MEMOIR OF THOMAS
GOODWIN, D.D.
COMPOSED OUT OF HIS OWN
PAPERS AND MEMOIRS, BY HIS SON.
THOMAS GOODWIN, the eldest son of Richard and Catherine
Goodwin, the name of whose family was Collingwood, was born October 5,1600, at
Rollesby, a little village in Norfolk. He was brought up religiously by his
parents, and they, devoting him to the ministry of the gospel, gave him also a
learned education. After some time spent in school, having got the knowledge of
the Latin and Greek tongues, he was sent to Cambridge, August 25, 1613, and
placed in Christ's College, under the tuition and instruction of Mr William
Power, one of the Fellows there. He continued about six years in that college,
which flourished in a fulness of all exercises of learning, and in the number
of scholars, there being two hundred of them; but, A.D. 1619, he left it, and
removed to Catherine Hall, the state of which seemed so contemptible to him,
there being no more than sixteen scholars, and few acts or exercises of
learning had been performed for a long time, that though he was chosen Fellow,
and also lecturer for the year 1620, yet he had some thoughts of leaving it
again. He had, by an unwearied industry in his studies, so much improved those
natural abilities which God had given him, that though so very young, he had
gained a great esteem in the University. But all this time he walked in the
vanity of his mind; and ambitious designs and hopes entirely possessing him,
all his aim was to get applause, to raise his reputation, and in any manner to
advance himself by preferments. But God, who had destined him to higher ends
than what he had projected in his own thoughts, was graciously pleased to
change his heart, and to turn the course of his llfe to his own service and
glory. But as the account of the work of the Holy Spirit on his soul will be
most acceptable as related by himself, I shall present it in his own words.
"Though by the course of nature in my first birth I was not like to live, being
born before my time, and therefore of a weak constitution, yet God so kept and
strengthened me, that he preserved me, as David says, when I hung upon my
mother's breasts; as one in whom he meant to manifest his grace, in the
miraculous conversion of my soul unto himself. He did often stir up in me in my
childish years the sparks of conscience, to keep me from gross sins, and to set
me upon performing common duties. I began to have some slighter workings of the
Spirit of God from the time I was six years old; I could weep for my sins
whenever I did set myself to think of them, and had flashes of joy upon
thoughts of the things of God. I was affected with good motions and affections
of love to God and Christ, for their love revealed to man, and with grief for
sin as displeasing them. This shewed how far goodness of nature might go, as
well in myself as others, to whom yet true sanctifying grace never comes. But
this I thought was grace; for I reasoned within myself it was not by nature. I
received the sacrament at Easter, when I was fourteen years old, and for that
prepared myself as I was able. I set myself to examine whether I had grace or
not; and by all the signs in Ursin's Catechism, which was in use among the
Puritans in the College, I found them all, as I thought, in me. The love of God
to such a sinner, and Christ's dying for me, did greatly affect me; and at that
first sacrament I received, with what inward joy and comfort did I sing with
the rest the 103d Psalm, which was usually sung during the administration!
After having received it, I felt my heart cheered after a wonderful manner,
thinking myself sure of heaven, and judging all these workings to be infallible
tokens of God's love to me, and of grace in me all this while not considering
that these were but more strong fits of nature's working. God hereby made way
to advance the power of his grace the more in me, by shewing me how far I might
go and yet deceive myself, and making me know that grace is a thing surpassing
the power of nature; and therefore he suffered me to fall away, not from these
good motions, for I could raise them when I would, but from the practice of
them; insomuch as then my heart began to suspect them as counterfeit.
"I
made a great preparation for the next ensuing sacrament at Whitsuntide, and in
the meantime I went to hear Mr Sibbs, afterward Dr Sibbs, then lecturer at
Trinity Church to the town of Cambridge, whose lectures the Puritans
frequented. I also read Calvin's Institutions, and oh, how sweet was the
reading of some parts of that book to me! How pleasing was the delivery of
truths in a solid manner then to me ! Before the sacrament was administered, I
looked about upon the holy men in Christ's College, where I was bred; and how
affected was I that I should go to heaven along with them ! I particularly
remember Mr Bently, a Fellow of that College, who was a dear child of God, and
so died, and I then looked on him with joy, as one with whom I should live for
ever in heaven.
"When I was in my place in the chapel, ready to receive the
sacrament, being little of stature, the least in the whole University then, and
for divers years, it fell out that my tutor, Mr Power, seeing me, sent to me
that I should not receive it, but go out before all the College, which I did.
This so much damped me, as I greatly pitied myself, but chiefly for this that
my soul, which was full of expectation from this sacrament, was so unexpectedly
disappointed of the opportunity. For I had long before verily thought that if I
received that sacrament, I should be so confirmed that I should never fall
away. But after this disappointment I left off praying, for being discouraged,
I knew not how to go to God. I desisted from going to hear Dr Sibbs any more; I
no more studied sound divinity, but gave myself to such studies as should
enable me to preach after the mode, then of high applause in the University,
which Dr Senhouse brought up, and was applauded above all by the scholars.
