rest of it much more polished for his owne gloryâ—… and for the good of all his people whereunto I trust during life I shall not be wanting as his goodnesse shall vouchsafe to assist me PAg. 7. l 7 put out those 7 lines twice repeated p 8 l 10. for our read this p. 10 l 16. p. 91 l. 5. unto p 99 l 3. but moreover l 7 third general p 103. may 109 l. 1. seeke all p 157 marg for Deut reade Genes p 161. l 2. for to do â—… as p 164 l. 1. admitted l 4. these pag 189. l 5. as at Marg l. 17 Deut 30 29. p 220. marg lin 1. That p 291 l. 15. not onely p 300. l. 20. for 〈◊〉 read may est p 306. l. 10. run on p. 3â—…6 l. 18. for best most pag. 348. l â—…9 and. p. 384. l. 2. have A PREPARATIVE to instant Prayer according to the necessity of the Times by thinking day and night of these things following untill wee have gotten them or the summe of them into our hearts and can have them ever as it were before our eyes to cry instantly to our holy God like as he hath directed vs. The first general Meditation How our Saviour lookes for some to helpe him in the delivery saving of his Church FIrst we are seriously to meditate and to bring our hearts to a due consideration how our blessed Saviour like aâ—… in the redeeming and saving of his chosen slocke from hell so in all the greatest extreamities of his poore distressed Church mentioned in his Sacred word hath beene wont to looke long for some that wold offer themselves to helpe it and when he hath found none to uphold or succour it in his tender pitty and compassion his owne arme hath saved it his righteousnesse it selfe hath sustained it in what sort hee hath seene it best And although he hath suffered it oft-times to be greevously afflicted yea somtimes almost utterly consumed yet how evermore when he would deliver and save it from the violence and rage of the wicked enemies or other imminent calamitles by some great and glorious deliverance his usuall manner hath bene to seeke and finde out some one at least that should stand up in the gap before him in more special manner for it that he might not destroy it by whom he might shew himselfe wonderfull for his people and chosen Flocke Thus he found out Ioseph Moses Samuel Dauid Iehosaphat Ezekiah Daniel Hester Mordecay Ezra Nehemiah and others Yea how he hath moreouer euer sought found out some few whom hee hath vouchsafed to be his helpers at least by their prayers and teares for saving the rest such as of whom he hath saide The innocent shall deliuer the yland These he lookes and cals for at this day And of this little number every true beleeving soule must needs desire to bee one if hee love the Lord Iesus Christ and his Church yea if he but love his native country or his owne soule or if he but onely feare that dreadfull curse denounced against Meroz Curse ye Meroz said the Angell of the Lord curse the inhabitants thereof because they came not to helpe the Lord against the mighty And much more must hee needs contend for this if hee rightly consider what a high honour and happinesse it is to be one of that little number chosen and singled out hereunto to bee if it were but as any one of Gedeons three hundreth Howbeit every one having some few good desires is not fit to serve under and to helpe our Lord Iesus in thâ—… great work He himselfe hath taught and directed us plainely both whom we must bee and how we must be qualified and fitted every way if we will bee his Souldiers and so fight in this spirituall battaile as that wee may hope to prevaile That every one of us must learne and have in our hearts these instructions and directions following which our Lord and Saviour hath in his infinite Wisedome set before our faces in that absolute forme patterne of prayer which for this end and for every occasion of supplication to bee made to him and to his Father in his name he hath giuen as a perpetual direction vnto his Church unto which patterne as of all other the most effectuall sufficient and certaine to this purpose I haue heerein still wholly tyed my selfe He then that desires to bee any one of those whom hee lookes for to helpe him heerein and that will so pray as that he may be sure to bee accepted and prevayle must know as first Gods usual manner of proceeding in the deliuerie of his Church so secondly the necessity of servent prayer at this time above all former times in what need the poor Church and euery particular member of it stands thereof and must labour to have a true and lively feeling in his heart of the miseries and dangers which the Churches are in Thirdly what a one himselfe must be how qualified in all things that his person may be accepted if ever he looke to be heard Fourthly how our prayers must bee framed that they likewise may be sure to be pleasing and avayleable with the Lord. Fiftly what power and assurance our prayers so sent forth have to prevayle with God and to overcome Sixtly that all other but these are unmeete and unable to help and after a sort excluded from this service and much more all that are of contrary dispositions Seventhly how every one that lookes to bee saved by Iesus Christ and to stand at his right hand must endeavour by all possible meanes to be fitted for this seruice to be a helper to Christes poore Church heerein The second generall Meditation concerning the present necessity of this worke and the liuely feeling thereof How euery one that lookes to be saued by Iesus Christ to stand at his right hand must endeavour by all possible meanes to bee fitted for this service to bee a helper to our Saviours poorâ—… Church heerein THat wee may know the present necessity of this duty and bee able to cry more instantly the Lord cals vs seriously in the second place to meditate day and night according to every part and petition of that heavenly prayer of our Saviours concerning the distressed estate of his poor Churches at this day and of all other poore soules belonging to his eternall election living under the captivity bondage of Sathan and the tyranny of his cursed and crucll Instruments And withall he would haue us wisely to consider how he even our Lord Iesus Christ himselfe calles for our duty by this very prayer amongst many other meanes teaching us heere to cry unto him for the rescuing and delivery of all hiâ—… Children Our Father which art in heaven And to this end how we are to labour to bring our owne hearts and the hearts of all
in all things to walke hvmbly with him shall likewise bee stirred up by his blessed Spirite thus joyntly to cry unto him for that hee having taught and commanded us thus to pray and having given us so many assurances that being such praying thus he wil heare us and finally hee enclining and setting our hearts as with one accord thus to importune him heerein we can make no doubt of gracious audience and a happy answere from his heavenly Majesty even when we can joyntly crie in Faith Amen Euen so come Lord Iesus come quickely Amen Amen The Sixt generall Meditation How all but those that are thus qualified are excluded from helping the Lord and doe rather pull downe his wrath upon his Church SIxtly we are to bring our hearts yet further to a serious Meditation hereof likewise That all other who are not so qualified at least in the earnest desire and constant resolution of their hearts and much more all who are contrarily affected in any of these things thus necessarily required in our preparation and so all that beleeue not the word of the Lord in such manner as to be fully perswaded of the truth of his promises and threatnings are excluded by the Lord himselfe from being any meete helpers in this worke The First Meditation hereof to be seriously pondered 1 THat all such as live securely in theyr owne wayes without any due regard of the Lord and of his poore Church are excluded hence even all such as who albeit the Lord shewe such manifest token◅ of his heavy displeasure agaynst his owne people and children for their sinnes and although they see his Glory Gospell People to bee so generally trampled under foot our lord Iesus Christ to be ready utterly to be thrust frō his throne and his members in such miserable distress or imminent perill yet they care for none of these things but only mind their owne courses and seeke to satisfy their owne wils and desires as all our worldlings and all the prophane sort in generall do Yea all such are shutte out as unmeete who are not now in a tender commiseration of the wofull estate of all the Lords people de◅irous to obey our Lord Iesus Christ comming to helpe him and them all in what thing soever he shall make knowne unto them that he stands in need of their helpe and so calls for it at their hands and who endeavour not unfeignedly to doe whatsoever he requireth tending thereunto And that this must needs be so for these reasons following which are therefore every one of them to be seriously meditated of and pondered until we know our selves to have passed the danger of them The first reason to be seriously meditated of 1 FOr that al such who regard him not in his poore and needy members must be separated from these whom our Saviour calles The blessed of his Father and must stand at his left hand among the Goats and must then hear the wofull doome at that last dreadfull day Go ye cursed into everlasting f◅re prepared for the Divell and his Angels when I was an hungrie you gave mee no meat when I was thirsty you gave me no drinke when I was s◅ke and in prison you visited me not when I was naked you cloathed me not when I was a stranger and harbourlesse you tooke me not in c. And therefore if it shall be so with these at that day then certainely they must needs bee rejected by him as utterly unmeet for this service who now that he calles for these duties at theyr hands and that so lowd as all the world doth ring thereof yet are deafe in all in regard of any commiseration For what King General or Commander will ever willinglie have any admitted into pay to fight under them but onely such as they know to be loyally and faithfully affected towards them and which doe lay to heart their honours causes and quarrels as if they were their owne much lesse then can we thinke that the Lord of heaven earth who needes none of our helpe but can get himselfe the victorie over his enimies by the breath of his nostrils when it pleaseth him will admit of any other to be with him and to helpe him in this great work wherein he will so highly honour them but onely so many as shall bee loyally and heartily affected towardes his Majesty his causes and children The second reason to be seriouslie thought of SEcondly we are seriouslie to lay to heart and to bethinke our selves in time if we would be helpers herein That all such who live in any one gross sinne impenitently and much more in any one of those notorious abhominations which broght that dreadfull Captivity upon Iudah which the Lord hath caused to be set so lively before the face of all by y◠holy Prophets themselves together with the vengeance denounced for them are also utterly excluded especially if they live therein scandalously to the slander of the Gospell or the offence of others to harden them in their courses for that all such are both blinde and deafe and make others so Such cannot see the wrath and vengeance of GOD certainly rushing upon thēselves for their owne sinnes wherein they lye much less can they see that which is rushing upon all the Churches for theyr security and abuse of the gospell and least of all can they discerne of any wrath conceived agaynst our selves for that they consider onely that we yet live in peace but perceyve not at all the multitude and heynousness of our most odious and lowd-crying sins agaynst which the Prophets so thunder out the vengeance of the Lord and for which all who are wise-hearted indeed and whose eyes GOD hath rightly opened doe feare and tremble They can neyther see any tokens of the Lords displeasure nor yet discerne the enemies raging so furiously agaynst all the Churches abroad as by their most deepe and bloody practises threats and intendments they daylie manifest to all the world no not those enemies which bee in our very bosomes such as all those are who beare evill will against Sion They perceiue not the multitude of Locusts with such stinges in their tails sent out of the bottomelesse pit to all the Kings of the earth to draw them all if it were possible certainly every one of them so farre as ever the Lord shall permit them to take up arms against our Lord Iesus Christ and his poore Church They are deafe and cannot heare the cry of their poore brethren though sounding daily in their eares so as to take any true pitty of them how then should they heare the cry of the Lord calling to themselves and all other to repent so to prevent and pacifie his wrath Concerning these so continuing the holy Ghost oft declareth the heavy wrath of God that is upon them That he hath blinded their eies and made their eares
vowes and Covenants which we have so oft renewed and that neyther judgements nor mercyes could prevaile with us and especially for making flesh our arme withdrawing our hearts and confidence from thy heavenly Majesty wee had long agoe deserved that both they and wee with all our blessings should have bene wholly left into the hands of thine our enemies which have and doe so eagerly thirst after our blood and that nothing at all hath kept us to this day but onely thy endlesse compassions and the yearning of thy bowels at the cryes and sighes of thy poore Saints and children in all the Churches looking up to thee alone and lifting up their hands unto thee Awaken us therefore graciously now at length Oh thou that hast kept thy Israel and neither slumbrest nor sleepest and cause us yet in time to understand the things that concerne our peace and whereby thou mayest bee wholly pacified towards us in this Nation with all thy Churches and people Oh grant unto us most tender Father to know and throughly to conceive aright that â—…hat which wee have so oft and so many a time promised unto thee and so bound our selves unto in all our perils and which thou hast so long expected thou now expectest at our hands above all former times now that thou hast added this above all former mercies thus farre to deliver us from our feares and to vouchsafe unto us such hopes for all future times every day to renew the same in that heavenly union and harmony of thy Annoynted and his whole most honourable Parliament for thy Church causes and against thine enemies Oh give us all such hearts that wee may yet now at length performe whatsoever thou requirest of us to make our repentance unfeigned sound and our full reconciliation thereby in being humbled before thee both publiquely and privately and in taking away all our abhominations and crying sinnes and in doing whatsoever may tend to the giving of thee thy due glory with the greatest advancement of thy heavenly Gospell and doing whatsoever thou requirest of us for the ratifying and confirming all thy mercies towards us and our making a firme union with thy Majesty amongst us all in Iesus Christ according to the right tenour of thy sacred truth That thus as thy hand hath formerly bene stretched out against us and against thy Churches and that the enemies have so sarre prevailed in their designes so now at last their joy may he as the joy of an hypocrite and that they may see their confidence as a spiders web Oh grant such hearts unto us all that thou seeing ouâ—… true repentance maiest give to us and to thy people the upper hand that we-may be above and not beneath that we may not onely stand valiantly as one man of one hart and soule for thee for thy heavenly Gospel with thine Annoynted his royall progeny and Dominions and each for our selves and ours our children posterity and for the true liberty of us all but also that all of us may be as bold as Lyons and being strengthned by thee and the power of thy might five of us thy servants may chase a hundreth according to thy promise made to the true turning of thy people to thee and a hundreth of us may put tenne thousand to flight That thus thine Annoynted and all his Royall Progeny and posterity may become the happyest heades of the blessedest progeny and dominions that ever were formerly in all the earth and all theirs and our sinnes and the sinnes of all the Churches may be freely forgiven never to be remembred against us or against any of thy true Churches any more according to thy heavenly promise and that for thy endless glory and praise the everlasting triumph of us all that wee may for ever sing praises unto thy great name through Iesus Christ that King of Kings our only Lord and Saviour Amen XVI A humble thanksgiving that the Lord hath already begunne so graciously to heare our praiers with supplycation that as we have made entrance into this service to helpe our Lord Iesus and his poore Churches by our prayers and teares so wee may bee every day more fitted and inabled hereunto untill wee shall see not onely the deliverance of his Churches and Captives but also the new Ierusalem and the glory of his Sion and inioy the full happinesse of them for ever in the heavens OH Lord God most holy and most gracious most faithfull and true who remembrest alwaies all thy gracious promises which thou hast ever made to thy Churches and people in thy blessed word and wilt in thy due time performe every one of them even to all of us who are thine when thou hast first truely humbled and prepared our hearts to pray and importune thy sacred Majesty seeking thee in order We magnifie thy great name that thou hast so visibly begunne to declare thy selfe to bee mindfull of thy promises in so graciously inclining thy care unto our cryes We praise thee and bless thee that as thou diddest proclaime thy name before thy servant Moses to bee The Lord The Lord strong mercifull gracious slow to anger and abundant in goodnesse and truth so thou hast done it before us all especially us of this sinfull Nation that thou herein hast made it manifest to the convincing of every conscience amongst us in sparing us at the praiers of some few of thy people unto this day We glorifie thee Oh good Lord that as thou hast caused it to bee registred in thy booke for all the Ages of thy Church how according to thy gracious promises thou ever diddest heare thine auncient people of Israel in their miseries and when they cryed to thee in their troubles thou then deliveredst them from their distresse so thou hast heard us of this sinfull Nation delivering us not onely at our publike humiliation from the mercilesse intended invasion but also pluckt us from Nebuchadnezars furnace at the private sighes groanes of thy secret ones and that so as that thou hast made these deliverances to bee recorded for all succeeding times Yea we praise and magnifie thee that thou still renewest these thy wonderfull and fatherly mercies to us a people so vnworthy of any mercie that thou hast hitherto continued and evidently declared the riches of thy compassion in saving us from all our feares first so graciouslie preserving and bringing back our most Royall and hopeful Prince disposing of all his dangers and our feares as thou diddest to Ioseph to the greatest comforts and hopes of thy Church and that thou hast since so lately manifested such riches of thy love and kindnesse in such a heavenly union among thy worthyest servants our Soveraign Lord and King with all his faythfull Peeres and true-hearted Nobility and Commons for the advancement of thy glory and Gospell and the saying of thy people with the frustrating
