not a little troubled at the barrenness of Christians in their discourse and their not improving their society for the quickning and warming of their hearts the expence of pretious time unaccountably the ill management of visits and the impertinency of their talk he oft reflected upon with a holy indignation It vext him to the soul to see what prizes sometimes were put into the hands of Christians and how little skill and will they had to improve them for the building up one another in the most holy faith and that they who should be incouraging of one another in the way to Zion communicating of experiences and talking of their Country and of the glory of that Kingdom which the Saints are heirs of could satisfie themselves with empty common vain stuff as if Christ Heaven and Eternity were not things of as great worth as any thing else that usually sounds in the ears and comes from the lips of professors That the folly of common discourse among Christians might appear more and that he might discover how little such language did become those that profess themselves Israelites and that say they are Jews he once sate down silent and took out his pen and ink and wrote down in short-hand the discourses that passed for some time together amongst those which pretended to more than common understanding in the things of God and after a while he took his paper and read it to them and asked them whether such talk was such as they would be willing God should record This he did that he might shame them out of that usual unobserved unlamented unprofitable communication and fruitless squandring away that inestimable Jewel Opportunity Oh to spend an hour or two together and to hear scarce a word for Christ or that speaks peoples hearts in love with holiness Is not this writing a brave rational divine discourse Fie fie Where 's our love to God and souls all this while where 's our sense of the pretiousness of time of the greatness of our account Should we talk thus if we believed that we should hear of this again at the day of judgement And do we not know that we must give an account of every idle word Is this like those that understand the language of Canaan Did Saints in former times use their tongues to no better purpose Would Enoch David or Paul have talked thus Is this the sweetest communion of Saints upon earth How shall we do to spend eternity in speaking the praises of God if we cannot find matter for an hours discourse Doth not this speak aloud our hearts to be very empty of grace and that we have little sense of those spiritual and eternal concerns upon us As the barrenness and empty converse of Christians was a sin that he greatly bewailed so the want of love amongst Christians and their divisions did cost him many tears and groans he did what he could to heal all the breaches that he could by his tender prudent and Christian advice and counsel and if prayers tears intreaties counsels would prevail cement differences they should not long be open Nay if his letters would signifie any thing to make an amicable and Christian correspondencie it should not be wanting And because the wounds of division are yet bleeding I shall insert two healing Letters of his which speak what spirit he was of Which take as follows CHAP. XV. Two Letters to Cement differences and cause Love among Christians IT cannot be expected that wounds should be healed till their cause is removed that which moveth me to write to you at present and puts me upon intentions of writing again is That I may do my utmost by mouth and pen for the removal of that which is the cause of the inward grief and trouble of my soul and I am perswaded of others also as well as mine viz. those divisions that I could not but observe to be between your self and another Christian friend I hope after my asking counsel not only of my own heart but of God also he hath directed me to that which may be to his own glory and the good of your soul and not only for the removing of grief but the rejoycing of the hearts of them upon whom former divisions had any effect I therefore desire you to entertain these following lines as the issues of deep affection to your soul and the honour of Religion and I beseech you read them not only as from me who desire your good with the strength of my soul but as from God himself of whose love your good improvement will be a token That that end which I propose to my self I cannot but perswade my self you your self design commend and desire which is Christian charity that sweet meek Gospel spirit which is so highly and frequently commended by our Saviour to the practice of his Disciples O that where there hath been any breaches there might be the nearer union and that ye might be joyned together in the same spirit might keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace And for this end that you would remove all old hindrances watch continually lest you give and be careful not to take occasion of offence The necessity usefulness sweetness of true spiritual love appears by the word of Gods frequent urging of it by the sense of Christians the uncomfortableness and deformity of the contrary Now that you may in an unintermitted constancy injoy peace within and without and rejoyce my soul I desire you to joyn your own indeavours with the consideration of those things which I shall now and hereafter send to you First Consider that it is a Christians duty to go out of himself to lay