he is surprized and overwhelmed with it he knowes not how to bear it but falls into Impatience or his very Soul dies within him he is taken before he is prepared and none of those dispositions or rather distempers of mind that were bred up upon his former condition will at all serve the present but do distract and disquiet and perplex him as his former Pride Haughtiness of mind Greatness of Spirit Intemperateness Luxury they are so far from being at all serviceable and useful to him that they are as so many Haggs and Furies to torment him and the things called Patience and Contentedness and Humility and Calmness of Spirit which are of absolute necessity for his present change he knowes not how to attain or use 'T is a miserable or at least a very great Improvidence for a Man then to be learning those Virtues when the present necessity calls for the use of them it is like a Thief who is to learn to read when he is to pray his Clergy 4. It is therefore a most useful and necessary course for Men in Prosperity to take up the frequent Contemplation of their Change Bilney when the true profession of the Gospel in this Kingdom was under Persecution was used to put his finger into the Candle to inure himself the better to undergo Martyrdom which he at length suffered possibly with more Resolution and Patience than if he had omitted that experiment And surely this practice of Patience would be with more ease and no less advantage if in the time of our external Happiness we did sometimes and oftentimes take up such serious Contemplations as these both in reference to Death and other external Afflictions I am now alive and well but I cannot but know that I am mortal and must dye and my own reason and every days experience tells me that my time is very uncertain and casual a small distemper or disorder in any little Vein or Artery a little cold a little meat undigested may cast me into a mortal Disease a Crum going aside a contagious Air the fall of a Stone on me or of me upon a Stone may suddenly take away my life There are such infinite Casualties that may be mortal to me that it is no wonder that I should die but it is that I live What if it should please God by any Disease or accident suddenly to call me to account for my Stewardship are my Accounts ready is my Peace made are my Sins pardoned is my pardon sealed is all as ready as it becomes that hour if it be well if not it becomes me speedily to set things in order especially my great concernment for as this Tree of mine falls so it will lie to all Eternity Such thoughts as these often and seriously iterated would not hasten a Mans death but would much amend his life it would put and keep the Soul in a right order and temper Again I am now in Health and Strength free from Disease and Pains if I am not out off by an untimely end I must expect that Disease and Pains will lay hold of me it may be a burning Feavor or a languishing Consumption or some such Disease as may make the nights long and the days troublesome every place uneasie all things I eat or drink insipid every Limb or Vein Bone or Sinew contributing some Pain or Weakness or Faintness or Anguish to the common stock of that Disease which I must suffer How am I furnished with Patience to bear it can I amend in my self that Frowardness Vnquietness Peevishness and Impatience that I behold in others in the like case Believe it Sickness is not the fittest time either to learn Virtue or to make our Peace with God it is a time of distemper and discomposedness those must be learned and practised before Sickness comes or it will be too late or very difficult to do it after Again I am now abounding with Wealth but Riches many times make themselves Wings and fly away a Thief or a Robber a Plunder or a Sequestration a false Information or a false Oath the change of Times or Casualties of Fire or War Oppression from those above or Tumult from those beneath the Chaldean or the Sabean a Word or Action mis-understood mis-apprehended or mis-interpreted and a Thousand Contingences may take away all my Wealth So that I may stand and see my servants deserting me my Children utterly unprovided for my self in Extremity and Want So that I that have relieved Thousands must be fain to gain Bread for my self and my little Children either by the sweat of my own browes in some low Imployment or by the charity of others This may and may be speedily Experience of these times have made it visibly possible wherein Thousands that never dreamt of a change have unexpectedly felt it can I come down to so low a condition with quietness and serenity of mind without murmuring against Providence or Cursing or studying Revenge upon the Instruments of it Nay can I entertain this change with Patience nay with Chearfulness nay with Thank fulness to God that he gives me my evil things in this life if he be pleased but to bless my Afflictions to me and to reserve my portion of Happiness for the life to come can I still depend upon God live upon him and bless his Liberality if he allow me and my poor Children a piece of Bread and a cup of Water can I look through the darkness of my present condition and behold that Hope of Eternity that is beyond it and gather more Comfort in that Hope than all the present Disasters can give Discomfort If I can do this my Loss will be my Gain if I cannot it should be my business in the time of my Prosperity to lay up such a stock and treasure against the evil day which will be above the Malice and Power and reach of Men and Devils to deprive me of Again I am now in Honour and Esteem in the World my Place makes me Eminent and if it did not yet my Reputation is fair and clear and great it may be I can without Vanity or Ostentation own as much esteem as Job doth in his 29 Chap. The young Men saw me and hid themselves and the Aged arose and stood up when the Ear heard me it blessed me and when the Eye saw me it gave witness to me but for all this my condition may be changed as his was and my next Complaint may be with him Chap. 30. But now they that are younger than I have me in derision whose Fathers I would have disdained to have set with the Doggs of my Flock and now I am their Song yea I am their by-word I may be branded with the Imputation of the highest Crimes nay my very Religion and Piety to Almighty God and my Justice Honesty and Fidelity to Men may be covered with an Imputation of the basest Hypocrisie and Dishonesty under Heaven and though this part
seise upon my Body no part of my Body free from pain no place affords me ease no Cordial gives me comfort my Breath short and painful and even loathsome unto my self my eyes consumed and weary with expectation of Deliverance my Heart faint and not able to support its weak and languishing motion my Stomach gone and not able to receive or digest the most pleasant meat my exhausted consumed Body standing in need of supply and yet unable to receive it my Intrails parcht and scorcht with burning heat which is nevertheless the more increased by that which should allay it my Limbs and Joynts and Arteries torn and racked with tormenting Convulsions my Sleep gone or more troublesome than if I were awaked no posture no place affording me ease or relaxation in the Morning I wish it were Night and in the Night I long for the Morning my easie Bed assords me no ease and I desire to rise and when I am risen I cannot bear it I must presently lie down importunately longing for this or that meat and when I have it loathing the very sight of it In sum the whole mass of my Blood corrupted and my whole Body a bag full of putrefaction stink and corruption loathsome to my self and others a very Carcass bound to a living Soul tired with her burthen exquisitly sensible of it unable either to bear it or deliver her self of it These be some of those sad attendants that accompany this condition and it may be all those Calamities befal a Man at once together with the loss of Friends or near Relations as in the case of Job and then what remains to denominate a Man perfectly miserable if the calamities of this World can do it But if under any or all of those Pressures I can upon sound grounds and assurance rest upon my Hope of Immortality these and a thousand more External miseries will not only be tolerable but easie When I can upon sound Convictions and Experiences practically entertain my self with such thoughts as these It is true I am as miserable in Externals as the World can make me but in the midst of all my External Losses and Poverty I have in my prospect a Kingdom prepared for me that cannot be shaken a Treasure in Heaven above the malice and reach of Men and Devils and after a few days spent in my poor Pilgrimage through this World I shall as surely possess it as if I were already actually invested in it and as this Hope doth allay the sharpness of my passage so in my arrival to my Happiness my present suffering will make my future rest more welcome That Beam of Light and Comfort that this Hope darts into my Soul will inlighten my darkest Night here and walk along with me to my Canaan when my Hope shall be swallowed up in Vision and Fruition in the midst of all the Storms and Reproaches and Vilifyings that the World heaps upon me I injoy the Comfortable Presence and Favor of my God in my Soul and his Suffrage and Attestation and Acceptance of my Innocence which doth infinitely more over-ballance the Frowns and Contempts of the World than the favor of the greatest Prince doth over-weigh the Reproaches of the basest Peasant In the midst of my closest and darkest Restraints I have that converse which the strictest guard the strongest Bars cannot exclude I have the Presence and Conversation of my Saviour Christ and his Blessed and Sacred Spirit which doth cure and heal the noysomness and supply the retiredness of my closest Restraints and this company makes my Prison a Temple wherein I can with his Blessed Apostle with a chearful Heart magnifie my God my Soul and Mind is at liberty and free in despight of Gates of Brass and Bars of Iron In the midst of all my Pains and Sickness and the tedious declination of my Body to its final corruption and dissolution I can satisfie my self with an expectation of a happy Resurrection when this weak and frail and dying Body of mine shall be made like unto the glorious Body of my glorified Saviour and translated into the Company of Saints and Angels where there shall be no Sickness nor Sorrow nor Pain nor Sin nor Death and I shall meet with those Friends and Relations of mine which died before me in the same hope I look upon these my present Pains and Sickness and Weakness as the Harbingers of that dissolution which shall put an end to them and begin my Happiness and hereupon I bear them not only with-Patience but Comfort the greater their Violence is the sooner they will finish their business and rend away this mortal corrupted Carcass from my Immortal Soul and even in the instant of my dissolution can by the eye of my Faith discern the Blessed Angels ready to transport my Soul cleansed by the Blood of Christ into the joys of Heaven and my Blessed Redeemer standing on the other side as it were of this dead Lake ready to receive me and lead me into those Heavenly Mansions of Rest and Happiness which he went before to prepare for me This Hope and Assurance as it makes the best things of this World in their best appearance and dress but light and vain and empty and nothing So it makes the worst things that the World and Mortality can inflict or suffer light and easie For these light Afflictions which are but for a moment work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory while we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen For the things which are seen are Temporal but the things which are not seen are Eternal 2 Cor. 4.17 18. These be some of those Preparations that will admirably fit and prepare us to meet with Afflictions and in them these two things are to be remembred First That we do not only content our selves with Notions and bare Speculations of these things but that we may practically digest them into our Hearts and Resolutions for if they be but notional only Afflictions when they come will easily rend and defeat these Notions I have known many Men that have had very excellent Notions of this kind and could discourse excellently of them nay could urge them very effectually upon others but when any little Cross hath overtaken them they have been quite out of all Patience and Comfort and as much to seek how to entertain it as those that had never known any such matter nay a poor experienced Christian that could not talk half so much hath received the shock of Affliction with much more Christian Resolution than the other and the reason is The former had digested these Matters barely into Notion and the latter he made it Practical and Cordial When I read Plutarch and Seneca and Tully I find excellent Instances and Reasonings to support the Mind in Afflictions and many times upon the soundest Grounds that can be Plutarch de Animae Tranquillitate tells us That he