the hopes and daunting the hearts of all thine thy Churches Adversaries and in beginning to grant all things according to the cryes of thy poore people and even above our expectations considering the heynousnesse of our sinnes Oh Lord who are we that even at the prayers of a few of us in regard of the multitude that know thee not and therefore do not nor can seeke thy face thou shouldest be so gracious to us Lift up our hearts good Father that we may conceive aright what thou wilt doe at our generall cries when we shal be joyntly humbled before thee and all seeke thee as thou hast appointed Grant specially this grace to every one of us who have already or shall heereafter give our names unto thee to serve thee heevein and helpe thy poore distressed Church and people that uppon this happy experience wee may labour every day to attayne unto more integrity soundness in walking uprightly and constantly before thee in all thy holy commandements Vouchsafe that heereby wee may get more boldnes wherby we may approach neerer unto thee and even to importune thee with holy Abraham Moses Ezra and Nehemiah untill wee have obtained the pacifying of thy Majesty by the taking away all the abhominations crying sinnes out of the Churches the delivering of thy Captives the restoring and re-edifying of thy Ierusalem and that all the hopes of our wicked enemies shall bee at an end and our dreadfull dangers and feares past and that we shall visibly beholde thy glory therein and also injoy thy glorious presence for evermore To this end deere Father enable us by thy blessed Spirit to use all the meanes furthering heereunto and that much more carefull conscionably then ever wee have done for confirming our weake hands for strengthning our wearie knees Make us all ever to keepe a fresh remembrance of thy goodness and mercy how readie thou art to heare the cryes of thy people and of the power of our prayers thorow our Lord and Saviour how farre they have already prevayled with thy Majesty Cause us ever to have a â—…arefull and watchfull eye to thy blessed Word that in all things we may have that for our guide and our direction Worke in each of us a holy resolution to cleave fast unto thee without any departing or staggering walking continually in all thy blessed Lawes and Commandements for ever even unto the end Teach and helpe us to feare alway the offending of thy Sacred Majestie and that with a true childe-like feare because of thy holinesse who canst not abide any iniquity no not in thy deerest Children and because of the extreame rage and subtiltie of Sathan against all thine dogging us continually at the heeles to provoke us to sinne agaynst thee that hee may accuse us and incense thy Majesty against us if it may bee to leave us unto his malice or at the least to hinder thy love and blessing And also because of our owne vile corruption which is ready alwayes to hearken unto him and to betray us into his hand Assist us to watch ever against all occasions of temptations keeping strict watch over all our senses our thoughts motions wordes and actions Make us everie day to waxe better and better still growing on toward that perfection which we doe dayly waite for in the Heavens Cause us ever to keepe in fresh memory that wee are thorow our cursed Natures and the industrie of Sathan like him that is in a boare vppon a strong streame that if wee bestirre not our selves constantly to go forward we certainely goe backeward if wee but forget our selves or withdraw our hands never so little Make us able to observe wisely all our slippes and faylings and euer to be carefull forth with to seeke the recovery of our selves by unfeyned repentance and by dooing our first and best workes Graunt unto us this grace that every one of us may have our owne particular warrantable callings that wee may know them well and what speciall duties thou requirest of us in them and that we may labour to walk faithfully therein that thy blessed Angelles may rejoyce to attend upon us and protect us alwayes and Sathan may neuer take us out of our way to get any advantage against us thereby Lift up our eyes evermore to the recompence of reward that therein wee may cheerefully follow our Lord and Saviour running fast towards the marke untill we shall attaine the Crowne which hee ever holdeth forth unto us in his right hand Helpe us to set thee ever before our faces and at our right hands as thy seruant David that we may never sin against thee but that we may go on couragiously with holy Moses as seeing thee with us ever that art invisible Make us able to rejoyce alwayes in our happie estate thorow Iesus Christ by comparing it with the estate of the greatest Princes and Monarkes who are enemies vnto thee and whether vvee wold change with the mightiest of them Cause us to goe 〈◊〉 cheerefully not onely contented with our condition but also rejoycing heerein that the lines are fallen unto â—…s in so fair a ground and that we haue so goodlie an heritage Make us able in praying continually for what we stand in neede of for our selves and for all the Churches and people of the Lord ever withall 〈◊〉 give thankes for that measure which we have alreadie and for whatsoever deliverances hopes or other 〈◊〉 which we have formerly 〈◊〉 or do â—…ow injoyâ—… And finally enable us in whatsoever we beg to ayme 〈◊〉 aâ—… the advancement 〈◊〉 glory and of the kingdom of thy Sonne with the saying of thy people that thus going on in the zeale of thy glorie and in the â—…owels of commiseration towardes thy poore Ioseph in a tender feeling of his affliction and in the constant use of all holy meanes we may be assured that wee shall be as Caleb everie day stronger and stronger in all grace and in the power of prayer and as the greene Olive in thy house bringing forth more fruite to our olde age and last dayes that our last daies may be our best dayes our last breath may be spent for thy Majesty that so we may see the selâ—…citie of thy chosen and may reigne and triumph with thee in heaven for evermore Perswade all thy people that every one vvho comes not thus to helpe thee thy poore Church by their prayers must perish that none can helpe indeede but they onely who seeke to attayne this integrity and to abide aud grow therein perpetually Hearken unto us O most tender Father in these our humble suites and in whatsoever else thou knowest needfull for us for thy poore distressed Churches or for any member of thy whole vniuersall and Catholike church even for the Lord Iesus Christ his sake thy most beloved
affections Instant prayers That they may be able to walke in their particular callings as before the Lord as living Lawes Furnished with all guifts for managing the same happily 1. For promoting Gods religion 2. Procuring the wealth of his people Exo. 18. 〈◊〉 Next unto Magistrates to pray for all in any eminency Whereby they may doe any speciall service That their hearts be not lift up 2. Chro. 32. 25. 26. But contrarily â—…hore humbled That they may imploy all carefully as their talents committed to that end Hallowed be thy name Never to rest untill we can onely seeke Gods honour And be zealous for it to set it forth And mourne for all the dishonours done unto him as Moses Exo. 32. 31. 32. Num. 14. 13. 17. Thy kingdome come Not to rest till â—…e can most earnestly seeke the comming of Christs kingdome 1. Of Grace 2. Of Glory Desiring the spreading of his Gospell c. Onely for his honor Not resting â—…ll we feele him reigning in our hearts And can mourne for all the despight done to him And Sathans prevailings With all the wickednesse committed against him Thy will bee done That we are wholly set for the knowledge and execution of of Godâ—… will And receiuing thankfully whatsoever triall from his hand Mourning to see his Commandements trampled under foote Give us this day our daily 〈◊〉 Not to rest untill we can in Faith whol ly depend upon our heavenly Father And able to cry for our Brethren Ready to communicate unto them For give us our trespasses as c. That we feele our sins a burthen To drive us to Christ. Having some true feeling of the sins of the Churches which have so provoked the Lord. To try for forgivnesse so for unfeigned repentance to all the Churches That we he such as have a continuall heavinesse in our hearts for the sinneâ—… whereby our heavenly Father is so provoked Such as can forgive and pray for our enemies Lead us not inâ—…o temptation Not to rest untill we have brought our selves in awe To watch pray continually that we fall not into temptation That we doe not onely see our owne danger But also mourne for the prevailingâ—… of Sathan and Antichrist For thinâ—… is the kingdome c. Such as have learned the song of the foure and twenty Elders Rev. 5. 13. And sing the same in our soules Or mourne for our faylings Able to sound Amen in assurance of obtaining Having not onely the first fruites in all graces but indeavouring to grow continually To Meditate That our prayers be framed according to our Saviours direction so neere as we can Then he will make them powerfull 1. That we pray onely to our heavenly Father in the name of Iesus Christ. Without the least looking at our selves or any other creature That we ayme onely at Gods glory not resting till our harts be inflamed with the zeale therof That Christ onely may raigne in all the world For that then we have a certaine assurance of all other things Mat. 6. 33. This is a chiefe fayling of all Gods people In looking more at our selves then his heavenly Maiesty Though he hath directed us that this should be all in all Hag. 1. Want of this deprives of many blessings That we seeke the doing of his heavenly will chiefly for his glory kingdome That for these ends we may do it as the Angels doâ—… To seeke bread chiefly for these ends That we may live onely to his heavenly Maiesty 5 To seeke forgivnesse of our sins to these ends that they may not hinder his mercies But he may heare us in al things concerning his owne glory our good 6 And that he will save us from Sathan that we may live to honor him 7 All still for his glory for his Church That he may be glorified in us we with him To Meditate how the foure former performed aright we shal be assured of this viz. to be heard So praying ioyntly he will give a witnesse to each soule and set to his seale that he is our Father Rom. 8. Shew him selfe to us all from heaven to be our Father Though he more humble us first 2. That he wil also shew us his glory for his Church more then ever formerly in this last age Now that it is so opposed For maintaining his owne great name And getting himselfe a glorious victory This we may expect he will do by themselves To their confusion happiness of his How he will then give us assurance of his kingdome to come with power Ruinate the kingdome of Sathan and Antichrist Luke 10 18. Consume Antichrist Cause the new Ierusalem to come from heaven as a Bride prepared to meete her Husband Apoc. 22. And all in such sort as he hath foretold Thy will bee done c. He will then fulfill whatever not yet accomplished concerning his enemies or his servants And put new chearfulness into all the hearts of his to do all his will Gâ—…ve us this day our dasly bread How hee will deliver his people from all their miseries Feede them from heaven Recompensing them double Forgive us our trespasses as c. To meditate How then he will forgive the sinnes of all his people Make us see our pollutions And the fountaine open to uâ—… all Zach. 13. â—… And to long after it Iohn 5 3. How he wâ—…l then make our Repencance sound Acts. 9. 6. Put his Law in our minds c. Icr. 31. 33. Cause us to forgive and pitty one another Esay 11. 6. Leaâ—… us not into temptation To meditate how then he will restraine the tempter Dissolve his workes Discover his depths of wickednesse Against all nations 2. Tim. 3 â—… How the Kings of the earth who have given their power to the Beast have been deluded Apo. 9. 3. 4. c. 16. 13. â—…4 How he 〈◊〉 then cause their inchantments to 〈◊〉 How all deceivers shall curse their Gods and gâ—…aw their tongues Numb 23. 23. How Christ will be then wonderfull in saving his Church Hester 3. 7. State mysteryes For thine is the kingdome c. To meditate how Christ will then declare his Soveraignety And get himselfe glorie upon his proudest enemies Making all their counsels power to serve him How he will then maniseft that all the enemies have fought against him This will cause all to acknowledge his Soveraignty Rom. 14 His Angels Saâ—…hts to sing Halleâ—… Apoc. 19 6. Apo. 7 11 〈◊〉 Amen Neuer to give over our Meditations and prayers untill we can by them 〈◊〉 â—…n Faith Amen reioycing triumphing in our assurance to bee heard in all Reasons of our assurance from his 1. Commandements 2. Promises 3. Inclining preparing our hearts To meditate How al other are excluded First As All living securely excluded 2 All who do not in commiseration come to help him and his poor church Reasons All such must be separated at the last day 2. All excluded living in any one gross sinne
Psal. 1. 2. 3. Prosper in all Be wiser then our enemies Psal. 119. 98. 99. 100. Like as David Daniell and others Dan. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. God will be with us as we are with him 2. Chro. 15. 2. Ezra 8. 22. Heb. 10. 38. We shall be able to live by faith Iob 22. 21. 22 23 c. To lift up hearts and hands in assurance to be heard Lâ—…m 3 39 40 41 42. Onely such as wholly endeavour to walke with God are the innocent that shall deliver the Iland Iob 22 30. To be perswaded that all Gods promises are made to an endeavour of an intire obedience And contrarily How Sathan knowing this Hath labored to make all to content themselves onely with a bare outward profession destroying all the power of godliness to the Lords dishonour That he might leaue all into his hand The acknowledgement of Gods righteousnes heerein by many of his faithfull servants To pray that we may be able likewise to iustify the Lord and never to rest until he give thee all unfeigned repentance for it That we may be warned by their ensample To do it forthwith To be warned heereof by the very Heathen 1 Sam. 6 5 â—… To smite the hearts of all Gods Lieutenants with a true sense heereof To perswade us that our Adversaries are raised up to humble us to walk with our God How then he will get himselfe glorie on them To know as we are made for his glory so he will be glorifyed in each of us In mercy Or vengeance That his glory may shine in our deliverance And getting himselfe honour upon Babylon A praier that we may give God the glory of his inward worship according to the 1. Commandement and so helpe to pacifie his Maiestie towardes the Churches To pray that we may set up God in our hearts giving him there his inward worship In knowing and acknowledging him Iohn 6 45. Heb. 2 â—…4 In faith beleeving him to be our God Iohn 20. 28. To be perswaded that this peculiar faith was the faith of Abraham all the faithfull Rom. â—…3 Heb. 11. 2. Heb. 〈◊〉 6. Rom. 14. 23. Vpon this our faith to hold fast the Anchor of our hope To honour the Lord by manifesting our faith by our confidence To manifest our faith by our love to the Lord his Commandements and ordinances By our zeale for his glory That we may honour him shewing forth all holy patience That we may possess our soules in patience wayting for the happy yssue Iob 13 15. That we may give him glory in our childlike fear Walking constantly withouâ—… God in holy feare Albeit the world scorne and hate us for it To shewforth our honour towards the Lord by our Humility To this end to have ever before our eyes Gods excellency our own vileness and danger by Nature and Sathans malice That we may give to the Lord all the glory of our standing and perseverance in grace of each good thing That we may withall give him his glory mourning continually for all the dishonours done unto his name all provocations against the Churches To pray to be able to see hereby who they are that truly honour the Lord have set him up for their God To discerne of the greatnesse of the sinne of all the Churches whereby he is dishonored provoked By palpable ignorance blindness in them By Atheisme Vnbeleefe Carnall confidence Lukewarmnesse Loving other things more then Gods Maiesty Disobedience 1 〈◊〉 15 22 23 Tâ—…ousnes Presumption Deut. 29 19 20 21. Pride against God To see that as the Popish sort have set up their false Gods outwardly So we in our hearts To see even by this first Commandement how few doe truly honour the Lord. All wicked men maligning all who have so set him up so to glorifie his great name To be able to conceive aright hereo That we may wonder how even for this sinne God hath spared us so long That we may never â—…est untill we have so set up the Lord in our hearts An importuning of the Lord by his iustice and mercy To heare his people crying ioyntly to him To behold the miseries and dangers of all his poore people A humble confession how hearing the miseries of our brethren and their perils yet we have not bene humbled for them Neh. 1. 4. A further confession how we have all sinned in our extreame unthankfulnes breach of our Covenant with the Lord. How concerning Gods inward worship multitudes amongest us have set up Sathan to adore As all living in blindnesse or any heynous sinne All who have set up the world in any kinde Very few who have set up the Lord as we ought For his outward worship in the second Commandement how we have â—…inned Confession how we have increased our guiltines by taking Gods name in vaine And principally for prophaning his Sabbath which might iustly make all our countryes to rest and keepe Sabbaths to him in that dolefull manner that some do already Acknowledgment of Gods righteousnesse in all that he hath done to the Churches threatneth Neh. 1. 8. A humble prayer for them and for us all 〈◊〉 that God may 〈◊〉 pen out eyes to seâ—… what we have done in so â—…arre returning to Poâ—…ery againe especially of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈…〉 To dote so upon it againe after such notorious discoveries of the vilenes of it How all sorts had seene before how they had bene deluded by iâ—… How Gods vengeance was most iustâ—…y coâ—… upon those their 〈◊〉 us houses How â—…ous 〈◊〉 were for filthynesse Blood Being nothing else but dens of theeves That all may know what their religion waâ—… 〈◊〉 bâ—… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—…ere was then one part of that Babylon the mother of whoredomes and abhominations Apoc. â—…7 5. And 〈◊〉 the ruine â—…f it a part of the fall of Babylon verified How God hath as from heaâ—…en proclaimed the 〈◊〉 of his approbation of his religion professed amon gest us To thinke what they can answere for not being warned by so many such notorious discoveries of their bloody rage and practises 〈◊〉 of their â—…ligion To keepe ever in 〈◊〉 memory that insolent invasion of our nation The hellish powder Treason discovering the cursednesse of that religion To consider the â—…nies granted to the Gospell in the miraculous continuance of it and preservation of our Princes To beg true repeâ—…tance for this and all our loud crying sinnes That our land may be purged of it and the evils threaâ—…ed prevented To pray for all 〈◊〉 with tâ—…e wine of popery and 〈◊〉 other â—…gered by iâ—… To consider of the righteousnesse of God 〈◊〉 upon thâ—… 2 Thes. 2. 10. 11. 12. To bethinke themselves what it is so so renounce theiâ—…â—…other and their Baptisme 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epistle prefixed to our sed â—…eed broâ—… To 〈◊〉 of their intoil â—…able lyâ—… devised to deceive the simple How they abuse all the simple in perswading them that they have moâ—…
to his father being a worthie Iudge of our Land and in love to his eldest brother who was a rare hope in his time even in his tender yeeres as the Commons house of Parliament could then have borne witnesse if our God had beene pleased to have prolonged his daies And this the more cheerefully also for that the Lord had formerly shewed mercie on that his hopefull brother vouchsafing me a poore and weake instrument to helpe to pull him from Satan to Christ out of deepe despaire whereunto he had fal◅e by reading some part of their devotions even of Parsons Resolution of the paines of hell and to bring him to much assurance and comfort in Iesus Christ by the right use of a little part of ours viz. of the practise of some directions in the first part of the True Watch. My trust is therefore that your Ladiships and all others will iudge my boldnesse to bee borne withall though I thus presume because I know assuredly that you will not onely ioyne your hands but your hearts to the reclaiming and saving of them both and of all other so deluded and even enchaunted with their sorceries and that they themselves will most praise the Lord for this service if ever hee shall thorowly open their eyes wheras otherwise without unfained turning and speedie preventing it they will undoubtedly fall into a farre more forlorne and irrecoverable despaire when it will bee too late And who knoweth how far this service may prevaile being both thus requested and also promised and now thus undertaken in all dutifull and loving affection and also in uprightnesse and singlenesse of heart towards them and towards all other as before our blessed God who hath ever beene wont not onely to worke by the weakest and unlikeliest meanes that himselfe alone may have all the glorie but also to doe the greatest good to his Church by the extremest rage yea by the deepest and most mischievous plots of the Adversaries against it Who knowes whether his goodnesse may not make it an instrument through your instant prayers with the prayers and teares of many of his people furthered by this occasion to pull not them two alone but with them likewise many thousands yea hundred thousands from hell and to bring them to heaven withall to keepe innumerable soules from ever declining from the Lord. Yea what knoweth any one whether he may not make it a meanes amongst others to helpe to save us all and with us all Christs true Churches from that common calamitie and destruction which Satan and his Agents doe fully assure themselves in time to bring upon them all and upon all the people of the Lord. Our bloudie enemies having so resolved never to rest untill under the name of Heretiques they have utterly rooted us all out from off the face of the earth My trust is therefore Right Honourable that all who unfainedly love Christs Gospell and the soules of these our deluded brethren and sisters and desire the saving of the Church of God will thinke it an acceptable service to set before the eyes of all the world the palpablenesse of this most notorious delusion and to take away that forged imputation and shame from the true Church of Christ and from all the Israel of God viz. That our Adversaries of Rome have moe holy devotions than we and also doe spend more time therein than we in ours Accept then I beseech your Honours this poore service here now in this entrance into this fourth part of this Watch thus undertaken chiefly upō the occasion of that most Christian desire of those great Ladies to whom yet I durst not presume to dedicate it being unknowne unto them albeit I have heard much good concerning them heartily pray that all heavenly graces may be ten times more resplendent in them to their everlasting praise happines Accept it as one speciall use and application of all the three former parts of it to the helping of the poorest and weakest Christians in all the land that everie one herein may have the benefit of all the former that all in praying may learne to watch and everie one in watching may learne to pray each in watching and praying may not onely helpe to save themselves but also their owne native Countrey with all the true Churches of our Lord Iesus Christ and to pull all Gods Elect out of the mouth of the roaring Lion All may see so farre as I am able to coniecture that to bee true which was mentioned That the battle of the great day is come That Satan hath openly and even visibly entred the field with his armies to fight against the Lords most glorious Maiestie and his Armies even against all his poore Church at once for that this spirituall warre is set on by his principall Commanders the Pope and his Cardinals with their chiefe Agents the Iesuites and other Seminarie Priests and managed and foughten by his most deadly weapons lying and murder Wee are therefore ever to keepe in memorie that wee are not now so much to labor to fight against flesh bloud as against principalities and powers the Princes of the darknesse of this world and to that end to be armed with all the complete armour of God both defensive and offensive To this end like as I have long travelled to helpe all our poore Countrey Schooles and all of the inferiour sort that the meanest of them who will suffer themselves to bee directed might not need to feare the insulting of any or of all the proudest Iesuites in regard of laying a sure foundation of all good learning in our Grammar Schooles with all sweet delight both to Master and Schollars neither doth it repent me but I blesse the God of heaven that gave me a heart so to abase my selfe so have I here for all the poore people of the land laboured to prepare and fit them weapons against this great day Which day all my labours will witnesse for me that I have long feared seeing the malice and rage of the Adversarie daily growing more and more with the increase of our iniquities to provoke the Lord to send it upon us like as upon all the other Churches to the end to make us all to seeke him by unfained repentance that euerie one of u◅ may turne from our evill way unto his Covenant That thus seeking him unfainedly he may take our cause into his owne hand fight his owne battles and save us from these our mercilesse enemies The better instructed sort of Christians who are able to pray better of themselves need them not I have therefore endevoured to fit them chiefly for all the younger and weaker sort who would as faine learne to pray to save themselves and the land with all the Churches and long as much to be helpers in this worke as any of those who are best instructed Wherefore deare Ladies as you have so much reioyced in the former parts of this
