canst give me or do for me shall better please me and more oblige me to praise and thank thee with an honest gratuitous heart and conversation than thy teaching of me by thy word and spirit to know and do thy commandments the onely righteous rule of faith and manners 8 O Lord my purpose of heart is to keep thy commandments and to walk exactly in faith love and obedience as thou enjoynest but alas I know mine own imbecillity and the necessity of thy continuall inablement hereunto by thy spirit and grace which if withdrawn I am at a loss therefore Lord in pitie of my weakness and in prosecution of the good work begun in me that desire to fear thy name leave me not to my self nor lead me not into temptation to buckle with it in mine own strength let no sinne cause separation though correction but remember mercy and renew in me a right spirit when I do go wrong as who doth not Beth. The second letter of the Hebrew Alphabet signifying the second part 9 Young men are aptest to go astray and therefore had need to be inquisitive and circumspect of themselves and their wayes how to avoid the pollutions of mind and manners whereunto their age prompts them with a more than ordinary aptitude and doubtless I speak it knowingly the onely remedy for such distemperature is for them to be conversant in thy word and thence to observe with a child-like disposition what pleaseth and displeaseth thee their heavenly father and in conscience thereunto carefully to regulate their inward and outward man accordingly by believing and obeying 10 O Lord thou knowest my heart to be perfect with thee for thou hast made it so how that I have neither been partiall nor unsincere in mine obedience but entirely endeavoured alwayes in all things to please thee as desirous above all things of thy grace and favour fearing to forfeit it which good Lord grant I may never do by going astray from thy precepts therefore I beseech thee watch over me that no temptation mislead me on the right or left hand out of the way of thy commandments in which I desire to walk from one end of my life to the other without deviating 11 I have Lord stored up thy word in mind and memory especially such and so much of it as I knew was of present and practicall concernment to me in my condition with full purpose of heart to keep close thereunto and not sinfully to suffer my self to be seduced there-from what ever happened 12 Thou Lord art onely blessed in and of thy self from whom as from a fountain flowes forth all derived blessedness unto thy creature which thou art wont to confer most upon them that please thee best as a gracious remuneration of their love and service Lord therefore teach me to know and enable me to do thy will revealed in thy word that I may partake thy blessedness be sharer in thy holiness and happiness here and hereafter 13 As I have found thy law usefull to me by my knowledge of it and framing my course of life according to it so have I endeavoured to make it to be to others and therefore have I according to my measure of light and the duty of my place and office taught it publickly and privately not concealing any truth I knew might make for thy glory and their edifying when I had oportunity of time and occasion 14 My delight and care I bless thee for giving me such an heart hath been more to hear understand and practise those things which in thy word are testified to be thy will and more sweet peace and consolation have I had when I have been so happy as to attain the knowing and doing of them than they that set their hearts to heap up riches when they have their desire of opulency and affluence 15 Therefore whereas worldlings cast in their minds and occupy their thoughts how to enhance their earthly store because their delight is there my meditations shall be otherwayes imploied my care and thoughts shall be how to know more and practise better thy will revealed for therein is my delight and thereto will I bend my mind studying how best to please thee 16 To know and do what pleaseth thee shall be a pleasure unto me yea nothing shall more delight me and therefore am I fully purposed to make thy word the subject of my meditation day and night and the rule of mine obedience in weal and wo. Gimel The third letter of the Hebrew Alphabet signifying the third part 17 Lord thy promises to thy people are comprehensive of all good things as thou hast made them so fulfill them Let me thy servant reap the blessed fruits of thy grace and bounty according to them touching life temporall and spirituall grant me both and what conduces unto both as a faithfull creatour and gracious redeemer that by grace I may live both the life of grace and nature 18 Lord thou knowest what great impediments there are that hinder our knowledge and acquaintance with thee even in those things thou hast revealed of which yet we are ignorant and seeing we see not there being a two-fold vail that interposeth betwixt a right understanding and them the one over our hearts blindly mistaking the mind and meaning of the spirit and stumbling at the stumbling stone the letter The other over thy law and covenant it self exprest in dark and typicall umbrages and dispensations full of wonderous divine excellency in their signification and antitypicall meaning but impossible to be understood but by thy more than litterall revelation Therefore dispense thy spirit who onely knows the mind of God and can onely make it known unto thy servant draw aside thy curtaines of my blindness and thy laws darkness that in thy light I may see light and be made able to behold the mysticall and spirituall tenderness of thy whole law and covenant both in the morall typicall dispensation of it which unfolded to a spirituall eye are admirable and ravishing portraying as in a table the divine history and mistery of mans redemption and salvation with all that heavenly wisdome free-grace and Almighty power that shines therein 19 I am thine and properly belong to another world onely here I must for a time lead a transient life because it is thy will more than mine who though I am in the world yet not of the world but in mind and heart estranged from it therefore seeing it is thy pleasure that I must live mine appointed time to serve thee on earth take it into consideration what divine light and guidance is requisite so to do and vouchsafe me it proportionably least I wander out of thy way the world and flesh with which I here converse being strangers and estranged thereunto and apt to mislead me if thy word and spirit be not alwayes a light and guide unto me 20
thy servants 92 Unless thy Law had been my delights I should then have perished in mine affliction 93 I will never forget thy precepts for with them thou hast quickened me 94 I am thine save me for I have sought thy precepts 95 The wicked have waited for me to destroy me but I will consider thy testimonies 96 I have seen an end of all perfection but thy commandment is exceeding broad Mem. 97 O how love I thy Law it is my meditation all the day 98 Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies for they are ever with me 99 I have more understanding than all my teachers for thy testimonies are my mediation 100 I understand more than the ancients because I keep thy testimonies 101 I have refrained my feet from every evil way that I may keep thy word 102 I have not departed from thy judgements for thou hast taught me 103 How sweet are thy words unto my tast yea sweeter than honey to my mouth 104 Through thy precepts I get understanding therefore I hate every false way Nun. 105 Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path 106 I have sworn and I will perform it that I will keep thy righteous judgements 107 I am afflicted very much quicken me O Lord according unto thy word 108 Accept I beseech thee the free-will-offerings of my mouth O Lord and teach me thy judgements 109 My soul is continually in my hand yet do I not forget thy Law 110 The wicked have laid a snare for me yet I erred not from thy precepts 111 Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage for ever for they are the rejoycing of my heart 112 I have enclined mine heart to perform thy statutes alway even unto the end Samech 113 I hate vain thoughts but thy Law do I love 114 Thou art my hiding place and my shield I hope in thy word 115 Depart from my ye evil duers for I will keep the commandments of my God 116 Uphold me according unto thy word that I may live and let me not be ashamed of my hope 117 Hold thou me up and I shall be safe and I will have respect unto thy statutes continually 118 Thou hast troden down all them that erre from thy statutes for their deceit is falshood 119 Thou puttest away all the wicked of the earth like dross therefore I love thy testimonies 120 My flesh trembleth for fear of thee and I am afraid of thy judgements Ain 121 I have done judgement and justice leave me not to mine oppressours 122 Be surety for thy servant for good let not the proud oppress me 123 Mine eyes fail for thy salvation and for the word of thy righteousness 124 Deal with thy servant according unto thy mercie teach me thy statutes 125 I am thy servant give me understanding that I may know thy testimonies 126 It is time for thee Lord to work for they have made void thy Law 127 Therefore I love thy commandments above gold yea above fine gold 128 Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right and I hate every false way Pe. 129 Thy testimonies are wonderful therefore doth my soul keep them 130 The enterance of thy words giveth light it giveth understanding unto the simple 131 I opened my mouth and panted for I longed for thy commandments 132 Look thou upon me and be merciful unto me as thou usest to do unto those that love thy name 133 Order my steps in thy word and let not any iniquitie have dominion over me 134 Deliver me from the oppression of man so will I keep thy precepts 135 Make thy face to shine upon thy servant and teach me thy statutes 136 Rivers of waters run down mine eyes because they keep not thy Law Tsaddi 137 Righteous art thou O Lord and upright are thy judgements 138 Thy testimonies that thou hast commanded are righteous and very faithful 139 My zeal hath consumed me because mine enemies have forgotten thy words 140 Thy word is very pure therefore thy servant loveth it 141 I am small and despised yet do I not forget thy precepts 142 Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness and thy Law is the truth 143 Trouble and anguish have taken hold on me yet thy commandments are my delights 144 The righteousness of thy testimonies is everlasting give me understanding and I shall live Koph 145 I cried with my whole heart hear me O Lord I will keep thy statutes 146 I cried unto thee save me and I shall keep thy testimonies 147 I prevented the dawning of the morning and cried I hoped in thy word 148 Mine eyes prevent the night watches that I might meditate in thy word 149 Hear my voyce according unto thy loving kindness O Lord quicken me according to thy judgement 150 They draw nigh that follow after mischief they are far from thy Law 151 Thou art near O Lord and all thy commandments are truth 152 Concerning thy testimonies I have known of old that thou hast founded them for ever Resh 153 Consider mine affliction and deliver me for I do not forget thy Law 154 Plead my cause and deliver me quicken me according to thy word 155 Salvation is far from the wicked for they seek not thy statutes 156 Great are thy tender mercies O Lord quicken me according to thy judgements 157 Many are my persecutors mine enemies yet do I not decline from thy testimonies 158 I beheld the transgressours and was grâ—eved because they kept not thy word 159 Consider how I love thy precepts quicken me O Lord according to thy loving kindness 160 Thy word is true from the beginning and every one of thy righteous judgements endureth for ever Schin 161 Princes have persecuted me without a cause but mine heart standeth in aw of thy word 162 I rejoyce at thy word as one that findeth great spoil 163 I hate and abhor lying but thy Law do I love 164 Seven times a day do I praise thee because of thy righteous judgements 165 Great peace have they which love thy Law and nothing shall offend them 166 Lord I have hoped for thy salvation and done thy commandments 167 My soul hath kept thy testimonies and I love them exceedingly 168 I have kept thy precepts and thy testimonies for all my wayes are before thee Tau 169 Let my cry come near before thee O Lord give me understanding according to thy word 170 Let my supplication come before thee deliver me according to thy word 171 My lips shall utter praise when thou hast taught me thy statutes 172 My tongue shall speak of thy word for all thy commandments are righteousness 173 Let thine hand help me for I have chosen thy precepts 174 I have longed for thy salvation O Lord and thy Law is my delight 175 Let my soul live and it shall praise thee let thy judgements
and power of God to all parts and people thereof In them may all men see how wonderfully God hath ordained the sun to reside and shine 5 Which at its first arising and mornings beautiful appearance is most welcome to all mens sight bringing light and as it were life with it from under the dark curtain of the sable night and with a free and natural motion fit for such an undertaking without difficulty sets upon the course it is to run and finish in the appointed time from one end of the heaven to the other 6 His setting forth is from the East and in a day he makes his progress to the West diffusing also his light and influence North and South whose penetrating heat in this his motion reacheth the very lowermost parts of the earth concocting minerals and quickening vegetables 7 Glorious is God in his works which declare his power and wisdom to all men but much more glorious is he in his word and doctrine delivered peculiarly to his people which holds forth to them his covenant of saving grace Those things by a natural propensity convey to men many common and bodily benefits But the word of God is far beyond them all restoring both our title to them lost by our fall and which is infinitely more supernaturally revealing to us the perfect and infallible way of life turning again to God and powerfully bringing it to pass upon us The truth delivered in it by the Lord touching our salvation is unquestionable and may be trusted to which understood and imbraced enriches us who foolishly lost our first estate of holines and happines with understanding how to get it again 8 The saving principles and ordinances which God gives us in his word to walk by are holy and righteous and such as being observed and obeyed in faith and conscience to the Law-giver brings joy and hearts ease in the comfortable sense of our sinceritie and assurance of Gods favour to us and acceptance of us The whole will of God revealed is it self pure void of errour or corruption and makes them so that walk according to it enlightning them with understanding to tread in the way of truth and life when others wander in by-paths of death and errour 9 The holy law of God which he hath ordained his people to fear and serve him by is free from corruption and makes them like it that observe it holy and pure and is everlastingly the same like God the giver of it not to be varied by us at no time nor occasion bringing with it the reward of everlasting happines The ordinances and commandments of the Lord by which he expects to be obeyed and purposes to judge the world are compleatly perfect free from all errour and injustice and onely makes men so 10 They are of more worth and yield a man more profit than all the riches of the world better are they to be prized and more to be desired than the most refined gold And more true pleasure and content do they bring to the soul and conscience by faithful observance than the sweetest honey does to the taste 11 After a special manner they are and ever have been useful to me and to all that fear thee shewing us how to stear a right course in every condition by chusing the good and refusing the evil And well worthie are they to be obeyed for they bring a blessed reward with them even peace of conscience and everlasting life 12 So holy are all thy foresaid laws and commandments and so binding both to the inward and outward man as who lives that can know how oft he offends against them Lord pardon me therefore my unknown sins and sanctifie my heart and spirit conformably to thy law which is spiritual 13 Protect me also who am thy servant and desire to yield thee universal obedience from outward and grosser iniquities committed against knowledge let not such prevail over me by strength of temptation And so being thus pardoned and sanctified notwithstanding my many frailties and daily infirmities I shall be uprightly righteous in thy sight and shall be though not innocent and free from all sin yet from known and presumptuous ones any of which lived in may justly stagger my sinceritie and covenant-peace which without thy special preventing grace I shall notwithstanding fall into 14 Yea cleanse me throughout Let my very words and thoughts as well as deeds be such as sute with thy law and will Thus Lord grant me grace and pardon who onely art my sanctifier and redeemer The xx PSALM David as a prophet instructs his people in a pattern and form of prayer to pray for him their King and to seek their own welfare in him as the Churches in Christ whereof he and they were respective types And to look at God for all the good they expected by his means and withal to be confident of it by saith grounded upon pregnant experiences of his grace and favour to him And how ever God might make them strong in outward things yet not to change their trust but to keep it firm in God by example both of their enemies miscarriages through their misgrounded confidence and of their own experienced success by trusting in the Lord. Closing up the prayer with a brief of all Praying God to preserve both them and their King and to make him able to govern and defend them in equitie and tranquillitie as Christ his Church To him that is the first and principal of all the Quire do I David that made this Psalm recommend it for the care and ordering of it to be sung 1 WE the people of God and thee whom God hath set over us pray for thee That the Lord would hear thy prayers against thine enemies in time of need the grace and providence of God which he shewed to our father Jacob and promised to us his seed who are his peculiar people evermore accompany and preserve thee our King 2 Yea the good Lord answer thee succesfully from that place which he hath specially appointed to hear and for us to offer prayers in even his holy Tabernacle And grant thee his Almighty aid according to the daily prayers of his priests and people which they put up unto him in his holy mountain in thy behalf 3 The Lord keep in mind thy pious offerings of praise and thanksgivings for mercies past to give thee further cause to do the like and the Lord accept the propitiation for thy sins to pardon them and shew forth the gratious fruits and effects of his reconciled favour to thee All this we humbly and heartily pray for 4 God grant thee answers and issues according to thine own desire and bless all thy advice and undertakings for God and his people with sutable success 5 We are confident that God is and ever will be with thee and therefore rejoyce before hand in that
