am methinks like Jonah tumbling My Soul in a Tempest in the bottom of the Sea the Bars of an earthly and dark Mind are stopping my way and am as lifeless methinks as if I had no Interest in the Fountain of Saving Health The Weeds are wrapp'd about my head I am in the Deep but cannot cry unto the Lord as Jonah did And what the Lord is teaching me by this unexpected disappointment I cannot yet tell yet notwithstanding I have hope in him that I shall yet be rescued from this Captivity and see his Face again I have been searching after all my sins through the several Ages of my Life and endeavoured to view the Depravity of my Soul in all the sinful Circumstances of every sin but I cannot wind my self out my design was to get thereby to a more sincere Closure with Christ but e're I was aware I had challenged forth more Enemies than I could well suppress I thought by aggravating my sins to have gotten more hunger after Jesus Christ but like over-much cold Water it damped my Stomach and I found Sickness seizing upon me rather than Hunger a heartless Stupidity instead of Believing I concluded I was in some kind or other out of my way or else had not prepared my Stomach to keep out the Infection that exhaled from that Body of Death which is within me as I should have done whiles I was moving the Limbs thereof The thing I aimed at was quickning Then I remembred that word Luk. 24. 5. Why seek ye the living among the dead Come not amongst the Graves without his company who died for sins and is risen from the Dead I could not be satisfied about the sincerity of my Repentance and there I stuck till at length I remembred that Christ rose again as well to give Repentance as Remission of Sins Act. 5. 31. and 11. 18. so that I can bring no Repentance to him but I must first get it from him He is exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour to give Repentance c. A Saviour to take away all the defects of my Repentance a Prince to overcome all the difficulties and to create in me a sound Mind against the Infirmites of my Repentance and my halting therein Take then O mighty Prince and Saviour this work into thy own hands and create a right Spirit within me So that now my gadding Spirit is My Soul returning to its Strong Hold. brought back again to see that Christ is the Alpha and Omega the Author and Finisher of whatever doth concern the new Creature And although he be so yet how hard is it to venture my Soul and Body my whole Hope and Care into his hands by faith in his Word I had need know such an one very well with whom I am to venture my Journey through a Warfaring Life here and shortly through Death and Judgment too and so into the Ocean of Eternity O dear Jesus who art my Lord and my God who canst renew my heart and none else can do it breath upon me and say Receive the Holy Ghost Cast thy Mantle upon me and let the Unction of thy Spirit be so shed abroad throughout my whole Soul that my heart may be entirely thine thine only that thy self only may be the Covering of my eyes instead of all other Objects And now what should hinder but The Soul first improves Baptism that at length I should solemnly in the presence of God the Father Son and Spirit and in the presence of all the elect Angels pursue the ends of that Covenant which was sealed by Christ's Appointment to me in Baptism through whose hands soever that Ordinance was appointed and permitted to pass upon me Was not that a Divine Prophesie which Balaam himself spake which passed through his Mouth Numb 24. 17. There shall come a Star out of Jacob c. and can the Ordinance of Christ be made void through whose hands soever it came and in what unworthy Robe soever it was drest Did the sacred Ark lose its vertue by being in the Philistines Custody Did he forsake it who dwelt between the Cherubims Was the Mercy-seat forsaken and become like common Metal Why then should this Ordinance be lost to me in the substance of it though it may be some humane Scurf was laid upon it And have I not more reason to hope through Covenant-Grace that the Faith and Prayers of my dear Parents then and since are in force for a Blessing upon it to me than the defects of others in the manner of Administration can have to hinder it especially seeing now I desire humbly to take hold of the Covenant and with my own consent to say I agree to the Condescension of thy Grace and Love my dear Lord I catch hold on thy free Love and into thy Name O most holy God the Father Son and Spirit I give my self up through him who confirmed the Covenant and came by Water and Blood to make it effectual I believe Lord help my Unbelief I reach out my hand through thy Grace let thy Grace and Power pull me over to thy self that in the Ark of thy unchangeable Covenant I may be carried above my self and above a miserably drowned World Be not absent O thou who in thy Mercy didst make and impose this Seal of the Covenant as the Badge of one of thy Family for me to wear who also speakest words of Truth and Life when thou saist I baptise thee in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost fulfil thy good Word unto me thy Servant in which I desire to hope that thou mayest be mine and I may be thine wholly for ever that I may serve thee and glory in thee with all thy people who are thine own Inheritance Do not hang back O my poor Struggles with Vnbelief heart whose weakness and inconstancy have so often bruised my inward Man O Anxious Unbelief thou tellest me 't is a bargain soon made but how shall it be performed Thou urgest me with difficulties that will arise from the World from my self from the Tryals that I may undergo in my Body my Soul my Estate unwonted Tryals Thou tellest me of the great fits of Darkness and shameful declining I have had after much Refreshment and strong Resolutions to the contrary Thou tellest me that my Falls will now cost me dearer than ever they did and the Holy Spirit will be sooner vexed and grieved than before Thou tellest me I shall soon be weary of my Yoke and then my Sins will be of a deeper and more heart-hardning Die than ever But remember O Soul-destroying Unbelief I rowl my self upon the Rock of Ages I deliver my self up to the Covenant of Grace not to bring strength to it but to fetch strength from it and from that word which saith Sin shall not have Dominion over you for you are not under the law but under grace Rom. 6. 14. And because I am weak
spirit and sence of this short word Saved Isa 49. 6. reacheth The meaning of Salvation far even to the ends of the Earth It importeth a state of security from the evil of sin Mat. 1. 21. of Enemies Luk. 1. 71. of Satan 2 Tim. 2. 26. of Hell Wrath Condemnation 1 Thes 1. 10. from the evil of all distress in this life c. Gen. 48. 16. and hereafter 1 Thes 1. 10. It importeth an investiture and possession of all real good in this life and in that to come viz. Conversion Calling Acts 11. 14. 2 Tim. 1. 9. Justification Sanctification Adoption Strength Acceptation with God Blessing Manifestation of God Knowledge of the Truth and every good thing that may tend to enable the heirs of life to dispatch their work quit themselves victorious and lead them at last to their Fathers house Act. 4. 12. 1 Joh. 1. 9. Jer. 31. 9. Jer. 15. 20. 2 Cor. 6. 2. Psal 28. 9. Isa 35. 4. Act. 11. 14. Deut. 33. 29. the walls whereof are God's part thereby for discharging of which he is made a high Priest and so he procures it and maintains it in the power of a King and reveals it as a Prophet all which Offices he was anointed to and qualified for in his own Person And by reason of that Essential Union with the Godhead in which he stood the Father delights in and owns him as Son of Man and doth every way suit with him as the Father of such a Son who is both God and Man The Spirit also which proceedeth from the Father and the Son doth through the same Union of the Divine Essence also suit with him and operate by and through him as the Spirit of him who is both God and Man in one Person Hence ariseth the Perfection and absolute Compleatness of the Mediatorship I am not alone saith Christ but I and the Father that sent me Joh. 8. 16. And the comforting Spirit shall receive of mine and shall shew it unto you Joh. 16. 14. For the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in him bodily Col. 2. 9. and joyntly and carries on the work of Mediatorship which was personally untertook by the Eternal Son who is made Emanuel And this answers the Question which Philip made Shew us the Father Hast thou not seen me saith Christ He that hath seen me viz. by the eye of Faith as I really am and ought to be looked upon hath seen the Father Joh. 14. 7. Every Action and Revelation of himself is the Revelation of the Father Son and Spirit in the distinguishable working of each Person and yet united in the same God who worketh all in all Christ suffered as the Son of such a Father and the Father in this design of Mediatorship was cloathed with a true Fatherly Relation to the incarnate suffering Son and the Eternal Spirit which proceedeth from the Father and the Son did put forth his Almighty Essential Vertue in the offering up of the Body of Christ upon the Cross Which Union of Father Son and Spirit in God our Saviour Tit. 2. 13. appears in Joh. 17. and Heb. 9. 14. So that all the Persons in the saving of Man doth as it were concenter and work together in the Person of the Mediator The Will of the Father Joh. 4. 34. The Mercy of the Son Heb. 4. 13 14. And the Power of the Spirit Heb. 9. 14. and Rom. 1. 4. All which being one in the Divine Essence of God meet together in the Person of the Son who is according to the Eternal Decree God and Man through his Union with and in the Godhead God thus manifested in the Flesh and as Father Son and Spirit laying the foundation of Mediatorship in Jesus Christ the Eternal Son God and Man doth also in and with him carry it on as a Father to and Spirit of him who is God-man And for this cause the Gospel is called the Word of Truth in respect not only of the Matter of it but the legal Testimony that it receives from these three Witnesses as the Declaration of the Counsel of their own Essential Will and Purpose And in regard the Son of God in the Name and Co-working of Father Son and Spirit undertook the Mediatorship by taking Man's Nature every mortal person that has the nature of Man stands alike near to him in the Dispensation of the Gospel-Call It puts aside other Mediators The Angels are Spirits and have not Humane Nature in which to mediate for Man Christ himself is nearer to us than they are he is Man The Spirits of Just Men made perfect cannot mediate for us for though they are Humane yet they want living Bodies but Christ has his Humane Body with him and therefore is nearer to Men who are cloathed with Flesh Neither can one mortal Man mediate as a Mediator 'twixt God and Man because though he have the Humane Nature in him yet it is in him personally and not representing the whole Race of Man as the pure Nature of Christ the second Adam doth And besides Mortal Man is but Man but Christ is both God and Man that he might lay his hand on both parties God and Man to reconcile them together as they are reconciled in the Person of the Mediator Col. 1. 19 20 21 22. Promises cannot mediate for Man has no right to them but through Christ first Duties cannot mediate because they are loathsome without a foregoing Interest in Christ Graces cannot mediate because they are Fruits of Reconciliation through the Mediator the Fruit cannot be the cause of the Root from whence they come So that as Jesus Christ in being Mediator took our Nature viz. that Humane Nature that is in every person of Mankind into immediate Union with the Godhead dwelling in his Person so this Jesus Christ God and Man in the Relation he bears to the Father and Spirit and they to him in their mutual concurrence in this great work of his Mediation with him having sealed and anointed him thereto that he might compleatly effect it he is the true immediate Object of a Believer's eye and he who renouncing all other names and helps flies thither shall be saved by him Act. 4. 12. He that seeth the Son and believeth on him shall have everlasting life His appearing in the Promises doth make them a Convoy to bring the Soul to him which would otherwise be no better Guides than the Light to a blind Man His presence in Duties makes them the way and door of approach which would otherwise be no better Guides by single gazing on and using of them than a Lanthorn in a Man's hand can be a Guide by gazing on it and leading himself round about in a Circle by the light thereof not minding the way or the door to find which that light was appointed and intended The Graces of his Spirit are the Beams of that Excellency that is in his Person and the Streams which flow from the Fountain which are subject to
