childe of God and thy sins are pardoned This that I described to you is the true witness of the Spirit This mistake is so dangerous that I had thought to have made it a peculiar Direction by it self to warn you of it but now I have gone so far I will dispatch it here Two dangerous consequents I finde do follow this unwarrantable expectation of the first immediate efficient Revelation that we are Adopted 1. Some poor souls have languished in doubtings and trouble of minde almost all their daies in expectation of such a kinde of witness as the Spirit useth not to give when in the mean time they have other sufficient means of Comfort and knew not how to improve them yea they had the true witness of the Spirit in his inhabitation and holy workings and did not know it but run as Samuel did to Eli not knowing the voice of God and look for the Spirits testimony when they had it as the Jews for Elias and the Messias 2. Others do more dangerously erre by taking the strong conceit of their own phantasie for the witness of the Spirit As soon as they do but entertain the opinion that it must be such a witness of the Spirit without the use of Marks that must Assure men of their Adoption presently they are confident that they have that witness themselves It is scarce likely to be Gods Spirit that is so ready upon the meer change of an opinion The devil useth to do as much to cherish presumption as to destroy true faith and Assurance It is a shrewd signe that our perswasions of our truth of Grace is a delusion when we finde the devil a friend to it and helping it on and it is a probable signe it is a good perswasion when we finde the devil an enemy to it and still troubling us and endeavouring our disquiet And here I remember the scruple that troubleth some about the spirit of bondage and the spirit of Adoption But you must understand that by the spirit of bondage is meant that spirit and those operations on the soul which the Law of Works did naturally beget in those that were under it which was to be partly in bondage to a task of Ceremonious duties and partly to the Curse and obligation to Punishment for disobedience without any Power to Justifie They were said therefore to be in bondage to the Law and the Law was said to be a Yoak which neither they nor their fathers were able to bear Acts 15. And by the spirit of Adoption is meant 1. That spirit or those qualifications and workings in their souls which by the Gospel God giveth only to his sons 2. And which raise in us some child-like affections to God enclining us in all our wants to run to him in Prayer as to a Father and to make our moan to him and open our griefs and cry for redress and look to him and depend on him as a childe on the father This spirit of Adoption you may have and yet not be certain of Gods special Love to you The knowledge only of his general Goodness and Mercy may be a means to raise in you true child-like affections You may know God to have fatherly inclinations to you and yet doubt whether he will use you as a childe for want of Assurance of your own sincerity And you may hope God is your father when yet you may apprehend him to be a displeased angry father and so he may be more your terror then your comfort Are not you ready in most of your fears and doubts and troubles to go to God before all other for relief and doth not your heart sigh and groan to him when you can scarcely speak Doth not your troubled spirit there finde its first vent and say Lord kill me not forsake me not my life is in thy hands O soften this hard heart make this carnal minde more spiritual O be not such a stranger to my soul Woe to me that I am so ignorant of thee so disaffected to thee so backward and disinclined to holy communion with thee Woe to me that I can take no more pleasure in thee and am sâ— mindless and disregardfull of thee O that thou wouldst stir up in me more lively desires and workings of my soul toward thee and suffer me not to lye at such a distance from thee Are not such as these the breathings of your spirit why these are child-like breathings after God! this is crying Abba Father This is the work of the spirit of Adoption even when you fear God will cast you off You much mistake and those that tell you so if you think that the spirit of Adoption lieth only in a perswasion that you are Gods childe or that you may not have the spirit of Adoption without such a perswasion of Gods Adopting you For God may Adopt you and give you that spirit which he gives only to his children and possess you with true filial affections towards him before ever you know your self to be Adopted much more though you may have frequent returning doubts of your Adoption Having thus shewed you how far you may expect the Witness of the Spirit and how far you may and must make use of Marks and Qualifications or Actions of your own for the obtaining of Assurance and setled Peace I shall add an Answer to the Principal Objections of the Antinomians against this Object They say This is to draw men from Christ to themselves and from the Gospel to the Law to lay their Comforts and build their Peace upon any thing in themselves is to forsake Christ and make themselves their own Saviours and those Teachers that perswade them to this are Teachers