Collected works of Richard Baxter, Volume 9. This title is called The Right Method for a Settled Peace of Conscience and Spiritual Comfort. It must be understood that the case here to be resolved is not how an unhumbled, profane sinner that never was convinced of sin and misery should be brought to a settled peace of conscience. Their carnal peace must first be broken, and they must be so far humbled as to find a wanton worth of mercy that Christ and His consolations may not seem contemptible in their eyes. It is not my present business to give any advice now for the furthering of this conviction or humiliation, but the case in hand is, how a sinner may attain to a subtle peace of conscience and some competent measure of the joy of the Holy Ghost, who has been convinced of sin and misery and long made a profession of holiness, but lives in continual doubtings of their sincerity and fears of God's wrath because of an exceeding deadness of spirit and want of that love to God and delight in Him, and sweetness and duty and witness of the spirit in communion with God, and the other like evidences which are found in the saints. How far the party is right or wrong in the discovery of these wants I do not now meddle with. Whether they judge rightly or wrongly, the directions may be useful to them. And though I purposely meddle not with the unhumbled, that do not feel the want of Christ or mercy, yet most at falls, may be useful to all that profess the Christian faith. For I shall study so to avoid the extremes of my doctrinal directions, as may conduce to your escape into desperate extremes of ungrounded comforts and causeless terrors in your own spirit. Of my directions, the first shall be only general, and the rest more particular, and in all of them I must entreat you, one, to observe the order and method, as well as a matter, and that you would practice them in the same order as I place them. Number two, and to remember that it is not only comfortable words, but it is direction for your own practice which I here prescribe you, and therefore that it is not to bear reading of them that will cure you, But if you mean to have the benefit of them, you must bestow more time in practicing them than I have done in penning them. Yea, you must make it the work of your life. And don't let that startle you or seem tedious to you. For it will be no more grievous a work to a well-tempered soul than eating or drinking or sleep. A recreation is to a healthful body. And then it is to an honest woman to love and delight in her husband and her children, which is no grievous task. Direction number one. Get as clear a discovery as you can of the true cause of your doubts and troubles. For if you should mistake in the cause, it would much frustrate the most excellent means for the cure. The very same doubts and complaints may come from several causes and several persons, and therefore admit not of the same way of cure. Sometimes a cause begins in the body, and thence proceeds to the mind. Sometimes it begins in the mind, and thence distempers the body. Sometimes in the mind, it is most or first, from worldly crosses and things perceived to spiritual things. And of spiritual manners, sometimes it begins upon scruples or differences in religion. or points of doctrine, sometimes and most commonly from the sense of our own infirmities, sometimes it is only from ordinary infirmities, sometimes from some extraordinary decays of inward grace, sometimes from the neglect of some weighty duty. and sometimes from the deep wounds of some heinous secret or scandalous sin, and sometimes it is merely from the fresh discovery of that which before we never did discern, and sometimes from the violent assault of extraordinary temptations. Which of these is your own case you must be careful to find out? and to apply the means for cure accordingly. Even of true Christians, the same means will not fit all. The difference of natures, as well as of actual cases, must be considered. One has needed that tender handling which would undo another, and he again has needed that rousing which another cannot bear. And therefore understand, when I have given you all the directions that I can, I must in the end hear of, advise you to take the counsel of a skillful minister in applying and making use of them. For it is in this, as in the case of medicine, when we have written the best books of receipts or for methodical cures, yet we must advise people to take heed how they use them without the advice of a learned and faithful doctor. For medicines must only be fitted to diseases, but to bodies. that medicine will kill one man which will cure another of the same distemper. Such differences may be in their age, strength, complexion, and other things. So is it much in our present case, and therefore is when all the medicine books in the world are written. and all receipts known, yet will there be still a necessity of physicians. So when all discoveries and directions are made in divinity, there will still be a necessity of a constant standing ministry. And as ignorant women and imprics do kill oftentimes more than they cure, though they have the best receipts for one of judgment and experience to use them right, so do ignorant teachers and guides by men's souls, though they can say the same words as a judicious pastor and repeat the same text of