able memories to recollect the surreptions and losses sustained in the late barbarous broiles and because these breaches are not made up to charge our hearts with repinings intermixed with joy what do we but make use of our strongest faculties to cheat our selves We are to look forward to what is to come nay to consider what advantages we have in the happy Restauration of King and Church Many it is true are the insiduous baits laid for us every where and way but while God is our chief desire prosperity helpeth nor faileth us Therefore to those who constantly behold Gods will as their most desireable pleasure the good wrought in such varieties maketh wonderfully for the heightening of their Joy None but a distempered palate thinketh bitter sweet and sweet bitter for a sound body hath a distinguishing gust So sincerity of Religion giveth sound judgement for the election of the most savory delights the Sum whereof is God the particulars whatsoever perseverance in Love promoteth to the understanding NOW that prosperity at all proveth obnoxious to future â—â—â—contents by too too indulgent supplies of luxurious appetites is no fault of the times but of the persons who cannot learn to behold the beauteous blessings of God with chast and temperate eyes Neither is the subservient and ready good an excusive plea for immoderate either lust or use nor given otherwise then for a punishment to such unrestrained wills It is true that there is more danger in an exalted state of life then in a depressed because more privy temptations more publick ones but then care is the more commendable and likewisere sistance is the more glorious when the assault is feircest They then who were frighted nearer God and farther off a self-lâ—ve by the Sword Persecution Nakedness and distress have made adversity beneficâ—al to their Souls if their care now become not like a watch not wound up slack in time of greatest urgency Temptation is no necessity nâ—ither store hurtful unless misapplied The â—â—u use of prosperity is to be led amongsâ— and through the dilicacies and charms of pleasure and leave them conquered and as often as we are so led to recede with maiden appetites reserved for God alone Thus onely do we use these benefits aright and thus using them shall we duely remember the greatness of the succour afforded by them when time would wipe away the tract and obliterate the legend Thus using them do we enlarge our Joy in them because our Joy in the Author is thereby perpetuated The greatest and sincerest of pleasures as directly in reference to things of this life is to bear and forbear Temporal things coming suddenly to their height do suddenly decrease and the benefits of this life too greedily taken and used cease to be benefits after one full enjoyment of them onely moderation with reference to God lengtheneth them and preserveth the joy of them entire They are so made to reach from earth to heaven and the joy of our span-long life is spun out into a glorious thred of immortallity SEE now how farr our confidence hath carried us The prayers of Faith have wrestled and prevailed with God for this return of peace to his Church and this Realme A pious boldness in asking any thing of God and resolution in denying any thing to our selves for his sake will procure a more prosperous advancement for us than this even an exaltation above temporal to eternal rest and peace Amen O Lord thou hast been favourable to this thy Land in Redeeming thy people from captivity thou hast forgiven our iniquities and covered our past sins thou hast fallen away thy wrath and turned thy self from the fierceness of thine anger Therefore our meditation of thee shall be sweet because thy salvation is nigh them that hope in thee that glory may dwell in our land Thou hast remembred thy mercy and truth towards thine Israel and the ends of the World have seen thy salvation O righteous God Truely thou art good to such as are of a clean heart but we had well nigh committed folly against thee in being envious at the prosperity of the wicked when we saw the Tabernacles of Robbers prosper and that they were encompassed with Worldly happiness round about But at last when we drew neer to the refuge of thy word and considered the Wisdome of thy disposals we were taught not to condemn our own lot neither envy theirs For we understood destruction to be nigh their habitations and ready to receive them But thy Servants are alway with these thou upholdest them with thy Right Hand Thou shalt guide us with thy counsell and afterwards receive its to Glory Thou shalt encrease our greatness and comfort us on every side so that our lips shall greatly rejoyce when we sing unto thee and our souls also which thou hast wonderfully redeemed Let this be written in our hearts and likewise engraven in the rock for ever for posterities sake that the generations to come may know it and the people which shall be created may praise thy name who lookedst down from the height of thy Sanctuary to hear the groaning of the prisoners and preserve the multitudes of the afflicted Surely the upright shall rejoyce for they have seen the vengeance and shall boastingly say Verily there is a reward for the righteous Thou hast proved us and tried us as silver is tried Thou caused'st men to ride over our heads we went through fire and water But thou hast brought us out into a wealthy place We long sat by the way side mourning for the Ark of God catching at all tidings which might nourish Hope At last we understood and now confess thy power who hast brought it out of the house of Dagon It is well for us that we have been