TEN DIRECTIONS for those who are more deeply troubled; and means to be used how to recover light
may afflict you in your estates and bodies, so your spirits, as a father; for, Heb. 12:9, he is 'the Father of spirits.'
TEN DIRECTIONS
for those who are more deeply troubled; and means to be used how to recover light
FOR THOSE WHO ARE MORE DEEPLY TROURBED; AND MEANS
TO BE USED HOW TO RECOVER LIGHT AND COMFORT.
FOR their sakes who are thus more deeply troubled, I will prescribe some directions how they are to behave themselves in such a condition, so as to come more comfortably and the more speedily out of it. For it is in these long and great sicknesses of the soul as in those of the body; men are kept the longer in them, and under them, for want of right directions and prescriptions, as we see in long agues and fevers, and the like diseases.
DIRECTION I
First, Take heed of rash, desperate, impatient, and unbelieving speeches and wishes; such you will be forced to recall again with sorrow. As David, when he was in fears, uttered a desperate speech, namely, that Samuel's prophecy concerning him, and message to him from God, that he should be king, would prove false; and he says not only, that 'one day he should perish by the hand of Saul,' 1 Sam. 27:1;
—the ground of which speech was, that he finding himself every day in some danger or other of his life, and so, though God had preserved him again and again, yet he thought that some of those many arrows
which were shot against him so continually, and which still so narrowly missed him, might, at one time or other, hit and speed him, it were a wonder else;—but he says further, Ps. 116:11, 'I said in my haste, that all men are liars,' the prophet Samuel and all; that it was but a promise of a vain man. But he soon recalls himself, and adds, 'I said this in my haste.' So likewise, Ps. 31:22, 'I said in my haste, I am cut off.' They were rash speeches, as he confesses, spoken in haste.
Even so doth many a poor soul break forth and say, after they have had strong hopes, at first conversion, that a kingdom is theirs, that heaven is theirs, and that it is reserved for them; and they kept for it also through the power of God: yet the devil being let loose to persecute them, as Saul did him, and God hiding his face, and the arrows of the Almighty flying thick about their ears, the sorrows of hell encompassing them, and well-nigh every moment cutting them off; they, although upheld again and again, yet are apt to say that, one day or other, they shall in all likelihood be cut off by God's hand, swallowed up of Satan, and everlastingly destroyed. And when they are told of the hopes they had at their first conversion, and the promises that are made to them, they are apt to say that their graces by which they should now claim those promises are all a lie, false and counterfeit, and but in hypocrisy. This they say in their haste too often. So at another time, when David was in doubt about that other promise of an eternal kingdom, made to him in Ps. 77, he says, 'God will never be merciful.' What a desperate weak speech was this, that what a man sees not at present, he should conclude would never be!
But he acknowledged his error in it: 'It was my infirmity,' ver. 10, thus to speak. So the church, Lam. 3:17–19: 'I said, My hope is perished from the Lord.' What a desperate speech was this! But she eats her words again with grief, ver. 21, 'This I recall to mind, therefore have I hope.' Job, though for a while, at the beginning of the storm, he was somewhat calm and quiet in his spirit, and it was his commendation; and therefore, in chap. 1:22, it is said that 'in all
this'—that is, so long and thitherto—'he had not charged God foolishly:' but this held but to the first and second chapter, for when he began to be wet to the skin once, and the drops of God's wrath began to soak into his soul, then he falls a-roaring, chap. 3, and 'curseth the day of his birth;' and, chap. 6:8, 9, wisheth God would cut him off; and, chap. 7:15, says, 'his soul did choose strangling rather than life.' For which speeches God in the end steps out, as it were, from behind the hangings, overhearing him, taking him up for them: chap. 38:2, 'Who is this,' says he, 'that talks thus?' How now?
