being no piece of Christian wisdom or honesty to turn round in worldly imployments so long till by giddiness we fall down but by secret steps ever and anon to look up to heaven and to behold the face of God to whom only there in we are to approve our selves But yet it seems your thoughts are so far from being subservient the one to the other that you are distracted and molested your peace interrupted and your Christian course made troublesom and an heavy but then which surely cannot be by the yoke of JesusChrist therefore you must first bring your troubles in this particular to this issue either you may follow your civil affairs and nourish these thoughts as helps to maintain your peace and make you heavenly minded in them and if they serve sufficiently to such an end why are you troubled with them or else you cannot follow God comfortably in civil actions unless you banish from you thoughts which do so miserably distract you and then why do you fear you shall grieve Gods Spirit if at the same time you do not give entertainment to them the unseasonableness of which speaks plainly they came not from the spirits suggestions besides their hinderance of comfortably walking with God which the imployments themselves can never hinder But you will say When is the season of nourishing such thoughts I answer Entertain those thoughts as it may be you have done some Friends who came to you at that time you have business with strangers whom you love not so well as your Friends you have desired them to stay a while until you have done with the other and then you have returned to your Friend and when the other has been shut out of the doors the other has had the welcom and has lodged with you all night and thus you have gâ—ieved neither but pleased both It is so in this case Worldly employments are our strangers yet they must be spoke with Religious thoughts and practices are our Friends these come unto us while God calls us to parley with the other you cannot speak with both at one time in one place without much perplexity Take therefore this course make much of the good thoughts but parley not with them till your business is done with strangers and towards evening which is your season set some time apart every day for meditation and then make them welcome then consider and ponder well what was suggested to you in the day time and sift every good thought to the bran for then is your season and after that let them sup and lodge with you all night and keep the house with you every day And surely when the Lord Jesus shall see what a Friend you shall make of his Spirit and how wisely you walk therein you shall not need to fear any grieving of it or unseasonable times nay I say you will most fearfully grieve his Spirit if you parley with the conceived suggestions of it at unseasonable times What thou dost do it with all thine Heart saith Solomon Eccl. 9. Therefore when you are to pray confer or meditate do it with all your mind and all your thoughts and all your strength So when God calls you to worldly employments do them with all your mind and might and when the season of meditation comes take it which glorious ordinance of God although many Christians use it occasionally and against some good time or when they have leisure meeting with them yet to set some time apart for it in a solemn manner every day and that in conscience as we do for prayer generally where is the man to be found that does thus Those men that thus neglect their season of musing and entring into parley with Gods Spirit daily may be well said to grieve the Spirit through the neglect of which ordinance Gods Spirit is as much grieved by Professors in England as by any course I know The Lord awaken us but I have run too far already in this first part of my answer â—2 Means For the second means viz. how the soul is to carry it self in Civil employments that so you may not think you do for better when you listen to good thoughts as you mention 1. I say but two things 1. Learn to follow them out of an awful respect to the eye presence and command of Jesus Chrift and to do what you do in Civil businesses as the Work of Christ When you are riding or making up breaches between man and man then think I am now about the work of Jesus Christ 2. Secondly seeing your self thus working in worldly employments for him you may easily apprehend that for that time God calls you to them and you attend upon the work of Jesus Christ in them that you honour God as much nay more by the meanest servile worldly act than if you should have spent all that time in meditation prayer or any other spiritual employment to which you had no call at that time It is noted therefore by some of Peters Wife's mother that when Christ had healed her of her Fevor she sate not down at Table with Christ in communion with him which no question was sweet but ministred at the Table and ran too and fro and so served him and acted for him wherein she shewed more love and gave him more honour viz. in that mean service and in acting for him than in having communion with him now if the Lord would out of his abundant goodness set the Soul in such an acting frame for him and if it could do iâ—s worldly employments as the Work of Christ and see how greatly it honours Christ in attending on him Oh what peace should a Christian enjoy notwithstanding all his dislractions every day And how easily would such devout thoughts you speak of be repell'd like darkness before the light for the nobleness of those good thoughts you speak of presenting themselves against the mean and base outsides of Civil affairs makes you ready to honour the one when you are call'd to serve the other but now by seeing you do the Work of Christ Jesus in them you shall hereby see a glory in the meanest service you perform in Civil affairs and this will make you cleave unto them But I have said too much about repelling of good thoughts in these times wherein men have to few though it may be little enough to satisfie you Quest 2. Your second trouble is this viz. that your Heart is kept from being humbled for sinful distractions that hinder and interrupt the spiritual performance of holy duties and that for two reasons First Because they be involuntary and accidental Secondly Because they cannot break the Covenant between God and your Soul being but infirmities Answ For the latter clause concerning breach of Covenant together with the other 1. I say not only infirmities do not but the greatest sins cannot make a breach of Covenant between God and the soul that is once really not
