with contemplating of Earth This so pray ye to shew it once more renders Heaven the object of our eye and therefore of our heart to be looking to Heaven and pointing to the Earth with the Roman Senator is to become sharers of his deserved scorn and yet how many are there while Heaven is in their mouth flesh fish or ships are in their heart Acting too truly what in the Fable is said of the Wolf when at School for learning to spel Pa-ter Father but being by his Master ordered to put them together in stead of Father said Agnus Lamb thinking on his prey An userer at the same time made the like proficiency and in place of Fa-ther said Pecunia Money But let not this be among you he is in Heaven and hath his eye-lids trying the children of men not but that he is every where but in Prayer he is by design said to be in Heaven that our hearts and minds may be lifted up to the excellency of his dignity and greatness having all things naked and open before him and therefore thy hypocrisie is apparent thy in-side being naked 4. That Prayer is to be quickned by confideing in the All sufficiency of God to give what is asked whether things of Heaven or of Earth By the Heavens and influences therefrom is Earth and Sea sustained he is in Heaven therefore in the Air upon the great Waters And because he can order all for his peoples good we are not to despond and doubt of his soveraignty but let our necessities be known whether for the Wine-press or for the light of the Sun or for the Cattel upon a thousand hills fish in the Sea Fowls of the Air Angels in Heaven or mercy from his bosome for his Son we need not doubt redressing He is in Heaven and thence he gave horns to the Bull hoofs to the Horse teeth to the Lyon finns to the Fish wings to the Bird scent to the Dog motion to the Air coolness to the Water heat to the Fire light to the Sun chain to the Devils strength to the Angels his Image and his Son to man what therefore should make the humble Orator to pray sorrowing as those without hope O thou of little faith wherefore dost thou doubt He is Almighty God walk pray before him and be perfect be confident 5. That Prayer is continually to be qualified with earnest considerations tending to the honour of God while we are upon Earth It is a dishonour for a Prince to have suits made in his presence-Chamber not adequat to the dignity of that room To ask of thy Father in Heaven meat money or cloaths to debauch with the glutton to swill with the drunkard entice with the stallion is a reproach unto his Majesty ask things fit for Heaven and do things like Heaven that it may be known thy Father is in Heaven that is in thee as some expound these words saying Illi sunt Coeli These are Heaven in whom there is Faith Gravity Continency Knowledge and a heavenly life Fulgentius while young had frequently these thoughts fluctuating in his breast Cur sine spe c. Why do I live on Earth without the hopps of Heaven what profit shall the world at last bring me if we love to be merry is it not better to have a good conscience and how much better do they rejoyce that fear nothing but sin and studie but how to keep the Law c. Let us pray for these or the like matters as for the avoiding of judgments for they are revealed against all unrighteous men from Heaven or for procuring of grace for that becomes Heaven And all weighty matters bearing equality with Heaven View the whole fabrick of the Lords Prayer and there is nothing can be accounted trivial or base in it the forgiving of sins deliverance from evil the bread of our necessity the fulfilling of his will the advancement of his kingdom are substantial and solid purposes so is the request that 's first because the chief end of all for the hallowing of the Name of God which being the first Petition as impatient of any longer delay we put a closure to the Preface Our Father which art in Heaven CHAP. II. Hallowed be thy Name THis is the first part of the holy place which our eyes are invited to behold I say invited for otherwise its dazling might not only amaze us but utterly darken those Casements of the soul those balls of light our bodily eyes our souls intelligence What some have observed of all the Petitions may be attested of this one it being 1. short 2. full or comprehensive where by the way their arrogancy may be detected whose popularity made them in publick give this Prayer correctior emendatior abridged or enlarged to the people as their emptiness or vanity gave them occasion or eloqution Let thy Kingdom come in our dayes cryed one Lord lead us not into temptation cryed another equally absurd yet excusable because it might be from ignorance in regard of them whose singularity and pretended holiness ascended the chair and passed an Act of Sequestration upon the Prayer it self discharging it in the Church so far as they could by their total ommission of it or stigmatizing them who used it but for all their eminencies the Lords Prayer is sacred and verily verily where ever the Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached that Prayer that he hath made shall be used for a memorial of him The Petitions like the Precepts of the Law are divided between God and man those aspecting God are first placed