foolish Shepheards that would devour the Flock and wil deliver them out of their mouths and he will make them as the dung of the Earth they shall no more speak lâ—es in the Name of the Lord but the Hailestrom shall sweep away the refuge of lyes and the eyes of this generation shall see it Be making ready for the glorious appearance of the Lord and cry Makâ— hast my belâ—ved and be thou lâ—ke â—o â— Roe or to a young Hart upon the Mountains of Spices 12. Wait for an Annointing of Light Zeal and Magnanimity to execute the vengeance of the Lord upon the beast for Wrath is determined from the Lord and the Nations shall tremble because of it and the Cup of it shall speedilybe put into theirhands â—hough they have said A confederacy and there is a healing and peace among them and the Testimony lyes dead yet the Lord will come upon them as the breach of many waters Let that word of our Lord dwell upon your hearts for the day of it is coming upon the World Luke 21. 25. c. Anâ— there shall be signes in the Sun and in the Moon and in the Stars and upon the Earth DISTRESS of NATIONS with perplexity the Sea and the waters roaring mens hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those things which are coming on the Earth for the Power of Heaven shall be shaken and thâ—n shall they see the Son of Man coming in a Cloud with Power and greaâ— glory And when these things begin â—o come â—o pass then look up and lift up your hâ—ads FOR YOUR REDEMPTION DRAWETH NIGH. No age of the world hath produced such a series of Signs and Wonders as this hath done in these two years last past which are still multiplied which though neglected and blasphemed by a generation of scoffers yet are to be had in reverence by all that fear the Lord and regard the 〈◊〉 of his hands Which signs usuâ—â—ly be speak distresse of Nations and thâ— Sâ—â—nâ—s that observe them are called to liâ—t up thâ—ir â—eadâ— The voice of the Lord â—o Egypt in the signes and wonders of that â—â—y was Let my people go that they may serve me Exod. 16. 14 16. â—â— 8. 1. ch 9. 1. 13. ch 10. 3. And when Phâ—roah refused â—o lâ—t the People of God go free that they might serve the Lord and hardâ—ned himself against the wonders of God it proved his and the Egyptians destruction and wrath was upon them and the Lord by a strong hand let his people go But this Consideration would require a larger discussion Let what hath been hinted help you to a patient waiting let us say with good Jeremiah Chap. 14. vers last Art not thou he Oh Lord our God therefore we will wait upon thee for thou hast made all these things The Lord will raise the expectation of his Saints as he hath already begun and then he will come into them Psal 9. 15. then 't is but for a moment a little moment nay but as it were a little moment scarce to be call'd a little moment but as it were so and the indignation shall be over-past The Lord would assure his poor people That he waits but his siâ—test season as if delay were more grievous to him than to his people Who would not wait for such a God Oh! blessed be all they that wait for him Isa 30. 8. Take that word which the Lord hath spoken to one or another of his poor sâ—rvants Ps 3â— 34. Wait on the Lord and keep his way and he shall exalt thee to inherit the land when the wicked are cut off THOU SHALT SEE IT Amen FINIS
THE LAMB CALLING HIS Follovvers TO Retirement Being an Humble Enquiry into the duty of Churches Ministers and all that fear the Lord under the present dispensation of God By one that would be found though unworthy the Lords Witness and Servant and of all his SAINTS 1 COR. 4. 5. Judge nothing before the time Printed in the year 1662. TO THE READER THe different apprehensions of the People of God in this day concerning their present duty being cut off from their publick liberties of Worship gave occasion to the ensuing Enquiry some judging it of absolute necessity to assemble openly though they expose themselves or at least their Teachers to the utmost hazard others that Retirement is that which the present dispensation calls for which later this brief Discourse endeavours to prove as justifiable from the Scripture and the practise of the People of God in former Ages but more especially to be the voice of the Lord to his people in the present day in which there is a concurring judgement of many But that Retirement which is first called to namely unto the Lord Jesus himself which is briefly prest in the former part is that which is commended to all as absolutely necessary as ever they expect to be found under his wing at his coming and appearing and Reader hear the call of Jesus Christ therein that thou mayst lay up thy immortal soul with him that when storms are coming upon the World thou mayst be found in thy Sanctuary in thy Chambers of Rest and Safety where they shall not reach thee As to the Case of Retirement from open Assembling it is plainly stated from Scripture evidence as is humbly apprehended wherein if there be not enough said to satisfie a doubting Conscience yet at least there may be sufficient to engage humble and sober minds to a mutual forbearance The duties of all Saints under this Retirement are but briefly hinted because of brevity and in that they have been more at large prest by the Servants of God in the two years of mercy we have enjoyed as the peculiar blessing of this City to the honour of the Lord Jesus the establishment of the Saints in the faith and worship of the Gospel and in the Resurrection of the Cause of the Kingdom of Christ in these Nations the vindicating and asserting whereof hath as is hoped left a gratious and powerful impression