"But I afterwards perceived that education is God's ordinary way for the conveyance of his grace, and ought no more to be set in opposition to the Spirit than the preaching of the word; and that it was the great mercy of God to begin with me so soon, and to prevent such sins as might else have been my shame and sorrow while I lived; and that repentance is good, but prevention and innocence is better, which though we cannot obtain in perfection, yet the more the better. And I understand that though fear without love be not a state of saving grace, and greater love to the world than to God be not consistent with sincerity; yet a little predominant love (prevailing against worldly love) conjunct with a far greater measure of fear, may be a state of special grace; and that fear being an easier and irresistible passion, doth oft obscure that measure of love which is indeed within us: and that the soul of a believer groweth up by degrees from the more troublesome and safe operation of fear, to the more high and excellent operations of complacential love; even as it hath more of the sense of the love of God in Christ, and belief of the heavenly life which it approacheth; and that it is long before love be sensibly predominant in respect of fear (that is, of self-love and self-preservation) though at the first it is predominant against worldly love. And I found that my hearty love of the word of God and of the servants of God, and my desires to be more holy, and especially the hatred of my heart for loving God no more, and my love to love him, and be pleasing to him, was not without some love to himself, though it worked more sensibly on his nearer image.

"4. Another of my doubts was because my grief and humiliation were no greater, and because I could weep no more for this. But I understood at last that God breaketh not all men's hearts alike, and that the gradual proceedings of his grace might be one cause, and my nature not apt to weep for other things, another; and that the change of our heart from sin to God is true repentance, and a loathing of ourselves is true humiliation; and he that had rather leave his sin, than have leave to keep it, and had rather be the most holy, than leave to be unholy or less holy, is neither without true repentance, nor the love of God.

"5. Another of my doubts was, because I had after my change

committed some sins deliberately and knowingly; and be they never so small, I thought he that could sin upon knowledge and deliberation had no true grace, and that if I had but had as strong temptations to fornication, drunkenness, fraud or other more heinous sins, I might also have committed them. And if these proved that I had then no saving grace, after all that I had felt, I thought it unlikely that I ever should have any.

"This stuck with me longer than any; and the more, because that every sin which I knowingly committed did renew it; and the terms on which I receive consolation against it are these: (Not as those that think every sin against knowledge doth nullify all our former grace and unregenerate us; and that every time we repent of such, we have a new regeneration, but)

"1. All saving grace doth indeed put the soul into a state of enmity to sin as sin, and consequently to every known sin.

"2. This enmity must show itself in victory; for bare striving, when we are overcome, and yielding to sin when we have awhile striven against it, proveth not the soul to be sincere.

"3. Yet do not God's children always overcome; for then they should not sin at all; but he that saith he hath no sin deceiveth himself.

"4. God's children always overcome those temptations which would draw them to a wicked unholy state of life, and would unregenerate them and change their state, and turn them back from God to a fleshly, worldly life; and also to any particular sin which proveth such a state, and signifieth a heart which hath more love to the world than to God,-which may well be called a mortal sin, as proving the sinner in a state of death; as others may be called venial sins, which are consistent with spiritual life and a justified state.

"5. Therefore whenever a justified person sinneth, the temptation at that time prevaileth against the Spirit and the love of God; not to the extinction of the love of God, nor the destruction of the habit, nor the setting up of the contrary habit in predominance; as setting up the habitual love of any sin above the habitual love of God. The inclination of the soul is still most to God; and he esteemeth him most, and preferreth him in the adherence of his will, in the main bent and course of heart and life; only he is overcome

and so far abateth the actual love and obedience to God, as to commit this particular act of sin, and remit or omit that act of love.

"6. And this it is possible for a justified person to do upon some deliberation; for as grace may strive one instant only in one act, and then be suddenly overcome; so it may strive longer, and keep the mind on considerations of restraining motives, and yet be over

come.

"7. For it is not the mere length of consideration, which is enough to excite the heart against sin, but there must be clearness of light, and liveliness in those considerations. And sometimes a sudden conviction is so clear, and great, and sensible, that in an instant it stirreth up the soul to an utter abhorrence of the temptation, when the same man at another time may have all the same thoughts, in so sleepy a degree as shall not prevail.

