and to the very bottom of the Soul about these the business have not so well succeded even as neither can these be attributed to them all in common nor are they wont to be given or received by words and admonitions To the Lord therefore I commit them who in his own time and according to his own good pleasure will advance those persons higher For they earnestly listen and are delighted with my present discourses but how pleasant they be to them even in their very Souls the Lord knoweth for I do not apprehend that their progress forwards is yet so great and perhaps the Lord will yet for some time keep them so But for my part I order my conversation for the most part with my self only because many discourses and admonitions to others do very much disturb me when yet all concerns as well inward as outward I freely would so deliver up and oblige to the Lord that I would think say or do nothing but to the Lord alone yet how much difficulty I shall every where find in all these the Lord himself knoweth Yet he who is faithful is never left destitute of power as most miserable I do find thorough the mercy of God who helpeth my arm to fight As to our other familiar she-friend she receiveth all with her whole heart and a willing mind whither they concern the understanding or the will but because of that sollicitous care wherewith she is involved in outward things not a few as also because of her trade the true fruit cannot yet spring forth from the true root But the Lord who is faithful administreth as I perceive all means for the removing away by divers sufferings these hindrances and of bringing forth this fruit with deep pangs so that I hope at length that the death of nature will follow in the end The Lord look in mercy upon her as likewise on us all that in his time and according to his good pleasure we may come to the true essence of divine clarity and that we all being delivered out of the hand of our enemies may serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness all the dayes of our life now and for ever incessantly in inaccessible clarity Amen In the year 1552. EPIST. XVII A wholsome Admonition in what steps the progress of the Just doth consist with a Conclusion concerning Esau and Jacob. To J. W. My John I Heartily wish that all thy affairs may have good success Having an occasion thus offering it self I was willing to write these lines unto thee that by the benefit of them we may be promoted to continued progresses in the Lord. For I hope thorough the grace of God that thou maist daily go forward in that truth and in the true Circumcision of thy heart and not in the acquisition of many Sciences and of divers Knowledges wherein the greatest part of our time is consumed and not upon that for the sake of which yet life is given unto us viz. that we may know God But God cannot be truly known by science but by finding him in our selves so as that which we know of God is found and expressed in us and in our Soul so that we our selves are not far distant from that which we acknowledge for good but are united with it not in or by opinion but in very deed and truth But these things can never be fully accomplished unless first we dye to all those which we our selves have and possess in our selves which is that that is called the old man who very subtilly exerciseth his dominion in man according to the variety of mens conditions If the flesh be still gross also its fruits and vices are gross Now if any one will supplant his external vices there is another more subtile thing dwelleth in man which he had never before known because it formerly did stick to him in a grosser substance And seeing that the Scripture also doth sufficiently propose it we are diligently to labour according to that Scripture because it is that which is ordained of the Lord for this end Having therefore received of the Lord sufficient knowledge concerning these things let us be diligent in our indeavours for little knowledge is necessary thereunto if so be the heart it self be but prepared which incessantly both day and night called upon the Lord with intimate desire aspiring to a union so that no creature can any more move it against the Lord and turn it away from him May the Lord give unto his mercy and be a help to our misery in which we being yet bound in the darkness and chains of death are still captive My John I communicate my heart to thee in my letters even as I enough know that thou also seekest my prosperity so that let us both together seek the Lord being perhaps not far distant in the Lord one from another Presently after thy departure it was decreed by the Senate that E. and W. do leave their dwellings so that they must be gone from hence The Lord bestow on them his grace and mercy that they learn to bear these things in true patience even from their own brethren and to accept from the Lord that cross for their own advancement and for the rejection of all other things and that they may resign up all to the Lord and turn off from them their brotherly Love For Esau always remained the brother of Jacob but that Jacob received the blessing was done of grace according to the election of God in which indeed Jacob did stand but yet without boasting and without pride for it behooved him always to bow himself before Esau in sufferings without murmuring And although Esau behaved himself with a very proud carriage towards his brother yet the blessing was continued to Jacob though Esau endeavoured to snatch it from him again by persecution For Jacob lived not only in shew but in truth when he dwelt in tents On the contrary Esau cared only for all outward things by labouring and hunting The Lord grant that we may so rightly immitate the birth of Esau that Jacob may at length come forth for the birth-right was due to Esau but for this end only that Jacob should be brought forth The Lord have mercy on us NB. The birth of Esau signifies the birth out of works under the Law but the birth of Jacob signifies that that is of faith under grace EPIST. XVIII Being a most excellent admonition concerning the Education of Youth together with that wide difference wherein the old Philosophers are far distant from Christians To Dr. J. Velsius DEarest Dr. That my young Nephews have succeeded well in your house was to me altogether grateful and most cordially acceptable for I know that you will take care of their affairs by a diligent inspection for the sake of that relation that is between us whereby these growing twigs may be advanced in their true increase for they stand greatly in need of a prudent overseer
the members derive their motion but the rebellious members abide not in any living body unless perhaps by an improper name they have the name of Members for such do as it were cut themselves off from the body and set themselves against it which case can never take place in any true Body Most dearly beloved Lady I was unwilling that these things should remain unknown to thee inasmuch as they are a preparation to the entrance into the promises of God into Christ I say and his likeness who alone is our hope and mark and aim to which we aspire and tend to which also I pray thee to somewhat more exactly consider and ponder The Lord grant unto us all his mercy that laying down our load of sin we may by virtue of him be restored in Christ who mightily assisteth the hearts which are prepared and submitted unto him and helps to repress and stifle the growing stains of sin and afterwards takes in hand the very foundation it self of our hearts where the root of evil abideth whence all the springing fruits do proceed even fully to burn it up by the flame of divine righteousness If God shall please to grant it and necessity shall require it I am altogether ready according to my simple capacity for the sake of thy holy advantage to express these things more clearly in writing trusting in the Loâ—d that by his help thou wilt measure all according to the rule of righteousness nor either to do or think any thing but what is of the Lord and what conduceth to his glory and the furtherance of us in the Lord that under the manifold distraction of worldly businesses not the least moment of time may remain idle in us but being busied in temporal matters either in mind or working we may always direct them for the benefit and use of our going forwards in the true steps of a Christian life Most dearly beloved Lady the whole bottom or foundation of thy heart is to be digged up by thee and to be searched into whether any thing lyes hid there that is contrary unto God and would not willingly be separated from thee and which thou thy self canst very hardly let go if any such thing should chance to be found out thou must this very moment renounce it and give it up to the Lord with submission unto his will My trust is in the mercy of God that thorough the grace of Christ our Lord it will come to pass that things will go well with thee and that thou wilt be put much forwarder by having thus yielded up and renounced the whole foundation of thy heart sparing no one thing which else thou thorough the whole course of thy life didst hunt after with at least one half of thy heart inasmuch as it is that which is a state rather of enmity and is an abomination before the Lord. My Lady I take a liberty in these matters and that I might write to thee what is right and true I am not ashamed by which means thou mayest in amanner know what thou art to do and how the matter it self is to be cordially handled I having this firm hope that the Lord will not be wanting but that be will hear thee according to thy faith and that he will indue thee with power to whom also I give up my self as a fellow-helper in this outward ministry which is and belongeth to the creature being with my whole heart intent upon thy improvement inasmuch as I am also become thy fellow-sufferer The God of all grace and mercy behold our misery and free us from out of these chains of sin and Satan that we being lifted up into the communion of his sons or children may be unloaded from all burthens of the flesh thorough Christ our alone Saviour and Mediator that we may always watch for and expect these things with unwearied sighings and longings of heart Wherewith I recommend unto God thy self and thy family but especially thy husband that the Lord would grant unto thee prudence to take care to order thy family concerns in the fear of God But first thou must begin with thy own self that if any truth abideth in thee it may afterwards flow forth from thee or else thou wilt make no progress but all thy labour will prove in vain and to no purpose EPIST. IV. That by true internal poverty we come nearer to the Lord then by any imaginary riches whatever To a certain Woman pressed and burdened with Tryals MOst dearly beloved Lady when I understood thy condition viz. that thou art deeply afflicted in heart and that the senses of thy mind will not be reduced to their former tranquillity I am somewhat grieved because I know that as yet thou art too weak to stand under the load of afflictions But indeed that which concerns this thy present state and condition under which thou art now kept viz. that thou canst no longer enjoy a quiet mind nor canst thou get thy conscience to be at rest these all bid me hope the best of thee seeing it will certainly come to pass that by these means the Lord will raise thee up to greater degrees of grace and favour as it commonly happeneth to such of thy condition whom God begins to afflict with grief and temptations For this is nothing else but the laying bare of many depravities with which our hearts are filled which if the Lord is pleased to remove out of our hearts then he thus exerciseth our whole man with Melancholy so as we could rather choose to retain and keep them But it is more for our advantage that those depravities which possess our minds by reason of whose presence a certain false and imaginary peace did deceive us should therefore seasonably be withdrawn from us before that we have run out together with them perhaps our whole life being perswaded that we shall gain somewhat when yet we being thus deceived shall in the end be overwhelmed in our Souls by an irresistible deluge of grief Therefore in this case lay aside all despondency of mind for in Melancholy or trouble of mind thou pleasest the Lord more truly and art nearer unto him then if thou shouldest persist in a great tranquillity of mind as that which is the effect of a false security and peace even as it is wont commonly to happen to those who do promise too much to themselves because that they do abstain from the false religion and from the more gross acts of unruely sinners and from all unrighteousness or injustice from which indeed we ought wholly and always to abstain but then if any one shall for this reason think himself cleansed and to be made a Son of God certainly conscience will oppose such a one by its testimony and will convince him that the very bottom and foundation of his heart does yet abound in the root of sin and of self-love together with all those desires and lusts of which Paul does testify that
