passe over all these and this also that all sorts doe know that their Iesuites and Confessours are the chiefe contrivers and abettours of all their chiefe stratagems and that nothing is done without them And albeit wee are nothing to regard words when their deeds according to their Doctrines and Constitutions are apparent to all the world And that although they may delude little children by affirming that these are not their doctrines if any dare still deny it against the witnesse of his owne heart yet men having their braines in their heads can never bee so besotted unlesse they will wilfully joyne hands with them or suffer their eyes utterly to be put out For that which they say That they are not their Doctrines unlesse wee can shew them out of the Councell of Trent or some of their chiefe Councels can any man imagine that the Councels would openly professe them to proclaime to all the world that they and their Religion is of Satan or can wee thinke or imagine that so many of their Iesuites should publish them unto the world unlesse they were the advice of their Popes and indeed their Doctrine But to passe all these things over and to leave them to their further consideration to worke better upon their consciences what can they yet or any other say to their Doctrines which the Holy Ghost cals Lies through hypocrisie devised to devoure us all Such as this here discovered That they have moe holy devotions than we c. And even for all their Doctrines joyntly to leave it to the consciences of all whether all of those wherein they differ from us and for which they so contend bee not Doctrines meerely devised to please the corrupt nature of man to hold up that Hierarchie of the Pope and tyrannie of that Sea of Rome viz. of their Pope Cardinals Abbots and the rest And also for their bellies and that they may keepe all the world in slaverie and to hide their wickednesse And more specially what their Doctrines are concerning Purgatorie Masses Indulgences Pardons even for the time to come Miracles done by this Saint and that and by this Relique and that and concerning their holy Reliques themselves and so all their doctrines of Equivocation mentall Reservation and the like whether they be not all to speake as the thing is notorious lies to keepe the poore people in ignorance in their blinde devotions and slavery to them yea to muzzle them in their murdering zeale against the true Church Which if it be so then the Assumption is most manifest to all the world even to children and almost to sucking babes That Popery teacheth lying and murder or that which tends thereunto viz. to the destroying of all either soules or bodies or both Now for the truth of all these things I appeale first to the Lord Iesus the Iudge of all to iudge betweene us and that I have written according to the perswasion of my heart grounded upon the word of the Lord and upon their writings and dealings 2. I appeale to the sacred Scriptures by which we and they and all our doctrines must be judged 3. To the universall consent of all the true Church of Christ. 4. To every one who professeth the Gospell according to the doctrine of our Church and our good lawes 5. To their owne hearts and consciences I meane of all the learneder and cunninger sort of them and to the consciences of all when they shall be so awaked as to thinke that they are to appeare before Iesus Christ to give an account For particular proofes of these and other disputes I leave them to the Treatises mentioned before and also to the more learned and them who have better leysure It may be sufficient for me to have made them manifest to all who professe Christs Gospell and who judge indifferently and to leave them and their consciences thus convinced unto the Lords Iudgement feaâ—… And now these things being so I appeale againe to their consciences and the consciences of all the world concerning the evidence and necessitie of these Consectaries 1. Whether the Assumption being true that Religion of theirs be not of the Devill by our Saviours owne reason and therefore that all of them must either renounce and even abjure it or else professe themselves to be of Satans Religion to maintaine it and to fight for him against our Lord Iesus Christ and that they will still doe it 2. Whether all sorts are not bound to seeke to save themselves from that lying and murdering Religion and to use all warrantable and holy means both to reclaime all from it to the end to save them both soules and bodies and also to deliver all the Churches and people of the Lord from the danger of being suddenly surprized and murdered thereby and so far as God inables them any way to take away all the dishonour and provocations of his sacred Majestie which may come thereby as by all other such hainous sinnes This I humbly submit to the judgement of all seeing whosoever is not with our Saviour is against him and that whosoever saves not destroyes That the Magistrates and all in authoritie are the keepers of both the Tables each according to his place and for that the bloud of all must be required at the Pastors and Watchmens haâ—…ds according to the charge committed to every one of them if they be not faithfull in their severall places designed to them by the Lord. Wherefore I intreat them and all others seriously to thinke hereof as in the presence of our Lord Iesus Christ before whom I have written in duty to his heavenly maiesty for maintaining his glory and holding up the scepter of our Lord Iesus and in love and duty to all sorts chiefly to all in high place for the saving of all or to leave the obstinate utterly without excuse And thus much also for the proofe of the Assumption and the shutting up of this inclosed Epistle Unto which if this Gentleman or any one for that Honourable Ladie will offer to reply let me but crave this of him whosoever he be which equitie and wisdome will require 1. First to doe it in love and with good advice as in the presence of our Lord Iesus Christ without all shifts or devices against the light of his conscience even as I have endevoured and onely for the finding out and maintaining the truth whereunto God willing I shall ever yeeld if any one in any thing shall rightly shew mee my error and I shall moreover acknowledge my oversight 2. And secondly let me request of him that hee will bethinke himselfe wisely for what he pleades and also for whom whether he doe it not even for Satan and for the upholding of his kingdome by his chiefe workes of lying and murder and also to consider against whom he doth it whether it be not against our Lord Iesus Christ and against all his Saints and
people and withall to thinke how hard it is for him to kicke against the prickes and that against the light shining clearely in his heart And yet more also to ponder wisely what it is to give Satan advantage but by one lie only wilfully maintained and especially such a lie as tends but to the murdering of one soule And how much more then when it is to maintaine the Art of lying devised by and for the devill himselfe to hold up his kingdome and to overthrow the kingdome of Christ and for the deceiving and destroying of innumerable soules even of all bewitched by them and tending to the destroying of all the people of the Lord and the rooting them out of the earth How dreadfull it will be to stand before Christ to give answer but for the bloud of one soule alone when Abels bloud the bloud but even of his body alone cries so loud from the earth and makes Cain such a runnagate all his daies to be in hell whilst he was yet here in the earth yea before hee came into that place of torment designed for him and for all other wicked men and chiefly for all liers and murderers to bee tormented there for ever 4. And finally let mee wish him for his credit if he respect nothing else to answer all these books which I have mentioned as well for the cause of the learned as the vnlearned because they are as it were sent of God to manifest the truth hereof and then I have no doubt but he our most blessed and onely wise God will both reply and answer for us still and so maintaine his owne cause as to put them all to silence at least in the pit which they are digging for us and that for evermore Thus have I through the good hand of my God made way to the satisfying of the holy desires of those worthy Personages which wish so Honourably and Christianly unto you that we may match our chiefe Adversaries in our devotions although we doe already as all may plainly see goe so far beyond them in this kinde and also to the end that you who meane plainly and have not your hearts yet tainted with their bloud-thirstie desires all others may perceive how you have been and are deluded and even inchanted in every one of these respects by which scale all may measure the rest of their lying doctrines and devices And withall I hope that I have made it evident to the consciences of all that all sorts must renounce Popery and embrace the Gospell or else professe themselves to be of their father the Devill and that they will fight against Christ. To try if the Lord may be pleased yet to shew them mercy to come out of the snares of Satan either by the cleere manifestation of these delusions of his or by the praiers and teares of many of his people crying jointly for all to hale and pull them out of Egypt and Sodome for what are not the joint praiers of Gods people able to doe Now these things being so this delusion so laid open and the Assumption so plainly proved and demonstrated to the convincing of everie of your consciences as I am fully perswaded before the Lord give me leave in tender commiseration to turne my speech unto you all who dare still stand out against his Majestie Oh bethinke your selves in time what it is to fight against the light of your owne hearts what will follow the wounded conscience when the Lord shall wake it and call it to an account which hee will certainly doe either in this life or so soone as ever you shall depart hence Remember the cases of Cain Saul Iudas for fighting so desperately against the light and so standing forth against the Lord and his most gracious offer of mercie Oh bethinke your selves in time of his terrible and most glorious Majestie against whom you have so fearefully sinned as to provoke him not onely against your selves but against this whole Nation even against us all for your causes in departing from him and his holy Religion to a Religion of such abominations and so manifestly convicted and declared to be of Satan his sworne enemie Remember the dreadfulnesse of his wrath so declared in the irrevocable punishment of the Angels that so fell from him of Adam the old world Sodome and that which shall be so fearefully revealed when Christ shall come with thousand thousands of glorious Angels in flaming fire to render vengeance to all who know him not and who will not yeeld obedience to his heavenly Gospell and much more to all his obstinate enemies Consider well how your sinne is increased not onely being committed so contrarily to your Baptisme vow but also by all the evictions of the abominations of that idolatrous lying and murdering Religion especially in this Nation since the time of the first casting it forth so publikely by Parlament and even untill this verie day and now last of all by this Discoverie of this forged delusion wherein so many others of yours like unto it are included Thinke what it is not onely to bee barred out of Heaven deprived utterly of all the joyes thereof but moreover to be thrust into hell to abide the torment thereof with Satan and his Angels for ever and ever which must needs come upon you if that Religion of Rome bee such and have such supporters as you have or may see set before your faces If you will not reade this but bee as the deafe adder stopping your eares and in stead of Satan hiding away and blinding your owne eyes yet I hope you have each of you some faithfull friends who beleeving the Gospell and perswaded of your delusions as I am will play the parts of faithfull Physitians true loving friends towards such as are indangered by extreme distempers in burning fevers or the like or in extreme perill of perishing by water or fire or any way else viz. which will make these things knowne unto you urge them upon you for your preservation and recoverie so to declare their uttermost love unto you to the end to convert you and bring you to us againe and to our Lord Iesus Christ and so save you from hell though for the present they adventure your displeasure as I also must Howsoever this shall bee my rejoycing and my witnesse for me before the Lord for my dutie towards his heavenly Majestie and towards his Vice-Gerent our royall Soveraigne of my love and dutie towards this Church and Nation and even you all in this behalfe For which entreating him in his rich mercie to make it effectuall I commit it and you to his Grace which works above all that wee can conceive and shall rest ever striving with you I. B. TO EVERIE TRVE CHRISTIAN Soule rightly taking to heart the estate of Christs poore Churches and dispersed Flocke CHristian Reader if thou take to heart the dishonours done unto our most holy God the
the words of God be fulfilled so that they shall thus fight with the Lambe yet the Lambe shall overcome them for he is Lord of Lords and King of Kings and they that are on his side are called faithfull and chosen And then even those same Kings the remainder of y◠ten hornes which have so long before and some of them do still fight against the Lambe some more furiously others less shall all in the time appointed hate the whore make her desolate and naked and eate her flesh and burne her with fire for that God will put into their hearts thus to fulfill his will And yet more also for our further assurance of this and to provoke our soules to loud and instant crying unto the Lord in this behalfe for the accomplishment hereof wee are to bring our hearts to a ioyfull Meditation and remembrance how our blessed God hath discovered that scarlet-coloured Whore to all the world and more now then ever heretofore both in all this bloody rage against him and against all his poore Churches and Children and their cruell intendments against all the rest even against every soule of us truly professing his name And also how he hath laide her forth to bee visibly beholden of all in all her filthy whoredomes and inticements to wit all those abhominable doctrines devices slanders and blasphemies against him and against his heavenly word and above all in the Powder-treason wherein Sathan shewed himselfe in his cheefest workes both of lying and murther in a speciall manner to all the world and above all former times wherein wee are to hope that Antichrist received his deadly wound which all the power of hell shall never cure againe and that in Gods due time hee will fall downe of a sodaine as a Deere or other like beast deadly smitten when he hath by his owne violence spent himselfe That our Lord Iesus Christ hath clearly foreshewed the destruction of that Whore of Babylon that childe of perdition than man of sin and of all his followers yea of every one that receives his marke on his forehead or in his right hand or that is any way on his side to fight against him That hee hath not onely made all the hoast of heaven even al his holy Angels and Saints both in heaven and earth to reioyce and sing Hallelujah for the condemning of the great Whore the victorie given unto the Saints but also hath made proclamation with a loud voyce by the Angell in the Sunne and this to all the Fowles that fly through the middest of heaven viz. to all the Kings and Princes Captaines and Souldiers that shall fight under his glorious Maiesty and for him That they should come eate the flesh of Kings and of great Captaines and of all mighty men and even of all those both great and small that followed the Beast that is to be enriched with their spoyles That he will destroy every one that hath not his name enrolled in his booke to bee on his side that is every one who is not of his called chosen and faithfull flocke yea every one that doth not so strive to prepare himselfe thus to fight for him and under him so as he may be sure to prevaile and overcome and remaine with him faithfully fighting unto the death untill hee have the crowne of life The ninth particular Meditation of the second generall how our Lord Iesus Christ is that everlasting Amen and comming quickly FInally we are never to rest untill wee have brought