the Crown dignifieth him whose Lawful inheritance it is and the beholding it there placed where it ought striketh into a just and awful reverence the Loving and rejoycing Subjects Then when Vnion joyneth with an inseperable bond the Members to the Head when Love that an equal power over the affections of Prince and People we seem no more inhabitants of an earthly Kingdome but as if hath up into the possession of Heaven I may very well say so for so vast is the difference between the condition of men who living under the same climate have their affections opposite as Pole to Pole and those who being thought diverse persons yet seem in many bodies to have but one heart and Soul that the same place is by sacred love converted into a Paradise which by unnatural and contemptuous hatred is rendred a most vexations Purgatory In which respect men who have signed up their hearts to God that they might be the more assuredly and plentifully stored with Love have either Heaven descending unto them or are themselves translated and made partakers of supernatural joyes NOW in that many men think to prevent great dangers by active disloyalty they too too manifestly lay open their ignorance What they judge the prevention is the begetting of dangers The wise Man saith that A good Man shall be satisfied from himself Prov. 14.14 whereby we are to understand that his works shall be prosperous But he saith in the foregoing words that the back-slider in heart shall be filled with his own wayes whereby he sheweth that they who fall off from the observation of the Commandement upon the observance whereof the promise of blessedness was given fortune and success shall in like manner desert them Generous principles have an answerable issue but the contrary is most true of evil deeds which are alway pursued with evil Solomon sheweth upon what hopes obedience and disobedience have their dependance The path of the Just saith he is as the shining light which shineth more and more unto the perfect day Prov. 4.18 19. The way of the wicked is as darkness they know not at what they stumble Obedience groweth continually more and more happy and its tapor burneth alway more and more clearly until in heaven it be extinguished by that most glorious splendor which giveth and comprehendeth all light But the disloyal and seditious walk in obscurity and through mists stumbling blocks and rocks of offence surround them traps and snares every where lie prepared for them they pass their time in invincible troubles and suddenly fall into the pit of destruction Let unquiet Spirits seek to remove their conceited troubles and prevent those mischeifs which their wild fancy presenteth unto them yet while they labor to remove imaginary evils they are circumvented with real ones Their toyl also is very ridiculous if more probably successful seeing easier means prevail for the greatest goods And whereas rather then not humor their rebellious inclinations unsetled minds have for justification recourse to the pretended dread of some imminent calamity if timely dare be not used religion daily experience teach us that sin averteth no judgement which is hovering over a Nation But rather sins especially of rebellion hasten that revenge which God taketh of such as slight his admonitory threatnings Where we all men who did fear sin more then sorrow sufferings for sin would not so often excite our griefes and make our eyes so plentiful in showers Certainly as seditious commotions contract many future plagues so do they never bring any present benefit empty hopes are the recompence of a tedious travel LET us at the last rather then never begin to consult what course of life God hath appointed as that wherein Subjects may live most secure Surely great are the blessings which his care keepeth in store for and his bounty conferreth upon those who seek to him as their sole directour And in the plain way he leadeth them which also proveth the richest way Instead of vexatious labours he appointeth them as the greatest pacificatory and obligation the easie task of the offering of Obedience the best of sacrifices which he every where in his Holy Book commendeth and alway even in this life rewardeth No incense ascending with an odoriferous cloud no oblations whose sweet savour and excellency was wont to testifie the offerers generosity and riches did ever so procure from the throne of grace the beatifique smiles of the most bountiful Majesty as the cheap offering of Obedience which commendeth not it self by the vanity of worldly ostentation but the glory of a great and consecrated heart They who gave their bodies to be burnt by the benefit hereof made their sufferings those harmless though fiery Chariots that transported them to joy This sharpened the faith of the general assembly of the first born enabling them to see their names written in heaven Holy men knowing how much this was the ornament and felicity of the Christian Church sound Temples and Oratories where joynt prayers should be offered up for Kings and such as were in authority that under them we might be godly and quietly governed And the unwearied exercise and profession hereof wrought upon the hearts of the cruellest Tyrants and introduced a festival peace into the world making some of the most violent gain-sayers submit to men of so exalted spirits and cherish such as they before persecuted And certainly God spaketh how much he is pleased with it by the evident returns of acceptance those frequent collations of temporal honours and riches wherewith he graceth such as desire to encrease by his Love only And this purchase of liberty wealth and greatness is the cheapest easiest and surest that Heaven and Earth afford Others cost much labour