and trouble upon my spirits and well it may be so for the sins of this day have been very great My heart hath not answered the expressions of thanks which have been uttered by the mouths of those that spake them to God No no my heart hath not stirred and been drawn out towards my God! The thoughts of his love have not ravished my Soul Alas I scarce felt any holy spark to warm my Soul this day This day which was a day of the greatest mercy of any in all my life the day in which I have had an opportunity to give thanks for all the mercies of my life and thanks it self is a greater mercy than the rest All other mercies are to prepare for this This is the work of a glorified Saint even a Saint in heaven before the blessed face of God It 's his everlasting business to Sing the Songs of Thanksgiving and Praise to the Most High But my thoughts have not been filled with the sweet foretasts of this blessed work which I might have had this day O God I beseech thee forgive my sin and lay not my deadness to my charge but overlook all my transgressions and look on me in Jesus Christ my Saviour I am thine Lord and not mine own This day I have under my Hand and Seal in the presence of Witnesses nay in thine own presence who art Witness sufficient were there no eye to see me or ear to hear me Thou Lord that knowest all things knowest that I have devoted my All to thee Take it and accept my Sacrifice Help me to pay my vows Wilt thou not accept me because I do it not more sincerely and believingly O Lord I unfeignedly desire to do it aright O wilt thou strengthen my weak desires I believe Lord help my unbelief Thou that canst make me what I am not O make me what thou wouldst have me be In thee there is all fulness and to thee I desire to come by Christ. Wilt thou now cast me off because I do it not unreservedly Lord I confess the Devil tempteth and the flesh saith Spare something what let all go And I find in me a carnal selfish principle ready to close with the temptation But thou canst prevent and conquer all and speak death to these corruptions and bid the Tempter be gone It is thy pleasure here to suffer thy dear children to be tempted but fuffer not temptations to prevail against thy Spirit and Grace If temptation be like a torrent of water to smother quench or hide the flame yet wilt thou never let all the sparks of thy Grace be put out in the soul where once thou hast truly kindled it But Lord suffer not such floods to fall on my soul where the spark is so small already that it is even scarce discernible O quicken it and blow it up to a holy flame Most gracious God! O do it here who hast done it for many a soul O what have I said that I have a spark of grace why the least spark is worth ten thousand times more thanks than I can ever express and I have been dead and unthankful as is before confessed And is that a sign of grace Unthankful dead and dull I have been and still am but yet it must needs be from Gods gift in me that I have any desires after him and that this day I have desired to devote my self to him and that I can say I would be more holy and more heavenly even as the Lord would have me be Nay I do know the time when I had none of these desires and had no mind to God and the ways of godliness and do I not know that there be many in this condition who have no desires after Christ and holiness Here then is matter of comfort given me from him that doth accept the desires of his poor creatures even the Lord Christ who will not quench the smoaking flax nor break the bruised reed I see then that I have yet matter of rejoycing and must labour to be so humbled for my remaining sins as may tend to my future joy in believing but not so as to be discouraged and frightned from God who is longsuffering and abundant in mercy Rouze up thy self then to God my soul humbly but believingly repent that thou hast been so unthankful and insensible of the benefits this day received up up and lie not down so heavily God hath heard prayers for thee and given thee life and opportunity to serve him He hath given thee all the outward mercies thy heart can desire He hath given thee dear godly able friends such as can help thee in the way to heaven yea he hath set them to beg spiritual mercies for thee who prevailed for temporal for thee and oft for many others why then shouldst thou not watch and pray and wait in hope that he hath heard their prayers this day for thy soul as formerly for thy body They are things commanded of God to be asked and we have his promise that seeking we shall find It may be this night many of Gods dear children will yet pray for my soul I doubt not some will and shall I not be glad of such advantage I heard this day that I must not forbear thanks because the mercies are yet imperfect else we should never give thanks on earth Though therefore my Grace be yet but a spark and weak my body weak my heart sad all these administer matter of thanks and praise as well as of supplication Let me therefore keep close to both they being the life of my life while I live here and having daily need of supply from God let me daily be with him and live as in his presence Let him be the chief in all my thoughts my heart and life And let me remember to be earnest for my poor Relations and dear Friends and the Church and people of God in general And