upon the height of his Stature like Saul among the People there is none like him View him in all his excellencies he is white and ruddy the Chiefest among ten thousand fairer than all the Children of Men and your self will be complete in him Know for your encouragement that you shall have the richest Dowry in all the World for all that Christ and Heaven is worth shall be yours the Wife being interested in all her Husbands Goods he will advance you to a Kingdom and Feoffe you in all the riches of it Say then Lord if I had Ten Thousand selves I would give them all up to thee who hast shewed to me such wonderful Love as to offer to give up thy self to me I will take thee with all my heart I give my free and hearty consent let the Match be made and assure your self then that it shall be made up the Spirit of Christ will be assistant to Faith in Tying the Marriage knot CHAP. II. Of Living the Life of Faith 1. LIve the Life of Faith in a continual dependence upon God in Christ for all things necessary especially for the Soul Six hundred and Thirteen precepts have been observed to be in the Law of Moses by some of the Hebrew Doctors who had the leisure to number them and they tell us that they are all wrapt up by the Prophet Habakkuk in that one short sentence The just shall live by Faith Sure it is a very pregnant and comprehensive duty for Faith is an Obediential Affiance and so is a pair of Compasses one foot whereof viz. Affiance being pitch'd upon the Center which is God the other goes round in a perfect Circle of all holy Duties Faith surveys the whole Land of promise searches it out throughly spies out all the rich Treasures that lye in the golden mines of the promises and finds suitable provision in every case both for Soul and for Body which in it can fetch in time of need and so it hath work enough daily for a constant and continued employment because every moment we are under some spiritual want 2. As for temporal good things live by Faith in a holy dependency and indifferency resting contented with the will of God whatsoever it be A believer though the Bill of fare be short lives on the wise powerful and gracious providence of God not doubting but he shall have enough to pay for his passage thorugh the Sea of this World to Heaven How many live on the Trencher of Gods Providence in their maintenance who never live on that providence in a gracious dependance or by actings of Faith in a promise Do not most Persons live wholly by their Friends by their Credit and Interest in the World but where is the Man or Woman that Lives by Faith 3 Fetch in provision for your Soul daily by actings of Faith Let Faith make out to Christ for new supplies of spiritual strength grace and comfort in all your need Faith is our Purveyor till we come to the Mount of God and goes a Catering for us till we come to that Land that flows with Milk and Hony God is a rich Mine of Wisdom and Grace which can never be digged to the bottom and hath inexhaustible Treasures lock'd up in Christ continually lying ready by him only stays for Faith to come and fetch them He is not pleased to give us in a full supply of all at once but crumbles out his mercies and gives his blessings by retail to teach us by Faith to live upon him daily Manna fell every morning God could if he had pleased have given them as much at once as should have served them all the time that they were to be in the Wilderness but he would teach them by his daily gift to depend upon his Providence for it daily Thus God is pleased to deliver out to his dear Children every day a set allowance it may be but a Crum of hidden Manna a tast of his special Love when he could fill an Omer of it if he pleased it may be he reaches forth to a believer only some Grapes of the Heavenly Canaan when he could throw clusters thereof into his Lap. He could have so form'd the new-born Babe in Christ and have cast it into such a Mould in the New-birth as that it should have been perfect in that instant as Adam was in the moment of Creation but he will have this Babe of grace to go by degrees from Faith to Faith from Strength to Strength till it come to full perfection The king appointed a daily Provision of his meat and of the Wine which he drank to certain of the Children of Israel Dan. 1.5 Thus doth the King of Heaven he will not give all grace at once out of his Store-house nor let the Pot of hidden Manna be in our keeping he doth not think fit we should have his Royal Wine of spiritual Joy and Comfort in our own Cellars to go to when we please lest we should drink and forget our selves yea and him too lest it should fume up and make our Heads giddy or our Blood too rank our Spirits too high proud for it is no easie matter to carry the brim-full Cup of Consolation steddily and equally though the Soul have rich joy to day yet it may have none to morrow unless he please to send a draught of this Cordial Wine from his own Table And why is all this but to teach us to live by Faith and wait continually upon him for new Influences The wise Father keeps the stock in his own hands and gives not all at once to keep his Son in a dependence CHAP. III. Of the Life of Holiness LIve the Life of Holiness This directly follows the Life of Faith for all holiness springs from Faith and the more you live the Life of Faith the more you will live the Life of holiness Now if you would live this Holy Life you must do these five things 1. Get a principle of holiness you cannot live a Life of holiness unless there be first a principle of holiness within Can the Body stir or move without a principle of Life how can there be actual holiness in the Life where there is not first habitual holiness in the Heart 2. Make holiness the very work of your Life or devote your self to the work of holiness he lives a Students life or the life of a Scholar who devotes himself to his Studies You do then live a Holy Life when you make holiness the very business of your Life when the Course and Tenor and main Imployment of your Life is Holiness when you make a Trade of it Do you only perform Holy Duties by fits and starts do you make stops and pauses are you off and on and act holily only occasionally or in some certain good moods or on some Holy days this is not to live a Life of Holiness You must constantly imploy your self therein and follow after it in the
whole course of your Life And therefore let me now bespeak you in the words of a Holy Man now with the Lord. Let Holiness sit in your Lips and season all your Speech with Grace let it dwell in your Heart let it be your companion in your Closet let it Travel with you in your Journey let it lye down and rise up with you let it close your Eyes in the Evening and call you out of your Bed in the Morning 3. Make holiness the main design and end of your Life Then indeed you live the Life of Holiness when holiness which is the main design of Christianity is the great design of your Life when the very drift purport and intent of your Life is to live to God 4. Spend all the time of your Life that you can redeem from other occasions in the duties of holiness while others steal time from holy duties for their Worldly business and pleasures do you borrow all the time that you can from those things yea from your sleep for holy duties 5. Put forth your Vital Power your Life your Vigor and Strength in Exercises of Holiness Summon in all the powers of your soul let none be wanting Whatsoever your Heart findeth to do in the Work of Religion do it with all your might ply your Oars hoise up your Sails put forward with all your power and strength with might and main in your course toward Heaven By thus doing you will certainly live the Life of Holiness It may be you may meet with some scoffs amongst some Ishmaels for such a Holy Life bat yet let not this discourage or take you off from following the ways of holiness and uprightness What if a Lame Man should laugh at your upright walking would you therefore go lamely But for your better encouragement I shall propound to you one Motive Consider that unless you live the Life of holiness you can never live the Life of glory Vnless you be Regenerated and Born again you can never enter into the Kingdom of God John 3.3 It 's only the New Creature that must be admitted into the New Jerusalem You will never be a Flower in the Paradise of Heaven unless you first be Transplanted out of the common field of Nature into Christ's holy Garden Without Holiness no one shall ever see the Lord. Heb. 12.14 It 's this that fits the very Angels for Heaven and therefore without it how can you ever think to come there It 's not the Angelical Nature but their Holiness that makes them fit for Heaven and therefore it 's more excellent than the very Nature of the Angels considered in it self for it is the Image of God as a bright beam of the Divine Nature and so makes us capable of Heaven My Heart therefore yearns for you