unto the ends of the world For thus only could Nebuchadnezzar be brought to this knowledge Dan. 4.33 And thus by feeling that hand of God which they refuse to see let all thine enemies be forced to acknowledge thee And thou O blessed Jesus bruise them with a Rod of Iron and break them to pieces like a Potters vessel because they have said That thou shalt not rule over them General Rules It appeareth from this that it is not the worship which God requireth which is forced from them by compulsion with an unwilling mind as that of the Israelites in the wilderness Ps 78.34 When he slew them they sought him The Rules which will shew us how to worship God acceptably are 1. That we pray read meditate and perform the like services to God from this belief That we cannot spend our time in any worldly affair so well or so much for our Profit Joy Comfort Delight and Satisfaction as in this or that duty 2. That we give our Alms with this belief that it is the best way of improvement of our wealth and therefore do it freely to such as you can never expect any return from them but from God only 3. That upon these accounts we perform our services to God with all our might These three prove our cheerfulness and willingness 4. That we perform them constantly and early 5. That we perform them invisibly to man not expecting any reward from men nor a good word 6. That we pride not our selves in our services and dispise others with a stand off I am holier than thou but count our selves unprofitable servants and desire that our very best services be cleansed purified perfumed and accepted only through the merits and mediation of Christ Jesus and confess that we can offer him nothing but that which is his own for he gives both the will and the deed that is good and puts his Spirit into us and causeth us to walk in his statutes and confess also that we have need of Christ Jesus as our High Priest to bear the iniquities of our holy things 7. That in all our services which we perform we seek principally the glory of God Thus we see that most of the petitions of the Lord's Prayer are and by thus doing we give proof that we are God's children for they seek God's glory though it be with the spoliation of their own glory as David dancing before the Ark. And the glorious Angels worship and fall down before God casting their Crowns at his feet Apoc. 4.10 8. That we faint not in our mind nor be weary but work out our salvation with fear and trembling 9. That we prepare our selves for holy duties Of Prayer THIS being the first Duty which we learn in our tender age and the first in our daily practice whether it be because that the sense of our own needs and wants driveth us to seek our supplies and succours from the omnipotent being that we thus begin the day or from the nature of man which being yet undefiled with the corruptions of ill examples followes its own Instinct and inclination and is therefore easily taught this practice or else takes it in its minority or whether it be that all do teach their infants this part of divine worship first as most necessary or that they are best capable of So it is that this is the first in order of practice and eminent for its Vertue if it be rightly performed and of most frequent use It will be therefore proper enough to begin with a Regulation of my self in this particular Which that I may do I will consider 1. The manner and circumstances And 2. The matter of prayer And 3. motives to excite my self to it The various manners of prayer are to be found in the Psalms of David And in those prayers which we read in scripture made by our blessed Saviour the Saints however it will not a little avail thee O my soul so set down those particulars which shall come to thy thoughts as well concerning the inward manner as the outward The inward is particularly expressed in Eph. 6.18 praying alwayes with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit Watching c. In the Spirit must be the manner for though Watching fasting and all other outward manners be had if this be wanting only it is but a lame or blind Sacrifice Because as it is said Rom. 8.26 We know not what to pray for as we ought Though we have the first fruits of the Spirit ib. v. 34. But we have help for our infirmities from the assistance of the Spirit And it maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered v. 27. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit because he maketh intercession for the Saints according to the will of God When thou art such in thy prayers to God and puttest up such petitions with intention sighing and groaning of Spirit and not extention of voice thou knowest by whose assistance it is and that thou art accepted therefore crave it of God And though thou findest disability in thy self or an indisposition because the flesh cannot keep pace with the Spirit thou wilt find the intercession of the Spirit in thy heatr unutterable be not therefore discouraged or dejected because thou canst not pray vocally for those prayers that are not expressed are as powerful with God as theirs that are well expressed when thou findest in thy self a desire to draw nigh to God do it though thou wantest words As the fire from Heaven consumed Elias Sacrifice so look up to Heaven and crave Gods assistance and thou mayest find such inlargement in the duty to put up effectual fervent prayers in the Spirit whereby thou mayst take Heaven by force our lifting up of our hearts to God moveth him to bow his ear to us And having such an Almighty Helper what need we to fear infirmities let us trust to our Succours The Spirits Asistance consists in these particulars It excites holy desires which are pleasing to God and sometimes dictates them verbally sometimes without words and expressions The Spirit of Grace causeth a Christian to beg for Spiritual blessings comforts and injoyments and to desire to long breath and pant after them uncessantly It causeth fervency of Spirit firing our affections with holy Zeal for Spiritual gifts and Graces injoyments and satisfactions helpes and improvements and keeps up those holy flames which it kindles So that it preserves us from looking back with Lots wife from drowsiness slightness in performing duties and from faintings tipified by Jacob wrestling with God it unites our hearts to God and helps us against discurrency of thoughts which naturally we are subject unto Unless we are carried on in the duty by an apprehension of Spiritual enjoyments It drives away fears and doubts which are subject to arise from guilt and supplieth us with a holy confidence and child-like desposition ingenuity and assurance and freely opens
our minds to make known our requests to him whereby we can call God Father Gal. c. 4 v. 6. because ye are Sons he hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your heart whereby ye call him Father therefore as oft as we find our Souls thus let us wrastle it out with God till we get the blessing and desir'd grace Men that want the Spirit of God have these three dispositions Slavishness Mercenariness and Sensuality They pray out of fear and in doubt of acceptance and when they have their desires their Prayers cease unless they be customary and formal Prayers and they crave but sensual things The Spirit also supplyeth a Christian with holy ends and represseth carnal ends so that in all our requests we seek the glory of God as it is sought in all the petitions in the Lords Prayer in such the largeness of our desires doth not hinder the obtaining of them but furthereth rather for he hath commanded open thy mouth wide and hath promise to fill it The larger the desires the more pleasing to God and the more like to speed for the more of the Spirit is in them There is no colour then why any should neglect this duty upon pretence of having the Spirit for the Apostles and Disciples of our Lord continued in Prayer and breaking of Bread after they had received the spirit for God is to be found met with in those ordinances as he saith he walketh in the midsts of the Golden Candlesticks And the Spirit is to be sought in these for the best of Saints have need of seeking it in a greater measure and for continual supplies and watering every moment which they obtain in and by their communion with God in this duty But the more we have of the Spirit the more we ought to be conversant in this Duty because we are furnished with ability and for not using our Talents they may be taken away and by using they are improved And the more effectual and fervent they will be by this that they are more spiritual Much less may we neglect prayer if we think we have not the Spirit for we pray for it And this circumstance of fasting and watching is sometimes joined with this duty to the end our prayers may be more spiritual I mean a Fast from a meal that none may perceive not a Fast of 40 days nor exchange of Flesh for Fish Fasting doth as much promote it as the contrary doth let and hinder it though possibly we may use the same expression full as fasting yet they who have tryed know the advantage which this gives above that to the fervency and earnestness and the holiness of our desires and prayers and to repentance and sorrow for our sins And our Saviour tells his Disciples of a sort of Devils which could not be cast out but by fasting and prayer And Mark 9. Cornelius thus prayed and thus Daniel Dan. c. 9. both with good success David also humbled himself with fasting for they knew well that words of course as a Sacrifice that costs nothing is nothing worth And unless we thus pray in the Spirit it appears we cannot please God for the prayer cannot otherwise be holy and for such things as are pleasing to God for who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean Although we ought to pray in this manner yet nevertheless ought we not to neglect the duty though we cannot perceive the assistance of the Spirit for God feedeth the young Ravens that call upon him If they can call upon him no man can pretend a disability And David in the 107 Psalm sheweth how people that are plagued for their wickedness because they rebell'd against the Lord and contemned the counsel of the most high v. 11 and 17. Yet crying unto the Lord in their trouble he deliveretd them out of their distress Though these prayers were extorted from them in their extremities when their soul abhorr'd all manner of Meat and they were even at Deaths door And when they were at their wits end and ready to perish through their hunger and thirst and bondage which for their sins they suffered yet in their extremities they cry to God whom they had sinned against and he delivereth them These were not such prayers as are put up by the Spirit for such relief even nature though degenerated can easily pray but the dictates of the Spirit are spiritual yet in regard the heart and lip go together those are prevalent much more if prayed in faith If God heareth such prayers and thou thy self hast obtained thy Requests for these or the like benefits and temporal deliverances thou mayest then be emboldened and encouraged to ask and continue praying for all thou lackest as David expresseth Psal 116. I am well pleased that the Lord hath heard the voice of my prayer therefore will I call upon him as long as I live And if thou hast been heard for things temporal thou needest not to despair or doubt when thou prayest for those things which are pleasing to God which he hath commanded thee to ask and Jesus Christ also hath commended to thee to seek and promised to procure Not but that a Child of God may and must by Faith and by the Spirit ask the things of this life for our blessed Saviour teacheth us to pray for our daily bread he pray'd Father if it be possible let this Cup pass from me yet not my will but thy will be done This submission made that prayer which was natural to be spiritual although he prayed for that which he knew was impossible And since God in his mercy hath given his peculiar people many promises of temporal blessings they may and must ask them in faith in such order as Jesus Christ hath appointed viz. seeking the Kingdom of God and the righteousness thereof first and with modesty and such other circumstances as hereafter is express'd and God will grant our requests as far as is for our good But that which is sure to prevail is the holy appetite that planteth Hungers and Thirsts after righteousness for to that is the promise annexed and blessing too Matth. 5.6 Isa 55.1 Ho every one that thirsteth come ye Isa 44.3 I will pour water upon him that is thirsty The desires of such shall be satisfied though not utter'd with full expressions nor strength of Lungs as Prayers learn'd may be Importunity which our Saviour Christ so much presseth is comprehended under this of praying in the Spirit for he taught nothing but what was spiritual And his practice too proves it to be the operation of the Spirit that makes us importunate in Prayer for when he prayed he was frequently in agonies and prayed most earnestly It reproves those that mind other things when they pray how shall God mind their prayers what he teacheth and urgeth for this is in Luke 18. where he sheweth that for our importunities sake we are hear'd of God and argueth that we ought always
anger malice revenge covetousness lust concupiscence or the like and mourning over it humbly intreat him to succour relieve help heal cleanse wash purge and purify them by the renewing of the Spirit Or else as he answer'd St. Paul praying against the Thorn in his flesh he will supply them with grace sufficient for them From these promises we may see the reason why our blessed Saviour in that form of Prayer teacheth us to pray in the plural number our and us for this includes our selves and our fellow-members of the mystical body of Christ some whereof are but Babes or Children in religion and cannot pray for themselves as not having received so great measure of the Spirit so that they have need of our Prayers and our charity including them doth not hinder our requests for our selves but rather promotes them We see also why sometimes they pray more particularly but for themselves as the Apostle Paul did against his particular malady and burthen which he groaned under And so David did pray against his own particular sins and sufferings Deliver me from bloody-guiltiness Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity and quicken me in thy Law Incline my heart to thy Testimonies and not to covetousness c. For which particular graces we may upon occasion pray in the behalf of others according to that precept of the Apostle If any man see his Brother sin a sin which is not unto Death he shall pray for him and it shall be forgiven him Likewise may we pray for the deliverance of them from their afflictions and perils which they lie under as the Apostle Paul desires the Saints to whom he wrote to pray for his deliverance for nature dictates these prayers for our selves but grace for others that are our Brethren in Christ The Hope of speeding is that which incourageth and excites with strength and courage in every undertaking we go about If we seek of God in prayer the things which are according to his will those gifts and graces and Improvements which he hath promised to give those things which he hath invited us to ask or commanded us to ask those that our Saviour and his Apostles have taught us to ask those which the experience of other Saints and servants of God proves to be acceptable and proper requests those graces which we are commanded to have those degrees of grace and those means which we are commanded to use and those spiritual joys and injoyments which we long for and cannot be happy without why should we doubt of our success or why should we not expect a quick Return Let us then apply our selves to seek out those things As the original of all graces we first are taught by our Saviour to pray to God to give us the Holy Spirit And he that obtains this obtains also the fruits of it Love joy peace meekness gentleness patience c. And all graces whatsoever for as the Lord taught us our whole duty in one word viz. Love so here he teacheth us in one word the sum of all we need to pray for for although we pray for many things yet the sum of all spiritual things is contained in this And if we seek the spiritual gifts and graces which is signified in that expression Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness the other things shall be added unto us without seeking In this also is summed up all that we ought to pray against viz. all our spiritual enemies the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life and every thing that Satan overcomes the sons of men withal This general is branched into six petitions in the Lords prayer for by the Spirit of God in us we are made holy the Temples of the Lord and are made capable to sanctify Gods holy name the love of God is spread abroad in our hearts Gods law is written in our hearts and put in our inward parts By the Mission of the holy Spirit into us we all know him and know his Judgments and do them the Kingdoms of the World become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ Righteousness will run down as a River and holiness to the Lord shall be writ upon us and all our comon things every pot in Jerusalem shall be like the bouls before the Altar And Jesus Christ shall have the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession when these and the like promises are fulfill'd And the earth shall be full of the knowledg of the Lord so that we pray implicity for these promises when we pray these petitions in the Lords prayer likewise when we pray Thy will be done we pray for the Spirit to enable us to do it and we pray to God for the fulfilling of those promises of the New Covenant which relate to it viz. That God will be our God and we shall be his people that we shall run and not be weary walk and not faint mount up with wings like an Eagle and renew our strength like an Eagle that we shall be a willing people So in the other petitions Namely that for remission of sins we cannot be assured of it nor have peace of conscience but by the operation of the Holy Ghost in our hearts by faith exciting in us unfeigned sorrow for those sins wherewith we have grieved it and working in us a stedfast resolution and purpose never to commit the like again Also when we pray against Temptations it is intended that we crave this aid by the assistance of Gods Holy Spirit to escape them for thereby we are made sufficient and able to fly them or to overcome them and to be more than conquerors so that no Spiritual weapon formed against us shall proper And if God gives us his holy Spirit we obtain also the other petitions namely to be delivered from evil and to enjoy food and raiment and all the necessaries of life for these are inseparably contained in the priviledges of the Saints For God is a Wall of fire round about them bread shall be given them and their water shall be sure so that petition also is by reason of the promise contained in that of asking the holy Spirit The rather for this that all other promises of the New Covenant are implyed in this This notwithstanding we find the Saints and Servants of God praying in other words and formes and by the Spirit too Whose Assistance I humbly crave for my further progress in these meditations Certainly when the Holy Spirit assists us in prayer it doth not only inable us to say or pray in a perscribed form but dictates the words and things prayed for according to the necessities of the person praying and prayed for Although we are not under the law but under grace that being dead wherein we were held that we should henceforth serve God in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the latter Yet must we pray against all
power to the faint and to them which have no might he increaseth strength They that wait upon the Lord shall renew thâ—ir strength Isa 40.29 30. The God of Peace shall sanctifie you throughout in spirit soul and body Faithful is he who hath called you who also will do it 1 Thes 5.23 â—4 Sin shall not have dominion over you Rom. 6.14 A new heart will I give you Ezek. 36.26 But it would seem tedious to run through all the sins which humane nature is prone to and to adapt the promises in holy Scripture to particular sins and lusts under which we labour and desire to be eased I therefore pursue it no further the rather because the precedent instances are easily imitated by those who read and meditate in the Scripture which all they do who desire to break off their sins by repentance This Direction I conceive to be necessary viz. That those who come to crave a promise of God do also consider the qualification and in the first place seek that else the promise belongeth not to thee For example if in thy trouble thou prayest that all things may work together for thy good pray also that he would circumcise thy heart and cause thee to love him with all thy heart And pray for this in the first place for the other will follow upon it This is according to God's own direction Seek first the Kingdom of God and the Righteousness thereof all other things shall be thrown in to you And in this manner we are to put in suit all the promises We must look upon the promised blessing as the invitation and incouragement to seek the grace that is the qualification and he who prayes for the grace implicitely and most strongly prayes for the promise annexed And there is no grace but hath a promised reward annexed a cup of cold water given in charity shall not lose its reward or but two mites where little is Then we must believe that no good works shall lose its reward And there is no blessedness promised to any but those who are qualified with this or that grace as may be seen in the 5th of St. Matthews Gospel and in other like places And he that seeks godliness seeks all the promises of this life and that which is to come as incident thereto therefore seek this first For many that have the qualifications of these promises and blessedness are yet in doubt whether they are sufficiently qualified and think that they ought to be better qualified for them and desire to be better qualified as well for their own joy and comfort as also that they may be more excellent and lovely in the eye of their Lord and beloved Saviour And grace wherever it is begets a holy thirst for a greater measure and will still thirst till it enjoy the highest perfection of degrees in glory Therefore they pray chiefly for grace and the improvement of every grace in themselves and others according to that Col. 1.8 9. Since the day we heard of it viz. Their love in the spirit mentioned in the 8th verse we cease not to pray for you and to desire that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding And chap. 4.12 That ye may stand perfect and compleat in all the will of God Phil. 1.11 And be filled with the fruits of righteousness c. And for the Blessings Rewards and Promises which God hath made and limited to those who have these graces and qualifications No man that prayeth for them in the behalf of those that are qualified can doubt of prevailing as when we pray Psal 7.4 Let all those that seek thee rejoyce Psal 40.16 Psal 33.22 Let thy mercy O Lord be upon us according as we hope in thee Psal 25.21 Let integrity and uprightness preserve me for I wait on thee and the like Because we oftener find these blessings and rewards positively asserted to be the portion and peculiar priviledges of those that seek God call upon him love him delight in him trust in him rely upon him have their mind stayed on him hope in him fear him and wait upon him Then we have found them particularly prayed for in the behalf of them who are so qualified Yet we do well to pray for them as well for our selves as for the whole Church of God Now in regard there be many promises free and without any condition on our part it behoves us when we fear that we are not qualified for a promise that we press God with those promises which are free as that I will love them freely Hos 14.4 I will pardon their iniquities I will heal them Hos 14.5 I will pour out my Spirit upon them Joel 2.28 I will put my Laws in their hearts and write them in their inward parts Jer. 31.33 I will be merciful to them and their sins and their iniqnities will I remember no more Jer. 31.34 He will subdue our iniquities and cast our sins into the bottom of the Sea Mich. 7.19 I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake and I will not remember thy sins Isa 43.25 I will put my fear in their hearts Jer. 32.40 A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you Ezek. 36.26 Psal He will teach sinners in the way Isa 32.4 The heart of the rash shall understand Isa 42.7 He shall open the eyes of the blind Isa 44.3 I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground These and many others are promised upon very little or no consideration to be performed on our part As some are for asking seeking coming to God looking up to him If we had the sagacity of the Canaanitish woman we should perceive a door of hope through a little cranny For God will be sometimes prevailed with for a very petty consideration performed from a sincere heart because he knoweth our frailty This David well knew when he prayed Let the liseing up of my hand be as an evening Sacrifice So did the woman that brought two mites to inrich the Treasury And the Thief upon the Cross Also there are promises which are meerly free and grounded upon the privation and want of all consideration on our parts as that Therefore will the Lord wait to be gracious And at other times the Lord will not be prevailed withal but with great intreaty and importunity of prayer and fasting and alms-giving As we read our blessed Saviour told the Disciples in the case of dispossessing unclean spirits And Cornelius also with his prayers used fasting and alms much But sometimes the Lord will not be prevailed with at all as he said to the Prophet Though Noah Daniel and Job should entreat c. Therefore he commands him not to pray for that people and though Moses and Samuel should intercede Jer. 15.1 As it is said in the first chapter of Proverbs Because when I called