of the Law and false Prophets who draw men from Christ to themselves All our own Righteousness is as a menstruous cloth and our best works are sin and therefore we may not take up our Assurance or Comforts from them We shall be alwayes at uncertainties and at a loss or unconstant up and down in our Comforts as long as we take them from any signes in our selves Also our own Graces are Imperfect and therefore unfit to be the Evidences for our Assurance Answ Because I am not now purposely confuting the Antinomians but only fore-arming you against their assaults I shall noâ— therefore give you half that I should otherwise say for the Explication of this Point and the Confutation of their Errors but only so much as is necessary to your preservation Which I do because they pretend to be thâ— only Preachers of free Grace and the onlâ— right Comforters of troubled Consciences because they have written so many books to that end which if they fall into your hand may seem so specious as that you may neeâ— some preservative I suppose you remember what I have taught you so oft concerning the difference of the Law of Works and the Law or Covenant of Grace with their different Conditions Upon which
you my judgement before Sure I am that the sudden looseness of their lives answering their ignorant loose ungospel-like doctrine did certifie me that the Spirit of Comfort was not their Comforter For he is also a Spirit of Holiness and comforteth men by the means of a holy Gospel which hath precepts and threatnings as well as Promises 2. And as the experience of the state of Believers assureth us that few of them attain to Certainty so experience of the imperfection of their understandings shews us that few of them are immediatly capable of it For how few Believers be there that understand well what is a sound evidence and what not Nay how many Learned men have taught them That the least unfeigned Desire of Grace is the Grace it self as some say or at least a certain evidence of it as others say Whereas alas how many have unfeignedly desired many Graces and yet have Desired the Glory and Profits of the world so much more that they have miscarried and perished How many have taught them that the least unfeigned Love to God or to the Brethren is a certain Mark of saving Grace Whenas many a one hath unfeignedly loved God and the Brethren who yet have loved house land credit pleasure and life so much more that God hath been thrust as it were into a corner and hath had but the worlds leavings and the poor Saints have had little compassion or relief from them nor would be lookt on in times of danger and disgrace As Austin and the Schoolmen use to say Wicked men do Vti Deo frui creaturis Vse God and enjoy the creatures Godly men do Frui Deo uti creaturis Enjoy God and use the creatures The meaning is Both Regenerate and Unregenerate have some Will or Love both to God and to the Creature But the wicked do Will or Love the Creature as their chief Good with their chiefest Love and they only Love God as a Means to help them to the Creature with a Love subordinate to their Love to the Creature Whereas the Godly do Will or Love God as their chief Good with their chiefest Love or Complacency and Love the Creature but as a Means to God with an inferiour Love If then the Nature of Sincerity be so little known then Assurance of Sincerity cannot be very common More might be said to prove that Certainty of Salvation is not common among true Christians but that it is labour in vain as to them seeing experience and their own ready confession doth witness it Now what 's the use that I would have you make of this Why it is this If Assurance of Sincerity and Justification much more of Salvation be so rare among true Christians then you have no cause to think that the want of it proveth you to be no true Christian You see then that a man may be in a state of Salvation without it and that it is not Justifying Faith as some have imagined nor yet a necessary concomitant of that Faith You see that you were mistaken in thinking that you had not the Spirit of Adoption because you had no assuring witness within you effectively testifying to you that you are the childe of God All Gods children have the Spirit of Adoption For because they are sons therefore hath God sent the Spirit of his Son into their hearts whereby they cry Abba Father Gal. 4.6 But all Gods children have not Assurance of their Adoption therefore the Spirit of Adoption doth not alwaies assure those of their Adoption in whom it abideth It is alwaies a witness-bearer of their Adoption But that is only objectively by his Graces and operations in them as a Land-mark is a witness whose Land it is where it standeth or as your Sheep-mark witnesseth which be your Sheep or rather as a sensible Soul witnesseth a living Creature or a rational Soul witnesseth that we are Men But efficiently it doth not alwaies witness as a Land-mark or Sheep-mark is not alway discerned and a bruit knows not it self to be a bruit and a man is not alwaies actually knowing his own humanity nor can know it at all in the Womb in Infancy in Distraction in an Epilepsie Apoplexie or the like disease which depriveth him of the use of reason Besides it 's no doubt but the Apostle had some