THE SHEPHEARDS FAREWELL TO HIS BELOVED FLOCKE OF S. B. E. L. Where He hath been above twenty yeeres their weake yet vigilant Pastour I. G. D. D. PSAL. 37. 25. I have been young am old yet never saw The just abandoned nor those that draw From him their breath with beggery opprest He lends in mercy and his seed are blest En me peractâ parte vitae maximâ Senecta jam cana premit Nec me usquà m rectam persequutum tramitem Meós ve sensi deseri Quaerelave vidi voce Divitum ad Ostia Miserum rogantes frustulum Printed in the yeere 1645. TO THE PARISH OF St. BARTHOLMEWS EXCHANGE LONDON BEloved in the Lord you have your desire and I have mine ease to betake me to a retired life in my crazy estate and manifold infirmities of age crept on me which makes it to me a disease and summoning to the Grave God enable me that patience in me may have the perfect worke and furnish you all with all his graces that shall have their continuation in glory This is my hearty prayer to which God vouchsafe a blessed Ratification For Preaching once yours For Praying ever yours JOHN GRANT aged 67. THE SHEPHEARDS farewell to his beloved FLOCK of S. B. E. L. PHIL. 4. ver. 4. to 8. Rejoyce in the Lord alway and againe I say Rejoyce Let your Moderation be knowne to all men The Lord is at hand Be carefull for nothing but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made knowne to God And the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus IN this present evill world the dearest of God's Saints are often militant in a warfaring condition often and whiles here they are alwayes itinerant in a wayfaring condition alwayes They have Enemies enough and strangers are they unto all that are not right to Heaven-wards that are open sinners or but pretended Saints They are hated by many and not owned by the most persecuted by not a few deserted in their extreame wants almost by every one by all sure in whose hearts Christ dwelleth not by faith a So this Apostolicall exhortation is needfull for their consolation that they take none offence at the Crosse of Christ but that they closely buckle themselves to be with him crucified and soundly animated peremptorily to deny their owne selves to take up their owne crosse daily and so chearfully and undantedly to follow Christ b even unto death and in death to be his couragious and most constant Followers I called this Text an Exhortation I may fitly call it a chaine of Exhortations of sutable and seasonable Exhortations and all of them closed up in a pithy apprecation The first Exhortation is to the perpetuity of Rejoycing the next to the moderate behaving a mans selfe in all occurrences The last to a dependency upon God amidst the throngs of whatever cares the world presseth us withall and enforceth continually upon us to make us forgetfull of our God We are thus to the perpetuity of rejoycing by our holy Apostle exhorted and the Exhortation to worke us seriously unto it is redoubled Rejoyce in the Lord alwaies and againe I say Rejoyce The againe and againe rejoycing is the Christian rejoycing the rejoycing it is in the Lord Worldlings rejoycings are in their vanities ever with vexations accompanied mad rejoycings are they ever ending in horrour I have said of laughter it is mad and of mirth what doth it c Mad laughter and prophane mirth doth it knoweth not what Christs woe is thereon Woe unto you that now laugh for yee shall mourne and weep d Extremum gaudij luctus occupat all rejoycing out of Christ is wound up in mourning and that mourning shall have no ending nor shall any of the teares thereof be put up into the Lords bottels The right rejoycing that shall be an evermore rejoycing is the rejoycing in the Lord That our names are written in the book of Life is the very life of rejoycing e All other rejoycing is but madnesse it is groundlesse altogether it knoweth not what it doth it doth what it cannot know that it shall have Gods approbation nay if it reflect upon Gods revealings cannot but know that reprobation will thereof be the dismall conclusion But the Christian rejoycing is an evermore rejoycing Rejoyce evermore is our Apostles expression f In the hope of the glory of God is their rejoycing that have in their hearts this assurance by faith that their names are in the records of Heaven indelibly registred In the hope of the glory of God is their rejoycing g And not onely so the Apostle addes further in the three annexed verses but we the rejoycers in the Lord glory in tribulations not onely rejoyce but even glory in them as knowing that tribulation worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the holy Ghost which is given unto us You here may cleerly see the wide difference now betweene the rejoycings of sinners and of Saints of prophane worldlings and of