Written by herself some years before her death, and now taken from the original Copy with great care and diligence.
“Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul.”—PSALM lxvi. 16.
“As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of Hosts.”—PSALM xlviii. 8.
“Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”—2 Cor. iii. 18.
(Continued from page 347.)
WHEN first I felt sin prevailing I was allowed to go and plead the virtue of the death of Christ to kill it, and to plead for the Spirit as a sanctifier and promotor of sanctification in my soul;
but, alas! now I have lost that blessed art, and now I stand stripped as to all sensible action in a case not unlike that of the graceless, only this difference, I believe there is a secret spring of grace communicate from Christ the living Head, though unseen or unfelt by me, that keeps me from running back to where Adam left me. Another step in my sad case is a restraint laid on this body of death, so that I feel not its stirrings so frequently, and yet a withholding of the sensible power of grace.
While in this case I remain spiritless and lifeless, both as to grace and duty, which makes it differ little from the former.
Another step of my weary case when thus deserted: I find only a rational way of thinking and reasoning on that way of life that God hath laid in Zion according to the covenant of redemption; and what the Father demanded of the Son, and what He promised to Him, and also the Son’s going into and accomplishing all that the Father required of Him in the covenant; as also a viewing of Christ’s birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension as God-man, glorified as the living Head and representative of the elect world, and also His sending the Spirit to apply the whole purchase offered in the everlasting Gospel; and also by this reasoning I was allowed to go back and view the time in which I felt the power of the Spirit on my soul, making me to embrace and apply Christ, and the whole of the purchase as revealed and offered in the glorious Gospel. All this I can do and yet find but little satisfaction, so that I am made to think that this is nothing but a rational view of these things, for the Scripture says that there is joy and peace in believing, but the fruit of this reasoning is a pain of desire when not satisfied—raises a pain and party in my soul that frets and raves against God, saying, “Why is it thus? and what will sovereign grace do with me now?” But yet I find another party in me that immediately answers thus, “Bring glory to thy gracious and blessed name, and make me what thou would have me to be; it was an act of sovereign and free grace that pulled me out of black nature at first, and ever since hath bestowed so much pains upon me. O gracious God, try a work of thy own Spirit, and take glory to thy own grace, which thou hast bestowed on me.” I ever thought it a part of heaven this side eternity to get leave to serve God with His own, viz., the exercise of those graces and the practice of those duties He hath commanded; but, alas! I am cast by as useless, I cannot command one act of grace as to my sense, nor perform one duty to satisfaction; and though Providence hath once more ordered my lot under a clear Gospel light, by which I have my state confirmed, and the way of improving Christ and the promises daily, for maintaining and carrying on my Christian life, clearly holden out unto me, yet, alas! I want faith to improve this invaluable privilege. Alas! He is gone, and justly withholds the blinks of divine light and manifestations of divine love from my soul; and while these are withheld I cannot prize the mercy of a gracious state, nor yet the faith of my being brought to and put in the possession of Himself in that state of glory to all eternity. Yea, so far doth this fretting, ungrateful party prevail that I
cannot take pleasure in the common mercies of life, health, food, and raiment, but all are unpleasant while in this case.
On the back of this the Lord pitied me one night in secret prayer. That word came into my soul with life and power, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee.”—(Jer. xxxi. 3.) By this I was made to see and believe His love, past, present, and to come; and although my case be full of changes, yet His love is unchangeable. After this there was a calming of that raving and fretting party formerly mentioned, as also by this light and power I had a lively discovery of the fountain of sin, and of the fountain and spring of grace, and was helped to set the one in opposition to the other; and while I was in this conflict that word came with power, and I was helped to plead and apply it, “Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.”—(Rom. vi. 14.)
After this I felt a power that drew my soul out of that sinking and fretting despondency I had been in these four months by-past, and my hand in some measure were loosed with some short notes of praise put in my mouth; and while I was thus exercised that word came with power, “I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it abundantly.”—(Ps. lxxxi. 10.) By this I was set a-prizing my deliverance from a natural state, which for some time I forgot to do because of my melancholy case; also I found desires kindled, with some hopes of having them satisfied. Thus ended the thirty-and-fourth of my wilderness life.
