Lord I am one of those be thou therefore so to me in thy goodness and mercie hear me calling and crying unto thee for relief in this my distressed estate 7 And truly Lord that goodness of thine and my confidence in it prompts me what ever and whensoever I am in affliction to flie to thee by prayer and supplication not doubting of a gracious answer and issue 8 There are many gods worshipped in the world besides thee but for my part I know none but thee nor will pray or seek to any else for I am sure it is but lost labour Thine onely is the Kingdom power and glorie Thy works are worthy of thee but they as they are no Gods so there is nothing they can do neither god nor man besides thy self no creature whatsoever can do any thing worthy a mans trust for all that is done is either of thee or from thee and those things wherein thou art pleased to appear and to put forth thy power how transcendent are they 9 Yea though it be a thing almost incredible and seemingly impossible considering that ignorance and enmity that is all the world over yet shalt thou that by thine infinit Almighty power hast made all nations make to thy self a Church of every people in the whole earth aswel Gentiles as Jews and they shall yield thee not constrained but voluntarie obedience and acknowledgement under the Kingdom of Christ whereof my Kingdom no less powerfully brought about by thee shall be some resemblance for then shall the heathen nations do thee homage and dread thy power I shall convince them but Christ shall convert them whose people and servants they shall then be as we now are 10 For there is nothing impossible to God who is able to do whatsoever he will his power is infinit and omnipotent as his wondrous works declare and the strange transcendent things he hath done for his Church in all ages and will do still even make the whole world his Church and himself to be worshipped and acknowledged of the very heathen they that now are Idolaters and serve many Gods yea every thing for God but God shall serve him and none besides him as we do 11 O Lord in the hour of temptation and time of trouble which is now upon me thou knowest how apt we are to step aside partly by ignorance partly by frailty my suit therefore is that thou wouldest instruct me how to demean my self so that I sin not against thee and to that end mind me of my dutie in every emergencie Let me hear a voice behind me saying this is the way and my purpose is not to deviat from it but my power must be from thee to make good this purpose therefore Lord give me such grace and courage and such seasonable supplement thereof that I may be resolved to believe firmly in thee and to walk exactly with thee at all essayes not staggering either in faith or a good conscience 12 As I have found thee mindful of me in trouble so shalt thou find me no less mindful of thee and my dutie to thee out of it I will not forget nor fail to give thee praises and that unfeigned ones uttered from my heart in the faith of thy power and grace O Lord my good God yea it shall be my constant practise to praise thee and to magnifie thee in and for them whilest I have any being 13 For greatly have they been manifested in thy mercie towards me and in so wonderfully preserving me from death and destruction that so unavoidably assailed me and had certainly devoured me hadst not thou mightily preserved me 14 And indeed I had need of no less power than thine to preserve me considering my humane help how weak it is and mine enemies insolencie and rage how great they are for multitudes of such as care neither for God nor man that disdain to walk by any rules but their own dictates without regard either to mine innocencie or thy severitie and justice resolve to persecute me to death 15 But thou O Lord art as gracious and merciful as they are cruel as pitiful as they are pitiless pardoning the sins and sensible of the sufferings of thy servant bearing with my frailties and passing by my infirmities in these my trials and failest me not as I have need of thee but hast abundantly approved thy goodness to be as large as thy truth and promise and thy self to be every jot as good as thy word 16 And so let me still find thee thy favour and grace O Lord vouchsafe me and in a time of need have mercie upon me to deliver me as I am thy servant so Lord inable me to persevere give inward strength of faith and courage to uphold me in and under these outward calamities and power to wade through them so as that I perish not in them have a gracious regard to me who thou knowest am a child not onely of thy visible but of thine invisible Church an heir of the promise born and bred under thy roof of thine own family neerly related to thee and therefore pray and hope for protection from thee 17 As I stand in need of more than ordinarie supportation so also of extraordinarie consolation and mine enemies of extraordinarie conviction by reason of their arrogance and malignitie Therefore Lord vouchsafe some notable act of providence in the behalf of my preservation and of power in their confusion that they which so extreamly hate me may know thou lovest me and hatest them for hating me and be ashamed at their hating and persecuting one whom they see thou lovest and preservest and for whose sake thou discomfits them to be a help and comfort unto me The lxxxvii PSALM For as much as 〈◊〉 the captivity upon their return the Iewâ— wâ—re or might bâ— dâ—jâ—cted with the paâ—citie of their people and povertie of their condition the holy Ghost by the Psalmist animates them and diverts the thoughts and apprehensions of the godly by setting forth the glorious priviledges of Sion prophâ—sted of old but not yet fulfilled saving in their shâ—dows which shortly would be accomplished in substance when all nations should be ambitious to be Sionists for the Church it selfe should bear that name which shall abound both in a numerous issue and heavenly qualifications A Psalm made to be both sung and played by the Korathites 1 THe holy Lord God from out all the world hath chosen Canaan a hilly countrey Jerusalem a mountainous place and in Jerusalem mount Sion and Moriah to scituate his Temple and to rest his Ark and establish his worship in There had his Church the pillar and ground of truth the first setling and truth it self the first firm footing upon which foundation laid among these hils was to be built and reared that great famous structure of the Gentil-Church Christ himself the principal corner-stone digged out of those mountains
and difference made between him and his wicked enemies whom he accurses as the wilful withstanders of the will of God touching him a type of Christ And therefore promises and prophesies their destruction and his own assured establishment over Israel whom he prayes for that they may be blessed under him as the Church shall be under the Messiah A Psalm made by David 1 UNto thee will I as I have ever done make my moan in my misery and cry for help for on thee O Lord depends all my trust and hope of safety therefore deny not to hear and help me who have no other helper for if thou doest I am utterly helpless and must unavoidably perish 2 Stop not thine ears nor with-hold not thy favour from me for it is as bitter as death to have my prayers unheard when in anguish of my spirit I pour them forth before thee and when according to thine ordinance I lift up mine eyes and hands in supplication towards the sanctuary which thou hast appointed as a type of heaven to vouchsafe thy presence and to hear and answer prayer in 3 Let me not perish as an evil doer by evil doers nor be untimely taken away in thy wrath as a male-factour and wicked worker amongst those that are so who with hipocritical dissembling make shew of peace and friendship to them that really mean no ill but intend nothing but mischievous deceit against them 4 Such as are so and do so which are mine enemies let them feel and find thy just displeasure according to their demerits and answerable to their sinful practises against the innocent let them have the wages they have wrought for and in thy justice pay them their just deserved punishment 5 And because they regard so little and slight so much the Lord in his remarkable judgements upon themselves and his no less remarkable grace and favour unto me so clearly manifested by extraordinary testimonies and singular providences confirming mine election to the Kingdom as a type of Christ he will and shall therefore at last I am sure do himself and me right upon them and make them understand it by their utter extirpation and overthrow and my establishment in their steads as he shall do by Christ and his enemies 6 Now blessed be the Lord who enables me in full assurance of faith and by an infallible spirit of of prophecy to foresee the issue of my prayers to be according to my desires and his gracious promise and decree touching me 7 So that I can say in the assurance of the event that the Lord is and shall be to the end my all-sufficient preserver and defendor against mine enemies Yea in full perswasion of faith I can say as if I had already taken a farewel of all my troubles That I am for so I shall be be fully delivered and gratiously established in a good estate according to the trust I have put in him therefore my heart at present rejoyceth as if all were done and past and with a Psalm of thanksgiving do I now promise publickly to praise the Lord when it shall be so 8 The Lord is a faithful and powerful deliverer and rescuer of his people from out their oppressions and from under their enemies and for their sakes he is and will be the undoubted Saviour and preserver of me whom he hath annointed and decreed to set over them for their good and welfare as a type of Christ over his Church 9 Therefore remember thy people to bring them out of the tyrannie of their enemies and the present distempers they lie under and bless them whom thou hast peculiarly chosen out of all the world to be thine by setting me over them as a type of Christ and feed them under me as Christ the shepheard shall feed his flock with plenty of grace and peace and bring them to a lasting and settled condition of tranquillity giving them the victory and dominion over all their enemies by and under me as the Church shall have by and under him The xxix PSALM David to awe all men to be respective of Gods Church people specially Kings from whom they then did ever should receive most opposition hardship He first seeks to awe them by a due respect of God himself and of his ordinances exhorting them to give him honour worship And therefore sets before their considerations the terriblest of his words to convince them of his glorious greatness to wit the thunder shewing the marvellous effects it hath upon things both sensible and unsensible the better to move with man and specially with great men to reverence the greatness of Almighty God And besides that he also preaches to them his glorious goodness manifested in his word and ordinances to excite them to partake therein together with his people But in case they refuse and obstinately oppose themselves against him and them He incourageth the Israelites and in them the faithful assuring them that God will subdue their enemies and make them prosperous under him as Christ shall his Church spite of all the world A Psalm made by David 1 O ye mighty potentates of the world suffer a word of exhortation be not high in your own conceits to which you are most subject be warned not to swell with the pride of your honour and power but set the Lord above you and pay the homage of both to God least he lay your honour in the dust and bring your strength to weakness 2 Do by God as you exspect others should do by you that are your subjects and inferiours Give him the honour that is due to his greatness and leave off your superstition and come and worship him and bring your gifts in token of service and subjection to his beautiful sanctuary for no where else will he receive them it being the sole appointed place of his glorious and solemn worship and special presence 3 Your power is here below but Gods is up above which loudly declares it self to us on earth from out those watery clouds that are in the firmament over us whence God who is the Lord of supream glory dreadfully thunders and shews his greatness by that terrible noise multiplied out of sundry clouds by sundry thunder-claps at once and by the infinite inundation of rain that immediately follows thereupon by sundry thunderclaps at once and by the infinit inundation of rain that immedaitly follows thereupon 4 This voice of the Lords thunder is in it self very dreadful and declares him to be of mighty power and of exceeding great Majestie and glorie far above all earthly potentates 5 When the Lord thunders it is so mightie and forcible that it overthrows the strongest trees even the great and tall Cedars of Lebanon are broken and turned up by the roots by the violence of thunder-storms 6 Yea of such affrightment is that terrible voice of his and
happy is that man whom in mercie God freely justifies and acquits from the guilt and punishment of his sin and seals it to him by the never-failing testimonie of his sanctifying spirit bestowed upon him creating him anew towards God in sinceritie and holiness 3 I can speak by experience for when as I loved my sin and lived in it and was loth to confess and forsake it not seeking pardon for it nor grace against it how bitter and burdensome at last did the Lord make it to me tormenting me within with most insupportable horrours to the sensible decay of nature by reason of his heavy displeasure and the want of his favour so that it made me restlesly to roar and crie 4 Yea incessantly without intermission was I tormented with fear and terrour so that I was even scorched and my natural moisture dried up with inward anguish like unto leaves and grass by a summers drought I speak it freelingly 5 This made me come off and glad I was to acknowledge my sin unto thee and ask forgiveness which I did not daring to conceal it any longer but spread it before thee with confession and deprecation And truly when once I did but feel my self throughly and sincerely resolved in my spirit no longer to hide and harbour it in my bosom but humbly in self-judging to lay it open before the Lord presently hereupon I felt my heart eased of mine inward pressures and cleared with the comfortable apprehension of the pardon of the guilt and punishment of my sin and thine acceptance of me into grace and favour again I speak it joyfully 6 This testimonie of mine touching thy ready mercie to humble penitents shall incite by the faith thereof all that are or desire to be Godly to make their addresses to thee in their trouble for sin in hope and full assurance to find the like mercie from thee in their miserie which is a time indeed wherein thou art readiest to afford help and comfort Surely in the greatest of outward troubles or inward perplexities such an one as flies to thee for refuge shall find as I have done that though like waves they may threaten and affright him yet they shall not overwhelm him but being in faith by prayer sought unto thou wilt command a calm in his soul as thou didst in mine 7 Thou art the refuge that my soul still flies unto for succour in all distresses and so thou hast approved thy self and so wilt ever do in time of need I am confident thou wilt never but shew me mercie in my miserie and so wilt ever give me cause to praise thee and rejoyce in thee still as I have need of thee by my manifold and seasonable deliverances To thy glorie I speak it 8 As I have learned of the Lord the way of wel-doing so will I as is my dutie teach it unto thee who ever thou art for thy welfare out of a care and and desire of thy good I will shew thee the readie and certain way of gaining the favour of God as I have found it and seen the experience of it so will I declare it to thee 9 Which is this walk humbly with thy God and be tractable to his will and pleasure not rebelliously persisting in sin and so foolishly provoking him against thee to reduce thee by extremities as we are fain to do brute beasts or plague thee with his judgements to keep thee within compass 10 For the wicked by their wickedness do but kick against pricks and heap up judgement to themselves But he that is the Lords by faith and obedience the sails of his soul shall be filled with the comfortable sense of Gods mercie and favour to him and he shall find the good effects thereof in the whole course of his life 11 Therefore if the wicked will still be so at their peril But as for the Godly they have chosen the better part for the Lord is their portion in whom they may and ought to be glad and rejoyce even all that believe in him for the pardon of their sins and are sanctified by his holy spirit such whatsoever the world think of them that are thus sincere and truly Godly which all are not that make profession and shew of religion have infinit cause of joy in their blessed and happie condition which they shall do well to put in practise and make conscience of by an answerable actual rejoycing and comfortable course of life to the conviction of the world and the honour of God The xxxiii PSALM In this Psalm the Godly are incited exceedingly to praise the Lord because of their faithful experience of his word and works his holy nature goodness and power manifested all the world over for which all men also ought to reverence him But principally his people Israel whose happiness he hath decreed and will bring to pass maugre all opposition of contrarie counsels and attempts in case they walk with him and hope in him he will be with them He underrates for Israel in the name of all the faithful that they will and do effectually hope in the Lord and promiseth in so doing they shall speed accordingly and lastly prayes it may be so 1 O all ye chosen Israel who are or should be Saints and servants of the Lord rejoyce and be exceeding glad all those that are so in that you have him for your portion and truly better and more seemly service they cannot do him that are partakers of his grace and spirit than to render him praise for his love and benefits towards them 2 Never think you can give too many or too much praise to God but learn to be skilful in it and every way in the very best manner and with the most raised affections look you perform it to him that so highly deserves it at your hands 3 As he vouchsafes new mercies so still do you indite new praises to him with thankful hearts set all your skill and might on work to magnifie him 4 For the word of promise which he hath made to the righteous is firm to be trusted and will not deceive the believing soul but is and ever shall be true to him and all his works of power and providence towards them and against their enemies are the fruits of his mercy and faithfulness 5 The Lord is righteous and holy hates the wayes of the world injury and oppression and contrarily loves justice and equity and such as practise them he is bountiful also and out of his goodness fills the earth with abundance of good things for the use of man 6 And as his goodness so his power wonderfully appears in the world for at his meer command the heavens and all those lightsome glorious ornaments therein were made and other way of Being they had none saving his command to Be. 7 And as the heavens above so the earth beneath sheweth his
as I have done for this I would have all men know that stumble at it that it s no such marvell rightly considered for wherein I differ from others it is thy grace and not my goodness that is the cause of it for the self-same nature and disposition to sin yea to all and any sin be it never so prodigious is in me that is in the worst of men as I have made it too evident for I inherit and have growing in me that bitter root of originall pravity that successively is derived from Adam to all his posterity which hath been fruitfull in me all my life long the Lord be gracious to me and pardon and weaken it in me more and more 6 Were I no other than nature hath formed me I should neither have acceptance nor favour from thee but as bad as I am and would have thy people know it to my humbling and their warning yet withall I would have them know that grace and sinfull nature is consistent together so that though they do condemn me for sin yet not of insincerity the root of the matter may be and is in me for all this as thou art gracious to pass by many and great sins and to own such a sinner for thy servant if thou seest an upright heart and a sanctified disposition in him towards thee so I would have them to be charitable and to pass though a just yet not a rash and finall sentence upon me for thou both hast and for all this out of the abundant riches of thy grace wilt yet further instruct me in the way of life and salvation to attain unto it by faith in the righteousness of another though I have none of mine own to trust in or to boast of 7 But what ever men think of me and how ever I stand in their good opinion yet my hearts desire is to be received again into thy favour which I know is possible notwithstanding my estate seems desperate The bloud of Christ who shall be sacrificed for penitent believing sinners and now is of virtue and use to such in his types being by grace through faith sprinkled upon me and his righteousness afresh imputed to me which the Lord grant is able to render me clean in thy sight so all-sufficient and meritorious is the bloud of this thy Son and and my Saviour that if thou wilt but wash me in it for all the filthiness I have contracted I shall in the sight of God by this supernaturall emundation exceed the purity of any creature whatsoever in the eyes of man 8 As thou hast sent me a sad message of thy heavy displeasure and threatned me with sore judgements and laid my sin terribly home to my conscience which hath fetched confession and contrition from me so now Lord that thou hast humbled and broken my secure and impenitent heart and cast me into such deep sorrows vouchsafe to change the temper of my spirit and by thine speak a reviving effectuall word of grace and reconciliation to my soul assure me of the pardon of my sin and mine acceptance into favour that I may therein rejoyce notwithstanding the sad things that are like to befall mine outward man and that justly 9 And that thou maiest do this Lord interpose the righteousness of Christ betwixt thine eyes and my sins look at that and not at them Let no one of all my many transgressions remain upon my score unpardoned for the bloud of Christ is as well able to do away all as any and till then I shall never be at quiet 10 Nor do I desire as hypocrits and unsincere professors do thy pardoning without thy purging grace it is thy justifying grace indeed that I earnestly sue for but not without thy sanctifying My course of sinning hath quite put my soul out of frame I am as if I never had been regenerated corruption hath so broken in upon all my faculties and born down all my graces that it hath and doth and is like still to bear sway and grace never to get the better again if thy power do not interpose O therefore good Lord begin the work of sanctification again in me kindle again those sparks of grace that he almost quite smothered breathe the breath of life into them that sin and corruption may take its turn to die above all free me from the bondage of lustfull concupiscencce that hath been so predominant and hath precipitated me into so many hideous sins subservient to it give me a spirit of holiness for time to come specially a pure spirit and such an one as may be firm for God and not drawn aside as mine hath been but able to resist temptations 11 My sins as I well deserve they should have separated betwixt me and my God the sense of thy love and favour that I was wont to feel in the actings of my faith and other graces is now extinct and I am as a banished man from thy presence without communion and fellowship but Lord have compassion upon this my disconsolate condition smile out upon my spirit in the renewed sense of thy loving-kindness and be not for ever strange to me nor take not quite away the spirit of grace and adoption from me but in mercy restore me to mine interest in thee and relation to thee and to those active graces that accompany these 12 Grant me that which I cannot live without though I have deservedly lost it by my sins yet return it to me graciously to wit the comfortable assurance of my salvation by thy grace that my heart may once more tast of those joyes and sweet apprehensions which formerly shoon bright in my soul but now are miserably eclipsed and let me not sink deeper and deeper into sin and sorrow but by thy spirit of adoption and liberty which can onely rescue me from the power and bondage of sin and make me to run the wayes of thy commandments underprop my decaying comforts and graces 13 If thou wilt thus befriend me it shall not onely engage me personally to thee but I will so declare thy grace out of mine own experience in zeal to the glory of it that who ever are burdened with the heavy pressure of their sins as I am I will instruct them what way they shall take to come out of that bondage to be thy freemen and servants and will incourage them in it by mine own success when I am converted I will strengthen my brethren and doubt not but thy grace to me and restauration of me into favour will be a means to convert and save many a sinner besides my self that weighs with himself and finds upon divine record what mountainous sins of mine thy mercy hath removed out of the way 14 The sins I confess are exceeding capitall which I have committed specially that of murdering Uriah and the rest that died with him by that design of mine for which I deserve capitall
the Temple it self with his Church on earth as well as in heaven Praise ye therefore the Lord ye that worship him without as well as within the holy sanctuarie of our God both Priests and people 3 Be not so much awed by fear to praise the Lord as induced by love for those lovely excellencies of grace and goodness that are in him and shine forth from him to his people let the faith and experience the Church hath had thereof in all ages tune your voice and instruments to the exaltation of his name in praise-worthy commemoration of all the good he hath either promised or performed which to do is delightfull to God and every good heart 4 Surely we far above all the world are debtors to God ow more in way of praise than ever we can pay him for this unestimable mercie and priviledge of adoption to be his peculiar to name his name upon and marked out of all the great fold of the world for his people and the sheep of his pasture even we a poor hand-full that came out of the loins of one man our Father Jacob that he should choose him and his out of all mankind to set his love upon and thus to honour as to esteem none else worth reckoning of but us and us as his treasure and Jewels of value whom he onely sets by as he shall by his Church and people in all the world and onely by them 5 Under what notion soever we apprehend God he is worthie our uttermost praises whether as good to us or as great in himself who indeed is of that immensitie as that his positive admits of no comparative degree he is abstractly great even greatness it self in power majesty beyond humane apprehension and capacity in the faith whereof yet we ought to praise him for so his people best know him and that not onely as absolutely and essentially so but also relatively and derivatively so to us this great God being greatly our God his greatness as it is superlative to all greatnesses whether humane powers or imaginarie deities so his grace shall extend it accordingly unto our protection and preservation against them and to the confusion of men and Idols that are set against him or us his Church and people 6 I mean the great and mightie God the sole Sovereign and Monarch of all the world both heaven and earth who of his meer will and by his onely word made all things to be that they are from the highest to the lowest whether in the heavens above or in the earth beneath or in the waters under the earth and the invisible depths of both down to the very center and as he commanded them to be so he rules and commands them now they are to be and do what he would have them and not otherwayes to his praise and his peoples security 7 He createth ruin by appointing and impowering the sun from all parts of the world sea and land to exhale the vapours which we see ascend on high into the middle region of the air where they engender clouds those clouds rain which by his providence is dispersed and dispensed all the world over what the earth sends up in exhalations from all parts it receives down again every where for its use in showers and dews Yea what a piece of Artifice do our eyes behold when by the force of thunder he sends lightning and rain fire and water out of one and the same cloud so that when we see the one break forth we conclude the other not far behind as if naturally fire produced water which are so contrarie but yet are made to cohabit till and be subservient when he pleaseth to dispose of them in storms and tempests The wind also blows when where and how he lists and not otherwayes how unruly and boisterous so ever it seem it breaks not prison of it self but is let out of its restraint by him without whose will and pleasure it cannot so much as breath who is the God of nature ordeining and ordering her in all causes and all their effects how rare soever beyond our knowledge and above our reach transacted in the heavens whereof these are few instances 8 Yea and on earth too where not a few things praise-worthie have been wrought by the same Almighty power for his people Israel whereof we will enumerate some a few of many as the high mightie slaughter he made of the first-born both of man and beast in Egypt with a strong hand bringing his people thence spite of Pharaohs power and oppugnation 9 He wrought miracles and made strange demonstration of his heavy displeasure by manifold judgements destructive signs and prodigies in the midst of thee O Egypt for their sakes when his people the Israelites had no harm there forcing thereby hard-hearted Pharaoh thy King and his courtiers to acknowledge his power and at last submit to his will 10 Nor in Egypt onely did he do wonders and execute judgements upon his Churches enemies but when by a mightie hand the destruction of the Egyptians he had brought them thence by the same out-stretched arm did he lead them through the wilderness destroying all that made opposition to them both Princes and people though far greater and every way better provided then they way-faring men were 11 As for instance Sihon the King of the Amorites and Og that mightie man the King of Bashan who opposed their passage these Kings and their people they destroyed on the other side Jordan and on this side even all the Kings and Kingdoms of Canaan thirty one in number those under Moses these under Josua were subdued by the Lord who fought for Israel against all their enemies 12 And he that is Lord of all the earth as before he had promised to Abraham so now he fulfilled his word by an effectual possession and implantation of his people Israel in the lands and possessions of all the foresaid Kings and Kingdoms gave them to them and their heirs for ever which he hath ever since preserved to and for them and their posteritie with as Almighty a hand as at first he gained and gave them 13 The glorious manifestations thou hast alwayes made of thy powerful goodness and gracious faithfulness in the behalf of thy people against their enemies ought to be renowned for ever hereafter in all ages which also shall produce experiments answerable to those thy properties which are ever the same in thy Churches behalf who shall transmit the grateful memorie of thy former mercies and miracles down from age to age and from one generation successively to another to thine everlasting glorie and their corroboration and comfort in the faith of thy faithfulness to thy covenant and promises the grand charter of the Catholick Church theirs as well as ours made to them as to us 14 For the Lord is his peoples according to covenant so
