4: Some Parcels of Counsel for Her Deliverance from This Distressed Case, Which I Find Reserved by Her for Her Use
[The documents making up this chapter are mostly extracts from Richard’s pastoral letters to Margaret, copied out by her for her own long-term reflection. God-centeredness, realization of the love and faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ, less self-absorption, and more acceptance of present circumstances are the main emphases of Richard’s exhortations.]
While in her languishing, and after it she was still cast down, condemning herself as a graceless wretch; and her good mother and friends were afraid that her grief would increase her sickness as it did their sadness. And yet she obstinately concealed it from all, save a few sad complaints to one person18 who wrote thereof some fragments which she extracted for her use. I shall here recite them for others that have the same fears.
The miscarriage of a relation troubling her, this was set down:
When God hath done so much for you, will you leave it in the power of an unconstant creature to trouble you and rob you of your peace? Is the joy of the Holy Ghost so subject to the malice of your enemies or the weakness of your friends? Delight yourself in an all-sufficient constant God, and he will be to you a sufficient constant delight, and will give you the desires of your heart. I see you are yet imperfect in self-denial, while you are too aware of unkindnesses and crosses from your friends and bear them with too much passion and weakness. Know you not yet what the creature is, and how little is to be expected from it? Do you not still reckon to meet with such infirmities in the best, as will be injurious to others as they are troublesome to themselves? It’s God that we most wrong, and yet he beareth with us; and so must we with one another. Had you expected that creatures should deal as creatures, and sinners as sinners, how little of this kind of trouble had you felt? Especially take heed of too much regard to matters of reputation and the thoughts of men; else you are like a leaf in the wind that will have no rest. Look on man as nothing, and be content to approve yourself to God; and then so much honor as is good for you will follow as the shadow. If every frailty and unkindness of the best friends must be your trouble, it is to be impatient with the unavoidable depravity of mankind; and you may as well grieve that they were born in sin, and make your acquaintance. And it [i.e., each such experience] should be used as a mercy to keep you from inordinate affections to friends. It’s a mercy to be driven from relying on created things for contentment though it be by enemies. Keep a fixed apprehension of the inconsiderableness of all these things that cross you, and turn your eye to God, to Christ, to heaven, the things of unspeakable delight, and you will have no room for these childish troubles.
Yet turn not the discovery of this your weakness into dejection, but amendment. I perceive you are apter to hold to the sense of your own distempers than to think what counsel is given you against them.
On another occasion she recorded these words:
How hard it is to keep our hearts from going too far even in honest affections toward the creature, while we are so backward to love God, who should have all the heart and soul and might. Too strong love to any, though it be good in the kind, may be sinful and hurtful in the degree. It will turn too many of your thoughts from God, and they will be too often running after the beloved creature. And by this exercise of thoughts and affections on the creature, it may divert and cool your love to God which will not be kept up, unless your thoughts be more to him, yea though it be for his sake that you love them. It will increase your sufferings by involving you in all the dangers and troubles of those whom you overlove.
When she seemed to herself near death:
You now see what the world and all its pleasures are, and how it would have used you, if you had had no better a portion and God had not taught you a happier choice. Providence now tells you that they are vanity, and if over-valued, worse; but if you learn to see their nothingness, you will be above the trouble of losing them, as well as the snares of too delightful enjoying them. Pardon all injuries to men and turn your thoughts from them and keep your heart as near as possible to the heart of Christ, and live as in his arms, who is usually sweetest when the creature most faileth us, if we do but turn our hearts from it to him.
Another time:
Can you find that you are resolvedly devoted to Christ, and yet doubt whether Christ be resolvedly and surely yours? Are you willinger or faithfuller than he?
Hence she gathered herself as followeth:
When I read the evidence of my self-resignation to Christ, I should as it were see Christ standing over me with the tenderest care, and hear him say, I accept thee as my own. For I must believe his acceptance as I perform my resignation. O what is he providing for me? What entertainment with him shall I shortly find? Not such as he found with man, when he came to seek us. It is not a manger, a crown of thorns, a cross, that he is preparing for me: When I have had my part of these in following him, I shall have my place in the glorious Jerusalem.
This fragment she wrote next:
For the sake of your own soul and life and friends, and for the honor of that tender mercy and free grace which you are bound to magnify, let not Satan get advantage against your peace and thankfulness to God and the acknowledgment of his obliging love. Let him not on pretense of humiliation turn your eyes on a weak distempered heart, from the unspeakable mercy which should fill your heart with love and joy, notwithstanding all your lamented infirmities. You perceive not that it is Satan that would keep you still under mournful sadness, under the pretense of repentance and godly sorrow. You are not acquainted with his wiles. You have cause of sorrow, but much more of joy. And your rejoicing in God’s love would please him better than all your sad complaints and troubles, though he despise not a contrite spirit. I charge it on your conscience [i.e., command you] that when you are in prayer you confess and lament your distrustful, suspicious, unthankful, uncomfortable thoughts of God and Jesus Christ, more than all your want of sorrow for him. And you trouble yourself for such kind of sins, the honesty of whose occasion may give you more comfort than the fault doth sorrow. I know we have not our comfort at command. But see that your endeavor and striving be more for a comfortable than for a sorrowful frame of spirit.
Two things I must blame you for. 1. That you take the imperfections of your duties and obedience to be greater reasons for discomfort than the performance and sincerity are reasons for comfort, as if you thought anything were perfect here or that it were better to do nothing than do it imperfectly, or as if you would have no comfort till you can perform such duty and obedaudience as hath no need of pardon and a Savior; and so no man living might have any comfort in anything that he doth.
