Exhortations to the Godly, to Know Their Graces and Duties
Ii. I AM next to persuade believers to know their graces and their happiness. Good is the object of voluntary knowledge, but Evil of forced involuntary knowledge, unless as the knowledge of evil tendeth M 3 to some good. Therefore, methinks, you should be readiest to this part of the study of yourselves: and yet, alas! the presumptuous are not more unwilling to know their sin and misery, than some perplexed Christians are backward to acknowledge their grace and happiness 1 How hard is it to convince them of the tender love of God towards them, and of the sincerity of their love to him; and to make them believe that they are dear to God when they loathe themselves! How hard is it to persuade them that the riches of Christ, the promises of the gbspel, and the inheritance of the saints, belonfr to them! And the reasons, among others, are principally these:
1. The remnant of sins are so great, and so active, and troublesome, as that the feeling of these contrary dispositions doth hinder them from obser’ing the operations of grace. It is not easy to discern the sincerity of faith among so much unbelief; or the sincerity of love, where there is so much averseness; or of humility, where there is so much pride; or of repentance and mortification, where there is so much concupiscence and inclination to sin: especially when grace, by its enmity to sin, doth make the soul so suspicious and sensible of it, as that the observation of it turns their mind from the observation of the contrary good that is in them. Health is not observed in other parts, when the feeling of the stone, or but the toothache, takes us up. The thoughts are called all to the part affected; and sickness and wounds are felt more sensibly than health. The fears of misery and sin, are more easily excited, and more passionate than love and hope, and all the affections that are employed in the prosecution of good. And, in the midst of fears, it is hard to feel the matter of our joys: fear is a tyrant if it exceed, and will not permit us to believe or observe the cause of hope. These fears are useful to our preservation, but they too often pervert our judgments, and hinder our due consolation. Saith Seneca, “He that feareth snares, doth not fall into them: a wise man escapeth evil by always fearing it.” And the Holy Ghost saith, “Happy is the man that feareth alway; but he that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischief.”
Moderate fears, then, are given to believers for their necessary preservation, that, walking among enemies and snares, they may take heed and escape them. But when this passion doth exceed, it abuseth us, and drowns the voice of reason; it maketh us believe that every temptation is a sin, and every sin is such as cannot stand with grace, and will hardly ever be pardoned by Christ. Every sin against knowledge and conscience doth seem almost unpardonable; and if it were deliberate, after profession of religion, it seems to be the sin against the Holy Ghost. As children and other fearful persons, that fear the devil by way of apparitions, do think in the dark he is ready to lay hold on them; so the fearful Christian is still thinking that thing he feareth is coming upon him. The fear of an unrcgeneratc, unpardoned state, doth make him think he is in it; and the fear of the wrath of God doth make him think that he is under it. It is wonderfully hard, in a fearful state, or indeed in any passion that is strong, to have the free use of judgment for the knowing of ourselves, and to discern any grace, or evidence, or mercy, which is contrary to our fears, especially when the feeling of much corruption doth turn our eyes from the observation of good, and we are still taken up with the matter of our disease.
2. Another cause that we hardly know our graces, is because they are weak and small; and therefore, in the midst of so much corruption, are oftentimes hardly discerned from none. A little faith, even as a grain of mustard-seed, may save us; a little love to God that is sincere will be accepted; and weak desires may be fulfilled; but they are frequently undiscerned, or their sincerity questioned by those that have them, and therefore bring but little comfort. Peter’s little faith did keep him from drowning, but not from doubting and fearintj he should be drowned, nor from beginning to sink. “He walked on the water to go to Jesus; but when he saw the wind boisterous he was afraid; and, beginning to sink, he cried, saying. Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” So the little faith of the disciples kept them from perishing, but not from their fear of perishing. “When a great tempest arose, so that the ship was covered with waves, they cry, Lord, save us, we perish: and he saith to them. Why are ye afraid, O ye of little faith?” The little faith of the same disciples entitled them to the fatherly protection and provision of God; but it kept them not from sinful cares and fears, about what they should cat or drink, or wherewith they should be clothed. “Take no thought for your life, what you shall eat, or drink, or for your body what you shall put on. — Why take you thought for raimeut? — If God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?” So in Matt. xvi. 7, 8. The seed that Christ likeneth his kingdom to, hath life while it is buried in the earth, and is visible while a little seed; but is not so observable as when it cometh to be a tree. Though God “despise not the day of little things,” and though he “will not break the bruised reed, or quench the smoking flax,” yet ourselves or others cannot discern and value these obscure beginnings, as God doth. But because we cannot easily find a little faith, and a little love, when we are looking for it, we take the non-appearance for a non-existence, and call it none.
3. Sanctificalion is oft unknown to those that have it, because they do not try and judge themselves by sure infallible marks, the essentials of the new man; but by uncertain qualifications, that are mutable, and belong but to the beauty and activity of the soul.