let me strive to keep such a moderate sense of sorrow on my soul as occasion requireth I have now cause of sorrow for parting with my dear friends my Father my Pastor He is by providence called away and going a long journey what the Lord will do with him I cannot foresee it may be he is preparing some great mercy for us and for his praise I know not but such a day as this may be kept here on his account The will of the Lord be done for he is wise and good we are his own let him do with us what he pleaseth all shall be for good to them that love God I have cause to be humbled that I have been so unprofitable under mercies and means it may grieve me now he is gone that there is so little that came from him left upon my soul. O let this quicken and stir me up to be more diligent in the use of all remaining helps and means And if ever I should enjoy this mercy again O let me make it appear that this night
your daily study and let me in writing see some fruits of your labours before I go hence and be seen here no more Be not wanting to your own Comforts and you cannot displease God nor your Mother who longs more after your Eternal Good than I can now utter My Love to you all and Prayers for you all I continue Your most tenderly Loving Mother M. H. § 22. In another to Oxford 1657. ALL will work for good to them that love God I hope you are one of those The Lord direct your paths that you may work out your Salvation with fear and trembling in your Youth and not let time slip till Age which will come or Death before it on all flesh and an account must be given of the precious Time which we now neglect I have more to say but when I see you it will be done with more ease The Lord keep you all and make you faithful to the Death that you may receive the Crown of Glory which is the Prayer of her that tendreth the good of your Soul M. H. § 23. In 1659. In another she writes thus MY dear Child My greatest Trouble is that I can have no better account of your health of Body yet surely the cure of the Soul is of far more worth Therefore I faint not Else I could not subsist under the heavy stroke which I have justly deserved Who knows but my sins may be some cause of thy distress of Soul However let us return to the Lord and he will heal all our breaches and will bind up all our Sores and will give us a house not made with hands eternal in the Heavens where we shall never be forc'd asunder and all Infirmities shall be left behind and we shall take up all pleasure in the enjoyment of our Heavenly Redeemer In the mean time let us with courage and confidence press hard toward the mark for the price of that calling which was set before us For the things which are seen are temporal but the the things which are not seen are eternal I can go no further but cannot forget to be Thy truly Loving Mother M. H. This was written to her in her sickness when for better Air she lay at Old Mr. Richard Foly's house at Stourbridge § 24. I have transcribed these to shew the mind and care of the good Gentlewoman and what cause I and my Neighbours had of comassion to her in her Sorrows when she was separated from an only Son whose welfare she had prosecuted with so strong affection and long labour and patience and began to have much comfort in this Daughter whom she had formerly least valued and thought she must so suddenly leave her Let those that think these too little matters to be told the World remember that Neerness Love and Sorrow may be allowed to make things greater to me than they seem to those that are not so concerned in them And that Mr. Fox in his Book of Martyrs publisheth a great number of as mean Letters as any of these even some of women and some written to the Martyrs as well as those written by them And while I say that I will add that though for Nineteen years I was so seldom from her that she had few Letters of mine yet those which she had I find now among her reserved Papers And that you may see what it was that I' thought she most desired and what she her self most valued I will here add one of them not venturing to trouble such with more as are affected little with any matters but their own which is the case of most I recite this rather than others partly also as an act of repentance for those failings of her just expectations by the neglect of such helps as I should have given her which I had here mentioned For though she oft said that before she Married me she expected more sowrness and unsuitableness than she found yet I am sure that she found less zeal and holiness and strictness in all words and looks and duties and less help for her soul than she expected And her temper was to aggravate a fault much more in her nearest and dearest friends than in any others and to be far more troubled at them But this use she made of my too cold and careless converse and of all my impatiency with her impatience and of all my hasty words that she that had long thought she had no grace because she reach 't not higher than almost any reach on Earth and because she had many Passions and Infirmities perceived by me and many other esteemed Teachers that we were all as bad as she and therefore grace doth stand with more faultiness than she had imagined and that all our teaching much excelled the frame of our souls and lives and was much more worthy to be followed