by Thomas Goodwin
in ePub, .mobi & .pdf formats
A treatise shewing the causes, by which, the cases, wherein, the ends, for which God leaves His children to distress of conscience. : Together with directions how to walk, so as to be relieved from such a condition. With other observations on Isaiah 50.10, 11
THAT which drew these sermons from me, next to thy good, was to right myself. They were first preached eight years since, and some notes thereof were, to say no more, dispersed into the hands of many, to my prejudice. They are here presented as they were preached, with little alteration or addition in method, style, and matter; only, to make up the treatise more complete, I entirely added, against the publishing thereof, that whole discourse about Satan's part and hand in these desertions, beginning at Chap. 6. In handling which, I trust I have not at all incurred that severe increpation of the Apostle against curious speculations about angels, of 'intruding into those things which I have not seen' ground and warrant for in the word. Sure I am, I have endeavoured to follow the school, in their labyrinths herein, no further than I found a clue of Scripture and right reason clearly guiding and warranting my way; without which I account the ways of this old and winding serpent, in his communications to us, to be, as Solomon speaks, 'like the way of a serpent upon a stone,' hidden, and past tracing or finding out. And lest any of the weaker readers, especially those in distress, to whom more speculative and doctrinal discourses, though about things practical, prove usually tedious and unpleasing, should, in reading that piece, be discouraged at the first, my advertisement is, that, if they find that part of the way craggy or tiresome, which I hope they will not, they would divert out of it, and come in again at Chap. 11; from whence to the end they shall find what is more accommodate to their understanding and conditions, and more practically speaking to their distress. The blessing of Heaven go with it!
THO. GOODWIN.
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Table of Contents
TO THE READER
PART I: A PARAPHRASE UPON THE WORDS (ISA. 50:10, 11)
CHAPTER I: The first and main observation: That a child of God may walk in darkness
CHAPTER II: The two phrases, 'walking in darkness,' 'having no light,'
CHAPTER III: The efficient causes of this distress
CHAPTER IV: How Satan and our hearts increase this darkness and distress
CHAPTER V: The second efficient cause of this darkness
CHAPTER VI: The third efficient cause - Satan: his special malice in this temptation, commission
CHAPTER VII: More particularly how Satan works upon those three principles in us: first, on carnal reason
CHAPTER VIII: That Satan is able to work upon that other corrupt principle in us
CHAPTER IX: How able Satan is to work upon that third principle, the passions and corrupt affections
CHAPTER X: The conclusion: seven advantages, in common, which Satan hath over us in all these his dealings
CHAPTER XI: The cases wherein God leaves his unto darkness
CHAPTER XII: The cases ordinary wherein God doth leave his in darkness
CHAPTER XIII: The ends for which God leaveth to darkness
CHAPTER XIV: A second sort of ends for the trial and discovery of graces, especially of faith
CHAPTER XV: Six ends more
PART II: Uses
USE I.—To those that fear not God nor obey him; what darkness reserved for such!
USE II.—To those that are translated from darkness into light, and yet never thus walked in darkness
USE III.—To those that have been in darkness, and are now recovered out of it
USE IV.—To such as fear God, and walk in darkness
TEN DIRECTIONS for those who are more deeply troubled; and means to be used how to recover light
SECTION II: Other observations out of the 10th verse
A Child of Darkness Walking in Light