I feel, O MyGod,

22 Monday Aug 2022

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Prayer, William Spurstowe

I feel, O my God,

continually this sad change which sin has made in me,

not so much destroying my faculties, as perverting them;

I have not lost the use of them, but the rectitude of them.

I am no more weary of sinning, as a swift stream of running;

the same weight of sin that hinders me from running the race which is set before me,

hurries me to evil

and makes me, through the impulses of Satan,

to gather strength by an accessory impression.

In the birth of sin

I am like the Hebrew women, lively and quick of delivery;

but in the bringing forth of whatever is good,

like the slow Egyptian that needs the aid of the midwife.

I beg of thee holy Lord to heal my distress by thy grace,

And to renew me in the spirit of my mind

That I may run the way of thy commandments,

When thou hast enlarged my heart.

-William Spurstowe

The Spiritual Chymist, XXXV

06 Wednesday Jul 2022

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MEDITATION XXXV

Upon a Prison

Seneca has a saying, Precogitani mali mollie ictus, that the stroke of a forethought evil is more gentle and soft then if it were wholly unexpected; which suits well with St. Peter’s counsel to the scattered believers not to think of their fiery trial as if some strange and new thing happened to them. A wise suffer therefore must do is a wise builder, sit down first and count the cost, lest afterwards he exposed himself to shame and scorn. He must first view a prison in his mind before he enter it with his body, and thoroughly weigh what it is he must forgo, and what he must undergo, or else he will soon, like Issachar, crouch under his burden and faint in the day of adversity, his strength and being small.

For the change which your prison makes is the greatest that can befall any, next to the grave, and is but a little short of it, if not equal onto it. Who can set down the several sad evils which attend it in distinct particulars? And who can sum them up into a total, that will not amount onto a death?

Is not liberty, which every being naturally affects,

turned into bondage?

Is not the society of friends, which is the sauce, if not the food of life,

changed into solitude?

Is not light, whose approaches were anciently saluted with welcome like, industriously shut out to make both bonds in solitude the more irksome?

Is not every cent offended with objects that are displeasing on to them?

What does the eye behold but the face of the grim jailer?

What does the touch feel and less it be hard fetters and cold walls?

What is the smell affected with, unless it be a loathsome stench?

What does the ear hear, but the rattling of chains or the grounds of some for breathing out their last?

What is the food that is tasted, unless it be the bread of adversity and the water of affliction?

And is it not then wonderful but such a condition is this, which is the very valley and shadow of death, should be passed through without any distracting fears, without heartbreaking sorrows, yea, with great rejoicing in such tribulations?

It is true, but some there be who, like sullen hawks, live up on the frets and bear many of these things out of the stoutness of their stomach and their natural courage. But alas! this is not to suffer as a Christian, who does not suffer out of obstinacy, but out of conscience; who is not supported by his own inherent strength, but by the power of God, which puts forth itself and such glorious effects ofttimes as that it makes a greater change in the prison for the better, than ever the vilest prison can make in the prisoner for the worse.

Is it not the presence of the king that makes the court, let the house never be so mean where he resides? He that shall read in the book of the Revelations of the city or place that had no temple in it no sun or moon to shine in it, and then break off, which sooner conjecture that he was beginning the description of some forlorn place under the North Pole, then of the heavenly Jerusalem: but when he shall understand that God and the Lamb are the Temple of it, and the glory of God and the Lamb are the eternal light shining in it, he will then say, as an awakened Jacob, Surely this none other but the house of God and the place where himself dwelleth.

Such like thoughts must that man have of prison who knows no more of it than what it is in appearance, a place of bondage, solitude, darkness, and sore wants [extreme deprivation]. But he who has in this condition once experienced the presence of God in it, how differently will he speak of it? Have not many saints when shut up in a dungeon dated their letters to their friends from their palace, their delectable orchard, from their delicious Paradise? Have they not in their solitude been ravished by the sweetness of the communion they have had with God, who alone has been better than 1000 friends? Have they not been filled with hidden manna in their souls, when their bodies have been pinched with the sharpness of famine? Have they not in the midst of their conflicts cried out, If it be thus sweet to suffer for Christ, how full of joy unspeakable will be to reign with him?

