Divine contemplations, and spiritual breathings of Mr. Henry Dorney

1653. To D. H. N^o 12.

GOd has hitherto spun out my worldly Being, and continued Life. My main labour (as fast as I can turn other business and thoughts out of doors) is to seek the Lord by spiritual Enquiry: one hour of close Communion with him is better than a thou∣sand. A little I taste by Glimpses and Glances of that Taste; but, I bless his Name, I thirst for more. Sometimes my Condition is nothing but almost a very Darkness; but my God doth then rouse up a poor dead heart, and enlighten it again by and by. Oh the Riches of that Goodness that doth so often gird us, when we know not he is so near! Such a Saviour who is a living Pillar of Atonement, and his Nature, through Sufferings, the very Seat of Com∣passion

for all that come to God by him: our Lord, our Lord Christ; whose Sufferings were not for his own sake, and from whom a longing Soul was ne∣ver repulsed. But Oh, methinks sometimes the Wonder is too great to be the Lot of such a poor Wretch; but a better thought again tells me that this is the very differencing mark of Gospel-faith, not to come with a full hand of Righteousness, and flesh∣contented Preparedness; but with a hand and heart fully guilty, through the Flesh, of all manner of En∣mity and Contradiction against the Spirit and Grace of Christ, and lay such a heart and hand before him, and beg his help to cure that Enmity, and stop the mouth of that Contradiction, and cause the poor Soul by believing, to triumph singly in his Conquest; which doth then most singly appear to the eye of Faith, when a sick Soul lays the whole weight of his Diseases upon Christ, and not touch the bearing of the Guilt of one of them, nor endeavour to ease the Shoulder of Christ by one of his fingers. Christ neither needs nor desires such help at a Sinner's hand: His work is to tread the Wine-press alone; thine and mine (dear Sister) is only to believe, and see his Salvation. Let us not rashly or impatiently put our hand to the Ark, as Uzza did; but leave him the whole honour of his own Cross: only wait humbly and believingly in the use of Prayer, and pondering the Scriptures; for there the Spirit appears, to form the Soul into a safe and Gospel-rest, and create the Image of Christ, and will renew by degrees, accor∣ding to the measure of his Grace, such a Soul.