the second person with Stephen Lord Iesus receive my spirit For both is here understood and Prayer ought jointly to be put up to them as they are one and severaly to all the Persons as they are three provided that in naming of one as here we exclude not the Son nor Spirit as Stephen not the Spirit nor the Father though the Son be solely invoked It was the Trinity that said Let us make man and from the Trinity did sin cause man to fall and by Prayer to the Trinity must man be remitted of his sin delivered from evil and instructed to avoid temptation It is given as a rule that where the Word Father is simply used without any other word restricting it to any of the other Persons as here there is none the whole Deity is thereby signified ex gr The fowls of the Air sow not yet your heavenly father feedeth them In Father all the Trinity is understood but in these words The Father loveth the Son the second Person is distinctly spoken of and distinguished from the first as also the first from the second But to reach the depth of the word Father in this profound sense were to puzle our souls with inscrutable Mysteries and with Simonides to drench our brains in unprofitable questions For he being asked by Hiero the King what God was desired one days liberty to answer the question but that being too short he demanded two but these not being sufficient he intreated for four in regard the more he pondered his soul was the more darkned touching the nature of a Deity neither do we read that ever he answered the question though eight days was allowed him his head questionless being filled with doubts and niceties studying the solution We shall therefore taking a prospect of this word of this cloud Father from its darkest side as it relates to Prayer and then we may see clearly â—avour on Godsâ—part and duty upon ours The favour is to be seen in Priviledges Justification and in our Adoption 1. Our Christian-priviledges above the Iew. Many and lofty were the Titles and Names by which God made himself known under the Law as the Lord God of gods the God of Abraham and the Almighty God but it is Our Father quia noster esse cepit he now becoming our God having left off to be theirs His Name to them was I AM denoting Eternity and Immutability to be in himself But Our Father shews plainly our interest in him and his to us he is not now under the Gospel called the God of Abraham at a distance but having spoken to us by his Son to keep us with him for ever sweetens our service under the notion of fatherly attendance the other having rebelled against him They indeed while with him had much of his praise but to which of them at any time said he When ye pray say Our Father They prayed indeed but in comparison of us they did it as servants we doing it as sons having received that spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father But of this afterward 2. Our Iustification by the blood of Christ. Our sins made us lose our interest we had in him by our wandring as the lost sheep and by our lavishing as the Prodigal we became like our old father the Devil and by consequence were afar off but now made nigh by the blood of Christ who made our peace animating us with confidence to pray After this manner having by faith received the power to become the Sons of God For nec peccator neither can a sinful people or a sinful man be attoned or made a son or sons except there preceed a remission of sin which is accompanied by the gift of Son-ship For whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin and he who would receive the kiss of the Father must return and confess with the Publicane and he shall not only have bread enough but his sin shall be forgiven him 3 Our Adoption by the regeneration of the Spirit Regeneration implyes a two-fold birth First we are born children of wrath and so are children of the Devil yet not by nature but imitation because the lusts of that father we will do by which we have no plea to Heaven And unless as regenerated a man be born again of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God He comprehends all Ages Sexes and conditions and except he be born again shews a new Father and a new nature Of water understand that Baptism is an entry into a new life which is administred in the Name of the Father upon our bodies denoting that even our flesh is capable of Heavens glory and of the Spirit this is that wherein all blessedness consists for as the Spirit of man must be prop'd or buttress'd by the Spirit of God or it can never be elevated so as to enter the Kingdom of God so must the Spirit of God uphold the faith of the believer by bearing witness to it of the souls being born of God or then we cannot call after this manner without mocking our Father which is in Heaven A Father he is in respect of Christ and because of him he is a Father in respect of us like our elder Brother and elder brethren Let us seek after the things of Heaven that it may be known we pray by the spirit of Adoption having re-purchased the title of Sons Acknowledging by Father an absolution of offences a freedom from judgement Justification Sanctification and the Adoption of Sons a fellowship with Christ the gifts of the Spirit an inheritance incorruptible that fadeth not away eternal in the Heavens Whereby it may be attested of our Father what a dying man said of the Epistles and Gospels when desired by some to deliver a rule for the right ordering of their lives held up them with an ecce omnia hic here are all things necessary for attaining of a good and blessed life he meant they living after the rules there taught so shall it be with us if we practise according to the form prescribed here For this Preface holdeth out also duty on our part and we learn by it to pray with confidence awfulness and plainness 1. With confidence but not with presumption God hath come low to embrace us as sons he hath given us freedom to touch his Scepter yet ought not man to be saucy for the one nor play as a child with the other Let not the pride of thy countenance keep thee O man from God that is from calling upon him because he is thy Father nor permit the sin of thy soul to perswade thee to run from him because he is in Heaven Do this and live come boldly to the Throne of grace that you may obtain mercy It is a Throne therefore denotes Majesty to stop presumption with the
beyond all ordinary rules a lesson more then our Masters can pierce or construe I say since he for ever lives to punish us for ever in case of disloyalty let us for ever be obedient Some learned men during the Council of Basil a time wherein the world was turned a School and every soul a learned Disputant walking in and about a Wood debating about the questions of that age heard and saw an unusual if not prodigious bird its sweetnesse was so inchanting that it was suspected and conjured and then it declared it self to be a soul condemned in unto that Wood untill the great day after which it was to suffer eternal plagues then taking wing cryed saying O quam diuturna est aeternitas O how long is eternity O how immense is eternity all suddenly sickned and in few dayes after died who beheld it Melanchton judged it to be a Devil inhabiting the place But whatever it were the relation may admonish us in this litigious age wherein qâ—estions are started of no weight yet pursued with scorching â—eat to retire from the throng of disputes into our selves and mind eternity for by well-doing and upright living shall we only live happily with our Father which is in Heaven an â—pellation in the Preface settling us in love as thine is the Kingdom Power and Glory fixeth us in confidence in the Conclusion For ever CHAP. X. Amen IF the structure of this Prayer be like to Solomons Temple the Preface as the Porch the Prayer like the holy place the Conclusion like the most holy we shall in it assimulat Amen to the glory of the Lord in a cloud which being the last breath of this first and perfect Prayer cometh last to be considered 1. In its original and nature 2. In its place and order It is signaculum orationis Dominicae the seal of this and of all other prayers yet forsooth hath the misfortune with its companions to be thrust from the Codex of the Gospel as being inserted into the Evangelist not from our Saviours lips but from the custom of the Church as if every thing which is not in Luke or Mark must be ejected Iohn and Matthew where Amen is to be sound this Prayer being sent as an Epistle to our Father closed by Amen and given to be presented by the graces of Faith and Charity upon command It is sometime put before a sentence and so is a note of confirmation ordinarily translated verily and in the New Testament imports that expression As I live in the Old but here it is in the close as in the execrations of the Law and is doubled by the Psalmist in blessing the Lord from everlasting to everlasting Amen and Amen that is Amen in the heart Amen in the mouth demonstrating the union of these two in this one duty of blessing God It is a Iew by birth and speaketh Hebrew in the Laconick style yet its ingenuity and noble converse its candor and comprehensivenesse hath procured for it self that freedom to be denized in all Nations and all in each Nation speaking the same Language saith Amen and is either imperantis of command or confirmantis of assuring or precantis of desiring and is generally and was of old annexed to Prayer and Praise except that it was impiously because out of scorn laid aside by Humorists as though the saying of Amen had not been a Gospel-precept It groweth upon the Hebrew root Aman which by interpretation signifieth to nourish and by degrees as by bearers blooms on a branch signifying truth and fixednesse and the truth is Amen hath nothing of flatulency or windinesse but nourisheth every soul that by holy discretion prepares a Conscience for its receiving It is not interpreted by Expositors here Nec Graeâ—us Interpres ausus est neither dare they yea the verity is they cannot there being no Language to expresse its full sense and in Scripture having different significations being taken 1. Substantively 2. Assertively 3. Optatively 1. Substantively and then it signifieth Christ himself These things saith the Amen that is the Truth he being prima veritas the first and the last and by Amen he gives a reality to what he hath spoken because in him all the promises are yea and Amen In the word Father the Trinity is implyed the first Person only expressed in Amen the second is contained and these are one with the Spirit Hence one promiseth I resolve never te leave Amen out of my Prayer since it is as much as Christ which one sound from the heart is able to procure Godsâ—blessing on all our askings importing For Christs sake have mercy and hear O Heavenly Father 2. Assertively and then it is a note of Attention translated often Verily for what is in one Text Amen or Verily is in the parallel Text Amen or of a truth as if Christ should have said I speak it not rashly but certe profecto si fas est dicere juratio ejus est it is indeed his Oath so to speak As I live Amen Verily there be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Kingdom of God And in the Prophet it is said he who blesseth or sweareth in the earth shall blesse or swear by the God Amen or of truth 3. Optatively and then it is a note of wishing Blessing and thanksgiving and honour said the Angels be to our God for ever and ever Amen and may in this sense be expounded fiat or So-be-it a word short of Amen's extent and is but a corner of it yet used by many of late with us as thought more perfect and significant though Amen is reverent and gray-headed and venerable through all ages under the Law by Moses used in point of jealousie and in point of exaction by Nehemiah that it like the last stroak of an heavy Bell might bumme in their ears who had offended It ends all the Epistles the third of Iohn and that of St. Iames excepted and is the last word of the Bible and one way or other Fifty times used in the New Testament It is acutely observed that the mystery of the Iews conversion is herein touched the whole Prayer being Greek this Amen only Hebrew hinting though obscurely that the Greeks that is the Gentiles shall speak the language of Canaan and that the Iews shall be conducted unto Christ the Amen these two by our Father being united in him who is the truth the way the life and the AMEN Let Amen respect Christ it is nota fiduciae of affiance regarding all his offices expecting with confidence deliverance by him as our King Instruction as our Prophet and remission of sin as our Priest yea indubitanter it is unquestionable he would not have us scruple the obtaining any thing we demand because next Amen he saith if ye forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father will
other fond reformations aimed at in this Age rich Amen was reduced to a beggerly So be it when yet there was as great difference betwixt them as between the garments of Tamar the harlot whom Iudah defiled and the Virgin-like apparel of Tamar the Princess whom Ammon ravished It is the only Hebrew word in this Prayer and not interpreted by our Saviour nor the Evangelist nec Graecus interpres neither durst the Latine nor Greek Interpreters translate it lest it should be contemned by being made naked since no Language can express its full sense whereof almost all Nations as they say Jesus Christ though Originally Greek and Hebrew sayes Amen as sufficiently understood Is is an oath that what you pray for is your hearts desire it is a wish that what you pray for may be your portion it is your assent that what you hear prayed for it your judgment and therefore in Amen we wish swear believe that the Prayer for forgiving sins of deliverance from evil of giving daily bread is from the power and goodness of your Father and that the Kingdom of his glory and grace is to be advanced by the same power and when by it you are brought to do his will you resolve to hallow his Name in the first and give him the glory in all for ever through Christ who is the Amen and therefore when you pray mind Heaven with Moses let all the people with you say Amen And I say To God only wise be glory through Jesus Christ for ever Amen After this manner therefore pray ye Our Father which art in Heaven c. HAving viewed at a distance the out-works and general form of Prayer it is now seasonable to enter in and behold the special rule of Prayer and the several parts of that called the Lords Prayer unto which the unseasonable and cloudy weather that may be both felt and seen in the Firmament of our Church urgeth our meditation having visibly as once in Egypt in it showres of hail and fire mingled with the hail hence prudentially we are enforced both to make more haste to it and carry longer in it It is called the Lords Prayer because by our Lord composed in this expression After this manner pray ye and by him also imposed in this Precept when ye pray say Our Father c. and to difference it from the Prayers of other holy men as of Moses David Asaph Heman from which it is as really diversifi'd as a week day from the Sabbath for though the Spirit of God made both yet the Holy Ghost hath eminently sanctified and commanded us in Prayer to remember it in this Mandat When ye pray say Our Father c. We have by our Saviour a living and new way a new Command it was thought also by his inscrutable wisdom fit to give us a new Prayer as new Wine for our new Bottles Pray after this manner As the Temple of old so this Gospel-structure consists of three parts 1. a porch or gate which may be called Beautiful in the words of the Preface Our Father which art in Heaven 2. A holy place consisting of the several Petitions in the Body of the Prayer as Hallowed by thy Name Thy Kingdom come c. In which the lights of the Lamps lead us orderly from one Petition to another from wherein his Kingdom is concerned to that in which our obeying the Laws of that Kingdom is related in Thy will be done by which we see the Table of the Shew our necessary bread whence we go forward to the brazen Altar whereon we lay our sin-offering in Forgive us our debts c. and having sanctified our selves as Priests we ascend to the third Part the Holy of Holies For thine is the Kingdom the power and the glory for ever at the end of which or rather the head we have the glory of the Lord in a cloud in this word Amen filling it self and the whole house with the light thereof Of the Preface then next of the Petitions and lastly of the Conclusion let us treat CHAP. I. Our Father which art in Heaven IN these words we have goodness Our Father next greatness which art in Heaven They are the head of the Christians Prayer and like that of the Spouse it is as the most fine Gold and weighs thus much that we should be so circumspect in our walking and living upon earth as to be accounted worthy to posses our Parents Inheritance in Heaven unto whom we pray whence ariseth those duties of lifting up of the heart of the voice of the soul of the eyes unto God They have also in them the Person we pray unto Father the relation we pray under Our Father the place we pray unto which art in Heaven all ushering-in the several Petitions Our Saviour more boni Oratoris as an Orator here patterns and becomes a Patron unto goodly Prefaces whereby our Petitions are proposed with greater gracefulness and sweetness and what shall more readily procure affection than Praise and Praise is placed upon the Porch of this Prayer in that our Lord will have us begin to beg no otherwayes then by calling the great God our Father insinuating praise and love which rule had the Gadarens observed they had not so prophanely besought Christ his Son to have departed from their coasts To have our Prayers quadrat and conform to this holy Preface We shall discover 1. What lyeth couched under this Name Father 2. What reasons might induce our Saviour to give him that Name 3. The special excellencies by which most eminently he merits that Name In beholding the first both thee and I Reader are to behold What astonisheth Angels What makes the Heavens to wonder and the Earth to tremble which flesh cannot express And I said A great Preacher dare no utter yet dare not be silent The Lord grant that I may speak and you may hear this great thing viz. Gods giving himself to the Earth and we our selves to Heaven Both which is granted to be done in these words Our Father which art in Heaven Our Father c. THis Name Father is as the Angels name Secret and wonderful yet with Moses we shall view its back-parts And first of all we may perceive the whole Trinity in nature For the Lord God is a Father God the Son is a Father God the holy Ghost is a Father Or without errour we may understand the first person of the Deity in order sometime called the Father of Rain of Iesus Christ and again the Father of Grace the first having in it some vestigia of his power the second being the express image of his person the third the similitude of his nature and holiness And to him we may cry as to the first person with David Be merciful unto me O God be merciful unto me and also in the same phrase Father We may call to
