THE Safe way TO GLORY In several EXERCISES of General use By WILLIAM SMYTH M. Ar. R. of Cotton in Suff. LONDON Printed by Evaâ— Tyler for Ed. Dod at the Signe of the Gunne in Ivy Lane 1656. Christian Exercises I. GIving directions to an holy life with other conditions of the Gospel II. Satisfying Doubts concerning Grace and Gods acceptance of a sincere Christian III. Answering exceptions against this Church and Ministery with rules to discover false professions IV. Forms of Prayer of General use V. A Catechisme for children By W. SMYTH M. A. and R of Cotton in Suff. TO All those deservedly much Honoured Persons whom I serve in the Education of their CHILDREN AND To all my loving Parishioners of Cotton in Suff. whom I serve in the GOSPEL Are Humbly presented these ensuing Exercises By their unworthy yet Faithful Servant in all ingagements of duty and respect W. SMYTH A PREFACE Apologetical To the READER A Pretence to satisfy every Reader were as ridiculous as his attempt who studied to make a garment for the Moon that might fit her in every interchange and as unlikely to succeed as his enterprise who with a dish of one relish would satisfy every Palate I am so farre from that imagination that I thinke it a design elegible rather to displease some whom I cannot gain by declaring the truth then for some politick ends in silence to shew such a neutrality and indifferency of Spirit as might indulge a vitious and factious world I desire solemnly in this case to apply St. Pauls Expression to my self If I yet pleased men I should not be the servant of Christ I know I shall displease most it s enough if I please the best Principibus placuisse viris c. and not dis-satisfy any mind that is not vitiated with prophanenesse prejudice or faction I account the acceptance of one good man of weight enough to out-ballance the contempt of a thousand and if I can administer an argument of piety to one sober mind it shall compensate the scorn and displeasure of ten thousand When it was objected to a Tragedian that Plato onely was present his answer was Et hic unus Plato plus est quam Atheniensis populus and that one Plato is more then all the people of Athens besides such an estimation I have of every honest pious person though of the lowest order Neverthelesse lest I should seem morose or Cynical I will endeavour to take off the exceptions of three sorts of Readers to whom I humbly tender this satisfaction First to my prudent Friendly-Reader 2. To the Learned-Reader 3. To the piously-affected yet differing in judgement First my Friendly-Reader will presently question my prudence in thus adventuring my self on the publick stage in this sad scene of Church-affairs He tells me there is danger in it for though such truths be as clear and necessary as the Sun yet like the Sun I must make my way through a Zodiack of inconveniences here the privy and sidepinch of a detracting Cancer there the poysonous sting of a malicious Scorpio every where the sharp arrowes the bitter invectives of the worlds Sagittarii For his satisfaction let him turn his eye on the foregoing leafe and that intimates my design and reasons for it which is to secure the beloved soules of my Parish and the tender plants of my family from the invasion of common errours which like an Epidemical disease propagate their infection every where and do inevitably without a great deliverance from heaven subject posterity to great departures from the faith of Christ So my full answer will be It is at all times the best prudence to serve God and in this case it is truer wisdome to be administring to the salvation of soules then to sell our duties to God for the unsafe hope of a worldly advantage If any soul fayles for want of any help that is in my caepacity it falls with its own infelicity and my sin The rule of the Schoole herein is without dispute Causa deficiens in necessariis est efficiens he pulls down that holds not up And a Christian who declines his duty for fear of suffering hath in a great measure betrayed his profession of Christ I cannot despaire but that many in the Nation I can hope that many of my Parish and I am almost assured that many of my family and near relations may be preserved in the Faith and directed in their judgements at least to the right rules of holiness by these poor exercises Now suppose the least If God shall please among all these to bring in but one soul by them and that but to some improvement of his knowledge only or if I wanted that yet if I have done a service acceptable to God I am recompenced for the worst evils my Prudent-Reader can object to me But my ingenious friend puts me upon another task He fears I must passe under the just censure of doing an impertinent and unnecessary thing That I have digged a pâ—t by the river {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} when the streames of the former and this present age have run full and luxuriant in exercises of this kind To which I answer that such Catechismes and institutions as have ordinarily been dispersed among the people have seemed to me to have pursued too great an interest of private opinion in decisions of controverted and notional points of Divinity but to have been too loose general in cases of conscionable walking with God and man They have also generally abetted the doctrines of transmarine Churches against the setled doctrine and discipline of their own Mother-Church secretly undermining the credit of our own Apostolick determinations rather then serenely driving at the scope of strict and severe holinesse Hinc illae lachrimae Hence our