by fear and anxiety by terrours and by death for they cannot like the common sort of men spend their lives in meer pleasures but he does always detain his under a rigid discipline and many frights and makes them drink down the bitter potion of tribulations that all their internal faculties as well of spirit as of Soul may be brought under the Cross nor can they ever arrive at true peace until every one of them learns nakedly to yield up himself into the will of God and contentedly to take of the potion mixed by God and given him to drink out of meer grace and Love Now that this cup is bitter is no fault of God's but our own and that because we are contrary and enemies to what is good and cannot bear to be purged just like the vulgar people whose troubles are increased by a mixt Physick-wine For by nature a man flieth from all things which are hard and produce pains and yet there is no other way to be recovered nor to come at health then by those means by which we are always more and more adapted to Christ our head by a similitude of his sufferings death and burial that afterwards by a like resurrection also we may be taken into him and be possessed of a never-fading crown of glory For how much we suffer together with Christ so much also shall we reign with â—im not indeed in this time of temporaâ—y abode but in the truth and permaâ—ency of spirit and life in which we â—hall arise and be excited to such a likeâ—ess of Christ as consisteth not with deâ—raved Nature but is lifted up above Nature and is conformed into a spirituâ—â— eternal and immortal life Thus thereâ—â—re all and every one of them in their â—wn order may expect it will be acâ—â—rding to the measure of the divine gifts â—â—at the enemy may for the time to â—â—me have no more right nor power â—er our Souls by reason of sin under â—hich hitherto we have been bound â—â—d captivated hoping for salvation â—â—d redemption in Christ from all our internal enemys who force our Souls into slavery so that in tract of time we may in all holiness and righteousness serve the Lord as present with us all the days of our life He therefore that hath appeared on earth to preach the Gospel to the poor and to the desolate will comfort and cure our sorrowful hearts and graciously set the captives free he I say will in his own time appear gracious to thy humane weakness and will bless thy internal poverty and affliction with a greâ—â— plenty of the fruits of holiness Now thesâ— few things I was willing according to thâ— simplicity of my heart and my meaâ— gifts in the Lord to write unto thee from an earnest desire to serve thee that 〈◊〉 perhaps some means might be discoveâ—ed to thy heart thorough the diviâ—â— mercy leading to a greater proficiencâ— in the knowledge of God and thâ— thy Soul might be sealed up in eternâ—â— peace and reconciliation thorough thâ— grace of God and by his Spirit Aâ—â— 31. 1559. EPIST. V. For what end the Scripture was given and how we ought most exactly to satisfie conscience also concerning the difference between humane righteousness and that which availeth before God To U. of W. MOst dear Lady having this occasion offered I was willing to write a few lines unto thee giving thanks to you all for your friendly inclinations of heart towards us The eternal God grant that that bond in which we being bound together in him and do profess a mutuall union to the true members may become more firm and may grow in Christ our Lord according to his holy will to his glory and our death As to what concerns my condition it is indeed at present such as is tolerable to the flesh as long as it shall please God for the bond of death remains in my heart and in my members and all the rest is known unto the Lord. The Lord himself take us all into his protection that we may be preserved in his fear this dangerous time which as I conjecture cannot be done but by most hard sorrows O would to God we could at length come even unto the death of Christ and feel it in our souls which indeed is set before our eyes in the holy Scriptures yet somewhat shadowed O Lord grant unto us that life which the Scripture every where beareth witness of yet oftentimes by so frequent exercises of so many various readings a man is but kept back and distracted when as yet it 's in the first place necessary that every one should observe himself in the acts of hearing speaking thinking working and in all else where a man is busied about any other matters in things of thiâ— life and that all these be to his utmost put to the examination of his judgment and that he most exactly endeavours in all hath a care to satisfy his own conscience for so long as the accusatioâ— thereof endureth by the guilt of anâ— though the least transgression it 's impossible that peace an be found in hâ— Soul Because as long as any one does not satisfy his own conscience he is willingly kept a prisoner under sin But the difficulty of this way hindereth many as much as that which the Scripture saith that no man can stand before God in his own proper righteousness which is very true However yet if we are willing to trace thorough this most rocky way of our conscience even to its utmost limit it is necessary that at length we should come to a mortification and destruction of all our laborious endeavours and then will our own righteousness shame us On the contrary we all would dye before ever we have lived and glory that we have renounced our own righteousness when as even yet we stick in the midst of our sins breaking forth into outward acts But the matter is to be otherwise and more accurately considered if we desire to make a proficiency in the Lord for that life which we live in the flesh is dead in the sight of God nor hath no liveliness in it in his account Yea furthermore that life which our Soul enjoys whilst it confideth in and s bottomed on these or these things must also be changed for a death and it 's by no means to be permitted that the enormities thereof should rejoyce in its progress For this life which our Soul hath taken to herself after this manner springs from no where else then from out of that imaginary righteousness and holiness which we fancy is to be found in us and which tickles us with a strange kind of sweet flattery and privately is very pleasing to us yea and gives to our Souls a kind of tranquillity These things are hid so deeply in a man and deceive us with such dissimulation as if all were well with us whence it is that all things are ascribed unto Christ because the man knows that no such
shall fail me The Lord prepare us all that we may be made fit for his work in those things which he himself seeth and judgeth II. My brother the condition of my body is tolerable as it always was but I remain unshaken in my heart and the trust or confidence of my life is so small by reason of want of strength in my limbs that I can only walk up and down the house with trembling under the hand of my God True indeed I remain like others as to outward appearance but at heart and over my orignal and root of life there impends a judgment and by my unconsidered steps thorough the terrours of death it threatneth an end and my departure out of this time such is the constitution of my whole life way and conversation May the merciful Father open the bowels of his paternal inclination to me a most wretched creature that he may keep me safe from the evil one and preserve us all by his eternal grace Be mindful of forsaken and for lorn me as my compassionate brother if perhaps the Lord may be willing to exhibit his mercy to us III. My brother mine accustomed infirmity still remaineth as long as the Lord will The Lord be my promoter in his commiserating grace and may he preserve me and continue to hold me in his discipline under a suffering obedience of his holy will The cause why I have wrote no mere is the weakness of my hand According to the Lord my writing is not necessary to thee seeing that he himself will operate by his own grace in thy heart thorough the influence of his Spirit from whom all words and all writings may be separated by reason of his immense and glorious clatitude The Lord keep and promote you all in his ways under his fear and likewise us thorough all the time of our earthly combat And so I heartily salute you IV. My brother as to what belongs to my condition it still conflicts with its usual and difficult disease so long as it shall so please God He according to the order of his Justice put me down into this death of corruption and with his own hand plucketh me up again that I may wait for eternity which springeth up from out of the seed of this corruptible mortality May the Lord freely bestow on us all his mercy as with a long-suffering constancy we hope from the Lord it will be that with a heart prepared and submitted we may receive all from his hand and may be lead thorough even unto the end Herewith I recommend thee to the Lord who will lead us all with all our strength and essence unto the true death in Christ that he out of this 〈◊〉 may build up an eternal life whiâ—◠〈◊〉 never more be subjected unto any 〈◊〉 V My brother my condition is the 〈◊〉 that it was when you departed bâ—◠〈◊〉 consideration thereof doth shake al◠〈◊〉 powers into a trembling and a terâ—â—â—â— because of that evident death by the 〈◊〉 of the Lord which as it were an obâ—â—â—re cloud of death I have always before my eyes even from that very time whâ—â— thou wert with me the reason bâ—◠〈◊〉 its beginning and of its end is whâ—â— hid from me the truth it self will bâ—â—â—â— it self forth in its own meaning and oâ—der As to my outward body which respecteth my disease I am not at all chanâ—â—â— but anguishes have taken full possession on all my faculties Be thou recommended to the mercy of God VI. My brother The Lord help us poor wâ—â—â—ches in this dangerous condition of this natural and mutable life whom it behooveth to be kept with believing under all uncertainties in the fear of God according to the faith whereby we believe that all the certainty and firmness of our purposes are to be wholly destroyed corrupted and annihilated that another 〈◊〉 fruit may spring up to eternal life 〈◊〉 â—â—ising out of the foregoing corruptible seed The Lord grant to us his salvation and grace that we may adore or worship 〈◊〉 in Spirit and in Truth even as he himself desireth VII The Lord in his mercy help us all and free us from our errours in his own time For I poor wretch do suffer the justice of the Lord and do bear his judgment upon me as long as this