I would have all such remember 1. That God is a Spirit and will be worshipped in Spirit and in Truth and such Worshippers doth he seek 2. That God will have mercy and not sacrifice and that the Vitals of Religion are in a Consumption when the heat of Zeal is drawn too much to the out-side And that placing most in externals is the great character of Hypocrisie and is that Pharisaical Religion to which the doctrine and practice of the Lord Jesus was most opposite as any that will read the Gospel may soon see 3. That God hath made our bodies to be his Servants and Instruments of Righteousness Rom. 6. 13. and helpful and serviceable to our souls in Well-doing And therefore it is Disobedience it is Injustice it is Cruelty to disable them and causlesly to vex and torment them much more to destroy them You may see by sick men by Melancholy men by Mad men and Children how unfit that soul is to know or Love or serve God that hath not a fit body to work in by The Serpent knows this well enough If he can but get you by excessive fastings watchings labours studies or other austerities especially sadness and perplexities of mind to have a sick body a crazed brain or a short life you will be able to do him but little hurt and God but little service besides the pleasure that he takes in your own Vexation Nay he will hope to make a further advantage of your weakness and to keep many a soul in the snares of sensuality by telling them of your miseries and saying to them Dost thou not see in such a man or woman what it is to be so holy and precise They will all run mad at last If once thou grow so strict and deny thy self thy Pleasures and take this precise course thou wilt but make thy life a misery and never have a merry day again Such examples as yours the Devil will make use of that he may terrifie poor souls from Godliness and represent the word and ways of Christ to them in an odious and unpleasing and discouraging shape Doubtless that God who himself is so Merciful to your Body as well as to your Soul would have you to be so too He that provideth so plentifully for its refreshment would not have you refuse his provision He that saith the Righteous man is merciful to his beast no doubt would not have him to be unmerciful to his own body You are commanded to Love your Neighbour but as your self And therefore by cruelty and unmerciful dealing with your Own body you will go about to Justifie the like dealing with others You durst not deny to feed to cloath to comfort and refresh the poor lest Christ should say You did it not to me And how should you dare to deny the same to your self How will you answer God for the neglect of all that service which you should have done him and might if you had not disabled your bodies and minds He requireth that you Delight your self in him And how can you do that when you habituate both mind and body to a sad dejected mournful garb The service that God requires is To serve him with chearfulness in the abundance that we possess Deut. 28.47 If you think that I here contradict what I said in the former Directions for pinching the flesh and denying its desires you are mistaken I onely shew you the danger of the contrary extreme Gods way lieth between both The truth is if you would be resolved how far you may please or displease the flesh The flesh being ordained to be our servant and Gods servant must be used as a servant You will give your servant food and raiment and wholsom lodging and good usage or else you are unjust and he will be unfit to do your work But so far as he would Master you or disobey you you will correct him or keep him under You will feed your horse or else he will not carry you But if he grow unruly you must tame him It is a delusory formality of Papists to tye all the Countries to one time and measure of fasting as Lent Fridays c. when mens states are so various that many though not quite sick have more need of a restoring diet and those that need fasting need it not all at once nor in one measure but at the time and in the measure as the taming of their flesh requireth it As 〈◊〉 Physician should proclaim that all his Patients should take Physick such 40 days every year whether their disease be plethorick or consuming from fulness or from abstinence and whether the disease take him at that time of the year or another And remember that you must not under pretences of saving the body disable it to serve God You will not lay any such correction on your Child or Servant as shall disable them from their work but such as shall excite them to it And understand that all your Afflicting your body must be but either Preventive as keeping the fire from the thatch or Medicinal and Corrective and not strictly Vindictive for that belongs to your Judge Though in a subordination to the other ends the smart or suffering for its fault is one end and so it is truly Penal or Vindictive as all Chastisement is And so Paul saith Behold what Revenge c. 2 Cor. 7.11 But not as meer Judicial Revenge is Remember therefore though you must so far tame your Body as to bring it into subjection that you perish not by pampering it yet not so far as to bring it to weakness and sickness and unfitness for its duty Nor yet must you dare to conceit that you please God or satisfie him for your sin by such a wronging and hurting your own body Such Popish Religiousness shews that men have very low and carnal conceits of God Was it not a base wickedness in them that offered their Children in sacrifice to think that God would be pleased with such cruelty Yea were it not to have directed us to Christ he would not have accepted of the blood of buls and goats It is not sacrifice that he desires He never was blood-thirsty nor took any pleasure in the Creatures suffering How can you think then that he will take pleasure in your consuming and destroying your own bodies It is as unreasonable as to imagine that he delights to have men cut their own throats or hang themselves for pining and consuming ones self is self-murther as well as that Yet I know no man should draw back from a painful or hazardous work when God cals him to it for fear of destroying the flesh But do not make work or suffering for your selves God will lay as much Affliction on you as you need and be thankful if he will enable you to bear that but you have no need to adde more If your selves make the suffering how can you with any encouragement beg strength of God to
