THE LAMB CALLING HIS Follovvers TO Retirement Being an Humble Enquiry into the duty of Churches Ministers and all that fear the Lord under the present dispensation of God By one that would be found though unworthy the Lords Witness and Servant and of all his SAINTS 1 COR. 4. 5. Judge nothing before the time Printed in the year 1662. TO THE READER THe different apprehensions of the People of God in this day concerning their present duty being cut off from their publick liberties of Worship gave occasion to the ensuing Enquiry some judging it of absolute necessity to assemble openly though they expose themselves or at least their Teachers to the utmost hazard others that Retirement is that which the present dispensation calls for which later this brief Discourse endeavours to prove as justifiable from the Scripture and the practise of the People of God in former Ages but more especially to be the voice of the Lord to his people in the present day in which there is a concurring judgement of many But that Retirement which is first called to namely unto the Lord Jesus himself which is briefly prest in the former part is that which is commended to all as absolutely necessary as ever they expect to be found under his wing at his coming and appearing and Reader hear the call of Jesus Christ therein that thou mayst lay up thy immortal soul with him that when storms are coming upon the World thou mayst be found in thy Sanctuary in thy Chambers of Rest and Safety where they shall not reach thee As to the Case of Retirement from open Assembling it is plainly stated from Scripture evidence as is humbly apprehended wherein if there be not enough said to satisfie a doubting Conscience yet at least there may be sufficient to engage humble and sober minds to a mutual forbearance The duties of all Saints under this Retirement are but briefly hinted because of brevity and in that they have been more at large prest by the Servants of God in the two years of mercy we have enjoyed as the peculiar blessing of this City to the honour of the Lord Jesus the establishment of the Saints in the faith and worship of the Gospel and in the Resurrection of the Cause of the Kingdom of Christ in these Nations the vindicating and asserting whereof hath as is hoped left a gratious and powerful impression and savour upon the Spirits of the Lords people that so they may be found the more quietly submitting to the dispensation of the Lord as blessedly establisht in the forementioned truths and may in those holy principles in which they have been built up continue in a more private way edifying one another in love as those in this their retirement that are waiting for the speedy return of their Lord that when he comes he may find them so doing This you may do as under the wings of the Almighty in a probable security and not hasten your selves into your own sufferings and if the providence of God single out any of you to a suffering testimony in the loss of liberty or goods or to banishment verily you will know the tender heart of Jesus Christ towards you and his faithfulnesse in making up all to you and yours and that in this life a hundred fold Be quiet you Captives of hope for in returning and rest shall ye be saved in quietnesse and confidence shall be your strength And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction yet shall not thy Teachers be removed into corners any more but thine EYES SHALL SEE THY TEACHERS Do not think that the Lord is now at the end of twenty years work and that the present dispensation is the last issue of all his glorious providences you have sometime believed that the Exaltation of the Lord Jesus would be the issue of all the shakings the Lord hath made in these Nations and you have as great if not a greater ground to abide in the same Faith as ever Take heed of a bewildred Spirit under the dark providences the Lord is leading us but consider what the Lord hath been doing and what work hath been upon the wheele and by faith labour to look to the end of the Lord and you will be able quietly to wait for him I wish the Case in hand had been stated by an abler hand but finding nothing herein I have found my Spirit often looking for light from the Father of lights drawn out to cast in this mite to the present Generation of the righteous as hoping that the voice of the Lamb is in it in the main scope of it And though it may be in what is hinted about the death of the witnesses I may differ from some of the Lords Servants yet I promise my self their forbearance it being an houre of enquiry and we would be all glad to know the mind of Christ in our day Something more may be offerd to consideration to clear those hints and of the nature of the Kingdom of Christ in this World if the Lord permit Now the blessed God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve all his in this houre of temptation and lead us into his whole Counsel and Will to whose immutable grace I commend thee in the patient waiting for Zions Redemption The 25. of the 5. Month 1662. Resting Thy Brother and Fellow-Servant in the Patience of Christ ESAY 26. 