requireth you to Desire the Blessedness to be enjoyed after Death and that so earnestly as may make Death it self the easier to you Thank God if the fear of death be somewhat abated in you though it be not sweetned Men may pretend what they please but nature will abhor death as long as its nature and as long as man is man else temporal death had been no punishment to Adam if his Innocent nature had not abhor'd it it was an evil to it Tell me but this If Death did not stand in your way to Heaven but that you could travel to Heaven as easily as to London would not you rather go thither and be with Christ then stay in sin and vanity here on earth so be it you were certain to be with Christ If you can say Yea to this then it is apparent that your loathness to dye is either from the uncertainty of your salvation or from the natural averseness to a dissolution or both and not from an unwillingness to be with Christ or a preferring the vanities of this world before the Blessedness of that to come Lastly it may be God may lay that affliction on you or use some other necessary means with you yet before you dye that may make you willinger then now you are DOUBT XIX GOd layeth upon me such heavy Afflictions that I cannot believe he Loves me He writteth bitter things against me and taketh me for his enemy I am afflicted in my health in my name in my children and nearest friends and in my state I live in continual poverty or pinching distress of one kinde or other yea my very soul is filled with his terorrs and night and day is his hand heavy upon me ANSWER I Have said enough to this before Nor do I think it needful to say any more when the Holy Ghost hath said so much but only to desire you to read what he hath written in Heb. 12. and Job throughout and Psal 37. and 73. and divers others The next doubt is contrary DOUBT XX. I Read in Scripture that through many tribulations we must enter into heaven and that all that will live Godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution and that he that taketh not up his Cross and so followeth Christ cannot be his Disciple and that if we are not corrected we are bastards and not sons But I never had any Affliction from God but have lived in constant prosperity to this day Christ saith Wo to you when all men speak well of you but all men for ought I know speak well of me and therefore I doubt of my sincerity ANSWER I Would not have mentioned this Doubt but that I was so foolish as to be troubled with it my self and perhaps some others may be as foolish as I though I think but few in these times our great friends have Done so much to Resolve them more effectually then words could have done 1. Some of those Texts speak onely of mans duty of bearing persecution and tribulation when God lays it on us rather then of the Event that it shall certainly come 2. Yet I think it ordinarily certain and to be expected as to the Event Doubtless Tribulation is Gods common road to Heaven Every ignorant person is so well ware of this that they delude themselves in their sufferings saying That God hath given them their punishment in this life and therefore they hope he will not punish them in another If any soul be so silly as to fear and doubt for want of Affliction if none else will do the Cure let them but follow my Counsel and I dare warrant them for this and I will advise them to nothing but what is honest yea and necessary and what I have tried effectually upon my self and I can assure you it cured me and I can give it a Probatum est And first see that you be faithful in your Duty to all sinners within your reach be they great or small Gentlemen or Beggars do your duty in Reproving them meekly and lovingly yet plainly and seriously telling them of the danger of Gods everlasting wrath and when you find them obstinate tell the Church-Officers of them that they may do their duty and if yet they are unreformed they may be excluded from the Churches Communion and all Christian familiarity Try this course a while and if you meet with no Afflictions and get no more fists about your ears then your own nor more tongues against you then formerly tell me I am mistaken Men basely bawk and shun almost all the displeasing ungrateful work of Christianity of purpose lest they should have sufferings in the flesh and then they doubt of their sincerity for want of sufferings My second Advice is Do but stay a while in Patience but prepare your Patience for a sharper encounter and do not tye God to your time He hath not told you when your Afflictions shall come If he deal easier with you then others and give you a longer time to prepare for them be not you offended at that and do not quarrel with your mercies It is about seventeen years since I was troubled with this Doubt thinking I was no son because I was not afflicted and I think I have had few days without pain for this sixteen years since together nor but few hours if any one for this six or seven years And thus my scruple is removed And if yet any be troubled with this Doubt if the Churches and Common trouble be any trouble to them shall I be bold to tell them my thoughts onely understand that I pretend not to Prophesy but to Conjecture at Effects by the position of their Moral Causes I think that the Righteous King of Saints is even now for our over-admiring rash zeal and high profession making for England so heavy an Affliction and sharp a scourge to be inflicted by seduced proud self-conceited Professours as neither we nor our Fathers did ever yet bear Except it should prove the merciful