of age of ignorance or of knowledge and those which proceed from your Legal unworthiness have all a present Remedy in the fullness and sufficiency of Christs satisfaction even for all the world so that no sin except the excepted sin is so great but it is fully satisfied for and though you are unworthy yet Christ is worthy and he came into the world to save only the unworthy in the strict and Legal sense 4. All your doubts and fears that arise from an apprehension of Gods unwillingness to shew you Mercy and to give you Christ and Life in him arise from the misapprehension of Christs unwillingness to be yours or at least from the uncertainty of his willingness these have all a sufficient Remedy in the general extent and tenour of the New Covenant Can you doubt whether God be willing to give you Christ and Life when he hath given them already even by a Deed of Guift under his hand and by a Law of Grace 1 Joh. 5.10 11 12. Object But yet all are not Pardoned nor possessed of Christ and so saved Answ I told you that is because they will not so that I pray you mark it well God hath in these four Means before mentioned given even to the Graceless so much Ground of Comfort that nothing but their unwillingness to have Christ is left to be their terror For though sin be not Actually Remitted to them yet is it Conditionally Remitted viz. if they will but accept of Christ offered them Will you remember this when your doubts are greatest and you conclude that certainly Christs is not yours because you have no true Grace Suppose it be true Yet still know that Christ may be yours if you will and when you will This Comfort you may have when you can finde no Evidences of true Grace in your self So much for that Direction DIRECTION VIII 8. The next thing that you have to do for building up a stable Comfort and setling your Conscience in a solid Peace is this Be sure to get and keep a right Understanding of the Nature of Saving Faith AS you must have right thoughts of the Covenant of Grace of which before the want whereof doth puzzle and confound very many Christians so you must be sure to have right thoughts of the Condition of the Covenant For indeed that Grace which causeth you to perform this Condition is your first special saving Grace which you may take as a certain evidence of your Justification And this Condition is the very link which conjoyneth all the General foregoing Grace to all the rest of the following special Grace The Scripture is so full and plain in Assuring pardon and salvation to all true Believers that if you can but be sure that you are a Believer you need not make any doubt of your interest in Christ and your salvation Seeing therefore that all the question will be Whether you have true Faith Whether you do perform the Condition of the new Covenant For all other doubts God hath given you sufficient ground to resolve as is said how much then doth it concern you to have a right understanding of the Nature of this Faith Which that you may have let me tell you briefly what it is Mans soul hath two faculties Understanding and Will Accordingly the Objects of mans soul all Beings which it is to Receive have two Modifications Truth and Goodness as those to be Avoided are Evil. Accordingly God 's Word or Gospel hath two parts the Revelation of Truth and the Offer and Promise of some Good This offered Good is principally and immediatly Christ himself to be joyned to us by Covenant as our head and husband The secondary consequential Good is Pardon Justification Reconciliation Adoption further Sanctification and Glorification which are all offered with Christ By this you may see what saving Faith is It is first a Believing that the Gospel is True and then an Accepting of Christ therein offered to us with his benefits or a consenting that he be ours and we be his which is nothing but a true willingness to have an offered Christ Remember this well that you may make use of it when you are in doubt of the truth of your Faith Thousands of poor souls have been in the dark and unable to see themselves to be Believers meerly for want of knowing what saving Faith is And it is a truth that cannot be hid that Divines who should have taught them better have been the great cause of their errour not well and cleerly understanding this themselves It is a shamefull confession but the world knoweth it already The Papists place almost all in the meer Assent of the Understanding Our great Reformers made it to be either an Assurance of the pardon of our own sins or a strong perswasion of their pardon excluding doubting or the moderatest a perswasion of our particular pardon though mixt with some doubting The Antinomians strike in with them and say the same Hence even the greatest of our Divines Chamier Polanus Twisse c. conclude that Justification and Remission go before faith a desperate errour because the Act doth alway suppose its object For they thought that Remission already past was the object of Justifying Faith supposing faith to be nothing else but a Belief that we are pardoned Yea ordinarily it hath been taught in the writings of our greatest refuters of the Papists That this Belief