am methinks like Jonah tumbling My Soul in a Tempest in the bottom of the Sea the Bars of an earthly and dark Mind are stopping my way and am as lifeless methinks as if I had no Interest in the Fountain of Saving Health The Weeds are wrapp'd about my head I am in the Deep but cannot cry unto the Lord as Jonah did And what the Lord is teaching me by this unexpected disappointment I cannot yet tell yet notwithstanding I have hope in him that I shall yet be rescued from this Captivity and see his Face again I have been searching after all my sins through the several Ages of my Life and endeavoured to view the Depravity of my Soul in all the sinful Circumstances of every sin but I cannot wind my self out my design was to get thereby to a more sincere Closure with Christ but e're I was aware I had challenged forth more Enemies than I could well suppress I thought by aggravating my sins to have gotten more hunger after Jesus Christ but like over-much cold Water it damped my Stomach and I found Sickness seizing upon me rather than Hunger a heartless Stupidity instead of Believing I concluded I was in some kind or other out of my way or else had not prepared my Stomach to keep out the Infection that exhaled from that Body of Death which is within me as I should have done whiles I was moving the Limbs thereof The thing I aimed at was quickning Then I remembred that word Luk. 24. 5. Why seek ye the living among the dead Come not amongst the Graves without his company who died for sins and is risen from the Dead I could not be satisfied about the sincerity of my Repentance and there I stuck till at length I remembred that Christ rose again as well to give Repentance as Remission of Sins Act. 5. 31. and 11. 18. so that I can bring no Repentance to him but I must first get it from him He is exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour to give Repentance c. A Saviour to take away all the defects of my Repentance a Prince to overcome all the difficulties and to create in me a sound Mind against the Infirmites of my Repentance and my halting therein Take then O mighty Prince and Saviour this work into thy own hands and create a right Spirit within me So that now my gadding Spirit is My Soul returning to its Strong Hold. brought back again to see that Christ is the Alpha and Omega the Author and Finisher of whatever doth concern the new Creature And although he be so yet how hard is it to venture my Soul and Body my whole Hope and Care into his hands by faith in his Word I had need know such an one very well with whom I am to venture my Journey through a Warfaring Life here and shortly through Death and Judgment too and so into the Ocean of Eternity O dear Jesus who art my Lord and my God who canst renew my heart and none else can do it breath upon me and say Receive the Holy Ghost Cast thy Mantle upon me and let the Unction of thy Spirit be so shed abroad throughout my whole Soul that my heart may be entirely thine thine only that thy self only may be the Covering of my eyes instead of all other Objects And now what should hinder but The Soul first improves Baptism that at length I should solemnly in the presence of God the Father Son and Spirit and in the presence of all the elect Angels pursue the ends of that Covenant which was sealed by Christ's Appointment to me in Baptism through whose hands soever that Ordinance was appointed and permitted to pass upon me Was not that a Divine Prophesie which Balaam himself spake which passed through his Mouth Numb 24. 17. There shall come a Star out of Jacob c. and can the Ordinance of Christ be made void through whose hands soever it came and in what unworthy Robe soever it was drest Did the sacred Ark lose its vertue by being in the Philistines Custody Did he forsake it who dwelt between the Cherubims Was the Mercy-seat forsaken and become like common Metal Why then should this Ordinance be lost to me in the substance of it though it may be some humane Scurf was laid upon it And have I not more reason to hope through Covenant-Grace that the Faith and Prayers of my dear Parents then and since are in force for a Blessing upon it to me than the defects of others in the manner of Administration can have to hinder it especially seeing now I desire humbly to take hold of the Covenant and with my own consent to say I agree to the Condescension of thy Grace and Love my dear Lord I catch hold on thy free Love and into thy Name O most holy God the Father Son and Spirit I give my self up through him who confirmed the Covenant and came by Water and Blood to make it effectual I believe Lord help my Unbelief I reach out my hand through thy Grace let thy Grace and Power pull me over to thy self that in the Ark of thy unchangeable Covenant I may be carried above my self and above a miserably drowned World Be not absent O thou who in thy Mercy didst make and impose this Seal of the Covenant as the Badge of one of thy Family for me to wear who also speakest words of Truth and Life when thou saist I baptise thee in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost fulfil thy good Word unto me thy Servant in which I desire to hope that thou mayest be mine and I may be thine wholly for ever that I may serve thee and glory in thee with all thy people who are thine own Inheritance Do not hang back O my poor Struggles with Vnbelief heart whose weakness and inconstancy have so often bruised my inward Man O Anxious Unbelief thou tellest me 't is a bargain soon made but how shall it be performed Thou urgest me with difficulties that will arise from the World from my self from the Tryals that I may undergo in my Body my Soul my Estate unwonted Tryals Thou tellest me of the great fits of Darkness and shameful declining I have had after much Refreshment and strong Resolutions to the contrary Thou tellest me that my Falls will now cost me dearer than ever they did and the Holy Spirit will be sooner vexed and grieved than before Thou tellest me I shall soon be weary of my Yoke and then my Sins will be of a deeper and more heart-hardning Die than ever But remember O Soul-destroying Unbelief I rowl my self upon the Rock of Ages I deliver my self up to the Covenant of Grace not to bring strength to it but to fetch strength from it and from that word which saith Sin shall not have Dominion over you for you are not under the law but under grace Rom. 6. 14. And because I am weak
therefore I go to everlasting Strength The more I make infinite Power my Lord and Master the more is that Divine Power engaged to hold me up Rom. 14. 4. Let my own Power languish into nothing so long as I can claim on the account of Free Grace undoubted Right to the Arm of God my own strength never did me good but deceived me Dost thou not know O mis-giving heart that I am shortly to leave the whole weight of my Soul in lanching from Mortality upon the same word of Promise which doth now offer strength to wade through difficulties of my present Warfare And what do I more than step forth to behold the Lord sealing his Covenant and Promise that he will be my God and will guide me by his Grace and afterwards bring me to Glory To which Covenant in faith though with fear and trembling I desire to give my consent which I trust in some measure of sincerity I have done Neither do thou O Satan vaunt and say to me as Eliab said to David 1 Sam. 17. 28. I know the pride of thy heart I shall yet bring thee down Know O thou false Accuser I go to him who is both able to hold me up and make me humble too that I may be more and more abased and die away from the workings and lustings of Flesh and Blood into the Power Grace Wisdom and Truth of God to whose Covenant for that end by his own Appointment I declare my consent and do desire with a broken and bleeding heart to bless him that ever he allowed me to come so near him in this manner Though I fall I shall not fall utterly I shall be raised up again because my Redeemer is risen and he is strong who pleads my Cause What is the Volumne of the Scriptures but a divine Oeconomy containing the Laws of Relation betwixt a God of all Grace and his chosen Institutions and Commands of Grace Threatnings and Reproofs of Grace Promises and Betrothings of Grace and meer Grace Has not the same God who said I will betroth thee to me for ever in Righteousness and Judgment in Loving-kindness and tender Mercies and in Faithfulness Hos 2. 19 20. said also to me Thou shalt know the Lord Has he not said to me Thy Maker Father Son and Spirit is thy Husband Isa 54. 5. even while I am grieved in Spirit and tossed about with the Tempest of my own Confusions And has he not said that I shall say The Lord is my God Hos 2. 19 20. And he will say I am one of his people and will not be ashamed to be called my God Heb. 11. 16. Yea hath he not said that I shall say I am the Lords and that I shall bear his Name and Sir-name with his Jacob and his Israel and that I shall even subscribe it with my hand never to be reversed Isa 44. 5. O Fountain of Life and living Waters reveal thy self that I may not go about to marry Flesh and Spirit together but that I may be spirited as a chaste Virgin espoused to Christ and so enter into this glorious spiritual Flesh-mortifying and mystical Wedlock Let it not be meerly speculative but real and influenced with light life and power from thy heart to mine Oh how doth this unwilling heart of mine pull back What canst thou close with besides God in Christ but it will perish and while it is in thy hand will be a broken Reed that will make thee fall in leaning upon it Is not the Covenant of Grace somewhat which God himself hath devised for his own Glory and thy Establishment Has he required thee to bind thy self to fear and love him and hath not he engaged to circumcise thy heart that thou maist love and fear him Deut. 30. 6. Jer. 32. 38 39 40 41. Oh that I could put faith to this Word till the warmth thereof grew up into a Flame which many Waters might never quench and Oh let my faithful God who has expresly promised by Covenant to give me one heart and one way with the rest of them who are Confederates of Grace that I may fear him for ever for my Good remember it and fulfil it as he hath said with all his heart and all his soul Oh pardon my unbelief that I do stand so far aloof from putting to my Seal that God who cannot lie will accomplish his word to a tittle MY Soul longs to be at some The Soul longs for clear work more distinct and express Closure with such a God and would fain reckon before-hand what it will cost me When I consider that word 1 Cor. 6. 19 20. Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you and that you are not your own for you are bought with a price And therefore glorifie God in your body and in your spirit which is God's I even faint under the Majesty of such a Covenant of unutterable Grace which calls me up to such dignity and duty at once Body and Spirit which are God's what a word is this You are not your own how far doth this reach The whole Concernments of my Soul and Body which are my own are to be given up to God by Faith and new Obedience that they may be his and at my own dispose no longer Oh a thousand Worlds for a Surrender suitable to this Estate and Calling of God in Christ Jesus Oh let the Creator of Israel my King fashion the value of this Pearl in every Affection of my Soul that I may in his own meaning sell all to purchase it Christ Jesus was in earnest when he gave his Body to the Cross and his very Soul an Offering for my sake O that I could be in a like seriousness in giving away my Body and Soul to him again Strengthen O Lord my weak hands and confirm my feeble knees Methinks I hear the voice of my The Soul is invited by Christ beloved Jesus calling out Fear not O anxious Soul behold it is I be not asraid I who am thy Redeemer am strong I am mighty to save and therefore Hearken O Daughter and consider incline thine ear forget also thy father's house and thine own people Let me be the Object of all thy Affections rest in my pleasure only and always so will I thy King and Husband greatly desire thy Beauty and be always trimming thee for my own Society for I am thy Lord and thou must worship and fully rest in and be devoted to me alone and to no other I consent dear Christ and here And doth consent and engage I offer my Body and Soul to the Agreement I give it up dear and precious Redeemer I give it up unto thee for ever in obedience to thy Commands and relying upon thy Strength I write it with my own hand that I will be thine and for thee and not for any other My Beloved is mine and I am his Though I am
of Time under the Hope of Eternal Life and through the Goodness of the Lord do yet enjoy the Company of my dear and suitable Yoak-fellow as a Helper and sweet Companion with me in my Voyage I had also a gracious Child my Daughter Elizabeth whom the Lord eminently prepared for himself and then translated her hence and God has left us one little Branch the Lord grant she may love to tread in the good steps of her Sister and enter at last into the same Rest I heartily desire it may every way go well with you and that though distance of place hinder our Converse here yet we may at last see the Face of Christ and one another in the perfection of Purity and fulness of Joy in a better Country 1676. To C. S. D. N o 125. I Understand by Mr. F. that you are all in health long may it continue and well may your Time and Health be improved And as to any Counsel that I am able to give you 't is far short of what you do or may receive not only from the solemn Ministration of the Gospel by the faithful Dispencers of the Word but also by those excellent Books fit for Meditation Use and Application of which I suppose you have many lying by you Only I would say this The chiefest part of Religion that which in Scripture is called the Kingdom of God lies chiefly in heart-renewing Power whereby the Throne and Dominion of Sin is broken with daily Warrings against it and daily labouring to be free from its Captivity and to that end there is a necessity of the Conviction of our sinful yea damnable Condition by Nature and that not only in our own Opinion and Judgment but in real view sense feeling and inward Operation and Exercise that so the knowledge of and Interest in Christ may appear indispensibly necessary and perfectly desirable as a Propitiation for Sin and to translate the Soul into the pure Image of himself in this World as the Fore-runner of an eternal Fruition of all that Blessedness he died to purchase And upon manifold Considerations it doth eminently concern you to dig for this Wisdom as for hid Treasure You have and may further see what a lean satisfaction it is that this lower World doth afford what a Sandy Foundation it is to build our hope delight or dependance upon and how soon every Flower withers Therefore daily beg of God Light Truth in the inward part and saving Wisdom to be your Principle and Guide through the residue of Time Unto his Grace I commend you and rest c. 1677. To C. H. D. N o 126. I Received your Letter and delivered that you sent my Brother both he and I are sensible of the loss of your only Brother It doth concern you to consider the Voice of God in these Afflictions one after another and to improve them so as to make God himself in Christ your only standing Refuge And certainly if these things do cause you to turn your eyes directly upon him and to centre in him alone you will find him the Husband of the Widow and Father of the Fatherless In every trouble our wisest course is to endeavour to learn what God is pleased to say to our Souls therein which is to get the hearts of his People more united unto himself by Faith and clear Resignation for though the things and Persons of this World do wither and fade yet God himself is the Rock of Ages and hath promised The Righteous shall not be utterly desolate for in the Fire and in the Water he will be with them and never leave or forsake them And therefore I would desire you to endeavour rather to improve your Affliction by Faith for spiritual use than to waste away your thoughts unprofitably through Unbelief in pondering and dejecting your heart under these outward Trials though they be great Therefore read and meditate the Word where provision of Support is made to answer all Cases of distress Spread your Soul often before the Lord open the bottom of your heart to him Fly to the Blood of Christ for daily Atonement and give your self up to him who has said Cast your burthen on the Lord and he will sustain you and then you will see reason at length to say It was good for me that I was afflicted and that He or she is blessed whom God afflicts and teacheth his Law Unto him I commend you praying for you that you and yours may have the gracious Shelter of his Love and Kindness in every Condition 1678. To M. R. N o 127. I Received yours of the 14th Instant and have been refreshed in reading those savoury Lines which you were pleased to send me I read them as if you your self had been conversing with me and my self present with you and do acknowledge the kindness of God in dropping down a Blessing upon your Soul in the midst of all the former and latter Exercises wherewith he has been pleased to try you This is the privilege of the Afflictions which come from the God of all Grace viz. That they produce the savoury Fruits of a more indeared hankering after him Dependance on him Resignation to him and a holy Longing that his own most wise and good Will may be accomplished Mr. T. G. has had a little Impression made upon him by his Journey and got Cold which hath not yet left him but we have enjoyed him amongst us this day in our praying work in which your self and other absent Friends were reremembred So commending you to the Lord and his gracious Support and Conduct I remain c. 1678. To C. E. D. N o 128. I Often think upon you and look upon it as a gracious dealing of God towards you not only to prolong your Life to this Age but also and chiefly that he hath crowned your old Age with an unwearied Tendency towards a better Life than you or I have ever yet seen with that Sight which we cannot here be capacious of I do hear sometimes by one or other both of your being in the Land of the Living and that you walk as becomes an aged Disciple of Christ adorning the Gospel you profess with a Conversation suitable thereunto The last time I heard from you was by our good Friend Mrs. Stubs who was here but a few days before her Husband that holy and laborious Minister of Christ took his leave of her breathing forth his last farewel to this present World and that Body of Clay in which he had served Christ for gaining of Souls into his Flock through a long Tract of years flourishing I hope prospering in the great Embassage which the great Shepherd employed him in His death was much bewailed by many especially by them that best knew his Worth as a great loss to the Interest and Cause of Christ both in City and Country The Lord in Mercy raise up more Supplies of like Sincerity Diligence and Faithfulness in the
married Estate and therein to favour me with the Society of one whom I account and believe to be precious in his sight and thereby called me to some further Exercise of Faith and a nearer Approach to himself for all Supply and Succour under the Wing of his Counsel Goodness Care and Faithfulness for Soul and Body and for his blessed Presence Good Will and Favour to my self and mine And withal in regard a very dark Cloud appears hovering over the Church of Christ I thought it my duty to betake my self to the surest Hold and to retire afresh into the Arms of God himself And therefore being under much sence of the loose earthly frame of my own heart I resolved to renew upon my Soul the Obligations of the fore-mentioned Covenant which through the favour of God I have this day done lying down at the Feet of a Gracious God I have again though with feeble hands been taking hold of Jehovah ' s Covenant humbly taking him to be my God and giving my self and mine to him I do I say with much struggling yet with some sincerity in my desire take God to be my Portion and exceeding great Reward and do render my self and all that concerns me to him and to his Will this present 23d of May 1666. and for ever And do subscribe the same with my own Hand Henry Dorney Moreover in a former Sickness and under Bodily Ailments being asked whether there were any thing burthensome upon his Spirit he replied I have no distrust in him whom I have believed I feel no sting at all There is no oppressing thing upon me no quelling thing in my Spirit Nothing troubles me from within nor without His Desires after Glory were His Desires after Glory in a peculiar manner exerted in his last and Dying Speeches and Prayers and at other times before in many and various Instances and chiefly upon this Ground that he should then be perfectly freed from Sin and serve God without distraction And it may be useful here to mention this following Passage that a dear Friend once making his moan to him about vain impertinent Thoughts wherewith he was greatly haunted and troubled in Attendance on God in Duty He said to him no more than this That that very thing should make us willing to be gone hence to be with Christ He had an entire Respect to His universal Obedience all God's Commands avoiding all Appearance of Evil and laying hold of all Opportunities for receiving and doing good and his very Soul was in it and it seemed as natural to him as for a person to eat when he is hungry Yea he was as a Creature out of his Element most uneasie and restless whilst he was not actually so exercised And his Submission to the Will of God's Providence as always so it was remarkably instanced in his last Sickness and also in a former Sickness when he was heard to say Lord if it may please thee make my Passage easie If thou wilt have me go meaning his departure by Death I am willing If thou wilt have me to stay a little longer I am willing but Oh! for Sufficiency of Divine Aid Likewise it was observed in these Petitions he offered up to God in Prayer That the Lord would manage every one of our Thoughts and spiritualize them for his whole Will and that his Spirit may have the Sovereignty in our hearts And seeing it is the property of his People so far as they are spiritualized to love and delight in all his Statutes and to love his commanding Will and Word as well as his promising Word That he would lead us into the Light and Life of Jesus Christ and cause us to yield up our selves universally to his Rule and Government and greedily take in all that Grace and Kindness he hath offered to us and get up into the Region of Christ's Teaching and Leading That we might be formed to his liking and as a People whom he delighteth to own and love and be fitted for the whole Will of God that he would have us to submit unto His Mortification was clearly His Mortification evinced by his Behaviour towards that which should be always the Objective Matter for that Grace to be exercised upon and by these directions he proposed as Means and Persuasives to it That we should always seek an occasion against the Flesh as 't is said of the King of Syria He seeketh a Quarrel against me and when we cannot pray it down or meditate it down then apply our selves to good Company and holy Conference with others and be ever engaged one way or other with one Weapon or other against the Flesh as Sampson against the Philistines who sought an occasion against them And that the way to receive any Temporal Mercy is to be dead to it And that as they that will be rich fall into Temptation and a Snare the like it may be said of those that will not be poor And he further added that we must be mortified as well to Saints as Sinners if we will have true Peace And that if all things were in a right frame the Soul would be dead to all carnal and earthly things and be ever under full Sail for Heaven and how then would the Breath of Grace appear in all the Actions of our Lives And for the promoting of this necessary Work he was observed earnestly to pray That mortifying renewing Grace might always appear active in us and that there might be a secret delight in us to take Vengeance of all that carnal Frame and corrupt Inclination that is within us and an eager desire to have this Body of Death crucified and taken away That a Sentence of Death might pass upon this Body of Sin and Death in us which Christ died to remove That this Body of Death might be battered down and wasted day by day And that he would cause us always to have a War against the Law of Sin within us And that we might long to have it subdued and the Soveraignty of God's Grace advanced in our Souls And that our Affections and Desires might decay more and more towards all things that are of a fading perishing Nature And that he would crucifie and destroy in us all the Attempts of the Body of Sin wherewith we are continually haunted And that he would help us to quit our selves as those that are engaged to God and favoured by him and know what it is to have our Natures changed and the natural Enmity slain And that we might be transplanted into Jesus Christ and made one with him That the things above might be the great things in our eye and have more Room in our hearts and the things here below accounted little and be of low Esteem with us The constant seriousness of his His constant Seriousness Spirit was seen not only in his Carriage but in his Cautions to others about it saying that there are many thousand Professors
I long for the Effusion of the Spirit remarkably promised in thy Word and for the Resurrection of the Body which now is sown in Weakness but then 't will be raised in Power and cry out to be cloathed upon with Power from on high And he further said That the want of this Conviction of our own Weakness makes us lose the Juice of Religion And that we can no more live by Grace already received than a Man can live upon his Food the day after he hath eaten it That therefore we must have the Mouth of our Souls never divided from the Fountain even God himself for we live our Life our spiritual Life upon the Flower of Free Grace only And that the Spirit of God would have us to see what we are even without Strength that God's Mercy might appear the more abundant and the Gospel be glorified in its Power that so a poor Christian may be necessitated to believe in and on Jesus Christ forced into this glorious Sanctuary made to cling on the Horns of this Altar and fly to this City of Refuge as his Zoar of Safety And he likewise said That could we live in the Faith of this that God orders every particular thing and rules all the Affairs of his People that he hath a secret Care of them and for them under all That his Providence is never off the Wheel What Relief would it be We might then pass through thick and thin and it would raise the Soul strangely on the Wing For Faith which is the sence and feeling of the Soul lies in looking unto God's Power Wisdom and Faithfulness in the Promise We have heard much of the Doctrine of Faith and now God is teaching us the Life of Faith This was spoken when under a very pressing Affliction And he further added That Faith hath no dependence upon the Creature Cast thy burthen upon the Lord and he shall sustain thee Psal 55. 22. Faith is an adventurous Cast Cast not away thy self nor thy burthen any where else Oh that we knew what it were to live in God to be brought out of our selves and to dwell there no more And that we have as great need to lock up our selves as it were in God when we go to Bed as to lock up our Doors if we would be kept from Assaults for we have as much cause to fear lest Satan and our depraved Nature should make a Prey of our Souls as of Thieves and Robbers lest they should make a Spoil of our Goods Let us therefore give away our selves to God Morning and Evening and from Evening to Morning and be always in the Spirit of Faith and Holiness Likewise he was observed to say that a holy and free Contentment in all God's Dealings is that we should most labour after for that the happiness of the Soul consists not in the bare Enjoyment of any Mercy but in the God of the Mercy That if it hath his Presence though in the Shadow of Death it hath content for outward Good or Misery is but a fancy seeing we are never the more truly happy if we have much or miserable if we have but little of this World But 't is the Enjoyment of God in any Condition must be our All in all And that we should make God and the things of God the natural Centre of the Soul and all other things we go about as if we were constrained to it We make full Experience that we have Justifying Faith when we can trust God as well for outward things as for Pardon of Sin and Salvation 'T is a woful Religion we profess when we cannot live upon God in the want of all things else Wherefore let us not rest till we get some feeding Fruitfulness in such Meditations and to have the Lord alone exalted in our Souls His Expressions in Prayer did also declare his great Dependence on God which were to this purpose That all our Concerns might be upon his heart and we owned and refreshed in him That our Souls might evermore be acted and possessed by his Spirit And that he would continue in us a hankering after him and satisfaction in him giving us in a Cast in a way of spiritual Quickning and Reviving to our Souls And that we might be under his Care and kept in his Arms and walk in his Fear causing our Acquaintance with him to grow and increase daily c. He conversed more with Heaven than Earth while he remained His Heavenly-mindedness on it And this was discerned in his Conversation and by the Sayings of his Lips which dropped as an Honey-Comb on all occasions and particularly in such words as these Things visible are the Product of things invisible and purely spiritual and therefore invisible things are the more excellent for the things which are seen were not made of things that do appear The Glory of the unseen Trade of a Christian is not so discernable now but the time will come when all seen things shall be dissolved and then it will stand forth Outward things of Sence are comfortable to the World but things unseen to the People of God are of a Soul-raising Power mounting the Soul above that which causeth Fainting for those spiritual things they look on believingly as having a real Interest in them else they would not give any Relief And whilst a Christian hath a sight of unseen things by Faith when great Gusts of Trouble come there is no room for Fear Therefore there should be a daily Converse with unseen things and we should not rest till we can see them with some Evidence and Clearness And the Soul should range up and down in this Garden of Delights not suffering that Converse to cool And that the entertaining but a little distance from God dulls the sight of him And when the Soul is looking with overmuch Intention on Worldly things it dazles the Eye as to invisible Glories And when it suffers any outward Trouble inordinately to bear in it makes the Eye goggle from that which should fix it But a good Muse on things unseen would allay calm and supple the Soul and make it steady in its Course Therefore Oh give me things unseen should we say There let my Share be It was further observed that the things of God and Religion became as it were natural to him and as it hath been said by some that spiritual things flowed from him as Water from a Fountain And what he spake thereof proceeded from an inward Sence and not so much from Head and Memory as from his Heart and Experience whence an Authority and Lustre was derived to it His Humility was visible to His Humility all for he was cloathed with it there being not the least Appearance of Pride or Vain-Glory that was discernable in him He had a very mean esteem of his own Gifts Parts and Graces And as he had a low respect towards himself so according to Scripture-Precept he esteemed others