yet the Lord abhors and counts the greatest fools 4 The wicked have had such a time of it against the godly and therewith are grown so high-minded and self-confident that he never cares whether God be with him or against him he thinks least of him or sets least by him of any thing 5 Leading a life as if there were no God for his whole trade and course is composed of nothing else but disobedience to God and injurie to men and because he feels not thy judgements he is therefore fearless and thinks they will never befal him but that he is safe enough not caring a jot but setting at nought both God and all that take Gods part with me against him 6 And hath fully concluded in the pride of his heart and confidence of his present condition that he shall never be worse than he is but shall ever prosper and never taste of misfortune 7 He stands in no aw of God nor scruples no sin but gives libertie of speech to himself to curse swear and forswear lie and dissemble in so much as that he is altogether conversant in mischievous speeches and self confident boastings not any truth or good comes from him 8 He every where fore-laids me lying in wait near high ways and neighbour Towns to catch me and seeks in holes and corners where he thinks I hide my self or may pass by to find me out and murder me without any cause given watching diligently all opportunities and means to take me at unawares who am poor and friendless 9 He is as greedily affected and as cruelly disposed towards me as a Lion to his prey seeking all advantages against me never regarding mine innocencie and the unjust sufferings he exposeth me to studying by all means possible to seduce and to entrap me in my simplicitie that he may circumvent me to destroy me 10 And as proud as he is yet in subtilty he can abase himself and with glavering speeches and fawning behaviour indirectly endeavour the overthrow of the innocent and distressed that by fair pretences he may deceive and bring them under his power and execute his rage upon them by the hands of his privado's desperate Assassinats 11 And in all this is confident of impunitie taking for granted because at present he perceives not God to mind him that therefore he never will but as he thinks what 's past is forgotten so he shall speed no worse for the time to come 12 But Lord let him find it otherways by some manifestation of thy self in judgement good God have a care of thine honour and mine innocence and other thy people who are concerned in me yea of thy whole Church which is resembled by me by executing some remarkable judgement and let not the world have cause to think thee careless of the afflicted that humbly depend upon thee 13 Why shouldest thou by thy forbearance give the wicked such occasion to insult over thee and slight thy judgements confidently promising himself that thou wilt never call him to an account for what he does 14 But its sure enough that thou takest notice of the mischievous and spiteful carriage of the wicked both against God and those that are godly for what ever they think yet I know thou precisely markest them to pay them home with condigne punishment in the faith whereof it is that the poor afflicted man I and others that in this world must look to fare as I do puts himself and his cause over into thine hands to be righted for that thou art the helper of the helpless and distressed against oppressors 15 Weaken thou the power of the wicked wherein he so much trusteth and which he imploys to evil purposes trase him quite through the course and trade of his iniquities even to the uttermost end of them and punish him accordingly 16 The Lord that governs his Church and people hath approved himself and ever wil to be the supream commander and disposer of all and over all for their sakes as appears by his wonderful works for how hath he destroyed the heathen in this land which he promised to bestow upon Israel and made it holy of prophane in so much as they are wasted to just nothing who were potent and numerous and his worship and worshippers planted in it maugre their resistance after that sort shall he do by the enemies of his Church and people destroy them as these 17 For it hath been alwayes Gods manner to trie his peoples faith and patience till they see a need of him and make their humble addresses to him and then to help them Yea when he has a purpose and sees it time to work their deliverance and destroy their enemies then doth he inspire them with a more than ordinarie spirit of prayer and faith to seek and hope for those very things 18 Which shall certainly come to pass for therefore hath God deferred it and always doth until most remarkably for his peoples greater good and his greater glorie he may vindicate their oppressions and enfranchise them from under the tyrannie of their oppressors who when they are at the highest in carnal confidence and the godly at the lowest in worldly diffidence that 's Gods time to rescue these and ruin those The xi PSALM David by protesting his trust in God silences his companions and rejects the advice they gave him to save himself by flight and give over expecting the Kingdom disswades them from disheartning him and shews how he no whit doubteth but by the justice of God his wicked enemies for all their malicious designs upon him should perish in their wickednes and that he should be sustained in his uprightnes To him that is the first and principal of all the Quire do I David that made this Psalm recommend it for the care and ordering of it to be sung 1 IN the Lord whom I know to be a sufficient safeguard do I trust to fulfil his promise How then is it that you my companions dispair and to the grief of my soul counsel me distrustfully to give all for lost abandon the cause and never more to look after it but how to save my self 2 For though its true the power and malice of mine enemies is great yet consider this They are wicked and manage an unrighteous cause maliciously seeking my destruction whom they in their own consciences know to be upright and innocent and therefore I am confident it shall turn to theirs 3 Do not ye tempt me by despair to relinquish a righteous cause and to distrust a righteous God For faith and an upright heart are the onely foundations that a righteous man hath to support himself withall and if you undermine them you quite undoe him 4 Be confident of this therefore that God is neither absent nor idle but is present in his tabernacle here below to hear the prayer of the
all natural men live in sin and from the beginning have multiplied abominations not one either is or ever was that by nature without special and supernatural grace ever knew or served the Lord aright 2 The Lord made a long trial of it in the first age of the world in that time of nature between Adam and the giving of the Law purposely to see what it of it self would bring forth and how improve the talent that age afforded whether there were any one of all mankind that could and would improve it to the knowledge belief and worship of him or for default by nature to make out to him for grace 3 But he found by long experience notwithstanding his documents to and judgements upon the old world and so he finds still That all men are naturally fools void of understanding and generally without exception of polluted hearts and lives loathsome in his sight that none in nature does that which is right and acceptable no not a man of all mankind nor covets grace 4 In so much as God himself admired to see all men by nature void of the knowledge of him and of themselves in relation to him and wholly given over to sin and carnalitie yea even to the hatred and devouring those few in the world that are the people of God upon whom he hath bestowed his favour and grace and that differing from them walk in holines and righteousnes never taking thought to do or be like them neither themselves of themselves by nature worshipping God nor seeking to God for the like grace and inablement that those had given them but contemned it and hated them 5 Which at last brought fearful desolation upon them when the floud came and swept them all away Like measure shall the wicked contemners and haters of God and his worshippers have they shall find that God who by his spirit and grace throughout all ages is in the righteous will also be for them and against those that are against them 6 You graceless and wicked ones of this age take notice of it that have persecuted the poor and helpless and scorned him as a hairbrain fool for trusting so nakedly upon the Lord and bearing himself upon him without humane probabilities for deliverance and establishment 7 But O that the time were come which I am sure will come and is not long too that God will by mine enemies ruin settle my Kingdom in Sion as a Type of Christs in heaven and then and there by me send deliverance and happines to his people Israel as he will thence by him send salvation to his Church When God shall have thus delivered them from their enemies and out of their present troubles as formerly he did out of their captivities into peace and tranquillity as his Church by Christ shall be from wrath and hell how shall the faithful and true Israel of God who properly are the seed of his servant Jacob rejoyce proportionably in the type to what they shall then in the Antitype The xv PSALM David dâ—sirous to convince and convert the fâ—rmâ—â— professor or outward Jâ—y of and from an overweening conceit and mistaken apprehension of himsâ—lf and his ceremonious worship As a Prophet goes to God by way of question to know of him and so to deliver from him who he is that is in his account a true worshâ—pper of him and is and shall be partaker of his grace and glorie And brings answer that it s he and only he that in the sight of God is as well conscientious of the moral as of the ceremonial law practizing as well righteousness as holines in all manner converse and commerce with men in thought words and actions A Psalm made by David 1 LOrd there are many pretenders to thy service and frequenters of thy Tabernacle worship that take themselves to be of the Church because they are in it but thou knowest that many are of Israel that are not Israel Therefore declare by me thy prophet who and what manner of man he must be that is an Israelite indeed a true worshipper of thee and savingly implanted into the true Church ever to abide in thy Kingdom of grace here and of glorie hereafter 2 Why no wicked man nor bare professor or meer ceremonial worshipper that is but seemingly holy But he and he onely that in conscience to God carries on the whole trade of his life holily and righteously both in duties of pietie and acts of moralitie in common converse and commerce 'twixt man and man doing what he does justly and honestly without fraud and deceit and saying what he says in truth from his heart without dissembling 3 Doing injurie to no man by undermining his good name and sliely seeking his disreputation by insinuating and speaking ill of him behind his back yea that neither in word or deed doth willingly disparage or disprofit any man nor is well pleased another should not itching after tales and reports to other mens disparagement and aspersion nor being over credulous of them when he hears them to the lessening their credit but in all things is careful to do as he would be done by counting every man his neighbour and walking thereafter in doing good and not evil to all 4 He that gives no countenance or encouragement to wickednes and wicked men but declares himself against it and them for its sake contrarily having in great esteem and shewing good respect to them that are known to be holy and good and is careful to walk unblameably and therefore is so tender of his word as that if he have promised or sworn any lawful thing he will keep it though it be to his disadvantage rather than falsifie 5 He that violates not the Laws of charitie and justice but having it by him lends freely to them that need intending their commoditie and not his own And that in office or judicature gives judgement uprightly not suffering himself to be perverted by bribery to wrong the innocent He that thus walks is no formalist nor Hipocrâ—â— or cast-away but is the truly godly man that is blessed for ever with saving grace and assurance of glorie The xvi PSALM David having praied for divine preservation shews he expects to be saved by Gods goodnes and not his own which onely is gratuitous not meritorious Then he shews the vanitie and miserie of false religion and worship which he for his part disclainâ—s and by faith chuses to be happie in God onely Blessing God that hath by his word and spirit given him the wisdom to believe in him Which stablishes his heart in peace during life and in assured hope after death touching perseverance to the end and heaven in the end A Psalm made and set by David to a special tune called Michtam 1 O God of power uphold me from falling from thee lead me on in the knowledge love obedience of thy truth to
the end for on thee only on thy good grace do I trust for preservatiō unto salvatiō 2 My soul hath firmly entred covenant with thee and chosen thee for its Lord to serve thee and to be saved by thee of thy free mercie abandoning all worth or goodnes of mine own as any ways meritorious or beneficial to thee that needeth nothing but hast all fulnes and cause of full contentednes in th◠self alone 3 Onely to thy children and sanctified ones here on earth do I labour to express my gratitude by what offices of love and respect I can shew for thy sake as they that to me are most excellent of all men in the world be their outward condition never so mean being happy to be a fellow servant and true worshipper of thee amongst them 4 Discomfort and destruction insted of peace and salvation shall be heaped upon them that forsaking thee have their hearts set upon any other God For my part I renounce all but thee and will serve and sacrifice to thee alone and will have nothing to do with their false worship nor once open my lips to any God but thee to swear by him or to pray to him 5 With the Lord alone am I well satisfied a singular portion rich inheritance do I account my knowledge of him interest in him thou art full content to me in thee and by thee shall I be ever happie blessed when other men of other confidences shall be miserable 6 In having thee for my God I have my hearts desire and think my self enriched beyond all earthly pleasures and profits which many in the world have which have not thee 7 I will ever bless and praise the Lord for revealing to me in his word the way of life and salvation when others sit in darknes and in the shadow of death and also teaching me effectually by the inward and secret inspiration and whisperings of his spirit consciously to walk in it when as others that know it externally for want of inspiration do wander from it 8 In what condition soever I have been I have still kept the eye of my faith full upon God and not suffered it to take to other things and because I make God my support and lean so wholly upon him I know he will not deceive my confidence but will sustain me in his favour and support me with his power and grace for ever till he bring me to glorie 9 And in the faith hereof my heart is comforted above all worldly sorrows even to the causing my tongue to break out in holy boastings and praises that instrument of speech wherein man transcends other creatures Yea in this confidence I dare die as well as live and by virtue of it cheerfully bequeath my body to the grave in certain expectation of a blessed resurrection thence 10 For as thou wilt enable Christ whose type I am and who shall spring from me to overcome all his sufferings and preserve him who is thy beloved son and solely without sin from the putrefaction which all men else that are sinners must sustain in the grave making him to triumph over death who is the resurrection and the life So by Christ shall I be set free in soul and body from wrath and mortality by a glorious resurrection to immortality and life 11 Yea thou wilt teach me the way of life and salvation and lead me in it until thou bring me into thy heavenly presence to partake and be possessed of those soul-satisfying and substantial joyes that are there and of those everlasting and immortal pleasures which Christ the head of his Church at thy right hand hath to bestow on all his glorified members The xvii PSALM David probably when he was in the cave encompassed by Saul makes his prayer and appeal to God impartially pleading his innocency against his enemies Further testifies that in conscience to God he durst never do as he was done by nor praies he never may but commits his matter over to God in prayer to be righted by him and delivered from the violence of his proud outragious enemies in his extream straights And again presseth hard upon the Lord to shew himself for him against them that have no interest in his special and saving favour onely share in his common mercies which he hath and prizeth as an happiness above all A Psalm of David in way of prayer 1 THou that art a righteous God hear the prayer of the righteous and innocent person heed my humble and vehement supplication let my prayer have audience which speaks nothing but truth of my self and enemies 2 Judge thou my cause against mine adversaries by clearing mine innocency behold the wrong I sustain and by thy just judgements do me right upon them according to my righteousness 3 Mine integrity is not unknown to thee for thou hast searched mine heart as well as seen mine actions thou hast put me upon the scrutiny and discovery of my self in my most retired thoughts yea in thought word and deed hast thou tried me and sifted me through great and many afflictions and neither hast nor shalt find unrighteousness in me for I am by thy blessed assistance fully purposed as to think so to speak the truth in all uprightness and not to seek mine advantage by lying and dissembling as do mine enemies 4 Concerning the wrongs they have done me I have been careful for all their unjust provocations to walk by the rule of thy word not rendring evil for evil nor requiting their injurious cruelty with the like though it lay in my power 5 And so Lord inable me ever to do to walk after thy word that I may never erre from thy truth nor by sinning forfeit my well doing and good success in the end which by thy promise in the way of obedience I am sure of 6 I have made thee my confidence and ever addressed me to thee for I know and believe according to thy promise thou wilt hear and do for me now Lord is a fit time and a needful I pray thee therefore withdraw not thy self but be intreated to take notice of me and to hear mine instant prayer 7 Shew thy love to me in marvellously delivering me and fulfilling the wonderful things thou hast promised me O Lord that usest to imploy thy power for their preservation that trust in thee for deliverance from them that unjustly oppress them 8 Do thou Lord watch carefully over me that am dear to thee and in tender compassion preserve thy weak and innocent one 9 From them that unjustly seek my ruine and pursue me to the death with mighty ods of power and strength 10 They bear themselves high in confidence of their own greatness and power wallowing in abundance and give out great swelling words in disdain and contempt of me an abject 11 They have hunted
and power of God to all parts and people thereof In them may all men see how wonderfully God hath ordained the sun to reside and shine 5 Which at its first arising and mornings beautiful appearance is most welcome to all mens sight bringing light and as it were life with it from under the dark curtain of the sable night and with a free and natural motion fit for such an undertaking without difficulty sets upon the course it is to run and finish in the appointed time from one end of the heaven to the other 6 His setting forth is from the East and in a day he makes his progress to the West diffusing also his light and influence North and South whose penetrating heat in this his motion reacheth the very lowermost parts of the earth concocting minerals and quickening vegetables 7 Glorious is God in his works which declare his power and wisdom to all men but much more glorious is he in his word and doctrine delivered peculiarly to his people which holds forth to them his covenant of saving grace Those things by a natural propensity convey to men many common and bodily benefits But the word of God is far beyond them all restoring both our title to them lost by our fall and which is infinitely more supernaturally revealing to us the perfect and infallible way of life turning again to God and powerfully bringing it to pass upon us The truth delivered in it by the Lord touching our salvation is unquestionable and may be trusted to which understood and imbraced enriches us who foolishly lost our first estate of holines and happines with understanding how to get it again 8 The saving principles and ordinances which God gives us in his word to walk by are holy and righteous and such as being observed and obeyed in faith and conscience to the Law-giver brings joy and hearts ease in the comfortable sense of our sinceritie and assurance of Gods favour to us and acceptance of us The whole will of God revealed is it self pure void of errour or corruption and makes them so that walk according to it enlightning them with understanding to tread in the way of truth and life when others wander in by-paths of death and errour 9 The holy law of God which he hath ordained his people to fear and serve him by is free from corruption and makes them like it that observe it holy and pure and is everlastingly the same like God the giver of it not to be varied by us at no time nor occasion bringing with it the reward of everlasting happines The ordinances and commandments of the Lord by which he expects to be obeyed and purposes to judge the world are compleatly perfect free from all errour and injustice and onely makes men so 10 They are of more worth and yield a man more profit than all the riches of the world better are they to be prized and more to be desired than the most refined gold And more true pleasure and content do they bring to the soul and conscience by faithful observance than the sweetest honey does to the taste 11 After a special manner they are and ever have been useful to me and to all that fear thee shewing us how to stear a right course in every condition by chusing the good and refusing the evil And well worthie are they to be obeyed for they bring a blessed reward with them even peace of conscience and everlasting life 12 So holy are all thy foresaid laws and commandments and so binding both to the inward and outward man as who lives that can know how oft he offends against them Lord pardon me therefore my unknown sins and sanctifie my heart and spirit conformably to thy law which is spiritual 13 Protect me also who am thy servant and desire to yield thee universal obedience from outward and grosser iniquities committed against knowledge let not such prevail over me by strength of temptation And so being thus pardoned and sanctified notwithstanding my many frailties and daily infirmities I shall be uprightly righteous in thy sight and shall be though not innocent and free from all sin yet from known and presumptuous ones any of which lived in may justly stagger my sinceritie and covenant-peace which without thy special preventing grace I shall notwithstanding fall into 14 Yea cleanse me throughout Let my very words and thoughts as well as deeds be such as sute with thy law and will Thus Lord grant me grace and pardon who onely art my sanctifier and redeemer The xx PSALM David as a prophet instructs his people in a pattern and form of prayer to pray for him their King and to seek their own welfare in him as the Churches in Christ whereof he and they were respective types And to look at God for all the good they expected by his means and withal to be confident of it by saith grounded upon pregnant experiences of his grace and favour to him And how ever God might make them strong in outward things yet not to change their trust but to keep it firm in God by example both of their enemies miscarriages through their misgrounded confidence and of their own experienced success by trusting in the Lord. Closing up the prayer with a brief of all Praying God to preserve both them and their King and to make him able to govern and defend them in equitie and tranquillitie as Christ his Church To him that is the first and principal of all the Quire do I David that made this Psalm recommend it for the care and ordering of it to be sung 1 WE the people of God and thee whom God hath set over us pray for thee That the Lord would hear thy prayers against thine enemies in time of need the grace and providence of God which he shewed to our father Jacob and promised to us his seed who are his peculiar people evermore accompany and preserve thee our King 2 Yea the good Lord answer thee succesfully from that place which he hath specially appointed to hear and for us to offer prayers in even his holy Tabernacle And grant thee his Almighty aid according to the daily prayers of his priests and people which they put up unto him in his holy mountain in thy behalf 3 The Lord keep in mind thy pious offerings of praise and thanksgivings for mercies past to give thee further cause to do the like and the Lord accept the propitiation for thy sins to pardon them and shew forth the gratious fruits and effects of his reconciled favour to thee All this we humbly and heartily pray for 4 God grant thee answers and issues according to thine own desire and bless all thy advice and undertakings for God and his people with sutable success 5 We are confident that God is and ever will be with thee and therefore rejoyce before hand in that
warrant of his own word and his former remarkable providences as also his strong affiance and trust in him and his enemies malice against him and so concludes with great incouragement to himself and every one of Gods people to wait and trust everlastingly in a promise never to give out but incourage themselves in God his goodness be their condition never so desperate A Psalm made by David 1 IN my most afflicted state and darksome condition the Lord hath and doth afford me both comfort and direction yea and also preservation and deliverance and so hath promised to do alwayes and I believe no less by him from whom then need I fear any harm The Lord is he that according to his promise and my trust in him defends and upholds me spite of all the power of men and devils of whom then need I be afraid be they who they will and do they what they can 2 When as multitude of wicked ones with cruel hatred conspired against me and joyned all their forces to wreak their teen upon me and barbarously destroy me what got they by it but ruine to themselves which they thought to bring upon me by the just judgement of God upon them for my sake 3 Whilst thus I am sure of God on my side though an whole army of men should be ready to make an assault upon me my heart by faith shall bear up in God without dismaiedness Though I were never so implunged in warres by forraign enemies or domestick insurrections yet by faith in Gods grace and powerful assistance will I confidently exspect an happy issue out of them all 4 The thing I have alwayes in all conditions mainly desired of God and which still I do and ever will principally sue to him for is that he will so order mine affairs that I may not be put besides my hope and desires of that transcendent happiness of frequenting his presence and enjoying his ordinances in his tabernacle where I could gladly lead my life there to behold through those many legal types and shadows the admirable grace and wisdom of God in the salvation of man through Christ and to make there my dayly prayers and to ask advice of him upon all occasions as the people of God shall one day do in his holy Temple 5 Nor shall I entreat this of him in vain for he that hath stirred me up to seek it will fulfil it and to that end in my greatest trouble I am confident he will preserve and safely protect me Yea as if I were shut up in his holy Ark so shall I be kept and secured by him he shall make me invincible spite of all mine adversaries and set me above and out of their reach to hurt me 6 And sure I am it is not long too before I shall have the better of all mine enemies one and other and shall live in a flourishing state of peace and prosperity therefore do I confidently aforehand vow peace-offerings to him which I will plentifully and publickly offer in his tabernacle with joyful thanksgiving in the congregation for my deliverances where I so much desire to serve him And where also I will sing his praises and publish his praise-worthy mercies to me in manifold Psalmes and Himnes 7 Thou that art the God of my faith and trust O hear me when mine afflictions cause me to cry and pour forth my prayers unto thee and in mercy answer me with deliverance 8 For whereas thy word warrants and enjoynes thy people in all their difficulties to seek thy gracious help and favour in prayer and faith my heart readily ecchoes and sayes Amen to it doth as it bids for it hath alwayes been my practise to prefer thy grace as my greatest good and onely support because of thy faithfulness 9 And still do I beg of thee above all things not to ecclipse thy favour or withdraw thine assistance from me take not such displeasure at me who though a sinner yet am thy servant as to divorce me from thy favour and protection Thou knowest and so do I what mercies and providences thou hast shewen me in my need which is wont to bind thee to further goodness and to incourage us to greater faith and therefore let me in the faith thereof humbly put thee in mind of thy former grace to move thee to second it now and alwayes as I have need and thou hast opportunity by standing for me and sticking to me not leaving me to mine enemies nor withdrawing thy help for thou hast been art and ever shall be the God that I onely have and will trust in for preservation 10 Truly my faith is more in thee and a nearer tie of love and affiance doth mine heart apprehend from thee than from the dearest bonds of nature and natural affections so that my father that begot me and my mother that bare me I more distrust to fail and forsake me in their love and care than thou who I am confident wilt never forsake me nor fail in thy love and promises to me whosoever do nay thou wilt then most of all be a freind unto me when I am left most friendless and forlorn 11 O Lord manifest thy love and care both in my protection and direction instructing me how to walk obediently towards thee in all my temptations and safely in regard of mine enemies by escaping their traps and snares who would be glad to see my fall both into sin that they may have whereof to accuse me and into danger to have their wills upon me 12 But Lord let mine enemies never have their wills and desires of me by my miscarriages any way though they seek and long for it every way by fraud and force endeavouring it forging lies against me and threatning all manner of cruelty to me 13 Certainly so many and grievous have been my pressures that I could never have subsisted under them unless I had had a promise to stay me and faith to stay upon the promise through the goodness of God for my deliverance and settlement one day in a happy condition free from persecution and banishment amongst the ordinances and people of God which I am sure I shall have before I die though in the nature of a resurrection from the dead 14 And truly this hath ever upheld me and so doth still to wait on the Lord which for the promise sake I will never fail to do for I know it shall be fulfilled therefore will I incourage my self by faith in God and so shall I be sure of him to give me heart-upholding grace and spirit No never will I give over waiting on the Lord till he cause me cease it by fulfilling what I wait for according to his promise And so let all and every one of the people of God be incouraged to do in like sort by mine example The xxviii PSALM David prayes to have his prayers heard
