married Estate and therein to favour me with the Society of one whom I account and believe to be precious in his sight and thereby called me to some further Exercise of Faith and a nearer Approach to himself for all Supply and Succour under the Wing of his Counsel Goodness Care and Faithfulness for Soul and Body and for his blessed Presence Good Will and Favour to my self and mine And withal in regard a very dark Cloud appears hovering over the Church of Christ I thought it my duty to betake my self to the surest Hold and to retire afresh into the Arms of God himself And therefore being under much sence of the loose earthly frame of my own heart I resolved to renew upon my Soul the Obligations of the fore-mentioned Covenant which through the favour of God I have this day done lying down at the Feet of a Gracious God I have again though with feeble hands been taking hold of Jehovah ' s Covenant humbly taking him to be my God and giving my self and mine to him I do I say with much struggling yet with some sincerity in my desire take God to be my Portion and exceeding great Reward and do render my self and all that concerns me to him and to his Will this present 23d of May 1666. and for ever And do subscribe the same with my own Hand Henry Dorney Moreover in a former Sickness and under Bodily Ailments being asked whether there were any thing burthensome upon his Spirit he replied I have no distrust in him whom I have believed I feel no sting at all There is no oppressing thing upon me no quelling thing in my Spirit Nothing troubles me from within nor without His Desires after Glory were His Desires after Glory in a peculiar manner exerted in his last and Dying Speeches and Prayers and at other times before in many and various Instances and chiefly upon this Ground that he should then be perfectly freed from Sin and serve God without distraction And it may be useful here to mention this following Passage that a dear Friend once making his moan to him about vain impertinent Thoughts wherewith he was greatly haunted and troubled in Attendance on God in Duty He said to him no more than this That that very thing should make us willing to be gone hence to be with Christ He had an entire Respect to His universal Obedience all God's Commands avoiding all Appearance of Evil and laying hold of all Opportunities for receiving and doing good and his very Soul was in it and it seemed as natural to him as for a person to eat when he is hungry Yea he was as a Creature out of his Element most uneasie and restless whilst he was not actually so exercised And his Submission to the Will of God's Providence as always so it was remarkably instanced in his last Sickness and also in a former Sickness when he was heard to say Lord if it may please thee make my Passage easie If thou wilt have me go meaning his departure by Death I am willing If thou wilt have me to stay a little longer I am willing but Oh! for Sufficiency of Divine Aid Likewise it was observed in these Petitions he offered up to God in Prayer That the Lord would manage every one of our Thoughts and spiritualize them for his whole Will and that his Spirit may have the Sovereignty in our hearts And seeing it is the property of his People so far as they are spiritualized to love and delight in all his Statutes and to love his commanding Will and Word as well as his promising Word That he would lead us into the Light and Life of Jesus Christ and cause us to yield up our selves universally to his Rule and Government and greedily take in all that Grace and Kindness he hath offered to us and get up into the Region of Christ's Teaching and Leading That we might be formed to his liking and as a People whom he delighteth to own and love and be fitted for the whole Will of God that he would have us to submit unto His Mortification was clearly His Mortification evinced by his Behaviour towards that which should be always the Objective Matter for that Grace to be exercised upon and by these directions he proposed as Means and Persuasives to it That we should always seek an occasion against the Flesh as 't is said of the King of Syria He seeketh a Quarrel against me and when we cannot pray it down or meditate it down then apply our selves to good Company and holy Conference with others and be ever engaged one way or other with one Weapon or other against the Flesh as Sampson against the Philistines who sought an occasion against them And that the way to receive any Temporal Mercy is to be dead to it And that as they that will be rich fall into Temptation and a Snare the like it may be said of those that will not be poor And he further added that we must be mortified as well to Saints as Sinners if we will have true Peace And that if all things were in a right frame the Soul would be dead to all carnal and earthly things and be ever under full Sail for Heaven and how then would the Breath of Grace appear in all the Actions of our Lives And for the promoting of this necessary Work he was observed earnestly to pray That mortifying renewing Grace might always appear active in us and that there might be a secret delight in us to take Vengeance of all that carnal Frame and corrupt Inclination that is within us and an eager desire to have this Body of Death crucified and taken away That a Sentence of Death might pass upon this Body of Sin and Death in us which Christ died to remove That this Body of Death might be battered down and wasted day by day And that he would cause us always to have a War against the Law of Sin within us And that we might long to have it subdued and the Soveraignty of God's Grace advanced in our Souls And that our Affections and Desires might decay more and more towards all things that are of a fading perishing Nature And that he would crucifie and destroy in us all the Attempts of the Body of Sin wherewith we are continually haunted And that he would help us to quit our selves as those that are engaged to God and favoured by him and know what it is to have our Natures changed and the natural Enmity slain And that we might be transplanted into Jesus Christ and made one with him That the things above might be the great things in our eye and have more Room in our hearts and the things here below accounted little and be of low Esteem with us The constant seriousness of his His constant Seriousness Spirit was seen not only in his Carriage but in his Cautions to others about it saying that there are many thousand Professors