May I not say to the timorous Christian as God did once to Israel, Fear not to go down into Egypt, for I will go down with thee into Egypt, and I will surely bring thee up again. Fear not to go into a prison in which God will be with you, and out of which he will deliver you with joy and triumph. It matters not what your pressures be if God put under his everlasting arms, or who your enemies be if he be your friend: or what your comfort speak if he be your comforter.

And this I may add that commonly in the greatest straits he shows the greatest love, as waters run strongest and the narrowest passages.

As the sufferings of Christ (saith Paul) abound in us,

so our consolation aboundeth by Christ.

O therefore say as David did,

Though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death

I will fear none evil;

for thou art with me,

thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

The Spiritual Chymist XXXIV

06 Wednesday Jul 2022

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The Spiritual Chymist, William Spurstowe

MEDITATION XXXIV

Upon the Putting Out of a Candle

Light and darkness are in Scripture the two most usual expressions by which happiness and misery are set forth unto us. Hell and Heaven which will one day divide the whole world between them and become the sole mansions of endless woe and blessedness are described: the one to be a place of outward darkness, and the other an inheritance of light.

But it is observable also that as the happiness of worldly men and believers is wholly differing; so the light to which the one and the other is resembled is wholly discrepant. The happiness of the wicked worldling is compared to a candle which is a feeble and dim light, which consumes itself by burning, always put out by every small puff of wind. But the prosperity and happiness of the righteous is not, lucerna in domo, a candle in a house; but sol in Coelo, as the sun in heaven which though it may be clouded or eclipsed yet can never be extinguished or interrupted in its course, but that it will shine more and more onto the perfect day till it comes to the fullness of bliss and glory in heaven.

May we not then rather bemoan than envy, the best condition of worldly man, who comes out of a dark womb into a dark world, and has no healing beams of the Son of Righteousness arising upon him to enlighten his paths or to direct his steps. What if he some few strictures of light which the creatures, that are no better than a rush candle, to seem to refresh him with, and in the confidence which he walks for a time — yet alas! How suddenly do the damps of affliction make such a light to burn blue and to expire and leave him as lost in the pitchy shades of anguish and despair? How do the terrors of darkness multiply upon him every moment all those evils that a restless fancy can suggest? He sees nothing and yet he speaks of ghastly shapes that stand before him: He cannot tell who hurts him, and yet he complains of the stinging of serpents, of the torments of fiery flames, or the wracking of his limbs.

If he have cordials put into his mouth, he spits them out again as if they were the gall of asps. Or, if he have food ministered unto him, he wholly rejects it as that which will help to lengthen his miserable life. And yet die he dares not, lest worse things befall him.

If death approach, he then cries out as Chrisorius in Gregory, a truce, a respect Lord until the morning. So great are his straits as that he knows now what to choose or where to fly. O that I could then affect some fond [foolish] worldlings with the vanity and sickness of their condition, who have nothing to secure them from an endless night of darkness but the wan and pale light of a few earthly comforts, which are ofttimes far shorter than their lives, but never can be one moment longer.

Have you no wisdom to consider that your life is but a span and that all your delights are not so much? Have you never read of a state of blessedness in which it is said that there shall be no night, and they need no candle, neither the light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light, and they shall reign for ever and ever? Or are you so regardless of the future as that you will resolvedly hazard what can never fall out for the present satisfaction of some inordinate desires? Do you not fear the threatening of him who said, The candle of the wicked shall be put out.

O then while it si called today makes David’s prayer from your heart, say,

Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us,

“Thou shalt put gladness in my heart more than in the time my corn and wine increased.” Ps. 4:7

Why attention matters

26 Saturday Feb 2022

Posted by memoirandremains in Philippians, William Spurstowe

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anxiety, Attention, Depression, Fear, Spurstowe

Paul makes an interesting command concerning our attention:

Philippians 4:8–9 (ESV)

⁸Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. ⁹What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

While not directly referencing this passage, William Spurtowe provided an illustration of the subjective effect of our attention. If we are not thinking on “these things” our attention will be the opposite direction. The effect that will be fear and depression:

Are not these genuine thoughts for a man to conceive that it is with him and with every Christian as it is with those who walk with their faces towards the sun, the dark shadow behind them; but when they turn from the sun, it forthwith changes its place comes before them. When they travel with their facts to the Sun of Righteousness, their paths are full of light and comfort; but when they turn from him, what dark images of death. What ghastly apparitions of hell and destruction go before them every step they tread. Yea, the further they wander from God, how does their terror increase, and their fears multiply, which are stretched out like the shadows of evening, until at length they be swallowed up in the black darkness of night?

