hee hath gotten an oar into the spirits boat Thou maist discerne him by his usual guise of tempting which is to direct thee from the study and care of things revealed to things secret and uncertaine In mens unregeneracie when they wallow in sin securely the word threatens curses and wrath against them see then how Satan withdrawes them from the study of and surrendring their hearts unto the power of that word by a false prophecie I shal have peace Deut. 29 19. I may live many a fair day yet and repent and die a child of God Ye shal not die Gen. 2. And so he drives men to presume And if I be elected saith such a wretchlesse sinner I shal be saved at the last let me walke how I will in the meane while But I hope I am not a reprobate c. will such an heart bee apt to assume and the issue is a resolution to continue in sinne and put it upon the adventure But when a soul is under a Spirit of bondage he turns his note but how is it Is it not the same plot new dressed Now he prophesies an utter irrecoverablenesse to thy condition and upon what ground why forsooth hee hath looked over Gods booke of life and hee cannot find thy name there and therefore do what thou wilt thou canst hope for no better but worse rather then what thou now feelest He will not suffer thee now to conclude at the same rate as before that thou hopest thou art not a Reprobate but maist for any thing thou knowest be elected as well as any other The only remedy thou hast in such cases is to consult the written Word of God Satan saith thou art not elected but is there any Mark in the whole Word of God by which a man may know he is not Elected No God in his infinite wisdom and goodnesse hath not given any such Marks by which men may know Reprobation that so he might retard no mans endeavours after grace Indeed there be marks of Election by which we may make that sure to our selves 1 Pet. 1. but the want of these doth not discover Reprobation because these are all wanting in the dearest Saints of God till they be truly converted and so if that consequence were sound Such true Graces discover Election therefore the want of them discovers Reprobation it would follow that Gods Saints before they are converted seeing they want those graces are either not elected and so Election would not precede Calling contrary to Rom. 8. 30. and Election would not be from eternity contrary to Ephes 1. 4 or else they could at one and the same time be Elect and Reprobate which implies a manifest contradiction The Word speaks plainly in this case Deut. 29. 29. Secret things belong unto God c. 2 Thou hast abundant grounds to believe the contrary viz. That thou art Elected if thine eyes were open to see them The Sanctification of the Spirit is a certaine consequent and therefore a sure evidence of Election 1 Pet. 1. 2. and Rom. 8 1. In stead therefore of searching the Decrees of God whether thou be elected or no search into thy own heart and see whether thou canst find that thou art called and so in any measure sanctified the discovery of grace in thy heart though but one grain and that of mustard seed will assure thee of thy Election and final salvation Canst thou not find in thy heart any sorrow for sin any earnest desires after holinesse any solicitousnesse to please God any tenderness of conscience and fearfulness to offend him c If thou canst think these be flowers that use not to grow in Natures garden Well conclude then I hope I am called and therefore elected and therefore shall be assured in due time CHAP. X. Excitation and encouragement to labour for the experience of this work IN the next place how effectually should this stirre up all of us that are converted by way of a Spirit of Bondage to labour after a Spirit of Adoption in its witnessing act 1. You see that the Spirit of Adoption is attainable and especially by you of all other men You are under the qualification of those to whom he doth especially belong See Isa 61. 1 2 3. To you is the word of this salvation sent Christ was annointed with the Oyl of gladnesse for your sakes Are not your hearts broken are not you mourners in Sion are not you the subjects of a spirit of heavinesse a wrinkled a contracted spirit as the Word signifies a Spirit even grown old and wrinkled with grief Here then is a word of encouragement for you let it not fall to the ground What striving is there for places when they fall in the Universities under such and such qualifications how doth every one within the qualifications bestirre himself for his interest And will you being in such a capacity lose the priviledge of that capacity 2 The Spirit of Adoption in its assuring act is a precious mercy Friends do you count it a great matter to be assured of such a temporal inheritance Will you think it worth your time to search Deeds and Records and Offices to confirm a title to your selves and your heirs and is it worth no pains to assure your immortal souls of an eternal inheritance When a Merchant adventures a ship to the sea if he adventure much in the Vessel how doth he hye him to the Assurance Office that if he can he may be no loser by his Adventure what ever chance befal him O Friends you are every day lanching forth into the Ocean of eternity your Fraught is your precious souls that are more worth then all the world The Spirit keeps an Assurance Office hye you to the Spirit and never leave till you have assured your present Adventure 1. I am assured of this Without the witnesse of the Spirit that you are the children of God no soul here deliberately dares to dye Possibly a Roman Valour may carry men on upon desperate dangers when the temptations of honour c. are present to put out of their minds the thoughts of an adventured eternity with the hopes of the present life Those Parents that sacrificed their children to Moloch could not have endured the cryes of their dear little ones roasted alive in the Arms of the cursed Idol had not the Drummes and other loud Instruments drowned the noise And truly no man can deliberately sacrifice his soul to Satan or adventure his soul neer the borders of hell whiles his ears are open to the fearful yellings scriechings of damned spirits and therefore Satan makes a terrible din in their eares jingles the fine things of this world and makes such a noise with them that he leads them first into a fools Paradise and from thence into utter darknesse Friends Did such thoughts as these possesse any of you now and then Here I crawle up and down in the world a poor worm of two or three cubits
their bondage they could not hearken to Moses for anguish of heart Exod. 6. 9. Read over to a Noble man all his pedigree to a great man all his Titles and famous atchievments shew a rich man all his baggs and his writings and tell the Gentleman of all his pleasures how his hawke flies his dogs hunt where are the richest wines the merriest company c. things that would have taken heretofore now the news of them is like unpleasing meat to a nauseating stomack like jarring musick to a judicious ear Or in Solomons language Prov. 25. 20. As he that takes away a garment in cold weather and like vinegar upon nitre so is he that singeth songs to an heavy heart This heavinesse is the greatest heavinesse The Spirit of heavinesse Isa 61. 3. bitter bitternesse saith Hezechiah Isa 38. 17. 3. Soul-distracting despair I mean not that which shuts and barres the door of the heart against all reliefe blocks it up and besiegeth it on all hands yea even on the side of Heaven it selfe but that which excludes all possible means on this side the infinite Mercy of God and bloud of Christ when as David Psal 142. 4. a man looks on the right hand to Duties and Ordinances and good deeds and resuge fails they appear vestimenta inquinatorum they have guilt in them as wel as deficiency filthy rags he looks Isai 64. 6 on his left hand at the comforts of this life and at humane means to remove misconceived natural causes and finds that he cannot be ransomed by gold nor silver nor precious 1 Pet. 1. 8 stones that it is in vain to come before God with thousands of rams or ten thousand rivers Micah 6. 7 of oyle that his wounds will not be cured by Balsoms nor his Disease be cured by Potions And that there is no name but Christs in heaven or under heaven that can relieve him Acts 4. 12. This is indeed a complete work of the Spirit of Bondage till this a man is never brought low enough to be lifted up all the convictions horrors and anguish of conscience whiles removeable by other means then the blood of Christ are but sleight and superficial wounds and all the power which the Spirit exerciseth till this effects not a through Conquest a man never submits himself entirely to the Spirits handling till this time never accepts of his fetters and wears them without resistancy till now As a Prisoner never quietly submits to his condition till he finds all wayes of escape obstructed and no way to get those fetters off which pinch him but by that hand that put them on And thus these cords that bind a soul under sin may be made use of and twisted with others of a Gospel nature to draw a soul to Jesus Christ For here now properly comes in the discovery of Christ to such a soul ut infrà CHAP. IX A farther explication by assigning the means of its working Quest 2. HOw doth the Spirit work this bondage and fear in the hearts of sinners Answ The meanes is various 1. Occasional So sometimes affliction doth not only fetter a man in his body or estate but soul also Many times God brings down a proud heart as Manasseh by this way Manasseh never became the Spirits Bond-man till he was the King of Babylons captive Then and not till then he bowed himself greatly before the God of his Fathers 2 Chron. 33. 11 12. Sometimes the death of friends especially if unexpected and the thoughts of mortality occasioned thereby Sometimes seeing the strictness of those we converse with Sometimes a reproof a notorious sin which God leaves a man unto sometimes the soul-troubles of others declaring their cases and complaining are catching c. 2. Instrumental and thus ordinarily God useth the Word as his mighty instrument by which he pulls down strong Holds and casts down imaginations and every high thing that exalts it self against the knowledg of God and brings into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10. 4 5. This Word is the instrument of conviction and so of this Bondage arising thence Hebr. 4. 12. Yet is it not the bare word that can work it no though we concur to it and labour by meditation conference and other means to do it for when we have done all We receive it saith the Text. If you ask What word doth the Spirit work this bondage by I answer By the Law generally and principally though some Gospel-considerations may sometimes be admitted to whet and sharpen the edge of the Law I mean the History of the Gospel which aggravates that bondage by exemplifying the misery of being under the curse of the Law the intolerablenesse of lying under the wrath of God in the person of Christ barely suffering for imputed sin by discovering a rich and unvaluable Treasure and spreading all the glory of it before a man who must not lay hands on one farthing token of it c. But the Gospel concurs only per accidens as the sight of Lazarus in heaven increased the hell of Dives and the plenty in the gates of Samaria that Princes misery who was to dye without tasting of it 2 Kings 7. 19. But I say The Law is the proper and ordinary instrument of the Spirit in this work It is the School-master whose lash makes sinners backs smart Gal. 3. 24. which convinceth men as transgressors James 2. 9. Causeth the knowledg of sin Rom. 3. 20. Worketh wrath i. e. manifests it worketh the sense of it into the soule Rom. 4. 15. Maketh the offences of sinners to abound discovers millions of sins more then he dreamed of Rom. 5. 20. Quickens sin in the conscience and puts a weapon into its hand to kill the sinner under its guilt chap. 7. 9. It is therefore called by the Apostle 2 Cor. 15. 56. The strength of sin i. e. that which onely armes sin with terrour and makes its guilt an intolerable guilt The Spirit interprets the Law to a mans conscience and armes it with its curse to pronounce against every sin and this Law thus armed arrests and endites and accuseth and convicteth and condemneth the sinner and when it hath done so it stops there it is fain to do as Felix with Paul to leave him bound without any mitigation Acts 24. 27. or qualification of his misery till the same Spirit whose servant the Law is be pleased to let him free CHAP. X. Evidences of the Spirits usual working in this way before Conversion Quest 3. BUT how appeares it that the Spirit of God ordinarily works first this way Ans 1. Because the Spirit of God as to the order and manner of his working deals not with man as we use to do with stocks and stones We translate them from place to place and condition to condition barely by an act of extrinsecal power As we do raise a stone to the top of a steeple and prop him up there contrary to
his discourse with the holywater of a few religious phrases this man without any sight or sense of his sinnes without any sorrow for them first gives himself the name of Saint and then is angry if any ever after deny it him O sirs 't is well if Christ will own you for such at the last day Hee will not Judge you then according to your assumed Titles but he will know how you came by them Believe it sirs the passage from death to life is a rocky and a stormy passage to the most that enter into it And you must give me leave to aske many of you seriously as they did our Saviour when they saw him on the other side of the lake of Tiberias contrary to their expection Sirs when came you hither You pretend to Saintship but when or how came you by it You think you are passed from death to life but when and how got you so quick a passage For my part I cannot believe that you were transported by miracle as 't is said Christ and the Disciples were immediately at the land whether they went If you were converted in an extraordinary way though not miraculous I expect eminent fruits of holinesse from such a change For God will not do extraordinary works but they shall quit his cost But when I see all that is extraordinary in such persons for the most part is pride covetousnesse injustice oppression censoriousnesse scorne and contempt of Ministers and ordinances fearfull and horrible blasphemies heresies O Sirs shall I tell you what I think of your extraordinary conversion Truly friends I fear t wil prove your extraordinary condemnation for Atrociùs sub nominis sancti professione peccat saith Salvian and the Hell of Hypocrites shall be the standard to that of all other sinners saith our Saviour Mat. 24. 51. If your conversion were in the ordinary way that is the way which I have before described by its several stages Try then hath the Spirit ever convinced thee of the holinesse perfection equity of the Law of God and thereby of thine own filthinesse imperfection unrighteousnesse of thine own wretched cursed damnable condition under it didst thou ever fear and tremble quake and quiver at the thoughts of the wrath and vengeance of a just and righteous Infinite Almighty and Eternâ—l God Didst thou ever break a nights sleepe or loath thy ordinary food or disrelish thy beloved pleasures out of the perplexity and anguish of thy spirit wa st thou ever at such a desperate losse in thy selfe as to make it thy main enquiry what thou shouldst do to be saved such a losse as thou sawest no way out of it but onely by an infinite unspeakable unconceivable mercy such a loss that thou accountedst it even a miracle of goodnesse if ever thou escapedst out of that condition that thou judgedst all that thou couldest do towards thine own recovery though thou couldst weep an Ocean of tears fast longer then Moses or our Saviour Christ himself and pray more devoutly and fervently then all the Saints on earth hear Sermons endited by a general assembly of all the Angells in heâ—ven so short of righteousness that not any or all of them could â—eâ—ieve thee or bring thee one step neâ—…er happinesse such a losse that thou sawest an absolute necessity of obtaining Jesus Christ and his righteousnesse whatever it cost thee to seek him at Gods hands importunately so as to be put off with nothing else so as to be contented to be denyed all other things but him onely so as to be willing to part with all thy lusts and all thy pleasures and all thy profits and all thy honors to be moulded perfectly into the image of the second Adam to entertain love delight in and professe holinesse though accompanied with poverty disgrace displeasure of friends hatred and persecution of enemies prisons racks exile death it self And Lastly after all this hast thou in an holy selfe condemnation and an humble acknowledgment of thy own deserts and Gods justice acquitted God though notwithstanding all this he should turn his back upon thee and shut his ear to the voice of thy roaring Couldst thou lay thy mouth in the dust impute thy destruction to thy selfe and charg the sole cause and occasion of thy ruine upon thy own sins and in that consideration sit down under thy present condition and say Let the Lord do with me as seemeth him good If he will damme me for ever t is my desert if he save me 't is his meere mercy if I goe to hell I will cary this acknowledgment thither in my mouth Lord thou art righteous when thou judgest and just when thou condemnest If I dye I must thank my selfe if I live I must thank thee and thee onely And in these sad and dolorous thoughts and workings of heart when thou hast been in thy own apprehensions in the very belly of Hell hast thou received a beam of light through a chink of a door of hope so that in this sinking condition thou hast espied a plank to keep thee above the waves a twig to lay hold on to preserve thee from drowning whereupon thou hast by a secret power from the Spirit been enabled to fasten some free promise which although thou canst not call thine yet thou art told it may bee thine and thine or not thou wast resolved to lay hold on it and if in so doing God should cut off one of thy hands thou wast resolved to lay hold on it as the Captain in the Historian on the ship with the other and when thou couldst hold no longer with that thou wast resolved to drown looking towards his holy Temple and in these acts of holy reliance hast thou received a whisper Jonah 2. 4. from Gods Spirit Well then seeing thou wilt take no denyal no repulse be it unto Mat. 9. 29. thee according to thy faith if thou wilt needs have Christ take him and Salvation with him Be of good cheer thy sinnes are forgiven thee Christ is thy peace and I am thy salvation Mat. 9. 2. Ephes 2. 14. Psal 35. 3. Hast thou felt these works more or lesse If thou hast not friend I doubt thou setst up a profession of Saint-ship without the Spirits leave I would advise all of you that are in this case to begin again draw your indentures a new intreat the Spirit to admit you into his house of bondage that the son may make you free indeed in his own time and way O be not ashamed to unravel all that clew of ungrounded confidence which thou hast deluded thy selfe by all this while and begin upon a new bottome A mistake here is recoverable hereafter 't is for ever irremediable O think how much better 't is to take the shame of an error upon thy selfe here whiles â—t may do thee good then to be shamed hereafter before God Angels and men to thine eternal destruction and confusion in hell fire I find it