Office with his Ordination to Fitness for and Discharge of it Whence his Faith is maintained and strengthned accompanied with a sense of his Guilt and Impotence which every where he expresseth frequently bewailing the Corruption of Nature How doth that Faith exert it self in great love to desires after and delight in Christ with an exact and universal Obedience to his commanding Will and a meek and patient Resignation to his afflicting Will. The whole of which very clearly manifests his most serious and earnest Concernment about eternal things and serves to disprove those who believe that Religion is nothing else but a grand piece of Hypocrisie Such Instances tend to check the growing Infidelity and Atheism of the present Age wherein Religion is thought to be but an Artifice of State the Policy of Princes entertained only by the many and rejected by the more Intelligent It serves also to awaken those that are sincere to a more vigorous Exercise of Grace What one hath attained to others may the same Principles of Holiness lie open to all And that what is said may be more convincing a CHARACTER of the AVTHOR is adjoyned wherein the efficacy of his Meditations is most sensibly exemplified drawn up in the Straits of time by a private hand who was intimately acquainted with him throughout his Life and if in it there be any thing defective 't is not to be imputed to him whose CHARACTER it is but the Imperfection or Vnskilfulness of the Hand that did attempt to draw it who hath composed it without the Methods of Art or curious Ornaments of Phrase But suited it to the plainness of the AVTHOR expressed both in his Life and the following Composures J. H. T. R. THE LIFE OF Mr. HENRY DORNEY HE was born in the Year 1613. at Vley in the County of Gloucester and was the fifth Child and Son of Mr. Thomas Dorney Gent. and Joanna his Wife both very religious and had a numerous Issue in all eleven Children towards whom they had a most tender and Parental Care and were industriously diligent in bringing them up in the Nurture and Admonition of the Lord. Their eldest Son was bred a Scholar at Oxford and placed at the Inns of Court and after he became a Barrister continued in the Practice of the Law until he died Their second and third Sons deceased in their Infancy and Minority Their fourth Son also was bred a Scholar and entred upon the Ministerial Function dying in the Flower of his Age whom the Lord was pleased to bless with a great degree of profound Learning and Insight into sacred Mysteries beautified with a super-abundant measure of Divine Grace who kept a constant Dyary of his Life But it is the fifth Son Mr. Henry Dorney who is the Subject of this following CHARACTER After he had been Religiously educated by his Parents and furthered in Learning at Country-Schools he was about the fourteenth Year of his Age brought up to London where he spent much of his time with them in Attendance on the publick Ordinances of God's Word and Worship at the Morning and Weekly Lectures beside the Solemnities of Worship on the Lord's Day At which time as judged began the work of God's Grace effectually to seize on his heart And after a short Continuance in London he retired again into the Country in the Pursuance of Humane Learning and was at length setled at Newbury Free-School where in a Years time or little more he thrived so swift in Learning that he became compleatly fit for the University But for some Cogent Reasons his Father with his own Consent he being always very obsequious thought it more convenient to dispose of him to a Trade In Attendance on which and all along in the variety of outward Changes in the Course of his Life and amidst his busiest Secular Affairs and Employments he yet kept the Rudiments of his School-Learning applying himself with great diligence as he had spare time to perfect his Studies in the Original Tongues wherein he was very expert and accurate especially in the Hebrew and retained an exact knowledge of them to his dying day With respect to his Natural His Natural Abilities Abilities he had a quick Fancy and Invention a ripe Wit a tenacious Memory a large Understanding and a profound Judgment His natural Temper was Grave His Natural Temper Amiable Affable he had Sweetness mixt with Gravity and Chearfulness mixt with Seriousness much condemning an affected Melancholy and Reservedness He had an undaunted Courage tempered with Meekness and seldom if ever seen discomposed with Passion of any sort He was plain-hearted kind sociable not at all Loquacious or given to much Talk yet not sparing to speak when and where he saw it needful and had a Call thereto He affected not Moroseness on the one hand nor was he complemental on the other yet courteous towards all and used Flattery to none either in Speech or Action When he approached to God His Religious Duties in Duty it seemed to be with a great Awe upon his Spirit withdrawing his Mind from every thing that might distract him especially in Prayer endeavouring to do what he did as in God's sight with spiritual Vigour and Activity according to his own Saying that We must not be Drones in God's Work but be rouzed and enlivened in all the Services we perform to him which also should be chiefly inward with as little outward appearance as may be He was one devoted to Prayer which took up a great part of his spare time both in the Day and in the Night when he was awake and not hindred by Weakness and other Bodily Distempers And he was wont to say to this effect when he discerned not the like readiness in others who were more addicted to Conference We alas at least some of us know a great deal notionally but its Prayer in the Spirit is the Work we should chiefly mind And when he had been desired to declare his Opinion of any difficult Scripture wherein he had a deep Insight he spake to this purpose If you would know the true meaning of such or such a Scripture pray over it that being the most effectual Means to come to know the Mind of God's Spirit in his Word And he had such a holy Intimacy and Familiarity with God that he would speak to him in Prayer as if one Cordial Friend were speaking to another yet with great Humiliation Prostration and Reverence And when the Frame of his Soul was never so little out of order he seemed to be very much troubled until he could get into some place of Retirement for the re-gaining of his former delightful Frame of Communion with God And this he would be often speaking of to his most inward Friends And his manner was when he prayed alone not to use his Voice at all but all his striving in Prayer was inward saying that Bodily Exercise profited little and more especially in secret Prayer And also
depart from God but far more bitter to stay away from God when we have departed from him And to this effect he expressed himself in Prayer That by Nature we are averse to the Convictions of God's Spirit in his Word and Satan is ever blowing up his Spawn and Seed within us whereby to spoil our Taste and Relish of things pure and spiritual and interrupt our Peace and Communion with God And therefore that God would cause us more clearly to discern the Corruption and Malignity of that Evil that is in our Natures and make us to know all our Abominations and whatever is repugnant to his holy Nature and Will both in our Hearts and Lives and make us freely sensible of throughly ashamed broken and humbled for the same That he would raise us up to a greater Antipathy against all that that is displeasing to him and hurtful to our Souls And that no Interest might hinder or squeeze out the working of his Grace within us as not to have Freedom to act And that all that might be conquered that would interrupt the Intercourse of his Spirit with our hearts And that he would not suffer us to spare and indulge any Corruption or leave any corner of our hearts wherein Sin may be at Peace That no Agag be permitted to live in us That his Fear might Garrison our hearts against all the Invasions and prevailing power of our own Corruptions And that Satan by his Wiles might not sweeten us into any Bonds of Guilt And seeing that we are apt to grow hard continually and it is God's Power alone that can soften help and heal that he would cause us to experience the transforming Power of his Grace in our Souls making all new and refining us every moment That we might get into Jesus Christ and make him now our Advocate who will be our Judge And because we need Converting and new Creating evermore that Regeneration-work might pass upon us continually and we made all over new and be prepared for all his Concerns That he would baptize us into the Grace of the Gospel and cause us to live answerable to so high a Calling as that is That we might be baptized evermore into the Father Son and Spirit and so receive Life and Quickening from Jesus Christ who is our Head And when our Guilt is upon us That the Lord would keep our hearts tender to feel the smart of Sin and so hasten to our Physician to be bound up and healed And not suffer our Wounds to wrankle and fester for want of coming to him for Pardon and Cleansing That he would make us go out to him and never neglect or keep aloof from his Recovering Grace else we shall provoke him more and more by undervaluing the Riches of his Grace and refusing the Remedy he hath provided for Sinners That he would make up every Breach and cause us to be all over plunged in the Fountain opened for Sin and Vncleanness What the Scripture reveals His Proficiency in Grace and promises That the Root of the Righteous yieldeth Fruit And whose Hope the Lord is shall not cease from yielding Fruit. That the Godly Man shall bring forth Fruit in his Season and in Old Age shall be fat and flourishing And he that abideth in Christ and Christ in him the same bringeth forth much Fruit was in an extraordinary measure fulfilled in him And all those Heavenly Doctrines and Practicable Truths which he understood believed and professed he lived over His Practice agreed and held pace with his Principles That what his head apprehended his heart affected his Will embraced his Life manifestly declared and published And when bodily Strength decayed yet his spiritual Vigour still remained And his Bow abode in Strength and the Arms of his Hands were made strong by the Hands of the mighty God of Jacob. And such was his Fruitfulness in well doing that those who at any time discoursed him about Soul-Concerns it was their own Fault and Omission if they parted from him without some real benefit His frequency in Meditation was very remarkable Whence His frequency in Meditation he was noted often to say that That Soul could not thrive much in Grace and Holiness that was not much in Meditation His Freedom from Envy and distracting Cares was obvious to His Freedom from Envy and distracting Cares those who knew him best in the general Course of his Conversation Whence also he was observed to say I bless God I have no Temptation at all to envy others Prosperity and 't is a great favour from the Lord that I have much freedom from Anxious Thoughts touching what God will do with me as to my outward Condition and being in this World His inward Tranquility Peace and Joy was patent to all so far as His inward Tranquility Peace and Joy it could be outwardly discerned not letting fall in the observation of any that were most conversant with him the least word of repining at any time And 't is also ratified by these Suggestions which he recommended to others from his own experience with the way how to attain it saying The Lord never made Flesh and Blood to be a Weapon to conquer Despondency The Soul must escape from all Creature-Refuges if ever it will have true quiet That if a Man will have solid Peace and Content he must first have God to be his God for true Peace and Quiet is in him alone That a Man cloathed with Rags may have as much inward Content and Satisfaction and far more than the richest and greatest man in the World for our Happiness lies in the right Composure of the Mind and not in the greatness of any outward Condition And that whatever befalls us in this World is ordinarily so far sweet or bitter to us as we fancy it to be That as outward Profit makes the trouble of any Vndertaking sweet to the Man that prospers in the World so if we could live in the faith of this that all things shall work for good we should be as much satisfied under Afflictions as in the greatest Worldly Prosperity And he would often say when he returned home from amongst the Persons and Affairs of this World That he had no quiet till he had poured out his Soul to God in Prayer And if there he did not meet with him instantly yet still he had no Peace till he had regained the Presence of God again And that walking with God was the joy and delight of his Soul His Self-denial shewed it self His Self-denial in his Humility Dependence on God Mortification Resignation and Heavenly mindedness which hath been before declared And to this purpose he advised That we should cease from our selves and so think speak and do in the name of Christ That all our Thoughts Speeches and Actions should be managed by us as the Thoughts Words and Actions of Jesus Christ for by going out of our selves we are made his and he is