The Spiritual Chymist, Meditation XXXI

05 Tuesday Jun 2018

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Upon the Shadow of a Man

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How absolute as well as general is David’s assertion, Surely every man walketh in a vain shew, or image [Ps. 39:6]: leading an imaginary life rather than a real life: fleeing away as a shadow, rather than abiding as a substance.

How shall I therefore fix a meditation upon the shadow of a shadow? Or hint ought that may be useful to any man, which grows only from so slender a principle as a shadow? And yet, if it be there which Lorinus says, that the art of imagery was first learned from a due observation of those resemblances and proportions which the shadow bears unto the body; why may not some moral considerations be suggested unto us from the different motions, opposite variations, sudden vanishings, which every man may daily behold in his own shadow?

O that the apostates would think of this, who after they have set their faces towards heaven do again turn them towards hell; who, after they have known the way of righteousness depart from the holy commandment delivered uno them.

Can you hearts endure those dismal spectrums that you shall continually behold? Will you not, like the hypocrites of Zion, at length cry out, Who shall swell devouring fire and everlasting burnings? [Is. 33:14]

O that the children of light and of the day would consider this, what great changes are made in their estate and comforts by the aversions from God? Have they not cause to say and wish as Job did, O that I were as the daies when God preserved me, when his candle shined upon my head. [Job 29:3]

When his favor was like the sun in the zenith which casts its beams directly, as that it makes no shadow at all. Surely they will find that the shades of sin are far more dismal than the darkest nights of affliction; and that unless the light of God’s favor, which like the sun on the dial of Ahaz has gone down many degrees, do return back again as many [2 Kings 20:11]; they cannot, like Ezekiel, have any comfortable assurance that they shall live and not die.

O Lord,

Therefore, hold up my goings in thy paths

That my footsteps be not moved

And let me always be rather as those who faces are towards Zion

Though I go weeping,

Than as those who turns he back upon thee

And consider not that their steps go down to the chambers of death.

The Spiritual Chymist, Meditation XXX

03 Sunday Jun 2018

Posted by memoirandremains in Fear, Fear of the Lord, Uncategorized, William Spurstowe, William Spurstowe

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Fear, Fear and Trembling, fear of the Lord, The Spiritual Chymist, William Spurstowe

Who is the favorite of heaven, with whom the high and lofty one, that inhabits eternity, will dwell?

Upon the Palpitation of the Heart

The pearl which is in the oyster is a disease, in the cabinet is a jewel of rich value, and in the ear an ornament of an orient beauty. And such a thin is the trembling or palpitation of the heart; in the body it is a sad malady, in the soul it is a heavenly grace: They who are afflicted with the once, seek earnestly to the physician for a cure; and they who want [lack] the other, importune God to obtain if form him as a blessing when once they know the excellency and worth of it.

Who is the favorite of heaven, with whom the high and lofty one, that inhabits eternity, will dwell? And to whom will he look with an eye of protection, with an eye of grace and delight? Is it not to him that is of a contrite heart and that trembles at his word? [Isaiah 66:1-2]

Who is the best saint on the earth? Is not he who uses most diligence to work out his salvation with fear and trembling? [Phil. 2:12]

All duties are best done with this holy trembling. Prayer and confession of sins are never better made than we imitate those penitent of Ezra who sat trembling in the street of the house of God. [Ezra 10:1] The Word is never more awfully received [received with a sense of awe] as the will and command of a great king, than when received as the elders of Bethlehem did Samuel, who trembling at his coming. [1 Samuel 16:4]

O methinks I cannot without wonder read how Paul lived among the Corinthians, in with fear and much trembling, as sensible of the weight of his ministry. [1 Cor. 2:3] And how they again received Titus, Paul’s messenger, with the like affection, not entertaining him with costly banquets, with court-like salutation, but with fear and trembling, which is the highest respect that can be shown to the doctrine of Christ. [2 Cor. 7:15]

Yea, the Suppoer of the Lord itself, thought it be a feast of love in which, who is all love is the chief and only dish, that a soul has to feed upon, is best celebrated with a divine trembling, which may correct our joy and keep it from degenerating into a carnal mirth.

The sparkling rays of light which are reflected from the polished diamond are much beautified by those tremulous motions which the eye behold in the stone: and so spiritual joy receives no little addition of luster and sweetness by the mixtures of trembling that appear in it.

