especially in the Reigns of those Ten bloody Emperors known commonly by the name of the Ten Persecutions As the former was against profession of the Name of God under the Old-Testament so this was against the profession of the Name of Christ under the New A Third time to which by way of eminency the Tortures of the Lords people is appropriated is the time of the Reign and especially towards the Ruine of Antichrist described in Rev. 13. in its distinct Powers under the first and second Beast beginning short upon the Empires professing the Name of Christ carrying threatnings and slaughters against the true Witnesses of the Spirit Life of Christ though pretending to the Name of him and this not only during the 1260 dayes or years assigned him but principally at the end thereof when for a short space Power must be given him to slay those Witnesses with such a slaughter as carrieth its manifest distinction from the Sufferings to which they are lyable during their prophesying in Sackcloth and his bloody Reign not far from which finishing Rage which is but a short time the general Consent of most that search into the times and what Israel ought to do agreeth that we are by the wise hand of our Father cast the Word and Works Prophecies and Providences of God helping much to make up such a Judgment though in several particulars about it there is variety in the understandings of the most serious enquirers My apprehension and expectation hereupon is that we are near upon the borders of if we have not already made some entrance on an hour of sore temptation which will try all them that professing an interest in heaven do dwell upon earth in which it will be found of great moment that we stand girt about with the whole Armour of Righteousness upon the right hand on the left especially holding fast this shield of Faith whereby though in the Ages past some were tortured yet they were more then Conquerors they over-come by the blood of the Lamb c. Our Second Enquiry in opening the Observation was Whence comes it to pass that such a people as the Lords people are at least wise ought to be are nevertheless exposed to such torments they who are the blessing to the whole Creation simple concerning evil willing to live honestly following peace with all men as much as it is possible sent forth as sheep in the midst of wolves blameless and harmless as the sons of God without rebuke professing and striving to answer this principle yet are hated cast out persecuted as the filth of the World the troublers of Israel them that turn the world up-side down whence cometh this to pass That no torture can be heavy enough no death hard enough for them 1. That which gives life and fierceness to all these Enmities and Tortures which spring from them is the beastly Nature and Lust of poor fallen man that bears the Image of the Devil herein having this Character Hateful and hating one another living in malice and envy Tit. 3.3 serving divers lusts and pleasures Hence wicked men and they that have no Faith are called unreasonable men 2 Thess 3.2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men that cannot be reduced to any proper place Beasts after the manner of men 1 Cor. 15.32 Bruits hurried with humour or sense contrary to reason as natural wilde Beasts made to be taken and destroyed 2 Pet. 2.12 How frequently are they likened by the Spirit to Lions Psal 57.4 Wolves of the evening Zeph. 3.3 and other Beasts of prey signifying the miserable plight sin hath cast poor man into If Jacobs own sons having partook of his education deserved this Character Cursed be their Wroth for it was fierce and their Rage for it was cruel How much less is to be expected from others that have no bridle on them if their lust be crossed if their wickedness be witnessed against as it is by the holy Conversation of testifying Saints Who can stand before envy the Ambition of one Haman will run down a whole Nation the fear and anger of one Herod will devour all the Children in Bethelem 2. There is a set and stated Enmity put and placed between these two Seeds the Seed of the Woman and the Seed of the Serpent Gen. 3.15 upon which a War is founded in a way that can admit of no reconciliation for what agreement can there be betwixt Light and Darkness 1 Cor. 6.14 15 16. Hence the Lord takes notice that the bottom of that perpetual discord by which the Philistines dealt with Israel by revenge and took vengeance with a dispightful heart to destroy it was the old hatred Ezek. 23.15 an hatred that was as old as the old Serpent the Devil who was a murderer from the beginuing Hence 1 Joh. 3.12 Cain is said to slay his Brother he was of that wicked-one and the occasion of the quarrel was his own Works were evil and the others righteous This Root Christ reduceth that wrath unto that was exercised against him John 8.44 Ye are of your Father the Devil and the works of your Father ye will do he was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth And as it was in Abrahams Family He that was born after the Flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit So it was in Paul's dayes Gal. 4.29 So it is now and so it will be till the God of Peace tread Satan under our feet which will be shortly Rom. 16.20 till that old Serpent which is the Devil and Satan be bound and cast into the bottomless pit Rev. 20. beginning 3. There is an exasperation and aggravation added to this old hatred frequently when there is added a blind Superstitious Devotion and Zeal When this old hatred can get the covert and pretext of a Zeal for God it growes hereby exceeding fierce when Paul was acted on a principle of self-righteousness out of zeal he persecuted the Church Phil. 3.7 and you see to what height it grew he thought he ought to do any thing contrary to the Name of Christ shut them up in prison voted their death punished them compelled them to blaspheme and being exceeding mad against them persecuted them even to strange Cities Acts 26.9 10 11. breathed out threatnings and slaughters against them chap. 9.1 Of this time Christ foretells and forwarns his Disciples The time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doth God service Joh. 16.2 They who think it promotes divine service to persecute Saints being zealous of a traditional Worship of their Fathers will be very cruel in their undertakings Hence is the Spirit so express that in the latter dayes perilous or fierce times shall come for men shall have among other ingredients to their maglignity a form of Godliness but denying the power thereof 2 Tim. 3.1 to 4. This when it comes to be the guise of Persecutors will make of it fierce times When Simeon and Levi had
to keep you in perfect peace Now to him that after you have suffered a while is of all power to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of his Glory with exceeding joy to the only wise God our Saviour be Glory and Majesty Dominion and Power now and ever Amen 7th 3d month 60. Upon the death of some whom he honoured to two of his Acquaintance then fellow-Prisoners The Lord send you help from his Sanctuary and strengthen you out of Sion Greatly Beloved I Salute you both as is meet in the Lord. These two last Posts I have not written any Letter to you partly for that I have been out of Town some little journies but principally having been much under the surprize that those were Job 2. ult The voice indeed is loud and as if seven Thunders had at once uttered their voices the terribleness of it makes many shrink as Eliah into his den When Oh when shall we hear the still soft Voice and as men of understanding see his Name We may well cry out he hath shewn us hard things and given us to drink the Wine of astonishment which falls the heavier in that such who have obtained favour to lay nearest to heart the concernments of Sion and to be therein aided with greatest boldness and sweetest intimacy near to the heart of Christ and have had their Affections enflamed most with what they have sought and seemed to themselves and others to have been of those bosom intimates that know all that their Friend doth and have hereupon spoken openly and without clouds or reservations their confidence of things that have appeared in the issue to be mistakes how some of them bear it I do not well know but sure I am the hand is very sorely turned upon the little ones that believe in Christ great is their astonishment like that Isa 51.17 to the end I have often thought of them Acts 21.4 Who said to Paul by the Spirit that he should not go up to Jerusalem How like the language of our spirits heightned by fervent affection and attended with providential bringing to remembrance of sutable Scriptures and all this on a soul enjoying clear access to the Lord is to the voice of the spirit in truth as he fulfils that Promise He shall take of mine and shew it unto you and shall shew you things to come And if it may please the Father after he hath graciously allayed the storminess of these perplexing waves that at present doubtless discompose for any thing to lead his holy ones into a more perfect discerning of things which in this kind do differ and in mean time instruct to think more soberly of themselves and judge more tenderly of others I shall yet hope this sharp dispensation may bring out meat and sweetness that we thought not of As for the poor Martyrs themselves when I review what was of late said of their particular perswasions and how when their departure was hid from them they enjoyed such un-interrupted joyful communion with the Lord I cannot but admire the wisdom and goodness of the Father that took that course with them to anoint them for their burial but alas they had no burial But much more grace to admiration appears to me in it that when their perswasions and expectations from the Lord in that point gave way to his determinations yet that at that very time the Tempter should be bound up who doubtless desired to have them that he might have winnowed them as Wheat and would have made a great market of the least discouragement upon them over the whole Antichristian World Oh! how unsearchable are his wayes and his works past finding out The deadly Treacle that you speak of will doubtless swiftly become a Cup of trembling to this wretched generation and entayl the guilt of all down along from Abel c. A very strange efficacy that it hath to cry and to prevail at length though it tarry long first That Abels was not answered and expiated in the Flood that destroyed the World of the ungodly nor that of Zacharias if it was his who said The Lord look upon it and require it 2 Chron. 24.22 But they both must cry against that generation that put to death the Lord of Life and neither of these cryes expire at the ruines of them and their devastation to this day but shall be found as fresh in out-cry against that great City where also our Lord is crucified Rev. 18.24 And though it 's hard to discern yet great is the pravalency of those cryes of Saints that night and day follow the Lord herein though he not only tarry long but even seem to be angry with the Prayers of his People that word hath sweetly stayed me in this hour of temptation Thou tellest my wandrings put my tears in thy bottle are they not written in a Book by thee If their wanderings staggerings be tenderly numbered and their tears bottled and their grouns booked and all this by thee a Book of remembrance before the Lord We need not be so sollicitous what becomes of them though they are above out of our sight doubtless when it comes to much Incense in the Angels hand the Censor will be cast into the Earth Rev. 8.3 4 5. Rests Yours in tears 24. 8. month 60. Unto one who had acquainted him with the departing of some from their holy Professions The early visits of the bright and morning Star be a light in your dark place till the day dawn and the shadows flee away Beloved in and of the Lord SInce my last I have received yours wherein you were pleased to remember and send such a rich Token to your poor Friend whom you are pleased to describe by that merry title of your Father who blesseth God for grace and support ministred by tracking the footsteps of the Father of Spirits in those paths of peace and pleasantness wherein he pleaseth to lead you and others of his suffering ones so contrary to the methods and expectation of men whose breath are in their nostrils Job 22.29 Psal 41.8 12 13. unto which I account it no diversion that he is pleased as your last intimates to keep you in an humble sense of the shortness of self-sufficiency for bearing you up against the hour of temptation the very fear whereof hath already cast down so many stars from their excellency on whom this inscription is manifestly engraven as a caution to us though a by-word to scorners Lo this is the man that made not God his confidence Over whom as I have little ground to glory 1 Cor. 10.12 Rom. 11.18 20. so neither is there just occasion to be greatly offended Isa 2.22 2 Tim. 4.16 17 18. Joh. 6.66 67. chap. 16.13 32. Although I find it somewhat difficult to draw the memorial of their slips into a gracious perpetual remembrance without some mixtures either of wrath or doubting I confess it makes me many times tremble to think
