the second person with Stephen Lord Iesus receive my spirit For both is here understood and Prayer ought jointly to be put up to them as they are one and severaly to all the Persons as they are three provided that in naming of one as here we exclude not the Son nor Spirit as Stephen not the Spirit nor the Father though the Son be solely invoked It was the Trinity that said Let us make man and from the Trinity did sin cause man to fall and by Prayer to the Trinity must man be remitted of his sin delivered from evil and instructed to avoid temptation It is given as a rule that where the Word Father is simply used without any other word restricting it to any of the other Persons as here there is none the whole Deity is thereby signified ex gr The fowls of the Air sow not yet your heavenly father feedeth them In Father all the Trinity is understood but in these words The Father loveth the Son the second Person is distinctly spoken of and distinguished from the first as also the first from the second But to reach the depth of the word Father in this profound sense were to puzle our souls with inscrutable Mysteries and with Simonides to drench our brains in unprofitable questions For he being asked by Hiero the King what God was desired one days liberty to answer the question but that being too short he demanded two but these not being sufficient he intreated for four in regard the more he pondered his soul was the more darkned touching the nature of a Deity neither do we read that ever he answered the question though eight days was allowed him his head questionless being filled with doubts and niceties studying the solution We shall therefore taking a prospect of this word of this cloud Father from its darkest side as it relates to Prayer and then we may see clearly â—avour on Godsâ—part and duty upon ours The favour is to be seen in Priviledges Justification and in our Adoption 1. Our Christian-priviledges above the Iew. Many and lofty were the Titles and Names by which God made himself known under the Law as the Lord God of gods the God of Abraham and the Almighty God but it is Our Father quia noster esse cepit he now becoming our God having left off to be theirs His Name to them was I AM denoting Eternity and Immutability to be in himself But Our Father shews plainly our interest in him and his to us he is not now under the Gospel called the God of Abraham at a distance but having spoken to us by his Son to keep us with him for ever sweetens our service under the notion of fatherly attendance the other having rebelled against him They indeed while with him had much of his praise but to which of them at any time said he When ye pray say Our Father They prayed indeed but in comparison of us they did it as servants we doing it as sons having received that spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father But of this afterward 2. Our Iustification by the blood of Christ. Our sins made us lose our interest we had in him by our wandring as the lost sheep and by our lavishing as the Prodigal we became like our old father the Devil and by consequence were afar off but now made nigh by the blood of Christ who made our peace animating us with confidence to pray After this manner having by faith received the power to become the Sons of God For nec peccator neither can a sinful people or a sinful man be attoned or made a son or sons except there preceed a remission of sin which is accompanied by the gift of Son-ship For whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin and he who would receive the kiss of the Father must return and confess with the Publicane and he shall not only have bread enough but his sin shall be forgiven him 3 Our Adoption by the regeneration of the Spirit Regeneration implyes a two-fold birth First we are born children of wrath and so are children of the Devil yet not by nature but imitation because the lusts of that father we will do by which we have no plea to Heaven And unless as regenerated a man be born again of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God He comprehends all Ages Sexes and conditions and except he be born again shews a new Father and a new nature Of water understand that Baptism is an entry into a new life which is administred in the Name of the Father upon our bodies denoting that even our flesh is capable of Heavens glory and of the Spirit this is that wherein all blessedness consists for as the Spirit of man must be prop'd or buttress'd by the Spirit of God or it can never be elevated so as to enter the Kingdom of God so must the Spirit of God uphold the faith of the believer by bearing witness to it of the souls being born of God or then we cannot call after this manner without mocking our Father which is in Heaven A Father he is in respect of Christ and because of him he is a Father in respect of us like our elder Brother and elder brethren Let us seek after the things of Heaven that it may be known we pray by the spirit of Adoption having re-purchased the title of Sons Acknowledging by Father an absolution of offences a freedom from judgement Justification Sanctification and the Adoption of Sons a fellowship with Christ the gifts of the Spirit an inheritance incorruptible that fadeth not away eternal in the Heavens Whereby it may be attested of our Father what a dying man said of the Epistles and Gospels when desired by some to deliver a rule for the right ordering of their lives held up them with an ecce omnia hic here are all things necessary for attaining of a good and blessed life he meant they living after the rules there taught so shall it be with us if we practise according to the form prescribed here For this Preface holdeth out also duty on our part and we learn by it to pray with confidence awfulness and plainness 1. With confidence but not with presumption God hath come low to embrace us as sons he hath given us freedom to touch his Scepter yet ought not man to be saucy for the one nor play as a child with the other Let not the pride of thy countenance keep thee O man from God that is from calling upon him because he is thy Father nor permit the sin of thy soul to perswade thee to run from him because he is in Heaven Do this and live come boldly to the Throne of grace that you may obtain mercy It is a Throne therefore denotes Majesty to stop presumption with the
other fond reformations aimed at in this Age rich Amen was reduced to a beggerly So be it when yet there was as great difference betwixt them as between the garments of Tamar the harlot whom Iudah defiled and the Virgin-like apparel of Tamar the Princess whom Ammon ravished It is the only Hebrew word in this Prayer and not interpreted by our Saviour nor the Evangelist nec Graecus interpres neither durst the Latine nor Greek Interpreters translate it lest it should be contemned by being made naked since no Language can express its full sense whereof almost all Nations as they say Jesus Christ though Originally Greek and Hebrew sayes Amen as sufficiently understood Is is an oath that what you pray for is your hearts desire it is a wish that what you pray for may be your portion it is your assent that what you hear prayed for it your judgment and therefore in Amen we wish swear believe that the Prayer for forgiving sins of deliverance from evil of giving daily bread is from the power and goodness of your Father and that the Kingdom of his glory and grace is to be advanced by the same power and when by it you are brought to do his will you resolve to hallow his Name in the first and give him the glory in all for ever through Christ who is the Amen and therefore when you pray mind Heaven with Moses let all the people with you say Amen And I say To God only wise be glory through Jesus Christ for ever Amen After this manner therefore pray ye Our Father which art in Heaven c. HAving viewed at a distance the out-works and general form of Prayer it is now seasonable to enter in and behold the special rule of Prayer and the several parts of that called the Lords Prayer unto which the unseasonable and cloudy weather that may be both felt and seen in the Firmament of our Church urgeth our meditation having visibly as once in Egypt in it showres of hail and fire mingled with the hail hence prudentially we are enforced both to make more haste to it and carry longer in it It is called the Lords Prayer because by our Lord composed in this expression After this manner pray ye and by him also imposed in this Precept when ye pray say Our Father c. and to difference it from the Prayers of other holy men as of Moses David Asaph Heman from which it is as really diversifi'd as a week day from the Sabbath for though the Spirit of God made both yet the Holy Ghost hath eminently sanctified and commanded us in Prayer to remember it in this Mandat When ye pray say Our Father c. We have by our Saviour a living and new way a new Command it was thought also by his inscrutable wisdom fit to give us a new Prayer as new Wine for our new Bottles Pray after this manner As the Temple of old so this Gospel-structure consists of three parts 1. a porch or gate which may be called Beautiful in the words of the Preface Our Father which art in Heaven 2. A holy place consisting of the several Petitions in the Body of the Prayer as Hallowed by thy Name Thy Kingdom come c. In which the lights of the Lamps lead us orderly from one Petition to another from wherein his Kingdom is concerned to that in which our obeying the Laws of that Kingdom is related in Thy will be done by which we see the Table of the Shew our necessary bread whence we go forward to the brazen Altar whereon we lay our sin-offering in Forgive us our debts c. and having sanctified our selves as Priests we ascend to the third Part the Holy of Holies For thine is the Kingdom the power and the glory for ever at the end of which or rather the head we have the glory of the Lord in a cloud in this word Amen filling it self and the whole house with the light thereof Of the Preface then next of the Petitions and lastly of the Conclusion let us treat CHAP. I. Our Father which art in Heaven IN these words we have goodness Our Father next greatness which art in Heaven They are the head of the Christians Prayer and like that of the Spouse it is as the most fine Gold and weighs thus much that we should be so circumspect in our walking and living upon earth as to be accounted worthy to posses our Parents Inheritance in Heaven unto whom we pray whence ariseth those duties of lifting up of the heart of the voice of the soul of the eyes unto God They have also in them the Person we pray unto Father the relation we pray under Our Father the place we pray unto which art in Heaven all ushering-in the several Petitions Our Saviour more boni Oratoris as an Orator here patterns and becomes a Patron unto goodly Prefaces whereby our Petitions are proposed with greater gracefulness and sweetness and what shall more readily procure affection than Praise and Praise is placed upon the Porch of this Prayer in that our Lord will have us begin to beg no otherwayes then by calling the great God our Father insinuating praise and love which rule had the Gadarens observed they had not so prophanely besought Christ his Son to have departed from their coasts To have our Prayers quadrat and conform to this holy Preface We shall discover 1. What lyeth couched under this Name Father 2. What reasons might induce our Saviour to give him that Name 3. The special excellencies by which most eminently he merits that Name In beholding the first both thee and I Reader are to behold What astonisheth Angels What makes the Heavens to wonder and the Earth to tremble which flesh cannot express And I said A great Preacher dare no utter yet dare not be silent The Lord grant that I may speak and you may hear this great thing viz. Gods giving himself to the Earth and we our selves to Heaven Both which is granted to be done in these words Our Father which art in Heaven Our Father c. THis Name Father is as the Angels name Secret and wonderful yet with Moses we shall view its back-parts And first of all we may perceive the whole Trinity in nature For the Lord God is a Father God the Son is a Father God the holy Ghost is a Father Or without errour we may understand the first person of the Deity in order sometime called the Father of Rain of Iesus Christ and again the Father of Grace the first having in it some vestigia of his power the second being the express image of his person the third the similitude of his nature and holiness And to him we may cry as to the first person with David Be merciful unto me O God be merciful unto me and also in the same phrase Father We may call to
confusion wherein we so lately were labyrinthically and scandalously involved by making desirable peace to be enjoyed only by our more holy Successours c. Themistocles having done great service observing himself noted and pointed at in the Olympick Games as the deliverer of his Countrey is recorded to say This day I am sufficiently rewarded for all that ever I have done for Greece God shall also hold himself really repayed for all offered and possessed mercy if we remitting somewhat of that passionat prejudice against what we have not shall render our selves grateful for what we have and for more sureties sake pursue those things wherein gratitude stands which is in invitation of others to behold the mercy in observing of the poor who stand in need of mercy in a restoring what we have taken from others without mercy in a confessing that all our good flows purely from mercy and because each man complains of the others remissnesse let every one affectionatly mourn to testifie his desire of requiting God that men do not praise the Lord for his goodnesse nor for his wonderful works to the children of men 2. Knowledge in what his mercy hath accomplished in the â—eeds of the Gospel As that the second person died for us and that all the three Persons draws us from the power of Satan to receive the forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified That as peace came down with the birth of his Son so peace and purity was infused by the shedding abroad of his Spirit upon us because of which on earth glory is to be given to God in the highest 3. Love because of that which all his attributes hath designed As a Father we have his love upon us as a King his power exercised about us as we are children we have his Angels ministring unto us at all times his face to refresh us his Spirit to comfort us and at last his bosome to entertain us To love him is to hallow him than which nothing is more equitable fruitful or honourable 4. Abilities for that which in his holy Law is enjoyned We cannot express our obligations nor demonstrat the tye that lyes upon us for spreading abroad his same wherefore this Hallowed be thy Name reflects upon our impotence and confesseth we cannot do it and therefore he must for though the devils and damned glorifie God yet they cannot sanctifie the Name of God no more can any untill there be a new heart created a new spirit infused while the Angels cryed Holy holy holy is the Lord of Hosts all that the Prophet could do was to cry Woe is me for I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips and did not change his note untill his iniquity was taken away and his sin purged which is also prayed for in this Petition And for the continuing of which grace of sanctification and spiritual life or ability we saith a Father pray continually both day and night that by the grace and protection of the most high they may be in us and for us preserved ut qui quotidie delinquimus that as we sin daily we may by the sanctification of the Spirit be daily purged leâ—t we fall from the grace of God The Temple and Utensils thereof when defiled were cleansed and purified from their pollution quae Deo sunt destinata or dedicata vocantur sancta they are holy they are Saints they are righteous who fall not only but even those that fall and rise again washing themselves from their old sins by amendment Of which he was apprehensive who complained that having desires to be happy but his thoughts would not suffer him if such struglings happen in thy breast Reader sentence them to death and if too strong for thee put up thy supplication in an Hallowed be thy Name that the power of God may be discovered in thy infirmity and his strength in thy weakness by dissipating such cogitations His Name in the last place is to be hallowed personally if you eye man comprehending as bound thereunto both soul and body and in this Petition included and performed directly indirectly and exemplarly 1. Directly by a holy and reverend using of his Name The Romanes suffered not their children to swear by Hercules untill they went out of doors to prevent their vain and ordinary swearing The ancient manner of the Hebrews in their Judical swearing was by the Magistrats attesting the witnesse in this form Give glory to God And yet there are profane wits among us who disanulling all bonds interprets oaths to be a point wherein their gentility consists and are so little afraid of a jealous God that their jealousie is lest their comrade out-swear them so both becomes rivals of damnation Men may consult and act for the good of a Kingdoms peace and quiet yet a great man and a holy is mistaken is swearing be not worse then the edge of the sword and the plague thereof beyond that of war And if men will do no more yet let them revere the book they handle and the Gospel that is dayly before them saying Swear not at all c. but let your yea be yea and your nay nay all other being of sin And it is no ill derivation to bring the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth an oath from Orcus that is hell especially considering that even Heathens fancied if any god had swore false or broken his oath having sworn by Styx he was to be punished himself in hell for it nine thousand years for which cause said they Iupiter took the more care how he swore Whither shall we go to hide our faces off this age who hath got such a knack of swearing that it is our livelyhood our trade our pastime our humour as if our being gods i. e. great men wer a plea sufficient to reprieve us from hells torments When these who knew not the God of Heaven would out of reverence even in Markets say no more then By c. forbearing to name the god they thought upon Some will have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an oath to be brought from a word that signifieth to compel and without a necessity there is no naming of the Blood of Christ or Omnipotency of God The Hebrews call an oath Shabugnah from a Root signifying seven hinting thereby both a mystery in it and good advice or deliberat thinking before the taking of it which may be done in these cases Paxfama fides reverentia cautio damni Defectus veri tibi dant jurare libenter And when the peace of our Countrey our own good report or want of witnesses or loss of goods whether our own or trusted to us are in hazard we are lawfully to clear our selves or free our selves by an oath so are we if Authority call us to it or faithfulnesse be expected of us but to inure our tongues to an
