a curious Key to the Wards of a Lock and intermits not the least moment from suitable and needful help Isa 27. 3. only he manageth it in his own method which a resigned Soul owns he is satisfied and delighted in Hence comes Peace when the Soul Peace of a Believer by Resignment having viewed the Compass of plentiful Redemption the strength of the Rock that is under him and the Helmet of Salvation that is over him saith Return O my soul to thy rest for God hath dealt bountifully with thee God hath delivered my life from going down to the pit and my eyes from tears and my feet from falling Psal 116. 7 8. I will now lay me down and sleep for no less than God himself makes me to dwell in safety Psal 4. 8. The Peace of Resignation is Christ's Peace which none can divide from a Believer it is his Garison and fortified Security Col. 3. 15. Joh. 14. 27. And from hence flows Love to God the Father Son and Spirit The Love Love of the Father in the Son and by the Spirit in all the unspeakable discoveries of it warms the heart into this Resignation unto him 1 Joh. 4. 19. Christ appearing so amply furnished to conciliate Love and presenting the Bracelets of his kindness and declaring his Wealth Power and Glory of his Kingdom Psal 145. 11. as once Abraham's Servant did to Rebeccah in behalf of Isaac he gains the heart of a Believer to forsake former Contents and resign up the utmost Affections to him The more the Soul resigns the more doth it love and the more it loves the more it doth resign to him The Love of God shed abroad into the heart by the Spirit from the heart of Christ breeds Resignation and that Resignation still feeds Love each moving other with a perpetual motion and so from an endless Principle of Union with Christ runs forth to all Eternity From whence ariseth also a sense Freedom of perfect Freedom the Pales of distance are broken down free Access to God in Christ is gained Mis-apprehensions removed and Open-heartedness interweaves betwixt Christ and the Soul The Heir is no longer Servant but a Son Esther is brought from the Custody of Hegai to the King's Palace The boundless Deity in all its Purity Power and Protection is the Range of a resigning Believer The Law is removed the Prince of this World is judged and cast out the former state of Enmity and Bondage is over and gone and now the Soul dilates it self with full spread into that Freedom wherewith Christ hath made it free Joh. 8. 36. Gal. 5. 1. Which Freedom brings in Boldness along with it the Soul being Boldness once resigned up to Christ is no longer a Stranger but of his Houshold yea betrothed to his Person in Righteousness and Tender Mercy and is always in his eye Resignation betwixt Christ and the Soul being mutually past Darkness is swallowed up of Light there is no shelter for the Beasts of Prey no Weapon that is formed against a Believer can prosper who has resigned himself to the Former of all things he may now dwell safely in the Wilderness and sleep in the Woods a Lyon-like Courage grows in the Soul from the Lyon of the Tribe of Judah to whom by Resignation it is united What now may hinder Satisfaction Why may not the Soul say I Satisfaction have enough my Inheritance is lawfully gotten neither have I got it with my Sword and Bow as Jacob got a Portion from the hand of the Amorite but I have given my self for it I have resigned my whole self to Christ and he has resigned his whole self to me I own and accept his Resignation and he accepts mine What further remains than that I bid farewel to mine own Poverty and Wretchedness and put on Change of Raiment Why may not I dwell amidst the Flagons Cant. 2. 5. of his satisfying Presence I am filled and my Cup runs over And now also who may hinder a satisfied Soul from Joy Will not Joy all the Foundation-work and Walls of this Building bear a Superstructure of Joy in the Holy Spirit Is not the upshot of this Resignation betwixt Christ and a Believer mutual Joy He joys over his beloved with singing Zeph. 3. 17. and her soul rejoyceth in God her Saviour Luk. 1. 47. As far as any degrees of this Resignation tastes these high Privileges so doth a relish of Joy grow in the Soul Resignation brings the Soul into the heart of Christ who hath triumphed gloriously in rescuing his Spouse and now rejoyceth over her as a Bridegroom rejoyceth over the Bride Isa 62. 4. and in the day of the gladness of his heart calls her Hephzibah My delight is in her Which Joy begets an Eccho of its own likeness from her again My delight is in him And thus the Crown of Joy is placed on the Head of Spiritual Resignment The Soul cannot resign to God without Joy in him nor rejoyce in him without Resignment They live in one another because the Seed and Nature of all spiritual Privileges lies in every Privilege and the Nature of this Privilege being endless because God is everlasting the Crown of Joy can therefore never wither And the more this Resignation to God in Christ gets Ground in An Entrance to the purchased Possession the Soul the more is an Entrance made into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ not as it is a Work done by us but wrought in us in which the heart is made to give way and is made voluntary therein by the Spirit of Grace Which Work is here carried on through much Contradiction in the Flesh which strives against it while the Inward Man in every Believer pants after it and finds no Rest but as the Power of this holy Resignation to God in all things prevails till at last it steps over Mortality and leaves every Obstruction behind perfectly and for ever and then God is all in all Christ enjoying his Spouse without any Reluctancy or Unsuitableness in her and she enjoying her Husband without any Vail upon his Face she hears his pure Language and returns pure Language again Love has its full vent on both sides the mutual Yerning of Bowels will then be satisfied the Voice of COME which sounds from Christ above and the Believer below will period it self in one eternal unseparable Meeting Resignation will then enjoy an uninterrupted Delight How astonishing is the thought of this When the thought of it is strained through the weakness of my Faith conflicting with so much Darkness and present Treachery of heart and Self-unworthiness the Glympses thereof makes me both fear and rejoyce at once and yet am not able to rejoyce perfectly for fear nor fear perfectly for hope O infinite Redeemer be over and above all my fear and faintness act like thy self almightily and freely that my heart may shout for Joy in the hope of the
as if he had forgotten were far off did not hear were reserved exceeding ready to take exceptions and such like whereas we may go to a poor lump of Clay where a spark of his Nature dwells and have sometimes a taste of that Affection that is scarce capable of reflecting back any such prejudices or the least shadow of them And the reason is because there is a rooted persuasion of some predominant Principle of Christian spiritual and reciprocal Love O then how seriously should we pray that our hearts might be directed into the Love of Christ and that it may be shed abroad in our hearts A Christ who loves once ever always and to the full he loveth he loved and came he loved and died he loved and proclaimed the everlasting Gospel he loves and pardons he loves and teaches he loves and reproves he loves and holds fast for ever he loves and saves When a Soul is sunk as deep as Hell in sin and filth in love he redeems that Soul as out of a Jaques and is not ashamed nor thinks it much to cleanse it again because Love constrains him All his ways not one excepted are Mercy and Truth to them that fear him He has a noble and surmounting Love not capable of Melancholy Misprision or Mistake He knew all the defects of his Spouse before he betrothed himself to her in loving Kindness and tender Mercies And he so far abhors the declining of his Love that the very beholding of any defect there inflames his heart to remove it that he may present her to himself without spot When we have any Agony against our sins doth this come from the Flesh Is it not purely the Lord's Arm What shall I say The Lord reveal himself that we may purely rejoyce in God our Maker and cling upon him in the vertue and power of his own unsearchable and endless Grace and Love I long for other Society than I can have here few Friends here and little help especially as to that Interest in which you and I are most concerned but there is a River that never dries up and a Counsellor that never fails I am yet in health and as to outward freedom as it was when I came hither first but not without some daily Exercises but my chief Adversary lurks within which God will one day destroy and all Warfare will be over Let us pray to him for each other for it is not in vain 1662. To B. D. N o 64. AS for all things that relate to this and the next Life the Lord help you and I and all his People fully to commit our selves into the hands of GOd in the name and interest of Christ who is Lord of Quick and Dead He who hath said In nothing be careful Cast your burthen on the Lord and that All things shall turn for good to them that love him and he that hath said I will never leave you nor forsake you certainly he cannot forget his own Word Oh that we had Faith to believe it Let the great business of Faith be our work every day and night I leave you to him who is able to teach help and save c. 1662. To T. N. N o 65. DEar Sir However it goes with you I trust you have no reason to count your self alone whilst so good a Friend hath said I will be with you in the fire and water When we are at any plunge then is a time to act Scripture-Reason and not worldly Reason and draw such Conclusions in reference to Soul and Body as the Wisdom and Truth of God doth teach The Lord make his Furnace to be purifying at this day Some in one kind some in another have their various Trials but the Father of Mercies doth govern the matter so that at the Close it shall be well with the Righteous Let us labour with might and main to keep up good thoughts of God and the glory of our Interest in him Though the Heaven and Earth do shake the sense of his Covenant cannot change his Son cannot be dethroned nor the Promises of his Grace and Presence turn into the Blood of a dead Man Clouds may darken the Sun as to us but they can never diminish the natural light of the Sun nor stop its Course The Sun is as nigh the Earth when Clouds do interpose as it was before and our dear Lord is now as near his afflicted ones as when the Branch of earthly things was never so green in their hands Faith Repentance Love to the Lord Jesus are glorious Ornaments for a Pilgrim travelling towards that City that hath Foundations Sir I know not how it fares with you but I doubt not but it goes well For can any dealings of an infinite wise God a faithful and gracious Father be amiss seeing he has promised and will not fail to give Grace and Glory and will with-hold no good thing from them that fear him Let us not deny his Truth by Unbelief nor his Love by a lowring Dispondency of heart however the Waves rise and swell he is above them and the great Redemption is near 1662. To B. D. N o 66. YOur welfare is amongst the chiefest of my desires in this World and if the Afflictive Providence of God doth still remain be not dismayed yea if it increaseth let not a disponding heart put the Lie upon any Promise God hath made he is not a cruel Father his Bowels are tender but our misgiving hearts are they that are apt to plunge us Had we more dexterity in believing we might steer a comfortable Course when all sight of dry Land is out of sight And such a Faith is God's Gift who has promised us every good thing Let us both go to the Creator of the ends of the Earth for Faith and by Faith wait for more Faith that we may ride out the Storm and not be ashamed or wearied out under the Cross How 't is with you I know not but I have much confidence you are in as safe hands and in the bosom of as tender love as ever did shine upon you in the days of more earthly fulness and that the gracious Goodness of God and his unsensible Wisdom has ordered this present state of Affairs to exercise you withal One half hours time beyond Mortality will make amends for all and we are hastening to it and I trust at present freely entitled to the unalterable love of God who will never leave nor forsake to pity and succour the Off-spring of his own Grace If the Lord favour me with his Counsel and give me the Shield of his Presence I shall not be at a loss I dare not give way to hard thoughts of him but rather to covet after a greater freedom of Resignation to his sweet pleasure 1662. To B. D. N o 67. I Am affected with your trouble and yet comforted in your faith and comfort But who makes Rivers run in the Desart knows how to refresh the dry
be so When he says Sin shall not have Dominion over you I will circumcise your hearts to love me I will redeem Jacob out of all his trouble I will be with you and deliver you his words are all true but our little exercise of Faith is either like a weak handed Gripe or a leaky Vessel yet our Faith it self is in his keeping and his Intercession is incessant and therefore it cannot utterly fail Dear Sister wait on him pluck up your Soul to the business your labour will not be in vain nor any unfaigned desire after him return disappointed and ashamed Throw Husband Child and self upon him into his Bosom and there lodge together by Faith in the Joy of the Holy Ghost and so take your rest I mean a laborious and yet a sweet Rest for He gives his Beloved Sleep His own Concernments are mixt in ours though his own are chief in his eye yet he can look upon them without beholding ours for the Covenant is made and the Blood that concerns it is already shed and fully accepted the Redemption compleat and the Lord's portion and delight is his People So that he as it were if I may say as it were in so true and real a business raiseth in himself an endless delight by loving his ransomed Seed and in dressing them according to his own heart and shedding out a measure of that Love into their hearts also for carrying on a Spirit of Conjugal Affection in the Souls of his People towards him now till the shadows slee away and we come to know him as we are known of him and so love him without interruption as we are loved of him Is the day near when a thousand fold more of this will really appear than words can utter For who can speak how much there lies in God's Purpose yea in his very heart to do for them for whom he died bought so dear and rescued with so high a hand Deut. 10. 15. How then should we look out to awaken our faith and lift up our heads because our Redeemer is alive and risen and our safety is in him Oh that my own heart and yours were more warmed in such a view I have no more but to recommend you to the Bosom of him who is the God of all Grace Pity Power and Consolation Yours in the hope of this saving Health and Relief c. 1663. To E. D. N o 70. I Received your Letter though not so well spelled as that I received before but as bad as it was a Father can pick out the meaning of his Child for Love is quick-sighted and the best Interpreter of words in the World God is so to me and teacheth me the same to you You wrote you would fain have a tender heart such as the Prophet calls a heart of Flesh but not a fleshly carnal heart What then must become of the hard heart Your earthly Father cannot take that away nor give you the other but beg of him who made the Promise and he can and will both give you the one and do the other also Be not a stranger to him I would part with some of your Affection towards me as far as he allows me that you might spend it on him You cannot speak to me but by a Letter at this distance but you may to God all hours of the day and night Read the Scriptures as the Word of him who deserves all your love and desire I am contented to have it only at the second hand Muse over as oft as you can by what you read and hear how sinful your Nature is and loathsome in God's eye and how wondrous his Goodness is to tell you he lays that loathsomness of yours on Christ and he has by his death brought in eternal Redemption for you Consider his exceeding love and the great travel of his Soul and bitter Agony that you in prizing and flying to him may be freed from the dreadful state of a hard and polluted heart you cannot ask any thing of him to this end only do it reverently and with reliance on him but he is as willing to give it You may open all your heat to him yea you must do it for he loves to have you do it that so your whole heart may be cured and my Child be found at last among the number of them who sing for ever Blessing and Honour Glory and Thanks to him who loved us and washed us from our Sins in his own Blood I leave you to his care c. 1663. To D. H. N o 71. I Have not yet found out a way of Employment but am looking out and do desire to be looking up for my advice and help comes from the Hills as David speaks Disappointments as a wise and faithful God orders them are as useful many times as Success God has not cast me out of his gracious Covenant nor my Soul into murmuring discouragement but tells me the Trial of my Faith is better much better than Gold However 't is with my outward Man yet my chiefest Want is not there and although my sinful and corrupt heart wars strongly against the Spirit and the new Creature yet I believe the Spirit in the Operations of his Grace in the new Creature will carry the day when all is done for our Redeemer is strong I am laden with Darkness Weakness corrupt Lusts Vanity Distrust unsteady and uneven Walking deadness and hardness of heart but I find the Fountain of Mercy for cleansing still open and the Grace Mercy and Truth of God in the Covenant unchangeable and in this stands all my Salvation all my chiefest desire 1 Sam. 23. 5. I want nothing but more Faith more spiritual Light and Furniture more of Christ's Image more renewing in the Spirit of my Mind to have less carnal Carefulness Luk. 12. 22. and more of the just Man's Life Hab. 2. 4. Sin makes a Man poor weak and fearful the Grace of God which brings Salvation makes a Soul rich strong and confident for the Covenant of Grace and the Promises are more than words The Treasure is full and if I could bring my empty Sack in earnest it would be filled in earnest I give you a short hint of my Convictions my Conditions Travels and desires that in the like you may see you are not alone and that we may strive in Spirit together towards the glorious Prize of our high Calling I commend you to your and my strong Rock the blessed and ever-living God c. 1663. To D. H. N o 72. I Am attending what the Providence of God will direct further to Now and then some Doors of Providence seem to open themselves a little but as yet nothing effectually but the God of Providence who is the God of all Grace also rules them and every thing is and will be most beautiful in its season He has glorious Lessons to teach me and others in such a method and Discipline as this is and