unto me he hath pulled me in pieces and set me as a mark for the arrow he hath caused the arrow of his quiver to enter into my reins he hath â—illed me with bitternâ—…s and made me drunken with wormwood he hath bâ—oken my teeth with gravel stones he hath covered me with ashes and this hath been of so long continuance upon mee that I have forgotten prosperity I can 17. scarce remember that ever I had a better day And therefore it is no wonder if I conclude that my strength and my hope is perished from the Lord. Oh saith the Church this was 18. my very case when I remembred my affliction 19. the wormwood and the gall I even said as thou dost But I withall considered that though my case were bad yet it might have been worse sure God hath shewn me some mercy in that I live It is of the mercies 〈◊〉 the Lord 22. c. Therefore have I hope and therefore I 23. c. to 32. conclude that though the Lord cause grief yet he will have compassion c. Read that Chapter ter all over I have given but a draught of it and therein see thy case and thy cure As to thy own experiences urge his preservation of thee and support thus long and plead for its continuance Obj. But how can I hope Hope proceeds from faith and I cannot believe for I am yet you tell me in a state of Nature till by these troubles God converts me Answ 'T is true of the grace of hope that it proceeds from faith in order of nature and is a fruit of conversion 1 Pet. 1. 3. and till conversion we cannot rejoyce in hope of the glory of God But there is another hope that is not always gracious though possibly sometimes grace may be seminally in it and may first appear by it as the first act of faith may appear in such an act of hope as this True I am a condemned creature but there are such and such free offers of Christ and promises of mercy to sinners indefinitely and why not to me yet I say this hope is not always gracious because it is common to presumptuous as well as repenting sinners and is the very ground on which they presume This hope I shall for distinctions sake call a moral or rational hope because it is gathered from the general promises of Scripture in a rational way as also because it is but a general probable hope that is accompanied only with opinion and not faith though it may ground faith as to its act of reliance upon Christ and the promise of mercy in him where the Spirit of God pleaseth to infuse faith in such a rational way as divers times he doth Whereas the hope that flows from faith is a spiritual and infused hope and is not so much the apprehending a possibility as expecting a certainty of fulfilling the promise to me in particular arising I mean in the acts of it not in the habit or seed of it for that is infused in the first vital act of reliance upon Christ which unites to Christ and so justifies arising I say from the particular evidence of my justification by faith and so from an act of assurance and is higher or lower like it Distinguish thus The one is a kind of negative hope the other a positive The one saith I am not excluded the other saith I am included It s language is Why not I Now 't is the former hope that rational moral hope I advise thee to keep alive in thy soul Let no power of corruption no strength of temptation no length or grievousnesse of thy soul troubles no false conclusions from Gods decree of reprobation c. drive thee out of a firm assent to this proposition that though thy case be sad yet it is not desperate God hath invited such as thou art hath offered Christ and grace freely to thee among others and therefore thou art by no positive declared act of Gods excluded more then any other It is a great support that a soul in this case gets by such an argument as this is For although grace do not always attend or accompany this hope yet the Spirit of God doth use it as it doth all other preparatory works to dispose the soul for grace Nay I know not but that if the soul follow this moral hope with a constant use of all means and ordinances and in them resolve to cast himselfe upon Christ to be saved by him in his own way and upon his own terms why this hope may not be the immediate ground if not the vehicle or chariot of the very first act of justifying faith Wherefore 3ly Let this hope produce waiting Think not that thou art presently cast off by God because he doth not presently as to thy sense answer thy desires There is a great deal of impatience usually in troubled spirits And there is reason why such souls should be subject to that failing For the wound of the spirit is an intolerable wound Prov. 18. 14. And nothing is more grievous to a man in intolerable pain and anguish then delays Hear me speedily saith David else shall I be like unto them that goe down into the pit Psalm 143. 7. and when God hides long he apprehends it will be for ever Psalm 13. 1. But we must labour against this corruption and endeavour to bring our souls to a contentednesse to wait for Gods salvation as long as he thinks fit to exercise and discipline us in that condition The Scripture abounds in exhortations promises and examples pressing home this duty upon us The place Lam. 3. 26. requires not only hope but waiting the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 siluit a quiet silent waiting free from clamorous complaints against God murmuring at his delays and desperate expressions of despondency of Spirit And we have a great encouragement hereunto if we consider 1. That this time of delay is Gods waiting time as well as ours Is 30. 18. The Lord therefore waits that he may be gracious and indeed he hath waited upon us many years before he could prevail with us to give him the hearing of any his gracious invitations and do we now think it much to wait on him till he hear us Besides 2. Saving grace is a thing worth the waiting for Thou hast heard often and prayed often thou saist and yet seest no fruit of it thou hast obtained neither grace nor peace conversion nor comfort remember what the Apostle saith Jam. 5. 7. though with relation to another fruit i. e. the fruit of external sufferings yet the force of his argument is no lesse herein also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lengthen out the patience into long suffering Behold your husbandman 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lengthens out his hope though the seed come not up after the first rain yet he expects another shower it is not ripe as soon as it growes up it may bee a
should you not take like care when the word of God is passing judgment upon your souls I confesse that if wee watch not over our hearts much of the life and power of a Sermon may be lost at present to a man but that evil is not necessary here a man neede not take every word but only what most conconcerns or affects him and hee may be affected in hearing without being prejudiced in writing what he hears Friends I feare few families among us for want of putting themselves to this paine hear as they â—hould for afterwards Now a truth laid â—p in memory may perhaps worke afterâ—ard when a man is minded of it againe although a man go away at present and follow his sinful courses As pills may be taken over-night and a man may sleepe well upon them and all night think nothing of them but when hee awakes in the morning they then will worke Yea Sermons â—penned if they be not as ordinarily written only to serve the turne for a formal repetâ—tion at home and never looked on afterward may many years after they are preached do thee good 6. T is in thy power before thou comest when thou art there and when thou departest thence to lift up a Petition to God that hee will handle his owne hammer with his owne hand make the word mighty through God to break down strong holds and overthrow whatever within thy heart opposeth his own glory and thy salvation T is no hard matter when a word is spoken that suites thee to lift up an Ejaculation Lord set home this word Lord thine own word needs thine own blessing and special application to make it effectuall Lord fasten this nayle and clinch it firmely in my heart 7. 'T is in thy power when â—hou comest home to sit downe and meditate seriously upon what thou hast heard to repeat this word in thy family and confer of it with others and to apply it occasionally to others the word that thou dost another good by may do thee good too For all these acts are constantly performed by rational men in worldly affaires and certainly the change of the object doth not take from mee the power of my owne act upon it so long as both act and object are still suitable each to other now although the spiritual nature of the word be not sutable to a carnal and unsanctified apprehension yet the sound of it and its Grammatical and common sense is and I require no more of thee in these acts then may make use of these as far as they may be improved in a serious way as thou wouldest confer and discourse with a Lawyer about thy estate or a Physician about thy health 8. 'T is in thy power to endeavour to improve this word in a rational way As suppose it speaks conviction of sinne to exercise such an act of application as this this is my sin if of judgment to exercise such an act as this this is my case if direction or motive to apply it thus why should not I doe thus and thus as I am directed and exhorted Heart what have you to say why I should not follow this counsel that is given me This is called communing with a mans owne heart Ps 4. 4. and enquiring what have I done Jer. 8. 6. 9. You can desire and importune the prayers of others in the condition you are in God may heare such as are his own people for you when hee will not hear your selves You wil doe so in temporal plagues So Pharaoh Exod. 8. 8. And in special Simon Magus Acts 8. 23. 10. It is in my power to check my heart for those unreasonable prejudices which it hath against the word and to labour the removal of them Imean to endeavor to reason my self out of them 'T is true no total removal of prejudice against the word can be wrought but by grace it is grace only that kills the enmity of the heart against God but reason may silence and suppresse them for the time as a Judge in the Court may command silence at present but cannot except hee can cut out the tongues of men force them to â—ee totally silent and perpetually So reason can It cannot dig up the roots of prejudice but it may consider the word praescinded and abstracted 1. From all prejudicate fancies and conceits If I have prejudice against the preacher that hee sayes what hee doth out of spleene c. why cannot I put my heart upon this issue But let the mans intentions be what they will what is it that hee sayes c. So Eliah though certainly he had a legal prejudice against the raven if at least I may call that a prejudice that judged him an unclean bird according to the Law that brought him food yet saith Eliah here is food God and I have no other lawfull way of supply if the meat be wholsome I will eat it 1 Kings 17. 4. 6. A man is beholding to a watchfull enemy 2. If against his meannesse and contemptiblenesse of person want of parts and learning plainnesse of preaching c. Why cannot I in reason consider The richest mines are in the most barren and mountainous grounds That 't is the ordinary garbe of Princes to go clad in bare cloth which is often more worth then many a gallant Courtiers cloth and trimming That when God does good upon men and takes them most his greatest Art is to hide Art and there is reason for it because even humane skill loves not to be seen in the outside of every work and the Artificer loves to shew most of his skill where you would least expect it c. 3. If that he is not of thy own way or opinion Reason may plead for him For either thy way and opinion is good or bad if good thou wilt hear what can be said against it know thy adversaries weapons and play and so wilt be the better able to guard thy selfe If bad 't is a great mercy to be convinced of it c. Yet would I not in all these be misunderstood For 1. In all these I so affirm these acts to be in the power of the creature as not to exclude the common and sometimes especial influence of the Spirit upon them to produce them It is in these actions as in those other rational acts of ours concerning the affairs of this World which are in the power of nature to perform but yet the Spirit of God always in a common but sometimes in an especial way draws out those acts so as may be most for Gods glory and our good so though it be in the power of Nature to go to Church and sit reverently and hearken out a Sermon yet that I go at such a time and that possibly much against the grain of mine own inclination that I observe such and such truths and lay them up and meditate on them when I come home c. more then others this is the Spirits
place he bestowes upon us the right of Adoption as the most properworker of this union And as our Faith is the instrument of union so hee is the giver of faith 1 Cor. 12. 9. Faith indeed Divines ordinarily call an Instrument but 't is but an improper instrument for as all its efficacy depends upon the relation which it hath to Christ as an hand is the instrument to make rich when it receives a treasure or layes hold on it when freely offered so it doth nothing at all on Gods part But the Spirit is in a sense a proper instrument on both parts applying both Christ to us and us to Christ Christ to us by reaching us a promise to lay hold on and us to Christ by giving us an hand to lay hold on it and rest our souls upon it 2. Hee is the witnesse of our Relation And this work is principally set out to us in the verse preceding that which is the ground of our discourse The Spirit also witnesseth Rom. 8. 14. with our spirits that we are the Children of God Concerning the manner of the Spirits testifying I shall say somewhat hereafter onely take notice now that he is said to witnesse with our spirits i. e. to say the same thing with our consciences rightly informed of their condition Thus he is a seal and an earnest not to confirm on Gods part but to assure our legal title on our part Eph. 1. 13. 2 Cor. 1. 22. In the discharge of this work he is the comforter who takes of Christs and shews unto John 6. 14. his people i. e. not only saving truth in illumination and saving grace in regeneration and justification but also speciall light and comfort in manifestation of our interest in God through Christ he takes the Deed by which Christ is made the adopted head of his family and all the territories of heaven and earth are given to him and his seed for ever and shews it to the Saints and bids them cheer up for though they be now poor and persecuted wandring in sheep-skins and goat skins hiding among wild beasts in dens and holes of the earth yet they are heirs to all that heaven and earth contains and the time will come when this great estate shall come in hand and therefore they should lay out liberally upon their hopes at present and throw away all these things in a kind of holy prodigality when God calls for them being assured that their future inheritance will make amends for all This is the assuring act of the Spirit and differs from the former thus there hee barely discovers to us a promise and stirres us up to adventure upon it upon general invitations here he gives us an evidence that that promise is ours and enables us to make use of it by particular interest 3. He is the Advocate of our Cause And thus he is said also in this Chapter to make intercession for us When our title at any time comes under dispute or when any thing is detained from us which our relation and the evidences which confirm it entitles us unto he enables us to sue out our interest or if any thing befal us unworthy the children of God he helps us to write letters to our Father to complain of and bemoan our condition Rom. 8. 26 27. And this is that that is principally intended in the Text together with the former which is the ground of this the Spirit helps us to cry Abba Father by assuring us that God is our Father and putting us upon earnest and importunate requests to him as the requests of children use to be to a tender and compassionate Father And this work of the Spirit is so frequent and constant in the Saints that it is in effect attributed wholly to the Spirit God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into our heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 crying as if he meerly acted our tongues Abba Father Gal. 4. 6. 4. He is the great guide of our way Ps 143. 10 He is the Tâ—tour of our youth we are not adulti till we be ripe for glory Ephes 4. 13. So we are said to Walk after and to be led by the Spirit verse 1 4 14. of this Chap. Therefore new obedience is call'd the Law of the Spirit of life v. 3. And the Spirit of the Lord is said to give liberty 2 Cor. 3. 17. Cameron in locum And so divers interpret the words of my Text with an opposition of servile obedience and filial obedience CHAP. III. Two practical Queries concerning the extent of this worke as to the subjects of it in the forementioned particulars Qu. WHat sense must this proposition be understood in That the Spirit of Bondage in Gods elect ends in a Spirit of Adoption Under which are comprized these farther enquiries Que. 1. Whether the Spirit of Adoption do work all the aforesaid works upon the hearts of all those that are elected or some of them onely upon all and all but on some Qu. 2. Whether upon all of them that have been under a Spirit of Bondage the Spirit do perform all the aforesaid workes or no Answ To both I shall give this preliminary answer and then give a more particular to each by it selfe 1. The Spirit doth give all Gods Elect at one time or other a true reall and unquestionable title to the grace of adoption and all the priviledges belonging thereunto 1. In justification making application of the soul of every elect person to Christ and of Christ to the soul 2. In sanctification making them partakers of the Divine Nature by the application of cleansing promises 2 Pet. 1. 4. For else two links of the chain next election would be broken Rom. 8. 30. Whom he predestinated them he called and whom he called he justified And this is the first work before spoken of 2. The spirit doth work in all persons that are really converted whether in the method of a Spirit of Bondage or no at one time or other so much perswasion of the love of God as encourageth the soul to lay hold upon the promises of the Gospel and to lay claim to them and to adventure the soul upon them For this is the ground of that reliance by which the soul leans upon God and hangs upon Christ for salvation wherein the nature of justifying faith in my judgment doth consist But there is a difference between this and particular assuring faith For this is grounded only upon the free and unlimited offers of the Gospel which offers Christ and Salvation to all that receive him and come to him and the Gospells invitations to accept of it that is grounded upon particular evidence that we have already accepted of him and thereby he is become ours and we his from the effects of a true and saving reliance upon him And this general perswasion so far emboldens all Gods elect that upon the warrant of that they lay claim to God as their Father
not as actually and assuredly so but as one that hath offered himselfe to that relation and will own it to those that upon that offer claim it at his hands Thence though they know not God to be their Fateer yet they lay hands on him upon his free offer as engaged to be their Father and so by frequent acts of relyance grow up into assurance that he is so when they find such fruâ—ts of their reliance as evidence a real relation between God and them I know many of Gods Saints do and I think they should call God Father when they scarce know whether they may be so bold or no and speed that way 3. That if any one of Gods elect want the assuring testimonies of Gods Spirit it is their own fault seeing God holds it forth to them in many a precious promise And if they dare not call God Father it is because through clouds of temptation and corruption they darken those evidences which might demonstrate their sonship For justification and sanctification if discovered are sure foundations of comfort and assurance Thence their condition is exprest by darknesse which is not the extinguishing of light in the object or in the eye but clouding it 4. Of those that have this assurance and enlargement thereupon very few or none keep it at all times alike and can alike improve it on every occasion Great sinnes and great troubles c. may many times cloud and sometimes as to the act blot out the evidence of their Adoption Thus David wanted this Spirit Psal 51. 11. 12. A child having offended may scarce dare call Father whiles that guilt remains uncovered 5. Even the high and heroical acts of assuring faith in Gods Saints are not always free from some mixture of doubting else there were no difference between assurance and plerophory or full assurance Answ â— But to answer more particularly 1. To the first Question 1. All the Elect of God have not presently when called the particular assuring testimony of Gods Spirit though even that belongs to them because of some obstructions that either from Satan or their own hearts may be put in their way A man may be long a child of God before he know himself to be so There must in order of nature be the certitudo objecti before certitudo subjecti for I can never be sure of a thing before it is And how long this proposition I am justified may be true before this I know I am justified I cannot tell it may be divers years 2. An elect child of God for any thing I know or to my utmost knowledge the Scripture reveals may go to heaven without that particular actual assurance or a particular confidence to addresse himself to God as his Father otherwise then by claim as before for I conceive it is not essential to the having of eternal Life to know that a man hath grace actually but only to have those things in him whence the evidence of the truth of grace may be to a clearer and more enlightened spirit discovered Though it be said He that believeth not shall be damned yet it is no where said he that knows not he believes shall be damned 3. Yet is every such elect child of God The reality of his relation to God produceth in a Saint those fruits even when he himselfe doth not know them As appears in second troubles in Gods people after conversion Faith produceth those acts not by its assuring but uniting act carryed out after holinesse and obedience to God by the secret seed of God that is in him by a natural inclination I mean from the new nature though he be not so visibly acted by moral perswasion or force of argument from graces received as those that see they have grace and are adopted usually be As in those creatures that want reason there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in Infants a natural love to parents though they cannot argue themselves by reason into the duties that evidence it from the particular knowledge of that relation And upon the same account they are affected with the evil of displeasing their parents although they feele no stripes and do not draw out that sorrow by argument from their Fathers love 2. To the Second Question I answer 1 That neither is it necessarily thus in all that have been under a Spirit of Bondage though elected upon the reasons before alledged 2. Yet have such that have been under a Spirit of Bondage more special promises of this kind which could they lay all hold on they would attain it but Satan taking the work of the Spirit out of his hand and finding them prepared for such impressions of trouble by the former work keeps the very stamp of a Spirit of Bondage on them when they are as to their condition under a Spirit of Adoption Mat. 11. 28. Isa 57. 15. 3. Nay when they get comfort and assurance it is commonly the stronger and more full and firm Understand this point thus then That usually and in Gods ordinary way of dealing with his Elect when he hath brought them under bondage by the Spirit he doth send them a Spirit of Adoption in its evidencing acts as well as in the rest Though he may sometime vary from the usual and ordinary rule And the giving of the Spirit of Adoption in these acts is to be understood as that of the Spirit of Bondage and its method before discovered that except possibly in some few singular cases it is ordinarily so CHAP. IV Arguments to prove this Thesis or Proposition NOw let us advance to the proof of the Thesis Quest How appears it that God doth so ordinarily Ans 1 By his Promises 2 By his Design in bringing under the Spirit of Bondage 3 By the Duties that he expects of his Saints 4 By the Experiences of his people Arg. 1 By his Promises which engage him thereunto John 16 10 11 12 the same spirit that is promised to convince of sin saith Christ shall convince of righteousness and of judgment Of righteousnesse because I go to the Father i. e. he shall convince poor burthened souls that there is a sufficient righteousness in me to cover the guilt of all their sins and this by my Ascension which declares the full discharge of the debt which on the behalf of my Elect I contracted and because I go to my Father my admission to my Father gives full assurance that I am again received into his favour and so there remains no cause of his displeasure against mee or mine that cast themselves upon me for righteousnesse Of Judgment i. e. of the truth and reality of their own graces as Isai 43. 1 3. Or Of judgment because the Prince of this world is judged i. e. a judgment of absolution of their persons and cause which shall appear by the contrary sentence on their accuser it shall be made appear that God hath condemned him that accused you and kept you in
