thee thy gracious Promises in Christ and the Merits of thy Sonne whereby thou hast engaged thy selfe that what we aske in his Name we shall receive Thou hast opened unto us a gate of mercy in him he hath purchased a Pardon for us with his owne Bloud He is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world and thou hast opened in him a fountaine of Grace to sanctifie our natures and reforme our sins That the clouds may be removed and thy light and grace may shine upon us We desire therefore to relinquish our selves to disclaime our selves and to come unto thee in and by Christ Jesus beseeching thee for his sake to save our poore sinfull Nations O deale not with us after our iniquities but according to the greatnesse of thy mercy thinke thou upon us O Lord for thy goodnes O Lord forgive our great and horrid offences that have provoked thy wrath against us O cleanse our filthy and polluted soules rinse us in those Rivers that flowed from thy Son in the Garden and upon the Crosse Perfume us with thy holinesse Adorne us and sanctifie us with the graces of thy spirit Give us cleane hearts and pure affections and holy and Christian lives and Conversations O Lord forgive us that thou mayest reforme us and reforme us that thou mayest heale us O grant us broken and contrite hearts humbled spirits and melting souls that we may mourne for our sins past Grant us those Spirituall groanes and sighs that may pierce even into thy Bowels by the Merits and Mediation of Christ Jesus that they may be moved in compassion toward us Grant us cleane soules and renewed consciences that we may speedily and heartily forsake all our wicked sinfull and abominable courses whereby we have enflamed thee our gracious God against our selves our King and People Rouze us up from our carnall security that we may seek speedily and earnestly unto thee our God who for our sins art justly displeased O be gracious be gracious unto us be favourable O Lord be favourable unto thy people and let us not be brought to confusion give us not up to destruction and desolation for the Lords sake Call back thy Judgements and Plagues that thou hast sent forth against us The Pestilence and the Dearth and the devouring Sword that hath so long drunke up the bloud of the people Call backe that spirit of corruption and confusion of division and distraction that hath beone sent forth into these Lands and make up a happy union and peace amongst us for the Lord Jesus his sake Call backe that spirit of rebellion and oppression of cruelty and rapin that hath seized upon the hearts of so many of this Nation and reduce them into the waies of obedience and righteousnesse Send forth the spirit of truth of peace of righteousnesse of mercy of loyalty and obedience into all our hearts that we may be restored to a happy and prosperous condition Lord restore the King and deliver him Lord preserve his Queene Children and Family Lord have pitty upon His distressed People upon the Prisoners and the outcasts and the poore persecuted Subjects of this Land and deliver them from the fury and the cruelty of their Adversaries Lord direct guide sanctifie and prosper all the Loyall Armies and those faithfull people that are engaged in the cause of thine Annointed and his people let not their sins nor our sins stand between thy mercy and them or us Lord be mercifull to our Enemies make their hearts to relent forgive them and convert them and preserve them if it be thy blessed will reconcile us all to thee that we may be reconciled to one another Or if they shall still continue in their wickednesse Lord suffer them not to prosper therein suffer them to prevaile no more against thy Substitute and thine Ordinance to oppresse no more to kill and murder thy poore People no more but bring them downe O Lord we beseech thee for thine infinite mercies sake O Lord heare us O Lord help us O Lord relieve and succour us O deliver us and be mercifull to our sinnes for thy Son Christ Jesus his sake to whom with thee and the holy Ghost be all honour and glory world without end Amen A short Prayer to be used upon the undertaking of any just designe or enterprize for peace O Lord I blesse thy holy name for that good motion which thou hast put into our hearts for the procurement of peace unto these Nations I confesse O Lord I am not worthy to be an instrument of so great a blessing neither is there any strength or wisdome in me thy poore Creature that I should be able to mannage so excellent a worke but thou art the God that pardonest sins And art pleased to make use of weake and worthlesse meanes that the glory may be so much the more thine I beseech thee be thou glorified in us thy Servants pardon our sins heale our infirmities supply us with wisdome and thy strength and assist us by thy spirit make us to set up thy glory before us and sincerely to seeke the good of thy Church and people Shew us the waies that are conducible thereunto and conduct us and speed us therein and give