intent of our Father onely to suffer them to ripen for their own destruction to be a standing Monument for the effectual warning of all after-ages of the Church Whether pride and heady Zeal may bring Professors of holiness And when they are full ripe to do by them as at Munster and in New-England that they may go no further but their folly may be known to all Amen I have told you of my thoughts of this long ago in my Book of Baptism ALL these Doubts I have here answered that you may see how necessary it is that in all your troubles you be sure to distinguish between Matter of Doubting and Matter of Humiliation Alas what soul is so holy on the Earth but must daily say Forgive as our trespasses and cry out with Paul O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death But at the same time we may thank God through our Lord Jesus Christ If every sin should make
thing before I confess it hath been a strengthening to my own faith to see the Devil such an Enemy to the Christian faith yea to the Godhead it self But perhaps you will say It is not meer Temptation from Satan that I complain of but it takes too much with my sinful heart I am ready to doubt oft-times whether there be a God or whether his Providence determine of the things here below or whether Scripture be true or the Soul immortal c. Answ This is a very great sin and you ought to bewail and abhorr it and in the Name of God make not light of it but look to it betime But yet let me tell you that some degree of this Blasphemy and Infidelity may remain with the truest saving Faith The best may say Lord I believe help thou mine unbelief But I will tell you my Judgement When your unbelief is such as to be a sign of a Graceless soul in the state of damnation If your Doubtings of the Truth of Scripture and the Life to come be so great that you will not let go the pleasures and profits of sin and part with all if God call you to it in Hope of that Glory promised and to escape the Judgement threatned because you look upon the things of the life to come but as uncertain things then is your Belief no saving Belief but your unbelief is prevalent But if for all your staggerings you see so much probabilâ—ty of the Truth of Scripture and the Life to come that you are resolved to venture and part with if called to it all worldly Hopes and Happiness for the Hope of that promised Glory and to make it the chiefest business of your life to attain it and do deny your self the pleasures of sin for that end this is a true saving Faith as is evident by its Victory notwithstanding all the Infidelity Atheism and Blasphemy that is mixt with it But again let me advise you to take heed of this hainous sin and bewail and detest the very least degree of it It is dangerous when the Devil strikes at the very root and heart foundation of all your religion There is more sinfulness and danger in this then in many other sins And therefore let it never be motioned to your soul without abhorrence Two ways the Devil hath to move it The one is by his immediate inward suggestions these are bad enough The other is by his Accursed Instruments and this is a far more dangerous way whether it be by books or by the words of men And yet if it be by notorious wicked men or fools the Temptation is the less but when it is by men of cunning wit and smooth tongues and hypocritical lives for far be that wickedness from me as to call them Godly or wise or honest then it is the greatest snare that the Devil hath to lay O just and Dreadful God! did I think one day that those that I was then praying with and rejoycing with and that went up with me to the house of God in familiarity would this day be blasphemers of thy sacred Name and deny the Lord that bought them and deride thy holy word as a fable and give up themselves to the present pleasures of sin because they Believe not thy promised Glory Righteous and Merciful God! that hast preserved the humble from this Condemnation and hast permitted only the Proud and Sensual Professors to fall into it and hast given them over to Hellish Conversations according to the nature of their Hellish opinions that they might be rather a terror to others then a snare I call their Doctrine and Practice Hellish from its Original because it comes from the Father of Lyes but not that there is any such opinion or practice in Hell He that tempts others to Deny the Godhead the Christian faith the Scripture the Life to come doth no whit doubt of any one of them himself but believes and Trembles O fearful blindness of the professors of Religion that wil hear if not receive these Blasphemies from the mouth of an Apostate Professor which they would abhor if it came immediately from the Devil himself With what sad complaints and trembling do poor sinners cry out and not without Cause O I am haunted with such Blaspemous temptations that I am afraid lest God should suddenly destroy me that ever such thoughts should come into my heart But if an Instrument of the Devil come and plead against the Scripture or the Life to come or Christ himself they will hear him with less detestation The Devil knows that familiarity will cause us to take that from a man which we would abhor from the Devil himself immediately I intend not to give you now a particular preservative against each of these Temptations Only let me tell you that this is the direct way to Infidelity Apostacy and the sin against the Holy Ghost and if by any Seducers the Devil do overcome you herein you are lost for ever and there will be no more sacrifice for your sin but a