woe For the people through such writings and other like insinuations having been corrupted with false principles and trained up to siding and interests many of them I accuse not all knew little other use of their zeal but in opposition nor of conscience but in scrupling indifferents And while they were puzled with an obligation to look into the inextricable mysteries of Gods decrees and Counsels perplexed with the understanding of un-edifying controversies and cryed upon to the duties of getting Christ and getting Faith were in the interim made strangers to the holy practises of humility meeknesse charity tender-heartednes deep-christian-compassion justice peaceablenesse and the like Christian graces as by woeful experience it hath been made too evident to us Now such Abridgments of the doctrines of piety which have run in the Channel of our own setled doctrines as they have been few so have they been either long or above the capacities of those whose advantage I principally designe For being long they have discouraged many though of good capacities who willingly would have read them which might have been comprehended in some few hours but were easily tempted to decline those which required the
Faith being the gift of God attainable by means appointed by him through our endeavour and application What are those means that conduce to the obtaining and increasing of the same Ans. A diligent reading and hearing his word constant prayer frequent receiving the blessed Sacrament religious use of such times in which the memory of the things of faith are celebrated and accompanying our selves with the faithfull disciples of Christ CHAP. III. Quest HAving thus passed over a direction and an account of the first condition of the Gospel proceed with Gods blesing to the second before mentioned And what is Repentance Ans. It is a totall turn and change of the whole man from a state of sin and a departure from all iniquity Quest Are not the single acts of sence of sin and confession of it the sorrow for it and present purpose against it to be accounted the very repentance of the Gospel Ans. No they are blessed preparatives to and necessary companions of repentance in which the penitent must be continually exercised But that especially in which the life of Gospel-repentance consists is the forsaking of sinne and throwing off the dominion of it Quest But are not those exercises requisite for the obtaining of pardâ—n and acceptable services to God Ans. Yes as they conduce to that great turn and change of life otherwise they are upon the same account with God that his state is who may be likened to a dog returning to his vomit and a sow to her wallowing in the mire Quest If repentance consists in such a total forsaking of sinne it must follow then that you make the state of repentance like the new birth in St. Iohn that as he that is born of God so he that is truly penitent cannot any more commit sin And are there no sins consistent with the state of Repentance and a new birth Ans. Yes Sinnes of invincible ignorance frailty infirmity and the single acts of greater sins by sudden surprise into which the true penitent may fall and by the grace of God rise again Quest May a man yeeld and be-come indulgent to any sins under those notions and give the reines to a lust or temptation to any sin upon such an account Ans. No they may then become wilful and deliverate sins and dangerous to the state of repentance Quest What is to be done upon the consideration of such sins when we have commited them in order to repentance Ans. A sudden recalling our selves to a serious sense of them sorrow for them and holy purpose against them using all holy and prudential means to prevent them Quest What sins are destructive to the Gospel repentance and cannot consist with it which he that is truly penitent cannot commit without ceasing to be so Ans. A falling into an habitual and customary course of sinning with a wilful and deliberate allowance of any known wickednesse to live in it and into such a course of life as may notify a total departure from God Quest What may be said of his estate who having been once enlightened and made a partaker of the Holy Ghost shall fall from his repentance to such a course of sinning and by resisting Gods grace and quenching his spirit shall depart to his former unregenerate estate Ans. His state is very sad and dangerous seeing God may justly give him over by withdrawing his Grace never to be renewed by another repentance or that there should remain for him no more sacrifice for sin whereby it may be better for that man never to have known the way of truth then being once known to fall from it or that having once escaped the pollutions of the world to be again entangled therein and overcome His latter end is worse then the beginning Quest It is true the sentence of the Gospel is very severe in that case What therefore doth this consideration obligemen to Ans. A severe watchfulnesse over all their wayes and in all temptations lest they fall a careful employing the talent of Grace lest it be taken away and a diligent working out their salvation with feare and trembling Quest What may be said of them who after an ungodly life dye with the single acts of sorrow for sin acknowledgment of it and a resolution of change Ans. Their repentance is very unsafe First because the promises of mercy in the Gospel are very insecurely applyed but upon the terms of a durable repentance that shall arrive at great performances of Gospel-obedience constant services of God and a copious fruitfulnesse in a course of