How great then is the folly and wickedness of the sons of Belial [Deut. 13:13], who scoff at the awful [full of awe] behavior which any exercise in the service of God? As Michal did David’s dancing before the ark [2 Sam. 6:20], as if it were nothing but pusillanimity [cowardice] which would beseem children, better than Christians, who startle often at their own groundless imaginations.

But are the angels cowards which tremble in the presence of God? Is it anything unbecoming them who continually stand in his presence to express a fear of him, as well as love unto him?

How then can it be indecent for worthless creates to serve the great Jehovah with a holy awe and fear of his Majesty?

O God,
I am conscious unto myself
How little all my duties have been intervened with this divine grace.
I have prayed before thee,
But not trembled,
I have not feared thee
The Great Law-Giver,
Nor trembled at they commands.
I have heard often of thee by the hearing of the ear,
Yet I have not abhorred myself.
And therefore, I humbly beg of thee
That thou wouldst help me to sanctify thy name in my heart
And to make thee my fear and my dread;
That so I may neither abuse they mercy
Not yet provoke thy justice.

The Spiritual Chymist, Meditation XXIX

02 Saturday Jun 2018

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The Spiritual Chymist, William Spurstowe

Balanites aegyptiaca (balm of Gilead)
Upon the Balsam Tree

Soem faces are by the painter drawn with less difficulty than others, the lineaments and features of them being such as are more easy for his eye to observe, and for his hand also happily to express. And so it wi with some subjects of meditation above others, which with less labor of the mind are by the pencil of the thoughts formed into lively resemblance of heavenly things, and thereby bearing a proportion to our senses, do convey spiritual mysteries by a facile and delightful manner to our understanding.

Such a subject is the balsam tree which while I think of the place of this growth, the way of obtaining it juice, and the sovereign virtue that it hath to effect strange cures, and to heave inveterate diseases, ti carries forthwith my thought to my blessed savior, who is the only repository in which God has laid up allis invaluable treasurers of healing balsams.
It readily suggests to me such moving considerations as to serve to exalt Christ’s excellency in my heart, and to endear him to me in all the ties of choices affections. And that it may do so for others, I will draw the parallel between this tree and Christ, that others may see what a sweet representation it is of him, who, as David says, forties all our iniquities and heals all our diseases. [Ps. 103:3]

First, in the sole place of this tree’s growth is in Emanuel’s Land [Israel. It is Pliny’s observation, Balsamum uni terrarum Judea concessum est, it is a special grant bestowed by God upon Judea: the country which is renowned for Christ’s birth is also only celebrated for this balm, all other nations wholly wanted [lack] it, or least had none like it.

Moses tells us that it was anciently on of the Ishmaelites’ commodities which they carried from Gilead to Egypt. And Ezekiel says it was Israel’s and Judah’s merchandise to Tyre.

Does it not then genuinely point out unto us the whole world must be beholding to Christ for salvation and healing? Does it not as spiritual hieroglyphic assert that weighty doctrine of Peter’s That there is no name under heaven given amongst men, whereby we must be saved, but by the name of Christ? [Acts 4:12]

Whey then do men lay out their month for that which is not balm? Why do they take hold sometimes one one creature and sometimes one another, saying, Be thou our healer, let this ruin be under thy hand? [Is. 3:6] Is it not one of those glorious appellations which God in Scripture is pleased to take unto himself, I am the Lord that healeth thee? [Ex. 15:26]

Take heed then, O Christin, when you are under any distress, or under any malady to cheat yourself with false remedies: to use figs leaves instead of figs themselves. Adam took the one [Gen. 3:7], which did only hide his nakedness but not cure it. But to restore Hezekiah, God took the other. [2 Kings 20:7] Use what God has appointed, not what you fancy.

Secondly, this balsam tree drops and weeps forth its balsam to heal their wounds, that cut and mangle it, and did not our blessed Savior do thus? What a strange requital did this great innocent and holy person make unto those from whom he suffered?
They mock and revile him hanging upon the cross,
and he prays and begs forgiveness for them.
They shed his blood,
and he makes it a precious medicine to heal their putrid sores.
They smite and pierce him to the heart with a spear,
and he erects in his heart a fountain to wash them from their sin and uncleanness.

