behold this is no scantling parsimonious dowry it is Sanctuary-measure shaken and heapt together 2 Cor. 1.17 For our light affliction which is but for a 〈◊〉 worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternall weight of glory so that I can hardly perswade my selfe to let it bee called Affliction though but a light one though but for a moment not onely It is good for me that I have been afflicted Ps 23.4 but though I walke through the valley of the shadow of death I will feare no evill in that very walke for thou art with me and so is in some measure a heaven here when God is with me like that hereafter when I shall be with God Thy rod and thy staffe they doe already comfort me and call for a returne of gratitude there must be like a grace after the voyder a blessed be the Name of the Lord when he also taketh away as well as when he gives us Angels food nay this very blessed is that food for as to Christ upon earth John 4.34 to doe the will of him that sent him so to the Angels in heaven who take their name and office from this Mission to praise his name is their meat and drinke Pudeat tanto â—â—â—a velle caduca Quid Calo dabimus What shall we render unto the Lord Manil. we will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord nay though that other cup and the dregs thereof Ps 125.13 which must not passe from us be the way to it if with holy confidence we can affixe our fiat though a veruntamen goes along with it it will be a marke of Majesty that we are a Royall Priesthood especially when we imploy our selves in that most priestly office of blessing the Lord himselfe and giving thanks in all things Deo nullis rebus indigenti posito extra desiderium Seneca Tom. 2 lib. 2. cap. 30. referre nihilominus gratiam possumus and then quarrell with our owne giving of thanks as a too low and disproportioned acknowledgement impeaching that it selfe of some Ingrate Mixture Dignas sed pendere grates hand mortale opus est To conclude Stat. lib. 22. The heavens indeed may rejoyce and they that dwell in them the soules of the Saints there are separate as from their bodies so from the distractions and unsetlednesse in their worship which shake the Communion and divide the Remnant of the Saints who still weare their earthly Tabernacles This is the woe to the inhabitants of the Earth Rev. 12.12 and of the Sea for the devill is come downe amongst us of these last dayes having great wrath because he knoweth that he hath but a short time And I perswade my selfe hee spends all his subtilty upon this last Stratagem how to uphold and cherish a constant fewdand discontent by weakning that truth which he knows must be resolute and by protecting error and mistakes with strength of Armes and colour of Law which thus fortified he knowes will bee Resolute O Lord the hope of Israel the Saviour thereof in the time of trouble why shouldest thou be as a man astonied as a mighty man that cannot save Quid refert Dictis ignoscat Mutius an non FINIS Errata Page 1. line 24. read into p. 4. l. 4. r. it out ballance p. 5. l. 33. r. waves ibid. l. proud ibid. p. l. ult vanities p. 6. l. 5. Embry of wims p. 7. l. 3. Iuratus ib. p. l. 8. lay p. 27. l. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 b. p. l. 28. once p. 30. l. 10. owning ib. p. l. 14. branch p. 31. l. 13. adde to
some uses for that a thing in it selfe acknowledged and proved to be lawfull should by being commanded by lawfull authority become unlawfull is very unreasonable unlesse lawfull Magistrates be the only unlawfull things which he that sayes will pronounce himselfe at one against both King and Parliament and at other times to use other liberty is not forbidden and so no Tyrany used upon our Christian liberty Thirdly by the great benefit that accrues to the Congregation in having discreet well formed prayers and so not subject to the Temerity and impertinencies of the sudden effusions and the same still in constant use and so not strange or new to them but such as they may with understanding go along with the Minister and by the helpe of their memory the most ignorant may carry them away for private use he sayes by their memory not by their violence as some late Ignorants have done to carry away the Booke and all and generally those that want such helpes are by this meanes afforded them And lastly that by means of prescribed Liturgies Vnity of Faith and Charity is preserved To these let me adde another practize of our blessed Saviour and occurre to an objection which may perhaps infatuate some deceived minds for I have heard this to be the gain-saying discourse of some who instead of the Spirit of God have set up a selfe-spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that though our Saviour prayed in the very words which King David penned yet he never prayed againe the same prayer a point of the new Creed amongst Commander-Divines but that he did this also you shall finde in Mat. 26. v. 44. for he went away again and prayed the third time saying the same words and that as a preparatory to his sufferings which he saw at hand for behold he is at hand that doth betray me v. 46. perhaps to incourage mankinde after their owne common guise to give a more ample credit to imitation of the last words and actions of one ready to expire as being then even amongst our selves stript of all Pretence and Artifice and nothing else but plaine solid Truths so Lucretius tells us that the World is mans Theatre in which he personates others whilst he expects a continued date of life and is then