saw me so changed glad to forsake Jerusalem and flie for my life did in like manner flie from me and save themselves 12 Upon mine alteration I am become of no request but given for lost and undone without all hope of recoverie counted as a cast-away and contemptible man in an irreparable condition 13 Yea manifold slaunders and disgraceful injuries have come to mine ears which by mine enemies are heaped upon me to bring me into hatred and procure my destruction so that every way I am beset with fears and dangers by false rumors and secret plots and conspiracies devising to deprive me of my life and Kingdom 14 But in my deepest distress my faith failed me not but that still I trusted firmly in thee believing and encouraging my self still with this That by proof and promise I can say thou art my God in near relation and dear affection what ever befall me 15 And besides I know my self and fortune are wholly in thine hands and that nothing can befall me but by thy providence notwithstanding the malicious hatred of mine enemies thou canst preserve me from them that go about to destroy me be they never so potent or politick they cannot have their wills upon me to hurt me except thou permit it which I pray thee do not but deliver me 16 I have long and grievously undergone thy displeasure both inwardly and outwardly I have felt thine ire and the smart of my sin which hath brought me near to ruin now therefore Lord at last in tender mercie pittie me and shew me some sign of favour to refresh my spirit withal and give me some hopes of escape and recoverie who though a sinner yet am thy servant that thereby all men may see thy loving-kindness towards me by thy delivering me out of this danger also and restoring me to my former happie condition which how ever my sin deserves the contrarie yet for thy mercie sake vouchsafe it 17 Let not O Lord the misfortune which mine enemies hope to bring upon me ever befal me to the disappointing of my hope for I have trusted in thee and prayed unto thee which my wicked enemies have not done therefore let them miscarrie and let their hopes be frustrate yea let their vexatious courses receive an end by themselves doing so cut them off in thy displeasure for nothing but their deaths will secure my life in peace and quietnes and my name from opprobrie so restless are they in mischievous devices against me both by word and deed 18 Let the slaunderous mouths of my wicked adversaries be stopt after that sort they that through pride and malice lay mine honour in the dust through lies and contumelies in thy justice Lord lay them there for thou knowest me guiltless of their false aspersions and innocent of that they accuse me 19 O Lord for all mine afflictions yet mine heart is much comforted in the faithful confidence of thy great goodness and mercie which thou hast in store for such as are thine and walk holily as thine being careful to please and fearful to offend thee as I am and also because of the great manifestation thou hast ever made of it in admirable preservations and deliverances both of me and others that have relied upon thee in spite and sight of all our enemies 20 Such shalt thou by special and extraordinary providence keep as safe as if they were in heaven from the power of man be he never so potent and proud withall Yea all that they enmiously give out against them in brags and threats and slanderous suggestions shall have no issue but shall be as wind so safe shalt thou keep them from all harm 21 What I say I know by experience to be true Blessed and magnified be the Lord for it for as poor and destitute as I was left so much the more marvellous hath his loving kindness appeared that by his goodness and providence hath preserved me safe from the power and malice of mine enemie so that no fortress though never so fortified could have better secured me 22 For so great was my trouble and desolate my condition that upon the surprize before I well bethought me of thy goodness and power I apprehended my self as given up by thee into mine enemies hands inevitably to be destroyed Yet I had so much faith left as to pray for preservation though I could scarce hope it and though my faith was weak in regard of deliverance Yet in fervencie and supplication it was strong and thou wast pleased in mercie to pass by mine infirmitie and was intreated of me in my miserie and effectually didst hear me when in the anguish of my spirit I powred out my soul before thee 23 Be you provoked by mine exhortation and example O all ye Godly faithful ones to take heed of hastie discontent and unbelief let your condition be what it will be still bear up in faith have good thoughts of God who however he seems otherways yet is firm in his affections towards you and be you confident that he both can and will preserve you if you dare relie upon him and will wait for him the power and pride of your enemies he will bring down and in his own good time will make them plentifully taste the fruit of their evil ways by powring upon them his heavie and just displeasure 24 Be but stedfast and stout in faith when trials are upon you do but then hold out in undaunted believing and he shall give you inwardly by his spirit and outwardly by his providence great stay and comfort of heart even thus shall he do to all that chuse him and onely him to hope and trust in for protection Take it upon my word that speak it both by prophesie and experience The xxxii PSALM David sheweth what makes a man blessed to wit the justifying pardoning and sanctifying grace of God which he affirms feelingly in the sense of his own miserie the whilest it was suspended from him and the happiness he had when God renewed it in him whence he takes occasion to animate himself and all that are Godly in the faith of Gods goodness and from his own experience perswades from stubbornness in sin to yieldableness in piety for that produceth nothing but miserie but faith and holiness brings true joy and happiness A Psalm made by David upon the experimental miserie of the guilt of sin instructing all men wherein true happiness onely consists 1 ALl men would be happie and blessed but all men are not so whatever they think by themselves no no one are abound they never so in worldly felicitie saving he and he onely who by a lively faith laying hold of mercie in the vertue of a promise is sensible of the free pardon of all his transgressions and of his being clothed upon with the imputed righteousness of his redeemer 2 Blessed yea I say again onely blessed and
way shewed them to escape in the greatest and doubtfullest dangers nor shall they have cause to hide their heads because of their miscarrying for God will deliver them and they shall praise him 6 They shall make me their instance and incouragement of their faith how that as I in my poor and hazardous condition cried to the Lord for mercy and was graciously heard and delivered so they shall take heart to do the like in a like estate in confidence of like success from God who is graciously pittiful to all that in affliction faithfully seek to him as I did 7 Nor matters it how humanely helpless and desolate any such seem to be for God hath given his faithful and obedient people in charge to Christ and his ministering spirits the holy Angels to yield them divine assistance who accordingly have a watchful eye over them to prevent their hurt and procure their good maugre all their enemies 8 Make but proof of God as I have done by believing in him and relying on him and you shall find him no worse but by faith and experience shall be able to affirm him as I do to be sensibly gracious and good to such as seek to him for it is as true and undeniable as any thing can be that he certainly and he alone is blessed and shall be happy that makes him and him onely his trust and confidence 9 O therefore stick close to the Lord you that are his people and depart not from him be your temptation what it will be by mistrust or misdoing for be sure of it you shall not want the Lords gracious presence with you and providence for you if you so do 10 Faithfully relying upon and seeking to the Lord is the most effectual and prosperous way any man can take all else is fallible wisdom strength whatsoever is relied upon Though a man had the force and courage of the stoutest lion yet as they notwithstanding theirs go without their prey till providence supply it them so shall he notwithstanding his of what he stands in need if he seek it not of God who onely is to be confided in and sought to for whatsoever we need or desire for to such hath he engaged himself as farre as is desireable even to give them what is good for them whatever else they want God and his goodness shall be theirs to their hearts contentment 11 Come all ye that are the children of the most High and as dear to me as mine and that in love and meekness desire to walk well-pleasingly towards God Give ear to what I say as an experienced man and true Prophet And it shall shew you your hearts desire even how to walk acceptably with him 12 What man is he that doth desire to out-live his enemies and the miseries he sustains by them and would be blessed of God with a long and happy life which though all would have yet all men take not the way to get but by their sin procure themselves misery and destruction therefore hearken thou to such instructions as will effect it 13 Do what God commands thee in word and deed refrain thy tongue and lips from revengeful slaunders or deceivable lies to or against any 14 Be not tempted or enticed either by the provocations of thy nature or the worlds corruptions to wrong or deceit and on the contrary study and endeavour to walk holily and righteously in all things towards God and men in all manner of well-doing seek the favour of God carefully maintain peace with men and pursue it earnestly with the uttermost self-denial in meek holy and righteous walking 15 For onely they are in favour with God and have the eyes of the Lord watchful over them for good that are good and he is very inclinable to hear the cries of such in affliction and to send them relief accordingly 16 But on the contrary in stead of a long and happy life the anger of the Lord is against them that are evil whom by his judgements he shall in justice cut off both them and theirs 17 The good its true may be afflicted as well as the bad but with this difference that they have the Lord to go and bewail themselves unto and the Lord hath promised to hear them and hath approved himself manifoldly as good as his word and so will still to such for if they call he will answer and ease them of their troubles 18 For the Lord is apt to pitty them that he sees humbled under his afflicting hand and very ready to relieve them in their extremities and doth deliver them that self-judgeingly in the sense of their unworthiness in time of misery seek to him for mercy 19 Those that are righteous and live godly have many enemies and suffer as many if not more trials and afflictions than do the wicked but still as I say with this difference the Lord that brings them in leads them out 20 And spite of all the power and malice of their enemies who if they could would grind them to powder yet shall they not be able to fasten the least evil upon them which the wise providence of God not appointed for their good for he keeps them so safe that not so much as their little finger shall take hurt or a hair of their head perish by any will or power of man 21 But now contrary-wise the malicious evil wayes of the wicked shall be their utter ruine and they that wickedly persecute the godly shall in stead of compassing their destruction procure their own and their posterities for ever 22 Whereas for the comfort of the godly let the lives of his people that faithfully trust in him and dutifully serve him be it never such hazard and danger by the power of their enemies yet he that redeemed their souls from everlasting destruction can and will preserve and deliver them I can put a probatum est unto it and none of all those that depend upon him and trust in him shall be destroyed by the wrath of man as shall the wicked by the wrath of God for he will preserve them I know by experience The xxxv PSALM David in the name of Christs and the Churches enemies prayes for the confusion of his own because of their unjust and inhumane dealing promising exceedingly to praise God when he shall be delivered from their violence and wrong making God the judge betwixt him and them and praying him to maintain his innocency against their unrighteousness by making them examples of his justice and him of his mercy so shall he purchase to himself much praise from the whole Church but specially from himself which he shall be sure of A Psalm made by David 1 O Lord oppose mine opposers be thou the defendor of mine innocency and the preserver of my life against my slanderous back-biters and persecuting enemies to whom be thou an enemy
thoughtful desire towards the place of thy worship where thou art more especially present 7 Thou hast brought an inundation of misery upon me troubles come so thick successively one in the neck of another like waters falling from the clouds which rise higher and higher and implunge me lower and lower as a ship in a storm in extremity of weather ready to sink so am I wave upon wave endlesly assailing me to the continual hazard of my life Yea the waters both above and below the firmament the windows of heaven are as it were opened and give the watch-word to the fountains of the deep to be broken up as at the deluge and both of them seem to threaten to overwhelm and devour me at once as then they did the world by thine appointment 8 Yet I am not left without inward support in the midst of mine outward troubles I am confident I shall see the sunne of righteousness shine through the clouds with healing in his wings and by the power and grace of God I doubt not but a happy day will succeed this uncomfortable night to the chearing of mine heart nor in the interim shall I be destitute of mercy and goodness but shall ever and anon by particular providences before I arrive at my full establishment have cause of thanksgiving and praise and incouragement to offer up my prayers in faith of him for my preserver at present and deliverer at last 9 I will humbly and faithfully mind him of my condition and his obligation to me and praying say thou that by thy promise and my faith art my great and sole support how is it then that thou hast thus left me why go I mourning and find no relief from under the heavy oppressions and wrongs of mine enemies 10 Whose reproachful and scornful blasphemies against thy word and my faith in it taunting me as one deluded by trusting in thee and rejected by thee wound me to the very heart and torment me exceedingly 11 Yet such is my faith in thee notwithstanding the opposition it receives and all the heavy burdens that lie upon me as that I cannot but rebuke my soul for being dejected at these things and rouse it up to trust and hope still in thee that one day I shall have my mourning turned into rejoycing and my prayers into praises for the good success and gracious favour thou wilt shew me in delivering me as thou hast promised and as I believe The xliii PSALM David under Sauls persecution appeals to God to judge his cause and prâ—yâ—s to be delivered according to his gracious promise that so he may worship him in Sion which he promises to do joyfully and thankfully and quickens up his drooping spirit by the hopes thereof 1 JUdge for me and in my behalf O righteous God and maintain my just and honest cause against an unjust and wicked people that set themselves against me and in me oppose the Lord himself O deliver me thou that art righteous and onely all-sufficient from them and their cheiftane that dealeth deceitfully and injuriously with me 2 For thou and thy promise is all the strength I have and that I trust in why doest thou seem then to neglect me and doest thus expose me to my malignant adversaries Why go I continually mourning because of the intollerable oppressions and injuries of mine enemies 3 O Lord shew forth thy favour and grace and fulfill thy word of promise to me Let them spite of mine enemies bring me into that estate thou hast promised me wherein I may enjoy thy publick worship and frequent thine Ark and Tabernacle in Sion for there shall that be the place thereof 4 Then will I go with a merry heart and carry my peace-offerings and thankfully sacrifice them to God upon his altar even to God who shall at that time by reason of his favour and grace be unspeakable joy and consolation to me I am ravished with the very thoughts of that day when I shall have such exceeding cause of joy and praise which I will abundantly offer up unto him and in the skilfullest and chearfullest manner I can devise upon the Harp which of all instruments I can best finger will I praise thee O Almighty and my most gracious God 5 And seeing these sorrows shall have an end and such an end accompanied with so much happiness be not dejected at thy present sufferings O my soul but chear up thy self in faith and hope for thou shalt praise the Lord in stead of praying to him for thy great and his gracious deliverance xliv PSALM The people of Israel being in grievous captivity The Author of this Psalm accosts God with his Covenant-mercies shewn of old to their forefathers whose seed they are and whose God he also is and so they are confident will in his good time approve himself But in the mean time their extremities are very great and his favour quite eclipsed And yet they are faithful to him chosing rather to die than forsake him and therefore prayes him to pity their case and hear their prayers joined with fasting and deep humiliation for help and succour A Psalm made for the instruction of the Church in afflictions shewing the use of them and carriage in them and committed to Heman the chief musician of the familie of the Korathites for him and them to sing 1 WE have heard it both by word and writing from thy servants and our forefathers O gratious God the grace and goodness thou shewdst to thy people Israel then in their times long ago at their first coming into a Canan 2 How then thou wroughtest for them and shewdst forth thy mighty power against the many heathenish nations and their great strength which notwithstanding thou didst subdue and vanquish in thy peoples behalf driving out them to make way for these whom thou according to promise didst plant in their steads by a marvellous out-stretched arm wherewith thou didst oppress the Cananites destroying some and expelling others from out that land 3 For it was not their own power and might that possessed them of the promised land nor was it their own strength that either preserved them from their enemies or subdued them but it was thy power and strength and thy gracious goodness and presence with them that did it for them because they were the people whom thou hadst chosen and to whom thou hadst promised thy grace and assistance 4 Thou Lord art still the God and King of thy people whom they serve and in whom they trust remember therefore the Covenant of protection and mercy thou madest with Jacob and his seed and as thou fulfillest it to him in his own person so now make it good also to him in his posterity by setting them free from their enemies as thou didst him from his 5 That so by thy powerfull assistance we may now do by our enemies as our forefathers did
by theirs overthrow and destroy them and through thy good grace faithfull promise we hope to speed no worse than they but that we shall be able to vanquish and subdue them that do oppose and subjugate us 6 For it is neither bow nor sword skill nor strength that we thy people trust in as do the heathens 7 But in thee who hast all this while hitherto from Abraham till now wrought and fought for us against our enemies and given us still the better and them the worse that opposed themselves against us and sought to destroy us 8 In thee the Lord for that thou hast done and promised to do do we boast our selves and glory in the faith thereof continually and in no strength nor power but thine the praise of all our prosperity as from aforetime till now so from hence even for ever shall it be ascribed by us to thee onely From our hearts we intend it 9 Thou hast been we must and do confess a praise-worthy God to us in former times but alas now thou seemest to have rejected us for thou makest us go by the worse and givest the enemy the better of us to our great reproach and thine not prospering our armies nor giving victory on our side as thou wast wont to do 10 Thou turnest our faith and courage wherewith we were wont manfully to withstand our enemies into fearfull and faint-hearted flight and whereas we used to vanquish and spoil them that fought against us now they on the contrary vanquish us and prey upon our substance enriching themselves upon our ruines 11 Thou hast wonderfully altered thy course of grace and providence towards us for we that once commanded and bare rule are now sold over to our enemies to be spoiled and devoured at their pleasure and thou hast driven us out of our countrey where once thou plantedst us and from the exercise of our religion there and made us bond-men to the heathen who formerly were so to us 12 Of lates dayes thou hast set light by thy people for whereas thou wast wont to prize them highly and to give nations for them now thou givest them away and exposest them to all that will spoil them they not being so much as sold for bond-slaves like unto others but are made so for nought in so much as thy people are less worth to thee than common bond-men are to their masters who use not to part with them but for their profit but so dost not thou by us 13 Thou hast brought us from such an height of happiness to such a low estate of miserie and subjection that now our neighbour-nations who once admired us and shewed all respectful behaviour to us in our prosperitie do now generally reproch us as an abject nation 14 Thou makest us that are thine own people chosen out of all the world to serve and worship thee and to relate peculiarly to thee to be the laughing-stock and scornful by-word of the heathen and because of our calamities to be esteemed an abject people by the abject Gentils 15 The woful condition we are brought into under our hateful enemie is sadly remembred and laid to heart alwayes by us and a dejected shamefastnes hath utterly possessed us 16 For because of the scorns and blasphemies that through us are cast out against thee by the revengefull enemie that hath longed for this hour wherein he might despight us and our God 17 All this woful miserie of bondage and reproch is fallen upon us yet in the midst thereof we forsake thee not but own thee still for our God trusting in thee and worshipping of thee nor have we broken covenant by deserting thee and chusing other Gods to worship them as do our enemies that revile us 18 We have not peevishly cast off our affection and dutie to thee neither have we sought our remedie by indirect ways but still trust in thee seek to thee and walk with thee 19 Though thou hast exercised and humbled us under sore and heavie trials and hast plunged us into a sea of miserie and brought us out of a happie condition into a most desolate state uncomfortably scattering us among fierce and cruel enemies so that nothing but present destruction seems to hang over our heads continually 20 If for all this we have forsaken the worshipping and trusting in thee or betaken our selves to other Gods than thee to pray to or trust in them for help 21 To God who we know to be jealous of his glorie and a searcher of hearts we appeal if this be so 22 Yea if on the contrarie for thy truths sake we suffer not continual martyrdom and persecution 23 We trust in thee and pray to thee but find no relief from thee O Lord bethink thy self of our miseries and thine ingagements forbear our enemies no longer but shew thy self against them and for us whom thou hast long exposed to their crueltie but now give an end to it in mercie 24 Why Lord dost thou so long turn thy back upon us in displeasure and shew us no favour but seemest utterly to have forgotten us as if we neither were nor never had been thy people and to have no regard at all to our miserable state and condition 25 For we fruitlesly afflict our souls and mourn in dust and ashes prostrating our selves upon the earth before thee in continual prayer and supplication but are not heard 26 Be moved at last O Lord to pitie our extremities and to hear our prayers after so long and great oppression and miserie shew us some mercie help and deliver us by thy great power out of our great straits and miserable captivitie xlv PSALM The Author of this Psalm commends Solomon and his Government and in him Christ and after puts the Church especially that of the Gentils in mind of her happiness in being married to such an husband under the type of Pharaohs daughter exhorting to carrie her self worthie such high preâ—erment and wooing her to it by many ensuing benefits A Psalm made and set to Shoshannim an instrument of six strings for instruction to the wife of Solomon and so to the Church especially of the Gentils to turn from false Gods and their worship to the imbracing of God in Christ. Being a love-song typically shewing the extraordinary love of Christ to and delight in his spouse the Church by the type of Solomons love and delight in his wife in case she became a proselyte And committed to the family of the Korathites for them to sing 1 MY heart is happily inspired and my spirit inkindled to speak of a remarkable piece of Gospel-misterie touching Christ and his spouse I borrow my speech and allusion from King Solomon and such praise-worthie things as are observable in him My heart is full of Divine inspiration to set forth the praises of Christ thereby and my
attired onely at such times as thou appearest in the worlds eye as ordinarie women are but art ever so even within thy palace as well as without as is the Church not formally hypocritical and to the worlds view onely but really and sincerely gracious adorned by Christ with his own justifying righteousousness and sanctifying graces 14 That so thou maiest delight and please thy Lord and King when ever thou art presented to him in raiment worthy thy high linage and royal marriage and art accompanied to him with a gallant train of damosels fitting thy state and dignitie As shall the Catholick Church be by Christ his sanctifying spirit presented to himself in holiness and righteousness even all the blessed company of saints gathered from out the whole world to make up that blessed society and onely spouse of Christ. 15 Thou with thy troup of damosels shalt by Somons command and his servants ready attendance and obedience be ushered to his royal presence and pallace with infinit rejoycings and acclamations at that meeting and mutual imbracing As shall the Church and spouse of Christ made up of all the holy saints and sanctified ones be brought and presented by their holy calling in the ministry and by the ministers of the word unto Christ his grace and favour and by Angels into his everlasting glorie and presence in heaven to the infinit joy of Gods ministers and servants and with the acclamation of all those ministring spirits 16 By forsaking thy fathers house God himself will become a father to thee and will bless thee and make thee a happie mother of many hopefull children who shall command both Jews and Gentils As shall the Church of Christ by choosing him the second Adam for her Lord and husband and forsaking the first she shall thereby have God for her father and shall be blessed with a numerous off-spring all the world over all which spiritual progenie are a royal Generation children of the most high and put in Kingly office by him to command over all their earthly corruptions 17 And by so doing thou shalt lose no honour but through my blessing upon thee for it I will make the renown of this glorious act of thine to be famous and thou for it from age to age and thy memorie shall be precious and thy praises recorded in everlasting remembrance by the people of the Lord. As shall be the Church and spouse of Christ successively famous and honoured in all Generations for being his and her memorie happie and blessed from age to age after Generations of Gods people honorably memorizing them that went before with estimation and imitation to the worlds end The xlvi PSALM Ierusalem or the people of Israel being at present in some great strait or siedge by a powerful enemie and receiving deliverance The Author of this Psalm expresseth it in a high and hyperbolical strain thereby to incourage the faith of Gods people to a strong and extraordinarie belief in God for ever from their late eminent experience of his power and readiness to help them his favour towards them and presence with them which ought to establish and secure them for future A Psalm or song made and set to Alamoth an instrument or tune for the treble and committed to the family of the Korathites for them to sing 1 GOd is to us his people that depend upon him and trust in him both safetie from and power against our enemies he may be confided in to the uttermost peril for when we are nearest danger he is nearest to deliver 2 And therefore should there be never such revolutions in nature strange and terrible yet our faith in God shall keep us steadie yea though the center of the earth should shake and remove from its place and that by the violence of tempests the very mountains should be taken and hurled as a stone out of a sling from their place of residence far into the sea yet shall our faith establish our hearts in God his grace and protection how much more in the greatest tumults and commotions of civil affairs 3 Though storms both at land and sea should at once seem to overwhelm us and all the world and to dissolve the very course of nature it self the seas threatning an universal deluge by their tempestuous rising and fearful roaring and should even shake the very mountains with their violent and impetuous beating upon them yet in God shall our hearts hold up their heads 4 When the sea of troubles and combustions seem to overwhelm all the world besides and they be made to drink of most bitter and troubled waters even then shall the land of Jewry and especially the Citie of Jerusalem have peace and tranquillitie and drink their fill of the fresh and pleasant streams of Cedron for that it is Gods peculiar habitation and therefore hath it his peculiar protection and favour as shall have his holy and Catholick Church typified by his sanctuarie there the onely place of resort for all the Israel of God to worship him in 5 God in his worship and presence is there above all the world and therefore she shall be protected though the world be exposed she shall need to fear no danger for God shall both certainly and seasonably deliver her 6 The heathen people with great force and furie were inraged against us whole Kingdoms and conspiracies of the Gentil-nations were moved at us to seek our overthrow but the Lord Almighty took our parts and expressing his wrathful indignation by terrible thunder-claps from heaven against them dissipated and discomfited all their earthly power 7 Whatsoever armies are against us the powerful and great commander the Lord of hosts is with us the God of our father Jacob that mightily delivered him is on our side and in covenant with us to do the like for us Let us therefore be comforted in him 8 Consider well and thankfully remember the mighty mercies he hath shewn us in the powerful overthrows of our great and numerous enemies how for our sakes he hath wonderfully destroyed them more than once and nations more than one or two 9 He hath often times settled his people Israel in an universal peace spite of all the nations of the world their opposits whose forces he hath defeated and disabled their strength though great and as he hath done so his power and promises are still of force to do for his Church which he will preserve maugre her enemies and persecutors that infest her and will give her peace by their destruction and disablement as he hath done for us 10 Repose your hearts on God with inward content and securitie by a faithful expecting and apprehending of him for a God all-sufficient in your behalfs one that for your sakes will destroy the heathen and will honour his power and greatness upon the Gentils round about 11 Whatsoever armies are against us the powerful