religious Christians The one is deceitfull vanishing perishing and in perdition enwrapping the other fixed eternall happy making and so continuing in those in whom it takes place being in prosperity and adversity still the same Plenties swell it not up neither wants cast it downe calme times never make it forgetfull of God nor tumults deterre them from the constant service of God in whom God works it by the Ministers of his owne appointing This rejoycing in the Lord alway this againe and again rejoycing is the joy in the holy Ghost it is that gladsome that sweet that comfortable motion of the heart by the Spirit of Adoption stirred up in the elect Servants and Saints of God upon the feeling of Gods love to them-wards in Jesus Christ as the forerunner and assurer of the life eternally happy Both in earthly and spirituall blessings have we the tokens of Gods love to us-wards in Christ especially in the spirituall The Kingdome of God is righteousnesse and peace and joy in the holy Ghost writes our Apostle h When Christs joy remains in us our joy becomes the Full joy i It is the joy unspeakable the glorious joy so by Saint Peter stiled k and fitly because of Heavens Kingdome it is a maine part With all joy and peace through beleeving are the elected and selected ones of God filled * A very Heaven is in their consciences and a constellation is there of all vertues and graces beamed from the Father of Lights in his Irradiations upon them This Saint Paul apprecaâ—es to the Romans and I in his words to you The God of Hope fill you with all joy and peace in beleeving that yee may abound in Hope through the power of the holy Ghost l This were a fit bough alwayes to be
chirping on but our Text is a Tree of many boughs and branches and gladly bird-like would I be upon them all in this one Houre To the next then doe I swiftly betake me and that is Moderation Let your Moderation be knowne to all men Christian moderation is the bridler in of our affections and the bounder of our passions throughout our conversation among men of all ranks and humours The self-willed are the perpetuall disturbers of themselves and others even of all within their reach they will doe no right they will endure no wrong but the soberly moderate and wel-tempered Christian so ballanceth himselfe that he carrieth every thing even and in all occurrences keeps him so neere as possibly he can in a stare of Aequality To neither hand swerves he but alwayes steadily behaves himself never at at any time giddily in all manner affaires extremity hurries not him on but Aequity povseth and guideth him never is he rigidly strict to presse on others what is unmeet but ever watchfull to keep his feet from running into injurious wayes and courses and his hands from wrongfull doings upon whatever occasions or urgencies Right Christians accommodate themselves unto one another by way of concord wheras discord even in things triviall maketh wounds and keeps them open by rigorous austerity and very niceties not of conscience onely but even of credit That of Abraham the Father of the faithfull is quite forgotten in these riged and rugged times Saith he to Lot the elder to the younger the Unkle to his Nephew Let there be no strife I pray thee betweene me and thee nor between my Heard-men and thy Heard-men for we are Brethren m When strife is not heeded soone and speedily moderated a Gangrene makes it uncurable and nothing but rooting out and cutting off will be the issue a bloody issue till the one or the other party even bleed to death and not seldome both there is no stay Stories are fraught with such relations and it were wel that we seriously and closely studied them that we in the same kind become not a Tragick-history to the times ensuing ours We are Brethren is a strong argument to breake off discords and in the closest bonds of concord to be reunited Nearnesse in blood presseth the duty upon us nearnesse in the faith of Religion and in the religiousnesse of faith farre much more Look we on the Vocation wherewith we are called that of Christianity a right worthy Vocation and be it our care yea and our conscience to walk worthy thereof we have it from Apostolicall Intreaty and Injunction n and it were well we hearted what is by him there subjoyned Be your walking that is your Christian behaviour and converse in the world in all lowlinesse and meeknesse with long-suffering forbearing one another in love endeavouring to keep unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace There is one body and one spirit even as yee are called in one hope of your calling There is one Lord one Faith one Baptisme one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in us all And the close of the Chapter is sutable hereunto and home to the poynt we are