The Right METHOD For a settled PEACE Of Conscience and Spiritual COMFORT In 32 DIRECTIONS Written for the use of a troubled friend and now published By Richard Baxter Teacher of the Church at Kederminster in Worcestershire 1 John 4.16 God is Love Luke 14.17 Mat. 22.4 Come for all things are now Ready London Printed for T. Vnderhil F. Tyton and W. Râ—ybould and are to be sold at the Anchor and at the Unicorn in Pauls Church-yard and at the three Daggers in Fleetstreet 1653. MAT. 11.28 COme unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you Rest Take my Yoke upon you and Learn of me for I am meek and Lowly in heart and ye shall finde Rest unto your souls For my Yoke is easie and my burthen is light GAL. 5.17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other so that ye cannot do the things that ye would ROM 6.16 Know ye not that to whom ye Yield your selves servants to obey his servants ye are to whom ye obey whether of sin unto Death or of Obedience unto Righteousness ROM 13.14 Make not provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof ROM 8.13 For if ye Live after the flesh ye shall dye But if ye through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the Body ye shall live 2 PET. 2.19 While they promise them Liberty they themselves are the Servants of Corruption for of whom a man is overcome of the same is he brought in bondage EZEK 33.10 11. Thus you speak saying If our transgressions and our sins be upon us and we pine away in them how should we then live Say unto them As I live saith the Lord God I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from his way and live turn ye turn ye from your evil ways for why will ye dye O house of Israel 2 COR. 2.20 Now then we are Ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead be reconciled to God PSAL. 37.3 4. Trust in the Lord and do good c. Delight thy self also in the Lord and he shall give thee the Desires of thine heart Sound Doctrine makes a sound Judgement a sound Heart a sound Conversation and a sound Conscience To my much valued beloved and honored friends Col. John Bridges with Mr s Margaret Bridges his Wife and Mr. Thomas Foley with Mr s Anne Foley his Wife THough in publishing our Writings we intend them for the good of all yet custom not without reason doth teach us sometimes to direct them more especially to some Though one only had the original interest in these papers yet do I now direct them to you all as not knowing how in this to separate you You dwell together in my Estimation and Affection One of you a Member of the Church which I must Teach and legally the Patron of its Maintenance and Minister The other a special branch of that family which I was first indebted to in this County You lately joyned in presenting to the Parliament the Petition of this County for the Gospel and a faithful Ministry When I only told you of my intention of sending some poor Scholars to the University you freely and joyntly offered your considerable Annual allowance thereto and that for the continuance of my life or their necessities there I will tell the world of this whether you will or no not for your applause but for their imitation and the shame of many of far greater estates that will not be drawn to do the like The season somewhat aggravates the Goodness of your Works When Satan hath a design to burn up those Nurseries you are watering Gods plants when the greedy mouth of Sacriledge is gaping for their Maintenance you are voluntarily adding for the supply of its defect Who knows how many souls they may win to Christ if God shall send them forth into his harvest whom you have thus assisted and what an addition to your comfort this may be When the Gospel is so undermined and the Ministry so maligned and their maintenance so envied you have as the mouth of this County appeared for them all What God will yet do with us we cannot tell but if he will continue his Gospel to us you may have the greater comfort in it If he will remove it and forsake a proud unworthy false hearted People yet may you have the comfort of your sincere endeavors you with the rest that sincerely furthered it may escape the gnawings of Conscience and the publique curse and reproach which the Historie of this age may fasten upon them who after all their Engagements in blood and Covenants would either in ignorant fury or malicious subtilty or base temporizing cowardize oppugn or undermine the Gospel or in perfidious silence look on whilst it s destroyed But because it is not the work of a flatterer that I am doing but of a friend I must second these commendations with some caution and counsel and tell your selves of your danger and duty as I tell others of your exemplary Deeds Truly the sad experiences of these times have much abased my confidence in man and caused me to have lower thoughts of the best then sometime I have had I confess I look on man as such a distempered slippery and unconstant thing and of such a natural mutability of Apprehensions and Affections that as I shall never more call any man on earth My friend but with a supposition that he may possibly become mine enemie So I shall never be so confident of any mans Fidelity to Christ as not withal to suspect that he may possibly forsake