A27009:358
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 XXII.
22. My next Direction is this, Spend more of your time and care about your Duty then about your Comforts: and for the exercise and increase of your Graces then for the discovery of them: And when you have done all that you can, for Assurance and Comfort, you shall find that it will very much depend on your Actual Obedience.
22. My next Direction is this, Spend more of your time and care about your Duty then about your Comforts: and for the exercise and increase of your Graces then for the discovery of them: And when you have done all that you can, for Assurance and Comfort, you shall finde that it will very much depend on your Actual Obedience.
This Direction is of as great importance as any that I have yet given you: but I shall say but little of it because I have spoke of it so fully already in my Book of Rest, Part 3. Ch. 8, 9, 10, 11. My Reasons for what I here assert are these: 1. Duty goeth in order of nature and time before comfort: as the Precept is before the Promise: Comfort is part of the ⟨p. 233⟩Reward, and therefore necessarily supposeth Duty. 2. Grace makes men both so ingenuous and Divine, as to consider Gods due as well as their own; and what they should Do, as well as what they shall Have: still remembering that our works cannot Merit at Gods hands. 3. As we must have Grace before we can Know we have it, so ordinarily we must have a good measure of Grace before we can so clearly discern it as to be certain of it. Small things, I have told you are next to none, and hardly discernible by weak eyes. When all ways in the world are tried, it will be found, that there is no way so sure for a doubting soul to be made certain of the truth of his Graces, as to keep them in Action, and get them increased. And it will be found that there is no one cause of Christians doubting of the truth of their Faith, Love, Hope, Repentance, Humility, &c. so great or so common as the small degree of these Graces. Doth not the very language of complaining Christians show this? One saith, I have no faith: I cannot believe: I have no love to God: I have no delight in Duty: Another saith, I cannot mourn for sin: my heart was never broken: I cannot patiently bear an injury: I have no courage