good reason for the joy of the Lord is their strength Nehem. 8. 10. Though God bear somtimes with their weakness as well as darkness 3 Thankfulnesse Indeed there is a thankfulnesse arising from temporal and common mercies and there is a thankfulness for general and comprehensive Promises and free offers of Christ and Ordinances c. before Assurance But thankfulnesse is never so large so liberal as upon assurance then a man can give thanks in all things and for all things 2 Thess 5. 18. then he cryes out What shall I render unto the Lord Psal 116. 2 12. and then his language is full Blesse the Lord O my soul and all that is within me praise his holy name Psal 103. 1 2 4 Sometimes to deny all and suffer for him 'T is also true a man that sees not the love of God to him may go very far upon conscience of duty and upon a meer faith of relyance upon general Promises and upon secret supports of the Spirit by which he keeps up hope in himself that such Promises may be his upon the necessity of that choice which he is put upon taking that as the safer way which carries him out to adventure himselfe that way rather then certainly ruine himself by Apostasie So was that holy man carryed to the stake before he cryed out He is come he Glover in Acts and Monum is come But it is very seldom that a soul will go so far meerly upon a faith of relyance and therefore God ordinarily gives such persons special Assurances the Spirit fils their hearts with comfort joy and peace and this will make them far more Heroical in suffering Acts 7. 55 56. 2 Cor. 1. 4. Guilt of sin saddens a suffering to a man So doth uncertainty of his estate for the future for who will adventure soul and body at once if he judg his condition in a rational account but a desperate man And if Saints in darknesse suffer much it is by extraordinary support But on the other side when a man can look within the vail by assurance and challenge glory The sufferings are not worthy the glory that shall be revealed Rom. 8. 18. 2 Cor. 4. ult Arg. 4 the experiences of Gods people constantly manifest this One while we have David complaining of broken bones and a watered couch c. another while he is all joy and praises Those Acts 2 whose hearts were pricked so deeply what is the issue of it see v. 46. They did break bread from house to house and eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart See what became of the Jailor after his trembling fit Acts 16. 34 He rejoiced believing with all his house And certainly although God may save a soul and bring him to heaven hood-winked yet it is very seldom that he doth so but that at one time or another carrying on his people in constant acts of reliance he gives them a witnessing and assuring spirit at the last CHAP. V. Reasons of Gods working in this way by his Spirit COme we now to the Reasons of this Proposition Quest Why will God bestow the Spirit of Adoption upon his Elect after the Spirit of Bondage Answ For these Reasons principally Reas 1 Because Religion else would be an uncomfortable profession and would have little alluring in it to the eyes of those that are without Men are apt to receive prejudices against Religion as that which will put a period to all their comforts And this mistake is much occasioned in them by the sad and drooping lives of those that profess it So that were it not that usually God brings joy out of sorrow and puts on his Saints the garment of joy for the spirit of heavinesse no man would chuse the wayes of God that are strewed with so many thornes and difficulties but rather chuse to wallow in sinful and worldly pleasures As the afflictions of the godly and the prosperity of the wicked in outward things are great stumbling blocks so much more would burthens of spirit if they should be constantly and unremoveably laid on the spirits of the Saints Surely God that will have us tender of the credit of Religion in our carriages will not prostitute it by any carriage of his own Reas 2 The Lord doth it that he may keep up the spirits of his people from fainting under a spirit of bondage Soul troubles are tedious troubles spending troubles Those Diseases that affect the spirits are so in the body and therefore they had need of strong Cordials to keep up their hearts who are under such Diseases Soul troubles overwhâ—lm the spirits Psal 142. 3. and 143. 4 Soul troubles sink and drown the spirits and if God should not now and then support his people with a Cordial they would faint away quite Stay me with flagons comfort me with apples for I am sick of love Cant. 2. 5. Psal 119. 91. My soul fainteth for thy salvation Now the strongest Cordial God gives his people at such a time is this that they shall have an expected end that he will not contend for ever and this is the reason why he gives them this assurance Lest the Spirit should fail before me Isai 57. 16. or as others ne spiritus obruatur lest the spirit should be overwhelmed This supports the Church in a waiting frame Lam. 3. 26 31 32. Reas 3 That he may thereby in their own judgments and consciences confute the hard thoughts they usually have of him in times of darkness Mans heart under soul troubles is a forge of all misapprehensions and unjust censures concerning God Sometimes he is an enemy a cruel one sometimes he hath forsaken them and forgotten them their hope is Lam 3 Isai 49. 14 40. 27. perished from the Lord and their judgment from their God sometimes he is unfaithful and his Promise failes for evermore Now Psalm 77 God is concerned in point of honour to cause the light of his countenance to shine on such that they may be convinced of the vanity and folly of such thoughts and to make them confesse that they have injured God in such mis-judgments of his proceedings Then they will confesse such thoughts were their infirmity as Psal 77. 10. the Psalmist doth and that his wayes are neither like their wayes nor his thoughts like their thoughts Isai 55. 8. as David confesseth by experience Psal 103. 11. Reas 4 God will hereby shew that it is not in vain to serve the Lord and abundantly recompence to his people all the pains care and trouble that they are and have been at to follow after him in a dark condition Beloved assurance of Gods love and joy in the Holy Ghost arising there from is part of our wages and God of his goodnesse to his people gives them part of their money in hand to encourage them in the service he puts them upon As he gave the Israelites a taste of the Grapes of Canaan to encourage them to
fight for it Satan and Numb 13. 23 a mans corrupt heart are apt to discourage a soul under Bondage from hence What profit Job 21. 14 Lam. 3. 8. is there in serving God c. Thou prayest and he casteth out thy prayer thou hearest and art in trouble still Now God props up his people against such temptations by such Promises to all and performances to most of his Saints Reas 5 God doth it to wean his people from this world Now Lord lettest thou thy servant depart in peace for mine eyes have seen thy salvation sayes Simeon when he had seen Christ in the flesh Luke 2. 29. And when a soul after long troubles of spirit recovers the assurance of Gods love O what poor things are all the treasures of the world to him Lord saith David lift up the light of thy countenance upon me and then take corn and wine and oyl who will Psal 4. 6. And then let the eyes of wicked men be even ready to strut out with sat and let them have all that they can wish yet saith he in another place I will not change portion with them for the Lord is the strength of my heart c. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel and bring me to glory Psal 73. 25 26 27 28 A man that is called to be a Favourite to a King will quickly grow into a dis-esteem of his shop and retaile Trade his sheepfold or cow-stal Take no care for your stuff saith Joseph for all the fat of the Land of Egypt is yours Gen. 45. 20. So saith God to an assured soul Take no care for these earthly things thou hast in heaven a richer and more enduring substance Reas 6. Because God delights to hear from his Saints often Not only as a Master from a Servant nor as a rich man from a beggar nor as a Conqueror from a Captive but as a Father from a child as a husband from a Spouse Cant. 2. 14. The voyce of a Spouse of Christ in the cleft of the Rock i. e. relying on him upon assurance of his love is sweet Joseph could not abide long under the mis-apprehensions his brethren had of him My Lord and Thy servants Joseph thought were strange Titles to that of Brother hee longed to hear them call him by a name of relation so saith God Hosea 2. 16. to an afflicted Church CHAP. VI. A Question concerning the mediate and immediate Testimony of the Spirit HOw doth the Spirit testifie our Adoption For although divers godly Divines are of a different judgement in the point of immediate evidence yet I cannot be perswaded but that there is something in the work of the Spirits testimony which may deserve to be so expressed Ans Two wayes 1 Immediately 2 Mediately I. Immediately wherein the Spirit acts as in illumination and infusion of good motions into us by his secret influence upon the heart quieting and calming all those waves of distrust and diffidence concerning its condition by his own immediate power without the present application of any Scripture grounds to convince a mans reason that his testimony is true I shall parallel it with the motions of the Spirit thus As the Spirit many times excites a man to such or such a duty by laying his hand immediately upon the heart and therewithal a kind of secret force and power inclining the heart to obey those motions and as it many times opens the heart to such and such spiritual impressions by a physical injection of holy motions into it and warming the heart to receive them so in this case when a poor soul sits in darknesse and sees no light sometimes upon a sudden a light from heaven compasseth it about and it is it knowes not how in a moment as it were taken up into the third heaven its fears are banished by a soft whisper from the Spirit of God in the heart Thy sins are forgiven thee and this is in such a way that though the spirit of a man really believes it and is immediately calmed by it yet it cannot tell how it comes to passe And so it is sometimes in overcoming temptations a soule some other times is enabled to knock them to the ground by a scriptum est as Christ did Matth. 4. but sometimes it is stirred up to decline them and abhorre them by a secret rising of the spirit against them and to club them downe by meere force setting the bent of the will and affections against them without any present direct recourse of the soule to the written word And of this kinde is that worke of the Spirit stirring up in us sighes and groans in prayer that cannot bee uttered whereas at other times it furnisheth us with abundant matter of prayer from the promises and other straines of Scripture useful thereunto And thus as I said in conveying the evidences of Gods love the Spirit can and surely oftentimes doth alter the whole frame of a mans Spirit by a secret irradiation of comfort a man cannot tell how for as there is a kind of spiritual instinct in the soul by which it doth the things that are pleasing to God after conversion though many times it knowes not the principles upon which it acts so is there a secret and spiritual faculty in the divine nature that is infused unto us by which when the Spirit speakes peace to the soule it closeth with it without any reasoning or recourse to evidences as at other times As saith a learned man there is in the eye lumen innatum Rutherf on Jo. 12. p. 100. and in the eare aer internus a certaine imbred light to make the eye see lights and colours without and a sound and air in the eare within to make it discerne the sounds that are without so is there grace a new nature and habitual instinct of heaven to discerne the consolation of Gods spirit immediately testifying that wee are the sons of God There are some secret and unexpressible lineaments of the Fathers countenance in this child that the renewed soul at first blush knowes and ownes it But for the understanding of this you must observe with mee these few particulars for explication of this secret of experimentall godlinesse 1. That although the Spirit may testifie this immediately without any expresse and formall application of a word yet he never testifies but according to the word i. e. to subjects capable thereof and in such wayes as they are discovered to be capable by the word so that the Lords speaking peace to the soul being in the Scripture bound up to persons under certain qualifications the Spirit never speaks peace but where those qualities are real though not alwaies visible in the soule As for example if a man that feels not sin a burden heavyer then all the world that throwes away all duties of religion never prayes reads heares meditates nay goes on in some sinful way without remorse be filled with joy and peace and assurance
with such a faith as he believes the Bible to be true in every part of it and this appears in those that are under a Spirit of Bondage Produce such and such promiâ—es to them they will say true these promises are excellent promises and will no question yeild abundance of marrow to them to whom they belong but they can see nothing in them that belongs to them Here is a full well but they have nothing to draw or it is a well inclosed it is not free for them 2 Particular When the Spirit helps the soul to single out such a word and opens a door of hope to the soul that it hath a share in it and this is that that makes way for and is compleated in the Minor of the former Syllogisme which I call 2 Conviction of Case Thus the Spirit enlightens the conscience to apply the Promise to its self by owning the condition of it The Word saith Such and such persons are children of God the renewed conscience enlightned by the Spirit saith This is my case I am such a person Now here the Spirit either enlightens a man to see himself under that condition by working a present assent to the truth of this Minor Proposition As suppose an Argument from the Promise He that believeth hath everlasting life but I believe Ergo. The assent to this Minor Proposition I believe may be wrought by a sudden work of the Spirit as soon as the major Proposition whereon it is grounded is apprehended and so it is a work somewhat neer of kin unto that of the first branch of Mediate Testimony wherein the testimony was supposed to be by the word yet without Argumentation Or else as usually by eliciting and drawing forth the soul to such an assent by a farther evidence of Argument For it is very seldom seen but that such souls as have been exercised with a Spirit of Bondage are not easily brought to own any good in themselves so that even the Spirit of God hath much ado to answer all the cavils of Satan and their own suspicious hearts in point of gracious self-Justification which such souls are much afraid of and not more difficultly brought to any thing then to own this Proposition But I believe or the like Now in such a case the Spirits work is longer and he is fain to bring many more Arguments to confirm this Minor True saith the soul he that believes hath everlasting life but I am none of those Believers and therefore quid ad me What doth this Promise concern such an unbelieving wretch as I am Then the Spirit satisfies the soul in the Minor by producing such proofs of Scripture as evidence faith in the Subject in whom it is such as purifying the heart love to God his wayes his Actâ— 15. 9 Gal. 5. 6 Zech. 12. 10 people grief for sin c. And possibly goes farther and proves those graces to be in the soul by farther Marks drawn from the acts of them which discover the habit whence they proceed This is a work of conviction I told you before and may be done by many Arguments or few according to the light that accompanyes them to the soul Nor is there any reason why Dr. Crisp and his followers should cry down this way of getting assurance by Marks and Signs as uncertain seeing the doubting soul will find something that seemes faulty in every grace which is presented to it as an evidence Object If the Spirit say say they Thou art a Believer because thou hast love that is a fruit of faith the soul may stil doubt Whether it have love if love be manifested by delight in Gods Commandments c. the question will still be Whether that delight be sincere or counterfeit pure or mixed ingenuous or self-ended and therefore say they there can no judgment be made certainly concerning a mans Justification by his sanctification or concerning sanctification by the operations of particular graces Ans To this we answer True these graces whiles I barely endeavour to discover them by my own reason may be still subject to question and so can make no firme assurance But in the soul that is graciously assured this way the Spirit of God rests the heart upon an ultimum quod sic convinceth him by that which is most visible in him and stops the mouth of cavilling reason from perplexing the Question any more As a wise Moderator in a Dispute that when the Argument hath been spun out so long by a wrangling companion that there can be no more said but in away of groundlesse cavilling and angry reflections c. breaks off the Dispute checks the wrangling Antagonist and determines the Controversie by his own sentence upon the whole matter So when a man 's own cavilling heart and Satan helping it have picked out all the flawes possibly in his evidence for heaven and have left no stone unturned to invalidate it and withal the Spirit hath enabled a man to plead to all exceptions of moment and yet these wrangling companions will not be satisfied at last the Spirit makes a man to see that there is nothing can be said that hath not been answered but only such wranglings as deserve no answer but scorn and so determines and enables the soul to determine the great Question by inferring the conclusion with undenyable evidence I know not why this way the Spirit of God assuring should not be lesse subject to question then immediate assurance Seeing in a time of darknesse that is as questionable and will require as long a debate to satisfie the soul whether indeed it were the voice of the Spirit or a mans owne heart and Satan colluding with it to deceive a man Let any man shew mee that 't is easier for a man to be certainly convinced that the Spirits immediate testimony is true and proceeding from the Spirit then that such and such fruits of grace the matter of its mediate testimony are not counterfeit and I have done pressing this Argument any more 3 The third thing the Spirit doth is to infer the conclusion of the grand Syllogisme in a conviction of a gracious and happy estate thus therefore Thou art a child of God an heir of glory justified sanctified c. For all these termes and many more are of equal import to the case in hand the concluding any thing in a man that necessarily accompanies salvation concludes the certainty of salvation to that person and seals up assurance In the former two acts the Spirit is the candle of the Lord without a man in pointing out the word and within a man in the application of his case to the Word and in this he acts the part of a just determiner of the controversie upon this evidence a Judg in the conscience quitting and justifying the Prisoner and this is his sentence of Absolution and therefore when it is pronounced by his Ministers as most commonly it is 't is called loosing the
satisfied There is as much difference between these two acts of the Spirit as there is between such a plea as diverts a judgment against a man at present and that wherein by an evident deed or writing it is certainly determined on his side And so we may distinguish Comfort and Assurance and Comfort and Peace For though Comfort alwayes follow Assurance so that there can be no assurance but it must comfort yet where ever there is comfort it followes not there must be Assurance For there may be comfort in a lesse evil compared with a greater and a poor soul may take comfort in this that although he be not sure he is included in the Promise yet he is not excluded but Assurance presupposeth an actual perswasion that a man hath a share in the Promise A man may be comforted with this that although it is bad with him now yet it may be better but Assurance supposeth a sense of his good condition at present Now to apply this distinction to the answer of the Question propounded I am not satisfied that any man can draw Assurance as it is thus distinguished from support and comfort from an Absolute Promise because an Absolute Promise is no legal plea for me in particular as to my present Title to God though it be for my future hopes of such a Title And my ground is this That which all are called upon to believe and which is offered to all alike cannot be a grounded plea to put a distinction between me and others but particular Assurance puts a special Mark of distinction between me and others and absolute Promises are offered to all alike and therefore Assurance cannot flow from an Absolute Promise Nay let me add it is the constant guise of Presumption to plead Absolute Promises in point of Evidence as the Promise of giving Christ to dye for sinners and therefore they are confident he is theirs as well as others All that Gods Saints draw from hence is a comfortable ground of applying themselves to Christ with constancy and perseverance because the Spirit testifies to them that they are capable of the mercy that is held forth in such Promises if they so adhere to them and leave not to urge God with them And the case is the same with general offers Gods general Offers and absolute Promises are of the same nature in this case Both may support comfort a man for the present but are no evidences for the future As a Prince proclaimeth an Act of Grace an Act of Pardon and Oblivion to Traitors and invites in general terms all persons to come and receive it upon such and such conditions among the rest one that apprehends himself more guilty then all others doubts whether it shall reach to him or no he comes into such a Market and hears the Proclamation to all Traitors c. whatsoever hereby is the man so far quieted and supported with this newes Now saith he I hear I am not excluded I am not unpardonable But now if this man go no farther but a while after come to tryal of Law for his Treasons and he thinks to plead the general Proclamation and the mercy of the Prince extending it selfe to all Malefactors will this serve for a Legal evidence to a Jury that he is a pardoned man Will it not be asked Sir What Evidence have you that you laid down your Arms and accepted this pardon Here now is required another kind of testimony So here God proclaims mercy in Christ to the greatest sinners and this he declares to proceed from his vast and unspeakable love and therupon invites all sinners to come and accept of it for he is a God merciful and gracious abounding in mercy and truth and Exod. 34. 6. will abundantly pardon returning sinners Now a poor soul doubts whether he be included in this offer Doubt it not saith the Spirit in a Sermon or other Ordinance be of good cheer man the pardon offered concerns all Now if a man rest here and believe hereupon that he is pardoned because in Gods absolute and unconditioned invitation he is not excluded when conscience is awake it will say But might not Judas and Cain c. plead as much as that How can you make it appear that you have accepted that pardon by Faith Here need Marks and conditional Promises I may plead absolute Promises and general offers to God in Prayer but I cannot plead them before God in Court God saith I will give you a new heart I will powre out the spirit of grace and supplication and so in Zech 12. 10 general offers Let whoever will come and drink of the water of life freely I may go to Apoc. 12. 17 God on these Promises and Offers and say Lord give me a new heart Lord give me Christ But if I stand before the Court of Conscience and plead these in way of Evidence That I have a new heart that I have Christ I must not prove it by Gods promising these blessings in general to me with all others but by the Evidences of my acceptance of these Offers and Gods fulfilling of these Promises I must be able to say here Lord thou hast made such offers and my heart hath accepted them Thou hast tendred Christ unto me and I have taken him upon thine own terms Thou hast promised a new heart and I blesse thy name I find my heart renewed Are not these the badges and proper cognizances of thy children and servants May I not conclude a saving interest in thee who have received such saving mercies and bounties from thee Thus have I showen you that although general offers and absolute Promises may support and in a sort comfort yet conditional promises alone properly assure CHAP. IX The maine Proposition applyed A Case concerning Election and that the misapprehension thereof hinders its Evidence NOW comes to hand the application of this point And in the first place this may reconcile the thoughts of many precious ones under bondage to a good opinion of their present condition in that it is not only the Spirits usual method where hee becomes a Spirit of Adoption to become first a spirit of of Bondage as in the former Thesis was declared but that when he hath been such a spirit of bondage hee usually becomes a Spirit of Adoption witnessing our Adoption It is a great encouragement to a sick man though hee be grievously pained at present that his disease is such out of which most recover that though sometimes it be yet seldome it is mortal Object Yea but you tell us the persons to whom it is not mortal and to whom it usually ends in ravishing comforts are the elect of God But I doubt I am none of them and therfore I may and shall die of this disease for any thing you have said and never see the face of God in comfort here or hereafter Answ 1. Observe the policy of Satan in dealing with thy soule Now