fearful expectation of judgment and that fire which shal devour the adversaries of Christ DOUBT XVIII I Have so great fears of Death and unwillingness to be with God that I am afraid I have no Grace for if I had Pauls spirit I should be able to say with him I desire to depart and to be with Christ Whereas now no news would be to me more unwelcome ANSWER THere is a loathness to Dye that comes from a Desire to do God more service and another that comes from an Apprehension of unreadiness when we would fain have more Assurance of Salvation first or would be fitter to meet our Lord. Blame not a man to be somewhat backward that knows it must go with him for ever in Heaven or Hell according as he is found at death But these two be not so much a loathness to Dye as a loathness to Dye now at this time 3. There is also in all men living Good and bad a natural abhorrence and fear of death God hath put this into mans nature even in Iâ—nocency to be his great means of Governing the World No man would live in ordâ—â— or be kept in obedience but for this He that cares not for his own Life is Master of anothers Grace doth not root out this abhorrency of Death no more then it unmanneth us Onely it restrains it from excess and so far overcometh the violence of the Passion by the apprehensions of a better life beyond death that a Believer may the more quietly and willingly submit to it Paul himself desireth not Death but the Life which followeth it He desireth to depart and to be with Christ that is He had rather be in Heaven then on earth and therefore he is contented to submit to the penal sharp passage God doth not command you to Desire death it self nor forbid you fearing it as an evil to nature and a punishment of sin Only he
that know it ordinarily to reject it 6. Also you must understand that when I say that true Willingness to be Ruled by Christ will shew it self in Actual Obedience I do not mean it of every particular individual Act which is our Duty as if you should judge your self Graceless for every particular omission of a duty no though you knew it to be a duty and though you considered it to be a duty For 1. There may be a true Habituated Inclination and Willingness to obey Christ rooted in the heart when yet by the force of a temptation the actual prevalency of it at that time in that act may be hindered and supprest 2. And at the same time you do hold on in a course of obedience in other duties 3. And when the temptation is overcome and Grace hath been rowsed up against the flesh and you soberly recollect your thoughts you will return to Obedience in that duty also Yea how many daies or weeks or moneths a true Christian may possibly neglect a known duty I will not dare to determe of which more anon Yet sucâ— omissions as will not stand with a sincerâ— Resolution and Willingness to obey Chriâ—â— universally I mean a Habitual Willingness will not consist with the truth of Grace 7. I know the fourth Mark about forsaking All for Christ may seem somewhat unseasonable and harsh to propound for the quieting of a troubled conscience But yet I durst not omit it seeing Christ hath not omitted it nay seeing he hath so urged it and laid such a stress on it in the Scripture as he hath done dare not dawb nor be unfaithfull for fear of troubling such skinning over the wound will but prepare for more trouble a further cure Christ thought it meet even to tell young beginners of the worst though it might possibly discourage them and did turn some back that they might not come to him upon mistaken expectations and he requireth all that will be Christians and he saved to count their cost before hand and reckon what it will stand them in to be Christs Disciples and if they cannot undergo his termes that is to deny themselves take up their Cross forsake all and follow him they cannot be his Disciples And Christ had rather they knew it before hand then to deceive themselves or to turn back when they meet with what they never thought of and then to imagin that Christ had deceived them drawn them in and done the wrong 8. When I say in the fourth Mark that you must have a setled Resolution I mean the same thing as before I did by hearty willingness But it is meeter here to call it Resolution because this is the proper name for that act of the Will which is a determination of it self upon dâ—liberation after any wavering to the dâ—ing or submitting to any thing as commanded I told you it must be the Prevailing act of the Will that must prove you sincere Every cold uneffectual wish will not serve tern Christ seeks for your heart on one side and the World with its pleasures profits and honours on the other side The soul which upon consideration of both doth prefer Christ in his choice and reject the world as it is competitor with him and this not doubtingly and with reservation for further deliberation or trial but presently passeth his consent for better and worse this is said to be a Resolving And I know no one word that more fitly expresseth the nature of that Grace which differenceth a true Christian from all hypocrites and by which a man may safely judge of his estate 9. Yet I here add that it must be a setled Resolution And that to intimate that it must be a Habituated Willingness or Resolution The Prevalency of Christs Interest in the soul must be a Habitual Prevalency If a man that is terrified by a rowsing Sermon or that hâ—th in expectation of present death should actually Resolve to forsake sin or perform duty without any further change of minde or habit or fixedness of this