respect to the eminent gift of the Spirit for Tongues Prophecies Miracles and the like which was proper to that age though still as including the Spirit of Holiness You see then that you need not be alwaies in disquiet when you want Assurance For else how disquiet a life should most Christians live I shall shew you more anon that all a mans comforts depend not so on his Assurance but that he may live a comfortable life without it Trouble of minde may be overcome Conscience may be quieted True peace attained yea a man may have that Joy in the holy Ghost wherein the Kingdom of God is said to consist without Certainty of Salvation If there be any passage in my Book of Rest Part 3 d in pressing to get Assurance which seem contrary to this I desire that they may be reduced to this sense and no otherwise understood This shall be further opened anon and other grounds of comfort manifested besides Assurance DIRECTION XV. 15. Yea this much more I would here inform you of That Very many even of the stronger holier watchfull and obedient Christians are yet uncertain of their Salvation even then when they are Certain of their Justification and Sanctification and that because they are uncertain of their perseverance and overcoming For a mans Certainty of his Salvation can be no stronger than is his Certainty of enduring to the end and overcoming THat you may not misunderstand me in this observe 1. That I do not say Perseverance is a thing uncertain in it self 2. Nor that it is uncertain to all Christians 3. But that it is uncertain to many even strong and self-knowing Christians Divines use to distinguish of the Certainty of the Object and of the Subject and the former is either of the Object of Gods Knowledge or of mans I doubt not but God knows Certainly who shall be saved which with his Decree doth cause that which we call Certainty of the Object as to mans understanding But men themselves do not alwaies know it If a man have the fullest Certainty in the world that he is Gods child yet if he be uncertain whether he shall so continue to the end it is impossible that he should have a Certainty of his Salvation For it 's he only that endureth to the end that shall be saved Now that many eminent Christians of great knowledge and much zeal and obedience are uncertain of their Perseverance is proved by two Infallible Arguments 1. By experience If any should be so censorious as to think that none of all those Nations and Churches abroad that deny the Doctrine of Certain Perseverance of all Believers
Flesh-pleasing The three great sinnes therefore that do most directly fight against God himself in his Sovereignty are 1. Pride or Ambition 2. Worldlines or Love of Riches 3. Sensuality Voluptuousness or inordinate Love of Pleasures There are in the Vnderstanding indeed other sinnes as directly against God as these and more radicall as 1. Atheism denying a God 2. Polutheism denying our God to be the Alone God and joyning others with him 3. Idolatry owning false Gods 4. Infidelity denying Jesus Christ our Lord-Redeemer 5. Owning false Saviours and Prophets in his stead or before him as do the Mahometans 6. Joyning other Redeemers and Saviours with him as if he were not the alone Christ 7. Denying the holy Ghost and denying Credit to his Holy and Miraculous Testimony to the Christian faith and blasphemously ascribing all to the devil which is the sinne against the Holy Ghost 8. Owning and believing in devils or Lying spirits in stead of the Holy Ghost as the Montanists Mahometans Ranters Familists do 9. Owning and adjoyning devils or Lying spirits in coordination or equality with the Holy Ghost and believing equally his doctrine and theirs as if he were not sole and sufficient in his Work All these are sinnes directly against God himself and if prevalent most certainly damning three against the Father three against the Sonne and three against the Holy Ghost But these be not they that I need now to warn you of These are prevalent only in Pagans Infidels and Blasphemers Your troubles and complaints shew that these are not predominant in you It is therefore the three forementioned sinnes of the Heart or Will that I would have you carefully to look after in your troubles to see whether none of them get ground and strength in you 1. Enquire carefully into your humility It is not for nothing that Christ hath said so much of the excellency and necessity of this Grace When he bids us learn of him to be meek and lowly when he blesseth the meek and poor in spirit when he setteth a little child in the midst of them and telleth them Except they become as that child they could not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven when he stoopeth to wash and wipe his Disciples feet requiring them to do so by one another How oft doth the Holy Ghost press this upon us Commanding us to submit our selves to one another and not to minde high things but to condescend to men of low estate Rom. 12.16 and not to be wise in our own esteem but in honour preferre others before our selves Rom. 12.10 How oft hath God professed to resist and take down the Proud and to give Grace to the humble and dwell with them Search carefully therefore lest this sinne get ground upon you For though it may not be so predominant