as Hallowed be thy Name c. those respecting man then follow as give us our daily bread so that hallowed be thy Name is the first Petition of the first Table in this Law concerning Prayer so pray ye because of which it is first to be considered It shall not be much here debated whether there be six or seven Petitions the Ancients are generally for seven so are the Romish Interpreters and some also of the reâ—ormed The number seven was by the Hebrews called numerus juramenti because Abraham in swearing to Abimelech took seven Lambs for a testimony by others it is called numerus ultionis the number of revenge for he that killed Cain vengeance should be taken on him seven fold By others numerus libertatis the number of liberty the Hebrew servant being liberat the seventh year By others numerus purificationis because the Leper was to be tryed by seven dayes and Naman washed seven times Hence some call it numerus Sacer the holy number God rested the seventh day Iericho was taken the seventh day Christ slept in the grave the seventh day Enos the seventh from Adam was translated We have seven Lamps in Zechariah seven Trumpets and seven Seals in the Revelation and David praised seven times in the day and this hath had so great veneration in
it is placed after all the Petitions that concern God insinuating that his work and glory is first to be done and then we may cause lay the cloath and put on bread We find that in times of Famine there have fallen showres of Wheat for the refreshing of the hunger-bitten and here we are directed without a prodigy to respect Heaven and not the Fields for Grain or the Mill for Meal but both sexes to imitate the vertuous woman and bring their food from afar For so pray ye Our Father which art in Heaven Give us this day our daily bread From the naked face of which words we discover a Law commanding care for and abstinence while we are in the body 1. Our care for the body For beauty proportion strength the body is so stately and curious a structure that it were impiety against nature to suffer or design delapidation the least hair whereof being allowed a place in Gods Note Book we may conclude its bowels to be more intensly regarded It is the souls Cabinet therefore not to be broke Christ died for it and therefore it is not to be slighted the earth is to conceal it and therefore is not to be strip'd yea Heaven is ordained for it and therefore it is to be honoured The soul indeed is to be the main not our only care but the body hath here Gods Image and shall if we be wise walk up and down in his inheritance above As Ioseph by faith gave charge to bury his bones we by the same grace may give charge concerning our bodies and order to set on bread The charge against shedding the blood of man is from this Argument For in the image of God made he man that image being in the blood tanquam in copula in the body tanquam in organo in the soul tanquam in proprio subjecto in its proper place the vital spirits are carried by the blood and upon them also depend all the senses and upon the senses depends the rational soul in which the image of God principally resides now take away bread the blood fails and by that the spirits fail and by them the senses fail and by that the soubremoves and by that the image of God We offer this to the consideration of the malicious who shedding the blood of man desaceth that goodly workmanship for whose preservation he is bound to pray it not being preceptive give me but give us our daily bread For quid est conservare humanitatem what other is the preservation of humanity then the loving of man because he is a man and the same that we our selves are and who doth it not dispoyls himself of the appellation man as not worthy to be so termed The superstitious also rivetting this request upon his own thoughts will be self-condemned his cutting tearing whipping and lashing himself making him Fellon de se in a sort a self-murtherer in renting the back or torturing the skin of that belly he prayes for c. The covetous also must not plead immunity from the mulct appended unto the breach of this Divine Law of cherishing the body as the fruit of his prayer for in his fordid baseness withdrawing from the flesh what God hath sent it and keeping from the belly its just modicum which it craves yet to his own annihilation it remains empty he in the mean time cramming even to nauseating the hollow bowels of a wooden box makes him culpable of self-hostility and impeding him in his spiritual traffick his cash but serves him to buy damnation For quid prodest what is the profit of concealed hoards and who knows not that by doing good and shewing mercy men shall find mercy and reap good but what shall he gather who is merciless to his own self It is good and comely for one to eat and drink yea deck his house and to enjoy the good of all his labour which God hath given him in neglecting whereof he becomes guilty of Idolatry in St. Pauls meaning and of Adultery in the sense of an holy Interpreter and abundantes temporalium inopes aeternorum being rich in this world is yet poor and yet more poor when it is considered he hath no treasure in Heaven If any object that we are not to take thought what we shall eat