only himselfe when he begins to dye Besides if it be true as he that doubts it is either an ignorant or a wilfull Atheist that by a mans owne words he shall be justified and by his owne words he shall bee condemned by thy words and by thy words Mat. 12.37 I cannot but presume that those words if they have not the only have yet a more eminent place in those actions which more immediately concurre and contribute to either our heaven or hell and least of all shall I make any scruple that our prayers either by the concomitancy or by the defect of the qualifications required to them are those words and amongst such those especially which are powred out by a publique Congregation and in a place defigned for that purpose which some call the besieging of heaven and the taking it by violence and the conquering of him who is Almighty all of them holy and significant raptures And to this purpose I take it is applicable that of our Saviour ushered in with that authoritatis formula I say unto you that if two of you shall AGREE on earth as touching any thing that they shall aske it shall be done for them of my Father which is in Heaven Mat. 18.11 where though no doubt the prayer of a single person when that very singlenesse is not evill as springing from an uncharitable separate humour is oft-times acceptable and hath its efficacy yet that God who containes within his One-selfe a Trinity Numero Deus impare gaudet does more liberally heare and grant the united prayers of many which strive to imitate God himselfe and in that very plurality to have but one heart and one minde and though in that verse but two are mentioned that does onely magnifie the mercy of God which will not bee restrayned though but for two's sake and yet he had rather be importuned by a cloud then by a drop with whom it is certainly unacceptable that the people should bee as clouds without raine round about and only the Pastours fleece like Gideons be wet as in Abrahams expostulation with God Gen. 18. the righteousnesse of the fifty had been more powerfull though of the ten only had prevailed to which interpretation the next verse does direct and admonish me where the Bell instantly calls for more company and better it were if it could ring all in for where two or three are gathered together V. 20. which agreement in prayer as it comprehends the object so that I can only pray with them who pray only to God and not with the Church of Rome which invocates Saints and Angells God being the only object of prayer which our Saviour himselfe hath taught me by a necessary exclusion of al others when he commands me to pray Our Father which compellation I am well aware is incompatible to Saint or Angell though they also are in Heaven holy David hath instructed me in the same lession Praise waiteth for thee O God Ps 65.1.2 O thou that hearest prayer so next this agreement comprehends the very matter which if I am not well assured that it is stampt for Orthodox by having pondered the whole substance of it before and past my assent upon it I may perhaps be there as an Auditour I cannot as a supplicant for if I goe to Church onely with an implicite faith and resolve to pray what ever he prayes that possesses the Deske or Pulpit at best is not this implicitenesse somewhat a kin to Popery and may not my very Prayer be turned into sin by owing the inadvertenuses and slips of him who follows no other rule but his peculiar sudden dictates Quicquid in Buccam Venerit at least gives them also leave to interpose of which my selfe have beene severall times a sorrowfull witnesse If it scape that brand does not the other twig of Popery reach and scourge it home which makes ignorance the mother of devotion and what security can wee have that in processe of time this very Surculus will not grow up to be an Arbor Thus like Sampsons Foxes though neither of them will be called Foxes which way soever their heads looke their designe is one to ruine and burne downe the graine whilst it yet ripens that which after its due growth would be our bread of life and since it is true that we receive not what we aske because we aske amisse doe we ever aske more amisse then when we aske wee know not what Or if I am not bound to let my assent waite implicitly upon his what ever ejaculations I must then either not pray at all like him in the Gospell who had not on the wedding garment but was speechlesse or else it
nullo fama rubore placet yet least some men swallow it as a rationall fancie I will a little melt off the paint and shew you its contrary face how it will looke most unlike it selfe and halt out of your sight from an apprehensive shame of its owne lamenesse at length only troubled that it cannot out-run the Chace Christ himself hath prescribed me a prayer a very set forme he hath givē me that as a guide to my devotiō wherby I might tread upright It is in this sense the foot of my soule that by it I may climbe those steps in Jacobs ladder which reach up to heaven just as he hath bestowed upon me fleshy limbs to trace that earth which he hath given to the sons of men Hee hath also inabled me with a gift and power to frame other supplications out of that fruitfull forme just as he hath imparted to me out of that equall docility indulged to the composition of whole mankinde how to make to my selfe a Crutch if he will be yet perverse and cry out still against my prescribed Iamenesse I shall satisfie my selfe in deeming it better to enter into life thus halt or maim'd rather then by having such feet of mine owne to be cast