and savour upon the Spirits of the Lords people that so they may be found the more quietly submitting to the dispensation of the Lord as blessedly establisht in the forementioned truths and may in those holy principles in which they have been built up continue in a more private way edifying one another in love as those in this their retirement that are waiting for the speedy return of their Lord that when he comes he may find them so doing This you may do as under the wings of the Almighty in a probable security and not hasten your selves into your own sufferings and if the providence of God single out any of you to a suffering testimony in the loss of liberty or goods or to banishment verily you will know the tender heart of Jesus Christ towards you and his faithfulnesse in making up all to you and yours and that in this life a hundred fold Be quiet you Captives of hope for in returning and rest shall ye be saved in quietnesse and confidence shall be your strength And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction yet shall not thy Teachers be removed into corners any more but thine EYES SHALL SEE THY TEACHERS Do not think that the Lord is now at the end of twenty years work and that the present dispensation is the last issue of all his glorious providences you have sometime believed that the Exaltation of the Lord Jesus would be the issue of all the shakings the Lord hath made in these Nations and you have as great if not a greater ground to abide in the same Faith as ever Take heed of a bewildred Spirit under the dark providences the Lord is leading us but consider what the Lord hath been doing and what work hath been upon the wheele and by faith labour to look to the end of the Lord and you will be able quietly to wait for him I wish the Case in hand had been stated by an abler hand but finding nothing herein I have found my Spirit often looking for light from the Father of lights drawn out to cast in this mite to the present Generation of the righteous as hoping that the voice of the Lamb is in it in the main scope of it And though it may be in what is hinted about the death of the witnesses I may differ from some of the Lords Servants yet I promise my self their forbearance it being an houre of enquiry and we would be all glad to know the mind of Christ in our day Something more may be offerd to consideration to clear those hints and of the nature of the Kingdom of Christ in this World if the Lord permit Now the blessed God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve all his in this houre of temptation and lead us into his whole Counsel and Will to whose immutable grace I commend thee in the patient waiting for Zions Redemption The 25. of the 5. Month 1662. Resting Thy Brother and Fellow-Servant in the Patience of Christ ESAY 26. 20. Come my People enter thou into thy Chambers and shut thy doors about thee hide thy self as it were for a little moment untill the indignation be overpast THE special Wisdome of the People of God in all Generations under the variety of his dispensations hath been to know what the Lord hath spoken and called his People to under them in the knowledge of which hath been bound up their mercy and peace in every Generation All their miscarriages have been for want of attending hereunto either in a day of peace and outward blessing or in a day of affliction and judgement The safety of this people to whom this word was spoken Enter into thy Chambers c. did lye in the obedience thereof at that day which let us a little more particularly consider This Prophet though many years before the day of it spake of the Captivity of Judah and also of her return and restauration with the blessings that should attend it which restauration he more at large begins to discover at the 14. Chap. For the Lord will have mercy upon Jacob and will yet chuse Israel and set them to their own Land c. Upon which the Prophet having denounced the burden of the Lord against Babylon Chap. 13. threatens all other Nations to the 25. Chap. that but helped in or rejoyed at the day of his Peoples Captivity as Moab and Syria and Egypt and Tyre c. As is more generally exprest ch 17. 12 13 14. Wo to the multitude of many people which make a noise like
the noise of the seas and to the rushing of Nations that make a rushing of mighty waters But God shall rebuke them and they shall flee afar off and shall be chased as the chaffe of the Mountains before the wind and like a rouling thing before the whirlewind what is the reason of all this why This is the portion of them that spoil us and the lot of them that rob us The restoring and salvation of Judah was accompanied with the distress of all the Nations round abount her and with the utter ruine of the Babylonish Monarchy set forth chap. 29. The great revolutions periods of all the Nations of the World have been the issues of the Captivity or Deliverance of the people of God and God hath governd the World in subserviency thereunto The Prophet having thus spoken of Jacobs deliverance and the great Earth-quake of the Nations that should accompany it At the 25 26 and 27. chap. you have songs of praise referring to that day mixt with promises of the Messiah our Lord Jesus Christ and the Knowledge Light Peace and Glory that should be the issue of the dispensation of grace by him to the Jews and Gentiles even all the Nations of the Earth in this 26. chap. You have the song of praise continued specially respecting Judahs gathering magnifying the power of the Lord in her salvation and in the ruine of Babylon v. 4 5. their posture in their captivity v. 8. lo we have waited for thee