shall be to them wanting who are nor deficient in this requesting duty but are in it so earnest that with Jacob the Patriarch they will not let the Lord goe till from the Lord they find and feele a blessing and in that blessing full sweetly enjoy God Now our requests unto are God made known by prayer supplication thanksgiving A touch must I needs give you of each of them and God by his Spirit touch your hearts in the use of them all {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Prayer is our request unto God our Heavenly Father for the supply of what may sustaine us and fit us for Heaven that may enable us both temporally and spiritually to hold on and to hold out in our callings till hence we are called to our abode in glory to our Mansions of eternity {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Supplication is our request to God by way of deprecation either to have evils removed from us or sweetned to us Sinnes and miseries involve us here but Gods providence is over us and all shall work for the best unto us who by constant supplication referre our selves unto and both alwayes and in all things depend on God and although he even nay us are fully resolved with that man of the right mettall holy and patient Job to trust in him {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Thanksgiving is a request to God to accept of our thanks our poore thankes for his richly multiplied benefits on us conferred in Jesus Christ As it becommeth the righteous to be thankfull so in all things rendring perpetuated thankes unto God by them God is invited to the continuation of blessings to their setled assurance of his eternall favours In that which usually we do call the Lords Prayer are all these requests uncomparably couched Prayer Supplication Thanksgiving Be it in our hearts alwayes and in our mouthes often upon occasions Thus pray we z and pray we this when ye pray say Our Father a and never forget we that prayer lest in our owne without an eye on that and close with that we be lost as in so many Wildernesses full of intricacies full of enormities full of endangerments I close with that of our English Bernard In the Lords Prayer whether we regard the brevity perfection authority method efficacy or necessity of it it is to be beleeved that no Saint or Angell is able to march the plat-forme thereof being large for matter short for phrase and sweet for order Take withall for the cleering of this branch in our Text and for your right apprehending and using of the Lords Prayer the Explication and Application thereof from the same Author and others thus Our Father by the right of creation by the merit of compassionate and bowell-mercies by the gracious provision of things needfull and usefull for us which art in Heaven the Seat of thy Majesty in the very radiancy of glory the Inheritance of thy children by adoption and grace the Kingdome of endlesse and un-disturbed happinesse hallowed be thy name by the thoughts of our hearts by the words of our mouthes by the works of our hands thy Kingdome come that of grace to inspire us that of power to defend us that of glory to crowne us thy will be done in our weale and in our woe in our fulnesse and in our needfulnesse in our life temporall and at our death the change of this for a better life in Earth as it is in Heaven in us below as it is in the glorious Angels above done willingly readily cheerfully faithfully done without the very least murmuring without any let or any manner hindering without fraudulent and deceitfull jugling the cheating way of serving God in the complementalnesse of Religion Give us this day our daily Bread for the nourishment of these our decaying bodies for the spirituall feeding of our Heaven-bred soules for the reliefe of all our necessities whether bodily or spirituall whether for our sustentation here for a time or preparation for hereafter to the dayes of eternity And forgive us our Trespasses those wherâ—by thou our Father art in the course of our sinfull live dishonoured our Neighbours any wayes wronged our selves heedlesly endangered and with many miseries perpetually even day by day enthralled as we forgive them that Trespasse against us that have hurt us in our bodies that have hindred us in our goods and estates that have wronged us in our good names and reputations And lead us not into tentation the tentation of the world lying and rotting in all manner of wickednesse the tentation of the flesh our bosome-inticing Dalilah over-neare and over-deare unto us the tentation of Satan our common adversary the perpetuall hunter of us to utter perdition and destruction But deliver us from evill forgive that is past remove that is present what is to come graciously so prevent that nothing may ever make a seperation between thee and us thee our Father and us thine adopted ones in the Lord Jesus Christ the Sonne as of thy nature so of thine entirest love For thine is the Kingdome to rule and over-rule all thine the power to command and to doe all thine the glory to be all in all to all thine and all these for ever and ever in the world that is present and in the world that is to come