to pray in praying fast in fasting so to read in Reading Many doutbless take up a cursory trade to read out the Cries of a defiled or rackt Conscience I say Read with delight not as under a load or as a Labourer who waits for the shadow of the Evening which you shall never do unless your Heart be connatural with the Word and therefore remember as Justification takes away Guilt and Punishment Sanctification takes away the Power and Filth Glorification takes away the presence of Sin So Effectual Calling takes away that jarre that is betwixt the Soul and the Law of God by reason of Sin the Called of God read but their Fathers blessed Will in reading his Word his Testament his Legacies his Precepts his Threatnings against Sin c. all which his Childe dilights to hear and read This one Book well read will answer any Question or Case and you 'l finde Solomons Proverbs the best Politicks and Christ crucified the best Divinity But in reading the Scriptures let me reach out this Experience When you have prayed over your purpose that way then in every Chapter first minde the Method then note the hard things you understand not and get helps to clear them to you And Lastly gather out the chief Doctrines oâ— Lessons then in reading onâ— Chapter you may understanâ— many And if you read the Bible with the Annotations oâ— some Divines or the Dutcâ— translated it will not be amiss I have formerly commended to you a Little English Library in this kinde which I now fear your so much altered Condition will not give you time to be vers'd in However Remember David Psal. 119. how every Vers. almost shews Love to the Word And truly you may be assured you shall upon mine and your own Experience finde that you shall have no more Christ nay God Spirit Faith Peace Comfort than you have Scripture Nor will you have any Christ a Saviour that is not a Scripture Christ Oh that the Word may dwell plentifully in you my poor Child 4. Pray continually is the Apostles Counsel to the Thessalonians And for this you may have far better helps then from my unworthy unable self There are many helps to Devotien Mr. Baxter Burrows Gurnal Bridg c. Yet you shall have what I promised even my Experience I hope you know That Prayer is the breathing forth of holy Desires or lifting up the Soul upon God or asking the Things we need from God in and by Christ according to his Holy Will not without Confessions and Thanksgiving This Work must have Time Seriousnesse Composure And this take undoubtedly That Prayers can never fly high where the Person is not accepted can have no strength without Faith About this Duty I must let you know There are Three Miscarriages usually First before the Duty Unpreparednesse Unsuteablenesse reaking hot out of the World Self sin into that service as if men could leap into Gods bosome out of the Devils lap Before Prayer you need to study God your self and the way to him John 6. You need to take a time when he is most like to hear even when he is inditing for you and puts Words into your mouth Hos. 14. The Second Failer in Prayer is When you do not watch to Prayer O the Hurreys of our Hearts the Thorowfare that carries crooked Thoughts through us the Vanity Folly Obliquities of our Spirit As the Heart must be whipt to the Duty so it must be bound fast to it How few pray how many say words Oh How many say their Prayers backwards call him Father who is not their Father would not have his Name hollowed nor his Kingdome come c. 3. And Lastly After this duty there is either an aptness to be proud And adde another Note as if the Lord was in our Debt or upon miscarriage in point of Inlargement we grow weary and peevish and call for our Prayers again if we succeed not as Lovers for the Portion not the Person call for their Love-Tokens back Look on Th. Goodwin on Isa. 55.6 7 8. Be plain and honest with God shew your Sores and his Love to you You cannot be so bad as he is good With the old Martyr I cry Pray pray pray My dearest Child Regard no injury in thy heart 5. Keep a constant Watch upon your whole man for which much hath been written as Mr. Reyners Rule for the new Creature Mr. Brinsleys Watch and many others from the Thonghts and affections to all cases almost But since I promised the Addition of my Experience to your Self I have held that very True noted by David yea by some Heathens That our Life is seventy Years half of which time spends its self in Eating Drinking and Sleeping the Remainder is Thirty Five and of that you may allow the first Fifteen even for Child-hood till when ordinarily little is minded that is solid then Twenty only are left of the Number and of them even half spent in by-business and then tell me how little do we live How needful is it then that you be upon your Watch continually when so many Silver Brooks run by many Doors unregarded It is hard to Watch most are very Drowsie The Disciples themselves could not Watch one Hour My Advice is That mainly you Watch your self in what you are And where you are These Two go far in your Watch to see your self in a good Estate And to be where you should be in your Duty and Employment argues a curious Eye and a careful Head But to be very accurate in