and great commander in chief the Lord of Hosts even of all the numberless number of created beings in heaven and earth is with us the God of Jacob that mightily delivered him is on our side and in covenant with us to do the like for us in time of danger and difficultie Let us therefore be comforted in him The xlvii PSALM The Author of this Psalm which seems to be penned in the time of the glorious condition of the people of Israel under David and Solomon in the name of the Iewish Church and nation invites all the world to yield obedience to the Government of Christ typified in theirs then ascendent and to be partakers of their happiness and tells them the danger of refusing for as Christ must prevail so must his Church and people whose happiness he greatly extols because of the love and presence of God with them for which he stirs them up mightily to magnifie the Lord. And prophesies the enlargement of Christs Kingdom over and amongst the Gentils by the Almightie over-ruling hand of God and the glorious condition of the Evangelical Church under him as of theirs under David or Salomon and far beyond it A Psalm committed to Heman the chief musician of the familie of the Korathites for him and them to sing 1 O That all the world would be advised to share in our happiness by entertaining that common salvation tendred them in the Messiah now as it were ascended into heaven in that pledge of his presence the Ark pitched upon Sion and that now they would subject themselves unto him together with us not of constraint but of a willing mind with joyful and thankful hearts as one day they shall receiving him for their Lord and King that he might triumphantly reign over Jews and Gentils 2 For they that refuse voluntarie subjection to him will have cause to repent it they will find him even the Messiah whom they slighted in his types on earth to be the most high God reigning not onely in heaven but on earth also yea all the world over as he will make it appear by executing terrible vengeance upon such as rebel against him 3 But for our parts that are his chosen people we shall be blessed of the Lord and how ever the Gentils do stubbornly refuse to come in unto us partake of our priviledges and subject themselves to his government among us yet shall they be made subject to us and to our Kings the types of Christ whose spiritual Kingdom shall enlarge it self over all the world over-powring by his spirit the most ignorant and rebellious to receive him and be subject to him 4 As he hath graciously made choice of us for his people so will he accordingly give us the utmost he hath promised to our forefathers his faithful servants and their faithful seed concerning both an earthly and heavenly inheritance maugre all enemies temporal or spiritual and dignifie us the seed of holy Jacob his beloved with those excellent priviledges appropriated by promise of Temple-worship and royal government figuring Christ his King and priestly office An honour unspeakable 5 How do we see it made good to us in that the Lords Ark the sure pledge and token of his presence with us and favour to us is at this time to be fixed in its abiding place upon mount Sion whether it is triumphantly carried with joyful acclamations and sound of trumpet answerable to the welcome entertainment of Christ in the hearts of his Gospel-converts and faithful people in his Church Evangelical on earth and his glorious entertainment at his ascention by saints and Angels in heaven 6 O that we could rise up to their pitch of praise and gratitude for this unestinable mercie and priviledge we enjoy of the gracious presence and divine favour of God in Christ to us and amongst us in its lively types but though we cannot but come short of what it merits from us yet let us lay out our selves to the utmost of our skill and abilities in praising magnifying and exalting the Lord both for his own excellencies and for our interest and proprietie in him and them as a people ought to do that have such a God for their King and gracious benefactor 7 We above all people have cause to praise him for though he be King of all the whole earth yet of us in a differing manner and eminencie so that though honour be due to him from all creatures yet more especially from us for that none have that knowledge of him and peculiar obligation to him that we have Therefore we are not to praise him as others that know him onely by acts of creation and providence and are subjects at large but with a saving Gospel-understanding of him in the Messiah and powerfully not formally acting-acting-faith in our hearts answerably to the praises of our lips 8 And though we be now the onely peculiar of God and all the world but we are as it were exempted out of grace and favour Yet are the heathen as well as we under his government and power And the same God that hath been gracious to us can make them also his people when he pleaseth And doubtless will from heaven his place of holiness remember in truth and faithfulness the promises made to and concerning them for light to shine out of Sion to them that sit in darkness which he is able to fulfil and bring them in to himself accordingly 9 Yea and which he will certainly do in great abundance even Kings and Kingdoms that now are heathenish shall imbrace the faith of Christ preached amongst them out of Jerusalem and be ingrafted into the stock of faithful Abraham our predecessour as well as we our selves whose seed they all are that do or shall believe upon the face of the whole earth and have as good a right to the God of Abraham as we whose priviledge ought not to be in the flesh but in the spirit by and in which spirit shall Jews and Gentils be united when the power of God shall be made manifest in Christ then shall the great as well as the small belong unto God and how ever they have refused subjection to him and stood in opposition against him yet they shall take Laws from him and and that right willingly becomming of enemies friends yea under him protectors and defendors of their fellow-brethren believers in Christ throughout all the earth Thus shall God in Christ be universally worshipped and his Kingdom enlarged far beyond the bounds of Jewry The particion shall be taken down and his dominion shall be throughout all the world as Davids and Salomons is over Jews and Gentils The xlviii PSALM This Psalm seems to be made upon some notable deliverance that Ierusalem had from some potent armie made up of several nations that had besiedged it but by a special and immediate hand of God wâ—re wonderfully defeated and sent away
to offer them to me upon such humane and grosse principles as if the killing of cattell and shedding their bloud never discerning the Lords body were the thing I coveted were served by and took pleasure in no I hate such services and have no pleasure in such sacrifices it is not for want of such that I reprove thee I have had enow and too many of them 14 If you will serve me aright and sacrifice to give me content then offer other manner of sacrifices than these or these sacrifices after another manner I that am a spirit look for the service of your faith and affections let the ceremonies and sacrifices you perform be significant not shells without kernels when you pretend to thank me in peace-offerings c. Bring your hearts with you let your faith and affections be offered up unto me through the propitiatory mediatour in whom onely they are accepted in an humble gratulatory way for the good you acknowledge Remember its God you have to do with who looks for the service of the inward as well as the outward man have thy mind on high in the heavens where I am when thou worships me here below and therefore be sure with the spirit thou pour forth praise and thanks unto me for the goodness and benefits thou acknowledgest to have received from me when as thou offerest sacrifice 15 Its prayer and praise offered up in faith to me because of my grace and faithfulness to you that I set by it s that shall prevail with me not your empty ceremonies and sapless sacrifices If you be in trouble at any time let me then hear from you in that way and you shall be sure of a gracious answer from me because then and never till then I know I shall be sure to have a faithfull return made me of praise glory and thanks for the goodness I shew unto you 16 These are the men and this is that manner of service that God accepts of but to the carnall hypocrit or meer formall professor that is so busie in externall performances of legall rites commanded by God he would have such an one know that he had rather have his room than his company for all he does is but in abuse of God and his worship making shew of serving him and keeping covenant with him but without any truth or sincerity of heart whereby he adulterates Gods own ordinances and makes them utterly unpleasing to him though appointed by him but never intended they should be practised or preached by such men in such a manner 17 To bolster them up in their impieties taking liberty to sin because they conform to outward ceremoniall ordinances God would have such know that they neither glorifie him nor profit themselves that are carefull in outward duties and acts of Religion and careless of holiness in heart and conversation 18 Thou that art so full of seeming sanctity thinkest thou that God regards thy services if withall thy heart be full of hypocrisie and thy ways of unrighteousness breaking the morall law whilst thou makest conscience of the ceremoniall giving the reins to thy corrupt heart and hands to contrive and act all manner of impieties as theft adultery and joyning thy self with such companions 19 Taking liberty to lie and deceive and makest even a trade and common practise of it 20 Studiously back-biting and traducing others that mean thee no hurt nor never did thee any but ought to be loved of thee as brethren and of envy or emulation slandering those that are near and should be dear unto thee thine own very kindred and allies labouring their disparagement and disgrace 21 These things you know have been acted amongst you even by and amongst you that yet pretend to be a people in covenant with me and come and worship before me and sacrifice unto me and because I bear with you in these hypocriticall evil ways of yours and suffered my self to be thus mocked and abused by you you thought that I approved of you and your doings but you shall find that I set not so light by mine honour as you think for nor will not so easily put up with such abuses as you imagine there will come a time that I will make you smart for your base abuse of me and mine holy ordinances and you shall know that I am sensible of your ingratitude and so shall you be of my just indignation for these your sins which I have marked all along you shall find so much how that I le remember when you have forgotten them and mind you of them to your cost 22 For think you that I will be so severe against the sins of the rest of the world that in comparison of you have no knowledge of me nor have received no favours from me and that I will not be much more so towards you That I cannot pretend ignorance but sin against me either out of a stupid supine negligence and disrespect of me or out of a spirit of rebellion But consider it you had best how my name hath been prophaned amongst you and persist not to despise me in this sort and forget the duty and gratitude that you owe me who deserve better from you least that of all the world you smart most for it for as your sins are the greatest being against light and loving-kindness so without repentance shall your plagues be the sorest for as you are without excuse so shall you be without mercy no one not Moses nor any your forefathers upon whom you bear your selves no nor the Messiah himself shall open his mouth for you to save or deliver such an hypocriticall ill-deserving people 23 This is generally a nationall fault amongst you and will at last bring forth nationall judgements and common destruction upon you but yet as I have known and chosen you though ill deserving it to be my people of all the world so do I know and have chosen some from among you that bear me better respect than the rest And such an one who ever he be let not him fear to perish with the rest but be confident who ever he is that makes conscience to worship me in spirit as well as in form and when he sacrifices to me then with an humble faithfull and affectionate heart praiseth me for my benefits and favours vouchsafed that 's the man that mine eye is upon and upon the worship and service he performs to accept it for he alone worships me aright all else is lost labour and meer mockery The spirituall minded man and the reall sincere hearted Israelite who is as well conscionable and carefull of his life and conversation to walk uprightly with God and honestly with men as of the rites and formalities of the ceremoniall law and mine externall worship to do them this is the man that as he serves me acceptably so will I reward him bountifully he shall see with the eye of
faith and feel to the rejoycing of his heart by the inward testimony of Gods spirit his gracious acceptance of him and his services with the assured hope of eternall happiness in the Kingdom of heaven and gracious providence here on earth when others shall perish both temporally and eternally The li. PSALM David having long lain unsensibly under the guilt and power of the sins of murder and adulterie by Nathan sent from God his conscience being awakened in this penitentiall Psalm he cries out for pardon and grace in his wofull condition under the intollerable torment of his sin which God he acknowledgeth hath justly arraigned him for and brought to light by his own confession forced from him and justifies all those fearfull judgements denounced which after befell him of ravishment rebellion fratricide and Incest in his own house and family And that Gods people may not stumble at his fall he confesseth the seeds of all sin to be in him by nature and that they may not sin in censuring advertiseth them notwithstanding of his sincerity is not out of hope but falls to prayer for the righteousness of Christ joy of the holy Ghost Sanctification and Iustification iterating his requests of these kinds particularly prayes that his bloud-guiltiness may be pardoned and that bloud-shed threatned may be averted shewing also why he flâ—w not upon sacrifices as others because he knâ—w it was faith and repentance that God valued more And for fear his sins being so publick a person might also turn the indignation of God against his people and ordinances he prayes the contrary and that God would perfect his gracious purpose concerning the building of the Temple foretelling by way of argument or motive the acceptable service that then would be done him A Psalm directed to the present Quire for the ordering of it whereof David is both the Authour and the Argument publickly declaring his repentance and godly sorrow for his adultery with Bath-sheba and the murder of her husband Uriah after that Nathan the Prophet had awakened his conscience with a message from God 1 I dare not plead propriety in thee nor relation to thee having deservedly forfeited both by my many and hainous transgressions against thee for which I deserve to have no mercy But since thou hast spared me all this while that I have lain in sin and hast not cut me off for my transgression but graciously sent thy messenger to warn me of it and awaken me out of this sleep of death I am emboldened to make mine addresses to thee O God in humble confession and supplication and to beg pardon of thee for no other reason nor motives but onely thine own free grace sake which hath been always exceeding great towards me and so I doubt not to find it still so that though my sins be as it were impardonable for their number and nature yet mercy and tender-heartedness to a poor penitent wretch as I am does every whit as much abound in thee let me have the experience as well as the knowledge of this in the forgiveness of these my sins and blotting them out of the book of thy remembrance though written in black and bloudy characters 2 The filthiness that I have contracted needs not onely legall but spirituall and evangelicall washings the guilt that is upon my conscience and the trouble of spirit that I am under is not easily removed the bloud and water the merit and spirit of the Messiah is it alone that applied by infinite grace can cure my malady and render me acceptable again in thy sight vouchsafe it me therefore and that in such a proportion for my justification and sanctification as my guilt and pollution stands in need of 3 For though I have a long time loved and lived in this grievous sin which the Prophet from thee hath admonished me of without sense or sorrow or once confessing or deprecating it yet now the case is altered I hate it and my self for it and confess it in all its aggravations and complicate iniquities as adultery drunkenness treachery murder rebellion against thee and what ever can be justly laid to my charge I own them know I am guilty of them and confess them all to my shame both to thee and in the face of all thy people For so incessant and extream are the horrors of my conscience by reason of these fearfull crimes that evermore stare me in the face that I must and will cry out against my self and be incessant in confession and supplication untill I be reconciled and mercy obtained 4 The injury and wrong I have done to man in this my sin my conscience hath dispensed with it and never budged at it I so ordered the matter that neither shame nor blame befell me all this while though contrary to my duty of justice and protection I had my will on Bath-sheba and murdered Uriah but so cunningly that none knew it nor mine own conscience never accused me of it nay it hath much pleased me to think how cleanly I have comâ— off in this business and made account I should still have done so never considering that thou wast concerned in it which now I find to my cost and unspeakable grief so that though Uriah be dead and so is not alive to accuse me and Bath-sheba I have taken her to wife and so she is reconciled to me and that my ranck exempts me from the ordinary proces at law yet am not I acquit but now thou thou O Lord hast waged law against me in mine own conscience made it thy tribunall and as a thousand witnesses so that I need no accusers mine own confession shall serve the turn to condemn me though I am quit at all other bars and free from all other testimonies yet do I hold up my hand at thine confess the fact and cry guilty before thee and against thee who hath taken me to task and art both witness and judge for thou hast seen all my base miscarriages from first to last as now I plainly perceive and therefore however hitherto I have concealed my sin and none accused me yet now do I publish this execrable and horrible fact before all Israel and confess I have deserved all that thou hast denounced against me by thy Prophet for it and that thou art just in those thy fearfull comminations touching me and mine house which run parallell with mine offences and so also shalt thou be when they actually come to pass and are executed how formidable and strange so ever they may then appear unto beholders and differing to those promises of grace and favour thou hast made to me and my seed which notwithstanding my sin and these thy just judgements thou knowest how and certainly wilt perform in grace and faithfulness though I have deservedly forfeited them 5 And how ever it may seem strange that a man so extraordinarily blessed by thee peculiarly favoured of thee should fall so fouly
would give to find me being utterly without the knowledge or fear of God as if they speak not in his learning nor should never be called to an account for those lies and false reports they raise against me 8 But thou O Lord shalt laugh at this presumptuous folly of theirs that dare set so light by thee all those that care not to know and fear thee now shall one day wish they had when as thou shalt give them to understand that thou carest as little for and sets as light by them as they by thee and though Israelites in their own esteem yet in thine they are no better than heathens and so they shall find 9 Mine enemy indeed is much too hard for me but not for thee so that his strength and power to afflict and wrong me shall have this effect it shall make me adhere to thee and depend upon thee the firmelier for deliverance for I never yet was in so perillous condition but thou didst protect me nor I believe never shall 10 But that God whom I have ever found gracious and mercifull to me will still be so and do more for me than I can ask for my self And will certainly be as good as his word wherein he hath caused me to hope in confounding mine enemies 11 Yet I desire not that thou shouldst do by them as they would do by me destroy them out and out both for their good and mine own and all my friends and adherents I rather desire they may remain standing monuments as the Jews Christs persecutours shall be to the believing Gentils of thy forepast mercies to mind us of them that we forget not our deliverances and that therefore thou wouldst rather chuse by thy power to abate theirs which they so much confide in that so they may be humbled and come to know and acknowledge thee to be as indeed thou art O Lord thy servants shield and faithfull protectour 12 Bring all their sinfull slanders upon themselves in thy just judgements let them be cast from the top of honour and affluence wherein they so pride themselves for example sake into the bottome of infamie and indigencie and for those curses and falshoods which they belch out against me 13 Do thou abase their power and pride and bring them and it to nought in thy heavy displeasure let them live like abjects here and there without power or credit as shall Christs crucifiers And that not onely for encouragement and instruction of thy peoples faith but make them examples of thy wrath and terrour to the very heathen also every where who are capable of instruction of that nature that they may learn not to rebell against thee in opposing the Kingdome of Christ typically resembled in mine over Israel which hereby they may see thou wilt effect and make good maugre all opposition in faithfulness to thy covenant and love to thy servant Jacob that type of Christ the root of thy Church which is thy Kingdome in which thou rulest and for which thou over-rulest all earthly powers Let them Lord know so much 14 Let mine enemies and the enemies of thy Church know what it is to oppress and persecute thy people let them have enough of their own ways in the issue and tast the bitter fruit of their eager prosecuting and malicious slandering the faithful and upright by changing the scene and being necessitated to range and raven for their own subsistence with as much hunger and greediness as ever they did for my ruine 15 Let them come to shamefull want and penury even to beg their bread and yet not get enough to satisfie their hunger but fret and repine at this their lamentable condition and spend their days in poverty and discontent 16 But though they cannot but fret and â—ume under their troubles I will sing under mine and shew forth thy power and goodness as concerning other remarkable deliverances so specially this over night from those that were appointed to kill me in the morning when yet I shall live to sing hearty praises to thee for thou hast contrived my rescue out of their hands that would have detroyed me and were near the doing it 17 Though my condition is weak and mine enemies potent yet thou art strong enough to deal with them that 's my comfort and in the faith thereof I will chear up my heart and sing to thee the praise of my success magnifying thee O God for my deliverance who hast ever been and ever wilt be a God of protection and mercy to me The lx Psalm David takes occasion from complicate victories of maâ—y enemies to shew the people the different proceedings of God towards them now to what was heretofore then they were the miserablest of all people by reason of their sins and his judgements and now through his grace and faithfulness are become the happiest and succesfullest under him the type of Christ and his Church And admonisheth them therefore to live by faith and to seek to God promising in so doing they shall prosper and be victorious To him that is most skilfull upon the sweet instrument Shushan Eduth in this Psalm made by David committed to be plaid upon that instrument and sung to the speciall tune of Michtam the scope whereof is to teach the Israelites in whom to trust and from whom to expect their happiness even from God and his faithfulness because of his promises which he will now fulfill under his government as his late victories over the Syrians and Edomites give good proof 2 Sam. 8.3.13 1 Chron. 18.3 c. Together with other experiences mentioned in this Psalm 1 O God notwithstanding the peculiarity of interest and relation betwixt us thy people and thee yet hast thou for a long time suffered us to be oppressed and worsted by the heathen nations and people about us and within us our sins were the cause why thou wast displeased at us and didst so by us but let it seem long enough to have been strange to us now Lord have mercy on us be reconciled and take part with us as thou didst at first when thou broughtest us out of Egypt and gavest us this land to possesse 2 Fearfull concussions have been in this state by reason of their sins and thy judgements what invasions and inrodes of forreign enemies what civil wars fractions and divisions amongst themselves and what desolations hath befallen them by all these so that for a long time miserable hath been their disorder and confusion therefore pity this thine own people at last and give them better times for the nation hath been sore shaken and thunder-strucken by thy judgements upon it that if thou underprop it not now it cannot stand nor remain any longer a people to thee 3 Who though they are so yet hast thou greatly afflicted them with many and grievous calamities thy judgements our miseries have been such
have so staggered and astonished us by reason of thy manifold promises of grace and felicity that we have been put quite besides all faith and hope and have not known what to think of thee or of our selves nor what to do to gain thy favour and recover our selves again into it 4 But of thine own grace hast thou in this juncture of time and desperate condition of ours set up thy standard to rally thy people and their hopes again unto thee even all that know and fear thee thou hast given me to be the King over Israel and by and under me wilt give them halcyon days a flourishing state victory over their enemies witness this against the Syrians besides many others which is not for our deservings but for thy truth and promise sake Let it have the glory 5 Lord go on to do me and thy people good whom thou hast always professed speciall love to that they may get heart again and under me as thy Church under Christ be delivered from their enemies to this end put forth thy power give us victory and hear the prayer of me thy servant in mine own and thy peoples behalfes still as there is cause 6 The holy God hath passed his promise and pawned his faithfulness upon it that I shall be King over all Israel compleat and have it peaceably in my possession so that I am sure enough of it for all mine undermining enemies and though I have come hardly by it yet I have it at last fulfilled which was promised me What cause have I to rejoyce in this goodness and faithfulness of God to me thus to give me full dominion and absolute possession and dispose of those very places and people which stood it out so pertinaciously against me and stuck so close to Ishbosheth as well as of them that voluntarily submitted to me 7 Yea of all the tribes and countries belonging to them as well those afar off as Gilead and Manasseh as nearer hand so that now I can pronounce them mine own as well as any other the greatest and best peopled are as much mine as the least Ephraim that is so populous God hath brought it into mine obedience which hath added much to me and both it and all the rest are content to take Laws and to be Governed by me that am of the tribe of Judah principall for Government out of which Christ the King and Law-giver of his Church must come even out of my loyns 8 Yea both of domesticks and forreigners both of Israel and all her bordering heathenish neighbours and nations that have been as thorns in her sides hath God given me the dominion The Moabites whom I have absolutely subdued those that I have left alive of them I have destined to do the drudgery and basest offices of me and my people and will make them glad to do so and Edom I have and will bring under my feet and subjection that have so proudly trampled upon the Israel of God And as for Palestine those accursed Philistins let them if they can glory in my destruction and triumph over me as they did over Saul and his sons whom they overcame and insultingly abused their dead bodies 1 Sam. 31. 9 The Edomites think their Metropolitan Citie Bozra an impregnable place and it is a place of great strength indeed nor easily taken by meer humane force but I doubt not to get it for all that if no earthly power can do it 10 God from heaven that hath given me these victories over the Syrians and Edomites in the field shall open the gates of that and all such places to me for all things shall go on our side now we shall carry all before us as heretofore we were born down on all hands because God was against us 11 Let us seek to him who is both able and willing if we do so to make us a free and happy people and be convinced of our sin and folly in trusting to any power but Gods to deliver or establish us by what this Kingdom hath suffered under Saul who was of your own chusing and in whom you promised your selves such felicity 12 Let us arm our selves therefore hence-forward principally with faith trusting in Gods power and faithfulness and going under his conduct when we go against our enemies so shall we be sure of good success and come off conquerous for as he hath promised so will he perform if we trust in him and relie upon him even the vanquishing and triumphing over all our enemies under me as the Church shall under Christ over hers The lxi PSALM David by Absalons rebellion and his Kingdoms revolt being driven from Ierusalem beyond Iordan to Nahanaim 2 Sam. 17.24 prayes earnestly in this distress in confidence of deliverance by God in whom he promises to trust because of former experience and Gods engagement by promise touching the Kingdom to him for his days and his seed after him thereupon grounds and iterates his prayer and upon restauration promiseth praise To him that is most skilfull upon the stringed instrument Neginoth to which this Psalm is chiefly set do I David that made it recommend it for the care and ordering of it in the Quire 1 AS it ever hath been my custom in all my former distresses to flie to thee so now in this and as it hath been thy constant usage to hear and deliver me when I have done so so now O God vouchsafe me the like grace and mercy to hear me in this mine extremity which presseth hard upon me and so do I upon thee by prayer and supplication 2 Though I am driven far from thy sanctuary and am banished from mine own house and thine in Jerusalem to the uttermost skirts of mine own Kingdom yea though it were to the end of the world yet will I be the same man as to my faithfull seeking unto thee that I know is the same God to hear and help me when and wheresoever I call upon thee in the anguish and trouble of mine heart and greater cause I never had to be troubled for I never was in greater extremity nor had less outward probability to escape the whole Kingdom in effect being revolted from me therefore Lord thou in this my low condition raise up my faith to thee and establish mine heart in thee and thine all-sufficiency 3 For hitherto thou hast never failed me of deliverance but hast allwaies stepped 'twixt me and mine undoing and how strong soever mine enemy hath been against me thou hast still appeared stronger for me and in my behalf 4 And as I have found thee faithfull so shalt thou find me for I am resolved in what distress soever I am and whithersoever I am driven though from thine Ark and Tabernacle now at Jerusalem yet shall my faith carry it about with me and give me spiritual residence in it knowing that thy presence though typed