worthy of glory but God so they only give to him their praises and their prayers and that upon good reason For 1. Angels will not have his glory and they are intelligent An Angel in the Old Testastament refused an offering and another will not have thanksgiving in the New both commanding them to be performed to God expounding these to be prayer and praise what is Romes meaning or to what purpose are those Prayers and Letany's in that Church Sancte Gabriel Sancte Raphael omnes Sancti Angeli Archangeli orate c. O thou Angel Gabriel Raphael and all ye Angels and Archangels pray for us I like that part of another office better and shall subscribe unto it O Sancta Immaculata Virginitas quibus te laudibus efferam nescio O thou blessed Virgin in what words to praise thee I know not the same I say of praying as either are interpreted Adoration This is not said to infringe the glory of these holy and glorified Saints who are to be honoured with great reverence and their names to be mentioned with great respect and their vertues to be imitated with all indutry but to hallow their names or thier vertues with a remitte or an ora pro nobis we have no warrant because no rule of faith The ground of Romes Doctrine touching the worshipping of Angels is so beastly that it is shameful to publish aâ—resh yet so irrational that it may be profitable to reprint it it was this as we read from a learned venerable Doctor of the English Saxon Church In Apulia vulgarly Puglia a Provicne in Italy in the Kingdom of Naples near the City of Siponia there was a rich man called Garganus having much Cattel which fed in a Mountain of the same name in which herd there was a wanton proud Bull which could not be got home with the rest but still kept the Mountain for which the owner resolving to kill him provided Bow and Arrow but in shooting at the beast the Arrow reverted and turned upon himself at which being amazed he tells his Bishop who did appoint a three dayes fast that God would discover what was signified by the wounding of Garganus when the Arrow was levelled or aimed at the proud Bull On the third night the Archangel Michael told the Bishop scias quia à voluntate Dei hoc factum est that all was done by the appointments of God and commanded the ground whereon the Bull stood to be consecrated and set apart for prayer shewing them under it there was a Cave and in the Cave an Altar and upon the Altar a red Pall or Cloak ibi facite orationes vestras hebete memoriam meam auxiliabor vobis there say your prayer call upon my Name and I shall help you all was searched and all was found and all was done accordingly Haec fuit saith my Author prima causa and this was the first cause or rise that Angels were remembred or worshipped upon earth he must mean by Romes authority for otherwise the same doctrine was taught in but exploded the Church before and from that time to this present are they remembred in the Church c. This is such a Cock and Bull story as the proverb hath it that it needs nay deserves to have no answer but a his And the ground of it being ut legimus as we read so that it may be ture or false and if true nothing in it but what might have been done by the devil and therefore in all respects such practices are to be shunned by worshipping of God for which we have a sure foundation I pass the Fables for so let me call them which the same Author throngs the proper festivities withall for were Peter or Mary upon earth they would undoubtedly blush at the absurdities of their zealous though ignorant prayers and cause Iohn comment upon on his old text Babes keep your selves from idols And Paul upon his let no man beguile you of your reward in worshipping of Angels and not holding the head c. 2. Saints will not have this glory and they are prudent When read we that a Noah prayed to Enos though his piety and translation were notour or that a David prayed to an Abraham or that any Israelite unto or obtained mercy by his holy Ancestors Nay contrary they urged that because of Abraham's being ignorant of them and their being not regarded by Israel God would be their Redeemer his Name being from everlasting 3. The other creatures will not have his worship or his glory and they may be observed Every pile of grasse hath a finger to point up to its Maker in Heaven and day unto day uttereth speech and readeth Lectures of Gods wise government powerful providence and rich mercy At Madrid the upper Rooms of Houses belongs by Law to the King and are not to be used untill they be compounded for by the Inhabitant and to this only wise God the King eternal not only the upper Room which is Heaven doth belong but the lowest pit also for in his hand are the deep places of the earth and ought not to be used by us before we satisfie the Law by praying and praising in doing which we add to the revenue of his glory Ezekiel saw his glory in Heaven Isaiah saw it upon earth and we ought to study the beholding of both for though his heavenly glory we cannot see with that Prophet yet we may perceive something of the appearance of it in his holy Word Heavenly Motions divine Commandments at which sight we are with the other to â—all down upon our faces and with loud cryes bemoan our infirmity vilenesse and uncleannesse His glory upon earth is so clear that he who hath eyes may see it in the clouds which are his Chariots our ears can hear the birds warble in their way the praises of their Maker the fields clap their hands in contemplation of which we are to cry Vnclean unclean for this said Isaiah when he spake of him and saw his glory and thereupon was comforted and purified 4. If we consider either our good or duty we shall own him only for God Reason leads many but profits command all persons it is rational it is profitable to ascribe only glory and honour to our Father For If you eye Conscience he can only quiet that if the Church absolve and the Spirit thereby settle doth the Word of Christ apply and the soul therupon rejoice It is but in his Name they acting but in deputation from him It is he that discovers sin that we may be in our selves nothing It is he that makes us hate sin that before him we may be holy If you eye dependence he only maintains you At first Heaven was made by him the Earth the Sea and all the Creatures therein because saith Nehemiah thou preservest them all the host of Heaven worshippeth thee
upon his adversaries and foes And truly upon the opening of our mouth depends the enlarging of our Tenements and if we be straitned in our houses it is because we are first straitned in our bowels not thinking upon God so much as in a dream with Pilats wife Since this large promise sounds in our ears Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it that is enlarge it by desire confession and by love it shall be filled with my self and my glory 3. His truth is only engaged to the prayerful Heaven may be as equally expected without holiness as mercy can be imagined to come without a duty And when we seek then only have we reasonably a ground to hope the Precept being Ask seek knock which is done by praying first next by well-doing the third by persevering to the end which last crowns our devout performances The door of the Tabernacle was not of hard Cedar nor massy silver but a vail easily penetrable so is Heaven yet it had a vail so hath Heaven which by prayer we must draw aside enter in and pleasd for atonement for which his house is not called a house of strength though we be there confirmed nor of knowledge though we be there instructed nor of justice though acquitted but of prayer because in that God will be reconciled That man stands constantly bound to this kind of officiating and advocating for himself or others before the Bar and sight of God is clear beyond a demonstration For 1. His indigency makes him look out for help He knows he must pay and again he knows he cannot pay his debts nor deliver himself from evil Can he creat one drop of rain for removing thirst or form a morsel of bread to abate hunger He is to speak ingenuously so poor that ability wisdom health consolation life hath he none but what he must beg for at the Gate of Heaven The Centurion can command his servants to go and do this or that but cannot order his disease to remove or say to the Palsie be gone When King David had a multitude of sins he repairs not to the number of his Troups but addresses to his Saviour for a multitude of tender mercies All the Royalty of his magnificence being insignificant to allay the pain of his broken bones without the aid of Heavens skilful yea alsufficient Artisâ— 2. There is no other way found out whereby he can get help When Seth called his son Enos that is miserable men began to call upon the Name of the Lord Christ as man took no way to be freed of his bitter passion then a Transeat calix iste Father if it be thy will let this cup pass from me The Saints being wise men had but confession and lamentation to procure to themselves the best things of Heaven When Peter was in prison prayer was made and Peter miraculously liberated hinc clare apparet saith one It is manifest by this how successful Prayer is when a Pope is in prison but we say no less briskly and far more truly it is by this demonstrable how prevalent Prayer is when a Church is afflicted and a member thereof in distress It is true that Dives found out in a pinching strait another medium for salvation by desiring some to be sent from the dead But as I intend not to detect his folly so I trust I need not discuss the vanity of that surmise yet remember he took Prayer as the most adapt mean for the accomplishing the thing contrived I have not a friend said a poor woman in extremity but I can pray and that never failed me All other instruments without this are like Iobs friends Physicians of no value whereas Prayer is like Goliah's sword None to that Say therefore Give it me 3. No way to have a sanctified use of what is given him for help Mercies Crosses Sacraments Miracles are only by Prayer fitted for us and applied by us for good All is sanctified by the Word of God and Prayer that is by Christ through Prayer the Word sanctifying for and procuring a blessing to every enjoyment Sin makes not only our actions but our possessions to send forth a stinking savour whereas Prayer causeth all as incense grateful to the nostrils of the Almighty and puts him in love both with us and ours for which the Church is compared to Mountains of Myrrhe and unto Hills of Frankincense By Mountains understand the strong fixed and resolute determinations of mortifying sin and corruption and by the Hills learn to be humble in Prayer yet fervent and the soul may be acertained of a visite from and cohabitation with Christ for unto the soul thus qualified the Bridegroom gets him untill the day break and shadows flee away holding forth the perpetuity of his residence for we may English that untill Time shall cease and Eternity appear And that all our forecasts or designs may daily imbibe the favourable influences of prosperous goodness it is a pertinent advice of one to begin every day with the duties of Adoration Thanksgiving Charity Contrition Petition to press which upon other considerations do but reflect upon Prayer in its easiness sweetness and suitableness 1. The easiness of it upon our part Prayer makes the soul keep alwayes Holy-day and save for it we are to be careful for nothing There are many dark thoughts in some about the issues of death the fruits of sin the weakness of flesh the remissness of duty the vexations of the world but Prayer husheth all by making request of God and pouring forth the sense of the spirit before him and says to such as the three Children to that Heathen King We are not careful to answer thee or you in this matter Pray pray said an English Martyr to his Wife I am merry and I trust I shall be merry maugre the teeth of all the Devils in hell Pray pray pray c. This mean made the holy Martyr in lingring flames to cry Welcome life welcome everlasting life Daniel fought not with the Lions but prayed and he was in the Den Hezekiah purged not for his disease and he was in the bed the converted Thief strugled not for life but prayed and he was on the Cross. And where ever the Christian be he can erect an Altar for himself yea though he bow not the knee not list up his hand nor smite upon his breast yet if he list up his soul he offers an acceptable sacrifice which the Servant can do in the Mercat the Page upon the Road the Butler at the Binne and the Cook in the Kitchin God requiring the heart at all times in all places provided the Petitioner put not off his devotion to these places and times 2. The sweetness of it upon Gods part He is our Father a word of delight which is in Heaven a place
Pharisee go not too high blurt not out thy desire without some Religious Preface After this manner as Daniel O Lord the great and dreadful God and remember that proud beggars may go hungry away whereas the humble and meek may get succour for it is a Throne of grace affirming mercy and there is an Art in begging and a reward for that Art as the Publicane will shew you 2. With awfulness but not with distraction Is he a Father he will be honoured Is he a Master he will be feared now he is both and to both our behaviour must conform he speaks not love expresly in the Prophet but of fear and honour because he was not yet become like one of us in the Incarnation of the second Person As Sons we are to reverence and honour him which we do not but when we love which shuts out amazement and terrour as a slave because as Sons we serve for love and waits in love for the time of possessing the Inheritance For even the visions of mercy and beauty did put Iacob to a fright yet made him not forget his Pillar his Oyl his Vow nor his Liberality If therefore you call on the Father after this manner do it viz. passing the time of your sojourning here in fear For these two words Our Father as they are sensed by our Royal Interpreter are inserted to put us in mind that we are but dust and ashes learning thereby to have our reverence mixed with a sweet confidence in his love God being both a kind Father and a great King will not have these divorced what he hath joyned together and what the great Emperour Sigismund would never have separated for being questioned whether it was better for a King to be loved or feared as angry at the division replyed God will be both feared and loved and so must Kings God is optimus we know and therefore to be loved but as the best so he is maximus the greatest the King of Kings the Lord of Lords Hence God shall bless us and all the ends of the earth shall fear him 3. With plainness yet with meditation How loftily could our Saviour have composed this Prayer and with what sublimity of stile could he have expressed the Deity yet as himself was swadled in clouts and his Type Moses wrapped in flaggs so shrowds he the glorious Trinity under the low Canopy of this tearm Father and we must pray after this manner For the want of meditation makes our devotion flatulent and windy by empty words or unseemly Barne-like expressions plain praying may become uncivil pratting It is true there ought to be more Religion in our Prayer then Eloquence yet this palliats not the absurdities of them whose petitions are arrayed in nastiness and withal making empty frothy repetitions from which let me tell you again our Saviour dehorts by this form from one Battus as the word imports Poaeta quodam a certain empty Poet inculcating tediously through ignorance on the same verse as In illis Montibus inquit erant erant in montibus illis That is Hills were in that Land and in that Land were Hills from which some determineth Battus to be a stammerer and necessitat to utter the same words over through impediment of speech as well as ignorance of mind before his sentence could be perfected which no wayes excuseth such who are impeded in their elocution by a wilfull and knowing rejectment of the proper means of laudable utterance which is study and meditation Strive therefore against vain repetitions in Prayer by communing with your own heart and taking with you words If volubility of expression be denyed or variety of sentences not promptly minted The Roman Orator himself may see the Rules of his own Art sanctified by our Saviour in the composure of this Prayer And a greater then Cicero the Preacher of Ierusalem because he was wise sought to find out acceptable words and spake gracefully so Christ spake graciously yet so plainly that never man spake like him yet that plainness was so heavenly and so purely delivered that it will be our learning and our wisdom in both to imitate him and pray after this manner Once more let us press this Cluster of Grapes for its juice is sweet Our Father having in it yet more encouragement for us and still discovereth something to be done by us as mercy on his part and love upon ours 1. Mercy or compassion in his bowels supplying our wants By his eyes at a distance he knows our indigence as the Father knew the Prodigals neither doth long absence from him cause us to be forgotten to perswade to which we have not only the parable of the lost sheep of the clocking hen yea the shortness of this Prayer but a reiterated Precept joyned with a comfortable Promise Remember these O Iacob and Israel for thou art my servant I have formed thee thou art my servant O Israel thou shalt not be forgotten of me 2. Our love unto him opening our straits in all or any extremities whether can doth or ought a child to take Sanctuary rather than in his Fathers bosome Let Rome with Israel go aside to Saints with Iudab let us be faithful to this rule and adress to God who hath begotten us And in sound reason he who saith to the Virgin Mary Pater Noster may be suspected to have a flaw in his Pia Mater This expression of Father as it holds forth love ought to excite servent affection or then justly might we be charged with ingratitude unnaturality and idolatry which last to avoid with Battalogy and Hypocrisie this rule is given to the Churches Mercy alwayes meriting duty his love to us in becoming our Father craves from us as dutiful and heavenly born sons imitation delectation fellowship and assurance of acceptance 1. Imitation of his holiness Is it not written as obedient children be ye holy for I am holy Ergo hoc sit primum said the Melifluous Cicero teaching his Orator the first precept I give is this that we study whom to imitate and let it be him who excells in that the imitation whereof is designed but shews to his son that this choise flows from our own will which God in his sons will have to bear no sway but commands holiness because he is holy Urging more authoritative wayes to perswade to vertue than that Roman exhortted implicitely his son to goodness from the example of Hercules who being young had presented two wayes unto him one of pleasure which was fair broad c. the other of vertue narrow difficult and hard yet as a true son of their great Iupiter their conceited god he choosed the last When wickedness though painted is seducing us to embraces and offering the way of the sinner let us as sons of the most High resuse such Syren enchantments and say with David Depart