"It now fell out that Arminianism was set afoot in Holland, and the rest of
those Provinces, and it continued hottest at that very time when I was thus
wrought upon. I perceived by their doctrine, which I understood, being
inquisitive, that they acknowledged a work of the Spirit of God to begin with
men, by moving and stirring the soul; but free-will then from its freedom
carried it, though assisted by those aids and helps. And this work of the
Spirit they called grace, sufficient in the first beginnings of it, exciting,
moving, and helping the will of man to turn to God, and giving him power to
turn, when being thus helped he would set himself to do it: but withal they
affirmed, that though men are thus converted, yet by the freedom of the same
will they may, and do, often in time fall away totally; and then upon another
fit through the liberty of the will, again assisted with the like former helps,
they return again to repentance. Furthermore, I am yet to tell you how I was
withal acquainted during this season with several holy youths in Christ's
College, who had made known unto me the workings of God upon them, in
humiliation, faith, and change of heart. And I observed that they continued
their profession steadfast, and fell not off again.
"Though the Arminian
doctrines suited my own experience, in these natural workings of conscience off
and on in religion, yet the example of those godly youths in their constant
perseverance therein made so strong an impression upon me, that in my very
heart and judgment I thought the doctrine of Arminianism was not true; and I
was fixed under a conviction that my state was neither rght nor sound; but yet
I could not imagine wherein it failed and was defective. But notwithstanding my
falling thus away, yet I still upon every sacrament set myself anew to examine
myself, to repent, and to turn to God; but when the sacrament was over, I
returned to a neglect of praying, and to my former ways of unregenerate
principles and practices, and to live in hardness of heart and profaneness.
When I was thus given over to the strength of my lusts, and further off from
all goodness than ever I had been, and utterly out of hope that God would ever
be so good unto me as to convert me; and being resolved to follow the world,
and the glory, applause, preferment, and honour of it and to use all means
possible for these attainments; when I was one day going to be merry with my
companions at Christ's College, from which I had removed to Catherine Hall, by
the way hearing a bell toll at St Edmund's for a funeral, one of my company
said there was a sermon, and, pressed me to hear it. I was loath to go in, for
I loved not preaching, especially not that kind of it which good living men
used, and which I thought to be dull stuff. But yet, seeing many scholars going
in, I thought it was some eminent man, or if it were not so, that I would come
out again.
"I went in before the hearse came, and took a seat; and fain
would I have been gone, but shame made me stay. I was never so loath to hear a
sermon in my life. Inquiring who preached, they told me it was Dr Bambridge,
which made me the more willing to stay, because he was, a witty man. He
preached a sermon which I had heard once before, on that text in Luke xix. 41,
42. I remember the first words of the sermon pleased me so well as to make me
very attentive all the while. He spake of deferring repentance, and of the
danger of doing so. Then he said that every man had his day, it was "this thy
day," not to-morrow, but to-day. He shewed also that every man had a time in
which grace was offered him; and if he neglected it, it was just with God that
it should be hidden from his eyes. And that as, in things temporal, it was an
old saying that every man had an opportunity, which if he took hold of he was
made for ever; so in spirituals, every man hath a time, in which, if he would
know the things which belong unto his peace, he was made for ever, but
otherwise they would be hid from his eyes. This a little moved me, as I had
wont to be at other sermons. Then he came to shew that the neglect of this had
final impenitency, blindness of mind, and hardness of heart; concluding with
this saying, "Every day thou prayest, pray to God to keep thee from blindness
of mind, and hardness of heart."
"The matter of the sermon was vehemently
urged on the hearer, (whoever he was that deferred his repentance,) not to let
slip the opportunity of that day, but immediately to turn to God and defer no
longer; being edged with that direful threatening, lest if he did not turn to
God in that day, the day of grace and salvation, it might be eternally hid from
his eyes. I was so far affected, as I uttered this speech to a companion of
mine that came to church with me, and indeed that brought me to that sermon,
that I hoped to be the better for this sermon as long as I lived. I and that
companion of mine had come out of our own chambers at Catherine Hall, with
fixed design to have gone to some of my like acquaintance at Christ's College,
where I had been bred, on purpose to be merry and spend that afternoon; but as
I went along, was accidentally persuaded to hear some of the sermon. This was
on Monday the 2d of October 1620, in the afternoon. As soon as we came out of
the church, I left my fellows to go on to Christ's College; but my thoughts
being retired then, I went to Catherine Hall, and left all my acquaintance,
though they sent after me to come.
"I thought myself to be as one struck
down by a mighty power. The grosser sins of my conversation came in upon me,
which I wondered at, as being unseasonable at first; and so the working began,
but was prosecuted still more and more, lugher and higher: and I endeavouring
not to think the least thought of my sins, was passively held under the
remembrance of them, and affected, so as I was rather passive all the while in
it than active; and my thoughts held under, whilst that work went on. "I
remember some two years after, I preaching at Ely in the minster, as they call
it, in a turn of preaching for Dr Hills, prebend of that church, Master of our
College; I told the auditory, meaning myself in the person of another, that a
man to be converted, who is ordinarily ignorant of what the work of conversion
should be, and what particular passages it consists of, was yet guided through
all the dark corners and windings of it, as would be a wonder to think of, and
would be as if a man were to go to the top of that lantern, to bring him into
all the passages of the minster, within doors and without, and knew not a jot
of the way, and were in every step in danger to tread awry and fall down. So it
was with me; I knew no more of that work of conversion than these two general
heads, that a man was troubled in conscience for his sins, and afterwards was
comforted by the favour of God manifested to him. And it became one evidence of
the truth of the work of grace upon me, when I reviewed it, that I had been so
strangely guided in the dark. In all this intercourse, and those that follow to
the very end, I was acted all along by the Spirit of God being upon me, and my
thoughts passively held fixed, until each head and sort of thoughts were
finished, and then a new thought began and continued; that I have looked at
them as so many conferences God had with me by way of reproof and conviction.