him nor shall I boast of any mans service for the Gospel but with a jealousie that he may be drawn to do as much against it though God who knows the heart and knows his own decrees may know his sincerity and foreknow his perseverance Let me therefore remember you that had you expended your whole estates and the blood of your hearts for Christ and his Gospel he will not take himself beholden to you He oweth you no Thanks for your deepest engagements highest adventures greatest cost or utmost endeavours You are sure beforehand that you shall be no losers by him your seeming hazards increase your security Your losses are your gain your giving is your receiving your expences are your revenues Christ returns the largest usury The more you do and suffer for him the more you are beholden to him I must also remember you that you may possibly live to see the day when it will cost you dearer to shew your selves faithful â—o the Gospel Ordinances and Ministers of Christ then now it doth and that many have shrunk in greater tryals that past through lesser with resolution and honor Your defection at the last would be the loss of all your works and hopes If any man
men willing that so they may be saved Answ God having created the world and all things in it at first did make them in a certain nature and order and so stablish them as by a fixed Law and he thereupon is their Governour to govern every thing according to its nature Now mans Nature was to be Principled with an Inclination to his own Happiness and to be lead to it by objects in a Morall way and in the choice of means to be a free agent and the Guider of himself under God As Governour of the Rational creature God doth continue that same course of Ruling them by Laws and drawing them by ends and objects as their natures do require And in this way he is not wanting to them His Laws are now Laws of Grace and universal in the tenour of the free Gift and Promise for he hath there given life in Christ to all that will have it and the objects propounded are sufficient in their kinde to work even the most wonderfull effects on mens souls for they are God himself and Christ and glory Besides God giveth men natural faculties that they may have the use of reason and there is nothing more unreasonable then to refuse this offered Mercy He giveth inducing Arguments in the written Word and Sermons and addeth such Mercies and Afflictions that one would think should bow the hardest heart Besides the strivings and motions of his Spirit within which are more then we can give an account of Now is not this as much as belongs to God as Governour of the Creature according to its Nature And for the Giving of a New nature and Creating New hearts in men after all their rebellious rejecting of Grace this is a certain Miracle of Mercy and belongs to God in another Relation even as the free chooser of his Elect and not directly as the Governour of the universe This is from his special Providence and the former from his General Now special Providences are not to be as common as the General nor to subvert Gods ordinary established Course of Government If God please to stop Jordan and dry up the Red Sea for the passage of the Israelites and to cause the Sun to stand still for Joshua must he do so still for every man in the world or else be accounted unmercifull The sense of this Objection is plainly this God is not so rich in Mercy except he will New make all the World or Govern it above its Nature Suppose a King know his subjects to be so wicked that they have every one a full design to famish or kill themselves or poison themselves with something which is enticing by its sweetness The King not only makes a Law strictly charging them all to forbear to touch that poison but he sendeth special Messengers to entreat them to it and tell them the danger If these men will not hear him but wilfully poison themselves is he therefore unmercifull But suppose that he hath three or four of his sons that are infected with the same wickedness and he will not only command and intreat them but he will also lock them up or keep the poison from them or will feed them by violence with bitter food is he unmercifull unless he will do so by all the rest of his Kingdom Lastly If all this will not satisfie you Consider 1. That it is most certain that God is Love and infinite in Mercy and hath no pleasure in the death of sinners 2. But it is utterly uncertain to us how God worketh on mans will inwardly by his Spirit 3. Or yet what intollerable inconvenience there may be if God should work in other wayes therefore we must not upon such uncertainties deny certainties nor from some unreasonable scruples about the manner of Gods working Grace deny the blessed Nature of God which himself hath most evidently proclaimed to the world I have said the more of this because I finde Satan harp so much on this string with many troubled souls especially on the advantage of some common doctrines For false doctrine still tends to the overthrow of solid Peace and Comfort Remember therefore before all other thoughts for the obtaining of Peace to get high thoughts of the Gracious and Lovely Nature of God DIRECTION IV. 4. Next this Be sure that you deeply apprehend the Gracious Nature