of charity that this day and ever I may serve thee according to all my opportunities and capacities growing from grace to grace till at last by thy mercies I shall receive the consummation and perfection of grace even the glories of thy Kingdom in the full fruition of the face and excellencies of God the Father the Son and the holy Ghost to whom be glory and praise honour and adoration given by all Angels and all Men and all Creatures now and to all eternity Amen To this may be added the prayer of intercession for others whom we are bound to remember which is at the end of the foregoing prayer or else you may take such special prayers which follow at the end of the fourth Chapter for parents for children c. After which conclude with this ejaculation Now and in all tribulation and anguish of spirit in all dangers of soul and body in prosperity and adversity in the hour of death and in the day of judgement holy and most blessed Saviour Jesus have mercy upon me save me and deliver me and all faithful people Amen Between this and Noâ—n usually are said the publick prayers appointed by Authority to which all the Clergy are obliged and other devout persons that have leisure do accompany them Afternoon or at any time of the day when a devout person retires into his closer for private prayer or spiritual exercises he may say the following devotions An exercise to be used at any time of the day In the name of the Father and of the Son c. Our Father c. The hymn collected out of the Psalms recounting the excellencies and greatnesse of God O be joyful in God all ye lands sing praises unto the honour of his Name make his Name to be glorious * O Come hither behold the works of God how wonderful he is in his doings toward the children of men He ruleth with his power for ever He is the Father of the fatherlesse and defendeth the cause of the widow even God in his holy habitation He is the God that maketh men to be of one minde in a house and bringeth the prisoners out of captivity but letteth the runnagates continue in scarcenesse It is the Lord that commandeth the warers it is the glorious God that maketh the thunder * It is the Lord that ruleth the sea the voice of the Lord is mighty in operation the voice of the Lord is a glorious voice Let all the Earth fear the Lord stand in awe of him all ye that dwell in the world Thou shalt shew us wonderful things in thy righteousnesse O God of our salvation thou that art the hope of all the ends of the Earth and of them that remaine in the broad Sea Glory be to the Father c. Or this O Lord thou art my God I will exalt thee I will praise thy Name for thou hast done wonderful things thy counsels of old are faithfulnesse and truth Isay 25.1 Thou in thy strength â—etst fast the Mountains and art girded about with power Thou stillest the raging of the Sea and the noise of his waves and the madnesse of his people They also that remain in the uttermost parts of the Earth shall be afraid at thy tokens thou that makest the out-goings of the morning and evening to praise thee O Lord God of Hosts who is like unto thee thy truth most mighty Lord is on every side Among the gods there is none like unto thee O Lord there is none that can do as thou doest * For thou art great doest wondrous things thou art God alone God is very greatly to be feared in the counsel of the Saints and to be had in reverence of all them that are round about him Righteousnesse and equity is in the habitation of thy seat mercy and truth shall go before thy face * Glory and worship are before him power and honour are in his Sanctuary Thou Lord art the thing that I long for thou art my hope even from my youth through thee have I been holden up ever since I was born thou art he that took me out of my mothers womb my praise shall be alwayes of thee Glory be to the Father c. After this may be read some portion of holy Scripture out of the New Testament or out of the sapiential bookes of the Old viz. Proverbs Ecclesiastes c. because these are of great use to piety and to civil conversation Vpon which when you have a while meditated humbly composing your self upon your knees say as followeth Ejaculations My help standeth in the Name of the Lord who hath made Heaven and Earth Shew the light of thy countenance upon thy servant and I shall be safe Do well O Lord to them that be true of heart and evermore mightily defend them Direct me in thy truth and teach me for thou art my Saviour and my great Master Keep me from sin and death eternal and from my enemies visible and invisible Give me grace to live a holy life and thy favour that I may dye a godly and happy death Lord hear the prayer of thy servant and give me thy holy Spirit The prayer O Eternal God mercifull and gracious vouchsafe thy favour and thy blessing to thy servant let the love of thy mercies and the dread and fear of thy Majesty make me careful and inquisitive to search thy will and diligent to perform it and to persevere in the practises of a holy life even till the last of my dayes II. KEep me O Lord for I am thine by creation guide me for I am thine by purchase thou hast redeemed me by the blood of thy Son and love me with the love of a Father for I am thy childe by adoption and grace let thy mercy pardon my sins thy providence secure me from the punishments and evils I have deserved and thy care watch over me that I may never any more offend thee make me in malice to be a childe but in understanding piety and the fear of God let me be a perfect man in Christ innocent and prudent readily furnished and instructed to every good work III. KEep me O Lord from the destroying Angel and from the wrath of God let thy anger never rise against mee but thy rod gently correct my follies and guide me in thy ways and thy staffe support me in all sufferings and changes Preserve me from fracture of bones from noisome infections and sharp sicknesses from great violences of Fortune and sudden surprizes keep all my senses intire till the day of my death and let my death be neither sudden untimely nor unprovided let it be after the common manner of men having in it nothing extraordinary but an extraordinary piety and the manifestation of thy great and miraculous mercy IV. LEt no riches ever make me forget my self no poverty ever make me to forget thee Let no hope or fear no pleasure or pain no accident without no weaknesse within hinder or
discompose my duty or turn me from the wayes of thy Commandements O let thy Spirit dwell with me for ever and make my soul just and charitable full of honesty full of religion resolute and constant in holy purposes but inflexible to evil Make me humble and obedient peaceable and pious let me never envy any mans good nor deserve to be despised my self and if I be teach me to bear it with meeknesse and charity V. GIve me a tender conscience a conversation discreet and aâ—fable modest and patient liberal and obliging body a chaste and healthful competency of living according to my condition contentednesse in all estates a resigned will and mortified affections that I may be as thou wouldst have me and my portion may be in the lot of the righteous in the brightnesse of thy countenance and the glories of eternity Amen Holy is our God * Holy is the Almighty * Holy is the Immortal Holy holy holy Lord God of Sabbath have mercy upon me A form of Prayer for the evening to be said by such who have not time or opportunity to say the publick prayers appointed for this office I. O Eternal God Great Father of Men and Angels who hast established the Heavens and the Earth in a wonderful order making day and night to succeed each other I make my humble addresse to thy Divine Majesty begging of thee mercy protection this night ever O Lord pardon all my sins my light and rash words the vanity and impiety of my thoughts my unjust and uncharitable actions and whatsoever I have transgressed against thee this day or at any time before Behold O God my soul is troubled in the remembrance of my sins in the frailty and sinfulnesse of my flesh exposed to every temptation and of it self not able to resist any Lord God of mercy I earnestly beg of thee to give me a great portion of thy grace such as may be sufficient and effectual for the mortification of all my sins and vanities and disorders that as I have formerly served my lust and unworthy desires so now I may give my self up wholly to thy service and the studies of a holy life II. BLessed Lord teach me frequently and sadly to remember my sins and be thou pleased to remember them no more let me never forget thy mercies and do thou still remember to do me good Teach me to walk alwayes as in thy presence Ennoble my soul with great degrees of love to thee and configne my spirit with great fear religion and veneration of thy holy Name and laws that it may become the great imployment of my whole life to serve thee to advance thy glory to root out all the accursed habits of sin that in holinesse of life in humility in charity in chastity and all the ornaments of grace I may by patience wait for the coming of our Lord Jesus Amen III. Teach me O Lord to number my dayes that I may apply my heart unto wisdom ever to remember my last end that I may not dare to sin against thee Let thy holy Angels be ever present with me to keep me in all my wayes from the malice and violence of the spirits of darknesse from evil company and the occasions and opportunities of evil from perishing in popular judgements from all the wayes of sinful shame from the hands of all mine enemies from a sinful life and from despair in the day of my death Then O brightest Jesu shine gloriously upon me let thy mercies and the light of thy Countenance sustain me in all my agonies weaknesses and temptations Give me opportunity of a prudent and spiritual Guide and of receiving the holy Sacrament let thy loving spirit so guide me in the wayes of peace and safety that with the testimony of a good conscience and the sense of thy mercies and refreshment I may depart this life in the unity of the Church in the love of God and a certain hope of salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord and most blessed Saviour Amen Our Father c. Another form of Evening Prayer which may also be used at bed-time Our Father c. I Will lift up my eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help My help cometh of the Lord which made heaven and earth He will not suffer thy foot to be moved he that keepeth thee will not slumber Behold he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep The Lord is thy keeper the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand The sun shall not smite thee by day neither the moon by night The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil he shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth for evermore Glory be to the Father c. I. VIsit I beseech thee O Lord this habitation with thy mercy and me with thy grace and salvation Let thy holy Angels pitch their tents round about and dwell here that no illusion of the night may abuse me the spirits of darknesse may not come neer to hurt me no evil or sad accident oppresse me and let the eternal spirit of the Father dwell in my soul and body filling every corner of my heart with light and grace Let no deed of darknesse overtake me and thy blessing most blessed God be upon me for ever through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen II. INto thy hands most blessed Jesu I commend my soul and body for thou hast redeemed both with thy most precious blood So blesse and sanctifie my sleep unto me that it may be temperate holy and safe a refreshment to my wearied body to enable it so to serve my soul that both may serve thee with a never failing duty O let me never sleep in sin or death eternal but give me a watchful a prudent spirit that I may omit no oportunity of serving thee that whether I sleep or wake live or die I may be thy servant and thy childe that when the work of my life is done I may rest in the bosom of my Lord till by the voice of the Archangel the trump of God I shall be awakened and called to sit down and feast in the eternal supper of the Lamb. Grant this O Lamb of God for the honour of thy mercies and the glory of thy name O most merciful Saviour and Redeemer Jesus Amen III. BLessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus who hath sent his Angels and kept me this day from the destruction that walketh at noon and the arrow that flyeth by day and hath given me his Spirit to restrain me from those evils to which my own weaknesses and my evil habits and my unquiet enemies would easily betray me Blessed and for ever hallowed be thy name for that never ceasing showre os blessing by which I live and am content and blessed and provided for in all necessities and set forward in my duty and way to heaven * Blessing honour
of secular imployments must come onely they must leave their secular thoughts and affections behinde them and then come and converse with God If any man be well grown in grace he must needs come because he is excellently disposed to so holy a feast but he that is but in the infancy of piety had need to come that so he may grow in grace The strong must come lest they become weak the weak that they may become strong The sick must come to be cured the healthful to be preserved They that have leisure must come because they have no excuse They that have no leisure must come hither that by so excellent religion they may sanctifie their businesse The penitent sinners must come that they may be justified and they that are justified that they may be justified still They that have fears and great reverence to these mysteries and think no preparation to be sufficient must receive that they may learn how to receive the more worthily and they that have a lesse degree of reverence must come often to have it heightned that as those Creatures that live amongst the snowes of the Mountains turne white with their food and conversation with such perpetual whitenesses so our souls may be transformed into the similitude and union with Christ by our perpetual feeding on him and conversation not onely in his Courts but in his very heart and most secret affections and incomparable purities Prayers for all sorts of Men and all necessities relating to the several parts of the vertue of Religion A Prayer for the Graces of Faith Hope Charity O Lord God of infinite mercy of infinite excellency who hast sent thy holy Son into the world to redeem us from an intolerable misery and to teach us a holy religion and to forgive us an infinite debt give me thy holy Spirit that my understanding and all my faculties may be so resigned to the discipline and doctrine of my Lord that I may be prepared in minde and will to dye for the testimony of Jesus and to suffer any affliction or calamity that shall offer to hinder my duty or tempt me to shame or sin or apostacy and let my faith be the parent of a good life a strong shield to repell the fiery darts of the Devil and the Author of a holy hope of modest desires of confidence in God and of a never failing charity to thee my God and to all the world that I may never have my portion with the unbelievers or uncharitable and desperate persons but may be supported by the strengths of faith in all temptations and may be refreshed with the comforts of a holy hope in all my sorrows and may bear the burden of the Lord and the infirmities of my neighbour by the support of charity that the yoak of Jesus may become easy to me and my love may do all the miracles of grace till from grace it swell to glory from earth to heaven from duty to reward from the imperfections of a beginning and little growing love it may arrive to the consummation of an eternal and never ceasing charity through Jesus Christ the Son of thy love the Anchor of our hope and the Author and finisher of our faith to whom with thee O Lord God Father of Heaven and Earth and with thy holy Spirit be all glory and love and obedience and dominion now and for ever Amen Acts of love by way of prayer and ejaculation to be used in private O God thou art my God early will I seek thee my soul thirsteth for thee my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is to see thy power and thy glory so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary because thy loving kindnes is better then life my lips shall praise thee Psal. 63. I am ready not only to be bound but to dye for the name of the Lord Jesus Acts 23. How amiable are thy Tabernacles thou Lord of Hosts my soul longeth yea even fainteth for the courts of the Lord My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God Blessed are they that dwell in thy house they will still be praising thee Psal. 84. O blessed Jesu thou art worthy of all adoration and all honour and all love Thou art the Wondeâ—ful the Counsellor the mighty God the Everlasting Father the Prince of peace of thy government and peace there shall be no end thou art the brightnesse of thy Fathers glory the expresse image of his person the appointed Heir of all things Thou upholdest all things by the word of thy power Thou didst by thy self purge our sins Thou art set on the right hand of the Majesty on high Thou art made better then the Angels thou hast by inheritance obtain'd a more excellent name then they Thou O dearest Jesus art the head of the Church the beginning and the first born from the dead in all things thou hast the preheminence and it pleased the Father that in thee should all fulnesse dwell Kingdoms are in love with thee Kings lay their crowns and scepters at thy feet and Queens are thy handmaids and wash the feet of thy servants A Prayer to be said in any affliction as death of children of husband or wife in great poverty in imprisonment in a sad and disconsolate spirit in temptations to despair O Eternal God Father of Mercyes and God of all comfort with much mercy look upon the sadnesses and sorrowes of thy servant My sins lye heavy upon me and presse me sore and there is no health in my bones by reason of thy displeasure and my sin The waters are gone over me and I stick fast in the deep mire and my miseries are without comfort because they are punishments of my sin and I am so evil and unworthy a person that though I have great desires yet I have no dispositions or worthiness towards receiving comfort My sins have caused my sorrow and my sorrow does not cure my sins and unless for thy own sake and merely because thou art good thou shalt pity me relieve me I am as much without remedy as now I am without comfort Lord pity me Lord let thy grace refresh my Spirit Let thy comforts support me thy mercy pardon me and never let my portion be amongst hopelesse and accursed spirits for thou art good and gracious and I throw my self upon thy mercy Let me never let my hold go do thou with me what seems good in thy own eyes I cannot suffer more then I have deserved and yet I can need no relief so great as thy mercy is for thou art infinitely more merciful then I can be miserable and thy mercy which is above all thy own works must needs be far above all my sin and all my misery Dearest Jesus let me trust in thee for ever and let me never be confounded Amen Ejaculations and short meditations to be used in time of sickness and sorrow or danger of
Guide in all my actions my protector in all dangers give me a healthful body and a clear understanding a sanctified and just a charitable and humble a religious and a contented spirit let not my life be miserable and wretched nor my name stained with sin and shame nor my condition lifted up to a tempting and dangerous fortune but let my condition be blessed my conversation useful to my Neighbours and pleasing to thee that when my body shall lie down in its bed of darknesse my soul may passe into the Regions of light and live with thee for ever through Jesus Christ. Amen VI. An act of intercession or prayer for others to be added to this or any other office as our devotion or duty or their needs shall determine us O God of infinite mercy who hast compassion on all men and relievest the necessities of all that call to thee for helpe hear the prayers of thy servant who is unworthy to ask any petition for himself yet in humility and duty is bound to pray for others * O let thy mercie descend upon the whole Church preserve her in truth and peace in unity and safety in all stormes and against all temptations and enemies that she offering to thy glory the never ceasing sacrifice of prayer and thanksgiving may advance â—he honour of her Lord and be filled with his Spirit and partake of his glory Amen Remember them that minister about holy things let them be clothed with righteousnesse and sing with joyfulnesse Amen Blesse thy servant my Wife or Husband with health of body and of spirit O let the hand of thy blessing be upon his or her head night and day and support him in all necessities strengthen him in all temptations comfort him in all his sorrows and let him be thy servant in all changes and make us both to dwell with thee for ever in thy favour in the light of thy countenance and in thy glories Amen Blesse my children with healthful bodies with good understandings with the graces and gifts of thy Spirit with sweet dispositions and holy habits and sanctifie them throughout in their bodies and souls and spirits and keep them unblameable to the coming of the Lord Jesus Amen Be pleased O Lord to remember my friends all that have pray'd for me and all that have done me good here name such whom you would specially recommend Do thou good to them return all their kindnesse double into their own bosome rewarding them with blessings and sanctifying them with thy graces and bringing them to glory Let all my family and kinred my neighbours and acquaintance here name what other relation you please receive the benefit of my prayers and the blessings of God the comforts and supports of thy providence and the sanctification of thy Spirit Relieve and comfort all the persecuted and afflicted speak peace to troubled consciences strengthen the weak confirm the strong instruct the ignorant deliver the oppressed from him that spoileth him and relieve the needy that hath no helper and bring us all by the waters of comfort and in the wayes of righteousnesse to the kingdom of rest and glory through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen To God the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ To the eternal Son that was incarnate and born of a Virgin To the Spirit of the Father and the Son be all honour and glory worship and thanksgiving now and for ever Amen Another form of prayer for the Morning In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Our Father c. I. MOst glorious and eternal God Father of mercy and God of all comfort I worship and adore thee with the lowest humility of my soul and body and give thee all thanks and praise for thy infinite and essential glories and perfections and for the continual demonstration of thy mercies upon me upon all mine and upon thy holy Catholick Church II. I acknowledge dear God that I have deserved the greatest of thy wrath and indignation and that if thou hadst dealt with me according to my deserving I had now at this instant been desperately bewailing my miseries in the sorrows and horrours of a sad eternity But thy mercy triumphing over thy justice and my sins thou hast still continued to me life and time of repentance thou hast opened to me the gates of grace and mercy and perpetually callest upon me to enter in and to walk in the paths of a holy life that I might glorifie thee and be glorified of thee eternally III. BEhold O God for this thy great and unspeakable goodnesse for the preservation of me this night and for all other thy graces and blessings I offer up my soul and body all that I am and all that I have as a Sacrifice to thee and thy service humbly begging of thee to pardon all my sins to defend me from all evil to lead me into all geod and let my portion be amongst thy redeemed ones in the gathering together of the Saints in the Kingdom of grace and glory IV. GUide me O Lord in all the changes and varieties of the world that in all things that shall happen I may have an evennesse and tranquillity of spirit that my soul may be wholly resign'd to thy Divinest will and pleasure never murmuring at thy gentle chastisements and fatherly correction never waxing proud and insolent though I feel a torrent of comforts and prosperous successes V. FIx my thoughts my hopes and my desires upon Heaven and heavenly things teach me to despise the world to repent me deeply for my sins give me holy purposes of amendment and ghostly strength assistances to perform faithfully whatsoever I shall intend piously Enrich my understanding with an eternal treasure of Divine truths that I may know thy will and thou who workest in us to will and to do of thy good pleasure teach me to obey all thy Commandments to believe all thy Revelations and make me partaker of all thy gracious promises VI. TEach me to watch over all my wayes that I may never be surpriz'd by sudden temptations or a carelesse spirit nor ever return to folly and vanity Set a watch O Lord before my mouth and keep the door of my lips that I offend in my tongue neither against piety nor charity Teach mee to think of nothing but thee and what is in order to thy glory and service to speak nothing but thee and thy glories and to do nothing but what becomes thy servant whom thy infinite mercy by the graces of thy holy Spirit hath sealed up to the day of Redemption VII LEt all my passions and affections be so mortified and brought under the dominion of grace that I may never by deliberation and purpose nor yet by levity rashnesse or inconsideration offend thy Divine Majesty Make me such as thou wouldest have me to bee strengthen my faith confirm my hope and give me a daily increase
