Heavenly Springs

Holding Fast The Doctrines of Grace

The Christian Journey by Mary Winslow

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Portrait of Mary Winslow: The Octavius Winslow Archive

“Life is a journey, often a short one, and always uncertain. But there is another journey. The believer is traveling through a waste howling wilderness, to another and a glorious region, where ineffable delight and happiness await us. The road is narrow, the entrance strait, so strait that thousands miss it and perish in the wilderness. But true believers, under the teaching and convoy of the Holy Spirit, find it and walk in it. The King, in His infinite love and compassion, has made a hedge about them, separating and defending them from the many beasts of prey that lurk around them; and although they hear their howlings and behold their threatenings, they are safe from their power. But their strongest foe is within themselves; a heart deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. From this there is no escape but by constant watchfulness, and earnest cries to their best Friend and Guide for protection. Were it not for this faithful Guide, how often, discouraged by reason of the way, would they turn back! But He watches over them by night and by day, strengthens them when weak, upholds them when falling, encourages them when cast down, defends them when attacked, provides for them when in need, leads them by living streams, and causes them there to lie down in pleasant pastures, and on sunny banks. And as they advance they obtain brighter views of the good land they are nearing, and they long to see the King in His beauty, and the land that is yet very far off, and to meet those that have already arrived on that happy shore.”

Source: GraceGems

Encouragement from a Reformers Wife

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One of the most outspoken women of the Reformation was Katherina Zell. She was wife of Strasburg Reformer and pastor, Matthew Zell, and she is known, among other things, for her encouragement to the wives of pastors who suffered persecution.

Once, in a neighboring town called Kentzingen, a minister was forced to leave. One hundred and fifty men from his parish accompanied him for several miles but when they could travel no more turned back. The men returned only to find the town gates shut. One minister was caught and executed. The rest fled to Strasburg. Moved with compassion for their plight, Katharina not only provided beds and meals for most of the men, she also published a tract for the wives left behind called, “Letter to the Suffering Women Of The Community Of Kentzingen, Who Believe In Christ, Sisters With Me In Jesus Christ (1524).” Below is an excerpt that provides a glimpse into the hardships these women faced, but also reveals the firm faith of this Reformation stalwart — not to mention the breadth of her knowledge of Scripture.

So I beg you, loyal believing women, also to do this:  take on you the manly, Abraham-like courage while you too are in distress and while you are abused with all kinds of insult and suffering.  When you may meet with imprisonment in towers, chains, drowning, banishment, and such like things; when your husband and you yourselves may be killed, meditate then on strong Abraham, father of us all [cf. Rm 4:16]; struggle after him as a good child should follow his father in the faith like the father’s. Do you not think that Abraham also suffered when God told him to kill his only son?! When He told Abraham to do it himself! – to kill the son in whom also the blessing of human beings was promised.  Yes, indeed he was very grieved, for he was also flesh and blood like all of us; but he knew (as the scripture says) that God could bring his son back to life [cf. Gn 22:1-2; Heb 11:17-19].

As so you also, when your husbands are killed, do you not know that Christ said, “I am the resurrection and the life, whoever believes in me, though he is already dead, yet he will live” (Jn 11:25). And in the sixth chapter of John, He says that whoever eats His flesh and drinks His blood, that is, whoever truly believes that he is redeemed only through the death and shedding of blood of the Christ, that one He will bring back to life on the last day [cf. Jn 6:54]. He says to His disciples, “If you know this, you are blessed” (Jn 13:17). So also to you, believing women beloved by God, Christ says, “Whoever does not want to leave father and mother, wife, husband, and child, and all that he has, for my sake and the Gospel’s, that one is not worthy of me.  Whoever, however, for my sake leaves father and mother, wife, husband, and child, farm and field, to that one I will return them a hundredfold here and in the age to come eternal life ” [cf. Mt 10:37, 19:29; Lk 14:26].

Dear Christian women, if you know and do this, then you also are blessed, as Christ said [cf. Jn 13:17]. Trample your flesh under foot, lift up your spirit, and speak comfortingly to your husbands and also to yourselves the words that Christ Himself has said, “Do not fear those who can kill the body; I will show you one who can kill your body and soul and cast them into hell.”