and deficiency is at length their accomplishment Hence therefore is the excellence of Obedience commended that it ascendeth without rub let or molestation it becometh great and glorious without noise and without either the Authors or any ones injury It findeth joy at hand and without the wearying examination of the diversity of opinions and manifold directions where to seek mans Summum bonum lodgeth it most safety at home The Obedient mans well fortified heart hath joy therein immoveably fixt and and knoweth the worth of its own possession which by the Love of God it hath obtained and confirmed Now if we distract the mind with the inquiry after such goods as like the Rain-bow look afar off rich and promising our delusions will end in a shower and our hopes washt away into discontent and sorrow Or eâ—â—â— our joy which we foolishly sought and after much trouble unluckily obtained will prove like to a small tree which we have sometime seen miserably torn with the weight of its untimely fruit They who by civil distractions rise to wealth and power are so persecuted with innumerable mischeifs that they have onely this comfort left that they may say their desired happiness hath destroyed them The obtaining such
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
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
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
secretly in a Pavilion from the strife of tongues he will shew them his secret determinations and how even this tendeth to the good of his Flect ones For they like polished jewels shall then be discerned from other adulterate stones slubbered over with deceit than their most apparent lustre shall receive a multiplicity of unwonted glory whose constancy doth more dignifie than the most impious Sacriledge can deface the excellency of our Christian profession But those whom practice hath made Masters in the Devil's Arts of mischief whom an haughty presumption hath carried on as it were a deluge sweeping away overturning and over-whelming all opposites do but overhastily run their destined course into the bottomless pit where the Devil and they share their purchased inheritance of endless damnation And even those whom a true fear of God never sanctified but only a supercilious gravity adorning the outside made the inside indiscernible to man are not unknown to God He seeth of how rotten a frame their hearts are made and such Imps of hell as fear not to be openly rebellious he suffereth to sift the verity of such as only profess it So is he glorified both in the faithful and unfaithful in the devout Christian and the hypocritical Professor The one inflamed with perfect love casteth away fear not knowing how to be distracted the other what he deceitfully entertained is contented publickly as well as privately to see abused That which the one embraceth as being its own best reward the other with contrary aims courteth and for the same vilifieth and contemneth The one prefereth the contemplative joys of Heaven before all things the other delighteth in the surfeiting sweets proper only to flesh and blood the one is for the gain of godliness the other for the godliness of gain And therefore this slippery Saint doth not stick upon occasion to creep into a religious dress and to become constant to it so long as constancy may be mistaken But he withdraweth himself when he seeth that dress grow out of fashion and with a tongue equal to the loudest condemneth the needless observations of holiness It consisteth not with his hopes or wishes to maintain the Doctrines of Obedience with an empty belly or run barefoot to Heaven He holdeth it far safer to curse God to his face and live than to sing Allelujah's to him with an heart torn upon a rack and even breathing its last He cannot discern Religions glories among the tottered rags of beggary nor its beauty from its defaced Palaces Thus while he deemeth Religion superfluous because forsooth not laden with superfluities he is driven down the same channel with the most violent disturbers of Christian peace perishing wretches with desperate souls TO FAITHFUL men although suffering here are Arguments of a reward that God regardeth and separateth them from the vessels of wrath His Mercy and Justice know no mean but are applied in the eternity of either punishment or reward without neglect And those whom God so owneth he assuredly therefore separateth that in blessing he may bless them and in multiplying may make their seeds of glory to be multiplied as the Stars of Heaven and as the sand which is upon the sea-shore giving them this present assurance that though they suffer yet a little while and the wicked shall no more be although they be oppressed by them for a while yet at length they shall possess the gates of their enemies Let a fading beauty and decaying lustre present fools with admiration men soundly wise and discreetly politick laugh at these Images of content If they at all mourn it is not at their own seeming calamities but that any should by such happiness dream themselves into vengeance and wo interminable And as much do they wonder how such men can ever hope to effect their designs How little furious words violence and rage can weaken Religions Nerves although they sometimes force not only tears but blood the miraculous growth of the primitive Church under persecution may teach them As we have seen a fire for some time stifled presently after flame up and spread it self into almost an incredible extent waving its brandished head with the ambition of reaching Heaven So Religion threatned confined and oppressed committeth violence on violence it self and maketh suppression become its glory They who would bereave the Church of her