those things that are not seen Or you may take the sense in this Proposition which I am next to open further and apply viz. That the nature and use of faith is to be as it were instead of presence possession and sight or to make the things that will be as if they were already in existence and the things unseen which God revealeth as if our bodily eyes beheld them 1. Not that faith doth really change its object 2. Nor doth it give the same degree of apprehensions and affections as the sight of present things would do But 1. Things invisible are the objects of our faith 2. And Faith is effectual instead of sight to all these uses 1. The apprehension is as infallible because of the objective certainty though not so satisfactory to our imperfect souls as if the things themselves were seen 2. The will is determined by it in its necessary consent and choice 3. The affections are moved in the necessary dâ—gree 4. It ruleth in our lives and bringeth us through duty and suffering for the sake of the happiness which we believe 3. This Faith is a grounded wise and justifiable act an infallible knowlâ—dge and often called so in Scripture John 6.69 1 Cor. 15.58 Rom. 8.28 c. And the constitutive and efficient causes will justifie the Name We know and are infallibly sure of the truth of God which we believe As it 's said John 6.69 We believe and are sure that thou art that Christ the Son of the living God 2 Cor. 5.1 We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the Hâ—avens Rom. 8.28 We know that all things work together for good to them that love God 1 Cor. 15.58 You know that your labour is nâ—t in vain in the Lord Joh. 9.29 We knâ—w God spake to Moses c. 31. We know God heareth not sinners John 3.2 We know thou art a Teacher come from God So 1 John 3.5 15. 1 Pet. 3.17 and many other Scriptures tell you that Believing God is a certain infallible sort of knowledge I shall in justification of the work of Faith acquaint you briefly with 1. That in the Nature of it 2. And that in the causing of it which advanceth it to be an infallible knowledge 1. The Believer knows as sure as he knows there is a God that God is true and his Word is true it being impossible for God to lie Hâ—b 6.18 God that cannot lie hath promised Titus 1.2 2. He knows that the holy Scripture is the Word of God by his Image which it beareth and the many evidences of Divinity which it containeth and the many Miracles certainly proved which Christ and his Spirit in his servants wrought to confirm the truth 3. And therefore he knoweth assuredly the conclusion that all this Word of God is true And for the surer effecting of this knowledge God doth not only set before us the ascertaining Evidence of his own veracity and the Scriptures Divinity but moreover 1. He giveth us to believe Phil. 1.29 2 Pet. 1.3 For it is not of our selves but is the gift of God Ephes 2.8 Faith is one of the fruits of the Spirit Gal. 5.22 By the drawing of the Father we come to the Son And he that hath knowledge given from Heaven will certainly know and he that hath Faith given him from Heaven will certainly believe The heavenly Light will dissipate our darkness and infallibly illuminate Whilest God sets before us the glass of the Gospel in which the things invisible are revealed and also gives us eye sight to behold them Believers must needs be a heavenly people as walking in that light which proceedeth from and leadeth to the celestial everlasting Light 2. And that Faith may be so powerful as to serve instead of sight and presence Believers have the Spirit of Christ within them to excite and actuate it and help them against all temptations to unbelief and to work in them all other graces that concur to promote the works of Faith and to mortifie those sins that hinder our believing and are contrary to a heavenly life So that as the exercise of our sight and taste and hearing and feeling is caused by our natural life so the exercise of Faith and Hope and Love upon things unseen is caused by the holy Spirit which is the principle of our new life 1 Cor. 2.12 We have received the Spirit that we might know the things that are given us of God This Spirit of God acquainteth us with God with his veracity and his Word Heb. 10.30 We know him that hath said I will never fail thee nor forsake thee This Spirit of Christ acquainteth us with Christ and with his grace and will 1 Cor. 2.10 11 12. This heavenly Spirit acquainteth us with Heaven so that We know that when Christ appeareth we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is 1 Joh. 3.2 And we know that he was manifested to take away sin 1 Joh. 3.5 And will perfect his work and present us spotless to his Father Eph. 5.26 27. This heavenly Spirit possesseth the Saints with such heavenly dispositions and desires as much facilitate the work of Faith It bringeth us to a heavenly conversation and maketh us live as fellow-citizens of the Saints and in the houshold of God Phil. 3.20 Eph. 2.19 It is within us a Spirit of supplication breathing heaven-ward with sighs and groans which cannot be expressed and as God knoweth the meaning of the Spirit so the Spirit knows the mind of God Rom. 8.37 1 Cor. 2.11 3. And the work of Faith is much promoted by the spiritual experiences of Believers When they find a considerable part of the holy Scriptures verified on themselves it much confirmeth their Faith as to the whole They are really possessed of that heavenly disposition called The Divine Nature and have felt the power of the Word upon their hearts renewing them to the Image of God mortifying their most dear and strong corruptions shewing them a greater beauty and desirableness in the Objects of Faith than is to be found in sensible things They have found many of the Promises made good upon themselves in the answers of prayers and in great deliverances which strongly perswadeth them to believe the rest that are yet to be accomplished And experience is a very powerful and satisfying way of conviction He that feeleth as it were the first fruits the earnest and the beginnings of Heaven already in his soul will more easily and assuredly believe that there is a Heaven hereafter We know that the Son of God iâ— come and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true and we are in him that is true even in his Son Jesus Christ This is the true God and eternal life 1 Joh. 5.20 He that believeth on the Son hath the witness in himself Vers 10. There is so
degree as shall be raised by the beatifical vision in the glorified and as present intuition now would raise if we could attain it yet seeing Faith hath as sure an Object and Revelation as sight it self though the manner of apprehension be less affecting it should do much more with us than it doth and bring us nearer to such affections and resolutions as sight would cause Vse 2. If Faith be given us to make things to come as if they were at hand and things unseen as if we saw them you may see from hence 1. The reason of that holy seriousness of Believers which the ungodly want 2. And the reason why the ungodly want it 3. And why they wonder at and distaste and deride this serious diligence of the Saints 1. Would you make it any matter of wonder for men to be more careful of their souls more fervent in their requests to God more fearful of offending him and more laborious in all holy preparation for eternal life than the holiest and precisest person that you know in all the world if so be that Heaven and Hell were seen to them Would you not rather wonder at the dulness and coldness and negligence of the best and that they are not far more holy and diligent than they are if you and they did see these things Why then do you not cease your wondering at their diligence Do you not know that they are men that have seen the Lord whom they daily serve and seen the glory which they daily seek and seen the place of torments which they fly from By Faith in the glass of Divine Revelations they have seen them 2. And the reason why the careless world are not as diligent and holy as Believers is because they have not this eye of Faith and never saw those powerful objects that Believers see Had you their eyes you would have their hearts and