Grace ◠The Eye of Faith whose object is the only begotten infinitely Glorious and mercifull Son of God Christ Jesus with all his faithful Promises numberless Merits saving and incomprehensible Graces This then O my Soul is that Sight and Light in comparison of which all other is but Darkness or as Torch-lights to the Sun By this alone a true Christian shall as much transcend the rational as the rational the sensual Creature Doth the momentary splendour of terrene things entice us to affect and prefer them And shall the everlasting and perfectly glorious Vision of Heavenly things even of Him who gave Beauty Form and Beeing to thee and all things prove less deserving less effectual Was the carnal eyes of my First Parents so over-pleased with the transitory Beauty of an earthly Fruit that they forgot their Creator whose Image they bare and entered the death threatning the breach of his Commandement though open to the fury of a double Curse exchanging the eternity of Happiness for a momentary taste And shall not the Pearless splendour of Heavenly things animate me to prepare a hand a heart to receive and taste the Manna of Souls the Fruit of a Tree of Life not guarded with a Cherubs Fiery sword but obvious to all not rooted in Earth but sprang from Heaven being grafted into Humanity that his Living Fruit might become the saving and eternal nourishment of Man O Lord I earnestly cry out with those at Capernaum Give me evermore of this Food Have mercy upon my Infirmities for being Adam◠son I have a withered hand a carnal heart which carnality 〈◊〉 enmity with thee Therefore Create in me a clean Heart and renue a right Spirit within me Relieving my Spiritual wants with this apprehensive Grace by which supernatural gift I may be made able to apply thy saving Promises with all their dependances O Adam I cannot blame thee for the loss of this Grace since thou deprivest thy Posterity of those Treasures only which thou was possest of But in thy Innocency this thou hadst not yet wert thou not therefore defective for thy created purity needed not any imputative righteousness being of it self sufficient because accepted The beauty of thy first Purity was so far from Leprosie that not the least Stain was then apparent to deface its Candor Thy Innocency void of Sin and therefore required not a Saviour Thy Soul was the Resemblance of thy Creator and therefore a pleasing and most proper object for his All-glorious sight There was without Wrath Attonement without Enmity Mediation without Debt satisfaction without Jesus Application is unnecessary Infidelity was the first means of Death Faith is the only instrument of Life By the one came our Descent to Hell through the other our Ascent to Heaven That made us Fly from God offended this makes us Run unto Him appeased Man had his first Spring in the Creation his Summer in Paradise which should ever have continued had not his meridianal height suffered a declination So shortning his happiest dayes he changed both Place and Season As after the Fall Winter ensues so did his For what are our untimely times but as a Winter quarter wherein every Tree is Fruitless we being not seemingly but really dead in Sinnes and Trespasses And if there be any Sap in the Root or Understanding it serves for no other use nourishment or comfort but to leave us without excuse If any Leaves as Moral actions and outward Professions alas these may hide from men our Nakedness producing a supposition of Fruitfulness but cannot deceive God who shall cause such Leavy Fig-trees to wither O Saviour Jesus Christ my Years increase my Life decreaseth neither know I how soon thou wilt visite me by Death or Judgment when if only as outwardly glorious thou sendest me my Portion is with Hypocrites if defective of Fruit thy sentence hath already awarded me fit for the Fire Lord I am a stem of sinfull Adam sprung from a barren Root and therefore a Plant which but Cumbers this Ground O thou which only art Lord and Husband-man of Souls so shine on me by thy favour mould and manure me with thy Grace prune me with thy Fatherly chastisements that the old Man may be rooted up and the new Man spring up and grow that so the Winter of Sin past a Spring of Faith may ensue which in thee being only fruitfully perfect I may with a happy certainty expect an Autumn of Glory Whosoever believeth in me hath everlasting life are the words of our Saviour from whose graciousness every Soul may receive infinite encouragement to pursue the condition or instrumental means of so unvaluable a gift For what is more desired than life What more abhorred than deprivation Let this offer therefore of Immortality the height and accomplishment of Mans happiness like the streams of Paradise direct thee O wandering Soul unto the Eden of Glory In the midst whereof thou shalt finde the Spring of Faith the Fountain of Life even God himself From whom alone all Graces have their right ebulition and procession for God deals to every one the measure of Faith As in the first Creation he gave a Beeing to what was not so in Mans Regeneration his immediate Word wrought the one his written Word the other Pulpits are Heavenly Conduits from whence by Earthy Vessels the Ministers Voices as in smaller Pipes the Waters of Grace are conveyed into every open Ear. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God The life of the Body is the Soul the Soul of the Soul is Faith As the Infant lives not till God hath infused a Soul so the Christian lives not without his gift of Faith O thou whose gifts are the effects of thy free Mercy not our Merit and therefore without Repentance or Changeableness thou being Wisdome it self and therefore Unalterable Omnipotent and therefore above all contradiction and resistance give to me this Seal of thy love this first fruit of thy favour and my Conversion O bestow on me the Grace I ask because thou hast given unto me Grace to ask For thy bounty is not closed up because thou hast been liberal like to Man since thy love is without measure thou therefore give me because thou hast given Thy former favours being but earnests of thy future mercies The Body of Man like to the Pool of Bethesda hath five Porches or senses through which all external pleasure and delectation enters as it were to comfort the imprisoned Soul They being as so many Cranies dimly enlightning her Dungeon that so their poor and weak expressions might make her ambitious of a perfect liberty Amongst these the seeing faculty in comparison of the rest may be stiled the beautifull Gate for its Grace and Ornament and the Bodies mirrour wherein with delight it views the perfection of it self and others So that indeed the better half of Mans temporary felicities consists in outward objects
irritation and condemnation thereof for they that are in Christ have crucified the Flesh with the affections and lusts Yea this our victory and deliverance is assured to us in that it was a special end of that great and acceptable sacrifice offered to God by our Lord and great Captain Jesus Christ. Who as the Apostle witnesseth gave Himself for our sins that he might deliver us from this present evil World Hast thou such encouragements O my Soul On then and assault the glittering front the foremost batallion of thy Enemy Let this Arrow taken out of the Apostles quiver give him the first encounter The love of Money is the root of all evil Let thy Saviours words be a trusty Scout to prevent ambushes beware of covetousness Yea let the victorious Sword of the Spirit give the deadly wound be not deceived not thieves nor covetous c. shall inherit the Kingdome of God Here be not discontented O my Soul nor stain the glory of thy Christian Victory by a worldly sadness as though an ignominious poverty must be the necessary consequent of forsaking the World and conculcating her trash No Christians have riches which the Men of this World know not of for they are infinite and unsearchable viz. The riches of faith James 2.5 Of good works 1 Tim. 6.18 Of liberality 2 Cor. 8.2 The true riches of grace of glory Luke 10.11 Rom. 9.23 These unvaluable treasures God who is rich in mercy and Christ Jesus the Conduit of his mercies gives unto us Rom. 10.12 2 Cor. 8.9 For his mercies sake Eph. 2.4 Sometimes immediatly by his Spirit most frequently mediatly by his Ministers Yet not without this Spirit Who as the Apostle speaks though poor in the esteem of Men yet make many rich Thanks be to God for these his incomparable gifts The next Troop of the Worlds Power that faith proceeds to encounter with is led by voluptuousness These its true as it were besiege the Christian Soul and encompass it And if at any time by her pious force she break thorow and discomfit their thickest rancks even then by asking quarter they oft-times obtain victory crying out unto the zealous and lust-destroying Warriour as once the Tribe of Judah to David thou art neer of Kin unto us and as David to Amasa thou art of my Bone and of my Flesh and with the Syrian King thy Brother Benhadad Therefore spare us let us live behold we are the delight of thine Eyes the Mistresses of thy Ear the darlings of thy Pallate the Paramours of thy touch the perfumes of thy Nostrils We are linckt in consanguinity with thy nature age complection and calling We are thy beloved thy life the life of thy life thy bosome companions Thus if they gain by these syrene Songs but a respit of execution they shortly presume to become Counsellors advising in the words of the Preacher Rejoyce O young Man in thy youth and let thy Heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth and walk in the ways of thine Heart and in the sight of thine Eyes Thus these wicked and subtile lusts get possession But doth the faithfull Champion here want courage strength or Weapons No animated with divine assistance the regal Power of Christ he advances the shield of faith and makes his Enemies feel the edge of that Sword which they even now wounded him with viz. But know thou for all these things God will bring thee to Judgment Yea he further adds inverting the words of the Prophet should I let go out of my hand you that God hath appointed to utter destruction my life should go for your life for that she or whosoever else lives in pleasure are dead whilst they live yea in their estates as well as in their Souls So witnesses the wise Man He that loveth pleasure shall be a Beggar and that spiritually as well as temporally the good Seed being choked therewith Further as Israel to Adonibezeâ—h so the Christian Victor as it were cuts off the Fingers and Toes the speed and power of his concupiscence by instancing the multitudes of Gods own People that were overthrown in the Wilderness which were for our example as the Apostle speaks to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted by calling to remembrance the recantation judgment and repentance of wise King Solomon Who having enjoyed not only a common but an experimental and moral use of all the delights of the Sons of Men yet condemns them all as vile and nothing worth vanity of vanities all is vanity and vexation of spirit Lastly by fore-seeing the evil and unseparable consequents and Copesmates of inordinate delights by the Apostle St. James his light viz. wantonness riotousness and cruelty To conclude every true Christian-Warriour is unconquerable as being intrenched and fortified within the promises of omnipotency it self Who thus assures us that they that walk in the Spirit shall not fulfill that is shall not be overcome by or yield to the lusts of the Flesh. Here some Laodicean some lack-warm Professor will perhaps sigh and with Lot's Wife be ready to look back towards their pleasures the Sodom of this World complaining that Christians by reason of so rigorous a prohibition are of all Men most miserable and as the World esteems them a sad stoical and melancholy generation of Men. Let such mount their Meditations with holy David and they shall enjoy with him a Heaven upon Earth Witness this his testimony and assurance applyable and proper to every faithfull Israelite Thou wilt shew me the way of life in thy presence is fulness of joy at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore My Soul here closes up this second tryumph with a gratulatory Hymn of that blessed Psalmist How excellent is thy loving kindness O God! therefore the Children of Men put their trust in the shadow of thy Wings They shall be abundantly satisfyed with the fatness of thy House thou shalt make them drink of the Rivers of thy pleasures For with thee is the Fountain of life in thy light shall we see light The Worlds third Squadron viz. Mundane honours renews and continues the Fight with which the chief General Sathan lays ambushes on the right hand by glorious Visions and Dreams of Signiories with large promises of rule and dominion tempting us as once our Saviour All these things will I give thee and as he did Balaam in the mouth of Balack I will Promote thee unto very great honour On the left hand he assaults us by threatning as also actual divesting and degrading us of our hereditary or acquired titles and preferments So he did to Moses Who as the Apostle witnesses refused to be called the Son of Pharaohs Daughter choosing rather to suffer affliction with the Children of God So also to Daniel and the Three Children