stedfast though your state be various believe in him pour out your souls in fervent and faithfull prayer to him in my behalf and your own and take it upon my word who have tryed it as well as upon his who hath promised it God shall fail neither you nor me if we do so I dare ingage for him 6 Take man under what consideration you will and he is not to be confided in for if they be of low degree then base fear or mercinary lucre will byas them and betray you if of high degree pride humour or preferment sway them and make them as mutable as the wind You shall find no stedfastness in men of any condition but they are up and down now for you and anon against you a pair of empty scales is not more uncertain and moveable than they and therefore trust not in them rely not on them for they will deceive you 10 Least of all trust in sinfull courses go not about to make your selves rich and great by oppression and indirect waies that is not the way to be happy but miserable nay though you now increase in the wealth and well-fare of this world by honest and laudable courses yet put not your trust nor take not content in them nor promise your selves felicitie by them 11 God hath in his word told us how vain and inconsistent with our trust all sublunary things are of no power to render us happy or yield us support and by his providence he hath allso made it appear so defeating all such confidences and frustrating such expectations so that I and you also have heard it and seen it made good in experience the emptiness and incapacity of every thing under the sun to answer our trust and that the power thereof onely belongs to God 12 And as he onely hath power to answer our expectations and make good the hopes of them that depend upon him so is he tyed to it by those attributes of mercy and justice which to perswade our confidence in him are also held forth to us in legible characters both in his word and works having promised and daily performing acts of grace and favour to those that put their trust in his goodness and likewise in mercy to them both threatning and acting justice and judgements upon their injurious enemies wicked workers The lxiii PSALM David being in the wilderness of Ziph void of outward comforts and in some desertion of soul prayes for to be delivered out of his spiritual wilderness by the shedding abroad of the love of God in his heart which would comfort him beyond all his sorrows and from former experiences strengthens his â—aith and clears up his heart touching future dispensations not doubting but affirming the destruction of his enemies and his own advancement to the Kingdom for the good of the Church A Psalm made by David when he was in the wilderness of Ziph belonging to the tribe of Judah hiding himself from Saul 1 O God though I am in this solitarie condition am exile from amongst men and a companion for wild beasts yet is not my faith staggered nor my proprietie in thee impaired but still thou art the same God in relation to me and I have the same interest in thee that ever I had no trouble shall make me forget my dependencie nor cause me neglect mine addresses to thee whose favour and assistance I prefer before all things and will seek to thee for it in the first and principal place as undervalluing all things to it My soul and inward man is extreamly impatient of some sweet spiritual communion with thee which would infinitely refresh and animate both soul and body in this uncomfortable condition and barren wilderness where I have accommodations for neither 2 To be here immediately supplied from thee in default of those helps I had in thy Sanctuarie whence I am now driven with those heart-ravishing aprrehensions of thine almighty power and glorious grace as heretofore I have had in the celebration of them in thy Worship and Ordinances at thy Tabernacle by those emblematical representations and types of thy saving mercies so comfortably exhibited therein in their lively signals 3 The memory whereof though at distance mind me of thine unspeakable love in Christ which to a hungry soul and a believing sinner is of higher price and more desirable than life it self which without it is but death and however in outward respects my condition is so sad yet whensoever thou wilt let the taste of that thy love break in upon my spirit I know the power and virtue of it so well that I am sure mine inward refreshings will bear down the sense of mine outward wants and sufferings and I shall be able to praise thee whatsoever be my pressures 4 If I might be but alwaies thus made happy I should never be miserable but shall have cause enough to bless God for thus blessing me If I had no other happiness but this all my life long I should have no cause to complain but of perpetual rejoycing and confidence in God his goodness and mercy to me 5 Then shall my soul be as full as it can hold feasted with the bread of life and heavenly dainties far surpassing all creature-comforts even so full as to make me break out in thy praises uttered as in a rapture or extasie 6 Especially when in this sort I can call thee to mind in the night season in my retired thoughts and can express my mind when I lay awaking after this manner upon thee O how sweet is it 7 How low soever be my condition either for soul or body in respect of outward means yet in regard of my former experiences of thy goodness and faithfullness in all essays I will not be discouraged but in the faith of thee and thy tender respects to me I will clear up my heart 8 I am sorely pursued and my soul in this my sad condition pursueth after thee as fast as mine enemies do after me for I know that still thine heart is towards me and that by thy power and grace I am and shall be upheld 9 Yea I shall stand when by thy justice executed upon mine enemies they shall fall and live when they are dead and rotten however it be ebbe water with me now 10 I know they have not long to live their destruction is not far to and that they shall die a violent death when they do die as they have been cruel and bloudy-minded in their life so shall they die a bloudy death and shall fall by the sword of their enmies who shall expose their dead bodies to open disgrace and inconvenience for Foxes and vermin to prey upon not affording them the common courtesie of burial 11 But I that am appointed and anoynted of God to be their King shall live to rejoyce in his wondrous preservation and preferment of me to
can neither have what I pray for nor do what I would successfully by reason of them but notwithstanding our sins yet my prayer shall be that in mercy thou wilt pardon them and make us a holy people to thee and my confidence is that though our sins do abound yet thy grace shall super-abound to do this for us 4 For were it not for thy Free-grace and Election no one man upon the face of the whole earth much less a nation could ever partake of thy favour and have their prayers heard their sins would hinder them But though all men are deservedly out of favour by sin yet there is a way of grace to bring even sinners into respect with thee And for all his sins yet blessed is such a man for there are not many of them compared with the world whom of Free-election thou thus hast made choice of to bestow thy grace upon and made able by faith to see thee a reconciled and pardoning God unto him and willing to receive both his person and his prayers into acceptance and audience and priviledged to frequent thy presence in thy Sanctuary and perform thy worship there with assurance of welcom and spiritual imbraces whensoever he comes the oftner the better I and others of this number I am sure shall find it so we shall never lose our labour but when we come to ask grace we shall have it and so often as we resort to thy tabernacle and they in after-ages to thy temple signs alike of thy presence nay all that are thine and offer up prayers of faith to thee in heaven when there shall be neither tabernacle nor temple which is their anti-type and signification they shall have but what they will of thee even their hearts desire what heaven and thy grace can afford them and us 5 Such power have thy people and their prayers with thee as that nothing shall be impossible to them if thy Church have need and be in extremity why that will be but thine opportunity miraculously to deliver them by evident judgements upon their enemies setting forth the power of prayer and thy faithfulness to them who hast a tender regard of their preservation and such as thou art now to us a few faithfull ones in a corner of the world such shalt thou be when thy Church is enlarged amongst the Gentiles to all that are thine all the world over far and near in Continents and in Islands every where in all places thou shalt be their God hearing prayer and yielding salvation to them that trust in thee 6 For as by the creation thou hast made thy power to appear to all people in all the world so shall thy grace extend it self and those that imbrace the tender of it shall be as firm immoveable by any human power as the mountains being established and begirt with thine 7 Who art able to master the most masterful things in the world which generally is enraged at thy Church and people where ever they be in it they are tossed and turned like a ship at sea in a storm which as thou canst calm bring safe to land so canst thou yea so wilt thou too uphold thy Church in the middest of her tumultuary perplexities and troubles which in all places she is exposed unto also deliver her out of them 8 Thy grace to and protection of thy Church shall be to all ages and in all places most observable as well as here amongst us for the same thou art now the same thou shalt ever be to the wicked enemies of thy faithfull people terrible in thy judgements upon them for their sakes for whom also it is that thou exerciseth such gracious providence upon the whole earth continuing the frame of nature which else would dissolve and ordering each creature in its place time and station to do its office all the world from sun rising to sun setting fare the better for them 9 The earth and all things in it are therefore seasonable graciously and plentiously supplied with apt showers in times of need sent from Heaven down upon it where thou hast ordained the clouds to store up abundance of water to be at thy dispose for the good of the creature causing thereby such plenty of corn to grow fit for mans gathering upon the face of the earth thus husbanded by God 10 By thy blessing upon mans labour it is the earth brings forth such plenty sending seasonable showers upon tillage-land when its drie and seasonable sun-shine when its wet so that both ridge and furrow fructifie by interchangeable softnings and hardnings as there is cause and the corn by this means from first to last through thy blessing is made to grow and prosper which otherwaies would miscarry and the taste of bread fail 11 Thou makest the earth to excel with the beautifull varieties and rich blessings that thou bestowest upon it and causest it in the summer time to bring forth when and where thou pleasest to visit it with fruitfull and seasonable showers from above 12 Which not onely are bestowed upon the inhabited and husbanded places of the world for man to reap the profit of but also upon the unpeopled places where wild beasts and such creatures range there for their use and sustenance dost thou extend thy bounty making those places also that want the benefit of Art and husbandry and which in their own nature are less capable both hills and plains by thy blessing from above to fructifie and flourish in their kind with all needful conveniences for those creatures thou hast appointed to feed thereupon and inhabit therein 13 Thus are all places blessed by thee the wilderness and mountains brings forth plentie of grass and cattel in their kind and the pasturable grounds which men make use of they abound with heards and flocks in their kind the plowed and cultured places also they super-abound in their kind with the abundance of corn and grain of several sorts that grow thereon so that they seem to be sensible in a kind of thy blessings to and upon them by the return they make and bring forth of plentie and beautie and thereby to offer their praises to thee again and do occasion abundance of joy and gladness in the owners and inhabitants that reap the profit of these thy gracious providences The lxvi PSALM David foreâ—els the happie condition of the Gentils how that God shall have his Church among them as unlikely as it is that shall worship and serve him faithfully which he will he as careful of and propitious to as ever he was to them and what things he hath done for them are not to be forgotten but to be had in remembrance of the faithful in all ages as the pledge of like mercie and protection unto them as the praise-worthie deliverances he hath wrought for them out of all their sufferings and dangers that they have long undergone and
and thanks-giving by mercifull and powerfull deliverances which I have celebrated accordingly 18 And now Lord approve thine unchangeableness make out thy goodness to the uttermost period of my life when I have most need stick closest to me now in my declining old age O God withdraw not thine assistance but still be helpfull to me and magnifie thy power in my weakness that I may have cause to declare thy stedfastness and al-sufficiencie to preserve and deliver out and out and may be a pattern to the faithfull throughout the whole series of my life not onely to the past but present and all succeeding ages and generations of thy power to protect by thy wonderfull deliverances vouchsafed me in all of them 19 And thy faithfulness is no less to be extolled than thy power and will be by this mercie magnified in the same degree equally sharing in the glorie of all the wonderous deliverances thou hast and shalt vouchsafe me O God how wilt thou alone be exalted and thy peoples faith strengthened when they shall consider what thou hast done for me from one end of my life to the other it will cause astonishment and admiration and make thee to rule alone in all thy peoples hearts 20 For my sake they shall never have cause to despare when they consider how often I was plunged into most intricate perplexities and yet by thine almighty hand hath been extricated out of them as I shall be out of this as well as all the rest and shall have a resurrection out of this state of death and miserie wherein I seem to be swallowed up as of the grave 21 Yea thou shalt make this humbling a step to my further exaltation and as a foil to my future glorie which shall shine the brighter for it and my present sorrows shall bring me an increase of comforts favour and peace with God and man shall succeed them 22 And as thou shalt exalt my glorie and increase my comforts so will I magnifie thee in thanks-giving and praises which with mine uttermost power and skill I will give thee and particularly for thy truths sake which hath so firmly stuck to me and never deceived me whensoever I relied upon thee for it who hast ever been a faithfull God unto me therefore will I all the waies I can devise celebrate thy praises in the most solemn and affectionate manner that may be O thou God of truth and never failing faithfulness to thine ellect and chosen people that put their trust in thee worship and serve thee in holiness and righteousness 23 Lord I will every way that instrument and voice art and nature inward and outward man can act and perform celebrate thy praises and that with energie of spirit in the joyfull impressions and apprehensions of the things I utter will I express my mind and not with bare lip labour my mouth shall speak my heart and both shall greatly rejoice in thy salvation 24 Nor shalt thou be the onely subject of my song or solemn worship but also of my discourse and common converse thy faithfulness and just performance of thy promises shall never be out of my mouth I will make it even my table-talk for all to take notice of when as thou shalt as I know thou wilt with shame and destruction disapoint and defeat mine enemies that conspire against me to take away my life and Kingdom The lxxii PSALM David having set Solomon upon his throne a little before he dyed praies for him and prophesies of him according to what he praies how blessed a King he shall prove and what a flourishing Church and Kingdom there shall be in his daies how he shall be admired abroad and beloved at home admirably prefiguring Christ and his spiritual Kingdom A Psalm made by David near his death for and concerning his son and successour Solomon and his government 1 O God thou by whom Kings reign as thou hast called me and my son Solomon after me to sway the Scepter of Israel so do thou inable both me for that little time I have yet to live and him in an happy succession to me with those gifts of wisdom and knowledge as also of justice and holiness that are fit for Israels King to have above the Tyrants of the world who is to represent the Messiah thy son his government in and over his Church 2 And Lord what I pray for I also prophesie in thy name concerning this my son and successour whom thou hast especially chosen before all his brethren to rule in my stead He shall with understanding and uprightness administer justice and judgement unto this thy people committed to his charge and with impartialitie with just and fatherly pitie shall he give easie access to and judge the cause of the poor of thy people as well as of the rich he shall be no accepter of persons thy proprietie in them shall make him accept and esteem them equally and administer justice to them accordingly 3 O the wonderfull happiness of peace and plentie by the blessing of God that shall be all the land over under his government by the righteous administration thereof 4 He shall not onely be a father to the poor of thy people Israel but a just impartial Judge also to all other poor that come under his governance and a mercifull protectour of the helpless one or other against those that by might would wrong and oppress them not suffering a just cause to miscarrie for want of money and friends to carry it on but himself shall be the poor mans advocate and the judge of his oppressour who shall not escape by his greatness but be severely yet justly censured according to his merits 5 In his time the Temple shall be built and the Church and people of Israel put into a flourishing condition the worship of God in the types and significant ceremonies thereof shall be in his time compleated never to receive any more augmentation after who shall reign as well long as happily and is to be the liveliest type of Christ the saviour and King of his Church who in the age of the Gospel when he is come and taken upon him the Kingdom shall have a people a Church as in all places so in all ages of the world that shall fear and worship him in spirit and truth according to those resemblances that shall be in Solomons daies 6 His wise and just administrations with sweet and gracious deportments shall clear up the hearts of his people and make Israel by the blessing of God grow again and be a flourishing Common-wealth that hath undergone sad times and afflictions formerly like as Christ shall with evangelical Doctrines and the heavenly divine graces of his spirit distil into and upon the hearts of his people to their spiritual growth and refreshing 7 Together with the worship of God shall the number of the righteous people
temptation of corrupt fleshly reasoning occasioned by the wickeds prospiritie and his own infelicitie that had almost cost him a fall and made him cast off all care of religion and fear of God had not God taken up the business that was in controversie in his mind he abruptly thereupon silenceth all doubts and disputes and in the very beginning and first entrance into the Psalm breaks through all difficulties and dissidences wherewith he had been sore pestred affirming and declaring for the instruction and strengthning of the godly that maâ—ger all objections to the contrarie God is every jot as good as his word for so he had found by experience and befools himself for his mis-judging of God and the Godly as he had done and too highly prizing the wicked mans happie condition in this life acknowledgeth Gods infinite mercie in this his seasonable illumination and supportation of his faith so much staggered but now resolved and thereby enabled to declare God to be righteous in all his works and that to the faithfull he will ever approve himself such A Psalm made by Asaph 1 I Have had my share of trials and my share of temptations thereupon and also my share of experimented providences and mercies from God so that when all things are rightly weighed after a long debate and conflict betwixt flesh and spirit concerning the one and the other whether God be or be not to his people as he hath promised I must needs conclude he is God and as good as his word to Israel but to what Israel for there was my mistake not to all that go under that name because they are the seed of Jacob so called for all are not Israel that are of Israel but to the Israel in spirit not in the letter to them belongs the promise and performance of grace and goodness to such as are purified by faith not onely in the outward part by legal purifyings which are but umbrages but in the hidden man of the heart by effectual operation of faith and the spirit of grace to such the Lord is gracious and ever will be I know it by experience and so shall they let them never doubt it nor question the truth of Gods word and promise because of seeming contraridictoriness in his work of providence thereunto but take it upon the word of a Prophet as well as a promise it is a truth whatsoever is suggested to the contrarie by carnal and corrupt reason God is so will be so and cannnot be otherwise 2 I confess it is no easie matter to be thus perswaded considering the strange order that is in Gods providences and dispensations I my self for all I can now speak it boldly yet the time was when I was as misbelieving as other men extreamly staggered I was in my faith and judgement touching the truth of the promise and the goodness of God according thereunto I was almost fallen from faith and consequently from hope reverence and every thing of that nature ready to to turn Atheist as touching the points of Gods truth and goodness truly I was even going if God had not staied me to deviate and shift for my self by carnal policie and creature-confidence as I saw others do 3 For like a fool as I was I fastened mine eyes upon the outward face of things I saw them that are best suffer most those that are worst prosper best which put me into a passionate envy of them that clouded my judgement so that I could not but raise foolish conclusions upon foolish premises and think with my selfe that surely it is not God but Fortune that orders matters thus or if it be God that then he cannot bring both ends together punish his people prosper the wicked and yet be good to the one and just to the other 4 Whom contrarie to their demerits he lets live in such felicitie all their daies for for all their sins they have the world at will their minds and consciencies free from trouble their constitutions strong and bodies healthfull they feel no punishments nor pains in either neither living nor dying for after a prosperous life I thought I should see God meet with them at their deaths whereas they died as they lived without either pangs of bodie or horrour of conscience to mine admiration and stumbling 5 A man would almost think that judges with worldly judgement as I did that sin and wickedness were the high-way to happiness and that the promises were rather made to the bad than the good for whilest the godly undergo concussions and agitations within and without they live in a serene clime under a perpetual calm and feel not the twentieth part of what the righteous suffer 6 And therefore they brave it over them and pride themselves as the onely men on earth whom God favours far above the Godly whom they look contemptibly upon maligne and oppress them even for their pietie and povertie sake judging them therefore hated of God and so justly persecuted of men and themselves his onely friends and he theirs 7 They pamper their carcasses live deliciously fair well and thrive well upon it they have no want of Worldly wealth and outward felicitie God pours honey into their hive they prosper wondrously even beyond their own desires and expectations 8 Their plentie and voluptuousness makes them quite forget God to be above them they live sensually and sinfully as if they were controlable by none and with open face do injustice and wrong bragging of their power to oppress and threatning thunderbolts to the poor and despised people of God 9 Who if they make their appeal to heaven pray for and plead Gods power to protect them against theirs they contemn them and blaspheme God yea bid defiance both to God and man not caring for God above them and thinking all the world else to be below them for their proud and presumptuous speeches import no less 10 Whereupon it is that the people of God are in my very case they stumble and allmost fall and are in grievous agonies not onely by outward affliction but every way which is worse by inward diffidences and debates in themselves whilest the good are thus extreamly under and the bad a top of the wheel 11 Insomuch as I did so do they begin to question through the infirmitie of the flesh and their astonishment at the strangeness of such proceedings the providence and administration of God whither at all he that is in heaven heed these things below or if he do then how they can stand with his wise and righteous dispensations and word of promise 12 For thus they say within themselves who are they that come on and prosper in the World why generally the wicked and ungodly have most and do best is it not so every where 13 And who are they that have least and are most under hatches why truly they that fear God