afflicted Yet assuredly if thou hadst not been on our side when malitious men rose up in fury against us they had even swallowed us up quick But praised be thy name our favour and Defence our foot is escaped out of the snare of the fowler the snare is broken and we are delivered What are we that thou hast thus magnified us and heard our prayers continually importuning these to arise and to have mercy upon Sion How great are thy loving Kindnesses and Mercies who considered'st that the time to favour her even the set time was come And now thou hast set thy Tabernacle in Salem that Righteousness and Peace might kiss each other Therefore unto thee do we give thanks O Lord unto thee do we give thanks for that thy name is near thy wondrous works declare Let our mouth be filled with thy praise and honour continually and be thou exalted O God above the Heavens let thy glory be above all the earth And now O Lord I beseech thee remember me thine unworthy Servant with the favour that thou bearest unto thy people and visit me with thy Salvation that I may see the good of thy Chosen all my days and rejoyce in
we make our subtil and take our â—ecure escape from sin Which we discerning are to make hast forward rather than be of those who draw back in whom God saith his Soul shall have no pleasure O let us then escape thither and our souls shall live Seeing tribulation to be the reward of sin let us by bearing it wisely reach at the reward of Patience In our adversity we must be possess'd with patience for it is in our patience that we must possess our Souls Iron by fires duration maketh armour sufficient to withstand deaths formidable contrivances and man often heat in the chimneys of affliction and hammered upon the anvils of worldly miseries is enabled for his victory through the Captain of his salvation who was made perfect through sufferings Thus all the before-named seeming causes of trouble are but preparatives to our joy they are but mists which cool and bedew one hour of our morning that the rest of our day may the more sensibly flourish and our Sun victoriously break forth into a continuing splendour Let him as he justly deserveth it be deprived of joy who deemeth deliverance from evil a plunge into misery I in the mean time praying Thy will O God be my delight and prosperity WHICH so happening according to my wishes I shall not now as formerly let my thoughts creep low nor shall I brook their defilement with what I my self tread upon Earth ought not to claim with Heaven a participation of us It were enough to destroy the hopes of our harvest should we notwithstanding the husbandry diligently managed and our field well manured let tares spring up among our wheat Let us not suffer any thing which was meant for our good to turn to our hurt It is both pity that good seeds should unluckily be oppressed in their growth and evil ones permitted to flourish in contempt of art which if it happeneth in mans heart it is a sign of its being nigh to cursing We are rackt and torn large furrows made on our backs and the Ploughers go over our heads that evil and unprofitable seeds may be overlaid and perish Here the intent of the good husbandry is quite averse to a fond nourishing or indiscreet fostering of them but yet that is not all The labour would be reduced to the number of folly's impetuous vanities if only to this purpose undergone But the consequence of overturning bad ones is a prudent disposition of better in their places And so doth the heart receive only those seeds as its own which have their injection after so excellent an order which when they have taken root do thrive worthy the prosperous hand of the divine husbandry For indeed tribulation worketh in us thus much that we love God after a sincere sense of it more than we did before in a corrupt sense of his earthly gifts For there is apparently in them more of his blessings because unquestionably more of his love We meeting with forreigners and strangers are commonly more addicted to liberality and outward tokens of courtesie than to reprove those vices which we see in them but wholsome reproofs we lay in store for the homebred inheritours of our fortunes Acts of indulgence to suffer men peaceably to enjoy as to the outward man can do nothing to the inward Lands riches and estates may be extended to enemies chastisements men use to their beloved children Wherefore the punishments of this life are far better than the benefits of fortune We then deservedly apprehending so much praise God for his unsearchable wisdom and love him for his ineffable goodness God who spared not his own First-begotten and Well-beloved in not sparing us manifesteth his affection to us as well-beloved and heirs of his promises and we by being exercised in his love grow from grace to grace from strength to strength until we appear perfect before God in Sion the coelestial Tribulation in this life doth not only try and correct us but maketh our inward man more gloriously to advance his trophies over sin it maketh us eminent in the practice of the better part and richer to our selves because we treasure up in the Soul those jewels which the dull pleasures of the world bury all over in oblivion I condemn not peaceable tranquillity it is to be the care of our hearts I condemn not prosperity God hath frequently given it to his great Favourites But without reaching an offensive finger towards the disturbance of any of its well-composed ornaments I will presume to say that it becometh more glorious after a conflict with adversity and is not truly splendid till furnished with lustre from afflictions store Things of