scripture. Not that I mean that such can do no good, yes, much no doubt, if they will humbly, compassionately, and faithfully improve their talents within the verge of their own calling, which, if they go beyond, Ordinarily, a remarkable judgment follows their best labors, both to the churches and particular souls that make use of them. And therefore, because if my conjectural prognostics do not fail, as I daily pray they may, we are like to be more tried and plagued in this way than ever were any of our forefathers since Adam's days till now. And seeing this is the hour of our temptation, wherein God is purposely separating the chaff, and discovering to the world the dangers of injudicious misguided zeal. I shall therefore both first and last advise you, as ever you would have a settled peace of conscience, keep out of the hand of vagrant and seducing Montebanks, under what names or titles or pretenses soever they may assault you. Especially suspect all that bestow as much pains to win you to their party as to win you to Christ. Direction number two. Make as full of discovery as you can how much of the trouble of your mind arises from melancholy and bodily distempers, and how much from discontinuing afflictions in your worldly state or friends or name. And according to your discovery, make use of the remedy. I put these two causes of trouble here together in the beginning because I will presently dismiss them and apply the rest of these directions only to those troubles that are raised from sins and lack and grace. Number one. As for melancholy, I by long experience found it to have so great in common a hand in the fears and troubles of mind. that I meet not with one of many that live in great troubles and fears for any long time together, but melancholy is the main seed of them, though they feel nothing in their body but all in their mind. I would have such persons make use of some able, godly physician, and he will help them to discern how much of their trouble comes from melancholy. Where this is the cause, usually the party is fearful of almost everything. A word or a sudden thought will disquiet them. Sometimes they are sad, and they scarce know why. All comforts are of no continuance with them. But as soon as you have done comforting them, and they be never so well satisfied, yet the trouble returns in a few days or hours. As soon as the dark and troubled spirits return to their former force, they are still addicted to musing and solitariness, and thoughts will run in their minds that they cannot lay them by. If it go anything far, they are almost always assaulted with temptations to blasphemy, to doubt whether there be a God or a Christ, or the scriptures be true, or whether there be a heaven or a hell. And often they are tempted to speak some blasphemous words against God, and this with such importunity that they can hardly forbear. And oftentimes they are tempted to make a way themselves. When it goes so far, they are next to loss of the use of reason if it be not prevented. Now, to those that find that melancholy is the cause of their troubles, I would give this advice. 1. Don't expect that rational spiritual remedies should suffice for this cure. For you may as well expect that a good sermon or comfortable word should cure the falling sickness or palsy. or a broken head, is to be sufficient cure to your melancholy fears. For this is as real a bodily disease as the other, only because it works on the spirits and fantasy, on which words of advice do also work. Therefore such words and scripture and reason may somewhat resist it, and may palliate or allay some of the effects that the present But as soon as time has worn off the force and effects of these reasons, the distemper presently returns. Pretty humor has the advantage, number one, of continual presence, number two, of a more necessary, natural, and sensible way of working. As if a man being in easy lethargy, you may awake him so long as you are calling on him aloud. But as soon as you see, see us asleep again. Such is the case of the melancholy in their sorrows. For it is as natural for melancholy to cause fears and disquietness of mind as for phlegm and lethargy to cause sleep. Do not therefore lay the blame on your books, friends, counsels, instructions. known or all on your soul. If these troubles be not cured by words, but labor to discern truly how much of your trouble comes this way, and then fix in your mind all, in all your inquiries, reading and hearing, that it is the other part of your trouble which is truly rational, and not this part of it which is from melancholy, that their means were ordained to remove, Though God may also bless him extraordinarily to do both, only constant, importunate prayer is a fit and special means for the curing of all. Number two. When you have truly found out how much of your disquietness proceeds from melancholy, acquit your soul from that part of it. Still remember in all your self-examinations, self-judgings, and reflections on your heart, that it is not directly to be changed with those sorrows that come from your spleen. Save only remotely, as all other diseases are the fruits of sin. It's a lethargic dullness that's a deserved fruit of sin. But he that should charge it immediately on his soul should wrong himself. And he that would attempt the cure must do it on the body. Number three. If