Disposition and Office of the Mediator JESUS CHRIST THough there can no more be said of the Gracious Nature of the Son then of the Father's even that his Goodness is Infinite yet these two advantages this Consideration will add unto the former 1. You will see here Goodness and Mercy in its condescension and neerer to you then in the Divine Nature alone it was Our thoughts of God are necessarily more strange because of our Infinite distance from the Godhead and therefore our apprehensions of Gods Goodness will be the lesse working because lesse familiar But in Christ God is come down into our Nature and so Infinite Goodness and Mercy is incarnate The man Christ Jesus is able now to save to the utmost all that come to God by him We have a Mercifull High Priest that is acquainted with our Infirmities 2. Herein we see the Will of God putting forth it self for our help in the most astonishing way that could be imagined Here is more then meerly a Gracious inclination It s an Office of saving and shewing Mercy also that Christ hath undertaken even to seek and to save that which was lost to bring home straying souls to God to be the great Peace-maker between God and man to Reconcile God to man and man to God and so to be the Head and Husband of his people Certainly the Devil strangely wrongeth poor troubled souls in this point that he can bring them to have such hard suspicious thoughts of Christ and so much to overlook the Glory of Mercy which so shineth in the face of the Son of Mercy it self How can we more contradict the Nature of Christ and the Gospel-description of him then to think him a destroying hater of his creatures and one that watcheth for our halting and hath more mind to hurt us then to help us How could he have manifested more willingness to save and more tender compassion to the souls of men then he hath fully manifested That the Godhead should condescend to assume our Nature is a thing so wonderfull even to astonishment that it puts faith to it to apprehend it For it is ten thousand times more condescension then for the greatest King to become a Fly or a Toad to save such creatures And shall we ever have low and suspicious thoughts of the Gracious and Mercifull Nature of Christ after so strange and full a discovery of it If twenty were ready to drown in the sea and if one that were able to swim and fetch them all out should cast himself into the water and offer them his help were it not foolish ingratitude for any to say
this Rule in any of your self-examinings It is the heart that God requireth My son give me thy heart Prov. 23.26 If he hath the Will he hath the heart He may have much of our Knowledge and not our heart but when we Know him so throughly as to Will him unfeignedly then he hath our heart Affectionate workings of soul to God in Christ are sweet things and high and noble Duties and such as all Christians should strive for But they are not the safest Marks to try our states by 1. Because there may be a solid sincere intention and choice in and of the Will when there is little stirring perceived in the Affections 2. Because the Will is the Master Commanding Faculty of the Rational soul and so if it be right that man is upright and safe 3. Because the Passions and Affections are so mutable and uncertain The Will can command them but imperfectly it cannot perfectly Restrain them from vanities much less can it perfectly raise them to that height as is suitable to the excellency of our heavenly objects But the object it self with its sensible manner of apprehension moves them more then all the Command of the Will And so we finde by experience that a godly man when with his utmost private endeavour he cannot command one stirring pang of divine Love or Joy in his soul yet upon the hearing of some moving Sermon or the sudden receiving of some extraordinary Mercy or the reading of some quickning book he shall feel perhaps some stirring of that Affection So when we cannot weep in private one tear for sin yet at a stirring Sermon or when we give vent to our sorrows and ease our troubled hearts into the bosome of some faithfull friend then we can finde tears 4. Because Passions and Affections depend so much on the temperature of the Body To one they are easie familiar and at command to another as honest they are difficult and scarce stirred at all With most women and persons of weaker tempers they are easier then with men Some cannot weep at the death of a friend though never so deer no nor perhaps feel very sensible inward grief and yet perhaps would have redeemed his life at a far deerer rate had it been possible then those that can grieve and weep more abundantly 5. Because Worldly things have so great an advantage on our Passions and Affections 1. They are sensible and neer us and our knowledge of them is clear But God is not to be seen heard or felt by our senses he is far from us though locally present with us we are capable of knowing but little very little of him 2. Earthly things are alway before our eyes their advantage is continuall 3. Earthly things being still the objects of our senses do force our Passions whether we will or not though they cannot force our Wills 6. Because Affections and Passions rise and fall and neither are nor can