God is not only pleased to entertain them as acceptable sacrifices but as actually done unto himself And that he hath engaged his promises for as certain an increase in this life as any temporal blessing can be hoped for at his hand and for an infallible reward in the life to come Quest But are not thine enemies and such as hate injure and offend thee excepted from such acts of thy mercy and charity or how far is the command of the Gospel in these cases obliging as to them Ans. To forgive them whatsoever they have done against me from my very soul even as I would be forgiven at the hand of God To chuse to suffer ten thousand evils from them then to return one evill to them After the highest provocations from them to blesse them pray for them and to do good to them in all my capacities Quest Is not a justification of our right by duelling after injuries received consistent with this part of Christian holiness and what is your judgement therein Ans. That duelling is directly against the doctrine of Christ an unhappy custome grounded upon the mistake of true honour and valour and the duel iâ— self either voluntarily accepted or offered is a sinne against this duty of charity on either part both in him that exposeth his own and in him that seâ—keth anothers blood and the fall of either miserable Quest But suppose he hath injured thine honour mayest thou not endeavour thy reparation Answer By any lawfull means I may where neither passion nor revenge hath interest and if I cannot otherwise obtain it then it is an argument of the clearest noblenesse and magnanimity to trust God with the defence of my honour and to forgive the offender Quest Suppose thou hast injured a person and offered all just satisfaction to him and yet he pursues thy life upon refusall of a duell What is in that case safest to be done Answ. To prevent it as much as possibly I can tenderly regarding his sinne as much as mine own suffering after which being unavoidably assaulted if in my pure defence he or I fall my soul is safe as to his or mine own blood CHAP. VI Quest THe rules of the first part of obeying the Gospel of Christ by all immediate services to God being discovered the Gospel as you sayd requires further holinesse of them that will live up to the institution of Christ which is to live justly to men What is then the obligation of the Gospel as to that part of holy life Answ To do to all men as I would they should do unto me Quest Now because this Doctrine of Christ obligeth to a duty which consists of infinite particulars of divers kinds First mention how many sorts of Iustice a Christian is bond to observe Answ. These two the first is called distributive justice which respects the allowance of all just duties from inferiours to Superiours and back again from Superiours to inferiours The seâ—ond is commutative justice which respects honest proceedings in civill contracts and dealings Quest The duties of the Gospel-distributive justice being further various according as men have publick or private relations First what duties of justice are required of Christians as to their publick relations Answ. Such as the people ought to perform to the civil Magistrate and Spirituall Pastor and such as they ought to return to their people back again Quest What duties are required of a Christian by the Law of the Gospel to the Civil Magistrate Answ. To give to Caesar the things that are Caesars To yield obedience for Conscience sake To submit to every ordinance of man for the Lords sake and not to resist their power upon peril of damnation By all which a Christian stands obliged not to do nor consent to any act that may impair the honour safety estate or power of them that God hath set over him in Government Quest How may a Christian Magistrate live justly as to his Subjects Answ. By interesting his power in the maintenance of an holy Religion against all its opponents by a tender regard to their peace quiet enjoyment of their proprieties by taking care that Iustice be impartially distributed and that their Subjects be securely protected from enemies abroad and from the insolencies of unquiet spirits at home Quest What are the duties which justice requires to be paid to the spirituall Pastors of the Church Answ. To obey them in their spirituall guidances as having rule over us justly to pay to them their allowed carnalls from whom we have received spiritualls and to have them in esteem for their work and office sake Quest What is in this holy justice required of them to their cures Answ. Faithfully to feed the flock of Christ by life and Doctrine and in all parts of their offices to be ready to do and administer every thing that may conduce to their salvation alwayes expressing a greater care of their peoples souls then of their own advantages in their places Quest Thus if thou livest thou hast kept a good conscience and obeyed Christ as to thy publick relations What are now the duties that concern private relations where further distribitive justice is required of Christs disciples Answ. Such concern the Family that is the reciprocal duties of Husband and Wife Parent and Child Master and Servant Quest How do the Servants of Christ fulfill the righteousnesse of the Gospel as to the first relation Answ. When the Husband expresseth love respect tendernesse and sweet carriage to the wife living with her and providing for her when the wife gives meek submission reverence and tender love to him both together bearing with one anothers infirmities do live like good yoke-fellows in all religious exercises and imployments of their callings Quest How do Christians perform Gods will in just living as to the second relation Ans. When children honour and obey their Parents supporting their decayes and protecting them in their helplesse ages when Parents govern them by the rules of piety not discouraging nor provoking them by caustlesse anger and providing for them honest educations and callings and means of livelihood Quest How is the Gospel obeyed in the third relation Answ. When Servants conscionably perform their offices and labours as in the sight of God preserving their Masters interests and honour and when Masters endevour to keep them in Gods fear using them mercifully in their labours and restraints respecting their burthens and rewarding their faithfulnesse and toyls Quest O blessed State where Religion and Christian justice guids all interests and happy family where Christ rules But you said the Gospel also requires commutative justice in all bargains commerces and dealings whatsoever and what is that justice Answ. Not to make use of any mans