your Watch and to keep off from troublesome Anneares keep a Book by you I mean it litterally in which every Night before you sleep you set down on the one side the Lords gracious Providence and Dealings with you and your dealings with him on the other side This Watch well kept fits for Prayer Fastings Sabbaths Sacraments and Death upon which Judgment follows I pray Watch so That Thoughts Affections Head Heart Hand Foot and all have a share in and benefit by the Work The Flesh and the World in all the Pleasures and Profits of them send up fumes to the Head occasioning sleep Therefore the Lord is forced to keep us waking by Affliction as the Thorn to the singing Bird David sought God early The Three Women early looking after Christ Remember thy Creator betimes And this Watching is the Circumspect Walking Ephes. 5.16 Look round about you continually as if you walked with God as Enoch before God as Abraham or after God as David he walked in God's wayes If you do not Watch you will be Tempted I say Tempted The Lord watch over thee that thou mayest watch my dearest Child 6. For thy growth in grace I am the more zealous because 2 Pet. 3.18 the Apostle propounds it as a Cure against all the Errors of the wicked For this also there are divers helps as M. Symmons his Cure to Distressed Consciences a Choice Piece and many others But
like the Squiril leaping from Tree to Tree and Bough to Bough Be much at Home and you will find work enough as long as you keep Christ and sin before you you will have work enough for your Thoughts and if your Fancy be not well fed your Thoughts like Milstones will grinde themselves Spirits rais'd and not imploy'd will torment the Witch that rais'd them And if you set not your self on work the Devil will mark but the several Trees of fruit or others they grow in their own roots and change not Be content to be a shrub Cedars will shake and never desire to be near Greatness Honour often dies grinning and ghastly Our business must be our own as well as our Crosses To meddle with other mens work will be thankless as to take other mens Physick will be useless if not dangerous An hours Idleness is a sin as well as an hours Drunkenness Few mens feet stand before Princes because few mens hands are diligent The Maid was possest because the Devil found her in his own house viz. a Play-house The Busie-body is but a Pedler to carry up and down and vend the Devils Wares How few lose any thing by quietness and doing their own work Their sweet sleep commends it David got his great wound upon this neglect and Peter his by warming his Hands when he should have been breaking his heart in secret Oh keep home keep home I speak experience to you who never found good hour but in mine own work Nor doth this cut off works of Love or Charity which must be attended in their seasons and by their Rules The cure of this evil lies much in Studying duty the end of your Creation being the practice of Saints that though you work here ease is in Heaven all your labour is little enough for your own business be alwayes ready to say I am where the Lord would have me to be How bitter is the remembrance of good hours ill spent How cuting of time lost Death knows no distance whether King or Bishop or Pawn all at the end of the Game is put into one Bag the Grave Be doing your own work what ever your condition be Tell me what our blessed Lord did but the work he was sent about Be like him in this as in all things else and that Spirit of the Lord Jesus be with thee My dear Heart 13. Through your whole course let Truth have its way and do not make Lyes your Refuge they will mock you in the end Mr Reynor and others have written largely about the words and the Tongue but none to James the Apostle You see I do not load you in any thing with Heathens Fathers Poets and their Apothegms which are many in these Cases which I purposely avoid as tickling the ear when often they reach not the heart A Schollar yea a School-boy may gather them but the Truth of God set on by his Spirit must make you consistent All the World is hung with lyes and all of man Proclaims so much Cloaths Meats Trades Salutations yea our Profession of Religion All men are Lyers and all things on this side Christ a Lie The Prince of the Ayre makes it his work who was the Father of Lies Christ calls for Yea and Nay onely I wish in Christianity we could find this Christianity Heathenâ— and Turks shame us it is the blot of the Nation as if we were Lyars in the Womb the sin even lives and dyes with us you may not tell a Lye for God The Prophet Zechary put Peace and Truth together as if they could not be asunder Zech 8.15 16 19. The Root is the Heart from whose abundance the Tongue speaketh Oh the falsness and deceit of this little thing Not a Breakfast for a Kite Away with that distinction of Jocous or Friendly Lyes Psal. 101. David will have no Lyer with him Truth takes in all good Religion God ownes none where it is not Hypocrisie is a Lye Friend Name Credit Estate Beauty Honour c. are full of Lyes John 6. Christ the Truth as well as Life and Way Though every untruth be not a Lye where it is not spoken with a purpose to deceive so men distinguish