wrought thee for thy perversion thou hadst not at last dyed ours Blessed bee the God of all comfort who having stood by thee made thee faithfull to the death hath now given thee a Crown of life and immortality and left thee a noble patterne of Christian Fortitude so much more remarkable as lesse frequently followed Whether I look into the former or the present times I finde the world full of shrinking professors Amongst the first Christians persecution easily discovered four sorts of cowardly Renegadoes The first and worst whom they justly stiled Idolaters that yielded to all the publicke formes of worship to those false Gods The second Sacrificers who condescended so far as to some kinde of immolation unto those fained deities or at least to a tasting of those things which were thus offered The third Incensers such as with Marcellinus himself came on so far as to cast some graines of incense into the Idols fire The last were their Libellaticks such as privately by themselves or by some allowed proxey denyed the Faith yet with their money bought out this ignominy and sinne of any publick Act of Idolatry Not to speak of those many thousands which fell downe before Solyman the second and held up their finger to signifie their conversion to his Mahometism for ease of their taxations how many do we hear of daily of all nations and some which I shame and grieve to say of our owne who yeeld to receive circumcision and to renounce their Saviour Oh the lamentable condition of those distressed Christians If constant to their profession they live in a perpetual purgatory of torment If revolting they run into the danger of an everlasting damnation in hell Even this gentle restraint puts me into the meditation of their insupportable durance Why do not all Christia nhearts bleed with the sense of their deplorable estate why is not our compassion heightened according to the depth of their perill and misery What are our bowels made of if they yearne not at their unexpressible calamity Ye rich Merchants under whose imployment many of these poor soules have thus unhappily miscarried how can you blesse your selves in your baggs whiles you see themembers of Christ your Saviour thus torn from him for want of a petty ransome Ye eminent persons whom God hath advanced to power greatness how can you sleep quietly upon your pillows whiles you think of the cold and hard lodgings the hungry bellies the naked and waled backs of miserable Christians Lastly what fervent prayers should we all that professe the dear name of Christ poure out unto the God of heaven for the strengthning of the faith patience of these afflicted souls against the assaults of violence and for their happy and speedy deliverance out of their woefull captivity SECT XI THese prisoners are worthy of our deep compassion as those who are too sensible of their owne misery Others there are who are so much more worthy of greater pity by how much they are lesse apprehensive of their need of it plausible prisoners under a spirituall tyranny whose very wills are so captived to the powers of darknesse that to chuse they would be no other than bondmen pleasing themselves in those chains whose weight is enough to sink their souls into hell such are they who have yielded themselves over to be enthralled by any known sin No men under heaven do so much applaud themselves in the conceit of their liberty none so great slaves as they If the very Stoick Philosophers had not enough evinced this truth Divinity should Indeed the world is a worse kind of Algier full of miserable captives here lies one so fettered in lust that hee rots againe there another so laden with drunken excesse that he can neither goe nor stand and in very deed is not his owne man here one so pinched with golden fetters that he can neither eate nor sleep nor at all enjoy himself there another so pined with envy that he is forced to feed on his owne heart here one so tormented with anger that hee is stark mad for the time and cares not how hee mischieves himself in a furious desire to hurt others there another so racked with ambition that he is stretched beyond his own length and lives in the pain of a perpetuall self-extension These and all others of this kinde are most miserable prisoners chained up for ever-lasting darknesse So much more worthy of our pity as they are lesse capable of their own Spend your compassion if you please upon these deplorable subjects But for me wish me if you will as free from any imputation of evill as I was and am from the thought of it wish mee in your free champian where I may have no hedge so much as to confine my eye wish me happy in the society of so dear and noble a Friend but in the meane while think of me no otherwise than as a Free Prisoner And Yours thankfully devoted in all faithfull observance I. N. FINIS Severall Tractates written by Dr. Hall B. of Norwich In and since his Imprisonment and Retiring Namely 1. THe Devout Soul and Free Prisoner 2. The Remedy of Discontentment Or A Treatise of Contentation in whatsoever condition 3. The Peace-maker laying forth the right way of Peace in matter of Religion 4. The Balme of Gilead Or Comforts for the distressed both Morall and Divine 5. Christ Mysticall Or The blessed union of Christ his Members To which is addded An holy Rapture Or A Patheticall Meditation of the love of Christ Also The Christian laid forth in his whole disposition and carriage 6. A Modest Offer tendred to the Assembly of Divines at Westminster 7. Select Thoughts in two Decades with the breathing of the Devout Soule 8. Pax Terris 9. Imposition of Hands 10. The Revelation unrevealed Concerning The thousand yeares reigne of the Saints with Christ on Earth 11. Susurrium cum Deo Or Holy Selfe-Conferences of the Devout Soul upon sundry choice Occasions Now in the Presse and never before Printed Dr. Preston Psa 19 1 2 Psa 104. 