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
Glory of God and the day of refreshing which is promised to appear Even so come Lord Jesus And now if I might out of all these Considerations but take home to my own heart a few Chips to kindle mine own Fire and be really resigned one Inch nearer to Christ I should think the Meditations of this day happily given in What else doth my Soul long for Some Crumbs of this glorious Banquet that my Soul may inwardly commend the Feast and say The Lord hath done great things for me Yea Lord let thy Kingdom come and thy Will be done I wait and cry Amen Amen How to find God a SANCTVARY in time of Trouble With the manner of the AVTHOR'S entring into Covenant with God PErceiving a dark Cloud and tempestuous Storm to be rising and being called to enter into the Chambers of Divine Protection Isa 26. 20. and finding it the practise of the Lord's people Psal 57. 1. and 143. 9. and Jesus Christ having declared himself a Shelter from the Storm Isa 32. 2. and inviting me to enter into his Rest Matth. 11. 29. I judge it my duty to follow his Voice and betake my self to the Horns of the Altar but being hindred by my own Guiltiness and Unbelief am forced either to wander into Desolation of Mind or else to endeavour to cut my way through the Incumbrances of my own darkness by the Sword of the Spirit If the Lord shall be pleased to favour me and bless this Attempt I shall be safe under his Wings And seeing nothing makes Calamities terrible but Guilt of sin I judge it my duty to set my main Battery against that Strong Hold And to that end having chosen out for my help that blessed Word Rev. 1. 5. He that hath loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood Which Scripture yields excellent Relief to that Soul that can mix it with Faith The words He that hath loved us do import the Ground of a Sinner's Union with Christ for such is the nature of Love and we must be one also with him before ours can be made his and his made ours And the words our sins and his own blood How Christ's blood doth wash being compared together shews that from Union with him flows a transferring of our sins upon him and as it were mixing them without any personal stain with his Blood and so made his Our Infection by his own Will entred as it were by Imputation and Burthen into the Blood of the unspotted Lamb. He suffered himself who was personally without sin to be all over laden with the real Imputation of the loathsome Nature and absolute Guilt of our sins and so became sin for us and yet his Blood remained pure and himself without sin The word Washed alludeth to legal Washings for Purification He removed our sins from us making them no longer ours but his own as the filth of a Garment is washed whereby the Garment becomes clean so our sins passed away Zach. 3. 4. by Imputation and burthen of the Curse into the living Body and Life-blood of Jesus Christ And so the Sinner as the original and principal Malefactor and Christ as Surety do stand both of them before God the righteous Judge and both in some kind equally liable to Sentence for if Christ had not been able to have freed himself from those sins they would have sunk him and the Sinner too And herein the Metaphor of washing a Garment comes short of this Mystery for the filth being gone from the Garment into the Water the Garment is thereby actually cleansed though the Water be never cleansed from the filth that it borrowed of the Garment because the Water and the Garment are two seperated things but in this mystical Washing the Person washed and the Blood washing are joyned together in the Union of Christ's Mystical Person so that if Christ who is the Surety miscarry in his work all they whose hope of Redemption lies only through Mystical Union in their Interest in him must needs perish with him and if he prevail they are delivered for this Washing at his Agony and Death was in some sence Inchoative and yet accounted perfect and was so as it stood in relation to and connexion with his Resurrection which made him a compleat and perfect Author of Eternal Salvation Heb. 5. 9. But how Christ could bear our How a pure Christ was made Sin for us sins and be made Sin for us and yet be personally pure this is a great wonder and he must be without sin all the while else he could not have done away our sins One Contrary expels another but he doth it not at a distance as the Light of the Sun drives away Darkness before it but he enters sinlesly into the state of our Sin that we might enter into the state of his Righteousness He cures not as a Physician who cures by Medicines but was himself touch'd with our infirmities he was made Sin for us he espoused not only the punishment of our Sins to himself but was married also to our Guilt and to all the dreadful workings of it so far as that it made him sick and sorrowful even to the very death He had the guilt of our delight in sin without any delight in it He made himself guilty of all our sins but had none of his own nor no defilement to his Nature by ours If one Man be guilty of another's sin he is defiled himself without lessening the defilement of the other Man because the Guilt is not translated from the one to the other but extendeth and spreadeth its poysonous nature from the one to the other and so fills as it were both Vessels without any remove of the Guilt but Christ's Nature being capable of no personal Infection gives liberty and scope to the Guilt of a Sinner to vent it self wholly into the bottomless and endless Satisfaction Merit and Righteousness of Christ the Mediator till the last drop of it be gone and the Fountain dried up through Union with his spotless Nature Our sins touched him as to an experimental sence of the filth and burthen of them He bare our sins in the Body of his Flesh but that Flesh being personally united to the Godhead remained pure and uncapable of any Corruption through the purity of that personal Union But how unexpressibly far he took in the sense and burthen of all sin and made it his own in the utmost measure and how infinitely pure he still remained the knowledge of this the Angels desire to look into and must be reserved till the Saints come to know as they are known of him Sin dwells in our Nature habitually and actually but lay upon him by Imputation and so passively his Nature bare our sin but could not act it But how should a Sinner come to enjoy Redemption from his Sins by a Mediator thus wonderfully qualified and so admirably sustaining a sinner's guilt This is worth the Enquiry I
