Relapses into them Remember the mischiefs they then did thee and let them know they shall do thee no more be most severe and strict against them 5. Make a frequent Vse of thy Deliverance as a singular Preservative against the Power of thy Temptations and Corruptions Deliverance carries in the very apprehension of it these two things 1. A supposition of a former Misery or Visitation 2. A present injoyment of a freedom from that Misery Therefore if any Corruption or Temptation unto Sin sollicite thee improve this consideration to this or the like effect I was lately under the Rack under the Rod under extream Want Imprisonment Disgrace Losses Sickness Sorrows Fears and an imminent expectation of the worst of Evils and though these were sore and sharp Afflictions yet the sense of my former Sins and the importunate restlesness of that Guilt that was contracted from them were more bitter and tormenting than all the rest of my sufferings it was that which was the sting and venome of all my Afflictions and it hath pleased Almighty God to accept of my Humiliation and to remove my Afflictions and to give me Beauty for Ashes and shall I be so very a fool as by committing of a new sin to run the hazard of another plunge another scourge which in all probability must be much more severe than the former because it would be the Issue not only of Sin but of Presumption a Sin committed against the experience that I have had of the bitterness of Sin and with what face or hope could I expect any possibility of Deliverance from a second Relapse into Misery occasioned by so Desperate a presumptuous relapse into Sin But suppose it were possible that notwithstanding my yielding to this Temptation I might escape the Vengeance yet can I be so false so ungrateful to that God that hath delivered me from my Sufferings and from my Fears as to recompence his Love and Mercy and Goodness with a Presumptuous Apostacy from him shall I thus requite his Mercy and Goodness that heard me in my Anguish and Sadness of Soul in my Extremity and Misery and so heard me that he hath delivered me out of all my Troubles and Miseries Certainly if either common Prudence or common Ingenuity be left in a Man the sense of a former Calamity and the sense of so great a Mercy will make a Man abhor the least submission to that Temptation that may at once hazard the continuance of his present Comfort and cannot be entertained without the Presumptuous rejection of him that thus Mercifully sent Deliverance 6. Let the remembrance of thy Misery and thy present Mercy make thee most jealously and passionately careful to keep thy Interest and if it be not too bold a word thy Friendship with God Remember he was thy support in thy Affliction and he was thy Deliverer out of thy Affliction let Gratitude bind thee to it as he was thy Benefactor and let Prudence bind thee to it thou knowest not how soon thou mayst have the same necessity again and where canst thou find such a friend The truth is when we are in extremity and have no whither else to fly O then we run to God and we pray unto him and promise him fair but when once our turn is served and we have gotten our ends and think our selves out of Gun-shot we are like Mariners after a Storm and God hears no more of us but this is as extream Ingratitude so extream Folly Oh keep thy God thy Friend for most certain it is thou wilt have occasion to use him again and thou knowest not how soon keep thine interest in him and estrange not thy self from him in thy Recovery whom thou canst not be without in thy Affliction 7. As I would have thee recollect what were the things in thy life past that most troubled thee in thy Affliction that so thou mayst avoid them so think what things or practices or expence of time in thy life past was most Acceptable and Comfortable to thee in thy Affliction that so thou mayst practise them after thy restitution Consider whether in thy Affliction thou didst remember thy past Recreations thy Merriments thy Feastings thy Lusts thy Honours thy Greatness with any Comfort or Contentment or whether the remembrance of the Hours thou hast formerly spent in Prayer Reading the Scriptures Hearing Sermons Relieving the Poor Visiting the Sick Relieving the Oppressed Harbouring the Persecuted Members of Christ gave thee more contentment And I dare appeal to any Mans Experience under Heaven that when the former sort of Transactions of our lives were either extreamly bitter or at best very insipid to his remembrance yet the remembrance of these of the latter sort were most Comfortable and Contenting Thou art now recovered it is true but as sure as thou shalt dye so sure thou shalt pass through new Afflictions though it may be not of the same kind yet of some kind let it be thy care after God hath thus delivered thee from thy former Affliction to lay up a stock of Good Works against another Evil day such Cordials will lie warm at thy Heart even when the cold pangs of Death it self shall be ready to invade and seize upon it and the Comfort of them shall pass into the other World with thee 8. Though the portion of thy life before thy Affliction and under it were very well spent yet remember that the Mercy of God in thy Deliverance doth call upon thee for a farther degree of Goodness and Perfection than thou hadst before it calls for more Humility and more Thankfulness and more Heavenly Mindedness and more Charity and more Devotion and more Self-Denial and more Sanctity and more Jealousie for the Honour of God For 1. On Gods part thou hast more Ingagements and Obligations put upon thee than before Every increase of Mercy calls for an increase of Duty 2. On thy own part thy Experiences are greater thou hast past through the School of Afflictions and that is a season wherein God opens the Ear to Discipline the Rod hath a voice and a lesson to teach and thou hast past through the experience of Gods Goodness Tenderness and Faithfulness in thy Deliverance and that tutors thee to more Dependance upon him Thankfulness to him and Love of him and these affections carry out the Heart to Duty and Obedience 9. Beware that after Deliverance from Afflictions thou be not secure think not with Agag surely the bitterness of death is past that now thou hast escaped this brunt all is safe and the danger past still be Watchful and stand upon thy Guard 1. Thou hast Sins and Corruptions within thee that if thou art not watchful may surprize thee and raise new storms 2. Thou hast watchful and vigilant Enemies without thee Evil Men and Evil Angels that envy thee the more because thou hast escaped 3. As long as thou livest in the World thy condition is uncertain and unstable in Externals and though
and the Forgetfulness of God 3. Because the time of Youth is most Obnoxious to forget God there is great Inadvertency and Inconsiderateness Incogitancy Unstableness Vanity Love of Pleasures Easiness to be corrupted in Youth and therefore necessary in this season to lodge the Remembrance of our Creator in our Youth to be an Antidote against these defects to establish and fix the entrance of our lives with this great Preservative the Remembrance of our Creator 4. When Almighty God lays hold of our Youth by a timely Remembrance of himself and thereby takes the first possession of our Souls commonly it keeps its ground and seasons the whole course of our ensuing Lives it prevents and anticipates the Devil and the World It is true it may possibly be that Natural Corruption and Worldly Temptations may suspend the actings of this Principle but it is rarely extinguished It is like that abiding seed remaining in him spoken of by John 1 Joh. 3.9 Which will recover him again 5. The last reason is because there are Evil Days that will certainly come which will render this work of Remembring our Creator difficult to be first begun and therefore it is the greatest Prudence imaginable to lay in this stock before they come for it will certainly stand us in great stead when they come It is the greatest Imprudence in the World to defer that business which is necessary to be done unto such a time wherein it is very difficult to be done and it is the greatest Prudence in the World to do that work which must be done in such a season wherein it may be easily and safely done He that lays in this store of Remembrance of his Creator before the Evil Day come will find it of the greatest use and service to him in that Evil Day Now those Evil Days are many and all of them befall some but some of them will certainly befall all Mankind 1. An Evil Day of Publick or Private Calamities He that beforehand hath laid in this stock of Remembring his Creator will be easily able to bear any Calamity when it comes but a man that hath not done this before hand will find it a very unseanable time to begin to set about it when Fear and Anguish and Perplexity and Storms and Confusion are round about him and take up all his thoughts 2. The Evil Day of Sickness is an unseasonable time or at least a very difficult time to begin such a business When Sickness and Pain and Disorder and uneasiness shall render a man Impatient and full of Trouble and his Thoughts full of Disorder and Discomposure and Waywardness then it will be found a difficult business to begin the Remembrance of our Creator It is true no time is utterly unacceptable of God for this work but surely it is best to begin before this Evil day come for then it will be a comfort and mitigate the Pains and Discomposure of Sickness when a man can thus reflect upon his life past as Hezekiah did in his Sickness Remember O Lord that I have not failed to remember my Creator in the days of my Health 3. The evil Day of Old and Infirm Age which is a Disease and burthen of it self and yet is ever accompanied with other Sicknesses Pains and Diseases and a Natural frowardness and Morosity and Discontentedness of mind and therefore not so seasonable to begin the undertaking of this work as the flourishing Youth And indeed a man cannot reasonably expect that the Great God who invites the Remembring our Creator in the Days of our Youth and hath been ungratefully denied should accept the Dreggs of our Age for a Sacrifice when we have neglected the thoughts of him in our strong and flourishing age But on the other side that man that hath spent the time of his Youth and Strength in the remembrance of his Creator may with comfort and contentment in his old and feeble age reflect upon his past life with Hezekiah Remember O Lord I pray thee that I have not failed to remember thee in the days of my Youth and Strength and I pray thee accept of the endeavours of my Old Decayed Age to preserve that Remembrance of thee which I so early began and have constantly continued and pardon the defects that the natural decays of my strength and age have occasioned in that duty 4. The evil day of Death when my Soul fits hovering upon my lips and is ready to take its flight when all the World cannot give my Life any certain truce for a day or for an hour and I am under the cold embraces of Death then to begin to remember my Creator is a difficult and unseasonable time But when I have began that business early and held on the Remembrance of my Creator it will be a Cordial even against Death it self and will carry my Soul unto the Presence of that God which I have thus remembred in and from the days of my Youth with Triumph and Rejoycing Briefly therefore 1. Remember thy Creator in the days of thy Youth because thou knowest not whether thou shalt have any other Season to Remember him Death may overtake thee and lay thee in the Land of Forgetfulness thy Spring may be thy Autumn and thy early bud may be the only fruit that Mortality may afford thee 2. Remember thy Creator in the days of thy Youth because it is a time of Invitation neglect not this Season because thou knowest not whether ever thou shalt be again invited to it Remember thy Creator in the days of thy Youth that thy Creator may remember thee in the days of thy Sickness and Old Age and in the Evil Day 4. Remember thy Creator in the days of thy Youth lest thy Creator neglect thee in the Evil Day Neglected Favours especially from thy God may justly provoke him never to lend thee more Because I called and ye refused I also will laugh at your Calamity and mock when your Fear cometh Prov. 1.24 26. 5. Remember thy Creator in the days of thy Youth because it will heal the Evil of Evil days when they come it will turn those days that are in themselves Evil to become days of Ease and Comfort it will heal the Evil of the day of Affliction of Sickness of Old Age and of Death it self and make it a passage into a better a more abiding Life OF THE Vncleanness of the Heart and how it is Cleansed Psal 51.10 Cor mundum crea in me Deus THis Prayer imports or leads us into the Consideration of these things 1. What the condition of every mans Heart is by Nature It is a foul and unclean Heart 2. Wherein consists this uncleanness of the Heart 3. What is the ground or cause of this uncleanness of the Heart 4. Whence it is that the condition of the Heart is changed It is an act of Divine Omnipotence 5. What is the condition of a Heart thus cleansed or wherein the cleanness of the Heart consists
