blessing of God upon my long use of the labours of those worthy men have I found much encouragement to hold up to this day under various tryals a short account of which may conduce to my end in this particular which is to stir you up to get and give the Lord the glory of such comfortable assistants Time was when I lay under darkness deprived of the light and comfort of Gods Countenance I thought he acted towards me as an enemy one affliction came in upon the back of another that my hands began to flagg My sins I apprehended to be so great that my prayers brought me in but little comfort or none at all I was ready to cry out the decree is past I conceited that his mercy was clear gone for ever In reading Dr. Preston upon the attributes it pleased God to give me some satisfaction by reading there that there is a certain decree concerning the time appointed for every man to dye yet do not we forbear to eat or take physick and though there be a time when God doth reject a soul and cast him off as he did Saul yet this decree being unknown to us there is a door of hope opened for sinners yet to come to God for though the day of death be determined yet who doth neglect the use of means to preserve life and page 93 he saith O thou poor soul wouldest thou repent and pray wouldest thou change thy life if there were any hope why if there be no more grace in thee then this and thou dost pray and repent well as thou canst God cannot but hear thee For he is an immutable God who hath stiled himself a God hearing prayers And from reverend Mr. Bridges who in his lifting up of down casts among many other things saith Did you ever read in all the book of God that ever God did forsake a man finally that was sensible of it and complained thereof simply for its self and thinks the time long and tedious till the Lord comes again 〈◊〉 such a one he concludes in the word of the Lord is not fallen totally or finally So likewise when under those horrible instigations to curse to swear to blaspheme and in the very act of duty or speaking of the blessed God injections to the contrary How hath the Lord gratiously met with me and supported me by the hearing and reading of the labours of Gods faithful Ministers Mr. Bolton in his comforting of afflicted Consciences who tells us these are not ours but Satans sins and will in the day of reckoning be laid upon his score and some comfort have I met with from Mr. Baxter in his thirty two directions and others Under all my troubles God directed me to one or other of his Servants who by speaking or writing gave much ease to my troubled mind Above all others I am bound to thankfulness to God for the Comfort I received from two one is that learned blessed man Dr. Th. Goodwin in his Child of Light walking in darkness The abundance of refreshment that I found from those ten directions of his in that book was such as I am much bound to bless God for him The other is Mr. Burroughs in the book I mentioned before where especially these things were a great stay to me 1. That God tenders himself to all to whom the Gospel comes in a Covenant of Grace and not of works 2. All the good that God doth his Creatures especiall in relation to eternal Life is for his Names sake 3. There is no qualification in the Creature made by God himself as a◠condition for believing 4. That it is the great glory of God and the design that he hath in this world to glorifie himself in the way of his free grace and faithfulness towards the Children of men 5. That it is as delightful to Jesus Christ to have the end of his death fulfilled as it is to us to have our own Salvation 6. God leaves his own people sometimes without sence of his love for many good ends 7. God hath more glory in saving a poor Soul then in casting him off When such a one comes in to God freely confessing his sins judging himself God hath more glory in the salvation of him then in his damnation That Sermon likewise of Mr. Bridges Christ in travel helped me much against my fears of Apostacy and falling away where Use 2. p. 141. he saith if Christ will see the travel of his Soul and be satisfied here we may see the reason why we cannot be satified with that opinion of the Saints Apostacy This also being unsatisfactory to the heart of Christ can a man be satisfied to see one of his members torn from him can a man delight in it or endure it surely then this Doctrine of falling from grace must needs be false if Christ travelleth for the salvation of his people he shall see their perseverance Thus have I acquainted you with part of the great advantage I found in making use of the labours of the Ministers of Christ oh love them lay out for them look upon them as the gift of Christ for the good of you and the Lord enlarge them and multiply such labourers in his harvest To conclude what I have upon experience to say to thee poor sad soul you have seen how touch misery I have felt and how the Lord drew me out of it therefore look upon thy condition as a mourner in Sion Is 61.3 chap. 33.18 to be much better then the most jovial sinner in Sion let those dreadful chastisements of God laid upon you by the hand of Satan either in the way spoken