the creatures shall do unto him he ought not to intangle himself with them because they are all of God whose he is When one runneth so long that for want of breath he lies down then he dispiseth whatever is his own and so at length room is made for faith To stand therefore in faith is a most miserable thing for then is man's estate quite consumed so that he lives upon the savour of another from whom he expecteth that which he wanteth Paul saith If ye live according to the flesh ye shall dye They who are in death if they would draw life from else where yet have they no time for to be accused because judgment is forthwith ready at hand and the sword slayeth them But others who are yet accused are not yet in death A Malefactor who hath already suffered punishment and is dead is no longer accused for justice hath pass'd upon him and now because of that he is justified from whence was his accusation God freeth a man but not so as to take him from the cross but to leave him there God reconcileth a man's enemies to him so as that he patiently endured them as sent unto him from the hand of God Before acquiescence a man is unbridled but in acquiescence he beholdeth the will of God and there finds rest Nothing is so strong and powerful in a man that God is not above it and which he cannot overcome and drive out and so set the man at liberty For nothing is prevalent against the Lord before whom all things must fall and be as nothing that the victory may be to God and all things be confounded before him Before justification by death sin hath the dominion in man but not after justification because then it is crucified in him CHAP. XI WHere the new creature is God assumeth the Spirit of man who then becometh a stranger to himself nor stands no longer in his own place inasmuch as God taketh it up who is over him and keepeth him This man is saved out of grace and he stands with fear and trembling before God on his part wanting all prop as having God only for his upholder and then he is held up as it were by a hair only trembling with uncertainty as on his part nor hath he any thing in which he can glory besides his infirmity which he always beholdeth all things else are loosned from him and stand on God's part and do arrive at him only thorough grace and yet he must not look upon them for â—â—e ought behold nothing but his infirmities Far be it from such a one to say he cannot fall for he that says that is either fallen already or very nigh unto falling He who meditates what way things will go with him he understands not the thing it self as that which is pleasant but thinks it to be against him and is frighted with death When a man comes under grace then also he comes under the cross for then the natural man is in a continual death When a man understandeth what he is to lay aside he speaks not of corruption rashly and with joy There is such a thing as a resurrection but it is not so gross a thing as is believed God indeed pardoneth infants if they speak foolish words but he doth not so to others for far be it from them to speak like infants Now such are infants who have not yet been exercised by God A cut finger is cured again but a heart wounded is never cured That which is in the state of abstinence can return into the first state of life but that which is dead riseth not again in that state in which it is dead CHAP. XII THe torments of the Martyrs are the glory of the death and resurrection of Christ for these have demonstrated that a man is to be led in a certain way above Nature thorough the death and resurrection of Christ which way is impossible to Nature We must then die to all humane strength that the virtue of Christ may operate all these thing Whence it is that they are called the lights of mankind because they are led above all the strength understanding and will of men And all these things can the virtue of the life death and resurrection of Christ perform if it be not without a man but really cometh into him Where there is a real death and corruption there also succeedeth a real life and salvation but where that is not really done but notionally only and remains without a man there also life and salvation is not real but notional only and without a man The Martyrs in their torments gave glory unto God Glory is not given to God before that a man arriveth at or cometh unto his death and is estranged from himself and God doth take up his room or place who keepeth governeth leadeth and exerciseth him above all reason which reason here neither sees nor knows any door of escape but is held captive under the obedience of faith because a thick cloud and a dark mist hath covered the eyes thereof that it cannot see the way whereby God is wont to lead a man This is here that passive state when a man dyeth and suffers God But in the active state under the Law when life still is present it was not so for then a man was governed by reason to whom was added Will and Knowledge about the actions and omissions of a man though all things are directed by divine help and in divine claritude which struck reason down so that a man could govern himself conduct and conserve himself day and night yet when all these are taken away he must at length come into death that God may come and take his place and administer all things himself Then a man is drawn another way then what he walked before and it is that which excels his own will knowledge and strength This man is become passive and God operateth in him As the conscience and the mind was captivated and sadened when it was well with the flesh so when the flesh came into death the mind and conscience was exhilerated and set at liberty Many and great gifts of the Holy Spirit do come really into a man which yet are not Regeneration But they go and come Whereas that is Regeneration when where God hath planted his habitation and God is become one with man In God neither the world not pleasure nor joy is suffered Nature must want all these when the mind standeth in God They who stand under grace their outward man is always conserved or kept by a deadly judgment their internal man by vital nourishment thus they are always kept by God Into the mind which standeth in God no motion to joy or grief can penetrate But there comes a great sorrow which descends into the flesh that the mind may remain free What is patience is it or not when a man suffers and complains to no man no no for this is
THE NARROW PATH of Divine TRUTH DESCRIBED From Living Practice and Experience of its three great Steps viz. Purgation Illumination Vnion According to the Testimony of the holy Scriptures as also of Thomas a Kempis the German Divinity Thauler and such like Of the SAYINGS of MATTHEW WEYER Reduced into order in Three Books by J. Spee Unto which Are subjoyned his Practical Epistles done above 120 years since in the Dutch and after the Author's Death Printed in the German Language at Francfort 1579. And in Latin at Amsterdam 1658. and now in English London Printed for Ben. Clark in George-Yard in Lombard street 1683. A. D. To the Reader If Job and the Psalms Reader thou dost know Then the same truth these lines to thee will show God thee enlighten to sind the Cross-way out Which Christ hath trod thy way to Heav'n no doubt THE PREFACE TO THE READER Courteous Reader I Have determined to collect and put together some of the more Notable Sayings of the Holy Scripture which make for the better understanding of this Book that whosoever shall please to consider them or such like he may be able thereby more easily and without scruple to turn over this small Treatise especially if he come to those places by which the most illuminated Matthew Wyer complained of his Inward Pains and anguish which throughout the Book he frequently did lest the Reader thereby be frighted from them or should account such Pangs and Desertions for absurd and fantastical Therefore by means of these he will remember and consider that this way of the Cross although now adaies it be almost utterly unknown and forsaken was e'n to Christ and all his true members alwaies accustomed and trod in For this is that narrow way and that straight gate by which we must enter into life yea by this same way viz. by sorrows sufferings streights and death our Fore-runner Jesus Christ thorough the whole course of his life walked even to his sepulcher and hath made it plain to and for us all whom he would have to be Imitators of himself for it behooved him to suffer and so to enter into his glory Of him Isaiah saith He had no form nor comeliness and we saw him and he was not of an aspect so as that we could be delighted in him a man despised and the least of men a man of sorrows and knowing infirmity c. Observe and consider O thou devout Reader together with all those who truly love Jesus Christ and desire to be Imitators of him how narrow and sharp and how many Pangs and Desertions is this way filled with which yet Christ entred into after his last supper and has left to us for an ensample For then it was that his Soul was sorrowful even to the death then it was that for very agony he sweat drops of blood and prayed to his heavenly Father thrice that if it were possible that cup might pass from him nor yet was he heard nor wâ—â—â— any helper present with him The wine-press was to be trodden and the cup to be drunk down the flood was to be waded thorough and obedience to be yielded unto the Father even to the very death of the cross upon that he was hanged naked between two Thieeves as the incendary trumpeter of the seditious presently after they divided his Garments by lot even before his eyes many also shaking their heads at him so that nothing else incompassed him round but Ignominy and Reproach and one sorrow trod upon the heels of another Then the Waves of afflictons were so many that they entred even into his soul because he was deserted of his Father that out of meer pressures and dereliction he cried out with a loud voice My God My God why hast thou forsaken me All which are found described at large in the Evangelists Prophets and in the Psalms especially in the 22 Psalm where the Prophet complains in the person of Christ My God I called unto thee all the day but thou wouldst not hear I a am worm and no man Also in Psalm 60. Save me O God because the floods have entred into my Soul I am stuck fast in the deep mire and there is no bottom and so on to the end of the Psalm Moreover in Psalm 88. My soul is filled with evil and my life approacheth unto the grave or Hell c. By which and the like sayings expressing the torments of Christ the whole Psalter with the Prophets are perfectly filled But now if thou shalt say Christ indeed as the Scriptures do testifie did suffer all these things and fulfilled them in his example yet is it impossible that any one can imitate him in such streights and desertion it is answered Christ himself hath said He that taketh not up his Cross and cometh after me cannot be my disciple nor is he worthy of me Also Peter hath said Christ hath suffered for us leaving us an example that we might follow his steps Now if this were impossible would not these and the like Sayings read every where up and down the Scriptures be in vain But what doth Paul say I can do all things through Christ that strengthneth me and Christ saith That that which is impossible with men is possible with God For he worketh in us both to wil and to do Yield thy self therefore to God and commit thy cause unto him O man and hope in him that he will perform and fulfill all things in thee for he alwaies even from the very beginning of the World even to this very day hath put an end to the combats of his Peopleâ— and he is faithful and suffereth no man to be tempted beyond what he is able to bear Never yet did such misery touch his Elect but he still together with the Temptation found out a way to escape As it is made manifest in the Example of the Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles who all as also the Author of these Sayings were led through Fire and Water through miseries and streights and through a total desertion yet every one according to his measure so as they became as Gold purified in the fire and were purged from their sins Alas how vastly great was that micsey in which David cried out â—nd complained the sorrows of death have compassed me about and the torments of Hell have made me affraid the snares of death have laid hold upon me Also when Jeremiah for meer anxiety and desertion cursed the day of his nativity as we may read them in their own places And who can express in words that both internal and external misery wherewith Job was afflicted from the Lord. Who will give unto me this saith he that thou mayest cover me in Hell or the Grave My dwelling is in Hell or the grave and I have made my bed in darkness c. Also in another place by reason of his continual desertion he openly cursed the day of his birth as did Jeremiah to many more such
