sword shall pierce through thy own Soul also So that Mary might as much muse at this Blessing as she did at the Angels Salutation of which it is said She was troubled at his saying and cast in her mind what manner of Salutation this should be Luk 1 29. Be it so yet the Holy Ghost calls it a Blessing and a Blessing it must be Yea we may observe and for that end here I bring it in It is not only their Blessing but a Pattern or Platform of the Blessing of all the Faithful wherewith the Lord endoweth them here on Earth Simeon's form of Benediction upon Joseph and Mary is a draught of the Lords constant method of bestowing and bringing about Blessings to his people Look how Simeon speaketh to them so the Lord proceedeth towards his namely by contradictions and conflicts by offences and scandals and by heart piercing sorrows to bring them to happy enjoyments comforts and mercies And that which is here designed to be the lot of Christs Person is also to be extended to his Office Word Truth Way Cause and Church they are with him and he in them set as a stone of stumbling and Rock of offence whereat many shall fall and thereby catch their ruine and as a But or Mark as the word is interpreted at which proud and malicious men shall dart their sharpest reproaches and into which they and their Rulers shall thrust their bloodiest swords and these their injuries and sufferings shall wound with bitterest griefs all their Alies that is all those that in affection and profession adhere unto them As Joseph the Patriarch came by his Blessing The Archers sorely grieved him and shot at him and hated him but his Bow abode in strēgth c. by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob c. who shal bless thee with blessings of Heaven above blessings of the deep that lieth under blessings of the brests and of the womb c. they shall be on the head of Joseph and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his Brethren By the same way doth Joseph's Son here become a Blessing to those that belong to him But of this course of the Saints to the Consolations in Christ That their passage to the Land of Promise must be with Israel through the Red Sea and the waste howling Wilderness That they must fetch their honey with Samson out of the Roaring Lion That the sword that brought Christ to his death must pierce through Mary's heart and all theirs that travel in birth with Christ if sh◠and they will obtain the Blessing by him Or that as the Prophet Zechariah hath it that Sword which is awakned against Christ the Shepherd Zech. 13.7 8 9. must disperse them that are the flock and be turned also upon them until it hath cut off two parts of three and the remaining third part must pass through the fire and be refined as Silver and tryed as Gold and then they shall call upon the Name of the Lord and be heard This I say is to be further treated on in the ensuing Discourse SECT II. The Persecutions that befall the Faithful make many and notable Heart-discoveries BUt there is another thing which I aimed at in prefacing this of Simeon and that is the effect which he foretells the falling of many at Christ as a stumbling block the bent of mens tongues against him as the scope of their malice and the swords piercing through the Soul of Mary should have to wit that the thoughts of many hearts may be Revealed Afflictions especially those of the Saints and more especially those that come upon them by the persecuting Sword they cause great searchings of heart This Sword as it worketh impressions of fear and grief in the heart so it causeth expressions of Truth from it It is a Key to unlock open and bring forth the abundance of the heart which before was kept in It gives vent to and draws forth those deep waters of the counsels of mans heart It anatomizeth or rips up all the otherwise concealed intents drifts and dispositions thereof What great heart-discoveries doth it make on all hands It lays open both friend and foe it unfolds the heart both of Patients and Agents yea and of the Dependents and Allies of them both yea and of meer Spectators We need go no further for Instance then those Sufferings of Christ related to in this place especially when they came to a head at his Passion and Death Then did those his Enemies the high Priests the Elders the Scribes and Parisees Herod and Pilate with his Soldiers who before durst not do what they would and were sometimes fain to speak him fair shew themselves in their colours What inveterate Malice desperate Blood-thirstiness self-condemning Injustice devilish worldly-policy immune Cruelty insolent Blasphemy did then swell and burst forth of their hearts Then also did the rottenness of his false and feigned Friends appear Of Judas by selling and betraying him his Master Of the common people who erewhile had followed and admired him and but a few days before had entertained him with triumphant Acclamations and Hosanna's as their King they now display their hypocrisie by their preferring Barrabas before him by their crying out against him Away with him crucifie him and by their wilful taking upon them the guilt of his Blood Nay then did the passers by and by-standers take occasion to shew their spleen by railing and scoffing at him Yea one of his very fellow-sufferers must with his life breathe out his impotent rancor by reviling him Then did also his faithful Friends and Followers disclose what was in them and that both ways both the evil and the good On the one side they generally discovered their weakness of Understanding and slowness of Faith about the Necessity End and Fruit of Christs Death and Certainty of his Resurrection with extream despondency of mind and some of the chiefest of them bewrayed moreover strange inconstancy fear and falshood On the other side there brake forth somewhat of the truth and power of grace in them to wit in Mary and the other women that followed Christ in the Apostles in Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus and in the good Thief upon the Cross in them were manifested honest resolutions and much tenderness of affection with some degree of faithfulness piety and courage Lastly in our blessed Saviour himself there was a discovery made In the midst of all those his inexplicable endurings and agonies his heart being with them melted like wax in the midst of his bowels did send forth the most precious oyntments Psa 22 14. and sweet smelling savours of the graces treasured in him above measure and among other admirable and surpassing Love Meekness Patience Fortitude Charity Obedience and Faith oriently shined forth in him So fully did this dissecting effect of the Sword in all sorts of persons then appear And there hath been of late no small
God is the foundation of Gods respect unto him in prayer but in many special cases the Lord will have super-added thereunto a begging importunacy ere his prayer can be followed with the effect of audience If we will with Jacob be Princes and Prevailers with God we must be Wrestlers with him in prayer Jacob when terrified with the tydings of his brother Esau and his companies coming to meet him not only prayed as he did immediately upon the news but after he had disposed of his bands and sent out his present to his brother and taken up his lodging the Lord called him forth as it were to a combate all that night with his Angel and had not he not only held out all the time until break of day but by a power from God as it were overcome God whilest he held the Angel fast and would not suffer him to go until he blessed him he might have missed the blessing Some of the Ancients conceive that in that conflict there were two besides Jacob that wrestled one against him another on his side * Origenes Hieronymus procopius apud Sixt. Senens Bib. lib. 5. Annot 111. but certain it is there was a great measure of strength and more then humane in or with Iacob else he had never been Israel a Prince with God Indeed the power and prevalency which he had was but precarious or borrowed of him with whom either personally or by way of representation he wrestled it pleased God whose is all power for that time to put forth the more might in