that Gods mercies will be powred forth upon lazy persons that do nothing towards holy and strict walking nothing I say but trust and long for an event besides and against all disposition of the means Every false principle in Religion is a Reed of Egypt false and dangerous * Relye not in temporal things upon uncertain prophecies and Astrology not upon our own wit or industry not upon gold or friends not upon Armies and Princes expect not health from Physicians that cannot cure their own breath much lesse their mortality use all lawful instruments but expect nothing from them above their natural or ordinary efficacy and in the use of them from God expect a blessing A hope that is easie and credulous is an arm of flesh an ill supporter without a bone 3. Let your hope be without vanity or garishnesse of spirit but sober grave and silent fixed in the heart not born upon the lip apt to support our spirits within but not to provoke envy abroad 4. Let your hope be of things possible safe and useful He that hopes for an opportunity of acting his revenge or lust or rapine watches to do himself a mischief All evils of our selves or Brethren are objects of our fear not hope and when it is truly understood things uselesse and unsafe can no more be wish'd for then things impossible can be obtain'd 5. Let your hope be patient without tediousnesse of spirit or hastinesse of prefixing time Make no limits or prescriptions to God but let your prayers and endeavours go on still with a constant attendance on the periods of Gods providence The Men of Bethulia resolved to wait upon God but five dayes longer But deliverance stayed seven dayes and yet came at last and take not every accident for an argument of despair but go on still in hoping and begin again to work if any ill accident have interrupted you Means of Hope and remedies against Despair The means to cure Despair and to continue or increase Hope are partly by consideration partly by exercise 1. Apply your minde to the cure of all the proper causes of Despair and they are weaknesse of spirit or violence of passion He that greedily covets is impatient of delay and desperate in contrary accidents and he that is little of heart is also little of hope and apt to sorrow and suspition 2. Despise the things of the World and be indifferent to all changes and events of providence and for the things of God the promises are certain to be performed in kinde where there is lesse variety of chance there is lesse possibility of being mocked but he that creates to himself thousands of little hopes uncertain in the promise fallible in the event and depending upon ten thousand circumstances as are all the things of this World shall often fail in his expectations and be used to arguments of distrust in such hopes 3. So long as your hopes are regular and reasonable though in temporal affairs such as are deliverance from enemies escaping a storm or shipwrack recovery from a sicknesse ability to pay your debts c. remember that there are some things ordinary and some things extraordinary to prevent despair In ordinary Remember that the very hoping in God is an endearment of him and a means to obtain the blessing I will delivâ—r him because he hath put his trust in me 2. There are in God all those glorious Attributes and excellencies which in the nature of things can possibly create or confirm Hope God is 1. Strong 2. Wise. 3. True 4. Loving There cannot be added another capacity to create a confidence for upon these premises we cannot fail of receiving what is fit for us 3. God hath oblig'd himself by promise that we shall have the good of every thing we desire for even losses and denials shall work for the good of them that fear God And if we will trust the truth of God for performance of the general we may well trust his wisdome to choose for us the particular * But the extraordinaries of God are apt to supply the defect of all natural and humane possibilities 1. God hath in many instances given extraordinary vertue to the active causes and instruments to a jaw-bone to kill a multitude to 300 Men to destroy a great Army to Ionathan and his Armour-bearer to rout a whole Garrison 2. He hath given excellent sufferance and vigorousnesse to the sufferers arming them with strange courage heroical fortitude invincible resolution and glorious patience and thus he layes no more upon us then we are able to bear for when he increases our sufferings he lessens them by increasing our patience 3. His providence is extraregular and produces strange things beyond common rules and he that lead Israel through a Sea and made a Rock powre forth waters and the Heavens to give them bread and flesh and whole Armies to be destroyed with phantastick noises and the fortune of all France to be recovered and intirely revolv'd by the arms and conduct of a Girle against the torrent of the English fortune and Chivalry can do what he please and still retains the same affections to his people and the same providence over mankinde as ever and it is impossible for that Man to despair who remembers that his Helper is Omnipotent and can do what he please let us rest there awhile he can if he please And he is infinitely loving willing enough and he is infinitely wise choosing better for us then we can do for our selves This in all ages and chances hath supported the afflicted people of God and carried them on dry ground through a red Sea God invites and cherishes the hopes of Men by all the variety of his providence 4. If your case be brought to the last extremity and that you are at the pits brink even the very Margent of the Grave yet then despair not at least put it off a little longer and remember that whatsoever final accident takes away all hope from you if you stay a little longer and in the mean while bear it sweetly it will also take away all despair too For when you enter into the Regions of death you rest from all your labours and your fears 5. Let them who are tempted to despair of their salvation consider how much Christ suffered to redeem us from sin and its eternal punishment and he that considers this must needs believe that the desires which God had to save us were not lesse then infinite and therefore not easily to be satisfied without it 6. Let no Man despair of Gods mercies to forgive him unlesse he be sure that his sinnes are greater then Gods mercies If they be not we have much reason to hope that the stronger ingredient will prevail so long as we are in the time and state of repentance and within the possibilities and latitude of the Covenant and as long as any promise can but reflect upon him with an oblique
but when we have an object present to our eye then we must pity for there the providence of God hath fitted our charity with circumstances He that is in thy sight or in thy Neighbourhood is fallen into the lot of thy charity 16. If thou hast no money yet thou must have mercy and art bound to pity the poor and pray for them and throw thy holy desires and devotions into the treasure of the Church and if thou doest what thou art able be it little or great corporal or spiritual the charity of almes or the charity of prayers a cup of wine or a cup of water if it be but love to the brethren or a desire to help all or any of Christs poor it shall be accepted according to what a man hath not according to what he hath not For Love is all this and all the other Commandments and it will expresse it self where it can and where it cannot yet it is love still and it is also sorrow that it cannot Motives to Charity The motives to this duty are such as holy Scripture hath propounded to us by way of consideration and proposition of its excellencies and consequent reward 1. There is no one duty which our blessed Saviour did recommend to his Disciples with so repeated an injunction as this of Charity and Almes To which adde the words spoken by our Lord It is better to give then to receive and when we consider how great a blessing it is that we beg not from door to door it is a ready instance of our thankfulnes to God for his sake to relieve them that do 2. This duty is that alone wherby the future day of judgment shall be transacted For nothing but charity almes is that whereby Christ shall declare the justice and mercy of the eternal sentence Martyrdom it self is not there expressed and no otherwise involved but as it is the greatest charity 3. Christ made himself the greatest and daily example of almes or charity He went up down doing good preaching the Gospel healing all diseases and God the Father is imitable by us in nothing but in purity and mercy 4. Almes given to the poor redound to the emolument of the Giver both temporal and eternal 5. They are instrumental to the remission of sins Our forgivenesse and mercy to others being made the very rule and proportion of our confidence and hope and our prayer to be forgiven our selves 6. It is a treasure in Heaven it procures friends when we dye It is reckoned as done to Christ whatsoever we do to our poor brother and therefore when a poor man begs for Christ his sake if he have reason to ask for Ch i st his sake give it him if thou canst Now every man hath title to ask for Ch ists sake whose need is great and himself unable to cure it and if the man be a Christian. Whatsoever charity Christ will reward all that is given for Christs sake and therefore it may be asked in his name but every man that uses that sacred name for an endearment hath not a title to it neither he nor his need 7. It is one of the wings of prayer by which it flyes to the throne of grace 8. It crowns all the works of piety 9. It causes thanksgiving to God on our behalf 10. And the bowels of the poor blesse us and they pray for us 11. And that portion of our estate out of which a tenth or a fifth or a twentieth or some offering to God for religion and the poor goes forth certainly returns with a greater blessing upon all the rest It is like the effusion of oyl by the Sidonian woman as long as she poures into empty vessels it could never cease running or like the Widows barrel of meal it consumes not as long as she fed the Prophet 12. The summe of all is contained in the words of our blessed Saviour Give almes of such things as you have â—nd behold all things are clean unto you 13. To which may be added that charity or mercy is the peculiar character of Gods Elect and a signe of predestination which advantage we are taught by S. Paul Put on therefore as the elect of God holy and beloved bowels of mercy kindnesse c. forbearing one another and forgiving oâ—e another if any man have a quarrel against any The result of all which we may reade in the words of S. Chrysostome To know the art of almes is greater then to be crowned with the Diadem of kings And yet to convert one soul is greater then to poure out ten thousand talents into the baskets of the poor But because giving Almes is an act of the vertue of mercifulnesse our endeavour must be by proper arts to mortifie the parents of unmercifulnesse which are 1. Envy 2. Anger 3. Covetousnesse in which we may be helped by the following rules or instruments Remedies against unmercifulnesse and uncharitablenesse 1. Against Envy by way of consideration Against Envy I shall use the same argument I would use to perswade a man from the Fever or the dropsie 1. Because it is a disease it is so far from having pleasure in it or a temptation to it that it is full of pain a great instrument of vexation it eats the flesh and dries up the marrow and makes hollow eyes and lean cheeks and a pale face 2. It is nothing but a direct resolution never to enter into Heaven by the way of noble pleasure taken in the good of others 3. It is most contrary to God 4. And a just contrary state to the felicities and actions of Heaven where every star encreases the light of the other and the multitude of guests at the supper of the Lamb makes the eternal meal more festival 5. It is perfectly the state of Hell and the passion of Devils for they do nothing but despair in themselves and envy others quiet or safety and yet cannot rejoyce either in their good or in their evil although they endeavour to hinder that and procure this with all the devices and arts of malice and of a great understanding 6. Envy can serve no end in the world it cannot please any thing nor do any thing nor hinder any thing but the content and felicity of him that hath it 7. Envy can never pretend to justice as hatred and uncharitableness sometimes may for there may be causes of hatred and I may have wrong done me and then hatred hath some pretence though no just argument But no man is unjust or injurious for being prosperous or wise 8. And therefore many men prosesse to hate another but no man owns envy as being an enmity and displeasure for no cause but goodnesse or felicity Envious men being like Cantharides and Caterpillars that delight most to devour ripe and most excellent fruits 9. It is of all crimes the basest for malice and anger are appeased with benefits but
Death Hear my Prayer O Lord and let my crying come unto thee * Hide not thy face from me in the time of my trouble incline thine ear unto me when I call O hear me and that right soon * For my dayes are consumed like smoaâ— my bones are burnt up as it were a firebrand * My heart is smitten down withered like grass so that I forget to eat my bread that because of thine indignation and wrath for thou hast taken me up cast me down * Thine arrows stick fast in me and thy hand presseth me sore There is no health in my flesh because of thy displeasure neither is there any rest in my bones by reason of my sin * My wickednesâ—es are gone over my head and are a sore burden too heavy for me to bear * But I will confesse my wickednesse and be sorry for my sin * O Lord rebuke me not in thy indignation neither chasten me in thy displeasure * Lord be merciful unto me heal my soul for I have sinned against thee Have mercy upon me O God after thy great goodnesse according to the multitude of thy mercies do away mine offences * O remember not the sins and offences of my youth but according to thy mercy think thou upon me O Lord for thy goodnesse * Wash me thoroughly from my wickednesse and cleanse me from my sin * Make me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me * Cast me not away from thy presence from thy all-hallowing and life-giving presence and take not thy holy Spirit thy sanctifying thy guiding thy comforting thy supporting and confirming Spirit from me O God thou art my God for ever and ever thou shalt be my guide unto death * Lord comfort me now that I lye sick upon my bed make thou my bed in all my sicknesse * O deliver my soul from the place of Hell and do thou receive me * My heart is disquieted within me and the fear of death is falen upon me * Behold thou hast made my dayes as it were a span long mine age is even as nothing in respect of thee and verily every man living is altogether vanity * When thou with rebukes doest chasten man for sin thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth fretting a garment every man therefore is but vanity And now Lord what is my hope truly my hope is even in thee * Hear my prayer O Lord and with thine ears consider my calling hold not thy peace at my tears * Take this plague away from me I am consumed by the means of thy heavy hand * I am a stranger with thee and a sojourner as all my Fathers were * O spare me a little that I may recover my strength before I go hence and be no more seen * My soul cleaveth unto the dust O quicken me according to thy word * And when the snares of death compasse me round about let not the pains of hell take hold upon me An Act of Faith concerning resurrection and the day of judgment to be said by sick persons or meditated I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth and though after my skin worms destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God whom I shall see for my self mine eyes shal behold though my reins be consumed within me Iob 19. God shall come and shall not keep silence there shall go before him a consuming fire and a mighty tempest shall be stirred up round about him he shall call the heaven from above and the earth that he may judge his people * O blessed Jesu thou art my judge and thou art my Advocate have mercy upon me in the hour of my death and in the day of judgment See Iohn 5.28 1 Thessal 4.15 Short Prayers to be said by sick persons O Holy Jesus thou art a merciful High Priest and touched with the sense of our infirmities thou knowest the sharpnesse of my sicknesse and the weaknesse of my person The clouds are gathered about me and thou hast covered me with thy storm My understanding hath not such apprehension of things as formerly Lord let thy mercy support me thy spirit guide me and lead me through the valley of this death safely that I may passe it patiently holily with perfect resignation and let me rejoyce in the Lord in the hopes of pardon in the expectation of glory in the sence of thy mercies in the refreshments of thy spirit in a victory over all temptations Thou hast promised to be with us in tribulation Lord my soul is troubled and my body is weak and my hope is in thee and my enemies are busy and mighty now make good thy holy promise Now O holy Jesus now let thy hand of grace be upon me restrain my ghostly enemies and give me all sorts of spiritual assistances Lord remember thy servant in the day when thou bindest up thy Jewels O take from me all tediousnesse of Spirit all impatience and unquietnesse let me possesse my soul in patience and resigne my soul and body into thy hands as into the hands of a faithful Creator and a blessed Redeemer O holy Jesu thou didst dye for us by thy sad pungent intolerable pains which thou enduredst for me have pity on me ease my pain or increase my patience Lay on me no more then thou shalt enable me to bear I have deserv'd it all more and infinitely more Lord I am weak and ignorant timerous and inconstant and I feâ—r lest something should happen that may discompose the state of my soul that may displease thee Do what thou wilt with me so thou doest but preserve me in thy fear and favour Thou knowest that it is my great â—ear but let thy Spirit secure that nothing may be able to separate me from the love of God in Jesus Christ then smite me here that thou mayest spare me for ever and yet O Lord smite me friendly for thou knowest my infirmities Into thy hands I commend my spirit for thou hast redeemed me O Lord thou God of truth * Come holy Spirit help me in this conflict Come Lord Jesus come quickly Let the sick person often meditate upon these following promises and gracious words of God My help cometh of the Lord who preserveth them that are true of heart Psal. 7.11 And all they that know thy Name will put their trust in thee for thou Lord hast never failed them that seek thee Psal. 9.10 O how plentiful is thy goodnesse which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee and that thou hast prepared for them that put their trust in thee even before the sons of men Psal. 31. Behold the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him upon them that put their trust in his mercy to deliver their souls from death Ps. 33. The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a contrite heart