the stain and take away the power of sin to re-imprint the Image of God that was defaced by sin to rescue the heart from the love of sin and consequently from the power of sin to transmit into the Soul new Principles new Affections new Wills Psalm 110.3 Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power As he came with Light to rectifie the Understanding so he came with Righteousness to rectifie the Will The strength of a King rests in the Love and Will of his People when Christ conquers the Will from the Love and Submission to sin he conquers Man from the Dominion and Kingdom of sin 3. And as thus by Light he conquered the Kingdom of Darkness and by Righteousness the Kingdom of Sin so he comes with Life also and conquers us from the Kingdom of Death When our Saviour died he entred into the Chambers of Death and conquered this King of Terrors took away the malignity and sting of it by taking away Sin the sting of Death healed these bitter waters by his own passing through them and by his Resurrection triumphed over the power of death for us by the vertue of that Resurrection delivering our Souls from the second death and our Bodies from the first death and giving us a most infallible assurance of a final victory over death by an assured and blessed Resurrection Thus Death is swallowed up in Victory 1 Cor. 15.54 2. And as Christ hath purchased him a People by Victory so his Regal Office is considerable in the Government of this people that he hath so acquired He hath given them a Law to Live by the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus which makes them free from the Law of sin and of death Rom. 8.2 The Law of God vindicated from the false glosses which the corruption of men had in succession of time put upon it a Law sweetned and strengthned and actuated by the Love of God wrought in the Soul a Law though of the highest Perfection and Purity yet accompanied with the Grace and Assistance of Christ to Enable us to perform it in some measure and accompanied with the Merits of Christ to pardon and the Righteousness of Christ to cover our defects in our performance of it He hath given them a new heart and this Law of his written in this heart He hath given them of his own Spirit a Spirit of Life to Quicken them and of Power to Enable them to Obey And because notwithstanding this conquest of Christ of a People to himself they are still beset with Enemies that would reduce them to their former bondage he watcheth over them and in them by his Grace wasting and weakning and resisting their corruptions by new supplyes and influences from him quickning their hearts by renewed derivations of Life and Spirit from him which otherwise would sink and die under the weight of their own Earth encountering Temptations that like Foggs and Vapours arise out of our own flesh or like storms or snares are raised or placed by the Devil against us either by diverting them or by giving sufficient Grace to oppose them These and the like administrations doth our Saviour use which though they are secret and not easily discerned by us and though they are ordered without any noise or appearance yet they are works of greater Power and of greater Concernment and of equal reality with all the visible administrations of things in this world which are more obvious to our sense and are the effects of that invisible Government of Christ and of that Promise of his Behold I am with you alway even unto the end of the World Matth. 28.20 This is that Kingdom of God within them Luk. 17.21 consisting in Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost Rom. 14.17 casting down Imaginations and every high thing that Exalteth it self against the knowledge of God and bringing into Captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10.5 3. As in his Government so his Regal Office is Evidenced in his Judgment And this Judgment of his being one of the Acts or Administrations of this Kingdom is oftentimes called the Kingdom of God His Judgment of Absolution and Reward to his Subjects and his Judgment of Condemnation and Destruction to the Rebels and Enemies of his Kingdom 2. And as we have the consideration of the King of this Kingdom and consequently of his Subjects Revel 15.3 Just and true are thy ways thou King of Saints So the various Administrations of this Kingdome are frequently called the Kingdome of God and the Mysteries of the Kingdome Matth. 13.11 24 31 44 45 47. Matth. 25.1 14 c. And as the Administrations of this Kingdom are often called the Kingdom so are the Instruments of this administration 1. The Word or Gospel of the Kingdome which must be preached through the whole World Matt. 24.14 and is therefore committed to the ministration of an Angel to dispence it to all Nations Revel 14.6 That great Engin which though seemingly weak and dispensed by weak and despicable Men God hath chosen to confound the things that are mighty 1 Cor. 1.27 to pull down strong holds 2 Cor. 10.4 to gather his Elect for the perfecting of the body of Christ the fulness of him that filleth all in all and therefore this publication of the Gospel is oftentimes called the Kingdom of Heaven Mat. 3.2 The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand Luk. 10.9 The Kingdom of God is come nigh unto you and if a Man consider the Mighty and Strange Effects that this everlasting Gospel hath had in the World for these many Hundred Years notwithstanding the many disadvantages upon which it entred and hath continued in the World we may well say that it is the Power of God and the Wisdom of God 1 Cor. 1.24 the Rod of his strength sent out of Sion Psal 110.2 that the Message of a Crucified Christ published by poor despised men to a World that never saw him or if they did saw no beauty or comliness in him to a World full of prejudicies against him prepossessed with an opinion of their own Wisdom with Religions extremely opposite traduced to them from their Ancestors of which Men are naturally tenacious that this Message of Christ not with a promise of Glory or Riches in this World but with a plain prediction of poverty scorns persecutions and Death to those that entertain it and with a promise of future Life that they never saw nor can see till they see this no more should conquer Millions of Souls to the profession and Love of Christ and to an austere self-denying despised Life here doth evidence and convince that there is the strength and Wisdom of God that is ingaged in this wonderful yet most positively predicted conquest of the World 2. The work of the Spirit of God preparing and pre-disposing the Heart to the receiving of the Gospel of the Kingdom convincing the Heart of that Sin and that Death
Power and All-sufficiency of God and lastly with Recourse to God by Prayer against them for Except the Lord keep the City the Watchmen wake but in vain Psal 127.1 2. The second means is that which our Saviour teacheth us in this Petition Prayer unto God the Father who is faithful and will not suffer us to be tempted above what we are able 1 Cor. 10.13 Through our Lord Jesus Christ who hath suffered himself being tempted and therefore is able to succour those that are tempted Heb. 2.18 By the Eternal Spirit who hath promised to guide us into all truth John 16.13 That the Almighty and Eternal God who so far condescends unto us as to offer us his Hand to lead us and his Strength to support us that sees all our wayes and our wandrings and the snares that are spread for our feet would be pleased to guide us by his Hand and by his Eye that we may keep the true and old way and if any snares be laid there for us by the Enemy of our Peace that he would either remove or break the snare or lead us about by them or lift us over them That he would be pleased to cleanse our Hearts from our corruptions the nursery of our Temptations that he would prepare us and instruct and strengthen us by his Mighty Spirit to discern and to oppose and to overcome the deceits and seductions of our own Hearts To conclude therefore this part of this Petition O Lord God Almighty that beholdest all my ways I find that I walk in the midst of Snares and Temptations the great Enemy of my Salvation and his Retinue are continually about me and watch for my halting secretly and undiscoverably soliciting my Soul to sin against thee almost in every occurrence of my life and every motion of my mind and having in any thing prevailed against me either he quiets my Soul in my sin or disorders my Soul for it and by both prevents or diverts me from coming to thee to seek my Pardon as a thing not necessary to be asked or impossible to be gained Again the Men among whom I live scatter their temptations for me by Perswasions to sin by evil Examples by success in sinful practices And if there were no Devil or Man to tempt me yet I find in my self an everlasting seed of Temptations a stock of corruptions that forms all I am and all I have or do even thy very Mercies into Temptations when I consider thy Patience and Goodness to me I am tempted to Presumption to Supineness to an Opinion of my own worth when I consider or find thy Justice I am tempted to Murmuring to despair to think the most Soveraign Lord a hard Master In my Understanding I am tempted to secret Argumentation to Atheism to Infidelity to dispute thy Truth to curiosity to impertinent or forbidden enquiries If I have Learning it makes me Proud apt to despise the purity and simplicity of thy Truth to contend for Mastery not for Truth to use my Wit to reason my self or others into Errors or Sins to spend my time in those discoveries that do not countervail the expence nor are of any value or use to my Soul after death In my Will I find much averseness to what is good a ready motion to every thing that is evil or at