spirit and sence of this short word Saved Isa 49. 6. reacheth The meaning of Salvation far even to the ends of the Earth It importeth a state of security from the evil of sin Mat. 1. 21. of Enemies Luk. 1. 71. of Satan 2 Tim. 2. 26. of Hell Wrath Condemnation 1 Thes 1. 10. from the evil of all distress in this life c. Gen. 48. 16. and hereafter 1 Thes 1. 10. It importeth an investiture and possession of all real good in this life and in that to come viz. Conversion Calling Acts 11. 14. 2 Tim. 1. 9. Justification Sanctification Adoption Strength Acceptation with God Blessing Manifestation of God Knowledge of the Truth and every good thing that may tend to enable the heirs of life to dispatch their work quit themselves victorious and lead them at last to their Fathers house Act. 4. 12. 1 Joh. 1. 9. Jer. 31. 9. Jer. 15. 20. 2 Cor. 6. 2. Psal 28. 9. Isa 35. 4. Act. 11. 14. Deut. 33. 29. the walls whereof are God's part thereby for discharging of which he is made a high Priest and so he procures it and maintains it in the power of a King and reveals it as a Prophet all which Offices he was anointed to and qualified for in his own Person And by reason of that Essential Union with the Godhead in which he stood the Father delights in and owns him as Son of Man and doth every way suit with him as the Father of such a Son who is both God and Man The Spirit also which proceedeth from the Father and the Son doth through the same Union of the Divine Essence also suit with him and operate by and through him as the Spirit of him who is both God and Man in one Person Hence ariseth the Perfection and absolute Compleatness of the Mediatorship I am not alone saith Christ but I and the Father that sent me Joh. 8. 16. And the comforting Spirit shall receive of mine and shall shew it unto you Joh. 16. 14. For the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in him bodily Col. 2. 9. and joyntly and carries on the work of Mediatorship which was personally untertook by the Eternal Son who is made Emanuel And this answers the Question which Philip made Shew us the Father Hast thou not seen me saith Christ He that hath seen me viz. by the eye of Faith as I really am and ought to be looked upon hath seen the Father Joh. 14. 7. Every Action and Revelation of himself is the Revelation of the Father Son and Spirit in the distinguishable working of each Person and yet united in the same God who worketh all in all Christ suffered as the Son of such a Father and the Father in this design of Mediatorship was cloathed with a true Fatherly Relation to the incarnate suffering Son and the Eternal Spirit which proceedeth from the Father and the Son did put forth his Almighty Essential Vertue in the offering up of the Body of Christ upon the Cross Which Union of Father Son and Spirit in God our Saviour Tit. 2. 13. appears in Joh. 17. and Heb. 9. 14. So that all the Persons in the saving of Man doth as it were concenter and work together in the Person of the Mediator The Will of the Father Joh. 4. 34. The Mercy of the Son Heb. 4. 13 14. And the Power of the Spirit Heb. 9. 14. and Rom. 1. 4. All which being one in the Divine Essence of God meet together in the Person of the Son who is according to the Eternal Decree God and Man through his Union with and in the Godhead God thus manifested in the Flesh and as Father Son and Spirit laying the foundation of Mediatorship in Jesus Christ the Eternal Son God and Man doth also in and with him carry it on as a Father to and Spirit of him who is God-man And for this cause the Gospel is called the Word of Truth in respect not only of the Matter of it but the legal Testimony that it receives from these three Witnesses as the Declaration of the Counsel of their own Essential Will and Purpose And in regard the Son of God in the Name and Co-working of Father Son and Spirit undertook the Mediatorship by taking Man's Nature every mortal person that has the nature of Man stands alike near to him in the Dispensation of the Gospel-Call It puts aside other Mediators The Angels are Spirits and have not Humane Nature in which to mediate for Man Christ himself is nearer to us than they are he is Man The Spirits of Just Men made perfect cannot mediate for us for though they are Humane yet they want living Bodies but Christ has his Humane Body with him and therefore is nearer to Men who are cloathed with Flesh Neither can one mortal Man mediate as a Mediator 'twixt God and Man because though he have the Humane Nature in him yet it is in him personally and not representing the whole Race of Man as the pure Nature of Christ the second Adam doth And besides Mortal Man is but Man but Christ is both God and Man that he might lay his hand on both parties God and Man to reconcile them together as they are reconciled in the Person of the Mediator Col. 1. 19 20 21 22. Promises cannot mediate for Man has no right to them but through Christ first Duties cannot mediate because they are loathsome without a foregoing Interest in Christ Graces cannot mediate because they are Fruits of Reconciliation through the Mediator the Fruit cannot be the cause of the Root from whence they come So that as Jesus Christ in being Mediator took our Nature viz. that Humane Nature that is in every person of Mankind into immediate Union with the Godhead dwelling in his Person so this Jesus Christ God and Man in the Relation he bears to the Father and Spirit and they to him in their mutual concurrence in this great work of his Mediation with him having sealed and anointed him thereto that he might compleatly effect it he is the true immediate Object of a Believer's eye and he who renouncing all other names and helps flies thither shall be saved by him Act. 4. 12. He that seeth the Son and believeth on him shall have everlasting life His appearing in the Promises doth make them a Convoy to bring the Soul to him which would otherwise be no better Guides than the Light to a blind Man His presence in Duties makes them the way and door of approach which would otherwise be no better Guides by single gazing on and using of them than a Lanthorn in a Man's hand can be a Guide by gazing on it and leading himself round about in a Circle by the light thereof not minding the way or the door to find which that light was appointed and intended The Graces of his Spirit are the Beams of that Excellency that is in his Person and the Streams which flow from the Fountain which are subject to
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
one of his People in Jesus Christ and my heart assenting to and being somewhat refreshed in those Truths of God about the nature and advantagious effects of this misterious Union and considering how greatly the Faith and Improvement of this astonishing Privilege would conduce to carry on the ends of my Covenant with God and his for so he persuaded my heart to believe with me I thought it necessary to employ a present providential Retirement this 29th of January 1663. and so from time to time as God shall permit and assist me to improve this Gospel-truth of a Believer's Union with God in Christ for my Soul 's further Nourishment Strength and Establishment as the principal In-let both of new Life and all spiritual Chear Vigour and Activity My Enquiry now then is how to set up this Myrror so before the eyes of my Mind that I may by Application thereof be throughly transformed into the same Image and to clear the Pipes that the Life and Spirit of this Union with Christ and the Father in him may enter into my Soul and make me effectually a partaker thereof live thereby and act therein Breath O Almighty Spirit upon my thoughts fetch in my heart and prostrate it at the feet of thy infinite Grace and Power for Purging Help and Healing for Light Life and Blessing in this most necessary Travel of my Soul How long shall I view Mysteries of Life without a suitable living Transformation When shall the Light of Life appear When shall Christ be so formed in me that the Man-child of Power and Glory may be brought forth ruling and new-forming my poor Soul Say Oh say to my Soul I am come yea I am come not only to make thee to understand but understandingly to receive the Mystery of this Union and to be efficaciously united and actually live in the Motions and Exercise of this Union-life So be it O my God who art the Spirit of all Grace So be it 1. The Son of God emptied himself This Vnion is pure in its nature in descending to assume and be united to the Nature of Man and therein to the likeness of sinful Flesh and so works up every adopted Child through emptying it from all the Wisdom and Strength of the first Adam and from all the Guilt and Pollution derived thence to the Participation of Union with him in the Spirit No unclean thing can enter in thither there can be no Union but under Consideration of perfect Purity essected by the Law of the Spirit of Life which is in Christ He took on him our Nature and was personally united thereto By which means the sin of our Nature was imputed to his Person but could never be united to his Person for he was still sinless while he bare the likeness of sinful Flesh Heb. 4. 15. And therefore the real spiritual Union which Believers have with him is in the nature of it pure and sinless and their persons as they stand in that Union without spot Col. 1 22. for in that respect they are wholly brought over from the Stock of the first Adam into the Second adn return back no more although the polluted Nature of the first Adam sticks in their flesh till its dissolution and compleat change And from thence it follows that the Spirit of Christ in applying this mystical Union with him to the Soul by faith draws the Soul of a Believer having sprinkled it from the Conscience of Guilt into a most quick and lively distaste of all Pollution and so divides between that which is born of the Flesh and that which is born of the Spirit throwing aside the Pollutions of the Flesh that the Union may be purely made in the Spirit through faith Gal. 2. 20. for He that is joyned to the Lord is one spirit Hence it is that while Guilt and sinful Pollution invades the Soul even of a Believer the Application of this Union lies suspended and during that season a Believer abides dark and weak and though he be in a state of Union yet he cannot have the comfort of it but is as a strong Man that cannot find his hands And now O my Soul consider thy own state consider the Centre of thy happiness the Call of the Gospel the privilege and necessity of being transplanted into the pure Stock of the second Adam and what thou art to do in the strength of Free Grace for entring into and of being made partaker of this wonderful Privilege and most secure Rest 2. This whole Work is wrought It is inconsistent with Vnmortifiedness by the Lord both in what his eternal Purpose of Grace did decree and was carried on in the Person of Christ for thee and also in that which he worketh in thee by his Spirit to make thee actually interested established and daily growing up in the Light Life and Vertue of this Union-state with God in Christ Thy Nature is dead in sins thou art wholly polluted and without strength but the least serious Conviction of this doth import some step of Free Grace towards thee nourish it and so rowl all thy Guilt upon the Lamb of God be laborious diligent and frequent in this weighty Exercise There is no seeking this Union with any Idol in the heart Ezek. 14. 3. for that provoketh to Jealousie even an impure thought may not lodge in this Bed a dry earthly sapless frame of heart cannot be refreshed there because this Bed is green Cant. 1. 16. but such is the Bounty of Free Grace that through the Sense and Conviction of this Indisposition of heart it leads the Soul to Jesus Christ and sprinkles it with his Blood Oh this efficacious Remedy and doth wash it again in pure Water removes away the filthy Garments gives it Access into the King's Presence The pure in heart shall see God But thy innumerable Impurities O my Soul and the continual Recursion of Guilt and Darkness Hypocrisies loathsome Uncleannesses Unmindfulness of God Back-sliding and impenitent stupifying Fits are so many and so often and many times so captivating this Sincerity and Strength and spiritual Taste that no Balm can be found nor any thing to help but the free Bounty and Atonement of him who is Michael thy Prince And even this is my Case at present Oh how little doth my heart relish and digest these things while I am musing and writing them I am estranged from inward Converse with God this day and yet cannot soakingly relent I mention the Blood of Sprinkling without prizing it at its due value Oh let the watchful Eye and tender Heart of him whose Compassions fail not consider and visit me But however O my Soul this is thy Work Let not Evil lodge within thee be separate touch no unclean thing declare thy Chastity by crying out and then the Promise lies fair and free before thee I will receive you 2 Cor. 6. 17. yea cry out and thou shalt be rescued for thy Redeemer is strong Here
feeble but Millions of Sins Cares Fears and Disquiets fly before one hearty Closure with Christ his Power and Grace by Faith If Christ in the Soul saith I AM HE whole Troops of Adversaries fall backwards Difficulties vanish and desponding Consultations of Unbelief in our Flesh fly as Dust before the Wind and that because our Redeemer is strong though we are weak Methinks sometimes 't is pity that we should hear so much read so much spoke or writ to each other so ordinarily of this certain real Refuge and yet account it not more real What a thing is this that Christ hath engaged that not one of his shall be able to lose what he purchased and bequeathed for them Such a good Will and free Grace that our Sins shall never be able to sin away no more than they can be able to sin away Christ from the Right Hand of his Father for were it otherwise we were undone every moment Who is it that maintains any Thirst after him that enables poor Dust and Ashes to conflict against all the powers of Darkness and of weak sometimes becomes strong Who is it that maintains any indignation against the Law of our Flesh that is in our Members but he who hath overcome in his own Person and will shortly tread down Satan under our feet also and is hastning the day when the last Enemy shall be destroyed and every Sigh and Tear removed Let us comfort our hearts in this and pray for each other that we may as good Soldiers of Jesus Christ fight this good Fight of Faith laying hold on Eternal Life and so surmount the Miseries of a present evil World c. Pray present my hearty Respects to your Daughter whose Soul I know is labouring in this Work c. 1661. To B. D. N o 57. THe Lord direct our Course the Waves will allay the Calm is coming our Pilot is skilful our God unchangeably gracious he is infinitely pure and will never leave till our filth be done away that we may be like him and bear Likeness to him to all Eternity Plunge through as well as you can never say your hope is lost and your Judgment is passed over by your God Our Bottom is good our Redeemer is strong and there I leave you c. 1661. To S. D. N o 58. THe Lord is yours if you are willing to be his and I doubt not but that is your desire and aim Stand up in the midst of all your Dumps and Trials and venture one Halelujah to him that rides upon the Heavens for your help yea in the thickest of your doubts about Soul or Body do but cast a wishly eye to him who hath swallowed up all manner of Deaths in Victory and you shall overcome and rise above the Waves because he is risen It may be you may little think how it chears the heart of Christ to see you sit down and sing a Psalm of Praise for all his Loving-kindnesses in the midst of Worldly Darkness Measure not spiritual and eternal things by those that are for a moment Do not wrong the Wisdom of God your Father by repining against the Instruments and the Events of his Providence Let your design be how to fortifie each others Faith and Joy and never ask Counsel of Flesh and Blood in the business Read over the 46th Psalm and make it yours by Meditation and Prayer Dear Sister fare you well in the Lord hasten Heavenwards and count all things else but trifles that you may finish your Course with joy Let the same Mind be in you as was in Christ who emptied himself to do the Will of his Father for saving such poor Sinners as you and I when he might have enjoyed all the Glory of the World he refused it and wandred up and down despised of Men. Love the Foot-steps of the Captain of your Salvation and whenever your heart boils up any sinful disquiets carry your heart and your disquiets to the Lord and beg of him to judge them and give you the new heart he promised in Ezek. 36. 26. The good Will the heart-refreshing Peace and Comfort of a dear Father a dear Redeemer and the dear and blessed Spirit be with you Blessed he blessed she that overcomes and blessed be the Son of God that hath undertaken we shall overcome in his Victory Once more farewel fear not only believe 1661. To B. D. N o 59. I Perceive your Family is still visited The God of the Spirits of all Flesh knows what Scourges are most suitable for them whom he designs for Glory Honour and Eternal Life among whom I trust you and your Yoak-fellow are enrolled There is hope that good lies in the bottom when the heart is drawn the more to seek resign up to and wait patiently for the Salvation of God to a delightful thought of the Appearance of Christ and your gathering to him the whole World cannot purchase one quarter of an hours free Access to God If he draws and drives the heart to himself let us bless and love him whatever means he useth to bring it about I desire to bless the Lord that you are striving to trace the steps of that Faith that believed under hope above hope such Faith such Hope will never return ashamed I am strugling with the same difficulties and none can help me but the faithful Promiser who is able to quicken his Word to me and soaken my heart to mix it with Faith As you write he has not been a barren Wilderness to you which is unspeakable Grace so I have often found and therefore I have hope that at length he will perfect the design of favour and pity upon such a poor Worm Lord help you and me to find Fountains in the Valley of Baca till the last Sourge be over and every Tear removed We have no other way now to communicate with each other but in Prayers and Faith Affections and Letters Letters indeed may miscarry but no earthly Obstruction can hinder the three former Faith and Prayer flies invisibly and Christian Affections also As for my self the Lord is every day forcing my Soul to look out more after the mysterious privilege of his most absolute free Grace in Christ There the wearied find Rest the polluted finds purity and the dejected find there an Anchor of Hope Sometimes I am confounded in mine own thoughts and my Prayers rather shame me than comfort me then I stand still and look for the Salvation of God only He sends his naked Arm out of the thick Cloud and creates some Beam of Light and Refuge which makes a Pilgrim sing in a Land of darkness He seems to be gone sometimes but returns again He withdraws but never bids farewell utterly He suffers me sometimes to tumble in mine own filth but brings me to the Laver again to the Fountain opened to the House of David c. for Sin and Uncleanness His unchangeable Purpose and Grace holds its Course as the