unlimited is thy Kingdome thy power and thy glory Amen thou sayst it and so it is Amen thou doest promise it and so shall it be Amen is our eccho to what thou sayst and promifest so be it Heavenly Father is the faithfull Amen to all the requests our gracious Lord hath taught us to put up affectionately unto thee And now from the Apostles Exhortations to various duties which in a plaine way we have explained proceed we in the last place to the Apostles closing up of all with a right sutable apprecation and the peaco of God which passeth all under standing shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus I shall briefly closely open this leave it with you as an hearty farewell of your worn-out Pastour whose prayer ever shall be for your thriving to Heaven-wards The peace of God was the Apostles apprecation to his Phillipians and is mine to you once mine but now left to your owne choice of a Preacher and God fit you with one that may fit you for God By the peace of God in this passage conceive that peace which God worketh in beleeving consciences as an effect of the Gospell to them sincerely preached My soule assures me that I never delivered any thing from this Pulpit that was unsound untrue never hucstered the Word of God to the humouring of any for by-ends of mine owne never hood-winked any Parishoner by forged interpretations raked out either of the Channels of Rome or Dung-hils of Amsterdum otherwise even of a child from my beleeving Parents soundly Protestant learned I Christ and both in truth and cleernesse have so taught
him And this Testimony of mine owne conscience on it selfe seriously reflecting is to me as thousands of Witnesses God so deale with my soule as I have been faithfull to you-wards in the whole course of my Ministery among you for the solid good of your soules And now my prayer is for you that the peace of God may settle in you onely that peace is the peace surpassing a peace that hath no bounds no termination no expiration The peace it is the onely peace that passeth all understanding The World conceives the Godly to have no peace but the godly know that the wicked World hath none no not when it is at the quietest we have it from him that had it immediately from God Isaiah that Prophet Evangelicall or propheticall Evangelist There is no peace saith my God to the wicked and in that one Prophet we find it twice recorded b And he addes this comparison to set it forth to the very full Sea-like the wicked cannot rest when any winds trouble them their waters cast up mire and dirt and with their fulsomnesse and noysomnesse not a corner is there anywhere that stinks not of them yet even in their disturbances a peace there is in godly consciences a peace passing the capacity of worldly mens understandings a setled and a setling peace And no mervail for it keepeth their hearts and minds through Christ Jesus Listen unto the legacy of Christs bequeathing The Hearts keeper it is and the minds keeper and both in the right temper of un-disturbed tranquility Peace I leave with you my peace I give unto you not as the world giveth give I unto you let not your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid c The peace of the world is like the world fickle now on soone againe quite off ever giddy never steady The children of men are deceitfull upon the weights light as vanity yea then vanity it selfe lighter d And wise Salomon the Sonne of religious David proves throughout his Ecclesiastes that book of proofes by him experienced But the Peace of God through Jesus Christ or that peace we have bequeathed us from Christ is such a peace which as the world cannot give us so it cannot take the same from us Our Peace-maker is the securer of the peace we have from him our hearts and minds are in safe custody thereby Out of Satans reach they are and above the malice of every satanically-minded and handed wretch yea and tongued too in both sexes We may have our good names by slanderousnesse blemished our estates by the violence of plunder ruined our temporary lives by the bloodinesse of war or by any manner of disease pestilentiall or otherwise taken from us but the peace made between the God of faithfulnesse and our beleeving souls is altogether unbereavable Hel gates cannot there be prevalent where Gods pardon and peace are entred and where in the blood of Christ beleevers are sealed by the spirit of Christ to the day of full Redemption I shall now referre you to the present close perusall and to the practicall use whiles you have a day on earth to live of that 91 Psalm It begins thus He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty and it thus concludes he shall call upon me and I will answer him with long life will I satisfie him and shew him my salvation Here and in the rest of that Psalm is the peace of God displayed a peace passing the understanding of naturall men as not at all therewith acquainted a peace keeping the hearts and minds of the regenerate in an heavenly temper and filling them with joy unspeakable full of glory e The Kingdom of God is righteousnesse peace and joy in the holy Ghost f And our Saviour tels us that this Kingdom