stand upon my watch Chap. 2.1 2 3. and set me upon the tower and will watch to see what he will say unto me and what I shall answer he is yet delayed in his petition and receives an answer of further Judgments yet to come And the Lord answered me and said Write the Vision and make it plain upon tables Chap. 3.2 that he may run that readeth it for the Vision is yet for an appointed time c. So that his hopes were overwhelmed with fears and terrors which he expresseth in this third recourse in prayer to God O Lord I have heard thy speech and was afraid When I heard my belly trembled my lips quivered at the voyce Verse 16. rottenness entered into my bones and I trembled in my self c. The Apostle Paul was earnest by prayer for Israels Conversion and Salvation that is for the Body of that Nation which continued in blindness and stood upon their own and out against the righteousness of God for Justification Brethren my hearts desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved Rom. 10.1 The answer of God unto him in this was That a remnant only should then be called and the rest be judicially hardened for a long time to come Chap. 11.5 7 25. even until the coming in of the fulness of the Gentiles Upon Sauls disobedience and the Lords repenting of his advancement to the Kingdom Samuel prayed a whole night 1 Sam. 15.11 35. yet the Lord rejected Saul from being King over Israel and when this was done Samuel still mourned for Saul Chap. 16.1 till at length the Lord reproved him and sent him to anoint another for that place 2. The holy servants of God have met with stays and disappointments not only in their petitions for others but even in their supplications for themselves and when they have prayed in their own behalf Upright Job that man of Tryals doth in this respect thus make known and bewail his case to his friends Know now that God hath overthrown me and hath compassed me with his Net Job 19.6 7 8. Behold I cry out of wrong but I am not heard I cry aloud but there is no Judgment He hath fenced my way that I cannot pass and he hath set darkness in my paths And in another place he complaineth of thâ— same unto God I cry unto thee and thou dost not hear I stand up and thou regardest m not Cap. 30 20 26 27 28. When I looked for good then evil came upon me and when I waited for light there came darkness My bowels boiled and rested not the days of affliction prevented me I went mourning without the Sun I stood up and I cryed in the Congregation The Prophet David often finds himself in this condition often cries out of it unto God In his 13 Psalm he complains thus for lack of audience How long wilt thou forget me O Lord Psal 13.1 2 3. for ever How long wilt thou hide thy face from me How long shall I take counsel in my Soul having sorrow in my heart dayly How long shall mine enemy be exalted over me Consider and hear me O Lord my God In the 31 Psalm he saith I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind Psa 31.12 I am like a broken vessel In the 69. he 〈…〉 moan thus I am weary of my crying Psal 69.3 my throat is dryed mine eyes fail while I wait for my God Holy Heman also was in this very plight O Lord God of my Salvation I have cryed day and night before thee Psal 88.1 and with what success He tells presently Verse 4 5. I am counted with them that go down into the pit I am as a man that hath no strength Free among the dead like the slain that lie in the grave whom thou rememberest no more and they are cut off frâ—â— thy hand And again a little after Lord I have called upon thee I have stretched out my hands unto thee Yet had he no better speed Vers 9.14 Lord why castest th u off my Soul why hidest thou thy face from me Nay the greatest Example possible we have for this to wit that of our blessed Saviour who in his Passion is pâ—rsonated by David in these words My God My God Psa 22 12. Mat. 27.46 why hast thou forsaken me Why art thou so far from helping me and from the words of my roaring O my God I cry in the day time and thou hearest not and in the night season and am not silent Part of which words he audibly uttered or rather cryed out when he hung upon the Cross I will add hereunto only one Instance and it is as great as can be added to the former It shall be taken from the contâ—nual experience of all true Christians that are or ever were in the world Our blessed Saviour teacheth all his to pray Thy Will be done in Earth as it is done in Heaven And again Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil Now although these things are and ought to be dayly prayed for yet it must needs be acknowledged as it is experienced by all the Saints of God on Earth that never doth any of them attain to in this life an absolute conformity to the Will of God like that of the Angels and Saints in Heaven nor to a sinless distance from all temptations Bellar. T. 4 de Justif lib. 4. cap. 13. Chamier T. 3. l. 11. c. 7. s 21. Bellarmine would infer from hence a capacity of perfection in the Saints â—â—edience in this life for otherwise saith he these petitions in the Lords prayer are in vain taught and used This Inference we deny There are divers things allowed yea commanded and necâ—ssary to be prayed for which yet may never be granted and there are sundry things as those petitions specified which are to be prayed for every day and yet they may in their just and full measure never be attained till our last day and end come 3. Yea when the servants of God have called upon God in and for his own Cause and Concernment yet the Lord hath sometimes hid himself from their prayer Eliah whom the Apostle James brings in for a singular pattern of prevalency in prayer he maketh intercession to God against Israel in the Lords Cause as well as his own saying Lord they have killed thy Prophets Rom. 11.2 3. and digged down thine Altars and I am left alone and they seek my life Yet after this things went still on in Israel in relation to the matters of God as they did before he never lived to see any redress The people of God in Psal 44. call out upon God and expostulate with him as one that seemed to sleep out the time of their heavy Calamities and hid his face purposely from them and put their Case into utter oblivion Psal 44.8 22 23 24. Awake why
fretting her unchearful look her meatless meals were now layd aside There is a promise to them that seek God That he will make them joyful in his house of prayer Isai 56.7 30.19 as he will bestow those blessings upon them which they crave so he will for earnest make them joyful before they go out of his house And in the same Prophet Thou shalt weep no more he will be very gracious unto thee at the voyce of thy cry David praying and being in a very heavy taking having his Soul cast down within him and deep calling unto deep at the noise of Gods water-spouts and all his waves and his billows going over him that is he being as it were overwhelmed in a Sea of sorrows evils flowing upon him like waves one at the heels of another had this reviving giving him Psa 42.4 7 9 Yet the Lord will command his loving-kindness in the day time and in the night his song shall be with me and my prayer unto the God of my life The Lord will command his loving kindness that is he will dispatch it forth to him instantly as a winged Messenger and Harbinger of a good issue of his prayers and afflicting griefs And whil'st he is praying the song of God shall come into and recreate him his own prayer and Gods song shall joyn company together and both at once associate him The Souls under the Altar that cry how long O Lord c. they are put to stay some time for their vindication Apoc. 6.11 Eccles 9.7 8 but in the mean space it 's said White robes were given unto every one of them Those white robes might betoken a chearful habit of spirit a good measure of alacrity put into them during their sufferings yet to be prolonged in assurance of their answer and release in due time to come 3. By a continuation of the Spirit of prayer or an exercise of it When the hands are still supported in their lifting up to God or raised and stretched out higher towards him when the motions vigor and vehemency of prayer are renewed or redoubled in the hearts of Gods servants it is a token from God that it shall not be in vain but to some purpose and effect that they call upon him Hos 12.3 4 When Jacobs strength in wrestling with the Angel was so great and did hold out until day break and he was so set that he would not let the Angel go until he had blessed him this was a strong argument of his power and prevalency with God and that he should prevail with men also with his Brother Esau and all his Troop The pouring upon the House of David Zec. 12.10 and upon the Inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplications is put in the Prophet as a fore-running presage and introduction to many great mercies to them The Apostle brings in this as a clear earnest to Believers of deliverance from sins and sufferings and of receiving the glory and redemption of the body expected and groaned after That the Spirit helpeth our infirmities and maketh intercession for us in prayer with groanings which cannot be uttered Rom. 8.26 As it is a special favor and a good sign to a people that God gives to his Prophets the opening of the mouth in declaring his Word Eze. 29.21 so it is also that he bestows upon them a mouth opened wide and a voyce loud and lifted up in prayer Open thy mouth wide saith God to his Israel and I will fill it Psa 81.10 4. By an erected confidence and it may be a clear foresight and evidence that the Petition is dispatched in Heaven and shall assuredly be accomplished in time on Earth This pledg God doth sometimes vouchsafe his faithful ones upon their seeking of him and before he work to the effecting of their prayers as it is in the Psalmist Lord thou hast heard the desire of the humble Psa 19.17 thou wilt prepare their heart or as the Margin thou wilt establish their heart that is When they have poured out their desires unto thee thou wilt give them a seal of success by setting impressions of confidence and evidence of it upon their hearts This we often find in David in one part of his Psalm he is praying weeping complaining expostulating and deprecating the dejections and desertions of his Soul for lack of audience and by and by before any thing be done about the affairs or particulars of his prayer he is lifted up and composed in full assurance of having his requests yea triumphs in them as already embraced Depart from me all ye workers of iniquity Psa 6.8 9 13.5 6 â— 20.6 42.11 142.7 for the Lord hath heard the voyce of my weeping the Lord hath heard my supplication But I have trusted in thy mercy my heart shall rejoyce in thy Salvation I will sing unto the Lord because he hath dealt bountifully with me Now know I that the Lord saveth his anointed he will hear him from his holy Heaven with the saving strength of his right hand Why art thou cast down O my Soul why art thou disquieted within me Hope thou in God for I shall yet praise him The righteous shal compass me about for thou shalt deal bountifully with me Cornelius the Centurian in one of his Fast-days and whil'st he was praying had a vision of assurance in which an Angel told him Cornelius Act. 10.30 Luk. 1.13 Philem. 22 thy prayer is heard and the like had Zacharias the Priest in the Temple at the time of prayer The Apostle Paul also being in prison at Rome conceived such a confidence of his being given up to the Christians at Coloss by way of enlargement upon their prayers that he sends out of his prison to Philemon at Coloss to prepare him a lodging with them there This may be sufficient for the illustration of the first way of the Lords answering prayer to wit by way of Obsignation or Assurance wherein we have noted four instances or acts I come to the second kind of answer which is by way of performance this is when the thing entreated for in prayer is accomplished This is the most sensible and most noted way of prayers return from Heaven to the Petitioner David describes it in that his benedictory Psalm Psa 20.1 4 21.2 The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble c. Grant thee according to thine own heart and fulfil all thy counsel and in the next Psalm to that Thou hast given him his hearts desire and hast not withholden the request of his lips It will not be unnecessary to observe the several methods of this answer of performance 1. Sometimes it is instantaneous or dispatched all at once it is finished in one compleat act as when Samuel cryed unto the Lord for Israel at what time the Philistins Army stood ready to give the on-set upon them it is said The Lord heard or in the
of the Sea-bestormed Psa 107. yea out of this universal commiserativeness God is said to hear the cry of brute beasts as of the young Lions of the young Ravens nay to hear inanimate Creatures as the Heavens the Earth the Corn Wine and Oyl Thus it comes to pass that many times very wicked men have their desires and prayers in temporals granted them The Lord took notice of Ahabs humbling himself upon Elijahs reproof and denunciations and because of it he said 1 King 21 29 He would not bring the evil upon his house in his days Wicked Jehoahaz delivered of God into the hands of the Syrian Kings 2 King 13 4 5 He besought the Lord and the Lord harkened unto him and the Lord gave Israel a Saviour so that they went out from under the hand of the Syrians Israel in the Psalmist when they under his Judgments sought God and returned and enquired early after God though it was but in flattery and hypocrisie Psa 78.34 Yet he being full of compassion forgave their iniquity and destroyed them not 2. God appeareth to prayer out of that favor which is special and more peculiar he heareth the faithful seekers of him his own children from a neerer impulsive out of a dearer respect and consideration which he beareth towards their persons out of a federal and fatherly love and he embraceth their prayers not only out of a general but out of a special benevolence nor meerly with benevolence but with complacency and acceptation their prayers are as sweet as incense to him To the dwellers in Zion the Prophet saith Isai 30.19 He will be very gracious unto thee at the voyce of thy cry These are the different grounds of Gods hearing prayer Secondly For Gods hiding from prayer he doth it also upon the like different grounds 1. It is some yea most times out of wrath and that is either 1. Judicial or a wrath of loathing and hatred a full pure unallayed anger such he bears to carnal wicked men and to their prayers Zech. 7.12 13 as it is in the Prophet Therefore came a great wrath from the Lord of Hoasts therefore it came to pass that as he cryed and they would not hear so they cryed and I would not hear saith the Lord of Hoasts 2. Or Paternal and Conjugal the wrath of a Father or Husband a wrath tempered with and in time overcome and swallowed up of love intimate and peculiar love a wrath joyned to bowels of mercy such is that in the Prophet Isai 57.17 18 For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth and smote him I hid me and was wroth c. I have seen his ways and will heal him I will lead him also and restore comforts to him and to his mourners Such a wrath as is again exprest by the Lord in the same Prophet In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment Isai 59.8 but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee saith the Lord thy Redeemer Mark well the great difference of this wrath from that which is against others it is the present wrath of a provoked Husband against an offending Wife by which she is widowed cast off and so barren and desolate in her prayers for a time for so are the words before The Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit and a wife of youth when thou wast refused saith thy God Again it is a little wrath and but for a moment and a small moment The sum is it is a moderated anger mixed with a dear relation and band of affection to them and it is a short and quickly cooled and forgotten wrath 2. This hiding from prayer is sometimes out of mercy yea it may be in special favor and the favor in withholding may be greater then it would have been to have granted the thing prayed for It may seem otherwise but the very truth is God doth sometimes deny his peoples prayers in indulgence and mercy to them they not seldom are set upon that which would be hurtful for them and ask the things which would be very bad for them to have in this case the want of their desires is better then the grant and God consulteth their good sheweth them favor in withholding their wishes from them Rachel was excessively bent to have children Give me children saith she or else I dye Well at length she had her longing but what came of it she dyed of child-bearing her second child was her Benoni the son of her sorrow so named by her self he was her bane and death As God giveth sometimes in anger so he withdraweth and denyeth sometimes in good-will and love As the natural father will give none but good gifts to his children he will not give his son a stone a Serpent a Scorpion for Bread for a Fish for an Egg So neither will our heavenly Father If the natural father will not exchange good petitions into bad gifts much more will our heavenly Father suspend bad Petitions or exchange them into good gifts * Deus quaedam negat propitius quae concedit iratus August Fideliter supplicans Deo pro necessitatibus hujus vitae misericorditer auditur misericorditer non auditur Quid enim infirmo sit utile magis novit medicus quam aegrotus August apud Aquin 22. qu. 83. art 15. Quid enim ratione timemus aut cupimus Quid tam dextro pede concipis ut te conatus non paeniteat voâ—â—que peracti evertere domos totas optantibus ipsis dii faciles nocitura toga nocitura petuntur militia Juvenal Saty. 10. Mr Goodwin Return of Prayer Chap. 9. Sect. 3. A worthy Author saith Oftentimes some great cross is prevented by the denyal of a thing which we were urgent for if we had had many of our desires we had been undone So it was a mercy to David that his child was taken away for whose life he was yet so earnest who would have been but a living monument of his shame SECT IV. The Answer to the Query summarily recollected and formed I Have finished the main tractation of the Query propounded in the Explication of the several terms or clauses and have shewed the difference to be noted among them that are stiled the people of God how Prayers are to be grounded both upon Precepts and Promises and the divers ways in which and grounds upon which God doth appear to or hide himself from Prayers I shall now only gather up all into a few Corollaries or summary Propositions fitted by way of Answer to the Query The Question was How or in what sense God may be said to hide himself from his peoples Prayers grounded upon his Promises and seem by his Providences to answer the Prayers which are contrary thereunto I answer 1. They that are the people of God by name outward call profession communion and form of godliness God may hide himself from their