is a presupposed faith Its Gods absolute promise that firstly begets faith for faith is not assurance but the coming of the whole Soul to Christ in a promise John 6. 3 5. And then the Soul believes in Christ when it comes to Christ now this God works in the Gospel 1. The Soul is raised up by hope And being raised it Secondly comes to Christ which is faith by vehement unutterable desire And being come to him it 3. Embraceth Christ by love and thus the match is made and the everlasting knot is tied Now as you have heard the absolute promise works hope of relief from Christ and if it works hope it also works a desire or coming to Christ by desire Oh! that thou Lord wouldst honour thy grace thy power thy love thy promise in helping me a poor cast-away And thus faith is created as it were by this absolute promise for it cannot but move the heart of any one that ever felt his want to cry mightily to the Lord for help if he has any hope seeing the Lord has promised to do it for some Oh saith the Soul that thou wouldst do it for me And surely were it not for this absolute promise of God no Soul would desire because he would have â—o hope to be saved or to seek for any thing as from the hands of God And thus you see to what end God makes and to what use a Christian may put these absolute promises 2. For the second thing viz How and How to apply Absolute Promises when a Christian may apply these promises I answer every Christian is either 1. Within Covenant with God and knows it or 2. Within covenant with God and knows it not or 3. Out of covenant indeed for his present estate and condition yet he is in fieri or making towards it 1. If he be in Covenant and knows it then you may easily perceive how and when he ought to apply promises unto himself for he may boldly conclude If God be his God then all the promises of God shall be made good unto him if he be a Son of God he may boldly challengeatall times at the hands of God nay if in some respects at the hands of Justice it self the fulfilling oâ— God the Fathers will delivered in the several Legacies of the promise bought by the blood sealed by the same blood of Jesus Christ that they may and shall be made good unto him that is clear 2. Secondly If he be in Covenant and knows it not and questions hence whether God is his or not and consequently whether the promises belong unto him then the rule is to be observed let him so sue and seek for the good of the absolute promise until by reflecting upon his own acts herein he perceive himself adorned and dignified with the qualification of some conditional promise and then if he can find the condition or qualification within himself then as you judge and write he may conclude that the conditional promise belongs to him if one promise then all Gods promises and therefore that absolute promises are his own because at least one condional promise is For no unregenerate man is within the compass of any one conditional promise of grace unless you will say he is under the everlasting love of God the promises of grace being but the mid-way between the eternal purpose and decree of love and the glorious certain execution of that love in time The promise being the break day of Gods most glorious love which must shine out in time Object But here you will say is the difficulty viz. how I should so seek for the good of absolute promises as therein to find may self within the compass of some conditional one I answer It is done chiefly by three acts 1. By being humbly contented that seeing the Lord has absolutely promised to work and do all for the Soul he intends for to save even when it can do nothing for it self and that he has taken the work into his own hands so that it is his promise offer office and honour to do all that therefore you lie down not sluggishly but humbly at the feet of God and contented to have him to be your God and for ever to be disposed of in any thing by God if he will fulfil his covenant in you contented to part with any sin if he will rend it from you contented to know any truth if he will reveal it to you contented to do any duty if he will enable you contented to shine bright with all his glorious graces if he will create and maintain them in you contented to bear any evil if he will lay his hand under your head and thereunto strengthen you and so seeing the Lord promised to undertake the work for some put out the work and put over your Soul to him that he would fulfil the good that his covenant promiseth in your self Now when you do thus which no question you and many a Soul doth many times reflect upon this act and see if you cannot or may not find your self by it under the condition of some conditional promise and if you do then are you bound to believe all Gods promises are and will be Yea and Amen unto you Now that you do so by this act it self speaks plainly for how many conditional promises are made to the meek Blessed are the meek Mat. 5. and to the humble whom God will raise up For this is not saving meekness to be quietly contented to be or to do or to bear any thing that the Lord will have me from mine own strength and feeling but to be to do or to bear any thing that the Lord will have me if the Lord enable me Many a stout heart would gladly have Christ but if he cannot have him in his own terms viz. Christ and his lusts Christ and the world too or by his own strength and power he will