my Bowels rowl within me out of tender affection to your Soul lest you should come short of Holiness and thereby come short of Heaven Moral Virtues without Holiness will never be a Jacobs Ladder to reach Heaven how near soever they may come to it O what pity is it that an Ingenuous Nature should by some Moral accomplishments come near to Heaven and yet never come there that Rachel should dye when it was but a little way to come to Ephrath Be sure therefore to add the practice and power of Godliness as a full figure to your Cyphers For unless you do this I shall never have hope to see your Face in Heaven which is an undefiled Inheritance CHAP. IV. Of Living as in Gods Presence 1. LIve always as in the presence of God and as under his jealousie Thus did good Elizabeth in the Gospel of whom it is said That she was Righteous before God or in the Eyes of the Lord as the Vulgar Latin reads it Luke 1.6 It was good counsel of one of the Rabbins that we should always think that there was an Eye that saw all an Ear hearing all and an Hand writing all Often repeat the 1â—9 Psalm to your self and seriously consider that God is in all places and not only in the place where you are but within you in your very Breast and Bosom viewing all your thoughts and intentions not with a bare beholding but with a critical Eye and as a Judge to censure them to approve or Condemn them Whereupon his eye-lids are said to try the Children of Men Psal 11.4 You cannot shut the Heart so close but he hath a Key to unlock it he draws the Curtain and sees what is within he spies out what is Cabinetted and lock'd up in the most secret Corner and private Drawer there The bright and piercing Eye of Omniscience sees the very inward Conceptions before they come to the Birth the first eruptions and ebullitions of a Thought or Intention 2. If you do all things as believing that this Eye is upon you it will have a great influence on your Life What a holy trembling and quivering disposition would this create in you lest you should offend so Glorious an Eye What a Curb and Bridle would it be to restrain from all Sin even from secret Hypocrisie What a sharp Goad and Spur to all Uprightness The Masters Eye makes the Servant work Do but serve God faithfully while he sees you and it is enough I have read of one that committing a foul Sin said to himself No Eye sees me but presently there appear'd an Eye on the Wall with this Inscription But this Eye sees thee If you did always keep within you fresh apprehensions of God as present you would not admit a dishonourable thought of him in your Heart nor let an evil word have passage through the door of your Lips 3. Know for your encouragement that if you thus live as in Gods awful Presence you shall enjoy very much his gracious Presence here and his Glorious Presence hereafter to all Eternity CHAP. V. Of Living in Love to God and Christ 1. LIve in love to God and Jesus Christ do all things out of a principle of Love to God your Father and Jesus Christ the only Saviour God must be loved as your ultimate end the enjoyment of whom is the Souls everlasting blessedness and Christ as Mediator must be loved as the only way whereby we are reconciled to God and come to obtain that blessedness If you live not in the love of God how can you ever expect to live in his favour or that he will either accept you or your Services for it is this Love that perfumes all our actions and makes them a sweet Odour unto God Love to God is the very Life and Soul of all Natural Religion and Love to Christ is the Spirit and Vital principle that animates all Evangelical Duties which are required by the New Covenant and therefore no duty will be acceptible without it 2. Look well to it that your love to God and Christ be a singular superlative transcendent Love a Love that out-ballanceth all other Love whatsoever It must be the
much delighted with the praises of his People he likes well a thankful frame of heart and indeed the heart is never in a better frame than when it 's tuned into a thankful Note 3. Labour very much to get your self moulded into this excellent frame of a thankful and praiseful spirit Do you love and affect mirth and pleasure let me then prevail with you to endeavour seriously to get this Truth engraven as a Principle in your breast that you will never find more pure and clarified pleasure more sweet delight more ravishing joy than when you are in a God-praising and a Christ-admiring frame David's mouth is filled as with marrow and fatness i. e. with the most sweet and delicious pleasure when he praises the Lord Psal 62.5 Yea this will be blessedness to you Blessed saith that holy Psalmist are they that dwell in thy house for they will be still praising thee Psal 84.4 By being thus employed you will hold a Consort with Heaven and fill up the Musick there 4. And because you are unable by all your Songs of Thanks and Praise to reach unto that height of Praise which the Love and Mercies of God call for from you even a Note above Ela such a high Note as would crack all your Strings all your Faculties to get up unto therefore call to Angels and Arch-Angels and all the Quire in the Cathedral of Heaven to sing glory honour and praise to him that sits upon the Throne and to the Lamb for ever and ever CHAP. XII Of Humility 1. LEarn to live humbly before God This will help very much to advance that Praise and Thankfulness that I have now been praising to you The humble Canaanitish how thankful would she be for a Crum falling from the Table of Mercy Matth. 15. A dram of Mercy will then weigh very heavy with you when you look upon your self as the very dust of the ballance 2. The Prophet Micah chap. 6.8 declaring what is good and what the Lord requires of us gives this Instruction Walk humbly with thy God We put on our best Robes when we are to be taken into familiar converse with great persons And therefore that you may walk with the great God and converse with him be clothed with Humility as the Apostle Peter exhorts 1 Pet. 5.5 This is a plain but a very comely and neat Sute of Apparel The Greek word that the Apostle useth in that place seems to allude to the Knots or Ribbands that Women tie about them for Ornament Humility is an excellent Ribband that doth not only adorn the Soul but ties all the Graces together on a knot it 's the string of all those precious and goodly Pearls which if it break they are all scattered If you suffer Pride to break this string your lose all your Virtues When the low Violet of Humility withers all your other Flowers will die Hence Bernard who calls Faith the Mother stiles Humility the Nurse of all Graces God will give all Grace to the humble 1 Pet. 5.5 The richest Wine is laid up in the lowest Cellars The graces and comforts of the Spirit are not laid in the high and lofty heart It 's said of Sancta Clara that she was but once in all her life tickled with the thoughts of Pride and she felt not the comforts of the Spirit of twenty years after Without this Garment of of Humility the Soul is naked and thread-bare It 's a Grace of the greatest worth and yet it will cost you the least to keep it 9. Shew your Humility by your sweet contentedness with that condition which the Wisdom of God shall assign you shew it by your being so far from over-valuing your self that you do entertain mean and low thoughts of your self and let it also appear by your setting light by the esteem of others and by patient bearing all their slights It 's hard indeed to be cut in this Vein and not to bleed very sore if not deadly Shew your Humility also by abandoning bravery or costliness of Apparel for ostentation 4. Now that you may become humble and keep your self so study much the Corruption of Nature and to know your self Say often to your self O what a vile sinful Nature have I how full of corruption which makes my life full of sin how empty am I of all good in what a Bankrupt condition is my poor Soul And if you would in this case take a right and impartial view of your self there is one false Glass which you must avoid which is the Glass of Self-love this will represent all fair to you and make you seem to your self better than you are This is it which makes ones own pride and vanity and unbelief and unholiness seem to be a little sin a tolerable fault and not to deserve damnation It will make every common Grace appear to be saving Grace and a state of Godliness and every Duty a true mark of Regeneracy CHAP. XIII Of Meekness 1. EXercise a meek spirit in all your converse in the World Would you be richly adorned the Apostle Peter will tell you how it may best be and what is the best fashion and that is the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit 1 Pet. 3.3 4 5. You may perhaps think that such a meek deportment would be a derogation from your Credit but see there how God counts it an Ornament better than that of wearing of Gold or putting on of costly