carnal spirit in this my dying nature still breatheth May the eternal and merciful God appear to me by his grace yea and to us all and lead us into his own will VIII My brother The Lord is my deliverer in my necessity and will confirm me in his grace even unto the end My brother I am willing thou shouldest know that my body cannot possibly endure any longer this immense misery without dying God assist me in my sufferings to the last and receive me into his eternal rest My Weakness is great all things are known to the Lord. Thy brother in the highest streights the most wretched in the Lord. M. W. To his Sister the ninth day before his death DEarest Sister whilst I am writing this I am so ordered that I can write no more My dearest sister be mindful of thy younger brother and of his wife and small children that they may be the most advanced and helped as the time may need My most beloved Sister I am in the highest content in the Lord my God and by his grace do bid the farewel with this my dying hand being according to the will God bound in so short a chain as he proposed to himself The Lord our God grant peace to our beloved brothers and sisters And now I turn me to my present call viz. to that eternal peace thorough the death of my flesh which now hasteneth it self to its end And now my most beloved Sister behold my dying salutation and my last farewel to thee from the bottom of my heart wherewith saluteth thee as departing out of this life thy brother M. W. 16 April 1560. He died in the Lord 25 April in the year of our Lord 1560. and of his own age the 39. THE END
nature and possess and love and in which we live The power of death shall be known to all things living but by so much the more difficulty by how much the greater knowledge some have on this earth for at the time of death all things are to be given up to God and then all things are shut up and ended in the truth of God The Lord unite us with himself who himself is the beginning and end old and new yet is he one and immutable void of all increase in himself though in the temporary creature he is known with increase and decrease As much therefore as we depart from temporariness so much are we united with God in whom there is no time and in him who is the last and the first with an everlasting presence and in him all Multiplication and Substraction of time is taken away and made co-equal and all flesh which is spiritualized and which was wont to express it self in time doth melt away before eternity The Lord be merciful to us all as of one flesh that bidding farewel to that shadow of time we may grow in his fear and let his name be more and more sanctified over all his creatures in time and let our life perish and vanish away like smoke even as in is evidently done to all flesh together with which all things do tend to corruption whatever it was that ever sprung from it whether they were deeds or whether there were thoughts But it is not so with him who is godly for he with all his works is preserved and will grow and live to Eternity because every appetite life and desire of his is nothing else but God and therefore whatsoever is his tendeth to Eternity As on the contrary the desire and scope of a worldly man is nothing else but flesh which alone doth also move and direct him therefore the effect must perish with the cause as experience testifies for the fruit cannot be otherwise then is the root whence it is sprung May our eternal Saviour Christ Jesus purifie us that in him we may bring forth true fruit and according to the multitude of that his most abundant Grace which God hath richly poured forth upon us from the very beginning of the World we may abide permanent in him Amen EPIST. XXVIII Being a most beautiful Admonition very profitable as unto the death and departure of Nature To a Sick Man I Heartily salute thee in the Lord most dear N. as to what concerneth thy disease I hope the best of thee according to the mercy of God and that his hand was not in vain lifted up over thee For he by his Discipline will lead and conserve us that no rottenness shall grow in us but that by his judgment we be still more and more purified and cleansed from all impurity of Nature bred with us and dead still lurking in us The grace and mercy of the Lord be with thee dearest N. in that thy misery and disease which thou must bear in the flesh and may he grant to thee true submission and yielding up under his hand that with a bowed heart thou maist bear all things in obedience to him according to his holy will concerning thy miserable self that thou maist be lead in his way with perseverance to his glory and be preserved in the death of thy flesh whereby the life of the spirit may from day to day more and more increase in thee and be manifested in the heart of thy dying body Moreover I beg of the Lord that he would strengthen thy Limbs for his service so that if they become deficient as to Nature which yet must be done by continued labours in the way of the Lord that our essence may in time wax old and decrease yet through Christ they may be raised again to an eternal and fresh-springing youth in God where no fainting nor old age nor death can touch them The Lord preserve us and his mercy be present with us in all our adversity lest perhaps that prove able to hinder us in our way that our continued anxiety conjoyned with the highest danger to which in this combat we must subject our selves lest it be in vain nor draweth us back but rather may fruitfully promote us to a perpetual progression and success of his grace and of divine benediction maist thou remain recommended unto God who will free us out of this present Dungeon of this temporary flesh and imbecility according to his own acceptable will will elevate us into the sublimity of Eternity into the life of the spirit through the Resurrection of Christ to whom be the glory to all Eternity EPIST. XXIX How a purified mind ought to bear without any commotion the failings of his Neighbour with all patience To his Brother D. John W. DEarest Brother that that man is affected with such streights and with such griefs of heart that we also must suffer together with him For in that that he is alwaies subjected to sufferings nor can come at any peace is indeed not the work of man but the gift of God yea a great and eminent gift to endure the folly of another and to cover it over with an unvariable mind towards his Neighbour For though we be unduely used or handled by our Neighbour yet in truth a purified heart ought not to be moved by it but must alwaies act according to the bond of Charity which is alone its aim for in that there ariseth no suspicion of evil and although modest reason also may descend to make an excuse yet even all that too must be alwaies done without any motion of mind for as much as he is such a one as the injury and trouble of no creature can move him because he remains confirmed in that which is truly immovable Dearest Brother I therefore write thus that if that same trouble should be reiterated thou maist alwaies have this aim fixed in thy sight For although as to the creature the justice is on your part yet the mind ought to remain alwaies free without the use of this right otherwise there would arise an enmity from thence and a bitterness of heart For thus that which is earthly overwhelmeth that which is heavenly with such a blindness that it plainly seems to a man that he hath some divine right whenas yet God cannot but love nor doth he require any other thing of us according to the measure of his Justice Not as if I would willingly lay some blame upon thee do I say thus but that thy heart may not be nor that any rule should be wanting to thee if you behave your self otherwise thou wilt be obnoxious to a heavier judgement except thou proceedest with caution My Brother strive to have a mind unmoved which cannot be hindred but rather promoted by the enmity of the Creatures All things to a just man turn to good whether it be death or life or dissention or love for such a one overlooking the Creature
to his heart it is necessary that it should be expressed from out of the cross and from anguish If it springs from joy or from speculation it is vain and wanteth spirit or life Experience teacheth all things and that which is void of experience is in vain We pass thorough time into eternity and time is mutable so also is Man produced with mutability till he comes thither where there is no corruption nor mutation No man is to be rejected with how gross or how low a zeal his spirit boyleth with because they may be changed and therefore we are to be quiet with a man that standeth in his own zeal We are first in time before we come into eternity We first begin with low things and by degrees are we transferred unto higher till we come there where perfection is Paul saith Not as if I had apprehended c by how much the more sublime are the Saints by so much the more sublime is their desire by how much the higher is the perfection by so much the more sublime are the defects A man made conformable by letters rules ceremonies or as to outward appearance is like a body which hath indeed a nose a mouth c. but yet it wanteth life Every thing by its contrary is made of greater esteem accounted for holy and is not rightly known its contrary not being known then it is not so For if cold were not heat would not be cared for Heaven is more clearly understood by hell and the grace of God by his wrath or anger He that rightly knows the fall of Adam and understands his restauration cannot rejoyce because a man must perish for its sake and as to all these things he must be annihilated as to what he is made for Gladness is assigned over to posterity and to that fruit which shall grow out of corruption where a man becometh to be that which he attaineth to out of corruption And then he appeareth in the glory of God and acknowledges God from God and loves God from God and is sanctified and justified and â—enewed in God And he is made that â—y grace which God is by nature Before death all things were vain and â—nconstant and meer phansies but now â—re become essence or substance which â—bideth The truth is incorruptible the â—â—uth hath made all things free and hath â—nited a man to himself and all things â—re therefore done that we might get up hither All things are disposed to a cerâ—ain end Autumn Winter Snow c. â—or the fruits of Summer to this end and â—cope therefore are all things to be directed and for its sake are all things to be exercised