fretting her unchearful look her meatless meals were now layd aside There is a promise to them that seek God That he will make them joyful in his house of prayer Isai 56.7 30.19 as he will bestow those blessings upon them which they crave so he will for earnest make them joyful before they go out of his house And in the same Prophet Thou shalt weep no more he will be very gracious unto thee at the voyce of thy cry David praying and being in a very heavy taking having his Soul cast down within him and deep calling unto deep at the noise of Gods water-spouts and all his waves and his billows going over him that is he being as it were overwhelmed in a Sea of sorrows evils flowing upon him like waves one at the heels of another had this reviving giving him Psa 42.4 7 9 Yet the Lord will command his loving-kindness in the day time and in the night his song shall be with me and my prayer unto the God of my life The Lord will command his loving kindness that is he will dispatch it forth to him instantly as a winged Messenger and Harbinger of a good issue of his prayers and afflicting griefs And whil'st he is praying the song of God shall come into and recreate him his own prayer and Gods song shall joyn company together and both at once associate him The Souls under the Altar that cry how long O Lord c. they are put to stay some time for their vindication Apoc. 6.11 Eccles 9.7 8 but in the mean space it 's said White robes were given unto every one of them Those white robes might betoken a chearful habit of spirit a good measure of alacrity put into them during their sufferings yet to be prolonged in assurance of their answer and release in due time to come 3. By a continuation of the Spirit of prayer or an exercise of it When the hands are still supported in their lifting up to God or raised and stretched out higher towards him when the motions vigor and vehemency of prayer are renewed or redoubled in the hearts of Gods servants it is a token from God that it shall not be in vain but to some purpose and effect that they call upon him Hos 12.3 4 When Jacobs strength in wrestling with the Angel was so great and did hold out until day break and he was so set that he would not let the Angel go until he had blessed him this was a strong argument of his power and prevalency with God and that he should prevail with men also with his Brother Esau and all his Troop The pouring upon the House of David Zec. 12.10 and upon the Inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplications is put in the Prophet as a fore-running presage and introduction to many great mercies to them The Apostle brings in this as a clear earnest to Believers of deliverance from sins and sufferings and of receiving the glory and redemption of the body expected and groaned after That the Spirit helpeth our infirmities and maketh intercession for us in prayer with groanings which cannot be uttered Rom. 8.26 As it is a special favor and a good sign to a people that God gives to his Prophets the opening of the mouth in declaring his Word Eze. 29.21 so it is also that he bestows upon them a mouth opened wide and a voyce loud and lifted up in prayer Open thy mouth wide saith God to his Israel and I will fill it Psa 81.10 4. By an erected confidence and it may be a clear foresight and evidence that the Petition is dispatched in Heaven and shall assuredly be accomplished in time on Earth This pledg God doth sometimes vouchsafe his faithful ones upon their seeking of him and before he work to the effecting of their prayers as it is in the Psalmist Lord thou hast heard the desire of the humble Psa 19.17 thou wilt prepare their heart or as the Margin thou wilt establish their heart that is When they have poured out their desires unto thee thou wilt give them a seal of success by setting impressions of confidence and evidence of it upon their hearts This we often find in David in one part of his Psalm he is praying weeping complaining expostulating and deprecating the dejections and desertions of his Soul for lack of audience and by and by before any thing be done about the affairs or particulars of his prayer he is lifted up and composed in full assurance of having his requests yea triumphs in them as already embraced Depart from me all ye workers of iniquity Psa 6.8 9 13.5 6 â— 20.6 42.11 142.7 for the Lord hath heard the voyce of my weeping the Lord hath heard my supplication But I have trusted in thy mercy my heart shall rejoyce in thy Salvation I will sing unto the Lord because he hath dealt bountifully with me Now know I that the Lord saveth his anointed he will hear him from his holy Heaven with the saving strength of his right hand Why art thou cast down O my Soul why art thou disquieted within me Hope thou in God for I shall yet praise him The righteous shal compass me about for thou shalt deal bountifully with me Cornelius the Centurian in one of his Fast-days and whil'st he was praying had a vision of assurance in which an Angel told him Cornelius Act. 10.30 Luk. 1.13 Philem. 22 thy prayer is heard and the like had Zacharias the Priest in the Temple at the time of prayer The Apostle Paul also being in prison at Rome conceived such a confidence of his being given up to the Christians at Coloss by way of enlargement upon their prayers that he sends out of his prison to Philemon at Coloss to prepare him a lodging with them there This may be sufficient for the illustration of the first way of the Lords answering prayer to wit by way of Obsignation or Assurance wherein we have noted four instances or acts I come to the second kind of answer which is by way of performance this is when the thing entreated for in prayer is accomplished This is the most sensible and most noted way of prayers return from Heaven to the Petitioner David describes it in that his benedictory Psalm Psa 20.1 4 21.2 The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble c. Grant thee according to thine own heart and fulfil all thy counsel and in the next Psalm to that Thou hast given him his hearts desire and hast not withholden the request of his lips It will not be unnecessary to observe the several methods of this answer of performance 1. Sometimes it is instantaneous or dispatched all at once it is finished in one compleat act as when Samuel cryed unto the Lord for Israel at what time the Philistins Army stood ready to give the on-set upon them it is said The Lord heard or in the
Advocate here on Earth by way of Instruction and Excitation of us to pray and animating or enlivening our requests within us We labor of a double incapacity to go to God in prayer 1. Of guilt and unworthiness as being enemies and transgressors against God 2. Of ineptitude or infirmity both in point of understanding and will as being both ignorant and liveless to ask any thing of God Wherefore we have need of and have given us a double Advocate First Of Propitiation in Heaven the Lord Jesus Christ Secondly Of Interpellation or Efficiency with and in us this is the proper work of the Holy Ghost And therefore we are said to have access unto the Father through Christ and by the Spirit The Rule then in this place to be followed is We must pray 1. In Christ Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my Name Ask and you shall receive that your Joy may be full At that day ye shall ask in my Name Io. 16 24.26 Rom. 3.25 Psal 80.1 Exod. 30.6 Christ is our Propitiatory or Mercy-seat As in the time of the Law the Lord afforded his presence over the Mercy-seat and thence gave Answers to the Enquiries of the high Priest and people of Israel so are we now without such visible and local types brought near unto God and vouchsafed audience through Jesus Christ 2. We must pray in the Spirit Praying in the Holy Ghost Iudâ— 20. Eph. 6.18 Tim. 5. â—6 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit The Apostle James saith The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much Prayer