how were the Children put upon getting choice Scripture and their Catechisms and ingaged in secret prayer and meditation Father Mother Brethren Sisters Boarders were the better for his excellent example and holy exhortations He was a good Nurse if not a spiritual Father to his natural Father as you may read afterwards and some of his Brethren have cause to bless God for ever that ever they saw his face and heard his words and observed his conversation which had so much of loveliness and beauty in it that it could not but commend Religion to any that did take notice of it He could speak in St. Pauls words brethren my hearts desire and prayer to God for you all is that you may be saved Read what his heart was in these following lines Distance of place cannot at all lessen that natural Bond whereby we are conjoyned in blood neither ought to lessen that of love Nay where true love is it cannot for love towards you I can only say this that I feel it better than I can express it as it is wont to be with all affections but love felt and not expressed is little worth I therefore desire to make my love manifest in the best way I can Let us look upon one another not as Brethren only but as Members of the same Body whereof Christ is the Head Happy day will that be wherein the Lord will discover that Union let us therefore breathe and hunger after this so that our closest knot may meet in Christ if we are in Christ and Christ in us then we shall be one with one another This I know you cannot complain for want of instruction God hath not been to us a dry Wilderness or a barren heath you have had Line upon Line and Precept upon Precept he hath planted you by the Rivers of Water it is the Lord alone indeed who maketh fruitful but yet we are not to stand still and do nothing There is a Crown worth seeking for seek therefore and that earnestly O seek by continual prayer keep your soul in a praying frame this is a great and necessary duty nay a high and precious priviledge If thou canst say nothing come and lay thy self in an humble manner before the Lord. You may believe me for I have through mercy experienced what I say There is more sweetness to be got in one glimpse of Gods love than in all that the world can afford O do but try O taste and see how good the Lord is Get into a corner and throw your self down before the Lord and beg of God to make you sensible of your lost undone state by nature and of the excellency and necessity of Christ Say Lord give me a broken heart soften melt me Any thing in the world so I may be but inabled to value Christ and be perswaded to accept of him as he is tendred in the Gospel O that I may be delivered from the wrath to come O a blessing for me even for me and resolve not to be content till the Lord have in some measure answered you O my bowels yern towards you my heart works O that you did but know with what affection I write now to you and what prayers and tears have been mingled with these lines The Lord set these things home and give you an heart to apply them to your self the Lord bless all the means that you enjoy for his blessing is all in all Give me leave to deal plainly and to come yet a little closer to you for I love your soul so well that I cannot bear the thoughts of the loss of it Know this that there is such a thing as the New birth and except a man be born again he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Gods favour is not to be recovered without it This New birth hath its Foundation laid in a sense of sin and a godly sorrow for it and a heart set against it without this there can be no Salvation Look well about you and see into your self and thou wilt see that thou art at Hells mouth without this first step and nothing but Free Grace and pure Mercy is between you and the state of the Devils The Lord deliver us from a secure careless heart Here you see a natural mans condition How darest thou then lye down in security O look about for your Souls sake What shall I say what shall I do to awaken your poor Soul I say again without repentance there is no remission and repentance it self may lose its labour if it be not in the right manner Then tears and groans and prayers will not do without Christ most when they are convinced of sin and are under fears of Hell run to duty and reform something and thus the wound is healed and by this thousands fall short of Heaven For if we be not brought off from our selves and our righteousness as well as our sins we are never like to be saved We must see an absolute need of a Christ and give our selves up to him and count all but dung and dross in comparison of Christs righteousness Look therefore for mercy only in Christ for his sake relye upon Gods mercy The terms of the Gospel are repent and believe gracious terms Mercy for fetching nay mercy for desiring nay for nothing but receiving Dost thou desire mercy and grace I know thou dost even this is the gift of God to desire hunger after Christ let desires put you upon endeavour the work it self is sweet yea repentance and mourning it self hath more sweetness in it than all the Worlds comforts Vpon repentance and believing comes Justification after this Sanctification by the Spirit dwelling in us By this we come to be the Children of God to be made partakers of the Divine Nature to lead new lives to have a suitableness to God It 's unworthy of a Christian to