But, good souls, you that are in trouble; oh, take heed of such impatient wishes or speeches as these or the like, that all which you have had is but in hypocrisy; and, Oh that God would cut me off! that I were in hell, and knew the worst! Take heed, I say. When a man is sick and raves, whereas otherwise the physician and those that stand about him would in pity use him gently, they are forced to hold and bind him. Impatiens œgrotus crudelem medicum facit,—an impatient patient makes a physician more cruel than otherwise he would be. So would God deal more gently with thee but for such impatiences. And know that this is taking God's name in vain in a high degree. You must know that the graces of God written in your hearts are a part of God's name, as whereby his love is manifested to you. Now for you to call the truth of these in question, and say they are counterfeit, is as if you should say of the king's hand and seal, when it comes down to you, that it were counterfeit, and deny it; which is crimen Iæsæ majestatis. So if a special friend, or your father, had given you some old precious pieces of gold or jewels, &c., as tokens of their love and remembrances of them, for you to say in a distempered fit of jealousy, all these are but counters and but alchemy, you should exceedingly wrong and abuse their love. Thus is it if you deny God's handwriting in your own hearts, when he hath written therein by his Spirit, joy, fear, love, zeal, &c., and should say
it is not like his hand. So if you deny the seal of the Spirit, after he hath sealed you up unto the day of redemption, and say that all the earnest-pennies of heaven are but counters, and alchemy, and nothing worth, in so doing you take his name, his love, his mercy, and all in vain; yea, you lie against the Holy Ghost, as the Apostle said in another case. Thus though God give you full leave to try and examine all his graces in you and dealings with you; yet not desperately, at the first blush and view, upon the least mistake or flaw, to say they are no graces, and that he will never be merciful.
You abuse him when you do so; take heed of it.
DIRECTION II
Secondly, Let the troubled soul make diligent search. Let an inquisition be set up in thy heart, So, Ps. 77:6, David, in case of desertion, is said to do: 'I communed with mine own heart, and made diligent search.'
Now in this search make inquiry into two things:— First, What might be the true cause which provokes God thus to leave thee, and hide himself from thee?
Secondly, What in thine own heart is the main doubt and objection, reasoning and apprehension, which causeth thee to fear, and thus to call all into question?
These are two distinct things. For though God hath just cause and reason to leave us to this trouble, yet often the thing that troubles and disquiets us is a mere mistake, a misapprehension; even as a father sees good reason often to scare the child, but yet the thing he suffers him to be affrighted with is but a mere bugbear. It is necessary to inquire into both.
First, Examine what might be the true cause that provokes God thus to leave thee. So Lam. 3:40, 'Let us search and try our ways;' it was spoken by the church in desertion, as appears by the former part of the chapter. And to help yourselves in this, go over all the cases which have been propounded. Hast thou not been carnally confident in false signs? or rested too much on true, to the neglect of Christ and God's free grace? Didst thou not before neglect to stir up thy own graces? &c. Go over all those cases mentioned; something or other will be found to be the cause. This is necessary, for till the cause be known, the heart submits not; neither will it sanctify God's name, nor will the trouble cease, till that which provokes God to lay it on be confessed and forsaken. And if it be a particular sin that God aims at, then usually God useth the horror for, and the guilt of, that very sin to afflict thee with; and then that sin itself is made the cause of thy trouble in thy own apprehension. So as then it is easily found out; thou will find thy sin to be the thorn in thy foot, the stone in thy shoe, that did grate, gall, and vex thee. David easily knew, in Ps. 51, what it was for which God broke his bones; for his very sin was the iron mace, the instrumental cause itself, of God's executing it upon him: the horror of that murder God used as the hammer to break him withal, and as the rod to whip him with: ver. 3, 'My sin,' says he,
'is ever before me;' it was ever in his eye. Indeed, in outward afflictions it is more difficult to find out the cause why God afflicts a man; unless sometimes you may, through God's wise-disposing hand, find and read the sin in the punishment, they so resemble one another: so as a man may say, This cross lay in the womb of such a sin, they are so like,—in quo peccamus in eodem plectimur. But in those inward distresses of conscience, that sin which is the true cause, and that moveth God to afflict, God often useth even the guilt of that very sin to terrify thee; to cast a man into the distress, and to keep him in it; it is both the procatarctical cause and executioner also.