Was it ever hear that a physician would sweat and bleed for his surfeited patient? Or than an offended prince would expiate the foul treasons of his subjects with his own life?

Surely well might the Apostle [Paul] say, that God commended his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. [Rom. 5:8]

Be astonished ye angels of Heaven who delight to pry into Gospel mysteries [1 Pet. 1:12] of this abyss of divine love from which Seraphim themselves connote be detract if they should if the least conceive that they could either fathom with their knowledge or express in their praises.

And be ye melted O rocky hearts of sinners with ardency and strength of such love, which is stronger than death itself. [Song 8:6] It was his love which held him upon the cross to finish your salvation when death could not hold him in the grave. Let this love of Christ constrain you henceforth not to live unto yourself, but him that died for you.

Thirdly, this balm which distills from this wounded tree of such virtue and efficacy as that is medicana omni morbia, physic [medicine] to cure all diseases, being applied inwardly and outwardly.

It allays the headache, it restores eye-sight, helps asthma, purges ulcers, cures the poison sting of serpents, heals all kinds of wounds. Is not then this balm in the letter an apt emblem of the balm in the master of the blood of Christ (which is of unlimited power and excellency). What is the evil that can befall for which this is not a certain cure?
Oh, when taken inwardly, as in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, it is both food and physic, it enlightens the dark mind, it heals the broken heart, it fells the hungry with good things. [Luke 1:53] When sprinkled outwardly, as in baptism, it is effectual to stop the leprosy of sin, to cure the venom and rage of lusts, to mollify the stony heart, and to make the fruitful barren.

Be then of good cheer, O ye drooping and afflicted souls, let me say to you, as Paul to those in the tempest, The lives of none of you shall be lost. [Acts 27:22] If you complain, No sins like yours [my sins are greater than your sin]; let me add, There is no salvation like Christ’s. If you say, you are a system, a fardle [a bundle] of sins and lusts, hear what the Apostle [John]says, The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. 1 John 1:7.

No man every miscarried [failed to achieve this salvation] for being a great sinner, but only for being an impenitent sinner. Be not in love with your sin, as beggars are with their sores, that will not party with them. And then doubt not of your physician’s skill or care. It is his peculiar glory, that never any patient miscarried under his hand, though such was their condition that they were utterly incurable by any other.

The Spiritual Chymist, Meditation XXVIII

30 Wednesday May 2018

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Augustine, Desire, The Spiritual Chymist, Will

Upon the Rudder of a Ship

Among other similitudes which St. James uses to show that great matters are effected by small means, this of the rudder of a ship is one [James 3:4-5], and he ushers it in with a single word, which the Scripture often prefixes to weighty sayings to render them more remarkable, Behold, also the ships, which though they be so great, are driven by fierce winds, yet are turned about with a very small helm whithersoever the governor listeth.

The right guidance of this single part is of such consequence to the safety of the whole as that every irregular motion may either hazard [here hazard is a verb] the vessel or greatly hinder its progress, when it answers not the just point of the compass. How continually are these words of direction, starboard, starboard, port, port, spoken by him that eyes the compass, repeated by him that hold the helm: to prevent all danger that may arise from mistakes. Or else how suddenly would rocks, waves, or sands make a prey of them?

Well then might Aristotle in his mechanical questions propose it as a problem worthy of a resolution why a little helm hanging upon the outmost part of the ship should have such a great power as to move a vast bulk and weight with much facility amidst storms and gusts of wind? And may we not answer that the wisdom of these arts is God’s though the industry in the use of them is man’s.

But the more power it has the more apt emblem it is of that faculty of the will which in all moral actions is the spiritual rudder of the soul, to turn the whole man this way or that way as it pleases.

The position of the Schools [the Medieval theological universities] is a truth, Inclinatio voluntatis est inclinatio totius compositi, the inclination of the will is the inclination of the whole person: and accord to the rectitude or pravity of its motion, both the man and his actions are denoted good or evil. And hence it is that Austin [St. Augustine] does often define sin by a mala voluntas [evil will/desire] and good by a bona voluntas [good will/desire] because of the dominion which the will has in the whole man.

Of how absolute concernment is it then that this great engine which commands all the inferior powers of the soul, be not disordered.

