and trouble upon my spirits and well it may be so for the sins of this day have been very great My heart hath not answered the expressions of thanks which have been uttered by the mouths of those that spake them to God No no my heart hath not stirred and been drawn out towards my God! The thoughts of his love have not ravished my Soul Alas I scarce felt any holy spark to warm my Soul this day This day which was a day of the greatest mercy of any in all my life the day in which I have had an opportunity to give thanks for all the mercies of my life and thanks it self is a greater mercy than the rest All other mercies are to prepare for this This is the work of a glorified Saint even a Saint in heaven before the blessed face of God It 's his everlasting business to Sing the Songs of Thanksgiving and Praise to the Most High But my thoughts have not been filled with the sweet foretasts of this blessed work which I might have had this day O God I beseech thee forgive my sin and lay not my deadness to my charge but overlook all my transgressions and look on me in Jesus Christ my Saviour I am thine Lord and not mine own This day I have under my Hand and Seal in the presence of Witnesses nay in thine own presence who art Witness sufficient were there no eye to see me or ear to hear me Thou Lord that knowest all things knowest that I have devoted my All to thee Take it and accept my Sacrifice Help me to pay my vows Wilt thou not accept me because I do it not more sincerely and believingly O Lord I unfeignedly desire to do it aright O wilt thou strengthen my weak desires I believe Lord help my unbelief Thou that canst make me what I am not O make me what thou wouldst have me be In thee there is all fulness and to thee I desire to come by Christ. Wilt thou now cast me off because I do it not unreservedly Lord I confess the Devil tempteth and the flesh saith Spare something what let all go And I find in me a carnal selfish principle ready to close with the temptation But thou canst prevent and conquer all and speak death to these corruptions and bid the Tempter be gone It is thy pleasure here to suffer thy dear children to be tempted but fuffer not temptations to prevail against thy Spirit and Grace If temptation be like a torrent of water to smother quench or hide the flame yet wilt thou never let all the sparks of thy Grace be put out in the soul where once thou hast truly kindled it But Lord suffer not such floods to fall on my soul where the spark is so small already that it is even scarce discernible O quicken it and blow it up to a holy flame Most gracious God! O do it here who hast done it for many a soul O what have I said that I have a spark of grace why the least spark is worth ten thousand times more thanks than I can ever express and I have been dead and unthankful as is before confessed And is that a sign of grace Unthankful dead and dull I have been and still am but yet it must needs be from Gods gift in me that I have any desires after him and that this day I have desired to devote my self to him and that I can say I would be more holy and more heavenly even as the Lord would have me be Nay I do know the time when I had none of these desires and had no mind to God and the ways of godliness and do I not know that there be many in this condition who have no desires after Christ and holiness Here then is matter of comfort given me from him that doth accept the desires of his poor creatures even the Lord Christ who will not quench the smoaking flax nor break the bruised reed I see then that I have yet matter of rejoycing and must labour to be so humbled for my remaining sins as may tend to my future joy in believing but not so as to be discouraged and frightned from God who is longsuffering and abundant in mercy Rouze up thy self then to God my soul humbly but believingly repent that thou hast been so unthankful and insensible of the benefits this day received up up and lie not down so heavily God hath heard prayers for thee and given thee life and opportunity to serve him He hath given thee all the outward mercies thy heart can desire He hath given thee dear godly able friends such as can help thee in the way to heaven yea he hath set them to beg spiritual mercies for thee who prevailed for temporal for thee and oft for many others why then shouldst thou not watch and pray and wait in hope that he hath heard their prayers this day for thy soul as formerly for thy body They are things commanded of God to be asked and we have his promise that seeking we shall find It may be this night many of Gods dear children will yet pray for my soul I doubt not some will and shall I not be glad of such advantage I heard this day that I must not forbear thanks because the mercies are yet imperfect else we should never give thanks on earth Though therefore my Grace be yet but a spark and weak my body weak my heart sad all these administer matter of thanks and praise as well as of supplication Let me therefore keep close to both they being the life of my life while I live here and having daily need of supply from God let me daily be with him and live as in his presence Let him be the chief in all my thoughts my heart and life And let me remember to be earnest for my poor Relations and dear Friends and the Church and people of God in general And let me strive to keep such