CHAPTER V.
Of the straits he was in, and the course he took for relief, from May 1693, to August 1696.
1.THE air of Edinburgh agreeing neither with my mother nor me, in May 1693 she removed to St. Andrews. And here I came under the care of Mr. Taylor, a wise man, and one very careful of me. Thus chased as I was from place to place, God every where provided me with friends. And now by the searching ministry of Mr. Forrester, he began to give me some small discovery of the more spiritual evils of my soul. He opened to me first the pride of my heart, and the wickedness and injustice of valuing myself upon those deliverances from my own weakness, which had been wholly wrought by his own strength. I likewise saw the impiety of drawing near to him with my mouth, while my heart was far from him: and indeed of trusting to any outward performance, without the life of all, faith working by love.
2. This, added to what I was conscious of before, frequently [♦]threw me into racking perplexity; when finding no peace in my former evasions I resolved to enter into a solemn covenant with God; and having wrote and subscribed this, I believed all was right. I found a sort of present peace; amendment I thought sufficient atonement, and such an engagement I looked on as a performance. I now likewise often found an unusual sweetness in hearing the word, and sometimes the most piercing convictions. And these were indeed a taste of the good word of God, and of the powers of the world to come.
[♦] “through” replaced with “threw” per Errata
3. But the merciful God would not let me rest here: the peace I found by making this covenant, was soon lost by breaking it: at the same time my heart smote me for my old sins, by which I found former accounts to be still standing against me, which filled me with confusion and jealousies of these ways. I perceived too, something of the treachery of my engagements, and that my heart had not been found therein, but had secret reserves for some sins, which were then given [♦]up inward only. God also let loose some of my corruptions upon me; which as soon as his restraint was taken off, were more violent than ever, and bore down before them all that I had set in their way. By these means he discovered to me the fruitlesness of my covenant, and threw me afresh into the utmost confusion: while the evil I thought so effectually provided against, again came upon me.
[♦] “me in one word” replaced with “up inward” per Errata
4. Yet notwithstanding I felt the vanity of these ways, I still adhered to them. I again trusted my own heart, and hoped to recover by renewing the peace I lost by breaking my covenant. I laid the blame on some accidental defect in my former management, and thought, were that mended, all would be well. When I found something wanting still, I contrived to make it up with something extraordinary of my own, with the multiplication of prayers, or of some outward duty or other. But all these refuges failed, and my life was so throughly miserable while I was pursuing them, that had not the infinite mercy of God prevented, one of these effects had surely followed. Either, 1. The convictions I was under would have ceased, God giving over his striving with me, and then having attained to a form of godliness, I should have rested therein and looked no farther. Or, 2. If those convictions had continued, and I had been left to my own way, I should have laboured in the fire all my days, wearying myself with vanity, in a continual vicissitude of resolutions and breaches, security and disquietude: engagements and sins, false peace and racking anxiety, by turns taking place. Or, 3. When I had wearied myself in vain, I should have utterly given up religion, and gone over, if not to direct Atheism, at least to open prophaneness. Or, lastly, Being forced to seek shelter somewhere, and being so sadly disappointed in all the ways I tried, I had said, This evil is of the Lord, why wait I any longer? And so sunk in final despair. And in fact, I had some experience of all these. Sometimes I sat down with the bare form. Sometimes I wearied myself in running from one of these vain courses to another. At other times, finding no profit, I turned careless, and was on the point of throwing off all religion. And very often I was driven almost to distraction, and stood on the very brink of despair.
5. When I had been disappointed again and again, I was in the utmost perplexity to find where the fault lay. I found this way of covenanting with God mentioned in scripture, recommended by ministers, and approved by the experience of all the people of God. I could not tax myself with guile in doing it: I was resolved to perform the engagement I made. I made it with much concern and solemnity, and for some time kept it strictly. But though I could not then see where the failing was, I have since been enabled to see it clearly. 1. Being ignorant of the righteousness of God, I was still establishing a righteousness of my own: and though in words I renounced this, yet in fact I sought righteousness and peace, not in the Lord Jesus, but in my own covenants and engagements, so that I really put them in Christ’s room: and as to forgiveness of sins, my real trust was not in his blood, but in the evenness of my own walk. Therefore, I obtained not righteousness, because I still sought it, as it were by the works of the law. And it was evident I did so, by this plain sign; whenever I was challenged for sin, instead of recourse to the blood of Christ, I still sought peace only in renewing my vows again; the consent I gave to the law, was not from the reconcilement of my heart to its holiness; but merely from fear. The enmity against it continued: nor would I have chosen it, had that force been away. Farther, my eye was not single; provided I was safe, I had no concern for the glory of God. In a word, I engaged, before God had thoroughly engaged me. We may be in a sort willing, before he hath made us truly so. But the first real kindness begins with him: and we never love till his kindness draws us. Fear may indeed overpower us into something like it, as it did me. I was willing to be saved from hell: but not to be saved in God’s way, and in order to those ends he proposes in our salvation.