Are not you sensible of your your wants and of your beggarly condition Do not you not say with David I am poor and needy Psal 70 5. And with Paul Rom. 7. 18. in me dwells no good thing Is not your appetite and thirst after grace as strong as Sampsons was for water or Rachels for Children give me Children or else I dye Do you not thirst after more grace and covet earnestly farther degrees of holiness and wish you were the holiest rather than the richest or greatest Lady or Princess in the world If so then I question it not but you are one of the blessed ones in the judgment of Christ who is infallible and cannot mistake What have you to say against this I hope you rest satisfied about vile and vain thoughts which do not lodge in you but you repel them and reject them These may be your grief and affliction but are not your sin cannot prejudice your good estate nor ought your imperfections passions corruptions from which the best on earth are not free to cause you to question your justification or your being in Christ So long as you bewail them strive against them and are humbled for them your desire is to reach after perfection and further Measures of holiness These desires are of and from the Spirit of God And he accepts the will for the deed as was shewed in divers instances Nay this to me makes it clear if God account impious desires vicious ungodly inordinate lusts for the sin it self or deed done as Hatred with him is imputed Murder 1 Joh. 3. 15. Lusting after a woman though she remain chast is Adultery in Gods account in the man So much more longing and thirsting desires after grace are beginnings of grace and such desires God accepts and will fulfil them Psal 145. 19. provided they be gracious and holy desires humble desires springing from a broken heart from one that is poor in Spirit if they be constant unsatisfied vehement in the use of means and that a man so prize Christ and his grace that he be ready to sell all to buy the Pearl Now this being your condition what cause have you to leave your doubting and spend your dayes in rejoycing and praising God for his singular Mercy in conferring on you so excellent a gift as is saving grace which is so rare a gift like gold to be found with few persons but more excellent than millions of gold and silver Let your meditation of God be sweet and admire his wonderful love to you in Christ and how great things he hath done for you Yours I Am sorry that the Sun and Stars are darkened with you and that the Clouds return after the Rain But be not discouraged this is a case common to many good Christians and no other than befalls the best of Gods people Do not fear but the light will break forth again though you be under a cloud at present The Son of Righteousness will arise upon you with healing in his wings Be sure you regard no iniquity in your heart Keep you from every accursed thing Wash you make you clean cease to do evil learn to do well and mark what follows If your sins were as scarlet they shall be as white as snow if they be as crimson they shall be as wooll If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and the blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin Again If any man sin we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the Righteous He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole World Now reach out the hand of Faith and lay hold on the promises and apply them for they are exceeding great and precious promises and they are all in Christ yea and Amen true and faithful And they are your promises yea directed to you in particular as if your name was put to them O be not faithless but believing And if you do believe with all your heart then are your sins forgiven according to the tenour of these promises Now are you justified and at peace with God through Jesus Christ O thou of little faith wherefore didst thou doubt Doubts in Gods people may arise from one of these causes The heinonsness of Sin the imperfection of Duties or the weakness of Faith For the first of these know that the Lord thinks never the worse of any for what they have been for any sins they have lived in when once they have truly repented of them Ezek. 18. 21 22. You may observe in the Church that Christ never shewed greater kindness to any than to such as had been most notorious As the woman of Samaria Zacheus the Publican Mary Magdelen And whereas there is but four women mentioned in the Genealogy of Christ Mat. 1. not one of them but the Scripture sets a mark of infamy upon them for some notorious sins Ruth was a Heathen an Idolater Tamar Rahab Bathsheba you know what they were yet these only have the honour to be upon record when Sarah and women though more spotless are passed by in silence What may be the reason thereof Take it from Mr. Hildersam To teach us that penitent sinners shall have never the less honour with God shall be never the less esteemed for that they have done after they have once truly repented and turned to the Lord So you see there is no cause why you should be dismayed at the hainousness of your sins having repented of them For the next True it is that after Conversion we are but in part regenerate and so our best Duties are imperfect and stained with many corruptions Isa 64. 