of the relation wherein the Lord hath placed me in his House wherein you and others look on me and expect much from me as yours intimates who am so unsutable to a door-keeper there lest while much weight depends on such a worm that Word be fully and justly verified Isa 22.25 and so of being reared up a Monument for a living end as was his Pillar 2 Sam. 18.18 I prove but an heap of Infamy vers 17. But over against these faintings when they have ran in as a flood I have hitherto found the Spirit of the Lord lifting up a Standard and displaying a Banner in his Fear by which a seasonable rescue hath been offered in a time of need And that by keeping me upon and now and than succeeding me in some measure in this Three-fold work which I doubt not but you have arrived to a good degree and great boldness in the Faith of First That I do not satisfie my self in any ordinary and slight Evidences of an Interest in eternal Love but press toward that full Assurance of Faith founded on the New-Covenant and universally influential on the New-Creature I speak not as if I had attained much but this is with me by the Grace of Christ my soul is so much the more engaged to press after the riches of full assurance of understanding a fellowship in the mystery of God the Father and of Christ as I see the dayes are evil the glimmerings whereof in that degree the Father sees good to intrust me withal have been an unspeakable stay to me against the fears of what man can do unto me and through your Prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus I hope will continue so to be unto the end the powers whereof both to peace against the fears of this day Rom. 8.31 to the end and to purging against the filth of it 2 Tim. 2.19 1 Joh. 3.3 I need not insist to shew you who your selves are taught it of God Job 36.22 2dly Another main work which I find of great necessity and advantage is the setting up in my soul the dominion of the Cross of Christ in a daily mortification through spiritual aid and arguments of the affections and lusts of the Flesh to every thing that may or must suffer loss in the expected fiery tryal whether it be either corruptible things as Silver and Gold any under-Christ enjoyments or corrupted corrupting things as is all the filthiness both of the Flesh and of the Spirit The entanglements of one or other of these is the snare which so easily besets most of those who in this day are contriving how much Truth they may possibly sell or at least expel for peace who seldome treat upon these terms but Satan makes his market on them we are not ignorant of his devices To be therefore mortified by time to thâ—se things is a very great part of our best Interest not only that in this sense our sins go aforehand to judgement that we may not be judged in them and for them with the World when the Lord comes out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the Earth and ariseth terribly to shake it but also that our pleasant pictures costly coverings and all our detectable things may be so crucified to us and we to them in the love of them that it may be no hard thing when the Lord calls for them to glorifie him to say to them Get ye hence What profit is there in my Blood If the Lord his Name Cause Testimony hath need of it what is that between us and him 3dly I also am brought into an experimental observation how much of moment is the spirit of a sound mind to have real substantial and digested principles and to be in union with them concerning that Cause for which we are at the point to be throughly tryed Whether that part of it that concerneth Worship or otherwise to have our Faith in such a day as this to be only founded in the wisdom of man our own or others short of the power of God to build another man's foundation or boast in another man's line of things made ready to our hand at a time when every man's work must be tryed and every man must bear his own burden and give such an accompt as this is of himself to God though the structure seem never so stately and to be founded on the highest resolution yet will that doom and out-cry sooner or latter attend it as did his Ax 2 Kings 6. And indeed as you observe backslidings at this time of day are very rarely and hardly repaired though I trust some will ere the door be shut Mat. 25.8 9 10. To have therefore our rejoycings in our selves and not in another Prov. 5.17 Gal. 6.4 is our great Interest That it may be your sweet portion is the prayer of him who being unexpectedly interrupted having nothing of moment to impart as tydings Rests Yours as ever To a Friend long kept close Prisoner under hard Circumstances and greater threatnings Everlasting joy upon your head while sorrow and sighing flee away Beloved and honoured by and for the Lord THis morning having obtained that mercy from the Lord of reading a Character of your heart drawn by your own hand wherewithal I and others were not a little refreshed and a safe hand presenting for the conveyance of this to you which I hope may reach you I thought my self providentially called and concerned to give you a testimony of my joy in the Grace of Christ which is engaged hitherto to uphold you with everlasting arms that neiâ—her the strength nor length of your Suffering is such to you as is accompted otherwise by you than â—ight and but for a moment being laid on the ballance with the Glory that is ready to be revealed in us In this way of reckoning while our eye is kept on invisible and eternal weights of Glory realizing and impropriating them Crowns of thorns are more easie and less dishonourable than at a distance they seem to be or than we sense and apprehend them while we are reasoning after the flesh Weights indeed they have and are and such as make the oppressed many times to groan earnestly none for the present being joyous but grievous and are tenderly thought upon by him who in all their afflictions is afflicted the Angel of whose presence also is with them but we know the End of the Lord and his Rest shall be glorious when his indignation ceaseth in their destruction but he rests in his Love and there also shall make the weary to rest I judge my self some-way rebuked from above and untaught what and how to pray as I ought if in any prayer of mine I forget the Sons of your noble Order and especially in seeking what you desire namely that you through the greatness of Faith may enter into rest and at this time of day while he hath taken business out of your hand he may the more abundantly
Words in Season From that late Worthy Sufferer and Servant of the Lord Jesus an able Minister of the New-Testament according to that Character 2 Cor. 6.4 5 c. Mr. Abraham Cheare VIZ. I. Faith's Conquest over the Tortures and Tenders of an Hour of Temptation on Heb. 11.35 II. The Embalming of a Dead Cause on Mark 14.8 III. Remarkable Discourses on his Dying-Bed with Copies and Extracts of Letters on several occasions Useful for those whose Hearts are engaged to serve the Will of God in this Generation London Printed for Nathan Brookes in Bartholomew-Close 1668. The Publisher to the READER I Doubt not but the following Discourses carry so much evidence of Truth and Holiness as will sufficiently commend them to the Hearts and Consciences of the upright as proceeding from one who believed and therefore spake delivered what he received as a Scribe instructed unto the Kingdom of Heaven the Fear of the Lord being evidently his treasure wherein he walked all the day long and by which he was enabled to bear those hard things which a constant Spirit in keeping the Commandments of God and Faith of Jesus holding fast the Word and Works of God drew upon him bringing him into fellowship with tryals and sufferings upon the Wayes Truths Interest and People of the Lord in this Generation It may highly concern the living to lay to heart the removal of Prophets and holy Ones true mourners that sought to stand in the Gap to turn away wrath that it might not come to the utmost I am sure it hath a sad aspect when even a Professing but too much complying People stand as on the other side or at a distance from those who earnestly contend for the Faith holding fast what they have received and are far from right laying to heart That through the hatred of the world righteous men perish and merciful men are taken away I doubt not but there remains a remnant whose minds by such providences are deeply impressed well-nigh to over-whelming further than help is given and the hand stretched forth to lead to the Rock that is higher than we when in all parts and corners the beauty and glory is cutting off as a fading-flower and how hard is it to speak and do as becometh under such astonishing stroaks and with him Ezek. 24.18 to hold on doing as the Lord Commands I am perswaded that sigh often goes up Ezek. 11.13 with Amos 7.5 O Lord cease I beseech thee by whom shall Jacob arise for he is small The reviving and desired issues of that work falling under great distrusts even with those that are the Friends thereof when if I may allude to it Luke 24.19 c those who are as Prophets mighty in deed and word before God and all the People Instruments polished to carry it on to an expected end are cut off and laying aside daily so hard is it for us to understand that thus it ought to be that so the excellency of the power may be acknowledged to be of God and not of men that all may see his Work is perfect his Word is tryed with whom is no restraint for he sendeth by whom he will the residue of the Spirit being with him who will in due time raise up and furnish Instruments for every service and if at this time men think that by cutting off and wearing out Saints and faithful Ones their nest is set on high they shall be delivered from the power of evil none remaining to cry out of their violence and spoyl to detect the unrighteousness of their wayes and doings the very stone shall cry out of the Wall and the beam out of the Timber shall witness against them I humbly pray and wish that the cast-out scattered peeled people in whose heart is the Fear of the Lord under all amusing dispensations may yet increase in the Faith that stands in the Power of God and is of the operation of his Spirit in the exercise thereof which judgeth not after appearances they may understand all these deaths passing over persons and things but needful and preparatory for the Glory that is to follow when their filth and defilements by the Spirit of Judgment and by the Spirit of Burning shall be put away the slow progress of which work with the discovery made of so great a defection from professed Light and Principles ought greatly to be laid to heart how many by reason thereof turn from the Truth and are confirmed in Athiesm even by the deceitful working of those who in the failure of outward advantages and exposal to necessities bonds and death set themselves at such a distance from the works of God our eyes have seen the begining of fulfilling Prophesies Threatnings and Promises to the last dayes as if either there was no Holiness or Righteousness in them or that they were unacquainted with the inward Life and Spirit of them so deeply hath corruption the spirit of the world mingled it self with those who not long since in greatest seeming Light and Zeal professed to seek after a better state of things Even looking for and hastning to the new Heavens and new Earth wherein dwells Righteousness but the Works of God being forgotten no wonder his Word is so little believed or his counsel waited for It was a worthy Expostulation but a few years since before some then in the exercise of Authority of one who I fear hath out-lived the force of it which though large hoping it may be of use I take leave here to transcribe If you will be able to steer your Course a-right if you would take one streight step have in a readiness an acquaintance with the work of God what it is that he aims at by which you may be guided in all your undertakings Suppose now a man or men should come and ask of you What God hath done in these Nations What he hath wrought and effected What is brought forth Have you an answer in readiness Certainly God hath done so much as that he expects you should be able to give an account of it take heed that every one of you be not ready to speak the disquietments of your own Spirits and so cast contempt on the Work of God something else is required of you I have sometimes in darkness and under temptations my self begun to think that what hath been is the thing that is and there is no new thing under the Sun as it hath been among the Heathen of old so it hath been amongst us or as it was with Israel 1 King 16.21 22. Then were the people of Israel divided into two parts half of the people followed Tibni the son of Ginath to make him King and half followed Omri but the people that followed Omri prevailed against the people that followed Tibni the son of Ginath so Tibni died and Omri reigned That a common thing and frequent in the World had befaln us wherein God had no hand but that of common Providence in dashing
