we soone forgot thy workes and waited not for thy counsell Ver. 21. We forgat God our Saviour which had done so great things for us 22. Wondrous things in the Land of our habitation and fearfull things upon the great Sea Psal 78.32 For all this we sinned still and beleeved not for his wondrous workes Ver. 41. We turned backe and tempted God and limited the holy One of Israel Wee turned backe and dealt unfaithfully we turned aside like a deceitfull bow Psal 78.5 c. Thou establishedst thy Testimony in our Jacob and appointedst thy Gospell in our Israell which thou commandest our Fathers that they should make them knowne to us their children That the Generations to come might know them even the children that should bee borne who should arise and declare them to their children That they might set their hope in God and not forget the workes of God but keep his Commandements And might not bee as their Fathers a stubborne and rebellious generation a generation that set not their heart aright and whose spirit was not stedfast with God But we have not regarded the mighty works that thou hast done nor the wonders that thou hast wronght for us For all this we have sinned yet more against thee and have lightly esteemed the rocke of our Salvation Psal 80.8 Thou broughtest us as a Vine out of the Aegypt of Popery and plantedst it in a very fruitfull hill Thou preparedst roome before it and didst cause it to take deep root and it filled the Land The hils were covered with the shadow of it and the boughs thereof were like the goodly Cedars Thou wateredst it with showers from above and enrichedst it with the River of thy goodnesse and blessedst the springing of it Thou causedst the beames of thy heavenly light to shine upon it That it might grow and prosper and beare fruit abundantly and that thou mightest blesse the increase thereof Isa 5.2 Thou fencedst it with the wall of thy divine protection and providence and didst set the hedge of an happy government about it Thou gathered stout the stones thereof by removing the offences that they might not hinder the growth thereof Thou prunedst it diggedst about it and dungedst the root thereof with the fat soyle of thine earthly blessings Isa 5.4 And what could have been done more unto thy Vinyard that thou hast not done in it But we quickly turned into the degenerate plant of a strange Vine unto thee and when thou lookedst for grapes we brought forth wild Grapes Therefore thou hast now taken away the hedge thereof and it is eaten up thou hast broken downe the wall thereof and it is troden downe It is laid waste and blasted with the burning wind of thy displeasure It is become a place of Briers and Thornes A Land of darkenesse and of the shadow of death Isa 34.11 The Cormorant and the Bitterne possesse it the Owle and the Raven dwell in it and thou hast stretched out upon it the Line of Confusion and the stones of emptinesse Psal 80.14 But returne we beseech thee O God of Hosts looke downe from heaven behold and visit this Vine And the Vineyard which thine owne right hand hath planted and the branch that thou madest strong for thy selfe It is burnt with fire it is cut downe and we perish at the rebuke of thy countenance Let thine hand be upon the man of thy right hand upon the Sonne of man whom thou madest strong for thy selfe So will not we go backe from thee quicken us and we will call upon thy name Turne us again O Lord God of Hosts shew the light of thy countenance and we shall be whole Another Prayer for these Kingdomes O Most glorious and gracious Lord God who rulest and governest all things Thine are all the Kingdomes of the world and all the Nations of the earth are in thy power and at thy disposing Thou buildest them that they may stand and thou plantest them that they may grow and whilst thou waterest them they flourish and at the blast of the breath of thy displeasure they fade away and come to nothing whilst thou blessest them they are blessed when thou cursest them they are weake and consumed Looke down I beseech thee upon these poore Nations that lye weltring before thee in their bloud in their sins that are entangled in the net and perplexed in the Labyrinth of their great transgressions and miseries and cannot tell how to get out O Lord our God I beseech thee take pity upon us and grant us a release Thou hast the soveraigne medicines with thee that can heale both our sins and miseries we are unworthy of thy mercy but thou art a God that delightest in mercy and the more undeserved it is the greater is thy glory nothing is too hard for thee no malady so desperate no sicknesse so incurable as to outbid either thy wisdome or goodnesse they are both glorified but neither can be puzzled or hindered by the extremities of our conditions It is thy property and thy divine peculiar worke to helpe when there is no help to be found wo have been struggling and striving O Lord a long time to get out of the toyle of our afflictions but all in vain The more we strive the farther still we are engaged in the mischief wheresoever we run thine arrows stick fast in us the poyson therof drinketh up our spirits thy terrors set themselves in array against us all our hopes in the Creatures have deceived us They have proved unto us but false conceptions they have brought forth nothing but wind we have waited for help but we have found none And therefore now O Lord we come to thee beseeching thee our God to have mercy upon us that what all the strength in the world cannot worke for us nor all the wisdome in the world contrive for us we may yet obtaine from thee our God But alas how should we obtaine any thing at thy hands when there are such loud cries and clamours of our great and horrid sinnes and iniquities against us How shouldst thou draw neere unto us that do continually run away from thee and flye from thy mercy by our impenitency and wickednesse even whilst we aske mercy at thy hands How shouldest thou but abhorre and abominate us that by our filthy and noy some iniquities have made our whole Land even to stinke in thy nostrills O Lord our God we confesse there is nothing in us that can challenge thy favour or bespeake any reliefe from thee If it be thy pleasure to destroy us to consume us with all thy plagues and damne us all even our whole Nation to the bottomlesse pit of hell we have nothing to reply or object against thee it is no more than our iniquities call for But we beseech thee O Lord to be gracious unto us all that we can do is to beg it at thy hands to beseech thy pardon to implore thy compassion to plead unto
never like to looke after the remedies The torment of the disease is the sollicitour of health and the best advocate for the entertainment of the Physitian and the Physicke There are two great baggs of poyson in the serpentine hearts of corrupted men that doe above all others keepe us off from the cure of our spirituall diseases presumption or security and despaire of mercy The one keeps us from taking notice of our wretchednesse The other renders us hopelesse of reliefe And therefore the great Physitian of the Church though he be not wanting in his provision against all our sicknesses yet he seemes in the generall scope of his compositions to have aimed at the removall of these two Having ordained us two great Antidotes against them The Law against Securitie and Presumption whose office is the discovery of the malignity of sinne both in its owne nature and in the curse and condemnation that it brings with it For By the Law saith the Apostle is the knowledge of sinne Rom. 3.20 And the same Apostle Rom. 7.7 telleth us that he had not known sinne but by the Law And at the 8. vers Without the Law sin was dead That is as I conceive it may well be understood that the sense of sin is dead that it is not felt to be alive but is in us like a Gangrene in a mortified member that eateth on insensibly to the destruction of the body and in the like signification wee may perhaps not amisse understand that which followes in the 9. verse When the Commandement came sin revived and I dyed That is Sin appeared to be sin the sense of it was quickened and thereby I was mortified humbled c. and thus the Law rouzeth us from our Presumption and security But because this Physick of it selfe is very destructive and if it should be let alone would never cease till it had brought us to despaire and so killed us with a contrary Disease Therefore God hath ordained the Gospell for a Cordiall to abate and qualifie the violence of this Corrosive to keep us from being desperate and hopelesse of health to meete with the rigour and sincerity of the Law and to hold us up in the hope of salvation by the offers of mercy in Christ Jesus The Law is like a Lance to open our Tumours and to search our Wounds but as the Lance of it selfe cures no sores so the Law of it selfe heales none but makes way only and propares for the Gospell which applyes the saving Plaister thereunto The Law is our School-master and whips us unto Christ by giving us a sense of our sinnes and of the terrors of Hell and the curse that is due unto them And then Christ heales us with the comforts of the Gospell And both these works must bee done in us if wee meane to obtain our spirituall health otherwise for want of the worke of the Law upon us we may perish through security and never know what Disease we dye of or else for want of the comforts of the Gospell wee may perish through Despaire It may bee some question which of these two are most pernicious but they are both deadly and if the question be which is most universally operative in its malignity Security and Presumption wil be found I take it by much the more Epidemical plague of the two and that there are many yea very many more perish by this then by that overwhelming sense of the greatnes of their sinnes which renders them hopelesse and so helplesse The greatest part of the world dye of a Lethergy the Devill deales much in Opium and Narcoticks that stupifie the soule and deales with men as Physitians use to doe with those whom they use to cut of the Stone hee first casts them into a dead sleep and then cuts them and mangles them how he pleaseth whilst they lye still and quiet and never so much as cry oh nor flinch at it nor struggle against it untill at length hee cuts out their very hearts and soules Hee knowes his hellish enterprize never goes on so prosperously as when it moves secretly and undiscovered His great care is that his Engines may not be heard and therefore hee sends most men to hell in a slumber charmed with the pleasant Dreames of earthly prosperity and sometimes of Heaven it selfe from which they are never awaked throughly till they finde themselves scorching in the very flames of the Infernall Pit Indeed Despaire it seemes to be but the Devills refuge which hee seldome makes use of but where his Opium will not worke When he meets