to himself Few of us smite upon our own brests or say each one to himself This Soul is guilty hereof But the contempt of Gods Word is ordinarily in mens mouths as a charge upon others and is noted for a sin of this reigning nature and predominant influence 5. Last of all The evil under present consideration the Lords hiding from our prayers looketh full upon this sin by way of proportion and similitude This desertion is an answerable punishment or correction to that sin It is one denyal one put off for another We harken not to God in his Word and God harkeneth not to us in our prayers We manifest no delight in Gods Word God manifesteth no pleasure that he takes in our seekings of him The Gospel of peace is not entertained with accâ—ptance by us we receive not an answer of peace to our supplications We yield not to God God yields not to us We defer our obedience to his Will and he delays the grant of our wishes Thus much of the first master Sin of England The other I now come unto to wit the high and dear esteem advancement and love of a worldly-private-Interest This and the former sin are usually to be met with together they are like two German Sisters or Twins that are born and grow up together Where the Word of God falls and lies under contempt and loathing there an earthly-self-Interest lifteth up its head and carries mens hearts and adorations after it and vice versa where worldly-interest gains favour and esteem there the Gospel comes into disgrace and disrespect The Word and the World are as contraries that do mutually expel and remove one another Earthly-mindedness is the Anti-Gospel Antichristian Sin The Gospel sets up the life of Faith Earthly-mindedness sets up the life of Sense That carries to things unseen and eternal this fixeth on things seen and temporal Christ calleth us out of the world this setteth up our rest in the world Christ commands us to forsake all that we have this enjoyns us to grasp at all the world and hold fast all that we can get Christ conquers the world unto us this captivates us to the world Christ teacheth us to deny our selves this wills us to love and save our selves And as these two the contempt of the Word and the adoring of Self-Interest are bred and live together so they concur and work together for the obstruction of prayers It is the latter I am now to speak to and for brevities sake I will joyntly assert that it is the sin and the reigning sin of England as to this effect What is now the professed study care and projection what is the labour strife and adventure of men It is to make themselves rich high safe free and potent and that with little or no respect to Religion Conscience other mens or the publique Interest The Land though it be very full of various opinions and parties divided and subdivided in point of Judgment yet it is not so full of them as it is of particular Interests each whereof is prefered by its owner above the whole We are indeed lately new-termed a Commonwealth but let it be without offence if I say what is undenyably true and plain to be seen to wit these two words 1. Private Wealth and common Poverty were never more procured then since we were a Commonwealth 2. If it had not been for private-wealth and Interest the Commonwealth had not had so many friends and followers It hath been in divers ages a catching opinion that Faith and Religion brings a kind of temporal right or an earthly priviledg dominion and preheminence The Jews extracted such a worldly notion out of the Promises and Priviledges they had by their father Abraham and those they expected by the Messiah a Jo. Selden de Jur. Nat. lib. 6. cap. 3. p. 678. cap. 12. p. 730. cap. 18. pag. 770. cap. 19. p. 774 c. The Disciples of Christ until after his Ascension harbored a strain of that Jewish fancy b Mark 9.34.10.35 Acts 1.6 After that the Corinthians and other Heretiques in the Christian Church took up the conceit c Augustin de Haeres But more notoriously and grosly the Mahumetans entertained this Opinion and pursued it with the Sword unto the erecting of a vast Dominion d Appendix ad Aug. de Haeres Io. Selden de Jur. Nat. lib. 6. cap. 12. pag. 732. Of late the e Io. Sleiden Com. lib. 10. Cambden Elizab Tom. 2. p. 34. Anabaptists in Germany and Hacket and his Complices here were possessed with this principle unto a strange height of fury and dotage And it is very probable there are some now among us that have sucked in this for a Doctrine They have layd but a weak title to any other warrant and what they alledg they quickly take from themselves by their contrary actions If indeed they hold this Doctrine they think it fitter to practise then preach it to keep it to themselves then to proselyte others to it Sure I am for any to challenge by vertue of Saintship or Christianity a right to dispossess others and to assume to themselves as much of the property and rule of this world as they can lay their hands on is one of the most unsaint-like and unchristian points that is imaginable The Devil once entitled himself to the Monarchy of the World * Luk. 4.16 and after him the man of sin the Pope hath claimed it And whatsoever sort of men do take to themselves such a preheminence upon such a ground as is above-said they are not the followers of Christ but of these two and the direct contradictors of the Gospel But my work here is not to prosecute them with a Confutation Whether it be this principle or that downright 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the insatiable greedy desire after the things of this world and a ruined bent to have them by what means soever