10. 4 Assurance A soul having gone thus far the next question is But what if seeing there be many that come and claim an interest in Christ that shall at last be cast out because they do not indeed come and claim Christ as they should I say What if I be found among them and then I shal be ashamed of my hopes and my relyance at the last when I have expected so much from it Now to this the Scripture sayes There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus Rom. 8. 1. John 3. 16. Whoever believeth shall have everlasting life c. Hereby shall ye know that ye are passed from death to life c 1 John 3. 14. John 14. 21. Then shall I not be ashamed when I have respect c. Psal 119 6. The answer of the heart to this is Such an one am I therefore my faith is true therefore I am under this condition or state I know that I am passed from death to life I know that I am of God 1 John 5. 19. I need not bee ashamed Now the third of these Acts to wit Relyance is an act to be exercised perpetually in order to the getting the Testimony of the Spirit in the last viz. Assurance when Assurance as most ordinarily it comes to pass is not enjoyed at the same time together with it For 1 This is the advice Isai 50. 10. Let him trust in the Lord and stay himself upon his God Who is he that is thus advised One that walks in darknesse and sees no light and therefore is not assured that God is his God though he be so he must stay upon his God first he must lay claim to him as his God and then stay and depend and rest upon him I illustrate it thus Suppose such a friend as I before mentioned that offers the highest acts of real friendship to all that come to him accept of it upon such and such termes claim his favour and rely on his promise Which is the way for me to be assured that this man will be my friend in particular Is it not this to go to him and tell him Sir your publication of your good will encouraged me to accept your offer emboldned me to claim an interest in your friendship though neither your Proclamation nor offer nor Promise named me in particular And now Sir I rely upon your Promise to enterpose for me between me and Justice to pay such a debt for me if you faile me I am an undone man I have such an esteem of your word that I am resolved I will adventure my self upon it and all that I am though I know your mind no farther concerning me in particular yet I cannot withal but desire that if you think fit you will give me a particular assurance that I am accepted by you as one of those to whom you stand so engaged that by the knowledg of my particular obligations to you I may be encouraged the more cheerfully to serve you and to be the more heartily thankful I appeal to all men whether this bee not the likeliest way to get a particular engagement from this man Apply this to the case in hand and you will see reason in my Direction to act reliance in order to Assurance 2 Besides Reliance frequently exercised will yeild Arguments of Assurance especially being acted in particular cases as suppose temptation corruption straights As though a man have no particular obligation from a friend yet knowing his principles that he never fails those that depend on him and having relyed upon him often and found he hath not failed him at any time at last he becomes assured that he will not So seeing I know that God never faileth them that trust in him and I have found that he hath stood by me in many a sad plunge of spirit in pursuance of that and the like obligations I hence argue sure he will never fail me So the holy Prophet argues 1 Sam. 17. 37. And so the Apostle Paul 2 Cor. 1. 10. God hath delivered God doth deliver and God will deliver 3 Assurance is recovered the same way when it is lost wherein it is to be gotten when a man is utterly a stranger to it and this I evidence thus A soul in desertion looks upon himself as having no grace at all and therefore he doth act and if he can act no higher wee advise him to act as if he begun all anew This course were in vain if not the same in both CHAP. XV. Another Direction concerning seeking Gods face in Ordinances Such as the Word and Prayer Direct 2. II. SEek diligently in all Ordinances after the testimony of the Spirit The way for recovery of lost evidence is that as was said before which is most proper for getting it at first The Church in Cant. 3 1 2 3 4. had lost her Beloved 't was night a night of desertion and he had slipped away in the dark what doth she then She seeks him first upon her bed lay still its likely and sent some sleepy calls after him But Christ will not be found at that rate I sought him but I found him not What then See what followes I will rise now yea that is a more likely course shake off that sinful sloath and seek him in good earnest So she doth I will go about the City in the streets and in the broad wayes In the City that is in the Church set out by a City often in Scripture because of communion defence order like a City and often by the City of Jerusalem in particular In the streets and broad Apoc. 21. 2. wayes i. e. the places of concourse the Assemblies of the Saints there Wisdom uttereth her voice Prov. 1. 20 21. there shee meets with the Watch-men and she asks them c. and then when shee had advised with them and followed their Directions see what followes ver 4. It was but a little that I passed from them but I found him whom my soul loveth I found him that is in the evidences and refreshments of his Spirit 1 Seek in the Word If God give any soul peace in an ordinary way and who are we that we should put God to the charge of extraordinaries 't is the fruit of the lips Isai 57. 19. The fruit of whose lips even the lips of those whose lips are appointed to bee the Treasuries of saving knowledge for the Church The Priests Mal. 2. 7 lips shall preserve knowledg and the people shall seek it at his mouth But may the soul say what can he do towards that work 't is not in the power of man to ease me Man cannot heal the wounds that an Almighty God makes Yes such a man may do much ministerially and instrumentally for he is the Messenger of the Lord of Hosts Mal. 2. 7. Certainly God could have given Cornelius direction what to do without sending him to Peter it was as easie for him to have
to me in my infancy and therefore I want the lively and sensible application of the element to me which might possibly if it were now to be done prove effectual to give me this assurance What use can I make of such a past Sacrament Were it not beter to re-new it Answ Thou mayst make the same use of it as the Jews did of circumcision although many years after The Jews children no more saw their own circumcision understandingly then thou didst thy Baptisme Object Yea but the mark of Circumcision saythe Anabaptists was visible afterwards and so though they were circumcised in infancy yet they might know that they were so otherwise then by bare relation But I know that I am baptized merely by the relation of friends or the Register Answ The Jewes when men might see that their foreskin had been cut off but that it was done in a sacramental way they knew onely by relation as we have our Baptisme For how did a Jew know that he was borne of Jewish Parents and not of Ishmaels posterity or Esaus among whom circumcision continued when the Covenant was removed from them but by tradition But I will rell thee how thou shalt improve even thy Infant Baptisme Whenever then thou seest that sacrament administred upon others reflect upon thy self and draw an Argument of Assurance from it thus Loe here my soul the bloud of Christ in the element of water not only powred out but applyed to yonder little one And hath not God done as much for me And hath he thus sealed to me the promise of pardon and shall I not believe it Have not I performed by his grace my 1 Pet. 3. 21. Anima non lavatione sed responsione sancitur Tert. l. de resurrectione carnis part of the Covenant in the answer of a good conscience seriously desiring and resolving to take him for my God and do my duty to him to the utmost in the strength of Christ And shall I doubt his performance on his part Did not God shew his willingness to receive mee into his favour and pardon my sins when he was so gracious as to seal his Covenant to me in my very infancy Sure that was a great mercy to me that God afforded me that seal then whereas if I had lived unbaptised to these years possibly my scrupulous spirit would have kept me from it altogether as being unfit to receive it as now it See more of this in another Treatise of the same Authour concerning the practical use of Infant Baptism lately published doth from the other Sacrament Now seeing the Lord hath prevented me with this mercy and claimed me before I could claim him let me not think he will not hold his claim to me now I do claim and lay hold upon him and let me not doubt but if I follow after him I shall in time apprehend that for which I am apprehended in this visible way of claim by Christ 2. The Lords Supper This is an Ordinance in which rightly received Assurance comes on horse-back to the soul if I may so speak so many speaking actions and so many speciall applications in the name of Christ by a Minister standing in the stead and representing the person of Christ may probably be the means to conveigh this blessed message to thy soul from Jesus Christ Sonne or Daughter be of good cheer thy sinnes are forgiven thee CHAP. XVII Containing some practicall cases concerning the Lords Supper with relation hereunto BUt here ariseth an objection Object I am not a fit receiver without this Testimony of the Spirit which you speak of and therefore 't is improper to bid me seek that testimony this way whereas I cannot apply my selfe to this way till I have it in actual assurance Answ Hereto I answer Negatively That proposition which is the ground of thy mistake is but mistaken for truth to wit That none is a fit receiver of the Sacrament of the Lords Body and Bloud but one that is certified by the Testimony of the Spirit that he is a Child of God This is that that puzzles and embroyls many a poor soul that he knowes not which way to take between sinning against Gods invitation in refusing to come and against the institution in coming unworthily But I hope to speak a word satisfactorily in this case That this is a mistaken principle I prove by this Argument The actual assurance mentioned is not required under any of those things wherein we are to examine our selves before we come therefore 't is not necessary to make a fit receiver The graces to bee examined among the Protestant Divines are usually these four Knowledge Faith Charity and Repentance Under Knowledge Charity and Repentance I believe no man comprehends the certainty of his interest in Christ they being graces in their natures quite different from it though possibly in some higher actings of them it be supposed I dare not think there can be none of these without Assurance All the doubt is concerning Faith whether the Faith required to the receiving the Lords Supper be not Faith of perswasion that I am a Child of God from the Testimony of the Spirit I conceive the Faith required to my coming to the Lords Supper is no more but the having accepted the terms of Salvation revealed through Christ my having claimed my share in the free offer thereof in the Gospel and my reliance and dependance upon Gods faithfulnesse in the making that claim good unto me And if I can find these acts have seriously to my utmost knowledg and search been performed by me I need examine no further whether I have sufficient Faith to fit me for the Sacrament And my grounds are 1. Because by these acts there is a real application of the soul to Jesus Christ for justification which the Scripture expresseth by coming to Christ believing and trusting in him as was before shewn and of Christ to the soul which is expressed by receiving him and Psalm 2. 12 John 1. 12 in these acts the nature of faith as it applies Christ for justification is sufficiently expressed Now those that come to Christ cannot be supposed to have the witnesse of the Spirit in their heart that they are Christs For rest or peace of Conscience which is the immediate fruit of that assuring Testimony of the Spirit is promised as the consequent of coming to Christ Mat. 11. 28. and becoming the children of God which is lesse then knowing we are so is set down as the consequent of receiving Christ Joh. 1. 20 And therefore by the way to receive Christ is not to know that I am a child of God but to apply my self to him that I may be so And as for trusting or believing in Christ that it is truly done without actual assurance is clear because trusting in Christ the object of the Gospel is spoken of by way of distinction from this sealing or assuring act of the Spirit as that which goes before
Some beleevers are and all believers may be assured of tâ—eir Salvation in this life well proved sufficiently confutes the Papists erroneous Thesis that no believer can be assured And I fear the maintaining the universall necessity of actual assurance to Salvation will trouble more tender Protestants then it ever confuted Papists But to returne where I left I say to thee that propoundest the Question Thou needest not fear exclusion from heaven for want of that which Scripture requires not as necessary to Salvation I must tell thee that I verily believe if any of Gods Saints dye without some glimpse or other of Gods love it is a rare case and I perswade my selfe God seldome takes a Saint of his away in such a sort except such an one as hath so shamefully fallen that it concernes God in point of honour if he save him to let no body know of it Yet I dare not barre the door of heaven against such an one as living holily dyes comfortlesse 3. Labour to accept of claim and rely upon the Lord Jesus for Salvation on the termes of the Gospel 'T is impossible a soul should go to Hell that can cling fast to any promise truly apprehended according to the intention of the Gospel There are three or four promises I perswade my selfe the reliance whereon hath ferried many humble souls to heaven who have been afraid to say in all their lives I know that I am a child of God those are Mat. 11. 28. Jo. 6. 37. Isai 55. 1 2. Apoc. 22. 17. 4. Lastly If thou think this will not serve the turne in such a case I think such a thought may condemn the generation of the Righteous Are there not some in the fruits of whose holy conversation both publick and private we see abundant cause to pronounce them by a judgement of charity children of God would be by this judgment condemned to Hell concerning whom it cannot be affirmed either in their own knowledge or the knowledge of others that ever they received this witnesse in their spirits to the last moment of their lives And truly for my part I humbly conceive this assuring Testimony of the spirit to be part of our reward as the Apostle calls the Spirit the earnest of our inheritance Eph. 1. 14. and therefore God may choose whethe he will give any part of it here or no as he sees most suting his glory and our good 'T is for his glory sometimes that his people are in Jobs case Job 13. 15. CHAP. XX. The second Thesis cleared by Scriptures and Reasons A Case from the first branch of the reason Whether a man may be assured of his sonship à priori from the first Acts of Faith and Repentance in conversion COme we now to the second Thesis or proposition which is The witnesse of the Spirit of Adoption is a certain evidence of a state of Adoption This ariseth from the connexion of this verse with the former In the former the Romans are told by the Apostle that as many as are led by the Spirit of God are the Sonnes of God this he confirms in my Text and the verse following For saith he they that are led by the spirit have ordinarily the witnesse of the Spirit who never witnesseth to a falshood witnessing with their own spirits and upon that testimony enabling them to call God Father So much for the ground of the proposition It amounts to no more then this That man may be certainly assured that he is a child of God to whom the spirit testifies that he is so I shall not need be long in the proof of this point but onely lead you into the consideration of some particulars not so much for evidence of this truth although they will also make it out abundantly unto us as for the clearer opening to you some points by the way which will yield some special use or other that will not so orderly fall in any where else The proofe is partly Scripture and partly Argument 1. Scripture The Spirits Testimony both concerning sinne righteonsnesse and judgement is a convincing Testimony John 16. 8 9. 10 11. that is such a Testimony as will not suffer any scruple to remain but as soon as any appears it presently falls before the light of its evidence There are also two expressions Eph. 1. 13 14. very full to this purpose The Spirit seals the Saints puts a mark upon them by which he knowes them and gives them ground enough to know themselves to be the Children of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Spiritu ilso qui non adfert legis servitut is terrorem sed promissionem gratuitae adoption is obsignat in credentiu animis Est autem hoc loco triplicatus Articulus diligenter observandus Beza in locum And to this purpose it followes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who is the earnest of our inheritance So that it is clear it is not meerly a privy sâ—al known to the Spirit alone as that 2 Tim. 2. 19. but a publick seal by which the party himselfe as well as others may and ought discerne him to be an heire and such an one as may sue for his inheritance as a debt For an earnest is nothing if it be not a security to the receiver the principall intent of an earnest is to assure the party to whom it is given of the full payment The meere giving of grace although it be materially an earnest from God of eternal happinesse yet is not a formal evidence to me till it work certainty in me because I can no farther plead it then I can adventure my estate upon it To this purpose and in the same expressions the Apostle also speaks to the Corinthians 2 Cor. 1. 21 22. where you may also take notice of one clause that confirms the exposition before-given of Eph. 1. 13 14. and that is this v. 21. He tells them that the confirmation of al the promises both as preached by Ministers and received by hearers dependeth upon the merit of Christ He stablisheth us in Christ i. e. by uniting us to him by the communication of the Spirit in and through them from the Father Now from the Spirit the Apostle drawes two Arguments to assure them the first is its renewing work and that is the matter of our regular assurance as I told you formerly in the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who hath annointed us Now although there be an annointing with gladnesse as well as grace yet the annointing with grace is here meant because it is distingnished from that annointing by an also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. v. 22. who also hath sealed us and given the earnest of his Spirit in our hearts This is the second argument it s witnessing work which is on Gods part a sufficient assurance and the reception of it renders it so also on our part So then the witnesse of the Spirit is the seal and earnest that confirmes all the promises to us they
