are outwardly in affliction and captivity For these if they could kill their keeper they would readily do it that they might get loose yea if they could break the windows gates and walls But this other sort do not thus behave themselves but are subjected unto the will of God and in it do quietly rest and although they could do as other do yet that they cannot desire there is therefore a great difference betwxt the coaction of those and of these CHAP. VII GOd himself is the uncreated Salvation which spreads it self forth round about just as the Sun is every where dispersed abroad where it can be received But where it cannot be received the fault is not in it self If therefore this universal uncreated Salvation which is God himself ought to take place in man then must the proper included and created salvation of man perish for this is not God himself and therefore it cannot stand in the sight of God and a man must on that score be cast into death and destruction and be deprived of his Soul which he had with much labour saved and when by his labour he was come so far that he could not get further then was it time for God not be at rest but to cast him into death that so he might by grace establish that in the man which the man by the Law could not gain thorough much labour For whatsoever Christ represented in life and doctrine is impossible to be actively fulfilled yet it must be fulfilled in death It behooveth a Man to dye that God himself may effect the matter and that the glory thereof may not be Man's It is not labour but Regeneration Christ bringeth grace and that which is grace is not the labour of man and afterwards a man having passed his own proper created Salvation comes unto the universal increated Salvation which is God himself and this Salvation knoweth God and with this a man can stand before God for God can stand before himself And this man no more judgeth any one For this Sun hath nothing strange in it with this salvation a man hath communion without appropriation And here it is that the communion of Saints taketh place Life repulsed by one flees to another in which it lives till it self also dyeth When the life dyeth as to the creature it is nothing esteemed off in respect of that life which dyes as to it self for there life yet remains alive and receiveth other and greater objects then it had before and in them it then liveth and hath only changed one for another and instead of a worser hath received a better nor is it dead in it self but is still the very same life but when a life dyeth to its own self there is affliction unspeakable when it can have nothing whereby it can be sustained and which can refresh or comfort it for the destruction thereof is without hope for when it falleth can rise up again no more because it falls a natural thing and it riseth again a spiritual thing and therefore like seeketh like the old bottle cannot contain new wine a new patch agreeth not with an old garment therefore we must dye to deformity when conformity is to be performed It is very necessary to have discretion but no man can have it but he that hath the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit of which the Prophet speaketh and the last of them is The fear of the Lord for when one receiveth the former gifts then at last he is round about filled with the fear of the Lord and the Lord is feared in all CHAP. VIII ABout the prophetical promises of God we must always observe whom they respect for they belong not to the natural man and he participateth nothing of them but only his destruction Whatever is extent in the Prophets and the Apostles have wrot is praised as that which is beautiful yea and it is beautiful but to the Natural man it is death and he participateth nothing thereof Although therefore he shall praise it as that which is beautiful yet it is his death yea and therefore he must come into death if it must be applied unto him But Christ is constituted by his father to be the Saviour that he may apply all that and fulfil it by the cross No man that is not dead cometh under grace and the Gospel therefore they falsly boast who glory that they are under grace without death A man not dead is first to be subdued by the Law and therefore is to be prepared for death by means of which he is freed from the Law and comes under grace as long as he is alive he belongs to the subjection of the Law but when he is after that dead he is under grace for Christ is not the servant of sin that he might leave our sins in their own state but he came that he might free us from sin which is done by the means of death Sin is punished with death And Christ is no defender of the natural man that he should remain alive For if he should do that we should come without death into God which is impossible Let every one therefore abstain from false boastings and defend no unrighteousness for that thing will never find success The whole world is full of false boastings concerning Christ but we must not be conformed to the word as Paul saith A man is secretly besieged by many things of which he is ignorant and he then at last comes to apprehend it when they are withdrawn from him Also a man sometimes apprehendeth a defect in himself and is ignorant what it should be which oftentimes is so great that it must be qualified by the Lord. The misery defect and death of nature is rather to be born with then to fly to complaints anger and murmurings Suffer and hold thy tongue and thou shalst be advanced with help and assistance Break not out into words but repress their motion Flee not from the affliction of thy Nature for come it from whence it will it will bring with it great gain unto thee and will be a benefactour to thy heart If thou shalst not do this thou shalst have a disturbed mind and shalst hot be advanced forward by any exercise There are many things in which a man followeth concupiscence where yet he pretends to another fair outside show Whatever is beyond necessity is contrary to God and to all righteousness yea and to a man 's own self No man ought to boast of his exercise before others but to walk in the fight of God and to rest quiet in him For it s enough if God seeth it All high-mindedness is to be avoided least we be esteemed for some body before others Exercise thy self before God To be able to tolerate ignorance is wisdom It is the part of grave old men to wink at the folly of youth When any one lies in death and is filled therewith and both inwardly and outwardly is without rest