is it to be avoided because by the help of it occult defects are discovered and the Man confesseth them to the Lord with Contrition who also is able to purge him from them As long as a Man lives he is under the Law and when by his own Endeavours he is come so far that he cannot ascend higher yet he shall get higher and be advanced But it is necessary he should put forth his hand that another may closely take hold of him and lead him into the way which else he will not find that is he must give himself up to God so as that he suffers him only to operate he himself only sitting still and Submitting himself unto God Whatever then is performed that is no longer done by Man but God himself worketh above all actions of Man or his knowledge or Power God acts and Man suffers if this be done God by such sufferings and dyings leadeth and exerciseth the Man which are matters far surpassing his strength and knowledge even as before also the thing was utterly unknown to him nor was it possible for him to undertake such a thing or exercise himself in it And in this death it is that a Man is purged and all things are taken from him all Whatever were able to hinder in him the undertaking of the true essence Then is all propriety and Nature renounced for in God is no propriety but all things ought to be of a Divine Nature nor can any other Nature be brought into God In that death the Soul is lost and when ever this is done then a Man cometh to the true essential Life of God and there Christ revealeth himself most Evidently in Man and then there is no need to search many things concerning the Place wherein Christ is to be worshipped or any other such Particulars because all these will be very perspicuous or known to our eyes The Law is fulfiled by the new Man without all dispute or Imagination Jesus hath strength enough to be able to save and Purify a Man from sin but Christ doth also anoint the Man thus purified with his Holy Spirit CHAP. XII MOre does not belong to a Man then that by God's help he may abstain from sin and that he may have the Law for a School-master for to enter into Death Darkness the Pit and destruction and to be brought from hence again and to rise again into a new Life and a new Heaven and Light belongeth only to the Lord who himself worketh that in Man without all action of the man and that out of meer grace which a man at the time of his Resurrection when that New Day-break Shineth first upon him most clearly acknowledgeth For he acknowledgeth it was the alone Mercy of God which so exerciseth him and brought him back from Death to Life which Mercy he could not acknowledge when he was still under the Law for there his Propriety and his selfness was yet present but the Commiseration of the Lord was hitherto unknown to him because he had not as yet been thus exercised by God above all Operation and Power of his own that he might come to the Denial of himself but he stood as yet under the Law being touched by no Death when he thought that a reward ought to be Given him out of Desert but not out of Grace and then it was that he sought to Establish his own Righteousness but such a Righteousness was unknown to him which above and beyond all his own Operation and Power was setled only by Faith in Christ which Faith is acquired only in Death Darkness and Hell or the Grave A Man in whom the Law hath exercised all its Power and hath slain him remains not in Death but by the Resurrection of Christ is raised up again into a New Life but is not raised up again into the Old Life for when he should hang with Christ upon the Cross and beg to be Freed that he might return again into that Life he is not Heard but he must dye then not can he ever be thus made alive again but by the Resurrection of Christ riseth into a New Life Here the matter is so carried as if the Thief on the right Hand and the other on the Left and Christ also did Hang Naked on the Cross in one Man and as if he was reviled by both of them for faith the Evengelist Which very thing also did the Thieves who were crucified with Him reproach him withal The same is here also as if the Left hand Thief was not willing to Dye yet he must Dye but the Right-hand Thieâ— yielded himself up unto Death Also aâ— if the legs of the Thieves were broken but not of Christ and here it should be considered how Christ received the Thief on his Right-hand but the left which denoteth Nature also Perisht unwillingly and shall abide Eternally in Death also how the Right-hand Thief willingly gave up himself to Death and how he shall be Raised together with Christ unto Eternal Life Christ said upon his Cross to the Thief on his Right-hand To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise He did not say Thou art with me in Paradise for this could not be so long as he had not yet dyed but he said thus Thou shalt he with me in Paradise viz. When thou hast suffered Death for it is as equally Impossible that a Man who is not yet dead can be exalted in God as it is Impossible that a Hundred Pound Weight of Lead should Fly upwards unto the Sky The Thieves did not Nail themselves to the Cross but they were Nailed the Trees upon which the Thieves Hung were cut Trees and do signify the Old Man or Nature in us for we must dy in this cut Nature and afterwards be revived again in Christ All the promises of God do respect Christ but Christ denoteth all Christians of all whom there is one only Head which is Christ who is all in all CHAP. XIII GOd cometh and openeth to a Man the sence of Scripture as it were in one Moment like lightning which comes as it were in one moment and goes away again in another and then a Man acknowledgeth the sence of Scripture to be far otherwise then before when he had considered it in his own strength And thus God can effect more in one only Moment for the truer understanding of the sence of Scripture then all the Epistles which some can write to others When the Light cometh in process of time it becomes clearer and clearer and again also it is wont to return again yet more clear so that more is still discovered and Manifested to a man which before now lay hid from him If this first Claritude cometh into a man as if it were Angelical but then forward it rusheth in much clearer and so a Man gets from one degree of Angelical Claritude to another Higher degree of the same and then presently he ascendeth yet Higher until he arriveth at the
by fear and anxiety by terrours and by death for they cannot like the common sort of men spend their lives in meer pleasures but he does always detain his under a rigid discipline and many frights and makes them drink down the bitter potion of tribulations that all their internal faculties as well of spirit as of Soul may be brought under the Cross nor can they ever arrive at true peace until every one of them learns nakedly to yield up himself into the will of God and contentedly to take of the potion mixed by God and given him to drink out of meer grace and Love Now that this cup is bitter is no fault of God's but our own and that because we are contrary and enemies to what is good and cannot bear to be purged just like the vulgar people whose troubles are increased by a mixt Physick-wine For by nature a man flieth from all things which are hard and produce pains and yet there is no other way to be recovered nor to come at health then by those means by which we are always more and more adapted to Christ our head by a similitude of his sufferings death and burial that afterwards by a like resurrection also we may be taken into him and be possessed of a never-fading crown of glory For how much we suffer together with Christ so much also shall we reign with â—im not indeed in this time of temporaâ—y abode but in the truth and permaâ—ency of spirit and life in which we â—hall arise and be excited to such a likeâ—ess of Christ as consisteth not with deâ—raved Nature but is lifted up above Nature and is conformed into a spirituâ—â— eternal and immortal life Thus thereâ—â—re all and every one of them in their â—wn order may expect it will be acâ—â—rding to the measure of the divine gifts â—â—at the enemy may for the time to â—â—me have no more right nor power â—er our Souls by reason of sin under â—hich hitherto we have been bound â—â—d captivated hoping for salvation â—â—d redemption in Christ from all our internal enemys who force our Souls into slavery so that in tract of time we may in all holiness and righteousness serve the Lord as present with us all the days of our life He therefore that hath appeared on earth to preach the Gospel to the poor and to the desolate will comfort and cure our sorrowful hearts and graciously set the captives free he I say will in his own time appear gracious to thy humane weakness and will bless thy internal poverty and affliction with a greâ—â— plenty of the fruits of holiness Now thesâ— few things I was willing according to thâ— simplicity of my heart and my meaâ— gifts in the Lord to write unto thee from an earnest desire to serve thee that 〈◊〉 perhaps some means might be discoveâ—ed to thy heart thorough the diviâ—â— mercy leading to a greater proficiencâ— in the knowledge of God and thâ— thy Soul might be sealed up in eternâ—â— peace and reconciliation thorough thâ— grace of God and by his Spirit Aâ—â— 31. 1559. EPIST. V. For what end the Scripture was given and how we ought most exactly to satisfie conscience also concerning the difference between humane righteousness and that which availeth before God To U. of W. MOst dear Lady having this occasion offered I was willing to write a few lines unto thee giving thanks to you all for your friendly inclinations of heart towards us The eternal God grant that that bond in which we being bound together in him and do profess a mutuall union to the true members may become more firm and may grow in Christ our Lord according to his holy will to his glory and our death As to what concerns my condition it is indeed at present such as is tolerable to the flesh as long as it shall please God for the bond of death remains in my heart and in my members and all the rest is known unto the Lord. The Lord himself take us all into his protection that we may be preserved in his fear this dangerous time which as I conjecture cannot be done but by most hard sorrows O would to God we could at length come even unto the death of Christ and feel it in our souls which indeed is set before our eyes in the holy Scriptures yet somewhat shadowed O Lord grant unto us that life which the Scripture every where beareth witness of yet oftentimes by so frequent exercises of so many various readings a man is but kept back and distracted when as yet it 's in the first place necessary that every one should observe himself in the acts of hearing speaking thinking working and in all else where a man is busied about any other matters in things of thiâ— life and that all these be to his utmost put to the examination of his judgment and that he most exactly endeavours in all hath a care to satisfy his own conscience for so long as the accusatioâ— thereof endureth by the guilt of anâ— though the least transgression it 's impossible that peace an be found in hâ— Soul Because as long as any one does not satisfy his own conscience he is willingly kept a prisoner under sin But the difficulty of this way hindereth many as much as that which the Scripture saith that no man can stand before God in his own proper righteousness which is very true However yet if we are willing to trace thorough this most rocky way of our conscience even to its utmost limit it is necessary that at length we should come to a mortification and destruction of all our laborious endeavours and then will our own righteousness shame us On the contrary we all would dye before ever we have lived and glory that we have renounced our own righteousness when as even yet we stick in the midst of our sins breaking forth into outward acts But the matter is to be otherwise and more accurately considered if we desire to make a proficiency in the Lord for that life which we live in the flesh is dead in the sight of God nor hath no liveliness in it in his account Yea furthermore that life which our Soul enjoys whilst it confideth in and s bottomed on these or these things must also be changed for a death and it 's by no means to be permitted that the enormities thereof should rejoyce in its progress For this life which our Soul hath taken to herself after this manner springs from no where else then from out of that imaginary righteousness and holiness which we fancy is to be found in us and which tickles us with a strange kind of sweet flattery and privately is very pleasing to us yea and gives to our Souls a kind of tranquillity These things are hid so deeply in a man and deceive us with such dissimulation as if all were well with us whence it is that all things are ascribed unto Christ because the man knows that no such
thing can be attained to but by Christ These are those things whereof the Scripture maketh so often mention viz. our own proper righteousness our own proper works our own proper holiness and all such like viz. if we trust too much to any of these means which were granted unto us from the Lord and stick rather unto them then to the only loâ—e God For to love God is no other thing then most accurately to do that which he willeth not for the hope of any salvation or of any good things whatever for the Love of God it self thus puts a man on that he cannot do otherwise And here it is that we are able to search into the most inward corners of our hearts whether or no we seek ourselves else where either in Soul or body and whether we serve God and love him for this end that our souls may gain salvation But here for the most part it will be answered that whatever things are done are done only for love yet nevertheless men do perform these things out of the terrour and the impulse of their own conscience as the scripture witnesseth I say not all this because I would detract in the least from good works set light by them but rather that we should go on further not to rest here nor am I willing we should sit down in a private kind of peace of having gained some steps only before we be come unto the end nor till the scope for whose sake all this is done be duly attained And though there be others behind us who follow up after us being yet a great way off yet it is incumbent on us because of our greater knowledge received to put out this our talent to the highest interest we can possibly that in us may be found constant perseverance if so be at length we can arrive perhaps to a true dying having no need more to reiterate so often our renewing of death so that all may together and at once remain buried also in Christ's death eternally a more certain essential sort of death as I may so say following us into that better state or condition Most beloved Lady receive I pray thee these my letters kindly if perhaps they may prove to be of any use to thee in thy holy endeavors and that we may come at length to the total renouncing our flesh that then we may be judged according to the rule of righteousness which the Law requires by Christ For in Christ sin is utterly condemned to death and as much as we are planted together with him in the likeness of his death so much also shall we thorough his resurrection be received into the newness or the Spirit who then performs in Man the office of a Governour and is to him in the stead of his life whose place before this our flesh supplied all that is beyond this the Lord himself will manifest to us when we come thither If therefore we have our inward senses rightly exercised by the Lord and do firmly adhere to him with continued prayers then will he kindle in thy heart some living light which my dead writings can never effect by means of which being inflamed with a greater zeal to renounce all flesh we shall be able to offer to the Lord our hearts emptied and set free by a meer and pure submission unto and a firm purpose of remaining and persevering in his will so will the thing prosper and our work will more happily succeed But why this work will succeed with so much difficulty and with such a length of time this is the reason because somewhat still will stick close to the heart which we cannot wholly renounce for when but one half of the heart is yielded up the offering remains impure nor is it accepted whence it is that the Scripture commands us to have a great care of or to watch such a heart which seeks double ways and carrieth upon either shoulder and halts on either leg c. For we cannot at the same time satisfy the flesh conscience hindering us and conscience too the flesh hindering us therefore it is necessary that we yield our selves up wholly as a pure offering and grateful to the Lord for such a one is received by the Lord and blessed of him that thenceforth he may bring forth fruit and at length that thence may arise the righteousness that is available before God Unto which may the Lord promote us and keep us by his infinite mercy in Christ our Lord and Saviour The Lord preserve us that we may persevere in his grace according to the tenour of his most holy Will EPIST. VI. Being a Christian exhortation which containeth many points very useful and profitable to all Christians To the same Lady MOst beloved Lady seeing that there remaineth no more time to me in this life as far as by my uttmost capacity of sense and reason I am able to judge or is to me known I am constrained of my self freely to open and more and more to unfold my mind to you Yet the true fruits of proficiency in the Lord are not attained to by my leters nor by our mutual converse appointed in the Lord of purpose but only and alone by the grace and mercy of God For that the same dependeth only on the meet divine commiseration he best knoweth yet only in Soul and conscience who himself is exercised in the very work oâ— the Lord. In the first place therefore it behooâ—â— is diligently to beware that we be not 〈◊〉 our lusts driven to that pass as to think that God is the cause of sin whereas the night can sooner be made the day then he be any such thing Because in God there is no darkness at all but meer light and whosoever would come to know this work of God thorough his mercy they must begin this knowledge with sincerity of mind which seeks nothing else but God alone whosoever proceedeth with a double heart is an abomination to the Lord. Now doubleness of heart consists in this when we are not with out whole heart Soul and thoughts given up and wholly left to the Lord also when we pour out our prayers before him with a heart divided in two whence â—lso it is that we are not heard according â—o our desires For the Lord loveth us â—ore then we our selves do love our â—elves inasmuch as he is averse to our estruction and always freely bestoweth 〈◊〉 us that which is most useful and â—ost profitable for our happiness which â—â—deed is that which at first is unâ—â—own 〈◊〉 us but is at length made known 〈◊〉 us though by and thorough great afflictions because that we were so far falen into our desires and into that evil which we call our Propriety that we must first be subjected to great anguishes and griefs before we can become submitted to the will and obedience of God which is that which can be never done without a spiritual death and the
