by an Irish Papist Witness for but one poor Quart of Ale against me at the Assizes held in the County where he and I Lived God knows I no more knew any thing of what he Charged against me in his Civil Bill then I knew of the Three Pound Fifteen Shillings for which he designed to Arraign me But so it was that upon the Evidence possitively Swearing a Decree was Granted for Seven Pound which was the Sum mentioned in his Bill The Decree contrary to promise being on a sudden while I was from Home about Business Executed Seven Prime Milch Cows of my Stock where taken away and in half an Hours time Appraised and Sold for Seven Pounds tho' the Cows in the Judgment of all that knew them and who understood Cattel were really worth Thirty Pounds between Brother and Brother And thus it pleased God in the Wonder working Providence of his to break these Nets which the Devil by his Instruments laid not only for my Life but also for my Credit and Reputation I do not in the least doubt but the great Advantage which the Devil proposed to himself by putting those Miscreants on Work to bring my Name and Person into the blackest Contempt was to overthrow the efficacy of my Ministry when I should be thereto called For the Devil knew very well how importunate Godly Ministers and others were with me to take on me that great Work of the Ministry And sore guesses no doubt he had how greatly I should be Employ'd in disturbing his Kingdom being in a great measure made acquainted with his Lion and Fox like Devices several Years before I was prevailed with to adventure on so Great and Sacred a Work Many more Strange Deliverances hath the Providence of God wrought for me his Poor unworthy Creature The which I am Necessitated to Omit fearing my Book should Swell to too great a Bulk I heartily wish that both my self and others who Read what I have Faithfully and Impartially Related of the Wonders of Divine Providence towards me might be so rightly Affected with what I have Related as to give God the Glory and Praise of his own Works And be by Reading these things stirr'd up and Encouraged for ever to trust in that Adorable Providence of Heaven which never fails them who belong to Christ CHAP. II. An Account of God's Woderful Dealings with me about the Concerns of my Soul some Years before the Spirit of Bondage took me WHen I was between Fourteen and Fifteen Years of Age or thereabouts as near as I can Remember the Lord was pleased to dart some beginnings of Convictions into my Soul Which was after this manner One Lord's Day as I was in the Height of Vigour in Profaning God's Holy Day with the Rude and Ignorant Papists there was darted into my Conscience like an affrightning flash of Lightening from above this Apprehension and Thought Viz. That I must be either Converted or else sent to Hell to be Damned This Arrow being Shot out of his Bow who never misseth the Mark at which he Shoots took up its Lodging within me But what to make of it or what the meaning of it should be I was as far to seek as a Beast so Ignorant and Bruitish was I the Lord knows But though I knew not from whence it came or what its Tendency would be yet being a Messenger from God it maintained its Ground stuck close by me accompanied me whereever I went putting me sometimes into a Sweat sometimes into inward Shiverings of Soul sometimes into distracting and perplexing Cogitations and Thoughts what it should be Be sent to Hell think I Lord What 's that And be Damn'd Bless me think I What 's this to be Damn'd Dear Reader Believe me I had Read in Scripture the Words Hell and Damn'd with the term Converted But no more did I understand the Sense or the meaning of the one or the other of those three Words than a Beast At length I began in my Thoughts to fix on something what this strange thing should be or mean And the Result came to this I did Conceive and strongly Apprehend that Hell and Damn'd were some ugly frightful and dangerous thing to the which should I be brought I should be a sad and undone Creature for ever As for the other viz. Converted I did verily think it meant no more than the leaving off or ceasing from those Mad and Youthful Pranks of Prophaning the Sunday as I then called the Lord's Day with several other Immoralities to which I been exceedingly and wretchedly adicted and in the stead or room of those vain and wretched Practises to fall upon a serious and sober Living Both of which I fully concluded lay within the compass of my own Free-Will and Natural Power to effect Accordingly I fell to Work Deserting and throwing off both my Wicked Companions and also my dearly beloved Sports and sinful Pastimes To the Bible and Practice of Piety a Book I dearly Lov'd I Adrest my self with all Imaginable Devotion and Seriousness And being fully resolved on a thorow Work of Conversion that so I might shun and escape Hell and being Damn'd I became very Bookish Looking into almost every Book where ever I came to try whether I could meet with any help which might forward me in my new Trade of Religion Among other Books wherewith I met Mr. Baxter's Call to the Vn-Converted came into my Hands the which I did no sooner open but its Title Page invited my Fancy to make choice of it for my chief Companion the which I also did Blessing my self in that Book more than