the world even the best although good are yet imperfect when compared to heavenly of the number of which I judge afflictions to be according as God seeth meet to bestow them And although in either estate it is not impossible for a man to live piously yet because adversity is an approved and more certain way to Heaven because prosperity if it be not altogether remiss is commonly not so exact as it ought in performance of good the one is permitted to succeed the other by way of probation and adversity still carrieth the day She is Religions more natural nurse because freed from pride which is a close adherent to ambitious felicity and hath those goods to which prosperity doth unwillingly stoop Obedience and Love And adversity possessing the soul of these two majestick yet humble graces what need I more words to make my comment upon her more copious Would we have peace tranquillity joy and all inward happiness upon earth Here are all these in loves banners to be displayed Would we have glory joy rest and felicity more than earthly Obedience reacheth at them and giveth them unto us here in assurance hereafter in deed And as these give vs joy and peace so are they also their Guardians placing them above humane contingencies and out of the reach of curs'd Fortunes malicious arrests Our joy is in heaven where also our conversation is and while there we may be sure it is fixed and immoveable So we impartially surveying the immensity of God's love find afflictions of the body to be the riches and welfare of the Soul and the impairing thereof the building up of our perfections The consideration whereof doth easily induce us to profess that although God be pleased to exercise our patience in hardships we will not cast off our joy and hope which have so great a recompence of reward neither will we cease with that worthy sufferer to say that although he slay us yet will we trust in him Of which sufferer yet more What was there in him but love towards God still carefully nourished when he taketh all thus patiently What shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil And as he received them patiently so assuredly joyfully For thanksgiving being the exuberance of joy and a fecundation of Benefits he
with good at my latter end Let me never return with fury to them who backbite me but with humility to theâ— who dost correct me so shalt thou be please with the sin-offerings and oblations of mâ— lips If I am tryed by words or actions againâ—â— thee O Lord I am unable to bear or restraiâ— them Arise and maintain thine own causâ— remember how the foolish man reproacheâ— thee daily If I have seen O Lord I have seen 〈◊〉 that the enemy hath done wickedly in tâ— Sanctuary A man was famous according as he liftâ—â— up axes upon the thick tree but they braâ—â— down all with axes and hammers and thoâ—â— otherwise hindred from the execution of mâ— chief they yet speak swelling words and theâ— talking is against the most High Thou knowest O God that many have fâ—â—lowed their own pernicious ways by whom 〈◊〉 way of truth hath been evil spoken of We were and indeed are yet made a striâ—â— to our neighbours our enemies laughed amoâ—â— themselves All this hath come upon thy people yet haâ—â— they not forgotten thee nor stretched out their hands to a strange God They would not turn away from thee to fall down before sacrilegious Vsurpers neither give that honour to them which was due to thy sacred Vicegerent only I beseech thee establish the just but with mine eyes let me behold and see the reward of the wicked and let not any wilful transgressor prosper in his way Let me never desire to eat of their dainties mischievously gotten but hide me from both the infection and danger of their counsel and all thine from further insurrections of the workers of iniquity Let thy truth be alway my shield and buckler and do thou both defend and guide me with thy free Spirit If it be thy friendly pleasure to try me it may be also thy fatherly will to chastise me but Oh correct me in mercy not in thine anger lest thou bring me to nothing I have sinned What shall I do unto thee O thou Preserver of men I will patiently bear thy rod and the chastisement of my peace Thou art just O Lord and correctedst me for mine iniquities I have sinned and done foolishly for which although thou hast plagued me yet thy loving kindness is ever before mine eyes Before I was afflicted I went astray but now I say surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life Truely my soul waiteth upon thee from whom cometh my salvation yea under the shadow of thy wings will I take my refuge until the calamities of this be over-past Surely thou art my Rock and my Salvation I shall not be greatly moved Amen Sweet Jesu Amen Our Father which art in Heaven c. CHAP. II. Reflections on the Mercies of Restauration NOW is our revenge throughly wrought we desired not evil and behold good came We were innocently as we only ought avenged of our adversaries by deprecating their souls vengeance by pitying them whose self-created miseries were the bitterest of our afflictions And we assuredly find that love is a pregnant passion having conceptions and productions beyond supposition While God considered the silent rhetorick of our hearts freely disposed to forgive and heard those louder cryes of our sighs and tears for their amendment he answered them with such success as suited with our desires because with his glory but hath moreover added such benefits as transcended both our desires and hopes Our desires if they did fly high yet could not soar so high as God can reach nor could they dive so deep as the