the way who is a Guide also and therefore great is the loss of that man who walks alone and compasseth himself about with his own sparks if he fall as Solomon speaks he has none to raise him up again Eccles 4. 10. and thus Christ is held forth as a comfortable Leader and Companion Isa 57. 18. Jer. 3. 14. And the Church improves this Privilege by leaning on her Beloved as she comes forth out of the Wilderness This blessed Companion makes way for his peoples safety in the Fire and in the Water of Affliction Dan. 3. 25. Isa 43. 2. 8. And by this means also Faith has got a true and faithful Witness on the Believers side to clear off Accusations and from hence are those expressions used in the Psalms Plead my cause Be surety for me c. and the often Appeals made to God who trieth the Heart and Reins and who standeth up on the side of his people and on their behalf These and infinitely more Privileges do arise to every Believer from the Interest that he hath in Christ's entire and incommunicable Person by the Union of Free Govenant and Mystical Ingrafture and the Communion of Vertue derived from the Person of this Mediator in which Mystery of Grace he enjoys Christ as the Hand enjoys the Head yet both of them are distinctly considered in the Body or as the Eye enjoys the influence and vertue of that very light and heat which is in the very body of the Sun although the body of the Sun be many thousand Miles distant from that Eye which doth actually enjoy that Sun in the light and heat of its influence and doth as truly enjoy it as if it lay in the material Body of the Sun and in a way of greater advantage fitted for its capacity and use So is the Person of Christ enjoyed really and truly with all Privileges relating to Believers whiles he retains his Personality uncommunicated and undivided to any other as the very Water of the Fountain is enjoyed in the Streams and the Sap of the Root enjoyed in the Branches and yet the Stream is not the Fountain nor yet the Branches any part of the Root The way of the Souls enjoyment Christ's Entrance upon the heart works Renewing there of Christ in all the Privileges of his Person and Offices of his Mediatorship and in all the Influences of Spiritual Unction and Transformation of the heart into the power and likeness of Jesus Christ is wrought by the Spirit of Regeneration through Faith which causeth the Soul to pass over from its self from all its strength from all its own carnal hope fear and selfish care into the Death Life Righteousness and Perfection of the Person of Jesus Christ and so is enabled to say in truth I am not mine own I live yet no longer I but Christ liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God viz. by the very Life and in the very Life of Christ apprehended received enjoyed and working effectually in me by Faith in him who loved me and washed me from my sins in his own blood Gal. 2. 20. Rev. 1. 5. This is that translating renewing changing and quickning work which the Scripture doth so often mention as the design of the Gospel And 't is with reference unto this that Christ is called a Stone of Stumbling and Rock of Offence sinful and selfish Nature strives to preserve its life against the killing vertue of the Spirit of Christ in the Gospel preached to the World This is the reason of so much Carnal Profession and Barrenness in Christianity when the hearts of Men turn the nature of the Gospel which is a Law of Grace and obeyed only by Faith into the similitude of the Law of Moses and make it a matter of Man's working and subject it to the poor and lame endeavours of unrenewed Man not remembring or at least not understanding that the Tree must first be made good before the Fruits can be good This was meant by the Apostle when he bewails the Jews who though they followed after Righteousness attained it not because they sought it not by faith but as it were by the works of the law Rom. 9. 31 32. Ever since the Fall of Man Righteousness forsook the created Nature of Man which is largely shewed Rom. 3. 10. and is only now in Christ revealed from Heaven in receiving of whom by being baptised spiritually into his Death and Life his Righteousness is enjoyed Every Command of the Gospel doth first require Faith which is the great Commandment and in the vertue and power thereof requires and works Holiness in all the Fruits of a new Life by the vertue of Jesus Christ working in every Precept and Command of God in the whole Scriptures being Gospellized by his Spirit And here my heart begins again to groan while I find so little of this killing renewing power accomplishing its work upon me How far am I from this renewed State I am weary of the lifeless Notion of the thing I faint in my sighing and find no rest I long for the breath of the Lord and lament out my Complaint before him When will the Lord come into his Temple My flesh trembleth 'twixt hope fear and desire I am as a Bottle dried in the Smoak my heart is pained and in Travel O preserver of Men make no tarrying lest I be like them who go down to the pit Oh let Death feed upon me till the Foundation of Life Power and Peace be laid in my Soul and Deliverance come from another place Droopings are deadly O my Soul do not say thy Wound is incurable the Creator of the ends of the Earth doth undertake for thee he will yet reveal abundance of Truth and Peace Come then O Fountain of Help and do thine own Will upon me How easie is it to say the word Renewing in comparison of the thing really executed and done All that can be spoken about it is but words the Change it self is the thing I long for my eyes fail with hoping for the very Salvation of God in this work Oh that the Heavens might drop down their Dew Why are the Influences of the Clouds with-held Oh for the sounding of his Bowels who is gone into a far Country and has promised to return My musing heart cannot fetch him but my groaning is before him and the tears and cries of my Soul is in his sight O Earth cover thou not my blood let the cry of my distress be heard Anguish is upon my heart and Oh let the Season of my Redemption come According to the measure of the power of Christ given to me I would yet struggle against this Gyant unmortified self I would rather take a Sling and a Stone in the power of Christ than all the Weapons of a Carnal Arm and Understanding Christ well knew the length of that Petition Thy Will be done
All Commands also and Duties bear with them an equal Engagement to every person alike related within the state of Covenant-Interest because those Commands and Duties relate to the same Interest in which all the people of God are one Joh. 17. 20. Matth. 28. 20. So that this Interest in God which is helpful in one case is applicable to all alike cases wherein the Saints who enjoy that Interest are concerned which makes every Promise to have a kind of Infiniteness as God is infinite From this Ground the same Promise that armed Joshua against fear through the presence and faithfulness of God Josh 1. 5. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee is used likewise to every Saint to arm him against Covetousness and fear of Want Heb. 13. 5. And thus the Experience of one Saint becomes advantagious to another through their mutual Interest in the same Root of Spiritual Life in Christ by which they are one with him and Co-partners each with other of the same Grace From this Ground there is no Member of Christ that can say he has not need of anothers help because the Spirit of God by which they are united into one Body conveys its operation through one to another as it pleaseth him 1 Cor. 12. 11. which Spirit of God is the new Life of the Weak as well as of the Strong as he pleaseth to manifest his Power and Vertue in the one or the other more or less by which they are strong or weak that so they might love pity and sympathize each with other being all interested in the same Life and whereby they are all one Body and Members one of another Rom. 12. 5. Hence it is that all things spoken in the Scriptures are of true and proper use to every Child of God as far as their condition agrees with or stands in need of that Help Comfort Counsel or Reproof mentioned there which is the scope of the Spirit of God in all those Promises Instructions or Reproofs recorded in the Scriptures as if they and their particular Cases had been first or only in the eye of God when that word was spoken or that instance given be it what it will What I say to you saith Christ Matth. 13. 37. I say to all watch for whatsoever things were written afore time to others were written for our learning as the Apostle tells the Church of the Romans Rom. 15. 4 5. That we through patience and comfort of the same scriptures might have the same enjoyment and ground of hope as they had being equally interested in the same God who by his Spirit breaths Grounds and Influence of the same Grace of Patience and Consolation as it did to them to whom the Spirit through the Scripture had formerly spoken And thus the same Word being the Inspiration of the Spirit bloweth where it listeth and the sound thereof is gone forth into all the World and the spirit drift scope and use of the words of Life to the end of the Earth as far as the Spirit which breathed it begets any Soul into the Life of Union with God in Jesus Christ who is the Eternal Word and Mind of the Eternal Father from whom all the Children of Adoption receive their Being and Birth through the Gospel of that only begotten Son of God spiritually shed abroad into their hearts So that every one who is Christ's may say the History of the Scriptures is for me the Prophets are mine the Apostles are mine and all their Prophesies and Preachings all Promises Reproofs and Comforts Counsels Warnings and Examples the Gospel under Moses his Vail and as it shines in the Teachings and Miracles of Christ and his Apostles all things all persons Paul Apollos Cephas Life and Death are the Inventory of my Happiness things past present and to come are mine and for my use and advantage because the Spirit which worketh in and by all these is mine and Christ to whom I come and whom I serve is mine and Christ is God's and his God and Father is mine because I am his Heir and Co-heir with him Let such a privilege cause the Soul to cry out Breath O Spirit open your selves O blessed Scriptures and water me with all manner of Teaching Let mysterious Grace possess my Understanding powerful Wisdom from God in the Scriptures make me wise to Salvation Let Strength and Vertue from on high renew both Spirit Soul and Body to all power of a spiritual mind that I may comprehend with all Saints what is the heighth length depth and breadth of the love of God in Christ and be built amongst them upon the Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Christ himself being my Corner-stone and his Power enlivening me to every good word and work through that common Salvation wrought by him for every Member of his Body among whom I also am allowed to claim my share in the Inheritance of Light through the faith and patience of the Scriptures and Testimony of Jesus my Lord. Abraham's Faith was exercised upon the Covenant which God made with him saying I will be thy God and the God of thy seed which Faith was further confirmed by the Sign of Circumcision that was added to that Covenant and tried yet further by offering up his Son in all which he had the faithfulness of God and his free Grace and Power in his eye and saw Christ's day a far off therein although 't is like he saw not distinctly the very manner of Christ's coming in the Flesh and the manner of his Death and Resurrection yet his faith in the substance of the Covenant of God's free Grace and in his wisdom and power to accomplish the same in his own way and time led him to embrace that Covenant so dispensed and to that measure discovered deriving Interest in God to his Soul and the Righteousness of Justification thereby which the Spirit doth record in the Scriptures to be the same justifying Exercise of Faith which in the fulness of time should and so did more distinctly put forth its self upon Christ dead and risen and upon the power and truth of God therein to confirm and actually execute in the Person of Christ the Branches and Method of that Covenant relating to the taking away Sin applying Righteousness and uniting Man to God in the Mystery of Grace and Salvation and therefore 't is said the same Righteousness is now imputed to Believers as was to him because the nature of their Faith and the substance of the Object of that Faith is one and the same In the exercise of which they walk in his steps Rom. 4. 12. and so are justified with believing Abraham and inherit his Blessing Gal. 3. 9. And thus the Scriptures in the spiritual use thereof do run through all visibly different Dispensations Administrations Instances and Cases of the Saints with one and the same invisible scope and secret tendency agreeable to the state of Godliness and relating to all persons within