have none of him but desperately casts him away and saith what shall I look after him any more I cannot pray I cannot believe I cannot break this vile and unruly will this stony adamant hearr thus the pride of a mans heart works Now he that is truly meekned and humbled he is contented gladly to have God his God and Christ his Redeemer and that upon Jesus Christ his own terms First on his own covenant now what is that why it is this I will give you the good and work in you the condition to I will give you my self and therefore will not stick to give you an eye to see and a heart to receive too This is the covenant now hereupon a humbled Soul accepts of Christ according to his covenant on his own terms thus viz. Upon that condition Lord that thou wilt humble me teach me perswade me cause me to believe and in every thing to honour thee Lord I am contented gladly and joyfully to have thee do therefore what thou wilt with me Just as
rationally wrapt up in the Covenant of grace Indeed gross scandalous sins nay infirmities when they are given way to and not resisted may keep the soul from the fruition for a time of Gods Covenant but never from the eternal jus and right unto it for as the habit of Faith or Grace gives a man a constant right to the promise and Covenant which seed ever remains which habit ever lasts Jer. 3. 9. so the act of Faith or Grace gives a man fruition of the Covenant and the benefit of the promise and hence by the acting and venting of some sins wherein there is included the neglect of the exercise of grace He that is really in covenant with God may be deprived of the fruition of it yet seeing the seed of God and the habit of grace ever remains he cannot by any sin break his covenant for the covenant of grace is absolute wherein the Lord doth not only promise the good but to begin perfect fulfil the condition absolutly without respect of sin ex parte creaturae Indeed if Gods covenant of Grace did as that of works depend upon man to fulfil the condition having sufficient grace to fulfil it then gross sin might well break the Covenant but seeing God hath undertaken to fulfil the Covenant absolutely not withstanding all the evils and sins of the soul no sin can possibly break that knot and covenant which so firm and resolute love hath once knit And therefore if this be a good argument Infirmities cannot break covenant What cause have I to be humbled for them so as to say It is thy mercy Lord that I am not consumed for them as you write you may upon the same ground say so If the Lord should desert you or you for Take the Lord and so fall into the foulest sin which I suppose corrupt conscience dares not be so bold as to think or allow of 2. Secondly I say the least sins or infirmities do break the first covenant of works and hence you do not only deserve but are under the sentence of death and curse of God immediatly after the least hairs-breadth swarving from the Law by the smallest sin and most involuntary accidental infirmity According to the Tenor of the Law the soul that sinneth shall die and cursed is he that continueth not in all things of the Law Gal. 3. 10. The least sin being ex parte objecti in respect of God against whom it is committed as horrible and as great as the greatest For it being an infinite wrong being the dishonour of an infinite Majesty there can be no greater wrong than an infinite one unless you can imagin a thing greater than that which is insinite and therefore in this respect there is as much venom and mischief done against God in the least as in the greatest sin And therefore it and whosoever commit it deserve death for it as if they had committed the foulest sin in the world and therefore after the least and smallest infirmities you may from hence see what cause you have freely to be humbled and to confess for them how worthy you are to be destroyed yea even to look upon your self as lying under the sentence of the Law and death immediately after the commission of them and so to mourn bitterly for them Object But you will say a Christian that is under the Covenant of Grace is not within the Covenant of Works that Bond is cancelled the last will must stand and therefore he being out of that Covenant no sins of his can be said to break the Covenant for no man can be said to break that Law under which he is not and which he is not bound to keep Answ I answer every Believer has a double being or standing and so there may be put upon him a double respect 1. First he may be considered as united to and having a spiritual being on Christ and so it is true he is under Grace and the Covenant of Grace and not under the Law nor the Covenant of works and hence not being under the Law nor bound to keep it as a covenant of life tho' it be a rule of life no sin can condemn him there being no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus Rom. 8. 1. But as Christ is above condemnation and law and death and curse so is he And this truly understood is the foundation of a Christians joy and peace and glory every day yet so as tho' sin doth not condemn him yet he has good reason to say it is mercy and meer mercy Lord that I am not consumed that I am condemned For sin is the same nay grace and Gods love aggravates sin for to sin against the law deserves death without recovery but to sin when grace has received me and loved me when the blood of Christ has been shed abundantly to deliver me from sin Oh this makes the most secret silent sin a crying one So that if you do consider this well you may see what little cause there is to have your heart rising against the deepest humilation for the least sin tho' you be in Christ and under grace For as Daniel when he was put into the Lions den had not the cause to wonder that he was not torn in pieces by them and why because it was not from any defect on their parts to tear him in pieces but from the omnipotent power and mercy and grace of his God that muzzell'd their mouths so tho' no Lion can â—ear