highest price like the dunghill cock the precious sone For my own part I am resolved The Avowry to beg of God by the foolishnesse of preaching to expell out of my soul this foolish naturall left this naturall spiritual foolishnesse be my hinderance to do Gods will in Earth as it is in Heaven The second Vice we are warned to banish is spirituall Cowardize Cowardizes Character a childe of the Devils own begetting he dare not * Peter resist the Devil and he will flie from you stand his ground and this his brat is skar'd with every bugbear I wonder a coward got pranking into the heart except to hide him It is this spirituall cowardize in abstracto which hath prevail'd to call back resolution his nigh admittance to the heart and alliance in bloud to all in the Isle of Man makes this weakling thus strong the feebler he is the more potent in power a paradox in nature yet verified for truth How doth this one spirituall Cowardize infeeble the heart stonish the understanding and make will which would do good retreat O experience can teach what harm this one doth a Christian made the seven thousand in Israel hide their heads and when Baal was to be worshipped not a man for God to be known to the Prophet The fear of the arme of man is an enemy to the will of God and his will is little set by when the word of man strikes a terrour O the noise of Gebal and Ammon and Amalek if that daunt down goeth Gods cause A heartlesse proffessor the lesse his heart the stronger is his party to with-let what God would let this Cowardize be billeted in the heart and there quarter and this one will be the death of all the horse * Gods gifts and graces men of Israel they will fall in a swound suddenly retreat and in their retreat get their death-blow But in contempt and scorn of this unchristian-like cowardize which will not go on when God commands this shall be my Motto I weigh not what man can do unto me For this dastard I have a dare and Joshuas I will wounds him to the death For my own part by Gods good assistance The Avowry I am resolved upon it to quit my self like a man lest while I harbour an unmanlike heart my heart fall off to do Gods will in Earth as it is in Heaven A Divine Contemplation upon the Third Petition Thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven Here I see what I should do but I Lord how I fail in the performance Thou O God hast set me a pattern but I come as far short of the sampler as the Heavens are distant from the Earth I can soon learn to know what I should do all my life is too little to learn to doe what I know O God my God though thou hast given mee an understanding heart yet I finde in me my flesh a perverse will even one who is wonderfully unwilling to do thy will in Earth as it is in Heaven What hast thou left undone to teach me to do thy will The Law of Nature the Law of Moses the Gospell of Christ Jesus they spell and put together thy good will and pleasure Thou hast given me these to teach me Angels to guide me and all to lead me to know and do thy will in Earth as it is in Heaven If I would plead igrance thy unwritten Law in my heart condemns thy written Word the Law and Gospell bear witnesse against me Nor is this all but those my samplers thy Angels shall one day cry to thee to take vengeance on me O how ought my heart to relent when in secret I think upon it what pains thou hast taken and yet how unprofitable a scholar I have been in thy schoole Those to whom thou givest much of them much is expected I have received a large portion of instruction but O the lesson of obedience is not yet taken out Dear Father I confesse my wickednesse in thy presence I pray thee have merey upon me have mercy upon me and after the multitude of thy many mercies in Christ Jesus forgive me all my sins and trespasses O the thought what 's to be done and how it 's to be done assures me I am * he means without mercy undone This is thy Will and these are my Works Was ever light and darknesse truth and falshood more opposite the one to the other Had I but half an eye I might see what will be my end without amendment O thou who delightest not in the death of a sinner heal the disease in my soul my soul is sick to death yet Lord say the word and thy servant shall be healed O thou Physitian of souls give me a potion of faith faith to beleeve and the cure is wrought It cannot be my acting but any beleeving how Christ hath exactly acted my part must make my weak works well and gain them my Gods good liking Let my belief in thee beget a willingnesse in me to do thy will Then my God for Christ his sake will accept of my will for the deed Tack up then my Soul and look up to that brazen Serpent Christ In him and by him thou hast done the deed yet when all is done say it is no morel but Christ who dwelleth in me But if out of Christ thou art out of hopes to do Gods will in Earth as it is in Heaven The naturall man is the impotent man and can neither the Quid nor Quale It 's no marvell for saith S. Paul He