is within us g A Kingdom it is that comes not with observation loe it is here or loe 〈…〉 there is but frivolous discourse for behold the Kingdom of God is within you it consisteth as formerly you heard from St. Paul in righteousnesse peace joy in the holy Ghost all within all in the hearts of beleevers When Jesus Christ dwels in the heart by faith as Saint Paul averreth he doth h every Beleever knoweth it there is rejoycing in the Lord there is the unstinted expression of Moderation there is the assurance of the Lords assissance there is a casting on God the care of our welfare in a perpetuated laying downe of our requests before him in prayer supplication thanksgiving and there the peace of God which passeth all understanding keeps through Jesus Christ the hearts and minds of Christians I hope what I have at this time delivered is generally understood and my prayer is that it may particularly be derived into practise If with this resolution you approach the Lords Table my hope is and my prayer seconds it that you will hence-forward prove thriving Christians that you will grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ i Not to goe forward in Religion is to goe backward is to pull downe what formerly we have built up is to end in the flesh although we have begun in the spirit And from any such course the Lord divert us all and make our wils plyable to his will in all things to his glory in our salvation The Lord evermore blesse you and evermore keep you all the Lord make his face to shine perpetually upon you all unto you all to all your posterity be unstintedly gracious the Lord lift up his countenance upon you all give you al his peace that passeth all understanding to the keeping of all your hearts and minds in all integrity through Jesus Christ the Righteous to whom with thee O Father the holy Ghost from you both our comforter three Persons one very God bâ—â—ll glory to all eternity Amen FINIS a Eph. 3. 17. b Luk. 9. 23. c Eccles. 2. 2 d Luk. 6. 25. e Luk. 10. 20 f Thes. 5. 16. g Rom. 5. 2. h Ro. 14. 17. i Joh. 15. 11. k 1 Pet. 1. 8. * Ro. 15. 13. l Ro. 15. 13. m Gen. 13. 8 n Eph. 4. 1. o ver. 31. 32. p Mat. 5. 16. q 1 Pet. 2. 11. 12. r Prov. 16. 7. Å¿ 2 Cor. 7. 11 t Mat. 6. 34. u 1 Pet. 1. 7. x Ps. 145. 18. y Mat. 7. 78. b chap. 48. 22 57. 21. c Joh. 14. 27 d Psal. 62. 9. e 1 Pet. 1. 8. f Ro. 14. 17. g Luk. 12 11. h Ephes. 3. 17. i 2 Pet. 3. 18.
THE SHEPHEARDS FAREWELL TO HIS BELOVED FLOCKE OF S. B. E. L. Where He hath been above twenty yeeres their weake yet vigilant Pastour I. G. D. D. PSAL. 37. 25. I have been young am old yet never saw The just abandoned nor those that draw From him their breath with beggery opprest He lends in mercy and his seed are blest En me peractâ parte vitae maximâ Senecta jam cana premit Nec me usquà m rectam persequutum tramitem Meós ve sensi deseri Quaerelave vidi voce Divitum ad Ostia Miserum rogantes frustulum Printed in the yeere 1645. TO THE PARISH OF St. BARTHOLMEWS EXCHANGE LONDON BEloved in the Lord you have your desire and I have mine ease to betake me to a retired life in my crazy estate and manifold infirmities of age crept on me which makes it to me a disease and summoning to the Grave God enable me that patience in me may have the perfect worke and furnish you all with all his graces that shall have their continuation in glory This is my hearty prayer to which God vouchsafe a blessed Ratification For Preaching once yours For Praying ever yours JOHN GRANT aged 67. THE SHEPHEARDS farewell to his beloved FLOCK of S. B. E. L. PHIL. 4. ver. 4. to 8. Rejoyce in the Lord alway and againe I say Rejoyce Let your Moderation be knowne to all men The Lord is at hand Be carefull for nothing but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made knowne to God And the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus IN this present evill world the dearest of God's Saints are often militant in a warfaring condition often and whiles here they are alwayes itinerant in a wayfaring condition alwayes They have Enemies enough and strangers are they unto all that are not right to Heaven-wards that are open sinners or but pretended Saints They are hated by many and not owned by the most persecuted by not a few deserted in their extreame wants almost by every one by all sure in whose hearts Christ dwelleth not by faith a So this Apostolicall exhortation is needfull for their consolation that they take none offence at the Crosse of Christ but that they closely buckle themselves to be with him crucified and soundly animated peremptorily to deny their owne selves to take up their owne crosse daily and so chearfully and undantedly to follow Christ b even unto death and in death to be his couragious and most constant Followers I called this Text an Exhortation I may fitly call it a chaine of Exhortations of sutable and seasonable Exhortations and all of them closed up in a pithy apprecation The first Exhortation is to the perpetuity of Rejoycing the next to the moderate behaving a mans selfe in all occurrences The last to a dependency upon God amidst the throngs of whatever cares the world presseth us withall and enforceth