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

but you would give all that you have to be rid of sin; you could wish when you dishonoured God by sin, that you had spent that time in suffering rather; and if it were to do again on the same terms and inducements, you would not do it: Nay, you would live a beggar contentedly, so you might fully please God, and never sin against him, and are content to pinch your flesh and deny your worldly interest for the time to come, rather then wilfully disobey. This is a truly tender heart. On the other side, another can weep to think of his sin; and yet if you should ask him, what wouldst thou give, or what wouldst thou suffer, so thou hadst not sinned? or that thou mightest sin no more? Alas, very little: For the next time that he is put to it, he will rather venture on the sin, then venture on a little loss, or danger, or disgrace in the world, or deny his craving flesh its pleasures. This is a hard-hearted sinner. The more you would part with to be ⟨p. 429⟩rid of sin, or the greater cost you would be at for that end, the more Repentance have you, and true tenderness of heart. Alas, if men should go to Heaven according to their weeping, what abundance of children and women would be there for one man! I'll speak truly my own Case. This doubt lay heavy many a year on my own soul: when yet I would have given all that I had to be rid of sin; but I could not weep a tear for it. Nor could I weep for the death of my dearest friends, when yet I would have bought their lives, had it been Gods will, at a dearer rate then many that could weep for them ten times as much. And now since my nature is decayed, and my body languisheth in consuming weakness, and my head more moistened, and my veins filled with flegmatick watery blood, now I can weep: and yet I find never the more tender-heartedness in my self then before. And yet to this day so much remains of my old disposition, that I could wring all the money out of my purse easier then one tear out of my eyes, to save a friend, or rescue them from evil: when I see divers that can weep for a dead friend, that would have been at no great cost to save their lives. 5. Besides, as Dr. Sibs saith, There is oft sorrow for sin in us, when ⟨p. 430⟩it doth not appear: It wanteth but some quickening word to set it afoot.

but you would give all that you have to be rid of sin; you could wish when you dishonoured God by sin, that you had spent that time in suffering rather; and if it were to do again on the same terms and inducements, you would not do it: Nay, you would live a beggar condtendedly, so you might fully please God, and never sin against him, and are content to pinch your flesh and deny your worldly interest for the time to come, rather then wilfully disobey. This is a truly tender heart. On the other side, another can weep to think of his sin; and yet if you should ask him, what wouldst thou give, or what wouldst thou suffer, so thou hadst not sinned? or that thou mightest sin no more? Alas, very little: For the next time that he is put to it, he will rather venture on the sin, then venture on a little loss, or danger, or disgrace in the world, or deny his craving flesh its pleasures. This is a hard-hearted sinner. The more you would part with to be