Recently published by Gospel Standard Publications is Justifying Faith which is the first book in the new Baptist Heritage Series. This series is all about republishing works by key figures within the Particular Baptist tradition specifically from the 17th to 20th Centuries.

Thomas Hardcastle is not a well known figure. He was a seventeenth century pastor of Broadmead Baptist Church in Bristol and was imprisoned for his faith on a number of occasions. During this time he wrote letters to his church which could be read to the congregation each Sunday. These are both doctrinal and devotional, showing the deep care and concern of a pastor for his church and are a wonderful example of real faith in the midst of trials. With the permission of the publisher, we have reproduced Letter Nine: Faith Sanctified Through Trial, in its entirety.

From my prison in my house, 8^th month, 8^th day, 1675

Beloved Friends,

When I remember that text, 1 Timothy 4:6, “If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ,” I am the more encouraged to write to you, “line upon line, here a little, and there a little;” and I am also the more confirmed by considering Ecclesiastes 11:6. Read it. That is good doctrine which the Lord blesses to us. When the Spirit of God takes a promise, a passage, a line, a sentence, and stamps it upon the heart, that will stick, and prove strengthening; when all the rest which is heard, as well as that, becomes as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up. Pray hard for divine teachings, spiritual illuminations and transformings: for holy fixedness of heart, that vain thoughts may be dislodged, and the word of Christ may dwell in you richly in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that ye be not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is; redeeming the time; and always concluding, that the more exact and accurate, the more thorough and universal your gospel obedience is, then,

1. The more honourable, beautiful, and convincing will your conversation be.
2. The more peaceable, joyful, and comfortable will your consciences be.
3. The more easy, sweet, and delightful will your duties be.
4. The more safe, cheerful, and contented will your outward conditions be.
5. The more perfumed, and acceptable to God, will your prayers and praises be.
6. The more prepared for dying, and the more fit to live, will you be. And,
7. The more glorious, and exceeding heavy, will your crown and recompense of reward be.

The great design of the Lord, in all ordinances and providences, is to bring us to a greater conformity to his nature and will, and the image of his Son. But we remain lean, and barren, and unfruitful, and much unlike to God and Christ; and the grounds of it seem to be these that follow:—

1. The want of well methodizing and right managing our meditations, which are the digestive faculty of the soul. Our thoughts are grown so transient, slippery, and unstable, that we cannot dwell long upon any holy and heavenly matter, and so lose the sweetness and solid substance, which otherwise we might draw from it. Nor do we so watch against Satan, that bird of the air, to prevent his stealing the word from us, and depriving us of the benefit of it, by his sly insinuations, sudden injections, unseasonable motions, Agrippa-like delays and put-offs,—at a convenient time, we will call upon this word again, and consider more of it.
2. A thorny, choking, importunate, pressing, and ensnaring world, that grudges all time and care and thoughtfulness that is not spent upon itself, and would make us believe that there is a kind of necessity and expediency that at all times it should have free access to our hearts, and we must not any time refuse to speak with it. But read over some texts: Luke 6:24; and Matthew 13:22; James 4:4; 1 John 2:15-17; Philippians 4:5-13; Hebrews 5:6; Luke 12, 15, 21:35-37. The cares of the world make us sleepy and secure, and little to think of Christ and his word, and speedy return.
3. Our coming short in the practice of known duties; to him that hath shall be given. They that do the will of God shall know it. What cause have we to mourn over omissions of duty, and slender, slight, formal, careless performings of them. Is not secret prayer, and family prayer, reading and meditation, are not these duties? Is not doing and receiving all the good we can a duty? Is not attendance on public worship a duty? and has not fear, or slothfulness, or a slender excuse, many times kept us from, or brought us late to a meeting? Is there never a guilty conscience that begins to be smitten, and to say, Lord, I am the man, or the woman, and it shall be so no more; I will not be so negligent for time to come? and,
4. I will take heed to my heart, that worldly, wanton, envious, and unprofitable thoughts do not fill it.
5. I will take heed to my taste, that I do not indulge my appetite, nor make provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof; but will deny myself, even in lawfuls, that I may escape the danger of unlawfuls.
6. I will take heed that I offend not with my tongue, either in sinful silence or in sinful speaking: either in holding my peace, when I might or ought to speak to the glory of God, or edification of others, or suffering my tongue to run out to the dishonour of God, and the damage of my neighbour.
7. I will take heed to my time, that I spend it more profitably, and not squander, and idle, and trifle, and drive it away, as if it were good for nothing, when nothing in this world is more precious.

Beloved, at present I shall add no more but a direction and a prayer. The general direction is this, that in all your actions you do actually and sincerely design the glory of God, and watch especially against self, which does so secretly, cunningly, closely, and continually essay to mix itself, and make itself uppermost or undermost, in every thing you do. The Lord looks chiefly at the heart, at our intentions and aims; and it is fit that our eye and watch should be placed where his observation is fixed.

My hearty prayer for you is, that you may stand fast in the faith, and grow in grace daily, more and more, notwithstanding the opposition of the enemy without, and more dangerous enmity and obstructions from within. Our time is short, our seasons in peril, our spirits feeble, our temptations many, our trials great, our burdens heavy; but for our encouragement, our God is strong, our High Priest merciful, our Comforter abiding, our troubles perishing, our enemies dying, our work the Lord’s, and our labour not in vain in the Lord; 1 Corinthians 15, last verse. “Comfort one another with these words.”

I am, dear friends, your most affectionate brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ,

Thos. Hardcastle

It’s amazing how relevant these sentiments still are! The book is available here on an introductory offer of £4.95…

Justifying Faith by Thomas Hardcastle, published by Gospel Standard Publications in the Baptist Heritage Series