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
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
All Commands also and Duties bear with them an equal Engagement to every person alike related within the state of Covenant-Interest because those Commands and Duties relate to the same Interest in which all the people of God are one Joh. 17. 20. Matth. 28. 20. So that this Interest in God which is helpful in one case is applicable to all alike cases wherein the Saints who enjoy that Interest are concerned which makes every Promise to have a kind of Infiniteness as God is infinite From this Ground the same Promise that armed Joshua against fear through the presence and faithfulness of God Josh 1. 5. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee is used likewise to every Saint to arm him against Covetousness and fear of Want Heb. 13. 5. And thus the Experience of one Saint becomes advantagious to another through their mutual Interest in the same Root of Spiritual Life in Christ by which they are one with him and Co-partners each with other of the same Grace From this Ground there is no Member of Christ that can say he has not need of anothers help because the Spirit of God by which they are united into one Body conveys its operation through one to another as it pleaseth him 1 Cor. 12. 11. which Spirit of God is the new Life of the Weak as well as of the Strong as he pleaseth to manifest his Power and Vertue in the one or the other more or less by which they are strong or weak that so they might love pity and sympathize each with other being all interested in the same Life and whereby they are all one Body and Members one of another Rom. 12. 5. Hence it is that all things spoken in the Scriptures are of true and proper use to every Child of God as far as their condition agrees with or stands in need of that Help Comfort Counsel or Reproof mentioned there which is the scope of the Spirit of God in all those Promises Instructions or Reproofs recorded in the Scriptures as if they and their particular Cases had been first or only in the eye of God when that word was spoken or that instance given be it what it will What I say to you saith Christ Matth. 13. 37. I say to all watch for whatsoever things were written afore time to others were written for our learning as the Apostle tells the Church of the Romans Rom. 15. 4 5. That we through patience and comfort of the same scriptures might have the same enjoyment and ground of hope as they had being equally interested in the same God who by his Spirit breaths Grounds and Influence of the same Grace of Patience and Consolation as it did to them to whom the Spirit through the Scripture had formerly spoken And thus the same Word being the Inspiration of the Spirit bloweth where it listeth and the sound thereof is gone forth into all the World and the spirit drift scope and use of the words of Life to the end of the Earth as far as the Spirit which breathed it begets any Soul into the Life of Union with God in Jesus Christ who is the Eternal Word and Mind of the Eternal Father from whom all the Children of Adoption receive their Being and Birth through the Gospel of that only begotten Son of God spiritually shed abroad into their hearts So that every one who is Christ's may say the History of the Scriptures is for me the Prophets are mine the Apostles are mine and all their Prophesies and Preachings all Promises Reproofs and Comforts Counsels Warnings and Examples the Gospel under Moses his Vail and as it shines in the Teachings and Miracles of Christ and his Apostles all things all persons Paul Apollos Cephas Life and Death are the Inventory of my Happiness things past present and to come are mine and for my use and advantage because the Spirit which worketh in and by all these is mine and Christ to whom I come and whom I serve is mine and Christ is God's and his God and Father is mine because I am his Heir and Co-heir with him Let such a privilege cause the Soul to cry out Breath O Spirit open your selves O blessed Scriptures and water me with all manner of Teaching Let mysterious Grace possess my Understanding powerful Wisdom from God in the Scriptures make me wise to Salvation Let Strength and Vertue from on high renew both Spirit Soul and Body to all power of a spiritual mind that I may comprehend with all Saints what is the heighth length depth and breadth of the love of God in Christ and be built amongst them upon the Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Christ himself being my Corner-stone and his Power enlivening me to every good word and work through that common Salvation wrought by him for every Member of his Body among whom I also am allowed to claim my share in the Inheritance of Light through the faith and patience of the Scriptures and Testimony of Jesus my Lord. Abraham's Faith was exercised upon the Covenant which God made with him saying I will be thy God and the God of thy seed which Faith was further confirmed by the Sign of Circumcision that was added to that Covenant and tried yet further by offering up his Son in all which he had the faithfulness of God and his free Grace and Power in his eye and saw Christ's day a far off therein although 't is like he saw not distinctly the very manner of Christ's coming in the Flesh and the manner of his Death and Resurrection yet his faith in the substance of the Covenant of God's free Grace and in his wisdom and power to accomplish the same in his own way and time led him to embrace that Covenant so dispensed and to that measure discovered deriving Interest in God to his Soul and the Righteousness of Justification thereby which the Spirit doth record in the Scriptures to be the same justifying Exercise of Faith which in the fulness of time should and so did more distinctly put forth its self upon Christ dead and risen and upon the power and truth of God therein to confirm and actually execute in the Person of Christ the Branches and Method of that Covenant relating to the taking away Sin applying Righteousness and uniting Man to God in the Mystery of Grace and Salvation and therefore 't is said the same Righteousness is now imputed to Believers as was to him because the nature of their Faith and the substance of the Object of that Faith is one and the same In the exercise of which they walk in his steps Rom. 4. 12. and so are justified with believing Abraham and inherit his Blessing Gal. 3. 9. And thus the Scriptures in the spiritual use thereof do run through all visibly different Dispensations Administrations Instances and Cases of the Saints with one and the same invisible scope and secret tendency agreeable to the state of Godliness and relating to all persons within
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
very black and very polluted through my natural pollution and daily infirmity yet through the savour of thy Ointments O precious ever-living ever-interceding Christ let me now be a sweet savour in thy Nostrils and pleasant in thy sight and in the sight of thine and my Father and let me be breathed upon day and night by the Spirit of the Father and the Son that I may now go out about thy work with joy and be led forth by thee with Peace and renewed Testimonies of thy Help and Presence Let the Mountains and Hills break forth before me into singing and all the Trees of the Field clap their hands for joy Glory be to God on high on earth peace because the good Will of God has stooped to such a Worm as I. Instead of the Thorn now let there be a Firr Tree instead of the Bryar a Myrtle Tree let Righteousness and Conformity to thy Will prosper in my Soul as an everlasting sign of this Covenant that it shall never be cut off nor broken What am I O Lord of Heaven and Earth that thou hast brought me hitherto Stablish thy covenant to thy servant as the sure mercies of David for ever And seeing I do now rest in this blessed Covenant leaning upon thee my dearly Beloved let me never nourish halting Enquiries after these sacred Vows to the most high God Let me never devour and destroy this sacred Bond and so turn this present and holy design and inviolable Tie into a Snare Take this Burthen upon thy Sholders O Rock of Ages and let this Covenant and my personal Infirmity also be perpetually before thy eyes to make good thy Covenant upon all occasions and let thy everlasting Arms be always under me to keep my seet from falling To this Covenant with my God and to these my Supplications Confessions and Vows in the name of him who hath called me into this Liberty through the Blood of the Mediator and my dear Redeemer which I declare to be my Act and Deed through his Grace never to be reversed and that it may stand as a Mount and sure Witness all the days of my life that I have at this time and this Evening solemnly and with a sincere aim and full purpose of heart unfained consent and joyful satisfaction laid hold on the Covenant of Grace as my own interest relying on my Mediator's help and strength to see it all performed both on behalf of my God and me and into whose hand I leave it who knows the meaning of his own Spirit To this Covenant I say viz. the whole substance thereof and all the expostulations and desires concerning the same with some faith in fear of love to and hope towards him who alone worketh in me to will and to do according to his good pleasure according to that measure which I have received with a trembling joy I consent and do cast my self into his Arms and subscribe it with my own hand never to be revoked Henry Dorney And seeing this is the accepted The Soul explains its Engagement time in which God hath heard me and a day of Salvation in which he hath succoured me I would yet further put on the Bonds of this glorious Freedom as my Robe for ever and further declare that as my God has often repeated the Kernel of his gracious Covenant sometimes in reference to the time to come Ezek. 11. 20. and 36. 38. sometimes in reference to the time present Isa 43. 3 5. Ezek. 34. 30. sometimes speaking of his people Jer. 24. 7. and sometimes speaking to his people Jer. 30. 22. in all which he appears as one setting forth his unlimited Purpose of good things with variety of Illustration and ground of Assurance to all his Confederate People leading them forth to a plentiful way of righteous and abundant application thereof to themselves and for their use in all cases for ever I do also declare that my scope and sense in this my covenanting with God is that through his strength I will disown all rebellings and repinings against his threatnings reproofs and chastisements and that I will disown the stifling of any of his convictions because they are dispensations of his Grace and means whereby to partake more and more of his Holiness Heb. 12. 5 6 10. My scope and sence further is that my heart shall lie open to all the Commands of my God and that I will own them as my Heritage for ever Psal 119. 6 111. that they shall be my joy and delight and love whatever they require Psal 119. 97 111. and that because they are his good pleasure and because I account his Rebukes of all sorts and the Commands of all sorts to be the Representations and Beams of his Righteousness and Holiness Psal 119. 75. Jer. 12. 1. 1 Joh. 2. 29. and the very Rays also of the Covenant of his Grace Psal 119. 75. Here is more work for thee O my blessed Surety thy Grace must needs uphold me in all parts of my duty and perfect that which concerneth me I ground my Promise upon thine Isa 25. 4. Joel 3. 16. I had not durst to have promised these things if thou hadst not first promised to do all my Works in me and for me Isa 26. 12. Psal 57. 2. 1 Thes 5. 24. Put on strength O Arm of the Lord let not thy Name be polluted and my boasting in thee turn to thy Reproach Remember thou art all my strength and life For this end I would multiply all the Commands of God in my eye that under my impossibility of Performance through that contradiction and infirmity that is in my flesh I might be swayed by the spirit of Faith into the perfection of Strength and be able to do all things in Christ who strengthneth me and answereth for me Of all the thousands of God's Commands he never required me to do any of them with my own Arm as the Obedience in which he delights but that I should act in strength every moment received from Christ and so work my Works in God all the days of my life Reveal to thy Covenant-servant O Lord that strength which thou allowest me that I may know where it lies and how to derive it to my self for thy work and service according to the scope of this Covenant which at thy gracious Call I offer up my self unto How dost thou necessitate me to thy Yoke and allure me by a gracious violence of Necessity to delight in having my hands and heart tied with the heart-strings of thy love to thy self in this golden Covenant inextricably and for ever Take me O dearly beloved of my Soul nearer and nearer to thy self till all the shadows be gone that then I may behold thy Face and be satisfied with thy Image Oh how soon am I now dazled from a pure and diligent watchfulness how many precious Minutes do slide away from me Sometimes Food is my Snare and sometimes Abstinence is so too sometimes
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