harm to bring him down from his excellency But he still stands on ground and fights with instruments that are invisible and invincible such Births the Red Dragon watcheth to devour casts his floods after raiseth war against upon this foot of account They keep the Commandments of God and the Faith of Jesus Upon this foundation also he exasperates all his crew acted by the spirit of this world who are enforced to gnaw their tongues for pain that in all their on-sets from generation to generation they could never come at nor quell that spring and root of action and suffering whereby they have been so perpetually baffled and all their costly and promising attempts been brought to nought Hence all their consultations and endeavours resolve themselves into this issue To rid the world of them who by a constant steady testimony of their drawing vertue as Olive-trees from the God of the whole earth being here in torments to them that dwell upon the earth 2. We may consider Faith in its Profession or the Profession of our Faith that is to say not only as it inwardly unites a soul to Christ whereby he draws forth consolations and aids to do so wonderfully on Gods behalf But also as it engages a believer to stand forth in the face of the World to testifie against it that its deeds are evil bearing witness to the Holiness and Faithfulness of God in opposition to the stream of the lusts of men Thus it contracts rage to the utmost Joh. 7.7 Me it hateth because I testifie of it that the works thereof are evil When the whole demeanour of a Christian both in point of Worship and Conversation is kept on so as not to be tempted to fall down before the Idolatry on one hand or fall in with the debauchery on the other which is proposed under Countenance or imposed by Law The world cannot bear the words of such a people Amos 7.10 c. Can the abomination of a people be offered up before their eyes and will not that Nation stone them Exod. 8.26 In this matter the Disciple is not priviledged above his Lord Joh. 15.18 19. The world will hate such a people as it hated him for witnessing against their ignorance and superstition Ye worship ye know not what we know what we worship Joh. 4.22 Ye are too superstitious whom ye ignorantly worship him we declare to you Acts 17.22 23. This is enough to get the world in an uproar This is said above Rev. 11.10 to torment them that dwell on the earth these two Prophets that have no other weapons but the Blood of the Lamb and the Word of their Testimony the Testimony of Jesus which is the Spirit of Prophecy and in this Message and under this Anointing witnessing though in sack-cloth against the evils that are in the world through lust lighting them as Gods Candlesticks the way to heaven this torments men of earth No wonder then that they torment you why your conversations testimony profession of your Faith torments them Christ came not to send peace in the earth but a sword Mat. 10.34 but a fire and what if it be already kindled Luke 12.49 Is Christ delighted with such contention nothing less But these are the consequences of the lusts of men irritated occasionally by the faithful rebukes of the Gospel of Christ and a practical profession of the Faith thereof in such as embrace and obey it A word or two of Practical Improvement and I shall leave this Point Use 1. If Faith both in the Possession and Profession of it be apt to draw the rage of the world in the extremity of it upon you this speaks the reasonableness of this Exhortation that you give diligence to it that the Faith any of you profess be Faith unfeigned 2 Tim. 1.5 Since I say Oh ye professed Believers your Faith in God and faithfulness to God is that which you must expect will enrage the world against you I beseech you satisfie not your selves with any Faith short of such as will carry all the world in a way of victory before it I have thought that at this day there is no man so miserable as a professor of Faith which is not right and real he will contract the worlds rage anger and displeasure because he professeth some Faith and he incurrs the Lords anger and displeasure because he but professeth because he hath not true Faith Faith unfeigned Interest in former dayes led some to profess at an high rate and their credit engageth them now not to fetch their turns too short upon it but the worlds rage chargeth them so hot in the rear that they cannot hold it but are forced in by open Apostacy to dash themselves against the thick Bosses of his Buckler Use 2. As it concerns you that your Faith be unfeigned so the like reason and necessity ariseth from the Promises that your Faith be unmixed in your present contest with the world that is that they may have nothing to charge you with but your single Faith and such things as are the proper off-spring of it and of faithfulness to God upon it It was the admirable advantage Daniel had against the greatest Council that day in the world Dan. 6.4 5. They could find no occasion against him forasmuch as he was faithful unless they could find it against him in the Law of his God The like had David against the envious and evil eye of Saul that God was with him and helped him in all his affairs wisely and faithfully 1 Sam. 18.12 14 15 28 29 30. There was no occasion administred to them that sought occasion The contrary whereunto is very detrimental to you when they that pursue you have ground for that charge Jer. 50.7 We offend not because they have sinned against the Lord the habitation of Justice even God the hope of their Fathers See the Spirits strict caution against this 1 Pet. 2.20 What Glory is it if when ye are buffeted for your faults you take it patiently see ch 4.15 Oh it will be your blessedness that they who pursue you though they will not do it perhaps without a colour yet they may do it without a cause may have nought to charge you with than that which when their vizor of Rhetorical eloquence and invective malice is stript from it resolves its self in a sober gracious eye into this it is for their being true to Jesus Christ their Faith in him their subjection to him their adhering to his Cause Name Works Institutions Such a bottom will render you at length more than a Conqueror Use 3. Take heed how you admit a Parley with those Reasonings which tend to prejudice you against believing to make you think hardly at least to think slightly of Faith in that it involveth you in so many dangers and perplexities Satan lies at a Bay to possess you with offence especially in such dayes as this Christ tells you These things have I spoken that you
to it Psal 74.22 Arise O God plead thy own Cause This also will beget a dread on the soul how it gives way to any temptation to betray it This Truth this Profession however men call it little however it may â—eem I may be saved without it it s no point of Salvation yet it being Christ's more than mine though committed to my trust to deny it is to deny Christ and to betray it is to betray Christ â—nd though as the common cry is none ever sufâ—ered upon such a point none in the past generation ran the adventure of tortures on such an assertion yet the soul by believing being brought to see Christs interest in it and relation to it and that perhaps this is the day designed to bring forth a proof to the goodness and worth of it a soul becomes not only engaged but inseperably united and impregnably set for the defence of it 3. Faith hath a further work to do in point of evidence and thereby administers abundance of strength to a weak Christian to endure any tortures for the Lords sake and that is gives evidence of the real nothingness that there is in whatsoever the adversary is able to do in point of torment if the matter be indeed laid upon a right ballance and held with an impartial and steady hand and that in these Three respects 1. Faith is called into Counsel in the exclusion of the reasonings of flesh and blood it manifests abundance of winde and emptiness in all the threatnings of the sons of men what they say of this kind are but great swelling words of vanity an empty sound of little affrighting signification Knowest thou not saith Pilate that I have power to crucifie thee and power to release thee He would willingly have had his majesty and threatnings very terrible but what is Christ's answer Thou couldest have no power except it were given thee from above The power the Devil himself hath though he be the Prince of the Air cannot get over an hedge without special Commission Thou hasâ— saith he concerning Job made an hedge about him Hence it is that when their threatnings and preparations have been to heat the Furnace seven times hotter they feared not the wrath of the King as seeing him that is invisible Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us able to divert that fiery threatning and if he will not do so yet able to bring us out again These threatnings encrease the cry for boldness 2. Faith helps the soul to see that all their profers and tenders of deliverance of honour of preferment or whatever else such poor worms can mention is as meer a vapour as the other When Satan made the tender to Christ All this will I give thee all this power saith he will I give thee and the glory of them for that is delivered unto me and to whomsoever I will give it if therefore thou wilt fall down before me all shall be thine Luke 4.6 7. Our reason would have accepted it Christ hath the promise of the World only Satan hath the possession of it and must be expulsed by main force now at this juncture one bow will do it and were it not better vail once than from generation to generation be in a continual contest for it and his seed exposed to such tortures to obtain and maintain the ground that is thus gradually gotten No Jesus will not value all the supremacy the Devil could surrender in the World worth one bow to obtain it Get thee behind â—e Satan vers 8. 3. Faith in like manner makes evident that all â—he terms articles and proposals of adversaries â—hat seem very little and innocent upon which â—heir tortures are to be escaped and their favours â—btained are very dangerous things a bow or cringe â—t a distance may seem a small matter for the â—btaining such advantage but Christ sees it too great to give to Satan for the gaining the glory of earth or heaven either A bow to the golden Image from the three Worthies seems a small thing to reason but it s too hard to the reasoning of Faith A bow to Haman from Mordecai in the gate is a small matter in an eye of wisdom and prudence but to Faith it may not be yielded Daniels retirement to mental devotions seems but rational but if that be the only terms of deliverance in the omission of positive instituted Worship Faith sayes the articles are too hard to be accepted of But of this more hereafter 2. But as Faith yields succour by such a way of evidencing to the understanding and judgement things that are obscure the clearing up of which have such a direct tendency to beget courage So in thâ— Second place doth Faith greatly aid by ministring Influence and thereby bringing power and vertue with it in furthering divers blessed properties and qualities in the soul wherewith it receives ability to do and to bear wonderful and insupportable things when the Lord calls thereunto As for instance in a few Particulars 1. Faith contributes toward this support by way of influence in that Faith brings with it as its first born fruit Peace passing all understanding Rom. 5.1 It draws all the tumultuating thoughts of a poor creature into such a calm and composure thaâ— though the outward man decay yet the inner man is renewed day by day 2 Cor. 4.16 Though the bones be broken pain and tortures come on yet the inner man retains its sweetness quietness serenity and undisturbedness and when thus the mind is quiet the man is invincible Of the office of Faith as it works Peace I do not now intend to treat the Scripture is full of it Rom. 5.1 Isa 26.3 Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is staid on thee because he trusteth in thee Through this mind-surpassing peace the heart and thoughts are kept in Christ Jesus Where this glorious work is done it is not the extending the external parts of a poor man that can intermedle with his joy This joy of the Lord is his strength he can glorifie the Lord in the fires exercise all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness giving thanks to the Father There is indeed in the world sometimes to be seen among carnal men a certain greatness of spirit whereby they do pass through tortures to the shame of many who profess better principles but alas this is little better than a meer stupifaction of their senses it besots them is as the vinegar and gall they were wont to give to men on the Cross to deaden their senses to their pain The spirit of this world doth so wrap up their thoughts that they are as if they had took that sleeping drink mentioned Prov. 31.7 Drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more This is rather an imprisoning than a calming of their spirits they have nor â—heir senses exercised to discern betwixt good and â—vil but rather benummed Whereas this Peace of â—hich I