mortifying of all our own powers even as they sensibly feel who are chosen and lead by God into such a death Wherefore we are to endeavour that we may most patiently accept from the Lord whatsoever he hath fore-ordained by his power over us being to our utmost resigned up to him alone continually imploring him by our prayers and with hearts lifted up importunately to beg his mercy that by his grace we may be sustained and preserved even to the end nor that we may not be turn'd aside by any temporal injoyments or by any case happening which is able to make us in this life faint-hearted but that we may abide confirmed in this way with perpetually going forwards in the blessing of God and in real fruitfulness I do not describe the cause by which we may perchance be drawn away and turned aside let every one try himself for there are diverse sins which vex us every one in his own state being captivated by that evil which we term our proper evil in our own will and desires in which every one of us are kept bound or chained May the Lord advance us forward to the true and divine communion and to a willing obedience unto God that we may be set free from all those bonds by which thorough our own faults we are inthralled to which freedome notwithstanding we can never come unless we dye and spiritually depart in and by which captivity is lead forth in triumph after the victory obtained by the most powerful hand of God in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ we being-raised up again in Christ unto the true eternity in the life of the Spirit when that which is become old shall remain cast off neither shall any pardon be given it but be condemned to death and to be perfectly separated from life Let this therefore be our rule thorough our whole life that we endeavour to lay aside that which is a stop and hinderance to our hearts in the way of the Lord which yet is nought else but our own selves who do oppose our selves to the Lord so that we come before him praying with half a heart only whenas notwithstanding if our hearts did spread themselves before the Lord with a perfect resignation and could abide in a continual progress of such a resignation and in a firm purpose of catching at nothing more being free simple and nakedly poured forth before the Lord we should then find with an admirable success the power of the Lord in conquering of sin Yet it 's not possible to arrive at such a liberty of heart but by the special mercy of God to which also are to be joyned our unwearied endeavours and prayers For we have so encompassed our selves about with such a wall of separation that we want the true discerning of our intellect by reason of that thick darkness wherewith our senses are deeply benighted whence it is that we always place without our selves the cause of our holding back and of our barrenness and complain that we are hindred and over-ruled by things external the contrary of which if things proceeded aright and we were sound at the bottom of our hearts would come to pass so as that which is internal would contain and rule in a due order all externals nor would it be hindred by any thing external and thus all would prove well for our use and advantage in the Lord. But the Lord will much better inform us in these matters and effectually cause that if any temporal things that are less necessary become a burden unto us that we shall lay them aside so far forth as it is allowed to us by our Conscience in the Lord yet not without a most exact consideration thereof For he who thus knoweth himself to be weak so as he may easily be hindred by and from things external standeth altogether in need that he should constantly and earnestly beg of the Lord that he may be kept unpolluted and that his Sensitive faculties be thus thorough urgent necessity always kept exercised with continual prayers and an elevated heart which would never be done without necessity for no prayer doth more truely hit the mark then that which floweth from necessity for by how much the more pressing the necessity is by so much the more piercing are prayers made So that in these very evils themselves a remedy is found which leadeth us unto God if so be our ultimate end be nothing else but God and as to things outward we propose to our selves to be obedient to nothing but the divine will and to perform it most exactly But this case doth wind in a man into such difficulties before it can be brought to pass that it will concern him to ingage his utmost resolution and powers to strive with divers and most difficult pangs and desperate temptations which increase upon him dayly more and more For just so it is with these combatants as with the poor wild creature which is driven up and down by the hunters till the time of the Lord be come Now the Lord preserveth us when we know it not yea when we sink into swoons and are swallowed up by straights and then doth our death truely begin when all our arrogance is quite blunted and supprest By reason of the weakness of my hand I could write no more recommending you herewith unto the Lord who can promote us all in his own way and preserve us in a constant diligence and in a perseverance of divine graces EPIST. VII Which is the true way of coming unto Christ very useful for Youth To G. of R. MOst dear G. I gave this to thy Cosin upon his departure hence to be delivered unto thee that thy blooming youth may be more and moâ—â— put on unto true zeal for I was always in my mind perswaded that thou didâ—â— search out after that which is good 〈◊〉 therefore we are in some measure 〈◊〉 serve one another and to help forward in the ways of the Lord it is necessarâ— that thou shouldst exercise in practise that gift which thou hast received and advance it unto fruit bearing that thou mayst not only search after knowledge and Science but also to think of this how thou mayest reduce thy self unto a oneness which is not done by knowing many things but in many things desisting from our our own will and in breaking our desires even in the flower of Youth For our own proper desire is indeed contrary to God and this is the chief root out of which all Sins do grow To him therefore that would arrive at the state of Christ there is no other way allowed then that by the Law he die to his natural desires and lusts He that would retain and keep his lusts and desires supposing that only for a knowledge of Christ apprehended in his understanding he shall be accounted before God for a believer this man certainly will wander far out of the way Inasmuch â—s this same faith goeth no further
then â—nto the understanding his salvation also â—n go no further then into the underâ—tanding and reason so that it must at last needs dye in that death that is so necessary to all Christians viz. wherein Reason is destroyed for in this death there remains nothing but the Soul or mind only But if it be objected that our faith and knowledge do penetrate even into the most inward regions of the Soul and mind I answer thereto That then also it is necessary that this our Soul and mind when it shall live with such an estrangedness from the flesh that it cannot but with great Nauseousness and tedious disdain bear in its self all the desires and lusts which spring from the nethermost parts of the flesh so as it would rather dye infinite deaths and to be freed from them then with pleasure even once to perform them in the verv act Behold my G. this brief proposal how every one ought to prove and try hâ—â— faith If any man believeth in Chriâ—â— from the very bottom of his Soul 〈◊〉 must need be wracked with great doâ—lours in his Soul by reason of sin so thâ— he will account of sin for the most grievous torture that can be found in all thâ— world and for his greatest enemy and how then for the sake of acting it can he enter into a friendship with it Although therefore the Vulgar knowledge of those who glory in the Gospel may say on this wise Sin if so be it is not perpetrated in the very act though it should lurk in the heart doth us no hurt yet do thou I pray hear how Christ doth nevertheless assert that he who looketh on a woman to lust after her is already guilty in the sight of God by which words surely Christ excuseth not but accuseth the lusting of a man and will really have it accounted for sin in the sight of God Dearest G. I beseech thee do not despond in thy mind because of this hard saying for all things are possible to God I only write this of purpose that thou mayest seasonably learn to judge of all things least thou shouldst consume thy youth unprofitably and that thou mayest bear fruit to God â—in thy own soul they in the mean time who are of the dregs of the Vulgar though they may have knowledge yet they lye down tired in sloth nor do they oppose sin with the least burning zeal or breaâ—â— its impetuous assaults Nor yet doth this external abstinence from sins and the debilitating of them suffice for it 's necessary to descend to the very bottom it self when even the thoughts are to be judged in the presence of God Far therefore be it from us to commit sin in the very act Also this my Letter intends this at least that thy young limbs be stirred up both night and day to the worship of God by continued prayers in temperance purity meekness of heart long-suffering lovâ— of thine Enemies as also in the Reading of Scripture in holy proficiencies anâ— in other virtues conducing to Christian discipline Concerning which thy owâ— Conscience will afford to thee a testimony all which being performed thou wiâ—â— every day rejoyce in thy great success iâ— the work of the Lord that at last wheâ— thy most miserable condition is known thou wilt be a terrour to thy own selâ— and therefore thou wilt so much thâ— more diligently call upon God for help that his most powerful right hand maâ—â— at length gratiously support thy Soul and conquer the power of the enemy in a real victory The Lord have mercy on us all and heal our diseases and effectually cause us to hunger and thirst after his righteousness least we be left naked in our own impurity EPIST. VIII How any one who is studious concerning the way of the Lord ought dayly to exercise himself MOst beloved Neece Because I understand that thou earnestly desirest such a disposition of heart as truely to walk in the ways of the Lord I could not withhold my self but must write to thee these few things for thy greater confirmation in them that thou being once entred into this way shouldest not desist from vigorously proceeding forward and to adhere to the Lord with thy whole heart together with a total suppression of thy carnal part Be therefore diligently studious that thy diligence be not tired out in reading in humanity in Silence in meekness in temperance forbearance patience and compassion also learn to exercise thy self in all studyes of virtues that thou being found faithful in little things mayest be made ruler over much greater for if thou shalt not be faithful in these few things assuredly thou wilt never be entrusted with more But I hope that thou wilt receive wisdom and prudence from the Lord that thou wilt have a care of and diligently attend unto thy own self least some bitter root should spring up in thee and so thou and thy Soul tumble head-long into destruction for the flesh doth very subtilly assault a man to beguile him and turn him away from Godliness Wherefore making a strict watch upon thy life and conversation carefully incompass thy self round having cut off the world and all wantonness of life speech and thoughts preferring every one with all gentleness and patience not only the good but also the evil and the immodest Learn also to bridle in thy self and to humble thy self being always turned to the Lord in thy heart Never let vain evil and unworthy thoughts arise in thy mind but always oppose them with great earnestness pouring out to the Lord fervent prayers and if thou gettest any spare time on holy days or otherways employ it in reading the holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament or else of that little book intituled Of the imitation of Christ and in these exercise thy self and learn to ponder them often in thy mind If thou readest any thing which thou doest not understand call upon the Lord with ardent sighs and dayly tears that he would open to thee the true sense of his most holy word for to be the Necessary food of thy Soul for the more thou shalt follow the Lord the more thou shalt understand of holy Scripture and by how much the less thou art intent to wait upon the Lord by so much the less shalt thou understand Scripture Therefore let thy constant endeavours be to approve thy self faithful in these things which are viz. made known to thee in and by mortification and a continual access to God by prayer nor let any time slip by thee in vain and withouâ— thus doing If thou repliest that thou understandest not what thou readest again say that though thou mayest noâ— understand all yet is it incumbent oâ— thee to exercise thy self in the sacred word of the Lord as also to be unwearâ—edly sollicitous about it For by thesâ— exercises thou shalt sooner be amended then by idleness and these are the beâ—â— means of instituting and of exercising anâ— man