Apparel yea such an Ornament as is in his sight of great price And it is the best fashion also v. 5. for so holy women of old adorned themselves 2. Gratifie me your Father in this small request Never provoke others unto Passion neither be you by others provoked thereunto But what shall I be trampled upon no it will be your greatest glory and honour to pass by an affront A cool spirit is an excellent spirit according as it is in the marginal reading of Prov. 17. v. 27. But shall I not then be accounted a Fool No it will be your best Wisdom For the Wisdom which is from above is gentle peaceable easie to be intreated Jam. 3.17 A gracious meek spirit will put up many an affront and never rage Full Vessels will bear many a knock and stroke and yet make no noise But if there be envying and strife in you are you not carnal 1 Cor. 3.3 This wisdom comes not from above but is earthly sensual devilish Jam. 3.15 These overflowings of the Gall are caused by corrupt and noxious humours within Let me perswade you then to take this gentle Medicine this grace of Meekness which will stop those bitter overflowings and effectually cure the burning Feaver of Passion which is caused thereby and readily heal an angry Sore This cool spirit will either prevent sparks from kindling or soon quench them Meekness is a soft and gentle breath a smooth and pleasant fann that cools the Passions It 's soft Wooll that breaks the force of
not an easie grief or a mourning of the Eye only but it 's a mourning of the heart which is the heart of mourning It 's not superficial tears but the deep sorrow of the heart that will wash away sin I have read a Story that one of the Questions which the Queen of Sheba propounded to King Solomon was this She having brought before him a company of Children both Males and Females all alike apparelled demanded of him which were the Boys and which were the Girls which he thus decided he caused them all to wash in a Bason of Water and observ'd which rubb'd more hard and those he set aside for the Boys and those that washt more tenderly and softly he determined to be the Girls Those that would wash away the filth of sin must not like those of that softer Sex do it easily and tenderly but must exercise a masculine spirit and rub hard like those of the harder and rougher Sex to scour the Soul It 's not to be done by a slight Repentance there must be a great deal of pains taken to cleanse the heart from sin And therefore Repentance is generally mistaken while it is thought to be nothing else but a being sorry for sins committed and a wishing they had not been done Such slight Penitents can be sorry to day and sin again to morrow and yet think they have truly repented 2. Mourning after a godly manner is a grief springing from the bowels of love to God the stronger the stream is the more there is of the fountain and the stronger the sorrow for sin is the more there is of God A true Penitent finds a principle within him that carries him out to a mourning for sin But an unregenerate man is rather forced upon it by some extrinsick motives as fear of Hell than carried to it out of the proper and peculiar inclination of his own heart 3. It 's such a sorrow as changes the heart and life there 's a sanctification of the inward man and a reformation of the outward conversation going along with it This sorrow for sin consumes the sin that bred it as the Worm doth the Wood that bred it 4. It 's accompanied with an universal hatred of sin an utter abhorrency of every iniquity The Dove as they say which hates the Hawk hates every Feather of it A true Penitent so abhors sin that he hates every plume and feather every branch of it he would have the very memory of Amalek blotted out he hath a deadly hatred to the whole tribe of sin the whole stock and kind to every member of that cursed family of sin he hates the very occasions of sin which are only the harbingers and spokes-men of it and will give them no entertainment but thrusts them out of doors He so hates sin that he longs to be rid of it The Apostle cries out as one tied to a dead carcass or tired with the Chains of a grievous bondage O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death Rom. 7.14 He here cries out against the sinfulness of Nature and hates and would be rid of that as well as sinfulness of Life If you mourn only for actual sins you only cleanse the streams and let the spring continue muddy and noisome which will soon send forth new streams of the same nature But further Repentance is not only a mourning for sins past but a fiducial Resolution to forsake all for the future I call it a fiducial Resolution i. e. a Resolution of Faith for it is not an ordinary Resolution that will prove one to be a true Penitent we have very revolting slippery hearts apt to return to sin and therefore had need to take up strong and fiducial Resolutions in the strength of Christ to fortifie our hearts against sin Crazy Timber in a Building must be well Crampt with Iron Bars to keep it from yielding And broken Bones had need of strong filleting to bind them together Take heed that you do not defer your Repentance or adjourn it to another day It 's very dangerous so to do Therefore I desire you with all possible earnestness for the Love of God and of your precious Souls set upon this duty presently Do not say within your self I am young and it's time enough to do it hereafter Remember Death comes riding Post and though sometimes he change Horses first come on one Disease and leaving that after come on another yet oftentimes he doth not change but comes on one single Horse and takes away at the first Sickness and then as you will but have little time to repent so little aptness or disposition thereunto when Sickness hath once arrested you Oh how unfit will you then be to turn to God when you can scarce turn your self in your Bed Let me therefore give you the Counsel that a Rabbin gave one of his Scholars Repent a day before you die and the Scholar thereupon thinking that he should have time enough then he bade him repent to day for thou knowest not but thou mayest be dead to morrow But is not this it may be said a hard painful Life to be every day repenting No when it is done every day it soon grows an easie work The good Huswife that scours her Plate often hath an easier task of it every day than other But is not this a sad and melancholy Life for to be always mourning and repenting No Tears of Repentance saith holy Bernard are sweeter than all worldly Joy Repentance is a most sweet Grace and hath much comfort in it The day of Expiation in the Old Law was a day of mourning yet the Jubilee was always to be proclaimed on that day The day of mourning for sin is a day of Expiation of sin and God then proclaims a Jubilee to the Soul in the pardon of it But further to take off this Objection and to give a fuller Answer thereunto I shall add the next following Advice CHAP. X. Of making Religion a delight MAke Religion your great delight and Recreation Delight your self in the Lord Psal 37.4 Or as the Apostle enjoyns Rejoyce in the Lord alway and again I say rejoyce Phil. 4.4 1 Thes 5.16 Take delight in God himself in his infinite Excellencies and Perfections in his Goodness Love and Mercy in his Word and Works in his Commands and in his Promises in his Ways and in his Heaven which he hath prepared for Souls This and my last Advice for a daily mourning for sin are no way inconsistent but lovingly meet and kiss each other Chrysostom observes that David the great mourner in Israel was also the chief finger in Israel As with one Eye we look down to our sins so we mourn but as with the other Eye i. e. the Eye of Faith we look up to God and his Mercy pardoning sin upon Repentance so we rejoyce Godly sorrow makes pardoning Mercy taste the sweeter and causeth greater joy and