of pleasure to which our prayers ascending are compared to pillars of perfume and they refresh the soul to Musick and that delights the ear to Noah's Dove that brought the Olive branch to Moses Rod that procured water in time of thirst to the Cloudy Pillar that directed Israel to Canaan to Sampsons Iaw-bone that slew the Philistines to Iacobs Ladder by which we exhilerat the Angels and ascend to their God and our God and to Davids Harp by which we make the evil spirit depart from us The famine in Canaan made Iacob send to Egypt for corn and that gave him tidings of his sons great honour and it revived the spirit of the old man that Ioseph was alive and in him he had the good of all the Land of Egypt before him So hath the Christian through Christ in Heaven and Prayer must be sent as a Messenger to return some of the fruits thereof that we die not 3. The suitableness of it upon all parts if you eye the Christians Head the Believers Lord the Souls Bridegroom the Churches Spouse Gods Son Salvations Captain the World 's Messiah Prayer is the only path he travelled in and therefore the road we ought to observe and the main tract in which the Chariot-wheels of our zealous desires ought to run and the sole coin to be told down when we take up mercy For when our Lord choosed his Apostles he prayed when he left his Apostles he prayed it is fit therefore when we pitch upon an enterprise to pray and having perfected our labour it is decent to make our requests known unto God with thanksgiving If you eye Satan the Brethrens accuser the Fleshes tempter the Chruches adversary the Souls deceiver Mans ensnarer Prayer is so suited to all of these that it breaks his snares detects his fallacies scatters his forces answers his arguments and by confession of sin pleading guilty and sueing for mercy stops the mouth of that accuser and puts that invisible foe by this impenetrable piece of Armour of all Prayer to a silence to a retreat to a soyl And the truth is Satan hath many stratagems traps and devices to charm the sinner to a security in his killing embraces and to withdraw a heart-broken creature from his God but among all these an utter neglect of or a prejudice against Prayer hath done him many and most high atchievements But this belongs to the next Section SECT IV. TO give an account particularly of the obstructions Satan and Flesh lays at the root of a structifying vigorous soul impeding its buding or sprouting forth towards Heaven in a fervent desire were a task as easie as numbering the Stars or exactly to reckon the sand upon the Sea shore yet walk along the Garden of thine own heart Reader and these following will be conspicuous among many others 1. Desponding or doubting of Gods freeness Therefore let us have faith justice and judgment being the habitation of Gods Throne may and doth make some tremble to aproach And if this alone be considered Who will not fear that King of Saints But since it is that mercy and truth go before his face we doubt because we have little faith by which there is assurance of good and not evil in our access to his presence mercy going before him and truth which promiseth that mercy succeeding that may cause emulation in each petition to be its first partaker There going before not only because promised to former Ages but to assure us who are now existent that untill mercy be neglected and truth questioned the Generation to come and this present may have confidence not to be condemned in the Throne of Judgement The Lord being good to all and his tender mercies being over all his works made a holy Bishop so highly press the duty of repentance that he was as is recorded reprehended by Satan as vilifying grace yet that good man thus answered the charge O miserabilis O miserable creature If thou shalt once defist from tempting man and repent thee of all thy wicked deeds I should trusting in the mercy of the Lord promise mercy and forgiveness unto thee What ever O man be thy thoughts or doubts Know it is of the Lords mercy thou art not consumed Despair not therefore of his tender mercies but call and thou shalt not be destroyed imitate the Leper and thou shalt be confirmed He creyed and cry thou Lord if thou wilt thou canst make me clean In which words as in a glass thou mayst see the face of thy own prayer and beauty and deformity of thy affections Thou hast first his knowledge Lord next his patience If thou wilt next his faith thou canst his humility make clean 2. Ignorance of Gods condescendency therefore let us study Prouidence What dishonest shifts will not some brains sorge for obtaining a piece of bread upon the suppositions that their being mean makes them accounted as abjects Inferring that GOD sending the fruits of the Earth into another barn is a passing by them as unworthy of such morsels when yet God careth for the birds of the Air and they have from him their Harvest Seed-time and their Raiment Let such as so conclude suppose themselves to be as one of them they then shall learn that not a feather of their wing a hair of their head falls to the ground without his knowledge but being men they are better then many Sparrows Let not thy Age Poverty Family question his Providence for but for that how oft hadst thou been choaked in thy Drink stifled in thy Cradle Darkned in thy Eye overlaid by thy Nurse bruised in thy slips dismembred in thy Quarrels deformed in thy birth and damned in thy sin which put together Gods filling anothers house with good things argueth not his slighting of thine Nay hark thy great and immoderat desire to have such Trash possibly keeps them from thee Study therefore Providence and seek the Kingdom of Heavens righteousnesse and these things may be will be cast towards thee and if not be regardless of it they may be but burthensome and be content if thou hast thy food though not dainties and thy raiment though not gaudy Apparel with a Selah for a poor soul with a morsel of bread shall assoon arrive at Heaven though bare-foot as he who feasts with Belshazzer or rides in his Chariot with the Eunuch 3. Defect of Christian Vnity and oneness let us learn Amity Where strife and debate are intimates prayer and supplication will not lodge And it is to be feared in this divided Age that not only the horrid clamours of our Tavern-quarrels but our pretended religious cursings our inward sinful heart-turnings our zealous promoving of selfish opinions hath not only stocked the root of true holinesse that it cannot grow in some but hath grub'd it up in others and laid it above
from me ye evil-doers for I will keep the commandments of my God my Father Because of which we ought to act as sons that as a Father we delighting in him he again as children may delight in us Lest we hear from him in conviction what a vertuous Laconian Lady wrot to her debauch'd son Aut vive rectius either mend thy manners or never return to Sparta which may be thus aplied either live as holy or expect never to see thy Fathers Countrey nor enjoy his Heaven which hâ— knew to be necessary who attested that Sanctitas was Mater Gloriae holiness was the Mother of true blessedness an argument nervous enough to conclude our practising what is enforced by the Apostle Flee fornication and be ye holy 2. Delectation in his presence Where a good Father and a dutiful Child meets the law of love may overcome lawless necessity and cause them even when urgent occasions do otherwise avocate to continue in the society of each other loathing that even business should interrupt the joy of their sweet fellowship How did David rejoyce in the Lords House and Sanctuary How amiable were they unto him How frequent were his visits in them And like an ingenuous Son how early cometh he to beg his Fathers blessing and looketh up whom if thou follow as thy Father on earth thy name shall be Solomon because thou shalt have peace and Iedidiah for the Lord will love thee 3. Fellowship in our addresses We speak with him here not only as in the same place but as Moses face to face before him When we say Our Father give us bread forgive us our sin faith brings his ear to our lips his eye to behold our tears his bowels to yearn at our cry and all these move his power to remove us out of danger This Prayer being purposely taught to impress upon our hearts the thoughts of that dearness and nearness betwixt us and a merciful God before whom all our desires are and from whom our groaning is not hid and who is said to answer when our requests are granted and the mercy prayed for obtained 4. Acceptance in our returnings Should a child knock at a neighbours door for bread once or twice he might get satisfaction but if oftner might be check'd yea bashfulness in a Boy would make him resuse if frequently sent to a strangers house for food But with what confidence can he turn and return to his Fathers Cup-board and when hunger or thirst assaults him stands not to demurr but repairs straight home because it is his Fathers house and dwelling Let us therefore come boldly to the Throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need Et hoc si feceris hoc habebis if thou do the one God shall give the other obey the precept thou shalt have the benefit if thou being converted pray thou shalt have mercy and be happy in strengthning thy brethren Arristippus presenting a Petition to Dyonisius fell down offering it at his feet because said he the Emperour hath ears in his feet denoting either the liberality or at that time the surliness of the King with whom indeed Authors shew he was very bold because of his goodness and trying him to admiration boasted of his Lords gifts and favour yet all his treasure being but finite by his bounty was exhaustible as was the munificent Pope Alexander the fifth who was so profusedly charitable that in earnest sport he affirmed himself that when he was a Bishop he was something rich and when he was a Cardinal he was somewhat poor but when he became a Pope he was an arrant Beggar But our Fathers loaf never lessening nor his rich store admitting of no diminution Exalt the Lord our God and worship at his footstool go into his tabernacles and worship at his holy footstool for from heaven doth he behold the earth to hear the groaning of the prisoner to loose those that are appointed to death And giveth to all men liberally when they ask of him Our Father c. IN the Articles of the Christian Faith we acknowledge our believing in God the Father Almighty and yet here in our prayers we are directed to say Our Father without any lofty title to express his dreadful greatness To avoid prolixity it may be thought to proceed from its fitness fastness comprehensiveness and allureingness 1. Father is a new Covenant tearm and so more fit for the Gospel His Name of old was the God of Abraham Iehovah I AM King of kings Iudge of all the earth but unto us the Gospel hath brought glad tidings not bringing us to the Mount that might not be touched that burned with fire unto blackness darkness and tempest and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words which voice such as heard it desired for fear of death it might not be spoken unto them But leading us unto Jesus the Mediator of the new Covenant and he giving us a new Commandment a new Covenant a new way a new Sabbath it was fit under these new dispensations that God should take to himself a new Name for saith one Nusquam invenitur c. Many Laws and Ordinances had the Iews but never this Commandment simply to call him Our Father It is true he was their Father and complained of their undutifulness under that relation yet it is as true again that it mainly eyed their being made by him or created of him which is common to them with beasts and devils And though they prayed to him in the style Father yet it is added O Lord thou art our Father and therefore as this Name was not prorsus ignotum altogether unknown to them so it is evident that they had it not in that plain full and comfortable sense wherein we dare and ought to understand it The Temple wall being broken and its vail rent each man ought and may call him Father not only from their Fathers but because of his Spirit in themselves and not as theirs alone but of all others whether Jew or Gentile bond or free the name Father not being only longe natior better but notissima best of all known and speaks to us Christians most fitly Love Hope and Honour more abundantly 1. More love and affection to us Of old it was the Lord of Hosts the great and the dreadful God but now Father sounding grace and kindness God in these things having provided better for us The Temple had much smoak Moses had a vail but here it is not spoken to us in parables The King saith the Christian Church hath brought me into his chambers Pardon if I say so great is his love to us and you that the Jews and their Priests were but Drovers and Butches in respect of us their Temple but Shambles in respect of our Church they serving as it were
hands the presented morsel of whatsoever kind Knowing that like an indulgent parent if we receive this or that contentedly from him he may give us choice and liking in all other matters and study like a father to please us being obedient in cloaths or money He that peruseth Solomons Dream with the Response thereof may understand the meaning of this rule Christ prayed to his Father for deliverance from the bitter Cup and though S. Matthew shews he drank it yet S. Paul relates he was heard in what he asked but how he submitted to his Fathers will and Angels comâ—orted and strengthned him so against fear that with a daring Majesty he faced those murtherers with an I am he Behold the Handmaid of the Lord said Mary Be it unto me according to thy word Let us be ready for service and we shall be crowned with the reward In all things let it be according to his Will with us and it shall be his will to do great things for us and as Holy is his Name so holy and just are all his purposes and then are we holy when we know it 4. Father is a more comprehensive stile and so fitter for our weakness As every word in this Prayer hath an ample sense and each Petition of an enlarged nature so this word Father though short in Letters yet of so huge bulk in sense as would puzle Angels to expound When we pray for daily bread we also intreat an easy bed good rest for wholesome meat at home and kind friends without a fair way when we travel for a good horse when we ride sound Ship when we sail and for seemly cloaths when we visit our acquaintance so that the word bread is of a copious nature and this word Father not short of it in signification comprehending Creation Regeneration Preservation Discrimination 1. Our Creation Each son of man is a son of Adam who was the son of God so that our radical being was from him and stamped at first by the hand of his power being Earth with Life Reason and Religion which not only as brethren binds us in affection to one another but as children units our tongues to express this word Pater Father all of us being created by him I have somewhere read that in a firait Lady Elizabeth afterward Queen of England cryed Lord look upon the wounds of thy hands and be merciful to the works of thy own hands 2. Our Regeneration Christ having taught us now under the fall to call Our Father minds us not only that he did make but hath also re-made us At first indeed in Adam we had great possessions and our service altogether praise but by his not paying the contracted fore-quit-rent of exact obedience forefeited his priviledges and we as heirs of his body lost our inheritance and being filii diaboli sons of the devil we are born again and become a-new filii Dei In evidence whereof the eternal Son of the same Father teacheth us confidently in Prayer to call his Father and God our God and Father Iesus the Mediator of the new Covenant having procured peace in Heaven for a re-admission into our heavenly Paradise hath given us power to become the sons of God in our consciences and by the the testimony of the Spirit knowing he came from the bosome of the Father shewing the good Fathers good pleasure of our addressing our selves to him though we have back-slidden with love confidence and joy in our Father Thy Kingdom come c. This to the reprobate cannot be affirmed God in this last sense being no more his Father or they his children spiritually then David the son of Goliah when he sought against him or Pipes and Organs the off-spring of Iubal because he made them 3. Our preservation We can speak and call for help hope look and rejoice in the very expectation of our Fathers succour yea benefactors are called Fathers and where there is a personal agreement to perform all offices of love the recipient from respect may use the appellation Father He gave us milk and life and cloaths appointed for us the weeks of the harvest numbreth our hairs preserveth our bones It s true his Angels have charge over us yet as a Father he hath his eyes upon us though those Angels as servants have a command to lead us sor our greater security Our good things he giveth us as his glory and kingdom evil things he puts far from us as our necessities and debts all desirable things he hath promised us and we believe him because the Kingdom and Power and Glory is his of all which we are to have a share being his off-spring 4. Our Discrimination It is a compellation differencing us from Heathens who know not God the Father from Jews and Turks who believe not in the Son and from all who fight against him as an enemy Tremell that famous Jew and Translator of the Syriack-Bible being at his death asked concerning his faith answered Vivat Christus pereat Barrabas Let Christ live and â—arrabas be crucified Distinguishing himselâ— by this from his blood-thirsty fore-Fathers and numbering himself among those whose confidence was in Jesus which Our Father also doth he adopting us only in his Son 4. Father is a more aluring stile and so more conformable to prayer In our Petitions we are to exercise the Graces of Hope Faith and Charity unto which this title brings in singular supports on Gods part upon mans account 1. On Gods part For we in Prayer can lay hold upon his affection Though we be as grashoppers and unworthy to be admitted to glory yet worthy is the Lamb his Son our Saviour who hath procured it for us in whom his providence saith of us to all his creatures what David said of Absalom to all his Commanders Deal gently with the young man with the old man with the sick person and tender infant for my sake though the Prodigal had spent his All yet because he confides in his Father and returns bemoans and repents he is arrayed with honourable raiment entertained with delicious sare and honoured with melodious musick to chear his heart to beautifie his countenance and attract respect from beholders 2. On our part for we in this life ought to have filial conversation This Prayer is not for dogs and therefore taught only to Sons which we are when we obey reverence and walk in our Fathers footsteps The debauch'dnesse of Angustus Daughters made him call them not children but imposthums boils of his body Shall not God much more reprove reproach them who give out they are begotten of him when the seed of the Serpent remaineth in them and the poyson thereof spreading to the infection of others contrary to duty nature and profession because they confess our Father Our Father THe eminent and transcendent acts by which the Name of Father is assumed by