20. Come my People enter thou into thy Chambers and shut thy doors about thee hide thy self as it were for a little moment untill the indignation be overpast THE special Wisdome of the People of God in all Generations under the variety of his dispensations hath been to know what the Lord hath spoken and called his People to under them in the knowledge of which hath been bound up their mercy and peace in every Generation All their miscarriages have been for want of attending hereunto either in a day of peace and outward blessing or in a day of affliction and judgement The safety of this people to whom this word was spoken Enter into thy Chambers c. did lye in the obedience thereof at that day which let us a little more particularly consider This Prophet though many years before the day of it spake of the Captivity of Judah and also of her return and restauration with the blessings that should attend it which restauration he more at large begins to discover at the 14. Chap. For the Lord will have mercy upon Jacob and will yet chuse Israel and set them to their own Land c. Upon which the Prophet having denounced the burden of the Lord against Babylon Chap. 13. threatens all other Nations to the 25. Chap. that but helped in or rejoyed at the day of his Peoples Captivity as Moab and Syria and Egypt and Tyre c. As is more generally exprest ch 17. 12 13 14. Wo to the multitude of many people which make a noise like
a holy Seed from one generation to another and not to be exposed to the blood thirstiness and rage of their persecutors though still honoring himself by the suffering of some And as this hath been the practise of the Churches of Christ in times of persecution so of particular Ministers and Witnesses of the Lord in all ages namely as they were led by the spirit of the Lord to retire from particular persecution especially when their case was different from the rest of the saints as in som ages it hath bin the first blow was at the Ministers of Christ so Moses fled before the face of Pharoah and dwelt in the Land of Midean till the time of deliverance came to the Israelites in Aegypt Exod. 2. 15. So David from the persecution of Saul who retired into the Wilderness where the Lord hid him till the time that the promise should be fulfilled in his reign over Israel 1 Sam. 19. 18. though in his retirement he was deprived of the Institutions of the Worship of God in the temple as he complains complains in several Psalms Elijah had given an eminent Testimony against Ahab and the abominations of that day and prophesied the wrath of God to come upon Israel But when he knew the mischief that Ahab intended and he had finished his Testimony the Lord commands him to go and hiâ—â—e himself 1 Kings 17. 2. 8. and Chap 10. 10 And we know Elijah was an eminent Type of the Witnesses of Jesus Christ under the New-Testament Babylon though in the third year when it should rain again according to the word of the Lord which made way for Elijah's appearance he shewed himself to Ahab and God was with him to deliver him But when Jezebel sought after him again ch 19. he went into the Wilderness and hid himsel in a Cave v. 9. At the same time before the three years were finished and the Persecution by Jezebel continued against all the Lords Prophets 1 King 18. Obadiah hid the Prophets by 50. in a Cave who at other times were publikely prophesying So when the King had sent out a Warrant and Officers to take Jeremiah and Baruch Jer. 36. 26. 't is said The Lord HID them which implied their own retirement at that time So our Lord Jesus himself when he heard that John was cast into Prison he retired into Galilee Matth. 4. 12 And when he further heard that he was beheaded he withdrew into a desert place Mat. 14. 13. And so when the Jews sought to kill him c. till his hour was come which places are ordinarily urged by interpreters upon them for the case in hand So our Lord Jesus allows his Disciples Matth. 10. when he sent them forth as sheep among wolves ver 10. that they should then be wise as Serpents walk with such a wisdom as becomes sheep among Wolves which is not rashly to put themselves into the mouth of the Wolf And ver 17. bids them beware of men and then being persecuted into one City â—o flye unto another v. 23. the 〈◊〉 that word being to direct them that when Rulers by their Edicts will not suffer them to preach in one place they might go to another if not in publike then in private and from House to House as the providence of God should lead them When the Jews sought for Paul at Damascus the Disciples did not press him to expose himself to be delivered up into their hands in appearing openly there but on the contrary at a hard rate conveyed him away Acts 9. 