holinesse And secondly because the sincerity of such a repentance is very doubtful there being no opportunity remaining for the experience and triall of it by bringing forth fruits to evidence it Yet this hope may pâ—ssesse a charitable mind that if God sees such a late repentance to be truly sincere and such as if there were time allowed would proceed to a reall turne and change it might through Gods infinite mercy be accepted and the Will and Resolution of the penitent for the following acts of holy living But such a repentance as is made after presumptions of mercy in an ungodly course and many despites done unto the spirit of Grace administers little hopes of acceptance Quest What considerations do best provoke an impenitent soul through Gods grace to a timely undertaking this state of repentance Ans. The ignoble use of Gods goodness that invites him to it of the blood of Christ that hath purchased for him a capacity to be accepted by it and the continual despite that is done to the spirit of God that stands and knocks at the door of his heart for his return Quest What other motives may be superadded to those Ans. That a state of sin is against the very dictate of right reason and contrary to all morall prudence it is rewarded with shame unpeaceablenesse and discontent in this life a fearful judgement ult. and a miserable eternity in the life to come CHAP. IV. Quest THe third condition of Gospel-salvation you said was obedience to an holy life and keeping the Commandments of God How doth it appear that the Gospel doth necessarily require such a condition Ans. Because as our Saviour saith none shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven but he that doth the will of his father which is in heaven and St. Paul saith that a deliverance from condemnation shall only appertain to them who live according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh in whose fruits whosoever is exercised whatsoever hopes of mercy may be pretended is sentenced not to inherit the Kingdom of heaven and lastly because without holinesse no man shall see the Lord Quest What comprehensive Text can you name that most summarily containes the doctrines and Commandments of
immoderately of them more then is consistent with the severity of a sober and Christian carriage much more not to pull another mans sin upon me by tempting or urging him to drink Quest What other seasonable advice may be given to prevent a compliance with this intemperate age Ans. Besides that no drunkard shall inherit the Kingdom of heaven drunkennesse is a sin that is attended with a complication of evils and infelicities every one of which were enough to make it as odious to men as it is to God Quest Now because we have with this direction arrived at the last period of our discourse name some of them though you digresse to a little disproportion to the brevity of the method Ans. It is a sin which as it certainly makes a man to be no good man so it maketh him to be no man at all and by its debauchery gives not a man the honour to be so sensible as a beast It fills the mad society with the shame of every mans infirmity it makes it a scene of apish gestures brawls murders oaths cursings and susts It makes a man a fatall governour a loathsome husband a shamefull parent a disobedient child a carelesse servant and an untrusty friend It turns a mans body to a deluge and marsh of humours and an hospital of diseases it shortens his dayes he dies and his soul that he drowned in his life sinks into a lake of fire where one drop will not be allowed to alleviate his eternall thirst Thus thou hast finished the third and last Condition of the Gospel with the whole course of a Christians life in which he ought to walk if ever he intend to be accepted to salvation in Christ the Lord give thee an heart to desire power to perform it Now unto him that is able to do exceeâ—ing abundantly above all that we are able to ask or think according to the power that worketh in us unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jâ—sus â—hroughout all ages world without end Amen Satisfactions About the DOCTRINE OF GRACE In order to the clearing some doubts which may hinder the Purposes and Attempts of obeying the GOSPEL Satisfactions About the DOCTRINE OF Grace AFter these Directions to a strict and severe profession of Christian holinesse some unhappy yet too commonly received principles have made it necessary to adjoyn some other Considerations to remove many possible scruples which being collected from those principles do naturally impede the chearfull undertaking this attempt of holy living Now these Considerations will be of two sorts ' First such as concern the doctrine of Grace Secondly such as concern an outward Profession in some visible Church Quest As to the first it is fit to enquire lest thou be discouraged in the beginning whence thou mayest expect ability to perform these conditions of the Gospel-Covenant being of thy self unable to think a good thought of or for thy self Ans. Onely from the assistance of the Grace of God who worketh in me to will and to do of his free mercy which grace is sufficient for me in all parts of holinesse so that though I can do nothing of my self yet I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me Quest What assurance hast thou that God will vouchsafe to thee such assistance of his Grace Answ. I have so much assurance of it as that Christ dieâ— for me which is as sure as I am a son of Adam in Adam all dye in Christ are all made alive as sure as he that hath given me Christ will together with him give