Iacob and the less in the Angel but however the power though it was but lent it was a power that denominated him a Prince with God Some observe the word wrestled in the text signifies an action that raiseth dust and causeth sweat * Mr Cartwright and Mr Trap in loc Hos 12.4 so that it importeth a very stiff and violent conflict wherein that great strength lay Moses relateth not expresly but in the Prophet Hosea it is more plainly told us He had power over the Angel and prevailed he wept and made supplications unto him Jacob did not maintain the combate or carry away the victory by the strength of his body but by the force of his tears and entreaties it was not the might of his arms and limbs which commanded but his passionate humble and importunate begging for the blessing which melted the Angel There is a main strength in prayers and tears when they are poured out in due earnestness The Apostle to the Hebrews telleth us of strong crying and tears Heb. 5 7. and St James saith Jam. 5.16 The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much Thus we see the design and drift of God is to bring his people to a certain measure and pitch in prayer both in regard of frequency and fervency and this is the reason why he defers their prayers his putting in delays is one means of drawing them on to that length and proportion which he aimeth at to be therein Such dilatory hidings of God are like a small quantity of water sprinkled on fire which makes it burn the hotter or like abstinence to a dull and cloyed stomack which helps to whet and sharpen it to its food The Lord carries himself to us as a man that hears his friend calling to him afar off and seems as if he heard him not that he may make him come nearer and speak his mind more distinctly and fully to him So the Lord sometimes shews as if he did not hear would not grant our petitions that he may cause us to draw nearer to him and to open and prosecute our requests more amply and affectionately When Peter was cast into prison and designed unto death by Herod the King God intended to deliver him and could have done it at his first stretching forth his hand against him or upon the first request which the Church made for him but he deferred it till the night which Herod determined to be his last night that the Churches prayer might be made without ceasing unto God for him that it might be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 drawn out to the full measure both of extension and intention and then was he given up to and in the very act of the Churches prayers as the proper birth thereof This seems to have been one end of the Lords putting off the suits of the people of Iudah even unto the expiration of the seventy years captivity as may appear by that promise That after seventy years should be accomplished at Babylon Jer. 29.12 13. then shall ye call upon me and ye shall go and pray unto me and I will harken unto you and ye shall seek me and find me when ye shall search for me with all your heart There was praying during all those years of trouble and desolation by the Babylonian but there was much hypocrisie and sloth and many by-ends in their seeking unto God which are often mentioned by the Prophets of those times * Isai 58.2 c. Jer. 36.9 24. 42.20 Hos 7.14 Zech. 7.5 Deus frequenter differt nostra postulata ut discamus grandia granditer desiderare Augustin apud P. Martyr loc c. clas 3. ch 13. sec 2. Deus differt dare ut tu discas orare August apud Bromyard they c * Isai 58.2 c. Jer. 36.9 24. 42.20 Hos 7.14 Zech. 7.5 Deus frequenter differt nostra postulata ut discamus grandia granditer desiderare Augustin apud P. Martyr loc c. clas 3. ch 13. sec 2. Deus differt dare ut tu discas orare August apud Bromyard they could never in all that time be brought to search for God with all their heart and therefore until they should by that long enduring their calamities and continuance in prayer attain thereunto the Lord adjourned their petitions This is the first End of Gods hiding from his peoples prayers by delay to wit to increase and make up that fervor and frequency in prayer which he will have to forego the accomplishment of their desires 2. It may be for the fitting of them for that mercy which they seek and wait for The Lord appointeth a certain fitness to be in his people to receive and use a blessing before they obtain it by prayer If they should have it before they be somwhat framed and made meet for it both he and they might be frustrate of the fruit of it The servants of God are not always fit for every enjoyment or condition yea it may be sometimes observed in them that when their minds are most earnestly and eagerly bent upon a thing their hearts are least prepared for it they are farthest off from any capacity rightly to receive and manage it Now the design of God in the delaying the performance of their prayers is to mould them to this fittedness his work is not only to bring about a mercy to them but to bring them to it or
we have it These are our scarlet crimson sins which we have to be removed as the causes of the putting back or suspense of our prayers and which are therefore to be throughly repented of and purged away that our prayers may take effect And let me perswade to and prevail in it in the words of Jotham Hearken unto me Judg. 9.7 that God may hearken unto you 2. The second thing to be applied by way of remedy is Let the people of God diligently follow on to the attaining of those ends for the effecting whereof in them the Lord for present hideth himself from them in this kind those ends have been laid down before the hastning on of them is the way to speed the issue of our prayers To instance in and press to some of them in a few words 1. Be constant in prayer hold out in it unto the end yea do not only hold on but mend and quicken your pace therein Add more fuel to increase the flame of your devotions pray more ardently Let your progress in prayer be like the natural motion of a body to its center or proper place the longer still the more swift and vigorous Doth God hide himselfe that you may seek his face then seek the Lord and his strength 〈◊〉 â—05 4 seek his face evermore and so seek that you may find him Certainly prayer is the Key of Heaven if then through unexpertness in the use of it you cannot get the door open presently cast not therefore the key out of your hand but turn and try it again and again until it be open Undoubtedly prayer is the way to find the face of God though it be hid leave not then slack not in the way because it is long lose not the end for lack of holding out It was the sin of Saul upon which immediately followed his ruine that when in his sore distress by the Philistins war he enquired of the Lord and got not an answer from him presently he left off enquiring of God and sought to a woman that had a familiar Spirit 1 Chro. 10 13 14 for this the Text saith the Lord slew him and turned the Kingdom unto David yea in this regard it saith he enquireth not of the Lord His once enquiring was void and stood for nothing and was no more then if he never had done it because he continued not enquiring until he hâ—d answer but through a distrustful and impatient fear ran from God to the Witch 2. Labour for an humbled heart a mourning Spirit both for sins and for prayers succeslesness The want of this hath been our great defect under our late sufferings and seekings to God It was noted of those Jews who remained after the destruction or the Temple City and Land by Nebuchadnezzar that they were not humbled even unto that day Jer. 44.10 they enquired of God by the Prophet Jeremiah Cap. 42.3 to shew them the way wherein they might walk and the thing that they might do but they were still unhumbled they had seen and felt a great deal of the wrath of God upon them for their sins but yet they were not humbled to that day And this is our very state we have sought unto God for his conduct in our Affairs his hand hath been out against and upon us many wayes for our sins but for all that we remain unhumbled But it will not so be most surely now we have had so much to do with God and he with us humbled we must be never did any person or people come off or part with him stoutly Levit. 