Discouragement Due to Lack of Assurance - Puritan William Bridge 1648 A chapter from Bridge’s Lifting Up of the Downcast. "If you be drawn to Christ, is it material whether it be done with a cord of flax or a cord of silk? God hath two arms whereby he draws us unto himself; the arm of his love, and the arm of his anger and justice: the arm of his love is put forth in the promise, the arm of his anger and justice is put forth in the threatening; and with both these he doth lift up the fallen sinner. What if God lift you up with his left arm, so you be lifted up!" Psalms 42:11 11 Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God; for I shall yet praise him, `Who is' the help of my countenance, and my God. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God. http://www.puritanaudiobooks.net/ SUBSCRIBE: https://www.youtube.com/user/stack45ny SUPPORT MINISTRY: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5022374 Puritan Reformed Audiobooks playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzOwqed_gET1LMZlDNOqxx58LREHCiLsD https://www.facebook.com/ChristianDevotionalReadings/ William Bridge was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and served for several years as a fellow there as well. He served a five-year pastorate in Essex before accepting a call to Norwich. As a non-conformist, in 1637 he was officially silenced by Archbishop Wren, a noted enemy of the Puritans. Bridge was eventually excommunicated by the Church of England and moved to Rotterdam in Holland, where we was chosen pastor of the same Congregational church where the famous Jeremiah Burroughs was the teacher. Bridge returned to England in 1642, and was chosen as one of the dissenters in the Westminster Assembly. He later pastored in Yarmouth, until the Great Ejection of 1662. William Bridge died in 1670. Soli Deo Gloria reprinted the 1845 five-volume edition of his Works in 1989, but the print run has sold out. Prior to that printing, that set was arguably the scarcest of the 19th century Puritan reprinted sets to find.