am treating as Christ saith in patience â—ossesseth the soul A man is said to possess his soul when he hath the command and disposal of all his â—houghts and faculties according to the best reason This in the case in hand is only the off-spring of â—xed Faith and admirably advantagious in sustainâ—ng torments 2. Faith contributes influentially not only as it begets peace but also as it brings the soul up to a certain resignedness unto God to a willingness to be â—t Gods dispose here am I let him do with me what seemeth good in his sight That which makes torments to be tortures indeed is when the members draw one way and the mind another but when the soul comes to be fully yielded up to divine pleasure this makes tortures become no tortures or at least to become less tortures You see this eminently set forth in the Captain of our Salvation himself while he was crucifying in weakness and tempted as are we while the humane nature would have made choise of that request Father save me from this hour Joh. 12.27 then was his Soul troubled all was dark and intollerable But when he fixeth in that resignedness For this cause came I to this hour Father glorifie thy Name then are there not only Oracles of approbation giving aid from the most excellent Glory but the Baptism he hath before him how is he pained ere it be accomplished And so in the very offering its self we see how his resignation expedited his tortures he was dead sooner than the rest for when the Souldiers came to break the bones of the thieves they brake not his bones why because he was dead already How so Why he said It was finished bowed his head gave up the Ghost and said Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit Luke 23.46 Whereas the others abode in a contest till the last gasp 'twixt spirit and members loth to part much work left undone had no certainty one at least of rest for his soul This makes sore conflicts in times of torment whereas on the contrary how sweet is that yielding up all to God mentioned Isa 50.5 6. I was not rebellious neither turned away back but gave my back to the smiters c. So chap. 53.7 He opened not his mouth but is brought as a Lamb to the slaughter c. This subduedness to the will of God by the dominion of Faith then is of exceeding moment to strengthen us to the induring these torments 3. Faith doth influence the soul to bear torments notably by bringing and encreasing a certain greatness and nobility a largness and publickness of spirit on it more than formerly Shall such a man as I flee Neh. 6.11 It begets a largeness of heart in some degree answering that of Solomon 1 Kings 4.24 unto which a base shrinking is exceeding contrary and loathsome especially considering by and for whom and to the interest of whose Name it is engaged It s marvelous to consider what many have endured to gratifie the lust of a great man 2 Sam. 2.14 15 16. to provide for their families to assert the liberties of their Country and the like and is not the will pleasure honour of Jesus Christ of far greater moment to be witnessed unto to the highest It was a gallant spirit in Joab which encouraged the people 2 Sam. 10.12 Be of good courage let us play the men for our people and for the Cities of our God and the Lord do that which seemeth him good The like reasonings will Faith suggest to beget resolutions I have now an opportunity which I may never have again to play the man the Christian the Believer for my God my Christ for his Gospel his Institutions his Cause and Interest What can be too hot or heavy to be done or suffered upon this accompt 4. Faith influenceth notably in this matter by giving the soul a prospect into and a fore-taste of that better Resurrection realizing and rendring substantial the promised Glory thereof unto it It 's remarked of our Lord that for the joy that was set before him he indured the Cross and despised the shame Heb. 12.2 Moses when he was threatned indured as seeing him that is invisible and having his eye to the recompence of reward chap. 11.26 27. They took joyfully the spoiling of their Goods who know in themselves they have in Heaven a better and more induring substance chap. 10.34 Stephen looking stedfastly into Heaven was not dismayed at the frowns threats tortures of his fierce adversaries Acts 7.55 56. I shall only draw this into an Applicatory Improvement briefly and pass along upon the whole of what hath been said to this Head Use You are with a very loud voice men and Brethren exhorted and beseeched to give all diligence to the Concernments of your Faith Above all your gettings covet a true lively Gospel-faith above all your keepings strive to hold fast and contend earnestly for this Faith If ever there were dayes that called loud for the Life of the Faith of the Son of God these dayes call for it I had fainted saith the Psalmist unless I bad believed And truly you will be apt to faint in the day of adversity as if your strength were small where your Faith is not good Take heed therefore of all things that may either adulterate it from its simplicity or stop and obstruct it from its growth God hath begun to exercise your souls and to prove your profession in a way of tryals its true you have not yet resisted unto blood unto tortures as others have and you at least some of you may The grand Question your souls should pursue to a full and satisfactory resolution is What stock have you proportionable to such an expectation Here I shall propound these Two Exhortations 1. Prove your Faith 2. Improve your Faith 1. Prove your Faith or take it in the Exhortation 2 Cor. 13.5 Examine your selves whether you are in the Faith prove your own selves Do not take up principles upon trust perswasions of a good condition upon trust in a day when you are at the point of being put upon fiery tryals Every mans work must be tryed the time is come that judgument must begin at the House of God Every one must bear his own burden Here you would be directed particularly to see 1 That your Faith be true 2 That your Faith be strong 1 That it be true feigned Faith will beget but fading Comforts nay as was said It will do greater mischief in such a day than no Faith at all Here Evidences would be needful for discovery and Arguments with Directions for exhortation that souls who upon the tryal find themselves short would not strike off through discouragements but rather strike up with so much the more diligence to make their Calling and Election sure for helps in order whereunto they must at present be referred to what hath been offered in other exercises The like might be offered to press you to
hitherto saith David 2 Sam. 7.18 It traceth out and owneth the footsteps of divine good-will in every little thing and much more when it sees such salutations Life is a mercy Liberty a mercy exemption from Tortures a great mercy Deliverance out of them a greater mercy Hence the Soul is compassed and compasseth his God about with songs of Deliverance 2. None knows how to improve a Deliverance how to use it when he hath it as a Believer If he have Life on this side Death Liberty on this side Bonds Ease on this side Torment he is taught to acknowledge and reckon he is not his own in it 1 Cor. 6.19 20. but must use it to the glorifying God in soul and body which are his None is under such obligations none hath such objects and opportunities to make an high improvement of them as he hath who by believing looks into them others bestow them on their lusts 3. None as he knows what account he must give to God for such Deliverances as he must reckon for every idle word and all the deeds done in the body so he must yield an account of all his receipts whatever they be and therefore must so receive and improve as one that must be judged by the Law of Liberty and hence durst not say of any Mercy as they Our tongues are our own who is Lord over them Psa 12.4 On these accompts and others that might be mentioned the Believer hath reason to know deliverance the worth that is in it and his duty about it more than any other Now as none can deal with deliverance as they so is it a very high duty incumbent on such to receive deliverance at the hand of God then to accept deliverance is his duty and to give it such acceptance and entertainment in Truth as he expressed in Complement and in a strain of Oratory Rhetorick Acts 24.2 3. the terms only changed the Believer may thus express himself to the Lord Seeing I enjoy great quietness great deliverance great preservation and that very worthy deeds are done to such a worm as I by thy Providence I accept it alwayes and in all places my dear Father with all thankfulness None do and can give it such acceptable entertainment as the Believer of whom we treat The matter therefore thus stated and considered he doth not he durst not refuse such deliverance For if he should not thus receive it 1. He were in this refusal a meer destroyer of himself a thing abhorrent to godliness he were I say accessary of the violence done upon himself Saul is as guilty of his own death if his Armour-bearer thrust him through as when he falls upon his own Sword If Life Liberty or any Mercy may be had in God's way the refusal of it is the destroying our selves so far as that Mercy extends Though we are required to hate Father and Mother and our own Lives in a sence yet it is far from the intendment of the Spirit we should carelesly run them upon hazard no such know their bodies are the Temples of the Holy Spirit and they ought to use them well for his sake who dwells in them He that abuseth the Temple of God him will God destroy 2. Such a refusal of Deliverance when it may be had in the Lord's way is a manifestation and an act of the highest ingratitude and unthankfulness to the Lord that can be thought on To scorn or set at nought his favours is very much beneath the ingenuity of a Believer who ought to imbrace all occasions to shew forth the high praises of the Lord which are due unto his Name Blessed are such as dwell in the Lord's House they have frequent such occasion to be praising him and it is comely for the upright 3. Should he not accept Deliverance when it may be had in the Lord's way it would be found an act of high violence and injustice towards others who may be involved and concerned equally with themselves Some have Wives and Children or other Relations in the flesh now as if he provide not for his own and especially for them of his own houshold he were worse than an Infidel 1 Tim. 5.8 So if he draw them into sufferings from whence he might have deliverence in a way honourable and acceptable to the Lord he is accessary of their misery their wrong will be upon him More of this kind might be spoken but I fear too much of it is ready to be alledged on the common principle which is fruitful in such kind of reasonings Save thy self spare thy self this harm shall not come unto thee as Mat. 17.22 I shall only draw this Consideration into sutable Improvement in a few Inferences 1. If this be so then may we take up this Instruction That Godliness and the profession of it doth not inevitably run and necessitate a Christian upon the hazard and loss of every thing he hath or induce him to cast away all Though it doth indeed require him to prepare his stuff for removing to stand crucified in his affections unto them and ready to make surrender of them whenever the Lord needs them as was said of the Colt or is pleased to call for them yet it also directs to an excellent way of receiving enjoying and using them buying as if he bought not having and using all these as not abusing them 1 Cor. 7.29 30 31. Do not therefore take up hard thoughts of Godliness because of the Doctrine of Self-denyal the Cross at entrance or the Tryals and Tribulations that are appointed to attend the Professors of it 2. Hence it will also follow That false and wrong Principles are not to be accompted good because persons do upon them run all they have upon ruine As there is a kind of respect and pity kindled in tender and ingenious hearts toward a people who suffer under the profession of principles that have an appearance of Holiness in them So doth a kind of stedfastness to those principles and resolution to run all things to ruine on them very much tend to raise admiration and applause to such a people and their profession whereas on the contrary I desire you to take this as a standing Rule ☞ That the goodness of a Principle is not to be tryed and determined by the resolution of the Sufferer but the resolution of the Sufferer by the goodness of his Principle Good-men may be very weak under good Principles and Bad-men may be very heady and resolute under bad principles and this well considered would lead off our eyes from gazing on and having mens persons in admiration upon one hand when we see them stand or being apt to judge them and their cause if we see them insident in hours of temptation to shake and totter I confess its very beautiful and desireable to see stedfastness of Soul as the off-spring of Truth fixed there in Gospel-evidence and the contrary hereunto hath given not a little advantage and
