that it is kindly and exactly suited to our Natures and so is altogether fit to promote all our true Interests and our Happiness To comply with this is our Wisdom and Honour it is Health to the Navel and Marrow to the Bones it has length of days and good repute and Wealth and Peace to reward us with In keeping thy Commands there is great reward Blessed then are the undefiled in the Way who walk in the Law of the Lord. It is good for us to keep thy Precepts they are sweeter than Honey and the Honey Comb and more to be desired then Gold yea then much fine Gold they best adorn and accomplish us they are the Happiness of our Souls as well as of our Bodies they rectifie and compose the Mind they give us Peace and Strength within great Peace they have which Love thy Law and nothing shall offend them Then shall we never have occasion to be ashamed when we have respect unto all thy Commandments Thou art good O Lord and dost good O do thou teach us thy Statutes O that our Ways were directed to observe them Lord make us as early as we can to remember thee our Creator to remember and turn unto thee to consider and know and do the Duties which we owe to thee as such We have gone astray like lost Sheep Oh seek thou thy Servants and save us that we do not forget thy Commandments That we may never forget them or thee we pray thee to write thy Law in our Hearts and to put thy fear in our inward Parts for thy fear is a good Principle of this Wisdom of good and vertuous Living Make us to reverence thy Greatness and Glory which is so bright in all thy Works and so wonderful in the Creation of our selves for we Lord are fearfully and wonderfully made Make us sensible of thy continual Presence with us that thou dost thereby continue our Beings and observe our Actions we depend upon thee while we provoke thee we are in thy hand at all times to do with us whatsoever thou pleasest thou who art our Creator art the Supream and invincible Disposer of us O let us stand in awe that we may not sin against thee Make us concern'd to please thee who art the Fountain of our Beings and the bestower of all our Good that thou mayst delight in us to do us good and that we may according to thy Design in making us be happy O Lord forgive us we pray thee all our past wandrings from thee forgive us all our sins of negligence and ignorance and endue us we beseech thee with the Grace of thy Holy Spirit to amend our Lives according to thy Holy word Be reconciled to us by the Blood of thy Son Jesus through Faith in which we humbly seek thy Favour We pray thee turn from us all those Evils that we most righteously have deserved in time past and grant us hereafter to serve and please thee in Holiness and Righteousness all the days of our Life Lord let us be planted in thy House and abide in the Communion of thy Church and there flourish like the Palm Tree and if we live to old Age let us be even then fruitful in good Works to thy Praise and Glory We make our humble Supplications to thee O Lord for all Men. Let the Earth be filled with Knowledge of the Lord as Waters cover the Sea Prosper thy Church and give it great encrease of all Grace and give it in thy due time Tranquillity and Peace deliver it from intestine Disturbance and outward Enemies We humbly implore thy mercy upon these Kingdoms in General Lord grant that all things well-pleasing to thee may flourish and abound among us and do thou by thy Almighty Providence watch over us and direct our publick Affairs for our good Particularly we pray for our most Gracious King and Queen Grant them in Health and Wealth long to live strengthen them to vanquish and overcome all their Enemies Teach us and all their Subjects duely to consider whose Authority they have and so to serve honour and humbly obey them in thee and for thee according to thy most Blessed word and Ordinance that so they may be the Ministers of God to us for good Do good to all amongst us beyond what we can ask or think Let thy Blessing upon the words which we have this Day heard make it to dwell and take root in us and bring forth Fruit even to an hundred fold And let the same Gracious mercy which has blest us this Day with things necessary for Life and Godliness watch over us this Night and give us safe and comfortable Rest and if it shall please thee to add still to our Lives make us steady and persevering in well-doing to the end of our Days all which we humbly crave in the Name of Jesus Christ to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all Honour and Glory Our Father c. OF A Death-Bed Repentance SHEWING How unreasonable it is for any Man to rely upon it Let us Pray PRevent us O Lord in all our doings with thy most gracious favour and further us with thy continual help that in all our works begun continued and ended in thee we may glorify thy Holy Name and finally by thy Mercy obtain Everlasting Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Numb 23. vers 10. Latter Part. Let me die the Death of the Righteous and let my last end be like his BAlaam a famous Sorcerer and Fortune-teller among the Midianites was sent for by Balak King of Moab to curse Israel when they were upon his Borders The Messengers came to him with this Complement from the King For I wot that he whom thou blessest is blessed and he whom thou cursest is cursed Chap. 22. vers 6. Such an esteem had he raised of himself among the ignorant Heathens And very fain would the wicked wretch have done that which Balak desired for the sake of the wages of Iniquity which he loved This appears by his seeking of enchantments against Israel as he several times did as the 1st verse of the 24th Chapter intimates but it pleased God constantly to over-rule and hinder him And when he sought to utter his direful and mischievous Charms which before perhaps could blast the Fruits of the Earth and cause Thunder and Lightning and raise an Hurricane and throw down Buildings He can now do nothing of all this but the Spirit of God constrains him to utter only things honourable and favourable of Israel In a deep sence which this possest him with of the favour of God to that People and being so far enlightned for the present though against his Will as to understand that they should be happy not only in this Life but also in that to come if they would keep the Commandments of their God he therefore concludes his first Parable or sententious and prophetick Speech concerning them in the words of our Text Let
as Idleness and that do and must needs dwell together If we apply our selves to this accomplishment in the proper Seasons for it that is on the Lords-Days and in the Intervals of Business and necessary Refreshment on other Days we shall have of this endeavour after such Knowledge a good Employment and we shall be so long kept from Idle and Vain Thoughts And then when a man does know much especially of Sacred things his Mind will not want good and useful Objects to entertain its self with at any time when he is at leisure for thinking He needs not at any time be idle but may be meditating on the Rules of Vertue and good living he may be applying them to his Actions and examining and regulating his Course of Life encouraging himself in the good he finds and rebuking himself for his Errours He may be very profitably meditating on the perfections of the Divine Nature and thereby raising in himself all those pious and devout Dispositions of Mind which are a suitable acknowledgment of those Perfections He may be often thinking of the World to come to which all Mankind are hastning and sending his Thoughts before him into Eternity and musing upon those two different States which will hereafter divide all Mankind between them and in one or other of which we must have our longest abode even to all Eternity These are Thoughts very fit to make the Mind wise and serious and to cure the levity of it and are certainly very good and profitable employment for it when no duty requires it attendance But he that is not acquainted with subjects worthy of his Thoughts will still think too and then he must needs think for the most part very idly and vain His Thoughts will seldom be employed about that which is his Duty nor will they be such as will dispose or lead him to it 3. We should accustom our selves frequently to review and reflect upon our Thoughts to think what we have been thinking upon and in what strain and way our Thoughts have been employed Let us endeavour always to know what passes within us what we do with our own Minds how we employ their noble powers and commune with our own Hearts as the Psalmist advises If we often do thus reflect upon our selves we cannot be long idle but we shall find our selves so and so may rectify our selves we shall apprehend our wanderings and may prevent our wild Imagination from polluting us with evil Thoughts and such as would actuate and cherish evil Inclinations and without this frequent reflection 't is impossible but we shall be often drawn away Besides if we are wont to call our selves thus to account we shall come to reverence our selves as the Philosophers speak we shall become desirous to be always able to give a good account to our own Consciences of the employment of our Thoughts we shall be liable to an wholesome Shame for all the Follies and Vagaries of our Minds and so by degrees we shall easily cure and prevent the vanity of them 4. Lastly We should endeavour to accustom our selves to good and pious Ejaculations Our constant dependance upon God and Obligations to him every moment and our constant danger and proneness to fall into Sin do greatly require this and without doubt it is a rule of special Usefulness to cure the vanity and levity of the Mind and to make it always serious and wise and directed to its main End the glorifying of God That which I mean by it is this Let us accustom our selves to make little short Addresses to God upon all occasions that occur to us to which purpose the Holy Scripture affords us an abundant Supply As for instance When we awake in the Morning to say I laid me down and slept I awaked for the Lord sustained me When the Light of the Day comes The Heavens declare the glory of God the Firmament sheweth his Handy-work When a man goes forth about his Business Hold up my goings in thy paths that my foot-steps slip not When we hear of any other mens Faults and Sins Lead me not into temptation but deliver me from evil When we see Children One Generation shall praise thy Name unto another and shall declare thy mighty Acts. Thus we shall well employ our Minds and besides thus we may set the Lord always before us as the Psalmist speaks and so be possest with such a constant Reverence of the Almighty as shall make us careful of our Duty and prevent this Idleness of Thoughts and all the Mischiefs of it Which Grace that may obtain let us earnestly seek it of Almighty God and join the constant use of this Means with all the other THE PRAYER O Lord the Infinite and Eternal Spirit and Father of Spirits who searchest the Hearts and triest the Reins of Men and from whom no secrets are hid Thou O Lord we believe knowest us altogether and thou seest our Thoughts even afar off We are ashamed to think how much vanity and folly and sin thou hast seen within us How little our Minds have attended and applied themselves to our Duty and to the main end of our Beings the living to thy Honour and Glory How seldom this comes into our Thoughts What we were made for what the Creator justly expects from us Hence are our Minds so often engaged in that which does not concern us and that which will not at all profit us and so often employed in gratifying and exercising inwardly some sinful and foolish Inclination While we neglect to set our Minds to that good Employment which our Business and Duty gives us our Adversary the Devil or our sinful Inclinations or the evil Company of the World find them very ill Employment And from hence do our Lives and Actions wretchedly and shamefully wander from the ways of thy excellent Commandments Thus we do instead of serving thee in Body Soul and Spirit most unjustly and unworthily sin against thee in all We ought to meditate on thy Law Day and Night that we might bring forth fruit in due season to study thy Law and learn thy Statutes but we have been those that care not for the Knowledge of thy ways and therefore we have not followed thy Paths This our way O Lord is our folly we condemn we abhor our selves for it and own our selves obnoxious to thy wrath and deserving that thou shouldst reject us from thy Care but since thy Goodness has yet been mindful of us even while we forgot thee we hope thy Mercy will receive us when we return unto thee Our Hope is in thy Word which tells us that to the Lord our God belong Mercies and Forgiveness tho we have rebelled against him Forgive us then O Lord we pray thee all our transgressions upon the account of that great Propitiation and Attonement which is made for us by the precious Blood of thy Son our only Saviour for his sake look mercifully upon our Infirmities and heal
them Vouchsafe to direct sanctifie and govern both our Hearts and Bodies in the way of thy Law and in the works of thy Commandments Cleanse thou the Thoughts of our Hearts by the Inspiration of thy Holy Spirit that we may sincerely love thee and duly magnify thy Holy Name truly serving thee with Soul and Body which are thine Lord have mercy upon us and write all thy Laws in our Hearts we beseech thee Enlighten our Darkness cure our Ignorance with all necessary Knowledge of thee and of thy Christ Change our Wills and turn the biass of them from this World towards thy Self from empty and vain Goods to full and Substantial ones from the pleasures of Sense to the accomplishments of the Mind Make us more indifferent about our outward Circumstances and more concern'd about the inward State and Disposition of our Souls and to account it our greatest Felicity to do well to please thee and approve our selves unto thee Make our vain and light Minds serious and wise furnish us with the Gifts of thy good Spirit for every good work for thou alone art the Giver of every Good and every perfect Gift it is by thee alone O Lord that we can be inabled to please thee we alas are not able of our selves to think a good Thought Help us to set thee always before us in the frequent Thoughts of thee and an habitual reverence and fear of thee that a sense of thy continual presence and observance may restrain us from all evil and encourage and quicken us to mind and do our Duty We humbly implore thy Mercy upon all Men Convert unto thy Self all Jews Turks and Heathens bring them from their several Ways of Vanity to know and worship thee the only true God by Jesus the true Christ and Mediator Give the Heathen for an Inheritance and the utmost parts of the Earth for a Possession to thy well-beloved Son Give unto thy Church all that is necessary to it to amend and purge away what is amiss and to supply what is defective in it and to make it fruitful in all good Works and that all who profess and call themselves Christians may have their Conversation such as become the Gospel Bless we pray thee and defend these Nations in which we live Bless us with a continuance of wise and kind and righteous Governours and of loyal peaceable and obedient Subjects Give peace in our Days we humbly beseech thee for there is none we rely upon to fight for us but only thou O God Establish Truth among us for all Generations bring into the way of Truth all such as have erred and are deceived Remember in Mercy all that are dear and related to us Give them things necessary for Life and Godliness Guide them O Lord by thy Counsel through this world and bring them at last unto thy Glory Sanctify us by thy word which has been this day spoken to us and promote in us thereby all Vertue and Godliness of living Forgive the wandring of our Minds in our attendance upon thee and all other defects in our Duty and comfort us with the light of thy Countenance Be thou our gracious Protector this Night for in thee alone do we put our Trust And if it please thee to allow another Day and yet a longer time on Earth Grant that it may be spent in thy fear and in a diligent and unwearied application to all that which is our Duty This we humbly ask and whatever thou seest to be most expedient for us committing and resigning our selves entirely to thy Conduct and disposal and hoping in thy Mercy through Jesus Christ to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost we desire to ascribe all Praise and Glory and Domihion for ever and ever Our Father c. OF True Happiness Wherein it lies DEMONSTRATED Let us Pray PRevent us O Lord in all our doings with thy most gracious favour and further us with thy continual help that in all our works begun continued and ended in thee we may glorify thy Holy Name and finally by thy Mercy obtain Everlasting Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Psalm 4. 6 7. There be many that say who will shew us any good Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us Thou hast put gladness in my Heart more than in the time that their Corn and their Wine encreased IT is the natural and common desire of Mankind to be happy and is the End which they aim at and propose to themselves in their several Pursuits and Endeavours But as the Psalmist speaks here There be many that say who will shew us good The Many the most of men are at a great loss in this Matter and do not know where their true Happiness lies nor in what course or way to attain it Their uncertainty in this Matter is represented by these words of the Psalmist and is too evidently seen in the common Practice of the World The Human Nature is the same in all Mankind we have all of us reasonable immortal Souls we have all the same Capacities And our Happiness rightly and truly considered must be to all the same The same Object must make all men Happy and they must obtain that in the same way But alas how is the World distracted and divided in the pursuit of Happiness Some of them running one way after it and some another and the most of them neglecting and diverting from the true Object With some there is no Felicity like the heaping up of Wealth like the sight of full Bags or great purchases and they delight in nothing so much as in gainful Bargains With others there is nothing so pleasant as to spend and they delight in this as much as the others do in getting The Pleasures of this World are their beloved Felicity to eat and drink and rise up to play With others there is no Heaven like Honour and Command the having Authority and Power among Men the being courted and sought to respected and obeyed With some how great a Felicity is it to be fine and to have all things about them so To have Themselves their Houses their Entertainments and all that belongs to them gaudy and pompous and much adorned Thus are Mankind disperst thus they wander in the pursuit of Happiness And thus the Many are taken up and employed in this great Concern Having exprest the Uncertainty and intimated the wandering of the Generality in this Affair The Psalmist next expresses what he sought as the Object of Happiness in these words Lord lift thou up the light of thy Countenance upon us Which is as much as to say Lord let us have an Interest in thy Favour regard us with kindness and Love let us enjoy the Exercises and Benefits of thy peculiar Favour and Mercy It might be shewn you by the use of this Phrase in other places of Scripture that this is the sense and meaning of it When he had made this Request he adds