with any other wherewith I had met the more and oftener I Read it the more was I Enamor'd with it even to a preferring it before Gods own Sacred Book So suited was it to the Purpose I had then Engaged in viz. to Work out of my self and in my own Strength that great Work of Conversion To my course of Reading and Praying by those Forms of Prayer in the Common-Prayer-Book and Practice of Piety I joined very strict and severe Fasting Taking up a Resolution that I would in a most Solemn manner observe two Days in every Week viz. Wednesday and Friday for my Fasting Days The which I also did even to such a degree of Pharisaicall severity that I almost rendred my Body unfit for any Service But Converted I must be and Converted I was Resolved to be whatever it cost me in order whereto I kept my Religious doings of Duty both Negatively and Positively with such a Constant and Zealous elaborateness that I verily believe it would be hard to find one among the Romish Monks who could in all respects match me or out do me at the Trade of Serving God in that way I fell in with It can hardly be told much less believed how great Zeal I had for God and how restless my Active and Working Spirit was to be with him in Heaven Tho' I neither knew God according
A REVIVING CORDIAL FOR A Sin-sick Despairing SOUL In the Time of TEMPTATION THE Same being an Extract of the unworthy Authors Experience of the Particular following I. The miraculous Preservation of his Bodily Life from the many Deaths and eminent dangers which threatned it while in a state of Nature II. The Method God took with him in awakening him to look into and to mind Soul concerns when about Fourteen Years of Age. III. How the Spirit of Bondage took him and what fearful Work it made in his Soul IV. How the Spirit of Adoption succeeded the Spirit of Bondage healing and binding up the deep Wounds Caused in his Soul thereby Câ—â—â— and hear all ye that fear God and I will declare that he hath done for my Soul Psal 66. 16. I will Praise thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made marvelous are thy Works and that my Soul knoweth right well Psal 139. 14. By Ja. Barry an unworthy Minister of the Gospel London Printed for the Author 1699. To his very much Respected and highly Honoured Friend Mr. Nicholas Skinner Merchant of London Worthy and Honored Sir THE laudable Character given you by some Ministers of Christ and other good Souls now I Charitably hope and believe Praising God in Glory Especially the experimental tast I my self have had of your goodness since Providence made me so happy in your Acquaintance hath Encouraged me to prefix your worthy and deserving Name to this small Tract whose design and chief tendency is to encourage poor dejected Souls under the hidings of God's Face to cast themselves on that never failing goodnss of God in Christ untill God's set time for Deliverance comes And also to stir up experienced and grown Believers to a becoming Adoration and Praising of that Adorable Name and Wonder working Providence of the Glorious and Tremendous Jehovah which hath so conspicuously appear'd in the Deliverance wrought for me his poor nothing Creature both for Soul and Body and who am to this very Day kept alive and upheld by that Divine Manutenency of his own to the great Admiration both of my self and those godly Souls who know my present Circumstances and Gods dealing with me I have been for several Years past more than ordinarily Importun'd both by godly Divines and such Zealous working Christians as your self to Publish what now I have presumed to Dedicate to so dear and well deserving a Friend as you are well known to be both to God's Truth and such as in any measure bear the Blessed Image of his Son The principal Motive of their importuning me to Publish this was the strange Influence the Relation hereof from my own Mouth had upon their own Spirits the effects whereof they were not able to hide the Tears of Joy gushing out surprizingly from their Eyes with both Eyes and Hands lifted up to Heaven wondering at and Adoreing the Wonders of God in my Case Professing and declaring that in all their time they had neither heard nor known so much of the goodness and Grace of God vouchsased to a poor lost and undon sinner as was shewn and vouchsafed to unworthy me Which occasioned several of the godly Ministers especially Mr. Noah Bryan Mr. Timothy Taylor Mr. Samuel Mather and the dear Mr. Nathaniel Mather all now with Christ to profess that they never heard of or knew any Sinner come so near to Paul as touching God's method and way of Working upon and dealing with him in and after his Conversion as I did And therefore they unanimously agreed in Judging that to Publish the same was my Duty The which they doubted not would be greatly useful and that both to Saints and Sinners on sundry accounts The sincere and upright Hearted Nathaniel Mather late of Pinners-Hall hath several times chid me for my backwardness to so necessary and useful a Work and a little before his Death he at me again about it examining into the Grounds of my backwardness herein To whom I reply'd Sir There are two things which hitherto have kept me back from Publishing this my experience and how much of Satan there may be in it I cannot determin The First is The difficulty