tho' no sins can hurt or condemn a Christian as he is considered in Christ yet has not he cause to confess and wonder and say Lord it is thy meer grace and mercy that it is not so which is the act of humilation your letter saith you can hardly come unto and why not because Gods grace puts any less evil in sin but because it is meerly grace that keeps it from spitting that venom which otherwise it would Secondly A Christian may be considered in respect of his natural being in hiâ—â—elf and thus he is ever under the Law and as oft as he sinneth under the sentence of death and as the Apostle speaks by naâ—ure even we justified quickned are the children of wrath as well as others And thus after the least involuntary accidental sin you may easily see what cause you have to lie down deeply humbled mourning under the sentence of death and Gods eternal curse as a condemned man going to execution to feel that fire that shall never go out looking upon your self as you are in your self a forlorn cast-away every moment and this truly understood is the foundation of a Christians sorrow shame and confusion of face self-loathing self-forgetting self-forsaking and condemning every day and believe it Sir it is no small Piece of a Christians skill and work to put a difference between himself and himself himself as he is in Christ and so to joy and triumph and himself as he is growing on
present I have no books about me where I am and therefore cannot satisfie you in this neither know I when I shall seek to find out the book and place If I have leisure I will either write to you or tell some of your friends before I am gone what he hath said or writ that way c. Quest 3. Again thirdly You desire me to tell you how my self came to the cure of Atheistical Thoughts and whether they did wear out or whether they were rationally overthrown Answ I answer at first they did wear out meeting with fruitless and dead-hearted company which was at the University 2. The Lord awakened me again and bid me beware lest an old sore broke out again and this I found that strength of reason would commonly convince my understanding that there was a God but I felt it utterly insufficient to perswade my will of it unless it was by fits whenas I thought Gods Spirit moved upon the Chaos of those horrible thoughts and this I think will be found a truth 3. I did groan under the bondage of those unbelieving thoughts looking up and sighing to the Lord that if he were as his works and word declared him to be he would be pleased to reveal himself by his own beams and perswade my Heart by his own Spirit of his Essence and Being which if he would do I shold account it the greatest mercy that ever he shewed me And after grievous and heavy perplexities when I was by them almost forced to make an end of my self and sinful life and to be mine own Executioner the Lord came between the bridge and the water and set me out of anguish of spirit as she prayed for a child to pray unto him for light in the midst of so great darkness In which time he revealed himself manifested his love stilled all those raging thoughts gave return in great measure of them so that tho' I could not read the Scripture without blasphemous thoughts before now I saw a glory a majesty a mystery a deprh in it which fully perswaded and which light I desire to speak it to the glory of his free grace seeing you call me to it is not wholly put out but remains while I desire to walk closely with him unto this day And thus the Lord opened mine eyes and cured me of this misery and if any such base thoughts come like Beggars to my door to my mind and put these scrupies to me I use to send them away with this answer Why shall I question that Truth which I have both known and seen Object But you say this remedy is good viz. of prayer but that you cannot use it especially because you question the truth of God Answ Yet dear Sir give not over this Trade you will doubtless find it gainful when it may be God hath laden you more with these thoughts and made you loath your self for them But the thing seems strange to me if I mistake you not viz. that your heart will not be perswaded but that you must resolve your doubts concerning the perfection of Scripture not by seeking to harmonize those passages that seem to cross one another but by ascribing some humanity or error if I may interpret you to the pen-men seeing St. Paul saith We prophesie but in part and seeing one of the Evangelists leaves out the doxology in the Lords prayer Sir if you can take these thoughts arising from these the like grounds as your burden I do not blame you but pity you in that respect but if your judgment indeed think so I am sorry you should harbour such thoughts one hour within doors for you know that holy men writ the Scriptures but so far they might err but it is added as they were inspired or as the Original has it as they were moved or carried in the arms of the holy Ghost and so how could they err how could God lie It is true Paul did prophesie but in part and is this an argument because he did not prophesie fully therefore in some things he did not prophesie truly I am perswaded you will say there are many things my poor thoughts have suggested to you as true and yet I am perswaded I do in them prophesie if I may so say but in part The Spirit of God directed the four Evangelists to write yet so as they did not all write what another writ but in great wisdom left some things doubtful and short in one which are more clear and full in another and hence the Doxologie is fully set down in one and not in another and many reasons I could set you down why but that it is needless I grant you ought not to put up all with a charitable opinion of Scripture but if you can by reason reading and comparing help your heart to a full perswasion this is Scripture but many things you cannot get satisfaction for by that way and means but still your Spirit will be left dark and doubtful What course will you here