me all things besides necessary to my salvation as sure as I have an honourable belief that that God which gave me a condition for salvation will not deny me a sufficient power to perform it Quest How dost thou expect or believe that God will be pleased to work this Grace in thee Ans. Ordinarily by making the internall office of the Holy Ghost the outward administrations of the Word and Sacraments and oftentimes by othersweet overtures of his visible providence to be instrumentall to the working of it though besides them I believe God exercises other wayes means and instruments known onely to himself as mens present needs and other individuall circumstances are seen by his wisdome to be fitting opportunities of mercy But in what manner that is in what proportions or order whether in this or that degree or whether this Grace or that hath the priority it is distributed or whether he gives it by irresistable impulsion or by resistable swasion whether by a Physicall or a morall impression and many such like unedifying curiosities I altogether lay them aside humbly conceiving the work of Grace in the will of man a mystery not to be unfolded and a point as to such enquiries indeterminable so I account such Controversies about them not onely very unnecessary and impertinent but very occasionall to the making of parties and factions among the learned and of creating troubles and discouragements to the pious of all sorts in their purposes and attempts of living according to Gospel-conditions I say passing by such riddles of dispute it is a sufficient argument and ground to support and incourage my soul in all religious enterprises that I am ascertained whatsoever the manner or method of Gods working his grace in me be that he will not be wanting to afford me such a proportion of it as shall be sufficient to begin pursue and finish the work of salvation in me Quest But some Texts of Scripture seems to weaken this your assurance as that God will blind some mens eyes and harden their hearts that they shall not see with their eyes nor understand with their heart And that whom he will he hardeneth and there be some on whom he will not have mercy What may be said of such like Texts and inferences from Scripture that may administer comfort Ans. That such acts of Gods justice in taking away or denying grace in reprobating and casting off are only subsequent to the despising and neglecting the foregoing offers of his grace and visitations of mercy This truth is fully evidenced in many instances of Scripture As first St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans affirmes that it was because when They knew God they worshipped him not as God c. Therefore he gave them up c. And because they changed the truth of God into a lye c. Therefore he gave them up to a reprobate mind c. In another place he writes that the power of Antichrist shall become effectual to the destruction of many and that they should believe a lye c. But it is of such as before received not the love of the truth that they might be saved St. Peter tells us that they to whom Christ should become a stumbling-block and a Rock of offence are
what heavenly members of Christs Kingdome have shined in every part of this nation no way inferiour to the most renowned Saints of ancient times but that the frequency of professors and as it were familiarity of piety have eclipsed their own excellencies And without doubt weighing those extenuating expressions of Christs Kingdom as the little Flock few that find it and the like we might with facility observe in this nation plentiful additions of souls to the Church above any nation in the world proportion of places considered Whence then these effects and demonstrations of religion but from Gods pleasure to preserve a never-failing succession of Ministery who disserninated in every part of the nation have laboured in Word and Doctrine among us for it canuot be supposed that this Church have received these grapes of thornes or figges of thistles or that a corrupt tree that is a false or Anti-christian Ministery should bring forth such good fruit as our Saviour argues in this very case And after all this lest these eminent graces and blessed effects should still be attributed to any other either immediate or mediate proceediug of God I desire any of our adversaries to shew that ever any nation was converted to or continued in a Christian profession or that ever the Religion of a Nation hath not verged to a Period with the fall of its Ministery and then I may be induced to suspect this Church received such graces from some other instrument then the Ministery And for further confirmation it is no hard matter to observe how much the interest of Religion is concerned in this Ministeries preservation by considering how piety peace charity reverence to Gods worship and the whole frame of religion have declined and the contrary evils of prophanenesse sacriledge blasphemy Atheisme oppression violence and injustice have generally improved by their fall Now the force of the argument is this There being these effects of piety and salvation as unparalel'd consequences of the work of the Ministery of this National Church and there being no other ordinary means the mehod of grace under the Gospel from whence otherwise they should proceed we therefore cunclude them lawful instruments of Gods work and a blest and truly Christian Ministery to this Church The fecond argument for brevity sake I make as general and comprehensive as I can and thus it is If the Ministers of the Churches of Christ in all ages and places