Lord in thy righteousness because of mine enemies O let my soul live and it shall praise thee In way of Thanksgiving Oh God wonderfull art thou in thine holy places O Lord how glorious are thy workes thy thoughts are very deep Oh God who is like unto thee The Lord liveth and blessed be my strong helper Lord thy loving kindnesse is better than life it self All thy works praise thee O Lord and thy Saints give thanks unto thee Oh how manifold are thy workes in wisdome hast thou made them all Who is God but the Lord and who hath any strength except our God Wee will rejoyce in thy salvation and triumph in thy name O Lord. O that men would praise the Lord for his goodnesse Oh how plentifull is thy goodnesse which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee Thou Lord hast never failed them that seek thee In thy presence is the fulnesse of joy and at thy right hand there is pleasure for evermore Lord what is man that thou art mindfull of him Not unto us Lord not unto us but unto thy Name give the praise SECT VIII OCcasionall Ejaculations are such as are moved upon the presence of some such object as carries a kind of relation or analogy to that holy thought which we have entertained Of this nature I find that which was practised in S. Basils time that upon the lighting of candles the manner was to blesse God in these words Praise be to God the Father and the Son and the Holy ghost which that Father says was anciently used but who was the Author of it he professeth to bee unknown to the same purpose was the Lucernarium which was a part of the evening office of old For which there may seem to be more colour of reason than for the ordinary fashion of apprecation upon occasion of our sneesing which is expected and practised by many out of civility Old and reverend Beza was wont to move his hat with the rest of the company but to say withall Gramercy Madame la Superstition Now howsoever in this or any other practice which may seeme to carry with it a smacke of Superstition our Devotion may be groundlesse and unseasonable yet nothing hinders but that we may take just holy hints of raising up our hearts to our God As when we doe first look forth and see the heavens over our heads to thinke The heavens declare thy glory O God When we see the day breaking or the Sun rising The day is thine and the night is thine thou hast prepared the light and the Sunne When the light shines in our faces Thou deckest thy self with light as with a garment or Light is sprung up for the righteous When we see our Garden imbellisht with flowers The earth is full of the goodnesse of the Lord. When we see a rough sea The waves of the sea rage horribly and are mighty but the Lord that dwelleth on high is mightier than they When we see the darknesse of the night The darknes is no darknes with thee When we rise up from our bed or our seat Lord thou knowest my down-sitting and my up-rising thou understādest my thoughts afar off When we wash our hands Wash thou me O Lord and I shall be whiter than snow When we are walking forth O hold thou up my goings in thy paths that my footsteps slip not When we hear a passing-bell Oh teach me to number my dayes that I may apply my heart to wisdome or Lord let me know my end and the number of my dayes Thus may wee dart out our holy desires to God upon all occasions Wherein heed must be taken that our Ejaculations be not on the one side so rare that our hearts grow to be hard and strange to God but that they may be held on in continuall acknowledgement of him and acquaintance with him and on the other side that they be not so overfrequent in their perpetual reiteration as that they grow to be like that of the Romish votaries fashionable which if great care bee not taken will fall out to the utter frustrating of our Devotion Shortly let the measure of these devout glances be the preserving our hearts in a constant tendernes godly disposition which shall be further actuated upon all opportunities by the exercises of our more enlarged and fixed Devotion Whereof there is the same variety that there is in Gods services about which it is conversant There are three maine businesses wherein God accounts his service here below to consist The first is our address to the throne of Grace and the pouring out of our souls before him in our prayers The second is the reading and hearing his most holy Word The third is the receit of his blessed Sacraments In all which there is place and use for a fetled Devotion SECT IX TO begin with the first work of our actual and enlarged Devotion Some things are pre-required of us to make us capable of the comfortable performance of so holy and heavenly a duty namely that the heart be cleane first and then that it be cleare clean from the defilement of any knowne sin cleare from all intanglements and distractions What doe wee in our prayers but converse with the Almighty and either carry our soules up to him or bring him down to us now it is no hoping that we can entertaine God in an impure heart Even wee men loath a nasty and sluttish lodging how much more will the holy God abhorre an habitation spiritually filthy I find that even the unclean spirit made that a motive of his repossession