denying the Lord and his justice and his holiness all which blasphemies are hereby committed and God summoned to the creatures bar and we condemn him of injustice LORD heal us of these our iniquities and reform our complaints that we may have none but filial complaints to thy self as our Blessed Lord Jesus who said My God my God why hast thou forsaken me And whatever we suffer to say with Jeremy in his expostulation Lord thou art Righteous yet let me reason with thee Why doth the ungodly prosper And in all extremity of afflictions retain this thought of God that he is righteous and good And let our complaints of the instruments of our afflictions be mixed with prayers for them as Stephens were And let us strive to bring up our wills to God's will and to submit all to thee saying as our Saviour did Lord if it be possible let this cup pass from me Nevertheless not my will but thy will be done And that thou mayest remove thy afflicting hand and thy Rod and thy servants sins and punishments may be removed let us first amend our lives and forsake our sins Search and try our waies to find out the sins we lie under For thou hast said If thy people which are in Captivity shall bethink themselves and turn unto thee thou wilt help them but if when thou hearknest thou hearest no man speak righteously or to say what have I done how canst thou repent of the punishment when we repent not of our sins Let us therefore remember from whence we are fallen and let us turne again to the Lord and forsake our wicked waies lest thou sayest to us as to Israel thou sayedst 10 Judg. 10. You have forsaken me go and cry unto the Gods that ye have served And having tried our waies and forsaken our wickedness let us in humble holy fervent prayer lift up our hearts with our hands to our God in the Heavens Saying we have transgressed and rebelled but thou hast pardoned Thus Davi'd Princes took counsel against him but he gave himself to prayer and thus the Marriners in the storm to Jonas awake thou sluggard and call upon the name of thy God And then our God will save us as he did the Israelites in Babylon under Ahasuerus when commissions were out to slay them And his hand is not shortned to us neither hath he forgotten to be gracious to them who confess their sins with their aggravations as the Prophet doth we have transgressed and rebelled And justify God as Ezra Thou hast punished us less then our iniquities have deserved Made upon hearing of a Sermon to the same effect LORD whatever duties I perform unto thee let me do them from the principle of love and not of custom or necessity to silence the natural or awakened conscience since thou acceptest the will more than the gift as thou didst the poor widows two mites and it is this that perfumes our Sacrifices and it is thiâ— that thy word calls the fulfilling the law And all that thou hast required of us is contained in thiâ— as it is writen what doth the Lord require of thee but that thou love the Lord thy God and my Son give me thy heart O Lord God take this poor worthless heart too good for the World and those brutish pleasures which we so willingly give it to and eagerly and earnestly affect but not any way good enough for thee who by thy bounty and beneficence to us every day dost oblige us more than all we have or can doe will requite but the world can do no such things for us and if beauty excellency worth wisdom kindness beneficence parentage free love pardon or any other motive whatsoever would prevail to win and allure us in thee it is I will therefore resolve to devote my affections to thee and ever to begin my meditation in the morning when I awake with the sweet remembrance of thy undeserved kindness to me When we were cast out in our blood in the open field in the day of our nativity when no Eye pitied us to wash us swaddle us salt us bath us and bind us up then thou passedst by and castedst thy eye of love upon us and didst all these things for us and nourishedst us and broughst us up and then the time of love was and thou madest us beautiful and comely in thy own righteousness and marriedst us to thy self and bestowedst upon us thy self And all that is thine And all that are thine And all this didst thou to us as a stranger passing by and unconcerned for what had our perishing been to thee but thou as the good Samartan didst freely pity us nay while we were thy enimies thou didst all this for us shall not all this love move us nor is this all Eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive what the Lord hath prepared for them that love him If we consider the particular benefits we have received from the hand of God and how highly we valued them and earnestly sought them before we had them and the great evils we have been deliverd from and how much we feared them and how restless we were in the fear till we were delivered from them we shall admire thy goodness and love thee with admiration And if we consider thy excellency we may love and admire the perfection and beauty of thee and thine infinite wisdome and power in all thy works in the Heavens in the earth and in the ocean in the Sun Moon Stars the Seasons of the year the living creatures and in the smallest of them O Lord since we cannot but see all loveliness excellency and desirableness in thee let our first and last meditations begin and end the the day with thee eager to take the first