only continence but not real patience But this is patience when a man can imprecate no evil upon another by reason of any adversity but if any one hath injured him he prayeth heartily for him note he hath a kindness for him and loveth him and if one hath taken any thing from him he yieldeth up and giveth all these things to him as unto his own self and is upon it of a chearful and not of a sad mind And this is the fruits of the spirit but continence is the work of the Law and cannot justify a man in the sight of God and is precedent unto righteousness which follows afterwards through faith in which all things are real which were before notional for in old things did abide the shaddow but the real things are of Christ himâ—elf Paul saith The Law could make nothing perfect but was the bringing in of a better hope There was no rest to the Fathers till Christ did come as the Prophet saith concerning Sion Isaiab 62.1 That if one would be made one with the truth it cannot be done whilst non-corruption lasteth and whatsoever is said or understood of it whilst it lasteth is without experience Non-corruption hopeth in vain for it cometh or arriveth not unto God For no man receiveth God without death and destruction Every natural man is in the desire of God or the creature and yet neither is due unto him for if he could come at God as he does to the creatures he would alike abuse him as he abuseth them viz. with appropriation These may be thus observed every imagination which is in man concerning God or the truth before purgation or death nature is ready to appropriate it to her self and to rest contented therein with delight that she may upon that account receive honour and respect and notwithstanding this conversation is still but according to the flesh which is followed by death For this rising up cannot abide this bridegroom must be taken away before the real truth can appear The Apostles possessed Christ before his death imaginarily but after death really Whence Paul writeth That he knew Christ no longer after the flesh but after the spirit and the truth and that he walked according to that spirit and not according to the flesh and that they were now become invisible to evey natural man whence they can be judged by none but are able to judge all that they were now sanctifyed or made holy by the Holy Spirit after that Christ was risen again from the death before whose death and resurrection no man could be holy The Holy Spirit maketh holy as the Lord saith Vnless I go away the Holy Spirit the Advocate will come unto you And no man putteth new wine into old bottles c. To renounce all creatures that nothing may remain but God and to set God only for the end and aim Nature and Flesh do hear it with terrour for they are amazed at this when they hear that all things must be taken away from them So that if the flesh can but retain one only thing though the vilest yet would it put or place its whole life therein and would adhere thereunto But in truth it cannot be so well done for it for all things will renounce it which way soever it tendeth Whence at length it must without any support let it self down into death and plainly dye to all things When a King and a Beggar are starved to death the death of either is the same and alike but yet with a distinction He that is in corruption beholding other good men still standing in non-corruption thinketh thus Alas in what condition are you O how much still can you be satiated and exhilerated with God when I can neither be so nor desire it To be at rest no where but in God it 's requisite before all things that one should become poor The sufferings of Job are not hid from me but that which followed after it cannot make me glad The Lord saith What will it profit a man to gain the whole World and to lose his own Soul and what advantage would it be to a man to know all things and yet he experienceth them not nor are they fulfilled in him and therefore we ought not to take care of that to know or understand much but that we may sensibly apprehend and experience much Knowledge puffeth up but Charity edifieth faith the Apostle Experience supplieth all things in man and is adequate to knowledge And thus also the man is made humble CHAP. XIII WHen death is known it is also feared And by how much the more profoundly death is known by so much the more doth it terrify and is it feared If Death must be true it must be true as to all things When Nature is once dead as to corporal things it ought to remain dead and as to them never to revive again But then life ascends in the Soul and there seeks nourishment But Death follows it thither also and cuts off the thred of that life also that it may there also remain always dead nor can it ever revive again So that at last the life ascendeth above all creatures yea above the Angels also by how many degrees it is to ascend into life by so many deaths it is to dye and always to abide in death If one abstaineth from any thing he may take it up again but according to what any one is dead unto that ought always to remain dead so as that it can never be re-asumed I never possess piety and whatsoever I receive from God by my piety I am plainly robbed thereof and I can boast no where neither before God nor before any man nor before my own self for I live by free-grace alone This state is so miserable that no man knoweth it but he that is touched therewith And though I must live by free-grace yet I know of no grace nor can I comprehend or understand nor know nor find where that grace should be nor whence it should come although I have often felt it Therefore ought this grace to be both given and taken above and beyond the understanding knowledge and comprehension of all men yea above all merit or godliness that is in a man as also above all intellect and illumination but as for the justice of God judgment hell and damnation these I can most exactly know and understand whence they can come for they alwayes do handle me very severely But the will of God is my chiefest Salvation As long as the will of God overshaddows me I can bear all though I should be roasted or boyled annihilated or slain in Body Soul and Spirit But when the will of God hideth it self for some time that I do not feel it over me I fall into such streights as an unexperienced person cannot believe My whole hope is that the Lord will lead us all thorough all though the case be full of sorrows for his arm is all powerful
he yet stands in the creature He that standeth in God he hath no business with the creature but with God and knows him to be faithful and just in judgments To such a man no injury can be done for whatsoever happens unto him he knows it to be decreed by God Jordan is the River of jugdment to it judgment is due over it judgment hangeth thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness said our Lord when he was about to be baptised in Jordan He who understands any thing which he hath not experienced hath no real understanding thereof For he is like to him who speaks of a fair Country in which he never yet was CHAP. IIII. NO man can have humility without affliction Herod the fiery dragon and the mountain lifted up would have killed the little infant under the shew of devotion or worship The greatest danger is hanging over our heads from Pride which dares kill every birth Christs humanity is the highest of figures I desired and I sought but whatever I sought and found it now lies in death and suffers destruction together with all that that was gain to me and that too without all hope of recovery For that which must rise again is not the body which is sown for flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God and therefore must a man be slain according to the Flesh for it 's according to the Flesh that a man dyes and is made alive again according to the spirit If a thing should rise again as it dyes it would rise again in nature and would be natural but it is not so done Paul faith It is sowen a natural body Nature partaketh not of the Kingdom of God hence it is that the death thereof is without all hopes The natural man hopeth to be the heir of the Kingdom and thinks that the promises of God belong unto him and applies all that is written to himself but then afterward the thing comes to be otherwise apprehended when one is lead whither he would not and God is glorified in and by his death There nature is renouned and it must be robbed of all salvation and be denyed That which the natural man applied to himself another taketh They that went out of Aegypt desired to come into the promised Land and did divide it out to themselves but they abode in the wilderness and dyed there and their posterity only entred into Palestine Whatsoever therefore the natural man understands or sayes concerning these things yet all this is against him for it speaks of a sword which is to kill him Now they which are in this exercise and speak any thing thereof they speak it with affliction and not with delight nor can they ask for more then formerly because it belongs not unto them seeing all things tend to corruption and death and into death a man is unwillingly dragged he conveighs not himself thither for if it stood at his dispose he would never choose this state or condition but he is catched and put thereinto by another who is above him and stronger then himself Just as it is now with the death of the body so the matter is also carried in this other death of which it is said viz. When any one thinks he hath found his Soul and that he is confirmed in life yet must he be subjected unto death Now the Lord suffers him first to grow and to increase and grow ripe in youth but when he is accomplished in that youth he plainly careth not for death and though he knows that a time of dying must come yet lie laies it not close to heart till he be grown old then death frights him and stands before his eyes and yet neither then does he know how much misery there is there to be met with for if he knew it he would dye aforehand for mere grief They who depart from earthly things according to the testimony of conscience that they may seek the salvation of their Souls and to arrive at true ripeness of youth rejoyce in this death when they hear of it and understand it because of the fruit that springs from thence But they who are in this death are destitute of that joy for if they could yet have any joy they would still have life and consequently could not be in death because what ever dyes is separated from all life Posterity only lives and rejoyces Nothing is due to corruption but death and destruction and in death all things are removed as faith and trust and hope and charity and all joy and every thing that is founds is to be forsaken Now if it be to be forsaken and lost it must first be found out and taken up for that which one hath not he cannot give up Now that which here is thus to be forsaken is also destitute of hope as was said and therefore this desertion is donâ— not with delight but with great aâ—â—â—ction The first desertion indeed is doâ—â— with joy because then some better thing is hoped for But that hope is not here but in this point there is a total forsaking and a being made naked oh all sides Gain as they say makes labour sweet But mat labour out of which no gain is hoped for is without doubt a matter hard and bitter and sharp Labour at first was sweet because gain sprung therefrom viz. that the life or soul might be found which also was found But when this life is found it is lost again in that same dying and a man is alienated from himself and God possesseth the place of self and there is no more mountain or valley but God alone for Nature is quite shut out CHAP. V. IF sin were not neither would death be if death were not neither would there be a resurrection therefore all things work together for good for the elect Now that which first departed from earthly things is presently after elevated into divine and so remains in it self without death For though it may dye as to its gross earthly nature or creature yet as to its self it is without death as having only changed one state into another and standeth still in its own life and yet is but the natural man in his own propriety though in a more pure estate And thus he proceedeth from state to state from a lower to a higher from a pure one to one more pure And although all that is here said of states are by the means of death and corruption accomplished yet the man himself remains yet in himself without and beyond death and corruption for he is still the same and cannot forsake his propriety and stands in desire as to God as he before stood inâ—desâ—â— as to the creature and thus he ascendâ— and goes forwards until he arriveth at the most pure and nobler state it is possible for him to arrive at And all this 〈◊〉 still but a figure and a notion but a purer and noble figure but if we must come above
figures into meer estence he that thus ascendeth in images must now also dye even to himself because by this his asent and going forwards in images he is prepared so as he can be how touched with this death by which he dyeth and is corrupted and then he suffers a death of all his ornaments and gifts yea of his own self And therefore he can never be restored more nor be made glad by any means because the joy is reserved for him that abides after death as the Prophet faith These shall be written for the generation to come and the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord. And again Thy labour shall be rewarded and thy posterity shall rejoyce therein This is that glorious resurrection and fruit which springeth out of that death and corruption And hence springeth glory to the Lord This is that bottle that can hold new wine which a natural man cannot contain though he should have a state very pure and noble This was the seed whence conception arose Wherefore it is not in vain nor is it in vain that by the good help of God 〈◊〉 hath separated himself and disposed himself unto divine things for then is he compelled to follow order and so he acted rightly and had not done rightly unless he had done so because he would have been disobedient to God who is a God of order and leadeth a man in order whence eternal death that severe judgment of God would follow A man must be led in order even unto his death for unless he should follow order he would certainly remain unprepared nor would ever come thereto And therefore we must first endeavour to yield ready obedience and always to attend to that which is next and also from the very first beginning the cross will not be wanting and by the way thereof we shall go By what a man departeth from earthly things in obedience to his conscience by that is he atlength rightly prepared to come into the earth that is into the corruption of himself and that which grows out of this standeth before God This corrupttion of the natural man ought to last even to the corporal death of a man and after that the tender twig at last springeth forth But the mind here even yet before the corporal death cometh into the resurrection and is made a son of grace and of the covenant which consisteth in the blood of Christ now poured forth for the remission of sins Christ washeth us from sin by his blood which speaketh better things then the blood of Abel without the effusion of the blood of Christ there is accomplished no remission of sins or purification It is a Most excellent thing to be freed and purged from sins but to feel how that redemption is performed and to experience that misery is no pleasant matter but exceeding sharp and difficult Nor is it possible for a man so much as to behold the thing much less to execute and perform it But it is God alone who both beginneth and finisheth it to whom nothing is deficient because his works are all perfect Now here a man does nothing else but give himself up into tranquility and suffer◠the operation of God The work of redemption God hath reserved to himself alone and the glory thereof is his And because God handleth the matter no man needs to say that the thing is