with some and they are too few that will not bee dandled in his lap nor nuzled in the security of their sins but that they will needs be searching into the wounds and corruption of their hearts then he strives to make them kill themselves with the Lance presents their sins unto them in such a dreadfull colour and doth so possesse their thoughts with the apprehensions of the greatnesse of their iniquities and the fearefull flashes of hell fire that they cannot believe God hath mercy enough to pardon them But the former is his more usuall and more effectuall Stratagem And therefore by the way give me leave to tell you that I think there is a great fault in the managing of the work of the Ministery in these times for want of the due application of the terrors of the Law unto the soules of men for the discovery of their sinnes which should be the Trumpet to rouze them from their security and to fit them for mercy Wee are all for Cordialls in these times but it is easie to perceive if we consider the loosenesse and slumbering condition that we are in that wee have much more need of Corrosives to eate away our dead flesh without which the Cordialls of the Gospel do usually rather strengthen our Diseases then our Soules and rather hide palliate then cure our wounds one maine reason why the worke of grace goes on no better amongst us in these dayes and I pray God it may finde a timely Reformation Nothing kills more surely then doth a false perswasion of our health And therefore we find it was the Method that the Spirit used unto the Angel of the Church of the Laodiceans Rev. 3.15 16 c. to convince him of his great corruption and of his miserable Condition that so hee might lead him on unto the cure The Angel of that Church it seems was conceited of his owne Workes and was not sensible of the luke warmnesse of his heart in the performance of them that his Devotion was but halfe codled as they say therefore the Spirit puts the Searcher into his Wound I know thy workes saith hee that thou art neither cold nor hot I would thou wert colder hot He shewes him that such a temper is of no acceptance with the Almighty who receiveth no Sacrifices that are not offered up by the fire of Divine love nay that it was
before we sleep concerning our thoughts and demeanour that day with some such questions as the Philosophers verse doth imply 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where I have been What I have done What duties I should have done that day and have omitted And seeking pardon and grace for the future and strengthening our selves against our sins with holy resolutions And if every morning we would bethinke our selves what temptations we may fall into that day and if we can contrive prudently the avoydance of them if not to desire Gods helpe and the grace of his Spirit to arme us against them Sixthly It will behove us to bend our selves most against those sinnes unto which we are most enclined and against our master-sinnes Seventhly To be wary of our Society and as much as we may to avoid evill Company and to associate our selves with those that are good evill communication corrupts good manners Eighthly To meditate often of the presence of God who is with us every where seeing all our most secret thoughts hearing our most whispering words and observing all our most private actions See Psal 139. and meditate upon it To contemplate of the houre of death the frailty of life the vanity of the world the profitablenesse of righteousnesse having the promises of this life and that which is to come of the all-sufficiency of God and Christ of the day of Iudgement of the joyes of heaven and the paines of hell of eternity and above all of Gods love toward us in Christ Iesus of his Passion Resurrection Ascension of his Kingdome Priesthood and Glory and of the glorious patternes of his holy life Ninthly Be frequent and fervent in Suppplications to God for the King and his Family the Church the Kingdoms for the obtaining of a remedy to our miseries and desolations with submission to his Will and regard unto his glory And let all be offered up with a firme faith in Christ Jesus resting upon Gods mercy toward us in him For a helpe unto these Duties I do not undertake to prescribe any thing in this kind in particular but if I might without offence give my advice I would advise all good Christians that wish well to the King Church and Kingdom to give themselves to a private weekly Fast once a weeke at the least during these miseries to be employed in earnest Supplication to God for pardon of the sins and the removall of his judgements from the King and his people and these Nations and for the obtaining of grace and holinesse and in other holy duties agreeable thereunto Now for the Loyall Party in particular I have only thus much to say 1. To intreat them to get honest pious able Ministers amongst them that may instruct them and guide them in the waies of God and assist them with prayer and Supplication 2. That they make it their principall care to set up Religion in their Camps and to keep up a pious discipline amongst the Souldiers in case they shall have more to do in that way 3. That they take heed of violence and revengefull thoughts which may engage God against them and that they meditate not cruelty or retaliation But that their endeavours be fixed upon the honour of God and directed to the good of the King and the Church and Kingdome with a resolution to be regulated and guided by his Majestie as they ought and not to take upon them to be the carvers of their owne reparations nor seeking to returne evill for evill for the private injuries they have received but observing that golden rule of the Apostle Let your moderation be known unto all men that they may not by their fury and violence both displease God and overturne the businesse they shall have to mannage but that by their meeknesse and patience and Christian carriage they may stop the reviling mouths of their adversaries and shew themselves to be sincere Christians as well as Loyall Subjects The Lord of strength and wisdome and grace and mercy Arme us with his Strength direct us by his Wisdome sanctifie us with his Grace and Crowne us with his Mercy Through him who is the Lord of all Power and Wisdome and Grace and Mercy even Christ Iesus our Lord Amen A HELP FOR HVMILIATION O Lord the Great and dreadfull God keeping the Covenant mercy to them that love thee and to them that keep thy Commandements And a God of judgement and fury even a consuming fire unto thine enemies Bow down thine eares O Lord and heare open thine eyes O Lord and see the great afflictions and miseries of thy poore and wretched people who are assembled before thee this day to call upon thee for mercy Stir up our hearts we besseech thee that we may seek thy face and obtaine thy pittie compassion towards us O Lord 〈◊〉 God we doe not come before thee in any trust or confidence in our owne righteouâ—nesse but in the multitude 〈◊〉 thy mercies towards us 〈◊〉 Christ Jesus in whom the hast promised us a gracious accesse unto thee who is both â—â— Priest and our Sacrifice to make an attonement betwixt thee and us by whose hand we desire to offer up unto thee the sacrifices not of Bullockes and Goats but of troubled spirits and broken and contrite hearts which thou hast assured us thou wilt not despise Wee confesse O Lord that we have sinned and committed iniquitie and have done wickedly and have rebelled even by departing from thy Precepts and from thy judgements neither have we harkened unto thy Servants which spake in thy name to our Kings our Princes and our Fathers and to all the people of the Land We have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God to walke in thy Laws which thou hast set before us by thy Servants the Prophets neither the terrors of Sinai nor the comforts of Sion neither the threatnings of Moses nor the gracious Promises of Christ have wrought upon our stubborne soules to make us forsake our sins in the feare of the one nor to embrace righteousnesse in the hope of the other Thou hast assayed many times to draw us unto thee by the Cords of love in great mercies and blessings which thou hast showred downe upon us Thou hast given us the dew of heaven and the fatnesse of the earth Thou hast opened the Treasures of thy bounty unto us in the plenty and aboundance of the fruits of the ground glorified thy selfe in wonderfull deliverances of us from the violence and conspiracies of our adversaries Thou hast been a shadowunto us against the heat and a shelter against the storm Thou hast strengthened the barrs of our gates and made peace in all our borders and to these and many other mercies thou hast added that which is above all in setling the true Religion among us and making the light of the Gospell to shine upon us the splendour whereof made us unto the greatest part of the world beside as the dwellings of Israell unto the
those that are given to change restore unto us the joyfull solemnities of thy worship and vindicate thy portion from those Sacrilegious hands that have robbed thee of the incouragements and supportance of thy Service that we may yet againe and ever more and more serve thee our God in unity and truth and glorifie thy name for thy mercies from generation to generation through Jesus Christ our Lord To whom with thee O Father and thy holy Spirit one Almighty Eternall and most glorious God be all honour and glory and blessing and praise from hence forth and for ever Amen Psalmes for Humiliation and Imploration of Gods Mercy c. Psalme 6.1 O Lord rebuke us not in thine Anger neither chasten us in thine hot Displeasure Have mercy upon us O Lord for wee are weake O Lord heale us for our bones are vexed Our soules also are sore troubled But thou O Lord how long Returne O Lord deliver our soules O save us for thy mercies sake For in death there is no remembrance of thee In the grave who shall give thanks unto thee Psalme 7.9 O let the wickednesse of the wicked come to an end but establish the just For thou O Lord tryest the hearts and reines Psalme 9.9 Be thou a refuge for the oppressed even a refuge in these times of trouble Thou that liftest us up from the Gates of Death Psalme 9.19 Arise O Lord let not man prevaile breake thou the power of the Enemy for the presumption of them that hate thee increaseth yet dayly Put them in feare O Lord that they may know themselves to bee but men Psalme 10.13 Wherefore doth the wicked contemne God He hath said in his heart thou wilt not require it Verse 14. Thou hast seene it for thou beholdest mischiefes and spite to requite it with thy hand The poore committeth himselfe unto thee thou art the helper of the fatherlesse Verse 15. Breake thou the arme of the wicked and the evill man seeke out his wickednesse till thou find none Verse 18. Judge thou the fatherlesse and the oppressed that the man of the