opportunity of approaching thy throne and as loath to leave the sweet contemplation of thy exelencies and goodness O Lord God almighty thy holy word teacheth us That except we eat thy Sons body and drink his blood we have no life in us And that whoso eateth his flesh and drinketh his blood hath eternal life Joh. 6.53 54. Give us worthily to receive this Sacrament that we may have eternal life Give us to come to it with grace in our heart that our graces may be increased and strengthened as by the food of our souls as the body is by the food of the body which is not betterd by food if it be not living no more can our souls be if we be dead in trespasses and sins and as the body turns the most wholsom nourishment to its hurt to diseases if the stomach be full of ill humours so our souls shall be worse as Judas was for these holy Sacraments if we come not to them prepared with repentance Therefore as the Lord was pleased to wash his Disciples feet before he gave them the Sacrament of his body and blood that they might be clean and fit for
become the Sons of God even to as many as believed in his Name John 1.12 But he that eats not his Body and drinks not his Blood hath no fellowship in him he that doth eat and drink them hath Eternal Life The receiving then of him and believing in his Name being the qualification that makes us the Sons of God and his Brethren and that Text excluding all from that priviledge that do not eat and drink his Body and Blood sheweth that by receiving him and believing in his Name they eat him not by diminishing him by their Teeth or digesting him in their Stomach but by drawing Life from his Death by Faith and strengthning and maintaining that new Life which it hath from Christ by believing his Body to be crucified and his Blood shed for them and by the Bread and Wine is given to them And if we should understand this eating of Attrition or diminishing with the Teeth and the Drinking of taking by the Mouth into the Stomach by drops and digesting there then God should suffer his Holy One to see corruption For although we should suppose it did not corrupt in our body so long as we live yet when these vile bodies turns to Earth and rottenness then all that is in them must corrupt And the Text that excludes all that eat not his Body and drinks not his Blood would exclude all Believers from Adam until this Sacrament was Instituted by our blessed Saviour But if this eating and drinking be believing then Abraham and the rest of the faithful might eat and drink him as well as they saw his day For all of them eat the same Spiritual meat and drink the same Spiritual drink and receive their Eternal Life and Salvation from the same Jesus Christ And if we do by this eating find our penitent Souls to revive and live a new Immortal and Eternal Life from the belief of his Death and Passion for us his Body Crucified and his Blood spilt for us to give us Life then we eat his body and shall live for ever And thus the faithful people of God by eating the Passeover under the Law did eat Christ the true Passeover by eating that which was the Type of him whom it represented fide non ore at it is said all eat the same Spiritual Bread Of the Eucharist Meditation I feel a hunger in my Soul which neither Manna nor all the World can satisfie though I have all the necessaries and conveniences of Life yet I hunger and thirst as for Rivers of Water in a dry place Isa 32. Do thou then O blessed Saviour give me of the Water of Life out of thy Fountain The living Water and Blood that cometh from that Fountain of Living Water thy side upon the Cross which still is open to the House of Judah and Jerusalem and seals unto us all the promises upon which we live thou hast Instituted this Bread and Wine to represent thy Holy and blessed Body and Blood shed and broken upon the Cross and thereby givest them to the Soul that thirsteth for Eternal Life in thee Isa 32.4 Though my weakness of Faith should be such that I am not able to discern whether virtually or really they become such or whether they be consubstantiated transubstantiated or new-substantiated in their Natures by the blessing and the Faith of the Receiver or neither yet thus far thou hast enlightned me to know that all the promises are Yea and Amen in thee that thou hast Eternal Life and givest it and that by these Elements which signifie and exhibit thy Body and Blood to be eaten and drank by Faith Spiritually and for thy Body and Blood I eat and drink them but as separable for I fear least I should through unbelief receive but only the Bread and Wine and not thy Body and Blood which give Eternal Life which every one that hath that eateth thy Body and drinketh thy Blood and if an unbeliever or an unprepared impenitent person the worst of thy enemies he that betrayed thee or any other creature could but eat and drink of them they also would thereby have Eternal Life But thou alone hast power to give it to whom thou pleasest To thee therefore I address my Prayer when the Priest reacheth to me the Bread and Wine that thou wouldest reach to me thy sacrificed Body and Blood that was shed upon the Cross and make these Natural Elements to become those Eternal Aliments to me not by Faith in them but by Faith in thee who hast made them to signifie those and represent them which though I cannot discern by my senses I pray that I may by my Faith in thy Word which