God in this Prayer come now to be considered and when discovered it will appear so peculiar his due that in comparison of him we are to call no man Father on earth for one is our Father which is in heaven because all things and beings are of him He is called the Father of glory of light of mercy and he is so in respect of Christ whom from eternity he begat and also in respect of his creatures upon whom he hath impressed his image though in different colours sometimes the image of his foot-steps as in irrational or insensible Creatures and thus he is the Father of the Dew sometimes the image of his Knowledge Reason and Understanding and thus he is the Father of Men and Angels yea eye the plenitude of his power and he may justly be called both Father and Mother to all created beings their Father as begetting them by his omnipotency and their Mother as continually conserving nourshing and bringing them forth by his providence but because of holinesse and sanctity is he especially called the Father of Saints and blessed Spirits which in this Prayer is principally to be regarded It properly signifieth the natural parent of the male-kind some say when it speaks of a man it signifies a defender of children but when of God it denotes a preserver of all There are that will have it to be derived from their procuring Fathers getting or procuring children to themselves However it be men are called Fathers 1. By Nature 2. By Favour Our natural parents give us 1. a being 2. a well-being and both of these in a more excellent way are bestowed by God upon believers If you eye our being we have it principally from him having it neither wholly solely eternally essentially but by him have we an eye an ear a limb an hair but of his begetting a toe a nail but of his making It was he that kept warm in the womb our tender bodies and when ignorant of ourselves was he fashioning and joyning all our members which other fathers neither knew how to do nor could do Iohn the Baptist respected because rejoiced at the salutation of his Lords Mother for his sake who gave him life though otherwise he was ignorant of any life he had so Iacob fought and strove in the womb resolving even there to conquer whileas yet Rebekah thought of nothing less then government and dominion Compare him with earthly parents and you may perceive a wide and a vast difference for 1. We have not our being wholly from them grant that by them the principles for a body is begotten yet without him it will be no birth a lame birth or a dead birth he must give the Embrio the breath or life or then he hath not a living soul. I know that inter sanctos patres there are some that debate about the animation of the Insant yet that is pious O Anima mea O my soul if thou would have God to love thee behold thy nativity for by the Trinity was thou made in the likeness of God a gift which he gave no other creature c. As he gave the red earth a spirit at first and called it Adam so is it still it being the soul that makes us men i. e. to rule and reign in our selves and over our selves when this is well all is well and when this languisheth all fadeth so that our all depends upon it and yet all our earthly fathers wit cannot procure it for us Adam did naturally beget and Evah bare a Cain yet the man is acknowledged to be from the Lord and untill we know that natural causes can of themselves produce more excellent effects than themselves are we must hold that not the body begets but that God infuseth the soul and in respect of that is absolute Father and is called a Potter in regard of the body also so little have we from our parents 2. Neither have we our being solely from them Did not the Sun give heat the Air breath water refresh and meat nourish we should for all that other Fathers can do be stifled in the womb where blood was appointed by him to be our food and the same decreed to become milk for our meat the flax ordered to procure linnen for our clouts the sheep wool for our coats the hills wood for our cradles and the valleys corn for our bellies and the earth veins of silver for our dowries without which even Iobs daughters might live as the Muses unfortunatly single 3. Neither have we our being ever by them The mother for a time may play with her smiling spradling infant and Isaac sport with his fair Rebekah yet both at last shall say of the same delightful objects Bury my dead out of my sight and then the Father in Heaven keeps them better then the truff unto which the father on earth commits them No sooner doth the babies soul take its farewel of flesh then Angels secures it from devils seats it in Paradise by Gods command the earth as a second womb retaining the more gross part until the birth of the resurrection by another sentence neither of which can be performed by the most indulgent parent There are that will have death have his name from division yet it cannot separate us from this Father in Heaven others from parting as cutting man in two parts yet no part of us is out of our Lords protection though both parts be out of our sorrowful parents care and tuition It is the thought of an Ancient that it gets its name from biting that being brought in by sin when man was bitten by the old Serpent yet this Father knocks out his teeth that death feeds not upon us Some will have it named from its bitterness but this Father so composeth this Dose that we are not killed by death Some fetcheth it from having our arrears payed us our life being a warfare death payeth and dischargeth all that is owing us and so to be dead is to be exonerated from further duty yet it doth not this for we stand continually before the face of this heavenly Father out of the danger of hells assaults and resting in peace ac securus diem resurrectionis expecting an assured resurrection being every way guarded and protected of God and continually praising of him and dwelling in his house for ever 4. Neither have we our being always with them Our Fathers may love us yet cannot help us they may be capable to help us yet at a great distance from us we may be exposed to the dangers of plague pestilence and Famine and they afford no relief it is only he in Heaven that can do good and deliver us out of danger Seek no place therefore was a full rule but the God of and in all places thy self being a Temple unto him and where thou stands there is thy
age and upon an Altar made him swear irreconciliable enmity and hatred to the Romanes which fastned so much upon him that being demanded concerning the end of the Carthaginian War with Rome made no reply but struck the ground and made a dust denoting thundering-war untill either Rome or Carthage were levelled which happened accordingly What ever Heathens did to wed themselves to contention though even among them such courses were condemned by the most refined yet for Christians to betroth their issue unto hellish debates is not only a scandal in this present age to our adversaries but a reproach to our selves being dedicated to God by our Baptism and by it vowed charity to the body of Christ upon earth which vow ought to be observed if we expect to enjoy the benefits conveyed mystically to us in that blessed Sacrament Hast thou an enemy in point of opinion or practice love him doth he curse thee bless him doth he hate thee do him good and pray for him though he despitefully use you and what is that pray for him but that God would give them repentance and bring them out of the snare of the devil by which alone we evidence that as the elect of God we have put on bowels of mercy A Temple said that Heathen Phocion is not to lack an Altar nor the humane nature to be without compassion which indeed beautifies and maketh fragrant all our other endowments 2. From our Gods universality good meaning or intention His Sun shines his rain falls his corn grows equally on good and bad just and unjust his fish is taken in the net as well of the churl as of the liberal his water cools the reprobate as well as sleep refresheth him who is upright and though God do as sometimes he makes a difference yet every one who is even holy ought not by and by to execrate such whom they suggest to be in evil courses since the prayers of a dying Stephen may be so prevalent as to prove instrumental in snatching a persecuting Saul both from the counsel and doctrine of the Pharisees And to cause the soul to take wing for the practice of this Doctrine of Charity consider 1. The certainty we have of Gods willing all men to be saved What meant providence to move Pilats hand for this inscription upon the Cross in Latine Greek and the Hebrew Tongue IESVS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE IEWS but to cause all of these Nations read and be assured that unto all of them there was a Iesus a Saviour even Christ the Lord then dying for them and afterward to be believed upon by them His endowing his Apostles with the gift of Tongues was but to learn every man that heard the wonderful works of God to believe in God the Father Almighty maker of Heaven and Earth and in Jesus Christ his only Son is as clear as the fire the Spirit came down in Why then should dust and ashes cross the purpose and good will of God in endeavouring a blasphemous opposition by and wishing him ill unto whom God hath sent Ambassadors beseeching him to be reconciled to God Put up O man thy desire for the same end and be not surly for thou knows not but that thy prayer may prosper Ac primum noverimus know this that nothing is more profitable then love and nothing more hurtfull or unprofitable then to malign sedulously therefore study a good opinion a placid mind and benign affection toward all men There is no sinner ordinarily so perverse but hath so much of the Image of God that under the greatest conflicts with revealed wrath we may without sin both shed tears and offer up prayers for him as Samuel did for Saul yea nature it self teacheth us to love our friends and grace commands us to bless our foes and we see children either have or study to have some property of their father and let this be aimed at to imitate our Father rather in doing good then in uttering curses for that is his strange work and beseeching good for them since we behold God hath good thoughts towards them 2. The uncertainty of our being first placed In the Register of Gods future purposes one may be intended his daily bread before another be remitted of his debts one possibly is to be brought within the body of his Kingdom before another have his heart screwed up to become pliant to his Law and Will since therefore thou knows not where thy action is enrolled nor when it shall be called observe the proposed rule and pray for all men of which thy self is ever to be understood one Abraham did earnestly desire and sollicitously beg a son by Sarah and had one yet before his birth he had a son of Hagar this in providence being to precede was to come out first And so it may fare with thee in thy pressing suits The words Our Father leads us to the consideration of a great mystery of our faith an Article of our Belief the communion of Saints making us pray for them that hears us not and leads our eyes to behold as many objects as there are letters to give nos we or our being making us look 1. visione reflexiva upon our selves nos alwayes includes me and noster supposeth meum Our speaketh alwayes mine and give us our bread intimats thou art hungry 2. Visione collaterali side-wayes and that both to the right hand upon our brethren by grace and to the left hand upon our brethren by nature compassion working for both 3. Visione recta ascendente to behold directly God himself From my Author I infer he that looks not to the other two shall never beholds this last Prayer shewing love to God which is shown purely by demonstrating love to men and though in the contrary passion he deceive himself yet he cannot delude his Maker none being admitted into his house but whom he finds charitably qualified that being the place where men must live together before they enter they must pray together And none knowing who shall first enter let us call Our Father 3. The probability of the souls being the more enlarged As the bigger the Star the greater is the shine so the broader the soul be the more beaming is the glory and the better service the better wages They that be wise shall shine as the firmament and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever holding forth degrees of glory for a reward to them whose lives are more eminently holy which is in no one thing more elucide then in charitable praying for that Petition whose rise is necessity doth not so sweetly relish with our God as that doth whose basis or foundation is love and charity Yea hâ—c est Christianorum bonitas it is the beauty glory and splendor or Christianity to walk as Christ walked in relation to enemies persesecuters and
made St. Paul to groan earnestly and ought to urge upon us a proportionable zeal to inherit that house made without hands and to behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us which saith one affords unitly three acts videre amare laudare Beholding Loving Praising God and how should grief be there they entering when into it into joy having joy above them in God and his Christ joy about them in the Saints and Angels and joy within them because of all and therefore in his Name shall they rejoice all the day and in his righteousness shall they be exalted 4. There is safety to remove our fearingâ— All the splendor of this world being but like Nebuchadnezzars image having heads of gold breasts of silver yet standing upon seet of clay prognosticks dissolution and points it shall have an end Iob even in plenty when on earth seared and foresaw poverty And was not Fortune fancied by such as created gods represented standing upon a round ball shewing aptitude to motion Hath not the most Christian King a Cross upon his Golden Crown and the great Mahumetan glories in a half Moon which more equally inferrs to us a diminishing of his greatness then to himself justly it portends a growing of his power The greatest Crown may be made to â—otter by its own guard but to our Fathers City there comes none but detesters of such baseness yea they are uncapable of temptations thereunto Not to speak of the Devil though even of him some are in as great fear as one was of Hercules who hearing of his heroick atchievments did hide himself in a Cave for fear lest he should see him but spying him peeping through curiosity at first view died in a fright I say to pass Saâ—an there is no thief can there break through and steal no fear of evil in their thoughts no snare in their walk no scandal in their eye no flesh to beguile nor world to allure but all in perfect peace that is peace peace 5. There is largeness to take away our complaining The greatest Kingdom here is but a spot when compared to the whole circumference of the Mapp and it may be our portion in that Kingdom is not in the Cart at all which makes men look not to say leap over hedges that with conveniency field may be joyned to field but this Kingdom of our Fathers is spacious and the most enlarged soul hath so much elbow-room that the extasies of his Spirit are fixed in his possessions and the highest rapture he is transported unto makes him not grudge the glorious lustre of his rich because Sainted Comrade In our Fathers house are many mansions wherein the soul is satisfied being in the likeness of God For if beauty be pleasing they shine as the Sun doth strength content them they shall run and not be weary walk and not be faint doth royalty affect them they are crowned Kings if satiety please them they inherit all things Solomon shall not then have only wisdom nor Abraham obedience nor Sampson strength no Phineas zeal but every one shall be endowed with all and imployed not in looking asquint upon each other but in eying praising and adoring God Lewis son to Charles King of Sicily contemplating these two Kingdoms together whereof we speak said Si regnum paternum considero If I consider my Fathers Kingdom how little is it how small is it in comparison of that which is upward into which the soul is admitted when a man once liâ—ts up himself This he spake who hardly saw the pavement of the palace of our heavenly Father but hazy weather the utmost coasts of that blessed Countrey Yet even that did and will operat to that degree as to put no estimat upon the â—airest flourish Earth can make at any time much more at Prayer Unto which there are these six things concurring 1. It s largeness 2. It s fairness 3. It s glory 4. It s cheerfulness 5. It s exercise continual praise 6. It s eternity enduring for ever Touching the influence this description hath upon Prayer to repeat the same things being profitable this account may be rendred 1. That prayer is immediatly to be directed to God in Heaven in opposition to all upon Earth The best Father is but Pater pulveris a Father of Dust and therefore not capable to be for us either a Sun or Shield It is also a direction to pray to none but such whom we are sure are in Heaven At Rome they are sainted whom yet save in common charity we know not but they may be damned However it be let us be put in mind to lift up our hearts to our Father Sursum corda who is in Heaven Have a care said a dying Reformer of the last Age my dear Children my Eusebi my Irene my Alethea that you love God the Father Little children saith Iohn keep your selves from idols Have a care that you pray to your Father saith Christ to all his Sons After this manner therefore pray ye 2. That Prayer is to be offered up with reverent and spiritual thoughts not likening God to any Creature upon Earth As we know not what is the likaness shape or form of the inhabitants of Heaven so are we utterly ignorant of the nature of God in it and therefore in Prayer to conceit him a man as some atheistically do with us or paint him like an old man as some superstitiously do who are of Rome is a discredit to his spiritual being To desire to see and then to worship is to worship without faith Abhor therefore such idolizing and pray against the impress of such absurd vanity the more absurd that there was no manner of similitude seen on the day the Lord spake in Horeb and though we see heaven daily yet can we give no account of its nature how much lesse of God who is within it Euclid being vexed with an impertinent Questionist about the gods tartly replyed Quae petis ignoro I am ignorant of these things but this I know that the gods have indignation at such curious searchers Sure we are those that confine the illimited God in the imaginary space of any thing visible or form his spirituality in the likenesse of what can be sancyed creat a god which cannot hear them and slight a God will be revenged upon them Besides these men make God an idol when they prepare not their hearts nor fit their affections for his service and again when all their religion is in the Temple and again when they invent wayes to worship God and follow their own imaginations To speak of committing or loving sin in secret or of hoording up wealth with trust or for-swearing themselves in judgement were large subjects yet by these God is made an idol 3. That Prayer is to be presented with sincere and pure affections not defiled