temptation of corrupt fleshly reasoning occasioned by the wickeds prospiritie and his own infelicitie that had almost cost him a fall and made him cast off all care of religion and fear of God had not God taken up the business that was in controversie in his mind he abruptly thereupon silenceth all doubts and disputes and in the very beginning and first entrance into the Psalm breaks through all difficulties and dissidences wherewith he had been sore pestred affirming and declaring for the instruction and strengthning of the godly that maâ—ger all objections to the contrarie God is every jot as good as his word for so he had found by experience and befools himself for his mis-judging of God and the Godly as he had done and too highly prizing the wicked mans happie condition in this life acknowledgeth Gods infinite mercie in this his seasonable illumination and supportation of his faith so much staggered but now resolved and thereby enabled to declare God to be righteous in all his works and that to the faithfull he will ever approve himself such A Psalm made by Asaph 1 I Have had my share of trials and my share of temptations thereupon and also my share of experimented providences and mercies from God so that when all things are rightly weighed after a long debate and conflict betwixt flesh and spirit concerning the one and the other whether God be or be not to his people as he hath promised I must needs conclude he is God and as good as his word to Israel but to what Israel for there was my mistake not to all that go under that name because they are the seed of Jacob so called for all are not Israel that are of Israel but to the Israel in spirit not in the letter to them belongs the promise and performance of grace and goodness to such as are purified by faith not onely in the outward part by legal purifyings which are but umbrages but in the hidden man of the heart by effectual operation of faith and the spirit of grace to such the Lord is gracious and ever will be I know it by experience and so shall they let them never doubt it nor question the truth of Gods word and promise because of seeming contraridictoriness in his work of providence thereunto but take it upon the word of a Prophet as well as a promise it is a truth whatsoever is suggested to the contrarie by carnal and corrupt reason God is so will be so and cannnot be otherwise 2 I confess it is no easie matter to be thus perswaded considering the strange order that is in Gods providences and dispensations I my self for all I can now speak it boldly yet the time was when I was as misbelieving as other men extreamly staggered I was in my faith and judgement touching the truth of the promise and the goodness of God according thereunto I was almost fallen from faith and consequently from hope reverence and every thing of that nature ready to to turn Atheist as touching the points of Gods truth and goodness truly I was even going if God had not staied me to deviate and shift for my self by carnal policie and creature-confidence as I saw others do 3 For like a fool as I was I fastened mine eyes upon the outward face of things I saw them that are best suffer most those that are worst prosper best which put me into a passionate envy of them that clouded my judgement so that I could not but raise foolish conclusions upon foolish premises and think with my selfe that surely it is not God but Fortune that orders matters thus or if it be God that then he cannot bring both ends together punish his people prosper the wicked and yet be good to the one and just to the other 4 Whom contrarie to their demerits he lets live in such felicitie all their daies for for all their sins they have the world at will their minds and consciencies free from trouble their constitutions strong and bodies healthfull they feel no punishments nor pains in either neither living nor dying for after a prosperous life I thought I should see God meet with them at their deaths whereas they died as they lived without either pangs of bodie or horrour of conscience to mine admiration and stumbling 5 A man would almost think that judges with worldly judgement as I did that sin and wickedness were the high-way to happiness and that the promises were rather made to the bad than the good for whilest the godly undergo concussions and agitations within and without they live in a serene clime under a perpetual calm and feel not the twentieth part of what the righteous suffer 6 And therefore they brave it over them and pride themselves as the onely men on earth whom God favours far above the Godly whom they look contemptibly upon maligne and oppress them even for their pietie and povertie sake judging them therefore hated of God and so justly persecuted of men and themselves his onely friends and he theirs 7 They pamper their carcasses live deliciously fair well and thrive well upon it they have no want of Worldly wealth and outward felicitie God pours honey into their hive they prosper wondrously even beyond their own desires and expectations 8 Their plentie and voluptuousness makes them quite forget God to be above them they live sensually and sinfully as if they were controlable by none and with open face do injustice and wrong bragging of their power to oppress and threatning thunderbolts to the poor and despised people of God 9 Who if they make their appeal to heaven pray for and plead Gods power to protect them against theirs they contemn them and blaspheme God yea bid defiance both to God and man not caring for God above them and thinking all the world else to be below them for their proud and presumptuous speeches import no less 10 Whereupon it is that the people of God are in my very case they stumble and allmost fall and are in grievous agonies not onely by outward affliction but every way which is worse by inward diffidences and debates in themselves whilest the good are thus extreamly under and the bad a top of the wheel 11 Insomuch as I did so do they begin to question through the infirmitie of the flesh and their astonishment at the strangeness of such proceedings the providence and administration of God whither at all he that is in heaven heed these things below or if he do then how they can stand with his wise and righteous dispensations and word of promise 12 For thus they say within themselves who are they that come on and prosper in the World why generally the wicked and ungodly have most and do best is it not so every where 13 And who are they that have least and are most under hatches why truly they that fear God
all natural men live in sin and from the beginning have multiplied abominations not one either is or ever was that by nature without special and supernatural grace ever knew or served the Lord aright 2 The Lord made a long trial of it in the first age of the world in that time of nature between Adam and the giving of the Law purposely to see what it of it self would bring forth and how improve the talent that age afforded whether there were any one of all mankind that could and would improve it to the knowledge belief and worship of him or for default by nature to make out to him for grace 3 But he found by long experience notwithstanding his documents to and judgements upon the old world and so he finds still That all men are naturally fools void of understanding and generally without exception of polluted hearts and lives loathsome in his sight that none in nature does that which is right and acceptable no not a man of all mankind nor covets grace 4 In so much as God himself admired to see all men by nature void of the knowledge of him and of themselves in relation to him and wholly given over to sin and carnalitie yea even to the hatred and devouring those few in the world that are the people of God upon whom he hath bestowed his favour and grace and that differing from them walk in holines and righteousnes never taking thought to do or be like them neither themselves of themselves by nature worshipping God nor seeking to God for the like grace and inablement that those had given them but contemned it and hated them 5 Which at last brought fearful desolation upon them when the floud came and swept them all away Like measure shall the wicked contemners and haters of God and his worshippers have they shall find that God who by his spirit and grace throughout all ages is in the righteous will also be for them and against those that are against them 6 You graceless and wicked ones of this age take notice of it that have persecuted the poor and helpless and scorned him as a hairbrain fool for trusting so nakedly upon the Lord and bearing himself upon him without humane probabilities for deliverance and establishment 7 But O that the time were come which I am sure will come and is not long too that God will by mine enemies ruin settle my Kingdom in Sion as a Type of Christs in heaven and then and there by me send deliverance and happines to his people Israel as he will thence by him send salvation to his Church When God shall have thus delivered them from their enemies and out of their present troubles as formerly he did out of their captivities into peace and tranquillity as his Church by Christ shall be from wrath and hell how shall the faithful and true Israel of God who properly are the seed of his servant Jacob rejoyce proportionably in the type to what they shall then in the Antitype The xv PSALM David dâ—sirous to convince and convert the fâ—rmâ—â— professor or outward Jâ—y of and from an overweening conceit and mistaken apprehension of himsâ—lf and his ceremonious worship As a Prophet goes to God by way of question to know of him and so to deliver from him who he is that is in his account a true worshâ—pper of him and is and shall be partaker of his grace and glorie And brings answer that it s he and only he that in the sight of God is as well conscientious of the moral as of the ceremonial law practizing as well righteousness as holines in all manner converse and commerce with men in thought words and actions A Psalm made by David 1 LOrd there are many pretenders to thy service and frequenters of thy Tabernacle worship that take themselves to be of the Church because they are in it but thou knowest that many are of Israel that are not Israel Therefore declare by me thy prophet who and what manner of man he must be that is an Israelite indeed a true worshipper of thee and savingly implanted into the true Church ever to abide in thy Kingdom of grace here and of glorie hereafter 2 Why no wicked man nor bare professor or meer ceremonial worshipper that is but seemingly holy But he and he onely that in conscience to God carries on the whole trade of his life holily and righteously both in duties of pietie and acts of moralitie in common converse and commerce 'twixt man and man doing what he does justly and honestly without fraud and deceit and saying what he says in truth from his heart without dissembling 3 Doing injurie to no man by undermining his good name and sliely seeking his disreputation by insinuating and speaking ill of him behind his back yea that neither in word or deed doth willingly disparage or disprofit any man nor is well pleased another should not itching after tales and reports to other mens disparagement and aspersion nor being over credulous of them when he hears them to the lessening their credit but in all things is careful to do as he would be done by counting every man his neighbour and walking thereafter in doing good and not evil to all 4 He that gives no countenance or encouragement to wickednes and wicked men but declares himself against it and them for its sake contrarily having in great esteem and shewing good respect to them that are known to be holy and good and is careful to walk unblameably and therefore is so tender of his word as that if he have promised or sworn any lawful thing he will keep it though it be to his disadvantage rather than falsifie 5 He that violates not the Laws of charitie and justice but having it by him lends freely to them that need intending their commoditie and not his own And that in office or judicature gives judgement uprightly not suffering himself to be perverted by bribery to wrong the innocent He that thus walks is no formalist nor Hipocrâ—â— or cast-away but is the truly godly man that is blessed for ever with saving grace and assurance of glorie The xvi PSALM David having praied for divine preservation shews he expects to be saved by Gods goodnes and not his own which onely is gratuitous not meritorious Then he shews the vanitie and miserie of false religion and worship which he for his part disclainâ—s and by faith chuses to be happie in God onely Blessing God that hath by his word and spirit given him the wisdom to believe in him Which stablishes his heart in peace during life and in assured hope after death touching perseverance to the end and heaven in the end A Psalm made and set by David to a special tune called Michtam 1 O God of power uphold me from falling from thee lead me on in the knowledge love obedience of thy truth to
the end for on thee only on thy good grace do I trust for preservatiō unto salvatiō 2 My soul hath firmly entred covenant with thee and chosen thee for its Lord to serve thee and to be saved by thee of thy free mercie abandoning all worth or goodnes of mine own as any ways meritorious or beneficial to thee that needeth nothing but hast all fulnes and cause of full contentednes in th◠self alone 3 Onely to thy children and sanctified ones here on earth do I labour to express my gratitude by what offices of love and respect I can shew for thy sake as they that to me are most excellent of all men in the world be their outward condition never so mean being happy to be a fellow servant and true worshipper of thee amongst them 4 Discomfort and destruction insted of peace and salvation shall be heaped upon them that forsaking thee have their hearts set upon any other God For my part I renounce all but thee and will serve and sacrifice to thee alone and will have nothing to do with their false worship nor once open my lips to any God but thee to swear by him or to pray to him 5 With the Lord alone am I well satisfied a singular portion rich inheritance do I account my knowledge of him interest in him thou art full content to me in thee and by thee shall I be ever happie blessed when other men of other confidences shall be miserable 6 In having thee for my God I have my hearts desire and think my self enriched beyond all earthly pleasures and profits which many in the world have which have not thee 7 I will ever bless and praise the Lord for revealing to me in his word the way of life and salvation when others sit in darknes and in the shadow of death and also teaching me effectually by the inward and secret inspiration and whisperings of his spirit consciously to walk in it when as others that know it externally for want of inspiration do wander from it 8 In what condition soever I have been I have still kept the eye of my faith full upon God and not suffered it to take to other things and because I make God my support and lean so wholly upon him I know he will not deceive my confidence but will sustain me in his favour and support me with his power and grace for ever till he bring me to glorie 9 And in the faith hereof my heart is comforted above all worldly sorrows even to the causing my tongue to break out in holy boastings and praises that instrument of speech wherein man transcends other creatures Yea in this confidence I dare die as well as live and by virtue of it cheerfully bequeath my body to the grave in certain expectation of a blessed resurrection thence 10 For as thou wilt enable Christ whose type I am and who shall spring from me to overcome all his sufferings and preserve him who is thy beloved son and solely without sin from the putrefaction which all men else that are sinners must sustain in the grave making him to triumph over death who is the resurrection and the life So by Christ shall I be set free in soul and body from wrath and mortality by a glorious resurrection to immortality and life 11 Yea thou wilt teach me the way of life and salvation and lead me in it until thou bring me into thy heavenly presence to partake and be possessed of those soul-satisfying and substantial joyes that are there and of those everlasting and immortal pleasures which Christ the head of his Church at thy right hand hath to bestow on all his glorified members The xvii PSALM David probably when he was in the cave encompassed by Saul makes his prayer and appeal to God impartially pleading his innocency against his enemies Further testifies that in conscience to God he durst never do as he was done by nor praies he never may but commits his matter over to God in prayer to be righted by him and delivered from the violence of his proud outragious enemies in his extream straights And again presseth hard upon the Lord to shew himself for him against them that have no interest in his special and saving favour onely share in his common mercies which he hath and prizeth as an happiness above all A Psalm of David in way of prayer 1 THou that art a righteous God hear the prayer of the righteous and innocent person heed my humble and vehement supplication let my prayer have audience which speaks nothing but truth of my self and enemies 2 Judge thou my cause against mine adversaries by clearing mine innocency behold the wrong I sustain and by thy just judgements do me right upon them according to my righteousness 3 Mine integrity is not unknown to thee for thou hast searched mine heart as well as seen mine actions thou hast put me upon the scrutiny and discovery of my self in my most retired thoughts yea in thought word and deed hast thou tried me and sifted me through great and many afflictions and neither hast nor shalt find unrighteousness in me for I am by thy blessed assistance fully purposed as to think so to speak the truth in all uprightness and not to seek mine advantage by lying and dissembling as do mine enemies 4 Concerning the wrongs they have done me I have been careful for all their unjust provocations to walk by the rule of thy word not rendring evil for evil nor requiting their injurious cruelty with the like though it lay in my power 5 And so Lord inable me ever to do to walk after thy word that I may never erre from thy truth nor by sinning forfeit my well doing and good success in the end which by thy promise in the way of obedience I am sure of 6 I have made thee my confidence and ever addressed me to thee for I know and believe according to thy promise thou wilt hear and do for me now Lord is a fit time and a needful I pray thee therefore withdraw not thy self but be intreated to take notice of me and to hear mine instant prayer 7 Shew thy love to me in marvellously delivering me and fulfilling the wonderful things thou hast promised me O Lord that usest to imploy thy power for their preservation that trust in thee for deliverance from them that unjustly oppress them 8 Do thou Lord watch carefully over me that am dear to thee and in tender compassion preserve thy weak and innocent one 9 From them that unjustly seek my ruine and pursue me to the death with mighty ods of power and strength 10 They bear themselves high in confidence of their own greatness and power wallowing in abundance and give out great swelling words in disdain and contempt of me an abject 11 They have hunted