take for resolution which is Scripture The Papists say it is so because the Church has christened it for Scripture you say you will see reason for it that it is so or else you cannot be satisfied then I fear you will never be sarisfied I think In this case therefore these two things you are to do 1. To go to God by prayer to give you a resolution of all your doubts and by some means or other some light to see whether this is his word or not Secondly if this be his word then he would perswade your heart of it that it is so For the least resolution which is Scripture and which is not is made by the same perswasion and sole perswasion of the same Spirit that writ the Scripture Concerning the Angels that appeared to Mary see Gerard and he briefly I think will satisfie you in your answer to the particular scurples about the Scripture sense and the dissonancy of them Only this I will add to the last clause about these things that if the Scripture be inspired by the holy Ghost that not in the sum and substance of it but to every word and sentence of it which I think you will not doubt of when you have considered it then I think it will undeniably follow that the same Spirit of truth is also a Spirit of order and hence the method of various penning of it is from the Spirit too which you say you stick at Answ 2. Again to your third thing concerning your spirit being burthened with involuntary infirmities as burdens but not as sins I say nothing now because I preceive by one part of your reply that the Lord has done you some good by the first answer only it is your grief you cannot fear them nor condemn your self for them as damning sins For satisfaction of which I hope this reply to your second trouble will give you some satisfaction Quest 4. Again to your fourth
question to know whether these changes you have sometimes these movings of the Spirit are not of natural temper or Gods Spirit It seems I did a little mistake the meaning because you meant not the main work of grace but occasional stirrings and movings of heart as by reading some pathetical 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 chearful lively c. Answ I answer these three things 1. First That it is very usual for natural affections to be raised by a natural temper as by drinking eating noveltiness of the Gospel John's candle flies were ravished with the Gospel People are naturally moved sometimes by a thundring Minister yet never a whit the more grace c. and it is a good speech of Doctor Ames Arminian universal grace as they describe it may be the effect of a good dinner sometimes 2. That tho' 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 keep grace as joy thankfulness 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 think and that upon good grounds was to raise up his heavy heart and make him chearful and fit to speak 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 only draw out grace or make a thing like unto grace in the Soul I answer by chese two things chiefly 1. If it be true grace it ever makes you more humble and vile in your own eyes and say Lord why dost thou gâ—ve me any desire to thee any chearfulness in serving thee c. 2. It makes you more thankful to bless the Lord that he thus remembers you for this is a standing rule what ever comes from nature and a mans self it ever builds up it self and returns to self again what ever grace comes from Christ it drives a man out of himself by making him humble and draws him unto Christ that sent him by making him thankful I think 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 fifth thing about providence you say you cannot see a positive providence altho' you do see a negative providence in all your occasions and comforts and crosses you meet withal as namely you can thank God for not taking away your life c. but you cannot see God giving it Answ 1. I answer 1. Consider what I writ to you at first about this question in general 2. Ponder sadly whether any creature or appurtenance to it has its being from it self 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 think you will say nothing can make it self therefore here is a positive Providence in 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 works for some wise end 2. That no creature can lead it self to its end if sinful or irrational 3. God must and doth lead it by its several acts and movings to that end Hence 4. Every act is determined by God And altho' 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 writ more yet I hope I have writ enough for this time and the Lord knows whether ever more or no. However I thank you heartily for improving me this way of writing who have my mouth stopt from speaking I wish I had more such friends to deal thus with me and my self more time and a more fruitful head and heart to improve my self this or any other like way for them For who knows 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 self but they go on in an easie quiet and very dangerous way which troubles I perswade my self keep you awaking when other virgins are slumbring and after which I am perswaded the Lord intends to use you for more than 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 far as I can guess the Lord is preparing you for himself by them I shall not forget you tho' I never saw you and I beseech you if have any spark of affection toward me kindl'd by these fewlines remember when you are best able to pray for your self to remember to look after me and mine all that go with me on the mighty waters and then to look up sigh to Heaven for me that the Lord would out of his free grace but bring me to that good land those glorious Ordinances and that there I may but behold the face of the Lord in his Temple tho' he never delight to use me there tho' I and mine should possibly beg there and that if the Lord should call me to my solemn work and service for the good of his Church People company that go with me or are gone before me that then the Lord Jesus would reveal his secrets to me enable me the little time I have to live to be fruitful to him and to have a larger heart than ever for him as for yourself I shall desire the Lord to keep you blameless and unspotted in an evil world and that as he has begun so he would perfect crown his divine graces work in you that you may be perserved from national sins which shortly bring national and most heavy plagues And the presence of the Lord may abide with you and in you until the Lord call for you Remember my kind love to your Father whose name I have forgot and by whom I could not send these lines being then hindred by business Now the peace of Jesus Christ be with you keep you upright blameless till death And if I never see you more till the last and great day