are attaining we cannot secure to be of any long or certain continuance and vanisheth or proves utterly unuseful when we die Of what use will then the knowledg of Municipal Laws of History of Natural Philosophy of Politicks of Mathematicks be in the next World although our Souls Survive us As to the 2. Namely Moral Virtues It is true Aristotle 1. Ethicor. Cap. 7. Tells us that Happiness or Blessedness is the Exercise or Operation of the Reasonable Soul according to the best and most perfect Virtue in vita perfecta in a perfect Life But he tells us not what that vita perfecta is nor where to be found and yet without it there is no Happiness But even this exercise of Virtue though much more noble than the bare habit of Virtue which is but in order to Action or Exercise if considered singly and apart and abstractively from the reward of it is not enough to constitute a Happiness suitable to the Humane Nature 1. The Actions of Virtue for the most part respect the good and benefit of others more than of the party that exerciseth them as Justice Righteousness Charity Liberality Fortitude and principally if not only Religion Temperance Patience and Contentation are those Virtues that advantage the party himself the rest most respect the good of others 2. We find it too often true that most good men have the least share of the comforts and conveniencies of this Life but are exposed many times even upon the account of their very Virtues to Poverty Want Reproach Neglect so that their very Virtues are occasions oftentimes of such Calamities which must needs abate the perfection of Life which is a necessary ingredient into Happiness 3. But if their life be not rendred grievous upon the account of their Virtues yet they are not thereby priviledged from many Calamities which render their lives unhappy and oftentimes renders them uncapable of the exercise of those Virtues which must make up their Happiness Poverty disables them from acts of Liberality Neglect and Scorn by great Men and Governors renders them uncapable of acts of distributive Justice Sickness and tormenting bodily Diseases many times attack them and render their lives miserable and many times disables even their very intellectuals and to these disasters they are at least equally lyable with others and if all these Calamities were absent yet there are two states of life which they must necessarily go through if they live that in a great measure renders them necessarily uncapable of these actions of Virtue namely the Passions and Perturbations of Youth and the decays and infirmities of Old Age. 4. The highest Good attainable by the exercise of Virtue in the party himself is Tranquillity of Mind and indeed it is a noble and excellent portion but as the case stands with us in this life without a farther prospect to a life to come even such a Tranquillity of mind is not perfectly attainable by us and hath certain appendances to it that abate that sincereness of Happiness that is requirable in it to compleat the Happiness of the Humane Nature and these are principally these two 1. The necessity that we are under considering the weakness of our nature by our daily failings Errors and Sins to turn aside from the perfect rule of Virtue whereby we are under a kind of moral necessity of violating or abating that Tranquillity of mind so that it seems in it self morally impossible either fully to attain or constantly and uniformly to hold that Tranquillity of mind 2. Still Mortality Mortality Death and the Grave terminates this Felicity if it only respect this life and the fear and pre-apprehension of such a termination sowers and allays even that Felicity which Tranquillity of mind otherwise offers This fear and anticipation of death as the Apostle says Heb. 2. detains men Captive all the days of their life and in a great measure breaks that Tranquillity of mind which is the constituent of this Happiness Again though Virtue and Virtuous actions have had their Elogia by excellent Philosophers Orators Poets and we are told by them that Si Virtus oculis cerneretur it would appear the most beautiful thing in the World yet it hath had but few followers in respect of the rest of the World and possibly would find a much colder entertainment if the recompence of Reward were not also propounded with it and believed Therefore there is and must be somewhat else besides bare Platonick Notions of Virtue and naked proposals of it that must give it a conquest over the satisfaction of our Lusts and Pleasures especially in the time of our Youth and Strength and before old age overtake us And hence it is that in all ages wise Rulers and Governors have annexed sensible Rewards and Honours and such things as have a lively and quick relish with them unto the exercise of Virtue And hence it is that the most wise God himself hath not propounded Virtue and Goodness to the children of men singly as its own and only Reward but hath also promised and really and effectually provided a Recompence of Reward for it that Happiness which I have been all this while in quest after and hath made Virtue and Goodness the way the method to attain that happiness which is in truth the end of it Upon the whole matter I therefore conclude that the Happiness of Mankind is not to be found in this life but it is a flower that grows in the Garden of Eternity and to be expected only in its full complement and fruition in that life which is to succeed after our bodily dissolution that although Peace of Conscience Tranquillity of mind and the sense of the favour of God that we enjoy in this Life like the bunches of Grapes brought by the Spies from Canaan are the prelibations and anticipations of our Happiness yet the complement of our Happiness consists in the Beatifical Vision of the ever blessed God to all Eternity where there is a vita perfecta a perfect life free from Pain from Sorrow from Cares from Fears vita perfecta a perfect life of Glory and Immortality out of the reach or danger of Death or the loss of that Happiness which we shall then enjoy in the presence of the ever Glorious God in whose presence is fulness of Joy and at whose right hand are Pleasures for evermore Amen OF THE Chief End of Man what it is AND The Means to attain it Thesis I. The Chief End of Man is to Glorifie God and everlastingly to enjoy him WHen we come to any reasonable measure of understanding the first question we propound concerning the actions of our selves or others is to enquire concerning the End why this or that is done and the propounding of an End to what we do is one thing that gives us Reasonable Creatures a priviledg above the Beasts And the wiser we grow the more we enquire after and propound to our selves more excellent Ends and of
the more concernment The End which most concerns us to enquire after is the end of our Being why or for what end we were made for as that is the thing of the greatest moment to us so the ignorance or mistake therein is of the greatest danger Now touching this End of Man we must know 1. That in all wise workers that act by deliberation and choice the appointment of the end of any work belongs to him that makes it 2. In as much therefore as Mankind is in its Original the workmanship of God therefore it belongs to him to appoint the end of his own workmanship and of him it must be inquired 3. That in as much as God is the wisest worker and in as much as Mankind is a piece of excellent workmanship it becomes the Wisdom of God as to appoint man to an end of his own designing so to appoint him to an end answerable to the excellency of the work an end as much above other creatures as man exceeds them in worth and excellency So that certainly Man is ordained by God to an End and to an excellent End beyond the condition of other inferior Creatures for we see them all appointed for the use and service of Man to feed and cloath and heal and delight him What therefore is common to the Beasts as well as Man cannot be the End of Man The Beasts Eat and Drink and Live and Propagate their kind with as much delight and much more contentment than Man they are free from Cares and from Fears which Man is not and though they die so doth Man also therefore to live and eat and drink and perpetuate their kind is too low an End for Man And if so then much more is it below him to make Wealth and Honor and Power his End For they are but in order to his temporal life here either to provide for it or to secure it And besides that they cannot answer the desires and continuance of an Immortal Soul which Man bears with him And hence grows the Weariness and Vexation and Unquietness and Restlesness of Man in the midst of all Wealth and Honors and Pleasures therefore there is some other End to which Man was appointed Which is 1. In reference to God to glorifie him 2. In reference to Man an everlasting injoyment of God 1. To glorifie God two things are considerable 1. What it is for Man to glorifie God 1. There is a Glorifying of God common to all the Works of God in as much as they all bear in them the visible footsteps of the Power Wisdom and Goodness of God Thus the Sun and Heavens glorifie God Psa 19.2 There is a glorifying of God properly belonging to Intellectual Creatures Angels and Men. 1. In his Understanding whereby he learns to know God in his Word and in his Works his Power Goodness Wisdom and Truth and with his heart admires and with his tongue praiseth him 2. In his Will whereby he submits to him Worships Fears him and in the course of his life Obeys him whereby he acknowledgeth his Soveraignty and submits to it Psal 50.23 He that offereth Praise glorifieth him and to him that orders his conversation aright will I shew the Salvation of God Both these are imperfectly done here but shall be perfectly done in the life to come 2. Why the Glorifying of God is made the Chief End of Man 1. It is the Chief End that God proposed in all his Works of Creation Prov. 16.4 He made all things for himself that is his own Glory In his Works of Preservation and Providence Psal 50.15 Call upon me in the day of trouble I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorifie me In his Work of Redemption Ephes 1.6 To the praise of the glory of his Grace whereby he hath made us accepted in the beloved In his Work of Sanctification Matth. 5.16 That Men seeing your good Works may glorifie your Father who is in Heaven 2. It is but just it should be the Chief End of Man to glorifie God because it is a most Reasonable Tribute to pay to him for all his Mercies and Goodness From him we receive our Being and all the Blessings of it and it is but just for God to require and for Man to perform the due acknowledgment of the Goodness of that God from whom he receives them which is his Glorifying of God 2. To injoy God for ever 1. Two things are to be explained 1. What it is to injoy God 2. Why this is part of the Chief End of Man 1. To injoy God is either 1. In this Life which is to have Peace with God Assurance of Reconciliation with him for then we have Peace with our selves Contentment and Quietness of Soul Access to him as to our Father for all we want and Hope and Assurance of Everlasting Life which will make the Comforts of our Life safe and the Afflictions thereof easie and the End and Dissolution thereof Comfortable 2. In the life to come the fulness of fruition of the Knowledge Goodness Glory and Presence of God according to the uttermost measure and capacity of our faculties which in the Resurrection shall be great and capacious and this is called the Beatifical Vision 2. Why this is part of the Chief End of Man Because this is the Happiness and Blessedness of Man to injoy God and nothing besides can make him Happy which appears 1. in all other injoyments without the injoyment of God there is a great deal of Vanity and emptiness whether in Pleasures or Profits or worldly Advantages Men expect great matters from them but after a little injoyment of them they are weary and find themselves disappointed and that there is not that comfort in them that they expected and then they travel to some other worldly injoyment and there they find the like This therefore cannot afford Man his Happiness 2. In all other injoyments without God there is a great deal of Vexation and Trouble The Cares and Fears and Sorrows and Disappointments that we meet with in the injoyment of them doth out weigh all the Contentment and Benefit that we receive in them and therefore this cannot be our Happiness 3. All other injoyments without God have their End and Term Sometimes we over live them the Pleasures and Contentments of youth leave us when we are old And sometimes we see our Riches our Health our Earthly Comforts taken from us but if not yet when we die we leave them and yet our Souls continue after death and our Bodies and Souls continue after our Resurrection for ever The injoyments therefore of this Life cannot be our Happiness but that Happiness which continues as long as we continue which is the injoyment of the Favor Love and Presence of God for ever Now put both together The Glorifying of God and the injoyment of him for ever is the Happiness and Blessedness of Man the Chief End for which he was made Such is the