take heed of the creeping in of vain thoughts which are then most apt to swarm Oh it is incredible to think what a multitude of vain thoughts run through the vain mind in an hour perhaps as many as there be Sands in an Hour-glass O what pity is it that this noble Soul should be so idle either doing nothing or to so little purpose It 's an evil heart that like Jett draws to it self nothing but Straws O how much is it to be lamented that this golden Mill of the Soul should spend it self in grinding Chaff for its Enemy the great destroyer of Mankind O wash thy heart from wickedness how long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee Jer. 4.14 2. Entertain some short discourses with God or with your self when you are alone You never need complain of Melancholy and Solitariness in want of Company when you may make your self company enough for you may then hold discourse with God and your own Soul A Child of God is never less alone than when most alone because he hath God usually with him who is the best company That good Heathen Philosopher Epictetus could solace himself in his Solitariness in Banishment with these thoughts that Divine Colloquies and Conferences were to be had every where with God O learn to converse with God in your most solitary Retirements Say to God I will set thee always before me Psal 16.8 Or you may profitably use some discourses with your self some Divine Soliloquies you may call your Soul aside to her withdrawing Room you may commune with your own heart in your Chamber as the Psalmist expresseth it Psal 4.4 But not as the Fool in the Gospel did singing a secure lullaby to his Soul Soul thou hast much goods laid up for many years eat drink and be merry Luk. 12.19 But after the example of the devout Psalmist singing a holy rest to his Soul Return unto thy Rest O my Soul for God hath dealt bountifully with thee Psal 116.7 Or if you have a troubled spirit then you may talk to your self in a way of challenge or chiding expostulation Why art thou cast down O my Soul and why art thou disquieted within me As he did Psal 42.5 11. where he rallies up his Soul in that awakening Enquiry And if after you see reason to alter your Note and to give thanks for the scattering of that sad Cloud by the Sun-shine of Pardoning Mercy and Love then you may set your Affections in the same Key in which the same holy Man's were in another Soliloquy saying with him Bless the Lord O my Soul and all that is within me bless his holy Name who forgiveth all thine iniquities and healeth all thy diseases Psal 103.1 2 3. 3. This course will much improve you in Piety and Holiness and this Retirement will help you to the most excellent Company to the Fellowship of God and Christ who will dwell in you and the innumerable company of Angels and just men made perfect will be of the same Society with you She that is not permitted to speak in the Church may thus preach to her self in her own private Chapel to her great benefit I mean that Sacred Chapel which her Devotion hath built in her own heart CHAP. XVII How to live in a Prosperous Condition 1. LIve above withering Vanities above all the smiles and blandishments of the World let not your heart be glued to any creature comforts look on them all as withered flowers as dead things let your heart be crucified to the World and the World to it looking upon it as a dead carcass that hath no beauty or loveliness in it If you profess your self a Christian live at a higher rate than others How unbecoming is it a Child of God to be puzling her self about the World A sense of the Love of God would lift up your Soul above the sweetest flowers and delights upon Earth in all which there will be found nothing but Wormwood and Gall in the latter end nothing but vanity and vexation of spirit It 's only the Rose of Sharon that is without prickles 2. Proportion your duties according to your mercies the greater Receivings or Incomes you have from God the greater must your Disbursments and Layings out for him be Your Accounts must be according to the number and weight of your Talents Matth. 25. The Servant should proportion his work according to his wages The Tree brings forth fruit proportionable to the juyce and nourishment that the root sucks from the Earth and to the cost that is bestowed upon it In the Ceremonial Law God required more costly Sacrifices from the Rich than from the Poor A pair of Turtle Doves or two young Pigeons would have been accepted from the Poor but not from the Rich. God was displeased with Hezekiah because he rendred not according to the benefits received 2 Chron. 23.25 3. Improve all your prosperity and lawful pleasures to the furthering of your delight in God If that a prosperous condition should afford you all the variety of Objects which might be most delectable to the several senses use them only as Stirrops or as the advantage of a higher ground to raise up your self by to the thoughts of Heaven and the delights thereof Let your Soul take occasion and advantage thence to carry it self up to the delightful thoughts of God the giver of all these as the Bird from the Tree takes the further flight And so far as you can make use of all your delight in creature comforts to promote your delight in the Lord and to drive away those black Clouds of carnal fears and sadnesses of spirits which are Enemies to your spiritual joy and delight Thus you will prove your self a good Chymical Christiâ—â— extracting a spiritual Quintessence out of these earthly and drossy things thus you turn Dung and Dross into Gold and Pearls mean and contemptible matters into high and glorious things and gain to your self such an Elixir as will refresh the Soul and fill it with Cordial Spirits When you perceive and tast the sweetness and pleasantness of these outward mercies think seriously if these be so sweet and delightsom how much more sweet is God himself who put all that sweetness and pleasantness therein 4. As you love your Soul let not your life be a life of pleasure and vanity If the Devil can but take you up with one pleasure one day and another vanity another till the Hour-glass of your time be run out he hath his end and you are ruin'd for ever Remember Dives his life was a continual feast of pleasure Luk. 16.19 but death soon brought the Voider and the Devil took away O do not ride to Hell upon the back of pleasure Can any think to dance with the Devil all day and to sup with Christ at night Quies which signifies Rest wants the plural number Flatter not your self with dreams of having a Rest in carnal pleasures here and everlasting Rest
of any delight in them 5. In this account ask your self what have my Receivings been from God this day what Talents and Mercies have I had from him and how have I laid them out for him what Mercies have I received and what returns have I made for them 10. Close your eyes at night with some thoughts of God and Christ When you are composing your self to sleep commit your self then both Body and Soul into his hands to keep them for you while you sleep as the Child when it goes to Bed gives its Mother what it would have kept safely Or going to Bed you may suitably meditate on Death whose Image and Picture Sleep is Look upon your Bed as upon your Grave think to die as often as you fall asleep Sleep is a short Death and Death is nothing else but a long sleep the Bed is a grave for one night and the grave is a Bed for many Ages We expect to awaken from our Beds and we hope to rise again from our graves If you seriously follow this course every night you will have Jesus Christ lie all night as a bundle of Myrrh betwixt your breasts and will find your heart in a good frame when you awake If you thus rake up the fire over night you will find it in in the morning Solomon's virtuous Woman lets not her Candle go out by night Prov. 31.18 Let your Lamp be well trimm'd your Grace well lighted and put in exercise when you compose your self to rest and like a good Watch-candle you will find it burning when you awake O how many are there that lie down as the Beasts in their Straw without so much as bidding their Souls good night Ejaculations which may be used at night before sleep I Will both lay me down and sleep for thou Lord make stme dwell in safety Psal 4.8 When thou liest down thou shalt not be afraid yea thou shalt lie down and thy sleep shall be sweet Prov. 3.24 Lord I commit my self both Body and Soul into thy hands who art the keeper of Israel and neither slumbers nor sleeps The Lord is my keeper the Lord is my defence who neither slumbers nor sleeps Psal 21.4 5. 11. If there be any interceptions any interruptions or breaches of sleep in the night fill up those vacancies with meditations on some Sermon lately heard or on what you read the day before in the Bible or some other good Book or else with some Parenthetical Ejaculations as devout Souls those spiritual Crickets of the night have used to do Ejaculations that may be used in the Night in breaches of sleep BY night upon my bed I sought him whom my Soul loveth Cant. 3.1 O let me not have occasion to say I sought him but I found him not or to go about as the Spouse there did in a dark night of desertion crying out like a desolate Widdow Saw ye him whom my Soul loveth With my Soul have I desired thee in the night yea with my spirit within me will I seek thee early Isa 26.9 My Soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips while I remember thee on my bed and meditate on thee in the night watches Psal 63.5 6. O when shall I come and appear in the presence of God in the City of the New Jerusalem which hath no need of the Sun neither of the Moon to shine in it for the glory of God doth lighten it and tke Lamb is the light thereof And there shall be no Night there and they need no Candle neither Light of the Sun for the Lord God giveth them Light and they shall reign for ever and ever Rev. 21.23 O when shall my Soul be received into the number of that heavenly Chore that sing for ever Hallelujahs