our sinful flesh In the death of a natural man the will of God only ruleth viz. because that God so willeth it and it so pleaseth him and his judgment thus requireth it Hither a man is to refer himself this is his only restand quiet viz. the will of God Things plainly happed otherwise then one thinketh all things observe another manner then a man thinketh CHAP. XII THere is no coming unto an internal state or spiritual exercises except first all the ceremonies are broken by affliction The warm bed is to be left There are men in the world that for the sake of Idolatry exceed that hardship and patiently endure the cold and incommodities why may not the same be done for the sake of the true worship and though at the beginning when one is setled in a custom of lying in bed the thing will not be without difficulty yet in time it will become easy and a man will hate his bed and the too much use thereof and will not use it but for necessity All things whatsoever which are at first done with great difficulty they become gentle and easy by use A man must combate stoutly and with affliction too that laying aside his confusion he may be brought into order and consequently that God may draw nearer unto him He that is kept in confusion and neglecteth the means of his getting forwards cannot be promoted but many years and times are spent with him so that he sâ—ill remains that which he was and the fault is in some prop or support he hath either secretly or manifestly as well in small as in great matters Where Nature is crucified there she wants a prop for on what another is upheld and proppd up with on that the cannot leane her self We must beware of every affair that is used for to pass away time sportfully and unprofitably time is to be weighed in a ballance and to be spent on God for it is precious and runs swiftly Whatsoever is to a man most difficult and bitter that he must do and whatsoever is most easy and sweet that he must omit To keep himself pure in impurity is a piece of art and commendable but let no man that is already out of the reach of such mingle himself with them for that would be a rashness Whereas he that is in them already ought to enter into this combate and to conquer the enemy and with tears and sorrow break thorough the hostile troops That which is here said of impurity is not to be understood of those things which are in themselves impure for no purified person can pass thorough them when they are prohibited and are not in the least allowed of but of things that are not impure of themselves yet are such by which a man may be polluted by reason of his own proper impurity when he satisfieth not his own conscience and walketh not streight forwards in the way of God He that will not suffer is afflicted in the earth He erreth in his understanding when one is lead into the revelations and knowledge of many things but he himself remains without and beyond them The Lord saith What would it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own Soul He also that went into the marriage without a wedding-garment was cast out For those thing which he had notionally by knowledge and in the understanding he had not substantially and really In the science of things a man glorieth and is glad and delighted when he speaketh or writeth of them all things are done with joy But when the substance or essence of things cometh he lieth down in death Nor can he rejoyce or be delighted because he partaketh nothing and hath no thing therein but his death and destruction The Science or knowledge of them can no more make him merry because they are contrary unto him And whatever he knoweth readeth heareth oâ— thinketh concerning them that all make against him because all these things aâ— contrary or adverse unto him CHAP. XIII WHen a man lies in death he no longer his own for he plainly alienated from his own self Her therefore he ceaseth from labour neithâ—â— does he act any more and God stanâ— in the stead of himself and fulfills and erecteth that in his death which had not been done in his life For whatever he handled in his life he did it at all by images but here in death God hath established the very substance it self and this is a grace and the generation which is made in death That which Christ denoteth cannot be fulfilled for it is a generation which is of it self passive in the destruction and death of a man It is impossible to man therefore God himself doth it whence it is that to him alone the glory is due A man who is in death is not afflicted by the delay of time but he who yet hopeth for joy and pleasure he is afflicted with every delay until that cometh which was hoped for But the dead lie down without hope nor is there any thing which they expect for they are forsaken and stripped of all But in these things they acknowledge the will of God and comfort themselves that God so willeth The will of God is their couch When a man gives himself up to one lust then one follows another but then a man hath to do as it were with a Lion who if any one lays hold on one paâ—â— of any thing he ever draweth it nearer So also if one yields himself up to one lust he also quickly yields to another and so the world gaineth him again tâ—â— he be wholly swallowed up therein But then at last the man truely neglecteth himself and expecteth the severe judgment of God CHAP. XIV WHen a man perceiveth that he is willing to abide in his present state and to be at rest and to subsist in it then the Spirit ceaseth and the man slips down out of the spirit into the flesh there the rule or government of the Spirit is hindred and the literal Kingdom is set up there then is no longer a spiritual Kingdom nor an increase nor proficiency but a going backwards and a leaping back again into the flesh and into the creature And then beginneth hatred and persecution towards the adverse part that they will not so much as receive them into their house that is they will by no means come near them for the sake of that And thus these must suffer by and from them for the sake of the Name of Christ even as also they suffer in their flesh for the sake of sin by the Law of sin For the flesh of these persons together with its lusts and affections are by the Law lifted up from the earth upon the cross and the lusts and appetites of Nature are cut off and rejected by their objects that they can no longer use them nor draw life from them The universal increated Salvation hath in it self no judgment concerning others