God as never to return to a Carnal Frame and Temper any more and yield our selves to be ordered by him as a Child that is ordered by its Nurse And that the want of a through Surrender of our selves to God makes one lame in all other Duties Therefore our Religion should not lie only in Notion but in a total Delivery over of our selves to God And until we come to that clear Resignation our Life will always be a burthen to us And this giving away of our selves to God should be with that perfect Surrender as not to grieve at the Cast Oh! said he could I embark my self in God being born up by the Wings of his Spirit and God guiding the Steerage with his own hand What need I then fear meeting with Storms Then no matter at all unto what Port soever I were carried Then every Cross every outward Affliction Trouble Danger Loss would be my Friend Did I make God my dwelling place all the World would be Privileges to me all things would be turned into Privileges and redound for my good Whence also he prayed That we might come to that clearness of Surrender unto God as to bear a stamp and likeness to the infinite kindness Christ manifested in giving himself for us and to us That as he did all things willingly to work out purchase and procure Salvation for us so we might accept of all the Gracious Offers of his Love and improve it accordingly That Renewing Work might be carried on daily And that we might lanch out of the Circuit of our own Wills into his Will in all things and be influenced by the Spirit of Christ to a Conformity to him and growing up in him as his living Members His Natural Courage was fully His Courage and Fortitude experienced by those that best knew him in his younger Years and so forward to have been without blemish or defect His Spiritual Courage and Fortitude was discerned throughout his Christian Walk and in these following Expressions In shaking Times get such a Courage as flows from Faith and not a meer Manly Prowess To be in a dead-hearted discouraged Frame under Crosses is bad and to be joccund out of a meer Manly Stoutness and so to bear up is sadder but a humble submissive Carriage and a Liveliness nourished by Believing in going out of our selves and casting all our Care upon God who careth for us is an excellent Frame And speaking to some who were even ruined by outward Losses he said We should have been dead to our Estates when we had them Let us therefore now be dead to our Discouragements in the want of them And if we would not be Cowed at every Cross let us be sure to make Death familiar and be in a posture to die every hour And that will fill the Soul with undaunted Valour and Courage that nothing shall move it for it is sence of Guilt that plucks down the heart and nothing else And if the Sting of Death which is Sin be removed how bold will the Soul be And that holy Valour rises as Difficulties and Dangers rise as the Ship upon the top of the Waves riseth with the Waves That 't is no natural Valour will hold out in a day of Sufferings but a mortified Frame of Spirit will then abide the Shock And 't is the Glory of a Christian not to be faint-hearted under Trials The excellent Moderation and Temperance of his Spirit was exerted His Moderation and Temperance in his own Conduct and Behaviour His Moderation was known unto all Men His Temperance also was interwoven in the Contexture of his whole Walk and Converse who being Master of his own Passions and Affections was temperate in all things So that his heart was neither over-charged with the Cares and Incumbrances of this present Life nor ensnared by its Blandishments Sensitive Delights and Pleasures or in any thing that might run into excess And with a sedate serene Mind he improved all Providential Occurrences to ripen his Grace and Experience so as to render him useful in his Station for the Good of others the Glory of God and his own Profit and Comfort He was a great Redeemer of His Redemption of Time Time That where-ever he came he endeavoured as Opportunity offered to be improving it on the best Account either in holy Conference or by Counsel and Advice or in Prayer c. especially where he knew he might be free And upon that account by way of Complaint he once said How useless and helpless are we one unto another in the matters of our Souls but in other Affairs there our hearts can easily mix and run one into another And his Carriage and Behaviour was with such a Graceful Authority tempered with Meekness and Humility and Respect to all according to their Rank and Degree that even in his Minority he was both loved and admired for his extraordinary Activity in all Religious Concerns And he won exceedingly upon the hearts of most that conversed with him in and about spiritual things leaving a sweet savour behind him where-ever he came And this was never perceived to abate or decay but continued in its Vigour and Fervour even to Old Age. In his Childhood and so forwards he was an Enemy to all vain and idle Pass-time but still striving to be receiving or doing good to his Power And until he was hindred and prevented by bodily Distempers and Infirmities of Old Age he would be both early and late industriously painful and unwearied in the Concerns of his own Soul allowing no more time for Sleep Food or any other necessary Refreshments than was absolutely needful That when all the Family besides were in Bed and fast asleep he made choice of that time as a sweet Repast to him for Reading Meditation and secret Prayer And it was his usual Custom which very rarely was omitted when he went to take his Rest to have a Light standing by his Bed-side and his Bible before him and as he lay in Bed to be looking into it musing on some Scripture or other for a considerable time ere he would compose himself to Rest Which occasionally a Friend in the same Room once observing asked him how he could possibly refrain all that time from Sleep Unto which he replied to this effect That the things he read and considered of were so serious that they would not suffer him to sleep whilst his Thoughts were therein exercised And he had such a Command of the Temper of his Mind and Body that there was not seen in him any Oppression of Drowsiness whenever he was actually concerned in the performance of any solemn spiritual Duty And to obviate and prevent such Indisposure his Care was to set apart the fittest Season for Religious Services That instead of the torn lame and corrupt thing spoken of in Mal. 1. 13 14. the best part of his Time and Strength was devoted and offered up to the Lord in Sacrifice His
depraved heart lies upon me as a lump of Lead I get nothing by talking with it as Solomon saith of the Fool Answer not a fool according to his folly lest thou be like him Prov. 26. 4. for this talking with Guilt and Weakness draweth my Soul which is made free indeed by the Son of God to the likeness of that Guilt and Weakness and my justified Conscience begins again to lick up the old Vomit of Fear and Bondage but my work is then to cast my self by naked Reliance on Jesus Christ who justifieth the Ungodly Rom. 4. 5. as being compassed about with the Guard of God's free everlasting Justification in the Person of Jesus Christ and having the shelter of this Guard then I may return and plead with Guilt and hear the complaints of my heart and the accusations of my Conscience and give them Answers from the fulness of Christ's Atonement and thus again the Fool if such a term may be used in this comparison is answered lest he should be wise in his own conceit Prov. 26. 5. I mean that the Spirit of Bondage which by the advantage of my own sin pleads rationally against my Peace till Faith comes with the Tongue of the Learned and pleads the Mystery of Free Grace against the Plea of Reason and the Righteousness of Christ and his Holiness against Sin and Guilt Nothing prevailed against Sampson till he betrayed the Vow of God that was upon him so nothing can prevail against the Peace of Justification till Guilt divide between the Soul and naked Reliance upon the personal Perfection of Christs Sacrifice and Mediatorship The Soul that lays his Foundation thus will not boast in himself Rom. 3. 27. nor wrong the Visits of God's favourable Countenance by Pride and Wantonness nor yet despair when Storms arise because his foundation is upon a Rock and his safety is not at all any of his own Handy-work As far as he beholds this All-sufficiency of Christ's Mediatorship the eye affects the heart to security and strength and crumbles all Self-sufficiency to powder and blows away the Egyptian Locusts of Guilt and Fears into the Red Sea and restores Pacification and Quiet to the Conscience and from this glorious Sanctuary the Soul comes forth to do the Actions of a new Life by the vertue of another Spirit the Spirit of Love and a sound Mind and worketh the Works of God in the World and takes pleasure in obeying the Truth and if it were possible it would actually keep the whole Law in as much as being now eternally knit to Christ's Person by Faith the Law by the Spirit of Christ is written in the heart This naked Reliance on Christ's Person was the great endeavour and left to us as the experience of the Apostles A Faith of which nature was exercised eminently by the holy Men of old Abraham Rom. 4. 20. David Psal 71. 16. Paul 1 Cor. 2. 2. and Phil. 3. 8 9. There were two foundational Reasons mentioned why the Soul is wholly to cast it self on the naked personal Merit of Jesus Christ viz. because he began our Righteousness and he only perfected the same for ever and those reasons well weighed have great strength and motive-vertue in them to beget Faith and besides 't is commanded as the absolute Condition of Salvation Act. 16. 31. Believe and thou shalt be saved in opposition to which Unbelief is made in the dispensation of the Gospel the reason of dying under the guilt of sin Joh. 8. 24. For the Gospel doth so perfectly hold out Jesus Christ to be the Propitiation for all the sins of the World through the value of his Death and open freeness of the Tender thereof that the very Hinge of Salvation and Damnation is turned upon the Faith of the heart therein or Unbelief thereof as being the most necessary and suitable Requisites for the stating of the Soul into an actual condition of Life or Death eternally Yea Christ pronounceth forgiveness of sins to the Palsie-man Luk. 5. 20. upon the meer Account of Believing And the Apostle Paul declares the Righteousness of God to be upon all that believe without making any difference upon any other respect Rom. 3. 22. This one thing saved the Thief upon the Cross when he had not opportunity to make Satisfaction for all the Wrongs and Robberies he had done This makes the Apostle Paul so laborious to preserve this Mystery from the least mixture of Legal Righteousness Gal. 5. 2. Because a Believer's State and Life is wholly by Grace 1 Cor. 15. 10. which entirely treats with the Faith of a Believer and not with his Works of Righteousness or Sin the one cannot help nor the other hinder because they are as the Elements of another World as they are called Gal. 4. 3. and can neither mend nor hurt that Justification by Jesus Christ revealed from Heaven to a Believer no more than Earthly Food can feed a Spirit or a material Sword wound an Angel And reason is because the Person of Christ is the Ark where Righteousness and Pardon is kept and conveyed singly by the Spirit of Grace to Faith which is the Acceptance of the same and so it is sure from any personal qualifications on Man's part to hinder it where 't is by the Spirit of Believing accepted Rom. 4. 16. This Justification of a sinner by Faith in the Personal Satisfaction and Righteousness of Jesus Christ is that which lays a firm ground for Assurance of Perseverance because the guilt of sin is done away and pardoned at the first believing on Jesus Christ and if they be then done away their guilt cannot really return for the pardon of sins and remembring them no more are joyned together Heb. 8. 12. Neither can sins committed after the Souls Conversion to God by Faith in Jesus Christ hazard the final state of such an one because his person was made accepted at the first closing with Christ by Faith and Pardon of sins is but the Consequent of the Acceptation of his Person Ephes 1. 6. Rev. 1. 5. So that Christ having espoused a sinner to himself by Faith doth wash him from his filth and presents him to himself at length without Spot Ephes 5. 25 26 27. and the person being recieved upon the account of meer Grace sin has no equal Plea against such an one because the strength of his Plea must be by the Law and Grace having supplanted the Accusation of the Law Joh. 1. 17. the Trial depends in another Court where sin is cast out Rom. 6. 17. And if sin could not at first hinder the Acceptation of the person much less can it procure a Dis-acceptation afterwards Rom. 5. 10. And besides the person of every Convert is considered in his true Interest through Grace in the Person of Jesus Christ in whom all Accusations are fully answered Faith having got this Foundation Encouragment and Rightful Interest in the Remission of Sins Righteousness Life and Peace sets it self by
Spiritual Exercise to put the Soul into sure and quiet Possession thereof in a through and direct levelling its eye at the Object the Person of Jesus Christ and to that end it gets the Soul up above the Reasonings of the Old Man Flesh and Blood into the Mount of Gospel-reason and from thence through the Promises and demonstration of the Word of Truth by the Spirit as through a Prospective-Glass gathers into its eye the lovely view of a compleat Redeemer and gazeth upon him till a Dart strike through the Liver and the Soul be made like the Chariots of Aminadab and is both willingly and safely carried into a holy confidence of the truth of what it seeth and the truth of its own being comprehended within the free and liberal reach of the design of God's Free Mercy in a way of particular Application thereof and cryeth out My Lord and my God And O that my Soul were a little upon the wings of the Spirit to ascend by Faith into this Mount of God my Saviour Why abide I among the Folds of corrupt Nature to hear the bleating of my own Confusions and Lusts seeing the Sword of the Lord and his Gideon is drawn for my deliverance Awake O my Heart awake O my Conscience shake thee from thy Dust let the Testimony of Faith and Spirit of Adoption and Freedom lead my Captivity Captive for ever In this glorious Work Faith seizeth on the Soul as the Angel did seize upon Lot and as it were tear him out of Sodom with this blessed advantage that it makes the Soul willing in the day of God's Power to be pulled with violence out of Sodom out of all its fleshly filth and fleshly state it rejoyceth to see the Blood of former Lusts to be sprinkled on all its Raiment 'T is wrathful against the Inchantments of Self-Pride Man's Applause Carnal Reason Earthly Compliances Fleshly Fears and Distrust It roars against its Sensual Mind and Carnal Consultations as a Lyon over its Prey It unhingeth the Gates of its Captivity and carrieth them up to the top of the Mount never to return again Mighty is this Sampson-Faith when its Locks of sanctified Convictions and Manifestation of Grace are grown up to some happy maturity it looks further and further after Christ in every Scripture it rejoyceth exceedingly to find the free Gift of Christ in such Language as this I will give thee for a covenant of the people that thou mayest say to the prisoners Go forth Isa 49. 8 9. Not by works of righteousness which we had done but according to his mercy he saved us Tit. 3. 5. I am he that blotteth out thy sins for my own sake Isa 43. 25. and will not remember them any more But the poor Soul looks down upon the scars of its own vile heart and daily weaknesses and cries out Oh! but what are these Wounds in my heart and hands these thorns in my sides these pricks in my eyes The Understanding triumphing through Faith replies These are the Memorials of the Wounds with which Christ was wounded in the House of his Friends when he came to his own and they received him not and when the Sword of Indignation awoke against the Shepherd one who accounted it no Robbery to be equal with God he then saved the Sheep and after a sore Conflict slew the Wolf and gathered again the Poor of the Flock who were appointed by the Law of Moses to the Slaughter Arise therefore and be not dismayed at the Witnesses of Christ's Agony which dwells for a season in thy mortal Flesh The Battel was his not thine he mortally wounded the Dragon and the God of Peace will shortly tread down Satan and every Spawn of his under your feet These Enemies are left to prove your Faith Integrity and Patience that you might learn Spiritual War and be renowned by Victory through the mighty Spirit of the Captain of your Salvation Then Faith fixeth its eye again upon Jesus Christ through the Word and beholds him as a Lamb that was slain and yet risen and there sees the Grave where the guilt of Conscience was buried and argueth it self into Freedom Guilt is destroyed and none can raise the Dead but God only but God will not raise it up because he destroyed it himself that he might marry the Justified Soul to himself out of that Destruction of Guilt and Bondage in the Person of his own Son that he might thereby bring forth Life and Immortality to sinners 2 Tim. 1. 10. Rom. 5. 6. by Faith and therefore here Faith strives to keep its eye while hands and feet are working and by this Compass it steers its Course towards the Haven of Safety But the abundant Grace and vastness of this Salvation in and through the Person of Jesus Christ is so great that my eye is dazled I am not able to measure the Heavens I bring my Bucket to hold the Sea and 't is drowned in the great Waters And yet here Faith has a Refuge against Confusion of Mind viz. when it espies a passive sence in all the Justification and Acceptation of the Gospel and in all the Fruits thereof working me up to and making me to be content with a Conformity according to the Measure given me by Jesus Christ Hence are the words discovering it rendred in a passive sense Justified Redeemed and Saved and the Action of this is ascribed only to Christ or God in Christ who justifieth redeemeth and saveth And hence also Faith giveth the Soul Relief against Confusion of Mind about defect of knowledge by the thought of this that though I know little yet I am known perfectly of God Gal. 4. 9. and though I apprehend little of the great Mystery of this Salvation yet I am apprehended fully by Jesus Christ Phil. 3. 12. while I receive him by Faith and am willing to be comprehended and moulded by his Spirit It was but a small thing on Mans part to touch the Hem of Christ's Garment yet that being an Act of Reliance on Christ and subjecting the Soul to him presently there came in Health of Body and Pardon of Sins from that comprehending Relation in which Christ stood to such a Soul The Souls work in Faith or rather that to which the Soul is wrought is a contentedness to receive the Person of Christ by Faith as the Sum and Title of its Interest in more than it can be ever able to receive within its own capacity The Soul that receives the Person of Christ by one true closing hint through Faith receives a rightful Propriety to every Excellency and Perfection that is in God laid up in Christ for that end though the length of that Perfection and Blessing be never fully known As a Man who buyes a Field if no Exception in the Laws of that Nation be made he buyes all the Advantages of that piece of Earth downwards to the very Centre of the Earth and all between that and the Stars albeit
the way who is a Guide also and therefore great is the loss of that man who walks alone and compasseth himself about with his own sparks if he fall as Solomon speaks he has none to raise him up again Eccles 4. 10. and thus Christ is held forth as a comfortable Leader and Companion Isa 57. 18. Jer. 3. 14. And the Church improves this Privilege by leaning on her Beloved as she comes forth out of the Wilderness This blessed Companion makes way for his peoples safety in the Fire and in the Water of Affliction Dan. 3. 25. Isa 43. 2. 8. And by this means also Faith has got a true and faithful Witness on the Believers side to clear off Accusations and from hence are those expressions used in the Psalms Plead my cause Be surety for me c. and the often Appeals made to God who trieth the Heart and Reins and who standeth up on the side of his people and on their behalf These and infinitely more Privileges do arise to every Believer from the Interest that he hath in Christ's entire and incommunicable Person by the Union of Free Govenant and Mystical Ingrafture and the Communion of Vertue derived from the Person of this Mediator in which Mystery of Grace he enjoys Christ as the Hand enjoys the Head yet both of them are distinctly considered in the Body or as the Eye enjoys the influence and vertue of that very light and heat which is in the very body of the Sun although the body of the Sun be many thousand Miles distant from that Eye which doth actually enjoy that Sun in the light and heat of its influence and doth as truly enjoy it as if it lay in the material Body of the Sun and in a way of greater advantage fitted for its capacity and use So is the Person of Christ enjoyed really and truly with all Privileges relating to Believers whiles he retains his Personality uncommunicated and undivided to any other as the very Water of the Fountain is enjoyed in the Streams and the Sap of the Root enjoyed in the Branches and yet the Stream is not the Fountain nor yet the Branches any part of the Root The way of the Souls enjoyment Christ's Entrance upon the heart works Renewing there of Christ in all the Privileges of his Person and Offices of his Mediatorship and in all the Influences of Spiritual Unction and Transformation of the heart into the power and likeness of Jesus Christ is wrought by the Spirit of Regeneration through Faith which causeth the Soul to pass over from its self from all its strength from all its own carnal hope fear and selfish care into the Death Life Righteousness and Perfection of the Person of Jesus Christ and so is enabled to say in truth I am not mine own I live yet no longer I but Christ liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God viz. by the very Life and in the very Life of Christ apprehended received enjoyed and working effectually in me by Faith in him who loved me and washed me from my sins in his own blood Gal. 2. 20. Rev. 1. 5. This is that translating renewing changing and quickning work which the Scripture doth so often mention as the design of the Gospel And 't is with reference unto this that Christ is called a Stone of Stumbling and Rock of Offence sinful and selfish Nature strives to preserve its life against the killing vertue of the Spirit of Christ in the Gospel preached to the World This is the reason of so much Carnal Profession and Barrenness in Christianity when the hearts of Men turn the nature of the Gospel which is a Law of Grace and obeyed only by Faith into the similitude of the Law of Moses and make it a matter of Man's working and subject it to the poor and lame endeavours of unrenewed Man not remembring or at least not understanding that the Tree must first be made good before the Fruits can be good This was meant by the Apostle when he bewails the Jews who though they followed after Righteousness attained it not because they sought it not by faith but as it were by the works of the law Rom. 9. 31 32. Ever since the Fall of Man Righteousness forsook the created Nature of Man which is largely shewed Rom. 3. 10. and is only now in Christ revealed from Heaven in receiving of whom by being baptised spiritually into his Death and Life his Righteousness is enjoyed Every Command of the Gospel doth first require Faith which is the great Commandment and in the vertue and power thereof requires and works Holiness in all the Fruits of a new Life by the vertue of Jesus Christ working in every Precept and Command of God in the whole Scriptures being Gospellized by his Spirit And here my heart begins again to groan while I find so little of this killing renewing power accomplishing its work upon me How far am I from this renewed State I am weary of the lifeless Notion of the thing I faint in my sighing and find no rest I long for the breath of the Lord and lament out my Complaint before him When will the Lord come into his Temple My flesh trembleth 'twixt hope fear and desire I am as a Bottle dried in the Smoak my heart is pained and in Travel O preserver of Men make no tarrying lest I be like them who go down to the pit Oh let Death feed upon me till the Foundation of Life Power and Peace be laid in my Soul and Deliverance come from another place Droopings are deadly O my Soul do not say thy Wound is incurable the Creator of the ends of the Earth doth undertake for thee he will yet reveal abundance of Truth and Peace Come then O Fountain of Help and do thine own Will upon me How easie is it to say the word Renewing in comparison of the thing really executed and done All that can be spoken about it is but words the Change it self is the thing I long for my eyes fail with hoping for the very Salvation of God in this work Oh that the Heavens might drop down their Dew Why are the Influences of the Clouds with-held Oh for the sounding of his Bowels who is gone into a far Country and has promised to return My musing heart cannot fetch him but my groaning is before him and the tears and cries of my Soul is in his sight O Earth cover thou not my blood let the cry of my distress be heard Anguish is upon my heart and Oh let the Season of my Redemption come According to the measure of the power of Christ given to me I would yet struggle against this Gyant unmortified self I would rather take a Sling and a Stone in the power of Christ than all the Weapons of a Carnal Arm and Understanding Christ well knew the length of that Petition Thy Will be done
that state in all times and Ages and stands answerable to the nature of all future cases and experiences of the Saints which makes the whole Scriptures which were written aforetime to be of a perpetual present use from the beginning to the end of that Volumne so said Moses of old Deut. 4. 2. and so said John many hundred years after Rev. 22. 18 19. So that all Scripture is given for a perpetual profit by Doctrine Reproof Exhortation and Instruction in Righteousness in order to the perfecting of the Saints 2 Tim. 3. 16 17. And this brings in again the Consideration of the wonderful Condescention of God who though he be invisible yet he doth in a sort become visible in the Word there the Life of God is manifested even that hidden Life which enlivens the new Man it exposeth it self to be seen heard and handled by the thoughts of Worm-like Man 1 Joh. 1. 1 2 3. God who was pleased to manifest himself in the Flesh has carried on a correspondent method in a way suitable to Humanity ever since the Restoration was promised to the Seed of the Woman The Spirit brings forth all its special Operations in the exercise of Man's Nature Reason Understanding Will Affections and Passions The Scriptures seem to bespeak nothing oft-times but meer Man whereas that Humane way was only fitted as a Sheath for the Sword of the Spirit to be carried in through all several cases that could fall out in Man's condition God who brought forth all things out of himself doth still manage them and uphold them for he is the Life As his Purpose and Power created the Being of all things so his Providence and Wisdom doth create the continual disposing and ordering of all things I create Jerusalem a rejoycing saith the Lord Isa 65. 18. And therefore having created a new thing in the Earth that a Woman should compass a Man Jer. 31. 22. he works creatingly in the discovery and application of that Mystery and stoops down into all the Sences Passions and Affections of Humane Nature and brings forth the Mystery of the new Creation under the vail and external use of the matter of the first Creation which runs through the whole History of outward Providences and through every Branch of Moses's Law in all the Sacrifices every part of the Tabernacle and Temple and through every Dispensation and among all the Faculties of the rational Soul as the power of Life striving against Death and Light against Darkness which is the scope of what we find spoken to Man or of or by Man in the Scriptures which is spoken not to shew only what Man 's natural thoughts are but how the Spirit of God works in their thoughts words and actions or how the Spirit of Satan naturally and sinfully works in them which is delivered to us by the Spirit of God sometimes by the Rules of Doctrine and Worship sometimes by Comforts Instructions Exhortations Reproofs and Threatnings and sometimes by Examples and Experiences acted upon the persons of Good and Bad and acting in them This Operation of the Spirit of the Father and the Son begets all the Convincements Heart-searchings Prayers Groans Cries Sighs Comforts Encouragements and Conquests which we find exercised in the hearts of the people of God throughout the Scriptures as in a Glass shewing the Combat betwixt the Seed of the Serpent and the Seed of the Woman and establishing Faith and Assurance of the Victory by Jesus Christ who is the Captain of their Salvation And God has recorded these things in this manner in the Word that all the people of God may read the whole of their present State and Work acted in the Scriptures by the Inspiration of the Spirit which now breaths Workings of a like nature in their hearts The least Groan cannot be lost 't is part of the Lambs War and therefore there is a Blessing in it If the infinite Purity Power and Holiness of God did reveal it self only to the Understanding it would either distract or confound the Soul or harden it by a desperate Dispondency and therefore the infinite Excellency of God descends into the Humane Nature of Christ that it might overshadow and work in the hearts of the Saints who are his Mystical Body by the Spirit in the Scriptures in the way of an Instinct and new Principle arising from that spiritual Closure made betwixt him and them in the Gospel The rejection of the Gospel and The Glory of Christs Condescention despising the Word doth chiefly arise from an aptness to stumble at the Condescention of God he sees a necessity to bow down lower to save poor Man than the Pride of Man's heart knows how to digest and therefore the broken and contrite ones get most of his company Isa 57. 15. the Soul who loves him and believes his Condescention in the design and truth thereof can never be too low for relief The manner of Christ's coming into the Flesh and the despicableness of his Person in his Life and Death seriously considered and the Ordinances which he blest and left to us gives no encouragement to the Wisdom of the Flesh The way of carnal Wisdom is to do great things by great means but the Wisdom of God doth great things by small and despicable means 1 Sam. 16. 7. 2 King 5. 10 11. and so confoundeth the Wisdom of the Wise as the Apostle argues 1 Cor. 1. from v. 20. forwards Were the truth of this Mystery of God's Condescention truly taken up it would spoil that repining dejection which torments the Saints about their unworthiness and thankfulness would accompany all their Groans towards him he is as low as the lowest and their way cannot be hid from him though he be high and lofty and the Creator of the ends of the earth Isa 40. 27 28 29. and 57. 15. The very Kernel of the Gospels Glory lies in the extreamness of his Condescention in the way of saving Man his design is to exalt his Glory to the highest Heavens by the unspeakable lowness of his stooping throughout all the day of Grace He doth by his Spirit wait weep strive grieve sigh suffer and complain in the hearts of his people and figuratively he is said to do such things also himself on their behalf their weak Faith is mighty through him who works it and who carries his Lambs in his Arms. His infinite Greatness is not at all the cause of any estranged distance betwixt him and Mankind in this day of Grace but the carnal and unbroken Pride and fulness of a self-righteous careless ignorant unbelieving heart He setteth the Solitary in Families and stoopeth down to deliver them who are sensible of their Chains but the Rebellious dwelleth in a dry Land Psal 68. 6. Oh let this Truth visit me and save me Here is a Rest indeed O my confused heart he that heard the moan of Ephraim hears thy moan hears thy confused cries picks up all thy sighs and
the Will of God being the grand purpose of his heart in all he doth delivers him into a holy Rest and maintains an inclination to work still without repining because he is assured his work is not in vain in the Lord. So far as the Will of God appears he is quiet with joy because the pleasure of his work lies in doing God's Will and not his own Communion with God makes up every Breach with an All-sufficiency Disappointments do lock him up within the Sanctuary of God and keeps the Soul at home in the pure tastes of that Communion with God in which it lives Psal 73. 17 25. in a readiness to every good work His good Actions though small as a Cup of cold Water or successless as Isaiah's preaching seemed to him to be Isa 49. 4. yet those works cannot be lost because Communion with God cannot be lost in the vertue of which those works were done through Jesus Christ But while I am thus travelling The Soul sensible of a cold Fit through the Consideration of several P 〈…〉 s redounding to a Believer 〈…〉 way of fruitfulness therein I feel methinks many cold fits to seize upon me as it was in the day that Abraham was troubled with the Fowls which fell upon the Carcases which God commanded him to divide for confirmation of his Promise which Abraham drove away till the Sun went down and when a deep sleep and horrour of great darkness fell upon him then even then did a fresh assurance of the Covenant break forth upon him as Gen. 15. 13. So while I am pursuing after this Salvation of God I find the Clouds gather about me I find not the same sensible Entertainment of the Salvation of God in my heart as sometimes I have done my Soul is filled with guilt and weakness and therefore am forced to retire back from the pursuing the necessary and practical Meditations about the Conversation of Godliness for a season lest I leave an Enemy at my back that is ready to invade me which Enemy if it please the Lord to scatter by his Spirit I shall be more able to attempt the Meditations of the works of Holiness and have fresh Activity to put on the Garments of Fruitfulness in the Service which I owe to Jesus Christ my Lord than methinks for present I am Inward Rejoycing and Peace has been much bruised for certain days by weakness guilt and distraction that has seized on my heart there it lies like a Mountain of Lead when my thoughts would turn inwards I hear nothing but Outcries of Accusation and Guilt possessing my heart I can find no shelter at home I am forced to fly abroad for a Lodging for Company and Food I am now invited to renew my self a Nest above my own heart my heart is grown hard dark and weak it prevails against my former sense of Divine Presence and while it is thus filled with the clamours of Death and Confusion methinks I hear the Spirit and Bridegroom say Come arise this is not your Rest lanch forth through the Ocean of Free Grace and let not thy expectation hanker towards thy self though thy flesh fail and thy heart fail yet God is the strength of thy heart and thy portion for ever My work is to go forth and Oh that I could make a fair Escape to him who stands upon the Shoar to receive me it is not a few Meditations that will do it it needs a Redeemer's hand to fetch me out and pull me up The delight of the New Man is The Soul flies out of all manner of selfish help to Jesus Christ only to be under the Government of the Spirit only and all the Issues of the Spirit flow from the heart of Christ only by which the heart of a Believer is made new in him This Newness lies especially in the Spirit of a Believer which complies with the Spirit of God in the Witness of Adoption even whiles the contradiction of defiled Nature warreth against it And upon the single Interest of this Consideration and Union betwixt Christ and the Soul yielding it self to the renewing of his Spirit doth Faith go forth and claim Forrein Aid viz. the Aid of Jesus Christ to whom it is united in Conveyance of which Aid Christ first takes the Soul more closely into the vertue of that Union that every crumb of his help may truly savour of that Relation which is betwixt him and the Soul through the New Covenant and gives out no saving and effectual Aid otherwise than as the Product and Off-spring of that Union that so Christ may be all in all as the Treasury and efficient Cause of all Relief and that the Soul through spiritual Union only might derive that Relief to it self by Faith and as the Foundation of the Union lies on free Grace so the Application thereof and the abundant help arising thence is carried on through the method of free Grace only for Faith can converse with nothing in order to the Life of the New Man but Free Grace only in the Promse The very nature of free Promises do present to the Soul the consideration of all Relief to lie originally in God and that the Soul is invited thither only to fetch it and cannot possibly return empty for the dispensation of which Grace to the Sons of Men God manifests himself in the Person of the Son who dwells in Humane Nature displaying the Evidence of this Grace in the Gospel and by his Spirit persuades the believing Soul to accept and improve it And the Soul being thus persuaded that his life lies in Christ upon a free Covenant grounded in God's Decree established on free Promises may not stay to ask leave of his guilty heart whether he be fit to lay hold upon this Deliverance but must rather consider the freeness of Grace Pardon and Righteousness which is in this new and living way which God hath made and not Man If Elijah had poured only on the parched Earth that was under his feet he could have had no Argument of Moysture to arise from thence but having by faith prayed to him who governed the Clouds down came Rain and the Drought vanished Guilt of Sin is like a Hedge or a Wall that can easily keep the heart in Impenitency and Unbelief but when Faith working by Repentance seizeth on Jesus Christ it gives Wings to the Soul of a Believer to fly up above all those hindrances of natural Guilt and Weakness and though Sin and Death remain in his Flesh yet he is got beyond the Captivity of the Law of Sin which can no more keep him from the Freedom wherewith Christ hath made him free than a Hedge can keep an Eagle from soaring up in the Air. The Sap which feeds Guilt is Unbelief now when the Sap is withdrawn the Tree dies away by degrees although it remains in its place for a season so is it with the Old Man it combers the heart a while but