earth may no more oppresse Amen Another Psalme Psalme 12.1 HElpe Lord for the godly man ceaseth for the faithfull faile from among the children of men Verse 2. They speake vanity every one with his neighbour with flattering lips and a double heart do they speake Verse 4. They have said with our tongue will we prevaile our lips are our owne who 〈◊〉 Lord over us Verse 5. For the oppression of the poore for the sighing of the needy arise now O Lord according to thy word and set him in safety from him that puffeth at him Psalme 13.3 Consider and heare us O Lord our God lighten our eyes least we sleep the sleep of death Ver. 4. Least our enemies say we have prevailed against them and those that trouble us rejoyce when we are moved Psalme 17.3 Let our sentence come forth from thy presence let thine eyes behold the thing that is equall Vers 5. Hold thou up our goings in thy paths that our footsteps slip not Vers 6. We have called upon thee for thou wilt heare us O God incline thine care unto us and heare our speech Vers 7. Shew thy marvellous loving kindnesse oh thou that savest by thy right hand them which put their trust in thee from them that rise up against them Ver. 8. Keep us as the Apple of the eye hide us under theshadow of thy wings from the wicked that oppresse us from our deadly enemies who compasse us about Vers 13. Arise O Lord disappoint them cast them down deliver our soules from the wicked which are thy sword Vers 14. From men which are thy hand O Lord from men of the world which have their portion in this life and whose bellies thou fillest with thine hid treasure Vers 15. As for us we will behold thy face in righteousnes we shall be satisfied when we awake with thy likenesse Another Psalme Psalme 51.1 c. HAve mercy upon us oh God according to thy loving kindnesse according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out our transgressions Wash us throughly from our iniquities and cleanse us from our sinnes for we acknowledge our transgressions and our sins are ever before us Against thee have we sinned and done evill in thy sight That thou mayest be justified when thou speakest and cleare when thou judgest Behold we are shapen in iniquity and in sinne have out mothers conceived us we have sinned with our fathers we have done amisse and dealt wickedly Neh. 9.16 We and our fathers have dealt proudly we have hardened our necks and have not harkened to thy Commandements We have refused to obey neither have wee been mindfull of the wonders that thou didst for us and our Nation How thou hast brought us out of darkenesse into thy light How thou chasedst away the fogs of Errour and Superstition and causedst the glory of thy truth to shine amongst us Psal 84.11 How thou our God hast been a Sunne and a shield unto us Psal 66.12 How thou hast carried us through fire and water and hast delivered us from the Enemies hand How thou brakedst the Ships of the Sea and scatteredst the Armadoes of our Enemies upon the waters How thou armedst the very Elements to fight against our Adversaries And drewest forth the Stormes and the Tempests in array to chastise the pride and insolency of our foes and to turne the destruction upon themselves which they intended against us How thou hast defeated the divellish devises of the wicked and disappointed the hellish plots and conspiracies of the ungodly When the lot of destruction was cast upon us and the deepe designe thereof was even ready to blow us up When the contrivers thereof thought all things sure and that they were safe under the cloud of their darke counsels and were ready to triumph in the successe of their cruelty When the time of our expected overthrow was even come and they were gaping to swallow us up at once unto ruine Psal 78.65 Then thou Lord awakedst as one out of sleep as a Giant refreshed with wine Thou discoveredst the covering of their mischievous intentions and broughtest their designes of darknesse unto light Psal 18.12 At the brightnesse of thy presence the clouds removed and their secret wickednesse was laid open to our view Thou unfoldedst the riddle of their hidden impietie and madest us to understand the mistery of their iniquity so Thou overthrewest the enterprise of ruine that was against us Thou savedst us from the mouth of destruction and madest the pit that our adversaries had digged to swallow up themselves Thou gavest them shame for the wicked joy that they expected sufferedst them not to triumph in the bloud of thy people Psal 124.7 Our soules escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowler the snare was broken and we were delivered Psal 106.12 Then beleeved wee thy Word and sung thy Praise Ver. 13. But
put it in practice beseeching thee that thou wilt take pitty upon them and that thou wilt be pleased now at length to sosten their hearts and to open their eyes That they pursue no further their workes of violence and rebellion but that having a true sense of their great iniquities and being truly humbled before thee for their sinnes they may lay hold upon thy gracious offers of mercy toward them in Christ Jesus and leaving all their evill and seditious courses may returne unto thee their God their obedience unto their Soveraigne and to the affections of justice and charity toward their Brethren That upon their unfaigned repentance thou mayest receive them into thy favour and that their souls may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus Lord we know thou art a God thou art able to doe all things Thou stillest the raging of the Sea the noise of the wayes and the madnesse of the people Thou canst tame the fiercensse of the most savage Lyons and make the Woolfe to dwell with the Lambe and the Leopard to lye downe with the Kid Thou canst cause the fire to forget its fury and rage and thou refrainest the wrath of man Thou by the power and might of thy grace didst meet Saul in the midst of the very heate and violence of his persecuting zeale and didst turne him into a Paul a meeke and faithfull servant unto thee and madest him of an enemy to become not only a member of thy Church but also a glorious fellow-sufferer with thy people Lord shew the like power of thy mercy and grace unto these our persecutors smite them to the ground with an apprehension of their great cruelties and bloudy oppressions that they have exercised against thy poore Church and people and raise them up againe in the apprehensions of thy tender love and goodnesse in Christ Jesus Thou who hast pardon for the greatest sinners that come unto thee with penitent hearts and a firme beliefe in thy Son Christ Jesus as thou pardonedst Paul so Lord pardon them As thou convertedst Paul so Lord convert them c. and let them not pursue the destruction of their owne soules If it be thy blessed will O Lord bring them home unto thy fold Let not their successes beguil them any more nor any evill engagements detaine them in their sinnes Suffer them no more to set up their carnall policies against thy spirituall and heavenly wisedome but bring down every high thought in them unto obedience to thy heavenly Word make them to know that there is no shame but to be wicked and that their greatest honour will be to forsake their sinnes and to returne speedily and entirely unto thee their God O Lord breake in sunder those chaines of corruption whereby they are held from thee and deliver them out of the snares of the Devill O quench the fire of that malice and rage which is enkindled in them against us thy poore people and inflame them with Christian affections towards us againe As for us O Lord make us patiently to endure what thy fatherly hand shall be pleased to inflict upon us whether by them or by any other meanes and give us alwayes a readinesse of heart to forgive all those injuries that they have done unto us and to embrace an hearty reconciliation with them whensoever they shall be moved by thy grace to give over their unjust cruelties against us and Lord lay not those sins unto their charge Grant this O Lord for Jesus Christ his sake Amen * ⎠* A Summe of divers principall things contained in this Booke 1. AN Introduction consisting of various incitements unto Humiliation and seeking of God 2. A discovery of the sad condition of the present estate of the Church and Commonwealth of England First In a paralell thereof with the miserable condition of the Jewes set forth in the Lamentations of Ieremy pag. 57 Secondly In a more peculiar and expresse delineation of the cerruptions depravations and devastations thereof illustrated by the consideration of our former happy condition in matter of Religion of Peace of Liberty of Government of honour and reputation First in point of Religion and things conducing thereunto pag. 91 1. Of Corruptions on the rule of Religion pag. 99 2. In the mannage of the worke of Instruction pag. 110 1. By seaucing Doctrines Ibid 2. By running from one extreame to another pag. 124 3. By uncharitable censures of moderatâ— spirits pag. 124 4. By the spirit of contradiction and tyrannising over the consciences of men pag. 127 5. By partiality and prejudice c. The evill fruits whereof are described p. 128 6. Pulpits and Presses made marts of division p. 141 7. Hunting after applause p. 148 8. Pusillanimity and lukewarmenesse in the Ministry where an exhortation to Christian con-age p. 155 9. Neglect of Catechisme p. 159 2. Of corruptions about the Sacraments 1. Of Baptisme p. 190 2. Of the Lords Supper Ibid 3. In abolition of Excommunication p. 194 4. In rejecting the grave and learned Ministry and putting up youths and raw novices to be the guides of the people p. 196 And Lay men without any lawfull calling p. 29 A discussion of that point at large of popular Elections c. p. â—52 Of the ordination of Ministers the Apostolic call way p. 278 5. In the sacrilegious taking away of the revenues of the Church as Tythes c. where the Question about Tythes and of things devated to Gods Service is discussed p. 293 6. In Conventicles and unreverent carriage in the Church abolition of formes of Prayer and the evill effects thereof p. 361 7. In matter of Church government the sad causes and sountaines thereof p. 373 A discovery of the miseries and Corruptions of the civill State 1. In matter of Peace p. 388 2. In matter of Libertie p. 399 3. In matter of civill Government p. 415 4. In matter of Honour and Reputation p. 429 Of the sonntaine of these calamities which is the great wickednesse of this Nation p. 437 God the only Physitian p. 454 No way to obtaine deliverance from God but by Humiliation for sin p. 484 Conversion from sin p. 490 Prayer p. 497 Faith in Christ Iesus p. 501 The conclusion with exhortation to the Kingdome in generall p. 514 To the suffering Party p. 527 Directions concerning the exercise of the said daties p. 535 An help to Humiliation 1. A Confession and Supplication laying open the sinnes and miseries of this Nation and imploring Gods mercy p. 1 2. Certaine Psalmes for that purpose The first p. 41 The second p. 44 The third p. 46 3. Another Prayer for these Kingdomes p. 59 4. A short Prayer to be used upon the undertaking of any just designe or enterprize for peace p. 72 5. A Prayer for the restoring of a happy and setted Government in this Nation p. 74. 6. A Prayer for the King p. 86 7. A Prayer for Peace in the Church and State p 99 8. A Prayer for the two Houses p. 109 FINIS
