that Duty The Spirit knows the Mind of God and is the Intelligencer of Heaven he directs us to the most favourable Seasons and by soft Whispers and warm Impulses brings us in God's Presence to pray for Mercies when God is ready to bestow them He does with sensible Enlargements open our Hearts in the Duty And as under the Law when Fire fell from Heaven upon the Sacrifice 't was a sign of God's Acceptance so when a sacred Fire kindles our Affections 't is a sign our Requests are accepted He mixes in our Prayers Reverence with filial Confidence Resignation to the Will and Wisdom of God with Reliance upon his Love and Power And when a Mercy is bestowed the Spirit converts our Prayers into Praises and by the Mercy confirms our Faith inflames our Love and endears Obedience to us Concerning the Person of whom the following Papers give an account I shall only say He is a Christian inwardly who has had a stated Intercourse with Heaven and has recorded the gracious Passages of Providence the rich Returns of Prayer to him 'T is true there is a continual succession of Mercies through all the minutes of our lives which we cannot observe and remember but as there is a different Glory in the lights of Heaven One Glory of the Sun another of the Moon and another of the Stars so some are eminent and illustrious above others and ought to be remembred and acknowledg'd with Solemnity Of these Mercies he has been deeply sensible and could not be silent but opens the Treasures of his Experiences and with David the great Pattern of Thankfulness calls upon those that Fear the Lord to Read what he has done for his Soul His end is to Glorifie his Blessed Benefactors and to invite others to partake of the same Mercy May his Example excite us with diligence and delight to maintain Communion with God on Earth the sweet and sure anticipation and earnest of our Communion with him in his Temple above where Light and Love and Joy shine in their perfection for ever To the Reader WHO amongst the adopted Sons of God can behold the abounding Vice of the Prophane the profession of Christianity made a Cloak for Sin and Error and the laziness of Christians lives in our day and not awaken our selves to hear God speaking in the same language to us as to the children of Israel Isa 43.10 You are my witnesses Is God's Divine Providence practically deni'd or retrench'd when so much thereof is in the constant view of the sons of men Is the Word of Truth deni'd by a Sectary of Deists when so much thereof is felt as real in the Souls of Christians Is the Godhead of Christ with the Being of a Divine Spirit so audaciously and prophanely deni'd when those who have experienced the priviledges of the satisfaction of the first by the powerful application of the latter witness the reality of both I am resolved therefore to make no other Apology for my Printing the following Discourse than that it is in obedience to the Apostle's charge to all Believers in the 10th verse of the 4th Chapter of the first Epistle of Peter As every man hath received the gift even so minister the same one to another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God What I have imparted I have receiv'd and in these gradual steps and in the use of these means treated of in the first and latter part of the Discourse and therefore in the imparting of what God has done for my Soul and by what means I hope I stand his witness this day on the earth and approve my self a faithful Steward in ministring the same things to others and that in the way wherein they were received There seems to be a Confederacy between Satan and the men of this Age to discredit the Oracles of God but his Word is a firm foundation of Faith and sincere Christians clearly see the Characters of its Divinity and feel the sanctifying comforting efficacy of it and many have seal'd its truth with their blood Others in their dying hours when men speak with most feeling and least affectation have declared their unshaken belief of it and others in converse with those they most dearly love and therefore would not deceive Each Christian therefore is under obligation to glorify God according to their measure of experience concerning God and his Divine Truths All are not in the office of the Ministry and there seems in our day but small opportunity in conversation to witness for Christianity Converse with the Prophane is of so dangerous consequence that discourse of such things occasion God and his Truth to be mock'd yea to my certain knowledge blasphemed Converse with some under the character of greater Sobriety draws forth such open confidence in Error as to tell us God's Word the Rule of our Faith is to be laid aside and Debates in Christianity are to be left off at the first Chapter of Genesis they giving no credit to its Truths than so far as their natural Reason can comprehend whereas the Soul was corrupted in all its faculties by the Fall Although in the structure of the world and its preservation with the various turns of Providence there are clear discoveries of the Divine Maker yet how little advance did the wise Philosopher make to that perfection of Soul which was in man before the Fall or to that that is obtain'd under the influencing light of the Scripture and the Divine Spirit or shall be in man plac'd in a state of glory And though God has added to us his blessed Scripture in conjunction with the works of Creation and Providence to exercise our thoughts upon for the perfecting of our knowledge yet to what little advancement do many attain in the understanding of God and Divine Mysteries Therefore our compassionate Father in Christ sensible of our weakness in the real and firm understanding of Divine Things has given forth another help to our dark Soule in conjunction with the former even his Divine Spirit teaching us all truth and helping us to a rest and reliance upon his Word working in us a sense and feeling of those great and marvellous mysteries for preparing our Souls towards the more full and glorious perception of them The Revelation in the Old Testament was like the morning-light mixt with the shades of the night the Revelation in the New Testament is clear day but the Revelation of God and Christ in Heaven is like the Sun at noon in its full lustre If this therefore has been God's gradual method to restore men and we enjoy so bright a discovery of mercy to save us those who refuse to accept it cannot escape the condemnation due as the recompence of it the dwelling in darkness with the children of darkness and disobedience for ever Rom. 2. If those who have had no other help in the understanding of the invisible things of God besides the beholding of created things are
the method bringing it about loses thereby the actual excitement of the excellent Graces and so miss of much comfort and light that others enjoy Fourthly You may judge of the intercession of Christ's Spirit in your Prayer by the never-failing correspondency between a Prayer perform'd as is exprest and a return thereto This is according to God's own Word and the Experience of diligent true observing Christians And if it were not so I doubt not but amongst thousands of Experiences training me to the knowledge thereof and establishment therein I should have met with one contradicting it I know I have met with many passages upon my advancement in the knowledge of God's ways that at first view seem'd greatly opposing of this and if a strict observation had been intermitted the shaking of my Faith or mistake therein had been the consequence but keeping strict to observation of Providences present and reflection upon past ones with patient waiting the full sight of the return to Prayer appear'd with that improvement of being more serious and considerate in the observation and comparing God's ways of Providence and inward workings of his Spirit according to his revealed Will. I would subjoin to these few marks of Prayer with the intercession of Christ's Spirit some things you are to beware of as occasions of mistaking this Prayer and deluding you with a false resemblance of it and something I would advise your observation of that may be a means to lead you into the performance of Prayer aright and thereby an opportunity of obtaining Christ's Spiritual influences therein I begin with the latter First Be advised to enter upon private Prayer without any discomposure of Spirit from the things Temporal that pleasantly affect us The thoughts of them will be ready to rush themselves upon your remembrance I could easily set down the many Prayers I have had spoil'd by such things rushing upon my thoughts at the time but circumstances will not permit Secondly Without any vexation upon your Spirit unless you use Prayer in such a circumstance as a help to quiet your mind and to suppress the further rise of corrupt motions for which end I dare recommend private Prayer as a healing means Thirdly Have your thoughts as free of worldly Persons and Things as possibly you can otherways passing immediately from Conversation with the world you will be apt to cast a lingring look back upon the world and to have thoughts stealing into you which will hinder the Spirit 's assistance to pray in the manner before charecteriz'd Fourthly Do not cursorily perform the Duty of Prayer to satisfie your mind that you have discharg'd the Duty and till night you are not to return to it but consider that Prayer is not only a Duty but a heavenly Priviledge wherein we may with a filial freedom address our selves to the Lord Almighty as our Father who from the infinite treasures of his love will supply all our wants and satisfie all our regular desires Therefore let us be liberal in the time for that Duty By continuance in Prayer our Hearts are more fully possest with God and by wrestling with him we get a holy heat of Affection tho' in our entrance into the Duty we were but coldly affected These are some of the hindrances which a Christian is to watch against and there are many other which the observing Christian will discover and endeavour to prevent Concerning the other to wit the occasions of mistaking the natural workings of the Affections for the Spirit 's work in Prayer I shall first in general say That the not considering the state of the Soul first designing to Pray in Praying and after Prayer leads into many mistakes According to the inward and habitual frame of the Soul such is the exercise of the Affections in that Duty and usually such are the influences of the Holy Spirit Secondly The judging that common seriousness in Christian Duties is all the spirituality that is necessary or attainable may be an occasion of mistake For this will make them content without seeking for supernatural influences and without the perception of them Close walking with God in the often use of Prayer is the best help to train this Soul in the further knowledge of the Breathings of Christ's Spirit Thirdly A more than ordinary seriousness from the ardent desire of obtaining the thing petition'd for may impose upon some with its resemblance to spirituality as also a Christian's indifferency in obtaining a thing pray'd for may impose a resemblance to the Souls of straitning in Prayer thorough Christ's withdrawings Fourthly The rational hope of obtaining our Petitions or the rational improbability of obtaining may sometimes impose a resemblance of spirituality and constraint in Prayer An Experience whereof I have had concerning Friends dangerously Ill who in my thoughts and in the judgment of their Physitians have been Dying from which seeming certainty of their Dying I have had an unwillingness as being altogether needless to pray for them I remember of a Child who was dangerously Ill without sensible pulse cold as clay and in the opinion of all Dying or Dead which rational conjecture so imprest me as to restrain me from Prayer concerning it But next morning in my Closet Prayers not designing a Petition for the Child supposing it then assuredly Dead a sudden seriousness and spirituality seized me carrying me forth in Prayer for this Child which at first astonish'd my Thoughts till sending to know if alive I heard of its life and great amendment To the praise of the infinite condescention of God I shall mention two directions as preventive of Error and Mistakes in the observation of Prayer and the enjoyments accompanying it and that as an encouragement to weak Christians to use these means without fear or doubting of God's wise and loving conduct of them to preserve them from Error unless God's permission thereof be for the Christian's good taking that way to establish Grace stronger in the Soul First His impressing me at the time with the true state of the matter that never to my remembrance was I under false resemblances of spirituality or constraint in Prayer but at the time I had some discovery of it Secondly Such dangers never occur'd to my Experience till God had establish'd my right knowledge both of spirituality and constraint in Prayer and that by Experiences in abundance a part of which is laid down in the Historical part of this Discourse I say this as a witness for God's Condescension and Wisdom in training the sincere diligent Christian groaning after the true knowledge of God's ways in the right use of means yet I say it not to encourage laziness either in the beginning or more grown Christian but excite them to more serious and strict observation of their Souls that they may not be deceived I find it more common with private Christians than formerly to observe enlargement in Prayer and constraint therein as forerunners of their injoying or not
Religion I do really acknowledge that from reading a Chapter with Mr. Pool's Annotations concerning a point I have had more clear knowledge and confirmation than by reading Controversial Books And I do believe it one of the most common failures of Youth under Religious Education not reading the Scriptures with Annotations which greatly fixes the Thoughts upon ones self and God's Divine Rule if conform unto it either in Heart or Life Be advised therefore to begin your knowledge of Spiritual Things right and not to end where you should have begun and to read but one Chapter with Annotations and Observation rather than many slightly remarking that part of Scripture your Thoughts at the time of reading mostly fix to and observe the method of Providence afterward appearing and perhaps you may discover its correspondency to the matter remarkt either as Instruction or Comfort Secondly I advise grown Professors who busie themselves with Controversies and with Books Eloquently written or of high Notions but still are without an affectionate vital knowledge of Divine Truths and in danger of being infected with this or the other new-sprung Error I say to such That I am afraid the advice given to younger Persons has not been follow'd by them I therefore earnestly exhort them to read the Scriptures with a design to be enlightned and sanctified by them and with the assistance of a sound Expositor that their imperfect and unsetled Conceptions of Divine Things may be rectified and strongly imprest within them and the power of them may be visible in their lives If you cannot enjoy full measure of time once a day do it by parts Many sit in their Shops waiting for their Customers and Reading of Books of no value or thinking upon what they can give no account of afterward that have great opportunity of using this method Many might detract from their great time spent in Dressings and Visitings and thereby might have more leisure for this profitable and â—ounding work I am hopeful if this method was once in use there might be an excellent foundation laid for your Knowledge of God the Lawgiver and of your own Loyalty and Duty to him in Heart and Life The delight the Soul would taste in Reading the Word would cause us to disrelish all other Books tho' never so pleasing to the carnal Fancy and Desires that govern the unrenewed part of Mankind I have often thought upon the fancy so delighted with variety and have pitied some such who would be taken with every new thing but did not Experimentally know the varieties of things in the Scriptures greatly alluring worth the reading and the contemplating and the varieties of impressions affecting the mind in reading the same Scripture at various times But I have observ'd the better the Duty is the more instruction and comfort abound therein inward corruption and Satan keeps the Soul the more backward from it And let any experiencing Christian reflect upon the days of their Ignorance and the Beginnings of their spiritual Knowledge they 'll find When Hearing and Prayer has been practised by them yet serious Reading was greatly neglected especially with an Expositor A Duty establishing and comforting a Christian is the Duty Satan loses most by to Read matter indifferent overcomes neither Satan nor Corruption but Scripture-Revelation discovers both in their natural Colours and a way to escape the Tyranny of either I remember the neglect of Reading the Scripture while only under the power of Religious Education kept me in darkness and security for not bringing the false hopes of the goodness of my spiritual State to the Touch I presum'd that I was in a safe condition but by serious Reading the Scripture I had a true discovery of God and my self and I delighted in the discovery and the blessed means of it That which before was so unpleasant to the corrupt Nature was sweeter than the Honey-Comb This is the usual Reward that is joyn'd with our Obedience to the Divine Command Of searching the Scriptures I am afraid the neglect of this Duty keeps not only prophane and meer professing Christians from a change to a state of real Christianity but even real Christians in a careless neglect of their Conversations The serious Reading a Chapter in the morning would so fix the matter upon the Christian's Thoughts that now and then he would be reflecting whether he has stept aside from Conformity to what he had Read in the morning and would make him watchful against Temptations that surrounded him lest he be surprised by them How sad is the carelesness even of real Christians with respect to the inward frame of their Souls and their outward Conversation which I do believe may in some measure proceed from the neglect or at least the unserious performance of this Duty and the not considering that God sees them in their Companies in their Families in their Closets and in their Hearts and their neglect of serious yielding themselves to the conduct of the Holy Spirit thorough the day I remember a passage I heard of a Minister who had neglected his serious morning-morning-Prayer before his going forth upon that Sacred Work of Preaching and after Reading his Text was stopt that he could go on no further and another was forc'd to supply in his room and upon review found that his neglect of Praying for Divine Assistance and dependance upon it was the cause why he was so deserted If Christians were more concerned to have their morning Duties strictly perform'd their Conversations would be strict and spiritual thorough the day they would not disparage their Profession and dishonour God by so many blemishes in their Actions they would not so harden the prophane and meer titular Christians in their sinful state whereas Prayer joyn'd with the Reading the Word in the morning is a blessed means to maintain our Communion with God in all the business and lawful refreshments of the day If innocent Recreations by fixing our thoughts upon them or by reason of the length of time we are in them lessen our seriousness we should be less frequent and shorter in them let the Conversation be never so innocent and the Company never so dear they must not deprive us of communion with Heaven we must so use the world as we may enjoy God I think visiting of Friends a Duty as well as diversion but prolonged to a day or an afternoon meddling in others affairs censuring some and commending others perhaps without reason is grieving to a spiritual-minded Christian unless where he may either do or receive some spiritual good The serious exercise of our minds upon spiritual things and discourse of them preserves the sacred fire burning in our breasts Spiritual Conversation is as rare amongst Christians as it 's profitable it 's the beginning of Heaven and reduces friendship to the state of Paradise But we are so sadly declin'd that unless he is a person of eminent holiness and gravity that interposes divine discourse in Conversation