Goodness and Bounty of God that he doth not only injoyn Man his Duty to Glorifie him but also joyns with it Mans Happiness to injoy him for ever He that observes the former shall be sure not to miss of the latter In the same path and tract which leads us to Glorifie God which is our Duty we are sure to meet with our injoyment of him which is our everlasting Happiness and Blessedness And the business of the true Religion revealed in the Scriptures is to lead us to that Duty and to that Happiness which is the Chief End of Man He that wants this will be miserable in the midst of all worldly Enjoyments and he that attains this his Comforts here shall be blessed his Crosses Sanctified and his Death a gate to let him into a most Blessed and Glorious and Everlasting Life Thesis II. The Scriptures of both Testaments are the only perfect Rule for Mans attaining his Chief End This is the End why Man was made and which he ought principally to attend and look after but because to the attaining of the End it is necessary that the due means of attaining thereof be known and used And because as Almighty God the Maker of Man is he that alone must design the End of his own Work so likewise it belongs to him alone to chuse and appoint and order the means belonging to that end therefore as he is not wanting to us in appointing a Fit and Blessed End to Mankind so neither is he wanting in designing and discovering unto Mankind the Means for attaining to that End This means is called a Rule a fixed and setled direction teaching and shewing us what is to be known and what to be done and avoided in order to that end Beasts follow instincts of Nature in their actions But Man that is indued with higher faculties and ordered to a better End is to be directed to that End by a Rule given by that God who hath appointed his End This Rule therefore that must guide Man to his great End of his Creation requires 1. That it be a Rule given by God himself For as he appoints the End of Mankind so he alone must appoint the Means of attaining it and therefore the discovery thereof must come from him 2. That it be a certain Rule in respect of the great consequence that depends upon it Mans everlasting Happiness 3. That it be a fixed and setled Rule for Mankind is apt to straggle and wander full of vain imaginations which were not the Rule fixed and stable would corrupt and disorder it 4. A plain and easie Rule because it concerns all Men as well the unlearned and weak as the wise and learned their concernment is equal and therefore the Rule that tends to that common concernment is fit to be plain and familiar Since it is necessary therefore that there should be a Rule and such a Rule we are to consider whether God hath afforded such a Rule and what it is which is set down in these three particulars 1. That God hath given his own Word to be this Rule 2. That the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are that Word of God 3. That those Scriptures are the Rule and the only Rule whereby Man may attain his Chief End 1. That God hath given us his own Word to be this Rule And this as before appears was necessary that the Direction to our Chief End should come from God 2. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are the Word of God Herein is to be observed 1. What those Scriptures are They are the Canonical Books of the Old and New Testament excluding the Books commonly called Apocrypha These were written in several Ages by holy Men inspired with the Spirit of God 2 Tim. 3.16 Some parts thereof as the Five Books of Moses above Three thousand five hundred years since and that of the New Testament above One thousand six hundred years since And Almighty God who hath had a most special care of the Everlasting Good of Mankind hath by a wonderful Providence hitherto preserved them uncorrupted and hath dispersed them over all Nations in their several Languages that as the common Salvation concerned all Men so the means of attaining it might be likewise common to all Men. 2. Why the Divine Providence hath ordered it to be put into Writing It is true in the first Ages of the World till the time of Moses which was near Three thousand five hundred years the Will of God was not put into writing but was delivered over by word of mouth from Father to Son And this was the direction that Men had to know and to obey God 1. Because in those ancient Ages of the World Men lived long For Adam the first Man lived above Twenty years after Methusalem the eighth from Adam was born and Methusalem lived almost an hundred years after Sem was born and Sem lived above sixty years after Isaac was born So that in these three Men Adam Methusalem and Sem all the Truths of God for above Two thousand years were preserved and delivered over 2. Because the select Churhes of God were preserved in Families and were not National and so the knowledge of the true God kept in a smaller compass But when after the Ages of Men were shorter and when the Church of God grew to be National as it was after the Jews came out of Egypt then God himself wrote his Law in Tables of Stone and Moses wrote his Five Books And then and from that time forward the Sacred Histories and Prophesies under the Old Testament and the Gospel and other parts of the New Testament was committed to Writing for these Reasons principally 1. That they might be the better preserved from being lost or forgotten 2. That they might be the better preserved from being corrupted For that which is delivered only by word of Mouth is many times varied and changed in the second or third hand 3. That it might be the better dispersed and communicated to all Mankind And this was done in the Old Testament by Translations of it into Greek about two hundred years before Christ and dispersing it into a great part of the World And after Christs time both the Old and New Testament Translated into several Languages and since dispersed over the World which could not have been so well done had it not been at first in Writing Thus the Wisdom and Providence of God provides for the exigence of all times most wisely and excellently And having preserved part of this precious Jewel the Old Testament for the most part within the Commonwealth of the Jews till it was broken about the time of Christ by the Romans hath now delivered both to all Mankind 3. It is to be inquired Which the Author hath elswhere more largely considered What evidence we have to prove those Writings to be the Word of God And omiting many others we insist upon these principally 1. In
benefit in the latter but yet not such as may with Considerable Advantage preponderate the Contentment of Lust which is present and sensible there ought to be a Conviction of such an Inconvenience in the former and such a Benefit in the latter as may most evidently and clearly preponderate the Contentment and Advantage of the satisfying of a Lust 3. And because though these Inconveniences and Benefits be never so great yet if there be but a faint and weak and imperfect Conviction of it it will work but a weak resistance against the Invasions or Rebellions of Lust and a sensible present enjoyment of what delights will easily preponderate the weak and faint and imperfect Convictions or Suspicions rather of what is Future It is necessary that such Convictions should be Sound Deep and Strong or otherwise they will be but Sluggish and Languishing opponents against the Rhetorick of Lusts that yield a present Delight or Advantage 4. And because though the Convictions are never so strong yet if they be not Accompanied with Constancy Vigilancy and supplemental Excitations as the opportunity requires the Constant and perpetual Importunity of Lust may happen upon a time of Intermission and gain an Advantage against a Soul habitually thus Convinced it is further necessary that there be a Frequent Constant Acting of that Conviction upon the Soul or otherwise it may be Intangled by the Assiduous Importunities of his Lusts These things being thus premised it is necessary to see what kind of Means it must be that must work such a Conviction of such weight and evidence that may rectifie the Judgment in reference to this Contest with the sensual Appetite and actuate such a Conviction to attain its due effect Moral Philosophy contains in it excellent Precepts and Reasonings to the subjecting of the sensual Appetite to the dictate of Reason and to a Moral Cleansing of the Heart But it cannot attain its end for though it propounds Inconveniences on the one side and Conveniences on the other yet they have great defects that make it Ineffectual The things which it proposeth are in themselves of unequal weight to the Pleasure and Content of satisfying the sensual Appetite viz. On the one side Fame and Glory and Reputation and Serenity of mind on the other side the Baseness of Lust in Comparison of the excellency of Reason that it is a thing common to us with the Beast and such like and therefore though these be fine Notions and such as may be weighty with old Men whose Lusts have left them yet with young Men they Import nothing And therefore the Philosopher well provides for it by determining that Juvenis non est idoneus auditor Moralis Philosophiae and Consequently it is a kind of Physick that may be good for them that need it not but of no use for them that want it for the truth is the Fame and the Infamy are not of weight equivalent to Counterpoise the satisfaction of a Lust in those that are Inclinable to them 2. Another great defect in the things propounded is this that is also common to Humane Laws that though they may be of some efficacy to prevent the External Act when it meets with Infamy in the Action or Reputation in the forbearing yet it doth inevitably give a dispensation to Sin if committed with Secrecy much less doth it at all Cleanse the Heart from the love of Lust the delight in it the Contemplation of it We are therefore to search for a higher or more effectual Conviction than this and therefore 1. We must see whether there be any thing that propounds some thing that may over ballance the Advantage of Lust or the love of it in the Heart 2. A means of Conviction of the truth and reality of the thing so propounded For the former it is apparent that the Sacred Scriptures and they alone do furnish us with such materials prohibiting not only the Acts of Lust but also the very Motions and Inclinations to it the Desires of the Heart of it the Love of the Heart to it and this under pain of the displeasure of God everlasting Death Hell fire on the one side on the other side in case of Obedience to this Command the Favor of God Everlasting Life and Happiness and in order to the discovering whether our Hearts walk in Sincerity according to the Command of God assures us that God beholds and observes the Motions Desires Inclinations Thoughts and Purposes of our Hearts and will one day lay them open When the secrets of all Hearts shall be Revealed And these are things that are of such a Nature as preponderates all the good that can be in Lust furnisheth the Soul with such Arguments against it as carries thunder in them 2. And that these may be effectually assented to by the Soul without which they Import nothing to the end we speak of there are these effectual Means which Almighty God affords us First The word of God which doth not only contain Materials and Perswasions for the Cleansing of the Heart but also a high evidence of the Truth and Reality and Benefit of those Materials and Perswasions it is a Convincing and a Cleansing word Jo. 15.3 Ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you Secondly A high Congruity of the word of God in relation to a future life of Rewards and Punishments unto the very Sentiments of Reason and the light of Nature it self the Sense of which life of future Rewards and Punishments carries with it not only a Conviction of the great Advantage of a Clean Heart above an Unclean Heart but also a very effectual motive to the Cleansing of the Heart greater and more vigorous than all the Arguments of the best Philosophers Thirdly The Powerful Spirit of God works up in the Soul an assent unto them and that of such a strength as is no less Convincing than Science it self which is Faith and therefore Faith thus wrought purifies the Heart as well as the life 3. And for a Constant and un-intermitted Application and re-minding us of these Truths God is pleased to assist us with the continual assisting Grace of his Spirit acting in and by the Conscience which is in a great measure cleansed quickned and actuated which watcheth us and our very Thoughts and Chides them re-minding us of these great Truths which we have received and thereby actuating and acting our Faith of these Truths as often as the occasion offers it self 5. And by this means 1. The Intellectual Power of the Soul is restored in a great measure to its primitive Dominion or at least is qualified aright in order to the exercising of it 2. The Will wherein indeed the Empire of the Soul is principally seated is likewise restored to its Domination and Rule 1. Partly by these Impressions which are as before received by the Understanding and the practical Determination thereof for it is clearly presented now to her that it is the Greater