waft you on by the pleasing gale of your outward prosperities successes in your sins that he may at length ere you are aware sucke you into the unremediable Gulph of perdition He helps you to put Golden chaines about your necks that therewith he may draw you unto eternall miseries stinking lakes and filthy ordures are never more poysonous then when the Sunshines upon them And evill designes are then most dangerous even to those that are the Authors of them when they are in their greatest glory As for you it hath been Gods mercy unto you if he shall give you grace to embrace it to give you of late divers admonitions and severall Antidotes against such delusions You have had your clouds as well as your Sun-shine and when you promised your selves nothing but fair weather as if you had had the Ordinances of heaven at your beck you have yet met with some unexpected overcasts that have put you into melancholy fits to mind you that there is one above that swayes the courses of the world without your Votes that can at his pleasure in the smallest moment turne about the hearts and affections of a people and tumble downe the securest wickednesse from the greatest height of presumption unto the lowest depth of desperation But if all those changes that the Lord hath sent upon you those crosse-encounters of his justice and fiery flashes of his displeasure wherewith he hath met you in your unsanctified enterprises have left so small an Impression upon you as not yet to unbewitch you from your conceited prosperity but that still you beleeve your selves to be in the ascendent of your motion yet I shall desire to have leave to tell you that it is the best season you can take for your Conversion when wickednesse most smiles it is most a Traitour The kisses of it are but like the kisses of Iudas the promises thereof are but deceitfull baites to make you swallow downe that hooke the deeper into your bowels which is hung fast upon the line of Satan It may beare you in hand that it will make you a glorious Parliament but in the end it will performe it no better unto you than you have performed the like unto His Majesty that you would make him a glorious King Instead of that Throne you dreame of you may wake at length and find your selves in a more dismall prison than that you have bestowed upon Him and then you your selves may taste the dregs of that poysoned cup which hath been mingled c. I heartily beseech you to prevent it and if you will prevent it you must not delay it nor bring any pleas of your seeming prosperity against your selves 〈◊〉 perswade you to be any longer held in the snare of Sathan because it may seem to be of a silken texture but break through all the flattering charmes and entanglements of your sinnes and returne unto Loyalty to your God unto your King and to compassion unto your wasted Country I would to God it might please him so to worke upon your hearts that this my poore hearty advice might be taken by you How happy might you make both your selves and us How might you yet by Gods assistance boy up the drowned vessell of this Church and State how might you glorifie God Increase the joy of the Angels in heaven and gaine eternall honour unto your selves Saint Augustines retractations were his greatest glory and could we see a retractation from you and see it now whilst you are yet in so much vigour as that it may be taken for a voluntary from you who would not embrace it hugg it and admire it and passing by the thought of all former miscariages admire you for it who would not write you in Letters of Gold in their memories as the great examples of true piety as the great patternes of the victory of grace as the great dis-appointers and bafflers of Sathan as the great vindicatours of the selfe deny all of Christianity If you desire to be resplendent and glorious this were an act that would truly make you so and render you almost the wonder of the world And such a one as would make all your forepast miscarriages to come in for aggravations of such your stupendious goodnesse Would you be Conquerours This is the way to be truly Conquerours Conquerours of your selves Conquerours of sin Conquerours of corruption Conquerours of His Majesty whose heart you could not chuse but even captivate I am perswaded by such a worke and make him more your prisoner than he is even when he shall be at his greatest liberty Conquerours of all the Loyall Party of all I dare say that are truly Loyall yea even of their very soules and affections and that by an happy and unbloudy victory nay me thinkes it were even to overcome then in this too To make them even ashamed of their poore constancy and to allow you the right hand of fellowship even in Loyalty Since however the devill and corruption doth deceive us It is more glorious and a more noble triumph of vertue to forsake a vigorous and prosperous wickednesse than to adhere to afflicted righteousnesse Be perswaded then to do this miracle of repentance and thereby get an heaven unto your selves and plunge the devill into another hell by deceiving him and the powers of darknesse of their so great and assured an expectation of your ruine that the English Story of this our time to recompence all the sad pre-eminences of wickednesse that have been amongst us may yet dazzle the eyes of other Nations and ages with two such resplendent and unparalelled Iewels with so bright a Starre and so cleare a Constellation shining forth in so gloomy an horizon The admirable patience of an afflicted King and the strange repentance of a misguided Parliament what shall I say Thinke upon your King thinke upon your bleeding Country your endangered soules Thinke upon God and upon that account which you must one day make before him for your actions Cast your eye upon this prospect you have before you and consider what you have done I shall conclude as Tertullian once spake unto Scapula in an Argument not much unlike this unto you Parce tibi si non nobis parce Carthagini si non tibi If you will not spare us spare your selves If you be mercilesse unto your selves yet be mercifull unto poore England to bleeding Ireland The God of heaven yet worke upon your hearts to his glory your owne comfort and the preservation of his Church and people So prayeth one that heartily wisheth your conversion and salvation THO. WARMSTRY An earnest exhortation to the people of England to Humiliation and Prayer unto Almighty God for the obtaining of his mercy in these miserable and sinfull times WHen I consider how many powerfull Oratours God hath sent unto our Nation to declame unto us upon this Theame in those many and heavy afflictions which he hath laid upon us It might well seeme
of fire The taking away of his Tabernacle as it were of a Garden That is either the pulling down of the Church of Israel or the removing of the gracious presence of the Lord whereby he dwelt amongst them in his mercies and graces in the light of his Truth and the comforts of his Ordinances These and many other like these are all but so many emphaticall expressions of the violence and fury of Gods anger against that nation in those times and may serve for the same purpose amongst us in these sad daies of ours As if the Prophet had therein set us a Copy to write after our present miseries being as it were a Translation of a great part of that sad originall Text wherein God was pleased to read humiliation unto to them as our Language in the Lamentations thereof is a Translation of theirs But when we read of the destroying of the places of assembly and the forgetting of the solemne feasts and Sabbaths again in Sion for that it seemes was an evill that the Prophet would not dismisse with a single Lamentation and of the despising of the King and the Priest Those great Symptomes of the Anger of the Almighty when both Government and Ministry The two great Cisternes whereby God usually conveyes the streames of mercy from that unexhaustible fountaine that is in him in all manner both of Temporall and Spirituall blessings unto a people when both these I say are demolished and trampled on when we read of these and of these three together me thinkes we may see there the very lively Countenance of the sad and calamitous estate of our owne Nation at this present as if the Prophet had then beene looking through the prospective of his Spirit upon England in this very time and condition it is now in whose paralell miseries may seem to be a sad Commentary Exposition of those sad expressions of Ieremiah our Glosse and his Text come so close one to another in every particular there mentioned that it needs no more but bare and ordinary observation to understand the compliances And let all that have any eyes yet left amongst us judge whether wee have not a large portion in that which followeth at the 14 ver of the 2 chap. Thy Prophets have seene vaine and foolish things for thee and they have not discovered thine iniquity to turne away thy Captivitie but have seene for thee false burdens and causes of banish ment What dawbing hath beene amongst us with untempered morter What sowing of pillowes under the Armeholes of most horrid sinners even of Rebells Perjured and Sacrilegious persons What strengthening the hands of the wicked What calling evill good and good evill What putting of light for darkenesse and darkenesse for light What exchanging of Doctrines betweene heaven and hell What confounding of the Lawes of Christ and Belial And a multitude of other miscarriages have been of late in the Ministry of the Church What Gall could make Inke blacke or bitter enough to declame against them But motos praestat componere fluctus I shall break this holy Glasse of the Prophet into no more pieces You may at your leasure contemplate the heavy case of this poore Church and Nation in the sundry passages of it and exercise your selves in the just Lamentation thereof in those severall helpes that he there most elegantly administreth to teach us the art of holy sorrow I shall come more plainely and closely home unto you and entreate you of this Nation to consider two things with me very requisite for the right understanding of our miserable condition First what we have been And secondly what we are from whence we are fallen and whether we are fallen First Consider what you have been that by the comparison of your lost prosperity you may the better take the measure of your incumbent misery