10.3 he will be sanctified in them that come nigh him God will have us down and lay us low either in Spirit or in worldly state either inwardly or outwardly either to repentance or to ruine and if that will not be without this we shall be humbled both wayes if ever and ere ever God do raise us up Remember what the Lord saith to his people in the Prophet when he had hid his face from them Isai 54.6 The Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit and a wife of youth when thou wast refused If we be as forsaken and refused of God it behoves us to be of a grieved Spirit and so we must be ere the Lord call us or look again upon us He reviveth the spirit of the humble and the heart of the contrite ones Isai 57.15.49.13 Mat. 5.4 He will have mercy upon his afflicted He is nigh to them that are of a broken heart and saveth such at be of a contrite spirit They that mourn shall be comforted They that sow in tears shall reap in joy 3. Be sure to bide out the present tryal and exercise of the grace of God in you that is of your faith patience love and obedience Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in Christ under the tryal Mat. 11.6.24 13. He that shall endure unto the end the same shall be saved It was a desperate course in Saul and the forerunning passage of his ruine that whereas he had before-time rooted out those that had familiar spirits and wizards out of the Land 1 Sam. 28.3 7. being in his extremity he sought to one of them It would be a dangerous practise for any now to fly or turn to that sinful way for help in their strait which in a freer and calmer condition they justly abandoned and opposed 4. Look we after not only the end of our prayers but our fitting and preparation for that end Chap. 4. Sect. 6. The parts of this preparation have been opened already out of Zech. 12. 13. and Zeph. 3. Three of them you may remember were sanctity brotherly-unity and simplicity or truth in our dealings with God and man For sanctity The pure in heart are they that shall see God Mat. 5.8 When the Lord will work such a Salvation for his people as that all the ends of the Earth shall see it he will have his people to depart Isai 52.10 11 and go out thence from Babylon and touch no unclean thing and be themselves clean For brothâ—rly union and pâ—ace When the Earth shall be full of the knowledg of the Lord as the waters cover the Sea God will make a compliance and harmony betwixt the Wolf and the Lamb the Leopard and the Kid Isai 11 6 c. the Calf and the young Lion Vers 13. the Cow and the Bear the Lion and the Ox the sucking Child and the Asp and Cockatrice their antipethies shall cease that is as it is quickly after explained the envy of Ephraim shall depart Ephraim shall not envy Iudah and Iudah shall not vex Ephraim Of Iob Job 42.10 it is said The Lord turned the captivity of Iob when he prayed for his friends It was not while he disputed with but when he prayed for them The first thing as I take it wherein the Lord appeared
for signs This was it with which the Prophet Habakkuk was sore agrieved The wicked doth compass about the righteous Wherefore lookest thou on them that deal treacherously and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous then he Hab. 1.4 13. and with this the Lord himself amplyfieth the punishment of Iudah when he saith Ezek. 7.24.21.31 he wil bring the worst of the heathen upon them and he wil deliver them into the hands of brutish men and skilful to destroy 2. Sometimes the subordinate agents are persons of neerest relation and obligation to the sufferers and this cuts to the heart and exulcerates their sorrow when those that are intimately tyed to them by Domestical Political or Ecclesiasticall relation by the bond of Civill amity or Religion prove false and hostle to them that place in Zechariah Behold I wil make Ierusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about Zech. 12 2. Some conceive may be meant not actively as if Ierusalem should infer or inflict such plagues upon the neighbouring people as should fill them with horror but passively Ierusalem shal suffer such things as shal move objectively trembling in others at the beholding thereof and the words following When they shal be in the siege both against Iudah and against Ierusalem they read thus because Iudah shal be in the siege against Ierusalem and according to this interpretation this is the reason why Ierusalem under Gods Judgments shal be a matter of trembling to others because Iudah so neerly allyed and bound by so many relations to be a friend and helper to Jerusalem should be against her and so indeed it came to pass when many of the Jews called Pusaim or Apostates stood up against and persecuted the Hasmonean and Hasidean party in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes and after This wrought upon Job more then all his other sufferings from other creatures that his beloved friends and brethren not only failed him of their help but turned against him and added their Reproaches and Contestations to the rest of his miseries All my inward friends saith he abhorred me Job 19.19 and they whom I loved are turned against me He had suffered heavy things by the Sabeans and Chaldeans in his goods and servants and by Satan in his body but all these discomposed not his spirit so much as did the contendings against him of his three friends How holy David was galled with the very same thing is well known Psal 41.9 and he more then once expresseth it Yea mine own familiar friend or the man of my peace in whom I trusted which did eat of my bread hath lift up his heel against me q. d. This is beyond all that he that before kept intimatest correspondency with me was my Confident and my Beneficiary should kick against me and having got me down should basely trample me under his feet This was a thing that did so press him that he knew not well how to bear it as in another place he speaketh For it was not an enemy that reproached me then I could have born it neither was it he that hated me that did magnifie himself against me then I would have hid my self from him Psa 55.12 13 14 20 21. but it was thou a man mine equal my guide and my acquaintance We took sweet counsel together and walked to the house of God in company And once again in the same Psalm it moves his choler He hath put forth his hands against such as be at peace with him he hath broken his Covenant the words of his mouth were smoother then butter but war was in his heart his words were softer then oyl yet were they drawn swords This lay hard upon his spirit and vexed him to indignation that one endeared to him by so many obliging names and relations should be the man against him and should prove such a circumventing bloody reproachful and successful foe as in that Psalm he is described to be That embracement of him as another self Secundum aestimationem mei Jun. Duxâ—mens Jun. Familiaris mens Jun. a man mine equal or equalled to my self advancement of him to highest Command my Guide or General familiarity of company mine acquaintance conjunction and trust in honest designs we took sweet counsel together association in the same God Religion and seeking of God we walked unto the house of God in company union in the same League and Covenant he hath broken his Covenant the specious insinuating and egging pretences and professions held forth by him the words of his mouth were smoother then butter softer then oyl that all these Engagements interveening not any nor all of them should make him true nor so much as keep him from hostility this was the thing which staggered this upright man to bear And I dare be bold to say there is many a suffering Soul at this day with whom next to their own and the Lands sin and the anger of the Almighty this is the thing that strikes deepest lies heaviest upon the heart that the evils that are come upon them are the projects and productions of Brethren not only as Englishmen but as Protestants Reformers Covenanters Solemn-callers upon God Associates in the same counsels actions dangers mercies and fair Avowers for the Gospel Conscience