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
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
is it to be avoided because by the help of it occult defects are discovered and the Man confesseth them to the Lord with Contrition who also is able to purge him from them As long as a Man lives he is under the Law and when by his own Endeavours he is come so far that he cannot ascend higher yet he shall get higher and be advanced But it is necessary he should put forth his hand that another may closely take hold of him and lead him into the way which else he will not find that is he must give himself up to God so as that he suffers him only to operate he himself only sitting still and Submitting himself unto God Whatever then is performed that is no longer done by Man but God himself worketh above all actions of Man or his knowledge or Power God acts and Man suffers if this be done God by such sufferings and dyings leadeth and exerciseth the Man which are matters far surpassing his strength and knowledge even as before also the thing was utterly unknown to him nor was it possible for him to undertake such a thing or exercise himself in it And in this death it is that a Man is purged and all things are taken from him all Whatever were able to hinder in him the undertaking of the true essence Then is all propriety and Nature renounced for in God is no propriety but all things ought to be of a Divine Nature nor can any other Nature be brought into God In that death the Soul is lost and when ever this is done then a Man cometh to the true essential Life of God and there Christ revealeth himself most Evidently in Man and then there is no need to search many things concerning the Place wherein Christ is to be worshipped or any other such Particulars because all these will be very perspicuous or known to our eyes The Law is fulfiled by the new Man without all dispute or Imagination Jesus hath strength enough to be able to save and Purify a Man from sin but Christ doth also anoint the Man thus purified with his Holy Spirit CHAP. XII MOre does not belong to a Man then that by God's help he may abstain from sin and that he may have the Law for a School-master for to enter into Death Darkness the Pit and destruction and to be brought from hence again and to rise again into a new Life and a new Heaven and Light belongeth only to the Lord who himself worketh that in Man without all action of the man and that out of meer grace which a man at the time of his Resurrection when that New Day-break Shineth first upon him most clearly acknowledgeth For he acknowledgeth it was the alone Mercy of God which so exerciseth him and brought him back from Death to Life which Mercy he could not acknowledge when he was still under the Law for there his Propriety and his selfness was yet present but the Commiseration of the Lord was hitherto unknown to him because he had not as yet been thus exercised by God above all Operation and Power of his own that he might come to the Denial of himself but he stood as yet under the Law being touched by no Death when he thought that a reward ought to be Given him out of Desert but not out of Grace and then it was that he sought to Establish his own Righteousness but such a Righteousness was unknown to him which above and beyond all his own Operation and Power was setled only by Faith in Christ which Faith is acquired only in Death Darkness and Hell or the Grave A Man in whom the Law hath exercised all its Power and hath slain him remains not in Death but by the Resurrection of Christ is raised up again into a New Life but is not raised up again into the Old Life for when he should hang with Christ upon the Cross and beg to be Freed that he might return again into that Life he is not Heard but he must dye then not can he ever be thus made alive again but by the Resurrection of Christ riseth into a New Life Here the matter is so carried as if the Thief on the right Hand and the other on the Left and Christ also did Hang Naked on the Cross in one Man and as if he was reviled by both of them for faith the Evengelist Which very thing also did the Thieves who were crucified with Him reproach him withal The same is here also as if the Left hand Thief was not willing to Dye yet he must Dye but the Right-hand Thieâ— yielded himself up unto Death Also aâ— if the legs of the Thieves were broken but not of Christ and here it should be considered how Christ received the Thief on his Right-hand but the left which denoteth Nature also Perisht unwillingly and shall abide Eternally in Death also how the Right-hand Thief willingly gave up himself to Death and how he shall be Raised together with Christ unto Eternal Life Christ said upon his Cross to the Thief on his Right-hand To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise He did not say Thou art with me in Paradise for this could not be so long as he had not yet dyed but he said thus Thou shalt he with me in Paradise viz. When thou hast suffered Death for it is as equally Impossible that a Man who is not yet dead can be exalted in God as it is Impossible that a Hundred Pound Weight of Lead should Fly upwards unto the Sky The Thieves did not Nail themselves to the Cross but they were Nailed the Trees upon which the Thieves Hung were cut Trees and do signify the Old Man or Nature in us for we must dy in this cut Nature and afterwards be revived again in Christ All the promises of God do respect Christ but Christ denoteth all Christians of all whom there is one only Head which is Christ who is all in all CHAP. XIII GOd cometh and openeth to a Man the sence of Scripture as it were in one Moment like lightning which comes as it were in one moment and goes away again in another and then a Man acknowledgeth the sence of Scripture to be far otherwise then before when he had considered it in his own strength And thus God can effect more in one only Moment for the truer understanding of the sence of Scripture then all the Epistles which some can write to others When the Light cometh in process of time it becomes clearer and clearer and again also it is wont to return again yet more clear so that more is still discovered and Manifested to a man which before now lay hid from him If this first Claritude cometh into a man as if it were Angelical but then forward it rusheth in much clearer and so a Man gets from one degree of Angelical Claritude to another Higher degree of the same and then presently he ascendeth yet Higher until he arriveth at the