crucified to us and we unto the world that is as well the lusts of the flesh the lusts of the eyes and the pride of life which containes all that is in the world all which the faithful soul counts but dross and dung for the excellency of the knowledg of Christ Jesus whom as the Spouse in the Canticles she esteemes fairer than ten thousand And esteemes sin the most ugly vile eformed and abominable thing in the world pulling off its mask and vizard whereby it deceives the men of the world as it is said Rom. 7.10 Sin deceived me and thereby slew me The understanding thus inlightened ingageth all it can against sin as its enemy and sometimes by vigilancy it prevailes against all assaults of temptations whereby sin is quite excluded from entring and sometimes by flying the occasions of sin as Joseph fled from his Mistress and by the Spirit assistance we mortify the flesh God and Christ susporting Sometimes by prayer faith prevailes against the tempter the soul fearing its own weakness seeks for help of him who is able to succour and hath succoured it The last refuge which faith hath is repentance early and hearty sorrow for the sin committed as Peter when he had denied his Lord and Master immediately he went forth and wept bitterly By these means faith quenches all the fiery darts of the wicked The light of nature teacheth that the soul is borne to more noble things than to wait upon the pleasure of the senses But the supernatural life which the Apostle lived when he said I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me Shews another inabling principle of life in the regenerate proceeding from that union which is betwixt Christ and his members because Christ and they are one Spirit 1 Cor. 6.10 Therefore he saith Not I because he is not the same man he was before that man is Crucified with Christ and buried with him he hath derived a new life from Christ as he expresseth I laboured more abundantly than all yet not I but Christ Christ is the spring of it the matter of it and end of it Consider the end of your conversation Jesus Christ and if Christ live in us we shall do think and speak as he did As all other graces of Gods children are sometimes weaker than they are at other times so is faith But thâ— decay of this grace is the cause of decay of many others and sometime the decay of others may cause a decay of this the Psal 51. Entituled a Psalme of David when Nathan the Prophet came unto him after he had gone in to Bathsheba the Title and the Psalme it self shew what sins and what punishments he lay under and because his sins were the cause of the loss of Gods Spirit or of the danger of it and of the loss of the joy of his salvation viz. His assurance he confesseth his sins first and prays for pardon through the multitude of Gods tender mercys then prays for washing healing cleansing and renovation Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right Spirit within me It followes Restore unto me the joy of thy Salvation and support me with thy free Spirit This implieth that before he had it but now he had lost it and was deprived of it which was the cause of so great grief to him that he expresseth it to be the breaking of his bones Make me to hear joy and gladness that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoyce And the like doth every penitent broken soul feel in himself when he fears the loss of Gods holy Spirit and feels himself deprived of the joy of his salvation and this joy when it is restored is so great that it will make the broken bones rejoyce he apprehended the greatness of the joy now in the loss of it Psal I have roared for the very disquietness of my heart God deprives us of it for our sins that we may be the more careful to preserve it and fearful by sin to loose it or hazard it and to work out our Salvation with fear and trembling for though Gods lays not upon his children all that they deserve yet they shall not go unpunished Judgment shall begin at the house of God Jer. 22.24 Though Coniah the Son of Jehojakim King of Juda were the signet upon my right hand yet would I pluck thee thence Now for as much as the motions workings of the holy Spirit in the faithful people of God by inlightning them in the understanding of heavenly truths bringing to mind and applying the word of God to their comfort inabling them to converse and walk with God in holy Meditation contemplation prayer and thanksgiving making melody in their hearts to the Lord delighting them and rejoycing them in the want of all things as the Prophet Habakkuk expresseth chap. 3. Though the Fig Tree should not blossom nor fruits be in the vines c. And making them to abound with inward joy when their afflictions do most abound slighting and contemning alike both worldly joy and sorrow for the joy which they have in the Lord these are the study imployment and business of a regenerate person wherein he desires to be alwaies exercised because he cannot find satisfaction nor delight in any thing else hence he may be more truly and properly said to live by faith and by the Spirit than to live the life natural as St. Paul argues he did when he saith I am crucified with Christ yet I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life which I now live I live by the faith of the Son of God who hath loved me and given himself for me Therefore they are as it were out of their lives and void of all injoyment and comfort when they want the comforts and assistance of the Holy Spirit as Holy David did greatly resent the absence of it and fear lest it should be taken from him and that he should be cast away so do most of Gods people Isa 49.14 Sion said The Lord hath forsaken me and my God hath forgotten me Though God had graven her in the palms of his hands When God hides his face and withdraws himself they are cast down as Psal I said in my prosperity I should never be cast down but thou hidest thy face and I was troubled This withdrawing of God was the very bitterest of our Saviours sufferings If this should be our condition let us not be weary of well doing but wait on the Lord for God hath said Isa 49. That he that waits on the Lord shall be like an Eagle And consider that Christ Jesus suffered the like and therefore hath a fellow feeling of our suffering that he might succour us who are tempted But if Christ doth not succour us our heart cannot indure our hands cannot be strong in the days that God shall thus deal with us as it is Ezek. 22. v. 14. But he hath bid us to call upon him
the end and means What little pleasure delight or satisfaction doth he take in his business that never thinks of it but when he is doing it or prepares not for it Certainly that work is but a burthen to him and is performed of necessity only not freely and cheerfully of love or liking but God will have his servants to delight in him Psal 37. Delight thy self in the Lord. I sate under his shadow with delight God loveth a chearful giver And the Sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to him how much more when he giveth it with an evil mind Whatever we do unto him we must do it heartily I delight to do thy will O God yea thy Law is my hope Ps 1.2 His delight is in the Law of the Lord. What Art or Science can be attained what proficience can be made in any humane study without meditating and ruminating weighing and considering discussing and digesting in the mind every thing and term of Art So he that doth desire to be a proficient in the School of Christ as a good Disciple must attain it by study and must consider weigh examine and compare spiritual things with spiritual For example therefore consider that great proficient that obtained so great and honourable an Epethite as to be called The man after God's own heart how often doth he inculcate this very thing upon himself and others in the Book of Psalms from the beginning to the end In the first Psalm v. 2. he describes the blessed man thus His delight is in the Law of the Lord and in his Law will he exercise himself day and night And this he avers of his own practice Psal 63. Have I not meditated of thee on my bed and thought upon thee when I was waking And Psal 119. O how I love thy Law All the day long is my study therein Sometimes his meditation is of God's works as in Psal 8. I will consider the Heavens the works of thy hands And he affirms That he will meditate of all his wondrous works And sometime he is meditating of his Precepts Psal 18. And gives the reason of his so doing Psal 119. All his delight is therein They are the joy of his heart sweeter to him than the Honey or the Honey-comb He had chosen them and loved them exceedingly And he esteemed them above all manner of Riches above all treasure of gold or precious stones and above his necessary food Having so great a value of them and knowing the worth of them it must follow that he loved them with delight and that brings the other frequent thinking of them and that brings the heart to a holy frame and disposition and keeps it so This is that which Solomon presseth Keep thy heart with all diligence And above all things keep thy heart For if we do pray for a clean heart Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me Yet original corruption of nature drawn from the loins of our first Parents is such that like a running sore though it be wiped clean yet still sends forth putrifaction therefore hath continual need of spiritual medicaments to heal it and keep it in health and suppress and purge away peccant humours which medicaments the Spirit by the word operates in those who seek them If then our nature is corrupted and degenerate and abominably wicked and is prone to follow corrupt principles and hardly restrained from them as every mans experience tells him Let him that hath tasted the heavenly gift and the power of the world to come if he like to retain the relish of it let him ruminate upon it keep it under his tongue as Job speaks of the wicked of their delight in sin If like water that is heated which soon will become cold again our affections to heavenly things soon grown dull and decay we must bring them again to that fire which first warmed them or if we can not to let this fire go out as the fire upon the Altar did not For in all duties of Religion perseverance is enjoyn'd and upon this very ground as that duty of prayer Continuing instant in prayer 1 Thes 5. Rejoyce evermore pray without ceasing Matth. Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation This assiduity doth not only shut the door against vain and evil thoughts motions and imaginations lusts and temptations but also keeps in the good and virtuous resolutions and radicates them Therefore seek the Lord while he may be found seek his face evermore if thou have found him How little treasure have I in Heaven if my heart be not there often by holy meditation but if I am assured of my interest there I shall sollace my self with that in all conditions as the Athenian in Horace sollaced himself with his chests full of money which he contemplated so heavenly souls for whom those heavenly mansions are prepared and the Crown of Life that never fadeth they keep their hearts from sinking and sollace themselves in their distresses by the hope that they have of their eternal salvation This allays the bitterness of their affliction and so great it is and wonderful that the heart of man cannot conceive it But if we have an interest in them yet if we do not meditate of it what are we the better for it therefore with Moses have an eye to the recompence of reward And this makes it out that we have chosen God for our portion As love is the principle of all Religion and Duty which gives the life and heat to them without which they are but mercenary dull and formal without power because faith doth work by love The Spouse Cant. 2. is sick of love All the reciprocal society of the Spouse and her Beloved is Love So this practice of holy Meditation proceeds from Love Psal 119. O how love I thy Law all the day long do I meditate therein Psal 63. Have I not meditated of thee on my bed c. Consequently the meditation of and of upon our beloved object is our greatest enjoyment and happiness if our affections be rightly placed this proves that the speculative life is most pleasant All our graces are kept alive all our virtues strengthened all our good resolutions put in execution by this means And by the want and neglect of this they all slip out of our minds are weakned decay and dye and the contrary invade us as we read in 1 chap. to the Romans of those that God had given up to all wickedness they liked not to retain God in their thoughts or knowledge therefore God gave them up Psal 28. They regard not in their minds the works of the Lord c. therefore we often find illiterate persons who can discourse of most points of Religion better more knowingly soundly and more readily than the learned which comes to pass meerly by the help of Meditation which these practice and the others neglect David Psal 92.5 meditating of the wonderous works of
us cleanse us heal us pardon us to turn his face from our sins and blot out our misdeeds according to the multitude of his mercy Then though for the present they are ever in our sight terrifying and troubling us we shall in due time know that they are pardoned and that the blood of Christ hath cleansed us from them all and that we are reconciled in him and he will heal us and we shall again be restored to the joy of our salvation and praise his Name in his Courts and renew our vowes and be stablished with his free Spirit Most of the Psalms contain prayers for some graces and may stand us in stead for our use and serve for our direction If we are rash or chollerick by nature and subject to wrath and revenge and have fallen thereby or fear we shall fall We cannot be enough sensible of our danger in this particular because we must expect hourly temptations and how far our wrath and choller may carry us we know not especially if we should chance to meet with others as chollerik and rash as our selves if we do not alwaies pray to God to help us in and deliver us from this temptation as it is for the most part in all the sins of our complexion or inclination very difficult to stand against them at all if God do not stand by us and strengthen us and support us and if we forget our selves and do not hang upon him for help call upon him trust in him and fear and distrust our selves These will alwaies be buffetting us He that is sensible of his weakness in this particular and his danger and mourns by reason thereof desiring to be delivered from it seeks help by reading meditation conference and this means of prayer which must also be joyned to the other besides the use of natural means too For so we find the Apostle Paul using them for he saith of himself I keep under my body We strive and run as in a Race So fight I not as one that beateth the Air. In labours often in sastings often c. For hereby we both shew to God and man our burthen that we groan under and desires to be delivered from it if we use all these means to get our deliverance But on the contrary how little desire to be delivered from wrath or lust doth he express who seeds himself to the full drinks wine in bouls pampers his body with high feeding and drinking which are the fewel of these fires or how doth he seek humility of God who delights himself in actions of vain-glory and the applause of men and seeks honour of men by bravery revenge vain ostentation high looks a lofty gate pomp prodigality and the like Certainly those sins which by nature we are most inclined to these by natural helps and adjuments we must oppose not cherish and foster by incitements and allurements The wise Agur accordingly prayed against the means of sin and the occasions against the means and occasions of fulness and want If we so well knew our own proneness to these mother sins as he did and were so wise as he was we would pray as he did to be delivered from the means and occasions of sins This is contained in that Petition Lead us not into temptation In like sort praying for any grace or improvement of a grace we must use the means both spiritual and natural and pray for them and the occasions of them as mortification sobriety watchfulness c. Hence we are taught to pray to God to send us Pastors who shall feed his people with knowledge And because this is a necessary means of grace God hath promised it and by the promise we are invited to ask it Suitably we find David praying Psal 119.12 Teach me thy Statutes v. 18. Open thou mine eyes that I may see the wondrous things of thy Law v. 26. I have acknowledged my waies and thou heardest me O teach me thy Statutes Make me to understand the way of thy Commandments Make me to delight in the thing that pleaseth thee More especially in this specified sin of wrath and revenge if thou labourest under it desiring to be delivered from it and the evils and dangers attending it thou ponderest and meditatest of those Texts of Scripture which reprove and repress it as is that Vengeance is mine and I will repay it saith the Lord. Let not the Sun go down in your wrath Leave thy gift upon the Altar and go and be reconciled and then offer thy gift Prov. It is the wisdom of a man to pass by an offence Anger resteth in the bosom of fools If when ye suffer wrongfully ye take it patiently happy are ye for the Spirit of grace and glory resteth upon you Thou shalt reap improvement of thy patience in a good measure by these meditations And by subduing thy body and withdrawing from it superfluities especially such as more naturally excite this humour in thy body and by careful watching against the first beginning of wrath And then if thou add to these this last remedy viz. Prayer beseeching God through Jesus Christ who is made unto us wisdom righteousness sanctisication and redemption to make us so wise as to pass by offences for his sake and to take from us that folly of anger that as fury is not him so it be not in us neither who are his children who doth good to all that we may be like him in this and that by our slowness to anger and by our patient bearing of wrongs and our meekness and submission to God if it be his will that we shall suffer wrongfully we may perceive and know that the Spirit of grace and glory rests upon us and in that rejoyce Then we may be assured that we shall obtain the victory over these lusts and messengers of Satan and be able to do good for evil to love our enemies to bless them that curse us to pray for those that despightfully use us and so run the waies of Jesus Christ's Commandments and take up his yoak I say we may be assured of obtaining these excellent graces by these meanes because God hath promised it in the prohesie of Isa c. 32. The heart of the rash shall understand knowledg The Lion shall lye down with the Lamb c. 29.4 Certainly the change of the heart and renovation in knowledg and understanding is the chief thing in our Quickning and vivification in the Spirit and in every grace this God having often undertaken and promised As in that promise That he will take away the heart of stone and give his people a heart of flesh And that he will give them a New heart that he will put his Lawes in their hearts and write them in their inward parts We may assure our selves that he will do it If we supplicate him in faith in Jesus Christ And use our own endeavours with the meanes And if we do obtain this so that we can savour the
What perfection then can any man pretend to in any grace so great as not to need continual prayer to God to support him water and strengthen him with his grace and holy Spirit lest he fall David protests his delight was in Gods Commandments Psal 119. v. 39. And yet he there prayeth v. 35. Make me to go in the paths of thy Commandments Incline my heart to thy Testimonies In regard the people of God do esteem grace a thing infinitely desirable and sin infinitely detestable and formidable therefore they think they have not enough of any grace till they can do Gods will on earth as it is done in Heaven And think they are in danger of falling because they have seen great Saints sometimes to fall into dreadful sins Therefore pray to be kept from all sorts of sins Keep me from presumptuous sins said holy David and they think they can never fear them enough or fly them enough nor pray against them enough The wickedest of men will pray for remission of sins but they seldom pray for healing them and renewing their hearts that they may be inclined to Gods Commandments that they may be a holy people and that God would fulful his promises of grace in them to put his Spirit in them and to write his Laws in their inward parts It is cursory with common swarers upon their oaths to say immediately God forgive me and presently swear again This shews no repentance nor sorrow for sin nor desire of amendment it rather begs license to offend with impunity what other thing do those who make their daily confession to their Priests and Friers of such sins which they have committed and intend to commit again upon the first opportunity and never think of repentance or amendment to pray for it themselves or to desire others to pray for them prophane Esan shall rise up in judgment against them But do thou pray to be deliver'd from thy offences Psal 39.9 That God would create in thee a clean heart and establish thee with his Spirit Psal 51. And that God would open thine eyes that thou mayest see the wonderful things of his Law and that he would teach thee his Statutes and make thee to go in the paths of his Commandments and the like and then thou wilt be sure of pardon and sanctifying grace Psal 119. and peace of conscience and that thou hast fellowship with God the Father and Jesus Christ his Son 1 Joh. 1.3 And thy joy shall be full v. 4. ib. Because thou abidest in him walking as he walked though not so perfect We must also pray for these graces with a full purpose and resolution of endeavouring our selves to the utmost in the use of the means for attaining them otherwise our Prayers are but only said as Children are taught to say a Prayer It is but lip labour to draw nigh to God with our lips when our hearts are far from him And those who pray for any grace which God hath promised and resolve not to use their own endeavours for the attaining it do not pray in faith because they separate the Commandments from the promises For he that hath promised to give them to us hath also commanded us to get them and to labour for them to strive for them to sell all for them And yet to continue instant in Prayer for them too that he would bless our endeavours and give us the desired grace for Jesus Christs sake in and by whom only thou canst hope to prevail We must also be sensible of our own need which we have of these graces which we seek or else we shall not be servent in Prayer For instance if thou prayest to God to fulfil that promise that he will tread Satan under thy seet thou must be sensible of this that he doth in some temptations get some ground of thee more or less for which thou art grieved and countest it thy unhappiness It may be thou perceivest thy self to have been more angry than became a patient man or that thou hast spoke more than thou didst perfectly know of thine own knowledg or else hast through the bad example or importunity of thy company drunk one Cup too much or hast had uncharitable thoughts or been tempted to any sin Thou art therefore grieved that Satan hath found any thing in thee to work upon and dost desire so much strength as to shake him off resolutely and readily at thy will and pleasure as Joseph shook off his Mistress if God will be pleased to grant it according to this promise and many more to the same estect Thou must also be sensible of the great advantage and benefit which the grace desired will bring If thus thou canst pray thou mayest be sure to speed whatever promised grace thou desirest whatever degree of grace any Saint of God hath had thou mayest have it for asking if thou ask in faith The patience of Job the chastity of Joseph the zeal of David the Justice of Lot the righteousness of Noah the meekness of Moses the faith of Abraham and Peter the charity of St. John the temperance of the three Children and love of God whereby they gave their bodies to be burned for him c. For God hath promised that the weak shall be as the house of David and the house of David as God It is not my scope to enumerate all those promises of grace which God hath made it is every mans great concern to know them and crave them of God as their portion which Jesus Christ hath purchased with his blood for them and to live upon them and lay hold on them Those general promises which God hath made to his Church and People if thou canst not clearly entitle thy self in particular thou mayest notwithstanding pray in the behalf of the Church and shalt not fear to speed Those promises which tend to the ruine of the enemies of the Church and God's enemies are every mans concern to pray for and though he be weak in faith that he can hardly lay hold of them yet if he pray for them that God may be glorified he doth well and may assure himself that he shall succeed because he seeks it for God's glory For the promises of destroying sin and Satan and his works and treading him under foot is God's own interest as well as ours And God is more ready to do it than we to ask it therefore we can never doubt of the granting of these petitions Now most of the promises of the New Covenant which are to express what God will do for his people are of this nature either what God will do against their enemies or for them And being they were freely made they may we hope be freely performed if we seek them These are briefly contained in the four last petitions of the Lord's Prayer and if we can find faith to believe that we shall receive these we shall easily find faith to believe that God will do the