shew Mercy to all Mankind Pour out thy Spirit upon all Flesh that they may know thee and seek thee and find and praise thee and rejoice in thy abundant Goodness Let thy continual Pity cleanse and defend thy Church Lord look down in mercy upon us and bless us that all the ends of the World may fear thee We pray thee do good to these Nations in which we live according thy infinite Sufficiency and our Necessities Oh let not our Iniquities with-hold good things from us but according to the multitude of thy tender Compassions blot out all our Transgressions Bless our Gracious King and Queen and make the one a Nursing Father and the other a Nursing Mother to that part of thy Church which thou hast planted among us and let their good Influence extend further to the Benefit of it and make Them the Honourable Instruments of Establishing Peace and Truth not only in these but also in the Neighbouring Nations to the Glory of thy great Name Bless all Ranks and Degrees of Men among us and make them to live to thy Glory to be conformable and obedient to our Governours and useful peaceable righteous and charitable one towards another in their several Stations We humbly pray for all Friends Relations Benefactors bless and preserve them from every evil Work and conduct them to thy Heavenly Kingdom Let this Day Oh Lord be happy to us in the fruitful and effectual Influences of thy Ordinances upon our Hearts and Lives Let us not be forgetful Hearers but be Doers of thy Word that we may be blest in our Deed. Grant us to lie down in Peace this Night to rest in Safety And be thou O God our Portion and Refuge in the Land of the Living and hereafter our exceeding great Reward for the sake of Jesus Christ in whose Name and Words we further present our Requests unto thee saying OVR Father which art in Heaven Hallowed be thy Name Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily bread And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil Amen THE Heavenly Mind DESCRIBED and URGED Let us Pray PRevent us O Lord in all our doings with thy most gracious favour and further us with thy continual help that in all our works begun continued and ended in thee we may glorify thy Holy Name and finally by thy Mercy obtain Everlasting Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Colos 3. 2. Set your Affections on Things above and not on things on the Earth HOW well did the Bounteous Creatour of all things contrive the Nature of Man for the making him exceedingly Happy He put into our Constitution an Immortal Spirit join'd to a Living and Sensible Body And so he made us capable of the Delights of both Worlds the Spiritual and the Material By our Souls we are capable to enjoy and delight in Spiritual Objects and their Properties and Qualities We are capable of a rational spiritual Delight in sensible Objects and we are capable to enjoy and delight in God himself and his Infinite Eternal Perfections And by our Bodies which are allied to this World we are capable of a sensual Delight in the things of it to enjoy and please our selves with the Properties Vertues and Qualities belonging to Material things So bounteous and kind was the Creatour to Man in the Forming of him But alas Man has not been kind to himself He did not remain long in the happy State which he was first set in but by following too much the Pleasures of his Sense he lost all the greatest Pleasures of his Mind By eating the Forbidden Fruit he sinned against God lost his Favour and the Enjoyment of him became alienated from God and his Mind became subject to the shameful Disease of Sensuality A low and sordid Propensity to Earthly things did from henceforth possess him and a wretched Incapacity and Averseness towards Heavenly and Spiritual things We are condemned to enjoy only the lowest and weakest and the least part of our Happiness to gnaw as it were on the Shell of Pleasure and enjoy no more than the Brute Beasts do We following the unhappy Fall of our Nature do amuse and entertain our selves only with the poor Objects of Sense utterly forget and neglect our higher Capacities and our true Happiness It is the whole Business of our Religion in all the parts of it to recover us from this shameful and deadly Fall to draw us off from this our wretched Attachment to this World and turn us from a false Happiness to a true one The scope and aim of all its Doctrins Precepts Promises Threatnings Motives and Assistances is this to make us truly happy And the Sum of all is to bring us to what the Apostle here exhorts to in saying Set your Affections on Things above not on Things on the Earth By Things above he means those very things which were recommended to you by the Discourse immediately foregoing this as the chiefest and the true Objects of our Happiness He means God himself who is our Chief Good and the Expressions and Exercises of his peculiar Favour and Love He meâ—â—â— the Graces which the Holy Spirit works 〈◊〉 the Souls of Men which perfect and adorn and compose the Mind He means the everlasting Blessedness which is to come the Happiness and Joys of Heaven By advising to set our Affections on those things he means they should be much the Objects of our Minds he intends the Application of the whole Soul to them and the employing of all our Powers about them The Original word which we render here set your Affections has this large Import and Signification and might be rendered Mind those things which are above Let your Judgments esteem them your Wills chuse and your Affections follow them And not on Things on the Earth that is rather than the Things of the Earth It is according to the Custom and Phrase of the Hebrew Language to express thus when it only intends to prefer the former things it speaks of before the latter So in Hos 6. 6. The Prophet in the Person of God says I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice that is rather than Sacrifice he intended to express God's preference of Mercy before Sacrifice Here then the Apostle who was an Hebrew of Hebrews speaking after the Phrase and Manner of his own Language must be understood to mean Set your Affections on Things above rather than on Things on the Earth Mind those Things most let them have the preference with you He does not forbid nor does our Religion forbid the moderate seeking and enjoyment of the Good things of this World We are not bound to be unsensible of their Goodness to take no delight in them nor absolutely and wholly to refuse or reject all sensual Pleasures The things of this World are good in their Kind and
State with a Loyal Obedient Peaceable and Loving People Grant that we may all live to thy Glory through Jesus Christ our Lord. In whose own words we further say Our Father c. THE GREAT DUTY OF THANKFULNESS Urged and Directed Let us Pray PRevent us O Lord in all our doings with thy most gracious favour and further us with thy continual help that in all our works begun continued and ended in thee we may glorify thy Holy Name and finally by thy Mercy obtain Everlasting Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen 1 Thes 5. 18. In every thing give Thanks THere is an exceeding great evil and disorder which we may too frequently observe in the World and which every Man's reason condemns in others and yet all are apt to be often guilty of it themselves It is that we we do commonly remember long and retain a very deep resentment of an Injury whether it be a real or but an imagined one but we soon forget the Benefits we receive and lose the Impressions of them Thus do Mankind often deal with one another and thus also do they behave themselves towards God Tho he cannot wrong or injure us yet we are apt to think he does so when he does in any thing displease us and we behave our selves towards him as if he did We murmur against him and grow discontented and froward are ready to think 't is in vain to serve him and to throw off our Duty And on the other side we do at the same time forget his Benefits and take no notice of what we have many times through desire of what we want We are very earnest and importunate in our Requests for what we would have and are cold in our Thanksgivings or neglect to be thankful at all when we have obtain'd it The Spirit of God taking notice of this Fault in Mankind repeats his Instructions in Holy Scripture to the contrary He bids us take care to join with all our Prayers Thanksgivings in Phil. 4. 6. he says by the Apostle Be careful for nothing but in every thing by Prayer and Supplication with Thanksgiving let your request be made known to God However desirous ye are however sollicitous to obtain what ye want of God be sure to be thankful for what ye have Again in this Chapter where our present Text is he joins the Command of Thanksgiving with that of Prayer the 17th Ver. bids us Pray without ceasing and this 18th says In every thing give Thanks whatever your condition be recommend it to Almighty God by Prayer and how long soever it pleases God to deny or delay what you desire yet continue to pray And with your Prayers remember also to give Thanks In every thing give Thanks that is in every State and Condition endeavour to retain always a Sense of the Divine Benefits to praise him for what he has done for you and be free from all hard Thoughts of God and undecent Murmurings against him I confess this Command in this place seems to be chiefly directed to those Holy and good Men who are the peculiar Favourites of Heaven by the Interest of Jesus Christ But because this Duty is urged more generally elsewhere and there is no Duty requir'd of such good Men but it is also required of all Men at least by consequence and as all Men are required to be good I shall therefore take the words as exhorting to an universal Duty And I conclude from them that all Men are bound to express a thankful Acknowledgement unto God of the Benefits they receive from him and that in all Estates and Circumstances whatsoever In discoursing upon this Matter I shall endeavour these 2 things 1. To prove that every Man has Reason for great Thankfulness to Almighty God 2. To direct the right Expressions and Declarations of our Thankfulness In the first place I shall endeavour to make it evident That every Man has some reason to be thankful to God some reason to praise and love him and to be patient and contented in every Condition And this I think will evidently appear upon the making good the following Particulars 1. Let us consider That all Men are in some measure Partakers of the Divine Benefits There is not one among the Race of Mankind that can justly reckon himself not at all obliged to God Every man is beholden to God for his Being for the preservation and continuance of his Being so long as he subsists and for some things that comfort him in his Being and without doubt the Death of Christ is in some sense an universal Benefit Every Man is beholden to God for that Being which he has It is God that hath made us and not we our selves And from that sort of Being which God has given us are we engaged to be thankful We were made but little lower than the Angels and crowned with Honour and Dignity as the Psalmist says of all Men Psal 8. The meanest Man is next in Dignity to them in the Order of the Creation It is an exceeding Honour of our Bodies and their greatest Worth and Commendation that they are made fit to serve and entertain so noble a Guest as an immortal Spirit and this Honour the most deformed the weakest and the most crazy Body has belonging to it But our greatest Worth and Dignity lies in the Soul which God has given us There is in every Man an excellent Spirit which is capable of very great things however it is in some Men wretchedly neglected and deprest By this are all Men capable of the sublime Knowledge of the Creatour capable to love and praise and delight themselves in him by such a Being then we are capable of Happiness to a great and excellent Degree and even of the highest kind of Happiness that can be as we can enjoy or delight our selves in him who is the highest Good And our immortal Soul renders us capable of Everlasting Happiness in the Eternal fruition of an Infinite Eternal Good Every Man may reach this Happiness if he will This is that he was made and designed for and no Man shall fall short of it but by his own default Thus our Being then should engage us to be thankful to God that gave it Further 'T is to him we owe the continuance of our Being he supports and maintains us in this Life while it lasts and after it in the other This is a continual Obligation to Thankfulness it is a continual Creation As no Being can make its self so none can preserve or continue its self at all but all things have always a most necessary dependance upon the great Creatour We ought then all of us to acknowledge it is he that holds our Soul in Life And while he continues this Life he obliges us in that we are so long capable in some measure to see and enjoy the pleasant and good things of this World If we have good and vertuous Souls and are free from Envy and
everlasting Punishment to the Sins of Men. In Dan. 12. 2. The Angel tells that Prophet that some should rise again from the Dead to Everlasting Life and some to Shame and Everlasting Contempt Our Saviour tells us that the Sentence upon wicked Men in the day of Judgment shall be depart from me ye cursed into everlasting Fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels Matth. 25. 41. And in the last verse of the Chapter he says of them These shall goe away into Everlasting Punishment the Apostle in 2 Thess 1. â— calls the punishment intended for such Everlasting destruction And since in these and the like Scriptures where the Fates of Good and Bad men are spoken of the same phrase and expression is made use of concerning the duration both of the one and the other we have as much reason to fear that the one will be Eternal as to hope that the other will be so Since the just and immutable God appears plainly to have declar'd that he will thus punish the Sins of Men it is the greatest and most foolish presumption to expect the contrary Especially if we consider too that which has been set before us concerning the Evil and Provocation of Sin That 't is the affront of an infinite Majesty contempt of our Maker Rebellion against our Sovereign and Ingratitude to a Friend that it has nothing upon it of any impression of any Attribute of God but is the most unlike the most contrary thing to him in the World Upon these accounts sure we might easily believe that he has an infinite Hatred and Displeasure against it and that since that displeasure cannot be infinitely exercised upon a finite Being in the intenseness of his Sufferings it is but just in God to resolve that they shall be Eternally continued And though all Sins are not equal that yet the punishment of all shall be of the same duration because the wise Justice of God can make a difference between several Sinners in the different degree and intenseness of their Sufferings Besides though the Act of a Sin be short and of but a moments duration yet the guilt of it is a remaining and abiding thing When once a sinful Act is committed it remains done and cannot be recall'd and the Sinner remains guilty for ever unless he obtains his pardon by timely repentance And if repentance and the benefit of it be allow'd in Hell that State could not be called Death and Destruction as the Scripture usually names it But to conclude this particular let us consider that God's having threatned everlasting Punishment in vain is a great provocation to him to inflict it upon those that will not fear and avoid it The threatning is a fair warning to Mankind and a means fit and proper to make them avoid the Evil. The righteous God does not betray men into misery he has told them the worst that shall be the consequent of their Sins And shall he after all think this Punishment too great to be inflicted when men do not think it great enough to be feared Men chuse the vain Pleasures of Sin which are but for a Season with the Eternal torments that follow rather than a Life of Holiness and everlasting Happiness And shall they not have then their own choise Is there any wrong done them or have they hard measure when they were not at all imposed upon by God and have but what they close Application It is time now that I suggest what use we should make of these things which I shall do briefly and conclude 1. Let us take heed to our ways and be very watchful over our selves that we may avoid all that is sinful It is fit to be our greatest concern and care that which shall mingle it self with every other concern and our constant endeavour that we cease from evil and do good It is certainly true what Solomon says Prov. 28. 