you would have these fears and troubles removed, apply yourself to the proper cure of melancholy. Avoid all passion of sorrow, fear, and anger, as much as you can, on all occasions, and discontents and grief. Avoid much solitariness, and be most commonly in some cheerful company. Not that I would have you do as the foolish sinners of the world do, to drink away melancholy and keep company with sensual vain and unprofitable persons, that will draw you deeper into sin, and so make your wound greater instead of healing it, and multiply your troubles when you are forced to look back on your sinful loss of time. but keep company with the more cheerful sort of the godly. There is no mirth like the mirth of believers which faith fetches from the blood of Christ, and from the promises of the Word, and from experiences of mercy, and from the serious foreapprehensions of her everlasting blessedness. Converse with men of strongest faith that have this heavenly mirth, and can speak experimentally of the joy of the Holy Ghost. And these will be a great help to the reviving of your spirit and changing your melancholy habit, so far as without a physician it may be expected. Yet sometimes it may not be amiss to confer with some that are in your own case that you may see that your condition is not singular. For melancholic people in such distresses are ready to think that never any was in the cases they are in, or at least never any that were truly godly. When you hear people of the most upright lives, and it truly fear God, to have the same complaints as you have yourself, it may give you some hopes that it is not so bad as you before did imagine. However, be sure that you avoid solitariness as much as you well can. 3. Also take heed of two deep-fixed, musing thoughts. Studying and serious meditating be not duties for the deeply melancholy. as I shall show more in the following directions. You must let those alone till you are better able to perform them, lest by attempting those duties which you cannot perform, you shall utterly disable yourself from all. Therefore, I would advise you, by all means, to shake and rouse yourself out of such musings and suddenly to turn your thoughts away to something else. Number four, to this end, be sure that you avoid idleness and want of employment. Which, as it is a life not pleasing to God, so it is the opportunity for melancholy thoughts to be working. And the chief has seasoned for Satan to tempt you. Never let the devil find you unemployed, but see that you go cheerfully about the work of your calling. and follow it with diligence. In that time which you redeem for spiritual exercise, let it be most spent in thanksgiving and praises and heavenly conference. These things may do much for prevention and abating your disease, if it be not gone too far. But if it be, you were best have recourse to the physician and expect God's blessing in the use of means. and you will find that when your body is once cured, the disquietness of your mind will vanish of itself. 2. The second part of this direction was that you take notice how much of your disquietness may proceed from outward crosses For it is ordinary for these to lie at the root and bring the heart into a disquiet and discontent, and in trouble for sin follows after. Alas, how oft have I seen that verified of the Apostle in 2 Corinthians 7 verse 10. The sorrow of the world works death. How many, even godly people, have I known, that through crosses and children, or friends, or losses in their estates, or wrongfulment, or perplexities, that through some unadvisedness they were cast into, or the like, have fallen into mortal diseases or into such a fixed melancholy that some of them have gone besides themselves and others have lived in fears and doubting ever after. By the removal of the disguideness to their consciences, how sad a thing is it that we should thus add to our own afflictions. And the heavier we judge the burden the more we lay on, as if God had not done enough or would not sufficiently afflict us, we may more comfortably bear that which God lays on us than that which we immediately lay upon ourselves. Processes are not great or small according to the bulk of the matter. but according chiefly to the mind of the sufferer. Or else, how could holy men rejoice in tribulation and be exceedingly glad that they are accounted worthy to suffer for Christ? Reproaches, wrongs, losses are all without you, unless you open them the door willfully yourself. They cannot come into your heart. God has not put the joy or grief of your heart in any other man's power but in your own. It is you, therefore, that do yourselves the greatest mischief. God afflicts your body, or men wrong you in your state or name. A small hurt, if it go no further, and therefore you will afflict your soul. What a sadder thing yet is it to consider of that men fearing God should so highly value the things of the world. They who, in their covenants with Christ, are engaged to renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil. They that have taken God in Christ for their portion, for their all, have resigned themselves and all that they have to Christ's disposal, whose very business in this world and their Christian life consists so much in resisting the devil. mortifying the flesh and overcoming the world. And it is God's business and