Kingdome Nor are we only Kings but dignified above such expressions the Image of the only true God being renued and imprinted in us For through our Lord Jesus Christ 's most great and precious promises are given unto us that by them we should be partakers of the Divine Nature Hath Saul chosen David to be his Son in Law yea and he esteemed it an honour worth the hazarding of his life But behold what love the Father hath given to us that we should be called the Sons of God Was Mordecai so publickly honoured by Ahasuerus God doth far exceed in his free favours towards his Witness St. John saying I saw round about the Throne four and twenty Seats and upon the Seats four and twenty Elders sitting clothed with white Rayment having on their Heads Crowns of Gold Come hither O thou loytering Soul that carest not to ascend the Mount with Abraham and Isaac but stayest below with his Servants and Asses that choosest rather to stand still and become a barren and unmovable Pillar of Salt with the faithless Wife of Lot then with no less hast than good speed to travel toward Zoar a place of safety with her righteous Husband The Poets tell us a Fable of one Tantalus whose hunger-starved Mouth covetously gasped after Golden Apples which continually fled from him I would O half Believer thou hadst his hunger his thirst then would our Saviours loving invitation be joyfully obeyed If any Man thirst let him come unto me and drink such living Waters which shall not flie from but into the longing Soul Art thou Adam's Son O here behold a Tree of Life whose Root is only transplanted from Paradise to Heaven that so the Fruit might hang down to Earth Here is now no prohibition to restrain thy ambition but a commission to warrant thy affection Take and eat O take it even Christ in his Word and Sacraments not carnally as Adam but spiritually with the hand of thy Soul which is a saving and applying faith Next relish it by Meditation and digest it by prayer Then shall thine eyes be enlightned and thou shalt perceive thy nakedness that so Christ may cloath thee with his righteousness here and his glory hereafter Then shalt thou behold the vanity of earthly pleasures riches and honours confessing that God is all these yea all in all unto thee That the happiness of Divine knowledge consists most in fruition That it is better to acknowledge God to be Immanuel with Isaiah then Daniel's God with Darius To imbrace Christ in our armes by faith with Simeon than to see his Star afar of with Balaam To rejoyce in God our Saviour with the blessed Virgin then to confess Jesus to be the Son of the most high God with the Legion of Devils Then shall that virtual and spiritual Figure of God which according to our capacity the holy Spirit hath shadowed out by attributes in his Word and Works be appropriated unto us by Faith That so those glorious rayes of his to wit his Holiness his Justice his Power which before our Souls were Eagle-fighted our minds illuminated rather scortcht than cherished dazled than enlightned us meet all in the centre of his mercy Jesus Christ and from him as it were by reflection powerfully work upon us and comfortably refresh the whole Man renewing justifying and sanctifying thee here and glorifying thee hereafter All this while O my Soul thou hast been viewing the first draught of Faith rudely painted after a Landskip fashion and therefore ever beheld at distance Now observe a second model limb'd out more exactly having in every part a seeming perfection O that the Colours would be but as lasting as lively The defect then of this Pourtraiture is a false ground manifested and proved by its short continuance The truth of which since it cannot aptly or charitably be demonstrated or discovered by any extant piece I know lest I should seem to be my own Judge or judge my Brother I will with reverence look into our Ark the sacred Scriptures wherein as there is the two Tables of the Law for our instruction so there is a Pot of Manna to encourage and strengthen our obedience An Aaron's Rod to tell us what we have been are and should not be There I doubt not but to finde some Antiquities of the infant Age before the Law or the middle Age under the Law and some in the old Age of the World that last measure of time under the Gospel Which although dusted by death survived in those living characters for instruction and our purpose All humane judgments may erre Neither is there any Seat of Judicature upon Earth no not Peter's Chair altogether free from injustice and false opinions If it be the certain condition of Man to be uncertain in all his ways Nam humanum est errare it is his Custome to erre How can he then which is a stranger at home make a true discovery abroad He that stumbles in a known and even path cannot choose but fall headlong if he ascend craggy passages He that is ignorant of earthly things cannot be spiritually judicious The best oft-times are deceived by their own hearts For the heart of Man is deceitfull above all things who can know it much more by others Those which in the false Ballance of our understanding have seemed down weight being placed in the Scales of the Sanctuary have been found wanting as may appear in these following examples Who although they out-went the prospect of Men in the right way towards Heaven in the outward acts of Faith yet afterwards either stood still or wanting Oyl for their Lamps were benighted and strayed in the broad Paths of prosperity Cain the first draught of humanity that ever Man drew the first born to whom hereditarily belonged the blessing and the double portion the fourth part of the then visible Church and a sacrificing Priest before God viz. by his birth education offering proved to be a Member of the Church a Professor by his Prayers implyed as the inseparable Companions of Sacrifices the fruits of that profession are manifest so that to the superficial view of Man he seems not only practically Religious but also to parallel faithful Abel Yet behold in process of time his want of perseverence shewes his defect of Sincerity the murder of his Brother his former Hypocrisie and afterwards concluded of and punished with the Curse of God the Hatred of good men and his self Despairation Lots Wife was a member of the apparent Church and as it is probable forsook her native Country her Fathers Gods to be a sojourner a stranger in a remote Land with Abraham And no doubt while she lived in that sinful Sodom was a frequent Hearer of that Doctrine of Repentance which her Righteous husband Preached with so unhappy success Yea in conclusion she forsakes Sodom being not only aided by the presence but led by the hand of an Angel
toward Zoar that Type of Heaven But no sooner did the Angel leave her but her eyes reversion discover her minds aversion Which her self would have seconded had not the Almighty in Favour to her Husband and in Mercy to Us made her an examplary Monument in a Pillar of Salt Next under the Law behold Saul not only a Member but chosen of God to be the Captain over his Church A man every way well qualified first for his Body his Proportion was so excellent that there was none like him amongst all the people And for his Mind it was endowed it seem'd both with Divine and Moral Vertues witness his joyning in Prophesie his performance of many Pious Duties as his Sacrifices at his Coronation his asking Counsel of God and inquiry after Sin confession and humiliation after Samuels Reproof his humility at his Election his patience and mercy at his Rejection and Defamation his Fortitude against the general and open Enemies of the Church the Ammonite his Zeal against the private and secret Enemies of Religion viz. all Witches and Wizzards Here then is a spring of Piety a profession and expression of Religion a Gourd whose glory may not only serve as a Canopy of state to Saul but as a shade to one of the Prophets A gourd indeed and so it faded For the eave of his last day ruined that frontispiece of Vertue which his whole lifes best Actions had raised towards Heaven For had he been with the Prophets and joyn'd with them in Prophesie His ignorance and wants now send him to enquire of the Devil Did he Sacrifice before to God Now behold the reward of Divination and Witchcraft are in his hand He whose custom was to ask counsel of God now seeks after a Witch and he whose seeming Zeal condemns his Righteous Son for tasting of an Honey-comb although ignorant of any restraint now contrary to his Oath and Covenant made with God without humiliation and judging of himself or confession of his fault willingly and wilfully swallows down the very gall of Sin His Humility did not more grace him when he lay buried in the peoples Stuff than his Pride did debase him when he presumed to be one of Gods Council That patience fortitude and mercy which abounded yea was extended towards others is now deficient to himself For he falls all along upon the Earth becomes sore afraid no strength is left in him and yet he refuses to Eat For having no conscience towards God no wonder if his Body wants the charity of Nature When the Creature abuses the Mercy of the Creator he must expect to taste of his Justice And when he ceases to know Himself he shall be made to know his Punishment Saul hath forgotten both his God and himself and therefore justly is he now forgotten and hears his Funeral censure pronunced by him who never spoke nor wished better to man To morrow shalt thou be with me Forewarning fore-armes not Sinners he that doubted of his Choise though from the mouth of Gods Prophet credits his refusal and death from the Devils Oracle Extraordinary Blessings are the free and voluntary gift of God and not believed of Sinners before enjoyed But his punishments are the due Burden of sins desert and therefore are expected before divulged The Soul being often-times aforehand sensible of that which the Body afterwards endures None but a false or temporary Faith hath a final cessation but such is this of Saul he now beleeves onely that he might dispair The first degree of a true Faith being usually the false ones last step God lifting up the one from the sense of judgement to the faith and sight of Mercy Sin dragging the other from the belief of punishment into the gulf of Despairation Though Saul hath his last day marked out even the morrow yet neither the love towards his Sons whose Lives bore the same date with his nor care for himself begets the least endeavour by delay or otherwise to out-live the fore-going Prophesie inevitable are the Judgements of God nay rather he hastens it shortning his flight that he might shorten his life And that sin according to its nature might have a companion he moves his Armour-bearer to be a traitour to his own Soul by example whom his precept could not force to be a traitour to his Prince For he falls upon his Sword which instead of Defence becomes a weapon of Offence So often-times God deals with the Wicked who as in life themselves are their worst Enemies so in death they prove their own Executioners Thus the Sacred Annals before and since Moses hath by the Deads example given most lively arguments to prove this falshood of the deadness of this seeming life of faith O admire here the infinite extent of the Mercy of God! who out of the carcase of this Lyon Sin this Eater Death brings forth both meat and sweetness for his Sampsons his Nazarites making the Downfal of the Fathers the Rises of the Children their Ignorance our Knowledge their faults and blindness apt spectacles to help the weakness of our sight It now remains that the holy Records of the faithful and powerful Gospel as the Eccho of the Old Testament consort in the like precedents that by so consonant an Harmony the dissonant and ungrounded judgement of the most hypocritical and temporary Believer may be convinced if not converted The purest Gold hath its Dross the best Wheat its Tares Yea the Moon is then most full of Spots when least empty of Light The Church of God in the Primitive times in its Infant Age had many who although they were deemed Members of Christ had not yet put off the Old man The Old Adam Many whose Image and outward Superscription seemed to be our Cesars yet proved to be false and unvaluable Coyn when they came to their test or exchange Witness Ananias and Sapphira a pair doubly united by Sin and Wedlock who before their trial were esteemed as Members of the True Church as Beleevers of the Apostles Doctrine and no doubt baptised in that Faith the effects of which seemed to lead them on to forsake the world for they sold their possessions to works of Charity and Piety And laid it at the Apostles feet Who would not here have parallel'd these with sincere Joses since both parties did the same duty though not with the same heart the one acting truly that Christians part which the other only play'd Mans natural light is comparatively darkness and the height of his Knowledge advantageth him only with a larger prospect of his ignorance he knowing most that confesses to know nothing The conscience of our want being the perfection of our science Only thou O Lord art the Fountain of Knowledge and Wisdom thou triest the Heart and the Reins and seest not as man seeth Shalt not thou who planted the Ear hear Thou that formed the Eye see Thou that teachest man Knowledge know Thou O