My thoughts were kept fixed and intent on the consideration of the net
immediate causes of those foregone gross acts of sinning. An abundant discovery
was made unto me of my inward lusts and concupiscence, and how all sorts of
concupiscences had wrought in me; at which I was amazed, to see with what
greediness I had sought the satisfaction of every lust.
"Indeed, natural
conscience will readily discover grosser acts against knowledge; as in the dark
a man more readily sees chairs and tables in a room, than flies and motes: but
the light which Christ now vouchsafed me, and this new sort of illumination,
gave discovery of my heart in all my sinnings, carried me down to see the
inwards of my belly, as Solomon speaks, and searched the lower rooms of my
heart, as it were with candles, as the prophet's phrase is. I saw the violent
eagerness, unsatiableness of my lusts; and moreover concerning the dispensation
of God in this new light, I found the apparent difference, by experience of
what I had received in former times. I had before had enlightenings and great
stirrings of the Holy Ghost, both unto and in the performance of holy duties,
prayer, and hearing, and the like; and yet I had not the sinful inordinacy of
my lusts discovered, which had been the root and ground of all my other
sinnings. And these forementioned devotions were different also in this respect
from the present sight of my inward corruptions, that in all the former, though
I felt myself much stirred, yet I had this secret thought run along, that God
could not but accept those real services which I thought I did perform; and so
I fell into the opinion of merit, which thought I could not get rid of, though
the common received doctrine, taught me otherwise. But now when I saw my lusts
and heart in that clear manner as I did, God quitted me of that opinion, which
vanished without any dispute, and I detested myself for my former thoughts of
it. And the sinfulness of these lusts I saw chiefly to lie in ungodliness as
the spring of them; forasmuch as I had been a lover of pleasure more than a
lover of God: according to that in Jeremiah, "My people have committed two
evils: they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and have made unto
themselves cisterns that will hold no water." And these lusts I discerned to
have been acted by me in things- that were most lawful, answerably unto that
saying in Scripture, "The very ploughing of the wicked is sin:" and by the
clear light thereof, the sinfulness of my sin was exceedingly enlarged; for
that light accompanied me through all and every action that I could cast my
remembrance upon, or that my view vent over.
"And by and through the means
of the discovery of those lusts, a new horrid vein and course of sin was
revealed also to me, that I saw lay at the bottom of my heart, in the rising
and working of all my lusts; namely, that they kept my heart in a continual
course of ungodliness, - that is, that my heart was wholly obstructed from
acting towards God any way, or from having any holy or good movings at all.
"God having proceeded thus far, I perceived I was "humbled under his mighty
hand," as James speaks, with whom only and immediately I had to do, and not
with my own bare single thoughts. But God continued orderly to possess my
thoughts with a further progress as to this subject; I being made sensible of
God's hand in it, and myself was merely passive: but still God continued his
hand over me, and held me, intent to consider and pierce into what should be
the first causes of so much actual sinfulness; and he presented to me, as in
answer thereunto, - for it was transacted as a conference by God with me, - the
original corruption of my nature, and inward evil constitntion and depravation
of all my faculties; the inclinations and disposed nesses of heart unto all
evil, and averseness from all spiritual good and acceptableness unto God. I was
convinced that in this respect I was flesh, which was to my apprehension as if
that had been the definition of a man, "that which is born of the flesh is
flesh."
"And here let me stand a while astonished, as I did then: I can
compare this sight, and the workings of my heart rising from thence, to be as
if I had in the heat of summer looked down into the filth of a dungeon, where
by a clear light and piercing eye I discerned millions of crawling living
things in the midst of that sink and liquid corruption. Holy Mr Price's
comparison was, that when he heard Mr Chattertom preach the gospel, his
apprehension was as if the sun, namely Jesus Christ, shined upon a dunghill;
but my sight of my heart was, to my sense, that it was utterly without Christ.
How much and deeply did I consider that all the sins that ever were committed
by the wickedest men that have been in the world had proceeded from the
corruption of their nature; or that the sins which any or all men did commit at
any time were from the same root; and I by my nature, if God had left me and
withdrawn from me, should have committed the same, as any temptation should
have induced me unto the like. But what much affected me was a sight and sense
that my heart was empty of all good; that in me, that is, in my flesh, there
dwelt no good, not a mite of truly spiritual good, as the Scripture describes
true inherent grace to be some good in us toward the Lord our God, which none
of my goodness nor ingenuity was, which I boasted of. What is all such goodness
to God who is only good, and is the only true measure of all that is called
good which is so only so far as it respects him, as he is holy and good, as of
the law it is said. Thus at present I was abundantly convinced.