children did but from each wound of theirs shed that blood which generated anew In the greatest rage of persecutions that world was in a sort too narrow for the reception of Faith's numerous Issue and therefore Heaven became a colony for those many who so willingly left earth out of confidence of an inheritance above We see then that these adversaries of our temporal prosperity which too too frequently proveth the Souls canker are not altogether inconvenient instruments Their potions given us to drink though intended for mischief become cordials and wholsome medicines from Stygian in the gift they become Elysian in the receipt and are properly said to make us glad because once tasted they encourage us and cherish in us a certain generous animosity which without such contentions languisheth and dyeth NOW that we may not mistake God's love neither commit a rape upon our own expectations let us consider that that life is not the best which is but which shall be free from trouble that those joys are not the most sincere which touch the sense but the soul with delight So then the only means to remove the injuries of suspitious joys is to make friendship with their opposites We must work our souls joy not out of ease which is but the gate of corruption not out of worldly favour which is but deceitful not out of any settled affection upon other the like things as doting upon wealth content in pleasure an over-high value of our reputations among men We may not by these think to accumulate to our selves benefit or bliss they will make us at last come short of our aim but by a laborious care to fortifie both soul and body by an earnest endeavour to have God's love and all our trials not to be found of another temper than we were before willing to have them thought of by dedicating the heart which is the throne of love to him alone and so making poverty reproach and such like if he be pleased to appoint us thereto our favourites and familiars And thus shall we also make to our selves reparations for the loss of other things which I account but the injuries of mortality if courted and wooed TRIBULATION is frequently extended to all mankind but is a beneficial priviledge only to the just To them it becometh a benefit because they know how to prize it but especially because they know how to use it to others it is not so for the contrary reason The effects of it are according to each mans apprehension and esteem of it as trials they are good if we be pleased to think so as punishments also
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
King for a King rather that he should be good then great but withal hoping that God had designed him to be both that is King and defender of the truly ancient and Apostollick faith That God hath made him the one is to the performance of the other and that he will alway prove both he giveth us to hope and believe Which Title if some according as their several humors transport them will not acknowledg due for their sakes do we chiefly rejoyce to apply it The want of their concession maketh no diminution of his honor That he Laboureth by example power to restrain the madness of distempered brains in a general good even theirs over whom the power is exercised would delusion suffer them to see it But that we have one to say to the fools deal not foolishly and to the wicked lift not up the horn is an especial felicity which God hath given to them who are desirous to serve him in truth and uprightness Whose prayer it constantly is That God would ever give him to the Church such a nursing Father under whom her Children may thrive and prosper and devotion be cherished and magnified that glory may dwell in our land and the beauty of our God might rest upon us Great men by their good examples do exceedingly propagate piety which is by so much rendred the more illustrious by how much it is admired and practised by illustrious persons who are to the people in their religious growth as heaven it self to the tender plant GOD in his love to us through our most blessed Saviour hath in a great measure provided for our souls and bodies He hath given his Church beauty and ornament and we hope that he will add strength too by a King who cannot but know how to rule his people for whom and with whom he hath been throughly tried he hath learned to cherish them being himself alway cherished in the bosome of the Almighty to be returned to us a sure pledge of Gods love he knoweth how to rule them who hath manifested his moderation and power over himself in scorning revenge and in silence passing over so expiatiating those numerous injuries indignities which might otherwise have injured the Nation with the brand of perpetual infamy And as we found in him a noble acknowledgment that his Subjects have not been all guilty but many of them partakers with him of his miseries so we reverently adore that admirable temper of Majesty mixed with meekness hands bountiously open to reward the constant and armes expansed to embrace the penitent whereas sowre aspests and revengful hands had been less then the merit of those to whom his favour hath been beyond measure extended Herein he hath truely manifested to the world how fitly the Scepter burtheneth his shoulders how hopeful a Governour he may justly seem in his Subjects eyes who could so easily sway his own passions Where Reason as Soveraigne is enthorned in the heart governing all mentual suggestions that mans actions are drawn by the true line of virtue and keep within the just lines of mediocrity So did his most gratious Majesty moderate his course being princely and undejected in his lowest condition humble and full of clemency in his exalted No offers or temptations could deduce him from