those who â—â—ve not a true light although they have 〈◊〉 understanding very Subtil as also â—â—ose who are tired out from Continuing 〈◊〉 the way of the true light And these â—â—en stand in a false liberty nor are wilâ—â—g to pay Tythes to the Lord but only â—â—e Thousand parts and yet make no â—â—l payment of either by Tythes is meant the outward Conversation in the same manner they lay down one load and are willing to take up another and yet carry neither But he that walketh the true Path doth not thus urge one thing that he may neglect another but be bringeth forth both into use and studieth how to render both to the Lord. But they who are described above are those false Men who admit of a false Liberty not can any one gain any Victory over them or resist them except he be one that is come to Regeneration for such have the true essence of the thing and in the true Light the errours of these Libertine are heheld and they seen wherein they err and how they go beyond alâ— due bounds nor do Rightly persevere Otherwise they are above every ones understanding and make nothing of thoâ—â— who would resist them because they havâ— a sort of Supernatural understandinâ— which they derived from that Clarituâ—â— which formerly had shined in them 〈◊〉 therefore that is still a Natural Man 〈◊〉 not reach nor understand them anâ— much less oppose himself against them yâ—â— though he be a Famous Learned Man But he that would reach them and oppose himself to them and get the Victory over them it behooveth him to be not an Animal Man but a Spiritual born of God of whom Paul saith The Spiritual Man judgeth all things c. else â—et him let all disputings alone unless he will be made a Laughing-stock Because â—hey are made yet more Angry and Provoked by his weak Argumentations We must know that Righteousness â—nd Unrighteousness are so alike one to â—he other as are two Hairs of the same Head but God can divide those Hairs â—nd expose their insides to be beheld of Men. The way of happiness and the â—ay of Unrighteousness are gone in by â—he same steps and the one leadeth to â—ighteousness but the other to Unrighâ—eousness We have a Similitude in a â—reat heap of Mony that makes up one â—ertain Sum. Now if an honest just man 〈◊〉 to count it and to give the total Sum â—â—though he may not rightly know some â—â—eces thereof yet if he counts them hoâ—â—estly and keeps back none of them for his own use but compleateth the full Sum God doth not therefore reprove him for his ingenious mind but he who takes any piece from them is a Thief and must expect the Judgment Now he is the man who takes some from them who would excuse his Carnality by the help of the Scriptures In every Illumination Revelation and understanding the essence only 〈◊〉 a thing is to be expected A man had need to have diligent care about all that he meets with lest he admit that which is a fault CHAP. XV. A Man must Endeavour to lead 〈◊〉 innocent and unblamable Life 〈◊〉 which if he shall arrive God wâ— call him into Judgment and will purgâ— his floor from Sin at the bottom thâ— budding forth of which did formerly 〈◊〉 much hurt to the works and thoughâ— of a man thorough the Law of sin 〈◊〉 the mind But when sin is perished 〈◊〉 Judgment and is Condemned and wholly cast out Then indeed the mind is no longer Subject unto the Law of sin but is free both from it and its slavery and is now become subject to the Law of God Concerning which Paul saith Rom. 8.2 The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus hath set me free from the Law of sin and of death To this belongeth also that saying in Rom. 7. A man therefore is no longer a Servant of sin in his mind but is set free from that Law of sin in his mind unto the Law of God although he still serveth in his members the Law of sin Sin is cast out of the house nor is it any more moved from the internal root but it comes extrinsecally into the house Wherefore it behoveth to place the Law of sin near to the gate that the man inwardly may have converse with God without impediment CHAP. XVI NO man ought to utter forth his words in vain All men cannot be called by the same terms but it must be governed according to the quality of every one To them who are rude as yet nothing of the more Sublime Mysteries may be talked of but they are first to be admonished to put off their thicker outside barks and if they accept that counsel they may be admitted to discourses of Higher matters and so by degrees may be yet farther proceeded with until no Root of sin any more appeareth But he who is not Faithful in lower matters the more Sublime may not be proposed to him or else the discourse would be holden to no purpose Now no wise man does prodigally throw away his rich Merchandise or his Mony He who has purchased his words at an easy Rate that is who hath by no experience apprehended the Truth in himself he easily bolteth them Forth which another can never do to whom what he saith cost him more dear upon which account it is that he utters them in such a manner as if they were cut out of his very Heart and this he does indeed when he certainly sees that they are not spoken in Vain nor does beat the Air for words are extorted from him with difficulty and pain also And this is the difference betwixt those who speak out of Illumination or Revelation and those who speak out of the Essence Substance or Truth of the Thing they speak with Joy and Delight but these with Grief and Sorrow They are defiled with Pride but these speak out of Humility to the Glory of God alone and the amendment of their Neighbour Great also is the difference betwixt those who have their knowledge and understanding only from Reading or Hearing and those to whom it is revealed whose understanding is endowed by Illumination Moreover there is another and great difference as is abovesaid betwixt those who have Revelation and internal Illumination and those who are come to the essence or Substance it self of the thing and do apprehend the Truth thereof for they have their knowledge acquired only by Illumination and therefore understand not what God the Truth and Essence is by it self untiâ— they arrive thereat themselves They know by Illumination that the thing is but not what the thing is until God by his grace leadeth them so far by and thorough Death CHAP. XVII IF any ones Heart is on the sudden pierced quite thorough that man indeed perceives nothing of the true order of Death but if first his Hands were cut off next his Arms and his Feet and then his Thighs and so
