of age of ignorance or of knowledge and those which proceed from your Legal unworthiness have all a present Remedy in the fullness and sufficiency of Christs satisfaction even for all the world so that no sin except the excepted sin is so great but it is fully satisfied for and though you are unworthy yet Christ is worthy and he came into the world to save only the unworthy in the strict and Legal sense 4. All your doubts and fears that arise from an apprehension of Gods unwillingness to shew you Mercy and to give you Christ and Life in him arise from the misapprehension of Christs unwillingness to be yours or at least from the uncertainty of his willingness these have all a sufficient Remedy in the general extent and tenour of the New Covenant Can you doubt whether God be willing to give you Christ and Life when he hath given them already even by a Deed of Guift under his hand and by a Law of Grace 1 Joh. 5.10 11 12. Object But yet all are not Pardoned nor possessed of Christ and so saved Answ I told you that is because they will not so that I pray you mark it well God hath in these four Means before mentioned given even to the Graceless so much Ground of Comfort that nothing but their unwillingness to have Christ is left to be their terror For though sin be not Actually Remitted to them yet is it Conditionally Remitted viz. if they will but accept of Christ offered them Will you remember this when your doubts are greatest and you conclude that certainly Christs is not yours because you have no true Grace Suppose it be true Yet still know that Christ may be yours if you will and when you will This Comfort you may have when you can finde no Evidences of true Grace in your self So much for that Direction DIRECTION VIII 8. The next thing that you have to do for building up a stable Comfort and setling your Conscience in a solid Peace is this Be sure to get and keep a right Understanding of the Nature of Saving Faith AS you must have right thoughts of the Covenant of Grace of which before the want whereof doth puzzle and confound very many Christians so you must be sure to have right thoughts of the Condition of the Covenant For indeed that Grace which causeth you to perform this Condition is your first special saving Grace which you may take as a certain evidence of your Justification And this Condition is the very link which conjoyneth all the General foregoing Grace to all the rest of the following special Grace The Scripture is so full and plain in Assuring pardon and salvation to all true Believers that if you can but be sure that you are a Believer you need not make any doubt of your interest in Christ and your salvation Seeing therefore that all the question will be Whether you have true Faith Whether you do perform the Condition of the new Covenant For all other doubts God hath given you sufficient ground to resolve as is said how much then doth it concern you to have a right understanding of the Nature of this Faith Which that you may have let me tell you briefly what it is Mans soul hath two faculties Understanding and Will Accordingly the Objects of mans soul all Beings which it is to Receive have two Modifications Truth and Goodness as those to be Avoided are Evil. Accordingly God 's Word or Gospel hath two parts the Revelation of Truth and the Offer and Promise of some Good This offered Good is principally and immediatly Christ himself to be joyned to us by Covenant as our head and husband The secondary consequential Good is Pardon Justification Reconciliation Adoption further Sanctification and Glorification which are all offered with Christ By this you may see what saving Faith is It is first a Believing that the Gospel is True and then an Accepting of Christ therein offered to us with his benefits or a consenting that he be ours and we be his which is nothing but a true willingness to have an offered Christ Remember this well that you may make use of it when you are in doubt of the truth of your Faith Thousands of poor souls have been in the dark and unable to see themselves to be Believers meerly for want of knowing what saving Faith is And it is a truth that cannot be hid that Divines who should have taught them better have been the great cause of their errour not well and cleerly understanding this themselves It is a shamefull confession but the world knoweth it already The Papists place almost all in the meer Assent of the Understanding Our great Reformers made it to be either an Assurance of the pardon of our own sins or a strong perswasion of their pardon excluding doubting or the moderatest a perswasion of our particular pardon though mixt with some doubting The Antinomians strike in with them and say the same Hence even the greatest of our Divines Chamier Polanus Twisse c. conclude that Justification and Remission go before faith a desperate errour because the Act doth alway suppose its object For they thought that Remission already past was the object of Justifying Faith supposing faith to be nothing else but a Belief that we are pardoned Yea ordinarily it hath been taught in the writings of our greatest refuters of the Papists That this Belief is properly a Divine faith or the Belief of a Divine Testimony as is the Believing of any Proposition written in the Scriture a foul error which I have confuted in my book of Rest Part. 3. Chap. 7. Most of late have come neerer the truth and affirmed Justifying Faith to consist in Affiance or Recumbency or Resting on Christ for salvation No doubt this is one Act of Justifying faith but not that which a poor troubled soul should first search after and try it self by except by Affiance any should mean as Amesius doth Election of Christ and then it is the same act