c. Their visiting the Lord in their distresse and powering out prayer before him v. 16 17 18. At the 18th verse they are brought in complaining that they had been in pangs yet had wrought no deliverance in the Earth neither had the Inhabitants of the World fallen At the 19. verse the Lord by the Prophet gives an answer that though in their Captivity they did lye as dead men yet verse 19. Thy dead men shall live c. Awake and sing ye that dwell in the dust for thy dew is as the dew of herbs and the Earth shall cast out her dead Thy resurrection from this Captivity and Death shall be as the herbs that lye dead in Winter but shall revive and spring forth again by the dews of the spring upon them in the mean time the Lord calls them to retire and promiseth to secure them Come my people enter thou into thy Chambers c. Where 1. You have the tender and affectionate invitement and call of God come my People whatever the World speaks of thee and makes thee as an out-cast yet still my People pretious in my sight under my eye and care though no man careth for thee No matter if all the Nations of the World say go you out-casts if the Lord say come my people 2. Where and to what he calls enter in thy Chambers retire thy self as into thy strong hold for safety and shut thy door about thee as when men retire into their houses from a storm and shut their doors further amplified Hide thy self how long but for a little moment till the indignation be over past Their crying out in pangs their powering out of prayer engaged the Lord to full mercy 1. To hide them under the indignation 2. To hasten to their Salvation and that speedily it shall be but for a moment Then will the Lord come out of his place and that to admiration and astonishment for behold his appearance shall be wonderful and glorious in the season of it and the manner of it He will punish the Inhabitants of the Earth and the Earth shall disclose her blood the blood of his Servants spilt as water upon the ground by the Babylonians and shall no wise cover her slain Thus you have the words with their coherence opened The special thing I would take notice of in order to the discovery of the mind and call of Christ to his Saints at this day is the Lords calling of them into their Chambers to shut their doors to hide themselves which expressions denote this one thing in the general namely Retirement which I shall give forth in one observation naturally and clearly decuced as the scope of the Holy Ghost in them Ob. The Lord Jesus Christ in his providential Dispensations sometimes calls his People to Retirement That I may more particularly discover what I mean by Retirement Jesus Christ calls his people to retire 1. Within himself 1. As to all manner of Protection 2. As to more close and intimate Communion 2. He calls them to Retirement as to Publick services and administrations 1. He calleth them to retire under his shade for Protection so he was said to spread his wings over his People as an Eagle doth over her young ones in the Wilderness of old Deut. 32. And in the day of the Nations wrath when in a confederacy against his people they are called his hidden ones Psal 83. They consult but t is against thy hidden ones and so that pretious word of grace where the Lord holds out his arms to his poor ones in a stormy day Esay 4. 6. There shall be a Tabernacle for a shaddow in the day time from the heat and for a place of refuge and for a cover from storm and from rain So Ch. 25. 4. And let them be words of faith to all Saints for thou hast been a strength to the poor a strength to the needy in his distress a refuge from the storm a shaddow from the heat when the blast of the terrible one is against the wall ch 32. 2. A man the man Christ Jesus shall be as a hiding place from the wind and a Cavert from the tempest And thus the Saints in stormy times bespeak the Lord and have fled into him as their refuge and hiding place So David often keep me as the apple of thine eye hide me under the shadow of the wings Psal 17. 8. Thou shall hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man thou shall keep them secretly in a pavillion Psal 31. 8. In the time of trouble he shall hide me in his Pavillion in the secret of his Tabernacle shall he hide me he shall set me upon a Rock Psal 27. In the shaddow of thy wings will I make my refuge untill these Calamities be overpast Psal 57. 1. Of which David in all his persecutions and wandrings had abundant and sweet experience in the review and recollection of which he breaks forth into the praises of the Lord his heart being warmed with the sense of the Lords goodness and love Psal 18. I will love thee or I will dearly love thee Oh Lord my strength the Lord my Rock my Foriress and my Deliverer my God my Strength in whom shall I trust my Buckler and the hope of my Salvation and my High-Tower Upon which experience he gives forth everlasting words of grace for all the People of God to trust upon in all Generations as Psal 9. 9. The Lord also will be a