Godliness Purity for Law Justice Liberty Peace for King Parliament Kingdom Sister Nations and all Protestant Churches O the sorrow shame vexation astonishment that is upon them for this 5. Another Reason is the difficulty of patience in times of great troubles The office of Patience is in the state of adversity to keep down and quiet the tumultuous passions and to curb and suppress the head-strong corruptions which that condition is apt to awaken and let loose it is then to compose the spirit and to contain the whole man within his duty Now this is no small business Patience proves a hard task when it comes in hand It is but an easie matter when men are in a quiet state to frame contemplative notions of afflictions in the mind or to discourse of them to others or to behold them upon others or to foresee them coming on themselves But the matter is to endure them when they are come then comes in the part of Patience Patience is not an intellectual comprehension of Good Rules or a speculative discerning of the equity necessity and profit of afflictions but a practical use of such Rules in bearing or a real and regular suffering and this is somewhat to do He is in the Apostle James his account a perfect and entire Christian Jam. â— 4 lacking nothing that can fully exercise this grace And the Apostle Paul when he would produce the Arguments and Evidences of the truth of his Apostolical calling among the Corinthians who it seems vilified his person and questioned that his Calling he mentions patience for one proof Truly the signs of an Apostle were wrought among
they are put into a book of remembrance and a day is to come of differencing betwixt them and others by consuming Judgments upon the proud and the wicked and the Sun of righteousness arising with healing and satisfying mercies unto the fearers of his Name To this example I will further observe That the practice of Sorcery and Enchantment in which in a sort men do call upon God and the Vulgar think they only go to him and that religiously it is one of the grossest ways of tempting God that is yet this sometimes takes place and attaineth its expected end and that even in opposition to the prayers of the people of God There is a time indeed when there is no Enchantment against Jacob nor Divination against Israel Numb 23 23 but thus it always is not When Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon was upon his expedition against several Syrian Countries in the which he destroyed Jerusalem and carryed Judah away captive for seventy years he fell to his Enchantment the Text saith Ezek. 21.21 22 Jer. 14.19 cap. 18.20 Ezek. 9.8 Jer. 36.6 9 The King of Babylon stood at the parting of the way at the head of the two ways to use Divination he made his arrows bright he consulted with Images he looked in the Liver at his right hand was the Divination for Jerusalem c. There were at this time those faithful ones in Judah who did earnestly pray for that people of God to have saved them from the Babylonian So did the Prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel and doubtlâ—ss many others yea there is no question but the people universally sought unto God in that strait and in this case they of Judah thought that as Nebuchadnezzars course was impious so his successes would be unprosperous And it shall be unto them as a false Divination in their sight Ezek. 21.23 to them that have sworn Oaths but he shall call to remembrance their iniquity that they may be taken Yet nevertheless the event was Nebuchadnezzar carryed the enterprise and Judah fell miserably into his hand I above noted 〈◊〉 devoutness of the persecuting Pharisees and unbelieving Jews we may here reflect upon their success as they were devout towards God so were they bitter adversaries to Christ his Disciples and Doctrine they reckoned their persecutions of them among their services done to God Under this their enmity On the one side Christ Joh. 16.2 and his Apostles and other Disciples as the History of the Gospel and the Acts fully manifest prayed much and in prayer commended their cause to God On the other side those Pharisees and Jews prayed often and no question as their counsels and other proceedings so their prayers were bent against Christ Psal 109.17 18 20.28 and Christians These two parties thus oppositely praying it is well known how thâ— success went Indeed in spiritual efficacy and progress our Saviour and his Disciples had the better the Gospel spred and the Church of Christ encreased but in outward and earthly power and prevalency which is the matter now stumbled at it went quite contrary Christ himself even immediately after he had shut up his ardent and reiterated prayer poured out with sweat and blood in the Garden Luk. 22.44 to the 48. John 18.3 and whilest he was exhorting his Disciples to arm themselves with prayer was apprehended and led away to his passion by the band of men and officers sent from the chief Priests and Pharisees and when they had crucified him they insult over him his prayers and confidence in God as being in their own eyes masters of theiâ—â—espiteful desires Matth. 27.41 c. Psa 69.10 22.1 2. while he himself and his prayers in his own present apprehension are relinquished of God After his Ascension his Disciples are persecuted by the Pharisees and being layd hold on inhibited and threatned by them they unanimously set to prayer their prayers indeed are followed with a fulness of the Spirit Acts 4 24 5.18.33 40 and heavenly courage against all opposition but they escape not the molestations of their persecutors these yet return and grow upon them At their next appearing in publique they are taken put in prison and designed to slaughter Acts 7.58 8.1 3.9.1 26.10 11 Gal. 1.13 Acts 12.1 c. and hardly come off with scourging Shortly after one of their company is stoned to death then followed a general persecution by prison Synagogue-censures dispersion and death which stayed not at Jerusalem but pursued them thence to strange Cities A while after Herods hand the Jews instigating him riseth up to the vexing of certain of the Church and Martyrdom of James and almost of Peter his designation to death went on very far even during the incessant prayers of the Church unto God for him he was brought out of prison by the Angel but that very night before he should have been brought forth by Herod to his death but though he survived yet persecution stayed not The Jewish rage against Christianity still proceeded and as the Church of Christ grew so their persecutions multiplyed and were more intense witness the Envy Conspiracies Tumults Expulsions Stonings Imprisonings Beatings Accusations unto Authority Scourgings Capital Tryals and Judgments which the blindly zealous and religious Jews procured against Paul Barnabas Silas and others mentioned in the Acts besides the rest of the Persecutions and Martyrdoms they brought upon them other Christians related in Ecclesiastical Story In sum He that shall look over those Evangelical Records and view the outward conditions and successes of these two opposite parties viz. Christ and his followers on the one side and the unbelieving Jews on the other he cannot but acknowledg that Providence seemed to answer the desires and prayers of the then greatest adversaries to Christianity and to overlook the prayers of his people I mean for a time and as to temporal Interest In the Insurrection of Absalom against David we find them both having recourse to God As David prayed and penned one Psalm of prayer on that occasion Psal 3.2 2 Sam. 15.12 so Absalom as was even now observed offered Sacrifices at Hebron when he was carrying on his Conspiracy and mark what followed how strong did Absalom grow how far did he go on and prevail immediately it 's said the Conspiracy was strong the people encreased continually with Absalom And David cries out Lord how are they encreased that trouble me many are they that rise up against me All this while David flies before him in a sad posture leaving the City and the Ark of the Covenant of God and the Priests behind him to the Enemy he flyeth his Friends bewailing his Foes cursing his chief Counseller conspiring and advising against him his Rebel-Son seizing on the City his House and Wives all the people all Israel choosing and following Absalom David not only gives ground a little but he and they that were with him lest they should be swallowed up by the Enemy are fain
