taken where the Mother and the children were and saw part of their buildings burnt and some lye dead before their eyes and so Robert got possession of the children But at last she by great wisdom and diligence surprised them and secretly conveyed them to one Mr. Bernards in Essex and secured them against all his endeavours § 3. The Wars being ended and she as Guardian possessing her Son's Estate took him as only Son as her self and used his Estate as carefully as for her self but out of it conscionably paid debts of her Husbands repaired some of the ruined houses and managed things faithfully according to her best discretion until her Son marrying took his Estate into his own hand § 4. She being before unknown to me came to Kederminster twenty miles desiring me to take a House for her alone I told her that I would not be guilty of doing any thing which should separate such a Mother from an only Son who in his youth had so much need of her counsel conduct and comfort and that if passion in her or any fault in him had caused difference the love which brought her through so much trouble for him should teach her patience rather than forsake him She went home but shortly came again and took a house without my knowledg § 5. When she had been there alone a while her unmarried daughter Margaret about seventeen or eighteen years of age came after her from her Brother's resolving not to forsake the Mother who deserved her dearest love and sometime went to Oxford to her elder sister Wife to Mr. Ambrose Vpton then Canon of Christs Church both yet living In this time the good old Mother lived as a blessing among the honest poor Weavers of Kederminster strangers to her whose company for their piety she chose before all the Vanities of the world In which time my acquaintance with her made me know that notwithstanding she had formerly been somewhat passionate she was a woman of all that manly patience in her great tryals that prudence and piety and justice and impartiality and other Virtues which I mentioned in her Funeral Sermon Of her death anon It is her daughters case that this is the Prologue to CHAP. II. Of her Conversion Sickness and Recovery § IN her vain youth Pride and Romances and Company suitable thereto did take her up and an imprudent rigid Governess that her Mother had set over her in her absence had done her hurt by possessing her with ill thoughts of strictness in Religion yet she had a great reverence for some good Ministers especially Mr. Tho. VVright and she thought that she was not what she should be but something better she knew not what must be attained In this case coming to Kederminster for meer love to her Mother she had great aversion to the POVERTY and STRICTNESS of the people there glittering her self in costly Apparel and delighting in her Romances But in a little time she heard and understood what those better things were which she had thought must be attained And a Sermon of Mr. H. Hickman's at Oxford much moved her on Isa. 27. 11. It is a people of no understanding therefore he that made them will not save them c. The Doctrine of Conversion as I preached it as now in my Treatise of Conversion was received on her heart as the seal on the wax Whereupon she presently fell to self-judging and to frequent prayer and reading and serious thoughts of her present state and her salvation § 2. A Religious Maid that waited on her taking king notice of this for she kept all her matters so secret to her self as was her great hurt all her life acquainted her Mother with it and when it would be hid no longer but her frequent Closet-prayers were sometimes over-heard and her changed course of life discerned her Mother who as far as I could discern before loved her least of her three children began to esteem her as her Darling and all her Religious Friends and Neighbours were glad of so sudden and great a change § 3. I will here give you one of her self-judging Papers which I find since her death upon her then sad convictions When I had on Rom. 8. 9. told them how it may be known whether we have Christs Spirit or not she thus repeated the signs with her self-condemnation Mark 1. The Spirit of Christ is the Author of the Scriptures and therefore suiteth your disposition to it and guideth you by it Judgm 1. I fear then I have not the Spirit of Christ for I yet feel no love to Gods word nor closure with it as suitable to me but I am questioning the truth of it or at best quarrelling with it Mark 2. The Spirit of Christ is from heaven from God our Father and leadeth us upward unto him It s work is spiritual of heavenly tendency making us cry Abba Father and working the heart by uniting love to God Judgm 2. It is not so with me for I have a Spirit tending only to selfishness and sin Mark 3. The Spirit of Christ uniteth us to Christ and one another by love and is against hatred division and abusing others Judgm 3. Mine then is the spirit of Cain for I cannot endure any that are not of my opinion and way and it inclineth me to malice and unpeaceableness and division Mark 4. The Spirit of Christ is a spirit of Holiness and doth not favour licentiousness in doctrine or in life Judgm 4. Though I am for strict Principles I am loose