lives O that the Lord would but illuminate you and give you such a sight of the things unseen as every true Believer hath What a happy change would it make upon you Then instead of your deriding or opposing it we should have your company in the holy path You would then be such your selves as you now deride If you saw what they see you would do as they do When the heavenly light had appeared unto Saul he ceaseth persecuting and enquires what Christ would have him to do that he might be such a one as he had persecuted And when the scales fell from his eyes he falls to prayer and gets among the Believers whom he had persecuted and laboureth and suffereth more than they 3. But till this light appear to your darkned souls you cannot see the reasons of a holy heavenly life and therefore you will think it hypocrisie or pride or fancy and imagination or the foolishness of cracktâ—brain'd self-conceited men If you see a man do reverence to a Prince and the Prince himself were invisible to you would you not take him for a mad man and say that he cringed to the stools or chairs or bowed to a post or complemented with his shadow If you saw a mans action in eating and drinking and see not the meat and drink it self would you not think him mad If you heard men laugh and hear not so much as the voice of him that gives the jeast would you not imagine them to be brain-sick If you see men dance and hear not the musick if you see a Labourer threshing or reaping or mowing and see no corn or grass before him if you see a Souldier fighting for his life and see no enemy that he spends his stroaks upon will you not take all these for men distracted Why this is the case between you and the true Believers You see them reverently worship God but you see not the Majesty which they worship as they do You see them as busie for the saving of their souls as if an hundred lives lay on it but you see not the Hell from which they fly nor the Heaven they seek and therefore you marvel why they make so much ado about the matters of their salvation and why they cannot do as others and make as light of Christ and Heaven as they that desire to be excused and think they have more needful things to mind But did you see with the eyes of a true Believer and were the amazing things that God hath revealed to us but open to your sight how quickly would you be satisfied and sooner mock at the diligence of a drowning man that is striving for his life or at the labour of the City when they are busily quenching the flames in their habitations than mock at them that are striving for the everlasting life and praying and labouring against the ever-burning flames How soon would you turn your admiration against the stupidity of the careless world and wonder more that ever men that hear the Scriptures and see with their eyes the works of God can make so light of matters of such unspeakable eternal consequence Did you but see Heaven and Hell it would amaze you to think that ever many yea so many and so seeming wise should wilfully run into everlasting fire and sell their souls at so low a rate as if it were as easie to be in Hell as in an Ale-house and Heaven were no better than a beastly lust O then with what astonishment would you think Is this the fire that sinners do so little fear Is this the glory that is so neglected You would then see that the madness of the ungodly is the wonder Vse 3. By this time I should think that some of your own Consciences have prevented me in the Vse of Examination which I am next to call you to I hope while I have been holding you the glass you have not turned away your faces nor shut your eyes But that you have been judging your selves by the light which hath been set up before you Have not some of your consciences said by this time If this be the nature and use of Faith to make things unseen as if we saw them what a desolate case then is my soul in how void of Faith how full of Infidelity how far from the truth and power of Christianity How dangerously have I long deceived my self in calling my self a true Christian and pretending to be a true Believer When I never knew the life of Faith but took a dead opinion bred only by education and the custom of the Countrey instead of it little did I think that I had been an Infidel at the heart while I so confidently laid claim to the name of a Believer Alas how far have I been from living as one that seeth the things that he professeth to Believe If some of your consciences be not thus convinced and perceive not yet your want of faith I fear it is because they are seared or asleep But if yet conscience have not begun to plead this cause against you
wind will blow and the rain will fall and the earth will bear fruits whether we know it or not so our knowledge of it is not at all necessary to any Divine Efficiency as such The Spirit by which we are regenerate is like the wind that bloweth whose sound we hear but know not whence it cometh nor whither it goeth no nor what it is John 3.6 7 8 9. But all those things which are necessary to work objectively and morally on the soul do work in esse cognito and the knowledge of them is as necessary as the operation is It was of absolute necessity to the salvation of all before Christs coming and among the Gentiles as well as the Jews that the Spirit should sanctifie them to God by possessing them with a predominant Love of him in his Goodness and that this Spirit proceed from the Son or Wisdom of God But it was not so necessary to them as it is now to us to have a distinct knowledge of the personality and operations of the Spirit and of the Son And though now it is certain that Christ is the Way the Truth and the Life and no man cometh to the Father but by the Son Joh. 14.6 Yet that knowledge of him which is necessary to them that hear the Gospel is not all necessary to them that never hear it though the same efficiency on his part be necessary And so it is about the knowledge of the Holy Ghost without which Christ cannot be sufficiently now known and rightly believed in Direct 4. The presence or operation of the Spirit of God is casually the spiritual Life of man in his holiness As there is no natural Being but by influence from his Being so no Life but by communication from his Life and no Light but from his Light and no Love or Goodness but from his Spirit of Love It is therefore a vain conceit of them that think man in innocency had not the Spirit of God They that say his natural rectitude was instead of the Spirit do but say and unsay for his natural rectitude was the effect of the influx or communication of Gods Spirit And he could have no moral rectitude without it as there can be no effect without the chief cause The nature of Love and Holiness cannot subsist but in dependance on the Love and Holiness of God And those Papists who talk of mans state first in pure naturals and an after donation of the Spirit must mean by pure naturals man in his meer essentials not really but notionally by abstraction distinguished from the same man at the same instant as a Saint or else they speak unsoundly For God made man in moral dispositive goodness at the first and the same Love or Spirit which did first make him so was necessary after to continue him so It was never his nature to be a prime good or to be good independently without the influence of the prime good Isa 44.3 Ezek. 36.27 Job 26.13 Psal 51.10 12. 143.10 Prov. 20.27 Mal. 2.15 John 3.5 6. 6.63 7.39 Rom. 8.1 5 6 9 13 16. 1 Cor. 6.11 2.11 12. 6.17 12.11 13. 15.45 2 Cor. 3.3 17. Ephes 2.18 22. 