the party God grants Petitions either formally or by way of equivalency he returns unto him that prayeth either that which he prayeth in kind or the same in weight and value though not in kind Our Saviour teaching us how to pray withall informs how we may expect to be heard Pray to thy Father which is in secret Matt. 6.6 and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly He doth not say thy Father shall precisely do the very thing requested but he shall reward thee he shall give thee a full return and retribution of thy prayer one way or other he shall reward thee openly or evidently though not identically He shall answer thy Petitions if not by way of punctual execution yet by way of compensation of them if not by way of literal concession yet by way of counterballancing And when it is thus the prayer is truly and sufficiently answered although it be somwhat varyed yet we cannot say it is denyed God in so doing doth not frustrate our requests but rectifie our choyce Samuel being at Bethlehem to anoint one of Jesses sons to be King 1 Sam. 16.6 when they were come before him he look'd upon Eliab as the man he look'd upon him for his countenance and the height of his stature but God put him by and the rest that followd until David the yongest of the eight came him he appointed to be anointed So it is with us when we pray we sometimes fix our eyes and fasten our affections and wishes upon one particular when God sees another fitter and puts that in the room and when it is thus the countenance face or individual form of our Petition as in Samuels case is altered but not the benefit We have one of the same stock and kind though not the same thing * As old Iacob layd not his hands of blessing as Ioseph would have guided them but layd the right hand upon the younger son whom Ioseph did set at his left So often doth God take off his hand of blessing from the thing we prayed for and lays and discovers it in another more for our good And as God giving Isaac the power and priviledg to bless a son though Isaac he intended it for Esau yet God unbeknown to him transmitted it to Iacob yet so as the blessing was not lost Thus it is in our prayers for blessings both upon our selves and others Mr Goodwins Return of Prayers cap. 9. s 4 We may note divers ways of Gods making this Commutation particularly three 1. In regard of Person 2. In regard of Matter 3. In regard of Means 1. In regard of Person David fasts and prays Psa 25.13 and humbles his Soul for his persecutors and his prayer is returned into his own bosom He intended it for them it is converted to his own benefit 2 Sam. 12 15 David again beseecheth God for his first child by Bathsheba when the Lord had struck it with sickness nevertheless that child dyes but the Lord gives him in stead thereof another child a son a Solomon one whom the Lord loved and chose to sit on his Throne after him So it pleaseth God in mercy to transfer the prayers of his servants from one to another from others to themselves If Noah Daniel Ezek. 14.14 and Job cannot deliver the Land when it hath trespassed grievously neither son nor daughter in it yet they themselves shall be delivered Luk. 10.5 6 If the Disciples benediction of peace rest not upon the house into which they enter it shall turn to them again The Lord heard Josiah praying for Judah and Jerusalem 2 King 22 19 but not to the deliverance of them from Judgments but to his own taking away from the evils to come 2. The change may be in regard of Matter As 1. When carnal things are begged God sometimes makes his return in spiritual things when earthly and temporal blessings are asked he turns them in heavenly and eternal mercies The Disciples after Christs Resurrection asked him Lord wilt thou at this time restore again the Kingdom to Israel Act. 1.6 7 they meant it of the civil Freedom Property and Dominion of their Nation in Canaan Christ our Saviour refuses to answer them positively to that telling them It is not for you to know the times and the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power but in stead of their satisfaction in that demand he gives them a promise of the Holy Ghost and of assistance enlargement and success in their function But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the Earth The two sons of Zebedee come to Christ desiring him to grant them to sit the one at his right hand Mark 10.35 the other on his left in his glory Our Saviour declines the grant of that request but in the place of it he promiseth them that they should drink of his cup and be baptized with his Baptism Now certainly the grace ability and honor so to do was far more desirable and acceptable in a true estimate then all that earthly glory of Christ which those brethren fancyed and affected and supposed was to come presently Moses when God had sentenced him never to go into the promised Land of Canaan besought God with great importunacy for the reversion of that sentence and for a passage over into that Land the Lord would not hear him but said Let it suffice thee Deut. 3.23 speak no more to me of this matter But what was it wherewith he would have him sufficed it was this He should go up to the top of Pisgah and thence take a view of all the quarters of that Land and so dye where he was Now by this means Moses was considered well enough in his Petition though it were not given him to his wish for he was eased of his heavy and often bemoaned charge over that people and removed from the tiresom Wars of Canaan then beginning into rest and peace in a better Canaan that is the heavenly A worthy Divine observes That oftentimes the very denyal of the particular breaks a mans heart and brings him neerer to God and puts him upon searching into his ways and estate Mr Goodwins Return of prayer ch 9. s 3. and in his prayers to see what should be amiss therein which alone is a great mercy and better then the thing seeing by the loss of that one thing he learns to pray better and so to obtain a hundred better things afterward Secondly In requests for spirituals sometimes one benefit is asked and another of that nature is substituted for it which is equivalent to it The Apostle Paul molested with the thorn in his flesh 2 Cor. 12.7 the messenger of Satan buffeting him went to God in prayer and besought him thrice
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
into captivity though she have not the prospect of them or of the accomplishment of her prayers for them though it be to her sense as the Prophet in the Lamentations on her behalf expresseth it Lam. 2.7 8 The Lord hath given up into the hand of the Enemy the walls of her palaces The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the Daughter of Zion He made the rampart and the wall to lament they languished together Yet her walls are continually before him they decay not in his memory he constantly minds the upholding or rebuilding of them When her walls are in her view as low as the ground yea sunk into and buryed in it even then they reach up to Heaven in regard of Gods watchful eye and care for their instauration and a little after the Lord puts this matter of difference betwixt him and her viz. her accounting her self deserted by him unto proof and evidence Isai 50 1. Thus saith the Lord where is the bill of your mothers divorcement whom I have put away or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you q. d. Thou O Zion are full of mistrust jealousies and exclamations of my forsaking thee but where is thy proof for this hast thou any bill of divorce or sale under my hand to shew canst thou produce any legal testimony that I have either through change of mind or affection on my part repudiated thee or for my poverty and engagements to others sold thee There hath been no mutation or defect on my side either of matrimonial fidelity or of sufficiency of estate and if there hath been