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wilt ufe the Phyfick, dyet and exercife, which thy Phyfician doth prescribe thee, it is that which muß reftere thy health and comfort, and not the faying over a few words to thee. If thou lazily look that other mens words er prayers should cure and comfort thee without thy own endeavours, thou mayeft thank thy felf when thou art deceived.

Direct. 14. The principal means of comfort is to live in the exercife of comfortable duties.

Faith, Hope, and especially the Love of God, are duties which are alfo mans felicity: And the exercise of these in Praises and Thanksgiving, are the proper pleasure of the foul. Give up thy felf wholly to ftudy the Goodness and Love of God in Jefus Chrift, till thou feel thy heart enflamed with bis Love, and fpend half thy godly conference in Gods praifes, and half thy daily prayers in that, and in thanksgiving; and this will comfort thee not only by the reafening way of evidence; but as a feaft pleafeth thy tafte, and as the fire warmeth thee, or as the loving of thy friend delighteth thee, or as health it felf is the pleasure of thy ficth.

As the fins themselves of not knowing God, not loving him, nor delighting in him, are the greatest part of the penalty, or rather mifery of the finner (which hath its peculiar way of remillion) fo the knowledge, and love, and praife of God, and delighting in him, is inftead of a reward unto it felf, and a be ginning of Heaven to the heavenly Believer.

Direct. 15. Dwell much in Heaven, if you would dwell in comfort. Comfort your felves and one another with these words, that we shall for ever be with the Lord. Heaven is the place or ftate of our everlafting comfort; and all that we have here must come from thence: And Faith, and Hope, and Love muft fetch it: He that will have carnal joy, muft go for it to pastime, or lufts and pleafure, to an Ale-boufe, or a Whore, or to a Gameing-boufe, or a Play boufe, or to his weal h and worldly ho nours: But he that will have beavenly joy, mußt go for it by Faith to Heaven; and dwell there every day by Faith, where he hopes to dwell for ever. Heaven will not comfort either them that believe it not, or them that remember it not; but them whole converfation and hearts are there, Phil. 3. 20, 21.

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Direct. 16. Set your felves wholy to do good. Refolve that you will be faithful to Chrift, and do all the good that you can in the world, and let him do with you what he will: And in this way you fhall quickly find, that the foundeff confolation will come in to your fouls, before you could expect it. Though no works of our own can add any thing to God, nor must be trufied to at all, in a legal fenfe; and though blind Libertines tell you, that all comfort is legal and unfound, which came by the thoughts of any thing in your felves, or any of your own doings; yet God is no fuch enemy to godliness, but he that will hereafter judge you to Heaven or Hell according to your works, will now judge you to joy or forrow of heart, ufually according to your works: Well doing fhall afford you peace, and ill doing fhall difquiet you, when all is faid,

Dired. 17. Lafly, Be fure, while you want the comforts of affurance, to bold fast those comforts which rationally belong to common grace, and to them that have the Gospel offers of falvation. When the Gospel came to Samaria, A&s 8. there was great joy in that City. It is glad tidings in it felf, for guilty fouls to have Chrift and pardon freely offered to them. Can you not fay, I am fure that I am regenerate, juftified and adopted? For all that, if you be not Infidels, you can fay, I am jure that Cbrift, and Pardon, and Heaven, are freely offered me, and Minifters are commiffioned to intreat me to accept it; and nothing but my wilful and final refufal can deprive me of it, and shut me out. This is certain; take but fo much comfort as this much should rationally inferr.

To which I might add, the comforts of your probability, when you are in fome degree of hope, that your faith and repentance are fir.cere, though you are not certain: But this I have more largely fpoken of (and the reft which is needful to be spoken on this fubje&t) in the fore-named Treatife long ago.

The ordinary and long troubles and unfettlednels of honeft Chriftians, are caufed moft 1. By unskilful Guides, who are moft confident, where they are moft ignorant, and revile those Truths and Methods which God hath appointed for the fettling of mens peace: 2. And by their own lazy and unskilful courfe; who take up moft with examining and complaining,

complaining, inftead of learning more understanding in Gods Methods, and diligent amending what is amifs, that the cause of their trouble might be taken away.

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CHAP. XXI.

How to live by Faith in the Publick Worshipping of God.

May not be fo tedious (nor do that which is done elfewhere) as to dire& you in the several parts of Worship diftin&ly; but shall only give you fome brief Directions about Publick Worship in the general.

Direct. 1. Come not before God with Pharifaical conceits of the worthiness of your felves, or Worship, as if you offered him Something which did oblige bim: But come as bumble receivers, that need bim and his grace, who needeth not you; and as learners that hope to be wiser and better by drawing neer to God.

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You know Chrifts inftance of the prayers of the Pharifee and the Publican: And remember that many a ones beart faith, ́ ́ Ithank thee Lord that I am not as other men, or as this Publican, whofe tongue can spend an hour or more in fad confeffions; yea and that it is thofe very copious confeffions of their badness, that puff them up as if they were fo good.