THE Private Christian's WITNESS FOR Christianity In Opposition to the Notional and Erroneous Apprehensions OF THE Arminian Socinian and Deist of the AGE With the Easy and True Means leading the Prophane Meer Professor and Lazy Christian to the same Experience as Preservative against the Infection of each and against the ill Example of the Practical Blemishes in Lazy Christians Conversation LONDON Printed for Thomas Cockerill at the Three Legs in the Poultry 1697. THE PREFACE BY A Friend of the Author 's SINCE the Fall of Man by his Rebellious Sin he incurr'd the forfeiture of his Felicity that principally consisted in Communion with God The Divine Goodness is like a sealed Fountain all comforting Emanations are obstructed Divine Justice is a consuming Fire to all guilty and polluted Creatures The Son of God by his precious Merits and Intercession is a Mediator of Reconciliation and Communion All our Ascents to God in spiritual Duties and his Descents to us by communicating Graces and Comforts are through Christ He introduces our Persons into the Divine Presence he purifies our Services from their Defilements and Defects and presents them with acceptance to his Father Our Communion with God is managed by the Influences of the Holy Spirit into the Soul and the returns of the Soul to God by the Energy and Efficacy of the Spirit In all the parts of Divine Worship the Spirit composes the Mind with the Reverence of God's invisible and adorable Majesty He encourages our trust in his Mercy and raises our Affections from Earth to Heaven This is a difficult heighth which the carnal Nature cannot arrive to Prayer is a Duty of daily Revolution but cannot be performed in an acceptable manner without the Spirit 's Assistance The Holy Spirit is the Seal of God's Love to Believers that can never be cancell'd that distinguishes them from the unrenewed World and appropriates them to God He first works those Graces in the Soul wherein the Image of God consists and by illustrating them in the view of Conscience witnesses that they are God's Children He is therefore styled the Spirit of Adoption The Spirit ratifies the Truth of the Gospel to those who have felt his sanctifying and comsorting Operations There are some Doctrines in the Gospel of impossible discovery by the light of Reason and when reveal'd are incomprehensible Now there is such Evidence beyond all exception That the Gospel is a Divine Revelation that any Doctrine declared in it though sublime and supernatural and contrary to our carnal Prejudices and Passions justly requires our assent to it We must distinguish between the evidence of the Object and the evidence of the testimony An Object is evident by its own Light and the impression it makes immediately on the Mind Thus it discerns between Truth and Falshood between what is fair and what is fraudulent as the Eye sees the difference between the day and night The Evidence of the Testimony is when the proof of the Truth is resolved into the Veracity and Authority of God who is Infallible For he cannot be deceived nor deceive Now of the Gospel's Divine Original there are external Characters and Signs and internal Of the external Characters Miracles are the most conspicuous Of the internal the sanctifying and comforting Operations of the Spirit in the Souls of Men are most sensible and convincing For certainly humane Nature tho' assisted by Moral Counsels and Constancy could never produce such Divine Effects The Holiness and Comfort that the Spirit in Concomitancy with the Gospel works in sincere Christians produces a more clear and strong assurance of its Truth than the sight of Miracles For Holiness is an Attribute as truly Divine as Power and has a nearer Affinity with the Nature of God 't is his peculiar Glory The cleansing and changing the Heart of a Sinner the calming of the afflicted Conscience are a more eminent effect of Power than the turning of a Wilderness into a Paradise or the laying Storms and Tempests The sanctifying and comforting Virtue of the Spirit by the Word is a more inward and lasting proof than Miracles A Miracle like a sudden flash of Lightning astonishes Men at the present and causes them to consider what is proposed but when the surprize is over they may neglect their Duty But real Holiness in the heart and life like the Sun irradiates the Mind with a constant light He that believes has the witness within himself Inward Experimental Religion is perceived by the Sense of them that have it and cannot be so clearly demonstrated by Words Who can see a Taste From hence many ignorant and prophane Persons expose the Operations of the Spirit to ignominy and contempt as the dotages of Enthusiasts And Doctrinal Professors who owe their Religion to Tradition and Education and are meerly Titular Christians cannot understand and believe what the Saints really enjoy They are hardned in their Unbelief because many have father'd the bastards of their deluded fancies upon the Spirit But to shew the unreasonableness of this pretence consider It were strange that the low life of Sense has perceptive Faculties that living Creatures feel that they live and the spiritual Life more raised and excellent than the rational should not perceive it self Is it possible there should be such a Prodigy that the Soul should live the life of Holiness and Joy like a Plant without the knowledge of it Or Because many are deceived with a false Light and pleased with a Delusion does it follow that those who have vital Experience of Religion are deceived One may Dream that he is Awake but a Man that is Awake knows himself to be so The Delusion of one doth not weaken the assurance of another If it be enquir'd How shall we distinguish between the Genuine Operations of the Spirit and the Spurious and Counterfeit A clear answer may be given 1. By the light of the Spirit we may discover and know his Operations This is no vicious Circle I know I have a reasonable Soul by the light of Reason For the Understanding that discovers other objects in the direct act is the object of it self in the reflective act Thus I know that I have the Holy Spirit as a principle of Divine life acting in me by the light of the Spirit 2. It is the peculiar Character of the Spirit 's Operations they are all in Consent and Congruity with the Word of God for he is the Inditer of the Word and cannot contradict himself They make Men more Holy and Heavenly and as the Star directed the Wise-Men to Christ the light of the Spirit always directs us to him as the Fountain of Grace and Salvation And for the satisfaction of those who desire to know when the Blessings they receive are obtain'd by Prayer and are not the effects of God's general Providence I shall only desire them to consider whether their Prayers are by the Spirit 's Influence which is known by the frame of the Soul in
in the Lord 's affording me heavenliness of frame and the intercession of his Divine Spirit for an event in Prayer when all hopes from any thing else had been remov'd and no ground of hope left but what was drawn from this frame of Soul in Prayer and the full quiet of mind concerning the event brought forth by the same Divine Hand I could set down numerous instances of the imminency of Death to Friends and Acquaintances where nothing of probable hope was left but what was drawâ— from this experience of the Spirit of God interceding with me by carrying me out to ask in a manner far above my self for their Recovery and then against all probable expectation the recovery has followed Yea at this very time I can instance a Child who for some time was laid out as Dead but in my humble hope Alive and that purely from the sensible power given me to ask its life of the Lord Who knows the things of God but the Spirit of God as the Spirit of Man alone knows the secret Thoughts and Will of Man and if the Spirit of God know the Mind of God and his design of bestowing an event unknown to our selves it is not so strange that unexpectedly and suddenly in the use of that blessed Duty of Prayer Christ's Spirit should breathe upon us strength to ask what we designed not but what he knew would be through that method discovering the reality of a Divine Spirit who is to help our Infirmities who neither know what to ask nor how to ask of our selves only by keeping in the Obedience of God's Will to Prayer and thereby lay our selves in God's road to receive Divine Direction both to ask what we did not premeditate and in a manner above our own natural corrupted capacity If the Spirit of God know the Will of God against an event no wonder he draws his Divine influence from the Soul in Petitioning to obtain it and no other warmth in Prayer appears than what is the product of self and the great desire of obtaining it far differing from that seriousness that is the effect of a Divine Spirit the right observation whereof greatly helps the Christian to distinguish the one and the other I know that great care is here to be taken not to entertain hopes of obtaining every Petition that God has not absolutely promised or by Petitioning without Resignation to his Will but from experience of God's condescending-way of training up Babes in Christianity I hope I may say that the Spirit of God never intercedes with us in Prayer to God for any thing that is not to be obtain'd or without Resignation to his Blessed Will and any mistake herein must slow from either of these two Reasons First From an ignorance when Christ's Spirit does intercede with us in Prayer A natural tender affectionate Constitution and an ardent desire after the thing pray'd for imposes a likeness thereof in some and continual thoughtfulness of Mind or a sweet Tone and way of Expression brings sometimes others to a likeness of this frame Whereas the observing Christian from care therein finds this Prayer come suddenly upon him and with full gale of Strength far above his own drawing himself forth with that filial Boldness and near Familiarity and approach to God and with that quiet of Mind concerning the matter as if its answer was already return'd The observ'd experience whereof helps the Soul to answer all such cautionary Objections and discovers to its experience That Resignation to God's Will goes along with the Heavenliness of Frame to make up the evidence of Christ's Spirit helping us to ask without either of which the evidence seems cloudy dull and uncertain Or Secondly Mistakes may come by misapplying the return of Prayer through too soon judging of the Prayers return'd or by applying Prayer to somewhat else than is the real return of the Prayer the effect whereof has been oft so evil that even many gracious Children of God have been led into Darkness kept from that sense of intimacy that really they had judging their Prayers unreturn'd or at least bringing them under great Thoughtfulness though their Faith was fix'd upon God's Word yet how to reconcile former experiences to this of a Divine Spirit 's intercedings for them and yet unreturn'd My great help against such mistakes has been an exact observation of my different Utterance as well as my different Frames in Prayer and to set down the very Word express'd therein If the Spirit of God give and help the Utterance of Ministers as well as Spiritualize their Mind in Preaching that being recommended by Paul as a fit Petition upon his account and experienced as Truth by the worthiest of his Ministers Why not to give and to help Utterance in Prayer as well as a Heavenly Frame therein Whatever others imagine or ridicule concerning familiarity of Stile in Spiritual Prayer I can truly say That when my Frame of Soul has been thus suddenly chang'd from Lifelesness to great Spirituality I have then been in a maze to experience an unusual freeness of expression wondring at the Words themselves express'd and the nearness to God that I have thought my Soul approached to And upon some patient waiting before judging the return of the Prayer and comparing the parts and circumstances of the event to the words I was enabled to utter and had afterwards set down I found so much correspondency as is between a Seal and its impression I know those far excelling my self in Grace and Experience with God losing the sight of the return from God by misapplying the return not to the Words utter'd in Prayer but to what they so mightily desired I remember an instance in my self concerning a Servant's parting from me and Petitioning Heaven for his conduct to the use of means for another I found comfortable Divine Strength in Prayer and in some hours after happening in the company of one who formerly had recommended a Servant in most things acceptable he inform'd me of another with a Character far exceeding the first to which Providence I immediately implying Prayer express'd it at its return but afterward found disappointment as to them and difficulty in finding any other seemingly evidence of Prayer without Divine Strength put up and unaccepted by God but soon after by some special passages of Providence this Servant begg'd leave to stay tho' they had confidently despis'd my place and given warning to provide another in their room which prov'd better than changing at that time tho' a good one had fallen in my way which was a return exactly suiting the Utterance in Prayer confirm'd by the comparison of the latter Event to the Utterance set down As this was a plain instance of too hasty a judging the return of Prayer taking one Providential passage for return begun only by it and carried on by other passages adjoyn'd thereto so I shall lay before you another instance of misapplying the return to the
Scripture accompanied with great power to repel risings of Corruption towards Revenge and perfectly to quiet my Mind with a Reliance upon God concerning the matter The first Experience whereof met me in the Streets where hearing of a false and unmerited Aspersion upon my self at whose hands I deserv'd better immediately a design of Revenge was rising and was carried further on by meditating upon it till coming home and entring my Chamber and taking the Bible in my hands that very Scripture was offered to my View and by the influence of Heaven made an assisting-instrument of quiet at the time and ever since a strong help to watch my self in the like case Its suitableness to my circumstances its effectual power restraining me from complying with Satan and inward Corruption and inclining and enabling me to obey God whose Will is declared in his Word was a testimony that a gracious Providence brought that Scripture to my sight Ninthly When Reproaches against me and malicious Designs had a probability of taking effect and have been turn'd into other Events against the Design Wish or Expectation of my Enemies then that Scripture of the 11th verse of the 41st Psalm By this I know thou favourest me because my enemies triumph not over me has been not only confirm'd but imprest upon me with much inward Comfort At one time the whole 15th Psalm was bore upon my Thoughts with that strength and continuance that I was continually desiring Conformity to it and measuring my Actions by its Rule till God gave into my Soul the Evidence of some measure of Conformity to it with other spiritual Comforts at that time A multitude of other Scriptures have been applied to my Soul at the times of needing Comfort and Instruction but they would enlarge my Discourse too much and might occasion a discovery of the Author and therefore I chuse rather to stop here having enumerated so many as afford a Testimony to the reality of Christ's Spirit applying to the Precepts and Promises of the Word and bearing home Scripture Truths as instructive to instruct and remember us of our Duty and encourage us to persevere in it till we arrive at Heaven Experiences of God's Spirit 's sensible withdrawings in Prayer from helping the Christian to ask what he will not return though in his design to Petition THe First Experience whereof was That though I had designed to have Pray'd for an event yet in the Prayer I have not directed a Petition for it and though I have intended in the performance of that Duty several times to Pray for it I have been restrain'd Secondly When one day I designed to renew my Requests to God for obtaining a matter in my morning's Supplication my desires were fervently excited but in the afternoon I was much restrain'd and in some hours afterwards my Soul was drawn forth earnestly to seek it and upon enquiry I found that the three different alterations in the matter that day and the different times of the alterations exactly suited the times of different Prayer To illustrate which I 'll give you one instance amongst many concerning a Friend whose Circumstances I put up to the Lord three several times in one day and suitable to my great enlargement for them in my Morning-Prayer were much better but suitable to my Afternoons constraint were for some hours in racking misery and suitable to my return in spirituality in Prayer for them there was a return of mercy in their relief the circumstance of time exactly suited one another that there was a refreshment from Pains and a return of them according as Prayer was intense and enlarg'd or restrain'd of which I made careful Observation Thirdly Another Experience of constraint from Prayer has been concerning a matter which all circumstances considered was very likely to succeed but not finding my Heart in a frame to pray for it I suspected the issue and accordingly it was not effected An instance thereof was concerning the dearest Relation I had on Earth who being Sick for 6 weeks I was restrained from Prayer with Reliance upon God for restoring Mercy and the issue was the Death of that Beloved Person for whose recovery thorough the course of their Illness I could never put up one serious Petition Two very late passages I can set down greatly establishing my self and marvellous in themselves One was concerning a Person of great Worth of whose Death I had information in all probability certain but being in the Street all alone I found my self enlarged to pray for their Soul's Salvation and that with marvellous Pleasure as if I had been assuredly certain of their future eternal Happiness and being afterwards in serious Prayer I found the same sweetness as I have enjoyed in Spiritual Breathings from above upon this I humbly said to one who was my Bosome-friend I was not of the opinion that the Person I pray'd for was dead and imparted my Reason hereof That the Lord by his Spirit had help'd me in sweet spirituality to supplicate for them Accordingly we had an account of the Person 's being better but the next morning following I found such a restraint from Praying for that Person that I then said to my Friend That the Person was Dead and that very account we had presently after The other passage was Concerning one to be Executed for whose Salvation I found my Affections very ardently drawn forth in Prayer to the Father of Mercies but in Prayer for his Life my Desires were dried up and my Tongue did as it were cleave to the Roof of my Mouth Three times I found this change in my self being always carried out with fervency and freedom to Pray for his Soul but restrain'd and discourag'd to Pray for his Life observing this difference in my self I told an intimate Friend That I had good hope of his eternal Salvation but no hope of his Pardon The issue was the Condemned Person was Reprieved for two days and was afterward Executed and at his Death his Behaviour was so humble and Christian that the Minister that attended him declared his great satisfaction that he died a Penitent Believer Many instances of the same kind I could set down but I shall only add the following instance I was going to see a Friend that was Sick and addrest my self to God in secret Prayer before I went but a kind of terrour seiz'd my Mind and Words stopt that I could not offer up one Petition in any seriousness or with any hopes of being heard for recovery And going to see the Person found that they had been dead some time before This was a discovery to me that the Holy Spirit does often withdraw his Assistance to Ask for that which he knows God will not bestow Experiences of God's Method of training me to the serious aweful and delightful hearing of Sermons FIrst by suiting Sermons upon a Sabbath unexpectedly to things my Thoughts have greatly ruminated on through the week and by bearing home instruction
others which whether External or Internal if observed and remembred would seal to Souls the Truth of Christianity in opposition to all its Opposers There is a clear discovery of the Divine Wisdom Power and Goodness in the different means that God is pleased to use for the saving of Souls all which are to be considered with Reverence and to be complied with by Obedience the end of all being our Holiness as preparatory to Eternal Happiness The first Duty or Means I would have you apply your selves to is that of observation of outward Providences this having been so effectual in me I earnestly recommend it to the serious practice of all concern'd for their salvation but that you may know in what method rightly to observe I will give its Characters in the parts I have found so advantageous to my self First You must observe all sorts of outward Providences great and more remarkable lesser and not so palpable Secondly You must observe all Circumstances that attend such Providences and set them upon Record on purpose to reflect and compare one with the other many confirming Providences have lost their favour and establishing effect as much by missing some Circumstances thereof as by forgetting of the whole By this neglect some have had misapprehensions of God and false conceits of themselves The Circumstance of time wherein that Nobleman's Son was recovered John 4.52 exactly answering the hour when Christ said unto him Thy Son liveth was the convincing-proof that the Cure was performed by Christ and consequently of the truth of his being sent from God In like manner the observation of the return of my Prayers with Success answerable to the fervency of my desires and Unsuccessfulness of Prayer when I have been cold and not duly affected in that Duty has confirmed my belief That it was from the Excitation of Christ's Spirit that enabled me to pray and from his excellent Goodness the return of my Prayer Thirdly You must observe outward Providences with improvement The Lord's design in laying passages of Providence before you is not only to view them but to see Him in them and thereby to understand his Being with the glorious Attributes of his Wisdom Power and loving-kindness to Man and that with the suitable Improvement of Eying him in all things seeking to him for guidance in Means and happy Events of all things Observation unimproved serve not God's Honour on Earth and will serve your selves no other way than by heaping up Aggravations to your Accusation before the great Judge's Tribunal for neglecting to improve his precious Talents by Reliance upon him and Glorifying his Love To excite your Observation under these three Characters I 'll lay before you the following Motives First God's own encouragement to it Psal 109.43 Whoso is wise and will observe these things they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. If in God's account Observation be Wisdom and accompanied with the blessed discovery of his loving-kindness can you blame my Friendship in pressing you to make use thereof to obtain a Wisdom to discover and baffle the falshood and errours of the Foolish though Wise in their own Eyes and to enjoy a sense of God's Divine Favour The Psalmist is giving an account of some remarkable outward Providences attending Nations Churches and particular Persons and then concludes That who is so wise to observe such things shall learn the knowledge of God and his loving kindness to their Souls If Christians of our Age had but been exact in the observation of National Church-Providences our Wisdom had more shin'd in the times of the Gospel Scriptural Fulfillings had been more clear and Errours respecting such things had less abounded than they do in our days What a little proportion of Care does the publick Men of our Age bear in recording the marvellous steps of Providences concerning the Nations and Churches of the Earth to that Care of God's publick Officers under the Old and New Testamâ—â—â— Our Civil Records abound from one year to another with all Testimonies that advance the Honour of Princes and People but where is the Record of a Divine Hand in the wonderful Works of Providence respecting Churches Nations and particular Christians for the vindicating of his Honour and the discovery of our infinite Obligations to him that his Authority may be born up on Earth and those discountenanced who refuse the Lord to reign over them What more clouds the discovery of God than the unmindfulness of Divine Providences In the room whereof the conduct of Chance the agency of natural Wit and Policy has taken place in our Observation Admiration and Dependance and God has been neglected in his Dispensations and trusting with a boasting in our selves for the bringing about Events encouraged If publick Providences concerning our Nations and Church since our late Revolution had been with all their Circumstances strictly remarkt and set upon Record there are none of us but who could own God's agency in them and make the words of the Psalmist ours They get not the land in possession by their own swords neither did their own arm save but thy right hand and thine arm and the light of thy countenance going along with them I hope tho' Marvellous and National Providences have not had place in any of our Publick Records for fixing the Faith of a Deity and his Divine Providence yet the Private Records of Particular Christians are fill'd therewith I say again His God been so visible in the outgoings of his Providence since and at the late Revolution and are we still attributing the Events that have fallen out for us to National Strength of Policy Treasure and Courage How often has God turned the most Politick Methods of the Wise to lay bare and open its Insufficiency And how has the Instruments of War adorned with Courage been swept off That from Nations so abounding therewith How few appear at this day How near is our Treasure to be exhausted by vast Expence of War and by Scarcity of Current Money Has this no Language Or has its Voice never entred the Ears and Hearts of the People of the Nations It is the black Sign to me the little Sight of God in his Providence though he has been so Visible and the little Improvement thereof by dependance upon him in the use of Means Though our Means were fewer and of less strength it should not afford me so dismal a Prospect of things to come as the disregard of God in all our Enjoyments the little dependance we shew upon God by our solemn and serious Addresses to him and by our Endeavours to please him in walking conform to his Will Did ever Error and Vice abound more in our Reformed Nations Were Christians ever more lazy than in our days spending their time in the full Excess of Riot of all those things that God in condescending Love has bestowed upon us and thereby distinguishing us from other Nations How many times does God bring private
