of the former with these precedaneous motions to fin Besides let the Thoughts Words and Deeds of the holyest person which you would instance in be sifted to the bottom and some bran will be found in them some chaff will be winowed out of the heap of his conversation even since that time that he hath had some comfortable assurance of his good Estate but all this is not only tryable by experience but by Rules and Grounds of Divinity which have proportion with the Analagy of Faith 23. The new Creature or the Regenerate man who doth sincerely endeavour to perfect Holyness in the fear of God doth not pass into this estate by any physical and natural but by a spiritual and moral change the principles of Motion and Operation in him continuing not only the same but still lyable to the same Errors in working as before otherwise as we have already said his state must be a state of Impeccability which was never in our earthly Tabernacle but once when Christ Jesus took our nature upon him in whom though the humane nature was lapsible because otherwise he had not been made in all things like unto us Sin only excepted Heb. 2.17 which lapsability is not yet by reason of the hypostalical union of the Humane and Divine nature in his Person he could not only not fall but feel no Motion to the least sin neither was Guile found in his mouth So then by reason the faculties in the Soul remain the same after as before conversion as that man doth will Vertue with the same Individual will wherewith before he did will Vice he doth love God with the same natural power of affecting wherewith before he loved the World It must follow that the Soul and her Appetites as well concupiscible as irascible being still physically the same the change is only in these 3 things especially the 1. cause 2. manner and 3. end of their operation The Moral cause if I may so term it by the efficiency whereof the Will and her Appetites are in a Regenerate man moved to act upon the proposal of any object is that Tincture of Grace which is cast into the Soul by the blessed Spirit of God which is a kind of Principium motus quietis in Moral as Nature is in things Natural mingling it self into every faculty of the Soul apprehending in the Intellectual willing or nilling in the Elective power governing and guiding the Affections in all their Operations both of aversation and desire being so perfectly assimilated to the nature of the Soul that as is the Soul in which it dwells Grace is better apprehended by her operation in Regenerate men than defined in its essence something there is that moves them to Act not only so contrary to others but even to themselves whilst unregenerate Rom. 6.21 as the contrary effects of Glory and Shame in the same Persons flowing from the same Acts though under a different state doth evidence but to define what this is whether a substance or a quality whether an Act or any Assistant form may possibly appear a difficulty so much the greater by how much the more solidly it is inquired into As for the manner of a Regenerate mans working by Grace it is regular according to that order which God himself hath fixt in our Nature Reason being the Judge of all our Actions uncorrupted by any prepossession passion or interest which are the causes of all disorderly Actions of the Soul invading by force or stratagemme the more noble and rational faculties whereby Unregenerate men are carried vertiginously about with divers Lusts as well as with every wind of Doctrine Eph. 4.14 which is a lust in the Understanding and so the more dangerous as are Diseases that fix themselves in the vital parts and in circular motion we know that each part of the Orbe hath a vicissitude of Superiority but in the Soul of man Reason ought to be fixt in the highest seat the deepest mysteries of Faith no way deposing this Queen Regent from her Dignity but only exacting from her that Homage and Fealty which is due to Divine Revelations and the Assistances of the Spirit acting herein spiritual and heavenly things And lastly for the change that is wrought in the end of a Regenerate mans Actions that which he now ultimately and chiefly aims at is the manifestation of Gods Glory and the subordinate end of all his Endeavours is his own and the salvation of other mens Souls but with men of unchang'd Natures as Nature in a state of Corruption is the Principle from which they work and their Manner wholy enormous so is their end ever their self even in that worser sense wherein an obedience and captivity to all or some kinds of carnal Lusts for satisfaction of the unreasonable and brutish part in them is signified in opposition to that manual of Gospel-Duties as I may call it abridged into that most comprehensive Notion of Self-denyal Briefly then if you will but observe the Principal efficient of your moral Actions the manner and end of doing them I trust you will be able to see so great a contrariety betwixt those of the Unregerate and Regenerate life that you will without any just cause of doubt as freely assert the spiritual Life you lead from the vigour and energy of that New Nature in you as you do the Natural life you live by the power of the Old Nature in a physical sense OBJECTION XVII But me thinketh say you I may and ought to be a much better Christian than I am SOLUTION 24. NO moral