to do were but to exchange and avoid the torture of my body and admit in the room of it a torture upon my soul and spirit They who will adventure to rush upon and run down the counsel comfort and judgement that Conscience sets up and would keep up in them they little think what an hazard they run Paul could stedfastly behold the Council and tell the High-Priest that was President of it that God would smite him as a whited-wall when he had this defence to make I have lived in all good Conscience to this day Acts 23.1 2 3. This makes Councils that persecute slight and despicable torments sweet and easie Though without there be fightings yet inwardly there will be peace whereas if our hearts condemn us God is greater than our hearts and knoweth all things To have God and our own Consciences against us at once will not be countervailed by the friendship of this world that any obtain by stretching a good Conscience making shipwrack of Faith and a good Conscience I have been sometimes awakned with the dread of that word Jer. 4.11 12. when a threatning is exhibited from the Wilderness and then to have God give sentence also against a People that is dreadful to have God against us our selves against us and many to one but we draw men against us too in such cases this is the worst of torments whereas all is rendred easie when we can say Psal 17.2 Let my sentence come forth from thy presence If God be for us Conscience for us who then can be against us who can harm us We may reade in Cain Judas Spira and many others how fearful it hath been to undergo a wound in them A man may sustain his infirmities of other kinds but a wounded Conscience who can bear Object It s true I cannot quiet the clamours of Conscience as I would do but I find I am very ignorant and men tell me This I may do and that I may do very safely and I am bound to think of them better than my self and not to prefer before their judgment the dictates of my weak Conscience Answ It is a very dangerous thing to do any thing against the dictates of an erring Conscience provided thou knowest not at present that it is in this thing erring It is a question among many Whether the dictates of an erring Conscience do bind but sure I am that violence offer'd to an erring Conscience hath a direct tendency to terrifie him that doth any thing with a doubting Conscience He that doubteth is damned if he eat for whatsoever is not of Faith is Sin Rom. 14.23 Blessed is the man that condemneth not himself in the things that he alloweth Though thy Conscience may be erronious yet while thou knowest it not to be so it is the best friend thou hast under Heaven Take heed therefore by the force of others or the fear and treachery that is in thy self thou admit any violence done to it lest once stretching it beyond its staple it never do the offices of a good Conscience more to thee to counsel excuse witness toward thy peace more Object But I have seen other men accept of comply with and yield to that which my Conscience makes such a noise about and they good men too and yet they profess they have peace in it and why may not I adventure Answ For my part I durst not judge another mans Servant to his own Master he stands or falls Yet I have sometimes observed men who have adventured in this kind and though they have carried it with an high forehead and put a bold countenance on it yet there are times when one may discern them to have pale faces which may give intimation all is not well within such are under great temptation to keep up their credit till the Lord arrest them with a new Conviction as he did David with a Thou art the man and then they may as he be forced to cry out how long soever he had carried it stoutly All my bones are out of joynt Restore to me the joyes of thy Salvation and take not away thy Holy Spirit from me But suppose their Consciences do not smite them they may have a kind of peace that is but from security not the peace of God not the peace of the answer of a good Conscience by the bloud of sprinkling The Apostle tells us of a Conscience seared with a hot Iron 1 Tim. 4.2 Some sorts of violence done to Conscience are left by the Lord to the Devils curing who heals the smart of divers wounds by searing them but the cure is never the more desireable for all that It s with Conscience as it is with Cloth which sometimes the Fuller strains so much upon the Tenters till he break the very staple of it and then it s neither fire nor water will shrink it whereas being strained but in an ordinary way it would but though it shrink not you may be sure it will have no strength for service Take heed you offer not such force to Conscience lest you find it short of serving you as it should in time of need 3. If I cannot come at the good of Deliverance but I must betray or balk some Truth of God intrusted with me as a part of my Testimony I may not upon any terms touch with that Deliverance Every Truth of Christ committed to the care and custody of a Christian is of more worth and value than all his Comforts and Accommodations under the Sun And he that yields or betrays any Truth thus deposited as a pledge to his trust and care for the procuring any liberty to himself hath too hard a bargain of it You have an express direction Prov. 23.23 Buy the Truth and sell it not We are to buy it whatever it cost but not to barter it whatever it will yield That was a choice Spirit described 2 Cor. 13.8 We can do nothing against the Truth but for the Truth The Glory of God may be so deeply engaged and imbarqued in one Truth as all my external comforts may not be named in one day with it It hath been an expression very taking with me Isa 43.9 10. God hath his times wherein most eminently he is put upon it to vindicate his Truth the question is brought upon the stage and tryal of the world who must either yield and say It is truth or else must endure the test of God's Evidences who are his Saints Ye are my Witnesses saith the Lord or his Son called his Servant whom he hath chosen who in the grand contest with all the powers of darkness hath by witnessing his good confession merited that name Rev. 3.14 The Amen the Faithful and true Witness a resemblance and proportion to him is every Christian required to keep in his being called forth to a witness-bearing to him As God values every Truth of his at an high rate especially in the day that it is to be spoken for
the World and the glory of them and that in a moment of time with this offer All this Power will I give thee and the Glory of them Luke 4.5 6. To Asaph with a condition of men that have no bands in death their strength firm are not in trouble as other men nor plagued as other men eyes standing out with fatness they have more than heart could wish Therefore God's People often turn in hither Psal 73. beginning The first temptation was by a Tree good for food pleasant to the eye and to be desired to make one wise Gen. 3.6 He never wants high and fair profers to make up a temptation effectual to allure You shall buy and sell be free of the great City that made rich all her Merchants Rev. 18.10 to 19. so you will receive the mark in the forehead or right hand you may admit it secretly if you will not openly chap. 13.16 17. 2 The Tempter also insists much and gains much advantage by representing and imposing the Presentness of Deliverance you shall have this presently The Resurrection you speak of is a great way off a long time to come and will you tarry till the Heavens be no more for such a thing and in mean time overlook that Deliverance which is in hand A Bird in Hand is worth two in the Wood. Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandring of the desire Eccles 6.9 This offer of things that are seen hath great prevalency with a soul who lives more by Sence than by Faith this was the snare of Demas he forsook that way of the Lord having loved the present world 2 Tim. 4.10 To be delivered from the present world Gal. 1.4 is an extraordinary salvation it being so apt to take with us when we begin to grow weary and can wait on the Lord no longer and reckon as was noted of Esau I am at the point of Death and what good can this Birth-right this hope of a Resurrection and another World to come do to me Give me Deliverance will such a one say or I die Thus the Captive Exile hasteth lest he die in the Pit and his bread should fail Secondly But consider we the Resurrection and here if we will improve the thoughts of it to advantage we should admit to our thoughts about it those Objections that may make it seem less taking there are Three of them that we may easily conjecture might rationally arise in the spirits of these poor tempted tortured ones against their adhering to the Resurrection in the neglect of present Deliverance 1. About the very truth of this Notion of the Resurrection there is the appearance of a very great impossibility Flesh and Blood Sence and Reason object How can these things be If a man die can he live again Of all living there is hope a living Dog is better than a dead Lyon the living know that they shall die but the dead know nothing at all Eccles 9.4 5. These are the Reasonings of a rational mind that admits only of humane demonstration When Paul was making his Defence before Agrippa one who was expert in all Customs and Questions among the Jews yet reasons on this Supposition That it was thought a thing incredible with them that God should raise the dead Acts 26.8 with vers 3. If the question be put Can these dry bones live Sense Reason Learning hath no better than this astonished answer Lord thou knowest Ezek. 37.3 This now is a great disadvantage unto a rational choice as our case is But here steps in Faith which acts upon dead things a dead Womb in Sarah dead Loins in Abraham a Sacrificed Isaac a Crucified Christ the slaughtered Witnesses a betrayed Cause are subjects proper to a living Faith to exercise its self upon when it hath a word of Promise Faith thinks it not incredible that God should raise the dead it lives upon that great Power that raised Jesus from the dead So that though the bones be scattered about the Graves mouth as when one cutteth and cleaveth Wood Psal 141.7 though the bodies of the Saints are given to be meat to the Fowls of the Heaven and their flesh to the Beasts of the Earth their Blood shed like water and there be none to bury them Psal 79.2 3. though Limb be torn from Limb and Quarter set at the greatest distance from Quarter though the fire devours the Bowels and the Dogs lick the Blood yet Faith is not hereby lost in a certainty of Conclusion This is Dust in Covenant with the God of Abraham of Isaac Jacob and though it be dead to us yet all live to him Luke 20.37 38. 2. If there should be a yielding to the possibility of it yet it might be objected The demonstration of the Point and its determination in Scripture-evidence was not apparent and manifest in that day Life and Immortality being reserved to be brought to light through the Gospel 2 Tim. 1.10 and the way into the Holiest of all being not yet made manifest while as the first Tabernacle was yet standing Heb. 9.8 Not but that there was a sufficient Testimony in the Scriptures of Moses and the Prophets to this Truth to guide Believers in the Hope of Glory but so far was there a Vail on this as well as other Truths that the Sadduces a Sect of no mean Repute and Authority in the Jewish Church not only questioned but utterly denyed any such thing to be founded in the Old Testament at all Mat. 22.23 Acts 23.8 Nay under the clear manifectations of this Truth in the Testimony of Christ and the Apostles in the New Testament you see a generation who affirmed That the Resurrection is past already and overthrew the Faith of some against whom the Apostle disputes at large 1 Cor. 15. Nay notwithstanding all this we see in all Ages there have been some who by weakning the Authority of the Scriptures in geneeal or by a lawless wanton allegorizing the Scriptures that refer to this and other precious Truths in particular do satisfie their reason in rejecting the truth of the Lord's Testimony herein If it may be supposed that these souls of whom the Text makes report should be assaulted with any part of this temptation about the obscurity of the revelation of this Doctrine in the Scriptures it must needs magnifie the excellency of their Faith that conquered this disadvantage and through this cloud also conclude the preferency of the Resurrection to their tendered Deliverance 3. But supposing the possibility and probability of this Doctrine be acknowledged to have been undoubted to them yet this might remain a very considerable remora in their way it was a thing a great while to come many thousand years have passed since the assertion of it and yet no appearance of it and many thousand years may yet be ere it take place as was their reasoning Ezek. 12.27 and as the Scoffers of the last dayes object 2 Pet. 3.4 Now as was