this Uncourteous dealing with our Lusts and Temptations will much countervail the unpleasingness of the Duty A man is tempted to a Sin he holds conference with it and is inticed to treat with it and to think of it and it pleaseth him but it is a Thousand to one if it stay there but unless some great diversion by the Grace of God or some External restraint by Shame or Punishment prevent him he commits the Sin and so Lust when it hath Conceived will bring forth Sin and Sin when finished will bring forth Shame and Death or at the best Shame and Sorrow How will a Man reckon with himself What am I the better for that Contentment that I took in this Sin the Contentment is past and that which it hath left me is nothing else but a mis-giving Conscience a sense of a displeased God ashamed to bring my mind in his presence a pre-apprehension of some mischief or inconvenience to follow me a despondency of mind to draw near to God under it and either a great deal of Sorrow and Vexation or Affliction under it or which is the usual gratification of Satan after Sin committed to put away the remembrance of a Sin past with the committing of another till at last the Guilt grows to such a moles that a Man is desperately given over to all kind of Villany and as his Sins increase his Guilt and Shame increaseth On the other side I have denyed my Lust or my Temptation and it is gone First I am as well without it as if I had committed it for it may be the Sin had been past and the contentment that I took in it and I had been as well without it but besides all this I have no Guilt cleaving to my Soul no sting in my Conscience no dispondent nor mis-giving Mind no Interruption of my Peace with God or my self I enjoy my Innocence my Peace my Access to God with Comfort nay more than all this I have a secret Attestation of the Spirit of God in my Conscience that I have obeyed him and have pleased him and have rejected the Enemy of his Glory and my Happiness I have a secret advance of my Interest and Confidence in him and Dependance upon him and Favour with him and Liberty and Access to him which doth Infinitely more than counter vail the satisfaction of an impure and unprofitable and vexing Lust which leaves no footsteps behind it but shame and Sorrow and Guilt 15. As Resolution and Severity to a mans self is one of the best remedies against the flatttery and deceit of Lust so there are certain Expedients that are subservient to that Resolution as namely First Avoiding of Idleness for the Soul in the Body is like a flame that as it were feeds upon that oily substance of the Body which according to the various qualifications or temper of the Body gives it a tincture somewhat like it self and unless the Soul be kept in action it will dwell too much upon that tincture that it receives from it and be too intent and pleased or at least too much tainted and transported and delighted with those fuliginous foul Vapors that arise from the Flesh and natural Constitution Keep it therefore busied about somewhat that is fitter for it that may divert that Intention and Complacency in those fumes that the inferiour part of the Soul is apt to take in them and so be tempted transported or abused by them Secondly A frequent and constant Consideration of the Presence of God and his Holy Angels Luke 15.7 10. 1 Cor. 4.9 who are Spectators of thy Constancy to God and his party and delighted in it or of thy Apostasie Bruitishness and Baseness of mind and grieved at it If a good Man were but acquainted with all my Actions and Motions of my mind upon the Advance of Lusts and Temptations it would make me ashamed to offend in his sight but much more if a pure and glorious Angel did in my view attend observe and behold me but when the Eternal God doth behold me who hath given me this Command to deny my Lusts and hath told me the danger of yielding to them that they bring forth Sin and Death and Hell offers his Grace to assist me promiseth Reward to my Obedience and Constancy how shall I then dare to offend with so much presumption Thirdly A frequent Consideration of Christ's Satisfaction Sufferings and Intercession These Lusts that now solicit me to their observance were those that Crucified my Saviour it was the end of his Passion to Redeem me not only from the Guilt but from the subjection to them It is he that beholds me how shall I trample his Blood under foot If I prostitute my self to them how shall I despise and as much as in me lies disappoint him in the very end of his Incarnation How shall I shame his Gospel before men and as much as in me lies put him to shame in the presence of the Father and all the Holy Angels when they shall be witnesses of my preferring a base Lust before him How can I expect the Intercession of my Saviour for me at the right hand of God who beholds me thus unworthily to serve a Lust though to my Damnation rather than obey my Redeemer to my Salvation 4. Frequent Consideration of Death and Judgment A base Lust solicites me to obey it Shall I accept or deny it It may be this may be the last action of my Life and possibly Death that might have been respited if I shall deny my Lust may be my next event if I obey it and as Death finds me so will Judgment find me Would I be content that such an act as this should be the Amen of my Life and it may be seal me up to eternal rejection Would I be content that my Soul should be presently carried into the presence of God under the last act of my Life to his dishonor Or on the other side if I deny this base importunate Messenger of Hell and it should please God to strike me presently after with Sickness or Death would it not be a more comfortable entrance into that black Valley with a clear Conscience and an Innocent Heart that could with Comfort say as once Hezekiah did upon the like occasion Isai 38.3 Remember O Lord I beseech thee how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart Fifthly A due Consideration of the Issue of those solicitations of Lust if assented unto the end of it is Death it will be bitterness in the end it cannot with all its pleasures countervail that bitterness that will most certainly attend it nor can it give any security against it Suppose thou art solicited to a thought or act of Injustice Impurity or Intemperance if thou wilt needs be talking with the Temptation ask it whether it be not a Sin against that God in whose hands thy Soul is and if it be whether his Anger and
he is surprized and overwhelmed with it he knowes not how to bear it but falls into Impatience or his very Soul dies within him he is taken before he is prepared and none of those dispositions or rather distempers of mind that were bred up upon his former condition will at all serve the present but do distract and disquiet and perplex him as his former Pride Haughtiness of mind Greatness of Spirit Intemperateness Luxury they are so far from being at all serviceable and useful to him that they are as so many Haggs and Furies to torment him and the things called Patience and Contentedness and Humility and Calmness of Spirit which are of absolute necessity for his present change he knowes not how to attain or use 'T is a miserable or at least a very great Improvidence for a Man then to be learning those Virtues when the present necessity calls for the use of them it is like a Thief who is to learn to read when he is to pray his Clergy 4. It is therefore a most useful and necessary course for Men in Prosperity to take up the frequent Contemplation of their Change Bilney when the true profession of the Gospel in this Kingdom was under Persecution was used to put his finger into the Candle to inure himself the better to undergo Martyrdom which he at length suffered possibly with more Resolution and Patience than if he had omitted that experiment And surely this practice of Patience would be with more ease and no less advantage if in the time of our external Happiness we did sometimes and oftentimes take up such serious Contemplations as these both in reference to Death and other external Afflictions I am now alive and well but I cannot but know that I am mortal and must dye and my own reason and every days experience tells me that my time is very uncertain and casual a small distemper or disorder in any little Vein or Artery a little cold a little meat undigested may cast me into a mortal Disease a Crum going aside a contagious Air the fall of a Stone on me or of me upon a Stone may suddenly take away my life There are such infinite Casualties that may be mortal to me that it is no wonder that I should die but it is that I live What if it should please God by any Disease or accident suddenly to call me to account for my Stewardship are my Accounts ready is my Peace made are my Sins pardoned is my pardon sealed is all as ready as it becomes that hour if it be well if not it becomes me speedily to set things in order especially my great concernment for as this Tree of mine falls so it will lie to all Eternity Such thoughts as these often and seriously iterated would not hasten a Mans death but would much amend his life it would put and keep the Soul in a right order and temper Again I am now in Health and Strength free from Disease and Pains if I am not out off by an untimely end I must expect that Disease and Pains will lay hold of me it may be a burning Feavor or a languishing Consumption or some such Disease as may make the nights long and the days troublesome every place uneasie all things I eat or drink insipid every Limb or Vein Bone or Sinew contributing some Pain or Weakness or Faintness or Anguish to the common stock of that Disease which I must suffer How am I furnished with Patience to bear it can I amend in my self that Frowardness Vnquietness Peevishness and Impatience that I behold in others in the like case Believe it Sickness is not the fittest time either to learn Virtue or to make our Peace with God it is a time of distemper and discomposedness those must be learned and practised before Sickness comes or it will be too late or very difficult to do it after Again I am now abounding with Wealth but Riches many times make themselves Wings and fly away a Thief or a Robber a Plunder or a Sequestration a false Information or a false Oath the change of Times or Casualties of Fire or War Oppression from those above or Tumult from those beneath the Chaldean or the Sabean a Word or Action mis-understood mis-apprehended or mis-interpreted and a Thousand Contingences may take away all my Wealth So that I may stand and see my servants deserting me my Children utterly unprovided for my self in Extremity and Want So that I that have relieved Thousands must be fain to gain Bread for my self and my little Children either by the sweat of my own browes in some low Imployment or by the charity of others This may and may be speedily Experience of these times have made it visibly possible wherein Thousands that never dreamt of a change have unexpectedly felt it can I come down to so low a condition with quietness and serenity of mind without murmuring against Providence or Cursing or studying Revenge upon the Instruments of it Nay can I entertain this change with Patience nay with Chearfulness nay with Thank fulness to God that he gives me my evil things in this life if he be pleased but to bless my Afflictions to me and to reserve my portion of Happiness for the life to come can I still depend upon God live upon him and bless his Liberality if he allow me and my poor Children a piece of Bread and a cup of Water can I look through the darkness of my present condition and behold that Hope of Eternity that is beyond it and gather more Comfort in that Hope than all the present Disasters can give Discomfort If I can do this my Loss will be my Gain if I cannot it should be my business in the time of my Prosperity to lay up such a stock and treasure against the evil day which will be above the Malice and Power and reach of Men and Devils to deprive me of Again I am now in Honour and Esteem in the World my Place makes me Eminent and if it did not yet my Reputation is fair and clear and great it may be I can without Vanity or Ostentation own as much esteem as Job doth in his 29 Chap. The young Men saw me and hid themselves and the Aged arose and stood up when the Ear heard me it blessed me and when the Eye saw me it gave witness to me but for all this my condition may be changed as his was and my next Complaint may be with him Chap. 30. But now they that are younger than I have me in derision whose Fathers I would have disdained to have set with the Doggs of my Flock and now I am their Song yea I am their by-word I may be branded with the Imputation of the highest Crimes nay my very Religion and Piety to Almighty God and my Justice Honesty and Fidelity to Men may be covered with an Imputation of the basest Hypocrisie and Dishonesty under Heaven and though this part
me take no contentment or satisfaction at all in all or any of these enjoyments the truth is they are but Provisions for the Flesh and in order to the Body and when the Body is under a distemper they become but insignificant useless things He that is under a strong Pain or Disease finds as little contentment though he lie on a soft Bed richly furnished in a Chamber richly hanged in it a Cupboard furnished with massie Plate as if he lay in a Cottage 3. They are but for a time Death will at last overtake me and as all my Riches and Pleasures and Honours and Worldly Accommodations cannot prevent or buy it off so neither will they be of any comfort or value to me in that hour Indeed they may make death more troublesom and unwelcome to me but they cannot at all secure me against it The plain truth is Death doth undeceive and open the eyes of the Children of Men it teacheth us to put the true value upon every thing as it deserves My Riches and my Honour my Pleasures and my Profits my Gallantry and my Policy which I made much reckoning of in my life time when Death comes I shall perceive them to be but Vanity at the best and set no Esteem upon them but Piety and Prayers and Charity and Interest in God and in the Merits of Christ and the Promises of the Gospel that perchance in my life time I esteemed as dry and useless things I shall then see to be of greatest value and accordingly prize them These I shall carry with me into the succeeding World but all my Worldly Comforts when I pass through this strait Gate of Death I shall leave behind me as a Snake leaves behind his antiquated Skin when he passeth through a brake and never make use of them or take comfort in them more And when I come unto the other side of this dead Lake the Fruitions of all my life past will be forgotten or at least remembred as a Man remembers a Dream when he awakes only the Good or Evil of my past life will stick upon me unto all Eternity Why then should I set my Heart upon that which is of so small a value so little use so short and so uncertain a continuance they are things which I may lose while I live but I am sure I cannot keep them when I die and if they take their farewel sooner they do but their kind and at best do but a little anticipate their last and necessary valediction I resolve therefore I will not set my Heart upon them but carry a loose and flaccid Affection towards them And if I lose them I will not over-much afflict my Soul for the loss of that which I had not much reason to value while I had it And as thus a Man should tutor himself to a just Estimate of the Good things of the World so a Man should bring himself to a just and due Esteem of the Evil things of the World such as Sickness and Pain and Imprisonments and Reproach and Want and the like There are these two things that do much allay the severity of those Evils 1. They are but Corporal they reach no farther than the Body the Husk the outward Man the Cottage they cannot at all get so deep as the Soul 2. They are but Temporal It is most certain that Death will cure and