have such a narrow spirit as not to act for Christ with all ones heart and soul and strength and might Be not ashamed of Christ be not afraid of the frowns and jeers of the wicked Be sure to keep a Conscience void of offence and yield by no means to any known sin be much in prayer in secret prayer and in reading the Scriptures Therein are laid up the glorious Mysteries which are hid from many eyes My greatest desire is that God would work his own great work in you I desire to see you not as formerly but that the Lord would make me an instrument of your Souls good for which I greatly long CHAP. IV. His Particular Addresses to his Brethren for their Souls good and the success thereof HE wrote many Letters of this nature and desired oftentimes to be visiting his Brethren that he might particularly address himself to them and see what became of his Letters Prayers and Tears and he was very watchful over them ready to reprove and convince them of sin and ready to incourage any beginnings of a good work
O my soul vvhat vvilt thou canst thou thus unworthily sleight this admirable and astonishing condescention of God to thee Seems it a small matter that the great Jehovah should deal thus familiarly with his Worm and wilt thou pass this over as a common mercy What meanest thou O my soul that thou dost not constantly adore and praise this rare strong and unspeakable Love Is it true O my soul doth God deal familiarly with man and are his humble zealous and constant love praise and service too good for God Why art not thou O my soul swallowed up every moment with this free unparalell'd everlasting Love And then he breaks out again into another triumphant Extasie of praise and joy and expressed a little of that which was unexpressible in some such words as these Stand astonished ye Heavens and wonder O ye Angels at this infinite grace Was ever any under Heaven more beholding to free grace than I Doth God use to do thus with his creatures Admire him for over and ever O ye redeemed ones O those joys the tast of which I have Those everlasting joys which are at his right hand for evermore Eternity Eternity it self is too short to praise this God in O bless the Lord with me come let us shout for joy and boast in the God of our Salvation O help me to praise the Lord for his mercy indureth for ever One of his brethren that had formerly been wrought upon by his holy exhortations and example praying with him and seeing of him as he apprehended near his Dissolution desired that the Lord would be pleased to continue those astonishing and soul supporting comforts to the last moment of his breath and that he might go from one Heaven to another from grace and joy imperfect to perfect grace and glory and when his work was done here give him if it were his will the most easie and triumphant passage to rest and that he might have an abundant entrance administred into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ At the end of the Duty he burst out into a wonderful Passion of joy Sure that was joy unspeakable and full of glory O what an Amen did he speak Amen Amen Amen Hallelujah It would have made any Christians heart to leap to have seen and heard what some saw and heard at that time and I question not but that it will somewhat affect them to hear and read it though it be scarce possible to speak the half of what was admirable in him for it being so much beyond president it did even astonish and amaze those of us that were about him that our relation must fall hugely short of what was real I verily believe that it exceeds the highest Rhetorick to set out to the life what this heavenly creature did then deliver I say again I want words to speak and so did he for he saw things unutterable But yet so much he spake as justly drew the admiration of all that saw him and I heard an old experienced Christian and Minister say it again and again That He never saw nor read nor heard the like Neither could we ever expect to see the glories of Heaven more demonstrated to sense in this World He talked as if he had been in the third Heavens and broke out into such words as these O He is come He is come O how sweet How glorious is the blessed Jesus How shall I do to speak the thousandth part of his praises O for words to set out a little of that excellency But it is unexpressible O how excellent glorious and lovely is the precious Jesus He is sweet He is altogether lovely And now I am sick of Love he hath ravished my soul with his beauty I shall die sick of Love O my friends stand by and wonder come look upon a dying man and wonder I cannot my self but stand and wonder Was there ever a greater kindness was there ever sensibler manifestations of rich Grace O why me Lord why me Sure this is akin to Heaven and if I were never to enjoy any more than this it were well worth all the torments that men and Devils could invent to come thorow yea even a Hell to such transcendent joys as these If this be dying dying is sweet Let no true Christian ever be afraid of dying O Death is sweet to me This Bed is soft Christs Arms and Kisses his Smiles and Visits sure they would turn Hell into Heaven O that you did but see and feel what I do Come and behold a dying man more chearful than you ever saw any healthful man in the midst of his sweetest enjoyments O Sirs Worldly pleasures are pitiful poor sorry things compared with one glimps of this glory