makes them operate as thy Body and Blood to me through thy benediction though materially I discern them not and give me thy holy Spirit that I may discern them Spiritually and eat panem Dominum if by looking up to thee we are saved what other thing can I understand this Mystery to be than looking up to thee on the Cross and shedding thy precious Blood for my sins which thou communicatest to us Of Holiness Meditations Mot. Holiness to the Lord shall be writ upon the Bells of the Horses Med. All the graces are so linked together like a golden chaine that they cannot be without each other This is a collective word and containes in it piety charity and humility and all that the first and second table of the law of God containes all the duty of man towards God his neighbour and himself It is the fruit of faith out of which Root this grace springs The necessity of this grace is laid down in this expression that without it no man shall see God the same is implied Psal 63.3 I have sought thee in holiness that I might behold thy glory The precepts are many that command us to get it in general and in the particular branches of it every commandment and precept in the Scripture are to this end Not any one minute of a Christian life nor any one action be it natural action of the body or civil gesture or behaviour but it must have holiness imprinted on it for in the Temple the candlesticks and the snuffers were of pure Gold and Christ came to perfect it and advance it therefore ' tls prophesied of his Kingdom that under it holines to the Lord shall be written upon the Bels of the Horses which inscription was on Arons miter The rights and ceremonies of purification under the law typified as much Although it be said that faith hath this and all other graces for its fruits yet there is a time when a child of God may not percieve in himself much nay scarce any life of Holiness Humility Patience Zeal Meekness Charity or other graces as in the Winter the herbs and Plants shew no life at all usually they are excited again by some extraordinary providence of God either in afflicting us or delivering us from some danger or affliction or by
prone to all other sins As David's adultery made way for murther As the Heathen who liked not to retain God in their thoughts God gave them up to all uncleanness So it hardens the heart against repentance and blinds the mind that it cannot understand good from evil And finally that it loseth God's favour and all things that are worth desiring and makes us liable to endure all evils that are worthy to be feared and let these considerations work in me an antipathy to it And on the contrary that I may apprehend the excellency of holiness and the fear of the Lord which is the best of good things as sin is the worst of evils and as sin is the greatest folly and stupidity so holiness contrariwise is the greatest wisdom and to fear God and do thereafter is good understanding That the righteous is more excellent than his neighbour and they that are precious in God's eyes are honourable that it makes us like the Saints and like to Christ and like God to be perfect as God is perfect to be holy as he is holy That it is our security and ingages God to be a Sun of perpetual comfort and a shield of defence to us That if we do good none will harm us But to the wicked there is no peace And that it gains God's favour and all those things that are worth desiring in this life And eternally Lord Let these considerations work in me a hunger and thirst after grace O give me to apprehend the terrour of the Lord that I may fear him accordingly to consider that thou gavest the Law with thunder and lightning that those that despised Moses Law died without mercy that I may fear to offend against the Gospel and the blood of Jesus Christ counting it unholy as all that are not sanctified by it do Let me apprehend the strictness of thy precept Thou hast commanded that we keep thy precepts diligently That we have covenanted in Baptism to do it and upon our repentance likewise and renewing of cur Covenant with thee and every thought of our hearts is under this Law Therefore that I may walk accordingly let me be diligent in all God's Ordinances which are both food and physick to the soul Let me use frequent prayer which will surely make me weary of sinning if sin doth not make me weary of praying And give me unweariedness and constancy in the duty of reading searching and meditating in the Scriptures Let me hide thy Word in my heart that I might not sin against thee Let the Word convey the Spirit into me since it is received by the hearing of faith and not by the works of the Law and let me often renew my Covenant with thee in the blood of Jesus Christ LORD since thou promisest a reward to him who overcomes Let me have grace to fight thy battels and let me not expect the reward till I have done thy service let me contemn the labour and the allurements that would divert me while I look upon the incouragement Though Satan offereth present rewards for sin and puts an edge upon the temptations and makes them suit my temper either in the things of the world or the flesh and my heart is ready to betray me within and my reason is ready to follow my appetite yet let my jealousy over my heart and my constant watchfulness prevail against them all through Christ Jesus by whom only we can overcome so powerful an adversary