14. Happy is the man that feareth always It is a very wise and happy thing to be always possest with a prudent care not to offend God Who has all our Interests both in this World and the next at his disposal whose displeasure can make us miserable for ever and in whose favour is life everlasting 'T is our wisdom and happiness to take care that we may avoid so vile and so ill a thing as Sin that which will so debase and pollute and disparage us To avoid that which our own Consciences must often upbraid us for what we must hereafter call our selves fools for and will make us vile in our own Eyes when ever we come to understand and consider it 2. What evil we have been guilty of for want of this care Let us as it were undoe it again by a hearty Repentance Shall we not mourn for so vile a thing as Sin for having contracted the greatest and most shameful disparagement for our having forfeited the everlasting favour of God and for having undone our selves And may we not justly hate that which has so much ill and mischief in it as this May we not justly hate what God abhors Should we not shew our love to him by hating what is so offensive and displeasing to him And then if we do sincerely abhor the Ills we have done we must forsake them for the future A man can never contentedly go on in the course that he himself does abhor And let us consider to perswade our selves to this Repentance the encouragement that God has kindly given us to practice it He has given us a promise of pardon if we will repent Though our Sins are so highly displeasing to him though he so justly hates them yet his infinite Mercy will forgive even the greatest and the greatest number of them upon our unfeigned Repentance Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to the Lord and he will have mercy and to our God for he will abundantly pardon Isa 55. 7. 3. Lastly since we fly from so great and mischievous an Evil as Sin is and betake our selves to so much good and happiness as infinite mercy bestows when we repent and return to our duty we should as much as can be hasten our Repentance we ought in reason to admit of no delay in such a matter If this has been at all delay'd by any it is too much Why should any man resolve that he will be vile and base that he will be odious to God and obnoxious to his wrath but a little longer This is a State not to be endured at all Who can tell how long the divine Vengeance will delay Who can assure himself that God will bear with him to the end of his delays Can we too soon be safe too soon be in favour with the Almighty Can we too soon cease to gather sorrows to heap up wrath to provide wo and misery for our selves Or can we too soon live as best becomes us as our reason and our everlasting
moment which we have continually provoked we had perisht irrecoverably Oh how great and wonderful is thy Patience and Goodness in continuing and supporting and watching over such provoking Sinners We admire we praise thee for thy Long-suffering towards us and since thou hast given space to do it we repent of all our past Sins we purpose and desire to lead a new and good Life and we humbly sue for thy pardoning Mercy When we with Sorrow and Shame confess our Sins do thou we pray thee forgive our Sins and cleanse us from all Unrighteousness Give us a true and unfeigned Repentance and the Grace to amend our Lives according to thy Holy word Teach us that denying all Ungodliness and worldly Lusts we may live soberly righteously and godly in this present World spending the rest of our Days to thy Honour and Glory In this way make us to seek an Inheritance in the World to come that since we have here no long abode no certain Duration no abiding State we may have a Treasure in Heaven an Inheritance in the next World that fadeth not away Make us so sensible of the short and uncertain condition of this our present Life that our Affections may be wean'd from this World and set upon the things to come teach and inable us so to pass through things Temporal that we finally lose not the things that are Eternal We pray thee let not this day be utterly lost to us but give us Comfort and good Fruit of our Attendances upon thee O Let thy Ordinances be to us the means of a Glorious and Eternal Life Grant us to lie down this Night in Peace while thou makest us to dwell safely Let our waking Thoughts in the Night-season instruct us Give us cause in the Morning to rejoyce in thy Goodness and Lord Comfort this our wretched mortal Life with thy Blessings let us see thy Goodness in the Land of the Living We beseech thee to have mercy upon all Men Grant them to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent to their eternal Salvation Save thy People O Lord and bless thine heritage govern and lift them up for ever We pray thee Bless these Nations wherein we live be thou as a Wall of Fire round about us and our defence against all thine Enemies and ours O purge and cleanse us from our Sins that we may be meet for the Favours of thy Providence Grant our King and Queen a long and happy Reign over us give them great Prosperity and Peace Direct all our Magistrates so to govern themselves in their several places as may be to thy Glory the good of thy Church among us and to the Safety Honour and Welfare of their Majesties and their Kingdoms Teach all our People duely to fear thee to be subject and obedient to those that are over them in Church or State and to live in brotherly Love and Unity one among another We humbly recommend to thy Goodness O Father of Mercies all that are in any Trouble or Affliction give them Patience and Submission to thee and in due time deliver them We pray thee bless all our Friends and Relations do good to our Enemies and make them to be at Peace with us All this we humbly ask in the Name of Jesus Christ and further whatever he himself hath taught us to pray saying Our Father c. The USEFULNESS of EARLY RELIGION TO Old-Age demonstrated Let us Pray PRevent us O Lord in all our doings with thy most gracious favour and further us with thy continual help that in all our works begun continued and ended in thee we may glorify thy Holy Name and finally by thy Mercy obtain Everlasting Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen ECCLES 12. 1. Remember now thy Creatour in the days of thy Youth while the Evil days come not nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt say I have no pleasure in them NOtwithstanding the great uncertainty of humane Life and though none of us can tell how short his appointed time may be Though we see persons of every Age descend into the Grave some in their early Infancy and some in Youth in their full strength as well as some in an old Age Yea which is very strange though we see that a great many more die young than there are that live to any great Age yet do Mankind commonly promise themselves a long Life on Earth All expect this almost though but few attain it We believe that we may live as long as the oldest Persons that we see or know And this vain Imagination proves a fatal and mischievous snare to a great many For because they may live long as they think they will not trouble themselves betimes to prepare to die though it is as true that they may not live long They set the practice of Religion and the concern of their Souls aside for the present because they shall have as they suppose time enough to mind them hereafter They apply themselves wholly now to the Business and Pleasures of this Life and refer their Reformation and Religion to old Age. And thus while they think they have much time to spend they squander away and lose much from their main concern and with their time they lose Eternity and their Souls too Their time is spent and their Day of Salvation is over before they have secured and wrought out their Salvation And Death snatches many of them away in the midst of their worldly Cares and Pleasures and so they are undone for ever To meet with and cure if it may be this Errour I shall insist a little upon these words of Solomon Wherein he intimates the Unreasonableness and Folly of delaying to repent and be religious till old Age though it be supposed that we may or though it could be certain that we shall live to old Age. We may reckon that the latter part of this verse is a reason and argument to enforce his advice in the former part of it and that his meaning is this Remember now thy Creatour in the days of thy Youth because the latter end of a long Life will be Evil days and such as you shall say I have no pleasure in them To be religious in youth will be the best preparation against the evil days to come and in those days you will need those consolations and advantages which a religious and vertuous Course that has been before them will then afford Many other arguments are commonly insisted upon by those that handle this Text to persuade young Persons to mind Religion and Vertue but I shall set them all aside and insist upon this alone which seems chiefly if not only intended in the Text. To do this with the better success if it may please God I shall divide the following Discourse into three parts 1. To shew what is meant by Remembring our Creatour in the days of our Youth Because 't is usually thought that Youth may
this case And now methinks this should be sufficient to deter any man from relying upon a Death-Bed Repentance especially any man that has time and opportunity in his hands to perform a more sure one This is at the best but an uncertain and uncomfortable one no man can tell whether it will be accepted of God or not because no man can certainly tell whether it be true or not And though a Sinner ought not to despair in such a case yet he can have but little and that a very wavering hope Such a one may be saved but neither he nor any one else can be assured that he shall be so There is so much ground of hope in this case as may encourage a wretched Sinner who has neglected himself all his days at his last hours to try what Repentance will then do for him it is the only remedy he has left and if that fail nothing will help him But there is not so much ground of hope as may give any man who is now in health any reasonable encouragement to put off his Repentance till that time Certainly it is very unreasonable for a man to build the Hopes of his Salvation upon that which cannot secure his Salvation to him To conclude If the Gospel affords any small encouragement to them that repent upon a Death-Bed yet it gives no man any at all to defer and put off his Repentance till then He is guilty of great folly and presumption that shall do so In this wilful deferring of our Repentance we do greatly provoke Almighty God not to grant us the benefit of this remedy at last How justly may God say to such a man then as Wisdom speaks Prov. 1 24 25 26. Because I have caled and you have refused I have stretched out my hands and you would not regard me but have set at naught all my counsel and would none of my reproof I also will laugh at your calamity and mock when your fear cometh Now you shall call and I will not answer and though you seek me early you shall not find me He may most justly cut a man off in his Sins by a sudden Death and not give him any warning or space to repent He may very justly put an end to our days by some such Disease as shall hinder our Repentance He may very justly give a man up to a final hardness and so let him die in his Sins who would needs live in them And he may let the Sinners remorce and trouble be as his false heart enclines to make it but false and dissembled Such as cannot amount to a true Repentance and then all his Cries and Tears all his Vows and Protestations shall be vain and not accepted But he shall go to feel what he fears and from the torment of fearing that he is undone to that of finding he is so These things may in God's just Judgment befall him who had much time given him to repent in who was often called to it by Ministers and Friends and perhaps warned by some Afflictions but would needs put it off to the End of his Life And when God cuts off such a man in his carriere of Sin without giving him space to reform his Life it may well be suspected he has rejected all the Sorrows Vows and Protestations that attended his departure It is not a favour promised that a man shall have the grace of Repentance given him then who has refused it often before Though God out of his Sovereign grace may give a good and safe Death to him that has lived all his Life wickedly yet he has no where bound himself to this he has not given us any express or intimated allowance to depend upon or expect any such favour And then it is altogether unreasonable to expect it Lot us then to make sure that we shall die the Death of the Righteous repent while we are in health and may have time to prove the truth of our Repentance in a good Life and so to assure the acceptance of it with God Let us repent when we are called to it and when the grace of God is ready to assist us and to give us a true Repentance Let us endeavour to live the Life of the Righteous for as long time as we can before we come to die and then we shall be sure to make a good End Mark the perfect man and behold the upright for the end of that man is peace THE PRAYER O Most Holy and most righteous Lord our God the Judge and Governour of all the World thou lovest Righteousness and hatest Iniquity With shame and self abasement we present our selves before thee at this time who are vile Earth and miserable Sinners Who have broke thy Laws and done evil against thee what we could who have followed the corrupt Inclinations of our Natures and the evil Customs and Practices of the World rather than the way of thy just and good Commandments If we should say we have no Sin we should deceive our selves and the Truth were not us We therefore humbly confess our Sins before thee which it were in vain for us to endeavour to conceal from thee for we know that to the Lord our God belong Mercies and Forgivenesses tho' we have rebelled against thee Thou art he who delightest not in the Death of a Sinner but had rather that he should turn to thee and live We thank thee O Father of Mercies that thou allowest us the benefit of Repentance we bless thee for the great Propitiation Oh that Men would praise the Lord for his Goodness towards the Children of Men whom he has not excluded from all hopes of Favour and Mercy as he has done the Apostate Angels And we give thee most humbly and hearty Thanks O Lord for thy Goodness to us in particular who are here before thee In that thy Forbearance and Long-suffering does yet afford us space and time for Repentance that we are not now at this time among the Damned in Hell as we have greatly deserved to be that we have time allow'd us to consider our ways and turn our Feet unto thy Testimonies that we have space to secure our Repentance to practice it and to enjoy the Comfort of it to bring forth Fruits meet for Repentance Lord if we are truely grieved for our Sins past we must needs be greatly desirous of leading a new and different course of Life from that we have sometime done Give us therefore we pray thee the Grace of true Repentance and let us have that to praise thee for added to all thy other Goodness towards us Make us to know in this our Day the things that belong to our Peace before they are hid from our Eyes suffer us not to harden our Hearts against the Invitations and Warnings of thy word Let all of us that are here present be seeking the Lord while he may be found and calling upon him while he is nigh and without delay
