a probable to a certain and infallible hope of Heaven God doth never from those who are in covenant with him withhold those influences that are simply and absolutely necessary for the avoiding of sin or performance of a duty when it is a duty affirmative precepts do not oblige ad semper but there are aids or influences called by some arbitrary by others liberal by which a man is enabled with less difficulty to abstain from evil and to lead an holy life these aids are usually vouchsafed to the assured Christian If these notwithstanding he yield to temptations or omit duties or perform them either sleightly or unchearfully ay or if he do not encourage others to wait on God it may well be expected that God should withdraw them and give Sin and Satan some notable advantage against him Those very omissions and commissions which would not provoke God to deny Assurance at first may provoke him to recal it after it is granted Quest 6. part 3. How may Assurance when it is lost be regained Answ This question supposeth that Assurance may be lost a supposition I am so farr from not granting that I humbly conceive it may be lost and a man not sensible of it That it may be lost in part and a man take no great notice of the loss will be easily granted and why not in whole Is it not possible that the great Duties of self-reflection and examination should be for some time discontinued or not impartially performed If so how easily may one judge that liveliness and enlargedness which ariseth meerly from temper of body or increase of gifts or false zeal still to arise ftom the testimony of the Spirit and a good Conscience Histories do abound with examples of men who meeting with persons of great pretended zeal and piety have been by them led into such practises as could not stand with an actual assurance of pardon yet till by some providence the vizor hath been pulled off the face of such hypocritical Guides they have not missed their comforts The consolation of the Holy Ghost must needs be gone onely another consolation did grow up instead of it arising from comparing themselves with others of different perswasions from them whom they saw to be worse then themselves or from the testimony and applause given them from their companions whom they reputed alway the most holy Measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves among themselves they are not wise or understand not 2 Cor. 10.12 May all whom Satan hath got into this snare by timely repentance recover themselves for it is of all snares the most dangerous as being laid by the Devil transforming himself into an Angel of Light and his Ministers transformed into Ministers of Righteousness Some there be who have lost their Assurance and are sensible of that loss and they are of two sorts I. Such as have fallen into such sins as do till repented of make them unmeet for pardon and much more unmeet for Assurance 2. Such whose perswasion of pardon might have still put forth it self into act had they not looked on their sins through a false glass and so unduly aggravated them This latter sort are not to be favoured in their hard thoughts of themselves they must have the falseness of those Rules by which they mis-judge themselves discovered and be made to know that they greatly dishonour God whilest they measure his thoughts by their own thoughts whilest they look on him as extreme to mark what men do amiss who is indeed gracious and mercifull slow to anger pardoning iniquity transgression sin Yet care would be taken lest while we endeavor to cure men of this injudicious and therefore falsly so called humility we cast them not into a more dangerous disease spiritual sloth security But it is the former sort of troubled souls to whom my Directions are designed though something may be said that will not be unusefull to the latter Them I advise I. To bring themselves to a due and just sense of their condition I say a due and just sense for there are in this case two extremes to be avoided I. A sleighting of it They who err on this hand have either benummed their consciences or else they have through the cares of the world and multitude of business so diverted their thoughts as that conscience hath no time to speak One would have thought that David after committing Adultery should have been a Magor missabib a terrour to himself and all round about him but he seems rather to be taken up with sinfull contrivances how he might cover that sin nor do we find any complaint of broken bones till Nathan the Prophet had awakened him To such I would say Remember from whence ye are fallen Ye are fallen from the smiles to the frowns of a Father of an Husband who can arm all the creatures in Heaven and Earth against you who can turn all sweet things into bitterness Is it nothing to you that for ought you know your names are blotted out of the Lambs book of Life nothing that you lie open to eternal wrath What are your pillows made of that you can give either sleep to your