tongue is made apt to utter them with a ready dexteritie 2 As God hath advanced thee O Solomon with honour to be King over Israel as Christ shall be over his Church so hath he beautified thee above the ordinarie ranck of men and adorned thee with excellent Divine wisdom and utterance worthie thy place of regiment like as he will do Christ the blessed King and bridegroom of his Church with all the excellent inward ornaments of grace and spirit wherein he shall exceed all and of which his excellencies he shall participate to all his people by his powerful and saving word of grace which is an infallible argument of the never failing love and favour God hath to thee and will ever bear thee the type as to Christ the antitype and the blessings that shall accompany it 3 Whensoever thou preparest for war prepare for victorie O thou that art mightily blessed and aided by the Almighty God of heaven and made the King of most renown and majestie in all the world as Christ shall be the most powerful and victorious Saviour of his Church and mightiest potentate to whom all power shall be given both in heaven and earth 4 And in the majestick power that God hath given thee prosperously proceed to aw and conquer all thine enemies not by falshood pride and injustice as do other Kings that move upon earthly principles but in Gods way by the exercise of his graces of faithfulness meekness and justice as shall do Christ by his Kingly office in behalf of his Church prevailing and conquering by the saving truth of his word patient long-suffering and righteous performing of his promises ruling and walking in this manner thou shalt be able to work wonders and shalt strike terrour into thine enemies and reverence into thy people as shall Christ into his 5 Those that shall oppose thy Sovereign rule and government will have but bad success for thou art as Christ shall be of power to quell them whereby whole nations of the Gentils shall be subdued to thy subjection and obedience as they shall to his 6 Thy dominion and sovereigntie O Solomon the type of Christ the son of God is not like meer earthly Kings that perish but it shall in him who is God and our Divine mediator be extended over all and to all eternity Thou hast right to rule for God himself hath given thee dominion over Jews and Gentils as he hath done to Christ over all the world a just and righteous government shalt thou the type execute in him the antitype who is the just and holy God not subject to the corruptions of earthly Princes 7 For he whom thou resemblest perfectly loves and obeys the holy and righteous will of God and as perfectly hateth both sin and sinners for which cause that he may be Gods high officer and King over his Church chosen peculiarly to that place and honour before all mankind and Gods own people too as David was before all Israel and both he and thou before the rest of your brethren therefore is he inabled and enriched from God whose son even by nature he is and whose love most especially he hath with the spirit of consolation and all his Divine graces in his humane nature even without measure whereof the adopted sons of God and fellow-members of Christ that are partakers with him of the Divine nature as he is with them of the humane do share but in measure short of him receiving grace for grace from him 8 All thy royall robes O Solomon are richly and odoriferously perfumed with the most costly aromatick spices when as thou shewest thy self to thy people from out thy stately palaces who at the sight and smell of thee are rejoyced and refreshed and reciprocally return their joyfull and loyal acclamations to thee again to thy great contentment as well as theirs Like as Christ shall come from heaven furnished in his humane nature with all excellent graces and perfections befitting his high office to the infinit joy of his people who enjoy the sweet and benefit thereof which they return again unto him in love honour and service to his good content 9 Thou art honoured with many wives and concubines of high birth even Kings daughters are in the number of them but especially and of most account with thee is Pharaohs daughter who is Queen above all the rest and more gloriously attired than any Like as Christ shall have the attendance and company of many noble and famous congregations that will profess him and worship him externally in his ordinances But his onely and principal spouse is the holy Catholick Church consisting principally of the elect Gentils whom he shall cloth like himself in his own righteousness and adorn her with the Divine nature and the graces of his spirit and prefer her to special favour here and glorie with him hereafter in heaven 10 O daughter of Aegypt whom God hath made so happie as to bring thee thence and to marrie thee to King Solomon the type of Christ be thou also the resemblance of his spouse the Church specially of the Gentils by hearkening unto and embracing the true and saving knowledge of the onely true God and be converted by it as she shall be and turn from the errours wherein thou wast bred and born inheriting them by education and birth-right as do even the elect of God their sinful and corrupt nature till they be married to Christ by a new nature and forsake all for him 11 So shall King Solomon far more entirely love thee and delight in thee thy beautie being much increased thereby and thou made glorious within as well as without who is thy Lord and husband and therefore one whom thou oughtest to obey and desire to please Like as shall the Church be infinitly pleasing to Christ when she hath given herself to him and is endowed with his graces whose Lord and husband he is and whom she ought to serve and honour 12 Nor shalt thou lose thereby but God will greatly increase thine honour and esteem far more than being the daughter of Pharaoah comes to for so shalt thou in conjugal participation gain the homage and subjection of great and rich nations the most mightie and powerful people of all the world shall be brought under and made glad of thy favour through the favour and blessing of God upon thee Like as it shall be with the Church which worships Christ in puritie and sinceritie she shall be so blessed by him as that no enemy shall stand before her but by the assistance of the power and grace of Christ her Lord and husband she shall be Ladie and Mistresse of the whole world sought unto of all nations for the knowledge of her saving truth and participation of her graces with the renouncing of their false confidences to share with her in Christ. 13 Thou the daughter of King Pharaoh art not gloriously
never to live again Lord think other thoughts towards us bring us again into a comfortable condition and raise us up in joy as much as thou hast cast us down in sorrow by the return of thy reconciled favour to us which will infinitely rejoyce us 7 Let us be so happy as to see and feel the sweet effects of thy pardoning grace O good God by granting us a powerfull deliverance from under this misery and bondage 8 As pray so I will also expect an answer my faith shall listen diligently to the promise of God what it sayes as also to his providence what it will speak effectually by way of performance for his promises are then words he will do as he sayes and therefore I am confident how ever Gods time is now of punishing us so it will be of pardoning us his people shall have rest from these their troubles for his Saints the invisible Church sake that are amongst them but let them take heed of abusing such goodness by provoking the Lord again to wrath with back-sliding ingratitude lest he never take their words more 9 Surely deliverance from the Lord will make haste for the enfranchizing of all those that faithfully wait for it and will heartily imbrace it when it comes to the promoting and re-establishing his worship and service again in that land of his and ours though we are wrongfully disseiz'd of it and restoring it to its former glorie and splendour 10 Our return as it shall doubtless be so it shall be exceeding happie the very embleme of the salvation that comes by the Messiah to the Church and the glorious effects thereof for in our restauration there shall be an admirable commixtion of the mercie and truth of God thereby graciously fulfilling his promise touching the well-fare of his Church and freedom from her enemies together with a righteous obediential walking of his people with him in peace and tranquillitie Like as in Christ and in the restauration that he shall make of poor distressed sinners to a spiritual Libertie from their ghostly enemies sin and Satan there shall be a glorious reconciliation of those cross pleading attributes and properties in Gods divine nature and in the soul of every justified regenerate member of the Church for according to truth and righteousness Man that sinned hath died Christ being made a sacrifice and according to mercie and peace Man that hath sinned is saved and God he are reconciled and at one in the propitiation of his son so that in him the Laws threatnings and Gospels promises are agreed the rigour of Gods justice is fully satisfied all things in God peaceably accorded and God and man sweetly reconciled and man in his own conscience by the faith of all these comfortably quieted 11 We shall serve and obey God in truth and uprightness such sweet fruit shall Judea yield upon our restitution and God shall take pleasure in us and from heaven pour forth his righteous blessings upon us in grace and favour to us as it shall be with the Church when the Messiah that Truth of God shall be born in our nature of earthly parents with what satisfactorie content shall God then behold him and those justified sanctified members of his here below aswell as those glorified ones in heaven above and how shall he bless them 12 Yea the Lord shall be so reconciled to us that our evils shall be turned into their contrarie blessings he shall be our friend and make every thing else befriend us for good the creature shall be reconciled aswell as the creator and the land that our sins have made barren and fruitless shall by the blessing of God upon it be restored to that fertilitie it had heretofore when God was better served and it was better blessed and made to resemble the plenteous spiritual blessings that Christs enfranchized Church shall abound with here 13 God himself shall plentifully vouchsafe his graces and make us walk to his well-pleasing in holiness and righteousness as Christ shall his Church and set us in the right way which we have so miserably strayed from and enable us to walk it even the path of his precepts The lxxxvi PSALM David in this Psalm made probably either during Sauls persecution of him or after in mindfulness of that his estate personating himself as then it was with him praies for audience and deliverance because of his incessant intercessions and Gods innate goodness and promises himself what he praies for he extols God and prophesies all the World shall do so too prayeth for direction and establishment under his pressures promiseth praise for what God hath done for him and relates what manner of enemies his are as bad as bad can be but comforts himself in Gods opposit grace and goodness which he praies for a sensible sight and taste of by some remarkable act of providence and power for him against them to their shame and confusion and to his corroboration and consolation A praier that David made in the time of his grievous affliction recorded as a pattern and for the use of every faithful afflicted member of the Church 1 THou Lord that hast an ear for men in my case and heart too Let me I pray thee prevail for a gracious audience and though thou beest of so immense greatness and inhabitest heavens in unaccessable glorie yet Lord have regard to a poor worm on earth in this my deplorable helpless condition 2 That my life Lord is in danger thou knowest it and that my heart is upright towards thee and innocent towards man even to my very enemies thou Lord art not ignorant of it Therefore in righteousness deliver me out of their hands and save my life which they would destroy O Lord that art my God both in near relation and dear affection save me that thou knowest am entirely thine in loving obedience and faithful dependance and reliance 3 Let thy goodness and my miserie move thee to have mercie on me O Almightie Lord and to vouchsafe me deliverance for as I have cause my pressures being exceeding great and incessant so are my cries unto thee vehement and quotidian because my faith and hope is in thee 4 Set me free from my troubles and these despondencies of spirit that accompany them that I may with a joyful and thankful heart apprehend thy grace and mercie to me for Lord thou knowest my trust and confidence is in none besides thee as thou mayest perceive by my faithful and fervent addresses 5 For I know both from thine own word which I believe and mine own experience that thou art of a gracious compassionate nature to poor distressed suppliants and though just to punish sinners yet as ready to pardon penitents and to shew mercie of every kind both of forgiveness to humbled sinners and of deliverance to distressed innocents that in the faith thereof pray earnestly unto thee 6 And
Lord I am one of those be thou therefore so to me in thy goodness and mercie hear me calling and crying unto thee for relief in this my distressed estate 7 And truly Lord that goodness of thine and my confidence in it prompts me what ever and whensoever I am in affliction to flie to thee by prayer and supplication not doubting of a gracious answer and issue 8 There are many gods worshipped in the world besides thee but for my part I know none but thee nor will pray or seek to any else for I am sure it is but lost labour Thine onely is the Kingdom power and glorie Thy works are worthy of thee but they as they are no Gods so there is nothing they can do neither god nor man besides thy self no creature whatsoever can do any thing worthy a mans trust for all that is done is either of thee or from thee and those things wherein thou art pleased to appear and to put forth thy power how transcendent are they 9 Yea though it be a thing almost incredible and seemingly impossible considering that ignorance and enmity that is all the world over yet shalt thou that by thine infinit Almighty power hast made all nations make to thy self a Church of every people in the whole earth aswel Gentiles as Jews and they shall yield thee not constrained but voluntarie obedience and acknowledgement under the Kingdom of Christ whereof my Kingdom no less powerfully brought about by thee shall be some resemblance for then shall the heathen nations do thee homage and dread thy power I shall convince them but Christ shall convert them whose people and servants they shall then be as we now are 10 For there is nothing impossible to God who is able to do whatsoever he will his power is infinit and omnipotent as his wondrous works declare and the strange transcendent things he hath done for his Church in all ages and will do still even make the whole world his Church and himself to be worshipped and acknowledged of the very heathen they that now are Idolaters and serve many Gods yea every thing for God but God shall serve him and none besides him as we do 11 O Lord in the hour of temptation and time of trouble which is now upon me thou knowest how apt we are to step aside partly by ignorance partly by frailty my suit therefore is that thou wouldest instruct me how to demean my self so that I sin not against thee and to that end mind me of my dutie in every emergencie Let me hear a voice behind me saying this is the way and my purpose is not to deviat from it but my power must be from thee to make good this purpose therefore Lord give me such grace and courage and such seasonable supplement thereof that I may be resolved to believe firmly in thee and to walk exactly with thee at all essayes not staggering either in faith or a good conscience 12 As I have found thee mindful of me in trouble so shalt thou find me no less mindful of thee and my dutie to thee out of it I will not forget nor fail to give thee praises and that unfeigned ones uttered from my heart in the faith of thy power and grace O Lord my good God yea it shall be my constant practise to praise thee and to magnifie thee in and for them whilest I have any being 13 For greatly have they been manifested in thy mercie towards me and in so wonderfully preserving me from death and destruction that so unavoidably assailed me and had certainly devoured me hadst not thou mightily preserved me 14 And indeed I had need of no less power than thine to preserve me considering my humane help how weak it is and mine enemies insolencie and rage how great they are for multitudes of such as care neither for God nor man that disdain to walk by any rules but their own dictates without regard either to mine innocencie or thy severitie and justice resolve to persecute me to death 15 But thou O Lord art as gracious and merciful as they are cruel as pitiful as they are pitiless pardoning the sins and sensible of the sufferings of thy servant bearing with my frailties and passing by my infirmities in these my trials and failest me not as I have need of thee but hast abundantly approved thy goodness to be as large as thy truth and promise and thy self to be every jot as good as thy word 16 And so let me still find thee thy favour and grace O Lord vouchsafe me and in a time of need have mercie upon me to deliver me as I am thy servant so Lord inable me to persevere give inward strength of faith and courage to uphold me in and under these outward calamities and power to wade through them so as that I perish not in them have a gracious regard to me who thou knowest am a child not onely of thy visible but of thine invisible Church an heir of the promise born and bred under thy roof of thine own family neerly related to thee and therefore pray and hope for protection from thee 17 As I stand in need of more than ordinarie supportation so also of extraordinarie consolation and mine enemies of extraordinarie conviction by reason of their arrogance and malignitie Therefore Lord vouchsafe some notable act of providence in the behalf of my preservation and of power in their confusion that they which so extreamly hate me may know thou lovest me and hatest them for hating me and be ashamed at their hating and persecuting one whom they see thou lovest and preservest and for whose sake thou discomfits them to be a help and comfort unto me The lxxxvii PSALM For as much as 〈◊〉 the captivity upon their return the Iewâ— wâ—re or might bâ— dâ—jâ—cted with the paâ—citie of their people and povertie of their condition the holy Ghost by the Psalmist animates them and diverts the thoughts and apprehensions of the godly by setting forth the glorious priviledges of Sion prophâ—sted of old but not yet fulfilled saving in their shâ—dows which shortly would be accomplished in substance when all nations should be ambitious to be Sionists for the Church it selfe should bear that name which shall abound both in a numerous issue and heavenly qualifications A Psalm made to be both sung and played by the Korathites 1 THe holy Lord God from out all the world hath chosen Canaan a hilly countrey Jerusalem a mountainous place and in Jerusalem mount Sion and Moriah to scituate his Temple and to rest his Ark and establish his worship in There had his Church the pillar and ground of truth the first setling and truth it self the first firm footing upon which foundation laid among these hils was to be built and reared that great famous structure of the Gentil-Church Christ himself the principal corner-stone digged out of those mountains