below stairs when compared to us and our Congregations in the higher rooms 2. More hope for us The people of old did ordinarily draw near God by vertue of their Covenant-relation with confidence yet to us there was a better hope brought in by which we draw nigh to God that is a better Law by which its observers hopes for a better inheritance then an earthly Canaan which both makes us draw near to God and by the same hope God draws nigh to us Bias being questioned what was sweetest to men replyed hope And the knowing Christian will with Iob keep his soul alive while other comforts are fledg'd and gone with this that his Father is in Heaven his Redeemer liveth there The Romanes conjectured good or ill success from the very Preface which ushered-in the debates of their publick affairs which made Severus Augustus speaking to his Army resolve upon a fortunat Proem yet fortune prompted him to a sad prologue Heliogabulus the Emperour being killed c. which was interpreted an ill Omen predicting his own slaughter which Fate verified he being afterward murthered by his own Army But in this Prayer we have a sure ground sor determining the enjoyment of future good whether spiritual for attaining glory in the approach of his Kingdom or temporal for procuring our food by daily bread from the very entry of this form commanding us to say Father which is what one saith all Gospel-precepts are nothing less then laying the foundation of our hope a Pillar for the strengthning of our faith meat for the nourishment of our heart a guide to direct us in journey a garrison wherein we are secure untill we receive eternal glory 3. More honour given to God by us This old name Iehovah shews how he enjoys himself but Father demonstrates he hath begotten us which should draw the more respect by how much our Redemption is more honourable then our Creation the first of which makes the Angels more curious and prying they desiring to look into to the depth of it the rise the cause of it for though they rejoiced at the world because of its beauty yet they wondred that in the world there should be a Mercy-seat so great is the mystery As his redeemed sons we have a precept to command him concerning the work of his hands and therefore the more he is to be reverenc'd for his large proffer and we engaged to stand the more in aw because of his gracious condescendency 2. This tearm Father is a fastning and a more binding style and so suits best with grace The elder Brother did keep at home and served because he was a Son and the younger after a prodigal wasting of his portion returned because he had a Father Our Lord directs us to use this word as every way tying us to oblidged duty to keep at home when in his favour and to return home to prevent his anger It binds us in respect of Christ of Obedience Chastisement Resignment 1. In respect of Christ our Brother He is only the natural and eternal Son of God by whom we have only power to be called Gods Sons and in that regard it is necessary to cleave to him more fast as Ruth to Naomi for death there could and did make a separation but if we would be happy we must die in Christ and afterward rise with him This made the Church call Make haste my beloved and be like a Roe or a young Hart upon the mountains of spices so called from the hight of devotion and the fragnancy of works and conversation that by both I may be carried unto thee meaning Christ and by thee to the Heavens which are mountains because of their highness and mountains of spices because of their sweetness Jesus sitting as Mediator praying for us as oft as he hears us pray Our Father knowing his merits must be our shield and buckler untill we be past Gun-shot 2. In respect of obedience in our whole nature The all-wise God took this course to keep his people from apostacy and commanded them to say My Father and they again doubted not to come after backsliding because he was the Lord their God whence floweth the precepts of imitation that as obedient children we do not fashion our selves according to former lusts but in speech eyes in heart to be perfect as he is perfect that is in sanctity mercy and pity having a double of the Law and exact copy of his will written in our hearts for facilitating our studies 3. In respect of chastisement for our misdemeanour Some dogs when beat and servants when reproved will run from their Masters and howl but an ingenuous child when corrected will draw towards his Father and cry It was prettily said of a little one when chastised Mother kiss me and whip me again yet possibly the same infant would have strugled and have sought if but frowned upon by a stranger To roar against or complain of God holds forth no sign of son-ship since correction is a character and consequent thereof and therefore to be patiently undergone Even earthly parents chastising it may be out of spleen passion for their pleasure will be endured by their children or at least much of it since they are also flesh and not to be provoked how much more ought that Father to be tolerat whose commands in his Prophets Law and in his Gospel command what is just holy and good never smiting for transgressing thereof but for our profit that we might be partaker of his holiness and glory which should never be inherited were we left to our wantonness wickedness or folly This last made the covetous Emperour Mauricius endure the beholding and slaughter of his Queen and five sons by that Rebel and Usurper Phocas himself also after them to be likewise murthered with a Iustus es Domine Righteous art thou O Lord and upright are thy Iudgments submitting himself unto and patiently bearing the severity of that sad and sharp providence This Argument may be yet sharpened at the Philistines sorge sor so necessary is it sometimes to be brought under the smart of perplexing dispensations that Zeno being questioned by one of his pupils why he never corrected him smartly replyed Quia non credo because I do not believe Insinuating their want of any hope or sign of goodness in him created his impunity And if you eye God he hath reason to fear his Son-ship and conclude bastardy who is exempted from or doth not patiently endure the Cross. 4. In respect of resignment to the will of the Creator Children leave the nature kind proportion colour of food dyet and apparel to their parents and eat the portion that is carved for them with content and thanks And though perversness in babies should cause them walk cross to this rule yet let us take out of the Lords
hands the presented morsel of whatsoever kind Knowing that like an indulgent parent if we receive this or that contentedly from him he may give us choice and liking in all other matters and study like a father to please us being obedient in cloaths or money He that peruseth Solomons Dream with the Response thereof may understand the meaning of this rule Christ prayed to his Father for deliverance from the bitter Cup and though S. Matthew shews he drank it yet S. Paul relates he was heard in what he asked but how he submitted to his Fathers will and Angels comâ—orted and strengthned him so against fear that with a daring Majesty he faced those murtherers with an I am he Behold the Handmaid of the Lord said Mary Be it unto me according to thy word Let us be ready for service and we shall be crowned with the reward In all things let it be according to his Will with us and it shall be his will to do great things for us and as Holy is his Name so holy and just are all his purposes and then are we holy when we know it 4. Father is a more comprehensive stile and so fitter for our weakness As every word in this Prayer hath an ample sense and each Petition of an enlarged nature so this word Father though short in Letters yet of so huge bulk in sense as would puzle Angels to expound When we pray for daily bread we also intreat an easy bed good rest for wholesome meat at home and kind friends without a fair way when we travel for a good horse when we ride sound Ship when we sail and for seemly cloaths when we visit our acquaintance so that the word bread is of a copious nature and this word Father not short of it in signification comprehending Creation Regeneration Preservation Discrimination 1. Our Creation Each son of man is a son of Adam who was the son of God so that our radical being was from him and stamped at first by the hand of his power being Earth with Life Reason and Religion which not only as brethren binds us in affection to one another but as children units our tongues to express this word Pater Father all of us being created by him I have somewhere read that in a firait Lady Elizabeth afterward Queen of England cryed Lord look upon the wounds of thy hands and be merciful to the works of thy own hands 2. Our Regeneration Christ having taught us now under the fall to call Our Father minds us not only that he did make but hath also re-made us At first indeed in Adam we had great possessions and our service altogether praise but by his not paying the contracted fore-quit-rent of exact obedience forefeited his priviledges and we as heirs of his body lost our inheritance and being filii diaboli sons of the devil we are born again and become a-new filii Dei In evidence whereof the eternal Son of the same Father teacheth us confidently in Prayer to call his Father and God our God and Father Iesus the Mediator of the new Covenant having procured peace in Heaven for a re-admission into our heavenly Paradise hath given us power to become the sons of God in our consciences and by the the testimony of the Spirit knowing he came from the bosome of the Father shewing the good Fathers good pleasure of our addressing our selves to him though we have back-slidden with love confidence and joy in our Father Thy Kingdom come c. This to the reprobate cannot be affirmed God in this last sense being no more his Father or they his children spiritually then David the son of Goliah when he sought against him or Pipes and Organs the off-spring of Iubal because he made them 3. Our preservation We can speak and call for help hope look and rejoice in the very expectation of our Fathers succour yea benefactors are called Fathers and where there is a personal agreement to perform all offices of love the recipient from respect may use the appellation Father He gave us milk and life and cloaths appointed for us the weeks of the harvest numbreth our hairs preserveth our bones It s true his Angels have charge over us yet as a Father he hath his eyes upon us though those Angels as servants have a command to lead us sor our greater security Our good things he giveth us as his glory and kingdom evil things he puts far from us as our necessities and debts all desirable things he hath promised us and we believe him because the Kingdom and Power and Glory is his of all which we are to have a share being his off-spring 4. Our Discrimination It is a compellation differencing us from Heathens who know not God the Father from Jews and Turks who believe not in the Son and from all who fight against him as an enemy Tremell that famous Jew and Translator of the Syriack-Bible being at his death asked concerning his faith answered Vivat Christus pereat Barrabas Let Christ live and â—arrabas be crucified Distinguishing himselâ— by this from his blood-thirsty fore-Fathers and numbering himself among those whose confidence was in Jesus which Our Father also doth he adopting us only in his Son 4. Father is a more aluring stile and so more conformable to prayer In our Petitions we are to exercise the Graces of Hope Faith and Charity unto which this title brings in singular supports on Gods part upon mans account 1. On Gods part For we in Prayer can lay hold upon his affection Though we be as grashoppers and unworthy to be admitted to glory yet worthy is the Lamb his Son our Saviour who hath procured it for us in whom his providence saith of us to all his creatures what David said of Absalom to all his Commanders Deal gently with the young man with the old man with the sick person and tender infant for my sake though the Prodigal had spent his All yet because he confides in his Father and returns bemoans and repents he is arrayed with honourable raiment entertained with delicious sare and honoured with melodious musick to chear his heart to beautifie his countenance and attract respect from beholders 2. On our part for we in this life ought to have filial conversation This Prayer is not for dogs and therefore taught only to Sons which we are when we obey reverence and walk in our Fathers footsteps The debauch'dnesse of Angustus Daughters made him call them not children but imposthums boils of his body Shall not God much more reprove reproach them who give out they are begotten of him when the seed of the Serpent remaineth in them and the poyson thereof spreading to the infection of others contrary to duty nature and profession because they confess our Father Our Father THe eminent and transcendent acts by which the Name of Father is assumed by
with contemplating of Earth This so pray ye to shew it once more renders Heaven the object of our eye and therefore of our heart to be looking to Heaven and pointing to the Earth with the Roman Senator is to become sharers of his deserved scorn and yet how many are there while Heaven is in their mouth flesh fish or ships are in their heart Acting too truly what in the Fable is said of the Wolf when at School for learning to spel Pa-ter Father but being by his Master ordered to put them together in stead of Father said Agnus Lamb thinking on his prey An userer at the same time made the like proficiency and in place of Fa-ther said Pecunia Money But let not this be among you he is in Heaven and hath his eye-lids trying the children of men not but that he is every where but in Prayer he is by design said to be in Heaven that our hearts and minds may be lifted up to the excellency of his dignity and greatness having all things naked and open before him and therefore thy hypocrisie is apparent thy in-side being naked 4. That Prayer is to be quickned by confideing in the All sufficiency of God to give what is asked whether things of Heaven or of Earth By the Heavens and influences therefrom is Earth and Sea sustained he is in Heaven therefore in the Air upon the great Waters And because he can order all for his peoples good we are not to despond and doubt of his soveraignty but let our necessities be known whether for the Wine-press or for the light of the Sun or for the Cattel upon a thousand hills fish in the Sea Fowls of the Air Angels in Heaven or mercy from his bosome for his Son we need not doubt redressing He is in Heaven and thence he gave horns to the Bull hoofs to the Horse teeth to the Lyon finns to the Fish wings to the Bird scent to the Dog motion to the Air coolness to the Water heat to the Fire light to the Sun chain to the Devils strength to the Angels his Image and his Son to man what therefore should make the humble Orator to pray sorrowing as those without hope O thou of little faith wherefore dost thou doubt He is Almighty God walk pray before him and be perfect be confident 5. That Prayer is continually to be qualified with earnest considerations tending to the honour of God while we are upon Earth It is a dishonour for a Prince to have suits made in his presence-Chamber not adequat to the dignity of that room To ask of thy Father in Heaven meat money or cloaths to debauch with the glutton to swill with the drunkard entice with the stallion is a reproach unto his Majesty ask things fit for Heaven and do things like Heaven that it may be known thy Father is in Heaven that is in thee as some expound these words saying Illi sunt Coeli These are Heaven in whom there is Faith Gravity Continency Knowledge and a heavenly life Fulgentius while young had frequently these thoughts fluctuating in his breast Cur sine spe c. Why do I live on Earth without the hopps of Heaven what profit shall the world at last bring me if we love to be merry is it not better to have a good conscience and how much better do they rejoyce that fear nothing but sin and studie but how to keep the Law c. Let us pray for these or the like matters as for the avoiding of judgments for they are revealed against all unrighteous men from Heaven or for procuring of grace for that becomes Heaven And all weighty matters bearing equality with Heaven View the whole fabrick of the Lords Prayer and there is nothing can be accounted trivial or base in it the forgiving of sins deliverance from evil the bread of our necessity the fulfilling of his will the advancement of his kingdom are substantial and solid purposes so is the request that 's first because the chief end of all for the hallowing of the Name of God which being the first Petition as impatient of any longer delay we put a closure to the Preface Our Father which art in Heaven CHAP. II. Hallowed be thy Name THis is the first part of the holy place which our eyes are invited to behold I say invited for otherwise its dazling might not only amaze us but utterly darken those Casements of the soul those balls of light our bodily eyes our souls intelligence What some have observed of all the Petitions may be attested of this one it being 1. short 2. full or comprehensive where by the way their arrogancy may be detected whose popularity made them in publick give this Prayer correctior emendatior abridged or enlarged to the people as their emptiness or vanity gave them occasion or eloqution Let thy Kingdom come in our dayes cryed one Lord lead us not into temptation cryed another equally absurd yet excusable because it might be from ignorance in regard of them whose singularity and pretended holiness ascended the chair and passed an Act of Sequestration upon the Prayer it self discharging it in the Church so far as they could by their total ommission of it or stigmatizing them who used it but for all their eminencies the Lords Prayer is sacred and verily verily where ever the Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached that Prayer that he hath made shall be used for a memorial of him The Petitions like the Precepts of the Law are divided between God and man those aspecting God are first placed as Hallowed be thy Name c. those respecting man then follow as give us our daily bread so that hallowed be thy Name is the first Petition of the first Table in this Law concerning Prayer so pray ye because of which it is first to be considered It shall not be much here debated whether there be six or seven Petitions the Ancients are generally for seven so are the Romish Interpreters and some also of the reâ—ormed The number seven was by the Hebrews called numerus juramenti because Abraham in swearing to Abimelech took seven Lambs for a testimony by others it is called numerus ultionis the number of revenge for he that killed Cain vengeance should be taken on him seven fold By others numerus libertatis the number of liberty the Hebrew servant being liberat the seventh year By others numerus purificationis because the Leper was to be tryed by seven dayes and Naman washed seven times Hence some call it numerus Sacer the holy number God rested the seventh day Iericho was taken the seventh day Christ slept in the grave the seventh day Enos the seventh from Adam was translated We have seven Lamps in Zechariah seven Trumpets and seven Seals in the Revelation and David praised seven times in the day and this hath had so great veneration in