them to any conscience in all the world if it be not altogether seared and starke dead whether are more agreeable to the former rules and so the better But to come more particularly to set them opposite that thus they may the better appeare as when white and blacke are set to be beholden light and darknesse both together and to doe it so as the simplest in all the land may see it plainly and be able to iudge and therefore with some little repetition 1. Ours directly grounded upon the word of the Lord theirs more than for a shew grounded onely and professedly vpon the doctrines and traditions of men yea in deed on the doctrines of that man of sinne 2. Ours tending wholly to advance the glory of our God and giving all glory to him alone excluding all rejoycing in our selves that he that rejoyceth may rejoyce onely in the Lord theirs robbing him of his honour giving it to creatures 3. Ours tending onely to magnifie our Lord Iesus Christ and his merit alone with the all-sufficiency of it for our salvation and for whatsoever else wee stand in need of wee comming onely to our heavenly Father as it were with his beloved sonne Christ Iesus in our armes presenting him for us as all-sufficient that we may be accepted in and for him so making him our alone Saviour Mediatour and Intercessour they come putting many other things in the place of him and of his alone merit and intercession as namely the Virgin Marie and other Saints with their Merits yea Crucifixes Masses Indulgences Reliques and a number of other things which being in any sort put in the place of Christ Iesus of his satisfaction or merit and having his honour given to them in whole or in part make all 〈◊〉 devotions to be most abominable 4. Ours tending altogether to humble man in regard of any thing in himselfe and wholly to beat downe all the pride of sinfull man to make him utterly to deny himselfe and all conâ—…dence in himselfe thus to make him fit to fall downe with the poore Publican and with Marie Magdalen at the feet of our Lord and Saviour to lay fast and lively hold on him to present him only for us to God his Father theirs tending to puffe and lift up sinfull man like Lucifer to cause him to be utterly thrust downe to hell 5. Ours teaching and helping us in all things fully to vnderstand yea to observe and keepe our Baptisme vow and Covenant made with our blessed God according to his heavenly word theirs to keepe all in blindnesse and ignorance of that their Baptisme vow in regard of any true vnderstanding or holy performance of it 6. Ours teaching and assisting us to fight manfully under the banner of our Lord Iesus Christ against sinne the world and the devill and so to continue Christs faithfull souldiers and servants to our lives end according as we have vowed and bound our selves their 's to fight Giant-like or as the Angels of the Dragon under the banner of Satan and Antichrist against our Lord and Saviour Christ Iesus and against all his true Church to maintaine all their abominable Idolatry and superstition and all the bloudy and filthy sinnes of Sodome To fight for all the worldly pompe and tyranny of their Popes and Cardinals and of all the rest that persecute Christs Church Thus to continue Sathan and Antichrists faithfull souldiers and servants to their lives end to fight ever against us untill they have utterly destroied us or themselves and all indeed because wee will not falsifie our vowes and sacramentall oathes made to our Lord Iesus Christ like as they themselves doe 7. Our devotions teaching and stirring us up all our daies to observe every particular part of our Covenant both for Law and Gospell their 's not onely to hold all in ignorance of their Covenant and so altogether in an unpossibilitie to keepe it when they know it not and every one of them necessarily liable to the wrath of God but also in effect teaching the violating of all both Law and Gospell thrusting ouâ—… some parts wholly as the second Commandement in many of their bookes adding and detracting at the Popes pleasure and that nothing is to bee taken for Scripture and for Gods Word but onely as it hath warrant and authority from him in so much as a Papist dare not beleeve the Trinity from the infallible Testimonie of the written Word of God without the authority of their Pope 8. Ours teaching helping to walke in the narrow path that onely leadeth to life prescribed by our Lord and Saviour theirs drawing from this narrow path into by-paths devised by man and so into the broad way leading to destruction seeking to kill all who resolve to obey our Saviour in labouring to keepe the narrow way and who will not runne those by-paths and the broad way with them 9. Ours directing helping us to live the life of faith living onely by the word of God which together with the Spirit can alone give faith their 's the life of unbeleefe grounded meerely upon the word of sinfull man for that they beleeve the word not for it selfe but onely so farre as it hath authoritie from the Pope as was said which in truth can never give any sound faith Yea ours directing and assisting to live not onely the life of faith in generall but of the true iustifying and saving faith which is wrought onely by the particular applying of Christ and all his promises to our selves from which particular applying of Christ proceedeth all true confidence and every part of sanctification theirs directing to beleeve but without any such particular application and onely in generall and as the wickedest and the very Devils beleeve for they beleeve there is one God and quake and tremble Now that this generall beleefe of theirs and this implicite faith can never breed the true justifying sanctifying and saying faith I appeale to the consciences of all any more than the most soveraigne plaister can heale if it be not particularly applied and kept to the sore or more than meat can nourish and strengthen if it be not eaten and digested and even turned into our nature or yet any more than a graft can grow by the stocke if it be not grafted into the stocke by speciall application conjunction and union to take sap from it 10. Ours directing helping to live the life of true godlinesse being guided onely by his word and Spirit which life alone hath all the promises both for this and the other life their 's for most part in stead of this true godlinesse so guided by Gods word directing to live the life of bodily exercises as Paul cals them in superstitious penance fastings whippings with other will-worships devotions and workes devised â—…eerely by man which bodily exercises and devotions have only a shew of wisdome from men vainely puffed up by their fleshly mindes no promise at all but contrarily
furie of Satan and Antichrist who have therefore set themselves truly to helpe our Lord Iesus in his members to pacifie his wrath and for the restoring of his captives with the glorie of his Sion Yet have we too just cause to accuse and condemne our selves herein not onely all our Atheists and prophane sort but also the multitude generally that wee suffer our adversaries so farre to condemne the greatest part of us who professe the Gospell that they should labour farre more in their superstitious devotions to increase their sinne and judgement upon them all though this have beene alwayes the nature of superstition than we in our holy and true devotions to increase our owne happinesse and for the saving of us all Notwithstanding that whatsoever deadnesse and want is amongst us in this behalfe it is not through the fault of our Religion which teacheth and enableth us otherwise when it is rightly knowne and practised but it is the want of true knowledge and of a sound and conscionable practice of our Religion Hence it hath beene and is one principall end whereunto I have bent my studies in these poore labours the better to awaken us and to put more life into us to begin more universally and joyntly and also more incessantly to importune the Lord herein being provoked by their ensample That thus we may labour as powerfully and as earnestly with the Lord hereby for the saving of our selves generally and of so many of them with us as belong unto his eternall election as they doe by theirs to destroy both us and themselves together And thus much also for cutting off the third head of this subtill serpent which I trust shall thus fall with the rest And now that this Hydra is so laid in the dust and all his heads taken utterly from him for so poysoning and destroying any more let me once againe come unto the further demonstration of that assumption concerning which that learned Gentleman of whom I made mention in the Epistle Dedicatory professed long agoe that if it could be proved viz. that Popery teacheth lying and murdering for the supporting of it he would utterly renounce his religion and embrace ours For that this doth in like manner and as neerely concerne every Papist in the world as it doth him That they must needs every one either professe with him that if it can be proued they likewise will utterly renounce Popery and embrace the Gospell or that they are of that Religion which is of Sathan and will so remaine whatsoever the Lord shall manifest to the contrary Which point as all may see doth fitly come in to be yet more plainly demonstrated in this place and upon this present occasion The Syllogisme whereby I endevoured to let him see the danger wherein himselfe and all the rest of them who are of that popish Religion doe stand because that Religion so farre as it is differing from ours and properly Popish holding their chiefe grounds must needs bee of the devill was grounded upon the expresse words of our Saviour to the unbeleeving Iewes who therefore sought by lies and all devices to kill him even for the truth which he declared unto them as now they doâ—… us all The words are Iohn 8. 44. Ye are of your father the Devill and the lusts of your father will you doe He hath beene a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth This I framed in the plainest manner that I could for the easier understanding and triall of it as now I doâ—… that every one may be better able to discerne of the truth and weight of it thus That Religion which teacheth lying and murder for the supporting and advancing of it is of the Devill But the Religion of the Iesuited Papist it a Religion which teacheth lying and murder for the supporting and advancing of it Ergo the Religion of the Iesuited Papists is of the Devill First the proposition I shewed to be strong from the expresse words of our Saviour and not possibly to be gainesaied for â—…hat if liers and murderers are of the devill then that Religion which teacheth lying and murdering to support and advance it selfe must needs be so likewise He therefore being pressed with the Assumption denied it onely by distinguishing that howsoever some of them had practised so yet it was not their doctrine and that if it could be proved to be their doctrine he would utterly renounce his Religion and ioyne himselfe againe to us This I undertooke to prove unto him but living some miles distâ—…nt from him and having my calling to follow which I was necessarily to attend the Lord our faithfull and most gratious Father seeing my unfained desire for his reclaiming and salvation undertooke for me the proving of it in such a manner as whereby to give satisfaction for the truth of it to all the world and for ever to stop his mouth and the mouthes of all our adversaries even of every one affected to that Popish Religion and that two waies First this conference of ours and so my promise being but a little before the powder Treason it proved it selfe or rather his heavenly Majestie manifested it by themselves leaving them up to themselves in that very powder Treason wherein there was for the supporting and advancing of their Religion first such a murder intended as the world before that day never heard of And secondly a lie as great as it devised not only to cover that bloudy fact for the present but by it to have destroyed all the rest who had escaped that blow even all truly professing Christs Gospell in all countreys of the earth under the name of Puritans for that they had commited such a fact viz. That the Puritanes had blowen up the Parlament house like as when it was discovered they gave it forth that the Puritans had intended it That which should have beene their owne most detestable act they father vpon the people of the Lord whom they would have butchered by it and blowne up for ever Now this whole act of this devillish and deadly preparation we know was proved to be done by the advice of Father Garnâ—… and other their superiours And therefore it being their doctrine that they are to obey their Superiours and Ghostly Fathers chiefly in all things which concerne the promoting of the Catholike cause and therein to be ever ready to adventure their lives I appeale to the conscience of this Gentleman and the consciences of them and you all whether it bee not their doctrine by necessary consequence 2. His heavenly Majestie goodnesse declared it thus further for me soone after upon the same occasion of the Powder-treason in causing Mr. Doctor Morton a man meet for his learning and knowledge of their workes to proue it against them in his booke called An exact discouerie of Romish doctrine in the case of conspiracie and rebellion written by direction from our Superiours
people and withall to thinke how hard it is for him to kicke against the prickes and that against the light shining clearely in his heart And yet more also to ponder wisely what it is to give Satan advantage but by one lie only wilfully maintained and especially such a lie as tends but to the murdering of one soule And how much more then when it is to maintaine the Art of lying devised by and for the devill himselfe to hold up his kingdome and to overthrow the kingdome of Christ and for the deceiving and destroying of innumerable soules even of all bewitched by them and tending to the destroying of all the people of the Lord and the rooting them out of the earth How dreadfull it will be to stand before Christ to give answer but for the bloud of one soule alone when Abels bloud the bloud but even of his body alone cries so loud from the earth and makes Cain such a runnagate all his daies to be in hell whilst he was yet here in the earth yea before hee came into that place of torment designed for him and for all other wicked men and chiefly for all liers and murderers to bee tormented there for ever 4. And finally let mee wish him for his credit if he respect nothing else to answer all these books which I have mentioned as well for the cause of the learned as the vnlearned because they are as it were sent of God to manifest the truth hereof and then I have no doubt but he our most blessed and onely wise God will both reply and answer for us still and so maintaine his owne cause as to put them all to silence at least in the pit which they are digging for us and that for evermore Thus have I through the good hand of my God made way to the satisfying of the holy desires of those worthy Personages which wish so Honourably and Christianly unto you that we may match our chiefe Adversaries in our devotions although we doe already as all may plainly see goe so far beyond them in this kinde and also to the end that you who meane plainly and have not your hearts yet tainted with their bloud-thirstie desires all others may perceive how you have been and are deluded and even inchanted in every one of these respects by which scale all may measure the rest of their lying doctrines and devices And withall I hope that I have made it evident to the consciences of all that all sorts must renounce Popery and embrace the Gospell or else professe themselves to be of their father the Devill and that they will fight against Christ. To try if the Lord may be pleased yet to shew them mercy to come out of the snares of Satan either by the cleere manifestation of these delusions of his or by the praiers and teares of many of his people crying jointly for all to hale and pull them out of Egypt and Sodome for what are not the joint praiers of Gods people able to doe Now these things being so this delusion so laid open and the Assumption so plainly proved and demonstrated to the convincing of everie of your consciences as I am fully perswaded before the Lord give me leave in tender commiseration to turne my speech unto you all who dare still stand out against his Majestie Oh bethinke your selves in time what it is to fight against the light of your owne hearts what will follow the wounded conscience when the Lord shall wake it and call it to an account which hee will certainly doe either in this life or so soone as ever you shall depart hence Remember the cases of Cain Saul Iudas for fighting so desperately against the light and so standing forth against the Lord and his most gracious offer of mercie Oh bethinke your selves in time of his terrible and most glorious Majestie against whom you have so fearefully sinned as to provoke him not onely against your selves but against this whole Nation even against us all for your causes in departing from him and his holy Religion to a Religion of such abominations and so manifestly convicted and declared to be of Satan his sworne enemie Remember the dreadfulnesse of his wrath so declared in the irrevocable punishment of the Angels that so fell from him of Adam the old world Sodome and that which shall be so fearefully revealed when Christ shall come with thousand thousands of glorious Angels in flaming fire to render vengeance to all who know him not and who will not yeeld obedience to his heavenly Gospell and much more to all his obstinate enemies Consider well how your sinne is increased not onely being committed so contrarily to your Baptisme vow but also by all the evictions of the abominations of that idolatrous lying and murdering Religion especially in this Nation since the time of the first casting it forth so publikely by Parlament and even untill this verie day and now last of all by this Discoverie of this forged delusion wherein so many others of yours like unto it are included Thinke what it is not onely to bee barred out of Heaven deprived utterly of all the joyes thereof but moreover to be thrust into hell to abide the torment thereof with Satan and his Angels for ever and ever which must needs come upon you if that Religion of Rome bee such and have such supporters as you have or may see set before your faces If you will not reade this but bee as the deafe adder stopping your eares and in stead of Satan hiding away and blinding your owne eyes yet I hope you have each of you some faithfull friends who beleeving the Gospell and perswaded of your delusions as I am will play the parts of faithfull Physitians true loving friends towards such as are indangered by extreme distempers in burning fevers or the like or in extreme perill of perishing by water or fire or any way else viz. which will make these things knowne unto you urge them upon you for your preservation and recoverie so to declare their uttermost love unto you to the end to convert you and bring you to us againe and to our Lord Iesus Christ and so save you from hell though for the present they adventure your displeasure as I also must Howsoever this shall bee my rejoycing and my witnesse for me before the Lord for my dutie towards his heavenly Majestie and towards his Vice-Gerent our royall Soveraigne of my love and dutie towards this Church and Nation and even you all in this behalfe For which entreating him in his rich mercie to make it effectuall I commit it and you to his Grace which works above all that wee can conceive and shall rest ever striving with you I. B. TO EVERIE TRVE CHRISTIAN Soule rightly taking to heart the estate of Christs poore Churches and dispersed Flocke CHristian Reader if thou take to heart the dishonours done unto our most holy God the