all ages that some will have it numerus or ationis making deliverance from evil a distinct Petition from that against temptation approved by Chemnitius and King Iames as shall be seen in due place they shewing good reason for this enumeration of seven Petitions In the first whereof we beg admission into his Temple in Hallowed be thy Name In the second to his Palace in Thy Kingdom come In the third to his Council in Thy will be done In the fourth to his Granary Give us our daily bread In the fifth to his Treasury Forgive us our debts In the sixth to his Armory Lead us not into temptation In the seventh to his Garden or Arbory Deliver us from evil Unto all which if we pray truly all Prayer may be congruously reduced in evidence whereof receive a Fathers judgment with very small alteration If any beg Let the people praise thee O God let all the people praise thee saith he not Hallowed by thy Name If any call Turn us again O Lord God of Hosts and cause thy face to shine and we shall be saved saith he not Thy Kingdom come If any supplicat Order my steps according to thy Word desireth he not Thy will be done If any demand give me neither poverty nor riches saith he not Give us our daily bread If any utter O Lord my God if I have rewarded evil to him that was at peace with me yea I have delivered him that without cause is mine enemy is not this to be constructed Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debters Implores any Send out thy light and thy truth let them lead me is not that Lead us not into temptation And doth any request Deliver me from mine enemies my God is it not Deliver us from evil Hence therefore this Prayer is not only as a rule to pray by but as a form to pray in supplying what ever is deficient in the supplications of mortals whose arm at longest cannot fathom the length of that request put up for the belly give us bread much lesse commensâ—trat the extension of that put up for God Hallowed be thy Name Yet as we can we shall search 1. into the matter of this Petition hallowing of the Name of God 2. The order of it for it is reckoned among the first three and is become their Captain therefore more honourable Name hath its name in the Greek from the help or aid it gives to know things or persons by and with the Latines Nomina were notamina marks tokens signs to difference things by when men were â—ewest there were names and they increasing sirnames were added still to distinguish one from another neither do we find any Nation so barbarous but had names the savages of Mount Altas in Barbary excepted who were reported to be both namelesse and dreamlesse Names begun with the Creation the eldest daughter of which being Light was called Day And who can shew the improbability of their duration when time shall be no more Moses was termed Moses when Peter saw him in the Mount and who is that will earnestly deny that Enos shall not be called Enos even in glory The old Pollanders gave names to their children at the first cutting of their hair but the most Christian Nations have followed the Iews and given names about the eighth day yea the old Romanes gave it to their Femals the same day but to their Males on the ninth All gave them for discrimination to difference a Cain from an Abel Samaria from Ierusalem some had it because of some property as Esau from his being hairy Some from an atchievment Iacob was called Israel for his prevailing with God Others gave names from a desire of continuating their own names upon earth and because it is a kind of judgement to want a name as did Davids adulterous infant and the rich Churle in the Gospel for this they intended to call Iohn Zacharias after the name of his Father some give them in imitation of some vertue as Iob or David as a spur for the bearer to follow the vertues of those Saints Hence it is thought Iacobs sons were never named Iacobites but Israelites to animate the whole race for strugling with God untill they got a blessing Lastly Names have been imposed from some sudden emergency as Isaac from Sarahs or Abrahams laughter or from future foreseeing as was Cain Abel or from some profession as at this day the Mahometan from Mahomet and the Christian from professing Christ. Most of these wayes have God taken to himself and recevied names from others yea we may say firnames he is often called the Lord Jehovah God and frequently the God of all consolation the Lord God of our Fathers the Saviour of Israel who blotteth out transgressions for his own Names sake which is to be hallowed In order to which let us descant upon 1. What may be understood by his Name 2. How that Name is to be hallowed 3. Why the speciality of that Name is expressed all other names being secluded as is implyed in that Pronoun Thy Name By name in general understand his ineffable and invisible essence and nature which he held out in his Name I AM and his Name Iehovah is so peculiarly his that it was never and is never to be communicated to any creature not that the letters of his Name Iehovah is to be adored with the superstitious Jews as those of Iesus are with the idolatrous Papists but his nature expressed in and by those letters including both the Spirit and the Son for all that the Father hath being his cur non nomina why should not the Name Iehovah be likewise and consequently he get his respect By name understand also his wonderfull and inseparable properties as Wisdom Omnipotency as also his beautiful and admirable acts and workings all which are called upon to praise that is occasion or perswade others to glorifie the Lord such as his work of Creation Redemption his wonders miracles for preservation of and for his Church add to these his comfortable and inalterable writings which he hath so exalted above all His Name that when many of his works shall change and wax old as a garment his promises to his servants shall endure for ever The doctrine whereof is not to be blasphemed for by that his Name is spoken against Let none hence conclude that it ought from this to have been Hallowed be thy Names that objection being long ago answered for Nomen Divinum the Name of God is here expressed in the singular to remove the occasion of idolatry or conceit of many gods Thy Name having respect to the Father mentioned in the preface in which also the whole Trinity is included yet not expressed in the plurality of persons for the reason aforesaid Nomina sanctae immaculatae Trinitatis the names of the
his said I not unto thee that if thou wouldst believe thou shouldst see the salvation of God In all conflicts we have seven grounds for consolation 1. The mercy bounty and love of God 2. The mediation of Jesus Christ. 3. The sealing of the Spirit for the day of redemption 4. The Covenant of grace by which we are adopted as sons 5. The seals of that Covenant in the Sacraments 6. The gifts of the Spirit to persevere 7. The example of those Saints whose iniquity hath been pardoned whose souls have been delivered as David Paul Zacheus Manasseh and the converted theif All which in spight of those numerous Troups which assault and oppress man in the contemplation of his own misery affords auxiliaries upon the only expence of a hearty Miserere mei Lord have mercy upon me sufficient to set the soul free from all disturbance and settle it against all shakings whatsoever 5. His Veracity to the doubtful is another letter of His Name and equally clear to that Motto engraven upon Aarons mitre HOLINESS TO THE LORD He hath many Names in Scripture yea and sirnames too as the mighty God the jealous God but his truth is one of those immutable things wherein we have strong consolation both in our life and death comparing his veracity with the transient and fading because airy promises or undertakings of men which are in our greatest extremity as volatile as are the passions and humours of the undertakers hence the Philosopher Pithagoras being questioned when men were likest the gods replyed when they spake truth that having but one face and one way said another like unto God without change or revocation He hath highly glorified this attribute 1. In the execution of those things denounced against sin and sinners which should make us fear his Name 2. In the Salvation of his Elect by his Sons condescendency At last the seed of the woman bruised the head of the serpent Let us accordingly rejoyce in his Name for the idols of the heathen are vain but our God is a God of truth 3. In the Preservation of all things made by his ordinary providence therefore presume not upon his Name hallow it but tempt it not our Saviour would not tempt the Lord by casting himself down from the Pinacle of the Temple there being a pair of Stairs for descension for he is said to tempt qui â—ine ratione who without necessity will cast himself upon or in an apparent hazard when otherwise it may be avoided So abstruse is the effence of Almighty God and so diffused is his power that the only one God in Scripture and with all people hath received different names to expresse his Nature by and beautified those names I might say sanctified and hallowed them Praeclaris Elogiis with singular and eminent Attributes from his existence he is called Iehovah from his being with us Emmanuel from his great authority the Lord of hosts from his dreadfulness a consuming fire from his goodnesse both we and the Germains calls him God or Godt and from his kindnesse he is ordinarily termed Father from the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that from his care over us as children in feeding begetting Say not of his Law then it is vain for it is his Name and every article thereof is good and necessary composed neither by Art nor mans device slight it not for its plainnesse simplicity which made the wise and learned Philosophers of the world disesteem it as not flaunting though yet it be majestically high for by its light our steps MUST be ordered by its food our souls nourished by its vertue our diseases removed by its edge our enemies subdued by its drawing our wounds cured and by its instruction heaven MUST be acquired Buy therefore Bibles Animae Pharmaca the souls Apothecaries shop there being their proper receipts not only against all diseases but antidots against all damnages and medecines to prevent all losses which the Spirit in its quickest intuition can behold it self capable to come under Creatures are but creatures and as to Salvation but meer consonants wherefore in comparison of the Gospel all creatures are to be abandoned If punishing with a vengeance those who deride its authority and sitting in the seat of the scornful give suffrage against its dignity The last words of a prophane courtier in this kingdom once were apagite away with these idle things concerning Christ I never believed there was a God a devil or hell and for which I am now damned and turned over to the devil to be eternally plunged according to my merit in the lowest hell and so died the Gospel being in readiness to revenge all disobedience either in life or at death Much better died Sanctus Dacianus Deacon of the Church of Vienna who in the midst of exquisite torments from persecuting heathens being demanded what he was Replyed I am a Christian this is my Name my Country my Family my Religion and besides Christian I am nothing and untill all things be accounted as dung in comparison of the excellency of the knowledge of Iesus Christ the Name by which we must be saved we shall never spell our own Salvation Abuse not his creatures his name is seen in them the basest of them if there be any base is wonderful and as a straw can puzle the wisest for know as false Doctrine so a profane life dishonours the name of God and affronts the Majesty of our Saviour eat not with the Glutton for delight sit not down with the Drunkard for good fellowship for bitterness proves the issue of unholy friendship Respect the Sacraments for his Name is also beheld in them by the one are we baptized in his Name and by the other nourished in the application of him in them both to our selves let them be Sacraments that is industriously prepare for them Sacra mente holy appetites making neither the Table of the Lord polluted by a meer customary coming nor the waters of the Sanctuary despicable by a careless beholding but sanctifie our selves in religious meditation upon the nature end and use of these sacred Mysteries that our Christianity may be fertile and evidenced to have a higher rise then education Our Baptism hath a more noble end then by a name to distinguish us among men for he that is baptized hath put on Christ that is de jure we are to be accounted the Sons of God or that we are covered and protected as with cloaths by Jesus Christ his Spirit giving us an inward garment in renovation an outward in conversation and in both by a conformity to his holiness or that by baptism all our sins as our bodies and imperfections by cloaths are covered by Christ our works affections our selves are changed into Christ which more discovers our monstrous baseness if for any reward much lesse for any lust we so
all the cause of those devastations and miseries wherewith the Church is harrass'd each Christian may say with him in the Satyr Ego omnium scelerum materia ego causa sum I have aided I have helped I have been the Author of all 3. Examplarly by doing all things in his Name Paul being put into the Ministry gave thanks to God before all and Peter acknowledged that he healed the impotent man in the Name of Iesus and Numa who first taught the Romans Religion enacted that God should not be worshipped obiter or casu at it were in passing by or by the by but to have the whole mind intent upon the service which beautifying Religion makes it graceful yea taking and it is observed that Scipio Affricanus never entered upon privat or publick business untill in the Capitol he had consulted god and was thereupon thought to be Iupiter's Son It ought to be the study of all but most especially of great man to be patterns of good works that men seeing them may glorifie God and it ought to be the duty of all men to read the Scriptures frequent Churches visit Neighbours abide in their Families as they are directed to sing Psalms viz. to the praise and glory of God Hallowed be thy Name WE are now to reflect upon the speciality of hallowing his Name and secluding all others that they do not so much as mingle with the glory attributed to it which is insinuated in the Pronoun THY NAME in which an Emphasis is apparent a Seclusion is intended 1. An Emphasis is apparent signifying that our hearts countenances voices ought to be elevated and our minds upon nothing inferiour to himself THY NAME THY NAME speaks the temper of the supplicant to be altogether holy and eying nought save Divine Attributes 2. A Seclusion is intended There being none like unto him among all the gods It must be conceded that there is no name so high to be hallowed as that by which he is called The Father is the God of glory so is the Son the Lord of glory and the holy Spirit is the Spirit of glory the sense of which being diffused in and virtuating the Soul of the Petitioner his demands are conform to his Fathers declaration I am the Lord that is my Name and my glory I will not give to another And that God be not pillag'd of that which he is resolved to keep do but consider His Eminency His Singularity His Eminency above all other gods Kings Angels are called gods yet both these wait upon him and their glory but the Jewels that adorn his foot-stool THY NAME is so singular that it admits of no companion neither is it capable of any augmentation To speak Scripturally no god hath a Name but he and where there is no name we are to attribute no praise Vna revera numen est unicum there is but one God and therefore but one Name unto which truth the wisest of the old Philosophers did assent A great Herauld delineating the particulars that grace and make a man honourable sheweth that Vertue good Parentage Wealth Office Countenance a good Name and a gracious Sirname compleat a person and if an union of these creat nobility how ought our Lord Jesus Christ to be respected in whom all these meet so in their causes as without his concurrence they shall be in none as in their subject Behold his power to act All arms before him are but as straw and the strongest is but feeble It would puzle the Creation to make one drop of rain or scatter one cloud or command a dewy morning In all our undertakings if not fools we shall say if the Lord will we shall live and do this or that Glory not therefore in thy wisdom or riches for these flee away thou saith I am add the Epithet rich or wise yet thou art not for in speaking thou art changing and no more to be seen what thou wast then we can behold again the same water in a running river Behold also his wisdom to discern He only knows the intentions causes nature and the end of things The device of saving poor man after his fall was above the imagination of the highest Angel and for Adam all he could invent was an Apron of Fig-leaves but a Garment of Righteousness never once entred into his head untill it pierced his ear in the promise He heholds the heart so clearly which even to Angels themselves is dark nisi revelentur except revealed to them by God or some external sign concluded by them that Ferdinand and fourth of Spain putting two to death for a conspiracy both of them appointed the King to appear before the Tribunal of God within thirty days to give an account why they were put to death for they were innocent at the limited time while others thought the King had been sleeping he was really dead and in probability answering the charge One Turson among the Goths condemning an innocent and beholding the execution was by the prisoner commanded that very hour to appear before God to answer for putting to death an innocent and no sooner had the executioner done his office then the Judge expired and fell from his horse Many things of this nature might be inserted to evince that all ought to cease from flattering themselves in magnifying their own opinion of Saints or humours and ascribe only Glory to the name of IAH our God Behold further his goodness to forgive Peters charity was indeed hot but not to the eight degree it could not reach to forgive above seven times But as there is in us a multitude of gross sins so with him there are multitudes of tender mercies expressed in the number of seventy times seven which yet is not a determinat number as if at that we should close but thereby is signified that our mercy should never end The Law being given us in ten Commandments which being broken sin adds one and makes the number of eleven and seven comprehending all time because time runs through the seven dayes of the Creation by which we are to press upon our selves the remitting upon Gods part the breach of the ten Commandments committed in any of the seven dayes and declare the same to our Brother crying peccavi after his offending though he owned us a hundred talents for it were an indignity to our Saviours boundless love to collect from his seventy times seven the non-forgiveness of seventy times eight since a more plain rule is before us touching pardon which is as God for Christs sake hath forgiven us and he forgiveth all Besides six is a number of work and labour wherein God wrought but the seventh is a day of rest and seventy times seven sheweth that God when our sins are at the highest rests in pardoning grace and is at friendship with the penitent and declaring the same by his Spirit