not return ashamed but be kept in the more wakeful pursuits after him and while I follow him I am with him in my desire and if I desire him he desires me and there we meet Cant. 7. 10. in the Communion of desires till the shadows flee away A Sluggard indeed desireth and hath not because his hands refuse to labour Prov. 21 25. but a laborious desire after Christ enjoys him in the eye of Faith and Scripture-evidence Rev. 21. 6. and 22. 17. Joh. 7. 38. and therefore in the patience and faith of the Scriptures I have hope And what though some outward disadvantage has been occasioned which yet I know not of by this Retirement to seek him who knows my Soul loveth him will not he some way or other repay that loss and heal that breach O Lord pardon pity and care for him who in love to thy self and thy holy Will desires to seek the Kingdom of God first c. A DISCOURSE of UNION with CHRIST Joh. 17. 23. I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in one WHen I consider this true Loves Knot uttered by Christ himself and the wondrous Union in these three words I Thou and They declared by Christ at his passage from Earth to Heaven as the contrived Counsel of the eternal God Father Son and Spirit and when I find up and down in the Scriptures that the Elect when once they are quickned by the Spirit into the state of Regeneration are said to have their Life in God Col. 3. 3. and that God lives in them dwells in them and they in him 2 Cor. 6. 16. 1 Joh. 4. 13. that their works are wrought in God Joh. 3. 21. that God worketh in them 1 Cor. 12. 6. that God walks in them 2 Cor. 6. 16. that they walk with God and in his Name Gen. 5. 24. Mic. 4. 5. that Christ speaks in them and they in him 2 Cor. 13. 3. and 12. 19. I say when I consider such like expressions plentifully scattered by the holy Spirit in the Scriptures I conclude there is some admirable Union betwixt the Father of Glory and every one of his elect Seed in Christ which is a Mystery so spiritual a sacred Palace so secret that the most exquisite parts of Nature can never enter in to view it as it is 't is new Jerusalem under a Vail into which Flesh and Blood cannot enter But seeing Christ has said To you it is given to know the Mystery of the Kingdom of God Mark 4. 11. I would humbly wait for the power of the Spirit to transform and fit me and the manifestation of the Spirit to teach me that so enquiring I may enter and entring may possess this purchased Possession at least in the First Fruits and Earnest thereof and although methinks I shrivle up before the mysterious heat and lustre of this Gospel yet being commanded to seek the Lord and being under a Promise of help Jer. 31. 9. I wait on God for Strength and Wisdom to attempt this Enquiry methinks these steps do offer themselves The infinitely wise God decreed to make Mankind and the visible World to be his Habitation and the Creatures to serve him Man is made in a state of Righteousness and so stands upon his own legs and as it were in a moment he begins to totter and falls from that state into a state of sin and misery God so permitting it that his Justice and Mercy might the more be exalted a Remnant of undone Mankind are decreed to Salvation in a way of Mercy And that the Justice of God against Sin and Sinners may be preserved and yet the Elect Remnant saved God himself in the Person of the eternal Son assumes the Nature of Mankind into the Union of his Person and in that Nature pays to his own Justice all the Debt which this elect Remnant among the rest of fallen Mankind had involved themselves into in performing whereof he unites himself so near to them and they so near to himself that what he did for them was reckoned by Justice it self accountable to the Behoof and Concernment of each elected person as much as if every one of them had compleatly satisfied Justice in their own persons and the Union is so near betwixt him and them that whereas he is the express Image of the Father and having all power committed to him he stamps upon them the Image of God anew viz. Righteousness and true Holiness which becomes theirs only through Union with him and do only exist in their existing in him which existence is wrought by the holy Spirit forming him spiritually in their hearts as it formed him bodily in the Virgin 's Womb which Formation of Christ in their hearts becomes a mystical spiritual and true Union betwixt him and them which same Spirit works Faith in them that they may be made living Subjects and suitably capacitated for this mutual Union betwixt them also and him And thus the Lord of Life having enlivened to himself a living Spouse they enjoy each other by an unutterable nearness of spiritual In-dwelling in each other so near that the Spirit of God who manageth the Match sticks not to say that the Church and so every particular person thereof is a Member of his Body of his Flesh and of his Bones and not only that but he that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit Ephes 5. 30. 1 Cor. 6. 15 17. Hence it comes to pass that from the very moment that the Soul hath accepted of Jesus Christ being seized upon to that purpose by the Spirit of Regeneration proceeding from the Father through the Son and received by believing that believing person so effectually visited by the Call of the Gospel doth now and never before become a new Man and though Sins and Temptations never so many do batter and bruise yet his House cannot fall nor his State be altered because God himself has laid his Foundation on a Rock and has drawn the Soul's Consent by believing to lay it there too and this Rock is Christ in whom the Almighty God receives this believing and renewed person into that Union and true real nearness which lies shadowed forth in the Scriptures of Truth under the terms of Father and Child 2 Cor. 6. 17 18. Husband and Wife Ephes 5. 25. c. Vine and Branches yea as one Body consisting of Head and Members and many such like similitudes in the Scriptures to set forth this wonderful Nearness and Union from whence it followeth that no Action State or Condition of such a renewed Person whether it be inward or outward is so entirely his own and of private Concernment to himself alone as it was before his sins were more entirely his own damage before now they wound his Relation and grieve Christ Ephes 4. 30. he sinned before against the Law of God he now sins in all his miscarriages against Christ also 1 Cor. 8. 12. and against the Law of his
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
ever observing that blessed Rule of our Saviour in Matth. 7. 12. And when he had hired or made use of Persons in any Work or Labour he would not only pay them their due which was agreed to and promised but most frequently he would give them somewhat over and above especially if he judged them to be poor and needy That whilst he had bodily His Diligence in his Calling with a holy Frame of Spirit therein Strength and Health to manage Worldly Employments he was always active and industrious therein and he could not be ever charged with any wilful Omission Yet all the while he had his Mind so composed that he was ever in a readiness to a due and regular Attendance on the solemn Duties of his high Calling not suffering any outward Occurrence of what kind soever to distract or unsettle his Mind But when he approached to God in the actual Exercise of any Religious Duties he was still furnished with such variety of Matter and Divine Rhetorick as if all his preceding time had been taken up in and about spiritual Work Such was the habitual Frame of his Soul towards heavenly things And he gave this Advice That we should do Worldly Business with Diligence Patience Moderation and Faith and with such a self-denying respect as if it were the sole Interest and Concern of another rather than our own And when we would make a Judgment of our selves or Actions in matters doubtful we should put our selves in the Room of a third Person in the Case His great Love to the Church His Love to the Church and People of God and People of God rendred him a restless Supplicant and Intercessor in Prayer for them That upon whatsoever Immergency relating to the Church of Christ in general or any Member thereof in particular even for such whom he never knew or saw on the first notice of their Distresses he would be wrestling with God in secret Retirement And if other Christians were at such a time near or occasionally present he would be also urging them to the same Work saying Come let us lift up our joynt Requests to God for them And this at any time of the day and constantly at set times for Prayer he presented their Case and Concern most affectionately before the Lord as a thing which always lay very much on his heart And for the Church of Christ in general his Petitions were observed to be such as these That God would visit Zion the whole Church and visible Body of Christ here in this World That it might be a Glory in all the Earth That as he hath taken hold of the Plough he would carry on his own Work That he would look upon his Son look upon his Covenant look upon that Redemption he hath contrived and designed for the bringing in of Souls unto himself to bestow his own Free Grace upon in making them Vessels of Mercy and Glory That his Church might prosper and every faithful Member of it and become Glorious in Holiness That the Son of Righteousness would break forth and sparkle upon it That his Ordinances might be maintained his Gospel run and be glorified and get Ground every where That God would tender his People as the Apple of his Eye as a Royal Diadem in his hand and as the Object of his Delight That he would give a mighty Check and a dreadful Rebuke unto the fury of all such as bear ill Will to Zion And that all Oppositions and Combustions against his Interest might tend to the Advancement of it of his Glory and the furtherance of the Gospel That Holiness might spread it self throughout the World and the Mouth of Iniquity be stopt in all the Earth That all that Enmity against God and his People which hath been in the World ever since the Infection crept into our Natures from Satan the Prince of Darkness might be destroyed and come to an end That his People might glory in his great Salvation procured and purchased by the Vndertaking of Jesus Christ on their behalf That he would rule in the midst of his Enemies bearing down the Spirit of Wickedness and all the Contrivers of Mischief That he would remember his People under sore Trials and be in the midst of the Storm and say unto them It is I be not afraid and prepare them for every Shock they shall meet withal before the Son of Man appeareth That the Throne of his Grace be lifted up and the Rise of his Glory made conspicuous That the Sceptre of Jesus Christ might sway it self and become Glorious Counter-working all the Wisdom and crafty Counsel of the Serpent's Seed And that he would not suffer his People to be in any Pit out of which his Arm cannot help them That he would keep his Ministers as Stars in his Right Hand that his Enemies which are as the Tail of the Dragon might not scatter them That all his People might be enabled to meditate Terrour and not be afraid when he shall arise to shake terribly the Earth That Salvation might be for Walls round about his People and that God would cause his Glory to shine forth That God would save these Nations with a mighty Salvation and undertake for his own Glory in the midst thereof That for such as are under Bonds of Guilt he would deliver them by his Rescuing Pardoning Grace That he would be mindful of those under inward Trouble by reason of Pollutions within and Wounds of Temptation from without That spiritual Objects might be great in their sight and that he would bring them out with some notable advantage over all the Powers of Darkness that lay Siege against their Faith and Hope His whole Life attested the Tenderness of his Conscience His Tenderness of Conscience and it was particularly remarkable in these two Instances First When he had at any time Moneys lying by him to any value he would lend the same without demanding a Penny Interest And when-ever he received any Interest he would be sure to bestow it wholly in charitable and pious Uses Secondly Whilst he had Trading abroad on all Goods Exported and Imported he was very careful of paying the full Duty or Custom thereon rated and required without Diminution His high Esteem of the Grace His high Esteem of Repentance and Applications to Christ of Repentance with his Applications to Christ shewed it self in his frequent lamenting Confessions of Sin and praying for great measures of Repentance for himself and exhorted others to the same necessary Work And he was a diligent Searcher and curious watchful Observer of his own heart who could not bear with any Guilt but would make fresh Applications to the Blood of Sprinkling saying To be under Guilt was sad but when we are laden in the sence of it if we carry this Guilt to Christ and venture on him for Pardon and Mercy we shall not be cast out And how it was an evil and a bitter thing to
depart from God but far more bitter to stay away from God when we have departed from him And to this effect he expressed himself in Prayer That by Nature we are averse to the Convictions of God's Spirit in his Word and Satan is ever blowing up his Spawn and Seed within us whereby to spoil our Taste and Relish of things pure and spiritual and interrupt our Peace and Communion with God And therefore that God would cause us more clearly to discern the Corruption and Malignity of that Evil that is in our Natures and make us to know all our Abominations and whatever is repugnant to his holy Nature and Will both in our Hearts and Lives and make us freely sensible of throughly ashamed broken and humbled for the same That he would raise us up to a greater Antipathy against all that that is displeasing to him and hurtful to our Souls And that no Interest might hinder or squeeze out the working of his Grace within us as not to have Freedom to act And that all that might be conquered that would interrupt the Intercourse of his Spirit with our hearts And that he would not suffer us to spare and indulge any Corruption or leave any corner of our hearts wherein Sin may be at Peace That no Agag be permitted to live in us That his Fear might Garrison our hearts against all the Invasions and prevailing power of our own Corruptions And that Satan by his Wiles might not sweeten us into any Bonds of Guilt And seeing that we are apt to grow hard continually and it is God's Power alone that can soften help and heal that he would cause us to experience the transforming Power of his Grace in our Souls making all new and refining us every moment That we might get into Jesus Christ and make him now our Advocate who will be our Judge And because we need Converting and new Creating evermore that Regeneration-work might pass upon us continually and we made all over new and be prepared for all his Concerns That he would baptize us into the Grace of the Gospel and cause us to live answerable to so high a Calling as that is That we might be baptized evermore into the Father Son and Spirit and so receive Life and Quickening from Jesus Christ who is our Head And when our Guilt is upon us That the Lord would keep our hearts tender to feel the smart of Sin and so hasten to our Physician to be bound up and healed And not suffer our Wounds to wrankle and fester for want of coming to him for Pardon and Cleansing That he would make us go out to him and never neglect or keep aloof from his Recovering Grace else we shall provoke him more and more by undervaluing the Riches of his Grace and refusing the Remedy he hath provided for Sinners That he would make up every Breach and cause us to be all over plunged in the Fountain opened for Sin and Vncleanness What the Scripture reveals His Proficiency in Grace and promises That the Root of the Righteous yieldeth Fruit And whose Hope the Lord is shall not cease from yielding Fruit. That the Godly Man shall bring forth Fruit in his Season and in Old Age shall be fat and flourishing And he that abideth in Christ and Christ in him the same bringeth forth much Fruit was in an extraordinary measure fulfilled in him And all those Heavenly Doctrines and Practicable Truths which he understood believed and professed he lived over His Practice agreed and held pace with his Principles That what his head apprehended his heart affected his Will embraced his Life manifestly declared and published And when bodily Strength decayed yet his spiritual Vigour still remained And his Bow abode in Strength and the Arms of his Hands were made strong by the Hands of the mighty God of Jacob. And such was his Fruitfulness in well doing that those who at any time discoursed him about Soul-Concerns it was their own Fault and Omission if they parted from him without some real benefit His frequency in Meditation was very remarkable Whence His frequency in Meditation he was noted often to say that That Soul could not thrive much in Grace and Holiness that was not much in Meditation His Freedom from Envy and distracting Cares was obvious to His Freedom from Envy and distracting Cares those who knew him best in the general Course of his Conversation Whence also he was observed to say I bless God I have no Temptation at all to envy others Prosperity and 't is a great favour from the Lord that I have much freedom from Anxious Thoughts touching what God will do with me as to my outward Condition and being in this World His inward Tranquility Peace and Joy was patent to all so far as His inward Tranquility Peace and Joy it could be outwardly discerned not letting fall in the observation of any that were most conversant with him the least word of repining at any time And 't is also ratified by these Suggestions which he recommended to others from his own experience with the way how to attain it saying The Lord never made Flesh and Blood to be a Weapon to conquer Despondency The Soul must escape from all Creature-Refuges if ever it will have true quiet That if a Man will have solid Peace and Content he must first have God to be his God for true Peace and Quiet is in him alone That a Man cloathed with Rags may have as much inward Content and Satisfaction and far more than the richest and greatest man in the World for our Happiness lies in the right Composure of the Mind and not in the greatness of any outward Condition And that whatever befalls us in this World is ordinarily so far sweet or bitter to us as we fancy it to be That as outward Profit makes the trouble of any Vndertaking sweet to the Man that prospers in the World so if we could live in the faith of this that all things shall work for good we should be as much satisfied under Afflictions as in the greatest Worldly Prosperity And he would often say when he returned home from amongst the Persons and Affairs of this World That he had no quiet till he had poured out his Soul to God in Prayer And if there he did not meet with him instantly yet still he had no Peace till he had regained the Presence of God again And that walking with God was the joy and delight of his Soul His Self-denial shewed it self His Self-denial in his Humility Dependence on God Mortification Resignation and Heavenly mindedness which hath been before declared And to this purpose he advised That we should cease from our selves and so think speak and do in the name of Christ That all our Thoughts Speeches and Actions should be managed by us as the Thoughts Words and Actions of Jesus Christ for by going out of our selves we are made his and he is