that rest not day and night saying Holy holy holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come Rev. 4.8 I will bless the Lord who hath given me counsel my reins also my inward thoughts instruct me in the night season Psal 16.7 CHAP. XXIII How to spend the Lord's Day IN general Be a curious spender of your time on the Lord's Day This will be a holy curiosity Let this day be your delight spend it wholly in walking in the Spouses Garden amongst Duties and Ordinances with a sweet and holy pleasure where there is so great variety that you may go like a diligent Bee from one Flower to another from one Duty to another and never take surfeit It 's the whole day that God commans to be sanctified and therefore the whole must be spent in holy exercises Therefore do not think it sufficient for the sanctification thereof that you have been at the Publick Worship in the Assembly unless the whole day were spent there as was antiently done by the Primitive Christians in their Publick Assemblies almost from morning to night On other days of the week Duties call for time but time calls for Duties on the Lord's Day If I were to pass my Judgment on the Religion of any person I would take my measures from the manner of their observation or the Lord's Day 2. Before you go to the Publick Worship spend what time you can in private beside Duty in the Family that so you may be better prepared for the Publick for private Devotion before will be a great means to prevent worldly thoughts and distractions when you are in the Assembly Worldly thoughts and cares do play the part of little Children if they cannot keep the Mother from going abroad they will cry to go along with her and these if they cannot keep you from Church they will strive to go thither with you but solemn preparation before lays a restraint on them gives them a discharge to prevent and hinder their accompanying of you 3. Be a constant diligent and reverent Attendant on the Publick Ordinances and make the best improvement of them for your Soul This is a frequenting the Royal Exchange of Christians and would exceedingly tend to the Souls advantage Christ's presence is most to be found in the Publick Ordinances he walks in the midst of the golden Candlesticks here the whole Assembly with united and concentricated Forces do besiege the Throne of Grace and so their prayers have more power with God Musick in Consort is the most pleasant That is the sweetest Posie that is made of most Flowers The prayers of many smell sweetest with God Besides Affections are more wrought on in publick than in private which some great Naturalists have observed as one of Natures great Mysteries and where Affections are most raised there God usually confers the greater blessing Indeed sometimes it falls out that Christians are more dull under the publick means which may be in Judgment when they either put too much confidence in such places or are fallen to a loathing or slighting of that spiritual food either because they have it so oft or by reason of
some circumstances in Worship which they like not 4. When you come home from the Publick be careful to spend your time in Religious Exercises Meditate on what you have heard and having like a diligent Bee gathered abroad in the Publick Assembly the sweet of heavenly Flowers work your Honey-comb within your own Hive Digest well by private Meditation that spiritual meat which was set before you in the Dishes of the Publick Ordinances Meditate also on the Attributes of God the Works of God and especially the Mercies of God that you may be stirred up to holy rejoycings praises and thanksgivings which are the most proper work of the day which is a day of thanksgiving and commemoration of the Mercies of God especially of the Resurrection of Christ and the great work of Redemption 5. Be careful that your Servants do not prophane or mis-spend this day as being tender of their Souls as well as your own Solomon's virtuous Woman gave a portion of holy Instructions as well as of Food to her Servants and Maidens Prov 31.15 26. CHAP. XXIV Of Holy Duties in general 1. BEfore you go to any Duty address your self to Jesus Christ for a supply of grace for the performance thereof If you be to go to a new act of praying or hearing or receiving the Sacraments you must eye Jesus Christ again put forth a new act of Faith towards him and labour for new Influences and a fresh supply of Spirit from him 2. Do not only number your Duties but weigh your Duties how many how many look only how oft they go to Duties but never seriously how or in what manner they perform them and so cheat themselves everlastingly concluding themselves to be in a state of Grace because of their constancy in Duties but miscarry everlastingly for want of a right manner of performing them as out of a right spring and principle and to a right end and with sincerity and fervency of affection Though the Tree bear many large and fair fruits yet it is not much valued unless they have a good rellish If the fruits that your Soul brings forth have not a good tast through the sincerity and right ends thereof or tast not of the Love of God they will not be acceptable unto God Let all your works be done in Love 1 Cor. 16.14 3. Do not only perform holy duties but love holy duties so they will be more acceptable to the God of Love An ungodly Man or Woman may often go to prayer but they love it not they may hear the Word but they receive not the Truth in the love of it But a good heart loves duties So long as you cannot find any rellish in Ordinances or private Duties but are in an indifferency whether you perform them or no or have your frequent intermissions of these meals so that sometimes you take them and sometimes you let them alone it is a sign you are not sound within or if you do constantly take them if it be without an appetite and perform holy duties only to stop the mouth of Conscience it s an argument your Soul is not in health Till you find sweetness in Ordinances the case is not well with you as it should be the Soul is out of frame If once you love duties they will be a delight and refreshment to you All the ways of Christ are Beds of Spices and Roses and can you walk on such and not be requited for it with sweet and fragrant smells Those that carry bundles of Spices from Arabia have their Spirits refresht with the sweet Odours that breathe from them A good Christian is refresht in duty the Soul can sing at her work Love turns all pains into pleasures Though the Mother take a great deal of pains in tending the Child yet she finds a sweet delight in it because of her love to it A good Christian can say with David O how I love thy Law Psal 119.97 And I delight to do thy Will O my God! Psal 40.8 CHAP. XXV Of Prayer 1. DO not rush on Prayer presently without some serious consideration before Read therefore some portion of Scripture before you pray This will afford you matter of meditation which will furnish you with matter for Prayer for so you may turn what you have read into Prayer A good Heart is by one Duty quickned and prepared for another as the Wild Bores by whetting their Tusks with their other Teeth make them sharp and so every Tooth mutually sets an edge on another If therefore you be to read Pray before by some short Address to God if to Pray read before Yea Pray also before Prayer that God would Assist you in Prayer and deliver you from the Evil Infirmities of your Prayer Holy David Prays for his own Prayers Psal 141.1 2. 2. Look not upon Prayer as a task but as a priviledge O! what a great and glorious priviledge is it that the poorest Saint may with boldness have access to God! Eph. 3.18 Rom. 5.1 2. Is it not a Royal Priviledge to have a Key in our keeping that opens Heaven Gates and lets into the Presence Chamber of the King of Glory To speak with him at any time If you would thus look upon it I should not need to perswade you to go to Prayer constantly Morning and Evening This would be in stead of a hundred Arguments that Prayer is so High and so Royal a Priviledge that you may thereby go boldly to the Throne of Grace draw near to God himself and lay your Petition in his Bosom and plead your Cause before him and fill your Mouth with Arguments and Reason out your great Concernments with him and receive his Answers 3. Pray Earnestly Lazy Devotion and Key-cold Prayers will never prevail You must wrestle with God in Prayer like Holy Jacob that you may prevail In wrestling one single Person strives with another so the Devout Soul with God they go to it singly as it were Hand to Hand and have as it were a single Combat in private The Devout Saint loves to wrestle with God in the Closet when no Body is present the Door being shut he loves not to have Spectators of it he then comes up close to God and gets within him takes hold of his Everlasting Arms. Thus the Woman of Canaan Wrestled with Christ she stands to it though she had many Repulses from him The Soul thus Wrestles with God as a Child with the Father who is much delighted and pleased to let it get the better on him to encourage it and after takes it up from its Knees into his Arms when you go to Prayer you must set all your faculties on work you must open and spread the Sails open and spread forth your Affections as wide as you can that they may gather wind enough to waft you over to the Land of Promise 4. See that your Prayers be followed with Diligent and Serious Endeavours for effecting of that which you have Prayed for
