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
all say We have it not Crowns have it not and Beggars want it I was about to say it is only in Heaven This Herb grows in very few Gardens But Oh that you might be truly content You will find a But upon all your Comforts and therefore you cannot be contented You may find a fulness in Christ Col. 1.19 and therefore you should be contented Mind the Disease and the Cure in this Case First All your under-moon Refreshings or Comforts are too short and too narrow beds for Content to lye in And secondly They are but partial in their help and cannot answer all Cases Thirdly They are short-live'd Riches have Eagles wings and Beauty but skin-deep Honour in anothers keeping Friends and all are but waking dreams Content must have something to answer all the defects of the Creature and it onely dwells where all Questions are fully answered springing from thence A Naked Soul meeting with a Naked Christ can only be quieted in spirituals and the same Christ improved also for temporals Sin is pardoned Iniquities and Corruption done away the Favour of God gained the Spirit bearing witness to Adoption answers all for to this you must roul at length Though I know as others so we our selves adde to our Discontents and often quarrel for a Feather in our Cap. Paul sayes nothing befalls us but what is common to man and upon that would stay us but when Eternity will pay for all And Christ hath satisfied for all sin and cut the score and will make all work to the Great End The Saints make their Challenge against all Rom. 8. last The good Lord grant you may groundedly say Thy Will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven and that is Content My Child 10. I commend unto you meekness of spirit Zep 2.3 be loving to all envy none though they thrive by evil are evil Psal. 37.1 You know what a Promise the Meek have Matth. 5.5 As inordinate Passion bears the name of all sin in Scripture So Meekness carries many good things with it as Love Pity Patience c. Nor do I oppose Meekness to Zeal but would have you allow both their perfect work Meekness wil make smooth all your wayes disappoint Enemies of the advantage they may take against you And your love will not only cover many sins but help many out of them Indeed these will be a strong guard unto you and Grief will hardly get footing long where Meeknesse and her Concommitants dwel When you lose a poor Father or a rich Friend you will be able to say you knew them mortal and will be quiet though not sensless It will fit you for Meditation a duty even out of doors and very hardly practised I know the sad experience of Passion how it barrs the door against Prayer and other duties Oh! how can we lift up wrathful hands to Heaven They say Anger is the boyling of the Blood about the Heart I am sure it cools the Heart in Spiritutuals God took this to himself when he discovered his Name to Moses a pitiful pardoning long-suffering God Oh that you might be God-like Christ-like Moses-like Michael contestng with the Dragon maintained his meekness and Paul sayes it is the womans Ornament To get to his Meekness Gentleness Long-suffering Patience and Love Lonely advise to get all when they may be had as James for Wisdom Ja. 1.5 Study Examples for with the froward you shall learn Frowardness Prize it as a Jewel And because all the good or evil we have we act through our Complexions and Skins and great are the advantages sometimes that way Know there are tears of constitution as well as of contrition and joyes also so Meekness and other graces will be hardly discern'd by some from Naturals and Morrals The Lord make you Meek from the true Root my dear Child 11. Beware of a trifling loose heart which hath been the guise the bane of many in these last daies of Liberty and the decay of that old solemn serious spirit and sober that was among and upon the ancient Professors of Religion was very visible and broke out to the common vanity of the World in Dyet Clothes Recreations condemn'd and threatned Isa. 3. But so loose in holy things that who almost did not make Religion an indifferent thing and all duties concerning it accordingly though the like Reformation was never known in any age But new temptations drew forth old corruptions made good by the changes the Israelites were under and their trifling with God under all his bounty to them till they scorn Manna and ease and would have Garlick and oppression It much appear'd in this that it grew common to dispute Principles even the highest and most consented to as also in slighting Promises Vows Ingagements Oaths Incoustancy in duty undervaluing Authority shaken men were with every wind like to every company Ministers many words and frothy Shells and Out-sides most men playing fast and loose with God Do but minde in your reading what a sober plain unaffected holy strain is in Dod Sibs Preston Hooker Burrows and many other