This is one stone or weight that both spirituall and humane Oratory makes often use of Happinesse calamity as opposite neighbours as they are yet at their departure they many times and almost alwaies leave some Legacie behind them unto one another so that each is advanced out of the others store Precedent calamities leave jewels and ornaments behind them to beautifie the face of succedent felicity Health is much the sweeter after a fit of sickenesse A calme season at Sea seemes a kind of heaven unto the tossed and wearied Mariner after the blustring and tearing assaults of tempests the raging mountaines and valleys of the tumultuous billowes A foregoing povertie and indigence enricheth the store of every degree of plenty and abundance that comes after and it is probable enough that the Celestiall joyes and rest in heaven are the sweeter and more pleasant unto the Saints for every portion of misery and bitternesse that they have tasted in the various afflictions of this turbulent and transitory life here in this world That of the Apostle may be true even in this sense amongst others That our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a farre more exceeding and eternall weight of glory 2 Cor. 4.17 Not only in regard of the great recompence that the Lord there rewards our sufferings withall but also in respect of the enhancement and value that our sufferings here do bequeath as it were unto our recompence there Thus every Crosse here is turned into a Diadem there The thornes of our present troubles and tribulations may seeme to adde sweetnesse unto the Roses of our future tranquility which grow upon them And so on the contrary A foregoing state of happinesse addeth unto the burden of our subsequent adversity Poverty is a wracke indeed unto that worldling that hath lately wallowed in the golden mires of his riches That man that is borne blind and never tasted with his eye of the sweetnesse and pleasantnesse of the Sunne beames doth not find neere so much discontent in his naturall darkenesse as he that hath lately enjoyed the various delights of the seeing eye Miserum est fuisse foelicem It is a wretched thing to have once been happy Fuimus Troes wee were once Trojans is a Motto of a mournfull importance Therefore we find it the Eloquence of the Psalmists sorrow Psalm 42.4 Lamenting the sad losse of the comfortable Society of Gods people in the divine worship by reason of some affliction that had befallen either himselfe or the Church To aggravate that dammage upon his owne disconsolate Spirit by the memory of the former joyfull freedome thereof which he enjoyed When I remember these things saith he I poure out my soule by me selfe why so Why because it had not alwaies been so with him For I had gone with the multitude I went with them unto the house of God with the voice of joy and praise with a multitude that kept holyday Q. D. It grieves mee much the more to thinke what felicity I have lost that I have been heretofore in a better condition when I enjoyed the freedome and comfort
for him and in an houre that they are not ware of and shall cut them asunder and divide them their portion with the hipocrites There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth It was a sad account that one gives of the miscarriages of this kind in his time Invitus dico tamen dicere coger Ecclesiarum cat hedras hodiè multis in locis pro rabularuÌ„ causidicorumque hujus generis demagogoruÌ„ rostris haberi ex quibus ij quibus statio haec concredita est Satyrus suas in imaginatos adversarios declamitant I am loath to speake it but I am compelled to speake it That the Chaires of the Churches are in many places at this day esteemed for the Pulpits of Raylers Cause-drivers and such like side-maken amongst the people out of which they unto whom this station is committed declaime their Satyrs against those whom they imagine their adversaries To which we may adde what he complaines of afterwards Pro salubri alimento quod familia Christi apponere debebant auditorum plausum favâ—reâ— captant fictaeque compâ—sitâ— orationis lenocinio Petrus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 diceret fluctuantis populi motum pruritum ad suaslibidines torquent circum agitant Hoc igitur boni deplorare corrigere autem preter Deum nemo poterit Instead of that wholesom nourishment which they should administer unto the houshold of Christ they hunt after the applause and favour of their Auditors and with the alluring dresses of their sophisticated language or as St Peter hath it with fained or plaistred words faire in shew but durty and filthy in substance they turne and â—osse the itching and moveable people at their owne lusts this good men may and ought to deplore but God only can correct and amend which God grant of his great mercy That the houses of God may be no more turned into brothels by committing adultery with the soules of the people That they that have the manage of holy workes in those places may remember whose cause it is that they have in hand that they are not to woe for themselves but for the Bridegroom which is Christ Jesus whose servants they are to make ready and adorne his Spouse which is his Church against the wedding That they may not seeke to gaine the applauses of the people unto themselves which are too often made the hire of vanity and corrupt Doctrine but to gain the soules of the people unto Christ To conclude that they may not preach themselves but Christ Jesus the Lord and themselves the Churches servants for Jesus sake And it were much to be wished that the nursery of this evill affection in some Ministers were removed by changing those theatricall applauses of the people which if rightly valued are rather the accusations and reproaches of the Ministry and too suspitious a symptome that that worke is not performed with that gravity and severity that it ought to be especially in such times as these into sighs and teares and sobs of Godly sorrow for their sinnes and into the cheerfull concurrency of the votes of the people to the petitions and praises that are offered up unto God But it is a signe of no healthfull constitution in the Congregations of the people when their periodicall hummes of the Minister are lowder then the Amens of their Prayers and Thankesgivings unto God This and not that is the thuâ—der of the Church wherein sâ—e strucke and battered in pieceâ— the adversaries of the Truthâ— That would throw downe thâ— Towers of Sathan and his iâ—struments Those Babels of confusion that are setting up amongst us That being accompanied with the lightening 〈◊〉 a fervent devotion would break the cloud of the displeasure of the Almighty and make the fruitfull showers of his mercies flow downe upon us Blessed is the people that know this joyfull sound And yet the faults we have spoken of might be the better borne with were they not accompanied with more and those of no mean depravation in the Ministry of the Word Such is the too much unworthy and effeminate pusillanimity and extreame lukewarmenesse that is found in too many in this age who dare not reprove prosperous sins that have betrayed the Cause of God his Church and his Annointed for feare of the frownes of men Such whose discretion hath devoured their devotion that cry out it is no time now to preach against such sinnes because they are wickednesses in high places that could talk much and earnestly against Rebellion in an Assembly of Loyall men in those Cities and places whilst there were any where Rebellion dwelt not or in those Times when sedition was in a lower condition But in these times and in those places when and where those sinnes are in their power and glory they cry it is wisdome and thinke it no impiety to hold their peace as if a Physitian should say he is discharged from the necessity of giving Physick because the patient is very sicke and standeth in great need of it forgetting that the workes of the Ministry are to be gaged not by the interests of our safety but of Gods glory and our duty to him and his people and that however we may please our selves with some present ease that we find upon our shoulders yet that security will prove deare bought in the end that we have purchased by suffering and conniving at the spoile of Truth and Righteousnesse and although this may go for prudence amongst men yet it will be found Treachery Treason in the account of God Oh how have we forgotten those severe and peremptory rules of the Almighty so earnestly exacting the discharge of our consciences in this duty See Ezek. 33.8 If thou dost not speak to warne the wicked from his way that wicked man shall dye in his iniquity but his bloud will I require at thine hand How have we forgotten those woes of the holy Scripture which are threatned against fearefull hearts and faint hands See Revel 21.8 See it and tremble Do we feare the menaces of men and do we not feare the menaces of God Home minatâ—r mortem metuis contramiscis Deus gehennam minatur contemnis Man that shall die himselfe and perhaps before he hath done threatning menaceth death if thou speakest and thou fearest and shakest God threatneth thee with hell if thou beest silent and thou contemnest it and yet God can defend thee from the threatning of man but man cannot defend thee from the threatning of God If God be with us who can be against us But if God will not withdraw his anger the proud helpers must stoope under him Oh I beseech you consider this in time you whom God hath honoured so highly as to be made the Advocates of his truth you that are the sollicitours and the Atournies of the King of Kings Impeach these Trayterous Iniquities boldly and faithfully and do not become Traytours your selves in becoming accessary to those horrid impieties whereby your Lord and
