perish eternally for want of Seriousness and that Isaiah herein was a great President for our Imitation And in company of some Friends he spake to this purpose We even very we must appear before the Judge of Heaven and Earth that judgeth the Quick and the Dead and the Enquiry will not be then How rich or how poor we have been But how did we thrive in the ways of Holiness What Work of Faith Labour of Love Patience of Hope What Exercise of Grace What Zeal for God How did we make the Glory of God shine forth in our Lives Therefore let our main Care be that we do not miss of Heaven at last for 't is possible after a glorious Profession the Soul may miscarry for all that And I do not speak this to put a damp upon you but to quicken and caution you His Zeal against all Sin was apparent His Zeal against Sin in his general Course He shunned all Appearances of Evil hating even the Garment spotted by the Flesh Whence he gave this Counsel Go not within the Clutches of a Temptation to see what it is before you resist 't is easier to pass by a Temptation than to come out of it When the Knot is knit and the Door barred 't is harder to get Freedom than before And also he was observed to say That the least Evil admitted hath a Tendency in it toward the utmost Link of Distance from God and the least Sin indulged is like unto a Cockatrice indulged which turns into a Fiery Flying Serpent Isa 14. 29. His Zeal and Activity for God His Zeal and Activity for God throughout his Christian Race did eminently shew it self by improving all opportunities to advance his Glory in doing good to Souls especially amongst his Relations and intimate Acquaintance where the Lord was pleased greatly to succeed his faithful and sincere Endeavours and the more in that there was such a Grateful Majesty in his Carriage and in those pathetical Expressions uttered by him That it may be truly said of him in his private Capacity That his Lips fed many and his Mouth was a Well of Life And he used to pray for his Relations in such words as these That the Lord would deal with Relations in a way of saving powerful Conviction and spiritual Operation And that such in whom is the Seed of God sown might grow up to be Plants of Righteousness in whom he might be glorified and have the Seal of his Grace and Favour put upon them and be numbred amongst those that are cared for by the Lord and housed in him And for such Relations as were at a distance from him he also frequently visited with Letters and would be sometimes sending them Books using variety of Means for their spiritual Welfare Likewise he would be writing them in Verse and instead of many Instances it may not be improper to insert these two of plain Verse which accompanied two Bibles he transmitted viz. To Jane Daunsy Jun. Sept. 1671. If Life Eternal doth surpass A Span of Time compar'd to Grass Neglect no time until aright Enform'd you are by Scripture-Light Deceipts of Sin how to eschew And then of Christ to take a view Vntil your heart be drawn to come Near unto him as to your Home So shall your tender Years be blest Your Soul obtain Eternal Rest And for this end this Book I send Accept the same and Lines above Coming from your Kinsman's Love Jane Daunsy Anagram AND IS VAIN The Scripture is the Rule of Truth The chiefest Guide for Age and Youth It truly shews the way to Bliss Even how Souls may be born again Then let Jane Daunsy study this AND say All other Skill IS VAIN To my honoured Unkle and Aunt Trevis Sept. 22. 1672. What Study can adorn gray Hairs More than true Wisdom Studies which Best Crown Old Age when Earths Affairs Shall cease and die must Poor and Rich. A Draught of that true Wisdom lies Within this Book which I present Oh let your Hearts and aged Eyes Therein be earnestly intent That while you do sill up your days A Heavenly Mind Earths Thoughts may quell And that on Earth you may always Spring to Eternal Life Farewel In all his Actions it did appear His eying the Glory of God that his Aim was to do the Will of his Father which is in Heaven and would oft say Whatever we do we should go up and down doing God's Work not our own and that would be a means to keep our Spirits even and the heart tender and calm His constant Converse holy His constant Converse with God Familiarity and nearness to God signally shewed it self in his Looks Speech and Behaviour As Moses when he had been with God in the Mount his Face shone And Peter and John's Courage before the Rulers and Elders of the Jews did evidence that they had been with Jesus And as hath been already suggested he had such a holy Intimacy with God that he would speak to him in Prayer as if one Friend were speaking to another yet with great Reverence Humility and Self-abasement And he would be frequently urging it upon his Friends that they should not rest till they had attained a more inward Acquaintance