a happy issue thereunto to the glory of thy Name to the comfort of thine Annointed and all his People to the furtherance of thy Gospell and to the good of me and mine c. and of these whole Nations through Jesus Christ our Lord. A Prayer for the restoring of an happy and setled Government in this Nation O Lord God who rulest and governest all things by thy Son Christ Jesus and hast ordained Magistracy and the power of Government amongst men as a ray or branch of that supreme authority in Christ Jesus to be the guardian under thee of peace and righteousnesse among thy people The foundation of humane society The Pillar of the world The shield of thy people and of all the blessings that they enjoy And of all other Governments hast most approved in thy holy Word of that excellent forme of royall Monarchy as that which is the most lively Image of thy rule and the most fruitfull Channell of safety and peace and felicity unto a people Weblesse and magnifie thy holy Name for this thy great and holy Ordinance whereby thou hast so provided for the fecurity and preservation of thy poore Creatures And more particularly we blesse thy holy Name for that comfortable portion which thou hast given unto this Nation heretofore in this thy blessing and in the benefits thereof in setting over us Kings and Princes to take the charge of the Government of this Land whereby thou hast been pleased for so long a time to preserve this Nation of ours in peace and plenty and prosperity and happinesse We confesse O Lord that there never was any the least merit in us that could challenge the least part unto us of so great a blessing whilst we
the honour to be his Martyrs in time by professing atheisticall policy as if oaths were of no force but to be the servants of their designes when they have done their worke and served their turnes with them to turne them out of doores and send them packing saying that they are but old Almanacks Is not Matchiavell think you that Christ which they so talke of that was never known till they taught him to the people Iura perjura c. Let me make it out a little Sweare and forsweare that so thou mayest obtain thine own desires That thou mayest raigne set all the world on fires Or is not that religious speech of him in Lucan a great part of their new Gospel which they bragg of Jus fas multos faciunt ptolomaee nocentes Dat paenas laudata fides cum sustinet inquit Quos fortuna premit c. But let them take heed how they play too much with God His Magazine is not all spent they have not disarmed him yet He can when he pleaseth frowne them all in a moment from the greatest height of their successe and glory whereof they do so boast into the lowest depth of ruine and confusion and let them not thinke with the wicked man in the Psalme that because God holds his peace for a time he is therefore even such a one as themselves There will be a time when he will reprove them and set all their sins in order before their faces Or let the heathen Poet aske them one question An quia non fibris ovium Ergennâque jubente Triste jaces lucis evitandumque Bidentall Idcirco stolidam praebet tibi vellere barbam Jupiter Take it briefly thus Because thou art not thunder struck Will Jove give thee his beard to pluck Let not the forbearance of God make them presume too much Yea let them remember that pure Religion and undefiled before God is this to visit the fatherlesse and the widdowes in their affliction and to keepe himselfe unspotted from the world Iam. 1. v 27. To do justly and to love mercy and to walke humbly with God Micha 6.8 If they be sober let them teach and practise these things And is their scornefull and insolent carriage that good behaviour that the Apostle requires Or is it hospitality to turne men out of their owne houses in stead of receiving them into theirs that they may imitate therein the piety that was heretofore shewed unto Chrish The Son of man saith he hath not where to lay his head Math. 8.20 Is this the hospitality that the Apostle requires or are they apt to teach in the Apostles sense that are scarce capable to learne Or if we hold it absurd in Popery to say ignorance is the mother of devotion is it not almost as bad to hold ignorance to be the mother of Instruction Or when the blind leades the blind do we thinke the ditch will have nothing but water in it Are they no strikers that make it their practice to smite with their tongue to curse the Ruler of the people to speake evill of dignities and have set up the trade of smiting with their hands too which they have so deepely embrued in the Christian bloud of their brethren and are angry that men will not admire it for a beauty in them That God that would not suffer David to build his Temple because he had had his hand in the sheding of bloud though it were the bloud of Gods enemies and Rebells in just and lawfull warres will he thinke we approve of such bloudy builders as these to set up his Church or to repaire the decaies of his