or both that prevails certain it is that the hearts of men are exceedingly enflamed with the love of an earthly-self-interest This is the powerful attractive the swaying concernment the axletree that actions and affairs now move upon Let us in one word measure the regnancy of this sin by the afore-given characters 1. This is general It was once said of Judah From the least of them even unto the greatest of them Jer. 6.13 every one is given to covetousness Can any less be said of England There are many new and strange Sects noted among us but there is one not of a new rise but of late much encreased and the most numerous Sect of any that is to be found which is that of the Mammonists this is the greatest Sect the strongest party you can meet with amongst them all nay these cannot properly be called a party they are rather the whole All other parties and Sects though they be never so much divided and opposite to one another in other regards
one that would pretend to be a head and vindicator to them of that nature and by means of that conceit and those distempers arising from it they never rested until they brought the Roman Emperor upon them unto their utter ruine †See Tho. Goodwins Serm. on Psa 105.14 and Dr Jackson in Serm. p. 32 It is a sad presage now to us to see both the like aestuations and stirs among us and withall the Roman Beast hovering over us to set up himself and his abomination that maketh desolate again in the midst of us And what sets all these Hurlyburlies on foot and creates this omen but the impetuous minding of an earthly felicity a worldly Christ What makes men so grosly and diversly misapply both Scripture and Providences The plain sence of Scripture is wrested and the clear Authority of it is obscured and it is from hence Mens consulting their worldly interest blinds the mind and corrupts the judgment and silenceth if not seareth the Conscience The world is a pearl in the eye it makes the eye evil double and dark Mat. 6.22 23 so that it seeth nothing though never so evident but what agreeth with it He that is set upon his gain and commodity he dissents from wholesom words even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Doctrine which is according to Godliness 1 Tim 6.3 5 He becomes of a corrupt mind and destitute of the Truth Divine Providences are misconceived also how comes it about Gain is become Godliness Gold is made a God and Prosperity is put in stead of Piety and men of this mind will upon all occurrencies construe Gods approving or disapproving Will to be as things temporal succeed well or prove improsperous An unhappy rule it is to go by What 's the cause of Persecution where or whensoever ye see it in the world Self-interest is the most ordinary cause Come say the Husbandmen in the Parable of the Vineyard this is the heir Luk. 20.14 come let us kill him that the inheritance may be ours A Kingdom made Hazael an inhumane 2 Kin. 8.12 dogged Persecutor notwithstanding his former abhorrency of it This was the principal ground of the persecution of Christ and his Apostles and Church by the High Priests and Elders of the Jews Joh. 11.49 50. 19.12 13. Mat. 2.3 16. Act. 16.19 17 6 7 8. 12.25 24 5. by Herod by Pilate and others Men do nowadays condemn and oppose principles ways and persons hand over head in respect of any conscientious warrant that is not for that they find them sinful or stand to examine that but because they meet with them in an opposite party and posture to their earthly interest and concernment What 's the reason of that delusion above touched of a temporal felicity earthly promotion enrichment and power by Religion or Christianity Men are wont to dream of what their mind is most upon those therefore whose hearts are bent upon the world do easily dream of such a matter That phantastical conceit that State embroiling and subverting doctrine is the hatching of a sordid earthly spirit What 's the reason of the many scrued and conscience-relucting compliances that men make now adays Some men can say swear subscribe act oppose any thing as the times turn their private interest is the oyl that supples them the shooinghorn that draws on what would otherwise pinch We may observe some carnal and self-interested Christians in the primitive Church devised ways of accommodating their Religion with the strain of the times and people where they lived and this was for their beloved worldly concernments sake So did the Galatians Gal. 6.12 or some of them endeavor to comply with the Jews in point of Circumcision and Ceremonies to avoyd persecution for the Cross of Christ For that end did the Corinthians 1 Cor. 8.1 c. as it seemeth labour to temporize with the Gentiles in communion with them in Idolothytes In like manner did some of the Christian Souldiers under Julian the Apostate to receive their pay Mr Clarks Martyrol 1 p. 84. they cast incense into the fire of the Idolatrous Altars which Julian set for that purpose to be a train to draw them to a denyal of their Religion If men did not immoderately favour the world they would never do that which proves after a sting to their conscience a blur to their profession and a dishonor to their name Their tenderness and indulgence to their estate-concernments makes them harsh and violent to their inward principles and conscience Two things I fear when I consider the course of things and the shifts and turns of men in them and I will here express them 1. That those evasions and compliances will not serve they must be thundered frighted out of those their Zoars greater tryals must sift them out of those holes 2. That