be in any even and constant frame and therefore are unfit to be the constant or certain evidence of our state But the Wills Resolution and Choice may be more constant So that I advise you rather to try your self by your Will then by your Passionate stirrings of Love or longing of Joy or sorrow Object But doth not Scripture lay as much on Love as on any Grace and doth not Christ say that except we Love him above all we cannot be his Disciples Answ It s all very true But consider Love hath two parts the one in the Will which is commonly called a faculty of the soul as Rational and this is the same thing that I call Willing Accepting Choosing or Consenting this Complacency is true Love to Christ and this is the sure standing Mark. The other is the Passionate part commonly said to be in the soul as sensitive and this though most commonly called Love yet is less certain and constant and so unfitter to try your state by though a great duty so far as we can reach it 2. You must understand and well remember that it is not every willingness that will prove your sincerity For wicked men may have slight apprehensions of spiritual things which may produce some slight desires and wishes which yet are so feeble and heartless that every lust and carnal desire overcomes them And it will not so much as enable them to deny the grossest sin But it must be the Prevalent part of your Will that God must have I mean a greater share a deeper and larger room then any thing in the world That is you must have a higher estimation of God and everlasting happiness and Christ and a holy life then of any thing in the world and also your Will must be so disposed hereby and inclined to God that if God and Glory to be obtained through Christ by a holy self-denying life were set before you on the one hand and the Pleasure Profits and Honours of the world to be enjoyed in a way of sin on the other hand you would resolvedly take the former and refuse the later Indeed they are thus set before you and upon your choice dependeth your salvation or damnation though that Choice must come from the Grace of God 3. Yet must you well remember that this Willingness and Choice is still imperfect and therefore when I mention a hearty willingness I mean not a perfect willingness There may be and is in the most gracious souls on earth much undisposedness backwardness and withdrawing of heart which is too great a measure of unwillingness to duty Especially to those duties which the flesh is most averse from and which require most of God and his Spirit to the right performance of them Among all Duties I think the soul is naturally most backward to these following 1. To secret Prayer because it is spiritual and requires great reverence and hath nothing of external pomp or form to take us up with and consisteth not much in the exercise of common gifts but in the exercise of special Grace and the breathings of the Spirit and searchings pantings and strivings of a gracious soul towards God I do not speak of the heartless repeating of bare words learned by rote and either not understood or not uttered from the feeling of the soul 2. To serious Meditation also is the soul very backward that is either to meditate on God and the promised Glory or any spiritual subject to this end that the heart may be thereby quickned and raised and graces exercised though to meditate on the same subject only to know or dispute on it the heart is nothing neer so backward Or else to meditate on the state of our own hearts by way of self-examination or self-judging or self-reprehension or self-exciting 3. Also to the Duty of faithfull dealing with each others souls in secret reproof and exhortation plainly though lovingly to tell each other of our sins and danger to this the heart is usually very backward partly through a
your side it would keep you from drooping and discouragement And why should it not do so in the present case DIRECTION XVII 17. My next advice to you is this For the strengthening your apprehensions of the Probability of your Salvation Gather up and improve all your choicest Experiences of Gods good will and mercy to you And observe also the Experiments of others in the same kind WE do God and our selves a great deal of wrong by forgetting neglecting and not improving our Experiences How doth God charge it on the Israelites especially in the wilderness that they forgot the Works of God by which he had so often manifested his Power and Goodness Psal 78. 