heal these Evils and possibly these Distempers and Sufferings the less severe they are the more tolerable the more severe the more in probability they will hasten and advance the cure As nothing that hath an end can make a Man truly Happy so nothing that hath an end can make a Man truly Miserable because he hath under his greatest Misery the Lenitive of Hope and Expectation of a Deliverance 6. But yet farther Gain Assurance of thy Peace with God in Christ and consequently of thy future Happiness and be frequent in the Contemplation and Improvement of it This is the great Engine of a Christian a Magistery that was never attained by the most exquisite Philosopher nor is attainable but in and by the knowledge of Christ who brought Life and Immortality to Light It is the great expedient whereby a Man attains Victory over the World whereby he is able to injoy Prosperity with Moderation and undergo Affliction with Patience 1 Joh. 5.4 This is the Victory which overcometh the World even your Faith When a Man under the severest Afflictions shall have this Assurance and these Contemplations It is true I am in as low a condition as the World can cast me my Estate torn from me by the basest of Men and I and my Children exposed to extream Want and Necessity so that I am become little better than a Vagabond upon the Earth for the very attaining of Bread or at best am driven to the hardest and most sordid imployment that can be consistent with honesty for my supplies of Necessaries and if by chance my own sweat or others charity supply me to day I cannot imagine what shift to make for to morrow and if this were a condition to which I had been born or in which I had been bred use might have made it easie and familiar but it is not so I am fallen into this low condition from a plentiful and liberal condition wherein I had my Table crowned with plenty and as I wanted not Charity to imploy my Plenty so I wanted not Plenty to supply my Charity Again I was in the greatest Reputation and Esteem among Men that may be but now I am fallen under the saddest the basest Scorn and Obloquy and Reproach and Imputation that can be and all this without any cause my Enemies Triumph over me with Scorns Derisions and Exprobrations my former Friends bestow upon me a kind of Scornful Pity that is more bitter than the upbraidings of my Enemies the abjects and dregs of the people make me their by-word and the Calumnies under which I suffer are of such a nature that none dares be my Advocate but the silent Testimony of my own Conscience and Innocence Again under all these pressures it had been some allay if I were but a Citizen of the World that I had but the liberty to forsake the place of my suffering and go to some more auspicious or tolerable corner of the World but in that I am also prevented my liberty is taken from me and I am penned up in the narrow dark loathsome stinking confines of a most odious Prison without the benefit of Light or Friends or indeed of any other Company than such as make my Imprisonment the more intolerable Chains and Vermine and the most accursed Malefactors Again I suffer not only under restraint of a loathsome Goal but I am exposed to lingring Torments Racks and Whips and Famine and Nakedness and Cold and continual Threats and sad Expectations of worse to follow if worse there may be Again dismal and painful and tormenting Diseases
that hath learned the Nature of the Soul and thinks that by death it shall attain a better or at least not a worse condition hath a great freedom from fear of Death and no small viaticum to attain Tranquillity of mind in his life And many such instances are given by the Stoicks especially Seneca and by Tully But when the latter came to an exquisite apprehension of his danger from Anthony his Philosophical Notions and Contemplations were too weak to bear up his mind against those fears and therefore in his Sixteenth Epistle Lib. 10. to Atticus he writes to him to this effect If thou hast any thing to comfort me gather it up and write it not out of Learning or Books for I have these here with me Sed nescio quomodo imbecillior est medicina quam morbus But I know not how it comes to pass the Physick is too weak for the Disease And Job though a Wise and Experienced Man and bore up pretty well in his Afflictions yet his friend Eliphaz tells him and that truly Job 4.3 5. Behold thou hast instructed many and thou hast strengthned the weak hands but now it is come upon thee thou faintest c. Men may have excellent Theories to support in Affliction and can apply them to others in that condition with singular dexterity and advantage yet when the case comes to be their own their Spirits sink under them because these Theories many times flote in the Understanding but are not digested deeply and practically in the Heart Secondly What ever you do gain this Habit and Temper of Mind Actuate and Exercise your Faith make even your Reckonings get your Peace and Assurance setled before Sickness comes For a Man in any kind of suffering besides possibly may learn them because his mind is or may be in his intire strength but most certainly Sickness is an ill time to begin to learn these Contemplations unless they are learned before the Distempers of the Body discompose the Mind and make it unfit to begin to learn It is a time when that which hath been before fitted and laid up in store in the Soul must be drawn out and exercised but it will be a most difficult business then to begin that Lesson which should be learned in Health though practised in Sickness II. Thus much for our Preparation to meet Afflictions Now concerning our carriage under them First In the beginning and first Onset of any Affliction be very careful to keep the Mind in a due temper Call in all your Aids of Reason Religion and Duty to keep you in a right frame and temper of Moderation for Affliction of any kind when it hath lain a while upon a Man will probably bring him into order but at the first Onset the Passions begin to flie out and play reaks and disorder the Soul and fill it with Perturbation Then immoderate Anger or Murmuring or immoderate Sorrow or Fear flie out and Men thereby become less able to bear for the future and many times flie out into that Immoderation and Distemper at first either in Thoughts or Words or Actions that they are sorry for after and so draw upon themselves a double trouble First to Repent of their folly and immoderation and then to fit themselves for sufferings it throws more grains of Sin into the Scale of Afflictions and makes it heavier and many times longer than otherwise it would be And after such Perturbation and Exorbitancy of Passion upon the first inroads of Affliction a Man hath much ado to bring himself into a right and due temper This was Jobs case in the beginning of his Affliction he flies out into more Impatience and Disorder than all the rest of the time therefore beware and see thou keep thy mind in temper and check Perturbation at the first Onset call together all thy Grace and Resolutions and Reason to keep thy mind in due temper at first Secondly On the first Onset of any Affliction Lift up thy heart to God desire his Assistance and Grace to inable thee to carry a due temper and frame of Heart This is not only thy Duty and expected from thee by God but it is a singular help to inable thee to avoid any present Distemper For first it is a means to supply thee with more strength from Heaven to order thy self aright 2. It brings thy Soul into the Presence of God before whom it were a shame to bring any Perturbation the Passions and Distempers of our Minds are under an aw in his Presence 3. It is a diversion of the present bustle and stir that Passions are apt to make and being diverted at first they do not so suddenly nor so easily fall into a disorder Commonly Passions are most disorderly and impetuous upon the first occasion And if they be then interrupted or diverted the succors even of common Reason much more of Grace have opportunity to rally themselves and prevent Immoderate Perturbation Thirdly Make as speedy an Inquisition as thou canst into thy own state and what the cause of this Affliction may be Let us search and try our ways is the voice of every Affliction and commonly every Affliction upon any person that lies under any Sin unrepented of and not forsaken soon leads the Conscience to point out that Sin and indeed most Afflictions in such a case carry upon them the very Inscription of the Sin and bear some Analogy or Proportion with it Adonibezeks Cruelty and Davids Adultery were as it were written in the Punishments they suffered and might easily bring them to their remembrance If thou sufferest in thy Estate consider whether either Immoderate Worldliness and Covetousness or Confidence and Glory in thy Wealth went not before If thou sufferest in thy Name consider whether thy Reputation hath not been thy Idol or whether thou hast not born thy self too high upon thy Reputation and so of other Crosses Fourthly If upon this inquiry thou findest Sin written upon thy Sufferings or in the bottom of them speedily Repent of that sin Humble thy self in the sight of God for it take up Resolution against it This is the voice the injunction that this Rod gives thee and here thy special duty is Humiliation Fifthly If upon search thou findest thy Heart and Conscience clear look upon this Affliction as a Dispensation sent from God and with all Humility submit to his hand and know that the most Wise God sends it for most wise ends though thou seest not any Enormity in thy self that might deserve it It may be it is to exercise thy Patience thy Faith thy Dependance upon him It may be he discerns that some Temptation is like to meet with thee or some Corruption is growing in thee that thou dost not perceive and he sends this Messenger to divert the one and to prevent the other study to improve this Affliction to that end and here thy special duty is Patience and Vigilance Sixthly But it may be upon this search
things to be done The Son of God that came out of the Bosome of his Father and knew all his Mind received a Commission from him to instruct Mankind in the way to Life Joh. 17.8 I have given unto them the Words which thou gavest me Joh. 3.34 He whom God hath sent speaketh the Words of God Matth. 11.27 No man knoweth the will of the Father save the Son and him to whom the Son revealeth it 3. As he came with Light to instruct us so he came with Power to conquer in us Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power and to conquer for us Death and Hell The Business that we are to consider respecteth principally the first and second part of his Meditation viz. in bringing the Will and Mind of God to us to teach us what to ask which concerns his Prophetical Office And again having formed desires in us according to that Will of God to present them unto his Father which concerns his Priestly Office After this manner pray Luke 11.1 2. One of his Disciples said unto him Lord teach us to pray and he said When ye pray say c. In general we may learn 1. That Christ doth not exclude other Prayers The injunction of this excludes not all other prayers Our Saviour himself and those that were acquainted with his Mind and Practice used variety of prayers according to the several occasions differing from this form and therefore the Apostle commands Ephes 6.18 Praying always with all prayers and supplications Prayers formed for every occasion And that Spirit that maketh intercession for us with groans that cannot be uttered is not confined to any particular form not to vary from it 2. Though thou art not restrained to this form only yet in all thy prayers pray after this manner There is somewhat in this Prayer that must be ingredient to all thy prayers 1. Be sure thou hast a Commission a Promise for what thou prayest desire those things that are warrantable by the Will of God revealed in his Word Christ was acquainted with the Mind of God and gives us a pattern to ask those things which are warrantable Ask for thy good but ask not for thy Lust James 4.2 2. Though the things thou askest be warrantable and agreeable to the revealed Will of God Yet in the particularity of thy desires refer thy self and submit unto the Will of God because thou art not wise enough to know what is fit for thee in particular Especially in the measure time and manner of the thing thou askest The Son of God hath taught us to pray for the fulfilling of the Will of God before the supply of our own Wants and in his own Prayer in the Garden Matth. 26. Nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt Whatsoever thou desirest yet confine not God Thou shalt be sure thy Prayer shall not lose his fruit though the thing desired seem not to be granted The Cup did not pass from our Saviour though he asked it Matth. 