Katharina Schutz Zell, Church Mother: The Writings of a Protestant Reformer in Sixteenth-Century Germany. Edited and Translated by Elsi McKee, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2006, pages 77-78.

Lady Jane Grey’s Letter to Her Sister on the Eve of Her Execution

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I have sent you, my dear sister Katherine, a book, which although it be not outwardly trimmed with gold, or the curious embroidery of the artfulest needles, yet inwardly it is more worth than all the precious mines which the vast world can boast of: it is the book, my only best, and best loved sister, of the law of the Lord: it is the Testament and last will, which he bequeathed unto us wretches and wretched sinners, which shall lead you to the path of eternal joy: and if you with a good mind to read it, and with an earnest desire follow it, no doubt it shall bring you to an immortal and everlasting life: it will teach you to live, and learn you to die: it shall win you more, and endow you with greater felicity, than you should have gained possession of our woeful father’s lands: for as if God had prospered him, you should have inherited his honours and manors, so if you apply diligently this book, seeking to direct your life according to the rule of the same, you shall be an inheritor of such riches, as neither the covetous shall withdraw from you, neither the thief shall steal, neither yet the moths corrupt: desire with David, my best sister, to understand the law of the Lord your God, live still to die, that you by death may purchase eternal life, and trust not that the tenderness of your age shall lengthen your life: for unto God, when he calleth, all hours, times and seasons are alike, and blessed are they whose lamps are furnished when he cometh, for as soon will the Lord be glorified in the young as in the old.

My good sister, once more again let me entreat thee to learn to die; deny the world, defy the devil, and despise the flesh, and delight yourself only in the Lord: be penitent for your sins, and yet despair not; and desire with St. Paul to be dissolved and to be with Christ, with whom, even in death there is life.

Be like the good servant, and even at midnight be waking, lest when death cometh and stealeth upon you, like a thief in the night, you be with the servants of darkness found sleeping; and lest for lack of oil you be found like the five foolish virgins, or like him that he had not on the wedding garment, and then you be cast into darkness, or banished from the marriage: rejoice in Christ, as I trust you do, and seeing you have the name of a Christian, as near as you can follow the steps, and be a true imitator of your master Christ Jesus, and take up your cross, lay your sins on his back, and always embrace him.

Now as touching my death, rejoice as I do, my dearest sister, that I shall be delivered of this corruption, and put on incorruption: for I am assured that I shall, for losing of a mortal life, win one that is immortal, joyful, and everlasting: the which I pray God grant you in his most blessed hour, and send you his all-saving grace to love in his fear, and to die in the true Christian faith: from which in God’s name I exhort you that you never swerve, neither through hope of life, not fear of death: for if you will deny his truth, to give length to a weary and corrupt breath, God himself will deny you, and by vengeance make short what you by your soul’s loss would prolong: but if you will cleave to him, he will stretch forth your days to an uncircumscribed comfort, and to his own glory: to the which glory, God bring me now, and you hereafter, when is shall please him to call you. Farewell once again, my beloved sister, and put your only trust in God, who only must help you. Amen.

Your loving Sister.

Jane Dudley

Published in Simonetta Carr’s, Christian Biographies for Young Readers, Lady Jane Grey, page 61.

A Mother’s Counsel

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The following is an excerpt from a letter written by Susanna Wesley to her eldest son, Samuel.

“Consider well what a separation from the world, what purity, what devotion, what exemplary virtue, are required in those who are to guide others to glory … I would advise you to arrange your affairs by a certain method, by which you will learn to improve every precious moment … Begin and end the day with Him who is the Alpha and Omega, and if you really experience what it is to love God, you will redeem all the time you can for His more immediate service.

Endeavor to act upon principle and do not live like the rest of mankind, who pass through the world like straws upon a river, which are carried which way the stream or wind drives them … Get as deep an impression on your mind as is possible of the constant presence of the great and holy God. He is about our beds and about our paths and spies out all our ways. Whenever you are tempted to the commission of ay sin, or the omission of any duty, pause and say to yourself “What am I about to do? God sees me.”

Edith Deen, “Great Women of the Christian Faith”, Christian Herald Books, Chappaqua, New York, 1959, p. 142.