Selected quad for the lemma: prayer_n
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A50148
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A pastoral letter to the English captives, in Africa, from New-England
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Mather, Cotton, 1663-1728.
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1698
(1698)
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Wing M1137; ESTC R19432
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8,003
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18
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Destruction and Slavery that Sin ha's brought upon them When you have Sincerely thus Believed on the Lord JESUS CHRIST then you may Joyfully Sing I know that my Redeemer Lives Though you Dy in your African Captivity yet you may Dy Praising of God for Saving you from your Spiritual Captivity Yea 't is possible that you may Live to see us again in this World and Bless God with us that ever you were sent into such a sad part of the World as Africa for if you Seek First the Redemption of your Souls the other will the sooner be Added unto you Especially if you go on more particularly to Express that Repentance with which a True Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ will be accompanied It is one of the Oracles in the Word of our God If they Confess their Iniquity that they have walked Contrary unto me and I also have walked Contrary unto them and have brought them into the Land of their Enemies if then their Uncircumcised Hearts be Humbled and they then accept of the Punishment of their Iniquity then will I remember my Covenant My Distressed Friends Now you are in the Land of your Enemies 't is Time for you Humbly to Confess unto the Lord all that Iniquity which He is Punishing in this your Captivity For the Lord in His Oracles also forwarned His People Because thou Servedst not the Lord thy God with Joyfulness Therefore shalt thou Serve thine Enemies which the Lord shall send against thee in Hunger and in Thirst and in Nakedness and in the want of all Things It may be said Who gave you to the African Pyrats It was the Lord against whom you had Sinned Have you forgotten the Story of Menasseh Of Menasseh the Story is famous That his Enemies took him and bound him with Fetters and carryed him to Babylon and when he was in Affliction he besought the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly and Prayed unto Him and He was Entreated of him and heard his Supplication and brought him again to Jerusalem Truly my Brethren your Enemies have taken you and bound you and Carried you to Africa Now in your Affliction if you will Beseech the Lord your God and Humble your selves greatly who can tell what He may do for you It was a Good proposal made by the poor Captives of old among their Lamentations Let us Seach and Try our Wayes and Turn unto the Lord Solomon said Captives are to Bethink themselves and Repent I advise you To set before your selves the Commandments of God and what is Required and what is Forbidden in every one of the Commandments and very Deliberately Examine how far you have in your own Conversation Omitted what is Required and Committed what is Forbidden and Loath Judge your selves before the Lord for all the Evil that ha's been in all your wayes It may be your Conscences will now as it was with Joseph's Brethren when they saw themselves becoming Prisoners accuse you with a more special Remorse for your Unthankfulness and Perhaps Discontentment under the Mercies of God that formerly Surrounded you and for your Unfruitfulness and Misbehaviour under the means of Grace that once Enriched you or perhaps for some Singular Acts of Wickedness against God or Injustice towards your Nighbours Bewayl it all before that God who Forgives Iniquity Transgression Sin and fly to the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ as a Fountain set open for Sin and for Uncleanness Do not imagine That it is too late for you to obtain the Pardon of your Sins now the Judgment of God ha's overtaken you for them for it is not so You may yet thro' a CHRIST come to Sing Who is a God like unto thee that Pardons Iniquity He retains not His Anger for ever because He delighteth in Mercy This therefore is the Fourth and a Great Thing to be press'd upon you PRAYER Prayer without Ceasing Your fierce Masters lay heavy Burdens enough upon you The Things which we now lay upon you are Burdens indeed unto an Unregenerate Heart but they are to Ease your Burdens I am sure Prayer will do it marvellously Our Bible mentions one who was of a Sorrowful Spirit but it is added Having poured out her Soul unto the Lord she was no more sad Oh! Let not the Angels of God who are the Spectators of your Sorrows and of your Actions under your Sorrows have cause to make that Complaint of you that the Prophet made of the People that had been Slaves to the Babylonians All this Evil is come upon them yet they have not made their Prayer before the Lord their God You cannot now make your Moans to your Consorts to your Parents to your tender hearted Relations You wish Oh! that I could But you may make