shall the Shadows fly away Be very serious in exercising faith to represent the truth and reality of this Union-state that there is such a thing and in that Exercise dilate your thoughts in an awful serious comfortable Reverence and reverent love of God manifested in the Flesh to be Emanuel God with us Pursue this Meditation till you even make this Union as visible as may be to the eye of your faith Consider the Nature of it is unchangeable 2. The Nature of this Vnion it was made in God's Decree before all time and constituted for Eternity The Bond is God's Faithfulness and his Love which many Waters cannot quench an indissolvable Marriage an Ingrasture into the Fulness Fountain and Perfection of Life 'T is the Purchase Possession and unwithering Inheritance of him who is Yesterday to day and for ever 'T is Union reciprocal Christ is thine and thou art his My Beloved is mine and I am his What shall I give thee saith Christ Not only a Kingdom but my self What shall I render saith the Soul Not only my Praises but my whole self Possess me rule me fill me take my heart and give me thine let thy love be shed into my heart with a ravishing Inundation and let my love be passionate pure and find no Object elsewhere but thee 'T is an Union that has distinguishing Excellency in it a Remnant chosen out of many between which Remnant and the rest nothing made the difference but the free Choice of God An Union created of Contraries made up of unreconciled Parties who were at-the extreamest Enmity and now become of the most absolute and passionate Amity so it is in Christ and so it is in the Seed of it in all the Persons united to him An Union in which the Party wronged voluntarily began to love first 1 Joh. 4. 19. and wooed the offending Party to a Reconcilement An Union in all respects wonderfully made it issued from that peremptory yet deliberate Sentence I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy And what thoughts are sufficient for these things The Privileges of this Union are 3. The Privileges of this Vnion all on the Sinner's side Christ is exalted to give and Sinners called up to receive And what must Sinners receive who are received into this Union Come in O my Soul for thy share for the Treasury is unspeakably rich Through this Emanuel-knot of Union God is not ashamed to be called the God of poor Sinners only as he changeth their state he changeth their names they are now in proper true Appellation Saints though sin remains in them they are beloved who were not beloved they are Sons and Daughters of God every one is a Prince by a second Birth they are took out of Prison and do sit at the King's Table their filthy Garments removed away and are cloathed with white Rayment they are delivered from the Pit and return thither no more they have a goodly Heritage God himself is their Portion all the Power Truth Wisdom Goodness and Mercy that ever God made known to and for his People in all Ages is their Inheritance all the Promises and Providences which God made and wrought at any time are for their use experience teaching and comfort all the Directions Examples and Precepts in the Scripture and all the Reproofs and Threatnings there are for their Learning Consolation nud Discipline to purge strengthen and guard them till the Old Man be quite destroyed till they arrive beyond Sin Change and Hazard their Society is with the Spirit of the Father and the Son with the Image of Christ in his People the Mind of Christ in his Word the Breath Presence and Blessing of Christ in his Ordinances their Sufferings Difficulties and Fears have lost their destroying deadly Sting their Life is Christ in them the Hope of Glory their End is Peace their Death is their Gain however it is for a season with their outward or inward Man they are never otherwise than the Blessed of the Lord and Objects of his Delight Care Good Will and Protection Jer. 32. 38 41. Isa 27. 3. and after this Life that unutterable Blessedness which they are to enjoy when they shall be ever with the Lord Eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor can any heart to the full understand much less can my Meditation reach it or Pen declare it only I may say it is an exceeding EXCELLENT ETERNAL WEIGHT OF GLORY Consider these Privileges O my Soul make the most of them This prize is in thy hand be not as a Fool that has no heart muse the matter peruse the Scriptures and muse it again and again these are not vain glosses the thing is real glorious and great have often and large thoughts of this Union with Christ let the Application of it dwell upon thee day and night And that thou maist come up to 4. Improve this Vnion by Exercise a clearer Vision of this Fountain of Life and drink aboundantly of the Water thereof visit it often pry modestly reverently and seriously into it not for Curiosity but for Transformation 't is thy Portion and now more abstractly than ever all thy Portion a Portion that hath seven Portions in it all Portion in it Mat. 19. 29. He that by faith overcometh and wins this Prise shall inherit all things Rev. 21. 7. for I saith the faithful Witness will be his God and he shall be my Son Here is the Union and the Privilege also Familiarize this Mystery of Union with Christ by remembring and having recourse to it in the use of all Ordinances of Worship in all Christian Duties in all use of Gifts in all conditions of Life and all Seasons day and night in the exercise of every Grace Send up many Ejaculatory Visits Be upon thy Watch continually Let this word always ring in your ear without me ABSTRACTED from me you can do nothing Joh 15. 5. Beware of cooling beware of dismay Remember this Union is grounded on God's eternal unchangeable Love his faithfulness upholds it 't is as the Sun in the Firmament thou hast but a little time to take hold of it the ruin of this Union is the only thing which thy Enemies World Flesh and Devil aim at And now O my precious Soul rowze up thy self to Exercise Thy labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. Use every Ordinance to further this Union In Ordinances In hearing the Word digest all the 1. Hearing Matter into these two Heads as the main ultimate scope of whatever thou hearest either removing Obstructions which keep God and thee a sunder or a Supply of some uniting Power to bring God and thee together Come to the Word with expectation to meet the Lord himself there deliver thy SELF to the Word in the hand of God hear his Voice through Man's Words account the Physitian of Souls wiser than thy self lie before him as a meer Patient refuse no Potion which the Word of
of this Opportunity provoketh me to write to you by this Bearer who has promised to see my Child I desire that as she grows in capacity you would be dropping in somewhat of spiritual things for her tender thoughts to feed upon Though I cannot at this distance see your face yet I know your Temptations in some part and your Deliverance which will in due time appear 'T is good to be carried about and disposed by the hand of the Lord 't is a blessed thing and will one day appear so to rejoyce in the pleasure of the Lord let him do with a poor Creature what he will so he make it more like himself by unselfing you from carnal desires and carnal discontents and fears and transplanting you into the power and joy of believing accounting really the offer of eternal kindness in Christ more Glory than any earthly dying comfort and certainly where the Comforts here can comfort but little the Crosses here can cross but little and shortly farewel both Let your heart plod much on the free Covenant of Grace in Christ by Prayer and Meditation and let your sins come into the same Room with you while you are on that Enquiry When I am at a dead lift then sometimes the Spirit of God takes me up as it were into the Arms of that Covenant which he made with Christ concerning me and whosoever is not a wilful Unbeliever And the very glance of that Salvation wrought by the Lord concerning which I am only to believe sets me again upon my feet I have no other task but to be willing in truth to receive it and I shall have it and if so then you and I shall be sure never to want any one good thing Evil as Evil from the Lord cannot befall us You will then see the favour of God to you in earthly seeming Frowns No such favour as to be dead to sensible Comforts and as a Stranger to earthly carnal Contents though this be tedious to Flesh and Blood yet let it more appear that our Rest is not in these things but in the ever-living God he is your Teacher and I leave you to him 1653. To J. H. N o 15. I Have received your Letter and return you thanks for your love Should I give you a Draft of my Soul it would pity you to see it did not the Mercy of God prevent you would find me in the four last Vices mentioned in Rom. 1. but blessed be the Lord that though there be a Law in my Members warring and tormenting I have in the Lord a little strength and do sometimes view deliverance I have too long had too much content in a Carnal Walking with God and have been satisfied too much in a Carnal Appearance that way There is a way to live with God in the World but it is of his own making no visible or sensible thing can contribute any thing to it and yet I cannot die to these vain helps I shall never understand the word All noted in Matth. 22. 37. till the power of the Most High doth bear it in Ah when will it once be Certainly that Grace will one day be very glorious that hath attended a poor distressed heart through the uncomfortable sights and abundant frailties of this corrupt mortal condition One pure serious true long breathed desire of Christ's appearing gives some deliverance Oh the Glory of that day when the real appearing shall be and all filthy Garments removed and every filthy smell be for ever removed also Let us be found among those that wait for Redemption and wait waking Truly Brother we cannot word out one to another what is the State Duties and Privileges of an Interest in a new Life and hope of Glory The best means the best words yea the Scriptures though not so in themselves are even deceiving to a deceived carnal heart Such a heart will turn the most spiritual things into Flesh and so feed upon them to satisfie carnal Fancy Oh that you and I could start up from fleshly Consultation and listen quietly leisurely and yet greedily and obediently to the meer dictate of the blessed Spirit in his Word Your opportunity and mine of honouring God in the World is very far spent already I desire that you be not only for God in season but out of season also Dear Brother I thought fit to give you a touch of what my poor heart desires to be wrestling in I know you mind the same thing go on therein and prosper there is no other way of Peace but this I am rude but I had rather write my heart than my invention Well Brother I thank you for your good wishes to my poor Child I trust the Lord will vouchsafe her truth of Grace and shed abroad his Mercy and Love into her heart and make it appear as her tender years will bear and manifest the same Remember me to my Sister your Wife whom I have reason also to honour for the goodness of God to her and to you I trust in her I should rejoyce to hear that some others of yours and my poor Friends had the Lord alone for their whole desire and portion I would rather remember such in my Prayers than in my Letter Remember my love to your Sister D. who is I am much assured more precious in God's eye than in her own I leave all News to the Bearer and commend the Remembrance of you to the Lord and remain c. 1654. To S. D. H. N o 16. YOu see this state here is wavering unsetled moving to and fro 'T is a wondrous thing to see how the Lord is pleased to raise up one Wave of disquiet after another to molest the publick Peace and exercise the pains and patience of his people It is no Misery but a Privilege to one that is chosen hence to be emptied from Vessel to Vessel and indeed I scarce know a greater sign of Christ's Conjugal Love than by his Providence to render all other things and Conditions here to be unlovely and undesirable for then the Affections have no where else to centre but in Christ and that makes them go out strong that way Albeit my condition speaks much visible Uncertainty as to this outward Man yet I find a mighty War within me against a free and clear Closing with the certain Riches of Glory which is in Christ in which notwithstanding I trust I have an Interest and have recieved some witness thereof There is a secret joy in the inward part of my Soul and Refreshment at the Remembrance of the Promises of the God of Truth my Rock Sometimes Hope and Desire brings me near to Christ and he to me 'T is an admirable thing to think how a Soul can at the same time be covered over with its Guilt and yet be freed and triumph over the same as removed in Christ truly perfectly and for ever yet this is the Golpel-Doctrine and Experience A Body diseased through Sin yet
remembrance of you I have you in my eye when I do not bodily see you and in my prayers to him who quickeneth all things and giveth life and growth to whomsoever he will Your Convictions your Temptations inward and outward the wiles and power of the Prince of Darkness which stands against you in Battel Array your infirmity the deceitfulness of sin that will turn and wind and shift from one corner of the Soul to the other to preserve it self from being dislodged the lulling Baits the powerful Swasives the Threats Exigences and Influences of a present evil World the difficulty and yet the necessity of that spiritual Warfare to which you are called and unto which the promise of Victory is made these things I say are in my eye And then I think there is matter enough for one Brother to remember another and to cry out O Lord who shall raise my Brother into the vigorous exercise of faith with power into inward and exemplary holiness Who shall bring him into the Rivers of effectual Contrition and land him on the right Shoar for he is feeble unable and ready to halt in the way Who shall bring him into the strong City the Walls whereof are Salvation and the Habitation thereof Purity Serenity and Peace Wilt not thou O God who alone canst stay the crooked Serpent and say to all obstacles whatsoever Give way Let the ransomed of the Lord return Let the Seed of my Servants to whom my Promise is made come and enter into the strong Hold for I have found a Ransom Dear Brother how and in what frame of heart my Letter will find you I know not but God has guided my Pen to let you know a little what kind of musings I have in my Jealousie and tender Affection towards you If you be busie in these things already these Lines may be Spur and Encouragement if otherwise God can make them a successful Alarm though as mine they are weak short and impotent I live here among the Graves and do not know but that my decease may be at hand though at present in good health and therefore I think meet to let my Arrow fly as near as I can to the White of the Mark for there is no work nor invention in the Grave there is no Return no further opportunity to set the House the heart in order Though my glaunce may be at random God can direct it within the Joynts of the Armour To him I commend it and you I have sent you a Bill of Mortality The voice of God crieth to the City to the Country to you and to me the Man of Wisdom and none else shall see and fear his Name c. 1665. To E. D. N o 83. THe greatest thing I desire is that the presence and blessing of the Lord may be mine and your portion and that is the best portion which is obtained from him by prayer and resignment to his pure Will How in reference to me God has ordered the things of this World to come and go you have in some measure seen that you with me should lay hold upon the most durable substance that so we may become Heirs of that Peace and that Treasure which the World is neither able to give nor take away Upon such a Bottom as that and no other there is safe swimming by faith through all Changes and difficulties unto a Condition of Rest Purity Peace and Satisfaction that will never change I hope Christ has numbred you amongst his Lambs and if God himself be to you and me a Shephard we may in the words of his own Spirit say We shall want no good thing Therefore call much upon him to reveal himself in his Son unto your heart and that he would carry and mould your Concernments and mine in his own bosom and take the whole care and guidance of us into his own hands and also conform us perfectly to his Will and then we are beyond hazard and may be assured to be supplied sufficiently guided by his Grace here and arrive at Glory hereafter c. 1666. To C. M. D. N o 84. IT hath pleased God to exercise our Family with some considerable Trials but still that good word of God remains Light is sown for the Righteous and joy for the upright in heart We may not therefore faint under his Correction but rather attend the voice of his Rod and in flying to Christ say All things shall work together for good Which promise is made to them that love him Let us therefore diligently pry into the Gospel where Christ is to be known and his excellency is able to contract a holy reverential Love which is that qualification to which the promise is made which qualification also lies in the free Covenant I will circumcise your hearts to love me saith the Lord. So that all our welfare lies fully and wholly upon the free Promise and Covenant of God which we are invited to partake of by faith which is also his free Gift Oh that he would help us to open our mouths wide that our hearts may be satisfied in a Land of Drought I am glad to hear your heart steers heavenward and was therefore the more willing to write you c. 1667. To D. H. N o 85. I Sympathize with your conflicting Soul I could make more sad Complaints of my self than it may be would be for your profit but while you or I can look up we may be sure our dear Lord looks down Read the story of Israel's coming out of Egypt and you will find it like your case and mine sometimes they believed and by and by utterly distrusted their deliverance Oh the patience of God exercised and still wrought for his own sake remembring his Covenant You may be sure you are beyond the Notion so long as you long and pray for the power of Godliness therefore let every fear send you to Christ afresh and then you use your fears as God would have you for the Law and Conviction of Guilt is for that end as you read in Gal. 3. and the Soul that comes he will in no wise cast out but in due time make you see the nature of free Grace and what the Life of Faith is Hope still in God you shall yet see and praise him who is whatever you think the health of your Countenance and your own God The Lord be your and our Physician in all respects his Patients are well attended You are not out of my thoughts whose health and welfare my Soul desireth Let all things and Commotions here below cause us to fix upon that which can never change to that Rock I commend you God is gracious our times are in his hand and 't is safe in trusting our selves and our Relations there Your Prayers though at a distance can through Christ administer help as if you were present and therefore be not troubled that God has disposed you at a distance at this time he
terrible to me nor to any of the Race thou hast redeemed from Death Let the Agonies of Death be pleasing to me in Christ Oh the Dolour the unspeakable Anger of God we have not drank of it O the intollerable Wrath of God born by that Man meaning Jesus Christ O the woful Travel of Christ we have took up but a little of it and that hath made Repentance slight and holy Care trivial And now O Lord thou reckonest with me for undervaluing of that bloody Agony Lord forgive me my Guilt in this thing I have not been a Christian in earnest as I ought Oh he that made himself the bottom of all sorrow he suffered infinitely Oh such a Redeemer Oh such a Redeemer alas how unsuitable have I been to him Lord pardon my unsuitableness I have been as a Beast before thee I have not come up to answer the Call of that unutterable Grace And now O Lord I cannot stand in the Battel I cannot now the Arrows of Death stick in my Flesh and I cannot bear it without great Concussions of Soul within me But O! O! O thou who art the God of all Grace who art got upon the Kingdom of Grace and art the Head of that Kingdom wilt thou now shew thy Glory Make Death sweet make the Tendencies to Death sweet make every step to Deliverance a pleasing step O my God Save thy Worm save thy Worm O my God according to thy Promises made to Jacob I hearken what the Lord will say he will speak Peace in the Blood of Jesus Sustain me O Lord sustain me Thou art my Friend as thou spakest to Abraham thou art my Friend Dost thou love me Dost thou at this time love me with thy whole heart and with thy whole Soul Dost thou love me more than my nearest and dearest Friends Than those intimate Relations here that continue with me in my Tribulation With a more inward intense Love with an Infiniteness beyond all these Lord let me know that thou lovest me in very Deed let me know that thou knowest me by Name let me know that thou hast an eye upon me more than Doctors and Friends let me know that every Act of thine towards me is the effect of thy Love Love me Oh now with thy whole heart Oh make me to believe it Help me to apprehend that thou dost take notice of me and art with me every Moment with me as to my present Case and Concernment 'T is dead Friendship when Friends cannot hear nor see one another but sure there is another Friendship between thee and thine and thou standest in Relations to them Art not thou my Father Hath not the Church said so Lord thou art our Father Thou art my Husband my Brother my Friend and art not ashamed to be called my Brother Oh wonderful Thou begattest me I am born of thee Lord what shall I do with the great things of the Gospel if thou dost not give forth the Spirit of Faith O Lord wilt thou who art Truth who art Life who art certain wilt thou take the great work of my practical Religion upon thee Thou canst make it to be in Power and Truth unto me as may answer the very design thou aimest at I have been praying through the days of thy drawing me after thee O Lord I would come to that kind of praying while I am here in the World as might be a lovely Copy of that praying of that Converse that will be with thee in Heaven Will Prayer altogether cease in Heaven No surely Lord glorifie thy self glorifie thy self glorified be God Oh Oh that the very Life and Soul of that state then may now be begun Oh that I might hasten to that state Thou detainest me here in thy Wisdom I would go unto thee and into that Life which will most glorifie thee eternally I would go where Life is and no Death I would go where the fullest expressions of the power of Grace overcoming Sinners may be patent and manifest in me even in me who am a poor Mortal There be many things that I have found here that are Likenesses to pure Likeness to thee and here I have lost wofully my way Lord open it The heart is deceitful above all things and it will have its working one way or other but Lord I would go where there is Purity I would go where there is Purity without Impurity I would be with thee Lord for then I can speak to thee in thine own Language better At about Two of the Clock that day in the Afternoon he further extended his Speech as followeth The old World will be the old World still it will remain to Eternity it will be only translated from hence where it received its Curse to Hell to be in Chains of Darkness for ever but all the redeemed number shall be instated in their Palaces of Glory I am in the very Period of Wonders I am in the very Period of viewing Death and Life I am under some Sufferings and they shall be sweet And speaking to himself said Thou shalt lie down in thy Bed And then speaking to God Thou wilt not throw me into the Grave in Anger thou wilt put me into the Grave Thou wilt not say Sleep there in Death thou wilt say Sleep there a little till the Indignation be over-past till that is inflicted on thee for Sin which was pronounced and that that passed away from Christ shall pass from me Lord thou wilt not be unfaithful to thy Word God cannot lie God cannot forget to be gracious he cannot forget his own Work This is that God I desire to believe in and resolve eternally to cling upon with the Truth of my whole heart I have sinned and thou hast pardoned me and saved me with a high hand Help me in this hour take away my fears The last stroak that will be given will be by the Devil himself because it is his last Battel and thou wilt permit him but thou wilt bind him and when thou hast unclinch'd his hands he shall never clinch again He is that last Enemy from Conversion to Salvation Lord wilt thou who hast been destroying this Enmity all along now cause his Enmity to appear to be destroyed and turned into Powder and Rottenness O Have at it have at it I pray thee The strength the might the power of the Life of Sin and Darkness Lord thou didst promise to plague Antichrist for all the Plagues that he hath plagued thine O Lord do thou pour out thy Plagues upon him whilst thou dost sustain him to be fighting his last Battel Let him fight his Battel but let him O God drink of the Rivers of thy Wrath along with it Let the Weak overcome the Strong let thy People be Lyons but let the Devil be an enfeebled Enemy Serve thy self of all thy Instruments whatever they are Lord let them do thee the utmost Service of their Capacity Thy proper Instruments Oh make them glorious make them
