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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44434	An exposition on the Lord's prayer with a catechistical explication thereof, by way of question and answer for the instructing of youth : to which is added some sermons on providence, and the excellent advantages of reading and studying the Holy Scriptures / by Ezekiel Hopkins ...	Hopkins, Ezekiel, 1634-1690.	1692 (1692)	Wing H2730; ESTC R17498	215,674	332

First The Petition Forgive us our Debts Secondly The Condition or Proportion or Plea and Argument call it which you will for the obtaining of this forgiveness as we forgive our Debtors In the Petition we may observe that the same which our Evangelist calls Debts is by St. Luke 11.4 called Sins Forgive us our Sins We stand indebted to God both as we are his Creatures and as we are Offenders By the one we owe him the Debt of Obedience and by the other the Debt of Punishment First As we are Creatures we owe the Debt of Obedience And to the payment of this Debt we stand bound both to the absolute Sovereignty of God who is the Supreme Lord of all his Creatures and therefore may oblige them to what he pleaseth and likewise by his manifold Favours and Mercies conferred upon us From him we have received our Beings and all our Comforts he maintains us at his own Cost and Charge he enlargeth us when we are in Streights relieves us when we are in Wants Counsels us when we are in Doubts Comforts us when we are in Sorrows Delivers us in our Dangers and besides the manifold Temporal Mercies we daily receive from him gives us the Means the Hopes and Promises of obtaining far better things at his Hands even Eternal Life and Glory And therefore certainly upon these Accounts we owe him all possible Service and Obedience And indeed it is but Reason we should employ all for him from whom we receive all and give up our selves to his Service who are what we are by his Bounty and hope to be infinitely better than now we are through his Mercy Now this Debt of Obedience is irremissible and we are eternally and indispensably bound unto it For it is altogether inconsistent with the Notion and Being of a Creature to be discharged from its Obligation to the Laws and Commands of its Creator for this would exempt it from the Dominion of God and make it Absolute and Independent that is it would make the Creature to be no longer a Creature but a Deity We do not therefore pray that God would forgive us this Debt no he cannot so far deny himself and it is our Happiness and Glory to pay it To this his Sovereignty obligeth our Subject Condition and his Mercy and Goodness our Ingenuity Secondly As we are Transgressors so we owe God a Debt of Punishment to be suffered by us to make God some reparation to his Honour and satisfaction to his Justice for our transgressing his Law which sentenceth all Offenders to Eternal Death and Damnation This Debt now is that which we pray God would forgive us a Debt which if we pay we are eternally ruined and undone and there is no way possible to escape the payment of it but by the free Grace and Mercy of God remitting of it unto us And thus Sin is called a Debt not indeed properly as if we owed it but by a Metonymy as it is the meritorious Cause of this punishment the suffering of which we owe to Divine Justice Hence by the way we may observe that every Sin makes us liable to Eternal Death for Death and Damnation is the Debt which we must pay to the Justice of God and Sin is that which exposeth us unto it by the Sentence of the Law which we have transgressed For as against other Debtors is brought forth some Bond or Obligation to exact payment from them So against us is produced the Hand-writing of the Law and we not having performed the Condition of the Bond stand liable to the Forfeiture and Penalty which is no less than Curses and Woes and Torments and Everlasting Death Cursed is every one that continues not in all things written in the Book of the Law to do them Gal. 3.10 And the Wages of Sin is Death Rom. 6.23 And the Soul that sinneth it shall Die Ezek. 18.4 Now here to excite thee to a fervency in praying for the forgiveness of thy Debts consider First The infinite multitudes of thy Debts God's Book is full of them and there they stand on account against us under every one of our Names We were born Debtors to God our Original Sin and Guilt obligeth us to punishment and although we did not personally contract the Debt yet as being the wretched Heirs and Executors of fallen Adam the Debt is legally devolved upon us and become ours And ever since we came into the World we have run upon the score with God our Debts are more than our Moments have been for whatsoever we have thought or done hath been Sin either in the matter or at least in the circumstances of it God sets all our Sins down in order in his Debt-book some as Talents and some as Pence Our flagitious Crimes and hainous Impieties our presumptuous Sins committed against Light Knowledge Conscience Convictions Mercies and Judgments each of these God sets down as a Talent And how many thousands of these may we have been guilty of Our Sins of Ignorance Surreption and daily Infirmity are much more innumerable and though they may be but as Pence in comparison with the other yet the unaccountable numbers of them will make the Debt desperate and the payment impossible And yet notwithstanding our Debts are so many and very many of them such great Sums too yet we daily run ourselves farther in Arrears not considering that a Day of Accounts will come when both our Talents and our Pence shall be punctually reckoned up against us not omitting the least Item when every vain Thought and foolish Passion that hath flushed up in us with every idle and superfluous Word that we have unadvisedly spoken as well as the more gross and scandalous Passages of our sinful Lives shall be then audited all which will make the Total Sum infinite and us desperate Secondly That God who is thy Creditor is strict and impartial his Patience hath trusted and forborn thee long but his Justice will at last demand the Debt severely and every particular shall be charged upon thee even to the utmost Farthing for he hath booked down all in his remembrance and will bring all to thine And therefore we have it expressed concerning the last Judgment that the Books were opened and the Dead were Judged out of those things which were written in the Books according to their Works Rev. 20.12 What now are these Books but the two great Volumes of God's remembrance and our own Consciences These are two Tallies evenly struck that shall justly represent the same Sum and Debt and God's strict Justice will not then abate thee any thing of its utmost due for he will by no means acquit the Guilty Indeed we are apt to think that because God so long forbears us he will never calls us to make up and adjust Accounts with him Our present impunity tempts us to question his Omniscience and to suspect his Threatnings and because he winks at us we are ready to conclude that he