Society and sometimes Retirement puts me behind-hand All my Composedness is soon discomposed Let thy eye be upon me O my God according to thy word and water me every moment Isa 27. 3. lest any thing assault and hurt my Soul which thou hast redeemed and quicken my faith and hope in thy Word for this Many a wretched stop do I meet with pardon me O my Lord and my God and renew a Spirit of truth tenderness sincerity and rightly seasoned heart for the work I am now upon My scope and meaning in giving my hand and closing with this Covenant of my God is further this viz. that through his help I will ascribe truth to all the words of his Promises by believing them and receiving them as that which shall be accomplished that I will labour to keep the Majesty of the Promiser in my eye and to preserve the faith and hope of his fulfilling his Word upon the account of his unsearchable Wisdom and Faithfulness and not by my uncertain taste that no Guilt of Sin shall keep me from the Fountain wherein Sinners are to be cleansed that I will through the Guidance of his Spirit aspire after a more practical and accustomed Exercise in living the life that I live by the faith of the Son of God and resting from my own works reach after that self-denying Activity which issues from my Union with Christ as my Head O my Lord mould my heart into this life this is the very Pearl that I would willingly sell all to get What a lovely Comportment would it settle between the Actions of my outward and inward Man How would it teach my Soul to rule my Body How willingly would my Soul and Body then be contradicted and take pleasure to be thwarted by the Spirit of Christ when the Crown is settled on the Head of the new Creature and the Scepter of Government in its hand acting as in the Throne of Christ in the vertue of his pure Life and glorious Arm and every imagination of the heart bowing down before it Oh when shall my inward Man be thus cloathed with Glory and Power looking forth through all my Sences as the Morning fair as the Moon and terrible as an Army with Banners This Gate of Heaven I would aspire towards through that means of Victory which overcometh the World the Devil and an earthly Mind even through the faith of the Son of God This is that which I have in my eye although it be as a Land that is afar off I faint with desire stay me and strengthen me with the Flagons of Hope O thou who hast suffered me to touch the Skirt of thy Garment and brought me within the Covenant of his Grace When I consider the Soveraignty of God that he doth whatsoever he will in Heaven and Earth that sometimes he has deserted his people as to the powerful Communications of Grace as it was with David Peter and others in the time of their sinful Back-sliding when I consider these things I begin to stagger about the constant Immutability of God's Purpose and uninterrupted Good Will which he declares in the Covenant Heb. 13. 8. Jer. 32. 40. who saith I will not turn away from them to do them good and I will put my fear into their hearts that they shall not depart from me And therefore to obviate this heart-fainting mistake I resolve to nourish the faith of his constant Love and Good Will in his Covenant upon the ground of his unchangeable Nature that he is not as a man that he should lie nor as the son of man that he should repent that nothing can come to pass but what is the effect of his Purpose that his Covenant is everlasting and his Purpose of Love therein the same for ever Jer. 31. 35. and 32. 40 41. that his Purpose to them whom he calls up to take hold of his Covenant is wholly a Purpose of Love and Grace 2 Tim. 1. 9. that he complains when a doubting heart makes question of it Isa 40. 27. that it is confirmed by the death of the Testator that the cause of Alienation is removed viz. the Guilt of my Sin by the one compleat and compleating Offering of the Body of Christ that Christ ever lives to intercede and is always heard because the Will of the Father and Son is the same Will breathing it self forth to the Objects of Grace by the everlasting Spirit And therefore when I seem to be forsaken I resolve to believe that that desertion is only Physick And to enquire what it is that God teacheth me thereby that so I may see ground as satisfyingly to thank him for the gracious frowns of his unchangeable Love as for his gracious Smiles and to take the advantage of that season to crave his Aid more importunately to loath my sinful self and to revive afresh more purely self-denying Exercises of believing and resigning to him fearing his righteous Judgments patiently waiting when the Spirit that I have grieved will return again with the Manifestation of his gracious Presence to my Soul In all these Considerations Resolutions and Desires in my Covenanting with God my meaning further is that I accept of Jesus Christ as he is the Gift of God to be the whole Covenant to me to work Faith and give the things believed to work desires and give the things desired to act for me and in me that the Covenant may never fail from me because of my sins and miscarriages in regard he has satisfied Justice in my stead and brought me into his everlasting Righteousness nor I fail from the Covenant through Unbelief and a languishing view of my own Infirmity because he is my Strength to labour Author and Finisher of my Faith who gave himself to sanctifie me by the Spirit of Regeneration in the Application of his Word to me for quickning that so Christ may be all in all to fulfil the Engagement of God to me and my Engagement in his Name to God And seeing that Breaches are like to fall out often on my part that he would still stand in the Gap that those Breaches may not obstruct the Good Will and Mercy of God from me nor harden my heart from him that so the Grace of the Covenant on God's part in Christ towards me and on Christ's part for me towards God may remain in the eye of my Faith inviolable when the Peace of the Covenant through my sinful diversions and darkness is interrupted and bruised And that he would still recover me again into a renewed personal Covenanting with God that in his Person I may behold eternal and sure Mercies as the Sun in the Firmament as the days of Eternity Psal 89. 29. And that by his Mediation and Suretyship applied to me by the effectual working of his Spirit I may in my own person be drawn under his shadow to recover my Hold-fast and have my face set towards the Covenant And that he would still lead me
again and again with weeping and supplications to God in him as my resting place and that he would cause this glorious word to ring as an Alarm in my ears Return unto me for I am married unto thee Jer. 3. 14. I will be and I am thy King Where is any other that can comfort thee or save thee in all thy wandrings Hos 13. 10. And that he would cause my bowels to be moved at the voice and to give answer It is the voice of my Beloved behold I come unto thee for thou art the Lord my God Jer. 3. 22. And that I may now sum up the The Soul enters into more ample and express Covenant with God matter of this my Covenant which God has called me to make and which in obedience to his Call I do heartily resolve in his strength to adhere unto guard my heart guard my pen guard my voice and words O thou who leadest the Blind to thy self by a way which Nature knows not but thou knowest thy own way and knowest how to lead the thoughts of my heart and words of my pen and my mouth that my lips may utter nothing rashly before thee Thou hast made a Covenant of Grace and often repeated the terms of the Covenant and hast said I shall say The Lord is my God Hos 2. 23. and has recorded the mutual avouching between thee and thy people Deut. 26. 17 18. in express words Yea Strangers are invited to serve thee to love thy Name to be thy Servants and to lay hold on thy Covenant Isa 56. 6. to joyn themselves to thee and to observe thy Sabbaths and Ordinances of Worship And when thy people did enter into a Covenant to seek the Lord God of their Fathers with all their heart and with all their soul and sware to thee with a loud voice and rejoyced at the Oath and sought thee with full desire thou wast found of them 2 Chron. 15. 12 15. And this way have thy Servants appropriated thee to themselves Psal 105. 7 8. and appropriated themselves to thee Psal 116. 16 18. Isa 63. 16 19. And thou hast said These things are written for my learning Rom. 15. 4. and that I am to imitate and follow them who through faith and patience did inherit the promises giving my self to thee 2 Cor. 8. 5. with full purpose of heart Act. 11. 23. Having this Warrant and Encouragement I do here bring my Body and Soul and all that I have and am to thee as a First-Fruit Offering and claiming Right to thy self through thy free Grace being invited thereto Jer. 3. 4 19. Hos 2. 23. I do declare in thy presence O The Soul makes Confession of its Faith most righteous holy and gracious God that as thou hast declared in thy Word I do acknowledge I am one of the Posterity of the first Adam and was in his Loins both when thou madest him pure bearing the Image of Righteousness and Holiness and when he transgressed thy righteous Command by eating the Fruit which thou hadst forbidden him to eat and that I stand before thee guilty of the sin which he then committed in all the extent circumstances and aggravations thereof and that I am thereby become rightful Heir to all that sinful pollution which by him entred in upon all Mankind and rightful Heir also to all that Curse and Punishment which thou denouncedst upon him when thou saidst In the day wherein thou eatest thereof thou shalt die and that I am by this my nature and descent liable to thy righteous Sentence of Death and Wrath eternally that I did in that day lose thy favour and incurred the accursed effects of that loss to my Body and Soul relating both to my temporal and eternal state I do acknowledge that of thy free Grace and that alone thou didst speedily make promise of a Redeemer which should arise of the Seed of the Woman and be manifested in the Flesh which accordingly thou didst perform by sending thy only Son into the World having a Body framed by the power of the Holy Spirit in the Womb of a Virgin and was born free from all that Hereditary Corruption which the first Parents of Mankind did derive to their Posterity by natural Propagation who by his voluntary Obedience fulfilled thy whole Law and by his death did bear the whole Curse and Punishment due to me and all elected Mankind in the Body of his Flesh And that being thy eternal Son the express Image of thy Person and God blessed for ever he did fully pay the Debt and remove the Curse and deserved Punishment from so many which thou hadst in thy eternal Purpose given him to be a Ransom for and superabundantly recovered thy Image and favour to them again And that being truly dead he raised himself by his own Divine Power and is ascended into the highest Heavens where he sitteth on the Right Hand of the Majesty on high appearing always in thy presence as Mediator consisting of the two Natures of God and Man in one Person continually interceding before thee on the behalf of them whom he redeemed and making the ends and vertue of his Mediatorship effectual for their good and on their behalf That he hath brought this state of Life and Salvation to light by the Gospel contained in the Books of the Old and New Testament and effectually dispensed the same under dark Types and Prophesies till his Incarnation since which time he hath mightily declared himself by his Word and Works the Father also from Heaven and the Holy Spirit testifying of him that he is the Saviour of the World and that believing in him they who believe shall have life through his Name That he has declared himself by chosen Witnesses who conversed with him and saw his Miracles that he is the eternal God and also true Humane Nature in one glorious Person and has appointed them to testifie that he is the Judge of Quick and Dead and that whosoever beliveth in him shall receive Remission of Sins and be justified from all Conscience of Guilt and interested in a more abundant Righteousness Life and Happiness than was lost before that he sendeth forth his Spirit to breath a new Life by Faith through the dispensation of this Gospel whereby he gathers all the Elect into a Mystical true spiritual Union with himself who is the Door of their Communion with God and his Communion with them and having in himself the terms and parts of the Covenant relating to each Party he has so united them together in a Covenant-Bond that the most righteous God reacheth to them his hand and proclaims himself theirs and they reach forth their hands by Faith and Resignation and declare they are wholly his By which Covenant-Union they are partakers of God and all communicable good things in him and are spirited to give up themselves and all that they have and are to his dispose in newness of life and have freedom to come to
the Mediator for Teaching Strength and Purging through the means appointed by him for that end as their daily necessity and weakness doth require for carrying on the true scope and to answer the true end of their Covenant-Relation to God while they live on Earth and through the Resurrection of Christ have an assured Pledge of safe Convoy through the Grave to an eternal and visible Fellowship with him and unutterable Enjoyment of Communion with the Father Son and Spirit being perfected for ever suitable to such a state both in Body and in Soul Now according to this Confession A solemn Covenant with God in the Name of Christ and Acknowledgment grounded upon thy own Word breathed by thy Spirit and experienced by all thy chosen people according to the measure of thy Revelation and spiritual Application thereof I throw my self down before thee O most holy righteous all-powerful and gracious God I cast my self before thee as a poor Syrian ready to perish without any strength at all to extricate my self from the guilt of sin and its deserved punishment I once lost thee quite and had been lost from thee for ever if thy naked Arm had not brought thy Salvation near and opened my ear to hear it And now I do here declare before thee and before thy holy Angels that I do accept of and give up my self and all that is mine to comply with the design of my Restoration which thy gracious Wisdom has found out I do accept of Jesus Christ thy Son to be my Wisdom Righteousness Sanctification and Redemption I do accept of him only to be my Access to thy favourable Presence and to enable me to walk acceptable before thee I close with thy appointment for laying my sins and all my guiltiness upon him and do profess through thy Grace that I will not hazard thy displeasure by covering my guilt or bearing it my self by Unbelief cherished within me In him I do accept of thy glorious Self to be my God and all the Attributes of thy glorious Nature to be my Portion and all ready for my relief and advantage I do accept of the sanctifying Vertue of thy Spirit and am grieved that I have so often vexed and grieved him by Disobedience and Unbelief I do own to my self thy free and unchangeable Love in Christ I do take the whole Scriptures and acknowledge them to be thy express Will and all thy gracious Commands Threatnings and Promises to be in all things most right and to be the Issues of thy Wisdom Holiness Goodness and truth for my Instruction Purging Comfort and Establishment in all cases all days of my life which I engage in thy strength to adhere unto as the Rule of my Faith and Conversation I embrace the Covenant wherein thou hast promised and sworn to be mine and that blessing thou wilt bless me in Christ for thy own sake And I do here heartily willingly and joyfully with fear and trembling offer up my self to thee and the Belief of thy Word and do bind my self to thee this day with my whole heart and in express words to be thine and to yield my self mine and all that do concern me to the good pleasure of thy Will and that I will attend upon thee through thy Grace for Wisdom and Strength to love fear serve and obey thee that I will chuse the things that please thee and not repine at thy dealings towards me as if thou hadst forgotten at any time to be gracious I bind my self in the scope and vertue of this holy Covenant with God to have tender Affections to all thy people who are the joynt Object of thy Love and to attend upon the Manifestation of the Spirit and Power in thy Ordinances and through thy strength contentedly to bear the Cross thou shalt lay upon me in conformity to the death of Christ and that thy self and pure Will shall be the supream mark and object of my Affections And O my most glorious God who pitiest the Poor and such who have no strength accept this Offering from my hand and heart and succour thy Servant who under much reluctancy of Unbelief doth strive to yield himself to be wholly bound to thee When I look upon my own strength I loath it and am astonished at such work as this but I implore thee and do profess I do with full desire of heart cast my self upon the Wings of thy Power to be carried above all impediments that shall arise from Satan from this present evil World and from the Body of Sin and Death which is within me O thou who camest in Flesh to purchase me visit the Soul which thou hast allured to seek and follow thee and cause the North and South Wind of thy seasonable help to blow upon thy Garden my Soul which with delight doth long after thee in this day of thy Power to see and be possessed of and cloathed with thy Power and Glory And whensoever I shall walk unsuitably to any of these things for I am ready to halt and thou shalt as an offended Father be angry with me and turn away thy face then behold the Atonement which thou hast set forth for Sinners and melt my heart before thee and lead me to the Fountain that is opened for Sin and Uncleanness and graciously renew thy Covenant with me and let me know that thou dost graciously accept of this my Free-Will Offering by vouchsafing thy self to be ready to be found and by causing me to be established in a daily experience that this my labour and purpose of heart though in much infirmity yet in love to thy Name is not in vain Let no part of thy Yoke be a burthen to me at any time but a joy to my heart because 't is thy Yoke and thou hast said 't is easie and light make it so and now let an Interest be abundantly administred to me into the Kingdom of my Christ and my God I profess before thee that I do humbly expect these things from thee O faithful God who canst not lie as that which thou hast graciously covenanted to give Jer. 32. 38 39 40 41. and 31. 33 34. which Covenant I do this day in thy fear and in the faith of thy performance lay hold upon and in reference to all the difficulties of this present Life of all sorts and for needful supply of daily Bread I accept of thy Promises and roll my self upon thee in them through the Mediator for Faith Courage Patience Contentedness Deliverance and Supply according to thy Word Psal 27. 1 2 3 5. Mich. 7. 7 8 9. Heb. 13. 5 6. Matth. 6. 31 32. as my need from time to time shall require And also to be kept from polluting thy Name by sinful and scandalous Miscarriages and appearance of Evil in the sight of Men as thou hast promised Psal 91. 10 11 12. I accept of and relie upon thy infinite Goodness and Truth contained in every Clause of thy Word
though not particularly at this time rehearsed for every good thing for my Soul and Body here and hereafter as far as ever the purpose of thy Grace extended when thou saidst I will be thy God and that all that Goodness and Truth may follow me all my days and for ever Rom. 8. 32. And I willingly offer up my self to thy whole Will as thou shalt from time to time reveal it in the same word of thy Grace and do covenant Subjection thereto in thy strength through the Mediation of Jesus Christ and supply of thy Spirit And upon thy own Encouragement in thy Promise made to me in that same Covenant which thou madest with my Father Abraham and sealed it to him and his Seed that thou wouldst be his God and the God of his Seed and caused the Man-child of eight days old to receive the sign of that Covenant in his Flesh which Blessing thou hast now brought over to me a Gentile by Christ in whom thou saist Jew and Greek Male and Female are all one in Christ I do again offer up my Child who has been already baptized into thy Name relying on thee to make good thy Covenant in Christ to her together with my self in every Branch thereof which I have through thy favour and Grace entred into and spread before thee this day that she also may have a place in thy House and partake of all the Privileges and Inheritance of thy Chosen And now O Lord God what shall I say to thee Who am I And what is my House that thou hast brought me hitherto All Praise be to thy glorious Name ever-living Jehovah the Father Son and Spirit Glory be to thee O Father who hast begotten me again to a lively Hope who hast drawn me to Jesus Christ whom thou deliveredst up for me to be my Ransom and hast made me to recieve him and in him to call thee my reconciled Father Glory be to thee O Eternal Son of the Father who camest into Flesh and undertookest the great Office of Mediatorship between a righteous God and sinful Man and hast transacted a Covenant of Peace for me and perfected it in thy own Person by thy Death and Resurrection And Glory be to thee O Eternal Spirit of the Father and Son who hast awakened my ear to hear the joyful sound of Reconciliation to God through the Blood of the Lamb which was slain from the beginning of the World who hast been pursuing me and didst never give over till thou hadst convinced my heart and conquered my Will to a willing Surrender of my self up to and a laying hold upon the Covenant of Grace held forth to Sinners in the Volume of thy Book Now O Lord God let all the words of thy Grace be effectually applied and established to me thy Servant Pardon all my sins and my failings and all my unsuitableness of heart while I have been before thee musing and taking thy Name and Covenant in my mouth and writing it with my own hand in thy presence and as a Fruit of thy Covenant-Grace and Truth let my approach to thee be accepted and prosper for which end I have delivered up my self and all that is mine with full purpose of heart according to all that I have said before thee this day and with an holy Awe of thy Presence in this great Work in confidence and hope of thy pardoning succouring and assisting Grace I lie at the Foot-stool of thy Mercy and call Heaven and Earth to witness that I have chosen thee to be my God and thy Will in all things to be my Inheritance and my delight and the matter of my pursuance all my days upon the ground and promise which thou hast said Hos 2. 23. I will say to them which were not my people thou art my people and they shall say Thou art my God I have said it and do say it and do leave this Covenant in the hand of my Mediator to see it fulfilled to me and by me through all the days of my Infirmity and Warfare till I come to behold his face as he is and this vile Body of mine be made like to his glorious Body In reliance on which relief and blessed hope and help I cling upon this Covenant of Free Grace in which I do both take and give as I have said and do subscribe it irrevocably with my hand Henry Dorney Do not say O grumbling Unbelief The Soul chides Vnbelief that these are nothing but compiled words of Humane Invention I tell thee as far as they are only my invention I do loath them but the Spirit of God doth witness with my Spirit that amongst these words there hath been some hunger after God some awe of his Presence some love to be his devoted Servant some prizing of the excellency of a pure Life of Faith some holy Convictions of the importance and necessity at least of such an attempt as this to bring God and my Soul nearer together And therefore though there is much chaffiness of a dead heart yet I cannot gratifie my doubts and unbelief so far as to conclude there is no Wheat in the heap and I refer my self desirously and willingly to the heart-knowing Eye of him who has his Fan in his hand to blow away all the Chaff from my thoughts and words and to create in me a clean heart and pure language also and to gather what there is of secret panting after him into his own Garner and put my inward groanings after him how weak and faint soever into his Bottle and therefore I must and by his help will praise him for any Crumbs that fall from his Table and that I have any Stomach to eat them and any desire after larger Morsels My Redeemer is bountiful his Breasts are full and will not suffer a hungry Child to draw nothing but Wind. I remember well what he said to the Woman of Samaria If thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that saith to thee Give me to drink thou wouldst have asked of him and he would have given thee living water I have asked of him and have had his favour to wait on him now several days together and will he return my Bucket altogether empty This is not his custom The Kingdom of God is like Seed sown which springs up and grows with an insensible motion and yet a growing motion Mark 4. 26 27. He proceeds in the method of his own Word in which Word he saith Seek and ye shall find for every one that seeketh findeth and shall I say my Seekings are lost My Way is not hid from God when his Path is hid from me he hath said They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength which I have obliged my self to do and therefore though he humble me to preserve a watchful Appetite and to prevent some unhealthy Surfeit which he can discern in my Constitution growing upon me better than I yet I know I shall
not return ashamed but be kept in the more wakeful pursuits after him and while I follow him I am with him in my desire and if I desire him he desires me and there we meet Cant. 7. 10. in the Communion of desires till the shadows flee away A Sluggard indeed desireth and hath not because his hands refuse to labour Prov. 21 25. but a laborious desire after Christ enjoys him in the eye of Faith and Scripture-evidence Rev. 21. 6. and 22. 17. Joh. 7. 38. and therefore in the patience and faith of the Scriptures I have hope And what though some outward disadvantage has been occasioned which yet I know not of by this Retirement to seek him who knows my Soul loveth him will not he some way or other repay that loss and heal that breach O Lord pardon pity and care for him who in love to thy self and thy holy Will desires to seek the Kingdom of God first c. A DISCOURSE of UNION with CHRIST Joh. 17. 23. I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in one WHen I consider this true Loves Knot uttered by Christ himself and the wondrous Union in these three words I Thou and They declared by Christ at his passage from Earth to Heaven as the contrived Counsel of the eternal God Father Son and Spirit and when I find up and down in the Scriptures that the Elect when once they are quickned by the Spirit into the state of Regeneration are said to have their Life in God Col. 3. 3. and that God lives in them dwells in them and they in him 2 Cor. 6. 16. 1 Joh. 4. 13. that their works are wrought in God Joh. 3. 21. that God worketh in them 1 Cor. 12. 6. that God walks in them 2 Cor. 6. 16. that they walk with God and in his Name Gen. 5. 24. Mic. 4. 5. that Christ speaks in them and they in him 2 Cor. 13. 3. and 12. 19. I say when I consider such like expressions plentifully scattered by the holy Spirit in the Scriptures I conclude there is some admirable Union betwixt the Father of Glory and every one of his elect Seed in Christ which is a Mystery so spiritual a sacred Palace so secret that the most exquisite parts of Nature can never enter in to view it as it is 't is new Jerusalem under a Vail into which Flesh and Blood cannot enter But seeing Christ has said To you it is given to know the Mystery of the Kingdom of God Mark 4. 11. I would humbly wait for the power of the Spirit to transform and fit me and the manifestation of the Spirit to teach me that so enquiring I may enter and entring may possess this purchased Possession at least in the First Fruits and Earnest thereof and although methinks I shrivle up before the mysterious heat and lustre of this Gospel yet being commanded to seek the Lord and being under a Promise of help Jer. 31. 9. I wait on God for Strength and Wisdom to attempt this Enquiry methinks these steps do offer themselves The infinitely wise God decreed to make Mankind and the visible World to be his Habitation and the Creatures to serve him Man is made in a state of Righteousness and so stands upon his own legs and as it were in a moment he begins to totter and falls from that state into a state of sin and misery God so permitting it that his Justice and Mercy might the more be exalted a Remnant of undone Mankind are decreed to Salvation in a way of Mercy And that the Justice of God against Sin and Sinners may be preserved and yet the Elect Remnant saved God himself in the Person of the eternal Son assumes the Nature of Mankind into the Union of his Person and in that Nature pays to his own Justice all the Debt which this elect Remnant among the rest of fallen Mankind had involved themselves into in performing whereof he unites himself so near to them and they so near to himself that what he did for them was reckoned by Justice it self accountable to the Behoof and Concernment of each elected person as much as if every one of them had compleatly satisfied Justice in their own persons and the Union is so near betwixt him and them that whereas he is the express Image of the Father and having all power committed to him he stamps upon them the Image of God anew viz. Righteousness and true Holiness which becomes theirs only through Union with him and do only exist in their existing in him which existence is wrought by the holy Spirit forming him spiritually in their hearts as it formed him bodily in the Virgin 's Womb which Formation of Christ in their hearts becomes a mystical spiritual and true Union betwixt him and them which same Spirit works Faith in them that they may be made living Subjects and suitably capacitated for this mutual Union betwixt them also and him And thus the Lord of Life having enlivened to himself a living Spouse they enjoy each other by an unutterable nearness of spiritual In-dwelling in each other so near that the Spirit of God who manageth the Match sticks not to say that the Church and so every particular person thereof is a Member of his Body of his Flesh and of his Bones and not only that but he that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit Ephes 5. 30. 1 Cor. 6. 15 17. Hence it comes to pass that from the very moment that the Soul hath accepted of Jesus Christ being seized upon to that purpose by the Spirit of Regeneration proceeding from the Father through the Son and received by believing that believing person so effectually visited by the Call of the Gospel doth now and never before become a new Man and though Sins and Temptations never so many do batter and bruise yet his House cannot fall nor his State be altered because God himself has laid his Foundation on a Rock and has drawn the Soul's Consent by believing to lay it there too and this Rock is Christ in whom the Almighty God receives this believing and renewed person into that Union and true real nearness which lies shadowed forth in the Scriptures of Truth under the terms of Father and Child 2 Cor. 6. 17 18. Husband and Wife Ephes 5. 25. c. Vine and Branches yea as one Body consisting of Head and Members and many such like similitudes in the Scriptures to set forth this wonderful Nearness and Union from whence it followeth that no Action State or Condition of such a renewed Person whether it be inward or outward is so entirely his own and of private Concernment to himself alone as it was before his sins were more entirely his own damage before now they wound his Relation and grieve Christ Ephes 4. 30. he sinned before against the Law of God he now sins in all his miscarriages against Christ also 1 Cor. 8. 12. and against the Law of his