But in case thou canst not find out the cause, as Job, it seems, did not; and Elihu did suppose he might not, therefore gives him this counsel, (which do thou also follow till God shew thee the cause,) Job
34:31, 32, 'to say unto God,' as he adviseth there, 'That which I see not, teach thou me, and I will not offend any more;' and if thou findest it, say also, as ver. 31, 'I have borne chastisement' for such a sin; 'I will never offend any more.' Till then God will not let thee down.
The second thing to be searched into is, What is the chief and main reasoning in thy heart which makes thee call all into question whether God be thy God? What is the reason why thou thinkest so, what makes thee conclude so?
For this you must consider, that although God for some sin committed doth, hide himself from thee, terrifies and lasheth thy conscience, yet that which causeth in thee and worketh in thee this apprehension, that God hath cast thee off, is usually some false reasoning or misapprehension, some mere mistake, some device and sophistry of Satan. When the Corinthian was excommunicated for his sin, Satan had leave to terrify his conscience for it; but Satan went further, he would have 'swallowed him up of sorrow,' by persuading him that such a sin was unpardonable, and that God would never own him again. Now the reasoning Satan used to bring this upon him was a false one, some trick and device, 2 Cor. 2:7, compared with ver. 11; whereof if a man be ignorant, he may go mourning a long while as a castaway. Therefore take thy soul aside, and seriously ask it, and examine it, why it is thus troubled; what reason, what ground thou hast to think that God is not thy God; and then examine it whether it be a true ground, yea or no. As the Apostle, 1 Pet. 3:15, bids us 'give a reason of our faith, so ask thou of thy soul the reason of its doubting.
Thus David, Ps. 42:5, 'Why art thou cast down, O my soul?' And because doubts arise again and again, therefore he asketh the reason again, ver. 11, 'Why art thou cast down?' David knew the way to dissolve them was to search into and examine the reason of them; for still, when he had thoroughly examined them, he found them needless and causeless to put him into such desperate fears. The child of God is often cast into prison, into fears and bondage, and after he hath lain long in them, and begins to read over the writ and mittimus, he finds it to be false imprisonment, a mere trick of Satan, his jailer. For as carnal men, when they think their estate good, and that they are in the favour of God, it is some delusion, some false reasoning that is still the ground of such their opinion; as because they prosper in the world, therefore God loves them, because they perform some duties, have some good motions, which grounds they cannot endure to have examined: so contrarily, one that fears God, the ground of his apprehension that he is out of the favour of God is likewise some false reasoning, which, when examined, appears to be such, and when it appears the soul is freed out of its fears and doubts. Heman thought and said that God had cast him off; and what was the reason persuaded him to think so? Ps. 88:14, 'because God had hidden his face.' It doth not follow, Heman. A father may hide his face from his son, and yet not cast him off. So David also reasoneth, Ps. 77:2, 3, 'I have sought God,' prayed, and used the means, and 'yet I am troubled,' and yet God reveals not himself; and what doth he conclude from this? Ver. 7, 'Will the Lord cast off for ever?' He thought, If God had loved me, he would presently have heard me; he thought his soul would not have been worse after praying. This was a false reasoning; for, Ps. 80:4, sometimes 'God shuts out his people's prayers.' A father may sometimes seem so angry that he may throw away his child's petition, and yet resolve to be his father still.