with God And that we should labour after a greater Intimacy with God than with any Person in the World and when we are alone we should have still retired Communion with God And that we get nothing by a cold Acquaintance but all things by a warm Acquaintance with him And speaking of his own experience said he It is my great disquiet that Christ hath so little of my company though I may not say I have not his And this was likewise manifest in those words he used in Prayer to this effect That the Lord would cause us to ripen into a greater Knowledge of him and into a greater Intimacy with him And that we may have more warm Communion with his Spirit in Faith and Love which is in Christ Jesus And that he would act towards us according to that Vndertaking of his with the Father on our behalf before we had a Being And that our hearts be actually springing towards him and be acquainted with the Mystery of God in Christ and be brought into the nearest Intimacy and Fellowship with himself attainable in this Life That it might be an Earnest and Pledge of our everlasting Fruition and Enjoyment of him in the other World His living in dependence on His living in dependence on God God was his constant Trade which also the following Expressions do evidence The Lord make us sensible of our weakness and inability to help our selves That he would preserve the Soul in a holy Fear in its ordinary Walk lest it grieve that Spirit by whose power alone it acts and cause the Soul to step forth into the Life of Believing prostrating it self at the foot of God and to say Lord I can have no Relief but from thee and
lower Ebbings and Flowings The Lord be with you c. 1659. To B. D. N o 37. IT were a miserable thing for a gracious heart to suffer Crosses if the Curse were in them but seeing their Nature is changed our misery doth not lie in such Dispensations but our Instructions are therein though it is hard to say and believe it and when the Clouds seem to gather thick over ones head then to claim sheltering teaching and purging Power under the Wings of God and to sing as Luther was wont Psal 46. God is a Refuge for us Selah that is a posture some way becoming an Heir of Life and Glory whose Estate is truly secured beyond Thief or Moth. I am sometimes even amazed to think how short I come of what I seem to be and of real acknowledging that God and living in that absolute blessed Covenant which I profess my self a sharer in And doth not these things require rough Dispensations inward or outward to awaken and send a poor Sinner home to that Advocate who is King Prophet and Priest to help But alas dry words my leanness my leanness yet strong is he who hath in some part already and will yet further one day totally remove all things that offend Let us bless him love him and honour all his ways The Lord help you and I to live above the Changes of this lower World There is a Magnanimity in Faith which overcometh the World if we could but attain that pitch The Lord establish our hearts and hopes upon himself he changes not and blessed be his Name I leave you with him and rest c. 1659. To D. D. N o 38. I Know no Refuge but in God and blessed be his Name his Name is a strong Tower this World is but a withering Portion a bad Prop to lean upon the Covenant of Grace will make amends for all I may not complain unless it be against my Unbelief God must have the Glory of all his works and therefore blessed again and again be his Name he hath not left his people whatever the World expect or think and therefore let us charge our hearts to resist sinful Melancholy his ways are still Mercy and Truth and the Children of Zion must shall and will rejoyce in their King a mighty King their and our Saviour The Lord is the Pilot of his Church and People the Vessel may be tost but cannot miscarry such honour and privilege have all believing Penitents The Clouds are thick below but the Lord rules above and hath said It shall be well with the Righteous And though I am unrighteous yet he who I desire to make the Object of my Faith is perfect and in his Righteousness I trust mine there I would cling and rejoyce in the hope of the Glory of God yet to be revealed c. 1659. To D. H. N o 39. SEeing our time here is a Warfare 't is a comfort to perceive the Lord's presence with any poor Soul so as to make it stand out in hope and prayer while Temptations and Corruptions like fiery Darts are flying thick on every side It never goes desperately ill with those that travel towards Zion and are acquainted with Assaults from Satan and hearttreachery from themselves till they begin secretly to whisper Rebellion against the Covenant and Law of God's Grace and say There is no help for me in God David's Excellency lay not so much that he was freer from Sin and sinful Miscarriages than others but in this that he could not endure to say or hear others say of him There is no help for him in God Psal 71. 