last and perfect Fulness Col. 2. 19. Ephes 1. 23. And that Jesus Christ may make this express Word of his effectual to accomplish the design of his love to the Souls of his Redeemed he guides them by his Spirit to the most advantagious improvement thereof that not one Jot of his Word may be lost The whole Scriptures are the Inspiration of the Spirit of God the Father and the Son Jesus Christ Heb. 1. 1. Col. 3. 16. 2 Tim. 3. 16. given to reveal the way of Salvation which is carried on by a way of History and Doctrine in both which the State of Mankind is discovered in reference to its Innocency Fall and Recovery The State of Innocency and the Fall comprehended all Mankind in the Persons of Adam and Eve the State of Recovery respects only a part of Mankind saved out of that universal Loss by Christ according to the Election of Grace and therefore he is called the second Adam Rom. 5. 14. 1 Cor. 15. 45. who infuseth the Gift and Operation of Righteousness to his Seed as the first Adam had infused the Guilt and enthralling corrupting Power of Sin into his Seed As the Fall was a perfect Fall so the Recovery to the Remnant recovered is a perfect Recovery compleated fully in God's Decree before the World was Ephes 1. 4. and actually solemnized at Christ's Suffering Col. 2. 15. which becomes applicable to every individual person of that number by the Spirit of Faith and Holiness and whereby they are fully and really freed from the matter of Guilt through Union with Christ albeit the afflicting sense and fear of Guilt appears many times through the weakness of Faith in that Union and through the incumbring defilement of Sin in them who are redeemed holds on a Conflict in the Flesh till the last Enemy viz. Death be destroyed and so Mankind stands divided the Persons of them who only bear the Image of the first Adam corrupted by the Serpent's Poyson and they who bear the Image of the second Adam and in the latter every redeemed person carries also a Sub-Division in his own heart for a time viz. the grand Principle of his renewed State and the afflicting Stain and Enmity of the first Adam's Nature remaining in the Flesh And in reference to these two Contraries viz. the Good and Bad Persons of Mankind and the different Principles of Good and Evil the Scripture doth display all the Threatnings and Comforts Reproofs and Encouragements Judgments and Promises Instructions and Rebukes that are found in that blessed Volume with manifestations of God's power and goodness to the one and his power and wrath against the other So that whatsoever is spoken of any one person is spoken of all persons in the same State and whatsoever is spoken of any Action or Qualification in any person is spoken of alike Actions and Qualifications in every person who is in the same state to the end of the World even as long as Mankind remains and as far as the Line of each State whether it be good or bad reacheth so far doth every person continuing in that State bear his proportionable share through the Grave to Eternity When the Spirit of God speaketh any thing in the Word it first looks through the State in which any person is and so deals with that particular person according to the state in which he is whether it be a state of Sin or Grace and so acts towards him according to the rules and method of such a state Hence 't is that comforts or afflictions or teachings that are one and the same in their own nature are exceeding different in the end and use which the Spirit makes of them through the different state of Light or Darkness Life or Death in which all men lie So that by this means the same Word is a savour of Life to one which is a savour of Death to another The general threatnings against Ungodliness concerns every particular ungodly Man The particular punishment inflicted upon any one ungodly Man shews what is equally due to the rest of ungodly Men. And although one evil Man may not commit the same wicked Action as another doth yet he has the Nature and the same evil State which is the Root of that Action and as it brings forth Actions equivolently evil it is by the Spirit of God equally sentenced to Punishment And as in all visible Actions the state of the person in the Scriptures is first considered so in all Actions the nature and spirit of that Action as it holds relation to the state of the person acting is regarded by the Spirit of God in the Word before the Action it self and involves every one within the Guilt of that Action if it be wicked or within the Blessing of that Action if it be good in whom the nature and spirit of such an Action worketh From this ground Christ calls wicked Anger Murther and unchast Lustings Adultery Matth. 5. 21 28. And from this ground a gracious desire and intention has the blessing of a gracious Action 2 Cor. 8. 12. And when the Action is one and the same and yet the Spirit and inward Mind of them who execute that Action different the Action is not accounted the same but different as in the case of Cain's killing Abel and Phineas's killing Zimri it was Murther in the one and Righteousness in the other So that Actions may agree and yet the spirit of that Action in the Actors not agree and the spirit of one Action may agree with the spirit of another Action or the spirit of one that acts may agree in some particular Action with the spirit of another who acts the same thing and yet the difference of their grand state disagree as appears in the case of David's Uncleanness through Lust and the Sin of his Son Ammon for the Repentance of the one is recorded but not of the other So that in the use of the Scriptures we are to consider how far Actions agree and how far the spirit or immediate inward working which produceth Actions agrees and how the grand state of persons do agree that we may know how to make use of the Reproofs and Punishments Promises and Rewards that we find given to others in Scripture As concerning the state of Godliness there is no Godly Man has any peculiar privilege which is not common to all who are in the same state because the Covenant is made to them all alike in Jesus Christ in whom God is become their God upon the equal terms of Free Grace and Christ is as well the Head of one Member as of another and all the privileges which can flow from such a common relation run down rightfully to every person within that relation viz. Justification Adoption Reconciliation Sanctification Preservation Instruction and such like Operations of the Spirit that issue from that relation and which tend to a living enjoyment thereof and the advancing of that state to perfection
that state in all times and Ages and stands answerable to the nature of all future cases and experiences of the Saints which makes the whole Scriptures which were written aforetime to be of a perpetual present use from the beginning to the end of that Volumne so said Moses of old Deut. 4. 2. and so said John many hundred years after Rev. 22. 18 19. So that all Scripture is given for a perpetual profit by Doctrine Reproof Exhortation and Instruction in Righteousness in order to the perfecting of the Saints 2 Tim. 3. 16 17. And this brings in again the Consideration of the wonderful Condescention of God who though he be invisible yet he doth in a sort become visible in the Word there the Life of God is manifested even that hidden Life which enlivens the new Man it exposeth it self to be seen heard and handled by the thoughts of Worm-like Man 1 Joh. 1. 1 2 3. God who was pleased to manifest himself in the Flesh has carried on a correspondent method in a way suitable to Humanity ever since the Restoration was promised to the Seed of the Woman The Spirit brings forth all its special Operations in the exercise of Man's Nature Reason Understanding Will Affections and Passions The Scriptures seem to bespeak nothing oft-times but meer Man whereas that Humane way was only fitted as a Sheath for the Sword of the Spirit to be carried in through all several cases that could fall out in Man's condition God who brought forth all things out of himself doth still manage them and uphold them for he is the Life As his Purpose and Power created the Being of all things so his Providence and Wisdom doth create the continual disposing and ordering of all things I create Jerusalem a rejoycing saith the Lord Isa 65. 18. And therefore having created a new thing in the Earth that a Woman should compass a Man Jer. 31. 22. he works creatingly in the discovery and application of that Mystery and stoops down into all the Sences Passions and Affections of Humane Nature and brings forth the Mystery of the new Creation under the vail and external use of the matter of the first Creation which runs through the whole History of outward Providences and through every Branch of Moses's Law in all the Sacrifices every part of the Tabernacle and Temple and through every Dispensation and among all the Faculties of the rational Soul as the power of Life striving against Death and Light against Darkness which is the scope of what we find spoken to Man or of or by Man in the Scriptures which is spoken not to shew only what Man 's natural thoughts are but how the Spirit of God works in their thoughts words and actions or how the Spirit of Satan naturally and sinfully works in them which is delivered to us by the Spirit of God sometimes by the Rules of Doctrine and Worship sometimes by Comforts Instructions Exhortations Reproofs and Threatnings and sometimes by Examples and Experiences acted upon the persons of Good and Bad and acting in them This Operation of the Spirit of the Father and the Son begets all the Convincements Heart-searchings Prayers Groans Cries Sighs Comforts Encouragements and Conquests which we find exercised in the hearts of the people of God throughout the Scriptures as in a Glass shewing the Combat betwixt the Seed of the Serpent and the Seed of the Woman and establishing Faith and Assurance of the Victory by Jesus Christ who is the Captain of their Salvation And God has recorded these things in this manner in the Word that all the people of God may read the whole of their present State and Work acted in the Scriptures by the Inspiration of the Spirit which now breaths Workings of a like nature in their hearts The least Groan cannot be lost 't is part of the Lambs War and therefore there is a Blessing in it If the infinite Purity Power and Holiness of God did reveal it self only to the Understanding it would either distract or confound the Soul or harden it by a desperate Dispondency and therefore the infinite Excellency of God descends into the Humane Nature of Christ that it might overshadow and work in the hearts of the Saints who are his Mystical Body by the Spirit in the Scriptures in the way of an Instinct and new Principle arising from that spiritual Closure made betwixt him and them in the Gospel The rejection of the Gospel and The Glory of Christs Condescention despising the Word doth chiefly arise from an aptness to stumble at the Condescention of God he sees a necessity to bow down lower to save poor Man than the Pride of Man's heart knows how to digest and therefore the broken and contrite ones get most of his company Isa 57. 15. the Soul who loves him and believes his Condescention in the design and truth thereof can never be too low for relief The manner of Christ's coming into the Flesh and the despicableness of his Person in his Life and Death seriously considered and the Ordinances which he blest and left to us gives no encouragement to the Wisdom of the Flesh The way of carnal Wisdom is to do great things by great means but the Wisdom of God doth great things by small and despicable means 1 Sam. 16. 7. 2 King 5. 10 11. and so confoundeth the Wisdom of the Wise as the Apostle argues 1 Cor. 1. from v. 20. forwards Were the truth of this Mystery of God's Condescention truly taken up it would spoil that repining dejection which torments the Saints about their unworthiness and thankfulness would accompany all their Groans towards him he is as low as the lowest and their way cannot be hid from him though he be high and lofty and the Creator of the ends of the earth Isa 40. 27 28 29. and 57. 15. The very Kernel of the Gospels Glory lies in the extreamness of his Condescention in the way of saving Man his design is to exalt his Glory to the highest Heavens by the unspeakable lowness of his stooping throughout all the day of Grace He doth by his Spirit wait weep strive grieve sigh suffer and complain in the hearts of his people and figuratively he is said to do such things also himself on their behalf their weak Faith is mighty through him who works it and who carries his Lambs in his Arms. His infinite Greatness is not at all the cause of any estranged distance betwixt him and Mankind in this day of Grace but the carnal and unbroken Pride and fulness of a self-righteous careless ignorant unbelieving heart He setteth the Solitary in Families and stoopeth down to deliver them who are sensible of their Chains but the Rebellious dwelleth in a dry Land Psal 68. 6. Oh let this Truth visit me and save me Here is a Rest indeed O my confused heart he that heard the moan of Ephraim hears thy moan hears thy confused cries picks up all thy sighs and