impossible because the work and purpose of God goeth forwards Here also do faith and patience take place which also are the work of God and not ours When one serveth the Law of God in the mind then in the flesh he serveth the Law of sin By how much the more of the sins of concupiscence and appetite remaineth in the flesh by so much the more misery affliction and death the man hath for he walketh not according to the flesh as being that which condemned under the Law and being hurried away violently by sin is crucified by the Law of sin Now where these things are not there a man still walketh according to the flesh and by how much the more there is at that time of the sins of concupiscence and of appetites in the flesh so much the more of life and joy a man hath but alas it is a miserable life which is followed by eternal death CHAP. VI. BY what way or means the Resurection and the judgment of God are to be accomplished after this time no man living can comprehend or understand for whosoever would know or understand that he belongeth unto death and becometh subject unto death We have indeed a representation of the thing but what the very thing will be in the future is not lawful for us to know When the thing it self is present then at length it is known All things to come are locked up from the natural man in darkness and ignorance yet he arriveth so far as to know that he knoweth nothing c. By how much the greater is the streight so much the more durable is the judgment by how much the greater is the desertion so much the nearer is any one to God For the most part inward affliction gets entrance by outward affliction and outward affliction is as it were the gate by which the inward entreth into a man For without outward affliction nature searches out many escapes that inward affliction cannot touch her As if one kept in a dungeon should still see light by one only cranny and upon that account the evils of being in a dungeon would become much easier to him So also as Nature can catch its propriety this internal affliction is hindered nor can gain a room or place For there is no place for inward sufferings where Nature hath got escaping holes Great is the misery where nature is thus kept in death that she can hope for nothing but acquiescence can bear all things He who is founded in death destruction and misery and is quiet in them admits not comfort either of life or of joy and is unmoved as to all things which are grateful and acceptable and no man can either comfort him or terrify him For if one should threaten spoiling death misery and affliction to him he already forseeth all these and yieldeth himself up unto them and is conversant in them And therefore he is immoveable both in respect of things grateful or of ungrateful No man can either make him merry or fright him Death and the withdrawing of all things are indeed a terrour to him but not such a one as now at length beginneth but now afflicteth him Nor do grateful things exhilerate him because he hath renounced all things and he can re-asume nothing and therefore he is unmoved Here Nature is as it were ground between two Mill stones because he acknowledges the judgment of God upon him to be just and suffereth such misery that he must thus behold the thing and the thing must then be done But he is not like other malefactors who
advancement And then also that which is evil in us is felt and for its fake we can be affected with sorrow and can confess it in the sight of God Therefore prosperous things are not to be sought nor adversity to be avoided For adversity is always safe and does advance us in the Knowledge of our selves And it behooveth a man to be wary and to be in perpetual exercise and trial Sweetness is deceitful and Nature desireth it Bitterness is a Medicine and Nature hateth it and therefore we must do not that which we will but that which we hate CHAP. XXI TO abstain from inordinate and unprofitable words makes a man as if he were dumb and causeth him to be silent in many cases which else he would talk of A lascivious tongue extinguisheth zeal and renders a man inordinate and weak and unfit to overcome temptations In which way soever I am willing to go forwards according to life the gate is shut against me and then death is my refuge I must therefore shut the eye of life and rest quiet in death If I had before-hand known this affliction in which I now lie I had dyed for meer grief but now when I am in it God keeps me in it and I can bear it I never before had believed that the case would be thus as now I find it Judgment doth so drive me that I can have neither comfort nor hope nor faith either in God or in the creature Thus the Natural Man is suppressed by judgment and thus the rod hangeth over him and which way soever he looks death meets him but the mind is free I have no torture of Soul and such sufferings as Francis Spira endured I am ignorant of them Adam was created pure in spirit Soul and Body but by his fall he departed from God and tumbled down into his ownself he became estranged from God and was made his own propriety and a servant of the creatures And this same growth of self is nothing else but our desire endeavour or study of appropriating to our selves which afterwards is so subjected unto judgment that it can have no comfort or life either in God or in the creature Therefore it behooveth us to be reduced again into nothing in respect of all things about which we are made somewhat and then at length God will be all himself in the man himself and that instead of his own propriety and then a Man is restored without propriety And then a man findeth God with God and serveth God with God and that is pleasing to God For God hath no good pleasure but in his ownself Judgment is exercised upon this his propriety and then that loseth all hope of restitution and nothing is due unto it either as to God or as to the creature Thus it may be understood what the fall of Adam is viz. appropriation Therefore are also he is to expect judgment and that too must be acknowledged to be just CHAP. XXII WIthout affliction it is impossible to be promoted in God and to have inward peace for where one is to be promoted or advanced in God and to have inward peace there it behooveth the natural man to be purged from lusts and to have no more delight life or joy in the creature but to want all these and to be suppressed in death and to be fastened to the cross So the Apostle saith They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and 〈◊〉 thereof It behooveth me to give place to judgment and therefore I am without alâ— solicitude for things temporal whence they may be acquired For I have not 〈◊〉 much time left that my senses can meditate on such a thing It behooveth me to be stripped of the images of all things and therefore I remain without purpose and without councel nor do I know what in time to come I am to do or leave undone to be silent in or to speak but as things are at present so they glide away without my privitie and when all things are past and done I am no more sollicitous concerning them My business is to attend that that is present and incumbent upon me That I thus suffer it is not for my piety but for evil sin and propriety because I descend from Adam over all whom judgment and death is impending without hope of recovery For whatsoever Adam hath he hath it unjustly he is therefore to be dispoiled of all things that he may want all things and retain nothing neither comfort nor pleasure nor joy either as to God or as to the creature for nothing is due unto him nothing belongs unto him he also himself can never attain unto any truth but he is condemned and dyeth in Christ But whatsoever afterwards riseth again in Christ is clean and without appropriation That Christ hath condemned sin it self is not to be understood as if he had sin in himself or he is pure like the sun void of all impurity Whence it is that no unrighteousness can stand before him but as filthiness it is condemned by him just as in the Sun all impurity is detected and demonstrated to be impurity So that the sun cannot endure it but rather desâ—râ—yeth it So Jesus Christ is the Sun of righteousness who by his own proper light virtue and pulchritude condemneth all injustice and unrighteousness and suffers no darkness to stand before him I lie like the trunck of a tree nor have I in me any activity but I suffer only all that that is done in me but I cannot act either by reason or by understanding My state is passive not active the active went before and I also once had it so as also it ought to be or else I had not come unto this Only it is not permitted to me that I may or can act or form in my self the image of any thing We must suffer even in the smallest matters for he that refuseth that cannot be promoted in God by the suggestions of the spirit the suggestions of Nature are to be denyed that satisfaction may be given to the Spirit no man ought to follow Nature that so the will of God may be done and not ours The affliction and misery of Nature is to be sustained for the sake of God and the peace of conscience It is better saith Solomon to be invited unto green herbs with Love then to a fatted calf with hatred Poverty of nature with peace of conscience is better then the delight of Nature with anguish of conscience Necessaries are due unto Nature that by their means a man may be converted unto God but not on the contrary When the conscience is satisfied many sorrows do invade nature But Peter commands that sorrows are to be born for conscience sake viz. Sorrows that are against Nature for conscience sake but not the contrary When it was Summer season to my Nature the heat thereof did stay me but now Winter is followed thereupon yet the Summer is
upon these good qualities because concupiscence is still present and the objects are only changed and become more noble And this is that same state and condition which goes before that same death corruption and the grave and must be brought to pass and no man can arrive thereat unless it be given to him of God for from him flows the helps and assistance and that accompanied with the desertion and renounciation of all things visible and inferior by means of many afflictions This is that state to know Christ according to the flesh in which all things are to be left before we come to the other desertion where Chirst appeareth and is acknowledged or known in spirit nor doth he ever appear as he did in the former or foregoing state To observe order in all things and to be exorbitant in nothing keeps the mind free but when it is otherwise there arise burdens and cares nor is there any liberty allowed for profitable exercises because of the great heap of confusions that hinder the man Whoever therefore would be freed from all pernitious imaginations he ought to beware that when he erred upon one hand being turned therefrom that he err not also on the other for a burden awaiteth upon him on either side wherefore we must pray unto God to direct our external affairs into a middle way for that middle is between both extreams good Now this is said concerning things necessary outwardly but not of things internal unless it be so far as externals have a respect to internals and are serviceable unto them and if they be rightly ordered do promote them for when they are disorderly they became an impediment to internal concerns and do disturb the man making him restless Whereas if these things be performed with a turning unto God in fear and in thanksgiving then is it from God and it is right and the man is well enough but else affliction waiteth on the flesh CHAP. XXV WHatsoever hath received life ought to dye Paul saith If ye live according to the flesh ye shall dye in what thing soever a man placeth his life according to the flesh in that very thing also he taketh his death therefore he ought to beware so as that he place his life in none of those things in which there is no life Just so bitter is the difficulty of dying as was the life formerly sweet It is therefore necessary that a man put always a curb upon himself and that he keeps himself in prison as it were least he any ways strayeth and that he should bound himself within narrow limits and that he be in constant expectation of the Lord. For the Lord cometh not but with streights and pressures for in such it is that the advancement and growth of a man consisteth otherwise he is stunted In the cross alone conversion and faith in Christ is given and there it is that we have or hear our answer All fruit grows out of pressure affliction and misery which is every where presented by things visible Let every one therefore become subject to the cross and let him not flie from it at all God knoweth the conclusion of every thing and prepareth its end how compassionately also doth he deal with us No man ever perished but he that did flee from the cross nor was willing to suffer outwardly and inwardly too Let not a man be perverse proud and lifted up nor let him speak ambitious words but let him be humble simple and lowly and let him possess his mind in holiness and in contrition and let that appear in all his doings in all his apparel manners words and works nor let him ever shew himself proud and puffed up nor having together therewith the contempt of his neighbour CHAP. XXVI TRue Godliness suffers vehement trials and temptations through all degrees or steps whatsoever He therefore that endeavours to be pious in God he must yield himself up to affliction and must not refuse death nor any pains or dolours Blessed is the man that endureth his tryal c. We must either confess or deny Christ in the time of afflicton and necessity and if then we do not deny Christ but stay with and near him and firmly keep our standing that temptation bringeth great increase and profit to us and our vertue is inlarged and strengthened so that we shall be enabled to stand upright also in a greater temptation and to confess Christ therein The Psalmist saith They shall go from virtue to virtue or from strength to strength and the God of Gods shall be seen in Zion God doth grant his gifts to man yet not without trying him either before or after Wherefore it is written Prepare thee for the trial and bear patiently The Lord saith Ye are they who have persevered in my temptation and I c. Again He that overcometh even as I overcame shall be heir of all Man therefore ought to reduce his life to become a meer combate Job saith What is man that thou magnifiest him or why settest thou thy heart upon him When our Lord teacheth his disciples to pray Lead us not into temptation he does not mean that they should not be tried but that they should not be overcome in the temptation or tryal but that they should remain constant Therefore to this purpose belong Watchings Fastings and Prayers as he himself saith Watch and Pray least ye fall into temptation These words he said unto his disciples when he arose from prayer in that most remarkable temtation So they in 2. Chron. 20. also called upon God in the time of battle and he was intreated of them for they trusted in him Shall not therefore our God judge them true indeed there is no such courage and strength in us that we are able to resist a multitude which rusheth in upon us but when we know not what we ought to do we have only this refuge left to direct our eyes unto thee Hearken all ye of Judahâ— and those that inhabit Jerusalem Thus saith the Lord Be not ye afraid nor tremble at this great multitude for the battle is not yours but the Lords do you only stand still and ye shall see the salvation of God on your behalfs Trust ye in the Lord your God and you shall be safe Believe his Prophets and all shall happen well As Jehosaphat gave councel the children of Judah were made strong for they trusted in the Lord the God of their fathers Help us O Lord our God for in thee do we put our trust CHAP. XXVII A Man in affliction ought to abstain from all delights of the creatures nor ought he to seek for a comforter amongst them but place all in the Lord Let him abide without comfort without complaint till the Lord cometh Yea also let him reject all strange waves of escape and such like evasions and let him wait for the Lord for the Lord will approve himself faithful to him and will suffer him to bear