that he found the house swept and garnished Satans cleanlinesse is pollution and his garnishment disorder and wickednesse without this he findes no welcome Each spirit looks for an entertainment answerable to his nature How much more will that God of spirits who is purity it selfe look to be harboured in a cleanly room Into a malicious soul wisdome shall not enter nor dwell in the body that is subject unto sin What friend would be pleased that wee should lodge him in a Lazar-house or who would abide to have a Toad lie in his bosome Surely it is not in the verge of created nature to yeeld any thing that can be so noisome and odious to the sense of man as sin is to that absolute and essentiall Goodnesse His pure eyes cannot indure the sight of sin neither can he indure that the sinner should come within the sight of him Away from me yee wicked is his charge both here and hereafter It is the privilege and happinesse of the pure in heart that they shall see God see him both in the end and in the way enjoying the vision of him both in grace and in glory this is no object for impure eys Descend into thy self therefore and ransack
thy heart who ever wouldst be a true Client of Devotion search all the close windings of it with the torches of the law of God and if there be any iniquity found lurking in the secret corners therof drag it out and abandon it and when thou hast done that thy fingers may retaine no pollution say with the holy Psalmist I will wash my hands in innocence so will I goe to thine Altar Presume not to approach the Altar of God there to offer the Sacrifice of thy Devotion with uncleane hands Else thine offering shall be so far from winning an acceptance for thee from the hands of God as that thou shalt make thine offering abominable And if a beast touch the Mount it shall dye SECT X. AS the soul must be clean from sin so it must bee clear and free from distractions The intent of our Devotion is to welcome God to our hearts now where shall we entertain him if the rooms be full thronged with cares and turbulent passions The Spirit of God will not endure to be crowded up together with the world in our strait lodgings An holy vacuity must make way for him in our bosoms The divine patterne of Devotion in whom the Godhead dwelt bodily retires into the Mount to pray he that carried heaven with him would even thus leave the world below him Alas how can we hope to mount up to heaven in our thoughts if wee have the clogs of earthly cares hanging at our heels Yea not only must there bee a shutting out of all distractive cares and passions which are professed enemies to our quiet conversing with God in our Devotion but there must be also a denudation of the minde from all those images of our phantasie how pleasing soever that may carry our thoughts aside from those better objects We are like to foolish children who when they should be stedfastly looking on their books are apt to gaze after every butter-fly that passetin by them here must be therefore a carefull intention of our thoughts a restraint from all vaine and idle rovings and an holding our selves close to our divine taske Whiles Martha is troubled about many things her devouter sister having chosen the better part plyes the one thing necessary which shall never be taken from her and whiles Martha would feast Christ with bodily fare she is feasted of Christ with heavenly delicacies SECT XI AFter the heart is thus cleansed and thus cleared it must bee in the next place decked with true humility the cheapest yet best ornament of the soul If the wise man tel us that pride is the beginning of sin surely all gracious dispositions must begin in humility The foundation of all high and stately buildings must be laid low They are the lowly valleys that soak in the showres of heaven which the steep hils shelve off and prove dry and fruitlesse To that man will I look saith God that is poore and of 〈◊〉 contrite spirit and trembleth at my Word Hence it is that the more eminent any man is in grace the more he is dejected in the sight of God The father of the faithfull comes to God under the stile of dust and ashes David under the stile of a worm and no man Agur the son of Jakeh under the title of more brutish than any man and one that hath not the understanding of a man John Baptist as not morthy to carry the shooes of Christ after him Paul as the least of Saints and chiefe of sinners On the contrary the more vile any man is in his owne eyes and the more dejected in the sight of God the higher he is exalted in Gods favour Like as the Conduict-water by how much lower it fals the higher it riseth When therefore we would appeare before God in our solemn devotions we must see that we empty our selves of all proud conceits and find our hearts fully convinced of our own vilenesse yea nothingness in his sight Down down with all our high thoughts fall wee low before our great and holy God not to the earth only but to the very brim of hell in the Conscience of our owne guiltinesse for though the miserable wretchednesse of our nature may bee a sufficient cause of our humiliation yet the consideration of our detestable sinfulnesse is that which will depresse us lowest in the sight