Reconciliation brings let it not rest in the Understanding but pass along into some real transforming Impression on the Will that it may be won home to God in Christ the Centre of thy new State Get within the Scope and Spirit of the matter for there lies Christ attending to meet thee In Reading Observe and get into the Soul as it were of him who 2. Reading was the Writer whether Moses David Paul or any other as if thy self had been the Pen-man by the Inspiration of the Spirit Use the Scriptures as if this had been the first day they had been penned as if thou hadst seen the persons and hadst been in the place with them when they spake and wrote it as if thou hadst seen Christ when he spake did and suffered what thou readest and as if the Scriptures had been sent only to thee to win and work thee up to a Reconcilement with God Labour to see the Wisdom and Goodness of God in the Seals of the 3. Seals Covenant Their end is to realize invisible things to enforce the Obligation and Union between Christ and thee to the strongest Evidence and Application By Baptism thou art taken in and by the Ordinance of the Lord's Supper thou art fed and nowrished up in this Union There was no other end than this as the main Union with Christ as the Head and with his People as the Members of his Body The vertue is inward Oh for more faith and sight in this Mystery TOKENS among Men do oblige and are very forcible they carry in them the Mind of the Giver and the Token being candidly accepted the Mind of the Giver is accepted and in that Token there meets Consent and Union betwixt Giver and Reciever They have as it were a magnetick force and a confirming force also as the experience of such things do shew Thus it is with those mysterious Tokens between Christ and his People Muse them and improve them so And as all Ordinances are the Galleries of Intercourse between God and 4. Prayer his People in Christ so Prayer hath in this Work an Eminency 't is the very Intercession of God's own Spirit in them 't is the private Retirement in which the Soul is brought into the Presence-Chamber and hath private Conference with Christ and the Father in him The very nature of Prayer is a Thirst after the living God Psal 63. 1. 'T is the very breathing of the Soul's Union with God and the means whereby it is preserved fortified carried on and confirmed and whereby the sweetness and nourishing vertue of it to the Soul is improved enjoyed and increased Let thy Prayers then be inward and single hearted chiefly aiming at and prizing this Union And refer all other things of a remote nature to the wisdom of him to whom thou art united Speak to him as one who is in his bosom and consider him as thy only Helper and thy most sure Friend Come reverently believingly with Resignation of thine heart to his and so creep forwards into an humble intimacy and familiarity with thy God This Union only begets the true Cry Abba Father and nourisheth it And if Faith can but enter with all its glorious Train how would this This Divine Vnion quickned and stirring in the Soul by faith Union shine forth Faith springs from this Union in order of Nature but in order of time 't is brought forth with it There can be no Faith or any other Grace till the God of all Grace hath took the Soul into actual Union with himself and so Faith is the Fruit of this Union Neither can there be any Union without some exercise of Faith in which the life of this Union begins to stir for there can be no Union between God who is living and the Soul which by Nature is dead in distance and sin till Faith which is the first spark of life in the new Creature do capacitate the Soul for its Union with God in Christ The Spirit of this Union by every spiritual means doth hold out Nourishment for Faith to grow by and Faith by those means settles the Soul more and more in the bosom warmth and efficaciousness of its Union with Christ and the Father in him In which Interest and Efficaciousness Faith grows up and puts the Soul upon high and noble exercise enables it and acts it forth to mighty attempts so that the actual Union of God to in and with the Soul is the first Principle of its life and Faith is the first Motion of that life There can be no Life without some Motion no natural Motion without some Life which quality of Motion does more and more declare that there is Life as the cause thereof The Soul being made alive to God Ephes 2. 1. Rom. 6. 11. lives Apprehending Christ as the primary Means of this Vnion by faith Gal. 2. 20. Habbak 2. 4. The Primary Means in the hand of God's Free Grace which accomplisheth this Union is Christ who hath taken the common Nature of Man into Union with his Person and in that Nature the fulness of the Godhead dwelling therein bodily he doth by his Spirit breath the Spirit of Life into those who by the Election of Grace are given to him as his Posterity and therefore as the ends of the Earth are given to him for a Possession Psa 2. 8. so he is called the Creator of the ends of the Earth Isa 40. 28. and Creator of this Peace and Union Ephes 2. 16 17. Isa 57. 19. and the everlasting Father also Isa 9. 6. by whom as Mediator the living God and the enlivened Soul which was dead and sinful before are made one viz. in the Life and Purity of the Mediator He reconciles them removing the Enmity in his own Body on the Cross He unites by receiving the Souls and Bodies of the Elect into his own Propriety They are actually his in their new Creation and Regeneration Joh. 17. 10. 2 Cor. 5. 17. and being his they are the Fathers also I in them and thou in me and they in us Joh. 17. 21 23. The Secondary Mens is the Word And the Word as the Secundary Means of this Vnion of Reconciliation and Promise 2 Cor. 5. 19. 2 Pet. 1. 4. and Faith closing with Christ thereby Gal. 3. 25. Ephes 1. 13. and all this wrought by the Spirit in a way of quickning and efficacy Rom. 8. 10 11. conveyed into the Soul and maintained there by Faith the free Gift of God Which Faith being thus born bred Renders Faith vigorous and spirited converseth most with this Union in the Discoveries and Application thereof and by its much Converse there is capacitated to dart the Rays Influence and vertue of this Union into all the rest of the Graces of the Spirit without which influence no Grace comes up to its true and proper exercise And in regard the whole Soul is taken into this Union by Faith and the Body also
through its Union with the Soul the whole Person is called a Believer who lives by faith both in regard of its inward invisible Operation and also in moulding anew the outward and visible Conversation So that a Believer both lives by faith Heb. 10. 38. and walks by faith 2 Cor. 5. 7. not only in himself but manifestly to others by Words Rom. 1. 12. and Examples Heb. 13. 7. It s chief Seat is the Understanding and the Will Whatever it discovers And prosperous it calls in the Will to assent to working up the whole Soul to a Propensity of Resignation to the Power and Soveraignty of every divine Truth and in particular to the Enjoyment and Privilege Government and Laws of this Union-state And so it sets it self as a mighty Champion in the hand of the Lord to exercise its skill and power in the Soul And now Oh that it might be up and be doing in my Soul and so go on and prosper And Oh! that its Bow may abide in strength and the arms of its hands made strong through the hands of the mighty God of Jacob and under the influence of Divine Grace be blessed and made to go on increase be enlarged and conquer Rise up O Shield and Buckler O Arm of the Lord I have waited and do wait for thy Salvation O Lord Leave me not A DISCOURSE of GLORIFYING GOD. 1 Cor. 6. 19 20. What know ye not that your Body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you which ye have of God and ye are not your own For ye are bought with a price therefore glorifie God in your Body and in your Spirit which are God's THere are four principal things which this part of Scripture do offer to serious Meditation and Improvement viz. 1. That a true Christian is not his own 2. That he is the Lords 3. That he ought to know his renewed State 4. That his renewed Constitution does oblige him to promote the Glory of God and live up thereto in Soul and Body Not your own c. implies three things viz. 1. That naturally a Man is his own Tyrant 2. That true Christianity is more than speculative 't is a real Change of the Man You are not your own 3. That it doth mysteriously divide a Man from himself This real Alteration and mysterious Contrariety is not a natural Change but spiritual viz. the Body the Soul the Faculties of the Soul and the rational Exercise of those Faculties are still the same and yet a spiritual Change doth affect them all and passeth upon the whole Man This spiritual Change begins in the most hidden part of Man viz. the Mind and therefore Repentance is called the Change of the Mind which Change of the Mind doth influence the whole Man The Mind is said to be changed when the Spirit of God enters in and exerciseth its Soveraign Dominion of Holiness against the Usurpation of the Devil and Natural Corruption which reigned there before whereby the Mind is controlled into a willing Propensity of Subjection to the Authority of the Spirit of God against the Invasion of Sin which still retains some Haunt there as a lurking subdued Enemy called the Flesh lusting against the Spirit till it be destroyed utterly at the day of full Redemption This Dominion of the Spirit steers the natural Faculties of the Soul in their rational Exercise to new Employment and arrays them thereunto with new Habits The Understanding has a sublimer Light the Judgment a better Rule the Will and Affections a better Object better Motives and a better End viz. Spiritual So that such a person is now said not to be his own he is not under that universal Darkness Pollution and Bondage to Sin which he was conceived and born in at first that was his own natural state but he is now rescued from it and is no longer his own 1. While he was his own he taught himself by the Light of fleshly Wisdom and accounted the Gospel Foolishness 1 Cor. 1. 23. but now loaths it and being at a loss cries Lord what wouldst thou have me to do Act. 9. 6. and as they did who burnt the Books in which they learnt curious Arts before Act. 19. 19. in which lay no savour of Christ and spiritual Knowledge 2. While he was his own he ruled himself by the sight of his eyes and imagination of his heart Jer. 7. 27. by the custom and course of the World but now consults not with Flesh and Blood Gal. 1. 16. he sees his own Byass is false and his own Weights too light 3. Motives of Pleasure Profit Honour do not now draw him he was lead by his own Concupiscence but now he is dead to these and saith I have no pleasure in them 4. He designs not his own things neither Health Phil. 2. 30. nor Liberty Act. 20. 23. nor Ease 1 Cor. 11. 10. nor Safety 1 Cor. 15. 13. nor Wealth Heb. 11. 26. nor Honour nor Pleasure as Moses who refused to be Father of a great Nation Exod. 32. 10. and Esther not satisfied with having the honour and delights of being Queen when God's Honour lay at stake Yea he designs not an unworthy preservation of his own life Act. 20. 24. 5. The Spirit of carnal Comforts is gone in such an ones esteem as Esther could not endure the thoughts of her Peoples Ruin though she was at the Royal Feast and to such an one the tickling comfort of such things affect not but are as the White of an Egg yea the unnecessary Conference of such things is tastless as Meat to a sick Man and all because such an one is not his own any longer When a Man is not his own he stands invested with many privileges he has hereby a shelter 1. Against outward Afflictions they sting not their profit reacheth farther than their pain when a Man as in an extasie is not his own therefore Paul rejoyced in them 2. Persecution on the Outward Man reach not him who is not his own who is not at his own home as it was with David when Saul's Messengers came to kill him they found him not but an Image 1 Sam. 19. 16. 3. He can answer the Accusations of Guilt I am not my own and therefore my own Guilt must not stick on me 4. When Flesh and Blood demands Service he can reply I who am not my own am not Debtor to the Flesh When Sin doth vex and molest by its pollutions in the Flesh he can say What make I here I am not my own Let me go hence 5. When spiritual Pride solicits he can reply What I have is not my own 6. And against carnal Security he can say I cannot maintain my own Grace nor restore my self when fallen and therefore am to work out my Salvation with fear I am not my own 7. Against Solicitude about future Events and carking Despondency I am not at my own dispose and therefore such Anxieties are to be
the Prince of this World who works in the Children of Disobedience and thereby freedom to serve God in Holiness and Righteousness This is set forth in Ephes 2. the state of Sin and Death in vers 1 2 3 12. Redemption vers 4 5 6. and of Holiness vers 21 22. And all briefly put together in Ephes 5. 8. Sometimes ye were darkness but now ye are light in the Lord walk as children of light From the Consideration of each of these there followeth divers Questions for the trying of the state of the Soul and knowing in what plight it now stands Indeed the Glory of primitive Innocency is out-shined by the super-abundant Grace and Image of Christ 1 Cor. 15. 47 48 49 as the Glory of the second Temple exceeded the Glory of the first Hag. 2. 9. yet the losing of that is much to be bewailed because we did so sinfully lose it Now then O my Soul canst thou take up Ezekiel's Lamentation over Tyrus Ezek. 27. 12. c. Thou hast been in Eden the Garden of God wast perfect in thy ways c. but thine heart was lifted up and as David mourned for Saul and Jonathan's death though access was thereby made for his own Advancement 2 Sam. 1. 19. c. The beauty of Israel is fallen c. and say How are the mighty fallen the Shield of the Mighty vilely cast away c. How is the Gold of primitive Innocency become dim And how is Mankind that was purer than the Snow now become black as a Coal as Jeremiah lamented over Jerusalem Lam. 4. 1 7 8. c. I. Canst thou say Alas I am become vile Job 40. 4. In me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing no Truth Wisdom Righteousness and thy Nature is only evil and that continually Gen. 6. 5. II. Dost thou consider the nature of thy sinfulness and how it doth pollute weaken deceive and enslave thee viz. Dost thou know that thou carriest up and down in thy Nature all the Seeds of all Sins that all the Idolatry Superstitions Blasphemy all the Murthers Uncleanness Violence Injuriousness Hatred Envy Cruelty Falshood c. that ever you read of in the Scriptures or other Histories or that ever your ears heard or eyes saw that the Seed and Spice of it all is in your own heart that all those black Lists Rom. 1. 29 to the end Rom. 3. 11 c. 1 Cor. 6. 9. Gal. 5. 19 20 c. Ephes 2. 12. and 4. 18 19. 2 Tim. 3. 2. and such like Your Nature is in some degree or other tainted with it And because this may seem harsh and strange 1. Consider As far as any Man has the Nature of Adam he has the Corruption of that Nature and as far as all are equal in their Descent from Adam so far are all equal in the Corruption of that Descent all guilty every mouth must be stopped Death came upon all Rom. 3. 19. and 5. 12 18. 2. Consider That though Restraining Grace or Mortifying Grace may curb weaken and subdue sinful Corruption yet it retains its dwelling in the Flesh Rom. 7. 25. And though the Righteousness of Christ be imputed to the Person yet the corrupt Nature of that Person has still a Subsistence till Corruption put on Incorruption till which time corrupt Nature loseth not its Sinfulness but its Dominion Rom. 7. 24. O wretched man that I am said Paul On this account the state of the Person may be changed but corrupt Nature still remains 3. Consider The natural Seed of every sin is a departure from God and a violation of his Authority and therefore he that is guilty of one Sin violates the Authority of God and has a seminal Guilt of all Sin Jam. 2. 10 11. As he who has one true Grace has the Seed of all because it shews he is united to Christ and one with him in Spirit who is the Fountain of all Grace So that where-ever we see Sin we see the Corruption and Pollution of our Nature that dwelleth in us Natural Conscience Education Constitution Profession of Religion Moral Considerations of Fear Shame or the like may curb the working of Corruption in some measure but cannot extinguish the Pollution of Sin from the heart But more particularly in reference to God Is there not great Ignorance and Contempt of him Are not Sins of thoughts more slighted than Sins visible And is there not more Shame for a small Miscarriage in the sight of Man than great Miscarriages in the sight of God What customary Ignorance of all his Attributes How little is he the Object of the Heart's Love Desire Esteem and Meditation Is not the Heart more intent on other things How little is he the Motive and End of what we do Is serving and pleasing him the Hearts design in all things In Worship is not the Heart formal cold and wandring Are not Convictions stifled and the Impressions of the Word of God quickly gone Is there serious Preparation for the Ordinances and due Meditation afterwards Is the Heart glad when the Word reproves as well as when it hears words of comfort As for Men Is not the Course of the World the Opinion of others and their Esteem of great value Are their sins my burthen Is there not Envy Hatred want of Sympathy evil Surmises c. As for my own Soul Is not my heart rash vain inconsiderate my Understanding dark my Affections loose and scattered and Memory slippery and all out of order Do you not discern the weakning Nature of Sin that it sucks the strength of the Soul the deceitfulness of it the deadning blinding and destructive nature of it and the perfection of divine Wrath that attends it And now doth all this make thee O my Soul cry out O wretched man that I am and doth it make thee a burthen to thy self Job 7. 20. as Job cried out Dost thou see a bottomless Deceipt and Desolation in thy Nature as it is in its self corrupted and by Circumstances aggravated And being totally Refugeless Dost thou lay the Hope of thy Help upon a mighty Redeemer If so thou hast attained one Round at least of that blessed Ladder which leads thee up to the Fruition of that renewed State in which thou art God's and he is thine Job 33. 23 to 31. 1 King 8. 38. III. In laying hold on Christ for Redemption 1. Do I see I cannot help my self nor any other Creature help me Isa 59. 16. Psal 49. 7. that none can redeem his Brother nor give to God a Ransom for him 2. That Salvation is only of God Hos 14. 3. his Arm c. 3. That in free Mercy he sent Christ to save Joh. 3. 16. 4. That Christ undertook this Salvation Heb. 10. 7. and performed it Heb. 9. 12. 5. That I am partaker of it by meer faith Ephes 2. 8. 6. Do I lay my whole weight upon this Saviour Isa 64. 8. 7. Doth my heart account him willing Isa 63. 9.
able faithful 1 Thes 5. 24. 8. Do I rejoyce in hope Rom. 5. 2. and praise Rev. 5. 9. on this account IV. Upon this Relief by Christ Do I yet go farther as Esther did to execute the Children of Haman after he was dead yea to see the power of the Prince of this World broken in me What is the temper and employment of a redeemed Soul in his justified and renewed state It is to shew forth the vertue of him who hath called us from Darkness to Light from Sin and Bondage to Freedom Holiness and Righteousness Luk. 1. 75. And Oh that this might be and appear in my Soul TO THAT END let my heart suffer and attend to some Questions concerning this whereby I may further know that I am the Lords and not my own Do I account Christ only to be the Fountain and Author of Renewing and Holiness and so cast my self by Faith on him for it as well as for Pardon seeing I cannot think a thought nor will nor do any good thing of my self 2 Cor. 3. 5. Phil. 2. 13. being created in Christ thereto Ephes 2. 10. and quickned therein by him Is the Communion of the Father and the Son in a way of light and leading by his Spirit the Element I breath in so that Holiness is my Choice and sweet delight Rom. 7. 22. Phil. 3. 10 c. and 20. Our conversation is in heaven c. Do I make designs against the Old Man and to cherish the New by the lusting of the Spirit against the Flesh Gal. 5. 17. countermining the devices of Satan 2 Cor. 2. 11. watching trying all means Phil. 3. 11. to increase Holiness Do I chuse and aim at pleasing God in what I do as well as do any thing that is good in it self Isa 56. 4. Col. 1. 10 11. In matters of Worship Do I aim to converse indeed with God himself as having to do with his presence 2 Cor. 2. 17. acting therein to him Col. 3. 16 17. Do I labour to suck sanctified Light and real Holiness out of the Ordinances Psal 36. 8. which is the Fatness of God's House and tends to make the new Creature flourish Psal 92. 13. Do I bow down and comply with every Word of God submitting and assenting to its full scope Psal 119. 127 128. Do I rowl my eye towards God eyeing his Wisdom Goodness Righteousness and Providence in natural things 1 Cor. 10. 31. and in things that providencially come to pass 2 Cor. 7. 6. 2 Tim. 4. 17. Act. 12. 23. This is to walk with God Do I plot which way I may advance the Interest of Christ and his Gospel in the Capacity in which he hath set me 1 Cor. 9. 15 19 23. and to prevent the disparagement of it 1 Pet. 2. 12. Tit. 2. 10. Do I consider whether I go forward or backward in the Trade of Holiness Heb. 5. 12. Whether there be growth or not declining or not Am I gaining and reaching forward Phil. 3. 13. 2 Thes 1. 3. If so it shews my Centre is above In these and such like things the mutual Relation betwixt God and a Regenerate Person do shine forth They are tokens that God dwelleth there and he in God Such an one is in a new State because he has betook himself to the Laws Company and Mode of the new Creation created of God in Christ translated to a state of Life in God Lastly A Christian's renewed State obliges him to glorifie God in Body and Spirit and he doth so viz. 1. WHEN the Soul doth acknowledge God to be that which he is in himself Rom. 11. 36. Of him and through him and to him are all things to him be Glory for ever and ever Amen That he is infinitely excellent in his Nature and in his Works and in his Soveraignty 1 Chron. 29. 11 12 13. 2. WHEN God is acknowledged to be that which he is to us in Jesus Christ Exod. 33. 18 19. and 34. 6 7. 2 Cor. 4. 6. and glorified through Christ 1 Cor. 1. 30 31. 1 Pet. 4. 11. 3. WHEN the Spirit of a Man within him and the outward Man also concurring according to his Capacity do act towards God in an inward complying with and actual demonstration of the glorious Nature Will and Grace of God Which is called a walking worthy of God 1 Thes 2. 12. Col. 1. 10. that is to say conformable to him as the word worthy seems to import comparing Eph. 4. 1. with Eph. 4. 4. and as it were bearing his very Image and thereby manifesting what God is to us and what we are to him viz. that God is ours and we are his Now this acting towards God has great variety of Exercise in Believers for a Believer is the Temple of God in which his Glory is more excellently displayed than in all the World besides A BELIEVER by his peculiar nearness to and interest in God is capacitated as a living and active Agent to glorifie God 1 Pet. 2. 5 9. Levit. 10. 3. more than another who is only passive as Pharaoh was Exod. 14. 17. So then he who is not his own but the Lords and the Lord is his his proper Element is to be glorifying of God in all things 1 Cor. 10. 31. as appears in these and the like Particulars viz. 1. To reverence and adore the Majesty of God in all his holy Attributes and Works as Neh. 9. 6. Jer. 32. 17 18 19. Dan. 9. 4 c. and as David and all the people of God were wont to do 2. To be abased before God in the sence of our Disproportionableness and Corruption as Abraham Gen. 18. 27. Jacob Gen. 32. 10. Ezra 9. 15. Dan. 9. 7. did 3. To justifie God in all his dealings Job 36. 3. Psal 51. 4. as Daniel c. 9. v. 4. with Confession and imploring his Mercy Joshua 7. 19. Dan. 9. 18 19. 4. To honour the Father in the Son Joh. 5. 23. and through him 1 Pet. 4. 11. 5. To own God in Christ as the Fountain of every Grace 1 Pet. 5. 10. and every good and perfect Gift Jam. 1. 17. 1 Pet. 4. 11. and the Establisher and Perfecter of it Matth. 6. 13. Thine is the kingdom power und glory Amen 6. To adore him in his Word 2 Chron. 20. 18. Isa 39. 8. Psal 56. 4. and 119. 106. believing it To worship him with Reverence Psal 86. 6. and 99. 9. and to own him in his people Gal. 1. 24. Matth. 10. 24. and them for his sake 7. To abound with the gracious Fruits of Righteousness Joh. 15. 8. Phil. 1. 11. which are by Jesus Christ to the Praise and Glory of God 8. To confess Christ before Men Matth. 10. 33. suffering reproach 1 Pet. 4. 14. and death for his sake Joh. 21. 19. And now Oh that God would lead my heart through all these things by an impartial Search and cause me to compare my present frame of heart and Resolutions with these particular Truths of
his own Word and bring me up to glorifie him in my Body and Spirit which I trust are his Let me yet farther demand of my self a few Questions which relate to the glorifying of God in my Soul and in my Walk 1. Is it so with me that I cannot be quiet but restless under guilt and distance from God Psal 32. 3 4 5. Do I cry Return O Lord Isa 63. 17. why art thou a Stranger Jer. 14. 8. 2. Do I hanker after more Heart-impressions of the Knowledge of God Exod. 33. 18. and 34. 6. Shew me thy Glory 3. Is the whole Will of God my delight and his Word my daily Diet Jer. 15. 16. Job 23. 12. 4. Do I praise Psal 50. 23. and acknowledge God in daily Providences Gen. 48. 15. Prov. 3. 6. not repining at his Discipline Psal 119. 75. but brought nearer to him by Calamities Isa 17. 7. 5. Do I own him so that the hiding of his face doth darken all other comforts to me Psal 77. 2. and his presence support and satisfie in the absence of earthly comforts Psal 142. 5. as it was with David at Ziglag 1 Sam. 30. 6. 6. Do I so approve my self to God that the Approbation Esteem or Praise of Man doth rather vex than please me when my Conscience within me doth smite me 2 Cor. 10. 18. Rom. 2. 29. 7. In case of guilt and fear Do I cast my self upon the boundless Mercy of God declared in Christ to be pardoned purged and revived as a sufficient Remedy 2 Cor. 12. 9. 8. Do I hanker after pure Communion with God so that my heart pants out Oh that my ways were directed c. Ps 119. 5. Cant. 8. 1. Oh Oh? Ps 38. 9. THESE and such like workings do testifie that God is the highest Good and the Centre of Blessedness and infinitely glorious And in these spiritual Operations the Soul doth declare and witness him to be so and therein do evidence that God is his and he is Gods and hereby is highly privileged God will not take things at the worst with him Matth. 26. 40 41. When such an one is at a loss Mercy will surprize and Deliverance overtake him Ezek. 36. 11. when dull his Ears shall be awakened to hear as the Learned Isa 50. 4. he shall be kept night and day Isa 27. 3. Christ will trim and dress him by the Word Ephes 5. 26. and he will earn towards him Job 14. 15. and be with him in trouble Isa 43. 2 3 c. and God will not be ashamed to be called his God Heb. 11. 16. he will wipe away his Tears teach him by his Spirit pardon his Sins justifie his Person in the Person of Christ and confess him to be his at the last day where he shall see his face with joy Job 33. 26. and ever be with the Lord 1 Thes 4. 17. Happy is the people that is in such a case yea Happy is the people happy is every particular person whose God is the Lord Psal 144. 15. AN APPENDIX A CONFLICT of Mind HOw soon did Peter James and John forget the glorious Transfiguration and fell asleep when the Temptation came How soon is Sight gone when the Sun is eclipsed So it is with me When shall I have skill to discern and resist the beginnings of Decay How soon doth a Troop of Armed Men break in at an unguarded Gap I cannot thrust them out again my self but will rather go to him who hath his Bridle in their Jaws and can both turn them back and also lock the Door against them Oh that I could lift up a Jehoshaphat's Cry to the Lord of Hosts Then would the day clear up and I should yet see my Salvation come flying upon the Wings of the Wind and mounted upon the Glouds for my help I have one hard task to do but O thou to whom nothing is hard reveal thy Will and conquer mine My sore Task and Travel is this How to retain a close Application of Union with God in Christ so as that I may prevent the loss of tender Converse and holy reverential Familiarity and Intercourse with him An immoderate minding of somewhat in it self for ought I can yet see not unlawful has been a thorn in my flesh for several days which has spent much venom against my inward Man but I must not succumb to any Adversary there is no safety but in overcoming Help me throughly O my God at this plunge and thou shalt have the honour of the day I would fain enquire into my Soul how I contracted this Distemper and upon enquiry I find it had such steps as these I was withdrawn I know not how from the tender sight of Christ and influences of spiritual Warmth being damp'd Night came upon me and I considered it not my Soul fell asleep but without any Refreshment I awaked a little now and then but Slumber benummed me that I could not rise up I would fain cry out for help but my words were like an Arrow without Feathers that would not reach the Mark and all this while an earthly and momentany matter of delight solicited my fancy aad proffered some pleasure to my mind and in regard I judged it not materially evil I gave way till it had eaten into my Soul like a Canker and began to build its Nest in the very place which I had lately prepared and devoted for the Entertainment of Christ only It was restless and would not yield to Christ's Supremacy in my Affections but still offered some Moon-light Satisfaction to my Mind insteed of the withdrawn Beams of the Sun and when Christ whispered some Conviction into my heart and made it ake and raised some small yernings after him this Glo-worm glistered upon me and though it had neither light nor heat yet it would pretend a competent Ballance instead of the true spiritual light and warmth which I lately had but now found it was retired at a distance from me for my trial and exercise I discerned the Snare but herein lay my Strait My Judgment told me the matter it self was necessary and that a moderate diligence might be employed about it but neither that nor any thing else must dethrone Christ from the chief Seat in my Affections but I found it had so twisted into my fancy that I knew not how to use my thoughts about it with that moderation as would consist with Christ's supream Government and Sway in my inmost delight and affections So that how to divide between the matter it self and my excessive affection to it to do the one and guard against the other here lies the difficulty The matter on which this inordinate fancy fed it self was something relating to LITERATURE which I judged in its own nature lawful and useful To remedy which distemper I poured out my complaint before the Lord and began to muse the following Meditations How to pursue a lawful thing lawfully Be silent O clamorous unreasonable Sence thy Fancy