what seemeth good in his own eyes Thy will be done in earth as it is in Heaven Recite Psalm 107. and 130. A form of a vow to be made in this or the like danger If the Lord will be gracious and hear the prayer of his servant and bring me safe to shore then I will praise him secretly and publickly and pay unto the uses of charity or Religion then name the sum you designe for holy uses O my God my goods are nothing unto thee I will also be thy servant all the dayes of my life and remember this mercy and my present purposes and live more to Gods glory and with a stricter duty And do thou please to accept this vow as an instance of my importunity and the greatnesse of my needs and be thou graciously moved to pity and deliver me Amen This form also may be used in praying for a blessing on an enterprize and may be instanced in actions of devotion as well as of charity A prayer before a journey O Almighty God who fillest all things with thy presence and art a God afar off as well as neer at hand thou didst send thy Angel to blesse Iacob in his journey and didst leade the children of Israel through the Red Sea making it a wall on the right hand and on the left be pleased to let thy Angel go out before me and guide me in my journey preseving me from dangers of robbers from violence of enemies and sudden and sad accidents from falls and errours and prosper my journey to thy glory and to all my innocent purposes and preserve me from all sin that I may return in peace and holinesse with thy favour and thy blessing and may serve thee in thankfulnesse and obedience all the dayes of my pilgrimage and at last bring me to thy countrey to the coelestial Jerusalem there to dwell in thy house and to sing praises to thee for ever Amen Ad Sect. 4 A prayer to be said before hearing or reading the word of God O Holy and Eternal Jesus who hast begotten us by thy word renewed us by thy Spirit fed us by thy Sacraments and by the dayly ministery of thy word still go on to build us up to life eternal Let thy most holy Spirit be present with me and rest upon me in the reading or hearing thy sacred word that I may do it humbly reverently without prejudice with a minde ready and desirous to learn and to obey â—hat I may â—e readily furnished and instructed to every good work and may practise all thy holy laws and commandments to the glory of thy holy name O holy and eternal Jesus Amen Ad Sect. 5 9 10. A form of confession of sins and repentance to be used upon fasting dayes or dayes of humiliation especially in Lent and before the Holy Sacrament Have mercy upon me O God after thy great goodnesse according to the multitude of thy mercies do away mine offences For I will conâ—esse my wickednesse and be sorry for my sin * O my Dearest Lord I am not worthy to be accounted amongst the meanest of thy servants not worthy to be sustained by the least fragments of thy mercy but to be shut out of thy presence for ever with dogs unbelievers But for thy names sake O Lord be merciful unto my sin for it is great I am the vilest of sinners and the worst of men proud and vain glorious impatient of scorn or of just reproof â—ot enduring to be slighted and yet extreamly deserving it I have been cosened by the colours of humility and when I have truly called my self vitious I could not endure any man else should say so or think so I have been disobedient to my Superiours churlish and ungentle in my behaviour unchristian and unmanly But for thy names sake c. O Just and Dear God how can I expect pitty or pardon who am so angry and peevish with and without cause envious at good rejoycing in the evil of my neighbours negligent of my charge idle and uselesse timerous and base jealous and impudent ambitious and hard hearted soft unmortified and effeminate in my life indevout in my prayers without fancie or affection without attendance to them or perseverance in them but passionate and curious in pleasing my appetite of meat and drink and pleasures making matter both for sin and sicknesse and I have reâ—ped the cursed fruits of such improvidence entertaining undecent and impure thoughts and I have brought them forth in undecent and impure actions and the spirit of uncleanness hath entred in and unhallowed the temple which thou didst consecrate for the habitation of thy Spirit of love and holinesse But for thy names sake O Lord be merciful unto my sin for it is great Thou hast given me a whole life to serve thee in and to advance my hopes of heaven and this pretious time I have thrown away upon my sins and vanities being improvident of my time and of my talent and of thy grace and my own advantages resisting thy Spirit and quenching him I have been a great lover of my self and yet used many wayes to destroy my self I have pursued my temporal ends with greedinesse and indirect means I am revengful and unthankful forgetting benefits but not so soon forgetting injuries curious and murmuring a great breaker of promises I have not loved my neighbours good nor advanced it in all things where I could I have bin unlike thee in all things I am unmerciful and unjust a sottish admirer of things below and careless of heaven and the wayes that lead thither But for thy names sake O Lord be merciful unâ—â— my sin for it is great All my senses have been windows to let sin in and death by sin Mine eyes have been adulterous and covetous mine ears open to slander and detraction my tongue and palate loose and wanton intemperate and of foul language talkative lying rash and malicious false and flattering irreligious and irreverent detracting and censorious My hands have bin injurious and unclean my passions violent and rebellious my desires impatient and unreasonable all my members and all my faculties have been servants of sin and my very besâ— actions have more matter of pity then of confidence being imperfect in my best and intolerable in most But for thy names sake O Lord c. Unto this and a far bigger heap of sin I have added also the faults of others to my own score by neglecting to hinder them to sin in all that I could and ought but I also have encouraged them in sin have taken off their fears and hardened their consciences and tempted them directly and prevailed in it to my own râ—ine and theirs unlesse thy glorious and unspeakable mercy hath prevented so intolerable a calamity Lord I have abused thy mercy despised thy judgements turned thy grace into wantonnesse I have been unthankful for thy infinite loving kindnesse I have sinned and repented and then sinned again and resolved
against it and presently broke it and then I tyed my self up with vows then was tempted and then I yielded by little little till I was willingly lost again and my vows fell ofâ— like cords of vanity Miserable man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of sin And yet O Lord I have another heap of sins to be unloaded My secrets sins O Lord are innumerable sins I noted not sins that I willingly neglected sins that I acted upon willfull ignorance and voluntary mispersuasion sins that I have forgot and sins which a diligent and a watchful spirit might have prevented but I would not Lord I am confounded with the multitude of them and the horrour of their remembrance though I consider them nakedly in their direct appearances without the deformity of their unhandsome and aggravating circumstances but so dressed they are a sight too ugly an instance of amazement infinite in degrees and insufferable in their load And yet thou hast spared me all this while and hast not thrown me into Hell where I have deserved to have been long since and even now to have been shut up to an eternity of torments with insupportable amazement fearing the revelation of thy day Miserable man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of sin Thou shalt answer for me O Lord my God Thou that Prayest for me shalt be my Iudge The Prayer Thou hast prepared for me a more healthful sorrow O deny not thy servant when he begs sorrow of thee Give me a deep contrition for my sins a hearty detestation and loathing of them hating them worse then death with torments Give me grace intirely presently and for ever to forsake them to walk with care and prudence with fear and watchfulnesse all my dayes to doe all my duty with diligence and charity with zeal and a never fainting spirit to redeem the time to trust upon thy mercies to make use of all the instruments of grace to work out my salvation with fear and trembling that thou mayest have the glory of pardoning all my sins and I may reap the fruit of all thy mercies and al thy graces of thy patience and long-suffering even to live a holy life here and to reign with thee for ever through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Ad Sect. 6. Special devâ—tions to be used upon the Lords-day and the great Festivalls Of Christians In the Morning recite the following forme of Thanksgiving upon the special Festivalls adding the commemoration of the special blessing according to the following prayers adding such prayers as you shall choose out of the foregâ—ing Devotions 2. Besides the ordinary and publick duties of the day if you retire into your closet to read and meditate after you have performed that duty say the song of S. Ambrose commonly called the Te Deum or We praise thee c then add the prayers for particular graces which are at the end of the former Chapters such and as many of them as shall fit your present needs and affections ending with the Lords prayer This form of devotion may for variety be indifferently used at other times A forme of thanksgiving with a recital of publick and private blessings To be used upon Easter-day Whit-sunday Ascension-day and all Sundayes of the year but the middle part of it may be reserved for the more solemn Festivals and the other used upon the ordinary as every mans affections or leisure shall determine I. Ex Liturgiâ S. Basilii magnâ ex parte O Eternal Essence Lord God Father Almighty Maker of all things in Heaven and Earth it is a good thing to give thanks to thee O Lord and to pay to thee all reverence worship and devotion from a clean and prepared heart and with an humble spirit to present a living and reasonable sacrifice to thy holinesse and Majesty for thou hast given unto us the knowledge of thy truth and who is able to declare thy greatnesse and to recount all thy marvellous works which thou hast done in all the generations of the world O Great Lord and Governour of all things Lord and Creator of all things visible and invisible who sittest upon the throne of thy glory and beholdest the secrets of the lowest abysse and darknesse thou art without beginning uncircumscribed incomprehensible unalterable and seated for ever unmoveable in thy own essential happinesse and tranquillity Thou art the Father of our Lord JESU SCHRIST who is Our Dearest and most Gracious Saviour our hope the wisdom of the Father the image of thy goodnesse the Word eternal and the brightnesse of thy person the power of God from eternal ages the true light that lightneth every Man that cometh into the World the Redemption of Man and the Sanctification of our Spirits By whom the holy Ghost descended upon the Church the holy Spirit of truth the seal of adoption the earnest of the inheritance of the Saints the first fruits of everlasting felicity the life-giving power the fountain of sanctification the comfort of the Church the ease of the afflicted the support of the weak the wealth of the poor the teacher of the doubtful scrupulous and ignorant the anchor of the fearful the infinite reward of all faithful souls by whom all reasonable and understanding creatures serve thee and send up a never-ceasing and a never-rejected sacrifice of prayer and praises and adoration All Angels and Archangels all Thrones and Dominions all Principalities and Powers the Cherubins with many eyes and the Seraphinâ— covered with wings from the terror and amazement of thy brightest glory These and all the powers of Heaven do perpetually sing praises and never-ceasing Hymns and eternal Anthems to the glory of the eternal God the Almighty Father of Men and Angels Holy is our God Holy is the Almighty Holy is the Immortal Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabaoth Heaven and Earth are full of the Majesty of thy glory Amen * With these holy and blessed Spirits I also thy servant O thou great lover of souls though I be unworthy to offer praise to such a Majesty yet out of my bounden duty humbly offer up my heart and voice to joyn in this blessed quire and confesse the glories of the Lord. * For thou art holy and of thy greatnesse there is no end and in thy justice and goodnesse thou hast measured out to us all thy works Thou madest man out of the earth and didst form him after thine own image thou didst place him in a garden of pleasure and gavest him laws of righteousnesse to be to him a seed of immortality O that men would therefore praise the Lord for his goodnesse and declare the wonders that he hath done for the children of men For when man sinned and listned to the whispers of a tempting spirit and refused to hear the voice of God thou didst throw him out from Paradise and sentest him to till the Earth but yet left nor his condition without remedy but didst provide
in thy hands They are those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends Zech. 13.6 Immediately before the receiving say Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof But do thou speak the word onely and thy servant shall be healed Lord open thou my lips and my mouth shall shew thy praise O God make speed to save me O Lord make hasâ—e to help me Come Lord Iesus come quickly After receiving the consecrated and blessed bread say O taste and see how gracious the Lord is blessed is the man that trusteth in him * The beasts do lack and suffer hunger but they which seek the Lord shall want no manner of thing that is good Lord what am I that my Saviour should become my food that the Son of God should be the meat of Wormes of dust and ashes of a sinner of him that was his enemy But this thou hast done to me because thou art infinitely good and wonderfully gracious and lovest to blesse every one of us in turning us from the evil of our wayes Enter into me blessed Jesus let no root of bitternesse spring up in my heart but be thou Lord of all my faculties O let me feed on thee by faith and grow up by the increase of God to a perfect man in Christ Jesus Amen Lord I believe help mine unbelief Glory be to God the Father Son c. After the receiving the cup of blessing It is finished Blessed be the mercies of God revealed to us in Jesus Christ. O blessed and eternal high Priest let the sacrifice of the Crosse which thou didst once offer for the sinnes of the whole World and which thou doest now and alwayes represent in Heaven to thy Father by thy never ceasing intercession and which this day hath been exhibited on thy holy Table Sacramentally obtain mercy and peace faith and charity safety and establishment to thy holy Church which thou hast founded upon a Rock the Rock of a holy Faith and let not the gates of Hell prevail against her nor the enemy of mankinde take any soul out of thy hand whom thou hast purchased with thy blood and sanctified by thy Spirit Preserve all thy people from Heresie and division of spirit from scandal and the spirit of delusion from sacriledge and hurtful persecutions Thou O blessed Jesus didst dye for us keep me for ever in holy living from sin and sinful shame in the communion of thy Church and thy Church in safety and grace in truth and peace unto thy second coming Amen Dearest Jesu since thou art pleased to enter into me O be jealous of thy house and the place where thine honour dwelleth suffer no unclean spirit or unholy thought to come near thy dwelling lest it defile the ground where thy holy feet have trod O teach me so to walk that I may never disrepute the honour of my Religion nor stain the holy Robe which thou hast now put upon my soul nor break my holy Vows which I have made and thou hast sealed nor lose my right of inheritance my priviledge of being coheir with Jesus into the hope of which I have now further entred but be thou pleased to love me with the love of a Father and a Brother and a Husband and a Lord and make me to serve thee in the communion of Saints in receiving the Sacrament in the practise of all holy vertues in the imitation of thy life and conformity to thy sufferings that I having now put on the Lord Jesus may marry his loves and his enmities may desire his glory may obey his laws and be united to his Spirit and in the day of the LORD I may be found having on the Wedding Garment and bearing in my body and soul the marks of the LORD JESUS that I may enter into the joy of my LORD and partake of his glories for ever and ever Amen Ejaculations to be used any time that day after the solemnity is ended Lord if I had lived innocently I could not have deserved to receive the crumbs that fall from thy Table How great is thy mercy who hast feasted me with the Bread of Virgins with the Wine of Angels with Manna from Heaven O when shall I passe from this dark glasse from this vail of Sacraments to the vision of thy eternal clarity from eating thy Body to beholding thy face in thy eternal Kingdom Let not my sins crucifie the Lord of life again Let it never be said concerning me the hand of him that betraieth me is with me on the Table O that I might love thee as well as ever any creature lov d thee Let me think nothing but thee desire nothing but thee enjoy nothing but thee O Jesus be a Jesus unto me Thou art all things unto me Let nothing ever please me but what favours of thee and thy miraculous sweetnesse Blessed be the mercies of our Lord who of God is made unto me Wisdom and Righteousnesse and Sanctification and Redemption He that glorieth let him glory in the Lord. Amen The End LONDON Printed by R. Norton MDCL 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arrian Epict. l. 1. c. 13. Ezekiel 16.49 Sâ—nec * â—ee Chap. 4. â—â—ct 6. S. Bern. de tripli ci custodia Laudatur Augustus Caesar apud Lucanum media inter praelia semper stellaâ—um caelique plagiâ— superisque vacabat Casâ—â—an Collâ—â— 24 c. â—1 Jerem. 48.10 Plutarch â—e Curioâ—t 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—rocop 2. Vandal 1 Cor. 7.5 * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pythag. Carm. 1 Cor. 1â— 31. Seneca â—ui furatur ut â—â—â—chetur moechus est tragis quam fur Arist. Eth. See Sect. 1. of this Chapt. Rule 18. Seneca Ep. 113. S. Chrys. l. 2. de compan cordis S. Greg. moral 8. cap. 25. S. â—ern lib. de praecept Publius Mimuâ—â—â— Jer. 23.24 Hebr. 4. â—3 Acts. 17.28 Lib 7. de Civit. â—â—p 3â— Mat. 18.20 Heb. 10.25 1 King 5 9. Psal. 138 â— 2 1 Cor. 3 16. 2 Cor. 6 16. S. Aug. de verbis Don. c. 3 Psâ—l 13â— 7. ◠〈…〉 de conâ—ol â—sa 26..12 Jâ—â—em â—1 15 Secâ—nd 〈◊〉 Edic â—n vitâ—â— S. 〈◊〉 Ezek. 9.9 Psal. 10. â—â— Rev. 11. â—7 â— 5.10.13 Revel â— â— 3 For the Chuâ—ch For the Glory For wife or husband For our children For Friends Benefaâ—tors For our family For al in misery Evening prayer Psal. 121 Psal. 4. 〈◊〉 2.11 12 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arrian c. 2. l. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Epist. c. 34 1 Cor. 9.25 Apoc. 2.17 〈…〉 tum 〈…〉 desinant 〈◊〉 L. 3 〈◊〉 c. 12. Facâ—llus 〈…〉 qua◠〈…〉 86. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 voluptateâ— abâ—untes feâ—laâ— paenitentia plenas animis nostris natâ—â—a â—ubiâ—cit quo minus câ—pide repetantur Senec. Lâ—ta veniâ—e Venâ—s trisâ—is abire so â—et 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Foâ—lix initium prior aetas contenta dâ—lcibus arvis Facileque seâ—a solebat jejunia solvere glande â—oeth l. 1. de consol Arbuteos â—erus montanaque fragâ—a legeâ—
thy own soul. Seven times a day do I praise thee and in the night season also I thought upon thee when I was waking So did David and every act of complaint or thanksgiving every act of rejoycing or of mourning every petition and every return of the heart in these entercourses is a going to God an appearing in his presence and a representing him present to thy spirit and to thy necessity And this was long since by a spiritual person called a building to GOD a Chappell in our heart It reconciles Martha's im ployment with Maries Devotion Charity and Religion the necessities of our calling and the imployments of devotion For thus in the midst of the works of your Trade you may retire into your Chappel your Heart and converse with GOD by frequent addresses and returns 5. Represent and offer to GOD acts of love and fear which are the proper effects of this apprehension and the proper exercise of this consideration For as GOD is every where present by his power he calls for reverence and godly fear As he is present to thee in all thy needs and relieves them he deserves thy love and since in every accident of our lives we finde one or other of these apparent and in most things we see both it is a proper and proportionate return that to every such demonstration of God we expresse our selves sensible of it by admiring the Divine goodnesse or trembling at his presence ever obeying him because we love him and ever obeying him because we fear to offend him This is that which Enoch did who thus walked with God 6. Let us remember that God is in us and that we are in him we are his workmanship let us not deface it we are in his presence let us not pollute it by unholy and impure actions God hath also wrought all our works in us and because he rejoyces in his own workes if we defile them and make them unpleasant to him we walk perversly with GOD and he will walk crookedly toward us 7. God is in the bowels of thy brother refresh them when he needs it and then you give your almes in the presence of God and to God and he feels the relief which thou providest for thy brother 8. God is in every place suppose it therefore to be a Church and that decency of deportment and piety of carriage which you are taught by religion or by custome or by civility and publick manners to use in Churches the same use in all places with this difference onely that in Churches let your deportment be religious in external forms and circumstances also but there and every where let it be religious in abstaining from spiritual undecencies and in readinesse to do good actions that it may not be said of us as God once complained of his people Why hath my beloved done wickednesse in my house 9. God is in every creature be cruel towards none neither abuse any by intemperance Remember that the creatures and every member of thy own body is one of the lesser cabinets and receptacles of God They are such which God hath blessed with his presence hallowed by his touch and separated from unholy use by making them to belong to his dwelling 10. He walks as in the presence of God that converses with him in frequent prayer and frequent communion that runs to him in all his necessities that asks counsel of him in all his doubtings that opens all his wants to him that weeps before him for his sins that asks remedy and support for his weaknesse that fears him as a Judge reverences him as a Lord obeyes him as a Father and loves him as a Patron The Benefits of this exercise The benefit of this consideration and exerâ—ise being universal upon all the parts of piety I shall lesse need to speciâ—ie any particulars but yet most properly this exercise of considering the divine presence is 1. an excellent help to prayer producing in us reverence and awfulnesse to the divine Majesty of God and actual devotion in our offices 2. It produces a confidence in God and fearlessenesse of our enemies patience in trouble and hope of remedie since God is so nigh in all our sad accidents he is a disposer of the hearts of men and the events of things he proportions out our tryals and supplyes us with remedie and where his rod strikes us his staffe supports us To which we may adde this that God who is alwayes with us is especially by promise with us in tribulation to turn the misery into a mercy and that our greatest trouble may become our advantage by intitling us to a new manner of the Divine presence 3. It is apt to produce joy and rejoycing in God we being more apt to delight in the partners and witnesses of our conversation every degree of mutual abiding and conversing being a relation and an endearment we are of the same houshold with God he is with us in our natural actions to preserve us in our recreations to restrain us in our publick actions to applaud or reprove us in our private to observe us in our sleeps to watch by us in our watchings to refresh us and if we walk with God in all his wayes as he walks with us in all ours we shall finde perpetual reasons to enable us to keep that rule of God Rejoyce in the Lord alwayes and again I say rejoyce And this puts me in minde of a saying of an old religious person There is one way of overcoming our ghostly enemies spiritual mirth and a perpetual bearing of God in our mindes This effectively refists the Devil and suffers us to receive no hurt from him 4. This exercise is apt also to enkindle holy desires of the enjoyment of God because it produces joy when we do enjoy him The same desires that a weak man hath for a Defender the sick man for a Physitian the poor for a Patron the childe for his Father the espoused Lover for her betrothed 5. From the same fountain are apt to issue humility of spirit apprehensions of our great distance and our great needs our daily wants and hourly supplies admiration of Gods unspeakable mercies It is the cause of great modesty and decency in our actions it helps to recollection of minde and restrains the scatterings and loosnesse of wandring thoughts it establishes the heart in good purposes and leadeth on to perseverance it gains purity and perfection according to the saying of God to Abraham Walk before me and be perfect holy fear and holy love and indeed every thing that pertains to holy living when we see our selves placed in the Eye of God who sets us on work and will reward us plenteously to serve him with an Eye-service is very pleasing for he also sees the heart and the want of this consideration was declared to be the cause why Israel sinned so grievously For they say the Lord hath forsaken the earth and the Lord