it pleased God to frustrate the Christians prayers and to give the Victory and that Western Empire to a usurping Tyrant The Monks of Bangor in Flintshire were famous in their times and still are among Historians for their piety and devotion as also for their austerity of life and industry in manual labour being no way like unto the pack of degenerate and vicious Monks of latter ages When the Britains about Anno Christi 609. were gathered together at Chester to defend themselves by Arms against Ethelfrid King of the Northumbrian Saxons a Pagan they procured those godly Monks to assemble thither and assist them with their prayers against that fierce Enemy three days they continued in fasting and prayer King Ethelfrid Mr Fox Acts vol. 1. p. 153 154. Usser Brit. Eccl. Anti. c. 6. p. 133. Index Chronol apudeund An. 602 603 613. Cambd. Brit. Engl. p. 603. Speed B. 7. c. 9. s 7. p. 241 c. 18. s â—1 p. 292. understanding of their there assembling demanded what they did there and being informed that they prayed for the Christian Britains against him and his Army Then saith he although they bear no Arms yet they fight against us with their prayers and preaching Brockmail the British General and his Christians were vanquished Whereupon Ethelfrid having chased them commanded his men to fall upon those Monks that had fasted and prayed against him and he slew of them there to the number of twelve hundred I the rather take notice of this event of praying Christians falling before invading persecuting Infidels for the occasions sake upon which it is observed to have fallen out which was as remarkable as the disaster it self and suitable for the observation of us as things go now Thus they say it was Augustine he that was sent over by Gregory the first to plant or rather restore and reform Christian Religion here in Britain had a little before this accident called together seven of the British Bishops and some say the Bishops of Scotland also in a Synod for a Consultation and Concurrence in propagating the Christian Faith and Religion and extirpating Heathenish Idolatry At their meeting these British and Scots Bishops could not agree with Augustine and his Associates Some say their discord was about a matter of Complement at their first meeting others that it was concerning some Rites about Baptizing and keeping of Easter But a Breach there was and shortly upon it ensued both this destruction of the Christian Britains and Monks at Chester and an overthrow also of the Scots by the same Ethelfrid under Ean their King at Degsafton wherein they say there were killed the same number of 1200 of the Scots Clergy and both these defeats were they say foretold by Augustine to come by reason of their disagreement and interruption thereby of advancing their common work of reforming and propagating Religion I need not apply or compare this president to the Jars of these days either in the Causes or Consequences felt or feared I will descend to latter times It is well known with what asseduity and fervency of prayer as well as other labours the restoring of the Gospel and Reformation of Religion was enterprized and carried on by Luther Melanctâ—â—â— and the rest of the Protestant Professors in Germany This work being by the mighty and good hand of God advanced to a fair progress at length it came to the Tryal and hazard of War When it had been for about thirty years carried on in the hands of Luther Oecolampadius Capito and others by prayer preaching disputation and such like spiritual and peaceable means The Emperor Charls the fifth with Pope Paul the third raise a great Army of Spaniards Italians Germans and other Nations Thuan. l. 1. Brightman in Apoc. 11 and under the conduct of the said Emperor they come upon the Protestants arming themselves for their necessary defence in Saxony The issue is the Protestants under the leading of Jo Frederick Elector of Saxony are defeated and so great and continuing was the Overthrow that Mr Brightman takes it and the suppression of the freedom of the Protestants which followed together with the Decree of the Council of Trent about the same time concerning the sole Authority of the Vulgar Latin Translation of the Scriptures to be the overcoming and killing of the Witnesses by the Beast From An. 1547. Apr. 24. the day of that Battel to the middle of Anno 1550. Melch. Adam in vit Luth. p. 162 Revel 11. and their lying dead and unburied in the street for three days and a half for the strages of that disaster lasted as he computes for three years and a half and upon it the Pope and Papists made mighty triumph At Wittenberge where Luther was buried but the year before the Emperors Soldiers insulted over his grave and had well nigh digged up his Corps and burned it but that the Emperor himself restrained thâ—â— To this Instance might be added many like unto it of the black days that have gone over the faithful in these late ages in regard of their heavy sufferings and desertions and their outrageous Adversary riding and raigning over them by Wars Massacres Inquisitions and secular Judicatories This hath been their lot in all Countries wheresoever the light of the Gospel hath broke out to the dispelling of Popery at some time or other since the Reformation began And when thus it hath been the cry of the Faithfuls prayers and of their blood hath gone up to Heaven together whilest the Lord for a time hath shewed as if he regarded neither and their prayers as well as their blood hath seemed as water spilt upon the ground But particulars of this sort as they may be better remembered so they are too many to be descended unto I will only mention one more it shall be of our own time and state even within the compass of these our troubles In the year 1644. upon the ill successes of the Parliaments Army in the West the two Houses kept a publique Fast for that occasion One of the godly Ministers that performed the duty of that day observed to them Mr T. Coleman's Sermon before the House Septem 10 1644. pag. 3 5. That their Western disaster was the day after the last publique Fast kept in the Kingdom and in that City and place and not many days after a peculiar Fast for the welfare of that Army in six Churches And taking Psal 65. v. 5. for his Text he gathered and handled this Proposition from it viz. Terrible things may be the Consequent of the duty and day of Prayer God may answer our private and publique Intercedings with Terrible things The other in like manner reminded them That the dissipation of that brave gallant hopeful Army Mr Mathew Newcoâ—en Serâ— on Josh 7.10 11. p. 7. 24. was of an Army that was sent out with solemn Fasting and Prayer and since they came to be in the straits wherein they unhappily
under the whole Heaven is mine But some people are his in peculiar above others and in a more neer and special relation belong unto him in as much as he fixeth a more peculiar property in them and settleth a more special dominion over them and placeth a more intimate presence among them Moses saith unto Israel The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself above all people that are upon the face of the Earth Deut. 7.6 10.14 15 Behold the Heaven and the Heaven of Heavens is the Lords thy God the Earth also with all that therein is only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them and he chose their seed after them even you above all people as it is this day It must be noted further of these his peculiar people 1. Some are in this relation by external vocation union communion and profession only that is they are appropriated to God by outward acts of Ordinances and Worship and enjoy external ministerial and temporary priviledges and benefits The description of these in Scripture is They are Gods people and Saints that have made a Covenant with him by sacrifice Psa 50.5 2 Chro. 7.14 Neh. 1.10 they are his people which are called by his Name or upon whom his Name is called These are thy servants and thy people whom thou hast redeemed by thy great power and by thy strong hand viz. from Egypt They are they to whom pertaineth the Adoption and the glory Rom. 9.4 and the Covenants and the giving of the Law and the service of God and the Promises that is they have those things as to the outward signs tokens expressions and actions of them 2. Some have over and above this stile and relation a neerer appertainency unto God to wit by inward and effectual grace calling union and communion He that is of this number is called an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile a Jew inwardly Joh. 1.47 Rom. 2.29 that hath the Circumcision of the heart and in the spirit of such the Lord speaketh Surely they are my people children that will not lye Isai 63.8 so he was their Saviour These are such as God hath peculiarly loved freely chosen dearly purchased efficaciously called absolutely covenanted with and singularly qualified and sanctified for this relation and the benefits and glory that ensue upon it The Scripture is industrious in distinguishing betwixt the people of God in the former and in the latter way and shewing the difference which there is between them in sharing of the priviledges of Gods people They that are his in the former way only are set out under this character They are Jews outwardly they are born after the flesh they are the sons of the Bond-woman Rom 2.28 Gal. 4.29 30 Isai 48.1 they are called by the name of Israel and are come forth out of the waters of Judah which swear by the Name of the Lord and make mention of the God of Israel Matt. 7.22 but not in truth nor in righteousness They will say unto Christ Lord Luk. 13.26 Lord have we not prophecyed in thy Name and in thy Name have cast out Devils and in thy Name done many wonderful works we have eaten and drunken in thy presence and thou hast taught in our streets These because they are meer nominals and remain without the spiritual part of this relation without those graces vertues and effectual workings that are in Saints indeed and without the truth power and life of Sanctification therefore they are in the upshot disclaimed Hos 1 9. Ro. 9.6 7 1 28 1 Joh. 2.19 Mat. 7.23 and declared to be not the people of God not Israel though of Israel not children though the seed of Abraham not Jews not of us and Christ will profess unto them I never knew ye depart from me ye workers of iniquity But they that are Gods people in the latter more peculiar and intimate respect they are noted out thus They are the little flock to whom it is their fathers good pleasure to give the Kingdom Luk. 12 32 Mat. 20.16 the few that are chosen of the many that be called his people which he fore-knew Ro. 11.2 5 9.7 8 23 27.4.12 the remnant according to the Election of Grace the children of the Promise Abrahams seed by Isaac the vessels of mercy the remnant that shall be saved not of the Circumcision only but walkers in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham Gal. 4.29 3â— sons of the free-woman born after the Spirit As there is betwixt these two sorts viz. the people of God by external vocation only and they that are his by internal transformation also much difference in other respects so there is particularly in respect of success in prayer and though the Lord may in some sort hide himself from them both when they pray yet not from them both alike the difference will be shewn after SECT II. Of the groundedness of Prayers upon Divine Promises COncerning the groundedness of Prayers upon Divine Promises we are well to observe divers things First That prayer unto God hath in Scripture a twofold ground There is 1. A ground of precept 2. A ground of promise There is a ground of Precept by which prayer is authorized and made necessary and a ground of promise by which it is supported and encouraged The precept is the ground of Conscience for the undertaking of it the promise is the ground of confidence and assurance for the success of it The precept shews the subject for what and the manner how to pray the promise gives us the inducement why we should pray Both these grounds we have delivered together in divers places as in that of the Psalmist Psa 50.15 Call upon me in the day of trouble I will deliver thee Call upon me in the day of trouble there 's the ground of precept I will deliver thee there 's the ground of promise And in that of the Apostle James If any of you lack wisdom Jam 1.5 let him ask it of God that 's the ground of precept and it shall be given him that 's the ground of promise And in that of our Saviour Matt. 7.7 Ask and it shall be given you seek and ye shall find knock and it shall be opened unto you there 's a treble precept Ask seek knock and a treble promise It shall be given you Ye shall find It shall be opened unto you I will not deny but in some kind the promise may be accounted a ground of warrant or precept for prayer yea in some cases it is the only warrant that is where the thing prayed for is a peculiar blessing out of the common road 2 Sam. 7.16.25 27 as was that promise of God to David of a sure House and Kingdom upon which he built his prayer And that made to the Prophet Elijah 1 Kin. 17.1 Jam. 5.17 that there should
Margin answered him 1 Sam. 7.9 10 and as Samuel was offering up the burnt offering the Philistins drew neer to battel against Israel but the Lord thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistins and discomfitted them and they were smitten before Israel 2. Somtimes it is successive or effected by degrees when the servants of the Lord in their straits and needs call upon him he often helps them gradatim or by successive steps Two steps more frequently he makes in this work 1. He sends strength and support under and during the affliction or want of the benefit desired 2. And then after he gives them deliverance from it he loosens the bands of their distress and they escape out of it both these we have distinctly noted in divers Scriptures as in that of the Psalm He shall call upon me and I will answer him and mark the degree of the answer which follows I will be with him in trouble there 's the one I will deliver him and honor him there 's the other And again In the day when I cryed thou answeredst me and strengthened me with strength in my Soul there 's the first present support in his exigence which is further amplified after Though I walk in the midst of trouble Psa 138.3 7 thou wilt revive me and then follows in the next words recovery out Thou shalt stretch out thine hands against the wrath of mine Enemies and thy right hand shall save me This double step of relief from God to his people upon their prayer is notably set forth in the Prophet Malachi When the state of things was grown so forlorn Mal. 3.14 c. as that the ordinary sort of Fasters and Prayers concluded it a vain thing to sâ—â—ve God and a profitless course to keep his Ordinances and to walk mournfully before him yet there were some left that truly feared the Lord that spake often one to another in mutual corroborations unto piety and that thought upon the Name of God in diligent and constant calling upon it and observe the issue these have a twofold day set for them and in them have those 2 degrees of help from God successively 1. There is a day when God makes up his Jewels or as Drusius interprets a day when he makes Judgment or proceeds in Judgment and in that day they saith the Lord of Hoasts shall be my Jewels and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him that 's the first day and first step of succor The Lord will own them for his in the evil day he will take care of them as of his choycest and preciousest goods and he will moderate their share of troubles and support them therein so that as it is in the next words there shall be a palpable difference put and discerned betwixt them and the wicked in their sufferings 2. There is another day cometh after a day that shall burn as an oven and in this latter day is that other step of the help of those fearers and seekers of God that is their deliverance and full satisfaction For in that day the proud yea and all that do wickedly shall be stubble and the day that cometh shall burn them up saith the Lord of Hoasts that it shall leave them neither root nor branch But unto you that fear my Name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings and ye shall tread down the wicked for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this saith the Lord of Hoasts I will further note that the latter of these two degrees of Gods return to prayer viz. Deliverance out of trouble or fruition of the thing asked may have its several degrees also As 1. When God raiseth up the means and secondary causes which he will use and sets himself to work by them 2. When he doth carry on and consummate deliverance with them This order he pursued in bringing Israel out of Egypt upon the hearing of their cries and groans he first appears to Moses in Midian and gives him a Call Commission and Instructions to go into Egypt and fetch them out I have heard saith he to them out of the burning Bush their groaning Acts 7.34 and am come down to deliver them and now come I will send thee into Egypt And then Moses and Aaron being joyned together in Egypt and after many goings in there unto Pharaoh for dismission of them and many additions of oppressions upon the Israelites and many miraculous plagues upon Pharaoh his People and Land they are led or posted out of Egypt in one night And in the recovery of the same people long after from their captivity and ruines under the Babylonian the Lord proposeth in his promise several degrees as in the Prophet Hosea And it shall come to pass in that day I will hear saith the Lord Hos 2.21 22 21 I will hear the Heavens and they shall hear the Earth And the Earth shall hear the Corn and the Wine and the Oyl and they shall hear Jezreel and I will sow her unto me in the Earth and I will have mercy on her c. Such a series of causes and operations the Providence of God doth often go through in delivering his people This is spoken figuratively in the Prophet not as if the Heavens and the rest of the inferior Creatures here had a voyce or did pray and we must not understand it as spoken of the order of Gods receiving but of his performing prayers In order of receiving prayer God immediately and only hears Jezreel his people but in order of answer and execution he first hears or answers the Heavens that is puts efficacy and influence into them and then by them into the Earth and by the Earth into its fruits and so comes home to Jezreel and then also Jezreel must be sown in the Earth that is must be cast into the ground and lie under the clods of affliction and be in appearance as dead for a time and then spring up and be restored The smoke of incense which came with the prayers of the Saints Rev. 8.4 and ascended up before God out of the Angels hand by it and them were procured the seven following Trumpets Now these Trumpets the issue and execution of those prayers sounded successively one after another and did accomplish those prayers by so many degrees and the term of their succession and continuance ere all be finished is supposed to be for many years yea divers ages Thus of the second way of prayers receiving its answer and the several steps of it The third and last is that of Commutation The Lord doth sometimes hear and answer the prayer when he doth not give the very thing prayed for There is an answer by way of exchange to wit when God gives in lieu of that which is asked another thing which is as good or better for