least an incertain fluctuation between both In all my Thoughts I find abundance of Vanity when imployed to any thoughts of most concernment to my Soul full of inconsistency unfixt unsetled easily interrupted mingled with gross apprehensions When I look into my Conscience I find her easily bribed and brought over to the wrong party allayed with self-love if not wholly silent unprofitable and dead In my Affections I find continued disorder easily misplaced and more easily over-acted beyond the bounds of Moderation Reason and Wisdom much more of Christianity and thy Fear In my sensual Appetite I find a continual fog and vapour rising from it disordering my Soul in all I am about with unseasonable importunate and foul exhalations that darken and pollute it that divert and disturb it in all that is good that continually solicit it to all sensual Evils unto all immoderation and excess In my Senses I have an Eye full of Wantonness full of Covetousness full of Haughtiness an Ear full of Itching after novelties impertinencies vanities a Palate full of Intemperance studious for curiosities a Hand full of violence when it is in my power a Tongue full of unnecessary vain words apt to slander to whisper full of vain-glory and self-flattery If thou givest me a healthy strong Body I am ready to be proud of it apt to think my self out of the reach of sickness or death It keeps me from thinking of my latter end or providing for it I am ready to use that strength to the service of sin with better advantage more excess and less remorse If thou visitest me with sickness I am surprised with Peevishness Impatience with solicitous care touching my Estate and Posterity and Recovery and my thoughts concerning thee less frequent less profitable than before though my necessity be greater If thou givest me Plenty I am apt to be Proud Insolent Confident in my Wealth reckoning upon it as my Treasure think every thought lost that is not imployed upon it or in order to increase it loth to think of Death or Judgment If thou visitest me with Poverty I am apt to murmur to count the Rich happy to cast off thy service as unprofitable to look upon my everlasting hopes as things at a distance Imaginary Comforts under Real wants If thou givest me Reputation and Esteem in the World I am apt to make use of it to bear me out at a pinch in some unlawful action to use it to mislead others to use any base shift to support it If thou cast me into Reproach and Ignominy my heart is apt to swell against the means to study Revenge and to die with my Reputation though it may causelesly be lost and to have the thoughts and remembrance of it to interfere and grate upon my Soul even in my immediate service to thee any Cross sowers at my blessings and carries my heart so violently into discontent for it may be all single affliction which I deservedly suffer that I forget to be thankful for a multitude of other Mercies which I undeservedly enjoy If I am about a good Duty I find my heart tempted to perform them Carelesly Formally Negligently Hypocritically Vain-gloriously for false or by-Ends and when I have done them my heart is puft up with Pride opinion of Merit looking upon my Maker as my Debtor for the Duty I owe him and yet but slightly and defectively performed to him How then can I expect Power from my self to resist a Temptation without when I find so much treachery within me I therefore beseech thee most Merciful and Powerful Father to send into my heart the Grace and strength of thy blessed
the more concernment The End which most concerns us to enquire after is the end of our Being why or for what end we were made for as that is the thing of the greatest moment to us so the ignorance or mistake therein is of the greatest danger Now touching this End of Man we must know 1. That in all wise workers that act by deliberation and choice the appointment of the end of any work belongs to him that makes it 2. In as much therefore as Mankind is in its Original the workmanship of God therefore it belongs to him to appoint the end of his own workmanship and of him it must be inquired 3. That in as much as God is the wisest worker and in as much as Mankind is a piece of excellent workmanship it becomes the Wisdom of God as to appoint man to an end of his own designing so to appoint him to an end answerable to the excellency of the work an end as much above other creatures as man exceeds them in worth and excellency So that certainly Man is ordained by God to an End and to an excellent End beyond the condition of other inferior Creatures for we see them all appointed for the use and service of Man to feed and cloath and heal and delight him What therefore is common to the Beasts as well as Man cannot be the End of Man The Beasts Eat and Drink and Live and Propagate their kind with as much delight and much more contentment than Man they are free from Cares and from Fears which Man is not and though they die so doth Man also therefore to live and eat and drink and perpetuate their kind is too low an End for Man And if so then much more is it below him to make Wealth and Honor and Power his End For they are but in order to his temporal life here either to provide for it or to secure it And besides that they cannot answer the desires and continuance of an Immortal Soul which Man bears with him And hence grows the Weariness and Vexation and Unquietness and Restlesness of Man in the midst of all Wealth and Honors and Pleasures therefore there is some other End to which Man was appointed Which is 1. In reference to God to glorifie him 2. In reference to Man an everlasting injoyment of God 1. To glorifie God two things are considerable 1. What it is for Man to glorifie God 1. There is a Glorifying of God common to all the Works of God in as much as they all bear in them the visible footsteps of the Power Wisdom and Goodness of God Thus the Sun and Heavens glorifie God Psa 19.2 There is a glorifying of God properly belonging to Intellectual Creatures Angels and Men. 1. In his Understanding whereby he learns to know God in his Word and in his Works his Power Goodness Wisdom and Truth and with his heart admires and with his tongue praiseth him 2. In his Will whereby he submits to him Worships Fears him and in the course of his life Obeys him whereby he acknowledgeth his Soveraignty and submits to it Psal 50.23 He that offereth Praise glorifieth him and to him that orders his conversation aright will I shew the Salvation of God Both these are imperfectly done here but shall be perfectly done in the life to come 2. Why the Glorifying of God is made the Chief End of Man 1. It is the Chief End that God proposed in all his Works of Creation Prov. 16.4 He made all things for himself that is his own Glory In his Works of Preservation and Providence Psal 50.15 Call upon me in the day of trouble I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorifie me In his Work of Redemption Ephes 1.6 To the praise of the glory of his Grace whereby he hath made us accepted in the beloved In his Work of Sanctification Matth. 5.16 That Men seeing your good Works may glorifie your Father who is in Heaven 2. It is but just it should be the Chief End of Man to glorifie God because it is a most Reasonable Tribute to pay to him for all his Mercies and Goodness From him we receive our Being and all the Blessings of it and it is but just for God to require and for Man to perform the due acknowledgment of the Goodness of that God from whom he receives them which is his Glorifying of God 2. To injoy God for ever 1. Two things are to be explained 1. What it is to injoy God 2. Why this is part of the Chief End of Man 1. To injoy God is either 1. In this Life which is to have Peace with God Assurance of Reconciliation with him for then we have Peace with our selves Contentment and Quietness of Soul Access to him as to our Father for all we want and Hope and Assurance of Everlasting Life which will make the Comforts of our Life safe and the Afflictions thereof easie and the End and Dissolution thereof Comfortable 2. In the life to come the fulness of fruition of the Knowledge Goodness Glory and Presence of God according to the uttermost measure and capacity of our faculties which in the Resurrection shall be great and capacious and this is called the Beatifical Vision 2. Why this is part of the Chief End of Man Because this is the Happiness and Blessedness of Man to injoy God and nothing besides can make him Happy which appears 1. in all other injoyments without the injoyment of God there is a great deal of Vanity and emptiness whether in Pleasures or Profits or worldly Advantages Men expect great matters from them but after a little injoyment of them they are weary and find themselves disappointed and that there is not that comfort in them that they expected and then they travel to some other worldly injoyment and there they find the like This therefore cannot afford Man his Happiness 2. In all other injoyments without God there is a great deal of Vexation and Trouble The Cares and Fears and Sorrows and Disappointments that we meet with in the injoyment of them doth out weigh all the Contentment and Benefit that we receive in them and therefore this cannot be our Happiness 3. All other injoyments without God have their End and Term Sometimes we over live them the Pleasures and Contentments of youth leave us when we are old And sometimes we see our Riches our Health our Earthly Comforts taken from us but if not yet when we die we leave them and yet our Souls continue after death and our Bodies and Souls continue after our Resurrection for ever The injoyments therefore of this Life cannot be our Happiness but that Happiness which continues as long as we continue which is the injoyment of the Favor Love and Presence of God for ever Now put both together The Glorifying of God and the injoyment of him for ever is the Happiness and Blessedness of Man the Chief End for which he was made Such is the