your care must be to trade with your heart Nathaniels heart was honest and so without guile good feed fell into an honest heart Truth is naked beware of base Coverings Let your conversation be without Guile without a Lie the Lord is the Heart-searcher Sow up your Mouth but let it be with Honestie not Policie As you never hurt your self by speaking little so will you never gain any thing by telling a Lie Let others call this sin a Virtue but do you call it by its own name and hate it as Poison Let Truth be thy Portion it will preserve you and ever say I can do nothing against the Truth dear Child 14. And what I said last urgeth me to commend Wisdom to you which is a very comprehensive word and is justified of her Children But I mean not the Wisdom of this world whether natural or artificial I intend Scripture Wisdom which is from above And this is a Light that God sets up in the Soul to direct us and affect us in our whole course Joh 28. last The Fear of the Lord that is Wisdom and to depart from Evil that is Understanding If you be wise be wise for your self To have all Books in ones Head and want this Catechism in the Heart will never amount to it Many great Clerks not wise many a Statist falls short But this will make you hear Prov. 1.5 It will make you lay a sure Foundation Matth. 7. the Wise Builder This will make you provide for Changes Luke 16.8 This will make you lay in abundantly Matth. 25. the Virgins were wise This will make you bear sorrow Eccles. 7.4 And truly this is Wisdom and the Helps hereunto are to become a Fool 1 Cor. 3.18 To number your dayes that so you may apply your heart to Wisdom To beg it of God Jam. 1.5 But above all to make Christ your Wisdom 1 Cor. 1. last Oh that you were thus wise Much of Wit must be pared off before it will be usefull I have seen the wayes of it though never could pretend much to it But this I know that being unsanctified it is a sword in a mad-mans hand spends it self in vanity foolish jesting abuse of those who are weaker than our selves yea often to play with the blessed Word of God But this Wisdom will guide preserve honour you How doth Solomon admire it in the Proverbs bids you seek it love it follow after it and this is Christ himself You shall never have comfort in suffering for Folly therefore see the plague and hide which hath invited some so to do often Experience which is the observation of many Events will help you much in this study be much in the Word which will make you wise to Salvation Let your Companions
about God before they change about his Waies I could be very large in this accounting it my very great Mercie that temptation never led me from that Honest Old Godly Puritane Profession of the everlasting truths of the Gospel Secondly Inquire whether they have been carried more to God and Holiness since their change For that which comes from God will carry us to God but if onely to Pride Censuring Libertinisme c. you know what to make of it Beware of Leaven of the Pharises Christ saies for Leaven will sowre the Dough will swell it will harden it and these you meet with in mens spirits leavened with Error Where men once leave the Rule there will be no end of their running till they come to Atheism Therfore stand in awe of God and fear him alwaies Hold to the Word as to Life Question not Truths Look to your Company Value the meanest Ordinance You will need all Be very low and humble before the Lord and Grow in Grace 2 Pet. 3 18. My dear Child 24. And because the first Child that appears in view of this Jesabel the Mother of Mischief Errour so called by John Rev. 2.20 is about the Sabbath either wholly slighting it or counting it Jewish or our day not the right day not the Seventh yea that every day is a Sabbath with the like I mean besides all such as profanely look upon it as a day of Sport Pleasure and Vanity I think it my duty to Charge you as ever you mean or hope to enjoy that everlasting Rest hereafter that you would value the Sabbath Read Dod and others about it I do not remember that I have ever met with a truly Godly gracious soul that lived above or beyond this The first Commandment sets up the true God The second his Worship according to his own will The third his Reverence and Honour and The fourth Time the seventh part of Time for him is holy Time Works of Necessity and Charity not crossing that Holiness I say the seventh part of Time because it is Night in one place when Day in another which Time begins at the Evening as Time is distinguished into Daies Gen. 1. And though the Questions about the Sabbath and Baptism breed much Dispute in the World yet we must Study to know Gods Will in both I must say more to you Where the Sabbath is at an undervallue in any Country say it be France Holland Germany c. there you shall find Religion low and at best wasting it self into Disputes But know that England which is most famous for Religion got it from the Sabbaths upon which day the Lord is pleased as Princes by their Almoners to give out his Gifts and Craces to the sons of men I was a witness that Middleburgh in Zealand grew famous for Religion by Teeling their Preacher fetching the keeping of the Sabbath from