3.16 5.9 Col. 1.8 Jude 19. Direct 5. The Spirit of God and the Holiness of the soul may be lost without the destruction of our essence or species of humane nature and may be restored without making us specifically other things That influence of the Spirit which giveth us the faculty of a Rational Appetite or Will inclined to good as good cannot cease but our humanity or Being would cease But that influence of the Spirit which causeth our adherence to God by Love may cease without the cessation of our Beings as our health may be lost while our life continueth Psal 51.10 1 Thes 5.19 Direct 6. The greatest mercy in this world is the gift of the Spirit and the greatest misery is to be deprived of the Spirit and both these are done to man by God as a Governour by way of reward and punishment oft-times Therefore the greatest reward to be observed in this world is the increase of the Spirit upon us and the greatest punishment in this world is the denying or with-holding of the Spirit It is therefore a great part of a Christians wisdom and work to observe the accesses and assistances of the Spirit and its withdrawings and to take more notice to God in his thankfulness of the gift of the Spirit than of all other benefits in this world And to lament more the retiring or withholding of Gods Spirit than all the calamities in the world And to fear this more as a punishment of his sin Lest God should say as Psal 81.11 12. But my people would not hearken to my voice Israel would none of me so I gave them up to their own hearts lusts to walk in their own counsels And we must obey God through the motive of this promise and reward Prov. 1.23 Turn you at my reproof behold I will powre out my Spirit unto you I will make known my words to you Joh. 7.39 He spake this of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive Luke 11.13 God will give his holy Spirit to them that ask it And we have great cause when we have sinned to pray with David Cast me not away from thy presence and take not thy holy Spirit from me Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit in me Restore to me the joy of thy salvation and stablish me with thy free Spirit Psal 51.10 11 12. And as the sin to be feared is the grieving of the holy Spirit Ephes 4.30 so the judgement to be feared is accordingly the withdrawing of it Isaiah 63.10 11. But they rebelled and vexed his holy Spirit therefore he was turned to be their enemy and fought against them Then he remembred the daies of old Moses and his people saying Where is he that brought them up Where is he that put his holy Spirit within them The great thing to be dreaded is lest those that were once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost should fall away and be no more renewed by repentance Heb. 6.4 6. Direct 7. Therefore executive pardon or justification cannot possibly be any perfecter than sanctification is Because no sin is further forgiven or the person justified executively than the punishment is taken off and the privation of the Spirit being the great punishment the giving of it is the great executive remission in this life But of this more in the Chapter of Justification following Direct 8. The three great operations in mâ—n which each of the three persons in the Trinity eminently perform are Natura Medicina salus the first by the Creator the second by the Redeemer the third by the Sanctifier Commonly it is called Nature Grace and Glory But either the terms Grace and Glory must
Jesus Acts 21.13 3. In so strong a fortitude of soul as to venture and give up our selves our lives and all our comforts and hopes into the hand of Christ without any trouble or sinful fears and to pass through all difficulties and tryals in the way without any distrust or anxiety of mind These be the characters of a strong and great degree of faith And you may note how Heb. 11. describeth Faith commonly by this venturing and forsaking all upon the belief of God As in Noah's case verse 7. And in Abraham's leaving his Countrey v. 8. And in his sacrificing Isaac v. 17. And in Moses forsaking Pharaoh's Court and chusing the reproach of Christ rather than the pleasures of sin for a season v. 24 25 26. And in the Israelites venturing into the Red Sea v. 29. And in Rebab's hiding the spies which must needs be her danger in her own Countrey And in all those who by faith subdued Kingdoms wrought Righteousness obtained Promises stopped the mouths of Lions quenched the violence of fire escaped the edge of the sword out of weakness were made strong O hers were tortured not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection and others had tryal of cruel mockings and scourgings yea moreover of bonds and imprisonments they were stoned they were sawn asunder were tempted were slain with the sword they wandered about in Sheep skins and Goat skins being destitute afflicted tormented of whom the world was not worthy They wandered in Desarts and Mountains and in Deus and Caves of the earth And in Heb. 10.32 33 c. They endured a great fight of affliction partly whilst they were made a gazing flock both by reproaches and afflictions and partly whilst they became companions of them that were so used And took joyfully the spoiling of their goods knowing in themselves that they had in Heaven a better and an enduring substance And thus the just do live by faith but if any man draw back my soul shall have no pleasure in him saith the Lord. See also Rom. 8.33 36 37 c. These are the Spirits descriptions of faith but if you will rather take a whimsical ignorant mans description who can only toss in his mouth the name of FREE GRACE and knoweth not of what he speaketh or what he affirmeth or what that name signifieth which he cheateth his own soul with instead of true Free Grace it self you must suffer the bitter fruits of your own delusion For my part I shall say thus much more to tell you why I say so much to help you to a right understanding of the nature of true Christian Faith 1. If you understand not truly what Faith is you understand not what Religion it is that you profess And so you call your selves Christians and know not what it is It seems those that said Lord we have eaten and drunken in thy presence and prophesied in thy Name did think they had been true Believers Matth. 7.21 22. 2. To erre about the nature of true Faith will engage you in abundance of other errours which will necessarily arise from that as it did them against whom James disputeth James 2.14 15 c. about Justification by Faith and by Works 3. It will damnably delude your souls about your own state and draw you to think that you have saving Faith because you have that fancy which you thought was it One comes boldly to Christ Mat. 8.19 Master I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest But when he heard The Foxes have holes and the Birds have nests but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head we hear no more of him And another came with a Good Master what shall I do to inherit eternal life Luke 18.18 as if he would have been one of Christs Disciples and have done any thing for Heaven And it 's like that he would have been a Christian if Free Grace had been as large and as little grace as some now imagine But when he heard Yet lackest thou one thing sell all that thou hast and distribute to the poor and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven Come follow me he was then very sorrowful for he was very rich Luke 18.21 22 23. Thousands cheat their souls with a conceit that they are Believers because they believe that they shall be saved by Free Grace without the faith and grace which Christ hath made necessary to salvation 4. And this will take off all those needful thoughts and means which should help you to the faith which yet you have not 5. And it will engage you in perverse disputes against that true faith which you understand not And you will think that you are contending for Free Grace and for the Faith when you are proud knowing nothing but sick or doting about questions which engender no better birth than strifes railings evil surmisings perverse disputings c. 1 Tim. 6.4 5. 