he really minds no more it may be than the Grassie Superficies of his Land till he discovers some other Excellency Then he minds that also and owns it whether it be Mines of Gold or Silver or whatever is in the nature of the Earth which was not known when he bought it because he bought a Right to it without Restriction to any particular quality in it So is it with a Soul that by Faith lays hold on and receives Christ's Person it may be his eye is chiefly on freedom from the guilt of sin but in taking the Person of Christ he recieves not only Pardon but a true Right to whatsoever is in Christ relating to this Life and that which is to come the Heaven of Heavens is not able to contain the utmost of that Inheritance which belongs to a Believer because it cannot contain God This Faith discovers and cries out My lines are fallen in a fruitful place I have a goodly heritage Faith being thus mounted it has The Influence of Faith into new Obedience many advantages for 't is skilful and therefore victorious It has the advantage of discovery for offence or defence It has Champion Ground and a clear Air to breath in and so is every way furnished for Victory and Success And as Faith is thus fitted by means of its station and capacity for discovery so it lies under the Bond of Obedience engaged and commanded to accept and drink in the Happiness that lies in Christ Faith is eminently both Privilege and Duty A Privilege in that it enters on the Possession of the whole Covenant of Grace and Eternal Life here upon the Earth and 't is bound thereto in point of Duty The Nature of Duty and Obedience is the better discerned if we consider the nature of Commandment Commandment may be thus understood either Primitive or Superadded Primitive Commandments are such as constitute the Pale between Good and Evil and are the Demonstrations of Righteousness the contrary to which is Sin and Unrighteousness which was originally given to the nature of Man in Paradise and after the Fall renewed in Tables of Stone to which that relates which the Apostle John speaketh Where there is no law there is no transgression for sin is the transgression of the law 1 Joh. 3. 4. This Law was revived by Moses for discovery and conviction of Sin and Transgression Gal. 3. 19. Rom. 7. 7. The Superadded Commandments are all Exhortations and enforcing Precepts in the Scripture which require Obedience to the primitive Rules of God's holy Will which are as it were the Emblem of his righteous Nature manifested to Man And these two have a different manner of Obligement The primitive Commandments do oblige from the very Nature of God and discovery of his Will in opposition to the defilement of Man by his Apostacy And these do shew what is the duty which Man oweth to his Creator The superadded Precepts by way of Exhortation or by way of Commanding Charge do seem rather to oblige from the apparent Equity of the Will of God manifested to shew his most holy and righteous Nature by and serveth to apply the heart thereto The breach of the former is Transgression the breach of the latter is actual though impotent Wilfulness and methinks is properly that which is called disobedience Albeit all sin is truly termed disobedience yet this seems to have a foul tincture of a repugnant Will in disobeying and so oft as the Command is renewed this disobedience is the more aggravated and increased The same Draft and Model serves to discover what is Obedience or Disobedience in the new Creation In this new World as it were of Salvation by Jesus Christ the manifestation of Free Grace in the Doctrine of Christ's Birth Life Death Resurrection and Ascension c. doth make the Treaty between the spotless Purity and Sufficiency of Christ's most holy Nature and the natural Guilt and lump of Wretchedness that has over-spread the Nature and Life of sinful Man which Manifestation of Christ presents it self in a way of Cure to defiled Man and doth in a primitive way viz. in the very nature of it require defiled Man to be Healed There is vertually in the very manifestation of the Gospel a Command gone forth to lost Man to return and accept the Salvation that is thus provided and held forth Besides which there comes in the next place a positive Command to believe 1 Joh. 3. 23. with many invitations persuasions and directions about it The not receiving the former is blindness the not receiving the latter is more eminently wilful blindness and both of them wretched impotency because the Letter of the Gospel it self cannot quicken The Spirit of this Gospel doth therefore go further in behalf of the Elect who were peculiarly given to Christ and presents it self as a quickning power in all the parts of it and as the real necessary and most effectual Remedy against all manner of Guilt which also is in the next place followed with a Law in the hand of the Spirit to receive it by Faith and this is that quickning vertue in all invitations and persuasions to receive and apply that glorious Remedy And this is that twofold Law which every Convert lies under viz. the Manifestation it self and a spiritual requiring Word commanding the Conscience to receive it and live thereby through an actually exercised Faith For as God pursued Man's Apostacy and disobedience through Adam to death and destruction so he pursueth Man's Remedy through the Death and Sufficiency of the second Adam to Justification of Life and Salvation In the former God said Man must die in the latter he saith Man must and shall live He himself is the Commander and the life and strength of his own Commands in that the second Adam is not only a living Soul as the first was but a quickning Spirit 1 Cor. 15. 45. This Command from God in the Gospel to believe receive and enjoy Pardon and Righteousness in Jesus Christ Act. 13. 38 39. c. 16. 31. 1 Joh. 3. 23. even that Righteousness and Salvation which is laid up in the Person of the Mediator 2 Cor. 3. 9 10. for every one who comes for it Heb. 7. 25. and would enjoy the same Rev. 22. 17. This Command I say necessarily requires Obedience thereto Rom. 16. 26. This Obedience is exercised in a pure and free receiving Jesus Christ as my only Redeemer as being bought by him and being made his I am not my own I must not measure my self by my self but by what he is for me and to me When the temptations of Fear through my personal Guilt do command me to Despair I must not obey them but must obey the Law of Christ the Law of Faith as 't is called Rom. 3. 22. when Pride of heart or Self-ability doth command me to boast I must not obey it 1 Cor. 1. 13. but must reply I am not under the Law of my own Sin nor