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 unless very oft he did stand still and pray for fear of grieving the Spirit as he thought and losing his season of being heard in Heaven for said Conscience oft 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 knows how to change himself into an Angel of light For it being his usual course in the time of his health to make a diary of his hourly life and finding much benefit by it he was in Conscience prest by the power and delusion of Satan to make and take the same daily survey of his life in the time of his sickness by means of which he spent his enfeebled spirits cast on fuel to fire his sickness and had not a friend of his convinced him of his erronious conscience misleading him at that time he had murdered his body out of conscience to save his Soul 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 altho you have the same efficient and because you say your peace is hereby disturbed by ignorance as not knowing what to do in the midst of these Civil actions and these religious thoughts I conceive that two things are to be sadly considered of for the cure of them First how to know when such religious pious Two things to be considered about motions thoughts come from Gods Spirit and when from the devil transforming himself into an Angel 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 self in Civil employments For when you see how you do 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 first briefly all good motions and thoughts are not the Spirits motions as may thus appear There be three things chiefly by which we How to try the motions of Gods Spirit may discern 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 supernatural end must arise from a supernatural principle which only is Gods Spirit Pharisaical 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 holiness before God and hence Christ gives them this Item in giving Alms that they should not let the right hand know what their left hand doth for many men will do good acts lest they should by the neglect of them think 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 holiness for glorious ends without u warrant from the Word is the more for did superstition Christ healed the Leper 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 sinful in him being cross to Christs command when Christ would have washed Peters feet he had many thoughts that came into hâ—s head concerning his own vileness 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 he should go on in it 3. Gods Spirit sets a man on work 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 righteous bring forth fruit in its season and hence Solomon speaks of words spoken in season are as apples of Gold and hence we read in Ecclesiastes of a time and season for every thing under the Sun and therefore when there is a season of Gods appointing for civil things or business it is not season now to be molested or perplexed in it by the injection and evocation of those thoughts which we think 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 sin ful Nature brings Grace into captivity which Paul complains of Rom. 7. and makes Grace to serve it To exhort and reprove another for sin is from Gods Spirit that it is done but to reprove at an unseasonable time it s from sinful corruption abusing Gods grace and making Sampson to grind It s from the excellency of of knife to cut well but to cut my finger with it when I should be cutting of my meat with it ariseth not from the end of the knife nor from the intention of him that made it so to think of good things it is from the spirit I grant but to think of them in such a season that God sets you a work to mind and follow other occasions it s from the enemy of Gods spirit and your own peace for as it is a sin to nourish worldly thoughts when God sets you a work in spiritual heavenly imployments so it is in some respects as great a sin to suffer your self to be distracted by spiritual thoughts when Gods sets you on work in Civil yet lawful imploiments such thoughts I conceive are but the leven of Monkish holiness if they divert you from your lawful affairs when the Lord calls you to follow them For the Lord never calls you to two divers imployments at the same time unless you make the one to be a means to further the good of the other which such pious thoughrs in some civil imployments do it