our hearts to a comfortable reioycing that our Lord Iesus Christ is that everlasting Amen that faithfull and true witness who will performe every word that hee hath spoken in his due time and in such sort as he hath revealed the same though the particular manner bee yet unknowne to us That hee is comming quickly to render to every one according to his workes That wee are not to give our hearts any rest untill we are able thus to cry in faithfulness with all the Saints and all the hoast of heaven Amen Amen Our Lord Iesus Christ onely reigneth for evermore Amen Amen The third generall Meditation Thirdly what manner of ones we must bee whom the Lord so calleth and whome hee will admit and accept to bee his helpers herein and whose prayers shall be available with him according to the same heavenly direction in Lords praier THus have wee done with these first points for our preparation by bringing our hearts to a right consideration of the course which the Lord is wont to take in saving his Church and a true feeling of the necessity of our prayers at this time Now whēby our due pondering of all these things and the like and never resting untill by our deepe Meditation of them we can have them as it were before our eyes continually so to see lively the urgent necessity of these our Prayers and that we can thereby heare the Lord crying loud unto us to helpe him and his Church herein we are in the next place as carefully to see that we be such as he calleth being qualified in all things accordingly if ever wee will get sound assurance to our owne soules to prevaile or to be accepted And this wee may learne likewise out of our Saviours direction in that heavenly patterne for prayer then which all the wisedome of the world can never give us a more sure and plaine rule To which end also as for all the other before mentioned we ought the more diligently to looke unto it and to Meditate of it and that in this manner The first particular Meditation of the third generall To make sure that wee bee the true children of our heavenly Father Here wee are to stirre up our selves to this dutie 1. That having the former view ever before our faces as much as we are able and this true feeling ever also in our hearts and withall this lively voyce of Christs loving call to helpe him and his Church stil sounding shrill in our eares wee labour day and night to make sure that we be the true Children of our heavenly Father full of Child-like and naturall affections to his heavenly Majesty That wee have thus put on the Image of our Lord Iesus Christ and are hereby as holy Peter speaketh partakers of the divine Nature not earthly but heavenly minded burning in the love of his Majesty of his word ordinances and Children full of faith in Christ Iesus and of all dutie and holy obedience that in all fulnesse of assurance through our Lord Iesus Christ wee can by the power and witnesse of his holy Spirit cry unto him Abba O Father and seeke to bee as instant for all our Bretheren as for our selves labouring ever to grow herein and in the acknowledgment of our owne vilenesse by nature and of our unworthynesse either to bee called his children
Grant to us therefore and to all thy Children these lively evidences of thy favour in our unfeigned repentance and also our effectuall faith increasing daily for Iesus Christ our onely Lord and Saviour IIII. A prayer that wee may not deceive our selves in vayne conceite that we are Gods Children when wee are nothing lesse as the greatest part doe but that wee may come to strong assurance heereof by feeling a totall change in our lives and conversations OH most holy and most gracious Father we intreate yet further of thy divine Majesty that neither we nor any other of thy people and Children may deceive our selves in a vaine counterfeit show and imagination of repentance and faith as the greatest part of those do who living under the sound and in the light of the Gospell doe imagine therefore that they have repentance faith and are well enough when as aalas they have nothing lesse then any part of true sound and unfeigned repentance or any power of a lively faith Grant to this end that neither we nor they may rest untill wee finde in our selves the new-birth begun and increasing daily by a totall change wrought in us since the time that we beleeved in Christ as a speciall fruite thereof and that in every part both of our soules and bodies and also in the whole course of our life and conversation Stirre up all our hearts Oh holy Father to this purpose that wee may never give thee rest untill wee finde this thorow change and alteration both in our mindes and understandings from ignorance and blindnesse to the true knowledge not onely of our selves but also of thy heavenly Majesty and so of thy Sonne Iesus Christ likewise in our memories that instead of remembring vanities we may be able to keepe a holy remembrance of the things which concerne thy glory and our owne salvation with the good of our Brethren Good Lord worke the like change in our wils from following and obeying the will and lusts of our flesh to bee ever pliant and obedient to thy heavenly will Perswade our hearts that we may never give thee over untill wee likewise finde the same change in our affections that therein wee are conformed daily more and more to the holinesse of Christ both in our love hatred our joy our greefe in child-like feare holy security resting onâ—… selves onely in thy love and favour Make us to labour to finde also the same in our Consciences that wee may never give any rest to our soules untill wee finde our consciences quieted in this assurance that we are washed from our sinnes in the blood of our Lord Iesus Christ and that our owne hearts and consciences doe beare a continuall witnesse unto us of our upright conversation at least begun in us with a settled resolution ever to walke with thee our God all our daies Good Father never suffer us to bee at quiet untill wee truely finde the same alteration wrought by thy holy Spirit in like manner in our whole body making every sense and member thereof instead of the service of sinne to become servants of righteousnesse even thine owne servants Lord perswade us all that all these parts being thine Created and Redeemed to these ends thou dost not only require this holinesse in every one of them but that thou likewise workest it effectually in all thine whom thou hast ordained to life and salvation according to that measure of grace which thou arâ—… pleased to bestowe upon every one causing every one of them to strive forwards towards perfection that untill such a change bee begun in us in some measure never any one of us can have any true comfort that wee are thy Children or in thy favour and love and that onely as this change and comformitie to Christ Iesus our head increaseth so doth our comfort likewise increase in thee and contrarily as it decreaseth so doe we decay in our comfort and assurance Hearken unto us therefore Oh tender Father and worke mightily by thy holy Spirit in us in all thy Children that wee may never give thee any rest in our prayers untill wee shall attaine this full assurance for our Lord Iesus Christ his sake our onely Mediator and Advocate V. A prayer that wee may finde in our selves not onely the generall but even all the particular markes of Gods Children namely those which our Saviour hath taught us to beg in his prayer OH Lord who art the only true perswader and seâ—…ler of the hearts and consciences of all thine elect perswade effectually both us and all other thy people that besides a whole change in our selves in all the qualities and faculties of our soules bodies thou hast given sundry peculiar markes and properties whereby thy Children may both certainly know themselves to bee thy Children and also by which they may be so knowne ought so to be esteemed amongst all thy people and that so much the more as they more lively and evidently have these markes upon them And namely good Lord perswade us of those which thou in this praier hast taught all thine to pray and to cry for daily whereby wee carry most lively the Image of our Lord Iesus our elder Brother Vouchsafe that we may bee most zealous of the glory of thee our heavenly Father and that with a holy zeale having the Spirit of burning and the Spirit of judgement joyned together which worldlings regard not being little or nothing at all acquainted with it Grant that wee all may seeke thy kingdome and righteousnesse first before all the things of this life whereas they that are of this world seeke onely or at least in the first place the things of this world Helpe and inable us good Father heerein to these ends that whereas carnall and unregenerate men seeke onely the satisfying of their owne lusts and pleasures and by all meanes to have their owne wils fulfilled little or nothing regarding to know or to do thy heavenly will we contrarily may seeke to know and fulfill the will of thee our heavenly Father as thou hast expressed it in thy holy and sacred word and that this we may make our very meate and drinke preferring it as did our Saviour before his daily foode Vouchsafe us thy holy Spirit that whereas carnall and worldly men are wont commonly for whatsoever they desire onely to use and seeke worldly meanes such as like themselves best whether warrantable from thee or no they make no matter seldome or never using to seeke and beg them as they ought from thy heavenly bounty onely in and by the meanes which thou hast appointed and doe as seldome unfeignedly returne thee thankes prayse when they have received their desires but are like the swine under the Acorne trees never looking up from whence the Mast falls sacrifising unto their nets ascribing all to
knit to that holy and melting harted King Iosiah whose death they so lamented as for the taking away of theyr shelter and even the verie breath of their nostrils Heare us Oh tender Father and let the bowelles of thy fatherly compassion earn over thy deere children in thus inclining the hearts of all unto them to favour and succour them especially those of them who have alreadie suffered so much adversity bene so long humbled under thy hand for thy deere Son our Lord Iesus Christ his sake our onely Mediator and Aduocate Amen VIII A Prayer that we may all bee able to lift uppe our eyes and hearts unto our heavenly Father alone and to look beyond all earthly meanes in all the troubles and perilles of the Churches OH heavenly Father who over ruledst the counsels of Herod Pontius Pilate and all the people of the Iewes and madst them all to serve for bringing to passe thine owne eternall decree for thine owne everlasting praise and the comfort of thine own chosen flocke Lift vppe the eyes and hearts of all thy Children now in this extreme rage and fury which is against us and especially the eyes hearts of all those of us who have endevoured to be faithfull with thee in these sinfull times and to walke humbly before thee as Enocke Noah Abraham Moses and Daniel Grant that wee may looke up to thee onely who though thou art so gloriously exalted in the highest heavens yet lookest upon all the Sonnes of men and seest all the wronges that are done unto thy Children and hearest every of their sighes and groanes writest them in thy booke puttest their teares in thy bottle and in thy due time wilt make this knowne before all the world howsoever the wicked and ungodly thinke not so but have removed thee farre out of their sight Good Father pardon this sinne unto all thy Children that in the daies of our peace we and all thy Churches have amongst other sinnes made flesh our arme withdrawn our hearts from thee the living God we have so much looked at our earthly fathers of all sortes and to earthly meanes as that we have sayd as they did of Iosiah that under the shelter of those great trees we should be safe from all the violent stormes which could be raised vp by Sathan and from all scorching heate of persecution so that in regard of them we have thoght we should never be removed thou Lord hadst of thy goodness by them made vs to stand so strong Lord make us to see how justly for this sinne thou hast taken away these earthly Fathers from some of the Churches weakned them in others and mayest now most justly even for this verie sinne alone so infeeble the armes of all the rest as that they cannot helpe thy Children yea that thou mayest contrarily so turn their hearts agaynst thy deerest Children for it that insteed of helping them they may rather joyne hands against them until such time as we shall see our sinne even in this behalfe amongst all other our heinous transgressions and turne our eyes agayne onely to thee our heavenly Father and cheefe Protector Oh grant unto us that wee may never rest before that time that by our unfeigned repentance for this and all other our sinnes and by our Prayers and teares crying all about thy feete we have caused thee to relent towards us thy bowels of compassion to earne over us in hearing our sighes and cryes and in seeing so many of us so lef◅e unto the hands of all thine our bloody merciless enemies Lord make vs all able to looke up thus to thee and by faith to behold thee sitting in heaven laughing to scorne all the devises of thine enemies guiding there the great wheele and by it ordering turning and over-ruling all these inferiour less wheeles heere below that though they seeme to be carried violently in a contrary motion yet wee may see all of them serve and by thy infinite wisedome and power made to helpe to accomplish thine eternall decree in whatsoever thou hast appointed concern̄ing the gathering in of all the remainder of thine elect both Iewes and Gentiles the comming downe of the new Ierusalem the present and eternall glory of thy Sion with the vtter ruine downfall of Babel the endlesse condemnation and destruction of that Whore of Babylon and of all thine enemies for evermore Lord make us rightly to understand fully to know that as Herod and Ponti◅s Pilate and all the people of the Iewes did not nor could doe any other thing against our eldest Brother thy deere Sonne our onely Lord and Saviour then that which thine owne counsell had determined for his highest advancement at thy right hand for thine owne eternall praise the sending downe of thy holy Spirit in that wonderfull manner the publishing of thine heavenly Gospell the calling of the Gentiles the inlargement of the Church and spreading it over the whole earth so at this present time neither Sathan nor Antichrist Mahomet nor all the mighty and subtilest enemies of the world can doe any other thing against thy Church or Children then that which long before even from before the foundation of the world was laid thou hast ordained and that for the full accomplishment of whatsoever thou hast foretold concerning both thy Church and Children and also concerning thine enemies and for preparing the way to thy glorious appearing Lord helpe us in this that looking over all things heere below wee may not onely stand still to see what thou wilt doe but that we may rejoyce in faith beholding thee thus ordering and disposing all things to these blessed ends and that thou art making all Angels Principalities Powers yea Sathan and all his instruments with all their rage malice might and subtilty in the very extreamest butchering slaughtering of thy Saints to worke together for the effecting heereof that so wee may rejoyce even heerein with joy unspeakable glorious and in this our blessed estate Lord make us to glorifie thee in this confident assurance that though we should be killed all the day long as many of our Brethren thy deere Children lately have bene for thy name sake and as wee are indeed in the designes of thine and our enemies accounted as sheepe for the slaughter yet that in all wee shall ever bee more then Conquerors thorow that blessed one in whom thou hast loved us Yea deere Father make us to triumph in this that whatsoever wee shall or can suffer in the meane time for thy names sake as other our Brethren do at this day and Sathan threatneth us that yet neither tribulation anguish persecution famine nakednesse bonds imprisonment perill or sword can ever seperate us from thy love in Christ Iesus our Lord if once we have the full evidences in our soules that wee are thy
