SPIRITUAL PEACE AND CO5IFORT.- 435 tinued offers of grace, and the,strivings of the Spirit of Christ with your heart, do show that God hath not quite forsaken you, and that your dayof grace and visitation is not past. Doubt 15, ' But I have sinned since my profession, and that even against my knowledge and conscience. I have had tempta- tions tosin, and I have considered ofthe . evil and danger, and yet, . in the most sober deliberations, I have resolvedto sin. And how can such a one have any true, grace, or be saved ? ' Answ. 1. Ifyou had not true grace, God is still offering it, and ready to work it. 2. Where do you find in Scripture, that none who have true grace do sin knowingly or deliberately? Perhaps you will say in ,Heb. x. 24. "Ifwe sin willfully, after the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, but a fearful looking for of judgment, and fire, which shall devour the adversaries." Answ. But you must know, that it is not every willful sin which is there mentioned; but, as even now I told, you, unbelief is peculiarly call- ed sin' in the New Testament: And the true meaningof the text is, If we utterly renounce Christ by infidelity, as not, being the true Messiah, after we have known his truth, then, &c. Indeed, none sin more against knowledge than the godly when they do sin; for they know more, for the most part, than others do. And passion and sensuality (theremnant ofit which yet remaineth) will be work- ing,strongly in your very deliberations against siñ, and either per- verting the judgment to doubt whether it bea sin, or whether there be any such danger in it ; or whether it be not a very little sin ; or else blinding it, that it cannot see the arguments against the sin in their full vigor; or at least prepossessing the heart and delight, and so hindering our reasons against sin from going down to the heart, and working on the and so from commanding theactions of the. body. This may befall a godly man. And moreover God may withdraw his grace as he 'did from Peter and David in their sin. And then our considerations will work but faintly, and sensu- ality and sinful passion will work effectually. It is scarce possible, I think, that such a man as David could be so long about so horrid a sin, and after contrive the murder of Uriah, and all this without deliberation, or any reasoning in himself to the contrary. 3. The truthis, though this be no good cause for any repenting sinner to doubt of salvation, yet it is a very grievous aggravation of sin, to commit it against knowledge and conscience, and upon con- sideration. And therefore I advise all that love their peace or sal- vation to take heed of it. For as they will find that no sin doth more deeply wound.the conscience, and plunge the sinner into fear- ful perplexities, which ofttimes hang on.him very long,; so the of- tener such sin is committed, the less evidencewill such a one haví
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=