his said I not unto thee that if thou wouldst believe thou shouldst see the salvation of God In all conflicts we have seven grounds for consolation 1. The mercy bounty and love of God 2. The mediation of Jesus Christ. 3. The sealing of the Spirit for the day of redemption 4. The Covenant of grace by which we are adopted as sons 5. The seals of that Covenant in the Sacraments 6. The gifts of the Spirit to persevere 7. The example of those Saints whose iniquity hath been pardoned whose souls have been delivered as David Paul Zacheus Manasseh and the converted theif All which in spight of those numerous Troups which assault and oppress man in the contemplation of his own misery affords auxiliaries upon the only expence of a hearty Miserere mei Lord have mercy upon me sufficient to set the soul free from all disturbance and settle it against all shakings whatsoever 5. His Veracity to the doubtful is another letter of His Name and equally clear to that Motto engraven upon Aarons mitre HOLINESS TO THE LORD He hath many Names in Scripture yea and sirnames too as the mighty God the jealous God but his truth is one of those immutable things wherein we have strong consolation both in our life and death comparing his veracity with the transient and fading because airy promises or undertakings of men which are in our greatest extremity as volatile as are the passions and humours of the undertakers hence the Philosopher Pithagoras being questioned when men were likest the gods replyed when they spake truth that having but one face and one way said another like unto God without change or revocation He hath highly glorified this attribute 1. In the execution of those things denounced against sin and sinners which should make us fear his Name 2. In the Salvation of his Elect by his Sons condescendency At last the seed of the woman bruised the head of the serpent Let us accordingly rejoyce in his Name for the idols of the heathen are vain but our God is a God of truth 3. In the Preservation of all things made by his ordinary providence therefore presume not upon his Name hallow it but tempt it not our Saviour would not tempt the Lord by casting himself down from the Pinacle of the Temple there being a pair of Stairs for descension for he is said to tempt qui â—ine ratione who without necessity will cast himself upon or in an apparent hazard when otherwise it may be avoided So abstruse is the effence of Almighty God and so diffused is his power that the only one God in Scripture and with all people hath received different names to expresse his Nature by and beautified those names I might say sanctified and hallowed them Praeclaris Elogiis with singular and eminent Attributes from his existence he is called Iehovah from his being with us Emmanuel from his great authority the Lord of hosts from his dreadfulness a consuming fire from his goodnesse both we and the Germains calls him God or Godt and from his kindnesse he is ordinarily termed Father from the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that from his care over us as children in feeding begetting Say not of his Law then it is vain for it is his Name and every article thereof is good and necessary composed neither by Art nor mans device slight it not for its plainnesse simplicity which made the wise and learned Philosophers of the world disesteem it as not flaunting though yet it be majestically high for by its light our steps MUST be ordered by its food our souls nourished by its vertue our diseases removed by its edge our enemies subdued by its drawing our wounds cured and by its instruction heaven MUST be acquired Buy therefore Bibles Animae Pharmaca the souls Apothecaries shop there being their proper receipts not only against all diseases but antidots against all damnages and medecines to prevent all losses which the Spirit in its quickest intuition can behold it self capable to come under Creatures are but creatures and as to Salvation but meer consonants wherefore in comparison of the Gospel all creatures are to be abandoned If punishing with a vengeance those who deride its authority and sitting in the seat of the scornful give suffrage against its dignity The last words of a prophane courtier in this kingdom once were apagite away with these idle things concerning Christ I never believed there was a God a devil or hell and for which I am now damned and turned over to the devil to be eternally plunged according to my merit in the lowest hell and so died the Gospel being in readiness to revenge all disobedience either in life or at death Much better died Sanctus Dacianus Deacon of the Church of Vienna who in the midst of exquisite torments from persecuting heathens being demanded what he was Replyed I am a Christian this is my Name my Country my Family my Religion and besides Christian I am nothing and untill all things be accounted as dung in comparison of the excellency of the knowledge of Iesus Christ the Name by which we must be saved we shall never spell our own Salvation Abuse not his creatures his name is seen in them the basest of them if there be any base is wonderful and as a straw can puzle the wisest for know as false Doctrine so a profane life dishonours the name of God and affronts the Majesty of our Saviour eat not with the Glutton for delight sit not down with the Drunkard for good fellowship for bitterness proves the issue of unholy friendship Respect the Sacraments for his Name is also beheld in them by the one are we baptized in his Name and by the other nourished in the application of him in them both to our selves let them be Sacraments that is industriously prepare for them Sacra mente holy appetites making neither the Table of the Lord polluted by a meer customary coming nor the waters of the Sanctuary despicable by a careless beholding but sanctifie our selves in religious meditation upon the nature end and use of these sacred Mysteries that our Christianity may be fertile and evidenced to have a higher rise then education Our Baptism hath a more noble end then by a name to distinguish us among men for he that is baptized hath put on Christ that is de jure we are to be accounted the Sons of God or that we are covered and protected as with cloaths by Jesus Christ his Spirit giving us an inward garment in renovation an outward in conversation and in both by a conformity to his holiness or that by baptism all our sins as our bodies and imperfections by cloaths are covered by Christ our works affections our selves are changed into Christ which more discovers our monstrous baseness if for any reward much lesse for any lust we so
my God He all that day traveled in safety while his companions quickly fell in the hands they feared So good it is with all boldness to magnifie Christ even in our bodies whether it be by Life or Death or Fortune Further First that is in pronounciation Even in utterance our first words in Prayer are to have our Fathers Name as Lord God Almighty or his Sirname as God of all Consolation Father of lights or of our Lord Iesus Christ this being the homage to expound this in the words of an excellent King that we ow unto God before we make our suits it being arrogancy and an impudent thing for any Subject to make a suit to his Soveraign before he did his homage in a reverent accost To blame were these men then and scarce are those words to be accounted Petitions that some pretenders to Sanctity offered up in our late times and many still offer up in which the Name of our Father is not in the Preface nor his Son our Lord Jesus in the Conclusion the practice of the old Saints and yet with the true still accounted so necessary that that Prayer uttered without these holy Indications of the parties they pray unto are to be rejected as flatulent and windy dangerous and uncertain and not to have our Amen The sum of all is this that the Glory of God and the râ—ches of his invisible Kingdom together with the mysteries contained in the Gospel are more earnestly zealously constantly to be sought after by us then the possessing of any thing we see or know we want upon Earth God resolving that his works shall never be so much loved as himself It became the object of a Heathens scorn and laughter as judicious Calvin relates that men abused the eares of God with profane and unfavoury requests Yet how do Christians ask of God to bestow upon their lusts their consciences by that declaring they have no reverence nor fear to that Name Since our heavenly Master hath so plainly proposed a rule to us to pray by and in that his own Glory not riches or vain glory to bear sway to wanton with the Prodigal to be strong with the revengeful nor wise to defraud our Brother not so much as in imagination to be reflected upon but our Fathers honour unto which once more Reader suffer a word of exhortation And in all prayer 1. Praise God for mercies received For thy bread thy bed thy cloathing thy lodging thy strength cloak liberty knowledge and for thy hope of Heaven It is said of Israel she did not know that God gave her corn and wine but she prepared for Baal these blessings the highest act of ingratitude which consisting of four parts makes their unthankfulnesse the more grosse The first is not to return a benefit and do one good deed for another there is a greater not to remember a good deed there is yet a greater to say it was done by another but the greatest of all is to honour reward and thank the adversary of our benefactor this grieved God most that Baal the Devil his enemy had the glory of the good things he gave his people the same sin is acted by such who give the praise of their purchase to their arm their wit their diligence rather then to him It is a holy and true saying of one that praise compared with petitionary prayer praise excelleth it as far as giving is better then receiving And it was also a just reproof one gave of some Fasts celebrated in our days that they fell short in Thanksgiving for such mercies as were plentifully possessed The Children of Persia were in their play accustomed to hear try and determine causes and in earnest punished delinquency but causam ingratitudinis vehementer agunt they had a detestation of ingratitude towards god their Parents their Countrey their Relation and do but consider that Thankfulness is that Ward in the Key of Prayer by which we open the doors I mean the bowels of love it is the scarlet threed we hang out of the window of our soul to let God know we are within whereby we may be saved when those that forget God shall be turned into hell non vero verecundae sed ingratae mentis indicium est beneficia tacere divina it is not modesty but iniquity to be silent in sounding praise for divine beneficence 2. Praise him for the evils you have avoided O give thanks unto the Lord calls the Psalmist for he overthrew Pharaoh and his host and led his people through the wilderness for his mercy endureth for ever One requesting of Simonides a courtesie promising to be thankful he replied he had two Chests at home in onâ— whereof he put the Money in the other the thanks he got for service done and in occasion of using either he generally found that wherein lay the Money most helpful to him how good a God serve we that offers an absolute discharge of all we owe if we be but grateful nay will do us yet more good and deliver us for ever if we publickly say that he hath healed our diseases and redeemed our life from destruction Let us therefore be thankful since we reckon our selves among them that are to be saved yet not in words only but in works and actions and this true thanksgiving is when we do those exercises wherein God is to be glorified 3. Praise him in confessing the evils you have committed Against thee thee only have I sinned said David after his fall with Bathsheba that thou mightst be justified when thou speakest Reader give glory I pray to the Lord God of Israel and shew him what thou hast done It is not my scope to handle controversies here yet that auricular confession taught at Rome enters within my thoughts judging it 1. New 2. Impossible 3. Intolerable 4. Dangerous 5. Scandalous and oft times 6. Ridiculous c. But if a conscience like a raked up fire be very hot or aking as a putrid sore it is good to confess to God or man or to both the sin so pricking that the conscience may be eased The multitude that was baptized in Iordan confessed their sin and the sick believer may acknowledge his faults to his Pastor yea where he is not it glorifies God to acknowledge the commission of some attrocious crime as Paul â—wned he was a blasphemer for know how greatly soever the impudence of the sinner in sinning displeaseth God so much is he pleased with the penitents bashfulness when regrating Confession is so necessary for the acquiring of confidence in prayer in the sense of the Church of England that in her holy that is in her common service she first prepareth her children by a confession of their sin to receive according to the Gospel a pardon as being penitent and then ordains them and not before to say Our Father which art in Heaven
c. Davids acquitting God that he might be justified when he spake was but an acknowledgment of his unthankfulness for his gifts received in sining against his Law and unmindfull of all the good things he possessed Yea Daniel denyeth not but confesseth that to us that is to all belongeth shame and confusion of face because we have sinned bringing the sins of the people to himself because he was one of them aggrageing the guilt The acknowledging of our sin is so indispensible that he who confesseth not is never said to forsake them and he who trusts to pardon without this shall see his sin spread before him by the hand of God in blacker colours then his tongue eye or heart can behold or conceive and therefore spread them before the Lord in thy closet or else he will discover them in the face of the Sun It is a sad story which we read as but lately done of a dying man being Bedrid and hungry cryed for meat but at sight thereof so loathed it that he was earnest for its removal out of his fight his hunger growing loathed it as before it was removed and called for a third time and again removed at last he opened his mouth and confessed Gods justice in this dealing having never craved a blessing upon his meat when he sat down nor gave God thanks when he rose up Let them heed this that rising from meat thinks of â—othing but of sleep or it may be worse viz chambering and waâ—tonness 4. Praise him in bearing and exercising patience under evils imposed Troubles are touch-stones to try the mettal of a Christian and let hypocrisie keep never so closs it shall in some act or other be discovered They tryed a Iob and found him good gold they tryed a David and found him gold likewise but something dusted now and then he was tripping they searched a Daniel and made him more servent in prayer to put a soul under crosses is Dei mos Gods custome Virtutum flos the blossome of goodness Fidei cos the whet-stone of faith Coeli dos Heavens dowry whoso weds himself to Christ must look on crosses as a part of his portion and must not only glorifie in prosperity the Name of God but in adversity also declareing ourselves still to be under the regiment of his providence It is an argument of Gods love an argument of thy faith a medicament against thy sin and an incitement of thee unto thy prayers which ought to enforce thee to restrain thy passion in the most calamitous estate who in the tryal of thy patience in thankfulness supplants thy corruptions and provides for the future strengthning of thy gifts as a winters storm doth the young Ash Beech Elme or Oak tree I see not said the moralist boldly a more pleasant sight for God to behold upon earth if he would turn his eye toward it then to behold a Cato standing upright that is not dejected with our publick calamities sure I am to see a Iob upon the Dung-hill or a Solomon worshipping upon the Throne or Daniel depending in the Den gives far more exceeding satisfaction Inarius an old Bishop of Chalcedon becoming blind through age was mocked by Iulian and bid pray to the Galilean meaning Christ for the restoring of his eyes smartly answered gratias ago Deo I bless my Lord God for depriving me of sight that I might not see thy ungodly face extracting from his own infirmity matter of glory and praise to the eternal God in the face of a blasphemer 5. Praise him for that illumination thy soul hath obtained Reads thou upon his Sons cross Come unto me hears thou in the Sacrament this is the cup of the remission of thy sin knows thou in thy journeys his Angels have a charge over thee finds thou his Spirit saying thy sins are forgiven thee And shall there be no Halelujah of praise no Hosanna to him that cometh in the Name of the Lord Knoweth thou not thy self to be a sinful man a child of wrath a denyer of Jesus then call that the voice of the cock may awake thee and that tears as Peter may wash thee The cock hath crowed in the Scriptures and our Jesus hath already wept for us and Peter hath sent us two Epistles to strengthen us he himself being converted that we be not led away with the errour of the wicked but grow in grace and knowledge Have we abilities to pray be thankful for by that we journey unto God Have we instruction by the Gospel or behold we the edification of the Church the members thereof bearing much fruit Herein is your Father glorified rejoice and if you live in peace or keep a pure soul if you speak the truth in your heart and keep guile from your tongue become not tepid in Religion be not starters from the faith nor workers of iniquity nor captivated by errour for men beholding these things shall glorifie your Father which is in Heaven It is a good observe that this word Hallow is used because holiness is the highest title of honour and glory that can belong to any though to the most high God for the Seraphims being to give God the greatest mark of renown cry Holy holy holy is the Lord of hosts It was the honour of Ierusalem to be a holy city the glory of the third heaven to be a holy place and when Christ Jesus shall present his Church unto himself he will present it holy As we pray so we ought to practise and the holiness that God giveth unto us is that we be not deceived or become fornicators or idolaters or adulterers or effeminat or thieves or covetous or drunkards or extortioners but be washed and sanctified which we daily ought to pray for in the Name of our Lord Jesus that holy thing that holy child whose Name we pray may be glorified in you and ye in him for in this we differ from bruits and for this we have a spirit and a tongue viz. even to acknowledge the Lord for all his gifts according to the grace of God and his holy Govenant and the Lord Jesus Christ So shall he in the Hebrew be hallowed that is Halal be praised and the old English word healed secured protected or restored iniquity making God as it were sick and distempered in himself and damnified by others in his renown and glory And so much for this first Petition CHAP. III. Thy Kingdom come THE Holy Ghost in Scripture makes mention of a threesold Kingdom 1. That of God 2. Of Christ. 3. Of Heaven and all here may be truly understood it not being taught us as if God reigned not but that his reigning and domination might be manifested to all and hastned to us which is properly our inheritance being by the former Petition made holy and in the Preface adopted sons of glory There is mention
Syllable of this Prayer yea the very Preface of it Our Father is cloathed with Charity the second is equally conspicuous acknowledging our poverty in the fourth Petition our iniquity in the fifth our infirmity in the sixth c. We shall in the close of this Petition speak of the third and discover the zeal that ought to possesse the heart of the supplicant affixing this unto Thy Kingdom come yet ought it to be understood as appended unto Thy will be done Too much remissnesse and again over eager earnestnesse being equally offensive we shall discover the zeal we speak of the Arguments for it and Cautions concerning it Zeal being a hot impetus or warm affection heating the soul for practising duties governed by sound knowledge and right reason is included in the word Kingdom amplified by the Pronoun Thy and therefore vehement in our wishings and longings for its coming the very word Zeal denotes affections to be as fire that of the Pharisees earnestnesse to compass Sea and Land for a Prosylite was great no good zeal but if pitched upon the right object and mannaged with due circumstances as the love of God heeding the Word of God enflamed with a solicitous care for its advancement and attended with an innocent and holy hatred against its opposers as in David it is both good and great and in Paul it is both great and good It is composed of Love Fear and Anger in this Petition the love of God and the love of man the fear of his own weaknesse and the desire of the down-fall of Satans Dominion is clearly to be beheld It eyes chiefly the propagation of divine glory the Churches edification Satans destruction and the extirpation of all wicked Hereticks and sinners and ought to be in us not only at our prayers but in the whole course and practice of our lives being in every thing a zeal for Gods glory and our own and our Brothers good ought to be in us God hating dulnesse upon the one hand as well as rashnesse on the other Much of this Kingdom S. Paul possessed yet he reached forward unto those things that were before knowing only this that he made proficiency daily the world not yet being ended he pressed forward possessing the things he believed if not in re yet in spe not having them in possession though in reversion he endeavoured an intuition hating that Diagor an-like spirit now in man who declared he knew not whether there was a God or not and if there were was also ignorant of what nature he was With us dulnesse and carelessenesse of many in the affairs of God publisheth their uncertainty of the being and next of the quality of this Kingdom whereas he is only zealous who truly and soundly that is assuredly is acquainted with heavenly matters which in relation to this Kingdom every soul ought to be because of Safety Beauty Charity and our Dignity 1. Our safety for in his Kingdom there is no enemy Here every bramble-lust puts in for dominion over us excited thereunto by the old serpent whereby the spirits of the meek themselves are kept in a perpetual commotion to be liberat from which body of death and freed from that Law of sin consequences of the coming of this Kingdom the devout soul hath active considerations for its fruition and enjoyment Themistocles concluded that the knowledge of having a good neighbour might enhance the price of his house set to sale and the Countrey-fellow hath a Proverb we can live without our Friend but not without our Neighbour What a Countrey must that be where all are good Neighbours and not one evil among them Here we are not to trust in a Brother nor to put confidence in a Guide being sure either of guilt fear or danger every Adam having his Evah and she her serpent yea Iesus himself is not without a Herod who seeks his life But in that other Kingdom we have Christ that true Friend and Brother reigning over us the Forts of Satan our foe being battered and the dominion of Death our terrour being finished and the plotted-for place of Hell our torment being eternally secured from As Labienus at a treaty betwixt Cesar and Pompey cryed out so may the believer say of peace in this world Let us leave off speaking of peace or thinking of a truce untill we have Cesars head that is Satans head bruised and untill his dominion be overthrown 2. Our Stature is in his Kingdom that is our beauty What Zacheus among us by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature The Ark was a Cubit and half high shadowing that imperfection and â—railty attends our gifts and graces and as Children when we want who among us can do more then cry It is true that Noah was perfect but it was in his generation but in the Kingdom of God we shall be perfect men according to the stature of the fulnses of Christ. A Moralist required youth to have Temperance in the soul Silence upon their tongue and Modesty upon their face yet over and above a parent would have his Child have stature and shall we be zealous for Childrens comeliness and tepid in seeking our own perfection which can never be acquired but at the coming of this Kingdom and being with Enoch Candidats for Heaven and Students of Eternity ought we not to affect being Doctorat and set in the Chairs of everlasting bliss It was a shame for the Corinthians that after so much teaching as Paul gave them they remained still babes and not able to bear strong meat It is a note of our childishnesse in the affairs of God yea and somewhat worse that we do not in a holy emulation of the glorified Saints give all diligence if it be possible to attain the resurrection of the dead that is as perfect now as the glorified Saints are in Heaven and denotes causa excitandi studii nostri how we should be stirred up to aim at the same degree of perfection 3. Our Brethren are all in his Kingdom where is our charity Above us are all our Fathers Sons and about us are Adam's posterity the former edgeth our desire to be with them the latter fills us with fear and care for them that they also may be happy the first hath from our Father of the hidden Manna the new wine we have a portion of his bread i. e. the good Word of God but having brethren who hath not heard of the last and hath no prescience of the first and worshipping ignorantly an unknown God brings upon their souls swift destruction we are to have their names upon our heart when we stand before the Lord that unto them also might be given Repentance unto life The legal Priest who was of the sons of Aaron was to have fire alwayes burning upon the Altar before the Lord so the Evangelical also who