of God SECT XII IT is fit the exercise of our Devotion should begin in an humble confession of our unwordâ—â—nesse Now for the effectual furtherance of this our self-dejection it will be requisite to bend our eyes upon a threefold object To look inward into our selves upward to heaven downwards to hell First to turne our eyes into our bosomes and to take a view not without a secret self-loathing of that world of corruption that hath lien hidden there therupon to accuse arraign and condemn our selves before that awful Tribunall of the Judge of heaven and earth both of that originall pollution which we have drawn from the tainted loins of our first parents and those innumerable actuall wickednesses derived there-from which have stained our persons and lives How can we bee but throughly humbled to see our souls utterly overspread with the odious and abominable leprosie of sin We find that Uzziah bore up stoutly a while against the Priests of the Lord in the maintenance of his sacrilegious presumption but when he saw himself turn'd Lazar on the suddain he is confounded in himselfe and in a depth of shame hastens away from the presence of God to a sad and penitentiall retirednes We should need no other arguments to loath our selves than the sight of our own faces so miserably deformed with the nasty and hatefull scurse of our iniquity Neither only must we be content to shame and grieve our eyes with the foule nature and condition of our sins but we must represent them to our selves in all the circumstances that may aggravate their nainousnesse Alas Lord any one sin is able to damne a soul I have committed many yea numberlesse they have not possessed me single but as that evill spirit said their name is Legion neither have I committed these sins once but often Thine Angels that were sinned but once and are damned for ever I have frequently reiterated the same offences where then were it not for thy mercy shall I appear neither have I only done them in the time of my ignorance but since I received sufficient illumination from thee It is not in the darke that I have stumbled and faln but in the midst of the clear light and sun-shine of thy Gospel and in the very face of thee my God neither have these been the slips of my weaknesse but the bold miscarriages of my presumption neither have I offended out of inconsideration and inadvertency but after and against the checks of a remurmuring conscience after so many gracious warnings and fatherly admonitions after so many fearfull examples of thy judgements after
so infinite obligations of thy favours And thus having look't inward into ourselves and taken an impartiall view of our own vilenesse it will be requisite to cast our eyes upward unto heaven and there to see against whom we have offended even against an infinite Majesty power an infinite mercy an infinite justice That power and Majesty which hath spread out the heavens as a Curtain and hath laid the foundations of the earth so sure that it cannot be moved who hath shut up the sea with bars and doors and said Hitherto shalt thou come and no further and here shalt thou stay thy proud waves who doth whatsoever he will in heaven and in earth who commandeth the Devils to their chains able therfore to take infinite vengeance on sinners That mercy of God the Father who gave his own Son out of his bosome for our redemption That mercy of God the Son who thinking it no robbery to be equall unto God for our sakes made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and being found in fashion as a man humbled himself and became obedient to the death even the accursed death of the Crosse That mercy of God the holy Ghost who hath made that Christ mine and hath sealed to my soule the benefit of that blessed Redemption Lastly that justice of God which as it is infinitely displeased with every sin so will be sure to take infinite vengeance on every impenitent sinner And from hence it will be fit and seasonable for the devout soul to look downward into that horrible pit of eternall confusion and there to see the dreadful unspeakable unimaginable torments of the damned to represent unto it selfe the terrors of those everlasting burnings the fire and brimstone of that infernall Tophet the mercilesse and unwearible tyranny of those hellish executioners the shrieks and howlings and gnashings of the tormented the unpitiable interminable unmitigable tortures of those ever-dying and yet never-dying souls By all which we shall justly affright our selves into a deep sense of the dangerous and wofull condition wherein we lie in the state of nature and impenitence and shal be driven with an holy eagernesse to seek for Christ the Son of the ever-living God our blessed Mediator in and by whom only we can look for the remission of all these our sins a reconcilement with this most powerfull mercifull just God and a deliverance of our soules from the hand of the nethermost hell SECT XIII IT shall not now need or boot to bid the soul which is truely apprehensive of all these to sue importunately to the Lord of life for a freedome and rescue from these infinite paines of eternall death to which our sinnes have forfeited it and for a present happy