doctrine Have not you turned round as wheels with the times and places where you lived Have not you been up and down now of this mind then of that embracing and following those opinions and ways which the times have smiled upon Have not you been whirld about by the times as chaff by the wind Have not you been wavering Jam 1 6. as a wave of the Sea which is never standing still if there be any wind stirring Have not some of you been carried quite round about the Card and Compass as the Clouds of the Aire are from one quarter of the Heaven to another Hebr 13.9 Have not you been thus carried about with divers and strange Doctrines with Doctrines differing from the truth and strange to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament Are not you yet unestablished yea are not you careless in seeking after establishment Are not you stil even indifferent whether you pray to God to establish you as David did yea or no Whether you enjoy the Sacrament of the Lords Supper that heart-establishing Ordinance duly administred yea or no Whether you continue fellowship with established Christians yea or no Do not you still stagger at the promises of God viz. that God will be a Sun and a Shield and no good thing will be with-hold from them that walk uprightly that Babylon is fallen is fallen i. e. shall as certainly fall and that utterly as if she were so fallen already that there shall be a resurrection of the dry bones c Do not you stil dispute the promises in your thoughts Do not you stil doubt whether God will be as good as his word and that because of the difficultie that lie in the way All staggering at the promises of God is from unbelief Rom 4 20 Brinsley c. p 98 He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief Is not this also a matter of just and deep Lamentation to see so many Professors some of which were formerly looked upon as sober and stayed Christians now reeling and staggering like drunken Men to and fro carried this way and that way as the wind blows should any of you whilst your selves stand safe upon the shore see others though strangers much more if friends tossed upon the waves among rocks and quick sands ready to perish every moment might it not be presumed that it would affect the flintieâ— heart among you and can you see the souls of your brethren and sisters thus tossed to and fro without any trouble to your own souls But alas who stands fast and safe upon the shoar Are not all your hearts unsetled And what will yee not pity your own unstable souls Is it nothing to you to be under Reubens reproach Gen 49. 4 Jam 1 8 Vnstable as water thou shalt not excel A double minded Man is unstable in all his ways Are not you in danger of being utterly ruined in this hour of temptation that is come upon all the World Col. 2.8 Ne sit qui vos depraedetur Beza in loc mar 3 5 to try them that dwell upon the Earth Are not you in danger of being spoyled of being made a prey O! your unbelieving staggerings grieve the heart of your Lord. The Holy Ghost speaking of the unbelieving Jews tells us Jesus was grieved for the hardness of their hearts And shall they not grieve your hearts It is a wonder that God hath spared you so long O faithless and perverse Generation How long shall I be with you How long shall I suffer you O! sin no more in this kind O that henceforth yee be no more children tessed to and fro and carried about with every wind of Doctrine Eph. 4.14 Brinsley c. 206 c. Hebr. 13.9 1 Thes 1.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Col. 2.2 by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lye in wait to deceive O! Be not carried about with divers and strange Doctrines for it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace Be restless till the Word come unto you in much assurance Be restless till you have attained unto all the riches of the full assurance of understanding to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God c. Seek heart-establishment from God for yourselves and others as Peter doth Now the God of all grace c. make you perfect 1 Peter 5 10â— Psa 51.12 stablish strengthen you And David Stablish me with thy free Spirit Neglect neither the Word nor Sacrament administred after the right order O! Hebr. 10.25 Forsake not the assembling of your selves together as the manner of some is Trees stand sâ—â—er in the Wood or Grove where they have company than in the Field where they stand alone 4. Resting in a Dead Faith Hath not this been your sin Against resting in a Dead Faith Manton on Jam. 2.17 Have not you satisfied your selves with a Faith that is but the carkass of saving believing The Apostle in making mention of a dead faith alludeth to a corps or a dead plant which have only an outward similitude and likeness to those which are living Saving belief is an assent wrought in the Soul by the sanctifying Spirit and built upon a Divine Testimony But