and therefore that God would also pardon such failings as her own THough I have received none from you but one by Mr. H. I will not be avenged on you by the like I have nothing of News or business to communicate but to tell you that we are all here yet as well as you left us excepting what your absence causeth And yet I must confess I find that it is easier to be oft speaking to God when I have no body else to speak to than when there are other Competitors Expectants or Interpellators Just as I can easier now fill my Paper to thee with some speech of God when I have nothing else to put into it than I can when many other matters are craving every one a place It is our shame that the Love and Glory of God doth not silence every other Suiter and even in the midst of crowds and business take us up and and press every creature and occasion for their service But while we are weak and compassed with flesh we must not only consider what we should do but what we can do It is our great fault that we are no skilfuller and faithfuller in helping one another that we might miss each other on better reasons than meerly from the inclinations of Love I hope God will make us better hereafter that when we are asunder each of us may say I miss the help for Watchfulness and Heavenliness for true Love and Thankfulness to God which I was wont to have But O! what an enemy is a naughty heart which maketh us unable for our duty alone and makes us need the help of others and yet will not suffer us to use it when we have it When we are alone it maketh us impediments to our selves and when we are in company it maketh us impediments to others Yet is there none no not the weakest of Christians but there is much in them that we might improve But we are so bad and backward at it that Satan too commonly hath his end in making us unprofitable to each other If a good Horse or a good House be a valuable mercy how much more
just advice And that I will speak my reasons and heart-risings against any thing that is propounded to me which I judg unmeet And I resolved when I saw my duty cheerfully to do it and keep a sense of the sweetness and obligations of Gods love and mercy III. I resolved to pray and labour for a true sense of the sins of this Nation in general and in particular of the sins of my Relations and of my own And that till it please God to give me cause of rejoycing on the behalf of my Relations and of my own souls recovery and spiritual welfare I will continue with humiliation to supplicate the Lord. And though I would not shut out a greater duty by a lesser yet I will avoid all manner of Feastings as much as I well can and all noxious sensual delights and when I must be present I will use some mortifying restraint And this I would do in my habit and all other things but that I would lay no snare on my self by renouncing what occasions may oblige me to but by all means I would strive to keep upon my heart a sense of my friends danger and my own IV. I resolve if Providence concur to go to London as soon as I can after the day of Thanksgiving for the reasons mentioned in another place § 9. What these reasons were I find not This following fragment of hers hints something of it I begin already to be sensible of my misusing the helps which God had given me I know now how I should love Ordinances and means of grace and to what end not to break my heart when Providence removeth them from me or me from them but I should love them for God and use them for him and expect my greatest comfort from him and not from men and means themselves This is no more than what I thought I had known long ago but I never knew it indeed till now And now I do but begin to know it When I felt my heart ready to sink under a burden of sorrow God was pleased to ask me what I ailed Was my condition worse than ever Had I less hopes of his love than heretofore if not why do I mourn more than when I lay under that curse What is it that I have chosen for my hope and happiness is that lost and gone Am I left in such a place or case as God cannot be found in if I truly seek him or that God cannot sweeten with his presence if not why do I not contentedly thank God for what I have already had I cannot say it 's better that I had never had it than now to leave it no I must be willing to submit to God and be humbled in the sense of my abuse of mercy so far as it may quicken me to diligence for the time to come And if ever God more trust me with such treasure as once I had I will strive to shew that I better know the worth of it than I did before My thoughts often tell me that if I were but in a condition in which I had opportunity to serve God with more cost to the flesh than I here do it would either shew my hypocrisie or give me more assuring evidence that I am indeed sincere § 10. And it is a useful note that I find added to this by her If my trouble be for my sin 1. My care will be more for the removing of my sin than of the affliction 2. And if God should take away the affliction it would not content me unless sin be taken away and my heart amended 3. If it be sin that I am troubled for it will be my great care not to sin in my trouble 4. And if it be my sin that troubleth me I have the more cause to submit to Gods hand and silently bear the punishment of my iniquity it shameth murmuring