is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 effectual Dr Downham doctr of pâ—ayer cap. 6. p. 27. when it hath the inward 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or working when it is actuated and effectuated by the Spirit of God in generating this inward efficacy in our prayers which we are not able to give them saith a most judicious Author Our prayer must not be the work of our lip or voyce nor of our brain wit memory nor of our will and carnal desire only it must not be a meer humane work or but from a common acquired gift of prayer serving only to put our case into a form of words and method but it must be the work of the Spirit upon the heart it must be made of impressions and expressions that are inward and proceed of the Spirit of God impressions of softness tenderness and mourning Zech. 12. â—0 Rom. 8.27 expressions of groanings that cannot be uttered We see this part of the way in which prayer must be offered up viz. the Means by which Secondly The Manner There are certain particular Qualifications and Affections that must accompany prayer Those are these following or the main of them 1. Understanding a 1 Cor. 14 15 2. Faith b Mat. 21.22 Iam. 1 6. Rom 10.4 3. Repentance c Ps 66 18 Lam. 3 40 41 4 Sincerity d Heb. 10.22 Psa 145.8 Ro. 12 12 5. Fervencye. 6. Charity f Mark 11 25 1 Tim. 2.8 7. And lastly Perseverance g Luk 18.1 Eph. 6 18. I leave the Reader for brevities sake to search the places quoted in the Margin I have thus given a brief description of the ground of Precept layd down for prayer in the Word of God I am now to come to the ground of Promise and to do the like by it I shall for our survey of this propose unto observation two things 1. The several kinds of promise upon which prayer is to ground it self 2. The right sence and acception in which those promises are made and to be taken by us in building our prayers upon them and consequently of the grounding of prayers upon the promises First The several kinds of promises for the bottoming of prayer The Promises of God upon which prayer may fix and hold are of two sorts 1. Irrespective or such as are made of doing good without any express mention of or relation to prayer 2. Relative or such as are made to prayer as of hearing or of giving this or that blessing upon prayer The former promiseth the matter or thing prayed for the latter promiseth it unto prayer So that the former I may term the material the latter the formal ground of prayer First For the irrespective promises I need not may not be particular upon them they are so huge a multitude they make a principal part of Scripture and for their nature they are great and precious of a vast and various comprehension they are extended to all things times persons states and uses they are by themselves a subject large enough for a whole Treatise and so they are put forth by a learned and worthy Author with much diligence * Mr Leigh Treat of Divine Promises now a 3d time imprinted Only I shall note one distinction of them 1. They are either such as concern all are made and propounded and so in some sort appertain to all or any whomsoever so they come duly qualified to them such are the main bulk and current of Scripture-promises 2. There are that belong to some special persons only who are usually by name spoken to or of in them such was that promise made to David of a lasting family and succession in the Kingdom over Israel 2 Sam. 7.16 Isai 38.5 and that promise made to Hezekiah of recovery from sickness and of an addition of fifteen years unto his life and of defence of himself and the City Jerusalem from the King of Assyria and as a sign of the same of the return back of the shadow upon the Sun-dyal of Ahaz ten degrees and that promise made to the captive Jews of a return home from Babylon after seventy years accomplished in captivity Secondly For the relative promises or those that are made expresly to prayer they are as the former 1. Either peculiar to some persons as God promised Abraham upon his prayer to spare Sodom Gen. 18.26 20.7 according to the conditions by him inserted touching the number of the righteous to be there found and he promised Abimelech King of Gerar life upon Abrahams praying for him 1 Kin. 17 1. Jam. 5.17 And he promised Elijah that there should not be dew nor rain for some years but according to his Word which was his prayer 2. Or universal and layd down for all and these are the promises now of use to us for the grounding of our prayers upon them and therefore we are to take these into our more special consideration They are all general in regard of object or extent to persons but in regard of their subject or the matter promised 1. Some are more generally propounded as when the Lord promiseth to hear Isai 58.9 Psâ—l 144.18 19 50 15 86.5 Rom. 10 12 13 to answer to save to be plenteous in mercy to be nigh to be rich over them that call upon them or that they that ask shall receive and the like These are promises
Margin answered him 1 Sam. 7.9 10 and as Samuel was offering up the burnt offering the Philistins drew neer to battel against Israel but the Lord thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistins and discomfitted them and they were smitten before Israel 2. Somtimes it is successive or effected by degrees when the servants of the Lord in their straits and needs call upon him he often helps them gradatim or by successive steps Two steps more frequently he makes in this work 1. He sends strength and support under and during the affliction or want of the benefit desired 2. And then after he gives them deliverance from it he loosens the bands of their distress and they escape out of it both these we have distinctly noted in divers Scriptures as in that of the Psalm He shall call upon me and I will answer him and mark the degree of the answer which follows I will be with him in trouble there 's the one I will deliver him and honor him there 's the other And again In the day when I cryed thou answeredst me and strengthened me with strength in my Soul there 's the first present support in his exigence which is further amplified after Though I walk in the midst of trouble Psa 138.3 7 thou wilt revive me and then follows in the next words recovery out Thou shalt stretch out thine hands against the wrath of mine Enemies and thy right hand shall save me This double step of relief from God to his people upon their prayer is notably set forth in the Prophet Malachi When the state of things was grown so forlorn Mal. 3.14 c. as that the ordinary sort of Fasters and Prayers concluded it a vain thing to sâ—â—ve God and a profitless course to keep his Ordinances and to walk mournfully before him yet there were some left that truly feared the Lord that spake often one to another in mutual corroborations unto piety and that thought upon the Name of God in diligent and constant calling upon it and observe the issue these have a twofold day set for them and in them have those 2 degrees of help from God successively 1. There is a day when God makes up his Jewels or as Drusius interprets a day when he makes Judgment or proceeds in Judgment and in that day they saith the Lord of Hoasts shall be my Jewels and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him that 's the first day and first step of succor The Lord will own them for his in the evil day he will take care of them as of his choycest and preciousest goods and he will moderate their share of troubles and support them therein so that as it is in the next words there shall be a palpable difference put and discerned betwixt them and the wicked in their sufferings 2. There is another day cometh after a day that shall burn as an oven and in this latter day is that other step of the help of those fearers and seekers of God that is their deliverance and full satisfaction For in that day the proud yea and all that do wickedly shall be stubble and the day that cometh shall burn them up saith the Lord of