down his own ends and interests and wholly to take upon him Gods cause to do all for God and to act as under God to be Gods instruments in our souls and bodies which are Gods Thus did God create man for His own glory and not that man should seek himself And when man fell he fell out of God into himself out of that divine order and composure of mind in which God had made him into confusion from a love of God into a corrupt self-love and self-seeking Now if we do but descend into our souls observe the actings intents and contrivances of them we cannot but observe how confusedly and abominably all work together for the pampering pleasing and advancing of self We are not to think that if we do not presently discover this in our selves that it is not so with us For in some degree it is in every one even in the truly regenerate as far as they have the relicks of corruption in them so far they have in their souls this self-love Now this disorder in our minds whereby they are taken off from their right ends is that very natural corruption and depravedness which we received from Adam and it is and to a spiritual sense ought to be worse than
natures and the rest which had no such tendency and do not make the avoiding of the former a pretence against your imitating of the latter It is not studying meditating praying preaching according to the measures of natures strength that much shortnerh life I think that Learned man wrote not foolishly who maintaineth that studies tend to long life For my own part I was seeble before I was a hard Student And studies have been a constant pleasure to me And let any man judge whether constant pleasure tend to shorten any mans life Indeed that which destroyeth the health of Students is 1. The sedentariness of their lives 2. And want of temperance or due care of their diet 3. And want of sufficient cheerfulness 4. And taking colds Could Students but more imitate the labouring-man and take just hours and opportunities for bodily labour not playful walks and exercises that never warm and purge the blood and did they eat and drink wisely and live joyfully and avoid colds they might bestow the rest of their time in the hardest studies with little hurt except here and there a melanchly or diseased man I doubt not but such narratives as this will tempt many a slothful sensual Scholar to indulge his sensuality as the wiser way but at a dying hour he will find the difference O what a comfort then is the review of a Holy Heavenly well-spent life I have oft thought what the Reason is that among the Papists if the lives of their Saints be described in the highest strain or their books have even unreasonable pretensions of devotion even to the laying by of our understandings or to a kind of Deification like Barbansons Benedictus de Benedictis and divers others it doth not offend men but the vulger themselves do glory in the sancity of them Whereas if with us a man rise higher in holiness and in devote contemplation yea or action than others he is presently the great eye-sore and obloquy of the world I mean of the envious and ungodly part which is too great But the reason I perceive is that among the Papists to be a Religious man is to be a Perfectest who doth more than is commanded him or is neccesary to salvation and so the people being taught that they may be saved without being such themselves their spleen is not stirred up against them as the troubles of their Consciences peace but they are intressed in their honour and being the honour of their way and Church But with us men are taught that they must be Religious themselves in sincerity if ever they will be saved and that without Holiness none shall see God and that they are not sincere if they desire not to be perfect And so they that will not be godly themselves do think that the lives of the godly do condemn them I write not this to cast any disgrace on the true History of any holy mens lives Nor shall it ever be my employment to reproach or hide Gods Graces in any nor to make men believe that they are worse than they are Whoever revile me for it I will magnifie and love that of God which appeareth in any of his servants of any sect or party whatsover When I read such writings as old Gerson Guil. Parisinesies and divers others and such as Jos Accosta and some other Jesuits and such lives as Nerius's and Mr. de Reuti's c. I cannot but think that they had the spirit of God and the more do I hate all those mischievous engines additions and singularities which divide so many Christians in the world who have the same Spirit and will not suffer us to hold the unity of the spirit in the bond of of peace O unhappy pretended Wisdom and Oxthodoxness in the holding of our several opinions is the knowledge that puffeth up and hath bred the pernicious tympanite of the Church when it is Charity that edifieth it And the more men glory in their dogmatical knowledge to the contempt and hurt of such as differ from them the less they know as they ought to know And if any man have knowledge enough to kindle in his soul the Love of God the same is known and loved of God and then he will prove that wise man indeed at death and to Eternity 1 Cor. 8. 