Lord and therefore let us stand upright and not flectere ad ima as bowed down behold the things of this carnal and perishing world lest we be accounted unfit to approach unto or enter in the Kingdom of God Exoneremus ergo let us therefore cleanse our hearts from the contagion of unclean cogitations and fit our selves for a daily offering up unto Christ prayer and praise as Priests separated by the Spirit for that good work and office and particularly to offer bread I mean the remembrance of the whole Tribes the whole earth for their good It was Sauls question whether the promise or hopes of fields or vineyards made his Guards not inform him of Davids supposed conspiracy and consederacy with Ionathan and truly the largeness excellency the Vineyards and fields the riches and the glory of the Kingdoms of grace and providence ought to provoke us to be earnest for the advancement of the Kingdom of God the protection we have from Angels the heat we receive from the Sun the light we have from the Heavens the prospect we have from the Hills the Flowers we behold from the Valleys the Commodities we have from the Sea the comforts we draw from the Beasts the spiritual consolations we receive from the Gospel shew the advantages we have by his Government and therefore ought to endeavour the removing and fight for the departing of Saul's the sense is easie and the coming of David's Kingdom in pressing for the enlargement of the Kingdom of grace under our Lord Jesus Christ. For though in the Kingdom of his providence we possess such a lot or portion as his wisdom or power giveth and judgeth convenient for us yet remembring that these things we enjoy common with the Swine in the field and the Raven of the air the Fort-royal of our affections are not to be possessed much less commanded by the desire of enlarging temporalities being given but as apt means to uphold our otherwise frail Tabernacle but collecting all our strength animat our zeal for a studious striving for and earnest thirsting after the beautifying confirming enlarging and adorning of our inward man by grace against the approaching of the Kingdom of glory This Age hath many who slight this Prayer in their practice as well as neglect it in their religious exercise they desire the coming of his Kingdom limiting their thoughts to that of Providence desiring the hastning and advancement of those good things they desire to possess yet not contented with their portion by stealing cheating robbing they snatch it impudently out of his hands being impatient that he brings it not unto them and grumbleth that he makes not speed whereas Thy Kingdom come implyes modesty and our waiting upon Gods leasure Let pilfring sinners therefore know that not a snatching but a mannerly receiving is contained in this Petition Hasten not therefore to be rich Eye his Kingdom of Grace we have those so pure in their own eyes so holy in their own conceits that they behold no urgent cause for its more evident appearing Let such know that not sufficiency but a daily exuberancy is contained in this Petition Say not therefore I have enough It is obvious that many concludes the coming of this Kingdom to consist in such tenets or opinions they have imbibed from the Rabbies of some saction to them beloved Let such know that not the following of mens opinions but the knowledge and owning of Gods heavenly dominion is contained in this Petition the great Officers therein under himself being Magistrats and Ministers c. both which are prayed for in Thy Kingdom come Thy Kingdom come THe Kingdoms of Grace and Glory as they are united in this Petition are now to be explicated and first of Grace whereby Christ reigns in the soul which by having the Gospel is nigh unto us and next that of Glory prepared for us before the foundation of the world yet these are not so much two as one differing only as the light conveyed by the window differs from that immediatly flowing from the Sun In the Kingdom of Grace Christ is compared to a Roe standing behind the wall looking forth at the window shewing himself through the lattess the wall is our flesh the window is his Law the lattess is his Prophets but in the Kingdom of Glory the wall is pellucide the window and lattess both removed and the immediat beams i. e. glory of the Father by the Saints viewed and respected By Grace here he hath Servants Kings and Teachers in his Temple and Throne but there in glory there is no teaching because no ignorance no King because no offence and Kingdom implying government and that under a King Christ is King and Head of his Church and God the Father as Jesus is man is the head of Christ Hence we pray Our Father which art in Heaven Thy Kingdom come In which Petition there is something we pray against and something we pray for the latter is for the Churches and our guidance into the Holy of Holies the former is for subjugating Gods and our enemies and all pernicious lusts obstructing our glory to come We pray against the dominion of sin the darkness of nature the prevalency of Satan and the delay of the Saints reward 1. The dominion of sin that its head which is as a Serpents may be bruised and its reign which is tyrannical may be ended all lust being base and ignoble and ineffably cruel domineering more over the soul and making it suffer more from it quam corpus c. then the body doth from diseases for it reigns and brings into eternal death at last fascinating in the mean time and bewitching mens hearts so that but few are sensible of that danger which these Ammonites will bring upon them if longer tolerated and those few again have their souls so entangled that though they have no love to embrace yet they want power to extricate themselves out of sins snare or force to drive it from exercising dominion over them Therefore calls for help against that strong man that by the power of grace and strength of faith and ardency of zeal all from the Spirit of God he may be bound as a rebel against heaven and an usurper over man in forcing obedience to his lusts and rigidly exacting what was never his due viz. love and subjection Thy Kingdom come as it eyes the Church imports that it might be manifest among men and that it might be known to the ignorant but eying Grace it respects the extinguishing of all vice by the power of God that neither devil nor world nor carnal lust nor any sin might have dominion over us but God alone For if we study good works and shine in vertue lust and iniquity shall never overcome us nor the power of hell suppress us restat ergo we ought therefore as in all
pardon but Gedd replyed Dico tibi I shew thee because thou refrainest not from the house of that prosane wretch thou shalt for thy punishment die in it which fell out accordingly the Earl and others treacherously killing the King at a solemn treat Pyrrhus Sons demanding to which of them he would leave his Kingdom Answered To him who had the sharpest sword Let the swords either of Gideon or of God be viewed Gods is the sharpest and therefore to be most â—eared of all who believes the coming of that Judge who commands his Anointed not to be touched By Baptism the Professor takes pay from Jesus as the Captain of his salvation and by scandalous behaviour he as it were runs from his Colours and by censure is he brought back and placed again in his rank that men beholding may fear and say that God is in her viz. the Church of a truth As Lycon the Philosopher had Ambitio pudor shame and honour to goad his Schollars forward in the practice of vertue so the Church hath honour and a Rod to excite to good behaviour restraining the vicious and encourageing the vertuous 4. By finishing and perfecting the just number of the Elect. Scripture sheweth that the Kingdom of glory shall not come untill the number of these appointed for Salvation be compleated not to speak of that great mystery of the Jews blindnesse untill the fulnesse of the Gentiles be brought in the Elect whether Jew or Gentile are gathered 1. At their natural dissolution 2. At Christs publick manifestation 1. At the Saints natural dissolution Every soul here uncased and divested of the body is a stone added for the perfecting of that house which is above and when the Quarry of eternal appointment hath been hewed out by the Gospel and fitted by death the roof is laid on and the work is finished for time shall be no more and Graces government over the soul is perfected then in glory If that Prayer be a reall History which is recorded for Ieroms and in his works which he made a little before his death for hastning of his glory how pithy is it but the Conclusion much more comfortable there appearing on a sudden after his communicating so beautiful and glorious a light in his Chamber that the sick could hardly be seen and a voice heard saying Come my beloved the time is now wherein thou art to receive a reward for these labours which manfully thou hast undergone for me to which he replyed Behold I come Lord Iesus unto thee receive my soul which thou hast redeemed with thy blood which words though thus uttered by him are still expressed as oft as we say Thy Kingdom come Not that death is to be simply called for or out of impatience as did Iob or Ionah but as Moses desired a sight of God but could not perfectly get it untill he went up to die so we are to understand that Pauls Cupio dissolvi his desire to depart upon saving knowledge is the most speciall comfortable text to a man in his departing said a reverend Prelat in his own Funeral for know we not that every day we breath here we lose one days sight of heavens beauty which we may justly pray to see not to alter Gods purpose but to manifest our longing desire 2. At Christs publick manifestation At Jesus his coming in the Clouds with the train of his holy Angels who are to gather his elect from the four winds from one end of Heaven to the other the dead in Christ rising first then those that are alive caught no all allarmed by a mighty shout with the voice of the Archangel and Trump of God shall the accomplishment of the full â—â—lly or number of the elect be finished At which time the Saints of their prayers of this prayer shall say consummatum est it is come the Kingdom is come the King of glory comes Arise let us go hence and enter into our Masters joy for the Kingdom is come c. But alas how unprepared are we for its coming for the dead consciences scandalous lives malitious complotters the medlers or busie-bodies about other mens matters the hatred and envy that appears in the actions of too many professing Christianity may cause remembrance of that old complaint sine Martyrio persequeris thou persecutes without blood-shed and thou kills under the mask of Religion and thou destroyes the saith of Christ by speaking of him c. This Kingdom hath come before day as upon Iacob and Iohn the Baptist before they were born and at the dawning of the day as upon Samuel and Timothy at noon-tide of the day as on Paul and Elisha and sometimes at the setting of the Sun as upon the converted thief but as it were dark night with us we sleep and fatten in our sins neither fearing nor desiring our Lords coming and though it be come to our Iudah this part of the world yet as the Gergesens we seek by our carefulness its removeal from us Be intreated therefore to throw away our old sins while we have time wash away our spots unravel the knots of our lives study purity that the King may have pleasure in our beauty and let us be the more earnest that the coming of our Lord is nigh He stood before the doors in St. Iames his time we have reason now to apprehend he is is half over the threshold In thy Kingdom come we shew eagerness to be under his dominion subject to his power censured by his Gospel yet by our carnal divisions we evince our aversness unto all and certainly by Amen we confirm our hearts in their rebellion against his Supremacy refusing to be under him for though both Devils and sinners be under the Dominion of God yet because they will not obey they are not said to be in his Kingdom We also bewail in it our straitnesse This world is a prison at best but an Inn wherein the beautifulest Chamber even a Kings presence is so incumbred we may say of it as Seleucus of his Crown that if people knew the vexations under it they would not deign to list it from the ground yet our deeds make apparent that this world is our rest and our choice not the Kingdom of our God having no respect to its government evident in the loosness of our lives and scandalousness of our divisions O God thou hast hardened our hearts against thy fear turn thy self to us again bless our provision satisfie thy poor with bread and cloath thy Priests with righteousnesse that thy Saints may shout for joy expecting the new Ierusalem coming down from God out of Heaven prepared as a Bride adorned for her Husband Thy Kingdom come THere are three graces mainly to be exercised in our petitioning viz. Charity Humility Fervency the first is found in each Line Word
