The right method for a settled peace of conscience, and spiritual comfort in 32…

but yet through some vain scruple shall think My thankfulness is so small that it is not sincere, and therefore I doubt, I do not perform his condition, and so shall never have the gift. In this ⟨p. 195⟩case now, you do Believe your friend and you do not Distrust him properly; but you Distrust your self, that you perform not the condition; and this hindereth the exercise of that Confidence or Affiance in your friend which is habitually and virtually in you. Just so is it in our present case.

but yet through some vain scruple shall think My thankefulness is so small that it is not sincere, and therefore I doubt, I do not perform his condition, and so shall never have the gift. In this ⟨p. 195⟩case now, you do Believe your friend and you do not Distrust him properly; but you Distrust your self, that you perform not the condition; and this hindreth the exercise of that Confidence or Affiance in your friend which is habitually and virtually in you. Just so is it in our present case.

The same may be said of Desperation, which is a Privation of Hope: When we have Believed the Truth of the Gospel, and Accepted Christ offered, we are then bound to Hope that God will give us the Benefits promised: So hope is nothing but A Desirous expectation of the good so promised and believed. Now if you begin to Distrust whether God will make good this promise or no, either thinking that it is not True, or he is not able, or hath changed his mind since the making of it, and on these grounds you let go your Hopes, this is Despair. If because that Christ seems to Delay his coming, we should say, I have waited in Hope till now, but now I am out of Hope that ever Christ will come to Judge the world and Glorify Believers, I will expect it no longer: this is Despair. And it hath its several Degrees more or less, as unbelief hath. ⟨p. 196⟩Indeed the Schoolmen say that Affiance is nothing but strengthened Hope. Affiance in the properest sense is the same in substance with Hope; only it more expresseth a Respect to the Promise and Promiser, and indeed is Faith and Hope expressed both together in one word. So that what I said before of Distrust, is true of Despair. If you do continue to Believe the Truth of the Gospel, and particularly of Christs coming and glorifying his Saints, and yet you think he will not glorify you because you think that you are not a true Believer or Saint; This is not Desperation in the proper sense. For Desperation is the privation of Hope, where the formal cause, the heart and life of it is wanting. But you have here Hope in the Habit, and Virtually do Hope in Christ: but the Act of it as to your own particular salvation is hindered, upon an accidental mistake. In the forementioned example, If your friend Promise to give you a hundred pound on condition of your thankful Acceptance, and promiseth to come at such an hour and bring it you: If now you stay till the hour be almost come, and then say, I m out of Hope of his coming now; he