and hourly Begger at the Throne of grace for the Spirit of grace And I will never cease begging because thou hast shewed thy selfe more free to give than we to ask or receive and hast made such free invitations and offers to all that will come to thee or ask of thee And I am resolved to take no denial because I come upon thy importunate invitations If I should take a denial or go away without my errand I should seem to doubt of the verity and truth of thy promises and free and gracious invitations therefore I will never leave knocking till thou openest unto me But at evening and at morning and at noon day and also at midnight will I knock till thou pleasest to open unto me and relieve my needs 3 Preparatory Ejaculation 2 Chron. 16.3 Lord when ever Jsrael in their troubles did turn to thee thou wert found of them And thou promisest that thou wilt be found of them that seek thee we seek thee now and resolve to seek thy face evermore be thou found of us and be with us Lord since thou art open hearted handed why should we be close mouthed 4 Preparatory Ejaculution Lord since thou givest both the will and the deed that is good And we can have nothing to offer thee but what is thine own provide now O Lord a Sacrifice for thy self and put heavenly desires and affections into our hearts by thy holy Spirits assistance that we may seek those things which thou hast freely invited us to ask and art willing and desirous to give And then our prayers shall ascend up to thee as incence and the lifting up of our hands and hearts shall be as a Sacrifice do thou prepare our hearts and thine eare will harken thereto And thou O blessed Jesus perfume these our prayers and intercede for us 5 Preparatory Ejaculation Lord we have experienced how forward our natural parents are to succour and help their craving little ones they will often over-do their abilities in their kindness and they do only wait for opportunities to do them good as far as they are able But thy goodness infinitely surpasseth that of Humane Nature How then can we doubt but thou wilt hear and help us in all our needs when we fly unto thee for succour and take the opportunity to do for us above all we can ask and think for so thou hast heard some of thy Servants We are resolved to ask as largely as we can for all Spiritual gifts and graces because thou hast bid us to open our mouthes wide and thou wilt fill them it is they will that we should ask and receive that our joy may be full it is our interest and our inclination too so to do for our natural relief Incline thou our hearts to be as hungry and thirsty covetous and greedy for grace and the relief of our souls as ever we were for the relief of our bodies in our greatest distresses when pined for hunger or thirst for such thou delightest to releive 6 Preparatory Ejaculation Lord let us not think to offer thee such services as cost us nothing or the worst of our flock as Cain did or as those that draw nigh to thee with their lips when their hart goeth after their covetousness Lest thou shouldest bid us to go and offer them to our governour and see whether he will accept them but let us serve the with the first the best and perfectest as Abel did Lord why didst thou proclaim thy name merciful and gracious long suffering and abundant in goodness Why hast thou made so many gracious promises and invitations to us but to envite us to come unto the for releif A Prayer LOrd remember thy new Covenant and give us all those graces which thou hast freely promised to us thereby First love us freely Then give us the man Christ Jesus whom thou hast given for a Covenant to the people with him give us thy Spirit put it into our hearts let it dwell in us and cause us to walk in thy Statutes and to know thy Judgments and do them for it is this unction that teacheth us all things and inables us to do every good work when of our selves we can neither think nor do good And give us all the graces of thy Spirit Love Joy Peace Meekness Gentleness Brotherly kindness and Charity and then we shall know and be sure that thou hast put thy Spirit into us if we feel no Envy Lust Pride Wrath Malice Covetousness or Prophaneness stirring in our hearts And according to thy Covenant of Grace give us a new heart and put thy Laws in our hearts and write them in our inward parts and be thou our God and make us thy people and take away our unmalleable heart of stone Also make us all to know thee from the greatest to the least Let us also know Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent Let us know thee as our God alsufficient that we may trust in thee As our gracious Father that we may cast our care upon thee and delight in thee and love thee though thou chastise us As our Shepherd that we may not fear the Wolves that would devour us As our Husbandman that we may submit to thy pruning And give us also to know our selves to be thy people thy children thy sheep thy vine and all other relations wherein thou hast put us Let us know thee to be our portion and that by our seeking thee and chusing thee to be our portion and our selves to be thy portion too and thy Jewels And that by our pureness holiness preciousness and humility and littleness in our own eyes and by thy watching over us and keeping us Make us to know Christ Jesus as our King to give us Laws and govern us as our Priest to atone thy wrath for us and reconcile us to thee and persume our services and intercede for us as our Prophet to teach and instruct us in the knowledge of thee and thy will Let us know him as our Lord our Saviour our Brother our Husband our Beloved our Ransom our Bread of Life and Water of Life and as our Head our Corner-stone on which we are built as our Vine whereof we are branches as our Shepherd as our All. That we may be able to say Whom have we in Heaven but thee or whom in Earth that we can desire in comparison of thee That we may rejoyce in him alwaies And fulfil thou in us that promise that we shall be all taught of thee and shall need no more one anothers teaching Make us to hear that voice behind us saying This is the way walk ye in it Let us not stop our ears nor turn from it Give thy Son the Heathen for his Inheritance and the uttermost parts of the Earth for his Possession and those who will not submit to him let him bruise them with a Rod of Iron Make Jerusalem a praise Let Righteousness run down like a mighty River and let
priviledges which Jesus Christ hath purchased for us Give us more assurance of the pardon of our sins and our reconciliation to God and the joy thereof Give us the peace of conscience and the Peace of God which passeth all understanding Give us the Joy which is in the Holy Ghost which we enjoy in holy duties Let us taste and rellish these sweet enjoyments with more satisfaction and joy that the excesses of our souls may be in these enjoyments and we may keep them in our mouths and hide them under our tongues as we do sweet morsels And let the enjoyment of these carry us through all difficulties Give us more confidence in our accesses to the Throne of Grace and a belief that thou art more ready to give than we to ask for thy fulness is more full than our emptiness is wanting Thy fatherly care to provide for us is more faithful and careful to do it than we to seek it though we are resolved to be alwaies begging and craving because we know we shall alwaies be wanting in this life and we will not lose our desires and thy bountiful gifts for want of asking The cause which moved thee to make such gracious invitations to us and such great and precious promises of grace and mercy was only in thy self for thou invitest the thirsty to buy Wine and Wilk without mony or price What then is there that we can buy it with that is neither mony nor price it can be nothing but to exchange our thirst for the thing which we thirst for to relieve it to open our mouths Therefore as the cause which moved thee to make these invitations and promises was in thy self Lord seek in thy self the cause which may move thee to perform them The qualifications of thirst want and need we have and shall have as long as we have any life But if we be dead in trespasses and sins quicken thou us because thou only canst do it by thy holy Spirit In the assurance of thy free mercy then whereof thou by thy free promises hast convinced us and by the performance of the chiefest of them hast fully satisfied us inable us to assure our souls of thy readiness and willingness to hear and help us through the merits of Christ Jesus and in assurance thereof to come boldly and with confidence to the Throne of Grace And give us sure evidence of our interest in all other priviledges That our joy may be full assure us that our place of defence is the munition of Rocks That bread be given us and our water shall be sure Bless us and make us a blessing Let showers of blessings come down upon thy people Give us to lay hold of Christ for only Wisdom our only sufficient Righteousness our Sanctification and Redemption Tread Satan under our feet that we may bruise his head as often as he goeth about to sting our heel Destroy his works Let the Spirit of the Lord set up his standard against him And let not Antichrist any more deceive the Nations but destroy thou him and the Whore which is drunk with the blood of Saints Succour those that are tempted Be with thy people in the fiery Tryal that is to come upon all the world to try them as thou wast with Joseph in the prison Lord let not our sins stand as a cloud to hinder these our prayers from ascending to thee or cause thee to turn away thine ear For though they are so many that we scarce know how to confess them yet thou hast pardoned as great sinners as we when they turned unto thee and it is usual with thee to seek thy lost sheep and to receive thy returning Prodigals Lord thy free promises and importunate invitations by thy self and thy Son give us this boldness of access to thee for thereby we are assured that thou art more desirous to give than we to receive Hear us therefore through the merits of thy Beloved Son our Eternal High Priest in whom only we hope to prevail with thee in whom thy Promises are Yea and Amen And accept us in him who hath purchased this Access for us in whom we trust that he now intercedeth for us whilst we are praying to thee And that he persumes and presents these our supplications at the Throne of Grace To whom with Thee and thy blessed Spirit of Grace be all honour praise and glory Eternally Amen Enter not into Judgment with us O Lord for our best services for in thy sight shall no flesh living be justified A shorter Prayer for daily use LOrd draw nigh unto me now that I draw nigh unto thee for thy promise sake for thy mercy sake and for Christ Jesus sake And assist me with thy Spirit that I may pray unto thee in the Spirit and in Faith believing that thou art more ready to give than we to ask or receive thy graces and thy mercies Lord relieve me according to all my needs and according to thy infinite goodness and according to thy gracious promises and invitations Relieve my spiritual blindness with that eye-salve which thou hast invited the blind to come unto thee for Relieve my spiritual nakedness with that fine white linnen which thou hast invited the naked to seek of thee and cloath me with humility patience temperance chastity and charity and every grace Relieve my spiritual poverty with that fine gold which will enrich our souls to eternity and make me rich in good works Relieve my spiritual hunger and thirst with the bread of life and the water of life so that I may never hunger or thirst after any thing else And make me more hungry and thirsty for thee and thy grace and more sensible of my needs Lord I pray not for my self alone but for me and mine and all the Israel of the Lord. Let my seed be a seed unto thee and all that shall come of them to the end of the world Remember the entail of thy blessings to us and to our seed for a thousand generations Let the Kingdoms of the world become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ Let holiness to the Lord be writ upon all our common things Make us all to know thee from the greatest to the least Let us need no more to teach one another saying Know the Lord. Let us all be taught of God and let us hear the sweet voice behind us saying This is the way walk ye in it when we turn to the right hand or to the left and make Jerusalem a praise Love us freely pardon us and heal us Subdue our iniquities and cast our sins into the bottom of the Sea that they may never rise up against us Give us new hearts Put thy Laws into our hearts and write them in our inward parts Be thou our God and make us thy people Put thy Spirit into us and cause us to walk in thy Statutes and to know thy Judgments and do them Cause us to love thee with
prone to all other sins As David's adultery made way for murther As the Heathen who liked not to retain God in their thoughts God gave them up to all uncleanness So it hardens the heart against repentance and blinds the mind that it cannot understand good from evil And finally that it loseth God's favour and all things that are worth desiring and makes us liable to endure all evils that are worthy to be feared and let these considerations work in me an antipathy to it And on the contrary that I may apprehend the excellency of holiness and the fear of the Lord which is the best of good things as sin is the worst of evils and as sin is the greatest folly and stupidity so holiness contrariwise is the greatest wisdom and to fear God and do thereafter is good understanding That the righteous is more excellent than his neighbour and they that are precious in God's eyes are honourable that it makes us like the Saints and like to Christ and like God to be perfect as God is perfect to be holy as he is holy That it is our security and ingages God to be a Sun of perpetual comfort and a shield of defence to us That if we do good none will harm us But to the wicked there is no peace And that it gains God's favour and all those things that are worth desiring in this life And eternally Lord Let these considerations work in me a hunger and thirst after grace O give me to apprehend the terrour of the Lord that I may fear him accordingly to consider that thou gavest the Law with thunder and lightning that those that despised Moses Law died without mercy that I may fear to offend against the Gospel and the blood of Jesus Christ counting it unholy as all that are not sanctified by it do Let me apprehend the strictness of thy precept Thou hast commanded that we keep thy precepts diligently That we have covenanted in Baptism to do it and upon our repentance likewise and renewing of cur Covenant with thee and every thought of our hearts is under this Law Therefore that I may walk accordingly let me be diligent in all God's Ordinances which are both food and physick to the soul Let me use frequent prayer which will surely make me weary of sinning if sin doth not make me weary of praying And give me unweariedness and constancy in the duty of reading searching and meditating in the Scriptures Let me hide thy Word in my heart that I might not sin against thee Let the Word convey the Spirit into me since it is received by the hearing of faith and not by the works of the Law and let me often renew my Covenant with thee in the blood of Jesus Christ LORD since thou promisest a reward to him who overcomes Let me have grace to fight thy battels and let me not expect the reward till I have done thy service let me contemn the labour and the allurements that would divert me while I look upon the incouragement Though Satan offereth present rewards for sin and puts an edge upon the temptations and makes them suit my temper either in the things of the world or the flesh and my heart is ready to betray me within and my reason is ready to follow my appetite yet let my jealousy over my heart and my constant watchfulness prevail against them all through Christ Jesus by whom only we can overcome so powerful an adversary as Satan is who is unwearied in his temptations For we wrestle not against flesh and blood nor by flesh and blood but by Faith in Christ upon whom we rely for the victory Therefore give us the shield of faith Faith reflecting upon the glory to come and the love of Christ past who left Heaven for us that we might leave earth for him And let us know that we fight Christs battels an that he is our Captain and will succour his that are tempted and we shall be able to do all things through him that strengthens us when we call upon him And fighting thy battels and overcoming thy enemies give me the promised reward of blessedness the white stone the sentence of absolution from the guilt of sin and the seal of thy favour to my soul whereby I shall taste the joys of Heaven which the men of the world apprehend not THAT I may fear to sin let me weigh seriously the seeming pleasure and profit it offers with its losses it brings What profit have carnal pleasures satisfying the senses and the pleasing of the fancy the vain breath of mans applause unless I view Heaven and happiness as fables how can I neglect them for these base things or Satan and my own lusts beguiles me and deceive me for if I were indifferent in my Judgment I must needs contemne these poor bates as Solomon did after he had made tryal of them O Lord inlighten my understanding and rectify my Judgment and my depraved will and affections that I may not be cheated nor be willing to be deceived that I may not buy pleasure at so dear a rate being a lover of it more than of God who is blessed for ever let me not set so light by God and blessedness and Heaven and my true eternal interest teach me to fear the loss of my soul and the favour of God and the peace of conscience all which either early or late the sinner finds he loseth Give me that spiritual eye salve whereby I may discern the vizard and sucus of sin Teach me to consider all the seeming gainers by sin youthful persons who are in the strength and vigor of their age who make the most and the best of their pleasure of whose merry meetings the wise man hath said Their laughter is madness And the sins of their youth are the sorrows of their age when they cry out with Job Remember not the sins of my youth and thou makest me possess the sins of my youth or what gaine can the great ones of the earth boast of though they drink a greater draught of pleasures than other men who the more they seem to gain the more they lose they lose the peace of conscience and the favour of God and his blessings but if any gaine it is those who after sining are saved by repentance But these all their life after do complain of nothing but there sins and with great difficulty do recover their peace with God and their conscience for what likelihood is there that that should prove profitable to any that God doth forbid or would God gaine any profit by it if it were my loss to forbear it the Lord doth not envy us he that can afford us Heaven would he grudge us the pleasure of sin which the Devel will allow us can this be good for us that is against God is that like to be a mans good which deprives a man of internal peace and injoiment of himself and which every man either in
like manner forget thy mercys and require meat for our lusts we fear thy wrath will be kindled against us to destroy us but we trust that we have a greater than Moses Jesus Christ to turn away thy wrath by his offering up his life as a ransom for us and bearing the iniquities of us all Let my life be hid with Christ in God that when Christ who is our life shall appear we also may appear with him in Glory Lord let me remember how scarcely the righteous are saved and with what difficulty as it were by the gates of Hell how difficulty St. Paul keept his body under fearing lest while he preached to others himself should become a reprobate and give me that spiritual puissance and holy fortitude to bear my self undaunted with difficulties in the heavenly warfare O Lord God my afflictions are sometimes full of horror they seem to come from the same justice by which thou castest the wicked into Hell And they are to me like Hell whilst they so dismay and terrifie me and thou seemest to have forsaken me in my afflictions and temptations and I have no hope that thou wilt ever remove them but that thou hast sent them to confound me And I can hardly refrain from the expression of the wicked Cain That my afflictions are greater than I am able to bear And being at my wits end I am afraid that thou wilt not enable me to bear them and hast rejected me as thou didst Saul and hast taken thy holy Spirit from me and that thou art mine enemy I fear I am unreconciled to thee because I don't feel filial affections to thee when thou chastisest me neither do I say thou hast chastised me less then I deserve but I am ready to murmure and to have hard thoughts to think it more than I deserve because I think it greater than any other mans affliction also because I find thou hast been more ready to hear the prayers of others for deliverances than thou art to hear mine As that of Hanna when she was despised for barrenness she prayed to thee once and thou heardest her and her countenance was no more sad And at the third time thou answeredst Paul when he desired to be delivered from the thorn in the flesh and didst give him grace sufficient for the temptation But as for me I mourn being desolate and take no comfort night and day and thou regardest not But now that I consider that the man who was according to thine own heart when he had grieved the holy Spirit as I pray God I never more may do cryed out as I do The pains of Hell came about me the snares of death overtook me Take not thy holy Spirit rom me And again From my youth up thy terrors have I suffered with a troubled mind And a horrible trembling hath overwhelmed me And My confusion is daily before me and the shame of my face hath covered me I take it to be the portion of the Saints to be much afflicted and to go to Heaven by the gates of Hell O shew me Lord wherein I may enjoy my self and find satisfaction and content without remorse regret or subsequent sadness If it be in any action or contemplation of mine it must be in religious duties when I serve thee with a quiet undistracted well composed spirit and am sensible that I enjoy thy favour and approbation But certain I am that I could never enjoy my self so as not to be sensible of emptiness unprofitableness wearisomness unsatisfactoriness desire of change tediousness and vanity and vexation In all those things which the natural man can do think or speak or enjoy unless the Spirit directs me in them to spiritual ends to the honour and glory of God This therefore makes a clear conviction That the happiness of man and the end for which he was made is to glorify God in keeping his commandments with an upright heart And to love him with all the soul herein only can man find true joy content peace rest quiet satisfaction and injoyment for his soul Let me be always satisfied delighted and ravished with these joys let my soul be satisfied as with marrow and fatness when my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips let me sit under thy shadow with delight and let thy fruit be pleasant to my tast even thine only and let me be ravished with the joys of thy house let the breasts of thine ordinances satisfy me at all times let me be always ravished with thy love With joy let me draw water out of the wells of salvation and make me joyful in the house of prayer Let my soul thirst for thee and my flesh long after thee even as the â—art panteth after the water Brooks so let my soul long after thee my God Let my delight be in thee and in those rivers of pleasure that are at thy right hand for ever more Let me set me set my affections on things above where Christ Jesus sitteth at the right hand of God for ever and take of my affections from things below and my conversation and let it be above Let all my fresh springs be in thee at midnight let me rise and give thanks unto thee because of thy righteous judgments Let me be a companion of all them that fear thee and keep thy commandments Let me be assured of thy love to me by all thy spiritual and temporal mercys and means of grace and hope of glory And let me be assured of my reciprocal love to thee by my willing obedience to all thy commandments That I may know that my beloved is mine and I am his And if at any time thou hearest my prayer and grantest my request let me consecrate those things unto thee which I obtain by prayer as Hanna did her Son O Blessed Lord Jesus these sweet kisses are better than wine SINCE all who will live Godly must suffer persecution and it is said that if we suffer with him we shall also reign with him prepare fit and strengthen me to undergo all the troubles and afflictions of this day and of the whole course of my life which Satan and the wicked and ungodly men of the World shall contrive against me And let me expect every day afflictions for Christs sake and reproach and a cross and trouble in this World since our Hope is not in this World but is reserved for us in Heaven and in this World we are to be of all men most miserable therefore let me not expect beds of roses here but to go through many tribulations and a fiery trial patiently waiting for the time when the Lord shall tread down Satan under our feet And when the Lord shall avenge the blood of the souls that lye slain under the Altar crying for vengeance upon the inhabitance of the earth remembring that none of all these things shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus but we
joy unspeakable This priviledge and many other Christ Jesus hath purchased for and given to his people to oblige and endear them that they should be a willing people 2 Tim. 5.2 By whom we have access through faith unto this grace wherein we stand and rejoyce in the hope of the glory of God Ephes 3.12 In whom we have boldness and access with confidence to the Throne of grace Gal. 2. v. 20. The life which I now live I live by the faith in the Son of God He is the Author of our salvation and of all the priviledges we enjoy because to as many as receive him he gives the priviledge to become the Sons of God and that entiltes them to all priviledges Another Argument may be fetched a causis for as there are pleasures and comforts desires and enjoyments natural causing the joy natural so are there found pleasures comforts desires and enjoyments supernatural undependent separate and removed from the natural and had and injoyed meerly and only in the privation of those according to that of the Apostle when we have no comfort in the world then we have most in duty As having nothing yet possessing all things which joy is fully described by the Prophet Habakkuk c. 3. Though the Fig-tree should not blossom neither should fruits be in the Vines though the labour of the Olive should fail c. yet he would rejoyce in the Lord And it is promised by our blessed Lord and Saviour Joh. 10. My joy shall no man take from you Which the blessed Martyrs in the Epistle to the Hebrews found true when they took joyfully the spoiling of their goods and would not accept deliverance Christ calls it his joy partly because he is the Author of it and doth give it according as he promised and partly in opposition to the joys of the world which proceeds from worldly causes and because the world cannot take it away no more than it can give it for afflictions and persecutions cannot take it away therefore it is said Heb. 10. To you it is given to suffer that is with joy and patience and content for otherwise it were no gift Another argument to prove this priviledg is from the Identity of the principles of the new nature of the Regenerate man which is the Spirit These that are such are lead by the Spirit which is in them they live after the Spirit they are in the Spirit The Spirit of grace and of glory resteth upon them and being Spiritual they are delighted with and savour the things of the Spirit only Spiritus sanctus exhilerat sui participes he quickens and stirs up those graces that are in them and replenishes them with the dew of Heaven without which continual supply our graces would fail Zach. 4. The two Olive Trees emptied themselves by golden Pipes into the Lamps Mortification and Vivification and all graces are wrought in us by the Spirit John 4. The water that I shall give him shall be a well of water springing up to eternal life Rom. 8.22 If ye by the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live 1 Pet. 1.22 Since ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit being born again c. Both the Will and the Deed are from him helping our infirmities That which is their meat and drink which they hunger and thirst for and live upon their Pabulum Animarum must be so qualified as to refresh strengthen delight and comfort and so it doth This priviledge will be further made out by the effects thereof which the Heavenly soul doth injoy therefore it is proper to search out in what particulars the Holy Ghost doth rejoyce and make joyful the believing soul the particulars are contained under three heads First in their duties performed the Holy Spipit doth exhilerate the souls of the faithful people of God this head containeth both active and passive duties whereby they do exert and put forth their graces in doing and suffering the good will of God For duties well performed are their injoyments because they do find the assistance of the Holy Spirit inabling them in the performance of them when they find themselves insufficient and indisposed and this is matter of joy and comfort to them because they have performed by the Spirits assistance the work of prayer and praising God according to his will and they are confident that they shall enjoy that blessed priviledg which Christ hath purchased for them by his blood viz. confidence in their access to the Throne of Grace and assurance that they shall receive their petitions through the merit of his bloody passion and intercession And as every degree of sin if but a sinful or vain thought makes a child of God loath himself so every degree of holiness and every good thought yields him pleasure content and enjoyment Hereby they are encouraged and delighted to walk with God in holy Meditation and converversation So suffering with Christ also called by David loving correction is matter of joy If we suffer with him we know we shall also reign with him therefore they are willing to bear his reproach which they are enabled to do by the assistance of the Spirit in the time of their tryals he revives the spirit of the contrite ones Isa 57.15 A second head to which these particular acts may be referred is the sealing and ensuring the exceeding precious promises of the Gospel to them whereby they are enabled to live upon a promise by faith in him who made it and is able and willing to perform it to them that trust in him through the merits of Jesus Christ And they find themselves contented and willing to live upon the promise and to wait God's leisure for the time till it is accomplished and for the manner of the accomplishing thereof And these workings of the Spirit are all matter of joy and enjoyment to the soul to find them stirring in their hearts because they know it to be the Spirit By this they lay hold of the promises in the greatest latitude I will never leave thee nor forsake thee Whoso dwelleth under the defence of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty No good thing will he withhold from them that live a godly life They shall want no manner of thing that is good Call upon me in the time of trouble and I shall deliver thee and thou shalt praise me Psal 50.15 He will not be afraid of evil tydings Psal 107. No plague shall come nigh his dwelling Isa 54.17 No weapon formed against thee shall prosper c. And that all things shall work for their good but chiefly they lay hold on the promises of grace These consolations are alwaies bestowed upon God's suffering Servants and are most proper and suitable to that condition In the multitude of the sorrows that I had in my heart thy comforts refresht me The holy Ghost working in our hearts shew us our