his love zeal to that Religion and Church wherein he had been so carefully educated We may thence hope that he will in gratitute to God Omnipotent who hath restored him to that and that to him labour to continnue a Trofphee or fame a Mirour of perfection and pray That God will to use the words of his Father of ever blessed memory still dispose him to all princely endowments and employments which will most gain the love and intend the welfare of those over whom God hath placed him and think it his greatest title to be called and cheif glory to be the defender of the Church both in its true faith and just fruitions Which that he may be the more signally God grant him a long and happy life among his subjects his subjects integrity of heart ardency of kind affections and perpetual loyalty and after all to both him and them that which surpasseth all Vnity in Eternity of Bliss Amen IT is of thy mercy O Lord that we are not consumed because thy compassions fail not In the height of our calamities thou makest a way for us to escape which we never imagined so wonderful art thou in thy doings towards the Children of men And now strengthen we pray thee that which thou hast wrought for us Let thine hand be upon the man of thy right hand to conduct him out of dangers to the mansions of safeguard Let him flourish among us by a long and joyful life let him win and receive the Congregations and judge uprightly among the sons of Men that his name may indure to all generations Let divine peace flourish in his time with plenty and prosperity in his dayes Make us truely to understand that thy Providence alone was wonderful in returning him the head to us his viduated members and not to make sinful and scornful recourses to the dotagss of humane wisdome or worldly â—hance However if malignant Envy will needs break out into detestable repinings rather let them grieve who acknowledge them not then we who now give thee thanks for thy blessings But because we know that the foolish shall not stand in thy sight we will come into thine house in the multitudes of thy mercies and in thy fear will we worship towards thy holy Temple We will praise thee who givest deliverance unto Kings and shewest mercy to thine Anointed And now O God give the people peaceable and loyal hearts to behold consider and repent of their past folly neither let the curse of Jotham or Hothams end light upon any of us as the reward of revolting giddiness Behold we beseech thee O God our sheild and look upon the face of thine Anointed Deliver him from the counsel of the wicked from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity Let not the enemy exact upon him nor the wicked approach to hurt him but scatter them as the dust before the wind consume them as the stubble by the fire who shall offer to send forth injurious words or stretch forth an offensive arme to disturb his peace and discompose our joy As for all such as have formerly turned aside to their crooked wayes let them be covered with their own confusion as with a mantle till they be ashamed of their actions and repent of them that thou mayest forgive and receive them Hear thou our prayers for him and thy name O God of Jacob defend him Send him help from thy Sanctuary and pour down blessings upon him from heaven granting his desires and fulfilling his counsel Thou hast prevented him with the blessing of Goodness and set a crown of pure gold upon his head let him therefore evermore trust in thee that through the mercy of
observed by one that the greatest disease of distrust Dalinâ—â— lib. 3. A◠〈…〉 and most incurable is in him who hath wronged his Prince whose guilty Conscience feedeth on fearful distrust 〈◊〉 just occasion be offered These un◠〈…〉 â—rits although they have promised 〈◊〉 sworn Allegiance yet sound Reason 〈◊〉 biddeth any too confidently to trust thâ—m whose refuge is Medea's Absolution Quae scelere pacta est scelere rumpetur fides What they perfidiously swear they will as deceitfully break Peace they love no longer than necessity compelleth them to it debarring them the opportunities of Commotions which they most artificially court and diligently solicite Rather than not commit their beloved sin they will tempt all occasions till they find a way to advance both it and its interest Therefore they violate truth obligations duty and conscience lest any of these should by the help of inquisitive fear make them see and pursue better things They who adore impiety making the successes thereof their Paradise must reer their conscience and do abominate scrupulous niceties onely using the name of good for the greater confusion of such as embrace the substance TO know whether their devises tend we must guess by the rules of contrariety their meanings having ever contradicted their professions They pretend to reformation but let such as have had the most aged experience of their performances speak plainly and acquit others of the dangers of fallacies We might well think the subversion of a Kingdome to be no good Physick for the Church therein neither that civil wars which do license misdeameanour can introduce good manners Their words had heretofore instead of more soundness infused madness into the people and too much action heightened the distempers of the Nation which convenient rest will qualifie Until they prescribe this they will never be good Physicians Give it this and each part of the body will thereupon be reduced to its order and duty When temperance guideth those who now trouble themselves and others we may have just cause to Hope for the so much discoursed Reformation But no encouragement is there for us to suppose that they can ever do others good who do themselves so much harm in being the professed