things more marvellous in their nature more dignifying our Souls and more comfortably establishing our Faith in God's Word than a Series of outward Events The freeing of the Soul from the power of Original Corruption by the sweet dominion of Grace the degrees of spiritual growth in the use of means appointed by God for that blessed end will be of excellent advantage to encrease in the Soul light and joy and establishment An Observer of such things is enabled to see good where others discover nothing but evil and evil where others think all is good He is arrived to the eminent degrees of those Christians who in the 5th Chapter of the Hebrews and the 14th are said to be such who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil who by habitual observation of God's ways by his Spirit and Providence concerning them are enabled to see the design and end of Providence not mistaking the merciful Methods of God's dealings with them as the effects of Anger nor the trial of their Grace for a punishment for want of it and thereby dishonour God and sink under despondency they can rejoice in tribulation the blessed priviledge of those who are in a state of favour with God Rom. 5. and feel a power above themselves supporting them in all Troubles It is therefore to be lamented That such instructing and comforting things are laid in our way to observe and yet that so many with their Circumstances should pass without Record and Improvement Though Christians are assured that God's Gifts are without Repentance that they have the evidences of Grace in their Souls and are kept stedfast in that Grace God has freely bestow'd yet by their not observing God's Means working and the proportion'd advancement of Grace to such Means they are not so duly affected with the infinite Mercy of God nor so comfortably sensible of his gracious dealings with them nor so firmly establish'd in the hope that he will not cease his working in them till they are made mete for the inheritance of the Saints in light The observing-Christians have the priviledge of the Angels though in a lower degree to see the Face of God they have the enjoyment of Heaven by the assurance of it they live in the exercise of Divine Love Joy and Praise which is the Life of Heaven I would from hence reprove those Professors who by their neglect coldness and long intermissions from Holy Duties are justly deprived of the sweetness of communion with God and are apt to censure others who are more spiritual and heavenly in their Conversation as phantastick and enthusiastical an Instance whereof I had by an Aspersion of some Ministers upon the Writings of a Saint now triumphant in Heaven whose Life was employ'd in Study to understand God's Word and the actings of Christ's Spirit in the Soul by which Holy Care and the Divine Favour he obtain'd the precious Jewel of Assurance and for many Years was possest of it The Aspersion run against him as a thoughtful melancholy person of the latter he had very little but of the former much more I do believe than his Aspersers and what was becoming the weight of the matter his thoughts run mostly upon often bemoaning the trifling superficial thoughts of the Christians of our Times concerning Gospel-Mysteries Christianity experienc'd our passage hence and concerning another state in its certainty and eternity The Aspersion also run against him for laying stress upon enlargement in Prayer and that concerning inward Religion his Discourses were unintelligible In answer to the first part of the Censure I can from my own blessed Experience declare That I have had the Promise verified to me of the Holy Spirit 's helping our Infirmities directing me in the things to be pray'd for and inflaming my desires in the Duty and strengthning my Faith in the power and love of God and the Returns of my Prayers have been most convincing and comforting evidence that God's Spirit was the Indicter of that Prayer of which God was the Fulfiller To the other part of the Censure I shall only say That the Communications of God to the Soul are more convincingly felt than exprest The peace of God passes all understanding and the comfortable sense of it cannot be fully set forth by human Language but the real enjoyment is far distant from Enthusiasm The sincere Christian knows that communion with God is a Heaven on earth though some who have only Notional Divinity think it 's meerly imagination without reality our communion with God and Christ in the use of Divine Ordinances is the best preservative from the Illusions of Satan and the distempered Mind Having given Reproof Let me advise all such who expose the high Attainments of Christianity experienc'd to reflect upon their by-past life if exactness of Observation of all past between God and their Souls either as means or the end lie by them upon Record in their Diaries and whether they have not rested upon the use of means as Duty without observing and recording the Enjoyments therein and their advancing-effects upon their Soul and have not rested upon Evidences without ever observing by what means and method of God they were first made sensible of them or had them further established Has there never a step of outward Providence round you past your Observation and search for God therein or as a return to Prayer for that blessed end of crushing a Corruption and exciting a Grace In short Has all the steps of God in training you to the Sense of Conversion and Graces after growth been remarkt by you If you can witness this I am confident you have attain'd to the Experience of such things as will keep you off from Censuring others and engage you to bear Seal to the Truth of what Christ bears sensibly on the Christian's Soul but if upon Reflection you have been out of this road my Compassion is greatly towards you even though you are Christians indeed and that because of the great Comfort withheld from you it being punishment enough to want the Comfort that strict Observers enjoy in this life And generally there lodges at the bottom of such Censurers either Ignorance of the same enjoyments from Heaven an unwillingness to have any in greater esteem than your selves or prejudices from their being of another Party Opinion or the like All which I would greatly advise to serious observation of themselves before their Censures be put forth against others for my own part I have often found from some instructing and establishing passages such amazing discovery of God and my self that I have thought nothing more could be added thereto but soon after I have had a further knowledge and establishment in the same thing and that by another passage caution enough to suppress disparagement of others but from their example to bestir thy self more than ever in the use of Means if a Soul therefore were to live Thousands of years on
slenderer a foundation than God's own Word in Psal 10.17 according to the expression of the Psalmist Thou wilt prepare their heart to wit the hearts of the humble and of God's own Children and thou wilt cause thine ear to hear Is there any thing more plain or more fully experienc'd by observing Christians than that when God enclines his Ear to hear a Petition from a Child of his own that he prepares his heart aforehand to ask it He prepares the heart to ask by the influence of his Divine Spirit one part of whose work is said to be to help our infirmities and that infirmity of our not knowing what or how to ask by making intercession with us in Prayer for what God is to return as well as exciting us to ask what we should not have otherways done though really standing in need thereof As the spirit of a man knows the things of a man so the Spirit of God knows the mind of God and is it to be imagin'd that this Spirit knowing the mind of God concerning what he will return will raise a Christian's Soul to a heavenliness of frame and thereby prepare his heart to ask of God for an Event when he knows God will not return it A spiritual heavenly frame is not the fruit of Self-power otherwise a Christian would be capable of getting and retaining it when and as long as he pleas'd which from its sweetness in enjoyment would be desir'd for ever but it is the certain operation of the Divine Spirit influencing a Christian's Soul commonly in the use of means and extraordinarily without means for the end of letting the Soul experience the sweetness of nearness of fellowship with and access to God in Prayer as a foretaste and earnest of more intimate and lasting communion with him in Heaven and for the end of helping him to pray in such a manner as may be acceptable to God and return'd by him It is as yea more insupposable that the Spirit of God would help the Soul to plead with God for a thing contrary to his secret Will not a Secret to him as to help him to ask any thing contrary to his revealed Word and Will where his assistance is given to ask it is assuredly for the obtaining of what he knows God will bestow however the return be deferred and and Christians lose its sight by the intermission of observing of passages between the addressing God and God's giving in a return thereto Preparation to ask of God in Prayer obtain'd through the sensible comforting Influences of his Divine Spirit and preparations to petition the Lord obtain'd without any other sensible help than outward endeavour in the use of means are easily distinguished in their present sense and after-effects the one is sensibly the intercession of a Divine Spirit with the blessed effect of inward delight resignation of mind and return to the Prayer the other has nothing else apparent besides the Creature 's own strength without that inward comfort or return following it but the latter is often the means of obtaining the first I have often found and to be sure other observing Christians the same that when I have design'd and desir'd to lay a Petition before God in as serious a manner as possibly I could my preparatory means has been to bring my Mind in composure and my Body in gravity of gesture to read a Scripture again and again to fix my Thoughts with seriousness and to meditate upon the All-seeing Eye of God to whom I was to address on purpose to over-awe me from levity of mind in my Prayer But when I have been actually ingag'd in the Prayer thus prepared for the desir'd and design'd petition has never been mention'd either my Thoughts have been carry'd upon somewhat else undesign'd which I have with earnest affections and submission prayed for and has sensibly had it afterward return'd or if the desir'd and design'd petition has been exprest it has been in such a manner tho' sincere and unfeign'd yet sensibly a Prayer perform'd with Self preparation and greatly wanting heavenly supplies to enliven and spiritualize it and as spiritual and heavenly strength preparing to ask was with-held so was the return Yea besides the experience of correspondency of heavenliness of frame in Prayer the true comforting preparation of Christ's Spirit to that Prayer's return I hope I may sincerely witness that in the enjoyment of such a heavenly frame in Prayer words of Praise concerning the thing I design'd to petition for without the least fore-knowledge of the mercy obtain'd has been given in Who observes not these things at the time and lays them not up in their Diary till the Explicatory passage appear such lose the comfort of such enjoyments the Knowledge of God's deep ways and their Capacity of witnessing for him as others Some real sincere Christians may here perhaps advise and wisely too to have a care lest by God's changing this method observ'd as certain the ill consequence of darkness and Faith's staggering occur not leading to misdoubt both former experiences and the new methods of experience God gives in To which I say that any mistake concerning the Spirit of Christ interceding for any one thing in Prayer and the return thereof as certain is not because that ever it otherways has been or shall fall out God's word being true and the certain Foundation of this experience but by reason of some failure on the Christian's part thorough laziness in observation Again This Objection is evidence to me that thou O Christian art not in the way of Observation otherwise thou wouldest have known from experience God's infinite condescention to be such as to suit his Dispensations according to the State of the Soul in its Conversion and in its progress in Christianity To a new Convert the experiences of God are so marvellous and plain either in their Nature or by God's continuing to repeat them till the Christian understands them plainly If he apprehend not one he may others if he cannot see somewhat of a Divine Power in a common serious frame brought forth by the Soul 's own strength and sincere endeavour yet he may in a rais'd ravishing heavenly delightful frame coming suddenly and that again and again with returns to the latter and not to the first that the one may be the more distinguisht from the other and the ardently sought after The Leper weak in Faith had his Prayer immediately return'd but the Woman in Canaan great in Faith had the return of her petition deferred with the intermixture of many trying passages Thus by Observation of God's ways with my self I have found that my Prayers sincerely perform'd when first sensible of an inward change were immediately return'd that I had not time to lose sight of God and his condescending love in them But so soon as the Faith of the certainty of access to God in Prayer was established in me and Faith of reliance upon him was stronger then
his returns of such Prayers were greatly defer'd And as a condescending help to prevent desponding anxiety quiet of mind concerning the return to be defer'd always accompanied my supplication and the Lord left me not to the Dominion of corrupt nature or of Satan's suggestion Or if either had assaulted me the Divine strength raising me to an actual resignation to his Will at the time fortified me against them Again An Observing Christian sees so much of the depth of Wisdom in God's ways concerning them that it must be strange if he presum'd to confine God to one method when the variousness yea the contrariness of methods to bring about the same end is one great evidence of the Excellency of his Wisdom An observing Believer knows that God tries the strength of Christians various ways in order to their Establishment Not because he is ignorant of the exact measure of their growth in Christianity but from love to them that by their faithful continuance in Prayer deferr'd as to its return the Graces of the Spirit may be excited and exercised both to the honour of God and their inward Comfort For what can be more reviving than to find corruptions weaken'd and grace strengthened which is the sweet issue of many grievous afflictions that are not removed upon our renewed Petitions till we are purified by them Hereafter may some say Since spirituality in Prayer is the Spirit of God's gift and it unexpectedly comes we may lay by Prayer with our own Endeavours and wait as the Quakers say till the Spirit move and then to Pray To this I say Spirituality in Prayer is the alone Gift of Christ's Spirit and it comes when he pleases but by sincere Prayer we obtain this blessed Gift It is not the usual way of God to bestow it in more excellent degrees without our sincere asking it in the humble sense of our need of it The Quakers acknowledge as from converse with some of them I have heard they have an innate Spirit by which they are acted and according to its inward striving so they move in Duties I know in us all there is that innate Principle of Corruption which reigning makes our faculties of Soul and members of Body move as it listeth to evil but a principle of Grace that inspires us with new life in our Duties comes from Heaven and is obtain'd in the use of his Ordinances This does not in the least obscure the Glory of God's Free-Grace for his Spirit excites us to Duties and supplies us with strength to perform them but it directs us to seek God in the ways appointed that we may find him That therefore Christians may rightly judge of this heavenly frame and intercession of the Divine Spirit preparing them to ask from God what he is to return Errors herein proceeding either from mistaking the work of Christ's Spirit helping them to ask or from applying the return to what they ought not I shall give the following marks accompanying such a Prayer and that observ'd from my own personal Experience First A heighth of spiritual Thoughts and Affections throughout in Prayer or in one particular Petition thereof far beyond common seriousness which tho' by words it be almost inexplicable so as to make the unexperiencing Christian comprehend it yet it is easily perceiv'd by the experiencing Christian In this rais'd frame of the Soul either in solemn or ejaculatory Prayer there is such heavenliness of Thought as if the Soul were already in Heaven's Enjoyment And for the comfort of young Observers I must acknowledge that my spirituality of frame in Prayer the real preparation of Christ's Spirit to ask and certainly evidential of God's return was at first observ'd to be much less in degree tho' the same in nature than now it is one degree of experimental Knowledge preparing for farther degrees This brings to my Thoughts the gradual rise of Christians meetness for Heaven by Christ's Spirit in his common way of working by the use of means of which observing Christians are sweetly sensible Secondly Another mark of Christ's Spirit 's intercession in Prayer as token of God's acceptance thereof and his return thereto is when with an Address so spiritually perform'd goes along a comfortable quiet of mind concerning the Event tho' the praying-Believer be encompast with Afflictions A calm composure of mind in our trust upon the gracious Will and Wisdom of God to dispose of all things concerning us is our Duty but 't is the Gift and Work of the Holy Spirit who is stiled the Comforter We must observe in the Word of God what he Commands us to do he promises to enable us to do He Commands us That Sin should not reign in our mortal bodies and he has Promised That Sin shall not have dominion over us In like manner God Commands us To be careful for nothing but by supplication to lay our requests before God And certainly freedom from anxiety and disquiet and a full possession of the Soul in Patience concerning any thing in commending our Affairs to God by Prayer is the product of the Divine Spirit and not from the natural temper and stayedness of the Mind And where the Christian actually experiences it in Prayer he may safely conclude himself influenc'd by a Divine Spirit not only in raising his frame to ask but leaving it at God's footstool as to the Event and that as presaging of God's returning favour and introductive of his blessing The Promise of God is the foundation of this Trust Psal 37.5 Commit thy way unto the Lord and he shall bring it to pass The habit of Resignation may be in the Soul but 't is drawn forth into exercise by the renewed influences of the Spirit Thirdly You may judge of the intercession of Christ's Spirit in your Souls in addressing God by Prayer by the passages of Providence that bring about the return of this Prayer In the Observation whereof the speciality of a Divine Hand in the Providences bringing the return about is as discoverable as immediateness of a Divine Spirit influencing the Soul to ask with calm and resign'd submission as to the Event The observing Christians do often see these two joyned together and each illustrating one another where others do not or hardly are at the pains to observe the one or the other And what the Psalmist in the first ver of the 116th Psal in the fifth ver of the 118th Psalm and in the 121st Psalm finds that Prayers return observ'd and the passages of Providence discovering or bringing it about is powerful in bringing his Soul to the actual exercise of love to Reliance upon Admiration and Praise of God I love the Lord because he has heard my supplication I called to the Lord and he heard me therefore shall I see my desire and he is now my strength and my song I will praise thee for thou hast heard me and art become my salvation The unobserving Christian therefore of Prayer's return and of