a moderate sense of sorrow on my soul as occasion requireth I have now cause of sorrow for parting with my dear friends my Father my Pastor He is by providence called away and going a long journey what the Lord will do with him I cannot foresee it may be he is preparing some great mercy for us and for his praise I know not but such a day as this may be kept here on his account The will of the Lord be done for he is wise and good we are his own let him do with us what he pleaseth all shall be for good to them that love God I have cause to be humbled that I have been so unprofitable under mercies and means it may grieve me now he is gone that there is so little that came from him left upon my soul. O let this quicken and stir me up to be more diligent in the use of all remaining helps and means And if ever I should enjoy this mercy again O let me make it appear that this night
do it resolutely and cheerfully and scorn to run away and turn your back that you may do it without censure where you are unknown Use well the means God here vouchsafes you and do your duty with a quiet mind and follow God in your removes § 8. Much more of such counsels she transcribed but I forbear reciting more She ends those Papers with these words The best creature-affections have a mixture of creature-imperfections and therefore need some gall to wean us from the faulty part God must be known to be God our rest and therefore the best creature to be but a creature O miserable world how long must I continue in it And why is this wretched heart so loth to leave it where we can have no fire without smoak and our dearest friends must be our greatest grief and when we begin in hope and love and joy before we are aware we fall into an answerable measure of distress Learn by experience when any condition is inordinately or excessively sweet to thee to say From hence must be my sorrow O how true CHAP. V. Her temper occasioning these troubles of mind § 1. THE soul while in the body works much according to the bodies disposition 1. She was of an extraordinary sharp and piercing Wit 2. She had a natural reservedness and secrecy increased by thinking it necessary prudence not to be open by which means she was oft mis-understood by her nearest friends and consequently often crost and disappointed by those that would have pleased her And as she could understand men much by their looks and hints so she expected all should know her mind without her expressing it which bred her frustrations and discontents 3. And she had a natural tenderness and troubledness of mind upon the crossing of her just desires too quick and ungovernable a sense of displeasing words or deeds 4. She had a diseased unresistible fearfulness her quick and too sensible nature was over-timerous and to increase it she said she was four times before I knew her in danger of death of which one was by the Small-Pox And more to increase it her Mothers house Apply-Castle near Wellington being a Garison it was stormed while she was in it and part of the housing about it burnt and men lay killed before her face and all of them threatened and stript of their cloathing so that they were fain to borrow cloaths 5. And the great work upon her soul in her coversion moved all her passions 6. And then her dangerous sickness and the sentence of death to so young a Convert must needs be a very awaking thing and coming on her before she had any assurance of her justification did increase her fear 7. And in this case she lived in the Church-Yard side where she saw all the Burials of the dead and kept a deaths head a skull in her Closet still before her And other such mortifying spectacles increased her sad disposition § 2. And the excessive love which she had to her Mother did much increase her grief when she expected death § 3. Though she called it melancholly that by all this she was cast into yet it rather seemed a partly natural and partly an adventitious diseased fearfulness in a tender over-passionate nature that had no power to quiet her own fears without any other cloud on her understanding § 4. And all was much encreased by her wisdom so stifling all the appearances of it that it all inwardly wrought and had no ease by vent § 5. And having keen spirits and thin sharp blood she had a strong Hemicrania or Head-ake once a month and oft once a fortnight or more from the age of fifteen or sixteen years All these together much tended to hinder her from a quiet and comfortable temper § 6. And in a word all the operations of her soul were very intense and strong strong wit and strong love and strong displeasure And when God shewed her what Holiness was she thought she must presently have it in so great a degree as the ripest Saints do here attain and that because she had not as much heavenly life and sense and delight in God as she knew she should have and desired she concluded of it that she had none that was sincere § 7. One of the first things by which her change was discovered to her Mother and Friends was her fervent secret prayers for living in a great house of which the middle part was ruined in the Wars she chose a Closet in the further end where she thought none heard her But some that over-heard her said they never heard so fervent prayers from any person § 8. Yet she desired me to draw up a form suited to her own condition which I