his Entertainment before he parts And more particularly That if a poor Child should come to his Father and say Father I would not offend you it goes to my very heart when-ever I do offend and grieve you Teach me therefore O my Father so as that I may not offend you in what I do Will not hereupon an indulgent Father compassionate such a Child And hath not God much more pity towards his Children who is the Fountain of Love and Tenderness Of the DIS-RELISH of SPIRITUAL THINGS to a GRACELESS HEART That the things of God and of Soul-Concern are but a dry Morsel to a Carnal heart that such an one may talk of Heaven of the Glory and Happiness thereof and may seem to be somewhat taken therewith but if a good Bargain or some Worldly Profit interpose the heart of such an one is presently taken up and tickled with another kind of delight Also Of the vast difference betwixt a true Christian and one that is not so That a Christian indeed is a strange thing one that outwardly appears to live in the World like others yet there is something within him unseen that is as different from what is in others as Heaven and Earth CONCERNING TRUE FAITH That it is the giving up of our Souls to God in an Act of Reliance on him for himself and those things we desire of him according to his Will that Assurance is rather the Flower or Seal of Faith than Faith properly That Christians are often much mistaken about Faith in taking it for a sure Confidence and Belief that God will help and deliver c. But Faith chiefly consists in a Recumbency and Reliance on God a leaning a rolling upon him to help us or for whatsoever Mercy we desire of him and not that he will help or deliver out of such a particular trouble or to bestow on us such or such a thing we want or remove such an Evil we fear that being rather the Product Effect and Privilege of Faith Many complain they have not Faith when they have no Assurance of God's Performance though they are all the while in the Exercise of Believing and that Faith is the Faith that justifies and true Faith is such as realizeth things absent remote and future That it is not the nearness of a thing makes it real but Faith seeth a thing to be real though afar off when we are apt to judge many times of the reality of things because they are near Also true Faith dwells in a pure Conscience it makes its Nest there it purifies the heart His Faith in God's Covenant His Faith in God's Covenant and Promise and Promise instead of many other Instances appeared in these short Sayings That those who cannot live nakedly upon a Promise in the want of a thing will not know how to use it as they should when they have it and if I were sure to live but one Hour this should be my Exercise The Acting of my Faith upon God's Promises and whilst the Soul is thus in an adventurous Frame this is not Presumption neither cannot be It also exerted it self in Prayer in such Expressions as these That the Lord would arm us by his Fear even with that Fear that is the Concomitant of Love and let them both be united in us for it is one Clause of the New Covenant that he will put his Fear into our hearts that we may fear him and his Goodness and that his Name be great in our Eye that may preserve us from departing from him That the Covenant of his Grace might be a Tree of ripe Fruit to us and that the Hand of Grace might shake it that the Fruit may fall down and we may gather it up for our daily Refreshment Nothing doth more satisfie me in the verity of the Religion I His Argument for the Truth of Christian Religion profess than the Oneness of the hearts of the People of God who all give in the self-same Testimony of the Work of Grace in the heart the same Spirit of Faith breathing in them all His Love to God and Christ was seen in the Course of his His Love to God and Christ Obedience to Divine Commands and his great Submission to all afflictive Dispensations from God Also in his great Love to the People of God in his frequent secret and close Communion with God here and a longing desire to be translated by Death into his immediate Presence and Fruition His Assurance of God's Love His Assurance of the Love of God His Practical Discourses Letters the solemn Covenant he entred into with God and his Dying Speeches do throughout plainly demonstrate And it was greatly promoted and maintained by his often renewing and ratifying of his said solemn Covenant some of which Ratifications annexed thereto are here inserted in his own words as followeth Finding some motion within me urging me seriously to view over this my Covenant and considering it was a most deliberate and voluntary Engagement and that God with whom I have to do remembers it and fails not on his part and that the frame of my heart is so sinfully prone to cast off the Cords of my Duty and so depart from the easie Yoke of Christ and the unspeakable Privileges of my Covenant-Interest in God my Saviour and having I fear sinfully omitted these three Years a through Review of this my Free-Will-Offering I have this Afternoon once more spread it and my Soul with it through the favour of my God before his face and do now again in his Fear and in Reliance on him willingly renew the same and again bind my self to be the Lord's and to be wholly subjected to his Will to own him as my God according to the full scope and purpose of the Covenant before expressed And now O God of all Grace and Glory let this Covenant that thou hast caused and drawn me to renew with thee be confirmed in Heaven and in the heart of thy poor Servant and casting my self upon thee I claim thee to be my God and I give my self to thee and this Evening an Evening greatly to be remembred the 28th of January 1663. I subscribe irrevocably hereunto with my Hand Henry Dorney Vnder much Infirmity yet in some Integrity in my scope and design I have perused over the forementioned Covenant and do own the same and do this day in Reliance on the good hand of my God enter anew into the Bonds thereof as the state of my most happy and most desirable Liberty and Privilege in which I humbly claim God in Christ to be mine and willingly render my self into the hands of his Power and Grace in all things to be his and at his dispose for ever To which I subscribe with my hand this 20th of February 1664. Henry Dorney It having pleased God after many other considerable Changes and various Trials and Exercises in my Life now of late to reduce me from a single to a
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
better than himself highly commending the smallest degree of true Worth in any other where-ever he saw it And if any carried themselves unworthily towards him in Speech or Action or had injuriously treated him he would take little notice of it but to requite it with good He would pity them and pray for them and study how to answer them with kindness seeking occasions how to manifest his Love to them according to the Gospel-Rule c. His Meekness was admirable His Meekness he shewing all Meekness unto all Men Tit. 3. 2. wherein he was a true Disciple and Follower of his Lord and Saviour who albeit he had great natural Courage yet it was so sweetned with this Grace that it became very Ornamental to him And in his own Case and Concern he was scarce ever seen or known to be angry His Patience discovered it self His Patience much in his last Sickness that when great pains were upon him and of long continuance he seemed to bear all without the least repining That though he had many bodily Faintings yet no inward Frettings He groaned much but it was in order to be cloathed upon that Mortality might be swallowed up of Life He Dove-like mourned but it was unto the Lord Jer. 12. 11. And he lamented after him 1 Sam. 7. 2. He poured out his Complaint before him Psal 142. 2. but his Complaints were only of and against himself always justifying the Wisdom Goodness Faithfulness and Love of God in all that he endured Which also was conspicuous in the whole Series of his fore-going Life and more particularly in these occasional Sayings which issued from his rich Mind and heart I am more afraid I shall not have a full Draught of the Good these Trials offer than that I desire to be delivered out of them We in distress are apt to mind only our getting out of them but God minds our Good by them God's design in afflicting his People is purging work and they should strike in also for the promoting of that design that they may have the Good he aims at by it We would fain wind out of Trouble and God would wind us out of the World and out of our selves that is his End and blessed be his Name he will accomplish it He was observed under the greatest outward Losses never to complain but still to say Let us labour to improve them and understand the Mind of God in them and that he did believe God would cause it to work for good He often adored the Wisdom and Goodness of God in all his Dispensations though never so dark And relishing the necessity and excellency of this Grace he further recommended it to others by many Expressions which were such as these We should not be as Mopes and dead things under Afflictions but lively in the Actings of Faith Patience and Humility And that we are not to be ashamed of them nor discontented under them That God afflicts us that we might be more rootedly useful where he gives opportunity afterwards and to bring us out of our Sins That as Sin brings us into Trouble so Trouble is sent to bring us out of Sin and for the Exercise of Grace And speaking more particularly The Lord deliver me out of one Cross and fit me for another for Crosses I do expect and the Graces of God's Spirit must have Matter for their Exercise while I am in this World Moreover he said That we should labour after an even frame of Spirit And that a Christian should not rest till he hath brought his heart to this Indifferency that under any Trouble or Trial it be all one to him whether God doth grant him the things prayed for or give him Patience Satisfaction and Quiet of Spirit in the want of them and so to leave the whole matter to God for him to make the Choice And that we should when under any Confusion or Disorder of Mind beg of God that as he once did order and methodize a Chaos and of it did frame a World so he would take thy Confusions and settle and quiet thy heart That as he did set in order things then so he would deal with thy heart now And that we should consider wherein lies the difference between the Redeemed and the Men of this World but in this the one have their Portion here and the Portion of the other is reserved He further urged these Persuasives to Patience under Afflictive Providences That God intends our Good as before noted And if he aims and designs our Good he will be sure to strike there where the voice of his Rod may be heard and the smart of it felt And will thrust his Probe into that part most festered and search it to the Quick and cause the Corrasive he applies fully to cleanse the Wound before he lays on the healing Plaister And if God saw Prosperity to be better for his People than Adversity they should not be exercised with it at all for God always gives his People the best things And that 't is pity anything should be matter of Sorrow or Joy unto us now which will be no Sorrow nor Increase of our Joy in the other World And that Joy or Sorrow in the having or losing outward things argues that they are our Sun and Shield and not God for as a Candle in a Room where the Sun shines 't is little regarded or minded That though it be used for or about some particular use or thing yet 't is the Sun we live in and by And that 't is enough for us to have God for our Treasure who is a boundless Treasure Therefore our Eye should be upwards much And if there be any Joy it should be on a spiritual Account or any Sorrow it should be because our spiritual Trade goes not on Also that we should consider that there be many of God's People come not tot the Trial of their Faith whilst they have any outward Prop to rest upon But when God reduceth them to the loss of all as to the Creature they seeing themselves in a desperate Case indeed then God doth his Work upon them and that is Glorious Work Yet 't is a miserable thing to make use of God only as a helper in times of Straits and Dangers when we find Help no where else His Resignation to God was His Resignation to God his daily Work and under various Afflictive Providences was used to say That that was a poor Religion that could not make a Life of God abstracted from all Creatures And often he would speak from his own Experience That the most undoing Providences were the most gaining times to his Soul He also discovered his Proficiency in this excellent part of Godliness in such Directions and Sayings as these We should give up our selves to God in every Petition and pour out our Souls to him even as he gives himself to us in every Blessing And we should so give up our selves to
Heart-fixedness in Duty His Heart-fixedness in Duty further discovered it self in this one Passage That his Judgment being desired whether or no in Hearing and joyning with others in the Duty of Prayer one might strive to charge the Memory with any select Expressions uttered by the Speaker he replied only this I should not then have my End in that Duty He was a Companion of all them His Company and Converse that feared God and the Saints and Excellent of the Earth were all his delight That of Choice he desired to converse with no other And when he knew not well the Company that occasionally he was among he was somewhat unfree to speak but would rather hear others than speak himself though he wanted not Skill to deliver himself in proper Phrase and in the most apt Expressions And when at any time good things were spoken of where he was present if he perceived that they proceeded not from a heart in the Speaker duly affected with the things themselves it seemed very irksome to him And he would be frequently urging such Persons either in express words or by some other hints to be sure That they were in the Life Power and Practice of the serious Truths they spake of for that otherwise he accounted it but the taking of God's holy Name in vain He was an inward Friend to all he judged Gracious of what Persuasion soever for 't was the Image of Christ and Truth of Grace he looked at and where he perceived that in any Person there his Love went out and his heart was endeared unto such without further Enquiry And when-ever he was in the Society of any of what Rank or Degree soever if their Discourse tended to unprofitableness was Jejune and tasteless though in it self not sinful yet he would seek to free himself from them so soon as ever he could and he would be often complaining how his Soul suffered all that while He also much dis-liked the Conversation of those who were addicted to needless Debates or such who manage Disputes about Religious Affairs from Pride and Self-Interest with Passion and Strife of Words and not out of a Love to the things themselves which he judged to be extreamly pernicious whilst the Heats of such Disputes cool the inward Affections of the Soul to spiritual things and all the Warmth of the heart turns into the Vapour and Air of empty Notion For though he was one naturally inclined and much given to consider the reason of things and throughly to inform his Judgment in Points both Civil Moral and Religious And to that end he affected to be present at such Arguings which tended to find out discover and make plain useful Truths Yet he had a great Aversasion to and did much complain of Litigious and wrangling Debates as being so far from advancing Religion or Holiness as that it did principally arise from a decay of the same and want of the Sence and powerful Influence thereof And thence according to the Rule of the Apostle he would studiously and constantly endeavour to withdraw himself 1 Tim. 6. 4 5. and was wont to say of Persons he esteemed Religious Judicious and Savoury That such and such were Juicy Christians Trees of the Lord full of Sap whose Society he greatly prized His Charity in Case of Evil His Charity Reports was singular He was very shy and unwilling to hear or receive an evil Report of others much less of his own accord to mention it and principally if he judged them to be sincere in the main He had a great dislike of a Censorious Humour which some who are truly good through Inadvertence and Temper are too much addicted to not watching against it as they ought to do contrary to that Meekness of Christ which he did continually endeavour to imitate And when he saw it needful to condemn the Actions of any such yet he would shew Candor and Respect to their Persons either by concealing their Names or in putting the best Construction upon what was said or done as far as the matter would bear And he would commend and cherish the least true Good he saw in any And in case of private Wrongs he advised thus Forgive private Wrongs before you reprove them Forgive the Wrong before you repair your self upon the doer of it He was rich in good Works ready His Liberality to distribute willing to communicate And as 't is spoken of the Macedonians not only according to but beyond his power he was willing to relieve Persons in distress especially those who were of the Houshold of Faith And he did very much grieve when he could do no more The Sin of Covetousness was not at all seen in him and he would say 'T is a brave thing to be Large-hearted if done in the Spirit of Faith and Holiness When he exhorted any it His Faithfulness in Advising and Reproving was with weight and seriousness and when he reproved any it was with great respect to their Persons according to their Quality and Degree yet would not spare closely and sharply to blame what was reprovable in them and he often bewail'd Peoples Unfaithfulness in the Omission of that Commanded Duty And also he misliked their sinful forwardness in blazing abroad the Failings of others before they had observed Scripture-Order in dealing with them more privately Sympathy and Compassion His Sympathy and Compassion were deeply rooted in his heart and eminently exercised in his Life that in a great degree it may be said of him as Paul spake Who is weak and I am not weak Who is offended and I burn not And peculiarly towards his unconverted Relations Oh how bemoaningly would he upon all occasions be spreading their deplorable Condition before the Lord And with respect to outward Afflictions on any of his Friends he was most feelingly affected That in writing to a Kinswoman of the death of her Husband he used these words at the Close of his Letter I cannot enlarge at this present for every word I write makes my heart to ake And when a near Relation of his lay very sick and in great pain he told a Friend of his how much affected he was therewith and that he could not say which was in greater Anguish and suffered most himself with the sympathizing sence of that pain or his Relative that did personally and immediately bear the same And further in the hearing of the same Friend speaking of this Grace he said If we could make others Distresses our own by Fellow-feeling we might get Good by their Afflictions as if we our selves were in their Case And that we should by Sympathy as much as we may die with every one that dies and that would make us serious Christians In his Contracts and Dealings His Moral Righteousness he was very wary not to exact upon the necessities of any in buying or selling or to act by any indirect way whatsoever noted in Prov. 20. 14. but