which I am asserting but very unfitly exprest For 1. Affiance is not the Principal act nor that wherein the very life of Justifying faith doth consist but only an imperate following act and an effect of the vital act which is Consent or Willing or Accepting Christ offered for it lyeth mainly in that which we call the sensitive part or the Passions of the soul 2. It is therefore lesse constant and so unfitter to try by For many a poor soul that knowes it self unfeignedly willing to have Christ yet feeleth not a Resting on him or Trusting in him and therefore crys out O I cannot believe and think they have no Faith For Recumbency Affiance or Resting on Christ implieth that easing of themselves or casting off their fears or doubts or cares which true believers do not alwayes finde Many a poor soul complains O I cannot rest on Christ I cannot trust him who yet would have him to be their Lord and
Saviour and can easily be convinced of their willingness 3. Besides Affiance is not the Adequate act of faith suited to the object in that fullness as it must be Received but Willingness or Acceptance is Christ is Rested on only for our selves as our Deliverer but he is Accepted also for Himself as our Lord and Master The full proof of these I have performed in other Writings and oft in your hearing in publike and therefore omit them now Be sure then to fix this truth deep in your minde That Justifying faith is not an Assurance of our Justification no nor a perswasion or belief that we are Justified or pardoned or that Christ died more for us then for others nor yet is Affiance or Resting on Christ the vital principal certain constant full act but it is the Understandings belief of the truth of the Gospel and the Will 's Acceptance of Christ and Life offered to us therein which Acceptance is but the hearty Consent or Willingness that he be yours and you his This is the Faith which must Justifie and save you Object But 1. May not wicked men be Willing to have Christ 2. And do not you oft tell us that Justifying faith comprehendeth Love to Christ and Thankfulness and that it receiveth him as a Lord to be obeyed as well as a Deliverer and that Repentance and sincere Obedience are parts of the Condition of the new Covenant Answ I will give as brief a touch now on these as may be because I have handled them in sitter places 1. Wicked men are willing to have Remission Justification and freedom from hell for no man can be willing to be unpardoned or to be damned But they are not willing to have Christ himself in that nature and office which he must be Accepted that is As a holy Head and Husband to save them both from the Guilt and Power and all defilement and abode of sin and to Rule them by his Law and Guide them by his Spirit and to make them happy by bringing them to God that being without sin they may be perfectly Pleasing and Amiable in his sight and enjoy him forever Thus is Christ offered and thus to be accepted of all that will be saved and thus no wicked man will accept him but when he ceaseth to be wicked 2. To cut all the rest short in a word I say That in this fore-described Willingness or Acceptance Repentance Love Thankfulness Resolution to obey are all contained or neerly implyed as I have elsewhere manifested so that the Heart of saving faith is this Acceptance of Christ or Willingness to have him to Justifie Sanctifie Guide and Govern you Finde but this Willingness and you finde all the rest whether you expresly see them or not So much for that Direction DIRECTION IX 9. Having thus far proceeded in discovering and improving the General Grounds of Comfort and then in discovering the Nature of Faith which gives you Right to the special Mercies of the Covenant following it Your next work must be To perform this Condition by actual Believing YOur soul stands in extreme need of a Saviour God offereth you a Saviour in the Gospel what then have you next to do but Accept him Believe that this offer is general and therefore to you and that Christ is not set to sale nor doth God require you to bring a Price in your hand but only heartily and thankfully to Accept of what he freely giveth you This must be done before you fall on trying your Graces to get Assurance for you must have Grace before you can discover it and this is the first proper special saving Grace as it comprizeth that knowledge and Assent which necessarily go before it This is not only the method for those that yet never believed but also for them that have lost the sense of their faith and so the sight of their evidence Believe again that you may know you do believe or at least may possesse an Accepted Saviour When God in the Gospel bids you Take Jesus Christ and beseecheth you to be reconciled to him what will you say to him If your heart answer Lord I am willing I will Accept of Christ and be thankfull why then the match is made between Christ and you and the marriage Covenant is truly entered which none can dissolve If Christ were not first willing he would not be the suitor and make the motion and if he be willing and you be willing what can break the match If you will say I cannot believe if you understand what you say either you mean that you cannot believe the Gospel is true or else that you cannot be willing that Christ should be yours If it be the former and you speak truly then you are a flat Infidel yet many temptations to doubt of the truth of Scripture a true believer may have yea and actual doubtings but his faith prevaileth and is victorious over them But if you really doubt whether the Gospel be true use Gods means for the discovery of its truth Read what I have written in the second part of my book of Rest I will undertake now more confidently then ever I did