otherwise they will be Fruitless If you pray for Knowledge and never take pains by Reading and Study to get it or for the Mortification of Sin and never Labour to Subdue and Kill it or for Reformation of your Life and never set about the Reforming of it your Prayers will be to little purpose It 's as if a Man should pray to be Cured of a Disease and yet never use Physick nor Dyet or Exercise to Cure it Or like such as the Greek Heathen Orator speaks of who seeing great Hailstones falling down on their Heads Prayed to be secured from them but would not stir a foot Gods usual way is to give in Blessings to us concurring with him in the use of means and he will not vary from his Ordinary Method unless upon most special Occasions 5. Look after your Prayers to see what becomes of them and what returns what Answer you have of them Thus did David Ps 5.3 and 58.8 Habackuck having Prayed stands upon his watch sets himself on his Tower to see what God would say to him There are many times such Dispensations of God towards us which we might see did Ecchoe to our Prayers if we did well observe them Do not then shoot out your Prayers as Children do their Arrows who shoot them away and never look after them more But rather as Archers that shoot them up into the Air and stand still waiting for their coming down again 6. In all your Prayers let Prayers be mixt and have a good share and due proportion in them Do not shuffle up Praeiss into a Corner of your Prayers do not croud nor huddle them up into a scant and narrow Compass as most do or thrust them into the very End and Conclusion of your Prayers But let them bear a part throughout the whole Duty CAAP. XXVI Of Desiring the Sincere Milk of the Word AS a New-Born Babe desire the Sincere Milk of the Word that you may grow thereby The Word is as Milk go then to it as Children to the Breast with an Appetite but be sure it be Milk that you desire and not Froth Power and Virtue not the Froth of empty words of Rhetorick which are not to be accounted as Sermon Milk it 's plain song always that makes the best Musick Desire that Milk alway which is most wholsom not that which is most luscious and best pleases a dainty or curious Pallat. 2. Do not satisfie your self with some weak Velleities and faint wishings or whimperings after the Breasts of the Word but let your desires after this sincere Milk be strong and earnest accompanyed with Diligent Endeavours after it and suck the Breasts well that you may have it desire it by the effectual fervent Prayer of Faith This is indeed that real and spiritual sucking which is required of Newborn Babes in Christ The Prayer of Faith is the Mouth or the two Lips whereby we suck Spiritual Milk and draw in Heavenly influences and Divine Sweetness from the Word Ask and ye shall have Math. 7.7 8. but then this asking must be in Faith The Mother opens the Breast when the Child Cryes after it If you thirst after this Heavenly Milk of the Word God will give it his Spirit will Communicate sweet Inflows to your Soul he sometimes lays Wormwood to the Breasts of Providence to wean us from Creature-Comforts but he would never have us wean'd from the Milk of the Word while we are in this Life but would have us lye continually at the Breast of the two Testaments Children while they are in health are almost continually Sucking and never satisfied but while they are at the Breast If your Soul be in a good healthy Condition you will not be well satisfied but while you are lying at the Dugs of Ordinances at these Spiritual Milk-pales as Job calls the Breasts 3. If after you have lyen long at the Breasts waited long at the Ordinances you find nothing come no Inflows no virtue no refreshments or comfort from them so that they seem to be dry Breasts yet give them not over as some are too apt to do thinking it in vain to wait any longer when as the fault is in themselves not in the Word and Ordinances they are full Breasts but these poor Creatures cannot act faith to draw God may see cause sometime to with-hold this Spiritual Milk to withdraw his influences and put forth no virtue or efficacy in the Word yet do not give over waiting continue still in the diligent use of the means of Grace he will please to let down this Milk in the end what you do not find at one time you may at another he will at length smile on you in the Ordinances and let you have Evangelical Fruitions If you did live much by Faith you would find these full Breasts flow plentifully 4. Think that while you are in this World you will have need of this Milk of the Word need of Ordinances There are some fond Christians that think they are above Ordinances which are only for Babes and Punies that they are past the Milk of the Word and are grown too old to suck the breasts I wish they were ever new-born Babes in Christ which is to be feared they never were tho' they conceit themselves to be tall and perfect Men and Women in Christ I have read of one Philinus that never fed of any other meat or drink all his life but only Milk All the true Children of God must certainly while they live here feed on no other food but only Scripture-milk God will not nourish our Souls by immediate influences and communications from himself till we come to the heavenly Land that flows with Milk and Honey and to sit at God's own Table at the Supper of the Lamb in the Kingdom of Glory When the new-born Babes are grown to a perfect stature and are perfectly wean'd from the World which will not be till this Mortal shall have put on Immortality then and not till then shall we have immediate communion with God which is the very sweet of Heaven The Pot of Manna must continue in the Ark of the Church till we come to the Celestial Canaan 5. The end of desiring this Milk must be that you may grow thereby We are nourisht and made to grow by the same things whereby we were first bred The Milk by which the Infant is nourisht is but the blood of which it was framed in the womb further concocted in the breasts and turn'd white there So it is only the same Word by which we were spiritually begot that doth cause us spiritually to grow For indeed all the Ordinances which are the Souls nourishment are nothing else but the Word it self in several forms or the subject matter of the Word The Sacrament of the Lords Supper which was specially appointed for the Souls nourishment and growth in grace is but the Word in a more sensible form or as the same meat otherwise drest and
more but that you may be affected more 4. Hear the Word attentively and diligently because it is your Life Deut. 32.46 The things spoken do concern the Soul and are most Momentous how slightly and carelesly do multitudes of People hear the word Preached as if it were a matter of small concern Which might justly cause God to take away the word from us when the Mother sees that the Child doth but play with the Breasts she puts them up 5. Labour to be affected with the word I mean not with some elegant Expressions or pleasing Comparisons that are brought in a Sermon to tickle the fancy of a Delicate Hearer If these only affect you you get no good but suck wind rather than Nourishment The Bee lights not on the Rose which hath the freshest Colour and sweetest Smell but on the Thyme which is an Herb of little beauty A Devout Soul rests not on Truths curiously deckt with Eloquence but upon plain naked Truths to fetch Honey from It likes the most saving weighty and powerful Truths the Spiritualness of the matter the Holiness of Soul-Searching Doctrines such Doctrines as beat down Lust and Corruption But a formalist is only delighted with the History the Elegance of Language the quaint Notions or the Rational Evidence of the Discourse and so rests in the outward shell and tasts not the Kernell If these things only do affect you in hearing you did never yet really tast the goodness of Sermon-Milk or the sweetness and pretiousness of Christ in a Sermon which if once you had tasted how would your Heart be affected and ravisht with it It 's only the tasting of the Hony-Comb that makes one affected with it and to long after more 6. Ponder upon what you hear lay it up in your Heart so as to retain it Thus did Mary by Christs sayings she kept them all and pondered them in her Heart Luke 2.19 The word is a Jewel lock it up in the Cabinet of your Heart It 's pondering on the word