thou hast caused the glorie of thy wisedome power and goodness to shine in all thy works even in every creature of the world to convince all the earth that every soule that will not give thee thy glory may bee left utterly without excuse and all the disobedient may have theyr mouthes stopped and be forever confounded before thy Tribunall Above all make all thy people to understand and know that thou hast caused this thy glorie to be more visibly uppon the Churches which thou hast so mightily rescued and delivered from the power of Sathan and Antichrist and whom thou hast taken into so neere a Covenant as to bee thy onely people to whom thou hast committed thy heavenly word and ordinances then it is upon all other people and places of the world besides and that this thou hast done chiefly to this end that wee might set forth thy glory in this by keeping all thy Statutes and observing all thy Lawes Lord cause all to know moreover that to this end thou hast not delivered us set us out of that bondage to serve thee in holiness but hast set before us also life death blessing and cursing and hast bidden us to choose life that we and ours may live and hast assured us heereof and that onely by loving thee the Lord our God by obeying thy voice by cleaving fast unto thee because thou thorow thy Christ art unto us our life and the length of our dayes and whatsoever thou bidst us thou wilt enable us to doe we onely beleeving in thy beloved Sonne and using the holy meanes which thou hast appointed Make us all to this purpose ever to remember how thou hast charged us all that the booke of thy Law thy sacred word should never depart out of our mouthes but that we should meditate in it day and night that wee may all observe and doe according to all that is written in that booke for that then thou wilâ—… make all our wayes in this our journey prosperous no enemy shall bee able to withstand us much lesse to surprize us of a sudden but thou wilt bee with us and thou wilt then give us good success Yea good Lord let this ever be before our faces how to incorageâ—…s better hâ—… 〈◊〉 to thou hast assured us that if wee will thus thinke and meditate of thy Lawes and Commandements day and night to observe do them and honour thee thereby thou wilt honour us herein that wee shall bee a blessed people and like the trees plainted by the rivers of water that we shall bring forth our fruite in due season and that so as our leafe shall not fade but looke whatsoever we do shal prosper How then we shall be wiser then our enemies yea wee shall have more understanding then our teachers and then all the auncient when wee can set our selves thus to honour thee by keeping all thy Commandements like as thou diddest veryfie thy gracious promises in this â—…alfe to thy faithfull servant David to Daniell to those worthyes of the Captivitie whom thou diddest so highly honour for that they so honoured thee as that they would rather chuse to bee cast upon all miseries yea the cruellest death then voluntarily to defile themselves by transgressing but the very least of all thy holy Commandements Make us all therefore that are thiâ—…e rightly to understand that whilest wee thus honour thee in being thus with thee in faith and all holy obedience to these thy blessed Commandements thou wilt likewise honour us in being with us in mercy and truth thy good hand shal bee so sensibly upon us that we shall live by faith in assurance and experience that thou wilt accomplish unto â—…s every one of thy 〈◊〉 promises and that thus persevering in faith and obedience we shal be saved eternally Make us to know for certayne that so long so long onely as we watch and strive heereunto seeking cheerfully to receyue the Law of thy mouth and to lay uppe thy words in our soules we shall be able to lift up our heartes with our hands in undoubted assurance that wee shall be heard in whatsoever shall be best for us and for thy Church Cause us to know and beleeue for certayne that so many of us and so many onely as thus seeke to make keep peace with thy Majesty in turning and submitting ourselves thus wholly to thy Covenant as holy Noah Moses and Abraham did are those whom thou accountest the innocent and to whom thou hast promised that they shall deliver the Iland Lord at length perswade us all that are thine and make every one of us to seeke to perswade all others that unto this intire endeavour of obedience to all thy Commandements both of thy Law and Gospell are all thy promises made and that contrarily against all contempt and despising of the heavenly Commandements yea against every wilful disobedience thogh it be but to one Commandement thy cursings and thâ—…e tâ—…ings are denounced which thou dost dreadfully execute accordingly because men will not thus give thee thy glory Good Lord awaken all the Churches and open the eyes of all thine own people rightly to conceyue understand these things and how Sathan that old Serpent that arch bloody enemy of thy Church knowing all this wel enough hath sought in all the prosperity of thy Churches to cause thine owne people to dishonour thee by making onely a bare outward profession of honouring thee by receyuing and setting up thy heavenly Religion Commandements to obey them in word but trampling