perceives not the things of God O my soul while thou art in the state of corrupted nature thou art in an hell of disobedience Let the noise of the Law awake thee the voice of the Gospell allure thee to march out of Egypt out of Sodome out of thy naturall state and condition Soul why standest thou gazing while in Nature nought can be done neither what God wils nor as he wils O thou God of all Spirits create in me a new heart take me out of the old Adam engraffe me in the new make me a branch of that Vine Joh. 15. and I shall bring forth clusters of ⋆ grapes Of my self I have no power to bring forth only in Christ I live and move in an Angelicall sampler of obedience I must go out of my self ere I can get into the footsteps of they Angels Let the Archangel of the Covenant enable my feeble soul to do thy will in Earth as it is in Heaven The fourth Petition THe fourth Petition presents it self before your presence in which a Boon is put up for man to God witnessed while said Give us this day our daily Bread Here I finde one only word needs explaining Bread we want of our wils if we have not Bread every day in our mouthes our head-pieces must now give it harbour that as the materiall bread pleases the palat so the marrow A
and all men lyars his ipse dixit is sufficient and must make such who hope the best fear the worst who is he can excuse himself as not conscious or dare professe he never did no not one of those works * Gal. 5.19 20. of the flesh If thou sayest thou hast then hear what God hath to say unto * Vers 21. thee they which do such things shall not inherit the Kingdome of God O my God and my Christ preserve me from sin The Supplicat lest my sin debarre me of thy Kingdome But what shall all they be damned Object that do these sinfull works of the flesh Now give heed to what sall be said my answer I mean to poise in even scales and let neither Hickmans tongue nor Novatus his pen I mean neither presumptuous thoughts nor despairing imaginations have the draught one of the other All that live and die in the prequoted sins Res shall be damned it 's thy sin makes thee guilty it 's thy persevering in thy sin that damns thee the act of evill makes thee damnable the act of evill makes thee damnable the continuance in thy evill carries thee down into hell the Law is a Book-case which opened by Gods Counsellor Moses findes thee guilty The Gospell is a Writ call'd Melius ad inquirendum and thou shouldst fare better if thou livedst not still as ill For by own part by Gods good assistance The Avowry I am resolved upon it what I have done to do no more lest a worse turn betide me and as I cannot assoil my soul of evill no more am I resolved to hold on my evill courses Third Case is this 3. Case Who shall be admitted into the Kingdome of Heaven 1. My answer is this Not every one that saith Lord Lord shall enter into thr Kingdome of Heaven but he that doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven God loves not him is nought but winde thou maist speak like an Angell and go to the Devill know it God is better pleased with deeds than words works among hand please him at heart let me tell thee if thou neglect to do that God bids then look not to come where God lives we must be men of action if we mean to go to Heaven yea and the square of our work be Gods will For my own part The Avowry I am resolved upon it to beg of God ability what I say to doe and that which at large I professe at leastwise in some poor measure I may practise 2. Persever anti dabitur to him that is faithfull to the end God will give a Crown of life O hold out and have Heaven the promise is not past to him who is to day a Protestant to morrow a Papist nor yet to him that begins in the Spirit ends in the fesh nor yet to him who puts his hand to the plow and puls it back nor yet to Sir Henry Horspur who puts on fast at first is soon tired who like the bird Glott is Hist flies fiercely in the forenoon but in the afternoon lags and comes behinde The Woodcocks flight is unfortonate to make such hast and so soon be tired mistake me not I dislike not your taking up your dough on your shoulders and in haste to high out of Egypt That I inveigh against is your not holding out to your journeys end but sitting down with Gad and Reuben on this side Jordan For my own part I am resolved by Gods good assistance The Avowry as I have begun so to go on yea with Elias to hold out my pace till I come to that heavenly Horeb the Kingdome of Heaven 3. Petenti dabitur aske and you shall have Let us pray for what we want and we cannot want what we pray for dumb men get no land The land of * Heaven Canaan in it expect no portion if not bespoke He that speaks to God by prayer comes to him like a begger is sent away like a King with a Kingdome It 's no time now to be tongue-tide when hearty prayer procures thus much For my own part The Avowry I am resolved upon it never to give over praying to God lest my forbearing to pray deprive me of Gods Kingdome 