to prove the truth of Scripture by plain full undeniable force of Reason But I suppose this is none of your case If therefore when you say that you cannot believe you mean that you cannot Accept an offered Christ or be willing to have him then I demand 1. What is your reason the Will is lead by the Reason of the Understanding If you be not willing there is something that perswades you to be unwilling This Reason must be from something reall or else upon a mistake upon supposal of something that is not in being If it be upon mistake either it is that you be not convinced of Christs willingness to be yours and if you thought he did consent you would consent willingly If this be it you do truly believe while you think you do not for you do consent and that 's all on your part to make the match and Christ doth certainly consent though you do not understand it In this case it concerneth you to understand better the extent of the new Covenant and then you will be past doubt of the willingness of Christ and see that wherever the match breaks it is only for want of consent in men for Christ is the first suitor and hath long ago in the Covenant proclaimed his consent to be the Head and Husband of every sinner on condition they will but consent to be his If your mistake be from any false apprehension of the Nature of Christ as if he were not a sufficient Saviour or were such an enemy to your comfort that he would do you more hurt then good if these mistakes are prevalent then you do not know Christ and therefore must presently better study him in the Gospel till you have prevailed over such ignorant and blasphemous conceits but none of this I suppose is
from Principles that are known by the meer Light and help of Nature and from the Knowledge of Conclusions which by Reasoning we gather from those Principles Though yet one and the same thing may be Known as Revealed in Nature and Believed as Revealed Immediatly of Supernaturally And so we both Know and Believe that there is one onely God who made and preserveth All things 4. But our Assurance is an Act of Knowledge participating of Faith and internal sense or Knowledge reflect For Divine Faith saith He that Believeth is Justified and shall be Saved Internal sense and knowledge of our selves saith But I Believe Reason or Discursive Knowledge saith Therefore I am Justified and shall be saved Only I must advise you that you be not troubled when you meet with that which is contrary to this in any great Divines For it is only our former Divines whose Judgements were partly hurt by hot Disputations with the Papists herein and partly not come to that maturity as others since them have had opportunity to do And therefore in their expositions of the Creed and such like passages in the Text they eagerly insist on it that when we say We Believe the Forgiveness of sin and Life everlasting every man is to profess that he Believeth that his own sinnes are forgiven and he shall have Life everlasting himself But our later Divines and specially the English and most especially these that deal most in Practicals do see the mistake and lay down the same doctrine which I teach you here God bids us not Believe as from him more then he hath revealed But only one of the Propositions is revealed by Gods Testimony He that Believeth shall be Saved But it is no where written that You do Believe nor that You shall be Saved nor any thing equivalent And therefore you are not commanded to Believe either of these How the Spirit revealeth these I have fully told you already In our Creed therefore we do profess to Believe Remission of sinnes to be Purchased by Christs death and in his Power to give and Given in the Gospel to All on Condition of Believing in Christ himself for Remission But not to Believe that our own sinnes are Actually and Fully Pardoned My end in telling you this again which I have told you elsewhere is this That you may not think as I finde abundance of poor troubled souls to do that Faith much less justifying Faith is a Believing that you have true Grace and shall be saved And so fall a condemning your self unjustly every time that you doubt of your own Sincerity and think that so much as you doubt of this so much unbelief you have and so many poor souls complain that they have no faith or but little and that they cannot Believe because they Believe not their own Faith to be Sincere and when they wholly judge themselves unsanctified then they call that Desperation which they think to be a sinne inconsistent with true Grace These are dangerous Errours all arising from that one Errour which the heat of contention did carry some good men to that Faith is a Belief that our sinnes are forgiven by Christ Indeed all men are bound to apply Christ and the Promise to themselves But that application consisteth in a Belief that this Promise is true as belonging to all and so to me and then in Acceptance of Christ and his benefits as an offered gift and after this in Trusting on him for the full performance of his Promise Hence therefore you may best see what Unbelief and Desperation are and how farre men may charge themselves with them When you doubt whether the Promise be True or when you refuse to Accept Christ and his Benefits offered in it and consequently to Trust him as one that is Able and Willing to save you if you do Assent to his Truth and Accept him this is Unbelief But if you do Believe the Truth of the Gospel and are heartily Willing to Accept Christ as offered in it and only Doubt whether your Belief and Acceptance of him be sincere and so whether you shall be saved this is not Unbelief but ignorance of your own Sincerity and its consequents Nay and though that Affiance be wanting which is a part