2: Of Her Conversion, Sickness, and Recovery
2
OF HER CONVERSION, SICKNESS,
AND RECOVERY
[Margaret becomes first a seeker and then a finder of new life in Christ. Richard quotes a written reaction to one of his sermons, in which she judges herself to be Christless. Soon after her conversion she is healed of a life-threatening illness through special prayer with fasting on her behalf by a group of prayer warriors in the parish, including Richard himself.]
In her vain youth, pride and romances, and company suitable thereto, did take her up; and an imprudent rigid governess that her mother had set over her in her absence had done her hurt, by possessing her with ill thoughts of strictness in religion; yet she had a great reverence for some good ministers (especially Mr. Thos. Wright),5 and she thought that she was not what she should be, but something better (she knew not what) must be attained. In this case coming to Kidderminster for mere love to her mother, she had great aversion to the poverty and strictness of the people there, glittering herself in costly apparel and delighting in her romances. But in a little time she heard and understood what those better things were which she had thought must be attained.
And a sermon of Mr. H. Hickman’s6 at Oxford much moved her (on Isaiah 27:11: It is a people of no understanding, therefore he that made them will not save them, etc.). The doctrine of conversion (as I preached it as now in my treatise of conversion )7 was received on her heart as the seal on the wax. Whereupon she presently fell into self-judging, and to frequent prayer, and to reading and serious thoughts on her present state and her salvation.
A religious maid that waited on her, taking notice of this (for she kept all her matters so secret to herself, as was her great hurt all her life), acquainted her mother with it; and when it would be hid no longer, but her frequent closet-prayers were sometimes overheard, and her changed course of life discerned, her mother (who, as far as I could discern, previously loved her least of her three children) began to esteem her as her darling; and all her religious friends and neighbors were glad of so sudden and great a change.
I will here give you one of her self-judging papers which I find since her death, upon her then sad convictions. When I had on Romans 8:9 told them how it may be known whether we have Christ’s Spirit or not, she thus repeated the signs with her self-condemnation.
Mark 1.—The Spirit of Christ is the Author of the Scriptures and therefore suiteth your disposition to it, and guideth you by it.
Judgm. 1.—I fear then I have not the Spirit of Christ; for I yet feel no love to God’s Word, nor closure with it as suitable to me, but I am questioning the truth of it, or at best quarreling with it.
Mark 2.—The Spirit of Christ is from heaven, from God our Father, and leadeth us upward unto him. Its work is spiritual, of heavenly tendency, making us cry Abba! Father! And working the heart by uniting love to God.
Judgm. 2.—It is not so with me; for I have a spirit tending only to selfishness and sin.
Mark 3—The Spirit of Christ uniteth us to Christ and one another by love and is against hatred, division, and abusing others.
Judgm. 3—Mine then is the spirit of Cain, for I cannot endure any that are not of my opinion and way, and it inclineth me to malice and unpeaceableness and division.
Mark 4.—The Spirit of Christ is a Spirit of holiness and doth not favor licentiousness in doctrine or in life.
Judgm. 4.—Though I am for strict principles, I am loose in practice.
Mark 5.—Christ’s Spirit inclineth to love, humility, and meekness, and makes men stoop to each other for their good.
Judgm. 5—None more uncharitable, proud, and censorious than I.
Mark 6.—The Spirit of Christ makes men little, low, and vile in their own eyes; it is pride that puffeth up.
Judgm. 6.—My self-conceitedness shows that I am unhumbled. Mark 7.—The Spirit of Christ doth work to the mortifying of the flesh, even all its inordinate desires, and to self-denial.
Judgm. 7.—I am a stranger to the work of mortification and self-denial. I can deny myself nothing but the comfort of well-doing. I cannot deny my sloth so far as to go to prayer when I am convinced of my necessity.
Mark 8.—The Spirit of Christ is a prevailing Spirit, and doth not only wish and strive, but overcome the flesh as to its rule.
Judgm. 8.—The flesh prevaileth with me against the Spirit.
Mark 9.—Christ’s Spirit is the author of his worship and ordinances, and suits the souls of believers to them, the Word, sacraments, etc.
Judgm. 9.—They seem not suitable to my soul; I am against them, and had rather not use them, if I dared neglect them.
Mark 10.—Christ’s Spirit is in all the saints, and inclineth them to holy communion with each other in love, especially with those in whom this Spirit most eminently worketb.
Judgm. 10—It is not thus with me: I desire not the communion of saints; my affections are most to those who are best to me, whether they have more or less of the Spirit.
To go no further, it is now evident that I am a graceless person. Though all these things be imperfect in the best, and some are more wanting in one particular than another; yet where all their contraries are predominant, as in me, that person is told by this sermon that they are none of Christ’s; how much doth my behavior at this time make this appear, when I can with a hard heart and a dry eye and a steady hand declare myself at present heir of everlasting woe! But the longest day will quickly come, though I strive to put it as far from me.
It would be too long to recite a paper which I find next to this, containing the great necessity of self-judging, the reason for it, the rules of performing it, and the due manner; especially in dangers, and before the sacraments, or any conclusions about our state of grace.
But these convictions did neither die, nor yet pass unto despair, but to serious conversion; yet put her to struggle hard against aversion to secret duties, and to the forsaking of some vanities; but presently God seemed suddenly to welcome this returning soul. And while we were all rejoicing in her change, she fell into a cough and seeming consumption [a wasting disease such as tuberculosis], in which we almost despaired of her life. Mr. Jackson, the physician, and myself, seeing the case too hard for us, described it to Dr. Prujean and Dr. G. Bates, who both judged it a consumption arising from the obstruction of the vessels in the lungs and corrupting the tender adjoining parts, and both prescribed her the same medicines.8 But all these, and the change of air long [i.e., over a period of time],9 and breast-milk, etc., did no good. I and my praying neighbors were so sorry that such a changed person should presently be taken away before she had time to manifest her sincerity and do God any service in the world, that in grief they resolved to fast and pray for her. For former experience had lately much raised their belief in the success of prayer. They had lately prayed for one that seemed demoniac that (after some years’ misery) was suddenly freed of that disease. They had often prayed for me in dangerous illness, and I had speedy help. I had lately swallowed a gold-bullet for a medicine,10 and it lodged in me long, and no means would bring it away, till they met to fast and pray, and it came away that morning. A young man, yet living, falling into a violent epilepsy, and after all means long remaining uncured, they set to fasting and praying in his hearing, and the second day he was suddenly cured, and never had a fit since. God did not deny their prayers, though they were without book [i.e., not taken from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer or any similar source], and such as some deride as extempore. I was not with them in any of these, but laymen that were humble praying persons only.
But I was with them at prayer for this woman; and compassion made us all extraordinary fervent, and God heard us and speedily delivered her as it were by nothing or by an altogether undesigned means. She drank of her own inclination, not being directed, a large quantity of syrup of violets, and the next morning her nose bled (which scarce ever did before or since) and the lungs seemed cleared, and her pulse suddenly amended, her cough abated, and her strength returned in a short time.