did and find it now reserved among her Papers but I cannot tell whether she ever used it having affections and freedom of expression without it I had thought to have annexed it for the use of afflicted Penitents But it will be but a digression in this Narrative CHAP. VI. Of our Marriage and our Habitations § 1. THE unsuitableness of our age and my former known purposes against Marriage and against the conveniency of Ministers Marriage who have not sort of necessity made our marriage the matter of much publick talk and wonder And the true opening of her case and mine and the many strange occurrences which brought it to pass would take away the wonder of her friends and mine that knew us and the notice of it would much conduce to the understanding of some other passages of our lives Yet wise Friends by whom I am advised think it better to omit such personal particularities at least at this time Both in her case and mine there was much extraordinary which it doth not much concern the world to be acquainted with From the first thoughts of it many changes and stoppages intervened and long delays till I was silenced and ejected with many hundreds more and so being separated from my old Pastoral Charge which was enough to take up all my time and labour some of my disswading Reasons were then over And at last on Septemb. 10. 1662. we were married in Bennet-Fink Church by Mr. Samuel Clerk yet living having been before Contracted by Mr. Simeon Ash both in the presence of Mr. Henry Ashurst and Mrs. Ash. § 2. She consented to these Conditions of our Marriage 1. That I would have nothing that before our Marriage was hers that I who wanted no outward supplies might not seem to marry her for covetousness 2. That she would so alter her affairs that I might be intangled in no Law-suits 3. That she would expect none of my time which my Ministerial work should require § 3. When we were married her sadness and melancholy vanished counsel did something to it and contentment something and being taken up with our houshold affairs did somewhat And we lived in inviolated love and mutual complacency sensible of the benefit of mutual help These
I was sensible of my neglect of it And now here is comfort that I have to deal with a God of mercy that will hear a poor repenting sinner a God that will in no wise cast out those that come to him but loveth whom he loveth to the end This is the God whom I have chosen and taken for my portion the same God is his God his Guide and Comforter The whole world is but a house where Gods children dwell a little while till he hath fitted them for the heavenly Mansions and if he send them out of one room into another to do his work and try their obedience and if he put some in the darkest corners of his house to keep them humble though he separate those that are most beloved of each other it is but that they may not love so much as to be loth to part and come to him who should have all their love However it fareth with his children in this house or howling wilderness the time will come and is at hand when all the children shall be separate from the Rebels and be called home to dwell with their Father their Head and Husband and the elect shall all be gathered into one Then farwell sorrow farwell hard heart farwell tears and sad repentance And then blessed Saints that have believed and obeyed Never so unworthy crowned thou must be This was the project of redeeming-love When the Lord shall take our carkasses from the grave and make us shine as the Sun in glory then then shall friends meet and never part and remember their sad and weary nights and days no more Then may we love freely What now is wanting to dispel all sorrow from my heart Nothing but the greater hopes that I shall be one of this number This this can do it No matter if I had no friend near me and none on earth if God be not far from me it 's well enough and whatever here befalls the Church and people of God it 's but as for one day and presently the storm will be all over Let me therefore cast all my care on God Let me wait on him in the way of duty and trust him let me run with patience the race that is set before me looking to Jesus the Author and finisher of my faith and believingly go to him in all my troubles and let me so labour here that I may find rest to my soul in the Rest that remaineth for the people of God Rest O sweet word The weary shall haver est they shall rest in the Lord. April 10. on Thursday night at twelve of the clock a day and night never to be forgotten by the least of all Gods mercies yea less than the least Thy unworthy unthankful hard-hearted creature M. Charlton § 5. Is not here in all these Papers which I saw not till she was dead a great deal of work for one day besides all the publick work of a Thanksgiving day If I should give you an account of all her following Twenty One years what a Volume would it amount to If you ask why I recite all this which is but matter well known to ordinary Christians I answer 1. It is not as matter of knowledg but of soul workings towards God 2. Is not this extraordinary in a Convert of a year or few months standing 3. The love of God and her makes me think it worth the publishing They that think otherwise may pass it by but there are souls to whom it will be savoury and profitable § 6. Yet she continued under great fears