and applied and not for its own sake The flower is the cause of the fruit and not of its self the flower perishes but the fruit remains whatsoever goeth before hath respect hitherto but â—abideth not but the fruit remaineth â—nd this is the truth in which a man is â—onfirmed and founded that he might be 〈◊〉 it eternally by a true union The small treatise of the Imitation of Christ is very useful to them that are labouring and striving for it giveth us the best instruction unto life and I am much delighted therewith but the German Divinity excelleth in which is the representation of God The book of the imitation is more profitable for the publick but the other small treatise of the German Divinity is for private use CHAP. VII BEcause God exerciseth his judgment so severely in his Children and yet his judgment is just it must be well considered what becometh us and that though we suffer in a wonderful manner yet is it done unto us with grace and mercy and that indeed the thousandth part of afflictions according to our sins is not inflicted upon us But God spareth us and unless it were so where should we abide Whence we ought not to be proud but fearful rather yea frighted and to hold our peace By how much the more a man recedeth from himself so much the nearer he approaches unto God and by so much the more heavily is he punished also in respect of nature which is therefore subjected unto death If a man should at first know this misery and calamity he would dye for very grief but now he cannot be sensible of it till he falls into it and then also doth God notwithstanding lead him thorough it He falls into the Gulph Scylla who indeavours to avoid the rock Charybdis For when a man desires to be freed from the legal accusation of his conscience he comes and is condemned into death so that endeavouring to avoid the difficulty on that part on the other he falls into it that is into a state where the natural man is condemned When the Law doth no longer accuse a man is condemned like a malefactor who is first accused and at length is punished then the accusation ceasing he suffers death by the means of which alone he is freed from the accusation of the Law He that trieth this shall find it no liar which hath promised to him no sweetness If it be said but yet it is well that the conscience â—s free though nature may suffer it is answered How good the state of thaâ— man is God knoweth the truth is iâ— is a miserable condition but it is accepted of God and he that is in it is made nearer to God But by how much the nearer he is to God by so much the heavier is his suffering as to Nature Here the restraining or bridling in of Nature sufficeth not we must go beyonâ— that viz. we must dye and we muâ—â— perish That a man can acknowledge his sinâ— is a great gift but then the affliction alsâ— is great He that acknowledgeth his sins God delivers him from them Thâ— vulgar acknowledgment of sins is not 〈◊〉 He that rightly acknowledgeth himseâ—â—â—o err desires to walk in a right way and to decline from that which is erroneous but he to whom the erroneous waâ— is not unpleasant he abideth in it aâ— defendeth it nor acknowledges that 〈◊〉 erred though with his mouth he mâ—â— profess otherwise In death that gloâ—â— is given to God which could not be doâ—â— in life for in life a man retains tâ—â— glory to himself but in death he laâ— down the glory Nature hath a way so proper to it self that it will acknowledge or accept no sort of death till it be willing or nilling cast thereinto and then the will reason memory and understanding of a man are so bound and tied down that the man thinks that he alone is smitten and that no man suffers but himself and from thence forward he can neither take joy in any thing nor can he draw comfort from the evils of other men And that usual saying that common mischiefs do bring comfort with them yet is not true in him He that is yielded up to the will of God is without choice yea his very words which inferr election do terrifiy him
try how it will be to be distracted and drawn hither and thither by a wavering kind of zeale nor ever to get free from accusations of that sort and much less to be strengthened by a firm Faith of mind but to be alwaies vexed and tormented with anxious thoughts of heart partly through the so often repeated pangs and pricks of conscience inwardly and partly by the unspeakable hot zeal of the many contenders about the truth outwardly they become wracked in so miserable a manner that at the last they grow wholly ignorant which way to take or turn themselves For so long as a man is still held captive in himself by any kind of iniquity whatsoever and is in the inwards of his soul privately accused of it and yet he gives no due heed thereunto being ignorant how he may get free therefrom and studieth and endeavoureth what he can to defend it either by scripture-sayings or by some other waies which still hold him in this errour nor yet is he for all this freed from it in his mind his conscience all this while freely prompting and telling him whether he doth well or ill and notwithstanding he endeavoureth to pacifie his conscience by these or such like waies yet he shall find that all this his labour is lost when he shall see that this same secret accusation and laying of blame upon him before his judge will never give over or cease In this point therefore let every one try himself and let no man deceive himself flattering himself with sugred words for the day will manifest all things whether we be willing or not yea all whatever we now gladly hide in the bottome of our hearts and yet do deny and disown them If therefore we say I confess my faults I confess my self to be as miserable and as perverse a sinful man as can be found any where Go to then let us endeavour that that for which we are to be accounted Sinners be taken from us and that we be turned from all unrighteousness For the bare confession of sins makes no Man innocent but the very rooting out of sin For as long as any Man is accused of any iniquity or perverse action yet remaining even so long is it that he is still in bondage nor are his Sins forgiven him it is therefore absolutely necessary that he should quite extirpate all such and after the accusation thereof is made in himself that he execute the sentence that he may for ever die to that unrighteousness insomuch as that there be left in him no such purpose of ever doing again any the like iniquity so that all being thus brought under there may remain nothing covered or secretly hidden in his Soul which he shall not wholly desist from in the true simplicity of his conscience and that he become pure and wholly cleansed according to the utmost and best of the knowledge of himself in his own breast Then at length the Lord in his own time may for this Man 's good meet him as being manifested to him through some very great temptation and may force him upon some anxious and horrible combate which the poor wretch had not in the least foreseen nor even then neither could understand untill all was past and finished Then it is that he who before that seemed to himself to have arrived at a true innocence of conscience in himself is set at the bar of divine judgment and from the opinion of being highly lifted up or advanced insomuch as he seemed to himself to touch the very Heavens he is thrown down to the nethermost place of some most deep humiliation even like Hell it self Then is he blown upon and purged by the true fire of divine Judgment kindled within him and the enmity that is interposed betwixt God and him doth dayly decrease through Jesus Christ who now at last doth begin to perform in him the proper business of his office and is about to reduce him unto the Image of his death burial and resurrection whereby at length he may be brought to the true union of a more divine constitution in Christ together with the hope of a glory to come which shall never more be changed even such as shall be manifested to all who with their whole heart and in truth are Lovers of God above all Whoever he is that is brought unto this eminent rejection as also to the acknowledgment of himself he as to the inward man is afflicted with most wonderful streights and difficulties before he can be arrived there-at insomuch as he becomes willing to renounce submit resign up yea and to account for as nothing all that treasure he hath scraped together from opinion and that strange high flown exaltation yea and all that liberty which is born together with us in our first natural generation Which being full effected at length there succeeds the revelation of the glory of Christ whose likeness he by little and little grows sensible of and which observed thus gradually to increase in him he catcheth with great earnestness inasmuch as it presenteth to him wonderful promises Now this last state being arrived at he still becomes more and more averse from all things past and by how much the more this same aversation increaseth by so much the more plentifully do things following succeed in the place of the former insomuch as at length he becomes quite freed in due time from the speech wisdom understanding counsels and actions which hitherto he had exercised himself in as to the creature and was lead from infancy to perfect mandhood according to the measure of his age in the fulness of Christ But now there are some who are fully contented with their own zeal and think themselves altogether certain and sure of that reconciliation which is acquired in Christ Now whether this be truly so or no shall be at last then made manifest when the secrets of all hearts from the very bottom of their Souls shalâ— be laid open thorough him who searcheth the hearts and trieth the reins and will render to every one according to the works of his hands Whereas if whilst they yet enjoy the breath of life they themselves searching narrowly into their own bosoms would commit or leave their course to the secret accusation of their hearts and would not cloak their sins with such or such reasons or also with some sayings of the Scriptures misapplied or ill understood and used then would they fully perceive themselves to be yet far away removed from that reconciliation that is given by Christ and would find in themselves nothing but the wrath of God from which yet they cannot truly get free unless they can come into Christ and the image of him and consequently feel sensibly in themselves Reconciliation Freedom and Redemption not without but within their own selves and thereof to become perswaded in themselves not by an undue disorderly reading of the Scriptures or from some kind of opinion of their own