when he taught his Disciples that Prayer Could I but pray this Prayer in the Latitude of it I should think my foot within the threshold of Heaven The main Gospel-killing work lies The blessedness of a mortified Vnderstanding and mortified Will. in mortifying the Understanding and the Will into the Wisdom and Dominion of the Spirit and in regard my present Controversie is against my own Carnal Will I would deal with that first did not my unmortified Understanding stand in the way My unmortified Understanding can easily dally with all the Notions about the Trinity Law and Gospel Promises and Covenant Faith and every Grace of the Spirit and every Duty of Godliness and yet but trifle all the while The renewed Understanding sucks in the lively Evidence of the Mind of God in all those things and is called the Demonstration of Spirit and Power 1 Cor. 2. 4. and the very Mind of Christ 1 Cor. 2. 16. This Mind of Jesus Christ represents to Faith the infinite God wrapped up in every Particle of his Word and is the Spirit of every revealed Truth Hence comes that Expression You have not so learned Christ Ephes 4. 20. A renewed Understanding is not taught by Words and Sentences be they what they will and though never so good but by the Mind of God and Christ in them Ephes 4. 21. The whole Volumne of the Scriptures is but as it were a small hint of the unmeasurable Will of God And this is the reason why the Scriptures though the words are the same and not altered yet do they by the Spirit speak variety of Instructions in the Unity of the same Truth as the Spirit pleaseth to reveal it self therein which doth not at all argue defect in the Scriptures but infiniteness in the Mind of Christ therein contained This Fulness of the Mind of Christ in the Word is that which makes it divide between the Soul and the Spirit the Joynts and the Marrow and is a Discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart Heb. 4. 12. A renewed Understanding makes use of the Word and all the Expressions therein but as the Door by which to enter into the whole Vision of God in Jesus Christ and the Revelation of his Will and so takes up the Truth truly in the method in which the infinite God is pleased to condescend A renewed Understanding sees the Mystery of Truth to be Substance and Life through that report of it which words do speak It converseth with Life through the Conduit of Words Phrases and Terms It gives way to the Truth as it is in Jesus by believing and not mangle it with carnal Reason and so makes way for the renewed Will to give Obedience by believing doing and suffering the Pleasure and Will of God The renewed Will is one with God's Will in a way of Submission thereto It lies down broken heartedly in the pleasure of God 'T is zealous in Obedience secure in believing quiet in suffering because the Will of God reigneth and cannot be disappointed It makes the Soul in all things give thanks and rejoyce evermore It grieves where the Holy Spirit is grieved and it delights where God delights If God say to Abraham Offer up Isaac he doth it with joy Reluctancy is gone because the Will of God dwells in the renewed Will and the Consultations of Flesh and Blood are mortified It grieves for Sin because it crosseth the revealed Will of God and yet rejoyceth in Hope because all things shall work together for good to them that love him The renewed Will is always renewing it self by Faith in Christ and looking into the Law of Liberty It thanks God heartily for Life Death Health Sickness Success or Disappointment in High Degree or Low Degree because 't is baptized into his Will And that the nature of this new Creation in the Will may provoke my heart to withdraw from the Servitude of my corrupt Will I would ponder the nature of it a little further The first Parent of the Grace of Adoption by Jesus Christ was the good pleasure of the Will of God in his Decree Ephes 1. 5. and actual Conversion by the Word is the Operation also of the Will of God Jam. 1. 18. which bringeth forth a Birth in the new Man of the same likeness Psal 110. 3. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power and by this the truth of all Obedience is measured Isa 1. 19. It is also the first thing the Spirit of God hath in its eye and which doth in a way of Acceptation fill up the defect of all other Service 2 Cor. 8. 12. The State of Death in Sin is Captivity to the Will of Satan and the Flesh and Subjection to the Will of God is the First-born from the Dead it first appears and so goes on as the living Token of true Christianity and never ceaseth till 't is filled with the Fulness of God who brought it forth and so it is the undoing Principle to Flesh and Blood and captivates Fear Care and Bondage into the Liberty of Jesus Christ the Eternal Son of God and makes Christ and a Believer no longer twain but one in the Union and Operation of the Spirit whereby the Dominion and sure Protection of God secures the Soul as the Waters cover the Sea Here I stick and here I groan Alas alas for this day of the Lord Oh for this day spring from on high to reveal this light and breath in the Life of this renewed Understanding and Will from the rolling bowels of his own Grace and Spirit I am sick yea I am sick my Pen shakes my heart quivers with desire after this renewing Work Give way O Carnal Mind of Unbelief Darkness Sin and Vanity that my heart may faint away into the bosom of this changing Power of the Spirit of Christ who has redeemed it This glorius Work of renewing The use of the Scriptures the Mind is carried on by the eternal Word of God by which he made the World All Creating Work is effected through the eternal Word the Son of God by the eternal Spirit from the everlasting Father in which God is all in all This eternal Word hath declared himself by a word of Faith Reconciliation and Comfort contained and expressed in a way suitable to the Capacity of Humane Sense Reason and Understanding in the Scriptures that so the incomprehensible Will of God might look into the heart of Man through the inlets of natural Sense and the faculties of a natural Mind making them subservient in this renewing Change Therefore is it made visible to the eye and receivable by the ear retainable by the memory and meditable by the heart in the use of the Scriptures and so doth in a rational way by Reproofs Instructions Convincements and Comforts bring forth the new Creature and hold it in a Spiritual Union and Fellowship with the Father Son and Spirit through a daily Increase tending to the