and sincerely 1. Conjunctly All the glorified number unites in this one thing of giving honour power and glory to the Lord because of all his wondrous works and such who desire to be of that Quire must to that Hymn in joynt devotion giveâ—n their Amen Israel must joyn with Egypt and Assyria avoiding neither because he is a Iew but beholding the Spirit of God breathing upon them must celebrate with them as Brethren though formerly aliens and with binding resolution each precede another by affection and in imitation of that glorified number though probably before different in opinion combine in this judgment to practise and do the will of the Lord for ever saying to dividing principles Abide here with the Asse and I will go yonder and worship c. 2. Continually Their eternal Sabbath is spent with unwearied ceasing in their serious attending his Throne we ought to be earnest and with David keep the way of his statutes unto the end i. e. sine impedimento incedam giving defiance unto the keenest temptation I shall gracefully persevere and imitably walk in the road and path of thy Commandments observing them in all my undertakings not putting on the royal apparel of Faith Righteousness and Obedience for the Throne or Temple but make them my daily garment yea my night-cloaths for at midnight will I arise and give thanks unto thee 3. Sincerely There is in Heavenly Saints a concord betwixt heart and harp being like the Sun transparent every cavity within them exceeding the Christal in purity evidenceth no disingenuity but perfect harmony in love in voice in desire in moving and in doing Abfuit ergo as true disciples of Christ let us hate dissimulation or willing to feign but let us do as well as sing I love the Lord otherwise as the devils we may speak much truth and with the reprobat do much good but neither being hearty it is not our own and the sooner shall we be accursed if we call out the Truth the Truth and not walk accordingly Not to separat what God hath joyned together both Saints and Angels in Heaven do the will of our Father joyfully humbly 1. Ioyfully Great content have they to be employed and great satisfaction have they all in doing the will and work of God Hail thou art highly favoured said Gabriel be it according to thy word said Mary to be sorrowing with the covetous young man for the sale of lust and discharging of thy sin or passionat or carelesse as was Pharaoh and Pontius Pilate is to contradict the spirit of God prompting thee to pray after this manner Thy will be done 2. Humbly Christ is represented to the Divine sitting at the right hand of the Father but the Angels and Saints about the Throne and sometimes falling down before it and then are men obedient when the precept not being delayed is heard by the ear saying Now the tongue saying arise the feet run and the hands saying all that thou commandest we will do That his will be done Reader in thy soul and in thy body in the heaven of thy soul and in the earth of thy flesh that as the Angels who are spirits thou spiritualized may live and do on earth his will as it is in Heaven The Popish Franciscus being demanded who was to be judged truly obedient ordered the exhuming of a dead body who would not be discontent how ever placed nor puft up though throned nor clamorous if dispised nor beautifull though gorgeously arrayed Such is the obedient doing giving suffering where word or providence gives order without wresting it or strutting it before the Lord. This word As either the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Germain Al 's importing similitude here denots a likenesse only not an equality we by it desiring amidst such encumbrances as the soul groans under to live inculpat as inoffensively as the Angels but to reach them in the large extent of perpetual conformity is a task beyond mortality for during our abode in houses of clay Ignorance malice weaknesse wantonnesse and wickednesse will affect us yet as children we may regard our copy and scorn luxury and all exorbitancy and lay aside superfluity of naughtinesse being perswaded that albeit the Character of our lives and actions be unproportioned we shall at length write fair and draw good Text Hand when in heaven we come to be perfect men in Christ Iesus For however obedience be here mixed with frailty and imperfection yet as a tender son endeavouring to execute his fathers will is approven so is it with God he requiring and blessing the will or desire for doing when the work it self may be defective so that though we arrive not at the perfection of the first or second Adam in doing Gods will which is to be found in the holy Angels yet we may acquire in obedience the perfection of Zacharias and Elizabeth which consists in the sincerity of our service We cannot and do not the will of God with the Angels speedily for like Lot we linger to go out of Sodom nor cheerfully for like Israel we murmure in the way nor fully for the good we would do we do not nor sincerely for our hearts are far from him nor perfectly for we know but in part and see but in part yet we are to strive after all this there being a time to come wherein all shall be obtained though now with Israel we compasse Iericho and with Sampson groan under blindnesse at length the siedge shall be ended in conquest and we revenged upon all Philistines that tormented us and all that we do shall be very good Therefore study for an enlarged soul that largely the will of the Lord be done for it is thy will not our own not every where but on earth not every way but as it is in Heaven that is doing it out of love and affection And so pray ye From all this we infer these four particulars 1. A necessity of doing Men came not into the world to stand idle or gaze about but to work and though sin and Satan put many to miserable drudgery it is still sloath except the work of God be done The heathen beheld and scorn'd the consumption of time in the inutile pursuits of the ordering plaiting and curling of hair of some phantasticks in his time and how with us such vanities are priveledged to inhabit the souls of too many is scandalously evident the saying of the prophecie of this book this prayer being kept neither in memory nor manners neither in heard nor heart c. 2. Timidity for failing The vitiousnesse of the age in spending the greatest part if not all time upon things â—innical ought to creat a fear both for our selves and others having for the doing of this will a patent not for one minut yet filling two times so nearly placed that there is
it is placed after all the Petitions that concern God insinuating that his work and glory is first to be done and then we may cause lay the cloath and put on bread We find that in times of Famine there have fallen showres of Wheat for the refreshing of the hunger-bitten and here we are directed without a prodigy to respect Heaven and not the Fields for Grain or the Mill for Meal but both sexes to imitate the vertuous woman and bring their food from afar For so pray ye Our Father which art in Heaven Give us this day our daily bread From the naked face of which words we discover a Law commanding care for and abstinence while we are in the body 1. Our care for the body For beauty proportion strength the body is so stately and curious a structure that it were impiety against nature to suffer or design delapidation the least hair whereof being allowed a place in Gods Note Book we may conclude its bowels to be more intensly regarded It is the souls Cabinet therefore not to be broke Christ died for it and therefore it is not to be slighted the earth is to conceal it and therefore is not to be strip'd yea Heaven is ordained for it and therefore it is to be honoured The soul indeed is to be the main not our only care but the body hath here Gods Image and shall if we be wise walk up and down in his inheritance above As Ioseph by faith gave charge to bury his bones we by the same grace may give charge concerning our bodies and order to set on bread The charge against shedding the blood of man is from this Argument For in the image of God made he man that image being in the blood tanquam in copula in the body tanquam in organo in the soul tanquam in proprio subjecto in its proper place the vital spirits are carried by the blood and upon them also depend all the senses and upon the senses depends the rational soul in which the image of God principally resides now take away bread the blood fails and by that the spirits fail and by them the senses fail and by that the soubremoves and by that the image of God We offer this to the consideration of the malicious who shedding the blood of man desaceth that goodly workmanship for whose preservation he is bound to pray it not being preceptive give me but give us our daily bread For quid est conservare humanitatem what other is the preservation of humanity then the loving of man because he is a man and the same that we our selves are and who doth it not dispoyls himself of the appellation man as not worthy to be so termed The superstitious also rivetting this request upon his own thoughts will be self-condemned his cutting tearing whipping and lashing himself making him Fellon de se in a sort a self-murtherer in renting the back or torturing the skin of that belly he prayes for c. The covetous also must not plead immunity from the mulct appended unto the breach of this Divine Law of cherishing the body as the fruit of his prayer for in his fordid baseness withdrawing from the flesh what God hath sent it and keeping from the belly its just modicum which it craves yet to his own annihilation it remains empty he in the mean time cramming even to nauseating the hollow bowels of a wooden box makes him culpable of self-hostility and impeding him in his spiritual traffick his cash but serves him to buy damnation For quid prodest what is the profit of concealed hoards and who knows not that by doing good and shewing mercy men shall find mercy and reap good but what shall he gather who is merciless to his own self It is good and comely for one to eat and drink yea deck his house and to enjoy the good of all his labour which God hath given him in neglecting whereof he becomes guilty of Idolatry in St. Pauls meaning and of Adultery in the sense of an holy Interpreter and abundantes temporalium inopes aeternorum being rich in this world is yet poor and yet more poor when it is considered he hath no treasure in Heaven If any object that we are not to take thought what we shall eat and the required zeal in the duty of prayer will certainly suffer intermission in enlarging upon dayly bread It is to be adverted that there is no repugnancy between give us bread and take no thought what ye shall eat c. The latter condemning distrustsulnesse and â—infull distraction not a prudential foresight of competent provision for Parents are to lay up for Children and a Master must provide for his Family and a man for himself 2. Our abstinence while in the body Abstinence in the judgment of the Orator did much conduce for conciliating People and Prince but in our Saviours Doctrine it is the sole medium for keeping Heaven and earth in concord so clearly that the great Amphiaraus who in life was accounted a great Prophet and after his death a reputed god among the Grecians advised their Priests before their consulting at the Altar to abstain one day from bread and three from wine Plato made his greatest seasts to consist in Salt Olives Chease and Herbs and he was called the Divine The Egyptians tyed their Kings by Law to a certain portion of wine and meat and they were accounted Sacred Yea bread water and salt velut exquisitis obsoniis as great delicats did the Persians give to their Children And we read that Martha after our Saviours Ascension did neither eat flesh nor drink wine untill she saw him whom her soul loved above BREAD the poorest boon that nature can ask and the least a Father can deny and yet the only great thing we are to entreat for Our Lord restraining the Petitioners hungering for luxurious fare and conjuring against riches delicates and gaudy Raiment the Pedissequae or handmaids of which are Wrath Intemperance Anger Arrogancy Injustice Pride and every evil work Becoming by joyning dinner to supper and drowning the body with drink oppressing the belly with meat a ludibrious spectacle to their own attendants who must convey the vomited carcase to a dormitory out of which its possible the besotted cometh more surious then before sleep procuring neither health nor ease to the ininflamed body All which courses to prevent or temptations to avoid we are only directed to pray for our dayly bread as Agur prayed for his convenient food unto which prayer it is thought our Saviour hath reference in wording this Petition and dissect food convenient or open dayly bread in our practice we shall find sobriety to be hominis prima medicina the chief Physician of man as one Father calls it and the Mother of health as another and so good for soul and body
the wise upon his religious son which being ineffectual roared out to the spirits themselves Inducias Inducias O let me alone untill the morning this as a Beacon is set up by an holy man that our lives being more vertuous our death may be more consolatory The death of the prophane is the sadest being ill first in leaving the world which they love worse in their souls removing from the body but worst of all in their being both soul and body adjudged to eternal condemnation It is observed of Egypt that after the flourishing of many famous Churches the Gospel being planted by the Apostles Alexandria it self having the Evangelist Mark Nephew to St. Peter for its Pastor or Bishop yet justo Dei Judiciâ— by reason of their sin the inhabitants being exemplarly wicked full of blasphemy and rape is now without God and generally hath a greater hatred to Christianity then the ordinary Saracens for which they are destined to eternal plagues Let this age know and every man in it fear and stand in awe for what is it Egypt had of ungodliness whereof we have not plentiful examples with this aggravation that we have had of old Christianity and of late great judgments Yet there is a Cautioner a Surety even Jesus who will pay the Creditor unto whom it is alike who pay him for by Christs stripes we are healed he entred into bond yea into prison for us and by rising from the dead the third day he both declared himself to be the Son of God and of his giving satisfaction to the utmost of all that was owing unto him making us thereby free from the Law of sin and death Yet so miserably are we deluded with self and self-conceit that debt is daily contracted by taking up more mercy abusing more time neglecting much grace thwarting many invitations quenching many good motions and by inadvertency falling into numerous temptations which continually call for fresh suits for forgivenesse and consider'd might cause expostulation with sin O peccata O wickednesse how easily dost perswade us to commit thee but with what difficulty do we procure riddance from thee While thou smiles we imbrace thee but while embracing thou art killing us to death and in death Eye the debter and he is so unable that his very soul cannot be full restitution eye the Creditor and he is so inexorable that he will be payed the utmost farthing by our selves or by our Cautioner and his suretyship is to be humbly intreated for for they are our debts and no secret conveyance no private contract can turn them over to another hand Eye the debt it is deplorable there are original debts our parents debts our own debts of childhood ignorance knowledge debts of presumption infirmity against counsel against conscience and against threats debts of the Sabbath of the Week of our Family and of our Neighbour-hood c. debts of our waking of our sleeping of our talking and of our thinking c. offences of the Chamber sins of the Shop and iniquities of the Street so that all of our selves and each man for his brother may cry Innumerable evils have compassed us about and no way for deliverace but by acquittance and no way for that but forgivenesse Over and above reflect upon that magna lenitas great goodnesse infinit patience ineffable mercy and long-suffering God hath shown unto us that we might call for this forgivenesse having this comfortable Scripture I will not remember thy sins Forgive us our debts c. FORGIVE A short word but of large and extended sense much used in Gods promises and oft pressed in the Saints petitions and the word properly signifies a sending back something to the place whence they came Sin came from hell and here the soul would have it remanded to the same land of darknesse As it stands in this Prayer it denotes somewhat which relates to God and somewhat relating to our selves As it respects God it weighs 1. His commiseration of us because of our debts Goodnesse is an ordinary plea with all the holy and they sound that the Lord as a Father pitieth them that fear them that pray And the liere who taught us to pray this Prayer hath promised his Fathers mercy saith a Father mercy cometh ex bonitate Dei purely from goddnesse yet must be drawn from him by innocence vertue and obedience as did Abraham Isaac and Iacob Ioseph Iob and Moses saith another He discovers love in desiring our salvation in euring our wounds in teaching us prayers in pardoning our sins and upbraiding us with our unbelief 〈…〉 there not mercy in the word Father and goodnesse and hope in the word Forgive Manasseh his Prayer and Iudas his Confession were alike but he pardoneth iniquity because he delighteth in mercy In a dearth at Corinth Theocles and others advised Creditors to remit their debts for easing of the poor but being refused he acquitted his own and those who contemned the motion were in invincible rage slain by their debters excited to extremity by poverty and necessity we have fair offers and better conditions both a remission offered and a reward for acceptance of that tender that as the earth expects showres and light from Heaven so man is to expect yea he is called to look up for truth and mercy 2. His aversion detected not to exact those debts What is man but dust what is his birth but loathsome and shameful to himself and at best so contemptible that God might say to Justice Let him alone non dignus est ira Caesaris he is not worthy of my wrath Iob thought of this when he uttered And dost thou open thine eyes upon such an one and bringest me into Iudgment 3. His indiminishable possession though he should remit the debt Admit our skin could ransome our life what would he gain or if he freely absolve it what would be his losse Knowing this he puts us neither to call for ease nor time but for a forgiving Accept of the precept by begging a free acquittance and so much the rather that bounty and liberality is to be shew'd quantum potest non idoneis where there is the least hopes of advantage in requital which in our arguing for Heaven is an excellent rule The Roman and famous Alexander would exclaim against his shy yet deserving Courtiers why do you not ask something from me do it that I neither be your debter nor complained of as a slighter of your merit Yet what he gave was neither silver nor gold nor out of his own treasure but bona punitorum the goods or wealth of forâ—eited malefactors c. not diminishing thereby his Revenue Here is a greater Emperour without merit giving of his own requesting of his foes to plead remission of injuries done to himself for their good who have done the injury 4. His dominion or just power to forgive the