may not rush into this Mystery I must be unshod that I may enter in and stand upon holy Ground No man cometh to the Son but whom the Father draweth I may get the notion of something about it but can come to no heart-enjoyment without the Unction of the Spirit of Christ to possess and so to lead me in within the shadow of this Almighty Redeemer 'T is wearisom and barren work to gape towards this Mystery by a meer speculative Search and therefore I would fain make it my design to give away my whole self in every step of this Enquiry to Jesus Christ that I may be taught this mysterious Privilege as the truth is in him whom thus to know is Eternal Life And therefore with a holy fear and tenderness I desire to wade according to the Scriptures into this Deep by the Spirit which searcheth the deep things of God As a foundation for further search How to enjoy Christ actually I find that Christ himself 1 Cor. 3. 11. and a Conscience purged from guilt by means of his death Heb. 9. 14 15. are things enjoyable and so offered and held forth in the Gospel My work in the next place is to enquire how I may actually enjoy an Interest in so high a privilege I am in the first place under a sense of my own necessity to lie down at the Foot of God and suffer Jesus Christ as crucified and risen again to march with all his Train into my heart and take Possession there and then am to suffer his Spirit shutting my eyes and stopping my ears against carnal Reasonings to lead me into a willing Resignation to this crucified and risen Christ my Redeemer which is a spiritual Marriage to his Person A notional Landskip of this state will not serve my turn O thou in whom all the Promises are Yea and Amen renew a right Spirit within me and let my very Soul be moulded into the Truth by every Meditation My Guilt has increased upon me this day I have lost my Thirst after God and do find my strength to waste my Drift is not pure and am carried away into a withered frame and my heart cannot return The sounding of thy Bowels is able to bring me back and enlighten me with the light of Life An impure Eye cannot behold thee nor a surfeited Mind eat of this Manna My Disease is great but there is no healing Medicine to be had but in thee O my Redeemer Wouldst thou in earnest O my Soul be cured and effectually enjoy the Redemption of Christ Then retire thy self only to him and let thy eye be singly fixed there Render up thy Guilt to him who has bought it out of thy hands Withdraw thy sholder from the burthen and with a loathing of thy self and thy sin leave it upon Jesus Christ his Father and thine laid thy Guilt upon him already upon the Cross and when thou dost by Faith lay thy Guilt upon him thou dost not crucifie the Son of God afresh but dost only put to thy Seal that he is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World He bought thy sins to destroy them he shed his Blood that thy Guilt might be condemned and waits upon thee to bring them forth to him for Execution 'T is not a pain but a pleasure to him that a Sinner delivers up his sins to him because the Vengeance he sustained for sins has fixed a day of Vengeance in his heart against the daily Guilt of his Redeemed and Revenge is sweet Whatever Bryars and Thorns are set before him in Battel he will go through them and burn them together Isa 27. 4. and 63. 5 6. He sustained the Curse satisfied Justice and returned to his Father with the tokens of his Conquest and now attends in the Gospel upon the Elect to cause them to shake themselves from their Dust and bring forth their Dead the Slain of the Lord to the Burial A Sinner then lays his sins on Christ when he believes that God the Father laid them upon him God the Father imposed the burthen and a Sinner by Faith concurs and melteth under the sight of Divine Justice and cries out Even so O Father because it pleased him to bruise him Even so O dear Redeemer because thou lovedst not thy Life to the Death that thou mightest redeem me by thy own Blood I leave my sins upon the Sacrifice of thy Flesh and would crave leave to look upon him whom the Father made an Offering for my sins and whom I have pierced and in the view of this costly Redemption would mourn over him as a Man mourneth for his only Child But yet that I may improve this mysterious Happiness to the more full advantage I would beg help from the Lord to assist me with a true view of the real Existence of those things which relate to Jesus Christ and God's Covenant concerning me and with me in him and what is the mysterious method and power of the actual exercising of Faith thereupon The real Existence of all Gospel-privileges The Gospel is a real thing is witnessed by the Scriptures which do positively attest that those things are so and so as is exprest But such is the cursed Treachery of my heart that the custom of reading and hearing those things makes them seem common and debaseth their Majestick Worth and so beholding them through a literal and common Estimate my eye loseth at once their true colour and certainty which infeebles my Apprehensions as to the lively Belief of their real Existence And in order to the curing of this Disease I am waiting on the God of Light and Truth to breath upon my heart such a quickned frame of Meditation as may humbly and effectually steer my Soul to the Mark which I aim at Unmortified Invention would be busie to hammer out some Answer to my Query but alas 't is a Physician of no value For who can reason a blind Man into the use of his sight He only who brings Life and Immortality to light is able to make the things that appear not to be seen Hast thou not heard O my Soul that thy true and only welfare lies in things which neither the eye of the Body nor the natural eye of the Mind can attain to How self-denyingly then shouldst thou attempt this Search And therefore lest thou catch a shadow instead of substance turn thy self once more by Prayer to him who opens the eyes of the Blind who hath promised he will not give thee a Stone when thou askest Bread for thy necessity And then First Consider To what end dost thou profess that thou believest the Scriptures to be the Word of God unless also thou puttest to thy Seal that it is the very Will and Mind of God exprest in those words of truth Consider also that 2. The most serious discourse of the people of God about spiritual things although their hearts are not under an equal degree of
working and beholds it as it were the audible Voice of God and the very Mind of Christ It cannot be satisfied in the weakness of the Letter but passeth through the Letter immediately to the Person of Jesus Christ and converseth with God in him The whole Scriptures in the eye of Faith is as a pair of Spectacles through which Faith gets the sight and closeth with the Promise It magnifies the Scriptures Ordinances and Sabbaths as they are the Portal through which to enter into Communion and Converse with God himself It believes the Scriptures that makes Report of the Will and Pleasure of God and so passeth through them to the Will Mind and Name of God himself Faith visits as a faithful Guide in its Journey and useth it no farther than a means tending to bring the Soul and God together The Word reports that Christ is there his Life his Strength his Grace is there and requires the Soul to enter in and take it Faith enters in finds and receives it Faith having found its Object and espying the way how to come at it is quickned by the Spirit in pure Obedience to God's Command to attempt some holy Adventures upon the Word and passeth by all Considerations of Flesh and Blood as deaf and blind to all things but what the Word speaketh 't is resolved to take as it were a senceless Journey to Christ even upon the Sea for 't is contented to feel no Ground but the Promise It stays not to enquire whether it hath strength enough to walk or no but looks on the Word of Truth and considers its need and so ventures and by venturing engageth all the Attributes of Jehovah Father Son and Spirit for its relief If I perish I perish The faithful and true Witness hath said Fear not only believe Faith so far as it works doth Faith doth both possess the Vnderstanding Judgment and Will and puts them to exercise persuade the heart of the Truth Power Wisdom and Goodness of God that speaketh and of the true performance of the thing spoken and is singly of it self through the overshadowing of the holy Spirit a principle of appropriating to the heart the Truths spoken from the Mouth of an infinitely true holy and wise God in his Word and so fixeth a blessed Satisfaction in the heart through the real Existence of the things spoken and apprehended by the renewed Understanding so far at least as they are by an actual Exercise of Faith apprehended Luk. 1. 45. Blessed is she who believed for there shall be a performance of the things told her from the Lord. The Understanding being renewed The Vnderstanding exercised views over the Covenant as it was made with Christ before all time Tit. 1. 2. and considers what method God has used to manifest it in the World He created the habitable World and made Man at first righteous and then permitted him to fall into the Breach of the first Covenant viz. of Works whereby he gave entrance and footing to the second Covenant viz. of Grace Gen. 3. 15. and carried it along in a holy Line through the corrupt Race of Mankind before the Flood he then sweeps away the ungodly World and preserves the Covenant-line in Noah and from him carries it on to Abraham and kept it on in its course amidst much Prophaneness and Idolatry that was in the World He then renewed it more distinctly with Abraham and gave it a more visible Being than ever before that time and by reason thereof called Abraham the Father of the Faithful He confirmed it also to Isaac and Jacob who are oftentimes mentioned in the Scriptures as the three grand Witnesses of this Covenant-favour From thence it descended to the twelve Tribes representing the elect visible Church After which it was brought forth in a Typical Demonstration of Christ and his managing of all things needful to make that Covenant applicable which is carried on under the shadows of the Ceremonial Law The Prophets succeed asserting this Covenant of Grace and expounding it At last Christ comes in Flesh and seals it with his Blood and the Apostles are sent sorth to discover and preach this eternal Purpose of Grace to the wide World for calling in the Elect. So that the Covenant of Grace which was made of God in Christ before the Creation of the World appears as the main scope of the Scriptures and issues forth its vertue through all the Promises Fatherly Commands Reproofs Consolations and the Deliverances which are recorded in Scripture as the various Streams Operations Experiences and Effects of the Covenant of Grace in and towards the Heirs of Life It bears the Name of the Old Covenant during the time while the Passover was in use and after the Lord's Supper was instituted it was called the New Covenant both Old and New are one Covenant of Grace differing from the Covenant of Works as far as Grace and Works do differ The Understanding having perused The exercised Judgment the Scriptures and so made its view and deliberated the matter digesting it by Meditation and Prayer the Judgment resolves to make Covenant-refuge its Sanctuary and thereupon forbids the heart to admit the Contradiction of Flesh and Blood and the reasoning of Carnal Wisdom and Observation resolves to determine nothing according to the Flesh endeavours to shut up all passages by which Unbelief carnal Mis-construction and fear were wont to enter and labours to keep open every Port that may admit the naked recourse of the Spirit in the Word and opens the Windows of the Soul to take in the Testimony and Evidence of a faithful and merciful God only And when this mighty Discovery and Conquest is made the foundations of Bondage Terror and Tyranny which before tormented the Conscience and enslaved the heart doth now begin to totter The Understanding and Judgment The Will assents having gone thus far in the Conduct of the Spirit do attempt effectually the persuading of the Will to accept a new Lord viz. the Messenger and Prince of the Covenant him in whom all the Promises are Yea and Amen Sanctified Conviction begins to sway the Will as Nathaniel was moved by Philip to come and see him of whom Moses and the Prophets did write and assuies the Conscience that God is ever mindful of his Covenant has sealed it with the Blood of his own Son and has sworn that it shall stand sure as the Ordinances of Heaven and that no particle of it shall ever fail to which the Will assents But alas how doth my Pen as it were gash my own Soul in writing what I cannot heartily and at full liberty put in practice Oh that my Understanding and Judgment had thus far in a powerful Gale of the Spirit led my Soul forth to the Gates of Freedom and thus far brought me within the Bond of the Covenant How soon would the same mighty Power conquer over my Will to a holy Security and Rest in believing 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
therefore I go to everlasting Strength The more I make infinite Power my Lord and Master the more is that Divine Power engaged to hold me up Rom. 14. 4. Let my own Power languish into nothing so long as I can claim on the account of Free Grace undoubted Right to the Arm of God my own strength never did me good but deceived me Dost thou not know O mis-giving heart that I am shortly to leave the whole weight of my Soul in lanching from Mortality upon the same word of Promise which doth now offer strength to wade through difficulties of my present Warfare And what do I more than step forth to behold the Lord sealing his Covenant and Promise that he will be my God and will guide me by his Grace and afterwards bring me to Glory To which Covenant in faith though with fear and trembling I desire to give my consent which I trust in some measure of sincerity I have done Neither do thou O Satan vaunt and say to me as Eliab said to David 1 Sam. 17. 28. I know the pride of thy heart I shall yet bring thee down Know O thou false Accuser I go to him who is both able to hold me up and make me humble too that I may be more and more abased and die away from the workings and lustings of Flesh and Blood into the Power Grace Wisdom and Truth of God to whose Covenant for that end by his own Appointment I declare my consent and do desire with a broken and bleeding heart to bless him that ever he allowed me to come so near him in this manner Though I fall I shall not fall utterly I shall be raised up again because my Redeemer is risen and he is strong who pleads my Cause What is the Volumne of the Scriptures but a divine Oeconomy containing the Laws of Relation betwixt a God of all Grace and his chosen Institutions and Commands of Grace Threatnings and Reproofs of Grace Promises and Betrothings of Grace and meer Grace Has not the same God who said I will betroth thee to me for ever in Righteousness and Judgment in Loving-kindness and tender Mercies and in Faithfulness Hos 2. 19 20. said also to me Thou shalt know the Lord Has he not said to me Thy Maker Father Son and Spirit is thy Husband Isa 54. 5. even while I am grieved in Spirit and tossed about with the Tempest of my own Confusions And has he not said that I shall say The Lord is my God Hos 2. 19 20. And he will say I am one of his people and will not be ashamed to be called my God Heb. 11. 16. Yea hath he not said that I shall say I am the Lords and that I shall bear his Name and Sir-name with his Jacob and his Israel and that I shall even subscribe it with my hand never to be reversed Isa 44. 5. O Fountain of Life and living Waters reveal thy self that I may not go about to marry Flesh and Spirit together but that I may be spirited as a chaste Virgin espoused to Christ and so enter into this glorious spiritual Flesh-mortifying and mystical Wedlock Let it not be meerly speculative but real and influenced with light life and power from thy heart to mine Oh how doth this unwilling heart of mine pull back What canst thou close with besides God in Christ but it will perish and while it is in thy hand will be a broken Reed that will make thee fall in leaning upon it Is not the Covenant of Grace somewhat which God himself hath devised for his own Glory and thy Establishment Has he required thee to bind thy self to fear and love him and hath not he engaged to circumcise thy heart that thou maist love and fear him Deut. 30. 6. Jer. 32. 38 39 40 41. Oh that I could put faith to this Word till the warmth thereof grew up into a Flame which many Waters might never quench and Oh let my faithful God who has expresly promised by Covenant to give me one heart and one way with the rest of them who are Confederates of Grace that I may fear him for ever for my Good remember it and fulfil it as he hath said with all his heart and all his soul Oh pardon my unbelief that I do stand so far aloof from putting to my Seal that God who cannot lie will accomplish his word to a tittle MY Soul longs to be at some The Soul longs for clear work more distinct and express Closure with such a God and would fain reckon before-hand what it will cost me When I consider that word 1 Cor. 6. 19 20. Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you and that you are not your own for you are bought with a price And therefore glorifie God in your body and in your spirit which is God's I even faint under the Majesty of such a Covenant of unutterable Grace which calls me up to such dignity and duty at once Body and Spirit which are God's what a word is this You are not your own how far doth this reach The whole Concernments of my Soul and Body which are my own are to be given up to God by Faith and new Obedience that they may be his and at my own dispose no longer Oh a thousand Worlds for a Surrender suitable to this Estate and Calling of God in Christ Jesus Oh let the Creator of Israel my King fashion the value of this Pearl in every Affection of my Soul that I may in his own meaning sell all to purchase it Christ Jesus was in earnest when he gave his Body to the Cross and his very Soul an Offering for my sake O that I could be in a like seriousness in giving away my Body and Soul to him again Strengthen O Lord my weak hands and confirm my feeble knees Methinks I hear the voice of my The Soul is invited by Christ beloved Jesus calling out Fear not O anxious Soul behold it is I be not asraid I who am thy Redeemer am strong I am mighty to save and therefore Hearken O Daughter and consider incline thine ear forget also thy father's house and thine own people Let me be the Object of all thy Affections rest in my pleasure only and always so will I thy King and Husband greatly desire thy Beauty and be always trimming thee for my own Society for I am thy Lord and thou must worship and fully rest in and be devoted to me alone and to no other I consent dear Christ and here And doth consent and engage I offer my Body and Soul to the Agreement I give it up dear and precious Redeemer I give it up unto thee for ever in obedience to thy Commands and relying upon thy Strength I write it with my own hand that I will be thine and for thee and not for any other My Beloved is mine and I am his Though I am
