one sin begets another so humiliation for one will beget humiliation for all for the same tendernesse which renders the heart capable of the impression of godly sorrow for one sin renders it as penetrable by others 4. When I bid thee labour to recover thy former tendernesse I mean not as if I would have thee reduce thy selfe thereunto by a power in thy selfe but by addressing thy selfe to God by importunate prayer to take away that resistance hardness and impenitency of thy heart which so frequently repulseth the Spirit of God and rejecteth its own salvation Go to God and say Lord I have an hard heart an heart that cannot repent according to promise give me an heart of flesh c. Obj. But I have a great deal of joy and peace and the course you advise to will put all out of order again Ans 1. I have told thee before that t is better to break an unsound peace of conscience here then to continue it all our lives till Death and Hell breake it whether wee will or no. Especially seeing 2. The breaking of this false peace is a way to recover a true and sound peace Then wee are towards a peace with God when we fall out with our selves and our sins When we combine against his enemies in that work he is engaged to assist us and if we be once absolutely broken from them and engaged to the destruction of them ipso facto we become his confederates Obj. But I have had a great name for Religion and have borne my selfe high upon my comfortable attainements and enjoyments and I cannot bring my selfe to be willing to take the shame of a confession that I have beene beguiled my selfe and deluded others Answ Therefore t is likely thy acknowledgements will do thee more good as on the other side thy example in going on in so delusive a way will do far more hurt Peters dissimulation drew many to dissemble also Gal. 2. When eminent professors professe glorious discoveryes in a way of defiance to Ministery and Ordinances no wonder if divers minorum Gentium ambition being natural to men will either affirm the same things that they may not seeme inferiour to them or else be apt to believe such things attainable Thus I remember in Erasmus there is a story of a Popish Apparition which when one had confidently affirmed that he saw divers others in the company would needs professe to see it too So do deluded souls strengthen one another til the juggle of Satan be discovered 2. Here is thy glory and Gods put in the balance and it is a great trial of thy sincerity to see which thou wilt take My sonne give glory to God saith Joshua to Achan and so I to thee Friend give glory to God Let the pride of thy heart be abased and thy high looks be brought low that the Lord alone may be exalted Isa 2. 17. 3. This is the way to thy own greater esteem Humble thy selfe and the Lord will exalt thee in due time Hereby wilt thou give to those that are truly godly a firme proofe of thy sincerity and such a return to them will speak more then thy stay among them possibly would have done 4. If God do not bring thee thus low now he will hereafter What is temporary shame and contempt to everlasting shame and contempt Obj. But God may save mee without this way and I may be converted without the return of the spirit of Bondage Answ 1. No question by his royal prerogative he may do that which no earthly Prince may act above and contrary to his owne prescribed rules when he pleaseth But 2. T is unlikely that he will and t is unusually that he doth renew any man that is an Apostate from former convictions without deeep humiliations And indeed if he should this would encourage convinced sinners to cast off their cords and break the bonds of the spirit at their pleasure These are grievous affronts to God himselfe and t is reason that he should have reparations from us at our return to him Now the only reparation in this kinde is deep sense and humble selfe-condemning acknowledgment of our sin CHAP. XXIV Objections of another nature answered Object YEa But if this be so possibly it may be as much for Gods honor to reject me if I do really submit my self to my old Master and reduce my soul under the Spirits Bondage again so that here is a greater discouragement I fear God wil not receive so desperate an Apostate as I have been though I could be humbled never so much Answ 1. True it may be much for Caution to others to take heed of affronting resisting quenching the Spirit of grace that hee should let thy Conscience loose upon thee in damning terrours here and send thee to hel with them upon thy spirit to be thy companions
to eternity But 2. That thou acknowledgest the Justice of God herein gives good hope of thee To accept of the punishment of our iniquity and to acquit God is one good sign of the truth and soundnesse of humiliation When a man is humbled as low as hell takes it for his portion and deserved too sure God useth not to be deaf to such an acknowledgment as this The Judg at the Bench is never more inclined to mercy then when an Offendor takes his guilt on him and acquits the Bench and the Jury and confesseth his condemnation is and execution will be just 3. We may possibly offend in bringing down God to the line of men in this case and therefore there are Promises of acceptance to such as thou art Hos 14. 4. Jer. 3. 22. Though thou canst not go to God upon meer grounds of probability yet thou maist upon his own Promises and Engagements Object But possibly I have sinned against the Holy Ghost Answ 1. Every sin against the Holy Ghost is not the sin against the Holy Ghost the emphatical sin against the Holy Ghost Every Apostasie is not that sin then Peter had sinn'd unpardonably and Cranmer and divers others in the late times that have recanted the Truth and have returned againe to their stedfastnesse and dyed for it Every wilful sin against convictions is not that sin then had David no doubt in his plotted murder and adultery sinned against the Holy Ghost in this unpardonable way So had Abraham in denying his wife and Peter also in denying his Master sure they knew such acts were sins That sin is all these but you must add to make up the full nature of it that it must be a total Apostacy against full light ending in a malicious persecution of the knowne Truth and wayes of holinesse The Pharisees were such Persecutors and Reproachers of the Doctrine and Works of Christ as coming from Satan which by the miracles that accompanied him they could not but in their consciences believe came from God and therefore Christ chargeth them justly with that sin Malice there must be for persecution out of ignorance in Pauls example is pardonable 1 Tim. 1. 17 18. And in an heat of passion one godly man hath persecuted another So Asa 2 Chron. 16. 10. Lastly That thou hast not sinned that sin is clear in that thou art affraid of it and that fear is thy greatest grief and burthen c. That sinne carries with it an heart that cannot repent a seared conscience However look on thy present condition as very dangerous although not desperate Penal hardnesse of heart and the fore-mentioned attendants of it are a rode way to it Timely caution may prevent thy falling so far Please not thy selfe in such sins with this conceit that yet thou hast not sinned the sin against the Holy Ghost and therefore mayst yet go on in them with hope of mercy Presumptuous sinnes are the ushers to the great transgression Psalm 19. 13. as we render the word CHAP. XXV An exhortation to certain duties proper to this condition of bondage HEre is also an Exhortation to such as are under this condition 1. Be patient under the present hand of the Spirit A man will bear a great trouble patiently when he can see likelyhood of a good issue in it A sick man is contented to be made sicker for healths sake Finis confert amabilitatem mediis say the Schoolmen and a man that hath a gangrened arm or legge will endure the sawing it off willingly to save the whole body Troubles of conscience are grievous troubles But so long as they are in the hand of the spirit as instrumental means to facilitate conversion how patiently shouldest thou undergo them If they were to thy eternal confusion patience were meet partly as to a punishment deserved and of thy own choice partly as to a condition which repining at it may augment but never remedy How much more when these troubles are converting saving troubles or are used by the spirit to that end The good ground brought forth its fruit with patience Luke 8. 15. And if ever thou wilt see fruit of thy soul troubles thou must stay the time 2. Keep up hope under all discouragements I know a thousand discouragements are ready upon every occasion to beat thee off thy hold and hopes And against them set those promises which Scripture is every where full of to persons in thy condition together with the examples of others recorded there and to these add thy own experience both in the persons of others and thine own Think how many such sad souls in all ages Gods Spirit hath conducted through the wildernesse and caused them to rest in the full assurance and undoubted evidence of his love Read over the sad complaints of David in his convictions and soul troubles and how God at last compassed him about with songs of deliverance set in joynt all his broken bones and bestowed on him the joy of his salvation Nay how many of those Saints that you dayly do or may converse withall can speak no lesse from their own experience Thou art under a condition of hope whiles thou art under this work it is the method of the Spirit in conversion as was before shewed It is with thee as with the people Ezra 10. 2. though thy case be sad yet now God hath affected thy heart with thy sinne and misery and made thee confesse and bewail thy sinnes before him now there is hope in Israel concerning this as Shechaniah saith after the humiliation of the people for their strange wives in the preceding Chapter Thou art yet a prisoner but a prisoner of hope Zech. 9. 12. See what advice and encouragement the Church from her own experience gives Lam. 3. 26 27 28 c. It is good for a man to hope for the salvation of the Lord why so See verse 31 32. For the Lord will not cast off for Lam. 3. ever but though he cause grief yet will hee have compassion according to the multitude of his tender mercies O saith the soul what is my strength that I should hope as Job 6. 11. alas the Lord hath cast me off for ever I see my present agony and distresse of spirit that he intends to break all my bones and send me ver 4. to hell with all my bones broken on the wheele of his displeasure The more I cry ver 8. the more deaf he seems to be unto my prayer ver 4 6. he hath brought me into darknesse and made my skin old he hath builded against me fortified ver 5. his kingdome against all my attempts by a resolution that I shall not enter into his rest he hath compassed me with gall and travel hee ver 5. 6. 7. 8. 10. 11. 12. 13. 15. 16. hath set me in dark places he hath hedged me about and made my chain heavie he shuts out my prayer he is a bear and a lion
unto me he hath pulled me in pieces and set me as a mark for the arrow he hath caused the arrow of his quiver to enter into my reins he hath â—illed me with bitternâ—…s and made me drunken with wormwood he hath bâ—oken my teeth with gravel stones he hath covered me with ashes and this hath been of so long continuance upon mee that I have forgotten prosperity I can 17. scarce remember that ever I had a better day And therefore it is no wonder if I conclude that my strength and my hope is perished from the Lord. Oh saith the Church this was 18. my very case when I remembred my affliction 19. the wormwood and the gall I even said as thou dost But I withall considered that though my case were bad yet it might have been worse sure God hath shewn me some mercy in that I live It is of the mercies 〈◊〉 the Lord 22. c. Therefore have I hope and therefore I 23. c. to 32. conclude that though the Lord cause grief yet he will have compassion c. Read that Chapter ter all over I have given but a draught of it and therein see thy case and thy cure As to thy own experiences urge his preservation of thee and support thus long and plead for its continuance Obj. But how can I hope Hope proceeds from faith and I cannot believe for I am yet you tell me in a state of Nature till by these troubles God converts me Answ 'T is true of the grace of hope that it proceeds from faith in order of nature and is a fruit of conversion 1 Pet. 1. 3. and till conversion we cannot rejoyce in hope of the glory of God But there is another hope that is not always gracious though possibly sometimes grace may be seminally in it and may first appear by it as the first act of faith may appear in such an act of hope as this True I am a condemned creature but there are such and such free offers of Christ and promises of mercy to sinners indefinitely and why not to me yet I say this hope is not always gracious because it is common to presumptuous as well as repenting sinners and is the very ground on which they presume This hope I shall for distinctions sake call a moral or rational hope because it is gathered from the general promises of Scripture in a rational way as also because it is but a general probable hope that is accompanied only with opinion and not faith though it may ground faith as to its act of reliance upon Christ and the promise of mercy in him where the Spirit of God pleaseth to infuse faith in such a rational way as divers times he doth Whereas the hope that flows from faith is a spiritual and infused hope and is not so much the apprehending a possibility as expecting a certainty of fulfilling the promise to me in particular arising I mean in the acts of it not in the habit or seed of it for that is infused in the first vital act of reliance upon Christ which unites to Christ and so justifies arising I say from the particular evidence of my justification by faith and so from an act of assurance and is higher or lower like it Distinguish thus The one is a kind of negative hope the other a positive The one saith I am not excluded the other saith I am included It s language is Why not I Now 't is the former hope that rational moral hope I advise thee to keep alive in thy soul Let no power of corruption no strength of temptation no length or grievousnesse of thy soul troubles no false conclusions from Gods decree of reprobation c. drive thee out of a firm assent to this proposition that though thy case be sad yet it is not desperate God hath invited such as thou art hath offered Christ and grace freely to thee among others and therefore thou art by no positive declared act of Gods excluded more then any other It is a great support that a soul in this case gets by such an argument as this is For although grace do not always attend or accompany this hope yet the Spirit of God doth use it as it doth all other preparatory works to dispose the soul for grace Nay I know not but that if the soul follow this moral hope with a constant use of all means and ordinances and in them resolve to cast himselfe upon Christ to be saved by him in his own way and upon his own terms why this hope may not be the immediate ground if not the vehicle or chariot of the very first act of justifying faith Wherefore 3ly Let this hope produce waiting Think not that thou art presently cast off by God because he doth not presently as to thy sense answer thy desires There is a great deal of impatience usually in troubled spirits And there is reason why such souls should be subject to that failing For the wound of the spirit is an intolerable wound Prov. 18. 14. And nothing is more grievous to a man in intolerable pain and anguish then delays Hear me speedily saith David else shall I be like unto them that goe down into the pit Psalm 143. 7. and when God hides long he apprehends it will be for ever Psalm 13. 1. But we must labour against this corruption and endeavour to bring our souls to a contentednesse to wait for Gods salvation as long as he thinks fit to exercise and discipline us in that condition The Scripture abounds in exhortations promises and examples pressing home this duty upon us The place Lam. 3. 26. requires not only hope but waiting the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 siluit a quiet silent waiting free from clamorous complaints against God murmuring at his delays and desperate expressions of despondency of Spirit And we have a great encouragement hereunto if we consider 1. That this time of delay is Gods waiting time as well as ours Is 30. 18. The Lord therefore waits that he may be gracious and indeed he hath waited upon us many years before he could prevail with us to give him the hearing of any his gracious invitations and do we now think it much to wait on him till he hear us Besides 2. Saving grace is a thing worth the waiting for Thou hast heard often and prayed often thou saist and yet seest no fruit of it thou hast obtained neither grace nor peace conversion nor comfort remember what the Apostle saith Jam. 5. 7. though with relation to another fruit i. e. the fruit of external sufferings yet the force of his argument is no lesse herein also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lengthen out the patience into long suffering Behold your husbandman 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lengthens out his hope though the seed come not up after the first rain yet he expects another shower it is not ripe as soon as it growes up it may bee a
bondage and shall enable you to set your feet on his neck c. More clearly Isai 61. 1 2 3. He gave Christ and annointed and sent him for that end to proclaim liberty to the Captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound and not only to proclaim it by the Word but to apply it by the Spirit ver 3. To appoint to them beauty for ashes the oyl of joy for mourning and the garment of joy for the spirit of heaviness or the Spirit of Adoption for the Spirit of Bondage So Psal 126. 5 6. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy c. And Isai 57 15. a remarkable Promise I dwell with the contrite and humble spirit wherefore To revive the spirit of the humble and the heart of the contrite ones For I will not contend for ever lest the soul should fail before me and the spirit which I have made See v. 18 19. The Spirit that is promised by Christ is called the Comforter Why so if not to denote the principall part of his work the comforting of the hearts of Gods people John 14. 26. Arg. 2. The Designe of God in troubling the conscience Soul-troubles are not brought on us meerly for their owne sakes for God afflicts not willingly nor grieves the Lam. 3. 33. children of men but they are ordinary Prologues of Comfort and Peace and therefore ordained to fit us to receive and prize it Hos 2. 14. I wil bring her into the Wilderness and speak comfortably unto her to her heart Heb. Into the Wildernesse i. e. a maze and wood of troubles that she shall know no way out of into such a condition in which a dram of comfort will be dearer then all the world and then I will speak to her heart when she is quite out of heart Gods usages to his people in this world are like Tragi-Comedies sad beginnings divers times that put all the Spectators into a maze to think what will come of them that so he may come off the more gloriously at the last by giving a comfortable close beside all mens expectations He sets off as Painters do a light colour by the neighborhood of a dark He caused light at the first to shine out of darknesse not before it or 2 Cor. 4. 6 without it but out of it And as he doth in conversion so in comfort First darknesse in conversion then light Ye were darkness Ephes 5. 8 c. so he doth in the work of consolation When I sit in darknesse the Lord shall be a light to me saith the Church Micah 7. 8. So in the Apostles experience We had the sentence of death in our selves that we might trust not in our selves but in him that raiseth the dead 2 Cor. 1. 9. And as Christ would not keep Lazarus from dying when he could have done so but rather chose to raise him from the dead by a miracle so will Christ deal with his people quite bring them to the grave that then he may get the glory of a kind of miracle and say Return ye sons Psalm 90. 3 and daughters of men Now can we think that God will lose the glory of his grace when he so aimes at it in those troubles that work it And surely he will do so if his people perish under them Thence the Spirit of God teacheth the Saints in darkness to urge that as an Argument Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead c. What remembrance of thee is there in the grave where all things are forgotten Psalm 88. 