away without any dispensation of his grace and compassion hath he conceived such displeasure against me as forever to shut the doore of mercy upon me yea shall he who is a God of bowels and those bowels full of earnings towards his people in distress shall he suffer himself to be inexorably transported with anger against me Surely it cannot be I thought so with my self 10 And replied to all these my expostulatory interrogations that it was my frailty and folly thus to question the nature and faithfulness of God and to live by sense more than by faith and suffer my self to be transported by affliction into doubts and discomforts and thereupon set my self to work in another way resolved to take out a new lesson and not onely by contemplation but by faith and application to recall to mind for the chearing of my heart and the stirring up my hope what powerfull grace and great deliverances the pledges of his future favours in like sort God hath heretofore wrought and exhibited in his peoples behalf when they were in extremity not suffering them to sink under them 11 I will effectually recollect and consider what God hath done of that kind heretofore yea how his peoples extremities were still his opportunities to give them wonderfull deliverance and gain himself glory and honour and so it shall be with me I doubt not 12 I will more advisedly than ever I have done consider of thine infinite power and support my self by it not onely as it appears in acts of providence of auncient and later dispensations which is admirable but in the creation also which thou deducedst out of nothing and so thou canst any raise me up though I were lower than I am I will no more uncomfortably muse of thee and thy doings and make a wrong use of them that because heretofore thou hast done thus and thus and dost not so now and therefore thou never wilt but that I shall surely sink and die in this distress no but I will both meditate and speak of them with chearfull apprehensions and comfortable conclusions to my self that because thus and thus it hath been with thy people and so and so thou hast done for them that these are pledges and assurances of thine unchangeable goodness and patterns of thy power and that therefore so it shall be and so thou wilt do for me also in like manner 13 O Lord much debate I have had and reasonings about thee and thy proceedings but thy ways and the reasons of them I find are too profound for me I confess my self too shallow to fathom thy dimensions it is not reason but prayer nor my wisdom but thine that must quiet my mind and inform me aright for how can I that am an earth-worm here below comprehend thy counsels and judgements that are transacted above in the heavens inaccessible as was thy sanctuary or holy of holies by thee who art an incomparable God indeed the onely God that doest whatsoever thou wilt both in heaven and earth and who hast in nothing manifested thy greatness more than in thy goodness to and powerfull preservation and deliverance of us thy people 14 For whom thou doest not exercise common and ordinary providences but doest wonders and workest miracles thy power hath gloriously appeared more than once by remarkable and astonishing atchivements in thy peoples behalf upon their enemies witness those mighty signs and wonders wherewith thou plaguest the Gentiles for their sakes sundry ways and at sundry times 15 With what power didst thou specially bring Israel out of Egypt thou sentest Jacob and his sons thither in time of famin to be preserved by Joseph whom thou there advancedst but when Joseph was forgotten his and his father Jacobs posterity ill intreated by cruell taskmasters there how with the lives of the Egyptians and the destruction of Egypt didst thou redeem and deliver thy people thence A mercy for ever to be recorded in the hearts of thy servants 16 When as the waters of the red sea were so sensible of thy divine presence and power O God that as if they had been afraid of thee and of harming thy people whom thou then conductedst they ran away and divided themselves hither and thither as it were to stand still and with admiration to look on that marvellous passage of thy people through them yea not onely the superficies of the water was thus moved but from the top to the very bottom was that great Abbiss removed at thy presence and made way for the seed of Jacob and Joseph to pass on dry land 17 What an amazement didst thou then put the Egyptians into on a sudden when as in the morning-watch thou lookedst into the host through the pillar of fire and cloud and didst arm the whole host of heaven against them tempestuously pouring forth rain and emptying the clouds upon them thundering also over their heads and flashing forth streams of lightning in their faces as if it had been a shour of darts or arrows sent from heaven to destroy them 18 It is not to be expressed the terrour and trouble of that day which made them say Let us flie for God fights for Israel against the Egyptians What fearfull thunder-claps were in the skies and flakes of fire with flashes of lightning that darkned the sun and made the whole heavens seem to be of a light fire the earth by its trembling and quaking seemed to think the day of judgement was at hand and that it was then to be consumed and return to its nonensity Every way and by every thing didst thou declare thy power to preserve thy people to deliver them with the destruction of their enemies the Egyptians whom thou troubledst thus from above and from beneath retarding their flight till the sea overwhelmed them 19 A memorable deliverance forever to be had in remembrance of thy people Israel whether in letter or in spirit the presence and power that there was manifested in their behalfs conducting them safe through a way of thine own miraculous making that never was gone before through the sea it self and after through Jordan in like sort when it quite overflowed his banks Submission and not disputation best becomes us mortalls in all conditions that know not the ways of Gods providence nor the reasons of them now no more than the Israelites knew then why he led them to the sea side to bring them into Canaan nor do we know how thou wilt bring us out of our distresses which thou bringest us into no more than they knew how thou wouldst deliver them in that their danger when unknown to them thou openedst the sea for their passage 20 And ledst them through it by the conduct of Moses and Aaron whom thou settest over them and appointedst to be unto them as shepherds to a flock with care and tenderness to lead them provide for them and transact betwixt thee and
rotting upon the superficies of the earth in multitudes unburied 11 Let their Nobles and great men all the Princes and chieftains of this aggregate body that comes to invade us speed as did those Kings and Princes of the Midianites Oreb and Zeeb which were taken in their flight and beheaded Zeba and Zalmunna whose Host was smitten themselves slain by Gideons own hand 12 Let these proud enemies of ours and thine come to the same end that with such malice and carnall confidence invade thy land and people and stick not to promise themselves the possession of the one and the enslaving of the other and utterly to dispossess thee of both and to ruin both thy worship and all those places where it was used to be performed the Temple and Synagogues or to pervert and turn them to their own Idolatrous usages 13 O God in whom we thy poor Church do trust for preservation and defence against this confederation turn their projects upside down make giddy their counsellours and amuze their designs let them no sooner rise but fall have no success in what they project or attempt bring nothing to an issue let them and their undertakings be as vain uncertain and ineffectuall as light and loose straw before the wind that 's scattered and tossed hither and thither 14 As a fire caused by thunder and lightening and enkindled with the wind violently breaks forth and consumes whole woods and forrests the flames whereof reach the tallest tops of trees that grow upon the highest mountains formidably appearing to spectatours far and near and consumes them as easily as the lowest shrubs 15 Such Lord let be thine anger and so do thou break forth in thy fiery indignation upon this huge army of numerous associats that march like a wood against us by an Almighty power and with terrible judgements as tempests from heaven do thou confound and astonish them that thus affright and purpose to destroy thy whole Church and people at once to the amazement and terrour of all that see or hear it spare neither great nor small high nor low but in thine enraged jealousie destroy the destroyer as well Prince as people 16 So cross their designs disappoint their hopes and confound their confidences that this enterprise may be for their shame not for their honour and that by experience of thy power to deliver thy people and subdue thine enemies they may be wrought upon and forced to beg pardon and compassion at thine hands acknowledging thee for sole Lord and God of all the earth whom they now so much contemn and mean to despight if thou wilt suffer them 17 Do thou Lord so affright and astonish them as they may never dare to enterprise against thee any more and so shamefully defeat by some strange overthrow this their invincible confederation that these invadours may have neither heart nor power to meddle in this sort again 18 That so not onely thine own people but others even all these Idolatrous nations that know nothing of thee but what thou enforcest upon them by sense and experience may be made to confess that thou who indeed art and onely art the Almighty and everliving Lord art not onely to be acknowledged by us but that the whole earth as well as we ought to pay thee Homage as the sole Sovereign God of Gods and Lord of Lords The lxxxiv PSALM David after his restaurationâ— from banishment and settlement both of him in the Kingdom and the Ark on mount Sion yet personates that estate in this Psalm and the mind he then was in shewing what longings he then had after the sanctuary and ordinances of God how he envied the priviledge the very birds had and blessed the priviledge others of Gods people had and he wanted the least whereof he would have been glad of but still believed and hoped to find God gracious and true of his word To him that is most skilfull upon Gittith the instrument used by Obed-Edom the Gittite and his family is this Psalm committed for his ordering of it to be sung by the Korathites 1 TO a spirituall minded man who knows the worth and excellency of thy worship and service in each part and circumstance of it and how to improve it to edification and exercise of his graces O how delicious and affecting are thine ordinances acted in thy sanctuary O most mighty God of heaven and earth and Lord of all the innumerable creatures in both 2 My soul which was wont to be feasted with heavenly and divine delicacies in the courts of thy Sanctuary where I worshipped thee longeth incessantly to frequent them again yea so vehement is my desire that the long frustration of it makes me ready to swound away like a woman with child disappointed of her longing My whole man soul and body gaspeth after and earnestly importunes to be restored to my former communions with thee and lively soul-quickning participations of thee whereof to mine unspeakable grief I have been so long deprived 3 I envy the happiness of the very irrationall creature the poor birds for that they have a priviledge far beyond me they can dwell in thy land amongst thy people the sparrow and swallow have their freedom there harbour themselves and make their nests where they will in view of and near to thy very Altar whereas I a son of Abraham an heir of the promise one that have a right and title to all the emoluments of thy Church and people am notwithstanding forced into exile among the heathen as if I were not related to thee nor had no right to worship thee O Lord whom yet in mind and heart I will and do worship acknowledging no God besides thee and adoring thee for the sole sovereign Creatour and commander of heaven and earth and all in both whose subject and servant I am though Saul will not own me for his and in whom I yet trust in hope to find thee gracious to me for all this 4 O happy condition are they in whose function and office makes them not onely frequenters but indwellers in thy sanctuary the Preists and Levites they have their fill of what I want that is opportunities to magnifie and praise thee in the dayly sacrifices and solemn ordinances there administred 5 Blessed and onely blessed is he that in diffidence of his own self-sufficiency specially spirituall-self makes his diligent humble and faithfull resort to thee after thy prescript and rule and lives the life which he lives by faith in thee and continuall addresses to thee for spirit and grace in prayer and supplication In whose heart is throughly grounded this belief and accordingly frames his practise walking as all those do that faithfully believe thus 6 And therefore overcome all difficulties for those sweet injoyments it is neither length of way nor deficiency of accommodation in the journey that can hinder such sure I am it
never to live again Lord think other thoughts towards us bring us again into a comfortable condition and raise us up in joy as much as thou hast cast us down in sorrow by the return of thy reconciled favour to us which will infinitely rejoyce us 7 Let us be so happy as to see and feel the sweet effects of thy pardoning grace O good God by granting us a powerfull deliverance from under this misery and bondage 8 As pray so I will also expect an answer my faith shall listen diligently to the promise of God what it sayes as also to his providence what it will speak effectually by way of performance for his promises are then words he will do as he sayes and therefore I am confident how ever Gods time is now of punishing us so it will be of pardoning us his people shall have rest from these their troubles for his Saints the invisible Church sake that are amongst them but let them take heed of abusing such goodness by provoking the Lord again to wrath with back-sliding ingratitude lest he never take their words more 9 Surely deliverance from the Lord will make haste for the enfranchizing of all those that faithfully wait for it and will heartily imbrace it when it comes to the promoting and re-establishing his worship and service again in that land of his and ours though we are wrongfully disseiz'd of it and restoring it to its former glorie and splendour 10 Our return as it shall doubtless be so it shall be exceeding happie the very embleme of the salvation that comes by the Messiah to the Church and the glorious effects thereof for in our restauration there shall be an admirable commixtion of the mercie and truth of God thereby graciously fulfilling his promise touching the well-fare of his Church and freedom from her enemies together with a righteous obediential walking of his people with him in peace and tranquillitie Like as in Christ and in the restauration that he shall make of poor distressed sinners to a spiritual Libertie from their ghostly enemies sin and Satan there shall be a glorious reconciliation of those cross pleading attributes and properties in Gods divine nature and in the soul of every justified regenerate member of the Church for according to truth and righteousness Man that sinned hath died Christ being made a sacrifice and according to mercie and peace Man that hath sinned is saved and God he are reconciled and at one in the propitiation of his son so that in him the Laws threatnings and Gospels promises are agreed the rigour of Gods justice is fully satisfied all things in God peaceably accorded and God and man sweetly reconciled and man in his own conscience by the faith of all these comfortably quieted 11 We shall serve and obey God in truth and uprightness such sweet fruit shall Judea yield upon our restitution and God shall take pleasure in us and from heaven pour forth his righteous blessings upon us in grace and favour to us as it shall be with the Church when the Messiah that Truth of God shall be born in our nature of earthly parents with what satisfactorie content shall God then behold him and those justified sanctified members of his here below aswell as those glorified ones in heaven above and how shall he bless them 12 Yea the Lord shall be so reconciled to us that our evils shall be turned into their contrarie blessings he shall be our friend and make every thing else befriend us for good the creature shall be reconciled aswell as the creator and the land that our sins have made barren and fruitless shall by the blessing of God upon it be restored to that fertilitie it had heretofore when God was better served and it was better blessed and made to resemble the plenteous spiritual blessings that Christs enfranchized Church shall abound with here 13 God himself shall plentifully vouchsafe his graces and make us walk to his well-pleasing in holiness and righteousness as Christ shall his Church and set us in the right way which we have so miserably strayed from and enable us to walk it even the path of his precepts The lxxxvi PSALM David in this Psalm made probably either during Sauls persecution of him or after in mindfulness of that his estate personating himself as then it was with him praies for audience and deliverance because of his incessant intercessions and Gods innate goodness and promises himself what he praies for he extols God and prophesies all the World shall do so too prayeth for direction and establishment under his pressures promiseth praise for what God hath done for him and relates what manner of enemies his are as bad as bad can be but comforts himself in Gods opposit grace and goodness which he praies for a sensible sight and taste of by some remarkable act of providence and power for him against them to their shame and confusion and to his corroboration and consolation A praier that David made in the time of his grievous affliction recorded as a pattern and for the use of every faithful afflicted member of the Church 1 THou Lord that hast an ear for men in my case and heart too Let me I pray thee prevail for a gracious audience and though thou beest of so immense greatness and inhabitest heavens in unaccessable glorie yet Lord have regard to a poor worm on earth in this my deplorable helpless condition 2 That my life Lord is in danger thou knowest it and that my heart is upright towards thee and innocent towards man even to my very enemies thou Lord art not ignorant of it Therefore in righteousness deliver me out of their hands and save my life which they would destroy O Lord that art my God both in near relation and dear affection save me that thou knowest am entirely thine in loving obedience and faithful dependance and reliance 3 Let thy goodness and my miserie move thee to have mercie on me O Almightie Lord and to vouchsafe me deliverance for as I have cause my pressures being exceeding great and incessant so are my cries unto thee vehement and quotidian because my faith and hope is in thee 4 Set me free from my troubles and these despondencies of spirit that accompany them that I may with a joyful and thankful heart apprehend thy grace and mercie to me for Lord thou knowest my trust and confidence is in none besides thee as thou mayest perceive by my faithful and fervent addresses 5 For I know both from thine own word which I believe and mine own experience that thou art of a gracious compassionate nature to poor distressed suppliants and though just to punish sinners yet as ready to pardon penitents and to shew mercie of every kind both of forgiveness to humbled sinners and of deliverance to distressed innocents that in the faith thereof pray earnestly unto thee 6 And
and natural reason thou hast broken all the ties that were upon thee oath promise faithfulness holiness covenant which seems to be quite made void even that thou mad'st with thy servant David concerning the establishment of his throne and dignitie upon him and his posteritie for ever For thou hast suffered as much despight to be done to that royal diadem as the prophane ignorant Idolatrous heathen can devise to do by captivating King and Kingdom contemptibly subjugated and transplanted into another nation far remote where they are made bon dmen even the people and posteritie of David his throne is thus abased of whom thou saidst The enemy shall not exact nor the son of wickedness afflict him 40 Instead of protection thou hast brought upon it utter devastation thou hast quite ruinated all the strength of the Kingdom defensive and offensive and made the enemy absolute there 41 He is brought to so forlorn a condition that the whole Kingdom countrey cities people goods every thing are preid upon and spoiled at pleasure by all that will houses gardens vine-yards all the whole land is a very through-fare for all commers and goers that take and leave as they list themselves there is no bodie nor nothing to resist them Those Idolatrous prophane people the Ammonites Moabites c. that border about us whom thou saidest should be under him are got above him and most insultingly reproch him upon this occasion and deridingly ask if this be the King whose throne shall endure so long as the Sun and Moon which extreamly reflects upon the Messiah himself and calls in question thy covenant as to him 42 Thou hast given strength courage and success to his enemies and made them triumphant over him 43 On the contrarie thou hast weakned his power made ineffectual all his indeavours and turned the courage wherewith he was wont to be endowed into cowardise and made him to flie before the enemie who was wont to flie before him 44 Thou hast put an end to that honour and dignitie which thou saidst nay swearest should continue for ever his throne which thou covenantest to establish is utterly demolished he is laid level with the common people nay a very bondman in captivitie 45 Instead of estating him and his Kingdom in everlasting happiness thou hast brought sudden and speedie desolation it is true some few dayes of glorie and felicitie he hath seen but they soon have an end nay a shameful end Lord this is true 46 Lord instead of being everlastingly gracious wilt thou be everlastingly displeased shall we never partake of favour and grace again art thou utterly estranged and we utterly rejected shall we be quite consumed in thine anger without any mixture of mercie or mitigation of thy wrath 47 48 Lord consider the shortness and vanitie of my life and by me judge of all other men that by course of nature are as I am short-lived and sure to die Now then if thou thus breakest covenant casts off thy people nullifies thy Church and hereby overthrows all possibilitie of the Messiah and his Kingdom what a vain thing must it needs be for thee to have made man if all the happiness he shall have is but to live a few dayes on earth and so die or if that be all the honour and service thou art like to have of him and truly Lord if thy Church and covenant be null that is all can come on 't for none shall be saved but thy people and no people are so but by Covenant if then the one be not and so the other be frustrate we are all reduced into the sinful mass of mankind at best to live miserably and die wretchedly This will be the issue 49 Lord thou doest infinitly amaze us to consider what loving kindness thou hast heretofore covenanted to shew to David and his seed for ever and ratified it with a deep and solemn Oath obliging thee in thine infinit truth and faithfulness to fulfil it we are at a stand to think on this and withall how this thy word and these thy works are consistent and reconcileable 50 Lord for all this make it appear thou canst keep Covenant and preserve thy Church and people as low as they be brought and that thou mayest be moved hereunto Remember and take notice of the reprochful contumelious usage thy servants have at their enemies hands for thy sake more than their own and to thy dishonour more than theirs Weigh well to what an ebb of fortune we are fallen when subjugated and captivated under the insolentest and mightiest nation upon earth whose reprochful insufferable abuse of thy people they are forced to put up and with infinit patience to dissemble their grief which goes to my heart to think of and am as sensible of it as if I bare the whole burden on my own back 51 Even those blasphemous reprochful taunts which those victorious heathen enemies to thee and for thy sake to thy people do cast upon their hope in thy promises and their faithful expectation of the coming and near approch of the Messiah their King thine anointed now in this their so low miserable and irrecoverable estate 52 But how ever it be neither our miserie the enemies insolencie thy severitie and seeming perfidie nor our amazements upon all these shall eradicate the faith and hope mine heart hath in thee and thy covenant nor stop my mouth from praising thee for it but that I do affirm thee holy faithful and gracious for all these even to David to whom thou wilt make good all that ever thou hast promised yea to the end of the World shall his Kingdom last The Messiah for all this shall come whose shall be the Kingdom power and glorie for evermore And in the faith hereof I do bless thee now as if it were and pronounce thee worthie of blessing praise and thanksgiving throughout all ages of the World so long as Sun and Moon endures so be it yea Lord dispose the hearts of thy people to believe that so it shall be that in the hope thereof we may praise thee and in the happie enjoyment thereof all ages hereafter may do so too The xc PSALM This praier of Moses in likelihood was made by him some time before his death betwixt the Israelites being inhabited Canaan because of their murmuring and misbelief when the spies brought an evil report upon the land in that long peregrination of theirs in the wilderness and the time they entered it wherein he first mentions the continual care that he the everlasting God hath had over them in all their travels and sojournings and next the often afflictions and destructions to which their sins and his displeasure brought them and the great deliverances he hath afforded them as it were a resurrection from the dead Then declares how its worse with them his people than the rest of mankind for though all must and
my wonderfull preservation and deliverance 19 When I was at the fullest of anxious cares and troublous thoughts were revolved in my breast by reason of my desperate condition what would become of me then when I but cast the eys of my mind upon thine all-sufficiencie and faithfulness I was presently quieted and never am so deep plunged in sorrow but these bladders bear me up again and make my joy and hope surmount them 20 Lord wilt thou that art the Judge of all the World not judge righteously shall the wicked scape thee as they do the corrupt Judges here on earth No thou wilt not suffer tyrants and persecutors of thy people always to rule over them in thy stead whose King thou properly art such as make laws flat against thine enact sin and legitimate their unjust and mischievous practises against thy people 21 They conspire and plot the destruction of the righteous yea sit in judgement upon the godly as upon malefactours and right or wrong condemn them to death though they can find no just accusation against them 22 But maugre the malice and injustice of mine enemies I doubt not of defence from them I have found God an al-sufficient refuge and safe hiding-place and my faith is in him as it was therefore I fear not but to find him the same God now as ever heretofore in my defence and preservation 23 Yea he shall compass my deliverance and the deliverance of his Church by her enemies confusion their fall shall be her rise what they purpose against Gods people shall redound upon themselves to their own mortal wounding this our good and Almightie Lord God is able to do and to the glorie of his faithfulness and praise of his power he shall effect it to all mens admiration The xcv PSALM David as appears by Heb. 4.7 was authour of this Psalm wherein he incites the people solemnly unanimously and affectionately to sing praise and thanks to God for his grace to them and his greatness in himself and over the world and not to be like their fore-fathers rebellious and unbelieving but to hear and obey lest imitating their sins they share in their plagues 1 2 O How meet a thing it is for all us Israelites the adopted people of the Lord frequently to meet together and with willing minds and thankfull hearts to set forth the praises of the Lord in solemn assemblies let us unanimously and cheerfully do so even sing aloud the praise-worthy preservations that he the Rock of our salvation hath in all ages vouchsafed unto us Let us joyfully repair to his sanctuary in the faith of his presence according to his promise with our hearts full-fraught with the memorie of his mercies and our lips gratuitously pouring out the praises of them before him there singing joyfully with all the melodious harmonie of voyces and instruments the Psalms made for that purpose 3 For who is there like him or who is besides him worthy of worship He onely is God great in might and majestie doing whatsoever pleaseth him the onely Potentate whose is the kingdom power and glory The maker of all things besides whom there is no God though falsly and abusively there are gods many and lords many as heathenish idols civil majestrates glorified Angels yea divels also bear that name but he is above every thing so called and commanded them as well as us 4 5 What is there that he hath not fashioned and framed in all the world and consequently which are not at his command and dispose from the bottom of the bottomless sea to the top of the mightiest mountains in the whole earth for both land and sea were made by him and possessed of those places they enjoy at first he commanded the al-over-flowing waters now the sea to the abyss prepared for them that the face of the earth might appear above them for the use of man and beast and so it did 6 O let me exhort you again and again chearfully and joyntly with unanimitie and gratuitie to frequent the tabernacle of this immense majestie there to worship him in all the ways and ordinances he hath appointed and adore his great and glorious name by humbling and prostrating our selves before him with lowly hearts and bended knees in token of giving our whole selves a living and reasonable sacrifice unto him as a homage due to so Almighty a God and our Creatour of whom we as well as all other things had our beeings and have still 7 8 9 Nor is that all but besides the common interest of Creation he is our God by special Election who governs us not onely by common providence as all mankind but by special gubernation as his Church and chosen people to whom and on whom he hath bestowed his saving truths and ordinances for us to feed upon and grow by unto everlasting life and happiness we are not of his flock which he turns out to the wide world as sheep-masters do some sheep to commons and fallows but we are his pasture-sheep yea his cades brought up at hand his very domesticks these priviledges we have if we know how to use them and walk worthy of them obedientially hearkening to the voice and submitting to the guidance of this shepherd of Israel and not after so much and so long experience as we have of him his goodness faithfulness and power at this time above what our fore-fathers had formerly and the light that now shines amongst us towards the perfect day more than it did then harden our hearts as they at Meribah and Massah the place where they chid with Moses and with ungratefull unbelief questioned the power and presence of the Almightie whether he were with them and would or could supply their want of water after the great things he had done for them all along from Egypt thither when as he expected far other from them considering what things he had even then done for them but much more for us since then and therefore expects much more from us for this was in the wilderness long ago during their peregrination there short of our times and what we have seen when yet God expected even then and there their faith and obedience to have been answerable to his care and providence and therefore there proved them purposely but instead of hearkening to the voice of Moses and of his miracles to trust in him faithfully and walk before him humbly in a meek and patient depending on him and seeking to him in their necessities they speak rebelliously mutined and murmured at God and his servant ungratefully and instead of submitting themselves to the will and dispensations of God to be proved by him that they might have opportunity to shew forth their faith and obedience in and to him that had done such great things for them they turned it to a contrarie use obstinately tempting and proving him by misbelieving and