24. Cant. 5. 6. Psa 41. 4. 79. 8. 130 3. 94. 11. 3. 7. 89. 48. 109. 21. 86. 4. Psal 71. 10. 86. 11. 70. 6. 60. 11. 71. 23. 31. 17. 40. 14. 5. 8. 119. penult 68. 35. 92. 5. 71. 17. 18. 47. Psa 63. 4. 145. 10. 04. 25. 18. 31. 20. 5. 107. 8. 31. 21. 9. 10. 16. 12. 8. 4. 115. 1. Psal 19. 1. 74. 17. 97. 11. 36. 9. 39. 5. 93. 5. Psa 139. 11 139. 2. 51. 7. 17. 5. 90. 12. 39. 5. Luk. 11. 25 Wisd 1. 4. Psa 26. 6. Ecl. 10. Esa 66. 2. Gen. 18. 27 Pro. 30. 2. Mat. 3. 11. Ephes 3. 8. Job 38. Phil. 2. 6 7 8 c. Rom. 5. 1. Ps 103. 8. Ps 116. 12 13. Ps 119. 18 21 c. Phil. 1. 21. Gal. 2. 20. Cant. 2. 16. Cant. 4. 9. 6. 4 5. Cant. 5. 10. 8. 6. 2. 5. Psal 116. Rom. 3. 4 Psal 119. 8. Carolus Bor romaeus Acts 19. 35. Eccles 5. 1. Judg. 3. 20. 2 Cor. 5. 20 Acts 10. 33. 1 Sam. 25. 24. Job 13. 17. Psa 40. 6. Serm. ad Eccles cautelam 1 Pet. 2. 2. Eph. 3. 9. Zach. 3. Mat. 5. 23. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hos 2. 14. Non enim potest mens attrita oneribus importunitatibus gravata tantum boni peragere quantum delectata oppressionibus solut a. Cornel. ep 2. Rufo Coepiscopo Acts ult Gen. 36. 22 Magna domus homuli Psal 8. 3 4.
shall say ye are not able to look into the bottome of this divine love wherwith God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever beleeveth in him should not perish but have everlasting life None oh none can comprehend this mercy but he that wrought it Lord what a transcendent what an infinite love is this what an object was this for thee to love A world of sinners Impotent wretched creatures that had dispighted thee that had no motive for thy favour but deformity misery professed enmity It had been mercy enough in thee that thou didst no◠damn the world but that thou shouldst love it 〈◊〉 more than mercy It was thy great goodnesse to forbeare the acts of just vengeance to the sinful world of man but to give unto it tokens of thy love is a favour beyond all expression The least gift from thee had been more than the world could hope for but that thou shouldst not stick to give thine only begotten Son the Son of thy love the Son of thine essence thy coequal coeternal Son who was more than ten thousand worlds to redeem this one forlorne world of sinners is love above all comprehension of men and Angels What diminution had it been to thee and thine essentiall glory O thou great God of heaven that the souls that sinned should have dyed and perished everlastingly yet so infinite was thy loving mercy that thou wouldest rather give thy onely Sonne out of thy bosome than that there should not be a redemption for beleevers Yet O God hadst thou sent down thy Son to this lower region of earth upon such termes as that hee might have brought down heaven with him that hee might have come in the port and Majesty of a God cloathed with celestiall glory to have dazeled our eyes and to have drawn all hearts unto him this might have seemed in some measure to have sorted with his divine magnificence But thou wouldst have him to appear in the wretched condition of our humanity Yet even thus hadst thou sent him into the world in the highest estate and pomp of royalty that earth could afford that all the Kings and Monarchs of the world should have been commanded to follow his train and to glitter in his Court and that the knees of all the Potentates of the earth should have bowed to his Soveraign Majesty and their lips have kissed his dust this might have carried some kind of appearance of a state next to divine greatnesse but thou wouldst have him come in the despised form of a servant And thou O blessed Jesu wast accordingly willing for our sakes to submit thy self to nakednesse hunger thirst wearinesse temptation contempt betraying agonies scorn buffeting scourgings distention crucifixion death Oh love above measure without example beyond admiration Greater love thou saiest hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends But oh what is it then that thou who wert God and man shouldst lay down thy life more precious than many worlds for thine enemies Yet had it been but the laying down of a life in a fair and gentle way there might have been some mitigation of the sorrow of a dissolution there is not more difference betwixt life and death than there may be betwixt some one kind of death and another Thine O dear Saviour was the painfull shamefull cursed death of the crosse wherein yet all that man could do unto thee was nothing to that inward torment which in our stead thou enduredst from thy fathers wrath when in the bitternesse of thine anguished soul thou cryedst out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Even thus thus wast thou content to be forsaken that wee wretched sinners might bee received to mercy O love stronger than death which thou vanquishedst more high than that hell is deep from which thou hast rescued us SECT XVI THe sense of this infinite love of God