spirituall habitation Are they not given to filthy lucre that to enrich themselves with other mens havings have sold themselves to worke wickednesse and have taken away the lives of the owners thereof Will they say they are patient which will not only suffer nothing for Gods sake but are enemies even to the very Doctrine of the Crosse Teaching men to resist and not to suffer let our Saviour say what he will in stead of practising patience themselves exercising the patience of others by their persecutions and whilest they forbid men to suffer under the lawfull Magistrate they compell them to suffer under their unlawfull Tyranny They doe indeed well approve themselves the Ministers of God In afflictions in necessities in distresses in stripes in imprisonments For though they suffer them not themselves yet they will be sure to act them upon others In tumults indeed they are excellent but it is in raising them against the lawfull power of the Magistrate which Saint Paul thought good to cleare himselfe of as being no good marke of a good teacher of the Gospell Acts 24.12 18. and likes it not well it seemes in the people since he was afraid to find it amongst the Corinthians as no marke of good Christians 2 Cor. 12.20 I feare saith he when I come that I shall not find you such as I would and that I shall be found of you such as ye would not lest there be debates envyings wraths strifes backbitings whisperings swellings tumults Bring them to the touch in these and the rest of those markes of Ministeriall perfection which the Apostle sets downe and we shall easily perceive that fulfilled in them that Tertullian takes notice of in some of the like spirit with them in his time de monogam c. 12. Quum extellimur inflamur adversus Clerum tunc unum omnes sumus tunc omnes Sacerdotes quia Sacerdotes nos Deo Patri fecit Quùm ad peraequationem disciplina Sacer dotatis provocamur deponimus infulas impares sumus When we are lifted up and swelled against the Clergy saith he speaking in the person of some insolent spirits in his Age Than we are all one then we are all Priests because he hath made us Priests unto God and the Father but when we are stirred up to the height or perfection of Sacerdotall Discipline then we lay downe our Priestly Ornaments and then we are of an inferiour ranke Such were they of whom Saint Cyprian not long after complained of in his time as a pest of the Church Hi sunt saith he qui se ultrò apud temerarios convenas sine divinâ dispensatione praeficiunt qui se prapositos sine ullâ ordinationis lege constituunt qui nemine Episcopatum dante Episcopi sibi nomen assumunt These saith he are they who take upon them of their owne heads to set up themselves ever their rash and unadvised Congregations That make themselves Rulers and Leaders of the People without any legitimate Ordination c. And these the good Father saith are Sedentes in pestilentiae Cathedrâ pestes lues fidei serpentis ore fallentes corrumpendae veritatis artifices venena lethalia linguis pestiferis evomentes quorum sermo ut cancer serpit quorū tactus pectoribus cordibus singulorum mortale virus infundit They sit in the pestilentiall
those that are given to change restore unto us the joyfull solemnities of thy worship and vindicate thy portion from those Sacrilegious hands that have robbed thee of the incouragements and supportance of thy Service that we may yet againe and ever more and more serve thee our God in unity and truth and glorifie thy name for thy mercies from generation to generation through Jesus Christ our Lord To whom with thee O Father and thy holy Spirit one Almighty Eternall and most glorious God be all honour and glory and blessing and praise from hence forth and for ever Amen Psalmes for Humiliation and Imploration of Gods Mercy c. Psalme 6.1 O Lord rebuke us not in thine Anger neither chasten us in thine hot Displeasure Have mercy upon us O Lord for wee are weake O Lord heale us for our bones are vexed Our soules also are sore troubled But thou O Lord how long Returne O Lord deliver our soules O save us for thy mercies sake For in death there is no remembrance of thee In the grave who shall give thanks unto thee Psalme 7.9 O let the wickednesse of the wicked come to an end but establish the just For thou O Lord tryest the hearts and reines Psalme 9.9 Be thou a refuge for the oppressed even a refuge in these times of trouble Thou that liftest us up from the Gates of Death Psalme 9.19 Arise O Lord let not man prevaile breake thou the power of the Enemy for the presumption of them that hate thee increaseth yet dayly Put them in feare O Lord that they may know themselves to bee but men Psalme 10.13 Wherefore doth the wicked contemne God He hath said in his heart thou wilt not require it Verse 14. Thou hast seene it for thou beholdest mischiefes and spite to requite it with thy hand The poore committeth himselfe unto thee thou art the helper of the fatherlesse Verse 15. Breake thou the arme of the wicked