men will hardly stop at their present shifts but that those will dispose them to admit of greater wider compliances And what will they do in the end thereof It may come to that again whether you will carry a Taper and bear a fagot to the fire in renunciation of Protestantism Lastly To take in all at once the many enormous crimes the indirect courses the violent practises the irreligious unrighteous and perfidious contrivements and atchievements that have been acted in these times have sprung from hence men have absolutely and unmeasurably addicted themselves to the affection and service of their own earthly interest this they are peremptorily resolved on that they will maintain and enlarge all they can their fortune as they call it in the world be it by right or wrong They lay down to themselves for a principle that of the Satyrist Juvenal Satyr 14. Vnde habeas quaerit nemo sed oportet habere The Apostle Paul foretelling to Timothy that perillous times shall be or as the word may be rendered hurtful troublesom cruel times in these last days he reckoneth up nineteen several vices or sorts of depraved persons as the causes of those bad times and in the head of them all as the leaders or common parents of the rest he placeth the lovers of their own selves and the covetous Inde fere scelerum causa nec plura venena miscuit aut ferro grassatur saepiu◠ullum Humanae mentis vitium quam saeva cupido Indomiti census nam dives qui fieri vult cito vult fieri sed quae reverentia legum Quis metus aut pudor est unquam properantis avari Ad scelus atque nefas quodcunque est purpura ducit Juvenal Satyr 14. That which he then said shall be now we do see The whole band of those vicious persons are broken in upon us or risen up out of us and their chief or the king of them is this Apollyon the self-lover and next unto him as his second is the covetous 3. It is a sin which the Lord doth specially appear
supports under their sufferings their innocency is taken away from them as far as censure can do it For the most part the Faithfuls troubles come upon them because they dare not know not how to run a course of wickedness with others this then is a very hard case that when men suffer because they dare not sin they must be said to sin because they suffer This usage of Job by his friends of which even now exceedingly battered his spirit and drew from him high language and somewhat distempered in his contestation with them How long said he will ye vex my Soul and break me in pieces with words These ten times have ye reproached me c. Have pity upon me Job 19.2 3 21 22. O ye my friends for the hand of God hath touched me Why do ye persecute me as God and are not satisfied with my flesh q. d. The scourge of God being layd thus smartly upon me it would become you to pity me and not to arraign and condemn mine Integrity and if you will take pleasure to rake in my wounds my bodily sufferings should suffice and glut your cruel delight and you should spare my Soul and state of Conscience which is peculiar to divine Cognizance I the rather take notice of this incentive of Corruption in the Saints under pressing afflictions because I am perswaded it was never so much practised at least never so ex professo or Magisterially made use of as now it is It is now become a current proof yea one of the chiefest Topicks or Common-places from which men draw their arguments against the persons and cause of their distressed opposites and for their own justification This argument hath been so artificially adorned so imperiously consigned and which is more so smiled upon and applauded with subsequent events and observations that although in true divinity it be but meerly fallacious and even with rational men it hath been denyed admission among probable reasons yet it now seems to pass as demonstrative Yea it is at present grown a wonderment mixt with some indignation that the continued disappointments and miscarriages on the one part and the constant successes following if not out-going the designs and expectations of the other do not convince all men It is besides my business to discuss this Argument there hath been enough said to it And if the Evidence of Scripture and the experience and acknowledgment of all sound Judgments in all Ages will not cast off the scales of some mens minds against the present sense of worldly advancement a little time with the turn of the tyde may possibly do it Cosmographers observe That though the common course of the Sea to be ebb and flow every twenty four hours yet there is a place in Affrica towards the Equator from whence the Sea flows continually towards the East This Sea is not the figure of a worldly condition If Affrica can shew such a wonder in Nature no place can yield the like in Civil Affairs There never was any where a continual afflux in temporal attainments These know a West as well as an East an ebb as well as an increase And those that fix their anchor or bottom the equity or approveableness of their way upon this Argument may ride at full Sea but when it ebbs they shall be left on the sand and their own Argument shall serve to gravel them 3. The nature of the sufferings of the servants and Church of God The Measure Multitude and Multiplicity of them When the time of their calamity and day of their visitation is come when the Lord cometh cut of his place to punish the inhabitants of the Earth for their iniquity and in special hath a Controversie with his people and will plead with Israel their miseries fall heavy and thick upon them and in various kinds 1. For their Measure or Heaviness They are