1 2 3. Reader Learn by this History to place thy Religion in love and praise and a heavenly life Learn to keep such communion with God and to find such employment with thy heart by meditation as thy strength and opertunity and other duties will allow thee for I urge thee to no more Learn hence to thirst after the good of souls and to fill up thy hours with fruitful duty And O that we could here learn the hardest lesson to get above the love of life and to overcome the fears of death and to long to see the glory of Christ and triumphantly to pass by Joy to Joy O blessed world of holy spirits whose nature and work and happiness is Love not Love of Carnal-self and Interest and Parties which here maketh those seek our destruction most who have the highest esteem of our knowledge and sincerity as thinking our dissent will most effectually cross their partial Interest But the Love of God in Himself and in his Saints checked by no sin hindred by no distance darkness deadness or disaffection diverted by no carnal worldly baits tempted by no persecutions or afflictions damped by no fears of death nor of any decaies or cessation through Eternity To teach me better how to live and die in Faith Hope ane Love is that for which I read this narrarive and that thou maist learn the same is the end of my commending it to thee The Lord teach it effectual to thee and me Amen RICHARD BAXTER August 28. 1672. To the Relations of Mr. James Janeway and the Survivors of his Associates in Kings Colledge in Cambridge Beloved Friends MY own mean esteem of the single weight of that Testimony expected from me concerning my dear Brother on the account of my intimacy with him in Kings Colledge the known me morable passages of whose exemplary life and death are now happily compiled and published for your special perusal moves me to call in a twofold recommendation thereof from you to those that knew him not who being confirmed in the truth of this Narrative may thereby be won to believe admire and emulate the signal grace of God in him 1. That remembring so much thereof your selves and what opportnity I had of knowing the certainty of all you would assure those who may enquire of you That the impartial compiler hath kept within the bounds of truth and sobriety in prosecution of his honest aims to advance the glory of Gods rich mercy to this chosen vessel and by reviving what remains he could collect of this burning as well as shining light alass how soon extinct to awaken and quicken the formal professors if he may not induce the
enough in God and the Holy Scriptures to bear up our spirits under any afflictions let them be never so great What do you say to that word Who is there among you that feareth the Lord and that obeyeth the voice of his servant that walketh in darkness and seeth no light let him trust in the name of the Lord and stay himself upon his God Though all earthly comforts were fled away and though you could see no light from any of these things below yet if you look upward to God in Christ there there is comfort to be found there is light to be espied yea a great and glorious light which if we can rightly discern it would put out the light of all lower comforts and cause them to be vilely accounted of But alas alas those heavenly comforts though they are in themselves so precious and if really and sensibly felt able to raise a mans Soul from Earth yea from Hell to the foretaste of Heaven it self yet for want of a spiritual sense they are by most of the world undervalued slighted and thought to be but fancies Nay let me speak freely Christians themselves and those that we have cause to hope are men of another world and truly born again yet for want of a spiritual quickness in this spiritual sight and sense these comforts are too lowly and meanly esteemed of It is a spiritual sense that inableth a Christian to behold a glorious lustre and beauty in Invisibles and raiseth the Soul up to the Gate of Heaven it self and when he is there how can he chuse but look down with a holy slighting and contempt upon the sweetest of all Earthly enjoyments How can he chuse but think all Creature-comforts but small compared with one look of love from Christ This heavenly comfort was that which David did so much desire Lord lift up the light of thy countenance upon me was the language of his soul and when this was come how was his heart inlarged Thou hast put joy and gladness in my heart more than in the time when their Corn and Wine increased He then that in afflictions would find comfort must strive to see spiritual comforts to be the greatest even that comfort which is from God in the face of Jesus Christ this this will be a cordial this will be as marrow and fatness to the soul They that have interest in Christ what need they be moved and discomfited with any worldly trouble Is not Christ better than ten children is not his loving-kindness better than life Is not all the world a shadow compared with one quarter of an hours injoyment of him even on this side of Glory in some of his own Ordinances O therefore strive to get your interest in this comfort secured and then all 's well He that hath Christ hath all things If God be reconciled to you through him then he will withhold no good thing from you We poor foolish creatures do scarce know what is good for our selves but it 's no small incouragement to the people of God that Wisdom it self takes care of them and one that loves them better than they love themselves looks after them And he hath given his promise for it that all shall work together for their good And what better foundation of comfort can there be in the whole world than this Why may you not then say with the Psasmist