410 DIRECTIONS FOR GETTING AND SEEPING your sincerity: if they be not, (as the ordinary infirmities of be- lievers are not,) then you may and must be humbled for them ; but you may not doubt of your salvation for them. I told you before by what marks you may discern your sincerity; that is, whereinthe nature of saving faith and holiness doth consist; keep that inyour eye, and as long as you find that sure and clear, let nothing make you doubt of your right to Christ and glory. But, alas! how peo- ple do contradict the will of God in this ! When you have sinned, God would have you bewail your folly and unkind dealing, and fly to mercy through Christ, and this you will not do ; but he would not have you torment yourselves with fears of damnation, and questioning his love, and yet this you will do. You may discern by this, that humiliation and reformation are. sure of God, man's heart is so backward to it ; and that vexations, doubts and fears in true Christians that should be comfortable, are not of God, man's nature is so prone to them, (though the ungodly that should fear and doubt, ate as backward to it.) I think k will not be unseasonable here to lay, down the particu- lar doubts that usually trouble sincere believers, and see how fai they may be just, and how far unjust and causeless ; and most of them shall befrom my own former experience, and such as I have been most troubled with myself, and the rest such as are . incident to true Christians, and too usual with them. Doubt 1. '1 have often heard and read in the best divines, that grace is not bornwith us, and therefore Satan bath always posses- sion before Christ, and keeps that possession in peace, till Christ come and bind him and cast him out ; and that this is so great a work that it cannot cheose but be observed, and forever remem- bered, by the soul where it is wrought ; yea, the several steps and passages ofit may be all observed ; first casting down and then lift- ing up; first wounding and killing, and then healing and reviving. But I have not observed the distinct parts and passages of this change in me; nay, I know of no such sudden, observable change at all : I cannot remember that ever I was first killed, and then re- vived ; nor do I know by what minister, nor at what sermon, or other means that work which is upon me was wrought ; nó, nor what day, or month, or year it was begun. I have slided insensi- bly into a professionof religion, I know not how ; and therefore I fear that I am not sincere, and the work of true regeneration was never yet wrought upon my soul.' Answ. I will lay down the full answer to this, in these proposi- tions. 1. It is true that grace is not natural to us, or conveyed by generation. 2. Yet it is as true that grace is given to our children . as well as to us. That it may be so, and is so with some, all will grant who believe that infants may be, and are saved ; and that it
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