factours of disobedience men who make it their sole employment to bring up an evil report upon God's inheritance and to stir up the peoples malignity against the King and Church They who taught the Israelites the scurrilous lessons of reproachful taunts against the Prince and the Arch-Bishop Moses and Aaron brought a plague upon themselves and the misadvised tribes yet did they pretend a remedy against some I know not what evils There can no plague prove so destructive as this spreading one brought in by sedition which to our great sorrow and shame hath been known to search and sweep each corner and part of these miserable Kingdomes and when after its long rage by discontinuance we hoped for respite by these poysonous blasts it threatneth anew its return and triumphs But God we trust will make these menaces to be but the regardless puffes of angry vanity For these Hopes we have ground from the rich authority of God's word which testifieth that He who hideth hatred with lying lips and he that uttereth a slander is a fool And then we are sure that he answereth the fool according to his folly God can do what he pleaseth and is most gracious and merciful whom we ought earnestly to beseech that he would not use these men as the scourge of our transgressions neither make us a rebuke unto the foolish But certainly such as have seen the event of those former dishonorable reports raised and kept on flight by the complicies of rebellion cannot otherwise judge of the same things again practised but that the intents are the same and would produce the like effects did not God's mercy prevent and frustrate He who rebuked the winds and the Sea roaring against the Church both in Christ the Head and the Disciples the Members who with with a Peace be still quieted the loud voyce of the disobedient winds and laid the rude tumult of the rebellious waves can soon subdue these pestilent tongues and he who doth Let them from proceeding further in mischeif will we need not doubt still let until they be taken out of the way BUT to see of what a various and partly-coloured substance Hypocrisie is composed would make any one much to marvel how such antipathies could be combined in one body to make a publique cheat Nil mortalibus arduum est Caelum ipsum petimus stultitia Men alarm Heaven it self as if they would O wretched Age pull God's Children out of his bosome and all pretensively for his sake who abhorreth the cruelty as much as he disowneth the service The Church being reproached and the King the Head thereof aspersed with calumnies they say it is all for Religions sake and Gods glory of vain are some to shake hands as that glorious Martyr observed with their allegiance K. Char. I. and obedience under pretence to lay faster hold on their religion These filthy dreamers how regardless they are of so grant a crime as the despising Dominions and speaking evil of Dignities nay of fathering the same upon God as if he took not vengeance of villanies but countenanced and rewarded them They cast out the name of religion to beguile some silly souls pleading God's Ordinance and will for what they sacrilegiously attempt against his Anointed ones as if that spotless Purity and purely perfect Vnity were too liberally divided into contradictions of its own writ and patern But he is the same ever constant and good God who so far detesteth such wickedness that by the decree of his dreadful justice is ordained for such reprobates a place of endless bitterness and torment with the Divel and his Angels company and reward suitable to such galiish spirits which triumph intortured reputations and bloody delights into which the weight of their sins will most deeply repress and over-whelm them Sin is a weighty evil and sins against Authority are excessive but the largest term is too narrow for this which capaciously compriseth a design against the Powers coelestial and terrene Into the inferior parts of the bottomliless pit where the dregs of treasured fury must this soaring ambition unrepented of irrecoverably fall O let us humbly Sollicite Heaven begging for them the rescue of repentance and the expiatory blood of that Innocent Lamb whom they Religiously revile and persecute Let not their reproachful words sound louder than our importunate prayers God is gracious who knoweth but that he may turn and have mercy upon them although their provocations have never so impetuously resisted his Clemency BUT although many whom they injure doubtless forget not this holy Office this Divine Charge given by him who did vouchsafe to be a General Satisfaction and the Saviour of all yet these would if possible discourage all good and by their continuance or
opinion hath the same power to make them useful Even in this respect there is in afflictions an artificial love consonant to all God's favours In them we cannot but acknowledge a divine power making us learn obedience from the things we have suffered Thereby the Holy Ghost doth more effectually breath into us than by the Prophets and holy Scriptures themselves We too too frequently resist those sacred dictates of the Spirit and vilifie the monitions of pious men but afflictions render us not only attentive to God speaking by them but also yielding and obedient To which man can hardly do other than submit they being true mollifiers of the heart They speak unto us so powerfully that we are sure to answer in such language as may witness an humiliation and change wrought in us Indeed the language of some differeth from that of others Therefore the repining Reprobate is clamorous crying out My punishment is greater than I can bear but he who hath in him any thing savouring of piety remembreth these punishments to be the chastisements of his peace