SPIRITUAL PACE AND COMFORT. 307 foreign writers, who make it far more easy, common, and necessa- ry than it is, (much inore both them and theAntinomists, who place justifying faith in it.) But I stand in the midst between both ex- tremes ; and I think I have the company of most English divines. 2. I come not to be of this mind merely by reading books, but mainly by reading my. own .heart, and consulting my own experi- ence, and the experienceof a very great number of godly people of all sorts, who have opened their hearts to me, for almost twenty years' time. 3. I would entreat the gainsayers to study their own hearts better for'some considerable time, and to be more in hearing the case and complaints of godly people ; and by that time they may happily come to be of my mind. 4. See whether all those divines that havé been verypractical and successful in the work of God, and much acquainted with the way ofrecovery, of lost souls, be not all of thesame judgment as myself in this point, (such as' T. Hooker, Jo. Rogers, Preston, Sibbs, Bolton, Dod, Culverwell, etc.,)' and whether the most confident men for the contrary' be not those that study books more than hearts, and spend their days in disputing, and nor in winning souls to God from the world. Lastly, Let me add; to what is said, these two proofs of this fourth point here asserted. 1. Theconstant experience of thegreatest part of believers tells us that certaintyofsalvation is. very rare. Even of those that live comfortably and in peace of conscience, yet very few of them do attain to a certainty. . For my part, it is known that God, in unde- servedmercy, bath given me long the society of a great number ofgodly people, and great interest in them, and privacy with them, and opportunity to knowtheir minds, and this in many places, (my station by Providence havingbeen oft removed;) and I must needs . profess, that, of all these, I +have met with few, yea, very few in- . deed, that, if f seriously and privately asked them, ' Are you cer- tain that you are a true believer, and so .are justified, and shall be saved ?' durst say to me, ' I am certain of it! But some in great doubts and fears: most too secure and neglective of their states without assurance, and some in sogood hoes (to speak in theirown language) as calmeth their spirits that they comfortably cast them- selves on God in Christ. And those few that have gone so far beyond all the rest, as to say, ' They were certain of their sinceri- ty and salvation,' were the professors whose state 'I suspected more than anyof the rest, as being the most proud, self-conceited, censorious, passionate, unpeaceable sort ofprofessors ; and some of them living scandalously, and some fallen since to more scandalous ways than ever ; and the most of their humble, godly acquaintance and neighbors suspected them as well as I. Or else some very fewofthem that said they were certain, were honest godly people
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