when we truly look on sin the cause though it bring the wholsome sorrow of repentance 5. And if I mourn for fear lest God be departing I should seek him and cleave the closer to him and not depart from God and then he will not depart from me § 11. I will conclude this Chapter with a Countrey Poem of her honest Kinsman Mr. Eleazer Careswell of Sheffnall in Shropshire whom I never knew to Poetrize but now that tender love and passion taught him it signifieth these though it want the flowry part Her danger of death so near to her conversion was very grievous to him MARGARET CHARLTON Anagram Arm to later change The prudent soul refin'd from earth doth ever Arm to her later change and fears it never Those glittering Monarchs who seem to command This Ball shall be by deaths impartial hand Put out and doom'd to an eternal state No mortal sinner can decline this fate Death conquers Scepter-swaying Kings but I Shall conquer Death being now arm'd to dye Arm Soul for this one change and wed thy heart To Christ and then no death shall ever part Your joined souls and thou because that He Hath Life of Life shalt still possessed be Death will but this snarl'd knot of Life untie To unite Souls in a more blessed tie When Faith renewing grace repenting tears Hath cleard the soul from filth and she appears Unspotted holy pure invested in Christs milk-white snowie Robes quite freed from sin Wholly deliver'd from this fleshly thrall And Hells black Monarch and adorn'd with all Gods perfect grace Triumphantly these sing Death and Hell conquer'd are by Christ our King Faith Hope and Love such Souls now fortifie And armed thus why should we fear to dye Tho' Death divorce those long acquainted friends And lodg earth in the earth the soul ascends To those high glorious Regions where she With Christ and blessed souls shall ever be Soul troubling sin shall then molest no more Which clog'd which wounded her so long before Poor souls go fetter'd here with flesh and sin Death doth her great deliverance begin Thy soul renew'd by grace shall quickly see How blest a change that day will bring to thee Death shall those weeping eyes dry up and close And pained weary flesh to rest repose The grave will be a safe and quiet bed To that frail body when the soul is fled This aking head shall there be laid to rest Whilst thy glad soul of glory is possest As banisht griefs end in that quiet sleep Thy dust is holy it thy Lord will keep Till the last trumpet sound and he shall raise The just and unjust at the last of days Then the refined body shall again It s late dislodged soul re-entertain And re-united chant well-tuned lays Unto the Lamb whose soul-enamouring rays Shall ravish Saints with blessed perfect joy Freed from whatever would their rest annoy Where they with flaming love and pleasure sing Holy melodious praise to God their King Rise then my soul thy thoughts from earth estrange The first is wrought Arm to thy later change Thus the good
to supply the notorious necessities of the people and as helpers of the allowed Ministry The good woman thought this had been reading the Common-Prayer and in a Letter which I now find accused my Wife with five or six vehement charges for telling her I would not read 〈◊〉 Common-Prayer My Wife was of my mind for the Matter but greatly offended with me for seeming to do it for the avoiding of danger and was so far from not pardoning these false smart accusations that she never once blamed the good woman but loved her tendered her and relieved her in sickness to the death but hardly forgave me and yet drew me from all other places if the Ministers were not of my mind by prudent diversity Much less did her sufferings from the times distemper her She hath blamed me for naming in print my Losses Imprisonment and other sufferings by the Bishops as being over selfish queralousness when I should rather with wonder be thankful for the great mercy we yet enjoyed Though I think I never mentioned them as over-sensible of the sufferings but as a necessary evincing of the nature of the cause and as part of the necessary history or matter of fact in order to decide it She as much disliked the silencing of the Ministers as any but she did not love to hear it much complained of save as the publick loss nor to hear Conformists talkt against as a Party nor the faults of the conscientious sort of them aggravated in a siding factious manner But 1. she was prone to over-love her Relations and those good people poor as much as rich whom she thought most upright The love was good but the degree was too passionate 2. She over-earnestly desired their spiritual welfare If these whom she over-loved had not been as good and done as well as she would have them in innocent behaviour in piety and if rich in liberality it over-troubled her and she could not bear it 3. She was apt when she set her mind and heart upon some good work which she counted great or the welfare of some dear Friend to be too much pleased in her expectations and self-made promises of the success and then almost overturned with trouble when they disappointed her And she too impatiently bore unkindnesses from the friends that were most dear to her or whom she had much obliged Her will was set upon good but her weakness could not bear the crossing or frustration of it § 12. But the great infirmity