there are who give better rules about converse recommending if our company be better then our selves to learn if inferiour to be modest and learn them if our equals to assent to all proposals that relate to good which eminently will keep alive charity in Families and Corporations without which vertue neither of them can even in the brain of a learned States-man be fancied to subsist so great is the power even of a fancied Amnestia or brotherly forgivenesse It was the wonder of a Father writing to an holy man from Mount Sinai that he was not moved irritated perplexed or any way afflicted with the reproaches of men and forgive Vs is not meant Vs here but Vs all wheresoever we be whatsoever we are Us predicats of all people kinds nations sexes languages and proclaiming every soul to be a sinner all should be tender and make as God the scarlet offences of their brother to become by their forgivenesse white as wool that God by his may make their crimson-sins become as snow Revenge flows from a conceit of some abused excellency which we conjecture to be in our selves and though it were yet know that self and self-opinion is to be mortified In order to which let me impresse a story printed by a Modern expounding this Petition wherein he shews he was once demanded by one who was troubled in his mind for this viz. he suspected himself guilty of not forgiving injuries and affronts and was desirous to know of this clause as we forgive our debters might be ommitted in daily prayer for he trembled to think of it I answered him saith that reverend and learned Doctor with St. Chrysostoms answer The work was of old thought his but now generally known by the name of Author Imperfect in Matth. he not ending his Comments upon Matthew as Chrysostome doth 1. Qui non sic orat ut Christus docuit non est Christi Discipulus he who prayeth not after Christs manner is none of Christs Disciples 2. Non exaudit Pater orationem nisi quam Filius dictaverit the Father heareth not that Prayer which the Son hath not commanded Which answer was somewhat more refined then that supposed Father his Author gave it for it is prefaced with this word stulti O fools accounting them such who will not say as I forgive yea such do say in their heart either that there is no God or that they have no sin which if they thought they had Nullam rationem habes there is no reason to complain of mans rising up against thee when thou hast exalted thy horn against God It is not with the soul of man as it is with the setting of the Sun that prognosticating a fair morning if there be a red cloud for he that would arise and wake in mercy and who knows how soon he may fall asleep must not ly down with execration for so did not Christ whose doctrine as well as profession or name thou must take upon thee or then in vain are all thy pretences to Religion and thy usurping the empty title without the substance of it Love evidenceth that not the being but being thought a Christian is all thy care Death and sicknesse humble us and at that time chiefly we are to ask what an Expositor says we here beg that is Spiritum scientiae wisdom to know our offences against God which when acquired the offences against our selves shall never be weighed in the ballance It is said the scobs or powder of a mans scull is soveraign for curing the Epilepsie a disease strongly vitiating and impeding the sense and understanding sure it is as when Bees fight the throwing dust among them causeth a truce so the thoughts of death is a season for the absolute crossing the day-book of our remembrance and quitting to our brother whatever upon the account of injury he is indebted to us suddenly heartily freely which shall so clear the soul in beholding his own remission therein that without tergiversation or lingring he may confidently say Lord forgive me my debts as or for I forgive my debters As the tree falls so it lies whether to the south the warm gates of mercy or to the north the freezing blasts of provoked indignation to ly down in wrath anger spite is to begin a fire yea wilde fire that shall never consume yet burn and make thee feel what Guntherus Chancellour to Henry the third Emperour saw and heard when beholding miraculously the Heavens opened and God in his Majesty extending his Arm wherein was brandished a sword and saying I will render vengeance to my enemies and will reward them that hate me after which many Princes of the Empire dying he saw God again the sword sheathed and heard a fire is kindled in mine anger and shall burn unto the lowest hell hereby we know we love God if we keep this command of forgiveness but if we as enemies kindle a fire in our wrath there is a sad conclusion to be deduced which is that God shall kindle another in his And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debters MAny are the inferences might be drawn from this Doctrine and Text of forgiveness so principal a point and so material that it is the only Petition in this Prayer observed by St. Mark in his Gospel he suo more comprehendit abridging after his usuall way of writing the whole Prayer into this one in regard whoso hath it granted hath not much more to demand save grace for perseverance in the consolations which by that he hath attained so that this may be reckoned inter preces armatas among commanding prayers by it asking forgivenesse but with this burden that we forgive first The advice being King-like enforcing the thing advised Our meditations shall eye such as go to Law towards Magistrats that put malefactors to death towards Creditors that do trust and lend and touching dying Malefactors who do ordinarily forgive Concerning the first it may be questioned whether such as pursue by legal decreets or executions the reparation of damnages losses hurt they have received from the frowardness or untowardness of their neighbours can say in such pursuits and claims Forgive us as we forgive or for we forgive the whole process bearing a contradiction to this Petition hence it is that Anabaptists and other Hereticks revived this old condemned Doctrine in our dayes that no Christian ought to go to Law and that none ought to be a Magistrat To which it may both truly and briefly be replyed that it is not only lawful but absolutely necessary since the fall for the preserving of mankind in orderly society for to have Laws and Government whereunto the oppressed may run for shelter and protection As for those abused Texts Iudge not that you be not judged Resist not evil My Kingdom is not of this world c. They strike not in the least against Magistracy but privat
where was the benefit of the change For if God suffer a David to be led into temptation having more power wisdom and strength then David had he is by that known rule qui non prohibet peccatum he who can hinder sin and doth it not commits the sin equally as guilty of the sin as he should appear to be had it been said Lead us not into temptation which yet is a more Scripture-like expression then the other For who in Scripture is said to harden Pharaohs heart It is answered God Who stirred up David to number the people It is replied God he permitting Satan Who mingled among the Princes of Zoan the spirit of errour It is said the Lord. Who gave up the Gentiles to vile affections it is attested God In these and such-like expressions he is not said to suffer it to be done but to do it and if it be demanded who leads men into temptation I answer truly because Evangelically Our Father which is in Heaven c. It is true indeed Cyprian reads the words Et ne nos patiaris suffer us not to be led being constrained as some others also so to speak because of the Manichean Doctrine of two supream beings one of God whence all good and another of the Devil whence all ill but who knows not that the Fathers must in many places as light Gold have their allowance and in feeding upon them they must have salt and enquiring only of such whether their changing lead us not to suffer us not was to confute heresie or to broach novelty I go forward knowing it may be a good Commentary as with Augustine In Lead us not there is no harm for besides our Saviours authority there is this in reason may be said for its innocency that Gods leading is not a dragging man is not forced though led into the field for being led into imports consenting to hence that Precept Resist the Devil neither is it determining Fiunt tentationes enim per Satanam temptations not flowing from Satans power but Gods sufferance and Lead us not imports a confinement of Satan a binding of him up that though he desire to yet he never may devour us Our fear not being primarly of the Devil but in God his sorsaking us nothing being able to hurt without his permission He led Cain into the field and he died but succoured Peter and though wounded yet he was not killed by his foe he so ordered Cains sin that he became a terrour to himself he so disposed of Peters fall that he is a notable example of mans frailty and Gods compassion he orders the fair and so he doth the foul weather and for the one or removal of the other he is still to be addressed unto If we search into the true cause of sin and speak properly we shall perceive it hath no cause yet since it is it must hav a principle an Author an Origin and fountain and to lay the sadle on the right horse the cause of sin is either without us which is the Devil or within us which is our own corruption Against the first in this Petition we pray and for his chaining he oft holding up the wrong end of the Perspective making sin either not visible or so little that it may be attempted saith corruption without danger or contrary by a magnifying mirrour he makes sin to appear of a despairing bignesse that it cannot that there is no hope of pardon saith both he and corruption he is that spiritual murderer that wounded our first parents that contrived the death of the Son of God Iudas covetousnesse and the Iews malice concurring He is still tempting us in visions dreams by ill example alluring the old to covet the young to lust the rich to pride the poor to despair and in short had it not been for this tempter it is probable sin had never been in man by the inordinat desire of knowledge he chaâ—â—'d the Virgin Wax of Adams innocency with such Art that it received his own image of insanctity who transmitted the same as well as his nature to his unhappy posterity but since God had mercy and saved Adam we here recurr to the same compassion for deliverance from the old tempter At Friburg he appeared in Ministerial habits to a good old man dying with Paper Pen and Ink to write down all the sins committed in his life and after much importunity he was ordered to write down first The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the Serpent at which words throwing paper and all on the ground the spirit disappeared and the old man died comfortably God not leaving corruption to it self though Satan attempted excitation To scan the length or discover the various ways by which the Devil suggests or tempts to evil is a darker mystery of iniquity then man can clear and the darknesse that is in our nature where he usually keeps is so grosse that we cannot trace him Yet as the Countrey of Hamsem though covered with so obscure a darknesse that no neighbouring Province dare either enter in or can see any thing in it and yet by the voice of Men crowing of Cocks neighing of Horses which is heard it is concluded inhabited so by the noise roaring fightings Satan makes in the heart it is evident he is there and being it is not in our power we have recourse to our Father to be delivered from him yea secured from our hearts a Province in the Kingdom of Man as the other in Armenia so dark that it exceeds Cimmerian darknesse a proverb thought to rise from the above-mentioned Countrey that our selves cannot see into it untill the glorious face of God as the Sun shine in upon us and when that is done its intricacies and slienesse still enforceth this to be said Lead us not into temptation As the case is now natural pravity hardnesse of heart infidelity and all other vices arising from the soul as sparks from the fire tempteth Satan himself to tempt us and gives occasion by supine sloath for him to work us easily to his mould God is generally so forgotten his Son is ordinarily so slighted and the Spirit so oft despited that we expose our naked breasts to the tempters shafts as if their poyson and heat should be cooled and deaded before they reach our hearts It is said of one reading those words of St. Iohn The Word was made flesh and not reverend enough in his behaviour a Spirit gave him a blow on the face saying If the Word had been made a Devil the Devils never forgetting that mercy had eternally been reverently thankful But since this was not how respectfull and mindful should man be yea how vigilant against himself and how watchfull against temptation that by them God be not provoked imitating him who was so warry that he knew not if ever the Devil had beguiled him
are not to quarrel with them nor oppose their good therefore but what can be said propter peccatum venditi sumus we are by our sins separated from God and by judgment he hath divorced us from one another and not praying against evil with and for our Brethren all of us suffer evil from our God as from our adversary because we will not agree with our brother in the way from which evil with all other good Lord deliver us And so much for the Matter of this Petition the Order hath respect unto the whole prayer and is briefly this viz. there is no freedom from evil to be expected without calling upon the Father hallowing of his Name advancing of his Kingdom doing of his Will acknowledging of his Providence craving pardon for our offences watching against temptation all which do so secure us that evil shall not come nigh our dwelling CHAP. IX For thine is the Kingdom Power and Glory for ever IN our entry this Prayer was compared to Ierusalems Temple it had an outward Court here is a Preface a goodly Porch like it having no doors because representing Heaven the words Our Father being open to all Believers There was the holy place here are seven Petitions there was the most holy place here is the conclusion the comparison running not upon all four for thine is the Kingdom Power and the Glory c. Words significant yet ommitted in the Vulgar Latine and generally neglected by the Latine Fathers because as it is thought not recorded by St. Luke from which argument how much of the Gospel must be snatched from and scratched out of St. Iohn because not recorded by St. Matthew yet retained in the writings of the Greek Fathers Chrysostom Theophylact and the Author of Opus imperfectum which passed for the work of the first named Author generally untill the last age and is yet ordinarily bound up with his works The Romish Interpreters put a reproach generally upon this clause thinking it hath stole into the Gospel from a custom of the Greek Church whose Clergy said this when the people uttered deliver us from evil But the dangerous consequence of such conclusions explods the very imagination of such base and blasphemous interpretations and much of the Gospel by it may be adjudged mens conceits not to rake into Montanus his animadverte Erasmus his nugae Barradius his irrepsit and having spoken of that difference betwixt the two Evangelists and the reasons thereof Either this must be a part of the Prayer or most Greek copies must be suspected or which is more this prayer is not perfect as wanting a sorm of Praise and Thanksgiving which makes it so opposit in St. Matthew who registrats the prayer fully that it ought not to be extruded though not found in some copies through prejudice or misunderstanding many having it and learned Interpreters paraphrasing upon it yea Aquinas gives it his interpretation without any reflection upon its being a fondling but as holy Writ though in his text following the Vulgar it be not inserted though yet it be retained in more Authentick and more correct copies the Syriack and the hebrew which were the Originals Being not bound to err with any holding this conclusion as part of the holy Canon and holy Writ we shall of it as of the prayer consider the matter and next its influence on prayer In the first it may be explained 1. As a reason of our praying 2. As a reason of our praying to the Father 3. As a reason of our so praying In the first of these as they are illative and â—ollowing the particle FOR they weigh 1. The Kingdom to â—e his and therefore as subjects the supplicants are to be preserved It is a Kings duty to guard his coasts secure his subjects and protect their goods they having no power of themselves except to say Deliver us from evil For thine is the Kingdom 2. The Power to be his and therefore the supplicants as unable ought to be upheld It is power which makes a King and the higher power being God yea as in our Creed being God Almighty the inhabitants of Earth have recourse to him for bread for forgivenesse for thine is the Power 3. The Glory to be his and therefore the supplicants as thankful ought to be answer'd The beggar receiving a morsel renounceth merit and blesseth his benefactour the Christian knowing whose bread he eats ought not to forget but being religiously thankful bless God for food natural as bread or Physick or spiritual for mercy and forgivenesse or political as freedom of body credit in report or conveniency in house and is retributio divinorum but all the reward expected for bountiful liberality For for hastening of his Kingdom teaching of his will and deliverance from evil his shall be that is thine is the Glory It was said of Gordian the third Emperour that he wanted nothing to compleat a Prince but Age and it was said by him miserable is that King from whom truth is concealed but in the King of this Kingdom there is no apprehension of deâ—ect he clearly knowing all distresses the meanest subject can fall under which is his Glory and can by omnipotence deliver him out of all for his is the Power there being no possibility of avoiding his search and censure for his is the Kingdom Again we pray to him not to Saints or Angels the Soveraignty not being theirs give us deliverance assistance say we to the Father For thine is the Kingdom Peter Mary Gabriel Anna or St. Barbara being but Subjects our Sisters and our Brethren neither is the Power theirs by grace they are what they are but he by nature that is by himself can discharge all debts quench the horest fire restore the dead stop the mouths of Lions framed us in the womb maketh the Heavens as a Canopy above us and hangeth the earth upon nothing under us For which power let him have all the Glory and make our accesse by faith unto him It is said that young Titus the delight of mankind as he is called after worthy warlike exploits was so courted so beloved that it was rumored he intended to rebel against his father but he hasted to confute the calumny and after a great expedition unexpectedly accosted Vespasian the Emperour with a veni Pater veni Father here am I Father here am I as if thereby he had shewed him filial faithfulnesse and bear testimony there was no project of disloyalty against his Syre the Kingdom being his and certainly in the worshipping of Saints there is treachery against the King of Saints he having no Master of requests in Heaven but Iesus nor no name there whereby we can be saved but Christ's of Nazareth There may be a King without a Kingdom without Power and Glory in his Kingdom The King of Spain when all Christian Princes have quit it styles himself
