SPIRITUAL PEACE AND COMPORT. 323 almost come, and then say, ' I am out of hope ofhis coming now ; he hath broke his word; this is properly a despair in your friend. But if you only think that you have overstaid the time, and that it is past, and therefore you shall not have the gift, this may be called a despair of the event, and a despair in yourself, but not properly a despair of your friend; only the act of hoping in God is hindered, as is said. So it is in our present casé. Men may be said to de- spair of their salvation, and,o despair in themselves, but not/ to de- spair in God, except the formal cause of such despair were there present; and except they are drawn to it, by not believing his truth and faithfulness. The true nature of despair is expressed in that of the apostles, Luke xxiv. 21. " We trusted that that was he that should redeem Israel ;" only it was but imperfect despair, else it had been damnable. Their hopes were shaken. And for my part, I am persuaded that it is only this proper despair in God, which is the damnable desperation, which is threatened in the Scripture and not the former. And that if a poor soul should go out of this world without any actual hope of his own salvation, merely because he thinks that he is no true believer, that this soul may be saved, and prove a true believer for all this. Alas ! the great sin that God threateneth is our distrust of his faithfulness, and not the doubting of our own sincerity and distrust of ourselves. We have great reason to be very jealous of our own hearts, as, knowing them to be deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know them? $ut we have no reason to be jeal- ous of God. Where find you in Scripture that any is condemned for hard thoughts of themselves, or for not knowing themselves to have true grace, and for thiñking they had none ? It is true, un- belief in God's promise is that men are condemned for, even that sin which is an aver ion of the soul from God. But perhaps you will ask, Is doubting of our own sincerity and salvation no sin ? I answer, doubting is either taken in opposition tobelieving, or in op- position to knowing, orto conjecturing. 1. Doubting, as it signifieth only anot believing that Our sins are pardoned, and we shall be saved, is no sin ; (still remember that I take believing in the strict, proper sense of the crediting of adivine testimony or assertion.) For God bath no where commanded us ordinarily to believe either of these. I say ordinarily (as I.did in the proposition before) because when Christ was on earth he told a man personally, "Thy sins are forgiven thee ;" (whether he meant only as to the present disease inflicted for them, or also all punishmenttemporal and eternal, I will not now discuss.;) so Nathan from God told David, his sin was forgiven. But these were privi- leges only to these persons, and not common to all. God bath no where said, either that all men's sins are actually forgiven, or that
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