all they are apt to trust in of a fleshly carnal kind 2 Cor. 1.9 Again that day a Friend asking how he did He replyed Heavy heavy It was told him Earth would be so Yea saith he and the Sand weighty but the New Heavens and New Earth will not be so their make will be of a more transcendent nature by reason of the Spirit of Holiness and Righteousness that shall dwell in them It was answered Yes In those dayes the Righteous shall flourish Whereunto he quickly replied That the Righteous had their day a day that might be properly called theirs in which they should in some sort flourish But said he it 's said in his day entitling it to Christ principally the Righteous shall flourish Christ shall have a day for it in the world Being asked What think you shall you be returned to us again or not He said Truly he knew not what to think in that matter and when all thoughts about it were made it was hardly worth a serious consideration in regard of their uncertainty and the little of Christian concernment in such kind of knowledge for though sometimes it were very grateful to Flesh and Blood to be able to say hereby shall it be known I am a man of God by my coming to such a place or doing such a thing at such a season yet when Paul went bound in Spirit to Jerusalem under fullest gales that ever he went he must not know what must betide him there Acts 20.22 nor whether God would be glorified in him by life or death A Clyster being ministred that day which wrought not it was asked How he did He said Hastening home now apace What makes you think so sayes the Friend Why saies he the Lord hath usually made it his way with me when he works me up to settled perswasions of things they have usually come to pass accordingly now having had Clysters and such means administred that have wrought with my poor body long even to admiration but now it ceases to do so and all passages seem stopt for evacuation of the humors lodged in my body I conclude he intends to take me away It was told him It was but one Clyster had so miscarried with him another might operate and that such a conclusion could not well be drawn from no better premises than that Then he added God hath been many wayes bringing me to an acquiescence in his Will as to such an issue he seems to be putting and hath likewise been for this week or more taking you off from glorying in the flesh of such a poor creature any longer by bringing this poor body under such straightning circumstances as may make you all willing to part with me rather than to be continued under such sore pains to me as well as trouble to you that so you might let me go and he having dealt thus with me and also spoke and continueth to speak peace to my soul I am upon the whole perswaded I shall leave you and am helped to say in that matter The Will of the Lord be done The same day a Friend asking him How he did He said I am labouring that whether present or absent I may be accepted of the Lord. His Friend answered It became him to be so labouring eying him whose Soul hath travelled and laboured that such poor ones as we might be accepted and through whom God hath graciously witnessed his acceptance of you and also of your witness-bearing unto him in this your present suffering state not only from men but his own hand likewise as I am fully perswaded Then he groaned and said Alas this poor weak weary body To which his Friend replied It was made poor in order to enriching and seemed to be uncloathed in order to be cloathed upon with his house from Heaven There he fetch'd a deep sigh and said Ah! if in this life only I had hope in Christ I were of all men most miserable To which it was answered Blessed be God for that well-grounded hope in Christ for a better life even that hope that is as an Anchor sure and stedfast cast within the Vail where our Fore-runner is for us entred Yea said he that better hope by which we draw nigh unto God And bid him be of good chear Rest would be more sweet to him when he entered into it by all the toyle he met with in the way Then he groaned and said He was groaning after Liberty Yea saith his Friend a Liberty that tarrieth not for man nor waits for the sons of men No sayes he it is as a dew from the Lord 't is a glorious liberty On the same day attempting to repose A Friend seeing him very ill said Oh! my dear Brother Must we part He said Yes he thought so though it may be but for a little time to meet again with more advantage But said the Friend Alas how dark are the Providences still taking away the best and leaving the poorest and neediest for the day and duties of it To whom he answered Lay not much stress upon that the work is not yours but Gods he will provide only will vary his methods as pleases him look therefore to him and those that are with you Heb. 12.22 He then asked a Friends advice about some Physical administrations whereto was replied Oh! my dear Brother you know my weakness to advise in any case and much more in these I so little understand that should you practise any thing as my advice in competition with others and miscarry in â—t I should not be able to stand under it though I have this witness with me that the best advice I have I would gladly give and were it better I would more readily give it in any case but my weakness every way is not unknown to you He replied It might not be meet for us to speak of each other what might otherwise be said having both our fears each way lest we should speak more than is meet but he hoped we had both our witness in that matter since our coming together and that we have carried it to each other in uprightness of Spirit and truth of Affection for which we had both occasion to bless the Lord for favour therein afforded and for advice desired in the case propounded he should not further put any such burden upon him To another Friend about him He said Alas what care is there generally and particularly among persons to conform to the fashions of the world But Oh! let our eyes be upon Jesus in opposition thereunto and in that path of the Lord the God of Love and Peace shall be with us Then breaking out into holy Admonitions on that word 1 Cor. 2.9 of the greatâ—ess which Eye had not seen Ear heard nor had enâ—ered into the Heart of man to conceive And said Oh! as you love your souls press press on and after it with all your might and keep close to the Lord and his paths in pursuit
coming in a time of such weakness and when by the working of my Spleen which sent up dark and disturbing vapours clouding my imagination and made sore work within but the Lord made me see much of my own fleshly gloryings as also others in me and in my flesh which God would take down in this day of tryal when every ones work must he tryed of what sort it is even by fire and truly I was made to see to my shame much hypocrisie and formality in my converse with the Lord in one respect or other and that the Practical part of Religion I had yet arrived to little acquaintance with to what I had in dayes past but this brought me in the issue to see that I was what I was that was good only by grace and no room for flesh to glory but was brought through grace to experience this Truth that when I am weak then am I strong and that however it be yet the Lord forgetteth not his poor nor despiseth not his prisoners this is a brief account of the Way God led me in in this matter and hath so issued it that I trust through grace I shall yet come to lay down my weary head and heart in the peace of Gods speaking that will keep and carry me to the end His Friend told him here somewhat of the danger of attempting such great works under such disadvantages as these seasons and circumstances he had in these dayes past been under for such works as these minding to him That every season was not a fit season for judgement especially to be calling in question things so long and often under more clear light and leadings confirmed formerly and however that be a great Truth that every day will yet more demonstrate that we are but yet Children in Christianity far short of that manly state of things to which the present dispensation of God both publick and personal have a proper and true tendency towards which more excellent way 't is our duty to be pressing yet so to be pressing towards it as to remember both how we have heard and received and hold fast the beginning of our confidences firm unto the end that so the Tempter get not advantage against us as he doth or may do against persons ignorant of his devices But he being still weak either to speak or hear more was not said but that he his Friend was glad to see the Lord had issued the matter so well to the Preventing the Tempters design and giving his poor Servants to see how great that mercy is of all the Saints and their concerns being in Gods hand when the strength of our own hands heads and hearts fails so frequently as they do yet he remains the same for ever and in such seasons secretly succours and supports and at last brings out into a wealthy place to his own praise and encouragement of the poor and needy to trust in him at all times In the morning supposing him drawing near his end a Friend was called to him who finding him discomposed again in his head and convulsive motions renewed with shortness of breath yet soon after asking how he did He said He was a wonder unto many by reason of the rebukes of God upon him but the Lord was and he hoped would be his strong refuge to the end His Friend told him He had made know himself to him as a strong hold in this day of trouble hitherto else he had sunk under his afflictions but to â—e kept up and carried on under such great long exâ—rcises justifying God still and blessing him in giâ—ing as well as taking spake much of divine support â—iven in Yea sayes he I would not only justifie but 〈◊〉 have great reason to glorifie God as the God of my â—alvation It was answered His present posture of submission and subjection to him as the Father of Spirits was a notable way of glorifying God in the fire and giving praise to him in the Isle of the Sea And after a little pause He added He had now but a few steps more to go which he desired the Lord would also so order as he might not be left to sin against him and blessed the Lord that he had given him and yet maintained such good hope through Grace in him that he was not and hoped he should not fear to follow him through the valley of the shadow of death to which he now seemed hastning A Friend coming to him and asking him How doth this honest Watch-man Honest Watch-man saith he hath much in it to be a Watchman indeed looking out for the morn as the Watchman of Ephraim that was with his God when other watchmen are as the Prophet is said to be Hosea 9.8 A snare of a Fowler in all their wayes and hatred in the house of their God as is too evident of the Watchmen of our day by reason of deep defilements found amongst them wherefore the day of the Watchman cometh yea maketh haste now shall be their perplexity and thâ— dayes of their visitations are come the dayes of recompences are come Israel shall know it for the Lord dispensations are now very swift Being asked How he had done to Night Hâ— said I laid me down to sleep and waked again 〈◊〉 the Lord sustained me and hath not made this night night of terror by affrightning dreams and imagâ— nations as sometimes but I seem to be going on as weary traveller his way Sometimes after being asked How he did Hâ— said A poor weak creature It was answered But trust in the Lord you have strength Yea said he blessed be God everlasting strength and they that indeed trust in him shall be as Mount Zion that cannot be moved but abideth for ever for as the Mountains are round about Jerusalem so is the Lord about his People for ever A Friend telling him There was an acquaintance of his come to see him who was going to Preach amongst the poor Saints abroad He wished him prosperity in that good work saying He never found cause to repent of any of his working dayes for Christ in his life-time At the same time one coming from far to visit him and telling him He had dear Remembrances from many Friends of his who in a way of supplication with humble submission were looking to the Lord the God of all Consolation concerning him and his case He replyed He is indeed the God of all Consolation of strong Consolations which were sealed up to his soul And then added I am very much affected with this surprising visit of yours And soon after said to â—he same Friend He had in the two Nights past been graciously led and let into the understanding of that Word Psal 37.37 Mark the perfect man and behold â—he upright the end of that man is peace So as he â—as never let into it in like manner before A Friend saying How doth my Brother He â—eplyed I cannot say of you as he of old
You took our Brother by the heel in the womb but hope we shall â—â—ke one another by the hand in Heaven and that both 〈◊〉 you intending the Friend that came to visit him â—ill live love as Brethren or words to this purpose 〈◊〉 near as could be gathered for now speech failed Then speaking of the pressures that were upon him he was advised to look to the Lord who in depths of Wisdom administred them managing all Circumstances about them as also to eye Christ the Captain of our Salvation who endured sore travel yea bruising from his Father also as knowing he ought to suffer such things and so to enter into glory and the Spirit spake of the Sufferings of Christ and the Glory that should follow He replyed Oh! that Glory that Glory on the other side Calling for drink and the Maid bringing it him he desired a Friend present might give it who coming to him said You appear now as one that is shortly to drink new Wine in the Kingdom of the Father He answered Though many have greater marks of Faith than I have yet I am assured I shall be received into fellowship with the Father Son Spirit and all Saints And looking earnestly on the Friend said If it please God to renew strength he should give good evidence that he loved that Friend dearly and all Saints A little after the same Friend acquainted him of two dear Friends of his in London that desired particularly to be remembred to him and were much exercised in fellowship with his present tryal He being very weak replyed I can say little but I pray God they may be strengthned with all might and power in the inward man to hold out to the end according to his glorious power Being asked by another How he did He said My heart begins to fail I now feel But after said Blessed be God for Christ's Grace and eternal Glory Soon after he broke out into fervent earnest Prayer 1st Deeply lamenting Israel's dealing falsely with Goâ— in his Covenant 2dly Speaks forth with great clearness his faith that God would make the decision between real and pretended Saints and that God would abide with those that abode with him greatly encouraging such as found grace to stand in this hour of temptation Concluded committing himself Soul and Body to the Lord for keeping and carrying to the end At another time in like manner in great zeal and fervency implored the Lord to make the decision between the true Seed of Israel and pretenders who had dealt falsely with the Lord under shew of much love Then beggs If God had any thing for him to speak he would communicate and enable to it and that if Abraham's work were done that he would say to him with that clearness and evidence as he might understand it