of Faith yet it is but a hindering of the exercise of it for want of a necessary concomitant condition for the Grace of Affiance in the Habit and Virtually is there so that it is not formally Distrust or Unbelief any more then your not Trusting God in your sleep is Distrust If a friend do Promise to give you a hundred pound on condition that you thankfully Accept it If you now do Believe him and do thankfully Accept it but yet through some vain scruple shall think My thankefulness is so small that it is not sincere and therefore I doubt I do not perform his condition and so shall never have the gift In this case now you do Believe your friend and you do not Distrust him properly but you Distrust your self that you perform not the condition and this hindreth the exercise of that Confidence or Affiance in your friend which is habitually and virtually in you Just so is it in our present case The same may be said of Desperation which is a Privation of Hope When we have Believed the Truth of the Gospel and Accepted Christ offered we are then bound to Hope that God will give us the Benefits promised So hope is nothing but A Desirous expectation of the good so promised and believed Now if you begin to Distrust whether God will make good this promise or no either thinking that it is not True or he is not able or hath changed his minde since the making of it and on these grounds you let go your Hopes this is Despair If because that Christ seems to Delay his coming we should say I have waited in Hope till now but now I am out of Hope that ever Christ will come to Judge the world and Glorifie Believers I will expect it no longer this is Despair And it hath its several Degrees more or less as unbelief hath Indeed the Schoolmen say that Affiance is nothing but strengthened Hope Affiance in the properest sense is the same in substance with Hope only it more expresseth a Respect to the Promise and Promiser and indeed is Faith and Hope exprest both together in one word So that what I said before of Distrust is true of Despair If you do continue to Believe the Truth of the Gospel and particularly of Christs coming and glorifying his Saints and yet you think he will not glorifie you because you think that you are not a true Believer or Saint This is not Desperation in the proper sense For Desperation is the privation of Hope where the formal cause the heart and life of it is wanting But you have here Hope in the Habit and Virtually do Hope in Christ but the Act of it as to your own
perfectly sanctified and rid of that body of sin though it were to the smart and displeasing of your flesh Are you not willing to wait on God in the use of his Ordinances in that poor weak measure as you are able to perform them Durst you or would you quit your part in God Heaven Christ and forsake the way of Holiness and do as the prophane world doth though it were to please your flesh or save your state or life Do not you daily strive against the flesh and keep it under and deny it its desires Do you not deny the world when it would hinder you from works of Mercy or publique Good according to your ability Is it not the grief of your soul when you fall and your greatest trouble that you cannot walk more obediently innocently and fruitfully and do you not after sinning Resolve to be more watchfull for the time to come Are you not resolved to stick to Christ and his holy Laws and Waies whatever changes or dangers come and rather to forsake friends and all that you have then to forsake him Yet in a godly jealousie and distrust of your own heart do renounce your own strength and resolve to do this only in the strength of Christ and therefore daily beg it of him Is it not your daily care and business to please God and do his will and avoid sinning in your weak measure I hope that all this is so and your own case which if it be you have Infallible Evidences and want but the sight and comfort of them You have the true grounds for Assurance though you want Assurance it self Your chief danger is over though your trouble remain Your soul is at the present in a safe condition though not in the sense of it You are in the state of salvation though not of consolation It must be your next work therefore to study Gods Mercies and take notice what he hath done for your soul Let not so blessed a guest as the holy Ghost dwell in you unobserved Shall he do such wonders in you and for you and you not know it or acknowledge it Shall he new beget you and new make you and produce a spiritual heavenly nature in you who of your self were so carnal and earthly and will you not observe it Had you any of these holy desires endeavors or resolutions of your self by nature Or have the ungodly about you any of them O that you knew what a Work of wonderfull Mercy Wisdom and Power the Spirit performeth in the renewing of a soul then sure you would more observe and admire his Love to you herein DIRECTION XII 12. The next Rule for your Direction for the right setling of your Peace is this You must know that Assurance of Justification Adoption and right to Salvation cannot be gathered from the smallest degree of Saving Grace HEre I must say something for explaining my meaning to you 2. And then give you my Reasons of this Assertion 1. Understand that I speak of Gods ordinary working by means not denying but God may by a voice from Heaven or an Angel or other supernatural Revelation bestow Assurance on whom he pleaseth But I hope all wise Christians will take heed of expecting this or of trusting too much to seeming Revelations unless they could prove that God useth to conferre Assurance in this way which I think they cannot 2. By the smallest degree of Grace I mean of Faith Love Obedience and those