If there be a dyspepsia in the stomach, in inflammation in the liver, or a taint in some other vital [organ] what can the less noble parts of the body contribute onto the health? If the foundation be out of course, how can the building stand? If the spring be polluted, who can expect the streams should be crystalline? If the will be vitiated, how can it be the fear, hatred, love, joy, desire, which in the sensitive part are passions but in the soul are immaterial affections, or rather, operations of the will and are found in angels themselves, should be pure and free from corruption of their principle?

It is therefore necessary that this spiritual rudder have also a spiritual compass by which it may steer that so it motion stay not be destructive or at the least vain. And what this compass be but the Word and Will of God? Conformity and obedience unto which is the only happiness as well as the whole duty of man. It is man’s duty to will what God wills, because as he was made like unto God in his image, so he was made for God in his end. And it is the happiness of man to will and nill as God does, because he thereby only comes to obtain a true and perfect rest: Whether he have or want what he desires, he is still miserable: like Noah’s dove, restless and fluttering till it can find out an object where it may acquiescence; like the grave and the horse leech, always craving and never satisfied.

See the O Christian from whence it is that this world, which is a tempestuous sea unto all, proves so fatal to many in the sad shipwreck of their eternal happiness. Is it not from the lawless motions of the will? Which when not governed by the will of God, as its perfect rule, is Cupiditas non voluntas, an impetuous and raging lust rather than a will.

What was it that ruined our first parents, and in them all their posterity, but the inordinacy of their will; by which they lost both their happiness and holiness at once? And what is it under the Gospel into which Christ resolves the damnation of those that perish? Is it not that they will not come unto him that they might have life? All obedience or disobedience is properly, or at lest primary in no part but in the will, so that though other faculties of the soul in regeneration are sanctified and thereby made conformable to the will of god, yet obedience and disobedience are formally acts of the will and according to its qualifications is a man said to be obedient unto to God or disobedient.

O that I could therefore awaken both myself and others to a due consideration of what importance it is like a wise and industrious pilot to guide this rudder of the soul, the will of man, by the unerring compass of the will of God.

Heaven is a port for which we all profess ourselves bound, and can it ever be obtained by naked and inefficacious velleities, by a few faint wishing and wouldings? What blind Balaam would then miss of it? What slothful man, that hides his hand in his bosom and will not so much as bring it to his mouth again [Prov. 19:24]might not then possess it, as well as any Caleb or Joshua, that wholly followed the Lord; or as dcivd who fulfilled all his wills [all that God desired]?

Methink that saying of our Savior should be as goad in the side of every sluggard, Not everyone that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doth the will of my father which is in heaven. [Matt. 7:21]

However,

O holy God

Let it quicken me to all diligence

In an entire conformity of my will to thy will

That so I may readily do what thou commands

And let me esteem it the best part of heaven’s happiness

That I shall one day do it perfectly

As the angels which behold thy face.

The Spiritual Chymist, Meditation XXVII

30 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by memoirandremains in Faith, Faith, Uncategorized, William Spurstowe, William Spurstowe

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(From the Spiritual Chymist, William Spurstowe, 1666)

Upon the Weapon Salve

Who was the author of this weapon salve, cannot certainly be affirmed. Some attribute it to Paracelus who was very pregnant in mysterious inventions: others to one Parmensis Anshelmus, an Italian, who was called a “Saint” as Simon Magus of old, the great power of God, though both were no better than sorcerers. But whoever he were, the ointment is much famed (yet not altogether unquestioned) for its strange manner of healing and curing wounds, differing from other physical applications in a double respect: the one is that it is applied not other person who receives the wounds, but to the active instrument that inflicts it, which is a subject not at all capable of sickness of sanity, or ease or pain, and so cannot be receptive of the alternative power of the ointment; which, if it work by virtual contact must necessarily have the intermedial bodies to participate of it. The other is, the salve cures at distances which are inconsistent with the rule of a mediate contact: it heals the patient when he is a hundred miles off, as well as when he is hear; and the it requires a vicinity of place, as well as a right disposition of the medium.

Now these difference, though they have served to heighten its esteem in the apprehensions of many, and have given learned men who are great admirers of sympathies to write for it or to be fautors [patrons] of it; yet others of no less worth and repute have divided from them and have slighted it as an empty vanity or censured as a magical impiety.

For my part, I am not satisfied with such subtle niceties as are used to defend it, of common and universal spirits which convey the action of the remedy to the part and conjoin the virtue of bodies far disjoined; neither can I think it worthy of such speculations: it commonly healing only simple wounds, and such, which being kept clean need no other hand than that of nature and the balsam [anything healing] of the proper part.