4. Vincenti dabitur He that can conquer earth sahll own heaven command O man thy self and heaven is at thy command never am I so sure of an excelse * The Kingdome of heaven fortune as when my lofty imaginations I bring low If I can over-rule my self here it is Gods will I shall rule with him in heaven Here is a * this flesh Goliah I must overmaster or no hopes to succeed in the Kingdome he that inthrals-himself to his lust hath got a new keeper and one will keep him from going to heaven For my own part The Avowry I will do my best devoir not to let sin reign im my mortall body lest my letting it here keep a quarter exclude my doby and soul out of heaven The fist moity of my method is this to divulge what graces we have from this petition given in Commendum They be two Faith Patience Graces two The Paralle Faith to beleeve the Kingdome to come Patience to wait till it do come Faith whose eye is ever intent upon on a remote object Patience who only eyes and none else but it owner It is Faith which estates me in the heavenly Kingdome It is Patience which procures my stay till the Kingdome come The first Faith makes my tack good This latter Patience the * This life interim no annoyance I am resolved to be earnest with my God The Avowry to give me two such gifts of grace as both assure me of * kingdome of heaven that I want and without the least repining overcomes mean man to wait the Lords leisure Faith is that Jacob's Ladder Faiths Character by which I ascend up from off earth into heaven It is Faith intitles me to a Kingdome in reversion though I have not a mole-hill in possession Faith is the evidence of things not seen and as needfull as is Evidence to lay claim by to an inheritance as requisite is faith for a suppliant to estate him in the Kingdome of Heaven He that with an honest heart to God will put up this petition stands need of Faith to beleeve an heaven Though my reason fails me to comprehend my faith overcomes me to beleeve a Kingdome to come my common sense can reach no higher than to sublunaries it 's my faith reaches to Celestials my prayer is neither pithy nor patheticall if my reason be nor interlared with faith I prate I pray not if I sall short to beleeve an heaven And here though I have leave to live in an earthly Kingdome want faith and I shall never enjoy the Kingdome of Heaven as my tongue must be guided by reason so my heart led on by saith or
tanta sit voluptas quid si potiar in English if there be such pleasure in the thought will there not be more if the sin be bodily committed yea thou thy self knowest thou hast thus chopt Logick and framed this kinde of Syllogism which when it hath gotten the consent of seduced reason then our fleshly lust hath brought us to that haft that we want nought but opportunity to do all the evill bodily And thus I have led you on and let you see Lusts march through that Isle the Soul and in a mysterie how far our Lust leads us on to do evill 1. It turns our heart to it The Collect 2. Makes us like it 3. Then consent to it 4. Then dwell in that delight 5. Then stray from God and dote on it 6. Then in heart resolve upon it hofaciam I will do it Thus farre as saith S. James every man is led away by his own concupiscence and inticed to do evill A misery incident to all men living a misery from which in full we cannot be delivered during this life a misery none is morefearfull yet the least suspected a misery is the root of all bodily abominations A misery which let it reinforce us all to fall to prayer and pray to God not to lef sin reign in our mortall bodies that we should obey it in the lusts thereof Second Case of Conscience is this 2. Case to be rightly informed what counter-works had need be made to prevent lusts march through the heart of man at leastwise to prevent its march in full force I have counter-works in readinesse agianst each of lusts six daies march and first against turning the heart towards evill 1. Meditate a look back again may be a break fortune remember Lots wife 2. Meditate every turn from God towards sin is a turn face to hell and who that 's wise would part with so fair an object for so foul a fight 3. Mediatate every turn to sin is like a gap made in the vineyards fence like a close leak in a ship at sea which sinks the vessell soul suddenly 4. Meditate no sooner lookest thou back to sin but Devill steals into thy soul 5. Meditate Hist sin is like the * Aspedigorgon serpent bred in the Temple of Lucea which was the present death of him turn'd his eye to it Now by these meditations like so many strong works you may stop lusts first daies march I mean turning heart towards Sin But say this first daies march be made and lust rise up to make the second daies march I have counter-works to stop lusts second daies march through soul I mean preventions against liking sin 1. Meditate sin is the Beares birth shapelesse an ugly monster never of Gods making this will prevent liking it 2. Meditate the more thou fallest in love with