certain measure of afflictions to undergo and pass through with the stint of time for the continuance thereof and from these no supplications or intercessions unto God can redeem or recover him until they be made up and finished 3. To give others an example of patience and confidence in God under the like delays David waited long for the Lord Psal 40.1 2 3. and then he inclined unto him and heard his cry and brought him up out of the horrible pit c. and the effect of this his patient staying Gods leasure and the issue of it is Many shall see it and fear and shall trust in the Lord. Long and great endurings become famous and draw the eyes of men much upon them and the consequent of mens observing them is by the operation of Gods grace that they fear and trust in the Lord They fear with a reverential fear of Gods mighty hand a with a Providential fear so as to prepare for the like tryal and lay up trust in God against it come Job likewise inferreth this as the effect of all his miseries and the delay of his prayers under them Job 17.8 9 Vpright men shall be astonied at this and the innocent shall stir up himself against the hypocrite the righteous also shall hold on his way and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger Chap. 15.16 17 20. He had somewhat before in this his present reply to Eliphaz mentioned his prayers and tears My face is foul with weeping and on my eye-lids is the shadow of death not for any injustice in my hands also my prayer is pure My friends scorn me but mine eye poureth out tears unto God Jobs sorrows we see were abundant and continuing and his prayers exact and holy See Divines Annot in loc 2 Edit yet at present he was insulted on as one deserted of God notwithstanding in these his extremities he gathered this comfort unto himself that other godly men will make a better use of his afflictions then his friends had done and although at first they might be taken with admiration to see such a man as he in that condition yet upon recollected thoughts they will decline censuring yea clear and joyn with him against his enemies and by his example will reinforce their stediness and renew their strength courage to entertain and bear the like encounters 4. Lastly The more to dismay deject and confound the enemies and reproachers of his people in the issue The Church of Judah in the Prophet Micah when after her low fall and long waiting and sitting in darkness and bearing the indignation of the Lord he at last pleadeth her cause and executeth Judgment for her bringing her forth to light and letting her behold his Righteousness she telleth us Mic. 7.10 Then she that is mine enemy shall see it and shame shall cover her which said unto me Where is the Lord thy God Hannah staying and praying and weeping long for a child and during her barrenness being much provoked and fretted by her adversary Peninnah when at length she obtained her son Samuel she saith in her song My mouth is enlarged over mine enemies 1 Sam. 2.1 3. because I rej yce in thy Salvation Talk no more so exceeding proudly let not arrogancy come out of your mouth When the wall of Jerusalem was at last by the diligent prayers labours and watchings of Nehemiah and the people of Judah finished it is said Neh 6.26 All their enemies when they heard thereof and all the Heathen that were about when they saw it they were much cast down in their own eyes for they perceived that this work was wrought of our God When the Beast hath overcome and killed the two Witnesses who by prophecy and prayer oppugn his Kingdom and maintain the truth of Christ there will be great insulting They that dwell upon the Earth shall rejoyce over them and make merry and shall send gifts one to another But anon when after the three days and an half they are raised again and called up into Heaven in the sight of their enemies great fear shall fall upon those their beholders Look how much pleasure and joy they took in their dead and prostrate condition so much terror and confusion will possess them at their recovery and ascention into Heaven It was the thing which Peter observed as soon as he was come to hâ—mself upon his deliverance out of prison then when the purposes of his Persecutors against him and the prayers of the Church of God for him were come even to the last cast of tryal which should prevail that the Lord had sent his Angel and delivered him out of the hand of Herod and from all the expectation of the people of the Iews Herods hand had now even almost gone through with the execution of Peter the Jews were mightily pleased with his proceedings and the eve of his designed deaths-day being come they were high in expectation to have their cruel eyes and malicious hearts satisfied with the spectacle of his slaughter wherefore his rescue thus long deferred and now atchieved did the more abate and cross the insolency of his enemies These are the Ends which I find in Scripture respecting others for which the Lord may hide himself from his peoples prayers by way of delay and having done with them I have finished the whole series or order of Causes of the Lords hiding himself from prayers both the procuring Causes given by man and the ends or final Causes proposed by God and under this latter head both the ends of Gods denying and the ends of his deferring his servants prayers and of the latter sort both the ends which concern the persons praying and those which reflect upon others And having made up this enumeration I have returned answer to that Query What may be the reason of Gods hiding himself from his peoples prayers grounded upon his promises in its general state or as it may extend to any time case or people SECT VII The Application of both sorts of Causes unto the present Case I Am now to speak to the Hypothesis or the Case in particular as it is ours What may be the reason of the Lords hiding himself now from his people of these Nations in respect of their prayers Of this I must say something but it shall be but by way of hint for I neither need to speak of this all that I could nor can I speak all that there is in it The former I need not the resolution of this query being someway contained in what hath been already said in answer to the query in general the latter I cannot by reason of the large bredth of the Subject it extending it self to so wide a circuit of ground to so great a multitude of persons and to so vast a mixture and variety of ways and transactions and those so secret or intricate that neither mine nor any other one mans experience or
to hide himself from his people in these late troubles was in their divisions and breaches among themselves in opinions practises and party-makings and it is probable the Lord will have them first to be at one again among themselves ere he manifest himself among them Then for simplicity and truth take only that speech of the Lord in the Prophet Isaiah Isai 63.8 For he said Surely they are my people children that will not lye so he was their Saviour with that of the Psalmist Mercy and Truth are met together Truth shall spring out of the Earth and Righteousness shall look down from Heaven Psal 85.10 11. So necessary and neerly alyed is sincerity and veracity unto the recovery of Gods presence aspect and audience 3. The third and last Direction for the Cure of this evil is Let our satisfaction be placed and sought in God himself When the stream or rivelet is cut off or dryed up the way to help that is to go to the fountain it self Doth the Lord withhold from us this or that blessing which we ask of him our best remedy for that is to seek the fruition of God himself his presence and favor and to satisfie our selves and make up all defects therewith Whatsoever wants we lie under in respect of externals yea or internals Habet omnia qui habet habentem omnia Augustin all the particulars we lack are equivalently yea eminently and transcendently to be had in the enjoyment of God if we have him we have them and more God communicateth himself unto his creature two ways Either as an Agent or as an End either effectively or objectively either by way of operation or by way of rest and complacency Though we have not his operative or effective communications in the production of every of those works and events which we think behoveful for us yet if we have the objective or terminative communications of him as our end rest or chiefest portion and good it is enough Nay this participation of God is far above the other He communicateth himself in his acts and operations to all his creatures but as an end of rest and complacency only to his blessed Angels and Saints That communication is more remote this immediate that more earthly this is heavenly that more reserved and limited this is full and satisfying There is a staying upon God by faith the vertue whereof is to give us the thing we beg for in prayer before it be given us and whether ever it be brought forth in rerum naturâ or in a providential course or under a sensitive enjoyment yea or no. Faith giveth us that acquiescence in God and such an assurance of the performance of the petitions we ask of him either in kind or equivalently and such a clear foresight of what is to come as that however there be a great distance and many impediments and delays betwixt as and our prayers yet there is a kind of presence and possession of them unto us Joh. 8.56 By it Abraham saw Christs day with rejoycing By it he and the other Patriarchs before the obtaining of the earthly or heavenly Canaan Heb. 11.13 saw afar off and embraced them in their promises By it Davids eye saw his desire upon his enemies Psa 54.3 7 when as yet they were up against him and in pursuit of his Soul By vertue of it we have this confidence that if we ask any thing according to his Will 1 Joh. 5.14 15 he heareth us and if we know that he hear us whatsoever we ask we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him He saith not we know that we shall have the petitions but we know that we have them that is because either we are as sure of them as if we had them in our hands already or we have them in the fountain or myne in having interest in and u ition of God David when he would still and quiet all murmuring and impatient thoughts in the hearts of the righteous at the delay of their deliverance and the flourishing of wicked men and prosperous success of their evil courses he prescribeth this medicine Delight thy self also in the Lord Psal 37.4 and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart If they be disanimated by the aforesaid dealings of divine Providence so that they know not how to go on against such discouragements in trusting in the Lord and doing good the things immediately before exhorted unto he delivereth them this as a cordial Delight thy self in the Lord. All the discomforts from present crosses and wants may be sweetened and swallowed up by this the satiating solace that is to be had in God And if the mind be impatiently bent to have its desires fulfilled this is the way to have them and that out of hand if he do not effect them in created events he will supply them in affording himself if he do not perform them in providences he will bless them in blissâ—ul consolations to thy Soul and as Elkanah said to Hannah 1 Sam. 1.8 Am not I better to thee then ten sons Is not God better to thee then ten thousand prayers When Esau and Jacob met by Peniel and were in their strains of courtesie about Jacobs present Gâ—â— 33.9 11. Esau having a good earthly estate in Mount Seir told Jacob I have enough my brother and Jacob said to him again I have enough Interpreters observe the word which Esau useth translated enough signifieth much and the word for Jacob's enough signifieth all Esau hath much but Jacob hath all And the reason of Jacob's fuller expression well may be because though his estate in worldly possessions was probably far less then Esau's yet he was Israel a Prince with God he had God for his portion to him he had continual recourse by prayer and if he got not by that means every thing he might ask or not instantly yet he had God himself his presence and favor and so he had all And that reason himself might imply when together with his profession to have enough or all he saith because God hath dealt graciously with me There is in God a full store-house and well-spring of comforts to make up the defects of whatsoever other things we fail of If the Lord hide himself from us in things subsidiary or subservient or the means conducing to the end and not in the main matter or ultimate end it self to wit his favor Spirit and Kingdom we may well satisfie our selves What we are short of in those intermediate and accessive things we may find and enjoy in God David when all was taken and gone at Ziklag 1 Sam. 30.6 encouraged himself in the Lord his God The Penman of Psal 73. Psal 73.25 26 when all went on the wicked mans side and against the people of God finds a rock for his heart and an everlasting portion of God and him he sets up as his only and
hast thou forsaken me Ps 22.1 2â— why art thou so far from helping me and from the words of my roaring O my God I cry in the day time and thou hearest not and in the night season and am not silent And so also Job I cry unto thee and thou dost not hear me I stand up Job 30.20 and thou regardest me not SECT V. The Subject and Occasion of this Treatise THus at length I am come home to my intended Subject this last Consideration hath brought me to it viz. The succeslessness of Prayer and the contrary proceeding of divine Providence to it This is the very condition of many a godly Soul yea of some whole Christian Nations and Churches at this day This is one of the commonest weightiest and difficultest Cases of Conscience that is on foot in and about these times This is one thing that lies as a heavy burden upon the minds of very many of the servants of God And it comes upon them both by their own sense and observation and the exprobation of their opposites In regard of the former they are like Rebecca who going with child of prayer powerful Jacob she suffered a strugling within her 'twixt him and Esau a rough and profane person in so much that she said Gen. 25.22 If it be so why am I thus And she went to enquire of the Lord. In respect of the latter they are like Hannah whom her adversary Penninah provoked sore for to make her fret because the Lord had shut up her womb and this she did year by year 1 Sam. 1.6 7. when she went up or from her going up to the house of the Lord That is at what time she sought God in a special manner in his house at Shiloh that she might have children Peninnah upbraided her more then at other times and that with the fruitlessness both of her womb in bearing children and of her prayer in obtaining her petition So it is now with many of Jacobs seed or the generation of them that seek the face of God by reason of the disappointment of their prayers they both with Rebecca suffer an inward conflict from their own doubâ—â— and fears and with Hannah they bear from without the reproaches of their Antagonists Let this case be put as it really is with all its considerable Circumstances and Ingredients and it will be found a very remarkable and important Case 1. The observation of many hath been That a more then ordinary spirit of prayer hath been poured out upon Christians of late and that out of it a great multitude of prayers have been poured forth in relation to the publique Concernments 2. That there hath been a general Consent and Concurrence not only of Christians in these Nations but of all the Protestant or Reformed Churches under Heaven in prayer for the same Concernments 3. That the effect of their prayers that have gone before us and are now with God hath broke forth and begun to be reaped by us of this age 4. We of these Nations besides dayly and personal prayers have set to it in solemn seeking unto God with Fasting Humiliation and Confession of sins publique and private on stated days and occasionally and have continued in this course now divers years 5. We have added to such our prayers publique Vows Oaths and Covenants for the things prayed for and heaped them one upon another 6. The subject matter of our prayers have been 1. Such things as we are not only commanded to pray for but to give a principal place to in our prayers to wit Religion Reformation Propagation of the Gospel and Kingdom of Christ Deliverance from publique Enemies and Intestine Conspirators and the Upholding of our Fundamental Government against all Innovaders with the safety and conduct of our supreme Magistracy and Councels 2. Such benefits as the promises of God in his Word are understood to lay up and reserve for his Church in these or the near following times 7. There hath been the use of other lawful means with strong endeavors and hazards therein for the accomplishing of the things prayed for and very hopeful beginnings and first fruits thereof erewhile attained yea and a door set open to and a near view of and approach to yea even almost an embracement of the main of our desires 8. There hath been no doubt a sincere aym and an upright frame of heart in many throughout all these things 9. Lastly To all these Considerations we may add the Promises of God made in Scripture to them that call upon him with the usual efficacy and experienced prevalency of prayer with God Now if we compare these particulars about the putting up and prosecution of our prayers with the success on the other side that hath followed the present unaccomplishment of those prayers and the events that have ensued directly cross and thwart thereunto it will appear a case of serious moment very needful and worthy to be remarked and discussed in order to manies resolution and satisfaction I have here taken in hand to say something to it not that I dare promise or hope to sound the full depth or traverse the utmost extent of it but to put it into the Remembrance of others more able and to set the Enquiry before them and a little to begin and break the way into it for them And this I really do that I may confess what may help to make me more excusable in this Undertaking upon special instance There hath been put into my hand a Case or Query of this import by a Brother very eminent in his place in the name of himself and many others desiring answer thereto which desire hath since been often renewed The Query was this both for matter and words Seeing God doth hide himself from his peoples prayers grounded we humbly hope upon his Promises and seemeth by his Providences to answer the prayers which are contrary thereunto I desire to know whether there be any Example of it what may be the Reason of it and what Vse should be made of it When I had read it I thought it was no hard thing to say that which might suffice to clear it and therefore stuck not to receive it but after when I had considered better not only of the thing but of the quality of the persons from whom it came and how difficult it is to know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary and to utter fit acceptable and right words to one much more to many under affliction and that it is one thing to inform the Judgment another thing to heal or comfort a troubled spirit I begun to repent of my forwardness and wisht that I could tell how fairly to lay aside the Enterprise But the usefulness of the Question my respect to the Proposer and over-hasty Entertaining of it now have engaged me to carry on the Treaty of it as the Lord shall help me And oh that it would