It were infinite to reckon up all the false reasonings that souls in distress have sometimes, from a place of Scripture misunderstood and misapplied. Some who, being annoyed with blasphemous thoughts against God and Christ, and his Spirit, though they be their greatest affliction, yet have thought they have sinned against the Holy Ghost, upon the misapplying that place, Matt. 12:31, that 'blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall never be forgiven;' whereas that place is meant only but of some one kind of blasphemy, which indeed is wilful blaspheming of God and the work of his Spirit, out of revenge, Heb. 10:29, So some, because they have sinned after enlightening and tasting, and fallen into some gross sin, think they shall never be renewed, by reason of that place, Heb. 6:4; whereas he speaks of a wilful and revengeful falling away, with such a revenge as they would, if they could, 'crucify Christ again,' ver. 6. For otherwise
David had not been renewed, for he sinned presumptuously, and 'despised the commandment,' 2 Sam. 12:9. So some, if they hear but of some fearful example, and of God's severe dealing with others, how he cast them off upon such a sin, as he did Saul, they think and conclude that upon the commission of the like that God hath cast them off also. But there is no certain ground for such a thought; for 'secret things belong to God.' So because some hear there is a time after which God sometimes offers grace no more, but swears against some men, therefore that their time is also past; which they can have no ground for: for though it be true God doth so with many that hear the gospel, yet the word gives us no certain rules to judge he hath done so by any of us. It is good to fear lest thou shouldst provoke him to it, but thou hast no sign to fear he hath done so with thee. And indeed herein lies the main and first business to be done in raising up a troubled soul, even to find out the ground of their doubting, and to examine the truth of it, and confute it. If a man be falsely imprisoned or cast in a suit at law, what doth he to remedy it? He seeks to find out the error in the writ. So do thou search out the
ground of thy trouble; go to some spiritual lawyer skilled in soulwork: keep not the devil's counsel; he opposeth nothing more than making your doubts known.
DIRECTION III
The third direction I give to such is, that they keep and lend one ear, as well to hear and consider what makes for their comfort, as unto what may make against them.
This direction meets with a great infirmity of such as are in distress, who through Satan's temptations have their hearts so deeply possessed with prejudicial conceits of the misery of their estates, that, as the people of God in Exod. 6:9, 'through the anguish of their hearts,' were so far distempered that they listened not to the good message which Moses brought them, nor believed that so good news could be true of them: so are the souls of many that are in distress so filled with anguish and sense of misery, and so strongly prepossessed with desperate opinions, and so far put out of hopes, that they reject all that is spoken for their comfort; so as they will not so much as be brought to cast an eye or a thought upon anything that may be an occasion of comfort to them. Like some prisoners at the bar, through extremity of fear they cannot read that in their hearts and in the word which might save them. Tell them of what God hath wrought for them and in them, as evidences of his love; and as they cannot, so often they will not, read them over; or if they do, they read them over but as a man doth a book he means to confute: they pick quarrels, and make objections at everything that is said, as if they were hired as lawyers to plead against themselves, and to find flaws in their evidences. I have observed some who have set all their wits a-work to strengthen all arguments and objections against themselves, and who have been glad if they could object anything which might puzzle
those who have come to comfort them; if they could hold argument against themselves; as if they were disputing for the victory only. And thus through much poring upon, and considering only what might make against them, they have had the bolts of their hearts so far shot into despair, and fixed in desperate sorrow, and the true wards of sound evidences so far wrung and wrested by false keys, that when the skilfulest and strongest comforters have come with true keys to shoot back the bolt, they would not turn about; nay, could scarce get entrance.
This was David's infirmity, as at the 10th verso of the 77th Psalm, compared with the 2d verse, 'My soul refuseth to be comforted.' He spilt all the cordials and physic that were brought him: he was not only void of comfort, but refused it. What! bring me promises to comfort me!—will such a one say,—you may as well carry them to one in hell, or give physic to a man past recovery; and so will take down nothing that is given them. So also the church, in the 3d of the Lamentations, ver. 17, 18; her heart was deeply possessed with a desperate apprehension: 'My hope,' says she, 'is perished from the Lord.' And what was it that shot her soul into so fixed despair? Ver.