resembled to the pains of birth-travel What wilt thou say when he shall punish thee Jer. 13.21 Lam. 1.15 Lam. 3.15 Shall not sorrows take thee as a woman in travel And to the treading of the Vintage The Lord hath troden the Virgin the daughter of Judah as in a wine-press And to a sad drunkenness He hath filled me with bitterness he hath made me drunken with wormwood The Prophet Jeremiah further representing and personating the Churches miseries in the Lamentations sets them forth as perfect admirable incomparable and incredible 1. Perfect or compleat The Lord hath accomplished his fury he hath poured forth his fierce anger and hath kindled a fire in Zion and it hath devoured the foundations thereof 2. Admirable and astonishing She came down wonderfully How doth the City sit solitary how is she become a widow how is she become tributary 3. Incomparable and surpassing Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger What thing shall I take to witness for thee What thing shall I liken to thee O daughter of Jerusalem What shall I equal to thee that I may comfort thee O Virgin daughter of Sion For the punishment of the daughter of my people is greater then the punishment of the sin of Sodom that was overthrown as in a moment and no hands stayed on her 4. Incredible The Kings of the Earth and all the Inhabitants of the world would not have beleeved that the adversary and enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem 2. And then for their Number or Multitude In the Churches or Saints day of trouble or hour of temptation it pleaseth God oftentimes to multiply their miseries to heap affliction upon affliction to add grief to grief and to bring one adversity in the neck of another The Scripture compareth their evils in such a time to waves of the Sea that pursue and overtake one another So David Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy water-spouts Psal 42.7 all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me And to Armies that come in companies and thousands upon a party So Job saith of God His troops come together and raise up their way against me and encamp round about my tabernacle Job 19.12 And to a Leaguer that besets a place on all hands So the Church in the Lamentations Lam. 3.5 7. He hath builded against me and compassed me about with gall and travel he hath hedged me about that I cannot get out And to a festival Congregation as the Church in the same Song Cap. 2. 22. Thou hast called me as in a solemn day my terrors round about And to a chain made of many links as the Church again Chap. 3. 7. He hath made my chain heavy And the Prophet Ezekiel Make a chain c. mischief shall come upon mischief Ezek. 7.23 26. and rumor shall be upon rumor And to the arrows of a quiver as the Church He hath bent his bow Lam.
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
aside to tarry for a night Why shouldst thou be as a man astonied as a mighty man that cannot save Thus saith the Lord unto this people Thus have they loved to wander they have not refrained their feet therefore the Lord doth not accept them c. Here the people of Judah are by the Prophet Jeremiah personated in a complaint of Gods withdrawing from them and the Lord maketh his reply unto them by way of reddition of a reason wherefore he did it Thus have they loved to wander q. d. They complain of me that notwithstanding the relation they are in unto me of my people I am as a stranger or a night-lodger as a wearied man or as a strong man whose power is overmatched in that I do not hear and save them they may see if they will why it is and what 's the matter I am so strange and helpless to them what it is that makes me dislodg and be gone from among them and while I stay to be as a man altogether unconcerned in their condition Thus have they loved to wander Right as I carry to them so have they to me they have estranged themselves and run away from me after their Idols so that they may say like sin like punishment 2. By vertue of that sense and awakening efficacy which the works of God of this sort more especially are apt to introduce upon the Conscience As in the Prophet Zechary it is said of the Jews upon their captivity Zech. 1.6 And they returned and said Like as the Lord of Hoasts thought to do unto us according to our ways and according to our doings so hath he dealt with us This observation which they make upon the ways of God towards them is even wrung out from them by their present sense and smart under Gods Judgments and their Consciences are induced to this acknowledgment by the transparency of the hand of God upon them In this respect the Judgments of God are as the light that goeth forth Hos 6.5 or the morning light of force to awaken and rouze up those men that lie asleep in their beds of sensless security 2. The other branch of the matter of fact is our own ways towards God Let us search and try our ways saith the afflicted Church of Judah Lam. 3.40 upon this very occasion of the Lords covering himself with a cloud that their prayers could not pass through Hag. 1 5 7 Consider your ways Consider your ways The Lord saith it twice over to his ill-succeeding people And the same again is reiteratedly required in that of Zephaniah Gather your selves together yea gather together or as others read Winnow sift or search your selves and again winnow c. your selves And indeed this we have need to do very faithfully and fully If we will not take a true and through account of our own ways there is no congruity that we should expect to find out a reason of Gods ways If we will let our own courses go unsearched