Syllable of this Prayer yea the very Preface of it Our Father is cloathed with Charity the second is equally conspicuous acknowledging our poverty in the fourth Petition our iniquity in the fifth our infirmity in the sixth c. We shall in the close of this Petition speak of the third and discover the zeal that ought to possesse the heart of the supplicant affixing this unto Thy Kingdom come yet ought it to be understood as appended unto Thy will be done Too much remissnesse and again over eager earnestnesse being equally offensive we shall discover the zeal we speak of the Arguments for it and Cautions concerning it Zeal being a hot impetus or warm affection heating the soul for practising duties governed by sound knowledge and right reason is included in the word Kingdom amplified by the Pronoun Thy and therefore vehement in our wishings and longings for its coming the very word Zeal denotes affections to be as fire that of the Pharisees earnestnesse to compass Sea and Land for a Prosylite was great no good zeal but if pitched upon the right object and mannaged with due circumstances as the love of God heeding the Word of God enflamed with a solicitous care for its advancement and attended with an innocent and holy hatred against its opposers as in David it is both good and great and in Paul it is both great and good It is composed of Love Fear and Anger in this Petition the love of God and the love of man the fear of his own weaknesse and the desire of the down-fall of Satans Dominion is clearly to be beheld It eyes chiefly the propagation of divine glory the Churches edification Satans destruction and the extirpation of all wicked Hereticks and sinners and ought to be in us not only at our prayers but in the whole course and practice of our lives being in every thing a zeal for Gods glory and our own and our Brothers good ought to be in us God hating dulnesse upon the one hand as well as rashnesse on the other Much of this Kingdom S. Paul possessed yet he reached forward unto those things that were before knowing only this that he made proficiency daily the world not yet being ended he pressed forward possessing the things he believed if not in re yet in spe not having them in possession though in reversion he endeavoured an intuition hating that Diagor an-like spirit now in man who declared he knew not whether there was a God or not and if there were was also ignorant of what nature he was With us dulnesse and carelessenesse of many in the affairs of God publisheth their uncertainty of the being and next of the quality of this Kingdom whereas he is only zealous who truly and soundly that is assuredly is acquainted with heavenly matters which in relation to this Kingdom every soul ought to be because of Safety Beauty Charity and our Dignity 1. Our safety for in his Kingdom there is no enemy Here every bramble-lust puts in for dominion over us excited thereunto by the old serpent whereby the spirits of the meek themselves are kept in a perpetual commotion to be liberat from which body of death and freed from that Law of sin consequences of the coming of this Kingdom the devout soul hath active considerations for its fruition and enjoyment Themistocles concluded that the knowledge of having a good neighbour might enhance the price of his house set to sale and the Countrey-fellow hath a Proverb we can live without our Friend but not without our Neighbour What a Countrey must that be where all are good Neighbours and not one evil among them Here we are not to trust in a Brother nor to put confidence in a Guide being sure either of guilt fear or danger every Adam having his Evah and she her serpent yea Iesus himself is not without a Herod who seeks his life But in that other Kingdom we have Christ that true Friend and Brother reigning over us the Forts of Satan our foe being battered and the dominion of Death our terrour being finished and the plotted-for place of Hell our torment being eternally secured from As Labienus at a treaty betwixt Cesar and Pompey cryed out so may the believer say of peace in this world Let us leave off speaking of peace or thinking of a truce untill we have Cesars head that is Satans head bruised and untill his dominion be overthrown 2. Our Stature is in his Kingdom that is our beauty What Zacheus among us by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature The Ark was a Cubit and half high shadowing that imperfection and â—railty attends our gifts and graces and as Children when we want who among us can do more then cry It is true that Noah was perfect but it was in his generation but in the Kingdom of God we shall be perfect men according to the stature of the fulnses of Christ. A Moralist required youth to have Temperance in the soul Silence upon their tongue and Modesty upon their face yet over and above a parent would have his Child have stature and shall we be zealous for Childrens comeliness and tepid in seeking our own perfection which can never be acquired but at the coming of this Kingdom and being with Enoch Candidats for Heaven and Students of Eternity ought we not to affect being Doctorat and set in the Chairs of everlasting bliss It was a shame for the Corinthians that after so much teaching as Paul gave them they remained still babes and not able to bear strong meat It is a note of our childishnesse in the affairs of God yea and somewhat worse that we do not in a holy emulation of the glorified Saints give all diligence if it be possible to attain the resurrection of the dead that is as perfect now as the glorified Saints are in Heaven and denotes causa excitandi studii nostri how we should be stirred up to aim at the same degree of perfection 3. Our Brethren are all in his Kingdom where is our charity Above us are all our Fathers Sons and about us are Adam's posterity the former edgeth our desire to be with them the latter fills us with fear and care for them that they also may be happy the first hath from our Father of the hidden Manna the new wine we have a portion of his bread i. e. the good Word of God but having brethren who hath not heard of the last and hath no prescience of the first and worshipping ignorantly an unknown God brings upon their souls swift destruction we are to have their names upon our heart when we stand before the Lord that unto them also might be given Repentance unto life The legal Priest who was of the sons of Aaron was to have fire alwayes burning upon the Altar before the Lord so the Evangelical also who
with the blood tears and sighs of the widows orphans wherewith the other delicats receive a hough-gough he shall rejoyce in his penury and say of their plenty let me not eat of their dainties The Lacedemonians regarded not wealth pleasure delicates nor abundance but made it their care to have strong sound bodies which Portion is evidently seen to be entailed to that Family where scantnesse is at board and the reason is known to the Scripturist the Lord preserving the stranger he relieving the father lesse and widow though not so well to the heathen who yet knew but I know not what way that goodnesse and poverty were sisters I have seen the Scelet of a famous Queen and really it appeared not so lovely as the bones and sculls in ordinary Charnel-houses on such as adorn the Frontispiece of common Graves so that even of bones we might answer with him who being asked why the poor had generally more thriving children then the rich answered The rich was at their own keeping the poor at Gods that is trusts more to it riches oft causing forgetfulnesse of God Hence one speaking of them whose prayers God principally heareth mentioneth the Penitent the faithful the afflicted but maketh the prayer of the poor to begin his roll Demonax the Philosopher never travelled with Coyn but when hungry step'd in at the first open door and got supply yet dying in his hundred year was honourably buried upon the publick charge And if this be thought stale or antick let the Water Poet be reflected upon who travelled from London to Edinburgh and from that to many places and from that to London again entertaind with the best drank of the best and eat most times of the best yet never spent penny borrowed never penny and begged never a penny and chearfully wrot his travels for his own mirth the Readers wonder and this Kingdoms fame and particularly this Cities honour neither dare I exclude Gods glory the Poet having religious aâ—imad versions We never read that either Christ of his Apostles begged yet they had no lands our Saviour made no Testament yet got both a Tomb and a Winding-sheet Remember poor man that seven loaves did seed many thousands bread multiplying bread either upon the table the Apostles hands or in the eaters mouth Pray for a blessing thy piece of bâ—ead thy quarter loaf may be commanded to 〈◊〉 in thy mouth thy stomack and in thy bowels for strengthening of thy body a higher degree then they who have their coâ—â—â—y â—iands their flately chynes yea if thou want it say My â—on God will provide us one and depend It was a strange yet true prodigy and wonder of love that in a great death in England Anno Dom 1555. there grew about Orford in Suffolk upon hard and solid Rocks where grasse or earth was never seen to grow without tillage or sowing a rich crop of Pease and there was in August gathered above one hundred quarters saith my Author that is two hundred bolls and in blossoming remained as many more growing immediately still from the hard Rock Meditate upon this in the night season and consider the widows oly enlarged untill her debt was payed and Hagars empty bottle was at last filled for the keeping alive her Son Once more observe Conveniency of food ought to be all our prayer our daily bread nec amplius vult he will have us to ask that but no more such as follow us to abate the edge of hunger in our travelling through this vale of Bacha and the sufficiency not to be required for it self but propter salutem corporis for the health of the body which possessing in praying for daily bread the continuance of it is desired but if it be wanting the obtaining of it is sued for in Give us this day our daily bread It is well said of an holy man that semper Dives est Christiana paupert as the poor Christian hath greater and larger possessions then the rich having more good things about him having God and in him a sufficiency yea an overflowing of all delectable things for if a Cup of cold water be rewarded and the widows mite be praised there shall be always some to shew mercy to such who have been merciful to others From all which we inferr this threesold duty 1. Look backward upon your life and praise him Noah builded an Altar after his deliverance from the stood and David composed a Psalm alter victory we have out-lived the sword the pestilence and famine and shall there be no song of triumph have we purchased our daily bread by a da nobis our prayers and shall there be no tuum est Regnum no Hosannah to our Father which art in Heaven for praise 2. Look forward supposing life and depend upon him Should the poorest of us all cast up our yearly expences they would amount to a pretty sum He is hearty at fourscore years and it may be never had so many farthings free together if his bounty hath flowed untill now trust his beneficence and distrust not though thy strength fail Let the worst be suggested and blessed are the religious poor for they only possesse their souls under arrest or confiscation in the keeping of which they cannot want their bread an omnipotent and invisible arm affording out of an immense Treasury sufficient to keep his servants soul alive Young Cyrus at a richly furnished Table begged liberty to do what he pleased gave one to this and another dish to that man and to a third another for teaching him to ride c. as thinking it against health to seed upon variety if God a greater King then Cyrus give this rich quâ—ntum to one and that to another and give the strength health sound sleep and a cheery heart with thy pittance thou hast enough yea abundance 3. Look present on passing life and be content The richest of us all can have but a belly-full and what they have more is not theirs if the poors bowels be not empty they may be said to be both rich alike The multitude had their fare but we read not that they got the fragments and without them having sufficient for the day we ought to be grateful Bread being a help to life not the end of life pleads at our hands industry for its acquisition It was poverty after high prodigality that made Aristotle both wise and samous and pinches ought to make us importunatly presse God for bread for food and raiment as the very words of this Prayer imports curbing our mouths girthing our bellies composing all disputes about what shall we eat in commanding us to call and allowing us but to call for our daily bread this day The matter of this Petition being discuss'd the order is to be next viewed and it is easie to behold that the Petitions relating to the Kingdom