the words of God be fulfilled so that they shall thus fight with the Lambe yet the Lambe shall overcome them for he is Lord of Lords and King of Kings and they that are on his side are called faithfull and chosen And then even those same Kings the remainder of y◠ten hornes which have so long before and some of them do still fight against the Lambe some more furiously others less shall all in the time appointed hate the whore make her desolate and naked and eate her flesh and burne her with fire for that God will put into their hearts thus to fulfill his will And yet more also for our further assurance of this and to provoke our soules to loud and instant crying unto the Lord in this behalfe for the accomplishment hereof wee are to bring our hearts to a ioyfull Meditation and remembrance how our blessed God hath discovered that scarlet-coloured Whore to all the world and more now then ever heretofore both in all this bloody rage against him and against all his poore Churches and Children and their cruell intendments against all the rest even against every soule of us truly professing his name And also how he hath laide her forth to bee visibly beholden of all in all her filthy whoredomes and inticements to wit all those abhominable doctrines devices slanders and blasphemies against him and against his heavenly word and above all in the Powder-treason wherein Sathan shewed himselfe in his cheefest workes both of lying and murther in a speciall manner to all the world and above all former times wherein wee are to hope that Antichrist received his deadly wound which all the power of hell shall never cure againe and that in Gods due time hee will fall downe of a sodaine as a Deere or other like beast deadly smitten when he hath by his owne violence spent himselfe That our Lord Iesus Christ hath clearly foreshewed the destruction of that Whore of Babylon that childe of perdition than man of sin and of all his followers yea of every one that receives his marke on his forehead or in his right hand or that is any way on his side to fight against him That hee hath not onely made all the hoast of heaven even al his holy Angels and Saints both in heaven and earth to reioyce and sing Hallelujah for the condemning of the great Whore the victorie given unto the Saints but also hath made proclamation with a loud voyce by the Angell in the Sunne and this to all the Fowles that fly through the middest of heaven viz. to all the Kings and Princes Captaines and Souldiers that shall fight under his glorious Maiesty and for him That they should come eate the flesh of Kings and of great Captaines and of all mighty men and even of all those both great and small that followed the Beast that is to be enriched with their spoyles That he will destroy every one that hath not his name enrolled in his booke to bee on his side that is every one who is not of his called chosen and faithfull flocke yea every one that doth not so strive to prepare himselfe thus to fight for him and under him so as he may be sure to prevaile and overcome and remaine with him faithfully fighting unto the death untill hee have the crowne of life The ninth particular Meditation of the second generall how our Lord Iesus Christ is that everlasting Amen and comming quickly FInally we are never to rest untill wee have brought our hearts to a comfortable reioycing that our Lord Iesus Christ is that everlasting Amen that faithfull and true witness who will performe every word that hee hath spoken in his due time and in such sort as he hath revealed the same though the particular manner bee yet unknowne to us That hee is comming quickly to render to every one according to his workes That wee are not to give our hearts any rest untill we are able thus to cry in faithfulness with all the Saints and all the hoast of heaven Amen Amen Our Lord Iesus Christ onely reigneth for evermore Amen Amen The third generall Meditation Thirdly what manner of ones we must bee whom the Lord so calleth and whome hee will admit and accept to bee his helpers herein and whose prayers shall be available with him according to the same heavenly direction in Lords praier THus have wee done with these first points for our preparation by bringing our hearts to a right consideration of the course which the Lord is wont to take in saving his Church and a true feeling of the necessity of our prayers at this time Now whēby our due pondering of all these things and the like and never resting untill by our deepe Meditation of them we can have them as it were before our eyes continually so to see lively the urgent necessity of these our Prayers and that we can thereby heare the Lord crying loud unto us to helpe him and his Church herein we are in the next place as carefully to see that we be such as he calleth being qualified in all things accordingly if ever wee will get sound assurance to our owne soules to prevaile or to be accepted And this wee may learne likewise out of our Saviours direction in that heavenly patterne for prayer then which all the wisedome of the world can never give us a more sure and plaine rule To which end also as for all the other before mentioned we ought the more diligently to looke unto it and to Meditate of it and that in this manner The first particular Meditation of the third generall To make sure that wee bee the true children of our heavenly Father Here wee are to stirre up our selves to this dutie 1. That having the former view ever before our faces as much as we are able and this true feeling ever also in our hearts and withall this lively voyce of Christs loving call to helpe him and his Church stil sounding shrill in our eares wee labour day and night to make sure that we be the true Children of our heavenly Father full of Child-like and naturall affections to his heavenly Majesty That wee have thus put on the Image of our Lord Iesus Christ and are hereby as holy Peter speaketh partakers of the divine Nature not earthly but heavenly minded burning in the love of his Majesty of his word ordinances and Children full of faith in Christ Iesus and of all dutie and holy obedience that in all fulnesse of assurance through our Lord Iesus Christ wee can by the power and witnesse of his holy Spirit cry unto him Abba O Father and seeke to bee as instant for all our Bretheren as for our selves labouring ever to grow herein and in the acknowledgment of our owne vilenesse by nature and of our unworthynesse either to bee called his children
unto it in delivering restoring and beautifying of it like as hee hath done in all former Ages And therefore wee are never to rest travelling with our owne hearts in this untill we can principally labour with the Lord for them that they of all other and so all in their places may be indued with all excellent graces not onely to manifest themselves in the first ranke according to their high dignities the true Children of our heavenly Father thus shining before all the rest of their Bretheren for the better prouoking and encouraging of all the rest and the greater glory of the Lord but also with those guifts which are proper and peculiar unto their places and callings And that wee likewise may all of us be very carefull to performe unto them the duties belonging to them in regard of those high places and callings like as the honor and obedience of right appertaining to them so with all true thankfulnesse for all the blessings which wee injoy by them And in our thankfulnesse we â—…e never to rest untill wee can from our soules performe unto them these three specially 1. Acknowledgment of their authoritie from God and that they are in his place 2. Hearty affections as to Gods Lieutenants for his cause 3. Above all instant prayers for them day night And in these our prayers that we can cry for them not onely as for every common member as was saide to bee able to walke before all their people as living Lawes in all holy duties of Christianitie but in those of their particular places and callings and bee furnished with all excellent giftes and endowments of Gods Spirit for their happy managing of the same As first and principally that they may bee made able and resolute to promote the Religion of the Lord alone and all true godlinesse and that with all their power defacing the contrary and destroying all ungodnesse in all their Dominions as did those Worthyes David Iehosaphat Hezekiah Iosiab and Nehemiah being thereby so renowned and set out for such blessed examples to all succeeding Ages And in the second place that they may procure each way the good of the people committed to them as tender Foster-fathers repressing the wicked being careful that all holy meanes be used every where for the reclaiming and saving every soule in their Dominions and of bringing them in their armes to the Sion and Sanctuary of the Lord and all hinderances thereof removed And that to these ends they may be all as 〈◊〉 Magistrates men of courage fearing God dealing truely hating covetousnesse no respecters of persons And next unto these that we rest not till we bee able to pray likewise for all excelling in any eminency either outward or inward whereby they may doe any speciall service to our Lord Iesus Christ to his Vicegerents or to his poore Church and people As namely That their hearts bee not lifted up by their guifts favours or places as is ordinary in each estate and so wrath come upon them as it did on that good Hezekiah for this very sinnâ—… but that contrarily they may both ever remember and acknowledge all their preferments to be from his heavenly bounty and so to be more humbled by them as having more to answere bee accountable for giving to his divine Majestie alone all the glory thereof And secondly that they may bee inabled as thy deare Children to employ all those guifts carefully as their talents committed unto them by the Lord to that end and purpose as may make most for his glory the furtherance of his Gospell with the greatest benefit and good to our selve and to all the people of the Lord. The second particular Meditation of the third general That we can and use to seeke his honor above all other things SEcondly we must never give the Lord over untill we have brought our harts in order not to seeke our owne honour or greatness nor our selves any way for our selves alone but onely in all things to seeke the honour of our heavenly Father being zealous of his glory And that wee can pray earnestly that our selves and all other may studie to set foorth his glorie before all the sonnes of men euen the glory of his Wisedome Goodness Mercy Iustice Power and Truth shining bright in all his workes both in every creature and also in all his judgements and mercies and chiefely in his heavenly word admiring and extolling his great name in every one of them That we can mourne with holy Moses for all the dishonours done unto him and for all the provocations whereby he is provoked choosing rather to have our names put out of his booke then that his great name shold be blasphemed by his malicious enemics especially in their triumphes for the destruction or miseries of his people The third particular Meditation of the third generall That we seeke his honour chiefely in the aduancement of the Scepter of Iesus Christ. THirdly we are never to rest untill we can rejoyce in the truth of our hearts that we have seâ—… our selves to seek by all our might the advancement of the Scepter of his heavenly kingdome even of the heavenly Gospell of our Lord Iesus Christ and so the comming of his kingdome thereby with power first the kingdome of Grace and after the kingdome of Glory desiring earnestly to that end the propagating and spreading of his Gospel over all the world the gathering forth of all his elect from al parts with the saving of all his people seeking all other things onely for him and for his honour that he may reigne as Lord and King That wee never give him rest until wee feele him reigning in our hearts by his blessed Word and Spirit making us to mourne withall for all the despight done unto his heavenly Majesty in the contempt of that his glorious Gospel and chiefly for all the prevaylings of Sathan and Antichrist the setting up againe of their abhominable Idolatry in any place and so for al the outragious wickednesse committed agaynst our Lord Iesus Christ his crowne and dignity and also agaynst his poore people The fourth particular Meditation of the third generall That we seeke to honour him eâ—…er in the full accomplishment of all his heavenly will FOurthly that our hearts beare us witness that wee haue attayned to be such as are wholly set not to seeke the execution of our owne lustes or will but that the whole will and good pleasure of our heavenly Father may bee fulfilled by us and all other his Children especially in all things wherein he hath or shal reveale himselfe what his good pleasure is And that we have begun earnestly to indevor our selves to be as chearful in the right execution and accomplishment thereof in all parts as
dull of hearing hee hath hardened their hearts least they should see with their eies and heare with their eares and convert and be saved And yet more for a further execution of his just and most heavy displeasure upon such as so harden and fatte themselves against his most terrible threats thus dreadfully doth the holy Ghost bring in the Prophet David denouncing Gods vengeance against them saying Let their table bee a snare and a net and a stumbling block for a recompence unto them These therefore especially all blind watchmen crying Peace Peace and all is well and so lulling themselves and all others asleepe call for all the Beasts of the forrest to destroy even for all the cruell enemies of Christ his true Church to invade and make havocke of all the rest of the Churches as of some others they have done before How then should these pray for the Churches when they cannot either see or heare any token of Gods wrath so as to cause them to seeke to appease it or pray for themselves how should they then pray for others especially for those whom in their hearts they scorne onely because they feare and put their trust in the Lord alone The third particular reason hereof to be throughly meditated of THirdly wee are in feare and trembling to Meditate How all the threatnings in the booke of God which are against those sinnes wherin they live impenitently against the light of their owne hearts against such sinners are against them and particularly those which are against such as will not submit themselves to walke in obedience to all the Commandements and ordinances of the Lord but will walke stubbornely against him though it bee but in any one sin That he will walke stubbornly against them and the like denuntiations a◅ those Levit. 26. 14. 15. 23. 24. Deut. 28. 15. 21. c. 47. 48. Deut. 29. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. c. But not so much as any one promise from the beginning of Genesis to the end of the Revelation which they can take hold of as belonging to themselves so long as they continue so to walke They are manifestly excluded from medling with the Covenant of God Psal. 50. from verse 16. to the end of it But unto the wicked said God what hast thou to doe to take my Covenant into thy mouth seeing thou hatest to bee reformed and hast cast my Covenant behind thee When thou sawest a theefe thou didst runne with him and thou hast beene partaker with the Adulterers c. Where he reckoning up some particular sinnes sheweth plainly that every such sin lived in obstinately and with delight utterly excludes from all comfort in the Covenant of Grace and mercy in Christ. And that they onely who offer to God praise and unfeignedly indeavour to pay their vowes unto him that is to yeild to him a perfect intire obedience have the promise and comfort of the Covenant These may call upon him in the day of trouble comming with confidence to the Throne of Grace and lifting up pure hands without staggering or doubting and hee will hear them that they may glorifie him accordingly But otherwise be they never so forward in profession and let them never so much thereupon flatter themselves yet they shall heare this insteed of any comfort I know you not depart from me ye that worke iniquitie How then can they imagine to be accepted in this worke or that God should vouchsafe so much as to heare others praying for them that they may be saved until they turne and submit themselves wholly unto him We ought therfore to labour to bring our hearts to be able with feare and trembling to heare and receive that sweet counsell of the Lords Psal. 50. 22. Oh consider this ye that forget God lest I teare you in peeces and there be none that can deliver you He that offereth me praise shall glorifie me and to him that disposeth his way aright will I sh◅w the salvation of God That is onely to such a one The 4. particular Reason hereof to be thorowly laid to heart FOurthly wee are in feare and trembling to lay this further to heart How everie notorious sinner though it be but in one onely sinne helpes to pull downe the vengeance of God upon all and to hinder the prayers of all the rest so much as the sin of one man can do as was noted before Like as Achan did by his Sacriledge yea if it bee but in flying for feare from his office injoyned by the Lord for the saving of his people or neglecting it as Ionah for whose sinne the storme could not be stayed untill hee vvas cast into the Sea And much more all they who wallowing in their wickedness doe call good evill and evill good light darkness and darkness light For that these as they hale on iniquity as with cart-ropes so they violently draw downe the vengeance of God upon all as much as such sinners can Eyther the Waters of the old world as did the Gyants before the Flood if they be such or fire brimstone as did the filthie Sodomites if they live in those sins of theyrs as namely in Pride fulness of Bread aboundance of Idleness not regarding to strengthen the handes of the poore Or finally if they be but any way Oppressours or Spoylers of Gods people and Children their sinnes crye for other Oppressors Spoylers in Gods just vengeance to be sent to oppress and spoile them and theirs as it came fearefully to pass in the Captivitie And therefore thus haling down vengeance how can they pray to turne it away The Fift reason heereof to be seriously meditated of FIftly wee are to strive to bee thoroughly touched with the right understanding lively feeling hereof That they who have no mercie nor compassion on their Brethren in their miseries bodily or spirituall can looke for no mercy nor compassion And much more they who add affliction to the affliction of them whom God hath wounded whereas they should affoord comfort to them as lively feeling members of the same true mysticall body of our Lord Iesus Christ yea all who do but stand on the other side in the day of their Brethrens miseries and doe not at least with faithfull Abraham pray earnestly for them as hee for them of Sodome Yea which is more dreadfull if they doe not to the uttermost of their power as God cals them and offers them opportunitie and meanes adventure thēselves for their Brethren carryed away captives to the dishonor of the Lord and the shame of his whole Church and Gospell they can looke for no commiseration no not in their owne extreamest calamities though they howl upon their beds in the feare or feeling of their miseryes or roare and tumble as wilde Bulles taken in nets much less can they hope to be admitted to this holy worke thus to helpe the Lord before they
whatsoever might any vvay offend thy most holy eyes Though I be weake and unworthy and have had exceeding many slips wants and faylings yet for the worthyness of thy Christ admit of those though so feeble desires which thou hast vouchsafed me Giue me my press-money the earnest and seale of thy holy Spirit My heart is prepared to doe thee the faithfullest service that ever thou shalt enable me Lord by such poore weake Wretches and at their praiers thou hast bin wont to get thy selfe the victorie that no flesh should rejoyce in thy presence but that all glorie honour and praise may be given to thee alone for evermore Reasons to be seriously weighed that onely such can looke or hope to have acceptance here 1. THat these onely are in a true League Covenant with God and thereupon are such as his heavenly Majestie doth not disdaine to call his Friends as Abraham was called the Friend of God And therefore they though they be but dust and ashes may presume through the merit of the Lord Iesus to intreat even for filthy Sodom yea to importune his heavenly Majesty and expect to obtaine of him that if there bee but ten righteous persons in five wicked cities he wil spare all for ten sake These onely are fit men to helpe by their prayers to rescue their Brethren out of the hands of Sathan and of all their cruell enemyes vvhich have carried them away Captives and who do so insult triumph over all and over the Lord himself as thinking that they have already made a conquest of all These are the men and these alone vvhich can with Moses stay the lords hands that he should not destroy his people These are they to whom God can deny nothing Onely these who having thus put their shooes off their feet are fit with that holy Moses to stand before the Lord to be sent to fetch his people their brethren out of Egypt from the Tile-killes and to pull them out of the middest of the fire These are with Aaron thorow the continuall intercession of our great High-Priest meete to helpe to pacifie the Lords displeasure towards the remnant of his people to stand betweene the living and the dead These being supported by Aaron and Hur can holde up their hands till God have got himselfe a glorious victory against Amalek These and these alone are able with Iosuah to cause the Sunne to stand still so farre as the Lord shall see it best for his owne glory until he shall be avenged of all his enemies and therfore much more may they be confident in matters of less moment For vvhat cannot the prayer of Faith bring to passe These men are able with Eliah to moove the Lord so farre as in his divine wisedome he shall see it best to send fire from Heaven to consume their Sacrifices and to make knowne to all that he hath accepted them And moreover to move the Lord to manifest to all the World and that as clearely as if hee spake from Heaven who is the Lord which is his true religion and which the false who they are that are the true children of Iesus Christ and who they are of the otherside that are the Servants of Sathan and Antichrist who are with him who against him These are they who vvith Mordokey and Hester and the rest of the faithfull amongest the Iewes are able to obtain the reversing of that most bloody decree procured by wicked Haman against Gods people although it be to doe all the decrees of the Medes Persians such as to man seemeth impossible euer to bee reversed and to cause Haman to be hanged upon his owne Gallowes To turne the plot devised agaynst Gods people to their joyfullest day a day to be remembred for ever a day of shame and confusion to all Gods enemies These are they whose praiers come up before the Lord as the prayers of holy Daniel Cornelius and Peter and who may looke for an answer from heaven at the evening Sacrifice above all that they can imagine even by the ministery of Gods blessed Angels so farre as shall be best These are they that in the greatest perils of the Church may hope through their praiers with holy Paul to save themselves and all in the Ship with them in such sort as the heavenly Wisedome shall see it best that at least they may swimme out though for not hearkning unto the Lord in time they may all first suffer shipwracke and be 〈◊〉 into the Sea These are they with whom at their cryes our Lord Iesus will be as he was with those three Worthies of the Captivitie in the middst of the hot fiery Furnace and in the verie Lyons den with holy Daniel to stop the mouthes of those hunger-bitten Lyons that the least hurt shall not come unto them more then shal be for his eternall glory with the greater good of his Church People and by whose trialles our blessed God and tender Father hath made knowne the truth of his Religion and of his causes with the innocencie of his people to Kings Princes and Rulers and to cause it by them to be published as it were to the world like as he did when it was commanded by them to bee spred and divulged in all the Dominions of the mightie Monarchs and so from them to goe to all other Nations with whom any of them had any trafficke or familiaritie And by whom he hath beene wont to effect accomplish his owne glorious workes as he hath foretold above all that any of his owne deerest Servants could ever imagine oâ—… could have beene perswaded of by any humane reason that they could ever haue bin brought to pass And thus much for this generall Meditation viz who they be that exclude themselves and also who they are and who alone that can ever looke to be committed as approved of the Lord for this blessed and glorious worke And how wee must strive to passe thorow all the difficulties before wee can approach with any true confidence and assurance to put our hand hereto and much more so as to bee able to preuaile with our God to bee made as his Israel and what confident boldnesse we may houe herein for that if wee bee such as these our God is stil the same hee is not changed neither is there with him any variablenesse or shadowing by turning The seuenth generall Meditation That the Lord notwithstanding graciously cals all sorts to be his helpers herein and therefore every one who will not strive to bee of this number and come to bee on his side must perish and doth iustly bring upon himselfe swift damnation IN this seuenth place the Lord would have us seriously to lay to heart out of all these Meditations the blessed estate and honour of them who are called and admitted to