seeth not therefore the land is full of blood and the city full of perversenesse What a childe would do in the eye of his Father and a Pupil before his Tutor and a Wife in the presence of her Husband and a servant in the sight of his Master let us alwayes do the same for we are made a spectacle to God to Angels and to men we are alwayes in the sight and presence of the Allseeing and Almighty God who also is to us a Father and a Guardian a Husband and a Lord. Prayers and Devotions according to the religion and purposes of the foregoing Considerations I. For grace to spend our time well O Eternal God who from all eternity doest behold and love thy own glories and perfections infinite and hast created me to do the work of God after the manner of men and to serve thee in this generation and according to my capacities give me thy grace that I may be a curious and prudent spender of my time so as I may best prevent or resist all temptations and be profitable to the Christian Common-wealth and by discharging all my duty may glorifie thy Name Take from me all slothfulnesse and give me a diligent and an active spirit and wisdom to choose my imployment that I may do works proportionable to my person and to the dignity of a Christian and may fill up all the spaces of my time with actions of religion and charity that when the Devil assaults me he may not finde me idle and my dearest Lord at his sudden coming may finde me busie in lawful necessary and pious actions improving my talent intrusted to me by thee my Lord that I may enter into the joy of my Lord to partake of his eternal felicities even for thy mercie sake and for my dearest Saviours sake Amen Here follows the devotion of ordinary dayes for the right imployment of those portions of â—ime which every day must allow for religion The first prayers in the Morning as soon as we are dressed Humbly and reverently compose your self with heart lift up to God and your head bowed and meekly kneeling upon your knees say the Lords Prayer after which use the following Collects or as many of them as you shall choose Our Father which art in Heaven c. I. An act of adoration being the song that the Angels sing in Heaven HOly Holy Holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come Heaven and Earth Angels and Men the Aire and the Sea give glory and honour and thanks to him that sitteth on the throne who liveth for ever and ever All the blessed spirits and souls of the righteous cast their crowns before the throne and worship him that liveth for ever and ever Thou art worthy O Lord to receive glory and honour and power for thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were created Great and marvellous are thy works O Lord God Almighty Just and true are thy wayes thou King of Saints Thy wisdom is infinite thy mercies are glorious and I am not worthy O Lord to appear in thy presence before whom the Angels hide their faces O Holy and Eternal Jesus Lamb of God who wert slain from the beginning of the world thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every nation and hast made us unto our God Kings and Priests and we shall reigne with thee for ever Blessing honour glory and power be unto him that sitteth on the throne and to the Lamb for ever and ever Amen II. An act of thanksgiving being the song of David for the Morning SIng praises unto the Lord O ye saints of his and give thanks to him for a remembrance of his holinesse For his wrath indureth but the twinkling of an eye and in his pleasure is life heavinesse may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning Thou Lord hast preserved me this night from the violence of the spirits of darknesse from all sad casualtyes and evil accidents from the wrath which I have every day deserved thou hast brought my soul out of hell thou hast kept my life from them that go down into the pit thou hast shewed me marvellous great kindesse and hast blessed me for ever the greatnesse of thy glory reacheth unto the heavens and thy truth unto the clouds Therefore shall every good man sing of thy praise without ceasing O my God I will give thanks unto thee for ever Allelujah III. An act of oblation or presenting our selves to God for the day MOst Holy and Eternal God Lord and Soveraigne of all the creatures I humbly present to thy divine Majesty my self my soul and body my thoughts and my words my actions and intentions my passions and my sufferings to be disposed by thee to thy glory to be blessed by thy providence to be guided by thy counsel to be sanctified by thy spirit and afterwards that my body and soul may be received into glory for nothing can perish which is under thy custody and the enemy of souls cannot devour what is thy portion nor take it out of thy hands This day O Lord and all the dayes of my life I dedicate to thy honour and the actions of my calling to the uses of grace and the religion of all my dayes to be united to the merits and intercession of my holy Saviour Jesus that in him and for him I may be pardoned and accepted Amen IV. An act of repentance or contrition FOr as for me I am not worthy to be called thy servant much lesse am I worthy to be thy son for I am the vilest of sinners and the worst of men a lover of the things of the world and a despiser of the things of God proud and envious lustful and intemperate greedy of sin and impatient of reproof desirous to seem holy and negligent of being so transported with interest fool'd with presumption and false principles disturb'd with anger with a peevish and unmortified spirit and disordered by a whole body of sin and death Lord pardon all my sins for my sweetest Saviours sake thou who didst dye for me Holy Jesus save me and deliver me reserve not my sins to be punished in the day of wrath and eternal vengeance but wash away my sins and blot them out of thy remembrance and purifie my soul with the waters of repentance and the bloud of the crosse that for what is past thy wrath may not come out against me and for the time to come I may never provoke thee to anger or to jealousie O just and dear God be pitiful and gracious to thy servant Amen V. The prayer or petition BLesse me gracious God in my calling to such purposes as thou shalt choose for me or imploy me in Relieve me in all my sadnesses make my bed in my ficknesse give me patience in my sorrows confidence in thee and grace to call upon thee in all temptations O be thou my
glory and power be unto him that sitteth on the throne and to the Lamb for ever and ever Amen Holy is our God * Holy is the Almighty Holy is the Immortal Holy holy holy Lord God of Sabaoth have mercy upon me Ejaculations and short meditations to be used in the Night when we wake Stand in awe and sin not commune with your own heart upon your bed and be still I will lay me down in peace and sleep for thou Lord onely makest me dwell in safety O Father of Spirits and the God of all flesh have mercy and pity upon all sick and dying Christians and receive the souls which thou hast redeemed returning unto thee Blessed are they that dwell in the heavenly Jerusalem where there is no need of the Sun neither of the Moon to shine in it for the glorie of God does lighten it and the Lamb is the light thereof And there shal be no night there they need no candle for the Lord God giveth them light and they shall reign for ever and ever Revel 21.23 Meditate on Iacobs wrastling with the Angel all night be thou also importunate with God for a blessing and give not over till he hath blessed thee Meditate on the Angel passing over the children of Israel and destroying the Egyptians for disobedience and oppression Pray for the grace of obedience and charity and for the divine protection Meditate on the Angel who destroyed in a night the whole army of the Assyrians for fornication Call to minde the sins of thy youth the sins of thy bed and say with David My reins chasten me in the night season and my soul refuseth comfort Pray for pardon and the grace of chastity Meditate on the agonies of Christ in the garden his sadnesse and affliction all that night and thank and adore him for his love that made him suffer so much for thee and hate thy sins which made it necessary for the Son of God to suffer so much Meditate on the four last things 1. The certainty of death 2. The terrours of the day of judgement 3. The joyes of Heaven 4. The pains of Hell and the eternity of both Think upon all thy friends which are gone before thee and pray that God would grant to thee to meet them in a joyful resurrection The day of the Lord will come as a thiefe in the night in the which the heavens shall passe away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godlinesse looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God 2 Pet. 3.10.11 Lord in mercy remember thy servant in the day of Judgement Thou shalt answer for me O Lord my God In thee O Lord have I trusted let me never be confounded Amen I desire the Christian Reader to observe that all these offices or forms of prayer if they should be used every day would not spend above an hour and a halfe but because soâ—e of them are double and so but one of them to be used in one day it is much lesse and by affording to God one hour in 24. thou mayest have the comforts and rewards of devotion But he that thinks this is too much either is very busie in the world or very carelesse of heaven However I have parted the prayers into smaller portions that he may use which and how many he please in any one of the forms Ad Sect. 2. A prayer for holy Intention in the beginning and pursuit of any considerable action as Study Preaching c. O Eternal God who hast made all things for man and man for thy glory sanctifie my body and soul my thoughts and my intentions my words and actions that whatsoever I shall think or speak or do may he by me designed to the glorification of thy Name and by thy blessing it may be effective and successeful in the work of God according as it can be capable Lord turn my necessities into vertue the works of nature into the works of grace by making them orderly regular temperate subordinate and profitable to ends beyond their own proper efficacy And let no pride or self-seeking no covetousnesse or revenge no impure mixture or unhandsome purposes no little ends and low imaginations pollute my Spirit and unhallow any of my words and actions but let my body be a servant of my spirit and both body and spirit servants of Jesus that doing all things for thy glory here I may be partaker of thy glory hereafter thorough Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Ad Sect. 3. A prayer meditating and referring to the divine presence This prayer is especially to be used in temptation to private sins O Almighty God infinite and eternal thou fillest all things with thy presence thou art every where by thy essence and by thy power in heaven by Glory in holy places by thy grace and favour in the hearts of thy servants by thy Spirit in the consciences of all men by thy testimony and observation of us Teach me to walk alwayes as in thy presence to fear thy Majesty to reverence thy wisdom and omniscience that I may never dare to commit any undecency in the eye of my Lord and my Judge but that I may with so much care and reverence demean my self that my Judge may not be my accuser but my Advocate that I expressing the belief of thy presence here by careful walking may feel the effects of it in the participation of eternal glory thorough Jesus Christ. Amen CHAP. II. Of Christian Sobriety Sect. I. Of sobriety in the general sense CHristian Religion in all its moral parts is nothing else but the Law of Nature and great Reason complying with the great necessities of all the world and promoting the great profit of all relations and carrying us through all accidents of variety of chances to that end which God hath from eternal ages purposed for all that live according to it and which he hath revealed in Jesus Christ and according to the Apostles Aâ—ithmetik hath but these three parts of it 1. Sobriety 2. Justice 3. Religion For the grace of God bringing salvation hath appeared to all men teaching us that denying ungodlinesse and worldly lusts we should live 1. Soberly 2. Righteously and 3. Godly in this present world looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearing of the greaâ— God and our Saviour Iesus Christ. The first contains all our deportment in our personal and private capacities the fâ—ir treating of our bodies and our spirits The second eâ—larges our duty in all relations to our Neighbour The third contains the offices of direct Religion and entercourse with God Christian sobriety is all that duty that concerns our selves in the matter of meat and drink and pleasures and thoughts and it hath within it
I most humbly bâ—seech thee to give me wisdom from above that I may adore thee and admire thy wayes and footsteps which are in the great Deep and not to be searched out teach me to submit to thy providence in all things to be content in all changes of person and condition to be temperate in prosperity and to reade my duty in the lines of thy mercy and in adversity to be meek patient and resign'd and to look through the cloud that I may wait for the consolation of the Lord and the day of redemption in the mean time doing my duty with an unwearied diligence and an undisturbed resolution having no fondnesse for the vanities or possessions of this World but laying up my hopes in Heaven and the rewards of holy living and being strengthned with the Spirit in the inner man through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen CHAP. III. Of Christian Iustice. IUstice is by the Christian Religion enjoyn'd in all its parts by these two propositions in Scripture Whatsoever yee would that men should do to you even so do to them This is the measure of communicative justice or of that justice which supposes exchange of things profitable for things profitable that as I supply your need you may supply mine as I do a benefit to you I may receive one by you and because every man may be injur'd by another therefore his security shall depend upon mine if he will not let me be safe he shall not be safe himself onely the manner of his being punish'd is upon great reason both by God and all the World taken from particulars and committed to a publick dis-interested person who will do justice without passion both to him and to me If he refuses to do me advantage he shall receive none when his needs require it And thus God gave necessities to men that all men might need and several abilities to severall persons that each Man might help to supply the publick needs and by joyning to fill up all wants they may be knit together by justice as the parts of the world are by nature and he hath made us all obnoxicus to injuries and made every little thing sâ—râ—ng enough to do us hurt by some instrument or other and hath given us all a sufficient stock of self love and desire of self preservation to be as the chain to tye together all the pars of society and to restrain us from doing violence lest we be violently dealt withall our selves The other part of justice is commonly called distributive and is commanded in this rule Render to all their dues tribute to whom tribute is due custome to whom custome fear to whom fear honour to whom honour Owe no man any thing but to love one another This justice is distinguished froÌ„ the first because the obligation depends not upon contract or express bargain but passes upon us by vertue of some command of God or of our Superiour by nature or by grace by piety or religion by trust or by office according to that Commandment As every man hath received the gift so let him minister the same one to another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God And as the first considers an equality of persons in respect of the contract or particular necessity this supposes a difference of persons and no particular bargains but such necessary entercourses as by the Laws of God or man are introduced But I shall reduce all the particulars of both kindes to these four heads 1. Obedience 2. Provision 3. Negotiation 4. Restitution Sect. I. Of Obedience to our Superiours OUr Superiours are set over us in affairs of the World or the affairs of the Soul and things pertaining to Religion and are called accordingly Ecclesiastical or Civil Towards whom our duty is thus generally described in the new Testament For Temporall or Civill Governours the Commands are these Render to Caesar the things that are Caesars and Let every soul be subject to the higher powers For there is no power but of God The powers that be are ordained of God whosoever therefore resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation and Put them in minde to be subject to principâ—lities and powers and to obey Magistrates and Submit your selves to every ordinance of man for the Lords sake whether it be to the King as supreme or unto Governours as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil doers and the praise of them that do well For Spiritual or Ecclesiastical governours thus we are commanded Obey them that have the rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls as they that must give an account and Hold such in reputation and to this end did I write that I might know the proof of you whether ye be obedient in all things said S. Paul to the Church of Corinth Our duty is reducible to practise by the following rules Acts and duties of Obedience to all our Superiours 1. We must obey all humane laws appointed and constituted by lawful Authority that iâ— of the supreme power according to the constitution of the place in which we live all laws I mean which are not against the law of God 2. In obedience to humane laws we must observe the letter of the Law where we can without doing violence to the reason of the Law and the intention of the Law-giver but where they crosse each other the charity of the Law is to be preferred before its discipline and the reason of it before the letter 3. If the general reason of the Law ceases in our particular and a contrary reason rises upon us we are to procure dispensation or leave to omit the observation of it in such circumstances if there be any persons or office appointed for granting it but if there be none or if it is not easily to be had or not without an inconvenience greater then the good of the observation of the Law in our particular we are dispensed withall in the nature of the thing without further processe or trouble 4. As long as the Law is obligatory so long our obedience is due and he that begins a contrary câ—stom without reason sins but he that breaks the law when the custom is entred and fixed is excused because it is supposed the legislative power consents when by not punishing it suffers disobedience to grow up to a custome 5. Obedience to humane laws must be for conscience sake that is because in such obedience publick order and charity and benefit is concerned and because the Law of God commands us therefore we must make a conscience in keeping the just Laws of Superiors and although the matter before the making of the Law was indifferent yet now the obedience is not indifferent but next to the Laws of God we are to obey the Laws of all our Superiours who the more publick they are
the publick wisdom and necessity shall impose upon me at no hand murmuring against government lest the Spirit of pride and mutiny of murmur and disorder enter into me and consigne me to the portion of the disobedient and rebellious of the Despisers of dominion and revilers of dignity Grant this O holy God for his sake who for his obedience to the Father hath obtained the glorification of eternal ages our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen Prayers for Kings and all Magistrates for our Parents spiritual and natural are in the following Letanies at the end of the fourth Chapter A Prayer to be said by Subjects when their Land is invaded and over-run by barbarous or wicked people enemies of the Religion or the Government I. O Eternal God thou alone rulest in the Kingdoms of men thou art the great God of battels and recompences and by thy glorious wisdom by thy Almighty power by thy secret providence doest determine the events of war and the issues of humane counsels and the returns of peace and victory now at least be pleased to let the light of thy countenance and the effects of a glorious mercy a gracious pardon return to this Land Thou seest how great evils we suffer under the power tyranny of war although we submit to adore thy justice in our sufferings yet be pleased to pity our misery to hear our complaints and to provide us of remedy against our present calamities let not the defenders of a righteous cause go away ashamed nor our counsels be for ever confounded nor our parties defeated nor religion suppressed nor learning discountenanced and we be spoiled of all the exteriour ornaments instruments and advantages of piety which thou hast been pleased formerly to minister to our infirmities for the interests of learning and religion Amen II. WE confesse dear God that we have deserved to be totally extinct and separate from the Communion of Saints and the comforts of Religion to be made servants to ignorant unjust and inferiour persons or to suffer any other calamitie which thou shalt allot us as the instrument of thy anger whom we have so often provoked to wrath and jealousie Lord we humbly lye down under the burden of thy rod begging of thee to remember our infirmities and no more to remember our sins to support us with thy staff to lift us up with thy hand to refresh us with thy gracious eye and if a sad cloud of temporal infelicities must still encircle us open unto us the window of Heaven that with an eye of faith and hope we may see beyond the cloud looking upon those mercies which in thy secret providence and admirable wisdom thou designest to all thy servants from such unlikely and sad beginnings Teach us diligently to do all our duty and cheerfully to submit to all thy will and at last be gracious to thy people that call upon thee that put their trust in thee that have laid up all their hopes in the bosome of God that besides thee have no helper Amen A Prayer to be said by Parents for their Children O Almighty and most merciful Father who hast promised children as a reward to the Righteous and hast given them to me as a testimony of thy mercy and an engagement of my duty be pleased to be a Father unto them and give them healthful bodies understanding souls and sanctified spirits that they may be thy servants and thy children all their dayes Let a great mercy and providence lead them through the dangers and temptations and ignorances of their youth that they may never run into folly and the evils of an unbridled appetite So order the accidents of their lives that by good education careful Tutors holy example innocent company prudent counsel and thy restraining grace their duty to thee may be secured in the midst of a crooked and untoward generation and if it seem good in thy eyes let me be enabled to provide conveniently for the support of their persons that they may not be destitute and miserable in my death or if thou shalt call me off from this World by a more timely summons let their portion be thy care mercy and providence over their bodies and souls and may they never live vitious lives nor dye violent or untimely deaths but let them glorifie thee here with a free obedience and the duties of a whole life that when they have served thee in their generations and have profited the Christian Common-wealth they may be coheirs with Jesus in the glories of thy eternal Kingdom through the same our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen A Prayer to be said by Masters of Families Curats Tutors or other obliged persons for their charges O Almighty God merciful and gracious have mercy upon my Family or Pupils or Parishioners c. and all committed to my charge sanctifie them with thy grace preserve them with thy providence guard them from all evil by the custody of Angels direct them in the wayes of peace and holy Religion by my Ministery and the conduct of thy most holy Spirit and consigne them all with the participation of thy blessings and graces in this World with healthful bodies with good understandings and sanctified spirits to a full fruition of thy glories hereafter through Jesus Christ our Lord. A Prayer to be said by Merchants Tradesmen and Handicrafts men O Eternal God thou Fountain of justice mercy and benediction who by my education and other effects of thy providence hast called me to this profession that by my industry I may in my small proportion work together for the good of my self and others I humbly beg thy grace to guide me in my intention and in the transaction of my affairs that I may be diligent just and faithful and give me thy favour that this my labour may be accepted by thee as a part of my necessary duty and give me thy blessing to assist and prosper me in my Calling to such measures as thou shalt in mercy choose for me and be pleased to let thy holy Spirit be for ever present with me that I may never be given to covetousnesse and sordid appetites to lying and falsehood or any other base indirect and beggerly arts but give me prudence honesty and Christian sincerity that my trade may be sanctified by my Religion my labour by my intention and thy blessing that when I have done my portion of work thou hast allotted me and improv'd the talent thou hast intrusted to me and serv'd the Common-wealth in my capacity I may receive the mighty price of my high calling which I expect and beg in the portion and inheritance of the ever blessed Saviour and Redeemer Jesus Amen A Prayer to be said by Debtors and all persons obliged whether by crime or contract O Almighty God who art rich unto all the treasure and Fountain of all good of all justice and all mercy and all bounty to whom we owe all that we are and all