6. Lastly You can scarce more dishonour the Christian Religion nor injure God and our Mediatour or harden men in Infidelity than by fathering your ill-shapen fictions on Christ and calling them the Christian or Justifying Faith Direct 29. Take not all doubts and fears of your salvation to be the proper effects and signs of unbelief Seeing that in many they arise from the misunderstanding of the meaning of Gods Promise and in more from the doubtfulness of their own qualifications rather than from any unbelief of the Promise or distrust of Christ It is ordinary with ignorant Christians to say that they cannot believe because they doubt of their own sincerity and salvation as thinking that it is the nature of true faith to believe that they themselves are justified and shall be saved and that to doubt of this is to doubt of the Promises because they doubtingly apply it Such distresses have false principles bought many to But there are two other things besides the weakness of faith which are usually the causes of all this 1. Many mistake the meaning of Christs Covenant and think that it hath no universality in it and that he died only for the Elect and promiseth pardon to none but the Elect no not on the condition of believing And therefore thinking that they can have no assurance that they are Elect they doubt of the conclusion And many of them think that the Promise extendeth not to such as they because of some sin or great unworthiness which they are guilty of And others think that they have not that Faith and Repentance which are the condition of the promise of pardon and salvation And in some of these the thing it self may be so obscure as to be indeed the matter of rational doubtfulness And in others of them the cause may be either a mistake about the true nature and signs of Faith and Repentance or else a timerous melancholy causeless suspition of themselves But which of all these soever be the cause it is something different from proper unbelief or distrust of God
such Adam had such Power and such necessary grace or help to have forborn his first sin which he did not forbear And no man can prove that no final unbelievers have had such power and help to have belâ—eved aâ— Adam had to have stood But it is certain that we 〈…〉 such powers and necessary grace to have perfectly 〈◊〉 all the Law Errour 20. That Faith justifieth as an instrument and only so Of this I have written at large heretofore An instrument properly so called is an efficient cause Faith is no efficient cause of our Justification neither Gods instrument nor ours for we justifie not our selves instrumentally The known undoubted instrument of our Justification is Gods Covenant or deed of gift which is his pardoning act They that say it is not a Physical but a Moral instrument either mean that its morally called an instrument that is reputatively and not really or that it is indeed a moral instrument that is effecteth our Justification morally But the latter is false for it effecteth it not at all and the former is false for as there is no reason so there is no Scripture to prove that God reputeth it to be what it is not All that remaineth to be said is that indeed Faith in Christ is an act whose nature partly that is one act of it consisteth in the Acceptance of Christ himself who is given to us for our Justification and Salvation by a Covenant which maketh this believing-acceptance its condition And so this accepting-act in the very essence of it is such as some call a receiving instrument or a passive which is indeed no instrument but an act metaphorically called an instrument And in disputes metaphors must not be used without necessity and to understand them properly is to erre So that such an improper instrument of Justification Faith is as my trusting my Physician and taking him for my Physician is the instrument of my cure And as my trusting my self to the conduct of such a Pilot is the instrument of my safe voyage or as my trusting my Tutor is the instrument of my learning or rather as a womans marriage-consent is the instrument of all the wealth and honour which she hath by her husband Indeed marriage may be better called the instrument of it that is not her own consent which is properly the receiving condition but the consent and actual marriage by her husband For he is the giver And so the Covenant is Gods justifying instrument as signifying his donative consent and Baptism is the instrument of it by solemn investiture or tradition as the delivering of a Key is the instrumental delivery of the house The case then is very plain to him that is but willing to understand viz. that Faith in its essence is bâ—sides the assenting acts an accepting of an offered Saviour for our Justification Sanctification and Salvation and a trusting in him That this act of Faith being its essence is the most apt for the use that God in his Covenant hath appointed it unto because he will give us a Saviour freely but yet not to be refused and neglected but to be thankfully and honourably received and used That this special aptitude of Faith or its very essence is the reason why it is chosen to be the condition of the Testament or Gift That this same essence and aptitude is that which some call its Receptive or Passive Instrumentality That this essence and aptitude is not the neerest reason why we are justified by it for then Faith as Faith and as such an act or wâ—rk of ours should justifie and that ex opere operato and that without or against Gods will For if Gods will have interposed the signifier of that will must needs be the chief and nearest reason Therefore this act so apt bâ—ing by God made the condition of the Gift or Covenant iâ—s nearest and chief interest I will not call it causaliâ—y in our Justification iâ— this office of a condition Therefore in a word we are justified by Faith directly as or because it is the conditio praestita the performance of the condition of the Justifying act and it was by God made the condition bâ—cause it was in its nature mâ—st apt thereto which aptitude may be metaphorically called its Receptive Instrumentality And that thus as it accepteth Christ for Justification Adoption Sanctification and Glorification so it is first the metaphorical instrument of our part in Christ and but consequently the metaphorical instrument of our title to pardon the Spirit and Heaven and in no tollerable sense at all how figurative soever is it any instrument of Gods sentence of Justification which yet is all the Justification acknowledged by the usual defenders of Instrumentality saving as it may be said to give us a right to it by giving us constitutive Justification in the pardon of our sins And the Scripture never saith that Faith justifieth us nor calleth it Justifying Faith but that we are justified by Faith and most commonly of Faith for the usuallest phrase is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ex fide as it is ex operibus when Justification by works is denyed which is not the meer Instrumentality of works So that here is a double errour 1. That Faith justifieth as a true and proper instrument 2. And no oâ—her way Errour 21. That Faith causeth Justification as it causeth Sanctification as much and as properly Contr. Faith causeth not Justification at all but only is the condition of it But Faith causeth the acts of other graces by a proper efficiency believing is a proper efficient cause of the wills volition complacency consent though but a moral efficient because the liberty of the will forbiddeth the Intellect to move it per modum naturae And the wills consent produceth other acts and physically exciteth other graces Because to love and desire and fear and seek and obey are acts of our own souls where one may properly cause another But to justifie or pardon is an act of God and therefore Faith equally procureth our right or title to Justification and to Sanctification and Glorification but it doth not equally effect them 2 Cor. 7.1 Let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of flesh and Spirit perfecting holiness c. Not let us pardon and justifie our selves James 4.8 Cleanse your hearts you sinners c. Isa 1. Wash you make you clean put away the evil of your doings not your guilt and punishment So only Christ cleanseth us from all sin and unrighteousness 1 John 1.7 9. Jude 21. Keep your selves in the Love of God John 15. Abide in me c. 1 John 5.18 He that is begotten of God keepeth himself c. Errour 22. That the Faith by which we are justified is not many physical acts of the soul only but one Errour 23. That it is only an act of one faculty of the soul Contr. The contrary is fully opened before and proved at large elsewhere and through the Scripture Faith