which attends my setting down in Writing the working of the Spirit of Adoption in doscovering and applying Christ unto me the Remembrance whereof doth so swallow me up and melt me that I am not able to see my Paper for the Tears of Joy which obstruct my Visive Faculty To which he Reply'd that it was pitty any thing should hinder me in so good and useful a Work The Second is the fear Lodg'd within me of Peoples not Crediting the Relation I shall give hereof in case it were Printed For said I the greatest part of Professors are so great strangers to the nature of true Regeneration especially when wrought in a Sinner in the way and method God took with me that they will rather suspect and question the truth of what I relate than Praise God or improve the same for their own good or Spiritual advantage for the same To which Reply was made That Satan was always ready to obstruct any good Work which hath the least tendency to God's Praise or the good of Souls Since his departure the fresh Remembrance of the Importunities of the Worthies above Named together with the repeated Solicitations of several godly zealous Christians yet living have prevailed with me to beat my way through those Difficulties which lay before me leaving the Issue of my present undertaking to the powerful Providence of God to make the same successful in what it is designed for And begging most heartily your Pardon for the method I have taken in acknowledging the great Kindness and Respect shewen by your Religious and truly Generous self to the meanest and most unworthy of Christ's Dispised Ambassadours the which I doubt not you will find Recorded in Heaven by my Lord and Master as an evident proof of your Faith in and unfeigned Love to Him and his Cause and Interest here on Earth Let not Dear Sir the disadvantages under which I lye on account of the slanderous Reproaches heaped on me by malicious Spirits lessen your hope of the glorious Recompence of Reward promised by him that cannot lye to all your Works and Labours of Love exprest to me and others of Gods Children for the Sake of Christ He that will take notice of a cup of Cold Water given to a Disciple in the Name of his Disciple will I question not Record in Heaven the refreshing Wine I have drank at your Table more than once and the Silver and Gold sent me and given me by your self whereby both I and my distressed Family have been kept from sinking into the Dust And albeit I should at the great day of Judgment appear to be a Cast away from Christ of which through Infinite Grace I am no more afraid than I am afraid that God can cease to be what he is Yet your Integrity and Uprightness in what you
have done to me for Christ's sake will be not only made known but graciously and abundantly Rewarded and if I mistake not the design of Providence which hath put me upon fixing my thoughts on your self as the fittest and most deserving Person to whom to Dedicate this small Extract of the large experience I have had of God's Incomprehensible goodness and Infinite All-Sufficiency in saving a lost Sinner I look on this Dedication to be as it were a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or fore-runner of Christ's openly acknowledging and rewarding those your Acts of Love and Pitty so secretly done to him in the Person of me the poorest and unworthiest of his Representatives here on Earth according to Prov. 19. 17. Mat. 6. 4. Mat. 25. 45. Heb. 6. 10. The Searcher of Hearts knows I am far from flattering you in what I say of you in this Dedication He who hath so abundantly blest you with a comfortable Estate here and hath enricht your brave and generous Soul with such a Stock of Heavenly Wisdom and saving Grace as keeps you from swelling with Pride and Conceit of what he hath made you Perfect his own Blessed work begun in you to the Day of Christ And that the same may be the Portion of your Virtuous and Religious Consort and your Dear Off-spring is the Cordial wish and shall be the hearty Prayer of Dear and Honoured Sir your dearly Loving and highly obliged Friend and Servant in the best and strongest of Bonds viz. Gospel Love James Barry A Reviving Cordial FOR A SIN SICK DISPAIRING SOUL In the time of TEMPTATION c. CHAP. I. Sheing the strange Works of Providence in preserving me from the mauy Deaths which threatened me THE First of the many Wonders which the Adorable Providence of God effected in preserving me from Death was as follows Being put out to Nurse to an Irish Papist in the times of Trouble before Ireland was Reduced My Nurse about the latter end of the Month of January fearing as she at least pretended the Rage of the Irish Soldiers least they should Inhumanly Butcher me or rather kill her self and Husband for offering to Nurse a Hereticks Child as they called me cast me out upon a Dung-hill in a great Snow where I had undoubtedly Perished had not Providence sent Relief in the very nick of time which was thus effected At the same time when I lay in that most deplorable Condition in the Snow no Eye pittying me there was a Servant of my Fathers down in the Country about Concerns of my Fathers who as he was returning Home declining the Road which was his proper Way takes another way which directly led him through the Village where I was he not in the least knowing any