but in a just measure and order and that to his own glory and for the promotion and growth of the man All which would a man hinder if being impatient under the cross he should not wait upon God Great is the fruit of affliction and therefore in it is the Lord to be expected I expected the Lord from the morning watch even until the evening saith the Psalmist and Isaiah saith Blessed are all they that wait upon the Lord for they that wait upon him shall never be confounded the Psalmist saith In waiting I waited upon the Lord and he regarded me Now if there were neither faithfulness nor good will in the Lord of visiting and helping his the Scripture would never have represented these things to us in asmuch as it speaketh nothing but what is true The Lord grant us Faith Paul saith I believe all the things which are written in the Law and the Prophets The eye of our opinion Love and favour is to be turned upon God and in all things we ought to set him for our mark and end and not things created if we would conâ—inue pure and unburthened The natural state by the fall of Adam is this that we should turn our eyes upon those things from whence springs up to us nothing but blindness and ignorance which things also are again changed in a true change which tends to their original but that then happeneth with grief and with anguish Now he that casts himself into that original he arrives at the port of grace and that is revealed to him which he before knew not for the imitation of Christ openeth and revealeth but the imitation of the flesh hideth and shutteth In all things we are perverse until we come unto judgment and death Unless the Lord should exhibit himself unto us and should sustain us by his power we should all utterly perish whence we ought deservedly to beware of all rashness There is no need that a man should be more sollicitous about the getting of knowledge then he should be of attaining of death for in death things do open and give out themselves and true knowledge is unfolded whereas if life should remain that could not be effected though a man should strive with never so much study and labour Yea though he might get knowledge according to the letter yet for all that all things are still shut up and hidden from him before he can yield himself up into death and admit in himself the dying of the guilty body such studyings and endeavours after knowledge are rather an hinderance because thereby a man neglecteth his own self and becomes forgetful of his own concerns Of this also saith our Lord What shall it profit a man to gain the whole World and to lose his own Soul That any one in this world should not be solicitous nor feed carking care many things are requisit for there are some who take no care at all because they labour not by reason of want or penury And many are such by nature Yet this is not that which our Lord saith For the words of our Lord always point at some other thing then what we derive from Adam yea they are spoken quite contrary to that which we are in Adam Therefore our Lord is very odious to the flesh yea the very death and destruction thereof is Christ who proceeds quite contrary to our Nature CHAP. XXVIII NEcessary affairs are done and performed by the chosen of God without the cleaving or sticking of their hearts unto them And if it be not thus but that the heart is rather burdened with them and is involved in imaginations this is not thorough any fault in the things but because of that defect that still abideth in man And thus a man goes away blinded not knowing himself until he falleth into temptation or tryal But when he comes to a feeling knowledge of himself then he may be advanced which could never be done afore because he had to do with sin secretly That which a man sometimes thought was hurtful to him and his hinderance that afterwards serves to advance and put him forwards Therefore should a man remain without any choice of his own but wait what God will do with him and thus yield himself up as being bowed under the divine will Here is the communion of Saints and that in the highest degree Let therefore the lowest degree blush that even it also doth not earnestly long after this communion for if the Sun gives himself forth in common certainly then the Moon ought to do the like who else ought to be ashamed if she should claim to her self too great a propriety and arrogate all to be hers He who is swallowed up by created things feeles from them either a pleasure or a pain even to joy or grief so as he can have no peace But he who is free from them is free also from both those evils so that neither what is pleasant neither what is ungrateful neither gladness nor sorrow reacheth him And because joy hath no place in him neither also doth sorrow touch him if things do happen other ways then joy and desire do expect and ask To stand between comfort and discomfort between joy and grief and to remain untouched and unmoved by either is a great liberty and the gift of God for no man hath that of or from himself Yea let no man unduely think that he hath gotten that for many things are required before we can arrive at this state or condition and when we are come thither yet is not glory thereof belonging to man but to God alone And thus man is to abide in humility without judging or contemning of others CHAP. XXIX SIn is hated in a double sense and that by divers sorts of persons For some do hate sin because of affliction they thereby being afflicted and terrified in their consciences as also because of the loss they sustain by it as the loss of their souls of heaven and of eternal salvation and if these two were not viz. the torment of conscience and the loss of heaven they could love sin and be friends with it yea become to be united and to be in league therewith And it is thus proved because that same hatred of sin proceeds not from the nature of the mind nor from regeneration in as much as there is in this state still left the old life to which belongeth judgment and condemnation and is that that must dye the death Whereas others viz. such as are transplanted into God do hate sin out of the Nature of their mindes and out of regeneration For the new life which is in them will not bear sin nor suffer it to be and that not because of that torment of conscience or loss of salvation but out of its own nature by reason of its tenderness and its holy temper For this nature can endure nothing that is strange for it is the Newman Christ Jesus who is God himself Hence
God will more adundantly break forth hereafter But I must possess my end and departure hence and that is now at hand yet nevertheless I stand in the communion of those forespoken of God is a perfect and a pure God with whom that one may be united many things are requisite And therefore we must not cry out too plainly although we hear and see many great matters in a certain Man for all as yet may have an ill conclusion This I say for this end that we should always abide in fear CHAP. XXXVI Containing the last Exhortation of Matthew Wyer and his Departure out of this life ANd now I shall bid you farewel for perhaps it is determined that I may speak no more I will recommend my self to the Lord. See that ye labour and walk in all conscience before God Love your brothers and sisters as your own selves and take care of them otherwise judgment will come upon you This you must do that when you shall lye as I now lye ye may lye with a quiet heart Behave your selves in all things uprightly and seek after the salvation of your Souls for salvation is of greater price then mony or all goods Mony with its goods perish together but salvation brings peace to the heart of Man Let me depart from you in freedom from my death as I hope a living motion will spring up in you I recommend you to the Lord who can freely bestow on you wisdom and understanding and all other necessaries in a hundred fold The Lord will presently give me rest I expect and wait for eternal rest I am to suffer so long as the Lord will have me If I had known this affliction before now I should have dyed for meer grief O inward desertion O desolation Wisdom 1. which now stands ready at hand I desire to be the most vile of all and only long for the crums which fall from the childrens table If I could have avoided this affliction yet I would not for my conscience hath bound me to abide by it Misery in affliction is great a man would willingly be lead with certainty but yet is he lead with uncertianty and it is as if one should journey by night and yet not know the way when besides the waters are out he may chance to fall and yet he must go forwards Yet is he secretly lead by God and when the morning arises he shall see that the business hath succeeded well enough In affliction nothing is known how that a man is sustained and taken care of but at last it is acknowledged and then it is known that God was always present even in his desertion The highest affliction doth manifest that selfishness or propriety which yet was before undiscerned and God prepareth a man for this highest of afflictions All things are snatched from me even before my face yet I know what I am to do I will beg of God a favourable death for my self O Lord behold thy miserable creature O Lord imbrace me for all things are from thee O Lord imbrace all my powers and strength and grant strength unto me in this my deepest misery Here I ly before thee like a most wretched worm All the affliction which I have hitherto suffered is nothing to this misery Having finished these words and commending his spirit into the hands of God he fell asleep in the Lord by a pleasan◠and easy departure on the 25th April in the year 1560 about the 4th hour in the morning at Wesel in the year 〈◊〉 his age 39. Here end the Sayings THE EPISTLES OF M. Wyer Which he sent to his Familiar FRIENDS WRITTEN By the Author in the Low-Dutch and published after his Death Being afterwards turned into Latin and out of the Latin now at last into the English Tongue LONDON Printed for Benj. Clark in George-Yard in Lombard-street 1683. TO THE READER A brief Narrative concerning the Original of this small Treatise READER WHo art a Christian in good earnest before I shall begin to relate any thing of this little tract or of it's original or subject I am willing faithfully to exhort thee as also most earnestly to beseech thee that thou diligently callst upon God for illumination and for the opening of the Eyes of thy understanding whereby thou mayest be enabled according to his good pleasure rightly to understand that which is here proposed which being by the grace of God performed thou shalt in very deed experience that this book will be very useful and profitable unto thee seeing it is every where filled with the most excellent and choice expressions which are able to lead thee unto the true judgment of many points Nor does it only bring most notable advantage to thee only but also to all the Elect who duly and according to true knowledg have a zeal for God but to such as are perverse and behold all things with perverse and blind Eyes these things will without doubt seem to be full of dulness and foolishness O that our eyes were single then certainly we should easily perceive that these Epistles and sayings have not flowed from humane wisdome nor through the dead letter as to the more divine senses nor from the outward bark only but from the instinct of the holy Spirit and that he who wrote and spoke these to have been indeed a man divinely illuminated and a very intimate friend of God and that he learnt and drew these truths out from the book of his cross and by the means of his inward Sorrows in the School of Christ But let us make our approach nearer to the thing intended and that we may preface a few things concerning the original of this small treatise let the hearty Reader know that the aforesaid-friend of God wrote these Epistles to his familiars and friends seperated from his dwelling in divers places to every one according to his condition to stir up their zeale by no other means then the study of simplicity with no intention to have them afterwards printed and published insomuch as that after his death they being by some honest hearted searchers collected together were thus put together into one Volume But those sayings of his he himself wrote not but only uttered them orally And this was his faithful counsel that every one ought to seek the thing there where he himself had sought and found it and in which place only it can be found and gotten viz. In God the ever springing fountain of all wisdome and goodness and from whom flow these living streams neither may any one who is not willing to be deceived draw them from strange muddy Cisterns or Lakes Now by what means those his sayings were he not knowing it taken from his mouth and comprehended in one volume we shall briefly declare This most religious Matthew amongst those of his family bred up an honest young man whose name was John Spee filled with an earnest fervor and Zeale for the divine glory This person