is properly a Divine faith or the Belief of a Divine Testimony as is the Believing of any Proposition written in the Scriture a foul error which I have confuted in my book of Rest Part. 3. Chap. 7. Most of late have come neerer the truth and affirmed Justifying Faith to consist in Affiance or Recumbency or Resting on Christ for salvation No doubt this is one Act of Justifying faith but not that which a poor troubled soul should first search after and try it self by except by Affiance any should mean as Amesius doth Election of Christ and then it is the same act which I am asserting but very unfitly exprest For 1. Affiance is not the Principal act nor that wherein the very life of Justifying faith doth consist but only an imperate following act and an effect of the vital act which is Consent or Willing or Accepting Christ offered for it lyeth mainly in that which we call the sensitive part or the Passions of the soul 2. It is therefore lesse constant and so unfitter to try by For many a poor soul that knowes it self unfeignedly willing to have Christ yet feeleth not a Resting on him or Trusting in him and therefore crys out O I cannot believe and think they have no Faith For Recumbency Affiance or Resting on Christ implieth that easing of themselves or casting off their fears or doubts or cares which true believers do not alwayes finde Many a poor soul complains O I cannot rest on Christ I cannot trust him who yet would have him to be their Lord and
places more though we must have no thoughts of a Legal Righteousness according to the Law of Works or Ceremonies in our selves They may as well say that a woman doth forsake her husband because she comforteth her self in this that she hath not forsaken him or been false and unchast thence gathering that he will not give her a bill of Divorce Or that a servant forsakes his Master or a subject his Prince or a Parent is forsaken by his childe because they comfort themselves in their Obedience and Loyalty gathering thence that they are not flat Rebels and shall not be used as Rebels Or that any that enter Covenant with Superiors do forsake them because they comfort themselves in their keeping Covenant as a sign that the Covenant shall be kept with them All these are as wise collections as to gather that a man forsakes Christ and his Righteousness and setteth up his own in stead of it because he looks at his not forsaking refusing and vilifying of Christ his Love and faithfull obedience to Christ as comfortable signes that Christ will not forsake and reject him Do these men think that a Rebell may have the love of his Prince and as much comfort from him as a Loyal subject or a whorish woman have as much love and comfort from her husband as a faithfull Wife or a stubborn rebellious son or servant have as much love and comfort from their Father or Master as the dutifull If there be so near a Relation as hitherto we have supposed between a Soveraign and subjection to him and a Husband and Marriage-faithfulness to him and a Master and service to him and a Father and loving obedience to him it is strange that men should suppose such a strange opposition as these men do Certainly God doth not so when he saith Mal. 1.6 If I be a Father where is mine honour and if I be a Master where is my fear And Isa 1.3 4. Hear O heavens and give ear O earth for the Lord hath spoken I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me The Ox knoweth his owner and the Asse his Masters crib but Israel doth not know my people doth not consider Ah sinfull Nation a people laden with iniquity a seed of evil doers children that are corrupters they have forsaken the Lord they have provoked the holy one of Israel to anger they are gone away backward And Jer. 3.19 Thou shalt call me my Father and shalt not depart away from me And 2 Tim. 2.19 The Lord knoweth who are his and let him that nameth the Name of Christ depart from iniquity And Psal 66.18 If I delight in iniquity or regard it God will not hear my prayers saith David himself Doubtless Paul did not forsake Christs Righteousness by confidence in his own when he saith This is our rejoycing the Testimony of our Conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity we have had our conversation among you 2 Cor. 1.12 with many the like which I before mentioned Nor doth the Lord Jesus at the day of Judgement turn men off from his Righteousness when he saith Well done good and faithfull servant because thou hast been faithfull in a very little I will make thee ruler over much Luke 19.17 Mat. 25.23 and cals them thereupon Righteous saying And the righteous shall go into life everlasting Mat. 25. last It remains now that I further acquaint you what use you should make of this observation concerning the dependance of Assurance upon actual obedience And 1. I advise you if your soul remain in doubts and troubles and you cannot enjoy God in any way of peace and comfort nor see any clear evidence of the sincerity of your faith take a serious view of your obedience and faithfully survey your heart and life and your daily carriage to God in both See whether there be nothing that provokes God to an unusual Jealousie If there be it is either the increase of some carnal interest in your heart or else the wilfull or negligent falling into some actual sinne of commission or omission In the making of this search you have need to be exceeding cautelous for if I have any acquaintance with the mystery of this business your peace or trouble comfort or discomfort will mainly depend on this And your care must lie in this point that you diligently avoid these two extreams First That you do not deal negligently and unfaithfully with your own soul as either unwilling to know the truth or unwilling to be at that labour which you must needs be at before