duty like Mathematical proportions doth consist in an indivisible point That which we judge to be the worst may yet be worser and that which we take to be the best may yet be better if done by any Creature not impeccable Eschue Evil and do Good is the rule of holy living Ps 34.13 which he that sincerely doth needeth not be scrupulous and critically inquisitive into every single Action of his Life though he may not be remiss and supine in doing any the most inconsiderable whilst it is in doing 25. There is no Divine that will assert the necessity of perfect and unsinning obedience under the Gospel his own experience without the Authority of Saint John will confute such Magisterial Theologie e're it run from a pen held by a hand of flesh and blood All humane Actions must needs carrie a proportion to the nature of the Agent by which they are effected in all moral Actions the intermediate Agent betwixt the Spirit of sanctification and the material part of the Action is the Soul of Man in which and by which as by a natural and voluntary Instrument the blessed Spirit doth work so that all moral productions must needs receive some impressions from the next and immediate cause of their being an Artificer never so skilfull yet the defects and ineptitude of the Instrument by which he works may somewhat abate of the excellency of
earnestly and faithfully endeavouring to subvert the power of it we have the Faith of the Divine Majestie to rely on in the Tenor of the Gospel not exacting unsinning obedience under pains of eternal death from those who shall be reputed and rewarded as the Children of God OBJECT XV. But if I were a Childe of God I cannot but in reason expect a more compliable temper with the Laws of Christ then I finde in my self even to those things from which I actually do abstain I perceive in my self most violent and strong inclinations so that I have no Comfort from the Victory over my Lusts such murmurings and regrets I have in my self for not letting loose the Rains of my corrupt Nature SOLUTION 21. MY answer to this Objection will likewise discharge your expectation of what I promised more fully to speak in reference to that supposed exception you would have against your self from the third sense I suggested unto you which the Apostle might intend by the Testimony of the Spirit in that of the Romans lately mentioned It is not to be denyed by any the Greatest Saint upon earth but that he feels in himself the Contests of two contrary Principles Flesh and Spirit the old and new man and evident I presume it is that from hence arises very much of their trouble who have tender and good natures but weak and disordered Judgments For first many of those Christians do conclude that all even the first motions to sin which they feel in themselves how suddenly and impetuously soever rejected by their Spirits do yet leave some dangerous guilt sticking upon their Consciences And 2ly that the state of a Christian lyable to such motions against the Law of God springing from corrupt nature in him is wholly deplorable and forlorn these being most sure marks of his unregeneracy Concerning the first of these though there be many very judicious and pious Divines that are of a contrary judgment acknowledging no more in these motions to sin then an jnfelicity accompanying the nature of the holyest men in this life affording indeed matter of humility to all the Children of God but not aspersing them with any guilt yet if your judgment run along with those of the other perswasion I shall not Endeavor to alter your opinion it being long since imbibed I believe and therefore not only difficultly changed but allmost impossible to be cleerly eradicated out of your mind and consequently may be a means not of lessening but enlarging your Troubles yet would I desire you to retein your own Perswasion with this grain of Salt viz. that those Motions are but sins of Infirmity and Venial which have pardon of course under the Gospel to all the Children of God it not being possible that they can live in the Flesh without such Motions to sin unless you will suppose them capable of living in a state of Impeccability a not-sinnable condition in this World for that such Motions must in reason be supposed to be in all persons lapsible as was Adam and all his Sons being that indeliberate sins as well as sins of a slower fermentation in mens Souls must be preceded by such Motions of their Appetites as naturally and as necessarily as the collision of Flints must be before the emission of fire As for the second such Motions as these how vile and irregular soever they are Blasphemies having the same mint with Fornication Adulteries Murders as our Saviour telleth us Mat. 15.19 yet being as we have said immediately and with Indignation rejected by us are no marks of an unregenerate Man but rather the contrary For do not we Christians engage in a warfaring life against the Flesh the World and the Devil is not the Holy man he that leads a vertuous and religilife a Conqueror and is there a Conqueror where there is no Enemy have we weapons spiritual ones put into our hands to beat the Air withall are not these Motions the enmity of the Flesh which we are engaged to oppose and destroy that Amalek with which we must have war for ever I mean whilst we live in this World