holy Trinity being taken not so much from nature as from holy works we shall observe some letters of this Name that we may be careful of giving him in it that due respect which belongs unto his greatnesse since the secrecy and mystery of his being dischargeth our srailty and ignorance curiously to pry and behold his Name in his works of mercy of wonders of patience of comsorts of veracity the first respecting the miserable the second the despicable the third the scornful the fourth the mournful the fifth the doubtful 1. One great letter in his Name is mercy promised to the miserable and may be as clearly seen as Pilats inscription over Jesus by this as well as Paul all are delivered from the body of death and the mercy shown to the Prodigal by the Father discovers the tenderness of God towards a sinner when becoming which yet is through grace flexible and penitent In this the Saints rejoiced and for this God is feared that is hallowed and intreated his heart being affected with the miseries of poor man he stands at their hand to save him from those that would condemn his soul Christ pleading out of compassion and procuring not a repreive but a pardon And when men neither do nor will implore his Omnipotent aid for deliverance from evil nay when they reluctat against his severe threats either that they be superceded or omitted his mercy passing over all neglects presseth in upon them dilating it self so far that no faculty of the soul more cordially entertains the thoughts of any thing save those of Mercy Mercy Septem in me video misericordias Domini A holy man viewing the experiences of Gods love finds a seven-fold mercy graciously afforded to himself The first was that God had preserved him from many sins in his generation another was that he had highly and often offended yet had not been plagued A third was that in visiting his soul God had made him know that sin was bitter A fourth was that he becoming peâ—itent had felt the blessedness of him whose tranlgression was covered A fifth was that after his recovery he was kept from sliding back into his old fins A sixth was that he had grace given him to promove and advance in a holy conversation And the last was in which he highly magnified God that he had gotten the assurance of acquiring Heavens Kingdom It was said by them of old time the Lord is merciful and gracious slow to anger and plenteous in mercy and therefore will the Lord wait that he may be gracious unto you that he is merciful and gracious speaks his mercy to be Speciosa beautiful but that he waits to be gracious upon you shews that it is Spatiosa exceeding large and universal 2. His wonders performed to the despicable is another Letter and may be as clearly seen as the Prophets vision upon Tables he that runs may read it and who reads it ought to fear before it That which he hath done for his little Benjamin for and by Moses in the land of Ham and the terrible things by the Red-sea should make the whole earth tremble before him and how twelve fishermen from Ierusalem have brought the greatest Princes and most refined part of the Universe to imbrace the truth of Christ and him crucified in so ample and honourable manner that their Crowns hath not its chiefest Jewel if it want a Crosse nor themselves accounted of but as Barbarians if not christian is strange wherefore hallow his Name sing unto him talk you of all his wondrous works That famous Christian and woman-Martyr Blandina being by tormentors tormented by turns wearied and not able to plague her with renewed tortours having her body rent yet as oft as she pronounced I am a Christian and have committed no evil was refreshed and felt no pain Tyburtius the Martyr compelled to offer Incense to idols or walk bare-foot over hot Iron boldly undertook the last with these words Depone O Fabiane renounce thy unbelief and do as much in the name of thy Iupiter as I in the Name of my Iehovaâ— and if he can let him save thee from pain or torment How did he secure the Children in the Furnace Ioseph in the Prison Iob in the Dung-hill wherefore glory ye in his holy Name There are three great wonders should cause men revere and stand in awe at Gods Name and power 1. Christs rising from the dead 2. His ascending up to Heaven 3. Converting of the world by twelve men by the contemning of wealth despising of glory refusing of government and enduring of torment which was wonderful 3. His patience protracted to the scornful is another Letter and may be as evidently seen as on the thigh of the WORD of GOD KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS They who are as smoak to his eyes are yet admitted into his Temple and how ost would he have gathered Ierusalem yea our selves when the Sun riseth may learn that the goodness of God leadeth us to repentance It is true the Axe of his justice is laid at the root of the tree but mark it is but laid to see if fruit by consideration and contrition will come and though he be broken with our whorish hearts yet he â—aith How long or when shall it once be We believe Gods power and have heard of his thunder yet how few faith as Adam was afraid when I heard thy voice in the Scriptures but after all our roavings rather impudently say with Gehazi Thy servant went no whither and because we are not sentenced to judgment infer either that he is like our selves or mocks the promise of his coming both which is endured through his ineffable patience to reduce us at last to more sober apprehensions that is repentance contrition 4. His comforts exhibited to the mournful is another Letter as clear as the name Iohn upon Zacharias Table he is called sometimes the God of Abraham and sometimes the God of Heaven as also of grace and consolation His Spirit the Comforter drying the eyes of all who discerning their crimes and dangers sanctifie his Name by calling for a pardon against those defections they have made from the way of his holiness and peace What high revelations had Iohn the Divine in Patmos what comfort had Iacob in his stone-pillows and may we not appeal to many if in providence by Prayer it hath not been said Be it unto thee according to thy faith when they have been perplexed by the cold blasts of temporal or spiritual calamities and as Nehemiah been made to stand to blesse the Lord for ever and his glorious Name which is exalted above all blessings and praise It is the worlds design to delude the soul the fleshes purpose to betray it and Satans to destroy it but Christ resolves to protect it and checks our unbelief to the end of the world with
in the Word and Sacraments and releasings of the Church in a far more consolatory way then can be attained of worshipping of Saints or going on Pilgrimages c. As appeared in Gentleman of this same Age who being vexed with the Palâ—ie and entering his Ladies Chamber heard a young Child reading to her Mother by providence these words in the Gospel And Iesus said to the sick of the Palsie Son be of good chear thy sins be forgiven these which furnished the soul of the diseased with abundance of consolation and blessed God who out of the mouths of babes and sucklings ordained praise to himself in this particular of forgiving all sin 2. Consider his singularity besides him no God It is a note of authority to give and of subjection to receive names and the first act of Fathers power is in giving his Son a name but had not God named himself we had yet been ignorant both of his Name and of his Sons His Name is God because he is one the sooner therefore may he be hallowed the multiplicity of Saints and Spirits not only cusing irksomnesse but creating fear left in pleasing seven we might offend the eight for ommitting him and my intense prayers to Peter or Paul might cause my guardian Angel to take snuff when more remiss in his service or office Praise him therefore and only pray to him he being Lord above with Nehemiah and as to Hezekiah he will let thee know he inclines his ear to hear and opens his eyes to see all those that afflict thy soul and ask thy self consult Scripture and experience 1. Doth he not bring down all that are high Where are the Worthies of this world Achitophels policy or Cesars sorce Let men talk no more exceeding proudly for like Oreb and Zeeb like Pharaoh and Senacherib they perish before him Vain boasters who have spoke great words how suddenly have they been dejected and cast down How in a movement have they been removed and in a groan confessed that the glory of man was nothing It is recorded that after Senacheribs Army was destroyed by an Angel he had these words engraven upon his standing Picture Let him that looketh upon me learn to fear God Iulian Uncle to the Apostate after many oâ—trages committed against the Church was in horrible anguish advised by his Wife to praise and proclaim Christ his Saviour who had shown himself powerful in plaguing him and had done it in mercy to bring him to repentance which pious advice had some influence upon him before he died and how he hath cast abroad the rage of his wrath and beheld every one that was proud to abase him every sinner shall at last and most sick persons do and condemned Malefactors bring in plentiful evidences 2. Doth he not exalt all that are low Is Moses cast out by the law of Pharaoh though we read of none that was drowned yet he singularly was preserved by Pharaohs Daughter David appointed by his Father to keep sheep as fit neither for Court nor Camp is designed to be King of Israel no soundness is in Iobs flesh yet a sacrifice shall redintegrat both his health and fortune Ruth accounting her self not like one of Boaz hand-maids as born without the Covenant got a full reward of the God of Iocab yea a royal one in becoming Grand-mother to king David and in the Magnificat is it not said My soul doth magnifie the Lord for he hath regarded the low estate of his hand-maid Humble your selves therefore and say to the King and Queen humble your selves and all shall be exalted in due time and those who are qualified with this vertue of prasing God though here they have no house they shall have a heaven and though weak they shall have strength and though no honour it shall be reported that they pleased God When Cyrus prospered he became the more holy and more frequently caused sing praises and offered sacrifice to the gods so ought we to the God of heaven For 3. Doth he not defy all that are supposed He calls in derision of all reputed gods to whom will ye liken me and puts two things unto them to try his excellency 1. Prediction to know what is to come 2. Execution of either good or evil Which if they cannot do it follows that they are not gods and he alone is to be feard because he can creat peace and make war and knoweth all that is past what is present and what shall be hereafter To glorifie the Name of God it but to publish the miracles with a thankfull heart which he hath performed for his Church upon his enemies Which Thulis an Egyptian King knew who swelling in the pride of his own magnified greatness would needs inquire at the gods whether any King were greater or richer then himself and had this response from a Priest of Serapis The greatest is God next is the Word the Spirit with them being one in nature and eternal in power But thou O mortal haste thee out of this place and seek where to shut up thy life Immediatly after which he was slain by his own servants and so shall all the enemies of our Father perish that men may know he whose Name is Iehovah is the most high over all earth 3. Consider his infinite glory and there is none to be reputed God but he Solomon was in all his glory inferiour to a Lilly the glory of that flower being in it self and from it self yet as his was so the Lillies beauty is but a ray of his ineffable splendour and all comes from him Herod's silver doublet which is recorded to have been that which the Scripture calls his royal apparel was but poor armour though glittering in the Sun against the assault of base and contemptible worms It was as we read told him by Aâ—gurs he should see an Owl five dayes before he died which appearing as the people were admiring his eloquence and shouting he was a god he cryed Behold your god dieth It is said after his death that the Word of God grew and multiplied and until the false imagination of deluded souls be indeed slaughtered by the sword of the Spirit or detected by the light of the Word of God which is his Name his Name doth not multiply by the accession of believers to a belief of the truth For though there be many that profess his Name yet it is to be fearred there be few hath chosen it the most falling upon it by chance having found it in their native Countrey which also causeth it to be by chance but honoured their chief design being either the advancement of them selves or their faction Yet there are a few unto whom God is doing as he hath alwayes done viz. making known the unity that is the glory of his Name in the Doctrine of his Son and as they repute none
my God He all that day traveled in safety while his companions quickly fell in the hands they feared So good it is with all boldness to magnifie Christ even in our bodies whether it be by Life or Death or Fortune Further First that is in pronounciation Even in utterance our first words in Prayer are to have our Fathers Name as Lord God Almighty or his Sirname as God of all Consolation Father of lights or of our Lord Iesus Christ this being the homage to expound this in the words of an excellent King that we ow unto God before we make our suits it being arrogancy and an impudent thing for any Subject to make a suit to his Soveraign before he did his homage in a reverent accost To blame were these men then and scarce are those words to be accounted Petitions that some pretenders to Sanctity offered up in our late times and many still offer up in which the Name of our Father is not in the Preface nor his Son our Lord Jesus in the Conclusion the practice of the old Saints and yet with the true still accounted so necessary that that Prayer uttered without these holy Indications of the parties they pray unto are to be rejected as flatulent and windy dangerous and uncertain and not to have our Amen The sum of all is this that the Glory of God and the râ—ches of his invisible Kingdom together with the mysteries contained in the Gospel are more earnestly zealously constantly to be sought after by us then the possessing of any thing we see or know we want upon Earth God resolving that his works shall never be so much loved as himself It became the object of a Heathens scorn and laughter as judicious Calvin relates that men abused the eares of God with profane and unfavoury requests Yet how do Christians ask of God to bestow upon their lusts their consciences by that declaring they have no reverence nor fear to that Name Since our heavenly Master hath so plainly proposed a rule to us to pray by and in that his own Glory not riches or vain glory to bear sway to wanton with the Prodigal to be strong with the revengeful nor wise to defraud our Brother not so much as in imagination to be reflected upon but our Fathers honour unto which once more Reader suffer a word of exhortation And in all prayer 1. Praise God for mercies received For thy bread thy bed thy cloathing thy lodging thy strength cloak liberty knowledge and for thy hope of Heaven It is said of Israel she did not know that God gave her corn and wine but she prepared for Baal these blessings the highest act of ingratitude which consisting of four parts