which shines in so strongly into my Soul O why should any of you be so sad when I am so glad This this is the hour that I have waited for About eight and forty hours before his Death his eyes were dim and his sight much failed his Jaws shook and trembled and his Feet were cold and all the symtoms of Death were upon him and his extream parts were already almost dead and senseless and yet even then his joys were if possible greater still He had so many fits of joy unspeakable that he seemed to be in one continued act of Seraphick Love and praise He spake like one that was just entring into the gates of the new Jerusalem the greatest part of him was now in Heaven not a word drop'd from his mouth but it breathed Christ and Heaven O what incouments did he give to them which did stand by to follow hard after God and to follow Christ in a humble believing zealous course of life and adding one degree of grace to another and using all diligence to make their Calling and Eleâ—â—ion sure and that then they also should find that they should have a glorious passage into a blessed Eternity But most of his work vvas Praise a hundred times admiring of the bottomless love of God to him O vvhy me Lord vvhy me And then he vvould give instructions to them that 〈◊〉 to see him He vvas scarce ever silent because the Love of Christ and Souls did constrain him There vvas so much work done for Christ in his last hours that I am ready to think he did as much in an hour as some do in a year Every particular person had a faithful affectionate vvarning And that good Minister that vvas so much vvith him used this as an argument to perswade him to be vvilling to live a little longer and to be patient to tarry Gods leisure sure God hath somthing for thee to do that is yet undone some vvord of exhortation to some poor soul that you have forgot The truth of it is he vvas so filled vvith the love of Christ that he could scarce bear absence from Him a moment He knew that he should be capable of bearing of greater Glory above than he
and sealed the pardon He hath healed my wounds and caused the bones which he had broken to rejoyce O help me to bless the Lord he hath put a new Song into my mouth O bless the Lord for his infinite goodness and rich mercy O now I can die it is nothing I bless God I can die I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ You may well think that his Sons heart was not a little refreshed to hear such words and see such a sight and to meet the Messenger that he had sent to Heaven returned back again so speedily He counted himself a sharer with his Father in this mercy and it was upon a double account welcome as it did so wonderfully satisfie his Father and as it was so immediate and clear an Answer of his own prayers as if God had from Heaven said unto him thy tears and prayers are heard for thy Father thou hast like a Prince prevailed with God thou hast got the blessing thy fervent prayers have been effectual go down and see else Upon this this precious young man broke forth into praises and even into another extasie of joy that God should deal so familiarly with him and the Father and Son together were so full of joy light life love and praise that there was a little Heaven in the place He could not then but express himself in this manner O blessed and for ever blessed be God for his infinite grace O who would not pray unto God! verily he is a God that heareth prayers and that my soul knows right well And then he told his joyful Father how much he was affected with his former despondings and what he had been praying for just before with all the earnestness he could for his soul and how the Lord had immediately answered him His Father hearing this and perceiving that his former comforts came in in a way of prayer and his own childs prayer too was the more refreshed and was the more confirmed that it was from the Spirit of God and no delusion And immediately his Son standing by he fell into another fit of triumphing joy his weak body being almost ready to sink under that great weight of Glory that did shine in so powerfully upon his Soul He could then say now let thy servant depart in peace for mine eyes have seen thy Salvation He could now walk through the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil O how sweet a thing is it to have ones interest in Christ cleared how comfortable to have our calling and election made sure How lovely is the sight of a smiling Jesus when one is dying How refreshing is it when heart and flesh and all are failing to have God for the strength of our heart and our portion for ever O did the foolish unexperienced world but know what these things mean did they but understand what it is to be solaced with the believing views of Glory to have their senses spiritually exercised could they but taste and see how good the Lord is it would soon cause them to disrelish their low and bruitish pleasures and look upon all worldly joys as infinitely short of one glimpse of Gods love After this his Reverent Father had a sweet calm upon his spirits and went in the strength of that provision that rich Grace laid in till he came within the Gates of the New Jerusalem having all his Graces greatly improved and shewed so much humility love to and admiring of God contempt of the World such prizing of Christ such patienee as few Christians arrive to especially his Faith by