of our Selves Man that busies himself in knowing all things else is of nothing more ignorant than of himself the Eye that beholds other things cannot see its own shape and so the Soul of Man whereby he understands other objects is usually ignorant of its own Concernments Now as the Eye that cannot see it self directly may see it self reflexively in a Glass so God hath given us his Scripture which St. James compares to a Glass James 1.23 and holds this before the Soul wherein is represented our true State and Idea There is a four-fold state of Man that we could never have attained to know but by the Scriptures His state of Integrity His state of Apostacy His state of Restitution His state of Glory The Scripture alone can reveal to us what we were in our Primitive Constitution Naturally Holy bearing the Image and Similitude of God and enjoying his Love free from all inward perturbations or outward Miseries having all the Creatures subject to us and what is much more our selves What we were in our state of Apostacy or Destitution despoiled of all our Primitive Excellencies dispossess'd of all the Happiness we enjoy'd and of all hopes of any for the future lyable every Moment to the revenge of Justice and certain once to feel it What we are in our state of Restitution through Grace begotten again to a lively hope Adopted into the Family of Heaven Redeem'd by the Blood of Christ Sanctified and Sealed by the Holy Spirit restored to the Favour and Friendship of God recovering the initials of his Image upon our Souls here on Earth and expecting the perfection of it in Heaven What we shall be in our final State of Glory cloathed with Light Crowned with Stars inebriated with pure spiritual Joys We shall see God as he is know him as we are known by him love him ardently converse with him eternally yea a state it will be so infinitely happy that 't will leave us nothing to hope for This Four-fold state of Man the Scripture doth evidently express Now these are such things as could never have entred into our Hearts to have imagined had not the word of God described them to us and thereby instructed us in the knowledge of our selves as well as of God and Christ Now let us put these six particulars together The Scripture instructs us in the knowledge of such things as are intelligible only by divine Revelation it teacheth us the most sublime and lofty Truths 't is a most inexhaustible Fountain of Knowledge the more we draw the more still springs up it teaches that Knowledge that is necessary to Salvation It is of undoubted certainty and perpetual Truth And Lastly it informs us in the knowledge of our Selves and certainly if there be any thirst in you after Knowledge there needs no more be spoken to perswade you to the diligent study of the Scripture which is a rich Store and Treasury of all Wisdom and Knowledge Thus we have seen how the Scriptures inform the Judgment Let us now briefly see how they reform the Life and what practical influence they have upon the Souls of Men. Now here the word of God hath a mighty Operation and that in sundry particulars First This is that word that convinceth and humbles the stoutest and proudest Sinners There are two sorts of secure Sinners Those who vaunt it in the Confidence of their own Righteousness and those who are secure through an insensibility of their own Wickedness Both these the word when it is set home with Power convinceth humbles and brings to the Dust It despoils the Self-Justitiary of all that false Righteousness he once boasted of and trusted to I was alive once without the Law saith St. Paul but when the Commandment came sin revived and I dyed Rom. 7.9 It awakens and alarms the senseless seared Sinner How many have there been that have scorned God and despised Religion whom yet one curse or threat of this word hath made to tremble and fall down before the convincing Majesty and Authority of it Secondly This is that word that sweetly comforts and raiseth them after their Dejections All other Applications to a wounded Spirit are improper and impertinent 'T is only Scripture Consolation that can ease it The leaves of this Book are like the leaves of that Tree Rev. 22. which were for the healing of the Nations The same Weapon that wounds must here work the cure Thirdly This is that word that works the mighty change upon the heart in Renovation Take a Man that runs on in vile and desperate Courses that sells himself to do Iniquity and commits all manner of Wickedness with Greediness and makes use of all the Arguments that reason can suggest these seldom reclaim any from their Debaucheries Or if in some few they do reform the Life yet they can never change the heart But now that which no other means can effect the Word of God can Psal 19.7 The Law of God is perfect converting the Soul Fourthly This is that word that strengthens and arms the People of God to endure the greatest temporal Evils only in hope of that future reward which it punisheth Fifthly This is that word that contains in it such a Collection of Rules and Duties that whosoever observes and obeys shall in the end infallibly obtain everlasting life Though I can but just mention these Heads unto you yet there is enough in them to perswade you to be diligent in the Scriptures In them saith our Saviour ye think to have Eternal Life We are all of us guilty Malefactors but God hath been pleased to afford us the Mercy of the Book And what shall we not so much as read for our Lives This is that Book according to which we must either stand or fall be acquitted or condemned Eternally The unalterable Sentence of the last day will pass upon us as it is here recorded in this Scripture Here we may before-hand know our Doom and what will become of us to all Eternity He that believeth shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned 'T is said Rev. 20.12 That when the dead stood before God to be Judged the Books were opened That is the Book of Conscience and the Book of the Scripture Be perswaded to open this Book and to judge your selves out of it before the last day 'T is not a sealed Book to you you may there read what your present State is and foretell what your future will be If it be a State of Sin and Wrath search farther there are Directions how you may change this wretched State for a better If it be a State of Grace and Favour there are Rules how to preserve you in it 'T is a word suited to all Persons all Occasions all Exigencies It informs the Ignorant strengthens the Weak comforts the Disconsolate supports the Afflicted relieves the Tempted resolves the Doubtful directs all to those ways which lead to endless Happiness where as the Word of God hath dwelt richly in us so we shall dwell for ever gloriously with God FINIS