is not our belief the effect of natural reason White 's Directions p. 91 92 c. 1 John 5 1 further enlightned at most by the assistance of the Spirit Do not we remain unsanctified notwithstanding our believing Whosoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God Have we any further assurance of what we believe than that which Reason suggests Were ever the things believed evident to any spiritual sense within us Faith is the evidence of things not seen Hebr 11 1 Is not our belief grounded only upon an humane testimony We call that a Divine Testimony White c p. 95 96 c. saith one of the Western Worthies which is given by the Spirit of God to that Spirit which is within a regenerate person For saith he unto any testimony two things are required First The manifesting and presenting that which is to be credited or believed Secondly An ability in him to whom it is witnessed to understand it otherwise the proposing any thing by discourse to a beaâ— that wants reason to understand speech or the relating of any thing to a man that hath reason in the Greek tongue who understands no language but English is no testimony no more than it is to a deaf man that cannot hear Wherefore to make a Divine testimony there must be both Gods testifying unto man and also a mind in him able to understand that Revelation First The Spirit of God must reveal and manifest unto a man that Truth that is to be believed as the light discovers any visible object Next There must be in that man a light planted in his heart which the Apostle calls 1 Jo 5 20 An understanding to know him that is
true as the light or visnal-faculty is planted in the eye or else he cannot comprehend that light that shines unto him The evidence then which a true believer hath of any truth of God which he embraceth is the manifesting of that truth unto the Spirit not only by a form of words to the natural understanding but beyond that by a kind of demonstration unto the spiritual mind as the evidence of any object to the eye is by the shining of the light upon it which makes it to appear to be such as it is This kind of testifying or evidencing things Rom 8 16 in a spiritual way the Apostle calls The witnessing of Gods Spirit with our Spirit mentioning expresly two Spirits whereof if either be wanting there can be no Divine testimony But is not our belief grounded upon the testimony of Reason upon the consonancy of scripture-Scripture-revelations to right Reason And is not the testimony of reason an humane testimony Yea Do not we believe upon an humane testimony when we believe any thing written in the Scriptures for the testimony of the Scriptures If that we believe the Scriptures themselves upon the general consent of the Church or upon the probability and reasonableness of the things therein delivered or upon the observation of the truth of those writings in most things which all make up but an humane testimony This the same learned and judicious Divine proves thus White c p 98 99 The assent unto one thing for another is built upon that to which we first give our assent as a stone in a wall though it lyes immediately upon that stone that is next under it yet it is indeed supported by the foundation which bears up all the building We say we do believe but is not our Assent without sutable impressions upon our hearts and without a sutable carriage in our lives Doth the reality of Gods being believed Baxter's Divine Lise on John 17 3 make us look upon our selves and all things as nothing without God as nothing in comparison of God and to let the beeing and reality of our love desire and endeavours be let out upon the most real and transcendent Beeing Doth the belief of Gods Vnity contract and unite our stragling affections and call them home from multifarious Vanity Doth the belief of Gods Immensity and Incomprehensibility fill our Souls with admiration Doth the belief of Gods Eternity draw our Souls from transitory to eternal things Doth the belief of Gods Simplicity make us in love with holy simplicity Doth the belief of Gods Invisibility make us mostly esteem and value things invisible Doth the belief of Gods Immutability beget in us unchangeable resolutions for God Doth the belief of Gods Almightiness sill us continually with holy fear and promote trusting in him Doth the belief of Gods Wisdome make us delight in the wisdome which is from above and to choose God for our Teacher and Counsellour Doth the belief of Gods Goodness fill our Souls with a superlative love unto God and industrious desires to be conformâ—d to his goodness in our measure Doth the belief of Gods Holiness cause us to have most high and honourable esteems of holiness in the creature and to fall in love with it and wholly conform our selves to Gods holiness in Christ Doth the belief of Gods Truth and Faithfulness make us resolved for duty and an holy life seeing the commands of God