10 11 and 6. 5. q. d. I know thy aim in all these dark nights that I undergo is to make thy glory shine the clearer and is this the way to let a poor soul that would fain praise thee to drop into the grave and for ought he knowes into hell in darknesse without the least smile from thee c. Arg. 3. The duties God expects of his Saints which cannot be so perfectly and ingenuously performed by any as by an assured spirit Indeed the truth of them may proceed from a soul that is not assured but such high and noble measures cannot 1 Love to him again A man may and every Saint doth love God by a holy sympathy as soon as he is regenerated whether he know it or no and the demonstration of that love in the Saints when they come to discerne it becomes a means of assurance to them As in Antipathies sometimes they are strong in nature and no reason can be given for them Non amo te Sabidi nec possum dicere quare c So in sympathies founded in the nature of the things Why doth Iron love the Load-stone and cleave to it or the needle touched with it point Northward This I constantly affirm that where the soul loves God Gods love is the cause of that love to him and so it is whether it be manifested to his conscience or no because every grace is a fruit of Gods eternal love This I am sure is held out in that excellent place 1 John 4. 19. though I shall not grant it a fruit thereof only when knowne 'T is not said Because we are assured he loved us first but Because he loved us first But yet the love that is without assurance is not so strong so rational so active as that that proceeds from assurance when the love of God is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost for this will enable a soul to love much Luke 7. 47. to rejoice in tribulation Rom. 5. 3 5 and do many other difficult duties with more vigor and activity A young child may truly love the Father when it is unable to reason it selfe into the duty of love from experience of the Fathers love but the love that a growne child shews to the father after his experience of many acts of love for many years is more strong solid and rational So when a soul can say as David I love the Lord for c. Psal 116 1 Now God requires his children should grow up into an ingenuous filial love upon grounds of thankfulnesse and reciprocation Ephes 1. 16 17 18 19 He would have them be rooted and grounded in the experimental knowledg of the love of Christ and thence to draw strength to obey him in all things And therefore it must needs be his ordinary way to those Saints from whom he expects this fruit to give them the Spirit of Adoption to testifie this Love to them And there is a Promise that love of good will to Christ shall be seconded with manifestation of love from Christ Joh. 14. 21. 2 Joy in the Holy Ghost and that alwayes 1 Thes 5. 16 Now although a soul may have some sprinklings of joy upon the general hopes which it gathers to it self from general Promises yet it is nothing to that whicâ— particular assurance gives Now God will have the joy of his Saints full joy John 15. 11. And
good reason for the joy of the Lord is their strength Nehem. 8. 10. Though God bear somtimes with their weakness as well as darkness 3 Thankfulnesse Indeed there is a thankfulnesse arising from temporal and common mercies and there is a thankfulness for general and comprehensive Promises and free offers of Christ and Ordinances c. before Assurance But thankfulnesse is never so large so liberal as upon assurance then a man can give thanks in all things and for all things 2 Thess 5. 18. then he cryes out What shall I render unto the Lord Psal 116. 2 12. and then his language is full Blesse the Lord O my soul and all that is within me praise his holy name Psal 103. 1 2 4 Sometimes to deny all and suffer for him 'T is also true a man that sees not the love of God to him may go very far upon conscience of duty and upon a meer faith of relyance upon general Promises and upon secret supports of the Spirit by which he keeps up hope in himself that such Promises may be his upon the necessity of that choice which he is put upon taking that as the safer way which carries him out to adventure himselfe that way rather then certainly ruine himself by Apostasie So was that holy man carryed to the stake before he cryed out He is come he Glover in Acts and Monum is come But it is very seldom that a soul will go so far meerly upon a faith of relyance and therefore God ordinarily gives such persons special Assurances the Spirit fils their hearts with comfort joy and peace and this will make them far more Heroical in suffering Acts 7. 55 56. 2 Cor. 1. 4. Guilt of sin saddens a suffering to a man So doth uncertainty of his estate for the future for who will adventure soul and body at once if he judg his condition in a rational account but a desperate man And if Saints in darknesse suffer much it is by extraordinary support But on the other side when a man can look within the vail by assurance and challenge glory The sufferings are not worthy the glory that shall be revealed Rom. 8. 18. 2 Cor. 4. ult Arg. 4 the experiences of Gods people constantly manifest this One while we have David complaining of broken bones and a watered couch c. another while he is all joy and praises Those Acts 2 whose hearts were pricked so deeply what is the issue of it see v. 46. They did break bread from house to house and eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart See what became of the Jailor after his trembling fit Acts 16. 34 He rejoiced believing with all his house And certainly although God may save a soul and bring him to heaven hood-winked yet it is very seldom that he doth so but that at one time or another carrying on his people in constant acts of reliance he gives them a witnessing and assuring spirit at the last CHAP. V. Reasons of Gods working in this way by his Spirit COme we now to the Reasons of this Proposition Quest Why will God bestow the Spirit of Adoption upon his Elect after the Spirit of Bondage Answ For these Reasons principally Reas 1 Because Religion else would be an uncomfortable profession and would have little alluring in it to the eyes of those that are without Men are apt to receive prejudices against Religion as that which will put a period to all their comforts And this mistake is much occasioned in them by the sad and drooping lives of those that profess it So that were it not that usually God brings joy out of sorrow and puts on his Saints the garment of joy for the spirit of heavinesse no man would chuse the wayes of God that are strewed with so many thornes and difficulties but rather chuse to wallow in sinful and worldly pleasures As the afflictions of the godly and the prosperity of the wicked in outward things are great stumbling blocks so much more would burthens of spirit if they should be constantly and unremoveably laid on the spirits of the Saints Surely God that will have us tender of the credit of Religion in our carriages will not prostitute it by any carriage of his own Reas 2 The Lord doth it that he may keep up the spirits of his people from fainting under a spirit of bondage Soul troubles are tedious troubles spending troubles Those Diseases that affect the spirits are so in the body and therefore they had need of strong Cordials to keep up their hearts who are under such Diseases Soul troubles overwhâ—lm the spirits Psal 142. 3. and 143. 4 Soul troubles sink and drown the spirits and if God should not now and then support his people with a Cordial they would faint away quite Stay me with flagons comfort me with apples for I am sick of love Cant. 2. 5. Psal 119. 91. My soul fainteth for thy salvation Now the strongest Cordial God gives his people at such a time is this that they shall have an expected end that he will not contend for ever and this is the reason why he gives them this assurance Lest the Spirit should fail before me Isai 57. 16. or as others ne spiritus obruatur lest the spirit should be overwhelmed This supports the Church in a waiting frame Lam. 3. 26 31 32. Reas 3 That he may thereby in their own judgments and consciences confute the hard thoughts they usually have of him in times of darkness Mans heart under soul troubles is a forge of all misapprehensions and unjust censures concerning God Sometimes he is an enemy a cruel one sometimes he hath forsaken them and forgotten them their hope is Lam 3 Isai 49. 14 40. 27. perished from the Lord and their judgment from their God sometimes he is unfaithful and his Promise failes for evermore Now Psalm 77 God is concerned in point of honour to cause the light of his countenance to shine on such that they may be convinced of the vanity and folly of such thoughts and to make them confesse that they have injured God in such mis-judgments of his proceedings Then they will confesse such thoughts were their infirmity as Psal 77. 10. the Psalmist doth and that his wayes are neither like their wayes nor his thoughts like their thoughts Isai 55. 8. as David confesseth by experience Psal 103. 11. Reas 4 God will hereby shew that it is not in vain to serve the Lord and abundantly recompence to his people all the pains care and trouble that they are and have been at to follow after him in a dark condition Beloved assurance of Gods love and joy in the Holy Ghost arising there from is part of our wages and God of his goodnesse to his people gives them part of their money in hand to encourage them in the service he puts them upon As he gave the Israelites a taste of the Grapes of Canaan to encourage them to
of Gods love 't is certaine the Holy spirit is not the Author of this because the promise of peace belongs to none of this stamp Matth. 11. 28. Isa 57. 15 16. Matth. 5. 3 4. 8. c. Undoubtedly this assurance is from the spirit of errour a false light to lead into a bogg 2. That ordinarily hee thus testifies either in or after waiting upon God in some duty or other as in praying meditation hearing receiving the Sacraments By which testimony God seals to the dutifull attendance upon him in such waies Isa 57. 19. and 56. 7. Or 3. In such great and grievous temptations and darknesse of spirit wherein a man by the cunning of Satan hath so intangled all those evidences of grace and sanctification which hee might draw assurance from with sophistical evasions that they will not fasten any thing of comfort upon him Then when a man cannot untie those knots by which Satan hath entangled his spirit somtimes the spirit of God by such a sudden irradiation puts a soule upon an inartificial and illogicall way of solution enabling him to hold to his claime of Christ by a kind of resolute confidence though hee bee not able to prove it sound at present or answer Satans sophistry to the contrary as Alexander when hee could not untie the Gordian knot hewed it asunder with his sword And as that holy Martyr that answered all the Romish Doctours Sophistry by a fixed resolution of dying for Christ though shee could not dispute for him Now wee must take notice withall 4. That such testimonies of the Spirit do beget but an actual assurance during the present exigency or in order to some present designe that God is working thereby These are extraordinary dainties that God will not have us feed constantly upon A gleam Rutherf ubi suprà of light as one calls it in a dark night when a man cannot coast the Country and diseern his way by those marks which direct him at other times perhaps lightning from a thunder-cloud that comes just in the moment when a man is stepping into a pit that would swallow him up or to discover a cottage which he may turne into till the storme bee over c. Now a Traveller wil not depend alwaies upon such a guide but if hee can will learne out such way-marks for his constant direction as may bee standing assurances to him that hee is in the way and rather choose to travel by day when hee may see them distinctly Thus though Gods Spirit divers times takes this course to shine peace into our hearts upon unusual occasions immediately viz after extraordinary seeking God in duty under the immediate violence of some desperate temptation in which cases God hath sometimes condescended even to a kind of miracle as when he preserved the glasse from breaking which the troubled and almost despairing Gentlewoman threw against the ground making its breaking to pieces and her owne Mrs. Honymood damnation a like certaine or at the houre of death especially Martyrdome yet to take these for ordinary presidents and look for them constantly without endeavouring by standing evidences to make out an habitual assurance to our soules of our calling and election is a bold and presumptuous tempting of God And therefore 5 It is a fearful error of the Antinomians which teacheth us to reject the graces of sanctification from being grounds of our assurance whiles they tell us that they are all deceiving evidences because that were to light a candle to the sun they mean to the immediate testimony of the Spirit For certainly the testimony of the Spirit cannot bee without the indwelling of the Spirit and is accompanied alwaies with the leading of the Spirit See the connexion of these two in vers 14. 15 of this chapter compared Rom. 8. 14 15 compared And wee know that hee dwelleth in us and we in him because wee have received of his Spirit 1 John 4. 13. And John 14. 16 17 Christ promiseth them the Comforter but how shall wee know him might they say seeing the world as you tel us knows him not He shal saith our Savior dwel in you The in-dwelling therfore of the Spirit is an evidence of the truth and reality of the assurance that we have from the Spirit Hence are all those marks and signes that the Scripture every where holds out called fruits of the Spirit Gal. 5. 22. so that though the Spirit testifie immediately yet it submits the trial of his own testimony to his works Nor is this any dishonour to the Spirit to be tryed by his works seeing our Saviour Christ was content to submit the trial of his Godhead to the evidences of his works John 14. 11. But more of this in the second way of the Spirits testimonie which is II. Mediately and that is twofold 1 Without Argumentation 2 With Argumentation but both from the Word 1 Without Argumentation The Spirit sometimes applies the word to the soule and enables the soule to close with it for comfort in some particular promise of Scripture wherein God speaks so patt to its case that it takes that word as a message from heaven and rests in it upon the very first apprehension of it And such is the peace that a soul gets from those promises that either expresse not any condition or else such a condition as the soul presently apprehends it self under as suppose thou art burthened for some sin hast prayed earnestly for pardon against it suppose it a sin of backsliding and whiles thou art praying for pardon or waiting upon God in his word a secret whisper of the Spirit casts into thy heart Hos 4 14. I will heale thy backslidings and love thee freely or suppose that Matth. 11. 28. Come to mee all yee that are heavy laden and I wil give you rest c. This is a direct testimony and must be understood under the former limitations of immediate evidence 2. With Argumentation when he testifies the truth of thy sonship by grace when he applies conditional promises and upon search enables thee to apply the conditions of them This is the usuall way for getting habitual assurance a reflected testimony from our owne graces which are the love-tokens of Christ to us and discover that love even when as to present influence hee is absent from us And thus doth the Spirit properly witnesse with our spirits as followes in the next verse In the other two hee witnesseth Rom. 8. 16. to our spirits in this properly with our spirits And there is as much difference between these as between the assurance that Jacob had of his Son Joseps life from the Word of his sonnes and from the Chariots that hee had sent for him Gen. 45. 26 27 28 when they only told him so hee was indeed overjoyed but was also even in a fainting condition through the strugling of fear with joy as the disciples at Christs resurrection Luk. 24. 41. But when he saw the wagons
then hee was fully satisfied So the immediate and direct Testimony of the Spirit though sometimes when the Spirit gives a man to believe it it may drowne all doubts and feares yet in a time of temptation when a soule begins to question whether all its former refreshments from the Spirit were not dreames and delusions it is never so fully satisfied as when it evidently sees and ownes the tokens of Gods love in its owne heart the fruits of her marriage with Christ and feels the child of grace leaping in the womb then saith the soule sure I am married to Christ for hee doth not drink waters out of any cisterne but his owne and the seed of true grace cannot possibly bee the issue of an unlawfull bed CHAP. VII A discourse concerning the manner of the Mediate and Argumentative Testimonie of the Spirit Q. HOW wee may distinctly conceive the witnessing of Gods Spirit with our spirits in that Mediate and Argumentative way which wee last spake of Answ For Answer hereunto seeing this worke is directly opposite to that of the Spirit of Bondage before mentioned I shall review that againe here and lay the comparison betweene them which I conceive will give us a cleare light in this particular In the work of the spirit of bondage I told you the soul was brought under the Conviction of a practical syllogisme such an one as this Every unbeliever every person that is in a state of nature in general or in particular every drunkard swearer c. living under the reigning power of such or the like sins is a child of wrath c. But thou art saith the spirit of God I saith a mans owne spirit am such an one Therfore thou art saith Gods Spirit I am saith a mans owne spirit a child of wrath c. The three Propositions of this Syllogism I told you implyed three sorts of conviction 1. Conviction of Law 2. Conviction of case or fact 3. Conviction of state with the consequents of these Sutably in unlocking this prison there must bee a key of as many wards as there are in the lock and those answerable to them For a key will not unlock a doore that hath not answerable wards to the lock that fastens it Now these wards of the Spirits key are 1. Conviction of Gospel opposite to that of Law 2 Conviction of another case sutable therunto 3 Conviction of another state arising from both these 4 And the consequents 1 Conviction of Gospel For as the law the bondwoman from mount Sinai is the ground of terrour engendring unto bondage Gal. 4. So the Gospel is the free woman the Jerusalem from above that engenders to liberty ibid. and 2 Cor. 3. 17. and so is the special ground of comfort The Law is the warrant upon which the spirit imprisons the conscience and the Gospel the warrant on which it releaseth it againe And as it is in civill affaires a man that is under an execution for body and goods by such or such a statute hides and flies and is under feare and sometimes laid fast in prison and cannot bee released but either upon a repeale of that law or the annexing some condition to it under which hee sues for and recovers his liberty so it is in this case The Law sayes every one is accursed that continues not in every thing written in that booke No fornicator idolater covetous c. shal enter into the kingdome of God Now a man that is under the sentence of this law in his own conscience is capable of release no way but either by the repeale of that Law or adding some such limitation or restriction or condition to it as may include him Therefore when the Spirit gives peace from the word by way of Argument it first produceth the law of liberty the Gospel against the law of bondage It is confest saith the spirit in the conscience of a converted sinner the law gives mee no hope but there is an addition to and an exception from that law which I plead for my release There is a pardon proclaimed for such sinners as I am Isai 55. 7. Prov. 28. 13. The Law in the new edition excepts believers Joh. 3. 26 from its sentence Now the apprehending and assenting to this truth is the first work of the spirit in order to this regular assurance of a mans heart before God A man in a state of spiritual darknesse is like Hagar in the wildernesse Gen. 21. 19. she and her sonne Ismael are ready to dye for thirst when there was a well near them but they could not see it till the Angel shewed it them So is it in the children of the Law that Hagar and Ismael shadowed out When they are under Bondage of spirit there be many precious wells of salvation in the Bible but all these are hidden from their eyes the Bible is a sealed book to them and the fountains of life are fountains shut up as to them till the spirit that leads into all truth direct a man or woman in such a case to such promises as may be a ground of peace to him that may satisfy the weary soul and refresh the sorrowfull soul Jer. 31. 25. I appeal to the experience of all the Saints of God that know what this means whether the Spirit of God hath not many times guided them to places of Scripture as it were by his own finger When they have even thrown the Bible away after much search for a comforting word and resolved to look no more for that that is not to be found there hath not a secret whisper like that to Augustine in his Conversion tolle lege been cast into them try once again and have they not unexpectedly dipt and lighted on a place that hath satisfied them as with marrow and fatnesse Hath it not been with them as with a godly Minister that I knew when I was a child who having been under a Spirit of Bondage for many years and now even ready to dye in that condition when the eighth chapter of the Romans was read to him a little before his last gaspe stopping at the first verse now there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus c. Stay said he I never saw so much in those words in my days as now though I read them often so I say can you not say that you have read such and such chapters ten twenty thirty forty times over and that not slightly or cursorily but deliberately and with meditation and yet could see never a well of Salvation in them and yet afterwards from those very places of Scripture the Spirit of God hath made you draw water with joy So that 't is the Spirit that doth this first work discover and convince of Gospel truth the ground of our assurance Now this conviction is either 1. General and so the soul is convinced of those very truths long before it can take comfort from them and believes them