a distance or withdrawing for some time or in respect of some enjoyments if any temporal or partial separation the tenor of the act if it be brought out wil shew that it 's your deed not mine it 's you that have given the cause and made the breach Behold for your iniquities have you sold your selves and for your transgressions is your mother put away Again What if the faithful servants of God in seeking of him have not their prayers instantly returned This deferring must not go for a final refusal or frustration The Lords suspense of his peoples prayers complained of in Scripture by them they themselves in a calm and deliberate temper have not so understood but have interpreted it otherwise as in that complaint of the Church in the Lamentations cited among the examples above given When I cry and shout he shutteth out my prayer Thou hast covered thy self with a cloud Lam. 3 8 44 31 32 that our prayer should not pass through She in the same Chapter cleareth her meaning from apprehending or intending an utter rejection For the Lord will not cast off for ever but though he cause grief yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies The Church here as she is sensible of a present putting off of her prayer so she is no less secure against a perpetual casting off and she makes sure of a commiserative return to come The Penman of Psal 102. which is the sad mans Psalm purposely compiled for a mourning moaning wailing condition for the servant or Church of God that is in deepest afflictions and in their most sorrowful prayers he representeth the Church in a solitary and pining state complaining of Gods absence By reason of the voyce of my groaning my bones cleave to my skin I am like a Pelican of the wilderness I am like an Owl of the desart I watch and am as a Sparrow alone upon the house top and yet she doth not for this tiresom stay give her prayers as forlorn and lost but fixeth upon this Thou shalt arise Vers 5 6 7 13 17 and have mercy upon Zion for the time to favor her yea the set time is come or cometh and again He will regard the prayer of the destitute and not despise their prayer This Psalm is supposed to have been composed by the Prophet Daniel Junius Ford in hunc Psal or some such person neer the end of the Judean Churches Captivity seventy years at Babylon during all which time they had sowed in tears they had setly and solemnly fasted and mourned in certain months in the year besides the personal humiliations of some of them as of Daniel mentioned in Scripture and in this their desolate condition and praying posture they were held in delay and expectation for so many years Zion was still a heap of stones and lay in the dust and they continued praying over her stones and pitying her dust * Quia voluerunt bene servi tui lapidibus ejus pulveris ejus miserti sunt Ar. Mont. and in those their prayers they for present remained solitary and destitute of divine help and recovery yet they remain resolved Thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Zion the time to favor is coming he will regard the prayer of the destitute and not despise their prayer 3. When and so far as God doth hide himself from his faithful peoples prayers it is not only righteous in him and consistent with his promises either their prayers not holding correspondence with his promises and so he is free or his proceedings exactly corresponding thereunto though it be not discerned and so he is faithful but it is in mercy to them either in withholding from them their desires when bad for them or in reserving them either till they be reduced to their rule if they be irregular that they may have them in a promissory way or till they be ripened to that exercise and growth of grace wherein they may be most acceptable and profitable to them To this purpose weigh seriously that of the Apostle And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God Rom. 8.18 to them who are the called according to his purpose He layeth this down as a known and generally received principle They that are the people of God indeed that peculiarly love him and are beloved by him all things work together for good to them He had spoken immediately before of Believers prayers and the Spirits helping their infirmities and making intercession for them according to God and here he enlargeth his speech and riseth from the particular to the universal not only doth the Spirit help but all things work together for the good of Believers in special as the coherence seems to imply their prayers that come from the Spirit how ever at present they succeed whether the effect of them be stayed or instantly emergent evident or inevident or however transformed yet they work for good to them and which is much to be noted he saith they work together for good they are not single causes to produce an effect of or by themselves solitarily but they work together that is together with other things and amongst or above other things that must work with them is the divine disposal the Saints prayers and Gods hand of
informed him concerning the counsel of God delivering to him that revelation of the seventy weeks And it deserves to be well taken notice of Isai 54.8 9 11 Jer. 33.34 Heb 8.11 12 that in the New Covenant the benefit of being taught of God and of the abounding of the knowledg of God is joyned with the removal of Gods wrath and the forgiveness of sins and iniquities Let it be our first care then to seek and obtain reconciliation with God and expiation of sins 2. Let us go unto God by Prayer and make this a special petition unto him that he would disclose his mind and give us wisdom in this particular Doth the Lord hide himself from our prayers set we our selves to prayer so much the more closely It is recorded of our blessed Saviour Luk. 22.41 44. that when he was in the garden and at prayer being in an agony he prayed more earnestly And let us for this in particular seek unto God to know the reason of his hiding of himself that reason I mean which it behoveth us to know and he would have us seek after David in his exile and want of God Psal 42.9 saith I will say unto God My Rock why hast thou forgotten me why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy Thus Elihu adviseth Job Job 34.31 32 Surely it is meet to be said unto God I have born chastisement I will not offend any more that which I see not teach thou me And this Job himself had done when he said unto God Chap. 10.2 Shew me wherefore thou contendest with me And again where he faith How many are mine iniquities and sins Chap. 13.23 24 Make me to know my transgression and sin Wherefore hidest thou thy face and holdest me for thine enemy Let that be our course in this doubt which was the course of Daniel and the three children for the finding out of Nebuchadnezzars dream namely Dan. 2.18 19 to desire mercies of the God of Heaven concerning this secret This way succeeded with them for then was the secret revealed to Daniel in a night vision And we may hope the like success though not by the same means may be unto us Solomon tells us Prov. 28 5 Evil men understand not judgment but they that seek the Lord understand all things This is the way directed unto by the Apostle James and unto it he gives us a promise Jam. 1 5. If any of you lack wisdâ—â— let him ask of God and it shall be given him The Prophet Daniel confesseth the neglect of this as both the sin and the prejudice of his people then in captivity in this regard All this evil is come upon us Dan. 9 13. yet made we not our prayer before the Lord our God that we might turn from our iniquities and understand thy Truth To understand Gods Truth here I conceive intendeth the practical and particular understanding of the congruity of Gods dealings then in Judgment with them with his Word in the threatenings pronounced by Moses and the Prophets and the applicative knowledg or acknowledgment of the verification of those denunciations upon them together with an attributing of their desolations to these evil ways of theirs against which the Prophets had before declared them And the reason why they had not understood this truth of God was they had not made