eyes or slumber to your eye-lids and not reckon that God will break in upon you while there is none to deliver 2. Some have too deep sense of this condition looking on themselves whilest in it as desperate as having committed the unpardonable sin There be two places in the Epistle to the Hebrews that have some aspect this way these have horribly puzled some of the ancients and are usually set home to the full by the Devil and a misgiving heart in this evil day To remove this error I will not digress into an inquiry concerning the nature and symptoms of the unpardonable sin about which it is most certain some have discoursed very wildly it may suffice to say that a presumptuous sinning after the grace of Assurance received though it cause a sore wound yet not an incurable wound There is balm in Gilead a Physician in Israel Scriptures give promises after such lapses and furnish us with examples of some who have recovered out of them nay it is thought by most that such falls do not leave the person thus fallen dead but onely in a swound if so he may somewhat relieve himself with remembring the days of the years of the right hand of the most High and by means of grace still left act being first acted somewhat towards his own recovery his sin indeed is in some respects more hainous then any sin of an unregenerate person but yet if not quite deprived of the spirit of life he may do that which a man who is void of the spirit cannot do This leads me to the second Direction II. Let him who hath lost his comforts examine how and which way he lost them The cure usually is half wrought when the cause of the trouble is found out and sometimes it is not
THE BELIEVERS DUTY Towards the SPIRIT And the SPIRITS OFFICE Towards BELIEVERS OR A Discourse concerning Believers not Grieving the Spirit AND The Spirits sealing up Believers to the day of Redemption Grounded on Ephes 4.30 Hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is in us Rom. 5.5 The Spirit it self beareth witness with our Spirit that we are the Children of God Rom. 8.16 LONDON Printed for SA GELLIBRAND at the Ball in S. Pauls Church-yard 1665. A PREFACE TO THE READER Christian Reader HOw needfull it is to have a right belief of the Holy Ghost appears not only from the Ancient Creeds which in how few words soever comprehended did alway make mention of Him but also from the wretched Socinians who blasphemously denying his not onely Deity but also Personality and in their Catechism roundly asserting the no-necessity of any operation of his in order to our assenting to the Gospel have been so filled with a Spirit of Delusion that they retain not truth enough to denominate them either Christians or Hereticks The text upon which the ensuing discourse is founded afforded very fair opportunity of proving the Personality and Deity of this blessed Spirit and of shewing that our natural corruption cannot be cured but by his inhabitation But contenting my self to wave or slightly to touch these matters I mainly insist on our being by this Spirit sealed to the day of redemption a phrase which as most others that are metaphorical hath had the hap to be many ways interpreted Bellarmine who seems to have read holy writ onely to serve a design applies it to that indeleble character supposed by the Romanists to be imprinted on all that are baptized but how vainly appeareth 1. By his own Cajetan who saith Sacramenta imprimere characterem ex scriptura non habetur sed ex Ecclesiae authoritate non multum antiquâ 2. By the miserable shift he is put to before he can find any imaginable foundation for this Chymaera in the words He is fain to read with the vulgar Latine in the day though against the Greek and Syriack yea and against sundry latine Manuscript copies as Estius tells us yet this very writer Ephes 1.13 when he thought it would be more for his turn forsaking the vulgar Latine which readeth in whom believing flyeth to the Greek after ye believed 3. Besides how absurd is it that any indeleble character or cognizance of Christianity should be imprinted on all in Baptisme when as we see that many after Baptisme do utterly and maliciously renounce Baptisme and all the Principles of Christianity Other Pontifician writers do refer the phrase not to the Sacrament of Baptisme but Confirmation So Estius so our Country-men the Rhemists who have this note on Ephes 1.13 Some refer this to the grace of Baptisme but to many learned it seemeth that the Apostle alludeth to the giving of the Holy Ghost in the Sacrament of Confirmation by signing the Baptized with the sign of the Cross and holy Chrisme But they are well told by the judicious Dr. Fulk That rhe learned men they speak of must needs be Masters of the new learning for the ancient learning had no such interpretation instancing in Chrysostome Ambrose Theodoret Augustine Primasius Hierome Oecumenius Theophylact who carry the text quite another way All Protestant Writers are not agreed what may be intended by this