O have these fleshy eyes of ours such various presentations of pleasure to delight these Bodies of Clay with and can we imagine Faith the eye of the immortal Soul can be destitute of a subject worthy its view and contemplation O no my Soul The weakest-sighted Faith enjoys a far better and more excellent prospect viz. with Eagles eyes looking abroad upon the glorious Son of Righteousness and Son of God Jesus Christ. The Life of the Body gives the first power and motion to the Eye but this Heaven-aspiring sight gives the Soul its first Life Hear me saith God that is believe in me and your Soul shall live The Earthly Sun suffers sometimes an Eclipse so did ours once for all An interposition caused the one the other not any defect in his own Body or Light but a condense Darkness an Orb of Sin for a time obscured his brightness Women and Children whose shallow reach fathome not the depth of Natures works may with a flying fear hide themselves not daring to behold the labouring Sun when a learned Artist by Water or reflection searcheth out the cause and greatness of an Eclipse Worldly and carnal Men may mask their understanding with a wilfull ignorance But do thou O Lord which hides these things from the Wise and revealest them unto Babes make me to apprehend the reason and admire the infiniteness of thy suffering Earth affords not a neerer Union or Relation than friendship That mysterial incorporation and perfect conjunction of Wedlock is but an inclusive of this that being more particular this more general Society is the happiness of Mans life this is the height of that Conjunction and the perfection of that happiness He is either most miserable or undeserving that hath not had some taste of this reciprocal foelicity Since vice and vertue have both their favourites the one exceeding in number the other in worth Thus far hath my Meditations roved on Earth ascending this height of temporary delight that from such a rise my Soul may take a quick flight to Heaven The friendship of the World and all things else in it eminent or praiseâ—worthy are but dark shadowes of Heavenly things beames derived from that eternal Light to give Light to Man Doth not the Holy Spirit express the exceeding love of the eternal Father to us his Children by the tenderness of Earthly Parents His infinite and free mercy by the charity and friendship of the Samaritan stranger The ardent and unparallel'd affection of our Saviour Jesus Christ to us his Church by a Matrimonial and espousal love O all yee that have any illumination of Faith come and witness with me if there were ever or can be any love amity or affection like unto this which God hath shewed towards us Lord I would fain express thy acts of mercy the witness of thy love and object of my Faith but who is sufficient for these things or able to express what he cannot sufficiently conceive of How or where shall I begin when Lord my beginning was from thee Yea from all beginnings hast thou chosen me and in time hast thou called me void of love desire and freedome of will or any other congruity remote or sufficient to answer thee calling being the servant of Sathan and Bond-slave of Sin and therefore an Aliene from thee and the common wealth of Israel One not only sick but dead in sins and trespasses and therefore unable to move towards thee A natural Man perceiving not the things of God and therefore ignorant of thee Thy love alone was the cause of mine for herein is love not that we loved thee but that thou loved'st us first Nor foreknowledge of my after works or willingness to receive grace occasioned this free Election For not of works which I had done but according to thy mercy didst thou elect and save me From thy free and gracious predestination my faith with a devout affection makes haste to behold the Foundation thy dear Son Jesus Christ my Saviour O wonder O infinite Love O admirable friendship He whose glory and greatness the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain was inclosed within the Womb of a poor though pure Virgin God descends in humility from Heaven that Man might ascend Heaven in Glory becoming like to Man that Man might be like to him Not Rome the Metropolis of the World nor Jerusalem the glory of Judea must tryumph in the birth or be made more honourable by the first presence of Emanuel but Bethlem the least of the Cities of Juda. Which poor place either ignorant or regardless of so high a favour was not only void of thankfulness and common courtesie but of neighbourly hospitality A Stable a Manger and brute Beasts being the Palace the Cradle the company it prepared for the entertainment of the Worlds Saviour Behold here a mystery of mysteries He who knows no beginning now begins to be that his being in nature might give us a being in grace in glory And in his Infancy did our gracious Redeemer begin to suffer the entrance of his life being but the Prologue of his sorrow and the total thereof a continued passion His innocent Child-hood is made the subject of treason and nought but his slaughter must allay the Tyrants suspition What needed any unjustly or violently to have sought his Death who willingly came to Dye only living the life of Man that for Man he might be capable of Death This Herodian cruelty hath a deeper dye than Nero's Tyranny For he destroyed the World only in his wish but this Man by one act would have made not our Bodies only but our Souls mortal O sweet Jesus thou fleddest into Egypt not to preserve life but to die daily avoiding his merciless Power that thou mightest declare thy powerfull mercy Thy Death by which we live must not be constrained least ungrateful Man should esteem it no gift The strength and policy of Herod are unable to wrest that per-force from thee which thou purposest freely to give Infancy must not suffer for Man-hood since the greater includes the less but the lesser cannot comprehend the greater That perfection of Age that made Mans rebellion and sin more full more hatefull must make thy obedience and sufferings more compleat more acceptable Not Bethlem but Jerusalem the center of the World must be the Theatre of infinite mercy of merciless cruelty that thy passion being acted in the place wherein the Legal Ceremonies were celebrated the Types and Figure might more clearly point out the substance All those bloody Sacrifices being abolished by one Sacrifice of blood After this escape of danger in his Child-hood and reprieved of his life for a time did not the increase of his years multiply his sorrows No doubt he suffered as well as fulfilled the Law for us during those thirty years he obscured himself At twelve years of age we finde him disputing in the Temple when surely
he became a Priest unto God not to offer up for himself or for others expiating Sacrifices because sin then was not for God saw every thing that he had made and behold it was very good But his sweet incense was Prayer proceeding not from want but from love and duty his Kids were the Calves of his Lips inflamed with praise and sparkling with admiration from the Altar of a pure heart an un-bloody Sacrifice But this Jubile continued not a Year a Moneth a Week I think scarcely a Day God's first Sabbath of rest I suppose was the utmost date of Mans freedome from sin For no sooner had temptation voluntary leave to enter through the sences into this holy Temple but the ambush of sin rushed out of Sathans imposture as the Grecians from their Horse and overthrew and polluted the Priest the Sacrifice and the Altar If the Clay works not according to the mind of the Potter no marvail if he bruise it to powder And if the Creature honour not the Creator 't is Justice in him to destroy it When the House of God is become a Den of Thieves the Priest of God an Idolater and servant to sin and the Altar of God dedicated to Sathan It must needs follow that the curse of God fore-threatned shall now be executed Yee shall surely die O wretched Man hath God pronounced that thou shalt die Be ascertained thou must die since his unchangable Decrees are shaddowed out unto us by the Laws of the Medes and Persians which alter not Must Man die and hath God enacted it who then can deliver us from this Body of Death Be of good comfort we have mercy for our Esther the Son of God for our Mordecay who hath without reversing qualified and fulfilled the decree of his Father Who now can lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect it is God that justifies who is he that condemneth it is Christ that dyed yea rather that is risen again who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us being the only Mediator betwixt God and Man All Priests since the fall within the Church of God were the Types of our high Priest Christ Jesus For no sooner was there a breach made betwixt God and Man the Creator and the Creature but mercy pleaded for a reconciliation and that reconciliation in Justice required a Mediator which is the Lord Jesus A principal part of whose Mediatorship is this his office of the Priesthood Before the Law typified in Melchizedeck in the Law pre-figured by Aaron and his Sons and in the Gospel really executed and fulfilled by himself The acts of this his office are chiefly two as being proportionable to the defect and necessity of Man the offendor viz. To satisfie to intercede Go forth now my Soul and bid defiance to all thy Enemies For the Shield of thy faith shall receive all their darts without any danger to thee retorting them back even into the adversaries faces Appear now with confidence before the judgment Seat of God bringing with thee to the Bar of Mercy thy Advocate Christ Jesus Thither summon Sin that Tyrant whom whilst thou weart a Traytor to thy Maker thou didst serve together with those Homicides Death and Hell Let him bring his Parent with him also even Sathan his Agent thy Accuser yea let thy own conscience be called as a Witness Lastly let the Law be prefer'd as thy Inditement Against all those let thy Saviour oppose himself and maugre their objections and accusations plead thy innocency that so thy righteousness may break forth as the light and thy judgment as the Noon-day For he shall trample thine and his Enemies under his feet and destroy them with the two-edged Sword of his Word Doth Sin challenge a right on thee Our Saviour answers That the old Man is crucified with him that the Body of Sin might be destroyed that hence-forth thou should'st not serve Sin Doth Death and Hell cry out we are thy wages The Almighty Conquerour replies O Death where is thy Sting O Grave where is thy Victory And that