Intermission and stoppage without the constant supply which they receive from the Sun and the Fountain And therefore a Biliever's eye and aim must be tending to an immediate pitching on and closing with himself as the proper course and sure way and only orderly means to find rest and safety to the Soul The next thing to be considered is to enquire how the Eye of Faith The Aim of Faiths Eye desirous to attain its Mark. is to be levelled at and exercised upon this perfect and glorious Object so as to change the Soul from bearing the burthen of its own guilt and to get power against the defiling nature and power of sin and so to carry on the change from Glory to Glory after the Image of Jesus Christ by the vertue of his Spirit 2 Cor. 3. 18. The Dispensation of the Gospel is the Glass the Glory of the Lord there appearing is that which Faith fixeth and feedeth upon it passeth through the Glass and seizeth upon Jesus Christ represented therein and there stays till it hath enamoured the Soul into the same likeness The Glory of Christ begets an Image of Glory in the heart of a Believer of the same nature with its self Indeed there is a transient closing with the Promises as with a Neighbour who can tell where the Souls Friend dwelleth and so do the Ordinances and so far the Spirit of the Father lodgeth in them for the help of the diligent seeker to draw him to Christ The first motion also of that diligent seeking proceedeth from the Father who worketh with the Son by the Spirit to draw the Soul in true method to the Person of the Son as Mediator in whom the Father Son and Spirit gives the Soul a satisfactory Meeting Joh. 5. 17. c. 6. 44 45. and c. 14. 23. But the Knot of Union by which the Soul partakes of the Life and Glory of God is not perfectly knit till the Soul actually enters into the Fellowship of Christ the Mediator 1 Cor. 1. 9. and for this very end serves the preaching of the Gospel in the Dispensation of it Col. 1. 28. The Soul being thus ushered in treats with and fixeth on Christ absolutely and immediately and lays hold on his Personal Worth only as the Foundation of its hope and help The Soul has gained a great deal of Beauty in Christ's Eye when once 't is brought by his Spirit to leave its own Idols and forsake its own Country and to trust singly under the shadow of his Wings there Blessedness begins as Boaz said to Ruth Ruth 2. 12. And here the Soul closeth with the All-sufficiency of the Mediator pondering the large extent thereof And whereas the Soul is usually more troubled with the Aggravations of sin and the Circumstances thereof than about the sin it self and about its insincerity and want of feeling remorse and sufficient detestation against sin in its repentance and much molested with the stain that Guilt leaves on the Conscience and finding that neither remove of Guilt nor power of Cleansing nor freedom from its just Accusation can be got from the Consultations of a â—ounded Spirit it falls nakedly on the All-sufficiency of the Mediator and there it beholds him as one able to take away all sins in their whole extent His Body was given him for that end and although his own Body was pure yet it was in the likeness of the flesh of sin or sinful flesh and depravation of Nature received from Adam that as far as any motions of sin or capacity of sinning is found in Mankind he did bear the likeness of that State And so is called the second Adam not only as one representing the Elect Seed of Grace but also as being the Superadequate Antidote to conquer and remove all Poyson that entred upon Mankind by the sin of the first Adam The Nature of the second Adam is made as perfectly holy as the first was defiled by sin and became perfectly sinful as appears in Rom. 5. And in regard the strength and slaying power of sin lies in the Law his Humane Nature was made under the Law subjected to the whole Law as far as it had to do with sinful Man for this end that he might redeem them who were under the Law from being under any condemning or accusing Sentence or sting of punishment from thence which he bringeth about by obeying it satisfying for the breach thereof made by sinful Man Sin is therefore sin because 't is against the Law he therefore is made under the Law and that to fulfil its Commands and bear its doom Though sin be finite in the Transgressor yet 't is infinite in respect of the Object the infinite God But the Obedience and Suffering of Christ was of an infinite extent in respect of the Person because 't was the Act of God-man and in the Vertue also because 't was a contrived Remedy in the Council of God's Love to outstretch the injury that was done to the infinite Divine Majesty by finite Man Hence it is that this Remedy carries with it the Terms of Abounding Grace Rom. 5. 17 20. and unsearchable Riches Ephes 3. 8. The All-sufficiency lies also in this that 't is a free Gift considering that the Gifts of God's Love are infinite as his Nature is the thoughts of which do by Faith bring in a Foundation for infinite Justification and Righteousness and makes way to the rest of the purchased Possession that lies in the Person of the same Redeemer the infiniteness of his Goodness and Drift in this design which could never suffer disappointment the infiniteness of his Wisdom that could never mistake the infiniteness of his Love that can never cease nor Power fail And since the Nature of the Salvation of God is infinite it is brought down into the Person of God-man and from him into the Ordinances and so by the Spirit into the heart of Man retaining still its infinite Nature In Jesus Christ the infinite God is made Flesh in the Ordinances he speaks by Man's Voice in the faith of the heart he dwelleth carrying the Soul by the Operation of his Spirit to look upon him and hear his Voice in the steps of his Condescention to the true enjoyment of himself 'T is comfortable to have the Testimony Faith taking a right Method of a good Conscience Prov. 15. 15. and power over Corruption and Soul-disquiet thereby but I must not begin there God begins my Righteousness and Freedom in himself and brings it forth in the Person of Jesus Christ I must begin it there also and as it is perfected in him I must perfectly suck it thence continuing perpetually at that Breast Heb. 10. 14. never expecting to have it mended by any thing I could do though it were the obeying of the whole Law Gal. 2. 16. for my Obedience is but the Obedience of a stained Nature that has already broken that righteous Law When Guilt Defilement and Weakness of a foolish
my own management and power to exercise the same This is the true Life of Faith this is the way of walking up and down in the Name of the Lord. When I actually acknowledge every Measure of Spiritual Strength to hold its Tenure from Jesus Christ singly and wholly and rest confidently upon him for it and that because he hath promised both Grace Glory and every good thing judging him faithful who hath promised and owning him thereon for my Inheritance and my self nothing but what he is for me Then I may be said to trust Jesus Christ and to trust in him only I trust him upon his Word to be All for me which I would spiritually be and I trust in him to enjoy the same through the Faith of my Interest in him and his abounding Grace and Unction This cuts the heart of Self-Pride spiritual Surfeiting and Slothfulness when I live every moment at the mercy of another even Jesus Christ both for Justifying Righteousness and every Influence thereof by the immediate Breathings of his Spirit according to his good pleasure having not the power so much as to make one Hair white or black but I must wholly work by his Hands see by his Eyes and in his Light behold the Light What more powerful Inducement can there be to Self-denial than this Boasting is excluded because Christ in his own Person and by his own Spirit doth whatsoever is done for me or in me Here lies the Mystery and Labour of Faith which the meer Notion thereof can never reach unto so as to improve the same to a self-denying Activity for God in the paths of Godliness and Travel towards Zion There is in our dear Lord Jesus Christ spiritually not personally communicated to Believers a two-fold Excellency to his Redeemed as he is their Portion His Essential Power Righteousness Goodness and Perfection in the Godhead and his proper Humane Nature personally united thereunto Col. 2. 9. and neither of these considered as such can be communicated unto the Children of Men his Person cannot be divided imparted or broken And there is another Excellency flowing from the former by way of Influence and inward Vertue communicated to the hearts of the Redeemed by Regeneration which formeth reneweth and quickneth the New Man the new Creature in the Soul The first of these though it cannot in a strict sense be communicated yet it is wholly by Covenant given to the Saints Isa 49. 8. So that God in his vast Essential Infiniteness is their God and his ve-Body that was dead and is now alive was also given to the Elect Isa 9. 6. and is become theirs by Covenant and they enjoy it in that Right though it remains personally to be his own and not theirs but for them to all Eternity the Excellency of which God and Man in the Perfection of both Natures is so far reckoned and imputed theirs by Covenant-Union and Mystical Ingrafture as may perfectly deliver them from all Evil and fill them with all Righteousness Purity and Perfection which Creature-capacity can take in for the enjoying of the Glory of God So that the Person of the Mediator remains distinct from the persons of the Redeemed and are not mixed but united through the Spirit in the Covenant and his Personal Assumption of the Humane Nature by Faith exercised therein Hence it is that the Interest The Advantages of Christ's being without us personally and yet spiritually in us who believe which the Saints have in Christ is enjoyable by them singly through believing which Enjoyment through the spiritual Nature of the Union is as certain strong and sure as whatsoever they enjoy in their own persons by sense and feeling Ephes 3. 17. Rom. 4. 16. And thus Christ as to the Perfection of his Person being without us and above us and yet by the Communication of the Spirit through Faith made near to us and dwelling in us yields much privilege and unspeakable advantage to a Believer viz. 1. The Excellency of a Believer's Portion in Christ is hereby more distinctly viewed the Soul has hereby room to go round about the unspotted Lustre of his Person and View him from head to foot as the Church in the Canticles doth Cant. 5. 10. as the choicest of ten thousands whereas the Glory of the same Christ as far as it appears only in the heart by Operation is much dimmed and sullyed with the defilement that is there and continual Conflicts but considering him seperated far away from sin and sinners Heb. 7. 26. furnished with utmost Perfection and cloathed with Garments of compleat Victory and Beauty in the behalf of his Redeemed This fills their hearts with joy and their mouths with singing 2. He is thereby become also the livelier Object of their Love for the eye affects the heart and nourisheth spiritual Enflamedness towards him Distance 'twixt the Soul and so excellent an Object I say distance of this sort between the Eye and its Object through Propriety in him enamours the Mind and withall it provokes desire towards him Cant. 6. 11. and makes the Soul of a Believer cry out for more nearness Come O my Beloved this desire quickens expectation to rejoyce in hope and leaves no room for a loathing wearisome Fulness in the heart 3. This objective enjoyment of Christ gives foundation for a kindly refuge in him it rationally leads the inward Man to depart from all other selfs and run to this objective self Jesus Christ through the drawing vertue of spiritual Union with him Cant. 1. 4. and thus was Christ typed out by the Cities of Refuge 4. This Enjoyment of Christ by way of Object is also a Fountain of Recovery when the Soul is foiled it can fetch fresh righteousness fresh pardon and be anointed again and again with fresh Oyl Psal 92. 10. as David speaks and seventy seven times a day yea every moment as oft as the heart pants after him 5. 'T is also a Fountain of Ease by pouring out a Complaint into his bosom 'T is great refreshment to have a Friend to whom one may declare ones misery were it only to receive pity from his hands Job 16. 14. but in Christ looked upon by Faith there is a power as well as pity to help be the Affliction and Burden what it will be Heb. 5. 2. and how great soever 6. 'T is a Fountain also of Confidence and hence doth the Prophet Micah in the name of the people of God argue against the Triumph of the Enemy Mic. 7. 7 8. I will look unto the Lord c. and therefore Rejoyce not over me O my enemy though I fall I shall rise again And Christ himself doth teach his people Confidence by his own Example in the day of his suffering Isa 50. 8. Rom. 8. 33 34. in that his Father was near to justifie him 7. Christ thus taken up helps against the solitariness of our Journey towards Heaven a Believer has a friend to talk with by
puts them in a Bottle of Remembrance he createth Jewels for himself Jer. 31. 18. out of the Dunghill and rakes them together into his Cabinet When thou faintest he fainteth not Lie down upon him view the Travel that he has made in the Person of Christ and in the Word of his Grace throughout the Scriptures and say How unsearchable is his Understanding and Condescention How wonderfully and fearfully am I made How undeservedly how almightily how compleatly freely and throughly am I called by his Grace and led along this present Wilderness by the Right Hand of infinite care power and condescending compassionate faithfulness Oh the depth of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God in the Riches thereof How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out For of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory for ever Rom. 11. 33 and 36. Albeit God has laid the Foundation of Faith never so sure in the God in Jesus Christ the only life and breath of his people and the advantages thereof Person of Christ and so in himself as it stands revealed in the Scriptures and albeit the Principle of believing be planted in the heart at the first converting Work and Covenant-closure with Jesus Christ yet every acting of Faith is still kept in the power of his own Will and lies lock'd up from any exercise till he open his hand and fills the Soul with good things And this God doth for singular ends viz. 1. That God might be truly all in all and all in every part that his people might both be rich and yet not able to say My Goods are increased that he may appear to be not only the Author of their life but of the Breathing of their breath also and that the whole life of the new Creature might not be at the least distance from the heart of Christ as the Flame of the Candle cannot live without the Wick so is it impossible that the Faith or refreshment of heart can live one moment without supply of radical Moisture descending from the Head Jesus Christ Which doth not at all shew the uncertainty of a Believer's state but rather tends to assure the same by a frequent sending the Soul to God in Christ by whom it is established 2. It gives check to all allowed sin and turning the Grace of God into wantonness because he will not suffer the refreshment of his Grace to be any where but where he is himself 3. And as breathings are tokens of life so do renewed influences witness the reality of life arising from the Union of the Soul with Christ 4. It also tends to make the Soul watchful against distance from Christ lest the Breath of Life withdraw and the Soul faint insensibly and fall into the Myre of a defiled Mind and so into sinful Actions and a wounded Conscience 5. It leaves no room for sloth or sleepiness of heart lest the Locks of Communion with God's influential Presence should be cut and Strength be gone for no comfort or strength lives any longer than by faith it derives vigour from the heart and mind of Christ 6. It represents Mercy purely in that it sheweth that the standing of a Believer is meerly at the good pleasure of God and doth necessitate the Soul to be a resigned Attendant upon the meer Will of God and so allures the Soul by a necessary Conquest of Love not to live to it self but to the pure Will of him who died and rose again and quickens all things By which Resignment unto Mercy it rests on the heart of Christ and all the Fulness of God that is there 7. It gives ground of hope in sad hours for as the Clouds come so they go There is hope of a tree saith Job Job 14. 7. though it be cut down that it will spring again through the reviving moisture at the root And why art thou troubled saith David to his Soul I shall yet praise him Psal 43. 5. And besides 8. This coming and going of the Spirits influence is as a Fan which blows and brings forth the lustre of all Graces Hereby Patience Waiting and Hope are exercised Faith and Love are exercised and every Grace gets as it were a frequent new Birth in the Soul and the spiritual fondness of the Love is revived and not suffered to die Every new Breath of the Spirit is a new Application of the Soul's Ingrafture into Christ and Demonstration of his Power and is arrayed afresh as in the day of its first Espousals 9. And lastly It gives assurance of the Resurrection of the Body of which every Resurrection by Faith and Hope freely visiting the heart and bringing it again to God is the fore-runner Whiles my Meditations are musing and expatiating after the invisible God and would fain comprehend his way methinks I receive a check from Zophar Job 11. 7. Canst thou by searching find out God canst thou by searching find out the Almighty to perfection It is high as heaven What canst thou do Deeper than hell What canst thou know Keep within the revealed Word and in the patience and comfort of the Scriptures live by hope No flesh can see God and live Poor Man would be wise and see the upshot of all things but the Vessel of his Understanding cannot hold it Salvation by Christ has one kind of Rayment here another kind hereafter here it is a Kingdom of Patience and Hope but there a Kingdom of Glorious Enjoyment here is the Earnest there is the Fulness When I would look over and see some glimpses of Canaan a Jordan of difficulty stands in the way What an Adventure is it to go down into the depth of Death and the last concluding Change This is the last and great tryal of Faith to venture all my hope in Eternity at one Cast to expect to find the same God and Christ beyond the great Gulph who appears on this side by the Spirit of his Grace to enjoy the same God to Perfection whose Name I now call upon by Prayer O that victorious Faith which claspeth about that Love from which neither Life nor Death things present nor to come could divide Rom. 8. 38 39. I may not presumptuously go up into the Mount but be content a while with Wilderness-work there remaineth a Rest Return again O my Soul to thy labouring waiting state be upon thy Watch the Morning cometh by and by be not afraid to have thy Night changed into Day and all thy Weakness into Perfection only labour out thy Task and work out thy Salvation with fear and trembling in this day of Faith and Hope Am I called to work and travel How shall I undergo this Task Contemplation only is not the work of my twelve hours and Oh for freedom of heart and understanding that I may accomplish my work my Hirelings day Alas dear Christ I am willing to work thy works but would never be out of thy sight May I