are serious and the promises and threats true The true and sound assent to any Divine Revelation as an holy truth includeth a correspondency in the believer to the thing believed Such an assent descends from the understanding to the affections and so to the conversation True Faith and right Obedience cannot be separated for he that believes the truth of Gods promises fill'd with such things as he doth most want must needs desire the good contained in them and seeing God hath declared the effect of his promises attainable only in wayes of obedience if he neglect that means it is manifest he doth not desire the end Certainly if our assent doth not cannot act no more than a dead body can rise and walk it is but a dead faith The Apostle doth not say as one well observes Faith is dead without works Manton on Jam 2 20. but Faith without works is dead I here is a difference between these predications as there is between those A man without motion is dead and a man is dead without motion Works are not the cause that give life to Faith but yet they are the effects that argue life in Faith Faith is not alwayes alike lively but yet it is alwayes living and operation is the necessary effect of life O! What cause have we to repent of our dead Faith And what Shall it alwayes remain dead Take heed I beseech you not only of setting no your rest in a Knowledge but in a Faith falsely so called Take heed of pleasing your selves any longer with the name of Faith and remaining destitute of the vertue of Faith for the crucifying your lusts and corruptions and conforming your hearts and lives to the Commandements of God To assent to truth with the neglect of goodness or with lazy desires after goodness is but a vain Faith That assent that doth not now subdue sin Gen. 23.4 will not suppress fear when you come to dye What! will ye not yet bury your dead out of your sight Chap. III. The Miscarriages opposite to Consenting to have God to be your God the third Act of Faith 1. Against resusing God REfusing God Beware of still refusing to have the true God to be a God unto you and a God over you to have him to be your Portion and Soveraign To be God Gen. 17.1 7. Rom. 9.5 implies to be enough unto all to be an all-sufficient and self-sufficient good and to be over all and above all to be an all-commanding good Ephes 4.6 To refuse God is to refuse to place our happiness in him and to come under his government Hath not this been your sin God hath offered himself to be your chief good and absolute Soveraign but have not you refused such offers Yea do not you still refuse them There are many degrees of refusing as one well observes Although we may be free of some of them Ob. Sedgwick's Fountain opened c. chap. 6. yet are not we comprized in some one or other of them Are not some guilty of refusing by way of presumptuous persecution Are not others by way of malicious opposition Are not others by way of scornful derision Are not others by way of open though not malicious resistance And if we be not guilty of any of these refusings yet are not we guilty of refusing by way of dissent or unperswasion Are not we yet unperswaded to accept of God upon his own tearms Certainly there is no medium 'twixt Faith and Infidelity 'twixt receiving of God and refusing of God
out and roaring How can they do other whose wounds stink and are corrupt whose sores run all the night long But they must not spend all their time in roaring but get the broken bones set and make use of them so shall they recover strength and rejoyce Fifthly Take heed of neglecting any longer any one means of Gods appointment either for the getting or keeping Hickman c. page 167. to page 173. or recovering of Assurance The neglect of any one as one well observes may provoke God to reject your attendances on him in the other 't is also uncertain in which God will manifest himself and evidence to you the truth of your Faith in him Sometimes he doth it in prayer sometime in the reading or hearing of the Word of God sometimes in religious holy conference sometimes in receiving the Sacrament of the Lords Supper sometimes in singing of Psalms Sixthly Take heed of remaining any longer lazie and slothfulâ—n the use of the means O! 2 Pet. 1.10 yet at length give diligence to make your calling sure Culverwell's VVhite Stone page 150 c. 157 c. i. e. your effectual calling that your faith in God is a full answer thereunto Assurance both requires and deserves all diligence Such is the darkness deceitfulness and inconstancy of the heart such is the malice policy and diligence of Satan to improve it of so much consequence is this business and so dangerous is it to be deceived herein that all diligence is little enough So satisfactory also is this assurance that no labour will be grudg'd by those that do believe it Antipharmacum c. page 41. See many more pathetical considerations to humble for