in practise Mark 5. Christs Spirit inclineth to love humility and meeknest and makes men stoop to each other for their good Judgm 5. None more uncharitable proud and censorious than I. Mark 6. The Spirit of Christ makes men little low and vile in their own eyes it is pride that puffeth up Judgm 6. My self-conceitedness shews that I am unhumbled Mark 7. The Spirit of Christ doth work to the mortifying of the flesh even all its inordinate desires and to self-denial Judgm 7. I am a stranger to the work of mortification and self-denial I can deny my self nothing but the comfort of well-doing I cannot deny my sloth so far as to go to prayer when I am convinced of my necessity Mark 8. The Spirit of Christ is a prevailing spirit and doth not only wish and strive but overcome the flesh as to its rule Judgm 8. The flesh prevaileth with me against the spirit Mark 9. Christs Spirit is the author of his Worship Ordinances and suits the souls of believers to them the Word Sacraments c. Judgm 9. They seem not suitable to my soul I am against them and had rather not use them if I durst Mark 10. Christs Spirit is in all the Saints and inclineth them to holy Communion with each other in love especially to those in whom this spirit most eminently worketh Judgm 10. It is not thus with me I desire not the Communion of Saints my affections are
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-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
mans affections workt to prepare his dear Kinswoman for death but he dyed and most of his before her CHAP. IV. Some parcels of Counsel for her deliverance from this distressed Case which I find reserved by her for her use § 1. WHILE in her languishing and after it she was still cast down condemned her self as a graceless wretch and her good Mother and Friends afraid that her grief would encrease her sickness as it did their sadness and yet she obstinately concealed it from all save a few sad complaints to one person who wrote thereof some fragments which she extracted for her use I shall here recite them for others that have the same fears § 2. The miscarriage of a Relation troubling her this was set down When God hath done so much for you will you leave it in the power of an unconstant creature to trouble you and rob you of your peace Is the joy in the Holy Ghost so subject to the malice of your enemies or the weakness of your friends Delight your self in an Allsufficient constanr God and he will be to you a sufficient constant delight and will give you the desires of your heart I see you are yet imperfect in self-denial while you are too sensible of unkindnesses and crosses from your friends and bear them with too much passion and weakness know you not yet what the creature is and how little to be expected from it Do you not still reckon to meet with such infirmities in the best as will be injarious to others as they are troublesome to themselves It 's God that we most wrong and yet he beareth with us and so must we with one another Had you expected that creatures should deal as creatures and sinners as sinners how little of this kind of trouble had you felt Especially take heed of too much regard to matters of meer reputation and the thoughts of men else you are like a leaf in the wind that will have no rest Look on man as nothing and be content to approve your self to God and then so much honour as is good for you will follow as the shadow If every frailty and unkindness of the best friends must be your trouble it is to be impatient with the unavoidable pravity of mankind and you may as well grieve that they were born in sin and made your acquaintance And it should be used as a mercy to keep you from inordinate affections to friends It 's a mercy to be driven from creature-rest though it be by enemies Keep a fixed apprehension of the inconsiderableness of all these little things that cross you and turn your eye to God to Christ to Heaven the things of unspeakable weight and you will have no room for these childish troubles Yet turn not the discovery of this your weakness into dejection but amendment I perceive you are apter to hold to the sense of your own distempers than to think what counsel is given you against them § 3. On another occasion she recorded these words How hard is it to keep our hearts in going too far even in honest affections toward the creature while we are so backward to love God who should have all the heart and soul and might Too strong love to any though it be good in the kind may be sinful and hurtful in the degree 1. It will turn too many of your thoughts from God and they will be too oft running after the beloved creature 2. And by this exercise of thoughts and affections on the creature it may divert and cool your love to God which will not be kept up unless our thoughts be kept more to him yea though it be for his sake that you love them 3. It will encrease your sufferings by interessing you in all the dangers and troubles of those whom you over-love § 4. When she seemed to her self near death You now see what the world and all its pleasures are and how it would have used you if you had had no better a portion and God had not taught you a happier choice Providence