of before or in any other whatsoever never pass with you as sufficient cause of doubting of the love of God Learn to make a difference between matter of humilliation and matter of doubts and desperation 2 Cor. 12.7 1 Joh. 3.23 Satans buffetings may well beget humblings in a Paul But cannot dissolve the Commandment of believing in the name of the Son of God Be thy troubles what they will remember The Mount is the place of vision When you are at the highest top of troubles you are nighest to deliverance Gen. 22.14 In the Mount will the Lord be seen hath been a fruitful place of comfort to me often in my distress Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee because he trusteth in thee Trust ye in the Lord for ever for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength Is 26.3 4. For the vision is yet for an appointed time but at the end it shall speak and not lye though it tarry wait for it because it will surely come it will not tarry Hab. 2.3 There hath no temptation 1. Cor. 10.3 God shall tread Satan under your feet shortly Rom. 16 20. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of God Lam. 3.26 2. 〈◊〉 word or two to you that have been in deep waters at
to the Deliverer To have God deserting a Soul and permitting Satan to Rage and Rule so far that it believeth all his suggestions and is not able to believe the contrary expecting nothing but the lowermost Hell This was my condition and when I have told you so though you might perceive something of my sad and wearysome Life yet cannot the misery be expressed by me nor conceived by you a thousand worlds had I been owner would I have given for a Free Spirit a heart enabled to shake off the meditating and pondering upon Hell torments as the things that methoughts I should for ever dwell with Now I say when all this lay upon my Soul and I expected no deliverance then for the Lord my God to surprize and break in upon me with so glorious and unexpected a mercy who can but set forth the loving kindness of so gratious a God and Saviour I may therefore boldly say to any poor Soul let his distress be never so great yet if he have but so much faith as to believe the Scriptures and that Jesus is the Son of God and died for sinners though he hath no assurance for himself no more hopes then I had not a spark of Grace in his own apprehension Is 50.10 Yet let him trust in the name of the Lord and stay himself upon his God Let him wait for the Lord will come Is 8.17 And such a faith is sufficient for such a Soul in that condition In my distress before my God gave me experience of Light Love and Salvation I engaged by promise that if my God would give me deliverance I would declare to his Saints abroad what he had done for me and that as Satan suggested to me before that I should be a shame to Professors so would I declare his wiles and devices and what a lying unclean and murdering Spirit he is that in what I could his designs of ruine against poor Souls might be frustrated and the Lord having heard my vows setting me at liberty a strong temptation fell upon me to pray that God would assist me in performance of them nor were my prayers single or alone I had the help of such as feared God about me my body at that time was very much disordered Yet he that prepared my heart to pray enclined his Ear to hear enabling with speed and ease to the wonder of some to Write the ensuing discourse I here present to open view with much hope that the same hand that made it easie to me will make it useful to many who may be troubled in Spirit For the comfort of such and the discovery of Sathans subtilty the good of them and hurt of none but Him are the ends I have in publishing this experimental Relation begging that the Lord would exalt his great and glorious Name in magnifying his Mercy to all Eternity by dealing thus with many poor Souls as he hath done with his poor servant Charles Langford The Captive delivered Or a Relation of the great things which the Lord the mighty God of Heaven and Earth did for his poor Servant C. L. in delivering him out of the midst of violent and dreadful temptations April 16. 1669. witnessing to his Soul the greatness of his mercy in the midst of his sins and magnifying his free-grace in sealing it with the comfortable perswasion of his being one of Abrams believing seed and this when under great unworthiness and unbelief all which he now desires in thankfulness and according to his vows in the day of his distress to declare to the people of God and to as many as shall read it CHAP. I. Of the Original cause of all troubles what share the Authour had therein Why seeing all men are by nature the children of wrath do not all thus feel the weight of it the particular occasion of his first awakening Satans design in it Gods over-ruling and turning it to good VVHen I consider the sad estate wherein all the sinful Sons of Adam lye how through the most righteous judgement of God for our wilful transgression of his holy Law which he gave for a rule and tryal of our obedience miserably they are deprived of a most blessed estate Gods Image and blessed presence once had and enjoyed and how dangerously depraved