and the Forgetfulness of God 3. Because the time of Youth is most Obnoxious to forget God there is great Inadvertency and Inconsiderateness Incogitancy Unstableness Vanity Love of Pleasures Easiness to be corrupted in Youth and therefore necessary in this season to lodge the Remembrance of our Creator in our Youth to be an Antidote against these defects to establish and fix the entrance of our lives with this great Preservative the Remembrance of our Creator 4. When Almighty God lays hold of our Youth by a timely Remembrance of himself and thereby takes the first possession of our Souls commonly it keeps its ground and seasons the whole course of our ensuing Lives it prevents and anticipates the Devil and the World It is true it may possibly be that Natural Corruption and Worldly Temptations may suspend the actings of this Principle but it is rarely extinguished It is like that abiding seed remaining in him spoken of by John 1 Joh. 3.9 Which will recover him again 5. The last reason is because there are Evil Days that will certainly come which will render this work of Remembring our Creator difficult to be first begun and therefore it is the greatest Prudence imaginable to lay in this stock before they come for it will certainly stand us in great stead when they come It is the greatest Imprudence in the World to defer that business which is necessary to be done unto such a time wherein it is very difficult to be done and it is the greatest Prudence in the World to do that work which must be done in such a season wherein it may be easily and safely done He that lays in this store of Remembrance of his Creator before the Evil Day come will find it of the greatest use and service to him in that Evil Day Now those Evil Days are many and all of them befall some but some of them will certainly befall all Mankind 1. An Evil Day of Publick or Private Calamities He that beforehand hath laid in this stock of Remembring his Creator will be easily able to bear any Calamity when it comes but a man that hath not done this before hand will find it a very unseanable time to begin to set about it when Fear and Anguish and Perplexity and Storms and Confusion are round about him and take up all his thoughts 2. The Evil Day of Sickness is an unseasonable time or at least a very difficult time to begin such a business When Sickness and Pain and Disorder and uneasiness shall render a man Impatient and full of Trouble and his Thoughts full of Disorder and Discomposure and Waywardness then it will be found a difficult business to begin the Remembrance of our Creator It is true no time is utterly unacceptable of God for this work but surely it is best to begin before this Evil day come for then it will be a comfort and mitigate the Pains and Discomposure of Sickness when a man can thus reflect upon his life past as Hezekiah did in his Sickness Remember O Lord that I have not failed to remember my Creator in the days of my Health 3. The evil Day of Old and Infirm Age which is a Disease and burthen of it self and yet is ever accompanied with other Sicknesses Pains and Diseases and a Natural frowardness and Morosity and Discontentedness of mind and therefore not so seasonable to begin the undertaking of this work as the flourishing Youth And indeed a man cannot reasonably expect that the Great God who invites the Remembring our Creator in the Days of our Youth and hath been ungratefully denied should accept the Dreggs of our Age for a Sacrifice when we have neglected the thoughts of him in our strong and flourishing age But on the other side that man that hath spent the time of his Youth and Strength in the remembrance of his Creator may with comfort and contentment in his old and feeble age reflect upon his past life with Hezekiah Remember O Lord I pray thee that I have not failed to remember thee in the days of my Youth and Strength and I pray thee accept of the endeavours of my Old Decayed Age to preserve that Remembrance of thee which I so early began and have constantly continued and pardon the defects that the natural decays of my strength and age have occasioned in that duty 4. The evil day of Death when my Soul fits hovering upon my lips and is ready to take its flight when all the World cannot give my Life any certain truce for a day or for an hour and I am under the cold embraces of Death then to begin to remember my Creator is a difficult and unseasonable time But when I have began that business early and held on the Remembrance of my Creator it will be a Cordial even against Death it self and will carry my Soul unto the Presence of that God which I have thus remembred in and from the days of my Youth with Triumph and Rejoycing Briefly therefore 1. Remember thy Creator in the days of thy Youth because thou knowest not whether thou shalt have any other Season to Remember him Death may overtake thee and lay thee in the Land of Forgetfulness thy Spring may be thy Autumn and thy early bud may be the only fruit that Mortality may afford thee 2. Remember thy Creator in the days of thy Youth because it is a time of Invitation neglect not this Season because thou knowest not whether ever thou shalt be again invited to it Remember thy Creator in the days of thy Youth that thy Creator may remember thee in the days of thy Sickness and Old Age and in the Evil Day 4. Remember thy Creator in the days of thy Youth lest thy Creator neglect thee in the Evil Day Neglected Favours especially from thy God may justly provoke him never to lend thee more Because I called and ye refused I also will laugh at your Calamity and mock when your Fear cometh Prov. 1.24 26. 5. Remember thy Creator in the days of thy Youth because it will heal the Evil of Evil days when they come it will turn those days that are in themselves Evil to become days of Ease and Comfort it will heal the Evil of the day of Affliction of Sickness of Old Age and of Death it self and make it a passage into a better a more abiding Life OF THE Vncleanness of the Heart and how it is Cleansed Psal 51.10 Cor mundum crea in me Deus THis Prayer imports or leads us into the Consideration of these things 1. What the condition of every mans Heart is by Nature It is a foul and unclean Heart 2. Wherein consists this uncleanness of the Heart 3. What is the ground or cause of this uncleanness of the Heart 4. Whence it is that the condition of the Heart is changed It is an act of Divine Omnipotence 5. What is the condition of a Heart thus cleansed or wherein the cleanness of the Heart consists
this Uncourteous dealing with our Lusts and Temptations will much countervail the unpleasingness of the Duty A man is tempted to a Sin he holds conference with it and is inticed to treat with it and to think of it and it pleaseth him but it is a Thousand to one if it stay there but unless some great diversion by the Grace of God or some External restraint by Shame or Punishment prevent him he commits the Sin and so Lust when it hath Conceived will bring forth Sin and Sin when finished will bring forth Shame and Death or at the best Shame and Sorrow How will a Man reckon with himself What am I the better for that Contentment that I took in this Sin the Contentment is past and that which it hath left me is nothing else but a mis-giving Conscience a sense of a displeased God ashamed to bring my mind in his presence a pre-apprehension of some mischief or inconvenience to follow me a despondency of mind to draw near to God under it and either a great deal of Sorrow and Vexation or Affliction under it or which is the usual gratification of Satan after Sin committed to put away the remembrance of a Sin past with the committing of another till at last the Guilt grows to such a moles that a Man is desperately given over to all kind of Villany and as his Sins increase his Guilt and Shame increaseth On the other side I have denyed my Lust or my Temptation and it is gone First I am as well without it as if I had committed it for it may be the Sin had been past and the contentment that I took in it and I had been as well without it but besides all this I have no Guilt cleaving to my Soul no sting in my Conscience no dispondent nor mis-giving Mind no Interruption of my Peace with God or my self I enjoy my Innocence my Peace my Access to God with Comfort nay more than all this I have a secret Attestation of the Spirit of God in my Conscience that I have obeyed him and have pleased him and have rejected the Enemy of his Glory and my Happiness I have a secret advance of my Interest and Confidence in him and Dependance upon him and Favour with him and Liberty and Access to him which doth Infinitely more than counter vail the satisfaction of an impure and unprofitable and vexing Lust which leaves no footsteps behind it but shame and Sorrow and Guilt 15. As Resolution and Severity to a mans self is one of the best remedies against the flatttery and deceit of Lust so there are certain Expedients that are subservient to that Resolution as namely First Avoiding of Idleness for the Soul in the Body is like a flame that as it were feeds upon that oily substance of the Body which according to the various qualifications or temper of the Body gives it a tincture somewhat like it self and unless the Soul be kept in action it will dwell too much upon that tincture that it receives from it and be too intent and pleased or at least too much tainted and transported and delighted with those fuliginous foul Vapors that arise from the Flesh and natural Constitution Keep it therefore busied about somewhat that is fitter for it that may divert that Intention and Complacency in those fumes that the inferiour part of the Soul is apt to take in them and so be tempted transported or abused by them Secondly A frequent and constant Consideration of the Presence of God and his Holy Angels Luke 15.7 10. 1 Cor. 4.9 who are Spectators of thy Constancy to God and his party and delighted in it or of thy Apostasie Bruitishness and Baseness of mind and grieved at it If a good Man were but acquainted with all my Actions and Motions of my mind upon the Advance of Lusts and Temptations it would make me ashamed to offend in his sight but much more if a pure and glorious Angel did in my view attend observe and behold me but when the Eternal God doth behold me who hath given me this Command to deny my Lusts and hath told me the danger of yielding to them that they bring forth Sin and Death and Hell offers his Grace to assist me promiseth Reward to my Obedience and Constancy how shall I then dare to offend with so much presumption Thirdly A frequent Consideration of Christ's Satisfaction Sufferings and Intercession These Lusts that now solicit me to their observance were those that Crucified my Saviour it was the end of his Passion to Redeem me not only from the Guilt but from the subjection to them It is he that beholds me how shall I trample his Blood under foot If I prostitute my self to them how shall I despise and as much as in me lies disappoint him in the very end of his Incarnation How shall I shame his Gospel before men and as much as in me lies put him to shame in the presence of the Father and all the Holy Angels when they shall be witnesses of my preferring a base Lust before him How can I expect the Intercession of my Saviour for me at the right hand of God who beholds me thus unworthily to serve a Lust though to my Damnation rather than obey my Redeemer to my Salvation 4. Frequent Consideration of Death and Judgment A base Lust solicites me to obey it Shall I accept or deny it It may be this may be the last action of my Life and possibly Death that might have been respited if I shall deny my Lust may be my next event if I obey it and as Death finds me so will Judgment find me Would I be content that such an act as this should be the Amen of my Life and it may be seal me up to eternal rejection Would I be content that my Soul should be presently carried into the presence of God under the last act of my Life to his dishonor Or on the other side if I deny this base importunate Messenger of Hell and it should please God to strike me presently after with Sickness or Death would it not be a more comfortable entrance into that black Valley with a clear Conscience and an Innocent Heart that could with Comfort say as once Hezekiah did upon the like occasion Isai 38.3 Remember O Lord I beseech thee how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart Fifthly A due Consideration of the Issue of those solicitations of Lust if assented unto the end of it is Death it will be bitterness in the end it cannot with all its pleasures countervail that bitterness that will most certainly attend it nor can it give any security against it Suppose thou art solicited to a thought or act of Injustice Impurity or Intemperance if thou wilt needs be talking with the Temptation ask it whether it be not a Sin against that God in whose hands thy Soul is and if it be whether his Anger and