now tells you that they are vanity and if over-valued worse but if you learn to see their nothingness you will be above the trouble of losing them as well as the snares of too delightful enjoying them Pardon all injuries to men and turn your thoughts from them and keep your heart as near as possible to the heart of Christ and live as in his arms who is usually sweetest when the creature most faileth us if we do but turn our hearts from it to him § 5. Another time Can you find that you are resolvedly devoted to Christ and yet doubt whether Christ be resolvedly and surely yours Are you willinger or faithfuller than he Hence she gathered her self as followeth When I read the evidence of my self-resignation to Christ I should as it were see Christ standing over me with the tenderest care and hear him say I accept thee as my own For I must believe his acceptance as I perform my resignation O what is he providing for me What entertainment with him shall I shortly find Not such as he found with man when he came to seek us it is not a Manger a Crown of thorns a Cross that he is preparing for me when I have had my part of these in following him I shall have my place in the glorious Ierusalem § 6. This fragment she wrote next For the sake of your own soul and life and friends and for the honour of that tender mercy and free grace which you are bound to magnifie Let not Satan get advantage against your peace and thankfulness to God and the acknowledgment of his obliging love Let him not on pretence of humiliation turn your eyes on a weak distempered heart from the unspeakable mercy which should sill yonr heart with love and joy notwithstanding all your lamented infirmities You perceive not that it is Satan that would keep you still under mournful sadness under the pretence of repentance and godly sorrow You are not acquainted with his wiles You have cause of sorrow but much more of joy And your rejoycing in Gods love would please him better than all your sad complaints and troubles though he despise not a contrite spirit I charge it on your conscience that when you are in prayer you confess and lament your distrustfnl suspicious unthankful uncomfortable thoughts of God and Jesus Christ more than all your want of sorrow for him And you trouble your self for such kind of sins the honesty of whose occasion may give you more comfort than the fault doth sorrow I know we have not our comfort at command But see that your endeavour and striving be more for a comfortable than for a sorrowful frame of spirit Two things I must blame you for 1. That you take the imperfections of your duties and obedience to be greater reasons for discomfort than the performance and sincerity are reasons for comfort as if you thought
any thing were perfect here or that it were better do nothing than do it imperfectly or as if you would have no comfort till you can perform such duty and obedience as hath no need of pardon and a Saviour and so no man living might have any comfort in any thing that he doth 2. That when unreasonable fears and troubles are upon you and troubling thoughts are still upon your mind you say that you cannot help it nor turn your thoughts away to any thing else I know you have not an absolute power over your thoughts but some you have why else hath God made a Law for our thoughts and laid so much duty on them and forbidden their sin so much Much may be done if you will be resolute Think whether Christ came from the Father to bring tidings of sadness and despair or of great joy and whether Angels preached not Glory to God in the highest on earth peace and to men good will And whether Fatih Hope and Love which are the things which Christ will work on souls be not more powerful to destroy your sins than despair or discouragement of mind And because you complain so much of sin I ask you why doth not your conscience more accuse you of the sin of unthankful denying or extenuating the mercies of God and no more magnifying them And for overlooking so much the meritorious righteousness of Christ while you complain for want of more of your own I would not deceive you by telling you that you need none in your self and that all your righteousness is out of you in Christ I know that your righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees and the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God and that he that doth righteousness is righteous But at what Bar or Tribunal Only at that of Grace which supposeth the Reconciling Pardoning Righteousness of Christ it is not at the bar of Rigorous Iustice according to the Law which requireth Innocence to Justification there Christ only is your Righteousness and you have none and must dream of none but that which floweth from his and stands in subordination to it and is your title to it and improvement of it even your thankful accepting a free-given Saviour Head and Lord and Pardon and the Spirit to sanctifie you more and fit you for communion with God and for glory esteem most chuse first and seek most the love of God the Father the Grace of Christ and the Communion of the H. Ghost and this subordinate righteousness will certainly prove the meritorious perfect righteousness of Christ to be