who yet stand by thy mercy to labour to growe dayly in the love of thy truth and in a conscionable obedience to thee in all thy waies watching and praying continually that we may never bee given up with them to these strong delusions but that contrarily by our faith and obedience we may have boldnesse to draw neerer and neerer unto thy holinesse with that thy faithfull servant Abraham and may helpe by our prayers though not to save that filthy Sodom which thou wilt have burnt downe to hell yet to pull out all thy Lots before even all amongst them that belong to thy eternall election before the fire and brimstone rayne downe from heaven upon them to consume all the wicked scorners amongst them eternally Make us all likewise to thinke with our selves whether we can name a man that was first truly grounded in the principles of our Religion and after coutinued to make conscience of his wayes according to the same that ever the devill or the Iesuites have bene able to seduce but only such as either were never well grounded or never truly made conscience of their waies or such at least as having fallen by little and little from their first conscience and childlike feare and so from the love of thy truth having yeelded to bee overcome by uncleannesse or some notorious sinne and so given way to Sathan to bee deluded by him Cause all to understand how by this meanes they lye open to Sathan and are hereby made fit for a Preist to absolve them and make them as cleane as when they were first borne as they will beare them in hand and thus to be reconciled to the Church which hath this holy power and can thus pardonand acquit them whatsoever they doe or howsoever they live and that without any paine or trouble especially if it bee so that they have money enough to purchase their pardons and the like Grant us therefore this grace to use all meanes for our selves and all ours and even for all those whom wee would save from hell that we may all first be soundly instructed in the grounds of the Catechisme in every principle and part of thy sacred truth after learne to make such a conscience of all thy blessed wayes and Commandements that thou mayest never give us or them up to these delusions but wee may for ever remaine under thy safe protection untill thou shalt translate us into the heavens from all the danger of the Dragon And for these our seduced brethren and all others deluded dy Sathan through impenitency in any fearefull sin make us able first to consider wisely of their estate secondly of the meanes how to save them and to pull them from it and lastly never suffer us to rest till wee have shewed our uttermost love unto them to bring them to our Lord Iesus Christ. Oh open our eyes and helpe us that we may see how they are under the power of Sathan and thine enemies every moment of time ready to bee cut off in thy just vengeance and to bee cast into hell Make us able to have the like tender commiseration of each of them as of a Captive under the cruelleft tyrant and as of one in a dead sleepe in the middest of a dreadfull fire ready each minute to seize upon him or in a deepe water sinking downe or as of a poore Lambe in the mouth of a roaring Lyon ready to bee devoured each moment cōsidering that the case of never a one of these can possibly bee the thousand part so bad as of them that are ready each moment to bee cast into the lake of fire and there to bee tormented for evermore Inable us withall to thinke ever of their estate and to keepe in memory these things and the like which demonstrate to all the world how palpably they are deluded bewitched and so to use them and all other helpes wherby they may be rescued Assist us so with thy heavenly grace that wee may never rest till wee have awaked them out of that dead sleepe and convinced their consciences some way of their wofull case and estate and after used all holy meanes which thou hast or ever shall reveale unto us to pluck them out of the fire at least thus praying and crying unto thee our blessed and gracious God for them as the Christians did for Peter in prison Lord make them to know for certaine that if they bee thy Lambs thou wilt rescue and pull them out of the Lyons mouth if thou have ordained to save them thou wilt pluck them out of the fire and out of the water thou wilt make all the chaines fetters of the devill to fall off from them no doores shall keepe them no sorcery shall preuaile against them beyond the time that thou hast appointed Cause us all to know and fully to vnderstand that hee that saveth not destroyes so every one of us that doth not according to our places and callings seeke thus by all holy meanes to save them all and to preserve all thy Churches from the dangers threatned by thee are guilty of the neglect hereof and so of the blood of all before thy heauenly Majesty and so much more as wee are more neerly tyed by any more speciall bon◅ of place calling or otherwise Heare us Oh tender Father for them all and all so bewitched and deluded by Sathan and that heerein wee chiefly all our Pastors and watchmen according to their places may shew all love and holy obedience to thee and to all thy tender Lambs which belong to thy fould even all thy deere and precious ones committed to their trust never leaving thee till thou hast rescued and recovered them for the full assurance of all our owne soules heereby that wee are indeed truely thine filled with thy holy Spirit the Spirit of faith and love and thereby sealed against the day of our Redemption and that thou maiest shew thy selfe stronger then Sathan and that hee is but thy vassall and also that thou art more mercifull to save then he can be malicious to destroy for thy infinite pitty and endlesse compassion through our blessed Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ Amen Amen XV. A humble thanksgiving for our dread Soveraigne our gracious Prince the Prince and Princesse Palatine and all their royall progeny and for all the great deliverances which our blessed God hath given unto them and to us all by them with an earnest praier that hee may make them each in their times and places the happiest heades of the most prosperous and blessed Nations and people that ever have bene in the world OH Lord our God infinite inithy mercy and endlesse in thy compassions who by thy wonderfull providence orderest all things in heaven and earth disposing all to the right ends which before the world thou hast ordayned to thine owne glory and the good of thine elect wee doe with all
to his father being a worthie Iudge of our Land and in love to his eldest brother who was a rare hope in his time even in his tender yeeres as the Commons house of Parliament could then have borne witnesse if our God had beene pleased to have prolonged his daies And this the more cheerefully also for that the Lord had formerly shewed mercie on that his hopefull brother vouchsafing me a poore and weake instrument to helpe to pull him from Satan to Christ out of deepe despaire whereunto he had fal◅e by reading some part of their devotions even of Parsons Resolution of the paines of hell and to bring him to much assurance and comfort in Iesus Christ by the right use of a little part of ours viz. of the practise of some directions in the first part of the True Watch. My trust is therefore that your Ladiships and all others will iudge my boldnesse to bee borne withall though I thus presume because I know assuredly that you will not onely ioyne your hands but your hearts to the reclaiming and saving of them both and of all other so deluded and even enchaunted with their sorceries and that they themselves will most praise the Lord for this service if ever hee shall thorowly open their eyes wheras otherwise without unfained turning and speedie preventing it they will undoubtedly fall into a farre more forlorne and irrecoverable despaire when it will bee too late And who knoweth how far this service may prevaile being both thus requested and also promised and now thus undertaken in all dutifull and loving affection and also in uprightnesse and singlenesse of heart towards them and towards all other as before our blessed God who hath ever beene wont not onely to worke by the weakest and unlikeliest meanes that himselfe alone may have all the glorie but also to doe the greatest good to his Church by the extremest rage yea by the deepest and most mischievous plots of the Adversaries against it Who knowes whether his goodnesse may not make it an instrument through your instant prayers with the prayers and teares of many of his people furthered by this occasion to pull not them two alone but with them likewise many thousands yea hundred thousands from hell and to bring them to heaven withall to keepe innumerable soules from ever declining from the Lord. Yea what knoweth any one whether he may not make it a meanes amongst others to helpe to save us all and with us all Christs true Churches from that common calamitie and destruction which Satan and his Agents doe fully assure themselves in time to bring upon them all and upon all the people of the Lord. Our bloudie enemies having so resolved never to rest untill under the name of Heretiques they have utterly rooted us all out from off the face of the earth My trust is therefore Right Honourable that all who unfainedly love Christs Gospell and the soules of these our deluded brethren and sisters and desire the saving of the Church of God will thinke it an acceptable service to set before the eyes of all the world the palpablenesse of this most notorious delusion and to take away that forged imputation and shame from the true Church of Christ and from all the Israel of God viz. That our Adversaries of Rome have moe holy devotions than we and also doe spend more time therein than we in ours Accept then I beseech your Honours this poore service here now in this entrance into this fourth part of this Watch thus undertaken chiefly upō the occasion of that most Christian desire of those great Ladies to whom yet I durst not presume to dedicate it being unknowne unto them albeit I have heard much good concerning them heartily pray that all heavenly graces may be ten times more resplendent in them to their everlasting praise happines Accept it as one speciall use and application of all the three former parts of it to the helping of the poorest and weakest Christians in all the land that everie one herein may have the benefit of all the former that all in praying may learne to watch and everie one in watching may learne to pray each in watching and praying may not onely helpe to save themselves but also their owne native Countrey with all the true Churches of our Lord Iesus Christ and to pull all Gods Elect out of the mouth of the roaring Lion All may see so farre as I am able to coniecture that to bee true which was mentioned That the battle of the great day is come That Satan hath openly and even visibly entred the field with his armies to fight against the Lords most glorious Maiestie and his Armies even against all his poore Church at once for that this spirituall warre is set on by his principall Commanders the Pope and his Cardinals with their chiefe Agents the Iesuites and other Seminarie Priests and managed and foughten by his most deadly weapons lying and murder Wee are therefore ever to keepe in memorie that wee are not now so much to labor to fight against flesh bloud as against principalities and powers the Princes of the darknesse of this world and to that end to be armed with all the complete armour of God both defensive and offensive To this end like as I have long travelled to helpe all our poore Countrey Schooles and all of the inferiour sort that the meanest of them who will suffer themselves to bee directed might not need to feare the insulting of any or of all the proudest Iesuites in regard of laying a sure foundation of all good learning in our Grammar Schooles with all sweet delight both to Master and Schollars neither doth it repent me but I blesse the God of heaven that gave me a heart so to abase my selfe so have I here for all the poore people of the land laboured to prepare and fit them weapons against this great day Which day all my labours will witnesse for me that I have long feared seeing the malice and rage of the Adversarie daily growing more and more with the increase of our iniquities to provoke the Lord to send it upon us like as upon all the other Churches to the end to make us all to seeke him by unfained repentance that euerie one of u◅ may turne from our evill way unto his Covenant That thus seeking him unfainedly he may take our cause into his owne hand fight his owne battles and save us from these our mercilesse enemies The better instructed sort of Christians who are able to pray better of themselves need them not I have therefore endevoured to fit them chiefly for all the younger and weaker sort who would as faine learne to pray to save themselves and the land with all the Churches and long as much to be helpers in this worke as any of those who are best instructed Wherefore deare Ladies as you have so much reioyced in the former parts of this
trampling vnder foot the Gospell and Scepter of our Lord Iesus Christ in so many parts of his Church the miserable estate of his people and servants professing his name under the slaverie and tyrannie of Antichrist or the wofull condition of the remainder of Gods elect not yet called gathered forth but remainining under the power of Satan or if thou regard but the saving of thine owne soule afford some assistance to him and his poore people especially now that hee so graciously cals upon thee and offers thee so much direction and helpe thereunto even in these meditations and prayers bâ—…sides many others Consider of them well and so farre as thou findest him calling on thee to put them in practice set thy selfe forthwith to helpe in this blessed worke If any of them either meditations or prayers seeme unto thee weake as they must needs be having beene written for most part when many others slept and that because of the industrie of Satan and his instruments that they might not bee any hinderance unto my calling yet are they such as thy Christ expects at thy hands so far as they are soundly grounded upon his sacred truth and agreeable to his heavenly will Give him thy heart and best affections and better the forme in thâ—…ne owne devotion remembring ever for whom they are chiefly intended viz to helpe the weaker sort which are not able to pray of themselves according to thâ—…se occasions If they seeme over long for thy occasions yet are they so divided as thou mayest leave off and begin againe wheresoever thou pleasest onely fitting some generall beginnings and ends of the prayers according to the other or according to thine owne holy meditation Iâ—… this offend thee that they are sâ—…t downe in a booke remember the publique prayers that in all ages have beene so in the Church and yet most pleasing and available Let the consideration of so many of thine owne nation yea so many of the chiefe thereof so fearefully seduced and even bewitched by Iesuites and other Seminarie Priests and everie day more and more falling away to the indangering not onely of themselves but of the whole Land continually provoke thee to this dutie and especially seeing they professe themselves to have beene drawne to that Romish Religion hereby chiefly That they in their Church have moe devotions and spend more time therein than we in ours Let this move thee to take some pitie of them and to helpe by thy prayers to pull them out of the fire of Gods vengeance and likewise to keepe others from falling from him Let their blinde zeale and superstitious devotions which condemnes the coldnes and securitie of the greatest part of those who professing Christs Gospell yet pray so littâ—…e and which is one principall cause of their stumbling I speake upon certaine knowledge both concerning high and low noble and meanâ—… let this I say provoke thee to more devotion in holy meditations and instant prayers according to the word and will of thy God and enforce thee hereunto to spend daily some part of it as God gives thee more â—…it opportunitie or as thou hast more neglected these They as is said use some devotions daily to pull soules out of Purgatorie be thou instant for them to pull them from the power of Satan to Christ. Begin thus to redeeme thy time so badly mis-spent and that so long untill thou shalt see Gods glory recovered the scepter of his Christ set up againe in all places whence it is removed with the deliverie of thy brethren in all forraine partâ—… and the dangers past which are so threatned towards all the Churches and