cannot chuse but ravish the soul and cause it to goe out of it self into that Saviour who hath wrought so mercifully for it so as it may be nothing in it self but what it hath or is may be Christ By the sweet powers therefore of Faith and Love the soul finds it self united unto Christ feelingly effectually indivisibly so as that it is not to be distinguished betwixt the acts of both To me to live is Christ saith the blessed Apostle and elsewhere I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life which now I live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me My beloved is mine and I am his saith the Spouse of Christ in her Bridall Song O blessed union next to the hypostaticall whereby the humane nature of the Son of God is taken into the participation of the eternall Godhead SECT XVII OUt of the sense of this happy union ariseth an unspeakable complacency and delight of the soul in that God and Saviour who is thus inseparably ours and by whose union we are blessed and an high appreciation of him above all the world and a contemptuous under-valuation of all earthly things in comparison of him And this is no other than an heavenly reflection of that sweet contentment which the God of mercies takes in the faithful soul Thou hast ravisht my heart my sister my Spouse thou hast ravisht my heart with one of thine eyes Thou art beautifull O my Love as Tirzah comely as Jerusalem Turn away thine eyes from me for they have overcome me How fair is thy love my sister my Spouse How much better is thy love than wine and the smell of thine ointments better than all spices And the soul answers him again in the same language of spirituall dearnesse My beloved is white and ruddy the chief est among ten thousand Set me as a seal upon thine heart as a seal upon thine arm for love is as strong as death And as in an ecstaticall qualm of passionate affection Stay mee with fiaggons and comfort me with apples for I am sick of love SECT XVIII UPon this gracious complacency will follow an absolute self-resignation or giving up our selves to the hands of that good God whose we are and who is ours and an humble contentednesse with his good pleasure in all things looking upon God with the same face whether he smile upon us in his favours or chastise us with his loving corrections If he speak good unto us Behold the servant of the Lord be it unto me according to thy word If evill It is the Lord let him doe whatsoever he will Here is therefore a cheerfull acquiescence in God and an hearty reliance and casting our selves upon the mercy of so bountifull a God who having given us his Son can in and with him deny us nothing SECT XIX UPon this subacted disposition of heart will follow a familiar yet awfull compellation of God and an emptying of
so infinite obligations of thy favours And thus having look't inward into ourselves and taken an impartiall view of our own vilenesse it will be requisite to cast our eyes upward unto heaven and there to see against whom we have offended even against an infinite Majesty power an infinite mercy an infinite justice That power and Majesty which hath spread out the heavens as a Curtain and hath laid the foundations of the earth so sure that it cannot be moved who hath shut up the sea with bars and doors and said Hitherto shalt thou come and no further and here shalt thou stay thy proud waves who doth whatsoever he will in heaven and in earth who commandeth the Devils to their chains able therfore to take infinite vengeance on sinners That mercy of God the Father who gave his own Son out of his bosome for our redemption That mercy of God the Son who thinking it no robbery to be equall unto God for our sakes made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and being found in fashion as a man humbled himself and became obedient to the death even the accursed death of the Crosse That mercy of God the holy Ghost who hath made that Christ mine and hath sealed to my soule the benefit of that blessed Redemption Lastly that justice of God which as it is infinitely displeased with every sin so will be sure to take infinite vengeance on every impenitent sinner And from hence it will be fit and seasonable for the devout soul to look downward into that horrible pit of eternall confusion and there to see the dreadful unspeakable unimaginable torments of the damned to represent unto it selfe the terrors of those everlasting burnings the fire and brimstone of that infernall Tophet the mercilesse and unwearible tyranny of those hellish executioners the shrieks and howlings and gnashings of the tormented the unpitiable interminable unmitigable tortures of those ever-dying and yet never-dying souls By all which we shall justly affright our selves into a deep sense of the dangerous and wofull condition wherein we lie in the state of nature and impenitence and shal be driven with an holy eagernesse to seek for Christ the Son of the ever-living God our blessed Mediator in and by whom only we can look for the remission of all these our sins a reconcilement with this most powerfull mercifull just God and a deliverance of our soules from the hand of the nethermost hell SECT XIII IT shall not now need or boot to bid the soul which is truely apprehensive of all these to sue importunately to the Lord of life for a freedome and rescue from these infinite paines of eternall death to which