increase the flame And Satan hath still the bellows in his hand He knoweth that if he can corrupt or win the Commander he can rout the Army and ruine them with the greatest ease It hath been Satans grand design since the Christian name was known on earth to advance the selfish interest of men against the interest of Christ and to entangle the Rulers of the world in some cause that Christ and his Word and Servants cannot favour and so to make them believe that there is a necessity on them to watch against and subdue the interest of Christ As if it were necessary that the shore be brought to the boat and not the boat to the shore And that the Physician be brought to the Patients mind or else destroyed or used as his enemy I am afraid to speak out the terrible words of God in Scripture that are against such persons lest you should misunderstand me and think I misapply them But Christ feareth no man and hath not spoken his Word in vain and his Messengers must be faithful for he will bear them out and preventive cautions are easier and safer than reprehensive corrasives I will but refer you to the texts that you may peruse them Matth. 21.44 Matth. 18.3.6 Matth. 25.40 45. Luke 18.7 Psal 2. Luke 19.27 Acts 9.4 5. 1 Thess 2.15 16. Read them with fear as the Words of God Blessed are those Rulers and Nations of the Earth that perceive and escape this pernicious snare of the grand deceiver that with all his subtilty and industry endeavoureth to breed quarrels and sow dissentions between them and the universal King The more God giveth to the carnal and unwise the more they think themselves engaged against him because by his commands he seems to take it from them again by crossing the flesh which would use it only to fulfil its lusts Like a Dog that fawneth on you till he have his bone and then snarleth at you lest you take it from him and will fly in your face if you offer to meddle with it Men readily confess that they have their wealth from God because it cannot be denyed and because they would use the name of God as a cover to hide their covetousness and unlawful waies of getting But if you judge by their usage of it and their returns to God you would think that they believed that they had nothing at all from God but some injuries and that all their benefits and good were from themselves The Turkish and Tartarian Emperour will say that all his grandeur and power is from God that by making it most Divine he may procure the more reverence and obedience to himself But when he hath said so for his own interest he useth the same power against God and his interest to the banishing of his Word and holy Worship and the forbidding the preaching of the Gospel of salvation and to the cherishing of tyranny pride and lust As if God had armed them against himself and made his Officers to be his enemies and gave them power that they might powerfully hinder mens salvation and made great to be great oppressors As a believing Pastor is a Priest that standeth between God and the people to mediate under the great Mediatour to receive from God his Word and Ordinances and deliver them to the flocks and to offer up supplications in their names to God So believing Governours of civil Societies or Families receive from God a power to rule the subjects for their good and they use it to make the subjects good that God may be pleased and honoured by all And the obedience which they require is such as may be given to God in them They take power from God to use it for God and are so much more excellent than the greatest of ambitious carnal Princes as the pleasing and honouring of God is a more excellent design and work than the gratifying of fleshly lust and the advancement of a lump of clay The Kingdoms of the world would all be used as the Kingdoms of the Lord if the everlasting Kingdom were well believed The families of men would be sanctified as Churches unto God if the eternal house not made with hands were truly taken for their home and their trade were to lay up a treasure in Heaven In Cities and Countries Brethren would dwell in holy peace and all concur in honouring God if once they were made fellow Citizens with the Saints and their Burgeship and conversation were in Heaven Ephes 2.19 Phil. 3.20 21. 6. Resist Temptations as Believers If you live by Faith then fight against the world and flesh by Faith Faith must be your helmet and the Word of Faith must be your shield Eph. 6.16 And your victory it self must be by Faith 1 Joh. 5.4 If Satan tell the flesh of the preferment riches or the pleasures of lust answer him with a believing foresight of Gods Judgement and the life to come Never look on the baits of sin alone but still look at once on God and on Eternity As a just Judge will hear both parties speak or see their evidences before he will determine So tell the Tempter that as you have heard what fleshly allurements can say you will see also what the Word of God saith and take a view of Heaven and Hell and then you will answer him 7. Rejoyce as Believers Can Faith set open the windows of the soul and no light of heavenly pleasures enter Can it peruse the Map of the Land of Promise or see and taste the bunch of Grapes without any sweetness to the soul That is the truest Belief of Heaven which maketh men likest those that are in Heaven And what is their character work and portion but the Joyes of Heavenly Light and Love Can we believe that we shall live in Heaven for ever Can we believe that very shortly we shall be there and not rejoyce in such believing I know we commonly say that the uncertainty of our proper title is the cause of all our want of joy But if that were all if that were the first and greatest cause and our belief of the promise it self were lively we should at least set our hearts on Heaven as the most delightful and desirable state and Love would work by more eager desires and diligent seekings till it had reacht assurance and cast out the hinderances of our joy How much would a meer Philosopher rejoyce if he could find out natural evidence of so much as we know by Faith You may perceive what their content in finding it would be by their excâ—eding pains in seeking The unwearied studies by day and night which many of them used with the contempt of the riches and greatness of the world do tell us how glad they would have been to have seen but half so far as we may If they could but discover more clearly and certainly the principles and elements and forms of Beings the nature of spirits the causes of motion
it And this is it which we call Sanctification or Holiness to the Lord. And our cohabitation and relation to men will tell us that Justice and Charity are our duty as to them And when a man is fully satisfied that Holiness Justice and Charity are our duty he hath a great advantage for his progress towards the Christian Faith To which let me add that as to our selves also it is undeniably our duty to take more care for our souls than for our bodies and to rule our senses and passions by our Reason and to subject our lower faculties to the higher and so to use all sensible and present things as conduceth to the publick good and to the advancement of our nobler part and to our greatest benefit though it cross our sensual appetites All this being unquestionably our natural duty we see that man was made to live in Holiness Justice Charity Temperance and rational regularity in the world 5. When you have gone thus far consider next how far men are generally from the performance of this duty And how backward humane nature is to it even while they cannot deny it to be their duty And you will soon perceive that God who made it their duty did never put in them this enmity thereto nor ever made them without some aptitude to perform it And if any would infer that their indisposednâ—ss proveth it to be none of their duty the nature of man will fully confute him and the conscience and confession of all the sober part of the world What wretch so blind if he believe a Deity who will not confess that he should love God with all his heart and that Justice Charity and Sobriety are his duty and that his sense should be ruled by his reason c The evidence before given is not to be denyed And therefore something is marr'd in nature Some enemy hath seduced man And some deplorable change hath befallen him 6. Yea if you had no great backwardness