as Satan is who is unwearied in his temptations For we wrestle not against flesh and blood nor by flesh and blood but by Faith in Christ upon whom we rely for the victory Therefore give us the shield of faith Faith reflecting upon the glory to come and the love of Christ past who left Heaven for us that we might leave earth for him And let us know that we fight Christs battels an that he is our Captain and will succour his that are tempted and we shall be able to do all things through him that strengthens us when we call upon him And fighting thy battels and overcoming thy enemies give me the promised reward of blessedness the white stone the sentence of absolution from the guilt of sin and the seal of thy favour to my soul whereby I shall taste the joys of Heaven which the men of the world apprehend not THAT I may fear to sin let me weigh seriously the seeming pleasure and profit it offers with its losses it brings What profit have carnal pleasures satisfying the senses and the pleasing of the fancy the vain breath of mans applause unless I view Heaven and happiness as fables how can I neglect them for these base things or Satan and my own lusts beguiles me and deceive me for if I were indifferent in my Judgment I must needs contemne these poor bates as Solomon did after he had made tryal of them O Lord inlighten my understanding and rectify my Judgment and my depraved will and affections that I may not be cheated nor be willing to be deceived that I may not buy pleasure at so dear a rate being a lover of it more than of God who is blessed for ever let me not set so light by God and blessedness and Heaven and my true eternal interest teach me to fear the loss of my soul and the favour of God and the peace of conscience all which either early or late the sinner finds he loseth Give me that spiritual eye salve whereby I may discern the vizard and sucus of sin Teach me to consider all the seeming gainers by sin youthful persons who are in the strength and vigor of their age who make the most and the best of their pleasure of whose merry meetings the wise man hath said Their laughter is madness And the sins of their youth are the sorrows of their age when they cry out with Job Remember not the sins of my youth and thou makest me possess the sins of my youth or what gaine can the great ones of the earth boast of though they drink a greater draught of pleasures than other men who the more they seem to gain the more they lose they lose the peace of conscience and the favour of God and his blessings but if any gaine it is those who after sining are saved by repentance But these all their life after do complain of nothing but there sins and with great difficulty do recover their peace with God and their conscience for what likelihood is there that that should prove profitable to any that God doth forbid or would God gaine any profit by it if it were my loss to forbear it the Lord doth not envy us he that can afford us Heaven would he grudge us the pleasure of sin which the Devel will allow us can this be good for us that is against God is that like to be a mans good which deprives a man of internal peace and injoiment of himself and which every man either in
fore-skin of our heart taken away by mortification of all the senses and affections and is in all the parts of the body the eyes the hands the tongue the eares the pallate c. This analogical circumcision remaineth that of Moses law is taken away this is Spiritual and may be with blood too as is said You have not yet resisted unto blood striving against Sin That circumcision signified this mortification but this is the more difficult His reasons of his assertion of this are couched in these characters of Christians viz. Which rejoyce in Christ and have no confidence in the flesh As if he should argue that they that rejoyce in any thing but Christ and his merits and alsufficiency are not the heires of Salvation Nor they who have confidence in any fleshly thing as circumcision and outward performances and priviledges Nor those who put off God with outword bodily worship and do not worship him with their hearts and Spirits Spiritually as it is said they draw nigh with their lips but their heart is far from me these things they may do that are in the flesh but cannot please God because they do not justice and love mercy and walk humbly with God Holiness also of our own framing is not that which God accompts holiness that is to say voluntary Humility worshipping of Angels c. These the Apostle saith Have only a shew of Godliness They that trust in themselves and despise others as the Pharisees did that say they have works of supererogation Nor they that say stand off for I am holier then thou and think well of themselves that they are profitable are not Saints The centurion had a meaner opinion of him self when he said Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof So had John the Baptist when he said he was not worthy to loofe the lachet of his Saviours shooe And wise Agar when he said he had not the understanding of a man and was more brutish then any So St. Paul when he said he was the meanest of the Apostles and not worthy to be calld an Apostle And David professeth the same humility Psal 131. saying Lord I am not high minded I have no proud looks c. And Psal He saith Lord I am a worme and no man The very scorne of men and the outcast of