satisfied There is as much difference between these two acts of the Spirit as there is between such a plea as diverts a judgment against a man at present and that wherein by an evident deed or writing it is certainly determined on his side And so we may distinguish Comfort and Assurance and Comfort and Peace For though Comfort alwayes follow Assurance so that there can be no assurance but it must comfort yet where ever there is comfort it followes not there must be Assurance For there may be comfort in a lesse evil compared with a greater and a poor soul may take comfort in this that although he be not sure he is included in the Promise yet he is not excluded but Assurance presupposeth an actual perswasion that a man hath a share in the Promise A man may be comforted with this that although it is bad with him now yet it may be better but Assurance supposeth a sense of his good condition at present Now to apply this distinction to the answer of the Question propounded I am not satisfied that any man can draw Assurance as it is thus distinguished from support and comfort from an Absolute Promise because an Absolute Promise is no legal plea for me in particular as to my present Title to God though it be for my future hopes of such a Title And my ground is this That which all are called upon to believe and which is offered to all alike cannot be a grounded plea to put a distinction between me and others but particular Assurance puts a special Mark of distinction between me and others and absolute Promises are offered to all alike and therefore Assurance cannot flow from an Absolute Promise Nay let me add it is the constant guise of Presumption to plead Absolute Promises in point of Evidence as the Promise of giving Christ to dye for sinners and therefore they are confident he is theirs as well as others All that Gods Saints draw from hence is a comfortable ground of applying themselves to Christ with constancy and perseverance because the Spirit testifies to them that they are capable of the mercy that is held forth in such Promises if they so adhere to them and leave not to urge God with them And the case is the same with general offers Gods general Offers and absolute Promises are of the same nature in this case Both may support comfort a man for the present but are no evidences for the future As a Prince proclaimeth an Act of Grace an Act of Pardon and Oblivion to Traitors and invites in general terms all persons to come and receive it upon such and such conditions among the rest one that apprehends himself more guilty then all others doubts whether it shall reach to him or no he comes into such a Market and hears the Proclamation to all Traitors c. whatsoever hereby is the man so far quieted and supported with this newes Now saith he I hear I am not excluded I am not unpardonable But now if this man go no farther but a while after come to tryal of Law for his Treasons and he thinks to plead the general Proclamation and the mercy of the Prince extending it selfe to all Malefactors will this serve for a Legal evidence to a Jury that he is a pardoned man Will it not be asked Sir What Evidence have you that you laid down your Arms and accepted this pardon Here now is required another kind of testimony So here God proclaims mercy in Christ to the greatest sinners and this he declares to proceed from his vast and unspeakable love and therupon invites all sinners to come and accept of it for he is a God merciful and gracious abounding in mercy and truth and Exod. 34. 6. will abundantly pardon returning sinners Now a poor soul doubts whether he be included in this offer Doubt it not saith the Spirit in a Sermon or other Ordinance be of good cheer man the pardon offered concerns all Now if a man rest here and believe hereupon that he is pardoned because in Gods absolute and unconditioned invitation he is not excluded when conscience is awake it will say But might not Judas and Cain c. plead as much as that How can you make it appear that you have accepted that pardon by Faith Here need Marks and conditional Promises I may plead absolute Promises and general offers to God in Prayer but I cannot plead them before God in Court God saith I will give you a new heart I will powre out the spirit of grace and supplication and so in Zech 12. 10 general offers Let whoever will come and drink of the water of life freely I may go to Apoc. 12. 17 God on these Promises and Offers and say Lord give me a new heart Lord give me Christ But if I stand before the Court of Conscience and plead these in way of Evidence That I have a new heart that I have Christ I must not prove it by Gods promising these blessings in general to me with all others but by the Evidences of my acceptance of these Offers and Gods fulfilling of these Promises I must be able to say here Lord thou hast made such offers and my heart hath accepted them Thou hast tendred Christ unto me and I have taken him upon thine own terms Thou hast promised a new heart and I blesse thy name I find my heart renewed Are not these the badges and proper cognizances of thy children and servants May I not conclude a saving interest in thee who have received such saving mercies and bounties from thee Thus have I showen you that although general offers and absolute Promises may support and in a sort comfort yet conditional promises alone properly assure CHAP. IX The maine Proposition applyed A Case concerning Election and that the misapprehension thereof hinders its Evidence NOW comes to hand the application of this point And in the first place this may reconcile the thoughts of many precious ones under bondage to a good opinion of their present condition in that it is not only the Spirits usual method where hee becomes a Spirit of Adoption to become first a spirit of of Bondage as in the former Thesis was declared but that when he hath been such a spirit of bondage hee usually becomes a Spirit of Adoption witnessing our Adoption It is a great encouragement to a sick man though hee be grievously pained at present that his disease is such out of which most recover that though sometimes it be yet seldome it is mortal Object Yea but you tell us the persons to whom it is not mortal and to whom it usually ends in ravishing comforts are the elect of God But I doubt I am none of them and therfore I may and shall die of this disease for any thing you have said and never see the face of God in comfort here or hereafter Answ 1. Observe the policy of Satan in dealing with thy soule Now
you have a tender heart that is deeply affected with every known sinne c. O sir will such a person often-times say I find no such things in me and if there were I fear it is all in hypocrisie Friend you do well in fearing hypocrisie but you do not well in not owning what God hath wrought in you for fear of hypocrisie Indeed it is not good to boast of the good that is in us when wee have temptations from the approbation of others to glory in it neither is it good to deny what is in us when we have a call thereunto by those who are sent by God to examine our estate which they can never do nor can they know how to deal with us if we deal not plainly in confessing what we know and find in our selves And it falls out too often that such denyalls as I said before are the fruit of unthankfulnesse which oftentimes causeth us to overlook and in a kind of comparative way to deny what we have received because we have not as much as we would have As it falls out in the covetous men of the world and there is a sinful spiritual covetousnesse too that are ever complaining they have no money no bread to put in their mouths c. whereas indeed they mean they have not so much as they would have This is an unthankful denyal of Gods providence towards them in bestowing on them what they have And thou maist judg the like of thy self in this case Saint Paul was of another temper Rom. 7. he makes many sad complaints of himself I am carnal sold under sin in me there dwelleth no good thing how to perform that that is good I find not when I would do good evil is present with me I see a Law in my members warring against the Law of my mind c. O wretched man that I am c. yet still he mixeth acknowledgments of the grace that he hath received I am carnal saith he sold under sin yet saith he I blesse God my judgment goes with the Law I think it holy just and good whence though I am over-byassed many times unto evil yet I allow it not I would do better then I do and I hate the evil that I am captived unto In me there dwelleth no good thing but mark the Epanorthosis or correction of himself as if he had spoken a word too large What said I there is no good dwelling in me let me not be mistaken I mean in my flesh for so much the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ver 18. will bear for though I have no power to do yet I have some good in my spiritual part I can will that that is good and that will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is alwayes at hand I have good wishes and desires in readinesse upon all occasions I do not the good that I ought to do yet I would do it I delight in the Law of God in the inward man Sin lawes it and lords it in my members but I have another Law in my mind so that with my mind i. e. in my judgment and resolved bent of will I serve the Law of God and there is a special Emphasis in that Pronoune my self that followes ver 25. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I my selfe serve the Law of God that is even I though I complain so against my self yet must needs say so much for my self to the praise of God I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Here is an excellent example for thee that sittest in darknesse and art ever complaining against and defying thy self do not deny the grace of God that is not so much a denyal of thy self as Gods goodnesse and the Spirit of Grace If thou witnesse against the Spirit dost thou think the Spirit will witnesse for thee Thou denyest the Spirit the very medium by which he would testifie to thy good condition Take notice also of the peevishnesse of thy spirit Thou hast long wooed Christ to accept of thee and be married to thee and Christ hath sent thee Love-tokens by his Spirit to assure thee that he owns himself to be thy busband Now Christ expects the duties of a wife from thee now thou questionest whether thou art married or no and not only questionest but peremptorily denyest all his Love-tokens or at least extenuatest them and settest light by them Think what a sin this is No wonder now if the Spirit that Messenger that brought them take offence at such dealing and refuse to testifie to thee who art resolved to question his testimony bee it never so cleare 4. An unwarrantable thrusting off those Promises and comfortable truths which God in the Ministry of the Word or otherwise brings home to our condition and snatching greedily at all the terrible places of Scripture and denunciations of wrath as our portion I have knowne those that have thrust away with both hands all that might make for their comfort as that that belongs not to them O the cursed pride of our hearts When will men leave prescribing to the infinite wise God When people please themselves in their sins then they will hear no Minister except he sing a cursed requiem to their spirits preach pleasing things and cry Peace peace And when the soul is under trouble for sin then God must denounce judgments in every Sermon speak to them in thunders and lightning from Mount Sinai answer them cut of the whirlewind or else they will not hear him Believe it no soul receiveth good by the Word but that soul that thinks every Word of the Lord good and labours as it is proper to its condition to apply it Satan in times of unregeneracy hath an Art to make the Word unfruitful by causing a mans heart to stand loose from the Law to rub off the eating corroding plaister and say This concernes such an one and such an one but not me And after our conversion he keeps the Word from fastning comfort to the soul and assuring the heart by a like Artifice True these are comfortable truths and concern such and such but not me This was the Psalmists case in desertion and is thine in the present darknesse My sore ran in the night my soul refused to be comforted Psal 77. 2. Indeed friends if you refuse to receive comfort when the Spirit offers it no wonder if when you would have it the Spirit refuse to offer it None of Gods offers are refused by the creature gratis God will stand upon other termes when we come to his shop after wee have once refused a good bargain once offered 5 A groundlesse surmising of an irrecoverablenesse in our condition from such and such threatnings of Scripture as concerne us not This followes from the former When a soul is willing to hear all Thunder and Cannon shot from the Word ordinarily the divel hath two or three places of Scripture from whence he playes thick upon the soul Those are two places in the
so in the case of assurance from the Spirit Because some godly Ministers cannot preach so every way experimentally as others can many troubled spirits decline them and their ministery and will scarce vouchsafe to discover their cases to them None must be supposed able to do them good but such and such Well such mens ministery is tryed and it may be not out of any deficiency in them who it is possible may preach truths and apply medicines of soveraign value and vertue but meerely through a secret hand of God rendering them unsuccessefull that he may keep the meanest of his Eembassadours from contempt and the most eminent humble and let people know that the Spirit of consolation and Adoption as well as that of grace and supplication bloweth where and whence and when and how he listeth the soul-patient finds no recovery but it is fain at last to bee beholden to a man of very mean abilities and to a word which seemed empty and barren before for comfort and assurance So for time A soul enlarged in prayer steeped in tears enflamed with desires thinks now verily the time the set time is come God will be found of me in a way of peace and satisfaction No friend no such matter God it may be will make thee stay till thou hast even doubted thy self out of all hope because of thy barrenesse and deadnesse and inability to perform any service as thou oughtest and then he will send his Spirit to shed abroad his love in thy heart thou shalt bring sorth this child of comfort when as Sarahs womb thy soul is dead and almost hopelessely barren 8. A sinfull ambition of self-preparations for comfort and peace were I so much humbled saith the poor soul so kindly and ingenuously affected with my sins could I recover of this deadnesse and flatnesse of spirit into any measure of livelinesse and spiritualnesse in my performances then I would believe comfort and assurance of Gods love belonged to me but that a soul so little so legally broken as I am so barren saplesse lifelesse spiritlesse in all my services should have any share in Christ any title to the Covenant of Grace any part or portion with the Saints of God I cannot I will not believe This is just like Peters unreasonable motion Depart from me for I am a sinfull man O Lord. Luke 5. 8. Foolish man to whom should the Physician come but to the sick 'T were a fond thing to imagine the patient must be recovered before he comes that he may be sit to entertain him So here Thou wilt not entertain any perswasion of an interest in Christ till thou attain such and such proportions and measures of grace Alas man till thou have some evidence of thy interest in Christ thou wilt never a tain them 't is want of that evidence occasions thy defects in humiliation thy deadnesse and sapplessenesse in duties c. Men travel heartlessely in the darke because they know not whether they go backwards or forwards whether the next step may not be a precipice to ruine them But when the day-light ariseth and shews them by the coast of the country that they are in their way this puts new life and spirits into them The joy of the Lord is a Christians strength Neh. 8. 10. Nor is it meet whiles thou art in this frame that thou shouldst have this witnesse in thy Spirit For if thou shouldst recover more life and vigour of grace and duty and thy assurance therein thou perhaps wouldst be proud of thy attainments and attribute thy assurance to them and so God would have lesse honour and thou lesse certainty of it God would have lesse honour because as I said grace I would scarce be seen through such qualifications The smell of some delicious fields they say so takes the dogges that they forget their prey and follow it no more such delicious fields of duties may dâ—aw off the soul from the sent of Christ And thou wouldst have lesse certainty of continuing it For it would rise and fall according to thy own qualifications and ablities For water in a water-course will never rise above its spring if the spring of assurance be your own perfections then as that is higher and lower so will the assurance be You that one time find your graces at a spring tide another time will find them at the lowest ebbe and then your assurance will ebbe with them as it flowes with them 9. Giving too much way to prejudices against God and his love from present sense and feeling For hereby we make the spirit double work First to untie and untangle our own knotty and snarled reasonings and then to build in us a new perswasion upon new arguments of his own A man had better Catechise a child or a rude ignorant heathen then endeavour to reduce an heretick because the one as he knows not the truth so he is not prejudiced against it the other is not only ignorant of it but he is possessed with contrary principles and hath subtilty of argument to resist it So a builder that is to lay foundataions where the ground is clear and hath not been occupyed that way before will not need to do much ere he set upon his work But he that is to lay new foundations and build a new house where the ruins of an old Abbey are already must have double work digging up the old and then laying the new Now 't is strange to hear what arguments Souls in this darknesse are prepossessed withall that God doth not love them 1. Present smart Can love consist with such blowes Those strokes sure are the strokes of an enemy To deliver mee over to Satan to be buffetted by him in such a manner to set me as a spectacle to Men and Angels and shut me up in such a dungeon of horrour as none besides me ever came into Is this consistent with love 2. Past obstinacy God hath said he will not hear me and justly for he hath call'd many times and I have turned the deaf eare to him Yea this is that the Lord hath said Prov. 1. 24. c. Be sure to stop the mouth of these prejudices by Heb. 12. 6. and Isay 55. 7 8 9. Jo. 6. 37. and other such places 10. Slacknesse and remissenesse in occasioned by successelessenesse of Ordinances and Duties When once those prejudices cause a soul to cry out there is no hope God Lam. 3. 6 7 8. hath builded against me he shutteth out my prayer then there is no temptation more likely to succeed then this Why man what dost thou labour for Why dost thou sow thy precious prayers on the sand of the sea shore whence there can no harvest be expected And hereupon the soul is if not taken off from duties yet for want of faith which is the lâ—fe of dutyes the chariot moves slowly when the wheels are taken off Hope to speed is the greatest encouragement to duty You clip