descents of his humble bounty He maketh the out-going of the evening and morning to rejoyce and bringeth joy unto us farther than the eyes of our mind can discern Whether in our Sun-setting or rising he is the same light still and his day hath no end And although the shadow as it were of an approaching night mindeth us of our natures declination somewhat darkening our understandings yet where God is the light of joy is still permanent however it be for an additional delight changeably represented The substance is still the same notwithstanding its various dress as I may say doth beguil the natural vision and multiplieth one into different pluralities That invincible peace of mind which although still worried is unalterable after a long conflict with the treacherous world becometh at last augmented having sooner wearied all than it self it is rendred greater by its conquest and more joyous through a continual disdain of slavish sorrow And God who loveth patience loveth also to have an end of it and to give it the same end and beginning alacrity and the diffused bliss of a calm security Which end when Patience hath had her perfect work he wisely setteth at his meetest time sometimes making delays where he will give more than an ordinary joy to the former stock treasured up in an extraordinary trial Otherwhiles he dispenseth with time himself in a sort thinking his love absent when it is not burthened with speedy dispatches of cessation and rest So he did by his good friend Job whom he held not out the lingring expectation of another life but gave a rest and recompence on earth as the short emblem of a recompence eternal Patience after such a degree of service is emerita and the soul having been long enough exercised therewith she is exempted from farther labour and resigneth her place to some other Virtue Neither because a true joy may and ought to be retained in the fiery trials of temptations is it always necessary that we push those pikes God will give unto his servants more than a bare single cause of rejoycing he loveth to multiply them that so they may be known to be his gift who giveth not by peice-meal neither is scantingly liberal The influences of his bounty are proportionable to his unlimited love descending as for divers causes so in divers manners By variety and multiplicity of gifts his bounty is not diminished but is amplified and enriched by liberality and by giving rendred as it were more able to give Now after we have a while patiently endured his will his benefits by course so run that we no longer suffer but receive Either in heaven or both earth and heaven there is for us assurance of having the former benefits of suffering compleated by an immunity from suffering and even this immunity crowned with all accessory joys befitting a triumph Come we now to look back upon scoffs reproaches ignominies contempts and whatsoever injuries they could not harm us because not lasting and the very foresight of their speedy end must needs excite our joy A most divine expression is that of his who introduceth that incomparable Pattern of patience in these words Jesus Christ the Author and Finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the Cross despising the shame even for the joy which was the evident support of his souls so weighty burthen and unto which he was
the gladness of thy people that I may Glory with thine inheritance Make all thine glad according to the days wherein they have been afflicted and the yeers wherein they have suffered adversity that the beauty of the Lord God may rest upon us So shall we not go back from thy precepts but devote our selves to fear thy name so shall we be established in the way that is right and make known thy faithfulness to the great Congregation Blessed be the Lord our God who alone doth wondrous work and blessed be his glorious name for ever and ever and let the whole Earth be filled with his glory Amen Amen Our Father which art in Heaven c. CHAP. III Reflections upon particular benefits obtained by his Majesties happy Return GOd is alway a ready help but more especially at time of need Our own industry is but a blunt stupidity take it in the most refined abilities without his exhibited aid Our necessities would be more urgent upon us then our wills could be active for us should our best subterfuge from danger be our own meer contrivance But God is ever present yet more sensibly in the time of greatest necessity when he seemingly hath absented himself He seemeth not present when necessity is absent because but remissly invocated In time of need prayers are our refuge till our desired Supply cometh who sometimes answereth our expectations sooner sometimes later according as we either pray or he seeth expedient He doth frequently delay until our pressures grow almost too too weighty and then he becometh a speedy and powerful Deliverer Indeed the sordid ingratitude of man taketh notice of no deliverance but such as is miraculous and seldome much of that after the wonder and need are both over so far is God from our hearts although alway present in our enjoyments they being his liberallities And in regard of our slight esteem of the more common favours God doth suffer our dull acknowledgments to be sharpened by the want of those his blessings sometimes undervalued and that such want as may make us sufficiently to remember even our dayes of forgetfulness Then when our crooked dispositions are set straight and upright we have leisure enough to bemoan our selves and lament our past vileness but scarce wisedome to foresee our escape from the quicksands of those perplexities