and natural reason thou hast broken all the ties that were upon thee oath promise faithfulness holiness covenant which seems to be quite made void even that thou mad'st with thy servant David concerning the establishment of his throne and dignitie upon him and his posteritie for ever For thou hast suffered as much despight to be done to that royal diadem as the prophane ignorant Idolatrous heathen can devise to do by captivating King and Kingdom contemptibly subjugated and transplanted into another nation far remote where they are made bon dmen even the people and posteritie of David his throne is thus abased of whom thou saidst The enemy shall not exact nor the son of wickedness afflict him 40 Instead of protection thou hast brought upon it utter devastation thou hast quite ruinated all the strength of the Kingdom defensive and offensive and made the enemy absolute there 41 He is brought to so forlorn a condition that the whole Kingdom countrey cities people goods every thing are preid upon and spoiled at pleasure by all that will houses gardens vine-yards all the whole land is a very through-fare for all commers and goers that take and leave as they list themselves there is no bodie nor nothing to resist them Those Idolatrous prophane people the Ammonites Moabites c. that border about us whom thou saidest should be under him are got above him and most insultingly reproch him upon this occasion and deridingly ask if this be the King whose throne shall endure so long as the Sun and Moon which extreamly reflects upon the Messiah himself and calls in question thy covenant as to him 42 Thou hast given strength courage and success to his enemies and made them triumphant over him 43 On the contrarie thou hast weakned his power made ineffectual all his indeavours and turned the courage wherewith he was wont to be endowed into cowardise and made him to flie before the enemie who was wont to flie before him 44 Thou hast put an end to that honour and dignitie which thou saidst nay swearest should continue for ever his throne which thou covenantest to establish is utterly demolished he is laid level with the common people nay a very bondman in captivitie 45 Instead of estating him and his Kingdom in everlasting happiness thou hast brought sudden and speedie desolation it is true some few dayes of glorie and felicitie he hath seen but they soon have an end nay a shameful end Lord this is true 46 Lord instead of being everlastingly gracious wilt thou be everlastingly displeased shall we never partake of favour and grace again art thou utterly estranged and we utterly rejected shall we be quite consumed in thine anger without any mixture of mercie or mitigation of thy wrath 47 48 Lord consider the shortness and vanitie of my life and by me judge of all other men that by course of nature are as I am short-lived and sure to die Now then if thou thus breakest covenant casts off thy people nullifies thy Church and hereby overthrows all possibilitie of the Messiah and his Kingdom what a vain thing must it needs be for thee to have made man if all the happiness he shall have is but to live a few dayes on earth and so die or if that be all the honour and service thou art like to have of him and truly Lord if thy Church and covenant be null that is all can come on 't for none shall be saved but thy people and no people are so but by Covenant if then the one be not and so the other be frustrate we are all reduced into the sinful mass of mankind at best to live miserably and die wretchedly This will be the issue 49 Lord thou doest infinitly amaze us to consider what loving kindness thou hast heretofore covenanted to shew to David and his seed for ever and ratified it with a deep and solemn Oath obliging thee in thine infinit truth and faithfulness to fulfil it we are at a stand to think on this and withall how this thy word and these thy works are consistent and reconcileable 50 Lord for all this make it appear thou canst keep Covenant and preserve thy Church and people as low as they be brought and that thou mayest be moved hereunto Remember and take notice of the reprochful contumelious usage thy servants have at their enemies hands for thy sake more than their own and to thy dishonour more than theirs Weigh well to what an ebb of fortune we are fallen when subjugated and captivated under the insolentest and mightiest nation upon earth whose reprochful insufferable abuse of thy people they are forced to put up and with infinit patience to dissemble their grief which goes to my heart to think of and am as sensible of it as if I bare the whole burden on my own back 51 Even those blasphemous reprochful taunts which those victorious heathen enemies to thee and for thy sake to thy people do cast upon their hope in thy promises and their faithful expectation of the coming and near approch of the Messiah their King thine anointed now in this their so low miserable and irrecoverable estate 52 But how ever it be neither our miserie the enemies insolencie thy severitie and seeming perfidie nor our amazements upon all these shall eradicate the faith and hope mine heart hath in thee and thy covenant nor stop my mouth from praising thee for it but that I do affirm thee holy faithful and gracious for all these even to David to whom thou wilt make good all that ever thou hast promised yea to the end of the World shall his Kingdom last The Messiah for all this shall come whose shall be the Kingdom power and glorie for evermore And in the faith hereof I do bless thee now as if it were and pronounce thee worthie of blessing praise and thanksgiving throughout all ages of the World so long as Sun and Moon endures so be it yea Lord dispose the hearts of thy people to believe that so it shall be that in the hope thereof we may praise thee and in the happie enjoyment thereof all ages hereafter may do so too The xc PSALM This praier of Moses in likelihood was made by him some time before his death betwixt the Israelites being inhabited Canaan because of their murmuring and misbelief when the spies brought an evil report upon the land in that long peregrination of theirs in the wilderness and the time they entered it wherein he first mentions the continual care that he the everlasting God hath had over them in all their travels and sojournings and next the often afflictions and destructions to which their sins and his displeasure brought them and the great deliverances he hath afforded them as it were a resurrection from the dead Then declares how its worse with them his people than the rest of mankind for though all must and
their minds in the practical contemplation of him in them that they may affect their hearts toward him with suitable frame of thankfulness and praise for the greatness and goodness they are sensible of thereby 3 All that he hath done declares him to be for honour and power incomprehensible nor shall one word fail of all that he hath spoken concerning what he will do his Prophesies and promises yea and his threatenings too are as sure to be fulfilled as those which are already 4 The Lord hath done such memorable and admirable things for his Church in all ages as are never to be forgotten but with praise and thanksgiving to be had in everlasting remembrance his grace in choosing and compassion in relieving and pardoning his people is worthy our best observation and memory 5 He hath provided for his Church all along the Series of their successions and in all their peregrinations so that when in humble and faithfull addresses they that feared him at any time sought unto him they had supply of needfull mercies both for themselves and others that though they were of the visible Church yet did not so well deserve at his hands their sinnes and murmurings being enough to have made God unchurch them but that he was mindfull of his covenant made with our forefathers Patriarchs and Prophets Types of Christ not to do it of which as then he was so still he is and ever will be mindfull to be as good as his word in sparing and pardoning his people and blessing and preserving them when in fear of him and in the faith of his covenant they in humble-wise seek his favour towards them 6 He made manifest enough his exceeding great power in those miraculous victories he gave his people Israel over the Cananites when they entered the promised land which had been long possessed and inhabited by those heathenish Idolaters whom the Lord rooted out to establish them in it 7 The things he hath wrought have not onely been Acts of power but also of Truth and Justice his promises as well as his power have been written in legible Caracters in those his wonderfull dispensations to and for his Church as also his righteous judgements long before threatened to such wicked wretches and as his works have approved the faithfulness and infallibility of his promises and comminations so that other part of his word the Law of Commandments a safe rule to walk by is likewise as firm God looks they shall be obeyed by his people as certainly and undispensably as he gives them leave to expect his promises and threats to be fullfilled by him for them 8 Both the one and the other his word and works commands and providences as to his Churches preserving and governing are built upon a firm foundation the good pleasure and free grace of God according to his word and covenant and as inseperable companions go together God is good and doth good to those that are good and keep his commandments and ever will be so his truth and faithfulness binds him to be so and to do so to such as in truth and uprightness serve him 9 The Lord from time to time when his people were in jeopardy or the thraldom for their sinns if they cried unto him and humbled themselves before him he delivered them he hath established his covenant of free-grace as firm as any Law and hath bound himself by the one as firmly as us by the other so that his people shall ever find him to be the same unchangeable God for their good alwayes provided they walk worthy of him and becomingly towards him in reverence of his Majesty and obedience to his holiness 10 A man that hath never so much worldly wisdom and lives in sinne is for all that all that while but a fool till in the faithfull application of Gods saving goodness he be an altered man and fearing to offend him is carefull in all things to please him then and never till then he begins to be wise with that which is true wisdom for onely they have a right understanding both of the chiefest good and their chiefest end what 's best for themselves and why they were made that fulfill the will of God their Creatour living thereafter for therein is great reward As his mercy and faithfulness is and ever shall be firm to his faithfull and obedient people and Church in her preservation and her enemies confusion so ought to be his praises as long and large as his benefits which shall have no end The cxii PSALM The Psalmist stirrs up the people of the Lord in works to praise him the benefit whereof will be theirs their persons and posterities will be blessed by it in wo as well as in weal will God graciously visit such He sheweth a charitable minded man is much set by of God and by faith and a good conscience in the worst of times enjoys himself happily spite of those that malign him his liberall giving to the poor shall enrich him when as the covetous wretch for all his carking and caring shall suffer want and envy his abundance 1 LEt the Lord have his due praises for his great deservings and admirable excellencies that appear to be in him by what we see done by him and that not onely vocall but reall for he principally praiseth him and is certainly blessed of him that with a filiall fear dares not offend him and with a faith working by love is carefull in all things to please and obey him whose happiness is holiness and sinne his greatest affliction 2 Nor will God determine his blessings upon himself but extend them further even to his posterity walking in his wayes witness our forefather Abraham how did the Lord multiply his seed according as he promised and like blessings hath he in store for faithfull Abrahams faithfull off-spring who walking as he did with an upright heart before God in perfect obedience shall be as he was blessed in their own persons and posterities 3 God will both increase his family and provide well for it whereof our times and the times of our forefathers and Scripture-records have given good testimony He and his shall reap the benefit of his and their righteousness by a Series of blessings successively transferred by virtue of the covenant made to him and them for many generations 4 And though God doth not alwayes bless him that is of an upright heart and righteous conversation with externall affluence for his dispensations though agreeable to wisdom and justice are various yet this such an one may be sure of that he shall find God most trusty in his greatest trialls and no such cloud of tribulation shall ever over-shadow him but the sunne of righteousness shall shine through it upon his soul with healing consolations in his wings for God whatsoever he may seem to be by his outward dispensations is in his native disposition