Christ at his death gave it such a Wound that will never be cured till it has by the Faith and Prayer of every Believer bled it self to death When Guilt seems to live most and so sends a Believer afresh to Christ then does Guilt die apace and remains only to keep a Believer's faith in continual exercise and render Christ precious to the Soul as cold Weather makes a Fire the more comfortable and pleasant so that while my Soul holds close to this that Christ is upon his own terms Righteousness Pardon and Life to me by making me his and he being mine my own guilt becomes no longer my own because I am no longer my own but his who bought me with his blood and as guilt is removed so the fear of falling away is removed and relief against daily infirmities provided for If being an Enemy I was reconciled by his Death much more being reconciled shall I be daily saved by his Life Rom. 5. 10. But whence ariseth this that I Faith only a relief against daily infirmity find it harder to relie on him for power against daily infirmities than against the power of condemning Guilt Daily Infirmities are the lesser Enemies but yet they are present Enemies and seeming smaller in stature than the great bulk of universal Humane Guilt the Soul of a Christian is apt to step forth against them in his own strength and resolution and so returns many times with shame whereas the same Covenant which takes away the stony heart and state of Guilt is that only which gives a heart of flesh and cleanseth the Soul from all unrighteousness I cannot therefore mortifie one foolish filthy or distracted thought without the application of the whole power of the same Christ who has removed my great and condemning guilt and cast it into the Sea I am apt foolishly to think that my great guilt being removed I may in some sort take my ease which degenerates more and more into spiritual sloth and unthankfulness but my daily infirmities are like a pricking Bryar which continually afflicts me and lets me know that this is not my Rest neither will my own hands put away these Bryars but only the consuming fire of Christ's Spirit setting his Death and Resurrection in Battel Array against them So that I see if ever I expect a good hour in this World or to all Eternity it must be only and all over in Jesus Christ O cursed Nature O cursed Sloth that is ever dividing that which a blessed Covenant of Grace has joyned together Jesus Christ and my Soul All his drift towards me is that he might be all in all to me Oh that he would vent himself and spare not he that bids me fear not only believe is only able to make me believe I often draw near methinks to some Resignation to him with some universal scope but am quickly gravelled again yet so much delight remains in the very hope of my Soul towards him that makes me chuse rather to have my eyes towards him though with a long look than to say within my heart My Beloved will never come surely he will yet come and his Reward is with him This Resignation to God is so glorious in the Nature Ground Properties Resignation and encouraging Privileges of it that the very glimpse thereof makes my heart light and even faint for desire to be wholly swallowed up and translated in Spirit Soul and Body into the pure Rest and Crystal Life of God but the nature of it I can no more express than a Man's Pensil can draw the Portraicture of a Man's Life or represent the nature of a Taste albeit it may draw the Figure of a Humane Body or represent the visible Food in which lies that hidden quality of Life and Taste But if words may be used about it I would thus express it 'T is an allaying delightful willing The nature of Resignation open-hearted dissolving of all my desires cares and enjoyments of things present and to come relating to Soul and Body into the heart and unlimited disposure of God in Jesus Christ my Lord with an endless victorious Security of Confidence Consolation and Peace of heart and Conscience The ground of which glorious active and Soul-quickning Rest is The Ground of it Jesus Christ the Mediator who has received his Redeemed to the Glory of God Rom. 15. 7. He is called their Peace Mich. 5. 5. their Rest Isa 28. 12. their Sufficiency 2 Cor. 3. 5. Comfort 2 Cor. 1. 3. Joy Psal 43. 4. and All in all Col. 3. 11. In all these respects Jesus Christ becomes the ground and attractive cause of Resignation as he is God and Man bringing the Soul through Union with his Humanity to God with whom he is personally united 1 Pet. 3. 18. into which Union every Believer is received through the Mystery of his free Grace Joh. 17. 21. and the Application of this Union to the Soul by Faith breeds this blessed Resignation for Christ being thus qualified in his own Person and thus uniting the Soul to himself by his Spirit begets in the heart through believing an answerable Counterpane of Conformity and Quiet in the Inward Man which cannot be capable of loss because the unchangeable God is the Author and unalterable Cause thereof nor be obstructed while Faith holds up its exercise therein but runs out into an infiniteness of Satisfaction in all cases because it is got with the help and expiating boundless Interest of him who is infinite It enters in by the Door of his Manhood to the partaking of whatever he is Heir to and is made Heir with him of his Conquest Fulness Security Peace and Joy so that albeit the Flesh may fail God being the portion of a Believer faileth not but always unchangeably continueth in the Mystery of this Union to be the Foundation and effecting Cause of a Believer's Resignation to him as into the hands of a faithful Creator 1 Pet. 4. 19. Jesus Christ himself is the glorious Model of Resignation for God in Christ resigned up himself to the Nature of Man Heb. 2. 14. and being the Eternal Son resigned up himself to the Will of his Father to be made a Servant and he who is the Law-giver resigns himself subject to the Law God over all blessed for ever resigns himself to the Curse of the Law he resigns up the freedom of his own Will to a voluntary Covenant he undertakes as it were the encumbrance of a Family and accounts the cries of many Infants about him no disturbance but a delight he resigned up his Body to death and became of no Reputation that out of his Dust he might bring many Sons to Glory he resigned up his heart to bear their sins and sorrows he hath resigned up whatever he is to be theirs that they might be his and be saved both living and dying from all wants and fears through his Resignation of himself to stand or fall with