and the evill man seeke out his wickednesse till thou find none Verse 18. Judge thou the fatherlesse and the oppressed that the man of the earth may no more oppresse Amen Another Psalme Psalme 12.1 HElpe Lord for the godly man ceaseth for the faithfull faile from among the children of men Verse 2. They speake vanity every one with his neighbour with flattering lips and a double heart do they speake Verse 4. They have said with our tongue will we prevaile our lips are our owne who 〈◊〉 Lord over us Verse 5. For the oppression of the poore for the sighing of the needy arise now O Lord according to thy word and set him in safety from him that puffeth at him Psalme 13.3 Consider and heare us O Lord our God lighten our eyes least we sleep the sleep of death Ver. 4. Least our enemies say we have prevailed against them and those that trouble us rejoyce when we are moved Psalme 17.3 Let our sentence come forth from thy presence let thine eyes behold the thing that is equall Vers 5. Hold thou up our goings in thy paths that our footsteps slip not Vers 6. We have called upon thee for thou wilt heare us O God incline thine care unto us and heare our speech Vers 7. Shew thy marvellous loving kindnesse oh thou that savest by thy right hand them which put their trust in thee from them that rise up against them Ver. 8. Keep us as the Apple of the eye hide us under theshadow of thy wings from the wicked that oppresse us from our deadly enemies who compasse us about Vers 13. Arise O Lord disappoint them cast them down deliver our soules from the wicked which are thy sword Vers 14. From men which are thy hand O Lord from men of the world which have their portion in this life and whose bellies thou fillest with thine hid treasure Vers 15. As for us we will behold thy face in righteousnes we shall be satisfied when we awake with thy likenesse Another Psalme Psalme 51.1 c. HAve mercy upon us oh God according to thy loving kindnesse according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out our transgressions Wash us throughly from our iniquities and cleanse us from our sinnes for we acknowledge our transgressions and our sins are ever before us Against thee have we sinned and done evill in thy sight That thou mayest be justified when thou speakest and cleare when thou judgest Behold we are shapen in iniquity and in sinne have out mothers conceived us we have sinned with our fathers we have done amisse and dealt wickedly Neh. 9.16 We and our fathers have dealt proudly we have hardened our necks and have not harkened to thy Commandements We have refused to obey neither have wee been mindfull of the wonders that thou didst for us and our Nation How thou hast brought us out of darkenesse into thy light How thou chasedst away the fogs of Errour and Superstition and causedst the glory of thy truth to shine amongst us Psal 84.11 How thou our God hast been a Sunne and a shield unto us Psal 66.12 How thou hast carried us through fire and water and hast delivered us from the Enemies hand How thou brakedst the Ships of the Sea and scatteredst the Armadoes of our Enemies upon the waters How thou armedst the very Elements to fight against our Adversaries And drewest forth the Stormes and the Tempests in array to chastise the pride and insolency of our foes and to turne the destruction upon themselves which they intended against us How thou hast defeated the divellish devises of the wicked and disappointed the hellish plots and conspiracies of the ungodly When the lot of destruction was cast upon us and the deepe designe thereof was even ready to blow us up When the contrivers thereof thought all things sure and that they were safe under the cloud of their darke counsels and were ready to triumph in the successe of their cruelty When the time of our expected overthrow was even come and they were gaping to swallow us up at once unto ruine Psal 78.65 Then thou Lord awakedst as one out of sleep as a Giant refreshed with wine Thou discoveredst the covering of their mischievous intentions and broughtest their designes of darknesse unto light Psal 18.12 At the brightnesse of thy presence the clouds removed and their secret wickednesse was laid open to our view Thou unfoldedst the riddle of their hidden impietie and madest us to understand the mistery of their iniquity so Thou overthrewest the enterprise of ruine that was against us Thou savedst us from the mouth of destruction and madest the pit that our adversaries had digged to swallow up themselves Thou gavest them shame for the wicked joy that they expected sufferedst them not to triumph in the bloud of thy people Psal 124.7 Our soules escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowler the snare was broken and we were delivered Psal 106.12 Then beleeved wee thy Word and sung thy Praise Ver. 13. But