your moans to God in the Lord JESUS CHRIST before whom there comes the Sighing of the Prisoner Oh! Get alone as often as you can to pour out your Souls and Spread all your Wants all your Griefs all your Fears before that God who is The Hearer of Prayer And when you are at Prayer unto God in the Lord Jesus Christ I know you will Importunately Cry to Him for your Deliverance out of your doleful Captivity We a great way off adjoyn our AMEN to that Prayer of yours But then to assist it I counsel you to look out Suitable Promises of God in His Word for to plead with Him in your Prayer till your Faith be raised even unto some Assurance I hope you will do all that is possible to preserve your Bibles and prize them and love them and Read them as much as ever you can and find in them those Delights that will not let you Perish in your Affliction Now in your Bibles make such Passages as these the Food of your Meditations the Force of your Supplications Psal 107. 10. Such as sit in darkness and in the shadow of Death because they Rebelled against the words of God therefore He brought down their Heart with Labour They cried unto the Lord in their Trouble and He saved them out of their Distresses He brought them out of Darkness and brake their Bands in sundor Deut. 30. 2. When thou shalt Return unto the Lord thy God Then the Lord thy God will turn thy Captivity have Compassion upon thee If any be driven out unto the utmost parts of Heaven from thence will the Lord thy God gather thee Jer. 29. 14. Ye shall Seek me and Find me when ye shall search for me with all your Heart And I will Turn away your Captivity and gather you from all the places whither I have driven you saith the Lord. Plead such Promises as these with that God whose prerogative it is to Turn the Captivity of His people and to Loose the Prisoners Don't Rely on the Endeavours of your Friends to Deliver you but say My Soul wait thou only upon God for my Expectation is from Him Surprising Salvations have been sometimes wrought for Captives in answer to Prayer thus prosecuted The Lord has Turned their Captivity and made them sing The Lord has done great Things for us Only be sure to plead the Blood of the Lord JESUS CHRIST as the Ransome for this Deliverance also It must be by that Blood of the Covenant that you are brought out of the Pit The Lord JESUS CHRIST is the Temple of God with an Eye to whom if you make your Supplication unto God in the Land of them that have Carried you Captives God will Hear your Prayer in Heaven His Dwelling place and forgive you In the mean Time your Prayer will obtain this for you That God who hath the Hearts of all in His own Almighty Hand will give you Compassion before them who have carried you Captives as we read of some in Psal 106 46 He made them to be pittied of all those who carried them Captives Yea if you carry your selves patiently and Honestly and Faiâ—hfully and Industriously as well as Prayerfully in the Hard Service which is by the Providence of God put upon you the Lord may not only Encline your Masters to favour you as Josephs did him in his Captivity but may also make use of you to do an unknown deal of Good where He hath now appointed your uneasy Stations One poor Prisoner oncâ— was the Occasion and Instrument of bringing a whole Kingdom to Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ If you carry it well and Oh pray that you may carry it well in all Respect under your Tedious Hardships you may Glorify the Lord Jesus Christ exceedingly Now that being All that I can farther do for you I do with Fervent Zeal for your Welfare humbly put you over into His Blessing and Saving and Powerful and ever glorious Hands and Subscribe my self Yours in Him Cotton Mather
A Pastoral LETTER TO THE ENGLISH Captives IN AFRICA From New-England Boston Printed by B. Green and I. Allen in the year 1698. TO THE English Captives in Africa We are Distressed for you O our BRETHREN We are Distressed for you OUR Neighbourhood is with Bitter Anguish pouring out the Lamentations that were of old heard among the People of God in Lam. 1. 18. The Lord is Righteous for I have Rebelled against His Commandment Hear I pray you all people and behold my Sorrow My Young men are gone into Captivity And when we consider what a dreadful and what a doleful and how inexpressibly miserable Captivity it is that you are gone into the Lamentations of our Sorrow do indeed become Inexpressible But though we cannot Express the Agony of mind that seizes us when we do at our Full Tables and in our Soft Lodgings with all our Friends about us call to mind as we often do How 't is with you yet we would Express a little of that Affection that we bear you by Letting you know That we Remember you And as the Remembrance which we have of you causes us Without ceasiâ—g to make mention of you in our prayers and our ardent and constant cries unto the Gâ—d of all Grace that you may have Grace to Help you in your Time of Need so it puts us upon Writing unto you those things which may help to Instruct Strengthen Comfort you in the midst of your Terrible Temptations Jeremiah the Prophet thought it his Duty to Write a Letter unto those of his