habitation for Sathan and as a den of Dragons And that thou wouldest seeke now to have thy soule conscience wholly clensed and purged in the blood of the Lambe and to wash the feete of thy deere Saviour with Mary Magdalen by the teares of thy unfeigned sorrow for all thy former unkindness and for thy ungraciousness in keeping out thy Lord and Saviour so long giving unto Sathan the whole possession of thy heart and so the very chiefe roomes thereof not vouchsafing unto Christ Iesus so much as entertainment within thy threshold Then will he come in to thee how unworthy soever thou art and Sup with thee and thou with him This shall be the joy fullest day that ever shone upon thee for hee being in thy heart will by his blessed Spirit not onely teach thee thus to pray but will certainly make thy prayers to piâ—…rce the very heavens and finde happy audience at the throne of Grace chiefly in all these causes which so highly concerne his Majesty his poore Church and people He will then bring unto thee that joy with him that goes beyond all the joy of all worldly men and farre beyond that which all things here belowe can ever bring unto thee That which eye never saw nor eare heard nor entered into mans heart to consider of Yea that which shall never be taken away from thee but be a continuall feast for evermore And contrarily if yet thou wilt not harken unto him but still harden thy heart against him the time shall come that every call of his which ever thou heardest before and hast contemned shall sound so shrill in thy eares when it will be too late as thou shalt have it affrighting thee perpetually That thou never shalt have rest day nor night for the dreadfull noyse of these many cals because thou wouldest not harken in time but didst put off the day of thy repentance and so of harkening to his sweet voyce of mercy thus calling thee stilto bee partakers of his mercy and even of this high favour and now at day in these dangers of the Church in a speciall manner above all other Wherefore let the counsel of the holy Ghost be now acceptable unto thee breake off thy sinnes by repentance be not as the deafe Adder any longer But whilst it is now called to day heare his voyâ—… Contemne it not now little knowest thou whether ever thou shalt heare it any more thus in mercy but onely in wrath and vengeance for despising his long suffering and all the riches of his compassion The second Meditation To thinke what it is for a man to forsake his owne happinesse in refusing Christs gracious call and to joyne with Sathan against him to his endlesse perdition SEcondly the Lord cals loud to every soule to bethinke him seriously in time what it is for a man not onely to refuse and contemne the gracious call and service of our Lord Iesus Christ yea all his favours all his sweet promises and mercies concerning both this and a better life all the glory and happinesse of the Celestiall Canaan the heavenly Ierusalem where is fulnes of joy in the presence of the Lambe and at the right hand of our heavenly Father pleasures for evermore but of the contrary to choose to joyne himselfe with Sathan and with all the damned to serve under him against our Lord and Saviour Likewise to thinke aforehand what such a men will doe when hee must appeare before his glorious Majesty when all the greatest proudest of the earth that have so set themselves against him shall cry to the Hils Mountaines to fall upon them and cover them from the presence of the Lambe so terrible shall his very presence be unto them then though a Lambe to all beleevers who have heere followed him in true obedience to all who yet shall harken to his voyce yea so dreadfull shall it bee when whatsoever torment and misery is denounced against them in the booke of God to bee inflicted upon them hereafter shall be most certainly and fully executed in that lake burning with fire and brimstone For the unfallible truth and undoubted certainty hereof the Lord cals every soule alwaies to behold with the eies of their minds not only those fearfull spectacles mentioned in his word of that wofull horror of conscience which hath so surprized and overwhelmed so many of the wicked whom God hath left for ensamples to all posterity even for their malicious wickednesse though but against some one of his Servants as namely in Caine Saule Achitophel Iudas and others when they did but onely consider the wrath of the Lord and his vengeance due unto them and which would overtake them or felt it beginning to seize upon them for this sinne but moreover hee cals them to thinke aright of the continuall examples that hee daily seteth before their faces in the miseries of so many of his deerest Children How they are tormented when their consciences are awakened with a right apprehension and feare of the wrath of the Lord for their sinnes wherein they have served Sathan though not taking part against his Majesty and Children no nor so much as in forsaking him or them or any his causes but onely for some particular slâ—…ps failings and infirmities as either for some spirituall pride or timerousnesse in fearing men more then God and thereupon omitting some necessary confession or other good duty or for doing some small thing against their conscience or for some unbeleefe in not being able to rest upon the Lord his love and care in the failing of outward meanes as it was with Moses at the waters of strifâ—… or for spirituall security for decaying in their first love neglecting the conscionable use of meanes of grace and saluation or the like How even these I say when their consciences are throughly awaked doe indure as it were the very slashings of hell fire and this so dreadfully as their miseries astonish all that behold them and that they themselves doe account all outward tortures nothing in regard thereof so that many a time with holy Iob they wish an end were made of them being oft ready through Sathans malice to lay violent hands upon themselves Also for that they indure this so long as that Gods hand pursues some of them throughout their whole life that they are usually uncapable of any comfort though the same be sent by a messenger of God even one of a thousand except it bee a little before their death wherein the Lord commonly vouchsafeth unto them much heavenly assurance and consolation And if it be so with these here while yet the day of salvation remaines and the accepted time and also whilst they have the most excellent meanes to comfort them yea though they bee such as have felt formerly the assurance of Gods love favour in Christ and many
lively evidences thereof which is the chiefest of all though they be such as are deere and pretious unto the Lord and who have his holy Spirit for their earnest albeit onely for a time they want the sense feeling of it as it hath beene in many a soule in our memory and is at this day whereupon they have bene are so usually prayed for in many of our best Congregations from whence they looke for some helpe comfort by the praiers of Gods people if I say it bee so with them what can wee thinke shall become of the ungodly and impenitent sinners especially of those enemies of Christ and his Servants when their consciences shall bee throughly awaked and much more after this life when their case in regard of any comfort shall be contrary to the estate of these poore Servants of the Lord. If the righteous shall scarsly bee saved as Peter speaketh and as wee see how hardly it goes with these last mentioned where shall the wicked and ungodly appeare If the paine of one tooth alone be oft so extreame that it permits no sleepe nor rest day nor night when wee have all kind of other comforts to mitigate and ease it what can wee thinke the torments of all the parts both of soule and body must needs be in the Lake burning with fire and brimstone for ever where the very hope of all other comforts shall be utterly taken away which notwithstanding we are certainly assured must come upon all impenitent and ungodly sinners because the word of the Lord doth tell us so most plainly and so oft warnes us of it The Lord cals from heaven continually upon all who doe not repent them of their sinnes come to helpe him to thinke seriously hereof as which alone shall bee sufficiently able to convince and condemme all that ever have heard the holy Scriptures or but these fearfull examples alone The third Meditation How God herein sets before us all life and death blessing and cursing FInally we are to bethinke our selves in our deepest and best Meditations how the Lord here sets before every soule life and death blessing and cursing Life if we will but now set our selves seriously with all our hearts to seeke to pass all these difficulties never giving rest to our soules untill by our Meditations and prayers and the right use of all other holy meanes which in his word he hath prescribed us wee have attained so to beleeve and so to obey yea in all things so to doe as hee requireth at our hands that wee may be fit to helpe him and his poore Church Then we shall have boldnesse whatsoever come to passe we shall not need to feare though all our enemies were so many Divels wee shall not be dismaid for the adventuring and loosing of all Houses Goods Friends Parents Children no nor Life it selfe but contrarily in the middest of death wee shall be bold and couragious as Lyons for our Lord and Saviour knowing that nothing can separate us from Gods favour and in the losse of all we shall gaine all bee in all even in the middest of death more then Conquerors thorow him who hath so loved us and hath given himselfe for us and shall with him triumph over all our enemies eternally Death and cursing he likewise sets before us threatneth them unto us undoubtedly without unfeigned repentance whereof wee can have little hope if he now calling upon us thus earnestly to helpe him by the offer of so many mercies and such blessednesse on the one side we will not shew our true obedience and uttermost indeavour therunto and if hee denouncing so many miseries on the other side wee still refuse to harken living securely and doe not regard this gratious offer of mercy That when our feare shal come upon us like a whirlewind wee shall fly at the shaking of a sword even at the very report of our enemyes prevailing much more of their approching so neere unto us Our hearts shal be then as Nabals as dead as a stone and so wee shall live in a perpetuall expectation of the just wrath and vengeance of God to seize upon us everlastingly so that we can never expect any comfort after Yea withall we are wisely and deepely to meditate hereof how he bids us to chuse life that wee and ours may live by loving him obeying his voice cleaving fast unto him because he is our life and the length of our dayes And also how hee bidding us will also thereby give us strength to doe it so farre as we shall be accepted If we but beleeue his blessed Commandement and his Covenant of grace shall set our selves in the name and by the power of our Lord Iesu Christ to do what we can in and by the use of all the means which he hath ordained for obtayning this strength and grace so to helpe him and if we wil be as earnest as vigilant and industrious for attaining of this honour as we would be for the attaining of any earthly honour or riches For we cannot thinke that ever any man who sought this after this manner was rejected to wit if hee sought it as for treasure that is early earnestly and constantly And therefore all who wil not thus set themselves to obey help the Lord have their mouths for ever most justly stopped being left altogether without excuse And thus much also for this last generall Meditation and how we may in all things be in some good measure rightly and fitly prepared to helpe in instant and powerfull prayer for the poore Churches of Christ according to all whereunto the Lord now calles us thereby to have good hope to prevayle with him To wit when wee shall finde our hearts so affected towards his heauenly Majesty as to preferre him his glory causes before our selves so truly shewing that we love him with all our heart soule strength and might and our neighbour as our selfe as hee commandeth being so affected likewise towardes them and doing so to them as we would have them do to us if wee were in their estate and case All which we must everie one strive unto or perish if wee but onely as wee saw before stand on the other side in the day of our Brethrens affliction and much more if we will not bee moved by any one meanes nor all the meanes together whereby the Lord calls us thus to come to helpe him now I say that hee even our Lord and Saviour proclaimes to all our consciences before all the world that hee stands in such need of our helpe and so expects it hourely at our hands And this may suffice to prepare us all to this happy worke of true humiliation and of instant prayer for the Churches onely let mee put you in minde that our Lord Iesus Christ to the end that hee
that mysticall body whereof thou art the head and whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood as well as oâ—…r selves Make us to conceive aright that without this love which is the badge of thy Disciples and Children wee can never assure our owne hearts that we are either the true and naturall children of our heavenly Father or lively members of thy mysticall body and thy very Disciples indeed and that we deceive our owne hearts untill wee become thus truly affected at least in the inward longing of our soules and that wee can unfeignedly mourne for the want of the lively feeling heereof Lord cause us to know that their sinnes are in some sort our sinnes their miseries our miseries as being of the same mysticall body of our Lord Iesus Christ that both their sinnes their calamityes and their afflictions may bee matter of heavinesse mourning unto us and their prosperity both bodily and spirituall may be our continuall rejoycing Cause us to have this fellow-feeling of their estate wheresoever they be though amongst the Indians or in any of the remotest and barbarousest places in all the earth and much more as thou hast united them unto us by neerer bonds of profession place kinred and the like and hast made their estates more knowne unto us More specially make us to have a more sensible feeling of the estate of those who are of our owne nation and stocke and as they are yet linked unto us by neerer bonds Above all good Father make us to bee most loyally and hartily affected towards those in all quarters countries whom thou hast ordained in thine owne place to be Nursing-Fathers Nursing-Mothers to thy Church either presently or in their due times to succour and provide for all thy children committed to them as the faithfull Nurse for her tender Babes And amongst them for all those of them yet in a more speciall manner whom thou hast already vouchsafed this high favour to bee such unto them and to whom thou hast made knowne thy heavenly will in this behalfe what thou lookest for at their hands and whome thou hast bound unto thee by so many bonds of thy heavenly and earthly favours Oh grant that at our instant cries their hearts may bee inclined accordingly towards all thy Children especially to all those whom thou hast to this end specially committed to their trust that they may shew forth before men and Angels their tender affection towards all of them chiefly all those of them who in all unfeigned study of true holinesse and righteousnesse doe most lively resemble thee their heavenly Father and most visibly carry upon them the true Image of our Lord Iesus Christ. Oh give them like affections to thy heavenly Majesty in this behalfe that thy people and children may bee so precious unto them that like as in thy tender love thou gavest thine owne deere Son and with him all good things also yea thine owne selfe for the saving and happinesse of thy Church and namely of all blessed Kings Princes and Governours so they againe may not onely be willing to imploy all their thoughts and endeavours but also be ready to spend offer themselves and also to bee offered up so to give themselves and all theirs most willingly for the saving and happinesse of thy people Lord perswade their and our hearts that the lively evidence hereof will upon our death-beds if our consciences shall thorowly bee awaked and so ever after bee more worth unto us then ten thousand worlds and the contrary more bitter and dreadfull then all the evils of this present life can possibly bee unto us These things we humbly intreate thee to grant for thy Sonne our Lord Iesus Christ his sake our alone Saviour and Advocate III. A prayer that wee may be able to seeke and finde this first that God is our gracious and tender Father in Christ and that we may grow in this assurance daily Father OH deere Father and most blessed Lord God perswade all thy people that this is that which is first to bee sought of every one of us next thy glorie aboue all other things to bee assured that thou art our gracious and tender Father that so each of us may in faith call upon thee saying truly as our Saviour hath taught us Abba Oh Father That this assurance alone being rightly considered of that thou art our heavenly and loving Father will quiet our heart or the heart of any beleever in all the world will fill it with unspeakeable joy in the middest of the greatest troubles temptations that can possibly befall us And contrarily make every one of thy people to know for certaine that the very doubting and want of assurance whether we bee in thy favour and love or no and much more whether we bee thy Children will worke extreame disquietnesse and horror in our soules when once our consciences shall bee awaked and will bee unto us as the unspeakeable torments of hell fire and that this will fall upon all the ungodly most of all when their consciences shall tell them as one day the conscience of every wicked and impenitent sinner will doe that they are not thy Children but thine enemies and the Children of wrath yea of Sathan himselfe and therefore that they are hated of thee as Sathan their Father is whose Image they have borne and whose worke they have done To this end good Lord worke upon our hearts and the hearts of all that belong to thy eternall election whosoever and wheresoever they be in all the earth that we all may truly understand and rightly know our owne miserable condition by nature that wee are thorow the first Adam by naturall generation and by the whole course of our lives none other but the Children of disobedience and so vessels of wrath and fire brands of hell untill such time as we are or shall be regenerated and borne againe and by a lively faith ingrafted into Iesus Christ the second Adam and so made thy Children and heires of thy kingdome by thy grace in him Cause us all to know moreover that we can never attaine heereunto to bee thy Children much lesse to any certaine knowledge or assurance heereof untill wee feele these two graces of thine wrought in our hearts by thy blessed Spirit and the preaching of thy heavenly Gospell unto us to wit an unfeigned repentance for all our sinnes and a lively faith in Iesus Christ and likewise that wee have the same daily increased or at least continued with a true and earnest desire indeavour of the increase thereof for that these two are lively evidences to any man that hee is regenerate and in the state of grace and that of a Child of wrath hee is made thine owne deere Child â—…cceptable to thee his heavenly Father by Iesus Christ alone