in the Word and Sacraments and releasings of the Church in a far more consolatory way then can be attained of worshipping of Saints or going on Pilgrimages c. As appeared in Gentleman of this same Age who being vexed with the Palâ—ie and entering his Ladies Chamber heard a young Child reading to her Mother by providence these words in the Gospel And Iesus said to the sick of the Palsie Son be of good chear thy sins be forgiven these which furnished the soul of the diseased with abundance of consolation and blessed God who out of the mouths of babes and sucklings ordained praise to himself in this particular of forgiving all sin 2. Consider his singularity besides him no God It is a note of authority to give and of subjection to receive names and the first act of Fathers power is in giving his Son a name but had not God named himself we had yet been ignorant both of his Name and of his Sons His Name is God because he is one the sooner therefore may he be hallowed the multiplicity of Saints and Spirits not only cusing irksomnesse but creating fear left in pleasing seven we might offend the eight for ommitting him and my intense prayers to Peter or Paul might cause my guardian Angel to take snuff when more remiss in his service or office Praise him therefore and only pray to him he being Lord above with Nehemiah and as to Hezekiah he will let thee know he inclines his ear to hear and opens his eyes to see all those that afflict thy soul and ask thy self consult Scripture and experience 1. Doth he not bring down all that are high Where are the Worthies of this world Achitophels policy or Cesars sorce Let men talk no more exceeding proudly for like Oreb and Zeeb like Pharaoh and Senacherib they perish before him Vain boasters who have spoke great words how suddenly have they been dejected and cast down How in a movement have they been removed and in a groan confessed that the glory of man was nothing It is recorded that after Senacheribs Army was destroyed by an Angel he had these words engraven upon his standing Picture Let him that looketh upon me learn to fear God Iulian Uncle to the Apostate after many oâ—trages committed against the Church was in horrible anguish advised by his Wife to praise and proclaim Christ his Saviour who had shown himself powerful in plaguing him and had done it in mercy to bring him to repentance which pious advice had some influence upon him before he died and how he hath cast abroad the rage of his wrath and beheld every one that was proud to abase him every sinner shall at last and most sick persons do and condemned Malefactors bring in plentiful evidences 2. Doth he not exalt all that are low Is Moses cast out by the law of Pharaoh though we read of none that was drowned yet he singularly was preserved by Pharaohs Daughter David appointed by his Father to keep sheep as fit neither for Court nor Camp is designed to be King of Israel no soundness is in Iobs flesh yet a sacrifice shall redintegrat both his health and fortune Ruth accounting her self not like one of Boaz hand-maids as born without the Covenant got a full reward of the God of Iocab yea a royal one in becoming Grand-mother to king David and in the Magnificat is it not said My soul doth magnifie the Lord for he hath regarded the low estate of his hand-maid Humble your selves therefore and say to the King and Queen humble your selves and all shall be exalted in due time and those who are qualified with this vertue of prasing God though here they have no house they shall have a heaven and though weak they shall have strength and though no honour it shall be reported that they pleased God When Cyrus prospered he became the more holy and more frequently caused sing praises and offered sacrifice to the gods so ought we to the God of heaven For 3. Doth he not defy all that are supposed He calls in derision of all reputed gods to whom will ye liken me and puts two things unto them to try his excellency 1. Prediction to know what is to come 2. Execution of either good or evil Which if they cannot do it follows that they are not gods and he alone is to be feard because he can creat peace and make war and knoweth all that is past what is present and what shall be hereafter To glorifie the Name of God it but to publish the miracles with a thankfull heart which he hath performed for his Church upon his enemies Which Thulis an Egyptian King knew who swelling in the pride of his own magnified greatness would needs inquire at the gods whether any King were greater or richer then himself and had this response from a Priest of Serapis The greatest is God next is the Word the Spirit with them being one in nature and eternal in power But thou O mortal haste thee out of this place and seek where to shut up thy life Immediatly after which he was slain by his own servants and so shall all the enemies of our Father perish that men may know he whose Name is Iehovah is the most high over all earth 3. Consider his infinite glory and there is none to be reputed God but he Solomon was in all his glory inferiour to a Lilly the glory of that flower being in it self and from it self yet as his was so the Lillies beauty is but a ray of his ineffable splendour and all comes from him Herod's silver doublet which is recorded to have been that which the Scripture calls his royal apparel was but poor armour though glittering in the Sun against the assault of base and contemptible worms It was as we read told him by Aâ—gurs he should see an Owl five dayes before he died which appearing as the people were admiring his eloquence and shouting he was a god he cryed Behold your god dieth It is said after his death that the Word of God grew and multiplied and until the false imagination of deluded souls be indeed slaughtered by the sword of the Spirit or detected by the light of the Word of God which is his Name his Name doth not multiply by the accession of believers to a belief of the truth For though there be many that profess his Name yet it is to be fearred there be few hath chosen it the most falling upon it by chance having found it in their native Countrey which also causeth it to be by chance but honoured their chief design being either the advancement of them selves or their faction Yet there are a few unto whom God is doing as he hath alwayes done viz. making known the unity that is the glory of his Name in the Doctrine of his Son and as they repute none
worthy of glory but God so they only give to him their praises and their prayers and that upon good reason For 1. Angels will not have his glory and they are intelligent An Angel in the Old Testastament refused an offering and another will not have thanksgiving in the New both commanding them to be performed to God expounding these to be prayer and praise what is Romes meaning or to what purpose are those Prayers and Letany's in that Church Sancte Gabriel Sancte Raphael omnes Sancti Angeli Archangeli orate c. O thou Angel Gabriel Raphael and all ye Angels and Archangels pray for us I like that part of another office better and shall subscribe unto it O Sancta Immaculata Virginitas quibus te laudibus efferam nescio O thou blessed Virgin in what words to praise thee I know not the same I say of praying as either are interpreted Adoration This is not said to infringe the glory of these holy and glorified Saints who are to be honoured with great reverence and their names to be mentioned with great respect and their vertues to be imitated with all indutry but to hallow their names or thier vertues with a remitte or an ora pro nobis we have no warrant because no rule of faith The ground of Romes Doctrine touching the worshipping of Angels is so beastly that it is shameful to publish aâ—resh yet so irrational that it may be profitable to reprint it it was this as we read from a learned venerable Doctor of the English Saxon Church In Apulia vulgarly Puglia a Provicne in Italy in the Kingdom of Naples near the City of Siponia there was a rich man called Garganus having much Cattel which fed in a Mountain of the same name in which herd there was a wanton proud Bull which could not be got home with the rest but still kept the Mountain for which the owner resolving to kill him provided Bow and Arrow but in shooting at the beast the Arrow reverted and turned upon himself at which being amazed he tells his Bishop who did appoint a three dayes fast that God would discover what was signified by the wounding of Garganus when the Arrow was levelled or aimed at the proud Bull On the third night the Archangel Michael told the Bishop scias quia à voluntate Dei hoc factum est that all was done by the appointments of God and commanded the ground whereon the Bull stood to be consecrated and set apart for prayer shewing them under it there was a Cave and in the Cave an Altar and upon the Altar a red Pall or Cloak ibi facite orationes vestras hebete memoriam meam auxiliabor vobis there say your prayer call upon my Name and I shall help you all was searched and all was found and all was done accordingly Haec fuit saith my Author prima causa and this was the first cause or rise that Angels were remembred or worshipped upon earth he must mean by Romes authority for otherwise the same doctrine was taught in but exploded the Church before and from that time to this present are they remembred in the Church c. This is such a Cock and Bull story as the proverb hath it that it needs nay deserves to have no answer but a his And the ground of it being ut legimus as we read so that it may be ture or false and if true nothing in it but what might have been done by the devil and therefore in all respects such practices are to be shunned by worshipping of God for which we have a sure foundation I pass the Fables for so let me call them which the same Author throngs the proper festivities withall for were Peter or Mary upon earth they would undoubtedly blush at the absurdities of their zealous though ignorant prayers and cause Iohn comment upon on his old text Babes keep your selves from idols And Paul upon his let no man beguile you of your reward in worshipping of Angels and not holding the head c. 2. Saints will not have this glory and they are prudent When read we that a Noah prayed to Enos though his piety and translation were notour or that a David prayed to an Abraham or that any Israelite unto or obtained mercy by his holy Ancestors Nay contrary they urged that because of Abraham's being ignorant of them and their being not regarded by Israel God would be their Redeemer his Name being from everlasting 3. The other creatures will not have his worship or his glory and they may be observed Every pile of grasse hath a finger to point up to its Maker in Heaven and day unto day uttereth speech and readeth Lectures of Gods wise government powerful providence and rich mercy At Madrid the upper Rooms of Houses belongs by Law to the King and are not to be used untill they be compounded for by the Inhabitant and to this only wise God the King eternal not only the upper Room which is Heaven doth belong but the lowest pit also for in his hand are the deep places of the earth and ought not to be used by us before we satisfie the Law by praying and praising in doing which we add to the revenue of his glory Ezekiel saw his glory in Heaven Isaiah saw it upon earth and we ought to study the beholding of both for though his heavenly glory we cannot see with that Prophet yet we may perceive something of the appearance of it in his holy Word Heavenly Motions divine Commandments at which sight we are with the other to â—all down upon our faces and with loud cryes bemoan our infirmity vilenesse and uncleannesse His glory upon earth is so clear that he who hath eyes may see it in the clouds which are his Chariots our ears can hear the birds warble in their way the praises of their Maker the fields clap their hands in contemplation of which we are to cry Vnclean unclean for this said Isaiah when he spake of him and saw his glory and thereupon was comforted and purified 4. If we consider either our good or duty we shall own him only for God Reason leads many but profits command all persons it is rational it is profitable to ascribe only glory and honour to our Father For If you eye Conscience he can only quiet that if the Church absolve and the Spirit thereby settle doth the Word of Christ apply and the soul therupon rejoice It is but in his Name they acting but in deputation from him It is he that discovers sin that we may be in our selves nothing It is he that makes us hate sin that before him we may be holy If you eye dependence he only maintains you At first Heaven was made by him the Earth the Sea and all the Creatures therein because saith Nehemiah thou preservest them all the host of Heaven worshippeth thee
two we are directed next to the good things of earth and are to be last craved as appears in the three last Petitions whereof the last is against present evil in Deliver us from evil the fourth is the medium or copula joyning both together for by bread we have strength to ascend in the doing of our Fathers will or descend for the opposing of our enemies force or strength whether in sin or temptations to sin There are likewise who finding all prayer offered for obtaining good or avoiding ill hold the order of this Prayer out thus viz all good being either heavenly is prayed for in the second Petition Thy Kingdom come or spiritual in Thy will be done or temporal in Give us our daily bread but if we reflect upon evil it is either past remembred in Forgive us our debts or to come prevented in Lead us not into temptation or present and then its removal is supplicated for in Deliver us from evil making Hallowed be thy Name to be no distinct Petition but rather a confirmation of all the Prayer Our Saviour adding this in imitation of the Iews who used words of veneration to the memories of them whom Vertue had Nobilitat as we use to say now such an one of pious or happy memory But that they are a Petition distinct from all the other and though a confirmation yet added to the number of all the other is evident For 1. It is in the stile of all the rest more imperativo by way of a holy religious and humble command 2. It is improbable that our Saviour heeded any such custome As touching the precept of seeking the Kingdom of Heaven first which follows after Hallowed be thy Name It is well noted that of things relating to our selves that Kingdom must be first sought by us and is first placed in this Prayer but in things relating to God as his glory daily we deviat from this rule if hallowed be thy Name be not our main great and first design and by consequence our first request Let us behold and admire the blessed and heavenly wisdome of our Saviour who hath taught us to pray in secret and in open audience in so much saith as to behold the Omnipotent Lord to be alwayes by us and yet with so much modesty that like the Heathen we abuse him not with many words though we ask so much so great and so many good and different things that this Prayer is and may be termed a breviary of the whole Gospel and also Legitima Oratio as being the Standart unto which all prayer is to be brought and applied for their tryal for matter and order which when done it appears in general That we must pray for spiritual and heavenly things first before we pray for our food or deliverance from evil we ask for his Glory his Kingdom his Righteousness This Prayer may be observed to begin with glory to end with glory for ever and therefore in the Churches of the Saints according to Law heavenly things are sought after first The word first insinuats principally and the word seek implyes with industry First that is in affection they are to love and desire them most And the scope of our Saviours first Sermon rather presseth a vehemency a priority of love and intention then of utterance and expression as first infers in other places holding out not so much rank or place as zeal and earnestness It is Raven-like to be flying upward and eying the carion carcass of an earthly enjoyment whereas each supplicant like a spiritual Eagle ought to eye the slain the crucified Christ at the right hand of the Father and mount higher giving not the lowest but the highest seat unto him The Emperour Alexander Severus reconciling a discord raised by Cooks and Hucksters against some Christians who had made an oratory or chappel where formerly these had sold their sowls and meat it is better determined he to worship and serve God there in any sort then to put it to other uses as the selling of flesh or fowl If a heathen thought this house which he knew was to perish fitter to serve God then to sell Poultry in ought not men to apprehend the same of their souls which must eternaly endure Therefore sanctifie thy affections and make them rather houses for the service of God then prophane them in turning them victualing-houses to thy self the devil and his lusts There being nothing more worthy of God nor profitable for men then to give him the first place in their respects they calling him Father and putting all other things yea accounting all other things as inferiour unto his honour in that expression Again seek it first that is in appretiation when a house is on fire the Saint himself may â—ry with greater earnestness for water water then he shall cry Thy Kingdom come Earthly crosses like shallow water making the greatest noice whereas heavenly love may be more smooth because more deep David for that matter of Vriah watred his couch but for Absolom he wept in the top of his house Isaac prayed for a son and David for the life of his child earnestly sensible things because such being more apparent to our senses are easily discerned while matters spiritual though farthest out of sight are in the soul regarded with unexpressible dearness and the other once competing with God and the things of his Kingdom our hearts shall manifestly discover that not the world but God hath our most zealous thoughts How did David roar out for his Absolom his Son his Son yet not against his Sin his Sin not that David in the Cabinet of his heart did regrate his sin with less anxiety but flesh seeing what was flesh the Spirit retired into more inward lodgings waiting for a more convenient opportunity which offering it is discernable at first that in regard of dearness God and his righteousness will be laid aside for nothing nay not for Absolom his Son his Son because it is he that giveth salvation unto Kings and delivered David his servant from the burtful sword In a great persecution under Hunericus multitudes being banished by Pagans of old and young an old woman was observed leading a young child willingly to go after them and being demanded why she took the Infant pray for me said she I am a sinful woman and taketh this little boy lest he being lest alone should be a prey to the Adversary of truth and seduced from the ways thereof Preferring Gods honour before Liberty Life or Countrey nay did not Moses chuse rather not to be then live to see it questioned or eclipsed A Bishop of Lincoln journeying with some Company who one morning hasted to their horses for fear of the Pad Robbers being in that very road through which they were to travel From this place said that good man will I not stir untill I have performed my morning devotion to