Hoasts that it shall leave them neither root nor branch But unto you that fear my Name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings and ye shall tread down the wicked for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this saith the Lord of Hoasts I will further note that the latter of these two degrees of Gods return to prayer viz. Deliverance out of trouble or fruition of the thing asked may have its several degrees also As 1. When God raiseth up the means and secondary causes which he will use and sets himself to work by them 2. When he doth carry on and consummate deliverance with them This order he pursued in bringing Israel out of Egypt upon the hearing of their cries and groans he first appears to Moses in Midian and gives him a Call Commission and Instructions to go into Egypt and fetch them out I have heard saith he to them out of the burning Bush their groaning Acts 7.34 and am come down to deliver them and now come I will send thee into Egypt And then Moses and Aaron being joyned together in Egypt and after many goings in there unto Pharaoh for dismission of them and many additions of oppressions upon the Israelites and many miraculous plagues upon Pharaoh his People and Land they are led or posted out of Egypt in one night And in the recovery of the same people long after from their captivity and ruines under the Babylonian the Lord proposeth in his promise several degrees as in the Prophet Hosea And it shall come to pass in that day I will hear saith the Lord Hos 2.21 22 21 I will hear the Heavens and they shall hear the Earth And the Earth shall hear the Corn and the Wine and the Oyl and they shall hear Jezreel and I will sow her unto me in the Earth and I will have mercy on her c. Such a series of causes and operations the Providence of God doth often go through in delivering his people This is spoken figuratively in the Prophet not as if the Heavens and the rest of the inferior Creatures here had a voyce or did pray and we must not understand it as spoken of the order of Gods receiving but of his performing prayers In order of receiving prayer God immediately and only hears Jezreel his people but in order of answer and execution he first hears or answers the Heavens that is puts efficacy and influence into them and then by them into the Earth and by the Earth into its fruits and so comes home to Jezreel and then also Jezreel must be sown in the Earth that is must be cast into the ground and lie under the clods of affliction and be in appearance as dead for a time and then spring up and be restored The smoke of incense which came with the prayers of the Saints Rev. 8.4 and ascended up before God out of the Angels hand by it and them were procured the seven following Trumpets Now these Trumpets the issue and execution of those prayers sounded successively one after another and did accomplish those prayers by so many degrees and the term of their succession and continuance ere all be finished is supposed to be for many years yea divers ages Thus of the second way of prayers receiving its answer and the several steps of it The third and last is that of Commutation The Lord doth sometimes hear and answer the prayer when he doth not give the very thing prayed for There is an answer by way of exchange to wit when God gives in lieu of that which is asked another thing which is as good or better for
their place To give some instances Daniel fasts and prays for the return of the captivity in the first year of Darius and he prays That the Lord would haâ—ken and do and not defer but God did defer until the first year of Cyrus which was two years current * Dan. 9.1 19. Darius imperium accepit A. M. 3466. imperavit annis duobus Cyrus Monarchia potitus est A. M. 3468 Vide Annales Usser pag. 145 146. Dan. 10.2 12.13 Luk. 18.7 And again at another time of his fasting and praying he is told in a Vision That from the first day he set his heart to understand and to chasten himself before God his words were heard yet he continued mourning three full weeks and the Angel appearing to him in the end thereof telleth him his answer was stopped in the way just so long to wit one and twenty days God doth hear his own Elect which cry day and night unto him under their pressures but there is a long bearing with their adversaries interposed betwixt his hearing and avenging of them Rev. 6.10 11 The Souls under the Altar that cry with a loud voyce How long O Lord holy and true dost thou not judg and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the Earth They were heard but withall they are told They must rest for a little season until their fellow servants also and their Brethren that should be killed as they were should be fulfilled This little season of stay for the issue of their prayers is computed by a very judicious Commentator to be above a hundred years Mr Mede who begineth the fift Seal an 268. and the first Trumpet which he makes the beginning of the answer of their cry an 395. See his Key Comment part 1. pag. 52. 81 85. In the Song of Solomon the Spouse twice had lost her beloved and missing sought him and seeking was yet disappointed for some time of meeting with him yet this missing and not finding Cant. 3.1.5 6 was not a dereluction or divorce but a stepping aside of him only for a time The prayers of the Saints in the Book of the Revelation are resembled by the smoke of Incense Rev. 8.3.5 their answer or return by voyces thunderings lightenings and earthquakes There is in this resemblance a great congruity to the work of Nature for smoke or such hot and dry vapors ascending into the upper region do produce thunder and lightening which are the voyce of God and inclosed in the Earth do cause Earthquakes but as there is naturally a good time after the exhaling of these vapors for the altering and forming of them ere they break forth into Thunder Lightening or Earthquakes so it is with the Saints prayers there is often an intervall of time betwixt their ascent and effect and as it is the folly of the vulgar to think when they see smoke or vapors gone up out of their sight that they are quite vanished or annihilated so is it for us to judg those prayers of none effect that are a good while a working above ere they come down in visible impressions here below I have thus endevored to shew the diversity of the ways of God towards the prayers of men both in appearing to and hiding from them The second thing proposed now is to follow viz. the diversity of grounds or impulsives whereupon he doth either This will not hold us long as being not altogether so various and intricate First for the Lords appearing unto prayer the difference of grounds may be thus taken He doth appear to prayer 1. In Anger 2. In Favor 1. God doth sometimes hear and grant mens prayers in anger he gives men their desires and it is sometimes not in mercy but in displeasure Numb 11 20 33 Psa 78.21 26.106.15 1 Sam. 8.21 22 so God gave quails to Israel in the wilderness he sent them out of wrath and wrath was the sauce with which they did eat them Thus also God gave a King to Israel in the days of Samuel Questionless the Quails were in themselves very good and wholesom food and did not naturally engender the plague but they asked them lustfully Satius erat non audiri a Dominó quam cum carnibus ejus indignationem vocare Calv. not for need and diffidently not in faith and God gave them accordingly out of anger and with the plague they were the last meat that many of them ever ate they brought them to their graves the graves of them that lusted Doubtless Monarchy was and is in it self a good Government and was promised long before as a blessing to that people and as it appeared by the sequel was intended them shortly as a mercy and it is as a mercy promised to the Church of after times Gen. 17.6 16 2 Sam. 7.8 c. 23.3 c. 2 Chro. 2 11 Isai 49.23 Rev. 17.16 21.24 but they asked a King not by vertue of or in the way of promise but rebelliously