them all under foot generally according to the evill customes and manners of the Countries and places where they live that thou mightest leave thy people into his hand into the hands of all his cruell instruments as thou hast most righteously done in so many parts of thy Church already and threatnest all the rest of thy people for the same Oh deere Father how many of thy faithfull servants who have lived in those parts of thy Church which are now left into the enemyes handes do heerein iustifie thy proceedings acknowledging thy righteousness in all that thou hast brought upon them even for this very cause of carnall Gospelling and loose profession Oh tender Father make us all able likewise to iustifie thee in this behalfe and never to rest crying unto thee for them untill thou shalt open their eyes to see and acknowledge thy righteousnes and that they shall unseinedly repent of their most heynous dishonour done to thy sacred Majesty herein in causing thy name heereby to bee blasphemed amongst thine enemyes Yea cause us good Lord by their fearfull ensample even us specially of this sinfull Nation to meet thee speedily by our unfeigned repentance for this dreadfull sinne whereof we are generally no less guilty then any
furie of Satan and Antichrist who have therefore set themselves truly to helpe our Lord Iesus in his members to pacifie his wrath and for the restoring of his captives with the glorie of his Sion Yet have we too just cause to accuse and condemne our selves herein not onely all our Atheists and prophane sort but also the multitude generally that wee suffer our adversaries so farre to condemne the greatest part of us who professe the Gospell that they should labour farre more in their superstitious devotions to increase their sinne and judgement upon them all though this have beene alwayes the nature of superstition than we in our holy and true devotions to increase our owne happinesse and for the saving of us all Notwithstanding that whatsoever deadnesse and want is amongst us in this behalfe it is not through the fault of our Religion which teacheth and enableth us otherwise when it is rightly knowne and practised but it is the want of true knowledge and of a sound and conscionable practice of our Religion Hence it hath beene and is one principall end whereunto I have bent my studies in these poore labours the better to awaken us and to put more life into us to begin more universally and joyntly and also more incessantly to importune the Lord herein being provoked by their ensample That thus we may labour as powerfully and as earnestly with the Lord hereby for the saving of our selves generally and of so many of them with us as belong unto his eternall election as they doe by theirs to destroy both us and themselves together And thus much also for cutting off the third head of this subtill serpent which I trust shall thus fall with the rest And now that this Hydra is so laid in the dust and all his heads taken utterly from him for so poysoning and destroying any more let me once againe come unto the further demonstration of that assumption concerning which that learned Gentleman of whom I made mention in the Epistle Dedicatory professed long agoe that if it could be proved viz. that Popery teacheth lying and murdering for the supporting of it he would utterly renounce his religion and embrace ours For that this doth in like manner and as neerely concerne every Papist in the world as it doth him That they must needs every one either professe with him that if it can be proued they likewise will utterly renounce Popery and embrace the Gospell or that they are of that Religion which is of Sathan and will so remaine whatsoever the Lord shall manifest to the contrary Which point as all may see doth fitly come in to be yet more plainly demonstrated in this place and upon this present occasion The Syllogisme whereby I endevoured to let him see the danger wherein himselfe and all the rest of them who are of that popish Religion doe stand because that Religion so farre as it is differing from ours and properly Popish holding their chiefe grounds must needs bee of the devill was grounded upon the expresse words of our Saviour to the unbeleeving Iewes who therefore sought by lies and all devices to kill him even for the truth which he declared unto them as now they doâ—… us all The words are Iohn 8. 44. Ye are of your father the Devill and the lusts of your father will you doe He hath beene a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth This I framed in the plainest manner that I could for the easier understanding and triall of it as now I doâ—… that every one may be better able to discerne of the truth and weight of it thus That Religion which teacheth lying and murder for the supporting and advancing of it is of the Devill But the Religion of the Iesuited Papist it a Religion which teacheth lying and murder for the supporting and advancing of it Ergo the Religion of the Iesuited Papists is of the Devill First the proposition I shewed to be strong from the expresse words of our Saviour and not possibly to be gainesaied for â—…hat if liers and murderers are of the devill then that Religion which teacheth lying and murdering to support and advance it