it is but suitable that the proceedings of God should remain hidden to us When any evil of affliction is upon us as God always brings it so there is still a reason for it on our part there is a cause ever extant in us there is always something in us that calleth for it either something that needeth it or something that procureth it and if we seem desirous to know the cause of an evil we lie under and will not search and soundly search where it is we deserve not to find it SECT IV. The Question divided into its parts and the Causes of Gods hiding from Prayers distinguished WE have hitherto been detained at the threshold of this question but it hath been somewhat necessarily by taking a view of the impediments arising in the way the manner how to address unto and the means by which to gain satisfaction in it it is now time to enter upon it The Question hath two parts 1. What may be the reason of Gods hiding himself from his peoples prayers grounded upon his Promises 2. What may be the reason of his seeming by his providences to answer the prayers which are contrary unto them although the former be the main and that being resolved will be in effect the resolution of the latter I begin with the first to wit What may be the reason of Gods hiding himself from his peoples prayers grounded upon his promises The intent of this Query as I take it is not meerly to ask in the general what at any time or in any case may be the reason of the said effect but particularly what may be the reason now and as the case stands with us yet it will be first very requisite and a good part of our work to deal with the question in its general state that is to survey the whole series or predicament of causes of this effect which the Scripture gives us and then we may proceed to the hypothesis or the case as it is present and proper to us It will be requisite I say and make much towards the clearing of the Query to look into and sum up all the reasons so far as we can collect them which the Word discovers to us of the Lords hiding from the prayers of his people grounded upon his promises and in so doing to take in this general account those notions of Gods people and of Prayers groundedness upon the Promises in the larger sence namely to include all those persons who are the people of God by outward profession and calling and all the prayers of such which may be said to be grounded on the Promises in regard of the matter prayed for though they be deficient in the qualifications necessary For 1. Though the case upon which our eye is intent be but one yet the reasons that have influence into it may be many 2. Among the many reasons in Scripture for the over clouding of prayer some in this particular case may belong to some persons more directly and peculiarly and other to others it may avail therefore to have all represented 3. If we come short in the unfolding of the present case set before us as infallibly and perfectly to open it I must be far from promising yet to have gone thus far will be an advantage for when we have a collection of what reasons are possible to come within our case layd before us then each mens conscience may set it self on work and we have the enquiry with the rule to go by put into our hand as in a Systems or Anatome 4. Though there be much difference betwixt Gods hiding from the prayers of the faithful seekers of him and his hiding from those of the hypocrite in respect of manner or degree yet there may be and is too often a co-incidency in respect of causes The reasons or causes which the Scripture rendereth for the Lords hiding from his peoples prayers may be reduced to two heads They are
only for ornament and beauty but for use and service and that not for easie and ordinary employment only but for hardships and distresses They are their armor wherewith to fortifie and fence themselves in the evil day and in such a day their skill and strength in the use of them is proved Job in his state of desertion saith He hideth himself that I cannot see him Job 23.10 but he knoweth the way that I take when he hath tryed me I shall come forth as gold q. d. Though he hide himself from me I am not hid from him though I see not him he takes exact notice of me he stands by me as a Founder doth by his mettal in the furnace and observes me he continues me in this estate but as a Goldsmith doth keep his gold in the fire that is for probation sake and as soon as he hath sufficiently tryed me he will remove me out of the furnace and then set as great a price and lustre upon me as the Goldsmith doth on his gold 4. The end of the Lords temporary hiding himself from his people may be for his fuller manifesting of himself unto them as our Saviour said of Lazarus his sickness Joh. 11.4 This sickness is not unto death but for the glory of God that the Son of God might be glorified thereby So may we here this hiding is not unto our loss of God but for his clearer shining forth unto us It may make for Gods fuller manifesting of himself 1. During the interim or space of delay 2. Afterward or in the upshot of it 1. By means of this deferring and even during it the Lord may the more appear and communicate himself unto his people he by hiding himself in one respect may the more impart himself unto them another way God would not grant the Jews of Jehojakims and Jeconiahs captivities among whom were Ezekiel Jer. 29.4 c. Mordecai Daniel the three Children and the better part of that people a release and return out of Babylon presently but willed them by the Prophets letter unto them from Jerusalem to set their hearts at rest for stay