which with extraordinary confidence he cast his Widow and eleven Fatherless Children upon the care of that God who had fed them with this Manna in his Wilderness state The benefit of which Faith all his Children none of which were in his life-time provided for have since to admiration experienced And it is scarce to be imagined how helpful this his precious Son John Janeway was to his Father by his heavenly discourse humble advice and prayers After a four moneths conflict with a gainful Consumption and Hectick Fever his Honoured Father sweetly slept in Jesus CHAP. VI. His care of Mother and other Relations after his Fathers death AFter the death of his Father he did what he could to supply his absence doing the part of Husband Son Brother so that he was no small comfort to his poor Mother in her disconsolate state and all the rest of his Relations that had any sense of God upon their spirits To one of which he thus addressed himself upon the death of a sweet Child Daily observations and every mans experience gives sufficient testimony to it that afflictions of what kind soever by how much the seldomer they are the more grievous they seem We have of a long time sailed in the Rivers of Blessings which God hath plentifully poured forth among us now if we come where the Waves of affliction do but a little more than ordinarily arise we begin to have our souls almost carried down with fears and griefs yea the natural man if not counter-powred by the Spirit of God will be ready to entertain murmuring and repining thoughts against God himself Whereas if all our life had been a Pilgrimage full of sorrows and afflictions as we deserved and had but rarely been intermingled with comforts we should have been more fitted to bear afflictions Thus it is naturally but we ought to counter-work against the stream of nature by a new principle wrought in us and whatsoever Nature doth err in Grace is to rectifie And they upon whom Grace is bestowed ought to set Grace on work For wherefore is Grace bestowed unless that it should act in us It hath pleased the Lord to make a breach in your Family There where the knot is fast tyed when it is disunited the change becomes greater and the grief is the more inlarged So that herein you who are most moved are most to be excused and comforted The strength of a Mothers affections I believe none but Mothers know and greatest affections when they are disturbed breed the greatest grief But when afflictions come upon us what will be our duty Shall we then give our selves up to be carried away with the grieving passions Shall we because of one affliction cause our souls to walk in sadness all our days and drive away all the light of comfort from our eyes by causing our souls to be obscured under the shades of melancholy Shall we quarrel with our Maker and call the wise Righteous Judge to our Bar Doth he not punish us less than we deserve Is there not Mercy and Truth in all his Dispensations Shall we by continual sorrow add affliction to affliction and so become our own Tormentors Are we not rather under afflictions to see if any way we may find a glimpse of Gods love shining in towards us and so to raise up our souls nearer God Is there not
condescension Those that believingly seek him he is not ashamed to be called their God I am sensible in some measure of your burdens and indeed that must needs be a burden that keeps the soul from pursuing its chiefest good My prayers for you are that you may have such teachings from God as may make you understand how far heavenly things are more pretious than earthly and that you may with all your might seek mind and love that which hath most of true excellency in it which hath the only ground of real comfort here and of eternal happiness hereafter CHAP. XIII His Love and Compassion to Souls HE was full of pity and compassion to souls and yet greatly grieved and ashamed that he did no more to express his sense of the worth of souls and that his bowels did no more sensibly yern over them who he had just cause to fear were in a Christless state Though there were few of his Kindred and Relations nay of his neighbours and acquaintance but he did make a personal application to either by letters or conference Yet for all this who more ready to cry out of want of love to souls and unprofitableness to others in his generation that he was no more full of compassion and that he made no better improvement of all the visits that he made in which we should not make carnal pleasure and recreation our end but the imparting receiving of some spiritual gift This made him after a considerable absence from a dear friend to groan out these complaints God by his providence hath off brought us together but to how little purpose God and our Consciences know As for my part I may justly bewail my barreness Oh that I should be of so little use where I come Oh that my tongue and heart should be still so unfruitful I am ready to hope sometimes that if it should please God in his providence to bring us again together we may be more profitable one to another And this indeed makes me more desirous of coming to you again than any thing else That I may do some good among you Oh how few study to advance the interest of Christ and the benefit of one anothers souls in their visits as they should and might do I am not able at present to order my affairs so as to come comfortably