their prayer unto God that they might turn from their iniquities and understand this truth Where by the way you may note the necessity of that which I insisted on before in the Rules given to wit turning from our iniquities to the end we may know Gods truth manifested in his dealings with us The people of the Jews had made their prayer after their manner both before and during the seventy years captivity but they had not made their prayer with a returning from their iniquities and therefore they had not attained to understand the aforesaid truth in this behalf But to conclude this particular if God do hide himself from our prayers we are to pray to him that the reason of it may not be hidden from us and that if it seemeth good unto him for a time to make a stop of our other prayers yet he would not deny us in this but herein discover his intention to us that so we may both the more contentedly stay and make the better use of his delaying or denying of us in the other 3. Attend diligently to the written Word We have before shewed the Scripture to be now the only ordinary means of understanding the reason of these ways of God towards us and that the common or main difficulty that is obvious to us on the part of this means is whereas God revealeth to men in his Word variety of Reasons for this according to the variety of Cases how to know or pitch upon that which in special concerns us and our condition and that in order to the clearing our selves of this difficulty we are to get into terms of peace and reconciliation with God we are particularly to pray for special information herein of God Now unto these we must thirdly add a close and cordial inspection into the Word Conscience must here awaken come in and diligently do its office and that is not only to open and acquaint us with the whole rule or dictate of Scripture but to make use application or deduction from it to our selves and this consists mainly if not only in taking a distinct and right view of our case or in bringing in a true and full account evidence or judgment of the matter of fact This matter of fact hath two parts 1. Gods dealing with us 2. Our own ways towards him 1. A strict and narrow insight into a serious consideration of Gods dealing with us must be had Come behold the works of the Lord Psal 46.8 what desolations he hath made in the Earth Every Providence of God especially his more notable acts hath a reason written upon it Eze. 14.23 could mans eye read it And the due eying of the ways of God is a great means to bring to light that reason The contemplation of Gods proceedings is hereunto apt in two respects 1. By vertue of that similitude or proportion which often there is especially in crosses betwixt Gods dealings with men and their dealings afore with him And this is particularly to be found in Gods walking towards us in relation to prayer As Solomon hath it in his prayer at the dedication of the Temple 1 Kings 8.39 Then hear thou in Heaven thy dwelling place and forgive and do and give to every man according to his ways whose heart thou knowest Take one instance of this proportion of Gods ways to mens as to the matter of prayer O the hope of Israel the Saviour thereof in time of trouble Why shouldst thou be as a stranger in the Land Jer. 14 8 9 10 and as a wayfaring man that turneth
2.12 Heb. 10.38 2 Pet. 2.1 3 10 12 13 c. Jude 5.8 c. Revel 2.5 16 22 3.3 16. Jer. 16.18 with vers 14 15. God we may justly fear hath other things in store for us then the accomplishment of our prayers or the bestowing of those blessings which we have sought and waited for even the fulfilling of the several threats of his Word against the highest contemners thereof and that although he would not utterly reject our prayers but sometime perform them yet that he should first make good his own Word upon us and vindicate it against us Once he said of Judah when he promised them an exceeding great and renowned deliverance out of Babylon First I will recompence their iniquity and their sin double So may we apprehend the Lord determining concerning us I do no where read that either God did ever so long afford his Word written and preached in such freedom and plenty to any people as he hath afforded it to us or that having begun in judgment with any for their abuse of it he was so quickly and so easily pacified and entreated as we now expect he should be The dignity and worth of the Word of God the singularity of the mercy of enjoying it b Psa 147.20 Rom. 3.2 the holy and jealous nature of God c Josh 24 19 the platform of his ways described to us in Scripture denunciations and examples to this purpose d As Shiloh was a pattern to Jerusalem Israel to Judah Jer. 7.12 13 14. 26 6. so were they both to the Christians of the primitive age 1 Cor. 10 6 11. and so are they all three unto us the contempt of God himself which the contempt of his Word both in its own tendency and in his interpretation amounteth to e Luk. 10.16 1 Thes 4.8 and lastly that how shall we escape which the Apostle fixeth upon the neglect of that great Salvation which the Gospel preacheth to us f Heb. 2.3 These considerations alone besides many other which come in both from the nature of the fact and from the aggravating circumstances of it as it is ours g Those passages in the Epistle to the Hebrews wherein the Apostle argueth the sins of Christians now under the Gospel out-go those of Gods people under the Law and that the Judgments coming upon these do exceed them that came upon those as Heb. 2.2 3. 10.28 29 30 do cast a very terrible aspect upon us do induce me to apprehend that as God may have I hope hath thoughts of peace towards his people and their prayers in England so his thoughts are not all of peace but some of evil towards this Nation Only this Repent O England Repent or thou mayst give thy prayers thy self and the Gospel which thou hast contemned as lost But my scope was to make good the charge of this sin upon us and not to presage from it To return therefore We have ever since the restoring and republishing of the Word of God by the Preaching and Translation of it in our Tongue in the beginning of the Reformation been declining in our respect to it Although the light of it even in our acknowledgment hath been still ascending and waxing clearer and brighter and extending it self more generally and although the end of its protracted continuance extent and growth hath been as that of the housholders sending more servants then the first and at last his own Son in the Parable of the Vineyard to wit to conciliate and procure at length our reverence and obedience to it yet we have all along unto this day still the less esteemed it the more grosly despised it so that now it is become the most despicable and loathed thing in all the Land and we are casting the very dregs of our contempt upon it Christ and his Apostles and Ministers were not more contemptible in the eyes of the infidel world 1 Câ—r 1 13 4.13 when they were accounted a stumbling block and foolishness the filth of the world and the off-scouring of all things then the Word of God and its Ministry are now in the esteem of professed Christians Popery and Prelacy or what ever was most nauseated were not more stomacked in the beginning of the late Stirs then are now Orthodox Preaching and Presbytery with many And although we have for about these hundred years been declining in our respect to the Word yet I dare say we have fallen and degenerated more therein within these ten last years then we did in all the other fourscore and ten And what think we doth this hastening in our defection and our arrival now at the very lowest step of it portend Certainly not the speeding of our prayers but of our punishment What contempt or indignity is there which the Word of God is capable to suffer and we capable to act which we have not done unto it In two words What ever there is in the Gospel worthy of honour and acceptation we despise and vilifie What way soever respect and esteem is to be shewed unto it therein we manifest our contempt of it 1. What ever there is in the Gospel deserving and commanding our honour and acceptance we despise