from us we are â—â—und stark naked because these things â—ere not at the first owned in spirit beâ—â—re God who only remains constant â—â—d immutable to all eternity For God is a spirit and he that would â—ow him in truth and see his brightâ—â—s and adore him it behooveth this â—â—n to endeavour after all this in spirit â—â—d into this state or condition it is necessary that a man be truly and properly lead by God in his own time yea and that it also is not of him that wills nor of him that runs but if so be any one be faithful in that wherein he standeth then shall much more be given unto him Concerning all these things thou wilt find most full instruction in those two Treatises intituled the German Divinity and that of the Imitation of Christ the Authors of which have experienced these things in God and do give concerning them a true guidance and information which we are to find in our own selves although they do not put into our hand the very things it self yet is the world deceived in this very particular viz. that it can account of some certain semblance of a thing for the very thing it self For the flesh or Nature in us is never willing to sit down in an inferiour seat and if it but begins to reject somewhat that is false yet by and by it leans upon some other such like prop being confidently perswaded she is acted by a divine spirit when indeed all this notwithstanding springs out of flesh and blood 〈◊〉 little heightened out of their natural propriety Such is the cunning of us all â—one excepted It behooveth us therefore to apprehend and learn all these things in God that the light may be separated from the darkness and that that notable difference and distinction in this very point be well known to us least we take one thing for another viz. flesh for spirit Death for life slavery for liberty and for the free flowing grace of divine power These things because a man in his life time is always willing to get and keep Reconciliation and eternal Salvation are plainly known to a few inasmuch as a man esteems those things in the place of God and for things divine which indeed do but hold him bound in a perpetual imprisonment being that which is his own nature and propriety viz. the fear of eternal damnation by means of which he abstaineth from all external and carnal filthiness and impurity and cuts off those things from himself being then fully perswaded that now he is truly at liberty so that he will not proceed further on and refuseth to deny and resign up both the proper and the imaginary salvation of his Soul although he should experience or feel in himself that the true righteousness which is acceptable before God is that very circumcision that is done in spirit and thence springs up the New-creature of God However it is necessary that every one should first satisfie in all respects his own proper righteousness holiness and imaginary salvation that in the end he may rightly understand the difference of both viz. of Light and Darkness and of the holiness that is from man and that which is from God for if he be not faithful in the smallest things how shall he arrive at greater which certainly is impossible Therefore it behooveth every one to satisfy his own conscience and with all moderation and discretion to obey the testimony of his own heart that being raised up thorough all the degrees of holiness and being inriched with all the affluence riches and imaginary goods of his own spirit he may at length be brought to the divine poverty of Spirit by the manifestation in him of the divine righteousness and of that degree which is by far the most excellent and exalted as being that which throws down all the rest so as there remains nothing that can stand before it which is not its own self By this way we come to apprehend our selves to be poor miserable rejected and condemned yea blind unhappy and neglected yea unfit to perform any the least good who formerly ascribed to our selves all good things righteousness and Salvation beâ—ng confidently perswaded of our eternal â—ife and divine Sonship Then Then I say it is that we find our selves to be wholly in corruption and condemnation at length seriously understanding that we formerly had not so much as â—he true tast of any good which could compare with that good which we now â—ee And then we come and readily sit â—own by all other men yea though they â—e the most profligate wretches because â—ow at last we begin to set before our eyes with fear and trembling and condemnation and to behold our corruption at the very bottom so that for the future we reflect upon no one more then upon our selves and if before we reviled any repulsed persecuted cast out reproached or looked upon them with an evil eye I speak of such as supposed that they did these things out of a godly zeal now indeed we become hugely wary and leave every one to his own Lord and Master because this true combate hath done in us havock enough and begun its cruelty I was willing to unfold to thee these things by these few lines which notwithstanding thou wilt better and more piercingly feel in the very thing it self Therefore exercise thy life in these things and shew thy self strong in them importunately begging and expecting all from God above with all long patience and sufferance who will in his own time effect all things for thee for here we are not to run before but follow after only Now therefore thou hast writings enough whence thou mayest learn how to behave thy self in external conversation and honesty wherein thy conscience will most notably both lead thee and condemn thee too The Lord grant to thee to meditate to understand and to be wise that according to his will thou mayst be instructed in his School and by his discipline that all may be consummated in him and by him and to his Glory EPIST. III. A Preparation to the entrance into the promises of God To the same Person PRemising all due readiness of my respects most Noble Lady having taken hold on this occasion I am willâ—â—ng to send this letter to thee For though for some space of time I did not visit â—hee by my letters yet have I always been sollicitous for thee in the Lord with 〈◊〉 continued readiness of my heart and â—n inclination of my poor mind being otherwise certain that much writing did not conduce any thing to the increase of grace but the movings of God only do And therefore I had determined in my mind to forbear writing least perhaps I should thereby disturb the working of thy Soul trusting in the divine mercy that God himself would preserve thee to become more strong and more pure by his inward motions in thy Soul and by purifying it from all inherent
evil affections and the depraved root of inbred lusts more then it is possible ever to be effected by letters written For this is the work of God alone and is effectual in them who study and endeavour to submit themselves unto his will For it is impossible that they who are disobedient and never strive to quiet the accusations of their consciences by conversion can be so accepted of God as to attain to the grace of Christ Jesus to dwell in them for he that is not faithful in the least matters can never be made Ruler over greater things if therefore any one is not faithful to his own Soul with which yet he is one and firmly united how can he love God from whom as yet he is far away removed In this manner it is necessary that every one should strive with all his might and power for the testimony of his own conscience to renounce his own proper Soul as far as it is possible for him in the sight of God according to the highest degree of his knowledge now if any one shall do thus in that highest degree with the greatest diligence the Lord will in part enlighten the darkness of his understanding as to perceive more profoundly in himself what is the true power of the Law viz. what sort it is of in him viz. spiritual and not only is concerned about an external abstinence from evil concupiscences but much more rather about the most deeply fastened root of sin in us in which we all were conceived out from Adam For so long as the Root remaineth in â—s the action or power of the Law is always against us viz. the bottom being still polluted not being yet purged by a true amendment but by some certain â—â—â—d of likeness thereof And therefore the Godliness promised unto us doth not only and properly require of us that we should desist from external vices but that the very inwards of our hearts should be purified so as that a man should be cleansed and perfected most exactly in his understanding appetite and in his will that he may no longer serve the Lord and obey him unwillingly inasmuch as at first a most troublesome task is to be undergone in turning away his heart from temporal and spiritual captivity but when he is united to Christ he must perfectly be freed from all the earthly concerns of his lusts For seeing that in man there is nothing nearer to God then the Spirit or mind of man therefore it behooveth in the first place to cleanse that from the darkness and grossness of reason in which we are involved by the fall of Adam so that we may be lead into a fuller and more pure degree of divine knowledge unto which no man yet abiding in his corrupted nature can ever come Wherefore whoever desires to attain the true knowledge of God and of himself it behooveth him before all things to strive with all his might to with-hold himself from every vice that is become familiar to him and to which he inclineth and which sometimes he committeth even in this very work For man even while yet he is in his corrupted nature in which he was conceived is not so far removed from the presence of God but that yet he still retains in the supreme part of himself an occult and a most inward spark of some knowledge of God as it is notoriously seen that all men possess some kind of power in knowledge by help of which they discern good from evil insomuch as whilst they remain in the state of evil they are accused in themselves by that same knowledg but when once they are introduced to the state of good then they are at rest If therefore a man follows the dictates of that knowledge inherent in him from his first nature and abhorreth the evil that he knows but sticks close to thâ— good then at length he arrives there where he comes to understand that it'â— utterly impossible