they will have to be signified the brightness of misdom which is Iesus Christ and by heat which is from the Sun they would have love understood which is the Holy Ghost to detect the vanity of such conceits as issuing from Anaxagoras were a vain dispute but certain it is that man was made and the Christian is taught to have his eyes his desires his affections where Christ is at the right hand of God and was begotten and born of the Spirit to love admire and behold the Son Therefore Schools and Colledges where Arts and Principles of knowledge are taught ought to be recommended to the eare of providence that from them by means of Professors and Benefactors as from a Nursery may be removed such plants as may in the garden of God which is his Church refresh his people with their shade and fruit for it was esteemed the saddest persecution when Iulian the Apostat Emperour to impede the Kingdom of the Gospel ordered that no Galilean so he termed believers should be trained up in letters or learning alledging that heathens were killed with their own feathers meaning the pungency of Christian Doctors Arguments That the knowledge of God being spread the longing after Heaven may be discerned that the things present being accounted as nothing there may be earnestness for those which are to come a principle arising from a conscience purged from sin and a soul purified from the earth as St. Pauls was when he groaned to be cloathed upon resteth in the bosome of this Petition Moreover the subjection of all souls unto his will Law and Goverment is intreated for here in Thy Kingdom come the petitioner as the mother of Siserah is panting and asking why is his Chariot so long in coming that deliverance from this present evil world might be hastned that all whether high or low rich or poor old and young might rejoyce together blessing the Lord in the beauty of holinesse For 1 They live in fear of themselves and therefore cry Thy Kingdom come Iob was not in trouble yet he feared they know they cannot think one good thought nor do one good act upon certainty of sins lying at the door and of temptations being within the house distrusting of the strength of age and experimentally apprehending a disease surmising through despondency some cross to attaque them and lastly beholding the severity of God upon them which fall more grace knowledge and a more clear sense of their own salvation is frequently in their mouth that no temptation may surprize them or cause them deviat from truth and holiness Sometimes Curiosity again Vanity too oft Obscenity will affault and the thoughts of the soul here heat the heart there blow it and anone disturb it and by and by scatter and again confound it then rack it and afterwards binds it consequently defile it and corrupt it from which the coming of this Kingdom doth secure it by giving them the gifts of sobriety and of a sound mind purity of speech and sincerity of grace which they would alwayes possesse but that Satan by his frequent and sudden temptations doth hinder them In the croud of cares and fears arising from wars tumults and as they say from wives children and families from sin and natural srailty a soul though strong may be broken crushed and wounded by which that precept recorded to have been given by the Guardian Pastor or Angel among many to that holy ancient Hermes St. Pauls Disciple is good viz. to believe and fear in regard the last without sthe first creats gulfs of despondency issuing from the turbulent sea of perplexity entanglements and doubts for the Spirits overwhelming his nuncius iniquitatis or evil genius like Iobs messengers interrupting mans beloved retirements for Halcyon and serene tranquility in heavenly meditation more frequently with corrodeing and mournful intelligence tending to bitterness and wo then his nuncius aequitatis or good Angel cometh like Ioabs informers Ahimaaz-like with accustomed good tidings nourishing the soul or ravishing the ear with the melodious report of benevolent providence whence it is that even the great judgment-day for the elects sake is hastned and the Kingdom of God every wsy desired 2. They live in love of others and therefore cry Thy Kingdom come With St. Paul they have a desire and their prayer to God is that all Israel may be saved by letting the sound of the everlasting Gospel be heard unto all that dwell upon the earth and to every Nation Tongue and people that Israel and Iudah that is Iew and Gentile may become one and unite in the hand of him who is the arm of the Lord revealed For if we love the Lord we shall obey his Law and love man for this is to enjoy good and to be thought worthy of infinit good things this is the crown of vertue the foundation of Religion and the Kingdom of God there being great and precious promises of the enlarging of the Kingdom of Christ by the accession thereto of the multitude of the Gentiles by revealing the Doctrine of saith the light whereof detecting the unprofitableness of those various modes and forms of worship used by Infidels the not doing whereof indicats one almost that is scarce half a Christian that in its full latitude oblidging us to lay aside passion and self and signifie to the world our desire of Gods removing the dark cloud of atheism or errour and bring all to that due way of worshipping the Father in his Christ by discovering to all the beauty and order of his Kingdom Let us reason a little on Gods behalf and beholding the equity and justice of this duty set our selves to its performance Contemplat upon Gods authority over us and we shall learn submission reflect upon our cumbersome lusts our rigid adversaries our rueful passions our woful calamities our oppressing Task-masters our seducing Teachers our eager disputes our multiplied opinions our divided interests and our probably irreconciliable divisions to pass by the subtilty of the Devil in all we shall be forced not only to pray Thy Kingdom come but with hatred and sorrow acknowledge that other lords besides thee have had dominion over us to save us therefore and to confound them Let thy Kingdom come Our creation possession and future expectation makes discernable the infinit distance betwixt those powers whom we obey and God whom we ought to obey who not only hath authority over us but exerciseth the same in so gentle ample and so affectionat manner that reason should induce us to forsake those intricat labyrinths inconsolat services and filthy undertakings in which and wherein our lusts and hellish masters have and do so deeply engage us and make us swear allegiance devouting our selves unto the Crown of Heaven the Laws whereof being comfortable just good and holy A crook-back was not under the Law to approach to offer bread before the
the Indian tongue they have learned to speak of Iehovah and avoid many sins and hates and avoids Pawwows that is Witches and Charmers c. Now to pray for a farther binding up of Satan in the conversion of more Indians all Turks Iews were an acceptable work in it self and our duty as Christians that all the worlds inhabitants may cry out with that poor dying Indian Iehovah Aninumah that is O Lord give me Iesus Christ which is equivalent to Thy Kingdom come and that each professor might repell all temptations as one of them did when tempted to Pawwow for a sick person saying I must not break my Covenant and sin against God But now to return to the old world again where Satan also hath his seat which lyeth in wickedness he having in it universal dominion demonstrated by the vanity impiety of its inhabitants for though his kingdom be not natural but malicious his goverment not defensive but persecution bending his power to the damnation of his subjects yet in the opinion of a Father is he a great King strengthning his Kingdom with vices walling it with abominations building castles in it with attrocious acts and furnishing them with Armour of enforced filthiness The Collectors of his Revenue are oppressors of the poor his Officers are seducers deceivers of the simple and honest his Lord cheif Justice is perversnesse In his Court and about his Chamber you have Cuning Rooks by hook and by crook purchasers cheating Merchants covetous Preachers protracting Doctors conscience-hiring Hucksters for his Advocat he hath a Iack of both sides Lawyer He hath also about him forgers of lies contrivers of mischief receivers of bribe reproachers of men because effeminat as woman and for a Page he hath Amictus discoloribus saith my Author a Peacock-tail'd gallant But when the Kingdom of God shall come It shall discover that the world like men brings good wine at the first and afterward that which is worse for sin is Voluptatum est Tormentum the end of our eating is infirmity the end of our living is death and the end of death to all that crucifie not the world is eternity of misery the thoughts of which are suffciently valid to wash the paint from the world to cure the itch of the flesh and to fight or animat us against the tyranny of the devil and then shall the Kingdom of Heaven be within us 4. Against the delay of the Saints reward The vision being for an appointed time must be waited for yet as the hireling for the shadow the watch-man for the morning the weather-beaten Pilot for the Haven the sick for his recovery the weary Traveller for his Inn so doth a Saint long for the end of all designs their enjoyment of God in Christ Their modesty keeps them from saying Arise let us go hence yet the soul of man being easily seduced their zeal inflamed with the thoughts of what they shall possess vigorously enforceth them with a holy seriousness to call Adveniat Regnum tuum Thy Kingdom come That is Lord say to the North give up and to the South restore the dead bodies of thy Saints given them in charge that they and we the time appointed of the Father being come may be caught up to meet the Lord in the air to remain for ever with him The soul being stamped with the image of God betrothed by the faith of God endowed by the Spirit of God redeemed by the blood of God capable of the blessedness of God having nothing to do with flesh longs for the perfect vision and full fruition of the holy place of the holy face of God that mortality might be swallowed up of life The soul is Christs Spouse and conform to her condition hath a threefold marriage The 1. is In her Iustification by faith at which she is feasted by the ablution of sin the attainment of grace the reforming of nature but this is attended through the souls default with many jarrs The 2. is Her Regeneration or Sanctification by hope at which she receives divine consolation heavenly communion and a taste of the glory to come but this is also mixed with fears and doubtings and therefore the third is wished for which is her glorification by charity at which she is entertained with eternal incorruption true glory and the perpetual vision of God and this being the more excellent affectu pio sensu profundo she groans most ardently for it As we pray against these things so there are other matters we pray for such as the Churches soveraignty the Saints felicity and our Fathers universal and sole authority 1. The Churches soveraignty in general The Church is the continent wherein Christ reigns and in it his Palace and his Temple stands which two are oft clouded by foggs arising from open hatred against them or pretended friendship to them casting stumbling blocks in the way of others by disloyal practices as the idolatry of Rome offends the Jew and the heat of the Calvinists and Lutherans in their often debates becometh scandal again to the Papist To clear the air is this Petition put up that all may behold the mountain of the Lords house and the Sun of Righteousness shining thereon that is Christ Jesus before whom the Jews had only Lamp-light by the Law and the Prophets which also shined upon them untill the Baptist who was a burning and a shining light but after that he rose whose Name was the East whose Star arose in the East like a Sun enlightning the world directing to the knowledge of that Triune God all may say of Gospel-rules this is the way let us walk in it that Sanctity Innocency Purity and Piety may lodge in the breast of all and malice and mischief excluded from all The vision of the conversion of the Gentiles to the saith of Christ and to the Churches of the Saints is expressed by the similitude of doves flying to their windows thereby shewing the swiftness zealousness harmlessness and unity doves generally going in flocks that shall be in those Converts and the multiplication and addition of whom unto the saith notwithstanding of the diversity of opinions as natural as variety of feathers or faces is contained in this Thy Kingdom come That all beholding the King in his beauty his Sacraments in their dignity all his Ordinances in their purity may have their souls so influenced as to have all one heart not being dismembered by faction or passion which rather shews men to be inhabitants of several Provinces then fellow-subjects having one Language and united in one Kingdom The Petition therefore importing the accomplishing of that which St. Paul gave once a charge for viz. that the word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified that is be opened and expounded before learned and unlearned that though we behold one unskilful in knowledge or expression yet being
Covetousness in Buff Oppression watching Lust posting Fury thâ—â—tning Malice contiriving and Policy uniting to suppress the Gospel and though it get ground in the conversion of some to the saith of Jesus yet what Hanibal said of the Roman General Marcellus may the Church say of them and the devil their Captain that neither conquered nor conquering will they be quiet yea her case must be sad since the very liâ—e of her peace consists in fighting against these restless adversaries and where overcome yet so desperate is their wrath they with the Gadarens beseech Christ to depart It s regiment is likewise often obnubilated Grace now and then is put to the flight by an army of lusts The Church is said to be a Woman cloathed with the Sun the Moon under her feet that she is a Woman betokeneth her weakness her fruitfulness cloathed with the Sun her protection by and obedience to Jesus Christ the Moon under her feet signifyeth her contempt of all earthly because mutable enjoyments yet for all this pompous equippage she is forced to go to the wilderness for shelter against the Dragons rage and fury The feeling the beholding the hearing of these things will cause sorrow and what consolation is that offered by an Ancient comforting a Christian in sad times It was Pia tristitia beata miseria a blessed melancholy and a pleasant misery to behold the sins of others and weep and to another Plangenda sunt haec non miranda these things are to be be 〈◊〉 for not wondred at yet adds that prayer ought to be made I shall not say that after the fall God appointed our flesh our sinful lusts to rule overus for our punishment as he appointed thorns to arise out of the earth for mans vexation but since the fall lusts and corruption overshadow grace within us to that hight that Peter will curse David fall and Iacob lie to his Father and these weeds are permitted to abide in all until the Kingdom of God come with power which made David call but thou O Lord how long that is in the new Testament-stile Thy Kingdom come The Gospel in its progress is compared by our Saviour to leaven and that workes gradually regeneration to a new birth and man is perfected by degrees the Church to a builing and that advanceth by rule and measure and Wisdom is said to have hewn out her seven pillars which implies addition the new man hath not his proportion by years but by degrees and comes to perfection by distinct gifts and graces he first learns as a child to read the good examples of others then advancing forward he comes to live according to divine Law then he is so in love with Christ that marrying himself to him he would not sin though there were no Law against it growing now strong he can endure and stand out against the worlds troubles and vexations and then growing rich in the abundance of the things of the Kingdom of God he leads a peaceable and contented life then he comes to forget that is not to heed transitory things being wholly intent as aged in grace upon life eternal and now there remains but one step more that is the Kingdom of glory which advanceth towards us by the grace of faith illumination of the soul Discipline of the Church and by finishing the number of the Elect. 1. By the hearing of faith This eyes all the Kingdoms we have spoken of for as by faith we believe that Jesus came to save sinners so we believe by â—aith that the world was created and yet preserved the Father Almighty hitherto working and darkly hinted at in the conclusion of this Prayer For thine is the Kingdom power and glory All that we know of Hell his prison of Earth his Foot-stool of the Clouds his Chariots of Man his Image of Angels his Hosts of Heaven his Pallace of Christ his Son is by the doctrine of Faith for untill it come we are not savingly sensible of the Kingdom of God And the doctrine of the Worlds Creation Mans fall and Christs coming are recorded to have been the Principles of Religion taught in Adams Temple Oratory or place of worship where God dwelt from whose face Cain departed all which shew that it is necessary to believe as firmly that God the Father Almighty made the Heaven and Earth as it is to believe in Iesus Christ his only Son our Lord. The grace of faith is said to be the Kingdom of God within that Kingdom being spiritual and reigning in the hearts of the faithfull while they are in the Kingdom of providence and by which they are nourished and protected untill they arrive at the Kingdom of God in glory where they shall reign as Kings and Priests unto God for ever 2. By the enlightning of the mind This peculiarly eyes his Kingdom of grace As Moses face shined when he was with God under the Law so now God shines in the hearts of his friends under the Gospel he saith now not Let there be light but is himself a light unto his people The Gospel puts a Key in the Converts hand to intuat and behold the mysteries in Christ crucified which others cannot see and also a Lamp to know how far and in what kind for what use and for what end they appertain to him As at the Creation there was a fiat lux Let there be light so in Conversion there is a scias fu thy sins are forgiven thee which is that unction of the Spirit by which all things are known as the Eunuch knew and believed that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and by which also their Conversation is in Heaven having security by God and joy in him for which cause also it is the highest stone in Wisdoms seven Pillars upholding the house that is the Conscience or Soul of man The first whereof being good Will next a sanctified Memory the third a clean Heart the fourth a free Soul the fifth a right Spirit the sixth a devout Mind but the last and highest is an enlightned Understanding By the discipline of the Church Admonitions Reproofs Censures are as military weapons used by the Church for the upholding of this Kingdom of Grace yea a delivery over unto Satan by excommunication which if justly duly and compassionatly done is and hath been found instrumental for the stirring up the authority and power of Grace in the soul of some obdured shame and fear being very efficacious motives where other means are less effectual to perswade a soul to cry Peccavi Father I have sinned as did the incestuous Corinthian One Sigbert King of the East Saxons keeping society and familiarity with a Count or Earl whom holy Cedd had excommunicated for unlawful marriage once by accident met with Cedd as he journeyed to the Counts house and being smitten with shame and fear alighted from his horse and craved