and reigning as to damn you yet may it cause God to afflict you and hide his face from you and humble you by the sense of his displeasure and the concealment of his Love And though one would think that doubting troubled souls should be alwaies the most humble and freest from pride yet sad experience hath certified me that much pride may dwell with great doubtings and distress of minde Even some of the same souls that cry out of their own unworthiness and fear lest they shall be firebrands of Hell yet cannot endure a close reproof especially for any disgracefull sin nor cannot bear a disparaging word nor love those nor speak well of them who do not value them nor endure to be crost or contradicted in word or deed but must have all go their way and follow their judgement and say as they say and dance after their pipe and their hearts rise aginst those that will not do it much more against those that speak or do any thing to the diminishing of their Reputation They cannot endure to be low and past by and overlooked when others are preferred before them or to be slighted and disrespected or their words or parts or works or judgements to be contemned or disparaged Nay some are scarce able to live in the same House or Church or Town in love and peace with any but those that will humour and please them and speak them fair and give them smooth and stroaking language and forbear crossing reproving and disparaging them Every one of these singly is an evident mark and fruit of pride how much more all joyntly I seriously profess it amazeth me to consider how hainously most professors are guilty of this sin even when they know it to be the devils own sin and the great abomination hated of God and read and hear so much against it as they do and confess it so oft in their praiers to God and yet not only inwardly cherish it but in words actions gestures apparel express it and passionately defend these discoveries of it The confusions and distractions in Church and State are nothing else but the proper fruits of it so are the contentions among Christians and the unpeaceableness in families For only from pride cometh contention saith Solomon Prov. 13.10 For my part when I consider the great measure of pride self-conceitedness self-esteem that is in the greatest part of Christians that ever I was acquainted with we of the Ministry not excepted I wonder that God doth not afflict us more and bring us down by foul means that will not be brought down by fair For my own part I have had as great means to help me against this sin as most men living have had first in many years trouble of minde and then in near twenty years languishing and bodily pains having been almost twenty times at the graves mouth and living near it continually and lastly and above all I have had as full a sight of it in others even in the generality of Professors and in the dolefull state of the Church and State and haynous detestable abominations of this ageâ— which one would think should have fully cured it And yet if I hear but either an applauding word from any of fame on one side or a disparaging word on the other side I am fain to watch my heart as narrowly as I would do the thatch of my house when fire is put to it and presently to throw on it the water of Detestation Resolution and Recourse to God And though the acts through Gods great mercy be thus restrained yet the constancy of these inclinations assures me that there is still a strong and deep root I beseech you therefore if you would ever have setled Peace and Comfort be watchfull against this sinne of Pride and be sure to keep it down and get it mortified at the very heart 2. The next sin that I would have you be specially jealous of is coveteousness or love of the profits or riches of the world This is not the sin of the rich only but also of the poor and more hainous is it in them to love the world inordinatly that have so
they perswade poor sinners to Pray for Faith Grace and Christ that is to Desire these and to express their Desires which in effect is to perswade them to Repent Believe and turn to God Indeed if these blind Seducers had ever heard our Ministers perswading wicked men to Dissemble and lye to God and ask Faith Grace and Christ with their tongues but not Desire them in their hearts then had they sufficient grounds for their reviling language but I have been too long on this I may therefore boldly conclude that they that finde themselves unbelievers that is unwilling to have Christ to deliver them from sin must use this second Means to get faith even earnest frequent Prayer for it to God 3. Let such also see that they avoid wicked seducing company and occasions of sin and be sure that they keep company with men fearing God especially joyning with them in their holy duties 4. Lastly Let such be sure that they use that Reason which God hath given them to consider frequently retiredly seriously of the vanity of all those things that steal away their hearts from Christ and of the excellency of Holiness and how blessed a state it is to have nothing in us in heart or life that is displeasing to God but to be such as he taketh full delight in also of the certainty of the damnation of unbeleevers and the intollerableness of their torments and of