Ezek. 14.14 16 18 20. Though these three men Noah Daniel and Job were in it they should deliver but their own Souls by their righteousness So we hear this proceeding of God owned by himself by way of Threatening Secondly He hath spoken it by way of Prophecy or Prediction Our blessed Saviour in his Exhortation to his Disciples to uncessantness in prayer by the example of the windows importunity with the unjust Judg in the reddition of that Parable he foretells Luk. 18.1 7 8. that God will indeed avenge his own Elect which cry day and night to him but withall he will bear long with them that is he will long sit still and forbear to appear and vindicate his people notwithstanding the cry of their prayers and the provoking of their Oppressors And in the next words he describes how long to wit so long as that it will be a question whether the Son of man when he cometh shall find faith on the Earth That is as I understand when Christ our Saviour shall come either personally and visibly to the last Judgment or virtually and by his divine working in this life to the rescue of his Church and ruine of their Enemies according to the several Promises and Predictions in Scripture the faith of his people not in the absolute being or nature of it but in regard of that particular use of act of it in beleeving that God will seasonably avenge them and confident staying for it shall even be worn out through pining delay and brought almost to a fail In the Prophecy of the Revelation at the opening of the fifth seal by the Lamb our blessed Redeemer there appeared under the Altar the Souls of them that were slain for the Word of God Rev. 6.9 10 and for the Testimony which they held and they cryed with a loud voyce saying How long O Lord c. white Robes were given unto every one of them and it was said unto them that they should rest yet for a little season until their fellow-servants also and their brethren that should be killed as they were should be fufilled These Souls under the Altar are unanimously interpreted to be the Persecuted and Martyred Christians in the Ten primitive Persecutions and more especially according to Mr Mede those under Dioclesians Immâ—nity We see they cry for Avengement and complain of a long putting off How long and nevertheless their answer is that notwithstanding all the delay that hath been they must rest contented and stay yet some time longer Learned Mr Mede conceiveth the time of their yet further deferring to be till the sounding of the Trumpets and their fellow-servants and brethren which in the Interim were to be killed as they to be those who after were slain under Licinius Julianus and the Arrians Rev. 8.2 3 c. Those seven Trumpets he also reckoneth to be so many alarums to the fatal ruines of the Roman Empire God taking punishment by those ruins for the blood of the said Martyrs shed by the Roman Emperors And the Angels adding much incense to the prayers of al Saints upon the golden altar before the Throne and the ascending before God of the smoak of the incense out of the Angels hand with the prayers of the Saints which immediately antecedeth the Trumpets to be a renewing of the memoral of those prayers of the afore-martyred Saints under the the fifth Seal upon which as an answer of that remembrance and of those prayers so long before put up the seven Angels prepare to sound their Trumpets Now betwixt the beginning of the last of the Ten Persecutions and the beginning of the seven Trumpets there was more then the age of a man Mr Mede begineth the fifth Seal at the year of Christ 268. and the Trumpets at 395. it was thus long to wit 127 years ere those prayers of the afflicted Martyrs began to be answered and moreover the time of the continuance of the first six of those Trumpets in which their answer is made up he accounts to be 1260 years more after that Another Prophecy in the same Book we may add to this purpose it is that of the two Witnesses the Text saith They shall prophecy a thousand two hundred and threescore days clothed with sackcloth Rev. 11.3 5 and if any man will hurt them fire proceedeth out of their mouth and devoured their Enemies By those two Witnesses our Divines understand those few Preachers Professors and Maintainers of the Truth of Christ which shall be found during the Gentiles treading under foot the holy City that is the prophane and idolatrous peoples trampling upon the face of the visible Church Those one thousand two hundred and three-score days they compute to intend so many years That sackcloth they take to emblematize their mourning complaining condition And that fire issuing out of their mouths they expound to be their prayers for divine ayd and rescue like as Elijah called for fire to come down from Heaven 2 Kings 1 10. to consume the Captains and their fifties These persons although such precious ones so raised up and impowred by Christ yet we see they are put to walk mournfully and pray continuedly for so great a term of years ere their prayers speed and their state be changed Yea notwithstanding all their patience and constancy in that sad and expecting condition they are at length to be overcome and slain and kept unburied and insulted over by the Beast and his accomplices before they come to receive the issue of their prophecying and praying Rev. 11.7 8 9 10. by their re-advancement This last part of their sorrowful cup seems to be not only a suspense of their long continued prayers but even a breaking off of them and of all hope of their enjoying the benefit of them unless they must expect it in another world But yet the next words will resolve us that both their former walking in sackcloth and their slaying at last is to be no more then a suspense or deferring for a time for within three days and a half they are raised up again to life to their feet yea to Heaven in a Cloud in sight of their Enemies that is they attain to an happy end of their labours and sufferings and to an accomplishment of their prayers This last passage the slaying of the Witnesses is conceived by many to be yet behind or in fulfilling unto others it seems to be acted and past It is beyond me peremptorily to determine either way only whereas it appears unlikely to be yet to come when as sundry Nations sometimâ—s following and serving the Beast have cast him off bidden defiance to him and set up the Reformed Religion I will here insert Mr Medes gloss upon it very appositely meeting with that scruple 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When they shall be about to finish their testimony for so it is to be translated not when they have finished the Beast which ascendeth out of the bottomless
they are brought they may serve for the like end whereunto the History of Job is conceived to have been intended Origen Sixt. Senens Bibliothe lib. 1. p. 9. l. 8 p. 649. and with him the Jewish Rabbins and others conjecture that the Book of Job was first writ in Syriac by Job himself or by his friends and after translated into Hebrew by Moses at what time the Israelites were under the servitude of Pharaoh in Egypt and that for this intent that by the reading thereof they might receive Consolation learn Patience and gather Hope in that their hard bondage by the consideration of Jobs sufferings his pious and patient behavior under them and the redoubled happiness which their end brought forth So in like manner whatsoever burden any of the servants of God may be under now from any suspense they may apprehend lying upon prayers either their own or others either for themselves or their relations these Examples may be of some such use and may raise up their hearts somewhat in representing to them that the same affliction hath been accomplished in their Brethren that have been in the world 1 Pet. 5 9. I will conclude mine Answer to the first Query with another General Observation on the said History of Job It is concerning the state of the Controversie therein debated The great difference between Job and his three friends in it is this Job maintaineth That the Lord may Job 9.22 6.29 23.11 12. 27.5 6. and sometimes doth temporarily afflict destroy desert or defer to hear a righteous man and prosper or grant the desires of the wicked man They on the opposite part contend That God doth at no time leave or cast down the pure and upright Job 9.24 10.3 12.6 27.7 8. 8.20 4.7 8.5 6 11.13 4.8 20.20 21.27 28. 22.15 nor any ways second or favor the ungodly And particularly in reference to prayer one of them viz. Bildad affirms in terminis That if Job would seek presently unto God and if he were pure and upright surely now at that instant the Almighty would awake for him and make the habitation of his Righteousness prosperous And again he asserts Behold God will not cast away a perfect man neither will he help the evil doer Which last sentence taken in the utmost extent so as to exclude all manner of casting away the one and helping the other will no more stand then the former of the Lords instant awakening for and prospering of Iob if pure and praying But why do I interpose to determine in this Controversie The Lord himself doth umpire the difference in the end of the Book and he decides it on Iobs side he tells Eliphaz Job 42.3 4 5 6. Thou and thy two friends have not spoken of me the thing that is right as my servant Iob hath This I suppose is necessarily to be taken as the Lords coming in and arbitrating the main Controversie betwixt them Iob indeed had used some unbeseeming and reprovable speeches of and to God as the Lord before convinceth him and he acknowledgeth but in the main of the question and debate to wit concerning the divine administration in relation to the estates and prayers of the righteous and the wicked Iob was in the right and his three friends besides it Iob indeed had this unhappiness heaped upon his other miseries that both his Person and his Argument were severely censured by his Opponents His Person as a wicked Hypocrite Chap 4.6 7. 22.5 c. His Argument Rebellionem haberi quaerimoniam meam Tremel as Rebellion Chap 23.2 whilest those his Censurers sat high in their own opinion both for wisdom Chap. 15.9 10. Integrity Chap. 22.18 and worldly weal Chap. 22.20 Yet in conclusion Iob and his Tenet are absolved his Friends and their Cause are disallowed by God I cannot pass from this without additionally observing the immediate Consequents of this Arbitration As by this sentence pronounced Iob is vindicated and his three friends rectified so are they both reconciled and they are reconciled in Sacrifice and Prayer Iobs friends provide the Sacrifice and Iob makes the Prayer and these being performed Iob is heard and accepted of God both for himself and his friends and being so he is raised up again to a prosperous estate and that double in proportion to his former havings O if this might be the happy period of the most unhappy divisions of these days about Prayer and Providence As that it may be so is to be the joynt wish prayer and labour of all so there is no necessary reason to despair that it shall be only if they that sustain Jobs condition would hold out to act Jobs approved part in particular that his resolution Chap. 27.3 4 5 6. All the while my breath is in me and the Spirit of God is in my nostrils my lips shall not speak wickedness nor my tongue utter deceit God forbid that I should justifie you till I dye I will not remove my integrity from me My Righteousness I hold fast and will not let it go my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live CHAP. III. The second Query handled viz. How or in what sence God may be said to hide himself from his Peoples Prayers grounded upon his Promises and seem by his Providences to answer the Prayers which are contrary thereunto WE have granted and attested by many witnesses that the Lord doth sometimes and in some sort hide himself from his peoples prayers some ways grounded upon his promises and seemeth by his Providences to answer the prayers that are contrary to them But it will be very necessary that the case may not seem and be apprehended worse then it is that needless and causless perplexities about it may be prevented and that we may understand aright those passages both of Scripture and divine Providence which concerning it have been set before us or may occur that we rake out the true sence of that supposal and concession by a due explication and limitation of it For that purpose I shall proceed 1. In the unfolding of the terms or clauses therein 2. In collecting the explication of them into some Corollaries or summary Propositions The first and chief work will be the unfolding of the terms In the doing of it need will be that I insist severally on these clauses 1. Of the people of God 2. Of the groundedness of prayers upon the divine promise 3. Of Gods answering and of his hiding himself from prayers SECT I. Of the People of God ALl Nations and persons in the world are in one acception Gods people in as much as he is their Creator and supreme Lord they his Creatures and Subjects The Earth is the Lords Psa 24.1 and the fulness thereof the world and they that dwell therein He himself saith Behold all Souls are mine Ezek. 18.4 Job 41.11 and again Whatsoever is
not be dew nor rain for some years but according to his word whereupon he grounded his prayer mentioned in the Epistle of James But the more proper universal and adequate ground of warrant for prayer is that of precept Some things happily may be found promised that are not to be prayed for as the promise of retribution of our wrongs Rom. 12.19 and that of the not perishing of one hair of a Christian Luk. 21.18 and there are divers things which have been lawfully and are to be prayed for concerning which there is no special promise Such is Abrahams prayer for Sodom Gen. 18. Moses prayer for Israel Exod. 32. Pauls prayer for the Salvation of the Jewish Nation of his age Rom. 10.1 Prayer for our Enemies Matt. 5.44 Prayer for all men 1 Tim. 2.1 And the general promise of hearing besides that it doth not constantly intend the giving of the thing as will after be shewed it must be resolved into that proviso that the prayer be for a thing warrantable to be asked The ground of warrant therefore must be distinct from the promise and in cases ordinary is to be primarily and originally fetched from the rule or precept for prayer It being a matter of much weight and use to know how to ground prayers aright and to understand what prayers are grounded as they should be and what are not it will be requisite that we take a distinct view of both these groundworks of prayer that is both that of precept or rule and that of promise of the one to guide our Conscience in making of the other to erect our confidence in believing and expecting our prayers First Of the ground of precept this besides that it warrants prayer and makes it necessary gives us moreover direction about it in two respects 1. What may and ought to be the subject of our prayer 2. How or in what manner it must be put up to God I shall here take notice of it only in these two respects First The subject of prayer is regulated by Scripture-precept and that 1. Either in the matter or thing for which 2. Or in the person or parties for or concerning whom prayer is to be made In point of matter or things for which we are to pray the Scripture gives us precepts 1. Sometimes generally or indefinitely as in that of our Saviour Ask and it shall be given you Mat. 7.7 11 seek and ye shal find knock and it shall be opened unto you which indefinite Command is interpreted by the following words to be not simply universal ask any thing whatsoever but circumspectly universal viz. within the predicament of good Your Father which is in Heaven shall give good things to them that ask And the Apostle delivers us such another general warrant for the matter Be careful for nothing but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God Phil. 4.6 5 8 The Apostles eye doubtless in this universal precept is only upon lawful serious ordinarily possible and good things those namely about which the Moderation forespoken of of Christians is to be exercised for whatsoever is otherwise is wholy to be refrained and those things which presently after he defines by the characters of true honest just pure lovely of good report vertuous praise-worthy those are the things to be thought of yet with Moderation not with anxious diffident carefulness and with a pious recommendation of them in prayer unto God 2. Yet the precept leaves us not so in the general but descends to particulars It instructs us in a multitude of yea in all particulars to be prayed for it requires us to deprecate such and such evils and to supplicate and implore this and that good thing It points us out to Temporals Spirituals and Eternals to things of body things of mind and things of external property and respect I might gather up and bring in precepts for every of these in particular as they lie scattered in their several places of Scripture But with this I need not charge my self or my Reader there is a form of prayer excellâ—nt and perfect both for matter and order taught and commanded by our blessed Saviour which distributeth under six Petitions or heads the whole substance of prayer and under those heads are comprehended all things good and religiously to be desired there is in that prayer summa petendorum a compleat platform or groundwork of prayer for the matter So that look what is reducible to it may and must be asked of God and whatsoever thing is not comprizable under some of the branches of it is not allowed a place in our prayers Concerning it our Saviour hath spoken plainly After this manner therefore pray ye c. Secondly for the personal subject of prayer or the persons concerning whom we must make request to God we have in the Word of God Rules 1. For praying for persons 2. For praying against persons First The persons to be prayed for are of two sorts 1. Divine as our Saviour enjoyns us in his platform to pray in the three leading Petitions for Gods own immediate concernments The hallowing of his Name the Coming of his Kingdom and the performance of his will And as he instructs us by his Word so doth he teach us by his example to pray whilest he himself prays Father glorifie thy Name Joh. 12.28 and we are directed to this also by the practice of the Apostle Paul praying That the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in the Thessalonians 2 Thes 1.12 In this kind of prayer the divine Majesty is both the object and subject of our supplication and it is peculiar to him so to be 2. The other sort of persons to be prayed for are humane and they are 1. Our selves 2. Others 1. For our selves we have many Commands to pray Is any among you afflicted Jam. 5.14 let him pray He must not only send for the Elders to pray over him in his sickness as it followeth but he must pray for himself And again Take with you words and turn to the Lord and say Hos 14.2 Take away all iniquity and receive us graciously 2. We are also to be Petitioners for others and the extent of our prayers for others is prefixed 1. Universally unto all men I exhort therefore that first of all supplications 1 Tim. 2.1 prayers intercâ—ssions and giving of thanks be made for all men For all men that is not for all collectively if we intend our prayer to be for their Salvation for God hath declared his counsel and purpose to be against that and Christ our Saviour in praying for those that shall be saved and for all them in order to their Salvation hath contradistinguished them from the world I pray for them Joh. 17.9 I pray not for the world But either distributively for any of whatsoever sort or degree for one as well as another as occasion