powerfully enable me in the other let me through thine assistance be as able as willing to do thy will alwayes in all things 36 I know O Lord naturally I have the same corrupt and inordinate affections in me as others have as ready upon temptation to warp world-ward as another man but I know thou hast my heart in thy hands and though I cannot rule it thou canst so that I pray thee have an eye to it and keep an hand over it to dispose and bend it the way of thy will and from the worlds allurements of pleasure or profit let grace supersead me from corruption specially of covetousness the root of all evil 37 Let not my outward sences be caught and sinfully transported with the baits of the flesh or of the world but give me a sanctified understanding to believe truly and not seemingly of sublunary things and to know them to be as in their own natures they are vain and transitory that can convey no permanent nor substantiall good or content to a man but delude him with the shews thereof by a false medium carnall concupiscence and that serves to steal the heart from God but Lord avert both eyes and heart from them give me such active graces and lively affections that may have continuall influence into all the parts of body and soul and so dispose them in love to thee and desire of heavenly things that as dead to the world they may comparatively be indisposed to all things else 38 Lord fulfill those promises of grace and goodness wherein thou standest engaged unto thy servant Thou that art Jehovah in thy Being be so in thy word by giving it a being in all those gracious promises it comprehends and exhibits and wherein thou hast caused me to trust in confidence whereof I have wholly cast my self upon thy grace and providence minding alwayes to serve thee more than how to provide and shift for my self as men of the world do 39 Let not thy servant sinne against thee thereby to provoke thee against him to the loss of thy favour the forfeiting of thy protection and the exposing me to mine enemies scorn and insultation which I exceedingly fear as well for thy sake who art so deeply concerned in me as for mine own If at any time I do fall Lord let not that be my punishment be thou and not they my Judge for that thy judgements are like thy self righteous and good but theirs are like themselves merciless and wicked 40 Thou knowest my heart is perfect towards thee take notice of it O Lord how my desires and affections are upright and sincere to the knowing and doing of thy will according to thy word give me a spirit of power and enablement as well as of will and desire according to thy righteous as well as gracious engagements for thou art as just to fulfill promises as to inflict punishments Vau. The sixth letter of the Hebrew Alphabet signifying the sixth part 41 And as I desire that thou wilt enable me with a spirit of holiness to walk uprightly in the way so also that in mercy thou wilt remember me concerning the promised end that it may effect that for me even my preservation in and my deliverance out of my sad condition and many dangers as thou hast engaged thy self to do 42 By this means I that now onely live by promises unpossessed of the thing promised and therefore cannot at present effectually convince men of carnall understandings and void of faith shall then be able demonstratively to stop their mouthes that now flout me for mine improbable hopes and forreign expectations and because I bear my self upon thy word which they think will never be fulfilled but I am otherwise perswaded therefore O Lord let not my trust be deceived and they in their presumptuous impiety confirmed 43 And let me never so sinne against thee as thereby to have mine own mouth stopped and despoil my self of what thou hast promised me whereof in faith of thy truth and goodness I have openly declared my confidence according to thy word which Lord let me never have cause to retract nor to speak less in praise of thy faithfulness but more by thy turning promises into performances according to the hope I have had in thy just fullfilling what thou hast promised me and threatened mine enemies 44 So shalt thou oblige me when I am delivered out of these heavy pressures which lie upon me as so many clogs and hinderances which I shall never forget without making bawks in mine obedience which through temptation I have been forced to do and fear I shall still do without thy powerfull prevention in love and thankfulness to serve and please thee the utmost hour of my life if set at liberty 45 Yea when thou hast enfranchized me out of these incumbrances of fear and care and made me a man of liberty and authority in Israel I will as thy free-man and servant carry and demean my self in all manner well-pleasing walking in the way of thy service and keeping all thy commandments which never shall be a burden or bondage to me for to be at liberty and to have ability and opportunity to learn and do thy will according to thy word is that I beg above any thing and which I should esteem as my greatest felicity 46 When thou hast advanced me I also will advance thee and execute the office of a Prophet as well as of a King and think it no shame to do so by declaring to others as occasion is offered what thy will and word is even to Kings and mighty men of the earth with whom I shall then be of equall levell and so have opportunity in that condition to converse more with them than now I have and I promise to improve it when I have it 47 And then will I as a man set at liberty from restraint run the wayes of thy commandments by dayly and frequent doing them my delight shall be to be conversant in thine ordinances which I have longed for and heartily loved and desired to be an actour in but hitherto have been an exile from them which hath set a vehement edge upon mine appetite which then I will satiate 48 For then both heart and hand shall act for thee my whole man with my whole might shall be set on work to know and do thy whole will in thy law revealed which I have dearly loved and longed to do and will perform them in spirit as well as in letter for when my mind is free from these distractions it shall move in a higher sphear and be active in and about the Gospel-sence of thy laws and ordinances Zain The seventh letter of the Hebrew Alphabet signifying the seventh part 49 Be mindfull of thy word of promise and voluntary ingagements made to me thy chosen though unworthy servant touching grace preservation and deliverance upon
not found thy grace or truth to fail me but as I have endeavoured to approve my self a good servant so O Lord have I found thee a good master true of thy promise and as good as thy word 66 Lord give me a right understanding of things that differ let me not mistake falshood for truth nor evil for good but teach me to know the thing that good is and dispose mine heart and affections practically thereunto for so far as I have been taught by thy spirit I have gladly imbraced and conscionably obeyed and not refused either belief or subjection to any thy commandments 67 My very afflictions through thy grace and faithfulness are become wholsom physick and good documents to me for I was apt to wander out of thy way until I smarted for my folly but now I have learned another lesson and have ever since run another course kept close to thy will revealed in thy word without hearkening to the dictates of corrupt reason tending to self-pleasing or self-saving which before were too prevailing 68 Goodness of all kinds O Lord is natural to thee so it is not to us in any kind for there is none good but God and flows plentifully from thee as all creatures but man especially can witness of whose bountie they have their beings and those beings their subsistencies all the world over but Lord it is thy saving goodness that I pray to partake of my soul is more to me than my bodie and grace than nature therefore do I beg special and supernatural grace and wisdom to know and do thy will which I prefer before common and natural benefits the pleasing of thee before either profit or pleasure to my self of thy goodness grant me this which is part of the divine nature and onely makes man like to God in being and doing good which I would both be and do 69 My proud disdainful enemies that fear not God nor care not what wickedness they commit in word or deed to discredit me have falsly aspersed me for a traiterous conspiratour and that it is my ambition not thy determination that puts me upon expectancie of the Kingdom but I am resolved this slaunder shall not stagger me but in confidence of thy truth and mine own integritie I will persist to serve thee in sinceritie of heart who I know wilt vindicate mine innocencie and make appear their forgerie 70 Their worldly pomp and plentie hath made their hearts so gross and carnal as that their consciences are benummed and sensless and their minds puft up with pride and arrogance they sin without restraint and scoffe at pietie as pusillanimitie but thy Law is my delight though not theirs I am troubled when I break it and glad at heart when I do and can keep it through thy gracious enablement 71 Yea such is my love to holiness that I never think it a dear purchase whatsoever it cost me and therefore value mine afflictions which in mercie thou sentest to beget in me a teachable and tractable heart to thy commandments above their prosperitie that hardeneth their hearts in ignorance and carnallitie 72 Thy word and Law written in my heart effectually taught and wrought there by thy spirit however it is counter to my corruptions yet because as it is thine so pliable hast thou made my will to thy will even therefore do I praise it and apprehend my self more enriched with my knowledge of it and love to it than if I had the wealth the world so dotes on in never so great abundance Iod. The tenth letter of the Hebrew Alphabet signifying the tenth part 73 Thou Lord that madest me was pleased to difference me from other creatures by endowing me with natural capacities above them so that though I have lost my created perfections of righteousness and holiness yet not my created and passive capacities of thy renewing them again in me my soul hath the same faculties and my bodie the same parts and Organs thou gavest me at the first in and upon which thou art able to re-imprint thine image vouchsafe me I pray thee thy renewing grace more and more powerfully enlighten my dark understanding encline my whole man O Lord to the loving and obeying of thy whole will I am still thy creature renew thy likeness 74 If Lord thou wilt strengthen thy graces in me and enable me to hold out stedfast in faith and holy obedience to the end and then reward thine own graces in me with a happie issue and close of things how will it rejoyce the hearts of thy servants that fear thee and hope in thee when they shall see me have overcome all my miseries and be possessed of my hopes and thy promises because of thy gracious enabling me to hold out in affiance of thy word it will affect them greatly 75 I know O Lord that thou art righteous in what thou sayest and doest thy word and thy works are consentaneous thy faithfulness is fulfilled in my very afflictions though seemingly otherwayes thy judgements and mercies and shall conduce to bring about thy promises made to me 76 Let I pray thee thy mercie of favour and grace long since promised me be in the faith of it a continual comfort to me yea Lord comfort me thy servant chosen and called with the accomplishment of it according to thy word 77 Make me inwardly sensible of those tender affections which thou bearest me that they may help to revive me in this comfortless condition whilest it lasts and express them also in outward manifestations let me see thy pitie and compassion in a comfortable deliverance and conclusion that I may live free from these troubles which makes my life a very death for how ever by frailtie I have and cannot but offend thee yet thou knowest thou hast mine heart and good will in all things to serve and obey thee that is my desire and in that I delight 78 Let not me therefore miscarrie by the hands of proud men and evil doers that are lawless and scorn subjection Lord let them miscarrie in their designs and evil purposes for thou knowest how contrarie to their consciences they have persecuted me as nocent when as they know me to be an innocent person but their dealing shall not make me forget my dutie I will keep mine eye still fixed upon that and walk stedfastly in the way of thy precepts in confidence of my reward and their punishment 79 Give me such remarkable deliverance and so change the scene that those of thy people that truly fear thee and have been savingly enlightened by thee whom my afflictions have staggered or that have been misled by delusions and false reports may see convincing signs of thy special favour to me and purposes concerning me and thereby be encouraged and invited in the faith of thy promises and my innocent cause to take part and joyn with me against mine
enemies 80 Let me be enabled by thy gracious assistance to keep faith and a good conscience stedfast to the end that I lose not the prize by falling short of the goal fainting either in faith or dutie and so render my self and cause a laughing-stock to mine enemies which is it they would have Caph. The eleventh letter of the Hebrew Alphabet signifying the eleventh part 81 Lord I have waded through many and grievous troubles and with much long-suffering have a long time eagerly longed and looked for thy promised deliverance almost to the exhausting of my soul and spirit in sighs and groans after it but yet it comes not nevertheless I am still sustained in faith and am resolved to live and die in expectation of thy promise no length of time nor trouble shall null my hopes nor I am confident the thing I hope for 82 I have waited long dreely looked for the accomplishment of thy promise even to the weakening of my sight impairing my senses every foot thinking within my self as my mind gave me and occasion was offered that sure this is the time and that the opportunitie that I shall be delivered but still I am prolonged and put off sighing out my hopes with If not now Lord when then will the time be and what the means that must fulfil thy word and my desire 83 The scorching sun of adversitie hath allmost quite exhausted my radical moisture my spirits which should animate my members and extrinsical parts are spent with continual grief by reason of afflictions and disappointments of my longing expectations which lingringly consume and wast me into leanness and deformitie like a bladder or a skin-bottel hung up in a chimney that in tract of time will parch and crack and shrink up into wrinckles not like it self and so am I become yet though nature thus decayes grace does not by thy goodness to me I am for all that upheld in care and conscience to do thy will and believe thy word 84 Lord how long too is the end of my miseries consider how much of my life is allready spent and wasted in them even of mine who am appointed and designed by thee for great and special services in thy Church therefore consider me who would fain be imployed to shorten these dayes when shall they that unjustly would cut me off be themselves justly so served and I set free to serve thee 85 Mine enemies that scorn thy commands and me thy servant have not onely persecuted me with open violence but with cunning craft and dissimulation sought my life for their will is their Law and not thy word to which they yield no manner of obedience nor bear no regard but practice what them list though never so wicked and unjust so it serves their turns 86 But Lord I have another estimate of thy commandments I set not so light by them for I am sure they come from a faithful God who may suffer the wicked for a time to sin against them but the punishment due to those that break them shall befal them and so shall the reward promised to them that keep them in the faith whereof I do and will innocently persevere and pray thee to make it good in my help and deliverance from and upon these treacherous and unjust persecutours 87 Mine enemies men of the world that take all wayes and advantages upon earth against me had what one way and other by their continual vexations and my griefs allmost brought me down to the grave and got the better of me hadst not thou been above them and heaven more my friend than earth where I had no help but when I was at lowest hopeless and helpless as to outward appearance I still kept faith and a good conscience hoping in thee 88 Lord give me to enjoy that happie condition which of thy free grace and loving beneficence thou hast promised me which will be as a resurrection to life from death after so many sorrows as I have undergone so shalt thou both ingage and enable me when I am set free from these hinderances to do thy whole will and walk in thy Law which bears the stamp of Divine and royal authoritie upon it and therefore is worthy of reverend and solemn observance and obedience which then I will be sure to pay to it but now I cannot Lamed The twelfth letter of the Hebrew Alphabet signifying the twelfth part 89 Thy word and decree O Lord is as firm as thy self no chances nor changes here below can make void what thou above hast determined shall be nor can time it self wear out what thou that art eternal before all time hast appointed 90 Our faith may bear it self boldly upon thy faithfulness which according to thy word of truth and promise is allwayes the same how ever matters frame or seem to be out of frame therefore it is that the world is not long since dissolved because thou hast decreed and promised the continuance of it therefore and for no natural cause doth the earth thus long subsist in nature and order 91 All created Beings according to their several natures stations and operations are as at the beginning thou in wisdom determinedst them which else of themselves would run into confusion and destruction what Laws thou gavest them they keep and thereby are themselves kept and preserved for all the elements and elemental creatures as they are made by thee so they are made for thee to be at thy ordering and dispose and so they are and not at their own and it is well for us and them they are so 92 And surely Lord I hold by the self-same tenure the creation does as it had been long since dissolved and annihilated but for the Law of orderly existence thou laidst upon it whereby ever since it retains a beautiful being notwithstanding the contradictions that are in those primarie principles the elements as also the strange concussions and alterations that time and sin hath brought forth So unless I also had thy righteous word to stay my heart upon and to chear up my soul with which I knew would not fail me in those various providences and strange agitations which I have undergone I could never have lasted thus long but had long ere this been in my grave by the outward pressures and inward griefs I underwent 93 I have cause all the dayes of my life thankfully to remember and bear in mind and I hope I shall thy faithfulness according to what thou hast ordeined in thy word for me to trust in and yield obedience to many a time in mine extremitie when my spirit was readie to sink and die within me thou hast therewith comfortably revived and cheered me and set me upon my feet 94 Let me to the end have experience of thee to be the self-same God in truth and goodness preserve me in and deliver me out