that state in all times and Ages and stands answerable to the nature of all future cases and experiences of the Saints which makes the whole Scriptures which were written aforetime to be of a perpetual present use from the beginning to the end of that Volumne so said Moses of old Deut. 4. 2. and so said John many hundred years after Rev. 22. 18 19. So that all Scripture is given for a perpetual profit by Doctrine Reproof Exhortation and Instruction in Righteousness in order to the perfecting of the Saints 2 Tim. 3. 16 17. And this brings in again the Consideration of the wonderful Condescention of God who though he be invisible yet he doth in a sort become visible in the Word there the Life of God is manifested even that hidden Life which enlivens the new Man it exposeth it self to be seen heard and handled by the thoughts of Worm-like Man 1 Joh. 1. 1 2 3. God who was pleased to manifest himself in the Flesh has carried on a correspondent method in a way suitable to Humanity ever since the Restoration was promised to the Seed of the Woman The Spirit brings forth all its special Operations in the exercise of Man's Nature Reason Understanding Will Affections and Passions The Scriptures seem to bespeak nothing oft-times but meer Man whereas that Humane way was only fitted as a Sheath for the Sword of the Spirit to be carried in through all several cases that could fall out in Man's condition God who brought forth all things out of himself doth still manage them and uphold them for he is the Life As his Purpose and Power created the Being of all things so his Providence and Wisdom doth create the continual disposing and ordering of all things I create Jerusalem a rejoycing saith the Lord Isa 65. 18. And therefore having created a new thing in the Earth that a Woman should compass a Man Jer. 31. 22. he works creatingly in the discovery and application of that Mystery and stoops down into all the Sences Passions and Affections of Humane Nature and brings forth the Mystery of the new Creation under the vail and external use of the matter of the first Creation which runs through the whole History of outward Providences and through every Branch of Moses's Law in all the Sacrifices every part of the Tabernacle and Temple and through every Dispensation and among all the Faculties of the rational Soul as the power of Life striving against Death and Light against Darkness which is the scope of what we find spoken to Man or of or by Man in the Scriptures which is spoken not to shew only what Man 's natural thoughts are but how the Spirit of God works in their thoughts words and actions or how the Spirit of Satan naturally and sinfully works in them which is delivered to us by the Spirit of God sometimes by the Rules of Doctrine and Worship sometimes by Comforts Instructions Exhortations Reproofs and Threatnings and sometimes by Examples and Experiences acted upon the persons of Good and Bad and acting in them This Operation of the Spirit of the Father and the Son begets all the Convincements Heart-searchings Prayers Groans Cries Sighs Comforts Encouragements and Conquests which we find exercised in the hearts of the people of God throughout the Scriptures as in a Glass shewing the Combat betwixt the Seed of the Serpent and the Seed of the Woman and establishing Faith and Assurance of the Victory by Jesus Christ who is the Captain of their Salvation And God has recorded these things in this manner in the Word that all the people of God may read the whole of their present State and Work acted in the Scriptures by the Inspiration of the Spirit which now breaths Workings of a like nature in their hearts The least Groan cannot be lost 't is part of the Lambs War and therefore there is a Blessing in it If the infinite Purity Power and Holiness of God did reveal it self only to the Understanding it would either distract or confound the Soul or harden it by a desperate Dispondency and therefore the infinite Excellency of God descends into the Humane Nature of Christ that it might overshadow and work in the hearts of the Saints who are his Mystical Body by the Spirit in the Scriptures in the way of an Instinct and new Principle arising from that spiritual Closure made betwixt him and them in the Gospel The rejection of the Gospel and The Glory of Christs Condescention despising the Word doth chiefly arise from an aptness to stumble at the Condescention of God he sees a necessity to bow down lower to save poor Man than the Pride of Man's heart knows how to digest and therefore the broken and contrite ones get most of his company Isa 57. 15. the Soul who loves him and believes his Condescention in the design and truth thereof can never be too low for relief The manner of Christ's coming into the Flesh and the despicableness of his Person in his Life and Death seriously considered and the Ordinances which he blest and left to us gives no encouragement to the Wisdom of the Flesh The way of carnal Wisdom is to do great things by great means but the Wisdom of God doth great things by small and despicable means 1 Sam. 16. 7. 2 King 5. 10 11. and so confoundeth the Wisdom of the Wise as the Apostle argues 1 Cor. 1. from v. 20. forwards Were the truth of this Mystery of God's Condescention truly taken up it would spoil that repining dejection which torments the Saints about their unworthiness and thankfulness would accompany all their Groans towards him he is as low as the lowest and their way cannot be hid from him though he be high and lofty and the Creator of the ends of the earth Isa 40. 27 28 29. and 57. 15. The very Kernel of the Gospels Glory lies in the extreamness of his Condescention in the way of saving Man his design is to exalt his Glory to the highest Heavens by the unspeakable lowness of his stooping throughout all the day of Grace He doth by his Spirit wait weep strive grieve sigh suffer and complain in the hearts of his people and figuratively he is said to do such things also himself on their behalf their weak Faith is mighty through him who works it and who carries his Lambs in his Arms. His infinite Greatness is not at all the cause of any estranged distance betwixt him and Mankind in this day of Grace but the carnal and unbroken Pride and fulness of a self-righteous careless ignorant unbelieving heart He setteth the Solitary in Families and stoopeth down to deliver them who are sensible of their Chains but the Rebellious dwelleth in a dry Land Psal 68. 6. Oh let this Truth visit me and save me Here is a Rest indeed O my confused heart he that heard the moan of Ephraim hears thy moan hears thy confused cries picks up all thy sighs and
not talk with thee and look upon thy face and yet work too The presence of my Christ makes any toil to be perfect freedom Methinks I can easier find in some measure my work throughout the whole Scriptures though that requires also the teachings of the Spirit necessarily than I can know how to compose my heart to keep the Faith of Union and Communion with God fresh and so to work and labour in the strength of that Fellowship whatever I do in the World When I am earnest in Contemplation I fear I fail in the matter of Action when I am acting I fear losing the Marrow of my Communion with my God Here lies Divine Skill to put both these together as being of the same nature and tending to the same end each of them helping and not hindring one another And to this end I desire help from on high to find out my way and method that I may so run that I may at length finish my course with joy The Spring of all Christian Conversation How to hold Communion with God in worldly business is Justifying Faith which cleanseth the Soul and quickens it at the same time by Union with Jesus Christ and as in the order of Nature Life is first infused before any Action of Life can appear so Faith being the accepting and digesting vertue which receives in a way of spiritual digesture Jesus Christ as the Bread of Life doth cleanse and save the Soul which new Life puts forth Actions of its own nature which Actions do add a Perfection of Growth and Manifestation but not of Essence to that new Life of Justification Regeneration and Reconcilement All good works of a holy Conversation are the improving of that Life but neither the cause nor matter of it the cause of it is the meer Grace and Favour of God Ephes 1. 4 5 6. the matter of this Life is the Spirit of Jesus Christ quickning the Soul through Union with it and from thence grows Action as the delightful Exercise of the Life of the new Man So that my more or less improvement must not question the Essence of this Life the least Action notes Life as well as the greatest though the vigour thereof be in a different measure and if I doubt of Life I cannot produce it by Action Leaves will not put life into the Tree but I am in that case by Soul-resigning and Self-renouncing Recumbency of heart to lie down upon Christ to receive Life from him All Life lies in the Root and comes thence by naked believing whereby God through Christ vents his own Life by meer Grace in my Soul that all Actions of Holiness may be no other than the Life of God working in me Now that the Soul may both enjoy its Communion with God and also act with vigour the works of Righteousness in an active Conversation there must be Order and Uniformity in every Action suitable to the Spirit of Communion with God without Order there can be no Peace but Confusion 1 Cor. 14. 23. and without Uniformity also arising from the Root of Union that is between the Action and the Spirit of the Actor there can be no Peace for Unity breeds Peace Ephes 4. 3. by making things different or distinguishable to agree in one by some common and uniting likeness or other And because this Uniformity seems naturally to offer it self to Consideration in the first place I would let a few thoughts pass upon it In all Christan and morally good Actions forbearing to speak of ungodly Actions which are plainly opposite to the Spirit of Holiness no Action though it be in it self materially good ought to be left to its own swinge but always ought to move in the hand of the Spirit as it gives direction by and suitable to the Word The natural motion of a Wheel is to run downwards yet we read Ezek. 1. 19 20 21. that the Spirit of the living Creature being in the Wheels it guided the Wheels from their natural motion to the pleasure and Will of the Spirit that was in the Wheels up or down hither or thither as the Spirit moved them the Spirit and the Wheels were made one in motion by reason of their Union And even so in all good Actions spiritually performed there is a Union betwixt the Principle of Holiness in the new Man and the outward Action that is done which forms the Action into a homogeneous suitableness to that inward Principle and prevents discord betwixt the Action and the Principle Thus it was with Job when he said My heart shall not reproach me Job 27. 6. And hence comes a peaceable Execution of any Actions when the Principle of Holiness does spirit the Action and the Action outwardly manifest a justifying Concurrence with the Principle in and by which it acts the Action and the Principle having the same united Tendency to the Will of God And as Union and Symphony betwixt a gracious efficient Principle and a gracious Action renders it a comfortable Service whatever the work be which is done so the Order betwixt these two do add a further supply to carry on a heavenly Conversation here on Earth The goodness of every Action as to Comfort in the Execution thereof ariseth from Communion with God for whom and to whom that Action and Service is performed Although both be the Exercise of the New Man yet each of them act in their own order the heart is first under true warmth within and then the suitable discoveries do follow Psal 39. 3. While I was musing saith David the fire burned and then spake I with my tongue A good Action loseth its inward beauty when it keeps not its inside order it is numbred amongst dead works and moves but in a ghastly manner when the Spirit within moves not first much like to the irrational Actions of a Man who walks up and down and talks by some strength of fancy when he is in a dead sleep all the while But when the Root of Communion with God bears the Soul forth unto fruitfulness in any Service that Service is comely because it springs naturally from a Spirit of Faith in the New Man and carries along the nature of the New Man in whatsoever is done These two being observed would so carry on the course of Christianity that in the various affairs of this life inward Peace would not be broken there would be readiness at all times to pray praise and rejoyce Thus Abraham and Enoch walked with God and this is the glorious Promise They shall walk up and down in the name of the Lord Zach. 10. 12. All good Actions being thus rooted and ordered have the Glory of God in their eye and run forth in way of duty and carry with them the encouragement of Acceptation with God And although the Actions of such a man may visibly be successless yet his heart is never wrung with disappointment because his secret Communion with and Subjection to