by fear and anxiety by terrours and by death for they cannot like the common sort of men spend their lives in meer pleasures but he does always detain his under a rigid discipline and many frights and makes them drink down the bitter potion of tribulations that all their internal faculties as well of spirit as of Soul may be brought under the Cross nor can they ever arrive at true peace until every one of them learns nakedly to yield up himself into the will of God and contentedly to take of the potion mixed by God and given him to drink out of meer grace and Love Now that this cup is bitter is no fault of God's but our own and that because we are contrary and enemies to what is good and cannot bear to be purged just like the vulgar people whose troubles are increased by a mixt Physick-wine For by nature a man flieth from all things which are hard and produce pains and yet there is no other way to be recovered nor to come at health then by those means by which we are always more and more adapted to Christ our head by a similitude of his sufferings death and burial that afterwards by a like resurrection also we may be taken into him and be possessed of a never-fading crown of glory For how much we suffer together with Christ so much also shall we reign with â—im not indeed in this time of temporaâ—y abode but in the truth and permaâ—ency of spirit and life in which we â—hall arise and be excited to such a likeâ—ess of Christ as consisteth not with deâ—raved Nature but is lifted up above Nature and is conformed into a spirituâ—â— eternal and immortal life Thus thereâ—â—re all and every one of them in their â—wn order may expect it will be acâ—â—rding to the measure of the divine gifts â—â—at the enemy may for the time to â—â—me have no more right nor power â—er our Souls by reason of sin under â—hich hitherto we have been bound â—â—d captivated hoping for salvation â—â—d redemption in Christ from all our internal enemys who force our Souls into slavery so that in tract of time we may in all holiness and righteousness serve the Lord as present with us all the days of our life He therefore that hath appeared on earth to preach the Gospel to the poor and to the desolate will comfort and cure our sorrowful hearts and graciously set the captives free he I say will in his own time appear gracious to thy humane weakness and will bless thy internal poverty and affliction with a greâ—â— plenty of the fruits of holiness Now thesâ— few things I was willing according to thâ— simplicity of my heart and my meaâ— gifts in the Lord to write unto thee from an earnest desire to serve thee that 〈◊〉 perhaps some means might be discoveâ—ed to thy heart thorough the diviâ—â— mercy leading to a greater proficiencâ— in the knowledge of God and thâ— thy Soul might be sealed up in eternâ—â— peace and reconciliation thorough thâ— grace of God and by his Spirit Aâ—â— 31. 1559. EPIST. V. For what end the Scripture was given and how we ought most exactly to satisfie conscience also concerning the difference between humane righteousness and that which availeth before God To U. of W. MOst dear Lady having this occasion offered I was willing to write a few lines unto thee giving thanks to you all for your friendly inclinations of heart towards us The eternal God grant that that bond in which we being bound together in him and do profess a mutuall union to the true members may become more firm and may grow in Christ our Lord according to his holy will to his glory and our death As to what concerns my condition it is indeed at present such as is tolerable to the flesh as long as it shall please God for the bond of death remains in my heart and in my members and all the rest is known unto the Lord. The Lord himself take us all into his protection that we may be preserved in his fear this dangerous time which as I conjecture cannot be done but by most hard sorrows O would to God we could at length come even unto the death of Christ and feel it in our souls which indeed is set before our eyes in the holy Scriptures yet somewhat shadowed O Lord grant unto us that life which the Scripture every where beareth witness of yet oftentimes by so frequent exercises of so many various readings a man is but kept back and distracted when as yet it 's in the first place necessary that every one should observe himself in the acts of hearing speaking thinking working and in all else where a man is busied about any other matters in things of thiâ— life and that all these be to his utmost put to the examination of his judgment and that he most exactly endeavours in all hath a care to satisfy his own conscience for so long as the accusatioâ— thereof endureth by the guilt of anâ— though the least transgression it 's impossible that peace an be found in hâ— Soul Because as long as any one does not satisfy his own conscience he is willingly kept a prisoner under sin But the difficulty of this way hindereth many as much as that which the Scripture saith that no man can stand before God in his own proper righteousness which is very true However yet if we are willing to trace thorough this most rocky way of our conscience even to its utmost limit it is necessary that at length we should come to a mortification and destruction of all our laborious endeavours and then will our own righteousness shame us On the contrary we all would dye before ever we have lived and glory that we have renounced our own righteousness when as even yet we stick in the midst of our sins breaking forth into outward acts But the matter is to be otherwise and more accurately considered if we desire to make a proficiency in the Lord for that life which we live in the flesh is dead in the sight of God nor hath no liveliness in it in his account Yea furthermore that life which our Soul enjoys whilst it confideth in and s bottomed on these or these things must also be changed for a death and it 's by no means to be permitted that the enormities thereof should rejoyce in its progress For this life which our Soul hath taken to herself after this manner springs from no where else then from out of that imaginary righteousness and holiness which we fancy is to be found in us and which tickles us with a strange kind of sweet flattery and privately is very pleasing to us yea and gives to our Souls a kind of tranquillity These things are hid so deeply in a man and deceive us with such dissimulation as if all were well with us whence it is that all things are ascribed unto Christ because the man knows that no such
thing can be attained to but by Christ These are those things whereof the Scripture maketh so often mention viz. our own proper righteousness our own proper works our own proper holiness and all such like viz. if we trust too much to any of these means which were granted unto us from the Lord and stick rather unto them then to the only loâ—e God For to love God is no other thing then most accurately to do that which he willeth not for the hope of any salvation or of any good things whatever for the Love of God it self thus puts a man on that he cannot do otherwise And here it is that we are able to search into the most inward corners of our hearts whether or no we seek ourselves else where either in Soul or body and whether we serve God and love him for this end that our souls may gain salvation But here for the most part it will be answered that whatever things are done are done only for love yet nevertheless men do perform these things out of the terrour and the impulse of their own conscience as the scripture witnesseth I say not all this because I would detract in the least from good works set light by them but rather that we should go on further not to rest here nor am I willing we should sit down in a private kind of peace of having gained some steps only before we be come unto the end nor till the scope for whose sake all this is done be duly attained And though there be others behind us who follow up after us being yet a great way off yet it is incumbent on us because of our greater knowledge received to put out this our talent to the highest interest we can possibly that in us may be found constant perseverance if so be at length we can arrive perhaps to a true dying having no need more to reiterate so often our renewing of death so that all may together and at once remain buried also in Christ's death eternally a more certain essential sort of death as I may so say following us into that better state or condition Most beloved Lady receive I pray thee these my letters kindly if perhaps they may prove to be of any use to thee in thy holy endeavors and that we may come at length to the total renouncing our flesh that then we may be judged according to the rule of righteousness which the Law requires by Christ For in Christ sin is utterly condemned to death and as much as we are planted together with him in the likeness of his death so much also shall we thorough his resurrection be received into the newness or the Spirit who then performs in Man the office of a Governour and is to him in the stead of his life whose place before this our flesh supplied all that is beyond this the Lord himself will manifest to us when we come thither If therefore we have our inward senses rightly exercised by the Lord and do firmly adhere to him with continued prayers then will he kindle in thy heart some living light which my dead writings can never effect by means of which being inflamed with a greater zeal to renounce all flesh we shall be able to offer to the Lord our hearts emptied and set free by a meer and pure submission unto and a firm purpose of remaining and persevering in his will so will the thing prosper and our work will more happily succeed But why this work will succeed with so much difficulty and with such a length of time this is the reason because somewhat still will stick close to the heart which we cannot wholly renounce for when but one half of the heart is yielded up the offering remains impure nor is it accepted whence it is that the Scripture commands us to have a great care of or to watch such a heart which seeks double ways and carrieth upon either shoulder and halts on either leg c. For we cannot at the same time satisfy the flesh conscience hindering us and conscience too the flesh hindering us therefore it is necessary that we yield our selves up wholly as a pure offering and grateful to the Lord for such a one is received by the Lord and blessed of him that thenceforth he may bring forth fruit and at length that thence may arise the righteousness that is available before God Unto which may the Lord promote us and keep us by his infinite mercy in Christ our Lord and Saviour The Lord preserve us that we may persevere in his grace according to the tenour of his most holy Will EPIST. VI. Being a Christian exhortation which containeth many points very useful and profitable to all Christians To the same Lady MOst beloved Lady seeing that there remaineth no more time to me in this life as far as by my uttmost capacity of sense and reason I am able to judge or is to me known I am constrained of my self freely to open and more and more to unfold my mind to you Yet the true fruits of proficiency in the Lord are not attained to by my leters nor by our mutual converse appointed in the Lord of purpose but only and alone by the grace and mercy of God For that the same dependeth only on the meet divine commiseration he best knoweth yet only in Soul and conscience who himself is exercised in the very work oâ— the Lord. In the first place therefore it behooâ—â— is diligently to beware that we be not 〈◊〉 our lusts driven to that pass as to think that God is the cause of sin whereas the night can sooner be made the day then he be any such thing Because in God there is no darkness at all but meer light and whosoever would come to know this work of God thorough his mercy they must begin this knowledge with sincerity of mind which seeks nothing else but God alone whosoever proceedeth with a double heart is an abomination to the Lord. Now doubleness of heart consists in this when we are not with out whole heart Soul and thoughts given up and wholly left to the Lord also when we pour out our prayers before him with a heart divided in two whence â—lso it is that we are not heard according â—o our desires For the Lord loveth us â—ore then we our selves do love our â—elves inasmuch as he is averse to our estruction and always freely bestoweth 〈◊〉 us that which is most useful and â—ost profitable for our happiness which â—â—deed is that which at first is unâ—â—own 〈◊〉 us but is at length made known 〈◊〉 us though by and thorough great afflictions because that we were so far falen into our desires and into that evil which we call our Propriety that we must first be subjected to great anguishes and griefs before we can become submitted to the will and obedience of God which is that which can be never done without a spiritual death and the