into everlasting fire But perhaps our Saviours owne prayer may escape scandall free and the blow be only meant at those of the Church because they say I have heard some say so the whole life of man must not be once guilty of repeating the same prayer twice and yet that part of our Letany O Son of David have mercy upon us was so farre from being reproved by Christ Math. 10.1.17.48 that I doubt not but the very repetition of it in the same words wrought the cure for the importunate persevering in his request under the very same formality and crying so much the more though many charged him that he should hold his peace though they had no commission for such a restraint upon his prayer did give a pregnant testimony of that strong Faith which our Saviour told him had made him whole and immediately he received his sight And that other part in the Te Deum prescribed to us Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty was more cheerfully entertained by that Lambe which sat upon the throne and his copartners in divine worship the Father and the Spirit for I may conceive there is a particular holy to each of them or else the prayer would be in a manner said thrice together which gives me the same advantage because the foure beasts did not cease day and night saying the same words Rev 4.8 concerning whom that reprooving prayer need not be used which is wont to impute darkenesse to us that God would open their eyes for as they were full of eyes within so none neede scruple but those eyes were full of light and illumination and in the holy Eucharist where wee use the same words we confesse them to be the voice of the Angels Archangels and all the Companies of Heaven I shall never conceive how any Companies upon Earth have better learnt to pray then all in Heaven But for the Church-prayers intirely as they lye for I would only speake of publique worship each mans private devotions I leave betwixt God and his Conscience as having no key to any closet but my owne If wee looke upon the naturall indowments of any single man be they as Mountainous as he shall please to thinke them I cannot in any reason but count it a deluded presumption that he would prefer his owne unpremeditated fluencies to the elaborate joynt-results of so many learned men who contrive ex instituto where he but stumbles or if the gift of the spirit be regarded I shall never doubt but God do's more plentifully powre out his spirit upon the legally representative Church imploring his aid then upon any one Member of it nor is this to shorten the hand of God which sure spreads it selfe farther in such a universall benevolence If he will still like the fained impotent not obtaining what he askes hold up his very crutch against me since to a resolved Contumacy a Sarcasme is more operative then a Conviction I shall only desire him to turne Baker as well as Canonist because else himselfe should only feed on crutches whilst the other eates up legs For these and many other reasons which you may more copiously imbibe from the obvious discourse of learned men then from the unaptnesse of my hand to write I would faine implore some liberty to tender consciences who are so well assured of the lawfulnesse and so much experienc't in the benefit of our Liturgy and wee hope this liberty will not be called licentionsnesse since wee rather conceive it a bridle then a spur to that because the property of that is to open an unlimited way for all to doe what is good in their owne eyes the uncheckt misdemeaning garbe of the very people of God when there was no King in Israel and this fixes its eye upon the establisht Lawes made by Protestants in defence of Protestanisme Judg. 17.16 and calls in them to succour T is St. Judes advice after he hath charged you to keepe your selves in the love of God looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus that your selves would shew love and mercy to your Neighbour that you would have compassion of some making a difference Jude 22. those towards whom the difference is recommended are they of a more tender nature then others as the late Annotations and certainely no tendernesse of so supple a nature as that of conscience declaring and proving it selfe to be only conscience without any adhesion of terrene mixture by the contented losse of all things else then which there is no higher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imaginable of sincere uningaged conscience which he that indeavours to force there may be an indeavour there cannot be a forcing will torture and vexe it as a thing that is rawe and make him cry out there is Death in the pot Idem facit occidenti I shall conclude this and leave all men to consider what that is they carry within their breast how blunt an argument the keenest sword will appeare when it incounters the minde which as no violence can kill so neither can it informe Those who have past their Minority in Religion and are growne up to the stature of men in Christ may be charitably presumed to have tryed and approoved their worship by fixt Principles which like the Rockes in the Sea are the same and unmooved what ever Waves oppose and breake themselves in the tumultuous conflict A Principle which I have already digested is not the lesse a Principle to me because some other man delights in contrary Rudiments the Milke of the Gospel is not the lesse sincere though it be not served after the Geneva-fashion those whose moderne yeasterdayes constitution of Government require it so let them have it as it trills from