A practical exposition on the 130th Psalm

This then you may desire, you may pray for, but not with such a frame of spirit as to refuse that other satisfaction which in the ways of Truth and Peace you may find. This is the putting of the hand into the side of Christ, but blessed are they who believe, and yet have not seen. RULE III. If you have at any time formerly received any especial or Immediate pledge or testimony of God given unto your souls as unto their Sincerity, and consequently their Regeneration, labour to recover it, and to revive a sense of it upon your Spirits now in your darkness and trouble. I am persuaded there are but few Believers, but that God doth at one time or other, in one duty or other, entering into, or coming out of one Temptation or another, give some singular Testimony unto their own souls and consciences concerning their Sincerity, and his Acceptance of them. Sometimes he doth this in a duty wherein he hath enabled the soul to make so near an approach unto him, as that it hath been ⟨p. 344⟩warmed, enlivened, sweetened, satisfied with the presence, the gracious presence of God, and which God hath made unto him as a token of his uprightness. Sometimes, when a man is entering into any great Temptation, Trial, difficult or dangerous duty, that death it self is feared in it, God comes in by one means or other, by a secret intimation of his Love, which he gives him to take along with him for his furniture and provision in his way, and thereby testifies to him his Sincerity. And this serves like the food of Elijah for forty days in a wilderness condition. Sometimes he is pleased to shine immediately into the soul in the midst of its darkness and sorrow wherewith it is surprised, as not looking for any such expression of kindness, and is thereby relieved against its own pressing self-condemnation. And sometimes the Lord is pleased to give these tokens of Love unto the soul as its refreshment, when it is coming off from the storm of Temptations wherewith it hath been tossed. And many other times and seasons there are wherein God is pleased to give unto Believers some Especial Testimony in their consciences unto their own Integrity. But now these are all wrought by a transient operation of the Spirit exciting and enabling the heart unto a spiritual sensible apprehension and receiving of Gods expressing kindness towards it.

This then you may desire, you may pray for, but not with such a frame of spirit as to refuse that other satisfaction which in the waies of Truth and Peace you may find. This is the putting of the hand into the side of Christ, but blessed are they who believe, and yet have not seen. RULE III. If you have at any time formerly received any especial or Immediate pledge or testimony of God given unto your souls as unto their Sincerity, and consequently their Regeneration, labour to recover it, and to revive a sense of it upon your Spirits now in your darkness and trouble. I am perswaded there are but few Believers, but that God doth at one time or other, in one duty or other, entring into, or coming out of one Temptation or another, give some singular Testimony unto their own souls and consciences concerning their Sincerity, and his Acceptance of them. Sometimes he doth this in a duty wherein he hath enabled the soul to make so near an approach unto him, as that it hath been