selfe must needs be so likewise He therefore being pressed with the Assumption denied it onely by distinguishing that howsoever some of them had practised so yet it was not their doctrine and that if it could be proved to be their doctrine he would utterly renounce his Religion and ioyne himselfe againe to us This I undertooke to prove unto him but living some miles distâ—…nt from him and having my calling to follow which I was necessarily to attend the Lord our faithfull and most gratious Father seeing my unfained desire for his reclaiming and salvation undertooke for me the proving of it in such a manner as whereby to give satisfaction for the truth of it to all the world and for ever to stop his mouth and the mouthes of all our adversaries even of every one affected to that Popish Religion and that two waies First this conference of ours and so my promise being but a little before the powder Treason it proved it selfe or rather his heavenly Majestie manifested it by themselves leaving them up to themselves in that very powder Treason wherein there was for the supporting and advancing of their Religion first such a murder intended as the world before that day never heard of And secondly a lie as great as it devised not only to cover that bloudy fact for the present but by it to have destroyed all the rest who had escaped that blow even all truly professing Christs Gospell in all countreys of the earth under the name of Puritans for that they had commited such a fact viz. That the Puritanes had blowen up the Parlament house like as when it was discovered they gave it forth that the Puritans had intended it That which should have beene their owne most detestable act they father vpon the people of the Lord whom they would have butchered by it and blowne up for ever Now this whole act of this devillish and deadly preparation we know was proved to be done by the advice of Father Garnâ—… and other their superiours And therefore it being their doctrine that they are to obey their Superiours and Ghostly Fathers chiefly in all things which concerne the promoting of the Catholike cause and therein to be ever ready to adventure their lives I appeale to the conscience of this Gentleman and the consciences of them and you all whether it bee not their doctrine by necessary consequence 2. His heavenly Majestie goodnesse declared it thus further for me soone after upon the same occasion of the Powder-treason in causing Mr. Doctor Morton a man meet for his learning and knowledge of their workes to proue it against them in his booke called An exact discouerie of Romish doctrine in the case of conspiracie and rebellion written by direction from our Superiours
burdens upon thee at all times and also by our rejoycing alwayes in thee as in our good God that thou takest care for us and by being heereby full of Christian chearfulnes and courage against all the oppositions and feares that ever wee shall or can meeâ—…e with in this our journey towards Canâ—…an as thy worthiest servants have bene wont to be Oh magnifie thy power and goodnesse in shedding out thy love so aboundantly upon all thy Churches and every member thereof and so manifesting it before the world that in the true sense and feeling of it in our hearts and our lively faith in thee wee may all joyntly manifest the fervent love wee returne unto thy Majesty by our unfeigned love of every one of thy blessed CommandemeÌ„ts and our fervent desire to thy statutes to walke in them all without reproofe yea by our ardent affection towards all thy ordinances and servants onely for thy cause Good Lord cause the fervent zeale that wee have towards thy name to appeare before the world in the vehement griefe and indignation that we have for all yâ— dishonors done unto thy heavenly Majesty by trampling under feete thy blessed Commandements thy religion and servants and the injuryes and contumelyes done against any of them and so likewise by our study and holy indeavour by all meanes to promote thy true religion and causes and by our vehement hatred of whatsoever is offensive to thy holinesse that we may set up nothing in our heartes but thy Majesty and those things which thou lovest accounting all other as drosse and dung in regard of thy holinesse yea even life it selfe if it hinder us from injoying or obeying thee Cause thy glory to rest herein upon all the Churches and upon all thy poore afflicted servants that upon the assurance of thy love and that thou art our gracious God we may honour thee in shewing forth all holy patience with all cheerfullnesse even in the middest of all our tryals that howsoever thou maiest seeme to be displeased with us and to frowne upon us yea to favour our enemies in all their proceedings and to give us up into their hands to let them to be lords over us and make us a prey to their teeth yet our eye may bee still at thee at thy love wisedome and faythfulness knowing that whatsoeuer thou doest to us thou doest it but to humble us for our security and for all other our greevous sinnes and to prove us that thou art certainely disposing all to our greatest comfort in the end and thus to prepare our way unto thy heavenly Ierusalem That thus we all may ever possess our soules in patience and waite for the