deface Teach us our Lusts to mortify In virtue of thy precious Death That while to sin all-dead we lie Thou maist infuse thy Heav'nly breath To Righteousness our Spirits raise And quick'n us with thy Life and Love That we may walk here to thy Praise And after live in Heav'n above Grant we in Glory may appear Clad with our Resurrection-Vest When thou shalt lead thy Flock most dear Up to the Mansions of the Blest An HYMN Upon CHRIST's Ascension The Historicall Narration GOd is ascended up on high With merry noise of Trumpet 's sound And Princely seated in the Sky Rules over all the World around The Tabernacle did of old His Presence to the Jews restrain But after in our Flesh enfold A larger Empire he did gain For suffering in Humane Flesh For all he rich Redemption wrought And will with lasting Life refresh His Heritage so dearly bought Sing Praises then sing Praises loud Unto our Universal King * Act. 1.9 He who ascended on a Cloud To him all Laud and Praises sing Captivity he captive led Triumphing o're the Powers of Hell And struck their eyes with glory dread Who in the Airy Regions dwell In Humane Flesh and Shape he went Adorned with his Passion-Scars Which in Heav'n's sight he did present More glorious then the glittering Stars O happy Pledge of Pardon sure The Application to the Emprovement of Life And of an endless blissful State Since Humane Nature once made pure For Heav'n becomes so fit a Mate Lord raise our sinking Minds therefore Up to our proper Country dear And purifie us evermore To fit us for those Regions clear Let our Converse be still above Where Christ at thy right hand doth sit And quench in us all worldly Love That with thy self our Souls may knit Make us all Earthly things despise And freely part with this World 's good That we may win that Heav'nly prize Which Christ has purchas'd with his Bloud That when He shall return again In * Act. 1.11 Clouds of Glory as he went Our Souls no foulness may retain But be found pure and innocent And so may mount to his bright Hosts On Eagle's wings up to the Sky And be conducted to the Coasts Of everlasting Bliss and Ioy. An HYMN Upon the Descent of the Holy Ghost at the day of Pentecost The Narration WHen Christ his Body up had born To Heav'n from his Disciples sight Then they like Orphans all forlorn Spent their sad days in mournfull plight But he ascended up on high More Sacred Gifts for to receive And freely showr them from the Sky On those which he behind did leave He for the Presence of his Flesh To them the Holy Spirit imparts And doth with living Springs refresh Their thirsty Souls and fainting Hearts While with one minde and in one place Devoutly they themselves retire In rushing Wind the promis'd Grace Descends and cloven Tongues of Fire The house th' Amighty's Spirit fills Which doth the feeble Fabrick shake But on their Tongue such power instills Acts 2. That makes th' amazed Hearer quake The Spirit of holy Zeal and Love The Application And of Discerning give us Lord The Spirit of Power from above Of Unity and good Accord The Spirit of convincing Speech Such as will every Conscience smite Act. 2.37 And to the Heart of each man reach And Sin and Errour put to flight The Spirit of refining Fire Searching the inmost of the mind To purge all foul and fell desire And kindle Life more pure and kinde The Spirit of Faith in this thy Day Of Power against the force of Sin That through this Faith we ever may Against our Lusts the Conquests win Pour down thy Spirit of inward Life Which in our Hearts thy Laws may write That without any pain or strife We naturally may doe what 's right On all the Earth thy Spirit pour In Righteousness it to renew That Satan's Kingdome 't may o'repow'r And to Christ's Sceptre all subdue Like mighty Winde or Torrent fierce Let it Withstanders all o'rerun And every wicked Law reverse That Faith and Love may make all one Let Peace and Ioy in each place spring And Righteousness the Spirit 's fruits With Meekness Friendship and each thing That with the Christian spirit suits Grant this O holy God and true Who th' ancient Prophets didst inspire Haste to perform thy Promise due As all thy Servants thee desire An HYMN Upon the Creation of the World WHen God the first Foundations laid The Narration Of the well-framed Universe And through the darksome Chaos ray'd The Angels did his Praise rehearse The Sons of God then sweetly sung Job 38.7 At first appearance of his Light When the Creation-Morning sprung To deck the World with Beauty bright Within six Days he finish'd all What-ere Heav'n Earth or Sea contain And sanctify'd the Seventh withall To celebrate his Holy Name Then with the Sons of God let 's sing Our bountifull Creatour's Praise Who out of nothing all did bring And by his Word the World did raise O Holy God how wonderfull Art thou in all thy Works of might Astonishing our Senses dull With what thou daily bringst in sight The fit returns of Night and Day The gratefull Seasons of the Year Which constantly man's pains