for by how much the more miserable the more anxious and the more deserted any one is so much the nearer is God to him the helping of whom he then most speedily performeth when no comfort nor help is found unto or for our desires And this is the true knot of all piety The Lord grant in his own time that thou mayest truly apprehend this in thy own self For the grace and word and promises of God do abide in man in a living sense nor can it be expressed in words how the very thing it self properly is and although all writings may give testimony of this word and of this grace yet are not they properly that very word and the very Salvation of God for the virtue and operation of these ought to be livingly expressed in us The Lord be mindful of us all thorough his mercy EPIST. XV. How Youth is to be supported during its weakness To F. S. DEarest F. We hope it will so be that the Lord will direct all to the best end and will stretch forth his helping hand to that young man to make his voluntary entrance that he may be brought to a greater firmness seeing that he is not yet exercised in the ways of the Lord and he still flourisheth in his Youth But the hand of the Lord is liberal towards young and old and is stretched forth with plenty of grace where and whensoever he shall please Therefore the Lord I hope will remember this weak one and will hear his dayly complaint and in his time will help him for when all the creatures sail and all remedies vanish away and there is no other deliverer found or invented then will God alone of necessity present himself as a Deliverer For the Lord will look back upon all such whose hearts he hath of purpose put in the wine-press of tribulations that being left nakedly poor of all evils so as they appear dryed up yet after they shall thus be subjected to his judgments they shall not want retribution but shall abound in his blessing by the communion of the blood of Christ poured forth and of his eternally prevailing merits and of the reconciliation made betwixt God his father and our miserable humane nature It would be profitable for him if he should remain with thee all the winter that so he might enjoy a further introduttion and should learn more firmly to set his feet in the ways of the Lordâ— now when he is yet of an infirm age and is more infirm in zeal for it is our duty to lend a hand to the weak and to be a prop to them as it was done for us in our youth although I my self have not extended my age very much yet have the bonds of death bowed me down under the judgment of the Lord in the prosecution of my misery with continued terrours The Lord have pitty on me and graciously discover to me his countenance shining with the light of grace and so enlighten the darkness of my heart EPIST. XVI A fair admonition to his Cosin German wherein he very greatly demonstrates a most tender care of his Soul hitherto had with solicitousness To M. D. W. MOst beloved Cosin I was altogether obliged to write in what state our affairs are for though hitherto for some good space of time we have been somewhat separated as to bodily presence yet I am assured in the Lord that we were so much the more diligently excited to a mutual care by an inward presence of mind The Lord knoweth how mindful I am of thee and how much care I have for thee in the midst of my most sad conversation filled with all griefs and in my constant combate But I trust in the eternal God and his providence that he will with stretched out arms lead and keep us all under his own discipline Now because I have crept thorough many dangers of mind how great the power of corrupted nature is is very plainly manifested in me by and thorough the power of God though that also is come to pass by and thorough innumerable anxieties in all which yet the glory of God every where revealeth it self upon which account I am deeply concerned with a most vehement sollicitousness for those who are my fellow-sufferers in these straights to whom the Omnipotent God will reach out his hand and seasonably set before their eyes the virtue of his grace which lyeth hid under those sufferings that at last the man may be stirred up to the desire of the true cross of Christ our Lord in which all the treasures of divine grace are known in their highest beauty without which no man can be set free from out of the chains of his nature And here indeed there is need of great caution and we must diligently adhere to the Lord both day and night for often times nature cloathed with the outward shew of good presents her self to us but if she be tumbled down into death then will her fruits be at length truly made known and the power of God will shine forth so much the more gloriously The Lord of his mercy be mindful of us all that we may wisely order our conversation and the forces of all our enemies being all overcome and broken we may at length arrive truely at the true brightness of God For the wall of separation hindering that clarity is great which it behooveth with unwearied labour to diminish thorough the benefit of the cross and with daily torture of mind to destroy Yet the eternal and merciful Lord pierceth thorough all darkness as doth the Sun and so refresheth those that are in an agony with their pains that his grace and glory never shine forth more clearly then from under sufferings although whilst we yet remain subject to vanityes and are still captives to creatures that claritude is still very much diminished for so long as we yet are busied about images the efficacy of truth which seeing it is to be without any image cannot then be united to them is very wonderfully hindred For God is but one only and to know him from the very bottom of our hearts is all the skill and is such as is never learned in an undisturbed life Dearest Cosin I do open to thee as it were the interiour bosom of my mind shewing whither all my labour tendeth and at what mark all my whole being and all my words and thoughts do aim at with grief and which I continually with tears of heart pour forth before my God and do with hope account the Lord will not reject me poor wretch but chastise in his way and will bless with increase my labour after the decease of my nature My Cosin as to what concerns those friends who have changed their dwelling their outward condition is as yet tolerable as also the outward conversation both of the Mother and of them also is full of piety even as formerly But if we look further even to the utmost power of nature
till by their own experience in the future access of age they also do attain unto prudence The Lord grant to them his grace that they may well place their time as well in studies as in piety in which all consisteth seeing that the Lord ought to be the end of all studyes To this mark therefore are they to aim and to seek the glory of God and not their own nor are they to fall into themselves Also I hope that my Uncle will deliver them to you with all advice unto obedience and subjection and I hope that they will persevere in the fear of the Lord according to the capacity of their age But we conside in you that you will not be wanting to them in the best counsels especially that they may lead a Godly and sober life and that they may be turned away from all youthful appetites and from such errours as break forth at such an age moreover that if they commit any thing against the Lord according to their slender wit they may in time be brought to the observation of their conscience by the benefit of which they being more diligently restrained may always abhor to sin My D. that I thus write nothing but my inclination towards my Nephews causeth it for else I am aware that you will educate them prudently and in the fear of the Lord wherefore pardon the liberty I take that I blush not to propose somewhat like thereto inasmuch as that what I do is with an eye to that zeal wherewith we are both heated to find out the ways of the Lord when as I apprehend us to be both alike and to have altogether the same inclination of heart mutually one towards the other The Lord help us yet more and more in love as far as pleaseth him so that we may but be found in a continual progression thorough his grace least our time be found to prove empty and void of fruit before the Lord but that we may always proceed from righteousness to righteousness Even also I wish the same to my Nephews that forthwith at the very beginning some agreable distinction of Religion may be instilled into them that they may learn to discern all things with judgment and not easily to take up their rest in outward means one only excepted viz. Jesus Christ as expressed in his true obedience finished in his Soul even unto the death of the cross He is set before us for an example as our only scope by the benefit of which we may in true illumination come to the eternal mercy of God It will be therefore very profitable for them to be led as it were by the hand unto this scope and that they may learn radically to satisfy their own consciences exercising themselves in them from their tender years and to have no confidence in any other meanes set or contributed out of themselves And although they should find some virtue in themselves such as it wont to be found in the serious studyes of some of the heathen such as are Temperance Long-suffering meekness rigour and severity of discipline or any other that may be introduced into our minds by sedulity and natural discretion yet are not all these that very thing which is proposed to us in the image of Jesus Christ For their aim was no other then to temperate and govern their bodyes under the discipline of honesty and to keep them in due order by the moderation of Nature but in Christ a certain kind of life is produced which consists not in nature but above nature and unto which the Wise Gentiles could never arrive because they were led only by the light of nature in which God doth only so far operate and manifest himself as far as he can be know out of himself from his creatures which also hath its defects and limitations and may be changed which things are such as are not in God because he remains eternally and abides glorified in his own subsistence and essence for ever and ever Now how much they have written concerning the knowledge of God which is in Man and which they have in diverse places attributed to the mind that ariseth not from elsewhere then from the ingenious principles of the purer wisdom aâ—far forth as they were able to comprehend of it in their more elevated reason But they had no light and virtue of a certain real and essential immutation as it were in its own self as being that which manifesteth it self far beyond science and that by this way our most high God expresseth and giveth forth himself not only notionally but also essentially in all who receive him with a superabundance of those graces which in his Son he poureth forth upon us so that our labour diligence and studys are plainly useless to this matter but the grace of God alone produceth this supernatural life and new creature in man the natural man all this while together with all his old age being utterly silent and condemned yea dead Therefore no active power nor any life can remain extant in us for if any such thing sheweth forth it self in us then in truth we are not dead to our selves but we yet live in our own proper work neglecting the promise and grace which hath appeared in Christ I do not therefore say thus because I can contemn and reject that same honest and tried life of the Heathen for I wish that we all could subject our life to such a discipline and that we could by far outstrip them There are not therefore to be deprived of their praise but rather we ought more commonly to be filled with shame seeing that we will boast of a greater grace from the Lord and yet are not come to that state of virtue which was in the heathen but we are hurried too and again in all confusion of carnal lusts The Lord correct us in his mercy and help us all seriously to endeavour to insist on the best ways even as also I heartily pray in the behalf of those my Nephews that they being lead thorough their whole youthful age in the wayes of the Lord may subject themselves to discipline and apply the bridle to their carnal inclinations even from their tender youth satisfying their consciences and the testimony of a most close examination made before God and their own Souls that they may be further advanced by the Lord if it shall so please him to that eminent grace and expression of his most high glory in the life of the spirit which being in a flourishing condition all things past do vanish away together with their glory that all may be renewed by the first fruits of Christ and the powerful hand of God manifested in the Resurrection of the Lord. Now therefore I trust in the Lord that he will effect all things well and direct them unto the best end yet let us employ all the diligence we have lest being conquered by sin we become subjected to our flesh and
may my Nephews exercise themselves the most they can in those endeavours that they may learn to repress their youthful and inordinate affections and appetites which will without doubt spring up in them at their own season The Lord seasonably grant to them to own the witness of their conscience against all these that being kept safe from them all they may never consent to any depraved inclination EPIST. XIX That there is a certain especial difference between the exalted rational Zeal and the Zeal that is pure and Christian To the same Person My Dr I Have recommended thy case and purpose to the Lord who can safely keep us all by his Grace and shew to us our errors for though we are for that purpose subjected to sufferings yet nothing is more wholsom for us than a discovery of our spots and defects which is not wont to be done without our indignation and opposition But if the Spirit of Christ must restore and enliven us all then plainly must there be no place left in us for bitterness of spirit against any one For this is alone the Doctrine of Christ Learn of me for I am meek and humble in heart For all hearts that are puffed up are in his time to be brought low even as alas we find it in many The Lord keep us most miserable worms for I never am frighted with greater horror than when behold my self The natural man scratcheth to himself by appropriating to him self all things whatsoever God bestows upon him out of free grace so that all thing also which are in themselves pure by this appropriation become as it were infected with poyson Now if Nature were deadned and the understanding purified then indeed such usages of Gods gifts would not be so multiplied But now that eviâ— which we call I is so great and our corrupt Nature through its own self-pleasing is so faln and sunk into its own self that we wait not for the time of trials with some difficulties and restâ—â—int and prayer together with a hope 〈◊〉 the promises of God to be fulfilled in a fit season as it hath been foretold by the Lord. The Lord be mindful of wretched me that write thus and be helpful to thee according to his own and not according to my will I also very earnestly intreat thee that thou take not in bad part this my freedom in writing to thee for my mind never desisteth from having a kindness for thee But high pride of heart and a contemning esteem of our Neighbour as also the doing him injury never is allowed a place in the Christian State but rather that which hath a fair shew of some sort of Zeal that is natural mixed with Mosaical rigour For nothing hath appeared in Christ but meer sufferings and death silence and patience even to the Cross upon which even to the last gasp of his life he signalized his obedience in which he was subjected to his Father withour murmuring also that his Majesty