Sealing of the Spirit sure it is for our credit that we can allow our selves to differ one from another in expounding a place of Scripture I refer it not to the Holy Ghosts regenerating or renewing us but to his assuring us of the adoption of sons his creating in us a sense of Gods Paternal love towards us and of our filial love towards him in so doing I follow not onely sundry learned sons of our own Church but also Cornelius a Lapide whose comment on Ephes 1.13 being translated is this As by the impression of a Seal the Letters of Kings and publick tables are sealed that those which are authentick may be distinguished from doubtful those that are genuine from false and it may be certainly manifest that these are the Letters and Tables of the King So ye Christian Ephesians as it were The Epistle of Christ written not with ink but the Spirit of the living God not in tables of stone but in the fleshly tables of your heart are signed with the Holy Ghost as it were with a Seal that it may be manifested that ye are the not feigned but authentick Epistle of Christ that ye are truly the people and Church of the true and high God Having thus descanted on the text he frames against himself this objection If this be so then may Believers be certain that they are in the true faith and grace of God and for answer denieth the consequence because this Seal is not altogether and physically certain and evident to them for who certainly knows who dares swear that he is sealed with the Holy Ghost as with a seal but onely probable and morally as it were certain from signs and conjectures so in like manner it is not to them clear and certain that they are in the true faith and grace of God For the further clearing of this doubt He refers us to what he had said on Rom. 8.16 Consulting him on that place I find him to give this note That the testimony of the Spirit by which he witnesseth that we are the sons of God is not certain with certainty of Faith nor certain with infallible certainty as Catharinus and Cajetan would have it but onely with a conjectural certainty which certainty yet increaseth with Holiness so that Vega and Ruard and Pererius following them think that some men very holy without the special revelation of God from the signs and effects of the Holy Ghost which they find in themselves very frequent clear and efficacious have a certainty not indeed infallible so as they dare swear that they are in the grace of God but yet such and so great as excludes all fear of the contrary not onely from the affection and confidence but also from the understanding and perswasion so as such do as certainly know and believe that they are in the grace of God as we certainly know and believe that there is such a place as Constantinople or Alexandria Let the Papists read this and if they have not lost all ingenuity acknowledge that some eminent Writers of their own go as high or higher then we do For we do not say that we are certain with a certainty of faith that we are sanctified or pardoned or if any do so say it is onely a Philosophical mistake for they do not intend that it is to any one revealed by any vocal or written testimony that he is sanctified or pardoned but onely that seeing these Conclusions do arise from Premises the one whereof is Scripture though the other be known onely
by inward sense therefore the Conclusion may be of Faith so that they make such Conclusions to be of faith not immediately but onely by consequence and that on supposition That a Proposition certain from inward sense is stronger then a Proposition certain from Divine revelation which is not universally true Nor yet do we say that this testimony of the Spirit doth make us infallibly certain onely we say that it makes those who keep Consciences void of offence and are zealous of good works have such a certainty as is not mixed with any actual tormenting doubt or fear so as they can their hearts not accusing them nor having any ground to accuse them of presumption call God Father and Christ their elder Brother and the Spirit their Advocate Yet after all this they will not swear that they are the children of God or if they should they would thereby do an act sufficient to darken all the evidence they before had of their Adoption for no one hath power to require such an Oath nor can any controversie be ended by such an Oath which could not be ended without it otherwise we do swear in sundry matters in the which we have not a greater or so great an evidence as it is possible for a man to have of his Adoption And in all Churches there is either from the Parents or other Sureties required as oft as Children are baptized an abrenunciation of the World Flesh and Devil and when the baptized children come to be adult and receive Confirmation 't is required of them that they profess before the Bishops and all the Congregation present That they do renew the solemn Promise and Vow that was made in their name at Baptisme ratifying and confirming