which we have no reason to deem other then inevitable Nevertheless succour cometh borne upon the wings of Providence and quasheth Tirannizing fear in the midst of its surprizals More then to a sentenced sufferer in the very nick oâ— time a letter of reprieve or an hand of help to a sinking and soul expiring person was our deliverance gratious because more improbable nay very miraculous The commonness of our calamity was before our general comfort so neer was the fatal knife to the thred of our hopes But it is never too late for God to put a stop to the proceedure of malicious practices He findeth not any time past or any thing difficult What to humane understanding may seem an impudent neglect becometh to him a well slighted occasion and our best time is not alwaies his Providence hath its fulness of time which let man never so impatiently labour to hasten it will not be prevented nor deferred Witness this our former expectations and our present acknowledgements which praise God for his wise and successeful delayes In due time God gave us a Moses a Princes a Ruler and a Lawgiver under whose conduct we have been led out of more then an Egyptian slavery We have lost nothing by our hope being deferred the length of time being well supplied by the perfection of our Blessing a most gratious Prince and we hope that what time was wanting to him and us in his desired reigne over us may in the felicity of many ensueing years be returned to him as an additional Crown to us an encrease of joy AND of this his calm return giveth us an extraordinary assurance He affordeth us by the serenity of his demeanour a large prospect of felicity if our wayward perverseness like the never contented Israelites change not the blessings designed us by his ministry into plagues and curses We have seen his forgiving nature abhorring such crimson pleasures as are more sanguinary then necessary for Gods glory Innocence conducted him a nearer way home then to swim through a sea of blood He thought it not good to return the same way by which his enemies forced him to depart God who useth to win by forbearance and delighteth not so much as in the death of a Sinner was his Pilot and brought him home to the harbour of rest by peaceable desires He would have civil dissentions and fraternal jarres cease and that we hear not hostile and distracting Alarms but onely such harmless clashings as delight and recreate that by our exercise and union we may the better resist forreigne contrivances and attempts HOW truely Golden would our Age have been had this rare patern found an universal observation had real peace and joy met with a free access into every heart But it doth not a little interrupt our rejoycing that many harbouring unquiet thoughts do prepare War against themselves A little gall marreth a great quantity of delicate wine and a few dead flies cause the Apothecaries precious oyntments to give a stinking sent So doth a little of the leaven of disaffection in some few give frequent repulses to our copious and active joy while we are forced to mix supplications with thanksgivings and commonly to sigh for their miseries in the midst of our own triumphs over misery IT is strange that the Divine Providence which illuminateth most should blind any But if deformed and vitious Souls turn things sacred into sin and wholsome remedies into the nature of their own distempers God's Grace is nevertheless wonderful If the wicked man poysoneth his antidotes and maketh himself worse by the receipt of them the fault is not in her Physitian Although the Atheist forceth his will to obstetricate to sensuality conjuring to silence all thoughts of a God God recedeth not neither is the more absent but filleth the World with the brightness of his glory The perverse fool may term Providence Chance but yet advising with even his own reason he may confute himself However we know who it is that produceth Sublime and excellent things out of indisposed materials We know that our present promotion came neither from the East nor from the West blown by accidentiary winds but it was God's finger he is Judge setting up the right and depressing the wrong Let whatsoever adversary read himself those loose lectures which his heart onely superficially entertaineth yet no Diabolical Subtilty can withstand those quick lightnings which God's powerful works do dart upon his conscience And know he must that whereas he would bribe his internal witness and judge he doth but the same as he that would retrive rivers back to their Fountains and chain up the
with the glimmerings of success even while they hear God denouncing the Thunders of his wrath against such Prostitutes of sin Much more do I wonder how God or the World to come can be in their thoughts and lips and they not presently fall into an extasie of horrour The meditation of our approaching end is the most necessary thought to take up both the beginning and continuance of our life Our chief study should be to die well which is a long Art and considering the violent distempers of our nature none of the easiest It moreover requireth a peaceable time but in War the Sword devoureth one as well as another How much Christian then can he be who is resolutely contriving an entrance into the Field without the Divine Guidance and looketh death in the face practising Rebellion not knowing but that in a moment he must give an account to his injured and angry Judge Or how much is his zeal to be accounted of who prodigally wasteth his treasure of Reason wherewith God hath been pleased to bless him to the corruption of other mens judgments not considering that he