Ground or Reason why or wherefore he should leave the High and Common Road to pass through that Village but finding in himself a strange Impulse upon his Spirit he gave way And as he passed through the Street between the House from whence I had been Cast and the Dung-hill where I lay hearing a most Lamentable and Piteous Cry of a young Infant as he apprehended out of Doors stops his Horse to see where the Infant lay but the Snow being deep and it Snowing a pace he could perceive nothing But following the Voice of the Cry he was led to the place where I lay he forthwith knocks at the Door next to the Dung-hill to enquire after the cruel and unnatural Mother of that poor dying Infant on the Dung-hill or to entreat somebody to take Pitty on so despicable an Object On this my Nurse informs the Man whose Child I was with the whole of my circumstances no sooner had he understood whose I was but he runs to the place where I lay takes me up lapping me in his Cloak and brings me Home to my Parents fifteen long Miles without the least Nurture either of Breast or Spoon for the support of decaying Nature All that fifteen Miles besides the space I lay on the Dung-hill which as my Nurse her self confest to the Man was about five hours I continued to make sad complaints by abounding in Heart moving Skreeks and piteous moans all the Day the Man expecting every moment when I should expire In this condition he presents me a sad spectacle to my Parents acquainting them where and how he found me and how that he was he knew not how or wherefore turned off from his Road to go that way where he met with me Forthwith an Express was posted away for three or four of the Chief Physitians who were then in Dublin who immediately hastned to my Fathers being about two Miles and a half from Dublin the utmost of their Skill and Judgment was Improved for my present help and relief but all in vain The Intricacy of my state and Condition of Body being such as sufficienly nonplust and Baffled all their Skill finding no probability in a rational way of Recovering me they gave me up assuring my Relations that I was a gon Child as to this World The Doctors forsaking me other means were applied by Ancient Men and Midwives who seem'd to have good Judgement and long experience in curing Children neither availed this any thing God having blasted all that men could effect as Instruments to make way for his Blessing on that means which he himself had singled out for my effectual cure that the same might be Recorded to the Eternal Praise of his own Wonder working Providence as will afterwards appear All means apply'd for my cure and recovery were by the powerful Providence of God made effectual Food to nourish and feed the Distempers which threatned the Life of my Body untill I was at length taken by all for Dead No motion of Life appearing in me I was stretched out put into the Winding-Sheet and Nailed uy in my Coffin And as Frinds and Neighbours were just going out of the Door to accompany me to my long Home the Person who carried the Coffin both perceived me to stir and also heard me to cry in the Coffin At which all were not a little amazed and some so affrighted that they Run awy About near two Months after this escape I was a second time taken for Dead in the opinion of all the Family stretched out and wraped in a Winding-Sheet and least they might be over hasty in Burying me it was judged expedient to wake with me which is the manner and Custom in Ireland by People sitting up all Night with many Lights in the Room where the Corps lyes It pleas'd God that about Mid-Night they who Watcht me saw me lift up the Sheet to their great Astonishment Notwithstanding these strange and unexpected Revivals I was no small grief and burthen to my Parents and other Relations in the Family and that on the account of my continuing so Long in Pain and Misery no endeavours of Creatures likely to do me good As I grew in Age so my Distemper waxed and grew at such a
the Chamber Door I found the Horror and Fright under which I Laboured greatly to encrease the Devil suggesting that he would either pull me back from entring into the Chamber or else that he would enter along with me to hinder or distract me in my intended Devotion All this while the place of Scripture above mentioned ran still in my Thoughts as before Being entred into my Chamber all in a Sweat and unusual Consternation of Spirit I stood before the Bed-side where I used to kneel in Praying and with my Eyes closed as I was taking my self to Task endeavouring to Recollect my Memory where I had been all that Day With what Company I had Convers'd What Duties I had knowingly omitted And what Immoralities I had any ways consented to All on a sudden I found the Eyes of my Understanding so clearly Enlightned that I was enabled to know and understand the meaning of that Place of Scripture which run all that Day in my Thoughts A Scripture than which The whole Book of God could not afford a more suitable Text for the design therein which was to debase the Creature and to Extol and to Advance the Grace and Mercy of the Most High Jehovah who alone Excluding all others is God over all Blessed for Evermore I was from the time of my first awakening as above mentioned possess'd of an Opinion that Conversion