our sinnes have forfeited it and for a present happy recovery of that favour which is better than life Have we heard or can wee imagine some hainous Malefactor that hath received the sentence of death and is now bound hand and foot ready to be cast into a Den of Lions or a burning furnace with what strong cries and passionate obsecrations he plies the Judge for mercy wee may then conceive some little image of the vehement sute and strong cries of a soul truly sensible of the danger of Gods wrath deserved by his sin and the dreadful consequents of deserved imminent damnation Although what proportion is there betwixt a weak creature and the Almighty betwixt a moment and eternity Hereupon therefore followes a vehement longing uncapable of a denial after Christ and fervent aspirations to that Saviour by whom only we receive a ful and gracious deliverance from death and hell and a full pardon and remission of all our sins and if this come not the sooner strong knocking 's at the gates of heaven even so loud that the Father of mercies cannot but hear open Never did any contrite soul beg of God that was not prevented by his mercy much more doth he condescend when he is strongly intreated our very intreaties are from him hee puts into us those desires which he graciously answers Now therfore doth the devout soul see the God of all comfort to bow the heavens and come down with healing in his wings and heare him speak peace unto the heart thus throughly humbled Fear not thou shalt not die but live Be of good cheare thy sins are forgiven thee Here therefore comes in that divine grace of Faith effectually apprehending Christ the Saviour and his infinite satisfaction and merits comfortably applying all the sweet promises of the Gospel clinging close to that all-sufficient Redeemer and in his most perfect obedience emboldning it selfe to challenge a freedome of accesse to God and confidence of appearance before the Tribunal of heaven and now the soule clad with Christs righteousnesse dares look God in the face and can both challenge and triumph over all the powers of darknesse For being justified by faith we have peach with God through Jesu Christ our Lord. SECT XIV BY how much deeper the sense of our misery and danger is so much more welcome and joyfull is the apprehension of our deliverance and so much more thankfull is our acknowledgement of that unspeakable mercy The soule therefore that is truly sensible of this wonderfull goodnesse of it's God as it feels a marvellous joy in it self so it cannot but break sorth into cheerfull and holy though secret gratulations The Lord is full of compassion and mercy long suffering and of great goodnes he keepeth not his anger for ever he hath not dealt with me after my sins nor rewarded me after mine iniquities What shal I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. I will thank thee for thou hast heard me hast not given me over to death but art become my salvation O speak good of the Lord all ye works of his Praise thou the Lord O my soul SECT XV. THe more feelingly the soul apprehends and the more thankfully it digests the favours of God in its pardon and deliverance the more freely doth the God of mercy impart himself to it and the more God imparts himself to it the more it loves him and the more heavenly acquaintance and entirenesse grows betwixt God it and now that love which was but a spark at first grows into a flame and wholly takes up the soul This fire of heavenly love in the devout soul is and must be heightned more and more by the addition of the holy incentives of divine thoughts concerning the means of our freedome and deliverance And here offers it self to us that bottomlesse abysse of mercy in our Redemption wrought by the eternall Son of God Jesus Christ the just by whose stripes we are healed by whose bloud we are ransomed where none will befit us but admiring and adoring notions We shall not disparage you O ye blessed Angels and Arch-angels of Heaven if we
our souls before him in all our necessities For that God who is infinitely mercifull yet will not have his favours otherwise conveighed to us than by our supplications The style of his deare ones is his people that prayeth and his owne stile is the God that heareth prayers To him therefore doth the devout heart pour out all his requests with all true humility with all fervour of spirit as knowing that God will hear neither proud prayers nor heartlesse wherein his holy desires are regulated by a just method First suing for spirituall favours as most worthy then for temporall as the appendances of better and in both aiming at the glory of our good God more than our own advantage And in the order of spirituall thngs first and most for those that are most necessary and essentiall for our souls health than for secondary graces that concern the prosperity comfort of our spirituall life Absolutely craving those graces that accompany salvation all others conditionally and with reference to the good pleasure of the munificent giver Wherein heed must be taken that our thoughts be not so much taken up with our expressions as with our desires and that we doe not suffer our selves to languish into an unfeeling length and repetition of our sutes Even the hand of a Moses may in time grow heavy so therefore must we husband our spirituall strength that our devotion may not flagge with