and vilifie We despise and vilifie the light of the Gospel by affecting ignorance and love of darkness We despise its Truth by changing it into a lye entertaining or enduring the Errors opposite to it and wresting it to patronize falshood and iniquity We despise and vilifie its grace by practical infidelity or irreconciliation to God pleasure in sin and earthly-mindedness We despise and vilifie its holiness by Atheism impiety and hypocrisie Its righteousness by injustice violence sedition fraud falshood and perjury Its purity by Epicurism luxury and pride Its union peace and love by malice envy strife cruelty and schism Its order lastly by Libertinism confusion and profanation 2. What way soever there is respect and esteem to be shewed to the Gospel therein we manifest our contempt of it There is honour to be done to it in hearing and reading it in beleeving it in obeying it in professing and adorning it before others and in maintaining it But we have all these ways cast contempt upon it 1. We contemn it in point of hearing and reading Look into our Assemblies see how they are accounted followed frequented What absenting turning away the ear from hearing what emptiness is there in the Congregations Time was in the primitive age in the begining of Reformation yea in our memories no pains travel or frequency in repairing to Sermons was too much now we are overcloyed with much preaching Erewhile we complained of the Bâ—shops for putting down Sermons but now many of the people do put off more Sermons I dare say then ever the Bishops put down It is now counted by some a poor and low business for a man to be diligent in following the publick Ordinances he that cannot with Elies sons kick at Gods Sacrifice
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
of good success to prayer without descending to any express or determinate way or manner of their speeding or the return to be made 2. Other promises run more particularly and precisely upon the doing or giving of the thing prayed for As that Whatsoever ye shall ask in my Name Joh. 14.13 14.15.7 that will I do And that If ye shall ask any thing in my Name I will do it So in divers particular promises as unto prayer for wisdom Jam. 1.5 the promise is It shall be given to him that asks it and for a Brother that hath sinned 2 Joh. 5.16 He shall ask and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death For the holy Spirit Luk. 11.13 Your heavenly Father shall give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him It may be observed by the way that these promises that run particularly upon the doing or giving of the thing are at least for the most part promises of spiritual things and this difference of promises to prayer that some are for hearing and return others for a grant or performance of the thing may be of use to us in the sequel Secondly It follows that we come to enquire into the sence and manner wherein the promises both the irrespective and the relative are made and to be taken by us in bottoming our prayers upon them and so we come home to the point of the groundedness of prayers upon the promises For this we must heedfully observe in every promise two things 1. The thing promised as this or that benefit or an audience or accomplishment of prayer 2. The condition circumspection or qualification of the promise for God never promiseth that be men what ever they will or can be they shall have such blessings neither is his Word out that whosoever puts up a prayer or howsoever it is put up or whatsoever it be for he will hear and do it but there are certain bounds limits or proviso's inserted in his promises by which he confineth them and unto which we must keep in our dependance upon them These limits or proviso's as far as I observe are reducible to six heads 1. Concerning the person praying 2. The manner of the prayer 3. The matter 4. The order 5. The circumstances of time means and the like 6. The end 1. For the person praying the promise is to the prayer of a righteous man a Jam. 5.16 1 Pet. 3.12 Pro. 10.24 15.29 of a godly man b Ps 32.6 of him that feareth God c Ps 145.19 of an humble man d Isa 66.2 of one that is in Christ e Joh. 15.7 and one that keepeth the Commandments of God f Joh. 3.22 These are to be the qualifications of the person praying and he that is not such a one is an unpromised person if he cometh to God in prayer he comes without the promise 2. For the manner of prayer The promise is to the prayer 1. That is made in the mediation of Christ a Joh. 16.23 24 2. In the help of the Spirit b Ro. 8.27 3. In Faith c Mat. 21.22 4. In Truth d Psal 145 18 and Sincerity 5. In Fervency e Jam. 5.16 6. In Love and Charity f Mark 11 25 7. With Humility g Ps 10.17 8. With constancy h Luk. 18 1 7 These must be the accomplishments of the prayer besides those foregoing of the person And let it here be noted that the person may be furnished with those conditions above required in him and yet his prayer may be without these The man may be a righteous and a godly man one that feareth God humble obedient and that which inferreth all these one in Christ and yet his prayers may be not in the mediation of Christ or not in the help of the Spirit or not in Faith Truth c. For that the prayer may be so qualified there is required an actual recourse to Christ operation of the Spirit exercise of Faith Sincerity Zeal Love Humility and Constancy Now that which the person hath in the root principle or habit may lie unacted may not reach or be put forth into the action of prayer but the promise requireth them both to wit both that the Suppliant and the Prayer be qualified each with those their proper characters 3. Concerning the matter There is for this a double limitation 1. The promise is to what we pray for Joh. 5.14 so it be according to the Will of God This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Will here I conceive to intend not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Will of Purpose or Decree for that is to us in most things unrevealed but his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Will of warrant or his revealed Will to be done by us his Will of precept or approbation made known to us in his Word for a Rule to us To pray for anything according to his Will then is to pray for that which is lawful and allowed us by his Word to be prayed for All the promises of God are arguments and encouragements to the obedience of his Will and therefore certainly none of them may be understood to hold out or promise any benefit to irregular desires 2. The promise is to what is prayed for that is a good thing Your Father which is in Heaven shall give good things to them that ask him Mat. 7.11 Good here is to be taken not in genere moris for good or appropriated in Gods Word or good according to the precept for that was the meaning of the last restriction before but good in genere utilis that is profitable or beneficial and that not only so good simply or in it self but good complexedly or in its circumstances that is good for the party pro hic nunc as the case is now with him and good comparatively that is better then the want of it or another thing put in the room of it or into the ballances with it Indeed the subject of all Gods promises is some good thing as is the object of all rational desires but good here is understood to be a note of restriction to confine the matter of other indefinite and irrespective promises of good things to a complexed circumstantiated and comparative goodness as to the exercise and expectation of prayer Some things indeed are absolutely good that is invariably both in their own nature or kind and in whatsoever individual circumstances of person time or the like you can clothe them and this is because they are absolutely and universally necessary so are all spiritual blessings in respect of essence or Being and therefore to them this limitation reacheth not but other things are of a variable goodness and necessariness to us such are temporal things and some spiritual gifts in regard of us or of this or that degree of them These are all good in themselves but any of them may be inexpedient if not