23. 2 Cor. 11. 32. In Damascus the Governor under Artas the King kept the City with a Garrison desirous to apprehend me and through a Window in a basket was I let down by the wall I escaped his hands which the Apostle there sets down among his persecutions when the Governor of the City would have apprended him he thought good and the Saints with him so judged to withdraw and yet he was not judged unfaithful or fearful in so doing So Acts 14. when Paul and Barnabas had spoken holdly in the Lord for a time at Iconium when they understood that the Jews and Gentiles with them made an assault at their meeting to use them despightfully and to stone them they were ware of it they thought it ground enough that they were ware of it and so fled into the next Province into Lystra When the Jews laid wait for him Act. 20. 3. he went not into Syria but returned thorow Macedonâ—a And when the Jews had gathered a company of lewd fallows to assault the meeting at Jasâ—ns house Paul and Sylas withdrew Act. 17. 5 6. for they found them noâ— ver 6. And at Berea the Brethren sent away Paul ver 14. So when he would have hazarded himself the Disciples suffered him not Act. 19 30. And when he would go up to Jerusalem all the Saints besought him not to go judging in an ordinary way he ought not till they nnderstood that Paul was under an extraordinary impulse of Spirit to go and then they ceased The case of those famous Ministers and witnesses of Christ at the See Book of Matt beginning of Q. Maries persecution who preached not after the Queens Inhibition and Proclamation though it were not a binding Law as appears by the Declaration of their Faith they gave forth when prisoners in the Kings Bench in which they thus express themselves We are not here in prisons as Traiâ—ors or seditious persons or transgressors of any Laws of this Realm Inhibitions Proclamations or Commandments of the Queens Highness or of any of the Councils God's Name be praised therefore c. Subscribed by Dr. Taylor Philpot Bradford Hooper Rogers Saunders c. the most eminent Ministers and Martyrs of that day who it appears preached not publickly after the Proclamation and Act of Parliament but were committed as having been men famous in King Edwards days and had preached to warn the people against Popery in the interval before the Proclamation was published and were taken after and were put to death because they would not deny the Truth they had formerly preached which the servants of Christ at this day hope through grace they shal not do if called to a tryal thereof and how far several of the servants of the Lord have exposed themselves notwithstanding a former Proclamation and the latter Act of Parliament and particular charges that way lye against some of them sober Christians may judge and not passionately censure any of them and the due consideration thereof and of what hath been said in this case may be more then enough to remove their prejudice or mistaken herein So that here is both precept and multiplied examples both of the Old and New Testament of the Prophets and Apostles and the ordinary Ministers of Christ that when particular and personal persecution hath been against them a design to apprehend them and a lying in wait for them they have at such a time withdrawn and
testimony they have given forth through the same grace upon them and chuse the greatest of sufferings rather then defile themselves and continue edifying of the Saints and Churches of God in a more private way as they have opportunity I humbly judge they shal be accepted with the Lord as his faithful witnesses and be just fied in the consciences of all serious people especially when the issue of this dispensation shall be made manifest And thus have we stated this case we hope according to Scripture light and leave it with the Lord to make it a blessing to any of his But what doth the Lord call for by way of duty of all his people in a time of retiremeâ—â— 1. To spâ—ak often one to another Mal. 3. It was a time when there was hardly a Priest to speak publickly to them but such as corrupted â—he worship of the Lord Then they that feared the Lord spake often oâ—e to anoâ—her anâ— the Lord bearkened and heaâ—d it and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that seâ—red the Lord and that thought upon his Name They had great thoughts of heart for the Name of their God and they spake no doubt of his dispensation and of the signs of the times and what he call'd for to strengthen settle and comfort one another this is the practice Saints should be serious and conscientious and often in in such a day and so keep up the practice of Ordinances among them 2. To bee found as the mournâ—rs of Zâ—on In the day of Zions breach and Captivity the promise of mercy runs to her mâ—urnâ—rs to the humble and contrite ones Isa 57. 15. 