you can know it Secondly That you do not either condemn your self when your conscience doth acquit you or vex your soul with needless scruples or make unavoidable or ordinary infirmities to seem such wilfull hainous sinnes as should quite break your setled peace O how narrow is the path between these two mistaken roads and how hard a thing and how rare is it to finde it and to keep in it For your self and all tender conscienc'd Christians that are heartily willing to be Ruled by Christ I would perswade you equally to beware of both these because some souls are as inclinable to the later extream as to the former during their troubles But for the most Christians in the world I would have them first and principally avoid the former and that with farre greater diligence then the later For 1. Naturally all mens hearts are farre proner to deal too remisly yea unfaithfully with themselves in searching after their sins then too scrupulously and tenderly The best men have so much pride and carnal self-love that it will strongly incline them to excuse or mince or hide their sinnes and to think farre lightlier and more favourably of it then they should do because it is theirs How was the case altered with Judah towards Thamar when he once saw it was his own act How was Davids zeal for Justice allaied as soon as he heard Thou art the man This is the most common cause why God is fain to hold our eyes on our transgressions by force because we are so loth to do it more voluntarily and why he openeth our sinne in such crimson and scarlet colours to us because we are so apt either to look on them as nothing or to shut our eyes and over-look them and why God doth hold us so long on the rack because we would still ease our selves by uningenuous excuses and extenuations and why God doth break the skin so oft and keep open our wounds because we are still healing them by such carnal shifts This proud sin-excusing distemper needs no other proof or discovery then our great tenderness and backwardness in submitting to reproofs How long do we excuse sinne and defend our pretended innocency as long we can finde a word to say for it Doth not daily experience of this sad distemper even in most of the godly discover fully to us that most men yea naturally all are farre
but use these three Distinctions 1. Between the Acts of the meer Rational faculties Understanding and Will called Elicite Acts and the Acts of the Inferiour faculties of soul and body called Imperate Acts. 2. Between the Acts that are About the End immediatly and those that are About the Means 3. Between the Intension of an Act and the Objective-Extension and Comparison of Object with Object And so I say 1. The End that is God and Salvation cannot be too fully Known or too much Loved with a pure Rational Love of Complacency nor too much sought by the Acts of the soul as purely Rational For the End being loved and sought for it self and being of Infinite Goodness must be loved and sought without Measure or Limitation it being Impossible here to exceed Prop. 2. The Means while they are not mis-apprehended but taken as Means and Materially well understood cannot be too clearly discerned nor too Rightly chosen nor too Resolutely prosecuted Prop. 3. It is too possible to mis-apprehend the Means and to place them instead of the End and so to Over-love them Prop. 4. The Nature of all the Means consisteth in a Middle or Mean betwixt two Extreams materially both which Extreams are sin so that it is possible to over-do about all the Means as to the Matter of them and the Extent of our acts Though we cannot Love God too much yet it is possible to Preach Hear Pray Read Meditate Confer of Good too much For one Duty may shut out another and a greater may be neglected by our over-doing in a lesser which was the Pharisees sin in Sabbath-Resting 5. If we be never so right in the extension of our Acts yet we may go too far in the Intension of the Imperate Acts or Passions of the soul and that both on the Means and End Though the pure Acts of Knowing or Willing cannot be too great towards God and Salvation yet the Passions and Acts commonly called Sensitive may A man may Think on God not onely too much as to exclude other necessary thoughts but too Intensly and Love and Desire too Passionately For there is a Degree of Thinking or Meditating and of Passionate Love and Desire which the brain cannot bear but it will cause Madness and quite overthrow the use of Reason by overstretching the organs or by the extreme turbulency of the agitated spirits Yet I never knew the man nor ever shall do I think that was ever guilty of one of these excesses that is of Loving or Desiring God so Passionately as to distract him But I have often known weak-headed people that be not able to order their thoughts and many Melancholy People Guilty of the other that is of thinking too much and too seriously and intensly on Good and Holy things whereby they have overthrown their Reason and been distracted And here I would give all such weak-headed Melancholy persons this warning That whereas in my Book of Rest I so much press a constant course of Heavenly Meditation I do intend it onely for sound heads and not for the Melancholy that have weak heads and are unable to bear it That may be their sin which to others is a very great duty While they think to do that which they cannot do they will but disable themselves for that which they can do I would therefore advise those Melancholy persons whose minds are so troubled and heads weakned that they are in danger of overthrowing their Understandings which usually begins in multitudes of scruples and restlesness of mind and continual fears and blasphemous temptations where it begins with these distraction is at hand if not prevented that they forbear Meditation