6. yet God doth not reject them nor us for these defects but accepts them 1 Pet. 2. 5. delighteth in them Cant. 2. 14. will reward them Col. 3. 24. Heb. 11. 5. and not so much as take notice of the blemishes that are in our best services Mic. 7. 18. Cant. 4. 7. Thon art all fair my love there is no spot in thee Let not the poorness of your Duties discourage you but remember Christ sits at the right hand of God to make intercession for you By whose merits Saints Prayers are perfumed as it were with incense and so are made a sweet savour to God Rev. 8. 3. And for the third know that it is not the strength but the truth of Faith that giveth us acceptance with God through Faiths acceptance of Christ Joh. 1. 12. As many as received him c Now a weak hand may receive a gift as truly as a strong A single penny may be as good and clear Silver as a bigger piece Among Believers Heb. 11 some whose sincerity we should have doubted of so weak was their Faith if the Holy Ghost had not put them in the Catalogue of the Faithful As Gideon Barak Sampson Jeptha Rahab Him that is weak in Faith we are bidden to receive Rom. 14. 1. Sure God
man to make additions to Religious Worship Do you not find the contrary in those Scriptures Deut. 4. 2. Deut. 12. 32. Prov. 30. 6. Who gave Man power to adopt unnecessaries into Religion What bottom stands Magisterial Authority upon Ministerial Power is of God but for this Magisterial it wants Commission Matth. 23. 8 9 10. Quest 2. Is not the power of imposing as dark to thinking men as the power of inventing Whence did you learn to make burdens Whence to lay them on and bind them on We are tempted to think your Masters are Matth. 23. 4. Hath God given you power over the Consciences of men to ransack their Judgments and wrack their Consciences to ruin all that cannot agree to your Sentiments to undo all that cannot do what you will have them Do you not in this strike down the pin upon which the Law and the Prophets hang Would you that others should do so to you What stricture or beam of right Reason leads you to make your Judgment the publick standard Quest 3. What branch of Justice or Equity is there in so grievous Penalties for not conforming to such Impositions The fault is small if it be a fault Should mens brains be knocked out to kill a Fly on their forehead But the Dissenters judge it a Duty to witness against usurpations of Men. They think they are bound by Gods Law to preserve the purity of Christs Worship They think that a yielding in some things was as a stirrop by which Antichrist got into the saddle Are not these things judged by you indifferent And must men be punished as if they had denyed and razed the Fundamental Articles of Faith Should you make men spectacles the filth and off-scouring of all things upon these accounts Who can read either Christianity or Humanity in such severities Quest 4. What awe can be impressed or obligation fastened on a well informed Conscience from Humane Laws establishing backing and enforcing such Impositions Have not Magistrates supream and subordinate their Lines and Limits Provinces and Bounds set them by the God of Heaven Are they makers or only keepers of Gods Tables Did the People of England trust their Representatives to make snares for their Ministers and yokes for the People Were they impowered by them to prescribe and write the grievousness they had prescribed They were entrusted to be shields not swords healers not wounders they said to them Let our ruins be under your hands they never put themselves into their hands to ruine them Quest 5. What Spirit are you of when you make all Assemblies but your own Seditious Conventicles Schismatical Meetings Routs Riots Know you not that they which acknowledge God are bound to assemble to worship him Do you can you think it is better not to worship God at all then not to worship him in your way and mode Dare you undertake that this shall hold in the day of Judgment Are not you told by some great men of your own That he that gives the cause of the Schism is the Schismatick Do you think those you displaced took themselves to be disofficed Did their People desert them when you ejected them Was the Word of Truth utterly taken out of the mouths you stopped Was not Gods word in their hearts as a burning fire shut up in their bones so that they were weary of forbearing and could not stay Did their Breasts ake and must they not draw them out to the Babes that desire the sincere milk of the Word You have some of you called Conventicles the crying sin of England Oh! How crying a sin is it in you that have occasioned them yea necessitated them A Natural Mother turned out of her own House will suckle her Child in the Field or in the meanest coat or shed she can set her foot into Corners are not our choice but your force Quest 6. Have not you cause to fear that the blood of some of these dead Ministers will be upon you You judged them unworthy of the World and God hath thereby been provoked to judge