His inward works of grace and His outward teachings and sharp afflictions and examples of others to convince some of the vanity and vexation of the world. and thoroughly to wean them from it. And yet that it should be so high in their estimation and sit so close to their hearts that they cannot bear the loss of it without such discontent, disquiet and distraction of mind. Yea, though when all is gone, they still have God. They still have Christ whom they took for their treasure. They have opportunities for their souls. They have the sure promise of glory. Yea, and a promise that all things shall work together for their good. Yea, and for that one thing that is taken from them they have yet an hundred outward mercies remaining. Yet, yet, even believers should have so much unbelief and have their faith to seek. Witness should use it to live by it. and that God would seem so small in their eyes not to satisfy or quiet them unless they have the world with him. And the world should still seem so amiable when God has done so much to bring it into contempt. Truly this and more shows that the work of mortification is very imperfect in Christian professors. and that we bend not the force of our daily strivings and endeavors that way. If Christians did bestow but as much time and pain and mortifying the flesh in getting down the interest of it in the soul, that Christ's interest may be advanced as they do about controversies, external duties, formalities, tasks of devotion, and self-tormenting fears. But what excellent Christians should we then be? and how happily would most of our disquiet be removed. Alas, if we are so unfit to part with one outward comfort now, upon the disposal of our Father's providence, how should we forsake all for Christ? So what shall we do at death, when all must be parted with? As ever, therefore, you would live in true Christian peace, set more by Christ and less by the world and all things in it. And hold all that you possess so loosely that it may not be grievous to you when you must leave them. So much for the troubles that arise from your body in outward state. All the rest shall be directed for the curing of those troubles that arise immediately from more spiritual causes. Direction number three. Be sure that you first lay sound apprehensions of God's nature in your understanding and lay them deeply. This is the first article of your creed and the first part of life eternal to know God. His substance is quite past human understanding. Therefore, never make any attempt to reach the knowledge of it. or to have any positive conceivings of it, for they will all be but idols or false conceptions. But its attributes are manifested to our understandings. Well, consider that even under the terrible law, when God proclaims to Moses his own name, and there in his nature, Exodus 34, verses 6 and 7, The first and greatest part is, the Lord God merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. And He has sworn that He has no pleasure in the death of a sinner, but rather that he return and live. Think not, therefore, of God's mercifulness with diminishing, extenuating thoughts, nor limited by the bounds of our frail understandings. For the heavens are not so far above the earth as his thoughts and ways are above ours. Still remember that you must not have low thoughts of God's goodness, but apprehend it as bearing proportion with his power. As it is blasphemy to limit his power, so it is to limit his goodness. The advantage is that your soul will get by this right knowledge. An estimation of God's goodness will be these. First, this will make God appear more amiable in your eyes, and then you will love Him more readily and abundantly. And this love is effectually consolatory in the very working. So much love, usually so much comfort. I mean, this love of complacency for a love of desire there may be without comfort. Number two, it will breed persuasions of God's love to you again, and so comfort. At number three, it will be an unquestionable evidence of true grace and soul comfort. Affections follow the understanding's conceptions. If you think of God as one that is glad of all advantages against you and delights in his creature's misery, it is impossible you should love him. The love of yourselves is so deeply rooted in our natures that we cannot lay it by, nor love anything that is absolutely and directly against us. We conceive of the devil as an absolute enemy to God and man, and one that seeks our destruction, and therefore we cannot love him. And the great cause why troubled souls do love God no more is because they represent him to themselves in an ugly, odious shape. To think of God as one that seeks and delights in man's ruin is to make him as the devil. And then, what wonder if instead of loving him and delighting in him, you'd tremble at the thoughts of him and fly from him. As I have observed children, when they have seen the devil painted on the wall in an ugly shape, they have partly feared and partly hated it. If you do so by God in your fancy, it is not putting the name of God on him when you have done. It will reconcile your affections to him as long as you strip him of his divine nature. Remember the Holy Ghost description of God in 1 John 4 verse 16. God is love. Write these words deep in your understanding. Number two, by this you will have this advantage