ambitiously distrustfully and God gave them a King suitably Saul an impious tyrannical despairing King And we may note God gives sometimes evil and unlawful requests in wrath or for correction to others besides the askers The curses or enchantments of malice or witchery God sometimes brings to pass as means of punishment or affliction to those against whom they are intended by the maleficous Judg. 9.20 Vide Calv. Instit l. 3. c. 20. S. 15 Thus he gave success to Jothams curse upon the men of Sechem Thus he yielded to Satans desire against Job in his goods children and body and thus our Saviour granted the Devils request touching entering into the Gadarens herd of swine Mat. 8.32 yea Satan had his desire of Peter so far as to have him to sift him as wheat Luk. 22.31 though not to destroy his Faith 2. God appeareth to prayer in mercy and favor and this may be more ways then one It may be 1. Out of his general goodness and common pity God hath a propension to shew mercy a disposition to extend favor towards all as they are his creatures as they are in want and misery Vide Aqui. 22. qu. 83 Art 16 Job 34.28 Exo 22.23 Gen. 21.17 as they may put forth and express their natural desires before him He heareth the cry of the afflicted saith Elihu I will surely hear their cry saith he himself of the widow and fatherless child God heard the voyce of the lad Ishmael Under this notion are those hearings and deliverings taken to be of the solitary hungry thirsty and harborless of the imprisoned Psalmus docet non carere effectu preces quae tamen fide in coelum non penetrant Colligit enim quas incredulus non minus quam piis necessitas extorquet preces ex naturae sensu quibus tamen Deum propitium esse ex eventu demonstrat Calv. Instit l. 3. c. 20. sect 15. scultet de prec c. 15. p. 54. of the sick and
of the Sea-bestormed Psa 107. yea out of this universal commiserativeness God is said to hear the cry of brute beasts as of the young Lions of the young Ravens nay to hear inanimate Creatures as the Heavens the Earth the Corn Wine and Oyl Thus it comes to pass that many times very wicked men have their desires and prayers in temporals granted them The Lord took notice of Ahabs humbling himself upon Elijahs reproof and denunciations and because of it he said 1 King 21 29 He would not bring the evil upon his house in his days Wicked Jehoahaz delivered of God into the hands of the Syrian Kings 2 King 13 4 5 He besought the Lord and the Lord harkened unto him and the Lord gave Israel a Saviour so that they went out from under the hand of the Syrians Israel in the Psalmist when they under his Judgments sought God and returned and enquired early after God though it was but in flattery and hypocrisie Psa 78.34 Yet he being full of compassion forgave their iniquity and destroyed them not 2. God appeareth to prayer out of that favor which is special and more peculiar he heareth the faithful seekers of him his own children from a neerer impulsive out of a dearer respect and consideration which he beareth towards their persons out of a federal and fatherly love and he embraceth their prayers not only out of a general but out of a special benevolence nor meerly with benevolence but with complacency and acceptation their prayers are as sweet as incense to him To the dwellers in Zion the Prophet saith Isai 30.19 He will be very gracious unto thee at the voyce of thy cry These are the different grounds of Gods hearing prayer Secondly For Gods hiding from prayer he doth it also upon the like different grounds 1. It is some yea most times out of wrath and that is either 1. Judicial or a wrath of loathing and hatred a full pure unallayed anger such he bears to carnal wicked men and to their prayers Zech. 7.12 13 as it is in the Prophet Therefore came a great wrath from the Lord of Hoasts therefore it came to pass that as he cryed and they would not hear so they cryed and I would not hear saith the Lord of Hoasts 2. Or Paternal and Conjugal the wrath of a Father or Husband a wrath tempered with and in time overcome and swallowed up of love intimate and peculiar love a wrath joyned to bowels of mercy such is that in the Prophet Isai 57.17 18 For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth and smote him I hid me and was wroth c. I have seen his ways and will heal him I will lead him also and restore comforts to him and to his mourners Such a wrath as is again exprest by the Lord in the same Prophet In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment Isai 59.8 but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee saith the Lord thy Redeemer Mark well the great difference of this wrath from that which is against others it is the present wrath of a provoked Husband against an offending Wife by which she is widowed cast off and so barren and desolate in her prayers for a time for so are the words before The Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit and a wife of youth when thou wast refused saith thy God Again it is a little wrath and but for a moment and a small moment The sum is it is a moderated anger mixed with a dear relation and band of affection to them and it is a short and quickly cooled and forgotten wrath 2. This hiding from prayer is sometimes out of mercy yea it may be in special favor and the favor in withholding may be greater then it would have been to have granted the thing prayed for It may seem otherwise but the very truth is God doth sometimes deny his peoples prayers in indulgence and mercy to them they not seldom are set upon that which would be hurtful for them and ask the things which would be very bad for them to have in this case the want of their desires is better then the grant and God consulteth their good sheweth them favor in withholding their wishes from them Rachel was excessively bent to have children Give me children saith she or else I dye Well at length she had her longing but what came of it she dyed of child-bearing her second child was her Benoni the son of her sorrow so named by her self he was her bane and death As God giveth sometimes in anger so he withdraweth and denyeth sometimes in good-will and love As the natural father will give none but good gifts to his children he will not give his son a stone a Serpent a Scorpion for Bread for a Fish for an Egg So neither will our heavenly Father If the natural father will not exchange good petitions into bad gifts much more will our heavenly Father suspend bad Petitions or exchange them into good gifts * Deus quaedam negat propitius quae concedit iratus August Fideliter supplicans Deo pro necessitatibus hujus vitae misericorditer auditur misericorditer non auditur Quid enim infirmo sit utile magis novit medicus quam aegrotus August apud Aquin 22. qu. 83. art 15. Quid enim ratione timemus aut cupimus Quid tam dextro pede concipis ut te conatus non paeniteat voâ—â—que peracti evertere domos totas optantibus ipsis dii faciles nocitura toga nocitura petuntur militia Juvenal Saty. 10. Mr Goodwin Return of Prayer Chap. 9. Sect. 3. A worthy Author saith Oftentimes some great cross is prevented by the denyal of a thing which we were urgent for if we had had many of our desires we had been undone So it was a mercy to David that his child was taken away for whose life he was yet so earnest who would have been but a living monument of his shame SECT IV. The Answer to the Query summarily recollected and formed I Have finished the main tractation of the Query propounded in the Explication of the several terms or clauses and have shewed the difference to be noted among them that are stiled the people of God how Prayers are to be grounded both upon Precepts and Promises and the divers ways in which and grounds upon which God doth appear to or hide himself from Prayers I shall now only gather up all into a few Corollaries or summary Propositions fitted by way of Answer to the Query The Question was How or in what sense God may be said to hide himself from his peoples Prayers grounded upon his Promises and seem by his Providences to answer the Prayers which are contrary thereunto I answer 1. They that are the people of God by name outward call profession communion and form of godliness God may hide himself from their