the World not worthy of them You made their work much harder to them and by their journeyings and fastings and watchings in all likelyhood you did hurry and hasten them out of the World Oh that some of us might live to see a relenting Spirit in you It would be a joy to me and a token for good to you for otherwise I am greatly perswaded Judgment is towards you because Mercy is the promised portion of the Merciful and Judgment without Mercy hangs over the heads of them that shew no Mercy And so I have finished my Historical and Practical part of this Book And shall conclude it with only adding one Chapter more in communicating to you some Letters written by this Eminent Servant of God Mr. John Hieron which are as a Mirrour wherein you may see the Ability and Fidelity of the Holy Man of God CHAP. XI His Letters OF his Letters I promised to give some taste and make them the Coronis of this Work In publishing of which I conceal Names that I may not reflect upon the dead nor justly offend the living Again Let not the living be disturbed for though the Letters be published their Names are not exposed It will do them no hurt to read those Letters in Print which they have in Writing It may do others good to read Letters that were written to others possibly they may reach teach meet with others Hearts being much alike and the same Corruptions Temptations in one and another First Letter Christian Friend YOU desire that I would write to you about your Spiritual Estate which I take to be safe and comfortable so far as one is able to pass Judgment of another But no man knoweth certainly the things of another save the spirit of a man which is in him 1 Cor. 2. 11. You are then to commune with your own heart to search and try your wayes whether you walk after the Spirit be led by the Spirit Rom 8. 14. As many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God If you ask How shall I know whether I am led by the Spirit I Answer If you bring forth the fruits of the Spirit if you follow after Holiness sincere Obedience to all Gods Commandments patience in Affliction love to God Christ all Saints love to the Word fear to offend God a care to please God and keep Conscience pure and void of offence toward God and Man Godly sorrow for sin forsaking every evil way and above all believe in the Lord Jesus Christ rest upon him trust in his all-sufficient satisfaction for pardon of Sin and Eternal Life And all this I doubt not but you do in some measure so that you may conclude as the Apostle doth Rom 8. 1. There is therefore no condemuation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit May you not comfort your self with
these words Do not hearken to Satans suggestions to the contrary he is an Adversary If he cannot hinder your Salvation he will do what he can to damp your joy and peace in believing You ought not to give heed to him but to repel him as our Saviour did Get thee behind me Satan Your own unbelieving Heart for Faith is mixed with unbelief even in Gods Children also will raise Objections against you thus I have many Corruptions in me unruly Passions I am hasty to Anger Ignorant have little Knowledge considering the time and means I have enjoyed I am dull in Duty I Pray without any life or heat I am cold in love to God and Jesus Christ I grow not in Grace I am blockish and remember nothing I hear And many such things you have to say against your self To which I Answer Grant all this to be true These are Sins of Infirmity which may consist with true Grace Psal 40 12. David saith My sins are more then the hairs upon my head Psal 73. 22. So foolish was I and ignorant even as a beast before thee Read Heb. 5. 11 12. Ye are dull of hearing c. whom yet he highly commends Heb. 3. 1. and 6. 10. So long as sin reigneth not hath no dominion over you you need not question your interest in Christ and you may know that sin reigneth not when you are grieved for it confess and bewaâ—l it and pray for grace and help against it strive and watch against it and do what you can to keep your self from your iniquity Psal 18. 23. Consider that none are justified or saved because they are sinless pure and perfect but blessed are they whose sins are forgiven Psal 32. 1 2. And to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly his Faith is counted for Righteousness Rom. 4. 5. What was the end of Christs coming but to take away sin Mat. 1. 21. Joh. 1. 29. Also a chief branch of the Covenant of Grace in Heb. 8. 12. I will be merciful to their unrighteousness And therefore be not faithless but believing as Christ said to Thomas John 20. 27 28 And let your heart make the same Answer that he did My Lord and my God It may be that your present condition is a grief to you that you cannot worship God as you desire or as in your Health you can do God no service Let not your heart be troubled at this for God requires no more than he gives And it may be no small comfort to you that you were diligent to attend upon God in your Health and when you had Legs you used them to Gods glory And now you are serving God in another way in the way of Passive Obedience in which if you submit to Gods will with Meekness and Patience you may do God as good service as they that preach or hear or travel far to the Word â— will conclude with those sweet words of Christ John 14. 