Epistle Dedicatory
Dear Friends,
The double tie of Nature and Grace, beside the many endearing passages that for so many years have linked and glued our affections so intimately, cannot but beget a tender sympathy in me under all your troubles; and make me say of every affliction which befalls you, half mine. I find it is with our affections, as with the strings of musical instruments exactly set at the same height, if one be touched the other trembles, though it be at some distance.
Our affections are one, and so in a great measure have been our afflictions also. You cannot forget that in the years lately past, the Almighty visited my Tabernacle with the Rod, and in one year, cut off from it the root, and the branch, the tender Mother, and the only Son. What the effects of those strokes, or rather of my own unmortified passions were, I have felt, and you and others have heard. Surely I was as a Bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. Indeed I may say with them (Lamentations 3:19-20), Remembering my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall, my soul has them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
I dare not say that ever I felt my heart discontentedly rising and swelling against God; no, I could still justify him, when I most sensibly smarted by his hand: if he had plunged me into a sea of sorrow, yet I could say in all that sea of sorrow, there is not a drop of injustice. But it was the over-heating, and over-acting of my fond and unmortified affections and passions that made so sad impressions upon my body, and cast me under those distempers which soon embittered all my remaining comforts to me.
It was my earnest desire so soon as I had strength and opportunity for so great a journey to visit you; that so, if the Lord had pleased, I might both refresh, and be refreshed by you, after all my sad and disconsolate days. And you cannot imagine what content and pleasure I projected in that visit! But it proved to us, as all other comforts of the same kind ordinarily do, more in expectation, than in fruition; for how soon after our joyful meeting and embraces, did the Lord overcast and darken our day, by sending death into your Tabernacle, to take away the desire of your eyes with a stroke! To crop off that sweet and only bud from which we promised ourselves so much comfort: but no more of that, I fear I am gone too far already. It is not my design to exasperate your troubles, but to heal them, and for that purpose have I sent you these papers, which I hope may be of use both to you and many others in your condition; since they are the after-fruits of my own troubles; things that I commend not to you from another hand, but which I have, in some measure, proved and tasted in my own trials.
But I will not hold you longer here. I have only a few things to desire for and from you, and I have done.
The things I desire are,
First, That you will not be too hasty to get off the yoke which God has put upon your neck. Remember when your child was in the womb, neither of you desired it should be delivered from there, till God's appointed time was fully come; and now that you travail again with sorrow for its death. O desire not to be delivered from your sorrows one moment before God's time for your deliverance be fully come also. Let patience have its perfect work; that comfort which comes in God's way and season, will stick by you, and do you good indeed.
Secondly, I desire, that though you and your afflictions had a sad meeting, yet you and they may have a comfortable parting. If they effect that upon your hearts which God sent them for, I doubt not but you will give them a fair testimony when they go off.
If they obtain God's blessing upon them in their operation, surely they will have your blessing too at their valediction. And what you entertained with fear, you will dismiss with praise. How sweet is it to hear the afflicted soul say when God is loosing his bonds, It's good for me that I have been afflicted!
Thirdly, I heartily wish, that these searching afflictions may make the most satisfying discoveries, that you may now see more of the evil of sin, the vanity of the creature, and the fullness of Christ, than ever you yet saw. Afflictions are searchers, and put the soul upon searching and trying its ways (Lamentations 3:40). When our sin finds us out by affliction, happy are we, if by the light of affliction we find out sin. Blessed is the man whom God chastens, and teaches out of his Law (Psalm 94:12). There are unseen causes many times of our troubles; you have an advantage now to sift out the seeds and principles from which they spring.
Fourthly, I wish that all the love and delight you bestowed upon your little one, may now be placed to your greater advantage upon Jesus Christ: and that the stream of your affection to him, may be so much the stronger, as there are now fewer channels for it to be divided into. If God will not have any part of your happiness to lie in children; then let it wholly lie in himself. If the jealousy of the Lord has removed that which drew away too much of your heart from him, and has spoken by this rod, saying, Stand aside child, you are in my way, and fill more room in your parents' hearts than belongs to you. O then deliver up all to him, and say, Lord, take the whole heart entirely and undividedly to yourself. Henceforth let there be no parting, sharing or dividing of the affections between God and the creature, let all the streams meet and center in you only.
Fifthly, That you may be strengthened with all might in the inner man to all patience, that the peace of God may keep your heart and mind. Labor to bring your hearts to a meek submission to the rod of your Father. We had fathers of our flesh who corrected us, and we gave them reverence, shall we not much more be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? Is it comely for children to contest and strive with their Father? Or is it the way to be freed from the yoke by struggling under it? Oh that your hearts might be in a like frame with his, that said, Lord, you shall beat, and I will bear. It was a good observation that one made, the soul grows wise by sitting still and quiet under the rod. And the Apostle calls those excellent fruits which the saints gather from their sanctified afflictions, the peaceable fruits of righteousness (Hebrews 12:11).
Lastly, My heart's desire and prayer to God for you is, that you may die daily to all visible enjoyments, and by these frequent converses with death in your family, you may be prepared for your own change and dissolution when it shall come.
O, Friends, How many graves have you and I seen opened for our dear relations! How often has death come up into our windows, and summoned the delight of our eyes? It is but a little while and we shall go to them, we and they are distinguished but by short intervals.
Our dear parents are gone, our lovely and desirable children are gone, our bosom relations, that were as our own souls, are gone, the greatest part of us is gone: and do not all these warning-knocks at our doors acquaint us, that we must prepare to follow shortly after them!
O that by these things our own death might be both more easy and more familiar to us! The more often it visits us, the better we should be acquainted with it, and the more of our beloved relations it removes before us, the less of either snare and entanglement remains for us when our turn comes.
My dear Friends, my flesh and my blood, I beseech you for religion's sake, for your own sake, and for my sake, whose comfort is in great part bound up in your prosperity and welfare, that you read frequently, ponder seriously, and apply believingly these Scripture-consolations and directions, which in some haste, I have gathered for your use, and the God of all consolation be with you.
I am your most endeared brother, John Flavel.