"But next I
was brought to inquire into and consider of what should have been the original
canse at the bottom of all this forementioncd sinfulness, both in my heart and
life. And after I had well debated with myself that one place, Rom. v. 12, "By
one man sin entered into the world, and death by him, and passed upon all men,
in whom," or in that, "all have sinned :" that it was in him they all sinned,
for they had not in and of themselves sinned actually, as those that die
infants, "after the similitude of Adam's transgression;" which limitation is
cautiously there added by the Apostle, to shew that they had not actually
sinned of themselves, but are simply involved in his act of sinning; and that
sin wherein we were all involved, as guilty of it, is expressly said to be the
disobedience of that one man; for by one man's disobedience, many of his
children of the sons of men were all made sinners, for disobedience notes an
act of sinning, not a sinful nature or a habit. This caused me necessarily to
receive thus of it, that it was the guilt or demerit of that one man's
disobedience that corrupted my nature. Under such like apprehensions as these
did my spirit lie convicted so strongly of this great truth, that being gone to
bed some hours before, and filled with these meditations, I in the end of all
rose out of bed, being alone, and solemnly fell down on my knees before God,
the Father of all the family in heaven, and did on my own accord assume and
take on me the guilt of that sin, as truly as any of my own actual sins. Bnt
now when I was thus concluding in my own heart concerning my sinfnlness, that
all that I had acted was wholly corrupt, and that in me there was nothing but
flesh, as born of flesh, so that all the actions that came from me were wholly
corrupt, and in me, that is in my flesh, there dwelt no good thing, Rom. vii.,
my pronouncing this conclusion with myself was presently interrupted by the
remembrance, which not till now did come in full upon me, in this nick of time
and not before.
"The interruption was made by these intervening thoughts,
that I had forgot myself, and should wrong myself to end in this conclusion;
for I had had abundance of experience, as I thought, of the workings of true
grace, enlightenings and ravishments of spirit and of faith in Christ, at
sacrament and at other times. I recalled the course of my spirit until I was
towards thirteen years old, for I was not thirteen when I came to the
University; and I recalled to my remembrance, that during that space when I was
seven years old, my grandfather, whom I lived with, had a servant, who
observing some sin in me, reproved me sharply, and laid open hell-torments as
due to me, whither, he said, I must go for such sins, and was very vehement
with me; and I was accordingly affected with thoughts of God and matters of
religion from thenceforth. I was indeed but in my infancy, in respect of my
knowledge of religion, having childish thoughts, which I began to build my
hopes on. For my conscience was opened with the sight of my sins when I
committed any, and from that time I began to weep and mourn for my sins, and
for a while to forbear to commit them, but found I was weak, and was overcome
again; but I could weep for my sins when I could weep for nothing: and I doing
this privately between God and myself, concluded it was not hypocrisy. I
thought of Hezekiah's example, who turned to the wall and wept, and how it
moved God; for I was brought up to read the Scriptures from a child, and I met
with that promise of our Saviour's, "Whatever you shall ask the Father in my
name, I will do it for you :" and that made me confident, for to be sure I
would use his name for whatever I would have of God. Yet still I fell into
sins, renewing my repentance for them. As Paul says, when I was a child, my
thoughts were as a child, and I judged that whatever is more than nature must
be grace; and when I had my affections any way exercised upon the things of the
other world, thought I, This is the work of God, for the time was I had no such
actings.
"And thus my younger time was at times spent; but God was to me as
a wayfaring man, who came and dwelt for a night, and made me religious for fit,
but then departed from me. The Holy Ghost moved upon the waters when the world
was creating, and held and sustained the chaos that was created, and so he does
in carnal men's hearts; witness their good motions at times. In a great frost,
you shall see, where the sun shines hot, the ice drops, and the snow melts, and
the earth grows slabby; but it is a particular thaw only where the sun shines,
not a general thaw of all things that are frozen. But so it was, that for these
lighter impressions and slighter workings, my heart did grow so presumptuous,
that I thought myself not only to have grace, but more grace than my relations,
or any inhabitant of the town that I knew of, and this for the time I was a
schoolboy before I came to the University.
"When I was past twelve years
old, towards thirteen, I was admitted into Christ's College in Cambridge, as a
junior sophister, a year before the usual time of standing; and there being the
opportunity of a sacrament of the Lord's Supper, appointed to be administered
publicly in the College, and all of that form that I was now in being taken
into receiving, I was ashamed to go out of the chapel alone and not receive,
and so I adventured to obtrude myself upon that ordinance with the rest. I had
set myself to the greatest preparation I could possibly make, in repenting of
my sins and examining myself, and by meditations on the sufferings of Christ,
which I presumed to apply to myself, with much thankfulness to God. And that
which now, since I came to that College, had quickened and heightened my
devotion, was, that there remained still in the College six Fellows that were
great tutors, who professed religion after the strictest sort, then called
Puritans. Besides, the town was then filled with the discourse of the power of
Mr Perkins' ministry, still fresh in most men's memories; and Dr Ames, that
worthy professor of divinity at Franeker, who wrote Puritanismus Anglicanus,
had been Fellow of that College, and not long before my time had, by the
urgency of the Master, been driven both from the College and University. The
worth and holiness of that man are sufficiently known by what he did afterwards
in the Low Countries. These Puritan Fellows of that College had several pupils
that were godly, and I fell into the observation of them and their ways. I had
also the advantage of Ursin's Catechism, which book was the renowned summaries
of the orthodox religion, and the Puritan Fellows of the College explained it
to their pupils on Saturday night, with chamber prayers. This book I was upon
this occasion acquainted with; and against the time of the forementioned
sacrament, I examined myself by it, and I found, as I thought, all things in
that book and my own heart to agree for my preparation. "As I grew up, the
noise of the Arminian controversy in Holland, at the Synod of Dort, and the
several opinions of that controversy, began to be every man's talk and inquiry,
and possessed my ears. That which I observed, as touching the matter of my own
religion, was, that those godly Fellows, and the younger sort of their pupils
that were godly, held constantly to their strict religious practices and
principles, without falling away and declining, as I knew of. I judged them to
be in the right for matter of religion, and the Arminians in the wrong, who
held falling away; yea, and I did so far reverence the opinions of tke
orthodox, who are against the power of free-will, and for the power of electing
grace, that I did so far judge myself as to suspect I had not grace because of
my so often falling away; whereof I knew not any probablier reason that it was
not true grace which I had built upon, than this, that still after sacraments I
fell away into neglects of duties and into a sinful course, which those godly
youths I had in my eye did not.
