SPIRITUAL PEACE AND COMFORT. 337 man can expect that such joys should be a Christian's ordinary state; or God should so diet us with continual feast. It would neither suit with our health, nor the condition of this pilgrimage. Live therefore on your peace ofconscience as your ordinarydiet,; when this is wanting, know that God appointeth you a fast for your health ; and when you have a feast ofhigh joys, feed on it and be thankful; but when they are taken from you, gape not after them as the disciples did after Christ at his ascension; but return thankfully to your ordinary diet of peace. And remember that these joys, which are now. taken from you, may so' return again. However, there is a place preparing for you, where your joys shall be full. Direct. XXII. My next direction, is this : 'Spendmore of your time and care about your duty than about your comforts ; and for the exercise and increase ofyour graces, than kit the discoveryof them : and when you havedone all that you can for assurance and comfort, you shall find that it will very much depend on your actual obedience.' This direction is of as great importance as any that I have yet given you ; but I shall say but little of it, because I have spoke of it so fully already in my Book of Rest, Part iii. Chap. 8-11. My reasons for what I here assert are these: 1. Duty goeth, in order of nature and time, before comfdrt, as the precept is before the, promise : comfort is part of the reward, and therefore necessari- ly supposeth the duty. 2. Grace makes men both so ingenious and divine, as to consider God's due as well as their own ; and what they should do, as well as what they shall have, still remembering that our works cannot merit at God's hands. 3. As we must have grace before we can know we have it, so ordinarily we must have a good measure of grace, before we can so clearly discern it as to be certain of it. Small things I have told you are next to none, and hardlydiscernible by weak eyes. Whenall ways in the world are tried, it will be found thai, thereis no way so sure for a doubt- ing soul to be made certain of the truth of his graces, as to keep them in action and get them increased. And it will be found that there is no one cause of Christians doubting of the truth of their faith, love, hope, repentance, humility,. &c., so great or so common as-the small degree of these graces. -Dothnot the very language ofcomplaining Christians showthis ? One saith, ''I have no faith ; I _cannot believe; I have no love to God; I have no delight in duty.' Another saith, ' I cannot mourn for sin; myheart was never broken; I cannot patiently bear an injury; I have no courage in opposing sin, &c.' if all these were not in a low and weak de- gree, men could not so ordinarily think they had none. A lively, strong, working faith, lovezeal,. courage, &c., would show them- selves, as do the highest towers, the greatest mountains, the strong- vos.. s. 43
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