upon them as upon Heavenly yet they have this advantage that they are present and therefore affect the Sense and the Mind more than things that are better at a distance and therefore we are apt to set up our rest here And this is the reason that even Good Men though they value and prize Grace and the inwaâ—d favour of God yet they commonly love the World a little too much and divide their Affections too equally between God and the World and therefore study and indeavour such a Contemperation that they may hold both And hence it is that God who requires intirely the Heart doth many times make the world bitter to us to make us weary of his Rival that so we may with more Intireness and Integrity set our Hearts upon Him and upon that Everlasting Hope and long after and Integrity set our Hearts upon Him and it and satisfie our selves with the Expectation of it and make it our Treasure and set up our rest upon it and in it And these are some of those many reasons that evidence the Necessity of Afflictions 6. And now we will come to consider these Three matters 1. What Preparations we should use before Afflictions overtake us 2. What should be our Exercise under it 3. What should be our frame of mind in case of Deliverance from it I. And in the first place of the first of these We have seen that it is a Lot to be expected in this World we cannot upon any terms promise our selves an exemption from it nay if we should escape all other Temporal Calamities yet sickness and infirmities of Body will most infallibly overtake us they are part of that black guard that commonly attends death which is the inevitable Lot of the living It concerns us all therefore to be prepared for that which must necessarily sooner or latter be our condition in some kind or other it may be in many it may be in all kinds 1. Therefore the first Expedient Preparatory to Afflictions is this In the time of our Prosperity it must be our care to walk with as much Innocence Watchfulness and Circumspection as can be for it is a most certain truth that the Malignity and Sting and Venome of Affliction is not so much in the things I suffer as in the sense of my former Guilt and Sin No Man is in a better condition to bear Afflictions than he that hath the cleanest Conscience for as any distemper in any part of the Body draws all the mischievous and hurtful humours of the Body to that part so it is a most sure consequent of any manner of Affliction it brings all former Sins to remembrance and calls the thoughts of them together upon such an occasion When Joseph's Brethren were under a strait in Egypt under the threatnings and seeming jealousies of their unknown Brother then comes in the remembrance of their injury to their Brother and it is represented to them with all the aggravations that can be Gen. 42.21 We are verily guilty concerning our Brother in that we saw the anguish of his Soul when he besought us and we would not hear therefore is this distress come upon us Conscience that they had before stifled and injured now takes her time to be even with them and flies upon them when they are in a strait and then she will be heard though in their Prosperity she could not And this Return of the Remembrance of former Sins is the very Gall of Afflictions and that principally upon these two reasons 1. It is that which weakens and impares the strength that should bear them for for the most part all ternal Afflictions they concern the Body or the outward Man whether it be Poverty or Reproach or Sickness or Pain and if for all this the Mind be but free she will be able to bear them pretty well will suggest Reasons for Patience Hopes for Deliverance and Twenty allayes at least to mitigate the present sufferings but when that Mind and Reason and Judgment that should support is likewise wounded and vexed and tormented with the sense of past Sins and the Storms that are within be as violent and turbulent as those without there is nothing to bear up against the Afflictions the Soul it self that should support the outward Man wants support for it self 2. In all external Troubles as it is the Duty so it is the Nature of Man to fly to God and that application possibly gains Relief from it but howsoever it bears up the Man with a convenient strength against them the very liberty of recourse to God gains a Dependance a Hope a Confidence which supports in a very great measure under the Greatest Troubles but this Return of Sins past upon the Conscience and Memory if it doth not wholly deprive yet it doth wonderfully interrupt discourage and divert the Soul from this most admirable expedient When a Man shall have such thoughts as these I am under a very great Affliction either in my Estate Friends Name Body and I know no way to extricate my self but one and that is by application to the Almighty and Merciful God and if I could but do so I were safe but alass the Memory of my former Sins my breach of Covenant with him my frequent Relapses into Sin my Ingratitude to him they fall in upon me and I dare not I know not how I have not the face the confidence to come unto him and so I must lie and sink under as well my Guilt as my Affliction And although this is a very false way of Argumentation and such as is most displeasing to God and derogatory to his high Prerogative of Mercy as well in forgiving as in delivering who hath given to the most hainous Sinner and under the greatest Afflictions a Commission to ask his mercy both to Pardon and to Deliver and that with a Promise of Mercy yet it is most certain that what by our own weakness and what by the Devils subtilty the Remembrance of our past Sins doth most ordinarily make our addresses to God under our Afflictions very difficult Little therefore do people consider in the time of their Prosperity what a stock of Venom and malignity they lay up against an evil day by a dissolute and sinful life Affliction without this most accursed contribution were much more tolerable If thou meanest therefore to make thy Affliction easie keep thy Conscience clean before it comes thou hast then the Strength of thine own Soul to support thee and the liberty of Access to the most Mighty and Gracious God to deliver thee when thou canst in the sincerity of thy Heart with Hezek Isa 38.3 appeal unto God Remember now O Lord I beseech thee how I have walked before thee in Truth and with a perfect Heart and have done that which is good in thy sight I say with reverence keep God thy Friend in thy Prosperity and thou mayest with confidence resort to him and relie upon him in
me take no contentment or satisfaction at all in all or any of these enjoyments the truth is they are but Provisions for the Flesh and in order to the Body and when the Body is under a distemper they become but insignificant useless things He that is under a strong Pain or Disease finds as little contentment though he lie on a soft Bed richly furnished in a Chamber richly hanged in it a Cupboard furnished with massie Plate as if he lay in a Cottage 3. They are but for a time Death will at last overtake me and as all my Riches and Pleasures and Honours and Worldly Accommodations cannot prevent or buy it off so neither will they be of any comfort or value to me in that hour Indeed they may make death more troublesom and unwelcome to me but they cannot at all secure me against it The plain truth is Death doth undeceive and open the eyes of the Children of Men it teacheth us to put the true value upon every thing as it deserves My Riches and my Honour my Pleasures and my Profits my Gallantry and my Policy which I made much reckoning of in my life time when Death comes I shall perceive them to be but Vanity at the best and set no Esteem upon them but Piety and Prayers and Charity and Interest in God and in the Merits of Christ and the Promises of the Gospel that perchance in my life time I esteemed as dry and useless things I shall then see to be of greatest value and accordingly prize them These I shall carry with me into the succeeding World but all my Worldly Comforts when I pass through this strait Gate of Death I shall leave behind me as a Snake leaves behind his antiquated Skin when he passeth through a brake and never make use of them or take comfort in them more And when I come unto the other side of this dead Lake the Fruitions of all my life past will be forgotten or at least remembred as a Man remembers a Dream when he awakes only the Good or Evil of my past life will stick upon me unto all Eternity Why then should I set my Heart upon that which is of so small a value so little use so short and so uncertain a continuance they are things which I may lose while I live but I am sure I cannot keep them when I die and if they take their farewel sooner they do but their kind and at best do but a little anticipate their last and necessary valediction I resolve therefore I will not set my Heart upon them but carry a loose and flaccid Affection towards them And if I lose them I will not over-much afflict my Soul for the loss of that which I had not much reason to value while I had it And as thus a Man should tutor himself to a just Estimate of the Good things of the World so a Man should bring himself to a just and due Esteem of the Evil things of the World such as Sickness and Pain and Imprisonments and Reproach and Want and the like There are these two things that do much allay the severity of those Evils 1. They are but Corporal they reach no farther than the Body the Husk the outward Man the Cottage they cannot at all get so deep as the Soul 2. They are but Temporal It is most certain that Death will cure and heal these Evils and possibly these Distempers and Sufferings the less severe they are the more tolerable the more severe the more in probability they will hasten and advance the cure As nothing that hath an end can make a Man truly Happy so nothing that hath an end can make a Man truly Miserable because he hath under his greatest Misery the Lenitive of Hope and Expectation of a Deliverance 6. But yet farther Gain Assurance of thy Peace with God in Christ and consequently of thy future Happiness and be frequent in the Contemplation and Improvement of it This is the great Engine of a Christian a Magistery that was never attained by the most exquisite Philosopher nor is attainable but in and by the knowledge of Christ who brought Life and Immortality to Light It is the great expedient whereby a Man attains Victory over the World whereby he is able to injoy Prosperity with Moderation and undergo Affliction with Patience 1 Joh. 5.4 This is the Victory which overcometh the World even your Faith When a Man under the severest Afflictions shall have this Assurance and these Contemplations It is true I am in as low a condition as the World can cast me my Estate torn from me by the basest of Men and I and my Children exposed to extream Want and Necessity so that I am become little better than a Vagabond upon the Earth for the very attaining of Bread or at best am driven to the hardest and most sordid imployment that can be consistent with honesty for my supplies of Necessaries and if by chance my own sweat or others charity supply me to day I cannot imagine what shift to make for to morrow and if this were a condition to which I had been born or in which I had been bred use might have made it easie and familiar but it is not so I am fallen into this low condition from a plentiful and liberal condition wherein I had my Table crowned with plenty and as I wanted not Charity to imploy my Plenty so I wanted not Plenty to supply my Charity Again I was in the greatest Reputation and Esteem among Men that may be but now I am fallen under the saddest the basest Scorn and Obloquy and Reproach and Imputation that can be and all this without any cause my Enemies Triumph over me with Scorns Derisions and Exprobrations my former Friends bestow upon me a kind of Scornful Pity that is more bitter than the upbraidings of my Enemies the abjects and dregs of the people make me their by-word and the Calumnies under which I suffer are of such a nature that none dares be my Advocate but the silent Testimony of my own Conscience and Innocence Again under all these pressures it had been some allay if I were but a Citizen of the World that I had but the liberty to forsake the place of my suffering and go to some more auspicious or tolerable corner of the World but in that I am also prevented my liberty is taken from me and I am penned up in the narrow dark loathsome stinking confines of a most odious Prison without the benefit of Light or Friends or indeed of any other Company than such as make my Imprisonment the more intolerable Chains and Vermine and the most accursed Malefactors Again I suffer not only under restraint of a loathsome Goal but I am exposed to lingring Torments Racks and Whips and Famine and Nakedness and Cold and continual Threats and sad Expectations of worse to follow if worse there may be Again dismal and painful and tormenting Diseases