before they were committed to your hands leave the thought of them to the Lord whose free Love is like a mighty Deep And Oh that the Course which the Lord takes to mind us that the end of all things is at hand might powerfully dislodge our Hopes Peace and Comfort from an Earthly Rest in low transient things and fix them in him who is the Rock of Ages which we are called to do upon every hand I trust that out-stretched Hand of his will do it that at length we may know no persons according to the Flesh nor things neither Then alone in enjoying the Lord shall you and I enjoy our selves and the reality of every good thing when the shadows flee away Is not your Father better than ten Sons and his teaching Rod than their presence consider it Enquire his Will bless his Name comfort your poor Wife and do not charge God follishly Seek God's Face the more and let your Conversation mount higher and then your loss will be repayed and God will shew you his intent in this This only as a Fellow-feeler of your Cross I present unto you c. 1648. To B. J. D. N o 4. COnsidering mine own weakness and remembring you are in the same Body and withall considering that mutual Communications by Pen or Speech is required to help each other and stir up one another to the relish and practice of Christian Walking I thought fit in meer discharge of duty to represent my present thoughts to you And that I may declare more distinctly the state of my Soul to you I pass by the general Complainings and Bewailings which oftentimes arise from pretended religious Complement or carnal Sloth to a more particular Account I find the Reputation of the World doth much beguile me especially when I have to do with Men neither grosly wicked nor strictly good And I find Intimacy with these Men and in their Actions of Indifferency do plague my Soul with such coldness driness and guilt that methinks sometimes I part from them as Tamar from Amnon full of inward shame and disquiet Let me at any time go out of God's sight to act things though indifferent in their nature yet when Conscience calls for any spiritual duty or discourse methinks 't is like the voice that came to Adam in the Cool of the Day I find also a strange influence upon my heart from the ways of coveting any worldly Advantage Well was this wickedness called Idolatry for it doth importunately draw my ear and draw my eye and heart from the Lord to admire and covet after vain Enjoyments and yet I cannot say that to this day I ever wanted any good thing This I find to be both a deceiving and unprofitable Lust spoiling the comfort of my Soul and not enriching my Body nor ever adding one Cubit to my Stature Nothing doth ever make the thought of any misery miserable to me but the reflections of a betrayed heart and they stare upon me as Delilah did on Sampson when his strength was gone and the Philistins were upon him and then my Soul is as weak as Water But should I go to number up the Deceits that are within me they are innumerable only 't is some ease now and then to open the Imposthume as to God so also to good Men. I know not how far your sense of the same or other infirmities may oppress you but I know you wear about with you the same Nature as I do though I hope more enabled to strive against the Stream of Nature than I am but whatever strength you have I am sure it comes from above and indeed I must needs say and my heart rejoyceth at the mention that I am not forsaken in this Conflict my Redeemer is strong and mine infirmities are judged already and shall not afflict me for ever I am directed to a sure Remedy Psal 37. 3 4 5. and shall lay it before you if your disease be mine viz. to trust in the Lord in well doing only Delight in the Lord and commit your way to him let this Physick have its true work and the Truth of God is engaged for a Recovery Sometimes I am as it were venturing on such a Resignment as this Trusting Delighting and Committing doth signifie and methinks the very Resolution so to do as a Beam of God's Power and Love doth rejoyce my heart in hope Doubtless it is a heavenly Life to give up all our delight our trust and commit all our way unto the Lord and doubtless that is the way to fight against our Lusts with much advantage when we are got above them and in our Resignment to God have engaged him in the Quarrel I know the advantage is very great by some little sparks of it And I never knew that I got power against one Lust of heart or evil way but by being first as it were dissolved into the Lord and then appearing against it in his power When God and I am made one through Christ in opposition to my own sins and am no longer mine own but his and my faith acting through this Union then I must yea and I may say Doth the strength and snares of Temptation vanish at his appearing And happy is that Soul that appears in no other strength but his But while I am writing my heart doth accuse my Pen for hinting an Enjoyment beyond what I have I can only say this something of this I have already tasted and more I earnestly hope for as the only Remedy for a weak captivated dismayed heart I pray let me hear how it fareth with you that we may in the Lord help one another and build up one another in the most holy Faith c. 1648. To B. D. N o 5. THere is no Safety but in God no Refuge Rest or Peace but there and there it is and pity it should be elsewhere that God might still be all in all We are both in his Arms shall finish his Work and not see a day of Vexation longer than the time prefixed us And in this Confidence we are to do our work bear our burthens and not faint Our Labour will be over and our Temptations too Eternal Rest will follow the one and Incorruption the other Dear Brother farewel till next Meeting whether in this World or that to come the Will of our Father be done on us and in us c. 1649. To F. D. N o 6. I Hope there is a Power within you that will never leave purging healing convincing teaching and delivering of you till you can say the Powers the Employments the Labours of this present World are the Lords and his Christs that God is all in all to you and in you Herein lies our Interest viz. against all unworthy undervaluings of our Interest goings forth in our own Strength or Wisdom Carnal Damps of our Zeal coolings of our Intimacy with God courtings of the Creature and so being courted of the Devil in the Creature till
many times our Warmth is gone our Locks cut our Strength and Comfort departed together and then the poor Soul looks upon his Corruption and all the Engines of his Back-sliding as Amnon did on his deflowred Sister Have her out of my sight Then the Soul lies as weak as any other in an equal Line to the Men of this World but God only who raiseth the Dead for his free Grace and eternal Covenant of Love recovers this loss again restores health to the heart and makes the Soul say I was dead but am alive That a Vein of Life and Beam of Light should run through so many Eclipses and yet live and not utterly be destroyed this is the work of the Lord and it is marvellous in our eyes As there is no Calling in the World that is useful for common Good but hath its Foundation in the Wisdom Pity and Care of God towards his poor Creatures so I believe the same of yours and my desire to God for you is that you may use your Calling only as under his eye and in the wisdom and fear of the Lord c. 1649. To C. A. D. N o 7. YOur friendly and Christian Lines I received and do with you rejoyce in the happiness of your nearest Relation The happiness is the greater in that your Principles do accord as well as your Affections which renders your Condition a more lively Type of the Conjugal Interest betwixt Christ and a Believer You say your experience tells you it is good to wait on God do not forget the same experience in other cases Abound in spiritual Affections to one another as much as you can and in ingenuous Marriage-Love and Affections also but beware of that which is inordinate remembring that they that marry are to be as if they married not 1 Cor. 7. 29 c. It may be you may find new Temptations in your new Condition and God teaching you thereby If so there is still cause of Thankfulness for God has many ways in variety of Trials to teach to purge and comfort I perceive there is that within you which takes little content in high Speculations without Power I think it is no small happiness to be preserved from the vain unsavoury Profession of the times consisting more in Phrase of Words Humane Wit and Pride than Power of Religion Doubtless the ancient Path of Sincerity Humility Patience Love and Fruits of Thankfulness is the best Path for Saints to travel in waiting on God for more enlarged hearts and enlightned eyes both to know and do his Will with the more integrity Ah! the Purity and Spiritualness of the Apostles Writings and the Sermons of Christ There is no cavelling jeering but Bowels of Tenderness and awful sweet Reverence in the things of God Let your thoughts still fix there associate with the most Tender and Sincere and you shall escape the destructive Influence of that seeming religious loosness and Atheism which has I doubt cankered many a hopeful Professor As for my own part I tumble to and fro under Temptations yet reaping this fruit thereby to thirst the more after the day of Christ's Appearance and my Deliverance c. 1651. To B. D. N o 8. I Have as well by others as by your own hand understood how the change of Affairs have layen upon you The Lord I trust will bless the present Suffering to your inward Advantage The less worldly your Affections were in your Employmen the more I hope the loss is alleviated and your heart supported It is good to be industrious so that the Interest above be as the Oyl to the Wheel of all our Actions The Lord in the Interest of his free Love and Presence is able to weigh down the Scale against never so much appearing trouble and to that blessed Portion and Security I do heartily commend you 1652. To B. D. N o 9. GOd has been pleased to put us and continue us long asunder and we have had our variety of Troubles Dangers and Temptations and in regard we can come no nearer each other let us speak at a distance By the view I have made of earthly matters and earthly conditions I can say with my whole heart The best Refreshment is vexation of Spirit and if so then comes this rebuke How have I laid out my Money for that which is not Bread God has delivered me from being a burthen to my Friends and yet my Body and Soul Ah when will it once be is not given up as a Sacrifice to him only Brother I perceive so much of the unsearchable pity of the Lord to me that I know not what to do or say Oh that my heart might break into a thousand pieces and be made up again by the Spirit of Renewing What a misery is it to desire that might live which is nailed to the Cross and crucified Oh for the Newness of the Spirit to see the new Creature that old things might pass away from one end of the Soul unto the other I tremble at the mention of these words because the Power is of God and the dark design of the Lust within me labours to destroy my Interest ruine my Peace and make me unserviceable to my God to whom I am going Oh that I could in the power of my dear Saviour raise my head so high out of the misery that easily besets me as to peep forth into the fresh Air of a whole Resignment even of what I have am or do expect unto God through Christ nakedly and unreservedly You are on my heart before the Lord that you may be saved from your self and World from your fears comforts and hopes that the Kingdom of our dear Lord exalt it self exceedingly in your heart The Lord himself be your Guide to whom alone I can adventure to surrender you I am again returning from my Wives Grave into to seek mine own c. 1652. To D. H. N o 10. DEar Sister I account it my duty to hold up an Intercourse of writing to you as opportunity and time will permit as being sensible in some measure of the state of your inward Man My words have no quickning life the bodily presence of Christ himself could not do it without the Spirit much less the Pen of a sinful Worm but I will send you where this Ware is to be sold at a cheap rate if Complements of Self-preparedness for I can call it no other do not hinder Isa 55. 1. Buy Wine and Milk without Money say it over again without Money What is this the voice of your Beloved without price Is it indeed without price How hard is this one Lesson without price My Guilt can press me down but can it press him down who bears up Heaven and Earth Can my weakness hinder me from lying down There is nothing more acceptable to him as for me to lie down upon him you can never lean too hard upon your well Beloved Nothing troubles him but when you lean from
You are a Traveller and shall pass from strength to strength till you appear before God in Sion I perceive you have thoughts about some alteration of your Condition and Oh that the same Guide which directed Abraham's Servant in the behalf of Isaac may go before you I should rejoyce more that you were yoaked with a gracious Mate than with the richest Estate in Britain where the Pearl of Grace is wanting I desire to remember you before the Lord. Be much in Prayer as I doubt not but you are and live above your self and above the World in that Transaction Grace and Wisdom and a Religious Stock are excellent Jewels though cloathed in a mean Dress Prov. 31. I say no more but the Lord who is your Refuge be your Counsellor And as you mind me of our spiritual Bond so I desire still to be mindful of it and that we both may incessantly pray for each other Remember me to Brother Daniel in the Bowels of Jesus Christ Let him and you comfort and strengthen one another in the Lord to whom I commend you remaining yours on the best account c. 1657. To D. H. N o 30. COuld I be more in the Spirit I could then write with more freedom but this I know that if I and you have our faces towarn Sion we shall be brought thither at length Our great work is to cease from our selves that the Spirit of Jesus Christ our Lord might have liberty to work in us and for us I know no such Door to the Mediator as to be resigned over to him and to be yielded up to the Salvation and Power of Free Grace 't is the only wholsome Food and Physick of a Sinner When the Soul is widened by Resignation to him and Self-abhorrency then his naked Redemption is sweet welcome and a Soul-satisfying Remedy I oft see a glimmering of this but my eye is weak yet such glimmerings tell me that there and there only lies the First-fruits and hope of Glory I had rather see God do a little in me and for me than do much my self for God's Little is infinite and my Much is nothing in his sight for me to be accepted thereby Therefore is Faith the only Key of all spiritual Treasure which is hid in Christ and in him only And by this going out of our selves to him we are made his and himself and his Treasures of Pardon Righteousness Wisdom and Perfection is made ours Venture your Prayers upon him though they seem to be cast away after many days they will return You can hardly find that ever Christ reproved his Disciples for any thing but Unbelief or little Faith or for not suffering Infants or others to come to him Let all these things teach you and I what is our chief Duty I leave you to the Lord remaining yours in truth and love c. 1658. To B. D. N o 31. YOur two last Letters have much refreshed me because I perceive it is not the Complement of Invention but the heart-raising Spirit of God has been favourable to you Be craving still be thankful still believe through the Clouds God has thus appeared that he may teach you how to live on him when he appears less to Sense you are Heir always to the same Joy and infinitely more when under the saddest hours Expect Trials for every Grace especially for Faith Winter follows Summer but the end will be Victory and Peace of which you have had I perceive a Taste Covet Christ's Image insatiably and to be at his dispose universally and let us bless his Name night and day I want a heart to bless God enough for his goodness to us the day hastens in which it will be done perfectly I am in health of Body labouring under the shameful load of an evil heart yet in hope of Victory through him who liveth for ever to make Intercession for them who desire to come to God through him only Amongst all business publick or private it is good for you and I to be watchful to keep a constant motion upwards constant Tenderness is a rich Treasury Grace is that incomparable Endowment enough to put a lustre upon every other Requisite What Alliance is greater than to be allied in the Communion of the Spirit I perceive God hath favoured you with an Affliction I hope you shall not go without the Blessing of it Be more importunate for a Blessing than anxious about the Loss or troubling your thoughts about Persons or Instruments or about future Events but commit your self and Estate Body and Soul to God as unto a faithful Creator and rejoyce in the hope of a better Resurrection and groan for nothing but the Body of Sin till it is groaned out of doors 1658. To S. D. H. N o 32. I Am glad to see you strive to get up the Hill and do take the right way Go on and prosper he is near who justifieth you Though he stands as it were behind the Wall he hears your Request and all your desire is before him he himself has undertook the whole Light is sown for you the Harvest is coming Lift up your Head your Redemption is sure and your Waters shall not fail You can never lay too much burthen on Christ he bears up the Pillars of the Earth and has already born your burthen the work is over with him and shall be over with you too shortly Yet a little while and he that shall come will come and will not tarry You are not your own Workmanship but his he has lifted up his hand to Heaven and sworn that Blessing he will bless you and shortly tread Satan and every Corruption under your feet Cling about him he will not shake you off your Prayers are heard your Person is accepted Be not weary everlasting Arms are under you the Battel you are in will prosper The greatness of his Power is not to amaze you but to support you his Righteousness is to justifie you that you may not fear your Judge but reverence and love him who has washed you in his own blood and the business is done already and now there is no revoking of it The more difficulties do appear the more you are to triumph in him who overcame by the Blood of his Cross and will not leave you shelterless he can teach you better than I I leave you to him I perceive by your Letter that my dear friend R. M. is dead or rather now I confidently believe perfectly alive beyond Sin and Toil. I know you are not wanting towards that poor Child take her to Heaven as much as you can along with you Let us pray one for another and we shall not seek that blessed face of his in vain I might write much of mine own leanness and unworthiness and I would I could be more sensible of it so as to lay my starved Limbs on that free heart-reviving heart-renewing Covenant of Grace confirmed in the Person of a crucified and risen
continue at present in this place waiting the issue of things which the Lord direct and over-rule to the best In the midst of all these weighty Providences and rolling Waves 't is good to look well to our Anchor and to be securing the main Uncertain Peace uncertain created Comfort uncertain Life do require us to lean but gently upon such things and to grasp after an Inheritance a Life a Portion which fadeth not a Country where neither Sighs nor Groans nor Sins have any place If great Shakings cannot throughly awake 't is a sign the Drowziness is very great if not deadly 'T is good to be very busie when the Inch of Candle is near at an end The Lord teach us heartily to improve our present Minute and enter into the Ark before the Flood come c. 1660. To M. N. N o 51. I Having had some opportunity to discern the frame of your heart and the truth of your Thirst after Jesus Christ and Resignation up to him I thought fit while I was writing to other Friends at N. C. to present you also a Line or two 'T is but a little that one Friend can write to another but where there is a mutual Interest in the same Spirit there is a Freedom through that Communion to expatiate large and wide in one anothers joynt Concernments and to bear a sence of the various Travels of the inward Man and how it is exercised in you who are begotten of the same God and Father and nourished by the same Spirit in Jesus Christ And in this respect one Christian may in some measure read the Condition and Affairs of another in his own Experience though the manner of Trials may be different The most that I would say to you is this Labour to satisfie your heart against Guilt by the personal Righteousness and Worth of Christ which you are commanded to own and put on by believing as a Garment made and appointed of God for your wearing fixing your eye on his Appointment and not upon your Unsuitableness on his Grace and not at all on your own Worthiness unless it be to urge you towards him with the more speed and resolution This is a Lesson I am every day learning and I know no shelter like it The Improvement of the Covenant of Grace in this manner was to the Prophet David all his Salvation and all his desire This is the Shelter that will keep dry when the Floods come This will make a Soul out-face Terror and give an Answer to turmoiling Accusations This will make the Lame to leap as a Hart and the Dumb to sing when Woes do over-spread the Earth I recommend you to this Sanctuary c. 1661. To D. H. N o 52. I Perceive my Aunt hath had her Weakness returned upon her such is the Constitution of this Clayey Lump But what a wonder is it that a Treasure of Grace and eternal Life should ever dwell through all the days of our Sin Trouble and Vanity in such a Tabernacle and that the Spirit of Christ the Spirit of Grace Holiness and Glory should never cease striving in the midst of all that Opposition and course Entertainment on our part and never give over till our Sins be utterly and for ever extinguished and Mortality swallowed up of Life and so these vile Bodies and polluted Souls made conformable to our Redeemer and the eternal Companions of his Bosom Let us fix our eye there and we shall be always projecting for him and never discontented with our Travel though we rid but little Ground Let us prize him and love him and all his Rules and Orders himself in the first place and all the rest for his sake only And that makes our work our delight not our toil and vexation for there is no want of help either for Strength or Pardon or both He takes Sinners to himself that he may spend Intimacy of Good Will upon them and never lets them go quite out of his hands any more Oh how little do we know him How little do we remember that every Conviction we have had every Groan every desire of Soul after him was born first in his heart and given to us as the new Creatures Food to ripen it for Glory We breath towards him in the strength of his own Breath We may be yet much more winnowed but cannot be lost nor our Faith quite fail because he prays for us as never meer Man did His Prayers cannot but speed for the Will of the Father Son and Spirit is one Will for they are one God and that Will is nothing but good Will to us who hope in him and catch hold of his free Covenantgood-Will to Men. I have now lately News out of the North that my dear Brother D. is departed out of this World How should these things make us love to be trading for that Country where all our best Friends go and not think it much that this World yields so many sorrowful bits because God never appointed it for our abiding place but only that we may hear his Voice and be contracted to him while we are below in order to the consummating the Marriage above The Lord make us chearfully serious in the business of our day while it lasteth to prepare to lanch forth when our Lord shall call Blessed are they who watch c. 1661. To D. A. N o 53. WHat God speaks in his Word we may take for our comfort to carry us through the Myre till we land beyond Sin and Pain The Salvation of such poor Sinners as you and I was and is the delight of the blessed Trinity The Father did in his Grace and Love elect the Son delighted to come and do the Father's Will in Redeeming the Holy Spirit loves to apply it and therefore is called the Comforter the Angels rejoyce that good Will from God is come to Men. If God say you must go to the Top of the Mount and die set your face towards him who has died before you to bring you through Fly to the meer Grace and Love of the glorious God that has designed Pardon and Righteousness for poor Sinners for his own sake in the Person of his own Son If he say you must lanch forth roll upon the Rock of Ages alone The wearier you are of your Sins the more welcome to a Saviour The wearier you are of your pains and burthens the sweeter will be the Bosom of an indulgent Father when you arrive at your Father's House The whole Race of the Residue of the Redeemed are your Fellow-travellers The whole Trinity is on your side the Scriptures on your side the eternal Covenant of Grace on your side while you bow your head and lean only on your beloved Redeemer Look up to him and fear not your passage I leave you to the Arms of endless Care Counsel Comfort Strength and Pity c. 1661. To D. H. N o 54. OUr work in this World is only to follow
after God under all the Changes and Trials that do accompany an earthly Life and we have this Encouragement I will never leave you nor forsake you Grace and the Exercise of it also comes from God None can cleanse a foul heart nor quicken a dead one but he who raised your and my Redeemer from the dead And therefore if my heart be as hard as a Stone as foul as a Dung-hill as weak as Water and as deceitful treacherous and vile as may be I have no Refuge but to fly to my most pure holy Redeemer to my unchangeable God in Jesus Christ who is both my Judge and Saviour He hears the inward panting of his own Spirit when we can scarce hear the voice of our own Prayers or scarce know what to make of them He who creates Light out of Darkness knows how to work up an Acceptation of us to himself in Christ when our Persons and Services as they come from us are as filthy Rags in our own eyes We never go down the Wind till we say in our hearts by Unbelief The Covenant cannot stand in Heaven because I have sinned against it on Earth I am God I change not therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed Truly Sister I find very often I have as much need of pardoning Grace as ever I needed at first Conversion And I scarce know any thing that states the difference betwixt me and the vilest of Hypocrites but only this That God makes my Distempers my Burthen and in the Riches of his Love inclines my heart to hanker towards him for help And for ever blessed be his Name that doth not suffer us to die away utterly from his Relief How great is his Goodness How wealthy and endless is that Store-house of Perfection that is laid up in Christ for his ransomed and new-born Seed Get Christ in your eye and that will affect your heart c. 1661. To D. H. N o 55. TOuching what you write that you have an Interest in the Mercies I receive it accords well with that word 1 Cor. 12. 27. Ye are the body of Christ and members in particular thereof And what a mutual Interest is that First Christ's and then one anothers in him Something of this Affinity appears in the Contentment of that mutual Society of Christians but more in the mutual Faith in which they communicate with one another Rom. 1. 12. The Streams are obvious to our sence but the Streams would dry up if the Fountain did not feed them The more we put on Jesus Christ the more doth the Morning-Star of Perfection in that and all other Contentment twinkle upon us Still honor God so as to lean upon him and love him and all the method he takes Nothing doth so much bring disquiet as disappointment and nothing doth so much bring disappointment as the fixing ones expectation upon Uncertainties Be ever therefore trimming up your Expectations on things above where Christ is and abides for ever Dissolve into his good Will and he will never disappoint your Hope nor suffer you to be at an utter loss What think you is the very meaning of that place Hab. 3. 17 18. Although the Fig-tree shall not blessom c. Yet will I rejoyce in the Lord c. Doth it not speak out this viz. That God is the same his Word the same when all things fail besides If I have disquiet or fears let me enquire what it is that I fear and on what Ground whether about my present or future State of Body or Soul And let me not make Questions nor Answers but what Scripture doth countenance I may make use of former Experiences of my own or others as they bear witness to Divine Writ in the Scriptures and so be thankful but I may not make the Experiences of any sort my Rule nor Guide of my Faith My meaning is We are apt to oppose something or other that we find by Observation or Experience against the Word of the living God or expound the great and faithful Promises by those Experiences or Observations As where it is said Sin shall not have Dominion over you I will send you the Comforter and he shall teach you all things I will satisfie the longing Soul I will give a new heart I will circumcise your hearts to love me The Righteous shall not want any good thing Their Soul shall not be desolate No Evil shall come near them Your Sins and your Iniquities I will remember no more and such like which abounds throughout the Scriptures We are apt to cast cold Water out of our Experiences and Observations upon those Promises rather than kindle our Faith at them and so live by Faith on them We are apt to say yea but I do not find it so I find Sin prevails against me my Graces wither my Conscience clamours my heart is hard I pray and have no Answer my Condition is distressed and I fear it will be worse He that said No Evil shall come near doth yet suffer his people to be greatly distressed even so far sometimes as to die under it and therefore it is not directed to me or there is not that soveraign Good in it as the Gospel seems to proclaim But I would say as Solomon did Eccles 7. 10. Consider wisely concerning this 'T is impossible the Oath and Promise of God should fail the mistake is on our part considering not the Work of the Lord and the Operation of his hands He trieth rooteth and teacheth Faith by ways of Opposition for Christ is always labouring in this Vineyard The Father worketh hitherto and I work saith he His great design is to reveal himself and baptize his People into the Spirit of his Death and Resurrection He slays Sin by suffering his People sometimes to be in a sence slain by it that they more fully die from their own Power into his Life Gal. 2. 19. He brings the Soul to an utter stress to make it look out and venture upon him as the three Leppers who to flee from Famine ventured to flee to an Enemies Army When he would bring his People from sensible Refuges and from a Man's personal Worth and inherent Strength which usually gets in like Rust upon the Soul he dasheth all that to teach us that our Life and every Act of it is the meer Operation of his Grace who lives moves and breaths in his People How is it possible we should know Patience but by Sufferings and the infinite Power and Truth of God in great Deliverances if the Sun did always shine upon us This made David say In very faithfulness thou hast afflicted me and Paul I will rejoyce in mine infirmities or weaknesses that the power of Christ may rest upon me Growth of Grace lies chiefly in more and more expertness in owning of and living nakedly on the Good that is in Christ as being really mine own and deriving Good from him by perpetual Motion Man's Life lies not so much
in his Breath as in his Breathing so it is with spiritual Life exercising fresh and fresh Acts of Recourse to Jesus Christ And by this means the Soul comes at length to be bathed in the Comfort of his Truth and Love by an operating Faith Let my Condition be what it will inwardly or outwardly I am not to be dismayed from running to God and encouraging my self in him But my work is to listen out what God reproves or teacheth thereby holding this as an unmovable Truth That his love never fails from his People one moment and his People are they who in good earnest chuse him for their God whose very hearts fly and hanker after him such who come to God by Christ who design that as their Aim The whole Scripture doth justifie this plain difference between persons and persons viz. they who come to the light and they who hate it Joh 3. 20 21. Now I say My work is never to let my heart question his love to me If he has made me to hanker after him and if he loves continually then there is continually room for Access to him 'T is true that he hath suffered his People sometimes to fall grievously as David and others and he hid his face upon it But did we ever read that he did turn away from the Prayer of the Poor and while it is nothing else but his own Spirit interceding in them and Christ for them 'T is not imaginable though he seems not to answer sometimes yet he loves their voice continually Faith viz. an acting out of our own Life in the Life and spirit of Christ for all manner of good from God by him is and was always a conquering successful Grace In the greatest Surge it gives either Contentation or it hastens the opening of the Door for Deliverance and usually both together one way or other 'T is a sad thing that when we should be exercising Faith for getting the good of an Affliction and prying after further Discoveries of God's Truth Love and Wisdom and enquiring what the voice of our Father is and what it means I say it is a sad thing that at that time we should spend our thoughts in an unseasonable distrust of an Interest in him His Rod his Trials walk up and down among his People to shew he is their Father and his Discipline is amongst his Children and yet we are apt to take the very sign of our Reconciliation and make it an occasion of our distrust that we are not related to him This Wisdom comes not from above but is carnal sensual and unworthy of them who have heard the Word of Faith yea and accepted it also for many years 'T is bad tempting God and vexing his Spirit in that which provoketh him most But if I think I was not related to him before let me fly to him in Christ now and I shall be his though I was not actually so before for he casts away no sincere Comer But I do suppose you armed by the Lord to encounter these Assaults and am persuaded your Faith will grow by every Trial yea when 't is most assaulted you will be made to expect some good in the Rear which will make you glorifie God even in the Fires Dear Sister I commend you to the Lord Christ prays for you and therefore your faith cannot fail He will be Eyes to the Blind Feet to the Lame He will give Grace and Glory and no good thing will he with-hold c. 1661. To T. N. N o 56. IN pursuance of my Promise and also that the mutual Remembrance of each other may be kept alive I account my self engaged to present you these Lines 'T is one comfort that the Lord rules the World yea no other but that God to whom the Supplications of his People are always acceptable in Jesus Christ and that nothing can be perfectly miserable to them who are constituted Heirs of Blessing and past away from the Curse through the Curse of Christ And though the glorious Arm and Truths of God seem to be overwhelmed in the World yet when God shall appear to vindicate his Name and cloath himself with Jealousie what Obstruction shall hinder his Course or stop his hand I know you are not only strugling with difficulties without as well as I am but with Enemies within and truly that is my case also And I know nothing that keeps me from being overwhelmed but only this viz. some blinks of the free and eternal unchangeable Bounty of God who has for his own sake only pitch'd upon such an unworthy Creature and caused my Soul to hanker after him When I am tired out with my own Darkness Infirmity Pollution and Unbelief his good Spirit is pleased sometimes to sway my heart to throw my self Body and Soul and all my Sins and Cares upon him through Jesus Christ and so out of my own Shame and Confusion of face there darts in sometimes a Beam of Relief from him who quickeneth the Dead and calleth the things that are not as if they were Could we come off more smoothly to own and catch that Hold upon Jesus Christ which the Word of God's Grace doth invite us to we might lanch forth and venture securely in the Ark Jesus Christ when there is not a Foot of dry Ground here below to stand upon When we cannot pray then to remember Christ intercedes When we are all over defiled and confused to remember the Mediator is cloathed with our Nature and that on our behalf in perfect Purity and in the same Nature which each of us doth bear He did conquer over all that which we are as yet conflicting with in his Name That we are esteemed not according to our present Infirmity but according to that Perfection to which we are entitled in him who is at God's Right Hand Could we be more exercised in this view and blessed prospect it would make our dry and dead Limbs recover heat and life as it was with Jacob when he heard that Joseph was yet alive Joseph our Brother is yet alive And all Power is committed into his hands he has the Keys of Hell and Death and is himself the Door of Life also Oh how unpersuadable are our hearts for the most part and loath to credit the Word of his Grace and Truth so far as to resign up our selves our sins our burthens of all sorts to the vertue and power of his Atonement and Soveraignty who has ended all differences and brought in an everlasting Righteousness and Good Will that a righteous God and sinful Man might be reconciled together in him who has ballanced the Account exactly and being gone has left a Legacy of Blessing and Peace to every Soul that flees to him to feed upon till the days of full refreshing appears and we see him as he is When I only muse my own weakness it makes me more weak while I converse with anxious thoughts it makes my heart dark sower and