that which God puts forward And when a Man is so reduced into his nothingness then also must this nothingness be reduced into nothing nor ought a man even to arrogate that to himself for God by his judgment hath reduced him into Nothing The new man doth not profit or go forwards for it is God himself but a man profiteth or goeth forward in the new man who neither is deficient nor proficient in this a man profiteth or goeth forward and increaseth The fear and terrour of God is introduced into a man with great affliction CHAP. II. TO speak forth the hidden things of God is rather rashness then devotion for they are to be adored and we ought to tremble before them but not to babble them out Some indeed do freely meddle with them even by talking of them but he that is humble adoreth them with an humble voice For though one does understand some profound meaning yet it always reveals it self to be more profound The essence of a thing is too worthy to be expressed in words When I pray that the will of God may be done I am terrfied and I must add O Lord with thy grace I can desire no joy no comfort no nor heaven no more then doth that wall for I may not it is grace and mercy which I desire communion is a most terrible thing to the flesh because the flesh desires propriety and full possession to it self therefore is communion death unto it Faith is like unto a ship driven from the shore which hath neither rudder mast nor oares He that is without appropriation cannot be angry at whatsoever he is either to suffer or do for to be angry belongs perhaps to others rather then to him and therefore he is to decline it Nothing is to be done boastingly For to do or to omit any thing boastingly is a great evil Whatsoever claims pleasure that must dye if he who is well and at ease do then lose his time then is time made his proper own CHAP. III. TO abstain and repress ones self is no death in respect of my death because that is done out of purpose but this without and beyond all purposes yet not so as if the will of God were not pleasing to me God hath led me violently To be thus lead is the work of God nor is it done unless God wills In the agony of death many things are often done which are not done in the life's time In the agony of death is exercised a hard judgment and then is a man sometimes promoted therein to which he could never come before in all the time of his whole life First he must conflict with joy then with sorrow and lastly with death Whatsoever words are spoken without experience I have no esteem of them If I had known that this misery in which I now live was to come upon me I had perished but now that I am in it God holdeth me in it God holdeth me privately I knowing it not The Creature which is rightly used is made more noble and cometh to God thus every creature must return to its original that is to God and this is done by that man who abideth in a right way The true use of the creatures is performed with giving of thanks therefore except one rightly useth the creature he useth it to judgment Concupiscence is a thing so secretly hidden in Man that a Man knows not whither it be concupiscence or not till for its sake he be lead away captive By how much any one is nearer to God by so much the more pitiful is his internal condition To know God is a state the most subjected to affliction of all By how much any one is nearer to God by so much the higher is he in sufferings To know God is indeed a bitter state by reason of the departure of the creature which for his sake must be left By how much the greater affliction any one is exercised in so muc the greater grace he hath and is dearer unto God If any one could lay open my inside he would see there nothing but death I have no prop nor comfort nor rest neither in Heaven nor in Earth except the will of God in which I lye down God begins some new thing with me I never was at this rate in sufferings as I now am I have nothing but the will of God in which I acquiesce And though I am pressed with so hard afflictions yet am I far beneath the passion of Christ the son of God whose hard and vehement passion cannot be compared with by any other God upholdeth me above my own strength for it were impossible else for me to do or suffer that which I do We aim at great things but the cup we must first drink before those great things can come is a bitter cup. CHAP. IIII. IT is not of him that wills nor of him that runs but of God who sheweth mercy This a man must experience with Paul in the highest streight and temptation before these words can be spoken by him This is proposed to a man that that very thing which thou lovest thou must forsake What it is to be naked and forlorn no man knoweth but he who feels it and he who either was or is in such a state I fall down before God like a most miserable worm being unworthy to lift my eyes up unto him O the cup that is to be drunk O the draught that consumeth all things he will not put out the smoaking flax therefore it shall consume with fire Here I lie like a dumb thing or like to a post and I only suffer misery and affliction I lye under the will of God and corrupt If it be said This is not in vain for fruit will follow c. I leave that to God and only suffer his will In God there is no suffering if I could stand wholly in God there would be no need that I should suffer God keeps me in the snares of death and causeth me in time to go into the nothingness of my self Though one may get up many degrees yet we are always to descend descend descend until we come into dust and ashes That which before now we talked concerning this Nothingness it was with a certain kind of pleasure yet even all that must be subjected under its judgment We cannot arrive at this nothingness but by the exercise of God To be delighted with a righteous man or his writings words or works and to have a kindness and a good will for them it is the gift of God When any one is freed from the creatures that he can have an in difference for them without grief or joy whether it be loss or gain there is made a breaking thorough and it is a certain sort of a singular death that belongs to this case nor is it the work of man but of God Many suppose themselves to be that which temptation or trial discovers to them that