also, that your thoughts of God will be more sweet and delightful to you. For His glorious and beautiful sights to your eyes, and melodious sounds to your ears, and sweet smells, tastes, and so on, are all delightful. When things deform, stinking, and so on, are all loathome, and we turn away from one with abhorrency, but for the other we would often see, taste, and so on. and enjoy them. So it is with the objects of our mind. God has given no command for duty but what most perfectly agrees with the nature of the object. He has therefore bid us love God and delight in Him above all because He is above all in goodness, even infinitely and inconceivably good. Else we could not love Him above all, nor would He ever command us so to do. The object is ever as exactly fitted to its part. is to draw out the love and delight of our hearts as a precept is on its part to oblige us to it. And indeed the nature of things is a precept to duty and it which we call the law of nature. Number three. Hereupon will follow this further advantage that your thoughts will be more easily drawn toward God and more frequent and constant on Him. For delightful objects draw the heart to them as a low stone does the iron. How gladly and freely and frequently do you think of your dearest friends. And if you did firmly conceive of God as one that is ten thousand times more gracious, loving, and amiable than any friend that you have in the world, it would make you not only to love him above all friends, but also more freely, delightfully, and unweirdly to think of him. 4. And then you would hence have this further advantage, that you would have less backwardness to any duty and less weariness in duty. You would find more delight in prayer, meditation, and speech of God, when once God himself were more lovely and delightful in your eyes. 5. All these advantages would produce a further, that is, the growth of all your graces, for it is impossible but this growth of love and frequent delightful thoughts of God and addresses to Him should cause an increase of all the rest. Number six. Hereupon your evidences would be more clear and discernible, for grace and strength and action would be easily found, and would not disresolve all your doubts at once, 7. Yea, the very exercise of these several graces would be comfortable. 8. And hereupon you would have more humble familiarity and communion with God, for love, delight, and frequent addresses would overcome strangeness and disacquaintance. which make us fly from God as a fish or bird or wild beast, will from the face of a man, and would give us access with boldness and confidence, and this would banish sadness and terror as the sun dispels darkness and cold. Number nine. Elysia would hence have this advantage, that the fixed apprehension of God's goodness and merciful nature would cause a fixed apprehension of the probability of your happiness, As long as you are willing to be happy in God's way, for reason will tell you that he who is love itself, and whose goodness is equal to his almightiness, and who has sworn that he has no pleasure in the death of a sinner, but rather that he repent and live, will not destroy a poor soul that lies in submission at his feet, and is so far from resolved rebellion against him that he grieves that it is no better and can please him no more. However, these right apprehensions of God would overcome those terrors which are raised only by false apprehensions of Him. And doubtless, a very great part of men's causeless troubles are raised from such misapprehensions of God. And Satan knows that if he can bring you to think of God as a cruel tyrant and bloodthirsty man-hater, then he can drive you from Him in terror and turn all your love and cheerful obedience into hatred and slavish fear. I say, therefore, again, do not only get, but also fix deep in your understanding the highest thoughts of God's natural goodness and graciousness that possibly you can raise. For when they are at the highest, they come short ten thousandfold. Objection. But God's goodness lies not in mercy to men, as I've read in great divines. He may be perfectly good, though he should forever torment the most innocent creatures. Answer. These are ignorant, presumptuous intrusions into that which is unsearchable. Word of Scripture say as you say judge of God as he reveals himself or you will but delude yourself and abuse him all his works represent a merciful for his mercy is over all his works and legible in them all his words saith He is good and does good. Psalm 119, verse 68. How Himself does proclaim His own name in Exodus 34, 6 and 7. I told you before, the most merciful men are His liveliest image, and therefore He plants mercy in them in their conversion as a principal part of their new nature and commands a mercifulness or a great part of His law. And He bids us be merciful as our Heavenly Father is merciful. Luke 6, verse 36. Now if these were none of his nature, how could he be the pattern of our new nature herein? And if he were not infinitely merciful himself, how could we be required to be merciful as he is? Who dare say I am more merciful than God is? Objection. But God is just as well as merciful, and for all his merciful nature he will damn most of the world forever in hell. Answer number one, but James says mercy rejoices against judgment James 2 birth 13 Number