produced must be good also and must proceed from that good principle viz. Faith without which it is impossible to please God but these good fruits are not proportionable to the goodness of his heart for he is sorry that they are no better blushing ever at their imperfections not boasting of them nor craving honour for them the end also must be good These qualifications the good works have They are described from their cause Gal. 5.22 The fruits of the Spirit are love joy peace meekness c. Rom. 6.22 described by their end these are fruits unto holiness Another difference is that some of those works are secret and invisible to Men such as are terminated in the action within as the secret risings of the heart against corruptions as was in St. Paul when he said That which I would I do not and groans for deliverance saying who shall deliver me from this bondage of corruption also secret longings after Christ and God and Holiness also dependency upon Christ and God inward mournings for sin c. 2. Such works as have opus ad extra as to shew forth a good Conversation True Holiness defined It is a grace supernatural infused by the Holy Spirit renewing us after the Image of him that made us whereby God is in us Christ is in us and the Holy Spirit is in us and we are in Christ by an inseparable Union and Communion of Natures 1 John 4.16 Gal. 2.20 and 4.19 1 John 4.13 'T is infused because of our selves we are not able to think a good thought and Christ saith That without him we can do nothing God worketh in us both to will and to do though he commands us to work out our own Salvation and the words following viz. with fear and trembling denote the weakness and disability of our selves and the ability which the command doth suppose is from Gods assistance we doing our endeavour our blessed Lord and Saviour compares it to leaven It is an Universal change of the whole Man If any one be in Christ he is a new Creature old things are passed away and all things become new It reneweth us after the Image of him that made us Both the inward Man and the outward are changed as Saul's heart was changed when he was anointed to be King so is every Saint changed by the Spirit of God that is in him and the understanding desires and thirsts after no knowledge but to know God and Jesus Christ and him Crucified because the understanding before was darkned and alienated from the Life of God through the Ignorance that was in it But now it is enlightned and the darkness is passed away because the Light of the glorious Gospel of Christ which is the Image of God hath shined into it for the Gospel is Light and Jesus Christ is that Light that enlightens every one that cometh into the World by this it cometh to pass that the Soul knowerh that all Gods Commandments are True Righteous and Faithful that they are tryed to the utmost That it is Wisdom and Understanding to do thereafter It now puts a true estimate upon God and Christ Heaven and Grace and Glory This is that wise Merchant spoken of in the Gospel that having found a Pearl of exceeding great value in a Field sold all to buy that Field his knowledge is practical diligent and not slothful rests not in the inquisition but proceeds to the acquisition of its true everlasting interest through the knowledge of Jesus Christ as he is revealed in the Gospel Rom. 12.2 Be ye transformed in the renewing of your minds that ye may prove what is the good acceptable and perfest Will of God As the undestanding is changed so the affctions love hatred hope fear c. Are accordingly changed he that before counted the Sabboth weariness now he calleth it a delight He that before rejoyced in the increase of Corne Wine and Oyl and in satisfying the senses his joy now proceeds from higher and nobler causes viz. The light of Gods countenance communion with God in holy duties reading the word of God praying thanksgiveing meditating and the most severe duties of fasting humiliation and repentance and every meanes of begetting and improving grace he preserreth before satisfying of the senses with pleasant viands which whilest they cherish and delight the body they deprave the better part possibly not the intellect and rational faculty of the soul for that may be improved too by God usage of the body so it be not to excess But the new nature the divine Image which is begotten in us by the word of truth is starved stifled and grieved which image and new nature though it be in the understanding yet it doth so far surpass the reason as that doth the senses and is no other thing but the holy Spirit of God which every regenerate person hath received in some measure for this is that which did regenerate him which if any man have not it is certain he is none of his It is known to be the Spirit of God because it works not as reason doth by arguments deduced from things visible to sense nor such as can be proved by reasonable consequence but it is oftentimes directly opposite and repugnant to reason as in Abraham and so in all that undergo any trialls and who doth not undergo them This new soul or new life of the regenerate is not somented nourished or cherished by the elements of the natural sensual vegetative or meerly rational soul but by the word of God and the dictates of the Spirit for which it panteth as the Hart panteth after the water brooks and breaketh out for the very fervent desire that it hath alwaies to Gods commandments which it esteemeth above Gold and thirsteth after as the body doth for the necessarys of life and yet the most regegenerate and renewed person hath the flesh and coruption alwaies remaining in him and must and doth pray sometimes with holy David for renovation Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right Spirit within me Cast me not away from thy presence and take not thy holy Spirit from me For we have this treasure but in earthen vessels we are not assured of the continuance of it therefore we watch against our inbred corruptions and pray for divine supportations knowing our slippery standing our own weakness and the strength of our spiritual adversaries which assails us without intermission And when we think our selves most strong we may fall as the great Apostle that denied his Master did because in the best of Saints the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and sometimes leads them captive and suffers not to do the good which they would but draws them to the evil which they would not the law of the members warring against the law of the mind Were it otherwise there would be no virtue nor occasion of resisting The sense of which corruption and uncleanness makes them mourne bewaile and abhor themselves
by beneficence and bounty and wonderful deliverances wherein his hand and almighty power onely could help us appears by Psal 10â— Which recites the wonders which God wrought for the Israelites in Egypt Whereby he delivered them from that thraldom and afterwards brought them to the promised land that flowed with Milk and Hony The end of all which is expressed in the last ver That they might keep his statutes and observe his laws When God bestowes such great mercies upon us as astonish our understanding as he did to them they were like men that dream when they were deliverd from Captivity when he delivereth us miraculously just then when we are at the very brink of destruction when the knife is at our throats or like brands pulled out of the fire so are we rescued and sometimes we are so rescued from the precipice of Hell before we are consumed it is no cause that may induce us to think that we are better than others or that it is for our own righteousness sake God forwarneth the Israelites from such misconceptions and that caution seemeth to imply that we are prone of our selves to such delusions God commands them when they bring their offering to say A Syrian ready to perish was my Father c. But the cause that moved God was from himself because of his love and favour which he had to them his goodness only was the efficient cause and the final cause his own glory and so it is of all our deliverances that we being delivered should serve him in holiness and righteousness before him all the daies of our lives Sutable thereto is the practice of Gods Servants for they ascribe them not to their own merit but reflect upon their own unworthiness that they may ascribe the more to Gods free goodness and mercy saying with David What am I and what is my Fathers house that thou shouldst do such great things for me Psal 116.9 And Psal 8. Lord what is man that thou art mindful of him or the Son of man that thou visitest him And St. Paul admiers Gods mercy to him who he saith Was the least of the Apostles and not worthy to be called an Apostle Which humility of mind and sense of our own unworthiness kindles the flame of our holy love to God for all his goodness and excites our Zeal to do all we can for God And not only the mercies received are improved to inflame our affections to love God our great benefactor but the mercies also which we hope for and expect hereafter as in 2 of Sam. 7.19 David speaks to God Who am I O Lord and what is my house that thou hast brought me hitherto And this was yet a small thing in thy sight O Lord God but thou hast spoken also of thy Servants house for a great while to come and is this the manner of men O Lord God! Though men the more they have done the less we can expect from them yet with God every mercy is an earnest of a greater therefore he argued well that said The Lord delivered me from the Lyon and Bear and will deliver me from this uncircumcised Philistine So did St. Paul saying The Lord hath delivered me and will deliver me And this assurance and hope alone in the want of all outward comforts by the strength of faith was able to support holy Job for therefore he was a conquerer over all these fiery darts of Satan and was able to do and suffer the good will and pleasure of God because he believed that his redeemer lived and that he should see him at the last day A further improvement the heavenly soul makes of mercies to engage its love and affections to God in the consideration of the overplus which God in his great goodness and liberality bestowes upon us above our desires and requests as when Solomon asked wisdom God bestowed upon him riches and honour and when David asked life God gave him a long life even for ever and ever So Abraham asked a child and God gave him seed as the sand of the Sea And we know of our own experience how God hath exceeded our requests for many temporal blessings which for the present when we had received them seemed great to us and to a thankful heart they will alwaies seem so and have the same operation to affect the heart with burning love to so great a benefactor But much more that overplus of eternal happiness which the Saints believe they shall receive For eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither hath it entered into the heart of man what the Lord hath prepared for them that love him And as a Virgin beloved puts not an estimate upon the gifts of her Lover according to their meer value but according to the respect which she hath to his love whereof they are pledges so the heavenly soul also looks more upon the love and favour of God shewed in his mercies than upon the benefit it receives by them as David expresseth in the Psalmes Psal 63. saying Thy loving kindness is better than life it self Therefore saith the Spouse in the Cant. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth for his love is better then Wine Which holy love the soul delights in and by it all duties in religion and works of piety charity and mortification are made easy delightful and desirable and not burthensome And so love may be said to be the fulfilling of the law because God accepts the will of them that are carried by this principle And they likewise accept of all that comes from God as from his love whether it be affliction or prosperity because they believe that God will bring good out of evils and cause all things to work together for their good and will shew his love and faithfulness in delivering them and will give them their hearts desire if they delight themselves in the Lord. Psal 37.4 And injoy themselves in serving him call the Sabbath a delight and as the Spouse in the Cant. ch 1. Sit under his shadow with delight If they trust in him hope in him rely upon him stay themselves upon him All which duties and all others they can do in some degree through Christ that strengthens them from whom they have all their sufficiency whose Grace is sufficient for them though of themselves they can do nothing not think a good thought for his strength is perfected in their weakness and his Spirit helpeth their infirmity for instance in the duty of Prayer they will approach the Throne of Grace to pray and praise God though they feel in themselves dulness and indisposition because they have found assistance in former duties from Gods Spirit enabling them when they were as much indisposed as at present therefore they do hope for and expect the like again and therefore they go on assured as Abraham was that God will provide himself a Sacrifice A parallel instance is that which St. Paul experienced when the
temptations and snares of its spiritual enemy and its own frailty and inbred corruptions she bestirreth her self till she hath gotten strength to vanquish her spiritual enemy which having obtained she rejoyceth with joy unspeakable and glorious in Christ and is satisfied and enjoyeth her self more than in the things of pleasure or profit or any other worldly enjoyment and sings praises to God for giving such strength and assistance whereby it is able to overcome All which matters are the meditations of the gracious soul which seeks Gods face evermore And these be the means by which it endeavours to be prepared for every good work Although the gracious soul hath in a great measure conquered the corruptions of nature and is sure of its salvation and God doth say to it I am thy salvation yet is she not satisfied quiet at rest or contented unless she enjoy her Beloved in a close communion sollacing her self with him in reading his word praying and meditating of him and praising him The Spouse knew her Beloved was hers and she his but was not satisfied unless she might lay him all night as a bundle of myrrh between her breasts The enjoyment of his person the kisses of his mouth and his favours and new pledges of his love is that which satisfieth her The Flaggons and the Apples are the things which stay her and comfort her and she must and will have them and will not be satisfied without them because she is sick of love and as Lovers use to do so she museth and meditates in the night of the favours she hath received and also designs and contrives which way to obtain them again because she remembers them more than wine for they refreshed her more and were more sweet to her taste and for desire of these she is often melancholly though she be sure of her interest in him that her Beloved is hers as she was when she run seeking him about the City for his coming to her door at such an hour of the night and his sollicitations and addresses to be let in and the difficulties which he went through to come to her though the weather favoured not all shewed her love but this enflamed her love the more so that she would not be satisfied without the enjoyment of his person and all other favours that Lovers have to bestow and can desire She must sit under his shadow with delight and eat that fruit of his which is pleasant to her taste and be brought into his banquetting house and repose her self in his arms because she admires him in all things and in all his parts she sees such ravishing perfection that she will not enjoy her self at all unless she may see his countenance hear his voice or embrace him in her arms and in her bosom in which enjoyments she is fully taken up as well waking as sleeping for though she sleep her heart waketh This fire never goeth out but is alwaies burning upon her heart as that upon the Altar was which was the type of this and so must it also be with those who profess to be and are his servants and peculiar people And they shall also be endeared to Christ their Beloved and he will see all loveliness in them as his Spouse his Garden inclosed his Sister his Beloved his Friend he will delight frequently to come into into his Garden and gather his pleasant fruits flowers and spices drink of the wine of the Pomegranate pressed eat his honey-comb with his honey and he will be found of his Beloved in the duties of reading meditation prayer and the holy Supper which is his banquet which he giveth her But she gets many a kiss from him in fervent prayer and meditation And when she hath found him she will not let him go she holds him fast in her arms and hangs about him But if she is but in pursuit of him her heart is warmed with his love by such impressions as she will not loose till she enjoy him All which enjoyments of the heavenly soul are the operations of the holy Spirit and the graces of God working in the heart whose conversation is in Heaven by heavenly meditation of the things of God and keeping in those meditations which otherwise the world would justle out if she should not be as a garden enclosed as a fountain sealed that is as if he should say springing waters that admit nothing to pollute or defile them or to disturb or muddy them And the inclosure of this garden signifieth that fence of watchfulness in this duty whereby those things are kept out which would crop off those pleasant plants and rich spices there growing for the use service and delight of her Beloved and are for him preserved guarded and secured This duty is often enjoyned as a most necessary part of Divine Worship and pressed with very large promises and by the experience of all the Saints of God found to be the most available means for the avoiding of that sin which doth so easily beset us and for getting and improving of every grace For reading God's word without thus retaining God in their thoughts is little available no more is prayer for we find there be many who have frequently both read and heard it who still remain unconverted from the errours of their waies and do neither live upon it or by it nor endeavour to come up to it nor to be changed from what they are by nature nor retain it in the love of it So we see that there are many that fast and pray and preach too and yet are not cleansed from sin however they are pure in their own sight and say Stand off for I am holier than thou Wherefore the wise man exhorts to be swifter to hear rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools And a type of this was that ceremonial Law that those beasts that did not chew the cud should be unclean and not to be sacrificed And for want of this the word preached to men often slips out of their minds their worldly affairs that take up their thoughts give them no time to fasten the word in their hearts so as to take root and bring forth fruit but like the seed sowed on stony ground or thorny ground or that falls by the way it comes to no perfection Hence it is that the Lord commanded the Israelites Jos 1.8 Let not this Book of the Law depart out of thy mouth but meditate therein day and night that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous and then thou shalt have good success The Apostle Paul Phil. 4.8 and 9. saith Think on these things which ye have both learned and received and heard and seen in me and the God of peace shall be with you Psal 107.17 The loving kindness of the Lord endureth for ever to them which think upon his commandments to do them Isa 12.3 With joy shall ye draw
did not like love cherish and improve that corruption of Nature which was contracted by the fall of Adam But our blessed Saviour hath told us this truth Light is come into the world but this is the condemnation that men love darkness rather than Light because their works are evil If they affect Darkness they will improve it and the more evil their works are so much the more will they improve their darkness and endeavour to extinguish their light hate it and fly from it because it reproves them And they desire not the knowledge of the Most High because it makes against them and their designs and against their impudence and desperateness Besides which the Apostle sheweth another cause whereby this blindness is contracted viz. The God of this world hath blinded their eyes If they have chosen the God of this world to worship and serve him they must needs pull out their weak eyes which nature corrupted had contracted or suffer him to put them out Such terms as Nahash would have imposed upon the men of Jabesh Giliad 1 Sam. 11. From these two causes it proceeds that men who profess themselves wise and have excellent parts yet knowing him to be God they love him not nor like they to worship him nor to retain him in their thoughts but become vain in their thoughts and imaginations and harden their foolish heart The Lord will not by his Spirit alwaies strive with them but gives them up to their affected blindness and to serve such gods as they have chosen Their bellies and their lusts And he takes away his holy Spirit from them and that talent which he had given them And yet the gifts and graces of God are without repentance for they are changed and not God For seeing that neither the word of God which is the power and wisdom of God contained in the Gospel of our Blessed Lord and Saviour will convince them Nor yet his great and mighty works of the Creation of the world and the preservation thereof The hanging of the Earth upon nothing and the other wonderful works of God mentioned in the 25th of Joh nor the usefulness convenientness of the seasons of the year and the benefits which they themselves reap thereby is not by them considered Psal 19. Nor yet God's extraordinary providences when their mighty preparations of forces and Armies are defeated by silly and weak means as those of the Moabites were by Gideon Or when they are subdued and overthrown as it were by the Heavens as the Poet Claudian expressed it conjurati veniunt in classica venti yet they will not see God's hand but say Though the bricks are fallen down we will build with hewn stone Nay though the Lord doth destroy them by his Angels as in Isa 37. the Angel destroyed 185000. of Senacharib's Hoast they will not see God's hand Nor when an arrow shot at a venture shall find out and smite a disguised murtherer between the joints of his armour 1 Kings 22.33 yet others will not fear his justice nor see the hand of the Lord. What can the Lord do more Either he must give them up or put them to shame with further miracles And try whether Xerxes will fetter the Winds as wisely as he settered the Hellespont and chastise them also with stripes But the Sea did not for all that acknowledge any Allegiance to him more than ours did to the good King Canutus who tryed it but only to rebuke and disprove the flattery of some of his flattering Courtiers who vainly and prophanely called him God But neither those Gentiles spoken of Rom. 1. nor any of those Heathenish Atheists had that great Luminary to enlighten them which our modern Atheists have viz. the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ therefore as their light is greater so must their sin be and their condemnation too because they will not see his light who hath in his right hand seven Stars and his countenance is as the Sun shineth in his strength Apoc. 1. The God of this world hath various fallacies and deceits whereby he blinds and beguiles unstable souls and draws them to this In some he blinds their mind with pride as it is said in the Psalms The ungodly is so proud that he careth not for God neither is God in all his thoughts in the place before mentioned They said in the pride of their heart The bricks are fallen down but we will build with hewn stone Isa So we may read in the 37th of Isaiah of Senacharib's proud boastings and how he blasphemed the holy one of Israel and reproached the Lord 24 and 25 verses mention his boastings And 2 Chron. 32.13 and 14. Know ye not what I and my Fathers have done unto all the people of other lands Were the gods of those Nations able to deliver their lands out of my hands 14. That your god should be able to deliver you cut of my hand In this manner Alexander's proud and ambitious mind leading him first to thirst after the inlarging of his Territories left him by his Father and having conquered Athens and become a terrour to all Greece he was chosen their Captain General He then thirsted for the Empire of the world thereupon he went into Asia with his whole Army and overcame Lydia Ionia and Phrygia and every Country that lay in his way And at length engaging with Darius his innumerable Army and extraordinary preparations and Engines he overcome them and overrunning the Bactrians he extended his Dominion to the Indies And at length becomes transported with the greatness of his fortune and success and forgets God and assumes to himself Divine honours And as Alexander was transported and blinded with pride and ambition so are others by lust covetousness drunkenness gluttony vanity and other baits of Satan quite blinded and besotted and held captive by him at his will and are by insensible degrees drawn on further and further to cast off all fear of God and reverence to his worship The same who now after the Conquest obtained ascribes and assumeth to himself Divine honour and calls himself God and Jovis Hammonis filius He before the joyning of the battel would by no means omit to sacrifice to the gods of the place So Curtius saith Sacrificium Dis presidibus loci secit patrio more he was not then an Atheist nor yet a God The same causes may we assign to that Atheism of Caligula for how can we think of such folly and pride but that they were blinded and besotted with it when just then he had counterfeited the Thunder in his brazen Galleries made for that purpose upon a sudden clap of Thunder he run and hid himself under his bed and cryed out Caligula non est Deus he dared not then to threaten the Air as at another time he did Another Means or Obstruction whereby Satan hinders the light of the Gospel from shining into their hearts so that they see not God is success