And must it pass for a Character of Treason or Cowardice and not rather a note of Infelicity to be dayly surrounded with multitudes of these Philistims which yet like David a valiant Christian destroys by ten thousands at a time if this be that Shibboleth and Test of discerning and distinguishing the good from the bad Heaven will be filled with none but Angels and those innocent Creatures whose good hap it was to dye whilst their ignorance of Good and Evil like the Children of the Ninivites might give them undeniable pretensions to the crown of Glory Should you therefore condemn your self for that such Duels and Battles as these are dayly fought in your Breast for that Plots and Conspiracies against the Kingly Government of your Appetites are dayly detected and prevented the Plotters and Conspirators subdued chastised and kept under by an high hand should you I say condemn your self for this you would in that sentence condemn the Generation of Gods Children the main difference betwixt spiritual and carnal Men and Women lying in this not that one sort feels no contest with Motions to sin the other have Souls dayly clouded and pestred with such Locusts Gal. 5.16 but one of them viz. spiritual Men do conquer and subdue but carnal Men and Women do yield to and are vanquish'd by these Lusts Honour and commendation are not only due to Fortitude but do foment and cherish that Virtue take you heed therefore that that be not applyable to you which the valiant and wise General of King Davids Army foretold him upon his sour entertainment of his Souldiers after their Victory over Absolom the Kings Darling as much as Enemy 2 Sam. 19.7 You ought to encourage your self in God and bless and praise him by whose Grace it is that you are thus victorious and that for the praise of his Glory as the Apostle doth more than once intimate in Eph. 1.12 14. OBJECTION XVI But how then is my Nature changed where is that new Creature created after God in Righteousness and true Holiness What Renovation by the Spirit if such Motions to Sin as these croud in upon the Soul of a regenerate Christian I cannot but be perswaded it was much otherwise with the Apostle and is so still with Holy men though not with me SOLUTION 22. THe Anatomy of every or any single Christians Soul with the true state and posture of his Mind you cannot certainly know unless the person may be presumed not only to speak truth but throughly to understand his own condition in this point even as St. Paul did But certain enough it is that Holy men extraordinarily inspired by God have grievously complained of the guilt of Sin and of their exceeding great troubles for it even to distraction Ps 88.15 neither of which could possibly happen unto them the later being the fruit and effect
MARY MAGDALEN'S Tears wipt off OR The VOICE of PEACE TO AN UNQUIET CONSCIENCE WRITTEN By Way of Letter TO A PERSON of QUALITY AND Published for the Comfort of all those who Mourn in Zion LONDON Printed by J. C. for T. Garthwait at the Little North-door of S. Pauls 1659. Reader THe Publisher of this Treatise having in his eye no fear of thy dislike nor regard of thy applause hath no other sollicitation for thy perusal thereof then the opinion he hath that it may be serviceable to the good of thy Soul He thinks he shall be guilty of a very charitable mistake if thou findest an errour in his conjecture and thou more obliged to offer then he to ask thy pardon for it To prescribe preventive or recuperative medicines in a great Plague-time is no piece of impertinent officiousness but a prudent discharge of duty to the Publick If thou be so whole as not to need a Physitian thou hast had good luck having lived in so licentious an age and amongst children that are Corrupters Give God the glory of his Grace and despise not the good wishes of thy Brethren A Short TABLE of the principall Contents in this Book OF the Secret and Revealed will in God c. page 12 Of the Day of Grace being spent page 14 Of Sins of Ignorance and Wilfulness page 19 Of Presumptuous Sins page 20 Of Sins after Baptisme page 22 Of want of Sorrow for Sin page 26 Of Gods accepting Mens Persons page 29 Of Personall Assurance page 36 Of Sacerdotall Absolution and Gods Ratification thereof page 38 Of Esau seeking the Blessing c. page 50 The Example of the Israelites that provoked God Ten times in the Wilderness page 52 Of Assurance of Salvation page 54 Of the Witness and Testimony of the Spirit page 56 The Combat between the Flesh and the Spirit page 63 Of the Motions to Sin in Regenerate persons page 68 Of perfect and unsinning Obedience page 73 Of the Measure of well doing in Holy and Vertuous Actions as in Prayer Alms Fasting page 75 S. Math. 19.12 He that is able to Receive it c. whether an Advice c page 86 Of Loving the Lord with all our Soul c. and not doing every thing we have ability to do page 89 Of Doing Holy and Vertuous Actions in the want of Charity page 92 Of making a mans self the end of his Actions page 59 Against the Fear of Death page 98 Of the Falling away from Grace page 103 Of Conversion page 105 Of Relapses into Sin and Injection of Blasphemous thoughts page 107 Of Want of Children page 112 MARY MAGDALEN'S Tears wip't off OR The VOICE of PEACE To an Unquiet Conscience MADAM I Thank you for your Charity to me in calling me to my