we soone forgot thy workes and waited not for thy counsell Ver. 21. We forgat God our Saviour which had done so great things for us 22. Wondrous things in the Land of our habitation and fearfull things upon the great Sea Psal 78.32 For all this we sinned still and beleeved not for his wondrous workes Ver. 41. We turned backe and tempted God and limited the holy One of Israel Wee turned backe and dealt unfaithfully we turned aside like a deceitfull bow Psal 78.5 c. Thou establishedst thy Testimony in our Jacob and appointedst thy Gospell in our Israell which thou commandest our Fathers that they should make them knowne to us their children That the Generations to come might know them even the children that should bee borne who should arise and declare them to their children That they might set their hope in God and not forget the workes of God but keep his Commandements And might not bee as their Fathers a stubborne and rebellious generation a generation that set not their heart aright and whose spirit was not stedfast with God But we have not regarded the mighty works that thou hast done nor the wonders that thou hast wronght for us For all this we have sinned yet more against thee and have lightly esteemed the rocke of our Salvation Psal 80.8 Thou broughtest us as a Vine out of the Aegypt of Popery and plantedst it in a very fruitfull hill Thou preparedst roome before it and didst cause it to take deep root and it filled the Land The hils were covered with the shadow of it and the boughs thereof were like the goodly Cedars Thou wateredst it with showers from above and enrichedst it with the River of thy goodnesse and blessedst the springing of it Thou causedst the beames of thy heavenly light to shine upon it That it might grow and prosper and beare fruit abundantly and that thou mightest blesse the increase thereof Isa 5.2 Thou fencedst it with the wall of thy divine protection and providence and didst set the hedge of an happy government about it Thou gathered stout the stones thereof by removing the offences that they might not hinder the growth thereof Thou prunedst it diggedst about it and dungedst the root thereof with the fat soyle of thine earthly blessings Isa 5.4 And what could have been done more unto thy Vinyard that thou hast not done in it But we quickly turned into the degenerate plant of a strange Vine unto thee and when thou lookedst for grapes we brought forth wild Grapes Therefore thou hast now taken away the hedge thereof and it is eaten up thou hast broken downe the wall thereof and it is troden downe It is laid waste and blasted with the burning wind of thy displeasure It is become a place of Briers and Thornes A Land of darkenesse and of the shadow of death Isa 34.11 The Cormorant and the Bitterne possesse it the Owle and the Raven dwell in it and thou hast stretched out upon it the Line of Confusion and the stones of emptinesse Psal 80.14 But returne we beseech thee O God of Hosts looke downe from heaven behold and visit this Vine And the Vineyard which thine owne right hand hath planted and the branch that thou madest strong for thy selfe It is burnt with fire it is cut downe and we perish at the rebuke of thy countenance Let thine hand be upon the man of thy right hand upon the Sonne of man whom thou madest strong for thy selfe So will not we go backe from thee quicken us and we will call upon thy name Turne us again O Lord God of Hosts shew the light of thy countenance and we shall be whole Another Prayer for these Kingdomes O Most glorious and gracious Lord God who rulest and governest all things Thine are all the Kingdomes of the world and all the Nations of the earth are in thy power and at thy disposing Thou buildest them that they may stand and thou plantest them that they may grow and whilst thou waterest them they flourish and at the blast of the breath of thy displeasure they fade away and come to nothing whilst thou blessest them they are blessed when thou cursest them they are weake and consumed Looke down I beseech thee upon these poore Nations that lye weltring before thee in their bloud in their sins that are entangled in the net and perplexed in the Labyrinth of their great transgressions and miseries and cannot tell how to get out O Lord our God I beseech thee take pity upon us and grant us a release Thou hast the soveraigne medicines with thee that can heale both our sins and miseries we are unworthy of thy mercy but thou art a God that delightest in mercy and the more undeserved it is the greater is thy glory nothing is too hard for thee no malady so desperate no sicknesse so incurable as to outbid either thy wisdome or goodnesse they are both glorified but neither can be puzzled or hindered by the extremities of our conditions It is thy property and thy divine peculiar worke to helpe when there is no help to be found wo have been struggling and striving O Lord a long time to get out of the toyle of our afflictions but all in vain The more we strive the farther still we are engaged in the mischief wheresoever we run thine arrows stick fast in us the poyson therof drinketh up our spirits thy