"But that which chiefly did serve most to
convince me, was the powerful and steady example of one of those godly Fellows
in the College, Mr Bently, who was a man of an innocent, meek, humble spirit
and demeanour, and an eminent professor of religion in the greatest strictness,
whose profession was further quickened and enhanced by this, that he lived in a
continual fear of death, having had two fits of an apoplexy that laid him for
dead, and daily expecting a third. This blessed man I observed and reverenced
above all other men but Mr Price, who then was of the University, an eminent
example of conversion in the eyes of all, and who was afterwards minister of
the gospel in Lynn Regis. I remember that when I came to the prayer, I used to
have usually great stirrings of affections and of my bodily spirits to a kind
of ravishment, and so I continued in private devotion for a week after; yet
still all those impressions proved to be but morning dew, and came to nothing,
and I utterly forbore to pray privately, or exercise any other good duty, and
so all my religion was soon lost and came to nothing. But again, when the time
of the next sacrament came, I renewed the former exercises, and then I grew
into a love of the good scholars of the College, both of Fellows and others,
and began to continue more constant in duties for a longer time together.
"And I left going to St Mary's, the university church, where were all the
florid sermons and strains of wit in which that age abounded, the great wits of
those times striving who of them should exceed each other. But from these the
work I had the next sacrament upon me did so far withdraw me, as for eight
weeks together I went with the Puritans of that College to hear Dr Sibbs, whose
preaching was plain and wholesome; and to improve my time the better before
sermon began, I carried with me Calvin's Institutions to church, and found a
great deal of sweetness and savouriness in that divinity. In those weeks I kept
constantly to private prayer, and calling to mind the sweetness of this course,
of those eight weeks in these exercises, and acquainting myself more with the
youths of that College who held steadfast in their profession. Oh, how did I
long for the receiving of the next sacrament, in which I hoped the body and
blood of Christ received with due preparation, which I endeavoured to make to
the utmost of my ability, would confirm me in the way I had begun and continued
in so long, and would strengthen me for ever from falling into the same way of
liking florid and scholastic sermons.
"I went to chapel for the sacrament,
as I was wont to do, and expected no other but to receive it; but in the nick,
when every communicant was rising to go to kneel at the step, as the manner
was, my tutor, Mr Power, (who was the only tutor that ever I had,) sent a
messenger to me to command me out of the chapel, and to forbear to receive;
which message I received with extreme dolour of heart and trouble; but he being
my tutor, I obeyed him. But upon this disappointment I was so discouraged, that
1 left off private prayer for the first week after, and at last altogether, and
from thence after went constantly to St Mary's, where the flaunting sermons
were; and though I never fell into the common sins of drunkenness or whoredom,
whereunto I had temptations and opportunities enough, yet I returned nnto the
lusts and pleasures of sinning, but especially the ambition of glory and
praise, prosecuting those lusts with the whole of my soul. And though I did not
walk in profane ways against religion, yet with a lower kind of emnity against
good men and good things, resolving to have preached against those at Lynn and
their ways, and to have taken part with the whole town against them; which my
wicked spirit was too eager and fitted to do by the studies I had pursued; it
came to this at last, that if God would give me the pleasure I desired, and the
credit and preferment I pursued after, and not damn me at last, let him keep
heaven to himself; and I often thought thus with myself, They talk of their
Puritan powerful preaching, and of Mr Rogers of Dedham, and such others, but I
would gladly see the man that could trouble my conscience.
"When God now by
a true work of grace effectually converted me to himself, the vanity of my
former religion was, by serious reflections on these passages mentioned,
sufficiently manifested. The deficiency of the root of all my devotions did
also abundantly add to the discovery. For God did vouchsafe me a new and
further light into the bottom of my heart, to discern that self-love and
self-flattery, acted by the motives of the word so far as they will extend,
were but the roots of all these gaudy tulips which I counted grace: and I
needed no other scripture than that in the parable, together with my own heart,
for the proof of it: Mark iv. 5, 6, "Some fell upon stony ground, where it had
not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth:
but when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it
withered away." And with this one blast, and thus easily, did the flower of all
my former devotions wither and come to nought, because they wanted moisture in
the heart to nourish them.
"By the prospect of all these heads of sinning
which I lay under, I was surrounded and shut up, and saw no way to escape but
together with the sight of all this sinfulness, hell opened his month upon me,
threatening to devour and destroy me; and I began withal to consider the
eternity of time that I was to pass through under this estate, that it was for
ever and ever. But though I was subjugated and bound over to these
apprehensions, yet God kept me from the soreness of his wrath, and its piercing
my soul through and through: that though I had a solid and strong conviction of
God's wrath abiding on me, as being in a state of unbelief, yet my soul
suffered not the terrors of the Almighty, though I lay bound as it were hand
and foot, subacted under the pressure of the guilt of wrath, or of being
subject to the just judgment of the Lord, as the word is to be translated, Rom.
iii. 19. How long my soul lay filled with these thoughts, I perfectly remember
not; but it was not many hours before God, who after we are regenerate is so
faithful and mindful of his word, and his word of promise, as to suffer us not
to be tempted above what we are able, but will with the temptation also make a
way to escape, that we may be able to bear it; and he loving us with the same
love as we are his own dear elect, does not often suffer a destroying
apprehension to continue long upon us, but out of time same faithfulness and
pity to us finds a way to escape.