saving Graces whose acts are the condition of our Salvation and which in the fore-expressed Marks I laid down to you Do not therefore so farre mistake me as to think that I speak of a small measure of those common Gifts which are separable from true Sanctification such as are extensive Knowledge Memory Ability of Utterance in Preaching Repeating Exhorting or Praying An ornate plausible winning deportment before men such as is commonly called Good breeding or Manners An affected humble complementall familiarity and condescension to creep into mens estimation and affections and steal their hearts c. Many a one that is strong in saving Grace is weak in all these and other the like Now for my Reasons 1. I conceive that it is not possible for any Minister punctually to set down a discernable difference between the least measure of True saving Grace and the highest degree of common Grace and to say Just here it is that they part or by this you may discern them I do but say I think so because other men may know farre more then I do But I will say it as certain that I am not able to do it for my own part This much I can tell that the least degree of Grace that is saving doth determine the soul for God and Christ against the world and flesh that stand as Competitors and so where Christs interest prevaileth in the least measure there is the least measure of saving Grace As when you are weighing two things in the balance and at last make it so near evenweight that one end is turned and no more so when you are considering whether to be for Christ or for the flesh and the world and your Will is but even a very little Determined to Christ and preferreth him this is the least measure of saving Grace But then how a poor soul should discern this prevalent choice and determination of it self is all the Question For there is nothing more easie and common then for men to think verily that they preferre Christ above the creature as long as no temptation doth assault them nor sensual objects stand up in any cosiderable strength to entice them Nay wicked men do truly oft times purpose to obey Christ before the flesh and to take him for their Lord meerly in the general when they do not know or consider the quality of his Laws that they are so strict and spiritual and contrary to the flesh and hazardous to their worldly hopes and seeming-happiness But when it comes to particulars and God saith Now deny thy self and thy friend and thy goods and thy life for my sake alas it was never his Resolution to do it nor will he be perswaded to it But he that said to God who sends him to labour in his Vineyard I go Sir when he comes to finde the unpleasingness of the Work he goes not or never sets a hand to it So that it is evident that it is no true saving Resolution or Willingness which prevaileth not for actual Obedience Now here comes in the unresolvable Doubt What is the least Measure of Obedience that will prove a man truly Willing and Resolved or to have truly Accepted of Christ for his Lord This obedience lieth in Performing what is commanded and Avoiding what is forbidden Now it is too certain that every true Believer is guilty of a frequent neglect of Duty yea of known Duty We know we should Love God more abundantly and Delight in him and Meditate more on him and
Passions by sanctifying Grace and by putting both Promises and dreadful Threatnings into his word I say if God by all these means hath given you several motives to obedience take heed of separating them Do not once ask your heart such a question Whether it would obey if there were no Threatning and s no â—ear Nor on the otherside do not let Fear do all without Love Doubtless the more Love constraineth to duty the better it is and you should endeavour with all your might that you might feel more of the force of Love in your duties But do you not mark how you cherish that Corruption that you complain of Your Doubts and Tormenting Fears are the things that Love should cast out Why then do you entertain them If you say I cannot help it why then do you cherish them and own them and plead and dispute for them and say you do well to Doubt and you have Cause Will this ever cast out Tormenting Fears Do you not know that the way to cast them out is not to maintain them by distrustful thoughts or words but to see their sinfulness and abhor them and to get more high thoughts of the Lovingkindness of God and the tender mercies of the Redeemer and the unspeakable Love that he hath manifested in his sufferings for you that so the Love of God may be more advanced and powerful in your soul and may be able to cast out your Tormenting Fears Why do you not do this instead of Doubting If Tormenting Fears and Doubtings be a sin why do you not make Conscience of them and bewail it that you have been so guilty of them Will you therefore Doubt because you have slavish fears Why that is to Doubt because you Doubt and to Fear because you Fear and so to sin still because you have sinned Consider well of the folly of this course DOUBT VII BVT I am not able to Believe and without Faith there is no pleasing God nor hope of salvation I fear Vnbelief will be my ruine ANSWER 1. I Have answered this Doubt fully before It is grounded on a Mistake of the Nature of true Faith You think that Faith is the Believing that you are in Gods favour and that you are Justified but properly this is no Faith at all but onely Assurance which is sometimes a fruit of Faith and sometimes never in this life obtained by a Believer Faith consisteth of two parts 1. Assent to the Truth of the Word 2. Acceptance of Christ as he is offered Which immediatly produceth a Trusting on Christ for salvation and a Consent to be Governed by him and Resolution to