consisted in an External or outward Reformation of the Life and that it was in the Power of the Creature to effect the same And that by Repenting of the by-past Follies of Youth and by a Strenuous and Zealous Constancy in walking strictly according to the Precepts of the Moral Law both negatively and possitively for the time to come I was then under the Predominancy of a legal Spirit and acting under the Covenant of Works looking with the Bond-Womans Children for Justification and Life Eternal in the way of Works Reckoning it the only sure and safe way to expect Salvation by performing the Conditinal Covenant of Works and abounding in such personal Qulifications as might render me acceptable to God Of which I have often thought I had as great measure as any he I knew Living I shall not Insist on the Particulars of those Inherent Qualifications wherein I am apt to believe I did match if not out strip the strictest Moralist I know who is yet in his Natural State In short I was exceeding Zealous in the Law not in the least understanding the Spiritual meaning thereof or how miserably wretched I was by reason of its Condemning Sentence against not only my worst but also against my most Refined Acts of Morality I did then as too to many do at this Day of Gospel Light viz. set up the Letter of the Law in opposition to the Spirit of the Law But so it pleased God that by his enabling me to understand the Mind of his Spirit in that Text I soon became convinced that I had taken wrong Methods in order to get from under the Laws Curse and to have a Settled Peace in my self The Course I had taken for Relieving my wounded and sinking Spirit I perceived to be directly contrary to the Gospel way of saveing lost Sinners I was all for Doing and Working and the more Works I did the farther I found my self from true Peace and Comfort My Chief and only Work now was Believing in the Son of God in whom alone that Righteousness is to be found which Reconciles a Sinner to an offended God From that Text above mentioned the Covenant of God's Free Grace in Christ was Explained and laid open before the Eyes of my Enlightned Understanding the Terms whereof I found were as far wide of or contrary to the way to which the Covenant of Works directs for attaining Life Eternal as the East is from the West or as Heaven is from Hell The Work of the Spirit in discovering Christ to me from that Text and his drawing me to close with Christ so discovered was so ful of amazing and astonishing Wonderment and surprizing Ravishment of Soul that I am no mroe able to Express or Relate the same than I am able to find out the Dimensions of the Sun or to give an exact account of the Number of the Stars There was held as it were a Court of Enquiry in my Soul The Holy Ghost which before was the Spirit of Bondage wounding and killing me by the Terrible Sentence of the Law He is become the Spirit of Adoption to Consummate a Sweet and Blessed Marriage between the Lord Jesus Christ God's only Son by Eternal and Ineffable Generation and a poor lost and undone Prodigal who as Adam's Child was Born Heir of the Curse Partaker of a Nature as Vile and Poluted as Hell it self could make it and whose Case and Condition in respect of inward Horrour and Despair of Soul differed but little at least as I thought and believed from that of the Damned in Hell Six Things this Blessed Spirit of Adoption did effect in order to Consummate this Match First He discovered and made known to me who the Lord Jesus held forth in the Gospel was from whence he came and to what end the Father sent him Secondly He made plain Discoveries to me of Christ's Almightiness to Save and Reconcile to God the worst and most wretched of Sinners and that the Righteousness which he as Mediator between God and Sinners hath wrought is the alone Righteousness by which a Sinner is to be Saved And that in a way of Believing though not for Believing that God for the sake and merrit of his Sons obedience to the Law both Active and Passive doth Frankly and Freely Pardon and Forgive the Poor Rebels Transgressions committed against the Moral Law as if he had never committed them and accounting the whole of that Righteousness of Christ both Active and Passive as truly the Sinners as if the Sinner had Personally performed the same himself and that in a way of free Imputation Thirdly He perswaded my Heart that God the Father against whose Law I had Sinned and whose Anger and Curse for the same I fear'd was really willing and desirous that I should be Reconciled to himself by the Virtue of his Sons Mediation and that by my betaking my self to him and casting my weary and sinking Soul on him to be introduced into his Presence and by his Spotless Comeliness put on me I might be made Amiable and Acceptable in his Sight Fourthly He Discovered to me and Perswaded my Hearts of the Full and Compleat Provision made by God and made known in the Covenant of Grace for the making Compleatly and Eternally Happy those Souls who are by Christ his Son Believed and Relied on for Salvation Reconciled to his Majesty In Respect of these and the like Discoveries which the Holy Ghost makes to the Elect in effectual Calling And between that and their Arriving at Glory he is Stiled the Spirit of Manifestation and of Revelation 1 Cor. 12.