recovery of that favour which is better than life Have we heard or can wee imagine some hainous Malefactor that hath received the sentence of death and is now bound hand and foot ready to be cast into a Den of Lions or a burning furnace with what strong cries and passionate obsecrations he plies the Judge for mercy wee may then conceive some little image of the vehement sute and strong cries of a soul truly sensible of the danger of Gods wrath deserved by his sin and the dreadful consequents of deserved imminent damnation Although what proportion is there betwixt a weak creature and the Almighty betwixt a moment and eternity Hereupon therefore followes a vehement longing uncapable of a denial after Christ and fervent aspirations to that Saviour by whom only we receive a ful and gracious deliverance from death and hell and a full pardon and remission of all our sins and if this come not the sooner strong knocking 's at the gates of heaven even so loud that the Father of mercies cannot but hear open Never did any contrite soul beg of God that was not prevented by his mercy much more doth he condescend when he is strongly intreated our very intreaties are from him hee puts into us those desires which he graciously answers Now therfore doth the devout soul see the God of all comfort to bow the heavens and come down with healing in his wings and heare him speak peace unto the heart thus throughly humbled Fear not thou shalt not die but live Be of good cheare thy sins are forgiven thee Here therefore comes in that divine grace of Faith effectually apprehending Christ the Saviour and his infinite satisfaction and merits comfortably applying all the sweet promises of the Gospel clinging close to that all-sufficient Redeemer and in his most perfect obedience emboldning it selfe to challenge a freedome of accesse to God and confidence of appearance before the Tribunal of heaven and now the soule clad with Christs righteousnesse dares look God in the face and can both challenge and triumph over all the powers of darknesse For being justified by faith we have peach with God through Jesu Christ our Lord. SECT XIV BY how much deeper the sense of our misery and danger is so much more welcome and joyfull is the apprehension of our deliverance and so much more thankfull is our acknowledgement of that unspeakable mercy The soule therefore that is truly sensible of this wonderfull goodnesse of it's God as it feels a marvellous joy in it self so it cannot but break sorth into cheerfull and holy though secret gratulations The Lord is full of compassion and mercy long suffering and of great goodnes he keepeth not his anger for ever he hath not dealt with me after my sins nor rewarded me after mine iniquities What shal I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. I will thank thee for thou hast heard me hast not given me over to death but art become my salvation O speak good of the Lord all ye works of his Praise thou the Lord O my soul SECT XV. THe more feelingly the soul apprehends and the more thankfully it digests the favours of God in its pardon and deliverance the more freely doth the God of mercy impart himself to it and the more God imparts himself to it the more it loves him and the more heavenly acquaintance and entirenesse grows betwixt God it and now that love which was but a spark at first grows into a flame and wholly takes up the soul This fire of heavenly love in the devout soul is and must be heightned more and more by the addition of the holy incentives of divine thoughts concerning the means of our freedome and deliverance And here offers it self to us that bottomlesse abysse of mercy in our Redemption wrought by the eternall Son of God Jesus Christ the just by whose stripes we are healed by whose bloud we are ransomed where none will befit us but admiring and adoring notions We shall not disparage you O ye blessed Angels and Arch-angels of Heaven if we
procured their reverence and honor even that holy station which wee hold in Gods Church and to curse those of us who had deserved nothing but their thanks and prayers railing on our very profession in the streets and rejoycing in our supposed ruine Father forgive them for they knew not what they did Here wee were out of the danger of this mis-raised fury and had leasure to pray for the quenching of those wild-fires of contention and causelesse malice which to our great grief we saw wicked incendiaries dayly to cast amongst Gods dear wel-minded people Here we have well happily approved with the blessed Apostle that what ever our restraint be the Word of God is not bound With what liberty with what zeale with what successe hath that been preached by us to all commers Let them say whether the Tower had ever so many such guests or such benedictions so as if the place have rendred us safe wee have endeavoured to make it happy Wherein our performances have seemed to confute that which Cornelius Bishop of Rome long since observed that the minde laden with heavy burdens of affliction is not able to doe that service which it can doe when it is free and at ease Our troubles through Gods mercy made us more active and our labours more effectuall SECT VI. ADde unto