thy former loving kindnesses c. The Covenant of God with his people is built as upon two Pillars Mercy and Faithfulness Psal 89. 2. For I have said Mercy shall be built up for ever thy faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very Heavens I have made a Covenant with my chosen c. Under these two doth David shelter as the Wings of the Cherubims 57. 1 2. God shall send forth his Mercy and Truth and shall save me Mercy to pitty and forgive Faithfulness to fulfil his Word here is a safe shelter for Saints in every strait David and other of the people of God get under these Wings of God and are at peace David near twenty times in the Psalms is putting these two together thy Mercy and thy Truth shall prevent me and in them I trust If all the Mercy of God and all the Truth and Faithfulness of God be my portion what need I fear here is sweet and safe retirement for Saints in an evil day But how do poor Souls retire into this Blessed Name of God a Merciful Almighty Unchangeable God as a Rock for them 1. By seeing thorough the Light of the Spirit the Emptiness and Vanity of all other refuges that nothing below an unchangeable God of all Grace through Jesus Christ can be a refuge for a Naked and Forlorne Soul in Psalm 62. David mentions two things which the heart is apt to make a reguge Men and Riches vers 9 10. of both these he saith they are a lie and vanity And if riches increase set not your heart upon them do not think them a meet refuge for you in any day specially a day of distress if neither the sons of men nor riches be a shelter then in God saith David is my Salvation and my Glory the rock of my strength and my refuge is in God Yea He onely is my Rock v. 6. seel Psal 142. 4 5. I looked c. v. 4. And what did he see Why Refuge failed him every refuge was too low too short too weak to shelter him here was conviction of nothing but emptyness in them vanity upon them all What then why vers 5. I said Thou art my refuge and my portion there is that in Jesus Christ to ensafe me and satisfie me the two great ends to which the soul moves in all its desires now I have them not in Creatures they can't be a refuge not a portion but God in Christ is both is All This is a conviction we should pass under every day 2. We retire into this Blessed Name of the Lord by Faith He is a Rock Psalm 62. the Rock of Ages or the Everlasting Rock nothing below himself is so Faith sees him so as a sinking man in the Waters sees a Rock and makes to it and sees him onely he onely is my Rock Now here 's the ensafeing Act of Faith it can lay up all concernments of Soul and Life with an unchangeable God here I adhere fasten cleave Oh O that Blessed Glorious Name a Gracious Almighty or All-sufflcient and Unchangeable Saviour in the day of my trouble Oh set me on this Rock that is higher then I Psal 61. 2. Then let Waves and Billows beat against me they may break themselves but shall never break the Rock I shall not be moved Psal 62. That 's the stability faith gives the Soul let Sins Temptations Troubles beat against me I shall not be moved thus Faith can triumph at all times Trust in him at all times God is a refuge for us In shaking times in dying times all is safe with him yea when the Heart is overwhelmed and desolate Faith thus relieves and fetcheth up the Heart in all its sinkings let the Soul see a storm coming away it hastens into its Refuge into the Chambers of strength and shuts its door till it be overpast Because this is the Work of Saints and the call of the Lord to them at this day Consider it a little further First Jesus Christ presents himself to a poor soul as an open refuge let the sin burden distress inward or outward be what it will this door of Grace stands open the sinners of the World pass by it and will not enter the more their misery but poor souls that are beaten out of one hold after another and see at last this door of hope opened in the valley of Darkness and Fears runs into it unbelief would draw the Soul back Satan would shut the Door against it but the soul ventures and venture it must or sink and perish and gets into Christ and he holds out a hand and bears it up opens Blood and Righteousness and Grace and bids the soul make use of it and here the Soul retires every day under this shelter t is driven and it can be quiet and safe no where else if the heart be stealing out else where to other shelters in the World or of its own Satans World and Conscience set upon it And the Soul flies back and gets into its strong hold again No living safely else where Now Jesus Christ is an open refuge in every precious word of free Grace Esay 55. 1. Rev. 21. 6. 22. 17. c. which words Believers see as a blessed safe Retirement when they are stormd out of every thing else and evidences are bemisted Secondly Jesus Christ presents himself a sure refuge for Souls to Retire into He sprinkles blood casts a Mantle of Righteousnesse a Mantle of Love and Grace and Power over the soul that gets into him and who then can harm it Guilt and Sorrows and Temptations and Pressures can follow the soul to the Door but cannot enter with it He is near that justifieth who then shall contend Esay 50. 8. there is safety T is true the soul is not alwayes apprehensive of its own safety but hath its fits of Fears and Mis-givings through Temptation and Unbelief as in Davids Case and mark it Psal 31. 22. For I said in my hast I am cut off from before thine eyes neverthelesse thou heardest the voice of my Supplication when I cryed unto thee here was sad Apprehension I am cut off though he had words of Promise to the contrary but yet he cryed to the Lord in that distemper but what did the Lord cast him off because of that mixture of unbelief No neverthelesse he heard and saved him a Case of great relief for Dark Doubting Souls So that Jesus Christ is a safe sure strong impregnable shelter all the World can't get a soul out of it all is safe there Obj. But may not my life go for it for all this Answer That which is indeed thy life the life of thy soul the immortal life that is most safe hid or laid with Christ in God Col. 3. 3. Because I live you shall live also John 14. your life is as safe as my life t is bound up with my own yea t is the same with my own the life I live I live in you As