in the Heart that doth make it Nourishment to you by Digesting of it and turning it into the Blood and Spirits of Holiness This is the Squeezing of the Hony-Comb of the word into the Heart which makes it yield abundant store of refreshing sweetness Yea and presseth it so that it slides down deep into the Heart so as it is made to abide there When the Minister hath laid on a healing plaister Meditation binds it fast on makes it stick and abide which otherwise would rub off again presently without doing any good it fastens on our Hearts the truths which we have heard 7. If you would profit by the word preached then pray for the Minister before you go to Church Col. 4.3 Eph 6 19. Pray to God to direct him to speak a word in Season to you that might be suitable to your Condition and work upon your Heart I am perswaded that one reason why People reap no more benefit by the word is because they do not before pray for the Minister or for a Blessing on the word that he shall preach to them Consider that thus praying for him you pray for your self if the Mother have a full Breast it is the benefit of the Child St. Austin praised God for furnishing his Nurse with Milk when he had perished without it O pray to God constantly before you go to Church that he would enable the Minister to do the work of a Spiritual Nurse well and then you will find that you will have matter to praise God for the good that you shall reap after by his Church Nursery 8. When you come home retire your self a little and repeat over to your self the most practical truths which you have heard make Application of them to your self and press them home upon your own Heart Think not how the Doctrine you have heard doth fit others this hinders your profiting by the word but think how it fits your self CHAP. XXIX Of Receiving the Sacrament of the Lords Supper 1. NEglect no opportunity of being a guest at this Sacred Feast of the Lords Supper and take care that in all your Approaches to it you come worthily This would be a prime and most Soveraign means to your living well which is the design of all the Advice that I have given you O what Excellent and Heavenly Lives did the Primitive Christians lead while they received the Sacrament every day or every Lords Day They were thereby inflamed with such Zeal and Holy Courage that they were said to come from the Sacrament like Lyons breathing fire and hence in Cyprians time they had it every day that they might be the more animated to lay out their Blood for Christ This Sacrament saith Chrysostom is for the Noble Eagles that would have their thoughts on high it helps Souls mightily to mount up with wings as Eagles to run and not be weary to fly swiftly through difficulties and duties and to make them ascend up in a fiery Chariot of Love Christians may hereby be brought unto and preserved in a Holy Galantry of Spirit and briskness and liveliness in well doing and to move as in the Chariots of Aminadab with nimble vigor The Elixir of Christs Blood in the Sacrament will make the believer full of Life and Spirits Hereby a Christian saith Bernard is made more meek to be reproved more patient to labour more fervent to love more ready to obey and more Devout to give God thanks In a word your Heart by this feast of fat things and refined Wines will be more strengthned to the practice of all Holy Virtues to the mastery of all Corruptions and to the Conquest of all Temptations and support to go on in its work and way without sinking under its burthen 2. Besides how could you think that you live well if you should live in the neglect or omission of so great a Duty as this of Receiving the Sacrament which was the Request and Legacy of your dying Saviour with strict Command appendant and annext thereunto Do thus in Remembrance of me Would not that be a living in Rebellion against his Law a slighting of his Body and Blood while you have a Command to Communicate therein Unpreparedness may be your Sin but cannot be a warrantable plea for abstaining 3. Now that you may so make your Addresses hereunto as to come worthily be careful of these four following particulars 1. To know and understand the Nature and Ends of this Feast 2. To be such a Person as the Master of the Feast would have his guests to be 3. To make your self ready before you come to it 4. To behave your self so at it as becomes a guest at that Royal Banquet CHAP. XXX Of the Nature of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper ENdeavour to get a right understanding of the Nature of this Divine Mystery so as to know what you feed on there All People love to have light when they are at a Feast to see
person or no i. e. whether you be a Real and Serious Christian one that is truly and in good earnest Godly When the King saw one amongst his Guests that had not on a Wedding Garment that was not Vested with the Robes of Christs Righteousness for Justification nor of Inherent Righteousness for Sanctification he commanded to take him and bind him Hand and Foot and to cast him into utter Darkness Math. 22.13 The Wrath of God will be up against such unworthy Guests as the King 's was against Haman at the Banquet of Wine and will give Sentence against them accordingly The Indians when they first came into these Northern Countreys thought Roses had been Fire Surely the Rose of Sharon will be really a Consuming Fire a devouring Flame to unworthy Communicants He that Eats and Drinks unworthily Eats and Drinks his own Damnation 1 Cor. 11.29 it 's as if the Apostle should say he swallows Damnation and this is more thâ—n to swallow down Flames here in the World It would be well for such if this Sacrament proved only an empty Feast to them but it proves mortal Poyson and like Poyson taken in Wine works with the fiercest Violence If you be an unworthy Guest at the Lords Table you will be guilty of the Body and blood of the Lord 1 Cor. 11.27 your Soul will be diepred in Blood I mention not this to dishearten you from going to that Blessed Feast for you ought to go but to persuade you to go as a worthy Guest that your going may be for your Everlasting Comfort and not for your Confusion CHAP. XXXIII Of Actual Qualifications MAke your self actually ready to come to this great Solemnity this Holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper It 's not enough that you be habitually unlese you be actually prepared If you were invited to a Feast by some great Person you would not satisfie your self to go in your ordinary Dress though it were neat and handsom but you would put your self to some more than ordinary pains to spruce and trim up your self so as not to have a Hair amiss And ought you not to be more careful to Beautifie Deck and Trim up your Soul afresh by Special and more than Ordinary Devotions and Actions of Piety before you come to this High and Majestick Solemnity this Tremendous Mystery as Chrysostom calls it Before Meat it 's good to use some Exercise as Physicians say to stir up the Natural Heat for to promote Digestion And so before this Spiritual Feast it 's good to Exercise our Souls for the stirring up our Spiritual Appetite thereunto for the warming heating and quickning of all those Graces and Affections that are necessary for a worthy Communicant which are Faith Repentance Hungring Desires Love to God and our Neighbour Joy Thankfulness and Resolutions of New Obedience You must not only have the habit of these Graces but they must be made ready new scoured and prepared so as they may work more kindly at the Sacrament there must be a tuning of the Viol and a winding up of the Strings the several Faculties of the Soul Now you must rally up all your Affections all the Forces of your Soul and get them all in a ready Frame and due Posture for exercising themselves at this Sacred Solemnity You must premeditate before you go of all the work that you are to do at the Sacrament and so thereby fit your self for the better doing of it when you come there CHAP. XXXIV Of Suitable Behaviour at the Table of the Lord. BE careful so to behave your self at this Divine Feast as becomes one of the Lords Guests It 's not sufficient to get your Heart into a Devout Frame before you Approach to this Table of the Lord but it is requisite also that it be kept up in a Holy Tune in a right Disposition and suitable Deportment during the whole Solemnity It 's not enough to Trim up ones self to go to the Table of some Noble Person but there must be also a becoming Behaviour there lest Offence be given by any undecencies And therefore that your Demeanour here may be proper and becoming I shall instruct you how and in what particular Seasons or Passages of the Administration your Sacramental Graces respectively are to be exercised I hinted to you in the former Chapter which are those Graces that are most proper to be exercised at the Sacrament and shall now shew you in what Order and Method and in what season they are aptly