again and again with weeping and supplications to God in him as my resting place and that he would cause this glorious word to ring as an Alarm in my ears Return unto me for I am married unto thee Jer. 3. 14. I will be and I am thy King Where is any other that can comfort thee or save thee in all thy wandrings Hos 13. 10. And that he would cause my bowels to be moved at the voice and to give answer It is the voice of my Beloved behold I come unto thee for thou art the Lord my God Jer. 3. 22. And that I may now sum up the The Soul enters into more ample and express Covenant with God matter of this my Covenant which God has called me to make and which in obedience to his Call I do heartily resolve in his strength to adhere unto guard my heart guard my pen guard my voice and words O thou who leadest the Blind to thy self by a way which Nature knows not but thou knowest thy own way and knowest how to lead the thoughts of my heart and words of my pen and my mouth that my lips may utter nothing rashly before thee Thou hast made a Covenant of Grace and often repeated the terms of the Covenant and hast said I shall say The Lord is my God Hos 2. 23. and has recorded the mutual avouching between thee and thy people Deut. 26. 17 18. in express words Yea Strangers are invited to serve thee to love thy Name to be thy Servants and to lay hold on thy Covenant Isa 56. 6. to joyn themselves to thee and to observe thy Sabbaths and Ordinances of Worship And when thy people did enter into a Covenant to seek the Lord God of their Fathers with all their heart and with all their soul and sware to thee with a loud voice and rejoyced at the Oath and sought thee with full desire thou wast found of them 2 Chron. 15. 12 15. And this way have thy Servants appropriated thee to themselves Psal 105. 7 8. and appropriated themselves to thee Psal 116. 16 18. Isa 63. 16 19. And thou hast said These things are written for my learning Rom. 15. 4. and that I am to imitate and follow them who through faith and patience did inherit the promises giving my self to thee 2 Cor. 8. 5. with full purpose of heart Act. 11. 23. Having this Warrant and Encouragement I do here bring my Body and Soul and all that I have and am to thee as a First-Fruit Offering and claiming Right to thy self through thy free Grace being invited thereto Jer. 3. 4 19. Hos 2. 23. I do declare in thy presence O The Soul makes Confession of its Faith most righteous holy and gracious God that as thou hast declared in thy Word I do acknowledge I am one of the Posterity of the first Adam and was in his Loins both when thou madest him pure bearing the Image of Righteousness and Holiness and when he transgressed thy righteous Command by eating the Fruit which thou hadst forbidden him to eat and that I stand before thee guilty of the sin which he then committed in all the extent circumstances and aggravations thereof and that I am thereby become rightful Heir to all that sinful pollution which by him entred in upon all Mankind and rightful Heir also to all that Curse and Punishment which thou denouncedst upon him when thou saidst In the day wherein thou eatest thereof thou shalt die and that I am by this my nature and descent liable to thy righteous Sentence of Death and Wrath eternally that I did in that day lose thy favour and incurred the accursed effects of that loss to my Body and Soul relating both to my temporal and eternal state I do acknowledge that of thy free Grace and that alone thou didst speedily make promise of a Redeemer which should arise of the Seed of the Woman and be manifested in the Flesh which accordingly thou didst perform by sending thy only Son into the World having a Body framed by the power of the Holy Spirit in the Womb of a Virgin and was born free from all that Hereditary Corruption which the first Parents of Mankind did derive to their Posterity by natural Propagation who by his voluntary Obedience fulfilled thy whole Law and by his death did bear the whole Curse and Punishment due to me and all elected Mankind in the Body of his Flesh And that being thy eternal Son the express Image of thy Person and God blessed for ever he did fully pay the Debt and remove the Curse and deserved Punishment from so many which thou hadst in thy eternal Purpose given him to be a Ransom for and superabundantly recovered thy Image and favour to them again And that being truly dead he raised himself by his own Divine Power and is ascended into the highest Heavens where he sitteth on the Right Hand of the Majesty on high appearing always in thy presence as Mediator consisting of the two Natures of God and Man in one Person continually interceding before thee on the behalf of them whom he redeemed and making the ends and vertue of his Mediatorship effectual for their good and on their behalf That he hath brought this state of Life and Salvation to light by the Gospel contained in the Books of the Old and New Testament and effectually dispensed the same under dark Types and Prophesies till his Incarnation since which time he hath mightily declared himself by his Word and Works the Father also from Heaven and the Holy Spirit testifying of him that he is the Saviour of the World and that believing in him they who believe shall have life through his Name That he has declared himself by chosen Witnesses who conversed with him and saw his Miracles that he is the eternal God and also true Humane Nature in one glorious Person and has appointed them to testifie that he is the Judge of Quick and Dead and that whosoever beliveth in him shall receive Remission of Sins and be justified from all Conscience of Guilt and interested in a more abundant Righteousness Life and Happiness than was lost before that he sendeth forth his Spirit to breath a new Life by Faith through the dispensation of this Gospel whereby he gathers all the Elect into a Mystical true spiritual Union with himself who is the Door of their Communion with God and his Communion with them and having in himself the terms and parts of the Covenant relating to each Party he has so united them together in a Covenant-Bond that the most righteous God reacheth to them his hand and proclaims himself theirs and they reach forth their hands by Faith and Resignation and declare they are wholly his By which Covenant-Union they are partakers of God and all communicable good things in him and are spirited to give up themselves and all that they have and are to his dispose in newness of life and have freedom to come to
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
then I must stop that I may adventure to cast my self before him who has the Golden Scepter in his hand before I go any further who knows but that he will reach it forth and I shall find favour in his sight I come to thee O Lord. 3. This Union it self which I 'T is only and wholly of God's Free Grace would come at and actually live in is beyond and indeed another thing than the Notion of it 'T is the voluntary and delightful Captivity of my Will and Affections through the Knowledge of him who has called me to this Glory and Vertue it is my true Dwelling-place the very Foundation of my Rest and Repose the Palace of my Triumph the very Spring and Rise of Self-abhorring which makes Self-loathing metalsom and vigorous by issuing it self into the Soul's Participation of the Purity Light and Strength of the Divine Nature and into a sincere open-hearted Resignation thereunto It is begun and carried on wholly by the Free Grace of God it sprang from his electing and predestinating Favour who worketh it according to the Counsel of his own Will Ephes 1. 4 10 11. Rom. 8. 29. 'T is the scope of his free and gracious Covenant I will be your God and you shall be my people The actual In-stating of my Soul into it ariseth from the free Call of God 1 Cor. 1. 9. The overcoming and destroying all difficulties that may obstruct it is throughly managed in the Person of Christ who has made both one and died to bring me to God As for the Application and Enjoyment of this Union-state his Prayer Joh 17. 21. and Promise Joh. 14. 20. do stand in force day and night without ceasing to obtain it for me and effect it in me His Blood has confirmed the Covenant for it and has put into it the vertue and force of a Will and Testament which cannot be disannulled Joh. 17. Luk. 22. 20. compared with 1 Pet. 3. 18. and Heb. 9. 17. and the Manifestation of this is only by his Word and Spirit proclaiming and testifying this good Will of God to Men 1 Joh. 3. 24. whereby he doth effectually bring in this Reconciliation 2 Cor. 5. 8 9. and effecteth Union thereupon 1 Cor. 6. 20. Yea are bought with a price therefore glorifie God in your body and in your spirit which are Gods So that I am wholly God's Workmanship who has ordained this Union and created me in Christ for it I believe Lord help my Unbelief How little do I see How little do I taste and applyingly possess this bottomless Privilege which the glorious Angels desire to look into 4. Having considered the Purity Improve then by Meditation of this Union and the Inconsistency that is betwixt this Union and Guilt and unmortified sinful Pollutions as to the comfortable Application of it and also the divine Spring the free Grace and Bounty of God in creating and carrying it on into which thoughts and considerations the God of all Grace is only able to put seasoning and heart-framing force to make way for the Application of it Now O my Soul compel thy self to the serious Meditation of it 1. The Reallity of this Vnion be persuaded the matter is real It is invisible but real wondrous incomprehensible but real and true God has made thy sins thy burthen his Holiness and his new Stamp thy greatest and most deliberate desire Whence comes this but from the Spirit of Christ in whom the perfection of Enmity against Sin lies and in whom all the Treasures of Grace are laid How comes his Spirit to work an influence of the same nature in thee but as thou art taken into Union with him as a Member of his Body partaking of the vital Influences of the Head And seeing the Fulness of the Godhead dwells in him whose Spirit dwells in thee Col. 2. 9 10. and the Divine Nature of the Father Son and Spirit one and the same 1 Joh. 5. 7. thou becomest in a way of Adoption and according to the created Capacity thou art in really at present an Heir together with Christ of the Glory of God and shall rightfully through free Grace fully possess that Inheritance These are mine saith the Lord Mal. 3. 17. I am thy God in me thou shalt be saved Isa 45. 7. Thy Maker is thy Husband Isa 54. 5. What is this but Union with him Now O my Soul meditate again Am I indeed brought in by Christ to Union with God Are we no longer two but one Spirit Can such a thing be I do not doubt it but admire it What! He that made Heaven and Earth and all Men upon Earth he who is the very Life of the whole Creation he to whom Abraham Moses and David and all the Worthies of old prayed whom they served and adored who carried them through all Trials to whose Truth Wisdom Love and glorious Power they did bear witness and do still testifie it to all Ages Is he my own God Is this God really mine Is it the Word of his own Mouth I am thy God How unsearchable is this Union is he whom Simeon embraced in his Arms and said My eyes have seen thy Salvation is he mine He who wrought all those Miracles who healed Diseases cast out Devils forgave Sins on Earth is he mine He who had compassion on the Leper and healed him He who had compassion on the Multitude and fed them who spied out Nathaniel visited Zacheus raised the Dead is he mine He who preached the Gospel from Heaven who did bear my Sins in the Garden upon the Cross in his own Body who did sweat Blood and was pierced through for Sins for Sinners is he mine His Satisfaction mine His Compassion mine Those tender Bowels mine Was I then comprized in his Prayer And is this Joseph yet alive and his Nature not changed but glorified to the perfection of Power and Sympathy Is he mine and am I indeed his He who comforted his Disciples buried their Sins and Miscarriages and blessed them immediately at his Ascention and in the full warmth of his Love ascended and sate at the Right Hand of the Majesty on high where Love never ceaseth Is this and none but this the Judge whom I expect even my Lord and my God he whom Paul saw whom all the Apostles did preach who converted the Gentiles has kept alive the efficacy of his Word to this day he who is the faithful Witness is he my own He who is exalted to give Repentance and Remission of Sins is he mine to teach purge justifie and quicken me As near as the Head to the Body the Root to the Tree and Branches as near and dear as the Husband to the Wife doth he call me his own Flesh and Bones Doth he live and breath in me and I in him Oh for more Faith Reverence Thanksgiving with all manner of becoming Thoughts Words and Deeds concerning him and concerning the reality of such a Privilege Oh when
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
through its Union with the Soul the whole Person is called a Believer who lives by faith both in regard of its inward invisible Operation and also in moulding anew the outward and visible Conversation So that a Believer both lives by faith Heb. 10. 38. and walks by faith 2 Cor. 5. 7. not only in himself but manifestly to others by Words Rom. 1. 12. and Examples Heb. 13. 7. It s chief Seat is the Understanding and the Will Whatever it discovers And prosperous it calls in the Will to assent to working up the whole Soul to a Propensity of Resignation to the Power and Soveraignty of every divine Truth and in particular to the Enjoyment and Privilege Government and Laws of this Union-state And so it sets it self as a mighty Champion in the hand of the Lord to exercise its skill and power in the Soul And now Oh that it might be up and be doing in my Soul and so go on and prosper And Oh! that its Bow may abide in strength and the arms of its hands made strong through the hands of the mighty God of Jacob and under the influence of Divine Grace be blessed and made to go on increase be enlarged and conquer Rise up O Shield and Buckler O Arm of the Lord I have waited and do wait for thy Salvation O Lord Leave me not A DISCOURSE of GLORIFYING GOD. 1 Cor. 6. 19 20. What know ye not that your Body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you which ye have of God and ye are not your own For ye are bought with a price therefore glorifie God in your Body and in your Spirit which are God's THere are four principal things which this part of Scripture do offer to serious Meditation and Improvement viz. 1. That a true Christian is not his own 2. That he is the Lords 3. That he ought to know his renewed State 4. That his renewed Constitution does oblige him to promote the Glory of God and live up thereto in Soul and Body Not your own c. implies three things viz. 1. That naturally a Man is his own Tyrant 2. That true Christianity is more than speculative 't is a real Change of the Man You are not your own 3. That it doth mysteriously divide a Man from himself This real Alteration and mysterious Contrariety is not a natural Change but spiritual viz. the Body the Soul the Faculties of the Soul and the rational Exercise of those Faculties are still the same and yet a spiritual Change doth affect them all and passeth upon the whole Man This spiritual Change begins in the most hidden part of Man viz. the Mind and therefore Repentance is called the Change of the Mind which Change of the Mind doth influence the whole Man The Mind is said to be changed when the Spirit of God enters in and exerciseth its Soveraign Dominion of Holiness against the Usurpation of the Devil and Natural Corruption which reigned there before whereby the Mind is controlled into a willing Propensity of Subjection to the Authority of the Spirit of God against the Invasion of Sin which still retains some Haunt there as a lurking subdued Enemy called the Flesh lusting against the Spirit till it be destroyed utterly at the day of full Redemption This Dominion of the Spirit steers the natural Faculties of the Soul in their rational Exercise to new Employment and arrays them thereunto with new Habits The Understanding has a sublimer Light the Judgment a better Rule the Will and Affections a better Object better Motives and a better End viz. Spiritual So that such a person is now said not to be his own he is not under that universal Darkness Pollution and Bondage to Sin which he was conceived and born in at first that was his own natural state but he is now rescued from it and is no longer his own 1. While he was his own he taught himself by the Light of fleshly Wisdom and accounted the Gospel Foolishness 1 Cor. 1. 23. but now loaths it and being at a loss cries Lord what wouldst thou have me to do Act. 9. 6. and as they did who burnt the Books in which they learnt curious Arts before Act. 19. 19. in which lay no savour of Christ and spiritual Knowledge 2. While he was his own he ruled himself by the sight of his eyes and imagination of his heart Jer. 7. 27. by the custom and course of the World but now consults not with Flesh and Blood Gal. 1. 16. he sees his own Byass is false and his own Weights too light 3. Motives of Pleasure Profit Honour do not now draw him he was lead by his own Concupiscence but now he is dead to these and saith I have no pleasure in them 4. He designs not his own things neither Health Phil. 2. 30. nor Liberty Act. 20. 23. nor Ease 1 Cor. 11. 10. nor Safety 1 Cor. 15. 13. nor Wealth Heb. 11. 26. nor Honour nor Pleasure as Moses who refused to be Father of a great Nation Exod. 32. 10. and Esther not satisfied with having the honour and delights of being Queen when God's Honour lay at stake Yea he designs not an unworthy preservation of his own life Act. 20. 24. 5. The Spirit of carnal Comforts is gone in such an ones esteem as Esther could not endure the thoughts of her Peoples Ruin though she was at the Royal Feast and to such an one the tickling comfort of such things affect not but are as the White of an Egg yea the unnecessary Conference of such things is tastless as Meat to a sick Man and all because such an one is not his own any longer When a Man is not his own he stands invested with many privileges he has hereby a shelter 1. Against outward Afflictions they sting not their profit reacheth farther than their pain when a Man as in an extasie is not his own therefore Paul rejoyced in them 2. Persecution on the Outward Man reach not him who is not his own who is not at his own home as it was with David when Saul's Messengers came to kill him they found him not but an Image 1 Sam. 19. 16. 3. He can answer the Accusations of Guilt I am not my own and therefore my own Guilt must not stick on me 4. When Flesh and Blood demands Service he can reply I who am not my own am not Debtor to the Flesh When Sin doth vex and molest by its pollutions in the Flesh he can say What make I here I am not my own Let me go hence 5. When spiritual Pride solicits he can reply What I have is not my own 6. And against carnal Security he can say I cannot maintain my own Grace nor restore my self when fallen and therefore am to work out my Salvation with fear I am not my own 7. Against Solicitude about future Events and carking Despondency I am not at my own dispose and therefore such Anxieties are to be