they must at Babylon for seventy years yet this long put off of their request in that particular was not their total separation from God yea it was for the communicating of his favor the more unto them during that time and for their fuller enjoyment of him as he sheweth unto Jeremy by his vision of the two baskets of figs Like those good figs so will I acknowledg them that are carryed away captive of Judah Jer. 24.5 6 whom I have sent out of this place into the Land of the Caldeans for their good for I will set mine eyes upon them for good God will own them one way though he deny them another way he will eye them in one kind though he hide his face from them in another kind yea he will own and eye them in that way and kind that shall be most for their weal and good Of them the Lord saith in another Prophet when as their brethren that were left at Jerusalem seemed to scorn them as out-casts saying to them Get you far from the Lord unto us is the Land given in possession Although I have cast them far off among the Heathen Eze. 11.16 and although I have scattered them among the Countries yet will I be to them as a little Sanctuary in the Countries where they shall come Thus the Lord recompenceth their deprival of their formerly possessed and now much longed for priviledges Though he cast them out from their own habitations in Judea and from his house at Jerusalem yet he doth not cast them off from himself they shall have his presence protection and provision in all the Countries where they are strangers and captives They change indeed their own Land for other Countries and the company of their Brethren for the vicinity of Heathens but they change not their God They may not carry along with them the material Sanctuary which they had nor rear up a new one where they are but which is better for it is the preheminence of the Church in the new and heavenly Ierusalem Rev. 21.22 the Lord himself will be their Temple And whereas it is said a little Sanctuary this is no diminution of their priviledg little may mean the commodiousness and peculiarity of the Sanctuary or the proportion of it to their small number but others more probably read it a Sanctuary for a little that is for a little time to wit during their seventy years abode there Thus the Lord makes them savers yea great gainers in their stay at Babylon They would fain have been at Gods Sanctuary in Ierusalem that they may not but which was incomparably better then especially God himself would be their Sanctuary They desired a perishable Sanctuary and which indeed shortly after was burnt down to the ground but the Lord would become a Sanctuary to them not made with hands and of everlasting strengh The Lord had already forsaken that Sanctuary in Iudea * Jer. 12.7 so that if they had had their wish they had had a Sanctuary without God but the Lord provides far better for them in that they shall have God for their Sanctuary The Apostle Paul galled and buffeted with the thorn in the flesh the messenger of Satan besought the Lord again and again that it might depart from him This his trebled suit might not prevail for an instant removal but in lieu thereof the Lord said unto him My grace is sufficient for thee 2 Cor. 12.8 9 with which he was so well apayd that he saith Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in mine infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me The word here rendered to rest signifies to cover or compass about as doth a Tent or Tabernacle them that are within it the sence then of the Apostle there is although Satan be suffered to continue his assailant yet the power of Christ shall be a shelter unto him on every side as a Tent is to a man against the injuries of Sun and weather Thus the Apostle by the deferring of his request had a greater experiment of the grace and power of Christ within him for whereas if he had gained his Petition he had but purchased his quiet now being relieved this way he hath whereof most gladly rather to glory Exod. 3.2 Acts 7.30 The bush wherein the Lord appeared unto Moses which burned and flamed with fire and was not consumed is a lively figure of the Lords manifesting himself to his servants in one kind equivalently or more eminently whilest he withholdeth himself in another The Lord telleth Moses out of the bush That he had heard the cry of his people in Egypt and was come down to deliver them thence and to bring them into the Land of Canaan yet after this the Lords hearing of them coming down and thus appearing to
list do so likewise And how general is if not the committance yet the contagion of Idolatry when as some practise it others plead for its freedom others argue for it as no Idolatry others connive at it and let it alone and others work underhand for its further impunity That which the Prophet utters by way of description and reproof of the impiety of the Heathen Nations Micah 4.5 All people will walk every one in the name of his God is now owned and voted for by many and they say Let all people or they should walk every one in the name of his god and further besides the gross or corporal sort of Idol-worship or adoring either Images the work of mens hands or Creatures the work of Gods hands there are two other kinds of Idolatry and they are both among us There is the Idolatry of the brain and the Idolatry of the heart The Idolatry of the brain to wit the entertaining of Antitheistical notions or conceits of God or the seting up of such figments in the understanding of God as are directly opposite to that divine Nature and Personality or distinction of subsistence as is