Why art thou cast down O my soul and why art thou disquieted within me hope in God Let not your soul sink under afflictions for what reason have you to be discomfited under them Can you gather from thence that the Lord doth not love you No surely but rather the contrary for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every Son whom he receiveth What Son is he whom the Father chasteneth not Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down and the feeble knees Let this serve as a remedy against excessive grief Get your love to God increased which if you do the love of all other things will wax cold And if you have given God your heart you will give him leave to take what he will that is yours and what he hath you will judge rather well kept than lost Remember that Scripture and let it have its due impression upon your spirit He that loves Father or Mother Brother or Sister yea or Children more than me is not worthy of me O labour to have your affections therefore more raised up to him who is most worthy of them let him have the uppermost greatest room in your heart and let your love to all other things be placed in subjection to your love of God be ruled by it and directed to it Be our earthly afflictions never so great yet let this love to God poise our Souls so that they may not be overweighed with grief on the one side or stupidness on the other side Again let our souls be awed by that glorious power and omnipotency of God who is able to do any thing and who will do whatsoever pleaseth him both in Heaven and in Earth at whose word and for whose Glory all things that are were made And what are we poor creatures that we should dare to entertain any hard thought of this God! 'T is dangerous contending with God! Let us learn that great lesson of resigning up our selves and all we have to God let us put our selves as instruments into the hands of the Lord to do what he pleaseth with us and let us remember that it was our promise and covenant with God to yield our selves up to him and to be wholly at his disposal The Soul is then in a sweet frame when it can cordially say It is the Lord let him do what seemeth good in his eyes Not my will but thine be done Again let us know that though we cannot alwaies see into the reasonableness of the ways of God for his ways are often in the thick Cloud and our weak Eyes cannot look into those depths in which he walketh yet all the ways of God are just holy and good Let us therefore have a care of so much as moving much more of entertaining any unworthy thoughts against God But let us submit willingly to the yoak which he is pleased to lay upon us lest he break us with his terrible judgments And now it hath seemed good to God to lay this stroak upon you I pray labour rightly to improve it and let this trial prepare you for greater And seeing the uncertainty of all worldy things indeavour with all your might to get your heart above them and I beseech the Lord who is the great Physitian of Souls and knows how to apply a Salve to every Sore of his to comfort you with his spiritual comforts that he would favourably shine upon you and receive you into a nearer union and communion with himself Into his hands I commit you with him I leave you praying that he would make up all in
perceive what it was that swallowed up his heart and where his delight treasure and life was O How much do most of us who go for Christians fall short of these things and How vast a distance between his experience and ours and what reason have we to read these lines with blushing and to blot the paper with tears and to lay aside this book a while and to fall upon our faces before the Lord bemoan the cursed unsuitableness of our hearts unto God and to bewail that we do so little understand what this walking with God living by faith means O at what a rate do some Christians live and how low flat and dull are others His love to Christ and souls made him very desirous to spend and be spent in the work of the Ministry accordingly he did comply with the first loud and clear Call to preach the everlasting Gospel and though he was but about two and twenty years old yet he came to that work like one that understood what kind of employment Preaching was He was a workman that needed not to be ashamed that was throughly furnished for every good word and work one that was able to answer gainsayers one in whom the Word of God dwelt richly one full of the spirit and power one that hated sin with a perfect hatred and loved holiness with all his soul in whom Religion in its beauty did shine one that knew the terrors of the Lord and knew how to beseech sinners in Christs stead to be reconciled unto God One that was a Son of thunder and a Son of consolation In a word I may speak that of him which Paul spake of Timothy that I know none like-minded that did naturally care for souls And had he lived to have preached often O what use might such a man have been of in his generation one in whom learning and holiness did as it were strive which should excel He never preached publickly but twice and then he came to it as if he had been used to that work forty years delivering the Word of God with that power and Majesty with that tenderness and compassion with that readiness and freedom that it made his hearers almost amazed He was led into the Mysterie of the Gospel and he spoke nothing to others but what was the language of his heart and the fruit of great experience and which one might easily perceive had no small impression first upon his own spirit His first and last Sermons they were upon Communion and intimate converse with God out of Job 22. 