I do not speak now of temptations, but of
the just conviction which many such souls have, previous unto their believing.
See what God say; Ezek. xvi., of the whole body of his elect church, comparing
their condition to that of a child born dead, and covered over with blood, as
it came out of the womb, the navel not cut, neither washed in water, but in
this plight cast out into the open field, as a child that was dead, among the
carcases. And therefore God, when he was said to have compassion on him, said
to him, Live, which implies that he was dead. In this plight was my soul, dead
in sins and trespasses from my nativity, and from thence so continuing to that
very day, together with that heap of actual sin; that were the continual
ebullitions of original sin. And no eye pitied me or could help me, but as God
there, in Ezek. xvi,, on the sudden, - for it is spoken as a speedy word, as
well as a vehement earnest word, for it is doubled twice, "yea, I said unto
you, Live," - so God was pleased on the sudden, and as it were in an instant,
to alter the whole of his former dispensation towards me, and said of and to my
soul, Yea, live; yea, live, I say, said God : and as he created the world and
the matter of all things by a word, so he created and put a new life and spirit
into my soul, and so great an alteration was strange to me.
"The word of
promise which he let fall into my heart, and which was but as it were softly
whispered to my soul; and as when a man speaks afar off, he gives a still, yet
a certain sound, or as one hath expressed the preachings of the gospel by the
apostles, that God whispered the gospel out of Zion, but the sound thereof went
forth over the whole earth: so this speaking of God to my soul, although it was
but a gentle sound, yet it made a noise over my whole heart, and filled and
possessed all the faculties of my whole soul, God took me aside, and as it were
privately said unto me, Do you now turn to me, and I will pardon all your sins
though never so many, as I forgave and pardoned my servant Paul, and convert
you unto me, as I did Mr Price, who was the most famous convert and example of
religion in Cambridge. Of these two secret whispers and speeches of God to me,
I about a year after did expressly tell Mr Price, in declaring to him this my
conversion, while it was fresh with me, as he well remembered long; and I have
since repeated them to others I know not how often, for they have ever stuck in
my mind. And examples laid before us by God do give us hope, and are written
and proposed unto us: Rom. xv. 4, "For whatsoever things were written to us
aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort
of the Scriptures might have hope;" and we use to allege examples, not only to
illustrate and explain rules, but to prove and confirm them. That God pardoned
such a man in such a condition, is often brought home unto another man in the
same condition, and impliedly contains a secret promise, that so he may do to
me, says the soul in the same condition. And I remember that I, preaching at
Ely two years after, urged to the people the example of Paul (which I was
before referred to) as an example to win others, in having in my eye and
thoughts the said experience of God's dealing with me in the same kind; and
that the examples of such are to be held forth by God, as flags of mercy before
a company of rebels to win them in.
"Now as to this example of Paul, it was
full and pertinent for that purpose for which God held it out to me; I then
considered with myself the amplitude of my pardon, that it involved all sorts
of sins of the highest nature, in which Paul had so walked as he was even upon
the narrow brink of sinning against the Holy Ghost. And God suggested unto me
that he would pardon me all my sins, though never so great, for boldness,
hardness of heart, and heinousness of sinuing, as he had pardoned Paul, whose
story of forgiveness I was referred unto; and also that he would change my
heart, as he had done Mr Price's, who was in all men's eyes the greatest and,
most famous convert, known to the whole University of Cambridge, and made the
greatest and notedest example that ever was, of a strange conversion to God,
and who was the holiest man that ever I knew one or other, and was then
preacher at King's Lynn, whither my parents had removed from Rollesby, and then
lived there.
"The confirmations which myself have had, to judge that these
instructions and suggestions were immediately from God, were these
"1. I
considered the posture and condition of my spirit, and that this suggestion
took me when my heart was fixed, and that unmoveably, in the contrary
persuasions, not only that I was guilty of those sins, and had continued in
them to that time, but that I was in a damned estate, without hope for remedy:
and when God had set a guard upon me as the prisoner of hell, then came in
these contrary apprehensions and impressions as it were in an instant; which
impressions also were so deep and rooted in my heart, that I remembered them
ever since. And I did accordingly acquaint Mr Price at Lynn, a year and a half
after this, setting them on upon my heart, in rehearsing to him the story of my
conversion, which he exceedingly approved of.
"2. It was a word in its
proper season, like that which was spoken to Abraham, the father of all the
faithful, and which ran in a proverb among the Jews: "In the mount the Lord
will be seen," or "provide;" which they apply to the immediate remedy which God
does use to afford out of pity to a man in a strait or distress, and which none
but himself can give remedy to. It is a word fitted and proper to such an
occasion, and peculiar to the case of the person; a word that was quick and
sudden, and interrupting all contrary expectations and fears, as the manner of
the speech was, "Abraham, Abraham," as a man that speaks in haste to prevent
any contrary fears. It is a word spoken in season, which Christ himself was
taught by God to speak to distressed souls, Isa. 1. 4.