able faithful 1 Thes 5. 24. 8. Do I rejoyce in hope Rom. 5. 2. and praise Rev. 5. 9. on this account IV. Upon this Relief by Christ Do I yet go farther as Esther did to execute the Children of Haman after he was dead yea to see the power of the Prince of this World broken in me What is the temper and employment of a redeemed Soul in his justified and renewed state It is to shew forth the vertue of him who hath called us from Darkness to Light from Sin and Bondage to Freedom Holiness and Righteousness Luk. 1. 75. And Oh that this might be and appear in my Soul TO THAT END let my heart suffer and attend to some Questions concerning this whereby I may further know that I am the Lords and not my own Do I account Christ only to be the Fountain and Author of Renewing and Holiness and so cast my self by Faith on him for it as well as for Pardon seeing I cannot think a thought nor will nor do any good thing of my self 2 Cor. 3. 5. Phil. 2. 13. being created in Christ thereto Ephes 2. 10. and quickned therein by him Is the Communion of the Father and the Son in a way of light and leading by his Spirit the Element I breath in so that Holiness is my Choice and sweet delight Rom. 7. 22. Phil. 3. 10 c. and 20. Our conversation is in heaven c. Do I make designs against the Old Man and to cherish the New by the lusting of the Spirit against the Flesh Gal. 5. 17. countermining the devices of Satan 2 Cor. 2. 11. watching trying all means Phil. 3. 11. to increase Holiness Do I chuse and aim at pleasing God in what I do as well as do any thing that is good in it self Isa 56. 4. Col. 1. 10 11. In matters of Worship Do I aim to converse indeed with God himself as having to do with his presence 2 Cor. 2. 17. acting therein to him Col. 3. 16 17. Do I labour to suck sanctified Light and real Holiness out of the Ordinances Psal 36. 8. which is the Fatness of God's House and tends to make the new Creature flourish Psal 92. 13. Do I bow down and comply with every Word of God submitting and assenting to its full scope Psal 119. 127 128. Do I rowl my eye towards God eyeing his Wisdom Goodness Righteousness and Providence in natural things 1 Cor. 10. 31. and in things that providencially come to pass 2 Cor. 7. 6. 2 Tim. 4. 17. Act. 12. 23. This is to walk with God Do I plot which way I may advance the Interest of Christ and his Gospel in the Capacity in which he hath set me 1 Cor. 9. 15 19 23. and to prevent the disparagement of it 1 Pet. 2. 12. Tit. 2. 10. Do I consider whether I go forward or backward in the Trade of Holiness Heb. 5. 12. Whether there be growth or not declining or not Am I gaining and reaching forward Phil. 3. 13. 2 Thes 1. 3. If so it shews my Centre is above In these and such like things the mutual Relation betwixt God and a Regenerate Person do shine forth They are tokens that God dwelleth there and he in God Such an one is in a new State because he has betook himself to the Laws Company and Mode of the new Creation created of God in Christ translated to a state of Life in God Lastly A Christian's renewed State obliges him to glorifie God in Body and Spirit and he doth so viz. 1. WHEN the Soul doth acknowledge God to be that which he is in himself Rom. 11. 36. Of him and through him and to him are all things to him be Glory for ever and ever Amen That he is infinitely excellent in his Nature and in his Works and in his Soveraignty 1 Chron. 29. 11 12 13. 2. WHEN God is acknowledged to be that which he is to us in Jesus Christ Exod. 33. 18 19. and 34. 6 7. 2 Cor. 4. 6. and glorified through Christ 1 Cor. 1. 30 31. 1 Pet. 4. 11. 3. WHEN the Spirit of a Man within him and the outward Man also concurring according to his Capacity do act towards God in an inward complying with and actual demonstration of the glorious Nature Will and Grace of God Which is called a walking worthy of God 1 Thes 2. 12. Col. 1. 10. that is to say conformable to him as the word worthy seems to import comparing Eph. 4. 1. with Eph. 4. 4. and as it were bearing his very Image and thereby manifesting what God is to us and what we are to him viz. that God is ours and we are his Now this acting towards God has great variety of Exercise in Believers for a Believer is the Temple of God in which his Glory is more excellently displayed than in all the World besides A BELIEVER by his peculiar nearness to and interest in God is capacitated as a living and active Agent to glorifie God 1 Pet. 2. 5 9. Levit. 10. 3. more than another who is only passive as Pharaoh was Exod. 14. 17. So then he who is not his own but the Lords and the Lord is his his proper Element is to be glorifying of God in all things 1 Cor. 10. 31. as appears in these and the like Particulars viz. 1. To reverence and adore the Majesty of God in all his holy Attributes and Works as Neh. 9. 6. Jer. 32. 17 18 19. Dan. 9. 4 c. and as David and all the people of God were wont to do 2. To be abased before God in the sence of our Disproportionableness and Corruption as Abraham Gen. 18. 27. Jacob Gen. 32. 10. Ezra 9. 15. Dan. 9. 7. did 3. To justifie God in all his dealings Job 36. 3. Psal 51. 4. as Daniel c. 9. v. 4. with Confession and imploring his Mercy Joshua 7. 19. Dan. 9. 18 19. 4. To honour the Father in the Son Joh. 5. 23. and through him 1 Pet. 4. 11. 5. To own God in Christ as the Fountain of every Grace 1 Pet. 5. 10. and every good and perfect Gift Jam. 1. 17. 1 Pet. 4. 11. and the Establisher and Perfecter of it Matth. 6. 13. Thine is the kingdom power und glory Amen 6. To adore him in his Word 2 Chron. 20. 18. Isa 39. 8. Psal 56. 4. and 119. 106. believing it To worship him with Reverence Psal 86. 6. and 99. 9. and to own him in his people Gal. 1. 24. Matth. 10. 24. and them for his sake 7. To abound with the gracious Fruits of Righteousness Joh. 15. 8. Phil. 1. 11. which are by Jesus Christ to the Praise and Glory of God 8. To confess Christ before Men Matth. 10. 33. suffering reproach 1 Pet. 4. 14. and death for his sake Joh. 21. 19. And now Oh that God would lead my heart through all these things by an impartial Search and cause me to compare my present frame of heart and Resolutions with these particular Truths of
holds up any Connexion betwixt my confused heart and that spiritual Interest I am carried up and down by him as a lighted Candle in a windy place and its Flame ever ready almost to flee from the Wick were it not preserved by the Hollow of his Hand his Discipline I cannot want and live And it is refreshment to me that your heart is under a constant pursuit of that Mark of the Prize of the high Calling Draw Water still from the Fountain as much as you can Be a Stranger to all Instruments Means and Helps while you use them Know none but God taste none but him in all the Earth and remember the gauled Feet of your Fellow-travellers I received a Letter from Mr. Cr. I pray return the Inclosed to him his Advice is very savoury I think indeed Christ best approves of a holy Latitude for Affection and Communion amongst his Members 1656. To C. A. D. N o 25. DEar and Christian Friend yours I received and am glad that both your self and Wife are in health I desire in this respect to offer up my share of Praise with you and to rejoyce for you that you have a good Will to be trudging forwards Whether your pace be swift or slow be sure to fix your eyes as right as you can and the eye will affect the heart and give Wings for motion You desire to be naturalized to the whole Will of our heavenly Father I bless the Lord I desire the same and that we may both gain our desires let us in the Name of the Lord dig after the Understanding of the Mystery of the Father and the Son and ponder over and over the Interest which God hath designed the Elect in his only Son and he in them and how it is brought about through his Incarnation and Operation of the Spirit of Holiness who has made the fruits of his Life and Death and Resurrection really ours so that we may say each of us by Faith I am crucified I am risen with Christ and all the loveliness that is in him we may with trembling and great joy say it is our own because himself is ours and that will make his Yoke easie his Will desirable his Work profitable and spiritually natural to us I think it would help much to pray meditate view and cast up Accounts often to watch the Phisiognomy of our Consciences to make often Appeals to the Mediator and to the Father through him and so to keep the Work moving upon the Wheels and we shall at length get to that blessed Country where Righteousness dwelleth At thy right hand saith David there is fulness c. 1656. To A. M. C. N o 26. I Find in some of my Friends a savoury Taste of Grace which in this unsavoury Age is no small Mercy I hope the Mercy of the Lord to your Father will descend upon all his Off-spring He or she is happy that can keep his Garments clean and heart established in the truth and power of Grace amongst so much prophaneness on the one hand and giddy wild and loose way of Profession on the other hand some professing Impiety and others professing a vain Attainment of some Excellency besides the native Current of the Scriptures and pure Christianity The Lord I trust will preserve you from the Tempter I lament the Affliction of my Unkle and Aunt c. 1657. To D. H. N o 27. BE not weary of believing of praying of hoping of contending of rejoycing Your Interest cannot be broken from Christ by sickness by disappointments nor by sins Read the latter end of the 4th and 7th Chapter of the Romans and the rest also of that Book and bless God for the Mystery of his Truth Pity Love and Condescention therein Be above Friends Fears Guilt and Drooping in the Name of Jesus Christ having through his Grace given up your Name to him Honour him by accepting him as joyfully as he gives himself Then praise him most when you think you have least reason and baffle that ugly thing Unbelief by that Hope and Faith which is commended most by Jesus Christ when it seems most unreasonable to lowring faint-hearted and sick Flesh and Blood What Sickness so large as a trembling Ague Remember 2 Tim. 1. 6 7. c. 1657. To S. D. H. N o 28. ALthough the Ordinances are most gloriously powerful yet I find a bad time with my heart since I came hither but I expect some Lesson from God out of it The Old Man must be cut in pieces ere it will die it will not lift up one finger to destroy it self 't is only Foreign Aid that doth the work and how to leave all selfish Endeavours and by Faith to be yielded up to the in-working power of the Spirit of Christ there is the difficulty Faith receives all and doth nothing and yet the Travel of a Christian is called the Fight of Faith It fights in beholding the Salvation of God it fights in leaving every burthen on Christ yea it then conquers when it is able to subject the Consequence of Guilt and Endeavours of Renewing to the only Righteousness of Christ and the Vertue and Spirit of his Cross and Resurrection Faith is a strong Grace and free Grace a strange Mystery 'T is an Herb that grows where nothing else can grow it must be alone it abhors all manner of Aid that Flesh and Blood can give it undoes a poor Creature in a saving manner When a poor sinner gets liberty to be most sensibly vile and weak then Grace triumphs most Let your Travel be spent in this Enquiry and Subjection to Gospel-method that Jesus Christ may be all in every thing that you are concerned in c. 1657. To B. D. N o 29. I Find it very unwholsome to the Soul to give way to discouragement or faintness The Soul goes down the Wind apace when it says my hope is lost I shall one day fall by the hand of the Enemy Let perfect Resignment be your labour every day how difficult soever it seems to be God is able to make your Bow abide in strength though the Archers from the Enemies Camp may daily molest you In the Name of Christ beg the Father of Blessing to cause you to inherit Jacob's Blessing till at last you arrive upon the everlasting Hills Oh blessed be the God of the unchangeable Covenant and blessed be the Author and Finisher of our Faith I have an incessant Turmoil with my evil heart but am I trust marching towards Deliverance God has not as yet turned aside my Prayer nor his Mercy from me I am under his Discipline attending Judgment will be brought forth to Victory and Weakness unto Strength Light and Truth Let us not be contented with small degrees of the new Creature but thankful for the least and yet thirst day and night for more renewing Light and Transformation Remember you are a Soldier and shall be more than a Conqueror through him who loveth you
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