for such a particular occasion Our Saviour himself in the History of his Family by the Evangelists has left a pattern of this last sort which may justly be regarded as a direction in this case both by Ministers and People His Disciples desired him to teach them to pray he complyed with their Desire and did so by composing a Form for them It is without doubt part of the Duty of his Ministers in the Church after this example of the great Pastour to teach the faithful People to pray and this they may do in the same way as he did and the People shall certainly do well if they use the Prayers which such have composed for them Thus they shall be edified and profited by the Gifts which God has communicated to his Ministers Whatever Gift or Spirit of Prayer can reasonably be pretended to be afforded the Church in these days it may be exercised in the composing and writing down our Prayers before we offer them to God and there is no man but must needs exercise his Gift more suitably to the great God he worships and more to his own or other Peoples edification and to a better degree of performance truly in this way than in depending upon sudden and unpremeditated Thoughts and Expressions So that without doubt both Ministers and People ought to use composed Forms of Prayer ordinarily to perform this duty in the fittest manner I shall only add to this matter thus much that if any Master of a Family uses these Prayers in his Family it is but as if he should desire a Minister to pray with them as People are commonly wont to do when such a Person happens to stay a Night at their House And I have said so much to this matter because I have observed the unjust and erroneous disparaging of Prayer by a Form which has been amongst us has had a great influence towards the too frequent omission of Family Worship Now to conclude this Preface I shall only suggest these advices concerning the use of this Book That it is as I think ordinarily most fitting that this Exercise be performed by the Master of the Family himself But if any Circumstances hinder that it may be done by a Child or Servant but should always be done in his presence if possible that his Authority may give it the more respect with the inferiour parts of the Family When the introductory Prayer is said all should be standing to make themselves sensible of the Presence of God and to dispose them to a reverent and serious frame of Mind and so to make the more solemn and fit enterance upon what they are going about The latter Prayer should be used by all the Company kneeling and joining in it with heart and devout Affection If any young Persons who are devoutly inclined have it their lot to live under such Governours of their Families as are negligent of their duty in this matter I advise them if they may be permitted it to spend an hour in their Chamber alone on the Lord's Day in these Meditations and Prayers This they may very profitably do and perhaps their good Example in such a practice may shame the Master of the Family out of his neglect Now I commit this Endeavour to the Providence of God humbly dedicating it to his service And I do most willingly say Not unto us O Lord not unto us but unto thy Name give the Glory for thy loving Mercy and thy Truths sake And that it may be accepted with him through the Mediation of Jesus Christ and accompanied with his powerful Blessing so as it may also be well accepted in the Church and succesful to the promoting of true and pure Religion in many Souls to their Comfort and Salvation and his Glory thereby I heartily pray THE EXCELLENCY OF THE SOUL Let us Pray PRevent us O Lord in all our doings with thy most gracious favour and further us with thy continual help that in all our works begun continued and ended in thee we may glorify thy Holy Name and finally by thy Mercy obtain Everlasting Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Zach. 12. Last Part of the First Verse And formeth the Spirit of Man within him THE Words that I have now read from the Holy Scripture are part of a very Majestick Preface or Introduction to a favourable Prophecy concerning Judah and Jerusalem which is understood to foretell the Times of the Maccabees the distresses of those times and the mighty Deliverances which God would give the Jews by the Conduct and Courage and Resolution of those Men. In so great and lofty Expressions the Prophet was directed to introduce it that he might encourage the Faith and raise the Expectations of that People who were now in a very weak and low Condition For they were but newly returned from their Captivity and were envied and hated and opposed in their present Interests by wicked and powerful Neighbours He reminds them herein of the great Works of that God in whom he would have them now put their trust The whole Verse and Preface contains thus much The Burden of the Word of the Lord for Israel saith the Lord Who stretcheth forth the Heavens and layeth the Foundations of the Earth and formeth the Spirit of Man within him That which we may observe in this Text is That the Prophet places this work of God His forming the Spirit of Man within him together with his stretching out the wide and spacious Heaven and his laying the Foundations of the ponderous Earth and that when he design'd to represent the Greatness of God his ability and fitness to do what he had promised by shewing them the works he had already done This then we may reckon is here intimated to be a workparallel with those that are mentioned with it and fit to be mention'd with them to the same purpose This is a great and mighty Work as well as the other two All God's Works of Creation do declare their Authors Greatness and as the Psalmist speaks Praise him But some do this more than others as they are more excellent and greater than others Elsewhere also the Scripture mentions the making of Man as one of the more excellent and wonderful Works of God and sets it together with his making the Earth and stretching out the Heavens As in Isa 45. 12. where God to magnify himself in the Esteem of that People and to assure them that he could raise up one that should deliver them from Captivity says by his Prophet I have made the Earth and created man upon it I even my Hands have stretched forth the Heavens Now when the making of Man is here spoken of as one of the greatest Works of God this must needs be understood with relation to the Soul of Man For certainly a thing so small and weak so gross and heavy and so dark and so decaying as is the Humane Body cannot justly be reckoned worthy of this great comparison
we hew out to our selves broken cisterns that can hold no water and forsake Thee the Fountain of living waters In thee alone is true content and full satisfaction to be found O Lord as sensible of this our very guilty and very dangerous Errour we desire for the future to return unto thee to esteem thee our chiefest Good and to desire thee above all things Our Hearts are now ready to say each of us for our selves Bless the Lord O my Soul and all that is within me praise his holy Name We desire O Lord to praise and to honour thee with all the excellent Faculties and Powers that thou hast given us We devote our Reason and Understanding to thee to learn and meditate on thy glorious Excellencies thy wonderful works and the instances of thy obliging Goodness We devote all the power of our Wills to thee to chuse thee to fix upon thee as our chief Good to submit to thy will as the rule and law of ours We devote our Affections to love thee above all things to fear and reverence thee to hope and trust in thee to hate what thou hatest and love what thou dost love We devote all our Members unto thee to be governed by thy wise and righteous Laws We desire O Lord we purpose to love and serve thee the Eternal Infinite and most Bounteous Good with all our Heart and Soul and Strength O Lord strengthen we pray thee and confirm our too feeble and wavering Resolutions Create thou us again in Christ Jesus unto good works Let us not live estranged from thee whom we are made capable to enjoy both here and hereafter Make us in love with Holiness and Vertue as the health and rectitude of our Minds as our brightest and most advantageous Ornaments and the most useful and most durable Riches Renew in us most loving Father thy decayed Image and create us to righteousness and true holiness Learn us to see thy glorious Perfections in the visible things about us to make a religious Use of all that we enjoy in this World in loving thee for what is Good praising thee for what is Excellent in them and giving thee Thanks for whatever we enjoy of them We humbly recommend to thy infinite Mercies all Estates and Conditions of Men O Lord lover of Souls pity those that sit in darkness and bless them with the Knowledge of thee and of thy Christ whom to know is Life everlasting rescue them from their miserable Bondage under the Enemy of Mankind and bring them into the Kingdom of thy Son We pray thee bless and defend the Christian Church let the Gifts and Graces of thy good Spirit be abundantly poured out upon it purge it from all things displeasing to thee and give it peace and great enlargement Be merciful to that Part of it which thou hast planted amongst us in these Nations Water it plenteously with the Dew of thy Heavenly Blessing make it fruitful in all good Works and a Praise in the Earth We pray thee bless our King and Queen and all subordinate Magistrates and those that are the Ministers of thy holy Word and Sacraments make them all in their several Places and Stations useful to the promoting Piety and Vertue amongst us And make all those that are under them peaceable and obedient teachable and submissive to their Laws and godly Counsels Grant that we may all lead peaceable and quiet lives in all Godliness and Honesty Visit and relieve all those that are in any Trouble or Affliction Bless our Relations requite our Friends and Benefactors and forgive our Enemies Persecutors and Slanderers and turn their Hearts Finally O Father of Mercies we give thee Thanks for all thy Care of our Immortal Souls for all that thou hast done for their Happiness and Well-fare We pray thee bless to our spiritual Advantage those Ordinances of thine which we have this Day been partakers of Give us leave to commit our selves to thy Protection for this Night and reward our trust in thee with safe and comfortable Rest that being well refresh'd we may return the next Morning chearfully to our several Businesses and Duties and do thou accept us in all we pray through Jesus Christ in whose Name we present our selves and all our poor Services unto thee and in whose most comprehensive Words we conclude these our imperfect Prayers saying Our Father c. OF Vain Thoughts OR INCONSIDERATION With the Mischiefs and Remedies Let us Pray PRevent us O Lord in all our doings with thy most gracious favour and further us with thy continual help that in all our works begun continued and ended in thee we may glorify thy Holy Name and finally by thy Mercy obtain Everlasting Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Psalm 119. 113. I hate Vain Thoughts but thy Law do I love OUR Care and Endeavour to live well must begin within us or it will prove vain and ineffectual We must keep the Heart with all diligence for out of it are the Issues of Life Solomon says Prov. 4. 23. According to which our Saviour teaches us That out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh and out of the good or evil treasure there proceed good or evilactions We must then take notice what our Thoughts are if we would have our Life good and not neglect them as Men too commonly do and this is what the Psalmist plainly intimates in these Words I hate vain thoughts but thy Law do I love I shall not trouble you with long Criticizing upon the words lest I should be guilty my self of what I intend to discourse against It shall suffice to observe for the justifying of our translation that the Original word here translated Thoughts is used with that significancy in other places of Scripture Particularly 1 Kings 18. 21 Where it seems to signify unsetled and irresolute Thoughts such as could not determine them to a fixed and steady Obedience to the Truth and in Job 4. 13. where it signifies such Thoughts as the roving Imaginations of the Night are wont to be employed in In both these places it signifies such as are not well guided nor directed And by reason of this use of the word in those places I doubt not but it is very fitly done that our Translators have added the word Vain in the Text to determine and signify what sort of Thoughts the Psalmist meant by the use of the word here I shall therefore understand this Text according to the import of the word Vain in our Language and shall represent it as signifying thus much I hate all idle roving and useless Thoughts such as are not considerate and designed and directed to some good and worthy purpose all inconsiderate Thinking As there are a great many idle impertinent words spoken among Mankind many very useless and unprofitable conversations and as there are especially in the briskness and activity of Childhood and Youth a great many very idle and trifling actions done by
the Reason of it in the following words of the Text Thou hast put gladness in my Heart more than in the time that their Corn and their Wine encreased Which words intimate that he had received more Joy and Gladness from what enjoyment of the light of God's Countenance had been afforded him that any others could ever derive from their Corn and Wine or from the greatest Encrease of them He intimates that God is the true Object of our Happiness that the Favour of God exprest and exercised towards us is a far better Spring and Source of Content and Comfort than the Profits and Pleasures of this World can be We may reckon that this is what we are taught in these words It shall be the Business of the present Discourse chiefly to prove this which is here intimated to us To shew that David was certainly in the right and was well directed when this was his choice and the chief desire of his Soul to enjoy an Interest in the Favour of God The proof of this we shall abundantly derive from these two Heads of Discourse 1. From the Person Loving 2. From the Benefits which his Love in the Exercise of it does bestow First let us consider well the Person Loving and we cannot chuse but conclude That it must be the greatest Happiness imaginable to be the Object of his peculiar Favour He is the Great God the Creator of all Things the Fountain Good the Owner and Lord and the Disposer of all things As he is Owner and Disposer of all things every Creature has such a Portion of Good as he is pleased to allot it and so we depend upon him for to be as happy as this World can make us since 't is he that does unalterably assign to every one of us our measure of this World's Goods But if we have an Interest in his peculiar Favour who is Owner and Lord of Heaven and Earth This includes at least all the Goodness of Heaven and Earth If God be ours as he is if we are his peculiar Favourites then all else is ours too The Apostle speaking to such Persons says Whether the World or Life or Death or things present or things to come All are yours 1 Cor. 3. 22. That is you have such an Interest in them by your Interest in the Favour of God that ye shall not want any of them that is good and convenient for ye In this is the Satisfaction of all our just Desires contained and the Supply of all our Wants This is Rest to the Weary Eyes to the Blind Feet to the Lame Company to the Solitary From him all other Beings derive all their Worth and Goodness He then is the Sufficiency of All and it must be from his Blessing upon them that they have any Goodness and Suitableness or Comfort in them So that if we could have any thing else without his Favour we shall if he pleases have but little help or comfort from it But since all the Creatures and whatever we can enjoy besides him have all their Goodness from him He must have in him more than all and the Enjoyment of him in his Love must needs bemore than any number of them we can get together It is the Love of him who is Infinite in Power who is an unexhaustible Fulness Who after all his Communications to Creatures remains still the same Infinite Source of Good The Love of God then is richer than Ten thousand Worlds If we want any thing else which this World cannot afford towards our Happiness and many such Wants indeed is our wretched Nature subject to He can bestow it We can want no good thing which he cannot give The Love of God can supply the defect and want of any thing else and make us happy without it This is Light without a Sun Strength without Food Health without Physick Altho the Fig-tree shall not Blossom neither shall the Fruit be in the Vine The Labour of the Olive shall fail and the Fields shall yield no meat The Flock shall be cut off from the Fold and there shall be no Herd in the Stall Yet will I rejoice in the Lord I will joy in the God of my Salvation said the Prophet in the name of those whom God regards with his peculiar Favour and Love Hab. 3. 17 18. From the Love of God we cannot expect too much This is a Blessing which exceeds and does not fall below our Expectations we may rest in that for we cannot imagine any thing beyond it that we can desire We may find more delight in that than we can conceive it is so full and able to bless that we cannot desire so much as it can afford God is able to do for us exceeding abundantly beyond all that we are able to ask or think What bounds can be set to Infinite Attributes and the Exercise of them so as to say hitherto they can go and no further And what a boundless Pleasure and Content must the Soul take who is a Favourite of such Love As God is Incomprehensible his Love is Incomprehensible and he whom it favours may say I cannot conceive how rich I am in his Love I am not able to conceive all the vast Felicity it contains and gives me an Interest in Further the Love of God is also like himself Eternal This is a most lasting Portion then it is durable Riches As long as God endures who is Everlasting and his Love which is Unchangeable and the Soul of Man which is Immortal so long may we enjoy the Felicity of his Favour and the blissful Exercise of his Love This is not a thing of a frail or fading Nature It is not one of those things which perish in the using which make themselves wings very often and fly away which we cannot certainly enjoy all our Days on Earth or which we must be certainly stript of when we lie down in the Dust This may certainly render us happy all our Days in this Life O satisfy us early with thy Mercy so shall we rejoice and be glad all our Days says the Psalmist Psal 90. Intimating That if they had an assured Interest in the Love of God this would be a certain ground of Satisfaction and Content for all the Days of this their mortal Life This is true and besides when we go away from this World when we must leave for ever all that we enjoy of it This may be our Portion still and can bless us with the Goods of Eternity And what Security and Peace is there in the Thought that this may be an Everlasting Source of Blessings How pure and perfect and high is the delight in this while it is not allayed with the fears or expectations of losing that which makes us so happy Thus we may see that the Person loving does mightily recommend the Love of God and that we may from thence conclude the Happiness of those who are the Objects of it Now let us see