thou maist never hereafter fear 't is added Death and Hell shall be cast into the Lake of Fire Doth Sathan accuse thee behold thy Michael shall chase this malitious Dragon from the judgment Seat witness that voice of tryumph that the Accuser of our Brethren is cast down which accused them before our God Day and Night And as for thy conscience fear not its testimony since it ceases to accuse when Sin is not imputed For whosoever is born of God sinneth not Again a spotless and blameless conscience cannot be a blaming and condemning conscience But Christ through the eternal Spirit hath offered himself without spot to God that he might purge thy Conscience from dead works Wherefore having such an High Priest over the House of God draw thou neer with a free Heart in full assurance of Faith Lastly doth the severe justice of the Law threaten to swallow thee up strengthen and comfort thy self in Christ who hath redeemed thee from the curse of the Law being made a curse for thee for it is written cursed is every one that hangeth on a Tree c. Yea let this following immunity The Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus having made thee free from the Law of Sin and Death dismiss thy fears and silence all thy adversaries O my Saviour who art only the true Melchizedeck the compleatment of Aaron's Priest-hood and the end of the Law How much praise is thy due from me thy redeemed since to me is thy saying verified Blessed are those Eyes that see those things that I see And the Eares that hear those things that I hear Abraham saw thee in Isaac David saw thee in Solomon but I see thee in thy self yea in these and in all other thy Types I see thee also and that with much comfort and confirmation in thy Calling Vnction Bloody Sacrifice Sanctification Redemption Ascention and Intercession which were heretofore mysteriously bound up in the Levitical Priest-hood are now fulfilled and to me graciously manifested Lord Jesus since of thy free mercy thou hast made my deafness to hear and hast given me sight that was blinde for the strengthning of my faith As I have seen thee in thy types so let me see thee also in that eternal decree of thy Father So shall salvation appear Gods act and not Mans phantasie viz. Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee Thou art the Lamb slain that takes away the sins of the World Lastly let me behold the execution thereof wherein the Lord is both offered to me and accepted for me viz. This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased O my Soul what canst thou now more desire as having the Decree of God for thy Foundation the merit
of the Soul there are some conditions and estates so vitiated and overcome with maladies that they are forsaken of the Physician and left as desperate and past remedy In such a condition me-thinks I seem to be of whose heart by reason of festred corruption it may be said as Job of Leviathan That it is as firme as a Stone yea as hard as a piece of the nether Milstone of whom also thine own speech to the Jews may be verified That my heart is waxed gross and my eares are dull of hearing and my eyes are closed least at any time I should see with my eyes and hear with my eares and should understand with my heart and should be converted and thou shouldst heal me Is then Lord my heart such a Rock and the imaginations thereof wholly and continually evil How can then the pure streams of Repentance flow from thence which is the condition on my part in thy Covenant of mercy and pardon witness thy own words delivered by the Prophet Repent and turn your selves from all your transgressions so iniquity shall not be your ruine And that in thy Gospel preached by thy Apostle Repent yee and be converted that your sins may be blotted out Fear not my redeemed nor be dismaid as though any thing was impossible unto God What seems difficult because of thy nature shall be made easie through my grace Think not my Word which is the word of life shall become the savour of death unto any of mine Thou complainest that by it thou hast found thy hardness of heart which thou sayest excludes repentance and consequently pardon O be not deceived here 's no cause of despair but of hope and thankfulness since my Word hath wrought that blessed work upon thee for which I ordained it Having not only selected but prepared thee for my cure There is a reprobate and sick sort of Men I confess Who after their hardness and impenitent Hearts treasure up unto themselves wrath against the Day of wrath Such were those Jews whose insensibleness did sufficiently prove their deadness But thy Eares are bored to give my Word entrance Thy Eyes are opened to behold therein as in a Mirrour thy spots and many defects And thy Heart is agil and willing to know and accuse thy self Therefore thou shalt be converted and I will heal thee If there should be impossibilities imposed on thee in my Covenant how could I then be just And shall not the Judge of all the World do right Or if thy work should either precede or assist mine should not that act of thine though the least detract from my free mercy and make my grace no more grace O cursed be such Sathan-like pride of dust and ashes that thus lifts up it self against my omnipotency mercy and all other my attributes aspiring even unto my Throne of Glory O know that those commands proclaimed in the Old Testament by my Prophets were given as preparatives to the New What I require of thee is my due why I require it of thee is my mercy that so running from me as a Judge thou mightest run to me as a Saviour Who grants both to Jew and Gentile repentance unto life Which conversion since it hath wrought it on thee receive and apply what my mercy out of the same word hath extracted for thee Are thy thoughts only evil I will sprinkle clean Water upon thee and thou shalt be clean from all thy filthiness Is thy Heart a Stone which cannot relent I am he that turns the Rockie Heart into a Well as the Rock in Horeb into standing Water and the Flint into a Fountain of Waters Yea a new Heart also will I give thee and a new Spirit will I put within thee and I will take away thy stony Heart out of thy Flesh and I will give thee a Heart of Flesh. And I will put my Spirit within thee and cause thee to walk in my Statutes For I dwell with him that is of a contrite and humble Spirit to revive him That so all my Enemies with shame here and torment hereafter may be inforced to confess that it is I that worketh in thee both to will and to do of my good pleasure quickning those that were dead in sins and trespasses As also that I am Lord Paramount over all my Creatures Having mercy on whom I will have mercy and whom I will I harden O my Lord Thou art my refuge and strength a very present help in time of trouble How sweet are thy words unto my taste yea sweeter than Honey to my Mouth O that they were so fixed in my mind and imprinted in my memory that they might remain with me for ever But blessed Saviour this is my misery that though for the present I may rejoyce with David yet for the future I cannot promise and say with him I will not forget thy Word For whereas in my Primitive nature thou didst indue my Soul with a serviceable and faithfull memory to be as it were her treasury or magazine from whence like that wise House-holder in thy Gospel she might upon all occasions bring forth things new and old I finde that Cyttadel battered and possest by my corruptions Who have fore-closed and lodged themselves therein So that the complaint of Jeremy is verified of me as well as of that People that have forgotten Thee Days without number O Lord if the Cistern be broken where shall the thirsty be refreshed my barrenness watered what doth it avail that my Eares as Buckets do continually draw up and are filled from thee the Fountain of life with quickning promises and saving directions if the receptacle and Cistern my memory be faulty and faithless As the Body which wants the retentive faculty and vomits up its sustenance giving neither time of Chilefaction to the Stomach nor of making blood to the Livour can receive little nourishment So that Soul which retains not the spiritual Manna thy Word in the memory that there it might be disgested by Meditation and converted into practice can never thrive in holiness and live spiritually It may be for the present I may say of thy Word as Shimei of Solomon's Thy saying is good When as soon after it will be forgotten and without thy mercy prove to me as that to him death and bitterness in the end Further this holy retention is not only of excellent and necessary use in thine but also highly by thee commended required and commanded Thine own Mouth pronouncing Him to be rather blessed that bears thee in his heart than her that bore thee in her Wombe a spiritual enjoying being far above a corporal Yea for this cause and to help this dangerous defect didst thou ingrave thy Law upon Tables and commanded it to be written upon the most perspicuous places of the House And in the glorious and holy Decalogue it self thou didst
Iron cast into the Forge is as it were converted into Fire and the body and substance of the Sun is as it were hid and changed into the light that possesses it so shall the Soul and Body as being in God and God in it be absorpt and as it were transmuted into his Glory Thus much concerning the Souls external glory The internal if it be possible is yet a Sphere in altitude above this as bringing the Soul neerer to the assimilation apprehension and fruition of God The understanding will memory and affections in the Soul being as it were Impresses to speak improperly and according to the understanding of Men of the like infinite essentials in God For then the understanding faculty according to its created capacity shall be wonderfully elevated and enlarged and be repleat with a sufficient and compleat knowledge of all Creatures yea of God himself Which shall not then be acquired and gathered as now by a Retrogradation from the effect to the cause but then primarily by immediate Vision and mutual possession of God the cause of causes Be not then disconsolate O my Soul nor set thy Bodily Organs upon the Rack in the study of the Metaphysicks Mathematicks and Physicks farther than thy special calling requires mispending thy hours and neglecting that one thing necessary The knowledge of God and thy self The degrees of learning on Earth are reversed in Heaven begin here with God the beginning of all things and proceed to be Batchelor of Divinity on Earth and fear not but be assured that thou shalt commence a true Master of Arts yea a Doctor of Divinity in Heaven Then shalt thou know perfectly and not as now by supposition the essentials spiritualities and supreme excellencies and attributes of God and Angels The magnitudes altitudes motions and influences of the Heavenly Planets and fixed Stars There shall be no disputing Copernicans No ignorant Empedocles nor Aristotles The causes of the Aetnaean Fires the Flux and reflux of the Seas the Polaramorousness of the Loadstone and all other the Magnalia of Nature shall there be discovered to the Souls eye For as a Man placed in the Centre of the Sun having an Eye or Organ proportionable must needs see whatsoever it enlightens so the Soul of every Saint being fixed in God the Centre from whom all operations as so many lines or rayes are emitted must needs know all being finite and within his enlarged capability the whole frame and work of Nature perfection of knowledge being necessary to the perfection of Glory As the understanding so the will shall be replenished with Glory also being made then co-voluntary with God's and answering his in every particular as the impression doth the Seal or as the Image in the Glass the Original being according to it s created and limitted measure and proportion perfectly just and holy yea freely and constantly willing good without the least constraint or necessity This being no thraldome but a divine perfection of the will to will nothing but what is good The understanding which is the Leader and incliner as a Spring in a Watch the internal mover of the will being not left to it self and created sufficiency as in Adam but by an irrevocable mercifull natural and therefore necessary consequence and decree in Christ is doubly confirmed First positively as being for ever enlightened and filled with a height of wisdome truth and goodness