By WILLIAM GURNALL.
First, A presumptuous faith is an easy faith; it hath no enemy of Satan, or our own corrupt hearts, to oppose it, and so, like a weed, shoots up and grows rank on a sudden.
The devil never hath a sinner surer, than when dreaming in this fool’s paradise, and walking in his sleep, amidst his vain fantastical hopes of Christ and salvation. And therefore he is so far from waking him, that he draws the curtains close about him, that no light nor noise in his conscience may break his rest. Did you ever know the thief call him up in the night whom he meant to rob and kill? No, sleep is his advantage. But true faith he is a sworn enemy against; he persecutes it in the very cradle, as Herod did Christ in the manger; he pours a flood of wrath after it as soon as it betrays its own birth, by crying and lamenting after the Lord. If thy faith be legitimate, Naphtali may be its name, and thou mayest say, with great “wrestlings have I wrestled” with Satan and my own base heart, and at last have prevailed. If thou canst find the like strife in thy soul, thou mayest comfort thyself, that it is from two contrary principles, faith and unbelief, which is the elder (however now it strives for the mastery), shall serve faith the younger.
Secondly, Presumptuous faith is lame of one hand; it hath a hand to receive pardon and heaven from God, but no hand to give up itself to God: true faith hath the use of both her hands.
“My beloved is mine,” there the soul takes Christ; “and I am his,” there she surrenders herself to the use and service of Christ. Now, didst thou ever pass over thyself freely to Christ? I know none but will profess they do this. But the presumptuous soul, like Ananias, lies to the Holy Ghost, by keeping back part, yea, the chief part of that he promised to lay at Christ’s feet. This lust he sends out of the way, when he should deliver it up to justice; and that creature-enjoyment he twines about, and cannot persuade his heart to trust God with the disposure of it, but cries out when the Lord calls for it, Benjamin shall not go; his life is bound up in it, and if God will have it from him he must take it by force, for there is no hope of gaining his consent. If this is the true picture of thy faith, and temper of thy soul, then verily thou blessedest thyself in an idol, and mistakest a bold face for a believing heart; but if thou art as willing to be faithful to Christ as to pitch thy faith on Christ; if thou countest it as great a privilege that Christ should have a throne in thy heart and love, as that thou shouldst have a place and room in his mercy; in a word, if thou are plain-hearted, and wouldst not hide a sin, nor lock up a creature-enjoyment from him, but desirest freely to give up thy dearest lust to the gibbet, and thy sweetest enjoyments to stay with, or go from thee, as thy God thinks fit to allow thee, though all this be with much regret and discontent, from a malignant party of the flesh within thee, thou provest thyself a sound believer. And the devil may as well say that himself believeth as thou presumest; if this be to presume, be thou the more presumptuous. Let the devil nickname thee and thy faith as he pleaseth; the rose-water is not the less sweet, because one writes wormwood-water on the glass. The Lord knows who are his, and will own them for his true children, and their graces for the sweet fruits of his Spirit, though a false title be set on them by Satan and the world, yea, sometimes by believers on themselves. The father will not deny his child because he is in a violent fit of fever, talks idle, and denies him to be his father.
Thirdly, The presumptuous faith is a sapless and unsavoury faith.
When an unsound heart pretends to greatest faith on Christ, even then it finds little saviour, tastes little sweetness in Christ. No, he hath his old tooth in his head, which makes him relish still the gross food of sensual enjoyments above Christ and his spiritual dainties; would he but freely speak what he thinks, he must confess that if he were put to his choice, whether he would sit with Christ and his children, to be entertained with the pleasures that they enjoy from spiritual communion with him in his promises, ordinances, and holy ways; or had rather sit with the servants and have the scraps, while God allows the men of the world their full bags and bellies of carnal treasure; that he would prefer the latter before the former. He brags of his interest in God, but he cares not how little he is in the presence of God in any duty or ordinance; certainly, if he were such a favourite as he speaks, he would be more at court than he is. He hopes to be saved, he saith, but he draws not his wine of joy at his tap; it is not the thoughts of heaven that comfort him, but what he hath in the world, and of the world, these maintain his joy; when the world’s vessel is out, and creature-joy spent, alas! the poor wretch can find little relief from, or relish in, his pretended hopes of heaven and interest in Christ, but he is still whining after the other. Whereas true faith alters the very creature’s palate; no feast so sweet to the believer as Christ is; let God take all other dishes off the board, and leave but Christ, he counts his feast is not gone, he hath what he likes; but let all else stand, health, estate, friends, and what else the world sets a high value on, if Christ be withdrawn, he soon miseth his dish, and makes his moan, and saith, Alas! who hath taken away my Lord? It is Christ that seasons these and all his enjoyments, and makes them savoury meat to his palate; but without him, they have no more taste than the white of an egg without salt.