Grant to us therefore and to all thy Children these lively evidences of thy favour in our unfeigned repentance and also our effectuall faith increasing daily for Iesus Christ our onely Lord and Saviour IIII. A prayer that wee may not deceive our selves in vayne conceite that we are Gods Children when wee are nothing lesse as the greatest part doe but that wee may come to strong assurance heereof by feeling a totall change in our lives and conversations OH most holy and most gracious Father we intreate yet further of thy divine Majesty that neither we nor any other of thy people and Children may deceive our selves in a vaine counterfeit show and imagination of repentance and faith as the greatest part of those do who living under the sound and in the light of the Gospell doe imagine therefore that they have repentance faith and are well enough when as aalas they have nothing lesse then any part of true sound and unfeigned repentance or any power of a lively faith Grant to this end that neither we nor they may rest untill wee finde in our selves the new-birth begun and increasing daily by a totall change wrought in us since the time that we beleeved in Christ as a speciall fruite thereof and that in every part both of our soules and bodies and also in the whole course of our life and conversation Stirre up all our hearts Oh holy Father to this purpose that wee may never give thee rest untill wee finde this thorow change and alteration both in our mindes and understandings from ignorance and blindnesse to the true knowledge not onely of our selves but also of thy heavenly Majesty and so of thy Sonne Iesus Christ likewise in our memories that instead of remembring vanities we may be able to keepe a holy remembrance of the things which concerne thy glory and our owne salvation with the good of our Brethren Good Lord worke the like change in our wils from following and obeying the will and lusts of our flesh to bee ever pliant and obedient to thy heavenly will Perswade our hearts that we may never give thee over untill wee likewise finde the same change in our affections that therein wee are conformed daily more and more to the holinesse of Christ both in our love hatred our joy our greefe in child-like feare holy security resting onâ—… selves onely in thy love and favour Make us to labour to finde also the same in our Consciences that wee may never give any rest to our soules untill wee finde our consciences quieted in this assurance that we are washed from our sinnes in the blood of our Lord Iesus Christ and that our owne hearts and consciences doe beare a continuall witnesse unto us of our upright conversation at least begun in us with a settled resolution ever to walke with thee our God all our daies Good Father never suffer us to bee at quiet untill wee truely finde the same alteration wrought by thy holy Spirit in like manner in our whole body making every sense and member thereof instead of the service of sinne to become servants of righteousnesse even thine owne servants Lord perswade us all that all these parts being thine Created and Redeemed to these ends thou dost not only require this holinesse in every one of them but that thou likewise workest it effectually in all thine whom thou hast ordained to life and salvation according to that measure of grace which thou arâ—… pleased to bestowe upon every one causing every one of them to strive forwards towards perfection that untill such a change bee begun in us in some measure never any one of us can have any true comfort that wee are thy Children or in thy favour and love and that onely as this change and comformitie to Christ Iesus our head increaseth so doth our comfort likewise increase in thee and contrarily as it decreaseth so doe we decay in our comfort and assurance Hearken unto us therefore Oh tender Father and worke mightily by thy holy Spirit in us in all thy Children that wee may never give thee any rest in our prayers untill wee shall attaine this full assurance for our Lord Iesus Christ his sake our onely Mediator and Advocate V. A prayer that wee may finde in our selves not onely the generall but even all the particular markes of Gods Children namely those which our Saviour hath taught us to beg in his prayer OH Lord who art the only true perswader and seâ—…ler of the hearts and consciences of all thine elect perswade effectually both us and all other thy people that besides a whole change in our selves in all the qualities and faculties of our soules bodies thou hast given sundry peculiar markes and properties whereby thy Children may both certainly know themselves to bee thy Children and also by which they may be so knowne ought so to be esteemed amongst all thy people and that so much the more as they more lively and evidently have these markes upon them And namely good Lord perswade us of those which thou in this praier hast taught all thine to pray and to cry for daily whereby wee carry most lively the Image of our Lord Iesus our elder Brother Vouchsafe that we may bee most zealous of the glory of thee our heavenly Father and that with a holy zeale having the Spirit of burning and the Spirit of judgement joyned together which worldlings regard not being little or nothing at all acquainted with it Grant that wee all may seeke thy kingdome and righteousnesse first before all the things of this life whereas they that are of this world seeke onely or at least in the first place the things of this world Helpe and inable us good Father heerein to these ends that whereas carnall and unregenerate men seeke onely the satisfying of their owne lusts and pleasures and by all meanes to have their owne wils fulfilled little or nothing regarding to know or to do thy heavenly will we contrarily may seeke to know and fulfill the will of thee our heavenly Father as thou hast expressed it in thy holy and sacred word and that this we may make our very meate and drinke preferring it as did our Saviour before his daily foode Vouchsafe us thy holy Spirit that whereas carnall and worldly men are wont commonly for whatsoever they desire onely to use and seeke worldly meanes such as like themselves best whether warrantable from thee or no they make no matter seldome or never using to seeke and beg them as they ought from thy heavenly bounty onely in and by the meanes which thou hast appointed and doe as seldome unfeignedly returne thee thankes prayse when they have received their desires but are like the swine under the Acorne trees never looking up from whence the Mast falls sacrifising unto their nets ascribing all to
deserued this honor and hath this office to make us and our prayers to be accepted and therfore that we may in faith cry unto thee evermo◅e thorow him Amen Amen Good Lord helpe us and all thy people that by all these markes and the like wee may thoroughly try and examine our selves whether we be thy children or no and that wee may never give ouer crying unto thee untill we finde every one of these lively and sensibly in us Cause us rightly to understand and to bee fully perswaded heereof that in what measure we finde the former change wrought in us and every one of these marks in the same we may know our selves like wise to bee in thy favour and accepted of thee and that contrarily vvithout every one of these at least begun in us in some measure a sound resolution with an earnest desire and longing of our soules to increase and grow heerein vvee cannot assure our selves to bee any better then Hypocrites and that wee shall never finde sound comfort that thou wilt acknowledge us for thine untill we finde these evident markes upon us Grant unto us therefore Oh tender Father all the peculiar marks of thy Children and all other that hereby we and all thine may know our selves infallibly to bee thine owne deere Children for thy beloved Sonne our blessed Lord and Saviour Amen VI. A prayer for knowledge and right use of the meanes whereby wee may bee made Gods Children and grow up in the assurance thereof and so b◅ established in grace continually OH most gracious God and mercifull Father the onely fountaine of wisedome and grace forsomuch as every one who hath any sparke of grace or true wisedome desires to bee in the blessed estate of thy Children to have thy love and favour to grow up in the assurance thereof as the chiefest happinesse in this world perswade us and all thy people aright what are the ordinary meanes whereby thou begettest thy Children to a lively hope That thou dost it ordinarily and usually even by the same meanes whereby thou diddest first gather thy Church in the daies of our Saviour and after that so wonderfully and speedily spread it over the face of the earth even by the sincere preaching of thy heavenly word and namely of thy sacred Gospell That howsoever the world accounts that foolishnesse yet thou hast ordained it to be the immortall seede whereby thine are begotten anew and thus made thy Children by grace and to be thy mighty power unto salvation to make all thine to beleeve and in beleeving to make them partakers of thy favour and love and so to give them eternall life And that this saving kinde of preaching stands as the preaching of Paul did not in the intising speech of mans wisedome but in the plaine evidence of thy Spirit of power That so our faith may bee apparant to bee wrought not by the wisedome of men but onely by thy divine and mighty power alone Perswade all thy people moreover that as thou doest beget all thine a-newe by this thy heauenly voyce the sincere preaching of thy Gospell and in calling them makest them thy Children so thou feedest and nourishest them and all thy Graces in them by the same principally and next therunto by the right use of thy holie Sacraments the reuerent reading of the same blessed word and other holy bookes grounded thereupon with sacred Meditations conference with the godly practise of all holy duties carnest supplications and prayers for a right and sanctified use for thy blessing upon everie one of these meanes and the like to make them all effectuall heereunto Good Father perswade ◅ll who thus desire to bee thy Children and in thy favour and to have all others likewise partakers with them of the same mercy to seeke by all holy meanes the establishing and advancement of thy sacred Ministery that them selves and all others may depend upon the conscionable faithfull and sincere Ministers Pastors and Teachers whom thou hast ordayned in this respect to succeed in the place of holy Paul and the other Apostles for the gathering together of the Saints for the worke of the Ministry and for the edification of the body of Christ and bee wholly affraid of all Anaba ptisticall fancies or separations or of any way vvithdrawing themselves from under the meanes ordayned by thee for their salvation to lye open to Sathan and his delusions Oh gracious Father who so tenderest thy Children and chosen flocke as thou hast set Kings Princes in thy place for the care and comfort of them above all other of the earth perswade and move effectually the heartes of all those whom thou hast appointed to be thus as Fathers to thy children as namely all Governours and principally the cheefe whom thou hast specially ordayned to bee the prime foster-Fathers unto those thy deere Children in al the parts of the world That they by all the meanes power that thou shalt ever vouchsafe to put into their hands may looke to see thy people committed to their charge to be furnished with such conscionable sincere faithfull Pastors and teachers as by whom they may be first begotten and after nourished and fed so as they may grow up to the measure of the age of the fulness in Christ and be provided likewise for all other gracious meanes helps belonging hereunto Thus in like manner wee humbly intreate thee most mercifull God and tender father that by the mighty operation of thy heavenly Spirit thou wilt thorowly perswade and move all those whome thou hast in a peculiar manner separated unto this worke of winning of soules unto thee or who have or shall any way enter heereupon that they may wisely consider that principall part of their Vocation and Function namely to endeavour to make al their Congregations to bee thine owne Children carrying lively thy image and bearing upon them the markes of thy Children Cause them to seeke tenderly to nourish and comfort them as in thy place and presence and ever to preserve keepe them from Sathan and all his cursed agents and instruments as from all seducing Iesuites and Seminaryes who compasse sea and land to make all sorts the children of the divell worse then themselves and so from all other deceyvers and all the delusions of this evill world Grant that thus they may study to be able each according to their places at all times whensoever thou shalt call them to an account and chiefly at the great day to present them with all confident boldness and joy before thy heavenly Majesty saying vvith the Prophet Lord heere am I and the children thou hast given me by my Ministry or any way cōmitted to my charge Hearken unto us Oh gracious Father in these our humble supplications all other things which thou knowest to be
speedy and unfeigned repentance thou wilt cut them offâ—… from ever seeing thy celestiall Canaan and much more make all them to know this specially who with the tenne spyes after they have not only searched out the good land tasted and brought to others the fruite of it but filled them selves at least with the outward blessings and daynties thereof have yet either turned backe or brought an evill report upon it even upon thy sacred religion and Gospell to discourage their Brethren thereby to cause them to be faint-hearted and as much as â—…veth in them to turne into Aegypt againe Oh Lord most holy most dreadfull and most terrible make us all ever to remember that of all those hundreth thousands who so tempted and dishonoured thee by their unbeleefe in the way towards the earthly Canaan never any one could enter in but thou causedst their catkasses to fall in the wildernes untill they were utterly consumed and for those that brought that vile slaunder upon the good land thou causedst them to die by a terrible plague and that therefore these may justly expect a more heavy wrath and vengeance from thy Majesty Oh gracious Father give all thine owne faithfull people and children the same hearts of Caleb Iosua especially all them who as those thy two worthy servants have unto this day constantly stucke unto thy sacred Majesty in the conscionable profession of thy heavenly truth that we may all couragiously and boldly give testimony unto the happinesse of this good land into which thou hast brought us this good way of life wherein thou hast set us that this indeed to wit the sincere profession of thy name according to thy sacred word and as it is confirmed by our good Lawes is a land that floweth with milke and hony and the Lord if he love us will continue it unto us and increase the glory and happinesse of it untill he have brought us into his heavenly Canaan Inable us good Father thus to incourage our owne hearts and the hearts of all our faithfull Brethren and for all other to perswade them by all meanes out of thy blessed word that they rebell not against thee the Lord of hoasts neither feare the proud enemies of the Church but onely that we may joyntly be truly humbled before thy glorious Majesty for all our sinnes whereby we have thus provoked thy greatnesse and holinesse thus caused thee to muster thine armyes and to strengthen thine and our enemies against us to cause thine owne people in so many places to fly before them Oh Lord inable us by thy holy Spirit that wee may never leave wrastling with thee untill we have prevailed with thy Majesty thus farre that thou shalt incline the hearts of all especially all those whom thou hast set in thy place for the saving of thy people that they and all their dominions even all the Churches and every soule of thine may seeke thee in sack cloth and ashes in fasting weeping and mourning never giving over crying to thee through thy Christ untill thine anger be appeased and thou bee reconciled to thy people againe for that then undoubtedly as thou hast bene wont to doe in former Ages thou wilt make thine and thy Churches enemies to be but bread for thy people that all the world shall see that their sheild is departed from them and that thou the Lord of hoasts art with us and that wee shall not need to feare them any more Oh gracious God most tender Father cause all the Churches to know and especially us of this sinfull nation that hitherto we and so many as have beene preserved thou alone hast spared and saved us of thy rich mercy and at the instant requests importunings of thy Moseses which have bene amongst us And more specially cause all unbeleevers to know that thou now speakest to them as thou diddest to thy people in the wildernesse That notwithstanding thy great mercies and the sparing of us at the cries of thy faithfull ones yet all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord. that all those who have seene thy glory the good land and great deliverances which thou hast given to thy people and yet have so oft and doe still tempt thee not obeying thy voyce shall never see that thy heavenly Canaan which thou hadst so promised and offered unto them nor any other that so provoked thee by their unbeleefe That onely thy faithfull servants who as Caleb and Iosuah having another Spirit doe follow thee still remaining still more constant and faithfull even in the greatest timerousnesse and backsliding of the multitude these onely thou wilt bring into the heavenly Canaan and they alone shall inherit it for evermore Heare us Oh most gracious God and loving Father and keepe us by the mighty power of thy blessed Spirit that alwayes remembring what thou hast done for us and considering aright of the miserable estate of all under Sathan and Antichrists tyranny and our owne happy estate and condition under our Lord Saviour Iesus Christ we may all joyntly strive fast forward towards the full fruition of thine owne glorious Majesty in the heavenly Canaan and in the new Ierusalem eternally Grant that in the meane time the unfeigned repentance of all thy true Churches and people for all our sinnes may bee one of thy effectuall and principall instruments for the pulling of the remainder of thy people forth of Sodome and of Aegypt and to cause all thine to fly speedily and get themselves out of Babilon that by escaping her sins they may likewise escape her plagues and finally that it may thus prepare the way to the calling and conversion of the Iewes the gathering in of all thy Israel the speedy comming of our Lord and Saviour for our eternall deliverance the everlasting glory of thy Sion and of us all for evermore Heare us Oh most gracious Father in these our requests and accept of this our poore thanksgiving for this inestimable favour even for Iesus Christ his sake our onely Lord and Saviour X. A prayer that wee and all the Churches in token of our thankfullnesse to our blessed God for our deliverance from Babilon for making us his people and Children and his Covenant with us may set our selves to honour him more then ever wee have done especially in a more conscionable and chearefull walking in all his holy Lawes and Commandements that hee may alwaies keepe us from that bloody tyranny OH Lord most holy most great and glorious who hast made all things for thine owne sake even the wicked for the day of evill Perswade the hearts of all thine owne people that thou hast thus created formed all things for thine owne honour that thy great name might ever be magnifyed in all the world and especially by thine owne children and to this end
thou hast caused the glorie of thy wisedome power and goodness to shine in all thy works even in every creature of the world to convince all the earth that every soule that will not give thee thy glory may bee left utterly without excuse and all the disobedient may have theyr mouthes stopped and be forever confounded before thy Tribunall Above all make all thy people to understand and know that thou hast caused this thy glorie to be more visibly uppon the Churches which thou hast so mightily rescued and delivered from the power of Sathan and Antichrist and whom thou hast taken into so neere a Covenant as to bee thy onely people to whom thou hast committed thy heavenly word and ordinances then it is upon all other people and places of the world besides and that this thou hast done chiefly to this end that wee might set forth thy glory in this by keeping all thy Statutes and observing all thy Lawes Lord cause all to know moreover that to this end thou hast not delivered us set us out of that bondage to serve thee in holiness but hast set before us also life death blessing and cursing and hast bidden us to choose life that we and ours may live and hast assured us heereof and that onely by loving thee the Lord our God by obeying thy voice by cleaving fast unto thee because thou thorow thy Christ art unto us our life and the length of our dayes and whatsoever thou bidst us thou wilt enable us to doe we onely beleeving in thy beloved Sonne and using the holy meanes which thou hast appointed Make us all to this purpose ever to remember how thou hast charged us all that the booke of thy Law thy sacred word should never depart out of our mouthes but that we should meditate in it day and night that wee may all observe and doe according to all that is written in that booke for that then thou wilâ—… make all our wayes in this our journey prosperous no enemy shall bee able to withstand us much lesse to surprize us of a sudden but thou wilt bee with us and thou wilt then give us good success Yea good Lord let this ever be before our faces how to incorageâ—…s better hâ—… 〈◊〉 to thou hast assured us that if wee will thus thinke and meditate of thy Lawes and Commandements day and night to observe do them and honour thee thereby thou wilt honour us herein that wee shall bee a blessed people and like the trees plainted by the rivers of water that we shall bring forth our fruite in due season and that so as our leafe shall not fade but looke whatsoever we do shal prosper How then we shall be wiser then our enemies yea wee shall have more understanding then our teachers and then all the auncient when wee can set our selves thus to honour thee by keeping all thy Commandements like as thou diddest veryfie thy gracious promises in this â—…alfe to thy faithfull servant David to Daniell to those worthyes of the Captivitie whom thou diddest so highly honour for that they so honoured thee as that they would rather chuse to bee cast upon all miseries yea the cruellest death then voluntarily to defile themselves by transgressing but the very least of all thy holy Commandements Make us all therefore that are thiâ—…e rightly to understand that whilest wee thus honour thee in being thus with thee in faith and all holy obedience to these thy blessed Commandements thou wilt likewise honour us in being with us in mercy and truth thy good hand shal bee so sensibly upon us that we shall live by faith in assurance and experience that thou wilt accomplish unto â—…s every one of thy 〈◊〉 promises and that thus persevering in faith and obedience we shal be saved eternally Make us to know for certayne that so long so long onely as we watch and strive heereunto seeking cheerfully to receyue the Law of thy mouth and to lay uppe thy words in our soules we shall be able to lift up our heartes with our hands in undoubted assurance that wee shall be heard in whatsoever shall be best for us and for thy Church Cause us to know and beleeue for certayne that so many of us and so many onely as thus seeke to make keep peace with thy Majesty in turning and submitting ourselves thus wholly to thy Covenant as holy Noah Moses and Abraham did are those whom thou accountest the innocent and to whom thou hast promised that they shall deliver the Iland Lord at length perswade us all that are thine and make every one of us to seeke to perswade all others that unto this intire endeavour of obedience to all thy Commandements both of thy Law and Gospell are all thy promises made and that contrarily against all contempt and despising of the heavenly Commandements yea against every wilful disobedience thogh it be but to one Commandement thy cursings and thâ—…e tâ—…ings are denounced which thou dost dreadfully execute accordingly because men will not thus give thee thy glory Good Lord awaken all the Churches and open the eyes of all thine own people rightly to conceyue understand these things and how Sathan that old Serpent that arch bloody enemy of thy Church knowing all this wel enough hath sought in all the prosperity of thy Churches to cause thine owne people to dishonour thee by making onely a bare outward profession of honouring thee by receyuing and setting up thy heavenly Religion Commandements to obey them in word but trampling them all under foot generally according to the evill customes and manners of the Countries and places where they live that thou mightest leave thy people into his hand into the hands of all his cruell instruments as thou hast most righteously done in so many parts of thy Church already and threatnest all the rest of thy people for the same Oh deere Father how many of thy faithfull servants who have lived in those parts of thy Church which are now left into the enemyes handes do heerein iustifie thy proceedings acknowledging thy righteousness in all that thou hast brought upon them even for this very cause of carnall Gospelling and loose profession Oh tender Father make us all able likewise to iustifie thee in this behalfe and never to rest crying unto thee for them untill thou shalt open their eyes to see and acknowledge thy righteousnes and that they shall unseinedly repent of their most heynous dishonour done to thy sacred Majesty herein in causing thy name heereby to bee blasphemed amongst thine enemyes Yea cause us good Lord by their fearfull ensample even us specially of this sinfull Nation to meet thee speedily by our unfeigned repentance for this dreadfull sinne whereof we are generally no less guilty then any