Prayers and shall by Gods Grace endeavour to requite it by a counter-change of Charity in praying for you as you have desired me I cannot say that I am sorrie that you stand in need of being prayed for we all do so and they most of all and the more for that who think they need not other mens prayers But Madam as I cannot but admire your Humility in this pious request whose gracious Heart like the Treasurie of the Temple accepts of Mites as well as Talents so I am not a little ashamed of mine own indigence and emptiness and which is worst of all of my own unworthiness I speak it in good earnest Madam and being by your call for my prayers become very sensible of my unfitness at least for the Intercessional part of that duty I can assure my self that as I trust you will not be the worse so shall I be much the better for my praying for you But Madam for my prayers only I presume you did not send me that Summons I cannot then but esteem my self obliged to render a duty to you of the same importance but more immediately tending to the production of that effect which you have desired me to pray for and which perhaps if more timely and individually applyed the Disease had not been so inveterate and raging as it is nor you so distrustful of the vertue and efficacie of Remedies as you are By some scattered expressions of my Friend that delivered your message to me I very confidently suspect your languishing under the wasting torment of a wounded Spirit but How long by what cause or upon what occasion I have no hint upon which I may reasonably ground a Presumption So innocent hath been that Act of your Life of which I have been a Spectator so rational close and undistracted your discourse that I dare confidently affirm no Indications of this secret Maladie did ever present themselves to the most acute observer of your Conversation with us My thoughts concerning such a State in general I have judged it my duty to deliver but how pertinent or conducent to the removal of the particular cause of your trouble I am not able to divine for the reasons before mentioned 1. The Soul of man comes out of the hands of her Creator like a rich and curious Watch carrying in her self as the Causes of her own motion so no disorder till she fall under unskilful or unruly fingers Her first immersion into the Bodie renders her not only lyable to the guilt of Original sin but to the future turbulencies and excesses of those faculties common to us and Beasts which because in them govern'd only by an uncontroulable instinct of nature are wholly sinless and have in them no other tendency but the preservation of that creature in which they work but with man it is much otherwise whose appetites are subjected to a rational choice under the penalty exacted by a Law wholly commensurate with reason and the noble dictates of a Soul emancipated from the Suggestions and delusions of flesh and blood 2. Hence is it that she receives in us no wounds but by our own hands her Peace is never broken but by Errours in our Election and that most times but radically neither the true resentment of our guilt and danger being subsequent to a reflexive act of the Soul from whence proceed those Smiting Thoughts able to wear out or rend an heart of Adamant The source or spring whereof usually are the consideration either 1. of what we have been or of 2. what we are or of 3. what we shall or may be hereafter the guilt of sin acted the prevalency of sinful dispositions in our nature and of enormous habits in our persons the fear of Relapses and horrour of future punishments are that which set mens souls upon Tenter hooks and few there be who have been guilty of any gross sin whose Prepentance if true hath not given them some taste of this bitter Cup apportionate to the course of their unregenerate life 3. What we have been is of the same latitude in our Regeneration from whence we are to compute our Spiritual life as in our Creation from whence we derive our
whereof is the divers Methods that God hath made use of in delivering the System or Rules of either dispensation unto both People A 3d sence may be this the Apostle may intend by the Testimonie of the Spirit in Gods Children that Inclination and duct of Obedience which Gods Children do though not all of them in the same measure feel in their hearts sweetning their natures and bringing them gently to a complyableness with the Precepts of the Gospel and a putting their necks most willingly into the yoke of Christ his Commandments being no whit grievous to them 1 Jo. 5.3 like as yokes are very troublesome to Beasts not accustomed thereto as the Prophet speaks of the Jews Jer. 31.18 I was chastised as a Bullock unaccustomed to the yoke but to such whose necks have been used to draw in them yokes are no way dreadful or troublesome In the first of these senses the word Spirit must be taken personally for the third Person in the ever Blessed and Glorious Trinity in the 2d it must be taken tropically the word not signifying in the natural and proper sense thereof but yet not without example Rom. 8.2 2 Cor. 3.6 Gal. 4.29 in the 3d sense it must signify metonymically the effect of the Spirit being called by the name of him that works that blessed effect in the Souls of Gods Children In the first and second of these senses the Testimony of the