The Works of Jeremiah Burroughs 9-11, Treatise 3 · Chapter 5
CHAP. V.
An Admonition to yong Converts, that think the increase and decrease of Sence and Joy is the encrease and decrease of Grace.
IF so be that this be the walk of the Saints not walking by Sence, I beseech you, you that are yong Converts to whom God doth give Sence for the present, lay this Truth up, you wil have …e of it if you live: 'tis common when God converts the soul at first, he doth encoucourage it by the Sence of his Love, with abundance of sence and joy; I but they have not so much Faith as others have less sence afterwards; but if you be not careful you wil be ready to rest upon this sence and joy, and to think that according to the increase of this, so is the increase of Grace; and according to the decrease of it, is the decrease of Grace; I but you judg as children in this: Oh therefore take this Caveat, you that are beginning in the waies of God, and have sence, Oh lay up for a rainy day; it's not the way of God to bring his Saints to Heaven the way of Sence, no, but the way is by Faith; and think thus, through Gods merciemercy I have some Sence of his love; I but this may▪ not alwaies be, alas, these are but like bladders which you make use of when you would teach a yong swimmer, he must not expect to have his bladders alwaies; afterwards when he is a little exercised, he that learns him, suddenly snatches away his bladders, and leaves him without them, then he scrabbles and gets up, and afterwards he can tread the water, and swim better without them than with them: Just so at first God doth as it were put sence underneath to uphold his People even like unto bladders; God hath his time to take away these bladders, and you shall have nothing in the world to live upon but Faith, and if God doth enable you to live by Faith, it will be a better life than the other was: 'Tis in this case as in the Work of Nature; Children you know when they are first born, they grow mightily for a little time; you shall have a Child born but a month ago shoo…s up very much, but after it comes to more maturitie, it doth not shut up so much in so little a time; and the reason may be given, That the Child coming out of the Mothers Womb where it lay hot and warm, and coming to the Air where it's colder, that may be one Reason, that except Nature should no… put forth its self ver…e much, it would not be able to live. And so it is in the Work of Grace, in the change that God make… in the heart; Because at first there's a great deal of opposition, and the Saints are but weak, therefore God to help and strengthen them doth give them Sence: afterwards when they come to riper years, and grow to better understanding in the waies of God, they shal not think to shoot up so high in so little a time; that is, so sensible as that others may perceive it. Thus the Lord doth supply according to our necessitie both in Nature and in Grace; and therefore let this be laid up: Oh you that have sence at any time, do not think that you must be alwaies so, do not think that God will alwaies dandle you as it were upon his knee: As at the first, you will dandle your Children upon your knee; but afterwards you will put them to school, and cause them to wait upon you at your Table, but not because you love them less afterwards than you did before, no, but because as they grow up they must live by other Principles; they live by Sence at first, and therefore you only please their sences; but as they grow up they come to have a harder kind of life▪ And so it is with Gods Children, though the Lord dandles them at first, and they live rather a life of Sence, though it be Spiritual Sence; but yet as they grow up more and more, they come to live harder and harder, because the Lord would have them to exercise Faith.
Consider of this, and make use of it; you that are Christians find the need of it in the course of your lives.
The Principle that Saints have, is beyond the sight of Reason: And that we are likewise to speak to in the same manner as to the former.
First, Beyond the sight of Natural Reason.
Secondly, Beyond Spiritual Reason. The Saints are so far from resting upon things that are sutable to Natural Reason, and from being guided by that, as they are beyond even Spiritual, and that which is Sanctified Knowledg. Faith is beyond that.
For the First,