am methinks like Jonah tumbling My Soul in a Tempest in the bottom of the Sea the Bars of an earthly and dark Mind are stopping my way and am as lifeless methinks as if I had no Interest in the Fountain of Saving Health The Weeds are wrapp'd about my head I am in the Deep but cannot cry unto the Lord as Jonah did And what the Lord is teaching me by this unexpected disappointment I cannot yet tell yet notwithstanding I have hope in him that I shall yet be rescued from this Captivity and see his Face again I have been searching after all my sins through the several Ages of my Life and endeavoured to view the Depravity of my Soul in all the sinful Circumstances of every sin but I cannot wind my self out my design was to get thereby to a more sincere Closure with Christ but e're I was aware I had challenged forth more Enemies than I could well suppress I thought by aggravating my sins to have gotten more hunger after Jesus Christ but like over-much cold Water it damped my Stomach and I found Sickness seizing upon me rather than Hunger a heartless Stupidity instead of Believing I concluded I was in some kind or other out of my way or else had not prepared my Stomach to keep out the Infection that exhaled from that Body of Death which is within me as I should have done whiles I was moving the Limbs thereof The thing I aimed at was quickning Then I remembred that word Luk. 24. 5. Why seek ye the living among the dead Come not amongst the Graves without his company who died for sins and is risen from the Dead I could not be satisfied about the sincerity of my Repentance and there I stuck till at length I remembred that Christ rose again as well to give Repentance as Remission of Sins Act. 5. 31. and 11. 18. so that I can bring no Repentance to him but I must first get it from him He is exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour to give Repentance c. A Saviour to take away all the defects of my Repentance a Prince to overcome all the difficulties and to create in me a sound Mind against the Infirmites of my Repentance and my halting therein Take then O mighty Prince and Saviour this work into thy own hands and create a right Spirit within me So that now my gadding Spirit is My Soul returning to its Strong Hold. brought back again to see that Christ is the Alpha and Omega the Author and Finisher of whatever doth concern the new Creature And although he be so yet how hard is it to venture my Soul and Body my whole Hope and Care into his hands by faith in his Word I had need know such an one very well with whom I am to venture my Journey through a Warfaring Life here and shortly through Death and Judgment too and so into the Ocean of Eternity O dear Jesus who art my Lord and my God who canst renew my heart and none else can do it breath upon me and say Receive the Holy Ghost Cast thy Mantle upon me and let the Unction of thy Spirit be so shed abroad throughout my whole Soul that my heart may be entirely thine thine only that thy self only may be the Covering of my eyes instead of all other Objects And now what should hinder but The Soul first improves Baptism that at length I should solemnly in the presence of God the Father Son and Spirit and in the presence of all the elect Angels pursue the ends of that Covenant which was sealed by Christ's Appointment to me in Baptism through whose hands soever that Ordinance was appointed and permitted to pass upon me Was not that a Divine Prophesie which Balaam himself spake which passed through his Mouth Numb 24. 17. There shall come a Star out of Jacob c. and can the Ordinance of Christ be made void through whose hands soever it came and in what unworthy Robe soever it was drest Did the sacred Ark lose its vertue by being in the Philistines Custody Did he forsake it who dwelt between the Cherubims Was the Mercy-seat forsaken and become like common Metal Why then should this Ordinance be lost to me in the substance of it though it may be some humane Scurf was laid upon it And have I not more reason to hope through Covenant-Grace that the Faith and Prayers of my dear Parents then and since are in force for a Blessing upon it to me than the defects of others in the manner of Administration can have to hinder it especially seeing now I desire humbly to take hold of the Covenant and with my own consent to say I agree to the Condescension of thy Grace and Love my dear Lord I catch hold on thy free Love and into thy Name O most holy God the Father Son and Spirit I give my self up through him who confirmed the Covenant and came by Water and Blood to make it effectual I believe Lord help my Unbelief I reach out my hand through thy Grace let thy Grace and Power pull me over to thy self that in the Ark of thy unchangeable Covenant I may be carried above my self and above a miserably drowned World Be not absent O thou who in thy Mercy didst make and impose this Seal of the Covenant as the Badge of one of thy Family for me to wear who also speakest words of Truth and Life when thou saist I baptise thee in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost fulfil thy good Word unto me thy Servant in which I desire to hope that thou mayest be mine and I may be thine wholly for ever that I may serve thee and glory in thee with all thy people who are thine own Inheritance Do not hang back O my poor Struggles with Vnbelief heart whose weakness and inconstancy have so often bruised my inward Man O Anxious Unbelief thou tellest me 't is a bargain soon made but how shall it be performed Thou urgest me with difficulties that will arise from the World from my self from the Tryals that I may undergo in my Body my Soul my Estate unwonted Tryals Thou tellest me of the great fits of Darkness and shameful declining I have had after much Refreshment and strong Resolutions to the contrary Thou tellest me that my Falls will now cost me dearer than ever they did and the Holy Spirit will be sooner vexed and grieved than before Thou tellest me I shall soon be weary of my Yoke and then my Sins will be of a deeper and more heart-hardning Die than ever But remember O Soul-destroying Unbelief I rowl my self upon the Rock of Ages I deliver my self up to the Covenant of Grace not to bring strength to it but to fetch strength from it and from that word which saith Sin shall not have Dominion over you for you are not under the law but under grace Rom. 6. 14. And because I am weak
Society and sometimes Retirement puts me behind-hand All my Composedness is soon discomposed Let thy eye be upon me O my God according to thy word and water me every moment Isa 27. 3. lest any thing assault and hurt my Soul which thou hast redeemed and quicken my faith and hope in thy Word for this Many a wretched stop do I meet with pardon me O my Lord and my God and renew a Spirit of truth tenderness sincerity and rightly seasoned heart for the work I am now upon My scope and meaning in giving my hand and closing with this Covenant of my God is further this viz. that through his help I will ascribe truth to all the words of his Promises by believing them and receiving them as that which shall be accomplished that I will labour to keep the Majesty of the Promiser in my eye and to preserve the faith and hope of his fulfilling his Word upon the account of his unsearchable Wisdom and Faithfulness and not by my uncertain taste that no Guilt of Sin shall keep me from the Fountain wherein Sinners are to be cleansed that I will through the Guidance of his Spirit aspire after a more practical and accustomed Exercise in living the life that I live by the faith of the Son of God and resting from my own works reach after that self-denying Activity which issues from my Union with Christ as my Head O my Lord mould my heart into this life this is the very Pearl that I would willingly sell all to get What a lovely Comportment would it settle between the Actions of my outward and inward Man How would it teach my Soul to rule my Body How willingly would my Soul and Body then be contradicted and take pleasure to be thwarted by the Spirit of Christ when the Crown is settled on the Head of the new Creature and the Scepter of Government in its hand acting as in the Throne of Christ in the vertue of his pure Life and glorious Arm and every imagination of the heart bowing down before it Oh when shall my inward Man be thus cloathed with Glory and Power looking forth through all my Sences as the Morning fair as the Moon and terrible as an Army with Banners This Gate of Heaven I would aspire towards through that means of Victory which overcometh the World the Devil and an earthly Mind even through the faith of the Son of God This is that which I have in my eye although it be as a Land that is afar off I faint with desire stay me and strengthen me with the Flagons of Hope O thou who hast suffered me to touch the Skirt of thy Garment and brought me within the Covenant of his Grace When I consider the Soveraignty of God that he doth whatsoever he will in Heaven and Earth that sometimes he has deserted his people as to the powerful Communications of Grace as it was with David Peter and others in the time of their sinful Back-sliding when I consider these things I begin to stagger about the constant Immutability of God's Purpose and uninterrupted Good Will which he declares in the Covenant Heb. 13. 8. Jer. 32. 40. who saith I will not turn away from them to do them good and I will put my fear into their hearts that they shall not depart from me And therefore to obviate this heart-fainting mistake I resolve to nourish the faith of his constant Love and Good Will in his Covenant upon the ground of his unchangeable Nature that he is not as a man that he should lie nor as the son of man that he should repent that nothing can come to pass but what is the effect of his Purpose that his Covenant is everlasting and his Purpose of Love therein the same for ever Jer. 31. 35. and 32. 40 41. that his Purpose to them whom he calls up to take hold of his Covenant is wholly a Purpose of Love and Grace 2 Tim. 1. 9. that he complains when a doubting heart makes question of it Isa 40. 27. that it is confirmed by the death of the Testator that the cause of Alienation is removed viz. the Guilt of my Sin by the one compleat and compleating Offering of the Body of Christ that Christ ever lives to intercede and is always heard because the Will of the Father and Son is the same Will breathing it self forth to the Objects of Grace by the everlasting Spirit And therefore when I seem to be forsaken I resolve to believe that that desertion is only Physick And to enquire what it is that God teacheth me thereby that so I may see ground as satisfyingly to thank him for the gracious frowns of his unchangeable Love as for his gracious Smiles and to take the advantage of that season to crave his Aid more importunately to loath my sinful self and to revive afresh more purely self-denying Exercises of believing and resigning to him fearing his righteous Judgments patiently waiting when the Spirit that I have grieved will return again with the Manifestation of his gracious Presence to my Soul In all these Considerations Resolutions and Desires in my Covenanting with God my meaning further is that I accept of Jesus Christ as he is the Gift of God to be the whole Covenant to me to work Faith and give the things believed to work desires and give the things desired to act for me and in me that the Covenant may never fail from me because of my sins and miscarriages in regard he has satisfied Justice in my stead and brought me into his everlasting Righteousness nor I fail from the Covenant through Unbelief and a languishing view of my own Infirmity because he is my Strength to labour Author and Finisher of my Faith who gave himself to sanctifie me by the Spirit of Regeneration in the Application of his Word to me for quickning that so Christ may be all in all to fulfil the Engagement of God to me and my Engagement in his Name to God And seeing that Breaches are like to fall out often on my part that he would still stand in the Gap that those Breaches may not obstruct the Good Will and Mercy of God from me nor harden my heart from him that so the Grace of the Covenant on God's part in Christ towards me and on Christ's part for me towards God may remain in the eye of my Faith inviolable when the Peace of the Covenant through my sinful diversions and darkness is interrupted and bruised And that he would still recover me again into a renewed personal Covenanting with God that in his Person I may behold eternal and sure Mercies as the Sun in the Firmament as the days of Eternity Psal 89. 29. And that by his Mediation and Suretyship applied to me by the effectual working of his Spirit I may in my own person be drawn under his shadow to recover my Hold-fast and have my face set towards the Covenant And that he would still lead me
the Mediator for Teaching Strength and Purging through the means appointed by him for that end as their daily necessity and weakness doth require for carrying on the true scope and to answer the true end of their Covenant-Relation to God while they live on Earth and through the Resurrection of Christ have an assured Pledge of safe Convoy through the Grave to an eternal and visible Fellowship with him and unutterable Enjoyment of Communion with the Father Son and Spirit being perfected for ever suitable to such a state both in Body and in Soul Now according to this Confession A solemn Covenant with God in the Name of Christ and Acknowledgment grounded upon thy own Word breathed by thy Spirit and experienced by all thy chosen people according to the measure of thy Revelation and spiritual Application thereof I throw my self down before thee O most holy righteous all-powerful and gracious God I cast my self before thee as a poor Syrian ready to perish without any strength at all to extricate my self from the guilt of sin and its deserved punishment I once lost thee quite and had been lost from thee for ever if thy naked Arm had not brought thy Salvation near and opened my ear to hear it And now I do here declare before thee and before thy holy Angels that I do accept of and give up my self and all that is mine to comply with the design of my Restoration which thy gracious Wisdom has found out I do accept of Jesus Christ thy Son to be my Wisdom Righteousness Sanctification and Redemption I do accept of him only to be my Access to thy favourable Presence and to enable me to walk acceptable before thee I close with thy appointment for laying my sins and all my guiltiness upon him and do profess through thy Grace that I will not hazard thy displeasure by covering my guilt or bearing it my self by Unbelief cherished within me In him I do accept of thy glorious Self to be my God and all the Attributes of thy glorious Nature to be my Portion and all ready for my relief and advantage I do accept of the sanctifying Vertue of thy Spirit and am grieved that I have so often vexed and grieved him by Disobedience and Unbelief I do own to my self thy free and unchangeable Love in Christ I do take the whole Scriptures and acknowledge them to be thy express Will and all thy gracious Commands Threatnings and Promises to be in all things most right and to be the Issues of thy Wisdom Holiness Goodness and truth for my Instruction Purging Comfort and Establishment in all cases all days of my life which I engage in thy strength to adhere unto as the Rule of my Faith and Conversation I embrace the Covenant wherein thou hast promised and sworn to be mine and that blessing thou wilt bless me in Christ for thy own sake And I do here heartily willingly and joyfully with fear and trembling offer up my self to thee and the Belief of thy Word and do bind my self to thee this day with my whole heart and in express words to be thine and to yield my self mine and all that do concern me to the good pleasure of thy Will and that I will attend upon thee through thy Grace for Wisdom and Strength to love fear serve and obey thee that I will chuse the things that please thee and not repine at thy dealings towards me as if thou hadst forgotten at any time to be gracious I bind my self in the scope and vertue of this holy Covenant with God to have tender Affections to all thy people who are the joynt Object of thy Love and to attend upon the Manifestation of the Spirit and Power in thy Ordinances and through thy strength contentedly to bear the Cross thou shalt lay upon me in conformity to the death of Christ and that thy self and pure Will shall be the supream mark and object of my Affections And O my most glorious God who pitiest the Poor and such who have no strength accept this Offering from my hand and heart and succour thy Servant who under much reluctancy of Unbelief doth strive to yield himself to be wholly bound to thee When I look upon my own strength I loath it and am astonished at such work as this but I implore thee and do profess I do with full desire of heart cast my self upon the Wings of thy Power to be carried above all impediments that shall arise from Satan from this present evil World and from the Body of Sin and Death which is within me O thou who camest in Flesh to purchase me visit the Soul which thou hast allured to seek and follow thee and cause the North and South Wind of thy seasonable help to blow upon thy Garden my Soul which with delight doth long after thee in this day of thy Power to see and be possessed of and cloathed with thy Power and Glory And whensoever I shall walk unsuitably to any of these things for I am ready to halt and thou shalt as an offended Father be angry with me and turn away thy face then behold the Atonement which thou hast set forth for Sinners and melt my heart before thee and lead me to the Fountain that is opened for Sin and Uncleanness and graciously renew thy Covenant with me and let me know that thou dost graciously accept of this my Free-Will Offering by vouchsafing thy self to be ready to be found and by causing me to be established in a daily experience that this my labour and purpose of heart though in much infirmity yet in love to thy Name is not in vain Let no part of thy Yoke be a burthen to me at any time but a joy to my heart because 't is thy Yoke and thou hast said 't is easie and light make it so and now let an Interest be abundantly administred to me into the Kingdom of my Christ and my God I profess before thee that I do humbly expect these things from thee O faithful God who canst not lie as that which thou hast graciously covenanted to give Jer. 32. 38 39 40 41. and 31. 33 34. which Covenant I do this day in thy fear and in the faith of thy performance lay hold upon and in reference to all the difficulties of this present Life of all sorts and for needful supply of daily Bread I accept of thy Promises and roll my self upon thee in them through the Mediator for Faith Courage Patience Contentedness Deliverance and Supply according to thy Word Psal 27. 1 2 3 5. Mich. 7. 7 8 9. Heb. 13. 5 6. Matth. 6. 31 32. as my need from time to time shall require And also to be kept from polluting thy Name by sinful and scandalous Miscarriages and appearance of Evil in the sight of Men as thou hast promised Psal 91. 10 11 12. I accept of and relie upon thy infinite Goodness and Truth contained in every Clause of thy Word
though not particularly at this time rehearsed for every good thing for my Soul and Body here and hereafter as far as ever the purpose of thy Grace extended when thou saidst I will be thy God and that all that Goodness and Truth may follow me all my days and for ever Rom. 8. 32. And I willingly offer up my self to thy whole Will as thou shalt from time to time reveal it in the same word of thy Grace and do covenant Subjection thereto in thy strength through the Mediation of Jesus Christ and supply of thy Spirit And upon thy own Encouragement in thy Promise made to me in that same Covenant which thou madest with my Father Abraham and sealed it to him and his Seed that thou wouldst be his God and the God of his Seed and caused the Man-child of eight days old to receive the sign of that Covenant in his Flesh which Blessing thou hast now brought over to me a Gentile by Christ in whom thou saist Jew and Greek Male and Female are all one in Christ I do again offer up my Child who has been already baptized into thy Name relying on thee to make good thy Covenant in Christ to her together with my self in every Branch thereof which I have through thy favour and Grace entred into and spread before thee this day that she also may have a place in thy House and partake of all the Privileges and Inheritance of thy Chosen And now O Lord God what shall I say to thee Who am I And what is my House that thou hast brought me hitherto All Praise be to thy glorious Name ever-living Jehovah the Father Son and Spirit Glory be to thee O Father who hast begotten me again to a lively Hope who hast drawn me to Jesus Christ whom thou deliveredst up for me to be my Ransom and hast made me to recieve him and in him to call thee my reconciled Father Glory be to thee O Eternal Son of the Father who camest into Flesh and undertookest the great Office of Mediatorship between a righteous God and sinful Man and hast transacted a Covenant of Peace for me and perfected it in thy own Person by thy Death and Resurrection And Glory be to thee O Eternal Spirit of the Father and Son who hast awakened my ear to hear the joyful sound of Reconciliation to God through the Blood of the Lamb which was slain from the beginning of the World who hast been pursuing me and didst never give over till thou hadst convinced my heart and conquered my Will to a willing Surrender of my self up to and a laying hold upon the Covenant of Grace held forth to Sinners in the Volume of thy Book Now O Lord God let all the words of thy Grace be effectually applied and established to me thy Servant Pardon all my sins and my failings and all my unsuitableness of heart while I have been before thee musing and taking thy Name and Covenant in my mouth and writing it with my own hand in thy presence and as a Fruit of thy Covenant-Grace and Truth let my approach to thee be accepted and prosper for which end I have delivered up my self and all that is mine with full purpose of heart according to all that I have said before thee this day and with an holy Awe of thy Presence in this great Work in confidence and hope of thy pardoning succouring and assisting Grace I lie at the Foot-stool of thy Mercy and call Heaven and Earth to witness that I have chosen thee to be my God and thy Will in all things to be my Inheritance and my delight and the matter of my pursuance all my days upon the ground and promise which thou hast said Hos 2. 23. I will say to them which were not my people thou art my people and they shall say Thou art my God I have said it and do say it and do leave this Covenant in the hand of my Mediator to see it fulfilled to me and by me through all the days of my Infirmity and Warfare till I come to behold his face as he is and this vile Body of mine be made like to his glorious Body In reliance on which relief and blessed hope and help I cling upon this Covenant of Free Grace in which I do both take and give as I have said and do subscribe it irrevocably with my hand Henry Dorney Do not say O grumbling Unbelief The Soul chides Vnbelief that these are nothing but compiled words of Humane Invention I tell thee as far as they are only my invention I do loath them but the Spirit of God doth witness with my Spirit that amongst these words there hath been some hunger after God some awe of his Presence some love to be his devoted Servant some prizing of the excellency of a pure Life of Faith some holy Convictions of the importance and necessity at least of such an attempt as this to bring God and my Soul nearer together And therefore though there is much chaffiness of a dead heart yet I cannot gratifie my doubts and unbelief so far as to conclude there is no Wheat in the heap and I refer my self desirously and willingly to the heart-knowing Eye of him who has his Fan in his hand to blow away all the Chaff from my thoughts and words and to create in me a clean heart and pure language also and to gather what there is of secret panting after him into his own Garner and put my inward groanings after him how weak and faint soever into his Bottle and therefore I must and by his help will praise him for any Crumbs that fall from his Table and that I have any Stomach to eat them and any desire after larger Morsels My Redeemer is bountiful his Breasts are full and will not suffer a hungry Child to draw nothing but Wind. I remember well what he said to the Woman of Samaria If thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that saith to thee Give me to drink thou wouldst have asked of him and he would have given thee living water I have asked of him and have had his favour to wait on him now several days together and will he return my Bucket altogether empty This is not his custom The Kingdom of God is like Seed sown which springs up and grows with an insensible motion and yet a growing motion Mark 4. 26 27. He proceeds in the method of his own Word in which Word he saith Seek and ye shall find for every one that seeketh findeth and shall I say my Seekings are lost My Way is not hid from God when his Path is hid from me he hath said They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength which I have obliged my self to do and therefore though he humble me to preserve a watchful Appetite and to prevent some unhealthy Surfeit which he can discern in my Constitution growing upon me better than I yet I know I shall