of them coâ—…dering the gracious meanes which wee haue so long time enioyed above all Oh make us to doe it foorthwith before it be too late that thy wrath be powred on us as upon them and that there bee no remedy Cause us at least to be warned by the very Heathen who acknowledged this giving glory thus to thee the God of Israel to be the onely meanes to appease thy wrath and prevent thy further judgements Lord smiâ—…e the hearts of all thy Lieutenants and of all to whom the charge of thy honour the saving of thy people are specially committed that they may be thorowly awaked and touched with a right Meditation and sense hereof and of their account to be given even for this dishonour before thy heavenly Majesty that thy people should thus fall away or thus flye before thine enemyes And for all thine and our proud aduersaries perswade our hearts that thou hast raised them up thus against us all as thou diddest Pharao against Israel that when thou hast humbled us by them so as to turne us to thee againe by causing us to submit and humble our soules to walke lowlily with thee in all these thy blessed Commandements and so to honor thee thou wilt then get thy selfe glory uppon their pride and furie and in our finall deliverance from them giving them for our ransome Yea good Father for every particular soule of us make us to know in our very hearts that thou as thou hast made us for thine owne glory so thou wilt be glorifyed in us and by us and that in endless mercy and eternall compassion upon so manie of us as thou having ordayned to be vessels of glorie givest hearts unto thus to humble our selves to seeke to walke obediently in all thy blessed Lawes and commandements of the other side that thou wilt bee glorifyed in declaring thy wrath and everlasting vengeance which thou wilt in thy due time execute upon all thy disobedient and stubborne enemyes who shal declare themselves manifestly by rebelling against thee to be vessels of wrath prepared for destruction Lord by the due meditation and consideration heereof awaken and rowze up all thy people to learn to make more true conscience of all thy blessed Commaundements then ever we have done heretofore for the appeasing of thy Majestie that thy glorie may shine in all the world in pardoning the sinnes of thy people delivering us from our cruell enemies and getting thy selfe honour upon Babylon who hath chiefly for this bene and is the staffe of thy wrath and indignation Heare us therefore heerein and cause us at length even in token of our thankfulness in the zeale we have for thy glory yea in a vehement desire that thy glory may bee set uppe and thy great name may by us be magnified in all the world thus to seek to renew and performe all our vowes to walke more obediently in all thy blessed Commandements then ever heretofore even for our Lord Iesus Christ his sake our onely Redeemer Saviour Amen XI A Prayer that Gods glorie may breake forth more and more then ever heeretofore in causing us and all his people in all the Churches to set him up alone as our God and make him great in our hearts by having our hearts first soundly replenished with all the parts of his inward worship commanded in the first Commandement without which we and all our outward worship and whatsoever we do in his service are utterly in vain That thus all the Churches and euery soule may seeke to pacifie his Maiestie by giving unto him his due glorie OH Lord God who art most glorious in thy 〈◊〉 Majesty 〈◊〉 in all thy Attributes and hast made this glorie of thine to shine bright in every one of thy workes and chiefly in thy heavenly word that thou mightest bee glorifyed accordingly by all thy people and chiefly by them whom thou hast redeemed from Egypt and Babylon to this end and purpose set up this thy glory in the hearts consciences of everie one of thine elect that all of us may know and acknowledge thee such a one as thou hast revealed thy selfe in thy most blessed word Lord graunt that all of us may be knowen heereby to be taught by thee and that the earth may be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the Sea according to thy graÌ„cious promises made unto thy Church in the flourishing estate thereof yea perswade us good Lord that without the true knowledge of thee and thy heavenly will our hearts cannot be good howsoever wee may deceive our selves as the world doth generally More specially inable us to set thee up in our hearts not onely by knowing thee in a generall manner but by beleeving that thou art our God that wee may bee able in faith each of us with Thomas to call thee My God and my Lord and so to beleeve every thing contained in thy heavenly word as that this power of our faith in thee may shew it selfe in each part and action of our whole life both in readily obeying every one of thy blessed Commandements as thy servants Abraham and Noah did and also in fearing every one of thy threatnings and jvdgements finally in laying lively hold of every one of thy gracious promises made unto us in the same word that so wee may alwaies cheare up our hearts and incourage our selves and also one another to run out more joyfully in all the narrow way of life Lord perswade all our hearts that this particular and powerfull faith howsoever it be scoffed at by all thine and thy Churches enemies was the very faith of our Father Abraham and of all the faithfull recorded in thy booke even that whereby all the Fathers received good report and that without this lively working faith it is impossible for any one ever to be pleasing or ever to doe any thing acceptable to thy heavenly Majesty Good Lord make vs all able upon thâ—… our right saving knowledge of thee that thou art faithfull and true and this our faith in thee that thou art our God to hold fast the Anchor of our hope and to manifest it by our wayting and looking stedfastly for the full accomplishment of every promise that thou hast made either coÌ„cerning thy Church in generall or els any of us particularly also of whatsoever thou hast denounced concerning thine and thy Churches enemies and that thou wilt doe every thing in thy due time for thy Church and against thy enemies howsoever for the present all things may seeme to goe against thy Church and people Yea inable us withall good Father ever to honour thee by shewing forth this our faith by the confidence which wee have in thee even then when wee may seeme to bee most forgotten and forsaken of thee both by casting all our
in new spoyles How all this which is charged upon them in this behalfe was most apparant in this one thing that heereby they had got into their hands most of the pleasantest fartest things of the Land to uphold their kingdome and to support their wickednesse and so all other their delusions evident by most notorious discoveries remayning uppon perpetuall record to all posterity Lord at length make them and all sorts wisely to understand before it bee too late that if the continuall practise of Sodommy Whoredome Murder Lying Robbing swallowing up whole Nations and all under a clâ—…ake of devouon and piâ—…y could demonstrate a religion most abhominable and accursed then surely Popery must needs bee it That this was then a chiefe part of that Babylon which is called the mother of whoredomes and abhominations of the earth and that in the fâ—…ll hereof was a part of that vengeance verified That Babilon is falne it is falne and is become an habitation of devils a hold of all foule Spirits when as the most of them were afterwards hanted with devils in one roome or other of them Good Lord cause them moreover to bethinke themselves how evidently of the contrary as if it were from heaven and how mightily thou hast maintained proclaimed thy sacred truth and convinced them all and all the whole land concerning the evidence of thy religion professed amongst us by the blood of so many learned and most faithfull Martyes yea by so many of thy Prophets and worthy Preachers in every part of our land so many learned writers unanswerable Make them and all of us to lay to heart at length what they can answer into thee who â—…ast discovered froÌ„ time to time such so many most barbarous and unnaturall 〈◊〉 eyther done or intended by their Iesuites and Seminary Preists and other of that religion and especially to be the fruits of their religion and the practise of their owne grounds and principles Such continuall plotting attempting and practising of murdering of Princes â—…sion of States butchering even their owne friends and kinsmen desolating their owne native Countryes mercilesse massacring old and young noble and ignoble men women and children Lord cause them and all sorts ever to keepe in memory that which was so much triumphed of by them before the victory that outragious insolent and most savage invasion of this our Nation and at the time of a treaty about a marriage and amity chiefly managed by her owne children and native subjects deluded by the principall Fathers and spreaders of that religion Oh let that hellish Powder treason ever be before our faces that wickednesse unto which no name can ever bee found out meete and sufficient to expresse it or able to set forth the nature of it That which was so compact of all the principall workes of the devill both lying murdering and all kinds of cruelty that thou Oh Lord madest them themselves to be trumpeters and publique proclamers by it of the abhominable iniquity of that accursed religion whereby it was contrived and managed and that they themselves should shew to all nations that it is come out of the bottomlesse pit and the very principall religion of Sathan in all the world under such a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of holinesse Lord give all thy servants grace wisely to consider of these things and to thinke how fearfull it is not onely for them who adjoyne themselves or turne to a religion of such abhominations but even for us all who have bene so warned thereof so many waies and that from thine owne Majesty in such aboundant compassion and by so many infallible evidences that wee through our negligence in our severall places have suffered it so to grow up againe â—…s thus to indanger us by it and our whole Nation yea even all the Church and people of the Lord besides the dishonouring and provoking thy heavenly Majesty to the uttermost Oh gracious God make them and uâ—… all wisely to consider the wonderfull Testimonyes which thou hast contraâ—…ly granted to thy Gospell in the miraculous continuance of it preservation of our Princes and us with all our peace notwithstanding so innumerable stratagems to have taken them away for so many yeares together how these have beene as infallable arguments of thy favour and love towards us for thy Gospell sake and for thy faithfull servants amongst us as the like were tokens of thy favour towards Iudah or Ierusalem Oh make us to call to mind how many a time thy people amongst us have even wondered at our incredible deliverances and preservations with the defeating of their new hopes and long expected daies and also the new and almost continuall discoveries of their wicked intendments which even they themselves at this day so many as iâ—… whom 〈◊〉 the light of nature 〈◊〉 doâ—… acknowledge and wonder at the miraculous oâ—…turning of all theâ—… counsels to worâ—… for us and against themselves 〈◊〉 this â—…ery day so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thy 〈◊〉 and watchfull eye over us hatred of their wickedâ—… Wherefore Oh blessed Father we humbly in-treat thee to great unto us al true repentance for this amongst all other our fearfull and crying sinnes daily 〈◊〉 up more and more the 〈◊〉 of thine Anoynâ—… our 〈◊〉 Soveraigne with all other in high place and chiefe authority under him and all thy faithfull Ministers and whomsoever it specially concernes to labour that our sinfull Land may be fully purged of it and the evils prevented which thou threatnest against us by the increase and spreading of it Grant that thus wee all joyntly and generally setting thee up in our hearts to worship and adore and to receive thy sacred religion alone may utterly extirpate and abolish all conceite of giving thy honour and soveraignty to that man of sinne or setting up his Idolatry or superstition in place thereof That so wee may remayne thine owne obedient people that thou mayest likewise continue our most gracious God and loving Father and so our most watchfull protector for ever and mayest never repent of the good that thou hast done or further intended towards us but mayest thus make us a most blessed and happy nation and people amongst whom thou alone mayest solely relgne untill thy blessed Sonne shall come in the clouds that then all we who are thine may reigne with thee in the highest heavens for â—…vermore 〈◊〉 us oh most gracious God hâ—…erein and in all other things needfull for us or for any member of the whole Church for our Lord Iesus Christ Amen Amen XIIII An earnest prayer that the Lord would open the eyes of our brethren and sisters seduced by the Iesuites and other Seminary Priests that they may plainly see how palpably they are and have bene deluded by them in what a fearfull estate they all stand under Sathan and Antichrist and may speedily get them from under their Tyranny and betake themselves to the banner of
who yet stand by thy mercy to labour to growe dayly in the love of thy truth and in a conscionable obedience to thee in all thy waies watching and praying continually that we may never bee given up with them to these strong delusions but that contrarily by our faith and obedience we may have boldnesse to draw neerer and neerer unto thy holinesse with that thy faithfull servant Abraham and may helpe by our prayers though not to save that filthy Sodom which thou wilt have burnt downe to hell yet to pull out all thy Lots before even all amongst them that belong to thy eternall election before the fire and brimstone rayne downe from heaven upon them to consume all the wicked scorners amongst them eternally Make us all likewise to thinke with our selves whether we can name a man that was first truly grounded in the principles of our Religion and after coutinued to make conscience of his wayes according to the same that ever the devill or the Iesuites have bene able to seduce but only such as either were never well grounded or never truly made conscience of their waies or such at least as having fallen by little and little from their first conscience and childlike feare and so from the love of thy truth having yeelded to bee overcome by uncleannesse or some notorious sinne and so given way to Sathan to bee deluded by him Cause all to understand how by this meanes they lye open to Sathan and are hereby made fit for a Preist to absolve them and make them as cleane as when they were first borne as they will beare them in hand and thus to be reconciled to the Church which hath this holy power and can thus pardonand acquit them whatsoever they doe or howsoever they live and that without any paine or trouble especially if it bee so that they have money enough to purchase their pardons and the like Grant us therefore this grace to use all meanes for our selves and all ours and even for all those whom wee would save from hell that we may all first be soundly instructed in the grounds of the Catechisme in every principle and part of thy sacred truth after learne to make such a conscience of all thy blessed wayes and Commandements that thou mayest never give us or them up to these delusions but wee may for ever remaine under thy safe protection untill thou shalt translate us into the heavens from all the danger of the Dragon And for these our seduced brethren and all others deluded dy Sathan through impenitency in any fearefull sin make us able first to consider wisely of their estate secondly of the meanes how to save them and to pull them from it and lastly never suffer us to rest till wee have shewed our uttermost love unto them to bring them to our Lord Iesus Christ. Oh open our eyes and helpe us that we may see how they are under the power of Sathan and thine enemies every moment of time ready to bee cut off in thy just vengeance and to bee cast into hell Make us able to have the like tender commiseration of each of them as of a Captive under the cruelleft tyrant and as of one in a dead sleepe in the middest of a dreadfull fire ready each minute to seize upon him or in a deepe water sinking downe or as of a poore Lambe in the mouth of a roaring Lyon ready to bee devoured each moment cōsidering that the case of never a one of these can possibly bee the thousand part so bad as of them that are ready each moment to bee cast into the lake of fire and there to bee tormented for evermore Inable us withall to thinke ever of their estate and to keepe in memory these things and the like which demonstrate to all the world how palpably they are deluded bewitched and so to use them and all other helpes wherby they may be rescued Assist us so with thy heavenly grace that wee may never rest till wee have awaked them out of that dead sleepe and convinced their consciences some way of their wofull case and estate and after used all holy meanes which thou hast or ever shall reveale unto us to pluck them out of the fire at least thus praying and crying unto thee our blessed and gracious God for them as the Christians did for Peter in prison Lord make them to know for certaine that if they bee thy Lambs thou wilt rescue and pull them out of the Lyons mouth if thou have ordained to save them thou wilt pluck them out of the fire and out of the water thou wilt make all the chaines fetters of the devill to fall off from them no doores shall keepe them no sorcery shall preuaile against them beyond the time that thou hast appointed Cause us all to know and fully to vnderstand that hee that saveth not destroyes so every one of us that doth not according to our places and callings seeke thus by all holy meanes to save them all and to preserve all thy Churches from the dangers threatned by thee are guilty of the neglect hereof and so of the blood of all before thy heauenly Majesty and so much more as wee are more neerly tyed by any more speciall bon◅ of place calling or otherwise Heare us Oh tender Father for them all and all so bewitched and deluded by Sathan and that heerein wee chiefly all our Pastors and watchmen according to their places may shew all love and holy obedience to thee and to all thy tender Lambs which belong to thy fould even all thy deere and precious ones committed to their trust never leaving thee till thou hast rescued and recovered them for the full assurance of all our owne soules heereby that wee are indeed truely thine filled with thy holy Spirit the Spirit of faith and love and thereby sealed against the day of our Redemption and that thou maiest shew thy selfe stronger then Sathan and that hee is but thy vassall and also that thou art more mercifull to save then he can be malicious to destroy for thy infinite pitty and endlesse compassion through our blessed Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ Amen Amen XV. A humble thanksgiving for our dread Soveraigne our gracious Prince the Prince and Princesse Palatine and all their royall progeny and for all the great deliverances which our blessed God hath given unto them and to us all by them with an earnest praier that hee may make them each in their times and places the happiest heades of the most prosperous and blessed Nations and people that ever have bene in the world OH Lord our God infinite inithy mercy and endlesse in thy compassions who by thy wonderfull providence orderest all things in heaven and earth disposing all to the right ends which before the world thou hast ordayned to thine owne glory and the good of thine elect wee doe with all