Spirit is communicated to all true Christians but in the third I know lyes the ground of your exception but because I shall have occasion to speak somewhat afterward directly to this point be pleased for the present to remember that I have told you that this inclination to obedience the duct of the Gospel is not alike efficacious upon all the children of God this Spirit being not given in the same measure to all the Sons of God As to the third branch of your Objection rather but one part of it viz. the want of the Testimony of your own Spirit that might witness together with the other that you are the Childe of God to give full satisfaction therein we must inquire into 1. the meaning of the word Spirit in this place 2. What the Testimony thereof is And of 3. what Authority in a business of this Importance the Testimony of a mans own Spirit is For the first the word Spirit in this place must signify I conceive one of these two things either first some noble and sublime Essence presiding in a Christian either as a Distinct subsistence from that which is one of the essential constitutive principles of every man or else as the Celestial and more Seraphical part of the Soul informing ordering and governing the rational faculties in all Spiritual and Divine things And in this sense it must be conceived to have some Resemblance with the office of the Imaginative faculty which being seated betwixt the outward senses and the Vnderstanding conveyes the Species of all sensible objects to the Intellectual facultie being it self of a middle nature betwixt rational and sensible To one of these senses I judge those Divines referre their opinions who assert man to consist of 1. Spirit 2. Soul and 3. Bodie unless by Soul in this tripartite division they understand an Essence capable of no other offices in Man but the performance of sensitive and vegitative operations Or 2ly the word Spirit in this place may signify and me thinks not at all incongruously some excellent gift of the Holy Ghost infused from above in our Baptism into the Souls of Christians whereby they are not only made capable of receiving divine Revelations and things above Reason but likewise inclined and encourain the performance of all those things which God requires at their hands to render them capable of obtaining the further inestimable degrees of his Love and Favour to Mankinde And therefore 2ly the Testimony of any mans Spirit is that Evidence which it gives concerning the whole Series of his conversation in reference to those principles of Faith and Obedience which God hath given him in his revealed Will as the Grounds and Rules of his Practice The 3d Authentickness of which Testimony doth manifest it self to every man partly by the known truth of the things attested which are not concealed from him but represented as the things of himself and partly from that power which God hath over it not only in rectifying any Errors thereof but likewise in shewing himself merciful toward us in such things wherein such a Testimony is not for but against us This Testimony you say you want because you finde not any Witness in your self that you are a Childe of God I conceive it is not impossible for your Spirit to give this Testimony though you have deafned your ear to it and take it for some deception of flesh and blood or a delusion of Satan using all the Devices he can to insnare you in carnal security but whether it be thus or no I shall advise you to endeavour to elicite and call up this Testimony by that which is the Test of it Do you continue in any wilful course of deliberate sin what know you by your self are you still guilty of any of those sins which in the judgment of the Apostle render a man uncapable of any inheritance with the Children of God if you are then look not for this Testimony till you have repented and amended your life nor then neither for it presently until such time as you have good experience of your Resolutions how they have held out in the time of tryal and Temptation and that the greatest and sharpest that in all likelyhood may happen unto you But if you are not thus guilty as for my part I believe you a re not of any mortal sin reigning in your bodie go to the Rule with this argument in your mouth The Holy Spirit of God saith Whosoever is born of God doth not sin willfully and deliberately Joh. 3.9 But upon a strict survey of my self I finde that I do not commit any such sin Therefore I am borne of God Upon the Truth of the middle Proposition depends the validity of this Testimony of your Spirit for the major is infallible and the Conclusion is undoubtedly true upon supposition that there be no such sin either of omission or commission in your conversation which may exclude you from your Sonship But yet for as much as the Apostle doth tell us that though he knew nothing by himself yet was he not thereby justified we ought in reason to lay no more weight on this disquisition and search of our selves then it will bear for our Knowledge being imperfect this search and inquiry into our own wayes cannot be absolutely perfect and consequently we subject to errors therein yet is it most certain that if we do it in sincerity of heart without partiality to our selves not only not allowing in our practise any the smallest sin but by deeds of Mortification