on in our Text the expression of our Moderation o Let all bitternesse and wrath and anger and clamour and evill speaking be put away from you with all malice and be ye kind one to another tender-hearted forgiving one another even as God for Christs sake hath forgiven you And note here with me that the Apostle saith not bluntly be ye moderate but let your moderation be knowne so evident that it may be undeniably apparent knowne evident apparent to men to all men to all men that have eyes and wils to see it and judgements to conceive of it as it is When we are moderate not for Vain-glory but for Gods glory not to be pointed at for such but to be such indeed not to be admired of others but to build them up to Heaven-wards by our example in right ingenity and Dove-like simplicity is that which our Apostle laboureth to worke us unto and that of our Saviour likewise drives it home p Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in Heaven Which passage of our Saviour by that of his Apostle Saint Peter is set forth to the very life q Dearly beloved I beseech you as Strangers and Pilgrims abstaine from fleshly lusts which warre against the soule having your conversation honest among the Gentiles that whereas they speake against you as evill doers they may by your good works which they shall behold glorifie God in the day of Visitation Pliny the younger Proconsul under Trajane the Emperour of Christians the fierce persecutor observing the Moderation of the Christians then in all their demeanours and lightsome behaviour in the darksome world recommended them for such to that Emperour and it turned his enraged fiercenesse against them into an order taken for their indemnity and security amidst the maliciously bent against them When a mans wayes doe please the Lord he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him r And this leads us by the hand to that which followes in the Text as annexed with this Exhortation The Lord is at hand At hand the Lord God is as being every where at all times present at hand the Lord is by the assistance of his grace to bring his choyce ones in Christ out of all the endangerments they are in by the sinfulnesse and weaknesse in their nature corrupted At hand the Lord is in the course of his judgements to help them to right that suffer wrong and in his last judgement to render unto every man according to that he hath done in his body unpartially Our onely present help in whatever troubles is the Lord our God At hand he is to rescue us out of our intricate dangers at hand he is to extract us out of whatever plunges at hand he is to pull us out of the hels and horrours of our various sinnes and entangling perplexities by sealing unto our beleeving soules the pardons by Christs blood sealed and ratified by the Spirit of his promise Let not the Epicures Perepoteticks Stoicks of the times work their poysons into our hearts the former Epicures deny the providence of God and to the wheelings of Fortune ascribe the events of all the affaires in the world The middlemost Peripatecians Aristotles close Adherents Admirers and Adorers are in their Universalities God with them is no minder of particulars The last Stoicks bind God so unto causes secondary that by fatall necessity all things come to passe and that nothing is by divine providence ordered Besides these the world hath a rabble of vainly superstitious conceiting God after their owne fancies not as he hath in his Word revealed himselfe to us namely a God at hand and not a farre off to the moderators of themselves
him And this Testimony of mine owne conscience on it selfe seriously reflecting is to me as thousands of Witnesses God so deale with my soule as I have been faithfull to you-wards in the whole course of my Ministery among you for the solid good of your soules And now my prayer is for you that the peace of God may settle in you onely that peace is the peace surpassing a peace that hath no bounds no termination no expiration The peace it is the onely peace that passeth all understanding The World conceives the Godly to have no peace but the godly know that the wicked World hath none no not when it is at the quietest we have it from him that had it immediately from God Isaiah that Prophet Evangelicall or propheticall Evangelist There is no peace saith my God to the wicked and in that one Prophet we find it twice recorded b And he addes this comparison to set it forth to the very full Sea-like the wicked cannot rest when any winds trouble them their waters cast up mire and dirt and with their fulsomnesse and noysomnesse not a corner is there anywhere that stinks not of them yet even in their disturbances a peace there is in godly consciences a peace passing the capacity of worldly mens understandings a setled