the spirit and breaking your peace in not maintaining and nourishing the same time the other and hence being drawn to go two waies at the same time which you cannot wel do your heart is disquieted and your peace much interrupted This of yours puts me in mind of the complaint of an honest yet plain man to an able Minister once who in bewailing his condition to him among other miseries that was not the least viz. that he was exceedingly troubled with good thoughts so that he could not follow his place â—nlesâ—e very oft he did stand still and pray for fear of grieving the Spirit as he thought and lâ—â—ing his season of being heard in Heaven for said Conscience oâ—t unto him how dost thou know but this may be thy accepted time and if thou dost not take it it may be thou shalt never have it again I have forgot the Ministers answer but I am sure in these complaints you go not alone I have lately known one very able wise and godly put upon the Rack in these kind of thoughts by him that envying Gods peoples peace knowes how to change himselfe into an Angell of light For it being his usuall course in the time of his health to make a diary of his hourely life and finding much benefit by it hee was in Conscience prest by the power and delusion of Satan to make and take the same daily survay of his life in the time of his sicknesse by meanes of which he spent his enfeeblâ—d spirits cast on fuell to fire his sicknesse and had not a friend of his convinced him of his erronious coâ—science misâ—eading him at that time he had murdered his body out of conscience to save his soule and to preserve his grace and do you think these were the motions of Gods spirit which like those Locusts Rev. 9. 9 10. had faces like men but had tailes like Scorpions and stings in their tailes Your thoughts I know are not likely to produce the same effects although you have the same efficient and because you say your peace is hereby disturbed by ignorance as not knowing what to doe in the midst of these Civill actions and these religious thoughts I conceive that two thinâ—â— are to be sadly considered of for the cure of them First how to know when such religious pious thoughts come from Gods spirit and when from the devill transforming himself into an Angell of light or from a well-melted stirring conscience yet blind For when you know they come from Gods spirit you are bound to nourish them but when not you are bound not to embrace nor comply with them Secondly learn how your soul is to behave and carry it selfe in Civill employments For when you see how you doe and may honour God in following them your spirit will not be so unquiet if at any time you imbrace not the suggestions of the other 1. For the â—irst briefely all good motions and thoughts are not the spirits motioâ—s as may thus appear There be three things chiefly by which were may discerne the motions suggestions and thoughts which come from Gods spirit all which concurring together in a good action or thought or word not one alone will make discovery whether they are from Gods spirit or not 1. If it be suggested for Gods ends it s from Gods spirit to act so high as for a supernaturall end must arise from a supernaturall principle which only is Gods spirit Pharasaicall actions were for a double selfish end and hence not from Gods spirit but nature and their own spirit 1. To be seen of men 2. If they did any of them abhor this yet it was to purchase and gender in their own minds an opinion of holinesâ—e before God and hence Christ gives them this Item in giving Almes that they should not let the right hand know what their left hand doth for many men will doe good acts lest they should by the neglect of them thinke them hypocrites and so be troubled for them Christ would have us not to take notice of what we do for such an end If they be animated and quickned from Gods command for the higher measure of holinesse for glorious ends without a warrant from the Word is the more â—ordid superstition Christ healed the Lâ—per when he charged him with anger to tell no man he no question for a good end published the miracle the more this was a good motion but it was sinnefull in him being crosse to Christs command when Christ would have washed Peters feet he had many thoughts that came into his head concerning his owne vilenesse and Christs glory and had a good end and meaning in his answers yet his humility crossing Christs command the Lord professeth against it and him for it that he had no part in him if hee should goe on in it Gods Spirit sets a man on worke in due season for let the duty be commanded and rightly directed yet if it be not done in season it is not from Gods Spirit hence Psal. 1. The râ—ghteous bring forth fruit in its season and hence Solomon speakes of words spoken in season arâ—as apples of Gold and hence we read in Ecclesiaâ—tes of a time and season for â—very thing under the Suâ—ne and therefore when there is a season of Gods appointing for civill things or businesse it is not