continually upon us to make us forgetfull of our God We are thus to the perpetuity of rejoycing by our holy Apostle exhorted and the Exhortation to worke us seriously unto it is redoubled Rejoyce in the Lord alwaies and againe I say Rejoyce The againe and againe rejoycing is the Christian rejoycing the rejoycing it is in the Lord Worldlings rejoycings are in their vanities ever with vexations accompanied mad rejoycings are they ever ending in horrour I have said of laughter it is mad and of mirth what doth it c Mad laughter and prophane mirth doth it knoweth not what Christs woe is thereon Woe unto you that now laugh for yee shall mourne and weep d Extremum gaudij luctus occupat all rejoycing out of Christ is wound up in mourning and that mourning shall have no ending nor shall any of the teares thereof be put up into the Lords bottels The right rejoycing that shall be an evermore rejoycing is the rejoycing in the Lord That our names are written in the book of Life is the very life of rejoycing e All other rejoycing is but madnesse it is groundlesse altogether it knoweth not what it doth it doth what it cannot know that it shall have Gods approbation nay if it reflect upon Gods revealings cannot but know that reprobation will thereof be the dismall conclusion But the Christian rejoycing is an evermore rejoycing Rejoyce evermore is our Apostles expression f In the hope of the glory of God is their rejoycing that have in their hearts this assurance by faith that their names are in the records of Heaven indelibly registred In the hope of the glory of God is their rejoycing g And not onely so the Apostle addes further in the three annexed verses but we the rejoycers in the Lord glory in tribulations not onely rejoyce but even glory in them as knowing that tribulation worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the holy Ghost which is given unto us You here may cleerly see the wide difference now betweene the rejoycings of sinners and of Saints of prophane worldlings and of religious Christians The one is deceitfull vanishing perishing and in perdition enwrapping the other fixed eternall happy making and so continuing in those in whom it takes place being in prosperity and adversity still the same Plenties swell it not up neither wants cast it downe calme times never make it forgetfull of God nor tumults deterre them from the constant service of God in whom God works it by the Ministers of his owne appointing This rejoycing in the Lord alway this againe and again rejoycing is the joy in the holy Ghost it is that gladsome that sweet that comfortable motion of the heart by the Spirit of Adoption stirred up in the elect Servants and Saints of God upon the feeling of Gods love to them-wards in Jesus Christ as the forerunner and assurer of the life eternally happy Both in earthly and spirituall blessings have we the tokens of Gods love to us-wards in Christ especially in the spirituall The Kingdome of God is righteousnesse and peace and joy in the holy Ghost writes our Apostle h When Christs joy remains in us our joy becomes the Full joy i It is the joy unspeakable the glorious joy so by Saint Peter stiled k and fitly because of Heavens Kingdome it is a maine part With all joy and peace through beleeving are the elected and selected ones of God filled * A very Heaven is in their consciences and a constellation is there of all vertues and graces beamed from the Father of Lights in his Irradiations upon them This Saint Paul apprecaâ—es to the Romans and I in his words to you The God of Hope fill you with all joy and peace in beleeving that yee may abound in Hope through the power of the holy Ghost l This were a fit bough alwayes to be
according to his prescriptions Among all Davids Psalmes be that familiar unto you by frequent meditation Psal. 107. A mappe it is of Gods being at hand to all his punctually and stirres up all in all occurrences to take notice of Gods Handy-work and to praise him ever for his goodnesse and for his wonderfull works to the children of men ver. 8. 15. 21. 31. of that precious Psalme In the temporall blessings of our God are his spirituall blessings therein chanted forth most harmoniously At hand our God is to the wanderers in desart places at hand God is to the shut up in desmal prisons feitered and tormented there at hand God is to the cast upon their sick beds and with various diseases tossed there and grievously turmoyled A four-fold exemplification of Gods presence in mens troubles and of his rescuing them graciously thereout is in that Psalme distinctly specified The two former examples are of the calamitous in a vagring condition in a tossing on the Land and on the Sea represented so as if we even saw them tempest-beaten The two latter examples are in a condition not vagring indeed but fixed yet so fixed as tranf-fixed as put to pains above humane supportment Externall violence in prison-extremities internall grievance in varieties of diseases try the mettals of Gods endeared ones There is the patience of the Saints put to it Therein the â—ryall and the proof of them to be true and sound cleerâ—y evidenced Gods temporall