to his heart it is necessary that it should be expressed from out of the cross and from anguish If it springs from joy or from speculation it is vain and wanteth spirit or life Experience teacheth all things and that which is void of experience is in vain We pass thorough time into eternity and time is mutable so also is Man produced with mutability till he comes thither where there is no corruption nor mutation No man is to be rejected with how gross or how low a zeal his spirit boyleth with because they may be changed and therefore we are to be quiet with a man that standeth in his own zeal We are first in time before we come into eternity We first begin with low things and by degrees are we transferred unto higher till we come there where perfection is Paul saith Not as if I had apprehended c by how much the more sublime are the Saints by so much the more sublime is their desire by how much the higher is the perfection by so much the more sublime are the defects A man made conformable by letters rules ceremonies or as to outward appearance is like a body which hath indeed a nose a mouth c. but yet it wanteth life Every thing by its contrary is made of greater esteem accounted for holy and is not rightly known its contrary not being known then it is not so For if cold were not heat would not be cared for Heaven is more clearly understood by hell and the grace of God by his wrath or anger He that rightly knows the fall of Adam and understands his restauration cannot rejoyce because a man must perish for its sake and as to all these things he must be annihilated as to what he is made for Gladness is assigned over to posterity and to that fruit which shall grow out of corruption where a man becometh to be that which he attaineth to out of corruption And then he appeareth in the glory of God and acknowledges God from God and loves God from God and is sanctified and justified and â—enewed in God And he is made that â—y grace which God is by nature Before death all things were vain and â—nconstant and meer phansies but now â—re become essence or substance which â—bideth The truth is incorruptible the â—â—uth hath made all things free and hath â—nited a man to himself and all things â—re therefore done that we might get up hither All things are disposed to a cerâ—ain end Autumn Winter Snow c. â—or the fruits of Summer to this end and â—cope therefore are all things to be directed and for its sake are all things to be exercised and applied and not for its own sake The flower is the cause of the fruit and not of its self the flower perishes but the fruit remains whatsoever goeth before hath respect hitherto but â—abideth not but the fruit remaineth â—nd this is the truth in which a man is â—onfirmed and founded that he might be 〈◊〉 it eternally by a true union The small treatise of the Imitation of Christ is very useful to them that are labouring and striving for it giveth us the best instruction unto life and I am much delighted therewith but the German Divinity excelleth in which is the representation of God The book of the imitation is more profitable for the publick but the other small treatise of the German Divinity is for private use CHAP. VII BEcause God exerciseth his judgment so severely in his Children and yet his judgment is just it must be well considered what becometh us and that though we suffer in a wonderful manner yet is it done unto us with grace and mercy and that indeed the thousandth part of afflictions according to our sins is not inflicted upon us But God spareth us and unless it were so where should we abide Whence we ought not to be proud but fearful rather yea frighted and to hold our peace By how much the more a man recedeth from himself so much the nearer he approaches unto God and by so much the more heavily is he punished also in respect of nature which is therefore subjected unto death If a man should at first know this misery and calamity he would dye for very grief but now he cannot be sensible of it till he falls into it and then also doth God notwithstanding lead him thorough it He falls into the Gulph Scylla who indeavours to avoid the rock Charybdis For when a man desires to be freed from the legal accusation of his conscience he comes and is condemned into death so that endeavouring to avoid the difficulty on that part on the other he falls into it that is into a state where the natural man is condemned When the Law doth no longer accuse a man is condemned like a malefactor who is first accused and at length is punished then the accusation ceasing he suffers death by the means of which alone he is freed from the accusation of the Law He that trieth this shall find it no liar which hath promised to him no sweetness If it be said but yet it is well that the conscience â—s free though nature may suffer it is answered How good the state of thaâ— man is God knoweth the truth is iâ— is a miserable condition but it is accepted of God and he that is in it is made nearer to God But by how much the nearer he is to God by so much the heavier is his suffering as to Nature Here the restraining or bridling in of Nature sufficeth not we must go beyonâ— that viz. we must dye and we muâ—â— perish That a man can acknowledge his sinâ— is a great gift but then the affliction alsâ— is great He that acknowledgeth his sins God delivers him from them Thâ— vulgar acknowledgment of sins is not 〈◊〉 He that rightly acknowledgeth himseâ—â—â—o err desires to walk in a right way and to decline from that which is erroneous but he to whom the erroneous waâ— is not unpleasant he abideth in it aâ— defendeth it nor acknowledges that 〈◊〉 erred though with his mouth he mâ—â— profess otherwise In death that gloâ—â— is given to God which could not be doâ—â— in life for in life a man retains tâ—â— glory to himself but in death he laâ— down the glory Nature hath a way so proper to it self that it will acknowledge or accept no sort of death till it be willing or nilling cast thereinto and then the will reason memory and understanding of a man are so bound and tied down that the man thinks that he alone is smitten and that no man suffers but himself and from thence forward he can neither take joy in any thing nor can he draw comfort from the evils of other men And that usual saying that common mischiefs do bring comfort with them yet is not true in him He that is yielded up to the will of God is without choice yea his very words which inferr election do terrifiy him
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