namely our neâ—…rest and faithfull neighbours and even towards thy selfe Suffer not these blinded soules to rise up in judgement against thee that they have spent more time and paines in their devotion to serve Satan and Antichrist and to hold up his throne to their endlesse perdition than thou to serve our Lord Iesus to the saving thine owne soule and the lives of all his people If thou wouldst be ready to spend thy goods and to adventure thy life for the glory of thy God for thy Christ and his Church at his command yea if thou wouldest bestow any labour or cost to save thy native Countrey or Countreymen being in danger and much more the Lords Anointed with our Royall Prince and that most illustrious Prince and Princesse Palatine all of whom haue shewed so much love to Christs Gospell and if thy heart be truly affected to that sweet and happy progenâ—… then be ready to helpe them all by thy prayers especially sith thou maiest doe this without any cost or losse and hast helpe offered from his Majestie and the same also not onely put into thy hands but as it were into thy mouth and withall thy hands holden up by him to doe it Doe it therefore as well as thou caust if thou regard but thine owne case either of soule or bodie thy present or eternall estate I have purposely in many of the praiers followed the order in the first part of this Watch which I have taken for a good direction both for that it hath beene so oft tried by the learned to be according to the true Rule of Life and for that the places for proofes are there quoted to auoid further labour and that thou and all the weaker sort may learne together both to watch and pray for your selves and all the people of the Lord and so be sure to prevaile with his heavenly Majestie If thou shalt finde or suspect any errour wherein thou darest not joyne signifie it as in love and in the feare of the Lord and I shall as I have ever bound my selfe be most ready either to give thee satisfaction or to reforme it and yet in the meane time proceed in the rest joyntly with thy brethren Let us all joyne as being of one heart and soule wherein we all agree crying unto our heavenly Father compassing him about at his feet for our selves and all his deare children and he will surely heare our cries and in his due time reveale every difference unto us and wherein the errour lieth I tie thee not to daies nor houres but as thou observest the Lord offering thee fittest opportunities and as he shall move thee thereto though because of Satans subtlety and the falsenesse and corruption of our owne hearts we shall finde by experience that all the bonds whereby we can binde our selves to holy duties especially of this nature and importance are farre too little so weâ—… doe it in an holy wisdome and wise consideration that we bring not a snare upon our selves Wonder not that I so oft goâ—… over that heavenly prayer of our Saviours and so strictly tie my selfe unto it for that I finde it the wisdome of God and the power of God ministring still now and most heavenly matter even to this our present purpose and also am fully assured that all the true Churches
hee so oft saved and delivered his people for Moses alone thus importuning him albeit hee have over-just cause to say to us as hee said to Iudah before her Captivitie though Noah Iob and Daniel were amongst us yet they should neyther save sonne nor daughter but even their owne soules yet I say howsoeuer he shall deale in mercy for the generall wee must notwithstanding know undoubtedly that every particular soule that turnes not to God by unfeigned repentance and that prepares not himselfe to come thus to help by his prayers for pardoning the sinnes of the Land and pacisying of the Lords wrath must certainly perish And to conclude this point wee are to meditate likewise seriously how GOD hath principally ordayned and ever used when he would save his people and call and bring them to true repentance to do it in like manner by Kings and Princes or other Rulers stirred up extraordinarily and by the voyce of his true Prophets calling them and his people by them thereunto as by Moses Ioshua Iehosaphat Hezekiah Nehemiah the king of Nineuy and others even when he wold but save them from the present temporall destruction And therefore as we are to pray instantly for all the Rulers in the severall Churches so above all for our dread Soveraigne to whom hee hath given such excellent understanding of his heavenly will and whom he hath bound unto himselfe by so many bonds of such great deliverances the like mercies and favours above all the Kings and Princes of the earth that they may all yet whilst there is time now the Lord calles so lowd vpon them set themselves to enquire wisely into the true causes of the evils already upon the Churches and of those which are further threatned That they may truly consider that all this is from the Lord in his everlasting commiseration and fatherly pitty tendering us as his deere children thus calling us all to a generall and unfeigned repentance that he may spare us and that himself may take our cause in hand against his own and our bloody enemies That they may with holy Iosiah first inquire rightly into all the crying sins in every state and degree within their Dominions and into all the provocations of the wrath of God and see how the sinnes of our time seem to be above the sinnes of Iudah before the Captivity our glorious light and all other meanes which he hath used to reclaime us being rightly weighed And secondly that they may consider wisely of the danger which both themselves and all theyrs yea all their Dominions stand in for the same according to all the Lords most terrible warnings and denounciations And thirdly that they may thinke seriously as in the presence of the Lord and inquire from his mouth of the meanes yet left to pacific and prevent the same And finally that they may set themselves forthwith to put all the same in execution with holy Iosiah and do in all things belonging thereunto as the Lord himselfe directeth and commandeth for that this alone can bring comfort and boldnesse to them and theyrs in assurance of the Lords mercifull love and favour and that they and theirs shall abide still and ever before the presence of the Lord. Thus are we to labour to prevaile espcially for our Soveraigne Lord and his that our God may yet by him magnify the riches of his mercy above all former times bringing thus to us all his Churches a third greater deliverance and cause of rejoycing by his hand through our unfeigned repentance and the like repentance in all the Churches then ever heretofore And thus wee are earnestly according to our bounden dutie to stirre up our hearts by our due meditations to cry for him and to doe what we can both by our prayers and all other holy meanes that all other may ioyne with us herein and that we may never rest wrestling with him weeping untill he have heard us even in this behalfe for the pardoning and taking away our sinnes in what sort soever shall seeme best to his heavenly Maiestie to answere us And thus much for this Meditation The seuenth particular Meditation of the second generall how Sathan exerciseth all his power and tyranny against all the Churches spiritually SEuenthly wee are withall to betake our selves to a serious Meditation and to bring our hearts likewise to a right feeling hereof That as the Lord hath in his iust and heavy displeasure left his poore afflicted Churches and children to be thus pursued by Sathan and driven into the wildernesse so Sathan having gotten them thither he there principally exerciseth his power tyranny against them even spiritually against their seules and consciences so farre as God permits him as well as against their bodies How hee thereby bestirres himselfe to bring them into all spirituall miseries to cause them either to fall away from the Lord Iesus Christ and the soundnesse and sincerity of his heavenly Gospell which they have received professed or to vse dissembling even to deny the Lord Iesus or other vnlawfull meanes for their reliefe and succour thus to wound their weake cōsciences ◅o get more advantage against them both to accuse them before the Lord and so to provoke his Maiesty to leave them up into his hands and even to drive many of them to utter and endless despaire of the Lords helpe succour which is the height of miseries and the very entrance into the lake Or at least which is his usuall manner with every one of us and wherein he can and doth oft prevaile with manie of the deerest Saints and Children of the Lord he settes on them day and night to cause them to doubt of the Lords favor and love of the truth of their Religion the goodnesse of their cause the soundnesse of their Faith and repentance or whether they have any Faith or no seeing hee so leaves them to so many miseries which if hee loved them he would not doe Then hee makes them possess the verie sinnes of their youth setting all of them before their faces which ever they fell into in their whole lives so much as he is able and aggravating every least slip or fayling as if it were the most heynous sin that ever was committed Then through melancholy passions and distempers into which hee can driue thee best by long affliction and by still urging his temptations terrors hee can and useth to cause them to accuse themselves falsely and for those things wherein they are most innocent or for the best things that ever they have done and so can increase their miseryes both bodily and spirituall The right meditation of these and other like miseries which he drives them into m◅st needs cause us to commiserate their poore and wofull estate and the due consideration of the present danger to our selves of the like
accepted as saithfull Abraham and Moses in regard of the high favour in which wee are in through Iesus Christ and that wee are so qualified and fitted as our Saviour requireth of them who are to helpe him in this worke The fourth generall Meditation Concerning the frame and order of our prayers that they likewise may be well pleasing and so we may bee more certaine to prevaile thereby when wee follow in all things our Saviours direction FOr the frame and forme of our prayers that the want therein may not any thing hinder our certaine assurance but contrarily that our right manner ordering framing thereof may increase our strength and confident crying They must bee so framed as neere as wee can at our great Master and Teacher our Lord Iesus Christ hath directed us and then his Soveraigne Majesty who hath saide Pray thus will make them powerfull according to his gratious promise Aske and you shall have and will set to his seale first in our hearts and after manifestly before the world The first particular Meditation of the fourth generall That we pray onely to our heavenly Father in the name of Christ. FIrst wee are carefully to see that our prayers bee directed onely to our heavenly Father and none other and that in the name and mediation of our blessed Saviour our hearts being lifted vp to heaven in confidence of faith through him and in his name and mediation alone and not by the mediation of any Saint or Angell and also without the least looking at our selves for any excellency in our selves or any matter of merit worth or desert in our selves or any other creature for which wee should looke any way to bee heard whereunto our hearts are wonderfully prone and wherein they are exceeding deceiptfull and very hard to bee knowne albeit wee have taken long paines to bring them thereunto The second particular Meditation of the fourth generall That above all and in all wee ayme at Gods glory and the advancement of Christs scepter SEcondly as hee hath taught us in the first place to pray Hallowed be thy name so in and above all things we must ayme at his glory and never rest till wee have a burning zeale thereof so to seeke the advancement of his great name and the comming of his kingdome even that Iesus Christ may raigne in all the world all sorts stooping unto him that thus his elect speedily bee gathered forth and saved Sathan and Antichrist with all his enemies being utterly overthrowne and confounded For seeking first his glory kingdome righteousnesse that is seeking them cheefly and in the first place wee have a certaine assurance from his gracious and faithfull promise That all other things shall be cast upon us as an over measure concerning our selves or ours And herein specially wee are to bee warned for that in this is usually the cheife failling of Gods people and for which hee may justly send us empty away even for looking at our selves more then at his Majesty and the things that concerne his kingdome and honour preferring our selves and our owne particulars and the care of them before the things that concerne his owne glory kingdome and people Though his wisedome hath in his goodnesse so plainly directed us herein beginning and ending with this The seeking of the advancement of his glory and kingdome as being all in all like as indeed it is for that then as was saide when we can so seeke him in order hee will undoubtedly give us our hearts desire and more then wee can imagine neitheir can wee ever assure our selves of any thing as a blessing untill this time For this purpose and the certaintie hereof read carefully the first of Haggai and consider it well how this self-selfe-love makes us forget the first and great Commandement Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart soule strength and might c. and so to loose the obtaining of those things which otherwise we might certainly injoy The third particular Meditation of the fourth generall That wee seeke the doing of his heavenly will for his glory and kingdome chiefly THirdly we are to labour to bring our hearts hereunto That the accomplishing of his heavenly will whatsoever he hath determined chiefly iâ—… things that concerne his glory and kingdome and the good of his Church and Children bee sought by us in the first place and afterwardes in all things belonging to our selves That to these ends all his will and good pleasure which he hath been or shall bee pleased to make knowne unto us may be done by us and all his people and that as chearfully wisely faithfully and couragiously as the Angels doe it in heaven The fourth particular Meditation of the fourth generall That we seeke all good things from God alone chiefly that wee may have wherewith to honour him and advance his kingdome FOurthly in the fourth place wee are to meditate how wee are to travell with our owne hearts to seeke our daily bread from him not for our selves but for these ends principally That he will be pleased to feed us and to minister unto us from heaven all things needfull and behouefull hereunto both for our selves and for all our brethren that wee may not live to our selves but to his heavenly Majesty alone who hath redeemed and saved us for this purpose The fift particular Meditation of the fourth generall and so of the sixt and seventh together FIftly wee are seriously to consider how wee are to pray That to these ends likewise chiefly and for these causes hee will forgive our sinnes and the sinnes of his people that they may not hinder his mercy nor these our prayers in any of the things which wee are taught to beg of his heavenly Majesty nor yet provoke his wrath against us but having put them away by his Christ hee may for his sake tender us as his owne Children and heare us in all things concerning his glory and kingdome and also for our owne necessitie and happinesse and the good of his people 6. And finally that for his glory sake hee will save us from Sathan and from all the evils which hee intends and seeks to bring upon us for our sinnes and whereby he seekes to dishonour the Lord provoke him against us and to hinder all these mercies and to bring all contrary miseries and evils upon us and upon the Church 7. How in all these still wee are ever to seeke for his owne glory and the merit of his dearly beloved Sonne ever beginning and ending here with And that our Lord Iesus Christ may shew himselfe gloriously both Lord and King exercising all his Soveraignty Dominion and Power for vs all that so hee may bee glorified by us and by all the Churches and also glorifie us with himselfe for evermore And thus much also for the