Redeemer the Fountain of Acceptation Pardon Life and Health In his hands I desire to leave you and remain c. 1658. To S. D. H. N o 33. I Thought good to send you a Line or two I am my self through the goodness of God in health and in hope of greater things to the Inner Man than I can yet attain My Life is a Warfare in all Respects O blessed be the Lord that is never weary of such a defiled Lump but holds my Soul in some life to this day with expectation that he will never leave till the Wilderness be made a fruitful Field and the Old Man be utterly destroyed for strong is he who hath promised and there shall be a performance to the patient attending on his Word God doth so order the bringing about of our eternal Rest that when he has lifted us over all the Mountains and Valleys of this present Pilgrimage he may at length be admired in them that believe and give matter of eternal Praise when we shall look back and see how we have escaped the devouring Floods and by his hand behold all the present spiritual Enemies lie dead for ever The Weary shall be refreshed the longing Soul satisfied the Captive delivered and the Scattered be yet gathered and return to Zion The Zeal of a faithful and gracious God and our Redeemer will accomplish this Be things how they will yet we are not allowed to say Our Wound is incurable but rather say Salvation is of God and he will be surpassingly wonderful to them that wait on him What though the Fig-Tree do not blossom yet God cannot alter the Word that is gone out of his Mouth Fear not for I have redeemed thee Isa 43. 1 c. Thou art mine to revive the spirit of the humble Isa 57. 15. He delights to dwell among broken Bones as his dwelling place that the Mourners may sing away their grief in God their Saviour There I leave you and commending you to the Lord I rest c. 1658. To D. H. N o 34. SUch is our bodily condition that we cannot make up these distances without the intervening of Letters or Friends but that Communion which I trust we have mutually though under much darkness with the Father and the Son by the Spirit of Grace needs no such helps I trust our Prayers meet at a shorter Cut and that we strive together in the same Faith of the Gospel It may be you find you have much to do to keep your head above water I find the same I bear about the same Body of Death and find the same Contradiction in my corrupt and confused Nature One Christian seems to out-run another till God reveal the mischievous Hell that dwells in our Flesh Then Paul himself will cry out O wretched man that I am and Isaiah that Evangelical Prophet be forced to say All our Righteousness is as filthy Rags What are our poor glimmerings to the brightness of the Sun of Righteousness Were there not an equal Relief in the Mediator for the youngest and weakest of the Flock as well as for them who have long travelled in the Profession of Godliness the Accoutrements of the most experienced Christians would shrivle up and wither away and leave nothing behind in the Soul but such an Out-cry as those Who shall dwell with everlasting Burnings but he that dwells in the burning Bush keeps it from consuming 'T was only the Likeness of the Son of Man that made the three Children in Daniel walk up and down in the Fire and yet safe from burning I will be with you saith God in the Fire and Water his Name is Emanuel God with us His Covenant is free the Purpose of Grace wonderful his good Will ariseth only from himself and will not cannot change and therefore the Sons of Jacob are not consumed We little think oft-times in our fear and discouragement how far our weak Prayers reach they are like an Arrow gone out of our sight and we many times think them lost and forgot and consider not that every dry Groan and watery Tear is put into the Bottle and winds up through the ascending vertue of the Mediation of him who is one with the Father to the Throne of Acceptation Let us comfort one another in this hope that we may labour and travel hard but not faint by the way I remain yours in the highest Bond c. 1658. To S. H. N o 35. I Am much refreshed that the Lord doth so favourably deal with your heart 'T is the best News you can write me of your particular to hear that you are toyling with a bad heart and hurried to and again by one Wave after another This may not be accounted bad News because the straitness of the way to Life consists in such a Warfare 'T is good News to hear that a poor Creature that is not able of her self to think one good thought should earnestly desire to be rid of all sin and that she might own the Holiness of God's Nature against all Pollution The Thirsty shall be filled that 's good News Matth. 5. 6. Always keep these two Supports ready viz. God is both able and willing to perfect his work in you to the end Whatever your Fight be let your Weapons be Prayer and Faith and you shall get the day I leave you to the Lord and rest c. 1658. To B. D. N o 36. I received the sad News of my deceased Sister blessed be the Name of him who was dead and is alive and will shortly cause the Dead to come forth that will be a blessed day for all the Redeemed to visit their precious Kindred And blessed be him who has in any gracious measure watered your heart let him favourably add this also viz. That upon all the Glory there be a Defence This is by my precious Friend whom God hath mightily rescued by his Grace I want nothing but more Communion with that God which you pant after more Faith more Truth and Resting upon him more Satisfaction in him that I may say and believe and sing God is my Portion Will he not rend the Heavens Will he not rend these hearts and appear That the Mountains of every fear and disquiet may skip like Lambs before the presence of our God When shall the Promises be Substance and a faithful compassionate God be an abundant Salvation Can the lowring face of an uncertain World and the things thereof make the Promise and unchangeable good Will of God of no effect doth not he whisper through every dark Cloud and say Come up hither The Lord open our ears to Instruction and let us rejoyce to take our leave of that which will not profit Every Prayer we make saith We have chosen an invisible Inheritance Oh what a glorious thing is Faith at a desperate pinch Then is his Throne high and lifted up when Christ is in profit and loss in life and death the hearts advantage above these