17, 'she forgot all good:' she forgot,—that is, she would not so much as take into consideration and remembrance anything that had been comfortable to her. All good,—so the original,—that is, all God's former good and gracious dealings with her, all the good things wrought in her, and for her, whence she might have comfort. And in stead thereof, what did her thoughts feed and chew upon? Only wormwood and gall, her bitterness and distress, poring only on what might make against her: 'I said my hope was perished from the Lord, calling to mind my affliction and my misery, my wormwood and gall.'
These she could revolve and roll up and down in her mind, though they were bitter, and would entertain thoughts of nothing else. But when, on the contrary, she began to take into consideration God's
gracious and faithful supporting her in that very desertion, 'in faithfulness renewing his mercies every morning,' ver. 22, 23, and that still he maintained in her heart a longing and lingering after him, and a secret cleaving to him, and that God did enable her to choose him as her portion, ver. 24,—'this I recall to mind,' says she, ver. 21, (which speech hath reference to those words fore-cited, which follow there,) 'therefore have I hope,'—she spits out her wormwood, and eats her own words. And now that her heart began to listen to what might comfort her, presently she began to have hope. This sullen, peevish, desperate obstinacy is a thing you ought to take heed of; for hereby you take Satan's part, and that against those you ought to love so dearly, even your own souls. But as they said, 'Let Baal plead for himself;' so let Satan plead his own cause, do not you. Hereby also you 'forsake your own mercies,' as it is said,
Jonah 2:8; you give up your own right, and are so far befooled as to plead against your own title, your own interest in the best things you can have interest in—God's mercies, made yours by an everlasting covenant; you give up your portion bequeathed you in your Father's will, which you ought to maintain; and you trust to lying vanities, the soothsayings and fortune-tellings, as I may call them, of Satan and of your own hearts. Hereby also 'ye become judges of evil thoughts,'
James 2:4; for he is an ill hearer of a cause who will hear but one party speak.
DIRECTION IV
The fourth direction is, to make diligent search into, and to call to remembrance what formerly hath been between God and you. The remembrance of former things doth often uphold, when present sense fails. This David practised in the like case, Psalm 77:5, 6, when his soul had refused comfort, as I told you, ver. 2; yet in the end he began not only to be willing to listen to what might make for him, but
set himself a-work to recall to mind, to 'consider the days of old, to make diligent search,' namely, into the records and register of God's dealings, ver. 11, to see if there were never a record extant which might help him, now the devil pleaded against his title. Even as if your houses and lands were called into question, you would search over old writings and deeds; so do you in this. 'I considered,' says he,
'the songs in the night,'—that is, that joyful communion he had enjoyed with God, when God and he sang songs together,—and 'I communed with mine own heart, and made diligent search;' I tossed and tumbled over my heart, to see if no grace formerly had been there, and if no grace at present were there. He searched into what might comfort him, as well as into the causes might provoke God thus to deal with him; for I take it both may be meant.
And so Job did, when he was thus stricken and forsaken of God: he views over every part of his life; he seeks what dry land he could find to get footing upon in the midst of seas of temptations; recounts what a holy life he had lived, with what fear and strictness he had served God, chap. 29 and chap. 30, and chap. 31 throughout, and tells them plainly, chap. 27:5, 6, that let them plead and argue what they could against him, and go about to prove him a hypocrite, 'till I die,' says he, 'I will not remove mine integrity from me, nor let go my righteousness:' I will never give up mine interest in God's mercies, nor the evidences I have to shew for them. And, says he, chap. 19:27,
28, 'Though my reins be at present consumed, yet the root of the matter is in me,'—that is, though God deals thus hardly with me, as you see, yea, though the exercise of grace is much obscured, the sunshine of God's favour withdrawn, his face hidden from me, and the joyful fruits of righteousness, and comfortable fresh green speeches, and leaves you have known to grow upon this now withered stock fallen off; yet there is the root of the matter still in me