still King of Ierusalem but his authority and royalty in it is not so great as it is when he enters Biscay where yet he must not by Law enter without a bare leg But this King having a Kingdom and in that Glory and Power and these in a King who is thy Father O thou of little faith wherefore dost thou doubt he will by Power blesse thy small store command thy handful of meal by authority not to decrease and make thy fleshlesse broath giving him the Glory nourish thee and thy son more then the dainties of a King do himself or his royal issue Yet rembember there are degrees of glory even upon earth and though St. Paul can glorifie God in his life yet if his death can produce more glory the will of God is that the lesse cede to the greater so that indeed thine is the glory is a boundiary and limitation for submitâ—ing to his will in his Kingdom and giving him the glory in the utmost extremity since his power can extricate us out of the deepest contrivances of men or Devils Once more this clause is to be reflected upon in each Petition of the Prayer as Hallowed be thy Name thy Kingdom come c. For thine is the Kingdom the power c. One will have In Earth as it is in Heaven joyned to the three first Petitions as Hallowed be thy Name c. In Earth as it is in Heaven and this last Doxology For thine is the Kingdom to have reference to the four last as Give us our daily bread forgive us our debts c. For thine is the power and to do this is for thy glory in regard he is glorified when the fearers of his Name are aided defended honoured as he was when the house of Obed-Edom prospered There is visibly in it Gods soveraignty to make us low it is not thine are the Kingdoms but the Kingdom his being but one and all others but his Vassals which even beastly Heathenish brutish and destroying Nero knew so well that at the re-building of Rome which was suspected to be burnt at his own order Sacrifices were offered to Vulcan and other gods and goddesses Sybillarumque Libri the Books of Heathenish Prophetesses were perused also to have all things more prosperous for the future this God this Father this King being a King in solidum as our learned King doth King-like interpret the words commanding all and in all over all as himself will and all for himself In it there is also Gods eternity to make us fear A Kingdom which we know is to perish a Power that will in time fade and grow feeble would not cause everlasting terrour were it not to be heâ—erodox in history it might be affirmed the Greek Monarchy to be madnesse rather then a reign and though its first Parent Alexander was dreaded and by some adored yet was he not at last contemned scorned and that by his own Mother when for want of hands for want of respect he lay thirty days unburied and got earth but by a stratagem of a friend sic transit gloria mundi so shall the fashion of this world perish and the glory of it become as dung when this everlasting King shall come in power with excellent glory to take an account of the subjects of his Kingdom in order to reward them for ever For thine is the Kingdom the Power and the Glory for ever BEholding these words as a portion of the Canon the testimony against them being negative and humane and the Latine Fathers rather blame-worthy for ommitting them because not in Luke then the Greek Fathers for preserving of them being found in St. Matthew and if ommitted in some Greek Copies or in the Vulgar Latine the Monkish Amanuensis to magnifie and uphold the honour of the same might cover it as the second Commandment is from the Law because of its boldnesse to discharge Idolatry so religiously observed in the Cloyster though he who speaks most basely if not blasphemously of this Doxology acknowledgeth he found it in all Greek Copies and therefore from its adversary we press its reverence yea St. Paul in mentioning the deliverance from evil fine intervallo with the same breath mentions of a Heavenly Kingdom and of glory for ever and ever Amen But controversies being out of our Province we advance to behold the influence this Coronida hath upon prayer and how easie is it to understand its commands for praying Argumentatively Confidently Thankfully yea Practically also Great things are asked in this Prayer things not to be scann'd by the measures words or conceptious of creatures yet it is evident we are not unreasonable in our demands Bow down thine ear and hear O Lord said the Psalmist for I am poor and needy And Christ the Saviour of the world prays Father I will that they whom thou hast given me be with me where I am FOR thou lovest me and will have us still to pray Thy Kingdom come FOR thine is the Kingdom Power and the Glory for ever Arguments drawn from his Dominion Authority Excellency and Eternity c. But note the reasons are all brought from himself we declining any boon from our own eminency equality or merit and if a Saint plead for mercy because of poverty or holinesse it is not to be dreamed he understands self-worth but his pressure under that exigence unto which God by grace haâ—h made promise of support And moreover it is to be remembred that the mercy is still suited in our prayers conform to the condition we stand under as we are weak ignorant or indebted so still we desire proportionable succour Keep me as the apple of the eye saith David and that hath first the brow the prominency of the brow hair-brow the lids the hair or latches to those lids then the muscles and membranes of the eye signifying that divine and secret protection he then wanted under his manyâ—old extremities from which consideration a judicious Author will have this clause to be esteemed honest and not as a thief to enter into this Prayer from any custom of men a dangerous conceit and may curtail the Bible but in an holy and devout way for a seemly close approved by God and recommended by Christ unto his Church By the way the pertinency of Prayer lyeth in these two 1. By asking relief from our present necessities by ordinary means If a weary Traveller should ask for wind to blow him forward or an hungry Petitioner for food from Heaven or a timorous Pilot for the creating of an Harbour the prayer were impiously ridiculous Our Saviour would not pray for twelve legions of Angels yet with great fervour he urged the removing of the cup. Yea not in these things only but against Alexanders Fate we may call for a decent gathering into our Fathers 2. By craving mercy agreeable to our duration having
also forgive you Let it respect the soul and its nota desiderii and checks our dulnesse roâ—zing up our â—ethaâ—gick spirits and like the last stroak of a shrill Clock shews what time we have spent in Prayer and what heart we have towards God for the advancement of his honour or for the remission of sin Make haste my beloved said the Church of old Even so come Lord Iesus saith the Church now Amen The Iews make four kinds of Amen 1. Pupillum when the thing to which iâ— is said is not understood The 2. is surreptum when it is not heard throughout The 3. is oâ—â—osum when it is not thought upon The last is when it is pronounced from the heart and desired and that is Amen justorum which they account their own ending still their devotion with it this sheweth quam difficile how hard a thing it is to say Amen saith one yet Cyprian being sentenced ut gladio feriatur to be beheaded with the sword for being Christian said Amen is somewhere recorded by another Let it respect the Preface and it containeth the mystery of the Trinity unto which we only ought to pray all others being only our fellow-creatures and hath not begotten us or our sisters or brethren and so not our fathers which speaketh two things 1. The fulnesse of the Scriptures not only Amen but each Iota in the institutions of God is mysterious and of immensiâ—rable sense 2. Comforts in our failings for if in Prayer infirmity divert us from a zealous pursuit of heavenly objects we recover our feet and unites in one Amen Now there remains three said a Father the Word Example and Prayer yet all the three is here for Prayer and Amen and example even in History is not wanting For Basil the Great being sick was attended by one Ioseph a Iew and his Physician who had from natural signs shewed him that he should die about the evening What said Basilius if I live another day then said Ioseph I shall become Christian. The holy man for saving a soul plyes the Throne of God and about three of the Clock riseth next morning in health which so astonished the Doctor that he was the same day baptized in the publick Congregation by Basil who returning to his bed died Likewise Soâ—inus dying called upon his Redeemer attesting dependence upon providence and mercy hearing Scriptural exhortations for his souls strengthning to every Text sobjoyned his zealous Amen Amen And what hath not Prayer done throughought the world why then should this threeâ—old cord be broken having the word Prayer and example for Amen in all our supplications Let it respect the Petitions it is worthily compared to a bound or stitched up Book more portable and lesse bulksome then when scattered in single sheets the Law was abreviated in the ten Commandments the Gospel is abridged in the Creed and the Lords Prayer yea all Prayer in Amen which speaketh three things 1. Ordering the studying of Amen Let the mad world say its list it is Divine and of heavenly sanction and as Iesus though Hebrew is over all the world understood and if more closely studied would prove consolatory and more rever'd even so Amen if searched into should prove significantly helpful for all addresses It was of old uttered to each curse and here annexed to each Petition and once for all uttered discovering its secret Energy but impenitus enim audiens if he that understands not the prayer cannot say Amen how shall he say it who understandeth not Amen it self 2. Ordering the saying of Amen As it is an old so it is an holy seemly and necessary duty in the Church or at Church-service for all to say Amen by it the Church Militant being mostly Uniform to that of the Triumphant the noise of Dogs is harsh of crying children troublesome of opening locks unholy c. But the noise of Amen is heavenly we are baptized said Iustine in his Apology for Christianity to Antonius the heathen Emperour we communicat we gather offerings we pour forth prayers we celebrat praise and the people say Amen And if the word lingua the tongue in its initiatory letters direct to a six-â—old duty at all times the tongue must express Amen for it doth as L. directs for then loquitur bene it speaks good I. then Iesus is acknowledged N. and then the Name of God is invocate G. then the Grace of God is proclaimed V. then the Will of God is obeyed A. and all others about us are edified instructed and holily excited 3. Ordering the affecting of Amen we have not ended our prayers if according to this pattern untill this be Eccho'd from the heart Christ having said it before us It is said that the natural heat being more and greater in man then in any other creature doth in a second sense or as a secondary cause make his body straight and his soul when heated by holy zeal shall more and more being fledged or â—eathered by the practice of prayer spiritually go aloft entering by devotion the Quire of Angels bearing share in their Antiphonies as in the vision Amen Allelujd where obiter by Amen we learn that God is to be praised and by Allelujah that he is to be feared it is the fiâ—tieth Greek word in this prayer and fifty was the Jubilee and that was the year of rest and after much plodding and praying we rest in Amen that is in Christ Iesus Let it respect the Conclusion and it sheweth when in prayer the Christian cometh to his conclamaâ—um est a closs laying his petitions and his case before the Throne of God leaving them to the Power Glory and Authority of God which speaketh two things 1. Perseverance in all prayer Mind but that precept Pray without ceasing and this command Pray after this manner that is as and from Our Father to Amen and from Amen to Our Father in circulo and it is easie to infer that there is a religious unweariednesse at least in habit wrap'd up in this word and work 2. Confirmation of all good We here beg and continue begging for good and comfortable things untill we say Amen there sisting stedfastly perswaded that in the Kingdom of our Father by his Power for his Glory we shall want no portion of the matter craved heeding this form as most perfect which was dayly by the Ancients in Gods House observed as such in order for their prosperous and more successful issue in their practical devotion its vastnesse and perfection mediating from Heaven Antidots against the narrownesse and many failings wherewith their performances in point of justice were beheld and because of which they might have been excluded the ears of God who certainly is most delighted with the penitents lips and heart when both are acting in the words his blessed Son and our Saviour hath endited to them Not that we are to use no other prayer
Religio from Eligo as chusing God to be ultimat end and not our selves or rather from Religo that binding us together and by this as by a livery are we known to be Christians indeed that is Chrismate sacro anointed with the holy Ghost for so the word by interpretation whose character is love which as the pitch to the Ark should be within us and without us to hold us together and though true peace be tyed to the Church yet what Religion is there the embracers whereof have not a mutual regard one to another To pass both Ancient and Modern Hereticks It is observable that the Turks have not been of late so vehement in fighting against the Persians as formerly their opinions touching Mahomet being now more clearly known then before and if nothing will prevail O that Christians would ruminat upon that of Christ Wo unto thee Chorazin for if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon which have been done in thee they had a great while ago repented But why should I say Christians for look about and where or how few are there for num tu illum Christianum put as in quo nullus Christianitatis actus is he to be called Christian who hath no righteousness in his conversation who oppresseth the poor and loads the miserable who robs others who gives his tongue to lying his lips to obscenity his hands to sacriledge his soul to hypocrisie by worshipping in the Temple as if God knew none of this Wherefore Charissime in Christo good Reader let us pray that the love of Heaven abate self-love that piety cool our fury modesty our lust moderation our talkativeness fasting our curiosity sobriety our drunkenness meekness our uncharity humility our pride and the love of God and our neighbour the love of this present world and then and not before shall we be Christians indeed and univocal children to our Father which is in Heaven For the very form of our supplications binds us to this union Granting to the earnestness of some that this Prayer is not to be used as a form but a rule only yet as a rule it commands them to have no malice when they bow their knee but to pray for all as burdened by the same sin liable to the same sailings and justly may expect without mercy the same punishments How are they from their own mouths condemned that not only refuse not to pray for but glorie in their cursing of their brethren satisfying themselves to be called from this or that opinion this or that man whereas in this saith a Father we glory Christianos esse nominari to be and to be called Christians The inheritance and expectation we all have of Heaven binds us also to this charity Why should we fall out in that way or separate in that road of blessed concord for those things especially wherein the judgment of God doth not concern it self as not being essential to the purchasing of or the being abandoned out of Heaven Peter required of his Converts but repent and be baptized every one of you for the remission of sins I am perswaded that never was there an age but had its own particular contentions nor person but had his own beloved opinion extraneous to the principles of etâ—rnal life yet Philip thought the Eunuch richly endowed for glory and capacitat in the highest degree for Baptism that he believed Iesus Christ to be the Son of God What heaps of interrogatories had he been troubled withall if to have been â—atechised excentrick to this by some spirituallized men in our dayes But to know Christ and him crucified only is no doctrine in our times The Spartans consulting their wise Lycurgus about repelling an invading soe had this wholsome counsel 1. To remain poor that their enemy might have no temptation and to end their privat discords that their uniting might cause fear And there is no surer way to confound the rage of a spiteful Devil then to be reduced to that old Christian temper of having one heart and one soul which is not unattainable if every man will as he ought cast his eyes inward and by viewing his pernicious thoughts cure himself of those Convulsion-fits which to the affronting of the very image of God in his face or converse befalls him in dwelling in spleen rancour and malice and it shall evidence a perfect recovery when his enlarged soul shall praying say Our Father As to what may be objected touching Turks Iews Traitors or our own enemies or those of our Countrey we must alwayes difference the enmity from the enemy or the power from the person the Turks power we are to pray against or our adversaries force or wisdom but the person ought ever to be supplicated-for were he stoning us to death as Jesus did and Stephen for excluding lawful war we are not to do otherwise without a special revelation as did Elisha in his cursing the children If it be demanded whether a holy man may not say My Father when he prayeth It is answered that some thinks it is proper to Jesus only to cry My God or say My Father yet since Abrahams servant designed him Lord God of my master Abraham and David most often in the Psalms expresseth himself thus my God my King and that Thomas said my Lord and my God without a check Yea there being a precept that it shall be so said under the Gospel It ought not to be accounted sinful especially when the soul is in privat yet alwayes care is to be had that in this personal applying of God to thy self thy thoughts exclude none who are called by thy Fathers name for as Our Father in the general indirectly includes thy self so my Father in particular by reflection implyes others and this by interpretation is Our Father Another Lacedemonion Lady hearing an ill report of her son writ after this manner There is evil heard of thee mend it or die So there is evil known to be in this Age and particularly uncharitable walking from which save your selves or you die Being separat from the God of love unto whom Creatura rationalis man is tyed by love only the love of God and the love of man being as the breasts of the Church which are lovely to Christ by which the holy soul is nourished in cleaving to God and letting out good to man to the godly to our neighbour pari dilectione est optanda vita aeterna omnibus hominibus and salvation unto all men that heaven the next considerable thing in the Preface as being the place we pray unto may be filled with our brethren for which Let the peace of God be in your hearts to the which also ye are called in one body Our Father which art in Heaven BEfore our thoughts pursue this part of the Preface Heaven Gods ubi or the place of his