habitation for Sathan and as a den of Dragons And that thou wouldest seeke now to have thy soule conscience wholly clensed and purged in the blood of the Lambe and to wash the feete of thy deere Saviour with Mary Magdalen by the teares of thy unfeigned sorrow for all thy former unkindness and for thy ungraciousness in keeping out thy Lord and Saviour so long giving unto Sathan the whole possession of thy heart and so the very chiefe roomes thereof not vouchsafing unto Christ Iesus so much as entertainment within thy threshold Then will he come in to thee how unworthy soever thou art and Sup with thee and thou with him This shall be the joy fullest day that ever shone upon thee for hee being in thy heart will by his blessed Spirit not onely teach thee thus to pray but will certainly make thy prayers to piâ—…rce the very heavens and finde happy audience at the throne of Grace chiefly in all these causes which so highly concerne his Majesty his poore Church and people He will then bring unto thee that joy with him that goes beyond all the joy of all worldly men and farre beyond that which all things here belowe can ever bring unto thee That which eye never saw nor eare heard nor entered into mans heart to consider of Yea that which shall never be taken away from thee but be a continuall feast for evermore And contrarily if yet thou wilt not harken unto him but still harden thy heart against him the time shall come that every call of his which ever thou heardest before and hast contemned shall sound so shrill in thy eares when it will be too late as thou shalt have it affrighting thee perpetually That thou never shalt have rest day nor night for the dreadfull noyse of these many cals because thou wouldest not harken in time but didst put off the day of thy repentance and so of harkening to his sweet voyce of mercy thus calling thee stilto bee partakers of his mercy and even of this high favour and now at day in these dangers of the Church in a speciall manner above all other Wherefore let the counsel of the holy Ghost be now acceptable unto thee breake off thy sinnes by repentance be not as the deafe Adder any longer But whilst it is now called to day heare his voyâ—… Contemne it not now little knowest thou whether ever thou shalt heare it any more thus in mercy but onely in wrath and vengeance for despising his long suffering and all the riches of his compassion The second Meditation To thinke what it is for a man to forsake his owne happinesse in refusing Christs gracious call and to joyne with Sathan against him to his endlesse perdition SEcondly the Lord cals loud to every soule to bethinke him seriously in time what it is for a man not onely to refuse and contemne the gracious call and service of our Lord Iesus Christ yea all his favours all his sweet promises and mercies concerning both this and a better life all the glory and happinesse of the Celestiall Canaan the heavenly Ierusalem where is fulnes of joy in the presence of the Lambe and at the right hand of our heavenly Father pleasures for evermore but of the contrary to choose to joyne himselfe with Sathan and with all the damned to serve under him against our Lord and Saviour Likewise to thinke aforehand what such a men will doe when hee must appeare before his glorious Majesty when all the greatest proudest of the earth that have so set themselves against him shall cry to the Hils Mountaines to fall upon them and cover them from the presence of the Lambe so terrible shall his very presence be unto them then though a Lambe to all beleevers who have heere followed him in true obedience to all who yet shall harken to his voyce yea so dreadfull shall it bee when whatsoever torment and misery is denounced against them in the booke of God to bee inflicted upon them hereafter shall be most certainly and fully executed in that lake burning with fire and brimstone For the unfallible truth and undoubted certainty hereof the Lord cals every soule alwaies to behold with the eies of their minds not only those fearfull spectacles mentioned in his word of that wofull horror of conscience which hath so surprized and overwhelmed so many of the wicked whom God hath left for ensamples to all posterity even for their malicious wickednesse though but against some one of his Servants as namely in Caine Saule Achitophel Iudas and others when they did but onely consider the wrath of the Lord and his vengeance due unto them and which would overtake them or felt it beginning to seize upon them for this sinne but moreover hee cals them to thinke aright of the continuall examples that hee daily seteth before their faces in the miseries of so many of his deerest Children How they are tormented when their consciences are awakened with a right apprehension and feare of the wrath of the Lord for their sinnes wherein they have served Sathan though not taking part against his Majesty and Children no nor so much as in forsaking him or them or any his causes but onely for some particular slâ—…ps failings and infirmities as either for some spirituall pride or timerousnesse in fearing men more then God and thereupon omitting some necessary confession or other good duty or for doing some small thing against their conscience or for some unbeleefe in not being able to rest upon the Lord his love and care in the failing of outward meanes as it was with Moses at the waters of strifâ—… or for spirituall security for decaying in their first love neglecting the conscionable use of meanes of grace and saluation or the like How even these I say when their consciences are throughly awaked doe indure as it were the very slashings of hell fire and this so dreadfully as their miseries astonish all that behold them and that they themselves doe account all outward tortures nothing in regard thereof so that many a time with holy Iob they wish an end were made of them being oft ready through Sathans malice to lay violent hands upon themselves Also for that they indure this so long as that Gods hand pursues some of them throughout their whole life that they are usually uncapable of any comfort though the same be sent by a messenger of God even one of a thousand except it bee a little before their death wherein the Lord commonly vouchsafeth unto them much heavenly assurance and consolation And if it be so with these here while yet the day of salvation remaines and the accepted time and also whilst they have the most excellent meanes to comfort them yea though they bee such as have felt formerly the assurance of Gods love favour in Christ and many
thou hast called us hereunto that thou acceptest us and our service and that wee may never give thee over untill wee see the deliverance and felicity of thy Sion Grant that so many of us as unfeignedly desire to bee with thy Majesty may never give any rest unto thee nor unto our owne soules untill wee finde our selves so qualified in all things as thou requirest of all such in taking to heart the dishonours done unto thy heavenly Majesty the oppositions against thy most glorious Gospell and also in feeling the necessities of thy Church people more specially in considering aright and sensibly feeling the miserable estate of all them that are under the spirituall bondage Captivitie of Sathan worse ten thousand times then the Captivitie and slavery of the Turke or under the cruellest Tyrants in all the earth Grant likewise that wee may be such in all holy faith and obedience and so frame our prayers that heerein wee may thus farre prevaile with thy holinesse that thou maiest raise up for thy poore Church and Children in every part of the world some Iosephs or some that may be as Daniel Ezra Nehemiah or Hester which may obtaine favour with the Kings and Princes of the earth and by whom thou maiest prepare and incline the hearts of all Monarks Kings and Princes that they may all become Nursing-Fathers and Nursing-Mothers to thy religion and people and that all those of them who in thy mercy are such already by the power of thy heavenly Spirit may bee wholly delivered from all the power and delusions of Sathan and Antichrist and daily more and more inflamed with all holy zeale for thy glory and kingdome and all tender affection towards thy children and chosen flocke as the rage and malice of the Dragon is greater against them knowing he hath but a short time Vouchsafe Oh grecious Father that these all considering aright how thou hast set them up and given them all their dominions authority and power chiefly to this end and the great and dreadfull account they must all certainly make for the same they know not how soone may forthwith seâ—… themselves as thy faithfull Servants Moses Iosuah David Iehosaphat Hezekiah and holy Iosiah for thy glorious Majesty Gospell and people onely according to thy heavenly word and will Grant good Lord that thus thy great name may bee magnified by the powerfull comming of thy kingdome in all the world and by the full accomplishing of all thy heavenly will and good pleasure which in thine eternall counsell thou hast decreed for the speedy gathering forth of all thine elect and finishing of these daies of sin and so for preparing the way to thy glorious comming Good Lord perswade my poore heart and the hearts of every one of thine owne faithfull people of the present necessity of this worke because of the danger of the sodaine approching of thy vengeance ready each houre to rush upon uâ—… like as it hath done upon others which have so professed thy name as weâ—… doe for all our fearfull sinnes and above all for our haiâ—…ous contempt of thy heauenly Gospell and that notwithstanding all thy Fatherly warnings and mercies wee have beene worse and worse unto this day And therefore vouchsafe me this grace that I may not deferre it one day nor houre but now presently whilst thou my Lord and Saviour dost so graciously call me and offer me this mercy I may seeke to bee every way prepared and fitted for it like as thou hast so plainly â—…aught me so lively seâ—… it before my face in yâ— heavenly prayer of thine so as the simplest may read and understand Oh Lord Iesus perswade my heart that refusing or deferring now to come to helpe thee I cannot escape the curse of Meroz howsoever I may escape the present and temporall vengeance at the instant cryes of all other of thy deerest servants and children yet I can never escape the spirituall and eternall wrath Open mine eies that I may see yâ— I am not heerein to wrastle against flesh blood but against principalities and powers and the Princes of darkness of this world which have wrought all these evils chiefly and doe seeke the utter destruction of all thy people and that I am not now to enter the lists with Sathan for my selfe alone but for all the Church that so I may put on all thy compleat Armour to quit my selfe valiantly as one of thy worthyes and ever be carefull to looke to my watch and stand fast expecting Sathans extreamest rage and fury against me especially if hee get never so little advantage Grant unto mee to know undoubtedly that being thus armed and setting my selfe with all speed and cheerfulnesse unto this worke to bee rightly fitted to helpe thee in this greatest service I shall have this high honour to bee of their number of whom thou hast spoken to whom thou hast promised That the innocent shall deliver the land or at least that thou wilt bee to mee a Sanctuary whatsoever come to passe and though I should neither save Sonne nor Daughter yet I shall bee sure to save my owne soule Heare me therefore Oh gracious Father all thy poore children in this our humble suite and in all other things needfull for us or for any member of thy whole Church for the Lord Iesus Christ whom thou hast given for our grand Captaine our onely Mediator and Advocate Amen II. A prayer for increase of our love to all the Children of the Lord and for keeping a continuall fresh remembrance and feeling of their estate Our HVmble us Oh gracious Father that whereas thou hast long taught us this as one of our first lessons in our prayers to cry Oh our Father to keep therby a continuall and ever-fresh remembrance feeling of the estate and necessities of all thy children our Brethren and Sisters wheresoever dispersed and distressed in all the world and so to binde our hearts togither in the bond of love to rejoyce with them that rejoyce mourne with them that mourne and in all things to seeke the same good unto them which wee do vnto our selves yet so many of us notwithstanding do never or very seldome thinke of them or of their miseries and the best of us have so little true feeling and commiseration of their estate how wofull soever it bee to cry unto thee for them as wee ought so long as wee our selves are at ease and in prosperity Good Lord perswade our hearts that if wee truly love thee our heavenly Father we must needs love thy children for thy cause being as deere and precious unto thee as ourselves are even all those that appertaine to thy eternal election wheresoever they be in all the earth Lord Iesus make us know that if wee unfeignedly love thee wee must of necessity likewise love thy members even every one of
Children in him being so begotten by that lively word and having upon us all the evident markes of thy Children Grant us therefore Oh gracious Father now in these our daies of peace whilst thou vouchsafest us the meanes of thy heavenly Gospell to give all diligence to make it sure that we are thy Children thy deere Children yea thy Children to whom thy heavenly kingdome appertaineth having and bearing upon us all the lively markes and badges of thy Children Above all grant us this heavenly mindednesse that our chiefe thoughts may bee upon thee our heavenly Father our care may bee above all things how to please thee doing in the meane while only the things which thou requirest casting all our cares for those daies and for whatsoever the enemie can do upon thy Majesty alone and into thy bosome learning every day more and more to waine our affections from this world and the things of this world and to set them wholly above where thy Sonne sitteth at thy right hand Lord perswade our hearts and make us able to perswade one another that by all the power and liberty that thou hast permitted unto Sathan to all his instruments and by all the persecutions and afflictions that are upon all the Churches and also by whatsoever threatnings of thine against thy Children yea whatsoever mischievous designes are intended against thy poore Church or what danger soever it is in thorow that extreame fury of Sathan and Antichrist and all their instruments thou art yet still preparing all thy Children to meete thee in a sound humiliation with strong cries and teares for all our offending thee and for grieving thy holy Spirit by all our former security and neglect of thee and of the riches of thy favours vouchsafed unto us Grant us all this grace therefore as thine obedient and loving Children in all things to submit our selves under thy Fatherly hand to turne joyntly to thy Covenant and renew the same in all faithfulnesse to take away all the divisions that have bene amongst us which thorow our long peace and wantonnes Sathan hath wrought to the destroying of us all if it were possible Vouchsafe good Father that we may doe this so effectually that thou maist be as much pleased in reuniting us againe and in our Brotherly love and agreement as ever thou hast beene displeased in our divisions and dissentions and Sathan and his instruments in seeing our holy unity and agreement may bee as much dismaied and put out of heart for ever prevailing against us as by the contrary and by all their prosperous successe as they imagine they have bene animated and incouraged to our ruine and destruction That so wee may all sing with one heart and voice Behold how good and happy a thing it is Brethren to dwell together in unity Lord manifest thy glory even the glory of thy wisedome power mercy and truth heerein in making us joyntly to looke and cry to thee for all these things and whatsoever thou in thy infinite wisedome knowest necessary for us in this behalfe or for any member of thy whole Church for Iesus Christ his sake our only Lord and Saviour IX A Thanksgiving to God according to the first petition of the Lords prayer for causing his glorie to breake forth so wonderfully now in this last Age of the world in delivering his Churches thus farre out of Egypt and Babilon with a confession of our unworthinesse and an earnest prayer that wee may never dishonour him by locking thither againe nor provoke him by our sinnes to give us up to that heavie iudgement and likewise for the diliverie of all the rest of his Israel