beam of comfort Possibly the Man may erre in his judgement of circumstances and therefore let him fear but because it is not certain he is mistaken let him not despair 7. Consider that God who knows all the events of Men and what their final condition shall be who shall be saved and who will perish yet he treateth them as his own calls them to be his own offers fair conditions as to his own gives them blessings arguments of mercy and instances of fear to call them off from death and to call them home to life and in all this shews no despair of happinesse to them and therefore much lesse should any Man despair for himself since he never was able to reade the Scrols of the eternal predestination 8. Remember that despair belongs onely to passionate Fools or Villains such as were Achitophel and Iudas or else to Devils and damned persons and as the hope of salvation is a good disposition towards it so is despair a certain consignation to eternal ruine A Man may be damned for despairing to be saved Despair is the proper passion of damnation God hath placed truth and felicity in Heaven Curiosity and repentance upon Earth but misery and despair are the portions of Hell 9. Gather together into your spirit and its â—reasure-house the Memory not onely all the promises of GOD but also the remembrances of experience and the former senses of the Divine favours that from thence you may argue from times past to the present and enlarge to the future and to greater blessings For although the conjectures and expectations of Hope are not like the conclusions of Faith yet they are a Helmet against the scorchings of Despair in temporal things and an anchor of the soul sure and stedfast against the fluctuations of the Spirit in matters of the soul. Saint Bernard reckons divers principles of Hope by enumerating the instances of the Divine Mercy and wee may by them reduce this rule to practise in the following manner 1. GOD hath preserved mee from many sinnes his mercies are infinite I hope he will still preserve me from more and for ever * 2. I have sinned and GOD smote me not his mercies are still over the penitent I hope he will deliver me from all the evils I have deserved He hath forgiven me many sins of malice and therefore surely he will pity my infirmities * 3. God visited my heart and chang'd it he loves the work of his own hands and so my heart is now become I hope he will love this too * 4. When I repented he receiv'd me graciously and therefore I hope if I do my endeavour he will totally forgive me 5. He help'd my slow and beginning endeavours and therefore I hope he will lead me to perfection * 6. When he had given me something first then he gave me more I hope therefore he will keep me from falling and give me the grace of perseverance * 7. He hath chosen me to be a Disciple of Christs institution he hath elected me to his Kingdom of grace and therefore I hope also to the Kingdom of his glory * 8. He died for me when I was his enemy and therefore I hope he will save me when he hath reconcil'd me to him is become my friend * 9. God hath given us his Son how should not he with him give us all things else All these S. Bernard reduces to these three Heads as the instruments of all our hopes 1. The charity of God adopting us 2. The truth of his promises 3. The power of his performance which if any truly weighs no infirmity or accident can break his hopes into undiscernable fragments but some good planks will remain after the greatest storm and shipwrack This was S. Pauls instrument Experience begets hope and hope maketh not ashamed 10. Do thou take care onely of thy duty of the means and proper instruments of thy purpose and leave the end to God lay that up with him and he will take care of all that is intrusted to him and this being an act of confidence in God is also a means of security to thee 11. By special arts of spiritual prudence and arguments secure the confident belief of the Resurrection and thou canst not but hope for every thing else which you may reasonably expect or lawfully desire upon the stock of the Divine mercies and promises 12. If a despair seizes you in a particular temporal instance let it not defile thy spirit with impure mixture or mingle in spiritual considerations but rather let it make thee fortifie thy soul in matters of Religion that by being thrown out of your Earthly dwelling and confidence you may retire into the strengths of grace and hope the more strongly in that by how much you are the more defeated in this that despair of a fortune or a successe may become the necessity of all vertue Sect. 3. Of Charity or the love of God LOve is the greatest thing that God can give us for himself is love and it is the greatest thing we can give to God for it will also give our selves and carry with it all that is ours The Apostle cals it the band of perfection it is the Old and it is the New and it is the great Commandement and it is all the Commandements for it is the fulfilling of the Law It does the work of all other graces without any instrument but its own immediate vertue For as the love to sinne makes a Man sinne against all his own reason and all the discourses of wisdom and all the advices of his friends and without temptation and without opportunity so does the love of God it makes a man chast without the laborious arts of fasting and exteriour disciplines temperate in the midst of feasts and is active enough to choose it without any intermedial appetites and reaches at Glory thorough the very heart of Grace without any other arms but those of Love It is a grace that loves God for himself and our Neighbours for God The consideration of Gods goodnesse and bounty the experience of those profitable and excellent emanations from him may be and most commonly are the first motive of our love but when we are once entred and have tasted the goodnesse of God we love the spring for its own excellency passing from passion to reason from thanking to adoring from sence to spirit from considering our selves to an union with God and this is the image and little representation of Heaven it is beatitude in picture or rather the infancy and beginnings of glory We need no incentives by way of special enumeration to move us to the love of God for we cannot love any thing for any reason real or imaginary but that excellency is infinitely more eminent in God There can but two things create love Perfection and Vsefulnesse to which answer on our part first admiration and 2. Desire and both these are centred in love For the
is declared In the fourth Commandement hee proclaims himself the Maker of Heaven and Earth for in memory of Gods rest from the work of six dayes the seventh was hallowed into a Sabbath and the keeping it was a confessing GOD to bee the great Maker of Heaven and Earth and consequently to this it also was a confession of his goodnesse his Omnipotence and his Wisdom all which were written with a Sun beam in the great book of the Creature So long as the Law of the Sabbath was bound upon Gods people so long GOD would have that to be the folemn manner of confessing these attributes but when the Priesthood being changed there was a change also of the Law the great duty remain'd unalterable in changed circumstances We are eternally bound to confesse God Almighty to be the Maker of Heaven and Earth but the manner of confessing it is chang'd from a rest or a doing nothing to a speaking something from a day to a symbol from a ceremony to a substance from a Jewish rite to a Christian duty we professe it in our Creed we confesse it in our lives we describe it by every line of our life by every action of duty by faith and trust and obedience and we do also upon great reason comply with the Jewish manner of confessing the Creation so far as it is instrumental to a real duty We keepe one day in seven and so confesse the manner and circumstance of the Creation and we rest also that we may tend holy duties so imitating Gods rest better then the Jew in Synesius who lay upon his face from evening to evening and could not by stripes or wounds be raised up to steer the ship in a great storm Gods rest was not a natural cessation hee who could not labour could not be said to rest but Gods rest is to be understood to be a beholding and a rejoycing in his work finished and therefore we truly represent Gods rest when we confesse and rejoyce in Gods works and Gods glory This the Christian Church does upon every day but especially upon the Lords day which she hath set apart for this and all other Ofâ—ices of Religion being determined to this day by the Resurrection of her dearest Lord it being the first day of joy the Church ever had And now upon the Lords day we are not tyed to the rest of the Sabbath but to all the work of the Sabbath and we are to abstain from bodily labour not because it is a direct duty to us as it was to the Jews but because it is necessary in order to our duty that we attend to the Offices of Religion The observation of the Lords day differs nothing from the observation of the Sabbath in â—he matter of Religion but in the manner They differ in the ceremony and external rite Rest with them was the principal with us it is the accessory They differ in the office or forms of worship For they were then to worship God as a Creator and a gentle Father we are to adde to that Our Redeemer and all his other excellencies and mercies and though we have more natural and proper reason to keep the Lords day then the Sabbath yet the Jews had a Divine Commandement for their day which we have not for ours but we have many Commandements to do all that honour to GOD which was intended in the fourth Commandement and the Apostles appointed the first day of the week for doing it in solemne Assemblies and the manner of worshipping God and doing him solemn honour and service upon this day we may best observe in the following measures Rules for keeping the Lords day and other Christian Festivals 1. When you go about to distinguish Festival dayes from common do it not by lessening the devotions of ordinary dayes that the common devotion may seem bigger upon Festivals but on every day keep your ordinary devotions intire and enlarge upon the Holy day 2. Upon the Lords day wee must abstaine from all servile and laborious workes except such which are matters of necessity of common life or of great charity for these are permitted by that authority which hath separated the day for holy uses The Sabbath of the Jewes though consisting principally in rest and established by God did yeeld to these The labour of Love and the labours of Religion were not against the reason and the spirit of the Commandement for which the Letter was decreed and to which it ought to minister And therefore much more is it so on the Lords day where the Letter is wholly turned into Spirit and there is no Commandement of God but of spiritual and holy actions The Priests might kill their beasts and dresse them for sacrifice and Christ though born under the law might heal a sick man and the sick man might carry hâ—s bed to witnesse his recovery and confesse the mercy and leap and dance to God for joy and an Ox might be led to water and an Asse be haled ouâ— of a ditch and a man may take physick and he may eat meat and therefore there were of necessity some to prepare and minister it and the performing these labours did not consist in minutes and just determined stages but they had even then a reasonable latitude so onely as to exclude unnecessary labour or such as did not minister to charity or religion And therefore this is to be enlarged in the Gospel whose Sabbath or rest is but a circumstance and accessory to the principal and spiritual duties Upon the Christian Sabbath necessity is to be served first then charity and then religion for this is to give place to charity in great instances and the second to the first in all and in all cases God is to be worshipped in spirit and in truth 3. The Lords day being the remembrance of a great blessing must be a day of joy festivity spiritual rejoycing and thanksgiving and therefore it is a proper work of the day to let your devotions spend themselves in singing or reading Psalms in recounting the great works of God in remembring his mercies in worshipping his excellencies in celebrating his attributes in admiring his person in sending portions of pleasant meat to them for whom nothing is provided in all the arts and instruments of advancing Gods glory the reputation of religion in which it were a great decency that a memorial of the resurrection should be inserted that the particular religion of the day be not swallowed up in the general And of this we may the more easily serve our selves by rising seasonably in the morning to private devotion and by retiring at the leisures and spaces of the day not imployed in publick offices 4. Fail not to be present at the publick hours and places of prayer entring early and cheerfully attending reverently and devoutly abiding patiently during the whole office piously assisting at the prayers and gladly also hearing the Sermon and at no hand omitting to
receive the Holy Communion when it is offered unlesse some great reason excuse it this being the great solemnity of thanksgiving and a proper work of the day 5. After the solemnities are past and in the intervalls between the morning and evening devotion as you shall finde op portunity visit sick persons reconcile differences do offices of Neighbourhood inquire into the needs of the poor especially house-keepers relieve them as they shall need and as you are able for then we truely rejoyce in God when we make our neighbours the poor members of Christ rejoyce together with us 6. Whatsoever you are to do your self as necessary you are to take care that others also who are under your charge do in their station manner Let your servants be called to Church and all your family that can be spared from necessary great houshold ministeries those that cannot let them go by turns and be supplyed otherwise as well as they may and provide on these dayes especially that they be instructed in the articles of faith and necessary parts of their duty 7. Those who labour hard in the week must be eased upon the Lords day such ease being a great charity and alms but at no hand must they be permitted to use any unlawful games any thing forbidden by the laws any thing that is scandalous or any thing that is dangerous and apt to mingle sin with it no games prompting to wantonnesse to drunkennesse to quarrelling to ridiculous and superstitious customs but let their refreshments be innocent and charitable and of good report and not exclusive of the duties of religion 8. Beyond these bounds because neither God nor man hath passed any obligation upon us we must preserve our Christian liberty and not suffer our selves to be intangled with a yoke of bondage for even a good action may become a snare to us if we make it an occasion of scruple by a pretence of necessity binding loads upon the conscience not with the bands of God but â—f men and of fancy or of opinion or of tyranny Whatsoever is laid upon us by the hands of man must be acted and accounted of by the measures of a man but our best measure is this He keeps the Lords day best that keeps it with most religion and with most charity 9. What the Church hath done in the article of the resurrection she hath in some measure done in the other articles of the Nativity of the Ascension and of the Descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost And so great blessings deserve an anniversary solemnity since he is a very unthankful person that does not often record them in the whole year and esteem them the ground of his hopes the object of his faith the comfort of his troubles and the great effluxes of the divine mercy greater then all the victories over our temporal enemies for which all glad persons usually give thanks And if with great reason the memory of the resurrection does return solemnly every week it is but reason the other should return once a year * To which I adde that the commemoration of the articles of our Creed in solemn dayes and offices is a very excellent instrument to convey and imprint the sense and memory of it upon the spirits of the most ignorant person For as a picture may with more fancy convey a story to a man then a plain narrative either in word or writing so a real representment and an office of remembrance and a day to declare it is fâ—r more impressive then a picture or any other art of making and fixing imagery 10. The memories of the Saints are precioâ—s to God and therefore they ought also to be so to us and such persons who served God by holy living industrious preaching and religious dying ought to have their names preserved in honour and God be glorified in them and their holy doctrines and lives published and imitated and we by so doing give testimony to the article of the communion of Saints But in these cases as every Church is to be sparing in the number of dayes so also should she be temperate in her injunctions not imposing them but upon voluntary and unbusied persons without snare or burden But the Holy day is best kept by giving God thanks for the excellent persons Apostles or Martyrs we then remember and by imitating their lives this all may do and they that can also keep the solemnity must do that too when it is publickly enjoyned The mixt actions of religion are 1. Prayer 2. Alms. 3. Repentance 4. Receiving the blessed Sacrament Sect. 7. Of Prayer THere is no greater argument in the world of our spiriâ—ual danger and unwillingness to religion then the backwardnesse which most men have alwayes and all men have sometimes to say their prayers so weary of their length so glad when they are done so witty to excuse and frustrate an opportunity and yet all is nothing but a desiring of God to give us the greatest and the best things we can need and which can make us happy it is a work so easy so honourable and to so great purpose that in all the instances of religion and providence except onely the incarnation of his Son God hath not given us a greater argument of his willingnesse to have us saved and of our unwillingnesse to accept it his goodnesse and our gracelessenesse his infinite condescension and our carelessenesse and folly then by rewarding so easy a duty with so great blessings Motives to prayer I cannot say any thing beyond this very consideration its appendages to invite Christian people to pray often But we may consider That first it is a duty commanded by God and his holy Son 2. It is an act of grace and highest honour that we dust and ashes are admitted to speak to the Eternal God to run to him as to a Father to lay open our wants to complain of our burdens to explicate our scruples to beg remedy and ease support and counsel health and safety deliverance and salvation and 3. God hath invited us to it by many gracious promises of hearing us 4. He hath appointed his most glorious Son to be the president of prayer and to make continual intercession for us to the throne of grace 5. He hath appointed an Angel to present the prayers of his servants and 6. Christ unites them to his own and sanctifies them and makes them effective and prevalent and 7. Hath put it into the hands of men to rescind or alter all the decrees of God which are of one kinde that is conditional and concerning our selves and our final estate and many instances of our intermedial or temporal by the power of prayers 8. And the prayers of men have saved cities and kingdoms from ruine prayer hath raised dead men to life hath stopped the violence of fire shut the mouths of wilde beasts hath altered the course of nature caused rain in Egypt and drowth in the sea