to be such then let us be sensible of our dangerous condition we are in or soon may be and we shall seek in time for strength supportation preservation and deliverance from him who hath promised to be with us in trouble and never to leave nor to forsake us And to keep us to guide help and deliver us and bring us to honour And not to suffer our feet to be moved Oh when shall it once be O Lord that thou wilt tread Satan under our feet make us more than conquerour over him We cannot be enough sensible of our spiritual dangers of our immortal souls The frequent admonitions of our blessed Saviour to watchfulness self-denial prayer seeking of God and other means to be used by us that we may be able to stand shew us how difficult a thing it is and God suffereth his servants sometimes to be brought to the highest top of the precipice and then plucks them as brands out of the fire of Hell that they may see their danger for unless they do see and know their danger they will be but cold in prayer and such prayers can never prevail or obtain any promise Quid quisque vitet nun quam homini satis Cautum est in horas Horat. But those who are sensible thereof will be fervent and frequent in prayer to God and they will take Heaven by force If they can by importunity and affiduity they will obtain of God the same answer that the Apostle Paul obtained sufficiency of grace and in their weakness he will perfect his own strength but if they had sufficiency of gifts and parts to conquer temptations they would not know that God doth it nor seek him nor depend on him Let us not imagine that such dangers and difficulties rarely befal the people of God When Jesus Christ tells his Disciples that through many tribulations they must go to Heaven They must be hated of the World That in the World they must have trouble Men shall say all manner of evil of them falsly for his sake and pronounceth a blessing upon such sufferers If we will come after him we must deny our selves and take up our Cross So the Apostle That we have need of patience that when we have done Gods will we may inherit the promise And they of their own experience testifie that they found the truth of his sayings David said Psal 119. My soul is alwaies in mine hand From my youth up thy terrours have I suffered with a troubled mind All the day long have I been afflicted and chastened every morning And the pains of Hell came about me the snares of death overtook me I am troubled above measure Psal 119. If my delight had not been in thy Law it had not failed but I had perished in my troubles My tears have been my meat day and night Shall we then expect to go to Heaven upon any easier terms nay but we must wade thorough with the same staff of comfort Consider what difficulties God's children do find in every good work and what opposition of contrary principles When they would do good evil is present with them What great necessity then have they of this duty Those things which are hurtful to our bodies we can easily leave them but not so the things which are hurtful to our souls though we are mortified as St. Paul was by keeping under our body and renewed in our hearts by the Spirit Be sensible then of these difficulties as the Apostle was and of thy remaining corruptions and thou wilt cry to God with importunity as he did and watch against thy spiritual adversary and thou shalt have cause also with him to glory in God through Jesus Christ Look upon temptations as fire and thy corrupt nature as the gunpowder Also those who by their own experience can affirm that they have called upon the Lord in their trouble and he hath delivered them out of their distress and saved them and delivered them from all their fears and that by him they have been unholden ever since they were born That he hath been to them a present help in trouble That he hath ever stood by them saved them and delivered them Hath never left them nor forsaken them That he hath known their soul in adversity That he hath been their helper That in the multitude of the sorrows of their heart his comforts have refreshed their souls And those whose conscience beareth witness to them of their sincerity and uprightness as Job's did Job 31. ch throughout And know that their Nature is renewed by their quickness in the actions of grace when they are tempted to sin even these are sometimes dismayed and cast down as David expressed it in this saying sc Psal Thou didst hide thy face and I was troubled So Job 13. Wherefore hidest thou thy face But if the Lord doth shew the light of his countenance upon them and his presence go with them then they can rely upon the Truth of God's promises in the valley of the shadow of death in the midst of the fiery furnace and in the Lion's den and though he should kill them they will trust in him And they can praise him when he takes away as well as when he gives and pray unto him But our own experience of his Truth and our own purposes vows and resolutionns and watching without his presence his supportation and the light of his countenance will not be sufficient to bear us up in the fiery tryal no more than it did Peter and David and the other Saints therefore he hath promised to be with us in it In the sire he will be with us that it shall not burn us and in the water that it shall not drown us and so he was with Job though he hid his face and seem'd his enemy The spirit of a man can bear his infirmities but a wounded spirit who can bear Psal 42. These considerations teach us how great need and necessity all men have of diligence in this duty consider also whether it be not meet and necessary for the children of God to seek those priviledges which Jesus Christ hath purchased for them by this duty of prayer Because our Blessed Saviour did thus seek his priviledges and birthright as God appointed Psal 2.7 8. Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee Ask of me and I will give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession And thus the children of God do ask for and beg their rights and priviledges through the name merit and meditation of Jesus Christ by the Spirits assistance As the Lord taught them to do As in that particular priviledge of putting the Spirit into them promised by God in the new Covenant Christ Jesus commands them to ask it Therefore they ought also to pray that God would tread Satan under their feet That he would deliver them from every evil work that he would keep them night and
day watch over them Be a Sun and a shield to them a wall of fire about them and so for the rest of their priviledges Besides the precedent Motives and many more which might be alledged we may consider the examples of those who have practised this duty with success some few we will here insert As Moses first when his hands were lifted up Israel prevailed against their enemies in battle when they were down the Amalakites prevailed against them One pair of hands lifted up to Heaven in prayer prevailed more than many Thousands that were lifted up in battle Moses recounts several such gracious dispensations of God towards him Deut. 9.19 and 10.10 He fell down before the Lord forty daies and forty nights and the Lord hearkned unto him ver 25. He fell down again before the Lord forty daies and forty nights when the Lord would have destroyed them and 10. c. 10. v. And the Lord harkned unto him at that time also And the Lord would not destroy them Exod. 32.10 The like Many times would the Lord have destroyed them had not Moses put up his petitions for them Numb 11. The fire consumed the people and Moses prayed and it wa quenched Phineas when Gods wrath was hot against this people to destroy them with the plague prayed and so the plague ceased How often did he yeild to Abrahams prayer for sparying Sodom so often that Abraham was ashamed to urge him any further And Samuel is among such as called upon his name and he heard them and while Daniel was speaking in prayer he obtained his suit David saith Psal 36.4 I sought the Lord and he heard me and deliverd me out of all my fear And in divers other Psalms he testifieth the same and Jehosophat when he knew not what to do against the great host of his enemies prevailed by prayer 2 Chron. 20. Which examples and many more the scripture sets forth to shew how prevalent acceptable and delightful this service is to God and to excite us to it with boldness and confidence as the Apostle makes use of the example of Elias who by prayer opened and shut the Heavens for this purpose to excite us to the duty for though there be passions and infirmities in us and our services be but weak yet God looks upon us as a tender parent looks upon his child and pittieth and pardoneth the defects in regard of the willingness of the obedience and receives our services with delight because he seeth something of himself in us and so he is loth to deny any thing God was not offended with Isaiah when to satisfy one man he required that the Sun should go back And so loath is God that any prayer should be put up to him in vain without success that he wills us not to pray for such things as he intends not to grant When Samuel prayed for Saul How long saith he wilt thou pray for Saul since I have rejected him 1 Sam. 16.4 So Jer. 7.15.16 I will cast them out of my sight therefore pray not for this people neither make intercession for them for I will not hear thee What shall we then think of the strength of prayer It seemes to hold Gods hands that he can not do what he would for Deut. 9.13 Before cited God saith to Moses I have seen this people that they are a stiff-necked people Let me alone that I may destroy them Exod. 32.10 Moses would not let him alone and God hearkned unto him and did not destroy them So that it was as Moses would O omnipotent prayer that thus prevailest with the almighty O invincible and all conquering believer that canst wrastle with the almighty and prevail as Jacob did that canst hold him so fast that he cannot go unless thou please to let him else why doth he say let me go and Jacob answered I will not unless thou bless me and he did bless him Jacob got what he would of him before he would let him go so God suffered himself to be overcome In like sort when the sentence of Death was gone out against Hezekiah his prayer caused God to change it Furthermore he is not only overcome but commanded by prayer understand it with reverence Isa 45.11 Concerning the works of my hands command you me accordingly we find Joshua speaking Sun stand thou still in Gebeon and thou Moon in Ajalon Josh 10.12 And they stood still We read how prayer changed nature altering the property of fire that it neither burned nor scorched the 3 children stopped the mouths of the Lions whereby we see how that by means of this we may be safe in any place and God will be with us and nothing shall be able to hurt us Psal 91.15 He shall call upon me and I will answer him It hath no limitation of matter or restriction of time or place so that we need not dispair of any thing we ask It is necessary also that we pray for the fulfilling of the Prophesies thereof Mala. 1.11 In every place incense shall be offered unto my Name and a pure offering the epis of Ye are a Royal Priest-hood Exod. 19.6 Ye shall be unto me a Kingdom of Priests Therefore we must have something to offer Heb. 8.3 The Spirit of prayer and supplication is in stead of the legal Sacrifices If the people of God have such holy appetites as they express Psal 42 1â— As the Hart panteth after the water brooks so longeth my soul after thee O God My soul is a thirst for God and Psal 63. My soul thirsteth for thee My flesh also longeth after thee And in chap. of Isaiah With my soul have I desired thee in the night and in the Canticles throughout begining v. 1. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth for his love is better than wine The soul is kissed by Christ when it is assured of his love to it and of its own love to Christ and the Heavenly spouse her desire is to her beloved as is the wives to her husband And is as unsatiable in her desires as the greedy Userer is for riches Then must they needs seek him whom their soul loveth and desireth and longeth for in this and in all other ordinances as the spouse expresseth her solicitousness and vigilancy in the seeking and persuit of him That they may relieve their needs and satisfy their spiritual thirsts and hungers and that they may mitigate and asswage their grief and pain caused by the holy love-sickness for if they are forced by occasion of business extraordinary to omit some duty they cannot injoy themselves and then they long for those spiritual refreshments which duties afford There be two principal motives which make us frequent and earnest suitors at the Throne of grace viz. Desire of communion with God and enjoyment of him in his ordinances And desire of more grace And God doth most commonly satisfy these two desires in this in all other duties for being wel performed from
these two principles they are our sollaces and delight and also Gods delight Therefore will he hear them and reward them Albeit Gods holy people ask temporal blessings of him and the comforts of their life and temporal deliverances so that it may be objected that they have other principles and motives natural of performing duties than these two spiritual I Answer that it is the disposition of the New nature of the child of God to desire the obtaining of temporal mercies and blessings by and through this way and meanes of seeking them of the gift of God by prayer only that so they may enjoy them as pledges of his fatherly love mercy and faithfulness and as returnes of their prayers And so they will be the more careful to use them to the honour and glory of God And in them they enjoy God and his loving kindness which they value and comfort themselves with more than with his gifts as it is expressed in the Psalmes in this saying thy loveing kindness is better than the life it self and the heavenly Spouse desireth not to be inriched but by her husband and for further answer I say If God hath at any time heard us for outward blessings I conceive he hath obliged us to ask them of him still as if I salute or visit my neighbour and acquaintance and he returnes the like civilities I am to continue my complisance but if he answer them not then he casts me out Another Motive may be fetched from the Priestly office of Christ who ever liveth to make intercession for us And offereth up our prayers in his golden censer perfumed with incence and sweet odours If so then must we be careful and make sure that he have our prayers alwaies to offer up for us else we shall neglect him and his office and the access with confidence which he hath purchased for us Also we shall neglect the mercy of almighty God who is said to be rich in mercy to all them that call upon him in Faith Ephes 3. Also we shall neglect the gracious assistance of the holy Spirit which helpeth our infirmities in this duty Consider also what Vows and promises we have made to God upon extraordinary occasions for the due performance of this duty Psal 61.8 I will alwaies sing praise unto thy name that I may daily perform my vows Psal 116.16 Consider whether the facility of the duty be not a sufficient Motive to it for I conceive that there could not be made a more easie command than this of our blessed Saviour Ask and ye shall have Man could not have desired an easier It is expressed by David in his Psalms thus Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it To ask is the easiest thing that we can do unless it be to open our mouthes In this respect Christs burthen is light The prayers which he enjoins are short he forbids long ones Besides the great rewards of so small a service make it yet lighter because of the disproportion between this and that And they are yet more light by reason of the assistance we have from Gods holy Spirit I intend not that all prayers are performed with ease alike The fervent prayers of the Saints which are put up for such graces as they need and against such lusts temptations corruptions trials as they labour under are mixed with sighs and groanes which cannot be uttered but all their prayers are not such for those which are but for common mercies ought not to be such for even the wickedest will pray and howl for Corn and Wine as it is in Hose few words are injoined in these prayers And thus they are most consistent with faith in Gods promises that he will not suffer us to want these Necessaries of life Compare these services with the chargable Sacrifices of the Jewish law and the burthen of ceremonies which they were not able to bear and these will appeare but easie and light But that which facilitates this duty most is faith whereby believing we shall obtain we ask of God such things as we need for our soul and body as confidently and boldly as children use to ask of their parents the things they need their food and rayment and the like these esteem it no difficulty to ask whatsoever they have a mind to but a pleasure and delight and doubt not of speeding especially when they are invited and incouraged by promises The freeness and easiness of access which we have to God in Christs name makes the duty facil for Jesus Christ the Son of God hath made way for the poor and needy and empty handed begger they need not bring a present to make their way But then when thou seest no good in thy self if thou grieved thereat desirest grace and seekest to him for it these are Motives with which thy Saviour will be perswaded to give thee of his fulness grace for grace and will be moved thereby to intercede for thee to his Father what begger will not go thither for relief where he is assured to speed The paternal relation between God and us instructs us of the easie access what ever we need we know he is ready as a Father to give he takes care of us and will provide for us he expects but to be asked he hath prevented our asking with invitations and will hardly stay till we have done asking but he will grant it because he delighteth in granting the requests of his children else he would not grant them with such overplus nor invite us to ask And it evidenceth to us that we are his children when we do make use of our free access upon all occasions And believe his readiness to grant And if a prodigal Son might find such free and kind reception as our Saviour saith then he that is the dear Son and pleasent child and hath title to all cannot be denied 1. Preparatory Ejaculations Lord draw nigh to me Now that I draw nigh to thee and if for my unworthiness thou canst not be so propitious to me as thou wouldest be to thy child that is obedient then draw nigh to me as the Father was pleased to do to his unworthy prodigal son But if thou wilt neither of these yet be thou pleased to help me as thy Servant and Son of thine handmaid but if this thou wilt not then Lord relieve me as thou didst the Cananitish woman as a Dog of thy family with the crums of the bread of life thy holy Commandment hath taught us importunity therefore if thou canst not hear me for any relation hear me for my Importunity 2 Preparatory Ejaculation Lord thou hast made thy Servant to know his own insufficiency I find daily that fain I would do good and be such as thou commandest us to be but when I would do good evil is commonly present with me and how to do the good I would I know not This sense of my own insufficiency in every grace makes me a daily
all our hearts and with all our souls Put thy fear in our hearts that we may not depart from thee all our daies Let thy Spirit alwaies dwell in us and abide in us as our Helper our Almighty Comforter our Light our Guide and Instructer our Teacher and Remembrancer Let our bodies alwaies be the Temples of the Holy Ghost Let thy Spirit be alwaies acting in us love joy in the Lord peace meekness gentleness long-suffering brotherly-kindness charity chastity purity temperance and sobriety zeal knowledg faith affiance in thee mortification vivification hope and humility patience contentation and submission to thee and every grace Give us Christ Jesus too whom thou hast promised to give for a Covenant to the people first give him us for a Covenant then give him to us for our King our High Priest and our Prophet our Wisdom our Righteousness our Sanctification and our Redemption for our Beloved our Bridegroom and our Husband The joy of our heart and the desire of our souls O blessed Jesus give us thy self in all those offices and relations which thou beest to thy people Give us the kisses of thy mouth and the sweet pledge of thy love and communion with thee in every duty and refreshment of our graces and particularly in this duty Bring us into thy Chambers and let thy left hand be under us and thy right hand embrace us Repose thy self as a bundle of myrth betwixt our breasts Vnvail thy beauties to us that we may be enflamed of thy perfections and may evermore run after thee Give us thy self for our Brother and make us the adopted children of thy Father and give us the same nature that thou hadst Give us thy self for our Head and do thou live in us and let us feel thee living in us evermore and let us live in thee and receive of thy fulness grace for grace Give us thy self for our root and let us be grafted into thee and bear such fruit as thou borest Give us thy flesh for the food of our souls and thy blood for the drink of our souls to nourish them to eternal life and to give them eternal life O God give us thy self for our God our King and Governour our Refuge our Tower of Defence and Safe-guard our Help in time of need our Father our Husband our Portion and exceeding great Reward And let us seek all our desires in thee and in Jesus Christ And let us know that we are thy People thy Saints and thy Servants thy Redeemed and Ransomed of the Lord and thy Portion and thy Jewels thy Children and thy Spouse and that thou rejoycest over us to do us good as a Bridegroom rejoyceth over the Bride and do thou watch over us and keep us night and day lest any evil befal us and hold us up that we may be safe And give us all those graces which thou hast promised by thy new Covenant and all those degrees of grace and all those means of Grace Give us all those graces that any of thy Saints and Servants have had and all those degrees of grace and all those graces that thou hast commanded us to have Make us perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect And give us all those blessednesses that accompany those graces Let all things work together for our good Let us want no manner of thing that is good Let us be like Mount Sion which cannot be removed And keep us secretly in thy Tabernacle from the strife of tongues and satisfie us with abundance of peace and accept of our praises too in Christ Jesus for a thousand mercies to me and mine for all the mercies wherewith thou ladest us and makest our lives comfortable especially for delivering us from Hell when we have been ready to throw our selves into it Thou canst not do a greater thing for us till thou bringest us to Heaven therefore let us retribute all we have or can do to thee and Jesus Christ our Saviour and Redeemer Amen Of Thanksgiving to God A Meditation Exod. 23. None shall appear before me empty THIS practice of the Servants of God is general for we read of none of them who did not render unto God for his mercies received so that he is none of God's people who omits this neither doth he acknowledge God to be his benefactor One sacrificeth to his net viz. to the subordinate means another ascribes all to chance and fortune and howbeit many prophane people too have made their acknowledgments to God as Saul would reserve the best of the Cattel for sacrifice Cain would also sacrifice But of such Solomon saith The Sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord as Saul's was God speaking of the degenerate Israelites saith in the Prophecy of Isaiah They come before me as my people For the light of nature which is not easily extinguished dictates this to us Accordingly we read in the Proverbs of Solomon of the Harlot paying her vows They sing praises to God just then when they are freed from their affliction but within a while they forget God and the wonders which he hath done for them To render some thing is an acknowledgment which we perform to one another for we know we can hold nothing of another without a rendering But the rendering which we must make to God alwaies is our heart and all we can do and suffer for him Hanna did not think it enough to render the fruit of her lips but thought she had enough favour shewed her that her prayers were heard and was satisfied therewith and thankfully rendered the intire benefit received David did not satisfy himself with praising and magnifying God and resolving to praise him as long as he lived but he would have built a Temple to him too but that God would not suffer him yet he proceded in that purpose so far as he could for he provided the materials for the Temple And shall I think it enough to offer God thanks and praise for though this is honouring God yet why should I suffer my self to be out-done by the weaker sex why should I think to keep all Gods benefits to my self for my own use she for one prayer heard and for own favour received renders the same again because she had no other thing of equal value to her What shall I render for so many prayers heard and for so many mercies received I am at a loss what I shall render but I am resolved to do all I can and suffer all I can for him and to Sacrifice my most endeared lust to him I will praise the Lord with my mouth and my tongue shall faile when I tell of his mercies for I know no end of them But this shall not suffice me I must endeavour to build up his Temple too as far as I may not any Temple made with hands but I have frequent occasion to meditate how much God doth for me and how little do I for God! and taking a view of