is of the sons of Abraham ought to have alwayes burning upon the Altar of his heart the fire of holy charity and that to be blown up by the example of the Fathers and Testimony of holy Scripture unto which if we look and take heed the zeal for their own salvation and their brethrens glory that all might fear and declare the work of God and wisely consider of his doing is their chief care according to this rule The Multitude of sinners the fewness of Saints in the throng of professours ought to be seriously reflected upon that faith might bring our brethren in the flesh to Sons of the Spirit that living by the Laws of the Kingdom of God the Scriptures they might be accounted as the subjects of it faithful and worthy to possess the inheritance that fadeth not away the harvest therefore being great pray to the Lord thereof that the idolatrous and prophane which like the Syrians fill the countrey may be listed under the Standart of Jesus and united to Israel which are but as a few Kids that the seekers of the Lords face may be many nay may be all for which provoke one another to love and to good works It was an odd saying of Remigius yet a sad one because true that though the Church hitherto endure they being baptized that were her persecutors yet the Devil is not baptized and plagueth the Church not now or not only by the fury of Pagans but by the harshness ill-will and cruelty of Christians which to put an end unto let each man say as one said Et tu Domine Iesus Lord Jesus where is thy wonted kindness and O Father where is the sounding of thy bowels and remember we have but two commands from God one to love God the other man yet these two are but one love shewing without the one we want the other and by not doing the one we forfeit our interest in the other said a wise man Our zeal ought to extend to the utmost confines of the world for a bringing in of many sons and daughters unto this Kingdom in order to which we are to become Orators for a blessing upon Kings Princes c. That by their power upon Parents that by their authority upon Preachers that by their gravity upon Masters that by their industry the Word of the Lord may run and be glorified and that affectionatly and with ardor of mind Remissness sleepiness and dulness in prayer being one cause publickly declared from heaven in a vision of the eight persecution of the Church under Valerianus 4. His glory is in his Kingdom there is our dignity There is an earnest of the Spirit in the believers soul assuring him of glory and an earnest is part of the bargain so that in his conscience he hath a holy assurance that when ever the Kingdom of God shall appear he shall be crowned in it Here we behold the invisible God by that which is also invisible Munda scil mente vel corde a clean heart and a right spirit which argueth our distance and is at best but a comfortable ignorance but let this Kingdom be revealed and the soul being evacuat of all imperfections freed of all contagious principles or objects shall behold it self in its spiritual beauty to be the off-spring of God and as a Son behold his Fathers naked face in his ineffable glory Have we not made his dominion our choice his Son unto whom this Kingdom is given our joy and shall we not with endeared regard crave that its beautifull and powerfull manifestation be no longer retarded by the hypocrisie of some the intemperance of another the uncleaness of a third the blasâ—hemies of many the malicious quarrellings of most and the false slandrings of idle busie-bodies but as the people gathers to Shiloh the Souldiers to their Colours the Birds to the Carcass so ought we in our several capacities urge fervently the gatherings of all to the Lord of Hosts that it might be no longer with Christians as it was with the Manicheans with whom there was nothing rational nothing certain nothing blamlesse all being doubtful scandalous abominable and absurd That being truly and properly a Kingdom where a King will have such to be his subjects and they will have such an one to be their King and for this the whole creation cryeth with us adveniat Thy Kingdom come The Stars in their courses the Saints in their sufferings cry out how long O Lord holy and true because holy in himself and true in his promise therefore say the Saints judge and avenge our blood which expression being doubled shews desiderium vindicandi a desire of this Kingdom which the Ox at the Plough the Horse on the road the Elements in their motions yea the whole creation in its subjection groans for to be redeemed by it from that vanity under which they are in bondage Have we made his dominion our choice and not fight yea fight for suppressing diverting of all those forces Art can contrive Magick fancy Sacriledge Minister the Devil in the multitude of sinners can suggest or sin in the bloodiness of its aims can muster which if we do not let us be self-condemned as unworthy of its enjoyment when it shall be revealed The Romans at their first entry into Britain were much terrified by the valour and to them by the strange way of the British fighting which being perceived by the Standart-bearer of the tenth Legion he cast himself out of the Ship and assaulted his foes crying aloud Fight my companions except you will betray the Roman Eagle into the hands of the enemy for mine own part I will be faithful to the Common-wealth of Rome and to Cesar my General at which shame and courage animating all the Standart was followed a victory obtained and Britain subdued Let this exhilerat this Age whose remissness I might say whose perversness suffers the glory of the Cross of Christ and the government of Jesus to be betrayed to the hands of sin and sinners the zeal of his house being so far from consuming us or from eating of us up that we suffer both it and our selves to be swallowed up by hell and destruction I mean strife and division Consider what this Kingdom produceth which we may call its In-land Commodity and our zeal shall become importunat that consisting in peace righteousnesse joy in the Holy Ghost the two former are the leaves of the door that admits us into the latter for we have first righteousness by our faith freeing us of sin and then peace hushing all our passions then cometh joy by our here expecting and afterward enjoying our reward which three we glimmeringly enjoy in the Kingdom of grace below but shall receive them in their Meridian lustre in that Kingdom of glory above having righteousness without sin iniquity being taken away peace without disturbance
are warranted in his Word In short zeal ought alwayes to be attended with mercy for wanting that it is rather fury then true ardour and by not endeavouring mans bettering is anger and envy which aggravats crimes more highly then Gods Word will warrand by making men offenders for a word and contrary puts more force and obligations upon themselves in some precise points then the Scriptures naturally do impose as the Pharisees did upon the Apostles eating of the ears of corn and upon our Saviour for working miracles upon the Sabbath day About the year of Christ 600 we find in old English this Petition thus paraphrased Thou bring us thy michel bliss the whole prayer being in rime sent from Rome by Pope Adrian a native English to be taught the people and about an hundred years after came it to be almost as now thus Thy Kingdom come to having sayes my Author more care to do well then speak Minion-like how ever we may spell this much that the great blessing of eternal life might be transmitted in the preaching of the Gospel to themselves and to us their posterity was the ardent request of our zealous Ancestours and seeing we hold them not so perfect as our selves in their way of worship let us exceed them in fervency by imploring of our heavenly Father to have his Gospel more and more shining among us and continuing it to us and our successors for ever Thus much for the matter of this Petition the order is discernable from what hath been said it following Hallowed by thy Name in regard that the coming of this Kingdom is the most effectual mean therefore It preceeds also Thy will be done for before his Kingdom be erected his will ought to be obeyed and hearts enlightned and we made subjects of his Kingdom God being then only advanced by us when he ruleth in us as an absolute King and we content to be governed by his Laws c. CHAP. IV. Thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven THIS is a Petition goes quite contrary to the hair of nature pressing us to beg for that which of all things is most contradictory to our stuborn humour to will being an inclination and consenting of the mind about the doing of those things which are placed in us or pleasing to us and how contrary the things that are in Gods mind are to those which we ardently wish for the most blocked among mortals who have heard the sound of the Gospel may be sufficiently learned To curb or infringe the freedom of our proper will is to enter in at the strait gate and who will easily be induced to prayfor pressure in a throng to give a full swing and free carreer to proper will is to run in a broad path and who readily will not desire to have ample freedom in his own habitation Yet so it is that Christianity resolving to be Mistris over all mens endowments orders that the will of man how lordly soever shall be brought down and tip-toe it no longer but deliver it self unto her hands to be guided and commanded by the will of God We must observe in general that the will of God and God himself are essentially one for in him to be and to will are not different things his goodness is himself so is his power so is his mercy so also is his will Neither are we to difference the Fathers will from the Sons or Spirit for in themselves there is una charitas one love one purpose and one will Yet the Scripture holds it forth two wayes either properly or improperly that is his proper will which is in himself and is himself which admits of no change or alteration and is called by Divines Voluntas beneplaciti the will of his good pleasure that is improperly or metaphorically his will which we find recorded or marked out unto us in his Precepts or Laws as when a servant is commanded to go buy this or that the words signifie that this is the Masters will or Gods will and therefore called Voluntas signi a sign of his will that is a token whereby we apprehend the doing of this or that will be gratefull to him Thy will be done c. Which will of his we know by his injunctions by his prohibitions by his admonitions by his permissions and by his operations his framing of the world is a sign to us that he willed it to be made his Law of honouring his Name hallowing his Sabbath are signs that he would have these things done of both these wills Moses speaks calling the former secret things but this latter things revealed and is that whereof this Petition doth mainly take care that all doing this will of our Father which is in Heaven may be studious of holiness carefull in duties vigilant against temptations c. We shall search in this as in the other Petitions First into the matter and next into the order thereof In the former our discourse is applied 1. to the subject of it the will of God and that to be done 2. To the place wherein it is desired to be done that is in Earth 3. The rule by which we presse that it may be done that is as it is in Heaven To unsold the extent of his will were an imployment wherein Angels might be excused when declaring ignorance because of its impossibility how much more shall man discover his willingness to avoid so dark an abyss wherein Gods nature his works his eternal contrivance concerning Angels and men his eternity and immutability the fixednesse of all his past and future purposes and all the ineffable products of his unâ—ear â—â—able wisdom locked up in the secret Cabinet of his vast conception are concerned We shall therefore endeavour a view of it by reflection as men behold the Sun in a pool of water and passing-by his advice who in the matter of Gods will would have us pitch on these three things 1. What he will do with us 2. What he will do for us And 3. What he will have us to do We shall accommodâ—t our thoughts mainly to this last it respecting the will of God revealed wherein this Petition is and we aâ—â—o most concerned and in discovery what it looâ—s for from us we shall apply all to the Rule so pray yet as it operats upon his commands his chastisements our selfishnesse and our dulnesse 1. It respects his commands and then thy will be done eyes our obedience The felicity of Kings and the honour of Parents consists in that obedience which ought to be given to their Laws and the glory of Christianity is visible by that subjection the soul chiefly designs to those exact precepts by which God hath signified his will unto it as unto his betrothed his begotten his commands being not only for reading but for living and must be walked in for obtaining that great blessedness
debt This Petition hath a peculiar respect to the Preface Our Father because none can forgive but God it being his Law his Grace his Son his Gospel we sin against Hence the Indulgences to be bought at Rome and the Pardon 's even for sin not yet but to be committed a greater grace then ever God promised two whereof King Iames of blessed memory upon this Petition doth protest he saw are to be detested this being a more sure word of Prophesie I even I am be that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake mark for mine own sake neither for Peters nor the Virgins c. 5. His Iustification though he should make us stand to those debts They are our debts and though he delay to acquit us his Throne is to be frequented Petitions to be iterated and forgive us our debts importunatly to be demanded untill the vigorous exaction of the Law be repelled by the mellifluous sentence of the Gospel Be of good chear thy sins are forgiven Not intending to pose any with that question whether they could be content of damnation if God so pleased God putting no such question to us but joyning his will and our salvation together we affirm that in Gods demurring to answer or delaying the assurance of remission notwithstanding of our prayer he is not to be deemed severe nor imputed unjust but in his seeming greatest rejectment of thy petitions let Enter not into judgment with thy servant O Lord be the burden of thy devotion Forgive As it eyes our selves in this Prayer is not limited to the strict sense of the word forgive but hath a greater latitude evincing sorrow confession inability 1. Sorrow for our wantonnesse The debts our fathers left us are great and many but how prodigiously prodigal have we been in spending that little nature by them gave us defacing Gods Image so much the more earnestly by how much we have acted against the principles and light of a natural conscience This Petition saith Woe is me my mother thou hast born me a man of strife of a hard heart yet harder by custome of loose principles yet more loose by obstinance distant from God yet further off by rebellion deformed by sin but more monstruous by delighting in ungodlinesse Woe is me calls the Prophet Be merciful to me calls the Psalmist O Lord hear O Lord forgive calls the relenting penitent They say a man is once miserable if twice rich and all of us had once enough and most of us had more then we have Adam and we also by receiving from the devil that which was not necessary became a debter but Christ hath made us free Abstulit debitum reddidit libertatem bertatem by paying the debt restored our priviledges with the price of his own blood for which expence the soul in a holy ingenuity is angry at sin and sorrowful for its own miscarriage 2. Confession of our own loosnesse By this Forgive us our debts we acknowledge our delinquency for qui petit veniam delictum confitetur Petition for implyes confession and that includes action of sin and mark this it is not debt but debts insinâ—ating long Bills of Account for which the word Pardon is used as if we should say do it or fogive them throughly sensed by per and dona the Germains say Verâ—geven the word Ver incomposition very much hightning the sense and the word Forgive flowing thence shews how far that is how infinitly we desire the remission to be extended Man hath a five-fold act about sin I mean the impenitent man comprehended in this verse Laetatur silet extenuat tremitatque laborat For doth he not delight in it or boast of it as did Doeg or hides and conceals it as Cain or lessens and extenuats it as Saul or stâ—rtles and despâ—irs because of it as did Iudas or though in vain labours in some unprofitable work to be rid of it as did the Iews but the Saint takes a far better course which is this of confession complicated with that other superadded grace of forsaking sin as did the Prodigal true confession in prayer being ever accompanied with mortification of heart In relation to the progresse or ingresse of sin it is observed that it enter'd man pep saggestionem Diaboli nostram liber am admissionem by the Devils sugestion and our own consent so for sins egresse or removing there must be the spirits compunction with our own assent that the guilt of it be not imputed by a cordial rejectment which cannot be without an open acknowledgment of its iniquity and our folly not only when called upon by Authority as was Achan but when goaded unto it by Conscience meditation Scripture or the Spirit as Peter In this word Forgive there is a general implicit confession of all our sins and so pray ye preventing Satan who will with a hellish noise bawl them out before God except we our selves say thus and thus have I done which will remove a thousand sins yea millions God never refusing the humble soul how criminous soever confessing of sin being an exalting of his Name 3. Inability for our own release If a man have Cash it were both sin and shame to beg either for composition or remission but poor Adam having nothing involved in desperate difficulties by ommitting good committing evil is introduced by Jesus and by him so placed before the Father that forgivenesse is promised yea sworn The great Lucifer fell from Heaven but could not for all his Angelick nature recover himself again he is very subtile yet never could invent a proper mean to discharge that debt his sin contracted Arrest the dead man yet cannot he redeem himself we as dead in sin yet alive to suffer are taught to plead in forma pauperis or sue out a billa bonorum being poor blind and naked What can we do can we either obtain the Spirit of God to sin no more can we believe in his Son and fear no more can we keep our selves from Gods hand and procure some time more to shelter us from his wrath or can we say unto death we will not be arrested to the grave we will not be imprisoned For know that death is in this Petition and where is there a Pent-house or To-fall untill he passe by Verily verily it is as if a man should flee from a Lyon and a Bear met him or went into the house and leaned on the wall and a serpent bit him being one degree beyond the misery of that monster Nero who in desperat rage cryed out at his death nec amicum nec inimicum habes have I no friend to help me nor enemy to kill me for of â—oes we shall have legions and though we strugle from one or two solvi in Gaehenna necesse est we must begin payment of our debts in hell And quid boni operari