of this my sad condition let nothing fail me that thou hast spoken who am related in a nearer proprietie to thee than that of creation I am thy son and servant not passively but actively by a gratuitous intrinsical principle as thou hast chosen me so I have chosen thee for my Lord and Master and thy Laws for the rule of my faith and manners and allwayes consult them to that purpose 95 I have been in a many a sore temptation and imminent peril of my life by sinister plots and practises of my ungodly adversaries and still am yet will I not deviate by sinful shifts but studie to keep faith and a good conscience for so art thou ingaged to my securitie by thy word the testimonie of thy truth 96 There is but a finite and transitorie good in the very best things that are their natures are too narrow to give either full content to a mans mind or stay to a mans heart being subject to alter or end as I have found by experience and know by reason but thy word is all-sufficient nothing pertaining to holiness or happiness stay or contentment is wanting in thy Law or Divine dispensation nor shall be to him that believes and obeyes it for the dimensions of it are as large as thy self in truth and goodness infinite and permanent superabundantly soul-satisfying Mem. The thirteenth letter of the Hebrew Alphabet signifying the thirteenth part 97 I for my part see so much goodness and find so much settlement in and by thy word that the love of it far transcends the love of all things else I cannot express the affections I bear it they are so ardent towards it that they set my mind on work continually upon it my thoughts and meditations are day and night taken up with the consideration and application of the blessed soul-affecting Divine truths and benefits contained and exhibited in that Law and word of thine 98 By thine instructing and enabling me to walk according to the rule of faith and righteousness commanded in thy word thou hast thereby prospered me above mine enemies and made this mine holy simplicitie to be too hard for their subtilitie and craft which hath never yet taken effect against me but come to naught and ever will whilest by thy grace I abandon the wisdom of the flesh and walk in the wisdom of thy spirit and word which I am careful to do allwayes in all things and prosper by it 99 I have had the benefit of education and humane helps as to the affairs and literature of the world and conversed with men of understanding and seen the wayes that they have gone in the managing of their transactions and when I sum up all the wisdom that ever I have learned and known I both count it and find it to be but foolishness compared with the studie and practise of those holy and righteous rudiments thy word dictates wherein I bless thee I have through thy grace being taught of God out-stript all humane teaching and teachers by delightning to know and do thy will revealed for my direction and supportation 100 Yea I find by experience though young that godliness is greater wisdom and better succeeds a mans affairs by the blessing of God according to his promises thereupon than the advice and counsel of the grave senatours and sages of the world who pretend and justly to great wisdom by advantage of years and experience yet with reverence to those hoary heads I like my wisdom which is thine better than theirs and find sinceritie the best policie and that the best wisdom is to do thy will which accordingly I endeavour 101 I have I bless thee ever since thou taughtest it me been of that mind and my practise hath been answerable for my care was still at no rate to sin but in every thing to tread the steps thy word hath chalk'd me out and leave the rest to thee 102 I have not suffered my self to be misled and seduced by mine own or other mens counsels from keeping thy commandments which I am sure must judge me and all men else for I bless thee thou hast taught me better by thy word and over-powered me by thy spirit to yield to those thy teachings which therefore have been to strong for my temptations which else had been too strong for me 103 I cannot express for any to understand but my self that feel it what pleasure and contentment thy covenant of grace and adoption with its concomitant promises and precepts of holiness and happiness believed and applied brings to my soul and conscience beyond all earthly comparisons hony to my pallate is not comparable 104 I make thy precepts my studie and meditation whereby I get by thine assisting grace good understanding and enablement to avoid by-wayes of sin and errouâ— tending to thy displeasing whereunto I am tempted but make constant resistance and from my heart detest deviation as knowing holiness onely leads to happiness and hath the promises both of this life and of that to come Nun. The fourteenth letter of the Hebrew Alphabet signifying the fourteen part 105 Lord throughout this untrodden path of mine where there are so many ways to miscarrie the right way so hard to hit the world and Satan without flesh and corruption within counselling this that to make me stumble and fall my manner is to silence them all consult thy word the Divine light whereof of guids me out of and dispels those mists and fogs that carnal reason taking advantage of my present temptation casts before mine eyes and sets me into and leads me on in the path of thy well-pleasing which I choose to walk 106 As Lord thou hast been pleased to enter covenant with me of pardon acceptance and grace so also have I stipulated with thy Majesty and bound my self by solemn vow for ever to be thine obedient and faithful servant and subject and by thy gracious assistance I am accordingly purposed to walk in conformitie to thy Law the righteous rule of thee my righteous Judge 107 My affliction and grief is very great remember Lord it is for thy sake and by thy providence befallen me therefore grant me what thou hast promised me comfort in and deliverance out of my calamities 108 Thou knowest O Lord I am debarred from sacrificing to thee as else I would but that which is the substance of those ceremonies the free-will-offerings of praise and thanks-giving those I can and do offer which I pray thee accept and shall give me cause so to do by teaching me to know and do thy righteous precepts in all my difficult cases and great temptations 109 I am in perpetual peril of my life imminent danger and destruction is ever at hand yet through faith in thee they do not distract or afright me from my dutie to thee and thy commandments but I call them to counsel and
And surely Lord so ill do I like their manners that I love thy commandments the better for it because they are so contrarie to them the less they set by them and the more they value the wealth of the world the more I value them and the less I set by it for swine know not the worth of pearls no treasure under heaven is so precious and profitable in mine eye nor indeed in it self or to the possessour as thy Law and Commandments are to the sincere professour and practiser of them the holy dictates of a holy God making both holy and happie them that know and do them which I desire and good Lord grant me to do above all things as alone sufficient to make me both rich and happie to my hearts content 128 As black sets forth white and a crooked line a streight one so doth mine enemies wayes thy commandments in their puritie and rectitude their deformed and crooked courses of impietie and iniquitie makes the line of thy precepts much more streight and right in mine eyes yea those that carnal sence and corrupt reason can worst approve of to me through thy grace they are most precious and desireable as tending to nearest perfection and likeness with thy self and on the contrarie as I love thy Law which they hate and make void so do I hate what they love sinful deviations and prevarications Pe. The seventeenth letter of the Hebrew Alphabet signifying the seventeenth part 129 Mans reason and understanding is both contrarie to and infinitly short of comprehending the holy and high mysteries of salvation and Godliness revealed in thy word which nature could never have known nor taught us had they not been supernaturally revealed being the hidden uncreated wisdom of God taught and wrought in the souls of thy servants by extraordinarie illumination and of special grace and favour therefore for their Divine nature and worths sake which in mercie thou hast opened mine eyes to see though others do not do I love and delight in them meditate and obey them even lay out my whole strength upon them 130 In whomsoever and at what time soever thy word by the efficatious working of thy spirit first takes saving and sanctifying impression there and then and never till then the sun of righteousness rises with light and healing to the expulsion and dispersion of that deadly darkness that naturally benighteth every soul man though otherwise never so worldly wise is but a very fool vain and ignorant both of truth and goodness till thou write thy Law in his heart that and onely that is true wisdom and they and onely they have true understanding though otherwise never so foolish 131 I for my part never longed more after meat and drink in my greatest extremitie of hunger and thirst nor any creature living than I did for the incomming of thy word with power into my soul when it was under the guilt and dominion of sin O the sighs and groans that I incessantly breathed forth after my transforming and thine inabling grace to believe and obey 132 Thou Lord knowest how I longed and still do to serve thee out of a sincere and hearty love to thee Let therefore thine eye of grace and compassion be upon me mercifully to keep me from falling into sin or by sin into thy displeasure as thou hast promised and in thy goodness art accustomed to do to such as thou knowest I am a lover of and hoper in thy grace truth and mercie 133 Let my whole conversation course of life by thy spirit according to thy word the rule of holiness and righteousness be powerfully over-ruled ordered in all things and let not my innate pravity by force or subtility of temptation in no case overmaster thy grace and make me sin against thee whom I desire to serve 134 My greatest temptation and fear is the unjust violence and cruel persecution of mine enemies thou that art the Almighty and gracious Lord God set me free and deliver me from the injuries of proud malicious minded men so shall I be ingaged and inabled when set at liberty thankfully and chearfully to serve and please thee 135 Bring me out of this comfortless darksom condition threatening thy displeasure whereby I have nothing but troubles without and sorrows within let me by deliverance see the skie clear up upon me let thy favourable aspect break forth from under this cloud and Lord it is as well the light of grace as comfort of sanctification as deliverance that I beg of thee the one without the other will but little profit nor please me 136 So deeply am I affected with the opprobries and contempt that thou undergoest by the wicked of the world specially mine enemies who turn grace into wantonness and make thy impunity their immunity to sin that it is a greater trouble and grief of heart to me than any I undergo in mine own behalf and costs me as many sighs and tears the injuring of thee in thine honour as my self in my peace and innocencie which I should be as glad were vindicated and they punished as I delivered Tsaddi The eighteenth letter of the Hebrew Alphabet signifying the eighteenth part 137 Let other men that love to live in sin think as contemptuously as they will of thee and thy Laws yet art thou and they righteous and so they shall find when according to those Laws thou passest a just and righteous sentence upon them for their wicked disobedience 138 What thou hast testified to be thy will in thy word by commanding it to be done is just and righteous in it self and tends to make men so if rightly performed yea happie also thy commands having their rewards which to the faithful shall be faithfully performed 139 I sustain no small grief by my persecutours in mine own person but if I know mine own heart it is far short of what I undergo for thy sake the contemptuous neglect and slight esteem which my proud enemies have of thy commandments making a trade of sinning hath so affected me to see thee thus dishonoured and thy Law unregarded that mine ardent apprehension of it in fervour and affection to thee and holy impatience against them hath meagred and impaired me much 140 That for which others dislike and refuse thy word is because it is in its own nature pure and tends to the refining their natures and corrupt manners which wicked worldlings cannot abide And for this very reason sake do I love it and delight in it because it is such and hath that gracious operation with it for that I am thy servant and do long more and more to be so in all manner of holiness and righteousness whereof it is the perfect rule and pattern 141 I have temptations of poverty persecution scorn and what not that put me to it yet I swerve not nor cast not off thy yoak though
in the condition I am in I draw hardly in it through very rough and un-even wayes I am not mercenary earthly felicitie is not it that moves me to nor shall infelicitie remove me from my dutie and allegiance to thy precepts 142 No Lord it is the perfection of thy righteous will in thy word that draws me to it so that nothing can seperate me from it because it is ever was and shall be the onely unchangeable certain standard for holiness and happiness life and salvation and of that absolute truth and infallibility is thy Law and the rudiments thereof that all else are living destructive vanities that differ from it and conform not to it 143 I am under arrest never at libertie but a perpetual prisoner to outward trouble and inward grief and yet faith and a good conscience comfort me for I am sure if I be faithful to thee in obedience thou wilt be so to me in gracious recompence thy word is my warrant 144 The righteousness which thou prescribest in thy Law to be observed and obeyed is the onely absolutely unchangeable infallible rule to be holy and happie by teach me and guide me in the knowledge and practise of it and I doubt not the consequence because of thy faithfulness preservation temporal and salvation eternal how deadly and desperate soever my condition seem will certainly be the issue Koph The ninetenth letter of the Hebrew Alphabet signifying the nineteenth part 145 Thou Lord knowest the faithful and affectionate addresses I have made to thee in this my distress not as men naturally do by instinct of fear and grief but of faith and hope Lord therefore hear me praying in spirit and grant my groans and what thou hast or shalt command me I will gratuitously observe and by thy grace make good my word 146 It was thou alone that I put my confidence and hope in in this my need do not therefore deceive thy servant nor frustrate my expectations but according to thy promise and my dependance preserve and deliver me into a free and comfortable condition wherein I may be able as well as willing to do those things which are held forth in thy word to be thy will and pleasure 147 Night nor day have I ceased to solicit thee my first thoughts are upon thee I no sooner wake but my heart fals to work and before I can see I am bespeaking thee in prayer for delay does not abate but sharpen the edge of my hope in thy promise and faithfulness 148 Yea early and late do I give my self to meditation and faithful consideration of thy word for to strengthen and direct me consulting it at all times about all things to be ruled by it 149 Let me prevail not Lord for my merits but for thy grace sake which I have ever in mine eye both as thy word specifies it and thy works have allwayes manifested it to the faithful Let my soul be evermore upheld in lively hope and expectation by the faith of thy respective righteousness of justice and mercie to me and mine enemies and let me effectually be delivered by it 150 I am sharply assaulted and sorely pursued by mischievous minded men void of all conscience to mine exceeding great hazard such as greedily covet to do evil but are far from the thoughts or care of well-doing diametrically opposite in their wayes to thy word have no fear of God before their eyes 151 Blessed be thy name though they persecute me and seemingly indanger me yet art thou as near to help as they to hurt and thou wouldest not have commanded me thy faithful people so often in thy word to believe in thee wait for thee and not to turn aside from thee to false refuges and unjustifiable courses but that in faithfulness thou wilt protect and preserve them that do so not let them be disappointed by so doing 152 For thine injunctions of that nature they are as true and stable many as firmly be believed in as thou thy self have been in all ages experimentally approved so to thy Church are so to be to thy people for ever grace salvation shall allwayes be their portion Resh The 20 letter of the Hebrew Alphabet signifying the 20 part 153 Lord consider mine affliction according to the nature and pressure of it which thou knowest is grievous and let it move thee in compassion and mercie to deliver me out of it as thou hast promised For for all my distemperature I carefully and conscionably bear in mind both for my supportation and direction what thy word the rule of my life and foundation of my faith exhibites to walk thereafter not fearing God the less for fear of men 154 Thou knowest the goodness of my cause mine innocencie and the solitarie helplesness of my condition how all is against me and none for me doing me all manner of wrong in word and deed so that I have none to flie but thee and accordingly do I make mine humble address to thy justice and mercie to undertake and ingage for me against mine enemies maintain defend and deliver me and it from my wrong doers chear up my heart in thy promises concerning it and set me free from this impendent death and destruction as thou hast promised 155 I know thee too righteous to patronize mine enemies and their cause against me or mine thou wilt not let me perish and them prosper but contrarily I know and am confident such wicked wretches are so far from being saved and preserved by thee as that they shall be destroyed for they are under no promise judgement belongs to them who neither care to know nor do what thou hast commanded 156 Though mine afflictions be great and sorrows manifold yet thy mercies are so too wherewith thou tenderly compassionates thy people under wrongful sufferance O Lord therefore chear up my heart in the hopeful expectation of thy righteous power and goodness and faithfully fulfil it in my actual deliverance 157 I have had asmuch provocation to sin and temptation to diffidence as can well be imagined considering my manifold dangers by open and secret enemies and my wrongful injurious usages by word and deed of my many slanderous bloudy-minded persecutours Yet do I keep faith and a good conscience obey thy word and will for all that 158 Mine enemies and wrong-doers did not onely trouble me as to my self but it sadded me exceedingly for thee to see thee so contemned and thy word which should be a Law to them so despised by them walking quite contrarie 159 Hereby thou mayest perceive the dear affection I bear to thy word and will revealed in it I beseech thee take notice of it in way of gracious remuneration and Lord encourage me to hope and do thou fulfill all that in thy loving kindness and grace thou hast promised to those that do so