then â—nto the understanding his salvation also â—n go no further then into the underâ—tanding and reason so that it must at last needs dye in that death that is so necessary to all Christians viz. wherein Reason is destroyed for in this death there remains nothing but the Soul or mind only But if it be objected that our faith and knowledge do penetrate even into the most inward regions of the Soul and mind I answer thereto That then also it is necessary that this our Soul and mind when it shall live with such an estrangedness from the flesh that it cannot but with great Nauseousness and tedious disdain bear in its self all the desires and lusts which spring from the nethermost parts of the flesh so as it would rather dye infinite deaths and to be freed from them then with pleasure even once to perform them in the verv act Behold my G. this brief proposal how every one ought to prove and try hâ—â— faith If any man believeth in Chriâ—â— from the very bottom of his Soul 〈◊〉 must need be wracked with great doâ—lours in his Soul by reason of sin so thâ— he will account of sin for the most grievous torture that can be found in all thâ— world and for his greatest enemy and how then for the sake of acting it can he enter into a friendship with it Although therefore the Vulgar knowledge of those who glory in the Gospel may say on this wise Sin if so be it is not perpetrated in the very act though it should lurk in the heart doth us no hurt yet do thou I pray hear how Christ doth nevertheless assert that he who looketh on a woman to lust after her is already guilty in the sight of God by which words surely Christ excuseth not but accuseth the lusting of a man and will really have it accounted for sin in the sight of God Dearest G. I beseech thee do not despond in thy mind because of this hard saying for all things are possible to God I only write this of purpose that thou mayest seasonably learn to judge of all things least thou shouldst consume thy youth unprofitably and that thou mayest bear fruit to God â—in thy own soul they in the mean time who are of the dregs of the Vulgar though they may have knowledge yet they lye down tired in sloth nor do they oppose sin with the least burning zeal or breaâ—â— its impetuous assaults Nor yet doth this external abstinence from sins and the debilitating of them suffice for it 's necessary to descend to the very bottom it self when even the thoughts are to be judged in the presence of God Far therefore be it from us to commit sin in the very act Also this my Letter intends this at least that thy young limbs be stirred up both night and day to the worship of God by continued prayers in temperance purity meekness of heart long-suffering lovâ— of thine Enemies as also in the Reading of Scripture in holy proficiencies anâ— in other virtues conducing to Christian discipline Concerning which thy owâ— Conscience will afford to thee a testimony all which being performed thou wiâ—â— every day rejoyce in thy great success iâ— the work of the Lord that at last wheâ— thy most miserable condition is known thou wilt be a terrour to thy own selâ— and therefore thou wilt so much thâ— more diligently call upon God for help that his most powerful right hand maâ—â— at length gratiously support thy Soul and conquer the power of the enemy in a real victory The Lord have mercy on us all and heal our diseases and effectually cause us to hunger and thirst after his righteousness least we be left naked in our own impurity EPIST. VIII How any one who is studious concerning the way of the Lord ought dayly to exercise himself MOst beloved Neece Because I understand that thou earnestly desirest such a disposition of heart as truely to walk in the ways of the Lord I could not withhold my self but must write to thee these few things for thy greater confirmation in them that thou being once entred into this way shouldest not desist from vigorously proceeding forward and to adhere to the Lord with thy whole heart together with a total suppression of thy carnal part Be therefore diligently studious that thy diligence be not tired out in reading in humanity in Silence in meekness in temperance forbearance patience and compassion also learn to exercise thy self in all studyes of virtues that thou being found faithful in little things mayest be made ruler over much greater for if thou shalt not be faithful in these few things assuredly thou wilt never be entrusted with more But I hope that thou wilt receive wisdom and prudence from the Lord that thou wilt have a care of and diligently attend unto thy own self least some bitter root should spring up in thee and so thou and thy Soul tumble head-long into destruction for the flesh doth very subtilly assault a man to beguile him and turn him away from Godliness Wherefore making a strict watch upon thy life and conversation carefully incompass thy self round having cut off the world and all wantonness of life speech and thoughts preferring every one with all gentleness and patience not only the good but also the evil and the immodest Learn also to bridle in thy self and to humble thy self being always turned to the Lord in thy heart Never let vain evil and unworthy thoughts arise in thy mind but always oppose them with great earnestness pouring out to the Lord fervent prayers and if thou gettest any spare time on holy days or otherways employ it in reading the holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament or else of that little book intituled Of the imitation of Christ and in these exercise thy self and learn to ponder them often in thy mind If thou readest any thing which thou doest not understand call upon the Lord with ardent sighs and dayly tears that he would open to thee the true sense of his most holy word for to be the Necessary food of thy Soul for the more thou shalt follow the Lord the more thou shalt understand of holy Scripture and by how much the less thou art intent to wait upon the Lord by so much the less shalt thou understand Scripture Therefore let thy constant endeavours be to approve thy self faithful in these things which are viz. made known to thee in and by mortification and a continual access to God by prayer nor let any time slip by thee in vain and withouâ— thus doing If thou repliest that thou understandest not what thou readest again say that though thou mayest noâ— understand all yet is it incumbent oâ— thee to exercise thy self in the sacred word of the Lord as also to be unwearâ—edly sollicitous about it For by thesâ— exercises thou shalt sooner be amended then by idleness and these are the beâ—â— means of instituting and of exercising anâ— man
death that is knowable to the humane wisdom And because aâ— to their own strength in which they live they dye not in body and soul being wholly condemned before God hencâ— it is that they usurp to themselves as theiâ— propriety that intellect of God that is that they themselves might by the benefit of that thing conserve life which properly ought to be the condemning sentence and the death of their ipseity For if the Truth of God should enter into them in by a certain essential state it would be impossible that a man could endure one spark thereof without being melted quite down Therefore we must dye not only as to our wisdom in the highest degree but as to our own proper Salvation that God alone may be our Wisdom life and Salvation This done our ipseity is condemned before God and thrust down into a death according to the flesh which is as it were essential whence nothing can again bud forth either in respect of God or of the Creature so that whatsoever had bin ours ought to be altogether made subject to its death judgment and sentence of condemnation That same small last Chapter is contrary to that writing inasmuch as it determineth that sometime calm seasons may be gained even according to the flesh for so I transfer it even as the writing its self speaketh so as they then may esteem themselves pure because they who are purified know how to apply all things to a true use Which I also affirm but in its own meaning but that at which this writing aimeth is contrary to my mind for the liberty of Christ belongs to the inward man and doth only affect the mind unto eternal salvation in Divine Truth but the flesh is condemned and suppressed and bound down into death so as that no man can then rightly use the Creatures of God but with grief and misery because that in all these a man may behold his own death in which formerly he had thought to have found life and yet with these very things he is well contented acknowledging this divine judgment for truth and so remains yielded up into death But the Inward man is then conversant in eternal joy being signed or sealed by the Spirit of God I have wrote this in haste that I might satisfie thy desire according to the testimony of my mind The Lord have mercy on them on us all and pluck us quickly out of our errors Alas who am I a miserable wretch who thus writeth I beg Grace of the Lord for without his Grace I shall never be advanced nor abide in him EPIST. XXIII A further consideration concerning the opinion of H. N. To his brother A. W. DEarest Brother thou maist read over this small Treatise and send it back again to me because I must treat something thereof with N. that I may oppose him somewhat about those things which he accounts for true for that which he makes his scope is not pleasing to me which they call the Intellect of God in which both heaven and earth are indeed locally moved and every creature vanisheth out of its condition or state and yet in the same mystery and inheritance they conclude nature to be left alive whereas notwithstanding Nature cannot in and by its life arrive at that pass but only and alone by the benefit of its death introduced into it by Christ our Lord and Saviour and that in so much verity that Nature appears no more with its own proper life but remains eternally cast off with the death and curse thereof But that Nature which thay call purged and dead to its reason in my opinion doth indeed only depend on principles of understanding and science but not on Truth it self for hitherto it hath not approached to the essence it self nor is united therewith for though Reason layeth aside its natural discretion that thereby it may be nearer to the divine intellect yet for all that the intellect is not yet then made one with the Essence but is rather contrary to it and as it were an enemy to Truth seeing that that spiritualized Nature hideth it self under the shew of intellect but not of essence and is in that still entertained Who shall deliver a man from these intricacies The Lord have mercy on us anâ— My Brother I therefore write thus that I may also discover to thee my opinion for that man is endowed with no smaâ—â— understanding yet he is deeply seduced and is deeply wise but withal he is deeply to be disputed with The Lord keep us humble in the Truth that that which belongs to death may be also thrown off into death but let him reign and rule to all eternity EPIST. XXIV Being a brief argument that the foundation of the family of Love is laid and built upon carnal liberty To the same person I W. was here and hath utterly and cordially renounced the thing its self because he had experienced found from their presence that they were infected with the venome of carnal liberty and that all issued out of that fountain Also I restored to him the books if haply they might be willing to have them restored again to them he also was most fully satisfied admiring that so sublime an understanding was subject to errours for he confessed that my opinion was beyond all doubt true seeing that a man is always to be subjected to divine terrours But that such elevated spirits do fall into errours is from thence that they too much covet their proper security whence at length springs up boasting and pride and then after that a fall The Lord preserve us all from evil according to his great mercy that seeing it is of grace that we are saved so also in grace are we conserved and not thorough our own selves EPIST. XXV Concerning the Opinion of Plato To the same person MY brother I send thee back the little book concerning Plato which when I had read I found just so as thou writest For the falling of these who call themselves the family of Love is subtile though in that small tract they are mightily defended all things being interpreted for the better yet the excuse relisheth not well with me except I should say that by their ultimate scope to which they think they shall come by the means of Love their wisdom is shameful as in them so also in us yet with this distinction for what in them is righteousness truth and wisdom must be to us unrighteousness falsness and foolishness if so be that glory to the Lord must spring up thorough us all which yet they are willing to reserve and ascribe to themselves as also did the Jews though in a more excellent degree Now it behooveth a Christian to dye as to them both and by the Lord to be condemned to death viz. as to wisdom and righteousness Moreover may the Lord also freely bestow on us his grace according to his most holy will EPIST. XXVI A Christian consideration concerning
the Resurrection To the same person DEarest brother we will beg of the Lord that he may have mercy on us and that he will lead us into the power of the Resurrection every one according to the measure of his illumination by the quickning power of his spirit by the benefit of whom all seeds do put forth their faculties in growing For the natural life faculty understanding wisdom and sense do all tend to death in time and though a man deluded by some fair shew may imagine to himself an eternal permanency of these things yet when the sun is risen to a burning strength all these will dry up or wither nor is it possible for them to consist or abide the just judgment of God as being that which melteth all down yea furthermore the very discretion it self of the soul must dye likewise as far as the natural man studyeth to preserve it if that that man according to the testimony of his conscience is willing to satisfy the Law least that soul do tumble down into utter destruction Now because it is not the proper disposition of the natural man to lose any thing but rather with the top of the life of the Soul to preserve all things therefore it is subjected to the divine judgment that is to death and because he is willing to conserve life in himself and in his Soul now there is life no where but in God the soul cannot come at the true nourishment of life but is to be deliveral up to death inasmuch as the natural man properly is death it self and belongeth to death For they are bound up together into one body and both viz. the body from the soul and on the other part the soul from the body are moved together whether it be to grief or to joy yea though it be in the state of the highest knowledge unto which the soul according to the natural rule of life could possibly ascend For she cannot be elevated higher in understanding unless first as to her knowledge by which the natural man is informed by her she shall dye so as that it behooveth both soul and body as one man to dye after that the spiritual conception is now out of that deadned seed is wont to spring forth a new plant enriched with divine fruitfulness which no death can touch any more neither according to soul nor according to body because this generation not of man but without man nor out of his will but without his will not with hope but without all hope arriveth at the state of eternity out of the eternal grace of God so as that it is of God and of life always abiding nor is it corruptible even as also God is in his own nature Every