happy issue both of all our owne trialles and of all the trialles of thy Church and people and bee alwayes able to say with holy Iob though thou shouldst kill us or leave us utterly and wholly unto the pleasures and lustes of our enemyes yet we will still trust in thee approoving our wayes in thy sight that heereby we may make it manifest to the faces of all our enemyes that we are certainly assured that nothing can separate us from thy love and that thou canst not forsake faile or forget us whatsoever 〈◊〉 the present thou doe unto us Yeâ—… oh most blessed God cause thy glory yet to shine more clearly uppon all the Churches and upon everyone of us that are thy true servants and children indeed in this behalfe that though the wicked feare thee not but seek to drive all the true feare of thy Majestie even out of our hearts likewise as out of their owne and do therefore hate and persecute us so farre as thou permits them onely because we feare thee and put our truâ—…t in thy mercy yet we may feare thee so much more with a true holy childe-like feare that we may ever and especially now in these evill dayes labour to live alwaies as in thy presence and as in the verie eye of thy all-seeing Majestie Grant good Lord that we may bee able thus to walke with thee constantly until we shall be translated hence and with holy Noah to endevour to be still more righteous in our generation and to be daily building our Arkes to save our selves and Families and all other that we can get into the same from the floud of thy vengeance that is rushing upon al the world of the wicked And albeit the world scorn and deride us dayly for it and though we be the onely talk and hatred of the wicked and as men appointed and designed to death onely for this our feare of thee in the bloody hopes of thine and our proud enemyes yet cause us heerein to honour thee that we may not feare the faces of them while we walke in thy blessed Commandements and do onely as thou requirest of us but that by the might and power of thy heavenly Spirit we may bee more full of all Christian corage as the three worthy Children of the Captivitie as good Daniel and holy Nehemiah And yet more also enable us heerein likewise to honour thee before the world and to shew openly before men and Angels that we have set thee uppe in our hearts to be our God even by walking humbly with thee that thogh the world regard thee not but thou art farre above out of their sight and though they doe band themselves agaynst thee against thy heavenly word and servants yea thogh they scorne al thy judgments and threatnings as the Gyants before the flood and as proud Pharao and Herod did yet we may all walke ever in all humility and lowlinesse of Spirit before thee Make us ever to have before our faces thy glorious excellencie and our own vilenesse thy holinesse and our sinnefulnesse and that not only by the fall of our first Parents and by the whol course of our sinful lives and also the power subtilty and malice of Sathan against us to destroy us each moment without thy speciall preservation mercie but even for the very corruption of our sinfull natures which still dwell in us that bodie of death which would carrie us to destruction yea even to hell it selfe every minute if thou in the riches of thy mercy shouldest not restraine it and shouldest not cover all our sinnes yea keep and uphold us Oh give us hearts that herein wee may all magnifie thy great name in giving unto thee as is thy due all the glory of our standing perseverance in grace and of every good thing that ever we enjoy acknowledging from our soules that they are all the free gifts of thy rich mercy and that we are not worthy any of them nay that we are much lesse then the least of them as thy deerest servants have beene wont to do And good Lord heerein make us specially able to give thee thy glory in being thorowly humbled and in mourning continually for all the heynous sinnes
and withall that as the Popish sort in every place have set up other Gods to anger thee as chiefly their holy Father the Pope whose word and ordinances they reverence above thine rejecting thy word utterly in regard of their Popes decrees and traditions and with him have set up all their Saints and Idols to whom by their invocation of them they give his glory so every one of us who albeit in words wee professe thee our God have yet in our hearts set up other things which wee preferre before thee and on which we spend moe of our thoughts more of our love and care to enjoy them then on thy Majesty even wee likewise have set up so many false Gods in our hearts to provoke thee to the uttermost And finally good Lord make us all able to see by this first commandement of thine how wonderfull few they are so farre as we are able to conceive who by the light of their good workes doe indeed and truth glorifie thee their heavenly Father by shewing forth before men and Angels that they have so set thee up in their 〈◊〉 as their God and those few that doe so indeed are the men principally maligned of all the people of the world even for this cause principally because they shew in their lives that they have thus in their hearts set thee up to bee their God although that they be the onely blessed people having thee their