makes their unthankfulnesse the more grosse The first is not to return a benefit and do one good deed for another there is a greater not to remember a good deed there is yet a greater to say it was done by another but the greatest of all is to honour reward and thank the adversary of our benefactor this grieved God most that Baal the Devil his enemy had the glory of the good things he gave his people the same sin is acted by such who give the praise of their purchase to their arm their wit their diligence rather then to him It is a holy and true saying of one that praise compared with petitionary prayer praise excelleth it as far as giving is better then receiving And it was also a just reproof one gave of some Fasts celebrated in our days that they fell short in Thanksgiving for such mercies as were plentifully possessed The Children of Persia were in their play accustomed to hear try and determine causes and in earnest punished delinquency but causam ingratitudinis vehementer agunt they had a detestation of ingratitude towards god their Parents their Countrey their Relation and do but consider that Thankfulness is that Ward in the Key of Prayer by which we open the doors I mean the bowels of love it is the scarlet threed we hang out of the window of our soul to let God know we are within whereby we may be saved when those that forget God shall be turned into hell non vero verecundae sed ingratae mentis indicium est beneficia tacere divina it is not modesty but iniquity to be silent in sounding praise for divine beneficence 2. Praise him for the evils you have avoided O give thanks unto the Lord calls the Psalmist for he overthrew Pharaoh and his host and led his people through the wilderness for his mercy endureth for ever One requesting of Simonides a courtesie promising to be thankful he replied he had two Chests at home in onâ— whereof he put the Money in the other the thanks he got for service done and in occasion of using either he generally found that wherein lay the Money most helpful to him how good a God serve we that offers an absolute discharge of all we owe if we be but grateful nay will do us yet more good and deliver us for ever if we publickly say that he hath healed our diseases and redeemed our life from destruction Let us therefore be thankful since we reckon our selves among them that are to be saved yet not in words only but in works and actions and this true thanksgiving is when we do those exercises wherein God is to be glorified 3. Praise him in confessing the evils you have committed Against thee thee only have I sinned said David after his fall with Bathsheba that thou mightst be justified when thou speakest Reader give glory I pray to the Lord God of Israel and shew him what thou hast done It is not my scope to handle controversies here yet that auricular confession taught at Rome enters within my thoughts judging it 1. New 2. Impossible 3. Intolerable 4. Dangerous 5. Scandalous and oft times 6. Ridiculous c. But if a conscience like a raked up fire be very hot or aking as a putrid sore it is good to confess to God or man or to both the sin so pricking that the conscience may be eased The multitude that was baptized in Iordan confessed their sin and the sick believer may acknowledge his faults to his Pastor yea where he is not it glorifies God to acknowledge the commission of some attrocious crime as Paul â—wned he was a blasphemer for know how greatly soever the impudence of the sinner in sinning displeaseth God so much is he pleased with the penitents bashfulness when regrating Confession is so necessary for the acquiring of confidence in prayer in the sense of the Church of England that in her holy that is in her common service she first prepareth her children by a confession of their sin to receive according to the Gospel a pardon as being penitent and then ordains them and not before to say Our Father which art in Heaven
the world to save sinners And though all the Psalms be sweet yet some for their excellency are sent to the chief Musician The Scriptures discover the whole will of God yet have a hand to point at some part of it more then another as more eminent in their use and comfort and to which all other portions may be reduced For instance 1. He wills our faithful adhering to his Son Many Commandments he gave but this is his Commandment that we should believe on the Name of his Son Iesus Christ applying Christ unto our selves his death and merits to our souls without which our performances are but nauseating to his spirit and therefore Domine adauge fidem nostram Lord increase our saith is solded up in this Petition Thy will be done 2. He wills our sincere converting from sin It is iniquity causeth him grieve at us and maketh us averse to him and how careful and painful he is to reform the sinner before he be cast out as a Publican shews that if he perish it is by his obstinacy in sin rather then for his committing of it for had he delighted to punish for that he had long ago burned this present world as he spared not but drowned the old We need not many Arguments to evince this having his oath for his being delighted in the conversion of the wicked for miserable we are if we will not believe God when he swears the purposes of his heart unto us But as Gideons one Bastard slew his seventy Sons so one sin left alive will destroy our stock of gifts and graces which God knowing he wills our sincerity desiring us to be not almost but altogether Christians in departing from every evil way the end of his Commandment being charity out of a pure heart a good conscience and love unfeigned 3. He wills humility in our carriage to himself What shall or what can besall thee Reader that can excuse any insolence thy audacious spirit dare shew before him Is it death of kindred loss of goods want of health be perswaded better want all these then once to roave at him for the want of any one for hath he not shewed thee O man what it good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly love mercy and walk humbly with thy God The ancient Gauls suffered not their children even to stand before them that in perfect age they might have them in greater veneration and our Father in Heaven though more condescending will yet have of all his sons a religious reverence sawciness becoming sacriledge robbing him of his just devoir To swell for the removing of thy Gourd as Ionah may have a sadder issue imitat rather Adam whom we read not once to have spoken after banished Paradise a silent sorrow for our delinquency for sin is sorrows Prodrome being the best succour for our weather-beaten souls and is more advantagious then any Fort we can erect by argument or reason to plead against or surmize familiarity with God That of Germanicus is Heathenish giving this attestation of himself at death sifato concederem c. though I should die the common death of men I have just cause to be angry at the gods that in manly age I am robbed from my Parents Children and Countrey by them but when I die by the sorcery or poysonings of Piso c. but the Christian knows he stands at Cesars Iudgment Seat and that enjoyns reverence fear humility and love which makes him behave himself with David like a weaned child and washeth with Naaman upon deliberation in the commanded Iordan though the waters to sense appear never so despicable 4. He wills compassion in behalf of our brethrem This is his great and new Commandment that men love one another and that we put on howels of mercy to all yea the Oxe or Ass of our enemy are within the verge of his authority and law And we are not only to offer our hread but draw out our very souls to the hungry God insinuating thereby that fellow feeling which the fight of an hungry soul ought to stir up in us Non curite quid agat humanum genus not to be solicitious how the world went or careful about the concerns of mainkind was held impious by a Heathen but the religious contrary is diffusive in his charity and his willigness to do good is exemplified in the parable of the Samaritan who secured the person anointed the wounds defrayed the charges and contracted debt for the robbed Traavller Three things evince true compassion Concealed charity 2. Known poverty And 3. Unnatural death being alwayes ready to answer St. Pauls question in the negative who is weak and I am not weak who though they were Bibylonians with the Prophet that testifying good-will with a Father when a Brothers adversity causeth anguish and his tranquility exciteth thankfulness to account anothers loss our own and reckon his gain our profit loving neither friend nor soe for the world but both for God is true charity Love being a great God of whose beginning we have no History and of its ending it were madness to suppose therefore ought our life to be a life of love or then it is not the life of God nor agreeable to his will 5. He wills our folicity with himself He He hath so strong and fatherly a love to his children that he desires yea designs them heirs of his Kingdom For this is the will saith Christ of him that sent me that every one which seeth the Son I might say the Sun may have everlasting life this is a faithful laying and worthy of all acceptation And the Psalm wherein the Psalmists confidence of future glory is attested is called Michtum that is a golden Psalm of David Be not Reader abused by any natural vanity so far as in any thing to become competit or with God and untill thy will can give thee fields and vineyards nay until it can make a feather to please thee a sâ—raw to ease thee make it not the staple of thy soul but award its blows and avert its plagues for it shall to last be found the armed man to binâ— thee and a sword to kill thee whereas Gods will hath nothing more ultimatly its scope then thy salvation There are many other particulars touching our converse discovered to be the will of God such as Modesty in our expressions Righteousnesse in our actions Discipline in our manners enduring injuries loving the brethren delighting in God loving him as a Father fearing him as a Lord to value none in comparison of Christ and therefore inseparably to cleave to his love couragiously to bear his cross constantly to consess his Name which is to be heir with Christ to do the command of God to fulfill the will of the Father but such and many others being reducible to
his Preacher and offers up his Prayer Christianity hath its Armour to fight against and overcome the world a true Microscope discovering its blemishes and deformities a Teliscop or prospect approximating Heaven and its glory so near to the eye that the carrion carcase of earths circle irritats the Spirit to have it removed augurating or foreseeing some pestiferous scent arising therefrom may endanger its spiritual health and dead nay damn the soule That being a sure rule of one that never can the spiritual war be upheld if the lusts of the world be not subdued nor the mind contemplat God which meditats on fleshly pleasures the devil by them as by Tubes of Pipes conveying pride to the soul as to Evah envy as to Cain covetousness as to Achab all which is openly renounced and proclaimed against in our receiving the press-money of sacred Baptism It was asked what was piety or who was the pious man It was answered he who worshipped the gods not as a man would himself but as the gods had appointed in their Laws If this was the judgment of Heathens how darest thou in hypocisie take the words of his Covenant or this prayer in thy mouth since God will not only never shake hands with him who hath a lie interwoven in his robes of praise but revenge himself upon all who worship him not in spirit and truth Pretenders to holinesse and simulated services operat for nothing more then inlarging the vails of reserved wrath heating and thickning the same whereby their evacuation must be more formidable and the worshippers more inexcusable that they are judged out of their own mouth God only hearing doers of his will Knowledge being only as light to direct practice and a good disposition salt to season it and free profession is as wine to quicken it yet all without practice are but instruments to destroy it Let his will therefore be done On earth for it must be done there or no where there being no work or labour in the grave whereunto we tend work his will while it is day for the night cometh wherein no man can Reflect but upon natures frailty and how ruinous the edifice of the body is in the sudden dissolutions Fate hath made in others and we shall be enforced to regulate our selves to that Law of working in this our day Philemon died in a laugh Anacreon with one grain of grape therefore the Moralist adviseth that our life be but a learning to live and that spent in teaching to die there being so many pricles about the Rose of our beloved life that our hands bleed as soon as it is felt making the hardiest to cry tempting us to its embrace as did the flowry Aspect of that delectable valley the inchanted Ass in the Fable miserable man in the Mythology but no sooner in it but with furies worse then dogs is poor man set upon and men acting as devils causes the good man to sigh out his day being crossed in his highest enterprise principally from his own weakness and inadvertency every day and next from the asperity or wickedness of others each day grinding him as under the nether-milstone through sorrow enraging him again so high that from the praecipice of passionate resolves he invokes disaster more sad then did Aristarchus who yet starved himself to death to ease the pain of the Dropsie which yet might take more time and procure better preparation by filling the soul with more voluminous contemplation for exact removeal then had Baebeius Pamphilus who died even while asking a boy what it was of the Clock Death in Capital Letters being written