God and Man in one Person when such a view of him will force their remembrance of denying him in their Minds and Hearts the Adoration due to him as God equal with the Father tho' he humbled himself that we might be exalted and might in Heaven see his Glory and be transform'd into his Glorious Likeness It will be righteous that those who vilified the Redeemer should not reign with him and since they deny that he washt away the guilt of their Sins with his Blood it 's righteous that their guilt should remain on them for ever He that feels the power of Christ strengthening him will notwithstanding the subtil Cavils of others glorifie him as the incarnate Son of God who purchas'd Grace and Glory for him by his Humiliation and confers it in his Exaltation As for Deists who deny all Reveal'd Religion their Error is brought for the support of Socinianism for in the Scripture there is so full a proof of the Eternal Deity of the Son of God and of the Holy Spirit which is a Doctrine supernatural and incomprehensible by our narrow minds that they will rather return to Heathenism than receive the Gospel Besides the purity and perfection of the Gospel in its Commands they will not obey and therefore will only follow the dim light of Nature that discovers not many Sins which they love nor some Duties from which they are averse You therefore under this Character Let me invite you to the trial of God's Word and if you find in your Experience any one thing that was incomprehensible to natural Reason but sensibly felt in your Souls it will lead you to the desire and endeavour of Experiencing more If in Prayer you come to understand a strength above your own even that of a Divine Spirit according to Scripture Revelation thereof you 'll desire to comprehend many other Christian Priviledges and Changes of the Soul by Grace of which you never formerly had any true Idea If once you come in the use of means to believe and trust things unseen which to a faithless Creature is a Mysterious Doctrine but of Scripture Revelation and certainly experienc'd as Truth by Holy Souls To what purpose O Deist should I trouble my self to argue the case of there being a spiritual heavenly frame in Prayer of there being a trust to a thing unseen more strong and durable than a trust to an object before the Eyes the one being supported by the Divine Truth and Power the other by a weak mutable Creature All the Argumentation and Oratory on Earth cannot make a sincere Christian doubt of the Truth of the Gospel which he has felt to be the power of God to save him from Sin and Hell A superficial assent to the Doctrine of the Gospel may be easily chang'd but when the Truth of it is fixt in the Soul by deep Experience a Christian is as stable as the Center against the strongest storms of opposition You may as well suppose a rational Soul to be without thinking as when it 's convinc'd by over-powering light and an inward real sense of the Truth of Religion Reveal'd from Heaven he should be apt to change his Faith and like a Drunken Man reel from one Opinion to another I therefore earnestly recommend the endeavour after an Experimental Sense of the Truth of the Gospel in the use of all Ordinances as the best preservative from Unbelief But now I come to the third and last mean of bringing Creatures into the certainty of God's Word and inward Religion and that is a right reading of the Scriptures not a superficial reading of them in Obedience to Parents or out of Custom a Chapter morning and evening without ever one thought reflective upon what is read but such a reading as may lay you in the way of the influence of a Divine Spirit who communicates light unto us in this Duty as well as in that of spiritual Observation and Prayer we must fix it in our thoughts as the Rule of our Life and particularly observe what may be directive in those Duties that belong to us and may serve for Comfort in disquieting Afflictions to which we may be expos'd Mr. Pool's Annotations are useful in our Reading This method was marvellously blessed to me in the practice of it with Observation and Prayer I soon saw the worth of God's Word the benefit of using it in this manner and my Soul was ardently and constantly desirous of Divine Grace to conform me entirely to the Precepts and Examples of Holiness set down in it The method I us'd at first was To Read a Chapter of the Old Testament a Psalm and a Chapter of the New with Pool's Annotations upon each and this sincere endeavour after the Knowledge of God in his Precepts was soon accompanied with the inward workings of a Divine Spirit influencing me with a desire after and in some measure Conformity thereto Psal 119. How shall a young man cleanse his ways It is by taking heed thereto according to God's Word Those that read not his Word or read it in a customary way obtain no knowledge thereof or at least what is only notional to discourse of How can a Christian cleanse his Heart and Ways or be in the means of obtaining Christ's Spirit helping forward this work but by comparing considerately his Ways and Thoughts to God's Divine Truths as he goes on in the reading of them and nothing more fixes the Thoughts to this than a reading with Annotations and many times in comparing Scripture to Annotation a comparison of ones self to Scripture either for instruction or comfort occurs reading with Thoughtfulness is a mean God many times blesses with sweet success that way Reading with reflecting the light of the Word upon the Soul warms it meets the Affections and makes them receptive of heavenly impressions The meer Professor Religious only from Education I greatly compassionate for this neglect it being for the serious a probable mean of affording establishment in their right notional Knowledge wherewith they have been imprest thorough the instruction of Education and applicative Reading the Scriptures is the means with the Spirit 's blessing of establishing us on that Divine Foundation of Faith and Obedience This Advice of Reading the Scriptures with Pool's Annotations is not to be limited to those only in younger years but necessarily to be extended to Persons of more mature Age. First I advise the younger That they would not rest satisfied to answer their Parents Instruction or in the customary method of reading so many Chapters a day and that at their usual times but to consider what degrees of knowledge of the Word and Conformity to it they are advanc'd to by it that by right Conceptions of God and his Holy Will they be preserv'd from youthful Lusts from the Erroneous Opinions and vicious and contagious Examples of others Let the first Principles of Religion in this way be deeply set in them before they read Controversies in
thing desired and not to the Utterance in the Prayer Spiritually perform'd and that by as eminent a Saint as ever liv'd on Earth tho' now gone off the stage of time without the sight of its return yet died in the Faith of my seeing its return but still his Thoughts was upon what he so mightily prest for in his own desire Providentially happening to design a matter of great concern and imparting the design with some passages of Providence exciting me first thereto to this Saint then on Earth he desired some time to think upon the matter ere he return'd his Advice which I found was on purpose to lay the whole affair before the Throne of Grace by repeated Addresses thereto After which he advis'd my undertaking the design from his sense of God's laying it in my way by special conduct of Providence and from his sense of his Petition accepted for Divine Assistance in it and marvellous Effects from it from which I engag'd in the endeavour but all attempts prov'd unsuccessful In the interim of which endeavour my Thoughts in Prayer never fixt to any one Petition concerning it besides Divine conduct in the use of means and Resignation to his Divine Will this endeavour between hopes from this Prayer accepted and discouragement from the unsuccessfulness of attempt continued for many months yet still easie and with amazing Resignation to God's Will till at last such a circumstance fell out as did unalterably obstruct the matter and the return that he applied his Prayer unto notwithstanding of which amongst his last words to me on Earth long after this disappointment he utter'd this Sentence with great exercise of Faith That I should meet with a full discovery of God's design therein and that in answer to his Prayer Prayer accepted and the intimation thereof given will never want its return clearly verified from comparing his Letters and Words to the Events that have attended my life since tho' the disappointment seemed an evidence of his Prayers lost yet really has led into such things as plainly appear his Prayer's return his mistake appearing to be fixing his Spirituality in Prayer with his other evidences of its acceptation to what he so much desir'd to wit the success of an outward endeavour whereas if his Utterance had been recorded reflected upon and compared with Events that even I begun to find from God in my self and did discover to him the mistake might have been prevented In one of his Letters he expresses himself thus It is becoming me with much humble sobriety to speak as to any impression on my Spirit with respect to your business though often I dare say I have had some special assurance from the Lord of his Gracious respect to you so as I could not question the evidence whereof was so full and clear and of so great testimony yet to you hereof in the way of Providence and am at the furthest of persuasion that such a breaking up of Light shall occur as shall be matter both of Joy and farther Establishment and if after such unusual and eminent Evidences he has given of his Respect and Favour to you beyond most in this day would it be strange or grievous if in so great a concern he should take a new trial of your Love and Resignation to him by giving it entirely up to his blessed disposal I know you have settled your Reliance on his Hand in ordering the present matter who has been your God and the God of your youth hitherto In another Letter his Words were You shall see the design of the Lord in this affair however dark it at present appear with that evidence as shall tend to a higher establishment of you in his Way and Truth and clear all former dark steps the greatest experiments of Trust has been most obtain'd in the greatest extremities of his Peoples case In another Letter his Words were Tho' it is not easie to write at such a distance yet I have confidence to say That one day rarely passes without some serious remembrance of you My last acquaintance with you has been amongst the most sweet remarks of my being in England especially as to the blessed way of God round you therein you have been a further strength to my Faith I know not how that matter is with you but I hope I may adventure to say That if ever I knew converse with Heaven here I have often had yea in some special way an answer of Peace and Assurance about the Lord 's Gracious Design of Grace for you and of his further testifying the same to your Soul I hope you are gaining new ground of a nearer acquaintance with the way of the Lord by which you will find that by the greatest tryals he takes of his followers here he then designs the greater tryal of himself and his Truth Now comparing the Words of this Saint express'd concerning the difficulty I was then under to my own experience of Divine Providence round me and to the Workings of Christ's Spirit in me since that time I cannot but confirm his Sense and Faith of Prayer accepted and witness its return to my self By the very words of his Letters the current of his Petitions and seeming Assurance run upon God's witnessing his special favour to me in the way of Providence and that such breaking up of Light should occur as might establish my Faith in God which blessed be his Name has been the real effect of God's disappointing my desire and endeavour after this outward thing yea has been a mean in God's hand to discover his special Love to my self in affording me a better Mercy in its room and establishing me thereby in a Trust to God as to all things else Besides since these outward attempts since those Letters receiv'd such marvellous occurrences of Providence I have enjoyed with such inward sensible workings of a Divine Spirit informing and comforting my Soul and making progress in that rich Grace of Faith and actual reliance upon God in all things both as to Soul and Body for conduct in the use of means and events following which makes out his Prayer accepted and that his assurance was firmly founded his failure being the misapplying the Prayer thus sweetly put up to a return of what he desired and not to the return exactly answering the Utterance of his Soul when Christ's Spirit breath'd upon his Petitions to God concerning the Lord's Gracious design and testimony thereof to my Soul I have had wonderful establishment no more amazing and assured to him in his actual strength to Petition it than to me in its enjoyment by way of his Prayers return'd It is conceivable by none but those who are strict observers of God's Ways How freely Words fly out of the Mouth of a Soul under a Heavenly ravishing in Prayer How familiarly they are express'd and with what quiet of Mind as to the return that if the Soul out of this frame would desire and do all that
his Children's food Mercies in answer to Prayer The Lord knew her strength and adapted his way of tryal thereto which issued in Honour to him and evidence to her self of the greatness of her Faith When Christ saw Peter's Faith as a Rock to build his Church upon he then tells him of the Sufferings to attend him and all that would follow after Christ his Faith being gradually brought up to such a strength enabled him to bear this report which perhaps in the beginning might have discouraged him to follow Christ or his Rules when therefore we are as Moses we may be kept six days on the Mount before the answer of Prayer comes Gen. c. 24. Let us therefore admire God's Wisdom and Love in first planting or further carrying on Grace in the Soul Let us be instructed not to limit God to any one way in converting or further perfecting a gracious Soul but let us keep in the use of all God's means with the observation of his various ways of Providence and Spirit established upon his Divine Word and experience in our Souls that so we may be confirm'd in the depth the length and height of the Love of God not only by a Faith wrought and kept in the Soul but by an evident sense thereof experimentally felt not yielding to that lazy excuse of the danger of fathoming him tho' we cannot find God out to Perfection yet we may comprehend much more of his ways than we do to keep us in continual admiration and praise of his Love making our life the nearer to resemble the work of Saints above not suffering his Ways to lie still in the depth without Record thereof or Reflection thereupon a method which might greatly prevent the many Fears that many gracious Souls meet with in their way and by which they dishonour God before the Wicked that by knowing their own Wants and God's Method of supplying them might be remedi'd A Sixth Experience of the Spirit of God's breathing upon the Soul in Prayer and of its correspondency to the certain return thereof was That according to my Morning's frame in giving up my self so has my frame continued thorough the day but most remarkably thus on a Sabbath-Day wherein I have found that my frame in hearing a Sermon has greatly answer'd to the frame of my Morning 's private Address to Heaven with that exactness that I could never observe or set it upon record without great amazement Herein mistake me not as if I passed my day without any other Address resting upon the comfortable experience of good frame in my Morning's Prayer but upon all occurrences throughout the day my supplication has been repeated my method being never to attempt any Service Civil or Spiritual without Address to God for conduct therein and when opportunity of set Prayer is deny'd the same Spirituality in Ejaculation and that correspondent to return is experienc'd confirming the truth of God's acceptance of the Spirit 's helping the Soul to groans not to be utter'd when the Soul in Meditation is under such a Heavenly Thoughtfulness to God as is impossible for it to utter I could set down numerous instances of God's acceptance of Prayer put up before entring into Company with freedom from Quarrel or Disquiet and when Disquiet of any kind has accompanied me I have found it at such a time when my Soul has been out of frame or my Addresses to God before my entring the Society has been neglected Who would not therefore advise me to rest upon God and to Petition him for all things and to have all things conveyed to me with a sight of his special Providence in it and as a return to Prayer for it that when my passage through this Wilderness is at end I may not enter unto an unknown God who has been a Father by his special conduct of Providence a Husbandman by the workings of his Divine Spirit my alone Friend to whom I have put up all my Requests and from whom I have receiv'd all the supplies of wants and that in a way of Communion with him neither to an unknown work but that of which I have had some foretaste in the use of Observation Prayer solemn and ejaculatory and Meditation admiring of God manifested and praising his Name for the experienc'd discovery of himself A Seventh Experience of Christ's Spirit exciting to Prayer and interceding with us in Prayer with the certain correspondency thereof by a return of that Prayer thus perform'd to God has been by putting words in my Mouth as well as Spirituality in the frame of my Mind and that suddenly unpremeditated yea sometimes contrary to matter and words design'd To clear this Experience I will give you amongst many instances the following one concerning a Friend's Distraction in a Fever for whom my design was to Petition God for his recovery but was carried out in Prayer and that powerfully too altogether for the return of their Reason without ever being able to ask one Petition for the abatement and removal of their Fever upon inquiry I found their Distraction gone off but the Fever remaining the same the return of their Reason exactly answering the time of the Supplication for it Another instance of this Experience was Concerning another Friend for whose Hâ—alth I had design'd to Petition God but found my Words in my Address to God strongly diverted from Petition to Praise blessing his Name for what he had done and that without any foreknowledge of amendment or probable reason to expect it but what I had from this powerful sudden and undesign'd utterance in Prayer Another instance of the same kind I very lately had concerning a Friend's beloved and only Child for whom I found in my self great and amazing freedom of Utterance and that by way of Praise tho' my design was to Petition God concerning it having all humane probability to expect its Death After the Experience of this Utterance in Prayer I was kept in the dark till at least ten days and then had the account of its recovery yea of its great amendment answerable to the time of the Utterance of Praising being strictly curious in the observation of the circumstance of time that none of these marvellous Experiences might afford the least doubting in their enjoyment but obtain a clear reception thereof and produce the greater establishment therein in the Soul Another instance of the Seventh Experience was Concerning some with whom I have had to do in matters of concern but at a distance from me and without any other opportunity of hearing the proceedings or success of endeavours than by Letter I have found that tho' I have design'd before the coming in of the Post to supplicate for a good account yet have not been able to say any thing at all concerning the matter answerable to which no Letter has come or other Petitions and Words concerning the matter has been Spiritually darted up to Heaven than was design'd correspondent to which the
account receiv'd has exactly answer'd the Petitions and Utterance actually put forth and not to them only design'd to be express'd in Prayer A Ninth Experience of certainty of access to God and of his Spirit 's breathing power on the Soul to ask what he knew was to be return'd has been concerning a design of three different endeavours at one time and Prayer for guidance a mean made use of I have found all shadow of Spiritual enlargement in Prayer concerning it strongly withheld and so indeed has the least degree of successful endeavour but for the second enlargement only once suitable to which successful endeavour in one circumstance thereof and at that very time did occur and for the third such Heavenliness of frame in Petitioning not only once but all along continued upon the Soul and so successful endeavour without one cloud prov'd the issue Plainer expression I cannot well use and instances I must forbear left it occasion the discovery of my self A Tenth Experience of the Lord 's exciting and preparing to ask what he was in his good pleasure to return was That of his exciting and powerfully strengthening of my Soul for a continued time to Pray for self-abasement when at the same time no outward Temptation has been my motive thereto though soon after has appeared some outward advancement and correspondent to the Divine Wisdom and loving care of Christ's Spirit enabling me to ask the exercise of Humility Self-loathing has always accompanied such outward smiles yea from observation of this Experience I have imagin'd a smiling Providence eminent from the frequency of this suit to the Lord undesign'd but greatly assisted to Petition it I have often experienced That when my Soul has not been thus carried out to Petition lowness of Mind either before or in the enjoyment of outward advancement that either security therein has fallen out afterward imbittering my Thoughts or some circumstances in the thing enjoy'd that has imbittered its sweetness or remov'd its satisfaction nothing being more satisfactory to a Christian Soul as the reception of an outward favour by special steps of Providence argument of Divine favour accompanied with such strength of a Divine Spirit as enables the Soul to improve it with the exercise of Love and Reliance upon the Bestower and to keep the Souls satisfaction therein in its true Bounds more upon the discovery of God's Love thereby than upon the thing it self enjoyed As the Experiences already laid before you relate to outward Enjoyments so now I shall give you some Experiences respecting Spiritual Enjoyments answerable to Christ's Spirit breathing influencing-strength to Petition them A First Experience thereof was When Spiritually carried out to ask for Humility previous to any Spiritual Improvement as well as before any Temporal Enjoyment and when security accompanied with the intermission of the means of Grace has followed any inward advancement then has a cloudying of what was an inward comforting evidence to the Soul issued but when the Soul has been carried forth to ask it before hand or in the time by way of return thereto the Soul's posture has been in the exercise of self-debasement and exultation of and dependance upon Christ's Spirit for producing such a marvellous change in the Soul without the least exalting thought of self I remember that one day in Conversation with that Holy Saint mentioned before I express'd my self concern'd to know the reality of my Grace to which he humbly reply'd I have not had the least Cloud as to my interest in Heaven but should rejoyce to experience that measure of confirming passages of God's special love as I know you have enjoy'd the effect whereof I found some quiet of Mind but by the wise over-ruling hand of God was follow'd with such cloudy darkness of Mind lest Satan had excited self-exultation or sinful security till in the following Evening-Prayer God carrying me forth to bless his Name for the evidences of his Love and to Petition Humillity in their enjoyment the darkness disappear'd and his discourse was bore home with the alone effect of quiet of Mind Love to and Reliance upon God and that with humble Thoughts of self Secondly I have found that previous to any victory over some particular Sins I have been help'd wonderfully to plead with God on this very account in a most near and sensible approach to him for Conquest over Sin that Scripture being at the time often and comfortable in my Thoughts Nay more than Conquerors through him that loved us answerable to which Temptations to these has occur'd Sins but victory of them has been my Mercy both as a return to the Prayer Christ's Spirit helpt me to ask and as an evidence of such a change in my Soul as bespoke my interest in Christ by the evident supplies of his strength enabling me to be victor of those Sins that formerly I gave way to Thirdly When God has been to afford me the evidence of great supply of strength to suppress wandering Thoughts in Duties suddenly and powerfully for some time ardent desire and great spirituality in Petitioning God has seiz'd me answerable to which marvellous freedom from wandering Thoughts has occur'd and that in all the Duties I have been exercised in A remarkable instance of this Experience was When at a certain time my Petitions run out for strength to overcome wandring in Duty with full assistance of God's Spirit to supplicate and by a passage of Providence establishing my comfort though wandrings prevail'd and a mean of helping forward my victory therein The passage of Providence was thus Being one Sabbath-morning hinder'd from my ordinary place of Hearing and having an opportunity of hearing Sermon in the afternoon I found my desire with a constâ—aining force towards another place and Minister which was so strong without any rational Motives thereto that I would not be hinder'd though several difficulties occur'd in my way in the hearing of which Sermon my disposition was so spiritual that my Thoughts had full flight thither and I in the exercise of low esteem of the Earth with all its Allurements but which was the Circumstance most remarkable is a Question a Minister was desir'd to answer to What should be done to help wandring thoughts in Duties Which was the very thing my mind was hurried withal then the thing Christ's Spirit was helping me to petition strength against and to which he was giving return with sensible Supplies and with this passage of Providence quieting my mind and as a help to forward my endeavour and victory over it his word was That it is a Complaint common to all Believers so long as there is a sense and concern for it the Christian is not overcome by it go therefore on not only striving against it but begging the Lord's aid to vanquish it Fourthly Previous to a sensible change in my self as to watchfulness in Conversation against reproaching of others suddenly and undesignedly and for some continued time my Soul was carri'd