the certainty and unconceivable greatness of Believers everlasting Happiness If wicked unbelievers would but do what they can in daily serious deep considering of these things and the like they would have no cause to despair of obtaining Faith and Sanctification Believing is a Rational Act God bids you not to Believe any thing without Reason nor to Accept or Consent to any thing without full Reason to cause you to consent Think then often and soberly of those Reasons that should move you to Consent and of the vanity of these that hinder you from Consenting and this is Gods way for you to obtain Faith or Consent Remember then that when you have understood and improved General grounds of Comfort nay before you can come to any full improvement of them your next business is to Believe to Consent to the Match with Christ and to Take him for your Lord and Saviour And this Duty must be lookt to and performed before you look after special Comfort But I said somewhat of this before under the sixth Head and therefore will say no more now DIRECTION X. 10. When you have gone thus far your Soul is safe and you are past your greatest Dangers though yet you are not past your Fears Your next work therefore for Peace and Comfort is this To Review and take Notice of your own Faith and thence to gather Assurance of the Certainty of your Justification and Adoption and right to Glory THe summe of this Direction lyeth in these things 1. See that you do not content your self with the forementioned general Comforts without looking after Assurance and special Comforts The folly of this I have manifested in the third part of my book of Rest about self-examination 2. See that you dream not of finding Assurance and special Comfort from meer general Grounds This is the delusion of many Antinomians and of most of our prophane people who I finde are commonly of the Antinomian faith naturally withouth teaching For men to conclude that they shall certainly be saved meerly because God is Mercifull or Christ is tender-hearted to sinners and would not that any should perish but all should come to Repentance or because God delights not in the death of him that dieth but rather that he Repent and live or because Christ died for them or because God hath given Christ and Life in the Gospel to all on Condition of believing these are all but meer delusions Much Comfort as I have shewed you may be gathered from these Generals but no Certainty of Salvation or special Comfort can be gathered from them alone 3. See that you reject the Antinomian doctrine or dotage which would teach you to reject the tryal and judging of your state by signes of Grace in your self and tell you that it is only the Spirit that must Assure by witnessing your Adoption I will further define this Caution when I have added the rest 4. And on the other extream do not run to Marks unseasonably but in the order here laid down 5. Nor do not trust to unsafe Marks 6. And therefore do not look at too many for the true ones are but few I do but name these things to you because I have fullyer handled them in my book of Rest whether I must refer you And so I return to the third Caution I have in the forementioned Book told you what the Office of the Spirit is in Assuring us and what the use of Marks are The Spirit witnesseth first Objectively and so the Spirit and Marks are all one For it is the Spirit dwelling in us that is the witness or proof that we are Gods sons for he that hath not his Spirit is none of his and the Spirit is not discerned by us in its essence but in its workings and therefore to discern these workings is to discern the Spirit and these workings are the Marks that we speak of so that the Spirit witnesseth our sonship as a reasonable soul witnesseth that you are a man and not a beast You find by the Acts of Reason that you have a Reasonable soul and then you know that having a Reasonable soul you are certainly a man So you finde by the works or fruits of the Spirit that you have the Spirit that is by Marks and Paul enumerates the fruits of the Spirit to that end and then by finding that you have the Spirit you may certainly know that you are the child of God 2. Also as the Reasonable soul is its own discerner by the help of the body while it is in it and so witnesseth our Humanity effectively as well as objectively but first in order objectively and next effectively so doth the Spirit effectively discover it self to the soul by illuminating us to discern it and exciting us to search and giving us that spiritual tast and feeling of its workings and so of its presence by which it is best known But still it witnesseth objectively first and its effective witnessing is but the causing us to discern its objective witness Or to speak more plainly The Spirit witnesseth first and principally by giving us those Graces and workings which are our Marks and then secondly by helping us to finde and feel those workings or Marks in our selves and then lastly by raising Comforts in the soul upon that discovery Take heed therefore of expecting any such inward witness of the Spirit as some expect viz. a discovery of your Adoption directly without first discovering the signes of it within you as if by an inward voice he should say to you Thou art a