repay With wholesome fruit his Heart to chear The shape and number of the Stars The Moon 's set course thou dost define And Matter 's wilde distracting Iars Composest by thy Word Divine The Parts of th' Earth thou holdest close Together by this sweet Constraint Thou round'st the Drops that do disclose The Rain-bow in his glorious Paint Thy Clouds drop fatness on the Earth Thou mak'st the Grass and Flow'rs to spring Thou cloath'st the Woods wherein with mirth The chearfull Birds do sit and sing Thou fill'st the Fields with Beasts and Sheep Thy Rivers run along the Plains With scaly Fish thou stor'st the Deep Thy Bounty all the World maintains The Application All these and all things else th' hast made Subject to Man by thy Decree That thou by Man might'st be obey'd As duely subject unto thee Wherefore O Lord in us create Clean hearts and a right spirit renew That we regaining that just state May ever pay thee what is due That as we wholly from thee are Both Gifts of Minde and Bodie 's frame So by them both we may declare The Glory of thy Holy Name An HYMN Upon the Redemption of the World through CHRIST in his Re-introduction of the New Creature THe Lord both Heav'n Earth hath made The Narration His Word did all things frame And Laws to every Creature gave Who still observe the same The faithfull Sun doth still return The Seasons of the Year And at just times the various Moon Now round now horn'd appears The Plants retain their Virtue still Their Verdure and their Form Nor do the Birds or Beasts their guize Once change or shape transform 'T is
the truest Grounds of the Certainty of Faith This is the common Protestant Doctrine and a great and undeniable Truth and will amount to the greatest Certainty desirable if the Spirit of Life and of God assist For that will seal all firm and close and shut out all Doubts and Waverings In the mean time even in mere Moral men but yet such as use their Sense and Reason rightly-circumstantiated in their Dijudications touching the truth of Holy Writ and Religion it is plain they are upon the truest Grounds of Faith they can goe or apply themselves to forasmuch as the Holy Writ is the truest and most certain Tradition and no Tradition to be discerned true but upon the Certainty of rightly-circumstantiated Sense and Reason as appears by the first Conclusion These Advertisements though something numerous are yet brief enough but very effectual I hope if strictly followed to make thee so wise as neither to impose upon thy self nor be imposed upon by others in matters of Religion and so Orthodox as to become neither Enthusiast nor Romanist but a true Catholick and Primitive Apostolick Christian THE END DIVINE HYMNS DIVINE HYMNS An HYMN Upon the Nativity of CHRIST THe Holy Son of God most High The Historicall Narration For love of Adam's lapsed Race Quit the sweet Pleasures of the Sky To bring us to that happy Place His Robes of Light he laid aside Which did his Majesty adorn And the frail state of Mortals tri'de In Humane Flesh and Figure born Down from above this Day-Star slid Himself in living Earth t' entomb And all his Heav'nly Glory hid In a pure lowly Virgin 's Womb. Whole Quires of Angels loudly sing The Mystery of his Sacred Birth And the blest News to Shepherds bring Filling their watchfull Souls with Mirth The Application to the Emprovement of Life The Son of God thus Man became That Men the sons of God might be And by their second Birth regain A likeness to His Deity Lord give us humble and pure mindes And fill us with thy Heav'nly Love That Christ thus in our Hearts enshrin'd We all may be born from above And being thus Regenerate Into a Life and Sense Divine We all Ungodliness may hate And to thy living Word encline That nourish'd by that Heav'nly Food To manly Stature we may grow And stedfastly pursue what 's good That all our high Descent may know Grant we thy Seed may never yield Our Souls to soil with any Blot But still stand Conquerours in the field To shew his Power who us begot That after this our Warfare's done And travails of a toilsome Stage We may in Heav'n with Christ thy Son Enjoy our promis'd Heritage Amen An HYMN Upon the Passion of CHRIST THe faithfull Shepherd from on high The Historicall Narration Came down to seek his strayed Sheep Which in this Earthly Dale did lie Of Grief and Death the Region deep Those Glories and those Ioys above 'T was much to quit for Sinners sake But yet behold far greater Love Such pains and toils to undertake An abject Life which all despise The Lord of Glory underwent And with the Wicked's worldly guize His righteous Soul for grief was rent His Innocence Contempt attends His Wisedome and his Wonders great Envy on these her poison spends And Pharisaick Rage their Threats At last their Malice boil'd so high As Witnesses false to suborn The Lord of Life to cause to die His Body first with Scourges torn With royal Robes in scorn th' him dight And with a wreath of Thorns him crown A Scepter-Reed in farther spight They adde unto