England Certainly the Fourth Commandment is the Key to all the rest for how shall the rest be practised if not taught and how taught if not time allowed and what time more likely to carry a Blessing than Gods Appointment It were as good to take down Ministry and all Ordinances as to take down the Sabbath The wonders of God have born witness as Burton and others write against the Breakers of it Wherefore look well about you Isa. 58.13 Love the Lord in his Sabbaths as you would have rest hereafter Look to this Rest here and remember the Sabbath that is Prepare for it all the week long especially the Evening before The Jewes had two Preparations to the Sabbath at Three and Six Do you keep on and gather home all Affections to wait upon the Work and let the day be dear to you The God of Sabbath be yours dear Child 25. The Premises considered I should a little open what I mean by Free Grace to which I send you so often for succour in Cases and truly it hath been much spoken of and as much abused as if men from thence might take leave for any evil and on the other hand also filth cast upon men that have labour'd to hold it forth for which Dr. Crisp suffered also and some of that mind who meant faithfully to the Church of Christ and have written much for the abasement of the Creature and lifting up Grace I wish we may judge right judgement of all men and things But a little Practically to cast in something to profit you The Grace so spoken of should mainly be minded as the Root and Fruits of the New Covenant Jer. 31. and that in Hos. 2. 19 20 c. Which you will find lie upon two-Parties Christ and the poor Believer and Christ to be considered in a double Act of his First In his loving or rather manifesting his love in time to the soul And Secondly In passing over that Right he hath in himself to the believing soul Answerable whereunto the soul first from Christs love is warm'd to love again and from his bounty in his second Act turns over all the soul hath to the Lord Jesus Christ whether Name Estate Wit Parts yea all its Interests Now Christ thus loving the soul and giving himself upon no Meritorious or procuring Cause on the souls side is called Free Grace indeed when the Father shall freely give his Son and the Son freely his Heart-blood and the Spirit freely all its operations and make a free Covenant of grace and mercy to pardon all sin to receive a sinner into his bosom without money or price nay not to offer any thing of his own either Duty or Righteousness Isa. 55.1 this call Free Grace though when Christ comes to manifest this he by the Law gets Parly with the sinner he means to save by some uncouth waies and often very cross to flesh and blood which makes the work hard to judge of at first yet be assured that the whole work will be Free in the Whole Frame of it But because this point is of such singular concernment and that I have formerly delighted to speak to others touching the same and would have the comfort of it my self I shall let you know what I know about the order of the working hereof that you mistake not 26. And in the letting you in this Light to give you the summe of true practical Divinity and therefore observe with diligence That when a discovery is made of this Love to the sinner the Lord Jesus makes a double approach to the soul the first is by the Law where he takes three steps And first by the Law he stops the sinner in his course and makes him to see sin in the very nature of it not in the Hell onely and consequence but in that it separates the soul from the greatest good Romans 7.7 And Secondly makes the soul bear the burden and weight of it which makes David himself cry out often and so others It pincheth hard where sin hath got time and strength c. Thirdly it lets
Funeral Sermons you may reade about it I say Life is sweet and Death terrible many in several distempers may call for it neither minding what it is nor whither it leads Job describes it in his Agony and Heathens could say The first good was not to be born and the next to dye quickly Paul above any desires it upon right grounds Yea the last words in the Canticles and the last in the Bible are for the Lord Jesus to come quickly yea to come to judgment as if it were the breathings of the spirits of the Just in the last times of which spirit if you be these will be your Reasons as theirs First That you may see Him of whom you have heard so much who hath done and suffered so much for you Secondly That you may have full draughts of what you now tast only Thirdly That your Beloved may come to you or you to Him for whose sake and love you may undergo here many frowns brow-beatings if not worse thus the absent Spouse waits for her Beloved Fourthly When the Sanctuary is troden upon Isa. 64.1 Fifthly That the double Vail of Corruption and Affliction may be taken off from you Thus to wish for Death is to wish for Life These things I pray study and to help you further remember Balaam would fain die the Death of the Righteous which you can never do unless you live the Life of the Godly to which I have written so much before Only let me adde That you must live in daily Expectation of this great Change for though