laziness and to stir up to diligence herein in Morn Exer. at Criple-gate page 141.315 316. Iisdem alitur quibus dignitur O! the rather now give all diligence to put your faith in God out of doubt because a Day of great trouble is approaching yea already begun What have you beside this to oppose to all your troubles here When it comes to resisting to blood and giving up all can you fadge with such work while your spirits are dubious cloudy in this point O my friends Believe it 't is nothing but this that can make a Saint tryumph glory in abasures tribulations And little do you imagine how insupportable troubles are when the spirit is low and dubious in point of interest In particular Take heed of being lazie or any other ways miscarrying in self examination Assurance consists in a ressex Act and by such workings it is gotten maintained and recovered The main reason why some never had Assurance why others do not keep assurance and why others do not recover assurance is because they are not often enough nor diligent enough in reflecting upon the deift course of their hearts lives they do not often enough rightly throughly compare themselves with the sure marks of true faith in God laid down in the Word of God Many will take some little pains to â—inde out the marks of true faith in God and some little time they will spend in comparing their hearts with those marks but they will not continue diligent in this great duty of self-examination till the matter be brought to some issue they will not behold their faces in the Glass long enough to beget in themselves a true notion or Idea of themselves but go away and presently forget what manner of persons they were But let it not be so with you any more Do you make it your business to go through with this work and therefore take heed of being mistaken as to what faith in God and what assurance of faith is Neither make more Hickman c. page 120 121 122. nor fewer essentials of faith in God neither more nor less necessary to interest in God than God hath made Expect not ordinarily to have assurance of faith wrought preserved or recovered by some vocal or as it were vocal testimony of the spirit or as soon as you be assured to be void of all fears and filled with all joy in believing Set not about this work unseasonably but when you finde your hearts in the most serious and quiet frame He that will see his Face in a Glass must be fixed and not in motion Be still Psal 4.4 and so commune with your own hearts When you are full of dark and black temptations you are in a mist and not able to see things aright The muddied Water is not fit to give the true shape of the Face Hearken not to what carnal reason and Satan say for or against your interest in God Before faith in God T. Goodwin's child of light c. page 26.27 28. caâ—â—al reason and Satan use their utmost strength to perswade Souls of the goodness of their condition without Faith thereby to prevent the entrance of Faith and their seeking after it at all as not needfull to interest them in God After saith in God is wrought Hickman c. page 127 128 129. and erected upon the ruines of all Satans strong holds and the Souls carnal reasonings Satan and carnal reason in revenge of such an overthrow muster up new Forces to perswade the Believer by all the Objections they can raise that it doth not believe aright that its faith is not saving Take heed therefore of self-love and sinful jealousie and prejudice upon either account when you set about this work As self-love and self-flattery bribreth and setteth carnal reason to plead for the interest of Unbelievers in God so when once faith is wrought sinfull jealousie doth edge and sharpen the wit of carnal reason to argue and rangle against the work of Faith and all such Objections as carnal reason doth finde out against it are pleasing to this corrupt principle when you try your selves Burges's Refinings part 1 page 57 58. you will but deceive your selves if you do not cast out these two cursed corrupt Principles out of your souls if your hearts be prepossest with either your judgments will be blinded and become partial in passing sentence upon your estate Take heed of trying your selves by false marks of faith in God of weighing with false weights Hereby you may miscarry both on the right hand and on the left on the right hand if you try your selves by marks of perfect faith in God on the left hand if you try your selves by such things as are not indeed Scripture-marks of true faith in God for as God is the Principium essendi the beginning or cause of the being of any grace so Gods Word is the Principium cognoscendi the Principle by which we know what is true grace I cannot but mind you of three Rules of Direction Ob. Sedgw. of Faith chap. 13. sect 1. which a worthy now with God hath left you in this case 1 There are some things without which faith cannot be in the heart and yet