for you instead of a perfect righteousness of your own There is no defect in his Sacrisice or Merits if you wanted a title to Christ you were unjustified but none wants that who consenteth to his Covenant as before and that consent you cannot deny Will you live like a forsaken Orphan exposed in a Wilderness while Gods tender love is saving you and Christ is glorying in you as the fruit of his blood and the Angels of God are serving you and rejoycing at your conversion I entreat you think whether it be not the great work that God hath called you to to honour his grace and propagate to all about you as you are able a joyful thankful hoping and praising frame of soul and to stir up all to the delightful praise of God As Ministers must do it by preaching all must do it by conference and example And is your dejected sadness the performance of this § 6. When she desired to be prayed for she wrote down this Answer which I find now in her Papers It 's well if you know what prayer to put up or what to desire I 'le pray for you according to the best of my judgment and I 'le tell you for what that you may know what to pray for for your self First I 'le pray that your thoughts may be turned to the magnifying of Gods love and you may remember that he is as good as he is great and that you may be more sensible of his mercy than of your own unworthiness 2. I 'le pray that you may have so lively an apprehension of your everlasting felicity as may make you long to be with Christ. 3. That you may have more self-denial and that humility which makes you little in your own eyes 4. That you may be much less tender and liable to commotion and disquiet of mind and less sensible of unkindnesses and of bodily dangers yea and of sin it self while the sense of it hinders the sense of mercy A meek and a quiet and patient spirit is of great price in the sight of God I will pray that you may be delivered from too much inward passion of fear grief or discontent 5. I will pray that no creature may seem greater better or more regardable or necessary to you than it is and that you would look on all as walking shadows vanity and liars that is untrusty further than you can see God in them or they lead you up to him that they may never be over-loved over-feared over-trusted or their thoughts too much regarded 6. Above all I 'le pray that you may be less self-willed and not to be too passionately or unmovably set upon the fulfilling of all your will but may have a will that is compliant with the Will of God and can change as he would have it and will follow him and not run before him and can endure to be crost and denyed by God and man without discomposedness and impatient trouble of mind 7. I shall pray that seeming wisdom may not entangle you either in the concealment of any thing which greatly needeth your friends advice or in the hiding of your talents by unprofitale silence as to all good discourse upon the emnity which you have to hypocrisie and that you will not live in sins of omission for sear of seeming better than you are By this you may know wherein I think you faulty § 7. The next I find is this advice against her resolution to go to London It 's not lawful to speak an idle word and especially deliberately much less to go an idle journey What if you fall sick by the way or some weakness take you there will not conscience ask you who called you hither Your weakness of spirit that cannot endure this or that at home with your dearest friends is so far below the quiet composed fortitude which you should have that you ought not to give way to it If you are at the command of your impatience how are you obedient to the command of God It 's a greater work to bring your mind and will to the will of God than to change place or apparel or run away as Ionah in discontent O for a mind and will that needed no more to quiet it than to know what is the will of God and our duty and in every estate therewith to be content When you know your duty
and passions under a constant watch and obedience to God and know first whether God command them and allow them § 7. And this History may teach us that though God usually begin as is said our conversion in fears and penitent sorrows it is holy and heavenly joy which it tendeth to as more desirable and we should chiefly seek and should labour to moderate fear and sorrow and not think we can never have enough It is too common an error with honest souls to think that a hard heart lieth most in want of sorrow and tears when as it lieth most in want of a tractable compliance and yielding to the commands and will of God and in an iron neck and obstinate disobedience to God and to think that a new and tender heart is principally a heart that can weep and mourn when it is chiefly a heart that easily receiveth all the impressions of Gods commands and promises and threats and easily yieldeth to his known will § 8. And this may greatly warn us to fear and avoid self-willedness I mean a will of our own that runs before the will of God and is too much set on any thing which God hath not promised and knows not how to bear a frustration or denial but saith as Rachel Give it me or I die We must learn to follow and not to lead and to say The will of the Lord be done not mine Lord but thine and in every estate to be content There is no rest but in Gods will § 9. Yet this tells us that God dealeth better with his weak servants than they deserve and turneth that oft times to their good which they deserved should have been their greatest suffering § 10. This History and my great experience saith that there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother Prov. 18. 