Resolution it would be of no great value and soon extinguished Though yet I believe that no unsanctified man doth ever attain to that full Resolution for Christ which hath a complacency in Christ accompanying it and which may be termed the Prevailing part of the Will Those that seem Resolved to day to be for Christ and to deny the world and the flesh and the next day are unresolved again have cause to suspect that they were never truly Resolved Though the Will of a godly man may lye under declinings in the degrees of Resolution yet Christ hath alwaies his Habitual Resolutions and usually his Actual in a prevalent degree 10. I add also the Grounds in the fourth Mark on which this Resolution must be raised For false Grounds in the Understanding will not bear up a true Resolution in the Will And therefore we put the Articles of our Creed before our Profession of Consent and Obedience Sound Doctrine and sound Belief of it breeds a sound Resolution and makes a sound heart and life If a man resolve to obey Christ upon a conceit that Christ will never put him upon any suffering else he would not resolve it and that he will give him such bruitish pleasures when he is dead as Mahomet hath promised to his disciples this Resoution were not sound yet in many lesser points of Doctrine a true Christian may be unsound and yet soundly cleave to the foundation He may build hay and stubble possibly but the foundation must be held 11. Observe well lest you mistake me that I speak only of the Necessity of your present Resolving to forsake all for Christ if he call you to it but I speak not of your absolute Promise or Prediction that eventually you shall not deny or forsake him You may be uncertain how you shall be upheld in a day of trial and yet you may now be Resolved or fully Purposed in your own minde what to do To say I will not consent purpose or resolve unless I were certain to perform my Resolutions and not to flag or change again this is but to say I will be no Christian unless I were sure to persevere I will not be married to Christ lest I should be drawn to break my covenant with him 12. Also observe that when I speak of your resolving to forsake all for Christ it is not to cast away your state or life but to submit it to his dispose and to relinquish it only in case that he command you so 13. And I do not intend that you should be able thus to Resolve of your self without the special Grace of God nor yet without it to continue those Resolutions much less to perform them by actual suffering Object But I cannot be sure that God will give me Grace to persevere or at least not to deny him as Peter did and therefore I should neither Promise nor Resolve what I cannot be
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
do more with us to draw us to sin then Faith and Obedience do to keep us from sin ordinarily this is no true Faith or Obedience If Christ have not the Soveraignty in the soul and his Interest be not the most predominant and potent we are no true Believers Now it is plain that the Interest of the world and flesh doth actually prevail when a man is actually committing a known sinne and omitting a known duty and then it is certain that Habits are known but by the Acts. And therefore it must needs be that the soul that most sinneth must needs be most in doubt whether the Interest of Christ or the flesh be predominant and so whether his obedience be true or no and so whether he did sincerely take Christ for his Soveraign and that is whether he be a true Believer For when a man is enquiring into the state of his soul Whether he do subject himself to Christ as his only Soveraign and whether the Authority and Love of Christ will do more with him then the temptations of the world flesh and devil he hath no way to be resolved but by feeling the Pulse of his own Will And if he say I am willing to obey Christ before the fâ—â—sh and yet do actually live in an obedience to the flesh before Christ he is deceived in his own Will for this is no saving Willingness A wicked man may have some will to obey Christ principally but having more will to the contrary viz. to please the flesh before Christ therefore he is wicked still so that you see in our self-examination the business is for the most part finally Resolved into our sincere actual obedience For thus we proceed We first finde He that believeth and loveth Christ sincerely shall be saved Then we proceed He that believeth sincerely taketh Christ for his Soveraign Then He that truly taketh Christ for his Soveraign doth truly resolve to obey him and his Laws before the world flesh or devil Then He that truly resolveth thus to obey Christ before all doth sincerely perform his resolution and doth so obey him For that is no true resolution ordinarily that never comes to performance And here we are cast unavoidably to try whether we do perform our resolutions by actual obedience before we can sit down with setled Peace much more before we get Assurance Now those that are diligent and carefull in obeying and have greatest conquest over their corruptions and do most seldom yield to temptations but do most notably and frequently conquer them these have the clearest discovery of the performance of their resolutions by obedience and consequently the fullest Assurance But they that are oftenest overcome by temptations and yield most to sin and live most disobediently must needs be furthest from Assurance of the sincerity of their obedience and consequently of their salvation 2. God himself hath plainly made our actual obedience