and swollen up into an enmity against God their Maker their nature is I am so far from wondring at the horror that sometimes here and there one is surprized withall that I must confess 't is a far greater wonder to me that any are found to live at ease Dread and horror are the best fruit that can be had for eating of the forbidden tree If meer justice ruled the world the thickets would be every mans habitation Magor Missabib might be the fittest name for Adams race Jer. 20.3 fear round about now degenerated into a brood of vipers 'T is a wonder sin hath not found out and frightned the sinner upon earth that caught him in and cast him out of Paradice If it spared him not there how should it pass him by here if it turned him out of his walk his most delightful walk with the God of bliss there why hath it not tumbled him down into a bed of fire â—ere sure I am sorrow and distress of conscience is as much an attendant upon sin and guilt as the shadow is of the body as hear is of the fire as dark shadows were of the night by this the children of the day are transformed into those of the night and the heirs of God into haters of God and children of wrath and such are all men without exception in a natural condition These considerations make it less to be wondred at I say that any man should groan under the burthen of sin which lyes so heavy upon all it being a far greater wonder as I said before that the just holy and righteous God should so long suspend the execution of the antient sentence past upon Adam and his posterity or that any of the inhabitants of the earth should not sear their dropping into Hell and dread their danger I for my part must to the honour of my strong Redeemer take to my self the guilt of that first transgression and acknowledge that from the loins of the first Adam hath a venemous empoisoned nature been conveyed unto me Let no man say or think that any part of my past misery sprung from any other fountain then this evil nature I know that amidst the numberless number of Satans artifices this is one of his main engines whereby he would keep poor captive souls from the ways of life and peace He labours to bring up an evil report of such ways representing religion as the great incending as well in the Consciences as in the Kingdoms of Men and with as much confidence avers it as wicked Ahab did of the good Prophets that profession of the Gospel attended with it's required strictness is the grand trouble of the world
Christians Mat. 12.33 34 35. The latter end of such is worse for sin and sorrow then their beginning wounds skinned over will become ulcerous at last the sting of the old Serpent like that of the Taâ—antula dispatcheth this kind of sinners into hell laughing 5. Moreover the proper time of discovery is not yet come judgement passing before the last act is ridiculous â—olly Mark but the end of wicked men patiently stay but a very little while and tell me then what you think of all their pleasures Follow them to death or at the furthest to judgement then will the blackness of their countenance and the loudness of their howling cryes confirm the truth of that passage now little thought of Eccles 8.12.13 Though a sinner do evil an hundred times and his days be prolonged yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God which fear before him But it shall not be well with the wicked He that seriously layes to heart the sure and sore miseries that come stealing on upon the sinful sensual merry world Ez. 32. And how even they who have Pharoah like been stout hearted oppressors and reproachers of the distressed remnant of Jacob though they have caused their terror in the land of the living are nevertheless gone down to hell and how heavy their iniquities lyâ— upon their bones I say he that observes these things and layeth them to heart will find there was a reason for Balaam wish Num. 3.10 Lâ—â— me dye the death of the righteous and my laâ—â— end bâ— like to his Heb. 11.24 And that Moses was 〈◊〉 child when he refused to be called the Son 〈◊〉 Pharoahs Daughter chusing rather to fussâ—â— affliction with the people of God then to 〈◊〉 joy the pleasures oâ— sin for a season esteeâ—ing the reproach of Christ greater riches thâ— the treasures of Egypt to rush upon the poâ—â— of sufferings when a man may chuse to account pleasures to be no more then pressures reproaches to be renown and treasures to be but trash Oh! what folly doth the world judge this to be and yet such a fool was Moses and so must he be that would be wise 't is the highest wisdom to shun those short pleasures that breed long and eternal pains an eternal weight of glory will make afflictions that are but for a moment seem but â—ight and little when heaviest and greatest 't is this the end the duration of good and evil that wisdom considereth before it bestows it's names on any thing And oh that men were wise in this to employ their thoughts more upon the end of their way and the wages of their work then upon the way and work it self then would not the present delights of sin make the life of a sinner to appear delightfuâ— because such pleasures are but for a season the pleasures are but