suffered, as you love Christ and your souls, think not that all is done, and there remaineth no more work or danger.

1. There is yet a tempting, malicious devil alive, who would have you, that he may sift you as wheat. (Luke xxii. 31.)

2. There is yet a remnant of his seed within you, even sin, which will betray you to him, if you be not wary.

3. You have more of your race to run, more time to spend ; and many that begun in the Spirit, do end in the flesh.

4. There are yet many and great duties in this time to be done. 5. There are yet many snares of temptation before you, and you may meet with such as you have not met with.

6. The last assaults and trials are usually the greatest.

7. Your resisting graces are weak and imperfect in degree. 8. You have no assurance or command of the time and measure of the Spirit's assistance.

9. God will have all obedience tried and honoured by opposition: that which costs nothing is nothing worth; and all his followers must pass under the cross, yea, take it up, and follow their General; and through the fiery trial, escape the fiery torment.

10. Perseverance, only, must put on the crown. Though perseverance itself be purposed to the elect, yet is the possession of the crown suspended on it as the condition. To him that overcometh, and only to him will Christ give to eat of the hidden manna, the tree of life in the midst of paradise, and to dwell in God's temple, and never to go forth. Be valiant and vigilant, therefore, that you may be victorious.

And because your safety and everlasting welfare lie upon it, I will here briefly name you a few directions, which are necessary to be followed, if you would escape the devil's rage; and with them I shall conclude this discourse.

Direct. 1. Keep up hard thoughts of Satan, that so your hearts may be kept against him as your enemy; and as hard thoughts of sin, which is the means of your destruction. The affections and actions do much follow our thoughts and apprehensions.

Direct. 2. Beware of the wounds of wilful sin; it is a fearful advantage that he gets by every such.

Direct. 3. Be acquainted with all the christian armour, and the use of it; and put it on, and go not one day, nor on any one business unarmed; especially with the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Read Eph. vi. Labour for a good understanding of the word, and to that end study it day and night.

Direct. 4. Do not continue children in knowledge and grace; for children are easily deceived, tossed up and down, and carried to and fro with every wind of doctrine, according to the cunning craftiness of Satan and his instruments, who lie in wait to deceive. (Eph. iv. 14.) Grow according to the time and means which you do enjoy. (Heb. v. 11-14.)

Direct. 5. Keep in rank and file, and not only under Christ, your General, but under those particular officers that he hath placed over you, except you can groundedly say, that they are turned traitors, and fight for the enemy. You must know your own particular company, and colours, and commanders; that is, your particular church and church-guides, as well as the general. Stragglers are easily snatched up and destroyed; the ruin of many thousands in most ages of the church, and in particular in these times, hath come from hence, that they have proudly contemned their teachers and overseers in the Lord, and thinking themselves as sufficient to guide themselves, and taking a straggling singularity and separation for a way of piety, have departed from their colours, and been deceived by the deceiver, and destroyed by the destroyer.

Direct. 6. Entertain no familiarity with Satan's familiars. When you must be among them, let it be as an enemy to their sin and their master: and let them be sure to know it, if you have opportunity. But use none of them as your familiars, lest they bring you before you are aware to have to be your familiar, who is theirs. One witch useth to entice many into the confederacy; and so doth one sinner entice many into the snare.

Direct. 7. Keep out of Satan's way; avoid occasions and opportunities of sinning; lest the devil catch you, as he did the woman that one of the fathers mentions, at a stage play, and said, he found her upon his own ground. If you will be thrusting into ale-houses, or needless recreations and pleasures of the flesh, or among enticing baits of lust, or into ways of worldly gain or honours, take that you get by it, if you are surprised by Satan when you least fear it.

Direct. 8. Be sure to learn well the two great lessons of humility and self-denial. The proud are the common prey of the devil. Of them he may make heretics, infidels, or almost what he will; for the Spirit of Christ forsaketh them. And self-seeking is his greatest engine for our ruin; of which selfdenial doth disarm him, and enervates all his temptations.