the people this comportment is that which becometh holiness and is acepted in the sight of God for he resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble and of Israel he saith when thou wert little in thine owne eyes then thou wert honourable and our blessed Lord and Saviour repressed the contention of the Apostles for the superiority by inculcating this grace But to seek honour from one another and to love the praise of men and salutation in the Market places the uppermost seats in the Synagogues preheminence precedency and be called Rabbi our blessed Lord and Saviour renders these for the charactars of those who would seem to be righteous and are not He plucks of the masks and vizards of these Actors of holiness and instances in their over Actings to prove that they do but personate what they are not they make broad their Phylacteries Tith mint Annis and Comin but neglect the waitysr matters of the law He shews what they are within in their harts and affections they washed but the out side of their cups their inward parts were foul still he compares their holiness to the painted Sepulcres they flourished it with giveing their almes publickly praying publickly fasting and disviguring their faces that they may be seen to fast and thus coming abroad among the people they crave veneration for this maske of holiness and they had their rewards which they sought Our Saviour tells them what course they should take to have a real goodness Math. 12.33 Either make the Tree good and his fruit good or make the Tree corrupt and his sruit corrupt v. 35. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good fruit c. That is a natural production And when the principle or cause is such the effects will be answerable â—o do worthy Acts and not to seek praise and honour for them is true worth for hereby it is manifest that he who doth so doth it for vertues sake for the love of worth and vertue meerly Therefore Bafil's expression seemeth to me to be unsound Fugiamus inanem gloriam duleem Spiritualium operum spoliatricem tincam Virtutum For how can it be called a Spiritutal work when it is done for vain glory and not by the Spirit and for the same reason such a work can not be called virtuous because the glory and not the virtue is counted sweet but nevertheless we may take such admonitious in good part But it appears that these Pharisees principles were not good because they had such base vain and vile ends whereby they neglected the weigher matters of the law and contented themselves with pairing off the external enormities that they might seem fair to men from whom they sought veneration and reverence for their professions sake affecting the honour and reward of virtue more than virtue it self But this evil leaven our saviour warned his Disciples of and in them as I conceive their successors He shews what principles a good man hath and practiseth works by for though none be good but God absolutely yet in some degrees they may be good as Joseph of Arimathea was called a good man And the good ground was he that received the word in an upright heart so that God judgeth of a man according to his state not according to some particular actions which may happen to be evil Such principles and such works makes a good man that these principles do bring forth is proved from the nature of them They are given to that end that they should bring forth for God seeing the heart weak and striving to bring forth such fruit he gives them such graces by the working of his Spirit in their hearts as may enble them Jer. 32.4 I will put my Spirit into their hearts This is active T is called the life the fountain of living waters the spirit of grace and the spirit of a sound mind because these graces are the motions and operations of the Spirit or the Spirit moving And Secondly because of the vigour and strength of these principles called the power of God and godliness 3. From their being The being that Grace hath in the Heart is in its operation so is its well-being therefore they are said to be ready to dye when they do not operate 4. For the Seat of it being possessed of the Heart which is the chief part over all and so gives Life to all 5. The heart is supposed to be the seat of the affections which being made good by such principles they produce fruit answerable The real goodness in the Heart must be exerted in the action and the work that is
and Oyl is increased and may say truly my joy shall be in the Lord as he did and every child of God is commanded this duty in this saying Rejoice in the Lord ye Righteous This excellent grace makes the soul happy wherein it is because he that possesseth it possesseth Christ and all the benefits and priviledges that he hath purchased that incomparable benefit of justification first as it is Rom. 4. and last v. and the 5th and first v. Who was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification Rom. 3. Being justified freely by his grace Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ This peace is a second benefit or priviledg which faith derives from Christ a third follows by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand the favors of God wherein we stand or the blessed condition of justified and sanctified persons to which we come by Christ through faith and rejoyce in the hope of the glory of God both our present and future condition is made happy by