flowing from the perpetual mystical union and co-habitation of Christs Spirit Secondly privatively as being in such a state of perfection glory and happiness as admits not of any temptation or inclination to mislead the one and thereby to defile the other From this ground also springs the Eternal station in goodness and consequently in blessedness of all other the faculties of the Soul Which like so many Stones in an Arch are unmoveable because every Stone is unmoveable Jesus Christ being the Head-Stone upon whom the whole Building depending becomes immutable O my God! I cannot pass this thought of Eternity without a Selah a note of admiration as seasonable although in respect of the benefit but a temporary acknowledgment Behold how wonderfull is that mercy which in Christ hath not deprest but elevated not extinguisht but inflam'd not diminished but encreased Mans excellency Innocent Adam being neither in his perfection nor duration so happy as we sinfull Adams by Regeneration Shall I therefore commend sin God forbid I extoll grace even that Miracle of thy love O Lord whose Mercy hath made Mans Sin Oyle to enflame thy love which in its own nature and ours was Water to quench thy pitty and drown a World Let it work one wonder more and turn my Rock into Springs of Tears to wash thy Feet in humble Repentance and Thankfulness that so my seldome falling here may be a Preludium of my never falling hereafter and Glory begun on Earth in Grace may be in thy Kingdome perfect and Eternal But to proceed and not to forget that faculty which makes me to remember viz. Memory that Magazine and Treasury of the Soul I wish I could say not of evil also Wherein now many things lye confused and obscured by latter Occurences unless discovered by external objects and circumstances or rak'd out by help of discourse Out of whose Postern many things are crowded out by trifles or fallen through its rifts and deficiencies or else worn out by time and age or stollen away by that arch Thief Sathan this faculty I say though now thus decayed and imperfect shall in that never-ending day of happiness be repaired and made Gods Ark over which not Cherubins but the Almighty shall hover filling it by means of the Souls divine and continued Vision of the Glass of the Trinity with a present sight and apprehension of the great glory of God and in it all things I will not call these kindes of actings of the Souls remembrance for those imperfect ways of its operation by recollection and recordation with other medial helps shall be then absorpt in this act of the understanding as being unnecessary and only fitted for the state of Corruption the Apostle teaching us that we shall then know as we are known not remember as we are known The chief Power of the Memory the retention remaining and becoming by this continual beatifical Revelation and Inspection indefatigable and invincible Yea in this Ark shall be always kept the Tables of Gods holy will the Manna of all his past and present mercies the Rod ever budding and flourishing with all his righteous Judgments and Declarations of his Justice As the Memory so each Affection except what habits or inmates sin and corruption have introduc'd such as the servility of fear the dolorous passion of sorrow shall then have not their part only but their full of Glory Then excesses though of the right hand while in this life prove the Soul a Prisoner and make both Soul and Body suffer being therefore properly
Ejaculation or Hymn upon the foregoing Subject O Blest Creator let my first Birth be A Figure of my second Birth to thee Sooner than many others 'T was thy grace That fir'd my heart during my youthful race And caus'd me seek the free refreshing Gales Of thy blest Spirit to cool and fill the Sailes Of its desires That from the noisome Wombe And dark some Jaile of Sin I might become A free-born Son to thee and change my place This Earth for Heaven the Birth of Sin for Grace 'T was thy free-love which did desire to see Blest Parent thy own Image born in Me. That pour'd clean Water on me washt away My Natures Blood and stench and didst allay My shivering doubts and feares by putting on Thy Lambs warm Skin the Imputation Of thy Sons righteousness that from that heat A life of grace might spring and be compleat Lord since thou mightest have made my Grave in Wombe Or by miscarrying cloâ—'d me in my Tombe Or made my life through sin a living Death A treasury of wrath Let my new Birth And life bring forth to thee the thankful fruit Of holiness So shall I Retribute Thy own in my poor Mite and to thy praise Live thankfulness sincerely all my Days Amen ARGUMENT The REMEMBRANCER A Psalm for the Lord's Day Being my thankful acknowledgment of the Lord 's many Mercies to me in my Formation and Beeing LOrd who giv'st in mercy great A seventh Day to meditate On thy works of Creation Give me grace to think upon Thy great goodness unto me Who didst bring From a nothing Me a something for to be Next that me thou hast not made As frail Flowers which quickly fade Nor a Toad a Dog a Swine Or a Creature Serpentine But a Beeing rational Fit to see And to know thee Great Creator of us all That I was no Innocent Organ-less Deficient Nor a Monster from my Birth Void of shape a shame to Earth Thus and worser had I been But thy love Was far above Such thy just reward of sin Thou art he that gav'st me light In a Land made free from night Of dark Antichristian Mists Pagans and Mahometists Where poor Infants with their breath Sucking are Infectious Air Live a Life far worse than Death Here thou didst unto me give In thy life new life to live Where so many love the Night And with Owles do hate the Light Yea like Fish in Jordan's streams Swim with ease Into dead Seas Sleep and perish in false Dreams Wherefore Lord upon thy Day I will praise thy Name for aye Till thy second Sabbath blest Gives to me Eternal Rest Where from World Sin Sathan free I shall ring And sweetly sing Hallelujah's out to thee ARGUMENT Vpon God's gracious deliverance of me from the Infection of the Plague when being a Childe I was present in my Nurses Hand at the Bed-side of one that was sick and dyed thereof whereby many of that Town were infected and dyed Soliloquium or Discourse CHaritable Visits to our Neighbours many times prove uncharitable to our selves such proved this of my self Nurse and others to the sick Bed of the Vicar of the Town by which the Inhabitants were infected and many of his Parishioners followed him not only to but into the Grave whereof many were Children Plants of my Age and standing Cruel Death as an Enemy to time and Man-kinde Saturn-like delighting to devour tender Babes as well as aged Men which his enmity our good God converts to our good that so being fore-warn'd we might be fore-arm'd and alwayes prepared to encounter him as being both the most certain and the uncertain Adversaâ—y O my Soul hath Death often by sickness and danger shaken thy Glass and lest Summons and Suppenaes at thy Door and hath the great Numberer of thy Sands and Days from time to time sent thee Repreeves with King Phillip's Motto written on the back-side of them Mortalis es Is more than three Quarters of thy Years of Life posted away in Childhood Youth Man-hood sin and vanity O let the small remainder with Solomon be thy Ecclesiastes to preach this his experimental truth to thy Children and all following Generations Vanity of Vanities all is Vanity and vexation of Spirit that so thou despising all things under the Sun mayst soar aloft and enjoy that only chief good that is above the Sun thy God in Christ blessed for ever to whom in a thankful remembrance of this great signal and primitive mercy and deliverance I humbly present this following Ejaculation and thanks-giving The ANTIDOTE Ejaculation or Hymn upon the former Subject FIâ— lazie Soul shall the Idolaters give Vnto dead Marbles praise and wilt thou live Vnthankful Shall God's Instrument thy Tongue Be tun'd to folly not unto his Song When in thy Youth an ignorant charity Led thee into Death's ambush He stood bie Could else one and the same infectious breath Preserâ—e thy Life which brought to others Death O in this mercy greater mercies see Death swallowing others swallow'd up of thee Lord since in dangers thou new life didst give Let Souls anew as well as Bodies live That fill'd with praise faith hope and fervent love Heart Tongue may bless thee here my Soul above Amen ARGUMENT Vpon a dangerous fall from a Horse when I was a Childe whereby I received three hurts one in the Head another in the Arme and a third in the Leg and upon God's mercy in my recovery thereof Soliloquium or Discourse SInful falls are a just cause of falls under Judgments my first fall in Adam could my Childhood have pleaded innocency as to all other deserved not only this but that which is infinitely worse a remediless fall into Hell The indulgency of my Parents in satisfying my childish desires and my too early venturousness together with the much mettle and ill qualities of my Horse were the external occasion of this my sad disaster which left me not only on the ground and cruelly hurt but for a time senseless and only fit to be carried in a Coach unto my Fathers House whose loving care prepared not only one to set my dislocated Bones but applyed Balsomes unto my wounds by which means through God's mercy I obtained health strength and a perfect recovery YOVTHS EMBLEME Ejaculation or Hymn upon the former Subject O Gracious God and Father let my sense Be spiritualiz'd and from each Providence As Bees from Flowers suck sweetness then I shall Praise thee for greater mercies by this Fall Which was from thee a milde Correction For Adam's and my own Transgression For hadst thou judg'd severely I had fell Not only from my Horse but into Hell O Lord me thinks by this sad fall and fate Thou mind'st me of my Vnregenerate State When I indulg'd my will and rid upon A wanton Steed my loose affection Which gave me many falls wounded my Head My Reason-Faculties yea left me Dead And hurt in Arm and Leg senceless and mad Vnfit to act or walk
in the Gulph of Despair Lord is it thâ—â— experimentally With my poor Soul are all these dangers nie Incumbent â—â— me during such sad stormes Sleep not dear Saviour in me command Calmes Be thou my Pilot Let thy Spirit Gales Fill constantly all my affections Sailes Let Faith my main most hope my Anchor be And all my Passions quieted by thee So sâ—all I scape all shelves all Syrens charmes All Rocks and Gulphs as imbrac'd in thy Armes Till that my â—ark brought in my Soul on shore May praise thee both for mercies evermore Amen The ANGLER O Lord thy third and great deliverance Of me from Drowning not the Lady chance The wicked's Goddess for my Tribute calls Of Pâ—â—ise deservedly since such sad falls Have Coffin'd Men in Water mud and Death Whereas 〈◊〉 thou gavest me a new breath Even then when Angling Tree Hands Feet betraid And cast me in a watry Pit no Aid Being neer and I alone then did thy Hand Double my strength and drew me out to Land Blest be thy Name for this and what thou didst So often for my Soul when that amidst Hâ—r Angling after Worldly pleasures she Did fall from her false Confidences Tree Into the deep and filthy Pits of sin And Vanity a state neer perishing Yea when unto this dangerous fall My Hands Feet Members did contribute all Then didst thou Lord appear to me alone And helpless Renew'd grace and heard'st my moane Gave to my hand of Faith thy hand of Love In Christ to draw and lift me out above Such dangers That with the wise Merchant I May fish for gems and the best Pearl buy Lord since in thee both soul and body live Accept these double Praises which they give Amen ARGUMENT Vpon a great Snow and God's gracious deliverance of Me and my Servant from being smothered and lost when many others perished therein in our Travel and return Home Soliloquium or Discourse PRaise the Lord Fire and Hail Snow and Vapour stormy Wind fulfilling his word what means this second deluge of Snow burying our Iland as it were in an Alablaster Sepulchre Why are the shewers of mercy descending in Earths refreshing Veins through the cold of the middle Region of the Air or rather of our evil hearts frozen and turned into Snow into a Judgment the Earth seeming to do Pennance for our sins and uncleanness Is our Land become a Romanist and Prelatick that she Cloaths her self with and so much