it made the Sun to go from West to East and the Moon to stand still and rocks and mountains to walk and it cures diâ—eases without physick and makes physick to do the work of nature and nature to do the work of grace and grace to do the work of God and it does miracles of accident and event and yet prayer that does all this is of it self nothing but an ascent of the minde to God a desiring things fit to be desired and an expression of this desire to God as we can and as becomes us And our unwillingnesse to pray is nothing else but a not desiring what we ought passionately to long for or if we do desire it it is a choosing rather to misse our satisfaction and felicity then to ask for it There is no more to be said in this affair but that we reduce it to practise according to the following Rules Rules for the practise of Prayer 1. We must be careful that we never ask any thing of God that is sinful or that directly ministers to sin for that is to ask of God to dishonour himself and to undoe us we had need consider what we pray for before it returns in blessing it must be joyn'd with Christs intercession and presented to God Let us principally ask of God power and assistances to do our duty to glorifie God to do good works to live a good life to dye in the fear and favour of God and eternal life these things God delights to give and commands that we shall ask and we may with confidence expect to be answered graciously for these things are promised without any reservation of a secret condition if we ask them and do our duty towards the obtaining them we are sure never to misse them 2. We may lawfully pray to God for the gifts of the Spirit that minister to holy ends such as are the gift of preaching the spirit of prayer good expression a ready and unloosed tongue good understanding learning opportunities to publish them c. with these onely restraints 1. That we cannot be so confident of the event of those prayers as of the former 2. That we must be curious to secure our intention in these desires that we may not ask them to serve our own ends but only for Gods glory and then we shall have them or a blessing for desiring them In order to such purposes our intentions in the first desires cannot be amisse because they are able to sanctifie other things and therefore cannot be unhallowed themselves 3. We must submit to Gods will desiring him to choose our imployment and to furnish out our persons as he shall see expedient 3. Whatsoever we may lawfully desire of temporall things wee may lawfully ask of God in prayer and we may expect them as they are promised 1. Whatsoever is necessary to our life and being is promised to us and therefore we may with certainty expect food and raiment food to keep us alive clothing to keepe us from nakednesse and shame so long as our life is permitted to us so long all things necessary to our life shall be ministred we may be secure of maintenance but not secure of our life for that is promised not this onely concerning food and raiment we are not to make accounts by the measure of our desires but by the measure of our needs 2. Whatsoever is convenient for us pleasant and modestly delectable we may pray for so we do it 1. with submission to Gods will 2. Without impatient desires 3. That it be not a trifle and inconsiderable but a matter so grave and concerning as to be a fit matter to be treated on between God and our souls 4. That we ask it not to spend upon our lusts but for ends of justice or charity or religion and that they be imployed with sobriety 4. He that would pray with effect must live with care and piety For although God gives to sinners and evil persons the common blessings of life and chance yet either they want the comfort and blessing of those blessings or they become occasions of sadder accidents to them or serve to upbraid them in their ingratitude or irreligion and in all cases they are not the effects of prayer or the fruits of promise or instances of a fathers love for they cannot be expected with confidence or received without danger or used without a curse and mischief in their company * But as all sin is an impediment to prayer so some have a special indisposition towards acceptation such are uncharitablenesse and wrath Hypocrisie in the present action Pride and Lust because these by defiling the body or the spirit or by contradicting some necessary ingredient in prayer such as are Mercy Humility Purity and Sincerity do defile the prayer and make it a direct sin in the circumstances or formality of the action 5. All prayer must be made with Faith and Hope that is we must certainly believe wee shall receive the grace which GOD hath commanded us to ask and wee must hope for such things which hee hath permitted us to ask and our Hâ—pe shall not bee vain though wee misse what is not absolutely promised because we shall at least have an equal blessing in the denial as in the grant And therefore the former conditions must first be secured that is that we ask things necessary or at least good and innocent and profitable and that our persons be gracious in the eyes of God or else what God hath promised to our natural needs he may in many degrees deny to our personal incapacity but the thing being secur'd and the person dispos'd there can be no fault at all for whatsoever else remains is on Gods part and that cannot possibly fail But because the things which are not commanded cannot possibly be secur'd for we are not sure they are good in all circumstances we can but hope for such things even after we have secur'd our good intentions Wee are sure of a blessing but in what instance we are not yet assured 6. Our prayers must be fervent intense earnest and importunate when we pray for things of high concernment and necessity Continuing instant in prayer striving in prayer labouring fervently in prayer night and day praying exceedingly praying alwayes with all prayer so S. Paul calls it watching unto prayer so Saint Peter praying earnestly so S. Iames and this is not at all to be abated in matters spiritual and of duty for according as our desires are so are our prayers and as our prayers are so shall be the grace and as that is so shall be the measure of glory But this admits of degrees according to the perfection or imperfection of our state of life but it hath no other measures but ought to be as great as it can the bigger the better we must make no positive restraints upon it our selves In other things we are to use a bridle and as we must limit
may praise him for so we blesse God and God blesses us And yet fail not to finde or make opportunities to worship God at some other times of the day at least by ejaculations and short addresses more or lesse longer or shorter solemnly or without solemnity privately or publickly as you can or are permitted alwayes remembring that as every sin is a degree of danger and unsafety so every pious prayer and well imployed opportunity is a degree of return to hope and pardon Cautions for making vowes 16. A vow to God is an act of prayer and a great degree and instance of opportunity an increase of duty by some new uncommanded instance or some more eminent degree of duty or frequency of action or earnestnesse of spirit in the same And because it hath pleased God in all Ages of the World to admit of entercourse with his servants in the matter of vows it is not ill advice that we make vows to God in such cases in which we have great need or great danger But let it be done according to these rules and by these cautions 1. That the matter of the vow be lawful 2. That it be useful in order to Religion or charity 3. That it be grave not trifling and impertinent but great in our proportion of duty towards the blessing 4. That it be in an uncommanded instance that is that it be of something or in some manner or in some degree to which formerly wee were not obliged or which wee might have omitted without sinne 5. That it bee done with prudence that is that it be safe in all the circumstances of person lest we beg a blessing and fall into a snare 6. That every vow of a new action bee also accompanied with a new degree and enforcement of our essential and unalterable duty such as was Iacobs vow that besides the payment of a tithe God should be his God that so hee might strengthen his duty to him first in essentials and precepts and then in additionals and accidentals For it is but an ill Tree that spends more in leaves and suckers and gummes then in fruit and that thankfulnesse and Religion is best that first secures duty and then enlarges in counsels Therefore let every great prayer and great need and great danger draw us to GOD neerer by the approach of a pious purpose to live more strictly and let every mercy of GOD answering that prayer produce a real performance of it 7. Let not young beginners in Religion enlarge their hearts and streighten their liberty by vowes of long continuance nor indeed any one else without a great experience of himself and of all accidental dangers Vowes of single actions are safest and proportionable to those single blessings ever begg'd in such cases of sudden and transient importunities 8. Let no action which is matter of question and dispute in Religion ever become the matter of a vow He vowes foolishly that promises to God to live and dye in such an opinion in an article not necessary not certain or that upon confidence of his present guide bindes himself for ever to the profession of what he may afterwards more reasonably contradict or may finde not to be useful or not profitable but of some danger or of no necessity If we observe the former rules we shall pray piously and effectually but because even this duty hath in it some especial temptations it is necessary that we be armed by special remedies against them The dangers are 1. Wandring thoughts 2. Tediousnesse of spirit Against the first these advices are profitable Remedies against wandring thoughts in Prayer If we feel our spirits apt to wander in our prayers and to retire into the World or to things unprofitable or vain and impertinent 1. Use prayer to bee assisted in prayer pray for the spirit of supplication for a sober fixed and recollected spirit and when to this you adde a moral industry to be steady in your thoughts whatsoever wandrings after this do return irremediably are a misery of Nature and an imperfection but no sinne while it is not cherished and indulged too 2. In private it is not amisse to attempt the cure by reducing your prayers into Collects and short forms of prayer making voluntary interruptions and beginning again that the want of spirit and breath may be supplied by the short stages and periods 3. When you have observed any considerable wandring of your thoughts binde your self to repeat that prayer again with actual attention or else revolve the full sense of it in your spirit and repeat it in all the effect and desires of it and possibly the tempter may be driven away with his own art and may cease to interpose his trifles when hee perceives they doe but vex the person into carefulnesse and piety and yet hee loses nothing of his devotion but doubles the earnestnesse of his care 4. If this bee not seasonable or opportune or apt to any Mans circumstances yet be sure with actual attention to say a hearty Amen to the whole prayer with one united desire earnestly begging the graces mentioned in the prayer for that desire does the great work of the prayer and secures the blessing if the wandring thoughts were against our will and disclaimed by contending against them 5. Avoid multiplicity of businesses of the World and in those that are unavoidable labour for an evennesse and tranquillity of spirit that you may be untroubled and smooth in all tempests of fortune for so we shall better tend Religion when we are not torn in pieces with the cares of the World and seiz'd upon with low affections passions and interest 6. It helps much to attention and actual advertisement in our prayers if we say our prayers silently without the voice onely by the â—pirit For in mental prayer if our thoughts wander we onely stand still when our minde returns we go on again there is none of the prayer lost as it is if our mouths speak and our hearts wander 7. To incite you to the use of these or any other counsels you shall meet with remember that it is a great undecency to desire of God to hear those prayers a great part whereof we do not hear our selves If they be not worthy of our attention they are far more unworthy of Gods Signes of tediousnesse of spirit in our prayers and all actions of religion The second temptation in our prayer is a tediousnesse of spirit or a wearinesse of the imployment like that of the Jews who complained that they were weary of the new moons and their souls loathed the frequent return of their Sabbaths so do very many Christians who first pray without fervour and earnestnesse of spirit and secondly meditate but seldom and that without fruit or sence or affection or thirdly who seldom examine their consciences and when they do it they do it but sleepily slightly without compunction or hearty purpose or fruits of amendment 4. They
very probable reason 8. Let a man frequently and seriously by imagination place himself upon his death-bed and consider what great joyes he shall have for the remembrance of every day well spent and what then he would give that he had so spent all his dayes He may guesse at it by proportions for it is certain he shall have a joyful and prosperous night who hath spent his day holily and he resignes his soul with peace into the hands of God who hath lived in the peace of God and the works of religion in his life time This consideration is of a real event it is of a thing that will certainly come to passe It is appointed for all men once to die and after death comes judgement the apprehension of which is dreadful and the presence of it is intolerable unlesse by religion and sanctity we are dispos'd for so venerable an appearance 9. To this may be useful that we consider the easinesse of Christs yoke the excellences and sweetnesses that are in religion the peace of conscience the joy of the Holy Ghost the rejoycing in God the simplicity and pleasure of vertue the intricacy trouble and businesse of sin the blessings and health and reward of that the curses the sicknesses and sad consequences of this and that if we are weary of the labours of religion we must eternally sit still and do nothing for whatsoever we do contrary to it is infinitely more full of labour care difficulty and vexation 10. Consider this also that tediousnesse of spirit is the beginning of the most dangerous condition estate in the whole World For it is a great disposition to the sinne against the holy Ghost it is apt to bring a Man to backsliding and the state of unregeneration to make him return to his vomit and his sink and either to make the Man impatient or his condition scrupulous unsatisfied irksome and desperate and it is better that he had never known the way of godlinesse then after the knowledge of it that he should fall away There is not in the World a greater signe that the spirit of Reprobation is beginning upon a Man then when hee is habitually and constantly or very frequently weary and slights or loaths holy Offices 11. The last remedy that preserves the hope of such a Man and can reduce him to the state of zeal and the love of God is a pungent sad and a heavy affliction not desperate but recreated with some intervals of kindenesse and little comforts or entertained with hopes of deliverance which condition if a Man shall fall into by the grace of God he is likely to recover but if this help him not it is infinite oddes but he will quench the Spirit Sect. 8. Of Almes LOve is as communicative as fire as busie and as active and it hath four twin Daughters extreme like each other and but that the Doctors of the School have done as Thamars Midwife did who bound a Scarlet threed something to distinguish them it would be very hard to call them asunder Their names are 1. Mercy 2. Beneficence or well-doing 3. Liberality And 4. Almes which by a special priviledge hath obtained to be called after the Mothers name and is commonly called Charity The first or eldest is seated in the affection and it is that which all the other must attend For Mercy without Almes is acceptable when the person is disabled to expresse outwardly what he heartily desires But Almes without Mercy are like prayers without devotion or Religion without Humility 2. Beneficence or well doing is a promptnesse and noblenesse of minde making us to do offices of curtesie and humanity to all sorts of persons in their need or out of their need 3. Liberality is a disposition of minde opposite to covetousnesse and consists in the despite and neglect of money upon just occasions and relates to our friends children kinred servants and other relatives 4. But Almes is a relieving the poor and needy The first and the last onely are duties of Christianity The second and third are circumstances and adjuncts of these duties for Liberality increases the degree of Almes making our gift greater and Beneficence extends it to more persons and orders of Men spreading it wider The former makes us sometimes to give more then we are able and the latter gives to more then need by the necessity of Beggars and serves the needs and conveniencies of persons and supplies circumstances wheraes properly Almes are doles and largesses to the necessitous and calamitous people supplying the necessities of Nature and giving remedies to their miseries Mercy and Almes are the body and soul of that charity which we must pay to our Neighbours need and it is a precept which God therefore enjoyn'd to the World that the great inequality which he was pleased to suffer in the possessions and accidents of Men might be reduced to some temper and evennesse and the most miserable person might be reconciled to some sense and participation of felicity Works of mercy or the several kindes of corporal Almes The workes of Mercy are so many as the affections of Mercy have objects or as the World hath kindes of misery Men want meat or drink or clothes or a house or liberty or attendance or a grave In proportion to these seven works are usually assign'd to Mercy and there are seven kindes of corporal almes reckoned 1. To feed the hungry 2. To give drink to the thirsty 3. Or clothes to the naked 4. To redeem Captives 5. To visit the sick 6. To entertain strangers 7. To bury the dead But many more may be added Such as are 8. To give physick to sick persons 9. To bring cold and starv'd people to warmth and to the fire for sometimes clothing will not do it or this may be done when we cannot do the other 9. To lead the blinde in right wayes 10. To lend money 11. To forgive debts 12. To remit forfeitures 13. To mend high wayes and bridges 14. To reduce or guide wandring travellers 15. To ease their labours by accomodating their work with apt instruments or their journey with beasts of carriage 16. To deliver the poor from their oppressors 17. To dye for my brother 18 To pay maydens dowries and to procure for them honest and chast marriages Works of spiritual Almes and mercy are 1. To teach the ignorant 2. To counsell doubting persons 3. To admonish sinners diligently prudently seasonably and charitably To which also may be reduced provoking and encouraging to good works 4. To comfort the afflicted 5. To pardon offenders 6. To suffer and support the weak 7. To pray for all estates of men and for relief to all their necessities To which may be added 8 To punish or correct refractorinesse 9. To be gentle and charitable in censuring the actions of others 10. To establish the scrupulous wavering and inconstant spirits 11. To confirm the strong 12. Not to give
may very much be helped if we take in the assistance of a spiritual Guide therefore the Church of God in all ages hath commended and in most ages enjoyn'd that we confesse our sins and discover the state and condition of our souls to such a person whom we or our superiours judge fit to help us in such needs For so if we confesse our sins one to another as S. Iames advises wee shall obtaine the prayers of the holy Man whom God and the Church hath appointed solemnly to pray for us and when he knowes our needs he can best minister comfort or reproof oyl or Causticks he can more opportunely recommend your particular state to GOD he can determine your cases of conscience and judge better for you then you do for your self and the shame of opening such Ulcers may restrain your forwardnesse to contract them and all these circumstances of advantage will do very much towards the forgivenesse And this course was taken by the new Converts in the dayes of the Apostles For many that believed came and confessed and shewed their deeds And it were well if this duty were practised prudently and innocently in order to publick Discipline or private comfort and instruction but that it be done to God is a duty not directly for it self but for its adjuncts and the duties that go with it or before it or after it which duties because they are all to be helped and guided by our Pastors and Curates of souls he is careful of his eternal interest that will not lose the advantage of using a private guide and judge He that hideth his sins shall not prosper Non dirigetur saith the Vulgar Latin he shall want a guide but who confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy And to this purpose Climaâ—us reports that divers holy persons in that age did use to carry Table-books with them and in them describ'd an account of all their determinate thoughts purposes words and actions in which they had suffered infirmity that by communicating the estate of their souls they might be instructed and guided and corrected or incouraged 6. True repentance must reduce to act all its holy purposes and enter into and run through the state of holy living which is contrary to that state of darknesse in which in times past we walked For to resolve to do it and yet not to do it is to break our resolution and our faith to mock God to falsifie and evacuate all the preceding acts of repentance and to make our pardon hopelesse and our hope fruitlesse He that resolves to live well when a danger is upon him or a violent fear or when the appetites of Lust are newly satisfied or newly served and yet when the temptation comes again sins again and then is sorrowful and resolves once more against it and yet fals when the temptation returns is a vain Man but no true penitent nor in the state of grace and if he chance to dye in one of these good moods is very far from salvation for if it be necessary that we resolve to live well it is necessary we should do so For resolution is an imperfect act a term of relation and signifies nothing but in order to the action it is as a faculty is to the act as Spring is to the Harvest as Egges are to Birds as a Relative to its Correspondent nothing without it No Man therefore can be in the state of grace and actual favour by resolutions and holy purposes these are but the gate and portal towards pardon a holy life is the onely perfection of Repentance and the firme ground upon which we can cast the anchor of hope in the mercies of God through Jesus Christ. 7. No Man is to reckon his pardon immediately upon his returnes from sin to the beginnings of good life but is to begin his hopes and degrees of confidence according as sin dyes in him and grace lives as the habits of sin lessen and righteousnesse growes according as sin returnes but seldom in smaller instances and without choice and by surprize without deliberation and is highly disrelished and presently dash'd against the Rock Christ Jesus by a holy sorrow and renewed care and more strict watchfulnesse For a holy life being the condition of the Covenant on our part as we return to God so God returns to us and our state returns to the probabilities of pardon 8. Every Man is to work out his salvation with fear and trembling and after the commission of sinnes his feares must multiply because every new sin and every great declining from the wayes of God is still a degree of new danger and hath increased Gods anger and hath made him more uneasie to grant pardon and when he does grant it it is upon harder terms both for doing and suffering that is we must do more for pardon and it may be suffer much more For we must know that God pardons our sins by parts as our duty increases and our care is more prudent and active so Gods anger decreases and yet it may be the last sin you committed made God unalterably resolv'd to send upon you some sad judgement Of the particulars in all cases wee are uncertain and therefore wee have reason alwayes to mourn for our sinnes that have so provoked GOD and made our condition so full of danger that it may be no prayers or tears or duty can alter his sentence concerning some sad judgement upon us Thus GOD irrevocably decreed to punish the Israelites for Idolatry although Moses prayed for them and God forgave them in some degree that is so that he would not cut them ofâ— from being a people yet he would not forgive them so but he would visit that their sin upon them and he did so 9. A true penitent must all the dayes of his life pray for pardon and never think the work completed till he dyes not by any act of his own by no act of the Church by no forgivenesse by the party injured by no restitution these are all instruments of great use and efficacy and the means by which it is to be done at length but still the sin lyes at the door ready to return upon us in judgement and damnation if we return to it in choice or action and whether God hath forgiven us or no we know not and how far we know not and all that we have done is not of sufficient worth to obtain pardon therefore still pray and still be sorrowful for ever having done it and for ever watch against it and then those beginnings of pardon which are working all the way will at last be perfected in the day of the Lord. 10. Defer not at all to repent much lesse mayest thou put it off to thy death-bed It is not an easie thing to root out the habits of sin which a Mans whole life hath gathered and confirmed We finde work enough to mortifie one beloved