Society and sometimes Retirement puts me behind-hand All my Composedness is soon discomposed Let thy eye be upon me O my God according to thy word and water me every moment Isa 27. 3. lest any thing assault and hurt my Soul which thou hast redeemed and quicken my faith and hope in thy Word for this Many a wretched stop do I meet with pardon me O my Lord and my God and renew a Spirit of truth tenderness sincerity and rightly seasoned heart for the work I am now upon My scope and meaning in giving my hand and closing with this Covenant of my God is further this viz. that through his help I will ascribe truth to all the words of his Promises by believing them and receiving them as that which shall be accomplished that I will labour to keep the Majesty of the Promiser in my eye and to preserve the faith and hope of his fulfilling his Word upon the account of his unsearchable Wisdom and Faithfulness and not by my uncertain taste that no Guilt of Sin shall keep me from the Fountain wherein Sinners are to be cleansed that I will through the Guidance of his Spirit aspire after a more practical and accustomed Exercise in living the life that I live by the faith of the Son of God and resting from my own works reach after that self-denying Activity which issues from my Union with Christ as my Head O my Lord mould my heart into this life this is the very Pearl that I would willingly sell all to get What a lovely Comportment would it settle between the Actions of my outward and inward Man How would it teach my Soul to rule my Body How willingly would my Soul and Body then be contradicted and take pleasure to be thwarted by the Spirit of Christ when the Crown is settled on the Head of the new Creature and the Scepter of Government in its hand acting as in the Throne of Christ in the vertue of his pure Life and glorious Arm and every imagination of the heart bowing down before it Oh when shall my inward Man be thus cloathed with Glory and Power looking forth through all my Sences as the Morning fair as the Moon and terrible as an Army with Banners This Gate of Heaven I would aspire towards through that means of Victory which overcometh the World the Devil and an earthly Mind even through the faith of the Son of God This is that which I have in my eye although it be as a Land that is afar off I faint with desire stay me and strengthen me with the Flagons of Hope O thou who hast suffered me to touch the Skirt of thy Garment and brought me within the Covenant of his Grace When I consider the Soveraignty of God that he doth whatsoever he will in Heaven and Earth that sometimes he has deserted his people as to the powerful Communications of Grace as it was with David Peter and others in the time of their sinful Back-sliding when I consider these things I begin to stagger about the constant Immutability of God's Purpose and uninterrupted Good Will which he declares in the Covenant Heb. 13. 8. Jer. 32. 40. who saith I will not turn away from them to do them good and I will put my fear into their hearts that they shall not depart from me And therefore to obviate this heart-fainting mistake I resolve to nourish the faith of his constant Love and Good Will in his Covenant upon the ground of his unchangeable Nature that he is not as a man that he should lie nor as the son of man that he should repent that nothing can come to pass but what is the effect of his Purpose that his Covenant is everlasting and his Purpose of Love therein the same for ever Jer. 31. 35. and 32. 40 41. that his Purpose to them whom he calls up to take hold of his Covenant is wholly a Purpose of Love and Grace 2 Tim. 1. 9. that he complains when a doubting heart makes question of it Isa 40. 27. that it is confirmed by the death of the Testator that the cause of Alienation is removed viz. the Guilt of my Sin by the one compleat and compleating Offering of the Body of Christ that Christ ever lives to intercede and is always heard because the Will of the Father and Son is the same Will breathing it self forth to the Objects of Grace by the everlasting Spirit And therefore when I seem to be forsaken I resolve to believe that that desertion is only Physick And to enquire what it is that God teacheth me thereby that so I may see ground as satisfyingly to thank him for the gracious frowns of his unchangeable Love as for his gracious Smiles and to take the advantage of that season to crave his Aid more importunately to loath my sinful self and to revive afresh more purely self-denying Exercises of believing and resigning to him fearing his righteous Judgments patiently waiting when the Spirit that I have grieved will return again with the Manifestation of his gracious Presence to my Soul In all these Considerations Resolutions and Desires in my Covenanting with God my meaning further is that I accept of Jesus Christ as he is the Gift of God to be the whole Covenant to me to work Faith and give the things believed to work desires and give the things desired to act for me and in me that the Covenant may never fail from me because of my sins and miscarriages in regard he has satisfied Justice in my stead and brought me into his everlasting Righteousness nor I fail from the Covenant through Unbelief and a languishing view of my own Infirmity because he is my Strength to labour Author and Finisher of my Faith who gave himself to sanctifie me by the Spirit of Regeneration in the Application of his Word to me for quickning that so Christ may be all in all to fulfil the Engagement of God to me and my Engagement in his Name to God And seeing that Breaches are like to fall out often on my part that he would still stand in the Gap that those Breaches may not obstruct the Good Will and Mercy of God from me nor harden my heart from him that so the Grace of the Covenant on God's part in Christ towards me and on Christ's part for me towards God may remain in the eye of my Faith inviolable when the Peace of the Covenant through my sinful diversions and darkness is interrupted and bruised And that he would still recover me again into a renewed personal Covenanting with God that in his Person I may behold eternal and sure Mercies as the Sun in the Firmament as the days of Eternity Psal 89. 29. And that by his Mediation and Suretyship applied to me by the effectual working of his Spirit I may in my own person be drawn under his shadow to recover my Hold-fast and have my face set towards the Covenant And that he would still lead me
again and again with weeping and supplications to God in him as my resting place and that he would cause this glorious word to ring as an Alarm in my ears Return unto me for I am married unto thee Jer. 3. 14. I will be and I am thy King Where is any other that can comfort thee or save thee in all thy wandrings Hos 13. 10. And that he would cause my bowels to be moved at the voice and to give answer It is the voice of my Beloved behold I come unto thee for thou art the Lord my God Jer. 3. 22. And that I may now sum up the The Soul enters into more ample and express Covenant with God matter of this my Covenant which God has called me to make and which in obedience to his Call I do heartily resolve in his strength to adhere unto guard my heart guard my pen guard my voice and words O thou who leadest the Blind to thy self by a way which Nature knows not but thou knowest thy own way and knowest how to lead the thoughts of my heart and words of my pen and my mouth that my lips may utter nothing rashly before thee Thou hast made a Covenant of Grace and often repeated the terms of the Covenant and hast said I shall say The Lord is my God Hos 2. 23. and has recorded the mutual avouching between thee and thy people Deut. 26. 17 18. in express words Yea Strangers are invited to serve thee to love thy Name to be thy Servants and to lay hold on thy Covenant Isa 56. 6. to joyn themselves to thee and to observe thy Sabbaths and Ordinances of Worship And when thy people did enter into a Covenant to seek the Lord God of their Fathers with all their heart and with all their soul and sware to thee with a loud voice and rejoyced at the Oath and sought thee with full desire thou wast found of them 2 Chron. 15. 12 15. And this way have thy Servants appropriated thee to themselves Psal 105. 7 8. and appropriated themselves to thee Psal 116. 16 18. Isa 63. 16 19. And thou hast said These things are written for my learning Rom. 15. 4. and that I am to imitate and follow them who through faith and patience did inherit the promises giving my self to thee 2 Cor. 8. 5. with full purpose of heart Act. 11. 23. Having this Warrant and Encouragement I do here bring my Body and Soul and all that I have and am to thee as a First-Fruit Offering and claiming Right to thy self through thy free Grace being invited thereto Jer. 3. 4 19. Hos 2. 23. I do declare in thy presence O The Soul makes Confession of its Faith most righteous holy and gracious God that as thou hast declared in thy Word I do acknowledge I am one of the Posterity of the first Adam and was in his Loins both when thou madest him pure bearing the Image of Righteousness and Holiness and when he transgressed thy righteous Command by eating the Fruit which thou hadst forbidden him to eat and that I stand before thee guilty of the sin which he then committed in all the extent circumstances and aggravations thereof and that I am thereby become rightful Heir to all that sinful pollution which by him entred in upon all Mankind and rightful Heir also to all that Curse and Punishment which thou denouncedst upon him when thou saidst In the day wherein thou eatest thereof thou shalt die and that I am by this my nature and descent liable to thy righteous Sentence of Death and Wrath eternally that I did in that day lose thy favour and incurred the accursed effects of that loss to my Body and Soul relating both to my temporal and eternal state I do acknowledge that of thy free Grace and that alone thou didst speedily make promise of a Redeemer which should arise of the Seed of the Woman and be manifested in the Flesh which accordingly thou didst perform by sending thy only Son into the World having a Body framed by the power of the Holy Spirit in the Womb of a Virgin and was born free from all that Hereditary Corruption which the first Parents of Mankind did derive to their Posterity by natural Propagation who by his voluntary Obedience fulfilled thy whole Law and by his death did bear the whole Curse and Punishment due to me and all elected Mankind in the Body of his Flesh And that being thy eternal Son the express Image of thy Person and God blessed for ever he did fully pay the Debt and remove the Curse and deserved Punishment from so many which thou hadst in thy eternal Purpose given him to be a Ransom for and superabundantly recovered thy Image and favour to them again And that being truly dead he raised himself by his own Divine Power and is ascended into the highest Heavens where he sitteth on the Right Hand of the Majesty on high appearing always in thy presence as Mediator consisting of the two Natures of God and Man in one Person continually interceding before thee on the behalf of them whom he redeemed and making the ends and vertue of his Mediatorship effectual for their good and on their behalf That he hath brought this state of Life and Salvation to light by the Gospel contained in the Books of the Old and New Testament and effectually dispensed the same under dark Types and Prophesies till his Incarnation since which time he hath mightily declared himself by his Word and Works the Father also from Heaven and the Holy Spirit testifying of him that he is the Saviour of the World and that believing in him they who believe shall have life through his Name That he has declared himself by chosen Witnesses who conversed with him and saw his Miracles that he is the eternal God and also true Humane Nature in one glorious Person and has appointed them to testifie that he is the Judge of Quick and Dead and that whosoever beliveth in him shall receive Remission of Sins and be justified from all Conscience of Guilt and interested in a more abundant Righteousness Life and Happiness than was lost before that he sendeth forth his Spirit to breath a new Life by Faith through the dispensation of this Gospel whereby he gathers all the Elect into a Mystical true spiritual Union with himself who is the Door of their Communion with God and his Communion with them and having in himself the terms and parts of the Covenant relating to each Party he has so united them together in a Covenant-Bond that the most righteous God reacheth to them his hand and proclaims himself theirs and they reach forth their hands by Faith and Resignation and declare they are wholly his By which Covenant-Union they are partakers of God and all communicable good things in him and are spirited to give up themselves and all that they have and are to his dispose in newness of life and have freedom to come to