of curing hath multiplyed our Maladies Punishments are inflicted without mercy not onely for no offences but for acts of righteousnesse Transgressions are made without any Laws forbidding them more than the corrupted rules of some mens unsanctified Consciences The method of Iustice and Government is confounded and instead of the lawfull Officers and Instruments of Government they being removed Changelings are thrust into their places without any legall or authenticall delegation from the fountaine of Iustice and Authority whose want of Commission poisons their administrations and whilst they execute one murderer they commit another therein A stone and a stone and an Ephah and an Epha are become too perpetuall an abomination to the Lord in this notion and in this ruine and devastation of Government All the Duties both to God and man both of the first and the second Table of piety towards him and justice and charity to our Neighbours of chastity temperance and Christian sobriety in our selves how are they fallen and trampled under foot and indeed how should it be otherwise when the hedge of the vineyard is broken down what beast of the field or wilde Boar of the Forrest can wâ—nt an admittance to forrage waste it When the foundations of the Earth are out of course what hope is there of any soundnesse or integrity to bee left The Sunne is scarce more necessary to the world than a lawfull and setled government is to a people And if the Sunne be Eclipsed it is held to bee the forerunner of sad Eclipses of our inferiour Comforts and so wee have found the Eclipse of our Politick Sunne in the State And lastly for our Honour and reputation Alas How should that stay when all these are gone It is a blessing which if it bee true is but the splendour of other perfections and therefore when they are vanished it must likely runne after them Or if it stay behinde it is but a shaddow in shead of light What Credit is to rich men or Riches such is Honour or Reputation to other Excellencies And wee may here remember the old Verse Quantum quisque suâ nuÌ„morum servat in ared Tantum habet fidei When wealth and riches take their journey credit useth not to remaine at home And since Peace Liberty and the nurse of both and of all other blessings Government have left us our reputation is become but a fading flower We were once the Glory who are now the shame the scorne and reproach of other nations Our brightnesse is clouded our splendour is obscured Wee whose name heretofore for comlinesse and beauty in Religion made Rome to blush as it were in all her pride to see Truth in this Church like a Diamond richly set in the gold of excellent Order and decency to out-shine all that sophisticall lustre of their gawdy and glaring superstition We whose fame for Valour and Prowesse hath heretofore put such Agues into the greatest of our bordering Kingdomes whose renowne for learning and knowledge in the Liberall Sciences and in the Lawes Divine and Humane made us so much the Athens and Academy of the World We Ah! what a Wee are wee now become How are wee made the mocking-stock of our Adversaries ROME laughs at us to see our grave and comely Matron for such was our Church spoiled of her decent and seemely ornaments and cloathed in the garments of madnesse and in the ragges of Confusion and desolation To behold that precious Gemme of holy truth which we embraced rent out of the Gold and cast under foot into the Dung-hill To see our field that bore such fruitfull Crops and our Valleyes that stood so thicke with Corne that they did even laugh and sing even with the good Corne of wholsome and sound Doctrines to bee overgrowne now with the Thornes and Briars of Hereticall opinions and mad Factions and Divisions There there say they so would we have it whilst the Calamities of our Church are their game and pastime and as once it was said of Tire in her ruine Is 23.7 so wee may conceive them crying out scornfully against us Is this your Ioyous City and is this the temple of truth and holinesse Is this the Fortresse of the divine Oracles the great Castle and Champion of the reformed Religion See now what is become of their Reformation where now is that excellent building which they had set up Oh how bravely it burnes and consumes in the flamer of those fires which themselves have kindled in it Oh what sport it is to see it How it warmes us how it revives us Thus they delight themselves with our phrensies and strengthen themselves by our confusions and desolations But Lord how long shall the wicked how long shall the wicked triumph How long shall they utter and speake hard things and the workers of iniquity hoast themselves Lord looke upon our reproach and ignominy and restore us for thy mercies sake Let not them that are our enemies wrongfully rejoyce over us neither let them winke with their eyes that hate us without a cause They have opened their mouth wide against us and have said Aha Aha our eye hath seene it This thou hast seene O Lord keepe not silence O Lord be not farre from us Stirre up thy selfe and awake to our judgment even to our cause our God and our Lord. Our bordering Nations that heretofore feared us and honoured us how doe they now dispise or pitty us whilst our samed Valour and Prowesse is degenerated into treachery and basenesse and the glorious noon of our Learning and Knowledge is overspread with a cloud of stupidity and ignorance And all these losses are accompanied with many other with decay in trade of husbandry and what not But I have done with this long and sad contemplation of our miseries although I doubt not but your daily observations and the perpetuall sense of that variety of pressures that are upon us may informe you that I have left many sores untouched But thus farre I have endeavoured to shew you the streames of our evills and now I come to discover the fountain of them I have hitherto set before you some symptomes of our maladies it remaines now that I should lay open the root of them that so we may proceed unto the cures and remedies And here I have a world of matter before me But I have been too prodigall of my paper already and therefore dare not lanch out into these deeps Besides that necessity is urgent upon mee in divers respects for a conclusion Take therefore for that which is behinde these severall Theses The first is this That the generall fountaine of all these our miseries and caldmities are the generall Corruptions Backeslidings and Pollutions that are amongst us in this Nation The Assertion is evident 1. Because sinne is the causa sine qua non The cause without which there is no affliction There was never any but one that was punished without sin and that was Christ and even
that we had contracted by our fulnesse by the contrary medicines of scarcity and want and so have reduced us to an healthfull temper of humility and obedience unto thee proclaiming thereby as it were a generall and necessary fast unto us in the house of nature that we might have made a vertue of that necessity in the exercise of repentance Sometimes thou hast afrighted and amazed us with prodigies in the Creatures by wonderfull and unwonted changes in the severall parts and operations of the universe by rare and unusuall Comets in the heavens and in the aire by fire from heaven sent upon our Churches and dwellings thou hast shot thy thunderbolts and hailestones against us the earth hath trembled and quaked under us as not being able to beare the weight and burden of our sins and the waters have broken forth upon us by sudden deluges to our destruction to mind us of our great pollutions wherby our iniquities have over slowed against thee yea they have altered their courses in their ebbings and flowings to admonish us of our unnaturall motions in our sinnes and when none of these things would prevaile thou hast drawn out the Sword of our neighbour nations against us and because that would not worke upon us thou hast now for a long time put the spirit of frenzy and madnesse into our hearts and armed us with sury against our selves making us to become the executioners of thy just wrath upon our owne Nation by sheathing our swords in our owne bowels thou hast divided us asunder dashtus in peeces one against another that by our enmity with one another thou mightst have scourged us to the embracement of peace reconciliation with thee thou hast put out the glory of our Nation and cast our Crowne downe to the ground thou hast raised up a rebellion amongst the people against thine annointed and suffered them to prevaile in their wickednesse that thou mightest thereby chastise us for our manifold Rebellions against thee our God The Pillars of that happie Government which thou hadstset up amongst us are broken thy Sanctuaries prophaned and demolished the light of thy truth is eclipsed and clouded by the foggie and poisonous mists of many Heresies Blasphemies and Corruptions and the Order and beautie of thy holy Seruice is continually interrupted and defaced Thou hast besieged us with the Armies of thy Fury on every side Thou hast shut us up unto misery and affliction Thou hast â—ndled a fire in the Forrest of our Carmell which hath consumed the greene tree and the dry the flame thereof is not quenched and our Faces are burnt therein A Sword ô Lord a Sword is sharpened and also surbished it is sharpened and hath made a sore slaughter amongst us it is furbished that it may glitter it contemneth the rodde of thy Sonne as every Tree thou hast given forth a Commission unto it to devoure the Inhabitants of the Land our bloud ô Lord hath runne like water our children are fatherlesse our wives are widdowes there is a Conspiracy of the Prophets in the midst of us like a roaring Lion ravening the Prey they have devoured Soules our Substance is snatched from us by Rapine and Violence our Cities have been surprized by Treachery and Oppression Thou hast made the enemy to possesse our houses and our holy places they have defiled Destruction commeth and wee have sought Peace and there is none Mischiefe is come upon Mischiefe and Rumour upon Rumour The Law is perished from the Priest and Councell from the Antients Thou hast set up wicked and ungodly men to rule over us thou hast cursed our blessings unto us The King mourneth and the Prince is cloathed with desolation and the hands of the people of the land are troubled These things ô Lord and much more hast thou done unto us Thou hast made our owne wickednesse to correct us and our back-slidings to reprove us that wee might know see that it is an evill thing and bitter that wee have forsaken the Lord our God and that thy feare is not in us from the Crowne of the head to the sole of the foot there is no soundnesse in us and yet ô Lord our God we have not humbled our selves under thy mighty hand wee have not turned unto thee that smitest us thou hast wounded us and wee have not grieved thou hast afflicted us and wee have not laid it to heart the spirit of drunkenness and slumber is upon us so that we have not relented at thy chastisements we have neither beene sensible of thy judgements nor lamented our sinnes nor sought unto thee for mercy as wee should have done nor forsaken our iniquities But in the very midd'st of the fire of thine indignation wee have encreased our impieties against thee and triumphed in our Pollutions and our abominable Transgressions thou hast called us to weeping and to mourning but behold joy and gladnesse slaying of Oxen and killing of sheep eating flesh and drinking wine the voice of the desperate Epicure is in the hearts of too many of us let us eate and drinke for to morrow wee shall dye although all this be come upon us yet we still continue in our sinnes thy Name is continually dishonoured amongst us by wicked and fearefull Oathes and Blasphemies thy service neglected and trampled on by Profanenesse Wee have said it is in vaine to serve the Lord or what profit is it that we should keep his Ordinances or walk mournfully before the Lord of Hosts We call the proud happy and they that work wickedness are set up yea they that tempt God are even delivered Wee accounted thy Worship a dishonourable thing and esteeme thy Service as a thing of nought We have loathed the heavenly Manna of thy Word and corupted thy sacred Truth to turne it into a Plea for our very sinnes and to make it a Cloak for seditious and ungodly practices The holy Seales of thy grace and mercy which thou hast ordained for us in the blessed Sacraments have beene corrupted and rejected by us Too too many of us have sworne unto iniquity and made wicked Oathes and Covenants to bind us unto sinne and the workes of Sathan whilst we have broken our holy Covenant with thee our God Thy holy Sabbaths are continually prophaned the joyfull solemnities of thy people abolished and rejected Rebellion and Disobedience is become a Vertue Murder and Bloudshed is taken for a worke of Piety Rapine and Injustice pleadeth Priviledge Gluttony and Drunkennesse Adultery and Uncleanenesse are esteemed matters of allowable merriment yea the subject of our Boasting and Glory and to reprove them is taken for sawcinesse and absurditie Carnall Confidence hath set up the arme of flesh and disarmed us of our trust in thee And Covetousnesse hath made gold our hope and we have said unto the wedge of Gold thou art our Confidence Idolatry and Superstition Hypocrisie Vaine-glory and Heartlessenesse hath polluted and our Fastings and Prayers turned thy face away