over to you but I hope e're long the Lord will give me leave to see you and be refreshed by you I desire to supply my absence by this sure token of my remembrance of you and also that I might have an opportunity for that which we ought to eye most in the injoyment of one anothers society But I have found that partly because of the narrowness of my heart not being inlarged to bring forth into act what I have greatly desired partly because of the malice of the Enemy of our souls who indeavours all that possible he can to lay stumbling blocks in our way to real union and nearer acquaintance with God and Christian communion from these and other causes it is that I have been too little beneficial to you for mercy It may be I may write that with freedom which in presence I should not have spoken I shall take occasion from your desire of my presence with you to look higher to the desires of our souls to be in conjunction and communion with the highest good who fills up all relations to our souls who is our Father our Husband our Friend our God yea our all in all But when I say He is all in all I mean more than that which we count all For every one doth confess that it is God alone that doth bless all other things to us and that it is not out of the nature of those things that we injoy that they are blessings but it is God which makes them comforts to us And thus God is to be acknowledged All in all common injoyment But besides this God is something to the soul which he is by himself and not in the mediation of the creatures where God is as a portion and lived upon as our true happiness He is not only the complement of other things but He himself is the souls sufficiency I am a little obscure I desire to be plainer I mean that through the dispensation of the Gospel God is to be lived upon delighted in and chosen before all for for this very end hath Christ appeared that he might make God approachable by man and that we who are a far off may be mad nigh There is a nearness to God which we are not only allowed but called to in the loving dispensations of the Gospel so that now we are not to be strangers any longer but friends we are to have fellowship and communion with God Why do not our hearts even leap for joy why do not our souls triumph in these discoveries of love Even because we know not the greatness of our priviledges the highness of our calling the excellency of our advancement the blessedness of this life the sweetness of these imployments the satisfaction of these injoyments the comfort of this heavenly life the delights of this communion with God We know not the things which belong to our peace and thus when God calls us to that which he sent his Son for when Christ offers us that which cost him so dear we with the greatest unworthiness the vilest ingratitude refuse slight and contemn it What think we doth it not go even to the heart of Christ and to speak after the manner of men doth it not grieve him to the soul to behold his greatest love scorned the end of his agony to be more vilely accounted of than the basest of our lusts Let us therefore according to that high calling wherewith we are called enter into a more intimate acquaintance with God and as we find our souls acting naturally towards those things which are naturally dear to us so let us strive to highten our spiritual affections We are very apt to look upon duties as burdens rather than priviledges and seasons of injoying the greatest refreshments but these apprehensions are very low and earthly O that we could at length set our selves to live a spiritual life to walk with God and out of a new nature to savour and rellish those things which are above Could we but really intensely believingly desire that which is real happiness and the Heaven of Heaven union and communion with God these desires would bring in some comfort As for me you must give me allowance to get my affections more emptied into God though it be with a diminution of love to you and blessed will that day be when all love will be fully swallowed up into God But spiritual love doth not destroy natural affections or relative obligations but perfect and rectifie them and so I may giving up my self to God be still yours CHAP. XIV His trouble at the Barrenness of Christians HE was
foretold that Doomsday should be upon such a day although he blamed their daring folly that would pretend to know that which was hid from the Angels themselves and that the Devil could not acquaint them with yet granting their supposition to be true what then said he What if the day of Judgmennt were come as it will most certainly come shortly If I were sure the day of Judgment were to begin within an hour I should be glad with all my heart If at this very instant I should hear such thunderings and see such lightnings as Israel did at Mount Sinai I am perswaded my very heart would leap for joy But this I am confident of through infinite mercy that the very meditation of that day hath even ravished my soul and the thought of the certainty and nearness of it is more refreshing to me than the comforts of the whole world Surely nothing can more revive my Spirits than to behold the blessed Jesus the joy life and beauty of my soul Would it not more rejoyce me than Josephs wagons did old Jacob I lately dreamed that the day of Judgment was come Methought I heard terrible cracks of thunder and saw