have elsewhere manifested; so that the heart of saving faith is this acceptance of Christ, or willingness to have him to justify, sanctify, guide and govern you. Find but this willingness, and you find all the rest, whether you expressly see them or not.

that direction.

So much for

Direct. IX. Having thus far proceeded, in discovering and improving the general grounds of comfort, and then in discovering the nature of faith, which gives you right to the special mercies of the covenant following it; your next work must be, 'To perform this condition by actual believing.'

Your soul stands in extreme need of a Savior. God offereth you a Savior in the gospel. What, then, have you next to do but to accept him? Believe that this offer is general, and therefore to you. And that Christ is not set to sale, nor doth God require you to bring a price in your hand, but only heartily and thankfully to accept of what he freely giveth you. This must be done before you fall on trying your graces to get assurance, for you must have grace before you can discover it; and this is the first proper special saving grace, (as it compriseth that knowledge and assent which necessarily go before it.) This is not only the method for those that yet never believed, but also for them that have lost the sense of their faith, and so the sight of their evidence. Believe again, that you may know you do believe; or at least may possess an accepted Savior. When God in the gospel bids you take Jesus Christ, and beseecheth you to be reconciled to him, what will you say to him? If your heart answer, 'Lord, I am willing, I will accept of Christ and be thankful;' why then the match is made between Christ and you, and the marriage-covenant is truly entered, which none can dissolve. If Christ were not first willing, he would not be the suitor, and make the motion; and if he be willing, and you be willing, what can break the match? If you will say, 'I cannot believe; if you understand what you say, either you mean that you cannot believe the gospel is true, or else that you cannot be willing that Christ should be yours. If it be the former, and you speak truly, then you are a flat infidel; (yet many temptations to doubt of the truth of Scripture a true believer may have, yea, and actual doubtings; but his faith prevaileth, and is victorious over them ;) but if you really doubt whether the gospel be true, use God's means for the discovery of its truth. Read what I have written in the second part of my Book of Rest. I will undertake now more confidently than ever I did, to prove the truth of Scripture by plain, full, undeniable force of reason. But I suppose this is none of your case. If, therefore, when you say, that you cannot believe, you mean, that you cannot accept an offered Christ, or be willing to have him; then I demand, (1.) What is your rea

son? The will is led by the reason of the understanding. If you be not willing, there is something that persuades you to be unwillmg. This reason must be from something real, or else upon a mistake, upon supposal of something that is not in being. If it be upon mistake, either it is that you be not convinced of Christ's willingness to be yours; and if you thought he did consent, ycu would consent willingly; if this be it, you do truly believe while you think you do not; for you do consent, (and that is all on your part to make the match,) and Christ doth certainly consent, though you do not understand it. In this case it concerneth you to understand better the extent of the new covenant, and then be past doubt of the willingness of Christ, and see that wherever the match breaks, it is only for want of consent in men; for Christ is the first suitor, and hath long ago in the covenant proclaimed his consent to be the Head and Husband of every sinner, on condition they will but consent to be his.

you will

If your mistake be from any false apprehension of the nature of Christ, as if he were not a sufficient Savior, or were an eremy to your comfort, that he would do you more harm than good; if these mistakes are prevalent, then you do not know Christ, and therefore must presently better study him in the gospel, till you have prevailed over such ignorant and blasphemous conceits; (but none of this, I suppose, is your case.)

If, then, the reason why you say you cannot believe, be from any thing that is really in Christ, (and not upon mistake,) then it must be either from some dislike of his saving work, by which he would pardon you, and save you from damnation, (but that is impossible, for you cannot be willing to be damned cr unpardoned, till you lose your reason;) or else it is from a dislike of his work of sanctification, by which he would cleanse your heart and life, by saving you from your sinful nature and actions; some grudging against Christ's holy and undefiled laws and ways will be in the best, while there is that flesh in them which lusteth against the Spirit, so that they cannot do the things they would. But if truly you have such a dislike of a sinless condition, through the love of any sin or creature, that you cannot be willing to have Christ to cure you, and cleanse you from that sin, and make you holy; I say, if this be true, in a prevailing degree, so that if Christ and holiness were cffered you, you would not accept them, then it is certain you have not true faith. And in this case it is easily to discern, that your first work lieth not in getting comfort or ease to your troubled mind; but in getting better conceits of Christ and a holy state and life, that so you may be willing of Christ, as Christ is of you, and so become a true believer. And here I would not leave you at that loss as some do, as if there were nothing for you to do for the getting of faith; for cer

"Faith com

tainly God hath prescribed you means for that end. eth by hearing, and hearing by the word of God preached;" Rom. x. 17. i. Therefore see that you wait diligently on this ordinance of God. Read the Scriptures daily, and search them to see whether you may not there find that holiness is better than sin. ii. And however some seducers may tell you, that wicked men ought not to pray, yet be sure that you lie on your knees before God, and importunately beg that he would open your eyes, and change your heart, and show you so far the evil of sin, and the want and worth of Christ and holiness, that you may be unfeignedly glad to accept his offer.

Object. But the prayers of the wicked are an abomination to

the Lord.'

Answ. (1.) You must distinguish between wicked men, as actually wicked, and going on in the prosecution of their wickedness; and wicked men, as they have some good in them, or are doing some good, or are attempting a return to God. (2.) You must distinguish between real prayer and seeming prayer. (3.) You must distinguish between full acceptance of prayer, when God delighteth in them, and an acceptance only to some particular end, not intimating the acceptance of the person with his prayer; and between acceptance fully promised (as certain) and acceptance but half promised (as probable.) And upon these distinctions I shall answer your objections in the conclusion.