as being no duty to them though it be to others and instead of it be the more in those duties which they are fit for especially Conference with Judicious Christians and Chearful and Thankful acknowledgement of Gods Mercies And thus have I shewed you how far we may possibly exceed in Gods service Let me now a little apply it It hath ever been the Devils Policy to begin in perswading men to Worldlyness Flesh-pleasing Security and Presumption and utter Neglect of God and their souls or at least preferring their bodies and worldly things and by this means he destroyeth the world But where this will not take but God awaketh men effectually and casteth out the sleepy Devil usually he fils mens heads with needless scruples and next setteth them on a Religion not commanded and would make poor souls believe they do Nothing if they do not more then God hath commanded them When the Devil hath no other way left to destroy Religion and Godliness he will pretend to be Religious and Godly himself and then he is always over-religious and over-godly in his Materials All over-doing in Gods work is undoing And who ever you meet with that would Over-do suspect him to be either a subtil destroying enemy or one deluded by the destroyer O what a Tragedy could I here shew you of the Devils acting and what a Mysterie in the Hellish Art of Deceiving could I open to you And shall I keep the Devils counsel No. O that God would open the eyes of his poor desolate Churches at lâ—st to see it The Lord Jesus in Wisdom and tender Mercy establisheth a Law of Grace and Rule of Life Pure and Perfect but simple and plain laying the Condition of mans salvation more in the Honesty of the Believing Heart then in the strength of Wit and subtilty of a Knowing Head He comprized the Truths which were of Necessity to salvation in a Narrow room So that the Christian Faith was a matter of great plainness and simplicity As long as Christians were such and held to this the Gospel rode in Triumph through the world and an Omnipotency of the Spirit accompanied it bearing down all before it Princes and Scepters stoopt subtil Philosophy was non-plust and all useful Sciences came down and acknowledged themselves Servants and took their places and were well contented to attend the pleasure of Christ As Mr. Herbert saith in his Church Militant Religion thence fled into Greece where Arts Gave her the highest place in all mens hearts Learning was pos'd Philosophy was set Sophisters taken in a Fishers Net Plato and Aristotle were at a loss And wheel'd about again to spell Christs Cross Prayers chas't Syllogisms into their den And Ergo was transform'd into Amen The Serpent envying this Happiness of the Church hath no way to undo us but by drawing us from our Christian simplicity By the occasion of Hereticks quarrels and errours the Serpent steps in and will needs be a spirit of Zeal in the Church and he will so Over-do against Hereticks that he perswades them they must enlarge their Creed and adde this Clause against one and that against another and all was but for the perfecting and preserving of the Christian Faith And so he brings it to be a Matter of so much Wit to be a Christian as Erasmus
your former state without observance of your present frame of heart and life lest you deceive your self or grow secure O that you could well observe this Direction How much would it help you to escape extreams and Conduce to the setling of a well-grounded Peace and at once to the well ordering of your whole Conversation DIRECTION XXVIII Be very Careful that you create not perplexities and terrors to your own soul by rash mis-interpretations of any Passages either of Scripture of Gods Providence or of the Sermons or private Speeches of Ministers But Resolve with Patience yea with Gladness to suffer Preachers to deal with their Congregations in the most searching serious and awakening manner lest your weakness should be a wrong to the whole Assembly and possibly the undoing of many a sensual drowsy or obstinate soul who will not be convinced and awaked by a Comforting way of Preaching or by any smoother or gentler means HEre are three dangerous enemies to your Peace which for brevity I warn you of together 1. Rash Mis-interpretations and misapplications of Scripture Some weak-headed Troubled Christians can scarce read a Chapter or hear one read but they 'l find something which they think doth Condemn them If they read of Gods Wrath and Judgement they think it is meant against them If they read Our God is a Consuming Fire they think presently it's themselves that must be the â—ewel Whereas Justice and Mercy have each their proper objects The burningst Fire will not waste the Gold nor is Water the Fewel of it But combustible matter it will presently consume An humble soul that lies prostrate at Christs feet confessing its unworthiness and bewailing its sinfulness this is not the object of Revenging Justice Such a soul bringing Christs Merits and pleading them with God is so far from being the Fewel of this Consuming â—ire that he bringeth that water which will undoubtedly quench it Yet this Scripture-expression of our God may subdue carnal sâ—curity even in the best but not dismay them or â—â—scourage them in their hopes Another 〈◊〉 in Psal 5. I will set thy sins in order 〈…〉 and he thinks certainly God will dâ—â—l thus by him Not considering that God chargeth onely their sins upon them that â—haâ—ge them not by true Repentance on themselves and Accept not of Christ who hath Discharged them by his blood It is the excusers and mincers and defenders of sin that love not those that Reprove them and that will not avoyd them nor the occasions of them that would not be Reformed and will not be perswaded in whose souls Iniquity hath Dominion and that Delight in it it is these