without scruple 2. Others are bent against the persons of men and these are also differenced into 1. Such as are not for mens destruction but correction only by some temporal evil or affliction which is desired to befall them for this end that they may be brought to understand humble themselves repent of their iniquity and turn to God As is that of the Psalmist Psal 83.16 Fill their faces with shame that they may seek thy Name O Lord. So Elihu is conceived to pray concerning Job My desire is that Job may be tryed or O my Father Job 34 36. let Job be tryed unto the end because of his answers for wicked men that is as Diodate paraphraseth it Do not O God withdraw thy visitations from Job until thou hast brought him to the duty of a child and to the only means of obtaining pardon which is humility and confession Neither is the lawfulness of Imprecations like to these stuck at by Divines 2. Such as are against mens persons for their subversion and these are of a threefold nature or Consideration 1. Some are against men as they are Gods Enemies a Psa 68.1 69 2.109.6 Rom. 11.9 Judg. 5.31 2. Some are against men as they are the Churches Enemies b Psa 79.6 137.7 Lam. 3.64 Neb. 4 4 3. And some are against men as they are their own Enemies that pray c Ps 55.15 59.13 71 13 Jer. 15.15 17 18 18.21 20.12 2 Kin. 1.10 2.24 2 Tim. 4.14 Now these three kinds of Malediction are those that are called into question and that two ways 1. Whether they were Justifiable in them that used them in sacred writ 2. Whether they be imitable lawfully in by us against the like Enemies First For the former Question The Justifiableness of them in them that used them in holy Writ is generally assented unto and thus cleared 1. Many of those Execrations may be taken to be uttered by a Spirit of Prophecy and so to be rather Prophetical Predictions and Denunciations of divine Judgments certainly foreseen to come upon the parties then meer wishings and desirings of evil to them proceeding originally from the wills of them that pray d Verba praedicantium non vota imprecantium * August contra Faustum idem de Serm. Dom. li. 1. Optativo modo usi sunt pro Indicativo 2. Others of them if they came not from a divining Spirit yet they might come from a discerning Spirit peculiarly given to them whereby they might be able to discover those against whom they so prayed to be implacable and desperate Enemies of God his Church and Truth 3. The Utterers of those prayers being Penmen of holy Writ or otherwise extraordinary persons may well be deemed to have been moved with a pure zeal of God and his Cause and clear of those base incentives of private passion malice and impatience more incident to others And whereas those prayers may seem to oppugn the Rules of charity and prayer for our Enemies it may be said Those Rules are to bind where there is no special Warrant for exception and charity to men must be subordinate and secondary to our love and zeal towards God 2. But if any vitiosity may be supposed in any of those Instances as some incline to admit in those votes of the Prophet Jeremiah e H. Bullinger in Jer. 15. â—5 And Scultet de prec c. 16. p. 76. such doubtless are to be born with in them and passed over by us without following them therein Secondly For the latter Question about them viz. their Lawfulness for us to practise This may not simply be granted but we are to distinguish of the manner of conceiving such prayers which may be 1. Either generally or indefinitely as when one prayeth against the Enemies of God and Christ whomsoever they be not pitching upon any particular persons and without eyeing or judging these or those to be such but leaving it to God to find them out and deal with them accordingly Of this nature is that of Deborah and Barak So let all thine Enemies perish O Lord Judg. 5.31 And that of the Apostle not only pronounced by him but imposed upon others to concur in If any man love not the Lord Jesus 1 Cor. 16.22 let him be Anathema Maran atha Such like Imprecations keeping within the general denunciation both with tongue and eye are not inconvenient for Christians now 2. Or particularly conceived that is personally applyed and fixed on this or that man or people and these Maledictions are to be held unwarrantable for us ordinarily we having no special or infallible gift of prophecy or discerning whereby we may be enabled to see into mens spiritual estate or to foresee what is absolutely the portion of their cup from the Almighty or to dictate unto us such prayers we falling short also of that clearness of zeal and immixture of Love to God which in some in times past hath been We having no such special call or assistance as others have had our safest and clearest way is to take notice of that rebuke of our Saviour unto James and John Luk. 9.55 Mat. 5.44 Ro. 12.14 19. 1 Pet. 3.9 1 Pet. 2.23 Lu. 23.34 Acts 7.60 when they would have called for fire down from Heaven upon certain Samaritans And to walk by those Rules which on the other hand are given us in the Gospel of Loving doing good to blessing praying for our Enemies Cursers and Persecutors and of refraining cursing self-avenging and wrong-retaliating And for which we have the practise of our blessed Saviour and of his servants set before us in Scripture We have thus an Extract of the Rules of Scripture concerning the Subject of prayer both as it respecteth things and persons There is yet another branch of this preceptive ground of prayer to be viewed viz. that which prescribeth the way in which prayer must be performed and put up to God This hath included in it two things 1. The means or assistance by which we must pray 2. The manner how Briefly of both First The means or assistance by which we must pray this is twofold 1. It must be in Christ 2. It must be in the Spirit We are to make use of both these by way of Intercession or Advocateship Christ maketh Intercession for us in Heaven a Ro. 8.34 at the right hand of God The Spirit maketh Intercession within us in the heart b Ro. 8.26 Christ is our Advocate with the Father c 1 Joh. 2.2 The Spirit is our Advocate abiding with and in us d Jo. 14 16 The Spirit is called another Advocate in relation to Christ who is also our Advocate The Spirit is another because different from him both in person and in the nature of his Advocateship Christ is our Advocate in Heaven by way of Expiation of our sins Attonement Reconciliation and Representation of our persons and of our prayers before God The Spirit is our
10.4.31 Psa 18.6 they come up for a memorial before God David saith His cry came before God even unto his ears The Priests the Levites when they arose and blessed the people at Zedekiahs Passover the Text saith 2 Chro. 30 27 Their voyce was heard and their prayer came up to his holy dwelling place even unto Heaven And when it is thus the Scripture saith of God in relation to prayers His ears are open to their cry He harkens and hears Psa 34.15 Mal. 3 16 Psal 86.1 10.17 66.16 102.17 Prov. 15.8 Cant. 2.14 Psa 145.18 Lam. 3.57 Job 33.26 Isai 30.19 Jer. 31.20 Mal. 3.16 Jer. 29.14 Ezra 8.23 Gen. 19.21 Cant. 2.14 He bows down his ear and hears He causeth his ear to hear He attendeth to the voyce of prayer He regardeth and despiseth not their prayer The prayer is his delight the voyce is sweet And it saith of God in relation to the Petitioner He is nigh He draweth neer to them that call upon him He is favorable He is very gracious to them at the voyce of their cry He doth earnestly remember them still His bowels are troubled for them A book of remembrance is written before God for them He is found of them He is entreated of them He accepteth their face their countenance is comely In such terms as these the Scripture travelleth to deliver and explain to us the respâ—ct and welcome which God gives to his childrens prayers And this is the first part of prayers succeâ—s or taking with God it 's heard or received The second is Gods answer or making return to prayer The Lord appears to prayers by answering them and this is the appearance whereof we are more sensible this is that we find in the Prophet Then shalt thou call and the Lord shall answer thou shalt cry Isai 58.9 and he shall say Here am I. David tells us That when in his distress he called upon the Lord Psal 18 6 and cryed unto his God he heard his voyce out of his Temple and his cry came before him even unto his ears that was the first effect of prayer of which before It then follows He bowed the Heavens also and came down and darkness was under his feet and he rode upon a Cherub and did fly yea he did fly upon the wings of the wind the Lord also thundered in the Heavens c. yea he sent out his arrows c. that 's the latter effect the return and answer the Lord did visibly and mercifully appear for his help and rescue as is there figuratively and largely set forth There were indeed times when God did return answers to his people audibly or sensibly by appearances or voyces as he did by vision to Abraham and others by voyce or visible token to Moses and the High-Priest in the Tabernacle of the Congregation and from above the Mercy-seat and by Dreams by Vrim by Prophets from time to time to his people Israel and sometimes by Angels to some of them But these returns some of them were peculiar to those times others were then extraordinary and now much more extraordinary and neither then were much less now are to be looked for There is another way of return which is more common and constant and that is by his workings of this David makes relation I waited patiently for the Lord and he inclined to me and heard my cry He brought me up also to an horrible pit out of the miry clay and set my feet upon a rock and establish'd my goings This his raising out of the pit and seating upon a firm standing is the active answer of God to Davids prayer Now this return of prayer is divers ways made and the several sorts of it must be well noted I shall distinguish them thus There is a threefold answer of prayer or return is made thereto three ways 1. By way of obsignation 2. By way of performance 3. By way of commutation These three ways God answereth the prayers of his servants when they are faithfully put up and grounded as before was shewed that is some one at least of thâ—se three ways The first way is obsignatory this is an answer by way of testimony or assurance of acceptance and audiâ—â—ce of the prayer that hath been offered up to God or by way of Earnest or pledg of future accomplishment God is pleased many times before he perform the request of his servants to give them immediately or upon their seeking to him a pledg that they are heard and shall have an issue of their desires This he doth usually when the performance is to be at some distance of time and the Petitioner must bear some delay for it then he vouchsafes often to give as it were a Bill of assurance under his hand in the interim for it But what is it that God doth give in pledg why something still that is both valuable and suitable Some fire as it were comes down from Heaven upon the Altar and consumes their sacrifice Psa 20.3 in testimony of acceptance This obsignatory answer may be by divers effects or ways 1. By an inward taste or testification from God of his good-will and love to the Suppliant Elihu saith He shall pray unto God and he will be favorable unto him Job 33.26 and he shall see his face with joy When Jacob had prayed and wrestled all night and had got the victory and blessing yielded him He called the name of the place Peniel that is the face of God Gen. 32.30 for I have seen said he God face to face The request that he had been conflicting about was to be delivered from the hand of Esau his Brother he had it granted and in assurance he should find it fulfilled the day following in the reconciled face and embracements of his Brother he hath immediately the sight of Gods face and the light of his countenance shewed him and this made him go on with boldness of heart though with a halting thigh from Peniel to meet his Brother The Prophet Daniel when he had fasted and made his supplications unto God Dan. 9.13 10.11 8.26 10 1 14 7.28 8.27 had several times an Angel appearing to him and telling him He was greatly beloved to wit of God the visions shewed him were for many days and the time appointed was long and some of them were sad and unpleasing unto him But in the interim and for a cordial he had this message sent him from God that he was a man in high favor with God 2. By a removal of that sorrow dejection fear or anxiety of spirit that before might possess and fill him that prayed Hannah having poured forth her prayer and tears and uttered her vow before the Lord in Shiloh and received that good presage from Eli the Priest of her Petition 1 Sam. 1 18 it 's said She went her way and did eat and her countenance was no more sad she thenceforth had a light heart her
unto vanity that is whose desire and affections do not stray from God and that which is truly good after some unlawful thing This then must stand as a firm and clear truth The prayer that is put up by a wicked man or that is made with an evil mind or in an evil manner it may be prosperous but it is not pleasing it may be effected but it is not affected it may be acted but it is not answered it may be happy but it is not heard with God And they that but so have their prayers they have but either the fruit of Gods general goodness or the consequence of his special anger therein * Quinetiam nocturna sacrificia sceleratasque ejus preces nefaria vota cognovimus quibus illa etiam Deus immortalis de suo scelere testatur neque intelligit pietate religione justis prelibus Deorum mentes non contaminata superstitione neque ad scelus perficiendum caesis hostiis pesse placari cujus ego furorem atque crudelitatem Deos immortales a suis aris atque templis aspernato esse confido Cicero Orat. pro A. Cluendo Non tamen est cur fideles deflectant a lege sibi Divinitus imposita vel invideant incredulis quasi magnum lucrum fecerint ubi adepti sunt quod volebant Calv. Instit l. 3. c. 20. S. 15. The people of God then may let such have their prayers sometimes without either their envy or imitation But seeing that by these two last Propositions it is asserted That Divine Providence may for the present run cross to those prayers that find audience and answer with God and may second the desire and end of those prayers that are not accepted or answered by him it must needs be a matter of some difficulty to know and discern when prayer is heard and answered and whether success ensuing upon prayer it be in answer to prayer or no. Upon this I have here no room for any large discourse only I shall give this word of resolution Besides extraordinary or at least immediate testimony from Heaven of which I have spoken something before I know no other or at least no better way then to look whether our prayers run parallel with the rule of Gods Word without this Cynosure our Judgments may either be at a non-plus or stray very wide from the Truth This direction is commended to us by the Apostle John and it is notably worth our exact inspection And this is the confidence that we have in him 1 Joh. 5.14 15 that if we ask any thing according to his Will he heareth us and if we known that he heareth us whatsoever we ask we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him Mark it he teacheth us to gather the knowledg that we have the petitions that we desired of him from this that we know that he heareth us and to infer the knowledg or confidence that he heareth us from this that we ask a thing according to his Will by this rule we must judg of our having our petitions not by sense or visible providences but by Gods audience and we must judg of his audience not by instant effects but by the quality of our prayers and persons Some men of this generation proceed directly contrary they will judg of their audience by their havings and they will judg of and justifie their askings and the designs they concern by their receivings and they will not be brought to begin their inferences at the accord and conformity of their prayers to the revealed Will of God and by it to be led to the confidence of hearing and so from this confidence of hearing to pass to the discerning of the receit of their Petitions CHAP. IV. The third Query discussed viz. What may be the Reason of Gods hiding himself from his Peoples Prayers grounded upon his Promises and of his seeming by his Providences to answer the Prayers which are contrary to them SECT I. The difficulty of resolving this Question and whence it is IF it be so why am I thus Gen. 25.22 so said Rebecca when she had conceived and the Children struggled together within her and so are we ready to say upon every strange and disastrous occurrence So are the servants of God apt to say upon this one of the saddest of their disasters and so it is not unlawful yea it is requisite that they say Eccl. 7.10 Trap. in loc provided that they enquire wisely concerning this when any great thing befalls us contrary to our expectations and wishes we are naturally disposed to expostulate the cause of it Male-contents saith one are commonly great Questionists But the matter is to enquire wisely to make a religious sober impartial and profitable inquisition this we are not very apt unto and if at all we be disposed and seek to know it we find it no easie work to make the discovery it proves a difficult enterprize and hard to effect not because we do not seek nor because we are destitute of means to find it out but because we go wrong to work we look not the right way or we look not with good eyes or we look not to the right end First We look not the right way we are apt to look for the fault or fail in God or to charge it upon him at all-adventures when the root of the matter is in our selves In the Prophet Haggai when the House of God lay waste and the peoples labors were all improsperous and their wealth and store unblest unto them when they should have considered their own ways wherein they might have found a plain reason why it was so they turn their eyes up to Gods ways and designments and in them in stead of meeting with a reason Hag. 1.2 they make one They say the time is not come the time that the Lords House should be built q. d. there is a certain time when the Lords House should be built this time himself hath prefixed and until that time be accomplished our labor will be in vain upon it it is bootless for us to go up to the mountain and thence bring wood to build his house we may as well let it lie waste as it doth We see our ordinary labors about natural means and for our bodily provisions our sowing and reaping and day-laboring yea and the efficacy of natural causes as of the Heavens sending down dew and the Earth sending forth fruits and the fruits affording their sustenance these all decay and disappoint us of their benefit how then shall we think to speed in that harder and higher work of Temple-building Thus their want of duty to God in the forward instauration of his House and Worship whereof the succeslessness their own affairs was the effect they will needs father on Gods Decree and falsly surmise an immaturity of his time In like manner did the same people in the Prophet Malachi's time they missed of the
informed him concerning the counsel of God delivering to him that revelation of the seventy weeks And it deserves to be well taken notice of Isai 54.8 9 11 Jer. 33.34 Heb 8.11 12 that in the New Covenant the benefit of being taught of God and of the abounding of the knowledg of God is joyned with the removal of Gods wrath and the forgiveness of sins and iniquities Let it be our first care then to seek and obtain reconciliation with God and expiation of sins 2. Let us go unto God by Prayer and make this a special petition unto him that he would disclose his mind and give us wisdom in this particular Doth the Lord hide himself from our prayers set we our selves to prayer so much the more closely It is recorded of our blessed Saviour Luk. 22.41 44. that when he was in the garden and at prayer being in an agony he prayed more earnestly And let us for this in particular seek unto God to know the reason of his hiding of himself that reason I mean which it behoveth us to know and he would have us seek after David in his exile and want of God Psal 42.9 saith I will say unto God My Rock why hast thou forgotten me why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy Thus Elihu adviseth Job Job 34.31 32 Surely it is meet to be said unto God I have born chastisement I will not offend any more that which I see not teach thou me And this Job himself had done when he said unto God Chap. 10.2 Shew me wherefore thou contendest with me And again where he faith How many are mine iniquities and sins Chap. 13.23 24 Make me to know my transgression and sin Wherefore hidest thou thy face and holdest me for thine enemy Let that be our course in this doubt which was the course of Daniel and the three children for the finding out of Nebuchadnezzars dream namely Dan. 2.18 19 to desire mercies of the God of Heaven concerning this secret This way succeeded with them for then was the secret revealed to Daniel in a night vision And we may hope the like success though not by the same means may be unto us Solomon tells us Prov. 28 5 Evil men understand not judgment but they that seek the Lord understand all things This is the way directed unto by the Apostle James and unto it he gives us a promise Jam. 1 5. If any of you lack wisdâ—â— let him ask of God and it shall be given him The Prophet Daniel confesseth the neglect of this as both the sin and the prejudice of his people then in captivity in this regard All this evil is come upon us Dan. 9 13. yet made we not our prayer before the Lord our God that we might turn from our iniquities and understand thy Truth To understand Gods Truth here I conceive intendeth the practical and particular understanding of the congruity of Gods dealings then in Judgment with them with his Word in the threatenings pronounced by Moses and the Prophets and the applicative knowledg or acknowledgment of the verification of those denunciations upon them together with an attributing of their desolations to these evil ways of theirs against which the Prophets had before declared them And the reason why they had not understood this truth of God was they had not made their prayer unto God that they might turn from their iniquities and understand this truth Where by the way you may note the necessity of that which