terrors set themselves in array against us all our hopes in the Creatures have deceived us They have proved unto us but false conceptions they have brought forth nothing but wind we have waited for help but we have found none And therefore now O Lord we come to thee beseeching thee our God to have mercy upon us that what all the strength in the world cannot worke for us nor all the wisdome in the world contrive for us we may yet obtaine from thee our God But alas how should we obtaine any thing at thy hands when there are such loud cries and clamours of our great and horrid sinnes and iniquities against us How shouldst thou draw neere unto us that do continually run away from thee and flye from thy mercy by our impenitency and wickednesse even whilst we aske mercy at thy hands How shouldest thou but abhorre and abominate us that by our filthy and noy some iniquities have made our whole Land even to stinke in thy nostrills O Lord our God we confesse there is nothing in us that can challenge thy favour or bespeake any reliefe from thee If it be thy pleasure to destroy us to consume us with all thy plagues and damne us all even our whole Nation to the bottomlesse pit of hell we have nothing to reply or object against thee it is no more than our iniquities call for But we beseech thee O Lord to be gracious unto us all that we can do is to beg it at thy hands to beseech thy pardon to implore thy compassion to plead unto
before we sleep concerning our thoughts and demeanour that day with some such questions as the Philosophers verse doth imply 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where I have been What I have done What duties I should have done that day and have omitted And seeking pardon and grace for the future and strengthening our selves against our sins with holy resolutions And if every morning we would bethinke our selves what temptations we may fall into that day and if we can contrive prudently the avoydance of them if not to desire Gods helpe and the grace of his Spirit to arme us against them Sixthly It will behove us to bend our selves most against those sinnes unto which we are most enclined and against our master-sinnes Seventhly To be wary of our Society and as much as we may to avoid evill Company and to associate our selves with those that are good evill communication corrupts good manners Eighthly To meditate often of the presence of God who is with us every where seeing all our most secret thoughts hearing our most whispering words and observing all our most private actions See Psal 139. and meditate upon it To contemplate of the houre of death the frailty of life the vanity of the world the profitablenesse of righteousnesse having the promises of this life and that which is to come of the all-sufficiency of God and Christ of the day of Iudgement of the joyes of heaven and the paines of hell of eternity and above all of Gods love toward us in Christ Iesus of his Passion Resurrection Ascension of his Kingdome Priesthood and Glory and of the glorious patternes of his holy life Ninthly Be frequent and fervent in Suppplications to God for the King and his Family the Church the Kingdoms for the obtaining of a remedy to our miseries and desolations with submission to his Will and regard unto his glory And let all be offered up with a firme faith in Christ Jesus resting upon Gods mercy toward us in him For a helpe unto these Duties I do not undertake to prescribe any thing in this kind in particular but if I might without offence give my advice I would advise all good Christians that wish well to the King Church and Kingdom to give themselves to a private weekly Fast once a weeke at the least during these miseries to be employed in earnest Supplication to God for pardon of the sins and the removall of his judgements from the King and his people and these Nations and for the obtaining of grace and holinesse and in other holy duties agreeable thereunto Now for the Loyall Party in particular I have only thus much to say 1. To intreat them to get honest pious able Ministers amongst them that may instruct them and guide them in the waies of God and assist them with prayer and Supplication 2. That they make it their principall care to set up Religion in their Camps and to keep up a pious discipline amongst the Souldiers in case they shall have more to do in that way 3. That they take heed of violence and revengefull thoughts which may engage God against them and that they meditate not cruelty or retaliation But that their endeavours be fixed upon the honour of God and directed to the good of the King and the Church and Kingdome with a resolution to be regulated and guided by his Majestie as they ought and not to take upon them to be the carvers of their owne reparations nor seeking to returne evill for evill for the private injuries they have received but observing that golden rule of the Apostle Let your moderation be known unto all men that they may not by their