in his due time and that he may never leave us untill hee have brought us all into his heavenly Canaan OH Lord most holy and most glorious open our blinde eies touch our hard and stony hearts and the hearts of all thy true Churches and people in all the world whom thou hast called forth to bee thy people that wee may bee able to see and consider aright the exceeding honour and dignity which thou hast laid upon us and to shew forth our thankfulness to thy heavenly Majesty accordingly Make us able to consider show thou hast vouchsafed to take us so nere unto thy selfe as to make vs thine owne peculiar people of all the people of the earth to set and confirme the Covenant with us of life and glory and how to this end thou hast brought us out of that spirituall Aegypt and Babilon from that bondage and tyranny of Sathan and Antichrist Make us to consider and rightly to understand how by great deliverances and iudgements thou hast carried us thorow the sea and thorow the wildernesse and shewed thy selfe unto us in thy glorious ordinances leading us by thy statutes and commandements and by the workes of thy providence protection direction chastisement blessings as thou diddest thy people Israel by the pillar of the fire and the pillar of the cloud Give us hearts ever to remember how thou hast sought for us from heaven so as all the earth hath sâ—…ene and heard of thy glory and hast carried us as upon Eagles wings and now brought us to the very frontiers of thy heavenly Canaan and made us to see tast of the riches happinesse and glory of it in thy sacred Gospell Oh our blessed God most gracious and most dreadfull make us and all thy people to bee afraid of ever having any thought of turning backe so much as in our hearts or of ever having a looke towards Aegypt or Sodome againe towards any part of that Popery or Popish superstition and Idolatry that abhominable drudgery under Sathan and Antichrist from which thou hast so graciously delivered us Oh never suffer us to admit of any imagination or so much as one motion of comparing the Leekes Onions Garlicke of Aegypt with the hid Manna of thy sacred Law and heavenly Gospell Albeit we heare and see their â—…age and fury and the power of all their armies banding themselves against us either to swallow us up at once or els to persue us into the heart of the sea yet keepe us that wee never rebell against thee thinking to turne backe from thee to goe into Aegypt againe distrusting thy truth thy presence and power Cause us Oh gracious Father wisely to consider of and ever to have this as before our eies that of all dishonors done unto thy heavenly Majesty thou canst least indure this chiefly after so long triall and experience which thou hast given us of thy power goodnesse and mercy towards us That this sinne alone may justly make thee sweare in thy wrath that wee shall never enter into thy rest Make all them that have dishonoured thee in this high kinde sinning thus against thy glorious Majesty to know for certaine that without
burdens upon thee at all times and also by our rejoycing alwayes in thee as in our good God that thou takest care for us and by being heereby full of Christian chearfulnes and courage against all the oppositions and feares that ever wee shall or can meeâ—…e with in this our journey towards Canâ—…an as thy worthiest servants have bene wont to be Oh magnifie thy power and goodnesse in shedding out thy love so aboundantly upon all thy Churches and every member thereof and so manifesting it before the world that in the true sense and feeling of it in our hearts and our lively faith in thee wee may all joyntly manifest the fervent love wee returne unto thy Majesty by our unfeigned love of every one of thy blessed CommandemeÌ„ts and our fervent desire to thy statutes to walke in them all without reproofe yea by our ardent affection towards all thy ordinances and servants onely for thy cause Good Lord cause the fervent zeale that wee have towards thy name to appeare before the world in the vehement griefe and indignation that we have for all yâ— dishonors done unto thy heavenly Majesty by trampling under feete thy blessed Commandements thy religion and servants and the injuryes and contumelyes done against any of them and so likewise by our study and holy indeavour by all meanes to promote thy true religion and causes and by our vehement hatred of whatsoever is offensive to thy holinesse that we may set up nothing in our heartes but thy Majesty and those things which thou lovest accounting all other as drosse and dung in regard of thy holinesse yea even life it selfe if it hinder us from injoying or obeying thee Cause thy glory to rest herein upon all the Churches and upon all thy poore afflicted servants that upon the assurance of thy love and that thou art our gracious God we may honour thee in shewing forth all holy patience with all cheerfullnesse even in the middest of all our tryals that howsoever thou maiest seeme to be displeased with us and to frowne upon us yea to favour our enemies in all their proceedings and to give us up into their hands to let them to be lords over us and make us a prey to their teeth yet our eye may bee still at thee at thy love wisedome and faythfulness knowing that whatsoeuer thou doest to us thou doest it but to humble us for our security and for all other our greevous sinnes and to prove us that thou art certainely disposing all to our greatest comfort in the end and thus to prepare our way unto thy heavenly Ierusalem That thus we all may ever possess our soules in patience and waite for the happy issue both of all our owne trialles and of all the trialles of thy Church and people and bee alwayes able to say with holy Iob though thou shouldst kill us or leave us utterly and wholly unto the pleasures and lustes of our enemyes yet we will still trust in thee approoving our wayes in thy sight that heereby we may make it manifest to the faces of all our enemyes that we are certainly assured that nothing can separate us from thy love and that thou canst not forsake faile or forget us whatsoever 〈◊〉 the present thou doe unto us Yeâ—… oh most blessed God cause thy glory yet to shine more clearly uppon all the Churches and upon everyone of us that are thy true servants and children indeed in this behalfe that though the wicked feare thee not but seek to drive all the true feare of thy Majestie even out of our hearts likewise as out of their owne and do therefore hate and persecute us so farre as thou permits them onely because we feare thee and put our truâ—…t in thy mercy yet we may feare thee so much more with a true holy childe-like feare that we may ever and especially now in these evill dayes labour to live alwaies as in thy presence and as in the verie eye of thy all-seeing Majestie Grant good Lord that we may bee able thus to walke with thee constantly until we shall be translated hence and with holy Noah to endevour to be still more righteous in our generation and to be daily building our Arkes to save our selves and Families and all other that we can get into the same from the floud of thy vengeance that is rushing upon al the world of the wicked And albeit the world scorn and deride us dayly for it and though we be the onely talk and hatred of the wicked and as men appointed and designed to death onely for this our feare of thee in the bloody hopes of thine and our proud enemyes yet cause us heerein to honour thee that we may not feare the faces of them while we walke in thy blessed Commandements and do onely as thou requirest of us but that by the might and power of thy heavenly Spirit we may bee more full of all Christian corage as the three worthy Children of the Captivitie as good Daniel and holy Nehemiah And yet more also enable us heerein likewise to honour thee before the world and to shew openly before men and Angels that we have set thee uppe in our hearts to be our God even by walking humbly with thee that thogh the world regard thee not but thou art farre above out of their sight and though they doe band themselves agaynst thee against thy heavenly word and servants yea thogh they scorne al thy judgments and threatnings as the Gyants before the flood and as proud Pharao and Herod did yet we may all walke ever in all humility and lowlinesse of Spirit before thee Make us ever to have before our faces thy glorious excellencie and our own vilenesse thy holinesse and our sinnefulnesse and that not only by the fall of our first Parents and by the whol course of our sinful lives and also the power subtilty and malice of Sathan against us to destroy us each moment without thy speciall preservation mercie but even for the very corruption of our sinfull natures which still dwell in us that bodie of death which would carrie us to destruction yea even to hell it selfe every minute if thou in the riches of thy mercy shouldest not restraine it and shouldest not cover all our sinnes yea keep and uphold us Oh give us hearts that herein wee may all magnifie thy great name in giving unto thee as is thy due all the glory of our standing perseverance in grace and of every good thing that ever we enjoy acknowledging from our soules that they are all the free gifts of thy rich mercy and that we are not worthy any of them nay that we are much lesse then the least of them as thy deerest servants have beene wont to do And good Lord heerein make us specially able to give thee thy glory in being thorowly humbled and in mourning continually for all the heynous sinnes
whereby thou hast bene and art still dayly more and more provoked against the Churches for all the dishonours done unto thy great name that we may bee every one as righteous Lot in Sodome and as the mourners before the Captivitie and as those worthy servants of thine both Ezra Nehemiah and Daniel untill we shall see againe the setting up of thy glory and Gospell thy gracious countenance shining upon all the Churches and the full delivery of thy deere Children out of the hands of their most mercilesse bloody enemies Oh grant that hereby our eyes may bee open to see aright both who they are that truly honour thee by having thee their God as they ought in setting thee thus up in their hearts in every one of these respects and who are heereby truly thankefull for their great deliverance from Aegypt and Babylon yea from Sathan and eternal damnation Heare us for Iesus Christ his sake our only Lord and Saviour Another Prayer according to the first Commandement OH Lord most glorious and most blessed as we intreate thee to manifest who they are which truely honour thee having set thee uppe in their harts as their God make us able by these likewise to discerne of the greatnesse of the sinne of all the Churches when after so long a time there yet appeareth so little true saving knowledge of thy Majesty but that such a grosse and palpable darkness is upon the most congregations and places that the people are ready to receyue any errors broached amongest them and that so great a part of thy people seeme now much more ready to receyve Popery and superstition agayne then to stand forth for the maintayning thy heavenly Gospell with the losse of any thing for it and so verie many thereby so forward to put their neckes under the yoake of Antichrist againe rejecting the sweete yoake of Iesus Christ. When there is also such a world of Atheisme as that so many both in Court Countrey live as if there vvere no God no heaven no judgement no place of torment Such multitudes perishing daily for lacke of this knowledge living as without Christ being ignorant of all saving knowledge of him and so goe hoodwinked to hell worse then the Oxe that knoweth his owner Make us able heereby to consider aright how justlie thou mayest bee provoked agaynst the Churches for our wonderfull unbeleefe and mayest even give us up into our enemies hands for the same when there are so meruailous few to be found in all the Churches who shewe forth their saving knowledge of thy Majesty and faith in thee by their conversations by making a right conscience of every one of thy blessed Commandements to obey them or of thy judgements or threats to restrayne them from sinne or of thy sweete promises and mercyes to bee encouraged thereby to runne more cheerefully in the narrow way of life but all sorts except the small remnant full of prophanenesse or extreme licentiousnesse Oh make us to behold that carnall confidence which so possesseth all almost generally that in steed of honouring thee by having set thee up to bee our onely confidence and strength we do trust in vanity making flesh our arme either relying upon our wit our policy and counsell or other like meanes by all which as our hearts are withdrawne from thee so we have and do bring a fearefull curse uppon our selves making these our gods Lord make us able to consider of this more seriously of the truth heereof by this one thing that in all our straites and feares we so little run unto thy Majesty to seeke thy face and helpe in the first place by humbling our souls before thee and seeking to pacifie thy wrath as wee ought but only looke to the outward meanes as relying uppon them alone or principally And Lord we intreat thee to shew us in our harts and to set plainly before our faces how in all the rest of these holy duties we have provoked thee alike how in steede of taking to heart the dishonors done unto thy heavenly Majesty and being zealous for thy glory we have bene and are so generally either starke cold or luke-warme as the â—…odicean that thou mayest justly spewe us out of thy mouth or at least that wee are so mervailously decayed and falne from our first love Lord give us harts to consider of our most heynous sin in this behalfe that in steede of so loving thee thy truth and servants as we should do if we had set thee up truely in our soules and consciences as our God we have almost everie one set up some other thing which wee manifest plainly that we have and do love and preferre before thy glorious holinesse as having our affections set thereon much more then on thy heavenly Majesty and for obtaining or injoying whereof we are not afraid to indanger our selves to loose thy favour as some of us our children and friends to make them great others our pleasures to take our delight and satiate our selves in them others of us and that very generally the riches pompe honour and wealth of the world and all of us except some little remnant preferring our owne selves our owne honor â—…ase peace and safety and whatsoever is most pleasing unto us before thy glorious Majestie and thy heavenly Commandements Lord make us able to see how we have and do prouoke thee generally to powre out thy wrath upon us all some of us by grosse disobedience and obstinacie against some one or other of these thy Sacred Commandements if not all of them wherein soever they crosse the corruption of ouâ—… owne hearts and that against the verie light of our owne consciences although thou hast told us plainly that this hath bene and is nothing els but rebellion against thee and as the sinne of witch craft in thy eies How others of us dishonour thee by our timerousnes fearing the faces of men more then thy glorious face and thereuppon doing or forbearing good or evill onely for feare of man wherein wee have and do commit manifest Idolatry making Gods of men and setting them up in thy place How others of us tempt thee by presuming upon thy mercy to bee bold to sin because thou art so mercifull though thou hast told us directly that thou wilt not be mercifull to such Yea which is yet a higher degree good Lord Make us to see how many amongst us in â—…teed of having so set thee up as our God in our hearts of being continually humbled before thy glorious Majestie for all our sinnes and provocations have added fuell to the kindling and inflaming thy wrath against us as all amongst us who have set our selves against thy Word thy judgements or servants even with an high hand as if it were in despight of thy Majesty and even in defiance of thee Oâ—… make us to see and acknowledge all our sinnes