earth the lesse God in heaven is loved O ye cannot love God serve God and Mammon know 't one Dalila is a damnable draw off from our duties of Christianity 3. Meditate it is sins sweet brings a smart and the end of these things is death 4. Meditate if I like sin I am in the minde that none is in that 's good God threw it out of heaven spurn'd it out of Paradise and shall I take pleasure in that my God is and that irreconcilably displeased with God forbid But say this second daies march be made and lust rise up to make the third daies march I have Counter-works to stop Lusts third daies march through the soul I mean preventions against consenting to evill 1 Meditate every consent is a stab and wounds to the heart 2. Meditate how thou of a freeman art made a bond and slave and led captive by consenting to thy lust 3. Meditate how Eve fared after she had consented she lost her Eden 4. Meditate consent makes conscious and before thou actuate the sin makes thee liable to the sentence of death and damnation But say this third daies march be made and lust rise up to make the fourth daies march I have Counter-works to stop lusts fourth daies march through soul I mean preventions against letting evill thoughts be welcome long into the heart which is the fashioning of sin in womb of the soul 1. Meditate when sins birth is thy death is thou givest sin a being and it deprives thee of being a Saint in Heaven 2. Meditate that which thou bearest in the womb of thy soul his name is Esau who for a messe of pottage will wave the heavenly inheritance 3. Meditate thou hast him in thy womb will root out thy name 4. Meditate the welcome into the world of this one will eat thee out of house and harbour leave thee not a bit of bread in the strength whereof to walk up to the heavenly Horeb. But say this fourth daies march be made and lust rise up to make the fist daies march I have counterworks to stop lusts fist daies march through soul I mean preventions against heart-wandring after sin 1. Meditate sin is that Ignis fatuus that flame sent from hell to lead the will and make thee lose the way to heaven 2. Meditate the longer thou padlest sins steps the further thou hast to thy journeys end I mean further off from heaven 3. Meditate white thy thoughts wander after sin thou art looking for one to be thy Butcher O was there ever madnesse like this for men to run upon their own death 4. Meditate the pursue of sin is the turn-back of grace and to goe back to Egypt is to turn back of Canaan But say lust hath had leave to make five dayes march through heart and by this mean made thee turn to evill The Col. like of it assent to it dwell upon the thought of it as also thy soul to gad and wander after the thought of thy sinne Know 't and to thy comfort I have yet counterworks to beat lust back and stop him from his sixt daies march in which if with-held he is neither absolute conqueror nor thou wholly overcome These counterworks are so many gracious preventions fortified with Canons of proof heavenly Meditations to beat lust back from hoc faciam resolving to act the evill 1. Meditate upon it thou art going down the lowest rung of damnation save one and that is doing the sin step one step further and thou art in an hell upon earth 2. Meditate how soul is evill already and as though there were not enough ill must I go make all worse misuse both soul and body and make them a den of theeves a cage for unclean birds 3. Meditate that the punishment first threatned was for bodily acting evill witnesse that Gen. 2.27 In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye the death O how great a preservative would this be to keep us from doing evill bodily to consider it is that height of evill that duplicated sin of soul with body procures Gods heavie judgements For my own part
to all advantages and goes out like a * As if all over harnest a capo pe Curasier when as bare of Armour as the * Other Horsmen have on no harnesse Crabats who have on no harnesse This is the vice makes us trust too much to our strength and conceit we are able to conquer when not to keep it makes us adventure on once * Upon sin more and when it is past to presse on again and play a game at hazard for heaven and stake soul though sure to lose it This is the vice which swears we shall enjoy an everlasting inheritance though we want the * Faith and good works evidence and get in good time to heaven though we be running to hell the quite contrary way They say the knight of the Sun walks and vaults as if a Prince and mighty potentate when hath not so much money as to discharge the three penny ordinary And thus presumption carries a high sayle in a low winde and speaks in buffe when a begger makes shew of what not Being full cousin to the adverb Quasi may chance to look like a wise man that 's all is a fool whose fond head if we be led by it our whole bodies and souls will fare the worse for it This is it hath made me resolve upon it The Avowry to be earnest with my