powerfully to pray for strength to resist the temptations of reproaching others either through the natural tendency thereto the common example of others or out of the tempting-design of self-applause in the disparagement of others and answerable hereto marvellous strength of Christ's Spirit was afforded me with special Providences discovering this spiritual strength accompanied with the bearing home upon my thoughts that of St. Matthew chap. 7. ver 12. All things whatsoever you would that men should do unto you do you even so with them That then I could not but observe my self against my own corrupted inclination and others example preserv'd from this too natural and common Vice even of lazy and professing Christians who by the actual remembrance of this very passage might be an excellent means to preserve them from the malignant infection of reproaching others Fifthly I experienc'd a wonderful strength to pray for a continued sense of God's All-seeing Eye as well in Conversation as in the performance of Religious Duties suitable to which not only awful thoughts of his Majesty approach'd in Duties preventing Distraction therein seiz'd me but even a powerful awe of God affected me in common and private Actions always considering any Circumstance in the Action as might destroy God's accepting thereof especially as to Acts of Charity wherein I have found such a watch over my self as I could not have been satisfied without strict enquiry Whether unwillingliness was not in the action Whether some desire of applause or only pity and natural tenderness were not the Motives of this charitable action and nothing then has been more pleasing than to find that a willingliness to obey God's Command on purpose to please him in the compassionate relief of others a chearfulness without the least intermixture of reluctancy a sincerity without the least desire of its being known were the ingredients of the Duty I desire to witness the difficulty of thus performing actions without great and actual influences of strength from above the reception whereof is often obtain'd by that blessed means of solemn or ejaculatory Prayer wherein the Spirit of Christ intercedes for his People The same Spirit of Prayer imprest upon me a sense of God's all-seeing Eye and that Scripture was continually in my Thoughts Of doing all things as unto the Lord the constant remembrance whereof I have found greatly advancing that Gospel-perfection of an unfeigned sincerity both in converse with God in Holy Duties and with one another in common Actions and Discourses Sixthly I can tell you that at another time I have been powerfully helpt to Petition for the exercise of love to God and answerable to this I have been helpt in Prayer and in worldly Business to draw forth kindlers of Love to God from all sensible circumstances of my self and others even from the poor in the Streets both as to their poverty and imperfections of Body blessing the Lord with sweet exercise of Love to him yea this Grace of Love to God has been excited from the observation of fulness and prosperity in some but with great emptiness of the inward comfort of the experiencing Christian's Soul for sensual pleasures divert their Thoughts from the observation and enjoyment of what is much more to be valued in their Nature and lasting in their Duration At this very time happening to be alone in a Coach remarking such kindlers of Love from circumstances of others appearing in the streets suddenly and strongly this suggestion forc'd it self upon my mind How was it That God did show such special favour to me beyond others yea to make me differ so much from my self in former times with amazing Thoughts of the change upon my Soul and immediately that Scripture over-awed me from corrupt rational arguing or from Satan's darkening or deviateing me from right Conceptions of God and his Ways I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion from whence happened such quiet of Mind as has by the blessing of God still'd my Thoughts perfectly as to that great point of Election which is the great effect of free unmerited Mercy and in the use of means brings the children of Mercy safely to salvation This warmly excited my Love to God having an evidence of my share in his Electing Mercy by the inseparable effects of it the work of Grace begun in me and preparing me for the Heavenly Glory A Seventh Experience was When altogether insensible of the growth of Faith and when the Lord by a marvellous method was to establish it in my Soul even then I observ'd for some considerable time that I was carried out in Prayer and Meditation with zealous Affection that the Lord would turn my Eye and trust from sensible things to a trust and reliance upon God himself as to all outward things and as to the inward advancement of Hâ—liness as a mean tending to future Salvation answerable to which God has discovered himself marvellously in the steps of outward Providential Dispensations and by the inward workings of his Spirit as means of founding and establishing this Grace of Reliance in my Soul which I hope shall be increasing in the use of means till Faith obtain its perfect end the Fruition of God in Glory And tho' I hope I may say in Humility that my Soul is raised above sensible things to look to things unseen and to set my Esteem and Reliance with comfort and satisfaction upon them independently upon worldly things yet I am asham'd for the small growth of Reliance in me and that greater improvement therein has not been the fruit of the infinitely wise and condescending method of God's goodness in training me to live by Faith in his Promises and Perfections Experience of God's Method in training me to the first sense of Reliance with its further establishment and growth and that exactly as they are set down in Record in my Diary THE first Experience leading me to observe God's following Method with me was that of carrying me forth in Prayer to petition establishment of Faith in my Soul which begun most remarkably after a Fit of Sickness and has continued to be upon my Mind in all my Suits greater or lesser since that and I hope will continue to the end of my Militant Warfare A second Experience leading me to Reliance upon God was by removing all dependance from these outward fabulous Passages reckoned as ominous of such and such certain Events which undoubtedly were at first the effect of ignorance of the true God amongst the Heathen World who notwithstanding the discoveries of God in his Nature and Providence by visible things the Effects of his Power yet natural things keep first in their view and had the preheminency of God in their minds and hearts And though we enjoy the discovery of God in his Word and Providence so plainly yet how do we retain the example in reducing those things to Natural Causes that are to be appli'd
Patience through former Experience and Prayer wait without disquiet till the Divine Providence has sweetly ordered that disappointment to be for my greater good I could instance in this Experience a matter of greatest worldly concern where disappointment has fallen out contrary to desire and probable expectation from whence has issued a Providence at first appearance not so desireable or pleasing but a Mercy far beyond what I now know the other would have been and has some comfortable circumstances in it not so common in such a matter One instance greatly advancing Reliance upon God and confirming what has been formerly laid down of a certain correspondency between Christ's Spirit helping the Soul to Ask in Prayer and the Lord 's returning it was that my frame in Prayer was my great support while under no other view than that of a disappointment Who would not in the Enjoyment of such eminent Experiences leave all things to Heaven's conduct and by entire dependance thereupon with continued Prayer to be interested therein spend a whole life through this Earth and that with greater success to outward Affairs less anxiety of Mind concerning them or toil of Body to obtain them and much more sweetness than when brought about and no other Agent seen therein but outward endeavour of our selves strength of Friends or the like upon whom our Trust was wholly fixed Seventeenthly To advance an entire general dependance upon God he has marvellously discovered immediateness of his Hand in matters of very small moment and that both as a return to Prayer concerning them and as a token of special favour in them and tho' they have been such things as are reputed small yet they have been accompanied with as immediateness of Providence as clear a discovery of Divine Love as in weighty concerns designing thereby to bring me into a Dependance upon him for all things the meanest not being excluded from the compass of his Providence Many instances of this Experience I could bring forth in respect of my going from one place to another of Servants coming to and going from me yea reaching even to irrational Creatures that I have made use of I have had Experience that according to my strength in Petitioning Divine Favour concerning them and according to the time of neglecting or beginning and continuing this seriousness so successfulness or unsuccessfulness has occurr'd At this very time of God's training me into a Dependance upon himself a powerful bearing home of Scriptures upon my Soul of Promise for instruction conduct and comfort has been a remarkable mean in God's Hand and marvellously blessed with that great end of removing Diffidence and setling Reliance upon himself The First whereof by way of Promise was that of the 6th Chapter of Matthew vers 33. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you Of this Promise till now I could never feel the powerful Efficacy and apply it to my self for comfort At my first entrance upon Business in the world this Scripture suddenly seized my Thoughts without any previous Meditation thereupon or Reading it with remark in the Scriptures but with such constancy of impression that in diversions in real Business at home and abroad this Scripture would still rush upon my Thoughts Its suddenness and constancy of impression its suitableness to my circumstances at that time going to engage in the affairs of the world where Temptations to omit or intermit the seeking Grace in my Soul might abound and its correspondency to Experiences that afterward occurred in my concerns on Earth as means of sounding Grace in my Soul made me hope it was bore upon me by a Divine Power A further confirmation and certainty whereof I have had not only from its continuance even till this day in my Thoughts with the powerful influence of making me seek God first in all my concerns and to trust in him as the God that hears Prayers but also from the marvellous method of God in my life enabling me to use endeavours and giving his success to them chiefly when I am most diligent to advance his Kingdom of Grace in my Soul never could I say that I was diligent and spiritual in the means of Reading Prayer and the like for the advancement of Grace in my Soul but even then all outward Comforts flow'd in upon me with great sweetness in their Enjoyments and then Divine Providence has afforded me opportunities and success in my Temporal Affairs yea I never observ'd my self at any time disquieted or under the probable or real danger of the withdrawings of these Comforts but I always found my self out of the road of spirituality of frame and of the diligent use of means of Grace To the enjoyment of this Experience I am still held and do hope while I live shall be able to apply it as a special Gift from God's Divine and Merciful Hand Yea with the Psalmist in the 19th Psalm and 49th v. I have often found it a prevailing argument in Prayer That the Lord would remember the word to his servant upon which he had caus'd him to hope it was indeed his own work suddenly to bring and fix it upon my Thoughts at a time when I was altogether ignorant of such a thing as a spiritual Power accompanying any Scripture-Truth and a beginning only to be sensible of a special conduct of Providence round me but now it appears more plainly his work by its confirmation from the outward Providences and inward workings of Christ's Spirit in my Soul since till which confirmation I did not experimentally understand it and blessed be his Name I am at quiet that he will continue my hope therein till the Kingdom of Grace has had its Perfection here and I passed into his everlasting Kingdom of Glory where Promises shall be no more of use but there shall be the perfect Fruition of our rich Priviledges both of Grace and Glory A Second Scripture bore home upon my Soul with instruction and as a mean of advancing Reliance upon God more than upon means was That Scripture in Daniel wherein it is said That by the blessing of God the pulse nourished him that he looked fairer and fatter than these Children fed with King's meat One evening in Reading this passage of God's Word I found my Mind deeply imprest with Meditations upon it in an extraordinary manner tho' many a time I had read the same Scripture and with great seriousness but without such depth of Thought This made me hope at the time that it was the work of Christ's Spirit it proving afterwards a rule of action and a means of advancing greater Reliance upon a Divine Blessing to food than ever formerly I had observ'd in my self The Thoughts seizing me at the time were First The great weight to be laid upon a Divine Blessing for the nourishment of our Bodies as well as upon the food Eat Secondly The great seriousness that is necessary in
God in all Events and the attributing this to Chance or some external Accident if I had not discover'd God's own hand in the matter For besides God's adapting it so suitably to my present Case by the true meaning of the words there immediately issued relief to my anxiety and full quiet of mind and comfortable satisfaction without the least repining And I still find upon the occurrences of the like temptation a power not reduceable to my self as the Fountain but proceeding from Christ and conveyed by his Spirit working mightily in my Soul Let therefore these prosper and others excel me my satisfaction is founded on God's special conduct of Providence round me God's over-ruling all Events for such an end as the dethroning of Corruption and the raising of Grace to such perfection of Faith and meetness for Heaven as will be rewarded with an abundant entrance into that blessed Kingdom This divine calm of Mind was the product of the Holy Spirit the great Comforter for meer Reason and natural Constitution cannot quiet us upon such Motives and are but weak Bulwarks to defend against disquieting impressions when difficulties occur Fourthly Having set apart some time for private Prayer concerning a more than ordinary Affair and reading some Scripture before it one Verse thereof affected my thoughts by way of Instruction more than the other parts of that portion of Scripture it was the last Verse of the 10th Chapter of Ecclesiastes Curse not the King in thy thoughts nor the rich in thy bed-chamber for the birds of the air shall declare the voice and the fowl with wings shall tell the matter In the reading whereof such a divine Power accompanied me that set me a resolving from that moment to eschew speaking evil privately and that by way of whisper against my Superiors and others and to leave whatever might be express'd against my self in such a manner to the permission of a Divine Hand under whose especial Conduct I had some comfortable evidence of being stated having at this very time often and often experienc'd that upon reporting any thing injurious to others either from a foundation of Self-applause or of spreading a reproach with that privacy that I have imagin'd it impossible the reproach could ever reach their ear yet it has been heard of and providentially return'd me with the just punishment of Reproach either from the same person or from another by a reproach of the same kind And that this resolution of Conformity to this Scriptural Lesson might be the more effectually perform'd I set it upon Record with a design of viewing it every morning before my entrance upon publick Conversation to help forward that resolved watch of taking heed to my ways not to sin with my tongue To the intermission of which watch so many daily Temptations occur not only from natural inclination to applaud one's self and to disparage others but from the ill example of others who upon pretension of concern and friendship for a person and trusting to their privacy they are conversing with whisper an ill report with the name of the person reproach'd and thereby draw forth a mutual discourse upon the thing that aggravates and fixes its belief upon their minds and thoughts that it is ready to break forth on all occasions while the person reproached is perfectly ignorant and perhaps as truly innocent This is the abounding Sin of the Christians of this day either to believe a Reproach too soon or to aggravate it in its after-report and neglect the speaking to the persons concern'd for their amendment This is privately contrary to the Rule of the Gospel and hinders the obtaining of spiritual Blessings yea brings Men under the danger of that denunciation Psal 101.5 Whoso privily slanders his neighbour him will I cut off Fifthly When I have been under great concern for the omission of Duty and losing that delight therein that I had formerly enjoyed then the Lord has made that verse of the 7th Chapter of the Romans a powerful relief to my fear of its being evidence of no grace The law of the mind warring against the law of the members And when I have found before the performance of Prayer a struggle between doing and neglecting it and the most trifling occasion looking out at a Window a great noise and the like delaying of my Duty then my Soul labour'd under the weight of concern lest it betoken'd my being altogether empty of Grace and that till God was pleas'd to bear home this express Scripture-truth to be experienc'd in my self and to quiet my Mind by a Sermon Preach'd upon the 1st v. of the 4th chap. of the Hebrews Let us fear lest we come short of that rest wherein in the Explication of Fear so far as Duty he discover'd the mixture of Corruption and Grace in a Christian Soul here on Earth and that strugglings often rising thence would cause fear in the Soul but what was no ground of fear unless when overcome by them after which time I begun to observe the victory over these disturbing fears within and the exercise of a greater watch unto Prayer to endeavour their repulse Sixthly Another Scripture powerfully bore home has been that of the 16th of Matthew where Christ desires his Disciples to Remember the five Loaves which Scripture then and ever since in the steps of God's advancing Reliance in my Soul has been of great use and when God has seem'd to withdraw any sorts of Mercies it has made me have immediate recourse to former Experiences with the good effect of accusing my self for my little faith and forgetfulness so soon of his former preventing Mercies hastening me to Prayer for strength of Faith and Reliance upon him Let this be upon the Thoughts of poor Creatures under God's sensible withdrawings to prevent sinking fears lest they are without Grace when there is Grace in Sincerity but not in that sensible strength which by Prayer and the remembrance of God's former Mercies they should diligently endeavour to obtain Seventhly That Scripture of seeking the Lord while he may be found and calling upon him while he is near bore home in sweet Exercise at such a time when God's Breathing has been sensibly upon my Soul raising my frame to a Heavenliness of Mind when the Holy Spirit by warm influences excites the Soul 't is a season of Grace to the unrenewed and a precious opportunity and advantage to the real Christian This has made me to prize the smallest motions of the Divine Spirit not to quench them and watchful of entertaining them in the exercise of Meditation and Prayer eschewing what Conversation might at that time bring levity of Mind to dethrone them Eighthly Another Scripture imprest seriously upon my Heart was the 21st and 22d verses of the 18th chapter of Matthew Then said Peter Lord how oft shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him till seven times And Jesus said unto him Vntil seventy times seven This has been a