obey him which in the fullest sense are also acts of Faith Now do not you Believe the truth of the Gospel And do you not Accept of Christ as he is offered therein If you are truly willing to have Christ as he is offered I dare say you are a true Believer If you be not willing for shame never complain Men use rather to speak against those that they are unwilling of then complain of their absence and that they cannot enjoy them 2. However seeing you complain of unbelief in the Name of God do not cherish it and plead for it and by your own cogitations fetch in daily matter to feed it but do more in detestation of it as well as complain DOUBT VIII BVt I am a stranger to the witness of the spirit and the Joy of the Holy Ghost and Communion with God and therefore how can I be a true Believer ANSWER 1. FEeding your Doubts and Perplexities and arguing for them is not a means to get the Testimony and Joy of the Spirit but rather studying with all Saints to know the Love of Christ which passeth knowledge to comprehend the height and bredth and length and depth of his Love and seeking to understand the things that are given you of God Acknowledge Gods general Love to Mankind both in his Gracious Nature and Common Providences and Redemption by Christ and deny not his Special Mercies to your self but dwell in the study of the Riches of Grace and that 's the way to come to the Joy of the Holy Ghost 2. I have told you before what the witness of the Spirit is and what is the ordinary mistake herein If you have the Graces and holy operations of the Spirit you have the witness of the Spirit whether you know it or not 3. If by your own doubtings you have deprived your self of the Joy of the Holy Ghost bewail it and do so no more but do not therefore say you have not the Holy Ghost For the Holy Ghost often works Regeneration and Holiness before he works any sensible Joys 4. You have some hope of salvation by Christ left in you You be not yet in utter despair And is it no Comfort to you to think that you have yet any Hope and are not quite past all Remedy It may be your sorrows may so cloud it that you take no notice of it but I know you cannot have the least Hope without some answerable Comfort And may not that Comfort â—e truly the Joy of the Holy Ghost 5. And for Communion with God let me ask you Have you no recourse to him by Prayer in your straits Do you not wait at his mouth for the Law and direction of your life Have you received no holy desires or other Graces from him Nay are you sure that you are not a member of Christ who is one with him How can you then say that you have no Communion with him Can there be Communication of Prayer and Obedience from you yea your own self delivered up to Christ and a Communication of any life of Grace from God by Christ and the Spirit and all this without Communion It cannot be Many a soul hath most near Communion with Christ that knows it not DOUBT IX I Have not the spirit of prayer When I should pour out my soul to God I have neither bold access nor matter of Prayer nor Words ANSWER DO you know what the spirit of Prayer is It containeth 1. Desires of the soul after the things we want especially Christ and his Graces 2. An addressing our selves to God with these Desires that we may have help and relief from him Have not you both these Do you not Desire Christ and Grace Justification and Sanctification Do you not look to God as him who alone is able to supply your wants and bids you ask that you may receive Do you utterly despair of help and to seek to none Or do you make your addresses by Prayer to any but God But perhaps you look at words and matter to dilate upon that you may be able to hold out in a long speech to God and you think that is the effect of the spirit of Prayer But where do you find that in Gods Word I confess that in many and most the spirit which helpeth to Desires doth also help to some kind of
use of Infallible signs of Sincerity and take not those for certain which are not ANd to that end remember what I said before that you must well understand wherein the Nature of saving Faith and so of all saving Grace doth consist And when you understand this write it down in two or three lines and both at your first trial and afterward when ever any doubts do drive you to a Review of your Evidences still have recourse only to those Signs and try by them What these Signs are I have shewed you so fully in the forecited place in my book of Rest that I shall say but little now Remember that Infallible signs are very few and that whatsoever is made the condition of salvation that is the most Infallible evidence of our salvation and therefore the fittest Mark to try by And therefore Faith in God the Father and the Redeemer is the main Evidence But because I have elsewhere shewed you that this Faith is comprehensive of Love Gratitude Resolution to Obey and Repentance let me more particularly open it to help you in the Triall To prove any Grace to be saving it is necessary that you prove that salvation is fully promised to him that hath it Now if you will know what it is that hath this promise I will tell you 1. As to the Object 2. The Act. 3. The degree or modification of the Act. For all these three must be enquired after if you will get Assurance 1. The Object is principally God and the Redeemer Christ And secondarily the Benefits given by Christ and under that the means to attain the principal Benefits c. 2. The Act hath many Names drawn from Respective and Modall differences in the Object as Faith Desire Love choosing Accepting Receiving Consenting c. But properly all are comprised in one word Willing The Understandings high estimation of God and Christ and Grace is a Principal part of true saving