such as may signify decency and order alwayes considering the infinite majesty of that God with whom I have to do in those holy actions Quest But is not the pious regard of the circumstance of time conducing to the discharge of thy duty to God in the publick worship Ans. Yes I am bound in conscience to keep holy to the Lord his day in all religious exercises and not to prophane it either with secular or sinful employments to observe publick fasts for such reasons as Authority shall order them and all other dayes set apart for the service of God propounding such religious ends to my self for which they were first instituted and commanded Q. What sins are committed against the publick worshâ—p of God which thou oughtest to beware of besides the ordinary breaches of the duties you have mentioned Ans. Many dangerous enterprises that tend necessarily to the impairing eradicating the same as first all attempting by power or seducement to hinder the peaceable assembling of Gods servants together in those holy services Secondly all defacing despising or especially destroying the publick places of Gods worship the preservation of which were alwayes accounted great significations of Religion in a Nation Thirdly all acts that tend to the destruction of the publick ministery it being essentially necessary to the execution of the offices of the publick worship and without which no national profession was ever yet preserved Now the acts that will certainly ruine a publick ministery and by necessary consequence the publick worship are these First the disgracing oppressing and ejecting their persons from their places in any present period of time Secondly the cutting off all possibility of having such a publick Ministry for the future and that will be effected by these attempts 1. By disallowing or prohibiting all means of succession by which an outward designation to ministeriall offices is to be continued and by which a Ministry hath to this day been preserved 2. By taking away all means of education to the knowledge of the tongues arts and sciences by which understandings are prepared by labour and industry to acquire gifts for finding out the mysteries of Religion and to be able to instruct exhort and convince extraordinâ—ry gifts being ceased after the first planting of the Church Lastly by laying hold upon and taking away the demeans by which a present Ministry is maintained and a future perpetuated the most infallible and certain method of destroying them In these two last lay the project of Julian the subtillest enemy of the Church of Christ when he attempted the overthrow of Christian Religion which acts of his were accounted most dangerous persecutions of the Church I oblige my self therefore not to do any act by my self nor to adhere to the act of any other that shall in any of these things impair the publick worship of my gracious God CHAP. V. Quest NOw because it s not enough to a godly life to yeeld conformity to the publick worshâ—p but thou art bound to enlarge thy obedience to the Gospel by thy private performances of holy services to God What doth the Gospel require of thee respectively in order thereto Answ. A giving up the exercises of all the parts and faculties of my soul and body to the obedience of Christ especially the affections of my heart which being rightly ordered by the law of the Gospel will infallibly carry the whole man to the service of God 2. Constantly serving God with private prayers and fasting 3. Honouring him and obeying the Gospel by the use of my particular talent to the good of others Quest Now because the offices of the whole man as you said are guided by the disposition of the heart and its affections It is expedient you know what those affections are and their duties to God What therefore are they Answ. These four especially Love Hope Fear and Joy Quest It is well ordered that thou hast put love to God in the first place which is so necessarily and eminently requisite to a soul in a true Gospel-state that all other services without it are nothing and under its larger notion they are all comprehended What is the command of Christ and thy duty as to that affection Answ. To love God with all my heart Soul mind and strength to love nothing that is unlawfull and so inconsistent with him and to love all other things that are lawfull in subordinatioâ— to him Quest How may I best serv God with my affection of hope Answ. Clearly to resign my self to a confidence in Gods promises living in them above all prosperous enjoyments and possessing my soul with patience in all dangers and adversities hoping that as God hath fore-ordained and called me to them he will also justifie me in them and glorify me after them Quest How may the Gospel be obeyed and God served by the exercise of thy affection of fear Answ. When in all inward motions and outward temptations to sin I represent the divine presence to my thoughts before which I stand and against which I must offend if I consent Quest Lastly when is the passion of joy made serviceable to God Answ. When I rejoyce in the Lord and in all spirituall comforts abandoning all pleasure in sin and removing a too much delight and over value of any present lawfull enjoyment whatsoever Quest Having thus done thou hast presented to God the best sacrifice thou hast which is thy heart and by that thy self yet is not that enough for in the next place as thou saidest God must be served with private prayers And how hath the Gospel obliged thee to that duty Answ. By absolute and indispensable commands and by most gratious promises of Gods acceptance of them and answering them unto me Quest It s true nor hath he for any other service given clearer injunctions or directions havâ—ng made a pattern of words himself and intimated severall kinds of prayers for our Christian exercâ—ses And what are they Answ. These four as S Paul enumerates them Supplications Prayers Intercessions and giving of thanks Quest What holy offices do those four sorts direct thee to Answ. The first signifies the acknowledgement of my sins and an humble suit for the pardon of them The second petitioning for all spirituall and temporal supplies especially for the assistancies of Gods grace and spirit The third an interceding for Gods mercy and blessing upon all mankind the Church in generall all governours relatives enemies and persons whatsoever The last signifies an expressing my thankfulnesse to God for all his blessings to my self and others Quest The Gospel being very severe and importunate in requiring the frequency of this duty even to uncessancy How mayest thou best discharge thy duty to God as to that obligation Answ. To