—a root of faith that decays not, a constant frame of grace that still
remains, which hateth sin, loveth God; and you shall all never beat me from it. And canst thou call nothing to remembrance betwixt God and thee, which argues infallibly his love? What! nothing? Look again. Did God never speak peace unto thy heart, and shed his love abroad in it? Hast thou at no time found in thine heart pure strains of true love and good-will to him, some pure drops of godly sorrow for offending him, and found some dispositions of pure self-denial, wherein thou didst simply aim at his glory more than thine own good? Hast thou never an old tried evidence which hath been acknowledged and confirmed again and again in open court? What! not one? And if thou canst now call to mind but one, if in truth, it may support thee. For if one promise do belong to thee, then all do, for every one conveys whole Christ, in whom all the promises are made, and who is the matter of them. As in the sacraments, the bread conveys whole Christ, and the wine also whole Christ: so in the word every promise conveys whole Christ. And if thou canst say, as the church of Ephesus, Rev. 2:6, 'This thing I have, that I hate sin,' and every sin, as God hates it, and because he hates it: as Christ owned them for this one grace, and though they had many sins and many failings, yet, says he, this thou hast, &c. If Christ will acknowledge thee to be his for one ear-mark, or if he sees but one
'spot of his child' upon thee, Deut. 32:5, thou mayest well plead it, even any one, to him. Yea, though it be but in a lesser degree, in truth and sincerity. For God brings not a pair of scales to weigh your graces, and if they be too light refuseth them: but he brings a touchstone to try them; and if they be true gold, though never so little of it, it will pass current with him; though it be but smoke, not flame, though it be but as a wick in the socket, Matt. 12:20, (as it is there in the original,) likelier to die and go out than to continue, which we use to throw away; yet he will not quench it, but accept it.
Yea, and though at present thou findest in thy sense no grace stirring in thee, nothing but hardness, deadness, &c., yet if thou canst
remember, Yea, but this once I had; as a woman with child, though after her first quickening she doth not always find the child to stir, yet because she did feel it stir, she still conceives hopes and thinks she is with child; so think thou of the new creature formed within thee.
These things you are to recall and consider in time of distress: to remember former graces and spiritual dispositions in you; and God's gracious dealings with you. God remembers them to have mercy on you; and why should you not remember them to comfort you?
Therefore, Heb. 6:9, 10, 'We hope,' says he, 'better things of you; for God is not unrighteous to forget your labour of love;' namely, to reward you And therefore he calls upon them in like manner, Heb.
10:31, 'to call to remembrance the former days' to comfort them; how they held out when their hearts were tried to the bottom; when shipwreck was made of their goods, good names, and all for Christ,— yet they made not shipwreck of a good conscience. And if thou dost thus call to remembrance things of old, and yet canst find no comfort at first from them,—as often ye may not, as was David's case, Psalm
77, for after his 'remembrance of his songs in the night,' still his soul was left in doubt, and he goes on to say, 'Will God ever be merciful?'—yet have recourse to them again, and then again, for though they comfort not at one time, yet they may at another; that it may be seen that God comforts by them, and not they alone of themselves. Hast thou found a promise (which is a 'breast of consolation,' Isa. 66:11) milkless? Yet again suck; comfort may come in the end. If after thou hast empanelled a jury and grand inquest to search, and their first verdict condemns thee, or they bring in an ignoramus; yet do as wise judges often do, send them about it again, they may find it the nest time. Jonah looked once, it seems, and found no comfort, chap. 2:4, for he said, 'I will look again towards thine holy temple.' A man's heart is like those two-faced pictures: if
you look one way towards one side of them, you shall see nothing but some horrid shape of a devil, or the like; but go to the other side and look again, and you shall see the picture of an angel or of some beautiful woman, &c. So some have looked over their hearts by signs at one time, and have to their thinking found nothing but hypocrisy, unbelief, hardness, self-seeking; but not long after, examining their hearts again by the same signs, they have espied the image of God drawn fairly upon the table of their hearts.