dreadful lightnings the foundations of the earth did shake and the Heavens were roled together as a garment yea all things visible were in a flame methought I saw the graves opened and the earth and Sea giving up their dead methought I saw millions of Angels and Christ comming in the clouds Methought I beheld the antient of days sitting upon his Throne and all other Thrones cast down Methought I beheld him whose Garments were white as Snow and the hair of his head like pure Wool His Throne was like the firely flame and his wheels as burning fire a firey stream issued and came forth from him thousands of thousands ministred unto him and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him and the Judgment was set and the books were opened O but with what an extasie of joy was I surprized Methought it was the most heart-raising and soul-ravishing sight that ever my eyes beheld and then I cried out I have waited for thy salvation O God and so I mounted into the Air to meet my Lord in the Clouds This I record only to shew how far he was from being daunted at the thoughts of death or Judgement and to let other Christians know what is attainable in this life and what folly it is for us to take up with so little when our Lord is pleased to make such noble provisions for us and by a wise and diligent improvement of those means which God hath offered us we may have an entrance administred to us abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ O how comfortable how honourable and how profitable is this state These are your men that quit themselves like Christians This is true gallantry noble manhood real valour This was the condition of Mr. Janeway for about three years before he died I will not deny but that he had some clouds but he usually walked in a sweet even humble serenity of spirit and his refreshing joys were more considerable than his dispondings and though he daily questioned many actions yet did not question his state but had his heart fixed upon that rock that neither waves nor winds could shake His senses were still so spiritually exercised as that he could look up to Heaven as his Country and Inheritance and to God as his Father and to Christ as his Redeemer and that which is scarce to be heard of he counted it the highest act of patience to be willing to die and a very great pitch of self-denial to be contented to be in this world and to dwell on this side a full and eternal injoyment of that royal glorious One whom his soul was so much in love with In a word he had the most earnest desires to be dissolved and to be with Christ that I ever saw read or heard of since the Apostles times CHAP. XVII His last Sickness and Death AND now the time draws nigh wherein his longings shall be satisfied he is called to his last work and truly his deportment in it was honourable his carriage so eminently gracious so meek patient fruitful joyful and thankful that it made all his friends stand and wonder as being abundantly above their experience and reading and those Christians that saw him could not but admire God in him look upon him as one of the most singular instances of rich grace and even bless God that their eyes ever saw or their ears ever heard such things and had such a sensible demonstration of the reality of invisibles He falls into a deep Consumption His body is now shaken again and he falls into a deep Consumption but this messenger of God did not in the least damp him Spitting of blood was no ghastly thing to one that had his eye upon the blood of Jesus faint sweats did not daunt him that had always such reviving cordials at hand It 's matter of joy to him that he was now in some hopes of having his earnest desires satisfied After he had been a while sick a sudden dimness seized upon his eyes by and by his sight quite failed and there was such a visible alteration in him that he and others judged these things to be the symptoms of death approaching But when he was thus taken he was not in the least surprized but was lifted up with joy to think what a life he was going to looking upon death it self as one of his Fathers servants and his friend that was sent as a messenger to conduct him safely to his glorious palace When he felt his body ready to faint he called to his Mother and said Dear Mother I am dying but I beseech you be not troubled for I am through mercy quite above the fears of death it 's no great matter I have nothing troubles me but the apprehensions of your grief I am going to Him whom I love above life But it pleased the Lord to raise him again a little out of this fainting fit for his master had yet more work for him to do before he must receive his wages Although his outward man decayed apace yet he is renewed in the inward man day by day His graces were never more active and his experiences were never greater When one would have thought he should have been taken up with his distemper and that it had been enough for him to grapple with his pains then he quite forgets his weakness and is so swallowed up of the life to come that he had scarce leisure to think of his sickness For several weeks together I never heard the least word that savoured of any complaint or weariness under the hand of God except his eager desire to be with Christ be counted complaining and his haste to be in Heaven be called impatience Now 's the time when one might have seen Heaven and