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
draw back Christ saith his soul shall have no pleasure in him Even those that have endured the great fight of Affliction being reproached and made a gazing-stock and that have taken joyfully the spoiling of their goods in assurance of a better and enduring substance have yet need to be warned that they cast not away their confidence and draw not back to perdition and lose not the Reward for want of Patience and Perseverance Heb. 10.22 to the end That you may escape this danger and be happy for ever take this advice 1. Look carefully to the sincerity of your hearts in their Covenant-closure with Christ See that you take him with the happiness he hath promised for your All. Take heed of looking after another felicity 〈◊〉 cherishing other Hopes or esteeming too highly any thing below Be jealous and very jealous lest your hearts should close deceitfully with Christ maintaining any secret Reserve for your bodily safety either resolving not to follow him or not resolving to follow him through the most desolate distressed condition that he shall lead you in Count what it may cost you to get the Crown study well his precepts of Mortification and Self-denyal There is no true hopes of the Glory to come if you cannot cast overboard all worldly hopes when the storm is such that you must hazard the one O how many have thought that Christ was most dear to them and that the hopes of heaven were their chiefest hopes who have left Christ though with sorrow when he bid them let go all 2. Every day renew your apprehensions of the Truth and Worth of the Promised Felicity and of the Delusory Vanity of all things here below Let not Heaven lose with you its Attractive force through your forgetfulness or unbelief He is the best Christian that knows best why he is a Christian and he will most faithfully seek and suffer that best knows for what he doth it Value not Wealth and Honor above that rate which the wisest and best experienced have put upon them and allow them no more of your affections then they deserve A mean wit may easily discover their emptiness Look on all present actions and conditions with a remembrance of their end Desire not a share in their prosperity who must pay as dear for it as the loss of their souls Be not ambitious of that honor which must end in Confusion nor of the Favor of those that God will call enemies How speedily will they come down and be levelled in the dust and be laid in the chains of darkness that now seem so happy to the pur-blinde world that cannot see the things to come Fear not that man that must shortly tremble before that God whom all must fear 3. Be more solicitous for the securing of your Consciences and Salvation then of your honors or estates In every thing that you are put upon consult first with God and Conscience and not with flesh and blood It is your daily and most serious care and watchfulness that is requisite to maintain your integrity and not a few careless thoughts or purposes conjunct with a minding of earthly things 4 Deal faithfully with every truth which you receive Take heed of subjecting it to carnal interests If once you have affections that can master your Understandings you are lost and know it not For when you have a Resolution to cast off any dâ—ty you will first Believe it is no duty and when you must change your judgement for carnal advantages you will make the change seem reasonable and right and evil shall be proved good when you have a minde to follow it 5. Make Gospel-Truths your own by daily humble studies arising to such a soundness of Judgement that you may not need to take too much upon trust lest if your guides should miscarry you miscarry with them Deliver not up your understanding in Captivity to any 6. Yet do not over-value your own Understandings This Pride hath done that in Church and State which all discerning men are lamenting They that know but little see not what they want as well as what they have nor that imperfection in their knowledge which should humble them nor that difficulty in things which should make them diligent and modest 7. Apprehend the necessity and Usefulness of Christs Officers Order and Ordinances for the prosperity of his Church Pastors must guide you though not seduce you or lead you blindefold But choose if you may such as are judicious and not ignorant not rash but sober not formal but serious and spiritual not of carnal but heavenly conversations especially avoid them that divide and follow parâ—â—es and seek to draw Disciples to themselves can sacrifice the Churches Unity and Peace to their proud humors or carnal interests Watch carefully that no weaknesses of the Minister do draw you to a dis-esteem of the Ordinances of God nor any of the sad miscarriages of Professors should cause you to set less by Truth or Godliness Wrong not Christ more because other men have so wronged him Quarrel more with your own unfitness and unworthiness in Ordinances then with other mens It is the frame of your own heart that doth more to help or hinder your Comforts then the quality of those you joyn with To these few Directions added to the rest in this Book I shall subjoyn my hearty Prayers that you may receive from that Gospel and Ministry which you have owned such stability in the faith such victory over the flesh and the world such apprehensions of the Love of God in Christ such direction in every strait and duty that you Live uprightly Dye peaceably and Raign Gloriously Amen May 9. 1653. Your servant in the Faith and Gospel of Christ Rich. Baxter To the Poor in Spirit MY dearly Beloved Fellow-Christians whose souls are taken up with the careful thoughts of attaining and maintaining Peace with God who are vile in your own eyes and value the Blood and Spirit and Word of your Redeemer and the Hope of the Saints in their approaching Blessedness before all the Pomp and Vanities of this world and Resolve to give up your selves to his Conduct who is become the Author of Eternal Salvation to all them that obey him For You do I Publish these following Directions and to You it is that I direct this Preface The onely Glorious and Infinite God who made the Worlds and upholdeth them by his Word who is attended with Millions of his Glorious Angels and Praised continually by his Heavenly hosts who pulleth down the Mighty from their seats and scattereth the Proud in the Imaginations of their hearts and maketh his Enemies lick the dust to whom the Kings and Conquerors of the Earth are as the silliest worms and the whole world is Nothing and lighter then Vanity which he will shortly turn into flames before your eyes This God hath sent me to you with that Joyful Message which needs no more but your believing entertainment to make