fury and violence both displease God and overturne the businesse they shall have to mannage but that by their meeknesse and patience and Christian carriage they may stop the reviling mouths of their adversaries and shew themselves to be sincere Christians as well as Loyall Subjects The Lord of strength and wisdome and grace and mercy Arme us with his Strength direct us by his Wisdome sanctifie us with his Grace and Crowne us with his Mercy Through him who is the Lord of all Power and Wisdome and Grace and Mercy even Christ Iesus our Lord Amen A HELP FOR HVMILIATION O Lord the Great and dreadfull God keeping the Covenant mercy to them that love thee and to them that keep thy Commandements And a God of judgement and fury even a consuming fire unto thine enemies Bow down thine eares O Lord and heare open thine eyes O Lord and see the great afflictions and miseries of thy poore and wretched people who are assembled before thee this day to call upon thee for mercy Stir up our hearts we besseech thee that we may seek thy face and obtaine thy pittie compassion towards us O Lord 〈◊〉 God we doe not come before thee in any trust or confidence in our owne righteouâ—nesse but in the multitude 〈◊〉 thy mercies towards us 〈◊〉 Christ Jesus in whom the hast promised us a gracious accesse unto thee who is both â—â— Priest and our Sacrifice to make an attonement betwixt thee and us by whose hand we desire to offer up unto thee the sacrifices not of Bullockes and Goats but of troubled spirits and broken and contrite hearts which thou hast assured us thou wilt not despise Wee confesse O Lord that we have sinned and committed iniquitie and have done wickedly and have rebelled even by departing from thy Precepts and from thy judgements neither have we harkened unto thy Servants which spake in thy name to our Kings our Princes and our Fathers and to all the people of the Land We have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God to walke in thy Laws which thou hast set before us by thy Servants the Prophets neither the terrors of Sinai nor the comforts of Sion neither the threatnings of Moses nor the gracious Promises of Christ have wrought upon our stubborne soules to make us forsake our sins in the feare of the one nor to embrace righteousnesse in the hope of the other Thou hast assayed many times to draw us unto thee by the Cords of love in great mercies and blessings which thou hast showred downe upon us Thou hast given us the dew of heaven and the fatnesse of the earth Thou hast opened the Treasures of thy bounty unto us in the plenty and aboundance of the fruits of the ground glorified thy selfe in wonderfull deliverances of us from the violence and conspiracies of our adversaries Thou hast been a shadowunto us against the heat and a shelter against the storm Thou hast strengthened the barrs of our gates and made peace in all our borders and to these and many other mercies thou hast added that which is above all in setling the true Religion among us and making the light of the Gospell to shine upon us the splendour whereof made us unto the greatest part of the world beside as the dwellings of Israell unto the
rest of the Land of Aegypt where light was given by the priviledge of thy goodnesse when all the rest of the Land was overspread with a blacke night of palpable darknesse And for all these thy mercies we have returned unto thee no other recompence but rebellion disobedience most scornfully and unthankefully most impiously and insolently have wee throwne thy blessings in thy face and fought against thee with thine owne mercies by abusing them to the dishonour of thy great and glorious name Our prosperity hath made us fat with Iesurun and wee have kicked against thee our God In the strength that we have received continually from thy bounty we have continually rebelled against thee Thy liberality unto us in the rich supply of thy Creatures hath been made by us the furniture of gluttony and drunkennes the incentives of lust and uncleannesse the wardrope of pride and vanity whilst we have neglected to bestow them upon those holy purposes for which thou gavest them in relieving of thy poore members and in the maintenance promotion and ornament of thy holy service we have filled our selves with costly and intemperate dyet to the robbing of thee our God the destruction of our bodies the disabling of our soules for the performance of holy duties unto thee yea even to the debasing of our very natures as it were turning our selves into brutish and unreasonable Creatures to the damage not only of our Piety Christianity but even of our very being and humanity it selfe whilst thy Sonne Christ Jesus hath stood hungry and thirsty at our doores in his poore distressed and afflicted Members left destitute not only of our succour or reliefe but even of our pitty and compassion We have cloathed our selves like the rich man in the Gospell with fine Linnen with rich and sumptuous attire without any due regard