lower Ebbings and Flowings The Lord be with you c. 1659. To B. D. N o 37. IT were a miserable thing for a gracious heart to suffer Crosses if the Curse were in them but seeing their Nature is changed our misery doth not lie in such Dispensations but our Instructions are therein though it is hard to say and believe it and when the Clouds seem to gather thick over ones head then to claim sheltering teaching and purging Power under the Wings of God and to sing as Luther was wont Psal 46. God is a Refuge for us Selah that is a posture some way becoming an Heir of Life and Glory whose Estate is truly secured beyond Thief or Moth. I am sometimes even amazed to think how short I come of what I seem to be and of real acknowledging that God and living in that absolute blessed Covenant which I profess my self a sharer in And doth not these things require rough Dispensations inward or outward to awaken and send a poor Sinner home to that Advocate who is King Prophet and Priest to help But alas dry words my leanness my leanness yet strong is he who hath in some part already and will yet further one day totally remove all things that offend Let us bless him love him and honour all his ways The Lord help you and I to live above the Changes of this lower World There is a Magnanimity in Faith which overcometh the World if we could but attain that pitch The Lord establish our hearts and hopes upon himself he changes not and blessed be his Name I leave you with him and rest c. 1659. To D. D. N o 38. I Know no Refuge but in God and blessed be his Name his Name is a strong Tower this World is but a withering Portion a bad Prop to lean upon the Covenant of Grace will make amends for all I may not complain unless it be against my Unbelief God must have the Glory of all his works and therefore blessed again and again be his Name he hath not left his people whatever the World expect or think and therefore let us charge our hearts to resist sinful Melancholy his ways are still Mercy and Truth and the Children of Zion must shall and will rejoyce in their King a mighty King their and our Saviour The Lord is the Pilot of his Church and People the Vessel may be tost but cannot miscarry such honour and privilege have all believing Penitents The Clouds are thick below but the Lord rules above and hath said It shall be well with the Righteous And though I am unrighteous yet he who I desire to make the Object of my Faith is perfect and in his Righteousness I trust mine there I would cling and rejoyce in the hope of the Glory of God yet to be revealed c. 1659. To D. H. N o 39. SEeing our time here is a Warfare 't is a comfort to perceive the Lord's presence with any poor Soul so as to make it stand out in hope and prayer while Temptations and Corruptions like fiery Darts are flying thick on every side It never goes desperately ill with those that travel towards Zion and are acquainted with Assaults from Satan and hearttreachery from themselves till they begin secretly to whisper Rebellion against the Covenant and Law of God's Grace and say There is no help for me in God David's Excellency lay not so much that he was freer from Sin and sinful Miscarriages than others but in this that he could not endure to say or hear others say of him There is no help for him in God Psal 71. 11. c. 3. 2. and c. 42. 10. That was the Anchor that made him ride out Storms and the Rope that drew him up out of many a deep Pit Let us use the same means with reverence and yet with freedom God is a jealous God and cannot endure to be accounted changeable Jer. 33. 24 25. he keeps both ends of the Covenant and will not give the Glory of any part of that Trust out of his own hands Every Desire every Thirst and Exercise of Resolution or Hope heavenwards and every Soul and Body-deliverance to such ariseth from this viz. that God is faithful 2 Thes 3. 3. though our Labour and Prayer ought therein also to be employed viz. as the means which God has commanded on our part for a Closing with the efficatious vertue of his Spirit by believing whereby the force of Christ's Death and Resurrection becomes singly applicable to remove Guilt and confer a gracious Conformity to his Nature and the Law of Righteousness in the Soul I see you level at the right Mark and own your Relief from the right place and why may I not say You shall yet see greater things than these c. 1659. To D. H. N o 40. THe Lord be praised that you are within such a Covenant that nothing can befall us for evil while our eye is truly rolling heaven-ward yea within such a Covenant as is confirmed in the Blood of him who is able to turn the heart and eye heaven-ward That God hath dealt so favourably with your heart as to tie it to a hungry pursuit after him is much comfort to my Soul and matter of praise to his Name And I account it no small Mercy that my Child is under your care and both of you under God's gracious Wing When we acquaint one another that every day we live is a day of Battel and that the Enemy within us doth rage this is no reason of discouragement because the Battel is the Lords I am put every day to fly to the City of Refuge and I bless the Lord I never found the Gate quite shut against me yet I am forced sometimes methinks to squeeze in Which difficulty ariseth from my Unbelief and want of retaining a frame of tender Resignation not from any straitening in his Bowels but in my own but these days of distance are hastening away I perceive your eye grows dim the Lord bless the Means for Recovery however be not dismayed you shall want never an eye when your Body shall be raised incorruptibly 't is not long thither the Redeemer will be seen eye to eye and then farewel all Imperfections c. 1659. To D. H. N o 41. I Perceieve B. Cr. hath much trouble through Indisposition of Body and it is good it should be so though disquieting to the Flesh and you have a gracious share I perceive also In such Cases it will be some help to turn our thoughts from poring upon the Affliction it self and endeavour by all means to find out the Lesson which God is teaching thereby for that is properly and truly our work in that Christ hath born the Curse for us he hath taken away the wrathful Penalty and left only an awakening and instructory Nature in all the Afflictions that his People meet with Isa 27. 7 8 9. and 63. 9. Psal 89. 30 31 32 c. Oh that