and the required zeal in the duty of prayer will certainly suffer intermission in enlarging upon dayly bread It is to be adverted that there is no repugnancy between give us bread and take no thought what ye shall eat c. The latter condemning distrustsulnesse and â—infull distraction not a prudential foresight of competent provision for Parents are to lay up for Children and a Master must provide for his Family and a man for himself 2. Our abstinence while in the body Abstinence in the judgment of the Orator did much conduce for conciliating People and Prince but in our Saviours Doctrine it is the sole medium for keeping Heaven and earth in concord so clearly that the great Amphiaraus who in life was accounted a great Prophet and after his death a reputed god among the Grecians advised their Priests before their consulting at the Altar to abstain one day from bread and three from wine Plato made his greatest seasts to consist in Salt Olives Chease and Herbs and he was called the Divine The Egyptians tyed their Kings by Law to a certain portion of wine and meat and they were accounted Sacred Yea bread water and salt velut exquisitis obsoniis as great delicats did the Persians give to their Children And we read that Martha after our Saviours Ascension did neither eat flesh nor drink wine untill she saw him whom her soul loved above BREAD the poorest boon that nature can ask and the least a Father can deny and yet the only great thing we are to entreat for Our Lord restraining the Petitioners hungering for luxurious fare and conjuring against riches delicates and gaudy Raiment the Pedissequae or handmaids of which are Wrath Intemperance Anger Arrogancy Injustice Pride and every evil work Becoming by joyning dinner to supper and drowning the body with drink oppressing the belly with meat a ludibrious spectacle to their own attendants who must convey the vomited carcase to a dormitory out of which its possible the besotted cometh more surious then before sleep procuring neither health nor ease to the ininflamed body All which courses to prevent or temptations to avoid we are only directed to pray for our dayly bread as Agur prayed for his convenient food unto which prayer it is thought our Saviour hath reference in wording this Petition and dissect food convenient or open dayly bread in our practice we shall find sobriety to be hominis prima medicina the chief Physician of man as one Father calls it and the Mother of health as another and so good for soul and body
be had I say must for that which by some Interpreters is called panem quotidianum dayly bread super-substantialem or heavenly bread or victum alimentarium our nourishing bread is translated by some panem necessitatis the bread of our necessity there being such inseparable connexion betwixt bread and life especially in wholesome constitutions that without the first the latter should expire and David's let my soul live and it shall praise thee when reduced to this prayer may be expounded give me bread and I will blesse thee Trees plants rooted in the earth must have nourishment from the same for their upholding their enlarging so our bodies being earthy must have from thence competency of nourishment or they perish were it but bread and water hence God is said to water the hills from his chambers that he may bring forth food out of the earth Cyrus that great King when demanded what he would have dressed for dinner replyed Bread for I hope said he to sup at a River deferring the deliciousness of water in quenching his thirst by the hopes of future tasting Great temperance in a heathen yet heighten'd when we consider his custome was never to dine or sup untill by some exercise he was brought to a gentle sweat And that Fathers advice was also sound who advising a fitness for continual fasting for God recommends the accustoming of a mans self paucis non gloriosis i. e. neither unto many nor luscious dishes And indeed it is noted as a crime in the rich glutton that he fared deliciously every day which is discharged in this phrase dayly bread things necessary God accounting only profitable superfluities not relieving but destroying nature and reason also in so grosse a way that rioting and drunkennesse the usher of chambering and wantonnesse makes them not to appear so much men quam feras belluas as Boars and Bulls 5. Because but by him we have no heart to eat our own bread The earth by its primeve and first blessing of sertility bringeth forth fruits and by a natural appetite in man some of these fruits must be received yet there are Misers whose hearts grudge their own craving stomack to that degree that their tongue is disposed to curse their hand for conveying a morsel to their own mouth which is not only vanity but an evil disease There is a man saith Solomon to whom God hath given riches that is artificial as store of Coyn and Wealth that is natural riches as abundance of Wine c. and Honour that is put him in an honourable estate so that he wanteth nothing that is pertaining to a pleasant life yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof because the churl himself will not suffering his belly his body the fruit of his body his children the walls of the house