or like a dead Tree withered and plucked up In this forelorn and hopeless condition when no man regards our perishing we come to God for help and he in whose only power it is to help doth help us and deliver us and makes the dry bones live and we have seen the salvation of the Lord and the wonders that he doth for the Sons of men and have been transported with joy as the Israelites when they came out of Babylon were I acknowledge that there be some who come in no misfortune nor are plagued like other men But all those whom Christ Jesus hath chosen to be his souldiers he trains up in this discipline But if it were so that I had not gone thorow such perils such afflictions and such troubles as I see and hear to befall other men Have I not much more cause to praise God for keeping me in health than for raising me up again being fallen sick from keeping me from the perils which befall other men than for delivering me if I had been in danger and for keeping me from troubles wherein others are plunged If I consider the calamities of men far greater than my self As for instance of him who is more worth than thousands of us our Soveraign Lord the King Can I chuse but bless God that my distresses afflictions and perils of life have not been so many and great as his But how great and good above me was he that was after God's own heart What pains perils and troubles did he not go thorow first in his person his reins chastened him in the night he had no soundness in his bones then from his superiours Saul persecuting him as long as he lived from his inferiours his servant curseth him to his face from unkind neighbours as Doeg the Edomite from his Relations his wife scoffing him his Son rebelling and another commits a rape on his Sister c. Besides the temporal mercies he also tells us what God hath done for his soul too as Psal 103. and blesseth God for forgiving all his sin c. ib. For this we can never praise God enough Meditations and Ejaculations Go about Duties not as labours but thy only enjoyments Delight thy self in the Lord and expect the Reward LORD since thou hast promised thy holy Spirit to them who ask it of thee I beseech thee give it to me for without it I cannot serve thee nor walk in obedience to thy holy Commandments for by reading and hearing thy Word I can only know my duty I cannot retain my holy resolutions which are stirred up in the duties one hour Therefore do thou create in me a new heart and a new nature Regenerate me by thy Spirit and the immortal seed and write thy Law in my heart and give me thy holy Spirit the Almighty Helper the Comforter and hold thou me up and I shall be safe Make me willing to undergo conflicts with sin for hereby I shall have comfort in the hour of death and the day of trouble O give me peace of conscience the comforts of a well-spent life that I may be able to say with Hezekiah Lord remember how I have walked before thee in all simplicity when the day of death comes Make me wise to consider alwaies my latter end and what thoughts I shall have then of the world and all its comforts let this restrain me from giving up my self to them else I shall be a fool in my latter end as the wicked are and cry out that the world hath deceived them their consciences being then awakened which in their lime-time they stifled and then the Hypocrites have no hope Therefore Lord give me grace and prudence to make provision against that time that the sting of death may be taken out Let me believe the terrours threatned against the wicked that I may never come to feel them Let me find Christ my Advocate when death comes upon me And that I may not die in my sin make me by thy grace continually to die to sin Deliver me from every evil work and preserve my body and soul blameless unto the coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Lord above all things give me to fear sin and the transgression of thy Law who art the great Soveraign of the world its Creator and Preserver to whom we owe both our persons and obedience and if the Gentiles do by nature the things contained in the Law much more let me who have as well the written Law and the Gospel as the Law of Nature do the things contained in the Law else how shall I escape thy wrath But having tryed our obedience thou hast found us all rebels and in thy justice mayest damn us all if thy mercy in Christ Jesus do not save us Since Jesus Christ our Saviour was made under a Law and the glorious Angels fulfil thy commandments and hearken to the voice of thy word and man hath no such perfection as his Saviour or the Angels but our wisdom and our perfection is in obedience to the Law Inable us to keep it for herein God hath shewed us what is good Micah 6.8 Every child of God is as a souldier keeping a garrison in an enemies Country Therefore Lord as I put on my apparel let me remember to put on the Armour of light and to watch and be provided to fight thy battels let me not be destitute of any piece of this Armour but give me all Christian vertues I am naked naturally and without this Armour but unless I have it of thy gift I cannot put it on but must perish by my nakedness for I cannot have any truse from my spiritual adversary who watches to destroy us And give me the skill of an expert warriour to use these Armes against the Devil the World and the flesh inable me to put off all sins which hinder the planting and growth of grace in our hearts for we cannot serve God and mammon let me depart from evil that I may do good Let me feel the power of Christ's death that I may partake of his resurrection Let the sense of my forepast sins make me the more diligent in thy service Since my darkness is passed let me put off the works of darkness Let me not delay considering my danger and the shortness and uncertainty of life and the greatness of the reward if I do thy service For to him that is faithful in much thou wilt give much ten Cities for improving his five talents to that number That I may fear sin and not make light of it or a mock of it as fools are said to do let me consider the great evil of it That it is the foolishness and brutishness of a man the darkness and nakedness the blindness and sottishness and death of the soul which makes us said to be dead in trespasses and sins and that the effects of sin are the worst of evils That it makes us like to the Devils That one sin makes us
work to think of the reasons that moved them to sin and to refuse such duties and to see the folly of all those reasons this will be shame and confusion O Lord let me be ashamed of my sins in time savingly by true repentance that I may avoid the eternal shame and confusion and remember with grief all the hard thoughts which I have had of thee and thy waies and grieved that I turned no sooner from sin to God That being derided for holiness I have so little of it But let me not be of them of whom it is said The Lord hath laughed at their calamity for he hath seen that their day is coming Made upon hearing of Mr. J. B. O Lord give me that earnest and first fruits of eternal life which thou usest to give thy afflicted servants in this life which may make me as it did them to rejoyce in afflictions with joy unspeakable and glorious to undergo with joy all manner of slanders and to take joyfully the spoiling of their goods knowing that they have a more enduring substance in Heaven give thy servant to know this of himself which may make me able for the like sufferings and to undergo all that the wicked can inflict not accepting of deliverance and grant that I may see him by faith who is invisible and Jesus Christ my Saviour my Helper and my Redeemer my Recompence and my Reward O Lord let me not put any stress upon my own works for my salvation If with thy servant Paul I could say that as touching the Law I am blameless yet then also must I not count that I have attained but desire to be found in Christ not having mine own righteousness and be sensible that I have deserved thy wrath and fly to the Righteousness of Christ and say with David I will make mention of thy Righteousness only And with Daniel Not for our righteousness but for thy mercy sake save us Deliver me from the Legal Pharisaical spirit thinking to establish its own righteousness not submitting to the Righteousness of Christ Let my righteousness exceed theirs Let me mortifie the body and live strictly as they did and whatever duties they performed let me perform but let me not leave the others undone and those which I do let me not do to be seen but let me perform them to thee in secret that thou mayest reward me openly Neither let me trust in my felf nor despise others nor strain at a Nat and swallow a Camel Lord let not worldly things disturb my quiet though the Earth be moved and the Mountains shake at the tempest of the same Let the River of Life of thy holy City make glad the people thereof Give me the peaceable fruits of Righteousness Give me grace voluntarily to take Christ's yoak upon me and to learn of him meekness and humility that I may find rest to my soul which I can never find without holiness of life and faith therefore give me both that I may be able to say in all conditions the Lord is my Shepherd therefore I can lack norhing Lord as thou hast given us many commands for the duty of prayer and watchfulness the reto with constancy without ceasing and that in all things we should make our requests known unto God and to incourage us herein thou hast promised to reward it openly what we pray for secretly and hast set forth unto us in thy word how thou art a God hearing prayer and many examples of it And that it is the duty in which thou dost most delight and by my own experience I have always found thee such Therefore let me redeem the time for this so beneficial duty according to the example of thy Servants David seven times a day and Daniel three times in spight of the Tirants threats for thou hast always given me the mercies which I asked and I fear I have lost many for want of asking Lord in my distresses and troubles let me not seek for vain comforts in the Creatures but for those comforts which thy word and thy Spirit afford thy Servants for Christ hath promised that he will not leave us comfortless but will send us a comforter O now send this comforter into my heart that I may rejoice with the joy of thy chosen ones and not with the joy of the World this thou hast often refreshed thy Servant with in the midst of the sorrows which he had in his heart Lord let me not neglect the day of my visitation for thou hast said that thy spirit shall not always strive with us Therefore when we feel thy holy Spirit inclining our hearts to good or drawing us from evil let us follow its motions and the express calls of thy word when it seems to us to speak in particular to our soules that we may escape that threatning which saith because I have called and ye have refused you shall call and I will not answer I will laugh at your calamity so when thou visitest us with mercies or afflictions then thou bowest our ear to discipline for in affliction the wicked often will seek thee but not to see thee in thy merciful dispensations is more brutish then the Ox or Ass who know their keepers that feed them Lord let me know the time of my visitation let me lose no opportunity to do good for we know not how soon the opportunity or our lives will be taken away therefore let me lay hold on all opportunities and redeem all time possible for God's service As Paul in the Gaol converted the Gaoler and Philip in his Journey the Eunuch and Christ when he was on the Cross dying conveyed grace to the hearers and salvation to one of the thieves Let me value my time by the duties which may be done in it and let me not spend it in doing that which is impertinent or doing nothing much less in doing ill but in things necessary which is but one thing to serve God the things of this world being only for convenience Teach me to number not only my daies but my hours that I may husband them well to thy glory especially my youthful time let me consecrate to God since I cannot be too soon out of the paw of Satan into the arms of Christ Let me not listen to the Devil when he tells me I shall serve God hereafter but let me give thee the first fruits of my age and of the day and not the flower to the Devil and the dregs to the Lord and let me consider what value I shall have of time when I come to die Lord when thy afflicting hand is stretched out to afflict me in the ruine of my estate or the loss of my reputation and honour or any earthly good how do I search and try my spirit and fear to commit the least sin against thee but no sooner hast thou removed thy hand and the danger that threatned is overpast but then how careless do I walk again and think
the lame and the blind if we have no better in our flock thou wilt accept it therefore I will not cease to pray unto thee though I cannot approve my own prayers for thus I come unto thee without money or price that thy gifts may be free O that I could account the corruption of my nature to be my misery as Saint Paul complaining of the law of his members warring against the law of his mind so that he could not do the good he would cries out Miserable man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of sin And make me as sensible of the strength of it as this holy man was LORD if I fall into sin let me not be insensible of it as the adulterous woman who eateth and wipeth her mouth and saith I have done 〈◊〉 wickedness But like as David after he had sinned and the Prophet Nathan had told him God had done away his sin yet his grief and sorrow for having offended God gave him no rest so that he wept day and night So let my sins grieve me as oft as I remember them Meditation SINCE the Apostle Peter wherein he was confident of his strength above all others immediately fell I will ascribe my standing to God only and praise him who holds me up And pray with David Lord hold thou me up and I shall be safe And watch and take heed to my self and alwaies fear lest I fall since I know that I stand not by my own strength for corruption of nature is as strong in me as in others and the tempter the same to me as to them but the Spirit of God only makes the difference therefore I will praise God who upholds me and keeps my feet from falling for it is not I that live the life of faith but Christ that lives in me therefore with the Elders in the Revelations I will cast my Glory and Crown at his feet from whom I have received it And the consideration of this my weakness shall teach me charity towards those that are overcome with temptation that I may restore them in the spirit of meekness but not judge them lest I condemn my self as David did himself in the Parable of the yew Lamb And as Judah condemned himself in condemning Tamar And let me not flatter my self like the Scribes and Pharisees who said If we had been in our Fathers daies we would not have been partakers with them in killing the Prophets LORD establish thou me with thy free Spirit whereby I may stand in the hour of Temptation and run the ways of thy Commandments freely without rub or let without dulness and without danger of stumbling or falling that the Spirit may be willing though the flesh be weak And with Paul when he was full of the Spirit he was content not only to be bound but to die for Christ so may I also since thou lovest only the chearful giver And as it said 5 of Judges 9. Thy heart is towards the governours of the people that offered themselves willingly So make me alwaies to cast off readily and freely every tempter that goes about to seduce my affections from thee disdaining to harken to them LORD give me to avoid not only gross sins but also the smallest and first degrees of sins viz. To turn away my eyes from beholding vanity Not to look upon the wine when it moves it self right in the cup to make a covenant with my eyes not to look upon a maid gives me understanding in the way of God that I may know these small degrees of sin to be sins and the danger of them to avoid them and all other of the like nature Then I shall know that I have a New heart and that thou hast put thy Spirit into me which I desire to know above all things LORD let not my heart deceive me either making me think that I have more grace than in truth I have as Peters did him so as that he thought though all men denied thee yet he should not or by making me think I have not those corruptions that I have as Hasael 2 King 1.13 When the Prophet told him what cruelties he would commit upon the Israelites he answerd is thy Servant a Dog Yet did he commit the same but let me know my own weakness and vileness that I may not trust to my own strength in any temptation but let me rejoice in God my strength and know that thou art my strength and that thou only holdest me from falling and keepest my feet from slipping and orderest my goings and makest me to run the waies of thy Commandments And inclinest my heart to thy testimonies O hold thou me up and I shall be safe Keep thy Servant also from presumptuous sins and from the sins of infirmities and let me always know my own insufficiency weakness and corruptions and watch and pray against them not only against gross sins which the heathen and unbelievers detest as drunkeness swearing murther and adultery theft and the like but against every degree of sinfulness and every vain and lustful thought and idle word unseemly gesture which I can easily espy as motes in anothers eye while I hardly discern the beam in my own but do thou O Lord take away from me this blindness of heart with the effects and consequences thereof by causing the day star to arise in my heart LORD let my former experiences which I have had of thy goodness beget a confidence in me in all dangers as it did in David when he went to encounter Goliah He remembered the slaughter of the Lion and the Bear and concluded the Philistin should be like one of them And breakes out saying though 10000 men should set themselves against me round about yet will I not be afraid and though as many Devils also are against me let me not be afraid let me remember thy promise saying call upon me in the time of trouble I will deliver thee and thou shaltpraise me And let me not rely upon nor trust in the outward meanes the arm of flesh though I do make use of it as Nehemiah whenhe builded the walls of Jerusalem he set watches and they took their arms with their spades so wisdom teacheth but yet not to trust to the Sword or think that our bow shall help us for so did that Philistine Wherefore said David thou comest to me with thy sword thy spear but I come to thee in the name of my God Lord teach me the power of prayer especially mingl'd with faith And to consider that thou hast heard the wicked when they have sought thee as Ahab because he walked heavily and mourned thou wouldst not bring the evil in his daies And thou heardest Manasses and thy poor people that cry unto thee in their trouble thou deliverest out of their distress as exiles prisoners Marriners and sick persons when their soul fainteth in them and they cry unto thee being at their wits end And
Fret not thy self because of the ungodly nor be thou envious against the evil doers ver 29. The wicked seeth the righteous and seeketh occasion to slay him ver 14. The wicked have drawn the sword and bent the bow to slay such as be of an upright conversation ver 12. The wicked plotteth against the righteous and gnasheth upon him with his teeth ver 33. The Lord will not leave him in his hand nor condemn him when he is judged ver 39. And 40. The Salvation of the Righteous is of the Lord he is their strength in time of trouble And the Lord shall help them and deliver them he shall deliver them from the wicked and save them because they trust in him Rom. 8.28 We know that all things work together for good to them that love God 32. He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things v. 35. Who shall separate us from the love of God shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword for thy sake are we killed all the day long we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter 37. Nay in all these things we are more than conquerers through him that loved us These consolations did not only support the suffering Saints but made them triumph over all their torments Take joyfully the spoiling of their goods Rejoyce in the Lord in the want of all things When they had nothing to possess all things Sing in the dungeon dispise death and not accept deliverance Psal 119. David by delighting in Gods word was supported Satans envie to the Servants of God all that all belongs to God raiseth up persecutions to the holy seed The Dragon in the Revelations is set forth persecuting the woman Rev. 12.8 Satan hath great wrath because he hath but a short time therefore the persecutions under the Gospel are greater than those were under the law St. Paul was not only ready to suffer afflictions for Christ but to dye also Satan was not contented when he had prevailed in the trial of holy Job to the taking away of his substance nor yet when he had prevailed for the depriving of him of his children but his body also must be smitten The office of the Comforter would be in vain If Gods people were never dismayed If there were no broken heart to be healed and bound up there needed no strong consolations of the Holy Spirit nor no Oil of joy and gladness if no spiritual heaviness were He could not restore beauty for Ashes if no Ashes were upon our heads nor wipe all tears from our eyes if they wept not before The Sun of righteousness should arise with healing in his wings in vain if none had need of healing The Blessedness to those that mourn that they shall be comforted were needless They are necessary also that the scriptures migh be fulfilled They are plentiful for this assertion Through many tribulations we shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven If we endure not tribulations whereof all are partakers then are we Bastards and not Sons All that will live godly must suffer persecutions 2 Tim. 3.12 Many are the troubles of the righteous If our Hope were in this life only we were of all men most miserable By all which it appears that the Saints are the people that are to be oppressed for they only can bear wrongs and oppressions Psal For thy sake are we killed all the day long yet do we not forsake thee Judgement must begin at Gods house The Spouse in the Canticles saith Look not upon me because I am black because the Sun hath shined upon me She had been in hardship and underwent what injuries Wind and weather could do to her and knew that worldly men would censure her as wicked and forsaken of God Gods antient people the Jews when they sined were carried into captivity in Babylon according to the Prophesies They were restored again upon their repentance And sinning again were utterly destroyed by the Romans under Titus's command The Scriptures which threaten plagues punishments and curses cannot be fulfilled if afflictions should not befal us Six of the seven Churches of Asia were threatned unless they repented Will any one think that the impenitent scaped unpunished there is not any one of those punishments which God threatned from the beginning of the holy Scripture to the end but came to pass save only where repentance prevented them as was the case of the Ninivites And in some degree Ahab and Manasses shew their repentance answerable to which their remission was but our first parents found the truth of all Gods threatnings so did the old world that was drowned So did Gods ancient people the Jews of whom ' its said 14 of Hose 1. Thy iniquities have distroyed thee For all those curses and plagues threatned against them and their City as Josephus who was in the calamity and an eye witness writes did come to pass not one excepted Davids family was foretold of that Judgement that the sword should not depart from them and the truth of it they felt So Jezabel and Ahab Lots wife these knew the terror of the Lord and are set forth as examples to us as it is in St. Judes epist Our Blessed Lord and Saviour hath undergone that curse which was threatned to our first Parents In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye the Death And if he had notundergone it for us we all must have undergone it in our own persons Call upon God therefore O my soul with earnest prayers constantly and fervently that he would support thee and hold thee up in the time of the firy trial that is to come upon all the world to try them But especially in the time of spiritual desertions which by reason of our frailties befals the best of Gods Servants as it did our blessed Saviour upon the Cross when he cried out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me and the spouse Cant. 5.6 Sought for her love but could not find him and Psal 13.1 v. David saith How long wilt thou forget me Lord for ever how long wilt thou hide thy face from me Isa 38.14.15 Hezekiah mourns as a dove his eyes fail him with looking upward 15. I shall go softly all my days in the bitterness of my soul and the 5 Cant. 6. And Psal 102. Shew that all the Servants of God must expect that God will withdraw himself somtimes and v. 8. This shall be written for the generation to come that the Lord will regard the prayer of the poor distieute he will not absent himself for ever he will be found again This was the Zenith of our Saviours sufferings and none but Saints can lye under this suffering But God is with them though they see him not for he hath said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee 2 Chron. 16.2 The Lord is with you while you
not that these Afflictions work for them a more exceeding and eternal weight of glory It knows not that they are sent to make them partakers of his Holiness nor seeth the munition of rocks about them they know not the supports that they have in their sufferings from Jesus Christ and the holy Ghost nor the joy proceeding from the exercising and improving their Faith Patience and other Graces nor the carresses and embraces between Christ and his Spouse and although they may read his Love-letters to her yet they do not understand the hope which she hath by the comfort of the Scriptures And though they see them meet at the Ordinances they know not how that God makes them joyful in the house of prayer Isa 56.7 Psal 69. How they are satified with the pleasure of Gods house How their souls are satisfied as with marrow and fatness when they praise God with joyful lips Psal 63. Or how they rejoyce in the Lord. And sing for joy nor that it is their priviledge that God hath given them his statutes and his laws Nor how it is a priviledge to suffer for Christ and not to be dismayed while they have God for their shield Prov. 30. And because they know not of their joys and comforts they like not their waies nor chuse their portion because they are led by their senses and this life is lived by faith and not by sight And the God of this world hath blinded their eyes that the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ might not shine unto them Our Saviour tells his Apostles that they are the light of the world their successours who preach to us should shew us fully the sweets pleasantness comfort safety and profitableness of Religion and draw us with the cords of love as Christ leads his Spouse into the banqueting-house into the garden of Nuts and allures her with all manner of sollaces and courtships Cant. 7.13 At our gates are all manner of pleasent fruits new and old which I have laid up for thee O my Love so ought Pastors to inculcate these priviledges of Gods Children as Gods word doth 54. of Isaiah at large And our blessed Saviour in the 6. of St. Matth. where he sheweth Gods paternal care over men to ease them of care that they may intend the matters of their eternal salvation And largly inculcates Gods love to them and his own love Fides Exultans Meditations of that Incomparable Priviledg which Gods Children only can have The joy in the Holy Ghost Motto The voice of joy and thanksgiveing is in the dwellings of the righteous The holy Scripture is very full of proofs to make it out that they have this priviledg Rom. 14.17 The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink but righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Ghost Gal. 5.22 The fruit of the Spirit is love joy peace c. 1 Thes 1.6 Having received the word in much affliction and with joy of the Holy Ghost 2 Cor. 7.4 I am exceeding joyfull in all our afflictions I am filled with comfort Psal 5.11 Let all those that put their trust in thee rejoyce Let them ever shout for joy because thou defendest them Let them also that love thy Name be joyful in thee Psal 97. v. 12. Rejoyce in the Lord O ye Righteous Acts. Repent and be baptised every one of you for the remission of your sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost And Psal 59. My joy shall be in the Lord. Our blessed Saviour testifieth the truth of this Assertion John 14.16 17. I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter whom the world cannot receive because it seeth him not neither knoweth him but ye know him because he dwelleth with you and shall be in you Comfort gives joy The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit Besides the Authorities cited and many more which might be cited It is evidenced by reason that the Saints have such a priviledge The first Reason to prove it may be this That the chief object of their desire is grace Psal 42. As the Hart panteth c. Psal 63. From whence I argue That the desire accomplished is sweet to the soul Prov. 13.19 And their desire shall be accomplished Prov. 20.24 The desire of the Righteous shall be granted Psal 145.19 He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him Now that the object which is chief in their desires is grace is proved by Psal 26.8 The desire of our souls is to thy Name And Psal 119.97 Oh how I love thy Law all the day long is my meditation therein Desire is the act Love the passion from which it proceeds Psal 1.2 His delight is in the Law of the Lord. Delight is the enjoyment of that which is loved and desired Fruition or enjoyment is joy So the holy Spouse accompts it Cant. 1.2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth for his love is better then wine The Holy Gost doth and will work these desired graces in their souls and Christ will returne reciprocal love and carresses to his Spouse and the fulness of joy and will come in and sup with him that opens to him Revel 3.20 Then the soul injoyes her self when she sits under his shadow with delight Can. It is satisfied as with marrow and fatness Psal 63. Another Argument to prove it may be a Congruo It well became the goodness of so good and gracious a Soveraign when according to his Kingly office he put the yoak upon the necks of his Subjects to facilitate the yoak and sweeten the lives of his faithful Subjects in the greatest measure when his goodness was such that he laid down his life for them John 10.11 I am the good shepherd the goodshepherd layeth down his life for the Sheep He draws them to obedience by love the gratest that can be imagined he promiseth them rewards greater than could be conceived Eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither hath it entered into the heart of man what the Lord hath prepared for them that serve him And to facilitate their obedience gives them the holy Spirit to help their infirmities And sends him for a comforter to relieve and comfort them when they are afflicted oppressed or destitute of comfort in the world which he foresaw they would be therefore promised to send it and his Truth will not suffer him to fail so that when their afflictions do abound their consolations do much more abound And when their outward man doth decay their inward man is renewed day by day that makes amends for what their outward man suffers with the certainty of their hope begotten and strengthened in them by the Holy Ghost That our vile bodies shall one day be made like to his glorious body That when this earthly Tabernacle is dissolved we have a building not made with hands but eternal in the Heavens which hopes the Holy Ghost doth assure to us and thus gives us