season now to be molested or perplexed in it by the injection and evocation of those thoughts which we thinke to proceed from the Spirit of God I know indeed that the Spirit of God doth enable a man to do whatever good he doth but as Grace makes Nature sometimes to serve so sinnefull Nature brings Grace into captivity which Paul complaines of Rom. 7. and makes Grace to serve it To exhort and reprove another for sinne is from Gods Spirit that it is done but to reprove at an unseasonable time it s from sinnefull corruption abusing Gods grace and makeing Sâ—â—â—son to grinde It s from the excellency of a 〈◊〉 to cut well but to cut my singer with it 〈◊〉 â— should be cutting of my meat with it 〈◊〉 not from the end of the knife nor from the intention of him that made it so to thinke of good things it is from the spirit I grant but to think of them in such a season that God sets you a worke to minde and follow other occasions it s from the enemy of Gods spirit and your owne peace for as it is a sinne to nourish worldly thoughts when God sets you a worke in spirituall heavenly imployments so it is in some respects as great a sin to suffer your self to be distracted by spirituall thoughts when God sets you on worke in Civill yet lawfull imployments such thoughts I conceive are but the leven of Monkish holinesse if they divert you from your lawfulfull affaires when the Lord calls you to follow them For the Lord never calls you to two divers imployments at the same time unlesse
between himselfe and himself himselfe as he is in Christ and so to joy and triumph and himselfe as hee is growing on his first root and so to sorrow and loath and condemn himself so that to wiâ—de up all that I have said looke upon your selfe as in Christ you may say these involuntary infirmities do not shall not condemn me But Lord it is grace Grace that it is not so and this is Evangelicall humiliation Look again upon your self as you stand on your own bottom and live in your owne nature and so you may say after the least infirmity I have now broken a most holy and righteous Law and therefore I am already condemned O woe is me I have already undone my selfe by mine iniquity and this is Legall humiliation which serves for mortification as the first for vification I know it is very difficult to bring the heart to acknowledge freely it deserves death after so â—mall an involuntary offence but when the Lord reveales two things First himself in his glory Secondly how the least sinne strikes him I perswade my selfe the vilest heart cannot but be forced to confesse how just God should be in his severest proceedings against him And withall consider the more involuntary any sinne is the more strong and naturall it is and the more naturall the more horrible as to be a naturall Thief is farre worse then to be a deliberat thiefe who sometimes steales and therefore good Sir take heed of looking no deeper nor seeing no further then the bare act and unvoluntarinesse and accidentalnesse and suddennesse of your infirmities for if you do you look through the wrong end of the glasâ—e and they will appear so small that you will find it a very tough work to bring your heart consentively to say if I may say and use your owne phrase It is thy mercy Lord that I am not consumed for them but look upon them as indeed they are in respect of that infinite glory you strike doing the greatest mischiefes to God by them and which makes them the viler as they are so strong you cannot remove them and so horrible as that it is naturall to you to commit them c. And surely you will not through grace finde such thoughts haunt you long not but that they wil be haply rising and tempting but never allway vexing and prevailing Satans ground reaching as far as the minds of Gods people and therefore so farre he may come and there he may walke for the came into the minde of innocent Adam nay Iesus Christ by his suggesting temptations but the heart is Christs peculiar posâ—ession and purchase and if he shall still there offer to come in and vex you and prevail against you and to lodge his suggestions this or any other way with you you have Law and Christ on your side by this little light now given you to cast him out The third thing that troubles you is the disranking of the Persons in the Trinity for though you thinke the holy Ghost is God yet you have not so high a repute of him as of the Father and the Sonne because the Sonne addresseth himselfe to God the Father in all his prayers and acknowledgements in a more immediate manner then unto the holy Ghost and therefore you would know if the word Father as in the Lords Prayer includes not the Unity in Trinity To this briefly consider three things 1. Without all question the same God which lies under that relative property of Father is the same God with the God-head of the Sonne and the God-head of the holy Ghost there being not three Gods and therefore the God-head of the Sonne and Spirit are not excluded but included in the Godhead of the Father when