Yea many a one that in opinion is most vehement against all our works in our Fuftification, or looking at any thing in our felves at all, to make us acceptable with God, as being against free grace in Chrift, do yet look fo much at that which is (or is conceited to be) in themselves, that few Churches on earth are thought worthy of their communion.

Note alfo that it is facrificing which is commonly the Hypocrites Worship in the Old Teftament, and bearing and obeying which he negle&teth, and God calls him to: As you may fee at large in Ifa. 1. throughout; and many other places, Pfal. 40. 6. Sacrifice and offering tbou did not require: Mine ears baft thou opened, c. So Pfal. 50. 8, 9, &c. I will not reprove thee for thy facrifices and burnt offerings, to have been continually before me; I will take no bullock out of tby bausery beast of the Foreft is mine, &c. If I were bungry, I would not e

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tell thee, for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof Offer to God thanksgiving, and pay tby vows to the moft High. And call upon me in the day of trouble But to the wicked,faish God, What best thou to do to declare my Statutes, or that bou Shouldeft take my Covenant in thy mouth, seeing thou hateft inftruction, and cafteft my words behind thee

1 Sam. 15. 22, 23. Hath the Lord delight in burnt-offerings, and facrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey ia better than facrifice, and to bearken, than the fat of Rams. Pfal. 4. 3, 4, 5. Know, that the Lord bath chofen the man that godly for himself Stand in awe and fin not. Offer the

facrifices of righteousness--

Plal. 51. 17. The facrifices of God are a broken spirit.

Matth. 9. 13. & 12.7. Learn what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not facrifice...

Ecclef. 5. 1. Keep tby foot when thou goeft to the boufe of God, and be more ready to hear, than to offer the facrifice of fools, for they know not that they do evil.

All this telleth us, that fools and hypocrites, while they difobey Gods Law, do think to make up all with facrifice, or to appease God with offering him fomething that is excellent : But the acceptable Worshipper cometh to God as a penitent, a learner, refolving to obey; as a Receiver of mercy, and not a meriter.

Dirca. 2. Over-value not therefore the manner of your own Worship, and over-vilifie not other mens, of a different mode: And make not men believe that God is of your childish humour,and valueth or vilifieth words, and orders, and forms, and ceremonies, as much as self-conceited people do.

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If one man hear another pray only from the babits of bie mind, and prefent defires, he reproacheth him as a rash prefumptuous fpeaker, that talketh that to God which he never fore confidered. As if a beggar did rafhly ask an alms, or a corrected child, or a malefactor did inconfiderately beg for pardon, unless they learn first the words by rote:or as if all mens converfe, and the words of Judges on the Bench were all rash; or the counsel of a Phyfician to his Patient, because they use not books and forms, or fet not down their words long before.

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And if another man hear a form of prayer, especially if it be read out of a Book; and especially if it have any disorder or defect, he sticketh not to revile it, and call it falfe Worship, and mans Inventions, and perhaps Idolatry, and to fly from it, and make the world believe, that it is an odious thing which God abhorreth. And why fo? Are your words fo much more excellent than the words of others? Or doth the Book, or Press, or Pen, make them odious to God? Or are all words bad which are refolved on before-hand? Is the Lords Prayer and the Pfalms all odious, because they are book-forms? Or doth the command of other men make God hate them? Let Pa rents take heed then of commanding their children prescribed words. (Nay rather let them take heed left they omit fuch prefcripts :) Or, is it the diforder or defects that makes them odious? Such are not to be justified indeed where-ever we find them: But woe to us all, if God will not pardon disorders and defels, and accept the prayers that are guilty of them.

Many a time I have heard fuch forms of prayers, whofe diforders and defects I have much lamented (and done my part to have cured) and yet I durft not fo reproach them as to fay, God will not accept and hear them: Or that it is unlawful to joyn in communion with them. And many a time I have heard as fad diforder in extemporate prayers fometimes by wrong methods, or no method at all; fometimes by vain repetitions; fometimes by omitting the chiefeft parts of prayer, and fometimes in the whole ftrein, by turning a prayer into a Sermon to the hearers, or a meer talk or narrative to God, that had little of a prayer in it, fave very good matter, and honeft zeal. And though this prayer was more diforderly than the forms which (perhaps in that prayer) were accufed of diforder; yet durft I not run away from this neither, nor fay, it is fo bad, that God will not hear it, nor good men fhould have no comunion in it.

It is cafic (but abominable) to fall in love with our own, and to vilifie that which is against our opinion, and to think that God is of our mind, and is as fond of our mode and way as we are,and as exceptious against the way or words of other men, as childish, pievish Chriftians are. Look on your Book, and read, or learn your prayer in words, faith one, or cife

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