26.39 Yet he was heard in that he feared Heb. 5.7 3. As much as thou canst let thy prayer be a reasonable service a work of thy Spirit and Understanding 1 Cor. 14.15 not only of thy Lips and Tongue for thou hast to do with the God of the Spirits of all flesh that will be worshipped in spirit and in truth Pray with thy Lips that thou mayst by that means fix thy Mind the better to the work but let thy words be the production of thy Soul Let thy Heart pray as well as thy Tongue And this was one of the Reasons of our Saviour's inditing this Prayer in this short and pithy form to condemn the vanity of the Gentiles who had confidence in their vain repetitions of words without the intention and application of the heart Matt. 6.8 4. Here we see Christ the Wisdom of the Father delivers out a Form of Prayer framed with a great deal of Wisdom containing very much matter in a few words Learn that though thou art not to put confidence in studied Devotions nor to make thy prayers the work of thy invention or wit but of thy Heart and Soul yet let the Reverence and Awe thou bearest to him before whom thou comest in thy prayers the seriousness of the business about which thou goest put thee in mind to Prepare thy self and thy Soul and to tune it by these considerations to an humble frame of spirit to a fore-casting of thy desires to an humble approach to the presence of God to all beseeming Reverence both in thy words and gesture The Heart it is true should be in a continual frame of prayer and almost every occurrence of our Life requires a lifting up of the Heart to God in Prayer or in Thanksgiving which cannot be so ordered with preparation but a solemn Prayer though in private requires a just preparation of the Heart and a performance of it with the whole contribution of the whole Soul and strength and understanding and affection 3. Though thou art not bound to use no other form yet use this frequently upon these Considerations 1. It is the Command of thy Lord and Master There is somewhat of Command in these words He that commands to pray after this manner meant not that this Prayer should be forgotten That which was made a pattern to thy other prayers was not intended to be a thing only to be looked upon and not to be used Thou mayest use other Prayers to give scope to thy spirit but conclude with this 2. It is a great means of strengthning the Heart in Prayer When I shall consider I am now using that very Prayer which the Son of God when he was in the flesh at the request of his Disciples gave unto them not only as a rule and pattern but as a form When ye pray say c. I call the great God my Father and it is no presumption in me so to do the Eternal Son of God that knew all his Father's mind commanded me to call him so and to come before him as my Father I am begging for the conveniencies of my Life for the pardon of my Sins for my preservation in and from temptation Had they not been things that I might hope to be granted the Son of God would never have taught me to ask them O Lord it is true I can see nothing in my self why I should expect that thou shouldest hear me my Sins are renewed every day and I beged pardon but yesterday and I have sinned against thee the same Sin this day But yet thy Son that knowes all thy Will that would never have put me to beg that which were unfit for me to ask or thee to grant he it is that taught me to begg my daily bread of thee and as often in the same Prayer to begg thy forgiveness I will not learn hereby to presume in offending but yet I will learn to be confident in thy Mercy 3. It is a
this God published in the infancy of the World Gen. 4.7 If thou dost well shalt thou not be accepted and if thou dost not well sin lyes at the door Psal 62.12 Thou rendrest to every man according to his works Disobedience to this Law of God obligeth to Punishment upon a double ground 1. As a natural and a Just consequence of an unjust violation of a Just Duty in as much as every Creature owes an infinite subjection and obedience to the Soveraign Commands of him that gives it Being 2. As a consequence of that Sanction that is expresly annexed to the Law so given In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt die the death Obedience on the other side is followed with a Reward not out of a natural consequent or a proportion between the Obedience and the Reward for every Creature owes obedience to God though there were no reward at all we have therein done but our Duty and God cannot be a debtor to the best of his Creatures for their best works Job 35.7 If thou be righteous what givest thou him but out of the Free Goodness and Bounty of our Law-giver who is pleased to make himself a debtor to his Creatures obedience by his Free Promise of a Reward and annexing of it to the Obedience of this Law Psal 62.12 Also to thee O Lord belongeth Mercy for thou renderest to every man according to his works As if he should have said O Lord all thy Creatures owe an universal Subjection and Obedience to thy Command and when they have done what thou commandest they pay but the just tribute unto Thee for their Being and therefore when they have done all that thou requirest they must sit down and say We are unprofitable servants we have done but what was our duty and cannot challenge any reward at thy hands They owe thee more for their Being that thou hast already given them than all their service and obedience can amount unto It is thy Mercy not thy Justice that hath annexed any further Reward to that Duty which we owe unto thee All the challenge that thy Creature can make to any Reward of his choicest Obedience is still founded upon thy Mercy who though we are in all this but unprofitable Servants art pleased to be to us a Bountiful Master in giving that Reward to the obedience of thy Creature which only thine Own Free Goodness did at first freely promise Even so Lord because Mercy pleaseth thee 3. In his most Wise and Special Providing for them Disposing of them and Protecting of them The General Providence of God reacheth every Creature but if that Infinite Wisdom and Power can admit of any degrees in the way of its execution it is more eminently at least acted in his Kingdom over his reasonable Creatures Luke 12.7 Fear not ye are of more value than many Sparrows Matth. 6.30 Shall he not much more cloath you And this Special Dispensation of this Kingdom is seen in more especially disposing and ordering of the ways and events of Particular men 2 Pet. 1.11 Prov. 20.24 Man's goings are of the Lord. How can a man then understand his own way of Societies or Companies of Men. Acts 17.26 hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitations in protecting them against the power and malice of Evil Angels restraining them from those Evils that their malice and natural power is able and willing to Effect Job 1.12 3. His Kingdom over his Church and this in a more special manner is the Kingdom of God And herein we consider 1. The King of this Kingdom God by an Eternal Decree hath appointed his Son our Lord Jesus Christ the King of this Kingdom Psalm 26.7 I have set my King upon my holy Hill Psalm 110.2 Rule thou in the middest of thine Enemies And hence it is called frequently the Kingdom of Christ Colos 1.13 the Kingdom of his dear Son 1 Pet. 2.11 the Everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and sometime the Kingdom of Christ and of God Ephes 5.5 The Kingdom of Christ in the immediate administration of it and the Kingdom of God who hath delegated and substituted him unto this administration Angels and Authorities and Powers being made subject unto him 1 Pet. 3.22 first the Kingdom of Christ till he shall have Judged all men and then the Kingdom of the Father when he shall deliver up the Kingdom to his Father that God may be all in all 1 Cor. 15.24 28. And the Regal Office of Christ over his Church principally respecteth these two things 1. In conquering to himself a people The whole World was by Sin reduced under a subjection to an Usurper the Prince of the power of the air the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience And this Kingdom of his was a Kingdom of darkness Colos 1.13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness And the Subjects of this Kingdom were a People of darkness Ephes 5.8 Ye were sometimes darkness And by the advantage of this darkness this Prince of darkness governed the World as he pleased for they knew not whither they went and by and from this darkness this Prince led them into another Continent or rather condition of his Kingdom a Kingdom of Sin and Sin as the Vice-Roy of this Prince of darkness did reign in the World and had dominion over it Rom. 6.12 14. and by Sin he led his Subjects into another Region of his Kingdom into the Kingdom of death Sin reigned unto death Rom. 5.21 and then death reigned Rom. 5.14 Now as God was pleased by a Mighty hand to go and take him a Nation from the mid'st of another Nation Deut. 4.34 So Christ redeems him a People out of every Tongue and Kindred and People and Nation Revel 6.9 out of the mid'st of his Enemies He came to destroy the works of the Devil 1 Joh. 3.8 binds this strong man that kept the house and rescues his prisoners from him 1. He came a Light into the World and dispelled and scattered that darkness which was the principal Engine whereby the Prince of this world did rule John 1.5 The Light shined into darkness and the darkness comprehended it not And at the very dawning of this Light into the World the Prince of darkness falls from Heaven like Lightning Luke 10.18 And this was that whereby the Prince of this world was Judged that is all his deceits and methods and wiles and abuses of Mankind were discovered and detected John 18.11 And by this Light we are translated from the power of darkness into the Kingdom of his Son Colos 1.13 are become partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light Col. 1.12 are become light and children of the light Ephes 5.8 And as he came with Light to take away that Egyptian darkness which overspread the World Isa 9.1 So 2. he came with a Treasury of Merit to expiate the guilt and a Treasury of Righteousness to cover
the stain and take away the power of sin to re-imprint the Image of God that was defaced by sin to rescue the heart from the love of sin and consequently from the power of sin to transmit into the Soul new Principles new Affections new Wills Psalm 110.3 Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power As he came with Light to rectifie the Understanding so he came with Righteousness to rectifie the Will The strength of a King rests in the Love and Will of his People when Christ conquers the Will from the Love and Submission to sin he conquers Man from the Dominion and Kingdom of sin 3. And as thus by Light he conquered the Kingdom of Darkness and by Righteousness the Kingdom of Sin so he comes with Life also and conquers us from the Kingdom of Death When our Saviour died he entred into the Chambers of Death and conquered this King of Terrors took away the malignity and sting of it by taking away Sin the sting of Death healed these bitter waters by his own passing through them and by his Resurrection triumphed over the power of death for us by the vertue of that Resurrection delivering our Souls from the second death and our Bodies from the first death and giving us a most infallible assurance of a final victory over death by an assured and blessed Resurrection Thus Death is swallowed up in Victory 1 Cor. 15.54 2. And as Christ hath purchased him a People by Victory so his Regal Office is considerable in the Government of this people that he hath so acquired He hath given them a Law to Live by the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus which makes them free from the Law of sin and of death Rom. 8.2 The Law of God vindicated from the false glosses which the corruption of men had in succession of time put upon it a Law sweetned and strengthned and actuated by the Love of God wrought in the Soul a Law though of the highest Perfection and Purity yet accompanied with the Grace and Assistance of Christ to Enable us to perform it in some measure and accompanied with the Merits of Christ to pardon and the Righteousness of Christ to cover our defects in our performance of it He hath given them a new heart and this Law of his written in this heart He hath given them of his own Spirit a Spirit of Life to Quicken them and of Power to Enable them to Obey And because notwithstanding this conquest of Christ of a People to himself they are still beset with Enemies that would reduce them to their former bondage he watcheth over them and in them by his Grace wasting and weakning and resisting their corruptions by new supplyes and influences from him quickning their hearts by renewed derivations of Life and Spirit from him which otherwise would sink and die under the weight of their own Earth encountering Temptations that like Foggs and Vapours arise out of our own flesh or like storms or snares are raised or placed by the Devil against us either by diverting them or by giving sufficient Grace to oppose them These and the like administrations doth our Saviour use which though they are secret and not easily discerned by us and though they are ordered without any noise or appearance yet they are works of greater Power and of greater Concernment and of equal reality with all the visible administrations of things in this world which are more obvious to our sense and are the effects of that invisible Government of Christ and of that Promise of his Behold I am with you alway even unto the end of the World Matth. 28.20 This is that Kingdom of God within them Luk. 17.21 consisting in Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost Rom. 14.17 casting down Imaginations and every high thing that Exalteth it self against the knowledge of God and bringing into Captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10.5 3. As in his Government so his Regal Office is Evidenced in his Judgment And this Judgment of his being one of the Acts or Administrations of this Kingdom is oftentimes called the Kingdom of God His Judgment of Absolution and Reward to his Subjects and his Judgment of Condemnation and Destruction to the Rebels and Enemies of his Kingdom 2. And as we have the consideration of the King of this Kingdom and consequently of his Subjects Revel 15.3 Just and true are thy ways thou King of Saints So the various Administrations of this Kingdome are frequently called the Kingdome of God and the Mysteries of the Kingdome Matth. 13.11 24 31 44 45 47. Matth. 25.1 14 c. And as the Administrations of this Kingdom are often called the Kingdom so are the Instruments of this administration 1. The Word or Gospel of the Kingdome which must be preached through the whole World Matt. 24.14 and is therefore committed to the ministration of an Angel to dispence it to all Nations Revel 14.6 That great Engin which though seemingly weak and dispensed by weak and despicable Men God hath chosen to confound the things that are mighty 1 Cor. 1.27 to pull down strong holds 2 Cor. 10.4 to gather his Elect for the perfecting of the body of Christ the fulness of him that filleth all in all and therefore this publication of the Gospel is oftentimes called the Kingdom of Heaven Mat. 3.2 The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand Luk. 10.9 The Kingdom of God is come nigh unto you and if a Man consider the Mighty and Strange Effects that this everlasting Gospel hath had in the World for these many Hundred Years notwithstanding the many disadvantages upon which it entred and hath continued in the World we may well say that it is the Power of God and the Wisdom of God 1 Cor. 1.24 the Rod of his strength sent out of Sion Psal 110.2 that the Message of a Crucified Christ published by poor despised men to a World that never saw him or if they did saw no beauty or comliness in him to a World full of prejudicies against him prepossessed with an opinion of their own Wisdom with Religions extremely opposite traduced to them from their Ancestors of which Men are naturally tenacious that this Message of Christ not with a promise of Glory or Riches in this World but with a plain prediction of poverty scorns persecutions and Death to those that entertain it and with a promise of future Life that they never saw nor can see till they see this no more should conquer Millions of Souls to the profession and Love of Christ and to an austere self-denying despised Life here doth evidence and convince that there is the strength and Wisdom of God that is ingaged in this wonderful yet most positively predicted conquest of the World 2. The work of the Spirit of God preparing and pre-disposing the Heart to the receiving of the Gospel of the Kingdom convincing the Heart of that Sin and that Death
