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
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
themselves under Judgments and pray and seek my face and turn from their evil wayes I will hear from Heaven I will forgive their sin I will heal their Land Job 33. 27. If any say I have sinned and perverted that which is right and it profiteth me not he will deliver his Soul from going into the pit And this is the use you and every one in your circumstances should make of Gods Correction to humble your self under his mighty hand To say as Job 34. 31. I have born chastisement I will not offend any more Ver. 32. That which I see not teach me if I have done iniquity I will do no more Commune with your own heart Psal 4. 4. Ask your Soul how it doth Am I in Christ Am I born again Is there a work of Grace wrought upon my heart That will appear by your walking Do you walk as becometh the Gospel Phil. 1. 27. Do you live soberly righteously godly Is this your constant walking Do you pray continually in your Family In your Closet Do you sanctifie the Lords day duely Do you teach your Children the knowledge and fear of God Do you Catechise them Do you set them a good Example Do you fill up every Relation with Duty Have you not sat with vain persons Psal 26. 4. Are you a companion to all that fear God Psal 119. 63. Do you honour such above others Psal 15. 4. Do you delight in their company Psal 16. 3. This is that we are commanded to do to bethink our selves 2 Chron. 6. 37. To consider our wayes Hag. 5. 7. To judge our selves 1 Cor. 11. 31. To examine our selves whether we be in the Faith or no. 2 Cor. 13 5. Now let Conscience speak deal faithfully and truly with your self and where you find Duty neglected Sin committed confess your faults to God freely bewail them with a broken and contrite heart pray earnestly for Grace and a new heart for power over your corruptions resolve on a new course of life to become a new man by the assistance of Gods Grace Abandon ill Company and all occasions of sin for the time to come run not into temptation but watch and pray and keep your self from your own iniquity Psal 18. 23. If I regard iniquity in my heart i. e. allow my self in any one sin God will not hear my prayer Psal 66. 18. Whosoever shall keep the whole Law and offend in one point i. e. wittingly knowingly he is guilty of all is obnoxious to condemnation as if he had broken the whole Law Jam. 2. 10. Let your future practice and reformation speak the truth of your Repentance And if you thus turn to God with your whole heart make application to Christ by Faith and his Bloud shall cleanse you from all sin So God will receive you to Mercy as the Father received the Prodigal Son with all expression of Love He that covereth his sin shall not prosper but he that confesseth and forsaketh them shall find mercy Prov. 22. 13. If you dare not set up a Judgment-seat in your own Heart and keep a privy Sessions in your own Conscience how will you appear before the Judgment-seat of Christ and give an account of all your Thoughts Words and Actions at the great day For then must every one of us give account of himself to God Then blessed are they whose sins are forgiven They may lift up their faces at that day with boldness when impenitent sinners shall be confounded and call to the Rocks and Mountains to fall on them They who live in sin are in danger to dye in sin and to be damned eternally for sin Sin will be sure to find them out to punishment who will not now search and find and cast it out by Repentance and amendment of Life Repent and turn your selves from all your transgressions so iniquity shall not be your ruine Ezek. 18. 31. Thus I have shewed you the good and right way to improve this present cross and to prevent worse things Joh. 5. 14. Sin no more lest a worse thing come to you If God give you an heart to imbrace and hearken to this advice you will have cause to say with David Psal 119. 67 71. Before I was afflicted I went astray but now I have kept thy word And it is good for me that I have been afflicted that I might learn thy statutes And I beseech you do not reject the Counsel of God against your own Soul Put it in practice without delay Break off your sins by Righteousness forthwith to day while it is called to day lest your heart â—e hardened by the deceitfulness of sin Heb. 3. 13. All flesh is grass And no man knoweth the day of his death But it may be said to any of us This night shall thy Soul be required of thee You seem to have a crazy Body You have had divers warnings of late to mind you of your frailty And it is an high point of wisdom to consider of a Mans latter end Deut. 32. 29. What if Death should come like a Thief suddenly and give no warning Then happy are all they who with the wise Virgins have got Oyl in their Lamps saving Grace and Sincerity If a Flood come happy are they who with Noah have prepared an Ark for the saving of their Souls Make sure of Christ keep Conscience pure so it will be peaceable keep integrity and uprightness so you may look Death in the face without fear I will conclude with the words of Solomon Prov. 19. 20. Hear counsel receive instruction that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end Tender Love and Compassion to your Soul was the only motive which set my Pen on writing these Lines Take them in good part and pass a favourable construction on them peruse them ponder them for they are of weight of worth the very Word of God useful and necessary to be followed nearly conducing to the Salvation of your Immortal Soul Consider what I say and the Lord give you understanding in all things 2 Tim. 2. 7. To his Grace I commend you being Your Servant for the salvation of your Soul BEcause my former Letter found so good acceptance with you I am incouraged once again to write to you to let you know how welcome and joyful a thing it is to your Friends to understand that you are become a new man that you have put off your former Conversation and abandoned all vain Company that you keep much at home and take delight in your Wife and Children as you have just cause for they are sweet Children Dutiful and Obedient also that you pray constantly with them and frequent the most lively and powerful and Soul-saving Preaching of Gods Word on the Lords dayes Oh how good and how pleasant a thing it is to all that love you that love your Soul to hear these things of you Now I pray you suffer a word of further Exhortation and give me leave to beseech you as
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