over-tiring but may bee most vigorous at the last And as we must enter into our prayers not without preparatory elevations so must we be carefull to take a meet leave of God at their shutting up following our supplications with the pause of a faithfull and most lowly adoration and as it were sending up our hearts into heaven to see how our prayers are taken and raising them to a joyful expectation of a gracious and successefull answer from the father of mercies SECT XX. UPon the comfortable feeling of a gracious condescent follows an happy fruition of God in all his favours so as we have not them so much as God in them which advanceth their worth a thousand fold and as it were brings down heaven unto us whereas therefore the sensuall man rests only in the meer use of any blessing as health peace prosperity knowledge and reacheth no higher the devoute soul in and through all these sees and feels a God that sanctifies them to him and enjoyes therein his favour that is better than life Even we men are wont out of our good nature to esteem a benefit not so much for its owne worth as for the love and respect of the giver Small legacies for this cause finde deare acceptation How much more is it so betwixt God and the devout soul It is the sweet apprehension of this love that makes all his gifts blessings Doe we his gifts blessings Doe we not see some vaine churle though cryed down by the multitude herein secretly applauding himself that he hath bags at home how much more shall the godly man find comfort against all the crosses of the world that hee is possessed of him that possesseth all things even God All-sufficient the pledges of whose infinite love he feels in all the whole course of Gods dealing with him SECT XXI OUt of the true sense of this inward fruition of God the devout soul breaks forth into cheerfull thanksgivings to the God of all comfort praising him for every evill that it is free from for every good thing it enjoyeth For as it keeps a just Inventory of all Gods favours so it often spreads them thankfully before him and layes them forth so near as it may in the full dimensions that so God may be no loser by him in any act of his beneficence Here therefore every of Gods benefits must come into account whether eternall or temporall spirituall or bodily outward or inward publick or private positive or privative past or present upon our selves or others In all which he shall humbly acknowledge both Gods free mercy and his own shamefull unworthinesse setting off the favours of his good God the more with the soyle of his own confessed wretchednes and unanswerablenesse to the least of his mercies Now as there is infinite variety of blessings from the liberall hand of the Almighty so there is great difference in their degrees For wheras there are three subjects of all the good we are capable of The Estate Body Soul and each of these doe far surpasse other in value the soul being infinitely more worth than the body and the body far more precious than the outward estate so the blessings that appertain to them in severall differ in their true estimation accordingly If either wee doe not highly magnifie Gods mercy for the least or shall set as high a price upon the blessings that concerne our estate as those that pertain to the body or upon bodily favours as upon those that belong to the soul we shall shew our selves very unworthy and unequall partakers of the Divine bounty But it will savor too much of earth if we be more affected with temporall blessings than with spirituall and eternall By how much nearer relation then any favor hath to the Fountain of goodnesse and by how much more it conduceth to the glory of God and ours in him so much higher place should it possesse in our affection and gratitude No marvell therefore if the Devout Heart bee raised above it self and transported with heavenly raptures when with Stephens eyes it beholds the Lord Jesus standing at the right hand of God fixing it self upon the consideration of the infinite Merits of his Life Death Resurrection Ascension Intercession and finding it self swallowed up in the depth of that Divine Love from whence all mercies flow into the soule so as that it runs over with passionate thankfulnes and is therefore deeply affected with all other his mercies because they are derived from that boundlesse Ocean of Divine goodnesse Unspeakable is the advantage that the soule raises to it self by this continuall exercise of thanksgiving for the grateful acknowledgement of favours is the way to more even amongst men whose hands are short and strait this is the meanes to pull on further beneficence how much more from the God of all Consolation whose largest bounty diminisneth nothing of his store And herein the devout Soul enters into its heavenly Task beginning upon earth those Hallelujahs which it shall perfect above in the blessed Chore of Saints and Angels ever praising God and saying Blessing and Glo-ry and Wisdome and Thanksgiving and Honour and Power and Might be unto our God for ever and ever Amen SECT XXII NOne of all the services of God can bee acceptably no not unsinfully performed without due devotion as therefore in our prayers and thanksgivings so in the other exercises of Divine Worship especially in the reading and hearing of Gods Word and in our receipt of the blessed Sacrament it is so necessary that without it we