entered into the World and death by Sin and Vers 19. By one Mans Disobedience many were made Sinners 1 Cor. 15.22 In Adam all die And by this Sin of Adam all were made Sinners by these two wayes 1. By actual participation of his disobedience for we were then in him but that is not all for upon that reason every Man should stand guilty of all the Sins committed by any of his Progenitors since Adam which seems not to agree with the profession of Almighty God Ezek. 18.20 The Son shall not bear the Iniquity of the Father But the case is not alike for Adam was created in integrity and perfection in an ability to perform the Law and so was a fit person to stipulate for his posterity 2 And as he was a person so qualified so the Covenant was made between God and him both for him and his posterity and 3 As we suffer in the penalty of his Disobedience so we had enjoyed the benefit of his Obedience we had come into the World with the same Liberty of Will and Integrity and Perfection of Nature that he had But all these are wanting in any other person in the World 1. A defect of Nature is gone over all that none is fit to stipulate for himself and his posterity 2. No such contract hath been at any time made between God and any other Man 2. By a necessary Consequence for God having justly withdrawn from Man his Blessedness and Perfection and Sin having corrupted and imbased his Nature we by propagation from him derive a corrupted depraved Nature full of impotence and rebellion and disorder Job 14.4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean God was pleased to communicate to Man a being in the Essence of a Man and to communicate unto him a degree of Purity Immortality Wisdom and Perfection beyond the compass of his Natural subsistence but this latter was communicated to him under a covenant which when he broke he lost and not only lost that but even stained and corrupted and imbased that very being that after he had sinned he retained And this is the old Man corrupt according to the deceivable Lusts Ephes 4.22 A body of death Rom. 7.24 And this Depravation of our Nature was followed with the continual Corruption and at last with the dissolution of Nature and that not only in those who had sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression by an actual breach of an express Law Rom. 5.14 But in all that were partakers of Adams corrupted Nature even Infants and so Death passed over all And as thus we partake of Original Sin as well by being virtually actors in it as also by derivation of a corrupted Nature so this corruption of our Nature produceth in all our Lives continued and renewed Actual Sins the conceptions of Lust Jam. 1.15 And these Actual Sins according to the difference of those commands of God which are violated are either Sins of Omission or of Commission and both come under the extent of this Petition by the name of Sins or Trespasses Luk. 11. by the Name of Debts Matt. 6. For we owe unto God Duty and Obedience and every Violation of that duty leaves us so much indebted unto God the least of which is impossible to be paid when once incurred because it is impossible for us to make that not to have been which hath already been and impossible for us by all our future Obedience were it as exact as the will of God requires to expiate a Sin past for still that perfect obedience is no more then we owe we have therein but done our duty and are but unprofitable Servants but if it were possible to think that one act of perfect obedience to God would expiate for any Sin past yet such is the Corruption of our Nature that not one such act can be found there is in our best actions a mixture and adherence of some defect or other that makes it become the subject still of this Petition that which needs Mercy to Pardon and therefore cannot contain Merit to Deserve So then all are concluded under Sin Gal. 3.22 and consequently under Guilt the effect of Sin and consequently under death and a curse the wages of Sin And this Sin guilt and curse is so closely bound to every one of Adams posterity that there is no possibility in the best of them to deliver themselves from it therefore O Lord teach us to pray Forgive us Forgiveness is an act of Free Grace whereby our offended God freely and without any Merit of ours remits the Sin the Guilt and Punishment the Person offended is he only that can forgive the rule was true though misapplyed Mar. 2.7 Who can forgive Sins but God only and Forgiveness is an act of most free Mercy and nothing of Merit in the person forgiven Isa 43.25 I even I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for my own sake and will not remember thy Sins Misery which is the effect of Sin is the Object of Mercy but it is not the Desert of it especially when that very Misery under which we are brought by Sin is a Misery wilfully contracted by our selves and not only so but is still a sinning Misery a Misery accompanied with stupidity and senslessness with aversion opposition against that God and that very Mercy that should deliver us God commends the freeness and fulness of his Goodness to us by taking that season to be Merciful when our condition is most Miserable not because our misery deserves his pity Ezek. 16.6 I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood Live Yea I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood Live This Forgiveness is thus wrought Man that was infinitely bound to love and obey the Author of his Being most unrgatefully and unnecessarily sinned against him and thereby deservedly incurred the everlasting curse of the most Just and True God and forfeited his being yet though Man had destroyed himself Almighty God of his own Free Will and without any other Motive and by his own Infinite Wisdom contrived a way whereby his most exact Truth and Justice might be satisfied and yet his creature saved and his Mercy and Goodness might be infinitely evidenced unto Men and Angels By an Everlasting Covenant between the Father and the Son the Son he must assume our Nature and offer it up as One Sacrifice for Sin for ever Heb. 10.12 This was that Mystery hid from Ages and Generations the Mystery that the Angels desire to look into 1 Pet. 1.12 The Great Mystery of Godliness God manifested in the Flesh 1 Tim. 3.16 The great End of the Creation of Man And by this Sacrifice thus freely given by our offended Lord we have Redemption even the Remission of our sins Ephes 1.7 Colos 1.14 And Pardon thus freely given by the Father and yet thus dearly bought by the Son is with abundance of Love and Grace proclaimed and tendred unto all in all the World
come before thee and beg thee to pardon my Sins assuredly trusting that thou that hast created in me a mind of Mercy and Forgiveness unto others wilt shew thy self a God of Mercy and Pardon unto me 6. Forgive us for we forgive It is true our Pardon of others deserves not thy Mercy nor can it make thee a debtor unto us but Bountiful Lord thou hast been pleased in Christ in whom all thy Promises are Yea and Amen by thine own free Promise to engage thy self unto thy creature Psal 18.25 That with the merciful thou wilt shew thy self merciful Matt. 5.7 That the merciful shall obtain Mercy Mat. 6.14 That if we forgive men their Trespasses thou wilt forgive us and these Promises of thine freely and undeservedly made by thee I lay before thee when I beg my Pardon in Jesus Christ thereby to strengthen my Soul in thy Goodness in the free remission of all my Sins To conclude In this Petition the Soul breathes out such thoughts as these O Lord I confess before thee I am a sinful creature I have a sinful and polluted Nature a Body of sin and death and this sinful Nature sends forth through all my Thoughts Words and Actions foul and filthy streams in every moment of my Life and if thou shouldest pass by all the sins of my Nature and Life unto this day and shouldest call me to an account for my errors since I last begged my Pardon there were guilt enough left to press me down to the lowest Hell And this guilt of the least of any of my sins as it is more than I am able to answer so it is more than I am able to expiate there is no escaping but by thy free Pardon and that Pardon I beg of thee in the Name and Righteousness and Promise of thy Son who knew all thy mind and taught me to seek my Pardon as often as to seek my daily bread And in confidence only of that free Mercy of thine I beseech thee pardon me and as I beg the Pardon of my sins in general so in special I beg the Pardon of those Sins which I committed since thy last act of remission granted and manifested and ratified unto me this or that neglect of my Duty to thee or my neighbour this or that sinful proud unclean vain Thought which hath stained my Soul and grieved thy Spirit and polluted or weakned my Conscience this or that uncharitable or malicious or unseemly or vain Word this or that unjust or unbecoming or unchristian or ungodly Action every one of these leaves a spot in my Soul which nothing but the Blood of Christ and thy Free Grace can take away It leaves a Disease a Weakness a Wound in my Soul which nothing but thy Free Spirit can heal and recover And though I know that my greatest mercy to others cannot merit mercy from thee because that mercy is but my duty and a duty mingled in the performance of it with many of my own imperfections which stand in need of thy mercy to pardon it and that little good that is in it is not my own but the work of thy Grace as free as thy Pardon yet it is an evidence to me that thou wilt be merciful unto me in that thou hast contrary to my own nature wrought a merciful temper in my heart to others the same mind that was in thy Son and therefore I am humbly confident that thou hast given me that Spirit of thy Son and consequently the relation and priviledge of a Son that in as much as thou hast given me a heart to pardon others thou wilt make good thy Promise of Mercy and Pardon unto me I make mention of my remission of others not as the merit of thy forgiving of me but thereby to strengthen my Faith and to lay hold of thy Promise made in and by thy Son that if we forgive Men their offences thou wilt also forgive us And this I beg not to make room for new offences by pardoning the old nor to continue in sin that Grace may abound but with a resolution to forsake my sins as well as to confess them and not turn again to folly strengthen me so with thy Grace that as thou hast now cleansed my Soul from my past sins and spots so I may keep my self from mine Iniquity that I may live more to thy Honour that I may walk with more Vigilance that I may every day find my account less and thy Spirit and Grace more and more effectual in me to conform me to the Will and Example of thy Son in all Holiness and Blamelessness of mind and life and to that end Lead us not into Temptation c. This Petition directs us to pray for 1 Preventing Mercy Lead us not into Temptation 2 Delivering Mercy but deliver us from Evil. Keep us from falling into Evil but if we fall into it deliver us from it The Former part wherein is considerable 1. What is meant by Temptation 2. What to lead into Temptation Temptation may be understood 1 for an Active Solicitation unto Evil of Sin this is done either by the Devil thus our Saviour was led by the Spirit into the Wilderness to be tempted of the Devil Matt. 4.1 And therefore he is often called the Tempter who being a Spirit is by the advantage of his Nature and by the permission of God able to mingle himself so with our Souls and faculties that he can immediately solicite unto Evil. Thus he mingled himself with the Spirits of the Prophets of Ahab and became a lying Spirit in their Mouths 1 Kings 22.21 Thus he mingled himself with the Spirit of Judas tempting him to betray Christ Luke 22.7 with the spirit of Ananias Act. 5.3 Why hath Satan filled thy Heart or it is done by Evil Men either by their Counsels Perswasions or Examples or by our own corrupt hearts James 1.14 Every Man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own Lusts and inticed Our corrupt and sinful flesh breathes and evaporates into our Souls those ill and filthy vapors which infect and disorder and seduce it from God the Law of our Members bringing us into captivity to the Law of sin Rom. 7.23 2. For that Objective Temptation or the Object from whence occasionally Temptation ariseth And thus almost every Object of our sense is a Temptation not that there is any proper active motion or action of the Object to perswade to sin but the corruption of our sensual Nature meeting with such an Object acts amiss upon it and so it becomes a Temptation to sin and especially if the Object be such as bears a disproportion to our enjoyment of it The beauty of the Apple was a Temptation to Eve the wedge of Gold and the Babylonish Garment to Achan Naboths Vineyard to Ahab Bathsheba to David yet in these the Objects were innocent and had in themselves no active solicitation to Evil but because they were seemingly good yet prohibited corrupted