two God is necessarily the governor of the world while there is a world and therefore must govern it Injustice and so must not allow us mercy to be perpetually abused by wicked willful contemptuous sinners but then consider two things first that he destroys not humble souls that lie at his feet and and are willing to have mercy on his easy turns, but only to stubborn despisers of his mercy. He damns none but those that will not be saved in his way, that is, that will not accept of Christ and salvation freely given them. I speak of those that hear the gospel, for others their case is more unknown to us. And is it any diminution to His infinite mercy that He will not save those who will not be entreated to accept of salvation? And consider how long He uses to wait on sinners and even beseeches them to be reconciled to Him before He destroys them, and that He heaps multitudes of mercies on them even in their rebellions to draw them to repentance and so to life. And is it unmercifulness yet if such men perish? Objection. But if God were so infinite in mercy as you say, why does he not make all these men willing, that so they may be saved? Answer. God heaven created the world and all things in it at first, did make them in a certain nature and order, and so established them as by a fixed law. And he thereupon is their governor to govern everything according to his nature. Now man's nature was to be principled with an inclination to his own happiness. and to be led to it by objects in a moral way. And it always means to be a free agent and a guider of himself under God. As governor of the rational creature, God does continue the same course of ruling them by laws and drawing them by ends and objects as their natures do require. And in this way, he is not wanting to them. His laws are not laws of grace and universal in the tenor of the free gift and promise. Free is their given life in Christ to all that will have it. And the objects propounded are sufficient in their kind to work even the most wonderful effects of men's souls. For they are God himself in Christ and glory. Besides, God gives men natural faculties. that they may have the use of reason. There is nothing more unreasonable than to refuse His offered mercy. He gives inducing arguments in a written word and sermons and adds such mercies and afflictions that one should think should bow the hardest heart. Besides, the strivings and motions of His Spirit within are more than we can give an account of. Now is not this as much as belongs to God as governor of the creature according to its nature. and for the giving of a new nature and creating new hearts in men, after all their rebellious rejecting of grace. This is a certain miracle of mercy and belongs to God, in another relation, even as the free chooser of His elect, and not directly as the governor of the universe. This is from His special providence and the former from His general. Now special providences are not to be as common as the general, nor to subvert God's ordinary established course of government. If God pleased to stop Jordan and drive the Red Sea for the passage of the Israelites and to cause the sun to stand still for Joshua, must he do so still for every man in the world, or else be accounted unmerciful? The sense of this objection is plainly this. God is not so rich in mercy except he will new make all the world or govern it above its nature. Suppose a king know his subjects to be so wicked that they have every wonderful design to famish or kill themselves or poison themselves with something which is enticing by his sweetness. The king not only makes a law strictly charging them all to forbear to touch that poison, but he sends special messengers to entreat them to it and tell them the danger of it. If these men will not hear him, but willfully poison themselves, is he therefore unmerciful? But suppose that he hath three or four of his sons that are infected with the same wickedness, and he will not only command and entreat them, but he will lock them up and keep the poison from them, or will feed them by violence with better food, is he merciful unless he will do so by all the rest of his kingdom? Lastly, if all this will not satisfy you, consider, number one, that it is most certain God is love and infinite in mercy and has no pleasure in the death of sinners. Number two, but it is utterly uncertain to us how God works on man's will inwardly by his spirit. Number three, or yet, what intolerable inconvenience there may be if God should work in other ways. Therefore, we must not upon such uncertainties deny certainties, nor from some unreasonable scruples about the manner of God's working grace deny the blessed nature of God, which Himself has most evidently proclaimed to the world. I have said the more of this because I find Satan harps so much on this string, and with many troubled souls, especially on the advantages of some common doctrines, for false doctrine still tends to the overthrow of solid peace and comfort. Remember, therefore, before all other thoughts for the obtaining of peace to get high thoughts of the nature of God. Direction 4. Next, this. Be sure that you deeply apprehend the gracious nature, disposition, and office of the Mediator, Jesus Christ. Though there can be no more said of the gracious nature of the Son than of the Father's, even that his goodness is infinite, yet these two advantages his consideration will add to the former. Number 1. You will see here goodness and mercy in his condescension and nearer to you than in the divine nature alone it was. Our thoughts of God are necessarily more strange because of our infinite distance from the Godhead, and therefore, our apprehensions of God's goodness will be the less working because less familiar. But in Christ, God has come down into our nature, and so infinite goodness and mercy is incarnate. The man Christ Jesus is able now to save to the utmost all that come to God by him. We have a merciful high priest, disaccointed with our infirmities. 