these if you please the eminent dignity of the place such as is able to give a kind of honor to captivity the ancient seat of Kings chosen by them as for the safe residence of their Royall Persons so for their Treasury their Wardrobe their Magazine all these precious things are under the same custody with our selves sent hither not as to prison but a repositorie and why should wee thinke our selves in any other condition How many worthy inhabitants make choice to fixe their abode within these walls as not knowing where to bee happier the place is the same to us if our will may he the same with theirs they dearly purchase that which cost us nothing but our fees nothing makes the difference but the meer conceit of Liberty which whiles I can give to my self in my thoughts why am I pitied as miserable while their happinesse is applauded You see then how free I am in that which you miscall my prison see now how little cause I have to affect this liberty which you imagine mee to want since I shall be I can be no other than a Prisoner abroad There is much difference of Prisons One is straight and close locked so farre from admitting visitants that it scarce allowes the Sunne to look in at those crosse-barred grates another is more large and spacious yeelding both Walkes and accesse Even after my discharge from these Walls I shall be yet sure to bee a Prisoner both these wayes For what is my body but my prison in the one and what is the world but my prison in the other kind SECT VII TO begin with the former never was there a more close prisoner than my soul is for the time to my body Close in respect of the essence of that spirit which since its first Mittimus never stirr'd out from this strait room never can doe till my Gaole-delivery If you respect the improvement of the operations of that busie soul it is any where it is successively every where no place can hold it none can limit it but if you regard the immortal and immateriall substance of it it is fast lockt up within these walls of clay till the day of my changing come even as the closest Captive may write letters to his remotest friends whilest his person is in durance I have too much reason to acknowledge my native Jayle and feel the true Symptoms of it to my pain what darknesse of sorrow have I here found what little-ease of melancholicke lodgings what manacles and shackles of cramps yea what racks of torturing convulsions And if there bee others that find lesse misery in their prison yet there is no good soul but findes equall restraint That spirituall substance which is imprisoned within us would faine bee flying up to that heaven whence it descended these walls of flesh forbid that evolation as Socrates cal'd it of old and will not let it out till the God of spirits who placed it there shall unlock the doores and free the prisoner by death He that infused life into Lazarus that he might call him from the prison of the grave must take life from us when he cals us out of this prison of flesh I desire to be loosed and to be with Christ saith the Apostle as some versions expresse it whiles we are chained to this flesh we can have no passage to heaven no free conversation with our Saviour Although it was the singular privilege of that great Doctor of the Gentiles that he was in heaven before his dissolution whether in the body or out of the body he knew not How far that rapture extended whether to both soule and body if he knew not how should we But this we know that such extasie and vision was in him without separation of the soul from the body which another should hope for in vaine And for him so he saw this glory of Paradice that hee could not yet enjoy it Before he or we can be blessed with the fruition of Christ we must be loosed that is freed from our clog our chaine of this mortall body What but our prison wals can hinder us here from a free prospect What but these wals of flesh can hinder me from a cleare vision of God I must now for the time see as I may Nothing can enter into my soule but what passes through my senses partakes in some sort of their earthlinesse when I am freed from them I shal see as I am seen in an abstracted heavenly way so as one spirit apprehends another I doe now at the best see those spirituall objects darkly by the eye of faith as in a glasse and that not one of the clearest neither Alas what dim representations are these that I can attaine to here of that Majesty whose sight shal make me blessed I shal once see as I am seen face to face the face of my glorified soul shal see the face of that all-glorious Deity and in that sight be eternally happy It is enough for a prisoner in this dungeon of clay to know of and fore-expect such felicity whereof these earthly gieves render him as yet uncapable SECT VIII VVOE is me how many prisons doe we passe so soon as ever this divine soul is infused into this flesh it is a prisoner neither can any more passe out of this skin till this frame of nature be demolished And now as the soul of this Embryon is instantly a prisoner to the body so the body is also a prisoner in the womb wherein it is formed what darknesse what closenesse what uneasinesie what nuisance is there in this Dungeon of nature