thing therefore returneth to that out of which it first sprung viz. the natural man with its perfect body and in its sphere to death without any resurrection at all according to its own proper nature and the supernatural man in its perfect sphere to eternal life abiding eternally in God and yet as a Creature but glorified in God He who comes to this state cannot deny the truth of the thing but he who partaketh nothing thereof also as a natural man uttereth with truth that he believeth that there is no resurrection and although he should confess it yet even that confession of the resurrection must dye because unto the natural man as such there never even eternally belonged any resurrection even as it is impossible for a seed sown to come to a perfect death unless it be wholly corrupted in its self If therefore it can be brought to pass that a man can give up himself to death with a hope of receiving forthwith another life and as to that state and according to that rule of his knowledge wherein he is dead a better for no man can whilst his present understanding is in being attain to another understanding or life unless the former be first dead then indeed there would be no need to proceed to a further death because it can only follow that which had been in being before Now therefore there is here place for death when by the benefit of corruption through the operation of God a new plant ariseth according to the nature of the corruption done every thing according to its own kind as there is example in all creatures and in the corruptible propagation of them So that by how much the more the natural man affirmeth that there is no more Resurrection by so much the more he confirmeth it because he truly is preparing himself for death and uttereth publickly his Testimony concerning his corruption and his eternal death for there is to be no Resurrection of him and thus also to his may together with the Keepers whom the Pharisees set a Testimony concerning the Resurrection of Christ be given which also by this means is mightily confirmed for them who stand in the very door to such a state and do believe it For when the Pharisees having sealed up the Sepulcher had concluded that they had shut up a kind of dead Corpse and to have kept it in that pit of Death the keepers of the Sepulcher who yet were sent to do mischief became witnesses of his Resurrection although it is not believed to this very day but by his Disciples by the Keepers is meant the natural man My Brother this my own true Epistle will clearly open to thee my mind and will be to thee as it were the hand of a Dial which thou must well eye and consider that thou maist likewise write back thy opinion to me whereby it may appear wherein we agree and wherein we differ if we are careful concerning this opinion The Lord look upon us all in his mercy and bring us into his own clearness EPIST. XXVII A faithful Admonition concerning the Resurrection of the Flesh To his Brother A. W. MY Brother Let us go to that man and let us set before him Death and Life Resurrection and incorruptibility all unfolded in their own degree and nature and it shall be at his pleasure to make choice of any one of these For if he shall choose nature in his life then in good earnest he must perish in an eternal death nor shall he ever arrive at such a life as he seeks but if he will approach unto the truth even as also the thing is he shall live while he dieth and he shall acknowledge the true Resurrection which else is denied to him My Brother May God exhibit to him and to us his mercy according to the variety of his compassions nor may he ever leave us in our miseries but remember us in this life subject to so many sufferings in which we cry out laboriously unto the Lord with many sighs that by his hand we may be promoted to incorruptibility which can by no means be effected but by our death which comprehends in it self the relinquishing of all those things which we know by
nature and possess and love and in which we live The power of death shall be known to all things living but by so much the more difficulty by how much the greater knowledge some have on this earth for at the time of death all things are to be given up to God and then all things are shut up and ended in the truth of God The Lord unite us with himself who himself is the beginning and end old and new yet is he one and immutable void of all increase in himself though in the temporary creature he is known with increase and decrease As much therefore as we depart from temporariness so much are we united with God in whom there is no time and in him who is the last and the first with an everlasting presence and in him all Multiplication and Substraction of time is taken away and made co-equal and all flesh which is spiritualized and which was wont to express it self in time doth melt away before eternity The Lord be merciful to us all as of one flesh that bidding farewel to that shadow of time we may grow in his fear and let his name be more and more sanctified over all his creatures in time and let our life perish and vanish away like smoke even as in is evidently done to all flesh together with which all things do tend to corruption whatever it was that ever sprung from it whether they were deeds or whether there were thoughts But it is not so with him who is godly for he with all his works is preserved and will grow and live to Eternity because every appetite life and desire of his is nothing else but God and therefore whatsoever is his tendeth to Eternity As on the contrary the desire and scope of a worldly man is nothing else but flesh which alone doth also move and direct him therefore the effect must perish with the cause as experience testifies for the fruit cannot be otherwise then is the root whence it is sprung May our eternal Saviour Christ Jesus purifie us that in him we may bring forth true fruit and according to the multitude of that his most abundant Grace which God hath richly poured forth upon us from the very beginning of the World we may abide permanent in him Amen EPIST. XXVIII Being a most beautiful Admonition very profitable as unto the death and departure of Nature To a Sick Man I Heartily salute thee in the Lord most dear N. as to what concerneth thy disease I hope the best of thee according to the mercy of God and that his hand was not in vain lifted up over thee For he by his Discipline will lead and conserve us that no rottenness shall grow in us but that by his judgment we be still more and more purified and cleansed from all impurity of Nature bred with us and dead still lurking in us The grace and mercy of the Lord be with thee dearest N. in that thy misery and disease which thou must bear in the flesh and may he grant to thee true submission and yielding up under his hand that with a bowed heart thou maist bear all things in obedience to him according to his holy will concerning thy miserable self that thou maist be lead in his way with perseverance to his glory and be preserved in the death of thy flesh whereby the life of the spirit may from day to day more and more increase in thee and be manifested in the heart of thy dying body Moreover I beg of the Lord that he would strengthen thy Limbs for his service so that if they become deficient as to Nature which yet must be done by continued labours in the way of the Lord that our essence may in time wax old and decrease yet through Christ they may be raised again to an eternal and fresh-springing youth in God where no fainting nor old age nor death can touch them The Lord preserve us and his mercy be present with us in all our adversity lest perhaps that prove able to hinder us in our way that our continued anxiety conjoyned with the highest danger to which in this combat we must subject our selves lest it be in vain nor draweth us back but rather may fruitfully promote us to a perpetual progression and success of his grace and of divine benediction maist thou remain recommended unto God who will free us out of this present Dungeon of this temporary flesh and imbecility according to his own acceptable will will elevate us into the sublimity of Eternity into the life of the spirit through the Resurrection of Christ to whom be the glory to all Eternity EPIST. XXIX How a purified mind ought to bear without any commotion the failings of his Neighbour with all patience To his Brother D. John W. DEarest Brother that that man is affected with such streights and with such griefs of heart that we also must suffer together with him For in that that he is alwaies subjected to sufferings nor can come at any peace is indeed not the work of man but the gift of God yea a great and eminent gift to endure the folly of another and to cover it over with an unvariable mind towards his Neighbour For though we be unduely used or handled by our Neighbour yet in truth a purified heart ought not to be moved by it but must alwaies act according to the bond of Charity which is alone its aim for in that there ariseth no suspicion of evil and although modest reason also may descend to make an excuse yet even all that too must be alwaies done without any motion of mind for as much as he is such a one as the injury and trouble of no creature can move him because he remains confirmed in that which is truly immovable Dearest Brother I therefore write thus that if that same trouble should be reiterated thou maist alwaies have this aim fixed in thy sight For although as to the creature the justice is on your part yet the mind ought to remain alwaies free without the use of this right otherwise there would arise an enmity from thence and a bitterness of heart For thus that which is earthly overwhelmeth that which is heavenly with such a blindness that it plainly seems to a man that he hath some divine right whenas yet God cannot but love nor doth he require any other thing of us according to the measure of his Justice Not as if I would willingly lay some blame upon thee do I say thus but that thy heart may not be nor that any rule should be wanting to thee if you behave your self otherwise thou wilt be obnoxious to a heavier judgement except thou proceedest with caution My Brother strive to have a mind unmoved which cannot be hindred but rather promoted by the enmity of the Creatures All things to a just man turn to good whether it be death or life or dissention or love for such a one overlooking the Creature
taketh all as from the Creator whether they be grateful or ungrateful and though we may not as yet come thus far yet is this to be accounted for a rule and to be followed with all endeavour And with this I would have thee recommended to the Lord who will be helpful to us all and keep and promote us all more and more in his own way EPIST. XXX How a Noble Plant springeth up out of the Dead Seed through the Divine fuitfulness To his Brother A. W. DEarest Brother The Herb we have received The omnipotent Lord who from his eternal beaming forth hath made to come forth the out-flowing powers of all his Creatures according to the common and out-streaming operation of the Law of Nature replenish thine and the common emptiness of others with increase in the blessing of the most noble Plant of God according to his nature that that only Seed which by the benefit of corruption hath utterly lost all its own propriety in a deadly and eternal intemperance and is eternally united with the earth of an imperserutable perfection will fructifie in thee through God contrary to all hope or glory to the greater glorification in the vertue of God Moreover my Brother we received all which are to be brought back again to God as to the Original of all with thansgiving even unto the scope of our death Thus we miserable wretches in this our received way are faln down into to that which we call our propriety so that when we are to depart from that our assumed life we are overwhelmed with sorrows and bitterness although all this is done out of the just judgment of God that all may come unto his truth even as the heavens and the earth are called unto the truth because undeniably all things must come to this state and to render their source glorified by their death and by their being melted down thereinto I wish thee my small portion of health in my state of rejection and disertion from the Lord which I suffer but yet not without mercy that which may happen also to thee but with real commiseration according to thy calling as also to all that are the holy ones of God My brother be mindful of us all may the mercy of God and his eternal and to all creatures his incomprehensible grace come upon us with plenty that by the virtue thereof that miracle of the supernatural spiritual and eternal life may be discovered and acknowledged together with the spiritual salvation in Christ his eternal and only begotten son in whom miserable we are depressed down into death with verity EPIST. XXXI Concerning the right uncloathing of self and of the yielding up of the soul in all sufferings DEarest brother The Lord be mindful of our misery and first to behold me the most miserable one with commiseration and offer to himself my heart made bare and emptied by many pressings together and that he will renunerate it with the blessing of fruitfulness in a divine and eternal redemption and freedom from all the Enemies of my heart who hold it captive in the chaines of darkness out of the just judgment of God to whom I am subjected being ignorant whither at last I must go hence seeing that my anxiety the longer it is is so much the more vehement so that I must always fall into the hands of the Lord seeing all else are fallen away from me The Lord look upon my nakedness and be my preserver that being kept up by and in him I may bring forth fruit to his glory and to the sanctification of things temporaneous in the effusion of the blood of my own proper life and in the liberty of the divine obedience With these I recommend thee to the Lord who can advance us higher in his ways and can fasten us firmly to the cross in true submission and yielding up of our wills that in him we may be kept safe all that short space of our faintings in this time being in his fear delivered up unto death according to the ordination of his judgment impending over us that so we may be led and get forwards in his ways and that we may bid farewel with all our might to time that eternity may take place in us and that we may so dye to our selves that we may walk here on the earth only as Pilgrims The Omnipotent God