which tyrannized over her was a diseased fearfulness against which she had little more free will or power than a man in an Ague or Frost against shaking cold Her nature was prone to it and I said before abundance of sad accidents made that and trouble of mind her malady Besides as she said four times in danger of death 2. And the storming of her Mothers house by Soldiers firing part killing plundering and threatning the rest 3. The awakenings of her conversion 4. The sentence of death by sickness presently before her peace was setled 5. The fire next her Lodgings in Sweetings-Alley 6. The burning of a Merchant his Wife and Family in Lothbury overagainst her Brother Vpton's door 7. The common terror and confusion at Dunstans Church in Fleet-street when they thought the Church was falling on their heads while I was preaching and the people cast themselves down from the Galleries 8. Her Mothers death 9. The friendless state she thought she was then left in 10. The great Plague 11. The Burning of London 12. The crack and danger of her Chamber in Aldersgate street 13. The crack and confusion at St. Iameses Market-house 14. The many Fires and talk of firing since 15. The common rumours of Murderings and Massacres 16. The death and dangers of many of her friends and my own illness More than all these concurred to make fear and aptness to be troubled to be her disease so that she much dreamed of fire and murderers and her own dreams workt half as dangerously on her as realities so that she could not bear the clapping of a door or any thing that had suddenness noise or fierceness in it But all this was more the malady of her body than of her soul and I accounted had little moral guilt and I took it for an evidence of the power of grace that so timerous a person 1. had overcome most of her fears of Hell and Gods desertion 2. And was more fearless of persecution imprisonment or losses and poverty thereby than I or any that I remember to have known § 13. And though her spirits were so quick and she so apt to be troubled at mens sin whom she much loved she greatly differed from me in her bearing with them and carriage towards them My temper and judgment much led me to use my dependents servants and friends according to the rules of Church-discipline and if they heard not loving private admonitions once twice and thrice to speak to them more sharply and then before others and to turn them off if yet they would not amend But her way was to oblige them by all the love kindness and bounty that she was able and to bear with them year after year while there was hope and at last not to desert them but still use them so as she though was likest at least to keep them in a state of hope from the badness which displicency might cause I could not have born with a Son I think as she could do where her kindness was at her own choice and yet she more disliked the least fault than I did and was more desirous of their greatest innocency and exactness § 14. Indeed she was so much for calmness deliberation and doing nothing rashly and in haste and my condition and business as well as temper made me do and speak much so suddenly that she principally differed from me and blamed me in this every considerable case and business she would have me take time to think much of before I did it or speak or resolved of any thing I knew the counsel was good for one that could stay but not for one that must ride Post I thought still I had but a little time to live I thought some considerable work still called for haste I have these Forty years been sensible of the sin of losing time I could not spare an hour I thought I could understand the matters in question as well at a few thoughts as in many days and yet she that had less work and more leisure but a far quicker apprehension than mine was all for staying to consider and against haste and eaâ—gerness in almost every thing and notwithstanding her over quick and feeling temper was all for mildness calmness gentleness pleasingness and serenity § 15. She had an earnest desire of the conversion and salvation of her servants and was greatly troubled that so many of them though tollerable in their work went away ignorant or strange to true
is a good friend But Art and Industry are necessary to the improvement And no wonder when we fetch not the help and comfort which we might have from God from Christ himself from Heaven from Scripture for want of improving skill and industry O how easie is it when our friends are taken from us to say Thus and thus I might and should have used them rather than so to use them while we have them I hope God will help me to make some better use of thee while we are together and at a distance O let not a hearty request to God for each other be any day wanting Dear heart the time of our mutual help is short O let us use it accordingly but the time of our reaping the fruit of this and all holy endeavours and preparatory mercies will be endless Yet a little while and we shall be both with Christ. He is willing of us and I hope we are willing of him and of his Grace though the flesh be weak I am absent but God is still with you your daily Guide and Keeper and I hope you will labour to make him your daily Comfort And now you have none to divert and hinder you to say When I awake I am still with thee