we could believe this and redeem our precious time to learn the Will of God and to be fashioned more to his Likeness under earthly fears or burthens As for Betties Recreation I would have her amongst other things learn to sing that she might use the glorious Ordinance of singing Psalms with the more delight I must as often as I can put you in mind and let us put one another in mind while we are in this World of Sin and Trouble that we labour constantly and earnestly to preserve the health of the inward Man Oh keep a spiritual Palate for right relishing spiritual Food and to be every day girding on us afresh the long Robe of Christ's Righteousness that we may be suitable to the state we are called to Communion with the Father himself and Jesus Christ 'T is a Garment that grows fresher and fresher to us by the wearing 'T is a Garment that will never sully but cleanseth the Soul that wears it 'T is defensive against cold fainty Fits and the best Armour that can be against the Rage of Sin and Satan 'T is a glorious Robe and yet it hath a singular Vertue to make the Soul that wears it humble The first Garment that the first Adam made did somewhat hide his Shame but could not remove his Guilt and Fear and therefore he ran with it from God But this Garment of the second Adam has the only Excellency to bring Souls to God yea to his very Throne with boldness He or she that wears this Robe carries Salvation about with them and are Objects of delight to the Father Son and Spirit and to the blessed Angels wherever they go and whatever their Condition here be and as Job's Friend said Job 5. 27. so may I that So it is hear it and know it for thy good I leave you to the Lord and rest c. 1659. To D. H. N o 42. THe Lord teach us his mind and loosen us from a present World and gather our hearts and hopes near to himself 'T is one of our invaluable Privileges that this is not our Rest God calls aloud Come up hither Christ is above holding the Covenant of Grace in his Right Hand and all his broken-hearted Mourners and Prisoners of Hope wrapped up in it as in a Mantle Dear Sister all things are safe because they are in the heart of Christ and I doubt not but Christ is yours Spare not to pray spare not to repent with grief and joy spare not to relie on the Rock of Ages 't is all but the work of a beloved Spouse towards a matchless Husband Your Work and Labour in the Lord cannot but be accepted Set your eyes towards the tops of the Mountains your Beloved hastens like a young Roe and will not be at rest till he has rescued home all his Redeemed the dearly beloved of his Soul amongst which number I am much assured your Name is entred such are the Riches of his Grace to such a wretched Sinner And seeing he is resolved to save at such a rate what Soul-Enemy shall say What dost thou 1659. To B. D. N o 43. AS for your own fears under which you wrestle it is not the having or wanting earthly Tranquility that is any proper Character of God's Love or Anger but the discovering mark of that lies chiefly in the way of our deportment under such Trials agreeable to the practice of the Saints recommended to us in the Scriptures by the Spirit of God For there is no Temptation can befall us which has not been for substance the Trial of them who have endured and overcome before us And you are required to remember their faith and patience and the issue God gave that you do not succumb or faint as if God had forsaken the Government of the World or changed the nature of the everlasting Covenant ordered in all things and sure I have been labouring to live upon the naked Promises of God in reference to my outward Concernments as if I were in the want of all things and do think if I could come at it it were a glorious Portion None but exercised Believers can tell truly why the Promises are called rich and precious and how much lies in that word RICH IN FAITH Jam. 2. 5. and what extensive Satisfaction and Glory lies in that word GOOD All things shall work together for good to them that love God You know these things c. As fears or outward disappointments abound fly still a higher pitch till you rejoyce in manifold Trials that God counts you worthy to be listed among them who could not be made happy by earthly things nor miserable in the want of all things whether Estate Friends Health Credit or any thing else whilst they could fly to a higher Rock The Lord direct you and make you lanch forth upon the Power and in the Wisdom and under the Shelter of the Lord Infinite and abundant is that Shelter Oh that you and I could with Luther sing over all our sins and fears be they what they will the 46th Psalm God is a refuge for us a present help in trouble Here is our comfort this World is not our Country a few days will call us hence The good Lord manage all your Work and open such a Window from Heaven that both you and I and all that seek the Lord may be throughly transformed to a hearty joy even in divers Temptations and know the reason through his Grace why the blessed Spirit did put that Clause into the holy Scriptures for our patience and solid Comfort Jam. 1. 2. We are changeable no Rest here and 't is well it is so that we might not relish any thing in this World so sweet as to tempt away our hearts from lovely Canaan and the desirable Fellowship of Christ face to face Oh the day yet hastens I trust in which we shall sing away Heart-melancholy for ever c. 1659. To B. D. N o 44. GOd is a strong Refuge and as you have found it you will yet find it the more you roll your self Family and Estate upon him He is one that can forgive Sin and give Christ and can he not then give all things with him He can take away a treacherous heart and make it new Access for your Prayer is always open and will not he take away an evil heart of Unbelief that the Soul and he may meet together Let us fear and hope reach forth and touch the Golden Scepter and live in his sight The Vision is true which Faith in the Word discovers Oh happy is the humble Believer for there shall be a performance of all things promised Though the Mountains be cast into the midst of the Seas God is a refuge for us Selah c. 1660. To D. H. N o 45. I Know it is your care and labour to carry on your Warfare wherever you are the end of all things is hastening upon us and we are hastening to it Let
continue at present in this place waiting the issue of things which the Lord direct and over-rule to the best In the midst of all these weighty Providences and rolling Waves 't is good to look well to our Anchor and to be securing the main Uncertain Peace uncertain created Comfort uncertain Life do require us to lean but gently upon such things and to grasp after an Inheritance a Life a Portion which fadeth not a Country where neither Sighs nor Groans nor Sins have any place If great Shakings cannot throughly awake 't is a sign the Drowziness is very great if not deadly 'T is good to be very busie when the Inch of Candle is near at an end The Lord teach us heartily to improve our present Minute and enter into the Ark before the Flood come c. 1660. To M. N. N o 51. I Having had some opportunity to discern the frame of your heart and the truth of your Thirst after Jesus Christ and Resignation up to him I thought fit while I was writing to other Friends at N. C. to present you also a Line or two 'T is but a little that one Friend can write to another but where there is a mutual Interest in the same Spirit there is a Freedom through that Communion to expatiate large and wide in one anothers joynt Concernments and to bear a sence of the various Travels of the inward Man and how it is exercised in you who are begotten of the same God and Father and nourished by the same Spirit in Jesus Christ And in this respect one Christian may in some measure read the Condition and Affairs of another in his own Experience though the manner of Trials may be different The most that I would say to you is this Labour to satisfie your heart against Guilt by the personal Righteousness and Worth of Christ which you are commanded to own and put on by believing as a Garment made and appointed of God for your wearing fixing your eye on his Appointment and not upon your Unsuitableness on his Grace and not at all on your own Worthiness unless it be to urge you towards him with the more speed and resolution This is a Lesson I am every day learning and I know no shelter like it The Improvement of the Covenant of Grace in this manner was to the Prophet David all his Salvation and all his desire This is the Shelter that will keep dry when the Floods come This will make a Soul out-face Terror and give an Answer to turmoiling Accusations This will make the Lame to leap as a Hart and the Dumb to sing when Woes do over-spread the Earth I recommend you to this Sanctuary c. 1661. To D. H. N o 52. I Perceive my Aunt hath had her Weakness returned upon her such is the Constitution of this Clayey Lump But what a wonder is it that a Treasure of Grace and eternal Life should ever dwell through all the days of our Sin Trouble and Vanity in such a Tabernacle and that the Spirit of Christ the Spirit of Grace Holiness and Glory should never cease striving in the midst of all that Opposition and course Entertainment on our part and never give over till our Sins be utterly and for ever extinguished and Mortality swallowed up of Life and so these vile Bodies and polluted Souls made conformable to our Redeemer and the eternal Companions of his Bosom Let us fix our eye there and we shall be always projecting for him and never discontented with our Travel though we rid but little Ground Let us prize him and love him and all his Rules and Orders himself in the first place and all the rest for his sake only And that makes our work our delight not our toil and vexation for there is no want of help either for Strength or Pardon or both He takes Sinners to himself that he may spend Intimacy of Good Will upon them and never lets them go quite out of his hands any more Oh how little do we know him How little do we remember that every Conviction we have had every Groan every desire of Soul after him was born first in his heart and given to us as the new Creatures Food to ripen it for Glory We breath towards him in the strength of his own Breath We may be yet much more winnowed but cannot be lost nor our Faith quite fail because he prays for us as never meer Man did His Prayers cannot but speed for the Will of the Father Son and Spirit is one Will for they are one God and that Will is nothing but good Will to us who hope in him and catch hold of his free Covenantgood-Will to Men. I have now lately News out of the North that my dear Brother D. is departed out of this World How should these things make us love to be trading for that Country where all our best Friends go and not think it much that this World yields so many sorrowful bits because God never appointed it for our abiding place but only that we may hear his Voice and be contracted to him while we are below in order to the consummating the Marriage above The Lord make us chearfully serious in the business of our day while it lasteth to prepare to lanch forth when our Lord shall call Blessed are they who watch c. 1661. To D. A. N o 53. WHat God speaks in his Word we may take for our comfort to carry us through the Myre till we land beyond Sin and Pain The Salvation of such poor Sinners as you and I was and is the delight of the blessed Trinity The Father did in his Grace and Love elect the Son delighted to come and do the Father's Will in Redeeming the Holy Spirit loves to apply it and therefore is called the Comforter the Angels rejoyce that good Will from God is come to Men. If God say you must go to the Top of the Mount and die set your face towards him who has died before you to bring you through Fly to the meer Grace and Love of the glorious God that has designed Pardon and Righteousness for poor Sinners for his own sake in the Person of his own Son If he say you must lanch forth roll upon the Rock of Ages alone The wearier you are of your Sins the more welcome to a Saviour The wearier you are of your pains and burthens the sweeter will be the Bosom of an indulgent Father when you arrive at your Father's House The whole Race of the Residue of the Redeemed are your Fellow-travellers The whole Trinity is on your side the Scriptures on your side the eternal Covenant of Grace on your side while you bow your head and lean only on your beloved Redeemer Look up to him and fear not your passage I leave you to the Arms of endless Care Counsel Comfort Strength and Pity c. 1661. To D. H. N o 54. OUr work in this World is only to follow
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
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
Peace and Comfort in the Fountain of Freedom and Goodness We find our comforts and expectations here little better than a Bed of Thorns because this is not the Rest that is designed for the People of God and 't will be some help to us under this disquieting exercise and condition to remember that while we are passing through we are held in the hand of him who has a fellow-feeling of our Case who did once pass through the difficulties and drank of the Brook in the way but now lifts up his head and so is become the Foundadation of our Hope that such poor Wretches as we are shall one day through saith and patience arrive where our Fore-runner is entred Only let us now cling upon him till we become transformed into his Likeness and be compleatly dressed with the white Robe of his Righteousness that in him and only in him we may be found without spot In the mean space let us pray and abound therein for our selves and one another to our gracious God who will at length perfect that which concerneth us To him I commend you c. 1668. To T. M. P. N o 91. I Put you both together in my Letter because I have understood that you are now no longer two but one I was very glad to hear that all your prudential Demurs had at last resolved themselves into a Consummation of this long intended Union My hearty desire for you both is that the Blessing and Guidance of the Lord may render your mutual Society a real and constant Comfort to each other and mutual advantage in reference to all Soul-Concernments There is no Condition in this World so desirable but is attended with Temptations and Trials and therefore 't is needful as you have given your selves to each other so also that you give up your selves particularly and joyntly as Yoke-fellows together unto the sweet Yoak and belessed Will of our Lord Jesus Christ One of the greatest Resemblances that we find in Scripture whereby the Love of Christ is set forth to Believers is this state of Marriage And whatever Content therefore you find in this changed Condition let it steer your thoughts to that glorious Mystery of Christ's espousing our Nature that we might become partakers of the Image of God in him and long for that appearing of his when the full solemnizing of the mystical Marriage betwixt Christ and his Church will come and the Union in all degrees be perfected I commend you to the good hand of the Lord c. 1668. To C. M. P. N o 92. THe Present is to acquaint you that my Cousin J. B. died Tuesday last and was this Evening buried God was pleased to order it so that I had notice of his sickness till after his death which was and is a great trouble to me but I understand Means were not wanting for his Recovery His Master much bewails the loss of so faithful a Servant He had as I understand some darkness upon his Spirit till a little before his death and then uttered as well as he could these words Eye hath not seen nor ear heard c. the things which God hath prepared for them that love him and so died almost immediately and has left a sweet savour behind him and a Warning for us his Friends that we make ready and be not found unprepared when the like Summons come unto us We see by daily experience that Life-time and Health is not in our own keeping and therefore are concerned to improve it well while it continues c. The gracious Presence of the Lord be with you c. 1668. To E. D. N o 93. SInce my former God has been pleased to draw a Cloud upon my poor Family Tuesday last little Tho. fell sick and on Wednesday Morning died and is this day to be buried a great and suddain stroak which doth almost overwhelm my dear Wife who goes up and down lamenting and often crying out that she has sinned away her sweet Babe into the Grave You may see in short how 't is with us at present I need not add more for I know what tender Love your self did bear to this sweet and heart-taking Infant Only I desire both you and my dear Sister and our Friends there to pray for us that this stroak may be blest to us all and that my desolate dear Wife may be guided through her present Confusion of Spirit to the only and right Refuge I delivered her your Letter which was very acceptable and therefore pray write her something again and I desire my Sister would do the same 'T is good to help in time of need Her heart is much broken and my Affliction not a little and I believe it is for some further good that God intends to us both a few Lines from you whom I know she doth dearly value will be very seasonable No Affliction is at present joyous but grievous but afterwards comes the sweet and wholsome Fruit and this is the Portion of them who take hold of the full and sure Covenant and the crucified risen Christ who dies no more There is nothing will so wean Affections hence and from the mischief of Creature-love as the Study of Christ viewing him in the Gospel pondering his excellent Person and his glorious Mediatory Office for us and so pitch the Affections on him to be inflamed with his Love in our own Propriety in him And therefore not only with the Bowels of an Earthly Father but in the Bowels of Jesus Christ I intreat and in his Name do charge you to study and muse day and night the unmeasurable endless Love of God who sent his Son the infinite unwearied and endless Love of Christ who came died rose again and lives for ever to be your only Portion and to make you even you a delightful Portion to him and to render you through the Blood of Sprinkling and the Communion and Influence of that one Spirit of the Father and Son an Object of his Delight and a Monument of his pardoning Grace and his purifying Vertue to all Eternity To him I commend you 1668. To E. D. N o 94. BOth my self and my Wife are very sensible of this sore Storm with which the Lord is pleased to exercise your faith and patience at this time But Christ is in the Vessel and therefore you cannot perish in the Fire and in the Water in every cold and hot fit he is with you and has a tender sense of every jot of your pain and sickness t is a Father's Chastisement and Trial and all his aim is to purifie and fit you for an Object of his eternal delight I know his everlasting Arms are under you and though the Dispensation be dark yet he is doing you good with all his heart according to his Covenant and with all his Soul He enclined your heart of his own Grace to chuse him because he chose you first and will yet chuse you in the Furnace
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