his Purple Gown Then scoffingly they bend the knee And spit upon his Sacred Face And after hang him on a Tree Betwixt two Thieves for more Disgrace With Nails they pierc'd his Hands and Feet The Bloud thence trickled to the ground The Pangs of Death his Countenance sweet And lovely Eyes with Night confound Thus laden with our weight of Sin This spotless Lamb himself bemoans And while for us he Life doth win Quits his own Breath with deep-fetch'd Groans Affrighted Nature shrinketh back To see so direfull dismall sight The Earth doth quake the Mountains crack Th' abashed Sun withdraws his Light The Application to the Emprovement of Life Then can we Men so senseless be As not to melt in flowing Tears Who cause were of his Agonie Who suffer'd thus to cease our Fears To reconcile us to our God By this his precious Sacrifice And shield us from his wrathfull Rod Wherewith he Sinners doth chastise O wicked Sin to be abhorr'd That God's own Son thus forc'd to die O Love profound to be ador'd That found so potent Remedie O Love more strong then Pain and Death To be repaid by nought but Love Whereby we vow our Life and Breath Entire to serve our God above For who for shame durst now complain Of dolorous dying unto Sin While he recounts the hideous Pain His Saviour felt our Souls to win Or who can harbour Anger fell Envy revengefull Spight or Hate If he but once consider well Our Saviour lov'd at such a rate Wherefore Lord since thy Son most just His natural Life for us did spill Grant we our sinful Lives and Lusts May sacrifice unto his Will That to our selves we being dead Henceforth to him may wholly live Who us to free from Dangers dread Himself a Sacrifice did give Grant that the sense of so great Love Our Souls to him may firmly tie And forcibly us all may move To live in mutuall Amity That no pretence to Hate or Strife May rise from any Injurie Since thy dear Son the Lord of Life For love of us when Foes did die An HYMN Upon the Resurrection of CHRIST The Historicall Narration WHo 's this we see from Edom come With bloudy robes from Bosrah Town He whom false Jews to death did doom And Heav'n's fierce Anger had cast down His righteous Soul alone was fain Isa. 63.3 The Wine-press of God's Wrath to tread And all his Garments to distain And sprinkled Cloaths to die bloud-red 'Gainst Hell and Death he stoutly fought Who Captive held him for three days But straight he his own Freedome wrought And from the dead himself did raise The brazen Gates of Death he brake Triumphing over Sin and Hell And made th' Infernall Kingdomes quake With all that in those Shades do dwell His murthered Body he resum'd Maugre the Grave's close grasp and strife And all these Regions thence perfum'd With the sweet hopes of lasting Life O mighty Son of God most High The Application to the Emprovement of Life That conqueredst thus Hell Death and Sin Give us a glorious Victory Over our deadly Sins to win Go on and * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. Iud. Flesh and bloud in the moral sense Edom still subdue And quite cut off his wicked Race And raise in us thine Image true Which sinfull * The old Adam Rom. 6.6 Edom doth
for the inferring the above-mentioned Opinion And what hurt is it O Cuphophron that God is conceived effectually to predestinate some men to Grace and Glory and so is proclaimed to be more good and gracious then the Arminians themselves would have him who put it to an adventure whether any man shall be saved or no Cuph. There were no great hurt in this I confess Bathynous but Reprobation or Predestination to eternall death that is the great reproch to the Reformed Religion Bath Though some private men are very express in that Point yet the publick Confessions of the Protestants are more modest and tender in that Article and onely are for a Preterition of persons no designment of them to sin and damnation which I promise you Cuphophron he that with an impartial eye looks upon the Phaenomena of Providence can hardly deny to be found verified in the effect Besides what the Scriptures themselves intimate Psal. 58.3 The wicked are estranged from the womb they go astray so soon as they be born These are great and profound Secrets and such as very good men may easily lose themselves in and therefore Mistakes in such Points may well be competible even to the members of the true Kingdome of God And that they took away Free-will so universally Divine Providence might permit them to slip into that Errour making use thereof as of another crooked Engine against the frauds and falsenesses of that crooked Serpent of Rome I mean the Pope and his Hierarchy For they being for Free-will and Good works more out of a design of merchandizing and inriching the Church with large Incomes of money for Pardons and Indulgences for Deliverances out of Purgatory for certain Sales and Contracts for Heaven and ensured shares and portions of the Elysian fields the founding Salvation upon God's eternall Decree and the declaring that we have