abode which must be eyed in Prayer It is fit to notice this word Art which though darkly yet truly intimats Gods constancy or our Fathers immutability Others change their affection their opinion their scituation but the Lord changeth not and therefore we are not consumed Yet this is not objective to be understood as though he changed not things before him for that belongs to his free-will and can alter them as he pleaseth but in sensu composito he determining his will to one thing is unchangeable in that there being nothing that can perswade him to desist alter his purpose heighten his reason or remove his habitation he wanting the very shadow of changing his understanding being perfectly clear Queen Elizabeth her motto of England was semper eadem his is semper idem being still the same to day yesterday and for evermore This of old was expressed in his Name I AM THAT I AM Ehejeh Asher Ehejeh I shall be what I shall be referring to his will his nature his purposes his intentions his love his mercy his word his promises are everlasting and therefore is his Covenant called a Covenant of salt that is firm in it self and preserving others So that in Prayer to cut off all Satans discouragements we may competently be furnished with strength in questioning our inward part what is written in the Law how readest thou and finding there the expressions of everlasting kindness boldly concur to thy Saviours precept and say Our Father which art in Heaven Other fathers moving from and to other places from the Streets to their Tables thence to their beds whence may be they are shifted to their graves but this Father in Heaven abides the same for ever I AM WHAT I AM is like that which is which was and which is to come denoting both eternity and immutability and though St. Paul said once I am what I am yet as Kings their coin he circumscribes his performances Gratia Dei by the grace of God Cyrus dying endeavoured a diversion to his childrens sorrow and his friends malady in discoursing about unity and vertue and the gods and closed his eyes commanding that none should behold his soul-less body but that the Persians being invited to his Sepulchre all should rejoice that Cyrus was with the gods and secured for ever against suffering of any evil May not the Christian concluding from the paternal relation God beareth unto him secure his soul from all damping considerations which can arise from his perplexed heart upon the entertaining thoughts respecting Gods immutability and sublimity he being in heaven eternally ruling and unchangeably abiding to award entanglements Father gives of it self significant and apt succours to virtuat the practice of Prayer but a more manifest vigour is acquired when this qui es which art is reflected upon Which expression being read backward maketh se hinting his being his immutable being his unchangeable being is altogether of himself whence the supplicant may irrefragably infer that though he hath changed possibly to sin since the last Prayer yet God is not altered and therefore may be addressed unto for pardon vigorously in assurance It is to be noted that the word art is not expressed in the Original but implyed only yet it is manifest that it is not idle in the Translation but operats upon the duty of Prayer 1. Shewing Gods presence in it and therefore our awe It is used of them only who are before us for of the absent we say not quiâ—es which art but which is And therefore if the women of Corinth were to be covered because of the Angels how much more ought all to have a holy modesty when they call upon God lest eying him too sawcily he make ready his arrows against our faces the visible seat of our shameful impudence Take heed therefore not only to thy foot but to thy knee thy tongue thy face thine eye when thou enterest into the house of God or to thine own prayer-house lest thou be accounted hasty sawcy and malapert by asking of him wherewith to nourish thy lust Thou mayst offend in thy lofty looking with the Pharisee much speaking with the Heathen much repeating with Battus for one saith Battology is inarticulata vox like the talk of young children Study thou therefore to be manly and pray with understanding 2. Our confidence in it and therefore let us be open in Prayer The Sun never fails for all the light he transmits unto the world the Sea is not diminished notwithstanding the moisture it affords Gods Store-house will not empty though he enrich the world with his substance while therefore thou art with him in thy house or closet ask enough ask that thy joy may be full Illi enim 〈◊〉 exaudiri merentur he is heard aâ—â—â—ably of God who being heated with 〈◊〉 zeal asks and doth what good possibâ—â—â—y is within the sphear of his activity Ask therefore and ask again and ask more still capacitating for more good that thy own joy and the joy in others may yet be more full Et ne demittas eum and let not him go untill by love thy soul be joyned unto him which shall corroborat and yet more accumulat thy joy Alexander ordered his Treasurer to give Anaxagoras as much treasure as he pleased to demand he asked a hundred Talents each Talent valued 375 pound sterling at which the Treasurer wondering Alexander gladned saying Recte facit He doth as he ought knowing he hath a friend who can and will give him so much Be not sparing in thy requests but beg the utmost for the discharging of all thy debts the assurance of all his possessions thy Father can do it thy King will do it the glory of Christ nor of the Angels nor of the Saints being not all diminished by thy accession to those heavenly Mansions 3. Our chearfulness therefore let us not be disheartned in Prayer That God should come and stand before us with sealed pardons ought to conciliat us to all heavenly exercises but more singularly to this personal treaty to this intercourse of Prayer wherein we can look God in the face and he behold our tears when both are beyond the possibility of other Fathers What could Amittai have done for his beloved Ionah when in the Whales belly yet this Pater in Coelis God in heaven delivered him from all his distresses It is to be noted that though God be often in Scripture said to repent which implyes a change of and mutation in mind yet it is to be understood rei mutatio not Dei A change there was in the Ninivites first and after in God in the language of men that not being executed which was threatned we call it repentance when God repreived their destruction for to speak properly God hath in himself no umbrage of a change but as the Stars of Heaven
honour not his being as to make our very lives pray Hallowed be thy Name Hallowed be thy Name WE have now the application of holinesse not to say Hallownesse unto his Name to be considered that we may regularly engage our selves both to live and pray according to this rule This Petition is like that of our Saviours Father glorifie thy Name we read of old of hallowed Places Times Persons Vessels yea any thing that was dedicated to God or separat for his use or any thing used in his service now in a Scripture-sense hath a degree of holiness but God is esteemed holy being perfectly free from the very stain of impurity his mercy pure mercy his justice holy justice his truth holy truth his knowledge holy knowledge the first wanting solly the second cruelty the third mistake and the fourth ignorance yea himself being light and in him no darkness at all and therefore his Name like his House is not to be polluted by the transgressions of the people after the abomination of the Heathen And if Holiness be a knowledge of or how to worship God we are not to persevere in our ignorance but to value every document offered that may make his Name known which he is resolved to hallow that is make holy and which we ought to sanctifie that is to glorifie in our selves first and before all others next that his Name as it is holy may be hallowed honoured and magnified of us and his glory shine more and more among men though our enemies for their reconciliation It properly signifies to preserve from the Earth that it be not defiled with our terrene maleversation but contrary by a holy Artifice hold or heave it still upward as Cesar did his writings in his left hand and holding his royal Coat-armour in his teeth that the one should not be wet nor the other become a prey to his adversary when swiming for his life at Alexandria So hold we fast his Name that it may shine and out-shine all other beings in the Firmament of this world provoking one another to revere the same God said of Paul He is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my Name before the Gentiles as Standard-bearers in war are to undergo and suffer much in holding up the Banners or Colours lest they fall into the enemies hand so those that bear the Name of God or of Christ whether in peace or war are studiously to endeavour that neither by ill speaking nor ill doing it fall into the hands or vile tongues of the wicked that they may triumph in heaven above and be admired for their stoutness and courage by the holy Angels The duty is undergone three ways First generally then specially then personally the first eyes Nature at large the second Grace and the third the Souls of men Eying nature in praying Hallowed be thy Name we intreat earnestly 1. That all things might and all affairs end in his glory As this is the end of all his undertakings so it is the beginning of our desires Consuevit enim scriptura the Scripture usually putting name for glory shews us to have Gods glory in our aims for an universal discovery thereof the more pressingly knowing his Name Honour or glory to have many enemies maliciously contriving and by inraged force uniting to darken yea were it possible to extinguish the glory of his Omnipotency Many and different are the ways which Devils and devilish men conclude as apt means for the perfecting of such projects their atheism and hatred invents against God and his Church yet by an over-ruling providence all their industry defeats themselves being baffled by their own Arguments God causing his honour to be the result of their darkest and deepest consultations though differently managed and by contrary spirits acted yet are they reconciled in bringing forth this one thing Gods glory Iudas sold Christ for money the Jews delivered him for envy Pilat condemned him for fear the Souldiers guarded from obedience Carpâ—â—ters might make the Cross for profite the beholders mock for pastime and the devil pressed all for hatred the Sepulchre was watched for security yet those watchers becoming witnesses of the resurrection it shewed to their own eye-sight that both Herod Pontius Pilat the Jews the Souldiers were gathered together for to do whatsoever God had in his Counsel predetermined to be done Providentia est subdita bene disponere providence being but an orderly disposing of things for the production of some good manifests that this Prayer intimats our servent zeal consent and agreement that God would do what he doth in agreeing all affairs and consummating all designs for his own Names sake to his great glory that even Adams sin Abels slaughter Noahs drunkennesse as well as Lots vexation Iobs scraping Rabshekahs railing and Peters denying and Thomas doubting and Sauls persecuting as well as Pauls preaching might evince to all the world that God is to be feared loved and honoured 2. That all might acknowledge and owne that glory Our faith in the power of God renders it easie for us to believe that all must submit unto him but here our charity for the souls of men perswades us to become suiters at his Throne that by his Spirit he would so mollifie the hearts of our brethren as to cause them become Volunteers in his service since the will must be made willing to submit before any submission be rewarded or accepted Those Iews who blasphemously attested our Saviour to have a devil shall give compelled submission and be instrumental in causing his Name to be exalted before ail though if they sorrowed not it be in then damnation and trembling Cain became objectively a teacher of the holiness severity and justice of God But to have men move in a resolute and masculine courage by loving and sedulously acting to propogat that glory that all the world might actually ascribe unto him that excellent Majesty which is his and is his due is the import of this Petition God is then hallowed first when it is known what he is next when it is known what he is not next when it is known how he is The first keeps us from folly that we say not there is no God The second from Idolatry that we fancy not a false god The third from misery when we know he is in Heaven full of grace goodnesse power and truth all which ought to induce us to speak of his Name with fear and reverence causing our lives and actions to eccho â—orth this Petition Hallowed be thy Name ascribing to it holiness with the Angels justice with the converted Iews that as his Name is great in Israel and in Iudah known so every where his praise may be glorious for then is his Name great when he is named that is accounted according to his glorious Majesty For which Kings Princes Fathers Teachers Children are to sing and in their Sphear
move for the promoving of that transcendent honour dueto his Name by all the earth 3. That he would remove suddenly the impediments of his glory Though give us this day are in words only affixed to our daily bread yet without errour they may be appended to this Petition and then it is this day Hallowed be thy Name Lord said Elijah let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel Father saith the Petitioner let all atheism prophanenesse idolatry be removed that all the world may say this day The Lord he is God the Lord he is God That all idols with Dagon may fall down before his everlasting Gospel and all people may attend and incline their ear unto the words of his mouth this Petition is put up and offered in the Imperative Mood by way of command a holy zeal animating the breast of the conforming supplicant daringly yet humbly charging yet praying his Father to look after the dignity of his own Name How suddenly was the head of vapouring Goliah separated from his body and frighted Israel shouting for joy after little David had gone out in the Name of the Lord And that God would arise girding his sword upon his thigh to be feared by all that contend against him ought in earnest to be the matter rather of our prayers then those curious quircks and home-spun I may say hell-spun questions and political debates which are too frequently the materials of our popular and domestiâ—k supplications the former tending to quietnesse and peace the latter only to strife and debate within our houses and among our Churches 4. That we might improve all his providences for this his glory Are we advanced to any degree of honour hath God assigned us a larger portion of this worlds goods for the splendor of our retinue and numerousness of our Family are we respected by the admiring Vulgar then let us not sacrifice to our own net but acknowledge that all this store cometh of his hand and all his own Timotheus that Dux or Imperator Fortunatus was so fortunat in his Warrs that Cities were painted yielding to him he sleeping Yet somewhere it is observed that proudly saying in a full and great Assembly at Athens Haec ego feci non Fortuna this I did not Fortune and again in this Fortune had no share attributing Conquests only to himself and not to that ages fancied gods It was by all observed he never prospered but lost all the glory he had gotten And such at last shall be his fate who gives not God but himself the praise of his rich possessions Contrary are we brought so low that our harvest is blasted honour despised children buried and all pleasant things removed out of sight let our devotion keep its wonted vigour and surmise neither Planet stricking nor Wizards bewitching but Gods holy Providence in his wise Counsel hath been the contriver of all our losses and suffer not only with the wise Heathens patiently but sucking good from them as Asclepiades who being asked what disadvantage he had by blindness ut uno puero said he ambulem comitatior I can talk more chearfully to any one Lycurgus not only forgave the wild Alcander for rashly beating out his eyes but by vertuous discourse reclaimed him Poor Epictetus was amicus diis for all his poverty still at friendship with the gods I say suffer not only with these but study to know with Eli it is the Lord and next with Iob to say blessed be his Name preferring a Lame-leg a hungry belly with Gods countenance beyond the covered tables or dainties of the wicked Iubet me fortuna Fortune calls upon me to study Philosophy and wisdom cry'd a Philosopher hearing of a great lose at Sea God calls upon me say thou in the greatest strait to know him the world and the mutability of all things except himself cry thou blessed be his Name though brought into the lowest degree of misery were it a dung-hill or a bush of thorns it being easie to adore him upon the pinacle of prosperity over a rich Carpet or leaning upon a Velvet Cushion This is sure qui non sanctificat Deum he that glorifies not God shall never be glorified of God and therefore the beauty of our possessions the industry of our hands the pregnancy of our wit the patience in our suffering the prevalency of our interest being considered say however Not unto us not unto us O Lord but to thy Name give we praise And whether we eat or drink which are works of necessity or what ever we do which may relate to pleasure at conveniency Let us do all to his glory for our actions must concur with our wishes in this matter that as we exalt his Name by the one we may not blasphem it with the other Further this duty is to be performed specially according to his grace and that not in respect to its nature or as it is in the fountain that is in God but as it doth gratiam recompensare benefactoribus as it eyes our grateful returns to him and so Hallowed be thy Name implyes Thankfulness to him Knowledge of him Affection towards him all our abilities to be laid out for him 1. Thankfulness in what his power hath wrought by referring all unto him To batter down that wall of ingratitude which this age hath raised we touch again this point or rather explain the former we Belshazzerâ— like drinking and ranting but the God in whose hand our breath is not glorified at all for our peace freedom and honour c. A godly Lady-martyr professed that the bloud of her Saviour had made her fair and beautiful and not her servants industry by care or art not the servants vigilance but the Masters pounds gained ten pounds moe Shall we have health wealth peace Princes as at the first and God receive no tribute of praise since we professe sanctity which in the Heathens sense was nothing but ascribing to the immortal gods their due praise and thanks Are not many healed but where are the nine i. e. the many that examining their unfitnesse for mercy attends at Gods Altar with their Hallelujahs for his breaking the Spear assunder and burning the Chariots in the fire It is Fabled that one finding a Serpent frozen or starved almost to death in a vehement eold he warmed it at his own fire the Serpent boasting afterward that it was not his fire that animated him the matter came to be judged and thus determined that the Serpent should be left in periculo in the same state danger and condition wherein at first it was found We have reason to apprehend that being delivered from our civil yet uncivil war and our vitious lives testifying no grateful resentment as it flowed from God that he shall cause this generation to be brought back into that howling wildernesse of barbarous and cruel