everlasting principles A good man being told that his father was dead was sharp and replyed define blasphemare blaspheme not my father he is immortal and indeed die absolutely we shall not the soul but removes for a while and until it return the body sleeps our eviternity causeth us to eye eternity and because we are for ever to be its pertinent to deprecat evil for ever 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 throughout ages for ever some render it in English for ever and ever the first ever expressing Gods ever-being or that part of eternity which is past pardon the impropriety of the phrase and the last ever that which is to come Touching the confidence this Conclusion creats in the Temple or in the Closet in the breast and soul of the heavenly Orator it is pregnantly seen by applying the several parts thereof unto the several Petitions of the Prayer thus viz. Thine is the Kingdom and therefore God ought and it is for his honour to regard his good Name and therefore let it be hallowed and as a King he ought to look to the observation of his Laws therefore let his will be done and he must being a King look to the wealth of his Subjects and therefore let them have bread It is also the glory of a King to passe by a transgression let him therefore pardon our trespasses he ought moreover to â—ecure his Subjects by delivering them from temptation and ease his Subjects by delivering them from evil the doing whereof can be nothing to him for his is the power nay it shall proâ—ure something to him for he shall have all the glory for ever For ever The King of the Ammonites had once a Kingdom and a Crown but could keep neither Darius in his first message unto Alexander the great stiled himself Rex Regum Consanguineum Deorum King of Kings and Cousin to the Gods with other expressions thought by the Historian flaunting but the event shew'd his folly fear flight poverty and thirst made him know he was but when highest as the grasse the glory of all Kings but being emanations from the glory of this King of whom we treat and like summer brooks shall be dryed up as the story of Darius was his glory alone remaining for ever and praise belonging to him not power to them To Kingdom Power and Glory here St. Peter adds Dominion and Iude Majesty words without multiplication not being able to expresse Iehovah his greatnesse yet these two how eminent soever are comprized in this breviary Dominion being to be found in the word Kingdom and Majesty in that of Glory from which as a fountain all the rivulets of splendor refreshing men or Angels have their first rise as is cleared in the Pronoun THINE Thine is the Glory not only of delivering us from evil but of bequeathing unto us good yea because of his goodnesse being confident of glorious good things for ever his Name God being originally from that act called Good in our Ancestors Dialect Thankfulnesse and Gratitude a constituent of true Prayer and without which it cannot nor ought not to be is so shining in this Epilogue of Thine is the Kingdom c. that a learned Author concludes it to be added purely ut Dei laus finiret preces nostras to evince our Prayers are to end in Praise and generally it is so in these or the like words now as of old in refutation of the Arrian Hereâ—ie the latine Fathers ended their supplications Through our Lord Iesus Christ cui cum Patre to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be honour and glory for ever and this not only to their own conceptions but to this Prayer taking all means to hammer that heretical doctrine of Arrius which by the Learned is given as a reason for their ommitting of this per oration in their Commentaries and Homilies upon the Gospel However it may be questioned what kind of Prayers these be which want both Praise in their body and in their close but leaving them to the censure of the Scriptures I must declare it provokes a smile to hear how impertinently to say no worse some even in publick end their addresses unto God where after begging plurality or multitude of mercies they end with In hope whereof we give thee praise and remaine as mute as Fishes appending neither Glory nor Amen according to this manner The smell of thy Ointments saith the Spouse to his Church is better then all Spices there is ointment of Contrition a falling down before the Throne in grief for sin committed the soul thereby anointing the feet oâ— Christ. Of Devotion in doing good to all the Saints whereby the body of Christ is anointed And there is also the ointment of Gratulation acknowledging the receipt of invaluable favours wherewith the soul unguents the head of Christ Crowning him King-like by giving to him Praise Honour and Glory for all possessions And in this form of Praise we render â—â—anks 1. For our Denization being Naturaliz'd and made Subjects of his Kingdom 2. For our Information and knowledge of the blessed Trinity and that in Unity included in the expression Father in Heaven that his glory be not given to another 3. For our Expectation or hopes of the world to come for ever being added ut firmius stet that we migâ—â— be strengthned in the perpetuity and immutability and eternity of Gods glory and dominâ—â—n 4. For our Preservation or deliverâ—nce from evil and all evils in which both in and from the womb we might have fallen without his inspection as was that Countrey Boy who being ordered to drive home some Oxen from the Field was benighted and storm-stead by a sudden showre of snow which covering the wayes and stopping passages the Child was inclosed in the Mountains his â—arents seeking him in vain but after two dayes designing to find only his body for burial they found him on a Bank neither covered nor touched with snow and told them he tarried there intending to return home in the evening certainly God was both a Sun and a Shield unto him nay a Purveyour for being asked if he had eaten any thing told them A man whom I knew not came and gave me Bread and Cheese Though all meet not with such portions of wonderful kindnesse yet generally we have such Guardian Providences that if God had not held us by the coat we had perished in our folly in our impiety which ought to be recorded by us both in thankful remembring of it before the Altar and in walking suitably thereunto before men For Prayer must be practised and in an holy life only can we pray daily he having the Kingdom and the Power we as Subjects ought to be faithful and loyal and as Servants diligent and peaceable and that alwayes since he is for ever a word that man cannot fathom a note
beyond all ordinary rules a lesson more then our Masters can pierce or construe I say since he for ever lives to punish us for ever in case of disloyalty let us for ever be obedient Some learned men during the Council of Basil a time wherein the world was turned a School and every soul a learned Disputant walking in and about a Wood debating about the questions of that age heard and saw an unusual if not prodigious bird its sweetnesse was so inchanting that it was suspected and conjured and then it declared it self to be a soul condemned in unto that Wood untill the great day after which it was to suffer eternal plagues then taking wing cryed saying O quam diuturna est aeternitas O how long is eternity O how immense is eternity all suddenly sickned and in few dayes after died who beheld it Melanchton judged it to be a Devil inhabiting the place But whatever it were the relation may admonish us in this litigious age wherein qâ—estions are started of no weight yet pursued with scorching â—eat to retire from the throng of disputes into our selves and mind eternity for by well-doing and upright living shall we only live happily with our Father which is in Heaven an â—pellation in the Preface settling us in love as thine is the Kingdom Power and Glory fixeth us in confidence in the Conclusion For ever CHAP. X. Amen IF the structure of this Prayer be like to Solomons Temple the Preface as the Porch the Prayer like the holy place the Conclusion like the most holy we shall in it assimulat Amen to the glory of the Lord in a cloud which being the last breath of this first and perfect Prayer cometh last to be considered 1. In its original and nature 2. In its place and order It is signaculum orationis Dominicae the seal of this and of all other prayers yet forsooth hath the misfortune with its companions to be thrust from the Codex of the Gospel as being inserted into the Evangelist not from our Saviours lips but from the custom of the Church as if every thing which is not in Luke or Mark must be ejected Iohn and Matthew where Amen is to be sound this Prayer being sent as an Epistle to our Father closed by Amen and given to be presented by the graces of Faith and Charity upon command It is sometime put before a sentence and so is a note of confirmation ordinarily translated verily and in the New Testament imports that expression As I live in the Old but here it is in the close as in the execrations of the Law and is doubled by the Psalmist in blessing the Lord from everlasting to everlasting Amen and Amen that is Amen in the heart Amen in the mouth demonstrating the union of these two in this one duty of blessing God It is a Iew by birth and speaketh Hebrew in the Laconick style yet its ingenuity and noble converse its candor and comprehensivenesse hath procured for it self that freedom to be denized in all Nations and all in each Nation speaking the same Language saith Amen and is either imperantis of command or confirmantis of assuring or precantis of desiring and is generally and was of old annexed to Prayer and Praise except that it was impiously because out of scorn laid aside by Humorists as though the saying of Amen had not been a Gospel-precept It groweth upon the Hebrew root Aman which by interpretation signifieth to nourish and by degrees as by bearers blooms on a branch signifying truth and fixednesse and the truth is Amen hath nothing of flatulency or windinesse but nourisheth every soul that by holy discretion prepares a Conscience for its receiving It is not interpreted by Expositors here Nec Graeâ—us Interpres ausus est neither dare they yea the verity is they cannot there being no Language to expresse its full sense and in Scripture having different significations being taken 1. Substantively 2. Assertively 3. Optatively 1. Substantively and then it signifieth Christ himself These things saith the Amen that is the Truth he being prima veritas the first and the last and by Amen he gives a reality to what he hath spoken because in him all the promises are yea and Amen In the word Father the Trinity is implyed the first Person only expressed in Amen the second is contained and these are one with the Spirit Hence one promiseth I resolve never te leave Amen out of my Prayer since it is as much as Christ which one sound from the heart is able to procure Godsâ—blessing on all our askings importing For Christs sake have mercy and hear O Heavenly Father 2. Assertively and then it is a note of Attention translated often Verily for what is in one Text Amen or Verily is in the parallel Text Amen or of a truth as if Christ should have said I speak it not rashly but certe profecto si fas est dicere juratio ejus est it is indeed his Oath so to speak As I live Amen Verily there be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Kingdom of God And in the Prophet it is said he who blesseth or sweareth in the earth shall blesse or swear by the God Amen or of truth 3. Optatively and then it is a note of wishing Blessing and thanksgiving and honour said the Angels be to our God for ever and ever Amen and may in this sense be expounded fiat or So-be-it a word short of Amen's extent and is but a corner of it yet used by many of late with us as thought more perfect and significant though Amen is reverent and gray-headed and venerable through all ages under the Law by Moses used in point of jealousie and in point of exaction by Nehemiah that it like the last stroak of an heavy Bell might bumme in their ears who had offended It ends all the Epistles the third of Iohn and that of St. Iames excepted and is the last word of the Bible and one way or other Fifty times used in the New Testament It is acutely observed that the mystery of the Iews conversion is herein touched the whole Prayer being Greek this Amen only Hebrew hinting though obscurely that the Greeks that is the Gentiles shall speak the language of Canaan and that the Iews shall be conducted unto Christ the Amen these two by our Father being united in him who is the truth the way the life and the AMEN Let Amen respect Christ it is nota fiduciae of affiance regarding all his offices expecting with confidence deliverance by him as our King Instruction as our Prophet and remission of sin as our Priest yea indubitanter it is unquestionable he would not have us scruple the obtaining any thing we demand because next Amen he saith if ye forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father will
also forgive you Let it respect the soul and its nota desiderii and checks our dulnesse roâ—zing up our â—ethaâ—gick spirits and like the last stroak of a shrill Clock shews what time we have spent in Prayer and what heart we have towards God for the advancement of his honour or for the remission of sin Make haste my beloved said the Church of old Even so come Lord Iesus saith the Church now Amen The Iews make four kinds of Amen 1. Pupillum when the thing to which iâ— is said is not understood The 2. is surreptum when it is not heard throughout The 3. is oâ—â—osum when it is not thought upon The last is when it is pronounced from the heart and desired and that is Amen justorum which they account their own ending still their devotion with it this sheweth quam difficile how hard a thing it is to say Amen saith one yet Cyprian being sentenced ut gladio feriatur to be beheaded with the sword for being Christian said Amen is somewhere recorded by another Let it respect the Preface and it containeth the mystery of the Trinity unto which we only ought to pray all others being only our fellow-creatures and hath not begotten us or our sisters or brethren and so not our fathers which speaketh two things 1. The fulnesse of the Scriptures not only Amen but each Iota in the institutions of God is mysterious and of immensiâ—rable sense 2. Comforts in our failings for if in Prayer infirmity divert us from a zealous pursuit of heavenly objects we recover our feet and unites in one Amen Now there remains three said a Father the Word Example and Prayer yet all the three is here for Prayer and Amen and example even in History is not wanting For Basil the Great being sick was attended by one Ioseph a Iew and his Physician who had from natural signs shewed him that he should die about the evening What said Basilius if I live another day then said Ioseph I shall become Christian. The holy man for saving a soul plyes the Throne of God and about three of the Clock riseth next morning in health which so astonished the Doctor that he was the same day baptized in the publick Congregation by Basil who returning to his bed died Likewise Soâ—inus dying called upon his Redeemer attesting dependence upon providence and mercy hearing Scriptural exhortations for his souls strengthning to every Text sobjoyned his zealous Amen Amen And what hath not Prayer done throughought the world why then should this threeâ—old cord be broken having the word Prayer and example for Amen in all our supplications Let it respect the Petitions it is worthily compared to a bound or stitched up Book more portable and lesse bulksome then when scattered in single sheets the Law was abreviated in the ten Commandments the Gospel is abridged in the Creed and the Lords Prayer yea all Prayer in Amen which speaketh three things 1. Ordering the studying of Amen Let the mad world say its list it is Divine and of heavenly sanction and as Iesus though Hebrew is over all the world understood and if more closely studied would prove consolatory and more rever'd even so Amen if searched into should prove significantly helpful for all addresses It was of old uttered to each curse and here annexed to each Petition and once for all uttered discovering its secret Energy but impenitus enim audiens if he that understands not the prayer cannot say Amen how shall he say it who understandeth not Amen it self 2. Ordering the saying of Amen As it is an old so it is an holy seemly and necessary duty in the Church or at Church-service for all to say Amen by it the Church Militant being mostly Uniform to that of the Triumphant the noise of Dogs is harsh of crying children troublesome of opening locks unholy c. But the noise of Amen is heavenly we are baptized said Iustine in his Apology for Christianity to Antonius the heathen Emperour we communicat we gather offerings we pour forth prayers we celebrat praise and the people say Amen And if the word lingua the tongue in its initiatory letters direct to a six-â—old duty at all times the tongue must express Amen for it doth as L. directs for then loquitur bene it speaks good I. then Iesus is acknowledged N. and then the Name of God is invocate G. then the Grace of God is proclaimed V. then the Will of God is obeyed A. and all others about us are edified instructed and holily excited 3. Ordering the affecting of Amen we have not ended our prayers if according to this pattern untill this be Eccho'd from the heart Christ having said it before us It is said that the natural heat being more and greater in man then in any other creature doth in a second sense or as a secondary cause make his body straight and his soul when heated by holy zeal shall more and more being fledged or â—eathered by the practice of prayer spiritually go aloft entering by devotion the Quire of Angels bearing share in their Antiphonies as in the vision Amen Allelujd where obiter by Amen we learn that God is to be praised and by Allelujah that he is to be feared it is the fiâ—tieth Greek word in this prayer and fifty was the Jubilee and that was the year of rest and after much plodding and praying we rest in Amen that is in Christ Iesus Let it respect the Conclusion and it sheweth when in prayer the Christian cometh to his conclamaâ—um est a closs laying his petitions and his case before the Throne of God leaving them to the Power Glory and Authority of God which speaketh two things 1. Perseverance in all prayer Mind but that precept Pray without ceasing and this command Pray after this manner that is as and from Our Father to Amen and from Amen to Our Father in circulo and it is easie to infer that there is a religious unweariednesse at least in habit wrap'd up in this word and work 2. Confirmation of all good We here beg and continue begging for good and comfortable things untill we say Amen there sisting stedfastly perswaded that in the Kingdom of our Father by his Power for his Glory we shall want no portion of the matter craved heeding this form as most perfect which was dayly by the Ancients in Gods House observed as such in order for their prosperous and more successful issue in their practical devotion its vastnesse and perfection mediating from Heaven Antidots against the narrownesse and many failings wherewith their performances in point of justice were beheld and because of which they might have been excluded the ears of God who certainly is most delighted with the penitents lips and heart when both are acting in the words his blessed Son and our Saviour hath endited to them Not that we are to use no other prayer