from our Services Schisme and Faction hath broken the bonds of holy Communion amongst the people in the Church envy and malice hath set us on fire against one another Pride and Vanity hath still the dominion over us Usury and Sacrilege are established by Law amongst us unjust gaine is taken for godlinesse Perjury is used for Wisedome and Policy Our hearts are estranged from thee and from heavenly things and set upon the vanities of this present world and the sinfull pleasures of the Flesh and all these Mischiefes and Corruptions are bred in the womb and nourished in the lap of that spirituall ignorance and blindnesse that is in us Thou ô Lord our God hast a Controversie with the Inhabitants of the Land because there is no Truth nor Mercy nor Knowledge of God in the Land by swearing and lying and killing and stealing and committing Adultery they break out and bloud toucheth bloud hence it is ô Lord that thou continuest still to plead with us in judgement and that thy hand is stretched out still Hence it is that thou still withholdest peace from us that thou hast stopped the Current of thy favour towards us and hast delivered us up into the hands of our Enemies Lord we acknowledge that thou art just in this and all thy dealing with us Yea O Lord we acknowledge thou art mercifull therein unto us that thou hast not long agoe given us up to a totall ruine and desolation and suffered us at once to have beene devoured by our enemies Thou hast not dealt with us O Lord after our sinnes but hast punished us lesse then we have deserved and hast sweetned thy Corrections with many blessings which thou hast yet continued unto us in that thou hast preserved us a remnant and hast yet given us our lives for a prey in that thou hast preserved unto so many of us our Liberties and enlarged thy selfe unto us in the supplyes of thy providence in the respite of thy judgements and hopes of further mercies O Lord our God wee beseech thee pardon and forgive us all those grievous and horrid offences which have exposed us to thy great and heavie judgements and made us unworthy of thy mercies Breake our Hearts with true and heartie sorrow and contrition for them all wash and cleanse us from them with the precious bloud of thy deare Son let the cry of that bloud which speaketh better things then the bloud of Abel drown the cry of all our iniquities that they may not incense thine anger any more against us Cloath us wee beseech thee with the Garment of thy Sons Righteousnesse that our Iniquities may not appeare before thee turne us O good Lord and so shall wee bee turned convert us and wee shall bee converted Helpe us all wee beseech thee to renew our Covenant of Obedience unto thee that thou maist renew thy Covenant of Mercy towards us Oh let us now at this very time break all the bonds of Corruption in our soules that we may not from henceforth allow our selves in any sinne raise up our Affections to thee our God and sanctifie us unto thee by thy Holy Spirit that thy Service and thy Glorie may bee precious unto us that our lives and safety may be precious unto thee Let Swearing and Blasphemie bee turned into Praiers and Praises unto thee our God Uncleanenesse and Intemperance into Sobriety and Chastity Violence and Injustice into Righteousnesse and Honesty Prophanenesse into Pietie Disobedience into Loyaltie Crueltie and Murder into Mercy and Compassion Pride into Humility Idolatrie and Superstition into Puritie and Worship Schisme and Faction into Unity and Concord Let Hypocrisie be changed into Sincerity and desire of Vaine-Glorie into an earnest seeking of thy Glorie let Malice and Emulation and Strife bee turned into the holy Flames of Brotherly Love and Christian Affection let the sordid love of the World and the impure flames of fleshly Desires bee turned into the holy Fires of Divine Love toward thee our God and to things that are above where Christ Jesus sitteth at thy right hand Let not Usurie nor Sacrilege nor Perjurie nor any other horrid Iniquities curse this Land of ours any more And that all these happie Changes may be wrought in us let the grosse blindnesse of our mindes be healed by the precious eye-salve of thy holy Spirit and thy heavenly light that so thou being reconciled unto us our warres may bee turned into an holy well-grounded and lasting peace our Confusion into Order and Beauty our sadnesse and discontent into joy and chearefulnesse that thine Anointed may be restored unto his power and Majesty to rule thy people according to thy will that all our Calamities may bee redressed thy Judgements removed thy blessings restored continued and encreased unto us And that the glorious light of thy Gospell may be more and more resplendent amongst us to guid us in thy waies and in the purity of thy worship O Lord according to all thy righteousnesse which is thy mercy we beseech thee let thine anger cease from ns for we are not able to beare thine indignation O let thy fury be turned away from this Nation which hath been heretofore thy holy mountaine Because for our sins and the iniquities of our fathers we are become a reproach unto those that are round about us now therefore oh our God heare the prayer of thy servants and their supplications and cause thy face to shine upon thy Sanctuary which is desolate for the Lords sake O our God incline thine eare and heare open thine eyes and behold our desolations and the people that are called by thy name for we do not present our Suplications before thee for our righteousnesse but for thy great mercies O Lord heare O Lord forgive O Lord hearken and do deferre not for thine owne sake oh our God for thy people are called by thy name oh let the sentence of mercy come forth now from thy presence and call in those Commissions of vengeance and indignation which thou hast given forth against us oh make us to heare the voice of joy and gladnesse that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoyce Oh comfort us againe now after the time that thou hast plagued us and for the yeares wherein we have suffered adversity shew thy servants thy work and their children thy glory and let the glorious Majesty of the Lord our God be upon us Oh take off the indignation of thine anger from the King and from the Priest and from all the people of the Land let the Magistrates rule in righteousnesse the Ministers guide in holinesse all the Members of this Nation live peaceably and religiously and honesty in their vocations keeping themselves within those bounds and limits of their callings which are proper unto them Let them study to be quiet and to do their owne businesse and keepe the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace teach them to feare the Lord and the King and not to meddle with
of the comforts of his Queene and Children left him destitute of the solace of his friends abridged him of the attendance of his Servants disappointed him of the advice of his Counsell deprived him of the benefit of thine Ordinances shut him up from thy House and the Assemblies of thy People blasphemed him with vile and false reproaches spoiled him of his just power and greatnes and profaned his Crown down unto the ground and attempted by hellish conspiracies to take away his life These things have they done O Lord to the great dishonour of thy Name and to the great discomfort and destruction of thy people And in so doing they have rebelled against thee our God trampled upon thy Lawes violated thine Ordinance broken their Oaths and Protestations and that very Covenant which themselves contrived and imposed upon others of the people of the Land This thou hast seen O Lord and yet thou holdest thy peace whilst they triumph in their wickednesse against thee And because thou keepest silence they have though wickedly that thou wert even such a one as themselves and have strengthened themselves in their prosperous impieties But Lord how long wilt thou looke upon this Sirre up thy selfe O God against those that magnifie themselves in so many and so great impieties against thee Be thou glorious in the vindication of thine owne Ordinance cloath thy selfe with thy might and thy strength for the reliefe and deliverance of thine Annointed Pleade thou with them that strive with him and fight thou against them that fight against him lay hold upon the sheild and buckler and stand up to help him bring forth the Speare and stop the way against them that persecute him and say unto his soule that thou art his Salvation Pardon his sinnes and the trangressions of his people and let not the sins of his Fore-fathers come into thy remembrance but dispell them all from before thy presence as a cloud by the beames of thy heavenly goodnesse drowne them in the bottomlesse pit of thy mercy that they may no longer hinder thy favour from thy Servant but make thou the light of thy countenance to shine upon him Remember his patience his meekenesse his humility his mercy his love that he beareth unto thy House to thy Ministry to thy Worship and Ordinances his zeale to thy glory his devotion to thee his God And let all those holy Sacrifices that he hath offered up unto thee through thy Son be accepted in thy sight for Christ Jesus his sake Remember all those Prayers and Supplications that have been dayly made to thee in his behalfe and let them not returne empty from thy Throne Oh let it be thy pleasure to command mercies for him Be thou unto him a Pillar