that she had not saving Grace because she had not that degree of holy affection which she desired And before in her sickness her fears increased her disease and danger I will here for the use of others in the like case recite some scraps of a Letter of counsel as I find them transcribed by her self I Advise you to set more effectually to the means of your necessary consolation your strange silent keeping your case to your self from your mother and all your friends is an exceeding injury to your peace Is it God or Satan that hindereth you from opening your sore and make you think that concealment is your wisdom If it be pride that forbids it how dare you obey such a commander Many of our sores are half healed when well opened if Prudence foresee some forbidding inconvenience you have prudent friends and two prudent persons may see more than one But because you will not tell us I will disjunctively tell it you 1. Your trouble of soul is either some affliction 2. Or some sin 3. Or the doubt of your sincerity and true grace I. If it be affliction dare you so indulge impatience as to conclude against your future comforts while you have Gods love and title to salvation Dare you say that these are of so small weight that a cross like yours will weigh them down and that you will not rejoice in all the promises of life eternal till your Cross be removed II. If it be sin it is either past or present if past why do you not repent and thankfully accept your pardon If present it is inward corruption or outward transgression Which ever it be if you love it why do you grieve for it and groan under it If you grieve for it why are you not willing to leave it and be holy If you are willing to leave it and would fain have Gods grace in the use of his means to make you holy this is the true nature of Repentance And why then are you not thankful for grace received for Pardon Adoption and your part in Christ more than you are troubled for remaining sin Should none rejoyce that have sin to trouble them and keep them in a daily watch and war Read Rom. 7. 8. if you will see the contrary If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Iesus Christ the righteous and he is the propitiation for our sins Dare you refuse your comforts on such reasons as would deny comfort to all the world He that saith he hath no sin is a lyar And will you for this deny the known duty of thanks and praise for all that you have received You have been taught to difference between cause of Doubting and cause of filial humiliation And if it were any particular sin that needs particular help and counsel why do you not open it for help which its probably would do more against it than many years secret trouble and dejection alone will do 3. If it be doubts of your sincerity and grace why do you refuse to reason the case and say what it is that persuadeth you that you are graceless that we may try it by the word of God What evidence is it that you want You have confest that sometime you are convinced of sincerity and can you so easily deny what you have found as to conclude your self so miserable as you do Should all do
just advice And that I will speak my reasons and heart-risings against any thing that is propounded to me which I judg unmeet And I resolved when I saw my duty cheerfully to do it and keep a sense of the sweetness and obligations of Gods love and mercy III. I resolved to pray and labour for a true sense of the sins of this Nation in general and in particular of the sins of my Relations and of my own And that till it please God to give me cause of rejoycing on the behalf of my Relations and of my own souls recovery and spiritual welfare I will continue with humiliation to supplicate the Lord. And though I would not shut out a greater duty by a lesser yet I will avoid all manner of Feastings as much as I well can and all noxious sensual delights and when I must be present I will use some mortifying restraint And this I would do in my habit and all other things but that I would lay no snare on my self by renouncing what occasions may oblige me to but by all means I would strive to keep upon my heart a sense of my friends danger and my own IV. I resolve if Providence concur to go to London as soon as I can after the day of Thanksgiving for the reasons mentioned in another place § 9. What these reasons were I find not This following fragment of hers hints something of it I begin already to be sensible of my misusing the helps which God had given me I know now how I should love Ordinances and means of grace and to what end not to break my heart when Providence removeth them from me or me from them but I should love them for God and use them for him and expect my greatest comfort from him and not from men and means themselves This is no more than what I thought I had known long ago but I never knew it indeed till now And now I do but begin to know it When I felt my heart ready to sink under a burden of sorrow God was pleased to ask me what I ailed Was my condition worse than ever Had I less hopes of his love than heretofore if not why do I mourn more than when I lay under that curse What is it that I have chosen for my hope and happiness is that lost and gone Am I left in such a place or case as God cannot be found in if I truly seek him or that God cannot sweeten with his presence if not why