to keep you and me and all his for ever while we are here in our valley under the sense of such distempers as our greatest misery And therefore me thought it was a solemn sweet speech of an honest man to his friend who seeing him oppressed with such distempers as you mention and perceiving him to droop under them he came chearfully to him and suddenly said unto him I can tell you good news the best that ever you heard viz. Assoon as ever you are in Heaven you shall serve Christ without weariness Which words well thought on revived the man That which I would speak with as much tenderness of compassion as I am able to you I refer to these things 1. That a child of God is never usually weary of the duty but rather of his vile heart to think of to look upon that in the duty Christ's yoke is easie and his burthen light to him that takes it on his neck and puts his Soul under it The duty nakedly considered in it self is glorious in his eyes and sweet to his Soul and hence sometimes never well but when he considers his dead blind barren and senseless heart that he is to carry to the duty and that he fears and has felt will abide with him in the duty Oh! this grieves here the Soul pincheth An Hypocrite is weary of the duty a child of God rejoyceth in it but he is weary of his sin and unsavouriness and weariness in the duty I perswade my self Sir that you may soon mistake your spirit herein you think you are unwilling to come to the duty and are weary of it when indeed it is your glory joy and love but it is because you fear you can do it no better that troubles you that you have such a vile heart in it And if your trouble be from hence the good Lord increase ir in you daily and withal bless the Lord and say Lord tho' I am weary of my vile heart in these days of humiliation in these Sabbaths yet I hless thee the days and duties themselves thou knowest are dear unto me It is not Lord because I am weary of thy word but because I can do it no better I am weary of my self and this vile heart here is much love in such a spirit to the Lord. And believe it Sir your love wants not its recompences and remember that the Lord respects you not according to your duties done but according to your love in them to them And therefore those duties you are ashamed to own the Lord will not be ashamed to crown 2. Consider you must and shall be baited with these distempers of heart sometimes more and sometimes less as long as you live It is part of Pauls body of death which he must carry with him till he come to bury himself 3. Those means which may help you to be freed from them a little at least are these among many 1. Be but truly and really not by fits and darkly sensible of them men in deep miseries are not unwilling to be helped out 2. Judge ye not rigorously of God altho' he were a bloody austere God as he did of his master whose talent he had and hence never improved it but look upon God as having a Fathers heart and affection towards you in the meanest greatest performances which is double either to give you strength to do what you cannot I can do all things through Christ or having come to him for it to accept of what you would do for him as if it were done and this will make you joy in the poorest performance that tho' it be never so full of vileness yet the Lord out of his fatherly love accepts of it as glorious 3. Renew morning and evening by sad and solemn meditation the sense of Gods love to you in Christ and in every duty that he sets you about and love will love and like the yoke and make the commandments that they shall not be grievous to you Thus I have briefly done with your new troubles which you mention you say because you may not have the like opportunity of writing again It may be so and therefore I have desired to satisfie you which I beseech the Lord himself to do Next you come to reply to my first Letter of which I have kept no copy as I never did of any and hence may and do forget what I writ then unto So much light as your Letter lends me to bring things to mind I will gladly take and be more brief in answer Quest 1. You find the strength of grace to be got in you rather by argumentation then inward communication and influence arising from the union to Christ And this troubles you Answ To which I answer these three things 1. That as the old sinful nature is communicated from Adam the first to us without any argumentation so the new nature which is the seed foundation and plot of all grace is diffused into us by the second Adam when we are united to him without argumentation It is only by divine operation The Lord leave not me nor any friend I have to a naked Arminian illumination and Perswasion 2. That to the increase of those habits and drawing out the acts of the new creature the Lord is pleased to use moral and rational perswasions as in the instance you gave Christ died for us then hence the love of Christ constrains but remember withal it is not the bare meditation or strength of reason or perswasion that elicits such divine and noble acts in the heart and affection but it is the blood of Christ sprinkling these serious meditations that makes them work such graces in the Soul which I might shew at large which blood is the salve tho' argumentation is the cloth or leather to which it sticks by which it is applied but from such leather comes no vertue all of it is from the blood of Christ which by argumentation heals the Soul For if it were nakedly in the argumentation to stir your heart and to work strength of grace what should be the reason that sometimes you are no more moved by all your argumentations than a mountain of brass is by the winds why should the same truth affect you at one time and not at another when you are as filthily disposed to be affected as at the first Therefore consider it is not your reason and argumentation but Christ's blood that doth all by as admirable and yet secret operation 3. Your union to Christ on your part is begun and partly wrought by the understanding and hence the good that you get by it at any time it is from your union or part of it at lest Quest 2. Again you ask me whether Calvin doth not express fully my thoughts about our Spirituall union in his lib. 4. cap. 17. Answ I answer I have forgot what he has writ and my self have read long since out of him and for the
