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

finding a poor silly woman (for it's most common with them) to be under sad doubts and distress of soul, one tells her, It is Gods hand on you to convince you of error, and to bring you to submit to the Ordinance of Baptism: and upon this many have been Re-baptized, and ⟨p. 392⟩put their foot into that snare which I have yet seen few escape and draw back from. Another comes and tells the troubled soul, It is Legal Preaching, and looking at something in your self for Peace and Comfort, which hath brought you into this distress: As long as you follow these Legal Preachers, and read their books, and look at any thing in your self, and seek Assurance from Marks within you, it will never be better with you. These Preachers understand not the nature of free Grace, nor ever tasted it themselves, and therefore they cannot preach it, but despise it. You must know that Grace is so free that the Covenant hath no Condition: You must Believe and not look after the Marks: and Believing is but to be persuaded that God is Reconciled to you, and hath forgiven you: for you are Justified before you were born if you are one of the Elect, and can but Believe it; 't is not any thing of your own by which you can be Justified: Nor is it any sin of yours that can unjustifie. It is the witness of the Spirit only persuading you of your Justification and Adoption, that can give you Assurance; and fetching it from any thing in your self, is but a resting on your own Righteousness, and forsaking Christ. When the Antinomian hath but sung this Ignorant Charm to a poor Soul as Ignorant as himself, and prepared by terrors ⟨p. 393⟩to entertain the Impression, presently it (oft) takes, and the sinner without a wonder of Mercy is undone. This Doctrine which subverteth the very scope of the Gospel, being entertained, subverteth his Faith and Obedience; and usually the Libertinism of his opinion is seen in his Liberty of Conscience, and Licentious practises: and his trouble of mind is cured, as a burning fever, by opium, which gives him such a sleep▪that he never awaketh till he be in another world. Yet these errors are so gross, and so fully against the express Texts of Scripture, that if Ministers would condescendingly, lovingly and familiarly deal with them, and do their duty, I should hope many well-meaning Souls might be recovered.