Object. 3. But I cannot believe that I come to Christ aright, because sometimes I am apt to question his very being and office to save.
Thus to do is horrible, but mayest thou not judge amiss in this matter? How can I judge amiss, when I judge as I feel? Poor soul! Thou mayest judge amiss for all that. Why, says the sinner, do I think that these questions come from my heart. Let me answer. That which comes from thy heart, comes from thy will and affections, from thy understanding, judgment, and conscience, for these must acquiesce in thy questioning if thy questioning is with thy heart. And how sayest thou, for to name no more, dost thou with thy affection and conscience thus question? Answ. My conscience trembles when such thoughts come into my mind, and my affections are otherwise inclined.
Then I conclude, that these things are either suddenly injected by the devil, or else they are the fruits of that body of sin and death that yet dwells within you, or perhaps from both together.
If they come wholly from the devil, as they seem because thy conscience and affections are against them, or if they come from that body of death that is in thee, and be not thou curious in inquiring from whether of them they come, the safest way is to lay enough at thy own door; nothing of this should hinder thy coming, nor make thee conclude thou comes not aright. 7 And before I leave thee, let me a little query with thee about this matter.
1. Dost thou like these wicked blasphemies? Answ. No, no, their presence and work kill me.
2. Dost thou mourn for them, pray against them, and hate thyself because of them? Answ. Yes, yes; but that which afflicts me is, I do not prevail against them.
3. Dost thou sincerely choose, mightiest thou have thy choice, that thy heart might be affected and taken with the best, most heavenly, and holy things? Answ. With all my heart, and death the next hour, if it were God’s will, rather than thus to sin against him.
Well then, thy not liking of them, thy mourning for them, thy praying against them, and thy loathing thyself because of them, with thy sincere choosing of those thoughts for thy delectation that are heavenly and holy, clearly declares, that these things are not countenanced either with thy will, affections, understanding, judgment, or conscience. So, that thy heart is not in them, but that rather they come immediately from the devil or arise from the body of death that is in thy flesh, of which thou oughts’ thus to say, “Now, then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me” (Rom 7:17).
I will give thee a pertinent instance. In Deuteronomy 22, thou mayest read of a betrothed damsel, one betrothed to her beloved, one that had given him her heart and mouth, as thou hast given thyself to Christ; yet was she met with as she walked in the field, by one that forced her, because he was stronger than she. Well, what judgment now doth God, the righteous judge, pass upon the damsel for this? “The man only that lay with her,” saith God, “shall die. But unto the damsel thou shalt do nothing; there is in the damsel no sin worthy of death. For, as when a man rises against his neighbor, and slayed him, even so, is this matter; for he found her in the field, and the betrothed damsel cried, and there was none to save her” (Deut 22:25-27).
Thou art this damsel. The man that forced thee with these blasphemous thoughts, is the devil; and he lights upon thee in a fit place, even in the field, as thou art wandering after Jesus Christ; but thou cries out, and by thy cry did show, that thou abhorrest such wicked lewdness. Well, the Judge of all the earth will do right; he will not lay the sin at thy door, but at his that offered the violence. And for thy comfort take this into consideration, that he came to heal them “that were oppressed of the devil” (Acts 10:38).
Object. 4. But, saith another, I am so heartless, so slow, and, as I think, so indifferent in my coming, that, to speak the truth, I know not whether my kind of coming ought to be called a coming to Christ.
Answ. You know that I told you at first, that coming to Christ is a moving of the heart and affections towards him.
But, saith the soul, my dullness and indifference in all holy duties, demonstrate my heartlessness in coming; and to come, and not with the heart, signifies nothing at all.
1. The moving of the heart after Christ is not to be discerned, at all times, by thy sensible affectionate performance of duties, but rather by those secret groanings and complaints which thy soul makes to God against that sloth that attends thee in duties.
2. But grant it to be even as thou sayest it is, that thou comes so slowly, &c., yet, since Christ bids them come that come not at all, surely they may be accepted that come, though attended with those infirmities which thou at present groans under. He saith, “and him that cometh;” he saith not, If they come sensible; so fast; but, “and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” He saith also in the ninth of Proverbs, “As for him that wanted understanding,” that is, an heart (for oftentimes the understanding is taken for the heart), “come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled.”
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