places and fountains in the midst of the valleys I will make the wilderness a pool of water and the dry land springs of water I will plant in the wilderness the Cedar c. And the end or issue first of that protracted indigence and then of this exceeding affluence first of that low ebb and then of this full tyde is that they may see and know and consider and understand together that the hand of the Lord hath done this and the holy one of Israel hath created it Here we have the effect notably exprest it is not meerly said that the hand of the Lord and his work may be visible but the act of acknowledgment of it is set forth by a multiplicity of words by a fourfold term to note both the conspicuity of the object to be observed and the intentness of the observer of it that they may see and know and consider and understand together In our prayers which are ordinarily put up and as continually answered we scarce see or confess God in the return but when as we are put to seek God long ere we speed and are hard pinched with the want and delayed expectation of the thing and are even wearied and faint with our waiting and crying and when at last our requests are granted us then we apprehend God clearly in the issue we own him expresly and take solemn notice of him in it As Hagar when the Lord appeared to her by the well in the wilderness gave unto God this appellation Gen. 16.13 Thou Lord seest me and said Have I also here looked after him that seeth me in like manner do the servants of God now on such an appearance of him Or as it is in another passage of Isaiah of a suitable import to this they say Lo this is our God we have waited for him and he will save us Isai 25.9 this is the Lord we have waited for him we will be glad and rejoyce in his Salvation Observe what the occasion is of this exultation in Gods appearing and of this pointing out of God as it were with the finger the preface to those words denoteth it to us Verse 8. And it shal be said in that day Lo this is our God c. In that day to wit when the Lord God will swallow up death in victory and will wipe away tears from off all faces and the rebuke of his people shall be taken away from off all the earth that 's the day in which this shall be said This then is one intent of God in withholding himself for a time from his peoples prayers that his appearance to them in the upshot may be the more grateful and glorious Therefore will the Lord wait that he may be gracious unto you Isai 30.18 that is not as if God were not gracious in disposition and affection unto his servants at all times but the meaning is the Lord hath his special season of exercising and bringing forth the eminent effects of his grace and favour to them and the special season is when mercy will appear to be mercy indeed and grace will look like grace and shine forth in its orient brightness and this season is brought on ripened by the Lords deferring or waiting for a time even until his people be come to that extremity of affliction and inability as is there described in the context Mar. 8.24 Mark 4 37 If Christ had not slept in the ship while the storm arose and came to that height that his Disciples and the rest of the company in it apprehended themselves at the point of perâ—shing the divine Power of Christ had not so appeared and been so admired by them as it was when he upon their awakening him with their cries rebuked the wind and stilled the Sea and made it calm in an instant Mat. 14.24 And at another time of their passing by Sea had it not been that they had been so tossed by waves and contrary winds and that he tarried from them until the fourth watch of the night and that when he came unto them he came walking upon the Sea and when he was come into the ship the wind and waves immediately ceased they in the ship had not been so moved to worship him and to conclude him of a certain to be the Son of God Ye have heard saith St James of the patience of Job Jam. 5.11 and have seen the end of the Lord that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy The end of the Lord I conceive here may be not so much or not only the conclusion which God put to Jobs afflictions in the happy change and recovery of his outward estate double to his former prosperity as the end which the Lord accomplished upon the spirit of Job and doth still work upon the hearts also of all others that look upon and make a right use of the dealings of God with him which is the demonstration of Gods exceeding pitifulness and tender mercifulness unto him in pardoning his infirmities dispelling his temptations and raising him up from so miserable a state to flourish again and this was the end of Jobs endurings and the exercise of his patience in so great a measure by them the end I â—ay it was of his endurings not which they by their own natural efficacy produced but which the Lord by his ordering brought forth it 's therefore termed the end of the Lord that is the end which the Lord proposed and at length attained by his proceedings in that manner with him Gen. 32.31 Jacob when he so stoutly wrestled with the Angel of God as that he prevailed and carried the blessing withall he got a halt and came off sinew shrunk by the Angels touch of the hollow of his thigh The reason which is commonly rendered was that by this mark of infirmity it might appear that he got not the victory by his own strength but by his with whom he prevailed it was the will and not the weakness of him with whom Jacob wrestled by reason whereof he got the upper hand As the hollow of Jacobs thigh was touched before he obtained the blessing so do the servants of God not seldom get a halt or come on slowly to the enjoyment of their desires in prayer and it is for that very reason that the divine power and grace may be the more magnified in the end 5. A further end of the Lords deferring to answer his peoples prayers may be to inhance the price of the benefit prayed for to teach them by the long want of it and by their painful and sollicitous seeking for it to set a due rate upon it That which costs us dear we usually account dearly of The mâ—rcy which is gotten by hard begging and long craving will be more acceptable and better improved when it comes it will be both more pleasing and more profitable when it is possessed we shall by that means learn better to
arising either from man or from God they are such as are either given by man or proposed and aymed at by God or they are either meritorious causes or final causes that is they are either the ungracious procurements and provocations of man or the gracious intendments and purposes of God 1. There are causes arising from man those which he giveth this effect is promerited and procured by him there is in him that which provoketh God to it 2. There are causes arising from God final causes merciful ends purposes and designs proposed and aymed at by him The former sort of causes makes the hiding penal the latter makes it profitable by the one it is vindictive by the other it is beneficial I shall insist on these two severally but there is one thing that would first be denoted concerning them both together which is that these two sorts of causes may sometimes go alone or apart or the one may be severed from the other sometimes again they may concur or go conjoyned 1. Sometimes or in some cases they may be found apart or alone or the one without the other and that both ways to wit this without that and that without this 1. One while God may be observed to do this namely to hide himself from prayer for the demerit or delinquency of the party praying only without any ground of gathering his respect therein to any gracious ends towards or for