in the front of each day and hour which having not so much as one syllable to protract the pronouncing more then day ought every day to expunge the speculation of futurity and conclude there is none to follow yea scarce that we behold since as the above-mentioned Ass we are each day suffering the Strappado of cares and griefs by which it becometh scarce a day because uncomfortable and wearisome suggesting as well as hastning thoughts of departure and dissolution What one sayes of sins remission may be said of times course and motion Now the wicked ceaseth from his vain conversation beholding the path of piety as more eligible that he gain eternal life Now he avoids the fault that he may never feel the smart nunc praeveniat he cometh before the face of God with confession that he may never be separated from him by damnation He doth it now that is while on earth or never On earth it is to be done there because it is only disputed there Disobedience indeed begun in Heaven but it found no entertainment and will never be again admitted Of hell it is said he that is obstinat filthy or unjust let him be unjust still because they must still suffer the will of God as in heaven the pure meek and just Saints are doing the will of God but earth is regnum mixtum hath in it some that obey many that deny and numbers that boggle demurr upon and dispute against or by a carnal neutrality stand in aequilibrio ready to perform Gods will or any other that policy shall account most efficacious for their carnal purposes like that prophane Souldier somewhere who had on one side of his Shield an Image for God upon the other for the Devil with this device if the one will not take me the other will There are three things upon earth that dispute against God and defie his will these are natures pravity the Devils tyranny and the variety of mens affairs 1. Natural pravity this will have us do our own will It was born with us bred with us and went to school with us which makes us lath to deny it any thing If it say as Tamar what wilt thou give me How loath are we to deny it a kid from the flock though God discharge it willing our Sanctification A Child will do much to keep his Bird though it pick him and a man will do more to preserve his will though it sting him 2. The Devils tyranny for he will have us to do his will Heaven he is secluded from and hells inhabitants he is sure of therefore his hopes his feats his threats and arguments against the will of God are in done and urged upon earth And it is evident the will of God is not alwayes done hence therefore this illation is congruous enough that the will of Satan is How soon was Adam wooed to embrace hells doctrine dethrone God and destroy himself for he was not deceived And if Iudas get content he will deliver Jesus into his enemies hands as soon as Satan fills or enters into his heart Neither left he there but is yet so busie so cumbersome so deluding that we are in many places called upon to hear the word of the Lord. 3. The variety of mens
it is placed after all the Petitions that concern God insinuating that his work and glory is first to be done and then we may cause lay the cloath and put on bread We find that in times of Famine there have fallen showres of Wheat for the refreshing of the hunger-bitten and here we are directed without a prodigy to respect Heaven and not the Fields for Grain or the Mill for Meal but both sexes to imitate the vertuous woman and bring their food from afar For so pray ye Our Father which art in Heaven Give us this day our daily bread From the naked face of which words we discover a Law commanding care for and abstinence while we are in the body 1. Our care for the body For beauty proportion strength the body is so stately and curious a structure that it were impiety against nature to suffer or design delapidation the least hair whereof being allowed a place in Gods Note Book we may conclude its bowels to be more intensly regarded It is the souls Cabinet therefore not to be broke Christ died for it and therefore it is not to be slighted the earth is to conceal it and therefore is not to be strip'd yea Heaven is ordained for it and therefore it is to be honoured The soul indeed is to be the main not our only care but the body hath here Gods Image and shall if we be wise walk up and down in his inheritance above As Ioseph by faith gave charge to bury his bones we by the same grace may give charge concerning our bodies and order to set on bread The charge against shedding the blood of man is from this Argument For in the image of God made he man that image being in the blood tanquam in copula in the body tanquam in organo in the soul tanquam in proprio subjecto in its proper place the vital spirits are carried by the blood and upon them also depend all the senses and upon the senses depends the rational soul in which the image of God principally resides now take away bread the blood fails and by that the spirits fail and by them the senses fail and by that the soubremoves and by that the image of God We offer this to the consideration of the malicious who shedding the blood of man desaceth that goodly workmanship for whose preservation he is bound to pray it not being preceptive give me but give us our daily bread For quid est conservare humanitatem what other is the preservation of humanity then the loving of man because he is a man and the same that we our selves are and who doth it not dispoyls himself of the appellation man as not worthy to be so termed The superstitious also rivetting this request upon his own thoughts will be self-condemned his cutting tearing whipping and lashing himself making him Fellon de se in a sort a self-murtherer in renting the back or torturing the skin of that belly he prayes for c. The covetous also must not plead immunity from the mulct appended unto the breach of this Divine Law of cherishing the body as the fruit of his prayer for in his fordid baseness withdrawing from the flesh what God hath sent it and keeping from the belly its just modicum which it craves yet to his own annihilation it remains empty he in the mean time cramming even to nauseating the hollow bowels of a wooden box makes him culpable of self-hostility and impeding him in his spiritual traffick his cash but serves him to buy damnation For quid prodest what is the profit of concealed hoards and who knows not that by doing good and shewing mercy men shall find mercy and reap good but what shall he gather who is merciless to his own self It is good and comely for one to eat and drink yea deck his house and to enjoy the good of all his labour which God hath given him in neglecting whereof he becomes guilty of Idolatry in St. Pauls meaning and of Adultery in the sense of an holy Interpreter and abundantes temporalium inopes aeternorum being rich in this world is yet poor and yet more poor when it is considered he hath no treasure in Heaven If any object that we are not to take thought what we shall eat and the required zeal in the duty of prayer will certainly suffer intermission in enlarging upon dayly bread It is to be adverted that there is no repugnancy between give us bread and take no thought what ye shall eat c. The latter condemning distrustsulnesse and â—infull distraction not a prudential foresight of competent provision for Parents are to lay up for Children and a Master must provide for his Family and a man for himself 2. Our abstinence while in the body Abstinence in the judgment of the Orator did much conduce for conciliating People and Prince but in our Saviours Doctrine it is the sole medium for keeping Heaven and earth in concord so clearly that the great Amphiaraus who in life was accounted a great Prophet and after his death a reputed god among the Grecians advised their Priests before their consulting at the Altar to abstain one day from bread and three from wine Plato made his greatest seasts to consist in Salt Olives Chease and Herbs and he was called the Divine The Egyptians tyed their Kings by Law to a certain portion of wine and meat and they were accounted Sacred Yea bread water and salt velut exquisitis obsoniis as great delicats did the Persians give to their Children And we read that Martha after our Saviours Ascension did neither eat flesh nor drink wine untill she saw him whom her soul loved above BREAD the poorest boon that nature can ask and the least a Father can deny and yet the only great thing we are to entreat for Our Lord restraining the Petitioners hungering for luxurious fare and conjuring against riches delicates and gaudy Raiment the Pedissequae or handmaids of which are Wrath Intemperance Anger Arrogancy Injustice Pride and every evil work Becoming by joyning dinner to supper and drowning the body with drink oppressing the belly with meat a ludibrious spectacle to their own attendants who must convey the vomited carcase to a dormitory out of which its possible the besotted cometh more surious then before sleep procuring neither health nor ease to the ininflamed body All which courses to prevent or temptations to avoid we are only directed to pray for our dayly bread as Agur prayed for his convenient food unto which prayer it is thought our Saviour hath reference in wording this Petition and dissect food convenient or open dayly bread in our practice we shall find sobriety to be hominis prima medicina the chief Physician of man as one Father calls it and the Mother of health as another and so good for soul and body
moderatus he was so moderate that none could say he did any thing excessively covetously immodestly or unbeseemingly But that was true of Peter Lord we have left all and followed thee lest all in possession left all in affection and it is conjectured that the loving of the things of this world is more hurtful then enjoying of them all which speaks against earnestnesse for superfluities since covetousnesse is not so much as to be named among Saints 5. From the inconveniency or no good they bring to man The abundance of earthly things evidenceth no more a good man then a silk Stocking argues a sound leg yea it were well it they did not harm him more leading tempting causing and multiplying in the soul treasons deceits falshood perjury restlessness and hard-heartedness It is observed that most ordinarily Spectrums Devils or Ghosts are seen it Pits or Mines of Mettal and there to work as other labourers after the Vein to carry Oâ—r winde the Wheel c. and see we not in the hearts of avaritious Pioneers hellish haunters working in them all manner of ungodlinesse for what will they not do and whither will they not go for gain gain gain Septimulius took the head from his friend confident and acquaintance Graccus and carried it through Rome fixed upon a Pole because Opimius Consul promised him Gold It was therefore said of him Ante omnes c. he was the most covetous of men yet had he been in our Christian world this attrocious crime had but numbred him among offenders Riches pierce the soul through with many sorrows saith St. Paul Care in getting fear in possessing grief in departing saith an Expositor Videamus Mark it saith one if men as they grow wealthy grow not hasty sawcy haughty angry iniquity wrapping them about as fat which fat when melting from them by the heat of some sad disaster must needs overwhelm them in despair As appeared in a French Boor who hoording corn for a dearth entring his Garner was so inchanted with the Devil or blinded with vengeance that he could perceive no grain though heaps of it before him for the supposed stealth of which he incontinently hang'd himself But what thought that other Hound who in dearth refusing to sell his Victual when ordered by Authority denying he had any to spare and what he had was scarce fit for Hoggs when his wife was brought to bed of seven young Piggs which were seen saith my Author á multis fide dignis viris by many honest men Yet this argueth not so much against the having as the abusing of riches for the rich in their abundance and the poor in their scarcity possunt salvari may both be happy since they that be sat upon earth shall worship and eat and such as go down to the dust shall bow unto him Neither read we of rich Abrahams being excluded Heaven or of poor Lazarus his being depressed to Hell Neither is this against an holy prudence a foreseeing evil to come for Ioseph laid up Corn and our Saviour had a treasure for ordinary expence In short as Harvesters make provision for the Winter and do store up grain yet causing their care to extend only to the time present so our doctrine opposeth only a care of distrust about what shall be had hereafter not a wise providing or competent provision for a mans self family or relations it being often seen that riches and glory are possessed sine culpa without hurt because used in humility The influence this hath upon Prayer is evident 1. Perseverance in Prayer Bread here is health life safety security and the daily bread insinuats a daily attending before the Throne Davids soul had ordinary as may be supposed three meals a day but in extrordinary dayes as Sabbaths New Moons it had seven teaching us not to permit our souls to languish for want of its due support but as we call daily for bread for bodily strength so for grace for spiritual vigour 2. Reverence in thy getting Be humble not arrogant in thy deportment by eating not wasting thy bread being it is the fruit of thy prayers use it for thy self for it is thine own and what is left is anothers for charity here is reciprocal we call upon God for our bread and he calls again in his poor for his bread so that on all hands we are not to be prodigal or abusers of it Hath not doth not this impious age in its stupendious prodigality consume wastfully what it is indebted to wife family and children exceeding the Israelites who gave but a