truth should have depended upon worldly successes and prosperity what advantages should its enemies have had and with what poor comforts should its members have been supported when it lay so long under the bloody persecutions of the Roman Emperours Nero Domitian Trajan c Now if any just cause that is oppressed if any part of Christs Church that is afflicted may plead no disadvantage to them by Gods permitting them to bee outwardly miserable much more the Ministery whose of all just causes and who of all parties in the Church have been ever exposed to the saddest providences as to the worlds eye We shall find therefore as if the cross had been the Label of the Apostles Commission Our Saviour tells them when he sends them forth it should be as sheep in the midst of Wolves From whom what entertainment they were likely to receive he expresseth more fully in a sollowing passage They should be hated of all men for his Names sake And as if they had received with their commissions a commonpasse of trouble they must be persecuted from one City to another All which as they were infallibly to become true in our Saviours prediction so were they as evidently accomplished in the following tragedies of the Churches miseries when the Apostles were set forth as men appointed to death when they were made a theatre a common spectacle a people shewen forth for mockery and misery to Angels and to men For they hungred and thirsted and were naked and buffeted and had no certain dwelling place Afterward followed the violent deaths of all the Apostles under the hands of their Persecutors St. John onely excepted and of the first renownned Fathers os the Church Ignatius Polycarp Irenaeus Justin c. which paid their lives to the prevailing enemies of the Gospel of Christ all which to relate would rather require some large Martyrolygy then a digression in a small Tractate But were all these forsaken of God because they had not prosperity and present successes What providence should then have been followed the prosperous or the adverse If their scornes troubles and oppressions under the hands of their prosperous enemies had disproved the truth of their calling or cause the very Gospel it self might as justly upon the same argument have been called in question By all which it appeares that the charge against this Church for its adversities and miseries is most unjust especially by them who have themselves been instrumental to them It is a hard case first to be made miserable and forlorne and then to be quarrel'd with and disputed against for being so But I leave this to their own consciences and timely repentance only I desire to mind them of a notable prediction by learned Hooker of them and of the ruines of this Church by them even at a determinate period of time which is directly this present age Which becauso it fell from so grave and deliberate a pen I will set down in his own words By these or the like suggestions meaning our adversaries endeavours to overthrow the Ministery in their maintenance and otherwise received with all joy and with like sedulity practised in certain parts of the Christiag world they have brought to passe that as David doth say of a man so it is in hazard to be verified concerning the whole Religion ond Service of God The time thereof may peradventure fall out to be threescore and ten years or if strength do serve unto fourscore what followeth is likely to be small joy for them whatsoever they be that behold it By these considerations I find all my scruples answered and doubts satisfied that I can with all clearnesse of judgement assert the truth of the visible Church of England Now I desire to recline my soul in her bosome and most cheerfully undertake and exercise the whole course of those forementioned Rules of Christian living in its profession as the safest in the world FORMES OF PRAYER For private PERSONS AND FAMILIES To the READER WHosoever thou art I beseech thee but if thy soule stands upon my account to God I mean if thou beest one of my care and charge then I earnestly beg of thee that when thou readest and ownest these plaein directions for Devotion thou obligest thy self upon as strong purposes to follow them or at least the duties intended by them as the interest of saving a soule requires That thou take care by making it a part of thy duty to Christ to season thy children as with the first elements of religious knowledge so with suitable practices of prayer as soon as they shall be capable of these little formes And that thou thy self accont no busines so necessary which should betray thee to forget to sanctify at least the morning and evening of every day in thy privacy and family with prayers and praises considering that the houres spent in this or other religious exercises will be of more concernment and eomfort to thee at thy dying hour then all the pleasures profits and present advantages whatsoever thou canst obtain by the engagement of the rest of thy time I desire thee that before thou enterest upon these exercises or in the midst of them where I have directed thee thou readest part of holy Davids Psalmes by certain periods that thou mayest imitate Davids spirit in thy addresses to God And do not read them as an history meerly to affect thy understanding but as acts of service with affection reverence and piety befitting such communions with God as most of the Psalmes perport Do thou also before thou departest from serving God in any of these offices read some part of she holy Scriptures in such order as thy prudence shall direct thee and digest the same by meditation to particular application to thy self that thou mayest live in the strength of it in all thy actions to God and man I have divided as thou shalt observe the prayers into several parts according to the most considerable periods of the duty First because they will be the more fit and methodical to be taught to children servants and such as cannot read Secondly that after the end of any one part of the devotion the supplicant may stay and collect his spirit to a frame fit for the next considering as to instance that confession and thanksgiving and so the rest do require different carriages of the Spirit Thirdly because the pious soule may more fitly stay in any part and poure out it self to God as spiritual necessity will be administred and yet not break the order of the devotion Lastly because such a partition will alleviate the weariness that is apt to be contracted by one long continued form Now having rigg'd this little ship ef devotion The Lord give thee an heart to venture thy soul in its bottome and grant thee a prosperous gale of his Spirit to drive thee forward to the port of rest which is desired designed and sincerely endeavoured by