Written by herself some years before her death, and now taken from her 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 186.)
AFTER this I did observe and was persuaded that there was more than ordinary in my little, for I never wanted nor yet needed to be supplied by any; also that word, “And the Lord turned the captivity of Job, and blessed his latter end more than his beginning” (Job xlii. 10). This was borne in on my mind with power, and I was thereby refreshed, for I was made to believe that the same God, if He saw it for His glory and my good, would turn my captivity so far I might have my bread, and not be a burden to any for it. After this I was helped to wait events with more patience, and was not so run down with unbelieving fears of this nature.
But, alas! when delivered out of one depth I fell into another, my mother’s trouble was so great, and had continued so for thirteen years. Ah! here I found a great difficulty to reconcile love in God’s heart as a Father and this stroke of His hand. Unbelief said we were set up as a mark to spend His arrows upon, and singled out as monuments of wonder to all beholders. The long continuance of this affliction, and the extremity of it, together with the bitter ingredients that attended it, was such a field and foundation for unbelief and temptation that I can neither express by word or write the bitterness of spirit I underwent, for the enemy and unbelief said that our affliction was a reproach to religion, and I was often tormented with the fears of being driven to some extremity. Yet, though I was thus run down with unbelief and temptation, I was kept from razing my hope of interest in a reconciled God through Christ. So I fell a-reasoning, and began to think there might be some particular evil or sin done by my mother or me for which the Lord did thus afflict me; for many times before this I had plied a throne of grace, and cried that if there were any particular sin for which the Lord was contending by this affliction He would show it me; but still it was denied me. Yet after this I went to prayer with the same request, and when I was on my knees that passage was presented to my mind, “And His disciples asked Him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents; but that the works of God should be made manifest in him” (John ix. 2, 3). This scripture came from a prayer-hearing God, it was so suitable to my present case; yet unbelief would have applied it to a work of judgment. But I was helped to consider the passage backward and forward, and could not deny that to be born blind was a work of judgment, also his being reduced to begging, as in ver. 8. Yet this work of judgment made way for a work of mercy. Oh, I thought, this was like our case; my mother’s affliction was a work of judgment, yet I was sure there were many works of mercy about us as yet.
After I was helped to hope that this affliction was not sent for any particular sin, and so I was kept praying and hoping for works of mercy and grace, and fell a-reflecting on what works of mercy had been bestowed upon us since this affliction was laid on my mother; but, ah! unbelief hath so blinded my eyes that I can neither see nor speak of them. One great mercy was, that she was all along helped to justify the Lord, for I never remember she had one unsuitable expression as to the Lord’s way in His dispensations towards her, but she always laid the blame at her own door, and expressed her indignation most bitterly against sin, both in herself and others. Another great mercy was, she was still kept exercised with her soul’s case, and had many ups and downs in it. Another was, that notwithstanding of all her great affliction, she had the use of all her senses—of hearing, and seeing, and so forth, and also the exercise of her judgment and memory to her last, to the wonder of all beholders, and the last three months of her life she was more fixed in her state and hopes of heaven than ever I observed formerly. Another was, the Lord gave me some measure of strength to wait upon her, and wonderfully provided her in common mercies, so that she was not made a burden to any for her daily bread. So it pleased the Lord that she fell in a fever at last, and died the fifth day.
I asked two questions at her about two hours before her death. The one was, “You were always complaining of clouds, what think you of them now.” She answered me, “They are all scattered now.” Another question was, “You have been long complaining of those enemies—sin, Satan, and fear of death?” She answered me, “Victory, victory for ever!”
Thus ended her long life, that was full of trouble and of sore affliction.
I could have recorded more of my mother’s life and death, but I desire no more than answers my own exercises. “Oh, for a beam of divine light, that I may see and be thankful for what wondrous works, both of mercy and grace, I have been made to share of through this sore affliction! Oh that my heart were enlarged and my tongue loosed to proclaim the praises of a prayer-hearing and a wonder-working God, who left me not in the hour and power of temptation, but kept me from taking sinful shafts to win away from my affliction, and seasonably pitied me with inward supplies to my soul and outward strength to my body, and also kept me pointing at present duty, and at the end of this affliction made the devil and unbelief liars, who all along tormented me, still saying that by it we should be a disgrace to religion! I desire to record it to the praise of a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God in a dear Redeemer, who brought it to such a happy period, and displayed such wondrous works, both of mercy and grace, toward both my mother and me.” All this, and much more which I cannot here mark down, passed in the four last years. And thus ends the forty-and-fourth year of my weary wilderness life, being the year 1729.
