XII And the life everlasting Amen Q. What dost thou chiefly learn in these Articles of thy belief A. First I learn to believe in God the Father who hath made me and all the world Secondly in God the Son who hath redeemed me and all mankind Thirdly In God the Holy Ghost who sanctifieth me and all the Elect people of God Q. What is the method of the Creed A. The Creed teaches me to believe in God and to believe his Church Q. How in God A. It teaches me to believe in God with respect to his Unity and then to the Trinity of Persons in that Unity Father Son and holy Ghost Q. How does it teach you to believe the Church A. It teaches me to believe the Church with regard to its two different states either Militant below or Triumphant above Q. How are the Articles of the Creed Motives of Love A. Every Article includes a Blessing as well as a Mystery and is as proper to excite our Love as to engage our Faith Q. Give me such a Paraphrase on the Creed that throughout the whole your Faith may work by Love A. I shall doe it to the best of my power in such Instructive and Pathetical Aspirations as follow I Believe My Lord and my God with a full free and firm assent I believe all the Articles of my Creed because thou hast revealed them I know thou art infallible Truth and canst not thou art infinite Love and wilt not deceive me Glory be to thee With all my heart O my God do I love and praise thee who art so infinitely amiable in thy self and so full of love to us that all I can know or believe of thee excites me to love thee Lord daily increase my Faith make it active and fruitfull that I may believe and love thee as entirely as becomes one entirely devoted to thee In God I believe O my God that thou art One and that there is no other God besides thee thou art that One infinite and independent Being that One onely true God whom all Men and all Angels are to Adore All glory be to thee O Lord God help me to love and to praise thee with God-like affections and a sutable Devotion I believe O my God that in the Unity of thy Godhead there is a Trinity of Persons I believe in thee O Father Son and Holy Ghost in whose Name I was baptized to whose Service I am religiously devoted All glory be to thee I believe I admire I love I praise I adore thee O most blessed and glorious Trinity God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost for being the joint Authours of our Salvation All glory be to thee O sacred and dreadfull and mysterious Trinity though I cannot conceive thee yet let me daily experiment thy goodness Let thy Grace O Lord Iesus let thy Love O God the Father let thy Communications O Holy Spirit be ever with me The Father I believe and love and praise thee O my God the first Person in the most Adorable Trinity the Fountain of the Godhead the Eternal Father of thy coeternal Son Jesus my Saviour Glory be to thee O God the Father for so loving the world as to give thy onely begotten Son to redeem us Glory be to thee O Heavenly Father for first loving us and giving the dearest thing thou hadst for us O help me to love again and to think nothing too dear for thee Almighty I believe O my God that thou art a Spirit most pure and holy and infinite in all perfections in Power and Knowledge and Goodness that thou art Eternal Immutable and Omnipresent all love all glory be to thee I believe O Lord that thou art most wise and just most happy and glorious and all-sufficient most gratious and mercifull and tender and benign and liberal and beneficent all love all glory be to thee I believe thy Divine Nature O my God to be in all respects amiable to be Amiableness it self to be Love it self and therefore I love I admire I praise and fear and adore thee Thou Lord art my Hope my Trust my Life my Joy my Glory my God my All my Love Maker of Heaven and Earth I believe that thou O Father Almighty didst create Heaven and Earth the whole World and all things in it visible and invisible out of nothing and by thy Word onely All glory be to thee I believe O thou great Creatour that thy Divine Love made thee communicate Being to thy Creatures that thou lovest all things and hatest nothing thou hast made Glory be to thee I believe O God that thou art the sole Lord and Proprietour of all things thou hast made that all things do necessarily depend on thee that 't is in thee onely we live and move and have our Being All Love all Glory be to thee I believe O thou Communicative Goodness that thou dost preserve and sustain and protect and bless all things thou hast made sutably to the Natures thou hast given them All Love all Glory be to thee I believe O mighty Wisedom that thou dost most sweetly order and govern and dispose all things even the most minute even the very sins of men to conspire in thy Glory O do thou conduct my whole life steer every motion of my soul towards the great End of our Creation to love and to glorifie thee I believe O Lord that thy Love was more illustrious in the Creation of Man than in all the rest of the visible World thou wert pleased to make him in thy own Image and after thy own divine likeness All Love all Glory be to thee Thou Lord didst make Man for thy self and all things visible for Man Thou designedst all creatures for his use and didst subject them to his Dominion the very Angels thou didst charge to keep him in all his ways All Love all Glory be to thee Thy Works O Lord are wonderfull and amiable I love and admire and praise thy Universal Providence over the whole World the perpetual flux of thy Goodness on every Creature All glory be to thee I love and praise thee O my God for all the particular vouchsafements of thy love to me for all thy deliverances and blessings either to my body or to my soul known or unknown for all that I do not remember or did not consider All Love all Glory be to thee The longer I live O my God the more reason I have to love thee because every day supplies me with fresh experiments and new motives of thy manifold love to me and therefore all Love all Glory be to thee And in Iesus I believe in thee O Jesus and I rejoice in that dear Name which is so full