God to give me more grace than to be sway'd by this gracelesse one Presumption which fool if I follow in his folly sure I am to be led into Temptation The second Vice I am her forewarned of is Ignorance Ignorances Character This imp is the off-spring of the old world who were manying and giving in marriage being ignorant what would betide them till drowned in the floud Behold the sea-wreck is fast fested in our main Continent The blinde byard discerns not what commit and therefore considers not what to come That naturall to whom the Gospell is a riddle and the Law one of its light acquaintance This is the vice is a proficient in Temporals a dolt in Spirituals and the very vice which makes men merry when there is no cause for it hope well when at deaths door and doubt nought when nought but danger This is that one makes us mistake our master and to serve in stead of the true God the god of this world our bellies as if made to eat and end our backs as if true happinesse did consist in soft raiment Our lusts as if my mind to me a Kingdome it is this vice and none but this makes me take quid pro quo falshood for truth shadowes for substances and what now for all to come while I harbour this harlotary vice I cannot but commit the evill of sin yet this is the vice leaves me not so much wit as to dread the evill of punishment This is it hath made me resolve upon it * The Avowry to beg of God to bestow upon me saving knowledge able to expell out of my soul dammable Ignorance which if left in the heart behinde it is impossible to deliver us from Evill The Contemplation O how do I see in the Idea of my enlightned understanding how my standing guilty of sin petitions to have me punished Had this punishment been bodily sensen of pain my pains and griefs had been more senfible than they are Now as yet that my body scapes let me not conceit all 's exempt from punishment nor yet while God spares * The body part that part doth acquit the whole O poor soul shalt thou live in me and there be no more love in me to thee let me be sensible of a something goes beyond sense and bear it in mind there 's soul punishment as hereafcer in hell so here on earth There 's a net set Temptation and soul 's led into Temptation an evill one Sin and it 's to be feared soul will be delivered up to evill How is my soul catcht in * Actuall evill that tortured by * Temptation this it hath faln soul and fared full ill * Evill intrapt and stript My sin occasioned my insnaring and to go still on in sin that 's my judgement To be guilty of sin causes my summons still to run on This my punishment which the lesse man mindes the more is his misery and the sooner he suffers and suffers and doth it not astonish The world is grown carelesse of that we ought to have the greatest care Who is he doth care for souls ill fare we sin yet doe not dream to go on in sin is to go down to execution That we are sinfull men all grant This we pray against is falling again into sin The first fals out by natures fault that we are sinners The last fals out by Gods judgement That still we walk in the counsell of the ungodly When I consider of this me thinks I see How misetable is man by Adam How miserable his sin commit hath made him For Adams sin man 's to be arraigned for a felon For mans own sinfull works it is God who suffers man to be led into that strong hold Temptation and delivered up to evill Hels pains is the fruit of all sins * That is to be led into temptation This the effect of mans foregoing sin for which first Adam was to be blamed for which second my self and none else living nor yet doth God enforce man to sin but mans originall sin frees God for delivering man from actuall Evill O the thought of this strikes like a dagger to the heart and may make the best of us have bleeding souls and consciences To meditate on it God's not tyed to relieve us to deliver us when I know what already I am guilty of drawes down a doom to sin the sense of my bad deserts shall bring me every day to my knees and make me beg of God as for my self so for all our Lords leige people that he would not lead us into Temptation but deliver us from Evill The Reasons ANd now if you do well consider all the waies I was to walk thorow I nothing doubt but you will grant I have made as much hast as did the Israelites in their passage through the Red sea The Preface is past The third part of our Lords Prayer the Petitions perused the Reasons next suceed of which not much yet a few words with your leaves upon which give me leave to descant in short then discourse at large as it were first to run division after to end with plain song The last clause in the third * In earth as it is in heaven petition may so you please be read at end of every of the first three petitions And these three Reasons may likewise satisfie for that superplus And do as much service to every of these three last petitions And thus Christ * By in earth as it is in heaven before hath set us down a platform for