on whom God Chargeth their sin For this is the Condemnation that Light is come into the world and men Love Darkness rather then Light and come not to the Light lest their deeds should be Reproved Joh. 3.20 21. But for the soul that trembleth at Gods Word and Comes home to God with shame and sorrow Resolving to return no more to wickedness God is so far from Charging his sins upon him that he never mentioneth them as I told you is evident in the Case of the Prodigal He makes not a poor sinners burthen more heavy by hitting him in the teeth with his sins but makes it the office of his Son to ease him by disburthening him Many more Texts might be named and perhaps it would not be lost labour which Troubled Souls do mis-understand and misapply but it would make this Writing tedious which is already swell'd so far beyond my first intention 2. The second Enemy of your Peace here mentioned is Mis-understanding and misapplying Passages of Providence Nothing more common with Troubled souls then upon every new Cross and Affliction that befals them presently to think God takes them for Hypocrites and to question their sincerity As if David and Iob had not left them a full warning against this Temptation Do you lose your Goods so did Iob. Do you lose your Children so did Iob and that in no very Comfortable way Do you lose your Health so did Iob. What if your godly friends should come about you in this Case and bend all their wits and speeches to perswade you that you are but an Hypocrite as Iobs friends did by him Would not this put you harder to it Yet could Iob resolve I will not let go mine Integrity till I dye I know Gods Chastisements are all Paternal Punishments and that Christians should search and try their hearts and ways at such times but not conclude that they are Graceless ever the more for being Afflicted seeing God chasteneth every son whom he receiveth Heb. 12.6 7. And in searching after sin it self in your Afflictions be sure that you make the Word and not your sufferings the Rule to discover how far you have sinned and let Afflictions onely quicken you to try by the Word How many a Soul have I known that by mis-interpreting Providences have in a blind Jealousy been termed quite from Truth and Duty supposing it had been errour and sin and all because of their Afflictions As a foolish man in his sickness accuseth the last meat that he ate before he fell sick though it might be the wholsomest that ever he ate and the disease may have many Causes which he is Ignorant of One man being sick a busy seducing Papist comes to him for it is their use to take such opportunities and tels him It is Gods hand upon you for forsaking or straying from the Roman Catholick Church and God hath sent this Affliction to bring you home all your Ancestors lived and dyed in this Church and so must you if ever you will be saved The poor Jealous affrighted sinner hearing this and through his Ignorance being unable to answer him thinks it is even true and presently turns Papist In the same manner do most other Sects How many have the Antinâ—mians and Anabaptists thus seduced finding a poor silly woman for it 's most common with them to be under sad doubts and distress of soul one tels her It is Gods hand on you to convince you of errour and to bring you to submit to the Ordinance of Baptism and upon this many have been Re-baptized and put their foot into that snare which I have yet seen few escape and draw back from Another comes and tels the troubled soul It is Legal Preaching and looking at something in your self for Peace and Comfort which hath brought you into this distress As long as you follow these Legal Preachers and read their books and look at any thing in your self and seek Assurance from Marks within you it will never be better with you These Preachers understand not the nature of free Grace nor ever tasted it themselves and therefore they cannot preach it but despise it You must know that Grace is so free that the Covenant hath no Condition You must Believe and not look after the Marks and Believing is but to be perswaded
sinful Condition and some motions and strivings at your heart to get out of it Certainly though you should be one that hath yet no Grace to salvation yet these continued offers of Grace and strivings of the Spirit of Christ with your heart do shew that God hath not quite forsaken you and that your day of Grace and Visitation is not past DOUBT XV. BVt I have sinned since my Profession and that even against my Knowledge and Conscience I have had Temptations to sin and I have considered of the Evil and Danger and yet in the very soberest deliberations I have Resolved to sin And how can such a one have any true Grace or be saved ANSWER 1. IF you had not true Grace God is still offering it and ready to work it 2. Where do you finde in Scripture that none who have true Grace do sin knowingly or Deliberately Perhaps you will say in Heb. 10.24 If we sin willfully after the knowledge of the Truth there Remaineth no more sacrifice for sin but a fearful looking for of Judgement and fire which shall devour the adversaries Ans But you must know that it is not every wilful sin which is there mentioned but as even now I told you Vnbelief is peculiarly called Sin in the New Testament And the true meaning of the Text is If we utterly renounce Christ by Infidelity as not being the true Messiah after we have known his Truth then c. Indeed none sin more against knowledge then the Godly when they do sin For they know more for the most part then others do And Passion and Sensuality the remnant of it which yet remaineth will be working strongly in your very Deliberations against sin and either perverting the Judgement to doubt whether it be a sin or whether there be any such danger in it or whether it be not