the Prince of this World who works in the Children of Disobedience and thereby freedom to serve God in Holiness and Righteousness This is set forth in Ephes 2. the state of Sin and Death in vers 1 2 3 12. Redemption vers 4 5 6. and of Holiness vers 21 22. And all briefly put together in Ephes 5. 8. Sometimes ye were darkness but now ye are light in the Lord walk as children of light From the Consideration of each of these there followeth divers Questions for the trying of the state of the Soul and knowing in what plight it now stands Indeed the Glory of primitive Innocency is out-shined by the super-abundant Grace and Image of Christ 1 Cor. 15. 47 48 49 as the Glory of the second Temple exceeded the Glory of the first Hag. 2. 9. yet the losing of that is much to be bewailed because we did so sinfully lose it Now then O my Soul canst thou take up Ezekiel's Lamentation over Tyrus Ezek. 27. 12. c. Thou hast been in Eden the Garden of God wast perfect in thy ways c. but thine heart was lifted up and as David mourned for Saul and Jonathan's death though access was thereby made for his own Advancement 2 Sam. 1. 19. c. The beauty of Israel is fallen c. and say How are the mighty fallen the Shield of the Mighty vilely cast away c. How is the Gold of primitive Innocency become dim And how is Mankind that was purer than the Snow now become black as a Coal as Jeremiah lamented over Jerusalem Lam. 4. 1 7 8. c. I. Canst thou say Alas I am become vile Job 40. 4. In me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing no Truth Wisdom Righteousness and thy Nature is only evil and that continually Gen. 6. 5. II. Dost thou consider the nature of thy sinfulness and how it doth pollute weaken deceive and enslave thee viz. Dost thou know that thou carriest up and down in thy Nature all the Seeds of all Sins that all the Idolatry Superstitions Blasphemy all the Murthers Uncleanness Violence Injuriousness Hatred Envy Cruelty Falshood c. that ever you read of in the Scriptures or other Histories or that ever your ears heard or eyes saw that the Seed and Spice of it all is in your own heart that all those black Lists Rom. 1. 29 to the end Rom. 3. 11 c. 1 Cor. 6. 9. Gal. 5. 19 20 c. Ephes 2. 12. and 4. 18 19. 2 Tim. 3. 2. and such like Your Nature is in some degree or other tainted with it And because this may seem harsh and strange 1. Consider As far as any Man has the Nature of Adam he has the Corruption of that Nature and as far as all are equal in their Descent from Adam so far are all equal in the Corruption of that Descent all guilty every mouth must be stopped Death came upon all Rom. 3. 19. and 5. 12 18. 2. Consider That though Restraining Grace or Mortifying Grace may curb weaken and subdue sinful Corruption yet it retains its dwelling in the Flesh Rom. 7. 25. And though the Righteousness of Christ be imputed to the Person yet the corrupt Nature of that Person has still a Subsistence till Corruption put on Incorruption till which time corrupt Nature loseth not its Sinfulness but its Dominion Rom. 7. 24. O wretched man that I am said Paul On this account the state of the Person may be changed but corrupt Nature still remains 3. Consider The natural Seed of every sin is a departure from God and a violation of his Authority and therefore he that is guilty of one Sin violates the Authority of God and has a seminal Guilt of all Sin Jam. 2. 10 11. As he who has one true Grace has the Seed of all because it shews he is united to Christ and one with him in Spirit who is the Fountain of all Grace So that where-ever we see Sin we see the Corruption and Pollution of our Nature that dwelleth in us Natural Conscience Education Constitution Profession of Religion Moral Considerations of Fear Shame or the like may curb the working of Corruption in some measure but cannot extinguish the Pollution of Sin from the heart But more particularly in reference to God Is there not great Ignorance and Contempt of him Are not Sins of thoughts more slighted than Sins visible And is there not more Shame for a small Miscarriage in the sight of Man than great Miscarriages in the sight of God What customary Ignorance of all his Attributes How little is he the Object of the Heart's Love Desire Esteem and Meditation Is not the Heart more intent on other things How little is he the Motive and End of what we do Is serving and pleasing him the Hearts design in all things In Worship is not the Heart formal cold and wandring Are not Convictions stifled and the Impressions of the Word of God quickly gone Is there serious Preparation for the Ordinances and due Meditation afterwards Is the Heart glad when the Word reproves as well as when it hears words of comfort As for Men Is not the Course of the World the Opinion of others and their Esteem of great value Are their sins my burthen Is there not Envy Hatred want of Sympathy evil Surmises c. As for my own Soul Is not my heart rash vain inconsiderate my Understanding dark my Affections loose and scattered and Memory slippery and all out of order Do you not discern the weakning Nature of Sin that it sucks the strength of the Soul the deceitfulness of it the deadning blinding and destructive nature of it and the perfection of divine Wrath that attends it And now doth all this make thee O my Soul cry out O wretched man that I am and doth it make thee a burthen to thy self Job 7. 20. as Job cried out Dost thou see a bottomless Deceipt and Desolation in thy Nature as it is in its self corrupted and by Circumstances aggravated And being totally Refugeless Dost thou lay the Hope of thy Help upon a mighty Redeemer If so thou hast attained one Round at least of that blessed Ladder which leads thee up to the Fruition of that renewed State in which thou art God's and he is thine Job 33. 23 to 31. 1 King 8. 38. III. In laying hold on Christ for Redemption 1. Do I see I cannot help my self nor any other Creature help me Isa 59. 16. Psal 49. 7. that none can redeem his Brother nor give to God a Ransom for him 2. That Salvation is only of God Hos 14. 3. his Arm c. 3. That in free Mercy he sent Christ to save Joh. 3. 16. 4. That Christ undertook this Salvation Heb. 10. 7. and performed it Heb. 9. 12. 5. That I am partaker of it by meer faith Ephes 2. 8. 6. Do I lay my whole weight upon this Saviour Isa 64. 8. 7. Doth my heart account him willing Isa 63. 9.
before they were committed to your hands leave the thought of them to the Lord whose free Love is like a mighty Deep And Oh that the Course which the Lord takes to mind us that the end of all things is at hand might powerfully dislodge our Hopes Peace and Comfort from an Earthly Rest in low transient things and fix them in him who is the Rock of Ages which we are called to do upon every hand I trust that out-stretched Hand of his will do it that at length we may know no persons according to the Flesh nor things neither Then alone in enjoying the Lord shall you and I enjoy our selves and the reality of every good thing when the shadows flee away Is not your Father better than ten Sons and his teaching Rod than their presence consider it Enquire his Will bless his Name comfort your poor Wife and do not charge God follishly Seek God's Face the more and let your Conversation mount higher and then your loss will be repayed and God will shew you his intent in this This only as a Fellow-feeler of your Cross I present unto you c. 1648. To B. J. D. N o 4. COnsidering mine own weakness and remembring you are in the same Body and withall considering that mutual Communications by Pen or Speech is required to help each other and stir up one another to the relish and practice of Christian Walking I thought fit in meer discharge of duty to represent my present thoughts to you And that I may declare more distinctly the state of my Soul to you I pass by the general Complainings and Bewailings which oftentimes arise from pretended religious Complement or carnal Sloth to a more particular Account I find the Reputation of the World doth much beguile me especially when I have to do with Men neither grosly wicked nor strictly good And I find Intimacy with these Men and in their Actions of Indifferency do plague my Soul with such coldness driness and guilt that methinks sometimes I part from them as Tamar from Amnon full of inward shame and disquiet Let me at any time go out of God's sight to act things though indifferent in their nature yet when Conscience calls for any spiritual duty or discourse methinks 't is like the voice that came to Adam in the Cool of the Day I find also a strange influence upon my heart from the ways of coveting any worldly Advantage Well was this wickedness called Idolatry for it doth importunately draw my ear and draw my eye and heart from the Lord to admire and covet after vain Enjoyments and yet I cannot say that to this day I ever wanted any good thing This I find to be both a deceiving and unprofitable Lust spoiling the comfort of my Soul and not enriching my Body nor ever adding one Cubit to my Stature Nothing doth ever make the thought of any misery miserable to me but the reflections of a betrayed heart and they stare upon me as Delilah did on Sampson when his strength was gone and the Philistins were upon him and then my Soul is as weak as Water But should I go to number up the Deceits that are within me they are innumerable only 't is some ease now and then to open the Imposthume as to God so also to good Men. I know not how far your sense of the same or other infirmities may oppress you but I know you wear about with you the same Nature as I do though I hope more enabled to strive against the Stream of Nature than I am but whatever strength you have I am sure it comes from above and indeed I must needs say and my heart rejoyceth at the mention that I am not forsaken in this Conflict my Redeemer is strong and mine infirmities are judged already and shall not afflict me for ever I am directed to a sure Remedy Psal 37. 3 4 5. and shall lay it before you if your disease be mine viz. to trust in the Lord in well doing only Delight in the Lord and commit your way to him let this Physick have its true work and the Truth of God is engaged for a Recovery Sometimes I am as it were venturing on such a Resignment as this Trusting Delighting and Committing doth signifie and methinks the very Resolution so to do as a Beam of God's Power and Love doth rejoyce my heart in hope Doubtless it is a heavenly Life to give up all our delight our trust and commit all our way unto the Lord and doubtless that is the way to fight against our Lusts with much advantage when we are got above them and in our Resignment to God have engaged him in the Quarrel I know the advantage is very great by some little sparks of it And I never knew that I got power against one Lust of heart or evil way but by being first as it were dissolved into the Lord and then appearing against it in his power When God and I am made one through Christ in opposition to my own sins and am no longer mine own but his and my faith acting through this Union then I must yea and I may say Doth the strength and snares of Temptation vanish at his appearing And happy is that Soul that appears in no other strength but his But while I am writing my heart doth accuse my Pen for hinting an Enjoyment beyond what I have I can only say this something of this I have already tasted and more I earnestly hope for as the only Remedy for a weak captivated dismayed heart I pray let me hear how it fareth with you that we may in the Lord help one another and build up one another in the most holy Faith c. 1648. To B. D. N o 5. THere is no Safety but in God no Refuge Rest or Peace but there and there it is and pity it should be elsewhere that God might still be all in all We are both in his Arms shall finish his Work and not see a day of Vexation longer than the time prefixed us And in this Confidence we are to do our work bear our burthens and not faint Our Labour will be over and our Temptations too Eternal Rest will follow the one and Incorruption the other Dear Brother farewel till next Meeting whether in this World or that to come the Will of our Father be done on us and in us c. 1649. To F. D. N o 6. I Hope there is a Power within you that will never leave purging healing convincing teaching and delivering of you till you can say the Powers the Employments the Labours of this present World are the Lords and his Christs that God is all in all to you and in you Herein lies our Interest viz. against all unworthy undervaluings of our Interest goings forth in our own Strength or Wisdom Carnal Damps of our Zeal coolings of our Intimacy with God courtings of the Creature and so being courted of the Devil in the Creature till
many times our Warmth is gone our Locks cut our Strength and Comfort departed together and then the poor Soul looks upon his Corruption and all the Engines of his Back-sliding as Amnon did on his deflowred Sister Have her out of my sight Then the Soul lies as weak as any other in an equal Line to the Men of this World but God only who raiseth the Dead for his free Grace and eternal Covenant of Love recovers this loss again restores health to the heart and makes the Soul say I was dead but am alive That a Vein of Life and Beam of Light should run through so many Eclipses and yet live and not utterly be destroyed this is the work of the Lord and it is marvellous in our eyes As there is no Calling in the World that is useful for common Good but hath its Foundation in the Wisdom Pity and Care of God towards his poor Creatures so I believe the same of yours and my desire to God for you is that you may use your Calling only as under his eye and in the wisdom and fear of the Lord c. 1649. To C. A. D. N o 7. YOur friendly and Christian Lines I received and do with you rejoyce in the happiness of your nearest Relation The happiness is the greater in that your Principles do accord as well as your Affections which renders your Condition a more lively Type of the Conjugal Interest betwixt Christ and a Believer You say your experience tells you it is good to wait on God do not forget the same experience in other cases Abound in spiritual Affections to one another as much as you can and in ingenuous Marriage-Love and Affections also but beware of that which is inordinate remembring that they that marry are to be as if they married not 1 Cor. 7. 29 c. It may be you may find new Temptations in your new Condition and God teaching you thereby If so there is still cause of Thankfulness for God has many ways in variety of Trials to teach to purge and comfort I perceive there is that within you which takes little content in high Speculations without Power I think it is no small happiness to be preserved from the vain unsavoury Profession of the times consisting more in Phrase of Words Humane Wit and Pride than Power of Religion Doubtless the ancient Path of Sincerity Humility Patience Love and Fruits of Thankfulness is the best Path for Saints to travel in waiting on God for more enlarged hearts and enlightned eyes both to know and do his Will with the more integrity Ah! the Purity and Spiritualness of the Apostles Writings and the Sermons of Christ There is no cavelling jeering but Bowels of Tenderness and awful sweet Reverence in the things of God Let your thoughts still fix there associate with the most Tender and Sincere and you shall escape the destructive Influence of that seeming religious loosness and Atheism which has I doubt cankered many a hopeful Professor As for my own part I tumble to and fro under Temptations yet reaping this fruit thereby to thirst the more after the day of Christ's Appearance and my Deliverance c. 1651. To B. D. N o 8. I Have as well by others as by your own hand understood how the change of Affairs have layen upon you The Lord I trust will bless the present Suffering to your inward Advantage The less worldly your Affections were in your Employmen the more I hope the loss is alleviated and your heart supported It is good to be industrious so that the Interest above be as the Oyl to the Wheel of all our Actions The Lord in the Interest of his free Love and Presence is able to weigh down the Scale against never so much appearing trouble and to that blessed Portion and Security I do heartily commend you 1652. To B. D. N o 9. GOd has been pleased to put us and continue us long asunder and we have had our variety of Troubles Dangers and Temptations and in regard we can come no nearer each other let us speak at a distance By the view I have made of earthly matters and earthly conditions I can say with my whole heart The best Refreshment is vexation of Spirit and if so then comes this rebuke How have I laid out my Money for that which is not Bread God has delivered me from being a burthen to my Friends and yet my Body and Soul Ah when will it once be is not given up as a Sacrifice to him only Brother I perceive so much of the unsearchable pity of the Lord to me that I know not what to do or say Oh that my heart might break into a thousand pieces and be made up again by the Spirit of Renewing What a misery is it to desire that might live which is nailed to the Cross and crucified Oh for the Newness of the Spirit to see the new Creature that old things might pass away from one end of the Soul unto the other I tremble at the mention of these words because the Power is of God and the dark design of the Lust within me labours to destroy my Interest ruine my Peace and make me unserviceable to my God to whom I am going Oh that I could in the power of my dear Saviour raise my head so high out of the misery that easily besets me as to peep forth into the fresh Air of a whole Resignment even of what I have am or do expect unto God through Christ nakedly and unreservedly You are on my heart before the Lord that you may be saved from your self and World from your fears comforts and hopes that the Kingdom of our dear Lord exalt it self exceedingly in your heart The Lord himself be your Guide to whom alone I can adventure to surrender you I am again returning from my Wives Grave into to seek mine own c. 1652. To D. H. N o 10. DEar Sister I account it my duty to hold up an Intercourse of writing to you as opportunity and time will permit as being sensible in some measure of the state of your inward Man My words have no quickning life the bodily presence of Christ himself could not do it without the Spirit much less the Pen of a sinful Worm but I will send you where this Ware is to be sold at a cheap rate if Complements of Self-preparedness for I can call it no other do not hinder Isa 55. 1. Buy Wine and Milk without Money say it over again without Money What is this the voice of your Beloved without price Is it indeed without price How hard is this one Lesson without price My Guilt can press me down but can it press him down who bears up Heaven and Earth Can my weakness hinder me from lying down There is nothing more acceptable to him as for me to lie down upon him you can never lean too hard upon your well Beloved Nothing troubles him but when you lean from