to make him rich So it is said of Jehosaphat that his heart was lifted up in the waies of God This joy and rejoycing in the Lord is enjoyned us as a duty and it proves our sincerity When God is sweet unto us for himself in the want of outward blessings when we can trust God and not see him 't is a sign we trust him in truth when all the providences of God seem to run counter to his promises That fruit is sound that can hang in a windy day T was a proof of Abraham's love to God that he could follow him into a strange place where he had no place to set a foot on This joy as it begets mortification and self-denyal so these begets this joy It is a sure preservative against Apostacy He that can rejoyce in God when he is in adversity will not be removed by adversity the joy of the Lord is our strength and stability Phil. 4.7 The Peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus Coloss 3.15 Let the peace of God rule in your hearts It rules in us if we can rejoyce in a God All-Sufficient Then the Soul saith to all the Devils offers we have enough already according to that saying of the Apostles to our Saviour Lord whether shall we go thou hast the words of Life The reason why Satans offers seems great to Men is because Gods seem little This is a holy disposition of the Soul that doth most glorifie God Therefore 't is said of Abraham that he gave Glory to God he did not stagger through unbelief It may well be called a Treasure as the Apostle saith we have this Treasure in Earthen Vessels and our blessed Saviour speaketh of the Treasure in the Heart for by this we are assured that all things are ours if we are Christs Whereas on the contrary if we are none of his we may think that we are rich and encreased in goods and have need of nothing yet we are in truth wretched miserable poor blind and naked as it is said of the Church of Laodicea Rev. 3.17 and this treasure is Christ formed in us of whose fulness we receive Grace for Grace And 2 Pet. 1.4 we are said to be partakers of the divine Nature because it is in us and our blessed Saviour saith that we are grafted into him and unless we abide in him we cannot bear fruit That is the fruit of the Spirit which is by him derived to his Members as he saith If I live ye shall live also The same are the fruits of Righteousness and fruit unto Holiness and all have the same end viz. everlasting Life Treasure where ever it is is matter of joy If sin and departing from God be an evil as every Man finds early or late when he casts away the bait that beguiled him with anger then Holiness must needs be good and yield joy Though the Children of God are often sad yet every act and working of the Spirit upon the Soul of Man either is matter of joy immediately or mediately the heart that is broken by the Spirits operation finds it self bound up when it hath been broken enough and hath joy Particular instances of the Assertion That the Saints have joy from the assurance of the pardon of their sins is express that the knowledge of our pardon is matter of joy our Lord and Saviours speech to the sick Man proves Be of good comfort thy sins are forgiven thee for by this speech our Saviour did intend to give him more comfort than by restoring to him his bodily health Blessed is the Man whose Iniquities are forgiven the Apostles knew they had this blessedness as it is expressed In whom we have Redemption through his Blood even the forgiveness of our sins David was assured of his pardon by Nathan sent to him upon that very message and as we pray daily Forgive us our Trespasses so we find that David after he knew he was pardoned his sin did so pray likewise for remission and did also believe that they were remitted and rejoyce in it as he expresseth Ps Praise the Lord O my Soul and forget not all his benefits which forgiveth all thy sins c. And all other Servants of God pray for and obtain it in due time Priviledges of Saints Those that are Gods Servants have the Tutelage of the Angels Ps 34. They tarry round about them that fear him They have God God standing by them to save them Ps They have Jesus Christ strengthning them I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me and the Spirit helpeth them The knowledge of our Interest in God and Christ that he is our God and we his people he our Father we his Children he our Shepherd we his Flock that he is our Strength our Rock Castle and Defence Psal 18. he our Beloved we his he our portion and we his portion he our Head we his Members he our Redeemer c. And all those Texts which express his Relation to us or ours to him And what he hath done doth or will do for us must needs comfort us and rejoyce us in all conditions Psal 23. The Lord is my Shepherd therefore I shall not want he maketh me to lye down in green Pastures c. And holy David when the people talked of stoning him he encouraged himself in the Lord. And our blessed Saviour would banish all fear from the hearts of his people by vertue of their Relation Luke 2.32 Fear not little Flock it is the Fathers pleasure to give you a Kingdom And none can deprive us of enjoying our interest in him as the Prophet Habakkuk expresseth it no condition no time nor no place when the Apostles were cast into the Dungeon they sung 1 Thess 5. Rejoyce evermore God would not command it always if it were not possible to be This enjoyment of our interest in God is greater than any other enjoyment and the Soul most desires it Cant. 1. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his Mouth his Love is better than Wine That the Saints have peace of conscience and joy proceeding thereof is proved by that Rom. 5. That being justified towards God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom also we have access through Faith unto this grace wherein we stand and rejoyce under the hope of the Glory of God They are called the peaceable fruits of Righteousness They are said to be found in peace of them that love peace And every Man that hath made tryal of it hath reaped this fruit peace and tranquility and enjoy it in their Souls according to the promise of our Saviour Matth. And ye shall find rest to your Souls and it is the design of the Gospel to give this peace and rest to the Souls of Gods people by assuring them of pardon of sins and Salvation according to that Prayer of David say unto my Soul I am thy Salvation The excellency of the
with Anger Also examine thine own reason whether it be not more honourable and more satisfying to thee to shew meekness goodness of Nature ingenious Education Courtesie Generosity Love and Pity in forgiving affronts and provocations than to shew thy Pride Malice Boldness Undaunted Spirit and Courage in revenging them besides the timerity of hazarding thine own Life and Immortal Soul Then examine thy self also in all other actions of Holiness and Unholiness viz. If thou hast led thy Life in Temperance Sobriety and Frugality whether hast thou not found the benefit of it throughout thy Life in thy Mind Body and Estate But if thou hast otherwise lead thy Life thy Health is impaired thy Estate wasted thy Soul polluted and the faculties of thy mind dulled and crased The like examination thou mayest make if thou hast kept thy Body in Chastity whether thou hast not found this to be the best means to preserve thy Life Health and Estate and to propagate the same benefits to thy Issue besides many other blessings which this and every other Grace hath entailed upon it But if thou hast on the contrary been addicted to thy lusts thou wilt feel the pains of it in thy bones when age groweth upon thee and if thou hast not quite wasted thy Estate yet either thou hast no lawful Issue to inherit it or if any yet they are unsound or such as thou hast no comfort of for such persons who are thus addicted are generally thus punished with one of these punishments as we read of Solomon and have seen in our own times Hast thou fed the hungry and cloathed the naked with thy fleece thou knowest that thou hast treasure in Heaven if not thy riches will make themselves wings But alas if thou couldst attain all secular ends and interests Salva Conscientia what are they to him that carrieth on the design of an eternal Interest viz. For eternal happiness how inconsiderable how impertinent how vile But since holiness is the only meanes of attaining happiness and lusts and unholiness are the obstacles and impediments that hinder us and deprive us of it then be constant in the way of holiness and take this for thy design and main business according to that which the Poet Horrace directeth thee by the light of Nature Lib. Epistolar Primo Ep. 6. Si virtus hoc sola potest dare fortis Omissis Hoc age deliciis And Hoc primus repetes opus hoc postremus omittas And make no Omisions of duty for that puts thee back T were endless labor and needless to cite all authorities Civil Moral and Divine that might be brought to prove holiness to be the way and meanes of obtaining happiness for it is so inseparably joyned to happiness that it can hardly be distinguished from eternal happiness which I conceive is begun in this life in holiness I will only mention the Authority of the greatest of the Sons of men John the Baptist who makes repentance and workes meet for repentance to be the way to bring us to Christ who is the way the truth and the life eternal In whom we have eternal life and happiness And I conceive all men will confess the same though in workes they deny it All the precepts which our blessed Saviour taught he propounded as the means to attain happiness And the doers of them he pronounceth happy actually in the present tense likewise all the Commandments which God enjoyned the Israelites were therefore given them to make them happy and when they kept them they did make them happy as they made them holy Whither tend all Divine and Moral precepts and Philosophical improvements of the light of nature but to repress mortiify the inordinate passion and preturbations of the mind and the lusts of the flesh the lusts of the eyes and the pride of life that by this means we might enjoy a sweet and happy life in all ease rest and peace joy quietness holiness and happiness But imagining that the sensual persons of this age will still oppose and say that happiness is mans interest but the holiness of man is Gods design and interest I answer first What profit shall the Lord have if thou do good 2. Admitting it were Gods Interest it follows if he be greater than thou and thou canst not attain thy end without him then thou must of necessity promote his design and do nothing to cross it Holiness Described 3. Meditation Though it be too great a task for me to undertake nay for any creature for he hath found folly in the Angels and the Heavens are not clean in his sight therefore God himself teacheth us by his word and Spirit And from that word of truth these few collections are drawn for my own help in this grace The Negative part that sheweth what is not true holiness though by some it is supposed to be holiness is the first to be considered Our Saviour describes the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees and then tells his Disciples that Except their Righteousness exceeds theirs they shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Their Righteousness is condemned as insufficient for they justified themselves and condemned others and did their works of Piety and Charity to be seen of men and were Hypocrites Therefore Jesus Christ pronounces several woes against them Again our Saviour reproves the Jews ingeneral for relying upon the outward priviledges without the inward Qualifications saying unto them Think not to say within your selves we have Abraham for our Father This priviledg without the life of Holiness is like a dead body without a soul which the Prophet Jeremiah reproves thus Trust not in lying words saying The Temple of the Lord The Temple of the Lord The Temple of the Lord are these Jeremiah 7.4 They did frequent the Temple with their Sacrifices but the Prophet saith you trust in lying words Do you think to lye steal and come into my house Matth. 7.22 Christ shews how that many will come at the day of Judgment with great confidence saying we have prophesied in thy name cast out Devils and done many wonders But he will disown them how little then will it avail the Papists to call themselves the Church and their Pope Peters Successour Our Saviour Christ doth divide professors into 2 sorts Mathew 25. Under the terme of wise and foolish Virgins some had Oyl in their Lamps and some none all had Lamps The causes why men rest in the forme of Godliness without the power are first because they see a necessity that their actions must be changed but do not see a necessity that their hearts must be changed The Apostle Paul in the 3d. of the Philip. Refutes the Righteousness which the Jews imputed to their circumcision and outward priviledges and calls them the concision and vers the 3d. We are the Circumcision which worship God in the Spirit and have no confidence in the flesh This is the reall circumcision whereby we have the
fore-skin of our heart taken away by mortification of all the senses and affections and is in all the parts of the body the eyes the hands the tongue the eares the pallate c. This analogical circumcision remaineth that of Moses law is taken away this is Spiritual and may be with blood too as is said You have not yet resisted unto blood striving against Sin That circumcision signified this mortification but this is the more difficult His reasons of his assertion of this are couched in these characters of Christians viz. Which rejoyce in Christ and have no confidence in the flesh As if he should argue that they that rejoyce in any thing but Christ and his merits and alsufficiency are not the heires of Salvation Nor they who have confidence in any fleshly thing as circumcision and outward performances and priviledges Nor those who put off God with outword bodily worship and do not worship him with their hearts and Spirits Spiritually as it is said they draw nigh with their lips but their heart is far from me these things they may do that are in the flesh but cannot please God because they do not justice and love mercy and walk humbly with God Holiness also of our own framing is not that which God accompts holiness that is to say voluntary Humility worshipping of Angels c. These the Apostle saith Have only a shew of Godliness They that trust in themselves and despise others as the Pharisees did that say they have works of supererogation Nor they that say stand off for I am holier then thou and think well of themselves that they are profitable are not Saints The centurion had a meaner opinion of him self when he said Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof So had John the Baptist when he said he was not worthy to loofe the lachet of his Saviours shooe And wise Agar when he said he had not the understanding of a man and was more brutish then any So St. Paul when he said he was the meanest of the Apostles and not worthy to be calld an Apostle And David professeth the same humility Psal 131. saying Lord I am not high minded I have no proud looks c. And Psal He saith Lord I am a worme and no man The very scorne of men and the outcast of the people this comportment is that which becometh holiness and is acepted in the sight of God for he resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble and of Israel he saith when thou wert little in thine owne eyes then thou wert honourable and our blessed Lord and Saviour repressed the contention of the Apostles for the superiority by inculcating this grace But to seek honour from one another and to love the praise of men and salutation in the Market places the uppermost seats in the Synagogues preheminence precedency and be called Rabbi our blessed Lord and Saviour renders these for the charactars of those who would seem to be righteous and are not He plucks of the masks and vizards of these Actors of holiness and instances in their over Actings to prove that they do but personate what they are not they make broad their Phylacteries Tith mint Annis and Comin but neglect the waitysr matters of the law He shews what they are within in their harts and affections they washed but the out side of their cups their inward parts were foul still he compares their holiness to the painted Sepulcres they flourished it with giveing their almes publickly praying publickly fasting and disviguring their faces that they may be seen to fast and thus coming abroad among the people they crave veneration for this maske of holiness and they had their rewards which they sought Our Saviour tells them what course they should take to have a real goodness Math. 12.33 Either make the Tree good and his fruit good or make the Tree corrupt and his sruit corrupt v. 35. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good fruit c. That is a natural production And when the principle or cause is such the effects will be answerable â—o do worthy Acts and not to seek praise and honour for them is true worth for hereby it is manifest that he who doth so doth it for vertues sake for the love of worth and vertue meerly Therefore Bafil's expression seemeth to me to be unsound Fugiamus inanem gloriam duleem Spiritualium operum spoliatricem tincam Virtutum For how can it be called a Spiritutal work when it is done for vain glory and not by the Spirit and for the same reason such a work can not be called virtuous because the glory and not the virtue is counted sweet but nevertheless we may take such admonitious in good part But it appears that these Pharisees principles were not good because they had such base vain and vile ends whereby they neglected the weigher matters of the law and contented themselves with pairing off the external enormities that they might seem fair to men from whom they sought veneration and reverence for their professions sake affecting the honour and reward of virtue more than virtue it self But this evil leaven our saviour warned his Disciples of and in them as I conceive their successors He shews what principles a good man hath and practiseth works by for though none be good but God absolutely yet in some degrees they may be good as Joseph of Arimathea was called a good man And the good ground was he that received the word in an upright heart so that God judgeth of a man according to his state not according to some particular actions which may happen to be evil Such principles and such works makes a good man that these principles do bring forth is proved from the nature of them They are given to that end that they should bring forth for God seeing the heart weak and striving to bring forth such fruit he gives them such graces by the working of his Spirit in their hearts as may enble them Jer. 32.4 I will put my Spirit into their hearts This is active T is called the life the fountain of living waters the spirit of grace and the spirit of a sound mind because these graces are the motions and operations of the Spirit or the Spirit moving And Secondly because of the vigour and strength of these principles called the power of God and godliness 3. From their being The being that Grace hath in the Heart is in its operation so is its well-being therefore they are said to be ready to dye when they do not operate 4. For the Seat of it being possessed of the Heart which is the chief part over all and so gives Life to all 5. The heart is supposed to be the seat of the affections which being made good by such principles they produce fruit answerable The real goodness in the Heart must be exerted in the action and the work that is
Stimulus in carne the provocation or irritation in the Flesh buffeted him First he is sensible of his own weakness and useth violence upon himself and keeps under his body yet he did not trust in these means because he knew their insufficiency Therefore he seeks help and assistance from him that is All-sufficient and besought God against it that it might depart from him which God was not pleased to grant as appeareth because the Holy Man was subject to be transported with Pride because of the extraordinary priviledges and abundance of Revelations given unto him Yet he obtained that which was better for him Grace sufficient for when he was weak in himself he was then strong in Grace And that Stimulus suffered to remain to prick the bladder of his Pride and probably for the same reasons God may suffer many of us to undergo the like buffetings from our corruptions and yet support and sustain us in the encounter that we fall not If we be careful as the Apostle was to make use of the same means viz. subduing our body and prayer For we have all the same promises as these men had and the same means to obtain Grace and Life Eternal To know God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent and he that hath but the hope of Eternal Life purifyeth himself even as he is pure and this purifying is by denying our selves taking up our Cross and following Christ which is the Act of Faith and the Life of Faith And by Faith too it is scarcely attainable with great difficulty as our Saviour himself tells us Luke 3. Strive to enter in at the strait Gate for narrow is the way And the righteous shall scarcely be saved c. And those who have both Faith whereby they are able to overcome the World by Gods assistance and the Spirit too to assist them yet these find that though the Spirit is willing the flesh is weak That is though thou subdue it never so much yet though it be subdued that it dare not much oppose yet it will still be unable to keep Pace with the motions of the Spirit Yet I fear too that it will never be so subdued but I shall be forced to bewail my self often with the words of the Apostle Romans 8. The Law is Spiritual but I am carnal but as he disowned himself in this person saying 't is no more I but sin that dwelleth in me So may every child of God whose will is as his was and useth the means that he did And so will God own them for that which is his Image in them By this the Apostle sheweth the enemy with whom he had fought the good fight and having fought it he assures himself that God will give him the Crown And having sowed the seed he expects to reap the same he sowed for he sowed to the Spirit and of the Spirit hoped to reap life everlasting which the Righteous Judge will give to all that love his appearance Rev. 22. Let him that is holy be holy still Meditation 5. The meanes which the soul useth to attaine its renovation and to preserve and persevere in it Are fervent prayer to God for it diligent reading meditation mortification and continual self denial Zeal of God an earnest thirst after a greater degree of grace from the sense of its own weakness and failing a forsaking the world its hopes and feares and worldly interests profits joys and greifes Faith hope and watchfulness against temptation to watch the mouth and the heart Patience in suffering wrongfully humility or to be little in his own eyes for God gives his greace to the humble To set God alwaies before us in his omniscience omnipotence infinitness of his holiness glory and goodness A timely and carely seeking it and entertaining it when it is offered to us without delaies else when we seek we may be rejected as in Prov. 1. Because when I called you answerd not c. Unweariedness in their race To have an eye to the recompence of reward and not to fear them that can only hurt the body but be in the fear of God all the day To abstain from all appearance of evil 1 Thes 5.22 Not only from known sins but from things that have but some complexion of evil for such is the purity of Gods nature that he hates every species or shew of evil And such perfection doth he require in his Servants as it is expressed by our Saviour Math. 5. Strait is the gate c. Be ye perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect A holy appetite to the word of God and communion with God in every ordinance as prayer praise the communion of the body and blood of Christ Jesus in the Lords supper Mat. 5. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be satisfied Psal 42.2 My soul is thirst for God yea even for the living God When shall I come to appear before the presence of God This sheweth how he practised Another meanes like unto this is that of St. Paul not to account that we have attained but to press forward Also it is appointed as a necessary means to attain this end by our Saviour himself that we learn of him and we are taught so to do by the holy Apostles That we should walke even as he walked 1 Joh. 2.6 Hereby we know that we have his nature his image his Spirit and union with him we ought then to imitate his humility whereby he became man and took upon him the form of a Servant in his meekness Isa 53.7 He was oppressed and afflicted but opened not his mouth He gave his back to the smiter and his cheeke to them that plucked off the hair and hid not his face from spitting So ought we to bear injuries with patience and not render evil for evil 3. In his willing and perfect obedience Psal 40. I delight to do thy will thy law is in my heart 4. In love Ephe. 5.7 Walk in love as Christ loved us Let husbands love their wives as Christ loved the Church 5. In perfect charity we must pray fer our enimies as he did 6. In diligence in religious duties he prayed all night he went constantly to the Synagogue on the Sabbath day 7. In our Reverence in holy Worship he fell on his face or kneeled yet he had the Spirit without measure 8. In his contempt of the world My Kingdom saith he is not of this world 9. In heavenly-mindedness his custom was to instruct of Heaven out of ordinary conferences as when the woman spake to him of water he spake of the water of life So must we have our conversation in Heaven 10. In his faithfulness in his function Heb. 3.2 Who was faithful to him that appointed him as Moses was faithful He was daily in the Temple and went about doing good and therefore in his last prayer said It is finished 11. In self-denial he said I seek not my own will but the