1. Let not your heart be troubled Believe that God is yours Christ is yours the Covenant of Grace is yours your Sins are forgiven the Promises are yours even the great Promise 2 Cor. 6. 18. I will be a Father to you And that also Rom. 8. 28. We know that all things shall work together for good to them that love God Even all the exceeding great and precious promises in Christ 2 Pet. 1. 4. which are yea and Amen true and faithful O bless God that ever you were born Spiritually that you were born again Say and sing with David Psal 103. 1. 2 3. Bless the Lord O my Soul And Psal 32. at the latter end Rejoyce in the Lord ye righteous and shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart Psal 48. 14. This God is our God for ever and ever he will be our guide unto death And with the Church Isa 25. 9. Lo this is our God we have waited for him and he will save us This is the Lord we have waited for him we will be glad and rejoyce in his Salvation But I may save further labour and indeed might have spared this pains for you have a Book by you which contains all that I now write and much more to the same purpose The scope and substance of it is to chear up and comfort poor Souls that walk sad and sorrowful when they have no other cause but to rejoyce and serve the Lord with gladness in which kind of service the Lord is well pleased I pray you peruse it and read it through till you have got your Heart into a joyful frame Now I pray and let it be your Dayly Prayer That the God of Love fill you with Joy and Peace in believing to whose Grace I commend you Yours Vnfeignedly IT grieves me much for your sake that the hand of the Lord is gone out against you in so dreadful a â—rovidence that it puts me hard to it how to minister a word of Consolation to you in this your sad condition A wise Son maketh a glad Father but a foolish Son is the heavyâ—ess of his Mother I have no greater joy than to hear that my Children walk in the Truth So I know no greater affliction that can befall Parents then to have Children walking contrary to the Truth and dying in their Sins Yet is not your Case in this respect singular No Temptation hath befallen you but what is common to men to good men witness Aaron Ely David with many others whom I could name known both to you and me You are to acquiess in Gods Providential Administrations and not to disquiet your Soul with the doubtfulness of his Eternal Estate But to ascribe Righteousness to your Maker and say with the Psalmist Righteous art thou O Lord and upright are thy judgments How unsearchable are his judgments and his â—aâ—es past finding out Take the Example of the Prophets and other Holy Men in Scripture for an example of suffering Affliction and of Patience Set before you the Patience of Job who besides the loss of so great an Estate lost all his Children seven in number cut off by untimely death yet how Religiously doth he demean himself how Patiently to admiration Two of Aarons Sons in the flower of their Age and in the beginning and very first entrance upon that Sacred Function perish by fire from Heaven a heavy stroke arguing great indignation yet mark the Fathers pious behaviour under such a mark of Gods displeasure Aaron held his Peaâ—e As for Davids lamentation over Absalom it is not to be drawn into imitation For the bottom of his grief was not purely nor chiefly as far as appears sorrow for his sin and the eternal condition of his Soul but rather proceeded from Natural Affection and over much fondness and indulgence because of his exquisite Beauty which the Scripture doth highly extol For he takes not one sigh at the death of Ammon who also dyed in his sin and also by a violent
ought to submit to Gods will with patience and silence As we see in Job who beside the loss of all his cattle had all his Children at mans estate taken from him by a violent stroak yet how religiously he behaved himself under the hand of God you may read in his story So let us humble our selves under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt us in due time 1 Pet. 5. 6. What said the prophet to the King of Judah asking how shall we do for the hundred Talents The Lord is able to give the much more then this 2 Chron. 2. 25. 9. Gods hand is not shortened He can abundantly recompence a greater loss then this But I would not have you too earnestly set your hearts upon any outward blessing nor too eagerly desire issue but with submission to Gods will so far as may be for his glory and your good and comfort For though Children are an heritage from the Lord as it is Psal 127. 3. that is when God giveth them in love and blesseth them not when he giveth them in anger as he gave Israel quails Psal 78. 30 31 and gave to Ephraim Children Hos 9 13. for the murtherer Better it is to be barren then fruitful in Children that may be crosses to fathers and heart breakings to Mothers by their wickedness Prov. 17. 