the wings of duty if you present unconquerable difficulties before it And when once the wings of duty are clipped that it cannot fly abroad to gather sustenance for faith no wonder if that pine away and dye too And if faith dye assurance is hâ—pelesse CHAP. XIII Another Hindrance removed THere remains yet one Hindrance more to be discovered in this Chapter which is eleventhly and lastly over-scrupulousness and scepticall-question-fulness in the businesse in hand Satans policy in troubling souls is like that which he useth in deceiving them First He sets them a gogge as we use to say perswades them they must try all things therefore they must question all things they must hold no principles meerly by a tenure of faith but of their own reason and then he inveigles their snarled apprehensions and makes their entangled and immethodical reason to find knots in every bulrush and those knotts being too dâ—fficult to be untyed by their weak heads he brings them at last to condemn all truth upon meer suspicion of error and renders them so confident of the justice of that sentence that they become obstinate and irrecoverable hereticks So in troubling the conscience or continuing it in trouble he perswades the soul in the first place to question every thing that ever it hath had experience of from the first moment of convictâ—on nay those things that have been as sensible and palpable as can be yet they must now be suspected whether in point of past and present practice or in point of comfort In point of past practice whether it have not sinned in such or such things which when done were done with the fullest assurance possible of their lawfulnesse And so in present practice hee will scarce suffer a poor soul in such a troubled condition to eat drink or sleep without scruple A tender conscience is a great mercy but a scrupulous conscience is a great affliction Such a conscience doth not only hinder a man from that which is evill but abates much of the life activity and comfort that is in good actions And so in point of comfort Urge to a soul in trouble Such and such gracious works God hath wrought in you therefore sure you are one of his Such experiences you have had with which you have been formerly satisfyed I question that saith the soul whether there were any such things or no. I once believed that there were but I doubt I was then deceived c. and so I may be now if I grant any such things as you say A soul under this frame although very well experienced in the School of Christ and who hath been banquetted in Christs own Parlour many times may be turned quite off the hinges meerly by his own over-scrupulousnesse The Disciples were well acquainted with Christ yet when he came to them upon the sea they were afraid thinking it had been a spirit Matth. 14 26. And the reason was they were then in such a Tempest that they feared every thing and so suspected Christ himself when he came to relieve them Quest But what shall I do in such a case If I be over-credulous and too easie of belief I may ruin my self that way and if I bee too scrupulous I may undo my self that way too Ans 1 Labour for a distinct knowledg of the nature of grace in general and the known Marks by which it is distinguished from hypocrisie And although you labour for the greatest means of grace yet enquire diligently into the Signes and Tokens by which you may know the least I confesse this would be better done before trouble of mind comes There is a great advantage that a well catechized Christian hath of an ignorant person in this present case viz. the discrimination and distinguishing true grace from counterfeit 'T is bad laying principles in a mind full of confusion that by reason of darknesse can see nothing distinctly Those should be laid before in tender years or at least calmer seasons But if there have been a neglect either in the person or those under whose inspection he hath lived so that he be to learn to spell now when he had need be able to read the works of the Spirit of God distinctly then I would advise such a soul to search into the Word with the advice of godly Ministers and Christians after those proper distinguishing Marks betweene sincerity and hypocrisie upon which he may ground his own enquiry after his own condition If I should make an Hue and Cry after a man or cry an horse or cow in â—e Market and know not by what marks to describe him or if I search among many other cattel for mine own and know not what Ear-mark or Flesh-mark or Hair-mark they have I cannot hope but to spend my labour in vain I might say the like concerning thy spiritual condition If thou be to seek what grace is under darkness no wonder if thou be scrupulous to own it when it is presented to thee But thou must take heed here that thou do not enquire after the tokens of the least mâ—asure of grace that thou maist rest in it and think thou art well enough secured to eternity if thou have but just so much as denominates thee a child of God For this is a shrewd signe that thou dost not desire grace for its own sake but meerly as a bridge to heaven and if thou do so 't is a thousand to one but partly by Gods just judgment and partly by thy own spiritual sloath thou wilt be endangered to cut it an inch or two too short to reach the other side of the bank But if thou desire to know the least measure of grace meerly for this reason that thou maist not like an unskilful Gardiner weed it up when it is tender for a weed of hypocrisie but cherish it and water it and improve it to greater measures of perfection this is a good design 2. Give way to no Scruples without a word Enquire of thy own heart what word occasions such a doubt such a question and where thou findest no word lay it by This is a good rule in our actings There is much superstition oftentimes in Scruples if that may be taken for superstition which is supra institutum over and above Gods revealed will and the ground of superstitious fears is fancy The way to confute a superstitious Worshipper is to require a word for his practice so the way to silence a superstitious Scruple is to demand a Scripture reason for it Why art thou cast down O my soul and why art thou thus disquieted within me Psa 42. 5 11. and 43. 5. q d. Soul you are troubled but is that trouble a warrantable trouble is it a trouble that God allowes if so shew me his warrant for it So when Satan pursues thee with Scruples and Fears and arrests thee as a prisoner in Gods name ask him presently Quo warranto as Lawyers say Satan let me see your warrant 't
is not enough here for him to reply Thou hast a deceitful heart and thou hast had great experience of it and there be many hypocrites and there is much counterfeit gold c. These are generals Ask him by what warrant from the Word he bids thee doubt whether thou be an hypocrite and thy gold be false If he shew not his warrant fall pell mell upon him spare him not for an illegal Assault and Battery 3 Wordlesse Scruples must be silenced especially if I either have or have had to my best and most deliberate judgment sufficient ground to convince me of the contrary In such a case if I have been formerly satisfied upon Scripture grounds I am to rest in that satisfaction if not yet if now such grounds be presented to me I am bound to receive it and at least to silence all Scruples to the contrary Otherwise the Authority of Gods Word would be far lesse with me then that of mine own groundlesse fancies or Satans vexatious suggestions Conscience is an Officer of Gods his Deputy-Iudg in the soul and therefore it must determine from and according to the most preponderating evidence from the Word of God As in matters of Law a Judg is not to hearken to every litigious Lawyer that puzleth and perplexeth a cause farther then he speaks Law to justifie his allegations but if he can bring none may and ought to proceed to sentence upon those rules of Law and Justice upon which he hath formerly judged in the like cases or such as being now urged on the behalf of the Defendant have nothing of moment objected to the contrary I know Satan can and doth often tempt with a Word in his mouth as he did our Saviour with It is written and so without all question doth where hee sees the soul will not be taken with chaff or baffled with meer scare-crows of groundlesse suggestions urge Scripture in troubling the conscience And in such cases we had need of a Spiritual palate exercised to taste words as Elihu layes the comparison between inward and outward sense Job 33. 3. But if all the Scruples of our spirits were reduced to this trial not one to a thousand but would let fall its suite rather then discover its weakness by the impertinency of its allegations Object But if I have never so plain word urged upon me to satisfie me yet if the Spirit do not make the word satisfying Satan is an impudent Accuser and mine own heart is full of darknesse and it will question whether it be day when the Sun shines and with those that are resolved to conclude snow black rather condemn the most certain of the senses for a mistake in so clear an Object then acknowledg an error in its own reasonings Ans I grant it Yet this I must do in the case in hand 1 I must acknowledg that I ought or that I see no reason at least why I ought not to be satisfied with such clear evidence there being so little objected that may reasonably disparage it 2 I ought to condemn bewayle and pray against such unwarrantable slownesse of believing where I have so much apparent ground 3 I ought at least to suspend those groundlesse Scruples for the present and act upon the conclusion which I am convinced appears most justifiable from Scripture though I cannot apprehend it altogether beyond question at present as if it were unquestionable till some new grounds of more considerable weight are urged to obstruct my proceedings As in a case of Law among men is clear A man hath a Title to such Lands as by the advice of Lawyers and from Law he conceiveth to be good or at least after many debates with an adversary that obstructs his quiet possession he sees not by any thing that can be urged to the contrary but that his own is the most likely Title If this man enter upon this Estate and use it as his own till the Advarsary produce a more legal evidence then his and justifie it in Court the man offends not So in conscience Gods Ministers that are the Counsellours in its cases tell thee according to their best knowledge in the Scriptures that thou art a child of God and hast an unquestionable Title to him this they prove by Scripture compared with the operations of Gods sanctifying Spirit in thy heart Satan sayes no and thy own misgiving heart fears lest he say true However thou seest no reason he brings from Scripture or at least none so weighty as that thou seest sufficient cause from his allegations to reject those other that make for thee nay it may be thy judgment inclines to them but thy heart is yet fearful and trembling in such a case thou maist safely practise as occasion serves upon that conclusion which thou seest least to weaken I mean thou maist act as a child of God apply Promises urge them in Prayer c. as if they were thine till some more considerable grounds be offeâ—ed to weaken the former upon which thou actedst This I say because I know it is the doubt of some precious souls whether they may pray or apply any Promises til they be altogether out of doubt that they are the children of God 4 Nay let me say more If thou have but the least ground to hope that though thou be not a child of God for the present yet thou art no where excluded from a capacity of being so thou maist lay hold upon the Promises which belong to Saints so far as to improve them to duty though thou maist not so far as to build an Assurance upon them And the reason is because the Gospel becomes mine by my laying hold upon it and claiming it as mine And God allowes a Christian an holy violence in entering upon the precious possessions thereof the violent Mat. 11. 12 take it by force If a man should never lay hold of a Promise till he be assured that it belongs to him he would never lay hold of any because as I shall tell you more hereafter Assurance that the Promises and the things promised in them are mine depends upon my laying hold of them and claiming them as mine and therefore cannot go before in an orderly and ordinary way 4. Sometimes when mine own scrupulous heart will take no satisfaction I ought to lay some weight of confidence upon the judgment of others godly Ministers and experienced Christian friends A stander by say we oftentimes sees more then the parties in action can see themselves I believe my Physician concerning the state of my body and my Lawyer concerning the state of my Sute though it may be I have strong inclinations of my self to make a contrary judgment and upon their judgment I follow the ones Physick and the others counsel 'T is not a matter of small moment when upon the sight of thy serious humiliation and sorrow for sin earnest and restlesse desires after Christ and holiness and the like signes a Minister
of Christ in his name shall declare that as far as the Word gives him ground to judge of thy case he fully perswades himselfe that thou art a child of God The Lord hath promised to confirme the Word of his Servants and perform the counsel of his Messengers Isai 44. 26. And it is not for nothing that he hath promised to loose in heaven what they loose on earth Mat. 16. 19. 'T is true they may err in the Application and God is not bound to justifie them in their mistakes But yet it is as true that seldom doth a godly knowing Minister and such an one only is fit to bee consulted in such cases so grosly mistake the case of his Soul-Patient as to mis-apply comforts but upon such grounds as wil hold water according to the Word and he cannot be so much an enemy to thy soul and his own as to go about wilfully to deceive thee So may it be said of the judgment of serious and experienced Christians that although they cannot absolve the troubled soul Authoritatively as Ministers can and charge you to rest in their word in the name of Christ yet they may passe a private sentence upon your condition from the Word and their own experience and you are bound not to reject it rashly and inconsâ—derately but to allow it some weight in your serious thoughts The least that you can allow to the testimony of such persons of both sorts concerning your estate is 1. A charitable Interpretation of it and the grounds upon which they give it so far as to think thus of it Why may not I in darkness and confusion of spirit be rather deceived in my judgment of my self then such persons who as they are free from my distempers and entirely love my soul so have more intimate acquaintance with God and the light of their own experience to keep them from mistaking 2 Hearty prayer to God that he will make good the words of his servants and open your heart to receive them 3 A suspension of any severer determination or sentence concerning your self seeing you find so many supposed abler then your self to be of another judgment 4 A striving and labouring with your own hearts by meditation upon the grounds upon which they pass their judgment of you to encline them to receive it 5. To follow their advice and counsel grounded thereupon as far as possibly you can and to blame your selves before God when you do not do so Isai 50. 10. Who is there among you that feareth the Lord and obeyeth the voice of his servant that walketh in darkness c. CHAP. XIV The first Direction to the attaining of a Spirit of Adoption in its witnessing Act. And first concerning exercising frequent Acts of Relyance As also a Case concerning the exercise of Reliance in want of Assurance How it can be Faith in four noble Acts described AFter the removal of Hindrances follow these Directions I. Exercise frequent Acts of Relyance upon the free grace of God in Christ and the Promises in which it is held forth unto thee together with the offers and invitations of the Gospel backing them Quest But how can I rely upon that grace which I am not assured belongs unto me If I rely upon a friend in a matter of moment concerning whom I have no certain evidence that he ever intended mee any good I may deceive my self and thereby undo my selfe while I leane to a broken reed Answ 1. The being assured that God is mine in particular is not the only ground of my relyance upon him 'T is true there be acts of relyance that follow Assurance when a man relies upon God as a knowne friend But yet there are acts of Reliance that precede Assurance as when I rely upon God as one that hath offered to be a friend to all that will duly make use of him Such a friend I am not assured is my friend in particular before I go to him but I go to him take hold of his offer claim his Promise and resolve to adventure my selfe thereupon and thus at last I get a good word from him that gives me a particular assurance that it shall be with me according to my faith Mat. 9. 29. That you may understand this the more clearly know there be these four acts in faith and they are like so many staires one above the other the one being the ground of the other I deny not but they may all be brought together in time But in nature I apprehend from the Word they are produced in this order Those are 1 Acceptance The Gospel reveals life and salvation to poor undone sinners through Christ who abandoning and renouncing their own sins and righteousness are contented to receive it from him in his own way The answer of the heart to this Truth is It is a saying worthy of all acceptation 1 Tim. 1. 15. And accordingly I accept of these termes and resolve in Gods strength I will not seek salvation in any other name Lord Christ accept of me I surrender my self into thy hands I beseech thee discharge all thy Offices on and for me This is called receiving John 1. 12. It is sometimes expressed by a term of motion coming to Christ John 6. 37. yea flying for refuge to him Heb. 6. 18. Both which imply renunciation of other security and accepting his alone 2 Claim The next thing apprehended in the Gospel is the general offer of these termes and salvation by them unto all that come unto Christ and Gods earnest invitation to accept of it The first is the discovery of the way of life and that the soul likes and accepts and comes This is the discovery of the persons to whom this way is passable and those are all that exclude not themselves Ho every one that thirsteth come Isai 55. 1. Apoc. 22. 17. Let whoever will come The Answer of the heart here is Lord I come Lord I put in for a share in this Offer This is called Laying hold upon the hope that is set before us Heb. 6. 18. 3 Relyance or dependance This is a gracious Offer indeed saith the soul and I have put in for a share in it but may I depend upon it Yes saith the Gospel and there comes in the Promise seconding the Offer and Invitation thou maist adventure thy soul on it for God hath said that who ever comes to Christ he will in no wise cast out John 6. 37. That he that thirsting comes shall eat that which is good c. Isai 55. 1 2 3 Matth. 11. 28. The answer of the heart here is Sink or swim I will adventure my soul upon this Promise I will carry it to hell with me in my dying gripe if I must perish Though he kill me yet will I trust in him as Job saith under affliction Job 10. 13. This act is usually expressed by trusting in God Ephes 1 12 13. Trusting and staying a mans self on God Isai 50.