thou O my soul apprehend that these are only the peculiar priviledges and injoyments of the Saints and fearest thy self to be none of those but fain thou wouldst be such thou maiest sue to the Lord to perform those and the like promises of free grace Jer. 32.40 I will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from me I will give them a new heart And that Micha 7.19 He will subdue our iniquities And that Isa 3.4 The heart of the rash shall understand And that Isa 11.6 The Wolf shall lye down with the Lamb and the Leopard shall lye down with the Kid. And that Hosa 14.15 I will heal their backslidings And that Rom. 16.20 The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly And that Ezek. 36.27 I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and ye shall keep my judgements and do them Luke 11.13 How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him And Isa 35.5 The ear of the deaf shall be unstopped And that Deut. 30.9 I will circumcise thine heart That thou maiest love the Lord thy God with all thine heart c. And that in Isa 40. v. 31. They shall run and not be weary they shall walk and not faint Since then God hath promised to give thee his Spirit if thou askest it of him and prooved it with an argument a fortiori that he will and hath promised to do all this for thee and work all these works in thee and thou findest in thy self desires pantings and longing for them and thereupon dost ask him in his Sons name and for his mercies sake his truths sake and his names sake to perform these promises and givest him no rest till he doth it doubt not but he will Meditation of the Love of God Psal 103.8 The Lord is full of compassion and mercy long suffering and of great goodness c. Those sweet compellations which almighty God useth to his poor creature man if they do but sink into our hearts they must needs make such impressions as will cause reciprocal love to him Is Ephraim a dear Son is he a pleasent Child what can endear thee more than this Oh my soul what love canst thou desire more he counts thee and calls thee in this Relation Son looks upon thee with compassion as his child and pittieth thee as a Father pittieth his Child delighteth in thee as a Father delighteth in a Child whom he loveth and helpeth thee as his Child Behold what manner of love God hath shewed thee that thou shouldest be called the Son of God Joh. 1.4 If a Son then an heir and joynt heir with Christ his only begotten Son for Christ is not ashamed to call us Bretheren in this relation to God and Christ what canst thou want or fear or what more canst thou desire in the 3d. Chap. of Mal. He calls them his Jewels and Rev. 1. Kings and Priests and Isa 62. a Crown of glory His portion he called Abraham his friend What canst thou fear a Master may be severe if his work be done he will pay wages if not stripes but a Father is indulgent and will spare his Child and require no more of him than he can perform with comfort and delight if then thou canst find in thy self the disposition of a Child be sure thou maiest find in him the disposition of a Father Mat. 3. Our Blessed Saviour hath owned them in these relations viz. His Bretheren his members his Spouse his betroathed his Sister and Mother his Garden his Church his beloved his branches his Servants his flock his lambs his friends and Revel 1.6 He hath loved us and washed us from our sins and made us Kings and Priests to God Could the Canaanitish Woman find incouragement for faith to lay hold from that of Dog who needs to dispair sure not a prodigal Son And every thing that is excellent beautiful and desirable beloved and endeared he compares his people to it and sees all those perfections in them as he expresseth in the Cant. O then my soul admire and be inamoured of him and find all excellencies perfections and desirable good things in him from whom thine excellency cometh and is derived thine head thy Husband thine elder Brother thy Father thy Maker thy Governour thy Redeemer for so doth the heavenly Spouse see and admire in Christ Jesus her Beloved If so thou dost then thou knowest that he is they Beloved thy Saviour thy Head thy Brother thy Portion thy Delight thou lovest him in all that he did or said his teaching his sufferings his miracles thy love to him is but the reflexion of the beam of his Meditations of Mercy Med. 1. Psal 103.11 As high as the Heaven is above the earth so great is his Mercy c. WOrthy of our meditation are all the workes of God and every word of his to be studied by us that we may thereby improve our graces but his workes of mercy and that part of his word which holdeth forth mercy and offers it and sets forth God in the Glory and excellency of his mercy is most necessary for sinful man and most comfortable to be considered All that are saved are saved by meditating of this all that are lost are lost and perish for lack of the knowledg of this this is life eternal to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ The freeness then and largeness of it is to be our chief study free it is What motive found he in us to move him when enemies to give his Son up for us all and to beseech us but only from his own goodness because he delights in mercy The man that seeks his lost sheep may get the profit of it and so may the woman that seeks her lost groat but what profit can the Lord get by us for which he may seek us for when we have done all we are unprofitable Servants The largeness of his mercy is without limits for if he hath commanded us to forgive seventy times seven times will not he frankly forgive us what we are not able to satisfy since he makes his forgiving of us many talents the argument why we should forgive petty debts can we imaging that he will take the first forfeiture since he hath commanded us not only to forgive our enemies but to love them bless them pray for them to do good for evil will not he forgive us love us and bless us as freely for Christs sake though there be no motive in us for it would he make love to be the fulfilling of the law charity the covering of transgression prefer charity before piety by commanding us to leave our gift at the Altar to be reconciled to our Brother prefer it before faith and all gifts and graces making it as it were the ligament and sinews of all and that if we want that all other graces are but empty sounds make
raiment and God increased him to two bands Abraham desired but a Son and God increaseth his seed as the sand of the Sea The prodigal desires to be but as a Servant and the Father entertaineth him with embracings and feastings But as for his people that trust in him mercy imbraseth them on every side God satisfieth their mouth with good things they shall want no manner of thing that is good He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him if he doth not give the thing desired he will take away the desire of it Psal 32.4 Delight thy self in the Lord and he will give the thy hearts desire We starve our souls for want of asking Joash struck three times on the ground and the Prophet was angry and said to him Thou shouldest have strucken six or seven times Paul to the Corinthians saith you are not straitned in us but in your own bowels And t is said of Christ that he could not do many works because of their infidelety to be often upon our knees shews our faith in him believing his goodness and Fatherly care of us Infidelity doth as it were bind the hands of God who is not wanting in his bowels of mercy Be sensible then O my soul of thy wants know where to go for thy supply namely to him that inviteth thee give way to thy most inlarged desires when thou goest to an infinite supply be not straitned in thine own bowels open thy mouth wide come boldly as he biddeth thee And ask the things that are pleasing in his sight since thou knowest thou shalt receive them if they be such things as the word of God teaches thee to ask fear not because thou art sensible of thine own unworthiness since such are invited and the best are unprofitable Servants And when they have done all they may and must acknowledge themselves such and stand in need of the merits of their Saviour and are justified freely by grace if so much more must such sinners as I and such as Mary Magdalen see our own unprofitableness But Oh that I could love as much as she did because much is forgiven me and I believe that he will forgive me because he hath given me many things and it is easier and lesser in the esteem of men to forgive a debt than to give I shall undoubtedly believe his love to me If I can feel in my heart such love to him 5. Meditation When I find the Lord reckoning up the greivous sins of his auncient people the Jews that they were a rebellious people lying Children that would not hearken to the law of the Lord which say to the seers see not and to the Prophets prophesy not unto us right things but deceits cause the holy one of Israel to cease from before us for which iniquity he threatens them v. 13. And v. 15. Promiseth them salvation if they return but finding them obstinate they would not whereby they procure their own ruin Therefore he saith Isa 15.18 He will wait to be gracious unto them He will be exalted that he may shew mercy unto them as if he had said though their sins were never so great yet his mercy should not be overcome his mercy is infinite as he is their sins are the sins of men his mercies the mercies of God that where iniquity doth abound grace doth superabound his mercy is free without any merit in us or any motive unless it be our misery the motive of his patience and mercy is only from himself but that he waited to be gracious implies that though his mercy were never so free yet he could not find a season to shew it then when they were so averse from him Since then the motive of mercy is only in God himself we may infer that there is nothing in him to discourage faith and recumbency upon him so that although we have been guilty of such sins as these are or the same though we have been rebellious lying averse and would not hearken unto his voice nor to his Prophets and have hindred them from speaking right things yet let us remember our selves and returne unto him as the Ninevites did when they were warned who knowes but he may wait to be gracious to us also but let us not presume upon his mercy and make that which should be our Physick our Poison We know that he hath given us a High Priest who doth not only know our insirmities and impotencies but therefore knew them that he might have compassion upon us Blessed Jesus thou knowest that no man can come after thee unless the Father draw him help thou our weak nature by thy Holy Spirits assistance draw us we will run after thee Quicken us who by nature are dead in trespasses and sins take away our heart of stone and give us hearts of flesh for thy promise sake A Prayer LORD when I am tempted to revenge pride Emulation Abition wrath or any other sinful action to satisfy my sensual carnal appetite to maintaine my honour to repress my adversary to Correct his insolency inlighten me with thy Heavenly grace thy word and thy Spirit that I may pull off the Mask of these sensual carnal waies of the men of the world which shall perish and see their vanity and deformity and anoint thou my eyes that I may cleerly see the beauty of every vertue grace meekness charity humility patience longanimity that I may view them in themselves and in those who excelled therein and esteeme them more honourable than to be accompted brave gallant bold valiant and heroick as sometimes I have esteemed when I have seen heard and read of any exemplar and rare act of the graces as to instance the patience of Job when he had lost his estate children and bodily health murmured not but blessed God and Eli 'T is the Lord let him do what seemeth good in his eyes Hanna when she was reproved for drunkenness answered without anger nay but in the bitterness of my soul I prayed Forgive us our trepasses as we forgive them that trespass against us 1. Meditation If our forgiving the trespasses of others be the pattern of Gods forgiveness to us how few can be saved for none ever forgave every injury that hath been done to him some they have revenged But if God doth not pardon every sin to us we are damned Lord give us thy grace to be as free in the pardoning of all trespasses without exception though never so many as we would have thee forgive us for we cannot have so many committed against us as we have committed against thee therefore we have need of a larger pardon from God to us than we can have occasion to give others If God would take accompt of us we shall have need of forgiveness for a thousand talents Mat. 18.24 More than we are able to satisfy yet when we fall down before him beseeching his pardon he freely forgives us all But if we for a hundred pence or
helpe in trouble I have wilfully opened a gap to let in a stream of corruptions a Breach is made in my spiritual Castle for all the enemies of my soul to break in at and I am disposed to greater sins which by little and little creep in and get ground by degrees till at last it reigns uncontrolled and brings us in the end to a hardned heart a seared conscience that cannot repent and eternal damnation I consider also what might and ought to have drawn me from my sin to the contrary virtue What strength of humane reason what moral precepts natural modesty and shame fear of being seen examples of moral serious and religious men to the contrary serenity of mind the publick good and my own private good contentation and transquility and happiness with many more motives from the light of nature and good education ready to inform and restrain a mind willing to be virtuous Besides innumeâ—able other restraints from the word of God the instructing of the Spirit The life of faith the fear of God and his alseeing eye the terror of the curse upon the disobedient Hope of Heaven and eternal recompences to the obedient the exceeding and eternal weight of glory which is laid up for us the exceeding precious promises able not only to support the soul of a believer in the greatest difficulties but also to ravish it which excess of joy under the greatest sufferings Besides if I had no such light of nature no education no knowledg of the scriptures and humane precepts no knowledg of histories of Gods dealing in judgment with other sinners who have felt the truth of all the threatnings denounced against sinners as Josephus and the scriptures and other writings testify the Jews did and all notorious sinners have done and daily do if I had no promises to allure no threatnings to drive me no conscience to testify unto me no testimony of other men in all ages both wicked and righteous yet this one argument were perswasive enough to have deterred me from wickedness to the service of God namely my dependance on him for the necessaries and conveniencies of life my supplys my sustentation and preservation from imminent dangers unexpectedly surprising me This might be sufficient to make me bewaile my own improvidence and folly in casting away my succour my hope my sustentation safeguard and preservation for that which hath not profited me I therefore with grief of heart bewail my self But that which may cumulate more grief is to consider the ungratitude of my sinful soul for so many mercies received which have transported me with admiration As when I received form the hands of the Lord houses that I built not and wealth that I laboured not for whereby I was delivered from getting my bread with the sweat of my brow and the labor of my mind and body in pain and sorrow with continual carping and caring and restlesness the benefit whereof I continually enjoy with comfort therefore my duty of gratitude obligeth me to consider what I shall render to God and to use these mercies to his honour and glory and not to abuse them to his dishonour in sinning against him And when I have done the contrary I have dealt unworthily with so good a God for if Hanna would needs retribute for one mercy what must I do for so many The many deliverances that God hath wrought for me in bringing me out of troubles which I have sometimes brought upon my self sometimes my enimies have brought upon me sometimes the hand of God hath brought upon me and my relations either for our sins or for our trials out of all which the Lord delivered me so that I can testify and set to my seale that God is true and hath performed all his gracious promises to me that he hath made to them that fear him He hath been with me in six troubles and in the seventh he hath not forsaken me his deliverances have exceeded both these numbers therefore I must confess that he hath also verified his largest promises to me saying I will never leave thee nor forsake thee And also when he saith No weapon formed against thee shall prosper And when he saith Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it For his mercies have been greater than my desires and my tongue would fail me to recount them All which fly in my face and testify against me when I sin for how can I recount all his benefits which I have received from him upon which I live beginning with that of being born of virtuous parents And all the deliverances which he hath wrought for me in abundance of mercy and chiefly that he hath delivered my soul from Hell But I must reflect upon my sin with shame and confusion of face with loathing and abhorring my self in sackcloth and ashes with fasting and depriving my self of all comforts and injoyments with humiliation and abasing my self with earnest and humble supplications sighs and tears of a contrite heart but when I consider the vows promises and protestations which I have made to God in my time of trouble when I sought to God for my deliverance and that he did pluck me as a brand out of the fire and did hear my prayers and delivered me and did grant my requests above my desire or hope as he did Jacobs These broken vows put me to shame and cause me to abhor my self and with Ephraim to smite upon my breast desiring in my heart that I could do any thing whereby I might but undo one sinful action or that I could expiate the same by any sufferings but my conscience tells me that all I can do or suffer through the whole course of my life will not be sufficient to expiate or attone for one sin so as to make me innocent again Therefore I have resolved and vowd to sin no more And I have wished my self dead that I might no more sin and I have resolved to separate my self from the world that I may spend all my time in serving God who hath not dealt by me after my sins Thy word O Lord hath shewed me that if thy people repent them of their sins and forsake them though they be as scarlet thou wilt make them white as snow and thou wilt abundantly pardon them and thou wilt repent thee of the evil which thou bringest upon them If Ahab go mourning thou wilt not bring the evil in his days and all thy threatinings are only conditional unless we repent So the City of Ninivie diverted thy wrath by turning unto thee and seeking thee with fastings and prayers This duty all the Prophets taught This St. John the Baptist preached Saying Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand This our Blessed Saviour and his Apostles taught Therefore let me practise this so necessary a duty but unless thou inablest me with thy grace and unless thou givest me repentance I cannot have it of my self because my heart is hard of it self
and thou only dost mollify it by the word and thy Spirit I will therefore beseech thee for this grace saying with Ephraim Jer. 31.18 Turn thou me O Lord and I shall be turned for thou art the Lord for of my self I am under thy Chastisements untamed as a Bullock unaccustomed to the yoak But if thou turnest me thou wilt open my ear by discipline thou wilt open my eyes and mollify my hard heart I shall be instructed convinced of my errours and smite upon my breast and repent and be ashamed Thus Ephraim did Jer. 31.19 Surely after I was turned I repented after I was instructed I smote upon my thigh I was ashamed and confunded because I did bear the reproach of my youth Lord we ascribe this and all our graces unto thee thou workest in us both to will and to do as St. Paul said That he labourd more abundantly than all yet not he but the grace of God in him It is not sufficient that thou commandest all men to repent but that godly sorrow which worketh repentance is from thee also By this we are sorrowfull for our sins for sins sake and not only for fear of the punishment as Esau when he sought repentance carefully with tears because of his loss as also Pharo repented of his sins but the plagues being removed he returned to his sin again And the Israelites when God consumed their dayes in vanity and their years in trouble and when he slew them they sought him but within a while they forgot God And God alone can give this sorrow because he alone can open the eyes to let us see our selves know our selves and let me ever seek my light in him Act. 26.8 For God is light and all light is from him The Spirit shews us our selves in the glass of the law which shewes us our sinfulness and our lost undone condition by reason thereof and that sin is the worst of evils because it is the cause of all other evils and without this conviction we cannot repent because we are destitute of light in our selves to see our selves for by sin our understanding is darkned Eph. 4.18 And 1 Joh. 2.11 He that hateth his Brother walketh in darkness and knoweth not whither he goeth He wanteth light and sight too Job 24.13 They rebel against the light and know not the waies thereof Naturally we shut our eyes against the light as the Jews Joh. 12.37 Though Christ Jesus had done many miracles among them yet they believed not in him though also he speak as no man spake his enemies being judges And because our natural estate is a state of unbelief therefore we in that estate oppose the light of Gods word as is said Luke 16.4 Though one should come out of Hell they would not believe Again I find I cannot repent of my self without Gods grace inclining me Because naturally my heart is proud and unhumbled and sees no use of Christ And therefore it must be humbled by grace for Christ came only to seek and to save that which was lost and sensible of their lost condition their Spiritual sickness and fly to Christ as the man slayer did to the Cities of refuge or the prodigal after he could not find relief in the husks would then returne to his Fathers house Again I find in my self that my nature when dejected is inclined to repentance too violently as the Corinthians who sorrowed over much or rather like that of Judas ready to make away my self if Gods supernatural grace did not help me by applying some word of comfort out of the Scripture Then if my repentance cause not a dejection I fear it is too cold like that of the Israelites when God slew them then they sought him but presently they forgat that God was their redeemer Therefore I pray for Gods grace so to convince me of sin that I may be also convinced of righteousness too for he hath said That if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive them That I may not sorrow as those who are without hope nor hang down my head like a bulrush for a day but that I may sorrow to amendment and better obedience for unless it attain to that end and proceed from these causes I must not account it a godly sorrow working to repentance But a worldly sorrow or a devilish sorrow for they also fear and tremble but they cannot turn unto God with their affections and endeavours and bring forth fruit meet for Repentance nor be renewed in the Spirit of their mind which is the only true Repentance I find in my self sometimes motions of the flesh suggesting that I have time enough to repent But I pray that whilst it is to day I may lay hold on the seasons of Grace that I may remember my Creator in the time of my youth least sin grow to a habit and by custom seem to be no sin and becomes a second Nature that it cannot be parted withal And in the first of Proverbs 't is said Because when I called ye answered not therefore ye shall call and I will not answer which our Saviour testifieth that the Jews found true when he wept over Jerusalem and he rejected those who made excuses when they were invited I fear and am jealous that my Repentance is not so sound as it ought to be because I am not so sensible of the evil of sin as I ought for though immediately after the commission of sin I apprehend great evil in it in making me liable to all Gods Judgements here and hereafter and that it deprives me of all good First my hopes of Eternal happiness hereafter and the great and precious promises made to the obedient And if not that for there remaineth hope of Repentance yet there is great loss and punishment to all sinners though they repent As David found when he numbred the people When God offered him his choice of the three Judgements And when he denounced that Judgement against his Family That the Sword should never depart from it And Lot for his drunkenness and lust suffered shame all the days of his life and the curse upon his Seed Besides the outward losses I cannot sufficiently value the inward Spiritual loss when I have no access to the Throne of Grace with any confidence but am afraid to approach to it nor can have any comfort in meditating of God's Word and Promises as if I heard a voice saying Why dost thou take my Laws into thy Mouth seeing thou hatest to be reformed and hast cast my Commandments behind thy back or if I do meditate of Gods Word and his Promises and his Goodness I find not such sweetness and delight in my Meditations as I did before I had sinned On the contrary I find these Spiritual losses First Great advantage given to my Spiritual Adversary to insult over me as if I were guilty of all sins by this one sin and the same disobedience that lead me to this