CXLV expository sermons upon the whole 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St.…

1. If we look for perfection in our lives, being resolved like Rachel to mourn and take no comfort, unless our life appear a garden to us without any weeds at all, but that is reserved only for heaven: If none might dye comfortably, but he that hath lived perfectly, then every man must go out of the world with despair; yea there is no man but his failings are more then his duties, there is more corruption then grace; so that if there be sincerity, though imperfection, we may say, Lord we have finished the work thou gavest us to do. Indeed humility is required because of our imperfections, but not diffidence: To doubt and to refuse the comfort God offers is not humility, but disobedience, like ⟨p. 112⟩that of Peters, who would not let Christ wash his feet.

2. Another mistake may be about the nature of true faith and hope, as if we were to divide between Christ and our selves, and so from both conjoined together gather our assurance; even as the Papists define spes hope, to be partim à gratiâ, partim à meritis nostris proveniens, but those that go thus to divide, must needs divide themselves from comfort, for the object of our faith and trust must be Christ only. We may joyfully take those evidences of grace we see in our selves, but to put confidence in them, would be to make our selves our own saviours.

2. Another mistake may be about the nature of true faith and hope, as if we were to divide between Christ and our selves, and so from both conjoyned together gather our assurance; even as the Papists define spes hope, to be partim à gratiâ, partim à meritis nostris proveniens, but those that go thus to divide, must needs divide themselves from comfort, for the object of our faith and trust must be Christ only. We may joyfully take those evidences of grace we see in our selves, but to put confidence in them, would be to make our selves our own saviours.