Grace but yet it is difficult and scarce possible to judge of your self by it rightly but only as it discovers it self by prevailing with the Will 3. The Degree of this Act must be such as ordinarily prevaileth against its contrary I mean both the contrary Object and the contrary Act to the same Object But because I doubt School-termes do obscure my meaning to you though they are necessary for exactness I will express the nature of saving Grace in two or three Marks as plain as I can 1. Are you heartily willing to take God for your Portion and had you rather Live with him in Glory in his favour and fullest Love with a soul perfectly cleansed from all sin and never more to offend him Rejoicing with his Saints in his everlasting praises than to enjoy the delights of the flesh on earth in a way of sin and without the favour of God 2. Are you heartily willing to take Jesus Christ as he is offered in the Gospel that is to be your only Saviour and Lord to give you pardon by his bloudshed and to sanctifie you by his Word and Spirit and to govern you by his Laws Because this General containeth and implieth several Particulars I will express them distinctly Here it is supposed that you know this much following of the nature of his Laws For to be Willing to be Ruled by his Laws in General and utterly Unwilling when it comes to particulars is no true Willingness or subjection 1. You must know that his Laws reach both to heart and outward actions 2. That they command a holy spiritual heavenly life 3. That they command things so cross and unpleasing to the flesh that the flesh will be still murmuring and striving against obedience Particularly 1. They command things quite cross to the inclinations of the flesh as to forgive Wrongs to Love Enemies to forbear Malice and Revenge to restrain and mortifie Lust and Passion to abhor and mortifie Pride and be low in our own eyes and humble and meek in spirit 2. They command things that cross the interest of the flesh and its inclination both together I mean which will deprive it of its enjoyments and bring it to some suffering As to perform Duties even when they lay us open to disgrace and shame and reproach in the world and to deny our credit rather then forsake Christ or our duty to obey Christ in doing what he commandeth us though it would hazard or certainly lose our wealth friends liberty and life it self forsaking all rather then to forsake him to give to the poor and other good uses and that liberally according to our abilities to deny the flesh all forbidden pleasures and make not provision to satisfie its lusts but to crucifie the flesh with the affections and lusts thereof and in this combate to hold on to the end and to overcome These are the Laws of Christ which you must know before you can determine whether you are indeed unfeignedly willing to obey them Put therefore these further questions to your self for the trial of your willingness to be ruled by Christ according to his Laws 3. Are you heartily willing to live in the performance of those holy and spiritual Duties of heart and life which God hath absolutely commanded you and are you heartily sorry that you perform them no better with no more cheerfulness delight success and constancy 4. Are you so throughly convinced of the worth of everlasting Happiness and the intollerableness of everlasting misery and the truth of both and of the soveraignty of God the Father and Christ the Redeemer and your many engagements to him and of the necessity and good of obeying and the evil of sinning that you are truly willing that is have a setled resolution to cleave tâ— Christ and obey him in the deerest most disgracefull painfull hazardous flesh-displeasing Duties even though it should cost you the loss of all your worldly enjoyments and your life 5. Doth this willingness or resolution already so far prevail in your heart and life against all the Interest and Temptations of the world the devil and your flesh that you do ordinarily practise the most strict and holy the most self-denying costly and hazardous duties that you know God requireth of you and do heartily strive against all known sin and overcome all gross sins and when you fall under any prevailing temptation do rise again by Repentance and begging pardon of God through the bloud of Christ do resolve to watch and resist more carefully for the time to come In these five Marks is expressed the Gospel-description of a true Christian Having laid down these Marks I must needs add a few words for the explaining of some things in them least you mistake the meaning and so lose the benefit of them 1. Observe that it is your willingness which is the very Point to be tried And therefore 1. Judge not by your bare knowledge 2. Judge not by the stirrings or passionate workings of your Affections â— pray you forget not
when the shaking winde of that stormy temptation is over the soul will return to Christ by Repentance Love and renewed Obedience But then to know what state he is Relatively in this while as to his Justification and Reconciliation and right to Glory is the point of exceeding difficulty Whether as we distinguish of Habitual Faith and Love and Obedience which he hath not lost and Actual which he hath lost so we must make some answerable distinction of Justification Habitual and Actual it cannot be into Virtual Justification which he hath not lost and Actual Justification which he hath lost or into Plenary Justification which he hath not and Imperfect Justification wanting a further Act to make it Plenary which may remain But still it will be more difficult to shew punctually what this Imperfect or Virtual Justification is and most difficult to shew Whether with the loss of Actual Plenary