But there is a weapon salve of which it is easy to speak much, but impossible to say enough: so full it is of divine and mysterious wonders, if we consider what it is, or what the cures are which it effects, or what the distance is in which it operates.

Would you know what this salve is? The blood of Christ crucified, whose sufferings do all turn to the advantage of believers:

The blood is his,

but the balm is theirs;

the thorns are his,

but the crown is theirs;

the price is his,

but the purchase is theirs.

Would you hear what cures it does? It heals inveterate ulcers and mortal wounds; it extinguishes the fiery darts of Satan. It eases pressures; it destroys yokes, and what not that rise to let [stop] or bar to a believer’s life or happiness.

Would you know the extent of its virtue, and at what distance it operates? Paul tells us that by the blood of the cross he has reconciled all things to himself, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven. [Col. 1:20]

There is no person that can stand so remote or be at any such angle or corner of earth but he may partake of the influence of it, if he do but cast an eye of faith toward heaven and be as fully healed as any other. Like as to the stunned Israelite who lay in the utmost part of the camp did receive equal benefit by looking to the brazen serpent with him that stood next unto the pole upon which it was erected.

O therefore let not any who are exercised with spiritual conflict cast away their confidence, but fight the good fight of faith unto the end. For though they be not invulnerable, yet none of their wounds are incurable. The blood of Christ is more powerful to save, than sin or other enemies to destroy; else the great end of Christ’s coming into the world of being a physician to the sick, a deliverer to the captive, a healer of the broken hearted would be in vain and all the saints must still be in their sins.

Set then faith on work you that faint and droop in your minds; and say not, who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring this salve unto us that we may live? Or who shall go over the sea for us and bring this sovereign balm [all powerful medicine] of Gilead [Jer. 8:22] unto us that we may e healed by it.

Do but believe and the cure is wrought. Faith is the instrument which makes a virtual contact between Christ and every believer: It receives healing grace from him, and straightways conveys it uno the subject in which it is to terminate.

For as futuriton [existing in the future] in respect of the existence of things is no prejudice to the eye of faith in beholding of them in the present; so neither is distance of place any hinderance to the efficacy of the touch of faith, but that it may forthwith transmit the sanitive efflux of Christ’s blood [Christ’s blood pour out makes holy] unto him, who by faith touches him [touches Christ]. The woman that labored many years of the bloody issue in the same instant that she touched the hem of Christ’s garment, get in herself, that she was healed of her plague. [Mark 5:24-34]

But I am jealous, that while I commend this sacred remedy, some presumptuous sinner who is more apt to abuse grace, than a wounded spirit to improve it [make use of it]should make no other use of it than to think he may sin securely and need not fear what bruises and wound he contracts, seeing the cure is certain and speedy.

I can therefore, do no less than express myself in a holy indignation against such who would make the precious blood of my Savior subservient to their lusts, desiring rather to be freed from the danger than from the dominion of sin.

O my soul, come thou not into their secrets; unto their assembly mine honor be not thou united: Cursed be their lusts, for they are vile, and their desires for they are devilish. [Gen. 49:6-7] Let me bless God who has made me whole, and sin no more lest a worse thing come unto me. [John 5:14]

The Spiritual Chymist, Meditation LX

29 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by memoirandremains in Uncategorized, William Spurstowe, William Spurstowe

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Faith, Repentance, The Spiritual Chymist, William Spurstowe

Upon the Nature Heat, and the Radical Moisture

There is a regiment of health in the soul, as well as in the body; in the inward man, as well as the outward man; they both being subjects incident to distempers, and that from a defect, or excess in those qualities which which when regulated are the principle and the basis of life and strength. [This paragraph relies upon an understanding of medicine going back to the Greeks.]

What preserves and maintains natural life but the just temperament of the radical moistures and the innate heat? And again endangers and destroys it, but the heart devouring moisture, or the moisture impairing the heat? When either of these prevail against each other, diseases do suddenly follow.

And is it not thus in the soul and inward man? In it those two signature graces of faith and repentance do keep up and cherish the spiritual life of the Christian: faith being like the calor innatus, the natural heat; and repentance like humidum radicale, the radical moisture. If then any by believing should exercise repentance less or in repenting should lessen their belief, they would soon fall into one of these most dangers extremes: either to be swallowed up in sorrow and despair; or else to puffed up in security and presumption.