people that were carried Captives by a Bitter and Hasty Nation And from a sense of Duty it is that we now send a Letter unto you for your Consolation in that Captivity where you are now Languishing under Bitter and Heavy Afflictions Indeed When the Israelites of old were in the cruel and grievous Hands of their Egyptian Task Masters we read They hearkened not unto Moses for Anguish of Spirit for cruel Bondage But we hope that all the Anguish of Spirit Cruel Bondage which you suffer from worse than Egyptian Task masters will not hinder you from Hearkening to those Admonitions which must now be given you Now in the first place We must let you know That we are very much concerned for your being preserved Faithful unto the Death in that Christian Faith which you have hitherto professed We earnestly beg it of God for you that whatever Miseries you undergo you may not in a vain Hope of Deliverance from those Miseries Renounce the Christian Religion Those Wretched Renegado's who have abandoned the Christian Religion Expecting thereby to mend their Condition in the World have not always had their Expectation answered The dreadful Vengeance of God hath sometimes filled them with confusion by causing their Oppressors afterwards to sleight them and vex them and more barbarously than ever to multiply Oppressions upon them Or if you should get any Abatement of your Daily Burdens by becoming Apostates from the Christian Religion yet the Jealous God can smite you with such Horror of Conscience in this World for your Apostasy as would be more Intollerable than all the Torments that you ever yet Endured and He will certainly punish it with the Vergeance of Eternal Fire in the World to come where the Smoke of your Torments will Ascend for ever and ever We do with a most unutterable Sympathy feel your miseries and we would gladly do and spend all we can to Rescue you from them Nevertheless we had rather you should Endure all manner of Temporal Miseries than Incur Eternal Ones We had rather a Turk or a Moor should continually Trample on you than that the Devil should make a prey of you The Great God hath said concerning His Christian Religion If any man draw back from it my Soul shall have no pleasure in him Nor can you do a Thing more Displeasing to our Souls or Destructive to your own than to Backslide from that Holy Religion Truly It s being as we have called it An Holy Religion That one Thing is enough to give you an Everlasting Assurance of its being The way of Truth and the only Religion worthy to be Embraced and Maintained with a Reasonable man There is nothing in that Religion wherein you have been Educated but what hath a Tendency to promote Vertue it allows no such vicious Pride and Revenge and Selfishness and Filthiness and Sensuality as is countenanced in all other Ways of Worship If men would live in all things according to that Religion which you have had the Happiness to be acquainted withal they would be Angels rather than Men and they are Bruits rather than Men that would not count them so It is impossible that any but God should be the Author of such an Holy Religion And What Religion else can you meet withal that makes any such Reasonable Provision for the Reconciliation of a Sinner to the God whom he hath offended by Sin The Superstitions practised among the desolate Nations of the Earth to obtain the Pardon of Sin are so Idle so Absurd so Ridiculous that it is an admirable Enchantment on any part of mankind which has made them contented with such practices But now when you see the Methods for the Pardon of Sin in that Religion wherewith you have been Illuminated when you see the Son of God becoming a Man and this God man gloriously Living and Dying and Rising again for to furnish poor Sinners Believing on Him with a Righteousness which will Entitle us unto Everlasting Blessedness you cannot but say There is a wonderful Majesty in this way of Reconciling a Sinner unto God and the Glories of the most High are therein display'd unto the Heighth If you should be so Foolish as to forego your Blessed Religion for the sake of any other you will by that Folly leave your selves without all Hope of a Pardon for your Sins for none other will put you into any way for a Pardon that you can justly think sufficient or agreeable 'T were better a thousand times to Dy with such an Hope of a Pardon for Sin as your Glorious Religion sets before you than to Live in all the pleasure of Sin under the Blackness of Darkness which every other must Leave upon you But God hath done enough enough to satisfy you in the Truth of the Christian Religion by what was done for by the Illustrious JESUS the Author of this Religion The Resurrection of our dear JESUS from the Dead is an Incontestable Demonstration That this His Religion must be the way of Truth and the Truth of God There were many Irrefragable proofs of our Lords being the Messiah whom God had promised for to be the Redeemer of the World Our JESUS Came when the Messiah was to Come Our JESUS Did all the Messiah was to Do The Characters of the Messiah were fully answered in our JESUS But His Resurrection from the Dead This most of all effectually