deliverances in these kinds are remarkable but our spirituall deliverances exceed all the temporall by farre The Churches deliverances by her Saviour the Lord Jesus should often be revolved in our thoughts and all the yeer yea all our yeers on Earth should be a Christmasse in this regard a festivall continuated and celebrated rejoycingly As Christ before he was exhibited to the World in the flesh was once promised and often re-promised and our Forefathers in the faith thereby sustained in their longings for him and expectations of him so after his manifestation in our nature and finishing the work of our Redemption therein First he gave direction for the Faith Christian by the Apostles and their close Successors and afterwards when Heresies and Scismes had tainted the same he againe reformed it and continueth that blessed Reformation I have here before me a world of matter but I must take up and speed me to the next Bough largely dispread and into many branches distinguished Be carefull for nothing but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made knowne to God Be carefull for nothing A double carefulnesse we read of a carefulnesse forbidden and an enjoyned carefulnesse This latter is a taking thought both in what and how we may approve our selves unto and in our persons and whole deportment on earth please our good and gracious Father which is in Heaven wherein his Sonne our redeeming Lord he hath prepared the Mansions of eternity for us after our pilgrimage in this vale of misery By doing the will of our Father as in his Word he hath revealed the same to us is this care taken and by us conscionably performed This is to us recommended in the Corinthians Å¿ The sorrowing after a godly sort what carefulnesse hath it wrought in you This carefulnesse is a studiousnesse to avoyd the track of sinne and sinners and a closenesse of adherence unto God in a way of holinesse that leadeth to happinesse When we take due thought for the welfare of our owne soules and for the drawing of others with us on to God this way are we carefull and God accepteth of us in Christ and highly approveth us Yea a moderate carefulnesse for the things of this life without distrustfulnesse in God is both good and commendable but when our Apostle chargeth us to take care for nothing it is Anxiousnesse he points at and disswades from This is interpreted by that of our provident Lord Care not for to morrow t our faith on Gods Providence must cast diffidence out of us Saint Peter thus expresseth it cast all your care upon God for he careth for you u Where the word All is emphaticall and very expressive It is not sufficient for a right Christian to cast this care or that care or the other on God Nothing must excrutiate us who have God for a Provider It may fall out that the very lightest cares may so presse us downe that we may become unfit to undergoe the very lest burden of our calings as not the greatest can be too heavy for us when the whole load of our cares are on God the perpetuall care and provider for us And in the word Cast likewise an intimation is there worthy our closest observation It signifies that we should rouse up what perplexeth us and roule it all on God Be we rid of Anxieties as for us over-masterfull but no burden is over-heavy for his Shoulders And how shall we cast all our cares on God by letting our requests be made knowne to God God is ready to free us of our cares and to take the charge both of our persons and of what concerns us for good but he will be requested of us and then shall we be under his wings for shelter and for safety It is not to informe God that we put up requests to God no he knowes our thoughts afarre off he knoweth them ere they arise in us knowes them ere we can mold them up into requests and so put them up unto the Throne of Grace It is not simply for the manifesting of them to God but to obtaine Gods approbation of them and of us for them Christ will disclaime the knowledge of Hypocrits at the last day I never knew you and yet who are more in prayer then they but their prayers are but Ayrebeatings as sounding brasse or tinkling Cymbals all their devotions Requests made knowne to God are such as God by effects makes it knowne that he hath with approbation admitted them When we thrive to Heaven-wards and are provided for on earth to contentment it appeares that we have not been at our prayers in vaine To all that call upon him God is neere but such must they be as in truth call upon him x Otherwise he knowes them not with approbation with acceptation heares them not When we are true of heart Gods Ears are full open to our requests and never have we in them repulses from him Aske and it shall be given you seeke and yee shall find knock and unto you shall it be opened for every one that asketh receiveth and he that seeketh findeth and to him that knocketh it shall be opened y When our requests unto God are faithfull earnest and constant God takes notice of them and we from God have seasonable answers Requests put up to men are often frivolous Either to grant them is not in their power or not in their will but neither are in God wanting and nothing