Is it not then matter of complaint that these two evangelical duties (as some divines have called them), which in the practice of Christians should never be separated, should be looked upon by many to oppose — rather than to promote each other in their operations. Some out of weakness cannot apprehend what consistency there can be between faith and repentance, whose effects seem to be contrary: the one working peace and joy, the other trouble and sorrow; the one, confidence, the other fear; the one shame, the other boldness.

Now such as these, when touched with a sense of their sin, judge it their duty rather to mourn than to believe; and to feel the bitterness of sin, than to taste the sweetness of the promise, and put away comfort from them, lest it should check and abate the overflowings of their sorrow.

Others again, whether our of heedlessness or willfulness, I will not determine what they behold the fulness of grace, in the blotting out of sin, the freeness of grace in the healing of backsliding, they see so little necessity of repentance as they think it below (as they speak) a gospel spirit to be troubled for that which Christ has satisfied for). It is not repentance that they should now exercise, but rather; sorrow seems interpretively to be a jealousy of the truth of God’s promise in forgiving and of the sufficiency of Christ’s discharge, who was the surety, who has not left one single mite of debt for believers to pay. Sorrow therefore seems to them unseasonable, as it would be for a prisoner to mourn, when the prison door is opened and himself set free from debt and bondage.

Thus this pair of graces and duties, concerning which I may say, as God did of Adam, it is not good that either of them should be alone [Gen. 2:18, said of Adam needing a wife]; are yet divided often times in practice, though indissolubly linked together in the precept. Fain would I therefore evidence to the weak the concord that these two graces, in respect of comfort, and to willful necessity of them both, in order unto pardon.

Unto the weak therefore I say, that the agreement between faith and repentance does no lie in the immediate impressions which they make upon the soul, which are in some respects opposite to each other; but in the principle from which they arise, which is the same, the grace of Christ; and in the end, which is the same salvation of man, in habitude and subordination that they have one to another: for repentance’s never more kindly than when it disposes us to exercise and actings of faith: whose joy, peace and serenity of heart are as gold which is best laid upon sad and dark colors; or as the polished diamond that receives an addition of luster from the watering of it. God’s promise is that the believing Jes who look upon Christ by an eye of faith shall be also great mourners, They shall mourn for him as one mourenth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him as one that is in the bitterness for his first-born. [Zech. 12:10]

Unto the careless or willful I also say, that God never forgives sin but where also he gives a penitent and relenting heart; so that though faith has a peculiar nature in receiving of pardon, applying it by way of instrument which no other grace does; yet repentance is the express formal qualification that fits for pardon, not by way of causality or merit, but by way of means as well as command, which arises from a con decency both to God himself, who is a holy God; and to the nature of mercy, which is the taking and removing of sin away.

Never dream then of such free grace or gospel-mercy as does supersede a broken and contrite heart, or take off the necessity of sorrowing for sin. For Christ did never undertake to satisfy God’s wrath in an absolute and illimited [unlimited] manner, but in a well ordered and meet [fitting] way, viz., [that is] the way of faith and repentance. How else should we ever come to taste the bitterness of sin or the sweetness of grace? How to prize and esteem the physician if not sensible of our disease? How to adore the love of Christ, who redeemed us from the curse of the law, by being made a curse for us, if not burdened with the weight of our iniquities?

Yea, how should we ever give God the glory of his justice in acknowledging ourselves worthy of death, if we do not in a way of repentance judge ourselves, as the apostle bids us? [1 Cor. 11:31] Was not this that David did in that solemn confusion of his in which he cries out, Against thee, thee only have I sinned, had done this evil in thy sight; that thou might be justified when thou speakest and clear when thou judgest. [Ps. 51:4]

Can I therefore wish a better wish to such who are insensible to their sins, that Bernard did, to him whom he thought no heedful enough about the judgments of God, who writing to him, instead of the common salutation, much health, wrote, much fear: that so, their confidence may have an ally of trembling?

Sure I am that it is a mercy that I had need to pray for on my own behalf, and I do,

Lord, make it my request

That my faith for the pardon of sin

May be accompanied with my sorrow for sin;

And that I may have a weeping eye, as well as a believing heart,

That I may mourn for the evil that I have done against my Savior

As well as rejoice in the fulness of the mercy the he has showed to me

In a Glorious salvation.