for him to give thâ— highest and fullest satisfaction to that knowledge which he hath by nature whereupon he is brought into great troubles of heart especially if he be diligent about the study of Good Moreover because man is wont to fall so back again into himself as that he doeth that which is good rather from the force of his conscience backed with some threatnings of the judgments of God then from Love and an earnest desire of the good then he searcheth out means by which he may be freed from that accusation of conscience Now when he can find no means thus to bind down the appetites thoughts and motions of his flesh but they always still get loose again then indeed it is that he apprehendeth that tho all outward vices and transgressions were laid aside yet there still remains in the flesh the root of them and that he cannot be freed by all his endeavours grievings and mournings from that appetite of the flesh which stirreth up in him Anger Wrath impure lusts and vain thoughts and such like but some time or other it will again seise upon his Soul and thus he comes to see that he is not so set free from the dominion of the Law but that he always must yet endure that accusation concerning the root of sin yet lurking in the most inward parts of his heart Now although the more vulgar and common external knowledge of Christ is willing to palliate and cover over this inward stain by the blessed death of Christ saying these things cannot hurt a Christian Christ dyed for them nor indeed shall I contradict them nevertheless because Christ therefore came and appeared that he might destroy the works of the Devil and that he might free the captive Soul from the burthen of its sins it is indeed necessary that the same Christ should destroy the very foundation also of this satanical building and by his own seed again sown therein should thereby get the possession of the heart and mind as it ought to be done and as it is agreeable to the Lord alone Even as these things were figured out by the type of the promised Land which was promised to the seed of Abraham upon on this account that every evil seed might be eradicated from thence But before things could be brought to that pass the Israelites must suffer many mischieâ—s from their enemies by changing the lives of many for a most cruel death as it came to pass in the wilderness where every thing that was still infected with the knowledge of old Aegypt was punished with death that no impure thing might enter into the promised Land In like manner also no impure thing is taken up by Christ conforming in us the promised likeness of his most holy humanity but all these must first be laid aside by the death of sin that we being thus purified by him should be fitted unto his body together with the most perfect and common conjunction of Christ as of the head of this body from which all
the members derive their motion but the rebellious members abide not in any living body unless perhaps by an improper name they have the name of Members for such do as it were cut themselves off from the body and set themselves against it which case can never take place in any true Body Most dearly beloved Lady I was unwilling that these things should remain unknown to thee inasmuch as they are a preparation to the entrance into the promises of God into Christ I say and his likeness who alone is our hope and mark and aim to which we aspire and tend to which also I pray thee to somewhat more exactly consider and ponder The Lord grant unto us all his mercy that laying down our load of sin we may by virtue of him be restored in Christ who mightily assisteth the hearts which are prepared and submitted unto him and helps to repress and stifle the growing stains of sin and afterwards takes in hand the very foundation it self of our hearts where the root of evil abideth whence all the springing fruits do proceed even fully to burn it up by the flame of divine righteousness If God shall please to grant it and necessity shall require it I am altogether ready according to my simple capacity for the sake of thy holy advantage to express these things more clearly in writing trusting in the Loâ—d that by his help thou wilt measure all according to the rule of righteousness nor either to do or think any thing but what is of the Lord and what conduceth to his glory and the furtherance of us in the Lord that under the manifold distraction of worldly businesses not the least moment of time may remain idle in us but being busied in temporal matters either in mind or working we may always direct them for the benefit and use of our going forwards in the true steps of a Christian life Most dearly beloved Lady the whole bottom or foundation of thy heart is to be digged up by thee and to be searched into whether any thing lyes hid there that is contrary unto God and would not willingly be separated from thee and which thou thy self canst very hardly let go if any such thing should chance to be found out thou must this very moment renounce it and give it up to the Lord with submission unto his will My trust is in the mercy of God that thorough the grace of Christ our Lord it will come to pass that things will go well with thee and that thou wilt be put much forwarder by having thus yielded up and renounced the whole foundation of thy heart sparing no one thing which else thou thorough the whole course of thy life didst hunt after with at least one half of thy heart inasmuch as it is that which is a state rather of enmity and is an abomination before the Lord. My Lady I take a liberty in these matters and that I might write to thee what is right and true I am not ashamed by which means thou mayest in amanner know what thou art to do and how the matter it self is to be cordially handled I having this firm hope that the Lord will not be wanting but that be will hear thee according to thy faith and that he will indue thee with power to whom also I give up my self as a fellow-helper in this outward ministry which is and belongeth to the creature being with my whole heart intent upon thy improvement inasmuch as I am also become thy fellow-sufferer The God of all grace and mercy behold our misery and free us from out of these chains of sin and Satan that we being lifted up into the communion of his sons or children may be unloaded from all burthens of the flesh thorough Christ our alone Saviour and Mediator that we may always watch for and expect these things with unwearied sighings and longings of heart Wherewith I recommend unto God thy self and thy family but especially thy husband that the Lord would grant unto thee prudence to take care to order thy family concerns in the fear of God But first thou must begin with thy own self that if any truth abideth in thee it may afterwards flow forth from thee or else thou wilt make no progress but all thy labour will prove in vain and to no purpose EPIST. IV. That by true internal poverty we come nearer to the Lord then by any imaginary riches whatever To a certain Woman pressed and burdened with Tryals MOst dearly beloved Lady when I understood thy condition viz. that thou art deeply afflicted in heart and that the senses of thy mind will not be reduced to their former tranquillity I am somewhat grieved because I know that as yet thou art too weak to stand under the load of afflictions But indeed that which concerns this thy present state and condition under which thou art now kept viz. that thou canst no longer enjoy a quiet mind nor canst thou get thy conscience to be at rest these all bid me hope the best of thee seeing it will certainly come to pass that by these means the Lord will raise thee up to greater degrees of grace and favour as it commonly happeneth to such of thy condition whom God begins to afflict with grief and temptations For this is nothing else but the laying bare of many depravities with which our hearts are filled which if the Lord is pleased to remove out of our hearts then he thus exerciseth our whole man with Melancholy so as we could rather choose to retain and keep them But it is more for our advantage that those depravities which possess our minds by reason of whose presence a certain false and imaginary peace did deceive us should therefore seasonably be withdrawn from us before that we have run out together with them perhaps our whole life being perswaded that we shall gain somewhat when yet we being thus deceived shall in the end be overwhelmed in our Souls by an irresistible deluge of grief Therefore in this case lay aside all despondency of mind for in Melancholy or trouble of mind thou pleasest the Lord more truly and art nearer unto him then if thou shouldest persist in a great tranquillity of mind as that which is the effect of a false security and peace even as it is wont commonly to happen to those who do promise too much to themselves because that they do abstain from the false religion and from the more gross acts of unruely sinners and from all unrighteousness or injustice from which indeed we ought wholly and always to abstain but then if any one shall for this reason think himself cleansed and to be made a Son of God certainly conscience will oppose such a one by its testimony and will convince him that the very bottom and foundation of his heart does yet abound in the root of sin and of self-love together with all those desires and lusts of which Paul does testify that