do I not contentedly thank God for what I have already had I cannot say it 's better that I had never had it than now to leave it no I must be willing to submit to God and be humbled in the sense of my abuse of mercy so far as it may quicken me to diligence for the time to come And if ever God more trust me with such treasure as once I had I will strive to shew that I better know the worth of it than I did before My thoughts often tell me that if I were but in a condition in which I had opportunity to serve God with more cost to the flesh than I here do it would either shew my hypocrisie or give me more assuring evidence that I am indeed sincere § 10. And it is a useful note that I find added to this by her If my trouble be for my sin 1. My care will be more for the removing of my sin than of the affliction 2. And if God should take away the affliction it would not content me unless sin be taken away and my heart amended 3. If it be sin that I am troubled for it will be my great care not to sin in my trouble 4. And if it be my sin that troubleth me I have the more cause to submit to Gods hand and silently bear the punishment of my iniquity it shameth murmuring when we truly look on sin the cause though it bring the wholsome sorrow of repentance 5. And if I mourn for fear lest God be departing I should seek him and cleave the closer to him and not depart from God and then he will not depart from me § 11. I will conclude this Chapter with a Countrey Poem of her honest Kinsman Mr. Eleazer Careswell of Sheffnall in Shropshire whom I never knew to Poetrize but now that tender love and passion taught him it signifieth these though it want the flowry part Her danger of death so near to her conversion was very grievous to him MARGARET CHARLTON Anagram Arm to later change The prudent soul refin'd from earth doth ever Arm to her later change and fears it never Those glittering Monarchs who seem to command This Ball shall be by deaths impartial hand Put out and doom'd to an eternal state No mortal sinner can decline this fate Death conquers Scepter-swaying Kings but I Shall conquer Death being now arm'd to dye Arm Soul for this one change and wed thy heart To Christ and then no death shall ever part Your joined souls and thou because that He Hath Life of Life shalt still possessed be Death will but this snarl'd knot of Life untie To unite Souls in a more blessed tie When Faith renewing grace repenting tears Hath cleard the soul from filth and she appears Unspotted holy pure invested in Christs milk-white snowie Robes quite freed from sin Wholly deliver'd from this fleshly thrall And Hells black Monarch and adorn'd with all Gods perfect grace Triumphantly these sing Death and Hell conquer'd are by Christ our King Faith Hope and Love such Souls now fortifie And armed thus why should we fear to dye Tho' Death divorce those long acquainted friends And lodg earth in the earth the soul ascends To those high glorious Regions where she With Christ and blessed souls shall ever be Soul troubling sin shall then molest no more Which clog'd which wounded her so long before Poor souls go fetter'd here with flesh and sin Death doth her great deliverance begin Thy soul renew'd by grace shall quickly see How blest a change that day will bring to thee Death shall those weeping eyes dry up and close And pained weary flesh to rest repose The grave will be a safe and quiet bed To that frail body when the soul is fled This aking head shall there be laid to rest Whilst thy glad soul of glory is possest As banisht griefs end in that quiet sleep Thy dust is holy it thy Lord will keep Till the last trumpet sound and he shall raise The just and unjust at the last of days Then the refined body shall again It s late dislodged soul re-entertain And re-united chant well-tuned lays Unto the Lamb whose soul-enamouring rays Shall ravish Saints with blessed perfect joy Freed from whatever would their rest annoy Where they with flaming love and pleasure sing Holy melodious praise to God their King Rise then my soul thy thoughts from earth estrange The first is wrought Arm to thy later change Thus the good
expectations and preparations for death as made the case of her soul less grievous to me as no way doubting of her salvation and knowing that a distracting Feaver or a Phrensie or an Inflamation or disturbance of the Animal Spirits or Brain or an Impostume may befal the best as soon as the worst I thank God that she was never under any Melancholly which tempted her to any of those doleful evils which many Score I think that have been with me of several ways of education have been sadly tempted to She near 19. year lived with me cheerful wise and a very useful life in constant Love and Peace and Concord except our differing Opinions about triâ—â—al occurrences or our disputing or differing mode of talk § 10. She was buried on Iune 17. in Christs-Church in the Ruines in her own Mothers Grave The Grave was the highest next the old Altar or Table in the Chancel on which this her Daughter had caused a very fair rich large Marble-stone to be laid Anno 1661. about 20. years ago on which I caused to be written her Titles and some Latin Verses and these English ones Thus must thy flesh to silent dust descend Thy mirth and worldly pleasure thus will end Then happy holy souls but wo to those Who Heaven