Some beleevers are and all believers may be assured of tâ—eir Salvation in this life well proved sufficiently confutes the Papists erroneous Thesis that no believer can be assured And I fear the maintaining the universall necessity of actual assurance to Salvation will trouble more tender Protestants then it ever confuted Papists But to returne where I left I say to thee that propoundest the Question Thou needest not fear exclusion from heaven for want of that which Scripture requires not as necessary to Salvation I must tell thee that I verily believe if any of Gods Saints dye without some glimpse or other of Gods love it is a rare case and I perswade my selfe God seldome takes a Saint of his away in such a sort except such an one as hath so shamefully fallen that it concernes God in point of honour if he save him to let no body know of it Yet I dare not barre the door of heaven against such an one as living holily dyes comfortlesse 3. Labour to accept of claim and rely upon the Lord Jesus for Salvation on the termes of the Gospel 'T is impossible a soul should go to Hell that can cling fast to any promise truly apprehended according to the intention of the Gospel There are three or four promises I perswade my selfe the reliance whereon hath ferried many humble souls to heaven who have been afraid to say in all their lives I know that I am a child of God those are Mat. 11. 28. Jo. 6. 37. Isai 55. 1 2. Apoc. 22. 17. 4. Lastly If thou think this will not serve the turne in such a case I think such a thought may condemn the generation of the Righteous Are there not some in the fruits of whose holy conversation both publick and private we see abundant cause to pronounce them by a judgement of charity children of God would be by this judgment condemned to Hell concerning whom it cannot be affirmed either in their own knowledge or the knowledge of others that ever they received this witnesse in their spirits to the last moment of their lives And truly for my part I humbly conceive this assuring Testimony of the spirit to be part of our reward as the Apostle calls the Spirit the earnest of our inheritance Eph. 1. 14. and therefore God may choose whethe he will give any part of it here or no as he sees most suting his glory and our good 'T is for his glory sometimes that his people are in Jobs case Job 13. 15. CHAP. XX. The second Thesis cleared by Scriptures and Reasons A Case from the first branch of the reason Whether a man may be assured of his sonship à priori from the first Acts of Faith and Repentance in conversion COme we now to the second Thesis or proposition which is The witnesse of the Spirit of Adoption is a certain evidence of a state of Adoption This ariseth from the connexion of this verse with the former In the former the Romans are told by the Apostle that as many as are led by the Spirit of God are the Sonnes of God this he confirms in my Text and the verse following For saith he they that are led by the spirit have ordinarily the witnesse of the Spirit who never witnesseth to a falshood witnessing with their own spirits and upon that testimony enabling them to call God Father So much for the ground of the proposition It amounts to no more then this That man may be certainly assured that he is a child of God to whom the spirit testifies that he is so I shall not need be long in the proof of this point but onely lead you into the consideration of some particulars not so much for evidence of this truth although they will also make it out abundantly unto us as for the clearer opening to you some points by the way which will yield some special use or other that will not so orderly fall in any where else The proofe is partly Scripture and partly Argument 1. Scripture The Spirits Testimony both concerning sinne righteonsnesse and judgement is a convincing Testimony John 16. 8 9. 10 11. that is such a Testimony as will not suffer any scruple to remain but as soon as any appears it presently falls before the light of its evidence There are also two expressions Eph. 1. 13 14. very full to this purpose The Spirit seals the Saints puts a mark upon them by which he knowes them and gives them ground enough to know themselves to be the Children of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Spiritu ilso qui non adfert legis servitut is terrorem sed promissionem gratuitae adoption is obsignat in credentiu animis Est autem hoc loco triplicatus Articulus diligenter observandus Beza in locum And to this purpose it followes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who is the earnest of our inheritance So that it is clear it is not meerly a privy sâ—al known to the Spirit alone as that 2 Tim. 2. 19. but a publick seal by which the party himselfe as well as others may and ought discerne him to be an heire and such an one as may sue for his inheritance as a debt For an earnest is nothing if it be not a security to the receiver the principall intent of an earnest is to assure the party to whom it is given of the full payment The meere giving of grace although it be materially an earnest from God of eternal happinesse yet is not a formal evidence to me till it work certainty in me because I can no farther plead it then I can adventure my estate upon it To this purpose and in the same expressions the Apostle also speaks to the Corinthians 2 Cor. 1. 21 22. where you may also take notice of one clause that confirms the exposition before-given of Eph. 1. 13 14. and that is this v. 21. He tells them that the confirmation of al the promises both as preached by Ministers and received by hearers dependeth upon the merit of Christ He stablisheth us in Christ i. e. by uniting us to him by the communication of the Spirit in and through them from the Father Now from the Spirit the Apostle drawes two Arguments to assure them the first is its renewing work and that is the matter of our regular assurance as I told you formerly in the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who hath annointed us Now although there be an annointing with gladnesse as well as grace yet the annointing with grace is here meant because it is distingnished from that annointing by an also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. v. 22. who also hath sealed us and given the earnest of his Spirit in our hearts This is the second argument it s witnessing work which is on Gods part a sufficient assurance and the reception of it renders it so also on our part So then the witnesse of the Spirit is the seal and earnest that confirmes all the promises to us they
Estate or the weakest Evidences for the best part of his Estate it troubles him not much so long as he hath still the firmest Evidences of the best part of his Estate remaining because those he may bear the losse of without undoing But if these be lost he is losttoo You may lose your Evidences of your earthly estate and if heaven be sure you may not only not grieve but even rejoyce in the loss But if you lose your Evidences of heaven you are as to all the truest comfort of your lives undone men And yet if you lose but some of these and retain the main you are in a happy condition It may be you lose the evidences of Grace the spirit of Prayer in its sensible assistance the verdure life and activity of your souls in the wayes of God nay you lose the Promises you canot find one Promise in the Word of God that you dare own Now stick to the Testimony of the Spirit keep that and you have an Evidence still in stead of all and that will recover them all againe 2 It may easily be lost as to the actual enjoyment of it though the Habit cannot be lost The check of one holy motion may grieve the Spirit Eph. 4. 30. the commission of one sin especially by way of presumption and back-sliding may remove him See in David Psalm 51. 12. Lusts be cunning Theeves and if they get into your heart again the thing they most rob you of is your Deeds and Evidences for glory and then they know you are prone to be perswaded to take a portion here seeing you have lost all certain grounds of expecting a better 3 Satan is alwayes at hand to deprive you if possible of the influence of the Spirit this way He knowes what a mighty rub it is in the way of all his Temptations that Gods people walk in the light of Gods countenance and in the comfort of the Spirit Therefore the greatest and most desperate temptations of converted souls tend to the hindering or weakning of Assurance As a cunning Adversary in Law layes plots if possible to weaken the validity of his Antagonists strongest evidences or to get them into his hands and suppress them 4 The Evidence of the Spirit lost will not easily be recovered again It cost David many a tear and many an heart-pang ere he could recover him again Psal 51. 11 12 Satan having gotten your deeds into his hands or made them suspected in the Court of Conscience or it may be damned in the Starchamber of a mans own deluded heart for counterfeit it will be an hard matter to prevail for their admission ever to appear in Court again The greater intimacy and secrecy of communion there hath been between thy soul and the Spirit of God the more difficulty will there be to make up a breach if it fal out between you See Prov. 18. 19. 5 Lose that and you lose all the rest Graces will not shine Duties will be cold and dull Promises will speak nothing our owne spirits when they are called forth will bear false witnesse if the Spirit be dumb They will all say as the King to the poor woman How can we relieve thee except the Lord help thee 2 King 6. 27. Thou maist go to the Word and not one syllable of it but will witnesse against thee to thy own heart and that is possessed by Satan and dismal despair and there is nothing but blackness Call forth thy Graces and ask them and there is not one will answer to his name If thou say Come forth Love and evidence for me I am mis-called saith Love I am but selfishness Call forth Faith that is not my name saith Faith I own no name but Presumption Repentance will be called by no name but Legal sorrow Zeal will be called fury and rashness new obedience hypocrisie and formality c. Call to Duties and Prayer will say I am tongue-tied and cannot speak Hearing will say All that I can meet with in a Sermon is terror the Sacraments will say thou hast eaten and drunken damnation there is not a dram of comfort for thee in us If the Sun hide the Moon and Stars give none or a very obscure light All Hamans intimate friends when the King but frowns are so far from daring to speak for him that they cover his face and are all ready to have him away to the Gallowes whereas on the other side every grace duty providence ordinance hath something to say for a man when the Spirit of God is the foreman of the Jury they all say as he sayes CHAP. XXVI How this may be done And first concerning keeping Records of them Quest BUt how shall I keep the Testimony of the Spirit when I have it Ans 1. Record it carefully That is the way for a man to secure an Evidence of his Lands or estate to serve him at all turns to record the Deeds of bargain and sale or Donation or whatever other way the Title is secured with all the formalities of Law c. that may illustrate or confirme them There be two Courts in which these evidences are to be pleaded or impleaded And therefore it will concern you to have a Duplicate of this Evidence that there may be a copy in each Court 1 The Court of Heaven Now it is true that God enrols all such Acts of his Spirit there but this is but a private record as I may say with reverence for Gods own use The Lord knowes who are his 2 Tim. 2. 19. This private record I cannot produce at any time because Secret things belong to God Deut. 29. 29. But there is another way of laying up a more serviceable Record in Heaven which a man may have forth coming as we use to say upon all occasions that is by commending our Evidences to God in Prayer desiring his own Spirit that gives them to be our Remembrancer of them in times of need This is one of the Offices of the Holy Ghost not only to be the Comforter of the Saints but their Remembrancer and Recorder too John 14. 26. Christ had told his Disciples many comfortable things in the whole preceding part of the Chapter and now towards the upshot and period of all the great comfort with which he interlines all the rest both in this and the following Chapters is I will send you another Comforter And the Comforter shall come whom the Father shall send in my name But what shall he do when he comes Why he shall first be their Instructer and the Promoter of their farther progresse in saving knowledg wherein they were but Novices till Christs Ascension He shall teach you all things and he shal be their Recorder or Remembrancer he shall suggest so Beza renders the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 suggeret or prompt your forgetful memories in all things which I have told you True there 't is not spoken barely of the things immediately preceding but of all
of such a temptation before hand as a Physician keeps that body low in flesh which he sees inclined to evil humours though it be not actually distempered by them Now if thou cooperate with God in this designe as possibly it may be this he aimes at surely thou wilt hasten thy deliverance from thy present darkness 6. Labour to live by faith in the mean time For as I told you before in the directions to the getting of Assurance so I tell you now in the way of recovering lost Assurance the main work is to exercise an holy reliance upon God in a condition so sad and uncomfortable as this must needs be This we find hath been the practice of the Saints of God in the like cases Psal 27. 13. David had been in a great straight not only in regard of his Exclusion from Ordinances but even in the sad conclusions which he drew thence to the distempering of his spirit See how he closeth all I had fainted saith he except I had believed to see the goodnesse of the Lord in the Land of the living Job speaks bigger words Though hee kill me I will trust in him Job 13. 15. q. d. Satan tels me and my own misgiving heart many times seconds him that these troubles will make an end of me I shall never come alive out of them Well saith Job be it so lot him kill me if he will if I were now a dying and dropping into Hell yet I will hold fast for all that he shall not be rid of me so If I goe to hel I 'll pul him after Our Saviour Christ also in his Agony cryes My God though he were a forsaking God This is a sweet frame of Spirit when God seemes to hold loose and man holds the faster for it God spurns at a poor soule and he layes hold of his foot God sayes Jacob let me goe and Jacob saith no I will not let thee goe except thou bless me Gen. 32. 26. The advice is plaine Isa 50. 10. I urged this place before in the directions for procuring Assurance and there told you that there is a parity of cases and so a proportion in the means which are to be used for recovery in the soule that never had and the soule that hath lost assurance This must needs be a special way For 1. This frame of Spirit speaks strength of faith A small strength will serve to hold one that is willing to stay but when a strong man putteth out all his strength to wrest himselfe out of a friends importunate embraces it had need be more strength then ordinary that holds him or fetcheth him back then This is that by which the strength of Abrahams faith is discovered in another case he was saith the Apostle strong in faith he was mightily enabled by faith what to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doe to believe he should have a Sonne when he was past all probable hopes of one Rom. 4. 18 19 20. And thus it is in thee it is an evidence of strong faith when thou canst say let my heart tell me never so much God hath cast me off and there is no help for me in God yet I will not let goe my confidence and the hold that thereby I have upon him here is strong faith See Mat. 15. 24 25 26. The womans faith was admired by Christ upon this account that she would play the dogg and fall at his feet when he rated her away O woman saith he great is thy Faith Persons are apt to think that Assurance of Gods love when a soule walks in the clear light of Gods countenance and lives high thereupon is a strong faith But I tell thee friend there is more strength by far in that faith that depends upon God in darknesse and desertion that trusts when a man can see no light The truth is the life of Assurance is in a sort a life of sense and feeling and it is rather a life above faith a life of enjoyment Faith is the evidence of things not seen saith the author to the Hebrews Heb. 11 1. Assurance in proper speech is the first fruits of heaven and it's life is a life of sense and fruition not of faith As the Apostle saith of hope in this Chapter Hope that is seen is not hope ver 24. So say I of faith faith that is seen is not faith Faith is a friend made especially for a time of distance between the soul and its comforts and is appointed as a meanes to derive the benefit of them to the soul during that state of distance 2 Besides 't is no wonder if God be taken with the actings of faith in such a season seeing strength of faith gives glory to God Rom. 4. 20. And he cannot long withdraw from a soul that so much glorifies him upon so little encouragement I may say to thee as Christ to Thomas Hold this course and thou art a blessed man Others see and believe But blessed are they that have not seen and yet believe Joh. 20. 20. 3. Besides lastly this frame of spirit must needs keep down many of those murmuring despairing and in a sort blasphemous misapprehensions concerning God and his promises which length of soul-troubles is apt to plunge a man into And certainly the lesse iniquity there is breaking forth in our desertions the sooner they will be over Now faith in such a season maintaines good thoughts of God and defends him and takes his part against the calumnies of Satan And God that sees and knows this therefore how can he but take this kindly If an husband absent himselfe a while from a wife and she be ready upon every whisper of slanderous gossips to suspect her husbands fidelity in his absence and give out speeches tending that way can it be expected that any husband should take pleasure in such a wife Wil he not rather chuse to stay away stil and be suspected for somthing as we say rather then live under constant suspicions for no cause But when the heart of an husband may be secure of this that his wife is confident of his faithfulnesse and her heart quietly rests in him absent as well as present let suspicion suggest what it will surely he cannot but be exceeding tender of such a wife and much taken with her company God sees your jealousies of him in darknesse and observes how apt you are to censure him in his absence Doe not thinke this is the way to bring him back againe He will make you entertain better thoughts of him ere he returne Quest But how shall I exercise faith in desertions What shall I believe A. Believe in general most things that seem most contrary to thy present sense and moral probabilities For in soul-troubles the fancy is the principal part possest by distrustful imaginations and Satan in that fortifies himselfe against all the power of those truths that might be means of consolation to the soul And therefore the way to