feeble but Millions of Sins Cares Fears and Disquiets fly before one hearty Closure with Christ his Power and Grace by Faith If Christ in the Soul saith I AM HE whole Troops of Adversaries fall backwards Difficulties vanish and desponding Consultations of Unbelief in our Flesh fly as Dust before the Wind and that because our Redeemer is strong though we are weak Methinks sometimes 't is pity that we should hear so much read so much spoke or writ to each other so ordinarily of this certain real Refuge and yet account it not more real What a thing is this that Christ hath engaged that not one of his shall be able to lose what he purchased and bequeathed for them Such a good Will and free Grace that our Sins shall never be able to sin away no more than they can be able to sin away Christ from the Right Hand of his Father for were it otherwise we were undone every moment Who is it that maintains any Thirst after him that enables poor Dust and Ashes to conflict against all the powers of Darkness and of weak sometimes becomes strong Who is it that maintains any indignation against the Law of our Flesh that is in our Members but he who hath overcome in his own Person and will shortly tread down Satan under our feet also and is hastning the day when the last Enemy shall be destroyed and every Sigh and Tear removed Let us comfort our hearts in this and pray for each other that we may as good Soldiers of Jesus Christ fight this good Fight of Faith laying hold on Eternal Life and so surmount the Miseries of a present evil World c. Pray present my hearty Respects to your Daughter whose Soul I know is labouring in this Work c. 1661. To B. D. N o 57. THe Lord direct our Course the Waves will allay the Calm is coming our Pilot is skilful our God unchangeably gracious he is infinitely pure and will never leave till our filth be done away that we may be like him and bear Likeness to him to all Eternity Plunge through as well as you can never say your hope is lost and your Judgment is passed over by your God Our Bottom is good our Redeemer is strong and there I leave you c. 1661. To S. D. N o 58. THe Lord is yours if you are willing to be his and I doubt not but that is your desire and aim Stand up in the midst of all your Dumps and Trials and venture one Halelujah to him that rides upon the Heavens for your help yea in the thickest of your doubts about Soul or Body do but cast a wishly eye to him who hath swallowed up all manner of Deaths in Victory and you shall overcome and rise above the Waves because he is risen It may be you may little think how it chears the heart of Christ to see you sit down and sing a Psalm of Praise for all his Loving-kindnesses in the midst of Worldly Darkness Measure not spiritual and eternal things by those that are for a moment Do not wrong the Wisdom of God your Father by repining against the Instruments and the Events of his Providence Let your design be how to fortifie each others Faith and Joy and never ask Counsel of Flesh and Blood in the business Read over the 46th Psalm and make it yours by Meditation and Prayer Dear Sister fare you well in the Lord hasten Heavenwards and count all things else but trifles that you may finish your Course with joy Let the same Mind be in you as was in Christ who emptied himself to do the Will of his Father for saving such poor Sinners as you and I when he might have enjoyed all the Glory of the World he refused it and wandred up and down despised of Men. Love the Foot-steps of the Captain of your Salvation and whenever your heart boils up any sinful disquiets carry your heart and your disquiets to the Lord and beg of him to judge them and give you the new heart he promised in Ezek. 36. 26. The good Will the heart-refreshing Peace and Comfort of a dear Father a dear Redeemer and the dear and blessed Spirit be with you Blessed he blessed she that overcomes and blessed be the Son of God that hath undertaken we shall overcome in his Victory Once more farewel fear not only believe 1661. To B. D. N o 59. I Perceive your Family is still visited The God of the Spirits of all Flesh knows what Scourges are most suitable for them whom he designs for Glory Honour and Eternal Life among whom I trust you and your Yoak-fellow are enrolled There is hope that good lies in the bottom when the heart is drawn the more to seek resign up to and wait patiently for the Salvation of God to a delightful thought of the Appearance of Christ and your gathering to him the whole World cannot purchase one quarter of an hours free Access to God If he draws and drives the heart to himself let us bless and love him whatever means he useth to bring it about I desire to bless the Lord that you are striving to trace the steps of that Faith that believed under hope above hope such Faith such Hope will never return ashamed I am strugling with the same difficulties and none can help me but the faithful Promiser who is able to quicken his Word to me and soaken my heart to mix it with Faith As you write he has not been a barren Wilderness to you which is unspeakable Grace so I have often found and therefore I have hope that at length he will perfect the design of favour and pity upon such a poor Worm Lord help you and me to find Fountains in the Valley of Baca till the last Sourge be over and every Tear removed We have no other way now to communicate with each other but in Prayers and Faith Affections and Letters Letters indeed may miscarry but no earthly Obstruction can hinder the three former Faith and Prayer flies invisibly and Christian Affections also As for my self the Lord is every day forcing my Soul to look out more after the mysterious privilege of his most absolute free Grace in Christ There the wearied find Rest the polluted finds purity and the dejected find there an Anchor of Hope Sometimes I am confounded in mine own thoughts and my Prayers rather shame me than comfort me then I stand still and look for the Salvation of God only He sends his naked Arm out of the thick Cloud and creates some Beam of Light and Refuge which makes a Pilgrim sing in a Land of darkness He seems to be gone sometimes but returns again He withdraws but never bids farewell utterly He suffers me sometimes to tumble in mine own filth but brings me to the Laver again to the Fountain opened to the House of David c. for Sin and Uncleanness His unchangeable Purpose and Grace holds its Course as the
knows how and is able to make me and the rest who are alike exercised to learn profit that 's my work at present Bless God with me that our Sun is in the Firmament though Clouds breed darkness his Nature his Word Covenant Mercy and Truth never fails and that is enough Remember that God even the Eternal Word came lived fulfilled all Righteousness died paid our Debts removed away the Curse and overcame in our Nature for us as our Mediator for us only not for himself he needed it not himself Your nature and mine is as really in Heaven as our persons are on Earth and that Magazine is open to every desiring and sincerely hankering Soul Our Redeemer is strong his heart tender his words true his Grace free and his Love strong as Death his Compassions never fail Oh let us love fear adore and believe him and in him alone lift up our heads To him I commend you c. 1663. To B. D. N o 73. I Perceive God has struck you off at last from any further hope about that troublesome business and that you did conceive you should be at London some time this Month. I think there is nothing at this day more remarkably experienced by the People of God than disappointments in the matters of this present Life but certainly 't is not their Doom but their Physick neither is the Dispensation wrath but fatherly Wisdom and rich Bounty to all the adopted Seed He gives his Children bitter Cups but yet healthful at least the issue will prove it so c. 1664. To B. D. N o 74. CLouds and darkness doth grow thicker and thicker but yet there is some light in the Lord in the midst of outward darkness Light is sown and the Harvest will come Our God is everlasting and the Covenant of his Love and Truth sure he is still unchangeably the same in his Grace whatever Changes he orders us to pass through that Promise is the same You shall not be tempted above what you are able What God spake to Jacob is every word of it true for our Faith and Learning Gen. 28. 15. I am with thee and will keep thee in all places c. Make as much room as you can for your Understanding and Affections to feed on Christ our daily Bread for Pardon Protection Direction Purging Blessing and Comfort There I leave you blessing God with you and for you that he doth make you cling upon him and to roll your eye beyond these uncertain momentany things Ply that aim and that work still for the good Will of him that dwelt and dwells in the burning Bush doth not change in the Fire and in the Water he will be with us c. 1664 To W. D. N o 75. THat you are walking Heavenward is the best News one Christian Friend can hear of another I doubt not but that you make that your Journey You as well as others have had that word of Christ fulfilled In the world you shall have trouble and I hope you have found it as true that In me viz. in Christ you shall have peace Certainly inward Peace can be had no where else in him alone that Jewel is to be enjoyed 'T is good that things below do frown when they force a Child of God to retreat and shelter himself in the bosom of him whose Love and good Will is everlasting We have but one great Care to spend our thoughts most about viz. To rest with joy in the Will of God seeking his Glory endeavouring after more of Christ's Image to be renewed in us and so with faith and patience to breath after that deliverance that will put an end to sin and trouble Afflictions are then prosperous when they are blest with a right instructing and weaning efficacy and are useful to render the excellency of things not seen more precious and desirable when they make a Soul to search and pray much and so wind out of the World then they are profitable Physick This is that frame I would be at and who can help us in this great work but he that has promised that he will never quench the smoaking Flax till he hath brought forth Judgment and Righteousness to Victory c. 1664. To D. H. N o 76. THe Lord himself be with you as a Guide Sometime fair Weather and sometime foul we must expect no other a while at the Evening it will be light yea constant clear Light and Peace when all these lower Shadows and Clouds are blown over and gone In the mean while we are sure to have Pardon Favour Life and the blessed Spirit of Life for our relief Our Prayers herein will be granted because we have a bountiful and faithful Promise for it and our Surety ready to make it good Here we are Soldiers but shall overcome through the victorious Blood of the Lamb and his Presence with us through Darkness and Light through Life and Death the Issue will be Victory through him who hath loved us Oh let the Children of Zion rejoyce in their King c. 1664. To B. J. D. N o 77. OUr Relation to each other require not only mutual Remembrance but now and then a Line or two to signifie the same As for News whatever I see or hear I write but little but would employ my thoughts and time in the best way of improvement that I can Time runs out apace with both of us the Redemption of it in order to Eternity will be found the best Wisdom What perilous times the last days will bring forth has been told us already 2 Tim. 3. 1. amongst which a dry heartless form of Godliness instead of sincere power is marked as the Mode of the last times Happy is that Soul that shall be enabled to escape those Rocks and Sands where many are like to split or run aground If God be pleased to conquer our hearts into an ingenious Resignation to his gracious Will and wise Providence and make room enough for his Authority to reign there we shall be more than Conquerors as to other difficulties The Truths we have heard concerning Christ and the way of Life by him being truly realized and become in good earnest of a transforming Power into our Souls that and that only will at length land us on a safe Shoar Let us search much pray and give serious Welcome to the Spirit of Christ our Head and the end of our work will be Peace c. 1664. To B. D. N o 78. WE must always cling upon our strong Refuge our Life our Peace present and eternal Blessedness lies in his hand and under his Covenant and Seal to give forth You are much upon my thoughts that you may be kept sincere and hold the things you have heard and received Let nothing dismay you preserve your Intercourse with Jesus Christ with all watchfulness he will provide things needful in their best season Wait on God creep to Heaven and God will order these outward
Throw your self upon him for nothing shall separate you from his love in Christ Christ himself was once sick for your sake to the very death and in great darkness yet always beloved of his Father and his God and Father is your God and Father and therefore he will not forsake your Soul in Adversity but make your Bed in your Sickness for his tender Mercy towards you can never dry up Resign up your self to him and be comforted in him for he who is your own God and Saviour is Lord both of Life and Death My heart is melting over you and yet I am but an earthly Father all Affection is derived from him but his Affections his Love and Pity are infinite I do remember you and my poor Wife also both of us have and do spread your Case before the Lord and I have abundant satisfaction in the Lord that it is and will be well with you living or dying but we earnestly desire if it be his Will that you may yet live to shew forth the praises of him upon the Earth who has done great things for you For what greater favour can he give a poor Creature than to make you seek his Face and to number you amongst his Followers which he has given Evidence of blessed be his Name already Be not dejected but lift up your head and heart to your God and Saviour Throw all your sins and cares and fears upon him and spare not for so you honour him and can never please him better He sees you through a Cloud and delights to do you good and will never cease till he open before you the endless Volume of his eternal Love and so love you into his eternal Rest Therefore bear up and be revived for God himself is with you for a Refuge To him I leave you waiting his good pleasure c. 1668. To E. D. N o 95. I received yours of the 10th Instant October desiring to own the gracious hand of God in this speedy Recovery of yours When Hezekiah was reprieved from death for a season t is said he returned not according to the Benefit Take heed of that whatever Awakning you have had endeavour to retain it and that 's the best kind of thankfulness and this the Lord will give if you do often let him know 't is the real desire of your heart He satisfieth the longing Soul Present the same things to him by Faith and Prayer which you mention to me in your Letter and then you may expect to speed He can compose and direct your thoughts for Heart-work is his only to manage When you put Faith and Prayer to the Word you make it another thing than it was before in the meer Letter that 's the way to draw Water out of the Wells of Salvation And thus humbly seriously and chearfully expect whatever good there lies bequeathed to you in the New Testament which is your Legacy c. 1668. To M. D. N o 96. BE not discouraged in your Christian Warfare every one of Christ's Disciples Male and Female must be all Souldiers and we have the Lord of Life for the Captain of our Salvation who will teach our hands to war and fingers to fight He never slumbers If he seem to slumber one of your Groans will wake him for his Bowels are more tender than yours can be to the little Babe He has taken the work upon him and though we are weak he is strong and will be sure to manage the Trust which the Father hath given him and will never leave till he has perfected that which concerns every Lamb of his Flock Be glad in the Lord love him and rest in his Bosom his Love can never wither There I leave you and remain c. 1669. To D. H. N o 97. I Am refreshed in that experience you have had of the good hand of God towards you and though God has caused you to walk in many rough Paths as to your outward Condition yet he still appears a God of all Grace and doth in these things plainly tell you that this World is not your Rest and therefore you meet with Thorns and Briars here that you may have the fresher desires maintained in your heart aspiring upwards The greatest of earthly Contentments will be of no worth nor use in Heaven neither can they of themselves any way add to the Comfort or thriving of a spiritual Life here on Earth The only Life we are allowed to live in this World is the Life of Faith which grows better under difficulties than in a smooth state of Affairs in this World I know no sweeter Entertainment that God can give in this World to his poor Children than that he give often Convincement that the best of this World is too lean Diet for them to feed upon and so make them take the truer taste of that Marrow and Fatness which in Christ they are always to live upon that is no less than God himself the Fountain of Blessedness Safety Peace Sufficiency and solid Joy What can come amiss to that Soul which Christ undertakes by all things and through all things to bring to himself For this end he died and this is the great end of every Trial you meet with and upon this Ground the Spirit saith Rejoyce when you fall into divers Temptations All the Glory Fulness and Ease of this World is but horrour and distress to a convinced Soul that looks on God as an Enemy but nothing can be dismayingly sad when God saith I am thine when Infinite saith I am thine I who am the Maker of all things am thy Husband thy Trials shall not quite overwhelm thee thy sins shall not ruine thee Death it self shall not destroy thee O Death where is thy Destruction when God shall say I will be with thee in the Fire and in the Water Thy Person is accepted thy Prayers though in thy own eyes without any form or comeliness are sweet and accepted in Christ who hath chosen thee and thou hast chosen him What shall I say The freeness of God's Grace in Christ his powerful and most voluntary Love is such where-ever it darts that neither Sin nor Devil can stand before it to hinder a jot of all that good which such a God has promised and undertook to perform and that meerly upon the Account of his own Name streaming forth through Christ in the Gospel to such poor impenitent Creatures as you and I are I shall add no more at present but committing you to this God whose you are whom you serve and who will never leave nor forsake but guide you by his Counsel and support you by his Spirit till he has brought you to Glory the perfection and fulness of what you pray and long for c. 1669. To M. D. N o 98. I Have hitherto had some favourable presence of the Lord with me which I bless him for Whether the Fig-tree doth blossom or no yet he is good and can
make it blossom when he please He that hath given us himself will not with-hold what is truly good from us All his Methods are lovely to a believing Eye Let us soar above and disown all other Comforts that contradict our Communion with him The Riches of free Grace and that blessed Interest in Christ doth sparkle sweetliest in a tastless dark World I have no greater thing to say to my own Soul or yours than this Let us chuse God in Christ for our Portion and exceeding Joy and then we shall have not only enough but our Cup will run over With my dearest Affections and true Love to your self and cordial Respects to all other Friends c. 1669. To M. D. N o 99. IT can never go ill while the Door of Access is by Christ's own hand kept open to converse with God and some favour this way he is pleased now and then to grant me The Concernments of his glorious Name do call for our greatest Solicitude and though I am now wandring up and down I desire still to bear that more tenderly upon my heart I hope our Prayers meet every day at the same Throne of Grace Let that Trade go on and other things will do well enough I see serious Persons have weighty thoughts about the present Providences of God towards us I have you much upon my heart Feed upon the Grace of the Gospel every day and pray for me that I may do so too c. 1669. To M. D. N o 100. MY heart will not suffer my hand to be quiet unless I take every opportunity to render my self as present with you as I can methinks the savour of Christianity in this place among many I converse with is like the smell of a field which God hath blessed Cherish whatever may render the Love of Christ predominant in your heart I think my heart hath felt the good of yours and others Prayers and I hope God has begun by what I hear to answer his Peoples Prayers for his Church Oh that he may go on and fill their Mouths with Praise I have no more but my choicest Affections to your dear self c. 1669. To B. D. N o 101. I Have heard by Mr. D. that you have been lately sick but yet recovering I doubt not but you always wait and prepare for your Change and are through Grace ready for it We see the mutability of all Terrene things but an Interest in an unchangeable Covenant of Grace will not fail nor deceive all such as are comprised in it who may always say the Lord is good and every thing will work together for good for us if we let not go our Confidence Seeing the Providence of God hath so ordered my Condition that I must while Health and Life continue have my hand in some endeavours for necessary Supply I am still waiting upon his Blessing in that way which he was pleased to direct me unto and I may say with Jacob God hath sed me all my life long and 't is safe and comfortable resting on his Arm. I commend your Person and Affairs to our most wise God to dispose guide and manage I know you need much Faith Wisdom Patience and Self-denial to carry you through but you have a strong Refuge still to flee unto and be accepted And there I leave you c. 1669. To S. M. N o 102. AFter much languishing Weakness the Lord was pleased to remove hence by Death Mr. H. D. much lamented by many He gave good evidence of his Interest in the unchangeable Covenant before his last Change came and so left a good savour behind him We have enjoyed much freedom here for some time but what times we are reserved for we know not but our times are in God's hand who seems to call upon us all to remember that this World is not our resting place and therefore we are still to prepare for fresh difficulties and the hurries and uncertainties here below should be as a Spur in our sides to our motion towards the Land of Rest and that purchased and promised Freedom for which the whole Creation groaneth Blessed are those disquiets that rouze the Soul thither for true Rest and Ease The Lord help us among all other business here to mind Eternity and be always ready that whensoever God please to summon us hence by Death it may not be as an uncomfortable Surprize c. 1669. To J. L. N o 103. I Desire that ancient Affection between us may never die though distance of Habitation has put us for a long time far asunder I have lived upon the care of my God hitherto and may say of him as Jacob did He has fed me all my life to this day and I have his Promise also for the future and faithful is he that hath promised Let us both have still a fresh pursuit after the chiefest good kept alive and growing more and more in our Souls c. 1670. To M. D. N o 104. I Know I am upon your heart and in your prayers as you are in mine Present my affectionate Respects to Mr. Br. and tell him I desire his serious Remembrance of me before the Lord and the like I desire of every praying Friend Be not anxious concerning the present Providence our times and every Case of ours are all in the hands of God to him let our Requests be made known and every thought composed in believing on him who hath said All things shall work together for good to them that love him as I hope in some measure of truth we do With utmost Affections to your self c. The good hand of the Lord be with you c. 1670. To M. D. N o 105. HOw many experiences doth God give us day after day of his Pity and Love and Oh that our hearts may be raised up to adore and love him again which is the principal Thankfulness that we are able to shew Be careful in nothing but let Faith and Prayer breath forth every Anxiety of Soul into the wise and gracious dispose of God and in him centre with a holy recumbent Acquiescence of heart 'T is a profitable sweet necessity to be forced upon the naked Arm of God and that he alone becomes the Stay and only Retirement of the Soul c. The Grace Power Wisdom and Faithfulness of God never becomes admired till we improve them in all Cases This is the Mark I aim at this is a most secure delightful Pasture to feed in when the World seems to be a barren Wilderness and the things thereof wither I commend you for Health Comfort and Preservation to my gracious God he is our Father and hath a Fathers heart and a Fathers care I hanker after my peculiar Station and to be amongst those dear Friends from whom I am at present separated by distance of place though not in Affection I remember them as God enables me in my daily Addresses and I know I am remembred by them
Affections The Lord's Promise is to satisfie the longing Soul To whose favourable Hand and rich Grace I commend you Faithful is God who hath called you into the Fellowship of his dear Son and thereby you have boldness to enter in within the Vail and he hath promised you shall never be cast out for your Iniquities he will remember them no more And though the Cross be somewhat difficult to bear yet the Reserve at last will fully recompence all and therefore lift up your head for Redemption is coming c. 1674. To B. D. N o 116. I Bless the Lord I can remember and mention you as one who is interested in that Promise Jer. 32. 41. I will rejoyce over them to do them good and that he will never leave you till he has perfected that which concerns you in a way of Grace Mercy and Love My great and often Request on your behalf is above all that God would preserve you from the Evil of Sin and from Snares in your daily Walk that he would sprinkle you with the Blood with the Merit of Christ's Satisfaction and Righteousness that he would direct your Path and do all your Works in you and for you and cause you to lean strongly and chearfully on the Arm of his Truth and Grace in reference to all present and future Trials and that you may more than conquer through believing in every Exigence you do or may meet with till the Warfare be accomplished and the days of Trial finished in the Fruition of perfect Freedom For my own part I have reason to bless the Lord that he has favourably held me up and carried me along now these many years since we saw each other though exercised me with some difficulties and considerable Losses yet I hope and do think he has some way or other a Reserve of Kindness for me unworthy me and mine for the Earth is the Lords and the fulness of it And through this Grace I have in some measure and desire held on still to chuse him for my Portion as to things present and eternal As his time was writing of one deceased so your and my times are in the hands of God who is most wise and to be adored and submitted to The days of our anxious Pilgrimage are running out the Lord direct our eyes to that serene unchangeable State where Sins Fears Temptations Turmoils and Difficulties will cease for ever To the Care Counsel Comfort and Communion of whose gracious Spirit I commend you 1674. To T. M. N o 117. SOme time since I received from you a large and very savoury Letter which I do now and then peruse as a friendly Monitor and good help for taking the better view of mine own heart and that Letter together with the Acquaintance I had with you in London doth cause me the oftner to remember you with delight I have understood of your Health by several Friends which I desire if the Lord please may continue and prosper as I am persuaded through the Influences of the Spirit of Christ and his unchangeable Love your Soul prospers To that rich Grace of Christ and to his blessed Conduct in all your Concerns I commend you c. 1674. To H. W. N o 118. REmembring that ancient Amity and Respect that was heretofore between my Father and your self and the continuance thereof for a long time after his Decease between your self and his Family and being not at all conscious to my self that I have for my own part hitherto merited much less designed the Suspence of that good Will but being still heartily desirous of your Welfare I am though distant in place yet as occasion presents often enquiring how 't is with you and understanding that your days are yet drawn forth and that your Pilgrimage though under much infirmity of old Age doth yet continue I was willing to evidence my real Respects unto you by a Line or two and as I do not doubt but that your general aim throughout your days have been to employ your Talent in the Service of Christ while strength and time permitted so I earnestly desire that in the Approaches of a Dissolution you may find that fulfilled to you which David prayed for viz. That the Lord would not leave him in his old Age when Strength faileth Psal 71. 9. The same I desire for you even that you may now experience the refreshing vertue of all those Gospel-Truths which Christ hath so long intrusted you with as his Messenger unto others that you may have the Merit of his Satisfaction and Righteousness applied for your perfect Absolution from all Sin and Guilt the Influence and Conduct of his Spirit to water and steer all your Meditations thoughts hopes and desires the Consolations of his Grace and Love to sweeten your Travel through the Valley of Death and give you at last a refreshing Arrival at the Throne of eternal Rest and there harbour you after all the Incumbrance and Warfare of this present state in the Fruition of his immediate Presence without spot in Jesus Christ the Glimpses whereof I heartily desire you may before-hand partake of as an Earnest of that great full and perfect Revelation and Enjoyment when Time shall be no more So with my hearty and unfeigned Respects I remain yours in Truth and true Affection c. 1674. To H. W. N o 119. I Received yours of the 25th past which was exceeding welcome to me and therefore I return you hearty thanks both for it and your candid Acceptation of that Token I sent you being an Indication such as it was of the respect and value which from my very heart and that deservedly I bear towards you Your Letter written as I see with an aged feeble hand I have read over with great Acceptation and account it to me the same as a precious Balm I understand that Mr. Oxenb after a very small time of Sickness in a few moments space departed this Life And thus we are dropping away hastning towards a Dissolution where the eye that now seeth us shall see us no more Blessed be that Redeemer who will not call home any of his peculiar number before he has finished the design of his Grace and the purpose of his Will by them and in them And blessed are those Souls that are in any saving measure helped by his Spirit to creep out of themselves into his heart and in that Union partake of all the Benefits of his Death and Purchase both for present Grace and hope of Glory In which number I am undoubtedly persuaded that you are included and that you lie under the Aspect of that Divine Goodness and Love which will feed the Oyl in your Lamp and cause your Lamp to be ready trimmed and burning that so when the Bridegroom comes and calls you off to Immortality and Life you may be able to say Loe I come for all is ready Such a readiness the Lord grant also to my poor Soul To his