them Prov. 1.28 as in that of Solomon Then shall they call upon me but I will not answer they shall seek me early but they shall not find me Here the hiding may be meerly penal 2. Another while it may be for certain gracious ends which God hath to accomplish thereby on or for them that pray without respect to any special provocation of theirs as in the Churches case Psa 44.17 c. Psal 44. They were covered with the shadow of death God as unto their sense was asleep had cast them off did hide his face and forget their affliction and oppression yet they say all this is come upon us yet have we not forgotten thee neither have we delt falsly in thy Covenant our heart is not turned back neither have our steps declined from thy way And this appears to be Jobs case his own words so report it Behold I go forward Job 23.8 c. but he is not there and backward but I cannot perceive him on the left hand where he doth work but I cannot behold him he hideth himself on the right hand that I cannot see him but when he hath tryed me I shall come forth as gold my foot hath held his steps his way have I kept and not declined c. In these cases the hiding may be conceived not penal at all but meerly procurative of their good 2. Sometimes those two sorts of reasons may concur or be conjoyned in this effect And this may be two ways 1. Either distributely or with relation to several persons joyned together in one community and in the same prayers that is it may be that the Lord may hide himself from the joynt prayers of a society of men so as that to some of them it may be only for their demerits and so meerly penal to others of them it may be from merciful intentions in God and so conducing to their benefit We read in the Prophet Jeremiah the people of Judah were distinguished by God into two parties by the emblem of two baskets of figs Jer. 24.1 c. the one whereof had very good the other had very naughty figs in it by the former were figured those of Jehojakims and Jeconiahs captivity by the latter those of Zedekiah both these sorts that is all the people of Iudah the the whole Nation generally prayed as I have made evident before and for testimony of it take the places in the margent a Jer. 21.1 2.36 9 37 3.42.1 c. Ezek. 14 1 c. Zech. 7.5 and as they all sought unto God so did God hide himself in respect of a prevention or instant return of the captivity from the prayers of them all both of the one sort and the other But it was with this difference as it is in that Prophecy of the Figs those resembled by the good figs though they were carryed and kept in that captivity it was for their good for many gracious ends to be thereby accomplished to them which you may see in that Text b Vers 6 7 Those noted by the naughty figs were delivered up to the hands of Nebuchadnezzar for their hurt and that many ways as may be read to that Prophecy c Ver. 9 10 and so it was unto them purely for punishment Here then is a hiding from prayer upon both those sorts of reasons distributively referred 2. Or it may be individually or with relation to the same persons The hiding of God from prayers may be for reasons of both those kinds respecting the same parties to wit both for their provocation and unto the effecting of happy ends to them it may be both for the sins and for the good of the self-same persons for their sins as the procuring cause on their part and for their good as the purposed end on Gods part Daniel was one of those good figs afore spoken of he was one of Iehojakims captivity and of it also were the three children and either of that or of Ieconiahs captivity were Mordecai Ezra Ezekiel and all those who being carryed to Babylon were after the seventy years set free and brought to Iudea for of Zedekiahs deportation none were to return d Or if any a very few compare Jer. 24 10 with 44 28. they were the basket of naughty figs that were to be consumed from off the Land and being so they all belonged to the basket of the good figs Jer. 24.20 and consequently God did hide himself from them in regard of and during that captivity for their good yet it was also for their sins as themselves acknowledg e Dan. 9.8 16 Ezr. 9.7.13 Neh. 9 33 37. L m. 3 42 43 44. Psâ— 79 89 Isai 64 7 and the Lord himself testifieth f Ezâ—k 39 23 28 29 I before observed of David that it was a mercy to him that the child which Vriahs wife bare unto him dyed that his prayer in that behalf was denyed him and yet withall this was for his sin g 2 Sam. 12 14 Israel at Kadesh having so far provoked God by their diffidence and murmuring against him upon the return of their spies from Canaan as that he doomed them to wander out forty years in the wilderness ere they should pass over Jordan into the promised Land they upon better thoughts relent and offer to redeem their said offences by going up to fight for and to possess that Land and being repulsed first by divine prohibition Deut. 1.45 and then by the Amorites sword They returned and wept before the
Lord but the Lord would not harken to their voyce nor give ear unto them Here the denyal of their suit and the irrevocability of the sentence of their wandering so long in the wilderness was plainly for their sin And yet we read elsewhere in the story the same was ordered so for their good also The Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness to humble thee and to prove thee to know what was in thine heart c. and he humbled thee and suffered thee to hunger c. that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live And a little after Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness wherein were fiery Serpents Deut. 8.2 3 15 16 c. that he might humble thee and that he might prove thee to do thee good at thy latter end These many excellent benefits were the end for that peoples attainment whereof they were put to travel and stay so long a time out of Canaan and in the desart The proposal of so happy an end by God and the committance of such great offences by the people concurred together in the denyal of their request above spoken of And the like may be said of Moses in regard of the denyal of his request to go over Jordan and into Canaan it was his benefit being that in lieu thereof he dying attained to a better life and Canaan and yet his sin also was in it as the cause of that refusal h Deut. 3.26.32.52 Numb 20 12 Psa 106.33 We see then by these instances those very persons whom the Lord hideth himself from it may be both to correct their sin and to consult their good he may do it to them both for the punishment of their offences and for the procurement of their profit SECT V. Of the first sort of Causes of Gods hiding from prayers HAving made this observation of both the sorts of Causes layd together I now proceed to speak of them severally 1. Of the former namely the Reasons arising from man or the meritorious Causes on mans part Concerning this head of Reasons I shall endeavor to shew four things 1. That sin is a cause of Gods hiding from his peoples prayers 2. Whose sins 3. What special sins for kind 4. Certain circumstances in sin that help forward this effect 1. That sin is a cause of this deportment of the Lord towards his praying people I shall not need to say much to this it is a thing so evident It is plainly declared by God It is freely acknowledged by the people of God themselves 1. It is expresly declared by God Isai 59.12 Your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear Jer. 33 5. For all whose wickedness I have hid my face from this City Because they trespassed against me Ezek 39.23 24. therefore I hid my face from them According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions have I done unto them and hid my face from them And predictâ—vely Mic. 3.4 Then shall they cry unto the Lord but he will not hear them he will even hide his face from them at that time as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings 2. The consciences of the people of God have given