21. A subject that few Christians under Heaven were better able to manage than himself and that scarce any could handle so feelingly as he for he did for some considerable time maintain such an intimate familiarity with God that he seemed to converse with Him as one friend doth converse with another This text he made some entrance into whilst he was here but the perfecting of his acquaintance with God was a work fitter for another world He was one that kept an exact watch over his thoughts words and actions and made a review of all that passed him at least once a day in a solemn manner He kept a Diary in which he did write down every evening what the frame of his spirit had been all the day long especially in every duty He took notice what incomes and profit he received in his spiritual traffique what returns from that far-country what answers of prayer what deadness and flatness and what observable providences did present themselves and the substance of what he had been doing and any wandrings of thoughts inordinancy in any passion which though the world could not discern he could It cannot be conceived by them which do not practise the same to what a good account did this return This made him to retain a grateful remembrance of mercy and to live in a constant admiring adoring of divine goodness this brought him to a very intimate acquaintance with his own heart this kept his spirit low and fitted him for freer communications from God this made him more lively and active this helped him to walk humbly with God this made him speak more affectionately experimentally to others of the things of God and in a word this left a sweet calm upon his spirits because he every night made even his accounts and if his sheets should prove his widing-sheet it had been all one for he could say his work was done so that death could not surprize him Could this book of his experiences and register of his actions have been read it might have contributed much to the compleating of this discourse the quickning of some and the comforting of others But these things being written in characters the world hath lost that jewel He studied the Scriptures much and they were sweeter to him than his food and he had an excellent faculty in opening the mind of God in dark places In the latter part of his life he seemed quite swallowed up with the thoughts of Christ Heaven and eternity and the neerer he came to this the more swift his motion was to it and the more unmixed his designs for it and he would much perswade others to an universal free respect to the glory of God in all things and making Religion ones business and not to mind these great things by the by CHAP. XII Ministers are not to carry on low designs HE was not a little concerned about Ministers that above all men They should take heed lest they carried on poor low designs instead of wholly-eying of the interest of God and souls He judged that to take up Preaching as a trade was altogether inconsistent with the high spirit of a true Gospel-Minister He desired that those which seemed to be devoted to the Ministry would be such first heartily to devote their All to God and then that they should indeavour to have a dear love to immortal souls He was very ready to debase himself and humbly to acknowledge what he found amiss in himself and laboured to amend himself and others This saith he I must seriously confess that I must needs reproach my self for deficiency in a Christian spiritual remembrance of you speaking to a dear friend and for a decay in a quick tender touch as of other things so of what relates to your self in the spirituality of it Not that I think not of you or of God but that my thoughts of you and spiritual things are not so frequent savoury and affectionate as they ought to be By this reflection you may easily perceive that I see further in duty than I do in practice The truth of it is I grudge that thoughts and affections should run out any whither freely but to God And what I now desire for my self I desire for you likewise that God would sweeten the fountain our natures I mean that every drop flowing from thence may savour of something of God within
another because they were of different judgments and perswasions There where he saw most holiness humility and love there he let out most of his affections And he was of that holy mans mind that it were pity that the very name of division were not buried and that the time would come that we might all dearly pay for our unbrotherly nay unchristian Animosities CHAP. XVI An account of the latter part of his Life FOR the latter part of his Life he lived liked a man that was quite weary of the world and that looked upon himself as a stranger here and that lived in the constant sight of a better world He plainly declared himself but a Pilgrim that looked for a better Country a City that had foundations whose builder and maker was God His habit his language his deportment all spoke him one of another world His meditations were so intense long and frequent that they ripened him apace for Heaven but somewhat weakned his body Few Christians attain to such a holy contempt of the world and to such clear believing joyful constant apprehensions of the transcendent glories of