11. c. 3. 2. and c. 42. 10. That was the Anchor that made him ride out Storms and the Rope that drew him up out of many a deep Pit Let us use the same means with reverence and yet with freedom God is a jealous God and cannot endure to be accounted changeable Jer. 33. 24 25. he keeps both ends of the Covenant and will not give the Glory of any part of that Trust out of his own hands Every Desire every Thirst and Exercise of Resolution or Hope heavenwards and every Soul and Body-deliverance to such ariseth from this viz. that God is faithful 2 Thes 3. 3. though our Labour and Prayer ought therein also to be employed viz. as the means which God has commanded on our part for a Closing with the efficatious vertue of his Spirit by believing whereby the force of Christ's Death and Resurrection becomes singly applicable to remove Guilt and confer a gracious Conformity to his Nature and the Law of Righteousness in the Soul I see you level at the right Mark and own your Relief from the right place and why may I not say You shall yet see greater things than these c. 1659. To D. H. N o 40. THe Lord be praised that you are within such a Covenant that nothing can befall us for evil while our eye is truly rolling heaven-ward yea within such a Covenant as is confirmed in the Blood of him who is able to turn the heart and eye heaven-ward That God hath dealt so favourably with your heart as to tie it to a hungry pursuit after him is much comfort to my Soul and matter of praise to his Name And I account it no small Mercy that my Child is under your care and both of you under God's gracious Wing When we acquaint one another that every day we live is a day of Battel and that the Enemy within us doth rage this is no reason of discouragement because the Battel is the Lords I am put every day to fly to the City of Refuge and I bless the Lord I never found the Gate quite shut against me yet I am forced sometimes methinks to squeeze in Which difficulty ariseth from my Unbelief and want of retaining a frame of tender Resignation not from any straitening in his Bowels but in my own but these days of distance are hastening away I perceive your eye grows dim the Lord bless the Means for Recovery however be not dismayed you shall want never an eye when your Body shall be raised incorruptibly 't is not long thither the Redeemer will be seen eye to eye and then farewel all Imperfections c. 1659. To D. H. N o 41. I Perceieve B. Cr. hath much trouble through Indisposition of Body and it is good it should be so though disquieting to the Flesh and you have a gracious share I perceive also In such Cases it will be some help to turn our thoughts from poring upon the Affliction it self and endeavour by all means to find out the Lesson which God is teaching thereby for that is properly and truly our work in that Christ hath born the Curse for us he hath taken away the wrathful Penalty and left only an awakening and instructory Nature in all the Afflictions that his People meet with Isa 27. 7 8 9. and 63. 9. Psal 89. 30 31 32 c. Oh that
last and perfect Fulness Col. 2. 19. Ephes 1. 23. And that Jesus Christ may make this express Word of his effectual to accomplish the design of his love to the Souls of his Redeemed he guides them by his Spirit to the most advantagious improvement thereof that not one Jot of his Word may be lost The whole Scriptures are the Inspiration of the Spirit of God the Father and the Son Jesus Christ Heb. 1. 1. Col. 3. 16. 2 Tim. 3. 16. given to reveal the way of Salvation which is carried on by a way of History and Doctrine in both which the State of Mankind is discovered in reference to its Innocency Fall and Recovery The State of Innocency and the Fall comprehended all Mankind in the Persons of Adam and Eve the State of Recovery respects only a part of Mankind saved out of that universal Loss by Christ according to the Election of Grace and therefore he is called the second Adam Rom. 5. 14. 1 Cor. 15. 45. who infuseth the Gift and Operation of Righteousness to his Seed as the first Adam had infused the Guilt and enthralling corrupting Power of Sin into his Seed As the Fall was a perfect Fall so the Recovery to the Remnant recovered is a perfect Recovery compleated fully in God's Decree before the World was Ephes 1. 4. and actually solemnized at Christ's Suffering Col. 2. 