no power of our selves to doe any thing for the obtaining eternall life this quite spoil'd the market of these crafty Merchants and over-turned the tables of these Money-changers For the way to Salvation was now discovered not to be those manifold formal postures which the Roman Tutours put their Novices into nor hard Penances nor commutation of Penances the main scope of the Discipline of that Church into pecuniary Mulcts for the amassing and heaping together an immense treasure of money but every one was admonished with sad and solemn preparation to frequent the Divine Ordinance the powerful preaching of the Gospel to be instructed in the stupendious Arcana of God's free Election and eternall Decrees and not to reckon upon the Certainty of Salvation from obedience to the devised Institutes of the Church which drove mainly at the dominion of the Priest and the sucking of the purses of the people but to make their Calling and Election sure that is to say to discover the certainty thereof by the inward fruits of the Spirit by Faith especially whereby they firmly believed that they were of the number of God's Elect and from thence by Love also to God and to their neighbour all which they conceived wrought in them not for any thing that they could doe or had done by way of Merit but merely by the free Spirit of Grace effectually operating in their hearts And I pray you Cuphophron how much did this state of things misbecome the Kingdome of God especially considering that whatever the Errour was it was in a Point so intricate as has puzzled the greatest wits of all Ages and was so seasonable that it tended highly to the overthrow of the Kingdome of Antichrist and was so harmless to the believers of it that while they disclaimed all Free-will or ability of doing any thing themselves yet were they seen carried on in all holy Duties of Devotion and Sobriety of life while the other Party that boasted so of their Free-will might be observed wallowing in all Worldliness and Sensuality and with their Free-will freely and merrily descending down together into the pit of Destruction Cuph. I think there is a kinde of Magick or Witchcraft in conversing with melancholick men Bathynous his speech has so fettered and confounded my spirit that I am half asham'd of this Allegation which I thought at first so dismall and formidable Reformed Christendome will be the Kingdome of God I think whether I will or no. Philop. I hope so Cuphophron Cuph. But are no other Christian Churches besides the Reformation the Kingdome of God Philop. Whether there be or there be not other Christian Churches that are part of God's Kingdome it nothing infringes the truth of the Reformation's being so But from the intimations of Philotheus I dare pronounce that no Christian Church that is in bondage under another Sovereignty or does not emerge into power upon the destruction or humbling of the little Horn that is the Papal Hierarchy can be that Kingdome Daniel points at or the Inchoation of the Fifth Monarchy Cuph. XIX The Charge of that horrid sin of Rebellion Of this I am not so solicitous O Philopolis but I anxiously desire an answer to the last Objection I intended touching the Rise of this pretended Kingdome of God For the adverse Party confidently give out that its first Birth was from Rebellion which is worse then the sin of Witchcraft Sophr. It is an ill Omen against your Objection O Cuphophron that your Scripture-quotation is so ridiculously impertinent For in Samuel where it is said that Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft 1 Sam. 15.23 it is spoken of the Rebellion of Saul against the Lord not of the people against Saul Cuph. But I mean the Rebellion of the people against Saul or the Secular Magistrate which is next to Rebellion against God whose Vicegerent he is Sophr. That assertion is very true Cuphophron but the Imputation of our Adversaries extremely false Bath Most assuredly O Sophron And that Character amongst the rest that belong to them which styles them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Liars I conceive is not to be restrain'd to their Legends and such like Forgeries but is to take in also their abominable Calumnies against the true Church of God For they are a generation of Vipers that make up the Resemblance of the old Serpent under Paganism in every stroke thereof And the Dragon was cast out Rev. 12.9 10. that old Serpent called the Devil and Satan which deceiveth the whole world And I heard a loud voice saying in Heaven Now is come Salvation and strength and the Kingdome of our God and the Power of his Christ for the Accuser of our brethren is cast down which accused them before our God day and night Wherein the impudence of religious Liars is set out as spreading Lies and Calumnies even before the face of Heaven and the presence of God And it is a note that our Saviour also of old has set upon Satan John 8.44 that the Devil is a Liar and the father of all Lies and Calumnies Euist. And that