that thou hast been pleased to make us capable to know and meditate on thy Self to chuse and love thee to desire and enjoy thee who art an Infinite Eternal Good and in whose presence is fulness of Joy Oh how ready should our Hearts be at all times to say Whom have we in Heaven but thee and there is none on Earth that we can desire besides thee But alas we are degenerated we are fallen from our Original Excellency we are sunk into Sensuality we need to be put in mind and told wherein our true Happiness lies and to be excited urged and exhorted to pursue it We hover here below and seldom have any thoughts or desires moving upwards the objects of Sense detain us with them and we feed on Husks among Beasts we stay and abide upon the lowest and the smallest part of our Happiness Lord we are miserable we are undone and shall perish for ever if thy pity do not rescue us from the Love of these low Things Oh Pardon our guilty and heal our distempered Souls Discover thy self to us and make us love thee shed abroad thy Love abundantly in our Hearts Make us to rise by the Creature to the Creator Guide us by the streams to thee the Fountain of their Goodness and make us as we ought to love thee above all things Let us be governed by thy Love in the whole course of our lives and readily deny our selves to please thee and keep thy Commandments Let us firmly believe the glorious Things which thou hast prepared for them that love thee and draw our Hearts after them to endeavour that our Treasure may be in Heaven in Immutable things And direct us we pray thee so to pass through things Temporal as that we finally lose not the things Eternal Have mercy O Lord upon all Mankind Let the Earth be filled with Knowledge of the Lord as waters cover the Sea and all Men be directed and led in the way to true Happiness Give to all Nations Unity Peace and Concord Pour down an abundant measure of thy Spirit upon thy Church that the Gospel may run and be glorified from the rising of the Sun to the going down of the same Let them prosper that love it and let not the Gates of Hell ever prevail against it We pray especially for that part of it which thou hast graciously placed in these Nations and hitherto wonderfully detended Lord make it a very fruitful Vineyard and purge out of it all that is contrary to true Doctrin and Godliness Bless we pray thee our Gracious King and Queen and the Royal Family with all Spiritual and Eternal Blessings and give them long and happy Possession of the Throne of these Kingdoms to thy Glory and our Comfort Bless all in Authority under them help them truly and indifferently to administer Justice to the punishment of Wickedness and Vice and to the maintainance of thy true Religion and Vertue Give grace O Heavenly Father to all Bishops and Curates that they may both by their Life and Doctrin honour thee and guide thy People committed to them in the way of Blessedness Let all the Subjects of this Realm be subject to thee in Loyalty and Subjection and due Obedience to those that are over them in Church and State and let Piety Love Righteousness and Peace and Truth abound among us We commend to thy Fatherly goodness all that are in any Distress and Affliction all our Friends and Relations we pray for our Enemies do for all beyond what we are able to ask or think We humbly ask a comfortable and safe rest this Night and that it may please thee to make the out-goings of the Morning to rejoice Let thy word which we have heard this Day guide our Conversations and let us bring forth in them the Fruits of the Spirit let not the Cares of this World or the Deceitfulness of Riches choke the Word and render it unfruitful but grant we may live to the Glory of thy Name and to the Peace and Salvation of our own Souls by Jesus Christ in whose most comprehensive words we sum up our Requests saying OVR Father which art in Heaven Hallowed be thy Name Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily bread And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil For thine is the Kingdom the Power and the Glory for ever and ever Amen THE Necessity of Obedience TO THE COMMANDS of GOD Proved and Stated Let us Pray PRevent us O Lord in all our doings with thy most gracious favour and further us with thy continual help that in all our works begun continued and ended in thee we may glorify thy Holy Name and finally by thy Mercy obtain Everlasting Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Mat. 7. 21. Not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he that doth the Will of my Father which is in Heaven HOW common a thing is it among those that have heard the glad Tidings of the Gospel for Men to take up a presumptuous reliance upon the Merits of Jesus Christ with neglect of Obedience to the Commands of God! Some of the most profligate and careless Sinners will hope to be saved And if one ask them how They will say by the Merits of Jesus Christ Many indulge themselves in their darling Sins and yet hope to be saved by the Merits of Christ And most certain it is that the Doctrins of some Teachers give occasion to this presumption They occasion Men to think there is nothing necessary to their Salvation but strong Believing and so to endeavour nothing but that and to rely upon the Righteousness of Christ so as to neglect all Endeavour after any Righteousness of their own And this Error and Delusion where it obtains does often prove able to harden a Man against the most earnest Exhortations to leave his Sins yea and even against the most plain Rebukes of Providence for them and to frustrate all other Means of Grace and Conversion whatever It is therefore of great Importance to remove it out of the way and this I shall endeavour by discoursing on these words of our Saviour which if they had been well considered together with many other plain Scriptures it had prevented the entertainment of such Imaginations in the Minds of Men. He had been in a long Discourse enforcing many of the Commands of the Moral Law And now towards the close of this Discourse he begins in this Verse to tell them of what importance and necessity it was to them to practise what he had taught He plainly teaches that no belief in him would avail them any thing if they did not together with it keep the Commands of God Not every one says he that saith to me Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven
according to his Divinity and whence according to his Humanity what things he suffer'd and why what is the Vertue of his Resurrection what Gifts of the Spirit he promised and gave to the Faithful But it should also be taught what sort of Men the Members must be to whom he may and will be the Head What sort he requires and makes and loves and redeems and brings to everlasting Life When these things are insisted upon says he then Christ is preached Christus Evangelizatur Aug. de Fide Operibus Tom 4. This Preaching then does not take men off from relying upon Christ it does not tend to make them depend upon themselves for Salvation but it shews them in what way they must rely upon Christ for Salvation that they may certainly succeed in the doing it 2. To improve yet a little further what has been said we may thence learn the Vanity and Deceitfulness of their hopes of Salvation who lead wicked and ungodly Lives they that live in their Sins and yet hope to be saved expect to come to Heaven by the way to Hell they depend upon the Mercy of God and the Merits of Christ without taking the only course to have an Interest in them 3. There is not only folly and deceit in these Hopes but also there is great guilt and provocation in them For this is to turn the Grace of God into Wantonness which is that St. Jude Ver. 4. earnestly condemns when we encourage our selves in Sin from the undertaking of the Redeemer What is said of him in the Gospel is an encouragement for Men to forsake their Sins but not to continue in them This is the greatest abuse that can be of redeeming Love it is contrary to the end and design of it The Mediator took the Name Jesus to signify that his purpose is to save his People from their Sins And indeed his design had been a very strange one if he had come to procure a Dispensation for our Love of infinite Goodness for our Reverence of an infinite Majesty and of our Obedience to the Creator of all things if he had come to dispense with the Laws of Equity and Justice of Mercy and Charity of Truth and Faithfulness towards our Neighbour This is a design unworthy of the Holy Jesus this had not been to glorify the Father and how can it be but highly displeasing to impute to him such a Design as this Opinion and Practice must be reckon'd to do And yet further This is contrary to the Obligation of redeeming Love as well as to the Design of it and must needs be upon that account very displeasing It was the greatest Instance of divine Love to give his Only begotten Son to Die for us and then it is the greatest Obligation to the Love of God And is it not a most enormous and unjust requital to make this an encouragement to the living in hatred against him To live in constant rebellion and contempt This must needs give the highest and most guilty Aggravation to the Sins of Men that can be Let us consider then how much we are obliged by the Love of God to love him and that if we love him we must keep his Commandments The PRAYER OH most merciful and gracious God thy mercy is everlasting and thy truth endures from Generation to Generation Thou hast helped us in our low Estate through the greatness of thy Mercy When we had rendred our selves deserving of everlasting Misery and utter Rejection from thy favour and care thou didst then take care for us and laidst help upon One that is mighty and able to save to the uttermost Oh who can conceive or express the Love of God to us in Christ Jesus It passes knowledge We give thee O Lord most humble and hearty Thanks for this thy unspeakable Gift We thank thee for our Saviour's excellent Doctrins and Instructions whereby he shews us the way to happiness for his most holy and good Life whereby he leads us in the way to it and is become an encouraging Pattern and Example of Well-doing We bless thee for his meritorious Death whereby he has made an Attonement for our Sins has purchased for us thy sanctifying Grace and thy infinite eternal Favour Oh what reason have we to say what shall we render unto the Lord for all his Benefits How many ways O Lord hast thou deserved our highest praises our supream Affections and our best Obedience But Oh how unsensible have we ungrateful wretches been of this thy great Mercy How backward and slow to comply with the just and reasonable Terms of Salvation We are loth to part with our Sins even for the Love of Jesus or to wean our Affections from this World for the hopes of Heaven Yea we are apt to fall into the guilty and pernicious folly of turning the Grace of God into wantonness of encouraging our selves to continue in our Sins upon presumption on thy Mercy in Christ Jesus and of expecting Salvation by him while we have neglected the terms and conditions of obtaining it O Lord awaken us at length to a due and wise Care of our own Souls Of thy infinite Mercy pardon our past Neglects and give us for the sake of Jesus Christ what thou requirest that we may be partakers of the great Salvation Give us an unfeigned Repentance for all our past Transgressions stedfast and sincere purposes of new Obedience Give us an humble lively Faith in him such as may engage us to follow him make us love and chuse his Commands ready to deny our selves for his sake and to devote our selves entirely to him to live to him that died for us let it bring forth much fruit in a diligent and industrious Obedience and seek and expect our acceptance and reward only by Vertue of his Merits and spotless Righteousness Let such a Faith we pray thee be formed or promoted in us by the Ordinances we have this day enjoyed Let us lie down in peace with thee this Night and repose our selves under the protection of thy Providence If it please thee that we shall awake again in this World let our Hearts be full of a thankful Sense of thy Mercies and a Concern to shew forth thy Praise in the Course of our Lives We humbly recommend to thy Mercy and Favour all Mankind beseeching thee to enlighten those that sit in darkness and in the shadow of Death to bring into the way of thy Truth all such as have erred and are deceived To replenish thy Church abundantly with the Gifts and Graces of thy good Spirit to comfort and relieve any of thy Servants that are desolate and afflicted to prosper those that seek the Peace of thy Jerusalem We implore thy Mercy upon the Land of our Nativity Lord let Peace and Righteousness Charity and Piety setle and abound among us Rule and guide thou our Rulers in thy Fear Teach our Teachers Bless comfort and encourage thy Ministers both in Church and
yet since what we have is more than we deserve we ought sure to be very thankful for this 4. Another ground of thankfulness common to all Men is there is none of us but have forfeited all the Mercies which God has ever bestowed upon us It is true that before we had a Being we could not deserve not to be made we could not offend God nor provoke him to deny us our Being for that which is not can do nothing But it may be consider'd that he who made us knew before with what perverseness and rebellion and ingratitude we would use the Beings he should give us He fore-saw all the Sins and Provocations of our Lives and yet he brought us into Being and has made us capable to be greatly Happy tho he knew we would deserve to be miserable And since we came to an ability of exercising the Powers he has given us we have not only laid no Obligations upon him to do us good but have also deserved the contrary We are all Sinners and fall short of the Glory of God we have not answered the End of our Being and so have render'd our selves utterly unworthy of all his Mercies We brought into the World with us at our Birth a sinful Nature possest with Enmity against God disposed to rebel and such as did deserve to be crusht in its Infancy He has notwithstanding that nourisht and brought us up and we notwithstanding his Favour have rebelled against him He took us into the tender Arms of his Providence when we first came into the World when he might have thrown us immediately into Hell as guilty in our first Parents He suffered us to be admitted into his Church and wash'd away that Guilt in the Laver of Baptism Let us consider how ill we have requited this Kindness How much we have forgotten him in whom we live move and have our Being How we have broke his just and good Laws despised to be like him in Holiness wilfully polluted our selves with Sin affronted his rightful Sovereignty over us abused his free Gifts and dishonoured him with what we ought to have used to his Glory I say let us consider these things and wonder that he does any thing for us rather than murmur at any time that he does no more Let us never think our selves hardly dealt with while we enjoy any thing that is good since we deserve none since we have actually forfeited all And thus I suppose it appears Every Man has Reason for the Practice of this Duty It is incumbent upon all to be contented and easy under God's Dispensation and to be thankful for the measure of good that they have not only is this due from the rich and prosperous but also even from the poor and afflicted I proceed now to the Second Part of the Discourse which is to direct to the right Expressions and Declarations of our thankfulness to God for his Benefits And this we must know is not fully performed in a short Ejaculation now and then lifted up to God But the Heart that is truly and habitually thankful will constantly endeavour and for the most part perform all that is contained in the following Particulars 1. We must take notice of and own the Divine Benefits We must acknowledge God's continual care of us and kindness to us Own it was he that made us to differ in all the advantages that we have above others When a Man prospers in the World he must not ascribe his Prosperity to his own Industry or Skill nor to a blind Chance but always to the Providence of God and be ready to say 'T is he gives him all things We must observe and value the Divine Benefits it is great unthankfulness to despise them we must take heed that we do not so regard and magnify our wants as to over-look our Mercies and to think that we are not beholden to God We must receive his Favours and Obligations as such reckon our selves beholden to him for what he gives us We must preserve a fresh and lively remembrance of God's Mercies and Deliverances as David charges himself to do Psal 103. 2. Bless the Lord O my Soul and forget not all his Benefits Thus our Mind and Thoughts are to be employed about these 2. We must praise him for his Mercies in solemn and devout Thanksgivings In these we must express by words the former inward Sense of his Benefits and so be thankful in Heart and in our words Say to him as David Psal 30. I will extol thee O Lord for thou hast lifted me up and hast not made mine Enemies to rejoice over me when at any time he has delivered us from Enemies say O Lord my God I cried unto thee and thou hast healed me and brought up my Soul from the Grave thou hast kept me alive from going into the Pit when he has deliver'd from Sickness Say for daily Mercies It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord and to sing praises unto thy Name O most high To shew forth thy loving kindness in the morning and thy faithfulness every night as in Psal 92. 1 2. The Book of Psalms as it was the Exercise of extraordinary and inspir'd Devotion is an excellent Repository of the best Expressions of all sorts for the exercise of our Devotion by Out of which we shall do well to furnish our selves with the wise and acceptable forms of Thanksgiving which are therein for the better performance of this Duty 3. We must express our Thankfulness in Deeds as well as in Thought and Word And this must take in an universal Obedience to his Commands we ought to charge our selves with this Task and constantly endeavour to perform it through the whole course of our Lives Nothing can be more absurd than for an habitual Sinner to pretend to any gratitude towards God Is he to be reckoned thankful who affronts him continually who lives in those Practices which he knows are most ungrateful and displeasing to him Is this the right way of acknowledging a Benefactor to do him all the Injury that we can Let us then study and learn his Laws that we may know what will please him and then apply our selves industriously to do it And whatever we have and are should be all devoted to him and employed as far as it is capable to be to the serving of his Honour and Glory 1 Cor. 10. 31. Whether ye eat or drink or whatever ye do says the Apostle Do all to the Glory of God This is the just End of all his Gifts and to serve that end must needs be the expected way of our Thanksgiving for them And that end may be served and another Obligation answered too and that when we employ as he requires we should do what he gives us as much as we can to the good of Mankind We must desire and endeavour to be useful to others not live to our selves alone We must not be proud of our advantges
