Baxter - Houston-Packer Collection BX5200 .B352 1835 v1

270 DIRECTIONS FOR GETTING AND SEEPING general comforts, without looking after assurance and special com- forts. The folly of this I have manifested in the third part of my Book of Rest, about Self -examination. 2. See that youdream not of finding assurance and special com- fort from mere general grounds. This is the delusion of many Antinomians, and most of our profane people, (who, I find, are com- monly of the Antinomian faith naturally, without teaching.) For men to conclude that they shall certainly be saved, merely because God is merciful, or Christ is tender-hearted to sinners, and would . not that any should perish, but all should come to repentance ; or because God delights not in the death of him that dieth, but rather that he repent and live ; or because Christ died for them ; or be- cause God bath given Christ and life in the gospel to all, on con- dition of believing ; these are all but mere delusions. Much com- fort, as I have showed you, may be gathered from these generals; but no certainty of salvation or special comfort can be gathered from them alone. 3. See that you reject the Antinomian doctrine or dotage,which would teach you to reject the trial and judging of .your state by signs of grace in yourself, and tell you that it is only the Spirit that must assure, by witnessing your adoption; I will further explain this caution when Ihave added the rest. 4. And on the otherextreme, do not run to marks unseasonably, but in the order here laid down. 5. Nor trust to unsafe marks. 6. And therefore do not look at too many; for the true ones are but few. I do but name these things to you, because I have more fully handled them in my Book of Rest, whither I must refer you. And so I return to the third caution. I have in the forementioned book told you, what the office of the Spirit is in assuring us, 'and what the use of marks are. The Spirit witnesseth first objectively, and so the Spirit and marks are all one. For it. is the Spirit dwelling in us that is the witness or proof that we are God's sons ; for he that hath not his Spirit is none of his. And the Spirit is not discerned by us in its essence, but in its workings ; and therefore to discern these workings, is to discern the Spirit, and these workings are marks that we speak of; so that the Spirit witnesseth our sonship, as a reasonable soul wit- nesseth that you are aman and not a beast. You find by the acts of reason, that you have a reasonable soul, and then you know, that having a reasonable soul, you certainly are a man. So you find by the works or fruits of the Spirit, that you have the Spirit, (that is, by marks; and Paul enumerates the fruits of the Spirit to that end,) and then, by finding that you have the Spirit, you may certainly know that you are the child of God. Also, as the rea-

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