to himselfe by Arguments à posteriori from the effects of that converting grace which he hath for the present had actual Assurance of II. The formal act of Assurance as it is the work of the Spirit testifying our Sonship from such Arguments as have been mentioned or without them is likewise certaine and evidencing if we consider the witnesse who thus testifies the Holy Spirit of God In whom there are these things considerable which make a witnesse credible 1. Knowledge 2. Faithfulness 3. Disengagement 1 Knowledge This testimony is between two parties God and Man therefore 1 Joh. 5. 6 7. The Spirit witnesseth in heaven and in earth too The Spirit of God knowes both throughly and not only the parties but all their thoughts and actions he knowes the Scriptures he knowes the mind of God yea even in the deepest â—hings Gods secret decrees and intentions concerning men and their final and eternal condition which are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the depths of God 1 Cor. 2. 10. even those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of which the Apostle speaks Rom. 11. 33. concerning which in a way of admiration and amazement he pronounceth an utter unsearchablenesse by all power of nature and these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he searcheth out i. e. enables his people to search out he can enable his people for he is God and needs not himself search for that knowledge to search into the very decree of God concerning their eternal predestination to life And no wonder for all those secrets of God come through his hands as we say He had the drawing up of all the eternal Records of Gods Decree He is let it be understood with reverence the Secretary of God as a mans spirit is his Secretary and only knowes what is in him 1 Cor. 2. 11. See how the Apostle enlargeth upon that Subject in the former place compare ver 4 7 8 10 11 12. And all those things that are done in nature or grace they come through the hands of the Spirit See in Creation Gen. 1. 2. Redemption He miraculously operates in the Conception of Christ Luke 1. 35. in the anointing him Isai 61. 1 2. Luke 4. 18. Regeneration Job 3. 5. Sanctification 1 Pet. 1. 2. He must needs be an able witnesse to the works that he doth himself Then for the knowledge he hath of man See Psalm 139. 7. compared with the preceding and the following verses Rom. 9. 1. Thou knowest no good in thy self but the Spirit of God knowes it because he is the Author of it He knowes all thy sins and therefore when he brings under Bondage he can and doth set all our secret sins in order before our eyes A man sees himself by a new light Psal 50. 21. So in Assurance he gives a man a clear sight of that in himself which before hee could not see The Spirit knowes thy secret groans because he makes supplications in them Rom. 8. 26. Thy secret graces are his fruits Gal. 5. 22. He knowes the meaning of the Scriptures and can apply comfort soundly according to the mind of God 2 Pet. 1. 21. 2 Faithfulnesse A man that is not known to be of sufficient credit for honesty and faithfulnesse in his words is not admitted for a sufficient witnesse but an honest man that makes conscience of his words is credible in every Court and case The Spirit is such a witnesse John 15. 16. He is called the Spirit of Truth Indeed Truth is his Essence for he is God and he cannot lye but he will cease to be God 1 Joh. 5. 6. The Spirit beareth witnesse of the bloud of Justification and the water of Sanctification but how are we assured his witnesse is true He answeâ—eth because the Spirit is Truth The Spirit will never be induced to give a false evidence He never calls good evil or evil good The strength of divine consolations lies in this that it depends upon the credit of God who cannot possibly lye Heb. 6. 17 18. 3 He is disengaged And that adds a third particular 1 To the value of his Testimony The Spirit is no way a party with them for whom he testifies stands in no relation to us farther then he assumes us into communion with himself of meer grace gets no benefit to himself by his Testimony even the glory that he gets by it adds nothing to him If our own hearts witnesse alone they are parties and may flatter themselves If Satan witnesse he is also a party in that he seeks his own end viz. the eternal undoing of poor souls with himself by such a delusive comfort 2 Nay more the Spirits Testimony is the Testimony of one whom we have often resisted grieved vexed quenched Now though a persons testimony whom a man hath offended avail not against him in Law yet a discontented persons Testimony for him with whom he is offended is of great force And yet is the Spirits Testimony even against a man no lesse true because the sinner stands as an enemy against the Holy Ghost because partly that Testimony is for his good and partly because though an enemy yet he hath often laboured to perswade the sinner against whom he witnesseth to be reconciled which takes away all suspicion of malice from the Spirits condemning testimony But I here shew only this that if notwithstanding a state and acts of enmity the Spirits Testimony be valid against a man it must needs be more probable when it speaks for him though actually offended by him So much for the proof CHAP. XXI A Case Whether this Priviledg be so certain as it excludes all doubting HEre it will be needful to handle a Question before Application that is Quest Whether this Evidence be such as to admit no doubting To which I answer 1 The Testimony of the Spirit is sometimes full and plain to the point sometimes it is but partial and speakes something towards it but not throughly to satisfaction A full Testimony is a satisfying testimony and cannot at the same time admit of partial doubting This is called full assurance But Heb. 6. 4. a partial evidence may admit partial diffidence There is therefore a rejoycing with fear and trembling Psal 2. 11. though the matter of it may bee sufficient at another time to evidence yet it will not do it then 2 Full assurance arising from an entire and home-testimony of the Spirit at one time may admit such measures of doubting and diffidence at another time as may raise strong prejudices against it self Sometimes a Saint is at the top of the ladder of Assurance ready to put his foot on the threshold of heaven it self and at other times under such a sad pang of doubting and diffidence as brings him to the very brink of hel See David Psa 27. 1. 4. 6. 51. 8 11. 42. 43. ult 13. 1. and Job Job 19. 25. 6. 4. But this ariseth not from defect in the evidence but in the mans use
only by stupifying the consciences of profane wicked men which occasions their crying Peace to themselves though they walk in the wayes of their own heart but even in civil and moral men he can many times counterfeit the work of the Spirit of God and give a false peace in a serious and seemingly regular way 1 I shall not here speak much of those sudden irradiations of joy and comfort wherewith he can fill men only thus much that in all ages he hath had advantage over credulous spirits by sudden raptures and exstasies It hath been an old Art as the stories of the Anabaptists will sufficiently inform us by which he hath deluded millions of souls Now those exstacies proceed originally from disturbing and discolouring the phantasie that it may apprehend objects as he thinks fit to represent them And no question he may thus abuse the fantasie by the representation of false matter of comfort and joy and set it home with so strong an appearing evidence that a man may verily think that it comes from God himself Certainly Satan if as was abovesaid he can transform himself into an Angel of light can second these delusions with visions of an heavenly appearance possibly he may usurp the name of Christ himself I knew such a case once in mine own experience A woman not till that time noted to have had any ordinary At Pool about ten yeers since proportion of knowledg on a sudden in child bed is taken with abundance of joy and Christ himself as she fancied appearing to her giving her a revelation against Infant Baptism and perfuming her of which she was so confident that she would ask those that were about her whether they did not smel those perfumes I that had a little before spoken against Anabaptistical revelations was sent for to be confuted by so pregnant an example and she told me as much I gave her good advice told a friend I suspected an imposture and departed Within a few days after the woman was grown perfectly distracted and then the Devill put on his own blacks and appeared in his own colours and she smelt him in every thing and her sweet perfumes ended in filthy stenches c. I have before shewn you the rules by which you may judge of such immediate and reasonlesse raptures of assurance I shall only adde here If you will discern them mark the end of them for which they are given Que. How shall I know that will you say Answ Thus. Observe what is infused with them Satan seldome useth this Art to any soul but he withall infuseth some erroneous doctrine or other or stirs up to some or other irregular practice The End of that dealing of his with the party before mentioned was to scruple her in point of Infant-Baptisme as she confessed to me and his end in others is to propagate one error or other as appears in these days of delusion by ordinary experience A like revelation there was in these parts lately concerning which more may be said shortly in print to perswade a woman to leave her husband who by that very suggestion discovered it to be a delusion because it was quite contrary to the word Now a Christian must be so confirmed in the fundamental points of Religion and so well satisfied in all things that concerne the practice of Godlinesse that he should be able even hereby to discover Satans impostures by the Rule before I laid down The Spirit of God always moveth according to the Word In a word you may do well to demurre to such an evidence 'T is not good to be too hasty in owning such extraordinary perswasions at the first dash as we say A man offends not that rejoyceth under them with trembling If they come in seasonably to encourage me to any unquestionably good duty I may at present act in the strength of them But afterwards I may safely desire an evidence from a known rule whereby I may regularly be certified that they are indeed from God Nor will such a suspension of my full assent to them bee charged upon me as any affront to the Spirit of God supposing him to be indeed the Author of them or as an act of unbelief but will be kindly taken as an act of holy warinesse proceeding from a soul that puts a due valuation upon the word and desires as it ought to make it in all things a light to its feet and a lantern to its path Psalm 119. 105. God himselfe hath told me that the written word is a surer word of prophesie then immediate Revelations 2 Pet. 1. 19 and he tells me moreover that I do well to take heed to it as to a light shining in a dark place 2. Nor shall I tell you at large How far Satan may concurre in giving assurance from marks and signes though certainly he may do much this way or how far he may misapply Scripture it selfe to delude men into a false peace though this he may do also The joy of the close Hypocrite and of the meere civill Justiciary are evidences of this imposture every day to be found almost in every Congregation where the word is preached in a convincing searching way every such person hath his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his preservative or Antidote of this kind by which he keeps the word of God at a distance from his heart when it approacheth with conviction of sin Most of both sorts can plead good desires love to the brethren strictnesse in religious duties and moral conversation c. And though in all these they be miserably mistaken yet how ever for the present these gâ—ounds stop the mouth of conscience and give a present repulse to the power of a shaking sermon we will take these things for granted 2. It is as undoubtedly true that Satan thus misrepresenting Arguments a mans own spirit may consent to him and make use of them and so by deluded Reason argue himself into a strong perswasion that he is a child of God when there is no such matter Nay I doubt not but the very same Arguments which delude one man in this case may truly satisfie another and the application of the same Scriptures Satan playing the Sophister whith his reason may give a false perswasion to one man which by the convincing evidence of the Spirit may give a sound assurance to another But let me not here be mistaken I say not that these Arguments and Scriptures may Caution be managed the same way in both For seeing the conclusion is false which in a delusive assurance is to be inferred there must also be some falsehood in the premisses As in Temptation when Satan came to Christ to tempt him to break his neck the conclusion which he would perswade him to entertain from that place in the Psalm was wicked and false viz. that it is lawfull for a man wilfully and without a calling to endanger his own life therefore he must needs juggle in
go meditate on such or such a subject and methodically discusse with my self such doubts and objections and labour to answer them and as he expects satisfaction from so doing so in the close he finds it God lets him alone to hammer himself out a peace upon the anvil of his owne thoughts 6 Lastly Meer rational Assurance though it may be from true yet oftentimes is drawn from mistaken Scriptures And this ariseth from the willingnesse before spoken of to receive Quod volumus facilè credimus satisfaction which makes a man easie to believe that which he would have so As in the maintaining of an opinion it many times falls out when a man takes up an opinion first and then seeks for Scripture to maintain it 't is wonderful to think how plain he presently is perswaded to think the whole Scripture speaks for it so here when this is laid down before I must have peace and hereupon a man searcheth the Word of God many times dark Scriptures that another man can see no such thing in shall serve the turne Prophetical Scriptures and Historical and it may be Doctrinal but grosly mistaken Now spirtual Assurance is usually grounded upon Scripture rightly understood and if habitual is certainly so and the clearer the Scripture is and the more plain the deductions from it the better it is For the Spirit of God understands Scripture perfectly as being the Enditer of it and so it cannot be supposed he will ground his Testimony on a Mistake Yet we must not think that it is every mistake of Scripture that is sufficient to annul a Testimony such as is circumstantial and not of moment to cast the conclusion this way or that way will not weaken the Testimony but only that which hath a material influence upon the deductions which I build upon it So a smal circumstantial mistake in a witnesse in Court is often overlooked by the Judge and Jury and the Spirit himself often quotes the sense of Scripture and omits inconsiderable circumstances As in many instances it were easie to make appear Micah 5. 2. Matth. 2. 6. Understand what hath been said with these Cautions 1 Think not I condemn the matter of such Cautions an Assurance as either hath all or most reason in it for false so that a man who hath reasoned himself into this perswasion must now question the perswasion it selfe as false For a true conclusion may be drawn from false and incongruous premisses and it may be as to form in the deduction there may be no error and a conclusion that a man receives only in a way of opinion may be certain in it self All that is in this case to be done is to hold the same conclusion by the strength of the Spirit drawn in by Faith in Prayer for the Spirit may testifie to that singly as I have before shewne and immediately and having so done to improve it to all intents and purposes as if it were never so unquestionable So a man may hold his land by a true Title but his evidences for it may not be as clear as he could wish now in this case he will not presently cashier himself out of the possession as soon as he discovers it but keeping that will labor by Act of Parliament or some other way to strengthen his evidences So when thou hast examined thy Assurance by the Marks of distinction between false and true before mentioned and findest it true though but rational keep thy hold and apply thy self to the Spirit to super-add his Testimony to the confirmation and improvement of it 2 Think not that I utterly exclude the help of the Spirit in drawing a rational evidence from the Scriptures I am so far from that that I rather judge that he helps in an ordinary way when the deduction is proper and the Scripture that grounds it is not in any material point mistaken as he doth in other works of common illumination as it was before hinted in the beginning of this last Discourse To add only a few words to the farther illustration of what was there affirmed A man may be said to preach or pray by the Spirit in a general sense when he doth those duties by the strength of common illumination and so sometimes even godly men do and the Doctrine he preacheth is the Doctrine of the Spirit and the prayers he puts up they are inspired by the Spirit in a way of common assistance But there is another kind of praying and preaching by the Spirit which the Scripture so often speaks of and calls the Spirit of Supplication and the demonstration of the Spirit performed by a special and peculiar assistance Zech. 12. 10. 1 Cor. 2. 4. of the Spirit Of which more hereafter in the handling of the last point And the like twofold influence of the Spirit is there in putting forth acts of Assurance in the heart even of a godly and sound Christian The very same man may act Assurance sometimes rationally and sometimes he may be acted to act it spiritually And yet in the former the Spirit acts too in a common way the latter only is that which because of special assistance is peculiarly said to be the Witness of the Spirit For denominatio sequitur partem potiorem though sometimes the denomination follow the best part in a thing composed of divers parts as a godly man is called a spiritual man though he have a carnal part and that may be possibly most prevalent yet most commonly the name is given from that which is most in the mixture or composition as we say an heap of barly though there may be many grains of other grain in it and in this sense the Apostle Paul calls Babes in Christ carnal 1 Cor. 3 1. So when the Assurance in the specialties of it is rational though there be some common work of the Spirit accompanying it I call it justly by way of distinction a rational Assurance Thus have I both answered the cases before emerging concerning a rational Assurance and withal let you know what use may and may not be made of it I add for a close that it is well for the standing peace of the Saints when their spiritual evidences are rational because Assurance that is praeternatural to a man is so far violent and so cannot be perpetual and therefore the Saints will do well to endeavour to make even the Spirits evidence rational and on the other side it is well for the certainty and security of their evidences that they labour to elevate the Evidence of reason into a Testimony of the Spirit CHAP. XXV The Duty of keeping the Evidences of the Spirit pressed with several Motives THis also affords us an useful Exhortation in several branches I. Labour to keep and maintain this evidence when you have it For 1 It is the surest evidence of the best inheritance in the world If a man lose all his evidences for an unconsiderable part of his