boy for an harlot and sold a girle that they might drink for they give their Honour their Wife their Children for Wine Wantons Silk and Ale Dorotheus abhorring idlenesse and intemperance did yearly gather stones from the Sea and build a little house for the distressed did eat by weight every day and subdued his body so by labouring and watching that he was demanded why he killed it but he replying said otherwise it will kill me And believe it Reader the pampering the belly in this generation will be the death of many and may in time get empty intrails for a due reward of too gorgeous feeding Anacharsis the Scythian was wont to write about the Pictures of Princes this little yet worthy lesson Rule Lust temper the Tongue bridle the Belly if this be not authority sufficient sure be not filled with wine wherein is excess might be nervously pungent to command sobriety in all ranks And if adultery prodigality stoathfulnesse talk ativenesse inhumanity gluttony unchastity stubornnesse loosenesse covetousnesse lasciviousnesse and seekers after vain and unprofitable things be the sins for which in Scripture poverty is threatned as they are this age hath reason to expect a famine 3. Preparednesse for our removing This day is all we are to care for and how soon our Sun will set is unknown yet its setting ought to creat an earnestnesse in us to have our sins forgiven for it is This day and This day hath mortality frailty and death contained in it Therefore are our lives and all things inconstant here that we should be inflamed with a holy servour to love and desire the fixt and immoveable things above in which sense our dayly bread that is strength and life by the blood of Jesus is industriously to be pursued after 4. Respect for all the 〈◊〉 In prayer remember thy five thy seven brethren Give us our bread includes all men especially our friends and neighbours yea our oxen that they may be strong to labour Pray good and do good therefore unto all it being our good that is our charitable works which keeps our faith that is our hopes of salvation alive Yea as the Devil is delighted with the errors and superstitions of some he is afflicted with the bounty and liberality of others were it
the wise upon his religious son which being ineffectual roared out to the spirits themselves Inducias Inducias O let me alone untill the morning this as a Beacon is set up by an holy man that our lives being more vertuous our death may be more consolatory The death of the prophane is the sadest being ill first in leaving the world which they love worse in their souls removing from the body but worst of all in their being both soul and body adjudged to eternal condemnation It is observed of Egypt that after the flourishing of many famous Churches the Gospel being planted by the Apostles Alexandria it self having the Evangelist Mark Nephew to St. Peter for its Pastor or Bishop yet justo Dei Judiciâ— by reason of their sin the inhabitants being exemplarly wicked full of blasphemy and rape is now without God and generally hath a greater hatred to Christianity then the ordinary Saracens for which they are destined to eternal plagues Let this age know and every man in it fear and stand in awe for what is it Egypt had of ungodliness whereof we have not plentiful examples with this aggravation that we have had of old Christianity and of late great judgments Yet there is a Cautioner a Surety even Jesus who will pay the Creditor unto whom it is alike who pay him for by Christs stripes we are healed he entred into bond yea into prison for us and by rising from the dead the third day he both declared himself to be the Son of God and of his giving satisfaction to the utmost of all that was owing unto him making us thereby free from the Law of sin and death Yet so miserably are we deluded with self and self-conceit that debt is daily contracted by taking up more mercy abusing more time neglecting much grace thwarting many invitations quenching many good motions and by inadvertency falling into numerous temptations which continually call for fresh suits for forgivenesse and consider'd might cause expostulation with sin O peccata O wickednesse how easily dost perswade us to commit thee but with what difficulty do we procure riddance from thee While thou smiles we imbrace thee but while embracing thou art killing us to death and in death Eye the debter and he is so unable that his very soul cannot be full restitution eye the Creditor and he is so inexorable that he will be payed the utmost farthing by our selves or by our Cautioner and his suretyship is to be humbly intreated for for they are our debts and no secret conveyance no private contract can turn them over to another hand Eye the debt it is deplorable there are original debts our parents debts our own debts of childhood ignorance knowledge debts of presumption infirmity against counsel against conscience and against threats debts of the Sabbath of the Week of our Family and of our Neighbour-hood c. debts of our waking of our sleeping of our talking and of our thinking c. offences of the Chamber sins of the Shop and iniquities of the Street so that all of our selves and each man for his brother may cry Innumerable evils have compassed us about and no way for deliverace but by acquittance and no way for that but forgivenesse Over and above reflect upon that magna lenitas great goodnesse infinit patience ineffable mercy and long-suffering God hath shown unto us that we might call for this forgivenesse having this comfortable Scripture I will not remember thy sins Forgive us our debts c. FORGIVE A short word but of large and extended sense much used in Gods promises and oft pressed in the Saints petitions and the word properly signifies a sending back something to the place whence they came Sin came from hell and here the soul would have it remanded to the same land of darknesse As it stands in this Prayer it denotes somewhat which relates to God and somewhat relating to our selves As it respects God it weighs 1. His commiseration of us because of our debts Goodnesse is an ordinary plea with all the holy and they sound that the Lord as a Father pitieth them that fear them that pray And the liere who taught us to pray this Prayer hath promised his Fathers mercy saith a Father mercy cometh ex bonitate Dei purely from goddnesse yet must be drawn from him by innocence vertue and obedience as did Abraham Isaac and Iacob Ioseph Iob and Moses saith another He discovers love in desiring our salvation in euring our wounds in teaching us prayers in pardoning our sins and upbraiding us with our unbelief 〈…〉 there not mercy in the word Father and goodnesse and hope in the word Forgive Manasseh his Prayer and Iudas his Confession were alike but he pardoneth iniquity because he delighteth in mercy In a dearth at Corinth Theocles and others advised Creditors to remit their debts for easing of the poor but being refused he acquitted his own and those who contemned the motion were in invincible rage slain by their debters excited to extremity by poverty and necessity we have fair offers and better conditions both a remission offered and a reward for acceptance of that tender that as the earth expects showres and light from Heaven so man is to expect yea he is called to look up for truth and mercy 2. His aversion detected not to exact those debts What is man but dust what is his birth but loathsome and shameful to himself and at best so contemptible that God might say to Justice Let him alone non dignus est ira Caesaris he is not worthy of my wrath Iob thought of this when he uttered And dost thou open thine eyes upon such an one and bringest me into Iudgment 3. His indiminishable possession though he should remit the debt Admit our skin could ransome our life what would he gain or if he freely absolve it what would be his losse Knowing this he puts us neither to call for ease nor time but for a forgiving Accept of the precept by begging a free acquittance and so much the rather that bounty and liberality is to be shew'd quantum potest non idoneis where there is the least hopes of advantage in requital which in our arguing for Heaven is an excellent rule The Roman and famous Alexander would exclaim against his shy yet deserving Courtiers why do you not ask something from me do it that I neither be your debter nor complained of as a slighter of your merit Yet what he gave was neither silver nor gold nor out of his own treasure but bona punitorum the goods or wealth of forâ—eited malefactors c. not diminishing thereby his Revenue Here is a greater Emperour without merit giving of his own requesting of his foes to plead remission of injuries done to himself for their good who have done the injury 4. His dominion or just power to forgive the
there are who give better rules about converse recommending if our company be better then our selves to learn if inferiour to be modest and learn them if our equals to assent to all proposals that relate to good which eminently will keep alive charity in Families and Corporations without which vertue neither of them can even in the brain of a learned States-man be fancied to subsist so great is the power even of a fancied Amnestia or brotherly forgivenesse It was the wonder of a Father writing to an holy man from Mount Sinai that he was not moved irritated perplexed or any way afflicted with the reproaches of men and forgive Vs is not meant Vs here but Vs all wheresoever we be whatsoever we are Us predicats of all people kinds nations sexes languages and proclaiming every soul to be a sinner all should be tender and make as God the scarlet offences of their brother to become by their forgivenesse white as wool that God by his may make their crimson-sins become as snow Revenge flows from a conceit of some abused excellency which we conjecture to be in our selves and though it were yet know that self and self-opinion is to be mortified In order to which let me impresse a story printed by a Modern expounding this Petition wherein he shews he was once demanded by one who was troubled in his mind for this viz. he suspected himself guilty of not forgiving injuries and affronts and was desirous to know of this clause as we forgive our debters might be ommitted in daily prayer for he trembled to think of it I answered him saith that reverend and learned Doctor with St. Chrysostoms answer The work was of old thought his but now generally known by the name of Author Imperfect in Matth. he not ending his Comments upon Matthew as Chrysostome doth 1. Qui non sic orat ut Christus docuit non est Christi Discipulus he who prayeth not after Christs manner is none of Christs Disciples 2. Non exaudit Pater orationem nisi quam Filius dictaverit the Father heareth not that Prayer which the Son hath not commanded Which answer was somewhat more refined then that supposed Father his Author gave it for it is prefaced with this word stulti O fools accounting them such who will not say as I forgive yea such do say in their heart either that there is no God or that they have no sin which if they thought they had Nullam rationem habes there is no reason to complain of mans rising up against thee when thou hast exalted thy horn against God It is not with the soul of man as it is with the setting of the Sun that prognosticating a fair morning if there be a red cloud for he that would arise and wake in mercy and who knows how soon he may fall asleep must not ly down with execration for so did not Christ whose doctrine as well as profession or name thou must take upon thee or then in vain are all thy pretences to Religion and thy usurping the empty title without the substance of it Love evidenceth that not the being but being thought a Christian is all thy care Death and sicknesse humble us and at that time chiefly we are to ask what an Expositor says we here beg that is Spiritum scientiae wisdom to know our offences against God which when acquired the offences against our selves shall never be weighed in the ballance It is said the scobs or powder of a mans scull is soveraign for curing the Epilepsie a disease strongly vitiating and impeding the sense and understanding sure it is as when Bees fight the throwing dust among them causeth a truce so the thoughts of death is a season for the absolute crossing the day-book of our remembrance and quitting to our brother whatever upon the account of injury he is indebted to us suddenly heartily freely which shall so clear the soul in beholding his own remission therein that without tergiversation or lingring he may confidently say Lord forgive me my debts as or for I forgive my debters As the tree falls so it lies whether to the south the warm gates of mercy or to the north the freezing blasts of provoked indignation to ly down in wrath anger spite is to begin a fire yea wilde fire that shall never consume yet burn and make thee feel what Guntherus Chancellour to Henry the third Emperour saw and heard when beholding miraculously the Heavens opened and God in his Majesty extending his Arm wherein was brandished a sword and saying I will render vengeance to my enemies and will reward them that hate me after which many Princes of the Empire dying he saw God again the sword sheathed and heard a fire is kindled in mine anger and shall burn unto the lowest hell hereby we know we love God if we keep this command of forgiveness but if we as enemies kindle a fire in our wrath there is a sad conclusion to be deduced which is that God shall kindle another in his And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debters MAny are the inferences might be drawn from this Doctrine and Text of forgiveness so principal a point and so material that it is the only Petition in this Prayer observed by St. Mark in his Gospel he suo more comprehendit abridging after his usuall way of writing the whole Prayer into this one in regard whoso hath it granted hath not much more to demand save grace for perseverance in the consolations which by that he hath attained so that this may be reckoned inter preces armatas among commanding prayers by it asking forgivenesse but with this burden that we forgive first The advice being King-like enforcing the thing advised Our meditations shall eye such as go to Law towards Magistrats that put malefactors to death towards Creditors that do trust and lend and touching dying Malefactors who do ordinarily forgive Concerning the first it may be questioned whether such as pursue by legal decreets or executions the reparation of damnages losses hurt they have received from the frowardness or untowardness of their neighbours can say in such pursuits and claims Forgive us as we forgive or for we forgive the whole process bearing a contradiction to this Petition hence it is that Anabaptists and other Hereticks revived this old condemned Doctrine in our dayes that no Christian ought to go to Law and that none ought to be a Magistrat To which it may both truly and briefly be replyed that it is not only lawful but absolutely necessary since the fall for the preserving of mankind in orderly society for to have Laws and Government whereunto the oppressed may run for shelter and protection As for those abused Texts Iudge not that you be not judged Resist not evil My Kingdom is not of this world c. They strike not in the least against Magistracy but privat