who lent that misimployed breath may suddenly remand it from those debased uses and commit the Speaker bound over to his self-contrived miseries The consideration of lifes brevity and uncertainty should methinks make every man busied not in a forreign search but an home-enquiry after guilt The time which is so spent upon others is clearly lost what upon our selves is truly gained Most men when they speak of other mens faults encrease their own but they who speak to God of their own by the example undoubtedly make many to be sooner cleansed Then also hath the self-examiner this advantage of others that he dismayeth not at Deaths Menaces having pacified his Judge Whereas the backbiting murmurers hellish life here is all his Heaven He who exerciseth himself with the lashes of pious reproof liveth comfortably and peaceably nay joyfully here but is assured of a superabundant joy after the frail body is cloathed with Honour and Perfection by an happy Resurrection and desired Union with its glorified Redeemer Amen HAve mercy upon us O Lord for the dark places of the Earth are full of the habitations of cruelty Lo the wicked bend their bow they make ready their arrow upon the string that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart If we had done this evil which they mention or those iniquities were in our hands wherewith they asperse us then were we out of thy protection and the enemy persecuting our souls could not but take and destroy us But thy peircing Knowledge seeth that they travail with iniquity that they have conceived mischeif and brought forth falsehood Surely false witnesses have risen up against us laying to our charge things which we knew not O take thou the matter into thine own hand and be thou the defence of the humble for the wicked have purposed to overthrow their goings They who have known thee will put put their trust in thee and call upon thee in the day of trouble for thou wilt hear them We will not trust in our bow our Sword shall not save us but thou shalt save us from our enemies and put them to shame who hate us Although the blood thirsty lay snares and they who seek to do hurt speak mischeivous things imagining deceit all the day long yet thou maintainest the right thou sittest in the throne judging right and thine Eye-lids try the children of men Thou who alone knowest it do good unto those who are good and upright in heart But as for such as turn aside to their crooked wayes teach them that their end will be to be led forth with the workers of wickedness O Gracious Father and Merciful Redeemer consider the trouble which we suffer of them who hate us and of thy great compassion deliver us and in ransoming deliver us we pray thee from all our offences that we may not deservedly be the rebuke of the foolish Thou hearest and from the seat of thy Majesty beholdest all our miseries Arise for our help and Redeem us for thy mercies sake that the mouths of them who speak lies may be stopped Remember the reproach of thy servants how we do bear in our bosomes the reproach of many people wherewith thine enemies have reproached thee O Lord. And for the sin of their mouth and the words of their lips consume them that they may not be that by thy judgements they may make it known that not cursed policy but thy good power ruleth unto the ends of the earth Instead of the desired effects of mischeif prolong thou the Kings life and his years as many generations O prepare mercy and truth which may preserve him Because he will not yeild to the dishonour of thy Church they burden him with these indignities but do thou repay him seven fold into his bosome and let his honour be great in thy salvation This is thine own cause Arise then and plead it remember how the foolish man reproacheth thee daily the tumult of those who rise up against thee encreaseth continually In thee we trust we cry unto thee to save us For Lo they breath out cruelty against us Deliver us who desire to serve and worship thee in spirit and truth from lying lips and from these deceitful tongues which speak lies in hypocrisie And let our adversaries be clothed with shame let them cover themselves with their own confusion as with a mantle Let them curse but bless thou let them be ashamed but let thy servant rejoyce O Lord God of Hosts who judgest righteously if they will not return let us see thy vengeance upon all perverse promoters of bewitching sedition Let their conspiracies be as the dust before the wind and themselves as the stubble before the fire that the World may see that this is thine hand that thou Lord doest establish the just by casting down the wicked So shall the Congregations of the people compass thee about for their sakes therefore lift up thy self on high And to thy servants give patience to bear their calamities and together with a religious boldness to withstand and rebuke their wickedness grant such an innocent and meek deameanour as befitteth the sincere Disciples of a most humble Master By shunning backbiting and the reproach of our neighbour and endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace fit us for our dissolution that we may in peace go down into the bed of silence and joyfully rise again to the possession of invincible tranquility through Jesus Christ our onely Mediatour and Advocate Amen Our Father which art in Heaven c. CHAP. VII How little the minds of some men are wrought upon The continual examples of miscarrying Factions SOLOMON thought the desire accomplished to be sweet to the Soul But it was also his observation taken from the humour of men over-eager in pursuit of their desires that it is an