to this duty your self consider what it must cost you faithfully to perform it in such a malignant world as we now live in what envy and wrath what malice and persecution what opposition and discouragements on every side we must expect Universal experience is too full a proof of this Besides what it costeth our restrained flesh 7. Proceed then to think further that certainly God hath never appointed us so much duty without convenient Motives to perform it It cannot be that he should make us more noble than the brutes to be more miserable Or that he should make Holiness our duty that it might be our loss or our calamity If there were no other life but this and men had no hopes of future happiness nor any fears of punishment what a Hell would this world be Heart-wickedness would be but little feared nor heart-duty regarded Secret sin against Princes States and all degrees would be boldly committed and go unpunished for the most part The sins of Princes and of all that have power to defeat the Law would have little or no restraint Every mans interest would oblige him rather to offend God who so seldom punisheth here than to offend a Prince or any man in power who seldom lets offences against himself go unrevenged And so man more than God would be the Ruler of the world that is our God Nay actually the hopes and fears of another life among most Heaâ—hens Infidels and Hereticks is the principle of Divine Government by which God keepeth up most of the order and virtue which is in the world Yea think what you should be and do your self as to enemies and as to secret faults and as to sensual vices if you thought there were no life but this And is it possible that the infinitely powerful wise and good Creatour can be put to govern all mankind by meer deceit and a course of lyes as if he wanted better means By how much the better any man is by so much the more regardful is he of the life to come and the hopes and fears of another life are so much the more prevalent with him And is it possible that God should make men good to make them the most deceived and most miserable Hath he commanded all these cares to be our needless torments which brutes and fools and sottish sinners do all scape Is the greatest obedience to God become a sign of the greatest folly or the way to the greatest loss or disappointment We are all sure that this life is short and vain No Infidel can say that he is sure that there is no other life for us And if this be so reason commandeth us to prefer the pâ—ssibilities of such a life to come before the certain vanities of this life So that even the Infidels uncertainty will unavoidably infer that the preferring of the world to come is our duty And if it be our duty then the thing in it self is true For God will not make it all mens duties in the frame of their nature to seek an Vtopia and pursue a shadow and to spend their daies and chiefest cares for that which is not Godliness is not such a dreaming night-walk Conscience will not suffer dying men to believe that they have more cause to repent of their Godliness than of their sin and of their seeking Heaven than of wallowing in their lusts Nay then these hâ—avenly desires would be themselves our sins as being the following of a lye the aspiring after a state which is above us and the abuse and loss of our faculties and time And sensuality would be liker to be our virtue as being natural to us and a seeking of our most real felicity The common conscience of mankind doth justifie the wisdom and virtue of a temperate holy heavenly person and acknowledgeth that our heavenly desires are of God And doth God give men both natural faculties which shall never come to the perfection which is their End and also gracious desires which shall but deceive us and never be satisfied If God had made us for the enjoyments of brutes he would have given us but the knowledge and desires of brutes Every King and mortal Judge can punish faults against Man with death And hath God no greater or further punishment for sins as committed against himself And are his rewards no greater than a mans These and many more such Evidences may assure you that there is another life of Rewards and punishments and that this life is not our final state but only a â—ime of preparation thereunto Settle this deeply and fixedly in your minds 8. And look up to the heavenly Regions and think Is this world so replenished with inhabitants both Sea and Land and Air it self And can I dream that the vast and glorious Orbs and Regions are all uninhabited Oâ— that they have not more numerous and glorious possessors than this small opacous spot of earth And then think that those higher creatures are intellectual spirits This is
that they used the method which I now direct you to And if you consider it well you will find that the miracles of Christ himself and all those of his Apostles after him were wrought for the confirmation of Christianity it self immediately and mostly before the particular Epistles or Books were written and therefore were only remotely and consequentially for the confirmation of those Books as such as they proved that the Writers of them were guided by the infallible Spirit in all the proper work of their office of which the writing of the Scriptures was a part 1. Therefore settle your belief of Christianity it self that is of so much as Baptism containeth or importeth This is more easily proved than the truth of every word in the Scriptures because there are controversies about the Canon and the various readings and such like And this is the natural method which Christ and his Spirit have directed us to and the Apostles and the ancient Churches used And when this is first soundly proved to you then you cannot justly take any textual difficulties to be sufficient cause of raising difficulties to your faith in the essentials But you may quietly go on in the strength of faith to clear up all those difficulties by degrees I know you will meet with some who think very highly of their own mistakes and whose unskilfulness in these things is joyned with an equal measure of self conceitedness who will tell you that this method smells of an undervaluing of the Scripture But I would advise you not to depart from the way of Christ and his Apostles and Churches nor to cast your selves upon causeless hinderances in so high a matter as Saving Faith is upon the reverence of the words of any perverted factious wrangler nor to escape the fangs of censorious ignorance We cannot better justifie the holy Scriptures in the true Method than they can in their false one And can better build up when we have laid the right foundation than they can who begin in the middle and omit the foundation and call the superstructure by that name 2. Suspect not all Church-history or Tradition in an extreme opposition to the Papists who cry up a private unproved Tradition of their own They tell us of Apostolical Traditions which their own faction only are the keepâ—rs of and of which no true historical evidence is produced And this they call the Tradition of the Church But we have another sort of Tradition which must not be neglected or rejected unless we will deny humanity and reject Christianity Our Traditio tradens or active Tradition is primarily nothing but the certain history or usage of the universal Christian Church as Baptism the Lords day the Ministry the Church Assemblies and the daily Church exercises which are certain proofs what Religion was then received by them And 2. The Scriptures themselves Our Traditio tradita is nothing else but these two conjunctly 1. The Christian Religion even the Faith then professed and the Worship and Obedience then exercised 2. The Books themselves of the holy Scriptures which contain all this with much more But we are so far from thinking that Apostolical Oral Tradition is a supplement to the Scriptures as being larger than them that we believe the Scriptures to be much larger than such Tradition and that we have no certainty by any other than Scriptural Tradition of any more than the common matters of Christianity which all the Churches are agreed in But he that will not believe the most universal practice