through the whole succession of Christian Religion had the same separation to their offices that we of this Church of England have then by necessary consequence either the universal Ministery of Christ were alwayes Antichristian which would be next to blasphemy to assert as well as we or we Christian and lawful as well as they Now let our enemies shew that in any age of that great space of time or in any place where Christs Name was ever professed that the received Ministery thereof were otherwise in substance ordained whereby to raise any plea to their new or rather no call we will acknowledge the lawfulnesse of our calling to be justly questioned This argument hath its foundation upon a promise of Christ to his universal Church in the name of his Apostles Howbeit when the Spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all truth Which promise had apparently in a considerable point been unaccomplished had the universal Church of Christ so many hundred years successively erred by an Antichristian and unlawful Ministery and by consequence all the Christian world all that great while had been deprived of lawfull ordinances the outward means of grace which depend upon the lawful Mission of the Ministery How shall they hear to a success of beleefe but by their preaching who are lawfully sent Quest These arguments are convincing and now as it seems to me a man may as soon and upon as good ground question a great part of his Christian Religion as the lawfulnesse of the Ministery of this Church being inferred from those premisses which conclude and prove one as well as the other I desire therefore rather to venture my soule with all the Churches of Christ and under a Ministery that have been received as lawful by them and of whom we have had experience in this national Church in excellent effects of all spirituall blessings then to embrace the judgement of a few who study new things such as the Churches of Christ never knew before and to submit to such a Ministery as descend in no succession and without any character either extraordinary or ordinary to demonstrate their mission and of which in a short time we have had sad experiences as appears by the divisions blasphemies fond opinions and great impieties that have prospered under them There remaines one scruple more What canst thou say to satisfy them that urge the present fall of this Church and sufferings and contempt of its Ministery as an argument against the truth of the profession and Religion Ans. It is true I cannot deny there be a great many that follow the disingenuous practice of that sort of people of which the holy Psalmist complaines that love to persecute him whom God hath smitten and to talk how to vex him whom he hath wounded Crying out against us like another untoward generation God hath forsaken them persecute and take them for there is none to deliver them But it is a wonder to me that persons pretending light in Religion and an understanding in the Scriptures should make outward providences the guidance of their judgement in determining the justice or unjustice of Causes Conclusions by events prove nothing but the folly of a vulgar judgement that is byassed by them When most frequent it is that the wicked prosper in their way and they are happy that deale very treacherously yea God plants them till they take root God suffers oft-times evill men to flourish like a green bay-tree in worldly successes when he permits them to blast the honour and safety of the just If prosperous providence gives the sentence of justice The Turk that sets up his trophies in the most renowned parts of Christendome already and if he should poure in his forces to the overthrow of all the Christian nations that remain could never want an argument to justify his usurpations and Tyrannies Nor doth the Churches unsuccesseful attempts for its preservation disprove its truth and being But rather if it were lawful or indeed possible to determine from exteriour providences the frequent tragedies of its continual snfferings might induce us to a beleef that Truth and persecution have gone hand in hand Hence the worthy observers of the Churches instability in worldly safety have found out a reason of its happinesse from its miseries The Church hath increased with persecutions and is crowned with martyrdomes saith St. Hierome Then it conquers when it is oppressed and obtaines when forsaken saith St. Hilary For if its
truth should have depended upon worldly successes and prosperity what advantages should its enemies have had and with what poor comforts should its members have been supported when it lay so long under the bloody persecutions of the Roman Emperours Nero Domitian Trajan c Now if any just cause that is oppressed if any part of Christs Church that is afflicted may plead no disadvantage to them by Gods permitting them to bee outwardly miserable much more the Ministery whose of all just causes and who of all parties in the Church have been ever exposed to the saddest providences as to the worlds eye We shall find therefore as if the cross had been the Label of the Apostles Commission Our Saviour tells them when he sends them forth it should be as sheep in the midst of Wolves From whom what entertainment they were likely to receive he expresseth more fully in a sollowing passage They should be hated of all men for his Names sake And as if they had received with their commissions a commonpasse of trouble they must be persecuted from one City to another All which as they were infallibly to become true in our Saviours prediction so were they as evidently