And when you are up I have set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand I shall not be moved And when Thoughts crowd in In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy Comforts delight my Soul And when Thoughts would trouble and perplex you My Meditation of him shall be sweet and I will delight in the Lord. And when your Wants and Duty call you to him It is good for me to draw nigh to God All other comforts will be as the things are which we take comfort in that is Helpful if the things be helpful and used but as Helps Hurtful if the things be hurtful or hurtfully used Vain if the things be vain Short if the things be transitory and durable if the things are durable to us And this is the chief comfort which you and I must have in one another that is as helpful towards God and as our converse with him will be durable The Lord forgive my great unprofitableness and the sin that brought me under any disabilities to answer your earnest and honest desires of greater helps than I afford you and help me yet to amend it towards you But though my Soul be faulty and dull and my strength of Nature fail be sure that he will be a thousand fold better to thee even here than such crooked feeble useless things as is From Hampden Thy R. B. CHAP. IX Of her Bodily Infirmities and her Death § 1. HER diseased frightfulness and many former sicknesses I have mentioned before A great pain of the Head held her from her youth two or three days every Fortnight or little more and upon every thing that did irritate the matter she had a constant straitness in the Lungs a great incapacity of much exercise motion or any heating thing Ever since her sickness 1659. she hath lived in an ill-conceited fear of distraction which greatly hurt her It was because she had an Aunt long so deceased and her Parents were naturally passionate and her spirits over-quick and her blood thin and Mobile and though wisdom hid it from others in her converse she felt the trouble of her own mind in things as aforesaid that much displeased her and so lived in a constant fear which tended to have brought on her what she feared But her understanding was so far from failing that it was higher and clearer than other peoples but like the treble strings of a Lute strained up to the highest sweet but in continual danger § 2. About three years ago by the mis-perswasion of a friend drinking against the Collick a spoonful of powdered Ginger every morning near a quarter of a year together and then falling into some over-whelming thoughts besides it overthrew her Head for a few days but God in great mercy soon restored her § 3. Ever since that time her Head-ach abated and she complained of a pain in one of her Breasts and her uncurable timerousness setled her in a conceit that she should have a Cancer which I saw no great cause to fear but she could neither endure to hear that it was none or that it was but in fearing uncertainty prepared constantly for a sad death And several Friends Neighbours and Relations lately dying of Cancers increased her fear but she seemed to be prepared cheerfully to undergo it § 4. The many and weekly rumors of Plots Firings Massacres c. much increased this fear as is aforesaid and the death of very many Neighbours young strong and excellent Christians of greatest use and many near friends did greatly add to her sadness and expectations of death But little of this was seen to any she purposely carried it pleasantly and as merrily to others when she was troubled § 5. The fears of a Cancer made her take the Waters for Physick often and she kept down her body so in her diet that about five Ounces of Milk or Milk and Water with a little Chocolate in it morning and night and about one or two bits at Dinner was her diet for many years § 6. At last about ten weeks before her sickness almost all her pain went out of her Breast and all fixed in a constant pain upon the right Kidney and with the pain her Urine stopt that about four parts of five ceased for about ten weeks She divers days drunk Barnet-Waters but I think they were the last occasion of her sickness and too much tincture of Amber which work't too powerfully on her Brain and suddenly cast her into strong disturbance and deliration in which though the Physicians with great kindness and care did omit nothing in their power she died the 12th day She fell sick on Friday Iune 3. 1681. and died Iune 14. § 7. Though her understanding never perfectly returned she had a very strong remembrance of the affecting passages of her life from her childhood Mrs. Corbet whom she dearly loved and had newly got into the house to be her companion with others standing by she cried out to me My mother is in Heaven and Mr. Corbet is in Heaven and thou and I shall be in Heaven And even in her last weakness was perswaded of her salvation § 8. She oft shewed us that her soul did work towards God crying out complaining of her Head Lord make me know what I have done fâ—r which I undergo all this Lord I submit God chooseth best for me She desired me to pray by her and seemed quietly to join to the end She heard divers Psalms and a Chapter read and repeated part and sung part of a Psalm her self The last words that she spake were My God help me Lord have mercy upon me § 9. God had been so many years training her up under the