we looke upon the Father as God in the Lords Prayer or anywhere else 2. But secondly the Father as Father is never taken for the same holy Ghost in Scripture nor the Sonne as Sonne is taken for the Father nor the holy Ghost as holy Ghost is at any time taken for the Sonne For it is a rule in Theologie though the res subsâ—rata the thing that lies under the Relative property viz. the God-head of every person be common and communicated yet the same God-head considered as clothed with his Relative property as Father Son and Spirit it is not common but peculiar For the God-head of the Father as Father is not the God-head of the Son as Son c. 3. Hence it followes that when Christ addreâ—seth himselfe to the Father as Father in Scripture it is not because he is either a diverse or greater God then the holy Ghost but it is for two other reasons 1. Because the Father as Father received primarily the wrong that sinne did against his worke of creation For the Father being the first Person in order and creation the first transient act as election and reprobation were the first immanent hence this worke is attributed chiefly to God the Father in respect of our orderly apprehension and hence man sinning then when he was onely made this is chiefly attributed to be against the Father because his worke appeared to be chiefly there and not against the Son for his worke chiefly appeares in redemption hee being the second Person and this the second main and wonderfull work neither against the holy Ghost for his worke chiefly appeares to us in application being the third Person And this the third main act that ever God will do or show forth to the world in this life hence God the Father receiving to our apprehension the wrong in creation by sinne he is the Person that is to be satisfied and not the holy Ghost And hence Jesus Christ in all his prayers hath a most speciall eye to him and not to the holy Ghost as holy Ghost because he came into the world by his death and intercession and strong cries to satisfie God the Father and not God the holy Ghost as a third Person And hence it is said 1 John 2. 1. 2. If any man sinne we have an Advocate with God the Father not God the holy Ghost because he was to our apprehension the Person wronged and hence we are after sins committed chiefly to eye the Father in our prayers and to go to him for pardon with our advocate with us because to whom offence is chiefly offered from â—im chiefly pardon and reconciliation is to be expected 2. Therefore Christ addresseth himselfe chiefly in his prayers to God the Father because hee is the originall and first cause of all good because he is the first Person in order of subsisting and therefore first too in the manner of conveying I know the God-head is the originall of all good but consider the Persons one with another and so the father is ever the first in operation as the holy Ghost is the last in consummation for all good comes from the Father Iames 1. 17. through the Sonne by the holy Ghost And hence
feare them nor condemn your selfe for them as damning sinnes For satisfaction of which I hope this reply to your second trouble will give you some satisfaction Againe to your fourth question to know whether these changes you have sometimes and these movings of the Spirit are not of naturall temper or Gods Spirit It seemes I did a little mistake the meaning because you meant not the maine worke of grace but occasional stirrings and movings of heart as by reading some paâ—heticall Letter your Spirit is moved with joy or sorrow which it may be will not be stirred at some other time as by drinking a cup of wine the spirit is made more chearfull and lively c. I answer these three things 1. First That it is very usuall for naturall affections to be raised by a naturall temper as by drinking eating noveltinesse of the Gospel Iohn's candle flies were ravished with the Gospel People are naturally moved sometimes by a thundering Minister yet never a whit the more grace c. and it is a good speech of Doctor Ames Arminian universall grace as they describe it may be the effect of a good dinner sometimes 2. That though the being of grace depends not upon the temper of the body yet the exercise of grace and many gifts of grace together with the feeling of it doth And hence a good dinner and sometimes wine to a sad melancholy if gracious heart may remove rem prohibentem that may keepe grace as joy and thankefullnesse from working and so take the grace and draw it out not create and diffuse the grace The Prophet called you know for a Minstril which some thinke and that upon good grounds was to raise up his heavy heart and make him chearfull and fit to speake the body is the instrument which if it be broken the best grace will hardly sound but if whole then they will 3. If you would know when these things onely draw out grace or make a thing like unâ—o grace in the Soul I answer by these two things chiefly 1. If it be true grace it ever makes you more humble and vile in your