2. Herein we see the will of God putting forth itself for our help in the most astonishing way that could be imagined. Here is more than merely a gracious inclination. It is an office of saving and showing mercy also that Christ has undertaken, even to seek and to save that which was lost. to bring home strained souls to God, to be the great peacemaker between God and man, to reconcile God to man and man to God, and so to be the head and husband of his people. Certainly the devil strangely wrongs poor troubled souls in this point, that he can bring them to have such hard, suspicious thoughts of Christ, and so much to overlook the glory of mercy which so shines in the face of the Son of Mercy itself. How can we more contradict the nature of Christ and the gospel description of Him than to think Him a destroying hater of its creatures and one that watches for our halting as more mine to hurt us than to help us? How could He have manifested more willingness to save and more tender compassion to the souls of men Then he has fully manifested that the Godhead should condescend to assume our nature is this thing so wonderful even to astonishment that it puts faith to it, to apprehend it. For it is ten thousand times more condescension than for the greatest king to become a fly or a toad to save such creatures. And shall we ever have low and suspicious thoughts of the gracious and merciful nature of Christ, after so strange and full a discovery of it? If twenty were ready to drown in the sea, and if one that were able to swim and fetch all out should cast himself into the water and offer him his help, were not foolish in gratitude for any to say, I know not yet where he be willing to help me or not. And so have jealous thoughts of his goodwill, and so perish in refusing his help. How tenderly did Christ deal with all sorts of sinners! He professed that he came not into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. Did he weep over a rejected, unbelieving people, and was he desirous of their desolation? How often would he have gathered them as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings? Mark, that he would not have done this for them, that he cast off, and they would not? When his disciples would have had fire come down from heaven to consume those that refused him, he reproves them and tells them, they knew not what spirit they were of. The common case of them that miscarry by suffering their zeal to overrun their Christian wisdom and meekness. Yea, he prays for his crucifiers, and that on the cross, not forgetting them in the heat of his sufferings. Thus he does by the wicked, but to those that follow him his tenderness is unspeakable, as you would have said yourself if you had but stood by and seen him washing his disciples' feet and wiping them, or bidding Thomas put his finger into his side, and be not faithless, but believing, alas, that the Lord Jesus should come from heaven to earth. from glory into human flesh, and pass through a life of misery to a cross, and from the cross to the grave, to manifest openly to the world the abundance of his love and the tenderness of his heart to sinners, and that, after all this, we should suspect him of cruelty or hard-heartedness and unwillingness to show mercy, and that the devil can so far delude us as to make us think of the Lamb of God as if he were a tiger, or devourer. But I will say no more of this, because Richard Sibbes in his book called The Bruce Reed has said so much already. Only remember that if you would methodically proceed to detaining a solid comfort, this is the next stone that must be laid. You must be deeply possessed with apprehensions of the most gracious nature and office of the Redeemer and the exceeding tenderness of his heart to lost sinners. Direction number five. The next step in right order to comfort is this. You must believe and consider the full sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice and ransom for all. The controversies about this you need not be troubled at. For it is almost all confessed as sufficiency, so the Scripture itself, by the plainness and fullness of its expression, makes it as clear as a light that Christ died for all. The fuller proof of this I have given you in public, and shall do yet more publicly, if God will. If Satan would persuade you either that no ransom and sacrifice was ever given for you, or that therefore you have no Redeemer to trust in, and no Savior to believe in, and no sanctuary to fly to from the wrath of God, he first must prove to you either to be no lost sinner, or to be a final and penitent unbeliever, that is, that you are dead already, or else he must dilute your understanding to make you think