false and fading but the torments are true and eternal ones We are told concerning Witches that the Devil appeareth not to them in any terrible shape at the beginning of their contract but in the shape of a man and with many fair promises of wealth long life and power to revenge their wrongs with many pleasures besides That the hook being bid it may go down the better 2 Cor. 4.4 were but the seals of ignorance by which the God of this world blinds the eyes of them that believe not taken off the life of sinners would quickly prove a weary life and the Ministers of Christ who now are wearied with silence would find work enough to answer the question Acts 11.16.30 Sirs what shall we do to be saved There is but a thin seal over thine eye and that will not alway there abide Death or the day of judgement will ferch it off And when that drops all thy comforts drops away from thee sin will find thee out then be sure no place shall priviledge thee from its arrest Is 32.2 To be found in Christ will be the best hiding place and covert from the Wind and Tempest Sions heights and shews of holyness will stand in little stead when Is 33.14 The sinners in Zion are afraid fearfullness hath surprized the hypocrite who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire who amongst us shall dwell with everlasting burnings sincerity reall Christianity will be the best Religion then when shews and shadows shall flee away Then they that fear God walk in darkness that are wounded in spirit laden with the spirit of heavyness whose faith of adoption lyeth open to manyfold temptations troden underfoot of Men and not spâ—red by the rod of God these these I say then will have a merry day a day of redemption from sears and deliverance from every particular of their complaint Mark well Mat. 4.2 But unto you that fear my name shall the Son of righâ—eousness arise with healing in his wings and ye shall go forth and grow up as Calves of the stall Ch. 3 17. And they shall be mine saith the Lord of hosts in that day when I make up my Jewels and I will spare them as a Man spareth his own Son that serveth him Let all the world then know that if the unchecked pleasures of time be attended with eternall displeasures there is but small reason why any man should become sins advocate because of that pleasure that attends it concerning which that may as truly be said which St. Iames asserts concerning the life of all Men. What is it but a vapour which soon appeareth and presently disapeareth leaving its possessor â—n an interminable irrecoverable gulf of dismall horror and confounding distraction This is the fifth branch of my answer to â—hose that think the troubles of mind which â—arnall professors are freed from is an argument strong enough to perswade men from intermedling in the stricter and purer wayes of holyness Eternity is before us Mal. 3.18 Then shall ye return and discern between the righteous and the wicked between him that feareth God and hâ—m that feareth him not 6. Let me also add this that as all Gods people are not so happy as to enjoy the heighth of assurance of the love of God without fits of intermission so neither are they also miserable as to be cast into the depths of terrors the belly of Hell without hope of comming thence Or this is that I would say depths of terrors among professors is altogether as rare as heights of assurance 'T is but a few that fall into such temptation as may render them the wonder of others The rod of correction is as needfull among Children in a family as bread its self and of this all that belong to God are one way or other partakers but to be whipt with Scorpions to be chastned in wrath or rebuked in hot displeasure is a thing rarely to be seen among the thousands of Israel 7. Those whom God thus puts upon the wrack of unusuall â—errors have none to thank but an evill nature in themselves and that evilâ— One that is
the mark the trace of which cannot be found even so we as soon as we were born began to draw toward our end and had no sign of vertue to shew but were consumed in our own wickedness By this time the stout hearts of sinners will be brought down those whom the evidence of truth shining in the testimonies of the Prophets and Apostles could not convince or convert from their evil words and ways sad experience will work upon if they cannot remove their pains fain would they diminish or prevent the increase of them I pray thee Father Abraham that thou wouldest send to my Fathers house for I have five brethren lest they also come into this place of torment Luk. 16.27 28. For shame let not Hell have more charity then earth thy old companions in the burning Lake would not by any means be troubled with the company of thee whom they engaged and encouraged in evil ways they have fins and sorrows enough of their own without the addition of others to weight them down into everlasting confusion here it may be some comfort but an envious one to have many companion in the like misery but there in Hell 't is nothing so Think then shall those that have been in the subburbs of Hell by spiritual desertions or those who are really gone down thither never to return wish