Estate or the weakest Evidences for the best part of his Estate it troubles him not much so long as he hath still the firmest Evidences of the best part of his Estate remaining because those he may bear the losse of without undoing But if these be lost he is losttoo You may lose your Evidences of your earthly estate and if heaven be sure you may not only not grieve but even rejoyce in the loss But if you lose your Evidences of heaven you are as to all the truest comfort of your lives undone men And yet if you lose but some of these and retain the main you are in a happy condition It may be you lose the evidences of Grace the spirit of Prayer in its sensible assistance the verdure life and activity of your souls in the wayes of God nay you lose the Promises you canot find one Promise in the Word of God that you dare own Now stick to the Testimony of the Spirit keep that and you have an Evidence still in stead of all and that will recover them all againe 2 It may easily be lost as to the actual enjoyment of it though the Habit cannot be lost The check of one holy motion may grieve the Spirit Eph. 4. 30. the commission of one sin especially by way of presumption and back-sliding may remove him See in David Psalm 51. 12. Lusts be cunning Theeves and if they get into your heart again the thing they most rob you of is your Deeds and Evidences for glory and then they know you are prone to be perswaded to take a portion here seeing you have lost all certain grounds of expecting a better 3 Satan is alwayes at hand to deprive you if possible of the influence of the Spirit this way He knowes what a mighty rub it is in the way of all his Temptations that Gods people walk in the light of Gods countenance and in the comfort of the Spirit Therefore the greatest and most desperate temptations of converted souls tend to the hindering or weakning of Assurance As a cunning Adversary in Law layes plots if possible to weaken the validity of his Antagonists strongest evidences or to get them into his hands and suppress them 4 The Evidence of the Spirit lost will not easily be recovered again It cost David many a tear and many an heart-pang ere he could recover him again Psal 51. 11 12 Satan having gotten your deeds into his hands or made them suspected in the Court of Conscience or it may be damned in the Starchamber of a mans own deluded heart for counterfeit it will be an hard matter to prevail for their admission ever to appear in Court again The greater intimacy and secrecy of communion there hath been between thy soul and the Spirit of God the more difficulty will there be to make up a breach if it fal out between you See Prov. 18. 19. 5 Lose that and you lose all the rest Graces will not shine Duties will be cold and dull Promises will speak nothing our owne spirits when they are called forth will bear false witnesse if the Spirit be dumb They will all say as the King to the poor woman How can we relieve thee except the Lord help thee 2 King 6. 27. Thou maist go to the Word and not one syllable of it but will witnesse against thee to thy own heart and that is possessed by Satan and dismal despair and there is nothing but blackness Call forth thy Graces and ask them and there is not one will answer to his name If thou say Come forth Love and evidence for me I am mis-called saith Love I am but selfishness Call forth Faith that is not my name saith Faith I own no name but Presumption Repentance will be called by no name but Legal sorrow Zeal will be called fury and rashness new obedience hypocrisie and formality c. Call to Duties and Prayer will say I am tongue-tied and cannot speak Hearing will say All that I can meet with in a Sermon is terror the Sacraments will say thou hast eaten and drunken damnation there is not a dram of comfort for thee in us If the Sun hide the Moon and Stars give none or a very obscure light All Hamans intimate friends when the King but frowns are so far from daring to speak for him that they cover his face and are all ready to have him away to the Gallowes whereas on the other side every grace duty providence ordinance hath something to say for a man when the Spirit of God is the foreman of the Jury they all say as he sayes CHAP. XXVI How this may be done And first concerning keeping Records of them Quest BUt how shall I keep the Testimony of the Spirit when I have it Ans 1. Record it carefully That is the way for a man to secure an Evidence of his Lands or estate to serve him at all turns to record the Deeds of bargain and sale or Donation or whatever other way the Title is secured with all the formalities of Law c. that may illustrate or confirme them There be two Courts in which these evidences are to be pleaded or impleaded And therefore it will concern you to have a Duplicate of this Evidence that there may be a copy in each Court 1 The Court of Heaven Now it is true that God enrols all such Acts of his Spirit there but this is but a private record as I may say with reverence for Gods own use The Lord knowes who are his 2 Tim. 2. 19. This private record I cannot produce at any time because Secret things belong to God Deut. 29. 29. But there is another way of laying up a more serviceable Record in Heaven which a man may have forth coming as we use to say upon all occasions that is by commending our Evidences to God in Prayer desiring his own Spirit that gives them to be our Remembrancer of them in times of need This is one of the Offices of the Holy Ghost not only to be the Comforter of the Saints but their Remembrancer and Recorder too John 14. 26. Christ had told his Disciples many comfortable things in the whole preceding part of the Chapter and now towards the upshot and period of all the great comfort with which he interlines all the rest both in this and the following Chapters is I will send you another Comforter And the Comforter shall come whom the Father shall send in my name But what shall he do when he comes Why he shall first be their Instructer and the Promoter of their farther progresse in saving knowledg wherein they were but Novices till Christs Ascension He shall teach you all things and he shal be their Recorder or Remembrancer he shall suggest so Beza renders the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 suggeret or prompt your forgetful memories in all things which I have told you True there 't is not spoken barely of the things immediately preceding but of all
sin of ordinary incursion which thou hast been most secure of and madest ordinarily the least account of when thou hast at any time fallen into it Sometimes whiles a Saint watcheth diligently against the incursions of greater sins or such as are more suspicious to him some sin that he makes little account of lyes lurking in the throng to do him a mischief like the Adden in the path as Dan is described Gen. 49. 19. biting the horse heels so that the Rider falleth backward Now the truth is no sin is smal in it self and a smal sin in comparison frequently admitted either by wilfulnesse or security may like a little thief as well steal away such a Jewel as thy spiritual Assurance is as a greater nay because thou thinkest it smal it thereby becomes great by customary commission It may be thou hast not repented for it in particular though often fallen into as thou hast of others and that hath made thee so easie to admit it again into thy heart of late that now it is growne a familiar sin and thou beginnest to regard it in thy heart It need not amaze thee if in this case God withdraw the light of his countenance from thee and that smal sin may do thee that mischief which a greater of which thou art more jealous cannot As a Pick-purse in the habit of a Gentlewoman is least suspected in a Fair and can more securely steal then in ragged beggarly accoutrements That sin which is most unlikely may do it the more easily because it is so unlikely CHAP XXXII Seven other particulars of Advice in this case 3 IF you find that you lost it by such or such a miscarriage of your own you must speedily labour by proceeding in an holy severity against the Malefactor to turn away wrath from you The longer thou delayest the harder it will be to recover the clear sight of thy evidences when thou hast suffered them to lye long under the dirt and dust of such sinful pollutions Take this course then 1 Lament and bewaile both your losse and the cause of it When sin provokes God to hide his face there is a double cause of mourning If a man could notwithstanding sin enjoy the smiles of Gods face yet it is the duty of Gods Saints to mourn for sin and certainly the Saints never mourne more kindly then when the warm beams of Gods love distil the soul into tears as they will do and that upon this account that it is a thing directly contrary to Gods holy nature and Law and therefore displeasing to him though he do not alwayes testifie his displeasure against it But now when to this shall be added the actual manifestation of his high displeasure in the turning away of his face from the souls of his dear Saints for its sake here certainly their sorrow hath a double occasion and they are inexcusable if they shall in this case rejoice as other people Hos 9. 1. Those persons are vain talkers as the Apostle speaks Tit. 1. 10. who deny the Saints of God the exercise of so necessary an affection as godly sorrow in such a condition which is in effect to expose them to a continual darkness uncomfortableness under the absence of God seeing God hath professed that he will with-draw till men acknowledge their offence Hos 5. 15. and hath annexed comfort to a mourning condition Mat. 5. 4. and promised to dwell with the contrite spirit and to revive their hearts Isa 57. 15. and 61. 2. and anointed his sonne with the oyl of gladnesse in especial manner for the sakes of them that mourn in Zion and especially confines his healing grace to brokennesse of heart Isai 61. 1 2 3. putting so honourable a name upon it as to own it for his chiefest and most acceptable sacrifices yea to account it in stead of all other sacrifices For so the expression imports Psal 51. 17. Friends will you lament the losse of your temporal evidences and vex at your own folly in mislaying them or parting with them and can you so easily bear the losse of eternal ones 2. Repent and do your first works Except Apoc. 2. 5. the cause be removed the effect will still remain Till the sinne be removed for which God hath withdrawn himself God will not returne He that avoyds a place because of the infectious ayre or any other inconveniency in his habitation there will not in reason returne till the cause of his removal be removed If thou wilt have Gods face towards thee as at former times thou must set thy face towards him as at former times I have formerly enlarged upon that remarkable place Jer. 31. 18 19 20. Where as soon as Ephraims heart turnes Gods bowels are turned too Is Ephraim a pleasant child c. therefore my bowells are troubled for him c. It is no boot for men to bewail their losse except they remove the sinne that causeth it God may say in this case as he did to Joshua Why lyest thou upon thy face Israel Josh 7. 12. hath sinned and I will be with you no more except you destroy the accursed from among you So he may say to thee why dost thou lye whining at my feet Vp and destroy the accursed thing take away the sinne that makes me leave my habitation and I will return again but till then I will not be drawn to rteurne by all thy prayers and tears Mourning for sinne pleaseth God no farther then it turns us from sinne 3. This and some other special duties which may tend to Gods special glory you may bind your selves to by vowes Psalm 51. 13. 4. But if you cannot finde any thing extraordinary in your selves as to matter of sinne which may move God to withdraw and the Spirit to detain from you the clear sight of your evidences it will yet be good to wait upon God in all duties of Religion with double diligence at such a time and to labour at adventure in the exercise of those duties to affect your hearts with the farther sense of your inclination to those sinnes which are more peculiarly hinted out to you before as especially active in procuring all such sad days to the people of God to waite patiently upon God without those usual distempers of spirit which oftentimes the people of God prolong their troubles by during this time of expectation 5. Labour as much as possibly you can to grow in selfe-abasing humility and an high prizing and pretious esteem of Gods presence that thou maist thereby answer Gods expectation in his present cloudy walking towards thee seeing perhaps he withdrawes his witnessing spirit meerely by way of prevention as oft times he doth God may fore-see the inclination of thy heart to spiritual pride which thou dost not see God may foresee that too much familiarity with him may be apt to be answered with contempt on thy part and if so he may in pity and prudence withdraw the matter
might occasion some trouble to themselves hereby as conceiving themselves excluded from the comfort of the Doctrine because though they have other works of the Spirit that accompany salvation yet they have not had experience of this assuring act For their sakes therefore let it suffice once for all to tell them that if the Spirit of God have wrought in them any work that accompanies salvation all that which shall hereafter be said concerning the priviledge of Assured souls is no less proper to them R. 1. For if there be but the least spark of grace in the soul the Spirit that works it will not undoubtedly go so ready a way to quench it as this in all likelyhood would be 2. Besides if the Spirit should do so it would testifie contrary to the Scripture which says that there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus c. Rom. 8. 1. Besides it were a flat counteracting of himself 3. For he would divide peace from grace when that is the fruit of this To understand the point in the sense propounded farther take notice by way of explication 1. That this Doctrine denies not but the best Saints of God after assurance may be under troubles of conscience again I told you upon the last Doctrine that a Saint may lose the actual Assurance of Gods love and there is nothing more frequent in Scripture then the sad complaints of precious people of God under such darknesse The Lord to take off all ground of expecting such an exemption from his people was pleased to hide his face from his own natural sonne and to withdraw from him the sensible comfort of his divine nature upon the crosse and before that left him to grievous temptations from Satan himselfe True there is difference in our Saviours case thine for Christ under his desertion was under part of that satisfactory punishment which Gods justice inflicted upon him for sinne Thy after troubles are not of that nature But herein the parallel holds that height of enjoyment of God and height of communion with God are no sufficient security to a soul of never losing the sense and comfort of them A prisoner many times may be detained even by the keeper after the Judge acquits him till hee pay his fees And it may be the holiest man may be unthankfull and so be clapt up again in the house of Bondage 2. That the dearest Saints of God after Assurance may fall not only into trouble of spirit again but into bondage of spirit also They may fall so low out of the assurance of Gods love that they may conclude him an Enemy and feele all the Terrours of GOD in the same kind as they did under the Spirit of Bondage at the first They may come to question all again and their Consciences may be as full of horror and blacknesse and as full of the hell of anguish and confusion as ever before I am perswaded David after his great falls was under as great fears of Hell as ever he was in his first conversion The answer of Nathan to him implyes so much The Lord hath put away thy sinne thou shalt not dye If David had not been afraid of death eternal which is the proper wages of unpardoned sinne 2 Sam. 12. 13. why doth Nathan adde that promise from God to encourage him Beside when he speaks of the horrible pit out of which God pull'd him where he stuckfast in mire and Psalm 40. 2. clay and could not lift a foot to relieve himself certainly we can rationally understand no other then the dungeon of Terror of which we are speaking A man whom the Judge and Jury acquits at the Assise may bee arrested at anothers suit and layd up again And so may a child of God after a discharge from the suit of conscience in his first conversion bee arrested again and as much fear the Law as ever 3. Nay possibly his after-terrors may be greater and longer then the former Hee may have a far more hideous dungeon and heavier chains then ever he was in before and lie longer by it For it may be 1. God intended providentially such a condition to him before but saw his weaknesse at the first conversion for the under-going of so heavy a burthen and therefore in pity forbare that rigor then til by the warme influence of some glances of love from his countenance he had fitted him with a proportion of strength to glorifie him in greater trials In measure saith he when it shooteth forth will he debate with it He stayeth his rough wind in the day of his east wind Isa 27. 8. He spares a tender bud when it first buds forth that he may exercise it with more hardship afterwards when it is able to bear more He wil not put new wine into old bottels Matth. 9. 17. i. e. proportion our work and strength 2. Such soules come out of light into darknesse and so their last enjoyments make their present troubles more intolerable Bitternesse upon our peace is mar mar Bitter bitterness Isa 38. 17. Had they continued in a dungeon of horrour stil after conscience had first committed them their continued experience of that condition by long acquaintance might have made it lighter But to be taken out of prison and cherished with some flashes of liberty and then shut up againe is an addition to their present Torment from the most grievous torture of all others in such a case the fresh remembrance of the comforts last parted withall Eclipses of the Sun because they come but seldome appeare more terrible 3. Conscience in such a case is apt to take all former experiences for meere dreames and delusions and is more difficultly brought to accept of any comfort now then formerly for feare of being so deluded againe and so bolts the door of the prison faster upon the soul then formerly Aprisoner that hath once had his prison-door set open to him and been permitted quietly to depart if after he hath enjoyed a shadow of liberty an Hue and cry fetch him back again will scarce adventure to goe forth againe when the doores are set open to him a second time for saith he I had better stay whiles I am here then goe forth and be fetched back againe So saith a poore soule in such a case Surely it is better for me not to receive any comfort then to take it and lose it againe as I have done once already I was deluded then with a fallacious liberty and peace and I may be so againe 4 Sins which trouble the conscience in such a second bondage are aggravated by the evidences of Gods love formerly enjoyed and so terrifie the soul more under their guilt Then every sin looâ—… like a blasphemy against the Holy Ghost an unpardonable sinne A man can tell what to plead before but now his mouth is stopped Ezr. 9. 10. Psal 51. 15. 40. 12 5 Then supports from God are
guilt upon his mercy that notwithstanding so deep an Engagement in the way of sin and Satan you are so perswaded of the beauty of his wayes as to come off to his colâ—urs with an heart willing to take up his yoak c. And as for the good which your self may possibly reap by aggravating sins to the losse of your peace I cannot possibly conceive If you think it will humble you more work repentance in you more kindly c. you deceive your selves Those gracious streams never run so full and never over flow their banks so abundantly as when they spring from a fountain of fullest Assurance Zech. 12 10. 4 But what are these sinnes Dost thou not aggravate them beyond measure Before grace the soul useth to diminish and extenuate sins and so deceive it self that way After grace it is as apt to aggravate them beyond measure Such a soul thinks he can scarce sin under a Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost and thence affrights it self not only into darkness but despair I have spoken enough before to satisfie in this particular to which I refer you only take notice of it as an usual weaknesse in the Saints that out of a desire to do God right they make little conscience of doing themselves wrong Object But Sir is it possible for a child of God to fall often into the same sin after conversion or comfort soundly wrought Answ Oh friend how shall I answer thee this Question and not put a plea into the mouth of hardned sinners How shall I fortifie against their usurpations and encroachments and yet give thee thy due comfort and encouragement Well the Lord see to it I cannot avoid such Doctrines when they come clearly in my way Sinners if they harden you I cannot help it Only I warn you before hand Gospel Cordials to a fowl heart are the deadliest poison But for Zions sake I cannot hold my peace He may But 1 First He cannot with so full and free a consent as before conversion For before all the stream of nature carryed him that way Good actions went before against the hair with him and though he many times performed them yet it was like swimming against the stream Now the principle is altered and that which then was the condition of good actions now is the condition of sinful ones they go as much against the grain of a renewed spirit as evil ones did before Yet you must know withal that there is not the like violent opposition alwayes against sin in a gracious heart as against good in a natural heart because the stream of corruption in a natural heart is broken by no opposition but is whole and entire Nature is wholly corrupted But on the other side the stream of grace in a gracious heart is much abated by damms of natural corruption We are gracious but in part yet this know a natural heart commits and recommits sin with greedinesse as a Glutton eats at a Feast cuts and cuts again and is not satisfied A godly man may commit and recommit sin but with imperfect consent at the time and regret and displicency afterwards As a sick man tastes of a forbidden dish and so cannot take a full comfort in the sins he acts as he gives not a full consent to them Ob. But so will you say a natural man may from conviction of conscience eat sins delicates with regret and fear and that may hinder him from taking a full content in them may he not Answ Yes but herein is a second and farther difference 2 The regret and displicency that is in a natural heart is a burthen to him and he would fain perswade his conscience to bee quiet and let him feed heartily upon his sinful sweet-meats A godly mans sin displeaseth him as far as he knowes it to be so and his tendernesse and fear is so far from wearying him that he loves it and wishes more of it and cherisheth that which hee hath already 3 As a wicked man sutably to what hath been said is displeased more at the terrors of his conscience for sin so is he angry at the sins for the terrors sake when he is displeased at sin at all But a godly mans displeasure against sin which imbittered such sinful acts to him is against the sin principally which appears in that he is many times displeased at it and never more displeased at it then when he is most assured of freedom from those terrours Object Yea but the Law may be the principle in such a stirring of spirit by which a ful consent to sin is hindered And so it may in a wicked man Answ The Law is either Regula or Judex either a Rule or Judge The ruling power of the Law discovers sin the judging power of the Law condemns sin The wicked man mostly looks on it in the latter act the godly man in the former If the wicked man ever consider the rule of the Law it is to wish it away the godly man to approve it Rom. 7. 16 CHAP. XXXIX The Case of afflictions as it influenceth upon the Doubts of a gracious soul concerning his Estate answered Object BUt I am under sad afflictions and I am haunted with fearful and horrid temptations such afflictions as I am told no child of God can be under and such temptations as never assaulted any Saint Answ 1. What afflictions are those that any child of God may not fall under 1 Is not the rod part of the childs portion whiles under nonage whiles in the School Heb. 12. 6 7 8. And who art thou that wilt argue thy self a bastard from that which is not only the lot but the happinesse of sons Psal 94. 12. 2 Doth God make any bargain with his sons wherein he makes a difference of rods Is there any place in the Word of God that saith I will use this or that rod only to my sons 3 Canst thou name any affliction which God did not lay upon his own natural Son And who art thou who desirest gentler usage from the hands of God then Christ himself Obj. Wilt thou say Christ stood as an enemy under the sins and curses of Gods Elect and his wounds therefore were the wounds of a cruel one and his chastisements the chastisements of our peace But all Gods children are Isai 53. priviledged from all such sufferings as Christ underwent because he underwent them so that it is no Argument that any ones afflictions are not beyond the line of fatherly chastisements that Christ underwent the same It will rather follow that they may be the strokes of an enemy because Gods strokes upon Christ standing in our stead were such Answ Christs sufferings it is true as to the causes were different from those of all Saints But as to the substance of them they are common to all others of Gods children Thence we are said to fill up the sufferings of Christ Col. 1. 24. To be conformable to his death Phil. 3. 10.