delights in Surplices and white Vestures or hath the Sun as in Hezekiah's time reverted ten degrees whereby our Northern temperate Zone is become a frozen Polar clime Hath any Venetian Artist that can make Glass malliable in a few Hours christalliz'd the fluid Rivers and hardned soft Snow to bear without sinking the pulsation and burthens of Horse and Man or are the Clouds turn'd Levellers as having covered ditches and hedges the distinction of every Man's propriety and turned the surface of our Lands into a Salisbury Plain a Berry as well for Sheep as Rabbets Whence was that faith and courage that spirited me upon the providential call of my necessary return home like as Peter's walking upon the Water to amble over yea gallop upon the hollow Snow not fearing Pit Ditch or danger whence all these Wonders and above all my Preservation when so many perished and were smothered not in Beds of Feathers as by Tyrants some have been but in Beds of Snow Are they not from thee O Lord the great Creator and prime Agent in all the works and admirable Prodigies of nature the only Saviour and Preserver of Man and Beast and of me thy most unworthy Servant Who therefore desires Grace from thee to exalt thee and to perpetuate thy Praises in my own heart and in the hearts of others to all succeeding Generations that shall read this Memorial and sing this Song of Thanksgiving The SNOWIE LANDSKIP Ejaculation or Hymn upon the former Subject LOrd let my Souls Eyes open be As well as Lips to praise That in each mercy I may see Thy Presence all my Days Thou wast my Guide o're snowie Plains Where was no track nor way Thou mad'st the sugarfied Rain As solid as the Clay On which I travell'd many Miles In safety without fear O're Hedge and Ditch o're Gates and Stiles For thou wast with me there Although I past o're many a Pit Fill'd and smooth'd o're with Snow Thou would'st not let me fall in it Though sin deserves a woe Yea many perishing that Day Were buried above Ground Loosing their Lines as well as way Being choaked smother'd drown'd Through all these dangers thou me led Secure unto my place With goodness as with Manna fed Thy Monument of Grace O Lord this World 's a Ball of Snow In Hand it melts away Full of deep Pits which overthrow All those that go astray Cover'd they are also from sight By Sathan and Men's guile With Snow that is pretence of right White Devils most beguile Wherefore O Lord let not my Eye Be dazled with such light But be enabled to espie Their Pits and works of Night Let not my Soul now travelling home Venture without a Guide Thy spirit and Word nor walk where none Of thine have gone aside Nor let me ride o're Hedge and Ditch I mean the sacred Bound Of righteous Laws which Devilish Itch Whole Nations doth confound Lord let these Prayers and Praises be Accepted in thy Son So shall my Soul and Body see Thy great Salvation Amen ARGUMENT Vpon the Lord's Deliverance of Me from a Company of Robbers when I and my Servant having a great Charge of Money was Way-laid by them at my return home in the Forrest of Rockingum about the Moneth of May. Soliloquium or Discourse IN the space of time in which the Sun had almost twice measured the vast Concave of Heaven and taken an exact and curious surveigh of both the Hemispheres of Sea and Land I poor slow Worm and Pilgrim had only paced about thirty Miles towards my home Rackt with my Journey roasted with heat and flowr'd over with sweat and dust when on the suddain my way led me into a most pleasant plain a second Temple or Arcadia for delight and pleasure to guard which from the hot Invasion of the Sun or the suddain irruption of Storms stood round in Rank and deep Filles Armies of sturdy Oakes over-lookt by their tall Chieftains bauld-headed with Age yea some of them possibly free Britains before the Conquest and never since subdued nor subjected instead of the harsh and War-like sounds of Drums and Trumpets there were elevated in their Armes as being Dwarfs several sets of Nature's Musitians cloathed with coloured Liveries of several sorts of Feathers after the America fashion whose diversity and sweetness of Notes and Songs warbled forth through living Cornets and intrals as much excells that of dead Sheeps Guts as the animate the inanimate and Nature doth Arâ—
review how I There plighted troth to thee and did denie All other loves save thine nor was this Act My single deed alone but a compact For why so free 's thy grace Man so accurst That none can love except thou lov'st them first Thou art my Head O Christ can I then be A living Member and not part of thee The Heavens high distance doth not dim the Eye Of Souls nor can it lessen or untie Thy Spirits union now nought wants but this To be unbod'ed where my Saviour is O let me be uncloath'd then And by Angels led To thee my Spouse To Heaven my Nuptial-Bed Amen ARGUMENT Vpon God's all wise and gracious Providence in ordering of Affairs for the preserving and continuing love and peace betwixt me and my own Father and Father-in-Law in danger to have been interrupted by reason of some differences arising from a dispute in point of my Right as to the one and from an act of love towards my Family as to the other Soliloquium or Discourse AS false Ground under the Foundation of a Building a crack in a Master-beam of an House and a breach in a Wall of a City is very dangerous and destructive So are distances differences and divisions in Families and betwixt neer Relations This truth O Heavenly Father thou gavest me even in my blooming Manhood to know and to obviate when as from two very neer Relations my own Father and Father-in-Law upon two different accounts I had deeply suffered both as to profit and affection and that for the defence of what I conceived to be my right and for well doing Hadst not thou O Lord been to me a Father Judge and Friend to preserve love and to order and reconcile us as to the things in difference O Lord thou hast tried me at all times in all places by all Persons that I poor Creature might prove and have a full and sweet experience of thee also as to thy gracious Immutability Omnipresence and All-sufficiency in all things concerning me For thou hast thou doest and I trust wilt deliver me in and from the evil of all Temptations and according to thy faithful Word and promise cause all things to work together for my good To thee therefore O infinite wisdome and goodness do I offer up the Calves of my Lips and the praises of my Soul for these thy merciful preventing restraining and commenting providences in this and the following Psalm as a living Sacrifice Amen The VMPHIRE Ejaculation or Hymn upon the former Subject SAthan the first divider of himself And Man from God is still a forward Else To ruine all things by Division As doth the Jesuit Pope his Eldest Son Yea to this truth of Christ he sets his hand Kingdomes within divided cannot stand Of these his Wyles thou warnest me O Lord And taught me how to cement a discord 'Twixt me and neer Relations by love Which beareth all things rather than remove Or break domestick Bonds since such a rent Of Friends widens in time growes permanent Yea as a broken Bone well set doth grow Far stronger than it was before Ev'n so Through thy wise ordering and providence These breaches made to me a better fence Working together for my future good According to thy Word now understood In that Instead of losing what was got Thou chang'd my part gav'st me a better lot Lord since Parental loves thus ebb and flow Give me thy love which doth for ever grow Let not my Crimes make mortal my sins wounds Since their increase makes Grace much more abound O bring me to that place of rest and ease Of Charity and Everlasting Peace Where Devils World Sin cannot divide me From Parents Fellow-Members nor from Thee Amen ARGUMENT Vpon God's most gracious Answer of our Prayers in giving Rain after a great Draught threatning a Famine in Three Summers successively Viz. In the Years 1637. 1638 1639. Soliloquium or Discourse O Lord as sin is the substance so affection and judgment is the dark shaddow that alwayes attends and accompanies it as the effect doth the cause This truth was verified to this Nation of England in the Years 1637 1638 1639. When according to thy Word a fruitful Land was turned into barrenness for the wickedness of them that dwell therein As the first Rebellion of Adam brought a curse upon the whole lower Creation so this wicked off-spring by sin often invert the order and harmony of the Elements and makes malignant the influence of the higher Orbes causing those Coelestial Planets which were Created for blessings to Man-kinde to be Executors of thy righteous Judgments Of this these Three Years Prodigies are clear and sufficient witnesses when as that only Magazin of light and heat to the Universe thy glorious Sun which chears and delights Man and Beast and gives in our Northern Regions in the Spring as it were new life to Vegatives was made by thee for England's iniquities a terrible Curse as occasioning deadly Diseases Feavers and Murrains upon Men and Beasts through its constant and excessive heat and like a Globe and Furnace of Fire withered and burnt up all Grass and Vegitives especially our Grain the staff of life destroying by this Heavenly Fire our Earthly blessings As thy Sun so thy watering Pots the Clouds which like swelling Pappes used to distil streams of fruitful Rains according to thy Ordinance were now vanisht or rather banisht to the Antipodes or if any appeared they were but dry breasts and true symptomes of the barren Womb of England yea thou madest the Heavens contrary to their Nature to become as Brass and the Earth as Iron that the one might be as the Hammer the other the Anvil whereon to forge thy many Darts and sharp Arrowes of insuing Plagues As thy Rod of Justice O Lord hath three Cords or Lashes which thou callest thy three sore or greatest Judgments Viz. War Pestilence and Famine whereof this last is the greatest as being usually the dregs and the effect of the two former So thy mercy also hath a three-fold time or Plea as in the Gospel Lord let the Fig-Tree alone this third Year also to try it whether or no it will bring forth Fruit before thou cuttest it down Lord as England's sin called for and deserved this greatest Judgment Famine so thy mercy did during these three Years successively threatning this grievous Plague give her three years warning and space of Repentance Yea did offer thy Peoples Prayers unto thee by the hand of our Mediator for a reprieve and obtained it and which is much more wonderful a pardon and dismission of so justly deserved and so long impending a Judgment for which great condiscention I will bless thee as long as I have a beeing And that the Generations to come may praise thee also I have in all humility and thankfulness returned and recorded in this and the following Meeters thy never to be