107. see 105 106. When God had by one Miracle silenced their unbelief they had forgotten it in the next distress It was a sign the disciples hearts were hardened when they forgot the Miracles of the loaves and presently after were distrustfull and afraid Mar. 6.52 God doth not give us his mercies only for the present use but for the future nor only for the body but for the soul I would this truth were well learned by Believers You are in sickness in troubles and dangers and pinching straits in fears and anguish of minde In this case you cry to God for help and he doth in such a manner deliver you as silenceth your distrust and convinceth you of his love at least of his readiness to do you good What a wrong is it now to God and your self to forget this presently and in the next temptation to receive no strengthening by the consideration of it Doth God so much regard this dirty flesh that he should do all this meerly for its ease and relief No he doth it to kill your unbelief and convince you of his special Providence his care of you and love to you and power to help you and to breed in you more loving honourable and thankfull thoughts of him Lose this benefit and you lose all You may thus use one and the same Mercy a hundred times Though it be gone as to the body it is still fresh in a believing thankfull carefull soul You may make as good use of it at your very death as the first hour But O the sad forgetfulness mutability and unbelief of these hearts of ours What a number of these choice experiences do we all receive When we forget one God giveth another and we forget that too When unbelief doth blasphemously suggest to us Such a thing may come once or twice by chance God addeth one experience to another till it even shame us out of our unbelief as Christ shamed Thomas and we cry out My Lord and My God Hath it not been thus oft with you Have not Mercies come so seasonably so unexpectedly either by small means or the means themselves unexpectedly raised up without your designing or effecting and plainly in answer to prayers that they have brought conviction along with them and you have seen the Name of God engraven on them Sure it is so with us when through our sinfull negligence we are hardly drawn to open our eyes and see what God is doing Much more might we have seen if we had but observed the workings of Providence for us Especially they that are in an afflicted state and have more sensible daily use for God and are awakened to seek him and regard his dealings I know a Mercy to the body is no certain evidence of Gods Love to the soul But yet from such experiences a Christian may have very strong Probabilities When we find God hearing Prayers it is a hopefull sign that we have some interest in him We may say as Manoahs wife said to him Judg. 13.23 If the Lord had meant to destroy us he would not have received a sacrifice at our hands nor have done all this for us To have God so near to us in all that we call upon him for and so ready to relieve us as if he could not deny an earnest prayer and could not endure to stop his ears against our cries and groans these are hopefull signes that he meaneth us good I know special Grace is the only Certain Evidence of special Love But yet these kind of experiences are many times more effectual to refresh a drooping doubting soul then the surest Evidences For Evidences may be unseen and require a great deal of holy skill and diligence to try them which few have But these experiences are near us even in our bodies and shew themselves They make all our bones say Lord who is like unto thee And it is a great advantage to have the help of sense it self for our Consolation I hope you yet remember the choice particular Providences by which God hath manifested to you 〈◊〉 Goodness even from your youth till now especially his frequent answering of your prayers Methinks these should do something to the dispelling of those black distrustfull thoughts of God I could wish you would write them down and oft review them And when Temptations next come remember with David who helpt you against the Lion and the Bear and therefore fear not the uncircumcised Philistine 2. And you may make great use also of the experiences of others Is it not a great satisfaction to hear twenty or fourty or a hundred Christians of the godliest lives to make the very same complaints as you do your sel◠The very same complaints have I heard from as many By this you may see your case is not singular but the ordinary case of the tenderest Consciences and of many that walk uprightly with God And also is it not a great help to you to hear other Christians tell how they have come into those troubles and how they have got out of them what hurt them and what helped them and how God dealt with them while they lay under them How desirous are diseased persons to talk with others that have had the same disease and to hea◠them tell how it took them and how it 〈◊〉 them and specially what cured them Besides it will give you much stronger hopes of cure and recovery to peace of conscience when you hear of so many that have been cured of the same disease Moreover is it not a reviving thing to hear Christians open the Goodness of the Lord and that in particulars as upon experience they have found him to their own souls To hear them tell you of such notable discoveries of Gods special providence and care of his people as may refell all Temptations to Atheism and unbelief To hear them give you their frequent and full experiences of Gods hearing and answering their Prayers and helping them in their distresses Though the carnal part of the Mercy were only theirs yet by improvement the spiritual part may be yours You may have your faith and love and joy confirmed by the experiences of David Job Paul which are past so long ago and by the experiences of all your Godly acquaintance as if they
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
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
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