reject those Requests which he himself hath Commanded thee to make 2. As thou prayest in the first place that his Name may be sanctified so let that be the End of all thy Requests Be sure thou ask not any thing which may not be sutable to that End much less contrary to it And in what thou askest agreeable to that End let it be likewise for that End Ask not thy daily Bread for thy Lusts but that thou mayest Glorifie him by it and for it Ask not Pardon for thy Sin barely for thy ease from Punishment much less to make room for new Offences but that thereby his Mercy and Truth may be magnified and his Creature restored to a condition actively to serve him and glorifie him The End is first in intention and is it that draws out all the Actions and orders and directs them to that End and every Action tasts and relisheth of that End Since therefore the Sanctifying of the Name of God is or should be thy chief End and therefore is first in thy Requests Let all thy Requests and Prayers be primarily and chiefly directed to this that is or should be thy chiefest End 3. As the Glory of God should be the chief of thy desires so consequently must it be the Measure of them That which is the chiefest End must control and over-rule all other subordinate Ends if they come in competition with it For as it is of greatest value so it is of greatest force Whatsoever therefore thou askest let it be still with subordination to the Glory of God and be rather contented to be disappointed in thy other inferiour Ends than that this should in the least degree be disappointed Only know and rest assured of this truth that such is the great Goodness and Wisdom of God that he hath placed all those Requests which are of absolute necessity to be granted thee in such an order and path that the granting of them always consists with his Glory and whil'st thou seekest them thou canst not miss of glorifying him and therefore thou mayest be sure the making of his Glory the measure of thy Request shall never disappoint thee in them such as are the pardoning thy sins the delivering thee from being finally overcome with spiritual Evil but thy other requests for temporal Benefits or Deliverances or the particular Circumstances of those other as the manifestation or assurance of Pardon the degrees of spiritual Blessings or the seasons of granting them these may not always lie in the Road-way of his Glory Be content in these to wait upon him and let them still be asked with subordination to this great End but be assured that by preferring his Glory as thy chief End and subjecting the fulfilling of thy Request to the Glory of God thou shalt be no loser in the end Never any man was a loser nor ever shall be that principally intends the Glory of God though to the disappointment of his own particular Ends. Thou hast done thy duty in asking and in asking with this restriction if it tend most for the Glory of God And thou hast done thy Duty in being contented and rejoycing that thy very request is disappointed if God receive Glory thereby for thou hast that which thou diddest in the first place desire and had thy particular Request been granted and the Glory of thy Maker suffered thereby thou had'st been disappointed in this first and great Petition Sanctified be thy Name which thou hast carried along with thee as the qualification of all the rest of thy Requests and as that which thou hast as it were prayed over again in every other Petition thou hast made Assure thy self if thou canst take delight in the Glory of God though to thy own particular damage God will more abundantly recompence thy seeking of his Glory than that very Petition which is denied could have done if granted Thou servest a Bountiful Master that will surely recompence thy Love of his Glory above thy own particular advantage And thou servest a Wise Master that will recompence thee in such a kind or at such a season as shall be more sutable and more comfortable than if thou had'st been thy own carver And this thou shalt clearly and sensibly find that which thou did'st in the first place ask is granted in kind viz. the Honour of God and that which thou did'st ask for thy self though denied in kind is the more granted in value thy own particular benefit Our Saviour prayed that that bitter Cup of death might pass from him yet with submission to the Will and Glory of God Matth. 26.39 yet his Soul must be made an offering for sin and it was so The Glory and the Truth of God required it yet he was heard in that he feared Heb. 5.7 he suffers him to dye but raiseth him from death and he saw of the travail of his Soul and was satisfied Isa 53.11 Thou prayest for deliverance from any affliction from a Disease from Poverty for knowledg or Assurance in such a degree It may be it will not be so much for the Glory of God to grant it or to grant it yet as for the present to deny it First therefore pray Thy Name be hallowed and though I am for the present denied it is enough I am abundantly answered if God be glorified though I be denied Thou shalt find that none that waits upon him shall be ashamed if he grant thee not deliverance he will give thee sufficient Grace if he deny thy recovery he will give thee patience if he deny thee Riches he will give thee Contentedness If he deny thee that measure of Grace he will grant thee Humility If he deny thee that degree of Assurance he will give thee Dependance So that though thou walk in darkness for a while and hast no light yet thou shalt trust in the Name of the Lord and stay upon thy God Isa 50.10 such is the Goodness of God that while we seek his Glory in the first place and other things with subordination to it our other request shall be granted either in kind or compensation Thy Kingdom Come The Kingdom of God hath several acceptations 1. His Universal Kingdom The Kingdom of his Providence which extendeth to all the Actions and Events of all his Creatures Mat. 10.39 Luke 12.6 even to the falling of a Sparrow Psal 103.19 The Lord hath prepared his Throne in Heaven his Kingdom ruleth over all Psal 66.7 He ruleth by his Power for ever his Eyes behold the Nations And this he doth by planting originally in his Creatures their several Laws or Rules by which they move by a derivation of a continual Influence whereby they are supported and preserved in their several Motions Operations and Beings which if he should withdraw but one Moment all things would return unto their Nothing by correcting and over-ruling of all things sometimes contrary to their Nature to shew his freedom and Sovereignty but always by the mingling
entered into the World and death by Sin and Vers 19. By one Mans Disobedience many were made Sinners 1 Cor. 15.22 In Adam all die And by this Sin of Adam all were made Sinners by these two wayes 1. By actual participation of his disobedience for we were then in him but that is not all for upon that reason every Man should stand guilty of all the Sins committed by any of his Progenitors since Adam which seems not to agree with the profession of Almighty God Ezek. 18.20 The Son shall not bear the Iniquity of the Father But the case is not alike for Adam was created in integrity and perfection in an ability to perform the Law and so was a fit person to stipulate for his posterity 2 And as he was a person so qualified so the Covenant was made between God and him both for him and his posterity and 3 As we suffer in the penalty of his Disobedience so we had enjoyed the benefit of his Obedience we had come into the World with the same Liberty of Will and Integrity and Perfection of Nature that he had But all these are wanting in any other person in the World 1. A defect of Nature is gone over all that none is fit to stipulate for himself and his posterity 2. No such contract hath been at any time made between God and any other Man 2. By a necessary Consequence for God having justly withdrawn from Man his Blessedness and Perfection and Sin having corrupted and imbased his Nature we by propagation from him derive a corrupted depraved Nature full of impotence and rebellion and disorder Job 14.4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean God was pleased to communicate to Man a being in the Essence of a Man and to communicate unto him a degree of Purity Immortality Wisdom and Perfection beyond the compass of his Natural subsistence but this latter was communicated to him under a covenant which when he broke he lost and not only lost that but even stained and corrupted and imbased that very being that after he had sinned he retained And this is the old Man corrupt according to the deceivable Lusts Ephes 4.22 A body of death Rom. 7.24 And this Depravation of our Nature was followed with the continual Corruption and at last with the dissolution of Nature and that not only in those who had sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression by an actual breach of an express Law Rom. 5.14 But in all that were partakers of Adams corrupted Nature even Infants and so Death passed over all And as thus we partake of Original Sin as well by being virtually actors in it as also by derivation of a corrupted Nature so this corruption of our Nature produceth in all our Lives continued and renewed Actual Sins the conceptions of Lust Jam. 1.15 And these Actual Sins according to the difference of those commands of God which are violated are either Sins of Omission or of Commission and both come under the extent of this Petition by the name of Sins or Trespasses Luk. 11. by the Name of Debts Matt. 6. For we owe unto God Duty and Obedience and every Violation of that duty leaves us so much indebted unto God the least of which is impossible to be paid when once incurred because it is impossible for us to make that not to have been which hath