Direct. 9. Keep near to God in Christ; the nearer God, the

Be

safer from the devil. His name is a terror to Satan, and a strong tower to the righteous, to which if they do but fly, they are safe. Be much with him, therefore, in all his holy ordinances especially in secret prayer and contemplation. Direct. 10. Be sure to offend as well as defend. It is not safe to stand still to be shot at. Do as much work for Christ, and as much hurt to Satan's interest, as possibly you can. still studying the ruin of his kingdom, as he is studying the ruin of your souls. Be as diligent to do good in your places to all about you, and to destroy the works of the deceiver, as he is diligent to do harm, and destroy the works of Christ. Hold on thus doing, and be faithful to the death, and you shall receive the crown of life, (Rev. ii. 10,) and the lion of the tribe of Judah, shall save you from the devouring lion of hell.

380

POSTCRIPT

TO THE

DISCOURSE OF THE BLASPHEMING OF THE HOLY GHOST.

SINCE this was printed, I met with a book of a reverend divine's, (now with God,) Mr. William Lyford, wherein, among others, that are more deeply charged, I am confuted as one guilty of errors, or heresy, or I know not what. (Chap. v. sec. 3, p. 144, &c.) My error lieth in a wrong description of the sin against the Holy Ghost, and thus he begins the charge:

“A learned man, correcting the common opinion of divines touching this point, doth think that this is it, which is called the sin against the Holy Ghost: when men will not be convinced by miracles that Jesus is the Christ."

Reply 1. He is a man that pretendeth not to much learning, but is unfeignedly willing to know the truth, and to bring this controversy to the test of God's word; but little did he think that his opinion in this was of that moment to be enumerated with the intolerable errors against the Deity, or divine worship of the Holy Ghost, or the rest in the black bill.

2. It is only the common opinion of our modern, reformed divines that I there contradict; but whether the ancient doctors were more for their exposition or for mine, I leave them to judge, that have considered what I have said before, as also, whether the said doctors be not taken into the black bill as well as I; yet will I not say, that I had rather err with them, than be orthodox with our moderns; but I will see better reason for it than this author allegeth, before I will condemn them, or ́depart from their opinion.

3. The description is too short, as the next page in my book will show to the not believing, he should have added. blaspheming, by ascribing the works of Christ to Beelzebub, and he had taken in all my sense.

But three things he opposeth against my definition.

1. That miracles are not a sole, sufficient conviction to beget faith; the proper end of miracles was to bring the mind to a marking of the doctrine, &c.

Reply 1. Little do I know to what purpose is this observation, or how it is any opposition of my doctrine, unless he meant to argue thus: If miracles be not a sole, sufficient conviction to beget faith, then the blasphemous rejecting them is not the sin against the Holy Ghost; but the former is true, therefore: Answ. I deny the consequence, and never look to see it proved.

2. I distinguish of sufficiency. It is alone sufficient to its own use or office, but not sufficient to the whole work of conversion or producing faith. Miracles presuppose the doctrine of the Gospel, and are the seal of that doctrine, proving it to be of God. Who ever said the seal was sufficient without the instrument sealed? The question was, when the Gospel was preached, whether it were true or false. The infidels said it was false; Christ proves it true by his miracles, for these were God's attestation of it. Now, to this use, these miracles are sufficient, objectively, in their own kind; but this excludeth not the need of the Spirit's internal efficiency on the soul, much less the need of the Gospel, the truth of which it serveth to confirm.

And, as for the testimony of the prophets, on which, he saith after, “Their belief was to be grounded, and not on miracles alone." I reply, 1. Either miracles alone, or the believed testimony of the prophets alone, are a sufficient proof of those doctrines of Christ, to which they do attest; but both together is more than one; and the sense of the prophets was not so easily manifested to unbelievers, to be so undoubtedly full for Christ, as that we could imagine it to be equal to miracles for their conviction. We hear how men differ still about the sense of as plain Scriptures, who seem yet very godly on both sides; and we see how little the Jews to this day are convinced from the prophets; and we find expressly, in Scripture, that miracles were the ordinary, convincing means, which I have proved in the preface to the second part of the 'Book of Rest.'

2. The testimony of the prophets was of no validity to any that believed not the prophets, and that was almost all the world except the Jews; for the apostle to have proved the Gospel to be true by the prophets, to the gentile world, had been but to prove one unknown thing by another.