and imploreth the divine mercy in laments and tears the eruptions of a penitent heart Punishments are for the better until by the offender they are turned to the worse He who correcteth every Son whom he receiveth correcteth many that none may be lost Neither will his rod seem troublesome to any whom the memory of their transgressions doth truly afflict If sin cause sorrow the rest hath nothing of sorrow but is its remedy which although it smelleth sowre its rellish is sweet When any of us forgetteth to wash his polluted breast with a deluge of repentant tears to that cross as we call it or mishap which forceth him to pour out what to his own damage he wretchedly detained he ought especially to give a ready welcome In the possession of this very fortunate adversity mortal man hath so much cause to rejoyce as incessantly to pray rather by misery thus to be made happy than to be in a possibility of mistaking God's love through a tedious worldly prosperity Could we live in the world without sin we needed not by one misery to be wracked out of another But seeing we cannot but sin 't is meet we should bear the remedy nay because we know it to be a remedy rather invite it than refuse it A tree driven by an adverse and violent wind is better preserved by a prop although perhaps it rub off some of the bark or for due placing some small regardless branch be lopt off than be turned up to be destroyed root and branch So if we could stand alway in that innocent posture and holy order which beseemeth us as there would be no need of it so there would be undoubtedly an immunity from tribulation But seeing we either cannot or will not but incline that way which corruption driveth us let us stand as we may better it is that part be impaired than all lost And if nought but superfluities be impaired such impairing endeth in a blessed reparation Losing what we have commonly maketh us find our selves Find our selves I say For it frequently happeneth that among our many stupendious toyes and glorious trifles we ramble until we are at a loss We commit sin and make daily progresses in it sin hath its deluding enticements which we listen to and follow we follow so far till we forget our selves we listen till we are lulled asleep Thanks then and courtship for that friendly hand which awakening and correcting us pointeth out the way of our return This hand is affliction the merit yet withal the purgation of sin We do not use to see Colliers with white faces Mortals as sinners have a smutty hue and besides that the fruits of their works have a sooty taste Ugliness bitterness crosses and perplexities come of conformity with things of nought But yet it is for our good to have our ill dispositions thwarted which cannot more profitably be than by God's hand afflicting which although seemingly perplexing is found consolatory for after due observation it will appear that even the rod it holdeth and useth is comfortable and delightsome It frequently happeneth that we have heard some of our ungoverned actions rehearsed with addition by those whom we might truly imagine meant us no good neither spake for our bettering But ought we nevertheless furiously to swell against or passionately to expostulate with God who suffered our enemies thus to triumph over us when surprized by infirmity No It is but our bounden Religion to thank that Fountain of pity for so unexpected and most beneficial help in the time of our greatest necessity His careful love wrought in him a timely compassion towards us distressed by whether natural or accidental pollutions and to the end that we might not to our Creator's dishonour and our own confounding shame lye long in them out of enmities high flown rage did he find means to make a desired reconciliation Those whom we call friends and have reason peradventure in other things so to esteem them will not so readily cast these stones at us either considering their own frailty or overweighing the displeasure many times proceeding from a just reprehension But our enemies will freely disperse them without either fear or weariness From whom our wise diligence ought quietly to take things of this nature and acquaint our selves therewith as from the better hand Other times probably we may be assaulted with violent shelves of accusations concerning those things wherein without blinding self flattery we have judged our selves not irreligiously innocent But then laying into the same scale actions of ancienter commission of the knowledge whereof our adversaries have been deprived we shall find it best to put this bill with other accompts all upon the same file Seeing we have deserved as much otherwise without complaining then may we hear somewhat of injury seeing we had not been for a long time justly dealt with nor so much as met with our own in a tedious discourse Who is there that would exempt himself from the number of sufferers Let him not bring innocency for his bail Although he be in the next degree to that self nobilifying perfection which might take the pliant wings of the dove to fly away and be at rest yet that little be it as I may say but a part of defect so insupportably cloggeth man that he cannot advance himself above the injuries of mortality Life upon earth is but a pawn deposited in sin-begotten miseries griping hand But if she be able so to squeeze and temper us that our outside and inside do at last become a lump all of good liking in the sight of our good and gracious Father we are neither foolishly to fear nor currishly to snap at that hand which new mouldeth us The place of this our reordination may indeed seem dreadful yet is it none other but the house of God and the gate of heaven it is the Sanctuary of devout piety whereinto