from sin How do thy old garments fit thee Dost thou more and more grow out of love with sin and more and more put it off at least in the love of it This growth the Apostle saw when he could see none else Rom 7. 20. This is most discernable in the combats between the heart and Original sin when a man clubs it down in its first motions 't is a good token of growth A moral man may forbeare those sins in act which a godly man may fall into but a Saint labours more at the root of sin when moral men pare off the branches 3 A growth of heavenly mindednesse These toyes and trifles of the world how do they take with thee That which the Apostle saith of childish knowledg c. I may say of childish desires 1 Cor. 13. 11. A Saint then growes a man when he throwes away childish things Dost thou grow more liberal and open hearted The more a mans heart is loosed from the earth the nearer it growes to heaven Grace here is glory in the cradle and it daily growes heavenward 4. A growth of aimes and desires What dost thou purpose to thy selfe Will not small things content thee then thy appetite is growne The more manly we grow the more manly our aimes are See how the Apostle calls this growth of aimes perfection Phil. 3. 15. So that thy trouble that thou growest not and thy aimes at farther improvement discover that thou art improving Vse 3. This Thesis also is three waies for Consolation to Saints For 1. This confirms us in the Doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints For if a true Saint might fall away from grace the Spirit might justly again become a Spirit of Bondage to him For he that falls from grace falls under the Law and he that falls under the Law is liable to all its terrors as his proper portion For all that the Law speaks it speaks to them that are under the Law Rom. 3. 19. If a child of God to day might prove a child of the Divel to morrow surely the Spirit might safely tell him so 2 This scatters and dispells the greatest venom that imbitters Saints second troubles When a man looks on God as leading him into temptation it is far more bitter then when a man falls into it by his own neglect or Satans malice When a man apprehends the Spirit of God whom he expects as a Comforter to become his Tormentor this is a double torment Now against this the Lord gives us this cordial assurance once for all that to a Saint no such thing ever can be the work of the Spirit 3 This shewes Saints a ground upon which if it be not their own fault they may live in constant peace to wit by maintaining continual correspondence and un-interrupted amity with the Spirit of Adoption Surely he that never speaks Bondage after he hath spoken peace may be heard speaking peace alwayes were it not our own fault Did wee heed what hee sayes and acquaint our selves more with his voice we should find him a Comforter still But we are apt to give more eare to our owne carnal reason and Satans tentations then to his gracious and comfortable tidings Few Saints should they put their souls to Davids question Psalm 42. were able to answer it satisfactorily except there be reason why men should trouble and distract their owne spirits whether God will or no. And thus much shall suffice for this third point CHAP. XLV A fourth Thesis with its explication NOw come we to the last Thesis from the Text which is the fourth in this Treatise Doct. That one principal work of the Spirit of Adoption in the soul that hath received it is to enliven and embolden it in prayer That we may not mistake in the sense of the Proposition observe with mee first a few things tending to the Explication of it When I say a principal work I mean not to compare the assistance he gives to prayer with his work of uniting the soul to Christ in justification of quickning the soul with habitual grace in Sanctification or the work of Assurance it self For no stream can rationally be admitted into comparison with its fountain Now the Spirit of prayer is but an emanation of grace and Adoption first a Spirit of grace and then a Spirit of supplication Zech. 12. 10. And therefore this must be understood of those operations which flow from habitual grace and Assurance that of them there is no nobler act of the Spirit of Grace and Adoption enabling us to and in them then this Qu. 1. What act of the Spirit of Adoption thus works Answ When I speak of this particular boldnesse as the work of the Spirit of Adoption I would be understood of the Spirit of Adoption chiefly in his witnessing Act of which we have hitherto principall treated though I shall not here more then in the former point exclude him in his other acts only I shall shew from which work of the Spirit of Adoption this which wee treat of doth more immediatly arise For whereas I before told you twice of four works of the Spirit of Adoption to unite to witnesse to intercede to direct whereof the uniting act is the most noble and the fountain of all the rest union with Christ being the source of all communion you must farther know that the rest of these Acts do not alike primarily flow from the first but by the meditation and interposition of one another The spirit intercedes in us but by the help of his assuring work he produceth its most fervent and confident petitions And the last work his guiding work he performes by both the former viz. perswading the soul upon assurance of successe to fetch direction and assistance from God in all its wayes by faith in the promises and prayer Q. 2. Doth the Spirit work thus in all Saints Answ 1. When I say it is the work of the Spirit of Adoption I must not be understood to affirme a constant and perpetual assistance of the witnessing Spirit in all the Saints to the performance of this Duty in a like high spiritfull and confident way For the dearest Saints of God whiles they enjoy the Spirit of Adoption may be under strange deadnesse distraction and indosposednesse in Duty and under no lesse doubting suspiciousnesse and jealousie of God and his affectons to them which must needs hinder their boldness in calling him Father 2 Thus accordingly as we must distinguish times so we must distinguish between degrees of livelinesse and boldnesse in praying Between praying to God as to a Father and calling him Father aloud in Prayer or as in the words of the Text crying Abba Father For the Spirit as He unites the soul to Christ is a Spirit of Supplication helps us to pray and that with life and boldnesse But because he may possibly not alwayes act in his witnessing way although even then the soul is enabled to pray acceptably
it may not alwayes be the condition of a Saint to cal God Father with alike confidence whiles yet he may pray with abundance of holy importunity 3 Distinguish therefore between that livelinesse and boldnesse of the soul in prayer which flowes from the actual witnesse of the Spirit and that which ariseth meerly from the gracious influence of the same Spirit as he unites us to Christ 1 As for liveliness in prayer it may in a godly man proceed not only from the Spirits witness but sometimes from 1 Conscience of Duty When a man quickens up his desires and other affections upon this consideration that he is in the presence of a living God and therefore it becomes him not to offer dead services to such a God 2 Or from sense of want That is it which usually addes life and activity to our endeavours Beggars when ready to starve are importunate 3. Or thirdly from hope to speed Now this hope to speed is either positive and particular which I receive from a paricular assurance of Gods engagements to me or more general and negative taking away all discouragements which I may fancy to my self Now the former hope a man under the witnessing act of the Spirit prayes by the latter quickens every godly Christian whether he have actually or ever had the testimony of the Spirit or no. Now the hopes of a Saint are grounded either on certainties or probabilities probabilities remove discouragements certainties only give a positive and particular well grounded hope And yet probabilities may enliven though certainties do farre more A soul may come upon the general encouragements upon which God inviteth sinners to come to him and may thereby be much enlivened in prayer although not with so great life and vigour as a man that can plead a particular right and title to God 2. So concerning boldnesse of the soul in Duty A soul that walks in darkness may be bold in some sort 1. Upon sense of want which dispells all shamefastness A man in necessity though he dared not open his mouth before to aske relief of a great personage through shame keeping him back from it yet when there is no help he will put a good face upon it as we say and embolden himself to adventure to sollicite supplies So the soul says in such a case I must begge my life or perish aske or starve for want of supply I will adventure into the presence of God as Hester into the presence of the King and if I perish I perish 2. Upon the discoveries that the Scripture makes of the nature of God that he is a God of infinite mercies that wayts to be gracious expects opportunities to manifest it A man will when he is in want more boldly adventure to aske of a man who is reported to be propense to acts of bounty and ready upon all occasions to manifest it then of another whose disposition is not so known Thou art a God that hearest prayer unto thee shall all flesh come Psalm 65. 2. 3. Upon encouragements of invitations promises examples Such as Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will answer thee Psal 50. 15. And that Psal 32. 6. Although a man have no particular ground to conclude that he shall be heard yet upon these general grounds he can many times urge God very confidently But a soul under the actual Testimony of the Spirit of God may embolden himselfe from a particular interest as David doth Ps 119. 94. Lord I am thine save me And the Church Isa 63. 19. and Psal 86. 2. Preserve my soul for I am holy or one whom thou favourest And can urge his own experiences As the Church Lord thou hast been our habitation c. Ps 90. 1. c. Thou hast been favourable to thy Land Psalm 85. 1. The point therefore is to be understood thus where the Spirit of God is actuâ—lly a witnessing Spirit of Adoption there he mainly discovers himselfe by enlivening and emboldening the soul unto special importunity to a particular claim and especial confidence in prayer CHAP. XLVI Some Proofs thereof THat this is a principal work of the witnissing Spirit of Adoption to raise the fervencie and boldness of the soul in prayer may be evidenced to us by the parallell place of Scripture Gal. 4. 6. Because ye are sonnes God hath sent the Spirit of his sonne into your hearts It is to be understood of the witnessing acts of the Spirit because this gift followes upon sonship because ye are sons He saith not that you might be sons then indeed it must have been understood of the sanctifying and uniting grace of the Spirit which makes sons but because ye are sons which supposeth their present standing as children to be the ground of this gift and therefore it is understood of the witnessing act of the Spirit And what followes from it What get they by this Spirit of Christ administred in this way what doth the Spirit there He cryes not enables them to cry though that be true but he cryes in them Abba Father cryes with earnestnesse Father with confidence and Father Father with holy importunity And this appears farther 1. From the nature of the witnessing Acts of the Spirit of Grace The Spirit is a witness to all Gods promises and obligations to us and he puts Gods seal to all the Covenant of grace Now to the vigorous and confident putting a bond in suit an expresse witness to the sealing and delivery is a great encouragement By prayer the soul puts Gods bonds in suit The Spirit comes into Court at the same time whiles the bond is pleading and saith Lord I witness this bond to be true I did put thy seal to it by thy own appointment And to the soul he saith Soul do not be nonsuited do not let thy suit fall I will witness for thee plead thy bond â— the utmost I will justifie it what an encouragement is this 2. From the comparative straightness and flatness of spirit and that cowardliness and dauntedness of spirit which possesseth the Saints when the Spirit is withdrawn from them David when he had lost the joy of Gods Salvation his mouth was shut his heart was straightened and he is fain to go to God for enlargement by his free Spirit He complains of casting away from Gods presence c. Psal 51. 11 12. Vphold me saith he with thy free Spirit that is prop up my zeal and confidence which is even falling to the ground without such a support 3. From the removal of all discouragements to a fervent and confident address to God The great discouragement of the soul is either a distance conceived between God and the soul or the guilt of sinne that makes it The Spirit assures us that sinne is pardoned and that breach made up and that we may come when we will and be as bold with God as if there had never been any occasion of breach on our part or act of
displeasure on Gods 4. From the manifestation of our relation to Christ. Christs name being the only ground of all gracious boldnesse and fervency in prayer Heb 4. 15 16. and 10. 20. The Spirit shews us Christ as our mediator at the right hand of God assures us we have a mighty powerfull advocate the Fathers favourite at his right hand one who hath his ear as we say at command and his heart too who pleads strongly on our behalfe and therefore under the wing of such a mediator we may come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with assuming a liberty to speak any thing we will keeping within the bounds of reverence in the ear of God the Father As the Author to the Hebrews affirms in the place but now quoted Before the application of this point it is needfull to answer a question or two hinted at before but now particularly to bee handled CHAP. XLVII Two Cases stated whether Saints are at all times alike heightened in their spirits in prayer And if not whence the difference that is in them at several times proceeds Que. 1 ARe all that have received the witnesse of the Spirit at all times alike bold in prayer Que. 2 If not how comes it to passe that there is such an alteration in the spirits of Gods people That at one time they are more bold and fervent in prayer then at another Answ For answer to the first of these you are to know 1. That the boldnesse of Gods people in prayer depends not upon the reception of the witness in themselves but upon the actual improvement of that testimony If a man have never so good an evidence lying by him and he have it not ready to produce in Court when he is pleading his cause he cannot be so confident in his plea as at another time when he hath it in his hand And therefore 2 The best of Gods Saints as I have shewed you before may not at all times have his Evidences at hand to plead Many a Saint dares not sometimes to owne his relation to God and their Assurance admits of actual ebbings and flowings 3 Thereupon no doubt there must needs be lesse life and confidence in drawing nigh to God For at such a time 1 All the Promises are like a Book sealed to the soul In all the word of God it cannot find one Promise that it can urge with confidence For the Spirits Testimony is the only light in which we can challenge and lay claim to any Promise Now the Promises are the very spirits and life of prayer Because they are the only obligations upon which the Soul can claim any thing from God 2. In such a season the relations between God and the soul are clouded The soul thinks God an enemy oftentimes and alwayes in such a condition questions at least whether he be a friend or rather whether he be not a meer stranger Now surely a man will have little heart or face to prefer a petition to one whose love he suspects much less to one whom by all probabilities he judgeth to be an enemy 3 In such a season all graces that are the very lungs whence prayer is breathed are very low and flat in their actings The absence of the Sun in winter makes the plants cast their leaves and pluck in their blossoms and the absence of the Spirit must needs make graces look dead and withered and saplesse True there is life in the root but little appears graces are benumm'd in such a season and cannot act so freely as at other times As Samson when his spirit of strength from thr Lord had left him thought to have gone forth and shaken himself as at other times but he could not A man thinks under spiritual with-drawings of God Now I will rub up my graces and bestir my self in prayer as at other times but he is deceived the Spirit of God is with-drawn from him Quest 2. But shew more particularly from whence this variety of tempers in prayer proceeds Answ What ever clouds the testimony of the Spirit and I have spoken much to that Head before must needs cause this difference in the frame of Gods people in prayer But to answer more particularly 1 It may be neglect of our frequent applications to God in that way A friend that a man converseth with every day he can speak more boldly and familiarly to then one that he sees but now and then When a soul visits God but now and then there grow strangenesses and jealousies betweene God and him and a man is to seek whether he be the same to him as he was in times past and so speaks to him with more faintnesse and flatnesse of spirit 2 It may be a fresh guilt of sin admitted into the conscience This as it weakens Assurance so it faints prayer A child scarce dares come to ask a favour from a displeased Father And how unwilling we are under such consciousnesse of guilt to come to God in prayer see in two examples Of David Psal 40. 12. Innumerable evils have compassed me about mine iniquities have taken hold upon me so that I cannot look up In former times I could have looked up with life and confidence in prayer but now they force me to hang down my head yea they are more then the hairs of my head therefore my heart faileth me I have neither the face nor the heart to come to God which I have had The other example is that of the Prodigal when he had been sowing his wild oats and began to return towards his Father see how low he speaks Father I am not worthy to be called thy Son c. and yet he still had the comfort of his relation in some measure he could say Father still How much lower must a soul speak that hath sinned away the remembrance or at least present sense of that dear relation 3 Many times the stream of life and confidence in prayer runs low for want of an endeavour to quicken our graces and this even under the sense of Assurance For a man may live in the light of Gods countenance and that may prove a temptation to him to walk more sleightly and not make such preparations for communion with God in a Duty as formerly When a friend growes a daily guest we do not feast him as when hee comes but seldom we then entertaine him with houshold fare whereas if hee visited us but now and then we would as we say make a stranger of him and provide for him of the best So when God growes a daily guest to a soul he is apt to grow bold to addresse himseâ—f to him with an ordinary frame and temper of Spirit to make no extraordinary preparations by trimming up his graces and laying out his strength in Duty and when God sees this he frownes and we hang down our heads when we come to him afterwards CHAP. XLVIII A third Case Whether the Spirit furnishes the Saints at all times with