and pertinently to be acted there When you are called up by the Minister to draw near to the Table of Blessing think you hear Christ himself by his Minister calling you up and bidding you welcom And then Exercise Humble Thankfulness and Joy together with hungring desires and let your Heart say Lord what am I that thou shouldst so far condescend as to invite me a poor Worm thy worthless Hand-maid to thy Royal Table And to admit such a wretched Creature to the Banquet of Spiced Wine who have deserved nothing but Gall and Vinegar to Drink My Soul therefore doth Magnifie the Lord and my Spirit rejoyceth in God my Saviour for he hath regarded the Lowliness of his Hand-Maid from henceforth all the powers of my Soul shall call thee Blessed Lord hast thou now called me into thy Banquetting-House I do promise here that while the King sitteth at the Table and I there with him my Spicknard shall send forth the smell thereof My Faith Desires Love and Thankfulness Yea all my Graces shall send forth a sweet and holy Perfure to please him O that the same Love that hath prepared a Table for me and now called me to it would prepare me for it and refresh my Soul with Love and Sweetness there At the Ministers reciting the words of Institution Separating and Blessing of the Bread and Wine whereby they are Consecrated Exercise Faith and Thankfulness and fervent Desires to God the Father and say Lord out of thine infinite Love thou didst separate and set apart the Lord Jesus from all Eternity and appointed him for our Redeemer and didst bless him with the Spirit above measure making him the rich Treasury and common Stock of Grace a Fountain over-flowing to the supply of all Believers Let him not be to me a lockt Treasure or a Fountain Sealed up but Bless and Sanctifie these Creatures of Bread and Wine to me that they may be the Body and Blood of Christ in effect to me for my Attonement Peace and Propitiation and pardon of all my Sins and convey Spiritual Life Nourishment and Comfort to me abundantly O let my Soul be steept in sweetness and let the Rock pour out Oyl into me even the Oyl of Grace and of Joy and Gladness also When you look upon the Bread and Wine after Consecration Exercise Faith to discern the Lords Body and look now upon them not as common Bread and Wine but as Sacramental Representations Spiritually Exhibiting the Body and Blood
of Christ look by Faith beyond these outward Elements and say Lord thou dost here send me a covered Dish of Royal Cheer from Heaven from thine own Table as to a Beloved Friend or Dear Child Teach me to take off the outward Cover and to see plainly and clearly the rare Delicates that are laid in it Let me so imploy my outward Senses in minding the out-side of the Sacrament so as to raise my Spiritual Senses to see and discern the inside thereof and the Glorious Mysteries couched in it And here exercise further longing desires after those vailed Mysteries and say As the Heart pants after the Water-Brooks so panteth my Soul after thee O God my Soul is athirst for God yea even for the Living God When you see the Bread broken and the Wine poured out then you see the lively Spectacle of a Dying Saviour Let then Repentance be renewed Faith Love and Resolutions for New Obedience and Holy Desires also Acted and Elevated in the Soul Represent now to your self in this Mystery what our Lord Jesus endured when he hung upon his painful Bed of Sorrows the Cross and say to your self canst thou look upon a broken Saviour without a broken Heart upon a bleeding Christ without a bleeding Soul Upon a pierced Jesus without a Heart pierced thorow with Godly sorrow for thy Sins that pierced him Doth not every Orifice made by the Nayls the Thorns and the Spear in that pretious tormented and pained Body and every drop of Blood that issued thence call aloud to thee for Repentance of those Sins that caused these Torments I do therefore here Vow and Covenant to take a revenge upon my Sins and give them their mortal wound and cause them to Bleed to Death using them as they used my Dear Lord and Saviour O what Streams of matchless Love were these that flowed from a Dying Saviour laying down his Life for me and do not these call for streamings of Love back again from my Breast towards him O that my Soul may be sprinkled with that Blood which issued from that Fountain of infinite Love O that it may be Bathed in that Blessed Bath set open for Sin and for Uncleanness Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there 's none upon Earth that I can desire besides thee my bleeding Saviour When the Minister comes and delivers to you the Bread or Wine look on him as doing it in Christs Name and here stir up Faith and Love to God Think with admiring Love how God in Christ delivers up himself in Covenant to you offering to be your God your Reconciled Father and Redeemer And believe with Joy and Thankfulness that you hear Christ by the Minister saying to your Faith Take my Body and Blood all the Riches of that Covenant which was Sealed with my Blood all the Blessings coucht in that Blessed Charter of the Gospel When you take these at the Ministers hands then let the Hand of Faith stretch forth it self to reach God and stir up your self to take hold on him and put forth intire Resolutions of New Obedience and say Lord by taking this I do Covenant with thee that I take thee with my whole Heart to be my Lord to be ruled and governed as well as saved by thee and I do here seriously devote my self both Body and Soul to the intire Obedience of thee When you are eating the Bread then lift up your Heart by Faith to God and say I believe Lord that thy flesh is meat indeed thou that didst Dye for me art the Bread of Life that shall nourish my Soul to eternal Life My Soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness and my Mouth shall praise thee with joyful Lips And here by eating this Bread I do Covenant with thee to be thy Servant and Obedient Child for ever And when you are drinking of the Wine or immediately upon it say Lord thy Blood is Drink indeed O that my Soul may tast the refreshings of this Heavenly Wine O stay me with Flagons Comfort me with thy Love which is better than Wine I believe that thy Blood was shed for the Remission of Sins O that I may be washt from all mine in that Holy Laver And that I may hear the soft Voice of thy Spirit whispering to my Soul Daughter be of good Cheer thy Sins be forgiven thee Bless the Lord O my Soul and that is within me bless his Holy Name who forgiveth all thine Iniquities and healeth all thy Diseases When you look upon the Communicants receiving with you exercise Love to the Saints and say where the Carcass is where the Crucified Body of my Saviour is thither will the believing Eagles be gathered together and shall not I be joyned in love with all that Heavenly Flock and Holy Society These Eagles do all feed on Blood the Blood of a Crucified Christ and hath not this a Cementing Virtue to unite Affections These are the Friends of the Bride groom and shall not I make them my Friends Shall not the Beloved of my Saviour be the Beloved Ones of my Soul CHAP. XXXV What is to be done after the Administration is ended VVHEN the solemnity is over go home with a glad heart and a chearful Spirit and say to your self what did Haman go from Esthers Banquet of Wine with a glad Heart glorying in the honour of his being there And shall not I much more rejoyce and glory who have been in the Spouses banqueting House where his Banner over me was love and have been royally entertain'd by the King of Saints with the choicest delicates of Heaven When you are come home retire your self into privacy for a little time and ask your self what your demeanour was at the Lords Table and what happy fruit you have found of your being there What meltings or softnings of Heart What glimpses of Love What cherishing Beams of the Spirit What strength vigor and liveliness of Soul What secret springings and elevations of Spirit What spiritual quicknings and refreshings have you had at that Feast of Fat Things and refined Wines And according as you find it with your Heart upon this short tryal so do you answerably make your addresses unto God If you have found the efficacy of the Ordinance and sweet satisfaction there bless God for it and sing glory to God in the highest and pray earnestly to him that it may abide upon your Soul but if you find no Divine relishes no drops of sweetness but are come away with an earthy and drossy Soul then humble your self before God and labour to find out the Sin that was the obstruction and remove it 3. Be watchful afterwards lest the World or any trifling occasions damp those influences which you found at the Sacrament All persons are most careful of themselves after they come out of a hot Bath lest they shouid take cold When you have been at this Spiritual Bath of the Sacrament be exceeding careful that cold get not info