cursing flee back-bitting flee heart-burning flee oppressing for by the eye as by a window temptation suffers Satan to enter and then he finds no difficult task to pick the lock of the most secret Cabinet I mean the remotest faculty of the soul which was known to that as to a sword undaunted though young Alexander he refusing to give frequent visits to Darius daughters then his Prisoners alleading that Persice Puellae the Persian Ladies made his eyes sore 2. Attraction this discovers weaknesse A fish smoothly glyding down the River is in safety but beholding the bait and turning aside after it is ensnared by the hook Let the Painter Paint as he pleaseth I am prone to suppose that Evah both went unto the tree and pluckd the fruit her self The foolish youth having seen followed after the strange woman whereas if that evil one wound us by a sinsul thought we are not to yeeld but to fight against that little to keep our selves from danger by a greater which shall besal us when sinful thinking grows to sinful doing which we have not force sufficient to evite except we bruise its head as soon as it is conceived As children having no strength to oppose runs from what may endanger them so let us flee at first sight yea the sweeter its voice be let us make the greater speed and it shall be spiritually and morally found what proverbially is received a fleeing man valueth not the Lute and this Petition beareth witnesse of our inability for self-defence yea experience proveth very few Iesus Christ excepted to have entred into the field of temptation but came off with losse Abraham held out in Mount Moriah yet could lye in Egypt hence a Father affirmeth there are temptations which we cannot bear and what are they Omnes all and in truth without God we can bear none 3. Inescation this ought to stir us to repentance We will eat of the fruit and swallow the broath though poyson be in the one and death in the other and sell our birth-right for a dish of either The soul ought as a mirrour or glasse to be kept clean that in it might perfectly be viewed the Image of God but alas sin hath dusted and darkned the same and yet we are not sorry and yet we are not warry though we say lead us not into temptation that is given us wisdom to know those evils we are encompassed with and not be so sordid as to prefer our lusts to God a Concubine to our Saviour or our Catamite to our Heavenly Paradise King Lysimachus besiedged in Thracia quitted his Army his Honour his Liberty and Kingdom to Dromichata for a draught of puddle-water to quench his thirst whereof when he tasted his sad Fate he thus sadly lamented O how for how small a pleasure have I a King made my self a servant The voice of Hell may be imagined to have something in it like this O for how small a pleasure having to aggrege their hellish dispair this that their was no such necessity for their drinking stoln waters To these three you may add Occasion awaking us to prayer neither Devil world nor flesh dare assault the most Abject among men if occasion do not fairly invite The works of the flesh though manifest as Adultery Murther Witch-craft are more or lesse brought to the birth as occasion the Midwife is sooner or later in coming that incitamentum ad malum in us corruption being fearful even to peep where opportunity is wanting which that wanton knew who to assure the simple youth of all security told him that the Good-man was not at home but was gone a long journey An ancient writing to Secundine whose life was privat and solitary among other Items of Satans subtilty is warned of this that in the souls privat retirements there shall be as it were visits made by the tempter and things brought to his mind and laid before his eyes and all to seduce him in his thinking of he cannot get him to perpetrat ungodlinesse It is written that Ioseph was held by the Garment by his Mistriss when none of the men were within it is said they were all abroad at a feast she having counterfeited sicknesse to procure an occasion to satishe her intemperance hence one calls temptation an instruction how and when to sin we say Occasio facit furem Occasion maketh the Thief it maketh also the Murtherer the Wencher and the Tipler Simulque animadvertendum let it be remembred that untill our Saviour was hungry Satan had no occasion to assault him or at least most strongly then did attempt him I have said David remembred they Name O Lord in the night Tempus tentationum I think saith a Father he means in the time of temptation when he is encompassed with darknesse take it either way it intimats in solitude God is to be remembred and contrary thoughts to be expelled from the soul imitating Pyrrhus who being alone was asked what he was about I am said he studying to be good There is Fabled of a suit commenced betwixt the heart and eye which were the causers of sin and thus it was decided Cordi causam imputans occasionem oculi the heart was the cause but the eye gave the occasion of sin In short occasion hath so great a hand in evil that it is a temptation to evil Saint Iames giving us the degrees of temptation gives them thus Every man is tempted when he is drawn aside of his own lust and enticed then when lust bath conceived it bringeth forth sin which when finished it bringeth forth death Concupiscence then being the Mother Sin the Daughter and Death the Grand-daughter all issuing from the strength of temptation set on by Satan as he finds our complexions inclinations pliable to receive the impression ought to excite us and in an holy servour to draw from us Lead us not into temptation It is observed that our Saviour had three strong temptations in the Wildernesse that there were three which refused to come to the Supper of the Kings Son and that there are three which in the world bear up enmity against God and in them all the sight of the eye bears a great stroak therefore to be lookt after in resisting temptations against which to highten your zeal consider their unweariednesse nearnesse imperiousnesse appositnesse and their closnesse 1. Their unweariednesse The Devil is still going about and temptation is never quiet Et ideo Deus meus therefore O God we ery for security cryed one because whether we sleep or wake eat or drink by force or fraud secretly or openly is our watchful enemy directing his poysoned darts for our destruction which made another cry that our life was but one temptation and another adds that it is not so one way but multipliciter illudat many here it affirms there denies there it changeth
untill the Child was born by Bathsheba he never reflected upon his adultery and cutting off a Worthy from Israels Camp A hand by long working contracts hardnesse to that degree that a Thorn will not penetrat nor a Nettle raise a blister What more by frequent assaults of evil thoughts crowds and throngs of unclean desires the soul becometh stupid as men are said to do by touching though with a pole the Torpedo and its hooâ— being hardened by trotting in the way of the wicked it is not disturbed but eased in the seat of the scornful the Conscience being seared as with an hot iron 4. It may cause black suppositions because of sin What sad and dark expressions flowed from the mouth of patient Iob choosed he not strangling and death rather then life c. What man can reveal the inward actings of Asaph's soul when he roared under the rod Hath God forgotten to be gracious Such a cloud of witnesses affrighting from temptation ought to inspire us to pray against it in the words of a holy man Rector meus O my God remove from me vanity of soul unconstancy of mind wandring of affection impurity of speech loftinesse of eyes gluttonny of the belly back-biting of my neighbour the desire of riches hunting for worldly glory the evil of hypocrisie the poyson of flattery the contempt of poverty for these are temptations and if they overcome our reckoning will not be so insignificant as our licentiousnesse makes them now to be accounted 5. It may end in desperation A Father speaking of the temptations of the righteous asserts that pene ad lapsum it almost creats utter despair as it did of late to that Yorkshire Minister who going down to the Water-side to drown himself opened the New Testament and in a glorious providence first fell upon that of St. Matthew Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest Doth Christ say so said the good man then I will not drown my self The soul here was bouy'd up by a miraculous and invisible hand or then he had sunk in the mighty waters the man might have sung If it had not been the Lord who was on my side when temptation rose up against me then the waters had overwhelmed me the stream had gone over my soul then the proud waters had gone over my soul blessed be the Lord who hath not given me as a prey to their teeth But what a dolefull ditty would the soul of a Iudas a Saul make when dislodged the body by the force of temptation O I am eternally doomed to be the Devils slave cried a convicted soul and in so saying impetuously threw himself out of a window and broke his bowels Alas alas cried another somewhere to one in a vision woe is me woe be to me all which to prevent keep from the brink of the Well the edge of the Hill the mouth of the Pit the way to the Den and avoid the path of death by declining the very occasion of temptation And pray 1. That they come not 2. That they conquer not That our eyes may behold no Delilah nor ears hear the voice of Ionadab nor our hands handle Iudas silver nor our backs that it wear nothing of Achans garment our tasting none of the rich gluttons sare our noses smell-nothing of the blood with Nimrods hounds I knew and heard a Malefactor affirm she smelt the blood of the murthered then in his cloaths and at a great distance certain dayes after the fact Pray Reader against such devices I say pray for it was not rowing but Lord save us or we perish brought the Disciples safe to land Palladius consulting with Macarius about his temptations was advised to tell them that he kept the walls of his Cell for God And indeed we ought to keep both the walls and furniture of the house for God temptation being so daring that if the door be not open it will creep in at the windows yea uncover the roof and take possession It is pugna contra malignos spiritus a fighting against evil spirits and they will not be said nay having a three-fold stratagem to conquer and overcome 1. Suggestione 2. Delectatione Consensu suggesting or prompting the mind to ill then alluring the affections to betroth it then commanding the will to consent to it Or first bewitching the sense then inflaming the appetite and lastly causeth the action ut hoc non hoc fiat that it be not done that God suffer us not to answer the desire of temptation nihil enim fit nothing being done but when he either doth it or permits it this Petition is offered up the Saints thereby begging perseverence in sanctity and holinesse in the whole man which as it is Gods Temple ought to be kept clean for him I can find no convincing argument perswading that Manuel under the title of the Testament of the twelve Patriarchs to be a real History yet it seems the Treatise is ancient and touching the case in hand Benjamin is personated to speak pertinently thus My children shun the naughtinesse of Belial for at the first he delighteth those that obey him but in the end he is a sword and father of many mischiefs for the mind having once conceived by him it bringeth forth envy then despair then sorrow then bondage then needinesse then troublesomnesse and then desolation for which cause Cain was tormented with these seven punishments by God and in seven years had still a new plague c. Lead us not into temptation shews we regard and notice their force and would have it dissipated and overcome which shall be we using against it the Word of God and faith in God and prayer to God It was by Scripture that Christ the Second Adam overcame the tempter not that he had no other weapon but he would use no other to teach us to depend and trust to its edge when tempted to gluttony as he was in the first temptation to vain-glory as he was in the second or covetousnesse as he was in the third all which he Overcame by the Psalms and Moses when the first Adam tempted to the same sins was foyled in the first assault In both which it is observed that Adam yeelded to be as God when Christ left it doubtful whether he was the Son of God by humility destroying the first Adams loftinesse Therefore omnes Scripturas let thy mind and heart be upon the Law and believing that word Resist the Devil and he will flee from you answer all temptations as Agesilaus answered that question What benefit the Spartans reaped by his Laws answered The contempt of pleasure or if you will take a more understanding Teacher Are you tempted to Covetousnesse think of Paul's bonds To Concupiscence ruminat upon Paul's prison To Distrustfulnesse remember of Paul's chain To Gaudinesse