mock at such words as too familiar and inconsistent with the greatness of that Majesty we approach unto in Prayer not knowing experimentally the Mercy of God as well as his Power the Wisdom of God in expressing his own Mysterious Truths by Words inferiour to the Mysteries but proportioned to our weaknesses as well as the condescending steps of God with a poor guilty Creature in first planting Grace in the Soul and I am confident not knowing experimentally what a heavenly frame in Prayer is for then when the Soul is in a ravishing spiritual posture words of this kind are forc'd to drop from their Mouths and there is more satisfaction in the Soul and greater acceptance with God from a familiar style to him influenc'd by his Divine Spirit than from a whole Prayer of another where distance appears either from the words fine style therein or length of Prayer but unspiritually perform'd Yea from this very principle of Education there are some who have an outward sincerity and from thence an inward satisfaction in their Profession with a resting in their knowledge and practice as all the Religion to be obtain'd with good hopes of their state for Heaven without ever doubting either their profession or security for Heaven There are others under the power of Education alone who tho' unspiritual in their Minds in Prayer yet upon any failure of their set times are really uneasie and dissatisfied especially the breach of their continued custom And as it is for these my concern is greatly put forth so it is with those that many times greatest difficulty is to reclaim It is well known how deeply are fixt the Impressions of Education and that nothing but a spiritual working of Christ's Spirit is able to blot them out or to impress them a-new upon which very account Childrens Education with true Notions of the Christian Religion can never enough pay their Obligation to such Instructors it being an excellent preparation for renewing the practical impressions of the same Notions upon their Hearts as well as upon their Brains In a word Religion is between God and the Soul and according to the heavenliness or un-heavenliness of the Temper and frame of the Soul so a thought word or action in Duties or out of Duties is either acceptable or unacceptable to God Before therefore you leave off the Errors of Education to a right notion and performance of Prayer you are first of all to be convinced of what is Erroneous and then of what is True and Right First Therefore a laying too great a weight upon a particular place for the performance of Prayer is an error of Education I know there are some so strictly addicted to Prayer in a Church that neither earliness nor lateness will obstruct their Custom herein as if it were a circumstance material in God's account It is not against Prayer in a Church that I set my self to oppose but the great stress some from Education are pleas'd to lay upon it I do believe that if others were as painful to bring their Minds into a serious posture as these are by retrenching their natural Rest in a morning retiring themselves from Diversion through a day or at an evening to have their Bodies in the Church at the times Prayer would be better known and much more pursued in its right performance than at this day For my own part if my Soul be right with God it is neither to House or Church I affix my self but the place I can be most private in either from the diverting sight of others or their discomposing noise and if I have opportunity of choice no place is more grateful to me than that in which I have had greatest enjoyments of God in Prayer Privacy I greatly value from an unwillingness to expose my self to the Censure of Shew and Applause or a Prayer acceptably performed to the mocking of some finding it impossible to restrain my self from more than ordinary flood of words and from a more than ordinary audible voice when the LORD is pleas'd to raise my affections above my ordinary frame The reason of chusing a place favour'd with God's presence to my Soul is that the memorial thereof may excite the greater endeavour after it and former Experiences may be one of my pleading Arguments for it This is abundantly suitable to the example of David who would often say Psal 42.6 That he remembred the hill Hermon-Missar and other places which were remarkable to him from the rich entertainment of God's presence in them from all which I drive only thither to make you know how little the consideration of Place Prayer is performed in avails in God's account or comforts the Christian's Soul within whatever customary performance or outward applause afford Privacy is recommended from Christ's own example who would retire to the Fields on that very account yea part then from his own Disciples and constant Companions And truly the more serious a Soul is the more willing to be from all and to center all his thoughts upon his dear God If therefore any labour under this failure of Education let me advise against it unless on the account of better performance of Prayer and because I hope there are some who on this very account give strict example thereof let me advise all from censuring such an Action the doing of it for a greater meetness for fellowship with God in Prayer makes it a Circumstance congruous to a well-perform'd Duty but the Circumstance of pleading for it in Conversation and fixing it upon others from a liking of the way argues it rather an Error of Education than a Circumstance experienc'd in themselves helping forward their seriousness with God for though to some it may have this advantage yet to my self it could not have the seeing of any before or with me in any performance of private Prayer proving many times visible hindrances Secondly A laying too great weight upon punctual keeping of set-times to pray is an Error of Education There are many in no other state of Christianity than that of its meer Profession and outward Acts of Worship who with marvellous strictness perform the set-times of Morning and Evening-Prayer purely from the Rule of Education but still at a loss what communion and fellowship with God in Prayer means I accuse not their praying at set-times but Professors confidence therein as evidence of their religious state or their Prayers right performance David's set-times of Prayer are instanced in his Book of Psalms and I hope there is not any experiencing Christian on earth at this day who slights their appointed seasons of private Prayer to supplicate the Lord's conduct from morning till night and from evening to morning yea by observation of continued Mercies through the day are kept in a posture of Soul fitted to ejaculate Praise and by observation of continual Wants fitted to ejaculate Supplication throughout the whole course of the day and so kept in obedience to that Divine
Command of praying without ceasing even amidst diligent endeavours in business and outward lawful pleasures as well as in the performance of morning noon and evening Sacrifices My Challenge therefore takes place when exactness in that Circumstance proceeds from no other foundation than that of Education or guided by no other Rule than that of others Example and tending towards no other ends than Applause or pleasing themselves by their Customariness therein The former experience of my self under the alone power of Education and now under the power of Christianity gave me occasion to reprehend this Error having then found my self more uneasy at the neglect of a set-time of Prayer than I am at this day when a lawful occurrence falls in my way to hinder my performance of Prayer at my usual set-time then I have found my self still under anxiety for the omission only but blessed be the Lord my experience is such that a heavenly Frame the continual desire of my Soul is neither confin'd to set-words nor set-times of Prayer and follow'd with as evident returns when put forth in Ejaculation as when in Solemn Prayer Thirdly A laying too great a weight upon the performance of Prayer in form or extemporary is an Error of Education the frame and posture of the Soul in Prayer is the touchstone of its right performance and therefore either of which the Christian finds most raising a spiritual frame that I think safest for a Christian to stick to For my own part without regard to the opinion and way either of the Church of England or Dissenter but purely to personal experience founded I hope upon Scripture-Revelation I must say that when in Closet or Family-Prayer my frame of mind has been rais'd to great spirituality and heavenliness my words then have run from me with an amazing freedom and current and in a most affecting way to my self and others from whence I must imagine that the Soul confining himself to words in a form of Prayer gives an occasional hindrance of this spiritual frame by confinement to what is design'd to be utter'd and so keeping off such Divine Influences which we are uncapable of bounding either in the frame of the Soul or in the Christian's outward expression Again There is a mighty difference between a Christian's seriousness when nothing else is sensibly productive thereof but the strength of the Creature 's self by the means either of thinking upon God's All seeing Eye upon the greatness of the Majesty approach'd to or by the means of drawing off the thoughts from distracting things There is vast difference I say between this serious frame and a spiritual heavenly frame sensibly suddenly and powerfully influencing the Soul without any thing of Self unless as in the use of Prayer but sensibly rais'd from a higher hand to thoughts and words far beyond the other I bless the Lord without the latter I am never satisfi'd and I know the first may be perform'd and yet without sensible fellowship with God but perhaps real fellowship with him by his strengthning influences and nothing more fixes the thoughts from diversion or discovers Self and Christ's spiritual Influences and carries the Soul more out of Self to cry and depend on Christ's Supplies than such extemporary Prayer with observation But if this Experience can be opposed by others who for any thing I know may find less distraction and greater heavenliness of frame in a form'd Prayer whatever their opinion be I shall never offer my Censure against the Circumstance of formed or extemporary Prayer being only to be accused when either it 's perform'd stuck to and pleaded for because of Education and not by reason of the one or the other's being a better mean towards performing of Prayer in a more heavenly and spiritual manner if our Concern run more upon the observation of the Soul's frame in the performance of Duties than upon the various methods of their outward performance the common distinction of opinions and quarrellings about needless Circumstances would soon be abandon'd I dissent from all tho' of my own opinion who lay weight upon any Circumstance but in so far as it contributes to greater spirituality in Prayer and shall never censure those of another opinion who stick fast to some Circumstances and thereby differ from me purely because such Circumstances are more serviceable to their Souls in raising their frames to greater spirituality than when otherwise perform'd But to be strict in their use and to plead for them in conversation purely because of being educated with them without trying the contrary way pleaded for and experienc'd by others seems to me the product of Self rather than the Spirit of God Again I am of the opinion that Children educated with Forms of Prayer are led to greater laziness in their more grown years and often proves a mean of rendring them secure without fellowship with God in Duties Not as if I confin'd God's spiritual Influences to an extemporary Prayer or that there were never a spiritual frame in praying with Form but that the latter more consines the Soul with its thoughts in the Duty and so fits the Soul far less to receive spiritual breathings than an extemporary Prayer And when a Soul in the use of Form in Prayer is raised by Christ's Spirit to a heavenly frame I think I may say that then the Soul goes beyond the path of Form it begun the Prayer in and reaches further in expression than what his Soul design'd by his usual Form Fourthly A laying too great a weight upon the Circumstance of Length in Prayer is another Error of Education especially amongst the Youth of Dissenters who are as much pleas'd herewith as those of the Church of England are with Form in Prayer Length in Prayer I accuse not absolutely for if the Soul be in a heavenly frame and admitted to near approach to God in Prayer its delight therein is such that it is unwilling to yea can hardly give over but when Length in Prayer proceeds from no other foundation than Education or Custom it is a Circumstance no ways promoting the Soul's heavenliness in it or God's acceptance of it There are many who from being train'd up in the way of extemporary Prayer can with strength of memory judgment and readiness of expression lengthen out Prayer to their own conceit and satisfaction and with applause from others and yet never know at the same time the meaning of access to God in Prayer it is a Consideration that has often moved me to concern for some under good Education and religious Character but altogether unacquainted with inward Religion The meaning of outward Worship to God is to honour him on earth amongst our selves and the service that is proportion'd to God is spiritual in the Soul expression being no acceptable Sacrifice to him unless upon that account of spiritual Worship it 's that which assimilates a man most to God and brings a man sooner to the knowledge
and admiration of God and to a meetness for that Heaven wherein in all his Childrens Servants shall be spiritual and heavenly A Prayer spiritually perform'd seems to fly with wings by the gale of Christ's Spirit blowing upon the Soul making it sail towards God with such words and thoughts as appear more the fruit of a Divine Spirit than of great memory and judgment Let us but make observation of one man's Prayer at one time and another when the judgment 〈…〉 are left only at the helm how 〈◊〉 and faintly does his words drop though never â—o fine but when God breathes suddenly and freely upon the Soul his frame is visibly chang'd is more affecting to the hearer and is admitted to plead with God in greater familiarity with greater power and readier expression It is experimentally known how much more pleasing and affecting a spiritual Prayer is though perform'd by an illiterate hand than the Prayer perform'd by the most ingenious but unspiritual There needs no other way to converse with the experienced Christians but by bringing Experiences to their memories but for others unacquainted with experimental Christianity I hope the use of the means treated of will bring you to the same Experience and then your arguings upon Air will vanish and they 'll find the Christian Religion solid and true and filled with all solid comfort and establishment to your Souls Abandon therefore Circumstantial Niceties as evidential of your right-perform'd Prayer restrict your self to no place in performing the Duty or in debating concerning Prayer but where you find most privacy and greatest assistance towards a good frame of Soul confine your self not to morning or evening Prayer only but throughout the whole day upon any occurrency of affair or company you are call'd to distrust your self without begging God's conduct therein and if under constraint from Set-Prayer endeavour after a good frame of mind in ejaculating a Petition to God which will issue in as sweet and remarkable a return by which means the frame of your mind is kept in a continual seriousness to answer that Command of praying without ceasing as was said before and as a mean to repel forgetfulness of God And to hinder the danger of running to an extreme in lawful diversion which at this day is an occasion leading to much evil even amongst real Christians lengthen out your Prayer according to your Suits you find you stand in need of or are sensible of at the time and if you are heavenly you will lengthen it out with pleasure use form or extemporariness not because you have been so educated or because those of your Party do and plead for it but try both and then use what you find most serviceable towards a good frame of Soul These Errors being remov'd I come to give you my Experience of right perform'd Prayer not by Philosophical Definition or Distinctions there being sufficiency thereof by excellent hands already in Print but by Enlargement according to my method of experiencing the gradual steps of knowledge God was pleas'd to afford concerning Prayer in the performance and continuance of it In general therefore judge of your right performance in Prayer by the following marks which were the two I was first of all made sensible of tho' afterward others of which you shall hear in the repetition of the same two with the addition of others occur'd But I chose rather to keep them in the method of time as well as matter that they were experienced in not so much for grown Christians who have experienced the same with my self and therefore may be comfortably established thereby but for the sake of the illiterate and meer Professors though notionally learned that they and all unacquainted with Experience may be led step by step to the right knowledge and performance thereof First You may judge of your right performance of Prayer by the frame of your mind in it if spiritual and heavenly if your thoughts are carri'd upwards with sincerity and fervency the same time your words pass your lips the power of Instruction Custom or Applause having small room as Motives thereto but the obedience of God's Command the sense of your need of and insufficiency to bring about what you ask The sense of power in God and of his willingness to bestow if for your good moving you to address him after the experience whereof and strict continuance in the use of set and ejaculatory Prayer with observation of what occurs therein you will find more knowledge and enjoyment creep upon you than all the Divines on earth that ever I have met with has been able to express or impart Secondly You may judge of your right and acceptable performance by returns to your Prayers Such objections that a return may come to a Prayer and the Christian not know it to be the return or that a return may be so long deferr'd as when it comes in the Prayer that Petition'd it being out of the Christians Thoughts he is in danger of mistake by imagining the Prayers not being spiritually perform'd not accepted of God or return'd by him when the Prayer has been perform'd aright God pleased with it and yet answer'd Such Objections shall fully be answer'd in further discoursing concerning Prayer Only give me leave to say that when a return comes to a Prayer and the return not known to be such it is certain argument to me of laziness in that Christian and that a general and exact observation of the Enjoyments accompanying spiritual and continued Prayer has not been the practice of that Soul and that that Prayer has not at first been remarkt God's ways between the Praying and its return not exactly observ'd and reflected upon and consequently the return given iâ— not compar'd but unsuitably applied to notion and fancy the neglect of the observation of this God's common method extreamly hinders the knowledge of a Prayer right perform'd and really return'd and is the true and often â—â—â—â—sion of false and erroneous Thoughts both of God and our selves Again It has 〈◊〉 been my own Experience 〈◊〉 the return of a Prayer has been to 〈…〉 that at the time of the performance I have had an 〈◊〉 pâ—werful sense of God's acceptance thereof 〈◊〉 it was God's work and not my own from its sudden and powerful fixedness in my Soul neither the work of Satan or inward Corruption by reason of its effect in the Soul afterward abiding even full pleasedness and quiet of Mind concerning the Event tho' the return was deferred neither any repine but continued exercise of Resignation Love to and Reliance upon God which clearly discovers the power of a Divine Spirit these going along takes off the Thoughts of Prayers being unspiritual unacceptable or not to be return'd tho' the return be deferr'd There are many at this day under no other advancement in Christianity than its meer Profession who are constant to their Duty of Prayer but either reflect not or in reflecting upon
their Duty perform'd never seriously question in themselves whither any other thing than there petition of words in such serious a manner as the strength of Education and others discourse concerning God's greatness had brought them to was either necessary or actually in their Prayers or ever examin'd after Prayer was over whether it had return or not How this way of living should train a Soul to the experience and knowledge of access to and enjoyments with God in Prayer I know not speaking as to God's common way of bestowing such comfortable priviledges purchased by Christ for us To instruct you therefore from the Experience of God with my self O prophane and meer professing Christians I would with much sincerity and love 〈◊〉 â—ur selves beg your steps in the following 〈◊〉 When you are designing any matter or endeavouring the interest of this or the other mean to bring forth your purposed end resolve to address the Lord by Prayer for his guidance of you to the use of right means and his blessing the means to bring about your design unless inconsistent with his Honour and your Interest And if you are hinder'd from solemn Address make use of your Thoughts and dart them up to him with the same Petitions Mind not only the words in your solemn Prayer and your thoughts in Ejaculation but consider the frame of your Mind in both whether serious or not if as serious as when speaking to this or the other help to carry on your design at your first enterance I suppose not your acquaintance with spirituality of frame and if your frame be thus serious mind the issue of your affair if it be according to your Desire and Prayer impute not your success altogether to your outward help of this mean and the other but let Heaven's Blessing accompanying your diligent use of means have room in your Thoughts if not as chief yet as necessary and therefore you will improve this passage thus observ'd with a resolution to address God more seriously than ever in your next undertaking and accordingly perform your serious Prayer to him for his Divine Assistance which meeting with a sensible return you will improve with a more fixedness in your resolution to Petition him in all your after-concerns and with giving of him now the place of principal Agent with your means which will lay a foundation not only for a resolution and performance of Prayer and that seriously to God in all Occurrences but make a fair step towards the founding a Faith of Reliance upon God yea an endeavour of pleasing God to interest your selves in his favour and a perusal of the Scriptures to know the Will of God and the way of doing it and going on in this way of Prayer and Observation with such suitable improvement you know not neither is it in the power of the greatest exercise of a rational Soul to foresee or imagin aforehand what great and mysterious things may be laid before you to observe to wit of a Christian's advancement from the first step of Seriousness to a Reliance upon God as the alone power to be trusted to with such means he allows of and has witnessed his pleasure in by working with them for the bringing about such Events as are sought from natural strength by others but by them in Petitioning the Agency of his Power I don't mean by repeating of Words by way of Form and Rule given you in your Education but thorough a sense of the great advantage of his favour and a sincere desire to obtain it a carrying out of your desire with thoughts and words suitable to the present height of your longings which lays you in the way of meeting with the breathings of Christ's Spirit to help your infirmities and to raise your frame to such a posture of heavenliness as you never knew before unless by the hearing of the ear and will soon unfold what a dark state you have been in that all the seriousness you had in Prayer was no other than the strength of education and that there is something else in the Christian Religion you have never yet been senble of more suitable to the feeling of the Soul than to the utterance of the greatest Orator on earth The Spirit of God has express'd in the Scriptures these Mysteries in a stile suited to our understanding but when the same Spirit bears them home to the sensible feeling of a Christian what addition is given to the Christian's understanding of them and true Faith in them I go not therefore about to express these experienced Mysteries in a better stile for your understanding but to put you in a way of obtaining their experience upon your Souls by the working of a Divine Spirit in the use of common means You lose your labour in endeavouring to understand them in their saving efficacy by your natural reason without the help of a Divine Spirit and his internal Revelation What can better unfold or express the breathings of Christ's Spirit upon a Soul in its holy frame and performance of any Religious Duty than its resemblance to the blowing of the wind upon our Bodies which though sensibly felt yet is mysterious as to the parts of the Heavens from whence it blows or the way of its blowing upon us In like manner though the Spirit of God breathing upon a Soul in praying to God comes often suddenly like a gale of wind refreshing the Soul's dead frame with a ravishing heavenly life and power thoughts desires and all the affections being then carri'd heavenward like a Ship towards its Harbour with sweet delight therein and an actual undervaluing of the richest treasures and pleasures on earth in the balance with this comfortable sweetness for the time enjoy'd the continuance whereof would afford the Soul a Heaven on earth yet the Spirit of God in the excellency of his Divine Nature and in his method of thus changing the frame of the Soul is incomprehensible by the reach of human reason and to the experienc'd Soul there is but a discovery of him in his blessed effects and operations and a sight of him through a Glass darkly till that blessed change pass upon them and they obtain a perfect meetness to see and to understand him as he is No wonder therefore the prophane or meer professing Christian attempting to comprehend God's Word as to the work of the Spirit of God in planting Grace or watering it with constant influences to keep it in exercise find themselves at a loss how to understand it and therefore never feeling its effects upon their Souls either look upon it as Chimaera and the Being of the Spirit of God or his blessed operations of converting and spiritualizing a Soul to be only Notions of a melancholy Brain How many are there at this day who mock at the Spirit of God and the Divinity of our Blessed Redeemer and ridicule expressions of fellowship with him as canting discourse for they never receiv'd the precious