Thou hast fought a good fight hast kept the Faith henceforth is laid up for thee a Crown which God the Judge of all shall give thee A while after and but three hours before his dissolution a Friend perceiving him under great pressures spake softly to him They looked unto the Lord and were lightned A right look will bring down relief under all difficulties Yea replyed he with strength and earnestness And their faces were not ashamed Thence forward he spoke not but in a few hours after it being the 5th day of the first Month 1668. yielded up his Spirit falling asleep without pang or considerable groan FINIS Copies and Extracts OF LETTERS Written on several occasions BY That Deceased Servant of CHRIST The Author of the fore-going Discourses Printed in the Year 1668. A Book that he approved being the work of an other containing Instructions for Children he sent several of them to some of his Acquaintance accompanied with this Letter to their Parents Vnto my dearly beloved Brethren Sisters and Friends whom the Lord hath intrusted with the oversight of Families Children and Servants abundance of the Spirit of Glory and of God is desired Endeared in the Lord UNder the strong obligations of bounden duty which my Father hath been pleased to lay upon me of serving the Interest of your Souls and theirs whom God hath given you to my uttermost it hath been not the least part of my study in this School of Instruction unto which he hath sent me how I might at this distance most effectually attend and be found therein as one â—hat must give an account not only of the Law of my Relations but also of these fruits thereof on your hands which have extended and abounded to me-ward in un-interrupted tender love and sympathy as well in this my chain â—s in the many years of my weak endeâ—vours to serve Christ among you in liberty in requital whereunto as I can do little at most so am I often inwardly checked and rebuked for my sinful shortness toward you both in general and particular from soul to soul and very lately it hath been with more than ordinary weight on me to exercise pitty and compassionate thoughtfulness on those Families of yours both Children and Servants many of which the Lord hath multiplied like a Flock whose particular affections as far as they have been capable to express them I have been at a loss how to recompence or improve to their advantage but having been advising with some of my Companions here as well as laying the matter before him who is able to give seed to the sower and multiply with blessing the seed sown I have herewithal attempted to make an Essay for enterance with them in presenting to them this upright plain Address prepared to my hand by some one of the Lord's Prisoners full of bowels toward such young subjects consisting of such proper matter and brought forth in such a condescending Spirit and Language as I trust by the blessing of the Lord will find good acceptance and success among such souls My present Writing therefore with it is not so much to crave its acceptance in good part by them for of that I have much assurance buâ— to lay hold of this opportunity to desire your faithful following the design of it by stirring up your selves and zealously and unweariedly doing your endeavour with all your wisdom interest and might behaving your selves among them as Men and Women of knowledge that your account of their souls as mine account of yours may be given up with joy and not with grief Here am I and the Children and Servants which thou hast graciously given me unto which faithfulness of yours besides many other weighty Arguments that might be urged the very remembrance of the dayes being so very evil may afford you as it hath me many forcible motives 1. These are dayes wherein you know not how suddenly you may be hurried pluck'd and separated from them not only by death which climbeth up at the windows in most Families this sickly season but by the violenee of the Sons of Men through the wise ordering of God who are permitted to make
hearts for the inscriptions of the Spirit of the Living God and that the beauty of this Ornament be set in Majesty but doth frequently commend to me that observation which your last ere this some time since was hinting to me of the need we have who design such services to wait for power by the Spirit from on high to be his Witnesses and to expect according to his Promise That showers of the latter rain shall come down to furnish a people to bear his glory in the administrations of his House answering the Institutions of the New Testament although I am no way taken with that dilatory inference wherein some seem to stick as if upon the observation that Bryars and Thorns are come upon God's Houses in the joyous City and are likely to abide there till the Spirit be poured out from on high therefore it were best and our Interest till the manifest taking place of that promised dispensation not to put our hands to such Acts and Ordinances the beautious Majesty of which must needs be acknowledged to be very much wrapt up and concerned in the hoped issues of such a Glory stepping in There being blessed ends to be by us promoted in our present state by our dutiful obedience to every Institution of our King and through infinite Grace and Mercy are there such Gifts and Graces of the Spirit to be found on some as may yield help to sober humble enquirers to get over such stumbling-blocks and contribute toward their preparing in Body and Spirit as an adorned Bride to meet the Bridegroom who loves to find his keeping all his Commandements unrebukable and without spot to his appearing In which attire I earnestly desire your whole man Body and Soul and Spirit may be found ministring a practical convincing Argument by your standing compleatly perfect in the whole Will of God that there is as there indeed is a hidden excellency in fellowship with Jesus Christ in those wayes and appointments of his upon their souls who in Faith and Faithfulness are yielded up to him therein which hath admirable Vertue in it though at present not attended with those mighty Signs and Wonders by Gifts of the Holy Spirit the which were rather for the sakes of them who believed not than for such as through Faith are directed to judge of and close with such things answerable to their tendency by good pleasure to lead into the Mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ The Reason and Efficacy whereof lies not in any just proportion betwixt the thing commanded and the Mystery proposed to enjoyment no more than there did between washing in Jordan and Naamans clensing the cause of the scornful storming of his proud spirit but in the meer soveraignty of divine good pleasure who gives us a word of Faith to guide and prove our obedience and engage our humble expectation of his own presence who is Lord of Influences to conduct the Heirs of Promise into those secrets of his Pavilion by doors at the threshold of which the Children of this Worlds wisdom stumble either by sensual Formality sticking in the letter of things or by aiery Speculations rejecting the weakness and foolishness of Christ in his Institutions but Wisdom is justified of her Children All here are well love honour and salute you Yours in Soul-service To a Friend who after some Retirement was returning to pursue his Calling in Affairs of this World The Lord be your shade on your Right-Hand My very dear Brother I Perceive you are applying your self to something men call Business in the World and I have comfortable hopes that you have studied ere this hour that lesson Finally Brethren the time is short it remaineth c. For the fashion of this World passeth away Oh my dear Brother my soul is afflicted to observe the over-greedy Engagement of many whom I love and honour for their former eminency plunging themselves into business and there even drowning themselves in ruine and perdition losing the savour of their spirits the intimacy of their Communion with Christ in the Spirit and so grow dry careless prudent fearful omissive what not till there is hardly left so much as the uniform appearance of a soul that hath been the seat of such glorious discoveries and enjoyments as men have readily spoke of formerly It may well be asked of many now as the Apostle Where is the Blessedness ye spoke of Men discourse of their primitive applications of Truth and to it speak much and frequently of blessedness in the things of the Gospel it was blessed Praying and blessed Hearing and blessed Meeting and blessed Meditating because in all these they sought after and partook of blessedness But where is that now There is somewhat of Praying and Preaching c. but where is the blessedness of all these Is it not very much departed and what may be the cause is it not much from hence Men are gone deep into the spirit of the World and are grown carnal of the Earth earthy and savouring of the Earth and thereby losing their Love Zeal Faithfulness Insensibly but very dangerously I hope better things of you and that you both do and will watch your own Spirit and stir up others to take great heed to their spirits that they deal not treacherously Yours 7th 3d month 64. To an ancient Friend giving his Apprehensions concerning the multitude of Professors with some of his Experiences both in Bonds and Sickness Kind and very much respected THe posture of the Lord 's own People even of such who in dayes past with greatest intimacy and endearment went to the House of God in company hath of late years under these stupendous dispensations presented it self to me much after the similitude of a great Fleet of Ships outward-bound who set out of their Port beautifully equipped laden trimmed in consortship and under a very prosperous promising gale all spreading their very Top-gallant sayls to shew their celerity and make the best of their way A very beautiful and pleasant prospect to an eye delighted in such expeditions But having stood but a little way in this course out of sight of the Countrey from whence they set forth a dark night and dismal storm overtaking them they are dispersed all Sea-over a great number being mindful of the Port whence they came think they have a fair opportunity and plausible excuse to return again and draw up with design to adventure such storms no more Others and they not a few being confident and conceited of their own understanding do shape their course to and fro as the wind shifteth are cast upon Rocks and Shoals to the making shipwrack of Faith and a good Conscience Many others fearing that course think yet by casting their Wheat and Tackling into the Sea they shall somewhat lighten their Ship and be the better able to weather it out and so dropping Anchors at the wrong end wish for day Few very few prefering the Interest of the
when they saw his anguish was exceeding great and their own was not very small The Interest of words meerly such can be of little signification while the things themselves spoken of are manifestly absent Perhaps we have spoken enough if not too much for our part now God is come to speak his part which requires much quiet attention the rather for that though it be very loud yet very mysterious and deep as are many of the Oracles of God those especially wherein he designs to manifest himself to his and not to the World I could for my own part also lay hold on the like exemption and silent retirement as most befitting my present state and frame altogether entangled and perplexed and presuming that you have at hand to help not only the presence of the great promised Comforter who can supply all your wants but also the secondary supplement of many worthy Ones who have received the Anointing and thereby the Tongue of the Learned to speak words in season From you we have hitherto received the accounts given of the gradual stâ—ps of him who worketh all things according to the counsel of his own Will in the several gradations wherein we have not been wanting as enabled to pour out our hearts before him who was able to help and are now enquiring why he hath appeared as being angry with the Prayers of his People covering himself with a Cloud that they could not get through If any distinct answer be given you may expect to hear of it In mean time that Isa 57.1 is before us as verified not only in the loose generation of Professors who seem greatly hardened and estranged from the Interest of their chiefest mercies but to true even among those who seem to be most tenderly touched with affectionate sense of present privations and pressures of all kinds right laying to heart and due considerations of such stupendous works of God both in their present weight and future warning is very rare and require extraordinary teaching and conduct that neither on one hand we despise or on the other faint when thus chastised by him Your cry for help hence must be returned with the same importunity ye also helping by Prayer to God for us who though at some personal distance are yet in some sort of Sympathy pressed if not above measure and beyond strength yet to the utmost degrees of what is hitherto received yet wisdom and strength are with him with whom we have to do who hath graciously put himself under promise that as the day is the strength shall be The Lord prepare us for learning harping singing the new song which is the peculiar melody of them redeemed from the Earth which admits of no interruption from Thundrings Earthquakes Tempests Voices though they proceed out of the Throne