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A27009 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 ... Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. 1653 (1653) Wing B1373A; ESTC R17485 252,137 602

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Believe without Gods further help but he that hath made you willing will not be wanting to maintain your willingness Though I will say to any man You may have Christ if you Will yet I will say to no man You can be willing of your self or without the special Grace of God Nay let me further ask Have not you darkned buried or weakned your Graces in stead of exercising and increasing them even then when you complained for want of Assurance of them when you found a want of Faith and Love have not you weakened them more and so made them less discernable Have you not fed your unbelief and disputed for your doubtings and taken Satans part against your self and which is farre worse have you never through these doubtings entertained hard thoughts of God and presented him to your soul as unwilling to shew you mercy and in an unlovely dreadfull hideous shape fitter to affright you from him then to draw you to him and likelier to provoke your hatred then your love If you have not done thus ● know too many troubled souls that have And if you have you have taken a very unlikely way to get Assurance If you would have been certain that you Loved God in sincerity you should have laboured to Love him more till you had been certain And that you might do so you should have kept better thoughts of God in your minde You will hardly love him while you think of him as evil or at least as hurtfull to you Never forget this Rule which I laid you down in the beginning that He that will ever love God must apprehend him to be Good and the more large and deep are our apprehensions of his goodness the more will be our Love For such as God appears to be to mens fixed conceivings such will their Affections be to him For the fixed deep conceptions or apprehensions of the mind do lead about the soul and guide the life I conclude therefore with this important and importunate request to you That though it be a duty necessary in its time and place to examine our selves concerning our sincerity in our several graces and duties to God yet be sure that the first and farre greater part of your time and pains and care and inquiries be for the getting and increasing of your grace then for the discerning it and to perform your duty rightly then to discern your right performance And when you conferre with Ministers or others that may teach you see that you ask ten times at least How should I get or increase my ●aith my love to Christ and to his people for once that you ask How shall I know that I believe or love Yet so contrary hath been and still is the practice of most Christians among us in this point that I have heard it twenty times asked How shall I know that I truly love the Brethren for once that I have heard it demanded How should I bring my heart to love them better And the like I may say of love to Christ himself I should next have spoke of the second part of the Direction How much our Assurance and Comfort will still depend on our Actual obedience But this will fall in in handling the two or three next following Directions DIRECTION XXIII 23. My next advice is this Think not that those doubts and troubles of minde which are caused and continued by wilfull Disobedience will ever be well healed but by the healing of that Disobedience or that the same means must be used and will suffice to the cure of such troubles which must be used and will suffice to cure the troubles of a tender-conscience and of an obedient Christian whose trouble is meerly through mistakes of their condition I Will begin with the later part of this Direction He that is troubled upon meer mistakes may be quieted upon the removal of them If he understood not the universal extent of Christs satisfaction or of the Covenant or conditional Grant of Christ and Life in him and if upon this he be troubled as thinking that he is not included the convincing him of his error may suffice to the removal of his trouble If he be troubled through his mistaking the nature of true Faith or true Love or other Graces and so think that he hath them not when he hath them the discovery of his error may be the quieting of his soul The soul that is troubled upon such mistakes must be tenderly dealt with Much more they that are disquieted by groundless fears or too deep apprehensions of the wrath or justice of God of the evil of sin and of their unworthiness and for want of fuller apprehensions of the loving kindness of God and the tender compassionate nature of Christ We can scarce handle such souls too gently God would have all to be tenderly dealt with that are tender of displeasing and dishonouring him by sin Gods own language may teach all Ministers what language we should use to such Isa 57.15 16 17 18 19 20 21. Thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity whose Name is Holy I dwel in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones For I will not contend for ever neither will I be alwaies wroth For the spirit should fail before me and the souls which I have made c. But the wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest whose waters cast up mire and dirt There is no peace saith my God to the wicked Much more tender language may such expect from Christ in the Gospel where is contained a fuller revelation of his Grace If Mary a poor sinfull woman lie weeping at his feet and washing them with her tears he hath not the heart to spurn her away but openly proclaims the forgiveness of her many sinnes As soon as ever the heart of a sinner is turned from his sinnes the heart of Christ is turned to him The very summe of all the Gospel is contained in those precious words which fully express this Matth. 11.28 29 30. Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you Rest Take my yoak upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall finde Rest unto your souls For my yoak is easie and my burden is light When the Prodigal Luke 15.20 doth once come home to his Father with sorrow and shame con●esting his unworthiness yea but resolved to confess it his Father preventeth him and sees him afarre off and staies not his coming but runs and meets him and when he comes to him he doth not upbraid him with his sins nor say Thou Rebell why hast thou forsaken me and preferred harlots and luxury before me nay he doth not so much as frown upon him but compassionatly fals on his neck and kisseth him Alas