"8. And though a little sin must be hated, and universal obedience must prove our sincerity, and no one sin must be wilfully continued in; yet it is certain that God's servants do not often commit sins materially great and heinous, (as fornication, drunkenness, perjury, oppression, deceit, etc.) and yet that they often commit some lesser sins, (as idle thoughts, and idle words, and dullness in holy duties, defectiveness in the love of God, and omission of holy thoughts and words, etc.) and that the tempter often getteth advantage even with them, by telling that the sin is small, and such as God's servants ordinarily commit; and that naturally we fly with greater fear from a great danger than from a less; from a wound in the heart than from a cut finger. And therefore one reason why idle words and sinful thoughts are, even deliberately, oftener committed than most heinous sins, is because the soul is not awaked so much by fear and care to make resistance; and love needeth the help of fear in this our weak condition.

"9. And it is certain that usually the servants of God being men of most knowledge, do therefore sin against more knowledge than others do; for there are but few sins, which they know not to be sins. They know that idle thoughts and words, and the omissions of the contrary, are their sins.

"10. There are some sins of such difficulty to avoid, (as the disorder or omission of holy thoughts, and the defects of love to God,

etc.) and some temptations so strong, and the soul in so sluggish a case to resist, that good thoughts which are in deliberation used against them, are borne down at last and are less effectual.

"11. And our present stock of habitual grace is never sufficient of itself without co-operating grace from Christ; and therefore when we provoke him to withhold his help, no wonder if we show our weakness, so far as to stumble in the way to heaven, or to step out into some by-path, or break over the hedge, and sometimes to look back, and yet never to turn back, and go again from God to the world.

"12. And because no fall of a saint which is venial, an infirmity, consistent with grace, doth either destroy the habit of love and grace, or set up a contrary habit above it, nor yet pervert the scope and bent of the conversation, but only prevaileth to a particular act, it therefore followeth, that the soul riseth up from such a sin by true repentance, and that the new nature or habit of love within us will work out the sin as soon as it hath advantage; as a needle in the compass will return to its proper point, when the force that moved it doth cease; and as a running stream will turn clear again, when the force that muddied it is past. And this repentance will do much to increase our hatred of the sin, and fortify us against the next temptation; so that though there be some sins which through our great infirmity we daily commit, as we daily repent of them (as disordered thoughts, defects of love, neglect of God, &c.) yet it will not be so with those sins which a willing, sincere, habituated penitent hath more in his power to cast out.

"13. And yet when all this is done, sin will breed fears, (and the more by how much the more deliberate and wilful it is ;) and the best way to keep under doubts and terrors, and to keep up comfort, is to keep up actual obedience, and quickly and penitently return when we have sinned.

"This much I thought meet to say, for the sake of others, who may fall into the same temptations and perplexities.

"The means, by which God was pleased to give me some peace and comfort, were,

"1. The reading of many consolatory books.

"2. The observation of other men's condition. When I heard

many make the very same complaints that I did, who were people of whom I had the best esteem, for the uprightness and holiness of their lives, it much abated my fears and troubles. And in particular it much comforted me, to read him whom I loved as one of the holiest of all the martyrs, Mr. John Bradford, subscribing himself so often, "the hard-hearted sinner ;" and "the miserable hardhearted sinner," even as I was used to do myself.

"3. And it much increased my peace when God's Providence called me to the comforting many others that had the same complaints. While I answered their doubts I answered my own; and the charity, which I was constrained to exercise for them, redounded to myself, and insensibly abated my fears, and procured me an increase of quietness of mind.

"And yet after all, I was glad of probabilities instead of full, undoubted certainties; and to this very day, though I have no such degree of doubtfulness as is any great trouble to my soul, or procureth any great disquieting fears, yet cannot I say, that I have such a certainty of my own sincerity in grace, as excludeth all doubts and fears of the contrary."*

His ill health increased as he pursued his studies after his return from London; and the spirituality and devotedness of his mind seems to have maintained a progress corresponding with the decay of his physical system. From the age of twenty-one to near twenty-three, he had no expectation of surviving a single year. And in these circumstances so clear were his views of the eternal world and its interests, that he was exceedingly desirous to communicate those apprehensions "to such ignorant, presumptuous, careless sinners, as the world aboundeth with." As he thought of preaching, he felt many discouragements. He not only knew that the want of university honors and titles was likely to diminish the estimation in which he would be held, and the respect with which he would be heard by many; but he was conscious of the actual defects of his education, and felt deeply all his personal insufficiency.

"But

*Narrative, Part I. pp. 6-9.