160 Thy promises have lost nothing of their virtue and vigour by their long standing but are as thou thy self art in goodness and faithfulness to thy people the same that ever they were and so shall all thy righteous ingagements be to the end no one word shall fall to the ground that thou hast spoken in way of promise to be believed in or of reward to be hoped for but shall certainly be fulfilled to thy people and Church in one age as well as another hereafter as heretofore and now as well as either Schin The 21 letter of the Hebrew Alphabet signifying the 21 part 161 Mine enemies as they have not been few so nor mean for the chief have been chiefly against me men of might and greatness that should yield protection and right to the innocent and oppressed contrarily they have turned their power upon me to oppress wrong me to whom I never gave cause of offence but I am I bles thee for it not so transported with the fear of man as to forget God thy word the dutie and reverence I ow to it hath taken such rooting in my heart that no earthly powers can extirpate it 162 Whensoever I have been hard beset by temptation and thy word through grace hath seasonably minded me of my faith and dutie it hath joyed mine heart beyond expression no victor hath joyed more in the unexpected spoils of a conquered enemy 163 All false wayes and refuges are an abomination to me my mind and affections can entertain no treatie nor agreement with them they are utterly against the hair with me but thy Law is as consentaneous and connatural as they are contrarie and heterogenial I love it at my heart 164 Continually does my heart ejaculate thy praises every foot am I lifting up my soul in way of thankful acknowledgement of thy grace vouchsafed me in seasonable and effectual revealing thy righteous truths unto me for my support and guidance dayly as I have need which draws forth praises proportionably 165 What outward troubles soever happen unto thy people yet in the sincere filial affection they bear to thy word and will to live up and walk according to it herein do they enjoy transcendent peace and happiness surmounting all miserie for so they know they please thee and are accepted of thee and having God and a good conscience on their side what can trouble them And for my part what thy Law requires that have I constantly and diligently endeavoured to perform both by firm believing and exact walking Thou Lord knowest my hope of salvation has been in thee and thee onely in all my troubles and my wayes and works have been ordered by thy precepts not by mine own corrupt suggestions 167 Nor have I served thee either formally or hypocritically with outward shews or for base ends in the wayes and works of obedience but with an honest sincere heart have I done thy commandments in love to thy righteous will testified in thy word which hath my heart above all things 168 Thy whole covenant and dispensation of thy will as well in one thing as another have I in faith and obedience carefully observed without willfull swerving Thou knowest what I say to be true who from heaven hast beheld me every step I have gone in this my troublesome pilgrimage of persecution and as thine eye hath been upon me so hath mine eye been upon thee all the while as upon an all-seeing righteous judge and gracious rewarder to aw and incourage me Tau The 22 letter of the Hebrew Alphabet signifying the 22 part 169 Lord let me find favour in thine eyes and my earnest prayer have audience at thy throne of grace in a thing so reasonable and consonant to thy mind as is this my request to wit that thou wouldest give me a good and perfect understanding of thy will effectually to be taught me by thy spirit at all times and in all things as occasion requires and thy word dictates and which is no more than thy word promises 170 And as I pray to be heard concerning a good understanding to guid me in the way so also that I may have a gracious audience and comfortable answer concerning the end and determination of these my troubles Lord deliver me from them as well as order me in them for so also is thy promise 171 If thou wilt be the guid of my life and powerfully instruct me how to walk well-pleasingly all along this hour of temptation and time of trial in the end thereof when thou shalt have done so I will pour forth praise to thee in solemn wise at thy sanctuarie 172 Then will I magnifie the faithfulness and righteousness of thy word and teach others to trust in it and walk by it for that they shall be sure to find in the end as I have done that all it sayes is yea and Amen certain and infallible materially righteous it is in it self and effectually so to all that keep and observe it 173 Lord take my part who have taken thine strengthen me against and deliver me from mine enemies and out of this my perillous state fight for me for I fight for thee against the world and the flesh and have chosen to imbrace thy precepts before their allurements and preferred thy will in all things before their suggestions to the contrarie 174 I have not sinfully shifted as I have been tempted to do but have persevered in a faithful expectation and hopeful longing still for thy promised salvation and deliverance for O Lord thou knowest mine heart is fixed upon nothing with contentment and confidence but thy covenant-dispensation for my wellfare and happiness 175 Do thou therefore tender me accordingly let it not be in the power of mine enemies to deprive me of my soul by taking away my life but preserve it as thou hast redeemed it from destruction that I may live by thy mercie and not perish by their cruelty that seek my death so shall I lay out and spend the life thou givest me in faithful affectionate praises of thee all my dayes Lord let thy righteousness be imployed for me in my defence and preservation against mine enemies their cruelty and oppression according as thy word holds forth for me to trust in and rely on 176 In this wilderness of troubles that I am in driven up and down from thy presence and people like a sheep wandred from the flock and out of the Shepheards ken I have I humbly confess lost my way and stept aside out of the direct and streight path I should have trod by infirmitie and frailtie O thou that art my Lord and God the shepheard of my soul whose I am and whom I desire to serve bring me back again into the un-erring path of thy precepts and enjoyment of sweet communion with thee thy people by freedom from these my troubles
and temptations for I have not cast off thy Law though through strength of temptation I have warped but recollect my self and remember thy commandments approving and justifying as holy and desireable to conform thereunto The cxx PSALM David grounding his hopes upon former experience of mercie praies to be delivered from that sad disaster which Doegs slanderous misre-presentation of him to Saul had brought him into Prophetically he delivers his doom for it and sadly laments his own banishment by it whereof he shews the necessitie and pleads his own integrity Why these Psalms are called songs of degrees is unresolved amongst expositors nor is the thing much material to be known but it is concluded most probably for one of those two reasons Either from the ascending of the voice by a gradual rising in the tune or else because the Levites or Priests did sing them in the ascent of the stairs to the Temple or else standing upon the tops of the stairs or on some high place above the people where either they sung them alone or begun them to the people the better to be seen and heard 1 I Have had experience of Gods good grace to me for heretofore when I have been in jeopardie I put up my earnest prayer to him and truly I was heard in what I prayed for had deliverance and preservation out of my danger 2 And this incourageth me still to apply my self to him when ever I have need or that any thing aileth me Good Lord look upon my wronged innocencie the cause of my cruel persecution and deliver me from the mischievous false reports suggested against me by Doeg to Saul that fawning sycophant and lying informer for which I run hazard to lose my life if God preserve it not 3 Thou art in hope to get favour and preferment for this thy wicked officiousness whereas thy reward shall be of a far other nature I doubt not but God will requite thee he will give thee thy desert and pay thee thy wages for such service done against his chosen thy false and slanderous tongue shall have its recompence 4 Even the mischief that by falshood it brings upon me exasperating the displeasure and implacably inkindling the anger of Saul against me to destroy me shall justly by a mightier hand be retorted upon thy self for God shall one day let thy conscience loose upon thee which shall be as so many pointed arrows in thy bosom shot from an Almighty arm yea the unutterable torments and unquenchable fire of hell it self shall be thy portion 5 Wo is me that by thy pernicious lies I am persecuted and driven into exile from the enjoyment of Gods ordinances and Communion of his people in the land of the living to wander in strange places and cohabit amongst Gentiles void of the knowledge and fear of God and common humanity as bad to me as if I were in the barbarous and savage countrey and confines of Arabia being forced out of the pale of the Church to shift for my life 6 My life hath been in a great deal of danger along time and sundry wayes in the land of Canaan where I inhabited as long as possibly I could being loth to leave it till I must needs labouring by all means possible to be in peace with Saul that I might be quiet but nothing would do to gain his good opinion or perswade with him such deadly hatred does he and his partie bear me and so irreconcileable are they to me 7 Lord thou knowest how I have laboured for attonement and how much I desire peace contrarie to what is falsly suggested against me as if by rebellion I sought to get the Kingdom nor can I be heard speak for my self to acquit mine innocencie but am condemned and proscribed nothing will serve them but my bloud that they are resolved to have and with hostile rage proclaim it The cxxi PSALM The Psalmist abasing all false and earthly subtersuges advanceth God onely in his valuation and recommends him for sole protectour to the whole Church and every member of it to trust in and relie upon promising to such in his name safety against all annoyances and direction and success in their affairs and enterprises See the title of the 120 Psalm 1 MAny men have many refuges and different confidences whereunto in time of danger they flie and wherein they trust but for my part I put more confidence in faithful prayer addressed towards the sanctuarie of God that pledge of his presence scituate upon those hills Moriah and Sion in Jerusalem than in the highest mountain or strongest Fort on earth thence is my help and hope and from thence will I seek and expect it in greatest danger like as the faithful shall from heaven where shall be their confidence and whither the Churches prayers shall be addressed in all emergencies 2 Because the Lord God is there as in heaven especially resident for mine aid and assistance no Idol God do I mean such as the heathen worship and expect aid from but the onely true God that by his Allmighty power made heaven and earth from him and onely him who both can and will bestead me and all the faithful it is that I hope for help and so shall they 3 Be thou confident of it for thy self and let others for themselves be so too that are his and trust faithfully in him that he will protect and have a care of such that they shall not miscarry by any power or malice on earth no accident or emergencie can befal thee that he is not privy to whose eie is never off his church every member of it yea upon every member of that member from head to foot 4 Take it for a truth infallible That God that by his covenant of grace hath taken upon him the guidance and guardianship of his faithful Church and people will never break his word his protection is not as mans is subject to miscarriage and who himself had need be protected but he is omniscient as well as omnipotent he sees and knows all things allwayes so that nothing at no time acts without him nor can act against him to the prejudice of his people 5 And what he is to all his whole Church that he is to every one each member may apply the covenant and promises to it self that are made to the bodie touching grace and protection that God is particularly his undoubted helper and preserver yea that allwayes at all times in all perils he is at hand to shelter and shield him 6 Night and day will God protect thee from whatsoever would annoy thee no created Being whatsoever of it self hath or shall have power to offend thee The creatures above thee in the heavens sun moon and stars whose influences and operations thou of thy self canst not avoid by any humane wisdom or power are yet subject to God under him
the promised time of my deliverance with confidence 4 All even the heathen Kings that have little knowledge or sence of God round about when they hear and understand how this thing is brought to pass that I am become King of Israel a poor persecuted abject man how that it was fore-told by thy Prophet that it should be so and answerably fulfilled by thy power it shall convince those very infidels to believe and admire thee for thy word of truth and the wonderfull unquestionable truth of that thy word to the praise thereof 5 Yea they shall be ravished in their spirits at the consideration of circumstances and providences and shall not contain themselves but in praisefull expressions shall vent their apprehensions of thee touching those strange and circumferent waies thou hast taken and untroden paths of unlikely means and providences which thou hast made use of to bring to pass thy purpose towards me so manifestly shalt thou appear even to them to be the sole author of it so glorious shalt thou appear in those manifestations of my preservation exaltation and mine enemies confusion notwithstanding the great disproportion that was betwixt me and them 6 For though the Lord be in heaven swaying there the universal scepter and that such greatness seems to be at too infinite a distance and disparitie to one man of mankind and he also a mean one as I was that he should regard him yet is that no cause of disregard in God I have found it so that this almightie glorious Lord and heavenly Potentate is notwithstanding respectfull of the poor in spirit that suffer wrongfully and walk dependingly on his grace to relieve and protect them whereas those that walk presumptuously to God or oppressively towards their brethren and think their places or personal excellencies as Gods on earth engage him or prefer them in his favour such shall find that humble adversitie is more regarded of God than proud prosperitie he is near to those that to the world seem to be far from him and far from those that upon mistaken grounds think themselves near unto him and much respected by him for such he knows indeed but with no good intentions towards them to judge them not to save them I and mine enemies have found it so and so shall others too 7 The experience I have had of thy power and faithfulness makes me confident for future that however I may have troubles still yea though my life be a continual war-fare and that I may seem to be crushed by them yet my greatest extremity shall be but thine opportunitie even from the grave it self as it were wilt thou restore me as thou shalt Christ. Mine enemies rage against me shall enrage thee against them and instead of hurting me they shall undo themselves for in judgement shalt thou mightily destroy them and with almighty mercie preserve me from them 8 What the Lord had purposed and promised concerning me though it seem impossible to be brought to pass yet he that hath thus far advanced it will as certainly perfect it as he will the Kingdom of Christ it shall not miscarrie by any malice or power of men for God is not as man to say and unsay do and undo the works and calling of God are without repentance what thou O Lord in mercy purposeth to and for thy Church and people that thou wilt in mercy perfect thy Covenant is an everlasting Covenant as mercie moved thee to it so nothing shall remove thee from it or make the grace faithfulness of God of none effect in mercy therefore persevere to finish and lay the top-stone of grace concerning me who am brought thus far onwards towards it by thine almightie goodness and efficiencie who hath done all that hath been done and so must do still The cxxxix PSALM David to evince God of his integritie and freedom from close hypocrisie a sin too common in the world useth several arguments of his knowledge of Gods omnisciencie omnipresencie and omnipotencie as appears in his works of creation but specially in himself so artificially framed for which with reverence and fear he magnifieth and praiseth God as also for his gracious purposes towards him which also are ever in his eye as the one to deter him so the other to affect and dispose him better than to dissemble with such a God who is severe against sinners with whom therefore he dare hold no correspondencie in their wicked ungodly courses but from his heart abandons them and bears them as much ill will that are so minded towards God as if they were open enemies to himself for all which both on his integritie of heart towards God and sincere hatred of sin and sinners he puts himself upon Gods soul-searching inquisition praying if he be in any thing mistaken God would rectifie him To him that is the first and principal of all the Quire do I David that made this Psalm recommend it for the care and ordering of it to be sung 1 O Lord that art all-seeing and all-knowing thou hast exercised me under many trying temptations for a long time and what hath been my behaviour under them thou knowest right-well having put me to it thou knowest me by it what mine heart is and how it stands affected towards thee thy commandements 2 Thou knowest me throughout in thought word and deed all the actions of my life are apparent to thee from one to another of what kind or nature soever they be none excepted yea my very thoughts whence originally spring those mine actions are also known unto thee yea before my mind conceive them thou fore-seest them much more before I act them whilest I think them 3 Wheresoever I am whithersoever I go whatsoever I do night or day thou art with me and knowest both me and it nothing can scape thee no time nor place for thou art present with me every step I take and every thing I do all my life long to judge both it and me 4 For there is not the least word which at any time I have a purpose to speak but sure enough thou knowest it before I utter it yea the motives and ends whereupon and whereunto I do speak it are known to thee though oftentimes they are concealed from man who can judge onely by the letter but thou knowest the spirit 5 Thine omnipresencie hath and doth begirt me round there is no avoiding thee if one had a mind to it for as thou willest or permittest so it is and must be even as a child in a mans hand is guided which way he will so am I by thine all-disposing hand of power and providence in all I do think or speak 6 Lord such incomprehensible wisdom as thou hast that thus wonderfully knowest all things before they are and when they are in their causes motives ends is too deep for me to fathom and too high for me to climbe