get out of them is to believe the quite contrary to those apprehensions which we are most apt to close with More particularly 1 Believe this condition is good for thee yea so good that thou mightest be much the worse if it were not for it This is an hard matter to perswade souls in such a condition to believe But the Scripture affirms it Rom. 8. 28. 2 Believe that God loves thee never the worse for this dealing with thee that when he thrusts forth his foot to kick thee he puts forth his hand to embrace thee that when he calls thee dog he owns thee for a châ—ld never the lesse for that This is an hard lesson too but take it from Heb. 12. 6. 3 Believe that if God could tell what other course to take to do thee good he would not afflict thee this way For surely as he doth not afflict willingly Lam. 3. 33. and therefore forbears the rod altogether till he cannot tell what to do more to do his people good Jer. 9 7. So he never chuseth one affliction before another but upon the same exigency and necessity And therefore believe this is the most proper Physick for thy constitution of all other because so wise and indulgent a Physician chuseth it for thee 4 Believe that he will not hide himself from thâ—… alwayes I cannot tell how to commend to thee absolutely a belief that hee will return to thee in this life as formerly Thou maist perhaps ghesse whether he will or no by the present strong prejudices that Satan casts into thee against it a distempered spirit as thine is is seldom strongly possessed or haunted with a true fear and therefore as I said before cujus contrarium verum est is a good rule for thee most commonly to judg by That which Satan and thy own mis-giving heart most strongly endeavour to fasten upon thee if the Word do not clearly back it 't is safest to believe the contrary thereunto Thou mayst ghesse at it also by thy ends why thou desirest the light of Gods countenance here which the more spiritual they are and remote from self the more confident thou maist be of re-enjoying it here Are thy ends these that thou maist glorifie God more on this side the grave strengthen others by thy experiences draw others to God by the discovery of the satisfactions that thou findest in his wayes These were Davids ends and David recovered out of such a condition as thou art in by pressing Gods return to him upon these grounds Psal 51. 12 13 14. And Hezekiah Isai 38. 18 19. Thou maist ghesse at it by the judgments that carnal men make of thy condition By the use that they are apt to make of thy troubles to reproach Religion or the like Bp thy freedom from notorious scandalous sins since conversion By the stream of the prayers and desires of the people of God for thee God doth not usually gratifie his enemies or deny his friends in such things as they put much weight on By the considerablenesse of thy condition towards the furtherance of the peace or disquiet of other Saints of God who look upon thee as a blazing Star portending some great thing or other towards them and their condition and resolve to judg of themselves by thy case c. But these things I look on as no sufficient grounds of a particular faith in this thing Neither do I know any Scripture that will bear the weight of such a particular confidence except with these limitations That if God see and judge that thy comfortable condition will be more for Gods glory thy own good and the spiritual benefit of others it will returne again otherwise thou hast no ground to expect it whatever grounds thou thy selfe hast to think so And this I affirm because it is a thing not absolutely necessary to thy salvation or Gods glory or the good of others he can carry thee to heaven in the dark and work holy ends of his own upon others out of it also though thou dy without comfort And yet I must add that divers of Gods Saints have been confident of this as David Psal 27. 13. and 42. 5 11. and 43. 5. I shall yet praise him who is the health of my countenance and my God And the Church Micah 7. 8 9. When I fall I shall arise he wil bring me forth to the light and I shall behold his righteousnesse Though as to the grounds of that confidence I confess I am ignorant And let me adde once more that there are Promises even in this thing which although we must interpret with the forementioned limitations yet may be great encouragements to us to ask in faith and grounds upon which we may comfort our selves even in the present exigency with some intimations of an hope of release Isai 57. 16. is an excellent place and hath relation to this life because of the reason that is annexed I wil not contend for ever lest the spirit should fail before me c. And lastly let me add Few of Gods Saints surely have dyed without sensible returnes of Gods love and favour to their soules in some competent measure enough to beare up their souls against desolating tentations But however suppose thou have no certain ground to believe a returne of comfort here yet believe that thou shalt see his face in glory hereafter and that no troubles shall be able to separate from Gods love though they may from the sense of his love Rom. 8. 35 38 39. And eternity of enjoyment is a duration large enough to make up the want of God here 5 Believe that the likeliest time of re-enjoyment of his countenance is when thou art most in danger of being swallowed up of despair And truly when the violence of temptation doth most importunately put the soul upon desperate thoughts against all the strength of Meditation prayer resolutions to the contrary then is deliverance at hand Cum duplicantur lateres venit Moses say the Rabbins Moses the Deliverer comes when the Israelites bricks are doubled Mans extremity fits God with the best opportunity to advance his own glory in his deliverance In the Mount of the Lord it shall be seen Gen. 22. 14. Object True may a soul say a man that can yet lay claim to God may believe all these things and rely upon them but how shall a soul act faith in such a condition that questions his interest as much as ever he did such an one as is beaten off from daring to lay any claim to God at all Ans This is a weighty Question and therefore I must not let it go without an answer And the Answer is briefly this Suppose that thou art Godlesse as yet in all thy soul troubles take for once the divels suggestion and thy own hearts deceitful collusion for true and what then Are there no encouragements given to persons that want a present interest in God How comes any then to get an
less sensible Because God permitts this darkness in designe for some special ends of his owne Now the person a man puts on upon designe commonly he useth to over-act even beyond what he would if he were reall So although when God was really an enemy as before conversion he carryed himselfe by secret supports and encouragements of the soul as one that was not utterly irreconcileable yet when he meerely intends to appeare so he carries himselfe so strangely that the soul really believes he is in earnest and intends its ruine irrecoverably Lam. 3. 5. 7 8 9. The church aggravates her sad condition from extraordinary appearances of Gods dealing with her God in such a case leaves the soul alone like a sparrow on the house Psal 102. 7. And woe to him that is alone Eccles 4. 40. 4 And thus fourthly The grounds of the horrid troubles that Gods Saints fall into after assurance may be and are occasionally from the Spirit of God though immediately and by way of an efficient cause they are not from that spirit Thus the Spirit led Christ into the wildernesse Mat. 4. 1. 1 By an active suggesting to the soul such considerations as may start a soul-trouble As when it makes a fresh disâ—overy of New committed sinnes and stirs up the soule to renew repentance for them Such motions may be the occasion of farther enquiries into a mans own heart and so of questions concerning his estate And thus by degrees they may grow into as palpable Legal Terrours as any ever the soul groaned under 2 By withdrawing that assistance from the soul which should maintain the soul in peace and joy of the Holy Ghost When the Sun hides behind a cloud or is under an Eclipse it must needs be dark If the Father let goe the little childs hand in a dark and dangerous place he will surely fall And thus is the Spirit the negative cause if I may so express my self of the saddest bondage that comes on the people of God after Assurance 5 But Lastly the Spirit to be sure doth never cause and work a feare of bondage in the soul after Assurance as it did before and that may be seen in these differences 1. Before there was a time when he convinced the sinner of a state of sin and enmity to God After it never doth tel a man so any more 2. Before there was a time when he convinced the soul of a state of wrath and condemnation arising from that enmity but having once effectually converted and assured the soul of reconciliation he never presents hell and wrath any more to the soul as its portion 3. Besides He sometimes presented every act of sinne as unpardoned Now he never doth so any more in that sense wherein he did so formerly That is that I may not be mistaken He never presents Gods vindictive or avenging Justice unto the soul as unsatisfied for such a sin though he may present Gods fatherly Justice as displeased at it 4. Before hee sometime presented every suffering of this life to the soul as a part of the curse of the Law and the earnest-penny of Hell Now he never leads the soul to the view of sufferings under that notion but only as fatherly corrections and chastisements by which God endeavours to quicken the soul into a speedy return unto him by renewed repentance and humiliation CHAP. XXXIV The proof of the Thesis from 1. Scripture 2. Reason THe truth of this point is abundantly cleer Proof from the Scripture and Reason For Scripture Take notice of the names by which the Spirit is set out to us in the Word 1 He is called the Comforter John 14. 16. And this in his peculiar Office to the Saints Now he would fail in the discharge of it if ever he should bring Gods adopted children into bondage againe Therefore when our Saviour promiseth the Comforter he also engageth that he shall abide with the Saints John 14 16. 'T is true their comforts are many times fleeting comforts But the Spirit of God is not to be blamed for that Ordinarily 't is their own fault and oftentimes Satans temptations eclipse the comforts and refreshments of the Spirit to the soule Though their comforts be fleeting the Comforter is not To debase himself from being the Comforter to the Divels imployment the Accuser of the Brethren is dishonourable to the Holy Spirit 2 Besides he is called our Seal and how long doth he continue so unto the day of redemption Eph. 4. 30. Hee will not to day scale an evidence of heaven to the soul and tomorrow seal its Mittimus to hell 3 Moreover he is called our Earnest and can we think that God will give us an earnest of heaven one day and revoke it again the next or ever deny the bargain which that Earnest secures unto us An honest man will not do so far be it from God to do what common honesty will keep man from Rom. 11. 29. 4 He is the Spirit of Adoption testifying to us that we are the children of God ver 16. of the chapter in hand And can it be imagined that he will ever tell a child of God that he is become a child of the Divel There is no lesse Reason For Reas 1. I have shewed before that The Spirit and the Word never crosse each others Testimony Now the Word never pronounceth bondage to any one that hath received the Witnesse of the Spirit nay not to any one that hath the least grace of the Spirit The Word every where speaks comfort to such Isa 40. 1 2. Rom. 8. 1 34. Reas 2. That which is the badge of a false Prophet and which God dislikes in such cannot without blasphemy be attributed to the holy Spirit of God But to make the heart of the righteous sad is a badge and sin of false Prophets Ezek 13. 22. Reas 3. That ought not to be supposed to be wrought by Gods Spirit which as often as it is on our spirits is our sin and infirmity but to doubt of the saving love of God after enjoyment of the manifestation and feeling of it is our sin and infirmity Psal 77. 20. And therefore the Spirit cannot be the Author thereof because the Holy Spirit cannot be the Author of sin Reas 4. That which hinders the most proper and peculiar work of the Spirit of Adoption cannot be the work of the Spirit except we suppose the Spirit so indiscreet as to counteract himself But if the Holy Spirit ever become a Spirit of bondage to the soule after tastes of Gods love communicated thereunto the Spirit would be guilty of counter-acting its most proper and peculiar work which as the next Doctrine from the last words of the Text shews you is to embolden and enliven the heart in Prayer For how can he call God Father with confidence to whom the Spirit witnesseth that God is an enemy Reas 5. The Spirits Testimony if it could ever become a Spirit of Bondage
againe to an assured soul would not be a sure and infallible Testimony contrary to the truth of the preceding Doctrine When a man is found in two contrary tales we know not which of them we may believe A man could never this supposed have solid comfort from the Testimony of the Spirit seeing he knowes not how soon hee may recant it and testifie the quite contrary CHAP. XXXV The causes of Legal Terrours in Saints Quest WHat then is the cause of those Legal terrours which after Conversion and Assurance many times surprize the hearts of Gods people Answ The main and principal cause is Satan who combining with our own suspitious and distrustful or melancholy spirits or by divine permission or lastly by taking the work of Gods Spirit out of his hand brings us into this darknesse Psal 143. 3. The enemy hath persecuted my soul he hath made me to dwell in darknesse like those that have been long dead I have long ago buried all my comforts and they are almost quite out of remembrance And the great cause of all this is the enemy of my soul called the enemy by a special Emphasis because the most deadly malicious enemy the Saints have He sowes all manner of Tares of corruptions tentations doubts in Gods field the hearts of Saints Now this he doth as but now I hinted 1 Partly by combining with our owne suspicious hearts and increasing jealousies when there is no cause of sadnesse as many times he doth The heart that knowes its own wickednesse and deceitfulnesse many times rejects sound and solid joy in the Holy Ghost as a delusion meerly upon suspicion and warinesse occasioned by its former experienced liablenesse to self-deception Now here Satan strikes in and increaseth the jealousie that the heart hath of it self As a malicious tale-bearer that finds suspicions ready to break out ever and anon between friends is at hand perpetually to blow the coals and hinting to them both severally such and such presumptions of each other till at last he have weakned all mutual confidence and made an irreparable breach between them Fie fie saith the old Serpent wilt thou believe these comforts and joyes are real and from the Holy Ghost Dost thou know thy owne heart no better Dost thou not remember how it spake peace to thee heretofore and all the Ministers in the Countrey could not perswade thee that thy condition was not safe then and since dost thou not remember how when thou wentest to examine and search thy self it hid sins by pretences and excuses and Apologies And why should it not deceive thee now as well as then Now here many times the soul gives up and yeilds to Satans suggestions and damns all its comforts for meer fantasies and dreams and all its Assurance for an imposture Nay it may be if the soul plead the marks and tokens of the Spirits concurrence in that Testimony then Satan begins to take the matter upon himselfe Alas saith he and dost thou not know that Satan can turne himself into an Angel of Light and by 2 Cor. 11. 14. consequence easily cheat a credulous heart into a belief that his delusions are the testimonies of the Spirit of God c. Sic not us Ulysses Art thou so unacquainted with that subtil enemy that thou canst take every fair pretence of his for Gospel and adventure thy soul upon it 2 Partly by combining with a meer melancholy distemper Melancholy is musing and thoughtful 'T is a temper of body which is the Divels Anvil whereon he hammereth all manner of temptations all manner of deadly weapons to wound the soul He hath a mighty power upon the fantasie and can suggest things to it as he pleaseth The phantasie or imagination is the Looking-glass of the soul in which all things by reflection are first discovered to it Now 't is easie for Satan to represent in this glass what bugbear shapes he pleaseth to affright the soul withal by a kind of fixed entertainment of the thoughts with such objects of terror and affrightment to make such strong impressions upon the whole soul abused by meer phantasies as no reasonings or perswasions whatsoever can remove That strange affection of the phantasie which some say perswaded Nebuchadnezzar that he was a real beast Dan. 4. and the frequent parallels to this in Wierus de praestigiis Virg. Eclog. 8. humane Writings render such an Interpretation not incredible many times is the infirmity of good souls that dwell as was said of Galba's wit in the bodies of the most Ingenium Galbae malè habitat dreggy part of living earth of a melancholy constitution So that 't is no wonder if Satan acting the phantasie many times the soul really be perswaded into horrid apprehensions of its owne condition And to strengthen the belief of the soul in such delusions he can present strange spectra images and representations of terrour to the very outward senses by which such inward apprehensions are oftentimes fortified and increased He doth like a cunning Fisher mud the water that his nets may be lesse discerned And thence in such cases persons under such a condition are 1 Many times to believe others more then themselves as suspecting such delusions of their own fancies 2 To labour after means of removing bodily distempers that the soul may be more it self being lesse clogged with a distempered body the body in such a case is the souls prison 3 To admit of lawful avocations from the continued meditation of such subjects as by their fixing on the fantasie are hard to be removed The very humor of melancholy is a dull heavy humour that must be stirred as much by exercise as Physick And so must the fantasies that it begets be cured by avocations 3 Partly by the permission and allowance of God God giving the soul over in some cases into his hands as he did Job once to do with him what he will only sparing his Job 2. 6. life for some notorious affronts offered to his Spirit and abuses of his favour to some bold intrenchments upon his Majesty and Authority or some other like cause And in such a case God withdrawing it is no hard matter for Satan to improve such a sensible defect and decay of influence to infer a souls utter rejection by God The truth is we live much by sense as well as fantasie not only in humane affairs but even in Divine And when faith is at low water as ordinarily it is upon Gods with-drawings then is sense most predominant Now the Divel can make strange conclusions appear undeniable in such cases if you will allow him to argue from what you feel Dost not perceive will he say to the soul that God casts out all thy prayers regards not the voice of thy groanings how he will not be perswaded to give thee one smile though thou wooe him never so much And wilt thou contrary to all sense and experience still believe that he