not only a sign of true Faith but a secondary part of the condition of our salvation as promised in the New Covenant And therefore it is as impossible to be saved without it as without Faith supposing that the person have opportunity to obey in which case only it is made necessary as a condition This I will but cite several Scriptures to prove and leave you to peruse them if you be unsatisfied Rom. 8.1 to 14. They that are in Christ Jesus are they that walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit If ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if ye by the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live Rev. 22.14 Blessed are they that do his commandments that they may have right to the tree of Life and may enter in by the Gate into the City Heb. 5.9 He is become the Author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him Matth. 11.28 29 30. Take my yoak upon you for it is easie and my burden for it is light Learn of me to be meek and lowly c. and ye shall finde Rest c. John 16.27 Luke 13.24 Phil. 2.12 Rom. 2.7 10. Joh. 15.12 17. 14.21 Mat. 5.44 Luk. 6.27 35. Pro. 8.17 21. Matth. 10.37 1 Tim. 6.18 19. 2 Tim. 2.5 12. Matth. 25.41 42. Jam. 2.21 22 23 24 26. 1.12 2.5 Prov. 1.23 28.13 Luk. 13.3 5. Matth. 12.37 11.25 26. 6.12 14 15. 1 John 1.9 Act. 8.22 3.19 22.16 Luke 6.37 1 Pet. 4.18 1.2 22. Rom. 6.16 with abundance more the like Now when a poor sinner that hath oft fallen into Drunkenness Railing Strife Envying c. shall reade that these are the works of the flesh and that for these things sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience and that every man shall be judged according to his works and according to what he hath done in the flesh and that they that do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God it cannot be but that his Assurance of salvation must needs have so great a dependance on his obedience as that these sins will diminish it When he reades Rom. 6.16 His servants ye are to whom ye obey whether of sinne unto death or of obedience unto Righteousness he must needs think how such a time and such a time he obeyed sinne and the oftner and the more wilfully he did it the doubtfuller will his case be Especially if he be yet in a sinfull course which he might avoid whether of gross sinne or any wilfull sinne it cannot be but this will obscure the evidence of his obedience Men cannot judge beyond evidence and he that hath not the evidence of his true obedience hath not the evidence of the sincerity of his Faith 3. Moreover Assurance and Comfort are Gods gifts and without his gracious aid we cannot attain them But God will not give such gifts to his children while they stand out in disobedience but when they carefully please him Paternal Justice requires this 4. And it would do them abundance of hurt and God much dishonour if he should either tell them just how oft or how farre they may sin and yet be saved or yet should keep up their Peace and Comforts as well in their greatest disobedience as in their tenderest carefull walking with him But these things I spoke of before and formerly elsewhere You see then that though some obedient tender Christians may yet on several occasions be deprived of Assurance yet ordinarily no other but they have Assurance And that Assurance and Comfort will rise and fall with obedience And for all the Antinomian objections against this as if it were a leading men to their own righteousness from Christ I referre you to the twenty Arguments which I before laid you down to prove that we may and must fetch our Assurance and Comfort from our own works and Graces and so from our own Evangelical Righteousness which is subordinate to Christs Righteousness which he speaks of Matth. 25. last and in fourty
come not among them or pitty them not as you should and do not your duty for the saving of their souls but think it belongs not to you but to others Do you use to deal with servants and neighbors about you and tell them of sin and misery and the remedy and seek to draw their hearts to Christ and bring them to duty I doubt you do little in this and that is sad unmercifulness for if you did truly you could not choose but finde such miserable ignorance such senselesness and blockishness such hating reproof and unwillingness to be reformed such love of this world and slavery to the flesh and so little savour of Christ Grace Heaven and the things of the Spirit and especially such an unteachableness intractableness as thorns and bryars and so great a difficulty of moving them an inch from what they are that you would have been willing ever after to have Ministers preach more rousingly then they do and you would be glad for their sakes when you heard that which might awake them and prick them to the heart Yea if you had tried how hard a work it is to bring worldly formal Hypocrites to see their Hypocrisie or to come over to Christ from the creature and to be in good earnest in the business of their salvation you would be glad to have Preachers search them to the quick and ransack their hearts and help them against their affected and obstinate self-delusions Besides you should consider that theâ— Case is far different from yours Your disease is pain and trouble they are stark dead You have Gods favour and doubt of it they are his enemies and never suspect it You want comfort and they want pardon and life if your disease should never here be cured it is but going more sadly to heaven But if they be not recovered by Regeneration they must lie for ever in Hell And should we not then