good men to what you find in some others though it may be good men too Ah my Childe a frothy wit and a vitious life carry directly to Athisme which is the Mastermischief of this Age yea in professing England This trifling springs either from a heart and head never kindly wrought upon or never wel way'd where sin hath been or is an easie burden there men trifle with their spirits and where men are not guided by a Rule they will prove the children of Changes it grows as other evils gradually and soon conspicuous in some Constitutions like Davids Waters from the Ancle soon over the Head I must tell you Thoughts are not free nor words wind they will judge us one day and from thence this Trifling comes The best cure I know by experience I say by woful experience of this evil will be to look within the Vail to the Mercy-seat made of pure Gold for free grace to help against so great a mischief and then to be much in Prayer communion of Saints fasting and holy duties to lay some more weight upon this spirit and often to mingle the sense of sin to take away this Froth and Lightness Every Morning down to Golgotha and from thence go up to Mount Calvary Believe me If sin made our Saviour cry My God my God c. What is the weight of sin Look to a day of Reckoning Christs Spirit was ever serious never known to laugh Be Sober and Watch dear Child 12. In like manner against that spreading evil of being a Busie-body and Pragmatical which is the Plague of Man-kind 1 Thess. 4.11 The words are very full and plain Study to be quiet Do your own Business Work with your own Hands The last two will cure the former danger Read and know That whilest you look too much into others Gardens you will neglect your own Be not
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
the soul to know that he is not able to satisfie Divine justice and so the Law may be called a School-master to Christ though the Text leads to the Ceremonial the Ceremonies being the Gospel of the Jewes These three steps of Love Christ takes in the Law by his first approach Secondly In his Gospel approach he takes these steps First He holds forth himself to the sinner a Mediator of the New Covenant and a free pardoner of sin this keeps the soul from despair Secondly He lets you know that he is as able and as willing as ever to do it Colos. 1.19 c. This keeps the soul in heart and hope Thirdly By that which they call the Reflex Act he brings home a particular Promise of grace to the soul as Revel. 3.17 and the Spirit of Christ thus argues He that is athirst must freely come But saies the Spirit Thou art thirstie Therefore come freely Thus I use to say A pitiful nasty ragged fatherless friendless Child is lying dying in a ditch A noble bountiful hand means to save him and adopt him first sends a servant to awaken him and bring him to his Court-gate then bids another let him in a third to wash him and put him on clean clothes another to read him the Order of his House another to set him at Table with his Children another to shew him his present and future estate Thus the Spirit of Humiliation first wakens a miserable lost sinner and that by the Law and can onely bring him to the Gate Then Vocation opens the Door Then Justification puts on Christs Righteousness Sanctification teacheth him how to walk taking away the Power of sin Adoption makes him a Brother and gives him his Priviledges And Glory begun here in part by sanctifying shewes him his estate And all this hath its rise from Free Grace Ezekiel 16. for God found us in our Blood The Lord open your eyes and make this a time of Love to you dear Child 27. But whilst I speak to you of Free-grace I must let you know that in the next place I must commend unto you accurate walking as the fruits thereof and for your better understanding I commend unto you divers of the aforesaid Books so my own thoughts are that it consists in all manner of Christian Circumspection Ephes. 5.15 to look within you without you about you beneath you to all and every duty and the rather because God's eye is ever and every where upon you Oh that you could so walk so think and not only so but you have bad men observing who by your negligence may either infest your Liberties or infect you with their Evils or at best be harder drawn-on to the wayes of God by your carelesse example Adde hereunto that you have the eyes of good men upon you and if they be young Christians you may make the Wayes of God like Giants and Brazen Walls unto them carry much difficulty and discouragement with them or if ancient Christians you may send them with grief to their graves by your miscarriages and not only so but the very way of Religion is like a narrow Bridge you need step advisedly that you may keep upon it or if fall you may recover with much trouble there is great cause you should be wise for Free-grace will never teach sin nor folly which that you may have help in consider what is