Letters in Two Parts, Part 2 · LETTER 31
To Mr JAMES WILSON. (31)
Dear Brother
GRace, mercy & peace be multiplied upon you: I bless our rich & onelyonly wise Lord, who careth so for his new creation, that he is going over it again & trying every piece in you, & blowing away the motes of his new work in you. Alas! I am not so fit a Physician as your disease requireth: sweet, sweet, lovely Jesus be your Physician, where his under-Chirurgians cannot doe any thing for putting in order the wheels, paces, & goings of a marred soul. I have little time; but yet the Lord hath made me so concern my self in your condition that I dow not, I dare not be altogether silent. First, ye doubt from. 2 Cor. 13: 5. whether ye be in Christ or not, & so whether ye be a reprobate or not? I answer three things to the doubt. 1. Ye ow charity to all men, but most of all, to lovely & loving Jesus, & some also to your self, especiall to your renewed self; because your new self is not yours but another Lord's, even the work of his own Spirit: therefore to slander his work is to wrong himself: Love thinketh no evil: if ye love Grace, think not ill of Grace in your self; and ye think ill of Grace in your self, when ye make it but a bastard and a work of nature: for a holy fear that ye be not Christ's, and withall a care and a desire to be his & not your own, is not, nay cannot be bastard nature. The great Advocate pleadeth hard for you, be upon the Advocate's side, O poor feared client of Christ! stay & side with such a lover, who pleadeth for no other man's goods but his own [for he, if I may say so, scorneth to be enriched with an unjust conquest] and yet he pleadeth for you, whereof your letter [though too too full of jealousie] is a proof: for if ye were not his, your thoughts, which I hope are but the suggestion of his Spirit (that onelyonly bringeth the matter in debate to make it sure to you) would not be such nor so serious as these, am I his? or whose am I? 2. Dare ye forswear your owner, and say in cold blood, I am not his? what nature or corruption saith at starts in you, I regard not: your thoughts of your self, when sin and guiltiness round you in the ear, and when ye have a sight of your deservings, are Apocrypha and not Scripture, I hope. Hear what the Lord saith of you, he will speak peace: if your Master say, I quite you, I shall then bid you eat ashes for bread and drink waters of gall and wormwood. But howbeit Christ out of his own mouth should seem to say, I came not for thee, as he did Matth. 15: 24. yet let me say, The words of tempting Jesus are not to be stretched as Scripture beyond his intention, seeing his intention in speaking them is to strengthen, not to deceive: & therefore here Faith may contradict what Christ seemeth at first to say, and so may ye. I charge you by the mercies of God, be not that cruel to Grace and the new birth as to cast water on your own coal by misbelief: If ye must die (as I know ye shall not) it were a folly to slay your self. 3. I hope ye love the new birth & a claim to Christ, howbeit ye dow not make it good: & if ye were in hell & saw the heavenly face of lovely, ten thousand times lovely Iesus, that hath God's hew and God's fair, fair and comely red and white wherewith it is beautified beyond comparison and imagination, ye could not forbear to say, Oh! if I could but blow a kiss from my sinfull mouth, from hell up to heayen upon his cheeks, that are as a bed of spices as sweet flowers, Cant. 5: 13. I hope ye dare say, O fairest sight of heaven! O boundless mass of crucified & slain love for me, give me leave to wish to love thee! O flower and bloom of heaven & earth's love! O Angels wonder! O thou the Father's eternally sealed love! & O thou God's old delight! give me leave to stand beside thy love & look in & wonder, & give me leave to wish to love thee, if I can doe no more. 2. We being born in atheism & bairns of the house that we are come off, it is no new thing, my dear Brother, for us to be under jealousies & mistakes about the love of God: what think ye of this that the man Christ was tempted to beleeve there were but two Persons in the blessed Godhead, & that the Son of God, the substantial, & coerernal Son, was not the lawfull Son of God? Did not Satan say, If thou be the Son of God? 3. Ye say that ye know not what to doe? Your Head said once that same word or not far from it, Ioh. 12. 27. Now is my soul troubled, & what shall I say? & faith answered Christ's What shall I say? with these words, O tempted Saviour, askest thou What shall I say? say, pray, Father save me from this hour. What course can ye take but pray & first Christ his own comforts? He is no dyvour, take his word. Oh [say ye] I cannot pray! Ans. Honest sighing is faith breathing & whispering him in the ear: the life is not out of faith, where there is sighing, looking up with the eyes & breathing towards God, Eam. 3: 36. Hide not thine ear at my breathing. But what shall I doe in spiritual exercises, say ye? Ans. 1. If ye knew particularly what to doe, it were not a spiritual exercise. 2. In my weak judgement, ye would first say, I will lorifie God in beleeving David's Salvation & the Bride's Marriage with the Lamb, & love the Church's stain husband, although I cannot for the present beleeve mine own Salvation. 3. Say, I will not pass from my claim, suppose Christ would pass from his claim to me, it shall not goe back upon my side; howbeit my love to him be not worth a drink of water, yet Christ shall have it such as it is. 4. Say, I shall rather spill twenty prayers then not pray at all; let my broken words goe up to heaven: when they come up into the great Angel's golden censer, that compassianat Advocate will put together my broken prayers & perfume them: Words are but Accidents of Prayer. Oh [say y] I am slain with hardness of heart; & troubled with confused and melancholious thoughts? Ans. My dear Brother, What would ye conclude thence, that ye know not well who ought you? I grant, Oh my heart is hard! Oh my thoughts of faithless sorrow! Ergo, I know not who ought me; were good Logick in heaven amongst Angels & the glorified: but down in Christ's Hospital, where sick and distempered souls are under cure, it is not worth a straw. Give Christ time to end his work in your heart: hold on in feeling & bewailing your hardness, for that is softness to feel hardness. 2. I charge you to make Psalms of Christ's praises for his begun work of Grace, make Christ your Musick & your song, for Complaining & feeling of want doeth often swallow up your Praises. What think ye of these who goe to hell, never troubled with such thoughts? If your exercise be the way to hell, God help me; I have a cold coal to blow at, and a blank paper for heaven: I give you Christ caution, & my heaven surety for your Salvation. Lend Christ your Melancholy; for Satan hath no right to make a chamber in your Melancholy; borrow joy & comfort from the Comforter; bid the Spirit doe his office in you: & remember, that faith is one thing, and the feeling & notice of faith another: God forbid that feeling were Proprium quarto modo to all the Saints, & that this were good reasoning, No feeling, no grace: I am sure ye were not alwayes these twenty years by-past, actually knowing that ye live, yet all this time ye are living: so is it with the life of faith. But Alas! Dear Brother, it is easie for me to speak words & syllables of peace, but Isa. 57. 19. telleth you, I create peace: there is but one Creator, ye know: O that ye may get a Letter of peace sent you from heaven! Pray for me, & for grace to be faithfull, & gifts to be able with tongue & pen to glorifie God. I forget you not.
St. Andrewes Jan 8. 1640. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus, S. R.