and withall that as the Popish sort in every place have set up other Gods to anger thee as chiefly their holy Father the Pope whose word and ordinances they reverence above thine rejecting thy word utterly in regard of their Popes decrees and traditions and with him have set up all their Saints and Idols to whom by their invocation of them they give his glory so every one of us who albeit in words wee professe thee our God have yet in our hearts set up other things which wee preferre before thee and on which we spend moe of our thoughts more of our love and care to enjoy them then on thy Majesty even wee likewise have set up so many false Gods in our hearts to provoke thee to the uttermost And finally good Lord make us all able to see by this first commandement of thine how wonderfull few they are so farre as we are able to conceive who by the light of their good workes doe indeed and truth glorifie thee their heavenly Father by shewing forth before men and Angels that they have so set thee up in their 〈◊〉 as their God and those few that doe so indeed are the men principally maligned of all the people of the world even for this cause principally because they shew in their lives that they have thus in their hearts set thee up to bee their God although that they be the onely blessed people having thee their God all other being in a most miserable estate and that they are therefore the onely men in honour and favour with thee and by whom chiefly as by Abraham Noah and Moses thou savesâ—… and preservest all the rest of us Make us Lord to understand and conceive aright hereof and that for this very 〈◊〉 alone whereby we have so generally seâ—… our selves not onely to maligne and dishonour theâ—… but even to fight against thy heavenly Majesty wee may wonder how thou hast spared us of this nation hither to and not left us up as the other Churches untill we shall see and acknowledge what wee hâ—…e done against theâ—… our most gracious and out most blessed God in this behalfe Heare us Oh tender Father â—…nd suffer us never to â—…est untill wee have repented particularly of this our most heynous and crying sinne and that all of us that ever looke to have a strong assurance that we belong to thy eternall â—…lection have thus truly seâ—… theâ—… up in our hearts as our Lord and God That so by our unfeigned repentance thou maiest once againe manifest thy selfe in the deliuerance of all thy Churches and people in a more glorious manner to bee still our God graciously reconciled to vs againe in Iesus Chrst maiest so renew thy Covenant to remaine our God and the God of our posterity through him and for his sake alone for evermore Amen Amen XII A humble confession of the sinnes of the Churches and an acknowledgment of Gods righteous proceeding for our unthank fulnesse and transgression of his Lawes and for that though wee haue heard of all their miseries and knowne our owne dangers yet we haue not beene humbled nor made our supplications as we ought according to the 1. of Nehemiah OH Lord God of heauen and earth who art the great and terrible God proceeding most fearfully in thy dreadfull judgements even against thine owne deare people and children as thou diddest against thy people of Israel for their unthankfuluesse for their despising transgressing thy blessed Lawes and Commandements and yet art withall full of mercy and tender compassion to thy people repenting of their sinnes and truly humbled for their provocations thou who keepest Covenant and mercy for ever for all that truly love thee and who desire unfeignedly to observe all thy Commandements heare us and al thy poore Churches and people in all the earth at this day looking up to thee alone and crying loude unto thee We pray thee Oh tender Father that thine eyes may be open and thine eares may bee attent both to behold the miseries and dangers and to heare the prayers of thy poore servants which wee all joyntly poure out before thee day and night for our brethren thy servants and children which are in such great affliction and doe now uncessantly confesse all our sins and the sinnes of all thy people which we have sinned against thee Both we and our Fathers all of us have grievously provoked thee now this threescore yeares and aboue even since thou first tooke us by the hand to bring us forth of Egypt Babilon and diddst also carry us out as uppon Eagles wings by thy mig hty hand and oâ—…t-stretched arme Oh Lord wee have heard long do dayly heare more and more of the innumerable miseries which thou broughtest uppon our brethren and sisters in the Palatinate it being a principall member even of our owne selves Aud so in Bohemia and the Countries adioyning to it though further remote from vs yet our deare brethren and sisters in Christ Iesus and so likewise in the Churches of France hard at our doores in all the direfull slaughters and butcherly cruelties which thine our merciles enemies haue executed upon them in their bloody rage without any pitty We have also heard and do still daily heare ringing in our eares the miserable state and condition of the residue of them that have escaped the bloody sword some of them induring all kind of violence and calamities of all sorts living in all reproach the wall of their Ierusalem being broken downe the gates there of being burnt with fire all the rest of them living in continuall feare because of the deadly fury and hellish plots against them to destroy them all And yet though wee have long heard do dayly heave of these things and of the rage of thine and our enemies still increased against them all and against our selves have wee not with thy holy servant Nehemiah sit downe wept and mourned for them muchlesse fasted and prayed before thee the God of heaven in their behalfe in any such manner as we ought Oh thou our most holy God and pittyfull Father we humbly confesse and acknowledge that wee have all grievously sinned against thee wee have not kept thy great goodnesse in remembrance which thou shewedst unto us in delivering our fathers and us so wonderfully from Aegypt Babilon by so mighty a hand nor the many great preservations and deliverances which since that time our eares have heard and our eies have seene how thou hast rescued us from their jawes nor yet have we kept in memory how thou tookest us to bee thine owne peculiar people of all the people of the earth made thy Covenant with us to bee our God and that wee should be thy people so that wee would but walke in this thy Covenant But this our Covenant with thy Majesty though all of vs who professe thy Gospell have solemnly
vowes and Covenants which we have so oft renewed and that neyther judgements nor mercyes could prevaile with us and especially for making flesh our arme withdrawing our hearts and confidence from thy heavenly Majesty wee had long agoe deserved that both they and wee with all our blessings should have bene wholly left into the hands of thine our enemies which have and doe so eagerly thirst after our blood and that nothing at all hath kept us to this day but onely thy endlesse compassions and the yearning of thy bowels at the cryes and sighes of thy poore Saints and children in all the Churches looking up to thee alone and lifting up their hands unto thee Awaken us therefore graciously now at length Oh thou that hast kept thy Israel and neither slumbrest nor sleepest and cause us yet in time to understand the things that concerne our peace and whereby thou mayest bee wholly pacified towards us in this Nation with all thy Churches and people Oh grant unto us most tender Father to know and throughly to conceive aright that â—…hat which wee have so oft and so many a time promised unto thee and so bound our selves unto in all our perils and which thou hast so long expected thou now expectest at our hands above all former times now that thou hast added this above all former mercies thus farre to deliver us from our feares and to vouchsafe unto us such hopes for all future times every day to renew the same in that heavenly union and harmony of thy Annoynted and his whole most honourable Parliament for thy Church causes and against thine enemies Oh give us all such hearts that wee may yet now at length performe whatsoever thou requirest of us to make our repentance unfeigned sound and our full reconciliation thereby in being humbled before thee both publiquely and privately and in taking away all our abhominations and crying sinnes and in doing whatsoever may tend to the giving of thee thy due glory with the greatest advancement of thy heavenly Gospell and doing whatsoever thou requirest of us for the ratifying and confirming all thy mercies towards us and our making a firme union with thy Majesty amongst us all in Iesus Christ according to the right tenour of thy sacred truth That thus as thy hand hath formerly bene stretched out against us and against thy Churches and that the enemies have so sarre prevailed in their designes so now at last their joy may he as the joy of an hypocrite and that they may see their confidence as a spiders web Oh grant such hearts unto us all that thou seeing ouâ—… true repentance maiest give to us and to thy people the upper hand that we-may be above and not beneath that we may not onely stand valiantly as one man of one hart and soule for thee for thy heavenly Gospel with thine Annoynted his royall progeny and Dominions and each for our selves and ours our children posterity and for the true liberty of us all but also that all of us may be as bold as Lyons and being strengthned by thee and the power of thy might five of us thy servants may chase a hundreth according to thy promise made to the true turning of thy people to thee and a hundreth of us may put tenne thousand to flight That thus thine Annoynted and all his Royall Progeny and posterity may become the happyest heades of the blessedest progeny and dominions that ever were formerly in all the earth and all theirs and our sinnes and the sinnes of all the Churches may be freely forgiven never to be remembred against us or against any of thy true Churches any more according to thy heavenly promise and that for thy endless glory and praise the everlasting triumph of us all that wee may for ever sing praises unto thy great name through Iesus Christ that King of Kings our only Lord and Saviour Amen XVI A humble thanksgiving that the Lord hath already begunne so graciously to heare our praiers with supplycation that as we have made entrance into this service to helpe our Lord Iesus and his poore Churches by our prayers and teares so wee may bee every day more fitted and inabled hereunto untill wee shall see not onely the deliverance of his Churches and Captives but also the new Ierusalem and the glory of his Sion and inioy the full happinesse of them for ever in the heavens OH Lord God most holy and most gracious most faithfull and true who remembrest alwaies all thy gracious promises which thou hast ever made to thy Churches and people in thy blessed word and wilt in thy due time performe every one of them even to all of us who are thine when thou hast first truely humbled and prepared our hearts to pray and importune thy sacred Majesty seeking thee in order We magnifie thy great name that thou hast so visibly begunne to declare thy selfe to bee mindfull of thy promises in so graciously inclining thy care unto our cryes We praise thee and bless thee that as thou diddest proclaime thy name before thy servant Moses to bee The Lord The Lord strong mercifull gracious slow to anger and abundant in goodnesse and truth so thou hast done it before us all especially us of this sinfull Nation that thou herein hast made it manifest to the convincing of every conscience amongst us in sparing us at the praiers of some few of thy people unto this day We glorifie thee Oh good Lord that as thou hast caused it to bee registred in thy booke for all the Ages of thy Church how according to thy gracious promises thou ever diddest heare thine auncient people of Israel in their miseries and when they cryed to thee in their troubles thou then deliveredst them from their distresse so thou hast heard us of this sinfull Nation delivering us not onely at our publike humiliation from the mercilesse intended invasion but also pluckt us from Nebuchadnezars furnace at the private sighes groanes of thy secret ones and that so as that thou hast made these deliverances to bee recorded for all succeeding times Yea we praise and magnifie thee that thou still renewest these thy wonderfull and fatherly mercies to us a people so vnworthy of any mercie that thou hast hitherto continued and evidently declared the riches of thy compassion in saving us from all our feares first so graciouslie preserving and bringing back our most Royall and hopeful Prince disposing of all his dangers and our feares as thou diddest to Ioseph to the greatest comforts and hopes of thy Church and that thou hast since so lately manifested such riches of thy love and kindnesse in such a heavenly union among thy worthyest servants our Soveraign Lord and King with all his faythfull Peeres and true-hearted Nobility and Commons for the advancement of thy glory and Gospell and the saying of thy people with the frustrating
Sonne our onely Mediator and blessed Redeemer and Saviour Amen FINIS Protestants helpes for Deuotion and matters belonging to the stirring up of the same A AVgustines Meditations Allisons Meditations Art of happinesse Abba Father Abrahams Tryall Alphabet of Prayers Anatomy of the Soule Andersons prayers Anker of Faith Art of meditation B Bradfords Meditations Bezaes Prayers Banes Letters Banes his holy helper Banes his spiritual Armour Bifields Marrow Bifields signes of Saluation Bifields signes of a Wicked man Bound of Fasting Banes on true Happinesse Banes his direction Bifields Treatises Bifields Principles Burning bush Boaring of the Eare. Benefit of Affliction Battell between Vertues and Vices Beautifull Baybush C Christian dayly Sacrifice Crashewes prayers Crowne of life Christian watchfulnesse Chaine of Graces Christian mans walke Christian Combat Christian Sacrifice Contemplations 7. parts Converts Catechisme Couenant betweene God and Man Christians Touchstone Conquest of Temptations Combate betweene Man and Death Christian prayers and meditations Conduite of Comfort M. Cusuerweâ—… of â—…aith Christian Armour by M. Gouge Caluins prayers Castle of the soule Conawayes prayers Cases of Conscience Cases of Conscience D Dauids Sling Diamond of Deuotion Daily exercise of a ChristiaÌ„ Deerings prayers Delights of the Saints Discourse of true happinesse Dauids Key D. Duns Deuotion Death subdued Dialogue betweene the Lord and the Soule Dike on the deceiptfulnes of mans heart Dike of repentance Dike of Conscience Dauids Cast. M. Dod on the Commandements M. Dod on the Lords Supper M. Dods houshold gouerment Dents pathway to Heauen Dents sermon on repentance Dauids Vow Defiance to death Dauids repentance Directions to the waters of Life Directions in our dutie to God and man Diuine Meditations E Euery dayes Sacrifice Eye to heauen Enemy to Security Enemy to Atheisme Estate of a Christian. Exercise for Christian Families Exercise of the faithful soule F Fields prayers Foot-path to Faith Lady Fane her Meditations Fountaine or Well of life Flower of godly Prayers Fruite of Faith Freemans Comfort G Glasse of Vainglory Grounds of Diuinity Grounds of Religion Granadoes Meditations Godly Garden Godly mans assurance Garland of godly Flowers Garden of spirituall Flowers Gods Husbandry Growing in grace Golden Chain by M. Rogers Gouernance of vertue Garden of Felicity H Helpe to Deuotion Hundred heavenly thoughts Heavenly progresse Heavenly Mansion Handful of wholsome hearbs Harbour of Christianity I Imitation of Christ 3. parts Iewell for Gentlewomen Ioy of a good Conscience K. Kings Bath Key of Knowledge Kings Psalmes L Linacars Consolations Life death of M. Stubbs Learne to liue Learne to dye Load starre of life Love of God Life of Religion Lampe of Virginity M Manuel of Prayers Markes of Salvation Meditations and Vowes Martyrs Prayers Melancthons Prayers Marlorats Prayers Markes of Gods Children O Oyle of Scorpions P Practice of Pietâ—… Practice of Christianity Practice of Quietnesse An Inuitation to prayer and the practice of Piety Poore mans rest Poesie of Prayers Pensiue mans practice Princes Prayers Pilgrimes profession Pathway to Paradise Practice of the faithful Pathway to Salvation Pathway to Felicity Pearle of the Gospell Preservatiue against sinne M. Perkins his Treaties Pars Grounds Perfect path to Paradise Path to penitency Progresse to piety Poore mans Pater nostey Pomander of Prayers Paradise of the Soule Pathway to please God Precious Pearle Poore mans Staffe Q Queene Katherines Prayers R Righteous mans evidence Reward of Religion Rocke of Religion Resolves divine Rogers seven Treatises Right godly rules Rosary of Christian Prayers S Sicke mans Medicine Sanctuary of a trobled Soule Supplication of Saints Seaven helpes to heaven Scudder on the Lords prayer Spirituall detraction Simpson on the Psalmes Simeons Sacrifice Suttons Meditations Safegard of the Soule Sicke mans Salve Solace of the Soule Soules watch Spirituall Garden Samuels encounter Samuel Smiths Workes Saints by Calling Ship of Salvation Sacrifice of a Christian soule Seven sobs of a sorowful soule Shield of Salvation Sampsons Prayers Sicke mans Comfort T True Watch. Twines prayers Topsels Meditations Treasure of Gladnesse Triall of Faith Trumpet of the Soule Lad Tirwits prayers Troubled mans Medicine Treatise of Conscience FINIS ¶ See more concerning all these following in M. Maunsels Catalogue dedicated to Queen Elizaebeth imprinted An. Dom. 1595 and sundry others since not mentioned HElpes for suffering adversity and affliction Pag. 2. Preparatiues against Apostacie 4. Col. 2 Catechismes Pag. 28. Col. 2 Treatises and helpes for keeping the Ten Commandements Pag 35. Col. 2 Confessing of Christ. Pag. 37. Col. 2 Treatises of Conscience with comforts for an afflicted Conscience 37. col 2 Treatises of the Creed for helpes for our faith Pag. 40. Col. 2. Helpes against the feare of death how to dye well Pag. 42 Helpes against desperation pag. 43 Directions for a Christian life 44 Of the end of the world and the second comming of Christ. 