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not save but deceive both ourselves and others. In this we know we are not deceived, neither can we deceive you, when we teach that the faith whereby ye are sanctified cannot fail; it did not in the prophet, it shall not in you. If it be so, let the difference be shown between the condition of unbelievers and his, in this or in the like imbecility and weakness. There was in Habakkuk that which St. John doth call "the seed of God" (1 John ii. 9), meaning thereby the first grace which God poureth into the hearts of them that are incorporated into Christ; which having received, if because it is an adversary to sin, we do therefore think we sin not both otherwise, and also by distrustful and doubtful apprehending of that which we ought steadfastly to believe, surely we do but deceive ourselves. Yet they which are of God do not sin either in this, or in anything, any such sin as doth quite extinguish grace, clean cut them off from Christ Jesus; because the " seed of God" abideth in them, and doth shield them from receiving any irremediable wound. Their faith, when it is at the strongest, is but weak; yet even then when it is at the weakest, so strong, that utterly it never faileth, it never perisheth altogether, no, not in them who think it extinguished in themselves. There are for whose sakes I dare not deal slightly in this cause, sparing that labor which must be bestowed to make it plain. Men in like agonies unto this of the prophet Habakkuk's are through the extremity of grief many times in judgment so confounded, that they find not themselves in themselves. For that which dwelleth in their hearts they seek, they make diligent search and inquiry. It abideth, it worketh in them, yet still they ask where; still they lament as for a thing which is past finding: they mourn as Rachel, and refuse to be comforted, as if that were not which indeed is, and as if that which is not were; as if they did not believe when they do, and as if they did despair when they do not. Which in some I grant is but a melancholy passion, proceeding only from that dejection of mind, the cause whereof is the body, and by bodily means can be taken away. But where there is no such bodily cause, the mind is not lightly in this mood, but by some of these three occasions: one, that judging by comparison either by other men, or with themselves at some other time more strong, they think imperfection to be a plain deprivation, weakness to be utter want of faith.

Another cause is, they often mistake one thing for another. St. Paul wishing well to the Church of Rome prayeth for them after this sort: "The God of hope fill you with all joy of believing" (Rom. xv. 15). Hence an error groweth, when men in heaviness of spirit suppose they lack faith, because they find not the sugared joy and delight which indeed doth accompany faith, but so as a separable accident, as a thing that may be removed from it; yea, there is a cause why it should be removed. The light would never be so acceptable, were it not for that usual intercourse of darkness. Too much honey doth turn to gall; and too much joy, even spiritually, would make us wantons. Happier a great deal is that man's case, whose soul by inward desolation is humbled, than he whose heart is through abundance of spiritual delight lifted up and exalted above measure. Better it is sometimes to go down into the pit with him, who, beholding darkness, and bewailing the loss of inward joy and consolation, crieth from the bottom of the lowest hell, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" (Psalm xxii. 1), than continually to walk arm in arm with angels, to sit as it were in Abraham's bosom, and to have no thought, no cogitation, but "I thank my God it is not with me as it is with other men " (Luke xviii. 11). No, God will have them that shall walk in light to feel now and then what it is to sit in the shadow of death. A grieved spirit, therefore, is no argument of a faithless mind.

A third occasion of men's misjudging themselves, as if they were faithless when they are not, is they fasten their cogitations upon the distrustful suggestions of the flesh, whereof finding great abundance in themselves, they gather thereby, "Surely unbelief hath full dominion, it hath taken plenary possession of me; if I were faithful, it could not be thus: not marking the motions of the Spirit and of faith, because they lie buried and overwhelmed with the contrary: when notwithstanding, as the blessed apostle doth acknowledge, that 'the Spirit groaneth (Rom. viii. 26, 27), and that God heareth when we do not; so there is no doubt, but that our faith may have and hath her privy operations secret to us, in whom, yet known to Him by whom they are."

Tell this to a man that hath a mind deceived by too hard an opinion of himself, and it doth but augment his grief: he hath

his answer ready, "Will you make me think otherwise than I find, than I feel in myself? I have thoroughly considered and exquisitely sifted all the corners of my heart, and I see what there is; never seek to persuade me against my knowledge; I do not, I know I do not believe."

Well, to favor them a little in their weakness; let that be granted which they do imagine; be it that they are faithless and without belief. But are they not grieved for their unbelief? They are. Do they not wish it might, and also strive that it may, be otherwise? We know they do. Whence cometh this, but from a secret love and liking which they have of those things that are believed? No man can love things which in his own opinion are not. And if they think those things to be, which they show that they love when they desire to believe them; then must it needs be, that by desiring to believe they prove themselves true believers. For without faith, no man thinketh that things believed are. Which argument all the subtlety of infernal powers will never be able to dissolve.