2. That when unreasonable fears and troubles are upon you, and troubling thoughts are still upon your mind, you say that you cannot help it nor turn your thoughts away to anything else. I know you have not an absolute power over your thoughts, but some you have. Why else hath God made a law for our thoughts and laid so much duty on them and forbidden their sin so much? Much may be done, if you will be resolute.
Think whether Christ came from the Father to bring tidings of sadness and despair, or of great joy; and whether angels preached not Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace and to men good will? And whether faith, hope, and love, which are the things which Christ will work on souls, be not more powerful to destroy your sins than despair or discouragement of mind?
And because you complain so much of sin, I ask you why doth not your conscience more accuse you of the sin of unthankful denying or extenuating the mercies of God, and no more magnifying them? And for overlooking so much the meritorious righteousness of Christ, while you complain for want of more of your own? I would not deceive you by telling you that you need none in yourself and that all your righteousness is out of you in Christ: I know that your righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees, and the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God, and he that doth righteousness is righteous. But at what bar or tribunal? Only at that of grace, which supposeth the reconciling, pardoning righteousness of Christ. It is not at the bar of rigorous justice according to the law, which requireth innocence to justification; there Christ only is your righteousness, and you have none and must dream of none but that which floweth from his and stands in subordination to it and is your title to it and improvement of it, even your thankful accepting a free-given Savior, Head and Lord, and pardon and the Spirit to sanctify you more and fit you for communion with God and for glory. Esteem most, choose first, and seek most the love of God the Father, the grace of Christ, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, and this subordinate righteousness will certainly prove the meritorious perfect righteousness of Christ to be for you, instead of a perfect righteousness of your own. There is no defect in his sacrifice or merits. If you lacked a title to Christ you were unjustified; but none wants that who consenteth to his covenant, as before; and that consent you cannot deny. Will you live like a forsaken orphan exposed in a wilderness, while God’s tender love is saving you, and Christ is glorying in you as the fruit of his blood, and the angels of God are serving you and rejoicing at your conversion? I entreat you think whether it be not the great work that God hath called you to do, to honor his grace and propagate to all about you, as you are able, a joyful, thankful, hoping, and praising frame of soul, and to stir up all the delightful praise of God? As ministers must do it by preaching, all must do it by conference and example. And is your dejected sadness the performance of this?
When she desired to be prayed for, she wrote down this answer which I find now in her papers:
It is well if you know what prayer to put up, or what to desire. I’ll pray for you according to the best of my judgments; and I’ll tell you for what, that you may know what to pray for for yourself. First, I’ll pray that your thoughts may be turned to the magnifying of God’s love, that you may remember that he is as good as he is great, and that you may be more conscious of his mercy than of your own unworthiness. I’ll pray that you may have so lively an apprehension of your everlasting felicity, as may make you long to be with Christ; and that you may have more self-denial and that humility which makes you little in your own eyes. That you may be much less tender and liable to commotion and disquiet of mind, and less conscious of unkindnesses and of bodily dangers and of sin itself, while the sense of it hinders the sense of mercy. A meek and a quiet and patient spirit is of great price in the sight of God. I will pray that you may be delivered from too much inward passion, of fear, grief, or discontent. I will pray that no creature may seem greater, better, or more regardable or necessary to you than it is; and that you would look on all as walking shadows, vanity, and liars (that is, untrusty) further than you can see God in them, or they lead you up to him; that they never be over-loved, over-feared, over-trusted, or their thoughts too much regarded. Above all, I’ll pray that you may be less self-willed, and not be too passionately or unmovably set upon the fulfilling of all your will; but may have a will that is compliant with the will of God and can change as he would have it, and will follow him and not run before him; and can endure to be crossed and denied by God and man without discomposedness and impatient trouble of mind. I shall pray that seeming wisdom may not entangle you, either in the concealment of anything which greatly needeth your friends’ advice, or in the hiding of your talents by unprofitable silence as to all good conversation, because of the enmity which you have to hypocrisy; and that you will not live in sins of omission for fear of seeming better than you are. By this you may know wherein I think you faulty.
The next I find is this advice against her resolution to go to London.
It is not lawful to speak an idle word, and especially deliberately; much less to go an idle journey. What if you fall sick by the way, or some weakness take you there; will not conscience ask you who called you hither? Your weakness of spirit, that cannot endure this or that at home with your dearest friends, is so far below the quiet composed fortitude which you should have, that you ought not to give way to it. If you are really at the command of your impatience, how are you obedient to the command of God? It is a greater work to bring your mind and will to the will of God than to change place or apparel or run away as Jonah in discontent. O for a mind and will that need no more to quiet it than to know what is the will of God and our duty, and in every estate therewith to be content. When you know your duty, do it resolutely and cheerfully, and scorn to run away and turn your back, that you may do it without censure where you are unknown. Use well the means God here vouchsafes you, and do your duty with a quiet mind, and follow God in your removes.
Much more of such counsels she transcribed, but I forbear reciting more. She ends those papers with these words:
The best creature-affections have a mixture of some creature-imperfections, and therefore need some gall to wean us from the faulty part. God must be known to be God, our rest, and therefore the best creature to be but a creature! O miserable world (how long must I continue in it? And why is this wretched heart so loath to leave it?) where we can have no fire without smoke, and our dearest friends must be our greatest grief; and when we begin in hope and love and joy, before we are aware, we fall into an answerable measure of distress. Learn by experience, when any condition is inordinately or excessively sweet to thee, to say, From hence must be my sorrow. (O how true!)