and are subservient to the Ends of it Yours heartily 4th of the 4th mon. 67. Another on the same occasion Garments of Gladness for the Spirit of Heaviness My dear Sister WHile there is a Spirit in Heaven influencing spiritual Believers upon Earth in their frail capacities that Word will have its verity among them though absent from one another in the body how great soever their distance and how dark soever their circumstances may be yet are they present in the Spirit joyning not only in rejoycing while order and stedfastness in the Faith are manifest but also in affliction and mourning where knowledge is imparted or though but supposed of the hand of the Lord touching and bruising especially in the most tender part and on spiritual occasions such hath been the fellowship of the Spirit through Grace I trust in my soul with you under the very heavy rebuke of the Almighty wherewith you have been exercised especially of late dayes on divers accounts both personal domestick in the Church of Christ where you walk in the whole Sion of God and as in the Nation it self having a right and relation to its welfare or desolations as I also am fully satisfied you have had with me in divers proofs that have been put upon my Faith and Patience as far as they have come to your cognizance and I hope the same Grace will not only teach us to be tender but mutually helpful each to other toward the understanding and complyance more fully with our Father's mind in these stupendous dispensations so as his ends upon us may be actually furthered in the promotion of the power and beauties of Holiness Unto which issues though godly sorrow working Repentance never to be repented of hath a very direct tendency and humbling our selves greatly under the mighty hand of God is the straitest step towards the best exaltation in due time Yet when I read the present temper and its tendency of my own heart and also observe in yours and others late lines upon this heart-breaking occasion to what excess of sadness fear discouragement and even dispondency we are apt to yield the Tempter advantage to triumph over us and hardly recover our selves to a jealous thought that there is any considerable danger in the excess on that hand but that it is a kind of vertue to refuse to be comforted I say in such observations my heart hath bin smitten with reproof and somewhat awakned to stand upon its watch against incursions on that quarter lest Satan should get an advantage on us who should not be ignorant of his enterprizes It 's true we have lost a Prince and great man in Israel this day But who was his Father 1 Sam. 10.12 was it not the Father of Spirits with whom the residue of the Spirit is and who can at his pleasure set a man over the Congregation Know we not where is the Lord God of Elijah is he not in Heaven and can do whatever he pleaseth Is not his Spirit in Promise Are not all the Promises of Christ Yea and Amen Doth not the time of the Promise draw nigh of that grand effusion of the Spirit of Elijah that shall raise the Witnesses revive the Works lift up the Standard break the Yoke have not some sprinklings of the Spirit been found up and down in our dayes and should it not be owned as a token for good and turned to us for a Testimony that the Harvest is not far off Are not these discouraging complainings of ours much of the same kind and go upon the same mistakes and may righteously issue in the same dismissions to us from further service as it was with Elijah in his fainting fit after he had acted in so full a gale of the Spirit just before that now he complains They have killed the Prophets c. and I even I am left alone and my life is sought also What am I better than my Fathers We know the Answer of God to him which I trust is true at this day There is yet a remnant according to the Election of Grace and Seed that shall serve him and shall be accounted with him for a Generation
had not trod with our feet in dayes past Yet hitherto hath his bountiful Provision and tender Care over us exalted it self in a distinguishing manner and many times to our admiration so as hitherto our Bread hath not failed but hath been given to us in due season and our Waters have been sure so that knowing how little we are yet fitted to bear as a Father pittieth his Children in their low estate he hath not proved us with hunger or with straights nor called us up to approve our selves his Witnesses in necessities in distresses c. but our lot hath rather been to partake of the fat and sweet and soft insomuch as if he put that Question to us to be resolved according to that express literal sense of it When I sent you forth on the Services and Sufferings that attend your Testimony and you knew not whither you went Lacked you anything We must answer Nothing Lord but in that respect have in hand or we trust in some degree of sweet satisfaction we have all and abound and are full by the favour of him who giveth us all things richly to enjoy and is we would humbly hope teaching us in whatsoever state we are therewith to be content So that at many of the strange preventions of loving-kindness even in things of this sort we are often made with admiration to cry out What is this to us Lord Is this after the manner of men O God! Is this a Prison If we should have sought a Prison in a Prison these six or seven years Have we yet found it Whatever others in the same fellowship of bonds with us have found we must say for our parts That as we have escaped the Sword and we hope the Polutions of the Adversary so we have found great Grace in the Wilderness for his People his Chosen The which we mention not only that we may praise the Lord together while ye observe that we receive not nor accept not so thankfully your Present in respect of need through that unspeakable gift and care of his who hath hitherto continued the Bread of the day in its day but that herewithal we might take hold of an apt occasion to take you by the hand and lead you with a little the more encouragement up and down in those wayes of the Lord wherein we must sing Great hath been the goodness of our God even in the experiences that we have passed practically through in the Doctrine and Profession whereof we had been trained up in our years of plenty and prosperity so that we must say The Land that we have been sent to spy out even in the straitest passages of it as far as our Father assigned us to follow him in is a very good Land and if we rebel not against the Lord but abide with him those very circumstances that at a distance seem like sons of Anak and walls reaching up to Heaven apt to eat up the Inhabitants are well able to be overcome and will be found Bread for us while we stand and feed in the strength of the Lord and in the majesty of the Name of the Lord our God so that these Serpents at a distance from which we are apt to flee are found to believing but a rod and that a rod of God too when taken in the hand And could we come forth to you in Truth and Evidence as wise and right improvers of the sensible experiments we have actually found tasted seen and handled hitherto of this sort and that the savour of these excellent things had not been diminished in these souls of ours through too much an in observent careless earthly disposition bringing us down from our advantages of excellency we might speak more loudly to you than now we can Oh! taste and see that the Lord is good blessed are they that put their trust in him The Lions among whom we dwell do want and suffer hunger but they that fear the Lord lack nothing that is good In the midst of their sufficiency they are in straits while in the straits designed to wear out the people of the Saints of the most high there is a provision made of sufficiency be ye therefore strong and very strong and very couragious and God shall strengthen your hearts And now for a thankful acknowledgement though it may not be interpreted as any requital of your holy liberality What shall we farther say than that we do as we are able bring the matter in our requests and thanksgivings unto him who is able to make all Grace abound toward you All-sufficiency in all things may abound to every good work being enriched in every thing to all bountifulness which causeth in us thanksgivings unto God And this we beg on your behalf not as if we desired a gift or that it should be so again done to us knowing that there are many watery faces everywhere requiring Bread to be cast upon them as under far greater necessity than our selves But as hâ—ving perswasion and some small experience what a great recompence it is in such case to have the mouth and hand opened from the hearts being enlarged with those expatiating Graces and Vertues of the Spirit of the New Testament that constitute a true largeness of heart like the Sand on the Sea-shore and to encrease that greatness that is proportionate to the large discoveries of believing doing suffering-Grace and Preparations for expected Glory In order to it we desire for you all and intreat you to press and pursue after 1 Greater advances toward newness of heart the old heart will be as old bottles and an old garment that will not comport with the new Wine which is yet in the Cluster and a blessing in it though men attempt to destroy it And this is not only a newness of state but a newness also of frame by means whereof the inner-man may pass under experimental renewings day by day even the renewings in the Spirit of your minds by which the Truths Wayes and Works of the Lord the King may have an intimate access and abundant enterance into your own souls and you into them in their vertue dominion and power 2 Greater approaches in a way of heavenliness and nearness to the Lord at distance from the spirit of this evil World where the World is set in the heart the God of this World will be quickly filling it narrowing and enclosing it for earthly service and this not only in men of Earth who have their portion in this life but also in those that are by the Blood of Christ delivered from the gross pollutions of this prâ—sent evil World through lust but yet much concerned in the business cares and intricating-affairs of its many things which though lawful in themselves to be diligently prosecuted yet as lying under the influence and advantages of the Prince of it having a notable tendency to bring souls down from their excellency and to eat out insensibly the liveliness and sweetness of our spirits longer and further than the Victory that overcomes it in the vertue of the Cross of Christ by which we are crucified to it and it to us be kept up on fresh exercise 3 Right waitings for and waitings on the Spirit of Promise who is of power to quicken dry bones raise dead Witnesses and do great things in and for us which shall not be resisted nor need not be assisted with might and power though for a time the work about it may be made to cease with force and power We shall say no more at present but with the representation of our oblieged respects to every one of you as if known by Name leaving you in the blessed arms of our Beloved we remain 22th of the 9th mon. 67. Your Brethren waiting for the Consolation of Israel POST-SCRIPT IF any inquire what might occasion so much severity as to detain the Author so many years and until death a Prisoner It may suffice to insert here for the Readers satisfaction That in the state of his case left under his hand setting forth the illegality and unrighteousness of proceedings against him He concludes it thus If it should be suggested Perhaps he is a Ring-leader This true Character of the Person may alleviate jealousies of that kind He was born at Plymouth of mean yet honest Parentage is not by Kindred or any Alliance related to any Person or Family of any Note at all was not bred up to Learning at any University or sent any where to Travel for Education or Experience but contrariwise brought up and kept diligently by his Parents to Work in the poor yet honest Trade of a FVLLER never lived out of that Town a Month together all his life except in a Journey some Weeks on occasion about sixteen years since to London besides what he under-went by constraint in Prison Never in the former Wars was enlisted in any Troop or Company under Pay and in the Trained-Bands of the Town where he served never was accounted worthy of Promotion to so much as a Corporal nor in the Corporation whereof he was a Member ever advanced so high as a Constable never bettered his Estate one farthing by all the propitious advantages that might have given him opportunity for so doing nor is conscious to himself of the least desire of adding to what he hath by any present or future advantages that any favourable overtures of the times may tempt him with never was advanced to or improved in any Place or Office of Trust or Profit Civil Military or Ecclesiastical save only for some few weeks unknown to him and against his will he was Mustered a Chaplain to the Fort but quickly got himself discharged of that again Never was concerned in nor truly charged with any Plot Mutiny or Tumult giving the least disturbance or occasion of Fear or Jealousie This one thing then only can remain to give colour to such proceedings That about eighteen years since he being convinced of his Duty to the Lord by evidence of Scriptural Light joyned himself in an holy Covenant to walk in all the Ordinances of the Lord blameless to the best of his Light and Power in fellowship with a poor and despised People FINIS