that containeth his body and the companion of his body his wife to want that which God sent to them but diverted to a by end I mean to fill his eye or ear thereby giving all occasion to curse and cursed he is for God abhorreth him This is magna miseria an inexpressible misery the Nabal cruciating and vexing himself nimia parcitate by his sordid detaining from his own soul in selfishnesse what he ought to give it to be mute of the Laws of Justice Prudence and Religion which commands sustentation of himself to himself having this alwayes like the sting of the Scorpion biting him to death that he painfully gathers up wealth by wayes none knoweth how that they may be spent by he knoweth not whom Was it not base in the Cardinal Angeloctus by secret wayes to enter his Stable and from the Manger to steal the allowed Provender from his own Horses until the Groom after watching gave him Stock-fish-oyl anointing his shoulders with the Strapado apprehending him at first to have been a forraign thief What heaps of Authors can shew the Readers that the sordid covetousness of the Emperour Mauricius cast himself his children and his wife into the barbarous hands of the Usurper Phocas their murtherer and Phocas again upon the same selfish account to be parted limb from limb by Heraclius Though I dare not say the last was undeserved yet I close that these and all such as these were poorer then the poor and they being poor in the judgment of one rich both in grace and honour who being rich are not bountiful to the indigent nor helpful to the maimed nor pitiful to the oppressed How superlatively miserable is that Dives who withholds not only from these but from his own loins their proper aliment Diogenes asking something from such a wretch and perceiving him to Fall into a brown study and suggesting denial he called O homo O man I am asking thee for some bread not commanding thee ad sepulchrum to a sepulchre To this man may all such men be compared the sight of their own food or their childrens coats frighting them like Executioners â—ll which to prevent in our selves we say Give us bread give us our bread that is our own bread that is in this sense a heart a hand a power a will to eat enjoy a sufficiency of those good things thy bounty in our labours hath bequeathed for thy glory our own comfort credit and content that we our selves not strangers may possesse our wealth It was sordid in Lewis the eleventh French King to imploy his Barbour Oliver in Embassy through covetousnesse and was like to prove satal to that Stateless State-officer notwithstanding of National agreements for immunity he having been like to be wash'd I cannot say trim'd but for his heels in the River Guant And the rich City Florence for sending Merchants Ambassadours to Rome when besiedged by Charles the fifth who being found to have Gold Threed for sale to save charge was put to greater charge when their Ambassadours were-rejected with scorn and sent home with shame this is registrated to be as a monitor to all that high and low be excited in their several ranks to understand this Petition as desiring an enlarged soul for the splendid honourable as well as gracious and proportionable elargition of their goods otherwise another shall be their Almoner and because their Cash wants a Master it shall elect one to it self who of thy money and by thy wealth shall eat his own bread and be thankful to God be blessed by the poor in the interim thou have neither praise nor comfort but shame and grief with men and in thy self and a vomiting up before God through remorse or sting of Conscience what ever thou hast greedily devoured It would be discovered when our bread is our own since it is that we here call for and may be so called 1. When by our industry and labour we procure it having it by us prepared by and in the exercise of our Calling 2. When by piety and devotion
his Dog or as a Physitian beholding faciem Hypocraticam on his patient a deadly countenance orders him to be pleased in all things there being no hopes of recovery so riches may be given even to fatnesse untill the man have collops of fat upon his flanks yet wanting Gods presence they have no blessing which prayer procureth yea importuneth Behold Davids Throne Endors Air Nabals Mutton Ehuds Parlour Araunahs Barn and Tyres Ships if they want God are unhappy where contrarily Iacobs stone Iobs Dung hill Ieremiahs Pit Daniels Den Pauls Prison Silas Stocks having God are comfortable retirements It is a good observe of our Royal Interpreter that though we abound in all kinds of flesh or sowl yet cheap or dear years are so accounted from the abundance or scarcety of Corn that being called victual à victu because we feed upon it as if all other dishes were but as sawce to this and yet even that without our Fathers favour and good liking is but a killing portion Holy Augustin opening the miracle of the Loaves calleth the five loaves the old Law or the five Books of Moses and the two fishes either the Doctrine of the Prophets and the Baptist or both the Old and New Testaments the grasse upon which the multitude sat signifies the slighting of all things earthly It is to be wondered that our Saviours giving of thanks was not