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

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 ⟨p. 234⟩in opposing sin, &c. If all these were not in a low and weak degree, men could not so ordinarily think they had none. A lively, strong, working Faith, Love, Zeal, Courage, &c. would show themselves, as do the highest Towers, the greatest mountains, the strongest winds, the greatest flames, which will force an observance by their greatness and effects. 4. Consider also that it is more pleasing to God to see his people study him and his will directly, then to spend the first and chiefest of their studies about the attaining of comforts to themselves. 5. And it is the nature of Grace to tend first and chiefly toward God: and but secondarily to be the evidence of our own happiness. We have faith given us principally that we might believe, and live by it in daily applications of Christ:

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