Policy of the Devil to make People Believe that their Ministers are too stout and will not stoop to a compassionate hearing of their case especially if Ministers carry themselves strangely at too great a distance from their People I would earnestly intreat all Ministers therefore to be as familiar and as much with their People as they can Papists and other Seducers will insinuate themselves into their familiarity if we be strange If you teach them not in their Houses these will Creep into their Houses and lead them Captive I perswade others of my Brethren to that which my self am disabled from performing being by constant weakness besides unavoydable business confined to my Chamber But those that can perform it will find this a most necessary and profitable work And let not poor People believe the Devil who tels them that Ministers are so proud onely to discourage them from seeking their advice Go try them once before you believe it Lastly Remember this that it is not enough that you once opened your case to your Pastour but do it as often as Necessity urgeth you to call for his advice though not on every light occasion Live in such a Dependance on the advice and guidance of your Pastour under Christ for your soul as you do on the advice of the Physician for your body Read Mal. 2.7 and let Ministers read 6 8 9. DIRECTION XXXII 32. As ever you would live in Peace and Comfort and well-pleasing unto God be sure that you understand and deeply consider wherein the height of a Christian life and the greatest part of our Duty doth consist To wit In a loving Delight in God and a Thankful and Chearful Obedience to his Will And then make this your Constant aim and be still aspiring after it and let all other affections and endeavours be subservient unto this THis one Rule well practised would do wonders on the souls of poor Christians in dispelling all their fears and troubles and helping not onely to a setled Peace but to live in the most comfortable state that can be expected upon earth Write therefore these two or three words deep in your understandings and Memory that the life which God is best pleased with and we should be always endeavouring is A Loving Delight in God through Christ and a thankful and chearful obedience to him I do not say that godly sorrows and fears and jealousies are no Duties but these are the great Duties to which the rest should all subserve Misapprehending the state of Duty and the very Nature of a Christian life must needs make sad distempers in mens hearts and conversations Many Christians look upon Broken-heartedness and much grieving and weeping for sin as if it were the great thing that God Delighteth in and requireth of them and therefore they bend all their endeavours this way and are still striving with their hearts to break them more and wringing their Consciences to squeez out some tears and they think no Sermon no Prayer no Meditation speeds so well with them as that which can help them to grieve or weep I am far from perswading men against Humiliation Godly sorrow and tenderness of heart But yet I must tell you that this is a sore errour that you lay so much upon it and so much overlook that great and noble work and state to which it tendeth Do you think that God hath any Pleasure in your sorrows as such Doth it do him Good to see you dejected afflicted and tormented Alas it is onely as your sorrows do kill your sins and mortifie your fleshly lusts and prepare for your Peace and Joys that God regards them Because God doth speak comfortably to troubled drooping spirits and tels them that he delighteth in the contrite and loveth the humble and bindeth up the broken-hearted therefore men mis-understanding him do think they should do nothing but be still breaking their own hearts Whereas God speaks it but partly to shew his hatred to the proud and partly to shew his tender compassions to the humbled that they might not be overwhelmed or despair But O Christians understand and consider that all your sorrows are but preparatives to your joys and that it is a higher and sweeter work that God cals you to and would have you spend your time and strength in 1. The first part of it is Love A work that is wages to it self He that knows what it is to live in the Love of God doth know that Christianity is no tormenting and discontented life 2. The next part is Delight in God and in the Hopes and fore-thoughts of everlasting Glory Psal 37.4 Delight thy self in the Lord and he shall give thee the Desires of thy heart This is it that you should be bending your studies and endeavours for that your soul might be able to Delight it self in God 3. The third part is Thankfulness and Praise Though I say not as some that we should be moved by no fears or desires of the Reward that is of God but act only from Thankfulness as though we had all that we expect already yet let me desire you to take speciall notice of this Truth that Thankfulness must be the main principle of all Gospel-Obedience And this is not onely true of the Regenerate after faith but even the wicked themselves who are called to Repent and Believe are called to do it in a glad and Thankful sense of the mercy offered them in Christ All the world being fallen under Gods wrath and deserved condemnation and the Lord Jesus having become a Sacrifice and Ransom for all and so brought all from that Legal Necessity of perishing which they were under the Gospel which brings them the News of this is glad tidings of great Joy to them and the very justifying Act which they are called to is Thankfully to Accept Christ as one that hath already satisfied for their sins and will save them if they Accept him and will follow his saving Counsel and use his saving means and the saving work which they must proceed in is Thankfulness to obey that Redeemer whom they Believe in So that as General Redemption is the very Foundation of the new world and its Government so Thankfulness for this Redemption is the very life of Justifying faith and Gospel obedience And therefore the denyal of this universal Redemption as to the Price and Satisfaction doth both disable wicked men if they receive it from coming to Christ by true Justifying Faith which is The Thankful Acceptance of Christ as he is offered with his benefits and this Thankfulness must be for what he hath done in Dying for us as well as for what he will do in pardoning and saving us and it doth disable all true Believers from Gospel Grateful Obedience when ever they lose the sight of their Evidences of special Grace which alas how ordinary is it with them For when they cannot have special Grace in their eye to be Thankful for according to