but serviceable with them In Heb. 13. 15. We are exhorted to offer the Sacrifice of Praise to God continually that is the fruit of our Lips giving thanks to his Name But the Apostle immediately adds To do good and communicate forget not for with such Sacrifice God is well-pleased He intimates the former is required and due but we must not satisfy our selves with that alone but he requires also another Sacrifice even that of good Works and offices of Charity All the good that we have power and opportunity to do for our Neighbour relating to his Soul or his Body his Reputation or Estate we must be ready charitably to perform and this is to be always done in the best way to serve his Interest we must not only regard our own Advantage Thus should all the several Callings Offices and Dignities of Men be managed And thus may all Men express their Thankfulness to God for his benefits in the Business of their worldly Callings thus they may consecrate these and make them religious Thus I have also finisht the Second thing propos'd Now to conclude that we may the better excite our selves to these things Let us further consider at our leisure The greatness of God to whom we are beholden together with our own meanness He that gives us all we have is a Being infinite and perfect he is eternally happy in the enjoyment of himself has no need of any of his Creatures nor can have any advantage from them Yet has he taken care of us continually he watches over us every moment to defend us from mischief to supply our wants to protect our enjoyments and to support our frail Lives Justly may we say with the Psalmist Lord what is Man that thou art mindful of him or the Son of Man that thou visitest him Let us assure our selves too that the best way to preserve the Benefits we enjoy is to use them rightly and to be duly thankful for them Let us reckon also that this must needs be necessary to the acceptance and success of our Prayers for such things as we want to use well and be thankful for what we have already obtained Lastly Let us consider that a thankful frame of Mind such as is sensible of God's Mercies that which sees its own advantages and thinks upon the good things which it enjoys That uses them as God requires with Wisdom and Reason and a good Conscience such a one keeps the Soul always easy and calm always chearful and contented such a Person fully enjoys what he has and tastes the sweetness of it Whereas he who murmurs and complains who is never satisfied nor contented is always unhappy He who pores only upon his wants and what he desires who is impatient under every affliction and cross and abuses himself and his enjoyments in guilty excesses such a man can never feel any rest or quiet in his Mind he is always troubled and uneasy He imbitters his Pallate so that he cannot rightly relish any good thing he has is a burden to himself and indeed does severely punish upon himself his own Iniquity and Ingratitude Lt us then in every thing give thanks and say To God the Father Son and Holy Ghost be all Honour and Glory Thanks and Praise for ever and ever Amen THE PRAYER ALmighty and most Gracious God thou art good and doest good thou art abundant in Goodness We thine unworthy Servants do give thee most humble and hearty thanks for all thy goodness and loving kindness which thou hast graciously shewn to us and to all Men. We bless thee for our Creation O Lord for that thou hast made us little lower than the Angels and crowned us with honour and dignity and for that thou hast plentifully furnisht this World with good things for our Use We own O Lord with all thankfulness that thou hast hitherto preserved us thou hast taken care of us ever since we came from our Mothers Womb. Thou hast defended us from innumerable Evils which always compass us about Thou hast given us all that we have enjoy'd of the good things of this World for they are thine and thou dost dispose of them as seemeth good to thee and by thy Blessing upon thy Gifts have they been sufficient to support and comfort our mortal Life But above all we bless we praise thee we magnify thee for thy inestimable Love in the Redemption of the World by our Lord Jesus Christ and for the hopes that we have of obtaining everlasting glory and happiness by the vertue of his Merits and by the guidance of thy good Spirit O Lord give us we beseech thee a due and deep sense of all thy Mercies make our Hearts unfeignedly thankful make us ready to acknowledge that we are less than the least of thy Mercies that in all thou givest thou owest us nothing Make us humbly sensible and ashamed of all our transgressions against thee of our base and ungrateful returns to thy Mercies That instead of winning us to love and serve thee they have encouraged us to transgress and have been used in rebellion against thee O Lord of thy infinite Mercy pardon all our past unthankfulness And let thy Grace make us set our selves for the future to shew forth thy praise not only with our Lips but in our Lives by giving up our selves to thy Service and by walking before thee in Holiness and Righteousness all our Days O Lord make us to go in the Path of thy Commandments And from thy mercy and goodness let us learn to shew mercy and to do good according to our power and opportunity communicating to the Necessities of others which is a Sacrifice well-pleasing unto thee And do thou O Lord continue the exercises of thy goodness to us till thou hast made us perfectly and compleatly happy in the enjoyment of thy self We humbly implore thy Mercy and Favour for all Mankind Oh that thy way may be made known upon Earth and thy saving Health among all Nations that the People may praise thee O God yea that all the People may praise thee Bless we pray thee thy Church and defend it from all Spiritual and Temporal Enemies Remove out of it all false Doctrin Heresy and Schism Envy Hatred Malice and all Uncharitableness hardness of Heart and contempt of thy Word and Commandments We intreat thee graciously to watch over that Part of it which thou hast planted amongst us defend it from secret Attempts and Plots and from open Violence from all the Enemies of thy true Religion establisht among us and make it we pray thee a glorious Church in the eminent Gifts and Vertues of the Members of it Bless our King and Queen and all that are put in Authority under them with great Wisdom and Understanding with a Zeal for thy Glory and the Subject's Well-fare Teach those that are Subjects each in their several Places to do their own Business and to study submission and quietness We humbly recommend to
thy Mercies our Friends Relations and even our Enemies and all that are in Adversity We render thee Thanks O Lord for all the Mercies of this Day in particular but especially for the Liberty of thy House and for the Means of Grace we have there enjoyed Hear O Lord the Prayers we have offered to thee Bless thy Word and Sacraments to us whenever we enjoy them let them be thy power to our Salvation We humbly beg thy Protection for this Night and evermore even unto thy Heavenly Kingdom for the sake of Jesus Christ to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all Honour and Glory world without End OVR Father which art in Heaven Hallowed be thy Name Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily bread And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil For thine is the Kingdom the Power and the Glory for ever and ever Amen THE Pleasantness of Religion Demonstrated and Improved Let us Pray PRevent us O Lord in all our doings with thy most gracious favour and further us with thy continual help that in all our works begun continued and ended in thee we may glorify thy Holy Name and finally by thy Mercy obtain Everlasting Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Prov. 3. 17. Her Ways are Ways of Pleasantness THese words are spoken of Wisdom as you may see by Verse 13. of this Chapter where Solomon begins the Commendation of that Saying Happy is the Man that findeth Wisdom and the Man that getteth Vnderstanding The Merchandize of it is better than the Merchandize of Silver and the gain thereof than fine Gold She is more precious than Rubies and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared to her Length of Days is in her right Hand and in her left Hand Riches and Honour then he adds Her ways are ways of Pleasantness And by Wisdom of which he says these great things he means Religion or the Wisdom of good and vertuous living to which the Scripture it self does elsewhere plainly give that Name Job 28. 28. The Fear of the Lord that is Wisdom and to depart from Evil is Vnderstanding The Ways of Wisdom then means the Practice of Religion and Vertue This he says is very pleasant He has Joy and Pleasure in abundance who steadily lives in a religious and good course of Life This is the import and sense of these Words And if this be true here is a very sensible and important inducement to a good Life contained in them There is nothing usually more powerful and attractive with Mankind than Pleasure nothing which they more earnestly or more universally covet If then it can be made appear that there is a great deal of this even in well-doing this may be a means to allure Men to the trial of it and to divert them from those courses of Wickedness which draw many into Everlasting Perdition by the allurement of Pleasure To make this good and to prove what Solomon here says will be the chief business of this Discourse And I do not doubt but it will be beyond any Man's Power to deny or question this who shall soberly consider the following Particulars 1. The Principle from whence all true and sincere Religion proceeds and springs is Love and that must needs render it highly pleasant in the Practice of it This must be the Principle and Spring of true and sincere Religion All the Duties we perform towards God or Man must proceed from Love to God and Man This must be the Principle of our good Actions and wherever true Love is it will be a Principle of good Actions All the instances of Duty required of us are but such things as Love it self will put us upon such as Love naturally suggests and does incline to He that truly loves God cannot chuse but seek what will please him and endeavour to do all that and he must endeavour to avoid whatever would offend God He must delight to contemplate the Divine Perfections to think upon the Object that he loves to adore and worship God to seek and promote the Love and Honour of him So he that loves his Neighbour sincerely must delight in and desire the Wellfare and Happiness of Men he must endeavour to promote it as much as he can and will be far from wishing or endeavouring any evil to any Man or from delighting in what does happen to any And this now is even a Demonstration of the Pleasantness of a Religious Life that all of it is nothing else but the Exercise of Love He that is driven to do his Duty by Fears and Terrors performs indeed an ungrateful Task and goes on in these ways with Reluctancy and Sorrow But he that is drawn with the Cords of Love follows with Joyfulness He will run and not be weary whom Love inspires He minds not is not discouraged with any Ruggedness of the way but is rather pleased with Difficulties and put on than troubled or retarded because they give him opportunity to express the greater Love This renders the Labours of Religion easy and even Sufferings delightful I take pleasure in Infirmities in Reproaches in Necessities in Persecutions in Distresses for Christ's sake says a great Lover of Jesus 2 Cor. 12. 10. It was the strength of Love in the Primitive Followers of Jesus which made them very laborious and diligent in Religion and made them suffer much even to the most cruel and tormenting Deaths and do both with unspeakable Joy and Pleasure They prov'd what a great Lover of God said long ago Cant. 8. 6 7. Love is strong as Death Many waters cannot quench Love neither the Floods drown it All the Task of Love is pleasant and nothing is counted hard or uneasy which that enjoins us 2. Another thing that renders the Practice of Piety and Vertue very pleasant and therefore proves it so is the fitness and reasonableness of all that which Religion enjoins us to do It is most highly equitable and just in all the parts of it and is most perfectly what the Apostle calls it Rom. 12. 1. namely Reasonable Service There is nothing required of us within the whole compass of our Duty but what a Man 's own Mind and Reason upon serious consideration must needs be perfectly satisfied in nothing that he can have any reason to be ashamed of or to think below him or unfit for him to do or that he can justly upbraid or condemn himself for doing How reasonable and just are all the Duties of Piety towards God This will appear upon a fair stating and proposal of them Is it not highly so that we reverence and adore an infinitely glorious and excellent Being That we trust the Original Truth That we love the Sovereign and the Fountain Good That we obey the supream Authority of the World in all
this Exhortation we may consider that without doubt the Pleasures of Religion are the strongest and sweetest of any They sink deeper into a Man than any other and affect him more as they enter into his Mind and put all the inward Powers of that into a pleasing Exercise and Motion They possess more of a Man than those that touch only his Body and Senses The Mind of Man is the most and as we may say the greatest part of him It has most Desire and greatest Capacity of Pleasure It is much more sensible both of Pleasure and Pain than the duller Body The Psalmist speaks the greater Sweetness and Excellency of Religious Pleasure when he says of the Law of God If it sweeter than the Honey and the Honey-comb Psal 19. 10. He means the practice of Religion and Vertue the doing any Duties commanded by the Law of God afforded him a far greater Pleasure and Delight than e're he could by his Senses receive from the most pleasant things of this World 2. Since there is so much Pleasure in well-doing this may justly persuade Men off from the guilty Pursuit and Enjoyment of the Pleasures of this World Why should a Man suffer himself to be guilty for the sake of any Pleasure when he may enjoy that which is very Rich and Sensible without being so It is most certain that Guilt will greatly allay the briskest Pleasures of this World In the midst of guilty Laughter the Heart is sad These are always best and sweetest to him that regularly and soberly uses them that uses them according to the Rules of Religion Thus he shall hurt neither his Body nor his Soul nor his Estate nor his Neighbour while he pleases his Appetites and gratifies his Senses and so he avoids the unpleasing Farewell of a troubled Conscience He does not destroy the Appetite while he pleases it but keeps himself in a capacity to have always a very lively Relish and Sense of his Pleasures The irregular and intemperate Man makes a Drudgery of those of this World and turns their fine Relish eager and four And the other sort that is the high and delicate ones of Religion he utterly deprives himself of In a vertuous and religious Course of Life a Man may enjoy both sorts but in that which is guilty and irreligious he cannot well enjoy either This is the First Use may be made of this Discourse 2. A Second is this It ought to persuade Men to betake themselves steadily to a religious and good Course of Life It was said by the Spirit of God that the ways of Religion are ways of Pleasantness with Design to recommend them to the Sons of Men. He spoke this in a kind Condescention to our Nature and Inclination to make a Bait of Pleasure which we are so apt to dote upon And this surely should be a very powerful Argument to this purpose This ought much rather to induce Men to be Wise and Vertuous to act as becomes them and pursue their true Happiness than to make them guilty of Folly and Sin of what is shameful and hurtful to them and of what will incur their everlasting Misery And how great an Obligation to Obedience is it that the Laws of our Religion are thus contriv'd that the Universal Sovereign has made the Instances of our Duty so reasonable and so good that we may delight in our Duty and the Performance of it will reward it self They would exceedingly aggravate our Wickedness and shew a strange Obstinacy in Sin and Enmity to God if we should rather refuse all this Happiness and Pleasure than submit our selves to the Laws of Religion And thus I have far enough urg'd this Argument in our Text to shew that they who will do wickedly do obstinately refuse their own Interest And to furnish the Consciences of Sinners with such a Conviction as will at one time or other prove a sharp Sting and Torment if they will not suffer it now to restrain them from Wickedness THE PRAYER MOst Great and Glorious Lord God! the Infinite and Perfect Being The greatest Excellency among thy Creatures lies in their greatest Likeness and Conformity to thee We give thee Thanks O Lord for that thou hast made us capable of so great Honour as the resembling of thee in our Actions for that thou hast laid upon us such Laws as guide us to a noble Conformity to the Divine Nature Thou didst of thy bounteous Goodness make Man upright inclin'd to such Actions and suited to thy excellent Law But alass we have defiled and polluted our selves with Sin and are become averse and unwilling impotent and unable to keep thy Commandments Our carnal Minds are Enmity to thee and are not subject to thy Law nor can be till they be Renewed Sanctified and Created again in Christ Jesus unto Good Works O Lord open thou our Eyes to behold the wondrous and alluring Excellencies of thy Law Work in us to will and to do according to thy good Pleasure Rectify the Apprehensions the Relish of our Souls that we may find thy Commandments to be sweeter than the Honey and the Honey-comb Lord make us so steddy and diligent in our Duty so practised and inured to it and so in love with it that we may find thy ways to be to us as they are in themselves ways of Pleasantness Shew and convince us of the Equity and Reasonableness of all thy Service that it is perfect Freedom that it is our greatest Honour that the Wisdom of good Living is our best Ornament even as a Chain of Gold about the Neck Encourage us we beseech thee to our Duty with a constant Sense of thy Presence with us of thy gracious Eye and Regard to all we do Let us know thou dost accept our sincere Endeavours and imperfect Performances through the Merits and Mediation of Jesus Christ Inable us to hope in thy Mercy and assure us that if we put our Trust in thee in Well-doing we shall not be confounded But especially we pray thee O Lord shed abroad thy Love abundantly in our Hearts Let Love possess us Love move Love direct and byass us make us to love thee with all our Hearts and our Neighbours as our selves so shall we be reconcil'd to thy Commandments so shall we run and not be weary we shall ever walk before thee and not faint in that blessed way Renew us O Lord after thine Image and make us Holy as thou art Holy and Good as thou art Good Merciful as thou our Heavenly Father art Merciful and Forgiving as thou art ready to Forgive Let our Lives and Conversations shew forth the Vertues of him that has called us to his Kingdom and Glory Look down in Mercy upon all Mankind rescue the miserable Slaves of the Devil who is the Ruler of the Darkness of this World from their sad Bondage under him and bring them into the happy Liberty of the Children of God Save thy People O Lord and bless thine
