A27009:133
The right method for a settled peace of conscience, and spiritual comfort in 32…
The right method for a settled peace of conscience, and spiritual comfort in 32 directions : written for the use of a troubled friend / and now published by Richard Baxter ...
London: printed for T. Underhil, 1653
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
DIRECTION VIII.
8. The next thing that you have to do, for building up a stable Comfort, and settling your Conscience in a solid Peace, is this; Be sure to get and keep a right Understanding of the Nature of Saving Faith.
8. The next thing that you have to do, for building up a stable Comfort, and setling your Conscience in a solid Peace, is this; Be sure to get and keep a right Understanding of the Nature of Saving Faith.
AS you must have right thoughts of the Covenant of Grace (of which before,) the want whereof doth puzzle and confound very many Christians; so you must be sure to have right thoughts of the Condition of the Covenant. For indeed that Grace which causeth you to perform this Condition, is your first special saving Grace, which you may take as a certain evidence of your Justification: And this Condition is the very link which conjoineth all the General foregoing Grace to all the rest of the following special Grace. The Scripture is so full and plain in Assuring pardon and salvation to all true Believers, that if you can but be sure that you are a Believer, you need not make any doubt of your interest in Christ and ⟨p. 50⟩your salvation. Seeing therefore that all the question will be, Whether you have true Faith? Whether you do perform the Condition of the new Covenant? (For all other doubts God hath given you sufficient ground to resolve, as is said,) how much then doth it concern you to have a right understanding of the Nature of this Faith? Which that you may have let me tell you briefly what it is. Mans soul hath two faculties, Understanding and Will: Accordingly the Objects of mans soul (all Beings which it is to Receive) have two Modifications; Truth and Goodness (as those to be Avoided are Evil.) Accordingly Gods Word or Gospel hath two parts; the Revelation of Truth, and the Offer and Promise of some Good. This offered Good is principally and immediately Christ himself, to be joined to us by Covenant as our head and husband: The secondary consequential Good, is Pardon, Justification, Reconciliation, Adoption, further Sanctification and Glorification, which are all offered with Christ. By this you may see what saving Faith is: It is first a Believing that the Gospel is True; and then an Accepting of Christ therein offered to us, with his benefits: or a consenting that he be ours and we be his; which is nothing but a true willingness to have an