forgot and earthly pleasures chose Hear now this Preaching Grave without delay Believe repent and work while it is day But Christs-Church on earth is liable to those changes of which the Ierusalem above is in no danger In the doleful-flames of London 1666. the fall of the Church broke this great Marble all to pieces and it proved no lasting Monument and I hope this Paper-Monument erected by one that is following even at the door in some passion indeed of love and grief but in sincerity of truth will be more publickly useful and durable than that Marble-stone was CHAP. X. Some Vses proposed to the Reader from this History as the reasons why I wrote it IF this Narrative be Useless to the Readers it must needs be the sin of the publisher for idle writing is worse than idle words But I think it useful with that which followeth to all these ends to considering men § 1. It may help to convince those that are inclined to Sadducism or Infidelity and believe not the testimony of the sanctifying spirit to the truth of the Word of God but take holiness as it differs from Heathen-morality to be but fancy hypocrisie custom or self-conceit A man that never felt the working of Gods special Grace on his own heart is hardly brought to believe that others have that which he never had himself And this turneth usually to Diabolical malignity inclining them to hate those and revile or dispise them as deluded proud Fanatick hypocrites who pretend to be any better than they are or to have that which they take to be but a conceit All their Religious thoughts they take for the Dreams of crazed or proud persons and their holy discourse and Prayers but for canting or vain babling But acquaintance if intimate with gracious persons might convince them of their mortal error and true History methinks may do much towards it § 2. I confess with thanks to God that having these Forty years found that all our holiness and comfort depends upon our certain perswasion of the life of Retribution following and that our certainty of this depends upon our certain belief of the Holy Scriptures and we being here in the dark and too apt to doubt of all that we see not there are several sensible or experienced present certainties which have been a great succor to my Faith to save me from temptations to unbelief and doubting and confirm my assurance that the Scripture is Gods Word I. In that I undoubtedly by see and hear that through all the world there is just such a pravity in humane nature as the Scripture describeth for original sin which cannot be the state of mans integrity when his reason is much convinced of much of the duty to God man and himself which he will not do and of most of the great sins which he will not forsake II. I see the Scripture clearly verified in mentioning the common enmity and War between the Serpent's and the holy Seed It is notorious through the world in all Ages and Countries an enmity which no Relation or Interest reconcileth III. I feel and see the Scripture verified which describeth all the temptations of Satan and the secret War within us between the spirit and the flesh IV. And I feel and see the Scripture fulfilled which promiseth a blessing on Gods Word and his Ordinances V. And I feel and see the Scripture fulfilled which describeth the renewing work of the Holy Ghost and the spiritual difference of the sanctified from all others This is not only in my self but in others O how many hundred holy persons have I known the witness of Christs Truth and Power and as Ioshua's and Caleb's bunch of Grapes to assure me of the land of Promise and Gods Truth which I see fulfilled in them Can I doubt of holiness when I feel it and see it in the effects VI. Even as it perswadeth me the easilier to believe that there are Devils when I see their very nature and works in Devils incarnate and see what a Kingdom he plainly ruleth in the world and to believe that there is a Hell when I see so much of Hell on Earth § 3. It may teach us that the state of Godliness is not to be judged of by the fears and sorrows in which it usually begins A mans life is not like his Infancy at his birth The fears and penitent sorrows which foolish fleshly sinners fly from do tend to everlasting peace and joy and perfect love will cast out all tormenting fears unless it be those of a timerous diseased temper which have more of sickness than of sin and will be laid aside with the body which was their cause A life of peace and joy on earth may succeed the tremblings of the new-born Convert but a life of full everlasting joy will certainly succeed the perseverance and victory of every believing holy soul. § 4. It may warn all to take heed of expecting too much from so frail and bad a thing as man My dear Wife did look for more good in me and more help from me than she found especially lately in my weakness and decay We are all like Pictures that must not be looked on too near They that come near us find more faults and badness in us than others at a distance know § 5. It should greatly warn us to take heed of small beginnings even a spark of affection honest in the kind may kindle a flame not easily quenched How great a matter may a little fire kindle almost all sin beginneth in a seed or spark which is very hardly known to be a sin or danger § 6. Yea it should warn all to keep all the thoughts affections