Or, do you rashly infer the Lord hath no love for you, because he hides his face from you; that your condition is miserable, because dark and uncomfortable ? Before you draw such rash conclusions, see what answer you can give to these four following queries;

Quer. 1. If any action of God towards his people will bear a favourable, as well as a harsh and severe construction, why should not his people interpret it in the best sense. And is not this such? May he not have a design of love, as well as of hatred, in this dispensation? May he not depart for a season, and not for ever; yea, that he might not depart for ever? You are not the first that have mistaken God's ends in desertion, Isa. xlix. 14. Zion said, the Lord hath forsaken me, my God hath forgotten ane. Was it so indeed? Nothing less, ver. 15. Can a mother forget, &c.

Quer. 2. Do you find the marks of an absolute, total and final desertion upon your own spirits, that you are so apt to conclude yours to be such? Do you find your heart inclined to forsake God? Have you lost your conscientious tenderness in point of sin? If so, sad characters appear upon you indeed: but if, in this dark hour, you are as tender of sin as

ever, as much resolved to cleave to God as ever; I cannot, I will not torsake God, let him do what he will with me; Oh no I cannot: if your hearts work thus, it can be but a partial, limited, and temporary desertion; by this he still keeps his interest in your hearts, a sure sign he will return and visit you again.

Quer. 3. Is sense and feeling a competent judge of God's actions and designs? Or, may a man safely rely upon its testimony after so many discoveries of the infallibility of it? Is this a sound argument, if God had any love for my soul, if it were not quite gone, I should feel it now as well as in former times; but I cannot feel it: therefore it is quite gone? Do not you know, the sun still keeps on his course in the heavens, even in foul and close weather, when you cannot see it? and may it not be so with the love of God? Read Isa. 1. 10. May not I as well conclude in winter, when the flowers have hid their beautiful heads unk der ground, they are quite dead and gone, because I cannot find them in December where I saw them in May?

Quer. 4 Think you the Lord cares not to break his children's hearts, and his own promise too? Hath he no more regard to either? If he retorn no more,

these must be the consequents, Isa. Ivii 16, 17. Heb. xiii. 5.

Well then, from God's carriage towards you, either in affliction or desertion, no such discouraging, heart sinking conclusions can be inferred. Next, let us see whether they may not be inferred from our carriage towards God: and here the principal grounds of doubting are such as these;

1, I have fallen again into the same sin from which I have formerly risen with repentance and resolution; therefore, my sinning is customary sinning, a spot that is not the spot of God's children. Hence the upright soul trembles; upon this it is ready to affirm, that all its former humiliations for, and oppositions unto, sin, were but acts of hypocrisy. But stay, poor trembling heart;

Quer. 1. If this be so, how comes it to pass that Christ puts such a favourable construction upon the disciples sleeping the third time, when he had as often reproved them for it? Matth. xxvi. 40, 41. And how is it that we find in scripture so many promises made, not only to par don the first sins, but also to heal the backslidings of God's people? Jer. iii. 22. Hos. xiv. 4.

Quer. 2. Is not your repentance and

care renewed as often as your guilt is re newed? Yea, the oftner you sin, the more you are troubled. It is not so in customary sinning; the rise whereof Bernard excellently discovers, 1, (saith. he) when a man, accustomed to good, sinneth grievously, it seems insupportable, yea, he seems to descend alive into hell. 2, In process of time it seems not insup portable, but heavy; and betwixt insupportable and heavy, there is no small descent. 3, Next it becomes light, his conscience smites but faintly, and he feels not the stripes of it. 4, Then there is not only a total insensibleness of it, but that which was bitter and displeasing, is now become sweet and pleasing in some degree. 5, Then it is turned into custom, and not only pleases, but daily pleases. Lastly, custom is turned into nature; he cannot be pulled away from it, but defends and pleads for it. This is customary sinning, this is the way of the wicked; but the quite contrary is our condition.

Quer. 3. Are you sure from scripture grounds, that a good man may not reJapse again and again into the same sin? It is true, as for gross sins, they do not use to relapse into them. David committed adultery no more; Paul persecuted

the church no more; Peter denied Christ no more: but I speak of ordinary infirmities. Job's friends were good men, yet (saith he) chap. xix. 3. These ten times have ye reproached me. So then, no such conclusions follow from this first ground of doubting.

2, The second ground is, the declining and withering of our affections to spiritual things. O (saith the upright soul) if ever I had been planted a right seed, I should have been as a green olive tree in the house of my God! but my branches wither therefore my root is naughty. But stays

Quer. i. May you not be mistaken about the decay of grace, and fading of your affections? What if they be not so quick and ravishing as at first? may not that be recompensed in the spirituality and solidity of them now? Phil. i. 9. I pray God your love may abound more and more in all judgment: it may be more solid, though not so ferverous. Or, do you not mistake, by looking forward to what you would be, rather than backward to what once you were? It is a good note of Ames, we discern the growth of grace, as the growth of plants, which we perceive rather to have grown, than to grow,