profess thy Name that in all these and all other possible instances of duty our lives may be continually employ'd to love thee and for thy sake to love our neighbour and to excite our neighbour to love thee The Ninth Commandment O my God O my Love I renounce as p. 52. All manner of bearing false Witness against my Neighbour All false accusations or glosses or pleadings or testimonies or sentences in Courts of Judicature by concealing or overspeaking or perverting right and truth All things prejudicial or destructive to my neighbours good name All censoriousness and slander detraction and calumny forc'd consequences or invidious reflexions All scoffing or exposing the infirmities of others All whispering and tale-bearing or raising of evil reports suspicions or jealousies and all evil-speaking All equivocations and dissembling flattery and lying All the least tendencies to any of these injurious falshoods From all these and the like hatefull violations of thy love and of the love c. as page 52. O my God O my Love who dost love truth and dost hate a lie as perfectly Diabolical instill into my Soul an unalterable love of truth that nothing may tempt me to deviate from an intire veracity in my whole conversation or become a liar which thy Soul abhors O Lord give me grace ever to speak the truth and let my heart and my tongue always go together O my God give me grace to be tender of my neighbour's good name since I cannot love him if I take that from him which I know to be most dear to him Grant O my God for the sake of thy own love that I may be always ready to vindicate my neighbour's good name on all occasions that I may judge the best and speak well of him and conceal or excuse his infirmities that I may be impatient to hear slow to believe and unwilling to propagate evil reports that I may put candid interpretations on his actions since the more he is defamed the less able he is to serve thee the less credit he has to perswade others to love thee O my God O my love let thy c. as page 51. The Tenth Commandment O my God O my Love I renounce as p. 51. All the inordinate desire of what is my neighbour's All coveting his House or Wife or Servant or Maid or Ox or Ass or any thing that is his All discontentedness with my worldly condition and worldly solicitude All covetousness or repining at the happiness of others All taking pleasure in sin or complacence in past impurities All the first motions all the least tendencies to concupiscence From all these and the like hatefull c. as p. 52. O my God O my Love thou art the great searcher of hearts and dost not onely require outward acts of duty but the inward disposition of the heart the heart is the chief sacrifice thou requirest the heart is the proper seat of thy love and my heart I wholly devote to thee O my God create in me a clean heart that the fountain of action being clean the streams may run clean also Give me a heart O thou who onely canst change the heart entirely turn'd to thee that may suppress and resist all the first springings of Lust before they shoot up into consent approbation and desire before lust conceiving brings forth sin Lord make me contented and thankfull and well-pleased with that portion thy providential love has allotted me and to acquiesce in thy choice as best for me O great Lord of hearts lodge my neighbour in my heart next to my self let all my desires be for his good and let it be the subject of my joy and praise and love to see thy love liberal to him to see him abounding in thy blessings O my God my love what can a Soul enamour'd of thee ever desire but thee O let the world never more have place in my heart all my affections I withdraw from that to fix on thee Forgive me O my God if I am unmeasurably ambitious it is onely of thy favour forgive me if I am unsatiably covetous it is onely of thy fruition forgive me if I am perpetually discontented it is onely because I cannot love thee more O unconceivable happiness of Heaven where my Ambition shall rest on a Throne where my Covetousness shall be filled with the â—eartifick Vision and where I shall be eternally satisfied with love O my God O my Love let thy c. as page 51. Q. My good child know this that thou art not able to do these things of thy self nor to walk in the Commandments of God and to serve him without his special grace which thou must learn at all times to call for by diligent Prayer Let me hear therefore if thou canst say the Lords Prayer A. Our Father which art in Heaven Hallowed be thy name Thy kingdom come Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven Give us this day our daily bread And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil Amen Q. What desirest thou of God in this prayer A. I desire my Lord God our heavenly Father who is the giver of all goodness to send his grace unto me and to all people that we may worship him serve him and obey him as we ought to do And I pray unto God that he will send us all things that be needful both for our souls and bodies And that he will be merciful unto us and forgive us our sins and that it will please him to save and defend us in all dangers ghostly and bodily and that he will keep us from all sin and wickedness and from our ghostly enemy and from everlasting death And this I trust he will do of his mercy and goodness through our Lord Iesus Christ. And therefore I say Amen So be it O infinite Lord it is my duty and my happiness to love thee but alas my own sad experience teaches me how little able I am to love Ah Lord there is a dark cloud of Ignorance spread over my Soul that intercepts thy beams I cannot clearly see I cannot fully know how lovely thou art Ah Lord when ever any gleams of thy loveliness break in upon my Spirit and attract my will a crowd of strange Loves importune and tempt me to wander after them Since O my God I can of my self neither know nor love thee since I cannot by my own strength do those things thou requirest nor walk in thy Commandments nor serve thee nor think so much as one good thought whither can I fly but only to thy free and unbounded love Thou art my hope my help and my salvation thou only canst teach and enable me to know and to love thy own goodness By thy special Grace
