Ed Walsh
Puritan Board Senior
I found several of the following "rules" very practical and comforting for the Christian who is prone to overemphasize their own sinfulness.
Resist Every Hindrance That Keeps You from Relishing Your Father’s Adopting Grace
Simon Ford (c. 1619–1699) listed these hindrances:
• “A secret murmuring frame of spirit against God’s present dispensations towards thee.”
• “A kind of delight in complaining against thy self, and taking Satan’s part many times in bearing false witness against thy own soul.”
• “An unthankful denial of the works of God’s sanctifying spirit in the heart.”
• “An unwarrantable thrusting off those promises and comfortable truths which God in the Ministry of the Word or otherwise brings home to our condition.”
• “A groundless surmising of an irrecoverableness in our condition from such and such threatenings of Scripture as concern us not.”
• “Keeping Satan’s counsel.”
• “Secret tempting of God, and dependence upon such means and such men for peace, and limiting God to such and such a time, and resolving not to wait on God beyond that time, or not to expect it from any other means.”
• “A sinful ambition of self-preparations for comfort and peace: were I so much humbled, saith the poor soul, so kindly and ingenuously affected with my sins; could I recover of this deadness, and flatness of spirit into any measure of liveliness and spiritualness in my performances; then I would believe comfort, and assurance of God’s love belonged to me.”
• “Giving too much way to prejudices against God, and his love, from present sense and feeling.”
• “Slackness and remissness in (occasioned by successlessness) Ordinances and Duties.”
• “Over-scrupulousness, and skeptical-question-fulness.”
Resist Every Hindrance That Keeps You from Relishing Your Father’s Adopting Grace
Simon Ford (c. 1619–1699) listed these hindrances:
• “A secret murmuring frame of spirit against God’s present dispensations towards thee.”
• “A kind of delight in complaining against thy self, and taking Satan’s part many times in bearing false witness against thy own soul.”
• “An unthankful denial of the works of God’s sanctifying spirit in the heart.”
• “An unwarrantable thrusting off those promises and comfortable truths which God in the Ministry of the Word or otherwise brings home to our condition.”
• “A groundless surmising of an irrecoverableness in our condition from such and such threatenings of Scripture as concern us not.”
• “Keeping Satan’s counsel.”
• “Secret tempting of God, and dependence upon such means and such men for peace, and limiting God to such and such a time, and resolving not to wait on God beyond that time, or not to expect it from any other means.”
• “A sinful ambition of self-preparations for comfort and peace: were I so much humbled, saith the poor soul, so kindly and ingenuously affected with my sins; could I recover of this deadness, and flatness of spirit into any measure of liveliness and spiritualness in my performances; then I would believe comfort, and assurance of God’s love belonged to me.”
• “Giving too much way to prejudices against God, and his love, from present sense and feeling.”
• “Slackness and remissness in (occasioned by successlessness) Ordinances and Duties.”
• “Over-scrupulousness, and skeptical-question-fulness.”
Beeke, J. R., & Jones, M. (2012). A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life (p. 552). Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books.