the same in their own persons and acknowledging themselves bound to believe and to do all those things which their Godfathers and Godmothers then undertook for them Vid. Engl. Liturgy of the last Edition Now if so be persons could not be satisfied that they are sincere in their resolutions we should by calling them to make such Vows but teach them to dissemble and play the hypocrites Object But do not some of our Divines speak of an immediate testimony of the Spirit Answ They do But it is to be hoped that they mean no more then that the soul is sometimes more then usually meet to receive the Seal of the Spirit more then ordinarily disposed to give in its witness with the witness of the Spirit of God i. e sometimes it hath so abased it self before God or done acts so apparently tending to Gods glory so manifestly contrary to flesh and blood that it cannot upon the least reflection but discern the well-pleasingness of such actions unto God and consequently take comfort in them If they intend more then this by their immediate testimony they must not blame others if they say they understand them not or that they fear they understand not themselves Should any one hear a voice saying to him Thy sins are forgiven yea should he not onely hear such a voice but also see some glorious creature uttering that sound this would be an extraordinary testimony but before a man either could or ought to receive it and take comfort from it he must first have some rational evidence that the apparition or voice is from God and not from Satan who both can and frequently hath appeared and spoken not as from himself but from God We have in Scripture an example of Zachary punished because he did not believe the words of Gods Angel Luk. 1.20 there being sufficient evidence that he was an Angel of God and nothing in the Message that should render it incredible But we have also an Example of a Prophet more severely punished for believing one that pretended a Message from God whose Message had every thing in it that might make it unlike to be from God 1 Kin. 13.18 22 23. Wherefore to every young Convert who not patient to wait for his Assurance in a way of self-reflection and communing with his own heart looks for any thing like a vocal testimony I may say as did Gregory to Gregoria Videat cui ad manus non sunt Gregorii Epistolae A Lapide in 8◠ad Rom. v. 16. who had written to him that she would not let him alone till he had obtained a revelation that her sins were pardoned Rem difficilem postulas inutilem A difficult thing because it is not like that God in these dayes should so manifest his love and unprofitable because I should have as much ado perhaps to distinguish that voice as to discern the sincerity of my own actions Consult History and it will be found that where one hath been mistaken that did search and try his heart and ways hundreds have been deluded by voices apparitions impressions These delusions have been most frequent among the Romanists the sense whereof made Luther not many years before crept out from among them to say Pactum feci cum Deo meo ne vel visiones vel somnia vel etiam angelos mihi mittat Com. on Gen. cap. 38. I have agreed with God that he send neither visions nor dreams nor Angels Object Do not very eminent Divines say that Faith is general or special and that general Faith is little worth without special Faith Answ They do so and a good and convenient interpretation may be given of that distinction yea is given by the learned Dr. Hammond as to all the objects of Faith But it may not be dissembled that some of great note have made the essence of Faith to lie in a particular perswasion that a mans sins are pardoned an errour purposely refuted in the ensuing Treatise and which I am glad to observe rejected now almost by all Divines Indeed it makes us justified before Faith and therefore tends manifestly to harden unconverted sinners in their unbelief and puts the maintainers of it upon most horrible shifts in expounding sundry places of Scripture I instance in one which I do in the following sheets make much use of Ephes 1.13 In whom after ye believed ye were sealed Who would hence conclude that Faith does at least in order of nature if not of time go before Sealing or Assurance How can any who placeth Faith in fiducial Assurance bring himself off But poorly For Piscator who is even by Arminius a Professor of different perswasion from him much commended for solidity and clearness Vid. Epist Ecclesiasticas will not yield that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should be rendred having believed but in the Present believing So the Vulgar Latines credentes which Estius is fain to excuse by Ampliation a kind of Licentia Logica must be the best translation Besides we know that God maketh use of the Ministry of men to work faith but if faith were an assent to this that John or Thomas is pardoned it will be hard to explain how any man who hath not the gift of discerning Spirits