submission then else I should do For as I am much perswaded that the Rooted in Grace do never fall quite away so if I were sure that they did yet I know so much of the Graciousness of Gods Nature and his Covenant that he will not forsake any that do not wilfully forsake him and I have so full a Resolution to cleave to him wrought in me by his Spirit and such experience of tender Love and his preserving me in Trials that I have a strong confidence that he will never permit me to fall from him Yet do I see a Necessity of daily praying to him Not to Lead me into Temptation but to Deliver me from the evil and to live in continual watchfulness expecting daily Assaults and renewing daily my Repentance and Resolutions Thus have I as truly as I am now able opened my very heart and state to you as before the Searcher of my heart which I have done for three Reasons 1. That my Judgement may be truly known in the Point of Perseverance 2. Because I finde the communicating of Experiences of each others hearts and states is of great use to Believers 3. Because I finde that many Godly people by divers passages in my Book of Rest about Living in Heavenly Delights do think that I have attained a greater Certainty then I have and that themselves are unhappy and must live uncomfortably till they can attain to that which they think I have done As for those that think and will be ready to say that I am warping to Arminian or Popish Doubting I regard not their words or censures I am none of those that dare in the hearing of God affirm that I have the Certainty which I have not meerly to avoid the suspition of erring Nor dare I by hot Disputes maintain that which the constant Experience of my self and the best and most of my acquaintance doth contradict and believe my Authors before my own heart and the undoubted testimony of Christians concerning themselves Yet remember that I do not deny but many others may have both more Assurance of their own Sincerity and more clear understanding of the Doctrine of Perseverance then I have which may give them a Certainty that no true Believer shall quite fall away I dare not think that others have not a higher degree of Light and Certainty then â— have But I think by this time I have perswaded you that a proper Certainty of our Salvation is not so common a thing as some Controversal Doctors or some self-conceited Prosessors do take it to be And therefore that you must not lay all your comfort on your Assurance of Salvation As for them who are most highly confident both of the doctrine of the Certain Perseverance of every Believer meerly upon tradition and prejudice because they have been alway taught so or else upon weak grounds which will not bear them out in their confidence and are as confident of their own Salvation on as slender grounds having never well understood the Nature of saving Grace Sincerity Examination nor Assurance nor understood the Causes of doubting which might else have shaked them I will not call their greatest Confidence by the name of Assurance or Certainty of Salvation though it be accompanied with never so great boastings or pretenses or expressions of the highest Joyes And for your self I advise you first use those comforts which those may have who come short of Assurance DIRECTION XVI 16. The next thing which I would have you learn is this That There are several grounds of the great Probability of our Salvation besides the general grounds mentioned in the beginning and by the Knowledge of these without any further Assurance a Christian may live in much Peace and Comfort and in Delightfull Desirous thoughts of the Glory to come And therefore the next work which you have to do is to discover those probabilites of your Sincerity and your Salvation and then to receive the Peace and Comfort which they may afford you before you can expect Assurance it self I Shall here open to you the several parts of this Proposition and Direction distinctly 1. I told you in the beginning of the four grounds of Probability which all may have in general from 1. The Nature of God 2. And of the Mediatour and his Office 3. And the universal sufficiency of Christs satisfaction 4. And the general tenour of the Promise and offer of Pardon and Salvation Now I adde that besides all these there are many grounds of strong Probability which you may have of your own Sincerity and so of your particular Interest in Christ and Salvation when you cannot reach to a Certainty 1. Some kinde of Probability you may gather by comparing your self with others Though this way be but delusory to unregenerate men whose confidence is plainly contradicted by the Scriptures yet may it be lawfull and usefull to an humble soul that is willing to obey and wait on God I mean to consider that if such as you should perish how few people would God have in the world Consider first in how narrow a compass the Church was confined before Christs coming in the flesh and how carnal and corrupt even that visible Church then was and even at this day the most Learned do compute that if you divide the world into thirty parts nineteen of them are Heathenish Idolaters six of them are Maâ—ometans and only fiâ—e of them are Christians And of these five that are Christians how great a part are of the Aethiopian Greek and Popish Churches so ignorant rude and superstitious and erroneous that salvation cannot be imagined to be near so easie or ordinary with them as with us and of the Reformed Churches commonly called Protestants how small is the number And even among these What a number are grossely ignorant and prophane and of those that profess more knowledge and zeal how many are grossely Erroneous Schismatical and Scandalous How exceeding smal a number is left then that are such as you I know this is no assuring Argument but I know withall that Christ died not in vain but he will see the fruit of his sufferings to the satisfaction of his soul and the God of Mercy who is a Lover of mankinde will have a multitude innumerable of his saved ones in the earth 2. But your strongest Probabilities are from the Consideration of the Work of God upon your Soul and the present frame and inclination of your Soul to God You may know that you have workings above nature in you and that they have been kept alive and carried on these many years against all opposition of the flesh and the world It hath not been a meer flash of conviction which hath been extinguished by sensuality and left you in the darkness of security and prophanness as others are You dare not give up your Hopes of Heaven for all the world You would not part with Christ and say Let him go for all the pleasures of sin