hatefull violations of thy love and from that vengeance they justly deserve O my God O my Love deliver me and deliver all faithfull people O my God O my Love I earnestly pray that thy love may so prevail over our hearts that we may sadly lament and abhor all these abominations and may never more provoke thee The Second Commandment O my God O my Love I know the true Love of thee is incommunicable to any but thee and therefore I renounce and detest and bewail as odious and offensive to thee as directly opposite to thy love and to thy glory All making of Idols or false Gods or of graven Images with intent of worshipping and bowing down before them All representations and picturing of thee O my God by visible likenesses of things in Heaven or in Earth All corporeal shapes which are infinitely unsutable to thy invisible and spiritual nature and derogatory from thy adorableness All Idolatry and Religious invocation of Creatures All sacrilege and prophanations of thy House and of things sacred All abuse or disesteem or carelesness of thy Word and contempt of thy Ministers All superstitious or unlawfull rites superfluities or mutilations irreverence or indecencies in thy publick worship by which thou art any way dishonoured All resting in mere outward observances or refusing to give thee bodily worship and to fall down before thee All the least tendencies to any of these impieties From all these and the like violations of thy incommunicable Love and from that vengeance they justly deserve O my God O my Love deliver me and deliver all faithfull people c. as p. 39. O my God O my Love imprint on my soul an Awfull Love of thy Majesty that I may worship thee in spirit and in truth and in a manner worthy of thee O my God O my Love make me so tender of the Honour of thee my Beloved that I may shew a due regard to all the parts of thy worship That with lowest humiliation of soul and body whenever I appear in the presence of infinite-Love I may fall down and adore thee O my God O my Love O may I always enter thy house the habitation of unbounded Love with recollected thoughts compos'd behaviour becoming reverence and sincere intentions of Love O my God O my Love O may I ever frequent the publick Prayers and approach thine Altar with fervent and heavenly affections with holy impatience for the blessings of thy Love O my God O my Love O may I always reade and hear thy Word the heavenly register of thy Love with a serious attention an inflamable heart and a particular application and ever learn from it some lesson of thy Love O my God O my Love for thy dearest sake give me grace to pay a religious veneration to all sacred persons or places or things which are thine by solemn dedication and separated for the uses of Divine Love and the communications of thy grace or which may promote the decency and order of thy worship or the edification of faithfull people O my God O my Love let thy All-powerfull Love abound in my heart and in the hearts of all that profess thy Name that in all these and in all other possible instances of thy love our souls may be continually employed to praise and to love thee c. as p. 39. Thou O my God O my Love art a jealous God jealous of thy own Honour and of the chastness of my Love O let me never run after other Loves or commit spiritual Adultery against thee to provoke thee to anger Thou O my God O my Love dost visit the iniquities of the Fathers upon the children Thou when thy jealousie burns like fire against Idolaters and those that rob thee of thy worship art wont to punish them in their very posterity with temporal evils and with spiritual too when their children tread in their steps for then thou makest their Father's sins occasions of hastning or of increasing thy judgments though thou always sparest the children that repent O let thy just indignation against violating thy Worship deter me and all that profess thy Name from such violations Thy jealousie O my God O my Love falls heavy upon them that hate thee but how is it possible for any one to hate thee who art infinite love and yet alas all that are enemies to thy Divine Worship all that exalt any lust any creature into thy Throne to ascribe their happiness to sacrifice their esteem and zeal and affections and to offer up Sovereign Honours to it what do they doe but love false Gods and hate thee and are therefore hated by thee O Lord God to hate thee is the proper character of Devils and Lucifer himself cannot sin beyond that utmost extremity of evil the hatred of thee and my heart is full of horrour and grief to think that ever those that bear thy Image and daily subsist by thy love should turn themselves into Devils and this World into a Hell by hating thee O boundless Love turn them O turn them into men again and then they cannot chuse but love thee Glory be to thee O my God who shewest mercy to them that love thee and keep thy Commandments Love and Obedience always go together and entail a blessing on the posterity of thy Lovers O keep me always one of that happy number O let me ever love and obey thee Glory be to thee O Lord God whose Love is more diffusive than thy Anger they vengeance extends but to the third or at most the fourth generation thy mercy unto thousands and the more diffused thy Love is the more powerfully it moves us to praise and to love thee The Third Commandment O my God O my Love thy Name is thy own glorious and amiable self thy Divine Nature and Perfections and Works most worthy to be ador'd most worthy to be lov'd and therefore I will always adore and love thy Name O my God O my Love may I ever have awfull thoughts of thee may I never mention thy venerable Name unless on solemn and just and devout occasions may I never mention it on those occasions without acts of love and adoration O my God O my Love to love and to glorify thy Name is the great end of our Creation which is still more enforced by our Redemption O let it be the greatest busineâ—â— of my whole life to love and to glorifie it all the possible ways I can by my mouth by my conversation by my publick confession of thee before men even to death whenever thou art pleas'd to call me to it by engaging all I can to glorify and love thee O happy life O blessed death which is spent and expires in glorifying in loving thee O my God O my Love