faith and it assures to us that happiness It followes and not only so but we glory in tribulations also knowing that tribulation works patience So that calamities are by faith made consolatory through the sanctified use which faith makes of them they are not only made not formidable as David his fears vanished by relying upon God which he expressed saying What time I am afraid I will put my trust in thee Psal 56.3 He made use of his faith in the time of his fears as he did also in the time of his wants Psal 8. The Lord is my shepherd therefore I shall lack nothing So that faith imboldens the Servants of God against all evil Christ gives and ensures them these priviledges partly by the testimony of his Spirit partly by faith in his merit Ephe. 3.12 In whom we boldness and access with confidence through faith in him Heb. 10.19 We have entrance into the holiest through the blood of Jesus The Spirit assures us that all the Privileges which Christ hath purchased for his people are ours and causeth us to rejoyce in them as ours That all the promises are ours and causeth us to rely upon them because we are assured that Christ is ours by Faith when he is laid hold on as ours all things are ours then it follows that we have peace of Conscience and tranquility in our Souls for he is our Peace Ephe. 2. And we acquiesce in him because we have chosen him for our portion He is reconcilation between God and us he satisfieth our debts makes God at peace with us and our conscences at peace in themselves and our souls satisfied as having nothing more that they can desire but more communion with God as that which satisfieth it We know that God hath no wrath at all towards us nor our consciences any dread or fear of Gods wrath or any terror but assurance of his favour and love and that our sins are washed away by the blood of Christ according to that in Colos 1.20 Having made peace through the blood of his Cross by him to reconcile all things to himself 21. And you that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and unblamable and unreprovable in his sight if you continue in the faith Hence the soul assures it self that none of the works of Gods severity have any wrath at all against it for in the 24. v. St. Paul saith He rejoyceth in his sufferings But positively they are assured of their adoption and of the love and friendship of God that he will preserve them supply them teach them heal them guide and support them visit them with spiritual consolations and joy in the Holy Ghost and that all things shall work together for their good which makes them willing to submit to Gods chastisements as it is Psal For thy sake are we killed all the day long yet do we not forsake thee This keeps them from murmuring and from covetousness The nature of it is that it can only be where the Son of peace is This peace is a league offensive and defensive whereby the soul hates sin and all that God hates and loves holiness and all that God loves That salutation which our blessed Lord perscribed to his Apostles must needs be the most excellent and desirable that saies Peace be to this house This peace makes all other things at peace with us for he is said To make a league with the foules of the air and the beasts of the field for us in Job and Prov. 16.17 When a mans waies please God he makes his enemies at peace with him Psal 91.10 The plague shall not come neer his dwelling or if it do it shall be no plague Rom. 8.31 If God be with us who shall be against us That is though they are against us the sting is taken out The excellency of it is so great that it passeth human understanding It is an everlasting peace it doth not forsake us in the time of trouble nor in the hour of death Isa 55.3 His mercies are called everlasting It makes us peaceable with men to those we have offended it makes us willing to satisfy them and willing to pardon those that have offended us but the wicked are like the rageing Sea alwaies unquiet It quickens the soul to holy duties the soul considers what it shall render to the Lord for all his mercies towards it Psal 103.3 Bless the Lord O my soul and forget not all his benefits who forgiveth all thy sins The excellency of it must needs be great because it is the legacy which Christ dying left to his Church not as the world gives gave he it to them but more largely liberally and bountifully and absolutely without any limitation of time or condition David calls it great peace which they have which love Gods word but yet he saith that many are the troubles of the righteous That which followeth makes amends The Lord delivereth them out of all and the Lord will stand by them and deliver them as we know he did the three children out of the fiery furnace and Daniel out of the Lyons den and Job out of the fiery Trials The fruits of righteousness are sown in peace not in discord they which love peace sowe them And this shield of faith is both an offensive and defensive weapon whereby these holy warriours in their spiritual warfare fought the Lords battels under the bloody banner of the Cross of Christ who for the glory that was set before him endured the Cross and despised the shame these follow the lamb and suffer with him that they may also raigne with him and take joyfully the spoiling of their goods knowing that they have a more enduring substance in Heaven And willingly they spend and are spent for God