to support him in all his trialls a Shield to defend him in all his dangers a Treasure to supply him in all his necessities a Comforter to relieve him in all his distresses a Counsellour to advise him in all his perplexities And let thy extraordinary mercies and the heavenly influences and breathings of thy divine Spirit supply unto him the want of the outward meanes of thy Word thy Sacraments and thy publique Worship Oh let not his precious soul suffer through the wickednesse of those that oppresse him but feed thou him from thine own hand and by the ministration of thy heavenly Ministers in those straights and solitude that he is in even with the choice delicates of thy heavenly Table Be thou with him in trouble to keepe him from miscarrying and compasse him about with songs of deliverance as thou hast furnished him hitherto with thine excellent gifts of Patience and Wisdome and Christian fortitude and hast made him in spight of all his Adversaries and even to the shame and confusion of his malicious persecuters a glorious example of Christian constancy unto his people so Lord establish unto him every good gift which thou hast wrought in him and increase all thy spirituall graces in his foule that the splendour thereof may breake forth more and more through the clouds of his calamities to the amazement and astonishment of his rebellious enemies Arme him more and more with an unchangeable love unto thy Truth and to thy Service to thy Church and to thy people that neither the subtle and deceiptfull insinuations of any false Iudases nor the terrours or menaces of any insolent Rabshakahs may shake him from those pious and Christian resolutions which thou hast been pleased to put into his heart Set a guard of thy heavenly host continually about his Sacred Person that no wicked assasinates may dare to approach unto him and that the Son of violence may not hurt him Discover and defeat all hellish plots and devillish conspiracies that may be against him and blast them all with the breath of thy displeasure O prepare thy loving mercy and thy faithfulnesse that they may preserve him Breake thou his bonds asunder by thy strength make thou the doores of his Prison to flye open Soften the hard and flinty hearts of those that are the Authors and instruments of his restraint and miserie that they may relent towards him if it be thy blessed will or else affright them with the terrors of their evill consciences and strike them with trembling and feare that they may not be able to pursue their cruelties O Lord preserve his Fame and Honour from the scourge of those malicious and traiterous Tongues whose sport it is to speake evill of Dignities and to blaspheme the footsteps of thine Annointed Make thou his righteousnesse as cleare as the light and his upright dealing as the noon day O Lord restore him to the bosome of his Queene to the comfort of his Children of his Friends of his Servants of his Revenue Restore him to the joyfull Assemblies of thy People to the Comforts of thy house and of thy holy ordinances Preserve his Life enlarge his straits repaire his honour re-establish his Throne in peace in truth in holinesse and righteousnesse amongst us Bring him forth now at length like Gold out of the fire of his long afflictions precious and glorious in the eyes of God and men But thou O Lord deale with us according to thy name for great is thy mercy O Lord arise for the deliverance of thine Annointed for the Lord Iesus his sake Amen A Prayer for Peace in the Church und State O Lord thou God of Peace and Authour of Unity Looke downe we beseech thee in thy tender pitty upon the miserable distractions and bloudy divisions of this our Church and Kingdome of England who by our sinfull separation of our selves from thee our God are fallen in pieces from one another Thou O God art the center of Unity and we are like unto so many crooked lines that are fallen from thee our Center by our sinfull and corrupt affections straiten us againe we beseech thee by thy grace that being reconciled unto thee we may be joyned together in thee and reconciled
rest of the Land of Aegypt where light was given by the priviledge of thy goodnesse when all the rest of the Land was overspread with a blacke night of palpable darknesse And for all these thy mercies we have returned unto thee no other recompence but rebellion disobedience most scornfully and unthankefully most impiously and insolently have wee throwne thy blessings in thy face and fought against thee with thine owne mercies by abusing them to the dishonour of thy great and glorious name Our prosperity hath made us fat with Iesurun and wee have kicked against thee our God In the strength that we have received continually from thy bounty we have continually rebelled against thee Thy liberality unto us in the rich supply of thy Creatures hath been made by us the furniture of gluttony and drunkennes the incentives of lust and uncleannesse the wardrope of pride and vanity whilst we have neglected to bestow them upon those holy purposes for which thou gavest them in relieving of thy poore members and in the maintenance promotion and ornament of thy holy service we have filled our selves with costly and intemperate dyet to the robbing of thee our God the destruction of our bodies the disabling of our soules for the performance of holy duties unto thee yea even to the debasing of our very natures as it were turning our selves into brutish and unreasonable Creatures to the damage not only of our Piety Christianity but even of our very being and humanity it selfe whilst thy Sonne Christ Jesus hath stood hungry and thirsty at our doores in his poore distressed and afflicted Members left destitute not only of our succour or reliefe but even of our pitty and compassion We have cloathed our selves like the rich man in the Gospell with fine Linnen with rich and sumptuous attire without any due regard unto our estates or callings whilest thy Son Christ Jesus in his poore Members hath stood stood quivering and quaking with cold and nakednesse being left by us a prey both to torment and disgrace We our selves have dwelt in seiled houses to the splendor and ornament whereof we have engaged the riches both of Art and Nature whilst we have suffered thy house the place wherein thine honour dwelleth to lye waste and shared it betwixt sordidnesse deformity and ruine to the reproach of thy service and scandall of Religion yea O Lord we have not so much as taken care for the maintenance of their bodies that feed our souls we have muzzled the Oxe that treadeth out the Corne and robbed thee our God in tythes and offerings the meagrenesse and poverty of many thy poore Ministers that spend themselves in labour for the salvation of our soules do in too too many places of this Land testifie against us Those glorious deliverances which thou hast given us from our enemies have but rendred us so much the more potent and active enemies unto thee as if thy preservation of us had been no blessing but rather an offence and injurie unto us Our long and lasting peace hath beene made by us but a long and lasting opportunity of sin and in our freedome from enemies upon earth we have most impiously fought against heaven and thee our God And that we might fill up the measure of our unthankefulnesse and make it equall unto the measure of thy goodnes if it were possible by the contempt and abuse of all sorts of thy mercies we have scorned and trampled upon all thy spirituall blessings Wee have turned the very grace of God into wantonnes we have made thy very Gospell the savour of death unto death unto our selves by resisting and refusing the gracious offers of salvation which thou hast made unto us in Christ Jesus whilst thy promises of Grace have been used by us as incitements and encouragements to sinne and upon the very ground and foundation of thy most incomprehensible goodnesse towards us we have built up the Babell of confusion the cursed building of disobedience and impiety against thee yea O Lord there are too too many of us that have trodden under foot the Son of God have counted the bloud of the Covenant wherewith we have been sanctified an unholy thing and have done despite unto the Spirit of grace whilest they have made a mock of Religion and Piety to the great disheartning of the work of thy service the horrible dishonour of thy Majestie to the deplorable scandall of our Christian profession and to the almost O Lord that it might be no more inevitable ruine and damnation of their owne soules Thus thus O Lord our God have we requited thee for all thy goodnesse and mercy towards us and the more gracious thou hast shewed thy self unto us the more wicked and sinfull have wee beene against thee Thou hast made us a pleasant and fruitfull Land even as the Land of Sodom and Gomorrah which was as the Garden of God And we have it may be feared outdone the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah their sins were pride and idlenesse and fulnesse of bread together with horrid and unnaturall lusts and which of these sins have not beene committed in our Land Yea many more sinnes not inferiour unto these have sent up their cry unto heaven against us and it is the wonder of thy mercy and forbearance that thou hast not long ere this sent down fire from heaven upon us to have consumed our whole Nation into ashes we have tasted deeper of the Cup of thy mercies then Israel and yet the measure of our sins as we may justly feare hath been no way lesse then the sins of unthankfull Israel yea we have justified both Ierusalem and Samaria by our iniquities and therefore it were most just in thee to give us up to desolation as thou hast done them But O Lord our God thou hast not so left us off when thy mercies would not worke upon us thou hast assayed us with thy bitter chastisements and corrections that thou mightest thereby have whipped us from our sins when Cordials and pleasant medicines would not heale us thou hast used the bitter pills and irkesome purgatives of calamities and afflictions thou hast applied the launce unto our swelling sores by suffering thy wrath to grow hot against us in great and many miseries that thou hast sent upon us Thou hast pruned us and dressed us by the sharpe instruments of thy chastisements that we might be reclaimed from our wildnesse and barrennesse and yeild forth the fruites of obedience unto thee Sometimes thou hast sent thy destroying Angell amongst us with his sword drawne against us in the Plague and Pestilence whereby many thousands of us have been hurried into the pit of destruction that the plague of our bodies might have cured us of the Plague of our hearts otherwhiles the heavens have become brasse unto us and the earth yron The Creatures have refused to yeild their fruit to the sustenance of such unthankefull wretches that thou mightest have cured the diseases