testimony to this against themselves So the Church of Iudah under her Babylonian pressures Lam. 3.42 43 We have transgressed and have rebelled thou hast not pardoned Thou hast covered thy self with a cloud that our prayers should not pass through Isai 64 7 For thou hast hid thy face from us and consumed us because of our iniquities David elegantly expresseth this where he saith Psal 65 3. Verba iniquitatum prevaluerunt mihi Foord Ar. Mon. pelican Musc Iniquities prevail against me or as our margent with other Interpreters read the words of iniquities prevail against me He had in the verse next before used this compellation to God O thou that hearest prayer and with relation unto that stile he is conceived to intend this speech The words of iniquities prevail against me We see iniquities speak they have a voyce yea a cry As our prayers speak and cry for us so if iniquity have dominion over us it will speak yea clamour and clamouring prevail against us As God is a hearer of prayer so he is a hearer of the cry of sin As he receives the suits which our prayers present for us so also he admits the bills which our sins put in against us As he hath an ear of mercy open to the one so hath he an ear of justice and holiness open to the other And it is but equal that as the presentment of our wants or wrongs by prayer so the accusation of our sins which are injuries done unto God should have access to him yea and that God himself should first be vindicated and the sin expiated and removed and we our selves set right in the Court of Heaven upon our repentance ere our prayers for us should have a hearing and return from God 2. The next thing is Whose sin it is that may cause God to hide himself from his servants prayers I answer 1. It is very ordinarily their own sin that do pray I will give no other instances for this then those even now given out of Isaiah Ieremiah the Lamentations Ezekiel and Micah look but over them again and you will read in every of them that as sin was the motive of Gods hiding from those prayers so the sin was theirs whose were the prayers 2. It is oftentimes the sin of others As 1. Theirs for whom the prayer is put up to God As in the intercessions of the servants of God for others they may pray for others out of duty to Gods Command and pious affection to them and their prayer may be regular and it may be acceptable to God and yet the Lord may hide himself from it in regard of granting the benefit to the persons prayed for and the reason may be the sins of those persons 1 Sam. 15.11 Samuel cryed unto the Lord all night for Saul but Sauls disobedience in his expedition against the Amalekites suffered not Samuel to prevail for him Ezek. 9.8 9 Ezekiel prayed for Ierusalem when the six men the Executioners of Gods wrath were sent out into it with their destroying weapons in their hands but the full measure of the Lands and Cities sins would not admit of a rescue though it was Ezekiel that prayed Israels Golden Calf stood up and made such a breach for Gods anger against them Exod 32.31 c. that though Moses his chosen stood before him in it yea and turned away his wrath as to the destroying of them yet he could not obtain for them a total remission of punishment The Lord answered him Nevertheless
forth your hands Isai 1 15 I will hide mine eyes from you yea when you make many prayers I will not hear your hands are full of blood See also for this Isai 59.2 3. Isai 58 3 6. 2. Oppression injustice and violence Wherefore have we fasted say they and thou hearest not c. Is not this the Fast that I have chosen to loose the bands of wickedness to undo the heavy burdens and to let the oppressed go free and that ye break every yoke They have filled the Land with violence c. Ezek. 8.17 18 therefore though they cry in mine ears with a loud voyce yet I will not hear them You may read also Isai 59.2 4 7. And for Magistratical and Martial Injustice take that of Micah Hear I pray you O Heads of Jacob and ye Princes of the House of Israel Mic. 3.1 c. Is it not for you to know Judgment who hate the good and love the evil who pluck off their skin from off them and their flesh from off their bones who also eat the flesh of my people and stay their skin from off them and they break their bones and chop them in pieces as for the pot and as flesh within the cauldron Then shall they cry unto the Lord but he will not hear them he will even hide his face from them at that time Let men of this quality and crime look to it As they have their time to act their mischiefs and cruelties and may proceed from one degree of violence to another until they have even made meat of their inferiors so God hath his time of deserting them and of refusing to hear their cry 3. Unmercifulness Prov. 21.13 or uncharitableness to the poor and afflicted Who so stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor he also shall cry himself but shall not be heard The people of Judah making complaint of God to himself Isai 58.3 6 7 Wherefore have we fasted and thou seest not c. The Lord discovers to them the causes to wit the defaults of their Fasts Is not this the fast that I have chosen c. Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house when thou seest the naked that thou cover him and that thou hide not thy self from thine own flesh Cornelius the Centurion Act. 10.2 4 31 as he prayed to God alway so he gave much alms to the people and we may take notice as alms and prayers and that in answerable proportion praying alway and much alms were joyned together in his practice so they were by God in his acceptance of him So the Angel told him Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God On the contrary if we forget to shew mercy to men together with our prayer to God we may look that God may forget and withhold his mercy from our prayers 4. Covetousness This was one of Judahs sins and of the bolts that kept out their prayers from God Isa 1.57.17 For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth and smote him I hid me and was wroth c. A greedy desire to and over-fast holding of earthly things as it hinders our desires and affections from ascending upwards to Heaven so it stops on prayers from coming downwards from thence in answer to us Matt. 6 23 Dr Hammond prac Catec This is that evil eye which in our Saviours sentence makes the whole body full of darkness and that great darkness and the darkness in that place means a privation of the sight of those treasures and benefits that are layd up in and come down from Heaven 5. Pride Elihu in Job tells us There they cry but none giveth answer Job 35.12 13 because of the pride of evil men Surely God will not hear vanity neither will the Almighty regard it Pride is vanity or a lye by it we either foolishly assume to our selves what we have not or impiously ascribe to our selves what we have and deny our dependance on or beholdingness to God And it is but suitable that if we take to our selves that excellency which we have not we should go without that which we would obtain and if we deny God the glory of what we have received and with it be lifted up in our selves he may well cut us short of what we ask and would receive of him Agur entreated God not to give him riches last being full Pro. 30.8 9 he should deny God A proud man is too full in himself to be fit to receive any thing at the hands of God and it is far better even for us that God should deny us in some of our prayers then that we should deny him in his benefits David saith The Lord respecteth the lowly Psa 138.6 but the proud be knoweth afar off and Peter 1 Pet. 5.5 that God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble The Apostle Paul was in danger of being exalted above measure through the abundance of revelations and therefore when for the prevention thereof there was given to him a thorn in the flesh the messenger of Satan to buffet him and for that thing he besought the Lord thrice 2 Cor. 12 7 c. that it might