I insisted on before in the Rules given to wit turning from our iniquities to the end we may know Gods truth manifested in his dealings with us The people of the Jews had made their prayer after their manner both before and during the seventy years captivity but they had not made their prayer with a returning from their iniquities and therefore they had not attained to understand the aforesaid truth in this behalf But to conclude this particular if God do hide himself from our prayers we are to pray to him that the reason of it may not be hidden from us and that if it seemeth good unto him for a time to make a stop of our other prayers yet he would not deny us in this but herein discover his intention to us that so we may both the more contentedly stay and make the better use of his delaying or denying of us in the other 3. Attend diligently to the written Word We have before shewed the Scripture to be now the only ordinary means of understanding the reason of these ways of God towards us and that the common or main difficulty that is obvious to us on the part of this means is whereas God revealeth to men in his Word variety of Reasons for this according to the variety of Cases how to know or pitch upon that which in special concerns us and our condition and that in order to the clearing our selves of this difficulty we are to get into terms of peace and reconciliation with God we are particularly to pray for special information herein of God Now unto these we must thirdly add a close and cordial inspection into the Word Conscience must here awaken come in and diligently do its office and that is not only to open and acquaint us with the whole rule or dictate of Scripture but to make use application or deduction from it to our selves and this consists mainly if not only in taking a distinct and right view of our case or in bringing in a true and full account evidence or judgment of the matter of fact This matter of fact hath two parts 1. Gods dealing with us 2. Our own ways towards him 1. A strict and narrow insight into a serious consideration of Gods dealing with us must be had Come behold the works of the Lord Psal 46.8 what desolations he hath made in the Earth Every Providence of God especially his more notable acts hath a reason written upon it Eze. 14.23 could mans eye read it And the due eying of the ways of God is a great means to bring to light that reason The contemplation of Gods proceedings is hereunto apt in two respects 1. By vertue of that similitude or proportion which often there is especially in crosses betwixt Gods dealings with men and their dealings afore with him And this is particularly to be found in Gods walking towards us in relation to prayer As Solomon hath it in his prayer at the dedication of the Temple 1 Kings 8.39 Then hear thou in Heaven thy dwelling place and forgive and do and give to every man according to his ways whose heart thou knowest Take one instance of this proportion of Gods ways to mens as to the matter of prayer O the hope of Israel the Saviour thereof in time of trouble Why shouldst thou be as a stranger in the Land Jer. 14 8 9 10 and as a wayfaring man that turneth
Lord but the Lord would not harken to their voyce nor give ear unto them Here the denyal of their suit and the irrevocability of the sentence of their wandering so long in the wilderness was plainly for their sin And yet we read elsewhere in the story the same was ordered so for their good also The Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness to humble thee and to prove thee to know what was in thine heart c. and he humbled thee and suffered thee to hunger c. that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live And a little after Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness wherein were fiery Serpents Deut. 8.2 3 15 16 c. that he might humble thee and that he might prove thee to do thee good at thy latter end These many excellent benefits were the end for that peoples attainment whereof they were put to travel and stay so long a time out of Canaan and in the desart The proposal of so happy an end by God and the committance of such great offences by the people concurred together in the denyal of their request above spoken of And the like may be said of Moses in regard of the denyal of his request to go over Jordan and into Canaan it was his benefit being that in lieu thereof he dying attained to a better life and Canaan and yet his sin also was in it as the cause of that refusal h Deut. 3.26.32.52 Numb 20 12 Psa 106.33 We see then by these instances those very persons whom the Lord hideth himself from it may be both to correct their sin and to consult their good he may do it to them both for the punishment of their offences and for the procurement of their profit SECT V. Of the first sort of Causes of Gods hiding from prayers HAving made this observation of both the sorts of Causes layd together I now proceed to speak of them severally 1. Of the former namely the Reasons arising from man or the meritorious Causes on mans part Concerning this head of Reasons I shall endeavor to shew four things 1. That sin is a cause of Gods hiding from his peoples prayers 2. Whose sins 3. What special sins for kind 4. Certain circumstances in sin that help forward this effect 1. That sin is a cause of this deportment of the Lord towards his praying people I shall not need to say much to this it is a thing so evident It is plainly declared by God It is freely acknowledged by the people of God themselves 1. It is expresly declared by God Isai 59.12 Your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear Jer. 33 5. For all whose wickedness I have hid my face from this City Because they trespassed against me Ezek 39.23 24. therefore I hid my face from them According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions have I done unto them and hid my face from them And predictâ—vely Mic. 3.4 Then shall they cry unto the Lord but he will not hear them he will even hide his face from them at that time as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings 2. The consciences of the people of God have given testimony to this against themselves So the Church of Iudah under her Babylonian pressures Lam. 3.42 43 We have transgressed and have rebelled thou hast not pardoned Thou hast covered thy self with a cloud that our prayers should not pass through Isai 64 7 For thou hast hid thy face from us and consumed us because of our iniquities David elegantly expresseth this where he saith Psal 65 3. Verba iniquitatum prevaluerunt mihi Foord Ar. Mon. pelican Musc Iniquities prevail against me or as our margent with other Interpreters read the words of iniquities prevail against me He had in the verse next before used this compellation to God O thou that hearest prayer and with relation unto that stile he is conceived to intend this speech The words of iniquities prevail against me We see iniquities speak they have a voyce yea a cry As our prayers speak and cry for us so if iniquity have dominion over us it will speak yea clamour and clamouring prevail against us As God is a hearer of prayer so he is a hearer of the cry of sin As he receives the suits which our prayers present for us so also he admits the bills which our sins put in against us As he hath an ear of mercy open to the one so hath he an ear of justice and holiness open to the other And it is but equal that as the presentment of our wants or wrongs by prayer so the accusation of our sins which are injuries done unto God should have access to him yea and that God himself should first be vindicated and the sin expiated and removed and we our selves set right in the Court of Heaven upon our repentance ere our prayers for us should have a hearing and return from God 2. The next thing is Whose sin it is that may cause God to hide himself from his servants prayers I answer 1. It is very ordinarily their own sin that do pray I will give no other instances for this then those even now given out of Isaiah Ieremiah the Lamentations Ezekiel and Micah look but over them again and you will read in every of them that as sin was the motive of Gods hiding from those prayers so the sin was theirs whose were the prayers 2. It is oftentimes the sin of others As 1. Theirs for whom the prayer is put up to God As in the intercessions of the servants of God for others they may pray for others out of duty to Gods Command and pious affection to them and their prayer may be regular and it may be acceptable to God and yet the Lord may hide himself from it in regard of granting the benefit to the persons prayed for and the reason may be the sins of those persons 1 Sam. 15.11 Samuel cryed unto the Lord all night for Saul but Sauls disobedience in his expedition against the Amalekites suffered not Samuel to prevail for him Ezek. 9.8 9 Ezekiel prayed for Ierusalem when the six men the Executioners of Gods wrath were sent out into it with their destroying weapons in their hands but the full measure of the Lands and Cities sins would not admit of a rescue though it was Ezekiel that prayed Israels Golden Calf stood up and made such a breach for Gods anger against them Exod 32.31 c. that though Moses his chosen stood before him in it yea and turned away his wrath as to the destroying of them yet he could not obtain for them a total remission of punishment The Lord answered him Nevertheless
in the day when I visit I will visit their sin upon them And the Lord plagued the people because they had made the Calf c. Many a dear Saint of God and many a holy prayer of such hath been non-suited in Heaven by the over-poysing sins of them for whom they have interceded 2. Or the sin may be theirs who are in near relation to the persons prayed for We may find that sometimes the wickedness of bad friends or alies hath made more against men then the prayers of their godly friends could make for them Josiah and Jeremiah both very choyce ones the one for a Prince the other for a Prophet they both prayed for Judah about one time but the sins of Manasseh the grandfather of Josiah and the King of Judah were too strong for them both they are mentioned as the prevailing reason against both their prayers * 2 Kings 22.15 16 17 with 23 25 26 Jer. 14.19 15.1 2 3 4. 3. The third thing propounded to consideration is What sins in special do provoke God to hide himself from his peoples prayers The Scripture brands a multitude of sins by name and special note with this effect Let us view the particulars And for that end I will put them into three ranks 1. Sins against Piety or duty to God 2. Sins against the second Table 3. Sins in or about Prayer it self 1. Sins against Piety Unto this rank belong these sins following 1. Idolatry or the setting up and giving divine Worship unto those that are no Gods For this peruse that story in Judg. 10. In short it is thus The Lords anger waxed hot against Israel and he sold them into the hands of the Philistins and of the Ammonites The Israelites under their oppressions and distresses by them cry unto the Lord with confession of their sin The Lord answers them That seeing after and notwithstanding many former deliverances from the like evils they had now forsaken him and served other gods therefore he will deliver them no more let them go and cry unto and be delivered by the gods which they have chosen This was the dolorous repulse which in a day of tribulation they received for their sins of Idolatry For this sin it was that God declared he would neither hear his people of Judah praying for themselves Jer. 11.10 c. nor his Prophet Jeremiah praying for them See also for this Ezek. 20.31 2. Covenant-breaking with God As in that example I last mentioned of Judahs and Jeremiahs prayers They were rejected for this as one cause The house of Judah have broken my Covenant which I made with their fathers therefore c. And though they shall cry unto me I will not harken unto them c. Therefore pray not thou for this people neither lift up a cry or prayer for them c. 3. Abuse of Religion to carnal ends This was the sin of the Prophets of Judah and for it they are sentenced with this Judgment They make my people to err Mic. 3.5 6 7 they bite with their teeth and cry peace and he that puteth not into their mouths they even prepare war against him Therefore night shall be unto you that ye shall not have a vision and it shall be dark unto you that you shall not divine and the Sun shall go down over the Prophets and the day shall be dark over you Then shall the Seers be ashamed and the Diviners confounded yea they shall all cover their lips for there is no answer of God 4. Contempt neglect waxing weary of slothfulness in or falling off from the service of God Mal. 3.14 The people in the Prophet Malachi complain by way of taxing God It is vain to serve God and what profit is it that we have kept his Ordinances and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of Hoasts And wherefore do they thus charge God what was the cause of this obstruction of their prayers If they had looked well about them they might have found it in themselves and in those very services which they complained to be disregarded in as the Prophet before in the first second and third Chapters had made it manifest against them They were grown to despise Gods Name to pollute and account contemptible his Table to offer the blind the lame and the sick for sacrifice to profane the Name of God to esteem his service a weariness and to snuff at it the Levites were departed out of the way they had caused many to stumble at the Law they had corrupted the Covenant of Levi Iudah had profaned the holiness of the Lord which he loved from the days of their fathers they were gone astray from Gods Ordinances and had not kept them they had robbed God namely in tythes and offerings No marvel their devotions proved so vain and unprofitable to themselves when they were so vile and curtalled as they were done unto God they had no worse then they brought When the Spouse in Solomons Song gave her self to sluggishness Cant. 5.3 6. and would not arise from her bed when she was called up by her Beloved this moved him to withdraw from her door and to absent himself from her when after she would have entertained him and missing sought him The set time for God to favor Sion in regarding the prayer of the destitute Psal 102. and in hearing the groaning of the prisoner is when his servants take pleasure in her stones and favor the dust thereof that is as I understand when the sight and face of Gods house and service is amiable to them and the very dust the humblest and meanest part of it is delightsom 5. Loathing of refusing to harken and disobedience to the Word of God Solomon saith He that turneth away his ear from hearing the Law Prov. 28 9 Chap. 1.24 28 29 30. even his prayer shall be an abomination And Because I have called and ye re-refused I have stretched out mine hand and no man regarded c. Then shall they call upon me but I will not answer they shall seek me early but they shall not find me c. See the verifying of this in Zech. 7.11 12 13. What congruity is there that men should look to be heard of God when they will not harken to him Upon these terms is audience promised by our Saviour to his servants Joh. 15.7 If ye abide in me and my words abide in you ye shall ask what you will and it shall be done unto you 6. Carnal security or putting confidence in a temporal portion as in wealth successes or advancements This sin was Davids cloud In my prosperity I said I shall never be moved Lord Psa 30.6 7 by thy favour thou hast made my mountain to stand strong Thou didst hide thy face and I was troubled 2. The next rank of sins is of those against the second Table In it as causes of this effect are 1. Blood-guiltiness When you spread
forth your hands Isai 1 15 I will hide mine eyes from you yea when you make many prayers I will not hear your hands are full of blood See also for this Isai 59.2 3. Isai 58 3 6. 2. Oppression injustice and violence Wherefore have we fasted say they and thou hearest not c. Is not this the Fast that I have chosen to loose the bands of wickedness to undo the heavy burdens and to let the oppressed go free and that ye break every yoke They have filled the Land with violence c. Ezek. 8.17 18 therefore though they cry in mine ears with a loud voyce yet I will not hear them You may read also Isai 59.2 4 7. And for Magistratical and Martial Injustice take that of Micah Hear I pray you O Heads of Jacob and ye Princes of the House of Israel Mic. 3.1 c. Is it not for you to know Judgment who hate the good and love the evil who pluck off their skin from off them and their flesh from off their bones who also eat the flesh of my people and stay their skin from off them and they break their bones and chop them in pieces as for the pot and as flesh within the cauldron Then shall they cry unto the Lord but he will not hear them he will even hide his face from them at that time Let men of this quality and crime look to it As they have their time to act their mischiefs and cruelties and may proceed from one degree of violence to another until they have even made meat of their inferiors so God hath his time of deserting them and of refusing to hear their cry 3. Unmercifulness Prov. 21.13 or uncharitableness to the poor and afflicted Who so stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor he also shall cry himself but shall not be heard The people of Judah making complaint of God to himself Isai 58.3 6 7 Wherefore have we fasted and thou seest not c. The Lord discovers to them the causes to wit the defaults of their Fasts Is not this the fast that I have chosen c. Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house when thou seest the naked that thou cover him and that thou hide not thy self from thine own flesh Cornelius the Centurion Act. 10.2 4 31 as he prayed to God alway so he gave much alms to the people and we may take notice as alms and prayers and that in answerable proportion praying alway and much alms were joyned together in his practice so they were by God in his acceptance of him So the Angel told him Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God On the contrary if we forget to shew mercy to men together with our prayer to God we may look that God may forget and withhold his mercy from our prayers 4. Covetousness This was one of Judahs sins and of the bolts that kept out their prayers from God Isa 1.57.17 For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth and smote him I hid me and was wroth c. A greedy desire to and over-fast holding of earthly things as it hinders our desires and affections from ascending upwards to Heaven so it stops on prayers from coming downwards from thence in answer to us Matt. 6 23 Dr Hammond prac Catec This is that evil eye which in our Saviours sentence makes the whole body full of darkness and that great darkness and the darkness in that place means a privation of the sight of those treasures and benefits that are layd up in and come down from Heaven 5. Pride Elihu in Job tells us There they cry but none giveth answer Job 35.12 13 because of the pride of evil men Surely God will not hear vanity neither will the Almighty regard it Pride is vanity or a lye by it we either foolishly assume to our selves what we have not or impiously ascribe to our selves what we have and deny our dependance on or beholdingness to God And it is but suitable that if we take to our selves that excellency which we have not we should go without that which we would obtain and if we deny God the glory of what we have received and with it be lifted up in our selves he may well cut us short of what we ask and would receive of him Agur entreated God not to give him riches last being full Pro. 30.8 9 he should deny God A proud man is too full in himself to be fit to receive any thing at the hands of God and it is far better even for us that God should deny us in some of our prayers then that we should deny him in his benefits David saith The Lord respecteth the lowly Psa 138.6 but the proud be knoweth afar off and Peter 1 Pet. 5.5 that God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble The Apostle Paul was in danger of being exalted above measure through the abundance of revelations and therefore when for the prevention thereof there was given to him a thorn in the flesh the messenger of Satan to buffet him and for that thing he besought the Lord thrice 2 Cor. 12 7 c. that it might depart from him He was not instantly heard as to the removal of that evil the same end in all probability that brought it to wit the cure of pride continued it upon him and prevented his prayers from that way taking effect lest the plaister being taken off the sore might gather and swell again 3. The third rank of sins are those that may be in or about prayer it self these are many The most remarkable may be these 1. Praying without a sight and discovery of the sins that lie against us The Lord saith I will go and return unto my place till they acknowledg their offence and seek my face With seeking of the face of God there must go along a finding out and owning of our sin and in particular our offence that is the special sin we are most guilty in and most stands up against us before God We are all readier to see our wants then our sins like Malefactors before a Judg apter to petition for a release then to confess our faults Ioshua and the Elders of Israel lay upon their faces and prayed before God upon their discomfiture as Ai but they were not aware of Israels sin in the accursed thing the Lord therefore bids them get themselves up 1 Kin. 8.38 and go hunt out that Solomons request was that God would hear what prayer and supplication soever be made by any man or by all his people Israel which shall know every man the plague of his own heart Sin is the plague of the heart this plague must be known that prayer may be heard and every man must know the proper plague or sin of his own