owne eyes and say Lord why dost thou give me any desire to thee any cheerfulnesse in serving thee c. 2. It makes you more thankefull and to blesse the Lord that he thus remembers you for this is a standing rule what ever comes from nature and a mans selfe it ever builds up it selfe and returnes to selfe againe what ever grace comes from Christ it drives a man out of himselfe by making him humble and draws him unto Christ that sent him by making him thankfull I thinke all grace and stirrings and movings that have not this double effect in some measure are to be suspected and if they have it is dangerous to doubt whether they are true or no 5. Again Your â—ifth thing about providence you say you cannot see a positive providence although you do see a negative providence in all your occasions and comforts and crosses you meet withall as namely you can thanke God for not taking away your life c. but you cannot see God giving it I answer 1. Consider what I writ to you at first about this question in generall 2. Ponder sadly whether any creature or appurtenance to it hath its being from it selfe or from the will and word of God viz. I will have such a man to be and such a memory to be c. I thinke you will say nothing can make it selfe therefore here is a positive providence in having life liberty c. 3. Consider whether the same will and word that gives it a being together with all the appurtenances to it doth not also give it act and motion That it is so I thus demonstrate it 1. Every creature is made for an end for no wise efficient but workes for some wise end 2. That no creature can lead it selfe to its end if sinnefull or irrationall 3. God must and doth lead it by its severall acts and movings to that end Hence 4. Every act is determined by God And although I grant some creatures move freely some necessarily yet it is from a positive will and providence that they move act and see Therefore you see what cause there is to see a positive providence in every thing Concerning the rest of your letter Oh that I had time and heart to write more yet I hope I have writ enough for this time and the Lord knowes whether evermore or no However I thanke you heartily for improving me this way of writing who have my mouth slopt from speaking I wish I had more such friends to deale thus with me and my selfe more time and a more fruitfull head and heart to improve my selfe this or any other like way for them For who knowes what breathings of Gods Spirit are lost for want of writing especially when there is no season of speaking Truly Sir I meet with few that are much troubled in that manner as your selfe but they goe on in an easie quiet and very dangerous way which troubles I perswade my selfe keep you awaking when other virgins are slumbring and after which I am perswaded the Lord intends to use you for more then common service if you wade well through them however as I said before be not discouraged or too much perplexed in sorrow for them For surely as farre as I can guesse the Lord is preparing you for himselfe by them I shall not forget you though I never saw you and I beseech you if you have any sparke of affection toward me kindled by these few lines remember when you are best able to pray for your selfe to remember to looke after me and mine and all that go with me on the mighty waters and then to looke up and sigh to Heaven for me that the Lord would out of his free grace but bring me to that good land and those glorious Ordinances and that there I may but behold the face of the Lord in his Temple though hee never delight to use me there though I and mine should possibly beg there and that if the Lord should call me to my solemne worke and service for the good of his Church and People and company that goe with me or are gone before me that then the â—ord Jesus would reveale his secrets to me and enable me the little time I have to live to befâ—uitfull to him and to have a larger heart then ever for him As for your selfe I shall desire the Lord to keep you blamelesse and unspotted in an evill world and that as he hath begun so he would perfect and crowne his divine graces and worke in you and that you may be preserved from nationall sins which shortly bring National and most heavy plagues And the presence of the Lord may abide with you and in you untill the Lord call for you Remember my kinde love to your Father whose name I have forgot and by whom I could not send these lines being then hindred by businesse Now the peace of Jesus Christ be with you and keepe you upright and blamelesse till death And if I never see you more till the last and great day then Farewell Farewel Yours in Iesus Christ T. S. Mr. Shepherd of New-England Two things to be considered about motionâ— How to try the motions of Gods Spirit 2 Meanes Quest 2. Answ. Object Answ. Answ. Quest 3. Answ. Quest 4. Answ. Quest 5. Answ. How to apply absolute promises Object Quest Answ. Quest 1. Answ. Quest 2. Answ. Quest 3. Answ. Object Answ. Answ. 2. Quest 4. Answ. Answ. 1.