Heritage govern them and lift them up for ever And make all that name the Name of Christ duly concern'd to adorn the Doctrin of God our Saviour in all things Let thy gracious Presence dwell in the Land of our Nativity bless us with Peace and Plenty with the Means of Grace and the Efficacy of them to enlighten our Minds to cleanse our Hearts to heal our Divisions to teach us all from the Highest to the Lowest our several Duties towards thee Give Health and Happiness to our King and Queen and teach us and all their Subjects our Duty towards them Bless and direct all inferiour Magistrates make them a Terror to evil Doers and a Praise to them that do well Let those that Minister in Holy things be a good Example to the Flock and make us Followers of them as they are of Christ We Implore thy Mercy upon all that are in Affliction especially upon those who are persecuted for Righteousness Sake give them Patience under their Sufferings and a happy Issue out of all their Afflictions Accept our humble Sacrifices of Praise and Thanksgiving which we have this day offer'd to thee in thy Sons Name And make the Word which we have heard to have such Influence upon our Hearts and to bring forth such Fruit in our Lives as thou dost expect from it Give us a Night of safe and comfortable Rest preserving us from Fear and Danger And when we awake in the Morning let us chearfully return to our Duty in all our ways acknowledge thee and do thou graciously direct our Steps for the Sake of Jesus Christ In whose Words we conclude these our poor imperfect Addresses OVR Father which art in Heaven Hallowed be thy Name Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily bread And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil For thine is the Kingdom the Power and the Glory for ever and ever Amen THE Easiness of Religion EXPLAINED and IMPROVED Let us Pray PRevent us O Lord in all our doings with thy most gracious favour and further us with thy continual help that in all our works begun continued and ended in thee we may glorify thy Holy Name and finally by thy Mercy obtain Everlasting Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Mat. 11. 29 30. Take my Yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart And ye shall find rest to your Souls For my Yoke is easie and my Burden is light IT is a strange and wonderful Degeneracy that the Humane Nature is fallen under as appears from the wonderful Aversness that is in all Mankind to a religious and a vertuous Life Religion is the greatest Ornament and Glory of the Humane Nature It is the Cure of all our Defects and Disparagements It is our true and compleat Perfection And yet we commonly appear to be most easily withheld from the Practice of it We devise Excuses to neglect it we receive the most false and unreasonable Prejudices against it without any Examination of them We do often obstinately persist in Wickedness against the most weighty Inducements to do well These Words of the Blessed Jesus who came into the World to save Sinners and to that Purpose has taught us as well as died for us do meet with one of the Prejudices against an Holy Life which he knew to be very common in the Hearts of Men And that is the Imagination that Religion is a Task too hard for Humane Nature and utterly impossible to be perform'd Because we must indeed take some Pains to be Religious our lazy and unwilling Souls magnify the little Oppositions into Mountains of Difficulties and make us think we shall never be able to get over them and the way down to the bottomless Pit seems easie and smooth is strow'd with Pleasures Riches and Worldly Honours and these things easily allure and engage us to follow that Against this fatal and discouraging Prejudice our Saviour says in the Words of our Text Take my Yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart And ye shall find rest unto your Souls For my Yoke is easie and my Burden is light Take my Yoke upon you That is charge your selves with the keeping my Commands submit to my Government For this Meaning the Word Yoke is wont to have in Scripture For my Yoke is easie and my Burden is light It shall be possible to you to keep my Commands you shall find I do not require of you that which you cannot perform that the Difficulties you may meet with are not invincible And further to encourage the taking up his Yoke he adds Learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart If ye take up this Yoke ye but take up that which I have born my self I am of a meek and submissive mind I do not disdain to be subject to the Laws of Religion I then command you nothing but what I have practised my self and your Obedience to these Laws will be your Imitation of me And he adds further Ye shall find rest to your Souls This shall be Peace and Happiness to you In discoursing upon these Words I think it may be useful for the better promoting the Design of them to insist upon these Three Heads 1. To shew in what Sense it may be said that the Commands of God are easie to be observ'd Which will be both Explication and Proof of our Saviours Words 2. To suggest by what means we may best render this easie to our selves 3. To urge by some proper Motives the Use of those Means In the First place I shall shew you in what Sense we may understand this that 't is easie to keep the Commands of God And this will be sufficiently represented in the Three following Particulars 1. This is easie to a vigorous and earnest Endeavour ' Tit true there will be continual Opposition made against it by that Corruption that has gotten Possession in our Souls and by the frequent Assaults of Temptation from the World and the Devil But yet these are Difficulties that shall be overcome by an earnest and diligent Endeavour Our Saviour says Strive to enter in at the strait Gate for many I say unto you shall seek to enter in and shall not be able Luke 13. 24. By the strait Gate he means the way of Religion which the Opposition of our Spiritual Enemies and our own unworthy Averseness do render a strait Gate This we cannot pass without Striving and a good Endeavour but with this he intimates we may do so This will ccomplish what we desire but many seek to enter in and shall not be able To lazy Wishes 't is exceeding difficult indeed invincibly Difficult to be Religious He that cannot persuade himself to strive with Earnestness and Patience shall never become so And this
run the way of thy Commandments We commit our selves to thy gracious Protection this Night make we pray thee our Rest comfortable to us by a Sense of thy Favour and Forgiveness Raise us up again the next Morning if it please thee from our Beds those Emblems of the Grave And make us in whatever our Hand finds to do do it with our Might because there is no Work nor Labour nor Wisdom nor Knowledge in the Grave whether we are going We recommend to thy Infinite Mercies O Lord all Estates and Conditions of Men. O God who declarest thy Almighty Power most chiefly in shewing Mercy and Pity Mercifully grant to all Men such a Measure of thy Grace that they running the way of thy Commandments may obtain thy gracious Promises We beseech thee to keep thy Houshold the Church in continual Godliness and that through thy Protection it may be defended from all Adversities and devoutly given to serve thee in all good Works to the Glory of thy great Name We pray thee let thy Favour and Mercy rest upon these Nations wherein we live forgive us Oh Lord our manifold Transgressions give us Peace and establish Truth to continue among us so long as the Sun and Moon shall endure Bless our King and Queen with all the Blessings of this Life and a better Prosper their Government over us to their own Comfort and Happiness and to ours Teach us all who are under them in our several Stations to do our Duties towards thee and them and towards one another to thy Glory and to the common Peace and Welfare Bless all our Friends and Relations comfort all that are Afflicted relieve the Oppressed help them to Right that suffer wrong These things Oh Lord and whatever else for our Ignorance we cannot or for our Unworthiness we dare not ask we humbly beseech thee to grant through the Merits and Mediation of Jesus Christ the Righteous In whose Words we conclude our Prayers saying Our Father c. THE UNPROFITABLENESS OF SIN demonstrated Let us Pray PRevent us O Lord in all our doings with thy most gracious favour and further us with thy continual help that in all our works begun continued and ended in thee we may glorify thy Holy Name and finally by thy Mercy obtain Everlasting Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Prov. 22. 8. He that soweth Iniquity shall reap Vanity THough the Holy Scripture has told us of our Adversary the Devil that he is a Liar from the Beginning and the sad Experience of Mankind has found him so yet has he the Art to impose upon us still and we are so foolish as to credit his Suggestions By the very same Cheat and Delusion with which he drew our first Mother into Sin does he draw and perswade her foolish Posterity also to the Commission of it He made her believe it would be of great Advantage to eat the forbidden Fruit that this would mightily improve their Condition and make them more Excellent and more Happy God doth know said he That in the Day ye eat thereof your Eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as Gods knowing Good and Evil. Thus did the Serpent beguile her She took of the Fruit and did eat and gave it to her Husband and tempted him to eat too But this instead of advancing their Condition sadly impair'd it immediately were these our Parents driven out of Paradise they became subject to Sorrow and Misery and Shame and Death and were despoil'd of their greatest Glory the Image of God in their Souls Thus instead of becoming more excellent and happy they render'd themselves and all their Posterity exceeding miserable and vile But hereby has our Adversary learnt what sort of Suggestion is very apt to prevail with Mankind he has found we are ready to receive and follow that which seems kind to us we love to be flatter'd in our Inclinations and to have those things said to us which may perswade us to allow and gratifie them and we listen to that which promises great Advantages Therefore he tells Men they need not fear to be wicked there is not so much ill in it as some Man out of design would perswade them He tells them it is the only chearfull and pleasant course of life to follow their inclinations that 't is the only profitable and advantageous course and the way to do themselves most good to conform to the common Sins to run with the Multitude to do evil to follow the same ill ways that some are seen to raise their Fortunes by He tells us and we too commonly believe him that in breaking the Commands of God there is great Reward To antidote and fortifie our selves against this delusive Suggestion of the Father of Lies Let us observe what the Spirit of Truth tells us in the Text and fix our Thoughts a-while upon it at present that we may hereafter remember it to our Advantage He says He that soweth Iniquity shall reap Vanity He that soweth Iniquity that is He that lives an ungodly and unrighteous course of Life he that does any thing that is ill He shall reap Vanity that is he shall be wofully disappointed in his expectations of receiving any considerable or real advantage thereby That is said to be vain in Scripture which does not reach the purpose it was intended for which disappoints and frustrates the hopes and expectations that are built upon it So those Oblations are called vain which were not accepted with God And the Idols of the Heathens which bore an appearance of what they were not in Reality and Truth and were not able to help those that trusted in them are for this reason call'd there Vanities This then is the Import and Meaning of these Words spoken by Solomon A course of Wickedness is very false and deceitfull it promises Men much perhaps but performs little and he who expects any real Advantage any true Content and Happiness in such a course shall be miserably disappointed I think it not unnecessary to insist upon the Proof of this Truth for 't is what the World are not easily convinced of Though we may see it verified in the Experiences of other men very often yet we will not impute their ill Successes and Unhappiness to the Deserts and Nature of the Course they chuse but we impute them rather to some Indiscretion and Folly of those men in the Management of themselves which we purpose to avoid and so we hope to reap those advantages from the same course of life which we see others cannot Yea further it is very common that men are not convinced of this Truth though their own Experience might inform them Though they have found an Emptiness and Vanity in a wicked and careless Life so far as they have tried it yet they will be so foolish as to hope still for what they can never obtain they will think there is some Content and Satisfaction beyond them and on they go in this wrong