The faith, therefore, of true believers, though it have many and grievous downfalls, yet doth it still continue invincible; it conquereth and recovereth itself in the end. The dangerous conflicts whereunto it is subject are not able to prevail against it. The prophet Habakkuk remained faithful in weakness, though weak in faith.

It is true, such is our weak and wavering nature, we have no sooner received grace, but we are ready to fall from it: we have no sooner given our assent to the law, that it cannot fail, but the next conceit which we are ready to embrace is, that it may, and that it doth fail. Though we find in ourselves a most willing heart to cleave unseparably unto God, even so far as to think unfeignedly with Peter, "Lord, I am ready to go with Thee into prison and to death" (Luke xxii. 33); yet how soon and how easily, upon how small occasions are we changed, if we be but a while let alone and left unto ourselves? The Galatians to-day, for their sakes which teach them the truth of Christ, content, if need were, to pluck out their own eyes (Gal. iv. 5), and the next day ready to pluck out theirs which taught them. The love of the angel of the Church of Ephesus, how greatly inflamed, and how quickly slacked (Apoc. ii. 2, 4).

The higher we flow, the nearer we are unto an ebb, if men be

respected as mere men, according to the wonted course of their alterable inclination, without the heavenly support of the Spirit.

Again, the desire of our ghostly enemy is so uncredible, and his means so forcible to overthrow our faith, that whom the blessed apostle knew betrothed and made hand-fast unto Christ, to them he could not write but with great trembling: "I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy, for I have prepared you to one husband to present you a pure virgin unto Christ: but I fear, lest as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity which is in Christ" (2 Cor. xi. 2, 3). The simplicity of faith which is in Christ taketh the naked promise of God, His bare word, and on that it resteth. This simplicity the serpent laboreth continually to pervert, corrupting the mind with many imaginations of repugnancy and contrariety between the promise of God and those things which sense or experience or some other foreconceived persuasion hath imprinted.

The word of the promise of God unto His people is, "I will not leave thee nor forsake thee" (Josh. i. 5; Heb. xiii. 5): upon this the simplicity of faith resteth, and it is not afraid of famine. But mark how the subtlety of Satan did corrupt the minds of that rebellious generation, whose spirits were not faithful unto God. They beheld the desolate state of the desert in which they were, and by the wisdom of their sense concluded the promise of God to be but folly: "Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?" (Psalm 1xxviii. 19.)

The word of the promise to Sarah was, "Thou shalt bear a son." Faith is simple, and doubteth not of it; but Satan, to corrupt the simplicity of faith, entangleth the mind of the woman with an argument drawn from common experience to the contrary: "A woman that is old! Sarah now to be acquainted again with forgotten passions of youth!" (Gen. xviii. 12.)

The word of the promise of God by Moses and the prophets made the Saviour of the world so apparent unto Philip, that his simplicity could conceive no other Messiah than Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. But to stay Nathanael, lest being invited to come and see, he should also believe, and so be saved, the subtlety of Satan casteth a mist before his eyes, putteth in his head against this the common-conceived persuasion of all

men concerning Nazareth: "Is it possible that a good thing should come from thence?" (John i. 46.)

This stratagem he doth use with so great dexterity, the minds of all men are so strangely bewitched with it, that it bereaveth them for the time of all perceivance of that which should relieve them and be their comfort; yea, it taketh all remembrance from them, even of things wherewith they are most familiarly acquainted. The people of Israel could not be ignorant that He who led them through the sea was able to feed them in the desert; but this was obliterated and put out by the sense of their present want. Feeling the hand of God against them in their food, they remember not His hand in the day that He delivered them from the hand of the oppressor. Sarah was not then to learn that "with God all things were possible" (Matt. xix. 26). Had Nathanael never noted how "God doth choose the base things of this world to disgrace them that are most honorably esteemed "? (1 Cor. i. 27, 28.)

The prophet Habakkuk knew that the promises of grace, protection, and favor, which God in the law doth make unto His people, do not grant them any such immunity as can free and exempt them from all chastisements: he knew that as God said, "I will continue my mercy forever towards them," so He likewise said," Their transgressions I will punish with a rod" (Psalm lxxxix. 28, 32): he knew that it cannot stand with any reason we should set the measure of our own punishments, and prescribe unto God how great or how long our sufferings shall be: he knew that we were blind, and altogether ignorant what is best for us; that we sue for many things very unwisely. against ourselves, thinking we ask fish when indeed we crave a serpent: he knew that when the thing we ask is good, and yet God seemeth slow to grant it, He doth not deny but defer our petitions, to the end we might learn to desire great things greatly all this he knew. But, beholding the land which God had severed for His own people, and seeing it abandoned unto heathen nations; viewing how reproachfully they did tread it down, and wholly make havoc of it at their pleasure; beholding the Lord's own royal seat made a heap of stones, His temple defiled, the carcasses of His servants cast out for the fowls of the air to devour, and the flesh of His meek ones for the beasts of the field to feed upon; being conscious to himself how long

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