pitty them more then you and study more for them and preach more for them and rather forget you in a Sermon then them should you not wish us so to do should we more regard the comforting of one then the saving of an hundred Nay more we should not onely neglect them but dangerously hurt them if we should preach too much to the case of troubled souls For you are not so apt to misapply passages of terror and to take their portion as they are apt to apply to themselves such passages for comfort and take your portion to themselves I know some will say that it is preaching Christ and setting forth Gods Love that will win them best and terrors do but make unwilling Hypocrital Professors This makes me remember how I have heard some Preachers of the times blame their Brethren for not preaching Christ to their People when they Preached the danger of rejecting Christ disobeying him and resisting his Spirit Do these men think that it is no preaching Christ when we have first many years told men the fulness of his satisfaction the freeness and general extent of his Covenant or Promise and the riches of his Grace and the incomprehensibleness of his Glory and the Truth of all to tell them afterwards the danger of refusing neglecting and disobeying him and of living after the flesh and preferring the world before him and serving Mammon and falling off in persecution and avoiding the cross and yielding in Temptation and quenching the Spirit and declining from their first Love and not improving their Talents and not forgiving and loving their brethren yea and enemies c. Is none of this Gospel nor preaching Christ yea is not Repentance it self except despairing Repentance proper to the Gospel seeing the Law excludeth it and all manner of hope Blame me not Reader if I be zealous against these men that not only know no better what preaching Christ is but in their ignorance reproach their Brethren for not preaching Christ and withal condemn Christ himself and all his Apostles Do they think that Christ himself knew not what it was to preach Christ or that he set us a patern too low for our imitation I desire them soberly to read Mat. 5.6 7 10 25. Rom. 8. from the first verse to the 14. Rom. 2. Heb. 2. 4. 5. 10 and then tell me whether we preach as Christ and his Apostles did But to the Objection I Answer first we do set forth Gods love and the fulness of Christ and the sufficiency of his death and satisfaction for all and the freeness and extent of his offer and promise of mercy and his readiness to welcome returning sinners this we do first mixing with this the discovery of their natural misery by sin which must be first known and next we shew them the danger of Rejecting Christ and his offer 2. When we finde men settled under the preaching of free Grace in a base contempt or sleepy neglect of it preferring the world and their carnal pleasures and ease before all the Glory of heaven and Riches of Christ and Grace is it not time for us to say How shall ye escape if ye neglect so great salvation Heb. 2.3 and of how much soarer punishment shall he be thought worthy that treads under foot the blood of the Covenant Heb. 10.26 when men grow careless and unbelieving must we not say Take heed lest a promise being lest of entring into his Rest any of you should seem to come short of it Heb. 4.1 3. Hath not Christ led us commanded us and taught us this way Except ye Repent ye shall all perish was his Doctrine Luke 13.3 5. Go into the world and preach the Gospel to every creature what 's that Gospel He that believeth shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned Mark 16.16 Those mine Enemies that would not I should raign over them bring hither and stay them before me Luke 19.27 Doth any of the Apostles speak more of hell-fire and the worm that never dyeth and the fire that never is quenched their Christ himself doth And do not his Apostles go the same way even Paul the greatest preacher of faith 2 Thess 1 7 8 9. and 2.12 c. What more common Alas what work should we make if we should stroak and smooth all men with Antinomian language It were the way to please all the sensual prophane multitude but it is none of Christs way to save their souls I am ready to think that these men would have Christ preached as the Papists would have him pray'd to to say Jesu Jesu Jesu nine times together and this oft over is their praying to him and to have Christs name oft in the Preachers mouth some men think is the right preaching Christ Let me now desire you hereafter to be glad to hear Ministers awaken the prophane and dead-hearted hearers and search all to the quick and misapply nothing to your self but if you think any passage doth neerly concern you open your mind to the Minister privately