of his eternal Godhead he did not take up again as he might have done but rather bore in himself humanity and imbecility and abiding in huâ—â—â—ty and contempt even to the very death he was crowned with Victory For if the external assaults of his enemies could have moved the internal nature of his eternal birth then indeed that which is immovable could have been moved by some outward violence even as alas it most commonly happneth to us that our whole humanity is shocked inwardly and outwardly when yet we do think it to be the zeal of the Lord. But before we can come to the purity of these motions as it manifested it self in Christ against them who dishonoured God and profaned his Temple certainly there are many things to be eradicated out of our fleshly part if we would be thought to be wholly burning in zeal of spirit But as I hope the Lord will in his time manifest these things to us more clearly for when we are grown old we must carry so no things with great pains which whilsâ— youth flour sheth with a flaming zeal we cannot own and undertake Because all that is talked of death and dying to young persons they cannot in good truth come to them seeing that their bones and marrow are alwaies full of all fleshliness with that fervent vigour together with a full strength of the growing faculty and voluptuous tendency which for the sake of its own power and the glory of self-will is wont to oppose it self to God But then if any one proceed further and draweth forth all his strength even unto the top of all his age then comes decreasing that we are unwillingly lead into the will of God by a manifest other process and then those judgments seem to hang over us which once we decreed to others and that youthful life free and wanton swelling with zeal is now by the just judment of God under the decreasings of old age condemned to death but then at length succeeds understanding and discretion together with continual sufferings in the ways of the Lord even unto our death and the proper sentence pronounced to us for just as all that ought to dye that is possessed of life also is that matter here For God alone if he be truly in us is conjoyned with death but not with our life because no flesh how pure so ever it be can abide in his sight For whatever shined forth externally in Christ even that by a like death must be done inwardly in us if so be we are willing in the resurrection to be incorporated into a communion of his glory Otherwise we stick only but in the flesh of Christ though glorious contemplating alone the life of Christ's humanity not yet glorified but we hinder the growth of that fruit which through the death of Christ in the resurrection by the supernatural birth and a new life is poured forth into us with eternal grace The Lord open my mind to you for here I acknowledge my understanding to be too weak and slender EPIST. XX. An acknowledgment concerning the disputation held at Francfort between John Calvin and Justus Velsius of the power of Man or of free-will To A. G. THe Grace of our Lord and his mercy be upon thee and on all those who fear the Lord and seek his truth Most beloved A. concerning what thou didst write to me about that dispute held at Franckfort betwixt Velsius and Calvin my opinion is That Velsius did stumble therein whilst he attributed too much to the power of man for humane power is judged and condemned by the Lord if it be before a man is made partaker of the divine birth because what is new born is of God and not of man it is eternal and immortal even as he is who begat it But on the contrary Calvin failed in that point wherein he rejected all the powers of man universally which indeed I allow to be true unless that I also judge that that knowledge
a new promise of grace because grace in the regenerated hath taken most deep root according to its own true nature so that such have certainly no need to seek out some remedy out of their own selves Which whilst others do they do in this very point testify that they have not attained to that of which they boasted and which they by the testimonies of the Scriptures attributed to themselves in the very truth and according to the proper essence of the thing For the old man who always by force usurpeth the empire in man with transgression which indeed is termed a tripping and is made light of yet nevertheless in the sight of God it can never be tollerated in the new man without real mortification alledgeth a contrary testimony viz. that we yet live the life of the old man nor as yet are disposed unto death because that no sin can be committed against our wills and without pleasure or delight Hence therefore is it manifest that we still are kept in the life of the old man and are not yet arrived at the new life for a man comes not to the death of natural strength in his carnal life and with the complacency of proper will or by the study of proper righteousness and austerity but against its own will viz. it is to be subjected on the cross to the obedience of God by the means of pouring forth of the blood of Christ Jesus our Lord into whose communion we are taken by a like death according to the inward man so that on the cross we wholly put off our natural life which we had in the flesh being buried with Christ and afterwards raised up again into another supernatural life so as the power of the Law which being as yet not perfectly killed lurketh in the members of our natural body is wholly enervated in the mind and Soul and in the whole humanity having utterly lost all right in and upon the life of man For a man is not excited into such a life ove◠which the jurisdsction of the Law can domineer with a deadly accusation but when it hath fully finished this judgment in man by this death the man also by the benefit of the same death is altogether freed from that Law EPIST. XXII Being a fundamental Relation in what properly consisteth the Oeconomical Government of the Family of Love To the same person MY John I received thy letters together with the books and having somewhat perused them I gain'd the understanding of the greater part of the opinion yet I shall keep the Books till thou comest But the opinion of the Writer is contrary to my mind because it consisteth in the knowledge only of a seeming divine truth and not in an essentia◠truth of God And this is my opinion seeing no man can be more instructed according to this way than the Writer himself of these Books If I may understand his fundamentals from his Books it cannot possibly be that any of those who are inferiour to him can more happily explain the thing to me Yet I am willing that thou shouldest enquire how they carry themselves in their conversation that thou wouldest as exactly as possibly thou canst find out also the rest of their state or condition for when thou shalt come hither I shall more fully discover to thee my opinion concerning those Writings Now I only ask pardon seeing that matters are thus the cause whereof if it shall please the Lord I shall tell thee at thy coming May the merciful and faithful God have mercy on them and us that in an acknowledgement of their darkness they may be led by the Lord in the straight way unto his essential truth before which the natural Reason which inordinately appropriateth God to it self may utterly perish whereby I fear they are still too much bound though they think themselves clearly set free therefrom For all that for which they labour and contend and which they account their utmost aim as far as I can imagine must yet be judged of God for that which reason endeavoureth to effect with them by knowing all that must be God himself so that nothing but God can acknowledge himself in us we in the mean time being by a real death of body and soul as to our creaturely part wholly laid aside and then that life which ought to be in us can be nothing else but Christ as Paul saith likewise so that after we are buried by death we are no more raised up again into Nature but into the Spirit For nature remaineth condemned upon the Cross and being once dead is not again revived Now I judge that nature in these people is still egregiously and in very deed and especially alive although they may think that they are already purified because that they perswade themselves through their ignorance and blindness that they have already plainly conquered that combat of an accusing conscience I write all this to thee with the greatest brevity because thou didst demand my opinion but when God permitting thou shalt come thy self we will talk more concerning them My Opinion therefore as I said is contrary to these Writings and my mind can no waies assent unto them For that aim which the Writer himself calleth the Intellect of God in my sense is indeed nothing else than that they would have Nature as yet not deadned to become a propriety to themselves when indeed Nature before it be dead cannot be otherwise in it self for in it the highest death consisteth True indeed that by reading I find somewhat concerning Death and of the abnegation of the reason and the discretion of Nature so as that the Author would have all humane wisdom and knowledge overturned before we can come to the truth of God yet nevertheless the Soul of a Man doth remain proper to him yea though he renounceeth his intellect so that in this very point the Writer erreth in which he taxeth others and in truth far more vilely seeing that he thereby would come to a greater knowledge but especially that he by the means of his temerity would arrive at that which others seek by means of worship and ceremonies For these from a vow do love their body goods wife and children that they may possess the inheritance of heaven but they do forsake their natural and humane wisdome and reason that they may obtain something that is better viz. the understanding of God and yet both of them are still captivated in that that their Ipseity or Iness still remaineth proper to them although to some more miserably then to others Now it is impossible that they should this way arrive at the truth of God and can possibly be planted into liberty as in the sight God because that they are not lead in tha◠true and as it were that essential death to be found in both Soul and Body bu◠are only instructed by knowing though for this very reason they reject others 〈◊〉 of a certain
death that is knowable to the humane wisdom And because aâ— to their own strength in which they live they dye not in body and soul being wholly condemned before God hencâ— it is that they usurp to themselves as theiâ— propriety that intellect of God that is that they themselves might by the benefit of that thing conserve life which properly ought to be the condemning sentence and the death of their ipseity For if the Truth of God should enter into them in by a certain essential state it would be impossible that a man could endure one spark thereof without being melted quite down Therefore we must dye not only as to our wisdom in the highest degree but as to our own proper Salvation that God alone may be our Wisdom life and Salvation This done our ipseity is condemned before God and thrust down into a death according to the flesh which is as it were essential whence nothing can again bud forth either in respect of God or of the Creature so that whatsoever had bin ours ought to be altogether made subject to its death judgment and sentence of condemnation That same small last Chapter is contrary to that writing inasmuch as it determineth that sometime calm seasons may be gained even according to the flesh for so I transfer it even as the writing its self speaketh so as they then may esteem themselves pure because they who are purified know how to apply all things to a true use Which I also affirm but in its own meaning but that at which this writing aimeth is contrary to my mind for the liberty of Christ belongs to the inward man and doth only affect the mind unto eternal salvation in Divine Truth but the flesh is condemned and suppressed and bound down into death so as that no man can then rightly use the Creatures of God but with grief and misery because that in all these a man may behold his own death in which formerly he had thought to have found life and yet with these very things he is well contented acknowledging this divine judgment for truth and so remains yielded up into death But the Inward man is then conversant in eternal joy being signed or sealed by the Spirit of God I have wrote this in haste that I might satisfie thy desire according to the testimony of my mind The Lord have mercy on them on us all and pluck us quickly out of our errors Alas who am I a miserable wretch who thus writeth I beg Grace of the Lord for without his Grace I shall never be advanced nor abide in him EPIST. XXIII A further consideration concerning the opinion of H. N. To his brother A. W. DEarest Brother thou maist read over this small Treatise and send it back again to me because I must treat something thereof with N. that I may oppose him somewhat about those things which he accounts for true for that which he makes his scope is not pleasing to me which they call the Intellect of God in which both heaven and earth are indeed locally moved and every creature vanisheth out of its condition or state and yet in the same mystery and inheritance they conclude nature to be left alive whereas notwithstanding Nature cannot in and by its life arrive at that pass but only and alone by the benefit of its death introduced into it by Christ our Lord and Saviour and that in so much verity that Nature appears no more with its own proper life but remains eternally cast off with the death and curse thereof But that Nature which thay call purged and dead to its reason in my opinion doth indeed only depend on principles of understanding and science but not on Truth it self for hitherto it hath not approached to the essence it self nor is united therewith for though Reason layeth aside its natural discretion that thereby it may be nearer to the divine intellect yet for all that the intellect is not yet then made one with the Essence but is rather contrary to it and as it were an enemy to Truth seeing that that spiritualized Nature hideth it self under the shew of intellect but not of essence and is in that still entertained Who shall deliver a man from these intricacies The Lord have mercy on us anâ— My Brother I therefore write thus that I may also discover to thee my opinion for that man is endowed with no smaâ—â— understanding yet he is deeply seduced and is deeply wise but withal he is deeply to be disputed with The Lord keep us humble in the Truth that that which belongs to death may be also thrown off into death but let him reign and rule to all eternity EPIST. XXIV Being a brief argument that the foundation of the family of Love is laid and built upon carnal liberty To the same person I W. was here and hath utterly and cordially renounced the thing its self because he had experienced found from their presence that they were infected with the venome of carnal liberty and that all issued out of that fountain Also I restored to him the books if haply they might be willing to have them restored again to them he also was most fully satisfied admiring that so sublime an understanding was subject to errours for he confessed that my opinion was beyond all doubt true seeing that a man is always to be subjected to divine terrours But that such elevated spirits do fall into errours is from thence that they too much covet their proper security whence at length springs up boasting and pride and then after that a fall The Lord preserve us all from evil according to his great mercy that seeing it is of grace that we are saved so also in grace are we conserved and not thorough our own selves EPIST. XXV Concerning the Opinion of Plato To the same person MY brother I send thee back the little book concerning Plato which when I had read I found just so as thou writest For the falling of these who call themselves the family of Love is subtile though in that small tract they are mightily defended all things being interpreted for the better yet the excuse relisheth not well with me except I should say that by their ultimate scope to which they think they shall come by the means of Love their wisdom is shameful as in them so also in us yet with this distinction for what in them is righteousness truth and wisdom must be to us unrighteousness falsness and foolishness if so be that glory to the Lord must spring up thorough us all which yet they are willing to reserve and ascribe to themselves as also did the Jews though in a more excellent degree Now it behooveth a Christian to dye as to them both and by the Lord to be condemned to death viz. as to wisdom and righteousness Moreover may the Lord also freely bestow on us his grace according to his most holy will EPIST. XXVI A Christian consideration concerning