which hath overspread the whole race of Mankind and of the Truth and Efficacy and sufficiency of that Redemption which came by Christ and is published in that Word striving and contending with and mastering and over-ruling the opposition of the will against it Calming and quieting and rectifying the distempers and disorders and misplacings of our affections opposing and subduing the lusts of our sensual appetite inlightning and quickning and cleansing the conscience and bringing it about to take part with God and the actings of this Spirit upon our Souls mingling the word of the Gospel conveyed into the Heart with a secret and powerful Energy whereby it becomes a Seed of Life in the Heart growing unto Eternal Life And thus as at first the Motion of the Spirit of God upon the face of the waters and the powerful word of Command produced the several Creatures so by the like Motion of the Spirit upon the Heart and the powerful call of the Word of Christ by the publication of the Gospel is wrought this Second Creation of the new Creature Ephes 5.14 Awake thou that sleepest stand up from the Dead and Christ shall give thee life And these two great Instruments produce in the Heart two active or operative Principles which after they are produced are not only an Effect of the work of God but also become instrumental for the increase of it viz. Faith and Love Faith whereby we receive this Message of Salvation and entertain it and rest upon it and Love whereby out of the apprehension of this great Love of God to us we love him again we love him because he loved us First And this Love of God ingageth the Soul to a Sincere Obedience to the Will of God The Misery from which we are redeemed is so great the Price by which we are redeemed so invaluable the Glory and Blessedness to which we are redeemed so full and all these appearing so to the Soul by Faith that the Soul can think nothing too much to return to that God that hath so freely done so much for it Thus Faith worketh by Love And this is that Kingdom of God that is within us Luk. 17.20 the subjection of the whole Soul to the Scepter and Rule of Christ If he command Purity of Life forsaking of all things denying our selves crucifying our Lusts laying down our Lives the Soul is tutored to that subjection unto the Will of Christ that it chearfully obeys him in this and whatever he commands This is that Kingdom of God Rom. 14.17 consisting in Righteousness a full Conformity of the Soul to the Will of God the only and absolute Rule of Righteousness Peace upon the sense and belief of reconciliation with God through him that is our Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost upon the apprehension of the Protection and Love of Christ our King and that Glory which he hath most assuredly prepared for all his Subjects 3. We have the Degrees of the Manifestation of this Kingdom Here and Hereafter the Kingdom of Grace and the Kingdom of Glory both making but one Kingdom of God under different degrees of manifestation God by his Word and Spirit casts into the Soul a Seed of Life like that grain of Mustard-seed whereunto the Kingdom of Heaven is resembled Matt. 13. And this seed of Life abideth in the Heart 1 John 3.9 And there it quickens and fashions and moulds the Heart to the Image of God it opposeth and struggleth against Lusts and Temptations which labour to stifle and to kill this Seed of Life and like the leaven that was hid in the 3 measures of Meal Mat. 13.33 It doth by degrees assimulate the whole inward Man to this living principle and conforms the Life unto it Now though this principle of Life is thus operative yet in respect of the outward view it is a hidden Life The External appearance of this Life is reserved till Christ who is our Life shall appear and then shall that hidden Life be revealed Colos 3.4 Behold now we are the Sons of God 1 John 3.2 But it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him By this seed of Grace sown in our Hearts we become the Sons of God and of this Sonship we have a secret Evidence in our own Souls but there shall be a fuller Manifestation of it when Christ who is our Life shall appear So then the Kingdom of Grace and of Glory are the same Kingdom but under a different manifestation that a concealed Kingdom a seed in the ground this the Manifestation of that Kingdom a seed in the Tree To conclude When thou prayest Thy Kingdom come let thy Soul enlarge it self in these or the like desires O Lord I know thou art King of Heaven and Earth and the least of all thy Creatures in their most seemingly Casual and inconsiderable events and motions are under thy most certain and powerful Providence Yet such is our blindness and so mysterious are the ways of thy Providence that sometimes we are at a loss and desire with thy Prophet Jer. 12.1 to expostulate with thee touching thy Judgments If it stand with thy Glory and Will I beseech thee let all the events and occurrences of the World appear to be under thy Administration and Government that all may see thy Wisdom and thy Power and thy Justice and thy Goodness in all the passages of it and that all men may be convinced that thou the most High rulest in the Kingdoms of Men and that all thy Works are Truth and thy ways are Judgment and those that walk in pride thou art able to abase Dan. 4.32 37. That they may all acknowledge he is a God that Judgeth in the Earth Psal 58.11 And because thou hast a more peculiar Kingdom even those that thou hast given unto thy Son let that Kingdom of thine come do thou send out thy Spirit and thy Word into the World and subdue the Hearts of all People to the Belief and Obedience of the Gospel of Christ that all the Kingdoms of the World may be the Kingdoms of God and of Christ Bring in the Jews and the fulness of the Gentiles that there may be one Fold and one Shepherd and let thy Son ride on victoriously conquering and to conquer and preserve thy Flock from the mischiefs that are from without Oppression and Persecution and from those that are from within Divisions and Heresies Let them walk as becomes the Subjects of the Prince of Peace Purity and Truth in Unity Holiness and Truth that they may appear to be the People of thy Holiness Rule every Member thereof by thy Grace preserve them from their Enemies within them Lusts and Defections from their Enemies without them the Incursions of Satan Make hast to fulfill the number of thine Elect and when thy Kingdom of Grace is consummate then let thy Kingdom of Glory come the day of the manifestation of thy Righteous
Judgment when the Subjects of thy Kingdom shall be delivered from all death and sorrow and shall inherit that Kingdom which thou hast prepared for and from all Eternity And keep all our hearts looking for and hasting unto thy coming passing our time here in all Holy Conversation and Godliness 2 Pet. 3.11 that so when our Lord cometh he may find us so doing and then come Lord Jesus come quickly Thy Will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven Though the Will of God be one indivisible Act yet in regard of the Manifestation of it to us it comes under a double apprehension 1. The Will of his Counsel 2. The Will of his Commands This is that which he wills to be done by his Creature The other is that he wills shall be done upon his Creature 1. The Will of his Counsel whereby he hath from all Eternity appointed and ordered most Wisely and Infallibly and Irresistibly all the Acts and Events of all his Creatures so that those things that seem to us most naturally or most freely to move are subservient in all their actings to this most free and eternal Counsel of his and all those Occurences which seem to us most inconsiderable or contingent are preordained by the same most Infallible Counsel and make the Instruments of bringing about the greatest Concernments in the world Isa 43.14 I will work and who shall let it Isa 14.24 The Lord of hosts hath sworn saying Surely as I have thought so shall it come to pass and as I have purposed it shall stand Isa 14.27 For the Lord of hosts hath purposed and who shall disannul it and his hand is stretched out and who shall turn it back Isa 46.9 10. I am God and there is none like me declaring the End from the Beginning and from antient times the things that are not yet done saying My Counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure Insomuch that those various and instable and free motions of the Will and Mind of Man which seem to come under no Rule nor Government but of himself are most Exactly ordered to the bringing to pass the Purposes of God Prov. 19.21 There are many devices in the heart of man nevertheless the Counsel of the Lord that shall stand Prov. 20.24 Man's goings are of the Lord how can a man then understand his own way Jer. 10.23 O Lord I know that the way of man is not in himself it is not in a man that walketh to direct his steps And herein we may observe the most deep and unsearchable Wisdom Power and Purity of God that whiles Man worketh freely yet therein God worketh thereby powerfully and while Man worketh Sinfully yet God worketh thereby Purely and Justly The freedom of the Will of Man is not controled by the infallibility of the Counsel of God nor can interrupt or disappoint it and the sinfulness of the will and ways of man is not justified by the Infallibility and Purity of the Counsel of God nor doth it pollute it This is admirably set forth in the actings of those two most Powerful Monarchs the Assyrian Isa 10.5 6 7. O Assyrian the Rod of mine anger and the Staff in their hand is my indignation I will send him against an hypocritical Nation c. Howbeit he meaneth not so The Assyrian King did what he did most freely most presumptuously and proudly and arrogantly attributing his Successes to his own Power had no thought of Justice to punish the defections of Judah or vindicating the breach of their Covenant with God but to satisfie his own Covetousness and Ambition Vers 13. For he saith By the strength of mine hand have I done this and by my Wisdom c. Little thinking that the Wrath and Justice of God was the Staff in his Hand the Strength of his Power But in all this God doth most wisely and justly manage the Distempers of a proud ambitious injurious and covetous King to the fulfilling of the most Wise and Just Counsels of his own Will without staining any part there of with the Vices of that person by which they were acted but punishing those Vices in the Instrument which were instrumental in the fulfilling of his Counsel Vers 12. Wherefore when I have performed my whole Will upon Sion and upon Jerusalem I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the King of Assyria and the glory of his high looks And as thus in the Assyrian so after in the Persian Monarch Isa 45.1 Thus saith the Lord to his Anointed to Cyrus whose right hand I have holden to subdue Nations before him Now this Will of Gods Counsel is for the most part a secret Will till it be fulfilling Psal 77.19 Thy way O Lord is in the Sea and thy foot-steps are not known Though sometimes for the vindicating of his own Power and convincing men that he governeth all things according to the Counsel of his Will he is pleased to proclaim it in Prophecies and Predictions the great and undeniable Evidences of his Eternal Counsel and Government Isa 41.23 Shew the things that are to come that we may know ye are gods Isa 48.3 5. Isa 42.9 Isa 45.21 Who hath declared this from ancient time Who hath told it from that time have not I the Lord 2. The Will of his Commands This is the Rule of our Actions Isa 59.21 My words which I have put into thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy seed c. Deut. 30.14 The word is very nigh unto thee in thy mouth and in thy heart that thou mayest do it Micha 6.9 He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love Mercy and to walk humbly with thy God The Will of Gods Counsel is Secret but the Will of his Command is Revealed unto us in these three great Directions of our Lives 1. The Word of Conscience the Law written in the heart or natural Conscience Rom. 2.14 15. So much of his Will is by some means of Providence discovered even to a Natural Conscience as leaves a man unexcusable 2. The Word of the Spirit of God speaking either secretly in the heart or by some occurrence or dispensation of Providence thou shalt hear a voice behind thee saying This is the way walk in it Isa 30.21 3. The Word of both Testaments The Natural Conscience is corrupted and many times doth not his duty the word of the Spirit of God is not so easily discerned by our fleshly Nature and many times we mistake the voice of our own spirit for the Spirit of God he hath therefore in his infinite Wisdome and Mercy given us a standing Rule the Rule of his written Word obvious to our sence and whatever other dictates there shall be we are sure not to Err in following it Isa 8.20 To the Law and to the Testimony for if they walk not according to that Rule