"3. This that was
suggested to me was not an ungrounded fancy, but the pure word of God, which is
the ground of faith and hope. It was the promise and performance of God's
forgiving of Paul the most heinous sins that ever any convert committed who was
saved; for he was the chiefest of sinners, as himself confesses. And this
instance was directed unto me, as the most pertinent to my case that I could
elsewhere have found in the Book of God.
"4. In considering the consequents
and effects that followed after God's speaking to me, I was hopefully persuaded
it was from God, for the things were fulfilled which God had spoken of. For,
first, I felt my soul, and all the powers of it, as in an instant, to be clean
altered and changed in the dispositions of them; even as our own divines of
Great Britain do set out in their discourse of the manner of conversion in the
effect of it. Secondly, I found from the same time the works of the devil to be
dissolved in my heart in an eminent manner, my understanding enlightened, my
will melted and softened, and of a stone made flesh, disposed to receive, and
disposed to turn to God. And, thirdly, I found my spirit clothed with a new
nature, naturally inclining me to good; whereas before it was inclined only to
evil. I found not only good motions from the Spirit of God, as be was pleased
to incite me formerly, not only flushings and streamings of affection, which
soon vanish, or stirring my bodily spirits with joy, when I applied myself to a
holy duty, but I found a new indweller, or habitual principle of opposition to,
and hatred of sin indwelling, so as I concluded with myself that this new
workmanship wrought in me was of the same kind as to matter of holiness with
that image of God expressed, Eph. iv. 23, 24, but more expressly affirmed, Col.
iii. 10. It was this one disposition that at first comforted me, that I saw and
found two contrary principle; of spirit against flesh, and flesh against
spirit: and I found apparently the difference of the opposition that only
conscience makes against a lust, and that which the spirit - that is, the new
work of grace in a man's heart - makes against the flesh. That the spirit not
only contradicted and checked, but made a real natural opposition, such as fire
does to water; so that the spirit did as truly lust against the work of the
flesh, as the flesh against that of the spirit.
And this difference I found
not by reading, or hearing any one speak of it, but, as Austin did, I perceived
it of myself and wondered at it; for I may say of this combat, that it is
proper and peculiar to a man that is regenerate. It is not in God or Christ,
who are a fulness of holiness; not in devils, for they are all sin; not in good
angels, for they are entirely holy; not in wicked men, for they have no grace
in them, to fight with their corrnptions after such a manner. Fonrthly, The
consequent of this that fell out in my heart was an actual turning from all
known sins, and my entertaining the truth of all godliness; and the principles
of it, as far as I received it from the word of God, and the best examples of
godly men I lived withal. And in general, I took this course through God's
direction and assistance, that I looked back upon my sinful estate, and took a
summary survey of my chiefest sins and lusts; and I found them to be love of
pleasure more than of God, corrupt ends, especially of vain-glory and academic
praise, which I sought with my whole soul: and God was pleased to direct me to
take up, as the rule of my turning to him, a sincere aim at his glory as the
rule of all my inward thought; word; actions, desire; and ends whatsoever. And
in this it pleased God to direct and assist me, to consider asunder all the
sorts of actions I had gone through in my life, and to take them asunder in
particulars, every one in order, but especially the principallest of them.
"And here, in the first place, I considered what was the aim and drift of my
studies, which I had spent my whole time upon: and having been devoted by my
parents for the work of the ministry, I considered what it was did serve most
to the glory of God in the work of the ministry, and that overturned all the
projects and designs of my heart hitherto, which were the dearest of all to me;
so dear, that I would certainly rather not have lived, than have forsaken that
interest. The University in those times was addicted in their preaching to a
vainglorious eloquence, wherein the wits did strive to exceed one another; and
that which I most of all affected, in my foolish fancy, was to have preached,
for the matter thereof, in the way that Dr Senhouse of St John's, afterwards
made bishop, did exceed all men in. I instance in him, to explain the way and
model that I set up, because his sermons, five or six of them, are in print,
and because it is the eminentest farrago of all sorts of flowers of wit that
are found in any of the fathers, poet; histories, similitude; or whatever has
the elegancy of wit in it; and in the joining and disposing of these together,
wit was the eminent orderer in a promiscuous way. His way I took for my
pattern, not that I hoped to attain to the sane perfection, I coming far
behind-hand of all the accomplishments he abounded in. But I set him up in my
thoughts to imitate as much as I was able; and about such collections as these
did I set my studies until I should come to preach.
"But this way of his
did soon receive a fatal wound, Dr Preston opposing it, and preaching against
it, as vain and unedifying. His catechetical sermons in the chapel of that
College it fell out I heard whilst unregenerate; but they moved me not to alter
my studies, nor should all the world have persuaded me to have done it, nor all
angels, nor men; but my heart, upon this my turning to God and setting his
glory as my resolved end of all my actions and ways, did soon discover to me
the unprofitableness of such a design; and I came to this resolved principle,
that I would preach wholly and altogether sound, wholesome word; without
affectation of wit and vanity of eloquence, And in the end, this project of wit
and vain-glory was wholly sunk in my heart, and I left all, and have continued
in that purpose and practice these threescore years; and I never was so much as
tempted to put in any of my own withered flowers that I had gathered, and
valued more than diamond; nor have they offered themselves to my memory to the
bringing them into a sermon to this day, but I have preached what I thougbt was
truly edifying, either for conversion of souls, or bringing them up to eternal
life: so as I am free to profess that great maxim of Dr Preston, in his sermon
of humiliation, on the first of the Ephesian; "that of all other, my
master-lust was mortified."