the unseen world He made it his whole business to keep up sensible communion with God and to grow into a humble familiarity with God and to maintain it And if by reason of company or any necessary diversions this was in any measure interrupted he would complain like one out of his element till his spirit was recovered into a delightful more unmixed free intercourse with God He was never so well satisfied as when he was more immediately ingaged in what brought him nearer to God and by this he injoyed those comforts frequently which other Christians rarely meet with His graces and experiences toward his end grew to astonishment His faith got up to a full assurance his desires into a kind of injoyment and delight He was oft brought into the banqueting house and there Christs Banner over him was love and he sate down under his shadow with great delight and his Fruit was pleasant unto his tast His Eyes beheld the King in his Beauty and while he sate at his Table his spicknard did spend forth its pleasant smell he had frequent visions of Glory and this John lay in the bosom of his Master and was sure a very beloved Disciple and highly favored His Lord oft called him up to the Mount to him and let him see his excellent Glory O the sweet foretasts that he had of those pleasures that are at the right Hand of God How oft was he feasted with the feast of fat things those wines on the lees well refined and sometimes he was like a Giant refresht with new wine rejoycing to run the race that was set before him whether of doing or of suffering He was even sick of love and he could say to the poor unexperienced World O tast and see and to Christians come and I well tell you what God hath done for my Soul O what do Christians mean that they do no more labour to get their sences spiritually exercised O why do they not make Religion the very business of their lives O why is the Soul Christ and Glory thus dispised Is there nothing in communion with God Are all those comforts of Christians that follow hard after him worth nothing Is it not worth the while to make ones calling and Election sure O why do men and women jest and dally in the great matters of Eternity Little do people think what they slight when they are seldom and formal in secret duties and when they neglect that great duty of Meditation which I have through rich mercy found so sweet and refreshing O what do Christians mean that they keep at such a distance from Christ Did they but know the thousandth part of that sweetness that is in him they could not choose but follow him hard they would run and not be weary and walk and not be faint He could sensibly and experimentally commend the ways of God to the poor unexperienced world and say His ways are pleasantness and justifie wisdom and say her paths were peace He could take off those aspersions which the Devil and the atheistical frantick sots do cast upon Godliness in the power of it Here is one that could challenge all the Atheists in the world to dispute here is one could bring sensible demonstrations to prove a deity the reality and excellency of invisibles which these ignorant fools and mad men make the subject of their scorn Here is one that would not change delights with the greatest epicures living and vie pleasure with all the sensual rich gallants of the world Which of them all could in the midst of their jollity say This is the pleasure that shall last for ever Which of them can say among their Cups and Whores I can now look Death in the Face and this very Moment I can be content yea glad to leave these delights as knowing I shall injoy better And this he could do when he fared deliciously in spiritual banquets every day He could upon better reason than he did say Soul thou hast goods laid up for many years He knew full well that what he did here injoy was but a little to what he should have shortly In his presence there is fulness of joy at his right hand there are pleasures for evermore Where is the Belshazzar that would not quake in the midst of his Cups whilst he is quaffing and carouzing in bowls of the richest Wine if he should see a hand upon the Wall writing bitter things against him telling him that his joys are at an end and that this night his soul must be required of him that now he must come away and give an account of all his ungodly pleasures before the mighty God Where is the sinner that could be contented to hear the Lord roaring out of Zion whilest he is roaring in the Tavern Which of them would be glad to hear the trumpet sound and to hear that voice Arise you dead and come to judgment Which of them would rejoyce to see the Mountains quaking the Elements melting with fervent heat and the Earth consumed with flames the Lord Christ whom they despised coming in the clouds with Millions of his Saints and Angels to be avenged upon those that knew not God and obeyed not his Gospel Is not that a blessed state when a man can lift up his head with joy when others tremble with fear and sink with sorrow And this was the condition of this holy young man In the midst of all worldly comforts he longed for death the thought of the day of Judgment made all his injoyments sweeter O how did he long for the coming of Christ Whilst some have been discoursing by him of that great and terrible day of the Lord he would smile and humbly express his delight in the forethought of that approaching hour I remember once there was a great talk that one had