A27009:548
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.
DOUBT. IV.
But my great fear is, that the life of Grace is not yet within me, because I am so void of spiritual sense and feeling: Me thinks I am in spiritual things as Dead as a block, and my heart as hard as a Rock or the nether Mill-stone: Grace is a principle of new Life, ⟨p. 424⟩and Life is a principle of sense and motion: it causeth vigour and Activity; such should I have in Duty if I had the Life of Grace. But I feel the great curse of a dead heart within me: God seems to withdraw his quickening Spirit, and to forsake me; and to give me up to the hardness of my heart. If I were in Covenant with him, I should feel the blessing of the Covenant within me; The hard heart would be taken out of my body, and a heart of flesh, a soft heart would be given to me: But I cannot weep one tear for my sins. I can think on the blood of Christ, and of my bloody sins that caused it, and all will not wring one tear from mine eyes: And therefore I fear that my soul is yet destitute of the life of Grace.
BƲt my great fear is, that the life of Grace is not yet within me, because I am so void of spiritual sense and feeling: Me thinks I am in spiritual things as Dead as a block, and my heart as hard as a Rock or the nether Mill-stone: Grace is a principle of new Life, ⟨p. 424⟩and Life is a principle of sense and motion: it causeth vigour and Activity; such should I have in Duty if I had the Life of Grace. But I feel the great curse of a dead heart within me: God seems to withdraw his quickening Spirit, and to forsake me; and to give me up to the hardness of my heart. If I were in Covenant with him, I should feel the blessing of the Covenant within me; The hard heart would be taken out of my body, and a heart of flesh, a soft heart would be given to me: But I cannot weep one tear for my sins. I can think on the blood of Christ, and of my bloody sins that caused it, and all will not wring one tear from mine eyes: And therefore I fear that my soul is yet destitute of the life of Grace.