OR, BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE PUBLISHING THIS WORK. WRITTEN BY THE AUTHOR THEREOF, AND DEDICATED TO THOSE WHOM GOD HATH COUNTED HIM WORTHY TO BEGET TO FAITH, BY HIS MINISTRY IN THE WORD
CHILDREN, Grace be with you. _Amen_. I being taken from you in presence, and so tied up that I cannot perform that duty, that from God doth lie upon me to you-ward, for your farther edifying and building up in faith and holiness, etc., yet that you may see my soul hath fatherly care and desire after your spiritual and everlasting welfare, I now once again, as before, from the top of _Shenir_ and _Hermon_, so now from _the lions’ dens_, _from the mountains of the leopards_ (Song iv. 8), do look yet after you all, greatly longing to see your safe arrival into THE desired Haven.
I thank God upon every remembrance of you; and rejoice, even while I stick between the teeth of the lion in the wilderness, that the grace and mercy, and knowledge of Christ our Saviour, which God hath bestowed upon you, with abundance of faith and love; your hungerings and thirstings after farther acquaintance with the Father, in the Son; your tenderness of heart, your trembling at sin, your sober and holy deportment also, before both God and men, is a great refreshment to me; _For ye are our glory and joy_. 1 Thess. ii. 20.
I have sent you here enclosed, a drop of that honey that I have taken out of the carcase of a lion. Judg. xiv. 5–8. I have eaten thereof myself, and am much refreshed thereby. (Temptations, when we meet them at first, are as the lion that roared upon _Samson_; but if we overcome them, the next time we see them, we shall find a nest of honey within them.) The _Philistines_ understand me not. It is something of a relation of the work of God upon my soul, even from the very first, till now, wherein you may perceive my castings down, and risings up: for He woundeth, and His hands make whole. It is written in the Scripture, Isa. xxxviii. 19, _The father to the children shall make known Thy truth_. Yea, it was for this reason I lay so long at Sinai, Lev. iv. 10, 11, to see the fire, and the cloud, and the darkness, _that I might fear the Lord all the days of my life upon earth_, _and tell of His wondrous works to my children_. Psalm lxxviii. 3–5.
Moses, Numb. xxxiii. 1, 2, writ of the journeys of the children of _Israel_, from _Egypt_ to the land of _Canaan_; and commanded also that they did remember their forty years’ travel in the wilderness. _Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness_, _to humble thee_, _and to prove thee_, _and to know what was in thine heart_, _whether thou wouldst keep His commandments_, _or no_. Deut. viii. 2. Wherefore this I have endeavoured to do; and not only so, but to publish it also; that, if God will, others may be put in remembrance of what He hath done for their souls, by reading His work upon me.
It is profitable for Christians to be often calling to mind the very beginnings of grace with their souls. _It is a night to be much observed unto the Lord_, _for bringing them out from the land of Egypt_. _This is that night of the Lord to be observed of all the children of Israel in their generations_. Exod. xii. 42. _O my God_ (saith _David_), Ps. xlii. 6, _my soul is cast down within me_; _therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan_, _and of the Hermonites_, _from the hill Mizar_. He remembered also the lion and the bear, when he went to fight with the giant of _Gath_. 1 Sam. xvii. 36, 37.
It was _Paul’s_ accustomed manner, Acts xxii., and that, when tried for his life, Acts xxiv., even to open before his judges the manner of his conversion: he would think of that day, and that hour, in which he first did meet with grace; for he found it supported him. When God had brought the children of Israel out of the Red Sea, far into the wilderness, yet they must turn quite about thither again, to remember the drowning of their enemies there, Numb. xiv. 25, for though they sang his praise before, yet they soon forgat his works. Psalm cvi. 11, 12.
In this discourse of mine, you may see much; much I say, of the grace of God towards me: I thank God, I can count it much; for it was above my sins and Satan’s temptations too. I can remember my fears and doubts, and sad months, with comfort; they are as the head of _Goliah_ in my hand: there was nothing to _David_ like _Goliah’s_ sword, even that sword that should have been sheathed in his bowels; for the very sight and remembrance of that did preach forth God’s deliverance to him. Oh! the remembrance of my great sins, of my great temptations, and of my great fear of perishing for ever! They bring afresh into my mind, the remembrance of my great help, my great supports from heaven, and the great grace that God extended to such a wretch as I.