concupiscence is viz. properly that sin which leadeth away a man into captivity Therefore because commonly he is accounted a pious man who studieth to be of a good outward conversation for more then what is without a man cannot see hence it is that a man sticks always about these things supposing that â—e hath accomplished all things unless by chance he falls again into some gross sin Yet for all this the root of sin still remains deeply fastened in him but the mind takes no further care how it may come to the true purging out of all these seeing it may seem impossible for a man to be freed from them Which indeed is very true as to us but to God all thing are possible hence it is found in the elect that God even quite conquereth sin in man and will rule and govern in the man not only by plucking out all the external acts of the more gross sins bâ—â— also in the very bottom it self of the heats yea and in the most inward faculties 〈◊〉 sensuality Love appetite and our proper will by which all our external actions are governed If this thing were made more commonly known and should be received by many in good earnest men would no go up and down with such merry gâ—stures and in such security as the do but without all doubt would be convinced that the are sinners and are 〈◊〉 yet at a great distance from the son-shâ—â—â— of God although now they think themselves set on the highest step of divine grace and that they have just hope of the inheritance of Sons But if the Lord should take away the vail from their hearts as it is done in thee and should rob them of that peace which they have gotten from without they certainly would be involved in the like miseries and streights and would apprehend themselves to be the poorest of all though a blind security doth now perswade them that they shine in the greatest riches Yet the Lord who is the searcher of the hearts and the reins will in his own time most clearly uncover all and will bring them into the Light to whom we ought to submit our selves with patience and long-suffering waiting for his salvation and redemption in us for its better by real inward poverty to draw â—earer to God then being by imagiâ—ary and false riches blinded in our â—earts be hindred from the true going forwards unto God I was willing heartiâ—y to discover these things to thee that â—he true difference of thy condition might according to my small judgment and the testimony of my heart become more and better known unto thee for I am of opinion that thou thy self if the Lord shall leave thee for some space of time in this condition wilt come to know the truth of the matter more exactly and to perceive those things which hitherto have layn hid from thee Now therefore weigh all things more rightly which perhaps hitherto thou hast not done even as many things are wont to be lightly neglected Yet I trust in the Lord that he will stand by thee every where least thy burthen should be too heavy for thee to bear and that thou be not tempted beyond what is meet for thy weakness to suffer according to his mercy For our nature is not fit without the divine help to bear these burthens in regard no support can appear to it now from any where else because in whatsoever thing it formerly was wont to rest and to trust all that in such a state shrinks far away Nor can a man in this condition be better advised then plainly to neglect all external temporary means wherewith his mind was used to be delighted and to renounce them quite inasmuch as they are such as will else still be the cause of many afflictions Let him therefore do this viz. let him learn to subject his whole self to the will of God submitting himself to all that God shall impose upon him in this his tribulation with a firm resolution of mind to bear them all so long as it shall please God If a man can arrive at this renunciation and submission he shall surely find a wonderful advantage and a strange renovation of heart insomuch that that which before was difficult and hard will be now pleasant and grateful to him and that which before was meer terrour yea as death to him will now be as a Sanctuary of refuge yea life it self to him And to tell it in short all things will change themselves in a man when the Spirit of the Lord ruleth in him and impels him to the obedience of the Divine will Whereas whilst he â—s miserably led by the conduct of his own carnality he will live as governed into meer disobedience under his own proper will for which very reason the divine will is so troublesome to us that we cannot be subjected unto iâ— nor yield up our selves to the hand of God but rather as far as in us lyes we choose to save our lives and not to lose them But the Lord who seek our advantage and intends nothing else but good to us regards not that complaineâ— of our flesh but gives up our Souls thorough much sorrow stirred up in us by an accusing conscience to that we ought to subject our selves till all impurity of our inbred and corrupted appetites be by the devouring flames of the divine judgment consumed and purged away in us Then at length we come to apprehend the Lord and to be willing and to seek out both as well internally as externally that all our perverse thoughts and sensual appetites may be purified nor to be no longer stirred up by our own proper will to all wicked desires and pleasures wherewith our corrupt nature aboundeth The Lord illuminate our understanding and grant unto us wisdom and true discretion that every where and time we may contain our selves in good order under his fear whereby we may proceed and grow in divine knowledge and grace according to the measure of our calling and so at length if it may be that we may be able to arrive to a fall age in Christ according to the divine soveraign pleasure and commiseration Let us with all our might and power adore the Lord with uncessant prayers and humiliation poured out before him least that which is temporary and partaketh of time should find any place in our hearts but rather that it be so expulsed that the Lord himself may possess that place even until all our thoughts words and works be performed only according to the will of God and may grow forth with all discipline and obedience under the most mighty hand of God and that we may with all patience wait for and expect his coming unto manifestation When he himself will wipe away all tears from the eyes of his â—nd give them eternal comfort and true â—â—lvation unto which it now in this moment of time behooveth them to be prepared by a constant sorrow and misery
and to the very bottom of the Soul about these the business have not so well succeded even as neither can these be attributed to them all in common nor are they wont to be given or received by words and admonitions To the Lord therefore I commit them who in his own time and according to his own good pleasure will advance those persons higher For they earnestly listen and are delighted with my present discourses but how pleasant they be to them even in their very Souls the Lord knoweth for I do not apprehend that their progress forwards is yet so great and perhaps the Lord will yet for some time keep them so But for my part I order my conversation for the most part with my self only because many discourses and admonitions to others do very much disturb me when yet all concerns as well inward as outward I freely would so deliver up and oblige to the Lord that I would think say or do nothing but to the Lord alone yet how much difficulty I shall every where find in all these the Lord himself knoweth Yet he who is faithful is never left destitute of power as most miserable I do find thorough the mercy of God who helpeth my arm to fight As to our other familiar she-friend she receiveth all with her whole heart and a willing mind whither they concern the understanding or the will but because of that sollicitous care wherewith she is involved in outward things not a few as also because of her trade the true fruit cannot yet spring forth from the true root But the Lord who is faithful administreth as I perceive all means for the removing away by divers sufferings these hindrances and of bringing forth this fruit with deep pangs so that I hope at length that the death of nature will follow in the end The Lord look in mercy upon her as likewise on us all that in his time and according to his good pleasure we may come to the true essence of divine clarity and that we all being delivered out of the hand of our enemies may serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness all the dayes of our life now and for ever incessantly in inaccessible clarity Amen In the year 1552. EPIST. XVII A wholsome Admonition in what steps the progress of the Just doth consist with a Conclusion concerning Esau and Jacob. To J. W. My John I Heartily wish that all thy affairs may have good success Having an occasion thus offering it self I was willing to write these lines unto thee that by the benefit of them we may be promoted to continued progresses in the Lord. For I hope thorough the grace of God that thou maist daily go forward in that truth and in the true Circumcision of thy heart and not in the acquisition of many Sciences and of divers Knowledges wherein the greatest part of our time is consumed and not upon that for the sake of which yet life is given unto us viz. that we may know God But God cannot be truly known by science but by finding him in our selves so as that which we know of God is found and expressed in us and in our Soul so that we our selves are not far distant from that which we acknowledge for good but are united with it not in or by opinion but in very deed and truth But these things can never be fully accomplished unless first we dye to all those which we our selves have and possess in our selves which is that that is called the old man who very subtilly exerciseth his dominion in man according to the variety of mens conditions If the flesh be still gross also its fruits and vices are gross Now if any one will supplant his external vices there is another more subtile thing dwelleth in man which he had never before known because it formerly did stick to him in a grosser substance And seeing that the Scripture also doth sufficiently propose it we are diligently to labour according to that Scripture because it is that which is ordained of the Lord for this end Having therefore received of the Lord sufficient knowledge concerning these things let us be diligent in our indeavours for little knowledge is necessary thereunto if so be the heart it self be but prepared which incessantly both day and night called upon the Lord with intimate desire aspiring to a union so that no creature can any more move it against the Lord and turn it away from him May the Lord give unto his mercy and be a help to our misery in which we being yet bound in the darkness and chains of death are still captive My John I communicate my heart to thee in my letters even as I enough know that thou also seekest my prosperity so that let us both together seek the Lord being perhaps not far distant in the Lord one from another Presently after thy departure it was decreed by the Senate that E. and W. do leave their dwellings so that they must be gone from hence The Lord bestow on them his grace and mercy that they learn to bear these things in true patience even from their own brethren and to accept from the Lord that cross for their own advancement and for the rejection of all other things and that they may resign up all to the Lord and turn off from them their brotherly Love For Esau always remained the brother of Jacob but that Jacob received the blessing was done of grace according to the election of God in which indeed Jacob did stand but yet without boasting and without pride for it behooved him always to bow himself before Esau in sufferings without murmuring And although Esau behaved himself with a very proud carriage towards his brother yet the blessing was continued to Jacob though Esau endeavoured to snatch it from him again by persecution For Jacob lived not only in shew but in truth when he dwelt in tents On the contrary Esau cared only for all outward things by labouring and hunting The Lord grant that we may so rightly immitate the birth of Esau that Jacob may at length come forth for the birth-right was due to Esau but for this end only that Jacob should be brought forth The Lord have mercy on us NB. The birth of Esau signifies the birth out of works under the Law but the birth of Jacob signifies that that is of faith under grace EPIST. XVIII Being a most excellent admonition concerning the Education of Youth together with that wide difference wherein the old Philosophers are far distant from Christians To Dr. J. Velsius DEarest Dr. That my young Nephews have succeeded well in your house was to me altogether grateful and most cordially acceptable for I know that you will take care of their affairs by a diligent inspection for the sake of that relation that is between us whereby these growing twigs may be advanced in their true increase for they stand greatly in need of a prudent overseer