1. When wicked men pray to God to prosper them in their wickedness, yea, or to pardon them while they intend to go on in it, and so to give them an indulgence in sin; or when they think with a few prayers for some good, which they can endure, to put by that holiness which they cannot endure, and so to make a cloak for their rebellion, these prayers are all an abomination to the Lord.

2. When men use the words of a prayer, without the desire of the thing asked, this is no prayer, but equivocally so called, as a carcass is a man; and therefore no wonder if God abhor that prayer, which is truly no prayer.

3. God hath not made a full promise, ascertaining any wicked man, while wicked, that he will hear his prayer; for all such promises are made to believers.

4. God doth never so hear an unbeliever's prayer, as to accept his person with his prayer, or to take a complacency in them. So much for the negative.

Now for the affirmative, I add; 1. Prayer is a duty which God enjoined even wicked men; (I could prove it by an hundred Scripture texts.)

2. There may be some good desires in unbelievers, which they

may express in prayer, and these God may so far hear as to grant them, as he did in part to Ahab.

3. An unbeliever may lie under preparing grace, and be on his way in returning towards God, though yet he be not come to saving faith; and in this state he may have many good desires, and such prayers as God will hear.

4. Though God have not flatly engaged himself to unbelievers, so as to give them a certainty of hearing their prayers, and giving them true grace on the improvement of their naturals, yet he hath not only appointed them this and other means to get grace, but also given them half promises, or strong probabilities of speeding, so much as may be a sufficient encouragement to any such sinner to call on God, and use his means. For as he appointeth not any vain means to man, so no man can name that man who did improve his naturals to the utmost, and in particular, scught God in prayer, so far as a natural man may do, who yet missed of grace, and was rejected: (this is the true mean between Pelagianism and Antinomianism in this point.)

5. When God calls unbelievers to prayer, he withal calls them to believe. And when he works their heart to prayer by that call, he usually withal works them to believe, or at least towards believing. If he that was unwilling to have Christ, do pray God to make him willing, it is a beginning of willingness already, and the way to get more willingness. In prayer God useth to give in the thing prayed for, of this kind.

6. Prayer is the soul's motion God-ward: and to say an unbeliever should not pray, is to say he should not turn to God; who yet saith to the wicked, "Seek the Lord while he may be found, and call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way," &c. Isaiah lv. 6, 7.

7. Prayer hath two parts; desire is the soul of it, and expression is the body. The soul can live separated from the body, but so cannot the body separated from the scul. So can desire without expression, but not expression without desire. When cur blind Antinomians (the great subverters of the gospel, inore than the law) do rail against ministers for persuading wicked men to pray, they are against us for persuading men to desire that they pray for; prayer having desire for its soul. And do not those men deserve to be exterminated the churches and sccieties of the saints, who dare say to a wicked unbeliever, 'Desire not faith? Desire not to leave thy wickedness? Desire not grace? cr Christ? or God? and that will proclaim abroad the word (as I have oft beard of them with zealous reproaches) that our ministers are legalists, seducers, ignorant of the mysteries of the gospel, because they persuade poor sinners to pray for faith, grace, and Christ; that is, to desire

these, and to express their desires; which in effect is to persuade them to repent, believe and turn to God. Indeed, if these blind seducers had ever heard our ministers persuading wicked men to dissemble and lie to God and ask faith, grace and Christ with their tongues, but not desire them in their hearts, then had they sufficient grounds for their reviling language. But I have been too long on this. I may therefore boldly conclude, that they that find themselves unbelievers, that is, unwilling to have Christ to deliver them from sin, must use this second means to get faith, even earnest, frequent prayer for it to God.

iii. Let such also see that they avoid wicked, seducing company and occasions of sin; and be sure that they keep company with men fearing God, especially joining with them in their holy duties.

iv. Lastly, let such be sure that they use that reason which God hath given them, to consider frequently, retiredly, seriously, of the vanity of all those things that steal away their hearts from Christ; and of the excellency of holiness, and how blessed a state it is to have nothing in us of heart or life that is displeasing to God, but to be such as he taketh full delight in; also of the certainty of the damnation of unbelievers, and the intolerableness of their torments; and of the certainty and inconceivable greatness of believers' everlasting happiness. If wicked unbelievers would but do what they can in daily, serious, deep considering of these things, and the like, they would have no cause to despair of obtaining faith and sanctification. Believing is a rational act. God bids you not to believe any thing without reason, nor to accept or consent to any thing without full reason to cause you to consent. Think then often and soberly of those reasons that should move you to consent, and of the vanity of these that hinder you from consenting, and this is God's way for you to obtain faith or consent.

Remember then, that when you have understood and improved general grounds of comfort, (nay, before you can come to any full improvement of them,) your next business is to believe; to consent to the match with Christ, and to take him for your Lord and Savior. And this duty must be looked to and performed, before you look after special comfort. But I said somewhat of this before under the sixth head, and therefore will say no more now.

Direct. X. When you have gone thus far, your soul is safe, and you are past your greatest dangers, though yet you are not past your fears; your next work therefore for peace and comfort is this; To review and take notice of your own faith, and thence to gather assurance of the certainty of your justification, and adoption, and right to glory.'

The sum of this direction lieth in these things:

1. See that you do not content yourself with the forementioned