Lord is with me and I have Ground of Faith and Hope that I have favour in his Eyes April 24. He expressed himself as followeth I am upon the Term of two great things viz. At the Term of all my great Subjugation to Sin and at the Term of all the Receipt of the Liberty Christ hath purchased at the Term of Sins Thraldom and at the Term of springing up through the Grace of God to eternal Life These are great things and I cannot manage my thoughts about it thorowly through the greatness of it I am going from the Yellings of Sin in this World and the woful effects of it and I am going to a Congregation the only Church of the First-born written in Heaven to visit the Streets of the eternal Grace and Love of God and meet the Company that walk there And methinks I am in a Wood and God hath held me in the Portal a pretty while and here I cannot be perfected for I never had any fittedness but through him that is compleat and is in Heaven And here I abide an Expectant as the poor Man that expected to be put into the Pool and that Angel hath not yet put forth his hand My Body parcheth my Mind parcheth a little Faith and Hope is left me My Tongue begins again to cleave I leave this World as a place where there is no satisfying It may content others a while but it seems rather to hunt me away Body faint Spirit faint in a strange Land my Mind is all in a scatter It will not be so it is so now O Lord help me graciously to wait Death was always spoken of as a dark Valley a place of Darkness and Trial not a place of Joy and shall I find it so Notwithstanding I have hope in the Faith and Love of God by Christ there is a secret Relief That he will turn Death into Life for his own sake and suffer never a clinging Soul to be lopt off and perish I desire no Food my very Nature loaths it my Body is off from all means of help in this World and here I stay through the good hand of God like a poor Stranger I am going to another World and the Fruits of that World will not satisfie the Wants I have here it will not quench my Thirst it will not allay my Drought So that if I have not some Relief to my Soul which is not of this World if I have it not from another World I am undone I cannot speak my thoughts have a large Theam I am up and down in and out and I see a great thing before me and sometimes it causeth a Word to drop I see ETERNAL LIFE before me That great thing that concerns me Sure it is a great thing to be at the very Brink to see all Promises fulfilled made good and all the Demonstrations of the Gospel made patent To see the Foundation of Eternal Life for ever laid and to come and cast ones eye upon it in the abundance of Faith And these are the things that lie just before me only there hath been an entrance about them I have believed c. and now I go to see the Promise and the Faith of the Promise accomplished To a Friend saying you have a strong hand to carry you Sure there is our Security in his holding of us more than in our holding of him He answered There it only lies The Lord continue to be with you The Lord make good his Covenant to you I and all the rest even that which is written in that good Book of his in which we desire to have our hope Let nothing hinder our Faith nor disorder our Practise He proceeded further to speak that day in the Afternoon thus God makes all these things here with respect to me at this time as it were to change their kind A Draught of Spring-Water fresh Beer or such a like thing how sweet have I sometimes found it But now nothing The rare vertues of Apples and other Fruits they are to me now as Dirt they do not answer my End My natural Thirst and Desire cannot be gratified with any thing here Though my Body lies parching away with Thirst my Soul loatheth dainty Meats and the best of Liquors that have been pleasing they are now a burthen to me I can taste nothing that will give reviving God is drawing forth my Nature in the way of a Dissolution that I must have no more Chear now but what comes in by New Covenant Mercy and that will be to Soul to Body for ever and thanks be to his Name he will not have me feed with dirty Company He hath shewed me the way of Life he hath caused me to chuse him I bless his Name Oh that wonderful thing that thou shouldst cause me to chuse thee Oh that thou mightest be chosen by all those that ever I had Acquaintance with in all my Life Oh that none of them may go without it Oh for a turned heart Oh for the eyes of Light and Life Oh for Salvation out of Damnation to a changed People Blessed be God that ANY that so MANY near to me were turned in at the right Gate of Election upon the Downfall that came by Sin as I hope as I hope O Lord find out thine thou wilt find them out Work Miracles work Miracles by converting Power in turning Souls that the Earth may see thy Glory Oh thou hast been my God many ways hast thou declared it Thou hast been the God of the Family from whence thou chusest me The Family is almost at an end Thou hast not left our poor Family two of us are yet remaining on the Earth O my God let it be for an eternal Renown to thy Name that thou hast hitherto reached out thy Grace to we two poor Remainers of that numerous Family Oh thou hast left us thy self to be our God to be our Portion O Lord thou hast given thy self to us and and thou hast given thy Spirit into us and we to the Glory of thy Grace can say Thou art OUR GOD hast been our God and wilt be our God and wilt number us amongst those whom thou hast delighted to take pleasure in unto Eternity O Lord be thou the God of our Seed or of our Seeds Seed O Lord that thou wouldst take them in with all those thou hast brought into Relation with thy self We have Relations in the World some that lie under the power of Satan and thou makest us to know it that it might be a constant Grief unto our hearts O Lord that none relating to us or to any or either of us might be found in those Bonds O Lord that thou wouldst imprint thine Image that thou wouldst come with a powerful hand and clear them out of Satan's Kingdom into the Kingdom of Christ Lord we are mingled in the World we have many Relations now up and down and what shall we say for the Children of our People