DIRECTION V
But now if former signs remembered bring thee no comfort in, but the waves that come over thy soul prove so deep that thou canst find no bottom to cast anchor on, the storm and stress so great that no cable will hold, but they snap all asunder, as is often the case of many a poor soul:— Then take and put in practice this fifth direction, renew thy faith and repentance, set thy heart a-work to believe and repent afresh as if thou hadst never yet begun. Spend not all the time in casting out of anchors, but fall a-pumping; leave off and cease a while to reason about the goodness of thy former faith and repentance, and set upon the work of believing and repenting anew. Say, Well, suppose I have not hitherto been in the state of grace, yet I am not incapable of it for time to come, I may obtain grace yet. Suppose my faith and repentance hath not been true hitherto, I will therefore now begin to endeavour after such as is true. And to that end make this use of whatsoever flaws the devil finds in either, to direct thee what to mend and rectify for time to come; begin to make up the breaches and unsoundness which is discovered, endeavour after a supply of all those wants he objects to be in either: mend all the holes he picks.
Say, Lord, I cast my soul on all thy mercies afresh; I desire now to
make my heart perfect with thee for time to come, to part with every sin, to submit to every duty, to curse every by-end to hell, and to set up God and Christ as my mark, polestar, and aim in all. And when thou hast done this, let the devil say his worst. This of all the former directions I commend to you, as a special means to dissolve and put these temptations about assurance to an end. I set a probatum est upon it; take it, practise it, it is a tried one; and it is that which at the last the church in desertion comes to: Lam. 3:40, 'Come, let us try our ways, and turn to the Lord;' that is the last way and course she takes. Now when the water is at the lowest, and the tide of assurance ebbed, mend up your banks, as you use to do at low waters. Now when nothing but hypocrisy, and unbelief, and falseness of heart appear to thee to be in thy heart, do thou groan, sigh, endeavour after the contrary sincerity; and let Satan say his worst. And this direction I now in the next place prescribe you, because in time of temptation about assurance, it is the usual course of some troubled souls to spend all their thoughts upon what formerly they have had, as if they must have comfort only from the former work, or no way; laying out all their time and cost in new suits and new trials about their former title; and when they have been cast again and again, yet still to do nothing but read over old evidences again and again, and bring in and study new proofs.
But know, that though this is to be done, and not to be neglected, and is found often comfortable, therefore in the former direction I exhorted to it: yet you are not only to take that course, nor to look back so much to your former faith and repentance as to forget to practise new; but being to practise new acts of faith and repentance, this is the rightest way, the shortest cut, and requires as little pains.
Thou mayest with as little charge get a new lease renewed, as prove good the old one; it will require many terms to examine over all thy evidences again and again, which also haply are blotted and blurred.
Thou mayest cut the knot and dissolve the temptations sooner by new faith, than untie it by reasonings and disputings. And the truth is, in the end thou must come to this; for God's great end in deserting is to put you upon renewing your faith and repentance. 'Except ye be converted,' as Christ says to his apostles, converted as it were anew.
He will not deliver thee out of the dungeon, till thou enterest into new bonds and bail for thy good behaviour. Therefore begin to do it soon. And whereas thou thinkest that by this thou mayest prejudice thy former title, that is not my meaning, as if thou shouldest utterly give up thy old faith and repentance as counterfeit; 'I will keep my integrity,' says Job: only my advice is to forbear, and to cease pleading of it for a time, and to begin to renew it rather, that is it I exhort unto. And then the comfort of thy old repentance will come in.
As the apostle says of the law, so I of thy former title, 'it is not destroyed, but established' rather by this. And as Christ says, John
7:17, 'If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine that it is of God;' so as the best way to know the truth is not to spend all the time in disputing about it, but to practise it, which puts an end to controversies in men's hearts: so say I, to know the truth of, and so to come to have the comfort of former grace, is to add to these reasonings about it, the practice of believing and repenting anew.