then to be sure a real Christian seriously performing a Prayer with a natural affecting way of expression may make a near resemblance to a heavenly Frame like unto that sensible preparation given in by a Divine Spirit to ask what God is to return Now to judge either of these Prayers seemingly put up in spirituality as really spiritual and to expect from thence the health and life of your Friend upon that sure foundation of God's Word telling us that he prepares the Christian to ask when he is to encline his ear and yet the person does not recover may greatly tend to make them mistake when they judge it from the ignorance of their minds and the delusion of Satan a failure in God's truth rather than a failure in themselves in judging that Prayer spiritual and presaging a gracious return which really bore no evidence of either But if you observe the Prayer of a Minister or other Christian in publick put up spiritually and judge it as God's Token given you for good You that are concern'd and really acquainted with experimental Christianity do not only find a sense and impression at the time of this Prayer as its being God's evidence of good but retiring your selves to your private Prayer you 'll find the same Frame upon your own Soul as evidence both of God's returning it and of the other's performing it spiritually and that your judgement therefore was right when a return is in God's design though his Spirit be one yet he influences many at the same time to ask the same thing of God Thus there are more Witnesses to his mercy and its greatness appears the more and he is the more honoured thereby Both Cautions I 'll endeavour to explain by a late Instance of my own Experience amongst many I could produce which for Brevity I must omit that thereby you may know how many times a Christian is help'd by a Divine Spirit to ask of God for a Friend's Recovery and yet unless continued thorough the whole Illness the Recovery has not issu'd thereby you may also know the right judging of another's spiritual frame in prayer The Instance is concerning a Friend of my own for whom the Lord was in a solemn manner addrest to by some Ministers who set apart some time for this very purpose they seemingly were wonderfully carri'd out in Prayer answerable to which there was a present Relief appear'd but went off soon after and continued not Throughout the course of their Illness I found in my self in Prayer a perfect driness as to the frame of my mind and words in Prayer for them which made me continually express my self with fear of their death excepting one Prayer in an evening in my Closet which upon discourse with other Friends I found to be the very exact time of others being united to pray and the time of there being some hopes of which joint and solemn Prayer I knew nothing at the time of my own observation which I had set down in my Diary till afterward in discourse with Friends and I had set it down with special Remark but excepting that one Prayer I found them lost in all my other Petitions and proclaim'd my fears when their Physicians had great hopes and their symptoms had some abatement with the wondring of Friends what could be my reason moving me to think this If any should ask me after what has been said concerning Spirituality in Prayer and its answerableness to return Whether Returns from God are only to such Petitions breath'd upon sensibly by Christ's Spirit and raising them to greater heavenliness of thought and word than commonly or if extended to Prayers perform'd with no other sensible seriousness than the sincere endeavour of a Christian's self Before the Answer I shall first lay down the difference between strengthning and comforting Influences of Christ's Spirit David had his withdrawings of comfortable Influences to such a degree and to such a time as made him cry out Psal 77.7 Is his mercy clean gone will he be favourable no more And in ver 8. Does his promise fail for evermore And yet at the same time though insensible then thereof he was under the strengthning Divine Influences of Christ's Spirit for when David comes to himself after he had said I have cleans'd my heart in vain and returning thence to the enjoyment of comforting Influences he says in ver 22 23. Though I was so foolish and carried my self as a beast before thee nevertheless thou hast holden me up by my right hand From whence I draw a Caution to dejected Christians Not to think that tho' God withdraw his comforting breathings formerly experienced and that for holy ends of Reproof for not better entertaining them formerly enjoy'd or of excitation to prize them more when they return and to keep closer and stricter and more continually to the use of means to obtain and to retain them that therefore they have lost the grace they had once the sensible evidence of by Christ's comforting Influences and so give Satan opportunity of following this thought with his suggestion of Apostacy and danger of damnation and the being no advantage in the further use of means whereas the continuance therein is evidence of spiritual supporting power and of God's holding them up from falling however unsensible they are of his comforting Influences Secondly There is a difference between spiritual Influences strengthning the Soul to the continued use of sincere Prayer and between spiritual Influences making the other comfortably sensible and carrying the Soul out thereby with more fervency and joy than at other times Thirdly That shorter Intermissions of Duties and sincere endeavours therein contribute greatly to the drawing down of continued comfortable Influences and that the more close we walk with God in the use of means the more clear comfortable delightful enjoyments occur I answer therefore first That a Return is certain to that Prayer that is directed by the Holy Spirit to God for obtaining a blessing for us and an evidence of this direction is by the heavenly frame of mind and more than ordinary freedom of utterance in the Duty Secondly That often God returns a Prayer perform'd with spiritual Influences though they are without that delightful evidence at the time of Prayer the Spirit of God exciting and strengthning the Soul to ask carries him to nothing but what is suitable to God's Word and with Resignation in the Christian's self whether this heavenliness of frame be sensible at the time of Prayer or not and therefore if God's Spirit be helping the Soul really tho' insensibly to the Christian or really and sensibly too a return certainly follows that Prayer but with this difference that under heavenliness of frame he enjoys the Comfort of the return aforehand and under strengthning influences he is not so certain of the spirituality of its performance or its acceptance with God till the return make it manifest Thirdly That such a comfortable sense of
be debated first but rather let your arguings succeed to your experience unless they be such Mysteries as are meerly to be credited according to Divine Revelation and uncapable of man's comprehension in this life and then in God's method of working and watering Grace you 'll obtain a full discovery of Self-insufficiency the need of a Redeemer to look to and depend upon God's revealed Word in conjunction with his Divine Spirit as your chief helps hereto An Arminian to plead his own power is like the prophane and meer Professor mocking and doubting of fellowship with God in Prayer It is the Arminian's want of Grace or at least the want of the observation of steps that has led to their Grace and its growth that keeps them still exalting of Self and it 's the others never experiencing communion with God in Prayer that make them ridicule it Put Self to the tryal Arminian whether you can in your strength work Grace try it and do not delay till a dying hour And if you find you can't then bring to the tryal another strength even that of a Divine Spirit in the use of means recorded in this applicatory part and then you 'll follow Christ's Command and become as a little Child obedient in the use of God's means to help forward the right knowledge of him and your selves and shall be enabled to get out of Self-confidence into a reliance upon a more Divine Foundation even Christ's Spirit the Gift given to the Christians in the world upon Christ's leaving the Earth and his Ascension to Heaven By Prayer and Observation therewith you will soon discover Socinianisms Falshood as it has sprung from Arminianism by so much exalting Self so the discovery of the vanity of the latter soon lays open in Christian experience the delusion of the former Let a Christian but observe the difficulty of laying aside Self-trust even after God's most establishing Experiences dethroning it and the proneness of his mind to admix Self in Duties rightly perform'd The difficulty of putting on Self-denial and of being cloath'd with that glorious Grace of Faith yea the means made use of by God to uncloath us of the one and to adorn us with the other The Observation I say of all these in a Christian will soon convince us of our insufficiency and encline us to exalt Christ as the Object of the Soul's trust and adoration for the destroying of that branch of Socinianism even the denial of the Godhead of our blessed Redeemer Besides Scripture plainness the attributing to Christ all the uncommunicable perfections of the Deity is proof against them Will all the Socinians Sophistry on earth make me disbelieve his Godhead when I have experienc'd that in the worship and adoration of Christ the Grace of God that has converted me from Sin to Holiness is then in exercise GOD is a jealous GOD and will not part with that Prerogative of Adoration no more to meer man than to vain Images and yet Who are the sanctified ones in Christ who are the Persons Paul judg'd meet to write unto in his first v. of his first ch of his first Epistle to the Corinthians even such who call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord not nominally so but such a Lord as is made the object of Adoration in the Gospel Churches none else being fit Members to make up a Christian Church and all denying Christ's Godhead and this Adoration due to his Name exclude themselves from being fit matter for a Gospel Church My Adoration of Christ as God I observe most solemn and with an intire trust in him when I am in a heavenly frame of Soul in private Prayer being then certain that the exercise of Adoration to Christ is the true effect of God's Divine Spirit influencing my Soul Often in meditation in participating the Lord's Supper the admiration and adoration of Christ as God blessed for ever has been kept up with great warmth and spirituality in the Soul To the Socinians I would put this Question If ever in a private Prayer to God in participation of the Lord's Supper or upon a sick and in appearance dying Bed they experienced a heavenly ravishing frame of Soul and if they have what exercise of thought in either of these three Circumstances concerning Christ and themselves then seiz'd them I dare answer That if really influenced with a heavenly frame Arminius with honour to Self and Socinus with his disparagement of Christ were low as the dust in their Opinion then How unsuitable are those who deny Christ this Tribute on earth to reign with him in Heaven when the Mystery of the Trinity the Mystery of Redemption by God the Son and the Mystery of Conversion by God the Spirit shall be perfectly unfolded when the admiration and adoration of God for his infinitely wise and condescending Mercy in delivering man must be in frequent exercise This is the most excellent beneficial and comfortable object of a Christian's Faith Contemplation and Affection We can only see it here through a Glass darkly in the full sight is the perfection and felicity of the Saints in Glory But the serious thoughts of redeeming love in our present state fills the Soul with a Joy unspeakable and glorious God constituted man at first with all the necessary faculties of Body and Mind and with their beautiful Ornaments that man by considering the excellent Goodness of his Maker might Glorifie him and not meerly please himself in his own Perfections and the fruition of Paradise In like manner a gracious Soul is renewed to Christ's Image in Conversion not that the doing of it may be proclaim'd as his own work and Glory thereby derogated from the Godhead of Christ and his Blessed Spirit Man is made meet for Heaven by Grace growing in his Soul on Earth And does he pass that perfecting change at the day of Judgment and is he admitted to these glorious Visions in Heaven for the admiration of himself No He will know that as the Creation of Man was the product of the Counsel and Power of the Deity as it 's declared in these words Let us make man so the Conversion of man from the power of Sin to Holiness is the sole effect of the free Mercy and Power of God and for the honour of his Grace Pride first discover'd it self in our fatal fall and has continued to show it self in arrogating to our selves what is entirely due to God but the perfected Spirits of Just men know how unworthy and unprepared they were to see God in his full Glory They continually pay the humble Homage of Praise to him that sits upon the Throne whose Spirit sanctified them and to the Lamb by whose Sacrifice and Satisfaction Heaven was opened to them Can a meer man receive the Hallelujahs above and rob the Father of the Praise of the Triumphant Saints in Heaven With what faces will those who deny the Deity of Christ look upon a Redeemer glorified as
begin your Morning Duties with reading a Psalm or a Chapter by Pool's Annotations observe the Words and Sentences thereof that impress your minds most with serious advertency to them observe the thoughts that thence arise at the time if tending to explain what formerly you were ignorant of if tending to establish you in what formerly you had the knowledge of if tending to make you resolve you 'll conform to it or if tending to comfort you as having walk'd conform to it and thereby discovering your self in the reading such a Portion of Scripture Thirdly Enter upon private Prayer with a serious Acknowledgment of God's Favour in conducting you through the Night and with a sincere Supplication to him for his conduct thro' the Day by his special Providence and Spirit that from the evidence of both thorough the Day you may discover his special Favour to your souls as a comfortable evening Cordial and that by his supplies of Grace throughout the day you may be enabled to bring forth the blessed Improvement of both by the exercise of Trust in and Love to the Godhead for life and salvation Observe your frame of soul throughout this Prayer observe if it continue in the same degree of seriousness throughout the whole or vary according to the various Petitions put up Observe and record the different Frames and different Petitions Fourthly Go forth thus prepared to your lawful Business and Conversation In your Business through the day observe First The Passages of Providence that seem to bring Undertakings to your hand Secondly Observe your own Endeavour in the use of Means And Thirdly The Event of each Undertaking In your Conversation through the day observe 1. The Occasions of your Entrance into it whether Idleness Lust within Necessity or Recreation 2. The Frame of your Mind while in it whether on your watch against the evils thereof And 3. The Issue of it whether freedom from or commission of Sins But now in the evening of the day Reflection according to the Observation and Record of the day is the Duty preceding your last Closet Prayer and to be recommended to your practice Perform it in the following Parts First Reflect upon the frame of your Souls that you observ'd in the morning whether by the Duties of Reading and Prayer it was not brought to a seriousness if observ'd to be unserious or to a greater seriousness than the degree of seriousness at first observ'd yea perhaps to great Heavenliness The improvement whereof must needs be that it is good to draw near to God in the Duties he has prescrib'd and a fix'd resolution to walk therein and perhaps daily continuance may bring in daily additions of the Enjoyments of Grace and preserve the Christian in daily heavenliness of Soul as Bulwark against all the Temptations of the day with Honour to God and great inward Peace Secondly Reflect upon the passages of Providence round you through the day and First of all compare them to the parts of the Scripture you read in the morning and to the Thoughts that then most imprest your Minds to see whether or not these passages of Divine Providence afford you some discovery of the reality of that part of the Scripture thus observ'd establishing your Faith in it The improvement whereof must needs be a resolution to go on in the same Duty of reading the Scripture in the morning before the entring upon the business of the day and perhaps there will arise to your sensible Experience greater knowledge of God's Word than ever yet has been observ'd by you in the enjoyment of outward Instruction yea such establishment to its truth and reality as could not be brought forth by the strongest arguings of the most Learn'd and into which the strongest Dart of Erroneous Sophistry can never pierce enabling your Soul not only to see the Reality but even Harmony of God's Word to his Providence and Spirit Secondly Compare the Providences of the Day to your Morning-Duty of closet-Closet-Prayer to the Petitions therein put up and to the frame of Soul you were then under that you may discover what Passages of Providence seem to be afforded you in return to Prayer and what Frame your Soul was in and what was your Utterance in that Prayer or part thereof that was return'd The improvement whereof must needs be a discovery of the Certainty of Access to God by Prayer and a Desire to be always in that Frame wherein you was when you pray'd that Prayer that is so visibly return'd It will help you to see a difference between one kind of Prayer and another between a Prayer with our own Spirit and with the Spirit of Christ between a Prayer with the Spirit of Christ enabling to ask sincerely and a Prayer with the Spirit of Christ giving the Soul the comfortable sense of it as such and discovering the Reality of a Divine Strength above our selves both bringing the Providences of the day to us and bringing forth the improvement thereof in us by a gradual advancement of relyance upon and love to the free Grace of God in Christ by whose satisfaction this once-seal'd Fountain is open'd and by whose Spirit its Waters of Spiritual Life continually flow upon us and in the use of Duties apply'd to us Thirdly Reflect upon your own way of managing Business and Conversation with others that so you may not only discover a special Providence round you but the actings of a Divine Spirit within you and that by comparing First Your Frame of Soul to the Passages of Providence laying Undertakings in your way through the day reflecting whether God was observed in bringing them about as a discovery of Divine Strength in you carrying your observation beyond the enjoyment even to God himself Secondly By comparing your Frame of Soul to your method of using Means and managing Endeavours thus providentially laid in your way not only whether God was regarded therein laying Providences in your way or helping you to observe him but whether your concern run out chiefly upon doing Duty neither designing ill ends nor endeavouring to bring about any purpose in the use of ill means but regarding Duty to him in all Thirdly Compare your Frame of Soul to the Events of such Undertakings thus providentially laid in your way and thus faithfully managed by you if they are according to expectation or better than expectation Reflect whether exercise of the Grace of Love and Faith were not and ought not to be brought forth by such a Discovery and a fix'd resolution to keep on in the same lawful use of means with a trust to Divine Supply for Events as full evidence of the working of Christ's Spirit in your Soul and of your being under his Spiritual Conduct In Conversation with others 1. Reflect upon your Entrance to it whether its occasions were Necessity and innocent Recreation with a previous Address for Divine Conduct in it 2. Reflect upon your Carriage in it thus prepared the Temptations