one of his People in Jesus Christ and my heart assenting to and being somewhat refreshed in those Truths of God about the nature and advantagious effects of this misterious Union and considering how greatly the Faith and Improvement of this astonishing Privilege would conduce to carry on the ends of my Covenant with God and his for so he persuaded my heart to believe with me I thought it necessary to employ a present providential Retirement this 29th of January 1663. and so from time to time as God shall permit and assist me to improve this Gospel-truth of a Believer's Union with God in Christ for my Soul 's further Nourishment Strength and Establishment as the principal In-let both of new Life and all spiritual Chear Vigour and Activity My Enquiry now then is how to set up this Myrror so before the eyes of my Mind that I may by Application thereof be throughly transformed into the same Image and to clear the Pipes that the Life and Spirit of this Union with Christ and the Father in him may enter into my Soul and make me effectually a partaker thereof live thereby and act therein Breath O Almighty Spirit upon my thoughts fetch in my heart and prostrate it at the feet of thy infinite Grace and Power for Purging Help and Healing for Light Life and Blessing in this most necessary Travel of my Soul How long shall I view Mysteries of Life without a suitable living Transformation When shall the Light of Life appear When shall Christ be so formed in me that the Man-child of Power and Glory may be brought forth ruling and new-forming my poor Soul Say Oh say to my Soul I am come yea I am come not only to make thee to understand but understandingly to receive the Mystery of this Union and to be efficaciously united and actually live in the Motions and Exercise of this union-Union-life So be it O my God who art the Spirit of all Grace So be it 1. The Son of God emptied himself This Vnion is pure in its nature in descending to assume and be united to the Nature of Man and therein to the likeness of sinful Flesh and so works up every adopted Child through emptying it from all the Wisdom and Strength of the first Adam and from all the Guilt and Pollution derived thence to the Participation of Union with him in the Spirit No unclean thing can enter in thither there can be no Union but under Consideration of perfect Purity essected by the Law of the Spirit of Life which is in Christ He took on him our Nature and was personally united thereto By which means the sin of our Nature was imputed to his Person but could never be united to his Person for he was still sinless while he bare the likeness of sinful Flesh Heb. 4. 15. And therefore the real spiritual Union which Believers have with him is in the nature of it pure and sinless and their persons as they stand in that Union without spot Col. 1 22. for in that respect they are wholly brought over from the Stock of the first Adam into the Second adn return back no more although the polluted Nature of the first Adam sticks in their flesh till its dissolution and compleat change And from thence it follows that the Spirit of Christ in applying this mystical Union with him to the Soul by faith draws the Soul of a Believer having sprinkled it from the Conscience of Guilt into a most quick and lively distaste of all Pollution and so divides between that which is born of the Flesh and that which is born of the Spirit throwing aside the Pollutions of the Flesh that the Union may be purely made in the Spirit through faith Gal. 2. 20. for He that is joyned to the Lord is one spirit Hence it is that while Guilt and sinful Pollution invades the Soul even of a Believer the Application of this Union lies suspended and during that season a Believer abides dark and weak and though he be in a state of Union yet he cannot have the comfort of it but is as a strong Man that cannot find his hands And now O my Soul consider thy own state consider the Centre of thy happiness the Call of the Gospel the privilege and necessity of being transplanted into the pure Stock of the second Adam and what thou art to do in the strength of Free Grace for entring into and of being made partaker of this wonderful Privilege and most secure Rest 2. This whole Work is wrought It is inconsistent with Vnmortifiedness by the Lord both in what his eternal Purpose of Grace did decree and was carried on in the Person of Christ for thee and also in that which he worketh in thee by his Spirit to make thee actually interested established and daily growing up in the Light Life and Vertue of this Union-state with God in Christ Thy Nature is dead in sins thou art wholly polluted and without strength but the least serious Conviction of this doth import some step of Free Grace towards thee nourish it and so rowl all thy Guilt upon the Lamb of God be laborious diligent and frequent in this weighty Exercise There is no seeking this Union with any Idol in the heart Ezek. 14. 3. for that provoketh to Jealousie even an impure thought may not lodge in this Bed a dry earthly sapless frame of heart cannot be refreshed there because this Bed is green Cant. 1. 16. but such is the Bounty of Free Grace that through the Sense and Conviction of this Indisposition of heart it leads the Soul to Jesus Christ and sprinkles it with his Blood Oh this efficacious Remedy and doth wash it again in pure Water removes away the filthy Garments gives it Access into the King's Presence The pure in heart shall see God But thy innumerable Impurities O my Soul and the continual Recursion of Guilt and Darkness Hypocrisies loathsome Uncleannesses Unmindfulness of God Back-sliding and impenitent stupifying Fits are so many and so often and many times so captivating this Sincerity and Strength and spiritual Taste that no Balm can be found nor any thing to help but the free Bounty and Atonement of him who is Michael thy Prince And even this is my Case at present Oh how little doth my heart relish and digest these things while I am musing and writing them I am estranged from inward Converse with God this day and yet cannot soakingly relent I mention the Blood of Sprinkling without prizing it at its due value Oh let the watchful Eye and tender Heart of him whose Compassions fail not consider and visit me But however O my Soul this is thy Work Let not Evil lodge within thee be separate touch no unclean thing declare thy Chastity by crying out and then the Promise lies fair and free before thee I will receive you 2 Cor. 6. 17. yea cry out and thou shalt be rescued for thy Redeemer is strong Here
feeble but Millions of Sins Cares Fears and Disquiets fly before one hearty Closure with Christ his Power and Grace by Faith If Christ in the Soul saith I AM HE whole Troops of Adversaries fall backwards Difficulties vanish and desponding Consultations of Unbelief in our Flesh fly as Dust before the Wind and that because our Redeemer is strong though we are weak Methinks sometimes 't is pity that we should hear so much read so much spoke or writ to each other so ordinarily of this certain real Refuge and yet account it not more real What a thing is this that Christ hath engaged that not one of his shall be able to lose what he purchased and bequeathed for them Such a good Will and free Grace that our Sins shall never be able to sin away no more than they can be able to sin away Christ from the Right Hand of his Father for were it otherwise we were undone every moment Who is it that maintains any Thirst after him that enables poor Dust and Ashes to conflict against all the powers of Darkness and of weak sometimes becomes strong Who is it that maintains any indignation against the Law of our Flesh that is in our Members but he who hath overcome in his own Person and will shortly tread down Satan under our feet also and is hastning the day when the last Enemy shall be destroyed and every Sigh and Tear removed Let us comfort our hearts in this and pray for each other that we may as good Soldiers of Jesus Christ fight this good Fight of Faith laying hold on Eternal Life and so surmount the Miseries of a present evil World c. Pray present my hearty Respects to your Daughter whose Soul I know is labouring in this Work c. 1661. To B. D. N o 57. THe Lord direct our Course the Waves will allay the Calm is coming our Pilot is skilful our God unchangeably gracious he is infinitely pure and will never leave till our filth be done away that we may be like him and bear Likeness to him to all Eternity Plunge through as well as you can never say your hope is lost and your Judgment is passed over by your God Our Bottom is good our Redeemer is strong and there I leave you c. 1661. To S. D. N o 58. THe Lord is yours if you are willing to be his and I doubt not but that is your desire and aim Stand up in the midst of all your Dumps and Trials and venture one Halelujah to him that rides upon the Heavens for your help yea in the thickest of your doubts about Soul or Body do but cast a wishly eye to him who hath swallowed up all manner of Deaths in Victory and you shall overcome and rise above the Waves because he is risen It may be you may little think how it chears the heart of Christ to see you sit down and sing a Psalm of Praise for all his Loving-kindnesses in the midst of Worldly Darkness Measure not spiritual and eternal things by those that are for a moment Do not wrong the Wisdom of God your Father by repining against the Instruments and the Events of his Providence Let your design be how to fortifie each others Faith and Joy and never ask Counsel of Flesh and Blood in the business Read over the 46th Psalm and make it yours by Meditation and Prayer Dear Sister fare you well in the Lord hasten Heavenwards and count all things else but trifles that you may finish your Course with joy Let the same Mind be in you as was in Christ who emptied himself to do the Will of his Father for saving such poor Sinners as you and I when he might have enjoyed all the Glory of the World he refused it and wandred up and down despised of Men. Love the Foot-steps of the Captain of your Salvation and whenever your heart boils up any sinful disquiets carry your heart and your disquiets to the Lord and beg of him to judge them and give you the new heart he promised in Ezek. 36. 26. The good Will the heart-refreshing Peace and Comfort of a dear Father a dear Redeemer and the dear and blessed Spirit be with you Blessed he blessed she that overcomes and blessed be the Son of God that hath undertaken we shall overcome in his Victory Once more farewel fear not only believe 1661. To B. D. N o 59. I Perceive your Family is still visited The God of the Spirits of all Flesh knows what Scourges are most suitable for them whom he designs for Glory Honour and Eternal Life among whom I trust you and your Yoak-fellow are enrolled There is hope that good lies in the bottom when the heart is drawn the more to seek resign up to and wait patiently for the Salvation of God to a delightful thought of the Appearance of Christ and your gathering to him the whole World cannot purchase one quarter of an hours free Access to God If he draws and drives the heart to himself let us bless and love him whatever means he useth to bring it about I desire to bless the Lord that you are striving to trace the steps of that Faith that believed under hope above hope such Faith such Hope will never return ashamed I am strugling with the same difficulties and none can help me but the faithful Promiser who is able to quicken his Word to me and soaken my heart to mix it with Faith As you write he has not been a barren Wilderness to you which is unspeakable Grace so I have often found and therefore I have hope that at length he will perfect the design of favour and pity upon such a poor Worm Lord help you and me to find Fountains in the Valley of Baca till the last Sourge be over and every Tear removed We have no other way now to communicate with each other but in Prayers and Faith Affections and Letters Letters indeed may miscarry but no earthly Obstruction can hinder the three former Faith and Prayer flies invisibly and Christian Affections also As for my self the Lord is every day forcing my Soul to look out more after the mysterious privilege of his most absolute free Grace in Christ There the wearied find Rest the polluted finds purity and the dejected find there an Anchor of Hope Sometimes I am confounded in mine own thoughts and my Prayers rather shame me than comfort me then I stand still and look for the Salvation of God only He sends his naked Arm out of the thick Cloud and creates some Beam of Light and Refuge which makes a Pilgrim sing in a Land of darkness He seems to be gone sometimes but returns again He withdraws but never bids farewell utterly He suffers me sometimes to tumble in mine own filth but brings me to the Laver again to the Fountain opened to the House of David c. for Sin and Uncleanness His unchangeable Purpose and Grace holds its Course as the