"I observed of this work of God on my soul,
that there was nothing of constraint or force in it, but I was carried on with
the most ready and willing mind, and what I did was what I chose to do. With
the greatest freedom I parted with my sins, formerly as dear to me as the apple
of my eye, yea, as my life, and resolved never to return to them more. And what
I did was from deliberate choice; I considered what I was doing, and reckoned
with myself what it would cost me to make this great alteration. I considered
the common opinion the world had of those ways of purity and holiness, and
walked according to them. But though I considered what the common course and
vogue of the world was concerning the ways of one that would be a true convert
and sincere to God, yet they hindered me not at all. The weeds that entangled
me in those waters, I swam and broke through, with as much ease as Samson did
his withes; for I was made a vassal and a perfect captive to another binding,
such as Paul speaks of, when he says he went bound in the Spirit to Jerusalem;
and I said within myself, of all my old companions, What do you breaking my
heart? I am not ready to be bound only, but to give up my life, so as I may
serve God with joy in these ways. I parted with all my lusts, not as Lot's
wife, looking back on what I departed from; but with my whole soul and whole
desires, not to return more to the enjoyment of any lust, and casting down all
those childish imaginations of preferment, snch as scholars do generally aim at
and promise to themselves, and to attain which they make their aim, and the
card of their life they sail by. All these fell, and like bubbles broke and
vanished to air; and those which I counted my strongest holds and imagination;
"and everything that exalteth itself, was brought into captivity and obedience
to Christ," 2 Cor. x. 5. And I was brought in my own thoughts to be content
with the meanest condition all my days, so as I might fulfil the course of my
life, though never so mean, with uprightness and sincerity towards God.
"I
took my leave for my whole life of all ecclesiastical preferments; and though
afterwards I was President of Magdalene College, my great motive to it, from
the bottom of my heart, was the fair opportunity of doing good in my ministry
in the University, and that it might be in my power to bring in young men that
were godly, both Fellows and students, that should serve God in the ministry in
after-times. And after such as were godly did I inquire and seek, and valued
such when I found them as the greatest jewels. And when I failed of such, it
was a great affliction to me; bnt this was my heart and endeavour, as my own
soul and conscience bears me witness, though I did and might fall short of this
my own aim in some particular persons. And this principle I brought with me
from Catherine Hall in Cambridge, where I had my first station, and where I was
the instrument of the choice of that holy and reverend man, Dr Sibbs; to be
Master of that College, and of most of the Fellows of that College in those
times, as Dr Arrowsmith, and Mr Pen of Northamptonshire, to name no more. And I
was the more fixedly established in the practice of this, that after I had been
seven years from Cambridge, coming out of Holland, I had for some years after,
well-nigh every month, serious and hearty acknowledgment from several young
men, who had received the light of their conversion by my ministry while I was
in the University of Cambridge. And this was the great encouragement I had to
return again to a university, having enjoyed so frequent a testimony of the
fruit of my labours while I was preacher at Cambridge; and what the success has
been at Oxford, I leave to Christ till the latter day.
"But the most
eminent property of my conversion to God, I have been speaking of, was this,
that the glory of the great God was set up in my heart as the square and rule
of each and every particular practice, both of faith and godlines; that I
turned unto; and of all signs of sincerity, there is, nor can be, none clearer
than this, witness our Saviour Christ's speech, John vii. 18, "He that seeketh
his glory that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him."
Christ speaketh it of himself, who is the truth itself, and speaketh of himself
out of his own experience of what he did who is the truth itself; and the glory
of God is God himself, who doth all things for himself: and therefore he that
acteth thus predominantly for God above all other ends, must necessarily be
judged truly righteous. Nor can any man extract that out of his heart which is
not in it. Now there is not the least spark of the glory of God in the heart of
man unregenerate, and therefore cannot be extracted out of it, no, not the
least spark. Take a flint, and strike it against steel or iron, and you shall
have sparks struck out; but if you take a piece of ice never so great, and
strike it against a stone, or any other material, you shall not have a spark,
for there is none in it, nor any disposition towards it. I remember that when I
heard Dr Preston describing true spiritual change of heart, (it was upon Rom.
xii. 2, "Be ye transformed by the renewing of your minds,") he spoke in this
manner. "It is," said he, "when upon the change of a man's utmost end, there is
a change made upon the whole man, and all the powers of his soul ;" which when
I had duly considered, I judged I never had anything more punctual, remembering
this work of God upon myself at first. For, as he then discoursed it, "if a man
changes but unto one particular end, and has but one particular and limited
end, the effect is answerable, it is but partial so far as that end serves to :
as if a man that had a humour of prodigality, and now thinks it concerns him to
be sparing and covetous, this change of his end being but particular, has but a
narrowed effect, namely as to sparing and care to keep his money, not to spend
it lavishly; but godliness, the height of which lies in a respect to God and
his glory above all things else, hath a general, yea, universal end, which
extends its influence upon all things."
"Hence my task, from this
principle, proved to be to survey and go over every particular kind of act,
both what I must forbear, and for what end, and with what heart, as also to
observe each particular practice of godliness, which I wretchedly had
altogether for a long while lived in neglect of; and hereabout I began with
what I was to forbear and practise no longer, but alter my course in: as, first
of all, my sins I had lived in; and therein I fixed upon this summary of my
whole life, that I had made lusts and pleasures my only end, and done nothing
with aims at the glory of God; and therefore I would there begin my turning to
him, and make the glory of God the measure of all for the time to come."
Go To Part
Two
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