Scruples hindering comfort removed

FROM the meditation of these rules and signs, much comfort may be brought into the souls of the weakest ; which that it may be in the more abundance, let me add something for the helping them over some few ordinary objections, and secret thoughts against themselves, which, getting within the heart, oftentimes keep them under.

Some think they have no faith at all, because they have no full assurance ; when as the fairest fire that can be will have some smoke. The best actions will smell of the smoke. The mortar wherein garlic hath been stamped will always smell of it: so all our actions will savour something of the old man.

In weakness of body some think grace dieth, because their performances are feeble, their spirits, being the instruments of their souls’ actions, being wasted; not considering that God regards those hidden sighs of those that want abilities to express them outwardly ; he that pronounceth them blessed that consider the poor, will have a merciful consideration of such himself.

Some again are haunted with hideous representations to their fantasies, and with vile and unworthy thoughts of God, of Christ, of the word, &c. which, as busy flies, disquiet and molest their peace; these are cast in like wildfire by Satan, as may be discerned by the, 1. strangeness, 2. strength and violence, 3. horribleness of them even unto nature corrupt. A pious soul is no more guilty. of them, than Benjamin of Joseph’s cup put into his sack. . Amongst other helps prescribed by godly writers, as abomination of them, and diversion from them to other things, &c. let this be one, to complain unto Christ against them, and to fly under the wings of his protection, and to desire him to take our part against his and our enemy. Shall every sin and blasphemy of man be forgiven, and not these blasphemous thoughts, which have the devil for their father? When Christ himself was therefore molested in this kind, that he might succour all poor souls in the like case.

But there is a difference betwixt Christ and us in this case, by reason that Satan had nothing of his own in Christ, his suggestions left no impression at all in his holy nature; but, as sparks falling into the sea, were presently quenched. Satan’s temptations of Christ were only suggestions on Satan’s part, and apprehensions of the vileness of them on Christ's part; to apprehend ill suggested by another, is not ill; it was Christ’s grievance, but Satan’s sin; but thus he yielded himself to be tempted, that he might both pity us in our conflicts, and train us up to manage our Spiritual weapons as he did. Christ could have overcome him by power, but he did it by argument; but when Satan cometh to us, he findeth something of his own in us, which holdeth correspondency and hath intelligence with him; there is the same enmity in our nature to God and goodness in some degree, that is in Satan himself; whereupon his temptations fasten for the most part some taint upon us. And if there wanted a devil to suggest, yet sinful thoughts would arise from within us ; though none were cast in from without, we have a mint of them within: these thoughts, if the soul dwell on them so long as to suck or draw from and by them any sinful delight, then they leave a more heavy guilt upon the soul, and hinder our sweet communion with God, and interrupt our peace, and put a contrary relish into the soul, disposing of it to greater sins. All scandalous breakings out are but thoughts at the first. Ill thoughts . are as little thieves, which, creeping in at the window, open the door to greater; thoughts are seeds of actions. These, especially when they are helped forward by Satan, make the life of many good Christians almost a martyrdom. In this case it is an unsound comfort that some minister, that ill thoughts arise from nature, and what is natural is excusable; but we must know, that nature, as it came out of God’s hands at the first, had no such risings out of it: the soul, as inspired of God, had no such unsavoury breathings ; but since that by sin it betrayed itself, it is in some sort natural to it to forge sinful imaginations, and to be a furnace of such sparks; and this is an aggravation of the sinfulness of natural corruption, that it is so deeply rooted, and so generally spread in our nature.

It furthereth humiliation to know the whole breadth and depth of sin; only this, that our nature now so far as it is unrenewed, is so unhappily fruitful in ill thoughts, ministers this comfort, that it is not our case alone, as if our condition herein were severed from others, as some have been tempted to think, even almost to despair; none, say they, have such a loathsome nature as I have; this springs from ignorance of the spreading of original sin, for what can come from an unclean thing, but that which is unclean? as in the water face answers face, so the polluted heart of one man answereth to the heart of another, Prov. xxvii. 19, where grace hath not made some difference. As in annoyances from Satan, so here, the best way is to lay open our complaints to ‘Christ, and cry with Saint Paul, O miserable man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death! Rom. vii. 24, 25: upon this venting of his distressed soul, he presently found comfort; for he breaketh into thanksgiving, thanks be to God, &c. And it is good to take advantage from hence to hate ‘this noisome body of death the more, and to draw nearer unto God, as that holy man after his foolish ‘and beastly thoughts, Psalm Ixxiii. 22 and 28, did, and to keep our hearts closer to God, seasoning them ‘with heavenly meditations in the morning, storing up good matter that our heart may be a good treasury, and begging of Christ his holy Spirit to stop that ‘cursed issue, and to be a living spring of better ‘thoughts in us. Nothing more abaseth the spirits of ‘holy men that desire to delight in God after they have escaped the common defilements of the world, than these unclean issues of spirit, as being most contrary 10 God, who is a pure Spirit : but the very irksomeness of them yields matter of comfort against them - they force the soul to all spiritual exercises, to watchfulness, and a more near walking with God, and to raise itself to thoughts of a higher nature, which the ruth of God, works of God, communion of Saints, the mystery of godliness, the consideration of the terror of the Lord, of the excellency of the state of a Christian, and conversation suitable, do abundantly minister. They discover to us a necessity of daily purging and pardoning grace, and of seeking to be found in Christ, and so bring the best often upon their knees.

But our chief comfort is, that our blessed Saviour as he bad Satan avaunt from himself after he had given way awhile to his impudency, Mat. iv. 10; so he will command him to be gone from us, when it shall be good for us; he must be gone at a word. And he can and will likewise in his due time rebuke the rebellious and extravagant stirrings of our hearts, and bring all the thoughts of the inner man in subjection to himself.

Some think when they begin once to be troubled with the smoke of corruption more than they were before, therefore they are worse than they were. It is true, that corruptions appear now more than before, but they are less.

For, first, sin the more it is seen the more it is hated, and thereupon is the less. Motes are in a room before the sun shines, but they then only appear.

Secondly, contraries the nearer they are one to another, the sharper is the conflict betwixt them: now of all enemies the spirit and the flesh are nearest one to another, being both in the soul of a regenerate man, and in faculties of the soul, and in every action that springeth from those faculties, and therefore it is no marvel the soul, the seat of this battle, thus divided in itself, be as smoking flax.

Thirdly, the more grace, the more spiritual life, and the more spiritual life, the more antipathy to the contrary ; whence none are so sensible of corruption, as those that have the most living souls.

And fourthly, when men give themselves to carnal liberties, their corruptions trouble them not, as not being bound and tied up; but when once grace suppresseth their extravagant and licentious excesses, then the flesh boileth, as disdaining to be confined ; yet they are better now than they were before. That matter which yields smoke was in the torch before it was lighted; but it is not offensive till the torch begins to burn. Let such know, that if the smoke be ‘once offensive to them, it is a sign that there is light. It is better to enjoy the benefit of light, though with smoke, than to be altogether in the dark.

Neither is smoke so offensive, as light is comfortable to us, it yielding an evidence of truth of grace ‘in the heart; therefore, though it be cumbersome in ‘the conflict, yet it is comfortable in the evidence. It is better corruption should offend us now, than by giving way to it to redeem a little peace with loss of ‘comfort afterwards. Let such therefore as are at variance and odds with their corruptions, look upon this text as their portion of comfort.