Q. How many persons learn you from hence to be in God A. Three First The first is the Father the first Person in order begetting the Son Psal 2. 7. Secondly The Son the second Person begotten of the Father Joh. 3. 6. Heb. 1. 3. Thirdly The Spirit the third Person proceeding from them both Joh. 15. 26. Q. Are these three Persons three distinct Gods A. No For they are that one pure Essence and therefore but one God Joh. 1. 1. Rom. 9. 5. 1 Cor. 6. 16. 1 Cor. 2. 10. Q. If every Person be God how can they be distinct Persons and not distinct Gods A. Yes Because one and the same thing may have many Relative properties and respects of being which in the God-head make distinct Persons As one and the same man may be Father in one respect a Master in another respect and a Scholar in another respect Q. If these three Persons be but one God what follows from hence A. That all the three Personr are Co equal Co eternal subsisting in one not separating from each other therefore delighting in each other glorifying each other Prov. 8. 30. Thus much concerning God Now concerning the works of God Q. Thus much concerning Gods sufficiency VVhat is his efficiency A. Whereby he worketh all things and all in all things Rom. 11. 36. Isa 45. 7. Q. VVhat of Gsd shines forth and are you to behold in this Efficiency A. Two things First Gods Omnipotency in respect of his Essence Secondly the co-operation and distinct manner of working of the three Persons Rom. 1. 20. John 5. 17. Q. VVhat is Gods Omnipotency A. It is his almighty power whereby he is able to bring to pass all that he doth will or what ever he can will or decree 2 Chron. 20. 6. Phil. 3. 21. Mat 3. 9. Psal 115. 7. Q. VVhat is Gods Decree A. It is his Eternal and determinate purpose concerning the effecting of all things by his mighty power according to his counsel Eph. 1. 11. Q. VVhat attributes or glory of God appear in his Decree A. First His constancy whereby his Decree remains unchangeable Num. 23. 19. Secondly His Truth whereby he delivereth nothing but what he hath decreed Jer. 10. 10. Thirdly His Faithfulness whereby he effecteth what-ever he decreeth according thereunto Isa 46. 10. Q. VVhat is God's Counsel A. His deliberation as it were for the best effecting of every thing according to his Wisdom Acts 4. 24. Psa 104. 24. Q. VVhat is Gods VVisdom A. It is the Idaea or perfect platform of all things in the mind of God which either can be known or shall be done according to the good pleasure of his will Hebr. 11. 3. Prov. 8. 12 13. Q. VVhat is the good pleasure of Gods will A. It is the most free Act of his Will whereby he willeth himself directly as the greatest good and all other things for himself according to his good pleasure Mat. 11. 25. Prov. 16. 4. Q. VVhat learn you from hence A. That Gods good pleasure is the first and best cause of all things Psal 115. 3. Psal 33. 8 9 10 11. Q. VVhat are the Co-operations of the three persons in Gods Efficiency A. Whereby they work the same thing together unseperably Joh. 5. 17 19. 16. 13 14. Q. If they work the same thing together How is it that some works are attributed to God the Father as Creation some to the Son as Redemption some to the Holy Spirit as application A. This is not because the same work is not common to all the three Persons but because that work is principally attributed in Scripture to that person whose distinct manner of working appears chiefly in the work Q. VVhat is God the Fathers distinct manner of working A. His working is from himself by the Son to the Holy Ghost Ps 33. 6. Joh. 1. 3 hence the beginning so the Creation of all things is attributed to him Q VVhat is God the Sons manner of working A. His working is from the Father by the Holy Ghost Ioh. 14. 16. and hence the dispensation of things and so Redemption is attributed unto him Q. VVhat is the Holy Ghosts manner of working A. His working is from the Father and the Son Ioh. 14. 26. and hence the consummation of all things and so application is attributed unto him Q. VVherein doth Gods efficiency or working appear A. In two things First In his creation of the world Secondly in his providence over the world Esa 37. 16. Q. VVhat is his Creation A. It is Gods efficiency whereby he made the whole world of nothing originaâ—ly exceeding good Psal 33. 9. Gen. 1. 31. Q. Did the Lord make the worlding an instant A. No but by parts in the space of six dayes described at large by Moses Gen 1. Q. When did the Lord make the third heaven with the Angels their Inhabitants A. In the first day in the first beginning of it Gen. 1. 1. Iob 38. 6 7. Q. What is the creation of the third heaven A. Whereby he made it to be the heaven of heavens a most glorious place replenished with all pleasure which belongs to eternal happiness wherein his Majesty is seen face to face therefore called the habitation of God 2 Chr. 2. 5 6. Psal 16. 11. Psal 63. 15. Q. What is the creation of the Angels A. Whereby he created an innumerable number of them in holiness to be ministring spirits with most acuteness of understanding liberty of will great strength and speedy in motion to celebrate his praises and execute his commands specially to the heirs of salvation Heb. 11. 22. Ioh. 8. 44. Heb. 1. 14. 2 Sam. 14. 20. Iude 6. 2 Pet. 2. 11. Esa 6. 2. Psal 130. 20. Q. When did God create man A. The sixth day Gen. 1. 27. Q. How did God create man A. He made him a reasonable creature consisting of body and an immortal Soul in the Image of God Gen. 2. 7. Gen. 1. 28. Q. What is the Image of God wherein he was made A. That hability of man to resemble God and wherein he was like unto God in wisdom holiness righteousness both in his nature and in his government of himself and all Creatures Col. 3. 10. Ephes 2. 24. Gen. 1. 26. Q. What became of man being thus made A. He was placed in the Garden of Eden as in his Princely Court to live unto God together with the woman which God gave him Gen. 2. 15. Q. Thus much of Gods creation What is his Providence A. Whereby he provideth for his creatures being made even to the least circumstance Psal 145. 16. Pro. 16. 33. Q. How is Gods Providence distinguished A. It is either first Ordinary and mediate whereby he provids for his creatures by ordinary and usual means Hos 2. 22. Secondly Extraordinary and immediate whereby he provides for his creatures by miracles or immediatly by himself Psal 36. 4. Dan. 3. 17. Q. Wherein is his Providence seen A. First in