which from the middle story my vil'd heart Flamed through my Eyes Balcons and fill the highest part My mind with smokie darkness so that Flakes of Fire Indangered thence my Neighbours House yet hath not thy just Ire Good God left me thus foolishly by my own act To be burnt down but in remembrance of my firm contract To thy dear Son my Spouse thou didst bind up restrain Sathan that unclean Sp'rit the Wind that blew that Flame Yea pour'd by th' hand of faith thereon my Saviour's blood Which dampt those Fires repair'd and made thy Structure good Lord am I a Bankrupt unable to repay My Debt of Gratitude for favours every Day Deliverances from many Dangers Temporal What shall I render for these Mercies spiritual Lord I am wholly thine by right of Creation And thy Son's purchase constant preservation Wherefore accept thy own my all Let it suffice Since Soul and Body is thy living Sacrifice Amen ARGUMENT Vpon God's gracious preserving of me from being Burnt in my Lodgings in Summerset House Soliloquium or Discourse DAy unto Day uttereth Speech and Night unto Night sheweth knowledge as to the constant gracious and wonderful Providences of the Lord for the preservation of his People Amongst whom to the praise and glory of his free grace be it spoken I have had a large share witness the foregoing Records and this deliverance when in the conclusion of some Hours spent alone in Fasting and Prayers and I ready to arise from my Knees and to change my Cushion for my Bed at Ten a Clock at Night I heard a great crack as of a Pistol issuing from behind the Hangings and corner of the Chamber within two Yards of me at which suddain noise I arose up and pulled back the Hangings saw a Barrel full of small-Cole all of a flame occasioned by the innocent carelesness and thrift of my Fire-maker who had cast back some live small Coales into the Tub the breaking of whose burnt Hoops gave me this timely Alarm which had it been delayed but a few Minutes I and my Servant had been a Bed and asleep and lockt up in my Bed-Chamber within that Dining-Room And the Hangings that hung over the Barrel certainly Fired together with that Room and that whole stately Structure O Lord whilst we are faithfully imployed in thy service and worship we are assuredly under thy Almighty Protection who hast promised to those that make thee their Refuge That there shall no evil befall them nor any Plague come neer their dwellings That thy Angels shall take charge of them to keep them in all their ways that they shall bear them up in their hands lest they dash their Foot against a Stone O how sweet how comfortable how incouraging to thy People is the most firm belief of the constant presence watchful and powerful assistance of thy glorious Angels whom thou hast made Ministring Spirits for the good of thy Elect As thy Servant at this time found by experience Such gracious Providences as this being most probably timed acted and discovered by an Angel as the laying of the Train and kindling of the Fire and inflaming of the Barrel might possibly be the malicious contrivance of a wicked Spirit Who as the Scriptures witness are as constantly Instruments of evil to Man-kinde although the wicked World are ignorant thereof as the others are of all good to thy Children Lord probably it was the Devils will and design that the Barrel should not have flamed forth so soon by a quarter of an Hour and then without any noise that so the Chamber being empty and we a Bed and asleep and the Hangings on Fire we might have been first certainly smothered and afterwards burnt A Roman-like Obsequie But thy All-wise providence suffered him as thou didst his Guy Faulkes to bring his Plot to an accomplishment and then ordered thy Angel thus strangely and opportunely to discover to thy greater glory his disappointment and thy Servants wonderful Salvation and serious Observation of this thy most Fatherly love care and watchfulness over me thy poor Child and Creature Blessed God and Father how hast thou through our Adoption in Christ meliorated our condition so that our greatest Enemies in all their malicious actings against us are now made but Carriers to convey thy love-tokens unto us yea all our troubles and dangers are so many choice and faith-strengthning experiences of thy Power Goodness and mercy so that now instead of fearing of them we can rejoyce and triumph in and over them And give to our selves and others a satisfying reason why thou sufferest Devils and Diabolical Men thus to act rage and persecute thy Saints when thou couldest in a moment cast them all into Hell Why thou leadest us into various Temptations afflicts us with Diseases sufferest us to be Daily incompast about with troubles and dangers when in an instant thou couldest renew and make again this Earth our Paradice Is it not O Lord as well as to exercise and brighten our Graces and to purge out our sins that in and by these Trials thou mightest also have a frequent and fit occasion to manifest thy self unto us in the face of our Lord Jesus Christ in all thy glorious Attributes of Power and Wisdome Justice and Faithfulness Love Mercy and Goodness Thus O Lord this great danger of Burning was to me the Mother of a far greater mercy thy wonderful preservation and shall now and for ever be the subject of my praise and thanks-giving which I humbly present to thy most gracious Majesty in this Memorial and the following Poem Amen The DELIVERANCE A Corolary Poem on the former Subject O Lord how aptly doth thy sacred Word compare Men unto Travellers whose toilsome Journeys are Begun even from the Womb whence natures pass they have And make some short some longer steps unto the Grave Our common home fulfilling thy Decree most just For sin That Earthly Bodies shall return to Dust But is this all 's held forth by this comparison No our Life and Way like theirs is tiresome O're Hills through Vailes now high then low through passages That cragged Woody are untrode where Ambushes Of sundry mischiefs troubles Thief-like us engage Such hath my course been Lord throughout my Pilgrimage Instance amongst the rest of my Life 's Narrative This following danger and thy loves preservative Who would have thought dead small Coals laid some yards from fire Vnused for five Hours space should as it were conspire Behind my Hangings without sight or scent of fume Or crackling me and a great Pallace to consume Or that my harmless Maid should ignorantly lay A train o're Night to burn us all before next Day By her too careless thrift in casting back some Coales Inkindled when she made my Fire Who could controle But thou O Lord this dreadful fate of causes set Within few Minutes to produce a sad effect Thou forcest the dead Barrels Hoops i' th nick of time To sound
one Lord one Faith one Baptism one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all I beseech you by the mercies of God by the excellent effects of charity by the fruits of the spirit by the examples and commands of the Lord Jesus and the Character of his Disciples be meek and lowly and love one another So shall the Plots of Rome and Hell be prevented and all Sectaries shut their Mouths Why should it be spoken to our shame that there is not a wise Man amongst us No not one that is able to judge between his brethren But Brother asperses and declaims against Brother and that before the Antichristians Now therefore there is utterly a fault amongst you Know ye not that Revilers shall not inherit the Kingdom of God But some will answer that they have received a new light O be cautious that novelty Eclipse not truth since the last Days foretold and forewarn'd of by our Saviour are at hand wherein iniquity abounds and the love of many waxes cold hence Father against Son and Son against Father betraying one another and hating one another hence the Judgments of Famine and Pestilence Nation rising up against Nation So that the whole World seems to be on Fire before its time These Days not I but the Lord Jesus the great Prophet of his Church dictates and points out to be the time when many false Christs and Prophets or Teachers of Christianity shall arise who by their applause or excellency of parts and external holiness by which they shall shew forth as it were signs and wonders and gather a Multitude of Disciples Declaring that in such a Meeting be it in Woods or Deserts or in secret Chambers the true way of Christ is to be found deceiving as it were if possible the very Elect. Our Lord teaching us from hence how neer a similitude these new Doctrines shall have to truth and true holiness But be they as Paul or Cephas in the Church or as Angels from Heaven believe them not for as the Lightning comes out of the East and shines even to the West so shall also the glorious coming of the Son of Man be that is as I humbly conceive that his Gospel which at first broke out like Lightning in the East shall in this last Age upon the ruines and through the Clouds of spiritual Babylon dart it self and shine gloriously in our Western Churches even to the Indies that the other parallel Prophesie may be fulfilled by the subjecting and uniting Kingdomes of the Earth unto the Kingdome of the Lord and of his Christ. Let us not then be carried about with every mind of Doctrine but hold fast the Gospel delivered to us by Christ and his Apostles in the Unity of his Spirit and the bond of peace since other Foundation can no Man lay it being a sin so much as to doubt much more to defend that the Fundamentals of our Religion some of which are mentioned by the Author to the Hebrews and received by the Churches in all Ages are not to bind as de futuro as having a possibility upon new notions to be null'd or chang'd which is to make God a lyar to undermine his Church and to pull down the Pillars thereof For if the Foundations be destroyed What shall Nay what can the righteous do Wherefore my humble suit unto our Master-builders is to keep the Foundation unmoveable not permitting a Resurrection to ancient Hereticks before the time that so whatsoever Men build thereon whether it be Gold or Stubble may be brought to the Test in this Fiery Tryal Stand fast therefore Brethren in that liberty wherein Christ hath made us free not making your liberty a Cloak for maliciousness not for an occasion to the Flesh but by love serve one another judging thus of one another that he that loves his brother abides in the light but he that hates his brother whatsoever he may boast of new discoveries walks in darkness and knows not whether he goes Because that darkness hath blinded his eyes and that whatsoever seems to be religious and yet bridles not his Tongue he deceives his own heart and his Religion is vain But that I may not only perswade but offer my Mite I shall in all humility propose a medium which if found agreeable to the Word of God may through the blessing of the Almighty make up the breach and reconcile your greatest difference I conceive you both agree in these particulars That all shall be Members and have right to vote in your Churches from which Votes Women are excepted shall not only be free from just scandal that is prophaness and the impenitent practice of any known Sin but be indowed with a sufficiency of knowledge to which end since your accord in the principles of Religion I hope there will be speedily set forth and establisht one short Catechisme for Information and Examination Next in condescention to the impediments I hear it is mutually resolved that the Government of their respective Members reconciling of inferiour differences and ordering their Conversations even as far as Ordination and the Censure of Excommunication respect being had in Appeals to the Advice and Results of the Classes and Provincial Synods and saving to the Presbyterians their right be ordered by their particular Congregations Thus far we are knit together in one spiritual building and Temple of God The great difference if I understand it is the Tegument and Covering which is indeed the Ornament coupling and strength of the whole Aedifice as where shall rest as to us under the same Scepter the determinative and concluding Power the end of Appeals the regulation of that unlimited Plea and over-much extended liberty of Conscience that so we may be one as Christ and his Father are one this some of you fix in a general Assembly others limit to a particular Congregation The first pleads not only Scripture analogically but prudence for preserving union and preventing of Tumults as also antiquity from the parallel in general Counsels and Parliaments affirming that the other way hath no Grounds in Scripture since Churches were necessarily independant no State being then Christian that this way by reason that our corrupt Nature hath no check is destructive to the Unity of Religion Since according to the number of the Congregations will their Opinions as also pernicious to Common-wealths there being no Fewds so bloody and irreconcileable as those that break out about points of Faith instance in the Warres between Turke and Persian Papists and Protestants in the Lutheran Contestations and Arian Persecutions Lastly They conclude an inconsistency in this way with Relations and Callings disaffection and departure from Bed Board Families and Imployments being experimental consequences of Religious differences On the other side the contracting party affirm