Grace and Favour and the Consolation of his Spirit I commit you and rest c. 1674. To E. D. N o 120. LEt your Consideration feed on the quickning Truths of the Gospel flying to and relying on Christ who is the Arm of the Lord rejoycing in him who requires you to cast every depressing burthen from your self upon him that is true Gospel-Method and you shall not be disappointed Faithful is God who hath called you into the Fellowship of his dear Son and thereby you have ground of Boldness to enter in within the Vail and he has promised you shall never be cast out for your Iniquities he will remember them no more and though the Cross be somewhat difficult to bear yet the Reserve at last will fully recompence all and therefore lift up your head for Redemption is coming We are troubled at the Troubles the Churches meet with in and elsewhere 'T is a sad day when the Word of Salvation comes to be suppressed by Souls that must perish without it Our business is chearfully and humbly to prepare for greater Shocks Nearness to God in Christ is the safest and sweetest Sanctuary 1675. To E. D. N o 121. I Have not received any Letter from you for divers Weeks which is not a little afflictive You are upon our hearts and we cease not the particular mention of you in our Prayers Sometimes I fear your Body lies under such extremity that you cannot write and sometimes I am willing to relieve my thoughts by supposing if it were so I might at least have a Letter from S. H. But though I know not your present Case yet I know my God and your God has you under his own Love and Care His great design for his own Glory and your and my Good is to instruct us and lead us into the Life of Resignation and Dependance singly and fully upon himself saving Light Faith and Truth is the very Lesson he is calling upon me and drawing me to own and Oh for some good Proficiency in this Learning nothing so sweet nothing so secure and nothing so compleatly advantagious I left the Lady J. this Afternoon very near in appearance to a Dissolution and A. P. breathing and waiting for her Change Happy Souls who chuse that part that shall never be taken away but abide through Death unto Life in Perfection c. I doubt not where you are but you will have the good Presence of God that is both a Sun and a Shield and withal he will with-hold no good thing from you seeing he has given you to his Son and his Son to you who will cause you to have an upright scope towards the Law of that blessed Relation which is the Condition of that Promise To the Shadow of whose Wing I commend both you and my Sister longing to hear of her Recovery if the Lord please but she is in a Fathers hand and under her Fathers care and love in Sickness and Health living and dying nothing can come amiss to those that love him and sell themselves perfectly away to him as I am persuaded she has done and can rejoyce in that blessed Bargain A Contract made by and through Christ the faithful Witness and watchful prevalent Advocate and however outward Dispensations and Providences do work they will work together for good because his Love Mercy and Truth endureth for ever where the Eye of his Favour once fixeth he never takes it off the tokens of which Favour you have through his free Grace had some taste of that thereby you may be led and helped to hope perfectly to the end and humbly rejoyce in the Hope of the Glory of God in what method soever he is pleased to act in the way of his fatherly Discipline He is omnipotently universally and continually good in himself and in the Communications of his Goodness to his People waiting in him and trusting in him To him I commend you daily and with him I leave you c. 1675. To B. D. N o 122. IN my last I acquainted you of the weakness of my Daughter Elizabeth at which time she continued with an intermixing of Revivings now and then and much refreshment as to the state of her Soul and things eternal and in the Doctor 's Opinion in some good hope of Recovery until the 5th Instant December being the Sabbath Day and then the Doctors saw that the Lord had determined otherwise and that Evening he called her to himself The loss of whose Company is not only a piercing Affliction to my self c. but lamented by divers others who had experience of that worth which God himself had graciously beautified her Soul with He is most wise Oh that he would cause me distinctly to hear his Voice herein and to improve it to the utmost use he intends it for It is your own Affliction that you are by the Providence of God held there so long at that distance from us under so many Trials of your Faith and Patience on every hand which as the Lord is pleased to help I am with my weak measure often presenting before him that he would bear up your heart and assist you as he hath hitherto done to go through the residue of your Exercise in this Pilgrimage And commending you to his Grace Strength Counsel and Blessing I remain c. 1675. To M. D. N o 123. I Know you are with loving Friends and in the hands and care of a gracious Father Endeavour to refresh your Soul in the thoughts of him and his dear Son and in the Promise that all shall work together for good to you for he is faithful that promised and his ways have been and will be Mercy and Truth towards you Love him believe him and be careful in nothing but how to please him and say Shall not I drink of the Cup my Father gives c. Hitherto the Lord hath kept me and I want nothing more than his sanctifying and gracicious Presence with me all along Travelling work doth greatly disorder my thoughts as to that savoury Composedness which I long for My poor Soul greatly suffers by the toilsomness of Travel yet still The Lord is good and his Mercy endureth for ever 1676. To J. L. N o 124. Some years have now passed without the Intercourse of any Letter between us I should be glad our old Acquaintance might not quite die while we live and continue here How 't is with you I know not but for my own part I have and do pass my Pilgrimage here thorow a Thorny Wilderness of Cares Difficulties and Temptations all along and do expect no other till I leave my sinful Nature and a dark defiled World behind me for I have abundant daily proof that this lower State is not my Rest but I wait and hope for that Rest which remaineth I am stricken in Years being now in the 64th Year of my Age and through the Riches of free Grace and that alone sailing towards the end
Lord's Vineyard Dear Cousin the Lord is pleased to use many ways and means to cause us to make the utmost improvement of Seasons and Opportunities of Grace and gives many Motives thereto amongst which this is one that the Prophets do not live for ever and therefore he requires us to make speed while the day of Grace and while the time of Life continues that we may not be found naked and unready when our Summons from hence by Death shall be sent us I have not arrived to the length of your days but the effects of old Age are much upon me and the shadows of the Evening have begun to appear therefore as it is always so especially it is needful for you and I that are almost at the utmost bounds of our time to look into and much to strive after the real and essential parts of Godliness which lies much in this viz. To ponder the Corruption of our own Nature and the Contradiction that it stands in against the pure Nature of God and his revealed Will till we arrive at such a Self-Abhorrence and Dispondence of any Relief which we can derive from whatever we are or whatever we can do as of our selves that we may betake our selves entirely and perfectly to the Grace revealed in Christ casting our Anchor of Hope there and there only flying to the Merits of Christ and his single Righteousness in the vertue and under the Covering whereof to appear before him when all Flesh shall stand and receive their unalterable Sentence that then we may have the comfortable Happiness of that good Word There is no Condemnation to those that are in Christ I cannot at present add more only this Let none of your past or present Troubles of what kind soever hinder your rejoycing in your gracious God and Saviour who hath fed you all your Life long and will be your God and your Guide and as I am abundantly persuaded you will find him according to all that he hath promised your exceeding great Reward when the days of Rest and endless Refreshing shall come I commit you to the gracious Guidance of God and the comfortable Fellowship and Communion of his Holy Spirit I pray for you and desire to be remembred also by you in your Prayers unto the God of all Grace even our own God and Father Under whose Wing I desire to leave you and remain c. 1681. To C. E. D. N o 129. GOd has been pleased to continue your Life unto a great length of days and though your outward Man hath been withering yet blessed be God I perceive your inward Man hath been assisted by his good Spirit hitherto to make a happy Voyage to the Haven of true Rest The Lord in Mercy accompany you through the remaining part of your Voyage till you enter safely into the Harbour and be setled in the Mansions which Christ is gone before to prepare for you I have my self much Infirmity of Body and am in daily Combat with the Corruption and Vileness of my own heart from which I hope through the Riches of free Grace to be ere long delivered and I have an abundant hope as to the same concerning your self Cast your eye upon the great Mediator roll your self upon him for he will never leave you nor forsake you One days Communion with God without all Sin in that Heavenly Country will make you full amends for all the difficulties you have passed through in your earthly Pilgrimage And though I am not like to see you in this World I hope through the Grace of the everlasting Covenant to see you where there will be neither Sin nor old Age c. to molest either you or me any more Dear Cousin the Arms of Divine Love Grace and Mercy be continually embracing you I can now add no more but do commend you into the hands of that God whose I am persuaded you are and whom you serve My affectionate Respects to your self and all your Relations and that Seed of God which he hath been pleased to plant in your Neighborhood I remain your affectionate Kinsman and Brother in Christ c. 1682. To B. D. N o 130. I Received yours from Tunbridge Wells c. and I think those who advise you to be as little thoughtful as you can while you drink the Waters do give you friendly Advice It may much concur to your health to be rather chearful than to be serious in the use of them for I know you have that matter within you through the Riches of Grace to render you chearful in the Lord. We must remember our Bodies as well as our Souls are redeemed and the very Body of a Believer is Christ's more than his own and what you do for the support of the meer Body is acceptable to God and especially under that Infirmity which you chiefly went thither for The Lord bless the Means which his Providence hath directed you to and be always with your Spirit c. Speeches and Prayers of Mr. Henry Dorney in his last Sickness from the 11th of March 1682 3. to the 25th of April following when he died being the Seventieth Year of his Age. I Am passing and I long to pass meaning through Death O Faith Faith that would bring down Heaven to Earth and carry the Soul up to Heaven I would willingly go out of Self and place the Soul wholly in God he calls me to come away saying Come up hither To a Friend asking whether Satan troubled him he answered No not at all Christ doth not suffer him so much as to peep in To the same saying What Counsel would you give us His Answer was Give up your selves to God perfectly Walk in the purest strictest closest Converse with him Be in the Life and Power of Holiness and that will Steel the Soul against all Temptations and Difficulties And let things be transacted throughly betwixt God and the Soul as if you were to appear presently at the Bar of Christ And let this be done incessantly To the same again asking Sir God seems to deny his Blessing upon the Means for your Recovery and you are not like to continue long with us He replied Blessed be the Lord Blessed be the Lord It is some Refreshment to me to think that the comfortable Minute of my sliding off is so near at hand The Saints and People of God that ever lived besides Enoch and Elijah pass'd through Death and it is needful it should be so for then all Dirt and Filth will be carried off And to one speaking to him of a good Conscience he said Ah how many are there that are now laying in Matter that will be one day wringing of hands and distress of heart unto them O my unchangeable God blessed be his Name that ever he treated with me and that he gave me time and Grace to transact things betwixt him and me and though now I can do little I am persuaded he loves me because he hath made
me to love him I have received a Sentence of Death in my self and I wholly acquiesce in God's Will therein yet if it please him that I should live any longer I desire it may be with greater Spirituality and more in the Life and Power of Holiness for I would not live one moment longer than that I may signifie something for in the Case I am in I signifie very little I am in Deaths often and which will be the concluding one I know not He farther took occasion to complain of the Formality and unedifying Walk of Christians their not pressing on to spiritual things their not savouring of the things of God when they meet one with another exhorting them that were then present that they would more value Converse with such as are truly Godly For said he if I am of another Country I should value the Society of those of the same Country As when I was in France when I saw an English Man I presently fell in with him and was glad to discourse him of the things relating to our own Country Now those that obey the high Gospel-Call they enter into another Country out of the Power of Satan into Christ's Kingdom and their Converse should be with respect to their glorious Country and that there ought to be open-heartedness in the Spirit of Grace and a Communication of some good thing when and where-ever they meet with each other And with respect to a particular Congregation he prayed for them viz. The Lord keep them in the Faith of the Gospel and in a mighty Union one with another and that they may have God's Appearance in his own Power to keep that Limb of Christ alive saved from Division and Pollution have Wisdom and Truth in the inward parts that they may be a sweet Bundle unto God c. March 16. To one that came to visit him he began to weep but presently checked himself saying These are not the Tears of Grief but of Weakness and Debility or rather Tears of Joy I am very sick but I have no sorrow I would be uncloathed that I might be cloathed upon that Mortality might be swallowed up of Life And Oh that it might be now now March 17. To one saying to him Sir you are going to Heaven before us which will be your gain but our loss He responded If my gain thereby were not a thousand times more than your loss it were an inconsiderable thing the Change which the Scripture speaks of but however My God will supply all your needs Phil. 4. 19. He further said I am as a Traveller that sees my Home a little before me which makes my Evening a sweet Morning to me To one taking leave of him he said The Lord's Blessing be upon you we here take leave one of another but shortly there will be no more taking leaves and the next Visit on the other side of the Voyage will be with another kind of Lustre March 19. He desired that Job 14 ch and Isa 32 ch might be read to him which being done he said I am going toward the Bars of Death blessed be the Lord yet a little while c. And demanding what of the Clock it was It being told him said How slow do the hours pass I speak as one that would fain have time to pass I would fly out of Time And to another speaking of the Joys of Heaven he was drawing near unto he said I would be in them I would be in them To a Friend that was to watch with him that night he said You are come to give me your helping hand your Christian hand at the going over the last Style I thank you I know that there is a Glory that will follow this Darkness March 20. He then spake saying The Grave is ready for me and I for it blessed be God and Oh with what welcome is it to me How do I delight in it Oh the General Assembly and Church of the First-born which are written in Heaven and God the Judge of all and the Spirits of Just Men made persect that I am going to be with Christ hath stopp'd the Mouth of the roaring Adversary meaning Satan that he doth not encumber me in the least and though I have the same matter within me as others have yet Christ holds him fast that he hath no power at all to trouble me March 21. Speaking to a Friend he said I am like one hurrying towards the Head-Quarters I long vehemently to be gone out of this present state and that God would say unto me Come away Come away Come up hither March 22. In the Morning he desired Joh. 3 ch to be read and at those words concerning the Change of a new born Soul he said There lies the Touch. And at the two last verses he said There is the Clinch After that he proceeded to speak to this effect viz. Ever since the Lord in his free Grace took hold of my heart I have had a sincere Reach after him and a Love to him and I have not dallied with him I have in some measure walked before him in truth now these scores of years and he hath made me to find no ease nor to take any rest any where but in himself and in being near to him and what I have done all along hath been in truth and with an upright heart God and I we were both agreed he mine and I his his Concerns I took to be my Concerns and mine were his and I could never take Content in any thing but in him I could get no comfort in any Duty in any Prayer in any Ordinance but in getting nigh to him in resigning up my self to him in closing with him and in having my Soul brought over to his Will March 24. He said I know the Lord minds me I can do but little but yet I love him 1683. March 26. He said What a poor pitiful thing is a dying Creature There is no Death in dying one good lift would set me free from all March 27. Then he said I am useless as one out of the World I cannot manage thoughts March 31. Finding himself very weak he spake saying Thus a poor Life expires blessed be God I am as an Hireling drawing towards the Evening of the day What shall I say When when when when With his eyes looking upwards April 3. He said thus I have layen so many days and so many nights and the days have been even as nights to a poor dead thing but I believe all is in love in tender love I have been taught in the Gospel God's free Grace in Christ and I fasten and cling on that which is all I can do I languish in pain here are all the tokens of a Dissolution and yet no Dissolution and how long the Lord may continue me thus I know not but the Lord is wise To some Friends near him he said I desire you to pray to the Lord for me that he would
terrible to me nor to any of the Race thou hast redeemed from Death Let the Agonies of Death be pleasing to me in Christ Oh the Dolour the unspeakable Anger of God we have not drank of it O the intollerable Wrath of God born by that Man meaning Jesus Christ O the woful Travel of Christ we have took up but a little of it and that hath made Repentance slight and holy Care trivial And now O Lord thou reckonest with me for undervaluing of that bloody Agony Lord forgive me my Guilt in this thing I have not been a Christian in earnest as I ought Oh he that made himself the bottom of all sorrow he suffered infinitely Oh such a Redeemer Oh such a Redeemer alas how unsuitable have I been to him Lord pardon my unsuitableness I have been as a Beast before thee I have not come up to answer the Call of that unutterable Grace And now O Lord I cannot stand in the Battel I cannot now the Arrows of Death stick in my Flesh and I cannot bear it without great Concussions of Soul within me But O! O! O thou who art the God of all Grace who art got upon the Kingdom of Grace and art the Head of that Kingdom wilt thou now shew thy Glory Make Death sweet make the Tendencies to Death sweet make every step to Deliverance a pleasing step O my God Save thy Worm save thy Worm O my God according to thy Promises made to Jacob I hearken what the Lord will say he will speak Peace in the Blood of Jesus Sustain me O Lord sustain me Thou art my Friend as thou spakest to Abraham thou art my Friend Dost thou love me Dost thou at this time love me with thy whole heart and with thy whole Soul Dost thou love me more than my nearest and dearest Friends Than those intimate Relations here that continue with me in my Tribulation With a more inward intense Love with an Infiniteness beyond all these Lord let me know that thou lovest me in very Deed let me know that thou knowest me by Name let me know that thou hast an eye upon me more than Doctors and Friends let me know that every Act of thine towards me is the effect of thy Love Love me Oh now with thy whole heart Oh make me to believe it Help me to apprehend that thou dost take notice of me and art with me every Moment with me as to my present Case and Concernment 'T is dead Friendship when Friends cannot hear nor see one another but sure there is another Friendship between thee and thine and thou standest in Relations to them Art not thou my Father Hath not the Church said so Lord thou art our Father Thou art my Husband my Brother my Friend and art not ashamed to be called my Brother Oh wonderful Thou begattest me I am born of thee Lord what shall I do with the great things of the Gospel if thou dost not give forth the Spirit of Faith O Lord wilt thou who art Truth who art Life who art certain wilt thou take the great work of my practical Religion upon thee Thou canst make it to be in Power and Truth unto me as may answer the very design thou aimest at I have been praying through the days of thy drawing me after thee O Lord I would come to that kind of praying while I am here in the World as might be a lovely Copy of that praying of that Converse that will be with thee in Heaven Will Prayer altogether cease in Heaven No surely Lord glorifie thy self glorifie thy self glorified be God Oh Oh that the very Life and Soul of that state then may now be begun Oh that I might hasten to that state Thou detainest me here in thy Wisdom I would go unto thee and into that Life which will most glorifie thee eternally I would go where Life is and no Death I would go where the fullest expressions of the power of Grace overcoming Sinners may be patent and manifest in me even in me who am a poor Mortal There be many things that I have found here that are Likenesses to pure Likeness to thee and here I have lost wofully my way Lord open it The heart is deceitful above all things and it will have its working one way or other but Lord I would go where there is Purity I would go where there is Purity without Impurity I would be with thee Lord for then I can speak to thee in thine own Language better At about Two of the Clock that day in the Afternoon he further extended his Speech as followeth The old World will be the old World still it will remain to Eternity it will be only translated from hence where it received its Curse to Hell to be in Chains of Darkness for ever but all the redeemed number shall be instated in their Palaces of Glory I am in the very Period of Wonders I am in the very Period of viewing Death and Life I am under some Sufferings and they shall be sweet And speaking to himself said Thou shalt lie down in thy Bed And then speaking to God Thou wilt not throw me into the Grave in Anger thou wilt put me into the Grave Thou wilt not say Sleep there in Death thou wilt say Sleep there a little till the Indignation be over-past till that is inflicted on thee for Sin which was pronounced and that that passed away from Christ shall pass from me Lord thou wilt not be unfaithful to thy Word God cannot lie God cannot forget to be gracious he cannot forget his own Work This is that God I desire to believe in and resolve eternally to cling upon with the Truth of my whole heart I have sinned and thou hast pardoned me and saved me with a high hand Help me in this hour take away my fears The last stroak that will be given will be by the Devil himself because it is his last Battel and thou wilt permit him but thou wilt bind him and when thou hast unclinch'd his hands he shall never clinch again He is that last Enemy from Conversion to Salvation Lord wilt thou who hast been destroying this Enmity all along now cause his Enmity to appear to be destroyed and turned into Powder and Rottenness O Have at it have at it I pray thee The strength the might the power of the Life of Sin and Darkness Lord thou didst promise to plague Antichrist for all the Plagues that he hath plagued thine O Lord do thou pour out thy Plagues upon him whilst thou dost sustain him to be fighting his last Battel Let him fight his Battel but let him O God drink of the Rivers of thy Wrath along with it Let the Weak overcome the Strong let thy People be Lyons but let the Devil be an enfeebled Enemy Serve thy self of all thy Instruments whatever they are Lord let them do thee the utmost Service of their Capacity Thy proper Instruments Oh make them glorious make them
glorious both in Qualification and Action and those that are improper Instruments that are not Instruments of thy delight cause them to do thy Will for all that work that is proper for them and proper to be used upon thy People for the intents of thy Glory towards them so that the Work of God may thrive in the World and thy Glory be mightily exalted O thy Majesty thy Kingdom thy Greatness and Excellency Oh that thou wouldst be wonderfully glorious in thy Actings Thy Nature is so and thy Actings do proceed from infinite Excellency and Glory Oh let God be glorified Oh let God be glorified And now thou hast brought me and others forth at the Close of the World we lay asleep in silence we were not formed in the Womb till of late and much of the great Volume of the World thou hadst past away before we saw it and now we come at the Close into the World a while that we may stand in our Lots and appear to be the Tokens of thy Remembrance of us before the Volumes of many Generations Now thou hast me upon the Stage and hast had me long and now thou seemest to be taking me hence O Lord thousands of Kindnesses I have had from thee and thou hast not had from me any suitable Thanks O Lord take me out of this Body send me into the Land of Truth where there is nothing but Purity Holiness and Righteousness Sometimes I begin a little to be amazed at my unsuitable Actings towards thee in the day of Grace But Lord thou wouldst carry things so that I might know my Case saved indeed The best of all good things thou hast given me and thou hast preserved me whole but alas I must travel all the way with a dead Carcase and be within the scent the stench of it Ah woful Savour And this hath made grievous Spoil Thou savest me and yet I carry that along with me that is my constant Destruction as a continual Combatant till I see thy Salvation Thou lovest me all over and hatest the least Sin that is in me all over And now Lord thou comest to shew me what the Issue of these things are Little thou shewest me yet that little is glorious Oh for the Son of God to come into the World to be joyned to me in the nearest Conjunction to assume the same Nature and to unite me to himself that he might display the insuperable Power of his own Righteousness for my Righteousness for my Justification We have reason to think the Heavens will declare it even this to an Eternity and this is past upon me I can hardly endure a little at a Dissolution But O the power the strength the greatness of this great Glory things out of my sight and but a little before me Oh what are they and where are they that have the whole Shine of the Grace of the Gospel upon them Where they are thou knowest and every one of thy number shall know they are not lost they are treasured up Lord help me throughout this little Period of Suffering Here I am seeming to me to be just taking leave of this poor Body that hath been wandring up and down some Years Dear God wilt thou be pleased to help me Thou helpedst me all along now help me that I may have such thoughts as becomes an Heir of Life that my Faith may not fail that my Soul may not be desolate that my Mind may not be dark Lord save me from the wonted Assaults of Satan now I know not for how many days or how many nights thou hast designed me Dear Lord let me have thy special Presence with me and a heart formed to thy Contrivance and let me not contrive for my self I know not the effects of this night If I shall period my days this night let it be in Divine Rest I have no other Period but to be in God to be in Christ There is no Issue of this Conflict but to overcome by the Blood of the Lamb. Now I leave my self with thee be with me and be with all thy dear Zion Be with that beloved Spouze whom thou hast redeemed from the Earth and this by means of the Contrivance of thy Grace in Christ who lives and will live and is the beginning of the Creation of God and was ever so There is a Promise of Truth fulfil it O true God My People shall be all holy verifie it O God verifie thine own Truth thy Word hath said it My People shall be all holy Lord thou hast a People thou hast sure a People and thy People thou hast said shall be known or else there would be no discovery of thy Truth in Promises of thy Truth in Threatnings And O Lord this thou hast said that there is the greatest difference between thy People and their Concerns and others that ever was Thou wilt be known in Jacob Now Lord be thou pleased to make it known that we are thine and let it be made known to all We were tricked and beguiled away from thee at first but now we are grafted into Life by that that was not a Slight but a Reallity the mightiest Reality that ever Sun Moon and Stars saw that ever Angels saw that is the thing I yearn towards I rest me in God here a little while I am in the Spirit waiting minutely momently when he will say Come and retire to be with me eternally Oh that I should see the Door a little aslope a little ajar he hath promised it no where as I know but in a way of opening yea wide open to give Deliverance because his very heart is in it With him are no half-opened Doors nor half-hearted Entertainment Yet a little while and we shall say that Fulness is come and the Compleatment of all All Israel shall be saved and that will come on creeping apace now now it is coming to me Oh now let there be no blind Child of God Oh now no lazy Child of God Oh now for winged Saints Oh for those that mount and soar that may answer what hath been promised in the Book of the Revelation The Spirit will have a time to do it when Sloth shall be by the Spirit of Life turned into Industry when the Love of God shall be seven times more when the Glory of Christ's Image shall be as when the Sun shineth seven times brighter Will God always be scarcely known in the Earth Will the God of all that Grace that shines in Men be himself obscured No no. How kind is he to poor Sinners in this dim state He longs to be glorified and to glorifie himself and his Children shall be like their high Calling And Oh that this might make my Soul insatiably longing for this Purity in its fulness I adore him for any little Thirst O the good time when the Heavens shall shrill with the Voices of all the Redeemed Hearts and Tongues O the Melody when every redeemed Tongue shall
be able to speak to the hearing of the ends of the whole Heavens O the Melody of that great day when Saints and Angels innumerable shall be the Pronouncers Oh never such Melody Melody that may be heard Millions of Years Millions of Miles O Lord keep me in my present work till thou callest me to future work and prepare me for the glorifying of thee for ever Help me in this instant help me leave me not now help me through this Thicket graciously Lord graciously deal with me at my Dissolution that nothing but Actings of Love and Grace may be shining upon Me. I leave me with thee I desire to do it perfectly April 19. He spake to one that had watched with him the foregoing Night You see how it is with me You are young the Lord affect your heart with a true sense of your eternal State that you may not be befooled of your immortal Soul by a tempting Devil and a tempting World Some space after he took occasion to say It makes my Soul ashamed within me sometimes that I have had the whole Book of all God's Promises and Covenant before me and do believe that there is mine Inheritance and yet to be in such a posture as I am Alas to be made the Children of the Most High and to live like Fools it should make the Soul long to have the utmost of the Grace promised I expect every night and every day and every piece of a day to be gone that when-ever any Qualm comes upon me I am ready to think this is the time and yet I find in my self a natural Reluctancy against Death that I would and I would not but where-ever my Damp my Black my Disquiet is it ariseth from some Tardiness in my Soul to my God I have a great desire to be freed from my Burthens and to be in that State I greatly long for but yet I would willingly that God should pitch my Stakes and determine the matter God's Wisdom and his Goodness goes together for God's Attributes do not cross one another I ought to have a Manly Walk with God it is not a crouching crimbling childish foolish unexpert Walk By Manly I mean to weigh things as they are in the grave Discovery of Scripture Surely I long to be in the Fountain to see it and be for ever in it To one asking him how he did he said It is a great Mercy that my Mind abides in any Conjuncture and that the Wheels of the Clock do not fall all out of order I cannot now converse but I think the Trade meaning the Heavenly Trade goes on and the Lord make it a smart Trade Lord teach me how frail I am all things are best known by Experience as Learning is obtained by Observation Rules and Precepts April 20. Finding himself exceeding faint and weak said I could now lie down and say This is my last if the Lord saw it fit having much ado to retain Life To a Christian Friend that came to visit him he said Blessed be the Lord for the Covenant of Grace and the Surety of that Covenant where our stay is All Goodness all Mercy all Peace c. The way and method God takes he himself hath cut out but what his scope is in this my present Case I do not know Afterward it being told him of the death of an aged Relation who lived to above fourscore Years he spake to this effect Is he dead with whom I never had the opportunity seriously to converse with in the things of a spiritual World Surely this is the time to do any thing for God and to be helpful to others The Lord bless the Providence to that poor Woman his Wife To another Friend taking leave and saying The Lord be with you I hope he will carry you to your Journeys end he replied I hope he will I believe he will never leave me nor forsake me To another poor Christian he gave this Counsel Cling upon Christ and he will never leave you I cannot say much but be sure of that follow hard after Christ and he will never leave you That is all my Experience all that I have been a learning of the Truth and Faithfulness of God these scores of Years Only love him only obey him entirely seek him pray to him much for that is the only likeliest way and I never heard of any that did it faithfully and was lost Then he prayed O my God be near me suffer nothing to miscarry through the All-sufficiency of thy infinitely great Grace To a dear Friend that came to visit him telling him that he was very much upon the hearts of the People of God who prayed for him he replied these words That one heart of Christ sets other hearts awork He farther said I am glad to see you upon account of former Intimacy but I chiefly rejoyce that you have found the same God in Prayer that I have done and that you are hankering after the same Fountain and Spring and cannot live without it as God hath given me also an unwearied Reach after and upon these Grounds I am glad to see you My dear Friend fare you well the Lord be with you To a Relation he spake thus Spring to Heaven though for your springing you spring out of the Body and leave it behind you Let us look to it lest you and I fall short of our Hope Multitudes of Professors standing aloof off have lost their way they have lost their work they have lost their end Our opportunity is as clear in our hand now as ever it was in the hand of David or Paul or any of the Saints of God that lived before us Oh how do I love to see Grace grow in Friends in Relations c. The Lord be with you and carry you and make your Affliction to be a sanctified Affliction that in a little while you may not have any burthen but may see your Salvation and have it April 21. To another Visitant he spake thus I may not stand wondering meaning in reference to his long Sickness but yet I may wonder indeed that ever God made me a Man that ever he made me a rational Creature that ever he brought me forth into the World where the Gospel was and that he hath told me that he will save me for ever Oh that I could wonder admire and adore it You duggle up and down and so I have done heretofore and here we walk over but a little Ground and if we obtain little or much it is but a little got in a little Ground and we have therein trouble But Oh what is it to flee over the whole Heavens and to be every where in God and in Christ In all other good things relating only to this Life all the pleasure we have in seeking them is to think how pleasurable they will be to us when obtained But the delight and pleasure of spiritual things lie much in the very seeking of them