When a man stands between Conscience and Flesh and when conscience ceaseth then the flesh urgeth him and to him it is said Amend thy life or thou must dye but when one stands between life and conscience and transgresseth as to his life presently it is said to him from God Thou must die CHAP. XIV THe Will of God is the death of the Flesh Faith when it is upon trial God then proving it it experienceth the greatest misery There are many waies of coming unto regeneration but the end of all is one and the same yet one ascendeth in some much higher then another doth as when any one cometh into the Sun-shine he hath the Sun yet is one nearer to the Sun than another This is my counsel that a time be set to attain unto God The inward mind is free but the outward humanity without grace is exercised under a severe judgment I have no prop under me whether I respect God or the creatures or heaven or the Earth and I have nothing but that I can lay my self down in the Divine Will being wholly set down under God The Kingdom of Heaven is present but I cannot enjoy it the Sun indeed hath shined but now the falling thereof is come and it shineth no longer I lie down in darkness and in the shaddow of Death nor is there any comfort left to me but in the will of God for I will nothing but only what he willeth Into which state if any one really cometh he is of all men the most miserable I say this that I may express that misery in which I lie To understand these things is pleasant but really to feel them most bitter When the Spirit suffers the flesh ought to suffer with it But when the flesh suffers there is no need for the Spirit to suffer It is never better with me then when I give up my self into death The flesh suffereth its own judgment when the Spirit is in peace but when the Spirit suffers the flesh must suffer also The poor animals must dye for my sake though against my will But because I also give my self up to death I do not refuse the death also of the animals he that giveth not himself up into death cannot take his food with thanksgiving He that is to exercise modesty he ought to be exercised by various afflictions oâ—herwise he will wander if he shall use it without the experience of the cross If I should stand betwixt two things nor knew which of the two I am to do I would weigh them and would take that which is contrary to my flesh When I do so it is well with me and I call God to witness saying Thou knowest O Lord what I have done But when I do otherwise viz. that which is grateful unto Nature it is always ill with me and I cannot call God to witness Conscience indeed is free but I dare not alleadge that for it is of grace The suffering is hard when no hope is left in the future for the natural man for though the day-break is come yet there is no redemption nor comfort but a man must wait without hope and be quiet in death And though all the joy comfort and refreshment of the whole world were present yet he is bound as it were with cords and can tast of none of them And therefore he never desires that time may run out that a day a week a month a year may come for whatever cometh to pass in them is to him as it were a non-entity because he can rest no where nor use any thing for his delight for he is made bare or naked of all and is put upon the crost Hence is it that both things present and to come are indifferent to him when even then he shall be the same as he is now But those to whom the body of sin is not yet crucified they are touched with the desire of time For they are free and can take up such things as they meet with But this state cannot last long for judgment will come then whatever shall be with him for the furture he cannot take it up and that which is contrary to him he cannot reject for he is impotent whilst he hangeth on the cross nor can he execute his own will CHAP. XV. ALl things are or consist in order order must be kept If one is willing to knit together superiour things that he may loosen inferior things he would break order and wander in errour of which we must beware The Lord saith He that breaks the lest Commandment and shall so teach c. We must seek a free condion in God in which one is free from himself for to be free from ones self is a liberty which is to be attributed to God The grossest and the lowest things are images of things superiour which is to be understood as well of things spiritual as things corporeal for we ascend from the one into the other and from the inferiour to the superiour even as pleasures and the abuse of good things and the building on the sands are images When things are most gross and low then are they the image of things superiour and that which is visible denoteth that that is invisible The Spirit also hath its flesh in which it dwells Also mysteries have their external Histories They who urge mysteries so as to exclude historys disturb order and do err Although Christ the blessed fulfils all things in spirit in his elect which he performed coporally in the days of his flesh yet were they also corporally done in him therefore the historical sense must remain but also it behooveth a man to experience in his own self the mystery likewise The Lord saith Love your Enemies The cross passion adversity Death c. are our enemies which we are to love and embrace The natural man is surrounded with death and which way soever he turns himself he hath a sword presented to his sight just as when one turns on this and on that side should look about him and still some body runs before his face so also is judgment always meeting with the natural man ready to snatch away his life which way soever he turns himself At last he yields up himself when he can no more make his escape But the spirit is in life when the body or nature hangs stretched out upon the Cross Zeal in kindled with divine pleasure is a great pleasure but the Cross and violent plagues follow after it Myrrh was the last gift For it is written They offered Gold Franckincense and Myrrh When I hear the Scripture I am frighted for it denoteth the natural death Nature will have an appropriation therefore communion is a death to it at which it is affrighted CHAP. XVI TO desist from propriety and to help another at our own loss is a thing truly pleasant To find gain in loss and to abstain from that which is best in our esteem and to prefer
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
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
