The truly blessed man

3. Nay there may be breaches between God and them; and so the comfort of their peaceable state be intercepted. They may fall into some grievous sin, and God be provoked at them for it, and look upon them like an Enemy; and it may be a long time before he will witness in them their forgiveness in respect of that sin: and this will sorely tempt them to question the peaceableness of their state, or whether ever there were any such thing in truth, and so put them on it to begin the work anew, as he, Psal. ••.10. And as this confidence is groundless so it is dangerous. Not only doth it give the Flesh and Satan advantage to draw us into carelessness, and so expose us to ⟨p. 155⟩temptation, whereby we may be precipitated into such Sins as will bring us into this uncomfortable condition; but when it is so, it will put us to a miserable loss in our own spirits, and make the apprehension of our Guilt so much the more formidable. It will put a weapon into the adversaries hand, to enforce the more vehemently the conclusion; that because we thought it could not be thus with one that is pardoned, therefore this condition must needs be an evidence that we never were pardoned, and so are under the whole Guilt of sin, and how heavy will this be?

USE II. Learn hence also how injurious it is to the Children of God, to confound Faith and Assurance. There are that Define Justifying Faith to be nothing else but a firm and confident persuasion in a man, that his sins are pardoned, that Christ died for him, and that he shall assuredly be saved; and that he who hath not this confidence is not a true believer. It is indeed the duty of every one to labour after the getting this persuasion, 2 Pet. 1.10. But yet this is not the proper act of Justifying Faith, as Justifying, but something that results from it afterwards. It doth not properly belong to Effectual Vocation, but is one of the benefits flowing from it, and appertains to the inchoate Glorification of Gods Children in this life. Our comfort indeed flows from this, and hath its measure according to the strength of our hope on this account; and therefore no gracious soul can have rest without it. But yet