as Mal. 1. 8. and that of David 2 Sam. 24. 24. So on the other side if childish bashfulnesse come in in stead of childlike reverence or servile fear in stead of filial awfulnesse he considers Gods mercy bounty truth Christs merits and mediation his own relations through him c. And so balanceth that scale when it weighs too low Such counter considerations as these the soul hath at hand to balast it selfe even in all the parts of Duty And this shall suffice for the clearing of these cases CHAP. LVI Some comfortable informations from this Thesis and for an upshot a Case how I shall know whether my actual fervency and boldnesse bee from Gods Spirit or Satan or any natural principle c. THis affords matter of abundant comfort to all who have this boldnesse and fervency from the operation of this witnessing Spirit in prayer 1. In the work it self Certainly it is a sweet thing to be able in all things to make a mans requests known to God with confidence How incomparable an ease is it to a man to have a bosome-friend and him such a one as is able not only to hear but hear and help to make of ones counsell in the weightiest and most important businesses in the greatest and most unsupportable burthens especially to a child to have such a father This is the happinesse ascribed to the Jews above all other nations meerly upon the account of an outward propriety a visible Church propriety and liberty of approach Deut. 4. 7. to have God so nigh to them in all that they called upon him for 2. In the rise of it This is a main work of the Spirit of Adoption You are arrived as high in point of communion with God as you can possibly in this state of distance The witnesse of the Spirit is our most comfortable enjoyment and the prayers and prayses that proceed from it our most comfortable employment that we are capable of here below And the comfort of it lies in this that it is an act of influence from the Spirit of the most noble and heavenly nature of any other 't is an evidence of a large and abundant measure of the Spirit 3. In the Issue of it what may not such an one do with God But that the cause of miraculous works is ceased and so 't is a tempting God to put him needlessely to extraordinary expences surely I may say such an one might as our Saviour saith say to this or that mountain be thou plucked up by the roots and cast into the depth of the Sea and that with assurance of successe Mat. 17. 20. 21. 22. Now if this be true of the least degree and measure of faith though but reliance as it is much more undoubtedly of acts of assurance and such an one is this spiritual boldnesse and confidence in prayer Qu. But how shall I know whether my fervency and boldnesse of spirit in prayer come from Gods Spirit of Adoption or mine own spirit or possibly Satans spirit of delusion Answ This question is weighty and I must answer distinctly to both parts 1. For fervency it is true 1. Sometime 't is but natural Great wants produce earnest intreaties Beggers ready to starve begge in earnest Terrours of God and frights of conscience many times make fervent 2. Sometimes it may also be the work of a deluding and prestigious spirit who I know not why he may not counterfeit the Spirit of prayer in this operation as well as the Spirit of grace in many others But 3. The discovery of the difference lies in these particulars 1. In the nature of this fervency and that consists in these things 1. In the lively actings of all our graces in prayer This I have shewed you before is the course of Gods Saints to stirre up all within them to the performance of the duty The bow that is serviceable must bee bent in all parts alike else it will faile the expectation of the Archer A counterfeit fervency or a meer natural fervency is partial Desire may seem to be fervent in prayer but humility and sorrow for sinne and thankfulnesse are cold Many a man askes what he wants with great earnestnesse but confesseth sinne and gives thanks for mercies received superficially This puts a great suspicion upon the Duty 2. In a zealous watchfulness over a mans heart against all those things that may coole deaden or distract it And thus a gracious soul is not only then fervent when it may be a landfloud of affections drownes for the present the actings of formality wandring thoughts c. but even when these are most stirring it shews its fervency by labouring and wrestling against them Another may be fervent now and then upon such or such a particular impression of spirit as suppose in the sense of some imminent danger some extraordinary conviction but hee doth not keep his watch or stand so upon his guard as to preserve himselfe in that temper but suffers himself to decline into formality and deadness again as soon as that impression is a little layd by the vent it finds in a Duty 2. In the matter wherein one is fervent A man may be fervent in such things as concern his own present necessity Isai 26. 16. They powred out a prayer when thy chastening 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was upon them effuderunt or liquefecerunt orationem they seemed to be meltingly fluent as mettal when it runs by the force of fire but that is a fervency that holds no longer then the fire lasts In those things that concerne the glory of God and are more remote from a mans private concernment there is more coldnesse and indifferency In petitions for pardon of sin much heat little in petitions for grace c. 3 In the concomitants of this fervency It doth beget a sutable frame of spirit 1. In all places Many an one is very appearingly fervent when hee prayes before others But is there the same heat in private or rather are our private closet prayers cold and formal Satans spirit a spirit of vain-glory c. may make a man fervent before others but the Spirit of God only supplies a private fervency to wrestle with God in private as Jacob did by night and alone is likely to be gracious fervency 2. In all duties A man that hath a kindly heat of affections in prayer will not bee without some impressions of it in other duties In the hearing of the word a mans heart will burne Luke 24. 32. In his place and calling there will be a zealous endeavour to do good a zealous anger against sinne a zealous grief for sin This is seen in David Ps 119. 32. 139. 102 Ps throughout a zealous and fervent love to all the Saints 1 Pet. 1. 22. 4. In the rise of it 1. It is gotten in the Saints by industry kindled by meditation and most commonly they know how they come by it how much ado it costs them
to raise their heart to such a pitch When fervency of spirit comes in with a grosse neglect of quickening endeavours its suspicious Not that a child of God may not now and then find an heat kindled in prayer which he can give no account of But he constantly seeks and labours for it in the regular way 2. It is grounded on a promise A natural man seldome eyes a promise but his wants Ob. Yea but I can draw no comfort from this because all this concernes such as have the Spirit of Adoption in its witnessing work In me that have it not it may be stil a fervency of a natural impression from meere necessity or sense of want Answ 'T is true that this work eminently proceeds from the Spirit of Adoption in its witnessing Act but it also proceeds from the Spirit of Adoption in its renewing Act. The Spirit is a Spirit of Supplication not only as a Spirit of consolation but also as a Spirit of grace Ze. 12. 10. And therefore although such persons who have the witnesse of the Spirit may take comfort in seeing this fruit of it yet we must not think that there is no such fruit where there is not such a witnesse And therefore if thou find this fervency that is above described in thy heart if it do not proceed from the Testimony of the Spirit as possibly it may from its more obscure and remiss Testimony of which I have spoken before although thou dost not know or at least not for the present observe it yet it always proceeds from that Spirit that is in all the children of God the Spirit of grace and supplication if so qualified as is said Indeed that that is most sensible in the fervency of an unassured soul is sense of want But they may also observe in themselvs that they are not fervent only in such things at least that they labour for it in other things 2. As for boldness in duty 1. I have before shewed you wherein it consists and how it joynes with fear And that which is not of the right stamp commonly failes in one of the forementioned particulars it is a boldnesse that allowes a man as much to neglect as performe duty that tempts God by petitioning and expecting what is not according to his will or at least not in his way c. And here I shall shut up this Treatise earnestly desiring that God will give all that read it experience of these works that they may be able to seal to the truth of it Amen FINIS A SAINTS DIRECTION IN AN AFFLICTED CONDITION By SIMON FORD B. D. and Minister of the Gospel in Reading London Printed for Sa. Gellibrand at the Ball in Pauls Church-Yard 1655. To the noble and worthily honoured Ladies and Gentlewomen The Lady CECILIA KNOLLYS the Lady LETICE VACHELL the Lady ANN PYE Mrs. LETICE HAMPDEN Mrs. ELIZABETH MARGARET and MARY HAMMONDS Mrs. TREVOR and all the rest of the noble Families concerned in that late sad stroke of providence the death of that much bewailed Gentleman Colonel ROBERT HAMMOND TO you much honoured and beloved in the Lord I make bold to present my Meditations upon this Subject not long since delivered in the hearing of most of you upon a double account Partly that I may testifie the sense I have of those many obligations which you have laid upon me since Gods providence cast me into these parts and partly that I might add a few mites of advice and direction to your store concerning the improvement of the late sad stroke upon your noble Families and these Nations in the decease of that great prop of all his Relations and eminent Instrument of the publick good whom both you and I and this poor Town and all the Country hereabout have abundant cause to mourne for This I am sure is an affliction to us all of an high nature and so much the greater because befalling us in a juncture of time wherein our hopes from him by reason of his publick imployments newly entred on being called but immediatly before to an eminent civil and military Trust in Ireland and chosen High-Steward and Burgesse in Parliament for this Corporation were as the highest I know you are not ignorant what use to make of such a blow But give me leave upon this occasion to leave this monument in your Cabinets to be your Remembrancer of and Direction in a Duty which although you alwayes conscionably practise yet you may as well as others through the oppression of your spirits under this heavy burthen possibly find some additional excitations and directions not altogether unuseful or unnecessary thereunto The Lord if it seem good in his eyes find our some way how the great gap which the fall of such an Oak hath made in our hedge may be filled up by some or other of those young plants who are related to him and are concerned to imitate him in those things which have rendred him a publick losse and support you under this grievous stroke This is and by Gods assistance shall be the prayer of him who is Your Servant in the Gospel of Christ SIMON FORD Reading Decem. 5 1654. JAM 5. 13. former part Is any among you afflicted Let him pray The PREFACE WHat one said of Books Procaptis Lectoris habent sua fata libelli that their entertainment is sutable to the capacity temper or distemper of the Reader may with a little variation be affirmed of Sermons especially such as seem to upbraid the times with those Diseases which they labour under they are liked or disliked as people understand or are affected towards the matter they deliver or the occurrences that occasion it Thence is there such a general disrelish of suffering Doctrines in these dayes wherein divers persons see nothing but visions of peace and glory and triumph to the Saints that a man that handles such a Subject as this in diverse places is thought to be as absurd as he that preaches a Funeral Sermon at a Wedding or mars the Solemnity of a Feast with some sad story In all ages the judgement that the most of men have made of the goodnesse or badnesse of the times hath been sensual thence so much difference of opinion appears even among those that undertake to be skilful Physicians because every one pronounceth according to what he feeles There was never any time so black and dismal to the Church of Christ as that all persons would confesse it such The Papists then and ignorant Protestants since agreed in magnifying the dayes of our fore-fathers under Hen. 8. and Q. Mary when as we all know there were never dayes more sad to the Truth and the sincere profession thereof When Israel was in Babylon under a grievous captivity robb'd at once of all Civil and Church liberty when they hung up their Harps upon the willowes the cruel persecuters would fain perswade them they had as much cause to keep rejoycing Festivals as ever and presume
man may be assured of his Sonship à priori from the first acts of faith and repentance in conversion ch 20 A Case Whether this evidence be so certain as to exclude all doubting chap. 21. Popish Doctrine concerning doubting and uncertainty confuted Our own certainty and assurance of salvation examined Where several Cases Case 1. How to distinguish the testimony of the Spirit from Satanical or self delusion Vnder which Head it is again enquired 1 How far Satan may go in giving assurance Immediately Where a test of revelations and comfort arising hence Mediately from the Word And 2 How far we to our selves from Reason only chap. 22. This Case branched into particulars Quest 1. How to know a false assurance when it is collected from Scripture by the collusions of Satan and a mans own heart to be false chap. 23. Quest How to know whether the true assurance that a man hath of his own good condition be from the collections of his own reason meerly or from the witness of the Spirit With Cautions about it chap. 24. The Duty of keeping these Evidences of the Spirit once attained pressed with several Motives chap. 25. Quest How this may be done Where 1 The Records of these Evidences chap. 26 2 The means to maintain them chap. 27 3 The Moths that eat them out ch 28 4 The use of them in a livelihood of Love Thankfulness Obedience ch 29 The Duty of improving them urged Quest How Answered in two particulars 1 By living on them a life of Sanctification Consolation 2 By pleading them chap. 30 The Duty of recovering lost Assurance added wherein also Quest How Answered 1 Rest not in its absence 2 Enquire how it was lost and how that enquiry is to be made Several tokens to furnish an Hue and Cry after that sin that hath robbed a soul of such a Jewel chap. 31 3 What to be done in case some sin have stolne it away 4 5 6. What to be done in case no appearing sin occasion it A Case How faith may be exercised in desertion Several things proper to bee believed then As also three other Directions chap 32 Thesis III Gods Holy Spirit after he hath once been a Spirit of Adoption never again becomes a Spirit of Bondage to the same soul Explained Saints after conversion and assurance subject To troubles of consciences yea To Bondage Yea and that longer and greater then ever before upon sive Reasons How far the Spirit causeth them and how far not chap. 33 Scripture Reason Proof of the Thesis chap. 34 A Question stated viz. What then is the cause of legal terrors in the Saints after conversion and assurance c. 35 And how they befal them Saints convinced of folly in giving way to such after terrors chap 36 And that such troublesom thoughts may be cast out without disputing as blasphemous and Atheistical thoughts by the common advise of Divines should be Case How far I may safely do this Case How to know the Work of Satan undermining assurance from the work of the holy Spirit putting a man upon a warrantable and wary self-examination chap. 37 Grounds upon which Satan endeavors to weaken assurance answered Case How far a soul soundly converted and possibly assured may fall into sin Whether into gross sins Whether into the same sins as before What regret and reluctancy in a renewed conscience against sin and how differenced from that of a natural conscience terrified ch 38 Case of afflictions and tentations stated as they may be laid for grounds of questioning a renewed state ch 39 Case of not hearing prayers so far also stated Case of inability to pray thus far also stated chap. 40 Case of decayes in spiritual affections deadnesse burthensomnesse of Duty c. thus far also stated Well meaning contradictions of good souls Complaints whether hypocritical or no chap 41 Case How in a supposed decay of spiritual affections a saint may know whether he be dead or no A farther case whether and how farre an hypocrite may delight in the tydings of comfort from God c. 42. Case Whether in stead of growing a Saint may not decay in the actings of some graces and yet those very graces grow more habitually and radically strong in him c. 43. Case How a Saint may in the midst of his most sensible actual decayes know whether the habits of grace grow or no Saints comforted by an inference of Saints incapacity of total and final Apostacy from the premises c. 44. Thesis IV. One principal work of the Spirit of Adoption is to enliven and embolden the soul in prayer Qu. How and in what sense this work is the main or chief work Qu. What act of this Spirit produceth it Qu. Whether the Spirit thus work in all Saints Saints in darknesse how farre capable of being lively and bold in duty c. 45. Some evidences of the Thesis c. 46. Three cases stated Case 1. Whether in all Saints that have once been assured there be alwayes the same measure of boldnesse and fervency Case 2. If not whence proceeds the difference that is in them at times from what they were formerly c. 47. Case 3. Whether the Spirit furnisheth the soul at all times with like life and vigour of expressions Facility and fluency of expressions in prayer what evills it often occasions A touch of Formes pro and con A Case Language of prayer when from strength of parts and when from the supply of the Spirit How we lose our ability of expression in prayer c. 48. Saints Informed that darkening evidences of Gods love deadneth prayer Case What to be done when a soul cannot call God Father Especially in case some sinne streighten the spirit As also how to maintain heat and boldnesse in prayer c. 49. Three duties pressed upon all assured Saints 1 To be much in prayer upon eight motives c. 50. To stirre up the grace of God that is in them to a due proportion of life and fervency upon six motives c. 51 Qu. How the deadness and formality of Saints in prayer may be recovered Where more largely of formes and extemporary prayer c. 52. 3. To come boldly to the Throne of grace upon six motives c. 53. Case How shall I procure this boldness if I cannot come to God in this manner where those are directed who notwithstanding assurance never had it And those who have had and lost it c. 54. Case How to mix boldnesse and godly fear together in prayer Stating 1. This boldness what it is and wherein it consists 2. This fear also and its nature c. 55. Saints have some comfortable meditations suggested from this truth that the boldness and fervency of Saints in prayer is from the Spirit of Adoption Case How shall I know whether my actual fervency and boldness be not from my own spirit or Satan rather then Gods Spirit c. 56. Reader these Books are lately published and sold at the Ball in Pauls Church yard Dr. Kendals Answer to Mr. John Goodwin â—n two Volumes fol. viz. Concerning the Death of Christ and the Perseverance of the Saints Mr. Sheffeild a Treatise of Christ the Sun of Righteousnesse 8o. Mr. Rob. Bailie a learned Treatise against Anabaptism 4º Catechesis Elenctica Errorum qui hodie vexant Ecclesiam 12o. His Vindication of his Disswasive from the Exceptions of Mr. Cotton and Mr. Tombs 4º Mr Cawdrey and Mr. Palmer on the Sabâ—ath in four Parts 4º Dr. Tuckneies Sermons on these Texts viz. Jer. 8. 22. 1 Cor. 15. 55 Acts 4. 12. 12o. Mr Jenkyns Exposition of the whole Epistle of Jude 4o. Jus Divinum Ministerii 4º Mella Patrum per prima nascentisâ— paâ—ientis Ecclesiae tria secula Per Fran. Rous Preposit Etonens 8o. January 5. 1655.