The essence of holiness, as denominated from the object, is the consent to the three articles of the covenant of grace. 1. That we give up ourselves to God, as our God and reconciled Father in Jesus Christ. 2. That we give up ourselves to Jesus Christ, as our Redeemer and Saviour, to recover us, reconcile us, and bring us unto God. 3. That we give up ourselves to the Holy Ghost as our Sanctifier, to guide and illuminate us, and perfect the image of God upon us, and prepare us for glory.
The essence of sanctificatlon, as denominated from its opposite objects, is nothing but our renunciation and rejection of the flesh, the world, and the devil; of pleasures, profits, and honours, as they would be preferred before God, and draw us to forsake him.
The essence of sanctification, as denominated from our faculties, which are the subject of it, is nothing but this preferring of God, and grace, and glory, above the said pleasures, profits, and honours. 1. By the estimation of our understandings. 2. By the resolved habitual choice of our wills. 3. And in the bent and drift of our endeavours in our conversations. In these three acts, as upon the first three objects, and against the other three objects, lieth all that is essential to sanctification, and that we should judge of our sincerity, and title to salvation by, as I before showed.
But besides these, there are many desirable qualities and gifts, which we may seek for, and be thankful for; but are not essential to our sanctification. Such are,
1. The knowledge of other truths, besides the essentials of faith and duty, and the soundness of judgment, and freedom from error in these lesser points.
2. A strong memory to carry away the things that we read and hear,
3. A right order of our thoughts, when we can keep them from confusion, roving, and distraction.
4. Freedom from too strong affections about the creatures, and from disturbing passions.
5. Lively affections, and feeling operations of the soul towards God, in holy duty, and tender meltings of the heart for sin, which are very desirable, but depend so much on the temperature of the body, and outward accidents, and are but the vigour, and not the life and being of the new creature, that we must not judge of our sincerity by them. Some Christians scarce know what any such lively feelings are; and some have them very seldom, and, I think, no one constantly; and, therefore, if our peace, or judgment of ourselves, be laid on these, we shall be still wavering and unsettled, and tossed up and down as the waves of the sea; sometimes seeming to be almost in heaven, and presently near the gates of hell: when our state doth not change at all, as these feelings and affectionate motions of the soul do; but we are still in our safe relation to God, while our first essential graces do continue, though our failings, dulness, weaknesses, and wants, must be matter of moderate filial humiliation to us,
6. The same must be said of all common gifts, of utterance, in conference or prayer, and of quickness of understanding, and such like.
7. Lastly, The same must be said also of all that rectitude of life, and those degrees of obedience that are above mere sincerity; in which one true Christian doth exceed another; and in which we should all desire to abound; but must not judge ourselves to be unsanctified, merely because we are imperfect; or to be unjustified sinners, merely because we are sinners.
In judging ourselves by our lives and practices, two extremes must be carefully avoided: on the left hand that of the profane, and of the Antiuomians. The former cannot distinguish between sanctified and unsanctified, justified and unjustified sinners; and when they have once conceited that they are in the favour of God, whatever they do, they say, ‘We are but sinners, and so are the best.’ The latter teach men, that when once they are justified, they are not, for any sins, to doubt again of their justified state, lest they should seem to make God changeable.
On the other hand must be avoided this extreme of perplexed doubting Christians, that make all their sins, or too many of them, to be matter of doubting, which should be but matter of humiliation.
I know it is a very great difficulty that hath long perplexed the doctors of the church, to define what sins are consistent, and what inconsistent, with a state of holiness and salvation, which, if any distinguish by the names of mortal and venial, taking the words in no other sense, I shall not quarrel with them. At present I shall say but this, for the resolving of this great and weighty question.
1. It is not the bare act of sin, in itself considered, that must determine the case; but the act compared with the life of grace, and with true repentance. Whoever hath the love of God and life of grace, is in a state of salvation; and therefore, whatever sin consisteth with the fore-described essentials of sanctification, namely, the habitual devotion of the soul to God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and the habitual renunciation of the flesh, the world, and devil, consisteth with a state of life. And true repentance proveth the pardon of all sin; and therefore, whatever sin consisteth with habitual repentance, which is the hatred of sin, as sin, and hath actual repentance when it is observed, and there is time for dehberation, consisteth with a state of grace. Now, in habitual conversion or repentance, the habitual willingness to leave our sin, must be more than our sinful habitual willingness to keep it. Now you may by this discern, as to particular acts, whether they are consistent with habitual hatred of sin. For some sins are so much in the power of the will, that he that hath a habitual hatred of them, cannot frequently commit thera. And some sins are also of so heinous a nature or degree, that he that habitually hateth sin, cannot frequently commit them; not at all, while his hatred to them is in act. And he that truly repenteth of them, cannot frequently return to them; because that showeth that repentance was indeed either but superficial, or not habitual. But some sins are not so great and heinous, and therefore do not so much deter the soul, and some are not so fully in the power of a sanctified will, as passions, thoughts, &c. and therefore may oftcner be committed in consistency with habitual repentance or hatred of sin. To examine particulars, would be tedious and digressive.