may my Nephews exercise themselves the most they can in those endeavours that they may learn to repress their youthful and inordinate affections and appetites which will without doubt spring up in them at their own season The Lord seasonably grant to them to own the witness of their conscience against all these that being kept safe from them all they may never consent to any depraved inclination EPIST. XIX That there is a certain especial difference between the exalted rational Zeal and the Zeal that is pure and Christian To the same Person My Dr I Have recommended thy case and purpose to the Lord who can safely keep us all by his Grace and shew to us our errors for though we are for that purpose subjected to sufferings yet nothing is more wholsom for us than a discovery of our spots and defects which is not wont to be done without our indignation and opposition But if the Spirit of Christ must restore and enliven us all then plainly must there be no place left in us for bitterness of spirit against any one For this is alone the Doctrine of Christ Learn of me for I am meek and humble in heart For all hearts that are puffed up are in his time to be brought low even as alas we find it in many The Lord keep us most miserable worms for I never am frighted with greater horror than when behold my self The natural man scratcheth to himself by appropriating to him self all things whatsoever God bestows upon him out of free grace so that all thing also which are in themselves pure by this appropriation become as it were infected with poyson Now if Nature were deadned and the understanding purified then indeed such usages of Gods gifts would not be so multiplied But now that eviâ— which we call I is so great and our corrupt Nature through its own self-pleasing is so faln and sunk into its own self that we wait not for the time of trials with some difficulties and restâ—â—int and prayer together with a hope 〈◊〉 the promises of God to be fulfilled in a fit season as it hath been foretold by the Lord. The Lord be mindful of wretched me that write thus and be helpful to thee according to his own and not according to my will I also very earnestly intreat thee that thou take not in bad part this my freedom in writing to thee for my mind never desisteth from having a kindness for thee But high pride of heart and a contemning esteem of our Neighbour as also the doing him injury never is allowed a place in the Christian State but rather that which hath a fair shew of some sort of Zeal that is natural mixed with Mosaical rigour For nothing hath appeared in Christ but meer sufferings and death silence and patience even to the Cross upon which even to the last gasp of his life he signalized his obedience in which he was subjected to his Father withour murmuring also that his Majesty of his eternal Godhead he did not take up again as he might have done but rather bore in himself humanity and imbecility and abiding in huâ—â—â—ty and contempt even to the very death he was crowned with Victory For if the external assaults of his enemies could have moved the internal nature of his eternal birth then indeed that which is immovable could have been moved by some outward violence even as alas it most commonly happneth to us that our whole humanity is shocked inwardly and outwardly when yet we do think it to be the zeal of the Lord. But before we can come to the purity of these motions as it manifested it self in Christ against them who dishonoured God and profaned his Temple certainly there are many things to be eradicated out of our fleshly part if we would be thought to be wholly burning in zeal of spirit But as I hope the Lord will in his time manifest these things to us more clearly for when we are grown old we must carry so no things with great pains which whilsâ— youth flour sheth with a flaming zeal we cannot own and undertake Because all that is talked of death and dying to young persons they cannot in good truth come to them seeing that their bones and marrow are alwaies full of all fleshliness with that fervent vigour together with a full strength of the growing faculty and voluptuous tendency which for the sake of its own power and the glory of self-will is wont to oppose it self to God But then if any one proceed further and draweth forth all his strength even unto the top of all his age then comes decreasing that we are unwillingly lead into the will of God by a manifest other process and then those judgments seem to hang over us which once we decreed to others and that youthful life free and wanton swelling with zeal is now by the just judment of God under the decreasings of old age condemned to death but then at length succeeds understanding and discretion together with continual sufferings in the ways of the Lord even unto our death and the proper sentence pronounced to us for just as all that ought to dye that is possessed of life also is that matter here For God alone if he be truly in us is conjoyned with death but not with our life because no flesh how pure so ever it be can abide in his sight For whatever shined forth externally in Christ even that by a like death must be done inwardly in us if so be we are willing in the resurrection to be incorporated into a communion of his glory Otherwise we stick only but in the flesh of Christ though glorious contemplating alone the life of Christ's humanity not yet glorified but we hinder the growth of that fruit which through the death of Christ in the resurrection by the supernatural birth and a new life is poured forth into us with eternal grace The Lord open my mind to you for here I acknowledge my understanding to be too weak and slender EPIST. XX. An acknowledgment concerning the disputation held at Francfort between John Calvin and Justus Velsius of the power of Man or of free-will To A. G. THe Grace of our Lord and his mercy be upon thee and on all those who fear the Lord and seek his truth Most beloved A. concerning what thou didst write to me about that dispute held at Franckfort betwixt Velsius and Calvin my opinion is That Velsius did stumble therein whilst he attributed too much to the power of man for humane power is judged and condemned by the Lord if it be before a man is made partaker of the divine birth because what is new born is of God and not of man it is eternal and immortal even as he is who begat it But on the contrary Calvin failed in that point wherein he rejected all the powers of man universally which indeed I allow to be true unless that I also judge that that knowledge
that being corroborated with the sweetest promises it should of beten renewed because it proceedeth not from God but from man whom it concerneth to use an external comfort because he is destitute of all internal comfort For the dwelling of God is not but in the most inward recesses of our Soul and we then at last acknowledge and own his voice when we are wholly freed from nature else we remain always seprarated from him by and thorough that Enmity which is put betwixt God and out nature As much therefore as we still persist in our own nature so much are we still separated from God and do understand his whole Essence government means directions gifts and discipline in a sence depraved and parverted by nature for it holdeth us so captive that as often as God sends us certain means and helps for our spiritual death presently this very nature by her counsel turns us off from them to others that at last this chastning rod becomes frustrate and fruitless and these gifts of God are accounted for plagues afflictions and heavy burthens and are received with murmuring and indignation Most high God! how evil is our eye may the Lord gratiously please to open our eyes in his own time that at length we may be able to see EPIST. XI An admonition how Youth may be put off from the world and how it ought to seek the Lord with all modesty To J. M. DEarest J. That which I peculiarly desire is that which also I trust the Lord will effect to direct thy ways to the chiefest scope whereby thou mayest now in this lifes-time modestly compose thy senses to the studyes of the paths of God and to the dayly and nightly endeavours after virtue Thou hast now seen the world and hast experiencedt hat there is nought to be found therein in which can be any quiet of Soul inasmuch as she is much rather lead in this world into disquiets and troubles Because therefore the Lord by his long-suffering hath born with thee and hath deigned most indulgently to wink at thy youth it now altogether would become thee to be more diligently set upon thy watch by better using thy time then as yet hath been done whilst thou art still tossed up down by the waves of this world The Lord will I hope more and more draw thy heart with fervour to himself that thou mayest seek him more seriously even as formerly thy mind was wont to be stirred up by the novelties of the world and which yet have in time vanished or will yet vanish seeing none of all things temporal could ever