Justification and the loss of a Plenary Right to Heaven a mans salvation may consist that is Whether if he should die in that condition he should be saved or condemned Or if it be said that he shall certainly repent 1. Yet such a supposition may be put while he yet repenteth not for the enquiry into his state How farre there is any intercision of his Justification Pardon Adoption or Right to salvation 2. And whether it can fully be proved that it is impossible or that which never was or shall be for a Regenerate man to die in the very act of a gross sinne as self-murder or the like For my part I think God hath purposely left us here in the dark that we may not be too bold in sinning but may know that whether the gross sins of Believers be such as destroy their Justification and right to Glory prevalently or not yet certainly they leave them in the dark as to any Certainty of their Justification or Salvation And then more dark is it and impossible to discover How farre a man may go in these grosser sinnes and yet have the prevalent habits of Grace As to the former Question about the intercision of Justification I am somewhat inclinable to think that the habit of Faith hath more to do in our Justification then I have formerly thought and may as properly be said to be the condition as the act and that as long as a man is in a prevalent degree habitually a Believer he is not only imperfectly and virtually Justified but so farre actually Justified that he should be saved though he were cut off before he actually Repent And that he being already habitually Penitent having a hatred of all sin as sin should be saved if meer want of opportunity do prevent the Act And that only those sinnes do bring a man into a state of condemnation or prove him in such which consist not with the Habitual Preheminence of Christs interest in our souls above the interest of the flesh and world And that David's and Peter's were such as did consist with the preheminence of Christs interest in the habit But withall that such gross sinnes must needs be observable and so the soul that is guilty doth ordinarily know its guilt yea and think of it And that it is inconsistent with this habitual Repentance not to Repent actually as soon as Time is afforded and the violence of passion so farre allaied as that the soul may recollect it self and Reason have its free use And that he that hath this leasure and opportunity for the free use of Reason and yet doth not Repent it is a sign that the interest of the flesh is habitually as well as actually stronger then Christs interest in him I say in this doubtfull case I am most inclining to judge thus But as I would have no man take this as my resolved Judgement much less as certain Truth and least of all to venture on sinne or impenitency ever the more for such a doubtfull opinion which doth not conclude him to be certainly unjustified so I am utterly ignorant both how long sensual passions may possibly rage and keep the soul from sober Consideration or how farre they may interpose in the very time of Consideration and frustrate it and prevail against it and so keep the sinner from actual Repenting or at least from a full ingenuous acknowledgement and bewailing of the sin which is necessary to full Repentance and how long Repentance may be so farre stifled as to remain only in some inward grudgings of conscience and trouble of minde hindered from breaking out into free Confession which seemeth to have been David's case long Nay it is impossible to know just how long a man may live in the very practice of such gross sin before Christs habitual Interest above the flesh be either overthrown or proved not to be there and how oft a man that hath true Grace may commit such sins These things are undiscernable besides that none can punctually define a gross sin so as to exclude every degree of Infirmities and include every degree of such gross sin Perhaps you will marvell why I run so farre in this Point It is both to give you as much light as I can what sins they be which be to be called Infirmities and so what sins they be that do forbid that gentle comforting way of cure when the soul is troubled for them which must be used with those that are troubled more then needs or upon mistakes and also to convince you of this weighty Truth That Our Comfort yea and Assurance hath a great dependance on our actual obedience yea so great that the least obedient sort of sincere Christians cannot by ordinary means have any Assurance and the most obedient if other necessaries concurre will have thâ— most Assurance and for the middle sort their Assurance will rise and fall ordinarily with their obedience so that there 's no way to comfort such offending Christians but by reducing them to fuller obedience by Faith and Repentance that so the evidences of their Justification may be clear and the great impediments of their Assurance and Comfort be removed This I will yet make clearer to you by its Reasons and then tell you how to apply it to your self 1. No man can be sure of his salvation or Justification but he that is sure of his true Faith and Love And no man can be sure of his true Faith and Love but he that is sure of the sincerity of his obedience For true Faith doth ever take God for our great Soveraign and Christ for our Lord-Redeemer and containeth a Covenant-delivery of a mans self to God and the Redeemer to be Ruled by him as a Subject Childe Servant and Spouse This is not done sincerely and savingly unless there be an actual and habitual Resolution to obey God and the Redeemer before all creatures and against all temptations that would draw us from him To obey Christ a little and the flesh more is no true obedience If the flesh can