the Resurrection To the same person DEarest brother we will beg of the Lord that he may have mercy on us and that he will lead us into the power of the Resurrection every one according to the measure of his illumination by the quickning power of his spirit by the benefit of whom all seeds do put forth their faculties in growing For the natural life faculty understanding wisdom and sense do all tend to death in time and though a man deluded by some fair shew may imagine to himself an eternal permanency of these things yet when the sun is risen to a burning strength all these will dry up or wither nor is it possible for them to consist or abide the just judgment of God as being that which melteth all down yea furthermore the very discretion it self of the soul must dye likewise as far as the natural man studyeth to preserve it if that that man according to the testimony of his conscience is willing to satisfy the Law least that soul do tumble down into utter destruction Now because it is not the proper disposition of the natural man to lose any thing but rather with the top of the life of the Soul to preserve all things therefore it is subjected to the divine judgment that is to death and because he is willing to conserve life in himself and in his Soul now there is life no where but in God the soul cannot come at the true nourishment of life but is to be deliveral up to death inasmuch as the natural man properly is death it self and belongeth to death For they are bound up together into one body and both viz. the body from the soul and on the other part the soul from the body are moved together whether it be to grief or to joy yea though it be in the state of the highest knowledge unto which the soul according to the natural rule of life could possibly ascend For she cannot be elevated higher in understanding unless first as to her knowledge by which the natural man is informed by her she shall dye so as that it behooveth both soul and body as one man to dye after that the spiritual conception is now out of that deadned seed is wont to spring forth a new plant enriched with divine fruitfulness which no death can touch any more neither according to soul nor according to body because this generation not of man but without man nor out of his will but without his will not with hope but without all hope arriveth at the state of eternity out of the eternal grace of God so as that it is of God and of life always abiding nor is it corruptible even as also God is in his own nature Every thing therefore returneth to that out of which it first sprung viz. the natural man with its perfect body and in its sphere to death without any resurrection at all according to its own proper nature and the supernatural man in its perfect sphere to eternal life abiding eternally in God and yet as a Creature but glorified in God He who comes to this state cannot deny the truth of the thing but he who partaketh nothing thereof also as a natural man uttereth with truth that he believeth that there is no resurrection and although he should confess it yet even that confession of the resurrection must dye because unto the natural man as such there never even eternally belonged any resurrection even as it is impossible for a seed sown to come to a perfect death unless it be wholly corrupted in its self If therefore it can be brought to pass that a man can give up himself to death with a hope of receiving forthwith another life and as to that state and according to that rule of his knowledge wherein he is dead a better for no man can whilst his present understanding is in being attain to another understanding or life unless the former be first dead then indeed there would be no need to proceed to a further death because it can only follow that which had been in being before Now therefore there is here place for death when by the benefit of corruption through the operation of God a new plant ariseth according to the nature of the corruption done every thing according to its own kind as there is example in all creatures and in the corruptible propagation of them So that by how much the more the natural man affirmeth that there is no more Resurrection by so much the more he confirmeth it because he truly is preparing himself for death and uttereth publickly his Testimony concerning his corruption and his eternal death for there is to be no Resurrection of him and thus also to his may together with the Keepers whom the Pharisees set a Testimony concerning the Resurrection of Christ be given which also by this means is mightily confirmed for them who stand in the very door to such a state and do believe it For when the Pharisees having sealed up the Sepulcher had concluded that they had shut up a kind of dead Corpse and to have kept it in that pit of Death the keepers of the Sepulcher who yet were sent to do mischief became witnesses of his Resurrection although it is not believed to this very day but by his Disciples by the Keepers is meant the natural man My Brother this my own true Epistle will clearly open to thee my mind and will be to thee as it were the hand of a Dial which thou must well eye and consider that thou maist likewise write back thy opinion to me whereby it may appear wherein we agree and wherein we differ if we are careful concerning this opinion The Lord look upon us all in his mercy and bring us into his own clearness EPIST. XXVII A faithful Admonition concerning the Resurrection of the Flesh To his Brother A. W. MY Brother Let us go to that man and let us set before him Death and Life Resurrection and incorruptibility all unfolded in their own degree and nature and it shall be at his pleasure to make choice of any one of these For if he shall choose nature in his life then in good earnest he must perish in an eternal death nor shall he ever arrive at such a life as he seeks but if he will approach unto the truth even as also the thing is he shall live while he dieth and he shall acknowledge the true Resurrection which else is denied to him My Brother May God exhibit to him and to us his mercy according to the variety of his compassions nor may he ever leave us in our miseries but remember us in this life subject to so many sufferings in which we cry out laboriously unto the Lord with many sighs that by his hand we may be promoted to incorruptibility which can by no means be effected but by our death which comprehends in it self the relinquishing of all those things which we know by
nature and possess and love and in which we live The power of death shall be known to all things living but by so much the more difficulty by how much the greater knowledge some have on this earth for at the time of death all things are to be given up to God and then all things are shut up and ended in the truth of God The Lord unite us with himself who himself is the beginning and end old and new yet is he one and immutable void of all increase in himself though in the temporary creature he is known with increase and decrease As much therefore as we depart from temporariness so much are we united with God in whom there is no time and in him who is the last and the first with an everlasting presence and in him all Multiplication and Substraction of time is taken away and made co-equal and all flesh which is spiritualized and which was wont to express it self in time doth melt away before eternity The Lord be merciful to us all as of one flesh that bidding farewel to that shadow of time we may grow in his fear and let his name be more and more sanctified over all his creatures in time and let our life perish and vanish away like smoke even as in is evidently done to all flesh together with which all things do tend to corruption whatever it was that ever sprung from it whether they were deeds or whether there were thoughts But it is not so with him who is godly for he with all his works is preserved and will grow and live to Eternity because every appetite life and desire of his is nothing else but God and therefore whatsoever is his tendeth to Eternity As on the contrary the desire and scope of a worldly man is nothing else but flesh which alone doth also move and direct him therefore the effect must perish with the cause as experience testifies for the fruit cannot be otherwise then is the root whence it is sprung May our eternal Saviour Christ Jesus purifie us that in him we may bring forth true fruit and according to the multitude of that his most abundant Grace which God hath richly poured forth upon us from the very beginning of the World we may abide permanent in him Amen EPIST. XXVIII Being a most beautiful Admonition very profitable as unto the death and departure of Nature To a Sick Man I Heartily salute thee in the Lord most dear N. as to what concerneth thy disease I hope the best of thee according to the mercy of God and that his hand was not in vain lifted up over thee For he by his Discipline will lead and conserve us that no rottenness shall grow in us but that by his judgment we be still more and more purified and cleansed from all impurity of Nature bred with us and dead still lurking in us The grace and mercy of the Lord be with thee dearest N. in that thy misery and disease which thou must bear in the flesh and may he grant to thee true submission and yielding up under his hand that with a bowed heart thou maist bear all things in obedience to him according to his holy will concerning thy miserable self that thou maist be lead in his way with perseverance to his glory and be preserved in the death of thy flesh whereby the life of the spirit may from day to day more and more increase in thee and be manifested in the heart of thy dying body Moreover I beg of the Lord that he would strengthen thy Limbs for his service so that if they become deficient as to Nature which yet must be done by continued labours in the way of the Lord that our essence may in time wax old and decrease yet through Christ they may be raised again to an eternal and fresh-springing youth in God where no fainting nor old age nor death can touch them The Lord preserve us and his mercy be present with us in all our adversity lest perhaps that prove able to hinder us in our way that our continued anxiety conjoyned with the highest danger to which in this combat we must subject our selves lest it be in vain nor draweth us back but rather may fruitfully promote us to a perpetual progression and success of his grace and of divine benediction maist thou remain recommended unto God who will free us out of this present Dungeon of this temporary flesh and imbecility according to his own acceptable will will elevate us into the sublimity of Eternity into the life of the spirit through the Resurrection of Christ to whom be the glory to all Eternity EPIST. XXIX How a purified mind ought to bear without any commotion the failings of his Neighbour with all patience To his Brother D. John W. DEarest Brother that that man is affected with such streights and with such griefs of heart that we also must suffer together with him For in that that he is alwaies subjected to sufferings nor can come at any peace is indeed not the work of man but the gift of God yea a great and eminent gift to endure the folly of another and to cover it over with an unvariable mind towards his Neighbour For though we be unduely used or handled by our Neighbour yet in truth a purified heart ought not to be moved by it but must alwaies act according to the bond of Charity which is alone its aim for in that there ariseth no suspicion of evil and although modest reason also may descend to make an excuse yet even all that too must be alwaies done without any motion of mind for as much as he is such a one as the injury and trouble of no creature can move him because he remains confirmed in that which is truly immovable Dearest Brother I therefore write thus that if that same trouble should be reiterated thou maist alwaies have this aim fixed in thy sight For although as to the creature the justice is on your part yet the mind ought to remain alwaies free without the use of this right otherwise there would arise an enmity from thence and a bitterness of heart For thus that which is earthly overwhelmeth that which is heavenly with such a blindness that it plainly seems to a man that he hath some divine right whenas yet God cannot but love nor doth he require any other thing of us according to the measure of his Justice Not as if I would willingly lay some blame upon thee do I say thus but that thy heart may not be nor that any rule should be wanting to thee if you behave your self otherwise thou wilt be obnoxious to a heavier judgement except thou proceedest with caution My Brother strive to have a mind unmoved which cannot be hindred but rather promoted by the enmity of the Creatures All things to a just man turn to good whether it be death or life or dissention or love for such a one overlooking the Creature