persist as we dayly observe with our eyes that all are subject to change If therefore any one shall indulge his inclination in time it is needful that he be together with time afflicted with sorrow so that nothing is more safe then to withdraw himself from time even with the loss of all and to turn himself to eternity which is capable of no mutation and in which nothing dwells in our hearts but a pious and constant tranquillity That we may come thither we must endeavour with all our might to learn to blunt the Edge of all our pleasures and to abdicate our own will and appetite so that all things may be cut off and supplanted in which our flesh would live and play the wanton Then shalt thou truly please the Lord who also will strenuously help thee to rout the enemies of thy Soul that thou shalt be carried from one righteousness to another together with all proficiency and increase in divine knowledge and Love Herewith I commend thee to the Lord. EPIST. XII How all things are to be accepted from the hand of the Lord with true Submission To a certain betroathed Gentleman DEarest N. The Lord will in due time turn thy grief of mind to be for the better for as in all so likewise in this are we to be given up to the divine will only When the time shall come which he hath proposed to himself no man shall or can prevent the matter but if the time be not come we indeed may desire it in our own wishes but the thing shall want its success Not that I strive as it were to resist thy desire but that the alone providence of the Lord is to be accepted so that there be no difference of choice in us whether we are to wait or whether to go forwards and on the contrary For this is to wait expecting on the hand of God to stand submitted to God and not to live to ones self or to follow ones self or to desire If we find any difference in our selves so as that we desire rather this then that then the whole thing is from our selves and not from the Lord for that which is from the Lord is free and wholly commended to God without any desire of this or that thing so that the divine will be done which also is done if we find our selves uncloathed of all desire how advantagious soever the business may seem in our eyes Yet by all this I shall not intangle thee for I know that thy mind earnestly affecteth a freedom from all appetite of fulfiiling desires The Lord who is a true helper in all needs will be mindful of thee and of all of us and will comfort thee with his wonderful operations and will lead the from the Love of the Creatures to the Creator of all whence all have their Original and emanation and to whom as unto their end all things do return in their own time so that we also even all of us must appear in him by our departure and death in which notwithstanding his eternal subsistence is manifested as being that which is to be glorified in all those who by the benefit of his death and of the death of all those which are found created in them do arrive at that eternal communion which by the most powerful hand of God quickeneth and raiseth up the dead but not the living If therefore we would enjoy the same resurrection with Christ we are also to be transplanted into the same death being yielded up to God with all our might and becoming obedient even to death May the Lord instruct thee with a true understanding that thou mayest meditate on his will with a piercing and continued consideration and may that be a help to thee in thy sufferings according to his mercy and may it direct all things for thy benefit as they are decreed in him from eternity Which is what I confidently believe he is about to do and to bring all to the desired end by his eternal grace EPIST. XIII An Exhortation raised from that consideration that whatever is without God tendeth to eternal death and destruction and how we ought always to set the divine judgment before our eyes To the same person MOst beloved N. That it is so long since I wrote to thee this is the cause that I wanted an opportunity according to my
desire as also that I placed more confidence in the Lord then in my own letters being fixed in this firm hope that he would direct all things to the best end and that he would apply a remedy to all distractions of thy heart and that he would thrust them all under his obedience For even as I my self according to my simple way do confide in the Lord alone in all my necessities waiting for help from him only so also I judge the like of thee with firm belief that the Lord will out of his compassion behold and look upon thy case and will deliver thee from all thy troubles of heart although this thy state may press thee to so much the more diligent and fervent and more continual calling upon God and to a greater abode in his fear because else it an be no otherwise done but that all labour glory cogitation fruit and pleasure of the flesh with all those things which belong unto the world and have communion therewith do all at last together tend to eternal destruction nor can they by any hope of life be firmly fixed to eternity for Death and an eternal blotting out do pass upon all things which are without God! But the faithful and merciful God will have compassion on us that we may be subjected to his chastisement with a continual meditation on the divine judgment under which it behooveth all flesh to tremble and to give glory to God alone that thus being yielded up unto God we may be wholly governed by him and that we may serve him in all righteousness and holiness as it becomes the Sons of God God grant this to thee which I wish from the very bottom of my Soul as the Lord also knows that we may together remain given up to the Lord both in body and soul O would to God that our hearts could be always mindful of that misery destruction and eternal death which hangeth over all flesh and where it is truly made manifest how far all joys are distant from us as also the pleasures in this earth together with all the advantages pride and other vanities that are pleasing to our flesh and all the other motions tending thereunto Nevertheless from the Lord I always hope that which is best viz. that it wilâ— come to pass that he will purify us miserable creatures even as gold is purged by the fire and that he will wash us from all impurities The Lord grant that our familiarity which we have in divine love may not by these sufferings be diminished or decreased but rather be comfirmed by the divine benediction which is fertil in all who are patient and who in Goliness and the fear of the Lord do constantly persevere even to the end of the fight although they were vexed with all manner of tryals The Lord of all grace have mercy on us all that we may never but be proficients and seriously and diligently walk in the way of his fear that we may always be more and more endowed with his grace EPIST. XIV A brief Instruction how any one may in due order arrive at Regeneration and whence it is the new creature may have its Original To the same person DEarest N. I could not withhold my hand but must send this letter to thee seeing I am not at leisure to come unto thee therefore this Epistle shall supply the want of my presence For I am wholly perswaded in the Lord that thy heart yea when not admonished by me will not yet be tyred out of the continuance in the work begun and in the growth in the fear of God our Saviour least that any one happly should disturb confound thee by these or any other perswasions for to come at the very thing its self there is no need of many rules and exhortations Search narrowly into thy own self and if thou canst find any thing for whose sake thy conscience shall accuse thee then it concerns thee to desist from that and to dye thereunto This therefore is requlsit that thou learn to examine thy self whether thou sufferest any thing against thy will and with a certain kind of indignation nor art thou willingly subjected with humility to all others For its necessary that in all resepects thou shouldest account of thy self from the very bottom of thy heart for the least and the most despicable and that thou willingly submit thy self to every body yea to him that injureth thee If thou wilt endeavour this thou wilt soon find in thy self a great defect nor wilt thou willingly perform that but wilt be moved to indignation and to impatience But if thou art never looking back and art subduing the flesh with a just and true zeal and wilt accomplish the rooting out from thy self the serpentine nature at length by the breaking forth of the divine illumination thou shalt find great grace in these things But here is need of great and accurate examination and the Lord is at all times both night and day to be call'd upon with a fervent mind that he will bestow wisdom on thee to know thy self and all thy stains of nature even the most hidden that thou mayest be able to cure them diligently to renounce them and wholy to dye unto them For after that the flesh is withered and nature dead the new creature may at last be planted in thee whose source is out and from God and not out and from man and the admonitions of man nor out and from any external ceremonious rite for it is born of God who is a spirit in our spirit so also is all the true spiritual circumcision of all things internal in our Soul where it is also promised to us that by the holy Spirit the eternal God the Saviour shall be raised up in us out of his own seed who shall abolish all enmity which still lieth between God and the inward man himself and will eternally unite us with God and will bring us to our Original which is God himself Dearest N. I should indeed writ more of this to thee for I further desire that thou wouldst thy self set too thy hand to the performance of these things and that thou wouldst get a living sense in thy heart of all these For in thy own self thou wilt find a true monitor who will more rightly then I can observe thy defects neglect him not but lend thy ear to his accusations and then forthwith will thereupon follow certainly very notable advances Also the Lord who heareth the desires of all who persevere will not reject thy prayers and tears but to all whatsoever thy heart pressed down with straights and griefs proposed to its self he will behold with merciful eyes and succour thee with a strong hand And if sometimes he may seem plainly to have deserted thee nor that he will ever hear thy prayers then do thou fully believe that at this very time he is nighest unto thee that he may succour thee with his help