depart from him He was not instantly heard as to the removal of that evil the same end in all probability that brought it to wit the cure of pride continued it upon him and prevented his prayers from that way taking effect lest the plaister being taken off the sore might gather and swell again 3. The third rank of sins are those that may be in or about prayer it self these are many The most remarkable may be these 1. Praying without a sight and discovery of the sins that lie against us The Lord saith I will go and return unto my place till they acknowledg their offence and seek my face With seeking of the face of God there must go along a finding out and owning of our sin and in particular our offence that is the special sin we are most guilty in and most stands up against us before God We are all readier to see our wants then our sins like Malefactors before a Judg apter to petition for a release then to confess our faults Ioshua and the Elders of Israel lay upon their faces and prayed before God upon their discomfiture as Ai but they were not aware of Israels sin in the accursed thing the Lord therefore bids them get themselves up 1 Kin. 8.38 and go hunt out that Solomons request was that God would hear what prayer and supplication soever be made by any man or by all his people Israel which shall know every man the plague of his own heart Sin is the plague of the heart this plague must be known that prayer may be heard and every man must know the proper plague or sin of his own
Religion next door to Atheism to reckon the warranting or condemning Will of God by such a measure How oft must such a Judgment be driven to tack about and change sides and dance Ecebolus his turns We may in these days observe iâ— some men that the Religion way or party which was most odious to them and most obstinately resolved against by them they have meerly upon this account been first melted into milder thoughts of and presently linked into deep affection and high admiration of it It is a miserable mind that in stead of embracing that rule of the Apostle for a principle Godliness is great gain with contentment will choose the reversed supposal of the worldling and say Gain is godliness We in this Age are the more culpable if misled into this â—rror having seen the vicissitudes that have come upon all interests successively none excepted no not theirs who have stood so much upon this argument having also so many Evangelical maxims and premonitions from our blessed Saviour and his Apostles in the Word to the contrary and having recorded before us in sacred Story so many examples of them that have grosly abused themselves yea and the Name and Honor of God with such collections For the two latter Considerations I will give a few Instances of each For Evangelical Maxims and Premonitions I will refer my Reader to peruse at his leasure Luke 6.20 unto 27. 16.25 Joh. 15.19 Act. 14.22 1 Cor. 4.8 to 14. 2 Tim. 2.12 Jam. 2.5 6 7. 5.1 to 7. vers 10 11. Rev. 11.2 to 11. 13.3 to 9. Aâ—d add the mention of thes◠〈◊〉 passages When our Saviour was pressâ—â— by the Pharisees and Sadduces the Jewish Sectaries to shew them a sign from Heaven to a warrant his actions or to prove that he was the Christ he telleth them Mat. 12 38 39 40. 16.1 to 5. A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign and furthâ—r dâ—nyeth them utterly any sign such as they meant that is a solemn magnifical or signal token which should make him externally and publiquely pompous and glorious to the world only they should have the sign of the Prophet Jonas and that was a sign clean contrary to the strain of their thoughts even an emblem of humiliation and debasement to the lowest pitch which was therefore to them a stumbling stone and a sign to be spoken against rather then to confirm them For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the Whales belly so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the Earth Again for the Ages of the Church which follow that of Christ and his Apostles what do the Scriptures reveal to us touching the use or validity of Providential signs Why it forewarns us that the shewing of great signs and wonders a coming with all power the doing of great wonders and the working of miracles are the exploits of false Christs false Prophets the Man of Sin the second Beast Mat. 7.22 24.24 2 Thes 2.9 Rev. 13.13 14. 16.14 19.20 the false Prophet and the three unclean spirits that come out of the mouth of the Dragon the Beast and the false Prophet And the reason why Miracles Signs and Wonders do cease in the true Church before and in the times of Antichrist and do appear on the side and among the followers of Antichrist was rendered long since by John Hus and not only by him but before that long by Augustin Chrysostom Isiodore and Gregory alledged by him to wit because the Church of Christ must be persecuted and seem abject and forsaken and must overcome by the confession of the Truth See Mr Fox Acts and Mon. vol 1. pag. 593 c. by holiness and shining in good works and by love and patience and not by power and Antichrist must sway all and have full power to persecute and hypocrites that look after Temporals more then Spirituals must be discovered and the true Saints tryed and Carnalists justly punished with that snare of specious signs As for the Examples of such as have grosly mistaken and deluded themselves with such collections take these few Those stubborn Idolatrous Iews in Ieremiah having told him in answer to a solemn message from the Lord unto them that they would not harken unto him speaking unto them in the Name of the Lord but they would pertinaciously adhere to their own way in burning incense and pouring out drink-offerings to the Queen of Heaven they render this for their ground We and our fathers c. have done thus in Iudea Jer. 44.16 c. and then we had plenty of victuals and were well and saw no evil but since we left off that worship we have wanted all things and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine Saul hearing that David was come to Keilah he thought he had him then couped up and at his mercy and thereupon he would needs gather that God had done it in favor of his cause 1 Sam. 23.7 he said God hath delivered him into my hand Such use did Shimei make also against David of the providence of God to wit when Absalom had risen up and dispossessed him of his Kingdom Casting stones at him and cursing him he said Come out come out thou bloody man and thou man of Belial 2 Sam. 16.7 8. the Lord hath returned upon thee all the blood of the house of Saul in whose stead thou hast reigned and the Lord hath delivered the Kingdom into the hand of Absalom thy son and behold thou art taken in thy mischief because thou art a bloody man Leah having given Zilpah her maid to her husband Iacob to wife and God after that harkening unto Leah so that she conceived and bare Iacob a fifth son Gen. 30.17 18. this was the interpretation she made of it God hath given me mine hire because I have given my maiden to my husband and she called his name Issachar an hire She applaudeth her promoting of Poligamy a trespass both against her husband and her self by the happy issue of her prayer in her bearing another son * See also Hos 12.8 Zech. 11 5 Mal. 2 17. But away with this silly religionless inference 4. Turn not out of the ways of God I mean the ways of his Word and Commandments decline not into any unwarranted path upon occasion of such Providences of God K â—p to the Law and to the Testimony and what ever Oracle it be that speaks not according to this Word Isai 8.20 refuse the pretended light thereof for in truâ—h there is no light in it The Prophet David in Psal 37. which he purposely peneth for the stablishment and consolation of the righteous under such tryals as this we are upon again and again inculcateth this lesson Trust in the Lord Psal 37.3 8 27 34. and do good Fret not thy self in any wise to do evil Depart from evil and do