taketh all as from the Creator whether they be grateful or ungrateful and though we may not as yet come thus far yet is this to be accounted for a rule and to be followed with all endeavour And with this I would have thee recommended to the Lord who will be helpful to us all and keep and promote us all more and more in his own way EPIST. XXX How a Noble Plant springeth up out of the Dead Seed through the Divine fuitfulness To his Brother A. W. DEarest Brother The Herb we have received The omnipotent Lord who from his eternal beaming forth hath made to come forth the out-flowing powers of all his Creatures according to the common and out-streaming operation of the Law of Nature replenish thine and the common emptiness of others with increase in the blessing of the most noble Plant of God according to his nature that that only Seed which by the benefit of corruption hath utterly lost all its own propriety in a deadly and eternal intemperance and is eternally united with the earth of an imperserutable perfection will fructifie in thee through God contrary to all hope or glory to the greater glorification in the vertue of God Moreover my Brother we received all which are to be brought back again to God as to the Original of all with thansgiving even unto the scope of our death Thus we miserable wretches in this our received way are faln down into to that which we call our propriety so that when we are to depart from that our assumed life we are overwhelmed with sorrows and bitterness although all this is done out of the just judgment of God that all may come unto his truth even as the heavens and the earth are called unto the truth because undeniably all things must come to this state and to render their source glorified by their death and by their being melted down thereinto I wish thee my small portion of health in my state of rejection and disertion from the Lord which I suffer but yet not without mercy that which may happen also to thee but with real commiseration according to thy calling as also to all that are the holy ones of God My brother be mindful of us all may the mercy of God and his eternal and to all creatures his incomprehensible grace come upon us with plenty that by the virtue thereof that miracle of the supernatural spiritual and eternal life may be discovered and acknowledged together with the spiritual salvation in Christ his eternal and only begotten son in whom miserable we are depressed down into death with verity EPIST. XXXI Concerning the right uncloathing of self and of the yielding up of the soul in all sufferings DEarest brother The Lord be mindful of our misery and first to behold me the most miserable one with commiseration and offer to himself my heart made bare and emptied by many pressings together and that he will renunerate it with the blessing of fruitfulness in a divine and eternal redemption and freedom from all the Enemies of my heart who hold it captive in the chaines of darkness out of the just judgment of God to whom I am subjected being ignorant whither at last I must go hence seeing that my anxiety the longer it is is so much the more vehement so that I must always fall into the hands of the Lord seeing all else are fallen away from me The Lord look upon my nakedness and be my preserver that being kept up by and in him I may bring forth fruit to his glory and to the sanctification of things temporaneous in the effusion of the blood of my own proper life and in the liberty of the divine obedience With these I recommend thee to the Lord who can advance us higher in his ways and can fasten us firmly to the cross in true submission and yielding up of our wills that in him we may be kept safe all that short space of our faintings in this time being in his fear delivered up unto death according to the ordination of his judgment impending over us that so we may be led and get forwards in his ways and that we may bid farewel with all our might to time that eternity may take place in us and that we may so dye to our selves that we may walk here on the earth only as Pilgrims The Omnipotent God deal with us in his good pleasure according to his mercy and lead us thorough with Victory even in our imbecillity unto the very end EPIST. XXXII Concerning the death of all created things and of all those which are born out of them MOst beloved brother All things do tend to the end and death of their created nature whence do arise many sighs and a most bitter agony But the Lord will again bring forth his holy one out of death and the grave that he may not see corruption My brother thy pressure is great and severe I know thou desirest comfort but from God only who cannot come but thorough the death of all creatures or of the whole created nature until the last breath of life be also breathed out nor can any refreshment of members be hoped for Let us in a free communion be made partakers of thy sufferings with divine compassion patiently expecting the accomplishment of the judgment in its own order furthermore we will labour according to the will of God and we will sweat till we come to the appointed end even as the hand of the Lord shall over rule us May the omnipotent Lord by his fatherly grace lead us thorough this most difficult labour and strengthen us according to the inward man that we may forsake that which is external and deliver it up to eternal corruption from out of the first judgment to his eternal praise and glory to which we all aspire everyone of us according to his own manner and service but not for our sakes or for our commodity as some now unjustly do and think wherefore also this counterfit opinion shall sink down into defect and death together with the death of the creature by a most hard and terrible fall Because all that that we possess with a lye in time must be yielded up to the eternal truth but all to the glory of God so that at length one may become a looking-glass to the other and God at last may overcome all and persist alone but we in our lies must perish My brother the times of our parents and forefathers are passed and labor belongeth now to our time to the end also of which all things preparatory are at hand The Lord stretch out his hand with mercy over wretched me and over us all that we may be taken into the order which is pleasing to him thorough faith under the obedience of his eternal will so that our will life and choice being subjected to his judgment may be condemned and consumed May the Lord give to us all communion in God with a
consideration of eternity according to his unspeakable mercy Moreover my brother as to my state or condition that abideth in perpetual agony of death with most sharp persecution performed within me after various manners yet to one only end for whose sake all must be done What the Lord may in time do with me is known only to himself and his eternal decree But which way soever I turn my self and whatsoever I consider or behold nothing but a vast abyss and a parching heat of all misery do continually represent themselves to my eyes The Lord in his commiseration lead most wretched me by his fatherly hand thorough things present and to come in this unknown uncertain desert and desolate condition yet I give thanks to his goodness that under this his powerful hand he revealeth to me his fatherly mind The Lord be my helper and my conducter in all things and keep me and teach me in his School and under his discipline His grace be over us all together with his unspeakable mercy Amen EPIST XXXIII How ignorant Nature well stumble in much disputing and will comdemn its neighbour also how the sense of all Scriptures ought to be apprehended in our own selves under the cross MOst beloved N. I pray the Lord that he will promote thee in his way in which thou mayest follow most diligently his will without much disputing by which the flesh rather then God's spirit hath to do we therefore must lay out our time with more advantage For when for the most part we think to speak from the spirit of God perchance nature lurketh under the fair show of the spirit so long as we are still cloathed about with flesh so that when we least believe it yet we then account of the flesh instead of the spirit Therefore we are to walk before the Lord with fear without any bold disputings and we must beware as much as in us lyes to walk innocently before God and before men lest we fall into our own condemnation whilst we are condemning others if not in words yet in heart Moreover most dear N. that writing which I received pleaseth me well although I have not read it thorough so accurately by reason of the weakness of my head For though I cannot truly reach the sense of any writings unless I can apprehend the virtue of them in my own self under the cross whence the true fruit is manifested seeing I tread no further then unto the state in which I then consist by suffering I always follow the steps of Chirst where the latter always discover the defect and imperfection of the former Yet let every man mind his own calling and observe it diligently so all in time will clearly appear and come forth into the light Salute P. N. our friend heartily God will look upon him to his advantage and will make his dayly sighings fruitful thorough his eternal mercy which we are all to expect none excepted The Lord endow thee with wisdom and prudence that thou mayest act aright in all things and that thou mayest walk before him with trembling There are books enough for us to look into if we will but perpetually observe our own consciences that we may most accurately follow their dictates Moreover thorough the providence of God we have the Old and New Testament for our only external rule but the holy spirit above all these for our alone master or Teacher Blessed is he who is deprived of his own proper wisdom and is instructed and instigated by the spirit of the Lord alone The Lord be with thee and with us Amen EPIST. XXXIV Concerning a certain danger that hung over that place by reason of persecution unto which he was about to go DEarest Brother may the Omnipotent Lord preserve my mortified body according to his mercy in his divine will I have purposed to go to that place and to expect the will of God concerning me beseeching him from the most inward and deepest bottom of my soul that he will set me before the enemy and that the remnant of my life which is very small may not tend to the destruction but to the salvation of any one this I beg from his eternal goodness and mercy withal hoping that this danger will prove destruction to me only and will go no further The Lord make known his will to me in this one desire of mine according to his commiseration If the Lord shall suffer me in this tabernacle tolerably to pass through so as still to subsist as I have occasion I shall signify it to thee But my brother which way soever I turn my self or look back all things renounce me and of the present there remains no place more for me And therefore I convert my self to that which the forsaking of all creatures sheweth unto me The Omnipotent God take care to secure me under his own protection EPIST. XXXV An answer sent to his brother concerning a woman that dyed also concerning his own condition together with a devout exhortation MOst beloved brother a real grief hath possessed me for the departure of that woman out of this temporary world I trust in the Lord that all will be done for a good end and from him I expect peace and tranquillity with commiserating grace which we all hunt after and heartily seek for our Souls together with an expectation of an eternity to come I find in my heart that I am now obliged to her children and I love them with a true tendency of mind according to my poor slender ability May the Lord for his mercy-sake turn all for the better Moreover as to what concerns my condition the same kind of bonds do always hold me bound according to the will of God in a disease and an infirmity So long as it shall please the Lord May he direct my ways and bow them down under his fear in the obedience of his most holy will and may he bestow freely his grace on us all that we may continue our lives in righteousness with devotion and a diligent observation of all our works and counsels least in all our actions there be somewhat found that is contrary to the will of God May the Lord give his grace to us all that we may go forwards in his way and bear such fruits as may be pleasing to him In the eight following Epistles is somewhat described of that great misery into which the Lord cast him a little before his death I. MY brother my body hath an increase of some strength just as a man groweth but very slowly so as it can scarcely be observed though yet it proceedeth on Yet is the purpose of God unknown to me although like a pestiferous cloud a many difficulties and sorrows are set before my eyes out of which I can spy no deliverance but by death that so I may wholly penetrate even unâ—â— God which will come to pass if the times shall prove prosperous yea and further also of all means
shall fail me The Lord prepare us all that we may be made fit for his work in those things which he himself seeth and judgeth II. My brother the condition of my body is tolerable as it always was but I remain unshaken in my heart and the trust or confidence of my life is so small by reason of want of strength in my limbs that I can only walk up and down the house with trembling under the hand of my God True indeed I remain like others as to outward appearance but at heart and over my orignal and root of life there impends a judgment and by my unconsidered steps thorough the terrours of death it threatneth an end and my departure out of this time such is the constitution of my whole life way and conversation May the merciful Father open the bowels of his paternal inclination to me a most wretched creature that he may keep me safe from the evil one and preserve us all by his eternal grace Be mindful of forsaken and for lorn me as my compassionate brother if perhaps the Lord may be willing to exhibit his mercy to us III. My brother mine accustomed infirmity still remaineth as long as the Lord will The Lord be my promoter in his commiserating grace and may he preserve me and continue to hold me in his discipline under a suffering obedience of his holy will The cause why I have wrote no mere is the weakness of my hand According to the Lord my writing is not necessary to thee seeing that he himself will operate by his own grace in thy heart thorough the influence of his Spirit from whom all words and all writings may be separated by reason of his immense and glorious clatitude The Lord keep and promote you all in his ways under his fear and likewise us thorough all the time of our earthly combat And so I heartily salute you IV. My brother as to what belongs to my condition it still conflicts with its usual and difficult disease so long as it shall so please God He according to the order of his Justice put me down into this death of corruption and with his own hand plucketh me up again that I may wait for eternity which springeth up from out of the seed of this corruptible mortality May the Lord freely bestow on us all his mercy as with a long-suffering constancy we hope from the Lord it will be that with a heart prepared and submitted we may receive all from his hand and may be lead thorough even unto the end Herewith I recommend thee to the Lord who will lead us all with all our strength and essence unto the true death in Christ that he out of this 〈◊〉 may build up an eternal life whiâ—◠〈◊〉 never more be subjected unto any 〈◊〉 V My brother my condition is the 〈◊〉 that it was when you departed bâ—◠〈◊〉 consideration thereof doth shake al◠〈◊〉 powers into a trembling and a terâ—â—â—â— because of that evident death by the 〈◊〉 of the Lord which as it were an obâ—â—â—re cloud of death I have always before my eyes even from that very time whâ—â— thou wert with me the reason bâ—◠〈◊〉 its beginning and of its end is whâ—â— hid from me the truth it self will bâ—â—â—â— it self forth in its own meaning and oâ—der As to my outward body which respecteth my disease I am not at all chanâ—â—â— but anguishes have taken full possession on all my faculties Be thou recommended to the mercy of God VI. My brother The Lord help