Peace and Comfort in the Fountain of Freedom and Goodness We find our comforts and expectations here little better than a Bed of Thorns because this is not the Rest that is designed for the People of God and 't will be some help to us under this disquieting exercise and condition to remember that while we are passing through we are held in the hand of him who has a fellow-feeling of our Case who did once pass through the difficulties and drank of the Brook in the way but now lifts up his head and so is become the Foundadation of our Hope that such poor Wretches as we are shall one day through saith and patience arrive where our Fore-runner is entred Only let us now cling upon him till we become transformed into his Likeness and be compleatly dressed with the white Robe of his Righteousness that in him and only in him we may be found without spot In the mean space let us pray and abound therein for our selves and one another to our gracious God who will at length perfect that which concerneth us To him I commend you c. 1668. To T. M. P. N o 91. I Put you both together in my Letter because I have understood that you are now no longer two but one I was very glad to hear that all your prudential Demurs had at last resolved themselves into a Consummation of this long intended Union My hearty desire for you both is that the Blessing and Guidance of the Lord may render your mutual Society a real and constant Comfort to each other and mutual advantage in reference to all Soul-Concernments There is no Condition in this World so desirable but is attended with Temptations and Trials and therefore 't is needful as you have given your selves to each other so also that you give up your selves particularly and joyntly as Yoke-fellows together unto the sweet Yoak and belessed Will of our Lord Jesus Christ One of the greatest Resemblances that we find in Scripture whereby the Love of Christ is set forth to Believers is this state of Marriage And whatever Content therefore you find in this changed Condition let it steer your thoughts to that glorious Mystery of Christ's espousing our Nature that we might become partakers of the Image of God in him and long for that appearing of his when the full solemnizing of the mystical Marriage betwixt Christ and his Church will come and the Union in all degrees be perfected I commend you to the good hand of the Lord c. 1668. To C. M. P. N o 92. THe Present is to acquaint you that my Cousin J. B. died Tuesday last and was this Evening buried God was pleased to order it so that I had notice of his sickness till after his death which was and is a great trouble to me but I understand Means were not wanting for his Recovery His Master much bewails the loss of so faithful a Servant He had as I understand some darkness upon his Spirit till a little before his death and then uttered as well as he could these words Eye hath not seen nor ear heard c. the things which God hath prepared for them that love him and so died almost immediately and has left a sweet savour behind him and a Warning for us his Friends that we make ready and be not found unprepared when the like Summons come unto us We see by daily experience that Life-time and Health is not in our own keeping and therefore are concerned to improve it well while it continues c. The gracious Presence of the Lord be with you c. 1668. To E. D. N o 93. SInce my former God has been pleased to draw a Cloud upon my poor Family Tuesday last little Tho. fell sick and on Wednesday Morning died and is this day to be buried a great and suddain stroak which doth almost overwhelm my dear Wife who goes up and down lamenting and often crying out that she has sinned away her sweet Babe into the Grave You may see in short how 't is with us at present I need not add more for I know what tender Love your self did bear to this sweet and heart-taking Infant Only I desire both you and my dear Sister and our Friends there to pray for us that this stroak may be blest to us all and that my desolate dear Wife may be guided through her present Confusion of Spirit to the only and right Refuge I delivered her your Letter which was very acceptable and therefore pray write her something again and I desire my Sister would do the same 'T is good to help in time of need Her heart is much broken and my Affliction not a little and I believe it is for some further good that God intends to us both a few Lines from you whom I know she doth dearly value will be very seasonable No Affliction is at present joyous but grievous but afterwards comes the sweet and wholsome Fruit and this is the Portion of them who take hold of the full and sure Covenant and the crucified risen Christ who dies no more There is nothing will so wean Affections hence and from the mischief of Creature-love as the Study of Christ viewing him in the Gospel pondering his excellent Person and his glorious Mediatory Office for us and so pitch the Affections on him to be inflamed with his Love in our own Propriety in him And therefore not only with the Bowels of an Earthly Father but in the Bowels of Jesus Christ I intreat and in his Name do charge you to study and muse day and night the unmeasurable endless Love of God who sent his Son the infinite unwearied and endless Love of Christ who came died rose again and lives for ever to be your only Portion and to make you even you a delightful Portion to him and to render you through the Blood of Sprinkling and the Communion and Influence of that one Spirit of the Father and Son an Object of his Delight and a Monument of his pardoning Grace and his purifying Vertue to all Eternity To him I commend you 1668. To E. D. N o 94. BOth my self and my Wife are very sensible of this sore Storm with which the Lord is pleased to exercise your faith and patience at this time But Christ is in the Vessel and therefore you cannot perish in the Fire and in the Water in every cold and hot fit he is with you and has a tender sense of every jot of your pain and sickness t is a Father's Chastisement and Trial and all his aim is to purifie and fit you for an Object of his eternal delight I know his everlasting Arms are under you and though the Dispensation be dark yet he is doing you good with all his heart according to his Covenant and with all his Soul He enclined your heart of his own Grace to chuse him because he chose you first and will yet chuse you in the Furnace
and such a privilege is very great Let me intreat you give not way to any despondent Melancholy but rejoyce always in the Lord Who is good and his Mercy endureth for ever With my utmost and inmost Affections to your self I leave you in the hands of our faithful God who lives and loves for ever c. 1670. To M. D. N o 106. I Have acquainted you of the plain state of things 't is the Exercise of our gracious Father to try our faith and patience on him let us depend and let me intreat you bear up and not be dismayed or suffer your thoughts to be dejected for God has promised that in every Temptation he will find a way for our escape and Faith is then most excellent where difficulties do most appear he can easily make rough places a Plain 'T will be a great comfort to me to hear that you are careful in nothing I mean with a discontented care but that in all things you make your Requests known by Prayer with Thanksgiving to God for that 's our work and to leave our cares upon him in the use of what means he shall direct The gracious Face of God in Christ shine upon you c. 1670. To M. D. N o 107. Every day here is tedious to me only am now and then refreshed among savoury Acquaintance I have had some difficulties in my own Spirit under the present Dispensation but God has given some hints to me that it shall be for advantage Some Clouds have come but ever and anon it shines again which shews that though Darkness be intermixed yet the Sun is not set nor Day utterly gone nor will ever cease till the present Warfare issues into Freedom and Victory and all through the rich Grace and Faithfulness of God who delighteth in Mercy who will abundantly pardon and save to the uttermost I have you often in my eye and the rest of my dear Friends to whom related in the Fellowship of the Gospel for all whom I offer up daily Requests to our God and Father Let us pray believe hope and rejoyce in our God our Rock He giveth power to the Faint will revive the Weary and never turn from them who wait on him to do them good Oh that whenever we meet again it may be with some advanced degrees of Holiness and spiritual Light and Life more faithful more capacious to take in the Mystery of Christ more discerning our Union with him more inward in our Communion more often in our Converse with him that we may spring upwards with more frequent desires and improve the Grace of Adoption in a greater height of Filial Obedience and with more freedom resolvedness and delight make Christ our All in all Surely God aims at this in our Trials and the Trials of his Church and I trust the Zeal of the Lord of Hosts will effect and perform it I know my Affairs at home do suffer by my absence but God knows how to ballance that loss and therefore while I am serving his present Providence I desire to leave that care upon him c. I commend you to the gracious Bosom of our blessed God and Father even to him who is your best Friend and Keeper and with my choicest Affections I remain c. 1670. To P. D. N o 108. THe best advice which in the first place I would give you and which I would take my self in all straits is seriously to consider the deserving cause of trouble and how far there hath been the least accessariness thereunto and so to spread it penitently before the Lord imploring the help of his Spirit through Jesus Christ to give a thorow Turn to him applying your self heartily and unfeignedly to the Throne of Grace for the removing away all Guilt and that Conscience being cleansed through the Blood of Christ Peace may be made between God and your Soul And if the Lord shall please thus to incline your heart to him 't will be some fore-running Token that he will find a way for he can best do it to take off the edge of Mens severity and turn it though against the Grain of their own Interest into pity and kindness c. 1670. To B. J. D. N o 109. THis Afternoon Mr. M. H. was buried at A. B. Church his Crops attended by many Ministers and others to the Grave and has left a good savour behind him Let us be also ready Nescimus horam Time how short soever is yet before us and Oh that you and I may now know and pursue the things that belong to our Peace before our Sun be set and our feet stumble on the dark Mountains I have no more at present to add but to repeat your own words Sequere Deum with that of the Apostle Superna Curate Perplexity and Uncertainty is some of the best Entertainment which this World can give 'T is good fixing on a Rock that never fails I mean Jesus Christ which the Lord enable you and I to do c. 1671. To B. D. N o 110. BE assured you are much upon my heart 'T is a refreshment to me that you labour to anchor in good Ground reposing your heart on him who is the wonderful Counsellor and also mighty to save Joseph's God is yet alive and those ancient Providences do yet speak he was his God when stript of his party coloured Coat in the Pit in Travel in Prison under false Accusation and in a strange idolatrous Land as well as when he was in his Father's House and this is for our Learning It is a very dark and Cloudy time with us but the Name of God is a strong Tower Safety and Sufficiency is there It is well you still hold on in Faith and Hope and are graciously watered from the Fountain when Streams dry up the Vision will certainly speak in due season The best and securest Refuge is above and there I desire with you to centre My Daughter presents you her due Respects and as a token thereof a Manuscript of her own taking being the Contents of a Sermon lately preached among us containing Matter worthy your Meditation in order to a holy Rest in God and desiring it may be some help to you amidst all your laborious and toilsome Exercise which we are sensible you lie under and commending you to the gracious Protection of the Ruler of the whole Earth the God of Sea and Land beseeching him to be your Guide continually and your safe Convoy I remain c. 1671. To J. D. J. N o 111. WE are heartily desirous of your truest Welfare and whilst you are scanted as to that means of Grace which your Friends enjoy here peruse the Scriptures and such good Books as you have with the more seriousness and enure your self much to Prayer that the awful remembrance of God's Presence and the consideration of his Grace tendered in Jesus Christ to Sinners may be much upon your heart and this will carry you safely and