God all other being in a most miserable estate and that they are therefore the onely men in honour and favour with thee and by whom chiefly as by Abraham Noah and Moses thou savesâ—… and preservest all the rest of us Make us Lord to understand and conceive aright hereof and that for this very 〈◊〉 alone whereby we have so generally seâ—… our selves not onely to maligne and dishonour theâ—… but even to fight against thy heavenly Majesty wee may wonder how thou hast spared us of this nation hither to and not left us up as the other Churches untill we shall see and acknowledge what wee hâ—…e done against theâ—… our most gracious and out most blessed God in this behalfe Heare us Oh tender Father â—…nd suffer us never to â—…est untill wee have repented particularly of this our most heynous and crying sinne and that all of us that ever looke to have a strong assurance that we belong to thy eternall â—…lection have thus truly seâ—… theâ—… up in our hearts as our Lord and God That so by our unfeigned repentance thou maiest once againe manifest thy selfe in the deliuerance of all thy Churches and people in a more glorious manner to bee still our God graciously reconciled to vs againe in Iesus Chrst maiest so renew thy Covenant to remaine our God and the God of our posterity through him and for his sake alone for evermore Amen Amen XII A humble confession of the sinnes of the Churches and an acknowledgment of Gods righteous proceeding for our unthank fulnesse and transgression of his Lawes and for that though wee haue heard of all their miseries and knowne our owne dangers yet we haue not beene humbled nor made our supplications as we ought according to the 1. of Nehemiah OH Lord God of heauen and earth who art the great and terrible God proceeding most fearfully in thy dreadfull judgements even against thine owne deare people and children as thou diddest against thy people of Israel for their unthankfuluesse for their despising transgressing thy blessed Lawes and Commandements and yet art withall full of mercy and tender compassion to thy people repenting of their sinnes and truly humbled for their provocations thou who keepest Covenant and mercy for ever for all that truly love thee and who desire unfeignedly to observe all thy Commandements heare us and al thy poore Churches and people in all the earth at this day looking up to thee alone and crying loude unto thee We pray thee Oh tender Father that thine eyes may be open and thine eares may bee attent both to behold the miseries and dangers and to heare the prayers of thy poore servants which wee all joyntly poure out before thee day and night for our brethren thy servants and children which are in such great affliction and doe now uncessantly confesse all our sins and the sinnes of all thy people which we have sinned against thee Both we and our Fathers all of us have grievously provoked thee now this threescore yeares and aboue even since thou first tooke us by the hand to bring us forth of Egypt Babilon and diddst also carry us out as uppon Eagles wings by thy mig hty hand and oâ—…t-stretched arme Oh Lord wee have heard long do dayly heare more and more of the innumerable miseries which thou broughtest uppon our brethren and sisters in the Palatinate it being a principall member even of our owne selves Aud so in Bohemia and the Countries adioyning to it though further remote from vs yet our deare brethren and sisters in Christ Iesus and so likewise in the Churches of France hard at our doores in all the direfull slaughters and butcherly cruelties which thine our merciles enemies haue executed upon them in their bloody rage without any pitty We have also heard and do still daily heare ringing in our eares the miserable state and condition of the residue of them that have escaped the bloody sword some of them induring all kind of violence and calamities of all sorts living in all reproach the wall of their Ierusalem being broken downe the gates there of being burnt with fire all the rest of them living in continuall feare because of the deadly fury and hellish plots against them to destroy them all And yet though wee have long heard do dayly heave of these things and of the rage of thine and our enemies still increased against them all and against our selves have wee not with thy holy servant Nehemiah sit downe wept and mourned for them muchlesse fasted and prayed before thee the God of heaven in their behalfe in any such manner as we ought Oh thou our most holy God and pittyfull Father we humbly confesse and acknowledge that wee have all grievously sinned against thee wee have not kept thy great goodnesse in remembrance which thou shewedst unto us in delivering our fathers and us so wonderfully from Aegypt Babilon by so mighty a hand nor the many great preservations and deliverances which since that time our eares have heard and our eies have seene how thou hast rescued us from their jawes nor yet have we kept in memory how thou tookest us to bee thine owne peculiar people of all the people of the earth made thy Covenant with us to bee our God and that wee should be thy people so that wee would but walke in this thy Covenant But this our Covenant with thy Majesty though all of vs who professe thy Gospell have solemnly