you met with therein and the Strength you had to resist them and that in answer to your Ejaculatory Prayer 3. Reflect upon the Issue whether it was freedom from being overcome by its Temptations and that in return to ejaculated Thoughts for Divine Strength to preserve you before entrance in it or at the time you were engaged with it The Improvement of which Reflections must needs be A Resolution to enter no Society but when under the constraint of lawful Business or Recreation and even then with an eye to God in the use of Ejaculatory Prayer either aforehand or while in Conversation for Strength to resist Temptations that may either endanger occasions to sin or of losing a spiritual Frame Fourthly Reflect upon the Failures of the Day and what you have let pass unobserv'd what Failures in your Business and Conversation have appear'd If the eye of God has been as much regarded as the eye of the World If the opportunity of Secresy has not clouded your fear of God If you have kept your Tongues with a Christian Bridle from Lying in telling Stories to divert Companions or as Excuses for Faults From Self-commendation with an inward design to disparage others From censuring others especially Christians and picking out somewhat in their life to make a discourse of to disparage their Profession rather than endeavour their amendment by acquainting themselves therewith And whatever in your Reflection you find has been amiss herein let particular acknowledgment be made that with the Psalmist you may thereby escape the punishment of your particular Sins and vow not to repeat it and tho repeated by you forbear not your Resolutions and Endeavours against it your unwilling breaches reflected upon will bring you soon out of your selves to a Redeemer and to cry for his Spirit to apply strength to your Souls to resist In reflection upon the passages of Providence through the day and upon the strength conveyed by a Divine Spirit to your Souls evident not only by your spiritual Frame in the Duties of the day but in the Improvement of its Providences by eying God in bringing them about by regarding his Will in the use of Means and trusting to him for Events with a constant watch to ejaculatory Prayer against the Temptations of Company In reflection thereupon arises a fair and comfortable discovery of your being under three blessed Conducts of God's Word Providence and Spirit and is laid before you as your last Evening-duty e're your head lies down upon your Pillow a private Prayer blessing God for the discovery of his Love in his Word Providence and Spirit blessing him particularly for each particular step therein and begging his further grace to be upheld in those means wherein he is pleased to discover so much of himself in strength and comfort to the Soul above what is attainable by other helps or comforts in this life Give therefore your selves up to God for conduct thorough the night that if your eyes should never open more upon this earth your Redeemer may find you laid at his Footstool as the last performance of your life and may raise you up to that glorious dignity of being embraced into Abraham's bosom a blessed issue to such comfortable endeavours And however tedious this Directory may seem in its reading yet I dare witness to this truth that the person in the greatest hurries of outward Affairs has time enough for this easy work it being easily to be intermixt in the throng of Affairs and the more Affairs are laid in your way the greater opportunity you have to observe God's Providence and his Spirit and that built upon his blessed Word as a Mean of keeping up the sense of God's Love in your Souls and the sense of your love to him that so Communion with God may be your Life on earth which will make you live comfortably and dye triumphantly I can do no more but lay the way before you and the Lord himself give you strength to chuse it and to walk in it FINIS
perform a distinct worship of Christ in Prayer and do hope that I am under the instruction and inward power of that Divine Spirit whom he has promised should guide us unto all Truth in the use of his means John 14.26 What is a guide otherwise in Nature and way of power upon the Soul than that the product only of religious Education and of the Notional Knowledge of Christianity As by the word of Truth with a frequent use of the Sacrament so by this very experience I have been wonderfully established in the truth of the Godhead of Christ against all the Socinianism falsehoods of the men of this Age in that Duty of the Holy Sacrament I have often been so ravish'd with the Contemplation of Christ's Love in himself as God and Man that at the very time I have been in great exercise of pity towards those poor Creatures who deny his Godhead and have oft thought with my self that unacquaintance with themselves on God's own word experience in their Soul was the occasion of their distrust of Christ as God How weak are the Socinian Arguments against our Blessed Redeemer as God And tho they be prevalent upon some unacquainted with God's word at least not experimentally felt as truth upon their Souls yet they are easily to be repell'd by the Scriptural discovery of Christ's Two distinct Natures in One Person for ever And how much more weak will they appear at that blessed day of Resurrection when they shall see him in his perfect Glory as God-Man Redeemer of lost Man and the Judge of them that would not comprehend him as a Glorious God What is more plain than that Scriptural evidence of the Godhead of Christ in the First Epistle of John chap. 5. v. 20 And we know that the Son of God is come and hath given us understanding that we might know him that is true and we are in him that is true even in his Son Christ Jesus this is the true God and eternal life if we are in him ingrasted by the operation of his Divine Spirit we shall draw forth such knowledge of him both as certainly come against all the Jews on Earth and as God and Eternal Life against all the Socinians at this day from my own experience I desire to put my poor Seal to this Scripture-truth discoverable in what I have already laid before you I do believe That the Professor of Christianity turning Socinian never knew Christ any other way than by a notional Knowledge pleasing to its self but never feeling that saving-knowledge of him by the work of a Divine Spirit in the use of means planting or watring Grace in the Soul John c. 1. v. 3. All things were made by him and in v 10. The world was made by him and it knew him not undoubtedly therefore he made up one of them Gen. 1.26 who said Let us make man one in Nature though three Persons distinct Is not the Soul a Man One in Essence tho' different in its Faculties of Judgment Will and Affections Colos ch 1. v. 14 15 16. By him to wit the Son that Redeemed us the Image of God the first born from the Dead all things were Created he was before all things and all things consist by him which are never applicable to Christ unless he be God as well as Man Again God's attribute of Omnipotence could never be appropriated to him if he were not God as well as Man John 2.24 But Jesus did not commit himself to them because he knew all Men. John 6.64 For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believ'd not and who should betray him In the sixth verse of the same Chapter it is said That Jesus knew he had been a long time in that case Isaiah 8.13 Sanctifie the Lord of Host let him be your fear and dread he shall be for a sanctuary but for a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to both houses of Israel Who is this Lord of Hosts that is to be a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence It is express'd in the ninth Chapter of the Romans and 32 Verse They stumbled at the stumbling-stone Isaiah c. 6. Who can read it throughout and compare it with the 12th chapter of John v. 38. and not be convinced of the Deity of Christ therefore they could not believe because Isaiah said He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts that they should not see and be converted as is set down in the latter part of that 6th Chapter of Isaiah and in the 41st verse of the same chapter of John it is express'd These things said Isaiah when he saw his glory and spake of him as in the former part of that 6th chapter he did express it Sitting upon a throne high and lifted up his train filling the temple Seraphims standing above it crying one to another Holy holy holy is the Lord of Hosts the whole earth is full of his glory by the comparing of both Chapters its plain that it was Christ that is thus described and whether such a description be applicable to meer man I leave it to any Christian to judge of Withour further running over the Scriptures attesting the Divinity of Christ or further enlarging upon the personal experience of freeness of worship to him in Prayer and other Duties in that change of Soul wherein Faith to Christ was implanted I 'll only add one Scripture more not only accusing of Socinians themselves but these of Christ's Flock who encourage their Erroneous Doctrine by too familiar converse with their persons It is the 2d Epistle of John the 9th and 10th verses Who abides not in the Doctrine of Christ hath not God and if that of his being God but now made out be not one great part of the Doctrine of Christ I know not how we shall understand his satisfaction of God as is described in his word In the 10th verse it is said If any deceivers come unto you and bring not this Doctrine receive them not in your house neither bid them speed both being an argument of Familliarity but justly reproving those who are so far from giving such discouragement to Deceivers that if by them can be diverted Splenetick Vapours by acuteness of their Wit and diverting Conversation they shall have as great if not greater room in their Society or Houses as those whose delight is to communicate and discourse the Mysteries of the Kingdom of Grace By this means we hug the tools of spreading Errors in our Bosoms To proceed in the Narrative of God's further method of carrying on this great inward change in the use of his usual means I shall First of all lay before you the Experiences of the certainty of the Souls access to God in Prayer of the seriousness of frame therein that the prophane and meer Professor though never so outwardly Religious are altogether unacquainted with the experiences of the certainty of Christ's Spirit interceding in us in
Prayer and of the correspondency thereof to God's return Secondly Experiences of God's method of working sensibly and fructifying Faith and Reliance upon himself Thirdly Experiences of the with-holding Divine Influences in Prayer Fourthly Experiences of God's method of training the Soul to right hearing of the Word and participation of the Lord's Supper Experiences of the First take in the following Order My First Experience leading me to the certainty of what is express'd above was That when providentially call'd to the undertaking of any matter of great concern and difficulty that then according to the fervency and powerfulness of Soul carrying me forth to supplicate so encouragement has accompanied the management of such an Affair and when endeavour has been to be continued in according to the continuance or intermission of this frame so encouragement or discouragement has appeared some instances whereof I have experienced in the following method where the endeavour has been of three days duration The first day I have been Heavenlily carried out in Prayer the next two days this frame has been remov'd and the matter either neglected in Prayer or superficially given up to God And upon the examination of the success of Means throughout those three days I have sound eminent success the companion of the first days Endeavour but in the use of the two following days Endeavour a perfect discouragement and that exactly answering the two different postures of Soul that Prayer in these different days was put up to Heaven in A Second Experience was when in one Prayer I have Petition'd the Lord concerning two different matters and Pleading for the one my Thoughts have been ravishingly carried forth but supplicating for the other a damp has been upon my mind and neither life or vigour in its frame nor freedom of words in utterance concerning it Praying then no otherwise than while under the power of Education and ignorant of any inward change of Soul by the power of a Divine Spirit and in the enquiry have found that the design and desire Spiritually given up to God's Divine conduct has been successfully brought about but that the other was without imminent probability or real and certain success A Third Experience was When my frame of Mind has been cold listless and lazy continuing thus throughout a Prayer excepting one Petition that suddenly has seized my Thoughts and has been in sweet Heavenliness of frame put up yea so seriously and powerfully put up to God unconceivable by any unacquainted with fellowship with God in Prayer the Petitions before and after having been askt of God with great coldness of frame and constraint of words but this to which God was to return an answer and for which strength was conveyed to Petition corresponded a visible and eminent return of Prayer without the least measure of answer to the other parts of Prayer thus coldly given up to God Many instances of these Experiences I could bring forth and that fully discovering the nature of them more plainly but fear of being known confining me I shall only lay before you one which was marvellous in my eyes at the time and has often been repeated in my Experience since Having been for some days engaged in endeavouring to obtain a design of great moment in the diligent use of all visible means that only excepted of giving it up to Heaven by Prayer I resolved one afternoon to go abroad on purpose to know the success of means made use of but after walking down one pair of Stairs there suddenly seiz'd me an unexpressible force to return that I might first Petition the Lord concerning it and bowing my Knees a sweet serious frame seiz'd my Mind and my Thoughts were carried forth with great warmth and freedom of utterance concerning the matter After this Address to God and going forth I found that the least degree or shadow of success had never appeared till that very time in which I was under so undesign'd and sudden a force to Prayer and with so Heavenly a frame therein the times of both so exactly answer'd one another that I was under a meaning Meditation of the thing clearly evincing of a Power above ones self The circumstances in this instance most remarkable were first sudden and prevalent force to Prayer undesign'd by previous Meditation and altogether different from that of a sudden remembrance of any thing forgot but very suitable to the exciting-methods of Christ's Spirit and quickning Influences upon the Soul raising it out of a dead frame or exciting it to Duties omitted or carelesly performed Psal 65.4 Blessed is the man whom thou causest to approach unto thee and if this was not causing me to approach him never any motion was visible by the sudden and strong excitement to that Duty formerly omitted and by imparting Divine Strength to petition concerning it in Prayer and to resist the corrupted reluctancy to it A Second Thing remarkable in the instance was the struggle in my self at the first excitement to Prayer between an inclination and aversion to returning with the victorious strength of Divine influence bringing me to a willing performance of the Duty which circumstance prov'd amongst the first to confirm my Faith in the reality of there being a law in the Members warring against that law of the Mind A Third Circumstance in the instance was The exact correspondency of the time of Excitement and Heavenliness in Prayer to the time of the real tho' unexpected success a circumstance greatly discovering Self-insufficiency in the use of means without Divine conduct therein and Trust to God for the Event The Fourth Experience concerning Prayer was when any failure observ'd in Thought Word or Action and accompanied with concern of Mind and great Spirituality in Prayer in acknowledging it to God that then I have found as its immediate concommitant the uneasiness and concern perfectly gone off with full quiet possessing my Thoughts and the exercise of greater watch its consequent confirming the truth of the 6th and 7th verses of the 4th chapter of Philippians never experiencing either ease of Mind as to events giving up to Divine conduct as to concern for sinful failures but when carried forth heavenlily in Prayer for either I must subjoyn hereto an experienced circumstance That according to the greatness of my fear as to any event leading me the more frequently to Heaven by Prayer and the less to confidence in outward means the more unexpectedly eminent the return has been discovering the excellency of the Psalmist's method What time we are afraid we will trust in the Lord with the use of that Blessed means of serious Prayer I have oft experienced that Trust to an outward instrument for the bringing about any design with a resting therein without frequent and fervent Prayers for the same end has made the mean that was successful in the hands of others or that is in its self tending naturally to a successful event of none effect to me A Fifth Experience was
injoying what is Petition'd from God but in Conversation I find their observation as too narrow and confined looking upon that that may be a Christian's common Food in the close continuance in the means of Grace as an extraordinary Feast and minding it mostly concerning the recovery or the dying of Friends and not extending it to all things hoping the life or fearing the death of one from a Minister's pouring forth his Soul or from a private Christian's fervent address to God or the constraint of both It makes me remember how extraordinarily amazing and delightful such Experiences were when at first observ'd by me in the more tender days of my Knowledge in Experimental Christianity and makes me greatly afraid that however notional Knowledge abound amongst Ministers and People that have liv'd so many years under Gospel Instruction yet Heart-Service to God in the performance of Duties or at least strict continuance therein especially this delightful Duty of private Prayer is not so common and so the Enjoyments that follow are less and seldomer experienc'd But to this real and comfortable Experience of Enlargement in Prayer concerning the recovery of Friends that is more observ'd by Christians let me give you two cautionary Instructions from my own Experience therein and of which some observing Christians are not at the pains to remark concerning this Enlargement in Prayer First of all Not peremptorily to hope the recovery of a Friend from once observing your selves or others carried out in a heavenly manner in Prayer concerning them and tho' answerable to this once observ'd spirituality appear some real amendment at the time yet often without the continuance of Prayer thus spiritual their amendment falls off and suitable to their omission of further Praying thus their Friend Dies unless God act in a stream of more than ordinarily condescention to weak Christians I know not but the Reliance upon the Evidence of one Prayer spiritually put up for a Person 's Recovery may occasion carelesness in the Duty afterward and so hinder the obtaining the blessing that was thought to be coming to us I remember a Holy Christian who was in great Thoughtfulness concerning the Recovery of his Wife for whom he had so near access to God in Prayer that he had great hopes of her life but she dying gave him some more concern of Thought that he should hope on so good ground and yet be mistaken whereas his near access to God in Prayer was but once experienc'd his Eye was upon the frame of his Soul in Prayer and not upon the Words utter'd while under this Divine Influence His omission of continuing thus to Pray hindered him from clearer discovery of God's Ways His missing the observation of his Words rendered him incapable of applying the return to what God helped him to Ask to wit God's love to her Soul greatly manifested in her passage hence At this very time I can instance in a Child for whom I found great spirituality in Prayer but without the least appearance of amendment for a fourth night's time which seem'd to oppose all former Experience and might have occasion'd great mistake if I had not recorded my words as well as frame in Prayer spiritually perform'd which were centered in one Petition without the least deviating from it throughout the whole fourth night That the Lord would spare his life and that his life might be precious in his sight without the least inter-mixture of desire or word in Prayer for Health or Recovery When a Prayer spiritually put up is remarkt as such and corresponded with a return of amendment but followed with after-laziness and forbearance of the same diligence no wonder the return stopt and a contrary effect to what was desir'd or imminent appear If therefore your heavenly frame in petitioning Health or the like be once observ'd and continued in I never knew such petitions return to fail but if this frame be obtain'd but once and afterward it go off you 'll undoubtedly find amendment answerable to the time of having strength spiritually to petition it but such a frame going off either thorough the intermission of your own endeavour after or God's with-holding it nothing else but disappointment to your expectation and desire and justly to your dependance upon once experiencing the frame falls out It is laziness in the right performance of means and not continuing therein that keeps off the many experiences of inward Religion or occasions the mistakes that abounds concerning the great things of inward Religion however some satisfie themselves with the ill usage of that Proposition God's ways are in the depth It is from multitudes of instances experienc'd that if the Soul be carried forth in Prayer for any Friend ill that suitable thereto there is many times visible hopes but if this frame is not continu'd in the Friend does decline and die I know that once feeling this hopeful frame has made some Christians lazy and secure and not by serious Address afterward lay themselves in God's way to obtain the continuance of this frame and so their Health and Life has gone To conclude thence That return is not always suited to spirituality of frame is mistake and erroneous and evidence of your lazy unexactness in observation of God with the Soul Right observation hereof would discover condescending Mercy in God on purpose to keep the Christian continually holding on that Duty of Prayer till the final determination issu'd which meets commonly with great reward tho' the continuance and spirituality of Prayer continued in be his own work in the Soul A second Cautionary Instruction is Not to be peremptory in judging the spirituality of another man's Frame or an Event answerable thereto but to be strict and diligent in judging your own Frame and Events consequential to it I would advise great carefulness in judging another man's spirituality in Prayer as presaging of certain return answerable to the spirituality supposed in his Frame 1. First Because of the difficulty of judging another man's heart in Prayer It requires exactness of Observation to raise a Christian to the capacity of knowing his own Frame when spiritual or to raise him to an establishment in the reality of Correspondency between his Prayer's spirituality and its certain return but how can we be sure of another man's heavenliness I have known many under no other knowledge of Christianity than what is Notional acquainted with no other power in performing Duties than that of Education and Self-strength and yet pray with that sense distinctness and outwardly appearing heavenliness that the Hearers have been affected with a good hope of the person and a delightful thought of their spiritual seriousness in Prayer yea the strength of natural parts in the exercise of Prayer may heat the affections and may persuade a person and others that he prays in the Holy Ghost If therefore you may hear a Prayer from a meer Professor so near resembling a Christian's Prayer influenced by Christ's Spirit