already been and impossible for us by all our future Obedience were it as exact as the will of God requires to expiate a Sin past for still that perfect obedience is no more then we owe we have therein but done our duty and are but unprofitable Servants but if it were possible to think that one act of perfect obedience to God would expiate for any Sin past yet such is the Corruption of our Nature that not one such act can be found there is in our best actions a mixture and adherence of some defect or other that makes it become the subject still of this Petition that which needs Mercy to Pardon and therefore cannot contain Merit to Deserve So then all are concluded under Sin Gal. 3.22 and consequently under Guilt the effect of Sin and consequently under death and a curse the wages of Sin And this Sin guilt and curse is so closely bound to every one of Adams posterity that there is no possibility in the best of them to deliver themselves from it therefore O Lord teach us to pray Forgive us Forgiveness is an act of Free Grace whereby our offended God freely and without any Merit of ours remits the Sin the Guilt and Punishment the Person offended is he only that can forgive the rule was true though misapplyed Mar. 2.7 Who can forgive Sins but God only and Forgiveness is an act of most free Mercy and nothing of Merit in the person forgiven Isa 43.25 I even I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for my own sake and will not remember thy Sins Misery which is the effect of Sin is the Object of Mercy but it is not the Desert of it especially when that very Misery under which we are brought by Sin is a Misery wilfully contracted by our selves and not only so but is still a sinning Misery a Misery accompanied with stupidity and senslessness with aversion opposition against that God and that very Mercy that should deliver us God commends the freeness and fulness of his Goodness to us by taking that season to be Merciful when our condition is most Miserable not because our misery deserves his pity Ezek. 16.6 I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood Live Yea I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood Live This Forgiveness is thus wrought Man that was infinitely bound to love and obey the Author of his Being most unrgatefully and unnecessarily sinned against him and thereby deservedly incurred the everlasting curse of the most Just and True God and forfeited his being yet though Man had destroyed himself Almighty God of his own Free Will and without any other Motive and by his own Infinite Wisdom contrived a way whereby his most exact Truth and Justice might be satisfied and yet his creature saved and his Mercy and Goodness might be infinitely evidenced unto Men and Angels By an Everlasting Covenant between the Father and the Son the Son he must assume our Nature and offer it up as One Sacrifice for Sin for ever Heb. 10.12 This was that Mystery hid from Ages and Generations the Mystery that the Angels desire to look into 1 Pet. 1.12 The Great Mystery of Godliness God manifested in the Flesh 1 Tim. 3.16 The great End of the Creation of Man And by this Sacrifice thus freely given by our offended Lord we have Redemption even the Remission of our sins Ephes 1.7 Colos 1.14 And Pardon thus freely given by the Father and yet thus dearly bought by the Son is with abundance of Love and Grace proclaimed and tendred unto all in all the World
come before thee and beg thee to pardon my Sins assuredly trusting that thou that hast created in me a mind of Mercy and Forgiveness unto others wilt shew thy self a God of Mercy and Pardon unto me 6. Forgive us for we forgive It is true our Pardon of others deserves not thy Mercy nor can it make thee a debtor unto us but Bountiful Lord thou hast been pleased in Christ in whom all thy Promises are Yea and Amen by thine own free Promise to engage thy self unto thy creature Psal 18.25 That with the merciful thou wilt shew thy self merciful Matt. 5.7 That the merciful shall obtain Mercy Mat. 6.14 That if we forgive men their Trespasses thou wilt forgive us and these Promises of thine freely and undeservedly made by thee I lay before thee when I beg my Pardon in Jesus Christ thereby to strengthen my Soul in thy Goodness in the free remission of all my Sins To conclude In this Petition the Soul breathes out such thoughts as these O Lord I confess before thee I am a sinful creature I have a sinful and polluted Nature a Body of sin and death and this sinful Nature sends forth through all my Thoughts Words and Actions foul and filthy streams in every moment of my Life and if thou shouldest pass by all the sins of my Nature and Life unto this day and shouldest call me to an account for my errors since I last begged my Pardon there were guilt enough left to press me down to the lowest Hell And this guilt of the least of any of my sins as it is more than I am able to answer so it is more than I am able to expiate there is no escaping but by thy free Pardon and that Pardon I beg of thee in the Name and Righteousness and Promise of thy Son who knew all thy mind and taught me to seek my Pardon as often as to seek my daily bread And in confidence only of that free Mercy of thine I beseech thee pardon me and as I beg the Pardon of my sins in general so in special I beg the Pardon of those Sins which I committed since thy last act of remission granted and manifested and ratified unto me this or that neglect of my Duty to thee or my neighbour this or that sinful proud unclean vain Thought which hath stained my Soul and grieved thy Spirit and polluted or weakned my Conscience this or that uncharitable or malicious or unseemly or vain Word this or that unjust or unbecoming or unchristian or ungodly Action every one of these leaves a spot in my Soul which nothing but the Blood of Christ and thy Free Grace can take away It leaves a Disease a Weakness a Wound in my Soul which nothing but thy Free Spirit can heal and recover And though I know that my greatest mercy to others cannot merit mercy from thee because that mercy is but my duty and a duty mingled in the performance of it with many of my own imperfections which stand in need of thy mercy to pardon it and that little good that is in it is not my own but the work of thy Grace as free as thy Pardon yet it is an evidence to me that thou wilt be merciful unto me in that thou hast contrary to my own nature wrought a merciful temper in my heart to others the same mind that was in thy Son and therefore I am humbly confident that thou hast given me that Spirit of thy Son and consequently the relation and priviledge of a Son that in as much as thou hast given me a heart to pardon others thou wilt make good thy Promise of Mercy and Pardon unto me I make mention of my remission of others not as the merit of thy forgiving of me but thereby to strengthen my Faith and to lay hold of thy Promise made in and by thy Son that if we forgive Men their offences thou wilt also forgive us And this I beg not to make room for new offences by pardoning the old nor to continue in sin that Grace may abound but with a resolution to forsake my sins as well as to confess them and not turn again to folly strengthen me so with thy Grace that as thou hast now cleansed my Soul from my past sins and spots so I may keep my self from mine Iniquity that I may live more to thy Honour that I may walk with more Vigilance that I may every day find my account less and thy Spirit and Grace more and more effectual in me to conform me to the Will and Example of thy Son in all Holiness and Blamelessness of mind and life and to that end Lead us not into Temptation c. This Petition directs us to pray for 1 Preventing Mercy Lead us not into Temptation 2 Delivering Mercy but deliver us from Evil. Keep us from falling into Evil but if we fall into it deliver us from it The Former part wherein is considerable 1. What is meant by Temptation 2. What to lead into Temptation Temptation may be understood 1 for an Active Solicitation unto Evil of Sin this is done either by the Devil thus our Saviour was led by the Spirit into the Wilderness to be tempted of the Devil Matt. 4.1 And therefore he is often called the Tempter who being a Spirit is by the advantage of his Nature and by the permission of God able to mingle himself so with our Souls and faculties that he can immediately solicite unto Evil. Thus he mingled himself with the Spirits of the Prophets of Ahab and became a lying Spirit in their Mouths 1 Kings 22.21 Thus he mingled himself with the Spirit of Judas tempting him to betray Christ Luke 22.7 with the spirit of Ananias Act. 5.3 Why hath Satan filled thy Heart or it is done by Evil Men either by their Counsels Perswasions or Examples or by our own corrupt hearts James 1.14 Every Man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own Lusts and inticed Our corrupt and sinful flesh breathes and evaporates into our Souls those ill and filthy vapors which infect and disorder and seduce it from God the Law of our Members bringing us into captivity to the Law of sin Rom. 7.23 2. For that Objective Temptation or the Object from whence occasionally Temptation ariseth And thus almost every Object of our sense is a Temptation not that there is any proper active motion or action of the Object to perswade to sin but the corruption of our sensual Nature meeting with such an Object acts amiss upon it and so it becomes a Temptation to sin and especially if the Object be such as bears a disproportion to our enjoyment of it The beauty of the Apple was a Temptation to Eve the wedge of Gold and the Babylonish Garment to Achan Naboths Vineyard to Ahab Bathsheba to David yet in these the Objects were innocent and had in themselves no active solicitation to Evil but because they were seemingly good yet prohibited corrupted