24. and that it was Gods spirit that said Prov. 27. 10. Thy own friend and thy fathers friend forsake not neither go into thy brothers house in the day of thy calamity for better is a neighbour that is near than a brother that is far off § 11. This History tells us how great a mercy it is to have a body meet to serve the soul and how great an affliction to have an unruly inclination from the bodies temper and what a tyrant excessive fear is and how great a blessing it is to have such a passion as Faith can rule and easily quiet § 12. It tells you also how manifold temptations and afflictions Gods servants are liable to in this life § 13. And it tells you that our greatest good or evil is nearest us Next God the best is in our souls and there is the worst and next in our bodies and next in our nearest friends And it may teach all to expect their greatest sorrows from those or that which they most excessively love and from whom they have the highest expectations Only God cannot be loved more than he deserveth Sorrow beginneth in inordinate love and joy in good § 14. And it tells us that Gods service lieth more in deeds than in words My dear Wife was faulty indeed in talking so little of Religion in company expect it were unresistibly to confute in few words an opposer or reviler of Religion But her Religion lay in doing more than talk § 15. Yet her example tells us that it is one of Satan's wiles to draw us to one sin to avoid another and to make us think that nothing is a due that hath great inconveniences or which we can fore-see some men will receive hurt from and so to be unrighteous by being righteous over-much and leave much undone for fear of doing it amiss by which Rule we should scarce ever do any thing that God commands He that observeth the winds shall not sow and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap Eccles. 11. 4. I speak this on her at last confessed error of omitting seasonable speech and duty to avoid hypocrisie and ostentation which my great friend Judg Hale was just so guilty of as I know and the Writers of his Life confess He would make no great shew of zeal in Religion lest if he did any thing amiss Religion should be reproached for his sake Cardinal Ricâ—lieu was wont to say as is written of him that he hated no Counsellor more than those that were alway saying Let us do it better by that hindering the doing of much at all § 16. You see here that suitableness in Religious judgment and disposition preserveth faster love and concord as it did with us than suitableness in Age Education and Wealth but yet those should not be imprudently neglected Nothing causeth so near and fast and comfortable an Union as to be united in one God one Christ one Spirit one Faith one Church one hope of Heavenly Glory yet accidental unsuitableness should be avoided as far as may be § 17. There are some great men who know their own names who as I have most credible information have to greater than themselves represented me not only as covetous but as mutable for my Marriage To whom I now give this satisfaction 1. As to Covetousness my Vindication is a matter unfit for the ears of the world if Reverend mens backbitings the same that troubles our common peace did not make it partly necessary Through Gods mercy and her prudent care I lived in plenty and so do still though not without being greatly beholden to divers friends and I am not poorer than when I Married but it is not by Marriage nor by any thing that was hers before 2. And as to my mutability Whereas one of them reports that I said to him that I thought the Marriage of Ministers had so great inconveniences that though necessity made it lawful yet it was but lawful that is to be avoided as far as lawfully we may I answer that I did say so to him and I never changed my judgment yea my Wife lived and died in the same mind And I here freely advise all Ministers that have not some kind of necessity to think of these few reasons among many 1. The work of the sacred Ministry is enough to take up the whole man if he had the strength and parts of many men O how much is there to do oftentimes with one ignorant or scandalous or sad despairing soul And who is sufficient for all that 's to be done to hundreds or thousands In the primitive Church every Congregation had many Ministers but covetousness of Clergy and people will now scarce allow two to very great Parishes I did not marry till I was silenced and ejected and had no flock or Pastoral Cure Believe it he that will have a Wife must spend much of his time in conference prayer and other family-duties with her And if he have children O how much care time and labour will they require I know it though I have none And he that hath servants must spend time in teaching them and in other