and a setling peace And no mervail for it keepeth their hearts and minds through Christ Jesus Listen unto the legacy of Christs bequeathing The Hearts keeper it is and the minds keeper and both in the right temper of un-disturbed tranquility Peace I leave with you my peace I give unto you not as the world giveth give I unto you let not your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid c The peace of the world is like the world fickle now on soone againe quite off ever giddy never steady The children of men are deceitfull upon the weights light as vanity yea then vanity it selfe lighter d And wise Salomon the Sonne of religious David proves throughout his Ecclesiastes that book of proofes by him experienced But the Peace of God through Jesus Christ or that peace we have bequeathed us from Christ is such a peace which as the world cannot give us so it cannot take the same from us Our Peace-maker is the securer of the peace we have from him our hearts and minds are in safe custody thereby Out of Satans reach they are and above the malice of every satanically-minded and handed wretch yea and tongued too in both sexes We may have our good names by slanderousnesse blemished our estates by the violence of plunder ruined our temporary lives by the bloodinesse of war or by any manner of disease pestilentiall or otherwise taken from us but the peace made between the God of faithfulnesse and our beleeving souls is altogether unbereavable Hel gates cannot there be prevalent where Gods pardon and peace are entred and where in the blood of Christ beleevers are sealed by the spirit of Christ to the day of full Redemption I shall now referre you to the present close perusall and to the practicall use whiles you have a day on earth to live of that 91 Psalm It begins thus He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty and it thus concludes he shall call upon me and I will answer him with long life will I satisfie him and shew him my salvation Here and in the rest of that Psalm is the peace of God displayed a peace passing the understanding of naturall men as not at all therewith acquainted a peace keeping the hearts and minds of the regenerate in an heavenly temper and filling them with joy unspeakable full of glory e The Kingdom of God is righteousnesse peace and joy in the holy Ghost f And our Saviour tels us that this Kingdom is within us g A Kingdom it is that comes not with observation loe it is here or loe 〈…〉 there is but frivolous discourse for behold the Kingdom of God is within you it consisteth as formerly you heard from St. Paul in righteousnesse peace joy in the holy Ghost all within all in the hearts of beleevers When Jesus Christ dwels in the heart by faith as Saint Paul averreth he doth h every Beleever knoweth it there is rejoycing in the Lord there is the unstinted expression of Moderation there is the assurance of the Lords assissance there is a casting on God the care of our welfare in a perpetuated laying downe of our requests before him in prayer supplication thanksgiving and there the peace of God which passeth all understanding keeps through Jesus Christ the hearts and minds of Christians I hope what I have at this time delivered is generally understood and my prayer is that it may particularly be derived into practise If with this resolution you approach the Lords Table my hope is and my prayer seconds it that you will hence-forward prove thriving Christians that you will grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ i Not to goe forward in Religion is to goe backward is to pull downe what formerly we have built up is to end in the flesh although we have begun in the spirit And from any such course the Lord divert us all and make our wils plyable to his will in all things to his glory in our salvation The Lord evermore blesse you and evermore keep you all the Lord make his face to shine perpetually upon you all unto you all to all your posterity be unstintedly gracious the Lord lift up his countenance upon you all give you al his peace that passeth all understanding to the keeping of all your hearts and minds in all integrity through Jesus Christ the Righteous to whom with thee O Father the holy Ghost from you both our comforter three Persons one very God bâ—â—ll glory to all eternity Amen FINIS a Eph. 3. 17. b Luk. 9. 23. c Eccles. 2. 2 d Luk. 6. 25. e Luk. 10. 20 f Thes. 5. 16. g Rom. 5. 2. h Ro. 14. 17. i Joh. 15. 11. k 1 Pet. 1. 8. * Ro. 15. 13. l Ro. 15. 13. m Gen. 13. 8 n Eph. 4. 1. o ver. 31. 32. p Mat. 5. 16. q 1 Pet. 2. 11. 12. r Prov. 16. 7. Å¿ 2 Cor. 7. 11 t Mat. 6. 34. u 1 Pet. 1. 7. x Ps. 145. 18. y Mat. 7. 78. b chap. 48. 22 57. 21. c Joh. 14. 27 d Psal. 62. 9. e 1 Pet. 1. 8. f Ro. 14. 17. g Luk. 12 11. h Ephes. 3. 17. i 2 Pet. 3. 18.