deal with us in his good pleasure according to his mercy and lead us thorough with Victory even in our imbecillity unto the very end EPIST. XXXII Concerning the death of all created things and of all those which are born out of them MOst beloved brother All things do tend to the end and death of their created nature whence do arise many sighs and a most bitter agony But the Lord will again bring forth his holy one out of death and the grave that he may not see corruption My brother thy pressure is great and severe I know thou desirest comfort but from God only who cannot come but thorough the death of all creatures or of the whole created nature until the last breath of life be also breathed out nor can any refreshment of members be hoped for Let us in a free communion be made partakers of thy sufferings with divine compassion patiently expecting the accomplishment of the judgment in its own order furthermore we will labour according to the will of God and we will sweat till we come to the appointed end even as the hand of the Lord shall over rule us May the omnipotent Lord by his fatherly grace lead us thorough this most difficult labour and strengthen us according to the inward man that we may forsake that which is external and deliver it up to eternal corruption from out of the first judgment to his eternal praise and glory to which we all aspire everyone of us according to his own manner and service but not for our sakes or for our commodity as some now unjustly do and think wherefore also this counterfit opinion shall sink down into defect and death together with the death of the creature by a most hard and terrible fall Because all that that we possess with a lye in time must be yielded up to the eternal truth but all to the glory of God so that at length one may become a looking-glass to the other and God at last may overcome all and persist alone but we in our lies must perish My brother the times of our parents and forefathers are passed and labor belongeth now to our time to the end also of which all things preparatory are at hand The Lord stretch out his hand with mercy over wretched me and over us all that we may be taken into the order which is pleasing to him thorough faith under the obedience of his eternal will so that our will life and choice being subjected to his judgment may be condemned and consumed May the Lord give to us all communion in God with a
consideration of eternity according to his unspeakable mercy Moreover my brother as to my state or condition that abideth in perpetual agony of death with most sharp persecution performed within me after various manners yet to one only end for whose sake all must be done What the Lord may in time do with me is known only to himself and his eternal decree But which way soever I turn my self and whatsoever I consider or behold nothing but a vast abyss and a parching heat of all misery do continually represent themselves to my eyes The Lord in his commiseration lead most wretched me by his fatherly hand thorough things present and to come in this unknown uncertain desert and desolate condition yet I give thanks to his goodness that under this his powerful hand he revealeth to me his fatherly mind The Lord be my helper and my conducter in all things and keep me and teach me in his School and under his discipline His grace be over us all together with his unspeakable mercy Amen EPIST XXXIII How ignorant Nature well stumble in much disputing and will comdemn its neighbour also how the sense of all Scriptures ought to be apprehended in our own selves under the cross MOst beloved N. I pray the Lord that he will promote thee in his way in which thou mayest follow most diligently his will without much disputing by which the flesh rather then God's spirit hath to do we therefore must lay out our time with more advantage For when for the most part we think to speak from the spirit of God perchance nature lurketh under the fair show of the spirit so long as we are still cloathed about with flesh so that when we least believe it yet we then account of the flesh instead of the spirit Therefore we are to walk before the Lord with fear without any bold disputings and we must beware as much as in us lyes to walk innocently before God and before men lest we fall into our own condemnation whilst we are condemning others if not in words yet in heart Moreover most dear N. that writing which I received pleaseth me well although I have not read it thorough so accurately by reason of the weakness of my head For though I cannot truly reach the sense of any writings unless I can apprehend the virtue of them in my own self under the cross whence the true fruit is manifested seeing I tread no further then unto the state in which I then consist by suffering I always follow the steps of Chirst where the latter always discover the defect and imperfection of the former Yet let every man mind his own calling and observe it diligently so all in time will clearly appear and come forth into the light Salute P. N. our friend heartily God will look upon him to his advantage and will make his dayly sighings fruitful thorough his eternal mercy which we are all to expect none excepted The Lord endow thee with wisdom and prudence that thou mayest act aright in all things and that thou mayest walk before him with trembling There are books enough for us to look into if we will but perpetually observe our own consciences that we may most accurately follow their dictates Moreover thorough the providence of God we have the Old and New Testament for our only external rule but the holy spirit above all these for our alone master or Teacher Blessed is he who is deprived of his own proper wisdom and is instructed and instigated by the spirit of the Lord alone The Lord be with thee and with us Amen EPIST. XXXIV Concerning a certain danger that hung over that place by reason of persecution unto which he was about to go DEarest Brother may the Omnipotent Lord preserve my mortified body according to his mercy in his divine will I have purposed to go to that place and to expect the will of God concerning me beseeching him from the most inward and deepest bottom of my soul that he will set me before the enemy and that the remnant of my life which is very small may not tend to the destruction but to the salvation of any one this I beg from his eternal goodness and mercy withal hoping that this danger will prove destruction to me only and will go no further The Lord make known his will to me in this one desire of mine according to his commiseration If the Lord shall suffer me in this tabernacle tolerably to pass through so as still to subsist as I have occasion I shall signify it to thee But my brother which way soever I turn my self or look back all things renounce me and of the present there remains no place more for me And therefore I convert my self to that which the forsaking of all creatures sheweth unto me The Omnipotent God take care to secure me under his own protection EPIST. XXXV An answer sent to his brother concerning a woman that dyed also concerning his own condition together with a devout exhortation MOst beloved brother a real grief hath possessed me for the departure of that woman out of this temporary world I trust in the Lord that all will be done for a good end and from him I expect peace and tranquillity with commiserating grace which we all hunt after and heartily seek for our Souls together with an expectation of an eternity to come I find in my heart that I am now obliged to her children and I love them with a true tendency of mind according to my poor slender ability May the Lord for his mercy-sake turn all for the better Moreover as to what concerns my condition the same kind of bonds do always hold me bound according to the will of God in a disease and an infirmity So long as it shall please the Lord May he direct my ways and bow them down under his fear in the obedience of his most holy will and may he bestow freely his grace on us all that we may continue our lives in righteousness with devotion and a diligent observation of all our works and counsels least in all our actions there be somewhat found that is contrary to the will of God May the Lord give his grace to us all that we may go forwards in his way and bear such fruits as may be pleasing to him In the eight following Epistles is somewhat described of that great misery into which the Lord cast him a little before his death I. MY brother my body hath an increase of some strength just as a man groweth but very slowly so as it can scarcely be observed though yet it proceedeth on Yet is the purpose of God unknown to me although like a pestiferous cloud a many difficulties and sorrows are set before my eyes out of which I can spy no deliverance but by death that so I may wholly penetrate even unâ—â— God which will come to pass if the times shall prove prosperous yea and further also of all means
shall fail me The Lord prepare us all that we may be made fit for his work in those things which he himself seeth and judgeth II. My brother the condition of my body is tolerable as it always was but I remain unshaken in my heart and the trust or confidence of my life is so small by reason of want of strength in my limbs that I can only walk up and down the house with trembling under the hand of my God True indeed I remain like others as to outward appearance but at heart and over my orignal and root of life there impends a judgment and by my unconsidered steps thorough the terrours of death it threatneth an end and my departure out of this time such is the constitution of my whole life way and conversation May the merciful Father open the bowels of his paternal inclination to me a most wretched creature that he may keep me safe from the evil one and preserve us all by his eternal grace Be mindful of forsaken and for lorn me as my compassionate brother if perhaps the Lord may be willing to exhibit his mercy to us III. My brother mine accustomed infirmity still remaineth as long as the Lord will The Lord be my promoter in his commiserating grace and may he preserve me and continue to hold me in his discipline under a suffering obedience of his holy will The cause why I have wrote no mere is the weakness of my hand According to the Lord my writing is not necessary to thee seeing that he himself will operate by his own grace in thy heart thorough the influence of his Spirit from whom all words and all writings may be separated by reason of his immense and glorious clatitude The Lord keep and promote you all in his ways under his fear and likewise us thorough all the time of our earthly combat And so I heartily salute you IV. My brother as to what belongs to my condition it still conflicts with its usual and difficult disease so long as it shall so please God He according to the order of his Justice put me down into this death of corruption and with his own hand plucketh me up again that I may wait for eternity which springeth up from out of the seed of this corruptible mortality May the Lord freely bestow on us all his mercy as with a long-suffering constancy we hope from the Lord it will be that with a heart prepared and submitted we may receive all from his hand and may be lead thorough even unto the end Herewith I recommend thee to the Lord who will lead us all with all our strength and essence unto the true death in Christ that he out of this 〈◊〉 may build up an eternal life whiâ—◠〈◊〉 never more be subjected unto any 〈◊〉 V My brother my condition is the 〈◊〉 that it was when you departed bâ—◠〈◊〉 consideration thereof doth shake al◠〈◊〉 powers into a trembling and a terâ—â—â—â— because of that evident death by the 〈◊〉 of the Lord which as it were an obâ—â—â—re cloud of death I have always before my eyes even from that very time whâ—â— thou wert with me the reason bâ—◠〈◊〉 its beginning and of its end is whâ—â— hid from me the truth it self will bâ—â—â—â— it self forth in its own meaning and oâ—der As to my outward body which respecteth my disease I am not at all chanâ—â—â— but anguishes have taken full possession on all my faculties Be thou recommended to the mercy of God VI. My brother The Lord help us poor wâ—â—â—ches in this dangerous condition of this natural and mutable life whom it behooveth to be kept with believing under all uncertainties in the fear of God according to the faith whereby we believe that all the certainty and firmness of our purposes are to be wholly destroyed corrupted and annihilated that another 〈◊〉 fruit may spring up to eternal life 〈◊〉 â—â—ising out of the foregoing corruptible seed The Lord grant to us his salvation and grace that we may adore or worship 〈◊〉 in Spirit and in Truth even as he himself desireth VII The Lord in his mercy help us all and free us from our errours in his own time For I poor wretch do suffer the justice of the Lord and do bear his judgment upon me as long as this carnal spirit in this my dying nature still breatheth May the eternal and merciful God appear to me by his grace yea and to us all and lead us into his own will VIII My brother The Lord is my deliverer in my necessity and will confirm me in his grace even unto the end My brother I am willing thou shouldest know that my body cannot possibly endure any longer this immense misery without dying God assist me in my sufferings to the last and receive me into his eternal rest My Weakness is great all things are known to the Lord. Thy brother in the highest streights the most wretched in the Lord. M. W. To his Sister the ninth day before his death DEarest Sister whilst I am writing this I am so ordered that I can write no more My dearest sister be mindful of thy younger brother and of his wife and small children that they may be the most advanced and helped as the time may need My most beloved Sister I am in the highest content in the Lord my God and by his grace do bid the farewel with this my dying hand being according to the will God bound in so short a chain as he proposed to himself The Lord our God grant peace to our beloved brothers and sisters And now I turn me to my present call viz. to that eternal peace thorough the death of my flesh which now hasteneth it self to its end And now my most beloved Sister behold my dying salutation and my last farewel to thee from the bottom of my heart wherewith saluteth thee as departing out of this life thy brother M. W. 16 April 1560. He died in the Lord 25 April in the year of our Lord 1560. and of his own age the 39. THE END