heeded yet that may be included in the two Testaments for without an allegory it is a character of the blessed man that be meditates in the Law of God the blessed consequence whereof is that what soever he doth shall prosper 2. That poverty ought to provoke prayer The young Ravens when forsaken either through the negligence sorgetfulnesse or foolishnesse of the old because of their whitenesse cry unto God for food and hath it whether by creating vermine for them out of their own dung I know not but it is sure they receive meat and shall man despond the needy man conceit himself forsaken For in this sense this is the poor mans prayer The Monkish vow of poverty is against the Law of Nature though they should keep it and also of Religion both allowing us with Ionathan to taste honey lest we faint and with Isaac to dig wells to procure water and seing to eat grasse like the Oxe is not our bread but our curse we may and ought with Abel to plow against hunger and here to pray for a dayes sufficiency of bread Besides Oeconomick there is a Politick or natural poverty as blindnesse lamenesse sicknesse madnesse against all which intensnesse in Prayer is necessary But particularly to keep more closs to our Text against poverty and want or scarcety of bread For 1. It is to the best of men a great temptation to evil Agur praying against it urgeth two arguments 1. Least he should steal an ordinary effect of want 2. Lest he should take the Name of God in vain an effect of theft in the Jewish Law for in want of clear probation the suspected purged himself by oath and was acquitted from restitution Therefore as in want of bread our Saviour was tempted to distrust so in Agur it might occasion perjury and theft as in the Levit it did arrogancy and idolatry so every way is it to be prayed against 2. It is oft trod upon by men and this breeds ill blood The former note produced ill thoughts against Gods Law this eyes ungodly speeches against man When David is become like an Owl it may cause much mischief to whoot at him as is evident in his design against Nabal and when Daniel the Prince is called Daniel of the captivity upbraiding him with his thraldome he is a Daniel who can sustain the affront and bridle his tongue not answering the taunt Quid enim paupertas for what is poverty but a certain deformed leannesse or plenty but a certain fâ—â—nesse and how hard is it for the fat not to point at and shame the poor and the lean again since a worm will wriggle when trod upon to envy malign and to his power bite the very nose from the face of him whom Parasites or Smell-feasts call beautifull Yet noli flere weep not poor man if God hath given thee this gift for poverty is his donation he will if it be imbraced give many blessings A father a mother will dandle most their blind their lame their diseased child The three Children fed on Pulse and drank Water yet were not sindged in the fiery furnace when those who it may be did eat of the Kings meat were immediatly consumed Grata paupertas patient poverty is so acceptable to God that chooseth rather to be at course fare then to countenance Herods i. e. the oppressours bloody banquet And his company shall make thy quarter-loaf of the nature of the Tarentines feast Quod jejunium appellabant for they when besiedged were by the Rhegians supported and supplied by food which by publick Edict was spared in fasting each tenth day and this succour was so happy as to cause the Romanes raise their siedge in grateful memory whereof the Tarentines kept a feast which they called a Fast and such a feast doth the holy poor continually celebrat having fellowship with the Father and the Son which Son our Iesus undertaking to deliver man abhorred not a poor Virgins womb choosing not the belly of a rich great or full sed Queen and when born slighted the Pallice the Downy Bed the fine Linnen of Egypt and imbraced the Manger yea in life had poor Fisher-men his attendants and after his ascension appointed them not grandees to be his Ambassadours to reconcile the greatest to their God who are commanded to be poor in spirit so highly doth the contempt of this world please him True riches being neither Gold Silver nor pâ—eciouâ— Jewels but Vertue and the peace of a good Conscience which rich men often wanting occasioned this Provech viz The rich is either a wicked man or a wicked mans heir Thou art not yet so poor as thou was born being then in greater indigency then ever poveity it self can redact thee unto yet then God supplied thee with food convenient which did make firm thy flesh though slubbry and consolidat thy bones though brittle and see we not the poor to have generally sounder bodies comlier faces fairer children then the rich accommodat thy self therefore to thy necessity as the Philosopher advised and be wise knowing there is a providence in all things and a blessing for the true observer Heliogabulus caused mens flesh to be sacrificed upon his altars to his heathen gods and the beholding of the treats of some might make the poor man conjecture his own samished table to be a curse unto his house but if he reflect upon the lives of them who by oppression gripping and crushing is put out to make up these culinary offerings