his temple doth every one speak of his glorie 10 The Lord sitteth upon the floud yea the Lord sitteth King for ever 11 The Lord will give strength unto his people the Lord will bless his people with peaâ—e Psalm xxx A Psalm and song at the dedication of the house of David 1 I Will extol thee O Lord for thou hast lifted me up and hast not made my foes to rejoyce over me 2 O Lord my God I cried unto thee and thou hast healed me 3 O Lord thou hast brought up my soul from the grave thou hast kept me alive that I should not go down to the pit 4 Sing unto the Lord O ye saints of his and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness 5 For his anger endureth but a moment in his favour is life weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning 6 And in my prosperitie I said I should never be moved 7 Lord by thy favour thou hast made my mountain to stand strong thou didst hide thy face and I was troubled 8 I cried to thee O Lord and unto the Lord I made supplication 9 What profit is there in my bloud when I go down to the pit shall the dust praise thee shall it declare thy truth 10 Hear O Lord and have mercie upon me Lord be thou mine helper 11 Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing thou hast put off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness 12 To the end that my glorie may sing praise to thee and not be silent O Lord my God I will give thanks unto thee for ever Psalm xxxi To the chief musician A Psalm of David 1 IN thee O Lord do I put my trust let me never be ashamed deliver me in thy righteousnes 2 Bow down thine ear to me deliver me speedily be thou my strong rock for an house of defence to save me 3 For thou art my rock and my fortress therefore for thy name sake lead me and guid me 4 Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for me for thou art my strength 5 Into thine hand I commit my spirit thou hast redeemed me O Lord God of truth 6 I have hated them that regard lying vanities but I trust in the Lord. 7 I will be glâ—d and rejoyce in thy mercie for thou hast considered my trouble thou hast known my soul in adversities 8 And hast not shut me up into the hand of the enemie thou hast set my feet in a large room 9 Have mercie upon me O Lord for I am in trouble mine eye is consumed with grief yea my soul and my belly 10 For my life is spent with grief and my years with sighing my strength faileth because of mine iniquitie and my bones are consumed 11 I was a reproch among all mine enemies but especially among my neighbours and a fear to mine acquaintance they that did see me without sled from me 12 I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind I am like a broken vessel 13 For I have heard the slaunder of many fear was on every side while they took counsel together against me they devised to take away my life 14 But I trusted in thee O Lord I said Thou art my God 15 My times are in thy hand deliver me from the hand of mine enemies and from them that persecute me 16 Make thy face to shine upon thy servant save me for thy mercies sake 17 Let me not be ashamed O Lord for I have called upon thee let the wicked be ashamed and let them be silent in the grave 18 Let the lying lips be put to silence which speak grievous things proudly and contemptuously against the righteous 19 O how great is thy goodnes which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee whâ—ch thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sâ—ns of men 20 Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues 21 Blessed be the Lord for he hath shewed me his marvellous kindness in a strong citie 22 For I said in my hast I am cut off from before thine eyes nevertheless thou hearest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto thee 23 O love the Lord all ye his saints for the Lord preserveth the faithful and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer 24 Be of good courage and he shall strengthen your heart all ye that hope in the Lord. Psalm xxxii A Psalm of David Maschil 1 BLessed is he whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is covered 2 Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquitie and in whose spirit there is no guil 3 When I kept silence my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long 4 For day and night thy hand was heavie upon me my moisture is turned into the drought of summer Selah 5 I acknowledged my sin unto thee and mine iniquitie have I not hid I said I will confess my transgression unto the Lord and thou forgavest the iniquitie of my sin Selah 6 For this shall every one that is Godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found surely in the flouds of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him 7 Thou art my hiding place thou shalt preserve me from trouble thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance Selah 8 I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go I will guid thee with mine eye 9 Be ye not as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding whose mouths must be held in with bit and bridle lest they come near unto thee 10 Many sorrows shall be to the wicked but he that trusteth in the Lord mercy shall compass him about 11 Be glad in the Lord and rejoyce ye righteous and shout for joy all ye that are upâ—ight in heart Psalm xxxiii 1 REjoyce in the Lord O ye righteous for praise is comely for the upright 2 Praise the Lord with harp sing unto him with the psalterie and an instrument of ten strings 3 Sing unto him a new song play skilfully with a loud noise 4 For the word of the Lord is right and all his works are done in truth 5 He loveth righteousness and judgement the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. 6 By the word of the Lord weâ—e the heavens made and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth 7 He gathereth the waters of the sea together as an heap he layeth up the depth in store houses 8 Let all the earth fear the Lord let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him 9 For he spake and it was done he commanded and it stood fast 10 The Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought he maketh the devices of the people of none effect 11 The
young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to thy word 10 With my whole heart have I sought thee O let me not wander from thy commandments 11 Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sinne against thee 12 Blessed art thou O Lord teach me thy statutes 13 With my lips have I declared all the judgements of thy mouth 14 I have rejoyced in the way of thy testimonies as much as in all riches 15 I will meditate in thy precepts and have respect unto thy wayes 16 I will delight my self in thy statutes I will not forget thy word Gimel 17 Deal bountifully with thy servant that I may live and keep thy word 18 Open thou mine eyes that I may behold wonderous things out of thy law 19 I am a stranger in the earth hide not thy commandments from me 20 My soul breaketh for the longing it hath to thy judgement at all times 21 Thou hast rebuked the proud that are cursed which do erre from thy commandments 22 Remove from me reproach and contempt â—or I have kept thy testimonies 23 Princes also did sit and speak against me but thy servant did meditate in thy statutes 24 Thy â—eâ—timonies also are my delight and my counsellours Daleth 25 My soul cleavetâ—â— unto the dust quicken thou me according to thy word I have declared my wayes and thou heardest me teach me thy statutes 27 Make me to unâ—derstand the way of thy precepts so shall I talk of thy wonderous works 28 My soul melteth for heaviness strengthen thou me according unto thy word 29 Remove from me the way of lying and grant me thy law graciously 30 I have chosen the way of truth thy judgemâ—nts have I laid before me 31 I have stuck unto thy testimonies O Lord put me not to shame 32 I will run the wayes of thy commandments when thou shalt enlarge my heart He. 33 Teach me O Lord the way of thy statutes and I shall keep it unto the end 34 Give me understanding and I shall keep thy law yea I shall observe it with my whole heart 35 Make me to go in the path of thy commandments for therein do I delight 36 Encline my heart unto thy testimonies and not to covetousness 37 Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity and quicken thou me in thy way 38 Stablish thy word unto thy servant who is devoted to thy fear 39 Turn away my reproach which I fear for thy judgements are good 40 Behold I have longed after thy preceptsâ— quicken me in thy righteousness Vau. 41 Let thy mercies come also unto me O Lord even thy salvaâ—tion aâ—cording to thy word 42 So shall I have wherewith to answer him that reproacheth me for I trust in thy word 43 And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth for I have hoped in thy judgements 44 So shall I keep thy law continually for ever and ever And I will walk at liberty for I seek thy precepts 46 I will speak of thy testimonies also before Kings and will not be ashamed 47 And I will delight my self in thy commandments which I have loved 48 My hands also will I lift up unto thy commandments which I have loved and I will meditate in thy statutes Zain 49 Remember the word unto thy servant upon which thou hast caused me to hope 50 This is my comfort in my affliction for thy word hath quickened me 51 The proud have had me greatly in derision yet have I not declined from thy law 52 I remembred thy judgements of old O Lord and have comforted my self 53 Horrour hath taken hold upon me because of the wicked that forsake thy law 54 Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrim age 55 I have remembred thy name O Lord in the night and have kept thy law 56 This I had because I kept thy precepts Cheth 57 Thou art my portion O Lord I have said that I would keep thy words 58 I intreated thy favour with my whole heart be merciful unto me according to thy word 59 I thought on my wayes and turned my feet into thy testimonies 60 I made hast and delayed not to keep thy commandments 61 The bands of the wicked have robbed me but I have not forgot thy Law 62 At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto thee because of thy righteous judgements 63 I am a companion of all them that fear thee and of them that keep thy precepts 64 The earth O Lord is full of thy mercie teach me thy statutes Teth. 65 Thou hast dealt well with thy servant O Lord according unto thy word 66 Teach me good judgement and knowledge for I have believed thy commandments 67 Before I was afflicted I went astray but now have I kept thy word 68 Thou art good and doest good teach me thy statutes 69 The proud have forged a lie against me but I will keep thy precepts with my whole heart 70 Their heart is as fat as grease but I delight in thy Law 71 It is good for me that I have been afflicted that I might learn thy statutes 72 The Law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver Iod. 73 Thy hands have made me and fashioned me give me understanding that I may learn thy commandments 74 They that fear thee will be glad when they see me because I have hoped in thy word 75 I know O Lord that thy judgements are right and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me 76 Let I pray thee thy merciful kindness be for my comfort according to thy word unto thy servant 77 Let thy tender mercies come unto me that I may live for thy Law is my delight 78 Let the proud be ashamed for they dealt perversly with me without a cause but I will meditate in thy precepts 79 Let those that fear thee turn unto me and those that have known thy testimonies 80 Let my heart be sound in thy statutes that I be not ashamed Caph. 81 My soul fainteth for thy salvation but I hope in thy word 82 Mine eyes fail for thy word saying when wilt thou comfort me 83 For I am become like a bottle in the smoke yet do I not forget thy statutes 84 How many are the dayes of thy servant when wilt thou execute judgement on them that persecute me 85 The proud have digged pits for me which are not after thy Law 86 All thy commandments are faithful they persecute me wrongfully help thou me 87 They had almost consumed me upon earth but I forsook not thy precepts 88 Quicken me after thy loving kindness so shall I keep the testimonie of thy mouth Lamed 89 For ever O Lord thy word is setled in heaven 90 Thy faithfulness is unto all generations thou hast established the earth and it abideth 91 They continue this day according to thine ordinances for all are
for ever 23 Who remembered us in our low estate for his mercie endureth for ever 24 And hath redeemed us from our enemies for his mercie endureth for ever 25 Who giveth food to all flesh â— for his mercie endureth for ever 26 O give thanks unto the God of heaven for his mercie endureth for ever Psalm cxxxvii 1 BY the rivers of Babylon there we sat down yea we wept when we remembred Sion 2 We haâ—ged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof 3 For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song and they that wasted us required of us mirth saying sing us one of the songs of Sion 4 How shall we sing the Lords song in a strange land 5 If I forget thee O Jerusalem let my right hand forget her cunning 6 If I do not remember thee let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy 7 Remember O Lord the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem who said Rase it rase it even to the foundation thereof 8 O daughter of Babylon who art to be destroyed happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us 9 Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones Psalm cxxxviii A Psalm of David 1 I will praise thee with my whole heart before thâ— Gods will I sing 〈◊〉 unto thee 2 I will worship towards thy holy Temple and praise thy name for thy loving kindness and for thy truth for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name 3 In the day when I cried thou answeredsâ— me and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul. 4 All the Kings of the earth shall praise thee O Lord when they hear the words of thy mouth 5 Yea they shall sing in the waies of the Lord for great is the glorie of the Lord. 6 Though the Lord be high yet hath he respect to the lowly but the proud he knoweth afar off 7 Though I walk in the midst of trouble thou wilt revâ—ve me thou shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies and thy right hand shall save me 8 The Lord will perfect that which cocerneth me thy mercie O Lord endureth for ever forsake not the works of thine own hands Psalm cxxxix To the chief musitian A Psalm of David 1 O Lord thou hast searched me known me 2 Thou knowest my down â—itting and mine uprising thou understandest my thoughts afar off 3 Thou compassest my path and my lying down and art acquainted with all my waies 4 For there is not a word in my tongue but â—o O Lord thou knowest it altogether 5 Thou hast besâ—t me behind and before and laid thine haâ—d upon me 6 Such knowledge is too wonderfull for me it is high I cannot attain unto it 7 Whither shall I go from thy spirit or whither shall I flee from thy presence 8 If I ascend up into heaven thou art there if I make my bed in hell behold thou art there 9 If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the 〈◊〉 10 Even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall hold me 11 If I say surely the darkness shall cover me even the night shall be light about me 12 Yea the darkness hideth not from thee but the night shineth as the day the darkness and the light are both alike to thee 13 For thou hast possessed my reins thou hast covered me in my mothers womb 14 I will praise thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made marvellous are thy works and that my soul knoweth right well 15 My substance was not hid from thee when I was made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth 16 Thine eyes did see my substance yet being unperfect and in thy book all my members are written which in continuance were fashioned when as yet there was none of them 17 How precious also are thy thoughts unto me O God how great is the summe of them 18 If I should count them they are moe in number than the sand when I wake I am still with thee 19 Surely thou wilt slay the wicked O God depart from me tâ—erefore ye bloâ—dy men 20 For they speak against theâ— wickedly thine enâ—mies take thy name in 〈◊〉 21 Do not I hate them O Lord that haâ—â— thee and am I not grieved with these that rise up against theâ— 22 I hate them with perfect hatred I count them mine enemies 23 Search me O God and know my heart try me know my thoughts 24 And see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting Psalm cxl To the chief musitian A Psalm of David 1 DEveâ— me O Lord from the evil man preserve 〈◊〉 from the violent man 2 Which imagine mischiefs in their heart continually are they gathered together for war 3 They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent adders poison is under their lips Selah 4 Keep me O Lord from the hands of the wicked preserve me from the violent man who have purposed to overthrow my goings 5 The proud have hid a snare for me and cords they have spread a net by the way side they have set grins for me Selaâ— 6 I said 〈…〉 Lord thou art my God hear the voice of my supplications O Lord. 7 O God the Lord the strength of my salvation thou hast covered my head in the day of battell 8 Grant not O Lord the desires of the wicked further not his wicked deviâ—e least they exalt themselves Selah 9 As for the head of those that compass me about let the mischief of their own lips cover them 10 Let buâ—ning coals â—all upon them let them be cast into the fire into deep pits that they rise not up again 11 Let not an evil speaker be established in the earth evil shall hunt the violent maâ— to overthrow him 12 I know that the Lord will maintain the cause of the afflicted and the right of the poor 13 Surely the righteous shall give thanks unto thy name the upright shall dwell in thy presence Psalm cxli. A Psalm of David 1 LOrd I cry unto thee make hast unto me give ear unto my voice when I cry unto thee 2 Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice 3 Set a watch O Lord before my mouth keep the door of my lips 4 Encline not my heart to any evil thing to practise wicked works with men that work iniquity and let me not eat of their dainties 5 Let the righteous smite me it shall be a kindness and let him reprove me it shall be an excellent oyl which shall not break my head for yet my prayer also shall be in their calamities 6 When their Judges are overthrown in stony