Grace and Favour and the Consolation of his Spirit I commit you and rest c. 1674. To E. D. N o 120. LEt your Consideration feed on the quickning Truths of the Gospel flying to and relying on Christ who is the Arm of the Lord rejoycing in him who requires you to cast every depressing burthen from your self upon him that is true Gospel-Method and you shall not be disappointed Faithful is God who hath called you into the Fellowship of his dear Son and thereby you have ground of Boldness to enter in within the Vail and he has promised you shall never be cast out for your Iniquities he will remember them no more and though the Cross be somewhat difficult to bear yet the Reserve at last will fully recompence all and therefore lift up your head for Redemption is coming We are troubled at the Troubles the Churches meet with in and elsewhere 'T is a sad day when the Word of Salvation comes to be suppressed by Souls that must perish without it Our business is chearfully and humbly to prepare for greater Shocks Nearness to God in Christ is the safest and sweetest Sanctuary 1675. To E. D. N o 121. I Have not received any Letter from you for divers Weeks which is not a little afflictive You are upon our hearts and we cease not the particular mention of you in our Prayers Sometimes I fear your Body lies under such extremity that you cannot write and sometimes I am willing to relieve my thoughts by supposing if it were so I might at least have a Letter from S. H. But though I know not your present Case yet I know my God and your God has you under his own Love and Care His great design for his own Glory and your and my Good is to instruct us and lead us into the Life of Resignation and Dependance singly and fully upon himself saving Light Faith and Truth is the very Lesson he is calling upon me and drawing me to own and Oh for some good Proficiency in this Learning nothing so sweet nothing so secure and nothing so compleatly advantagious I left the Lady J. this Afternoon very near in appearance to a Dissolution and A. P. breathing and waiting for her Change Happy Souls who chuse that part that shall never be taken away but abide through Death unto Life in Perfection c. I doubt not where you are but you will have the good Presence of God that is both a Sun and a Shield and withal he will with-hold no good thing from you seeing he has given you to his Son and his Son to you who will cause you to have an upright scope towards the Law of that blessed Relation which is the Condition of that Promise To the Shadow of whose Wing I commend both you and my Sister longing to hear of her Recovery if the Lord please but she is in a Fathers hand and under her Fathers care and love in Sickness and Health living and dying nothing can come amiss to those that love him and sell themselves perfectly away to him as I am persuaded she has done and can rejoyce in that blessed Bargain A Contract made by and through Christ the faithful Witness and watchful prevalent Advocate and however outward Dispensations and Providences do work they will work together for good because his Love Mercy and Truth endureth for ever where the Eye of his Favour once fixeth he never takes it off the tokens of which Favour you have through his free Grace had some taste of that thereby you may be led and helped to hope perfectly to the end and humbly rejoyce in the Hope of the Glory of God in what method soever he is pleased to act in the way of his fatherly Discipline He is omnipotently universally and continually good in himself and in the Communications of his Goodness to his People waiting in him and trusting in him To him I commend you daily and with him I leave you c. 1675. To B. D. N o 122. IN my last I acquainted you of the weakness of my Daughter Elizabeth at which time she continued with an intermixing of Revivings now and then and much refreshment as to the state of her Soul and things eternal and in the Doctor 's Opinion in some good hope of Recovery until the 5th Instant December being the Sabbath Day and then the Doctors saw that the Lord had determined otherwise and that Evening he called her to himself The loss of whose Company is not only a piercing Affliction to my self c. but lamented by divers others who had experience of that worth which God himself had graciously beautified her Soul with He is most wise Oh that he would cause me distinctly to hear his Voice herein and to improve it to the utmost use he intends it for It is your own Affliction that you are by the Providence of God held there so long at that distance from us under so many Trials of your Faith and Patience on every hand which as the Lord is pleased to help I am with my weak measure often presenting before him that he would bear up your heart and assist you as he hath hitherto done to go through the residue of your Exercise in this Pilgrimage And commending you to his Grace Strength Counsel and Blessing I remain c. 1675. To M. D. N o 123. I Know you are with loving Friends and in the hands and care of a gracious Father Endeavour to refresh your Soul in the thoughts of him and his dear Son and in the Promise that all shall work together for good to you for he is faithful that promised and his ways have been and will be Mercy and Truth towards you Love him believe him and be careful in nothing but how to please him and say Shall not I drink of the Cup my Father gives c. Hitherto the Lord hath kept me and I want nothing more than his sanctifying and gracicious Presence with me all along Travelling work doth greatly disorder my thoughts as to that savoury Composedness which I long for My poor Soul greatly suffers by the toilsomness of Travel yet still The Lord is good and his Mercy endureth for ever 1676. To J. L. N o 124. Some years have now passed without the Intercourse of any Letter between us I should be glad our old Acquaintance might not quite die while we live and continue here How 't is with you I know not but for my own part I have and do pass my Pilgrimage here thorow a Thorny Wilderness of Cares Difficulties and Temptations all along and do expect no other till I leave my sinful Nature and a dark defiled World behind me for I have abundant daily proof that this lower State is not my Rest but I wait and hope for that Rest which remaineth I am stricken in Years being now in the 64th Year of my Age and through the Riches of free Grace and that alone sailing towards the end
give me a fit measure of suitable Grace and that he would preserve and continue it I earnestly desire you to pray that I may be preserved so as to do nothing unbecoming my dear Lord. Then he proceeded further to say Christ will lose none of his he will ransack Heaven and Earth rather than any one of his shall miscarry yea it will pain him to lose any part of his Flesh I have been like Jonah in the Whales Belly now for many days Again he said Christians are never more like themselves as Christians than when they are in Converse about spiritual things things above and there are no Relations to be compared with spiritual Relations After that he said The Lord hath postured my Body unfit for the Means applied for its Cure To one speaking to him Sir you are going to a blessed Eternity and what would you have us to do in this wicked World He replied Get into a holy God April 5. He expressed himself thus I shall have liberty I shall have liberty Good good good is the Lord These things will have an end they will have an end After that he would have Joh. 4. ch read to him which when read said The Lord help me to ponder it After which he would have Joh. 5. ch read For said he all is good News which when read he desired in like manner the 6th Chapter following to be read over after which he spake thus Here we see what a great deal of work our Lord did in a little time and take him for your Example Be nimble in your actings in getting him to be yours You see the Case of a dying Friend I have endeavoured to live Jesus Christ and to be found in him both in Life and in Death I desire that you speaking to Friends standing about him will make it your Request that I may never be ashamed of my Hope and that I may have an abundant Entrance given me into the everlasting Kingdom and the like I pray for all the new born of God April 11. He spake to a Friend near him thus There wil be huge doings shortly God will be known as he is Pray look up to God that I may have some distinct thoughts in Consideration such as may be profitable April 13. He said I have none but thy self O Lord How long how long April 14. In the Afternoon he groaned something much in his Sleep and awaking said I have had some trouble in my Spirit This dogged Enemy meaning Satan would make me very wretched and so I am Upon which one by him replied 'T is recorded in Scripture My Covenant will I not break c. And he said I know he will not but this Enemy is so dogged that when I begin to fix my thoughts on any good thing he endeavours to disturb me that I cannot maintain my Communion with God as I would To D. P. his Physician telling him that God seemed now to be taking of him away he presently replied Blessed be his holy Name he leaves me not and he will never leave me And he further said to him I thank you for all your great kindness the Lord return it you giving you in his very heart After that said I have heard and read much of Death and the Attendants of it and now I come to experience the very thing it self even what that great Change is To another dear Friend he spake thus It would be a great sight to see two mighty Angels make a bustle together having equal Assistance on the one side and on the other But what will it be to see the God of Angels setting all his glorious Retinue in Battel Array This ere long will be seen and the Gospel will not be handled only in Pulpits as now but the Glory of it will shine far and near filling the whole World with its Lustre April 15. In the Morning he uttered himself thus I lie at ease and my Soul shall dwell at ease If the Lord would have me to be the last Man that should suffer in this World I would through his divine Grace and Help willingly submit to his Will therein However if it might be I have an earnest longing to have now a Cast given me into the other World In the Afternoon of that day about two of the Clock he began as was observed to speak more distinctly and with such an even audible Voice that it was noted down verbatim as he spoke viz. Oh how good is it to get into God How good is it to have all the terms of the Covenant of Grace ratified between God and the Soul Lord let thy Righteousness be my Lodging my Delight my Joy let me have sweet and intimate Communion with thee Thou hast called me O Lord I come to thee O Lord I come to thee let all the Grace promised to thy People in this passage be given to me Temptations are many Vanities are many away with them because Christ came to remove all Vanity to remove all Sin Oh let thy Truth let the Sealing of thy Word be to my Soul as refreshing Waters of Life Oh for solid Acquaintance with thee intimate Communion with thee as between Father and Son as between thee and one that is thy Child begotten of thee now at the end of all things Oh shine forth Temptations will be working whatsoever they can Now Lord glorifie thy abounding Grace Now O Lord let the Grace of Christ shine like a burning Lamp Now let me be as one climbing up to the top of the Mount Be with me and with them I leave behind and let them be found in thee in the day of Christ And Oh let the Majesty Greatness and Solemnity of spiritual things be kept up in the World and let Christ reign and be very conspicuous and his People also and let him save his Church and redeem it Be with all thine I cannot pray as I should But wilt thou who openest the mouth and fillest the heart wilt thou who knowest thine own Mind and Will wilt thou accomplish all the designs of thy Grace to thy own Glory and fulfil the desires of all that fear thee and all in Christ My own God my own God and may I have no other God but thee My graciosu God now be with me Lord what thou dost mean reveal it to me in thy good time and let me be significant for thee some way Here I am even bound up having no strength no capacity If I be for another World reveeal thy Mind Now I am incapacitated I cannot think thoughts consistent one with another I am as one in a great part dead all the while I live But Lord let me be a living Server of thee who wilt have living Service from all thine O Lord be the Conductor the near Conductor of them I leave behind me Carry my Yoak-fellow in thine own Arms and our Off-spring with her and be with my gracious Friends thou hast made to tender me and