revealed unto us in the Word of God to be the object of our faith and worship And the Idolatry of the heart that is Covetousness for this sin the Apostle brandeth for Idolatry * Col. 3 5. Ephes 5 5 Vide Drusius in Hos 12.8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we Ephes 4.19 translate greediness Vide Bez. in loc presertim Dan. Heusii excercit lib 10 c 4 l. 13. c. 2 And Mr Leigh's Crit. Sacr. in vocab And we must understand the term is of a larger extent then our ordinary sence of the word Covetousness reacheth unto for it signifieth an over-greedy desire prosecution and use of any earthly thing and so may include in it ambition intemperance luxury or any other inordinacy as well as the love of mony or worldly wealth and particularly it signifies that satisfying or accomplishment of any corrupt lust which is brought about by violence treachery or breach of Covenant Now who will not confess that the Land is full of this Idolatry or can say that ever any Age or Country equalled or more abounded with this kind of Idolatry and Worship then this of ours Here is Covenant breaking and especially with or in the matters of God I think I may confidently say Never any Nation scarce Israel it self in Moses time or after hath so generally publâ—quely solemnly sacredly and reiteratedly bound themselves to or in the th ngs of God as hath this with our neighbor Nation and never did any so quickly so universally in regard of things so professedly so constantly with such self justifying and so hypocritically or under a pretence of acting from and for God violate their bonds unto him as multitudes have done among us Did ever any people lift up their hands so high unto God in swearing performance of all religious and humane Duties and defence and advancement of all sacred and civil Rights and presently let down their hands so low when it came to execution yea and lifted them up so high against the very things which they swore for as many in England have done We have multiplyed Oaths and studied for the most solemn express and strict forms of declaring and binding our selves as if we would constrain both God and all the world to beleeve and build upon our word most surely and as if we would make it unimaginable and impossible that we should break but after all this there are men found that have gone to work in the matters of the Oaths and Covenants as if the direct contrary to what was the subject of their Oaths had been the things they had undertaken and tyed themselves unto and as if all that they did in entering into those Obligations and in their proceedings afterward had been out of a study to make themselves and the Land as deeply guilty as they could both against God and man of Oath and Covenant-violation Who so shall but look back if a remembrance thereof now may be offenceless upon the Vow and Protestation of the year 1641. and the League and Covenant of the year 1642. and therein take notice to let all other things pass of what was vowed protested covenanted and sworn by the generality of this Nation in one or other or both of those bonds in relation to God What maintenance and defence of the true reformed Protestant Religion against all Popery and Popish Innovations and what endeavor of the punishment of all the Actors to the contrary what endeavor for the preservation of the Reformed Religion in the Church of Scotland and for the Reformation of Religion in the Kingdom of England and Ireland and that in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government in respect both to that Church and to these Kingdoms and for the Conjunction and Vniformity of the Churches of God in all the three Kingdoms in Religion c. and for the extirpation of Popery Prelacy Superstition Heresie Schism Profaneness c. He I say that shall but think thereof and then cast his eye upon the universal indisposition and backwardness of the whole Nation to the making good of these things their lothness to expose or imploy any life power or estate for the same the late committance to otter oblivion and deep silence of all these Obligations their total desistance from and constant refusal of all these performances in whose hands it is publiquely to manage the same and their disenabling letting and discouraging them that would stir therein the declarings endeavors and exploits of many directly contrary to these clauses both to the downfall of what was to have been preserved restored or effected and to the reviving and flouâ—ishing of what was to have been extirpated and lastly the favour and help that hath been lent to the known Enemies of the Religion professed and covenanted for in all the said branches thereof and in their enmity against the same He I say again that shall revolve these things if he have any sense either of the things obliged to or the nature of the Obligation cannot chuse but sit down with some part of Ezra's astonishment and heaviness conceived upon the sin of some of his people in the point of anti-federal marriages And as to the purpose in hand in stead of wondering what is become of all the prayers that have been put up for England he may admire what shall become of England and of them that have made it and themselves so guilty in this matter For this our heart is faint for these things our eyes are dim Lam 5.17 Here is Religion abused unto carnal ends and that very commonly plainly and grosly Religion hath been for a long time universally embraced and pretended to in England There have of late been many proceed ngs taken in hand about it yea it hath been one thing which men have held forth and made