very Vanity Convince us we pray thee O Lord steadily and effectually of these things let us not sell our Souls for nought let us not spend our Life in the pursuit of shadows and neglect substantial things teach us that he who sows unto the Flesh shall of the Flesh reap Corruption And make us to believe that in keeping thy Commands there is great Reward to believe that thou art and art a Rewarder of those that diligently seek thee that we shall not serve God for nought But if we do by patient continuance in well-doing seek for Glory and Honour and Immortality we shall obtain eternal Life Let thy bounteous and faithful Promises effectually allure us from the ways of Folly and Perdition O that we were so wise as constantly to take thy Testimonies for our heritage to desireabove all things the Happiness which thou hast prepared for them that love and serve thee O turn thou we humbly pray the Byass and Propensity of our Souls that way Give us not up to the choice and pursuit of this World condemn us not to have all our Portion in this short miserable and transitory Life Strengthen and encrease our Faith of unseen things that it may be in us the Evidence of things not seen and the Substance of things hoped for and let this quicken let this encourage us at all times to our Duty by assuring us that our Labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. By alluring us of everlasting Rest to reward our Labours in well-doing of our having fulness of Joy in thy Presence and Rivers of Pleasures at thy Right hand for evermore Deliver us O Spirit of Truth from all the deceits of the World the Flesh and the Devil lead us into all Truth necessary for us to know in order to Salvation and make us to pursue the things which make for our everlasting Peace Give us we pray thee a Treasure in Heaven through the merits of Jesus Christ In whose Name we humbly make our Prayers and Supplications for all Men Give O Lord to all Nations Unity Peace and Concord and pour out thy Spirit upon all Flesh that they may all know thee from the least to the greatest Bless thy Church and prosper it and make it yet more Holy and more Universal Bring in all Jews Turks Infidels and Hereticks into the way of thy Truth and into the way of Salvation We pray thee pour down thy abundant Blessings upon these Nations wherein we live deliver us from those that hate us continue to us thy true Religion establisht among us in the Administrations of it and continue us in the due and universal Practice of what it teaches and requires of us Bless we pray thee our King and Queen and Magistrates be thou their Guide and Defence and make them useful Instruments to promote thy Glory amongst us and our Happiness Let us know those that are over us in the Lord and admonish us those who are thy Ministers in Holy things and esteem them very highly in Love for their Works sake and follow their Godly Counsels and good Examples Grant we beseech thee that the means of Grace which we have this Day enjoy'd may be effectual upon us to the Salvation of our Souls Pardon the imperfections of our Services and graciously accept them through the merits of Jesus Christ In whose Name we present and dedicate our selves to thee we recommend our Relations and Friends to thy Mercy and all that are desolate and afflicted and we pray for the pardon and conversion of our Enemies We commit our selves to the Care of thy Providence this Night beseeching thee to keep us in safety while we are not in a Condition to look to our selves And if it shall please thee to add yet more days to our Lives we desire to spend them all in thy excellent Service to which purpose we humbly implore the continual Guidance of thy Spirit to whom with the Father and the Son one Infinite and Eternal God we ascribe all Praise and Glory for ever and ever Our Father c. GOD's Hatred of Sin Demonstrated and Improv'd Let us Pray PRevent us O Lord in all our doings with thy most gracious favour and further us with thy continual help that in all our works begun continued and ended in thee we may glorify thy Holy Name and finally by thy Mercy obtain Everlasting Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Prov. 15. 9. Former Part. The Way of the Wicked is an Abomination to the Lord. IT is in the Heart of most Sinners that God takes little or no notice of what is done by us here below or if he does take notice that 't is without any concern about what we do They do not think those things offend him which they encline to and which are pleasing to themselves nor will believe that he is so displeased as some represent him to be with any of their Actions And from hence it is so small and light a matter with many to do those things which are sinful It is that which many are accustomed and habituated to do and are contented to be so The smallest temptation is able to make a man commit a Sin Yea without any temptation they will readily run into it and instead of avoiding and repelling temptations they industriously seek them and delight to entertain them It is become so common a thing to do wickedly that men have no horrour at any but the very grossest crimes such as would lessen a man's reputation in the World or expose him to Penal Laws and they are but very few But these things come to pass for want of a due consideration of such Truths as that which the Wise-man here delivers in saying The way of the wicked is an Abomination to the Lord. The most Holy and Almighty God takes notice of the Actions of men is acquainted with all our ways and resents with Infinite dislike and hatred whatever we do that is contrary to his most excellent Commands It is not an indifferent thing to him what our Actions are But as he that made us has given us Laws for the direction of our Actions so every transgression of those Laws and Rules which is that which is call'd Wickedness is odious and abominable to him A very terrible Consideration this is to those that have not taken any notice of it before and so have liv'd carelesly but it is therefore necessary to such to reclaim them from these offensive ways And if any man does so well lay it to his heart as to give it power to do so he shall find it as happy and comfortable in the fruits and effects of it To put you in mind of this I shall at present fix my Discourse upon it and to give it the more force I shall insist upon these Heads of Discourse concerning it 1. To confirm and prove what is here said 2. To shew you the Inferences which we may raise from it 3. To make
Interest require and begin to treasure up joys to lay up rewards and happiness for our selves These are things surely that cannot be done too soon If there be good reason to forsake a wicked Life at all 't is unreasonable in the least to delay the doing so When we come to condemn our selves in earnest for our Sins we shall condemn our selves too for continuing so long in them Let us all then be able to say with David at least from this time I made hast and delayed not O Lord to keep thy Commandments THE PRAYER O Lord the eternal God Creator and Owner and Sovereign Lord of all things By thee the Heavens were framed and all the Host of them by the breath of thy Mouth Thou hast made the Earth and the Sea and all that is in them and all that thou hast made is thine the World is thine and the fulness thereof all is of thee and through and to thee We who are now before thee here are a small handful of Creatures whom thou hast brought into Being from the Ground thou raisest our living Bodies and by thy mighty Power hast formed the Spirit within us And we Lord are thine thy Right and Property we are in nothing our own our Tongues are not our own our Thoughts are not our own the Members of our Bodies the Faculties of our Minds are not our own but thou art Lord over us We owe thee the entire Homage of our Souls and Bodies which are thine for we are thy People O Lord and the Sheep of thy Pasture We are those whom thou hast oblig'd to Love and Honour thee by innumerable benefits Thou hast fed and clothed and nourisht and protected us thou hast given us all our Enjoyments and thou holdest our Soul in Life We humbly acknowledge O Lord thy Right in us and we now own the Obligations thou hast laid upon us And we here present to thee our Bodies to be a Holy and living Sacrifice which is our just and most reasonable Service O Lord let us be accepted with thee through Jesus Christ We Confess that we have deserved thou shouldest reject and abhor us who have been hitherto so little concern'd to please thee who have so often and so exceedingly polluted our selves with that which is most odious and offensive to thee We are exceeding guilty and obnoxious to thy wrath and vengeance in that we have been Rebels against thy Sovereignty over us We have been unjust to thy Propriety in us we have been ungrateful to thy Goodness towards us We judge we condemn we abhor our selves for these things O do not thou enter into Judgment with us for in thy sight shall no Man living be justifyed We are heartily sorry for all our mis-doings the remembrance of them is grievous to us the burden of them is intollerable but thou O Lord whose Property is always to have mercy who hast promised Forgiveness to all that with a penitent Heart and true Faith in the Blood of Christ turn unto thee have mercy upon us Deal not with us after our Sins neither reward us according to our Iniquities Have mercy upon us O Lord according to the multitude of thy tender Compassions and blot out all our Transgressions We fly from thy Justice to the Footstool of thy mercy and there prostrate our selves in the Name of Jesus Christ O Lord for his Sake forgive us all that is past and grant that we may ever hereafter serve and please thee in Newness and Holiness of Life to thy Honour and Glory Do thou make us sincere in the Dedication of our selves again unto thee in this renewal of our Resolutions to serve thee Create in us O Lord a clean Heart and renew in us a right Spirit Do thou make us to love thy Law and to hate every false Way Cause us without delay to turn our Feet unto thy Testimonies and make us to delight in the way of thy Testimonies more than in all Riches O Lord rescue us we pray thee from the Bonds of our Beloved or habitual Sins save and deliver us from the Pollutions of a wicked World let us be blameless and harmless the Children of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse Generation Deliver us from all the Craft and Subtilty and from all the fiery Darts of the wicked One And let us never be hardened by the deceitfulness of any Sin We pray also O Lord for the Conversion of others as well as of our selves O Let thy Gospel run and be Glorified from the rising of the Sun to the going down of the same and let many be turned from Darkness to Light and from the power of Satan unto God That the Dominion of the Enemy may be diminisht and the happy Kingdom of thy dear Son may be enlarged We especially pray for the good Estate of thy Catholick Church that thou wouldest purge out of it all that does offend thee and Grant that all who profess and call themselves Christians may hold the Faith in Unity of Spirit in the Bond of Peace and in Righteousness of Life Look in Mercy upon these Nations to which we belong forgive our crying Sins and turn us from every evil way Bless us with the continuance of pure Ordinances and with a mighty Efficacy and Effect of them for the promoting of Piety Righteousness Charity and Sobriety amonst us Bless we pray thee our most Gracious King and Queen our Subordinate Magistrates those that Minister to thee in Holy things amongst us and all Ranks and Degrees of Men besides make us to fear thee to depart from all Iniquity to serve to thy Glory and to the Happiness and Welfare of each other and defend us all from all foreign or domestick Enemies of our Peace We commend also to thy infinite Mercies all our Friends Relations or Enemies those that have done us kindness we pray thee O Lord abundantly to requite them and those that have done us any Injury Father forgive them Let thy Word which we have this day heard have power to sanctifie and cleanse us from all unrighteousness We humbly hope for the mercy we have sought of thee this Day and desire we may commit our selves to thy careful and gracious Providence this Night and for evermore Lord bless and keep us lift up the Light of thy Countenance and guide us by thy Counsel till thou hast brought us to thy Glory All we humbly ask upon the Merits of Jesus Christ beseeching thee to hear us for his Sake and further in his own Words saying Our Father c. The MEANNESS of THIS PRESENT LIFE Prov'd and Apply'd Let us Pray PRevent us O Lord in all our doings with thy most gracious favour and further us with thy continual help that in all our works begun continued and ended in thee we may glorify thy Holy Name and finally by thy Mercy obtain Everlasting Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Job 14. 2. He cometh forth like
let us betake our selves to repent and turn to thee to mortifie all carnal and corrupt Affections to cease from all Evil and to Good Make us O Lord seriously to consider the great uncertainty to us of what is to come let us not presume upon thy Mercy and so encourage our selves to continue in our Sins lest we thereby put an end to the Exercises of thy Mercy towards us Let us not be so foolish as to provoke thee by our unnecessary delays to cut us off by a sudden and untimely Death or to Doom us to a final and judicial Hardness let us not put off our Repentance to such a time as is not convenient to do it in or to such a time when we are likely to be deceiv'd and imposed upon by our own false Hearts in the doing it but make us now to set about it while thou callest us to it and art ready to assist us and to make us sincere and art certainly willing and ready to accept it O Lord thy ready Grace should find us always ready to receive it and thy pardoning Mercy should find us always ready to seek it Let this O Lord we pray be the Day of thy Power upon every one of us and make us willing to renew our baptismal Covenant now to devote our selves to thee again and to resolve that we will not henceforth live to our selves but to thee to make thy Holy Laws the rule of our Actions and to endeavour in all things to Honour and Glorifie thee And do thou Graciously accept us according to thy Promises declared unto Mankind in Christ Jesus and give strength and stability to these our Resolutions Extend we humbly beseech thee thy Goodness to all the Heathen and Infidel Nations let a mighty and powerful Call go forth among them and turn them to the knowledge of thee the only true God and of Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent Be mindful of thine ancient People the Jews and bring them to the acknowledgment of the true Messiah Pour out an abundant measure of thy Spirit upon thy Church that we may see and understand what is evil among us and may repent and do our first Works Lord in thy Mercy reform these Nations wherein we live from Atheism and Profaneness from Pride and Schism from Envy and Malice and all Uncharitableness from Luxury and Riot and Sloth and Idleness Uncleanness and Intemperance Let us not go on to provoke thee by these our Sins lest our Iniquity prove our ruine We pray thee to Bless abundantly our King and Queen and all that are in Authority under them in Church and State make them a Terrour to all that is evil and a Praise to them that do well that we may be all Happy in a great increase of Vertue and true Godliness amongst us Bless all our Relations and Friends and Acquaintance and keep their Hearts and Minds in the Knowledge and Love of God and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. In whose Name we humbly beg the Mercies of the Night we thank thee for those of the Day past for all that we have received and for our good hopes of more to come To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all Honour and Glory World without End Our Father c. FINIS Books Printed for John Wyat at the Rose in St. Paul 's Church-Yard A Practical Exposition on the Ten Commandments by Ezekiel Hopkins late Lord Bishop of London-Derry An Enquiry into several Remarkable Texts of the Old and New Testament which contain some difficulty in them with a probable Resolution of them By John Edwards B. D. Sometime Fellow of St. John's Colledge Cambridge in 2 parts Octavo An Enquiry into the Constitution Discipline Government Unity and Worship of the Primitive Church that flourished within the first three Hundred Years after Christ Faithfully Collected out of the Extant Writings of those Ages in 2 parts by an impartial hand The Christian Virtuoso shewing that by being addicted to Natural Philosophy a man is rather assisted than indisposed to be a good Christian by the Honourable Robert Boyle Esquire The History of the Life of Katharine de medicis Queen Mother and Regent of France or the Exact Pattern of the Present French King's Policy The Subjects of the following Discourses Sermon I. THE Great Excellency of the Soul of Man demonstrated and improved Pag. 1 Serm. II. Of Vain Thoughts or Inconsideration with the Mischiefs and Remedies p. 27 Serm. III. Of true Happiness wherein it lies demonstrated p. 49 Serm. IV. The Heavenly Mind described and urged p. 75 Serm. V. The Necessity of Obedience to the Commands of God proved and stated p. 98 Serm. VI. The Great Duty of Thankfulness urged directed p. 116 Serm. VII The Pleasantness of Religion demonstrated and improved p. 134 Serm. VIII The Easiness of Religion explained and improved p. 152 Sermon IX The Unprofitableness of Sin demonstrated p. 177 Serm. X. God's Hatred of Sin demonstrated and improved p. 201 Serm. XI The Meanness of this present Life proved and applied p. 225 Serm. XII The Usefulness of Early Religion to Old-age demonstrated p. 249 Serm. XIII Of a Death-Bed Repentance shewing how unreasonable it is for any Man to rely upon it p. 273 Jer. 10. 25. Pour out thy Fury upon the Heathen that know thee not and upon the Families that call not on thy Name Joshua 24. 15. As for me and my House we will serve the Lord. Deut. 6. 6 7. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine Heart And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy Children and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine House ERRATA PAg. 29. l. 31. r. he might p. 51. l. 26. for that r. than p. 77. l. 23. r. to them p. 87. l. 5. dele p. 103. l. 2. r. Eph. 6. 1 2 3. p. 143. l. 16. dele p. 155. l. 2. for ' tit r. ' t is p. 184. l. ult r. interests Books Written by John Norris M. A. Rector of Bemerton near Sarum A Collection of Miscellanies consisting of Poems Essays Discourses and Letters in large Octavo Price 4 s. Theory and Regulation of Love a Moral Essay in Two Parts To which are added Letters Philosophical and Moral between the Author and D. More in Octavo Price 2 s. Reason and Religion or the Grounds and Measures of Devotion considered from the nature of God and the nature of Man in several Contemplations with Exercises of Devotion applyed to every Contemplation in Octavo Price 2 s. Reflections upon the Conduct of Human Life with Reference to the Study of Learning and Knowledge in a Letter to the Excellent Lady the Lady Masham To which is annexed a Visitation Sermon by the same Author The Second Edition with large Additions Price bound 1 s. 6d Christian Blessedness or Discourses upon the Beatitudes of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ To which are added Reflections upon a late Essay concerning Human Understanding in large Octavo Price 3 s. Practical Discourses upon several Divine Subjects Vol. II. and Vol. III. In large Octavo Price of each 3 s. The Charge of Schism continued being a Justification of the Author of Christian Blessedness for his charging the Separatists with Schism notwithstanding the Toleration In a Letter to a City Friend in 12o. Price bound 1 s. Two Treatises concerning the Divine Light The First being an Answer to a Letter of a Learned Quaker which he is pleased to call A Just Reprehension to John Norris for his Unjust Reflections on the Quakers in his Book entituled Reflections upon the Conduct of Human Life The Second being a Discourse concerning the Grossness of the Quakers Notion of the Light within with their Confusion and Inconsistency in explaining it All these Printed for and Sold by Samuel Manship at the Black-Bull near the Royal-Exchange in Cornhil SEneca's Morals by way of Abstract by Sir Rogar L'Estrange Printed for Samuel Manship