April 22. Being the Lord's Day in the Afternoon to a Friend that came to see him he expressed himself thus The Doctor hath told me the lightsomest News to day that he hath told me a great while in acquainting me that there is but little hope of my Continuance long in the World but the Afflictions of God's People lie near my heart Oh to be filled with the Spirit three or four hours in Prayer for the Concerns of Sion He farther spake in his particular Case c. thus What if they that have seen me shall see me no more if he sees me that hath seen my Yearnings and Groanings if he sees me again he will not say he knows me not he is a God that will not forget his Promise He who hath seen my Soul in Travel who hath seen those Pangs of desire that no other hath seen he will be ready to say in the Riches of his Grace Here is poor such a one come to my Gate Come to my Knee Come to my Mercy-Seat Oh for affectionate thoughts of God and getting into him they are things that will not dry up they will not wither that will not be parched up Oh blessed be that heart that is thorow in desires Oh where is that glorious Majesty Oh what is it to come to the first Spring of Spiritual Life To come to God to the God that hath carried me into my threescore and tenth Year with a high hand And now he fore-seeing the remainder of my days would be Sorrow and Labour to the Body he calls me off And what is threescore and ten Years compared with Eternity A poor Pittance of time wherein God hath had very little Service from me Thus I parle a little about it to get some deep thoughts of that unspeakable Majestick Grace Little can I say of my Religion more than this I love the Lord in all he did I love him in all his Image I may say I may lay me down and rest for the Lord sustaineth me I have no other I desire no other Lord glorifie thy Name I have had caring thoughts about my self and others but now thou seemest to determine the matter Thou didst see I could not stand in the Shock but in thy strength I could have stood But thou wilt not cause all thy Waves and thy Billows to pass over me Thou hast had thy Champions and wilt have thy Champions Lord the Clouds arise apace the Wicked are full of Wrath they would root out thy Interest they would make Jacob low they are set upon Mischief and Spight Arise arise O God let the Lamb deliver let the Lamb overcome let thy unreasonable Enemies be turned over to Judgment Beautifie the place of thy Holiness confirm the Weak fix the Staggering Let thy People be able to meet Sufferings to put on Faith and Patience and say Aha Aha We are for God and his Ways Let thy People meet Death meet Losses meet whatever the Enemy can do and say We scorn your Cruelty Oh that thy People may stick by thee when there is nothing but Violence and Contradiction of thy Will O Lord work wonders for thy People break the Arm cut asunder the Bow of the Ungodly Oh let Shame be upon those that would take away thy Worship Glorifie thy self appear and stand an invincible Champion in Israel Let the earth know that thou dost possess the Gates of thine Enemies Let my Soul come into the Bundle of Life let my Soul come to all that that is promised by Jesus Christ I am to receive the Salvation of my Soul with exceeding Joy Am I near to the great Revelation of Christ to know more than ever Solomon did with that Perfection of Nature he had and Attainment of Grace Am I near to attain more than ever Paul could reach to by the Power of Grace and to know more of the Covenant of Grace than Abraham himself did and all the Saints while they were here in the World Oh I am confounded I am confounded and astonished I wonder I wonder at Free Grace and am amazed for want of more Faith The Filthy the Filthy duggle of a respect to my own Works which would follow me and spoil me and spoil all the Mystery of Free Grace c. Oh that now at last the Glory of Free Grace might lift me into the eternal place of it To a near Relation he spake thus Brother you are come to take your leave of me The Doctor as a sweet Messenger told me to day that I am near my Change I am now going from Shadows to Substance from things imperfect to things compleat and the thoughts of it even confound me I have been trading in the things of God for almost threescore years as to the experience of it and now after this long WOOF upon the LOOM it is to be taken off and all of it VIEWED and I know a World of Evil there is but I have always had a Sufficiency of the Grace of the Gospel declared to me that as defects came in they might be removed and by his Grace I have kept on with some desire with some delight with some Faith and Chear and now the RECKONING is to be made O my God there is a great Transaction upon me I throw my self upon Christ in the Gospel I sink if Christ sinks I have had nothing else to rest the Sole of my Foot upon now let thy Mercy be for me Thou hast given me good hope through Grace now Lord answer every good word upon which thou hast caused my Soul to hope Thou hast brought me hitherto so far to the very end of the Wilderness now O God bring me to thy Canaan I have waited for it Many other Sicknesses have not removed me now thou seemest to say This shall Now let me leave all my Filth behind me take it off There is a TRANSLATION let that Translation be effected upon me O Lord let not that Temptation come upon me that I have prayed to no purpose that I have faltered in the things wherein thou hast steered my Soul in Truth and in Spirit Lord let not a dead thought abide with any ugly savour in me now when thy Providences with the Concurrence of thy Servants meaning the Doctors say that thou callest me when they say The Master calleth thee Oh Oh was there ever such a day Had I ever such a day to be standing in the Portal to be waving up my hand to be knocking Oh for an Opening Lord say to me I will open Come in and let us sup together No less O Lord. Answer the Breathings of my Soul all along all my days Thou art faithful thou hast chosen me deny me not O thou that art Truth thou knowest that I have chosen thee Thou knowest my Life in this World hath been Death and Poyson to me without thee and now I come only expecting what thou hast promised and not what I have procured for there hath been my
Lord is with me and I have Ground of Faith and Hope that I have favour in his Eyes April 24. He expressed himself as followeth I am upon the Term of two great things viz. At the Term of all my great Subjugation to Sin and at the Term of all the Receipt of the Liberty Christ hath purchased at the Term of Sins Thraldom and at the Term of springing up through the Grace of God to eternal Life These are great things and I cannot manage my thoughts about it thorowly through the greatness of it I am going from the Yellings of Sin in this World and the woful effects of it and I am going to a Congregation the only Church of the First-born written in Heaven to visit the Streets of the eternal Grace and Love of God and meet the Company that walk there And methinks I am in a Wood and God hath held me in the Portal a pretty while and here I cannot be perfected for I never had any fittedness but through him that is compleat and is in Heaven And here I abide an Expectant as the poor Man that expected to be put into the Pool and that Angel hath not yet put forth his hand My Body parcheth my Mind parcheth a little Faith and Hope is left me My Tongue begins again to cleave I leave this World as a place where there is no satisfying It may content others a while but it seems rather to hunt me away Body faint Spirit faint in a strange Land my Mind is all in a scatter It will not be so it is so now O Lord help me graciously to wait Death was always spoken of as a dark Valley a place of Darkness and Trial not a place of Joy and shall I find it so Notwithstanding I have hope in the Faith and Love of God by Christ there is a secret Relief That he will turn Death into Life for his own sake and suffer never a clinging Soul to be lopt off and perish I desire no Food my very Nature loaths it my Body is off from all means of help in this World and here I stay through the good hand of God like a poor Stranger I am going to another World and the Fruits of that World will not satisfie the Wants I have here it will not quench my Thirst it will not allay my Drought So that if I have not some Relief to my Soul which is not of this World if I have it not from another World I am undone I cannot speak my thoughts have a large Theam I am up and down in and out and I see a great thing before me and sometimes it causeth a Word to drop I see ETERNAL LIFE before me That great thing that concerns me Sure it is a great thing to be at the very Brink to see all Promises fulfilled made good and all the Demonstrations of the Gospel made patent To see the Foundation of Eternal Life for ever laid and to come and cast ones eye upon it in the abundance of Faith And these are the things that lie just before me only there hath been an entrance about them I have believed c. and now I go to see the Promise and the Faith of the Promise accomplished To a Friend saying you have a strong hand to carry you Sure there is our Security in his holding of us more than in our holding of him He answered There it only lies The Lord continue to be with you The Lord make good his Covenant to you I and all the rest even that which is written in that good Book of his in which we desire to have our hope Let nothing hinder our Faith nor disorder our Practise He proceeded further to speak that day in the Afternoon thus God makes all these things here with respect to me at this time as it were to change their kind A Draught of Spring-Water fresh Beer or such a like thing how sweet have I sometimes found it But now nothing The rare vertues of Apples and other Fruits they are to me now as Dirt they do not answer my End My natural Thirst and Desire cannot be gratified with any thing here Though my Body lies parching away with Thirst my Soul loatheth dainty Meats and the best of Liquors that have been pleasing they are now a burthen to me I can taste nothing that will give reviving God is drawing forth my Nature in the way of a Dissolution that I must have no more Chear now but what comes in by New Covenant Mercy and that will be to Soul to Body for ever and thanks be to his Name he will not have me feed with dirty Company He hath shewed me the way of Life he hath caused me to chuse him I bless his Name Oh that wonderful thing that thou shouldst cause me to chuse thee Oh that thou mightest be chosen by all those that ever I had Acquaintance with in all my Life Oh that none of them may go without it Oh for a turned heart Oh for the eyes of Light and Life Oh for Salvation out of Damnation to a changed People Blessed be God that ANY that so MANY near to me were turned in at the right Gate of Election upon the Downfall that came by Sin as I hope as I hope O Lord find out thine thou wilt find them out Work Miracles work Miracles by converting Power in turning Souls that the Earth may see thy Glory Oh thou hast been my God many ways hast thou declared it Thou hast been the God of the Family from whence thou chusest me The Family is almost at an end Thou hast not left our poor Family two of us are yet remaining on the Earth O my God let it be for an eternal Renown to thy Name that thou hast hitherto reached out thy Grace to we two poor Remainers of that numerous Family Oh thou hast left us thy self to be our God to be our Portion O Lord thou hast given thy self to us and and thou hast given thy Spirit into us and we to the Glory of thy Grace can say Thou art OUR GOD hast been our God and wilt be our God and wilt number us amongst those whom thou hast delighted to take pleasure in unto Eternity O Lord be thou the God of our Seed or of our Seeds Seed O Lord that thou wouldst take them in with all those thou hast brought into Relation with thy self We have Relations in the World some that lie under the power of Satan and thou makest us to know it that it might be a constant Grief unto our hearts O Lord that none relating to us or to any or either of us might be found in those Bonds O Lord that thou wouldst imprint thine Image that thou wouldst come with a powerful hand and clear them out of Satan's Kingdom into the Kingdom of Christ Lord we are mingled in the World we have many Relations now up and down and what shall we say for the Children of our People
of this Opportunity provoketh me to write to you by this Bearer who has promised to see my Child I desire that as she grows in capacity you would be dropping in somewhat of spiritual things for her tender thoughts to feed upon Though I cannot at this distance see your face yet I know your Temptations in some part and your Deliverance which will in due time appear 'T is good to be carried about and disposed by the hand of the Lord 't is a blessed thing and will one day appear so to rejoyce in the pleasure of the Lord let him do with a poor Creature what he will so he make it more like himself by unselfing you from carnal desires and carnal discontents and fears and transplanting you into the power and joy of believing accounting really the offer of eternal kindness in Christ more Glory than any earthly dying comfort and certainly where the Comforts here can comfort but little the Crosses here can cross but little and shortly farewel both Let your heart plod much on the free Covenant of Grace in Christ by Prayer and Meditation and let your sins come into the same Room with you while you are on that Enquiry When I am at a dead lift then sometimes the Spirit of God takes me up as it were into the Arms of that Covenant which he made with Christ concerning me and whosoever is not a wilful Unbeliever And the very glance of that Salvation wrought by the Lord concerning which I am only to believe sets me again upon my feet I have no other task but to be willing in truth to receive it and I shall have it and if so then you and I shall be sure never to want any one good thing Evil as Evil from the Lord cannot befall us You will then see the favour of God to you in earthly seeming Frowns No such favour as to be dead to sensible Comforts and as a Stranger to earthly carnal Contents though this be tedious to Flesh and Blood yet let it more appear that our Rest is not in these things but in the ever-living God he is your Teacher and I leave you to him 1653. To J. H. N o 15. I Have received your Letter and return you thanks for your love Should I give you a Draft of my Soul it would pity you to see it did not the Mercy of God prevent you would find me in the four last Vices mentioned in Rom. 1. but blessed be the Lord that though there be a Law in my Members warring and tormenting I have in the Lord a little strength and do sometimes view deliverance I have too long had too much content in a Carnal Walking with God and have been satisfied too much in a Carnal Appearance that way There is a way to live with God in the World but it is of his own making no visible or sensible thing can contribute any thing to it and yet I cannot die to these vain helps I shall never understand the word All noted in Matth. 22. 37. till the power of the Most High doth bear it in Ah when will it once be Certainly that Grace will one day be very glorious that hath attended a poor distressed heart through the uncomfortable sights and abundant frailties of this corrupt mortal condition One pure serious true long breathed desire of Christ's appearing gives some deliverance Oh the Glory of that day when the real appearing shall be and all filthy Garments removed and every filthy smell be for ever removed also Let us be found among those that wait for Redemption and wait waking Truly Brother we cannot word out one to another what is the State Duties and Privileges of an Interest in a new Life and hope of Glory The best means the best words yea the Scriptures though not so in themselves are even deceiving to a deceived carnal heart Such a heart will turn the most spiritual things into Flesh and so feed upon them to satisfie carnal Fancy Oh that you and I could start up from fleshly Consultation and listen quietly leisurely and yet greedily and obediently to the meer dictate of the blessed Spirit in his Word Your opportunity and mine of honouring God in the World is very far spent already I desire that you be not only for God in season but out of season also Dear Brother I thought fit to give you a touch of what my poor heart desires to be wrestling in I know you mind the same thing go on therein and prosper there is no other way of Peace but this I am rude but I had rather write my heart than my invention Well Brother I thank you for your good wishes to my poor Child I trust the Lord will vouchsafe her truth of Grace and shed abroad his Mercy and Love into her heart and make it appear as her tender years will bear and manifest the same Remember me to my Sister your Wife whom I have reason also to honour for the goodness of God to her and to you I trust in her I should rejoyce to hear that some others of yours and my poor Friends had the Lord alone for their whole desire and portion I would rather remember such in my Prayers than in my Letter Remember my love to your Sister D. who is I am much assured more precious in God's eye than in her own I leave all News to the Bearer and commend the Remembrance of you to the Lord and remain c. 1654. To S. D. H. N o 16. YOu see this state here is wavering unsetled moving to and fro 'T is a wondrous thing to see how the Lord is pleased to raise up one Wave of disquiet after another to molest the publick Peace and exercise the pains and patience of his people It is no Misery but a Privilege to one that is chosen hence to be emptied from Vessel to Vessel and indeed I scarce know a greater sign of Christ's Conjugal Love than by his Providence to render all other things and Conditions here to be unlovely and undesirable for then the Affections have no where else to centre but in Christ and that makes them go out strong that way Albeit my condition speaks much visible Uncertainty as to this outward Man yet I find a mighty War within me against a free and clear Closing with the certain Riches of Glory which is in Christ in which notwithstanding I trust I have an Interest and have recieved some witness thereof There is a secret joy in the inward part of my Soul and Refreshment at the Remembrance of the Promises of the God of Truth my Rock Sometimes Hope and Desire brings me near to Christ and he to me 'T is an admirable thing to think how a Soul can at the same time be covered over with its Guilt and yet be freed and triumph over the same as removed in Christ truly perfectly and for ever yet this is the Golpel-Doctrine and Experience A Body diseased through Sin yet
a Mind towards the Brazen Serpent a flying to the Horns of the Altar and that does the work Oh the Justification through the means of believing and only plain-hearted believing is a strange thing yet not at all difficult where the Anoynting teaches and the Soul be made free by the Spirit from Carnal Quiddities and Complements as the poor believing Woman was who prest to touch the Hem of Christ's Garment without IFS and AND 's The Lord direct all your Paths and make you fruitful in Holiness through believing and fear no evil Fare you well in the Lord for ever 1654. To S. D. H. N o 17. MY Remembrance of you in my heart does not neither ought to bear proportion to my writing I have reason to esteem you an Heir of Blessing and I would gladly when I hear you own believingly and thrivingly the God of your Mercies and rejoyce in your joy as a Member of the same Body of Christ with you Be eyeing what the Redeemer has done what the vertue of his Sacrifice is not what difficult design he attempted unless it be to honour him the more who has overcome all that we can suppose to have most difficulty in it I think it is a matchless Mercy to let our sins of all sorts and aggravations be cast on his Cross with a humble Resignment to him waiting for Salvation and Strength as a penitent Sinner's Portion through Faith The Lord be with you in whom I rest c. 1654. To J. F. N o 18. MY dear Friend I understand by what I hear that you are like to stay some time in England whilst I am detained here and in regard I know your main desire is to serve Jesus Christ in the simplicity of the Gospel I desire the place of your abode and the people you labour amongst may be adapted to such a savoury design I do somewhat doubt that if you are persuaded to some populous City you will be troubled with itching Ears and find some Temptations more vigorous than in a more private Auditory Yet I will not disswade you from what the Call of God doth most apparently incline you to but do desire you may so lanch forth that the Room of those famous Worthies who are swept away may be supplied and the Word of Reconciliation held forth till the Mystery of God be finished And therefore act with all your might whilst the day lasts and remember the distracted Condition of your warfaring Friends Beware of discouragements your work is excellent your labour short your infirmities undertaken by Christ and your Temptations and the Tempter also judged Yours is a Warfare as well as mine blessed be the Captain of our Salvation through whose Blood alone is hope of Conquest And thus commending you to the Lord c. 1655. To S. D. H. N o 19. I Trust you find the Word of God faithful and creating faithfulness also in the Seed thereof in your heart I think this is a true Maxim One deliberate unfeigned desire of perfect Righteousness in Christ is the very fruit of the perfect Righteousness of Christ For who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean but he alone by his creating Power and Love Nourish Faith tenderly and humbly try the Lord's Will and your own heart prize that Faith which puts forward all Grace which takes away discouragement from Mortification and makes it as the Gate of Heaven and Hope of Glory for the Apostle found it so and pleads it just so to us Rom. 6. 5 6 7 8 c. You have a good Guide give him the honour solely to order your heart and way his voice is heard in the Scripture Believe not your own heart or reason against the naked word of Truth In Cases of Scruple or discouragement of any sort give your self the same Counsel as by the Scriptures you would give to another person in the same Case The work of Faith is not to make sin no sin but because of sin to bring the Soul to the Redeemer that the more sin it sees it may the more abhor it and triumph the more in that Grace doth super-abound through a Mediator And here lies the Mystery of Faith the Lord himself has it and you and I shall say we have enough 1655. To D. H. N o 20. SInce God made your heart pant after that World in which dwells Immortality and Righteousness did you ever upon good Grounds judge any earthly Friend a certain Comfort If so then has God by removing your Sister and now by removing your Father witnessed the contrary If you apprehended them as uncertain then why are they not sufficiently repayed in the fatherly respect of an unchangeable God Is it good to be angry with the Lord Do not study to be more sour and melancholy but how to be more holy self-denying and chearful on the account of a freely tendered Covenant rejoycing that shortly you shall take your Journey and go visit your Father your Sister c. and all the Saints since the beginning Never study how to dishonour the nature of the Gospel by a sullen carnal pleading of Self-unworthiness The truth is Self is not worthy to plead but Christ is worthy to be loved and believed and that 's enough If he will love me heal me purge me save me convince me accept me freely why should I be offended at it and say he cannot mean as the Gospel speaks My sullen heart is never broke till Almighty Convincement from God break my heart to powder till that time I play with Melancholy under a kind of vexing delight I trust God will teach you some good Lesson by this Visitation that the knowledge of God in Christ and the knowledge of your heart may be wisely taken in I earnestly desire this that all your thoughts be brought over to a subjection to the good pleasure of God with delight viz. in that good pleasure of his and be thankful for that yet you have an opportunity to honour him by saying and thinking all his ways are Mercy and Truth Though he take to himself your nearest Friends you do them so much right as to rejoyce that they reign though you mourn after your Beloved and long to leave your self that you may love him the better I leave you to him who can and will do more in his love and pity than I or any Friend can do Rejoyce in hope lift up your head the days of your Lamentation is almost ended I remain yours in the fellow-feeling of the same burthen c. 1655. To A. C. N o 21. I Enjoy my health through the goodness of God as yet My Soul has many dry and sapless Seasons many drowsie and fainty Qualms through the deceipt of heart that lies rooted within but yet the Lord cries ever and anon in my ear I am God and I change not therefore thou art not consumed I find it desperately dangerous to set my Reason and Sense in dispute with that which
Peace and Comfort in the Fountain of Freedom and Goodness We find our comforts and expectations here little better than a Bed of Thorns because this is not the Rest that is designed for the People of God and 't will be some help to us under this disquieting exercise and condition to remember that while we are passing through we are held in the hand of him who has a fellow-feeling of our Case who did once pass through the difficulties and drank of the Brook in the way but now lifts up his head and so is become the Foundadation of our Hope that such poor Wretches as we are shall one day through saith and patience arrive where our Fore-runner is entred Only let us now cling upon him till we become transformed into his Likeness and be compleatly dressed with the white Robe of his Righteousness that in him and only in him we may be found without spot In the mean space let us pray and abound therein for our selves and one another to our gracious God who will at length perfect that which concerneth us To him I commend you c. 1668. To T. M. P. N o 91. I Put you both together in my Letter because I have understood that you are now no longer two but one I was very glad to hear that all your prudential Demurs had at last resolved themselves into a Consummation of this long intended Union My hearty desire for you both is that the Blessing and Guidance of the Lord may render your mutual Society a real and constant Comfort to each other and mutual advantage in reference to all Soul-Concernments There is no Condition in this World so desirable but is attended with Temptations and Trials and therefore 't is needful as you have given your selves to each other so also that you give up your selves particularly and joyntly as Yoke-fellows together unto the sweet Yoak and belessed Will of our Lord Jesus Christ One of the greatest Resemblances that we find in Scripture whereby the Love of Christ is set forth to Believers is this state of Marriage And whatever Content therefore you find in this changed Condition let it steer your thoughts to that glorious Mystery of Christ's espousing our Nature that we might become partakers of the Image of God in him and long for that appearing of his when the full solemnizing of the mystical Marriage betwixt Christ and his Church will come and the Union in all degrees be perfected I commend you to the good hand of the Lord c. 1668. To C. M. P. N o 92. THe Present is to acquaint you that my Cousin J. B. died Tuesday last and was this Evening buried God was pleased to order it so that I had notice of his sickness till after his death which was and is a great trouble to me but I understand Means were not wanting for his Recovery His Master much bewails the loss of so faithful a Servant He had as I understand some darkness upon his Spirit till a little before his death and then uttered as well as he could these words Eye hath not seen nor ear heard c. the things which God hath prepared for them that love him and so died almost immediately and has left a sweet savour behind him and a Warning for us his Friends that we make ready and be not found unprepared when the like Summons come unto us We see by daily experience that Life-time and Health is not in our own keeping and therefore are concerned to improve it well while it continues c. The gracious Presence of the Lord be with you c. 1668. To E. D. N o 93. SInce my former God has been pleased to draw a Cloud upon my poor Family Tuesday last little Tho. fell sick and on Wednesday Morning died and is this day to be buried a great and suddain stroak which doth almost overwhelm my dear Wife who goes up and down lamenting and often crying out that she has sinned away her sweet Babe into the Grave You may see in short how 't is with us at present I need not add more for I know what tender Love your self did bear to this sweet and heart-taking Infant Only I desire both you and my dear Sister and our Friends there to pray for us that this stroak may be blest to us all and that my desolate dear Wife may be guided through her present Confusion of Spirit to the only and right Refuge I delivered her your Letter which was very acceptable and therefore pray write her something again and I desire my Sister would do the same 'T is good to help in time of need Her heart is much broken and my Affliction not a little and I believe it is for some further good that God intends to us both a few Lines from you whom I know she doth dearly value will be very seasonable No Affliction is at present joyous but grievous but afterwards comes the sweet and wholsome Fruit and this is the Portion of them who take hold of the full and sure Covenant and the crucified risen Christ who dies no more There is nothing will so wean Affections hence and from the mischief of Creature-love as the Study of Christ viewing him in the Gospel pondering his excellent Person and his glorious Mediatory Office for us and so pitch the Affections on him to be inflamed with his Love in our own Propriety in him And therefore not only with the Bowels of an Earthly Father but in the Bowels of Jesus Christ I intreat and in his Name do charge you to study and muse day and night the unmeasurable endless Love of God who sent his Son the infinite unwearied and endless Love of Christ who came died rose again and lives for ever to be your only Portion and to make you even you a delightful Portion to him and to render you through the Blood of Sprinkling and the Communion and Influence of that one Spirit of the Father and Son an Object of his Delight and a Monument of his pardoning Grace and his purifying Vertue to all Eternity To him I commend you 1668. To E. D. N o 94. BOth my self and my Wife are very sensible of this sore Storm with which the Lord is pleased to exercise your faith and patience at this time But Christ is in the Vessel and therefore you cannot perish in the Fire and in the Water in every cold and hot fit he is with you and has a tender sense of every jot of your pain and sickness t is a Father's Chastisement and Trial and all his aim is to purifie and fit you for an Object of his eternal delight I know his everlasting Arms are under you and though the Dispensation be dark yet he is doing you good with all his heart according to his Covenant and with all his Soul He enclined your heart of his own Grace to chuse him because he chose you first and will yet chuse you in the Furnace