that being corroborated with the sweetest promises it should of beten renewed because it proceedeth not from God but from man whom it concerneth to use an external comfort because he is destitute of all internal comfort For the dwelling of God is not but in the most inward recesses of our Soul and we then at last acknowledge and own his voice when we are wholly freed from nature else we remain always seprarated from him by and thorough that Enmity which is put betwixt God and out nature As much therefore as we still persist in our own nature so much are we still separated from God and do understand his whole Essence government means directions gifts and discipline in a sence depraved and parverted by nature for it holdeth us so captive that as often as God sends us certain means and helps for our spiritual death presently this very nature by her counsel turns us off from them to others that at last this chastning rod becomes frustrate and fruitless and these gifts of God are accounted for plagues afflictions and heavy burthens and are received with murmuring and indignation Most high God! how evil is our eye may the Lord gratiously please to open our eyes in his own time that at length we may be able to see EPIST. XI An admonition how Youth may be put off from the world and how it ought to seek the Lord with all modesty To J. M. DEarest J. That which I peculiarly desire is that which also I trust the Lord will effect to direct thy ways to the chiefest scope whereby thou mayest now in this lifes-time modestly compose thy senses to the studyes of the paths of God and to the dayly and nightly endeavours after virtue Thou hast now seen the world and hast experiencedt hat there is nought to be found therein in which can be any quiet of Soul inasmuch as she is much rather lead in this world into disquiets and troubles Because therefore the Lord by his long-suffering hath born with thee and hath deigned most indulgently to wink at thy youth it now altogether would become thee to be more diligently set upon thy watch by better using thy time then as yet hath been done whilst thou art still tossed up down by the waves of this world The Lord will I hope more and more draw thy heart with fervour to himself that thou mayest seek him more seriously even as formerly thy mind was wont to be stirred up by the novelties of the world and which yet have in time vanished or will yet vanish seeing none of all things temporal could ever persist as we dayly observe with our eyes that all are subject to change If therefore any one shall indulge his inclination in time it is needful that he be together with time afflicted with sorrow so that nothing is more safe then to withdraw himself from time even with the loss of all and to turn himself to eternity which is capable of no mutation and in which nothing dwells in our hearts but a pious and constant tranquillity That we may come thither we must endeavour with all our might to learn to blunt the Edge of all our pleasures and to abdicate our own will and appetite so that all things may be cut off and supplanted in which our flesh would live and play the wanton Then shalt thou truly please the Lord who also will strenuously help thee to rout the enemies of thy Soul that thou shalt be carried from one righteousness to another together with all proficiency and increase in divine knowledge and Love Herewith I commend thee to the Lord. EPIST. XII How all things are to be accepted from the hand of the Lord with true Submission To a certain betroathed Gentleman DEarest N. The Lord will in due time turn thy grief of mind to be for the better for as in all so likewise in this are we to be given up to the divine will only When the time shall come which he hath proposed to himself no man shall or can prevent the matter but if the time be not come we indeed may desire it in our own wishes but the thing shall want its success Not that I strive as it were to resist thy desire but that the alone providence of the Lord is to be accepted so that there be no difference of choice in us whether we are to wait or whether to go forwards and on the contrary For this is to wait expecting on the hand of God to stand submitted to God and not to live to ones self or to follow ones self or to desire If we find any difference in our selves so as that we desire rather this then that then the whole thing is from our selves and not from the Lord for that which is from the Lord is free and wholly commended to God without any desire of this or that thing so that the divine will be done which also is done if we find our selves uncloathed of all desire how advantagious soever the business may seem in our eyes Yet by all this I shall not intangle thee for I know that thy mind earnestly affecteth a freedom from all appetite of fulfiiling desires The Lord who is a true helper in all needs will be mindful of thee and of all of us and will comfort thee with his wonderful operations and will lead the from the Love of the Creatures to the Creator of all whence all have their Original and emanation and to whom as unto their end all things do return in their own time so that we also even all of us must appear in him by our departure and death in which notwithstanding his eternal subsistence is manifested as being that which is to be glorified in all those who by the benefit of his death and of the death of all those which are found created in them do arrive at that eternal communion which by the most powerful hand of God quickeneth and raiseth up the dead but not the living If therefore we would enjoy the same resurrection with Christ we are also to be transplanted into the same death being yielded up to God with all our might and becoming obedient even to death May the Lord instruct thee with a true understanding that thou mayest meditate on his will with a piercing and continued consideration and may that be a help to thee in thy sufferings according to his mercy and may it direct all things for thy benefit as they are decreed in him from eternity Which is what I confidently believe he is about to do and to bring all to the desired end by his eternal grace EPIST. XIII An Exhortation raised from that consideration that whatever is without God tendeth to eternal death and destruction and how we ought always to set the divine judgment before our eyes To the same person MOst beloved N. That it is so long since I wrote to thee this is the cause that I wanted an opportunity according to my
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
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
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