Nature laid hold upon that seeming good and violated the Command This taught the Wise man to pray against extreams either of Plenty or Poverty because his corrupted Nature was ready to turn either into Temptation Riches into Arrogance and Presumption Poverty into Blasphemy and Murmuring Prov. 30.9 3. For that Act which is not ordered unto Sin but to some Experiment or Tryal of the temper or disposition that is in a Man a Temptation of Trial. Thus God tempted Abraham when he commanded him to offer up his Son to prove the sincerity of his Love and Obedience to God Gen. 22.12 By this I know that thou fearest God To the like purpose were all those difficult dispensations to the People of Israel at the Red Sea and in the Wilderness that he might humble them and prove them and to know what was in their heart Deut. 8.2 And for this end God often sends several Afflictions upon those he truely loves that their Faith may be tryed And these Tryals are called Temptations 1 Pet. 1.6 7. Ye are in Heaviness through manifold Temptations that the Tryal of your Faith may be found to praise c. Jam. 1.2 Count it all Joy when ye fall into divers Temptations knowing that the Tryal of your Faith worketh Patience 2. What it is to lead into Temptation and how God may be said to lead us into them 1. As to the latter of these sorts of Temptations they may and do come from God viz. Tryals of Grace by the permitting and inflicting of afflictions It is a work no way unbecoming his Purity and Justice It is ordained to singular Ends. 1. To his own Glory 2. To the good of those that he thus tryes thereby teaching them to despise the World to adhere unto him to reach out after a better Life to live by Faith and not by Sense patiently to submit to his hand and to wait upon him for deliverance By this Refiners fire he consumes their dross their carnal confidence building Tabernacles here drives them to their true home and gives them a proportion of Eternal Comfort and Hope far more valuable than that Temporal comfort which they want 2. As touching Temptation unto Sin 1. That God tempteth no Man He that is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity will never solicite any Man to that which only he hates It is the great work of God to withdraw Men from sin and surely he will never draw Men into it Jam. 1.13 God cannot be tempted with Evil neither tempteth he any Man 2. As he doth not actively tempt any Man or move him to Evil so neither doth he infuse into the Heart or Soul a Receptivity of Temptation he doth not excite the Heart to close with any Temptation or create or stir up any corruption in the Heart to take fire from a Temptation And yet in some sort he is said to lead into Temptation 1. By withdrawing that Grace of his whereby we are prevented from and defended against Temptation We walk in the midst of Enemies and snares the Prince of the air hath his Instruments that most Vigilantly takes all opportunities to draw us into sin evil Angels and evil Men And were there not a Devil or his Instruments without us to tempt us to Evil we have an old Man within us a fountain a Sea of Corruption a deceitful and wicked heart a Body of sin and death that can with much advantage and doth with much ease draw us into Sin and the merciful God that seeth these snares which the evil one layes for us in our way though we see them not sends out his own Grace and Spirit and sometimes removes the snare out of our way sometimes leads us another way that we miss the snare he over-rules and restrains this raging Sea of our own corruptions and as our Saviour did to the Winds and Seas commands them Peace and be still he doth by the same Spirit strengthen and inable our hearts to resist and oppose and subdue those Temptations that rise from within and comes from without And this Grace of his he owes not to us It is meerly of his free Mercy Gen. 20.6 For I withheld thee from sinning against me and yet such is his Goodness that he seldom withdraws this Grace from us unless we thrust it away and reject it and then he withdraws that Grace of his and that being withdrawn that cruel and subtil Enemy of our Souls falls in upon us and subdues us and that Sea of corruption within us that hath now no banks to keep it in breaks in and over-whelms us And thus was the heart of Pharaoh hardned by himself Exod. 8.15 And yet said to be hardned by God Exod. 10.1 By withdrawing from him that Grace that should soften it And this Subduction of the Grace of God principally respects Temptations from our selves 2. By Permission The Devil and his Instruments are under the restraint of the Power of God and without a commission or at least a permission from him cannot actually execute that evil that is in their Natures and Wills he solicits Job by himself and his instruments to let go his integrity but this he cannot do without a Permission Job 1.12 he seduceth Ahab to his destruction but this he cannot do without a Permission 1 Kings 22.21 he tempts David to presumption and carnal confidence 1 Chro. 21.1 But this he cannot do without a Permission 2 Sam. 24.1 he watcheth the opportunity of Gods displeasure against Israel and gets leave thereupon to tempt David to number the People and here we may see the Infinire Wisdom of God in managing that evil that was in the Devil to tempt and in David's heart to be overcome to a most just and excellent end the punishment of the sin of Israel by Davids sin Here was in the same action Malice in the Devil corruption in David yet nothing but Purity and Justice in God He never gives the Devil a Permission to tempt that Man may thereby sin but he turns that Temptation and that sin into a work either of singular Mercy or Justice The Devil could not have entered into Judas without a Permission nor Judas have betrayed our Lord without a Permission nor the Jews have delivered him up to Judgment without a Permission nor Pilate have judged him without a Permission John 19.11 Here was Malice in the Devil and Treachery in Judas and envy in the Jews and Injustice in Pilate and Murder in the Souldiers and yet in God the greatest manifestations of his Truth and Justice and Wisdom and Purity and Mercy that ever the World did or shall see While he permits the Instrument to sin he nor his action is in no sort defiled by it but manageth that sin which is none of his to bring forth that Righteousness that is only his 3. He is said to lead into Temptation by the External Dispensation of his Providence and that 1. By withdrawing those External restraints from sin such are
good which may outweigh the evil the inconsiderableness of that crookedness that thou hast discovered and by degrees at last over-work thee and bring thee about And the Devil is not wanting to be assistant in this dispute and to interpose When Eve entered into discourse and dispute with the Devil and heard his reasons and argued the Case he over-matched her in her Innocence to offend against a most express and a most penal Law and how much easier will the conquest be over a corrupt and weak Soul when the treacherous flesh is won already without any perswasion 5. If thy Temptation be importunate lay against it in the other ballance these two considerations and if thou wilt be reasoning with thy Temptation reason thus I am now perswaded and solicited to this action wherein upon Examination I find apparently a sin against God and my own Life and it is true I have propounded to me the Necessity or the Profit or the Pleasure of it but I know I am now in the Pesence of the Glorious and Eternal God that hath power to bring me out of this Necessity without the help of this sinful action and is able to blast this action that it shall not serve to accommodate this Necessity before that God who is Lord of all the wealth in the world and hath promised that he will not leave me nor forsake me I am before that God that hath promised Eternal Pleasures for evermore to those that fear him and can mingle or follow this pleasure that I expect from this temptation with a most bitter curse even unto all Eternity And it is this God that hath forbidden me to commit this Sin and doth stand to see whether I will abide by his Command or side with his Enemy I am before my Lord Jesus that laid down his life for me became a curse to redeem me as well from my subjection to sin for the time to come as from the guilt of sin for the time past and that Jesus stands and beholds whether I now value or despise that Blood of the Covenant and is accordingly ready with Vengeance or Glory to reward me I am before those glorious and pure Spirits the elect Angels whom God hath hitherto appointed as Ministers for my preservation that see and observe whether I hold a Conformity with the Purity of their Natures or whether I will foul my self in this filth and partake with their Enemy the Prince of this World Could the Eyes of my sense behold the least of that Glory that beholds me it would make me ashamed of my purest actions and though I see it not I am certain it sees me With what face can I then commit this Villany in the Presence of that God to whom I and all the World owe our being before the face of that Saviour who hath laid down his Life to rescue and redeem mine before those Angels who at the command of God are pleased to be Ministring Spirits for my preservation how shall I grieve that Spirit whom I hear at this very instant whisper unto me Do not that abominable thing which I hate and what will the end of this be will it not be a stain to my Soul and bitterness in the End what can this temptation promise me that it can perform or if it can perform what it promiseth and promise what it will can it promise that to me which can be equivalent to the loss of the favour and presence of the Eternal God the loss and ruine of my immortal Soul can it countervail the shame and damage that will ensue upon a contempt committed to the Majesty and Mercy of the Eternal God before whose immediate view I am now basely and contemptuously at the solicitation of his and mine Enemy going about to commit this evil Again 2. Let me but consider that with the same measure of shame that I shall submit to this Temptation with the same measure of Comfort and Glory shall I resist it When I consider that in the View and Presence of the Glorious God of my Merciful and Tender Saviour of the Pure and Blessed Spirits those Glorious Courtiers of Heaven I shall give a Testimony of my Love to God I shall resist and reject the Solicitation of the Enemy of Heaven and hold fast mine Integrity Could Job have but heard that approbation which God gave of it after the Devil had practised his Experiments Job 2.3 That he still holdeth fast his Integrity though thou movest me against him it would have abundantly satisfied him for all his Losses and abundantly strengthened his Heart against all future Temptations And what we read of him we may be sure is true concerning our selves the same practices by the Devil to seduce us and the same attestation given by the Eternal God if we resist his Temptations But which is more than this the Eternal God as he stands by to see my behaviour so he stands by me to supply me with strength if I seek to him for it and with an Immortal Crown to reward me in that Victory over my temptation which his own strength hath given me I will therefore lay in the ballance against the Pleasure or Profit of my Temptation the Shame and the Punishment from that God that beholds me and against my loss in the resisting it the Glory and Advantage in the Presence of God that I shall obtain in overcoming it 6. Carry with thee a jealous and Watchful Eye over thy self in all Conditions and Actions For there is a Snare and a Temptation in every thing thou dost or that doth befal thee 1. Take heed to thy Senses and their Objects thou hast an Evil Eye a covetous Eye a wanton and adulterous Eye and envious Eye and unsatiable Eye thou hast an itching Ear or an Ear open to vanity dull of hearing when that thou hearest is profitable thou hast a sawcy and a luxurious Palate that if it find not a snare in thy Table or a Serpent in thy Cup will easily make it 2. Take heed to thy Understanding It is apt to ravel out it self in impertinent and unprofitable if not dangerous and presumptuous Speculations to mispend it self and thy precious Time in that which hurts thee or at least doth thee no good and of what use will the most of them be within one moment after thy death Either they shall be known exactly without a minutes study or they will be unuseful and utterly unserviceable to thee whereas every minutes time thou spendest here in improving thy Knowledge of God and his Word is sowing of a Seed that shall in thy Immortal Soul yield a Harvest suitable to her condition 3. Take heed to thy Memory it is apt to receive the Figures and Impressions of vain or sinful Words or Actions and the Devil is apt to turn that side of the Glass to thy Soul that contains those Characters especially at such times when it may divert thee from or disturb thee in