thankfulnesse of heart humbly acknowledge before thy sacred Majesty how wee especially in this sinfull Nation with us many other and namely all thy chosen flocke among us are bound unto thy sacred Majesty for the admirable setting up and the wonderfull preservation of thine Annoynted servant our dread Soveraigne of all his Royall progeny with every of thy deliverances and mercyes which thou hast heeretofore vouchsafed by them or as yet dost through them most graciously offer unto us all upon our unfeigned repentance and true turning to thee Lord make us ever to bee wisely pondering of thy divine and Fatherly providence even in every one of these which hath bene so sensible that our very enemies have taken notice of it and so give thee glory acknowledging thy hand in them Diddst thou not Oh good Lord at the very naming of thy Royall Servant to be our Lord and King deliver us all from the hand of our Brother Esau even from all those who had long vowed our death and thirsted after our blood Diddest thou not thereby cast such a terror upon all thine and all thy Churches enemies as that the feare of him and of thy people fell upon them all that not so much as adogge wag'd his tongue against any of thy servants though our sinnes had long before cryed for such a vengeance as they had threatned And afterward when wee had so provoked thee againe by our impenitency and by al our unthankfullnesse manifested in the breach of our renewed vowes and Covenants as that wee were indangered to bee consumed at once by that fiery furnace made like Nebuchadnezzars large and wide or much more terrible by thine and our most mercilesse enemies stirr'd up against us in thy wrath yet diddst not thou againe deliver us and pluck us forth even as the three children of the Captivity and cast in sundry of our enemies for us Diddest thou not also principally worke this as by the hand of thine Annoynted not suffering him to rest untill all our deliverance was wrought And hast thou not both before and since that time given unto him many great deliverances and in all his preservations still preserved us all especially us of this Nation together with all our blessings of so much peace and prosperity as wee still injoy in the middest of the calamities of the other Churches And above all hast thou not thus continued thy heavenly Gospell the life of our lives which hath bene so removed from other Countries together with their outward blessings so as thou hast made him to this day the very breath of our nosethrils and that through him wee injoy all these our mercies as under our vine and figtree and by him givest us new and most blessed hope that wee shall injoy them perpetually Lord these are mercies and favours never to bee forgotten of us Good Lord set them ever before our eyes And for our gracious Prince besides all his and our former deliverances hopes in and by him hast thou not made him to bee to us as Ioseph and disposed of all his journey and of his dangers in it to the greatest discovery of the devices of our adversaries and overturning the hopes of all our wicked enemies Never suffer us to forgett how thou revivedst the hatts of us all making us to breake out into joyfull Triumphes praises when thou hadst caused us to see his face againe delivering him from so many perils as our sins had brought him and â—…s into and those dangers of all sorts both by sea and land yea both bodily and spirituall Lord make us able to give thee thy due glory heerein that thou sitting at the sterne hast disposed of all that journey and all those adventures to the admired improvement of all thy rich guifts and graces in thy Royall servant caused him to see the vilenesse of that most odious superstition and Idolatry which thy soule so much abhorreth and which hee otherwise had never so well understood That thou hast taught us all to know by most happy experience what the power of the prayers of thy people is when they are sent up with an united force that they are able to open the Iron doores and to breake in sunder the gates of brasse to make way for thy children and chosen clocke to passe through the middest of all thine and their mortall enemies Lord make us to lay it wisely to heart how thou hast made him so much more hereby the future expectation and rejoycing of Israel under thine Annoynted servant And likewise for that perelesse Princesse Lord make us all able wisely to consider what another crowne of glory thou hast set upon her head even in her lowest abasement which thou hast brought her unto for the sins of thy people that she should thus excell in al true renowne and fame of all Christian and truely Heroike vertues above all the Princes of the earth that thou hast made her a Mirrour to all of her sex at this day in all the world Oh suffer us never to forget that wonderfull preservation of her when thou deliveredst herâ—… at the Powder Treason from those cruell Nimrods the bloody hunters the reedifiers of Babell who had in their account made a prey of her in a speciall manner by her to have accomplished all their hellish ends and most mercilesse designes against our whole Nation and against all thy poore Churches and people Let it never slip out of our minde that howsoever thou hast suffered her againe to be chased and pursued as a Doe before the hunters yet thou preservedst her in a miraculous manner with that illustrious Prince and all their Royall seed and hast made them most fruitfull in the midst of all their trials and temptations to the terrour and astonishment of all thine and thy Churches enemies and the greater securing and comfort of thy people to cause all thine to lift up their heades in an expectation of a more glorious Age time yet to come in all the world then ever heretofore And above all let this ever be before our faces how thou hast thus wonderfully kept them all alive against all the plots and layings in waite of Sathan and all his instruments by all their stratagems devises and bloody pursuites and hast preserved those thrice happy pawnes pledges of our peace and safety though out of their owne Countryes and people and in forraigne parts And finally how thou hast begunne this wished and happy union amongst thy Churches and servants the cutting off the long wished hopes of the enemies of thy Church under their pretended leagues of peace and amity whereby they had so much undermined us and expected our surprizall of a sodaine whilest we remained yet most secure Not unto us Oh Father not unto us but to thy great name wee give all the glory humbly consessing that by all our impenitency and breach of
prayers mention'd before in the generall Contents are the sumâ—…e of this first Part. The Second Part to succeede in the next place containeth Prayers likewise for all the Churches and people of God scattered thorough the whole world that wee may all seeke to pacifie the Lord by giving him his glorie in returning and submitting our selves wholly unto his Covenant and that we may obtaine by our instant prayers that wâ—…e may ioyntly honour him so walking and beleeving as his heavenly wisedome hath appoynted For this is a thing notoriously observed and acknowledged by all who rightly under stand the state of forraigne parts that as it â—… amongst us for the most part so it hath beene very generally amongst them in all the Churches that they have had onely a bare forme of godlinesse a naked outward profession of the Gospell in word but almost without any power or life thereof more then for a fashion And that this hath not onely thus fleshed our Adversaries to the destruction of the whole Church as dooing a thing meritorious unto God heerein for that they conceyve us to bee but a company of Heretiques in professiâ—…n very Atheistes in our lives but also provoked our blessed God so farre aireâ—…die to leave so many of the Churches into their hands and thus to threaten all the rest even us our selves seeing his kingdome is not in word but in power And therefore so many of us as have made such a carnall profession have not onely shewed foorth a manifest contempt of his heavenly Maiesty and his holy Covenant but put a Scepter of Reede into the hand of our Lord Iesus Christ smitten him uppon the face and trampled his Crowne under our feete and indeede made his and our enemies to blaspheme and thus farre to prevayle and insult over us Whereupon hee hath iustly begunne and threatned us all to take his kingdome from us to give it to another people which would bring foorth the fruite of it and to leave us all to bee trampled under foote by these our Enemyes untill we know by wanting the blessinges which wee have formerly inioyed and the difference betweene his service and the slaverie of his Enemyes As these prayers therefore according to our Saviours direction may serve to prepare the way for all other our prayers and our right accesse unto his glorious Maiestie to come with confident assurance and do proceed un to the first petition of the Lords Prayer and the end of the first Commaundement that we may all give him his due glory performing unto him his inward worshippe which is the fountaine of all true obedience so those that are to follow in the second part the Lord assisting are to go according to the tenour of the same heavenly rule of our Saviour thorow the whole Covenant made with our God both for all his Law and Gospell beginning at the second Commandement so thorow the Law and thorow all the Articles of faith with the doctrine of the Sacraments and other things belonging thereunto That thus all even the poorest servants of God may have matter enough of prayer to be exercised in continually and all to this very end for appeasing the Lordes wrath and reconciling him to all his Churches and Children againe First every one for himselfe and his owne particular to be assured of his own reconciliation to the Lord by the blood of his Son when he can so pray and obey in truth And secondly that every one having attained to this assurance and favour with the Lord may bee exercised dayly as those worthy servants of God Nehemiah Ezra and Daniel in confessing their owne sinnes and the sinnes of all the Churches and people of the Lord and in so crying unto him and importuning him untill wee shall see the ful deliverance and restoring of the Churches in Bohemia Palatinate the rest yea the enlargement of them by the gathering in of the Iew and the remainder of his Israel from the uttermost partes of the earth with the utter razing of Babel and untill we obtaine whatsoever else the Lord hath eyther promised to his people or denounced against his enemies And finally untill we shall everie one see the heavenly Ierusalem and the eternall glory of his Sion The third last part is God willing to containe principally Prayers for this our sinfull Nation that we may first all see and lively apprehend the danger wherein wee stand every moment of drinking at the Lords hand after those other Churches which have tasted so deepely of the cup of his displeasure seeing our sinnes are no lesse but farre greater then theyrs and that specially sith their ensample hath no more prevayled with us Secondly that we may all in time wisely understand the meanes which in his wisedome and mercie hee hath yet left unto us to prevent the execution ready to come forth against us And thirdly that we may euery one use all the meanes thereto each according to our place and calling by turning unfeignedly to the Covenant of our God not onely to prevent and for ever to turne away all the calamities deuised against us by our deadly bloody enemyes but also so to reconcile the Lord unto us that insteede of those miseries which our Enemies so long for to rush upon us hee may make us the happiest and blessedst Nation that ever was in this last Age of the world so to remaine to his eternall glory the comfort example of all the other Churches for evermore To these are also to bee added some speciall Prayers for our particular purposes and ocsions FINIS D. Wh. Rom. 9 2. 2 Sam. 5. 1. Apoc. 12. 7. Ephes. 6. 12. Vers. 11. Iudg. 5. 23. Iudg. 4. 21. 5. 26. Iudg. 5. 1. Exod. 15. 21. Apoc. 5. 13. Ier. 2. 5. The delusion what and the parts of it The first part of the delusion That in Poperie they have moe devotions than wee in our Religion Like that in the Gag for the new Gospeller * This twentie is but one this two and fiftie yeeres By this shamelesse lie judge all the rest Ioh. 8. 44. What is to be understood by Devotions * For their devotions wherewith they cozen the world and extremely oppresse the poore superstitious soules which will have them see them in their Catalogue of their English bookes dispersed within these two yeeres last past with their prices as they are in Mr GEES late discoverie viz. Foot out of the Snare p. 9â—… The second part of the delusion That the Popish devotions are holier than ours The holinesse of devotions wherein Which devotions are best in regard of the matter and forme in generall Ephes. 2. 20. 2 Pet. 1. 19. 1 Ioh. 5. 47. Mat. 16. 18. Mat. 24. 35. In regard of the more particular matter Phil. 3. 8 9. Rom. 3. â—…7 4. 2. A most evident triall according to our Saviours direction Triall by the ends fruits of devotions Triall by the manner 1 Cor. 14. 9 11
sought life as they ought How we may all be prepared in some good measure to helpe the Lord his Church All must perish if they but stand on the other side Obed. 10. 11. Iudg. 5. 23. Conclusion to be thorowly layd to heart to put some more life into every soule to each of these meditations How all the distressed Parts of Gods Church cry to us to come and helpe them Acts. 16. 9 10. And all accursed who come not Iudg. 5. 23. Excluded from the privâ—…idges of Godâ—… poeple How Christ is comming to reward every one according to his works How our Saviour cals to all to come notwithstanding all obiections of unfitnesse Eph. 6. 13. Mar. 2. 3. Luke â—… 18. Psal. 27. 8. Psal. 40. 8. Zac. 13. 9. To pray That beholding the evils against the Lord his people The prevailing of the enemie And hearing the Lord calling as to hâ—…lpe him We may be prepared be admitted to this service To pray to be rightly touched and affected with all these things That we may be able to cry uncessantly untill the Lord shal shew himselfe from heaven for his great name kingdome and people To be perswaded how the Lord seeks out a man To strive to be if not that one man yet as one of Gedeons three-hundred To have these meditations in our hearts To be so qualified as Christ requireth in his prayer That we may prevaile that God may raise up some Iosephs or Daniels By whom the hearts of all Kings and Princes may be inclined to become nursing Fathers to his Church That these all considering how God hath set them up May set themselves as all worthy rulers have doâ—…e for his glory and kingdome That thus his great name may be magnified That every one may be perswaded of the present necessity of this worke Not to deâ—…er it one day To feare the curse upon Meroz Iudg. 5. That otherwise escaping the temporall yet we cannot the eternall vengeance To have our eyes open to see against whom we are to wrastle Not for our selves onely but for all the Church To put on all the compleat Armour of God fâ—…and fast To know our honour setting our selves aright to this service our safety Prayer to be humbled that we have not learned our first les son to have a true feeling of the estate of our brethren To be perswaded that if we love our heavenly Father we must needs love his children If we love Christ we must needs love his members That without this we can never assure our hearts that we are true children members of Christ. But deceive ourselves To know that their sinnes are ours in some sort and so their whole estate To have this fellow-feeling of their estate wheresoever they are And as they are more neerly 〈◊〉 unto us And above all aâ—… they are more specially ordained to be nursing Fathers and Mothers to Gods Church Chiefly who are such already And bound thereto by most bonds That their hearts may be inclined to all Gods Children chiefly to all committed to their charge And that as they more resemble their heavenly Father To have like affections to the Lord. To give that which is deerest unto them for Gods people To have all theirs and our hearts perswaded of the happines hereof and contrarily To pray to be perswaded that the assurance that God is our Father is first to be sought next his glory That assurance alone will quiet the heart fill it with ioy unspeakable And the contrary will fill it with extreame horror And be aâ—… the beginnings of the flashings of hell Iohn 8. 4â—… To this end to know first our owne miserable condition by nature Thus we are but firebrandes of hell untill we be true members of Christ. That we cannot attaine to this assurance untill we feele these two graces repentance and faith For that these are lively evidences of our being in Christ. That we may not deceive our selves in a vaine imagination of faith and repentance That we may never rest untill we finde the new birth in our whole man in all our conversation In our minds Memories Wils Affections Consciences In our whole bodies To be perswaded that God both requires and workes this holinesse in all his elect in some measure That untill this change in some measure never can any attaine this assurance As this increaseth so our assurance To pray to finde in our selves not onely this change but the peculiar markes of Gods children Chiefly those which our Saviour hath taught us to cry for daily whereby we most lively beare his Image To be most zealous for Gods glory 2. To seeke the kingdom of God and his righteousnesse first 3. To seeke onely knowing doing the will of our heavenly Father not our owne To use onely such meanes for obtaining all good things as God himselfe hath ordained Begging and returning all thankes to him for all To be ever mindfull of the rest of our brethren as of our selves And as well touched with their estate as our owne To consider how the carnall worldling hath little or no sense of any of these things To have a lively sense of our sins To groane under the burden of them Never to rest untill we be assured of the remission of our sinnes Which the carnall man makes buâ—… a sport of That we may be able to forgive wrongs and to pray for our enemies That if our enemies hunger wee may feede them And seeke their conversion and salvation 6. To be alwayes afrayd of Sathans temptations To stand alwayes in awe of the Lord least for our securitie he leave us up to him To strive to watch and pray that we fall not into temptation 7. To looke ever â—…o the Lords absolute Soveraignty And to give him the glory of all 8. To be ever and chiefely thinking of eternity 9. That we may not pray looking at any thing in our selves or any other creatures But stripping our selves may come only in Iesus Christ. Our everlasting Amen That we may in Faith cry Amen That we may never give the Lord over till wee find all these in our selves That we may know our selves hereby to be thine and in thy favour as we finde them And contrarily That we can never finde sound comfort To pray to know the right meanes of getting Gods favour growing therein As in the daies of our Saviour and the Primitive Church By the sincere preaching of his Gospell Though the world count it foolishneâ—… The immortall seed Gods mighty power to salvation That this stands not in the inticing speech of mans wisedome but in the plaine evidence of Gods Spirit Aâ—…d why That God nourisheth his children by the same meanes of the word Sacraments Good books Meditations Prayers To seeke to this end the establishing advancement of thy sacred Ministery and to depend thereon Ephes. 4. 11. To stirre up the hearts of Kings and Princes to this holy care
holy devotions then wâ—… â—…â—…ding them that their devotions are more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 better thâ—… ouâ—… 1 Tim. 4. â—… 〈…〉 〈…〉 See the Spanish Monke Hâ—…â—…omming to â—…ve â—…eir eyes 〈◊〉 they are in forced to cast away al these with 〈◊〉 â—…ion and he of our Religion in their death Then Christ onely Luke â—…3 â—… Rhem. upon Rom. 3. 22. Sect. 7. 〈…〉 That they must of necessity renounce it or professe them selveâ—… to be of Sathan their father Iohn 8. 44. To thinke what they will do when Christ shall come to take vengeance of all his enemies Apoc. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—…7 Apoc. 20. 10. To weigh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 way and theâ—… in the 〈◊〉 of the 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 3. 2â—… Dan. 9. 2. 2. 17. 19. For all to be alwaies growing in grace for feare of being given up tâ—… their delusions That we may have more power in prayer to helpe to pull every Lot out of Sodom To consider who they are that are carried away to them To use all meanes for our selves all others that we may be kept So for all seduced by any sinne That they may be able to see in what estate they stand How they are deluded That we may not rest untill we have awaked them or used all holy meanes for them That the Lord will pluck them forth if he haye ordayned to save them That all that seek not to save them are gâ—…y That all may herein shew our loves For our full assurance An acknowledgement of Gods mercies in our dread Soveraigne his royall progeny with all our blessings hoâ—…es continued by them As namely our deliverances at his entrance At the Powder Treason from Nebuchadnezzars furnace And all others Preservation of our gracious Prince us all with him and the reioycing of all 〈◊〉 soules through him The disposing of all that iourny to so preat ioy to all Gods Church and people The experience therein of the power of prayer For our peerelesse Princesse the crowne of glory renewed upon her head For her delivery from the Nimrods of the earth Her preservation in the second pursuite together with that illustrious Prince all theirâ—… Their fruitfulnesse in thir greatest trvals to the astonishment of all their enemies Our wished and happy â—…ion begun Confession of our deserts that both they and we should have bene left into the hand of the enemy Prayers to be awaked to understand the thing which concerne our peace To performe truely whatsoever we have formerly promised That as the Lords hand hath bene stretched out against us so how it may be as apparantly for us Filling us with heavenly courage Ier. 31. 34. A giving glory to God for remembring his promises So declaring himselfe to us Proclaiming his mercy before us Exod. 34. 6. Causing his gracious favours towards us in our deliverances to be registred for all posterity For still renewing his mercies Preserving and bringing backe our Prince Confirming such a heavenly union for the advancement of his glorie Gospell and people Sith he hath bin so gracious at the prayers of a few What hopes we may have when we shal more generally ioyntly cry unto him To pray for more integrity sound nesse of hart to be more able to persevere and prevaile with God To use all meanes hereof more conscionably To look ever at the word To have a holy resolution To feare alway For the Iords eye For feare of Sathan For our selves To watch against all occasions and over all parts To grow better dayly To look well unto our particular callingâ—… that sathan take us not out of our wayes To have an eye to the recompence of reward Setting God at our right hand To goe on reioycing in the happines of our estate Psalme 16 6. In praying to â—…ive thankes for that which 〈◊〉 we have In 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gods gloâ—…y Constant in the meanes As Caleb Ios. 14 10 1â—…0 Last dayes best To perswade all of the necessitie of this comming to helpe Integrity in Gods 〈◊〉