2. And I must further answer, that our safety, and, consequently, our peace and comfort, lieth in flying as far from sin as we can. And therefore, he that will sin as much as will consist with any sparks of grace, shall bury those sparks by his sin, and shall not know that he hath any grace, nor have the comfort of it; as being in a condition unfit for actual assurance and comfort, till he be brought to actual repentance and amendment.
Thus have I showed you, by what you must try your sanctification, if you will know it; which I before proved to you from Scripture.
4. Another cause that many Christians are ignorant of their state of grace, is their looking so much at what they should be, and what others are that have a right degree of grace, and what is commanded as our duty, that they observe not what they have already, because it is short of what they ought to have. We are thus too much about outward mercies. We are more troubled for one mercy taken from us, than comforted in many that are left us. We observe our diseases and our sores, more sensibly than our health. David, for one Absalom, is so afflicted, that he wished he had died for him though a rebel! when his comfort in Solomon, and his other children is laid aside. As all the humours flow to the pained place, so do our thoughts; and so we overlook the matter of our comfort.
5. And it very much hindereth the knowledge of our graces, that we search upon so great disadvantages as hinder a true discovery. Among many others, I will instance but in two or three.
1. We surprise our souls with sudden questions, and look for a full and satisfactory answer, before we can well recollect ourselves, and call up our evidences; and we expect to know the sum or product, before our consciences have had leisure deliberately to cast up their accounts. Yea, when we have set to it, and by diligent search with the best assistances, have discovered our sincerity, and recorded the judgment, if conscience cannot presently recall its proofs, and make it out upon every surprise.
we unjustly question all that is past, and will never rest ill any judgment, but are still calling over all again, as if the cause had never been tried. And then the judgment passeth according to our present temper and disposition, when many of the circumstances are forgotten, and many of the witnesses are out of the way, that last assisted us.
2. Perhaps we judge (as I said before) in the fit of a passion of fear or grief, which imperiously overruleth or disturbeth reason: and then no wonder, if in our haste we say, that all men that would comfort us are liars. And if, with David, in the “day of our trouble, our souls do even refuse to be comforted;” and if we remember God, and we are troubled more, and if “our spirit be overwhelmed in us: when he holdeth our eyes waking, and we are so troubled that we cannot speak.” And if we question whether “the Lord will cast off for ever, and will be favourable no more.” Whether “his mercy be clean gone for ever, and his promise fail for evermore:” whether “he hath forgotten to be gracious, and hath shut up his tender mercies in displeasure:” till a calm deliver us from the mistake, and make us say, * This is our infirmity,’ we think that God doth cast off our souls, and “hideth his face from us,” when “our soul is full of troubles, and our life draweth nigh unto the grave: when we are afflicted and ready to die from our youth up, and are distracted, while we suffer the terrors of the Lord;” as he complaineth. Passion judgeth according to its nature, and not according to truth.
3. Or perhaps we judge, when our friends, our memory, and other helps are out of the way, and we are destitute of due assistance.
4. Or when our bodies are weak or distempered with melancholy, which representeth all this in black and terrible colours to the soul, and will hear no language but forsaken, miserable, and undone. You may as well take the judgment of a man half drunk, or half asleep, about the greatest matters of your lives, as to take the judgment of conscience in such a state of disadvantage, about the condition of your souls.
5. Another hinderance to us, is, that we cannot take comfort from the former sight of grace that we have had, unless we have a continued present sight. And so all our labour in trying, and all our experiences, and all God’s former, manifestations of himself to the soul are lost, as to our present comfort, when our grace is out of sight: like foolish travellers, that think they are out of the way, and are ready to turn back, when ever any hill doth interpose, and hinder them from seeing the place they go to. As if it were no matter of comfort to us, to say, I did find the evidences of grace; I once recorded a judgment of my sincerity: but the former is still questioned rather than the latter. When, with David, we should “consider the days of old, the years of ancient times, and call to remembrance our songs in the night, and commune with our hearts in such a diligent search,” and remembrance of the mercies formerly received.
6. Lastly, The operations of man’s soul are naturally so various, and, from corruption, are so confused and so dark, that we are ofttimes in a maze and at a loss, when we are most desirous to judge aright; and scarcely know where, in so great disorder, to find any thing that we seek; and know it not when we find it: so that our hearts are almost as strange to themselves as to one another; and sometimes more confident of other men’s sincerity than our own, where there is no more matter for our confidence.