that Christ died not for everybody, and then I confess he has a sore advantage against your faith and comfort. Direction 6. The next thing in order to be done is this, get clear apprehensions of the freeness, fullness, and universality of the new covenant or law of grace. I mean the promise of remission, justification, adoption, and salvation to all, so they will believe. No man on earth is excluded in the tenor of this covenant, and therefore certainly you are not excluded. And if not excluded, then you must needs be included. Show where you are excluded if you can. You will say, but for all this all men are not justified and saved. Answer, true, because they will not be persuaded to accept a mercy that is freely given them. The use that I should have you make of this I will show in the next direction. Number 7. You must get the right understanding of the difference between general grace and special, and between the possibility, probability, conditional certainty, and absolute certainty of your salvation, and so between the comfort on the former ground and on the latter. And here I shall open up to you a rich mine of consolation. Understand, therefore, that as every particular part of the house is built on the foundation, so is every part of special grace built on general grace. Understand, also, that all the four last-mentioned particulars belong to this general grace. It is also that no man can have any absolute certainty of salvation from the consideration of this general grace alone, yet may it afford abundance of relief to distressed souls, yea, much true consolation. Lastly, Understand that all that hear the gospel may take part in this consolation, though they have no assurance of their salvation at all, nor any special saving grace. Now, when you understand these things well, this is the use that I would have you make of them. Do not begin the way to your spiritual peace by inquiring after the sincerity of your graces. and trying yourself by signs. Do not seek out for assurance of salvation in the first place, nor do not look and study after the special comforts which come from certainty of special grace before you have learned first to perform the duty of faith, and to receive the comforts which general grace affords Such immethodical, disorderly proceedings keeps thousands of poor, ignorant Christians in darkness and trouble almost all their days. Let the first thing you do be to obey the poise of the Gospel, which calls you to accept of Christ and special mercy. This is a record that God has given us eternal life, and His life is in His Son. He that has a Son has life. Fix this deep in your mind that the nature of the gospel is for us to declare to our understandings the most gracious nature undertakings and performances of Christ for us, which must be believed to be true. Answer number two, to offer this Christ with all his special mercy to every man to whom this gospel comes and to entreat them to accept Christ in life which is freely given and offered to them. Remember then, you are a lost sinner by nature. For certain, Christ and life in Him has given an offer to you. Now your first work is, presently, to accept it, not to make an unseasonable inquiry whether Christ be yours, but to take Him, that He may be yours. If you were condemned and a pardon were freely given you, on condition you would thankfully take it, and it were offered to you, and you entreated to take it, what would you do in this case? Would you spend your time and thoughts in searching whether this pardon be already yours? Or would you not presently take it that it may be yours? Or if you were ready to famish, and food were offered you, would you stand asking first, how shall I know that it is mine? or rather take and eat it, when you are sure it may be yours, if you will. Let me entreat you, therefore, when the devil clamors in your ears, Christ and salvation is none of yours. Suppose that this voice of God and the gospel was still in your ears, yet let it be still in your memory. O take Christ and life in Him, that you may be saved. Still think that you hear Paul following you with these words, We are ambassadors for Christ. It's O God to beseech you by us. We pray you in Christ's dead be reconciled to God. Will you but remember this when you are on your knees in sorrow and when you would faint of Christ in life and you are afraid that God will not give them to you. I say remember then God stands by beseeching you to accept the same thing which you are beseeching him to give. God is a fursuiter and solicitor. God prays you to take Christ, and you pray Him to give you Christ. What have you now to do but to take Him? And here, understand, that this taking is no impossible business. It is no more but of your hearty consenting, as I shall tell you more and on. If you did but well understand and consider that believing is a great duty that God calls you to perform, and promises to save you if you do truly perform it, Then that this believingness to take, or consent to have the same mercy which you pray for, and are troubled for fearless, you shall miss of it, even Christ and life in him, disimpressingly draw forth your consent, and that, and so openly express away, as you could not but discover it, and have the comfort of it. Remember this then, that your first work is to believe, or accept, an offered Savior,