47 Exercises for a Christian Family and a Christian life pa. 48 Helpes for true Fasting 49 Spirituall preservatiues against the Pestilence 59 Imitation of Christ. 62 Prayers 83 Of Repentance 90 Helpes for preparation vnto the Sacraments of the Lords Supper 93 Holy Sermons in print a multitude 96 Comforts for the sicke 107 108 True Confession of sinne 108 Restitution of a sinner ibid. Of good workes and exhortation to them Pag. 113. ¶ A Table of the particular Meditations of each of the seuen generals 1. Generall Meditation HOw our Saviour looks for some to helpe him in the deliverie and saving of his church and what things are necessary for euery such a helper to know Pag. 12. 2. Generall Meditation 2 Of the present necessitie of this worke and of the lively feeling thereof and how the Lord cals all sorts thereunto 7 Heere in these particular Meditations 1. Concerning the calamities and dangers of our Brethren in all places and those which are threatned towardes our selues with the chiefe meanes of delivery and preservation from them pag. 9 2 How God hath beene wont to get himselfe glorie in saving his Church by Princes and Governours pag. 13. 3 How as Sathan Antichrist have set themselves to fight against Christ and his Kingdome so our Saviour hath ordained Kinges and Princes to hold up his Scepter and to defend and protect his subiects Gospell pa. 15 4 How Sathan and Antichrist set up themselves to bee obeyed and to destroy all out of the earth who seeke to obey Christ truely pag. 18 5 Concerning the innumerable miseries which our Brethren indure being deprived of the outward comforts of this and the better life and how nâ—…e the like may be to us pag. 20. 6 Concerning the general sinnes of the Churches so provoking the Lord and namely the generall abuse of the Gospel and blessings accompanying it and that our sinnes are of all others most heynous for the same pag. 23 7 How Satan exerciseth all his power and tyranny against the Churches spiritually like as he doth outwardly pag. 50 8 How the Kingdom and Glory are our Christs how
Psal. 1. 2. 3. Prosper in all Be wiser then our enemies Psal. 119. 98. 99. 100. Like as David Daniell and others Dan. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. God will be with us as we are with him 2. Chro. 15. 2. Ezra 8. 22. Heb. 10. 38. We shall be able to live by faith Iob 22. 21. 22 23 c. To lift up hearts and hands in assurance to be heard Lâ—…m 3 39 40 41 42. Onely such as wholly endeavour to walke with God are the innocent that shall deliver the Iland Iob 22 30. To be perswaded that all Gods promises are made to an endeavour of an intire obedience And contrarily How Sathan knowing this Hath labored to make all to content themselves onely with a bare outward profession destroying all the power of godliness to the Lords dishonour That he might leaue all into his hand The acknowledgement of Gods righteousnes heerein by many of his faithfull servants To pray that we may be able likewise to iustify the Lord and never to rest until he give thee all unfeigned repentance for it That we may be warned by their ensample To do it forthwith To be warned heereof by the very Heathen 1 Sam. 6 5 â—… To smite the hearts of all Gods Lieutenants with a true sense heereof To perswade us that our Adversaries are raised up to humble us to walk with our God How then he will get himselfe glorie on them To know as we are made for his glory so he will be glorifyed in each of us In mercy Or vengeance That his glory may shine in our deliverance And getting himselfe honour upon Babylon A praier that we may give God the glory of his inward worship according to the 1. Commandement and so helpe to pacifie his Maiestie towardes the Churches To pray that we may set up God in our hearts giving him there his inward worship In knowing and acknowledging him Iohn 6 45. Heb. 2 â—…4 In faith beleeving him to be our God Iohn 20. 28. To be perswaded that this peculiar faith was the faith of Abraham all the faithfull Rom. â—…3 Heb. 11. 2. Heb. 〈◊〉 6. Rom. 14. 23. Vpon this our faith to hold fast the Anchor of our hope To honour the Lord by manifesting our faith by our confidence To manifest our faith by our love to the Lord his Commandements and ordinances By our zeale for his glory That we may honour him shewing forth all holy patience That we may possess our soules in patience wayting for the happy yssue Iob 13 15. That we may give him glory in our childlike fear Walking constantly withouâ—… God in holy feare Albeit the world scorne and hate us for it To shewforth our honour towards the Lord by our Humility To this end to have ever before our eyes Gods excellency our own vileness and danger by Nature and Sathans malice That we may give to the Lord all the glory of our standing and perseverance in grace of each good thing That we may withall give him his glory mourning continually for all the dishonours done unto his name all provocations against the Churches To pray to be able to see hereby who they are that truly honour the Lord have set him up for their God To discerne of the greatnesse of the sinne of all the Churches whereby he is dishonored provoked By palpable ignorance blindness in them By Atheisme Vnbeleefe Carnall confidence Lukewarmnesse Loving other things more then Gods Maiesty Disobedience 1 〈◊〉 15 22 23 Tâ—…ousnes Presumption Deut. 29 19 20 21. Pride against God To see that as the Popish sort have set up their false Gods outwardly So we in our hearts To see even by this first Commandement how few doe truly honour the Lord. All wicked men maligning all who have so set him up so to glorifie his great name To be able to conceive aright hereo That we may wonder how even for this sinne God hath spared us so long That we may never â—…est untill we have so set up the Lord in our hearts An importuning of the Lord by his iustice and mercy To heare his people crying ioyntly to him To behold the miseries and dangers of all his poore people A humble confession how hearing the miseries of our brethren and their perils yet we have not bene humbled for them Neh. 1. 4. A further confession how we have all sinned in our extreame unthankfulnes breach of our Covenant with the Lord. How concerning Gods inward worship multitudes amongest us have set up Sathan to adore As all living in blindnesse or any heynous sinne All who have set up the world in any kinde Very few who have set up the Lord as we ought For his outward worship in the second Commandement how we have â—…inned Confession how we have increased our guiltines by taking Gods name in vaine And principally for prophaning his Sabbath which might iustly make all our countryes to rest and keepe Sabbaths to him in that dolefull manner that some do already Acknowledgment of Gods righteousnesse in all that he hath done to the Churches threatneth Neh. 1. 8. A humble prayer for them and for us all 〈◊〉 that God may 〈◊〉 pen out eyes to seâ—… what we have done in so â—…arre returning to Poâ—…ery againe especially of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈…〉 To dote so upon it againe after such notorious discoveries of the vilenes of it How all sorts had seene before how they had bene deluded by iâ—… How Gods vengeance was most iustâ—…y coâ—… upon those their 〈◊〉 us houses How â—…ous 〈◊〉 were for filthynesse Blood Being nothing else but dens of theeves That all may know what their religion waâ—… 〈◊〉 bâ—… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—…ere was then one part of that Babylon the mother of whoredomes and abhominations Apoc. â—…7 5. And 〈◊〉 the ruine â—…f it a part of the fall of Babylon verified How God hath as from heaâ—…en proclaimed the 〈◊〉 of his approbation of his religion professed amon gest us To thinke what they can answere for not being warned by so many such notorious discoveries of their bloody rage and practises 〈◊〉 of their â—…ligion To keepe ever in 〈◊〉 memory that insolent invasion of our nation The hellish powder Treason discovering the cursednesse of that religion To consider the â—…nies granted to the Gospell in the miraculous continuance of it and preservation of our Princes To beg true repeâ—…tance for this and all our loud crying sinnes That our land may be purged of it and the evils threaâ—…ed prevented To pray for all 〈◊〉 with tâ—…e wine of popery and 〈◊〉 other â—…gered by iâ—… To consider of the righteousnesse of God 〈◊〉 upon thâ—… 2 Thes. 2. 10. 11. 12. To bethinke themselves what it is so so renounce theiâ—…â—…other and their Baptisme 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epistle prefixed to our sed â—…eed broâ—… To 〈◊〉 of their intoil â—…able lyâ—… devised to deceive the simple How they abuse all the simple in perswading them that they have moâ—…
lively evidences thereof which is the chiefest of all though they be such as are deere and pretious unto the Lord and who have his holy Spirit for their earnest albeit onely for a time they want the sense feeling of it as it hath beene in many a soule in our memory and is at this day whereupon they have bene are so usually prayed for in many of our best Congregations from whence they looke for some helpe comfort by the praiers of Gods people if I say it bee so with them what can wee thinke shall become of the ungodly and impenitent sinners especially of those enemies of Christ and his Servants when their consciences shall bee throughly awaked and much more after this life when their case in regard of any comfort shall be contrary to the estate of these poore Servants of the Lord. If the righteous shall scarsly bee saved as Peter speaketh and as wee see how hardly it goes with these last mentioned where shall the wicked and ungodly appeare If the paine of one tooth alone be oft so extreame that it permits no sleepe nor rest day nor night when wee have all kind of other comforts to mitigate and ease it what can wee thinke the torments of all the parts both of soule and body must needs be in the Lake burning with fire and brimstone for ever where the very hope of all other comforts shall be utterly taken away which notwithstanding we are certainly assured must come upon all impenitent and ungodly sinners because the word of the Lord doth tell us so most plainly and so oft warnes us of it The Lord cals from heaven continually upon all who doe not repent them of their sinnes come to helpe him to thinke seriously hereof as which alone shall bee sufficiently able to convince and condemme all that ever have heard the holy Scriptures or but these fearfull examples alone The third Meditation How God herein sets before us all life and death blessing and cursing FInally we are to bethinke our selves in our deepest and best Meditations how the Lord here sets before every soule life and death blessing and cursing Life if we will but now set our selves seriously with all our hearts to seeke to pass all these difficulties never giving rest to our soules untill by our Meditations and prayers and the right use of all other holy meanes which in his word he hath prescribed us wee have attained so to beleeve and so to obey yea in all things so to doe as hee requireth at our hands that wee may be fit to helpe him and his poore Church Then we shall have boldnesse whatsoever come to passe we shall not need to feare though all our enemies were so many Divels wee shall not be dismaid for the adventuring and loosing of all Houses Goods Friends Parents Children no nor Life it selfe but contrarily in the middest of death wee shall be bold and couragious as Lyons for our Lord and Saviour knowing that nothing can separate us from Gods favour and in the losse of all we shall gaine all bee in all even in the middest of death more then Conquerors thorow him who hath so loved us and hath given himselfe for us and shall with him triumph over all our enemies eternally Death and cursing he likewise sets before us threatneth them unto us undoubtedly without unfeigned repentance whereof wee can have little hope if he now calling upon us thus earnestly to helpe him by the offer of so many mercies and such blessednesse on the one side we will not shew our true obedience and uttermost indeavour therunto and if hee denouncing so many miseries on the other side wee still refuse to harken living securely and doe not regard this gratious offer of mercy That when our feare shal come upon us like a whirlewind wee shall fly at the shaking of a sword even at the very report of our enemyes prevailing much more of their approching so neere unto us Our hearts shal be then as Nabals as dead as a stone and so wee shall live in a perpetuall expectation of the just wrath and vengeance of God to seize upon us everlastingly so that we can never expect any comfort after Yea withall we are wisely and deepely to meditate hereof how he bids us to chuse life that wee and ours may live by loving him obeying his voice cleaving fast unto him because he is our life and the length of our dayes And also how hee bidding us will also thereby give us strength to doe it so farre as we shall be accepted If we but beleeue his blessed Commandement and his Covenant of grace shall set our selves in the name and by the power of our Lord Iesu Christ to do what we can in and by the use of all the means which he hath ordained for obtayning this strength and grace so to helpe him and if we wil be as earnest as vigilant and industrious for attaining of this honour as we would be for the attaining of any earthly honour or riches For we cannot thinke that ever any man who sought this after this manner was rejected to wit if hee sought it as for treasure that is early earnestly and constantly And therefore all who wil not thus set themselves to obey help the Lord have their mouths for ever most justly stopped being left altogether without excuse And thus much also for this last generall Meditation and how we may in all things be in some good measure rightly and fitly prepared to helpe in instant and powerfull prayer for the poore Churches of Christ according to all whereunto the Lord now calles us thereby to have good hope to prevayle with him To wit when wee shall finde our hearts so affected towards his heauenly Majesty as to preferre him his glory causes before our selves so truly shewing that we love him with all our heart soule strength and might and our neighbour as our selfe as hee commandeth being so affected likewise towardes them and doing so to them as we would have them do to us if wee were in their estate and case All which we must everie one strive unto or perish if wee but onely as wee saw before stand on the other side in the day of our Brethrens affliction and much more if we will not bee moved by any one meanes nor all the meanes together whereby the Lord calls us thus to come to helpe him now I say that hee even our Lord and Saviour proclaimes to all our consciences before all the world that hee stands in such need of our helpe and so expects it hourely at our hands And this may suffice to prepare us all to this happy worke of true humiliation and of instant prayer for the Churches onely let mee put you in minde that our Lord Iesus Christ to the end that hee