a Mind towards the Brazen Serpent a flying to the Horns of the Altar and that does the work Oh the Justification through the means of believing and only plain-hearted believing is a strange thing yet not at all difficult where the Anoynting teaches and the Soul be made free by the Spirit from Carnal Quiddities and Complements as the poor believing Woman was who prest to touch the Hem of Christ's Garment without IFS and AND 's The Lord direct all your Paths and make you fruitful in Holiness through believing and fear no evil Fare you well in the Lord for ever 1654. To S. D. H. N o 17. MY Remembrance of you in my heart does not neither ought to bear proportion to my writing I have reason to esteem you an Heir of Blessing and I would gladly when I hear you own believingly and thrivingly the God of your Mercies and rejoyce in your joy as a Member of the same Body of Christ with you Be eyeing what the Redeemer has done what the vertue of his Sacrifice is not what difficult design he attempted unless it be to honour him the more who has overcome all that we can suppose to have most difficulty in it I think it is a matchless Mercy to let our sins of all sorts and aggravations be cast on his Cross with a humble Resignment to him waiting for Salvation and Strength as a penitent Sinner's Portion through Faith The Lord be with you in whom I rest c. 1654. To J. F. N o 18. MY dear Friend I understand by what I hear that you are like to stay some time in England whilst I am detained here and in regard I know your main desire is to serve Jesus Christ in the simplicity of the Gospel I desire the place of your abode and the people you labour amongst may be adapted to such a savoury design I do somewhat doubt that if you are persuaded to some populous City you will be troubled with itching Ears and find some Temptations more vigorous than in a more private Auditory Yet I will not disswade you from what the Call of God doth most apparently incline you to but do desire you may so lanch forth that the Room of those famous Worthies who are swept away may be supplied and the Word of Reconciliation held forth till the Mystery of God be finished And therefore act with all your might whilst the day lasts and remember the distracted Condition of your warfaring Friends Beware of discouragements your work is excellent your labour short your infirmities undertaken by Christ and your Temptations and the Tempter also judged Yours is a Warfare as well as mine blessed be the Captain of our Salvation through whose Blood alone is hope of Conquest And thus commending you to the Lord c. 1655. To S. D. H. N o 19. I Trust you find the Word of God faithful and creating faithfulness also in the Seed thereof in your heart I think this is a true Maxim One deliberate unfeigned desire of perfect Righteousness in Christ is the very fruit of the perfect Righteousness of Christ For who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean but he alone by his creating Power and Love Nourish Faith tenderly and humbly try the Lord's Will and your own heart prize that Faith which puts forward all Grace which takes away discouragement from Mortification and makes it as the Gate of Heaven and Hope of Glory for the Apostle found it so and pleads it just so to us Rom. 6. 5 6 7 8 c. You have a good Guide give him the honour solely to order your heart and way his voice is heard in the Scripture Believe not your own heart or reason against the naked word of Truth In Cases of Scruple or discouragement of any sort give your self the same Counsel as by the Scriptures you would give to another person in the same Case The work of Faith is not to make sin no sin but because of sin to bring the Soul to the Redeemer that the more sin it sees it may the more abhor it and triumph the more in that Grace doth super-abound through a Mediator And here lies the Mystery of Faith the Lord himself has it and you and I shall say we have enough 1655. To D. H. N o 20. SInce God made your heart pant after that World in which dwells Immortality and Righteousness did you ever upon good Grounds judge any earthly Friend a certain Comfort If so then has God by removing your Sister and now by removing your Father witnessed the contrary If you apprehended them as uncertain then why are they not sufficiently repayed in the fatherly respect of an unchangeable God Is it good to be angry with the Lord Do not study to be more sour and melancholy but how to be more holy self-denying and chearful on the account of a freely tendered Covenant rejoycing that shortly you shall take your Journey and go visit your Father your Sister c. and all the Saints since the beginning Never study how to dishonour the nature of the Gospel by a sullen carnal pleading of Self-unworthiness The truth is Self is not worthy to plead but Christ is worthy to be loved and believed and that 's enough If he will love me heal me purge me save me convince me accept me freely why should I be offended at it and say he cannot mean as the Gospel speaks My sullen heart is never broke till Almighty Convincement from God break my heart to powder till that time I play with Melancholy under a kind of vexing delight I trust God will teach you some good Lesson by this Visitation that the knowledge of God in Christ and the knowledge of your heart may be wisely taken in I earnestly desire this that all your thoughts be brought over to a subjection to the good pleasure of God with delight viz. in that good pleasure of his and be thankful for that yet you have an opportunity to honour him by saying and thinking all his ways are Mercy and Truth Though he take to himself your nearest Friends you do them so much right as to rejoyce that they reign though you mourn after your Beloved and long to leave your self that you may love him the better I leave you to him who can and will do more in his love and pity than I or any Friend can do Rejoyce in hope lift up your head the days of your Lamentation is almost ended I remain yours in the fellow-feeling of the same burthen c. 1655. To A. C. N o 21. I Enjoy my health through the goodness of God as yet My Soul has many dry and sapless Seasons many drowsie and fainty Qualms through the deceipt of heart that lies rooted within but yet the Lord cries ever and anon in my ear I am God and I change not therefore thou art not consumed I find it desperately dangerous to set my Reason and Sense in dispute with that which
after God under all the Changes and Trials that do accompany an earthly Life and we have this Encouragement I will never leave you nor forsake you Grace and the Exercise of it also comes from God None can cleanse a foul heart nor quicken a dead one but he who raised your and my Redeemer from the dead And therefore if my heart be as hard as a Stone as foul as a Dung-hill as weak as Water and as deceitful treacherous and vile as may be I have no Refuge but to fly to my most pure holy Redeemer to my unchangeable God in Jesus Christ who is both my Judge and Saviour He hears the inward panting of his own Spirit when we can scarce hear the voice of our own Prayers or scarce know what to make of them He who creates Light out of Darkness knows how to work up an Acceptation of us to himself in Christ when our Persons and Services as they come from us are as filthy Rags in our own eyes We never go down the Wind till we say in our hearts by Unbelief The Covenant cannot stand in Heaven because I have sinned against it on Earth I am God I change not therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed Truly Sister I find very often I have as much need of pardoning Grace as ever I needed at first Conversion And I scarce know any thing that states the difference betwixt me and the vilest of Hypocrites but only this That God makes my Distempers my Burthen and in the Riches of his Love inclines my heart to hanker towards him for help And for ever blessed be his Name that doth not suffer us to die away utterly from his Relief How great is his Goodness How wealthy and endless is that Store-house of Perfection that is laid up in Christ for his ransomed and new-born Seed Get Christ in your eye and that will affect your heart c. 1661. To D. H. N o 55. TOuching what you write that you have an Interest in the Mercies I receive it accords well with that word 1 Cor. 12. 27. Ye are the body of Christ and members in particular thereof And what a mutual Interest is that First Christ's and then one anothers in him Something of this Affinity appears in the Contentment of that mutual Society of Christians but more in the mutual Faith in which they communicate with one another Rom. 1. 12. The Streams are obvious to our sence but the Streams would dry up if the Fountain did not feed them The more we put on Jesus Christ the more doth the Morning-Star of Perfection in that and all other Contentment twinkle upon us Still honor God so as to lean upon him and love him and all the method he takes Nothing doth so much bring disquiet as disappointment and nothing doth so much bring disappointment as the fixing ones expectation upon Uncertainties Be ever therefore trimming up your Expectations on things above where Christ is and abides for ever Dissolve into his good Will and he will never disappoint your Hope nor suffer you to be at an utter loss What think you is the very meaning of that place Hab. 3. 17 18. Although the Fig-tree shall not blessom c. Yet will I rejoyce in the Lord c. Doth it not speak out this viz. That God is the same his Word the same when all things fail besides If I have disquiet or fears let me enquire what it is that I fear and on what Ground whether about my present or future State of Body or Soul And let me not make Questions nor Answers but what Scripture doth countenance I may make use of former Experiences of my own or others as they bear witness to Divine Writ in the Scriptures and so be thankful but I may not make the Experiences of any sort my Rule nor Guide of my Faith My meaning is We are apt to oppose something or other that we find by Observation or Experience against the Word of the living God or expound the great and faithful Promises by those Experiences or Observations As where it is said Sin shall not have Dominion over you I will send you the Comforter and he shall teach you all things I will satisfie the longing Soul I will give a new heart I will circumcise your hearts to love me The Righteous shall not want any good thing Their Soul shall not be desolate No Evil shall come near them Your Sins and your Iniquities I will remember no more and such like which abounds throughout the Scriptures We are apt to cast cold Water out of our Experiences and Observations upon those Promises rather than kindle our Faith at them and so live by Faith on them We are apt to say yea but I do not find it so I find Sin prevails against me my Graces wither my Conscience clamours my heart is hard I pray and have no Answer my Condition is distressed and I fear it will be worse He that said No Evil shall come near doth yet suffer his people to be greatly distressed even so far sometimes as to die under it and therefore it is not directed to me or there is not that soveraign Good in it as the Gospel seems to proclaim But I would say as Solomon did Eccles 7. 10. Consider wisely concerning this 'T is impossible the Oath and Promise of God should fail the mistake is on our part considering not the Work of the Lord and the Operation of his hands He trieth rooteth and teacheth Faith by ways of Opposition for Christ is always labouring in this Vineyard The Father worketh hitherto and I work saith he His great design is to reveal himself and baptize his People into the Spirit of his Death and Resurrection He slays Sin by suffering his People sometimes to be in a sence slain by it that they more fully die from their own Power into his Life Gal. 2. 19. He brings the Soul to an utter stress to make it look out and venture upon him as the three Leppers who to flee from Famine ventured to flee to an Enemies Army When he would bring his People from sensible Refuges and from a Man's personal Worth and inherent Strength which usually gets in like Rust upon the Soul he dasheth all that to teach us that our Life and every Act of it is the meer Operation of his Grace who lives moves and breaths in his People How is it possible we should know Patience but by Sufferings and the infinite Power and Truth of God in great Deliverances if the Sun did always shine upon us This made David say In very faithfulness thou hast afflicted me and Paul I will rejoyce in mine infirmities or weaknesses that the power of Christ may rest upon me Growth of Grace lies chiefly in more and more expertness in owning of and living nakedly on the Good that is in Christ as being really mine own and deriving Good from him by perpetual Motion Man's Life lies not so much
in his Breath as in his Breathing so it is with spiritual Life exercising fresh and fresh Acts of Recourse to Jesus Christ And by this means the Soul comes at length to be bathed in the Comfort of his Truth and Love by an operating Faith Let my Condition be what it will inwardly or outwardly I am not to be dismayed from running to God and encouraging my self in him But my work is to listen out what God reproves or teacheth thereby holding this as an unmovable Truth That his love never fails from his People one moment and his People are they who in good earnest chuse him for their God whose very hearts fly and hanker after him such who come to God by Christ who design that as their Aim The whole Scripture doth justifie this plain difference between persons and persons viz. they who come to the light and they who hate it Joh 3. 20 21. Now I say My work is never to let my heart question his love to me If he has made me to hanker after him and if he loves continually then there is continually room for Access to him 'T is true that he hath suffered his People sometimes to fall grievously as David and others and he hid his face upon it But did we ever read that he did turn away from the Prayer of the Poor and while it is nothing else but his own Spirit interceding in them and Christ for them 'T is not imaginable though he seems not to answer sometimes yet he loves their voice continually Faith viz. an acting out of our own Life in the Life and spirit of Christ for all manner of good from God by him is and was always a conquering successful Grace In the greatest Surge it gives either Contentation or it hastens the opening of the Door for Deliverance and usually both together one way or other 'T is a sad thing that when we should be exercising Faith for getting the good of an Affliction and prying after further Discoveries of God's Truth Love and Wisdom and enquiring what the voice of our Father is and what it means I say it is a sad thing that at that time we should spend our thoughts in an unseasonable distrust of an Interest in him His Rod his Trials walk up and down among his People to shew he is their Father and his Discipline is amongst his Children and yet we are apt to take the very sign of our Reconciliation and make it an occasion of our distrust that we are not related to him This Wisdom comes not from above but is carnal sensual and unworthy of them who have heard the Word of Faith yea and accepted it also for many years 'T is bad tempting God and vexing his Spirit in that which provoketh him most But if I think I was not related to him before let me fly to him in Christ now and I shall be his though I was not actually so before for he casts away no sincere Comer But I do suppose you armed by the Lord to encounter these Assaults and am persuaded your Faith will grow by every Trial yea when 't is most assaulted you will be made to expect some good in the Rear which will make you glorifie God even in the Fires Dear Sister I commend you to the Lord Christ prays for you and therefore your faith cannot fail He will be Eyes to the Blind Feet to the Lame He will give Grace and Glory and no good thing will he with-hold c. 1661. To T. N. N o 56. IN pursuance of my Promise and also that the mutual Remembrance of each other may be kept alive I account my self engaged to present you these Lines 'T is one comfort that the Lord rules the World yea no other but that God to whom the Supplications of his People are always acceptable in Jesus Christ and that nothing can be perfectly miserable to them who are constituted Heirs of Blessing and past away from the Curse through the Curse of Christ And though the glorious Arm and Truths of God seem to be overwhelmed in the World yet when God shall appear to vindicate his Name and cloath himself with Jealousie what Obstruction shall hinder his Course or stop his hand I know you are not only strugling with difficulties without as well as I am but with Enemies within and truly that is my case also And I know nothing that keeps me from being overwhelmed but only this viz. some blinks of the free and eternal unchangeable Bounty of God who has for his own sake only pitch'd upon such an unworthy Creature and caused my Soul to hanker after him When I am tired out with my own Darkness Infirmity Pollution and Unbelief his good Spirit is pleased sometimes to sway my heart to throw my self Body and Soul and all my Sins and Cares upon him through Jesus Christ and so out of my own Shame and Confusion of face there darts in sometimes a Beam of Relief from him who quickeneth the Dead and calleth the things that are not as if they were Could we come off more smoothly to own and catch that Hold upon Jesus Christ which the Word of God's Grace doth invite us to we might lanch forth and venture securely in the Ark Jesus Christ when there is not a Foot of dry Ground here below to stand upon When we cannot pray then to remember Christ intercedes When we are all over defiled and confused to remember the Mediator is cloathed with our Nature and that on our behalf in perfect Purity and in the same Nature which each of us doth bear He did conquer over all that which we are as yet conflicting with in his Name That we are esteemed not according to our present Infirmity but according to that Perfection to which we are entitled in him who is at God's Right Hand Could we be more exercised in this view and blessed prospect it would make our dry and dead Limbs recover heat and life as it was with Jacob when he heard that Joseph was yet alive Joseph our Brother is yet alive And all Power is committed into his hands he has the Keys of Hell and Death and is himself the Door of Life also Oh how unpersuadable are our hearts for the most part and loath to credit the Word of his Grace and Truth so far as to resign up our selves our sins our burthens of all sorts to the vertue and power of his Atonement and Soveraignty who has ended all differences and brought in an everlasting Righteousness and Good Will that a righteous God and sinful Man might be reconciled together in him who has ballanced the Account exactly and being gone has left a Legacy of Blessing and Peace to every Soul that flees to him to feed upon till the days of full refreshing appears and we see him as he is When I only muse my own weakness it makes me more weak while I converse with anxious thoughts it makes my heart dark sower and
Sun and therefore poor Worms are never undone though never so low Could I more actually resign up to his Will and read that Golden Line of his Love that runs within every Providence of his and in every part of his Discipline and put my Seal to it how might I triumph and say O Sin where is thy Sting O Grave where is thy Death He dasheth earthly Comforts that himself might comfort alone he suffers Corruption to swell and rage that he may appear to be the only mighty Redeemer he glorifies the Excellency of his Word by forcing the Soul thither for Refuge Brother let us be flying into this Ark his Word endures to a thousand Generations we have the same God and no other than what Abraham Isaac and Jacob Moses David and Paul had He never left a poor Supplicant nor will do it for the Spirit of Supplication is his own Breath and himself deeply concerned in all the Concernments of his People they are his and their Concernments his also Let us muse this Privilege seriously and glorifie his good Will by Faith and Thankfulness and so rejoyce in believing above hope The Lord be a hiding place to you and me never yield to let him go but let us cling fast by Faith and Hope till he cause Salvation and Light to shine forth out of Obscurity and Comfort all that mourn Glorifie God by Faith Patience and Thankfulness lose not that and you will be no loser though the day be dark the Sun is not down The times of refreshing will come to us and we to them for our Redeemer lives for ever I leave you to that God and remain c. 1661. To S. D. N o 60. THat 's the happiest Man or Woman in the World that can truly hear the voice of God in his Rod. That happy profit I press and long for and that happiness I heartily wish to your self and my Brother that as God hath made you Partners in Affliction you would endeavour to the utmost to support each others Faith and holy Patience in a stormy day Afflictions be they what they will can never make you miserable Nothing makes the Rod tedious but unwarrantable vexations of Spirit and in days of trouble that is the usual Temptation and there is no such Cure as the naked sight of God's wise disposing hand If there have been any misgiving thoughts between you about future Concernments relating to your selves and your Children as under such Surges you have met withal our frailty is very apt unto spread that infirmity before the Lord who is abundant in Pardon Mercy and Truth who can spare the Lives of the rest if he please and will not suffer the Seed of his Servants to be desolate All the Scriptures be full of Counsel and infallible grounds of Consolation yet such is our Carnality Darkness and Unbelief many times that we think the Rock cannot yield Honey and so we gage things by fleshly and worldly Observation and are apt secretly to condemn the Wisdom Goodness and Faithfulness of God before we are aware whereas the only way to find the Pearl of real advantage in the blessed Word is to lay the heart to the Word by an exercise of Faith and then roll the Soul upon the Lord though it seems to be never so much against that Sense and Reason which Flesh and Blood is always dictating to us Dear Sister I must confess I travel under a treacherous heart of mine own which is ever betraying away my Peace my Strength my Faith and Hope and that is my daily burthen but I never come before the Lord with any openness and unfeigned Resignation to him for Pardon and Succour in vain I am somewhat a Partner with you in the Temptations and Waves of a present World but cannot call it dismal so long as God doth in some measure steer my Course in any sincerity after him Let us provoke one another to this and the Storm will be over the day will break and the darksome shadows will flee away or we shall flee through or flee beyond them for faithful is he that hath promised 1661. To J. L. N o 61. IT is good to mind our Interest in Christ seriously where-ever we are that when-ever we step out of this World we may step into a better in which dwells none but righteous Inhabitants and righteous things And were it not for this hope how miserable a life would Christianity be but one foretaste of Christ makes a dismal World pleasant That made Paul and Silas sing in their Bonds and John to be ravished in the Spirit in the Isle of Patmos and truly nothing else can do it 'T is our happiness that things which are seen are only temporal but things unseen are eternal I oft think of the comfortable society I had once with you but the Kernel of that which made Society then comfortable lies still safe so long as that Promise holds Loe I am with you alway even to the end of the World I recommend you into the hands of that precious Friend and remain c. 1661. To D. S. N o 62. LEt it be your and my study still to derive mortifying Power from the Grace and Cross of him who was dead and is alive I mean the Lamb who stands before the Throne in the vertue of his own Sacrifice Rev. 5. 6. perpetually to intercede for effectuating all the ends of his Mediation to them who come to God through him Our Prayers winged with faith in Christ and fellow-feeling one of another's troubles may fly faster than Letters can and there is no fear of their miscarriage if once placed by faith in the Mediator's hand The Lord who dwells in Houses not made with hands is the Habitation of his People Let the fulness of all manner of Contentment that is on the other side Jordan so warm our hope and faith that nothing on this side may discompose And Oh that I could dwell more in the view of him who is lifted up to draw all Men to him that so these earthly Affections might be transformed and fetch satiating delight from the place where Christ sits who is even now our life I commend you to him at his Throne let us meet and make merry in the Author of Consolation and our blessed Hope 1662. To D. H. N o 63. TRuly Sister I do sometimes wonder at the sottishness of my heart that can be so affected with the Christian tender Respects of a dear Friend and yet have no more flames of Affection to the Fountain of all Love and Loveliness Methinks nothing makes any Friend truly excellent in my thoughts but Grace and the Inhabitation of Christ there And if a Beam of his Grace creates a delightful Aspect where-ever it pitches how excellent for Perfection is Jesus Christ himself Sometimes our hearts are apt to fancy Christ as if he were humoursome revengeful as if he would make the worst of things and not the better sometimes