This baffles the devil exceedingly, and gets the advantage of him; for by this the suit is removed, all his old pleas dashed, this puts him upon a new reply, diverts the war, and indeed non-plusseth him; for what can he say to it? He must now prove thou art incapable of grace, that thou shalt never repent, which all the world and devils in hell cannot prove. And yet if in this case he tells thee, as usually he doth, that all will be in vain for time to come, as well as it hath been for time past:—
DIRECTION VI
Then, sixthly, stand not now disputing it, but be peremptory and resolute in thy faith and turning to God, let the issue be what it will be. Faith is never nonplussed. Job vows 'he will trust him though he kills him,' chap. 13:5. So do thou; whether he will damn or save thee, do what he will with thee, leave not to cast thyself upon him for mercy, nor to serve and love him. Go thou on to use the means diligently and constantly; and be so much the more diligent, fear and hate sin still, pray day and night: as Heman did when he thought himself cut off, Ps. 88:1, 'I have cried day and night, though I be as one thou rememberest no more,' ver. 4, 5; and so at the 9th verse, 'I have called daily.' Though, ver. 10–12, he thought himself in hell, and thought it a miracle ever to be raised up again, yet says he, ver. 13,
'but I have cried to thee.' That but seems to come in as an expression of his resolution hitherto, that though these were his apprehensions of his condition, yet howsoever, he had, and accordingly would go on to seek the Lord. Suppose thou findest no relish in the ordinances, yet use them; though thou art desperately sick, yet eat still, take all is brought thee, some strength comes of it. Say, Be I damned or saved, hypocrite or not hypocrite, I resolve to go on. And there is good reason for it; for if thou shouldest leave off to serve the Lord, and resolve never to look after him more, then thou art sure to be damned. If there be 'an evil heart in thee to depart from the living
God,' thou art undone. But this other way of seeking him, thou mayest in the end prevail; 'Who knows but God may be merciful?' In the 3d of the Lamentations, ver. 29, this counsel is given to a soul being yoked and deserted, 'to put his mouth in the dust; and it waiteth,' says he, suffers, and doth anything, not only if he hath hope, but 'if there may be hope,' if there be but such a thought it may prove so, he will make a venture; and so do thou. See what Esther did in the like desperate case: thought she, If I hold my tongue, (and so Mordecai told her,) God will destroy me. And better it was to make a venture upon the king to speak, and so to carry her life in her hand;
and therefore she says, 'If I perish, I perish.' And so the lepers, see how they reasoned in a desperate case: 2 Kings 7:3, 4, 'If we go into the city, we are sure to die, for the famine is there; if we sit still, we die also. Come, let us fall into the hands of the Assyrians: if they save us alive, so; if they kill us, we shall,' however, 'but die.' And there were many strong arguments to move them to think they would kill them, for they were Jews, and so of the enemy's side, and might be suspected for spies; if not, they were lepers, that might infect the camp, who were fit for no service, for nothing but to be knocked on the head. Yet in this desperate case they took the surer and more probable part, ventured to fall to the Assyrians' side, and the success is known to you all. So reason thou: If I give over my believing, humbling myself, praying, attending on the means, I shall certainly perish, there is no help for it; I will therefore rather go on to do all these as sincerely as I can to the utmost, and if God saves me, a sinner, a leper, an enemy, so; if not, I can be but damned.
But let me tell thee, such a resolution can never go to hell with thee; yea, if any have a room in heaven, such a soul shall: for this puts not the devil only to it;—for in this case, what can the devil himself say to thee? for if thou wilt venture thy soul, service, and all upon God, let the issue be what it will, in this resolute yet safe way; if thou wilt in a pure trust refer it unto God with contentedness and submission, what is that to him?—but it puts God to it also, who cannot find in his heart to damn such a one who shall go on to do thus. When thou thus freely servest him, choosest him, venturest and leavest thyself and all the issue of thy ways to him; thou, by this one act in such a case, shalt win more upon him and his love, than haply by all thy obedience all thy life before. Thy salvation, and the assurance of it, that is God's work, leave it to him, try hid faithfulness; it is self-love makes us too much to be troubled about it. Go thou on to believe,