us poor wâ—â—â—ches in this dangerous condition of this natural and mutable life whom it behooveth to be kept with believing under all uncertainties in the fear of God according to the faith whereby we believe that all the certainty and firmness of our purposes are to be wholly destroyed corrupted and annihilated that another 〈◊〉 fruit may spring up to eternal life 〈◊〉 â—â—ising out of the foregoing corruptible seed The Lord grant to us his salvation and grace that we may adore or worship 〈◊〉 in Spirit and in Truth even as he himself desireth VII The Lord in his mercy help us all and free us from our errours in his own time For I poor wretch do suffer the justice of the Lord and do bear his judgment upon me as long as this carnal spirit in this my dying nature still breatheth May the eternal and merciful God appear to me by his grace yea and to us all and lead us into his own will VIII My brother The Lord is my deliverer in my necessity and will confirm me in his grace even unto the end My brother I am willing thou shouldest know that my body cannot possibly endure any longer this immense misery without dying God assist me in my sufferings to the last and receive me into his eternal rest My Weakness is great all things are known to the Lord. Thy brother in the highest streights the most wretched in the Lord. M. W. To his Sister the ninth day before his death DEarest Sister whilst I am writing this I am so ordered that I can write no more My dearest sister be mindful of thy younger brother and of his wife and small children that they may be the most advanced and helped as the time may need My most beloved Sister I am in the highest content in the Lord my God and by his grace do bid the farewel with this my dying hand being according to the will God bound in so short a chain as he proposed to himself The Lord our God grant peace to our beloved brothers and sisters And now I turn me to my present call viz. to that eternal peace thorough the death of my flesh which now hasteneth it self to its end And now my most beloved Sister behold my dying salutation and my last farewel to thee from the bottom of my heart wherewith saluteth thee as departing out of this life thy brother M. W. 16 April 1560. He died in the Lord 25 April in the year of our Lord 1560. and of his own age the 39. THE END
This man thereâ—â—re sought first to set up his own proper â—â—ighteousness Faith and Wisdom But â—â—esently God cometh and all these are â—â—owned in a Flood and after that the â—â—an cometh to true Righteousness Faith Charity and Wisdom And these arâ—â—one in man by God above all humanâ—â—trength For if Righteousness shouâ—â—â—onsist in humane strength and work 〈◊〉 the glory would not be of God but 〈◊〉 Man nor would it be of Faith abovâ— nature But now Righteousness is set 〈◊〉 above Nature by God thorough Faitâ— which Faith also is allowed to be abovâ— the strength of man Zeal which is Noah then receiveâ— the blessing of God above humane strengâ—â— thorough the promise after that all aâ—â— perished in the Flood which the man 〈◊〉 means of that Zeal seemed to have gottâ—â— to himself by his own proper works aâ—â— strength These things also are found in Abrahâ—â— when he Boyled with too much Zâ—â—â— nor would not wait for the promise 〈◊〉 which God had promised Isaack 〈◊〉 him that is that Spiritual operatâ—â— granted to him out of grace above â—â—â—per strength he produced Ishmael 〈◊〉 was according to the flesh But beâ—â—â— he could come to that Spiritual prodâ—â—â—on it was first necessary that the deâ—â—â—ion of Sodom and Gomorrha should be 〈◊〉 â—ught to pass for between the births 〈◊〉 â—â—â—mael and Isaack those Cityes were 〈◊〉 â—â—ed CHAP. VII BEfore sin in the very mind it self be overcome and plainly eradicated it must be violently suppressed alwayes least it break out in words deeds or in thoughts For sin remaining in the mind is as it were a kind of Conception which conceives and takes hold of objects that move outwardly For that which a man enjoys with any delight by Seeing Hearing Tasting c. and frameth to himself many Ideas and Cogitations concerning outward things all that produceth sin which sits upon the mind Now 〈◊〉 this should be rooted out these Forâ—â—â—gn outward objects would have in man no more any Lover That man formeth to himself so maâ—y Cogitations of things Forreign Concerning either Love or Hatred or Honour or disgrace or Loss or Gain or Eating or Drinking Friendship or Enmity all that maketh sin which dwells in the Soul if this were overcome such Imaginations could not stick in the mind for they would have no Lover or Receiver and therefore they would Flow out and would not return again for as much as they would want reception Even as he that is neither Hungry nor Thirsty never thinks of Meat and Drink When a man seeks and loves nothing but God and not himself his Concerns are much more pleasant and better then they were formerly when he could love and seek himself in God CHAP. VIII IF one seeth Worldly men in their joy and delights he ought to bewail them and consider Alas in how small and pittiful things do they build their rest But before a Man arrives at that Humility and Meekness he does but still Judge or Censure reproach and revile saying Behold those wicked Wretches and other such like are his words Now we are to abstain from these using upon all occasins Commiseration in Meekness He which judgeth another doth the same thing as he which throweth a Stone against some Wall which Reboundeth and leapeth back upon himself He that Judgeth others and presently Sayes he iâ— sorry for it is not to be believed There can be no Judgment passed upon Spiritual things unless one can ascend above reason Now there is no ascending above reason but by dying By this is meant that a man understands not any thing if he explicateth 〈◊〉 wickedly or wrongly There is no need iâ— the Day-time to dispute what the day is because the day Manifesteth what it self is without the noise of Arguments theâ— therefore that are still in Darkness ougâ—â— not to Judge Concerning the Day tiâ—â— they themselves also come out of thâ— Darkness into the Day and then the Daâ— it self will declare it self that there is 〈◊〉 longer any need of disputing concerniâ—â— it He who possesseth the thing it seâ—â— â—nd beholds it with his Eyes wanteth not the explication of that thing A man ought to turn his Eyes inward upon himself so that leaving all things else he might look only upon himself whatever therefore he hears or sees concerning others yet he ought to prefer them before his own works and to interpret them to be the better and consequently to Judge himself only but not others And though he be injured by others so as they detract from his Reputation or offend him in his Body yet is he to look back to God alone and all these evils are to be accepted from the hands of God nor must he speak any thing of trouble against others as if perhaps he should say But this is not just But this is not Christian we must always do rightly c. I say we must not plainly say so nor must any injury come from him but it becometh him to be of a good-will towards all and it behooveth him to look upon all with Commiseration and a pleasant countenance nor is he to think that an injury is done to him and thereforâ— no man is to be hated nor judged by him And if any one takes away his goods he ought to think that perhaps they belonged rather to that other Man then to himself When a Man thus turns away his eyes from all things that he no longer like an Eagle neglecting himself looks down round about on all others but Contemplates himself with an acknowledgment of His own proper defects and his own Wickedness then is that state a secure one and a sign of true humility But before a man comes thus far how many errours I pray is he involved in and with how much difficulty must he be set perfectly loose from thence It does not usually happen that one thief doth easily let go another But he who is willing to be touched with a true Pity towards sinners it behooveth him first of all to be purged from sins and to be come unto Regeneration Let therefore a man restrain his tongue by all means and let him abstain from the praise and from the dispraise of others always beholding his own depravity and desiring his own purgation Then truly he will not Observe what is to be Done or omitted by Others but he shall Judge all these in himself only And if he shall see or hear of any unjust Matter done by others then shall he first think thus Alas for me Who am I And so let him turn from Judging of others to Judge his own self For until any one is come up hither he cannot indeed get forwards but he must remain Foolisâ— and Rude as long as he desisteth not from them A Man must be touched with Pity towards his Neighbours as the Lord â—ook Pity on him for the Mercy of God â—s stretched out over all his works He who is an Elect one knows with how Long-suffering and Mercy the
Lord hath â—orn with him and with how much ado he â—edged up his way And his returning back â—nto Aegypt and how as it were forced â—nd compelled him and consequently â—ith a certain kind of violence as I may â—y he was brought unto God Nor is â—e Ignorant of such Means applied to him â—y the Lord and therefore he also never â—veigheth with Sharpness against others â—or judgeth Sinners but is Gentle and Merciful towards them and desireth not their Deaths but rather that God may convert them If this is to be done towards the Viler and Harder fore of Sinners whom no repentance toucheth much more Gently will He act with his weak Neighbour who being in the state of repentance seeketh the Lord This person surely he deservedly beareth with in all his defects and Infirmities and Sustaineth him even as the Lord Sustained him when he endured much about his Conversion yea even as also that very Neighbour himself hath formerly Sustained and born with his errours He that doth this he meteth to his Neighbour in the same Measure which was not only from the Lord but from his Neighbour also measured to him He who will not bear deserves not to be born with And he who will alwayes shew himself unmerciful and Judge and reject others he ought in like Manner to expect from God Indignation Judgment and Rejection CHAP. IX THe person of any one is not to be respected but he who is in the Person and operateth from it that is God whose only is the Glory Respect of persons is the worst of things as if the person it self should be that that should know and do any thing when yet it is not the Man but God in the Man and therefore to him alone is due the glory of Wisdom Justice Virtue Strength Triumph and Victory and all these are not to be attributed unto us but to God alone in us and in our Neighbour For in us nothing is to be respected but our empty nothingness for this only is proper to us otherwise nothing belongs to us neither God nor the Creature Consequently also no injury can be done to us by any Man although they should take away from us our goods and Life yet is not that which is ours taken from us but that which is God's for our Life Spirit Soul Body and all goods are God's and not ours Wherefore we are not to be angry but whatever God hath ordered to Fall upon us we must alwayes acknowledge to be well and Rightly done Hence also no Man is to be Hated nor are we to envy any one nor to detract from any mans reputaion but we must rather exercise mercy Furthermore a Regenerate Man cannot be provoked to be Angry nor to be Proud or of a Haughty Mind seeing he himself is purged from such like vices and is become a New Creature and is detained in the Regeneration every ways given up to God and is contented with whatsoever God shall do with him or determine to come upon him either in time or in eternity either inwardly or outwardly either by Means or without Means he receives all these from the Hand of God and yields the whole direction of himself up to God God as is above said who inhabiteth in the person is to be respected but not the person himself else when the person fails he also would fail who should respect the person Nor is God's honour attributed to him if respect of persons should be applied letting therefore the person go nothing but God only is to be looked at CHAP. X. WHether a Man be freed from the Creature is then at length acknowledged when he Seems to be willing that it should be taken from him A Man gives up himself to every Creature and to every other thing and desires it so as that without it he cannot live And if so be he cannot at length obtain it then is nature enraged and sometimes Falls into a Disease and the Mind is vexed with many other Cares Let us therefore renounce all things thorough Death and give our selves up to the dispose of God and possess our Souls in Calmness and true peace and we shall have Eternal Life So long as a Man hath not plainly yielded up to the Creature and renounced it the Ideas of that Creature alwayes enter in upon the Mind but when that Creatrue is perfectly denyed then the Ideas thereof vanish away So soon as ever any thing is yielded up it loseth that strength it had to force a Man and then it is an easie thing for a Man to pass it by which before to do did seem difficult yea impossible When a Man gives up his will to God then he belongs to God and if so be a Man is sometimes willing to put this in Practise and to abide by it God doth otherwise order it for him and will have him enjoy that which is his Behold this comes of that free yielding up as a Man may clearly perceive in himself now God detains him least he should slip into worser things They who are lead have not any longer any will nor Desire nor Choice but God willeth desireth and chooseth in them By how much the more a Man is fixed in the Old Adam by so much the more it seems Impossible to him and by so much the less can he believe that he can become Righteous So long as a Man does any thing Violently against his own Conscience whether it be of Small or of great Moment yet he cannot get forwards He that is a Transgressour in one sin is guilty of all sins If any one consenteth to one Temptation all the rest present themselves and desire to Gain that Man as being him upon whom they have gotten a new right or claim CHAP. XI A Man ought not to pass over that which stirs up in him some secret Impediment if he will be Sollicitously concerned for God or else that same secret Impediment may still remain Seperated from God and when the Man shall come to Examination that secret of his heart shall come forth and shew that it still hath been alive in him Therefore is he to bear an Examination and in the Examination this secret of his heart is to be struck out and to be mortified that so he may come unto God noâ— must we at this time Fly away but search thoroughly and then a Man may bâ— truly Sollicitous in God and so exercisâ— himself viz. by laying aside all Impediments that are by Means of that Examination Detected and Manifested And then the Man comes to a certain liberty when thorough Examination he is proved and tryed he can no longer be terrified at any thing If yet somewhat remains that without his knowledge hath lurked in his Mind that also shall be manifested when he repeats the Examination Nor can a Man more rightly know whether he be free or a Captive then when he is thus touched and therefore this Tryal is not an evil thing nor also