the Neuter hurts and dangers it may be sensed the Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being sometime demonstrative pointing at a special one and other times indefinit for any one and in such a summary as our Lord here intended we may comprehend its meaning to be deliverance from all evil in the bulk and Satan as the chief A Spanish Gentleman and noctivagant or a night-walker rising in his sleep through excessive heat intending to wash in the River was met by one pretending the same businesse but tempted him to cast himself from a high bridge into a very deep place into which the tempter was already vapouring the Dons seet no sooner touched the water then he awoke and calling upon the other for help was frustrat perceiving it an evil spirit after prayer to God shifted as he could avoided the danger and guarded for the future against such extravagancies and the Devils going about to devour hath made the Religious of old urgent and vigilant to escape captivity and we in this age have no reason to be too secure though upon beds of Down From evil that is hell the place of evil in Heaven all is good on earth there is some good but in hell no good Iudas is said to go to his own place that â—is to which he was adjudged his merits worthily casting him from the Apostolat of which in and by his hypocrisie he only keep'd possession from which place worse then that wherein he died which yet as is said was so stinking that men were forced to stop their noses through unwholesome scents we beg here freedom from our Father setting him viz. Our Father in the preface in opposition to that evil one here begging his good against the others evil opposing person to person things to things a Father to a Foe Behold this evil through the prospect of Scriptural threats and exhortation and an evil example and an evil death is easily perceptible all the Law and Prophets by a Father is summed up in this viz to eschew evil and do good but Drunkards Blasphemers Idolaters Iews Turks seeking still to debauch there is strength to resist their solicitations violence their frauds and their enticements here prayed for that though men accept favour from such which yet ought not to be done saith some yet certainly no kindnesse ought to lure us unto encouraging them in unholy performances There is a people near unto Armenia called the Curdi whose Barbarous cruelty especially to Christians hath circumcised their country and made it be called terra Diaboli Devils land and it is to be lamented that so much of the European continent or indeed so many of its Islands may be thought to be governed by the same Soveraign yet how prevalent soever that Fiend be to prevent the spreading of his dominion as well as restricting the exorbitancies thereof yea for repelling its force and nullifying its being we pray in deliverance from evil Not only this but a peaceable departure and removeal is here beseeched the death of the uncircumcised or to die by the hands of a stranger being a curse yea not to die the common death of all men or a mans own death being both sad and dangerous is by all men except inconsiderat deprecated under the notion of evil fire water and sudden death being comprehended therein in the judgement of a learned Interpreter A Scholler quarrelling with one of his companions over night in the night in his sleep entered the others Chamber and slew him returning still asleep into his own bed declaring next day he dreamed he had slain his Comrade Here was temptation and evil both done and suffered yet such Reader as may befall both me and thee which should make us pray against evil whether in its causes or in its occasions whether for our selves or others It not being deliver me but Vs from evil without which charity neque multa neque magna the doing many things the doing great things being not good things availeth nothing but let it be still remembred that the greatest Evil viz. the evil of sin is to be guarded against sicknesse poverty death having no such bitter influences on the Conscience or on the Soul as transgression hath for how pleasant soever it seem to flesh it shall be toylsome burdensome and tormenting we read even of sowre honey such is sin of heavy sand but evil is heavier for that will rest at Earths Center but the other presse to Hells bottomlesse bottom therefore most to be prayed against and feared upon our Earth that from it by the power of our Father in Heaven we may be delivered and made watchful against it I say watchful for to pray against evil yet study to do evil is bold impiety and shall end in mischief It is 〈◊〉 â—he Iesuits have a Law secluding women from their Colledges and if any through the Porters inadvertence enter the dust upon which she trod is to be gathered and extruded the gates lest they be defiled to preserve chastity is good and to fear evil is happy but to avoid sin the Heart more then the Earth is to be heeded and the soul of man rather then the sole of the shoe is to be respected and praying rather then such fooling is to be used as a proper antidot and remedy against sin or evil But deliver us from evill THE pernicious consequences of sin and evil are so numerous that nature it self prompts natural men to endeavour an escape but freedom from the tincture and stain of vice is more earnestly pressed by the spiritually intelligent yea in fear or in case of sloath the Doctrine is feelingly urged upon all Saints by the Lord of glory in many Scriptures particularly in this Petition deliver us from evil that is from the Devil the Author and prompter to evil being old in wickednesse so skilfull in allurements that man with his carnal weapons cannot defeat him in his invisible assaults and therefore cry for deliverance which Petition that we may learn let us examine into the extent of the word deliver and next the use thereof It is as broad as evil as long as the day it is not à tali vel tali deliverance from this or that evil as Peter from drowning Sampson from thirsting but absolutely from all from any evil whether of temporal spiritual or of eternal concernment The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying two things 1. That we be preserved from falling into evil next that we be liberat out of the evil wherein we have fallen he trusted in God said the Jews let him deliver him and this deliverance our Father doth command four wayes 1. By renewing our natures through grace he washeth us by the blood of his Son which purgeth us from our innate pollution delivers us from the evil of a defiled soul hard heart dead
conscience darkned understanding and from the guilt of impure thoughts by sending in the nick of temptation fresh supplies of reserved grace as a General will do to a stout and overpowered Officer Divines mention often of Restraining grace by which the sinner meets with obstructions in his clossest-contrived projects as Laban did in the ease of Iacob which though a singular mercy yet superlatively amounted by this renewing grace it consisting in a transmenting of the soul and drawing out from its remotest ventricle the very wishes of doing evil destroying enmity to the Law and seminating the love of God whereby it is more desireable and is indeed a delivering from or drawing out of that dark hole which a Gentile Learned Critick thinks is implyed in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 deliver us 2. By securing our persons from evil in his providence In falls slips Sea-voyages Land-journeys if his holy Angels had not supported we had been like them that go down into the pit Hath not some in their readings dreamings had warnings to prepare for the Crosse And that Book found in the belly of a Fish in the Mercat of the famous University of Cambridge a little before these late troubles which being in writ and teaching preparation for the Crosse at a publick Commencement or Laureation was certainly a providential if not a miraculous warning-piece of future disasters hardly to be believed in future ages And that was strange in that old History of a lascivious Souldier who attempting the chastity of a Virgin was wonderfully struck blind whereby with her honour the Maid escap'd intact and untouch'd 3. By restraining our adversaries through his power Satans wisdom God hath made and will still make foolishness and his power weaknesse and the poysoned Arrows which contrary to the Law of Arms he shoots called in Scripture fiery darts become ineffectual as touching the execution of his designed end for delivering of his adopted from their apprehended evil Saying to them as to the Sea Hitherto have you gone but you shall go no further Hence it is Deliver us from evil not evils that we should not be revenged at one another but united against Satan he being the head in which evil is most desperatly plotted 4. By detecting the world in shewing it in its native dresse That often by the golden Apple of some gaudy and finical pleasure interrupts us in our course to the New Ierusalem in going aside with Iudah in falling back with the Galatians in embracing this present world with Demas with those hypocritical painted countenance strong men have perished but the deformity thereof in the withdrawing its mask being viewed creats in place of love a detestation of its blandishments and a derision of her wheynings To conceit a purgatory in this prayer is to bring strange fire into the Sanctuary for unlesse it can be proved that Christ hath not compleatly suffered for our sins or that his bloud cleanseth us not from all sin we cannot fancy any suffering of our own to be either just or profitable And when the Apostle teacheth that righteous men naming himself is present with the Lord when absent from the body and that when this earthly Tabernacle is dissolved they have one eternal in the Heavens It is wondered how Rome entertains the Doctrine of purging souls in a distinct locality from either and where is that blessed rest they possesse that die in the Lord if there be a burning Purgatory Deliver us from evil that is from the Devil World and sin and in all spiritual conflicts God having a City of resuge from the inticer to evil and in case of seduction hath the kindnesse to bind up their wounds by the death of the High Priest antidoting the souls of the deluded against the poysoned Arrows which either by force or stratagem Satan or any of his complices can throw against them David and Peter fell and yet were delivered after they had finned Ioseph was delivered and he had not sinned and many of the righteous are delivered by death least they should sin which last though it be not the lot of every Saint for Daniel saw the captivity yet it hath been the prayer of the Elect as Paul of old desired to be with Christ and long after him it was said of Satyrus non nobis ereptus es sed periculis thou art not removed from us but from evils and in the last age an holy Germain desired removeal for three causes to behold Christ enjoy the company of the Saints and be free ab implacabilibus odiis Theologorum from the furious disputes of contentious Scollars and Divines Deliverance is that copiosa redemptio a full redemption from evil 1. By prevention that it come not 2. By subvention that it conquer not 3. By plenary liberation that it never come And it our houies be naunted by evil spirits to passe the proving that we are not oblidged to dwell where Satan is an inmate or to speak to him without special revelation besides that courage and faith which is to be exercised and a gooly life fasting prayer and this prayer are proper means to be delivered from that annoyance In bodily distempers worldly crosses not charmes but prayer is to be made use of for our deliverance as did the Christian Army under Bren King of Ierusalem besiedging Damiata in Egypt when provision was brought into their tents by the over-flowing of Nilus bold fishes swiming throughout the Leagure to their great terrour and amazement in that manner that Souldiers took them up in their hands but the sawce being more then the meat by prayer and fasting the river was diverted yea ditched that it returned no more by prayer and thanksgiving throughout the army by open Proclamation Afterwards the city being taken great spoyl was found and by applying the same medicament great cures have been wrought and great evils senced against for as it is said of Maro in the history it will cure feavers remove devils discharge avarice heal wrath cool lust cure sloath and command intemperance to be gone the prayers of the penitent be a Catholicon proper against all diseases It is a question well ftarted and wisely answered by a person of learning and honour why in this prayer we have no Petition for a joyful resurrection or for eternal life for to let passe what is contained in Thy Kingdom come it is sued for also in deliverance from evil it being the highest step we can attain unto in this life and by it Christs sayes Friend sit up higher and therefore are we delivered from evil that we may be delivered unto Heaven I say we for again it is deliver Vs not Me neither ought we to envy or hate our Brethren how different soever from us all have not one speech one accent nor one opinion yet non decet we