15. which becomes applicable to every individual person of that number by the Spirit of Faith and Holiness and whereby they are fully and really freed from the matter of Guilt through Union with Christ albeit the afflicting sense and fear of Guilt appears many times through the weakness of Faith in that Union and through the incumbring defilement of Sin in them who are redeemed holds on a Conflict in the Flesh till the last Enemy viz. Death be destroyed and so Mankind stands divided the Persons of them who only bear the Image of the first Adam corrupted by the Serpent's Poyson and they who bear the Image of the second Adam and in the latter every redeemed person carries also a Sub-Division in his own heart for a time viz. the grand Principle of his renewed State and the afflicting Stain and Enmity of the first Adam's Nature remaining in the Flesh And in reference to these two Contraries viz. the Good and Bad Persons of Mankind and the different Principles of Good and Evil the Scripture doth display all the Threatnings and Comforts Reproofs and Encouragements Judgments and Promises Instructions and Rebukes that are found in that blessed Volume with manifestations of God's power and goodness to the one and his power and wrath against the other So that whatsoever is spoken of any one person is spoken of all persons in the same State and whatsoever is spoken of any Action or Qualification in any person is spoken of alike Actions and Qualifications in every person who is in the same state to the end of the World even as long as Mankind remains and as far as the Line of each State whether it be good or bad reacheth so far doth every person continuing in that State bear his proportionable share through the Grave to Eternity When the Spirit of God speaketh any thing in the Word it first looks through the State in which any person is and so deals with that particular person according to the state in which he is whether it be a state of Sin or Grace and so acts towards him according to the rules and method of such a state Hence 't is that comforts or afflictions or teachings that are one and the same in their own nature are exceeding different in the end and use which the Spirit makes of them through the different state of Light or Darkness Life or Death in which all men lie So that by this means the same Word is a savour of Life to one which is a savour of Death to another The general threatnings against Ungodliness concerns every particular ungodly Man The particular punishment inflicted upon any one ungodly Man shews what is equally due to the rest of ungodly Men. And although one evil Man may not commit the same wicked Action as another doth yet he has the Nature and the same evil State which is the Root of that Action and as it brings forth Actions equivolently evil it is by the Spirit of God equally sentenced to Punishment And as in all visible Actions the state of the person in the Scriptures is first considered so in all Actions the nature and spirit of that Action as it holds relation to the state of the person acting is regarded by the Spirit of God in the Word before the Action it self and involves every one within the Guilt of that Action if it be wicked or within the Blessing of that Action if it be good in whom the nature and spirit of such an Action worketh From this ground Christ calls wicked Anger Murther and unchast Lustings Adultery Matth. 5. 21 28. And from this ground a gracious desire and intention has the blessing of a gracious Action 2 Cor. 8. 12. And when the Action is one and the same and yet the Spirit and inward Mind of them who execute that Action different the Action is not accounted the same but different as in the case of Cain's killing Abel and Phineas's killing Zimri it was Murther in the one and Righteousness in the other So that Actions may agree and yet the spirit of that Action in the Actors not agree and the spirit of one Action may agree with the spirit of another Action or the spirit of one that acts may agree in some particular Action with the spirit of another who acts the same thing and yet the difference of their grand state disagree as appears in the case of David's Uncleanness through Lust and the Sin of his Son Ammon for the Repentance of the one is recorded but not of the other So that in the use of the Scriptures we are to consider how far Actions agree and how far the spirit or immediate inward working which produceth Actions agrees and how the grand state of persons do agree that we may know how to make use of the Reproofs and Punishments Promises and Rewards that we find given to others in Scripture As concerning the state of Godliness there is no Godly Man has any peculiar privilege which is not common to all who are in the same state because the Covenant is made to them all alike in Jesus Christ in whom God is become their God upon the equal terms of Free Grace and Christ is as well the Head of one Member as of another and all the privileges which can flow from such a common relation run down rightfully to every person within that relation viz. Justification Adoption Reconciliation Sanctification Preservation Instruction and such like Operations of the Spirit that issue from that relation and which tend to a living enjoyment thereof and the advancing of that state to perfection