The next year I fell under a new trial anent my father’s family, for by the fruits of the late rebellion they were cast out of the parcel of ground they had taken under one of the rebels. By this time my father was more than eighty and my mother more than seventy years of age; my mother also wanted the strength of her right hand, so that by reason of age and infirmities they could do little or nothing for their own maintenance. This obliged me to return to them, but the only difficulty in my way was I could not live in that place on account of him that was minister there. This was so exercising to me that my sleep went from me, and my body fell under a spending by waking and sweating, and so the state of my health broke, and I fell under a great struggle betwixt faith and unbelief. Unbelief said, “You will be miserable and a burden to the world for your bread;” but faith went back to former experiences and words of grace and promise that God had said to me formerly in my childhood and youth, all which are yet savoury to me, when faith gets leave to feed on them. There were also those Scriptures, the one in Matt. vi. 33, “Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” “Then shall ye know, if ye follow on to know the Lord,” etc. (Hos. vi. 3). He revealed to my soul what that kingdom of heaven was, and the righteousness there spoken of, and also drew out my soul to pursue the knowledge of Himself, and I hope He revealed Himself to me in a saving manner; there was also that
promise, “Thy bread shall be given, and thy water shall be sure” (Isa. xxxiii. 16); and that in Matt. vi. 30, “Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?” and likewise, “Wilt thou not from this time cry unto Me, My Father, thou art the guide of my youth” (Jer. iii. 4); and also the relations of the covenant that I was made to plead and apply and trust to in the times of my distress; so now I desire to go to a reconciled God in Christ, and plead the outmaking of these words of grace upon which He caused me to hope.
About fourteen years ago there fell out a trial in the family that threatened our being exposed to outward straits, at which time the Lord drew out my soul to seek and wrestle with Him, both for my parents and myself, that He in His holy and wise providence would carve out a way that we might have our bread and not be a burden to others for it, at which time He made me believe He would do it by applying those above and the like promises, and ever since He has done it.
Nevertheless, this present providence is so dark and contradicting-like to sense and reason that all this reflection on former experiences could give me little satisfaction or outgate; and while I was thus distressed I got many a sweet sight of the event of all these things, and was borne up with the faith of a happy outgate in God’s own time and way.
And one day while I was spending my melancholy thoughts how to get out of my present case, it was brought to my mind the relation that Christ is come under to His people, viz., that of a Husband and a Father; so I fell a-pleading with Him in a homely way that He would provide for my parents and me a house and shelter where I might live, and pay my last respects to them, as His grace would enable me. So the next day there came one and told me that there was a place where a school was kept for teaching children to read, and because the person that was there was going to leave it, if I would go there they would get it to me, and that the house would serve my parents and me. This I looked upon as a return of yesterday’s request, and I thought I might take this as from the Lord; yet for all this my body was so low that without recovery to health I was fit for nothing; but it pleased the Lord to send that word with power, and a healing virtue came along with it, as it is recorded in John xvi. 22, “But I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you;” after which my sleep did return, and my body recovered by degrees. This piece of exercise spent the most part of this year, and as to my exercise otherways I got some crumbs now and then, but as for sense it is now gone or very rare. Thus passed the thirty-and-fifth year of my weary wilderness life.
As to my soul’s case, the next year I got daily throughbearing, but found a great difference as to sensible incomes which I was wont to enjoy, and the course of providence toward the generation was very exercising to me, for in the winter time there were extraordinary rains and wind, and the whole spring quarter was
frost and snow, which said to me that God was preaching wrath out of the clouds, and few were observing and examining the cause of the Lord’s thus threatening; and also our spiritual plagues were great and many—there is the plague of division that has seized all ranks and degrees of people of all denominations, from which many other judgments have sprung. There is alienation of affection, a native fruit of division, namely, among the godly. Oh! how are ministers undervalued by people and people by ministers.
(To be continued.)