said from the above-said Arguments and weigh them well and not only so but study the Lives of all the Saints in Scripture and do but see what trophees of their failings sin hath hung up and Satan David's sins of Adultery and Murder Peter's Denial of his Master Hezekiah's Pride and Vanity in shewing his Treasury Jonah's Impatience and Folly with the like And see Paul's and Samuel's Integrity Phineas his Zeal Nathaniel's Truth c. On the other hand Oh walk in this Gallery among these Pictures and for your security rest not without Assurance of God's Love which will make you wary Who would endanger it much lesse forfeit it The empty Purse fears not the Thief but the full looks to every Danger every Temptation And really nothing is a greater safeguard than the freeness of this Love communicated to the Soul stay you no-where on this side of it it will keep you steady in a trembling world Thus may you walk and from this blessed Principle dear Child 28. And that all this may be carried-on and is property the life of Faith remember That the hardest thing in the world is To believe in Jesus Christ to these and all other good ends Faith is a short word and easily spoken but Oh how hard is it in the nature of it when if ever the Lord works it in us he findes nothing not a spark of it till he comes nay he finds us opposit to the work of it nay he finds us unwilling to be made willing to close with the offer of Christ though made so freely Hypocrisie and all evil hath its fountain here we believe not all the other graces sink when this fails all must have its cure we bind the lame arm we anoint it we warmit and yet nothing helps because it is out of joynt Oh we believe not Anger rageth Lust provokes Covetousness cozens c. and all is We believe not Nature cannot reach this Art cannot compasse it to look near 1700 years back upon the Son of Mary who was the Son of God lived not forty years preached but three years and half reproached home to his grave and to believe in him for a Savior I say this must be the work of another world and the outstretched Arm of God See Ephes. 1.18 19 20 c. To believe that another will pay all my debts and become poor to make me rich to dye to make me live Oh Miracle of Mercy My Child to believe things incredible to hope things delayed and to love God when he seems angry are Luthers wonders and mine and thine It is unbelief is that death in the pot that lifts up sense that brings an ill report of God that overhastens our mercies and sets God a time for our deliverances Faith is the gift of God and the greatest which overcomes difficulties sets Mercy to work against Justice fetcheth the work done either by without or against Means throws Mountains into the Sea A little little grain like Mustard-seed will do Wonders enliven a dead heart save even a damned soul for such we are This will not be had without the Word and Spirit Rom. 10.17 and the Glory of it See Heb. 11. for this hear beg pray weep fast seek labour strive use violence read ask wish sigh and if you do believe the Lord help your unbelief dear Child 29. In the next which looks like the last indeed I must give you my thoughts about Death which certainly must be your portion though young and I must tell you it is a great word to say I dare dye many Books and
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
Transactions with Souldiers or others nor never would had I a longer life my head and heart be tired as well as my body craz'd I thought the Act of Indempnity would have included me but the hard Character upon me excluded me which I was so sensible of that Nature in its own preservation carried me to privacy but free from that report of the manner which is suggested of which you may be assured By my Zeal it seems I have exposed my self to all manner of reproach but wish you to know that besides your Mother I have had no fellowship that way with any Woman since first I knew her having a godly Wife before also I blesseâ— God But because what is before written may seem my white side only I shall deal in all plainness with you That though for Religion I am and have been really sound and Orthodox to my best apprehension according to the blessed Word of God and the generality of the Protestant Confessions yea though I travell'd through Protestant Churches for Order to espy the best and have joyned with the Churches of Christ and took in with that I call a Tender Presbytery for such was ours in New-England and yet so as I never unchurcht any Parish where a godly Minister was and godly People joyned together though not all so and do know God may have a People under all Forms and would withdraw to the furthest Judges rather than give offence to what I cannot close with yet so unworthy have my thoughts been of my self to be a meet Preacher of the Gospel that more than twice I had given it over had not Friends prevailed yea my profession of the Gospel hath been with