questioning his power and goodness instead of meekly yielding to be proved by him and answering his expectations by suitable returns These were our progenitours of whom we come and of whose sins we therefore ought to beware 10 11 And this they did not onely once but often nor out of frailtie but obstinacie Nothing I could do or say saith God could reclaim them but they persisted the self same men from first to last from the Red-sea to the skirts of Canaan fourtie years together perpetually vexing me with their unbelief and rebellion even all the generation of them scarce a man that did other insomuch that at last after so long trial and experience of them I concluded that there was no good to be done they are a people whose hearts are not upright with me that erre not of infirmitie but obstinacie and for all that by my word and works I have taught and assured them thus long of my love care power and faithfulness yet have not they learned in all this time nor never will being wilfully blind and perversly inconsiderate how to walk and demean themselves towards me by honouring of me with their faithfull dependance humble submission and hopefull expectation of my goodness and power to appear for them and be extended to them and to return me praise and thanks love and obedience that so a perpetual intercourse of friendship and sweet correspondencie might have been traded betwixt us for ever as I intended But so hatefull and vexatious was their carriage and so infinite and endless their provocation that at last when I had tried them to the uttermost had brought them to the very borders of the promised land and saw they were still the same as unbelieving and murmuring as ever before it made me past patience so that in my rage I sware never to revoke it that so unworthy a people that I saw neither was nor never would be good do all that I could I say I sware they should upon no terms nor entreaty enter into and be possessed of the end of their travels the type of heaven that resting place the land of Canaan but should wast their days and end their lives in the wilderness where they had so sinned against me even the whole generation of them which I made good to the last man of that rebellious crew Let us fear and tremble hearken and obey praise and give thanks lest we the ofspring of such progenitours be guiltie of their sins and partake of their plagues be cast out as they were kept out of this good land The xcvi PSALM This Psalm was â—ndited at the remove of the Ark to its settled abode upon the hill of Sion in Jerusalem being in substance all one with that 1. Chron. 16.23 to 33. wherewith David ravished in spirit and prophetically disposed stirs up all the world Iews and Gentiles to praise the Lord for the Kingdom of Christ which was approching which that typified yea and all creatures the most irrational and unsensible â—or the general Iubilee that shall then be the happie restauration begun and not long to perfecting 1 2 O What a joyfull day is this to see the Ark brought after all its travels to its place of abode the holy mount in Jerusalem This new mercy deserves a new song yea extraordinarie praise and thanks not onely from us but from all the world the Gentiles as well as Israelites which from Sion shall have the glad tidings of salvation published to them news worthy of new songs and ineffable praises to be given to God whom we nor they can praise enough nor bless that infinite goodnese of his in vouchsafing the grace and knowledge of his salvation to us so eminently in this type of Christs peaceable and glorious Kingdom which they shall have really and indeed everlastingly amongst them worthy everlasting praises for them 3 Spread the glorious tidings of Christ and his approching Kingdoms far and near let it be told the Gentiles for they shall share in it and glorifie for it let all that he hath done for his Church and promised to do those wonderfull things of sending his Son calling the Gentiles and spreading his Church over the face of the earth be made known all the world over to prepare them for it with joy and thanks to receive it 4 For the Lord shall be better known though now they are ignorant of him and set light by him valuing stocks and stones before him yet the time will come when they shall know that this our God is the onely great and praise-worthy God and as well worthy to be worshipped and honoured of them instead of those false and fond gods they now serve as of us That there is none like him nor none but him 5 For all other gods which they ignorantly worship every where for all the world lies in darknesse are but dumb and deaf Idols made of wood and stone or at the best but creatures the Lord onely is the Creatour that made the whole world the glorious and beautifull heavens and reigns therein alone 6 In the midst of unaccessible Honour and Majesty which no man can see and live communicating thence some beams and rays of his heavenly and Divine properties of grace and power in that spiritual splendour that powerfully shines out of his holy sanctuarie into the souls and spirits of those that in faith and sincerity worshipping him there have their hearts thereby strengthened in believing and their graces enlivened by the fresh communicating of his ordinances and effectual answers to their prayers against their enemies 7 All ye people whether sons of Adam or of Abraham understand the Lord aright so as to honour him worthy of himself by glorifying him as the onely God of power yea the Lord Almightie 8 Worship not other gods instead of him nor yet together with him let him rule alone in your hearts that rules alone in the world pay your tribute and do your homage to him at his sanctuarie neither worship any God but him nor him in any other manner than as he hath appointed sacrifice to him upon his own altar in his own courts 9 Let all far and near come and welcome too do as we do worship the Lord in his holy sanctuarie O that the whole earth would turn to the Lord Gentiles as well as Jews as when Christ comes they shall have as free access to worship God as we and their worship as well accepted then as ours is now 10 Publish to the heathen what God hath made known to you his people How that the Lord onely is God and that the kingdom of the world as well as of Israel belongs to him and that his Church shall flourish every where as well as here which is not long to all things shall be brought into a better order one God in Christ shall be worshipped and stedfastly believed in instead of those
wert not God alone yet thou wilt now set their judgements right and let them know that none can pretend to Godhead but thy self as heaven is thy throne so the earth is thy foot-stool and shall be subdued unto Jesus Christ for that in him thou shalt be magnified beyond all that are called Gods who shall then appear to be what indeed they are Lying vanities and so shall be accounted of 10 Great shall be the numbers of Professours and pretenders to Christianity infinite will give their names to Christ and be ambitious to have his name named upon them in those dayes but there is more belongs to it than so He that is indeed the Lord Christs a loyall subject of his Kingdom and member of his Church must sincerely love him and that must appear by an upright walking with him and believing on him he must fear to offend him and therefore hate sin because it doth so and so doing be fearless as touching his salvation and preservation faithfully relying upon the truth and providence of God for both maugre both his ghostly and temporall enemies which God may suffer to hazard his Church and people for the triall of their faith and exercise of their graces but never to ruine them 11 For when ever God seems to plow and harrow his Church by persecutions and troubles that is his and her seeds-time then is he but husbanding his field weeding and clodding it all that time of darkness and infelicity is but the seed-season and preparatory to the breaking out of greater favour and grace upon her which he preserves in store she shall not lose but gain by it when the spring and harvest comes her joy shall be redoubled when the ecclipse is over Thus shall it be not with all professours but with the uncorrupt and pure in heart who are the Lords as well within as without in affections as actions whose ends and motives are principled from God and for God by faith in him and love to him 12 Let such righteous ones though they meet with never so many rubs in the way be so far from being dismaid at them as to go on with full sails of assurance and joy in God making no stop but over-topping all fear by faith still casting their eye upon Gods never-failing faithfulness and being as thankfull for a happy issue and deliverance out of their afflictions as if they had it because of the ingagement of Gods holiness which cannot deceive them The xcviii PSALM This Psalm is as if it had been made by Iohn Baptist himself pointing out Christ and his Kingdom already come through the propinquity and certainty of it shewing sorth the prais-worthy deliverance and universall benefit that to Iew and Gentile shall accrue thereby yea to the very irrationall and unsensible creatures whereupon be excites all rationall and irrationall to praise the Lord proportionably A Psalm to be sung 1 O what wonderfull occasions from time to time hath God given his people Israel of frequent and fresh praises by deliverance upon deliverance and all of them so strange and miraculous that we could not have the face to ascribe them to any but to him to whom we have endited and sung many a new Psalm for new mercies all which temporall salvations and our thanksgivings for them were but prefigurations of that one onely salvation of his Church by Christ God incarnate whose powerfull triumphant death and holy life active and passive obedience hath gotten so glorious a victory to his everlasting praise over all the spirituall enemies of his elect and faithfull people which as it is the deliverance whereof all others were but adumbrations so ought it to have the praise above them all joyntly or severally A Quire of Angels are but fit to celebrate this great and Gospel salvation the good news whereof ought much more to set the spirituall Preists and people of God on work to praise him for it that are saved by it 2 The heathen people have admired our salvations and wondrous deliverances many a time which the Lord hath wrought for us in their sight and hearing But they shall have much more cause to admire their own when God shall proclaim the year of Jubilee to the Gentiles and bring them by the redemption of the Messiah which is at hand out of the power of Hell sin death and darkness setting wide open to them the doore of life that were shut out and Preaching salvation of free-grace to all the world according to his promise 3 The promised Messiah which was to come of the seed of Israel our Father and in whom is to be accomplished all those covenanted engagements and Gospel promises made with Abraham of grace and mercy pardon and atonement God in faithfulness and fulness of time hath sent him in whom all the nations of the earth are to be blessed for the benefit both of Jews and Gentiles whose all-sufficient merit and common salvation shall in the fame and promulgation of it extend it self by a gracious and free tender to all people in all places of the world without exception our God is their God in and through Christ and his salvation both ours and theirs they being through grace adopted and ingrafted into one stock with us the faithfull seed of faithfull Abraham every where sharers in the blessing 4 5 6 We a corner of the world a few in comparison of the whole O how were we wont to resound and eccho out the Honour and praises of the Lord in that onely Temple with all manner of musicall Instruments and Voices for our temporall and comparatively petty deliverances from earthly enemies and humane captivities and imbondagements O with what ineffable rejoycings in the superlativest manner we could devise did we magnifie the Lord and set the Crown of all glory upon his head How much more now are his praises to exceed when as all the earth is his Church Christ himself the Saviour and the termes to and from which we are saved are heaven and hell the subject of his salvation our pretious souls as well as mortall bodies both redeemed not onely into a capacity but certainty of spirituall and eternall life and freed from death of both sorts What praises are enough for this how can the redeemed of the Lord each whereof is a Temple and each Temple a Quire sufficiently extoll the Lord the King Christ Jesus dead and risen yea ascended into glory Go not less in the praises of such a Saviour for his salvation in the universall Catholick Church than we did for ours in our particular nationall Sinagogue But let your faith praise him in full assurance your joy in heart-ravishment your love by being such as many waters cannot quench your hope anchored within the vail Let all these graces by a joynt harmony like the voices and instruments of the Temple be sublimated to their highest sphear of activity in the celebration of
in pieces lifts it on high with the greater violence to dash it against the ground 11 Thy poor Church O Lord whom I personate to thee it is even at sun-setting it is but a shadow of a Church and people no substance or Being left and that shadow too is extinguishing it is expiring like the shadows that towards sun-setting now are and anon are not so soon as the sun is gone down Like the grass that is mown withered with the sun and sapless such are thy people miserably parched with grief and sorrow and utterly comfortless 12 Thus it is with thy Church she is at last gasp she hath as it were received the sentence of death in her self But thou that art her God her support and strength canst never die nor she as considered in thee interessed in thy faithfulness though in outward appearance she be perishing yet thy truth past in promise to her which is thy self cannot fail thou wilt certainly remember to make it good to the uttermost period even to the Worlds end shall it endure and therefore so shall thy Church as low as it is brought at present 13 Therefore Lord though we seem to be dying our faith begins to sprout we are in hope that these our greatest extremities are thine immediate opportunities and that as thou hast lifted us up and cast us down so now thou casts us down to lift us up Yea we are very confident our sorrows are shorter-lived than we that we shall out-live them for all this yea we shall see a speedy end of them and that thou art even now about to shew thy self for us and to restore thy Church and in mercie pardon her sins which thou hast punished all this while and suddenly ease her of her miseries which she hath so long undergone and make Sion that was the glorie of the whole earth flourish again for as thou art mindfull of thy promise so are we that is that livens our faith and clears our heart even the thought of the expiration of the seventy years which is now drawing on the time appointed prophesied and promised by thee to end our captivitie and restore us to mercy which time is now accomplished revives our hopes 14 For such is the love thy servants bear to thee thy worship and the place appointed for it where thou hast promised thy presence that it is not the devastations which before hand they know they shall find there that does any whit discourage them no they are joyed to think that ever they shall set footing there and see that sacred rubbish that remains of that glorious fabrick what travel or pains so ever they undergo which they purpose to re-edifie 15 When thou hast thus wonderfully brought about our restauration after so long captivitie and the re-edification of that thy ruinated Temple what an amazement shall it put the heathen into how shall they admire thine omnipotencie that thus raised the dead and saved us as a brand out of the fire Yea the Princes and potentates of the whole earth hearing shall be strucken with astonishment at so glorious and Almightie a work 16 When the time comes which is now at hand that both thy spiritual and local Sion O Lord shall be restored and repaired by thee thy worship and worshippers in statu quo O how glorious wilt thou then appear in the eyes of Jews and Gentiles 17 And this be confident of that as God at this time hath extraordinarily stirred up his people to hope and pray to be delivered out of his destitute condition and made them more than ordinarily sensible of the loss of their countrey and happie priviledges they there enjoyed and ardently desire to return thither again so will he effect it and not let them lose their labour and pray in vain 18 This deliverance like that out of Egypt shall be upon everlasting record and renown for all posteritie and after-ages to admire and be strengthned thereby in the faith of Gods all-sufficiencie truth and grace And those of us that shall be gathered together again into the land of Judah in a formed bodie and an orderly way of worshipping the Lord from out this confusion and Chaos where we are neither a people nor a Church but a scattered mixture of vagrant folk O how shall we jointly praise the Lord and his power that hath thus raised us from the grave and as it were created us again out of the very dust nay the nothing whereinto we are resolved as Christ shall his Church 19 For from heaven which his sanctuarie was wont to represent hath the Lord heard and seen our moans and miseries though he be there in unaccessable glorie and majesty yet from that height hath he vouchsafed to pitie us here below that are no better then the earth we tread on 20 And to hear the groans we sent up to him in that sorrowful condition and save the lives and restore the liberties of his people a poor remainder of them who were destined to death and destruction aswel as the rest that they killed in hot bloud having sworn to root us all out every mothers son and not leave us a name upon earth 21 This shall the Lord do to the end his people so heard and so saved may magnifie the glorious power and rich grace of God in Sion as aforetime and praise him in Jerusalem his royal Citie and place of special residence 22 Which they shall do when they are embodied there again and reduced from that dissipation and confusion they now lie under which shall be a lively adumbration of the calling of the Gentiles and the gathering of Church and Kingdom from out the Kingdoms of the earth every where to believe in and and worship him many whereof shall be won and induced to give in their names unto him by that great deliverance like as when that great Jubile and goal-delivery by Christ himself shall be which is not far behind 23 Long have we looked for his coming and much hath his people suffered in the profession of his truth and for it in the interim the whilest they have lived in expectation of that happiness even to the loss of many yea almost of all his whole Church here in Babylon as must be the lot of the Church inhabitant in this world to suffer even death it self in way to the end the salvation of their souls 24 But I put my self before the Lord in the name of his faithful people and poor Church still remaining The ciii PSALM 2 O thou soul of mine that art of such transcendent excellencie to all sublunarie created beings and so adapted for to praise the Lord above them all do not thou burie thy talent in a napkin nor steward it unseeming thy trust to whom he hath committed such praise-worthie endowments and on whom he hath bestowed such thank-worthie benefits natural and divine which
it were a sensible creature and dejected even to trembling and amazement at the dispensations of his frowns and displeasure the great stupendious mountains are but as stubble to the fire if the Lord do but actuate the least token of his anger upon them they also are extreamly troubled and affrighted or annihilated and consumed for all their greatness like other things 33 Such are the works of God and so resplendent his greatness and goodness in them as that not a day shall go over my head wherein I will not out of the serious consideration and happy impression they make upon my spirit give glorie to God and will sing their praises to him day by day not for a fit or in a humor as hypocrits do when he humours them but how ever it go with me in weal or woe him will I worship and his name will I magnifie nothing shall hinder whilest God lends me life 34 I will not as most men do overlook his works and see nothing praise-worthy in them the commonness of them shall not so blind mine eyes but I will consider them and his praise-worthy attributes that shine forth in them I will not let mine heart stick in the creature it shall be my foot-stool to lift me up to the Creator to take a view of his excellencies and properties there shall mine heart lay out it self and suck in their sweetnesses which shall rejoice and establish it because of my relation to and interest in such a God so wonderfully qualified I will improve my meditation into application my thoughts shall not be meerly speculative but practical to the warning and working of my heart usefully towards God when my head is imployed about the creature 35 Those that will not honour and serve such a God that hath done all these things furnished the earth with such excellent commodities whereof they reap the benefit it is pitie they should live upon it to devour the creature without magnifying the Creatour especially they that abuse so much goodness and turn grace into wantonness making the creature against its nature to disserve the Lord by their perverting the use of it unto sin and Idolatrie I would such were in their graves that discontent God and discommode the godly But what ever others do O my soul do thou thy duty muster up all his mercies meditate all his works be thou affected by them to praise him for them and return the glorie of his Attributes that shine forth in them And all yee whose souls are like mine even all that are faithfull and upright in heart do as I do let him have his due praises as well from you as from me The cv PSALM This Psalm made by David as appears by part of that song upon the Arks remove to Ierusalem 1 Chron. 16. Exciteth the people of Israel to be thankfull to God to praise him and in faith to seek him for all that he hath done in the behalf of them and their fore-fathers of old in that he chose them entred covenant with them of all the earth for which covenant sake he had so infinitely befriended them ever since in the Patriarks sojournings Iosephs preferring Israels preserving in Egypt and wonderfull deliverance thence their provision and conduct in the wilderness and possession of Canaan and lastly shews the final cause of all the service of God and what should be the result His praise 1 AFter so many and great mercies as God hath afforded you above all people even to the setling the Ark of his presence amongst you upon his holy hill the resting place of it and him be not unmindfull of nor ungratefull for them but pour out your souls in thankfull acknowledgements of them all to the Lord especially of this tending so much to the perfecting and full accomplishment of the happie condition of this Church and Kingdom so long since promised and foretold and to that purpose frequent this place of his special residence here to worship him pray to him and praise him yea every where where you come and have opportunitie publish the great things he hath done from time to time and the wonders he hath wrought in behalf of his chosen Israel to get him glorie both amongst Jews and Gentiles 2 Make it your business to praise the Lord every way and by all manner of means sing forth his praises with heart and voice in Psalms solemnly sung and Quire-like with all the Art and Melodie that musical instruments added thereunto can make and at your own houses as well as at his busie your selves about him when you have not opportunitie to glorifie him one way do it another way speak and discourse of him and his works wrought for you to the keeping them alive in memorie and affections both your own and others at home and abroad as you have occasion 3 Make your boasts of God ye that are so nearly related to him both of what he hath done and of what he is able and hath promised to do for you be strong in faith and with assured hope and confidence rejoyce in the Lords future favour and grace to his people have no doubts nor fears to the contrarie onely frequent his sanctuary and there worship him and open your hearts in faithfull prayer unto him 4 You know where the Lord is to be sought and where he will be found his Ark is both the pledge of his strength and favour there you may have them for asking therefore be not lazie lose not such pearls for the digging though it cost you some travel yet such gains will quit your cost bestir you therefore come often at least as oft as he requires you and your posteritie after you keep him now you have him never forsake him and he will never forsake you 5 And when you do come come warm in affection carrie along in your hearts the faithfull and gratefull memorie of what wonderfull works he hath alreadie heretofore wrought in your behalfs the better to possess you of his power and good will towards you and to animate you in faithfull prayer towards him that you have found so faithfull and true of his word both of promise to you and of judgements to your enemies as he threatened 6 What I have spoken by way of exhortation I speak it to you and you onely that are the Israel of God heirs of promise the people of his covenant which he made with Abraham your father and his faithfull and obedient servant who as you come of him so I exhort you to inherit and imitate his graces that his God may be yours as also your more immediate father Jacob that holy Patriarch chosen of Gods free grace and you in him to be his peculiar Church and people when as his elder brother Esau and the Edomites his posteritie were and are rejected and given up to serve other gods yea all the world but you 7 He onely is the
canst give me or do for me shall better please me and more oblige me to praise and thank thee with an honest gratuitous heart and conversation than thy teaching of me by thy word and spirit to know and do thy commandments the onely righteous rule of faith and manners 8 O Lord my purpose of heart is to keep thy commandments and to walk exactly in faith love and obedience as thou enjoynest but alas I know mine own imbecillity and the necessity of thy continuall inablement hereunto by thy spirit and grace which if withdrawn I am at a loss therefore Lord in pitie of my weakness and in prosecution of the good work begun in me that desire to fear thy name leave me not to my self nor lead me not into temptation to buckle with it in mine own strength let no sinne cause separation though correction but remember mercy and renew in me a right spirit when I do go wrong as who doth not Beth. The second letter of the Hebrew Alphabet signifying the second part 9 Young men are aptest to go astray and therefore had need to be inquisitive and circumspect of themselves and their wayes how to avoid the pollutions of mind and manners whereunto their age prompts them with a more than ordinary aptitude and doubtless I speak it knowingly the onely remedy for such distemperature is for them to be conversant in thy word and thence to observe with a child-like disposition what pleaseth and displeaseth thee their heavenly father and in conscience thereunto carefully to regulate their inward and outward man accordingly by believing and obeying 10 O Lord thou knowest my heart to be perfect with thee for thou hast made it so how that I have neither been partiall nor unsincere in mine obedience but entirely endeavoured alwayes in all things to please thee as desirous above all things of thy grace and favour fearing to forfeit it which good Lord grant I may never do by going astray from thy precepts therefore I beseech thee watch over me that no temptation mislead me on the right or left hand out of the way of thy commandments in which I desire to walk from one end of my life to the other without deviating 11 I have Lord stored up thy word in mind and memory especially such and so much of it as I knew was of present and practicall concernment to me in my condition with full purpose of heart to keep close thereunto and not sinfully to suffer my self to be seduced there-from what ever happened 12 Thou Lord art onely blessed in and of thy self from whom as from a fountain flowes forth all derived blessedness unto thy creature which thou art wont to confer most upon them that please thee best as a gracious remuneration of their love and service Lord therefore teach me to know and enable me to do thy will revealed in thy word that I may partake thy blessedness be sharer in thy holiness and happiness here and hereafter 13 As I have found thy law usefull to me by my knowledge of it and framing my course of life according to it so have I endeavoured to make it to be to others and therefore have I according to my measure of light and the duty of my place and office taught it publickly and privately not concealing any truth I knew might make for thy glory and their edifying when I had oportunity of time and occasion 14 My delight and care I bless thee for giving me such an heart hath been more to hear understand and practise those things which in thy word are testified to be thy will and more sweet peace and consolation have I had when I have been so happy as to attain the knowing and doing of them than they that set their hearts to heap up riches when they have their desire of opulency and affluence 15 Therefore whereas worldlings cast in their minds and occupy their thoughts how to enhance their earthly store because their delight is there my meditations shall be otherwayes imploied my care and thoughts shall be how to know more and practise better thy will revealed for therein is my delight and thereto will I bend my mind studying how best to please thee 16 To know and do what pleaseth thee shall be a pleasure unto me yea nothing shall more delight me and therefore am I fully purposed to make thy word the subject of my meditation day and night and the rule of mine obedience in weal and wo. Gimel The third letter of the Hebrew Alphabet signifying the third part 17 Lord thy promises to thy people are comprehensive of all good things as thou hast made them so fulfill them Let me thy servant reap the blessed fruits of thy grace and bounty according to them touching life temporall and spirituall grant me both and what conduces unto both as a faithfull creatour and gracious redeemer that by grace I may live both the life of grace and nature 18 Lord thou knowest what great impediments there are that hinder our knowledge and acquaintance with thee even in those things thou hast revealed of which yet we are ignorant and seeing we see not there being a two-fold vail that interposeth betwixt a right understanding and them the one over our hearts blindly mistaking the mind and meaning of the spirit and stumbling at the stumbling stone the letter The other over thy law and covenant it self exprest in dark and typicall umbrages and dispensations full of wonderous divine excellency in their signification and antitypicall meaning but impossible to be understood but by thy more than litterall revelation Therefore dispense thy spirit who onely knows the mind of God and can onely make it known unto thy servant draw aside thy curtaines of my blindness and thy laws darkness that in thy light I may see light and be made able to behold the mysticall and spirituall tenderness of thy whole law and covenant both in the morall typicall dispensation of it which unfolded to a spirituall eye are admirable and ravishing portraying as in a table the divine history and mistery of mans redemption and salvation with all that heavenly wisdome free-grace and Almighty power that shines therein 19 I am thine and properly belong to another world onely here I must for a time lead a transient life because it is thy will more than mine who though I am in the world yet not of the world but in mind and heart estranged from it therefore seeing it is thy pleasure that I must live mine appointed time to serve thee on earth take it into consideration what divine light and guidance is requisite so to do and vouchsafe me it proportionably least I wander out of thy way the world and flesh with which I here converse being strangers and estranged thereunto and apt to mislead me if thy word and spirit be not alwayes a light and guide unto me 20