heart this is a pestilence that too often walketh in darkness as to mens taking notice of it 2. Unhumbledness of heart There is to be in all especially in our solemn and extraordinary prayers an humbled Spirit in regard of needs judgments and sins So the Lords promise upon Solomons prayer runs 2 Chro. 7 14 If my people which are called by my Name shall humble themselves and pray c. and so it was before to Moses If then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity c. The want of this affectedness of heart was one cause that though the people of Iudah sought God dayly and fasted and afflicted their Souls by bodily interdiction yet the wrath of God would not be averted They bowed down the head as a bulrush Isa 58.3 5 and spred sackcloth and ashes under them but they still found pleasure in sin 3. Hypocrisie word or lip-devotion without the power of piety to wit the true love and fear of God and seeking after him in the heart Of the Hypocrite Iob saith Job 27.9 Will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him Solomons prayer which seems to be the square both according to which we should pray and God will accept and hear was 2 Chro. 6 30 and render unto every man according unto all his ways whose heart thou knowest The thing intimated hereby as I conceive is this Men that pray shall have a return from God not meerly according to their present form of prayer but according to the universal course of their lives If their prayer be for its composure good and their ways be good too they may expect from God a good answer but though that be good if they be peccant in these they can look for no good answer and the reason here may be for that God looketh at and for the heart and the integrity of it and there is not any such true character or picture of a mans heart as is the general course and frame of his ways it and these do exactly answer each other as do the signet and the impression 4. The proposing of indirect by and unworthy ends in prayer The Apostle saith Ye ask and receive not because you ask amiss that you may consume it upon your lusts Jam. 4.3 It is intolerable that holy and godly desires for the matter of them should travel to and traffique with Heaven to serve and bring in provisions for sensual or vile lusts The Lord taxeth it upon Israel that they cryed not unto him when they howled upon their beds Hos 7.14 they assembled themselves for corn and wine their end was not God it seems but their own belly It was an hainous crime for any man of Israel to make a perfume like to that which was holy Exo. 30.37 38 and compounded for the incense of the Sanctuary or to turn it to a civil and private use as for himself to smell to this was to be punished with cutting off from his people Accordingly it must needs be very displeasing unto God for a man to convert the sacred incense of prayer from its own proper and religious end to any carnal or sinful purpose or design 5. A contentious quarrelous or malicious heart in prayer Our blessed Saviour thus instructs us for prayer And when you stand praying Mark 11.25 forgive if you have ought against any that your Father also which is in Heaven may forgive you your trespasses but if you do not forgive neither will your Father which is in Heaven forgive your trespasses A Rule to be well taken notice of at all times especially in these warring and jarring times wherein there is not only party against party in more divisions then can be mustered up but even prayer against prayer and if withall there should be strife and rancor within and so heart against heart as alass how hard is it to be avoyded who can hope it is any better among many This default would be enough it self alone both to keep back their prayers from them and to bind on their sins upon them As two persons cannot walk together except they be agreed so neither can their prayers ascend up to Heaven together except they be agreed the one at least and if both be from a strife-enflamed Censer what ever the matter be both must needs be shut out The Apostle wills That men pray every where lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting 1 Tim. 2.8 or without wrath and disceptation and so both terms may exclude debate in devotion When Israel went to war in their Land against the enemy that oppressed them the Priests were to blow an alarm against the enemy with both the Trumpets of the Sanctuary Num. 10 9 and then they should be remembred before the Lord their God and be saved from their Enemies But what might be expected if they should sound Trumpet against Trumpet and Priest against Priest 6. Infidelity or weakness of Faith or trust in God The Apostle James requires us to ask in Faith nothing wavering for let not that man that wavereth think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. Jam 1.6 7 Mr Medes Diatr part 2. p. 297 This wavering saith one is when we reel from God to rest upon second means It is a hard matter to use friends wisdom or strength and not to relie upon them and it is as hard to go to God in prayer and sincerely and stedfastly to trust in him It is wont to be said we must use the means but trust in God but the usual practise is to invert that and to use prayer use God but trust in the means Our Saviour saith that God will avenge his own Elect which cry day and night to him though he bear long with them Lu. 18 7 8 he will avenge them speedily nevertheless when the Son of man cometh shall he find Faith on the Earth How is this Can it be long and yet speedy We must take it in divers respects or in relation to divers persons It is long in the account and sense of them that pray but it is speedy to the wicked that are the subjects of that avenging It is long because God waits for strength of faith as well as assiduity of cries in his Elect it is speedy because God is quicker in coming on in his work then they are in their advance of faith Though he bear long yet he comes sooner then their faith is ready for when he cometh he shall scarce find faith in the Earth 7. A continuance of sin in heart and life If I regard iniquity in my heart Psa 66.18 the Lord will not hear me saith David And the Lord tells Israel Lev. 26 27 31 If ye will not for all this harken unto me but walk contrary unto me I will bring your Sanctuaries unto desolation and I will not smell the savor of your sweet
sins that are before the face of God and set in the light of his countenance as a vail of separation shutting out our prayers from him we put behind our backs or with Achan hide in the bottom of our Tent and some of them are justified and entitled to divine approbation and patronage Evil is called good and darkness light Isai 5.20 and bitter sweet We pray yet the heart is unhumbled All the weight of sins the woes of wrath and judgment the want of our desires and prayers break not the heart After the threefold captivity of Judah by the Babylonian Jer. 44.10 the Lord complains of those that were left They are not humbled even to this day After the treble Civil War which this Land within these few years hath been enflamed with it is in like manner with us We are not humbled even to this day nay we are more unhumbled and hardened at this day then at the first We pray but our devotion is formal and remiss We have prayed and fasted as we think long but how so long indeed that we appear tired out with it The longer we have continued the fainter and colder we have been about it until at last we have given it over in regard of constancy in publique and that pretendingly upon this very ground of weariness and formality as if that were a just reason to desist which is our sin and as if discontinuance were not as great a sin or greater and as much or more impedimental of prayer as remissness and formality and as if constancy and assiduity in prayer were the cause per se and justly chargeable with that slackness or the regular way to cure the ill habit and bad consequents of Customariness in a necessary duty were disuse Job 17.10 Job saith Will the Hypocrite always call upon God We say constancy in fasting and prayer is the breeder of Hypocrisie and unconstancy the remedy We pray but it may be feared we seek our selves in it and not God our ends are carnal and not spiritual James 4 3 Hos 7.14 we ask for our lusts not for our Souls we assemble for corn and wine not for the glory and service of God If our ayms in prayer may be judged by our other endevors we minde not the Kingdom of God or the advancement of Religion in the first or in any place for what do we act for them Our own wills our own interests our own quarrels are the attractive of our eyes We look at our own things and it is well if not with Jezebel in her Fast at Naboths Vineyard We pray but is it in mutual charity and forgiveness or in contention and strife We pray in relation one to another but is it for or against one another If irremission of quarrels and wrongs do lock up the gates of Heaven against prayers who can wonder that the prayers of England stand without doors Here are contentions numberless endless irreligious unpolitique irrational bloody fundamental and ruining and without all doubt as the subjects of these contentions are the subject of mens prayers so the affections that stir up and carry on those quarrels do move and act in their prayers There is scarce any union or agreement among us in any thing positive that which is betwixt any party seems rather to consist in a joynt-differing from and opposing others which is the union of Hell then in a conjunction or concuâ—rence in any positive truth or practice and though some mens judgments and ends do meet in some things yet the variance that is betwixt them in other things or the quarrel they are together engaged in against a third party deprives them of or disturbeth that sweet union and complacency which they should have in their concurrent practice and fruition of that wherein they agree Well it is Isai 58.4 if men do not now fast for strife and debate and to smite with the fist of wickedness For my part I will here deal plainly I admire that the subject of publique Fasts should constantly be matter of civil interest and such things as they that do most attend fasting and prayer do mainly differ in and that the not publishing of those Fasts should be matter of snare and penalty to Ministers and they that will not come publickly to hear the Word to worship or call upon God either on those or the Lords own days should be left free And is it now come to this That whereas ere-while coercive proceedings might be only in civil matters and in things of conscience as they speak or of Religion there might be no compulsion now what man commands in point of Religion the indicting or proclaiming of a Fast to be kept on such a day may be under a pain but what God himself commands to wit the actions themselves of fasting prayer preaching and hearing must be arbitrary * If it be said the publication of a fast is no act of Religion but a civil action only introductory thereto it is of the same nature with that of a mans travelling from his home unto the publique Assembly and his placing himself and continuing there during the publique worship these actions are but introductory to performances why may not then these be commanded under a pain as well as that or both be left free We pray but we reform not The gap lies down the hedg lies open betwixt divine wrath and us while we continue irreformed Prayers and tears alone will never make up that breach It is to trust in lying words for men to enter in at the gates of the Lords house Jer. 7.2 c. there to worship sacrifice fast and pray and to say The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord without through amendment of their ways and doings It is to make God a Patron of Thieves Murderers Adulterers Perjurers and Idolaters and his House a den of such Reformation beginneth at the House of God so hath it been proceeded in by all the eminent and exemplary Reformers that ever have been Our Saviour Christ whose coming and publishing the Gospel was the time of Reformation the first thing we find enterprised by him at his first entrance into Jerusalem Heb. 9.10 Joh. 2.14 c. was his driving out of the Temple with a scourge the Profaners of it and purging his Fathers house Let persons in Authority suffer in the house of God emptiness separation disorder error and profanation and it shall be bootless for them to set upon life-reformation in so proceeding as they are preposterous in the undertaking so they will prove unprosperous in the effecting of a Reformation The Lord saith to Israel Hos 4.13 14 because they went a whoring from their God by Irreligion and Idolatry Therefore your daughters shall commit whoredom and your spouses shall commit adultery I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom nor your spouses when they commit adultery * I
against and strike at in his present proceedings among us This is very evident to him that will see Whilest people of all degrees are busie with head and hand by policy and power or industry to raise and secure their Interest in the world so that Religion Truth Right and publique Peace are nothing regarded in comparison of it the Lord seems even to set himself against them and to cross thwart and curse them in that their beloved concernment What is become of those secular Prerogatives and Priviledges of the which superior persons have been so much more jealous and tender then of the weightier things of their charge particularly the honour of God the safety and lustre of his Truth and the purity and order of his House What satisfaction or success have others had in all their private labours cares and ploddings for the world The sollicitude and turmoyl of most hath proved to be vain and voyd yea to their loss and going backward so that we may say with the Prophet Behold is it not of the Lord of Hosts that the people shall labour in the very fire and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity Hab. 2.13 Have not we experience of this Mens wordly endeavors now are as labour in the very fire wherein the laborers have pain in stead of profit and their work consumes as fast as they make it Verily the toyl adventures and strivings of the most in these days for their earthly respects comes to the same reckoning with theirs in Haggai Hag. 1.6 Ye have sown much and bring in little c. all endeavors prove unhappy and abortive and it is from the same agent and for the same cause that then it was so I did blow upon it Why saith the Lord of Hosts because of mine house that is waste Verse 9. and ye turn every man to his own house Never were people more intent and desirous to grow high great and rich in the world then of late have been and now are the men of this generation and how remarkably even to almost every mans conviction doth God appear against them unto their debasement and impoverishment by Wars and distractions at home and abroad by Land and Sea The Lord by his ways may be conceived to have passed a peremptory sentence of us as in the words of the Prophet Yea they shall not be planted yea they shall not be sown yea their stock shall not take root in the Earth Isai 40.34 and he shall also blow upon them and they shall wither and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble q. d. Men would fain take root in the Earth they assay to sow to plant they attempt all ways of thriving in the ground but all in vain God is against them in it he says it thrice over they shall not they shall not they shall not which may respect those three ways of disappointment Either he prevents them in the beginning they shall not be planted they shall not be sown he denies them materials wherewith or soyl wherein to set up their husbandry Or he crosseth their progress their stock shall not take root in the Earth either the storms from without shake it or some vermin at the root some secret curse of God deads it that the stock of wealth parts or friends with which they set up rots and consumes in the Earth Or he blasteth them before the harvest they shall wither and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble all their gay hopeful and promising flourishes do in a short while ere the years end miscarry if they can stand out ordinary storms which nip others the Lord himself will blow upon them with his mighty whirlwind and that turns their fruit into dryed stubble In the midst of the falls and miscarriages of the most some it may be gather and go away with great spoils of wealth honour and advancement but what quiet or comfort have they withall what blessing either from God or man attends them Do we not see the Lord sending among the fat ones leanness and kindling under their glory a burning Isa 10.16 33. Do we not see the Lord lopping the bough with terror and the high ones of stature are hewn down We see one War Combustion and Change coming after another in which the greatest do take their turns both in ascending and coming down There is a War now on foot threatening sad things in many respects and particularly in this of mens worldly interest if it go on as it must needs wear and waste the Community in Blood and Treasure by Slaughter Impositions and loss of Trade so it may abate and shrink the strongest Power the highest arm of flesh the deepest Treasury Methinks the Lord bespeaks our Mammonists and Matchiavels less and greater now as he did them of Judah or Israel by Isaiah Isai 10 3. And what will ye do in the day of visitation and in the desolation which shall come from far To whom will ye flee for help and where will ye leave your glory c. 4. Let the Consciences of men speak Do we not generally acknowledg this to be the reigning sin of the times Do we not universally note and complain of it We take not the charge of every one home to himself yet we cry out of it in one another and as the sin of the age The Country charge the Soldiery with it the Soldiery lay it upon them of higher place and office Clients and Suiters complain of it in Courts and Judicatories and they again retort it The Ministers reprove it in the people and some of the people cast it upon their Ministers None own it in themselves but every one asperseth his neighbor with it I shall not here say where it lies more then otherwhere or endeavor the excuse of any but thus it is evident by every mans confession that it is the Nations regnant sin 6. To conclude This is a sin which the evil under present consideration the Lords hiding from prayers reflecteth on by way of proportion This evil is a suitable retaliation to that fault In having recourse to God by prayer we make profession to place our Interest in Heaven but if under that profession our hearts our dependencies be nevertheless upon the Earth it is but suitable that God should put us back and our interest in Heaven desert us in our recourse to it In so doing God doth but say to us as he did once of Israel Where are their gods Deut. 32.37 38. See Judg. 10.14 their rock in whom they trusted which did eat the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink-offerings let them rise up and help you now and be your protection If our ambition and aim be to be great and potent in this world we must think to be but weak in Heaven If we will court the world we must expect but cold entertainment with God If we make the world