Israel Who saith that to Him the Porter openeth and the Sheep hear his voice that he calleth his own Sheep by name and leadeth them out Is it the duty of a King to protect his subjects to reward them as well as to restrain and overcome their Enemies And is not this true of our good Shepward Who giveth his life for his Sheep being not like the hireling who seeing the Wolf coming flieth and leaveth the Sheep Yea all blessings temporal and spiritual abound to them that are admitted into his Fold For he promises that if any enter therein he shall be saved and shall go in and out and finde pasture Lastly is it the office of a King to see and judge of the actions of inferiours to give dignity and honour to the well-meriting and obedient and to inflict punishment and death upon rebellious offenders See this also made good by Gods promise unto us under the rule of our only Shepward Christ Jesus Saying Behold even I will judge betwixt the fat Cattle and the lean and I will cause the evil Beasts to cease out of the Land And I will make with them a Covenant of Peace And I will make them and the places round about them a blessing And I will cause the showers to come down in his season there shall be showers of blessings And as concerning the last and General Judgment our Saviour speaking of the ordering of Persons before his Trybunal and the parting of his true Subjects from Rebels the good from the bad still alludes to the office of a Shepward and saith that he will separate them one from another as the Shepward divideth the Sheep from the Goats Having for the better and more comfortable illustration of our Saviours Kingly Office thus far traced this similitude let us now O my Soul by faith take a nearer and more serious view of this his glorious function as it manifests it self in the excellency of his Person and in the uprightness and perfection of his Laws as also in all those gratious effects which flow from so divine a dispensation That from them God assisting in the application thou maist reap that saving fruit which grace offers and thou expectest As the Basis and Pillar of Peace and tranquility in a Common-wealth is good Government consisting of upright Magistrates and just Laws So the defect of either ushers-in present ruine and destruction This position is not only verified in civil estates but in the spiritual Regiment of the visible Church Which whilst it was governed by the Spirit of Christ and was obedient to his injunctions attained to a Meridional height of quiet and glory witness the times of Solomon Hezechiah and Josiah But on the other side when that there was no King in Israel and every Man did what was right in his own Eyes how was their Land and Church filled with blood-shed Idolatry and vanity witness the Book of the Judges O let their miseries make us beware and let us learn wisdome from their destruction â—et their ill-succeeding rebellions incite and hasten us to do Homage at his Foot-stool whom the Lord hath set King upon his holy Hill of Sion And to kiss him with the kiss of reverence obedience and worship Let us meditate of him all the day long and let our Mouths be filled with his praises O how truly are we happy in thee O Lord Jesus according to that of the wise Man blessed art thou O Land when thy King is the Son of Nobles Is there any Nobility like unto thine will any boast of or derive his Pedigree with thee who art the ancient of days the dew of the Morning the Morning-star and in a word â—he Fountain of honour what are the greatest of earthly Princes but thy Vice-roys Conduit-Pipes to convey â—ny favours unto the Children of Men For By thee Kings Reign and Princes Decree justice And from thee proâ—â—eds the sentence which makes poor and makes rich â—rings lowe and lifteth up For thou art that only begotten Son of the Father before all beginnings who then can declare thy generation for thy Birth is hid in Eternity Nor art thou not only glorious in thy Father but in thy self also for thou art God of God equal with God and therefore art not only a wise mercifull just and holy King over us But wisdome mercy justice and holiness it self unto us Witness this in that thy gratious invitation to thy spiritual Feast where wisdome hath builded her an House As also in the former Chapter I am understanding I am strength Further thy Spirit in the Mouth of thy beloved Apostle testifies that thou our God art love And thy Prophet Jeremy foretold to us that the Name whereby thou shouldst be called is the Lord our righteousness As for the last the Prophet David stiles thee so in many of his Psalmes singing thus O yee Saints of his give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness To whom the Saints in the Revelation answer and second with this triple acclamation Holy holy holy Lord God of Sabbath O my Saviour my King my beloved let me feed a while here amongst these Lillies Let me sit down under this thy shadow and let thy fruit be sweet unto my taste O stay me with Flagons comfort me with Apples for I am sick of love Who is like the Lord our King on all the Earth Is there any People or Nation alike happy with us Christians whose God and King is the Lord I should now proceed to view and admire that golden Scepter those his righteous Statutes by which he governs and directs us his People But that my Soul possest with a holy fear lest any thing should nullifie my right unto my Soveraigns protection stops me with these objections As that I am not only the Son of rebellious Adam but also an Alien to the Common-wealth of Israel as being not sprung from the loynes of Abraham nor from any of the Sons of Jacob but from the unbelieving Gentiles Lastly that I am out-lawed by my own actual transgressions and therefore may rather expect punishment than any favour happiness or priviledge by his Government As to these I answer with the Apostle The Jews because the Seed of Abraham are not all Children But the Children of the promise are counted for the Seed Wherefore Abraham is called the Father of the faithfull Neither is he a Jew which is one outwardly neither is that Circumcision which is outward in the Flesh But he is a Jew which is one inwardly and Circumcision is that of the heart in the Spirit not in the letter Also he is a light to enlighten the Gentiles as well as the glory of the People Israel Again my being a sinner is so far from disabling my right to the Lord Jesus that by the hearty and penitent confession thereof I am intitled unto his pardon and mercy witness his
own Proclamation He came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance as also that Prophesie of his Office That he should be a light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide their erring Feet into the ways of peace Since then my Lord the King I have ten parts in thee and thou art Bone of my Bone and Flesh of my Flesh. Since thou tookest not on thee the nature of Angels but the Seed of Abraham that thou mightest be as a mercifull High Priest so a true and natural head of thy Body the Church that King that shall reign in righteousness and whom God hath set upon his holy Hill of Zion Let me finde favour in thy sight and be inrolled as one of thy Servants Let thy glorious Scepter moderate me and let me be acknowledged one of thy Subjects Then shall I sit under my own Vine and my own Fig-tree then shall I be truly happy yea my Soul shall be filled as with marrow and fatness for what King is like unto thee in all the Earth The Walls and Rampiers of a Common-wealth are good Laws by which as by a fortified horn-work or Cyttadel the good are preserved and the enemy hindered and repulsed Is this an approved truth How happy and how safe then is the Flock of Christ the Monarchie of the Messias the Common-wealth of Christians the spiritual Jerusalem to whom that promise is made good as signifying the presence and righteous government of our Emanuel That the Lord will be unto her a Wall of Fire round about and will be the glory in the middest of her The Statutes of other People are but the weak inventions of Men. But the Ordinances by which we are swayed are the words of holiness of wisdome even of the Lord himself So that no desirable quality can be wanting in such Laws wherein exact justice and religious policy kiss each other So that to us now made one Church with the believing Jews may those gracious speeches of Moses be applyed Surely this great Nation is a wise and understanding People For what Nation is there so great that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as his Laws which he hath set before us or who hath God so nigh unto them as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for Yea he loved his People all his Saints are in his hand they sate down at his feet every one shall receive of his words For the Lord came from Sinai and rose up from Seir unto them he shined forth from Mount Paran and he came with ten thousand of Saints from his right hand went a firery Law for them The Heathen gave no small honour to Antiquity as supposing it had something in it of Divinity and therefore they would willingly forget the Original both of themselves and of their Laws that to after Ages they might set upon them the stamp of a Deity What they affected vainly we must affirm truly both of our selves and Laws For the proof of the first we have not only a sure word viz. that God made Man of the dust of the Earth after his own Image and breathed into his Nostrils the breath of life But also the witness of their own Poets honourably backt by an Apostle In Him we live move and have our beeing for we are his off-spring For the other I will not only say what Laws but what Learning exprest in characters can be voucht so ancient as the Penteteuch of Moses Wherein observe not only our Laws of venerable Antiquity but also most clear manifest and undeniable proofs and demonstrations of their Divine fluence and constitution As the burning and quaking of the Mount Sinai the summons of the Heavenly Trumpet the visible presence of the Lord God like consuming Fire on the top of the Mount But above all the audible voice of God pronouncing those ten words by which we are governed as containing his whole will and our whole duty Lastly all these wonders are not confirmed unto us by the bare witness of Moses only although he being Gods Pen-man had been sufficient but as then six hundred thousand souls were Auditors and Spectators so ever since that whole Nation and now the Universal Church do receive believe and reverently obey them as the undoubted truth of God and rule of holiness Now that these happy Laws recorded in the whole Book of God are not only the first ancientest and therefore the foundation original and fountain of all other constitutions but also the best and holiest as being the lively Oracles of prudence and sanctifie it self appears first by the matter which is perfect according to that sweet Psalmist The Law of the Lord that is the whole Word of God is perfect If perfect then free from all carnal imperfections Here 's no Political winking at the least or at some commodious offences nor hiding places for any sinner nor exception and prerogative for Kings and Princes The wilely head of Man cannot invent sins without its precinct neither can the critical wits of Atheists or worldly wretches blemish it with the least aspersion of injustice or severity So that as there is in them no defect so no redundancy being profitable for Doctrine for reproof for correction and for instruction in righteousness That the Man of God may be perfect throughly furnished to all good works Further as they are perfect so are they sure so that holy Singer The Testimonies of the Lord are sure makeing wise the simple The Ordinances of the World are subject to change as being the inventions of unconstant Man and not only in their frame and substance but also in their number construction and execution So that true experimental wisdome can never be learned from them But the Laws of God as flowing from an everlasting and wise essence who is without change or shadow of change admits of no alteration mis-interpretation sleeping or repeal And therefore teaches a Man wisdome a priori in the cause of punishment Sin So Solomon A prudent Man fore-sees the evil and hides himself Again The Commandement is a Lamp and the Law is light and reproofs of instruction the way of life In the last place let holy David as he began to prove this truth so conclude it even upon his own experience Through thy Commandements thou hast made me wiser than my Enemies for they are ever with me I have more understanding than all my Teachers for thy Testimonies are my Meditation Again as the Laws of God are sure and perfect so they are right as sings the same Prophet The Statutes of the Lord are right And can there be a greater excellency since the justice of a Law is the sinnues thereof they binding but so far forth as they are righteous Who is there then amongst the Rulers of the Earth that in