Free grace, or, The flowings of Christs blood free to sinners being an experiment of Jesus Christ upon one who hath been in the bondage of a troubled conscience ... / by John Saltmarsh.

There is danger in putting too much upon the sin of relapsing or back-sliding in beleevers.

To conclude, I would have men tender now they make conversion such a mortifica∣tion to that particular sin or act which was the sin of the unregenerate condition, lest while they lay down a law to prevent a sin∣ning again, or a second wounding by the same sin, they make that sin if committed again, as it may be, wound the beleever more, even to the danger of unbeleef; then which, there cannot be a greater to hinder true mortifica∣tion; because that any unbeleef keeps the soul and Christ as it were asunder, and from closing in the souls own apprehension; and all that time, there can be little power brought home from Christ by Faith against that sin: My reasons are these:

1. Because that sinful nature is not whol∣ly healed in this life; so there remains a

natural inclination to that particular sin as well as another; nay rather, because nature is more byassed towards it then any other.

2. The wound, pricking, or sorrow that any soul enlightned by Jesus Christ, feels for that sin, is not of such an exceeding or rather infinite vertue, as to abolish it, or to lay in such a perpetual impression upon the soul, that the soul should live under the image of that remorse and wound, and so never dare or adventure to commit it again. I finde no such lasting and continuing, and firm or thorow work in the spiritual motions, opera∣tions, and impressions, but by degrees; Christ upbraided his Disciples how soon their hearts were hardned; and we finde the spi∣ritual affection and resolution of Peter, wherein his soul was raised up on high, wasting and flatting in his denial: The gales and breathings of the spirit are like the winde, Joh. 3. which makes a thing move or tremble while the power of the Air is upon it; but as that slakens, or breaths, so doth it.

3. There is no promise that I can finde for the present, against the never commit∣ting again such a particular act, or sin

which he lived in, in his unregenerate state. I know there are differences made, and cer∣tain works set down to know a sin by, that is committed in a regenerate state, & before, as the weaknesse, and contrary dispositions or reluctancy in which it is committed, 〈◊〉〈◊〉 Paul implies in Rom. 7. &c. Though here, some of these Divines may be puzzled in this way of their differences too; for take a man in the strength of natural or common light, living under a powerful word or Preacher, by which his Candle, as Solomon saith, is better lighted then it was, such a man shall sin against as seeming strong con¦victions as the other, if not more.

But by the way, I humbly conceive there are certain dampings of Satan, and flesh and blood, together with the withdrawings of the Spirit on Gods part, that will puzzle the best that goes so exactly by marks and sense more then by Faith; for the way of the spirit is not so grosse, & carnal, & discerni∣ble, as the Divinity of former times, and of some of this present age would make it. It is as hard to trace and finde the impressi∣ons of the Spirit, as the way of a bird, as Solomon sayes, in the Air. The Spirit that is of God, knows only the way of the Spirit.

And the Apostle speaks many things too, as he says, because of the infirmity of our flesh; We must not therefore form up the things of the spirit too much for the feelings of flesh and blood: And they that write so of a regenerate mans estate, and set us down such infallible signes as we meet with common∣ly, do take their experiences too low, and carnally, and mistaking the Allegory, and way of the Word or Scriptures which speaks of things because of the infirmity of our flesh, write upon spiritual workings, as Philoso∣phers upon Moral vertues, and do bring down the spirit into the very Allegory, and so allegorize and incarnate or make fleshly the things of the spirit: And so do many, both preach and write of regeneration as a work of nature, though not a natural work.

4. The restraints of the spirit, or that Law of Jesus Christ in the soul, is not made sure to the soul, as concerning particular acts or sins, but onely concerning the power of sinful nature in general, and the weakning and destroying of that; Neither are the particular Laws or Commandments in the Gospel, always in their power upon the soul; but when the Spirit of Christ doth take them, and apply them, and quicken them

unto the soul, and put a spiritual Majesty upon them.