unto our estates or callings whilest thy Son Christ Jesus in his poore Members hath stood stood quivering and quaking with cold and nakednesse being left by us a prey both to torment and disgrace We our selves have dwelt in seiled houses to the splendor and ornament whereof we have engaged the riches both of Art and Nature whilst we have suffered thy house the place wherein thine honour dwelleth to lye waste and shared it betwixt sordidnesse deformity and ruine to the reproach of thy service and scandall of Religion yea O Lord we have not so much as taken care for the maintenance of their bodies that feed our souls we have muzzled the Oxe that treadeth out the Corne and robbed thee our God in tythes and offerings the meagrenesse and poverty of many thy poore Ministers that spend themselves in labour for the salvation of our soules do in too too many places of this Land testifie against us Those glorious deliverances which thou hast given us from our enemies have but rendred us so much the more potent and active enemies unto thee as if thy preservation of us had been no blessing but rather an offence and injurie unto us Our long and lasting peace hath beene made by us but a long and lasting opportunity of sin and in our freedome from enemies upon earth we have most impiously fought against heaven and thee our God And that we might fill up the measure of our unthankefulnesse and make it equall unto the measure of thy goodnes if it were possible by the contempt and abuse of all sorts of thy mercies we have scorned and trampled upon all thy spirituall blessings Wee have turned the very grace of God into wantonnes we have made thy very Gospell the savour of death unto death unto our selves by resisting and refusing the gracious offers of salvation which thou hast made unto us in Christ Jesus whilst thy promises of Grace have been used by us as incitements and encouragements to sinne and upon the very ground and foundation of thy most incomprehensible goodnesse towards us we have built up the Babell of confusion the cursed building of disobedience and impiety against thee yea O Lord there are too too many of us that have trodden under foot the Son of God have counted the bloud of the Covenant wherewith we have been sanctified an unholy thing and have done despite unto the Spirit of grace whilest they have made a mock of Religion and Piety to the great disheartning of the work of thy service the horrible dishonour of thy Majestie to the deplorable scandall of our Christian profession and to the almost O Lord that it might be no more inevitable ruine and damnation of their owne soules Thus thus O Lord our God have we requited thee for all thy goodnesse and mercy towards us and the more gracious thou hast shewed thy self unto us the more wicked and sinfull have wee beene against thee Thou hast made us a pleasant and fruitfull Land even as the Land of Sodom and Gomorrah which was as the Garden of God And we have it may be feared outdone the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah their sins were pride and idlenesse and fulnesse of bread together with horrid and unnaturall lusts and which of these sins have not beene committed in our Land Yea many more sinnes not inferiour unto these have sent up their cry unto heaven against us and it is the wonder of thy mercy and forbearance that thou hast not long ere this sent down fire from heaven upon us to have consumed our whole Nation into ashes we have tasted deeper of the Cup of thy mercies then Israel and yet the measure of our sins as we may justly feare hath been no way lesse then the sins of unthankfull Israel yea we have justified both Ierusalem and Samaria by our iniquities and therefore it were most just in thee to give us up to desolation as thou hast done them But O Lord our God thou hast not so left us off when thy mercies would not worke upon us thou hast assayed us with thy bitter chastisements and corrections that thou mightest thereby have whipped us from our sins when Cordials and pleasant medicines would not heale us thou hast used the bitter pills and irkesome purgatives of calamities and afflictions thou hast applied the launce unto our swelling sores by suffering thy wrath to grow hot against us in great and many miseries that thou hast sent upon us Thou hast pruned us and dressed us by the sharpe instruments of thy chastisements that we might be reclaimed from our wildnesse and barrennesse and yeild forth the fruites of obedience unto thee Sometimes thou hast sent thy destroying Angell amongst us with his sword drawne against us in the Plague and Pestilence whereby many thousands of us have been hurried into the pit of destruction that the plague of our bodies might have cured us of the Plague of our hearts otherwhiles the heavens have become brasse unto us and the earth yron The Creatures have refused to yeild their fruit to the sustenance of such unthankefull wretches that thou mightest have cured the diseases