He argued that:
We have our State Diurnals, relating the Nationall affaires. Tradesmen keep their shop books. Merchants their Accompt books. Lawyers have their books of presidents. Physitians their Experiments. Some wary husbands have kept a Diary of dayly disbursements. Travellers a Journall of all they have seen, and hath befallen them in their way. A Christian that would be exact hath more need, and may reap much more good by such a Journall as this. We are all but Stewards, Factors here, and must give a strict account in that great day to the high Lord of all our wayes, and of all his wayes towards us.
This Journall is now (in our generation so ungrateful, and unmindfull of Gods judgments and mercies) a word in season running on its wheels. We must be holy Antipodes to sinfull times. (pp. 13-14)
The exercise of writing a spiritual diary facilitates the exercise of meditation. To keep of reckoning of events and experiences upon them, is a prelude or postscript to the prayer closet. Recording meditations and prayers helps the reflection process and extends their memory beyond the immediate event and thus deepens their impression upon the heart. Rather than being insensible to God's dealings with us, and letting blessings and judgments fall to the ground and down the memory hole without profit, the spiritual diarist has a record of his counting blessings, marking progress or lack thereof in sanctification, and the thoughts of the soul towards God and man.
D. Bruce Hindmarsh, The Evangelical Conversion Narrative, pp. 92-93:
The spiritual diary of the seventeenth century is the first and most important precedent for the evangelical diaries. As observed in Ch. 1, self-examination and related forms of introspection emerged as significant devotional practices among English Protestants about the middle of the reign of Elizabeth in the context of new forms of personal discipline associated with experimental Calvinism.[13] Devotional manuals such as Richard Rogers's, Seven Treatises (1603) devoted a great deal of attention to the examen of conscience as 'a reckoning to the Lord at the end of the day', and he himself kept a detailed spiritual diary.[14] In the middle of the seventeenth century, Isaac Ambrose, a leading Puritan divine, likewise advocated self-examination in Media: the Middle Things (1649) as one of the 'means, duties, ordinances, both secret, private and publike, for continuance and increase of a godly life', and he explicitly added directions for the practice of keeping a diary or day-book or register (he uses all three terms) as a useful way to do this. In the diary the Christian was able to observe 'something of God to his soul, and of his soul to God'. Ambrose began keeping such a diary in 1641 and provided several excerpts for the reader from January 1641 to May 1649.[15] A few years later John Beadle introduced his Journal or Diary of a Thankful Christian (1656) by explaining that his practice of diary-keeping was something more like a treasury of praise. Just as Israel recorded the mighty acts of God, so might a Christian keep 'a rich treasury of experience'. And for this, one must needs 'keep a constant Diary...of all Gods gracious dealings with them'. There were in fact three leaves that one ought to read daily to make up this diary: 'the black leaf of thy own and other sins...the white leaf of Gods goodnesse..the red leaf of Gods judgments felt'.[16]
[13] See further, Tom Webster, 'Writing to Redundancy: Approaches to Spiritual Journals and Early Modern Spirituality', The Historical Journal 39 (1996), 33-56.
[14] Richard Rogers, Seven Treatises (1603), 399-404; M.M. Knappen (ed.), Two Elizabethan Diaries (Gloucester, Mass., 1966).
[15] Isaac Ambrose, Media: the Middle Things (1649), 69-85.
[16] John Beadle, The Journal or Diary of a Thankful Christian (1656), from the unpaginated Epistle Dedicatory by Beadle and the essay 'To the Reader' by John Fuller.
This exercise is of profit to oneself as well as to others. As the duty of meditation was stressed by Puritans, so was the duty of "godly conferences" (Scottish Directory of Family Worship) or "holy conferences" (Westminster Directory of Public Worship). This interaction of believers to encourage and build each other is not limited to verbal communication, but includes reading spiritual biographies and autobiographies. Wilhelmus à Brakel commends the exercise of writing about one's experiences for the spiritual edification of others in The Christian's Reasonable Service, Vol. 4, Chap. 81, "Concerning Experiences":
Experience is a godly exercise, consisting in a gathering of numerous noteworthy incidents for the purpose of using them to our benefit and that of others. (p. 45).
Nathaniel Whiting, Old Jacob's Altar (quoted by Peter Lewis, The Genius of Puritanism, pp. 85-86) stated that "it is the duty of God's people to record and relate their experiences of 'dangers, deliverances and duties' to each other's comfort and edification". Whiting says:
I am much persuaded that if an experienced Christian would make a humble and faithful narrative of his own condition to a deserted saint, and tell him, 'Such has been my case: time was when the Lord hid his face from me, when the loving kindnesses of God were shut up in displeasure against me, when I had lost all communion with God, all sense of pardoning and accepting grace with God, when I could not pour forth my soul in prayer unto God, and when I had no incomes by way of comfort of God...but by the goodness of the Lord, the mist is broke up, the clouds are scattered, the face of God appears again, and I find joy and peace and comfort in my soul; yea, the beams of God's favour shine brighter, and the streams of consolation run on more fresh and freely than ever they did...' Is. 54:7-9. Oh sure these experiments as to desertion and as to consolation...would marvellously revive a drooping saint, and make his stooping heart glad. My reasons are these:
1. Because the methods of God in correcting and comforting his people are the same, their trials and their triumphs are alike; as 'face answers face in a glass', so the condition of one saint answers another...
2. Because these experiments gain much authority with us...1 John 1:3.
3. Because God will hereby set a greater mark of honour upon the saints, and make them with more affectionateness love one another when they find that eye hath need of hand, and the head of the foot, 1 Cor. 12:21, that they are mutually dependent upon and mutually serviceable one to another.
Samuel Pepys, Richard Rogers, Samuel Ward, Willem Teellinck, Oliver Heywood, Richard Baxter, Edmund Staunton, Michael Wigglesworth and John Janeway are but a few among those known for leaving behind notable spiritual diaries. Others wrote autobiographical works which were shared with their families and sometimes later published. Some wrote meditations in poetic form. Many diaries never saw the light of day, but the exercise of writing ones thoughts and meditations upon experiences and providences is a distinctly Puritan legacy that reflects their interest being sensible to and profiting from God's dealings with his people. Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe had his diary, Laura Ingalls Wilder had her "remembrance book," and even Oprah Winfrey has her "gratitude journal." Blogs, private or public, can also serve this function today. As is often the case, the Puritan method is counter to our own culture; while diaries today are often associated with scandal and gossip, the Puritan approach to diaries had in view the spiritual profit of writer and reader.
Dear Reader, the art of keeping a spiritual diary is not easy; it is a discipline, and like New Year's Resolutions, one that is sometimes undertaken but not continued. Perseverance is needed to make this exercise fruitful, but there is much profit in writing and recording prayers and providences as described by John Beadle in his guide on how to write a spiritual diary. There is a sweet savor in the words of Richard Rogers as found in his diary entry for May 26, 1590, for example, and an encouragement to us today not only to tolle lege, take up and read, but to take up, and write.
Seeking a Settled Heart: The 16th Century Diary of Puritan Richard Rogers, p. 114:
May 26, 1590...My mind hath very heavenly been exercised in considering both by meditation, by sing Psalm. 119:14, 15, 16, and by, conference, of God's goodness in cheering our hearts with the bottomless and unexpressable treasure of His word, and feeling of His favor, and enjoying of His benefits.
He will condescend to such as we are. He will have us not to taste barely, but plentifully to digest, many comfortable pleasures, and that daily.
And he maketh godliness the pleasantest delight to His people, which to the world is most irksome and bitter.
All good stuff
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