By the long continuance of this affliction and the toil of my school both my body and spirits were brought under such distress that I could neither reflect nor meditate for a long time before my mother’s death; yet it pleased a gracious God to pity me with sleep, that was much gone from me, after which my body and spirits recovered in some measure to their wonted strength. In the beginning of the third month the Lord’s Supper was to be given in the place, viz., Stirling, to which ordinance I had been a stranger for some time bygone, being obliged to wait on my mother; and now, when this occasion came to my hand, I was all the week before in such indisposition of body and mind that I was fit for nothing; but when I went to prayer, I got leave to acknowledge my miscarriages, namely, in the late trial I had been under, and found a melting of heart and outgoings of soul to renew my grips of a reconciled God in Christ, with an eye to the value of atoning blood to wash away the guilt of all those miscarriages, with all my other sins; and it pleased a gracious God to rebuke the indisposition of my body, so that I attended all the sermons about the communion, and was refreshed and strengthened therewith. I thought there was a refreshing savour of Christ and of heaven about all that solemnity; but, alas! I was not in case to record any thing.
After this I recovered as to the health of my body, but three weeks after I met with a great trial. I had a sister-daughter that had been very useful to me, and stayed with me for some time, who took a fever and died upon the ninth day. She was about the eighteenth year of her age, and had been a seeker of the Lord and given to reading the Scriptures since the fifth year of her age. She had many a good tale to tell of Christ and the Gospel, but she had a great fever and sharp death. It was little she was in case to say, but what she could and would have said; but a little before her death she asked how one should give themselves up to Christ when they are going to die; and after she cried out, “Lord, thou knowest ever since I had the use of my reason I have been giving myself to thee, and now, Lord, take me soul and body.” So in a few minutes after the cloud of death sat down on her countenance, and that same night died very pleasantly, having told her father she was going home to her Father’s house.
This was a sore stroke on me, but it was a great mitigation that I believed she had gone to better company. Now I thought I was stripped of all company, being left in a house by myself. With this I went to the Lord by prayer, “That He, according to His word, on which formerly He caused me to hope, would now graciously make it out that a reconciled God in Christ, whom He in His day of power had made me choose as my portion in time and for eternity, would be to me in place of all relations.” After this I found my mind eased, and did not weary, although I never used formerly to be in a house by myself.
I continued in some measure of health, and as to the case of my soul I found some composure of mind, and found something like a rational faith, and a peace flowing from reflection on what the Lord had brought me through, and delivered me from, and done for me in these bygone years of so great affliction and temptation. On this reflection I found great matter both of praise and humiliation. Oh, that I may not be like Israel of old, that saw His wonders and sang His praise, yet soon forgot His mighty works! (Ps. evi. 12). Oh, that my soul may never forget the wondrous works, both of mercy and grace, that God bestowed on both my parents and me in all these years of our great affliction. But yet for all that God hath done for me, there remained a cloud of melancholy on my soul, and a jealousy that there was some particular sin for which the Lord had been contending, seeing yet He continues to withhold the blinks and manifestations of His love as formerly I have found.
And so I fell a-pleading, that if it might stand with His glory He would give me such a display of His reconciled face and so manifest His love as might wipe away my jealousy thereof. And as I asked, He graciously answered me with a soul-warming, strengthening, and confirming visit, that carried off that melancholy and jealousy of His love I was under.
After this the Lord’s Supper was to be given in the neighbouring congregation, where I had access to attend; there I heard some sermons very confirming and comforting, particularly one sermon on Ps. lxxxi. 10, “Open thy mouth, and I will fill it.” In which sermon I got a discovery how the Lord opened the heart by faith and enlarged the soul, and how the heart and soul thus opened and enlarged should be filled abundantly, both with spiritual and eternal good. I heard another sermon on John iv. 14, “The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” In this sermon it was held out that those who had embraced Christ and gotten His Spirit, their perseverance was secured.
(To be continued.)
WE live little by faith, but much by sense, according to the times and by human policy. The watchmen sleep and the people perish for lack of knowledge. How can we be enlightened when we turn our backs on the Sun? and must we not be withered when we leave the Fountain?—Rutherford.