me to look to it that I never come into that place of torment and shall not I whom it most of all concerns befriend my own pretious soul with a serious seasonable consideration of it's eternal danger God forbid 9. If thou wilt but now at last be willing it is more then possible thou maist be hid from or in the day of the Lords wrath Resolve with thy self fully that thou wilt now enter the ways that God by the Gospel of his Son hath chalked out for the ways of peace and walk therein endure the troubles of an holy Life shun not the spiritual worship of God think not the griefs arising from true repentance or the troubles God by wisdom and love shall permit Satan to inflict upon thee to humble thee for thy past sins or patient passing through many tribulations to be sufficient causes to quarrel with God or his ways or worship or people think not oh think not God the merciful God the God who is Love that he is an hard Master venture thy talent abroad act what thou hast for the glory of the giver thou shalt not complain of thy returns of mercies They shall be sure if not swift mercies that holiness will entitle thee unto Is 15.3 Thou maist be sure where grace leads the Van glory and peace shall bring up the Reer Is 52.12 Complain not that thou wantest power to turn thy self from sin to holiness from self to Jesus Christ from nature to grace till thou hast faithfully employed the power thou already hast if God hath made thee willing he will not fail to make thee able what is hard to the flesh shall be easie and delightful to the spirit John 14.6 the way thou walkest in gives Life Heb. 10 20. a Life of duty and a Life of glory 't is a living way But dally not overlong say not within thy self shall I do it must I leave my old sins when shall I begin make no longer If 's and And 's but be up and doing Behold now is the accepted time now is the day of salvation 2 Cor 6.2 Let it alone till a little longer and then a thousand world will not afford an hiding place from the wrath to come 10. Iâ— God hath spared thee many years not letting out his terrors upon thy soul for sin thou hast no cause to flatter thy self but to tear the more the longer terrors are in coming the more terrible when they come and come they will one time or other As comforts long with-held from the child of God come in greater abundance at the last so do terrors to the wicked Lam. 3.27 In this sence it is good to bear the yo akâ—â—n ones youth Gods forbearance is no forgiveness and greater must that fire be whose fuel hath been long in gathering Rom. 2.5 Thou heapest up wrath against the day of wrath long impenitency and hardness of heart will make thy pile of such a bulk that when the breath of the Lord shall kindle it who can quench it two vials are always filling together the one is here below the other above the vial of sin and the vial of wrath or else the vessel of grace and the vessel of glory look to it then as these vessels fill apace on earth so do those in Heaven unhappy is that Soul whom God doth not take off from his work of filling up the measure of sins by pouring out the vials of his wrath while it is yet little You flee from the pains of repentance to a merry Life you do what you can to gag the mouth of conscience to prevent your own disturbance made by its loud cryes lay aside the Scriptures as bankrupts do their books least too much searching should beget sadness reproach the Godly man because he is your reproof do by the powerful painful Ministers of Christ as the storied town of sluggards did by their Smiths drive them away that you may sleep the longer or in plain terms love darkness rather then light least you should be reproved by the light but silly worm what art thou doing all this while thou flâ—est from the Adder and the Serpent will bite thee thou flâ—est from thy friend to an enemy from the Lancings of a Chyrurgeon to the deadly wounds of an adversary from Gods way of healing thee by gentlet means from pricking of thy heart till a dart strike through thy Liver in a word all thy care is to shift off present needful temporal gentle correction and fatherly chastisement but this is not thy way thou blessest thy self with thoughts that thy conscience shall never trouble thee but it will not be the longer God forbears to handle thee thou shouldst fear the more I have done what I could to employ the talent of my experience for thy profit I know a wounded conscience to be such a Guest that no man can fall in Love with it but rather then abide under an ignorant flattering seared conscience let my portion be a wounded one the next remove of this may be yea shall be in every child of God from horror to healing peace and rest whereas the other labouring to avoid wounds here will fall into woe and a worse condition for ever Do as you like since it will be no otherwise I for my part shall pray heartily with that good man Lord here lance me here burn me here tear me so thou spare me for ever THE END HAving spoken something of Satans stratagems in my preceeding treatise I intended to have spoken no more of that subject But since the writing thereof that wicked one Satan hath made his attempts upon me