a very little sin Or else blinding it that it cannot see the Arguments against the sin in their full vigor Or at least prepossessing the Heart and Delight and so hindring our Reasons against sin from going down to the Heart and working on the Will and so from Commanding the Actions of the Body This may befal a godly man And moreover God may withdraw his Grace as he did from Peter and David in their sin and then our Considerations will work but faintly and sensuality and sinful Passion will work effectually It is scarce Possible I think that such a man as David could be so long about so horrid a sin and after contrive the murther of Vriah and all this without deliberation or any reasonings in himself to the contrary 3. The truth is though this be to good cause for any Repenting sinner to doubt of Salvation yet it is a very grievous aggravation of sin to commit it against Knowledge and Conscience and upon consideration And therefore I advise all that Love their Peace or Salvation to take heed of it For as they will finde that no sin doth deepâ—ier wound the Conscience and plunge the sinner into fearful perplexities which oft times hang on him very long so the oftner such Zeal and Passion But let me tell you that you may grow in these and not grow in the body of your Graces Doubtless Satan himself may do much to kindle your Zeal if he do but see it voyd of sound Knowledge as he did in Iames and Iohn when they would have called for Fire from Heaven but knew not what spirit they were of For the doleful Case of Christs Churches in this age hath put quite beyond dispute that none do the Devils work more effectually nor oppose the Kingdom of Christ more desperately then they that have the hottest Zeal with the weakest Judgements And as Fire is most excellent and necessary in the Chimney but in the thatch it is worse then the vilest dung so is Zeal most excellent when guided by sound Judgement but more destructive then prophane sensuality when it is let loose and misguided On the other side you may decay much in feeling and fervour of Affections and yet Grow in Grace if you do but grow in the Understanding and the Will And indeed this is the Common Growth which Christians have in their Age Examine therefore whether you have this or no. Do you not understand the things of the Spirit better then you formerly did Do you not value God Christ Glory and Grace at higher rates then formerly Are you not more fully Resolved to stick to Christ to the death then formerly you have been I do not think but it would be a harder work for Satan to draw you from Christ to the flesh then heretofore When the tree hath done growing in visible greatness it groweth in rootedness The fruit grows first in bulk and quantity and then in mellow sweetness Are not you less Censorious and more Peaceable then heretofore I tell you that is a more noble growth then a great deal of austere and bitter youthful censorious dividing Zeal of many will prove Mark most aged experienced Christians that walk uprightly and you will find that they quite outstrip the younger 1. In experience knowledge prudence and foundness of Judgement 2. In well-setled Resolutions for Christ his Truth and Cause 3. In a Love of Peace especially in the Church and a hatred of dissentions perverse contendings and divisions If you can shew this growth say not that you do not grow 3. But suppose you do not grow should you therefore deny the sincerity of your Grace I would not perswade any soul that they grow when they do not But if you do not be humbled for it and endeavour it for the future Make it your desire and daily business and spare not Lye not still complaining but rouse up your soul and see what 's amiss and set upon neglected duties and remove those Corruptions that hinder your Growth Converse with Growing Christians and under quickening means Endeavour the Good of other mens souls as well as your own and then you 'l find that growth which will silence this Doubt and do much more for you then that DOUBT XVII I Am troubled with such Blaspemous thoughts and Temptations to Vnbelief even against God and Christ and Scripture and the Life to come that I doubt I have no faith ANSWER TO be Tempted is no sign of Gracelesness but to yield to the Temptation nor every yielding neither but to be overcome of the Temptation Most Melancholy people especially that have any knowledge in Religion are frequently haunted with Blasphemous Temptations I have oft wondred that the Devil should have such a power and advantage in the predominancy of that distemper Scarce one person of ten who ever was with me in deep Melancholy either for the Cure of body or mind but hath been haunted with these Blasphemous thoughts and that so impetuously and violently set on and followed that it might appear to be from the Devil yea even many that never seemed Godly or to mind any such
much by over-honouring them as ever he did by persecuting and despising them And now in England when this plot is descryed and we had taken down that superâ—â—uous honour as Antichristian what doth the Devil but set in again on the other side and none is so Zealous a Reformer as he He cryes down all as Antichristian which he desireth should fall Their Tythes and Maintenance are Antichristian and oppressive O Pious Merciful Devil down with them These Church-lands were given by Papists to Popish uses to maintain Bishops and Deans and Chapters down with them These Colledge-lands these Cathedrals nay these Church-houses or Temples for so I le call them whether the Devil will or no all come from Idolaters and are abused to Idolatry down with them Nay think you but he hath taken the boldness to cry out These Priests these Ministers are all Antichristian Seducers Needless Enviers of the spirit of Prophesy and of the Gifts of