and will save such as are of an humble spirit Psal. 34.17 Thou Lord shalt save both man and beast how excellent is thy mercy O God and the children of men shall put their trust under the shadow of thy wings Psal. 36.7 They shall be satisfied with the plenteousness of thy house and thou shalt give them to drink of thy pleasures as out of the rivers v. 8. For with thee is the well of life and in thy light we shall see light v. 9. Commit thy way unto the Lord and put thy trust in him he shall bring it to passe Ps. 37.5 But the salvation of the righteous cometh of the Lord who is also their strength in the time of trouble v. 40. So that a Man shall say verily there is a reward for the righteous doubtlesse there is a God that judgeth the earth Psal. 58.10 Blessed is the man whom thou choosest and receivest unto thee he shall dwell in thy court and shall be satisfied with the pleasures of thy house even of thy holy temple Psal. 65.4 They that sow in tears shall reap in joy Psal. 126.6 It is written I will never leave thee nor forsake thee Heb. 13.5 The prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up and if he have committed sins they shal be forgiven Iam. 5.15 Come and let us return unto the Lord for he hath torn and he will heal us he hath smitten and he will binde us up Hos. 6.1 If we sin we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous and he is the propitiation for our sins 1 Iohn 2.2 If we confesse our sins he is faithful righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousnesse 1 Iohn 1.9 He that forgives shall be forgiven Luke 6.37 And this is the confidence that we have in him that if we ask any thing according to his will he heareth us 1 Iohn 5 14. And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins 1 Iohn 3.5 If ye being evil know to give good things to your children how much more shall your Father which is in Heaven give good things to them that ask him Matth. 7.11 This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Jesus Christ came into the World to save sinners * He that hath given us his Son how should not he with him give us all things else Acts of hope to be used by sick persons after a pious life I am perswaded that neither death nor life nor Angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord Rom. 8.38 I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousnesse which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that day and not to me onely but unto all them also that love his appearing 2 Tim. 4.7 Blessed be the God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of mercies and the God of all comforts who comforts us in all our tribulation 2 Cor. 1.3 A prayer to be said in behalf of a sick or dying person O Lord God there is no number of thy dayes nor of thy mercies and the sins and sorrowes of thy servant also are multiplied Lord look upon him with much mercy and pity forgive him all his sinnes comfort his sorrowes ease his pain satisfie his doubts relieve his feares instruct his ignorances strengthen his understanding take from him all disorders of spirit weaknesse and abuse of fancy Restraine the malice and power of the spirits of darknesse and suffer him to be injured neither by his ghostly enemies nor his own infirmities and let a holy and a just peace the peace of God be within his conscience Lord preserve his senses till the last of his time strengthen his faith confirm his hope and give him a never ceasing charity to thee our God and to all the world stir up in him a great and proportionable contrition for all the evils he hath done and give him a just measure of patience for all he suffers give him prudence memory and consideration rightly to state the accounts of his soul and do thou remind him of all his duty that when it shall please thee that his soul goes out from the prison of his body it may be receiv'd by Angels and preserved from the surprize of evil spirits and from the horrors and amazements of new and stranger Regions and be laid up in the bosom of our Lord till at the day of thy second coming it shall be reunited to the body which is now to be laid down in weaknes and dishonour but we humbly beg may then be raised up with glory power for ever to live and to behold the face of God in the glories of the Lord Jesus who is our hope our resurrection and our life the light of our eyes and the joy of our soules our blessed and ever glorious Redeemer Amen Hither the sick person may draw in and use the acts of several vertues respersed in the several parts of this book the several Letanies viz. of repentance of the passion and the single prayâ—rs according to his present needs A prayer to be said in a storm at Sea O my God thou didst create the earth and the Sea for thy glory and the use of Man and doest daily shew wonders in the deep look upon the danger and fear of thy servant my sins have taken hold upon me and without the supporting arm of thy mercy I cannot look up but my trust is in thee Do thou O Lord rebuke the Sea and make it calm for to thee the windes and the sea obey let not the waters swallow me up but let thy Spirit the Spirit of gentlenesse and mercy move upon the waters Be thou reconcil'd unto thy servants and then the face of the waters will be smooth I fear that my sinnes make me like Ionas the cause of the tempest Cast out all my sins and throw not thy servants away from thy presence and from the land of the living into the depths where all things are forgotten But if it be thy wil that we shall go down into the waters Lord receive my soul into thy holy hands and preserve it in mercy and safety till the day of restitution of all things and be pleased to unite my death to the death of thy Son and to accept of it so united as a punishment for all my sinnes that thou mayest forget all thine anger and blot my sinnes out of thy book and write my soul there for Jesus Christ his sake our dearest Lord and most mighty Redeemer Amen Then make an act of resignation thus To God pertain the issues of life and death It is the Lord let him do
of thy glories I will give thanks unto the Lord with my whole heart secretly among the faithful and in the congregation * For salvation belongeth unto the Lord and thy blessing is upon thy servant But as for me I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercies and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple * For of thee and in thee and through thee and for thee are all things Blessed be the name of God from generation to generation Amen A â—hort Form of thanksgiving to be said upon any special deliverance as from Châ—ld-birth from Sickness from baâ—â—el or imminent danger at sea or Land c. O most merciful and gracious God thou fountain of all mercy and blessing thou hast opened the hand of thy mercy to fill me with blessings and the sweet effects of thy loving kindnesse thou feedest us like a Shepherd thou governest us as a king thou bearest us in thy arms like a nurse thou doest cover us under the shadow of thy wings and shelter us like a hen thou O Dearest Lord wakest for us as a Watchman thou providest for us like a Husband thou lovest us as a friend and thinkest on us perpetually as a careful mother on her helplesse babe and art exceeding merciful to all that fear thee and now O Lord thou hast added this great blessing of deliverance from my late danger here name the blessing it was thy hand and the help of thy mercy that relieved me the waters of affliction had drowned me and the stream had gone over my soul if the spirit of the Lord had not moved upon these waters Thou O Lord didst revoke thy angry sentence which I had deserved and which was gone out against me Unto thee O Lord I ascribe the praise and honour of my redemption I will be glad and rejoyce in thy mercy for thou hast considered my trouble and hast known my soul in adversity As thou hasâ— sâ—râ—ad thy hand upon me for a covering so also enlarge my heart with thankfulnesse and fill my mouth with praises that my duty and returns to theâ— may be great as my needs of mercie are and let thy gracious favours and loving kindnesâ—e endure for ever and ever upon thy servant and grant that what thou hast sown in mercy may spring up in duty and let thy grace so strengthen my purposes that I may sin no more lest thy threatning return upon me in anger and thy anger break me into pieces but let me walk in the light of thy favour and in the paths of thy Commandments that I living here to the glory of thy name may at last enter into the glory of my Lord to spend a whole eternity in giving praise to thy exalted and ever glorious name Amen We praise thee O God we knowledge thee to be the Lord * All the earth doth worship thee the Father Everlasting * To thee All Angels cry aloud the Heavens and all the powers therein * To thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry * Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabaoth * Heaven and Earth are full of the Majesty of thy glory * The glorious company of the Apostles praise thee * The goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise thee * The noble army of Martyrs praise thee * The holy Church throughout all the world doth knowledge thee * The Father of an infinite Majesty * Thy honourable true and only Son * Also the Holy Ghost the Comforter * Thou art the King of glory O Christ. * Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father * When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man thou didst not abhor the Virgins womb * When thou hadst overcome the sharpnesse of death thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all Believers * Thou sittest at the right hand of God in the glory of the Father * We believe that thou shalt come to be our Judge * We therefore pray thee help thy servants whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood * Make them to be numbered with thy Saints in glory everlasting * O Lord save thy people and blesse thine heritage * Govern them and lift them up for ever * Day by day we magnifie thee * And we worship thy name ever world without end * Vouchsafe O Lord to keep us this day without â—in * O Lord have mercy upon us have mercy upon us * O Lord let thy mercy lighten upon us as our trust is in thee O Lord in thee have I trusted let me never be confounded Amen A Prayer of thanksgiving after the receiving some great blessing as the birth of an Heir the successe of an honest designe a victory a good harvest c. O Lord God Father of mercies the fountain of comfort and blessing of life and peace of plenty and pardon who fillest Heaven with thy glory and earth w th thy goodnes I give thee the most earnest most humble and most enlarged returnes of my glad and thankful heart for thou hast refreshed me with thy comforts and enlarged me with thy blessing thou hast made my flesh and my bones to rejoyce for besides the blessings of all mankinde the blessings of nature the blessings of grace the support of every minute and the comforts of every day thou hast opened thy bosom and at this time hast powred out an excellent expression of thy loving kindnesse here name the blessing What am I O Lord and what is my Fathers house what is the life and what are the capacities of thy servant that thou should'st do this unto me * that the great God of men and Angels should make a special decree in Heaven for me and send out an Angel of blessing and instead of condemning and ruining me as I miserably have deserved to distinguish me from many my equals and my betters by this and many other special acts of grace and savour Praised be the Lord daily even the Lord that helpeth us and powreth his benefits upon us He is our God even the God of whom cometh salvation God is the Lord by whom we escape death Thou hast brought me to great honour and comforted me on every side Thou Lord hast made me glad through thy works I will rejoyce in giving praise for the operation of thy hands O give thanks unto the Lord and call upon his name tell the people what things he hath done As for me I will give great thanks unto the Lord and praise him among the multitude Blessed be the Lord God even the Lord God of Israel which only doth wondrous gracious things And blessed be the name of his Majesty for ever and all the earth shall be filled with his Majesty Amen Amen Glory be to the Father c. As it was in the beginning c. A Prayer to be said on the Feast of Christmas or the birth of our bleâ—sed Saviour Iesus the same also may be said upon the Feast of the Annunciation and Purification of the B. Virgin
Mary O Holy and Almighty God Father of mercies Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of thy love and Eternal mercies I adore and praise and glorifie thy infinite and unspeakable love and wisdom who hast sent thy Son from the bosom of felicities to take upon him our nature and our misery and our guilt and hast made the Son of God to become the Son of Man that we might become the Sons of God and partakers of the divine nature since thou hast so exalted humane nature be pleased also to sanctify my person that by a conformity to the humility and laws and sufferings of my dearest Saviour I may be united to his spirit and be made all one with the most Holy â—esus Amen O Holy and Eternal Jesus who didst pity mankinde lying in his blood and sin and misery and didst choose our sadnesses and sorrows that thou mightest make us to pertake of thy felicities let thine eyes pity me thy hands support me thy holy feet tread down all the difficulties in my way to Heaven let me dwell in thy heart be instructed with thy wisdom moved by thy affections choose with thy will and be clothed with thy righteousness that in the day of judgement I may be found having on thy garments sealed with thy impression and that bearing upon every faculty and member the character of my elder brother I may not be cast out with strangers and unbelievers Amen To God the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ. * To the eternal Son that was incarnate and born of a virgin * To the spirit of the Father and the Son be all honour and glory worship and adoration now and for ever Amen The same Form of Prayer may be used upon our own Birth-day or day of our Baptisme adding the following prayer A Prayer to be said upon our Birth-day or day of Baptisme O Blessed and Eternal God I give thee praise and glory for thy great mercy to me in causing me to be born of Chrisâ—ian parents and didst not allot to me a portion with Misbelievers and Heathen that have not known thee thou didst not suffer me to be strangled at the gate of the womb but thy hand sustained and brought me to the light of the world and the illumination of baptisme with thy grace preventing my election and by an artificial necessity and holy prevention engaging me to the profession and practises of Christianity Lord since that I have broken the promises made in my behalf and which I confirmed by my after act I went back from them by an evil life and yet thou hast still continued to me life and time of repentance and didst not cut me off in the beginning of my dayes and the progresse of my sins O Dearest God pardon the errours and ignorances the vices and vanities of my youth and the faults of my more forward years and let me never more stain the whiteness of my baptismal robe and now that by thy grace I still persist in the purposes of obedience and do give up my name to Christ and glory to be a Disciple of thy institution and a servant of Jesus let me never fail of thy grace let no root of bitterness spring up and disorder my purposes and desile my spirit O let my years be so many degrees of neerer approach to thee and forsake me not O God in my old age when I am gray-headed and when my strength faileth me be thou my strength and my guide unto death that I may reckon my years and apply my heart unto wisdom and at last after the spending a holy and a blessed life I may be brought unto a glorious eternity through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Then adde the form of thanksgiving formerly described A prayer to be said upon the dayes of the memory of Apostles Martyrs c. O Eternal God to whom do live the spirits of them that depart hence in the Lord and in whom the souls of them that be elected after they be delivered from the burden of the flesh be â—n peace and rest from their labours and their works follow them and their memory is blessed I blesse and magnifie thy holy and ever glorious name for the great grace and blessing manifested to thy Apostles and Martyrs and other holy persons who have glorified thy name in the dayes of their flesh and have served the interest of religion and of thy service and this day we have thy servant name the Apostle or Martyr c. in remembrance whom thou hast lead thorough the troubles and temptations of this World and now hast lodged in the bosome of a certain hope and great beatitude until the day of restitution of all things Blessed be the mercy and eternal goodnesse of God and the memory of all thy Saints is blessed Teach me to practise their doctrine to imitate their lives following their example and being united as a part of the same mystical body by the band of the same â—aith and a holy hope and a never ceasing charity and may it please thee of thy gracious goodnesse shortly to accomplish the number of thine elect to hasten thy Kingdom that we with thy servant * and all others departed in the true faith fear of thy holy Name may have our perfect consummation and blisse in body and soul in thy eternal and everlasting kingdom Amen A form of prayer recording all the parts and mysteries of Christs passion being a short history of it to be used especially in the week of the passion and before the receiving the blessed Sacrament All praise honour and glory be to the holy and eternal Jesus I adore thee O blesâ—ed Redeemer eternal God the light of the Gentiles and the glory of Israel for thou hast done and suffered for me more then I could wish more â—hen I could think of even all that a lost and a miserable perishing sinner could possibly need Thou wert afflicted with thirst and hunger with heat and cold with labours and sorrowes with hard journeys and restlesse nights and when thou wert contriving all the mysterious and admirable wayes of paying our scores thou didst suffer thy self to be designed to slaughter by those for whom in love thou wert ready to dye What is man that thou art mindful of him and the Son of man that thou thus visitâ—st him Blessed be thy Name O holy Jesus for thou wentest about doing good working miracles of mercy healing the sick comforting the distressed instructing the ignorant raising the dead inlightning the blinde strengthning the â—ame straitning the crooked relieving the poor preaching the Gospel and reconciling sinners by the mightinesse of thy power by the wisdom of thy Spirit by the Word of God and the merits of thy Passion thy heaâ—thful and bitter passion Lord what is man that thou art mindful of him c. Blessed be thy Name O holy Jesus who wert content to be conspired against by the Jews to be sold by thy servant for