25. or by the evil of the times If Popery should come in or the sword of war should rage in the land we know not what evil may be in the earth But such times have been and we know not what may be when it shall be said Blessed are the barren that never bare and the paps which never gave suck Luk. 23. 29. Let me give you wholsome counsel which if God give you hearts to embrace it will be to your comfort And it is that which you find Lam 3. â—9â— 40. Wherefore doth a living man complaint a man for the punishment of his sins Let us search and try our wayes and turn again to the Lord. Leave off grieving for the affliction and inquire into the cause of it as Rebekah did being with child she inquired of the Lord why am I thus Gen. 25. 22. Go you and do likewise pray to God as Job 10. 2. Shew me wherefore thou contendest with me Search your hearts and ways Have you wrastled with God in prayer for the fruit of the womb and for a blessing on it Have you set up prayer in your family or neglected it If not then have you robbed God of his due and no marvel if he deceive you of your expected comfort You know or may know that family prayer is a duty commanded of God and put in practise by all Gods people And those are no Christian families that do not call upon God nay the wrath of God hangs over them Jer. 10. 25. pray turn to all these scriptures and weigh them well Eph. 6. 18. Luk. 18. 1. Jos. 24. 15. Job 1. 5. Act. 10. 2. Gen. 18. 19. And mark this one Instance Jsaac had a promise that his seed should be as the Stars of Heaven for multitude yet his wife was barren and without issue Twenty years until he prayed more earnestly and then Rebekah conceived and bare twins Gen. 25. 22 As blessings are obtained by prayer so are they sanctified to become blessings indeed by prayer 1 Tim. 4. 5. It is sanctified by the word and prayer Every creature is so our meat our labours our enjoyments our relations are sanctified to us by prayer Otherwise the curse abides on them Prov. 3. 33. The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked Tit. 1. 15. To the pure all things are pure but to them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure These things I pray lay to heart and resolve to reform and amend whatsoever is amiss as you would have Gods blessing and favour both here and hereafter And consider whether this neglect of family-prayer he not the thing which troubles M. and the grief of it be not the cause of her miscarriage For I really believe she hath in all other things as much content as her heart can wish a loving Husband a loving relation and fulness of all things that the earth affords but she cannot be satisfied to live in a family where God is not worshiped she with Mary in the gospel having chosen the good part which shall not be taken from her Therefore I earnestly desire she may be gratified in this one request if you think I speak reason resolve to put this advise in practise and begin presently and continue to the end They that call on the name of the Lord shall be saved pray let this Letter be read to or by your whole family So praying God to open your ears and heaâ—ts to hearken to the counsel of the word I leave it and you all to the blessing of God and with my love to you all I rest Your faithful friend I. Hieron Losco Feb. 21. 1679. THis is to let you know that your Aunt W. dyed yesterday after about ten dayes lying sick Thus we part with our loving Neighbours and Friends one after another till Death at length knocketh at our door And what better use can we make of every such occasion than to consider our selves and seriously to mind our own latter end Let us put this question to our Souls Soul art thou ready to depart Art thou in such a posture as thou wouldst be to appear befoâ—e the Tribunal of the great Judge Hast thou on the Wedding garment Take heed thou be not found naked to thy shame O put on the Lord Jesus Christ his Righteousness by Faith to Justification his Holiness to Sanctification Every one would have comfort and hope in Death but then we must lay up a good foundation of it in Life No man is like to find that treasure at or after Death which he never laid up in his Life time For what a man soweth that shall he certainly reap He that soweth to the flesh or to the world shall reap corruption damnation eternal O that we were wise O that we would consider the end of our wayes Whither are we going Heaven or Hell is before us To which of these doth my present way lead Resolve this Question ere you sleep because Time tarries for no Man Life is uncertain and upon this moment depends Eternity Time is irrevocable When once it is past it cannot be recalled not if you would give thousands of Gold and Silver for one day or hour longer Let every passing peal you hear ring every Grave you see opened preach to you this Doctrine Be ye also ready Those to whom those Skulls and Bones you see turned up belong were in their time as good Men as you perhaps What we see them to be now others will see us to be shortly The fashion of this World passeth away but Godliness Grace Holiness endureth for ever Choose with Mary that good part which shall