18. with those hee will dwell those hee will revive and heal Hee wiâ—l not câ—ntend always lest their spirit fail but will restore comfort to the mâ—uâ—ners So â—saiah Chap. 61 ver 2 3. And Chapter 60 vers 10. This was Jeremiahs spirit In that day Jeremiah 14 ver 17. let mine eyes run down with tears and let thâ—m not cease for the Virgins Daughter of my pâ—ople is broken with a great breach with a very grievous â—lâ—w Oh that the Lord would give down this Spirit upon his people as we would call for a Spirit of Bravery and Courage which in its season is honorable and hath appeared upon many of the Ministers of Christ so let us call upon one another for this Spirit also to be found mourning apart and together in our retirements for the abominations and blasphemies of the land for our former un profitableness unholiness security formality hypocrisie pride of life divisions frowardness back shdings breach of Vows and Covenants with the Lord self-seekings in the management of the precious cause of the Lord Jesus which now lieth as crucified Oh! do we mourn over it as wel as talk of it 3. Jesus Christ calls to heart-searching In such a day is every one to be retiring into their own hearts and finding out the plague of them Lam. 3. 40. In the day of their captivity then saith the Prophet let us search and try our ways c. Then is every one to be awakening his own heart every soul attending to a renewed repentance and humility to renewed mortification in the spirit that it may be as a day of a new conversion upon all our spirits 4. In such a day Jesus Christ calls his to uniting that we get all our prejudices to be removed and healed though under different measures of light as we are upon the enquiry of our way to Zion after the long night of Antichristian darkness we have many stones in our way and much remaining darkness upon our spirits and the Lord gives out light gradually to his people in the Churches restoration which calls for a mutual forbearance from all that would see the beauty of Zion and press after it and not imposing one upon another much less devouring one another by the way Ah! when our spirits are more melted by the Gospel and we are more in the spirit of the Gospel it shall be so then shall wee know one another as Saints and upon that account have Communion together and not bee bound up to any Form and make it a Law of Communion which is indeed no better then a dreg of christiaâ—ism upon our spirits Union with the Lord Jesus is the ground of fellowship with him and loâ—t shâ—uld be one with another 1. Joh. 1 3 Let us all contend together for the great interest of the â—ospel power of Godliness purity of Worshâ—p as as the great and common interest of all that fear the Lord. 5. In retiring times the Lord calls to much secret duty especially of prayer Cant. 2. 14. Oh my Dove that art in the clefts of the rock c. Jesus Christ behold his Dove in the clifts of the Rock in her retirement as hid from the wrath of her Enemies and there she mourns in a Dove â—ike spirit and the Lord delights to see her face and hear her voice Some have more fully heard what great things single Saints have â—one in prayer for the people of God how they have prevailed with God as Jâ—cob Moses Joshua Samuel David Elijah Isaiah Jeremiah Daniel c. in their several generations who were men of like passions with us Let me alone saith the Lord to one Moses Every praying soul should be so awakened and engaged in this Work at this day as if the whole lay upon his or her shoulders as if his cryes even alone were to prevail for Zion's deliverance Oh my dear Companions in the Kingdome and Patience of Jeius Christ cry mightily and sigh with â—itrerness and unutterable groans pour out your souls as water before the Lord because of the sinne and breach of the people of your God Oh cry for Healing for Zion cry for your Bread those precious Gospelfeedings of which you are bereft cry against Babylon and the Horns that are pouring ouâ— the blood of your Brethren Cry â—or the ruine of the Beasts Kingdom and the exaltation of the Throne of Jesus Christ in the world 'T is said Dan. 7. 13. One like the Son of Man came to the Ancient of Dayes and they brought him near before him Saints by Faith and Prayer do bring the Son of Man near before the Father And then there was given him Dominion Glory and a Kingdom that all People Nations and Languages should serve him ver 14. If such a Spirit be given forth in the entering into our Chambers verily the wind thereof shall put such an Earthquake into the tenth part of the City and the Foundations that are now laying that it shall be like a breach ready to fall swelling out in a high wall whose brâ—aking comeâ—h suddenly aâ— aniâ—stant Isa 30 13. 14. And the Adversaries of the Lord shall not see whence their blow cometh Certainly never did such a praying generation miscarry 6. In retiring times the People of God should walk wâ—sely at such a time when a