Divine contemplations, and spiritual breathings of Mr. Henry Dorney

1665. To B. J. D. N^o 81.

I Do by one or other sometimes hear of your health; which is welcome News to me. Although the years of my life have not reached the number that yours are now at, yet methinks the Lord hath given me a fair Respuit to seek that Pearl, which doth surmount the value of the whole World, and the Lusts thereof, which pass away: but the deceit, pollution, and negligence of my own heart is such, under a too short improvement of time in a day of Grace, under the means thereof, that I may cry out, Where have I been? What have I done all this while? How little have I answered the Gospel-Call? How little have I pried applyingly into the Mystery of Christ? And what miserable Returns have I made to all the bounteous offers of the Gospel that I have read and heard? But yet the Lord hath in some part hinted to my Soul, that he has made with me in Christ an everlasting Covenant. There I de∣sire humbly to cling, and there to place all my Ex∣pectation, my hope of Acceptation and Salvation, and all my desire. And you that have seen more days than I have done, I intreat you also to give them a serious review. Let neither of us leave our choicest Concernments at uncertainties. Oh, for a rouzing visit from the God of all Grace upon each

of our hearts, that may alarm us out of our selves, into the City of Refuge before we are benighted. Let each of us be as much afraid to have any whol∣some Conviction die upon us now, as we would be afraid hereafter to be found without our Wedding-Garment. I have little News but that the Plague is greatly increased, and seems to import that Wrath is gone forth. The Lord help us to put our house, our hearts in order, with the utmost zeal and dili∣gence. The Alarm from Heaven sounds lowder and lowder, and seems to give more than an uncertain sound: It speaks out divine Wrath most apparent∣ly; happy would this City and Land be, if it heard and submitted to the voice of the Rod. Let us look out, and be fitted to meet our Lord. 'Tis pity to let an eternal state be at uncertainties with us, when a temporal life is thus tottering. Such a flying to Christ as is accompanied with a clear Resignation of our Wills wholly to his Will, is the best Prepa∣rative for our Change.