accomplished in the following tragedies of the Churches miseries when the Apostles were set forth as men appointed to death when they were made a theatre a common spectacle a people shewen forth for mockery and misery to Angels and to men For they hungred and thirsted and were naked and buffeted and had no certain dwelling place Afterward followed the violent deaths of all the Apostles under the hands of their Persecutors St. John onely excepted and of the first renownned Fathers os the Church Ignatius Polycarp Irenaeus Justin c. which paid their lives to the prevailing enemies of the Gospel of Christ all which to relate would rather require some large Martyrolygy then a digression in a small Tractate But were all these forsaken of God because they had not prosperity and present successes What providence should then have been followed the prosperous or the adverse If their scornes troubles and oppressions under the hands of their prosperous enemies had disproved the truth of their calling or cause the very Gospel it self might as justly upon the same argument have been called in question By all which it appeares that the charge against this Church for its adversities and miseries is most unjust especially by them who have themselves been instrumental to them It is a hard case first to be made miserable and forlorne and then to be quarrel'd with and disputed against for being so But I leave this to their own consciences and timely repentance only I desire to mind them of a notable prediction by learned Hooker of them and of the ruines of this Church by them even at a determinate period of time which is directly this present age Which becauso it fell from so grave and deliberate a pen I will set down in his own words By these or the like suggestions meaning our adversaries endeavours to overthrow the Ministery in their maintenance and otherwise received with all joy and with like sedulity practised in certain parts of the Christiag world they have brought to passe that as David doth say of a man so it is in hazard to be verified concerning the whole Religion ond Service of God The time thereof may peradventure fall out to be threescore and ten years or if strength do serve unto fourscore what followeth is likely to be small joy for them whatsoever they be that behold it By these considerations I find all my scruples answered and doubts satisfied that I can with all clearnesse of judgement assert the truth of the visible Church of England Now I desire to recline my soul in her bosome and most cheerfully undertake and exercise the whole course of those forementioned Rules of Christian living in its profession as the safest in the world FORMES OF PRAYER For private PERSONS AND FAMILIES To the READER WHosoever thou art I beseech thee but if thy soule stands upon my account to God I mean if thou beest one of my care and charge then I earnestly beg of thee that when thou readest and ownest these plaein directions for Devotion thou obligest thy self upon as strong purposes to follow them or at least the duties intended by them as the interest of saving a soule requires That thou take care by making it a part of thy duty to Christ to season thy children as with the first elements of religious knowledge so with suitable practices of prayer as soon as they shall be capable of these little formes And that thou thy self accont no busines so necessary which should betray thee to forget to sanctify at least the morning and evening of every day in thy privacy and family with prayers and praises considering that the houres spent in this or other religious exercises will be of more concernment and eomfort to thee at thy dying hour then all the pleasures profits and present advantages whatsoever thou canst obtain by the engagement of the rest of thy time I desire thee that before thou enterest upon these exercises or in the midst of them where I have directed thee thou readest part of holy Davids Psalmes by certain periods that thou mayest imitate Davids spirit in thy addresses to God And do not read them as an history meerly to affect thy understanding but as acts of service with affection reverence and piety befitting such communions with God as most of the Psalmes perport Do thou also before thou departest from serving God in any of these offices read some part of she holy Scriptures in such order as thy prudence shall direct thee and digest the same by meditation to particular application to thy self that thou mayest live in the strength of it in all thy actions to God and man I have divided as thou shalt observe the prayers into several parts according to the most considerable periods of the duty First because they will be the more fit and methodical to be taught to children servants and such as cannot read Secondly that after the end of any one part of the devotion the supplicant may stay and collect his spirit to a frame fit for the next considering as to instance that confession and thanksgiving and so the rest do require different carriages of the Spirit Thirdly because the pious soule may more fitly stay in any part and poure out it self to God as spiritual necessity will be administred and yet not break the order of the devotion Lastly because such a partition will alleviate the weariness that is apt to be contracted by one long continued form Now having rigg'd this little ship ef devotion The Lord give thee an heart to venture thy soul in its bottome and grant thee a prosperous gale of his Spirit to drive thee forward to the port of rest which is desired designed and sincerely endeavoured by