there be but one way into the World there are many out I know nothing to sweeten it but the Death of Christ who suckt out the poison of it and saves to the uttermost Romans and Fools can dye bravely write their own Elegies I am sure a well-led life is the best Monument If one at your door should cry every morning You must dye it would not reach far but Christ dyed for you My Child 30. They say and truly Where Death leaves you there Judgment finds you Nothing flies so swiftly than as the soul out of the body and you know Eternity hangs upon a moment and such is our Life and especially such is the last groan and pang and thither it leads It is a vast Ocean hath neither bound nor bottom where you are to come before an impartial Judge with a naked and open breast it is unavoidable and the miscarriage there intolerable Many Books are written by many about these last things and Apothegmes not a few the World and the Flesh will not appear for you the former can lend you but a few Ceremonies and Complements the other dare go no further than the Judges door but a good Conscience sprinkled by the Blood of Christ will enter with boldness and plead and hear the voice of Come ye blessed Your wisdome will be to carry your Pardon in your bosome there Wit and Learning Parts and Wealth will get no hearing there the Eloquent Orator is dumb no Coin is currant but the Blood of a loving Saviour No man can appear there by any other Proxy there Greatness must give way to Goodness there Hypocrisie is unmask'd Truth naked there your fellow Saints shall sit Judges though dispised amongst men there the Son of man shall appear because despised as the Son of man there Preaching Miracles Casting out Devils will not profit but a Name written in the Book of the Lamb Oh that you would consider betimes what a nothing a thousand years are to Eternity yea where you shall be an hundred years hence if the Grave make no distance betwixt the Scepter and the Mattock what will Eternity do when that shall make the difference Wherfore I pray measure all your works by Eternity eat drink sleep work by Eternity the cry of a damned soule is I never minded Eternity how many are every day carrying faggots to burn them to Eternity Call that good that holds for ever Let but the Judge be your Husband and fear nothing The ever-living God love you and keep you to all Eternity My Child 31. And because I have brought you so far as the Great Day give me leave to awaken you with the condition of the place Heaven and to let you know it in the particulars which are the presence of all good and the absence of all evil the former commends it self unto you in these First in the universality of it whereas all things here below are but partial so in the suitableness of it they are there spiritual and suitable to the Spirit Secondly for their Continance the good things are not like Cherries drawn by the lips or Comforts tasted and gone but they stay and are good for ever Thirdly Evil knows no place there Sin cannot dwell with that Holiness Sorrow cannot mingle it self with that Joy no more fading Riches dying Friends changing Honors perishing Beauty no more aking heads nor languishing diseases no more hearing the chain of the Prisoner nor anger of the Oppressor no cry of what do you lack every Bottle is full and every Bed easie being of never-blasting Roses and Sweets where every Room is paved with Love where Wisdom Power Mercy and Grace have combined to make all glorious and pleasant Then never be troubled about a dunghil-world when the Apostle to the Thessalonians sayes all in a few words We shall be with the Lord for ever and that includes all answers all hard Questions all hard Labours under the Sun Remember the Swaggerer that met the poor man ever mourning over his sins quoth he What still mourning c. But what if there be no Heaven Ah Sir quoth the other what if there be a Hell The Doctrine of Hell was never enough preach'd some thinks and there on the contrary is the presence of all evil and the absence of all good you may study it by the former where the Tormented never die and the Tormentor is never weary where thought and fear despair punishment extremity meet altogether in Eternity The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve you to his Heavenly Kingdom My poor Child Union with Christ and Knowledge sound The Scriptures reade in Pray'r be found A constant Watch and growth in Grace Good Conscience Time short Work apace Contentment in Condition Low No Trifling Spirit in you grow Nor Busie nor Pragmatical Truth still appearing in your All Wisdom directing soon and late In Calling and in Marriage-state The World describ'd in its bad wayes A Friend indeed beyond all praise And Sin the Mother of all Grief Grace often question'd for relief With Providences running crosse Fears sinfull causing Doubts and Losse Dayes of Adversity and Evil Errors that spring from Self and Devil Sabbath for Rest and Worshipping And Free-grace pitying pardoning With accurate and holy walking Hard to believe though easie talking Death ghastly looking and Sins daughter With Judgment that will follow after Heav'n in its great Magnificence Hell's punishment in