Ground When we hear News that our Troubles will one day expire there is some refreshment with it and not a little support the while But Oh for ever blessed be that glorious Hope that not only outward Troubles but Sin also shall be no more yea and that while we are striving and toiling under a Body of Sin we are yet stated in the second Adam brought over from a state of Sin to a present state of Righteousness Acceptation and Blessing This is the Crown and Conquest of Faith Hope and Consolation All these things will I give yea said the Tempter if thou wilt fall down and worship me Ah cursed and deceitful Proffer Let my Portion and yours be found still and for ever in a crucified risen Christ If he loved us when he washed us in his own Blood then no slaying Providences can separate from the same Love so that we may musing the matter aright say he loved me when he hurried me hither and thither when he brake my Bones emptied me from Vessel to Vessel made me as the Mire of the Street Yet his Blessing once bequeathed can never be revoked nor his eternal Love change Though his Paths are in the Deep and his Ways and Judgments past finding out while he maintains in our Souls a Cry after him which is the voice of his own Spirit interceding in us he hath not forgotten to be gracious nor caused his Bowels to cease from yearning toward us Sin only makes outward Burthens intollerable Outward Troubles declare the venom of Sin and tends to open the ear to instruct us and so both of them sends the Souls of the Redeemed to the Atonement of Christ's Blood for Healing and into his Bosom for Refuge Certainly Brother his Promises are as good now as they were before the Storm rose upon us and the Covenant of Grace and Love and Good Will smiles as much as ever and when the Cloud is blown over and gone we shall see it Now to justifie God's truth and submit to his wise hand to maintain good and honourable thoughts of him and all his dealings when so many things from without and also from within do war against it this is like the faith of God's Elect and doth in some blessed measure betoken the knowledge of what God is in himself and what he is eternally to us and that the Seed of God remaineth in us I leave you in his hand and to strive under your Affairs as he shall give you Wisdom and Strength Lord purge and heal us he will do it and all will be well Let us hold on to pray for each other for the Vision will speak c. Yours to love and live with you in the Lord c. 1662. To P. D. N o 68. I Have no other thing to recommend to you but this that as you have already found this present World to be a slippery Foundation so beware how you lay the whole stress of your Expectation upon it or the persons in it A thirsty Man may dream that he drinketh yet when he awakes he may faint The drink of a Dream gives not nourishment 't is only the Water of Life issuing from the Rock Christ that is satisfying and healing He that drinks thereof shall never thirst Frowns and favours of Men are some of the strongest Engines the Devil has to shake a Soul from simple and single hearted following of the Lamb and besides them the treachery of our carnal and unbelieving hearts is ever watching to betray our poor Souls into a dis-relish of the pure paths of Life dulling the edge of Zeal and blinding the eye from beholding the Excellency that lies in the Person of Christ crucified and risen and the excellent Grace that has shone from Heaven for recovering poor Sinners out of the Snare of the Devil So that you and I have need to be much attending at the Foot-stool of that Throne where the Lord of Life sways the Scepter of Relief Mercy and saving Health for all Comers Let my Portion be in the Fountain of Life and not in the broken Cisterns of earthly deceitful Contents If you would save your self from grieving the good Spirit of God which I trust dwells in you retire your self as much as you can into the Contemplation of such things as may cause the fear and love of God to be and remain with some odoriferous Verdure and kindly grow in your Soul And take an ingenious and serious view whether the Plants of the Lord do flourish or else are blighted No less than an infiniteness of Power is requisite to such work and he only who engageth his heart to it lieth under the Promise of the Influences of Heaven to quicken and satisfie him with good things full of Marrow I have no more but recommending you to the Lord to keep you from declining in a declining time and that you may be preserved from evil and your Affections be where Christ is I remain c. 1662. To S. H. N o 69. I Know you yearn after the same Country which I have some hope through the Riches of that Bounty that has appeared from Heaven to Men to see and when the Groans here below are over to breath forth Blessing Honour and Praise to him who I trust has loved us both and washed us in his own Blood and I have some ground to hope the number there will be one the more for your company Only spend your love upon him your delight in him your desires after him and every part of his Will as well to carry the Cross as wear the Crown for both are privileges When your heart is opprest with sin or trouble then think Oh how free is he from sin who sits Conqueror at the Right Hand of God as my Advocate Surety Redeemer yea my principal self whose I am by his Redemption more than I am mine own Sins evil thoughts Heart-lusts dispondency of Spirit shall not always teare and torment for he has judged them in his Flesh upon the Tree and is risen on our behalf I could write a Volume had I words and time of the terrible Inroads which the Enemy especially my own corrupt heart makes upon me but I doubt not you know the same Warfare What remains but that with Faith Hope and Patience we cry out How long Lord holy and true how long ere the Canaanite be expelled and these Thorns in our Flesh be consumed for ever Oh what pure and uninterrupted Communion with Christ will that be when neither sin within nor troubles and fears without shall gaul any more when Melancholy Doubts and Uubelief as a black Cloud shall be dispelled and dried up for ever before the sparkling face ef the Sun of Righteousness solemnizing the Marriage of his Spouse We have no Oratory that can out-pass what he has already uttered concerning this and his words are not vain though ours are many times too too chaffy about these things the more is the pity it should
make it blossom when he please He that hath given us himself will not with-hold what is truly good from us All his Methods are lovely to a believing Eye Let us soar above and disown all other Comforts that contradict our Communion with him The Riches of free Grace and that blessed Interest in Christ doth sparkle sweetliest in a tastless dark World I have no greater thing to say to my own Soul or yours than this Let us chuse God in Christ for our Portion and exceeding Joy and then we shall have not only enough but our Cup will run over With my dearest Affections and true Love to your self and cordial Respects to all other Friends c. 1669. To M. D. N o 99. IT can never go ill while the Door of Access is by Christ's own hand kept open to converse with God and some favour this way he is pleased now and then to grant me The Concernments of his glorious Name do call for our greatest Solicitude and though I am now wandring up and down I desire still to bear that more tenderly upon my heart I hope our Prayers meet every day at the same Throne of Grace Let that Trade go on and other things will do well enough I see serious Persons have weighty thoughts about the present Providences of God towards us I have you much upon my heart Feed upon the Grace of the Gospel every day and pray for me that I may do so too c. 1669. To M. D. N o 100. MY heart will not suffer my hand to be quiet unless I take every opportunity to render my self as present with you as I can methinks the savour of Christianity in this place among many I converse with is like the smell of a field which God hath blessed Cherish whatever may render the Love of Christ predominant in your heart I think my heart hath felt the good of yours and others Prayers and I hope God has begun by what I hear to answer his Peoples Prayers for his Church Oh that he may go on and fill their Mouths with Praise I have no more but my choicest Affections to your dear self c. 1669. To B. D. N o 101. I Have heard by Mr. D. that you have been lately sick but yet recovering I doubt not but you always wait and prepare for your Change and are through Grace ready for it We see the mutability of all Terrene things but an Interest in an unchangeable Covenant of Grace will not fail nor deceive all such as are comprised in it who may always say the Lord is good and every thing will work together for good for us if we let not go our Confidence Seeing the Providence of God hath so ordered my Condition that I must while Health and Life continue have my hand in some endeavours for necessary Supply I am still waiting upon his Blessing in that way which he was pleased to direct me unto and I may say with Jacob God hath sed me all my life long and 't is safe and comfortable resting on his Arm. I commend your Person and Affairs to our most wise God to dispose guide and manage I know you need much Faith Wisdom Patience and Self-denial to carry you through but you have a strong Refuge still to flee unto and be accepted And there I leave you c. 1669. To S. M. N o 102. AFter much languishing Weakness the Lord was pleased to remove hence by Death Mr. H. D. much lamented by many He gave good evidence of his Interest in the unchangeable Covenant before his last Change came and so left a good savour behind him We have enjoyed much freedom here for some time but what times we are reserved for we know not but our times are in God's hand who seems to call upon us all to remember that this World is not our resting place and therefore we are still to prepare for fresh difficulties and the hurries and uncertainties here below should be as a Spur in our sides to our motion towards the Land of Rest and that purchased and promised Freedom for which the whole Creation groaneth Blessed are those disquiets that rouze the Soul thither for true Rest and Ease The Lord help us among all other business here to mind Eternity and be always ready that whensoever God please to summon us hence by Death it may not be as an uncomfortable Surprize c. 1669. To J. L. N o 103. I Desire that ancient Affection between us may never die though distance of Habitation has put us for a long time far asunder I have lived upon the care of my God hitherto and may say of him as Jacob did He has fed me all my life to this day and I have his Promise also for the future and faithful is he that hath promised Let us both have still a fresh pursuit after the chiefest good kept alive and growing more and more in our Souls c. 1670. To M. D. N o 104. I Know I am upon your heart and in your prayers as you are in mine Present my affectionate Respects to Mr. Br. and tell him I desire his serious Remembrance of me before the Lord and the like I desire of every praying Friend Be not anxious concerning the present Providence our times and every Case of ours are all in the hands of God to him let our Requests be made known and every thought composed in believing on him who hath said All things shall work together for good to them that love him as I hope in some measure of truth we do With utmost Affections to your self c. The good hand of the Lord be with you c. 1670. To M. D. N o 105. HOw many experiences doth God give us day after day of his Pity and Love and Oh that our hearts may be raised up to adore and love him again which is the principal Thankfulness that we are able to shew Be careful in nothing but let Faith and Prayer breath forth every Anxiety of Soul into the wise and gracious dispose of God and in him centre with a holy recumbent Acquiescence of heart 'T is a profitable sweet necessity to be forced upon the naked Arm of God and that he alone becomes the Stay and only Retirement of the Soul c. The Grace Power Wisdom and Faithfulness of God never becomes admired till we improve them in all Cases This is the Mark I aim at this is a most secure delightful Pasture to feed in when the World seems to be a barren Wilderness and the things thereof wither I commend you for Health Comfort and Preservation to my gracious God he is our Father and hath a Fathers heart and a Fathers care I hanker after my peculiar Station and to be amongst those dear Friends from whom I am at present separated by distance of place though not in Affection I remember them as God enables me in my daily Addresses and I know I am remembred by them
be able to speak to the hearing of the ends of the whole Heavens O the Melody of that great day when Saints and Angels innumerable shall be the Pronouncers Oh never such Melody Melody that may be heard Millions of Years Millions of Miles O Lord keep me in my present work till thou callest me to future work and prepare me for the glorifying of thee for ever Help me in this instant help me leave me not now help me through this Thicket graciously Lord graciously deal with me at my Dissolution that nothing but Actings of Love and Grace may be shining upon Me. I leave me with thee I desire to do it perfectly April 19. He spake to one that had watched with him the foregoing Night You see how it is with me You are young the Lord affect your heart with a true sense of your eternal State that you may not be befooled of your immortal Soul by a tempting Devil and a tempting World Some space after he took occasion to say It makes my Soul ashamed within me sometimes that I have had the whole Book of all God's Promises and Covenant before me and do believe that there is mine Inheritance and yet to be in such a posture as I am Alas to be made the Children of the Most High and to live like Fools it should make the Soul long to have the utmost of the Grace promised I expect every night and every day and every piece of a day to be gone that when-ever any Qualm comes upon me I am ready to think this is the time and yet I find in my self a natural Reluctancy against Death that I would and I would not but where-ever my Damp my Black my Disquiet is it ariseth from some Tardiness in my Soul to my God I have a great desire to be freed from my Burthens and to be in that State I greatly long for but yet I would willingly that God should pitch my Stakes and determine the matter God's Wisdom and his Goodness goes together for God's Attributes do not cross one another I ought to have a Manly Walk with God it is not a crouching crimbling childish foolish unexpert Walk By Manly I mean to weigh things as they are in the grave Discovery of Scripture Surely I long to be in the Fountain to see it and be for ever in it To one asking him how he did he said It is a great Mercy that my Mind abides in any Conjuncture and that the Wheels of the Clock do not fall all out of order I cannot now converse but I think the Trade meaning the Heavenly Trade goes on and the Lord make it a smart Trade Lord teach me how frail I am all things are best known by Experience as Learning is obtained by Observation Rules and Precepts April 20. Finding himself exceeding faint and weak said I could now lie down and say This is my last if the Lord saw it fit having much ado to retain Life To a Christian Friend that came to visit him he said Blessed be the Lord for the Covenant of Grace and the Surety of that Covenant where our stay is All Goodness all Mercy all Peace c. The way and method God takes he himself hath cut out but what his scope is in this my present Case I do not know Afterward it being told him of the death of an aged Relation who lived to above fourscore Years he spake to this effect Is he dead with whom I never had the opportunity seriously to converse with in the things of a spiritual World Surely this is the time to do any thing for God and to be helpful to others The Lord bless the Providence to that poor Woman his Wife To another Friend taking leave and saying The Lord be with you I hope he will carry you to your Journeys end he replied I hope he will I believe he will never leave me nor forsake me To another poor Christian he gave this Counsel Cling upon Christ and he will never leave you I cannot say much but be sure of that follow hard after Christ and he will never leave you That is all my Experience all that I have been a learning of the Truth and Faithfulness of God these scores of Years Only love him only obey him entirely seek him pray to him much for that is the only likeliest way and I never heard of any that did it faithfully and was lost Then he prayed O my God be near me suffer nothing to miscarry through the All-sufficiency of thy infinitely great Grace To a dear Friend that came to visit him telling him that he was very much upon the hearts of the People of God who prayed for him he replied these words That one heart of Christ sets other hearts awork He farther said I am glad to see you upon account of former Intimacy but I chiefly rejoyce that you have found the same God in Prayer that I have done and that you are hankering after the same Fountain and Spring and cannot live without it as God hath given me also an unwearied Reach after and upon these Grounds I am glad to see you My dear Friend fare you well the Lord be with you To a Relation he spake thus Spring to Heaven though for your springing you spring out of the Body and leave it behind you Let us look to it lest you and I fall short of our Hope Multitudes of Professors standing aloof off have lost their way they have lost their work they have lost their end Our opportunity is as clear in our hand now as ever it was in the hand of David or Paul or any of the Saints of God that lived before us Oh how do I love to see Grace grow in Friends in Relations c. The Lord be with you and carry you and make your Affliction to be a sanctified Affliction that in a little while you may not have any burthen but may see your Salvation and have it April 21. To another Visitant he spake thus I may not stand wondering meaning in reference to his long Sickness but yet I may wonder indeed that ever God made me a Man that ever he made me a rational Creature that ever he brought me forth into the World where the Gospel was and that he hath told me that he will save me for ever Oh that I could wonder admire and adore it You duggle up and down and so I have done heretofore and here we walk over but a little Ground and if we obtain little or much it is but a little got in a little Ground and we have therein trouble But Oh what is it to flee over the whole Heavens and to be every where in God and in Christ In all other good things relating only to this Life all the pleasure we have in seeking them is to think how pleasurable they will be to us when obtained But the delight and pleasure of spiritual things lie much in the very seeking of them