which as thou hast commanded me so also hast thou effectually over-powered enabled me by thy spirit to rest in assured hope of thy faithfulness and my happiness thereby 50 Throughout all my long and tedious triall where with thou afflictedst me I have nothing to bear up upon but this and I bless thee for it this serves the turn to do it thy promise through faith doth comfort and cordialize my heart and hath done many a time when to sence and reason I have been a dead man 51 My faith and I for my faiths sake have been exceedingly slighted and scorned by mine enemies men of proud and carnall minds yet have I neither been afraid nor ashamed of my cause or confidence but haue stuck to thy promises in faith and obedience waiting the fulfilling of them 52 I was ever confident that as mine enemies had their time so thou wouldest have thine and that I should see thee as just in reward and punishment as heretofore when by miracle thou savedst thy people and destroyedst thine and their adversaries the consideration hereof knowing thee to be the same unchangeable God in omnipotency and faithfulness hath alwayes born up my heart comfortably in hope of no worse success 53 And were it not for thy word of promise and works of power and providence that the faith of these are a stay to me I were of all men most miserable for the horrid insolencies unjust violences of my wicked and graceless enemies that have no fear of God before their eyes but reject both thee and thy precepts it makes me tremble to think of it and the heavy judgements that will befall them for it so at present I feel the evil effects thereof being driven to extream straits and perplexities both of body and mind by these impious lawless wretches 54 For my life is no better to me by their persecution and prosecution of me from place to place than a perpetuall pilgrimage so that my dwelling is no dwelling for I am in a continuall peregrination restlesly changing my station sometimes in caves sometimes in desarts and sometimes in exile and banishment yet every where and at all times the memory and meditation of thine engagements and promises concerning me which bind thee by grace as laws do us by duty and are thy statutes as well as are thy commandments have cheared up my heart and were as my songs and instruments of musick heretofore were wont to be unto me at leasurable times in mine own house 55 I have made it my imployment and set my seriousest thoughts on work upon the minding and meditating thy faithfulness power and justice when others have been refreshing their bodies with rest in the night season then have I been refreshing my weary and carefull mind with pondering thee in thine excellencies O Lord and have been so setled in mind thereby as I have taken up a resolution by carnall and sinfull shifts never to prevaricate what ever come of me but to persist in faith and holiness to the end 56 These soul supportations renewed graces and heart comfortings the Lord vouchsafed me in the meditations of him his promises and properties because I was conscionable and carefull to walk alwayes in all things to his well-pleasing therefore did he reward and sustain me with these divine cordialls and comforts in the time of my comfortless peregrination Cheth The eighth letter of the Hebrew Alphabet signifying the eighth part 57 The comforts and confidences of worldly men are in worldly things there portion is here below in things I bless my God too low for me who have no happiness contentment or confidence short of God who is all in all to me and as Lord thou art mine so I have fully purposed to be thine and to yield thee faithful and fruitful obedience in dependencie on thy promises and conformitie to thy precepts 58 Lord thou knowest what value I have alwayes set on thy favour how above all blessings I have lain at thee for that as more to me than all besides so that before and above all have I preferred and sought it as my choicest and chiefest happiness and therefore beg of thee that I may ever be blessed with thy grace mercie and truth vouchsafed and fulfilled according to promise 59 Fearful was I to offend and forfeit that thy favour I set so much by and therefore was alwayes solicitous and thought-ful of the steps I took whether they tended to thy pleasing or displeasing and if at any time by temptation or frailty I began to be misbiassed or that actually I deviated before I was awar I quickly through thy grace recollected my self and faced about 60 When I found mine errour I soon quit it no reasonings of flesh and bloud prevailed to make me persist but by the power of thy grace I broke through all impediments to serve and please thee 61 Wicked men by wicked wayes have prospered and thriven and by combination have turned me out of all and enriched themselves with my spoils but for all that I have stuck to my tackling held close to faith and a good conscience in believing and doing as I was appointed and left their punishment and my vindication unto thee 62 And it no whit repents me but exceedingly rejoyceth me of that thy gracious supportation of my faith yea such peace of conscience it brings with it and such a seal of special favour it is unto me according to thy righteous ingagements to be thus inabled to walk holily as that the thoughts thereof are more sweet and refreshing to my mind than sleep to my nature and make me suspend the one even in the season thereof to feed upon the other and make thankful repayment of my debts and endearments contracted thereby 63 Thy wayes and they that walk in them are my delight I fear thee my self so I love all those that do so I have no pleasure as not in wickedness so nor in wicked men but the out-casts of the world such as I my self am that fear to offend thee and desire to please and serve thee these have my heart and with such will I stand and fall live and die 64 As a faithful Creator thou hast plentifully provided for man and beast nature is well stored with varieties of created conveniencies for all kinds of Beings upon earth which also are mercifully continued though long since forfeited by the fall But O Lord there is one thing necessarie and a mercie more worth than all these and that is to be able to see and seek a happiness that is above nature and that grows in no earthly soil to have a frameable and teachable heart Lord grant me that write thy Law in it and let both thy precepts and promises be believed and obeyed by me That is my desire Teth. The ninth letter of the Hebrew Alphabet signifying the ninth part 65 I have
not found thy grace or truth to fail me but as I have endeavoured to approve my self a good servant so O Lord have I found thee a good master true of thy promise and as good as thy word 66 Lord give me a right understanding of things that differ let me not mistake falshood for truth nor evil for good but teach me to know the thing that good is and dispose mine heart and affections practically thereunto for so far as I have been taught by thy spirit I have gladly imbraced and conscionably obeyed and not refused either belief or subjection to any thy commandments 67 My very afflictions through thy grace and faithfulness are become wholsom physick and good documents to me for I was apt to wander out of thy way until I smarted for my folly but now I have learned another lesson and have ever since run another course kept close to thy will revealed in thy word without hearkening to the dictates of corrupt reason tending to self-pleasing or self-saving which before were too prevailing 68 Goodness of all kinds O Lord is natural to thee so it is not to us in any kind for there is none good but God and flows plentifully from thee as all creatures but man especially can witness of whose bountie they have their beings and those beings their subsistencies all the world over but Lord it is thy saving goodness that I pray to partake of my soul is more to me than my bodie and grace than nature therefore do I beg special and supernatural grace and wisdom to know and do thy will which I prefer before common and natural benefits the pleasing of thee before either profit or pleasure to my self of thy goodness grant me this which is part of the divine nature and onely makes man like to God in being and doing good which I would both be and do 69 My proud disdainful enemies that fear not God nor care not what wickedness they commit in word or deed to discredit me have falsly aspersed me for a traiterous conspiratour and that it is my ambition not thy determination that puts me upon expectancie of the Kingdom but I am resolved this slaunder shall not stagger me but in confidence of thy truth and mine own integritie I will persist to serve thee in sinceritie of heart who I know wilt vindicate mine innocencie and make appear their forgerie 70 Their worldly pomp and plentie hath made their hearts so gross and carnal as that their consciences are benummed and sensless and their minds puft up with pride and arrogance they sin without restraint and scoffe at pietie as pusillanimitie but thy Law is my delight though not theirs I am troubled when I break it and glad at heart when I do and can keep it through thy gracious enablement 71 Yea such is my love to holiness that I never think it a dear purchase whatsoever it cost me and therefore value mine afflictions which in mercie thou sentest to beget in me a teachable and tractable heart to thy commandments above their prosperitie that hardeneth their hearts in ignorance and carnallitie 72 Thy word and Law written in my heart effectually taught and wrought there by thy spirit however it is counter to my corruptions yet because as it is thine so pliable hast thou made my will to thy will even therefore do I praise it and apprehend my self more enriched with my knowledge of it and love to it than if I had the wealth the world so dotes on in never so great abundance Iod. The tenth letter of the Hebrew Alphabet signifying the tenth part 73 Thou Lord that madest me was pleased to difference me from other creatures by endowing me with natural capacities above them so that though I have lost my created perfections of righteousness and holiness yet not my created and passive capacities of thy renewing them again in me my soul hath the same faculties and my bodie the same parts and Organs thou gavest me at the first in and upon which thou art able to re-imprint thine image vouchsafe me I pray thee thy renewing grace more and more powerfully enlighten my dark understanding encline my whole man O Lord to the loving and obeying of thy whole will I am still thy creature renew thy likeness 74 If Lord thou wilt strengthen thy graces in me and enable me to hold out stedfast in faith and holy obedience to the end and then reward thine own graces in me with a happie issue and close of things how will it rejoyce the hearts of thy servants that fear thee and hope in thee when they shall see me have overcome all my miseries and be possessed of my hopes and thy promises because of thy gracious enabling me to hold out in affiance of thy word it will affect them greatly 75 I know O Lord that thou art righteous in what thou sayest and doest thy word and thy works are consentaneous thy faithfulness is fulfilled in my very afflictions though seemingly otherwayes thy judgements and mercies and shall conduce to bring about thy promises made to me 76 Let I pray thee thy mercie of favour and grace long since promised me be in the faith of it a continual comfort to me yea Lord comfort me thy servant chosen and called with the accomplishment of it according to thy word 77 Make me inwardly sensible of those tender affections which thou bearest me that they may help to revive me in this comfortless condition whilest it lasts and express them also in outward manifestations let me see thy pitie and compassion in a comfortable deliverance and conclusion that I may live free from these troubles which makes my life a very death for how ever by frailtie I have and cannot but offend thee yet thou knowest thou hast mine heart and good will in all things to serve and obey thee that is my desire and in that I delight 78 Let not me therefore miscarrie by the hands of proud men and evil doers that are lawless and scorn subjection Lord let them miscarrie in their designs and evil purposes for thou knowest how contrarie to their consciences they have persecuted me as nocent when as they know me to be an innocent person but their dealing shall not make me forget my dutie I will keep mine eye still fixed upon that and walk stedfastly in the way of thy precepts in confidence of my reward and their punishment 79 Give me such remarkable deliverance and so change the scene that those of thy people that truly fear thee and have been savingly enlightened by thee whom my afflictions have staggered or that have been misled by delusions and false reports may see convincing signs of thy special favour to me and purposes concerning me and thereby be encouraged and invited in the faith of thy promises and my innocent cause to take part and joyn with me against mine
160 Thy promises have lost nothing of their virtue and vigour by their long standing but are as thou thy self art in goodness and faithfulness to thy people the same that ever they were and so shall all thy righteous ingagements be to the end no one word shall fall to the ground that thou hast spoken in way of promise to be believed in or of reward to be hoped for but shall certainly be fulfilled to thy people and Church in one age as well as another hereafter as heretofore and now as well as either Schin The 21 letter of the Hebrew Alphabet signifying the 21 part 161 Mine enemies as they have not been few so nor mean for the chief have been chiefly against me men of might and greatness that should yield protection and right to the innocent and oppressed contrarily they have turned their power upon me to oppress wrong me to whom I never gave cause of offence but I am I bles thee for it not so transported with the fear of man as to forget God thy word the dutie and reverence I ow to it hath taken such rooting in my heart that no earthly powers can extirpate it 162 Whensoever I have been hard beset by temptation and thy word through grace hath seasonably minded me of my faith and dutie it hath joyed mine heart beyond expression no victor hath joyed more in the unexpected spoils of a conquered enemy 163 All false wayes and refuges are an abomination to me my mind and affections can entertain no treatie nor agreement with them they are utterly against the hair with me but thy Law is as consentaneous and connatural as they are contrarie and heterogenial I love it at my heart 164 Continually does my heart ejaculate thy praises every foot am I lifting up my soul in way of thankful acknowledgement of thy grace vouchsafed me in seasonable and effectual revealing thy righteous truths unto me for my support and guidance dayly as I have need which draws forth praises proportionably 165 What outward troubles soever happen unto thy people yet in the sincere filial affection they bear to thy word and will to live up and walk according to it herein do they enjoy transcendent peace and happiness surmounting all miserie for so they know they please thee and are accepted of thee and having God and a good conscience on their side what can trouble them And for my part what thy Law requires that have I constantly and diligently endeavoured to perform both by firm believing and exact walking Thou Lord knowest my hope of salvation has been in thee and thee onely in all my troubles and my wayes and works have been ordered by thy precepts not by mine own corrupt suggestions 167 Nor have I served thee either formally or hypocritically with outward shews or for base ends in the wayes and works of obedience but with an honest sincere heart have I done thy commandments in love to thy righteous will testified in thy word which hath my heart above all things 168 Thy whole covenant and dispensation of thy will as well in one thing as another have I in faith and obedience carefully observed without willfull swerving Thou knowest what I say to be true who from heaven hast beheld me every step I have gone in this my troublesome pilgrimage of persecution and as thine eye hath been upon me so hath mine eye been upon thee all the while as upon an all-seeing righteous judge and gracious rewarder to aw and incourage me Tau The 22 letter of the Hebrew Alphabet signifying the 22 part 169 Lord let me find favour in thine eyes and my earnest prayer have audience at thy throne of grace in a thing so reasonable and consonant to thy mind as is this my request to wit that thou wouldest give me a good and perfect understanding of thy will effectually to be taught me by thy spirit at all times and in all things as occasion requires and thy word dictates and which is no more than thy word promises 170 And as I pray to be heard concerning a good understanding to guid me in the way so also that I may have a gracious audience and comfortable answer concerning the end and determination of these my troubles Lord deliver me from them as well as order me in them for so also is thy promise 171 If thou wilt be the guid of my life and powerfully instruct me how to walk well-pleasingly all along this hour of temptation and time of trial in the end thereof when thou shalt have done so I will pour forth praise to thee in solemn wise at thy sanctuarie 172 Then will I magnifie the faithfulness and righteousness of thy word and teach others to trust in it and walk by it for that they shall be sure to find in the end as I have done that all it sayes is yea and Amen certain and infallible materially righteous it is in it self and effectually so to all that keep and observe it 173 Lord take my part who have taken thine strengthen me against and deliver me from mine enemies and out of this my perillous state fight for me for I fight for thee against the world and the flesh and have chosen to imbrace thy precepts before their allurements and preferred thy will in all things before their suggestions to the contrarie 174 I have not sinfully shifted as I have been tempted to do but have persevered in a faithful expectation and hopeful longing still for thy promised salvation and deliverance for O Lord thou knowest mine heart is fixed upon nothing with contentment and confidence but thy covenant-dispensation for my wellfare and happiness 175 Do thou therefore tender me accordingly let it not be in the power of mine enemies to deprive me of my soul by taking away my life but preserve it as thou hast redeemed it from destruction that I may live by thy mercie and not perish by their cruelty that seek my death so shall I lay out and spend the life thou givest me in faithful affectionate praises of thee all my dayes Lord let thy righteousness be imployed for me in my defence and preservation against mine enemies their cruelty and oppression according as thy word holds forth for me to trust in and rely on 176 In this wilderness of troubles that I am in driven up and down from thy presence and people like a sheep wandred from the flock and out of the Shepheards ken I have I humbly confess lost my way and stept aside out of the direct and streight path I should have trod by infirmitie and frailtie O thou that art my Lord and God the shepheard of my soul whose I am and whom I desire to serve bring me back again into the un-erring path of thy precepts and enjoyment of sweet communion with thee thy people by freedom from these my troubles
comparison for brotherly love is a celestial benefit how the spiritual dew is dispensed from God in heaven on those holy consecrated mountains Sion and Moriah where he vouchsafes his presence unto his people who resort thither to worship him and where they meet with soul-enriching graces and consolations othergets blessings than the dew of Hermon which makes them abound in faith and godliness to their own eternal as well as temporal felicitie such like is peace and love among the Israel and people of God it self is a special blessing from heaven and brings with it all manner of blessings from thence both temporal and spiritual if ever we mean to be rich and happie this is the way to live and love as sons of one father and mother God and the Church members of one body under one head the Messiah as all Israel shall be through love and obedience to David and his successours ruling in Sion as types of Christ. The cxxxiv. PSALM David being a man of fervour and affection in the service of God gives a watch-word to the watch-men of the Temple the Priests and Levites and in them to gospel-Ministers not regardlesly to passe over their duties but to be imployed for the whilst as Christ himself is for ever in praying for the people and Church of God and blessing both God and them and that in a proportionable zeal here to Christ and his saints in heaven in their respective imployments there See the title of the 120 Psalm 1 YOu that are by the special appointment and ordination of God chosen as Christ himself from among all your brethren and preferred to the honour of sanctuarie-administration continually in his presence consider the place you hold whom and what you personate even Jesus Christ in his Priestly office at the right hand of God who ever liveth to make intercession and offer thanks-givings for his Church to his father have that allwayes in your eie and be active suitably stand not idle in your offices nor keep not sleepie centry in the sanctuarie but as your turns come to watch do service there as well night as day rouse up your spirits call to mind the moral meaning of your imployments which is to improve your nearer interest in God by virtue of your offices for the good of his Church and people as Christ does in heaven continually through Christ presenting to God in the Churches behalf the spiritual sacrifices of praise and thanks-giving for his mercies vouchsafed together with prayers and supplications for the continuation and constant gracious dispensation of them still as there is need 2 I say again busie and lay out your selves in those sacred and religious imployments of praise and prayer neither idle nor nifle out your time and Turn in the sanctuarie nor yet with formalitie or hypocrisie do you do your service to him as bare pretenders but as holy and real performers clap your wings in your night-watches let your hearts be in heaven and your hands in token of the fervour of your spirits lifted up thitherwards and so bless the Lord not betwixt sleeping and waking but with the whole soul and bodie too considering he whom you worship is a spirit and his proper place of residence is above in the heavens whose service there for condiscention sake you personate in the sanctuarie here in types shadows wherein you must not stick but by them mount up higher even to him where he is in spirit and faith externally manifested by suitable comportment of bodily action and expression such as are significant and adorative commensurable to Gods glorie and greatness your own hearts puritie faith and fervour and the Divine condition of the Church-Triumphant in heaven 3 Your office is double faced upward and downward you are in Christs stead like Jacobs ladder on which and by which blessings are to ascend and descend for as you are the mouth of the Church and people of God to offer him their thanks and praises blessing him continually in their behalfs as Christ does the father for the elect so likewise are you to be the mouth of God down to his people to bless them from him which doubtless is as an honourable so a full imployment if you set your selves to do it as it ought to be done with that zeal and reverence the Church oweth to her head and with that delight and love the head hath in and to his bodie and fellow-members Pray therefore for and as presenting the person of Jesus Christ that effectual mediatour in his name also faithfully bless ye the Israel of God that do worship him in Sion his place of residence with the blessings of his special protection and salvation who is the onely true God and Allmighty master of heaven and earth The cxxxv PSALM The Psalmist quickens up the people of Israel in general the Priests and Levites more particularly but most especially the faithful of both sorts to magnifie and praise the Lord and this he doth by way of argument taken from the congruitie delectabilitie and dutie of it from such a people to such a God who as he is greatly to be preferred for his self-sake and the excellent power that is in him so for the effects of it towards them the grateful memorie whereof should ever be upheld for his glorie and his peoples faith sake All other Gods being but puppits he onely is God and onely to be blessed as such especially of them that are his onely people and Priests his Church preferred by him of all the world to that honour who therefore ought to honour him how and where he will be worshipped 1 O That all sorts of people would consider their dutie of praising God conscionably to discharge it in spirit and power to magnifie him for his greatness as Lord of and over all yea for his excellent attributes and properties not onely absolute but relative of grace and goodness and for his alonenes for as there is no God like him so there is no God but him O ye servants of the Lord chosen by him and set apart for that purpose what ever others do forget not you your duties not onely of your persons but of your places to praise the Lord worthily with hearts enlarged with the apprehensions of him and his manifold excellencies 2 I mean ye Priests and Levites principally be you especially conversant in this service of praising the Lord in his holy Temple where you are priviledged to administer like to the glorified saints in heaven that stand in his presence for ever more praising the Lord. Yea and all others also that are admitted to the participation of grace and that worship him in his ordinances though at greater distance whether Levites or people whose persons and praises faithfully tendered in spirit are yet really accepted and graciously regarded by the God of Israel whose presence is as well in the courts which also are sanctified as in
been under sore dejections and grievous oppressions yet still upheld and in its lowest condition made to keep its feet to have a Being and raised in time to a well-being in despite of its potent adversaries by the Lord whose power many a time hath underpropt it and his grace restored it when it was low brought and who indeed in righteousness is pitiful to all that are wrongfully oppressed to right and relieve them and hath power to do it be their condition never so bad especially if they trust in him and seek to him whose Kingdom over the world is chiefly exercised in administring justice and mercie for and towards the afflicted 15 16 Whose goodness is as universal as his greatness and providencially extends it self to every creature that he hath made which also by instinct of nature it self waits upon providence seeks after and endeavours its own means of subsistence every one what is proper to its nature and kind as by and from God his ordination and especial dispensation thus acknowledging his supremacie both man and beast even the whole creation And he orderly in a suitable and seasonable manner supplies unto them food of several kinds in several seasons of both time and opportunitie for sustaining the nature and satisfying the hunger of all creatures of so many several kinds as are in the world and of every individual of each kind by his liberalitie and bountie so universally extended over the whole earth and providently dispensed to the sundry particulars in it which is onely then had when he gives it and therefore had because he gives it none being able to supply their own wants much less worthy to share in the honour of the worlds providing for both which is of the Lord alone who makes second causes instrumental to him and useful to man the power and governance of all creatures being his which therofore bringeth forth and increaseth because he appointeth and is satisfied because he dispenseth 17 Manifold dispensations there are in the world towards good and bad that seemeth strange to us but in this also is God and his government admirable and transcendently praise-worthy that nothing he does be it never so discrepant to humane reason and rules of policie amongst men but he is both righteous and holy in so doing for his will being the onely rule of both his works can none of them disaagree from either 18 His government and dispensation though it be to and over all yet principally and primarily doth it belong to the faithful as near as he seems to others yet is he far enough from them and as far as he seems from these who have the greatest share of adverse fortune in this life yet is he near unto them They that profess him publickly by adoration and worship and withal serve him sincerely in faith and affection that offer to find him fervent not fained prayer they shall be sure to find him a propitious God to a gracious heart accompanied with a holy life 19 Such as take care of him hee 'l take care of them they that fear to sin shall be satisfied with good such God will hear and answer graciously as hear and obey him conscionably and though sometimes by extraordinarie trials he may put them to it to ask yea crie hard for ease before they have it yet that is but to trie and exercise their graces with patient waiting and fervent importuning till the time the set time be come which he hath determined in himself as most opportune for him and them to be relieved and answered in and then though not till then they shall be sure of it when their fears are greatest and their hopes humanely least 20 The Lord will keep promise with all that fear to offend him out of love and desire to please him he may venture them but he will not lose them his eye is over and his hand under them for he has not many such that so love him nor therefore are there many that are so beloved of him and so they shall find that wickedly transgress against him that as he hath powerful grace in store to preserve the one so hath he vindicative justice to destroy the other which shall certainly fall to their lot every mothers son of them his Kingdom is administred by mercie and justice and so the good and bad shall find 21 My mind shall meditate of these thine admirable excellencies of several kinds exhibited to the world in general and thy people in particular both which are wholly under thy dominion and dispensation subject to thy greatness and sharers of thy goodness respectively common and special as also of thy mercie and justice My mouth shall extol them and praise thee the God of them that art so great in power so gracious in providence so rich in mercie and so severe in justice and let mankind in general in all times and places who ought to know thee under all and do know thee under most of these notions whereof they have dayly and frequent experience bless and magnifie thee in all thy holy attributes and properties that so shine forth in thy works of mercie power and righteousness all the world over in all the ages of it The cxlvi PSALM David exciteth all especially Gods people and most especially himself to praise the Lord principally by trusting in him and distrusting all but him Man both great and small being a perishable creature and God onely to be relied on but then that must be the true God and that also by a true faith acted upon his power goodness and never-failing faithfulness and that is every condition believing in God with a like never-failing stedfastness though our estate be various and miserable for that to the good he is ever graciously enclined and to the wicked quite contrarie As also for the perpetuitie and unchangeableness of his throne and dominion over his Church and people for their protection throughout all ages to the end of the world does the Psalmist again excite to praise him concluding as he began in this and so do every of these 5 concluding Psalms 1 2 AS it is the dutie so I wish it were the practise of all especially his people to be constant and conversant in praising God who himself is so constant and conversant in praise-worthie dispensations of several sorts and what I admonish others of I do much more so to my self that have cause beyond all men to praise the Lord and that with my whole heart throughout my whole life as well he deserves that I should spend and lay out my utmost strenght and best affections in praising him which I will be sure to do whilest my tounge can wag 3 4 But let your praises be real give God the praise of your faith which is thank worthie when in your hearts you set up his throne above all principalities and powers trust in him solely