and history of the Church or world in a matter of fact must in reason much less believe his eye-sight 13. When you have soundly proved your foundation take not every difficult objection which you cannot answer to be a sufficient cause of doubting For if the fundamentals be proved truths you may trust to that proof and be sure that there are waies of solving the seeming inconsistent points though you are not yet acquainted with them There are few Truths so clear which a sophister may not clog with difficulties And there is scarce any man that hath so comprehensive a knowledge of the most certain Truths as to be able to answer all that can be said against it 14. Come not to this study in a melancholy or distracted frame of mind For in such a case you are ordinarily incapable of so great a work as the tryal of the grounds of Faith And therefore must live upon the ground-work before laid and wait for a fitter time to clear it 15. When new doubts arise mark whether they proceed not from the advantage which the tempter findeth in your minds rather than from the difficulty of the thing it self And whether you have not formerly had good satisfaction against the same doubts which now perplex you If so suffer not every discomposure of your minds to become a means of unbelief And suffer not Satan to command you to dispute your faith at his pleasure For if he may chuse the time he may chuse the success Many a man hath cast up a large account well or written a learned Treatise or Position well who cannot clear up all objected difficulties on a sudden nor without Books tell you all that he before wrote especially if he be half drunk or sleepy or in the midst of other thoughts oâ— business 15. When you are once perswaded of the truth of Christianity and the holy Scriptures think not that you need not study it any more because you do already confidently believe it For if your faith be not built on such cogent evidence as will warrant the conclusion whether it be at the present sound or not you know not what change assaults may make upon you as we have known them do on some ancient eminent Professors of the strictest Godliness who have turned from Christ and the belief of immortality Take heed how you understand the common saying of the Schools that Faith differeth from Knowledge in that it hath not Evidence It hath not evidence of sense indeed nor the immediate evidence of things invisible as in themselves but as they are the conclusions which follow the principles which are in themselves more evident It is evident that God is true and we can prove by good evidence that the Christian Verity is his Revelation And therefore it is evident though not immediately in it self that the matter of that word or revelation is true And as Mr. Rich. Hooker truly saith No man indeed believeth beyond the degree of evidence of truth which appeareth to him how confidently soever they may talk I remember that our excellent Vsher answered me to this case as out of Ariminensis that faith hath evidence of Credibility and science hath evidence of Certainty But undoubtedly an evidence of Divine Revelation is evidence of Certainty And all evidence of Divine Credibility is evidence of Certainty though of humane faith and credibility the case be otherwise 16. Yea think not that you have
done the settling of your faith when once you have found out the soundest evidences and are able to answer all Objections For you must grow still in the fuller discerning and digesting the same evidences which you have discerned For you may hold them so loosely that they may be easily wrested from you And you may see them with so clear and full a knowledge as shall stablish your mind against all ordinary causes of mutation It is one kind or degree rather of knowledge of the same things which the Pupil and another which the Doctor hath I am sure the knowledge which I have now of the evidences of the Christian Verity is much different from what I had thirty years ago when perhaps I could say neer as much as now and used the same Arguments 17. Consider well the great contentions of Philosophers and the great uncertainty of most of those Nations to which the Infidels would reduce our faith or which they would make the test by which to try it They judge Christianity uncertain because it agreeth not with their uncertainties or certain errours 18. Enslave not your Reason to the objects of sense While we are in the body our souls are so imprisoned in flesh and have so much to do with worldly things that most men by averseness and disuse can hardly at all employ their minds about any higher things than sensitive nor go any further than sense conduceth them He that will not use his soul to contemplate things invisible will be as unfit for believing as a Lady is to travel a thousand miles on foot who never went out of her doors but in a Sedan or Coach 19. Where your want of learning or exercise or light doth cause any difficulties which you cannot overcome go to the more wise and experienced Believers and Pastors of the Church to be your helpers For it is their office to be both the preservers and expounders of the sacred Doctrine and to be the helpers of the peoples faith The Priests lips should preserve knowledge and they should seek the Law at his mouth for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts Mal. 2.7 20. Lastly Faithfully practise with Love and alacrity what you do believe lest God in justice leave you to disbelieve that which you would not love and practise So much to direct you in the method of your endeavours for the getting and strengthening of faith CHAP. III. The Evidences of Faith THese things in the Order of your enquiry being presupposed proceed to the consideration of the Evidences themselves which fully prove the Christian Verity And here omitting the preparatory considerations recited at large in my Reasons of the Christian Religion I shall only set before you the grand Evidence it self with a brief recital of some of those means which bring it down to our notice in these times The great infallible witness of CHRIST is the SPIRIT of GOD or the Holy Ghost Or that divine operation of the Holy Spirit which infallibly proveth the attestation of God himself as interesting him in it as the principal cause As we know the Coin of a Prince by his image and superscription and know his acts by his publick proper Seal And as we know that God is the Creatour of the world by the Seal of his likeness which is upon it Or as we know the Father of a child when he is so like him as no other could beget So know we Christ and Christianity to be of God by his unimitable image or impression The Power Wisdom and Goodness of God are the essentialities which we call the Nature of God These in their proper form and transcendent perfection are incommunicable But when they produce an effect on the creature which for the resemblance may analogically be called by the same names the names are logically communicable though the thing it self which is the Divine Essence or Perfections be still incommunicable But when they only produce effects more heterogeneal or equivocal then we call those effects only the footsteps or demonstrations of their cause So GOD whose Power Wisdom and Goodness in it self is incommunicable hath produced intellectual natures which are so like him that their likeness is called his Image and analogically yet equivocally the created faculties of their Power Intellect and Will are called by such names as we are fain for want of other words to apply to God the things signified being transcendently and unexpressibly in God but the words first used of and applied to the creature But the same God hath so demonstrated his Power and Wisdom and Goodness in the Creation of the material or corporeal parts of the world that they are the â—estigia and infallible proofs of his causation and perfections being such as no other cause without him can produce but yet not so properly called his Image as to his Wisdom and Goodness but only of his Power But no wise man who seeth this world can doubt whether a God of perfect Power Wisdom and Goodness was the maker of it Even so the person and doctrine of Christ or the Christian Religion objectively considered hath so much of the Image and so much of the demonstrative impressions of the Nature of God as may fully assure us that he himself is the approving cause And as the Sun hath a double Light Lux Lumen its essential Light in it self and it s emitted beams or communicated Light so the Spirit and Image of God by which Christ and Christianity are demonstrated are partly that which is essential constitutive and inherent and partly that which is sent and communicated from him to others In the person of Christ there is the most excellent Image of God 1. Wonderful Power by which he wrought miracles and commanded Sea and Land Men and Devils and raised the dead and raised himself and is now the glorious Lord of all things 2. Wonderful Wisdom by which he formed his Laws and Kingdom and by which he knew the hearts of men and prophecied of things to come 3. Most wonderful Love and Goodness by which he healed all diseases and by which he saved miserable souls and procured our happiness at so dear a rate But as the essential Light of the Sun is too glorious to be well observed by us but the emitted Light is it which doth affect our eyes and is the immediate object of our sight at least that we can best endure and use so the Essential Perfections of Jesus Christ are not so immediately and ordinarily fit for our observation and use as the lesser communicated beams which he sent forth And these are either such as were the immediate effects of the Spirit in Christ himself or his personal operations or else the effects of his Spirit in others And that is either such as went before him or such as were present with him or such as followed after him Even as the emitted Light of the Sun is either that which is next to its
let me begin to plead it with your consciences Are you Believers Do you live the life of Faith or not Do you live upon things that are unseen or upon the present visible baits of sensuality That you may not turn away your ears or hear me with a sluggish sensless mind let me tell you first how nearly it concerneth you to get this Question soundly answered and then that you may not be deceived let me help you toward the true resolution 1. And for the first you may perceive by what is said that saving Faith is not so common as those that know not the nature of it do imagine All men have not faith 2 Thes 3.2 O what abundance do deceive themselves with Names and shews and a dead Opinion and customary Religion and take these for the life of faith 2. Till you have this faith you have no special interest in Christ It is only Believers that are united to him and are his living Members and it is by faith that he dwelleth in our hearts and that we live in him Ephes 3.17 Gal. 2.20 In vain do you boast of Christ if you are not true Believers You have no part or portion in him None of his special Benefits are yours till you have this living working Faith 3. You are still in the state of enmity to God and unreconciled to him while you are unbelievers For you can have no peace with God nor aâ—â—ess unto his favour but by Christ Rom. 5.1 2 3 4. Ephes 2.14 15 17. And therefore you must come by faith to Christ before you can come by Christ unto the Father as those that have a special interest in his love 4. Till you have this Faith you are under the guilt and load of all your sins and under the curse and condemnation of the Law For there is no Justification or forgiveness but by Faith Act. 26.18 Rom. 4 5 c. 5. Till you have this sound Belief of things unseen you will be carnal minded and have a carnal end to all your actions which will make those to be evil that materially are good and those to be fleshly that materially are holy Without Faith it is impossible to please God Rom. 8.5 8 9. Prov. 28.9 Heb. 11.6 6. Lastly Till you have this living Faith you have no right to Heaven nor could be saved if you die this hour Whoever believeth shall not perish but have everlasting life He that believeth on him is not condemned but he that believeth not iâ— condemned already He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life and he that bâ—lieveth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abidâ—th on him Joh. 3.16 18 36. You see if you love your selves it concerneth you to try whether you are true Believers Unless you take it for an indifferent thing whether you live for ever in Heaven or Hell it 's best for you to put the question close to your consciences betimes Have you that Faith that serves instead of sight Do you carry within you the evidence of things unseen and the substance of the things which you say you hope for Did you know in what manner this question must be put and determined at judgement and how all your comfort will then depend upon the answer and how near that day is when you must all be sentenced to Heaven or Hell as you are found to be Believers or Vnbelievers it would make you hearken to my counsel and presently try whether you have a saving Faith 2. But lest you be deceived in your trial and lest you mistake me as if I tryed the weak by the measure of the strong and laid all your comfort upon such strong affections and high degrees as fight it self would work within you I shall briefly tell you how you may know whether you have any faith that 's true and saving though in the least degree Though none of us are affected to that height as we should be if we had the sight of all that we do believe yet all that have any saving belief of invisible things will have these four signs of faith within them 1. A sound belief of things unseen will cause a practical estimation of them and that above all earthly things A glimpse of the heavenly glory as in a glass will cause the soul deliberately to say This is the chief desirable felicity this is the Crown the Pearl the Treasure nothing but this can serve my turn It will debase the greatest pleasures or riches or honours of the world in your esteem How contemptible will they seem while you see God stand by and Heaven as it were set open to your view you 'l see there 's little cause to envy the prosperous servants of the world you will pitty them as miserable in their mirth and bound in the fetters of their folly and concupiscence and as strangers to all solid joy and honour You will be moved with some compassion to them in their misery when they are braving it among men and domineering for a little while and you will think alas poor man Is this all thy glory Hast thou no better wealth no higher honour no sweeter pleasures than these husks With such a practical judgement as you value gold above dirt and jewels above common stones you will value Heaven above all the riches and pleasures of this world if you have indeed a living saving faith Phil. 3.7 8 9. 2. A sound belief of the things unseen will habitually incline your wills to embrace them with consent and complacence and resolution above and against those worldly things that would be set above them and preferred before them If you are true believers you have made your choice you have fixâ— your hopes you have taken up your resolutions that God must be your portion or you can have none that 's worth the having that Christ must be your Saviour or you cannot be saved and therefore you are at a point with all things else they may be your Helps but not your Happiness you are resolved on what Rock to build and where to cast anchor and at what port and prize your life shall aim You are resolved what to seek and trust to God or none Heaven or nothing Christ or none is the voice of your rooted stable resolutions Though you are full of fears sometimes whether you shall be accepted and have a part in Christ or no and whether ever you shall attain the Glory which you aim at yet you are off all other hopes having seen an end of all perfections and read vanity and vexation written upon all creatures even on the most flattering state on earth and are unchangeably resolved not to change your Master and your hopes and your holy course for any other life or hopes Whatever come of it you are resolved that here you will venture all Knowing that you have no other game to play at which you are not sure to lose and that you