the matter of thy complaint or it is not If not then 't is worse then a matter of forme to complain against thy selfe It is a sinne disparaging to Gods free grace and injurious to thy selfe and may bee prejudicial to thy brethren Soul-complaints are contagious If the root of the matter be â—in thee 't is well thou discoverest it though in such a way God may have a plot upon thee to force thee upon such a discourse as may tend to thy ease and satisfaction It may be Gods hand on thy spirit not formality in thee which produceth it now It may bee hee restrained thy spirit and straightned it to other discourses that hee might draw this from thee CHAP. XLII A Case concerning the tryal of spiritual life or deadnesse under such supposed decayes And another occasionally concerning an hypocrites delight in tydings of comfort from God Quest BUt do you indeed think I am not quite dead How shall I know whether I am or no Answ Well then I will adventure to bee thy Physician and examine the state of thy soul first then put this looking-glasse to thy mouth and let me see dost thou breath or no Friend tell me what do you wish for Are your heavenly desires all dead Is there no hungring and thirsting after God is there no longing after his presence and Image No pantings after holinesse and the total mortification of sinne I believe many a Saint is often at that passe in desertion that he dares say no more then Lord thou knowest the desire of my soul is to thy name and to the remembrance of thee Isaiah 26-8 And with Nehemiah Lord hearken and be attentive to the prayer of thy servant who desires to feare thy name Nehem 1. 11. And yet in these desires are the breathings of a quickened and quickening Spirit even the breathings of Gods Holy Spirit in thine Thou drawest in the breath of heaven or else thou couldst not breath it out 2 Let me see thy tongue how is thy palate affected Thou sayest thou tastest no sweetnesse in the wayes of God why dost thou not leave them then Dost thou find any thing sweeter It may be thy mouth is out of taste to every thing else as thou thinkest it is to them But tell me is it not the dressing of a Duty that makes thee dis-relish it and not any thing in the Duty it self It is because thou art dead in duty that thou art not delighted with it It may be if the Duty or Ordinance be publick thou maist upon this account not be affected because it may not be managed with life and power or it may not be managed sutably to thy condition and thou dis-relishest all things that do not meet thy particular case Herein it is true there is a failing but it seems still hereby that thy disaffection is not to the Duties and Ordinances themselves but only to the dressing of them And this appeares in that thou waitest on them still and expectest when God will make a match betweene thy heart and the Ordinance by directing himselfe more particularly to do thee good Thou art not of the temper of them who leave the use of all Ordinances because they disrelish them in such and such a way of Administration 3 Let me feel thy pulse how beats it towards the world how towards sin that will tell how 't is with the heart if thy heart be alive there is no fear What thoughts are those that stir when a temptation to sin is presented when a temptation is offered to re-enter upon the enjoyments of the present world Doth the heart beat then and doth the pulse beat quick by way of anger and indignation It is a true signe of life when minus grata things that are against nature cause an alteration in the body One that will start at a pinch or shew any other alteration on the apprehension of an unpleasing Object is alive For as I shewed you before fear is a living affection and such abhorrences arise from fear I never knew any soul in the case of the complainer but if sin were presented to him his very hair and heart would rise against it And surely the Antipathies of such a soul shew a life sutable to them Surely 't is the divine Nature that stirs up a loathing of sin 'T is the love of God that inclines to the hatred of evill 4 Let me pinch thee a little Friend if you be quite dead as you say you are then surely if God be dishonoured never so much if his Church and people be trodden under foot if his Gospel be carryed away to another people if sin be committed round about the place of your residence with never so high an hand and with never so publick approbation 't is likely you are sensible of none of this Let me try are you so Come hither Julian and blaspheme God and Christ Come Bonner and make havock of the Saints Come Swearer Drunkard unclean person and act over your horrid impieties before this person freely surely if he be dead there are no reproofs in his mouth Mortui non mordent Dead men bite not How like you these things Oh Sir do you startle do rivers of tears run down your eyes because men keep not Gods law Psal 119. 136. Do the reproaches of them that reproach God fall upon you Psal 69. 9. Is it as a sword in your bones to hear men blaspheme God and dispute down Psalm 42. 10. truth and professe horrid iniquities under the name of perfection c. Surely here is life pinch a dead man whiles you will and you cannot make him start 5 You say you are dead if you be dead then what make you among living company Do the dead use to converse with the living Get thee hence from the society and communion of Gods Saints from the exercises and imployments of living men and converse with the men of the world the men of this generation and put in thy lot among them discourse of Oxen and Farms and Merchandize but as for the things of God and persons that converse with him spiritually dead persons do not use to have much to do with these Is this harsh to thee Dost thou disrelish this exilement from God and Saints Is all thy delight in the Saints that are upon earth and in them that excel in vertue Psal 16. 3. Dost thou desie the wicked and chase them from thee Psal 6. 8. Surely there is life in thee A dead man is fit company for none but those in the same condition They that are dead are free from the relations company and imployments of living men 6 Thou sayest thou art dead I will try thee once with good newes Comfort ye comfort ye my people saith the Lord tell them that their warfare is accomplished Isai 40. 1 2. My salvation is â—eer to come Isa 56. 1. Yet a little while and he that shall come will come and will not tarry Heb.
displeasure on Gods 4. From the manifestation of our relation to Christ. Christs name being the only ground of all gracious boldnesse and fervency in prayer Heb 4. 15 16. and 10. 20. The Spirit shews us Christ as our mediator at the right hand of God assures us we have a mighty powerfull advocate the Fathers favourite at his right hand one who hath his ear as we say at command and his heart too who pleads strongly on our behalfe and therefore under the wing of such a mediator we may come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with assuming a liberty to speak any thing we will keeping within the bounds of reverence in the ear of God the Father As the Author to the Hebrews affirms in the place but now quoted Before the application of this point it is needfull to answer a question or two hinted at before but now particularly to bee handled CHAP. XLVII Two Cases stated whether Saints are at all times alike heightened in their spirits in prayer And if not whence the difference that is in them at several times proceeds Que. 1 ARe all that have received the witnesse of the Spirit at all times alike bold in prayer Que. 2 If not how comes it to passe that there is such an alteration in the spirits of Gods people That at one time they are more bold and fervent in prayer then at another Answ For answer to the first of these you are to know 1. That the boldnesse of Gods people in prayer depends not upon the reception of the witness in themselves but upon the actual improvement of that testimony If a man have never so good an evidence lying by him and he have it not ready to produce in Court when he is pleading his cause he cannot be so confident in his plea as at another time when he hath it in his hand And therefore 2 The best of Gods Saints as I have shewed you before may not at all times have his Evidences at hand to plead Many a Saint dares not sometimes to owne his relation to God and their Assurance admits of actual ebbings and flowings 3 Thereupon no doubt there must needs be lesse life and confidence in drawing nigh to God For at such a time 1 All the Promises are like a Book sealed to the soul In all the word of God it cannot find one Promise that it can urge with confidence For the Spirits Testimony is the only light in which we can challenge and lay claim to any Promise Now the Promises are the very spirits and life of prayer Because they are the only obligations upon which the Soul can claim any thing from God 2. In such a season the relations between God and the soul are clouded The soul thinks God an enemy oftentimes and alwayes in such a condition questions at least whether he be a friend or rather whether he be not a meer stranger Now surely a man will have little heart or face to prefer a petition to one whose love he suspects much less to one whom by all probabilities he judgeth to be an enemy 3 In such a season all graces that are the very lungs whence prayer is breathed are very low and flat in their actings The absence of the Sun in winter makes the plants cast their leaves and pluck in their blossoms and the absence of the Spirit must needs make graces look dead and withered and saplesse True there is life in the root but little appears graces are benumm'd in such a season and cannot act so freely as at other times As Samson when his spirit of strength from thr Lord had left him thought to have gone forth and shaken himself as at other times but he could not A man thinks under spiritual with-drawings of God Now I will rub up my graces and bestir my self in prayer as at other times but he is deceived the Spirit of God is with-drawn from him Quest 2. But shew more particularly from whence this variety of tempers in prayer proceeds Answ What ever clouds the testimony of the Spirit and I have spoken much to that Head before must needs cause this difference in the frame of Gods people in prayer But to answer more particularly 1 It may be neglect of our frequent applications to God in that way A friend that a man converseth with every day he can speak more boldly and familiarly to then one that he sees but now and then When a soul visits God but now and then there grow strangenesses and jealousies betweene God and him and a man is to seek whether he be the same to him as he was in times past and so speaks to him with more faintnesse and flatnesse of spirit 2 It may be a fresh guilt of sin admitted into the conscience This as it weakens Assurance so it faints prayer A child scarce dares come to ask a favour from a displeased Father And how unwilling we are under such consciousnesse of guilt to come to God in prayer see in two examples Of David Psal 40. 12. Innumerable evils have compassed me about mine iniquities have taken hold upon me so that I cannot look up In former times I could have looked up with life and confidence in prayer but now they force me to hang down my head yea they are more then the hairs of my head therefore my heart faileth me I have neither the face nor the heart to come to God which I have had The other example is that of the Prodigal when he had been sowing his wild oats and began to return towards his Father see how low he speaks Father I am not worthy to be called thy Son c. and yet he still had the comfort of his relation in some measure he could say Father still How much lower must a soul speak that hath sinned away the remembrance or at least present sense of that dear relation 3 Many times the stream of life and confidence in prayer runs low for want of an endeavour to quicken our graces and this even under the sense of Assurance For a man may live in the light of Gods countenance and that may prove a temptation to him to walk more sleightly and not make such preparations for communion with God in a Duty as formerly When a friend growes a daily guest we do not feast him as when hee comes but seldom we then entertaine him with houshold fare whereas if hee visited us but now and then we would as we say make a stranger of him and provide for him of the best So when God growes a daily guest to a soul he is apt to grow bold to addresse himseâ—f to him with an ordinary frame and temper of Spirit to make no extraordinary preparations by trimming up his graces and laying out his strength in Duty and when God sees this he frownes and we hang down our heads when we come to him afterwards CHAP. XLVIII A third Case Whether the Spirit furnishes the Saints at all times with
would seem to deny them See in David abundant proof of this Psalm 119. 25 Quicken me ver 28 Strengthen me ver 58. Be merciful to me ver 65. Let it be well with me ver 76 Let thy kindnesse be for my comfort ver 116. Vphold me ver 169 Give me understanding and all according to thy Word 2 In their challenges of Gods Justice Truth and faithfulnesse and all his Attributes to make them good So David Psal 31. 1. Deliver me in thy righteousnesse And Psalm 35. 24. Judge me according to thy righteousness Psalm 119. 40 Quicken me according to thy righteousnesse Ps 143. 1. In thy faithfulnesse answer me and in thy righteousnesse So Abraham appeales to Gods justice Shall not the Judge of all the World do right Gen. 18. 25. And they presse sometimes upon the very glory of God and challenge their petitions upon the forfeiture of his glory Josh 5. 7. What wilt thou do for thy great name 2. Fear 2 A Saints fear of God in prayer consists 1. In that conscience of Duty that brings him into the presence of God if there were nothing else to move him thereunto though he had no need though there were no threatnings to the neglect of it no promises to the performance of it yet because God requires it he dares not neglect it This is that fear that God requires as a master of all his people as servants Now we must know that all fear of God as a master that is all obedience out of conscience of duty is not servile fear but then 't is servile when it is not so much out of conscience of duty as out of conscience of wrath or punishment upon neglect A child is a Fathers servant and obeyes him as such yet obeys not servilely Therefore God calls for this fear upon this account If I be a master where is my fear that is dutifull obedience to my commands Mal. 1. 6. 2. In the matter of our performances it is a diligent care of what we offer to God keeping the soul from offering stange fire bounding a mans desires with the will of God A fear lest any thing should slip from a mans mouth or heart that is displeasing to God As a child though he may make bold with his Father yet is carefull not to aske any thing of his Father that he knows will displease him so in this a Saint takes care that all his petitions be warranted by a rule and encouraged by a promise and beyond these he dares not wish much lesse come into the presence of God to aske any thing He dares not tempt God by depending on him for or desiring at his hands what his word doth not warrant But it is not such a fear as discourageth the soul in asking such things as a man hath warrant to desire So farre as the promise goes a soul dares ask else 't is not a child-like but a childish fear not the fear of a Courtier but the fear of a clown 3. In the manner of performing such duties it is a deportment of the soul with that reverence as becomes the greatnesse and glory of God compared with our own basenesse and unworthinesse and jealousie of our own hearts lest we should do any thing unbeseeming such a God or such a duty 1. No soul hath more reverend and high thoughts of God then such a soul as hath most right to holy confidence in his presence The more acquaintance with God the more of this fear None waits upon a Prince with more reverence and observance then the greatest favourites the ordinary and standing Courtiers A man that comes out of the Country and is not acquainted with Majesty and State is not so observant of every punctilio of ceremony as those that are perpetually about the Prince This it is that David speaks of Ps 89. 7. God is greatly to be feared in the Assembly of the Saints and to be had in reverence of all that are round about him Gods greatest Courtiers are most observant of him The more we converse with God the more wee know what becomes his glory and majesty and all irreverence proceeds from ignorance and ignorance from want of converse with God A country man reverences a Prince no otherwise then he doth his landlord because he is not conversant in the Court and observes not the state and ceremony kept and used there The Seraphims that are the constant Courtiers of heaven they cover their faces with a fear of awe and reverence Isai 6. 2. 2. None is more watchfull over his own heart in the manner of a performance then a Saint that hath most grounds of boldnesse and confidence in the presence of God He dares not run rashly into Gods presence and if but a low mean thought of God arise how doth his heart rise against it If but a stragling thought carry him off from his businesse how doth he send out post after it and call it in again This is a fear of jealousie This is called watching to prayer of which above Carnis enim ingenium est ut exultando dissolvatur Musc in Ps 2. and watchfulnesse proceeds from a fear of warinesse though not from fear of dastardlinesse Thus you see what fear a Saint is bound to bring to God in every performance A dutifull fear A carefull fear A reverend fear A jealous fear 3. Mixed That and how both these will stand together we shall shew in the next place in a word For I have in a sort prevented my selfe herein already Only 1. That it is so see one or two places for it Psal 2. 11. Even in those services that require highest expressions of joy rejoyce before him saith the Psalmist with trembling A more remarkable place is that Psal 147. 11. The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him in them that hope in his mercy Hope which in the old Testament is often taken for and always implies faith is here joyned with feare one would think doubting and fear might have been better matched but see God joyns hope or faith the mother of boldnesse and fear together So Psalm 5. 7. 2. Concerning the manner how these are conjoyned it is 1. By a joynt premeditation and collation of 1. Gods greatnesse and goodnesse majesty and mercy 2. Our own meannesse with our great relations 3. Our own unworthinesse and Christs worthinesse 4. Our own inabilty and the Spirits supplies These as they joyntly affect our hearts in meditation so they leave sutable joynt-impressions in prayer 2. By a diligent observance of our spirits in the extravagancies of them both wayes in duty and checking them with contrary meditations as when we find a petulant wantonnesse of spirit apt to break out whereby we are endangered to make too bold with God a Saint may correct that with apprehensions of Gods majesty Isai 6. 6. If carelessenesse and slightnesse of spirit a Saint quickens it with thoughts of Gods holinesse and glory such
of God Isa 1. 5. If a man want support and security in a suffering time 't is true God is a refuge and strength and a very present help in time of trouble Psal 46. 1. But to whom is he so to them that call upon him Ps 105. 18. Lastly he delivereth the righteous out of all his afflictions Psal 34. 19. But upon what termes Call on me and I will deliver thee Psalm 50. 15. God hath delivered me and doth deliver and will deliver saith the Apostle but in what way 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you Corinthians conferring mutual help by your prayers 2 Cor. 1. 11. 3. Look on God as 1. Prescribing this duty in affliction as Psalm 50. 15. and in my Text and many other places 2. Expecting it as one who often afflicts to that end that hee may make our proud hearts to stoop to duty Hosea 5. 15. 3. Making promises to this duty rightly performed in such a season See at large 2 Chron. 7. 13 14 Psalm 50. 15. 4. Sealing them with plentifull performances See a threefold cord of experiences in one Psalm 34. 4 5 6. Now God calls not for expects not encourageth not prospers not an unseasonable duty and therefore from all this it followes that to one that looks on God in affliction the seasonablenesse of prayer is strongly concluded by all these particulars 2 Look on our selves under affliction and prayer will seem exceeding seasonable at such a time from these following considerations arising from the condition it selfe which we are under which hath these advantages in its nature and usual attendants to further us in the duty 1. Sense of pain or present danger 'T is natural to cry under the rod qui nescit orare c. saith the proverb send a man to Sea if you 'l teach him to pray Jonah 1. 6. Even heathen Marriners can find some God or other to go to in a storme Jon. 1. 6. I know 't is not alwayes gracious prayer that comes from a sense of suffering A dogge will howle when you strike him and God can give some mens devotions in such a condition no better terme Hos 7. 14. But I know also that even a child will cry and begge heartily under the rod. And all prayers that are extorted from men by smart are not carnal and natural prayers though sometimes and in wicked men alwayes they be so The prayer may be spiritual though the motive be natural We fast and the Jews and others of old wore sackcloth upon their flesh to provoke by the hunger and pain of the body the spirits to devotion When the spirit is overwhelmed the natural man seeks vent sometimes this way but a godly man alwayes 2. Affliction usually begets lowly and humble thoughts in men For as it is natural to man to be proud and lofty under a prosperous condition Psal 73. 5 6. So is it also to begin to know himself when he is laid low by affliction Ps 9. 20. Put them in fear O Lord that the nations may know themselves to be but men Before they scarce thought they were men as others are Lam. 3. 27 28 29. Long afflictions such as the Prophet describes there make men sit alone and keep silence lay their very mouthes in the very dust and take patiently any thing from God or men I know that a man may be humbled that is not humble No afflictions though they plow long furrowes and deep ones too can of themselves teare up the root of pride out of the heart but they may tear and mangle it so that it may be checked for the present in its growth whiles better seeds are sown in the heart by grace that in time will wafte it quite out of the field Wicked men will never pray till affliction bring them upon their knees And the Saints of God sometimes are too proud to be beholden to God till bare need force them to it The prodigal whiles he had but husks though a sonne yet thinks not of his duty And 't is said of our Saviour Christ himselfe that as man he learned obedience by the things that he suffered Heb. 5. 8. and being a man of sorrowes in his state of humiliation he powred out strong cryes and groanes v. 7. Now that which grace cooperating with it humbles and layes the soul low before God puts a man into the fittest temper for prayer 3. Afflictions ordinarily are the chafingdish that warmes and recovers the remembrance of sinne unto men They recovered the remembrance of the Patriarchs sinne as Divines observe twenty years after Gen. 42. 21. Now verily say they now we are in bonds are we guilty concerning our Brother i. e. now our consciences tell us we are guilty So Hos 5. 15. I will returne to my place till they be guilty i. e. till the sense of guilt forgotten afresh seize their consciences therefore Job calls plagues Gods witnesses and renewed plagues renewed witnesses Job 10 17. because they testify sinne and oftentimes when they are repeated plagues wilfulnesse and obstinacy in sinne And this property of affliction makes it very much conduce to prayer A burden ed spirit under sense of sinne vents its sorrowes and oppressions that way Prayer to such a soul is like lightening the ship in a storm like letting out the impostumed matter out of a sore As shall be shewn more hereafter 4. A man in an afflicted condition hath many promises to urge God withal which are peculiar to such a condition Concerning sanctification of affliction Ezek. 20. 37. 38. Isa 27. 9. moderation in afflicting v. 8 9 that and support under suffering together 1 Cor. 10. 13. Psalm 23. 2 3 4. bettering and improving us by it Heb. 12. 11. deliverance in it Job 5. 19. Isai 43. 2. Psalm 34. 20 112 4. from it Psa 125 3 91. 14 15. 37. 40 and many places more Now that season is a proper season for prayer of all others which the Lord chuseth as a proper season of granting As the time to ask and receive a dole is then when it is to be distributed If a beggar be out of the way then he missâ—th his Almes See Ps 32. 6. Godly men pray in a time when God wil be found 5 A man in an afflicted condition hath more especial need of supply in many graces then at another time As in 1 Faith Luke 21. 31 Hab. 21 23. 2 Humility 1 Pet. 5. 6. 3 Patience Heb. 10. 36. Jam. 1. 4. 4 Repentance Lam. 3. 40. 1 Chr. 7. 13 14. Now all supplies of the Spirit must be fetched in by prayer Phil. 1. 19 20. If a man were never so sure of supplies from a friend at all turnes yet it is requisite that he send him intelligence of his wants Indeed God needs not any intelligence of our condition who knowes our estate better then wee do knowes what part of the wall needs most strengthning though we never tell him but God will take no notice of
A man that hath but confused notions of a thing is not able to make a clear and distinct relation of it Sometimes we cannot pray because we know not what to ask Rom. 8. 26. We know not what to ask because we know not distinctly what ails us troubled we are but we cannot tell why As a man divers times in distemper of body let a Physician come to him ask him how he doth he will tell him Sick Sir very sick But ask him where the seat of his distemper most lyes he cannot tel he is very ill and that is all that he can say Thus many a man is troubled in mind indistinctly and confusedly Now such a man cannot but be shut up in prayer The head is clouded and that cloudeth the heart And as in a mist a man sees Objects at a distance that fright him but because he sees them in a mist he can give no distinct intelligence of them So here And oftentimes melancholy of body concurs to hinder by darkning the judgment and distracting the fancy 3 Study Gods Promises and let them dwell in you plentifully And especially such Promises as most concerne your condition so discovered When David hath a Promise he never wants a Prayer How often Psalm 119. doth he urge God upon his Word ver 25 28 58 116 169. The Word is the quiver of all those holy Arrowes by which a straitned soul shoots intelligence to Heaven Prayer is nothing but the Eccho of a Promise I will ease thee saith Christ Matth. 11. 28. O ease me saith the soul Wait and God shall strengthen thy heart saith the Word Psal 27. ult Strengthen my heart saith the soul My grace is sufficient for thee saith the Lord 2 Cor. 12. 9 Let thy grace be sufficient for me saith the soul of a praying Christian Get a Promise and thou hâ—st a great deal of cloath for prayer it lacks but cutting out 4. Stir up the grace of God that is in thee 1 By Meditation Meditation is the bellowes that sets grace a flaming Meditate upon the forementioned Subjects thy owne present condition Gods love and Promises add to them thy frequent past experiences the nature use necessity of maintaining intelligence with God in thy condition the nature use ends of an afflicted estate the Duties that God expects from thee in it and many more subjects of this or a like nature And thou wilt find it with thee as with David Psalm 39. 3. My heart was hot I mused the fire kindled then I spake with my tongue He was dumb before but the heart growes so full now it must needs out or 't will break for want of vent Set before thee as matters of Meditation the chapters and places of Scripture that have been penn'd by the Saints in thy condition 2 By frequent essayes Thou canst not pray How often hast thou tryed It may be once or twice and then grown weary Try again man and again and again till thou canst Some never work well till they are warm Obj. But I can say nothing Answ Then go and complain Lord I would pray but I can say nothing Then look out a Promise and turn it into a Prayer and if thou canst do no more rise again and anon fall to it again Thus children learn to spell read and write What if thou go three four twenty times together and be able to say but a few words those stil the same Christ did so in his Agony In such a case if thou hast a good form by thee of another mans I know not why at least the viewing if not use of it may not quicken the Spirit of Prayer in thee Câ—uâ—ches may help us when we are lame that hinder us when we are sound 3 If thou caust get a godly experienced friend to pray with thee discover thy case to him as well as thou canst and let him spread it before the Lord and labor thou to joyne with him Iron sharpneth iron so doth the face of a man his friend In such holy communion one prayer begets another Two lying together grow both warm Or get such friends to pray for thee 1 Cor. 1. 11. Paul acknowledgeth a great deal of help from the Corinthians prayers A diligent use of these means and frequent application of thy self to the use of them wil by degrees recover thy lost acquaintance with God again FINIS The Contents THe first Treatise concerning the Spirit of Bondage layes down these two Theses 1. That the convictions concussions and terrours which bring a sinner before conversion under a spiritual bondage to the sad apprehensions of the curse and wrath of God due to him by the Law because of the guilt of sinne are ordinarily the works of Gods blessed Spirit 2. That In order to the conversion of sinners it is the ordinary and usual way of the Holy Spirit of God to become thus a Spirit of Bondage before he becomes a Spirit of Adoption To the first of these way is made by a preface containing a brief explication and vindication of the meaning of the Apostle Paul Rom. 8. 15. where he makes mention of this Spirit of Bondage wherein I state this Question Quest What the Spirit of Bondage is in the Apostles sense and the fear that proceeds from it Chap. 1. The Thesis cleared 1. By shewing how this work as it is managed by the Spirit of God differs from a like work of Satan And in the close thereof 2. By enquiring whether this work always ends in conversion Chap. 2. A few words are added to prove it Chap. 3. Practical Corollaries from the Premises 1. By way of support Chap. 4. 2. By way of Caution in several branches 0 1. Not to harden the heart against the Spirits soft voyce 2. Not to mis-apprehend our own case under bondage 3. Not to judge others in that case 4. Not to break the Spirits bonds but by his leave whether it be 1. By profane or vain diversions and avocations of our hearts from being serious and through therein Chap. 5. 2. Or by over-greedy grasping after peace and comfort ere we are prepared for it Whence ariseth A Practical Question concerning the measures of humiliation necessarily required to conversion and comfort and concerning fitnesse of the soul for comfort Chap. 6. The 3. 4 5 6. Corolaries Viz. By way of exhortation By way of conviction of the true use of the ministry of the Law By way of plea for the frequent seeming peevishness of poor souls refusing comfort By way of humiliation to such as herein have formerly it may be frequently stifled convictions and fears c. 7. The second Thesis explained 1. By enquiring into the nature of the work of the Spirit of Bondage where conviction is described ch 8. 2. By assigning the means of this work ch 9. Evidence given of the Spirits usual working this way c. 10. Qu. Vpon what designes the Spirit most commonly workes in this method Discovered in twelve
loves thee Did he ever crush any soul under his feet that he did not kick into hel at last And no wonder if Satan when hee hath the command of all the Ports and Advenues of the soul wil let it receive no intelligence but what he pleaseth and use it to such daily objects as augment its Terrors if he raise such mists as hinder it from discerning any thing distinctly 4 Partly by taking the work out of the Spirits hand as sometimes he doth the Lord permitting it also for secret Reasons of his own And hereof I shal shew you some instances by which you may judg of his dealing in other the like cases 1 Many times the Spirit stirrs up the soul to examine its growth in and improvement of grace possibly upon occasion of some late notable delays and to endeavour a recovery of lost strength a quickning of what is ready to dye This motion being from the Spirit thus far now Satan takes it up and from felt barrennesse and deadnesse stirs up the soul farther to enquire afresh whether ever that were true grace that is now so barren whether such a tree had ever any life that manifests so little growth 2 Many times the Spirit sets home the consideration of some affliction and puts the soul upon enquiry why the Lord thus contends with it Now comes in Satan and alters the Question and puts the soul upon the enquiry Whether such afflictions may stand with Gods love or no 3 Many times the Spirit stirs up to repentance and recovery from grievous falls Satan takes up this work and puts the soul upon questioning whether ever it had any grace seeing there is yet in the heart a liableness to such great corruptions This I touched before Thus you see whence the terrors that surprize Saints after conversion and Assurance do arise and so the Thesis cleared from mistakes Proceed we now to the Application of it CHAP. XXXVI Saints convinced of folly in giving way to troubling thoughts after conversion and Assurance I. THerefore for Application 1 Hence the Saints of God may see how little Reason or Warrant they have to justifie themselves in admission of sâ—ulfetters after conversion but especially after Assurance 1 Will a man think it were a discreet act in himself to be afraid of every leaf that stirs and startle at every reed that shakes A wise man when he is in quiet possession of what he enjoyes will see good Authority ere he will be dispossessed upon any pretence whatsoever The Divel never brings a true Authority for the disturbance of any Saints peace I am bound to take notice of no Authority in matter of inward trouble and peace but that of Gods Spirit My Conscience is his Throne and I cannot answer it unto God if I permit Satan to usurp it I ought to be able to discover that counterfeit and oppose him though he come as an Angel of light how much more when he comes like a Prince of darknesse 2 What account can I give to the Spirit of God the Comforter for resigning so slightly the Garrisons of strength the grounds of gracious Assurance which he hath put into my hands Saints must make as much conscience of parting with their comforts without sufficient cause as of embezelling any thing else with which God intrusts them Friends we are accountable for our Comforts and therefore it will concern us not to be easily cheated of them They are precious things The joy of the Lord is our strength Nehem. 8. 10. If we betray our strength by losing our comforts how shall we answer the robbing God of so much service as he may lose from us thereby 3 How shall we answer the mischief that may accrew to others who used in troubles and distempers of mind to have recourse to our counsels and experiences See Job 4. 2 3 4 5 6. If I must not prodigally throw away my estate nay if I must labour with my hands that I may have to give the bodily food to him that needeth Certainly I must even in meer charity to others endeavour to maintain that spiritual joy which is their refreshment CHAP. XXXVII The way how to discard them THis also gives a standing Rule to us concerning the entertainment of soul-terrours after Conversion and Assurance If they have no warrant from the Spirit of God then why wilt thou entertain so much as a conference with them I think uncomfortable thoughts ought to be cast out without dispute as blasphemous and atheistical suggestions in some cases Q. But how far and in what cases may it be be lawful to reject such thoughts as tend to the questioning of Assurance formerly received without dispute For it seems the case of blasphemous and atheistical suggestions and these we are now speaking of differs very much Those being at first blush by any soul competently enlightned to be discerned to be contrary to the expresse word of God and so matters out of all dispute these it may be pretending ground from the Word and being in their own nature such as I am allowed to dispute A. It is true there is some difference between the matter of the suggestions themselves but yet as to mee and my case they may be in effect the same For I may by a preceding Assurance from the Spirit of God be as much ascertained that I am a child of God as I am that there is a God or concerning any other fundamentall point of Faith So that I may be very well allowed the same way of proceeding in the one case which I am prescribed in the other And I conceive I may doe so in these cases 1. When the present Doubts or Disputes concerning my condition are not handed to me in the way and method of divine motions Gods usuall way of putting the soul upon enquiry concerning its own condition to such as enjoy Ordinances being under the administration of them If therefore without any such ground whether from the private working of my own thoughts or from such injections as I can give no account of I begin after assurance to fall a questioning mine own condition I may wel fear the hand of Satan is in this and I may silence them for the present as coming to trouble my peace without a warrant As if an Arrest should be laid upon me out of the ordinary way of Law I may defend my self by force or escape by sleight and the Law will judg me in so doing to have done no more then what I might lawfully do 2 When the present Dispute concerning my state and condition is imposed upon me under such circumstances as render it unlikely to be managed candidly cleerly and impartially so that there is no likelyhood but it should rather end in confusion and further disturbance then peace and solid satisfaction If I should be provoked to dispute with an adversary concerning such or such a point at a time when I am not furnished with such helps