tender Affections and heart-meltings are our sins For my part I see exceeding Cause to bewail it greatly in my self that my soul is not raised to a higher pitch of tender sensibility of all spiritual things then it is and I doubt not but it should be the matter of our daily confession and complaint to God that our hearts are so dull and little affected with his sacred Truths and our own sins But this is the scope of all my Speech Why do not you distinguish between Matter of Sorrow and Matter of Doubting No question but you should lament your dulness and stupidity and use all Gods means for the quickening of your Affections and to get the most lively frame of soul but must it cause you to doubt of your sincerity when you cannot obtain this Then will you never have a setled Peace or Assurance for many days together for ought I know I would ask you but this Whether you are willing or unwilling of all that hardness insensibleness and dulness which you complain of If you are willing of it what makes you complain of it If you are unwilling it seems your will is so far sound and it is the Will that is the seat of the Life of Grace which we must try by And was not Pauls Case the same with yours Rom. 7.19 when he saith The Good which I Would do I do not and When I Would do Good Evil is present with me I know Paul speaks not of gross sins but ordinary Infirmities and I have told you before that the Liveliness and Sensibility of the Passions or Affections is a thing that the Will though sanctified cannot fully command or excite at its pleasure A sanctified man cannot Grieve or Weep for sin when he will or so much as he will he cannot Love Joy be Zealous c. when he will He may be truly Willing and not Able And is not this your Case And doth not Paul make it the Case of all Christians Gal. 5.17 The flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these are contrary one to the other so that we cannot do the things that we would Take my Counsel therefore in this if you love not self-deceiving and disquietness Search whether you can say unfeignedly I would with all my heart have Christ and his quickening and santifying Spirit and his softning Grace to bring my hard heart to Tenderness and my dull and blockish soul to a lively frame O that I could attain it And if you can truly say thus Bless God that hath given you saving sincerity And then let all the rest of your Dulness and Deadness and Hard-heartedness be matter of daily sorrow to you and spare not so it be in Moderation but let it be no matter of Doubting Confess it complain of it pray against it and strive against it but do not deny Gods Graces in you for it And here let me mind you of one thing That it is a very ill distemper of spirit when a man can mourn for nothing but what Causeth him to Doubt of his salvation It is a great Corruption if when your Doubts are Resolved and you are perswaded of your salvation if then you cease all your humiliation and sorrow for your sin For you must sorrow that you have in you such a body of Death and that which is so displeasing to God and are able to please and enjoy him no more though you were never so Certain of the pardon of sin and of salvation 7. Lastly let me ask you one Question more What is the reason that you are so troubled for want of Tears for your sin Take heed lest there lie some Corruption in this trouble that you do not discern If it be onely because your deadness and dulness is your sin and you would fain have your soul in that frame in which it may be fittest to please God and enjoy him then I commend and encourage you in your trouble But take heed lest you should have any conceit of a Meritoriousness in your Tears for that would be a more dangerous sin then your want of Tears And if it be for want of a sign of Grace and because a dry eye is a sign of an unregenerate soul I have told you It is not so except where it onely seconds an impenitent heart and comes from or accompanieth and unrenewed Will and a prevailing unwillingness to turn to God by Christ Shew me if you can where the Scripture saith He that cannot Weep for sin shall not be Saved or hath no true Grace Is not your complaint in this the very same that the eminentest Christians have used in all times That most Blessed holy man Mr. Bradford who sacrificed his life in the flames against Romish abominations was wont to subscribe his Spiritual Letters endited by the breath of the Spirit of God thus The most miserable Hard-hearted sinner John Bradford DOUBT V. O But I am not willing to Good and therefore I fear that even my will it self is yet unchanged I have such a backwardness and undisposedness to Duty especially secret Prayer Meditation and self-examination and reproving and exhorting sinners that I am fain to force my self to it against my will It is no Delight the find in these Duties that brings me to them but onely I use violence with my self and am fain to pull my self down on my knees because I know it is a Duty and I cannot be saved without it but I am no sooner on my knees but I have a motion to rise or be short and am weary of it and find no great miss of duty when I do omit it ANSWER 1. THis shews that your soul is sick when your meat goes so much against your stomack that you are fain to force it down And sickness may well cause you to complain to God and man But what 's this to Deadness The Dead cannot force down their meat nor digest it at all It seems by this that you are sanctified but in a low Degree and your Corruption remains in some strength and let that be your sorrow and the overcoming of it be your greatest care and business But should you therefore say that you are unsanctified It seems that you have still the flesh lusting against the spirit that you cannot do the Good you would when you would pray with Delight and unweariedness the flesh draws back and the Devil is hindering you And is it not so in too great a measure with the best on earth Remember what Christ said to his own Apostles when they should have done him one of their last Services as to the attendance of his body on earth and should have comforted him in his Agony they are all asleep Again and again he comes to them and findeth them asleep Christ is Praying and sweating blood and they are still sleeping though he warned them to watch and Pray that they enter not into Temptation But what doth God say to