a vile price and to wash the feet of him that took moneâ— for thy life and to give to him and to all thy Apostles thy most holy Body and Blood to become a Sacrifice for their sins even for their betraying and denying thee and for all my sins even for my crucifying thee afresh and for such sins which I am ashamed to think but that the greatnesse of my sins magnifie the infinitenesse of thy mercies who didst so great things for so vile a person Lord what is man c. Blessed be thy Name O holy Jesus who being to depart the World didst comfort thy Apostles powring out into their ears and hearts treasures of admirable discourses who didst recommend them to thy Father with a mighty charity and then didst enter into the Garden set with nothing but Bryers and sorrowes where thou didst suffer a most unspeakable agony until the sweat strain'd through thy pure skin like drops of blood and there didst sigh and groan and fall flat upon the earth and pray and submit to the intolerable burden of thy Fathers wrath which I had deserved and thou sufferedst Lord what is man c. Blessed be thy Name O holy Jesus who hast sanctified to us all our natural infirmities and passions by vouchsafing to be in fear and trembling and sore amazement by being bound and imprisoned by being harrassed and drag d with cords of violence and rude hands by being drench d in the brook in the way by being sought after like a thief and us'd like a sinner who wert the most holy and the most innocent cleaner then an Angel and brighter then the Morning-Star Lord what is man c. Blessed be thy Name O holy Jesus and blessed be that loving kindnesse and pity by which thou didst neglect thy own sorrows and go to comfort the sadnesse of thy Disciples quickning their dulnesse incouraging their duty arming their weaknesse with excellent precepts against the day of trial Blessed be that humility and sorrow of thine who being Lord of the Angels yet wouldest need and receive comfort from thy servant the Angel who didst offer thy self to thy persecutors and madest them able to seiz thee and didst receive the Traytors kisse sufferedst a veil to be thrown over thy holy face that thy enemies might not presently be confounded by so bright a lusâ—re and wouldest do a miracle to cure a wound of one of thy spiteful enemies and didst reprove a zealous servant in behalf of a malicious adversary and then didst go like a Lamb to the slaughter without noise or violence or resistance when thou couldest have commanded millions of Angels for thy guard and rescue Lord what is man c. Blessed be thy Name O holy Jesus and blessed be that holy sorrow thou didst suffer when thy Disciples fled and thou wert left alone in the hands of cruel men who like evening Wolves thirsted for a draught of thy best blood and thou wert led to the house of Annas and there asked insnaring questions and smitten on the face by him whose ear thou hadst but lately healed and from thence wert dragged to the house of Cajaphas and there all night didst endure spittings affronts scorn contumelies blowes and intolerable insolencies and all this for man who was thy enemy and the cause of all thy sorrows Lord what is man c. Blessed be thy Name O holy Jesus and blessed be thy mercy who when thy servant Peter denied thee and forsook thee and forswore thee didst look back upon him and by that gracious and chiding look didst call him back to himself and thee who wert accused before the High Priest and rail'd upon and examined to evil purposes and with designes of blood who wert declar'd guilty of death for speaking a most necessary and most profitable truth who wert sent to Pilate and â—ound innocent and sent to Herod and still found innocent and wert arrayed in white both to declare thy innocence and yet to deride thy person and wert sent back to Pilate and examined again and yet nothing but innocence found in thee and malice round about thee to devour thy life which yet thou wert more desirous to lay down for them then they were to take it from thee Lord what is man c. Blessed be thy Name O holy Jesus and blessed be that patience and charity by which for our sakes thou wert content to be smitten with canes and have that holy face which Angels with joy and wonder do behold be spit upon and be despised when compar'd with Barabbas and scourg'd most rudely with unhallowed hands till the pavement was purpled with that holy blood and condemned to a sad and shameful a publick and painful death and arayed in Scarlet and crown'd with thorns and strip'd naked and then cloth'd and loaden with the crosse and tormented with a tablet stuck with nails at the fringes of thy garment and bound hard with cords dragged most vilely and most piteously till the load was too great and did sink thy tender and virginal body to the earth and yet didst comfort the weeping women and didst more pity thy persecutors then thy self and wert grieved for the miseries of Jerusalem to come forty years after more then for thy present passion Lord what is man c. Blessed be thy Name O holy Jesus and blessed be that incomparable sweetnesse and holy sorrow which thou sufferedst when thy holy hands and feet were nailed upon the crosse and the crosse being set in a hollownesse of the earth did in the fall rend the wounds wider and there naked and bleeding sick faint wounded and despised didst hang upon the weight of thy wounds three long hours praying for thy persecutors satisfying thy Fathers wrath reconciling the penitent thief providing for thy holy and afflicted mother tasting vineger and gall and when the fulnesse of thy suffering was accomplished didst give thy soul into the hands of God and didst descend to the regions of longing souls who waited for the revelation of this thy day in their prisons of hope and then thy body was transfixed with a spear and issued forth two Sacraments Water and blood and thy body was compos'd to burial and dwelt in darkness 3 dayes and 3 nights Lord what is man that thou art mindful of him and the Son of man that thou thus visitest him The prayer Thus O blessed Jesu thou didst finish thy holy passion with pain and anguish so great that nothing could be greater then it except thy self and thy own infinite mercy and all this for man even for me then whom nothing câ—uld be more miserable thy self onely excepted who becamest so by undertaking our guilt and our punishment And now Lord who hast done so much for me be pleased onely to make it effectual to me that it may not be uselesse and lost as to my particular lest I become eternally miserable and lost to all hopes and possibilities of comfort All this deserves more
love then I have to give but Lord do thou turn me all into love and all my love into obedience and let my obedience â—e without interruption and then I hope thou wilt accept such a return as I can make make me to be something that thou delightest in thou shalt have all that I am or have from thee even whatsoever thou makest fit for thy self Teach me to live wholly for my Saviour Jesus and to be ready to dye for Jesus and to be conformable to his life and sufferings and to be united to him by inseparable unions and to own no passions but what may be servants to Jesus and Disciples of his institution O sweetest Saviour clothe my soul with thy holy robe hide my sins in thy wounds and bury them in thy grave and let me rise in the life of grace and abide and grow in it till I arrive at the Kingdom of Glory Amen Our Father c. Ad. Sect. 7 8 10. A â—orm of prayer or intercession for all estates of people in the Christian Church The parts of which may be added to any other formes and the whole office intirely as it lyes is proper to be said in our preparation to the holy Sacrament or oâ— the day of celebration 1. For our selves O thou gracious Father of mercy Father of our Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon thy servants who bow our heads and our knees and our hearts to thee pardon and forgive us all our sins give us the grace of holy repentance and a strict obedience to thy holy word strengthen us in the inner man with the power of the holy Ghost for all the parts and duties of our calling holy living preserve us for ever in the unity of the holy Catholick Church in the integrity of the Chrâ—stian faith and in the love of God and of our neighbours and in hope of life Eternal Amen 2. For the whole Catholick Church O holy Jesus King of the Saints and Prince of the Catholick Church preserve thy spouse whom thoâ— hast purchased with thy right hand and redeemed and cleansed with thy blood the whole Catholick Church from one end of the Earth to the other she is founded upon a rock but planted in the sea O preserve her safe from schisme heresy and sacriledge Unite all her members with the bands of Faith Hope and Charity and an external communion when it shall seem good in thine eyes let the daily sacrifice of prayer and Sacramental thanksgiving never cease but be for ever presented to thee and for ever united to the intercession of her dearest Lord and for ever prevail for the obtaining for every of its members grace and blessing pardon and salvation Amen 3. For all Christian Kings Princes and Governours O King of Kings and Prince of all the Rulers of the Earth give thy grace and Spirit to all Christian Princes the spirit of wisdom and counsel the spirit of government and godly fear Grant unto them to live in peace and honour â—hat their people may love and feare them and they may love and fear God speak good unto their hearts concerning the Church that they may be nursing Fathers to it Fathers of the Fatherlesse Judges and Avengers of the cause of Widowes that they may be compassionate to the wants of the poor and the groans of the oppressed that they may not vex or kill the Lords people with unjust or ambitious wars but may feed the â—lock of God and may inquire after and do all things which may promote peace publick honesty and holy religion so administring things present that they may not fail of the everlasting glories of the world to come where all thy faithful people shall reign Kings for ever Amen 4. For al the orders of them that minister about H. things O thou great Shepherd and Bishop of our souls Holy and Eternal Jesus give unto thy servants the Ministers of the Mysteries of Christian religion the Spirit of prudence and sanctity faith and charity confidence and zeal diligence and watchfulnesse that they may declare thy will unto the people faithfully and dispense the Sacraments rightly and intercede with thee graciously and acceptably for thy servants Grant O Lord that by a holy life and a true beliefe by well doing and patient suffering when thou shalt call them to it they may glorifie thee the great lover of souls and after a plentiful conversion of sinners from the errour of their wayes they may shine like the stars in glory Amen Give unto thy servants the Bishops a discerning Spirit that they may lay hands suddenly on no man but may depute such persons to the Ministeries of religion who may adorn the Gospel of God whose lips may preserve knowledge such who by their good preaching holy living may advance the service of the Lord Jesus Amen 5. For our neerest relatives as Husband Wife Children Family c. O God of infinite mercy let thy loving mercy and compassion descend upon the head of thy servants my wife or huâ—band children and family be pleased to give them health of body and of spirit a competent portion of temporals so as may with comfort support them in their journey to Heaven preserve them from all evil and â—ad accidents defend them in all assaults of their enemies direct their persons their actions sanctify their hearts and words and purposes that we all may by the bands of obedience and charity be united to our Lord Jesus and alwayes feeling thee our merciful and gracious Father may become a holy family discharging our whole duty in all our relations that we in this life being thy children by adoption and grace may be admitted into thy holy family hereafter for ever to sing praises to thee in the Church of the first-born in the family of thy redeemed ones Amen 6. For our Parents our Kinred in the flesh our Friends and Benefactors O God merciful and gracious who hast made my Parents my Friends and my Benefactors ministers of thy mercy and instruments of providence to thy servant I humbly beg a blessing to descend upon the heads of name the persons or thâ— relations Depute thy holy Angels to guard their persons thy holy spirit to guide their souls thy providence to minister to their necessities and let thy grace and mercy preserve them from â—he bitter pains of eternal death and bring them â—o everlasting life through Jesus Christ. Amen 7. For all that lye under the rod of war famine pestilence to be said in the time of plague or war c. O Lord God Almighty thou art our Father we are thy children thou art our Redeemer we thy people purchased with the price of thy most precious blood be pleased to moderate thy anger towards thy servants let not thy whole displeasure arise lest we be consumed and brought to nothing Let health and peace be within our dwellings let righteousness and holyness dwell for ever in our hearts
be express'd in all our actions and the light of thy countenance be upon us in all our sufferings that we may delight in the service and in the mercies of God for ever Amen O gracious Father and merciful God if it be thy wil say unto the destroying Angel it is enough and though we are not better then our brethren who are smitten with the rod of God but much worse yet may it please thee even because thou art good and because we are timerous and sinful not yet fitted for our appearance to set thy mark upon our foreheads that the Angel thy Minister of thy justice may passe over us and hurt us not let thy hand cover thy servants and hide us in the clefts of the rock in the wounds of the holy Jesus from the present anger that is gone out against us that though we walk thorough the valley of the shadow of death we may fear no evil and sufâ—er none and those whom thou hast smitten with thy rod support with thy staff and visit them with thy mercies and salvation through Jesus Christ. Amen 8. For all women with childe and for unborn children O Lord God who art the Father of them that trust in thee and shewest mercy to a thousand generations of them that fear thee have mercy upon all women great with childe * be pleased to give them a joyful a safe deliverance let thy grace preserve the fruit of their wombs and conduct them to the holy Sacrament of Baptisme that they being regenerated by thy Spirit and adopted into thy family and the portion and duty of Sons may live to the glory of God to the comfort of their parents and friends to the edification of the Christian Common-wealth and the salvation of their own souls thorough Jesus Christ. Amen 9. For all estates of Men and Women in the Christian Church O Holy God King Eternal out of the infinite stâ—re-houses of thy grace and mercy give unto all Virgins chastity and a religious spirit to all persons dedicated to thee and to religion continence and meekness an active zeal and an unwearied spirit to all married paires faith and holinesse to widows and fatherless and all that are oppressed â—hy paâ—ronage comfort and defence to all Christian women simplicity and modâ—sâ—y humility and chastity pâ—tience aâ—d charity give unto the poor to all â—hat are robbed and spoiled of their goods a competent supporâ— and a contented spirit and a treasure in heaven hereafter give unto prisoners and captives to them that toil in the mines and row in â—he gallâ—es strength of body and of spirit liberty and redemption comfort and restitution to all that travel by land thy Angel for their guide and a holy and prosperous return to all that travel by sea freedom from Pirates and shipwrack and bring them to the Haven where they would be to distressed and scrupulous consciences to melancholy and disconsolate persons to all that are afflicted with evil and unclean spirits give a light from heaven great grace and proportionable comforts and â—imely deliverance give them patience and resignation let their sorrows be changed into grace and comfort and let the sâ—orm waft them certainly to the regions of rest and glory Lord God of Mercy give to thy Martyrs Confessors and all thy persecuted constancy and prudence boldness and hope a full faith and a never failing charity To all who are condemned to death do thou minister comfort a strong a quiet and a resigned spirit take from them the fear of death and all remaining affections to sin and all imperfections of duty and cause them to dye full of grace full of hope and give to all faithfull and particularly to them who have recommended themselves to the prayers of thy unworthy servant a supply of all their needs temporal and spiritual and according to their several states and necessities rest and peace pardon and refreshment and shew us all a mercy in the day of judgment Amen Give O Lord to the Magistrates equity sinceritie courage and prudence that they may protect the good defend religion and punish the wrong doers Give to the Nobility wisdom valour and loyalty To Merchants justice and faithfulnesse to all Artificers and Labourers truth and honesty to our enemies forgivenesse and brotherly kindnesse Preserve to us the Heavens and the Ayre in healthful influence and disposition the Earth in plenty the kingdom in peace and good government our marriages in peace and sweetnesse and innocence of society thy people from famine and pestilence our houses from burning and robbery our persons from being burnt alive from banishment and prison from Widowhood destitution from violence of pains and passions from tempests and earth-quakes from inundation of waters from rebellion and invasion from impatience and inordinate cares from tediousnes of spirit and despair from murder and all violent accursed and unusual deaths from the surprize of sudden and violent accidents from passionate and unreasonable fears from all thy wrath and from all our sins good Lord deliver and preserve thy servants for ever Amen Represse the violence of all implacable warring and tyrant Nations bring home unto thy fold all that are gone astray call into the Church all strangers increase the number and holinesse of thy own people bring infants to ripenesse of age and reason confirm all baptized people with thy grace and with thy Spirit instruct the Novices and new Christians let a great grace and merciful providence bring youthful persons safely and holily through the indiscretions and passions and temptations of their younger years those whom thou hast or shalt permit to live to the age of a man give competent strength and wisdom take from them covetousnesse and churlishnesse pride and impatience fill them full of devotion and charity repentance and sobriety holy thoughts and longing desires after Heaven and heavenly things give them a holy and a blessed death and to us all a joyful resurrection through Jesus Christ our Lord Amen Ad. Sect. 10. The manner of using these devotions by way of preparation to the receiving the blessed Sacrament of the Lords Supper The just prepararion to this holy Feast consisting principally in a holy life and consequently in the repetition of the acts of all vertues and especially of Faith Repentance Charity and Thanksgiving to the exercise of these four graces let the person that intends to communicate in the times set apart for his preparation and devotion for the exercise of his faith recite the prayer or Letany of the passion For the exercise of Repentance the form of confession of sins with the prayer annexed And for the graces of thanksgiving and charity let him use the special formes of prayer above described or if a lesse time can be allotted for preparatory devotion the two first will be the more proper as containing in them all the personal duty of the communicant To which upon the morning of that holy solemnity let him adde A
that we have being thy Debtors by reason of our sins and by thy own gracious contract made with us in Jesus Christ teach me in the first place to perform all my Obligations to thee both of duty and thankfulnesse and next enable me to pay my duty to all my friends and my debts to all my Creditors that none bee made miserable or lessened in his estate by his kindenesse to me or traffick with me Forgive me all those sins and irregular actions by which I entered into debt further then my necessity required or by which such necessity was brought upon me but let not them suffer by occasion of my sin Lord reward all their kindnesse into their bosomes and make them recompence where I cannot and make me very willing in all that I can and able for all that I am oblig'd to or if it seem good in thine eyes to afflict me by the continuance of this condition yet make it up by some means to them that the prayer of thy servant may obtain of thee at least to pay my debt in blessings Amen II. LOrd sanctifie and forgive all that I have tempted to evil by my discourse or my example instruct them in the right way whom I have lead to errour let me never run further on the score of sinne but do thou blot out all the evils I have done by the spunge of thy passion and the blood of thy Crosse and give me a deep and an excellent repentance and a free and a gracious pardon that thou mayest answer for me O Lord and enable me to stand upright in judgement for in thee O Lord have I trusted let me never be confounded Pity me and instruct me guide me and support me pardon me and save me for my sweet Saviour Jesus Christ his sake Amen A Prayer for Patron and Benefactours O Almighty GOD thou Fountain of all good of all excellency both to Men and Angels extend thine abundant favour and loving kindnesse to my Patron to all my friends and Benefactors Reward them and make them plentiful recompence for all the good which from thy merciful providence they have conveyed unto me Let the light of thy countenance shine upon them and let them never come into any affliction or sadnesse but such as may be an instrument of thy glory and their eternal comfort Forgive them all their sins let thy Divinest Spirit preserve them from all deeds of Darknesse Let thy ministring Angels guard their persons from the violence of the spirits of Darknesse And thou who knowest every degree of their necessity by thy infinite wisdom give supply to all their needs by thy glorious mercy preserving their persons sanctifying their hearts and leading them in the wayes of righteousnesse by the waters of comfort to the land of eternal rest and glory through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen CHAP. IV. Of Christian Religion REligion in a large sense does signifie the whole duty of Man comprehending in it Justice Charity and Sobriety because all these being commanded by God they become a part of that honour and worship which we are bound to pay to him And thus the word is used in S. Iames Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this To visit the fatherlesse and Widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world But in a more restrained sense it is taken for that part of duty which particularly relates to God in our worshippings and adoration of him in confessing his excellencies loving his person admiring his goodnesse believing his Word and doing all that which may in a proper and direct manner do him honour It containes the duties of the first Table onely and so it is called Godlinesse and is by Saint Paul distinguished from Iustice and Sobriety In this sense I am now to explicate the parts of it Of the internal actions of Religion Those I call the internal actions of Religion in which the soul onely is imployed and ministers to God in the special actions of Faith Hope and Charity Faith believes the revelations of God Hope expects his promises and Charity loves his excellencies and mercies Faith gives our understanding to God Hope gives up all the passions and affections to Heaven and heavenly things and Charity gives the will to the service of God Faith is oppos'd to Infidelity Hope to Despair Charity to Enmity and Hostility and these three sanctifie the whole Man and make our duty to God and obedience to his Commandments to be chosen reasonable and delightful and therefore to be intire persevering and universal SECT I. Of Faith The Acts and Offices of Faith are 1. TO believe every thing which God hath revealed to us and when once we are convinced that God hath spoken it to make no further enquiry but humbly to submit ever remembring that there are some things which our understanding cannot fathom nor search out their depth 2. To believe nothing concerning God but what is honourable and excellent as knowing that belief to be no honoring of God which entertains of him any dishonourable thoughts Faith is the parent of Charity and whatsoever Faith entertains must be apt to produce love to God but he that believes God to be cruel or unmerciful or a rejoycer in the unavoidable damnation of the greatest part of mankinde or that he speaks one thing and privately means another thinks evil thoughts concerning God and such as for which we should hate a man and therefore are great enemies of Faith being apt to destroy charity Our Faith concerning God must be as himself hath revealed and described his own excellencies and in our discourses we must remove from him all imperfection and attribute to him all excellency 3. To give our selves wholly up to Christ in heart and desire to become Disciples of his doctrine with choice besides conviction being in the presence of God but as Ideots that is without any principles of our own to hinder the truth of God but sucking in greedily all that God hath taught us believing it infinitely and loving to believe it For this is an act of Love reflected upon Faith or an act of Faith leaning upon Love 4. To believe all Gods promises and that whatsoever is promised in Scripture shall on Gods part be as surely performed as if we had it in possession This act makes us to rely upon God with the same confidence as we did on our Parents when we were children when we made no doubt but whatsoever we needed we should have it if it were in their power 5. To believe also the conditions of the promise or that part of the revelation which concerns our duty Many are apt to believe the Article of remission of sins but they believe it without the condition of repentance or the fruits of holy life and that is to believe the Article otherwise then God intended it For the Covenant of the Gospel is the great object of Faith and