much folly weakness and vanity I crave pardon of any that have taken offence though in a Christian way I have not had the reproofs of Three either for Preaching or Conversation I am heartily sorry I was Popular and known better to others than my self It hath much lain to my heart above any thing almost That I left that People I was engaged to in New-England it cuts deeply I look upon it as a Root-evil and though I was never Parson nor Vicar never took Ecclesiastical promotion never preach'd upon any agreement for money in my life though not without offers and great ones yet I had a Flock I say I had a Flock to whom I was ordained who were worthy of my Life and Labours but I could never think my self fit to be their Pastor so unaccomplisht for such a work for which who is sufficient cryes the Apostle This is my sore trouble and a private life would have become me best and my poor gift have had its vent also But here I was overpowered to stay For Errors in judgment I have pittied never closed with any that I know when I was a Tryer of others I went to hear and gain Experience rather than to judge When I was called about mending Laws I rather was there to pray than mend Laws When to judge in Wills I only went sometimes to learn and help the Poor than to judge but in all these I confesse I might well have been spared Nor do I take pleasure in remembring any my least activity in State-matters though this I can say I no where minded who ruled fewer or more so the good ends of Government be given out in which men may live in Godliness and Honesty I have often said That is a good Government where men may be as good as they can not so bad as they would where good men and things are uppermost and have thought if good Magistrates cannot bring all to their Judgments the Dissenters may have liberty being kept out of Office and want some other publick Characters That which a Friend of mine and my self writ by Letters about Magistrates was very little and the Records of the Tower were only named as giving way to all other Records to cut off dissentions or marks of Tyranny which no good Prince will exercise I am sorry if any offended it was Zeal for Quietnesse I honour Laws and good Lawyers heartily and know their use only ease expedition and cheapness what good man doth not call for Sedition is the heating mens minds against the present Authority in that I never was yet sorry Authority should have any hard thoughts of me or know so inconsiderable a creature as my self I never could be fit for a Court many wayes not fit and am therefore grieved that I was either constrained or content to live where I could do so little good for I would dye without a secret in my bosom unless Cases of Conscience in the way of Preaching which are secret indeed and for reading them to the World I had appointed a Portion if it had been continued to me Upon all this you may ask what design I drove being look'd upon that way Truly these three First That Goodness that which is really so and such Religion might be highly advanced Secondly That good Learning might have all Countenance Thirdly That there may not be a Beggar in Israel in England And for all these I have projected or laboured and I have no other And these I pray his present Majesty may look to and that God would blesse him every way If in the prosecution of these I have used any of my wonted rudenesse or unguided zeal I am heartily as sorry So begging pardon from God and Man Constitution or Custom I conclude in these particulars though the aim be good I conclude the former thus I think That as bad men care not who rule or what is uppermost so they may have their lusts so good men if they may enjoy God and his Truth with good Conscience For my whole course you know and feel where my wound hath been these Twenty years which hath occasioned not only my Head and Heart breaking but travelling from mine own Nest into businesse Blesse God if ever you meet with suitablenesse in Marriage For my spirit it wanted weight through many tossings my head that composure others have credulous and too careless but never mischievous nor malicious I thought my work was to serve others and so mine own Garden not so well culticated only this I say I aimed at a good mark and trust the Lord in Jesus Christ hath accepted it My Faith in the Everlasting Covenant was and is though feeble yet Faith I could thus continue ripping my whole heart to you who have very often had great success even to the last hour of my last Preaching and am preaching the life of Faith to my self to which call in all prayers to the Father in Jesus Christ his dearest Son to whom let us look as the Author and Finisher of our Faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the Crosse despised the Shame and now sits at the right hand of Majestie making Intercession for Transgressors Heb. 12.12 To whom be Glory and Praise and Thanks for ever For he is worthy