their Brethren Monopolizers of Preaching down with them too So that though he yet have not what he would have the old Serpent hath done more as a Reformer by over-doing then he did in many a year as a Deformer or hinderer of Reformation Yet if he do but see that there is a Soveraign Power that can do him a Mischief he is ready to tell them They must be Merciful and not deal Cruelly with sinners Nay it belongs not to them to reform or to Judge who are Hereticks and who not or to restrain false doctrine or Church-disturbers Christ is sufficient for this himself How oâ—t hath the Devil preached thus to tye the hands of those that might wound him Would you see any further how he hath play'd this successful game of Over-doing Why he hath done as much by it in Worship and Discipline as almost in any thing When he cannot have Discipline neglected he is an over-zealous spirit in the breasts of the Clergy and he perswades them to appoint men Penance and Pilgrimages and to put the necks of Princes under their feet But if this Tyrannie must be abated he cryes down all Discipline and tels them it is all but Tyrannie and humane Inventions And this confessing sin to Ministers for Relief of Conscience and this open Confessing in the Congregation for a due Manifestation of Repentance and satisfaction to the Church that they may hold Communion with them it is all but Popery and Priestly Domineering And in matter of Worship worst of all When he could not perswade the world to persecute Christ and to refuse him and his Worship the Serpent will be the most zealous Worshipper and saith as Herod and with the same mind Come and tell me that I may worship him He perswades men to Do and Over-do He sets them on laying out their Revenues in sumptuous Fabricks in fighting to be Masters of the Holy Land and Sepulcher of Christ on going Pilgrimages Worshipping Saints Angels Shrines Reliques Adoring the very bread of the Sacrament as God excessive fastings choyce of meats Numbred Prayers on beads Repetitions of words so many Ave Maries Pater Nosters the name Jesus so oft Repeated in a breath so many Holy-days to Saints Canonical hours even at midnight to pray and that in Latine for greater reverence Crossings holy garments variety of prescribed gestures kneeling and worshipping before Images sacrificing Christ again to his Father in the Mass forswearing Marriage living retiredly as separate from the world multitudes of new prescribed Rules and orders of life vowing poverty begging without need creeping to the Cross Holy water and Holy bread carrying Palms kneeling at Altars bearing Candles Ashes In Baptism Crossing Conjuring out the Devil salting spittle oyl taking Pardons Indulgencies and Dispensations of the Pope praying for the Dead perambulations serving God to Merit Heaven or to ease souls in Purgatory doing Works of supererogation with multitudes the like All these hath the Devil added to Gods Worship so zealous a Worshipper of Christ is he when he takes that way Read Mr. Herberts Church Militant of Rome pag. 188 189 190. I could trace this Deceiver yet further and tell you wherein when he could not hinder Reformation in Luthers days he would needs over-do in Reforming But O how sad an example of it have we before our eyes in England Never people on earth more hot upon Reforming Never any deeper engaged for it The Devil could not hinder it by fire and sword when he sees that he will needs turn Reformer as I said before and he gets the Word and cryes down Antichrist and cryes up Reformation till he hath done what we see He hath made a Babel of our work by confounding our languages For though he will be for Reformation too yet his name is Legion he is an Enemy to the one God one Mediator and Head one Faith and one Baptism one heart and lip and one way Unity is the chief butt that he shoots at Is Baptism to be Reformed Christ is so moderate a Reformer that he onely bids Down with the Symbolical Mystical Rite of mans vain addition But the Serpent is a more Zealous Reformer He saith Out with express Covenanting Out with Children They are a corruption of the Ordinance and to others he says Out with Baptism it self We might follow him thus through other Ordinances Indeed he so Overdoes in his Reforming that he would not leave us a Gospel a Ministry a Magistraâ—y to be for Christ an Ordinance no nor a Christ though yet he would seem to own a God and the light of Nature All these with him are Antichristian By this time I hope you see that this way of Over-doing hath another Author then many zealous people do imagine and that it is the Devils common successful trade so that his Agents in State-Assemblies are taught his Policy When you have no other way of un-doing let it be by over-doing And the same way he takes with the souls of particular persons If he see them troubled for sin and he cannot keep them from the knowledge of Christ and free Grace he puts the name of free Grace and Gospel preaching upon Antinomian and Libertine errours which subvert the very Gospel and free Grace it self If he see men convinc't of this and that it is neither common nor Religious Libertinism and sensuality that will bring men to Heaven then he will labour to make Papists of them and to set them on a task of external formalities or macerating their bodies with hurtful fastings watchings and cold as if self-murther were the highest pitch of Religion and God had a pleasure to see his people Torment themselves I confess it is very few that ever I knew to have erred far in Austere usage of their bodies But some I have and especially poor Melancholy Christians that are more easily drawn to deal rigorously with their flesh then others be And such Writings as lately have been published by some English Popish Formalists I have known draw men into this snare