“Distance of place cannot at all lessen that natural bond, whereby we are conjoined in blood, neither ought to lessen that of love. Nay, where true love is, it cannot; for love towards you I can only say this, that I feel it better than I can express it: but love felt and not expressed is little worth. I therefore desire to make my love manifest in the best way I can. Let us look upon one another not as brethren only, but as members of the same body whereof Christ is the head. Let us therefore hunger after him, so that our close knot may meet in Christ: if we are in Christ, and Christ in us, then we shall be one with each other. You cannot complain for want of instruction, God hath not been to us a dry wilderness; you have had line upon line, and precept upon precept: he hath planted you by the rivers of water. It is the Lord indeed who maketh fruitful, but yet we are not to stand and do nothing. There is a crown worth looking for; seek therefore, and that earnestly. Oh! seek by continual prayer, keep your soul in a praying frame, this is a great and necessary duty: nay, a high and precious privilege. If thou canst say nothing, come and lay thyself in an humble manner before the Lord. You may believe me, for I have experienced what I say. There is more sweetness in one glimpse of God’s love, than in all that the world can afford. Oh! do but try; taste and see how good the Lord is. Get into a corner and throw yourself down before the Lord, and beg of God to make you sensible of your lost state by nature, and of the excellency and necessity of Christ. Say, Lord give me a broken heart, soften and melt me. Any thing in the world, so I may be enabled to value Christ, and to accept of him, as he is tendered in the gospel. O that I may be delivered from the wrath to come! Oh! a blessing for me, even for me! And resolve not to be content till the Lord have in some measure answered you. My bowels yearn towards you. Oh! that you did but know with what affection I write now, and what prayers and tears are mingled with these lines! The Lord set these things home, and give you an heart to apply them! Give me leave to deal plainly, for I love your soul so well, that I cannot bear the thoughts of the loss of it. Know this, that except a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven; God’s favour is not to be recovered without it. This new birth hath its foundation laid in a sense of sin, a godly sorrow for it, and a heart set against it; without this there can be no salvation. Look well about you, and see into yourself, and thou wilt see that thou art at hell’s mouth without this first step, and nothing but free-grace and pure mercy is between you and the state of the devils. The Lord deliver us from a secure careless heart! Here you see a natural man’s condition. How darest thou then lie down in security. Oh! look about for your soul’s sake. Repentance itself may lose its labour, if it be not in the right manner. Tears and groans, and prayers will not do without Christ. Most, when they are convinced of sin, and are under fears of hell, reform something, and thus the wound is healed, and by this thousands fall short of heaven. For if we be not brought off from ourselves, and our righteousness as well as our sins, we are never like to be saved. We must see an absolute need of Christ, and give ourselves up to him, and count all but dung and dross in comparison of Christ’s righteousness. Look therefore for mercy only in Christ, for his sake rely upon God’s mercy. The terms of the gospel are, repent and believe; gracious terms! Mercy for fetching, nay, mercy for desiring, nay, for nothing but receiving. Dost thou desire mercy and grace? I know thou dost. Even this is the gift of God to desire, hunger after Christ; let desires put you upon endeavour, the work itself is sweet: yea, repentance and mourning itself hath more sweetness in it, than all the world’s comforts. Upon repentance and believing comes justification, after this sanctification, by the spirit dwelling in us. By this we come to be the children of God, to be made partakers of the divine nature, to have a suitableness to God.”
CHAPTER III.
His great love to prayer.
HE was mighty in prayer, and his spirit was oftentimes so transported in it that he forgot the weakness of his own body. Indeed the acquaintance he had with God was so sweet, and his converse with him so frequent, that when he was engaged in duty, he scarce knew how to leave off. His constant course for some years was this. He prayed at least three times a day in secret, sometimes seven times, twice a day in the family or college. And he found the sweetness of it beyond imagination and enjoyed wonderful communion with God. He could say by experience, that the ways of wisdom were ways of pleasantness, and all her paths peace. He knew what it was to wrestle with God, and he could scarce come off his knees, without his blessing. He was used to converse with God, with a holy familiarity as a friend, and would upon all occasions run to him for advice, and had many strange and immediate answers of prayer. One of which I think it not impertinent to give an account of.
His father Mr. William Janeway, minister of Kelshall in Hertfordshire, being sick, and under dark apprehensions as to the state of his soul, he would often say to his son John: “Oh! Son! This passing into eternity is a great thing, this dying is a solemn business, and enough to make one’s heart ake, that hath not his evidences for heaven clear. And truly, son, I am under no small fears, as to my own estate for another world. Oh! That God would clear his love! Oh! that I could say chearfully, I can upon good grounds be able to look death in the face, and venture upon eternity with well grounded peace and comfort.”
Seeing his father continuing under despondings of spirit (though no Christians that knew him but had a high esteem of his uprightness) he got by himself and spent sometime in wrestling with God, earnestly begging that he would speedily give him some token for good, that he might joyfully and honourably leave this world. After he was risen from his knees, he came down to his father, and asked him, how he felt himself. His father made no answer for sometime, but wept exceedingly, (a passion he was not subject to) and continued for some considerable time weeping, so that he was not able to speak. But at last having recovered himself, he burst out: “O! Son! now it is come, it is come, it is come: I bless God I can die; the spirit of God hath witnessed with my spirit that I am his child. Now I can look up to God as my dear Father, and Christ as my redeemer; I can now say, this is my friend, and this is my beloved. My heart is full, it is brim full, I can hold no more. I know now what that sentence means, The peace of God which passeth understanding; I know now what that white stone is wherein a new name is written, which none know but them that have it, and that fit of weeping which you saw me in, was from overpowering love and joy, so great that I could not contain myself: neither can I express what glorious discoveries God hath made of himself to me. And had that joy been greater, I question whether it would not have separated soul and body. Bless the Lord O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name, that hath pardoned all my sins, and sealed the pardon. He hath healed my wounds, and caused the bones which he had broken to rejoice. Oh! help me to bless the Lord, he hath put a new song into my mouth: now I can die! It is nothing, I bless God I can die. I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ.” You may well think his son’s heart was not a little refreshed to meet the messenger that he had sent to heaven returned back so speedily.
After the death of his father, he did what he could to supply his absence, doing the part of a husband, son, and brother; so that he was no small comfort to his poor mother in her disconsolate state, and all the rest of his relations, that had any sense of God upon their spirits.