confident of the goodness of their way Ephraim saith I am become rich I have found me out substance in all my labors they shall find none iniquity that were sin Hos 12.8 As some deceive themselves in thinking they pray wâ—ll or aright for matter therefore they shall speed so others delude themselves in arguing they speed well therefore they do pray well Cambden hath observed of the Wilde Irish as was once before said that when they go to rob they pour out their prayers to God Cambdens Britannia of Ireland page 144 that they may meet with a booty and they suppose a cheat or booty is sent unto them from God as his gift neither are they perswaded that either violence or rapine or man-slaughter displeaseth God for in no wise would he present unto them the opportunity if it were a sin nay a sin it were if they did not lay hold on the said opportunity 4. They take occasion thereby to go on the more securely and presumptuously in their sinful course The Jews in Egypt peremptorily determine to go on in their Idolatry in direct contradiction to the Prophets forewarning them from it in the Name of the Lord and they take their boldness from hence Because when they were at home and burned Incense there to the Queen of Heaven Jer. 44.16 17 they had plenty of victuals and were well and saw no evil Job Job 12.6 observes also They that provoke God are secure into whose hands God bringeth abundantly 2. As their success in prayer proves their temptation to sin so it becomes their precipice to cast them head-long upon their ruine Those wicked men in Jeremiah Jer. 12.1 2 3 who have God neer in their mouth but far from their reins and in that posture go on prosperously in their way their happiness is but their preparation or fat pasture to fit them for the day of slaughter Solomon saith The prosperity of fools shall destroy them Prov. 1.32 This was made memorably good in Israel who in the wilderness tempting God by asking meat for their lusts Numb 11 33 Psa 78.18 c. when God gave them their own desires by sending them quails and they did eat and were filled with them while the meat was yet in their mouths the wrath of God fell upon them in a very great plague 2. There are Reasons of it in relation to the people of God whose prayers are supposed thereby to be crossed 1. It may be for their sins It is not the vertue or value of those prayers but the vileness of the sins of Gods people which makes way for or lifts up those prayers to Heaven They are the same sins on the part of Gods people which stop their prayers and promote the prayers of their opposites Their Transgressions do at the same time bring them down very low Deut. 28.43 44 and lift up the stranger that is among them very high above them they make them the tail and these the head They move God to cast off and abhor and be wroth with them Psa 89.38 42 and to set up the right hand of their adversaries 2. It may be to accomplâ—sh those ends which the Lord aimeth at also in his hiding from their prayers Their not speeding in their own and their beholding the success of the contrary prayers may work together for the ripening of the same ends Emulation at their corrivals may be a notable spur together with their own disappointment to forward them in the attainment of those ayms 3. One end it may be more especially for in relation to them to wit for their probation or tryal The Prophet saith looking upon the wicked mans happiness in his hypocritical devotion Thou Jer. 12.3 O Lord hast tryed mine heart towards thee Possibly he might mean that very spectacle was his tryal What Moses forewarneth the people of God of in reference to false Prophecy may be methinks fitly applyed to false Devotion If a Prophet or a Dreamer give thee a sign or a wonder when he saith Let us go after other gods c. and the sign or the wonder come to pass Thou shalt not harken to that Prophet or Dreamer Deut. 13.1 c. for the Lord your God proveth you to know whâ—ther you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your Soul In like manner in our case If any do for a pretence or the promotion of a bad purpose call upon God and the prayer come to pass we must take it to be a tryal from God whether our love and loyalty be sound or no And indeed it is a notable and strong tryal when the cloke of Piety and the course of Divine Providence in prospering the Tabernacles of Robbers do Job 12 6 like the hot Sun upon Jonahs head cast their bright beams upon our faces The servants of God who are cordially godly are apt to be taken with a form of godliness in others and being given both to prayer and to the eying of Providence they are much afflicted with the cross or happy success of the one and proceeding of the other Where therefore they observe a course of Prayer and an instance or sâ—ries of Providence going together and the cause or way on which they attend to be contradictory in their view both to the rule of Scripture and their own prayers grounded thereon there they are very hard put to to keep stedfast whilest on the one hand they are bottomed upon the sure Word of holy Writ on the other they are encountred with the goodly rays of the most just and wise disposal of God and the serious devotions of men But this is no greater a tryal then is that in the case of Prophecy above cited and therefore as Moses saith upon it Thou shalt not harken to the words of that Prophet or that Dreamer of Dreams Verse 2 so must we resolve in this and the ground we must stand upon and stick unto is that which Moses there delivers them by way of Antidote against that temptation Ye shal walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his CoÌ„mandments Verse 4 and obey his voyce Where the voyce of God in his Word and Commandments is given as the rule to guide and the weight to preponderate or sway the judgment in a question wherein the Providence of God in the coming to pass of a sign or wonder in favor of a way cross to that of Gods commandment is produced I know this is a tryal which may move the servants of God but it must not remove them It doth happily shake them when as they have not only the doubts and despondencies of their own delay or disappointment in prayer to conflict with but the upbraidings and insultings of their successful opposites and their own vexations and murmurings thereby stirred up to wrestle with and vanquish but though it shake it must not cast them down They
and argue us of hypocrisie 1 Sam. 12.23 Isai 64.7 Gal. 6.9 Nisi ad sit in oratione perseverandi constantia nihil orando agimus Calv. Instit l. 3. c. 20. s 52. Job 27.10 5. One special end of Gods deferring our prayers is to train us on to seek him more diligently Hos 5.15 6. Lastly How hath God been over-intreated by incessancy in prayer as by Jacob distressed at his brother Esaus approach Gen. 32.26 by Moses for Israel Deut. 9.18 19. by Israel under the Ammonitish bondage Judg. 10.16 and by the Church of God in Peters behalf Act. 12.5 Learn we then and keep to this Lesson Let us in the Scripture phrase roul our way upon the Lord Psal 37.5 55.22 Prov. 16.3 Though he should seem to turn it back again from him by delaying to accomplish it yet still be rouling or devolving it over to him by ingeminated petitions Let our prayers be poured out unto God as the Church saith her tears shall be without any intermission till the Lord look down and behold from Heaven Lam. 3.49 c. 3. Beleeve what you see not to wit the presâ—nt acceptance and future return in some or other yea the bâ—st way of your prayers framed accordiâ—g to the Will of God As we must pour out our hearts before God so must we trust in him at all times Psal 62.8 and in particular trust in him for the prayers which we pour out before him From whence had David that lively confidence of the Lords audience of him and the prediscovery of the issue of his prayers so clear as if he saw them already performed before his eyes the which he often professeth even under or together with his most bitter complaints of the Lords hiding himself from him as Psal 6.8 9. 13.5 6. 22.24 43.5 54.7 Had he it from any peculiar or extraordinary revelation or by vertue of the promise of God in his Word layd hold on faith I suppose it might be by the latter way only But by whethersoever it was I see no reason why the vigor of a Christians faith may not without the former extraordinary means attain to the same assurance and triumph which he arrived at For whether it was upon special revelation or upon the written Word that David was so bottomed it was still but by force of a divine word or promise the difference 'twixt those two lies but in the manner of receiving The promise which all Beleevers have in the written Word for the success of their prayers is as firm and certain as that which David built on could possibly be The Lord telleth all his people Isai 45.18 19. in substance thus much He is the Lord that created the Heavens that formed and made the Earth and established it And as he created it not in vain but to be inhabited so he hath not commanded the seed of Iacob to seek him in vain As sure as he made the Earth to be inhabited so sure he hath ordered his people to pray that he may perform and they may possess their prayers What can be a surer testimony to the validity of any thing then that asseveration of our Saviour is for the validity of prayer Luke 18 7.8 Shall not God avenge his own Elect which cry day and night unto him I tell you that he will avenge them speedily I tell you If Christ tell us so in his Gospel it is as sure as if the Spirit told us so by his inspiration to us Can there be a firmer bond to ascertain us then is that tye which we find betwixt the spirit of prayer poured out Zech. 12.10 and the hearing and answer of prayer Chap. 13.9 And from this we may assuredly conclude God hath not in these days poured out the spirit of supplications and thereby put his servants on so universally solemnly and earnestly to pray yea and to enter into such vows and covenants but it is for a great and gracious end at least to themselves in which he will specially manifest himself to be their God and they to be his people Prayers and tears have been accounted the Churches weapons and doubtless what is said of the bow of Ionathan 2 Sam. 1.12 and the sword of Saul that they never returned empty the same shall be made good of those arms of the Church And as the assurance that is given to prayer in general is so stable so is that which is given in special to the prayers of the deserted The needy shall not alway be forgotten The expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever The Lord will not cast off for ever but Psal 9.18 Lam. 3.31 32 Psa 102.17 Zech. 10 6. though he cause grief yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies He will regard the prayer of the destitute and not despise their prayer I will be as though I had not cast them off for I am the Lord their God and will hear them To perswade us further to exercise faith in this behalf 1. Consider God hears and sometimes the petitioner doth not discern it For this take that of Elihu Job 35.14 Although thou sayst thou shalt not see him yet judgment is before him Mat. 21.22 therefore trust in him 2. The promise of audience takes in faith as a condition or requisite 3. The special use of faith is to settle the heart in beleeving and hoping things unseen Heb. 11.1 Rom. 4.18 19 yea and what is cross to present and visible things and in particular things of that nature in return or answer to prayer This is the confidence that we have in him 1 Joh. 5.14 15 that if we ask any thing according to his Will he heareth us c. This is the confidence we may understand it either that this is the matter of the confidence or this is the office or use of our confidence or faith to wit to beleeve and know the success of our prayer though we sensibly find it not 4. This exercise of faith will enable us to wait patiently and regularly Isai 28.16 He that beleeveth shall not make haste 5. Such a faith will be a token or pledg unto the petitioner of a happy issue of his prayer and desertion But I have trusted in thy mercy my heart shall rejoyce in thy Salvation Psal 13.5 6. Lastly All the interpositions improbabilities difficulties or oppositions which come betwixt us and our prayers by reason whereof we apprehend God hidden from us and our prayers hindered do not make the least distance obscurity pawse or impediment to the real presence or working of God to us or for our help * Ps 73.23 Zech. 8.6 4. Be content to stay Gods time for the issuing of your prayers wait upon God with constancy and patience So the Prophet Isai 8.17 I will wait upon the Lord that hideth his face from the house of Jacob and will look
we have it These are our scarlet crimson sins which we have to be removed as the causes of the putting back or suspense of our prayers and which are therefore to be throughly repented of and purged away that our prayers may take effect And let me perswade to and prevail in it in the words of Jotham Hearken unto me Judg. 9.7 that God may hearken unto you 2. The second thing to be applied by way of remedy is Let the people of God diligently follow on to the attaining of those ends for the effecting whereof in them the Lord for present hideth himself from them in this kind those ends have been laid down before the hastning on of them is the way to speed the issue of our prayers To instance in and press to some of them in a few words 1. Be constant in prayer hold out in it unto the end yea do not only hold on but mend and quicken your pace therein Add more fuel to increase the flame of your devotions pray more ardently Let your progress in prayer be like the natural motion of a body to its center or proper place the longer still the more swift and vigorous Doth God hide himselfe that you may seek his face then seek the Lord and his strength 〈◊〉 â—05 4 seek his face evermore and so seek that you may find him Certainly prayer is the Key of Heaven if then through unexpertness in the use of it you cannot get the door open presently cast not therefore the key out of your hand but turn and try it again and again until it be open Undoubtedly prayer is the way to find the face of God though it be hid leave not then slack not in the way because it is long lose not the end for lack of holding out It was the sin of Saul upon which immediately followed his ruine that when in his sore distress by the Philistins war he enquired of the Lord and got not an answer from him presently he left off enquiring of God and sought to a woman that had a familiar Spirit 1 Chro. 10 13 14 for this the Text saith the Lord slew him and turned the Kingdom unto David yea in this regard it saith he enquireth not of the Lord His once enquiring was void and stood for nothing and was no more then if he never had done it because he continued not enquiring until he hâ—d answer but through a distrustful and impatient fear ran from God to the Witch 2. Labour for an humbled heart a mourning Spirit both for sins and for prayers succeslesness The want of this hath been our great defect under our late sufferings and seekings to God It was noted of those Jews who remained after the destruction or the Temple City and Land by Nebuchadnezzar that they were not humbled even unto that day Jer. 44.10 they enquired of God by the Prophet Jeremiah Cap. 42.3 to shew them the way wherein they might walk and the thing that they might do but they were still unhumbled they had seen and felt a great deal of the wrath of God upon them for their sins but yet they were not humbled to that day And this is our very state we have sought unto God for his conduct in our Affairs his hand hath been out against and upon us many wayes for our sins but for all that we remain unhumbled But it will not so be most surely now we have had so much to do with God and he with us humbled we must be never did any person or people come off or part with him stoutly Levit. 10.3 he will be sanctified in them that come nigh him God will have us down and lay us low either in Spirit or in worldly state either inwardly or outwardly either to repentance or to ruine and if that will not be without this we shall be humbled both wayes if ever and ere ever God do raise us up Remember what the Lord saith to his people in the Prophet when he had hid his face from them Isai 54.6 The Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit and a wife of youth when thou wast refused If we be as forsaken and refused of God it behoves us to be of a grieved Spirit and so we must be ere the Lord call us or look again upon us He reviveth the spirit of the humble and the heart of the contrite ones Isai 57.15.49.13 Mat. 5.4 He will have mercy upon his afflicted He is nigh to them that are of a broken heart and saveth such at be of a contrite spirit They that mourn shall be comforted They that sow in tears shall reap in joy 3. Be sure to bide out the present tryal and exercise of the grace of God in you that is of your faith patience love and obedience Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in Christ under the tryal Mat. 11.6.24 13. He that shall endure unto the end the same shall be saved It was a desperate course in Saul and the forerunning passage of his ruine that whereas he had before-time rooted out those that had familiar spirits and wizards out of the Land 1 Sam. 28.3 7. being in his extremity he sought to one of them It would be a dangerous practise for any now to fly or turn to that sinful way for help in their strait which in a freer and calmer condition they justly abandoned and opposed 4. Look we after not only the end of our prayers but our fitting and preparation for that end Chap. 4. Sect. 6. The parts of this preparation have been opened already out of Zech. 12. 13. and Zeph. 3. Three of them you may remember were sanctity brotherly-unity and simplicity or truth in our dealings with God and man For sanctity The pure in heart are they that shall see God Mat. 5.8 When the Lord will work such a Salvation for his people as that all the ends of the Earth shall see it he will have his people to depart Isai 52.10 11 and go out thence from Babylon and touch no unclean thing and be themselves clean For brothâ—rly union and pâ—ace When the Earth shall be full of the knowledg of the Lord as the waters cover the Sea God will make a compliance and harmony betwixt the Wolf and the Lamb the Leopard and the Kid Isai 11 6 c. the Calf and the young Lion Vers 13. the Cow and the Bear the Lion and the Ox the sucking Child and the Asp and Cockatrice their antipethies shall cease that is as it is quickly after explained the envy of Ephraim shall depart Ephraim shall not envy Iudah and Iudah shall not vex Ephraim Of Iob Job 42.10 it is said The Lord turned the captivity of Iob when he prayed for his friends It was not while he disputed with but when he prayed for them The first thing as I take it wherein the Lord appeared